Tag: history

Stupor mundi

A man of extraordinary culture, energy, and ability – called by a contemporary chronicler stupor mundi (the wonder of the world), by Nietzsche the first European, and by many historians the first modern ruler. Speaking 6 languages (Latin, Sicilian, German, French, Greek and Arabic), Frederick was an avid patron of science and the arts. Frederick’s religious skepticism was unusual for the era in which he lived, and to his contemporaries was highly shocking and scandalous. To the dislike of some of his contemporaries, Frederick did not believe things that could not be explained by reason

Gentlemen, Formerly

To discover that a gentleman today only has to brush his teeth, console his crying girlfriend, and barbeque with confidence would have terrified men like William Byrd II. Aside from not becoming a true gentleman, Byrd feared more than anything that he and his kind would become irrelevant in the New Colony’s future. He feared that all he had achieved to become a true gentleman, all his Greek and social climbing and hard-won backroom dealing, would be overwhelmed by the tide of immigrants whose mashed-up social customs would swallow up him and his friends. His class of elite and educated English gentlemen wouldn’t be needed or respected. I can almost see the beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he writes about the Scots-Irish.

Victorian Calling Cards

Victorian calling cards were a social grace, with their own detailed guidance for design and use (Archive.org web view of Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home, by Emily Post, 1922). Calling or visiting cards ranged from basic engraved cards to rather elaborate pieces with flaps and frills, hand-tinting and transparent images, though men typically had more sparse cards. Men also could use acquaintance cards to politely declare their interest in a young lady, with text and/or illustrations.

unchanging Sanskrit

All languages keep changing beyond recognition. They are born and die after 700 years. Sanskrit is the only language in the world that does not have this short lifespan. The reason for the constancy in Sanskrit is that it is completely structured and thought out.

Museum Cholera

Using specimens from the Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum, researchers from the at McMaster University and the University of Sydney have mapped the genome of the 19th century cholera bacterium that killed millions of people during the 1800s.

the mutter museum in philadelphia is well worth a visit, and they still contribute to medical science 156 years after being founded with that purpose.

Strange recipes

the good old days were shit.

Jellied Hamburger Loaf, from Midcentury Menu

Ancient mentally ill community

Geel strikes the visitor as a quiet, tidy but otherwise unremarkable Belgian market town. Yet its story is unique. For more than 700 years its inhabitants have taken the mentally ill and disabled into their homes as guests or ‘boarders’. At times, these guests have numbered in the 1000s, and arrived from all over Europe. There are several 100 in residence today, sharing their lives with their host families for years, decades or even a lifetime.