[Found in here.]
Tag: History
ANZAC Day
The Demise of a Fokker D.VII
From History of The Fokker D.VII
The Fokker D.VII is the only aircraft mentioned by name in the Armistice demands of November, 1918. Germany was ordered to surrender “1,700 airplanes (fighters, bombers – firstly, all of the D 7’S and all the night bombing machines)” (number of aircraft to surrender are not always the same).
In the end, not all D.VII’s were handed over. Some were flown back to Germany by their pilots and hidden in sheds. From the ones that were flown to the collection points of the Inter-Allied Control Commission, some were wrecked during landings or taxiing. After the war, some were sold abroad. Anthony Fokker flew from Germany and smuggled six trains with sixty wagons each full of aeroplanes and tools to Holland. Among these were 120 D.VII’s.
[Photos and more here.]
Bullock-Skin Boats
This is some twenty miles from Maldera, up in the hill country of the Punjab. The mountain river here is deep and swift; you can see ahead how high, steep banks wall it in and you can judge how pouring rains, draining from such slopes, would turn this stream into a fiercely raging torrent.
These men are natives in their customary clothes, and the rather ghastly looking objects with which they are busy are the hides of cattle, sewed up tightly and inflated with air till they can be used like enormous life-preservers. Two of the men you notice, are still at work blowing their “boats” full of air; they have cords there all ready to tie up the end of the skin when it is sufficiently distended.
Another has done the blowing-up at home and is bringing his skin down over the rocky bank; it is bulky but naturally very light and comparatively easy to handle.
When they are ready to start each man will throw himself across one of the inflated skins, using his foot on one side and a short paddle on the other side to propel the queer craft. If his balance is no perfect of course the craft rolls over and he gats a ducking, but practice makes skilful, and, as a matter of fact, small loads of freight and even passengers are ferried across in safety. If several passengers are to be taken over, it is customary for two “boats” to start out side by side, the passengers on the different floats taking hold of each thr to help balance the queer craft.
From Notes of Travel, No. 7, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.
Inflating Bullok-Skin “Boats” for Crossing a Swift Himalayan River; India.
Source image unknown; Underwood & Underwood were publishers, not explorers. At one time, Underwood & Underwood was the largest publisher of stereoviews in the world, producing 10 million views a year.
[Found here. Original stereoscope photo found here via Tineye.]
Little Porky Peeper
In the mid-19th Century, not long after the invention of photography, John Benjamin Dancer (1812 – 1887) began printing tiny photographs onto glass slides at his studio in Liverpool, England. In Paris, René Dagron (1817 – 1900) wondered how to circumvent the need for an expensive microscope to view them. In 1859, Dagron patented the first Stanhope lens mounted with a mini-photograph.
He named it after the magnifying device invented 50 years earlier by Charles Stanhope, Third Earl Stanhope (1753-1816). In the late-18th century, Stanhope invented lenses which allowed all sorts of “viewers” to house images in secret. Stanhopes, also called Bijoux Photomicroscopiques, became known as ‘peep holes’, ‘peep-eye views’ or ‘peeps’.
And this little piggy had a secret…
The Most Effectual Method of Recovering a Drowned Person
In the 1730s, René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur popularized a recent discovery: the seemingly lifeless could be revived with a wealth of strategies. This “Pliny of the Eighteenth Century” (Réaumur invented a precursor to the Celsius scale, influenced methods of silk production in China, and pioneered the process of metallic tinning still used today) wrote a pamphlet titled Avis pour donner du secours à ceux que l’on croit noyez (Advice to aid those believed drowned).
After debating the pros and cons of tickling the nose with feathers and filling a drowning man’s mouth with warm urine, Réaumur reveals what he believes to be the best technique: using a pipe stem to blow stimulating tobacco smoke into the intestines through the rectum. Louis XV found the pamphlet dazzling and encouraged its wide distribution. Startlingly, as Anton Serdeczny discusses in his recent book on reanimation, soon riverbanks across Europe were lined with “resuscitation kits”, as close-by as a contemporary defibrillator, which contained all the necessary supplies for giving a nicotine enema (and later, thankfully, included bellows as a substitute for breath).
[Source.]
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Ectogenesic Hot Links
Stack O’ Lee Blues, Mississippi John Hurt (1928) The song was published in 1911 and first recorded in 1923 by Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians, but the origin predates both, as a song called Stack-A-Lee was mentioned in in the Kansas City Leavenworth Herald, in 1897 as being performed by “Prof. Charlie Lee, the piano thumper.”
Lloyd Price covered it in 1958 as Stagger Lee. The true story had nothing to do with a crap game, but it did involve a stetson hat.
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 28 December 1895
Shot in Curtis’s Place
William Lyons, 25, a levee hand, was shot in the abdomen yesterday evening at 10 o’clock in the saloon of Bill Curtis, at Eleventh and Morgan Streets, by Lee Sheldon, a carriage driver. Lyons and Sheldon were friends and were talking together. Both parties, it seems, had been drinking and were feeling in exuberant spirits. The discussion drifted to politics, and an argument was started, the conclusion of which was that Lyons snatched Sheldon’s hat from his head. The latter indignantly demanded its return. Lyons refused, and Sheldon withdrew his revolver and shot Lyons in the abdomen. When his victim fell to the floor Sheldon took his hat from the hand of the wounded man and coolly walked away. He was subsequently arrested and locked up at the Chestnut Street Station. Lyons was taken to the Dispensary, where his wounds were pronounced serious. Lee Sheldon is also known as ‘Stag’ Lee.
The Pop-Up Book of Memes.
[h/t Mme. Jujujive]
Disturbing medieval babies.
[h/t Amy O.]
Vaccine passports and digital IDs.
For the past few days, this has been my earworm. I like it.
Weather Anywhere. Facebook factcheckers flagged it for sexual content.
[Top image: La Charge, Félix Edouard Vallotton, 1893.]
From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.
Sears & Roebuck Ads 1908-1913
Very nice house design from 1908 with a 1908 price of under $2,500. That’s about $70,000 in 2022 dollars. Click on images to enlarge.
Materials only. You provide property, labor, utilities, permits, fees and beer. All advertisements found in here:
http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/1908-1914.htm
Tacky Raccoons 