tidbits cross time
Dec. 3rd, 2024 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliAt the end of the American Revolution, George Washington said that any historian who wrote an accurate account would be accused of writing fiction
Hurricane lanterns were devised to burn even in stern winds (hence the name) and go out if tipped over. (Though a stern enough wind could keep it going.)
Pope Sylvester II introduced Arabic numbers to Europe and other innovations. William of Malmesbury accused him of having engaged in dark arts and deals with the Devil.
Genghis Khan issued laws requiring that Muslims and Jews cease to slaughter sheep and that they eat meat regardless of who slaughtered it, on the grounds that having been conquered and made the Mongols' slaves, it was wrong of them to refuse to eat Mongol food.
The "Bisley Boy" is the story that Elizabeth I of England had actually died at the age of ten, and her desperate attendants had, unable to find a well-enough educated girl who looked plausible in the role, had substituted a boy. Evidence points to this being a 19th century story.
One Japanese father, during the shogunate, was horrified to learn that having sent children to school for a proper Confucian education, he found they were also being taught math. "It is abominable that innocent children should be taught to use numbers—the instrument of merchants. There is no telling what the teacher may do next."
In his Observations on the Increase of Mankind, Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1751 that since the population of the colonies doubled in twenty to twenty-five years, twice the rate of Great Britain, he envisioned a future in which the capital would move from London to somewhere in Western Pennsylvania.
In Korea, concubines' sons could not sit for the exam that would admit them into the nobility. Neither could the sons of remarried widows. It even became the practice for men with sons by their concubines to adopt their nephews instead.
When the American ship The Empress of China -- built as a privateer for the American Revolution, repurposed as a trading ship -- arrived at Canton to open the China trade, the British, French, Danish, and Dutch all had ships in port. The American supercargo noted in his journal the polite exchanges between the American and British sailors regretting the American Revolution and hoping all that was unpleasant was behind them.
A seventeenth-century artist is known as the Master of Blue Jeans because of his genre paintings of lower-class workers in blue denim. At the time, it would have been Genoese jean, which was similar to denim but cheaper.
In the 18th century, touring Britain grew fashionable. In one decade, it shifted from the view that all uninhabited places were ugly and to be gotten through as quickly as possible to the view that they were sublime and picturesque. Wales's mountains became the Alps of Britain, and it even became fashionable to climb Snowden. There were also great interest in ruins, and another in the new workshops of the Industrial Revolution, such as Wedgewood's porcelain manufacture, but particularly those that were grand and awe-inspiring like forges and mines.
In the 1640s, there was a great upheaval in Massachusetts, over the ownership of a disputed sow. Far off communities wrote letters saying the court had done injustice to a poor widow and the rumor was that no one not a member of the church could expect justice. This was part of a great dispute about the attempt to ensure that all church members were visible saints, and how one of the sides attacking the practice maintained they were excluding good Christians, and another, that they were admitting hypocrites.
The Chinese sent Zhonghang Yue, a eunuch, as part of their gifts to the Xiongnu, to keep them from raiding. Yue was furious and taught the Xiongnu state secrets in retribution. Or so the story goes.
In Africa, both Kipsigis and the !Kung teach their babies to sit, stand, and walk, believing these skills will never develop on their own.
One Puritan minister in England was prepared to give up his post rather than wear a surplice when his parishioners begged him to conform so they would not be deprived his preaching. (Many Puritans were accused of being Donatists, revived.)
A Chinese writer wrote how Wa -- southern Japan -- was divided into many small kingdoms, often ruled by sorceresses.
During the American Revolution, the British term for it was the American rebellion, and the American, the Cause for short -- or the Common Cause, in full.
When the Swedes planted Visingsö with oaks for the navy, they planted a lot of trees between them: ash, elm, maple, beech and silver fir. The competition for light would force the oaks to grow straight up and not out.
Once minarets became common, cities preferred blind men for muezzins. This ensured that he could not take advantage of the height to see the inner, private courtyards.
