Egyptian bone figurine, 3700–3500 BC (somewhere in that 200 year window). Her eyes are made from lapis lazuli, and she looks cold. She doesn’t look very happy and apparently she was quite hirsute.
[Found here.]
Posts Tagged ‘History’
Rum Runners 1920s
Wednesday, 22 January 2020
In October 1919, Congress passed the National Prohibition Act, overriding a veto by President Woodrow Wilson. And so began the so-called noble experiment of Prohibition.
[Found here.]
Head (bread, kneaded)
Tuesday, 14 January 2020
The Dorque of WTF
Thursday, 9 January 2020
Arthur William Patrick Albert, aka Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, circa 1874.
That photo wasn’t good enough for him, so he upped the ante.
Yeah. That rocks. Much better.
[Found here.]
Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself Hot Links
Sunday, 15 December 2019
Archie McFee’s Rubber Chicken Choir. Related link here.
We Build The Wall is under attack by faux environmentalists.
[UPDATE: Commenter Stan noticed that the site’s link doesn’t link properly to the story. Here it is.]
Titania McGrath: One of the best satirical accounts that hasn’t been permanently banned from Twitter: “Heterosexuality was invented by patriarchs as a means to justify their subjugation of women.” 😀
From The Gabba Gabba Hey Dept:
End Of The Century official trailer.
The Curse of The Ramones. Mikal Gilmore lifted most of his material from the 2003 documentary for his 2016 article published in Rolling Stone.
Read Article I Section 2 Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution.
The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
If you’re 18 or older, now is a good time to re-read The Bill Of Rights.
No time for that? Constitutional lawyer Mark Levin breaks it down in only 6 minutes.
From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.
[Top image: That’s one person’s approximation of the visual effect of a “visual migraine.” They are generally infrequent, usually benign, and last 20-30 minutes. Mine are similar, but look like a thin flashing jagged semicircle of neon white and sky blue shiny tinsel that starts small and gradually expands. No headaches, just temporary visual perception oddness.]
7 December 1941 – Pearl Harbor
Saturday, 7 December 2019Always Remember: The declaration of war was issued AFTER the attack.
This film is interesting.
That’s my late dad’s stamp that he put on most correspondence.
Klaus-Günter Jacobi’s Contribution To The World
Wednesday, 4 December 2019
If socialism is such a great economic system, why have so many people died trying to escape it?
Risking imprisonment, torture and death, Klaus-Günter Jacobi modified a BMW Isetta to help his friend escape the oppression of East Germany in 1963. Nine others were able to escape using the same method.
[Escaping East Berlin in a 1961 BMW Isetta [via]. Short vid here.]
Thanksgiving 1621
Thursday, 28 November 2019
“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deer, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”
–Edward Winslow, December, 1621
Nearly all of what historians have learned about the first Thanksgiving comes from a single eyewitness report: a letter written in December 1621 by Edward Winslow, one of the 100 or so people who sailed from England aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and founded Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts.
[…]
Just over 50 colonists are believed to have attended, including 22 men, four married women—including Edward Winslow’s wife—and more than 25 children and teenagers. These were the lucky ones who had made it through a rough entry into the New World, including a harsh winter during which an epidemic of disease swept through the colony, felling nearly half the original group. Some 78 percent of the women who had arrived on the Mayflower had died during the first winter, a far higher percentage than for men or children.
“For the English, [the first Thanksgiving] was also celebrating the fact that they had survived their first year here in New England,” Tom Begley [of Plymoth Plantation] points out.
The Plymouth colonists were likely outnumbered more than two-to-one at the event by their Native American guests. Winslow’s account records “many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men.” Massasoit (who was actually named Ousemequin) was the sachem (leader) of the Pokanoket Wampanoag, a local Native American society that had begun dealings with the colonists earlier in 1621.
[Image from here, historical commentary from here.
Related posts here.]
John Harrison’s Contribution To The World
Wednesday, 9 October 2019
Self-taught John Harrison spent 43 years overcoming engineering challenges to develop the first marine chronometer. Harrison won a British competition to resolve deep sea navigation problems, but it took him several years to win the full prize.
In 1714, the British government offered a longitude prize for a method of determining longitude at sea, with the awards ranging from £10,000 to £20,000 (£2 million to £4 million in 2019 terms) depending on accuracy. John Harrison, a Yorkshire carpenter, submitted a project in 1730, and in 1735 completed a clock based on a pair of counter-oscillating weighted beams connected by springs whose motion was not influenced by gravity or the motion of a ship. His first two sea timepieces H1 and H2 (completed in 1741) used this system, but he realized that they had a fundamental sensitivity to centrifugal force, which meant that they could never be accurate enough at sea. Construction of his third machine, designated H3, in 1759 included novel circular balances and the invention of the bi-metallic strip and caged roller bearings, inventions which are still widely used. However, H3’s circular balances still proved too inaccurate and he eventually abandoned the large machines.
Harrison solved the precision problems with his much smaller H4 chronometer design in 1761. H4 looked much like a large five-inch (12 cm) diameter pocket watch. In 1761, Harrison submitted H4 for the £20,000 longitude prize. His design used a fast-beating balance wheel controlled by a temperature-compensated spiral spring. These features remained in use until stable electronic oscillators allowed very accurate portable timepieces to be made at affordable cost.
£20,000 in 1714 = ±£3,837,000 in 2018 = ±$4,733,000 USD.
$110k/year is not a bad payoff for a 45 year-long side project. Harrison began as a 21 year-old, and was 66 when he resolved the problem and received the full amount of the prize. He died 17 years later in 1776.
