Nobody Cares about History

[bubblesort]

Everybody here, who ever did SCA, mentally said to themselves, "that was light!" and smirked when we saw this post.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Carlisle Castle restores 15th-century carvings thought to be by prison guards

Carvings can be seen more clearly thanks to painstaking removal of sediment and water damage

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

 

[Free]

The Telharmonium Was the Spotify of 1906

It's a tumultuous time for streaming music services. One of the year's biggest albums, Adele's 25, was released on November 20, but not made available on...

www.atlasobscura.com

On November 23 [2015], music service Rdio, the first smartphone-era music streaming service to try to crack the U.S. market, began winding down after five years of struggling to attract paying subscribers.

Rdio, however, was not the first service to allow American subscribers to stream music from their phones. That honor goes to the telharmonium, the first patent for which was granted in 1897. It was, essentially, a Victorian Spotify.

Invented by lawyer Thaddeus Cahill and initially known as the dynamophone, the telharmonium made use of telephone networks to transmit music from a central hub in midtown Manhattan to restaurants, hotels, and homes around the city. Subscribers could pick up their phone, ask the operator to connect them to the telharmonium, and the wires of their phone line would be linked with the wires emerging from the telharmonium station. The electrically generated tunes would then stream from their phone receiver, which was fitted with a large paper funnel to help pump up the volume. (The electric amplifier had not yet been invented.)

Telharmonium - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

The Telharmonium Was the Spotify of 1906

It's a tumultuous time for streaming music services. One of the year's biggest albums, Adele's 25, was released on November 20, but not made available on...

www.atlasobscura.com

Telharmonium - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Now, if they paid their musicians better royalties, they were better than Spotify.

I find it interesting that the Rogan scandal is making more musicians speak out about their other practices.

 

[Free]

Maglink

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The LGBT history you probably didn't learn in school

Experts say a focus on minority groups in education would give us a better knowledge of our society.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Beebo Brink]

The LGBT history you probably didn't learn in school

Experts say a focus on minority groups in education would give us a better knowledge of our society.

www.bbc.co.uk

It's so reassuring to see current themes of gender fluidity and queerness reflected back through history. Thank you, Innula.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Cahokia was a Native American city that existed between roughly 950 and 1400 CE along the bank of the Mississippi River opposite the site of present-day St. Louis. It's the biggest Native American city that was ever built in North America both in terms of physical size and population, which at its height around 1100 CE may have broken 40,000 people, which Wikipedia points out is higher than the population of London at that period in time.

Cahokia was like a little bottle-study of the rise and decline of "civilization" in general. The archaeological evidence shows that with Cahokia's rise came the development of new and increasingly "complex" culture and even what seems like a new religion that eventually spread to dominate the region; the specialization of labor, industrialized agriculture to support its growing population, trade with far regions, feeder suburbs, and the development of organized leisure. But it also suffered all of the downsides of urbanization too - sanitation challenges leading to increasing disease, damage to the surrounding environment from large-scale resource gathering, the rise of upper classes that thrived on the backs of lowers, possibly a degree of institutionalized slavery, and leaders that held such a sway over the people that it seems like one or more of them were able to get away with some pretty dark things, at least for a time. Toward the end came a definite fear of attack by outsiders and there may have been some serious class conflict too.

After a relatively quick zenith, Cahokia declined - and I don't mean like deflated into some minor settlement, I mean it declined all the way to zero. It took a couple hundred years, but the place bled people until there was literally no one left - and not just in Cahokia; the entire vicinity for miles around was just totally abandoned and stayed that way for another couple hundred years. The people didn't just vanish into thin air - we know where they migrated to, and they took little bits of Cahokia culture with them like art and crafting styles and games and so on. But what they DIDN'T take with them, was any kind of oral history of Cahokia or its leaders. Which is a little spooky, when we're talking about people for whom oral history is bread-and butter and they're just like "okay well, let's just all agree that whole thing never happened."

 

[Innula Zenovka]

How science is uncovering the secrets of Stonehenge

A major new exhibition connects the stones on Salisbury Plain to many points and cultures across Europe through 1,500 years of immigration

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

Includes a link to this wonderful site, a livestream of the skies above Stonehenge:

Stonehenge Skyscape

Experience the skies above the iconic stone circle and learn about movements of the sun, moon and planets and the solar alignment at Stonehenge.

stonehengeskyscape.co.uk

(click the About button at the bottom left for instructions about how to use the site)

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Prince Charles to unveil statue of 13th-century Jewish businesswoman

Chief rabbi will bless the bronze of moneylender Licoricia to be installed in Winchester

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

 

[Essence Lumin]

Here is a description of distributing the first vaccine "as we know them" to Spanish colonies throughout the world. It was in 1803 against smallpox. It is not pretty though.

Why young orphans were once used as human refrigerators

Plus, the legend of the frozen poop knife, woodpecker tongues, and other weird things we learned this week.

www.popsci.com

 

[Free]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Verifying Device

Evernote link

A 5,000-year-old “talismanic” chalk sculpture found in the grave of three children has been hailed as the most significant prehistoric art find in Britain for a century. [....]
Wilkin said the 2015 excavation, during a routine planning process, had also unearthed a “human” story that transcended archaeology.

The two youngest children had been placed in the grave touching or holding hands, while the eldest was holding both of them. The drum, which had three holes in it, possibly marking the number of bodies, was above the eldest’s head.

A polished bone pin, which may have been used for a now disintegrated shroud, was also discovered along with a chalk ball thought to have been a child’s toy. The bodies had been covered with a dusting of chalk before the grave was filled in.

Wilkin said that while child sacrifice could not be ruled out, it was unlikely given the “very personal” way the bodies had been placed. “There is something protective about these objects. It is almost like they are protecting the vulnerable young child. There is maybe something talismanic about them.

More photos and details here

Ancient chalk sculpture is 'most important prehistoric art'

A 5,000-year-old chalk sculpture named the "Burton Agnes drum" is hailed as a "significant find".

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[danielravennest]

They did it by hand? There are machines for that.

(hope you are feeling better, Free)

 

[Govi]

They did it by hand? There are machines for that.

(hope you are feeling better, Free)

The "by hand" part is probably the joining of panels and not the formation of panels of chain mail.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

The "by hand" part is probably the joining of panels and not the formation of panels of chain mail.

Though, honestly, Euro 4-1 is a fast enough eave, and with good mailers, would probably be as fast.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Fascinating look at what Spartan society was really like, compared to the fictional constructs portrayed in 300.

Collections: This. Isn’t. Sparta. Part I: Spartan School

This is Part I of a seven part series (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, Gloss., Retrospective) comparing the popular legacy of Sparta (embodied in films like 300) with the historical ancient state. Toda…

acoup.blog

 

[Free]

Pretty cool thread, sort of a combo history and computer art.

 

[Soen Eber]

Adventures in being a part-time history geek: I sometimes catch myself when watching or reading history saying "Oh, 500 years! That's not too far back, early modern age."

Then I blink and take a deep breath.