In ancient China, generals might massacre soldier prisoners to gain a reputation for savagery, including burying them alive. A peasant/soldier whose side won might still not return to his farm, because settling soldiers in borderlands was a common practice.
The bloodiest battle in the American Revolution was the first real one, Bunker Hill.
The name Zanni is a regional form of Gianni, used in the countryside of Lombard and Venetian, which provided most Venetian servants, and came to mean someone whose identity is not important. Consequently, the role of servant in commedia dell'arte was called zanni, and from that comes the modern English term of "zany."
Suppiluliuma, King of the Hittites, received a letter from the widow of a Pharoah, saying she had no sons, and begging him to send one of his many sons. She would marry him and make him Pharoah. He did send his son Zannanza, who died on the way. Possibly of disease, rather than murder; there was an epidemic at the time. Suppiluliuma waged war on Egypt, bringing back many prisoners -- who brough the disease, which ravaged the kingdom for twenty years, carrying off Suppiluliuma among the many dead.
In Joseon Korea, the marriage of the Emperor or the Crown Prince would begin by announcing a ban on marriages among nobles. All noble families had to submit details on their unmarried daughters. These would be whittled down to five or six, then to three, and finally one chosen for noble family, good looks, and personal virtue.
After the Seven Years' War, the British claimed all of Louisiana east of the Mississippi, renaming it West Florida. The Spanish claimed the land west of the river. Technically this made trade between them illegal under the Navigation Acts. Trade thrived. Boats would go out to mid-river and trade with the customers from the other side.
A couple of Soviet writers, traveling in America, wrote back that all the small towns had Main Streets and Broad Ways, aping New York City. Apparently it did not occur to them that the streets were the main ones of their towns, and consequently were wider than others, for the resulting traffic. (They also observed that it took twelve letters to spell Poughkeepsie in the Roman alphabet.)
Pirates frequently fought duels in the Caribbean. Onshore.
With the arrival of the American ship The Empress of China -- built as a privateer for the American Revolution, repurposed as a trading ship -- the Chinese had to make sense of the Americans. At first they called them the New People. Later, the Flowery Flag People, referring to the stars.
Hurricane lanterns were devised to burn even in stern winds (hence the name) and go out if tipped over. (Though a stern enough wind could keep it going.)
Pope Sylvester II introduced Arabic numbers to Europe and other innovations. William of Malmesbury accused him of having engaged in dark arts and deals with the Devil.
Genghis Khan issued laws requiring that Muslims and Jews cease to slaughter sheep and that they eat meat regardless of who slaughtered it, on the grounds that having been conquered and made the Mongols' slaves, it was wrong of them to refuse to eat Mongol food.
The "Bisley Boy" is the story that Elizabeth I of England had actually died at the age of ten, and her desperate attendants had, unable to find a well-enough educated girl who looked plausible in the role, had substituted a boy. Evidence points to this being a 19th century story.
One Japanese father, during the shogunate, was horrified to learn that having sent children to school for a proper Confucian education, he found they were also being taught math. "It is abominable that innocent children should be taught to use numbers—the instrument of merchants. There is no telling what the teacher may do next."
In his Observations on the Increase of Mankind, Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1751 that since the population of the colonies doubled in twenty to twenty-five years, twice the rate of Great Britain, he envisioned a future in which the capital would move from London to somewhere in Western Pennsylvania.
In Korea, concubines' sons could not sit for the exam that would admit them into the nobility. Neither could the sons of remarried widows. It even became the practice for men with sons by their concubines to adopt their nephews instead.
When the American ship The Empress of China -- built as a privateer for the American Revolution, repurposed as a trading ship -- arrived at Canton to open the China trade, the British, French, Danish, and Dutch all had ships in port. The American supercargo noted in his journal the polite exchanges between the American and British sailors regretting the American Revolution and hoping all that was unpleasant was behind them.
A seventeenth-century artist is known as the Master of Blue Jeans because of his genre paintings of lower-class workers in blue denim. At the time, it would have been Genoese jean, which was similar to denim but cheaper.
