tidbits cross time
Jun. 1st, 2023 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliAs a result of its "Four Pests" campaign, China had to import a quarter million sparrows from the USSR to save its population after they discovered that the grain the sparrow ate was as nothing beside what the locusts ate if the sparrows didn't eat them.
Augustus Caesar regulated what seats at theater would be reserved for which social classes.
The Puente Nuevo in Rondo has a prison in the middle of the bridge. A door leads out to thin air in the middle.
The first human interactions with rock doves was the realization that they would return home at night, to a place with water. Hence, if you were lost and found one, you wanted to follow it back.
The Swiss, during WWI, built observation posts along the border and a defensive line thousands of yards from it. Many deserters slip through this flimsy border.
After defeating the Manchu once, the Chinese involved offered sacrifice in gratitude for the cannon that had let them hold out against a siege.
The toga was a man's garment in ancient Rome. The children's were special, for protection against evil spirits. Prostitutes wore it, and also women convicted of adultery (and forbidden the martial veil as well).
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, born a peasant, rose to the rank of Shogun, where he prohibited peasants from owning swords and instituted a sword hunt to find all that they did own.
In 19th century England, the tax on soap was high enough that people smuggled it from Ireland.
Ferdinandea Island, or Graham Island, or Ile Julia, is a volcano seamount that occasionally rises above the waves before the new rock is washed away. It is near Sicily, and in 1831 rose and was washed away by 1832, not before having four separate nations claim it.
When Augustus Caesar passed laws to force people into marriage and childbearing, many young men got themselves betrothed to very young girls in order to put off the actual marriage as long as possible. A subsequent law limited the length of a betrothal to two years.
When Japan invaded Korea, the Shogun had teams of samurai gathering goshawks and other birds of prey, to bring back for falconry.
China long had problems breeding and raising horses. They were trading for them for centuries, and indeed still using a chariot when kingdoms as close as Iran had cavalry. (Chariots for obvious reasons are used only until you breed a horse large enough to ride.)
A woman can be the heir apparent of a monarchy with male-line preference -- not if she is the king's daughter (succession, like the law against perpetuities, presumes everyone is always fertile), but if she is his granddaughter, and her father was his oldest son, and is now dead. (Or, her father's older brothers are also dead and left no children.)
There was, for a millennium, only one mine for lapis lazuli, prized for its ability to make the ultramarine pigment, and it was priced accordingly.
Veiling the bride was synonymous with the marriage ceremony in ancient Rome. Writers speculated that the ceremony was named after clouds, because the bride was concealed, that is clouded, by the veil.
The Chinese commented, soon after Europeans sailed to China, on the complex rigging and superior ability it gave to move against the wind.
The first book published by the Russian Imperial Press that was not religious was a text on drilling armies, particularly for musket volleys.
Cleopatra changed her regnal name from Philopator (‘loves-father’) to Philopatris (‘loves-homeland') about the time she apparently thought she could reconstitute Alexander's empire.
Napoleon was deeply involved in the burgeoning field of ballistics and once claimed he would have been been happy as a math instructor if his life had turned out that way.
Knitting didn't make it to China until the 19th century.
Cicero commented that if he had been in on the assassination of Julius Caesar he would have taken out Marcus Antonious as well.
Augustus Caesar regulated what seats at theater would be reserved for which social classes.
The Puente Nuevo in Rondo has a prison in the middle of the bridge. A door leads out to thin air in the middle.
The first human interactions with rock doves was the realization that they would return home at night, to a place with water. Hence, if you were lost and found one, you wanted to follow it back.
The Swiss, during WWI, built observation posts along the border and a defensive line thousands of yards from it. Many deserters slip through this flimsy border.
After defeating the Manchu once, the Chinese involved offered sacrifice in gratitude for the cannon that had let them hold out against a siege.
The toga was a man's garment in ancient Rome. The children's were special, for protection against evil spirits. Prostitutes wore it, and also women convicted of adultery (and forbidden the martial veil as well).
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, born a peasant, rose to the rank of Shogun, where he prohibited peasants from owning swords and instituted a sword hunt to find all that they did own.
In 19th century England, the tax on soap was high enough that people smuggled it from Ireland.
Ferdinandea Island, or Graham Island, or Ile Julia, is a volcano seamount that occasionally rises above the waves before the new rock is washed away. It is near Sicily, and in 1831 rose and was washed away by 1832, not before having four separate nations claim it.
When Augustus Caesar passed laws to force people into marriage and childbearing, many young men got themselves betrothed to very young girls in order to put off the actual marriage as long as possible. A subsequent law limited the length of a betrothal to two years.
When Japan invaded Korea, the Shogun had teams of samurai gathering goshawks and other birds of prey, to bring back for falconry.
China long had problems breeding and raising horses. They were trading for them for centuries, and indeed still using a chariot when kingdoms as close as Iran had cavalry. (Chariots for obvious reasons are used only until you breed a horse large enough to ride.)
A woman can be the heir apparent of a monarchy with male-line preference -- not if she is the king's daughter (succession, like the law against perpetuities, presumes everyone is always fertile), but if she is his granddaughter, and her father was his oldest son, and is now dead. (Or, her father's older brothers are also dead and left no children.)
There was, for a millennium, only one mine for lapis lazuli, prized for its ability to make the ultramarine pigment, and it was priced accordingly.
Veiling the bride was synonymous with the marriage ceremony in ancient Rome. Writers speculated that the ceremony was named after clouds, because the bride was concealed, that is clouded, by the veil.
The Chinese commented, soon after Europeans sailed to China, on the complex rigging and superior ability it gave to move against the wind.
The first book published by the Russian Imperial Press that was not religious was a text on drilling armies, particularly for musket volleys.
Cleopatra changed her regnal name from Philopator (‘loves-father’) to Philopatris (‘loves-homeland') about the time she apparently thought she could reconstitute Alexander's empire.
Napoleon was deeply involved in the burgeoning field of ballistics and once claimed he would have been been happy as a math instructor if his life had turned out that way.
Knitting didn't make it to China until the 19th century.
Cicero commented that if he had been in on the assassination of Julius Caesar he would have taken out Marcus Antonious as well.
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Date: 2023-06-02 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-02 07:30 pm (UTC)(Arsenic is also essential to life.)