tidbits cross time
May. 18th, 2022 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliIn some Arab cultures, the presumption that an oldest son will name his firstborn for his father is such that he is called "Abu-father's name" -- "father of so-and-so" before he has children or even is married.
The original cotton plants were trees. They would blossom as days began to shorten and produce their crop in winter -- assuming they were in a climate warm enough to avoid frost. Yet selecting for earlier flowering, to be the first to market, produced cotton that could be grown farther north.
Uesugi Kenshin sent salt to his rival Shingen because Shingen was being boycotted, on the grounds that he fought with swords, not salt.
In New Orleans, an "unacclimated" white (who had not survived yellow fever) had trouble getting jobs, credit, life insurance.
Roman censors could expel Senators from the Senate, otherwise a lifetime appointment from having held certain offices, and once they did so on the grounds that the Senator owned too much silverware.
One German woman justified ignoring a ban on women's winter gatherings to spin on the grounds that she couldn't justify the light when she spun alone; the value of the thread would not pay for lighting the room.
Micah Jenkins, a Confederate general, would jest that he was invulnerable to Yankee fire. He was killed in the Battle of Wilderness by friendly fire.
An ancient Chinese writer observed that while many flowers were five-petaled, those of snow were always six-petals.
During the lead-up to WWI, many future belligerents assumed that good artillery pieces would be light so they could be moved easily.
Making woolen worsted cloth required wages for spinning that matched the costs of the wool, and were twice the wages required to weave it. Yet spinners received very poor wages because spinning was so labor intensive.
On New England's Dark Day, after several days of yellow skies and red sun, DARKNESS hit. You could go outside noon, hold out a sheet of paper at arm's length, and not see it. Cows went home to their barns. Chickens roosted. Birds ceased to sing -- day birds, whippoorwills started. Frogs also croaked as if at night. Flowers closed. Schools sent students home, businesses closed, and many people took to prayer in fear of Judgment Day. Others went to taverns. As if being drunk on Judgment Day would help. On the other hand, the Governor's Council proposed adjournment. Colonel Abraham Davenport became famous for his statement: "I am against an adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment: if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought."
Argentina had a tax on bachelors. Those who could prove they had proposed marriage and been rejected got a decrease. Women went into the business of professionally rejecting men to give them the proof.
The original cotton plants were trees. They would blossom as days began to shorten and produce their crop in winter -- assuming they were in a climate warm enough to avoid frost. Yet selecting for earlier flowering, to be the first to market, produced cotton that could be grown farther north.
Uesugi Kenshin sent salt to his rival Shingen because Shingen was being boycotted, on the grounds that he fought with swords, not salt.
In New Orleans, an "unacclimated" white (who had not survived yellow fever) had trouble getting jobs, credit, life insurance.
Roman censors could expel Senators from the Senate, otherwise a lifetime appointment from having held certain offices, and once they did so on the grounds that the Senator owned too much silverware.
One German woman justified ignoring a ban on women's winter gatherings to spin on the grounds that she couldn't justify the light when she spun alone; the value of the thread would not pay for lighting the room.
Micah Jenkins, a Confederate general, would jest that he was invulnerable to Yankee fire. He was killed in the Battle of Wilderness by friendly fire.
An ancient Chinese writer observed that while many flowers were five-petaled, those of snow were always six-petals.
During the lead-up to WWI, many future belligerents assumed that good artillery pieces would be light so they could be moved easily.
Making woolen worsted cloth required wages for spinning that matched the costs of the wool, and were twice the wages required to weave it. Yet spinners received very poor wages because spinning was so labor intensive.
On New England's Dark Day, after several days of yellow skies and red sun, DARKNESS hit. You could go outside noon, hold out a sheet of paper at arm's length, and not see it. Cows went home to their barns. Chickens roosted. Birds ceased to sing -- day birds, whippoorwills started. Frogs also croaked as if at night. Flowers closed. Schools sent students home, businesses closed, and many people took to prayer in fear of Judgment Day. Others went to taverns. As if being drunk on Judgment Day would help. On the other hand, the Governor's Council proposed adjournment. Colonel Abraham Davenport became famous for his statement: "I am against an adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment: if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought."
Argentina had a tax on bachelors. Those who could prove they had proposed marriage and been rejected got a decrease. Women went into the business of professionally rejecting men to give them the proof.