In the 18th century, touring Britain grew fashionable. In one decade, it shifted from the view that all uninhabited places were ugly and to be gotten through as quickly as possible to the view that they were sublime and picturesque. Wales's mountains became the Alps of Britain, and it even became fashionable to climb Snowden. There were also great interest in ruins, and another in the new workshops of the Industrial Revolution, such as Wedgewood's porcelain manufacture, but particularly those that were grand and awe-inspiring like forges and mines.
In the 1640s, there was a great upheaval in Massachusetts, over the ownership of a disputed sow. Far off communities wrote letters saying the court had done injustice to a poor widow and the rumor was that no one not a member of the church could expect justice. This was part of a great dispute about the attempt to ensure that all church members were visible saints, and how one of the sides attacking the practice maintained they were excluding good Christians, and another, that they were admitting hypocrites.
The Chinese sent Zhonghang Yue, a eunuch, as part of their gifts to the Xiongnu, to keep them from raiding. Yue was furious and taught the Xiongnu state secrets in retribution. Or so the story goes.
In Africa, both Kipsigis and the !Kung teach their babies to sit, stand, and walk, believing these skills will never develop on their own.
One Puritan minister in England was prepared to give up his post rather than wear a surplice when his parishioners begged him to conform so they would not be deprived his preaching. (Many Puritans were accused of being Donatists, revived.)
A Chinese writer wrote how Wa -- southern Japan -- was divided into many small kingdoms, often ruled by sorceresses.
During the American Revolution, the British term for it was the American rebellion, and the American, the Cause for short -- or the Common Cause, in full.
When the Swedes planted Visingsö with oaks for the navy, they planted a lot of trees between them: ash, elm, maple, beech and silver fir. The competition for light would force the oaks to grow straight up and not out.
Once minarets became common, cities preferred blind men for muezzins. This ensured that he could not take advantage of the height to see the inner, private courtyards.
In ancient China, generals might massacre soldier prisoners to gain a reputation for savagery, including burying them alive. A peasant/soldier whose side won might still not return to his farm, because settling soldiers in borderlands was a common practice.
The bloodiest battle in the American Revolution was the first real one, Bunker Hill.
The name Zanni is a regional form of Gianni, used in the countryside of Lombard and Venetian, which provided most Venetian servants, and came to mean someone whose identity is not important. Consequently, the role of servant in commedia dell'arte was called zanni, and from that comes the modern English term of "zany."
Suppiluliuma, King of the Hittites, received a letter from the widow of a Pharoah, saying she had no sons, and begging him to send one of his many sons. She would marry him and make him Pharoah. He did send his son Zannanza, who died on the way. Possibly of disease, rather than murder; there was an epidemic at the time. Suppiluliuma waged war on Egypt, bringing back many prisoners -- who brough the disease, which ravaged the kingdom for twenty years, carrying off Suppiluliuma among the many dead.
In Joseon Korea, the marriage of the Emperor or the Crown Prince would begin by announcing a ban on marriages among nobles. All noble families had to submit details on their unmarried daughters. These would be whittled down to five or six, then to three, and finally one chosen for noble family, good looks, and personal virtue.
After the Seven Years' War, the British claimed all of Louisiana east of the Mississippi, renaming it West Florida. The Spanish claimed the land west of the river. Technically this made trade between them illegal under the Navigation Acts. Trade thrived. Boats would go out to mid-river and trade with the customers from the other side.
A couple of Soviet writers, traveling in America, wrote back that all the small towns had Main Streets and Broad Ways, aping New York City. Apparently it did not occur to them that the streets were the main ones of their towns, and consequently were wider than others, for the resulting traffic. (They also observed that it took twelve letters to spell Poughkeepsie in the Roman alphabet.)
Pirates frequently fought duels in the Caribbean. Onshore.
With the arrival of the American ship The Empress of China -- built as a privateer for the American Revolution, repurposed as a trading ship -- the Chinese had to make sense of the Americans. At first they called them the New People. Later, the Flowery Flag People, referring to the stars.
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