tidbits cross time
Aug. 18th, 2023 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliProperly marrying off all the royal children was considered, in Korea, to be part of the rites to stablize the relationship with Heaven.
Prussian forest rangers, installed by Napoleon in the Rhineland, introduced forestry management techniques such as cutting down broadleaf trees -- oaks, maples, beechs -- as unproductive and banning the traditional use of the forest. They were among the first to go during the 1848 revolutions.
Manga hit Japan like a storm after WWII. Years of the ban on all frivolous literature, where there were no games, even, except based on the war, created a vast hunger for stories. They also helped alleviate the troubles with literacy from years of disrupted schooling.
The youngest and poorest Romans were assigned to the light infantry in the legions. This tended to be correlated, since a campaign's loot was often enough to build the equipment for heavy infantry.
Hanover required that its Elector be male. Consequently the ascension of Queen Victoria meant it went its merry way with her uncle -- to the mutual relief of Hanover and Great Britain, both of whom found the personal union a problem in diplomacy.
The Japanese Navy used dye packs so they could identify which hits and which misses were their own ship's. The American sailors on Taffy 3 were startled by the effect during the Battle off Samar.
A Roman playwright had a character complain about how sundials chopped the day into pieces.
Purling is necessary to make stretchy fabrics by knitting. Before it, you used woven cloth for your stockings. After it -- Elizabeth I paid an inordinate amount for a pair of silk stockings and refused to ever go back.
A Chinese term means both "wife" and "daughter-in-law" and is used in the description of the ceremony of "becoming the wife/daughter-in-law."
Louis XVI objected to a candidate for the archbishop of Paris on the grounds "The Archbishop of Paris should at least believe in God."
A provincial Roman magistrate had a quaestor serving under him. Cicero described the relationship as quasi-paternal -- the quaestor should obey, and the magistrate should instruct -- and indeed, that it was improper (though legal) for the quaestor, later in life, to prosecute his former magistrate.
Sejong the Great of Korea is one of the rare "The Great"s who did not get it from warfare. His promotion of culture and in particular, invention of a simpler script that common people could feasibly learn (unlike Chinese ideograms) did it.
In Japan, the Betobeto-san is known to follow people at night. If you feel you are being watched, or hear footsteps, you stand aside, and say, "Please go ahead, Betobeto-san."
The legal boundaries of ancient Rome were the pomerium, where they would have had walls if they had had walls. It ran through urban territory in Julius Caesar's day, with nothing to mark it, but in theory, a military official's authority was only outside it.
The Doctrine of Lapse was the practice of the British East Indies Company of taking over land if the monarch was manifestly incompetent (in their opinion) or did not have a natural heir, thus revoking their traditional right to adopt a successor.
A Roman had to have served ten years in the legions to stand for political office, thus imposing an age requirement without even imposing one.
The Mongols were terrified of smallpox. China, Korea, and Japan had epidemics, of course, and practice variolation, but Mongols tended to get hit very suddenly, far apart.
Nell Gwyn is said to have told her son to greet Charles I by saying, "You little bastard, greet your father." He objected. She told him to give her another title to call him by, and Charles made him the the Earl of Buford.
Stainless steel was a major innovation in medicine: no rust in medicine OR wounds!
Chinese wives were forbidden to keep their clothes in the same drawers or racks as their husbands'.
The US Navy got hit by a typhoon during the last days of WWII. That particular divine wind didn't stop them. (There is some evidence that the Mongol invasions were less stoppped by the wind than history describes it. Then, both the Mongols and Japanese had reasons to play it up: "We can't fight a storm god" and "We have a storm god protecting us.")
Piggly Wiggly was the first self-service store. Its founder, when asked why he named it that, said that it was so the questioner would ask.
Roman assemblies had to be completed in a single day. This was because they were very careful about omens and auguries, and having determined a favorable day, they had to finish in it for fear the next day would be unfavorable.
Chinese widows had to mourn their husbands for "three years" -- actually twenty seven months. Chinese widowers had to mourn their wives for a year, but they might, out of respect for their sons, also mourn for three years. A Qing writer argued that they should be allowed to mourn that long for their own sake, not just on the pretense of their sons' filial piety.
Prussian forest rangers, installed by Napoleon in the Rhineland, introduced forestry management techniques such as cutting down broadleaf trees -- oaks, maples, beechs -- as unproductive and banning the traditional use of the forest. They were among the first to go during the 1848 revolutions.
Manga hit Japan like a storm after WWII. Years of the ban on all frivolous literature, where there were no games, even, except based on the war, created a vast hunger for stories. They also helped alleviate the troubles with literacy from years of disrupted schooling.
The youngest and poorest Romans were assigned to the light infantry in the legions. This tended to be correlated, since a campaign's loot was often enough to build the equipment for heavy infantry.
Hanover required that its Elector be male. Consequently the ascension of Queen Victoria meant it went its merry way with her uncle -- to the mutual relief of Hanover and Great Britain, both of whom found the personal union a problem in diplomacy.
The Japanese Navy used dye packs so they could identify which hits and which misses were their own ship's. The American sailors on Taffy 3 were startled by the effect during the Battle off Samar.
A Roman playwright had a character complain about how sundials chopped the day into pieces.
Purling is necessary to make stretchy fabrics by knitting. Before it, you used woven cloth for your stockings. After it -- Elizabeth I paid an inordinate amount for a pair of silk stockings and refused to ever go back.
A Chinese term means both "wife" and "daughter-in-law" and is used in the description of the ceremony of "becoming the wife/daughter-in-law."
Louis XVI objected to a candidate for the archbishop of Paris on the grounds "The Archbishop of Paris should at least believe in God."
A provincial Roman magistrate had a quaestor serving under him. Cicero described the relationship as quasi-paternal -- the quaestor should obey, and the magistrate should instruct -- and indeed, that it was improper (though legal) for the quaestor, later in life, to prosecute his former magistrate.
Sejong the Great of Korea is one of the rare "The Great"s who did not get it from warfare. His promotion of culture and in particular, invention of a simpler script that common people could feasibly learn (unlike Chinese ideograms) did it.
In Japan, the Betobeto-san is known to follow people at night. If you feel you are being watched, or hear footsteps, you stand aside, and say, "Please go ahead, Betobeto-san."
The legal boundaries of ancient Rome were the pomerium, where they would have had walls if they had had walls. It ran through urban territory in Julius Caesar's day, with nothing to mark it, but in theory, a military official's authority was only outside it.
The Doctrine of Lapse was the practice of the British East Indies Company of taking over land if the monarch was manifestly incompetent (in their opinion) or did not have a natural heir, thus revoking their traditional right to adopt a successor.
A Roman had to have served ten years in the legions to stand for political office, thus imposing an age requirement without even imposing one.
The Mongols were terrified of smallpox. China, Korea, and Japan had epidemics, of course, and practice variolation, but Mongols tended to get hit very suddenly, far apart.
Nell Gwyn is said to have told her son to greet Charles I by saying, "You little bastard, greet your father." He objected. She told him to give her another title to call him by, and Charles made him the the Earl of Buford.
Stainless steel was a major innovation in medicine: no rust in medicine OR wounds!
Chinese wives were forbidden to keep their clothes in the same drawers or racks as their husbands'.
The US Navy got hit by a typhoon during the last days of WWII. That particular divine wind didn't stop them. (There is some evidence that the Mongol invasions were less stoppped by the wind than history describes it. Then, both the Mongols and Japanese had reasons to play it up: "We can't fight a storm god" and "We have a storm god protecting us.")
Piggly Wiggly was the first self-service store. Its founder, when asked why he named it that, said that it was so the questioner would ask.
Roman assemblies had to be completed in a single day. This was because they were very careful about omens and auguries, and having determined a favorable day, they had to finish in it for fear the next day would be unfavorable.
Chinese widows had to mourn their husbands for "three years" -- actually twenty seven months. Chinese widowers had to mourn their wives for a year, but they might, out of respect for their sons, also mourn for three years. A Qing writer argued that they should be allowed to mourn that long for their own sake, not just on the pretense of their sons' filial piety.