The Algonquin Round Table was a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of “The Vicious Circle,” as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929.
Sarah “Saartjie” Baartman was the most famous of at least two[2] Khoikhoi women who were exhibited as freak show attractions in 19th-century Europe.
Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer, by the Imperial Japanese Army, of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of prisoners. The 60 mi (97 km) march was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse and murder, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon prisoners and civilians alike by the Japanese Army.
For nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt, the Italian Renaissance was nothing less than the beginning of the modern world – a world in which flourishing individualism and the competition for fame radically transformed science, the arts, and politics. In this landmark work he depicts the Italian city-states of Florence, Venice and Rome as providing the seeds of a new form of society, and traces the rise of the creative individual, from Dante to Michelangelo. A fascinating description of an era of cultural transition, this nineteenth-century masterpiece was to become the most influential interpretation of the Italian Renaissance, and anticipated ideas such as Nietzsche’s concept of the ‘Ubermensch’ in its portrayal of an age of genius.
Canopic jars were used by the Ancient Egyptians during the mummification process to store and preserve the viscera of their owner for the afterlife. The jars were four in number, each charged with the safekeeping of particular human organs: the stomach, intestines, lungs, and liver.
Capuchins’ Catacombs located in Palermo, Italy, where there are thousands of corpses lined on the walls like paintings. The catacombs date back to the 1599 when the local priests mummified a holy monk for all to see. They wanted to pray to him after death.
Dag Hammarskjöld Crash Site Memorial marks the place of the plane crash in which Dag Hammarskjöld, the second and then-incumbent United Nations Secretary General (1953-1961) was killed on the 17th September, 1961, while on a mission to the Congo Republic
The Desert Mothers were female Christian ascetics living in the desert of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria in the 4th and 5th centuries CE. They typically lived in the monastic communities that began forming during that time, though sometimes they lived as hermits.
Yes.
Willie Francis is best known for being the first recipient of a failed execution by electrocution in the United States. He was a black man sentenced to death by electrocution by the state of Louisiana in 1945 (at age 16) for murdering Andrew Thomas, a Cajun drugstore owner in St. Martinville who had once employed him.
Joshua Milton Blahyi, better known by his nom de guerre General Butt Naked, was originally a tribal priest before becoming a Liberian warlord-turned-preacher. He was a fiercely violent and eccentric leader on the side of Roosevelt Johnson in the First Liberian Civil War in the first half of the 1990s. At age 11, he claims, he was initiated as a tribal priest and participated in his first human sacrifice. During the course of the three day ritual that followed, Blahyi says that he had a vision in which he was told by the Devil that he would become a great warrior and that he should continue to practice human sacrifice and cannibalism to increase his power. Blahyi has said he led his troops naked except for shoes and a gun. Apparently, he believed that his nakedness was a source of protection from bullets.
The Great Mosque of Samarra is a 9th century mosque located in Samarra, Iraq.
After Admiral Kolchak’s White Russian Army abandoned Tomsk and Omsk and fled eastward along the Trans-Siberian Railway, they came to a halt on the shore of Lake Baikal near Irkutsk. With the Red Army in hot pursuit, the White Army had to escape southward to China across the frozen Lake Baikal in sub-zero temperatures. About 30,000 White Army soldiers, their families and all their possessions as well as the Tsar’s gold, made their way across the lake toTransbaikalia. As the Arctic winds blew unobstructed across the lake, many in the army and their families froze to death. Their bodies remained frozen on the lake in a kind of tableau throughout the winter of 1919–20. With the advent of spring, the frozen corpses and all their possessions disappeared in 5,000 feet of water.
Greek fire was an incendiary weapon used by the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines typically used it in naval battles to great effect as it could continue burning even under water.
Izu Islands are a group of volcanic islands stretching south and east from the Izu Peninsula of Honshū, Japan. The residents of the islands are required to carry gas masks with them at all times, but need not wear them constantly. Raid alarms go off if there is a dramatic increase in the levels of sulfur in the air.
Kalighat painting originated in the 19th century Bengal, in the vicinity of Kalighat temple of Kolkata, India, and from being items of souvenir taken by the visitors to the Kali temple, the paintings over a period of time developed as a distinct school of Indian painting. From the depiction of Hindu gods, goddesses, and other mythological characters, the Kalighat paintings developed to reflect a variety of themes.
The Kanun is a set of traditional Albanian laws. The Kanun was primarily oral and only in the 20th century was it published in writing. It was first codified in the 15th century but the use of it has been outspread much earlier in time. It used under that form until the 20th century, and revived recently after the fall of the communist regime in the early 1990s.
The Kengir uprising was a prisoner uprising that took place in the Soviet prison labor camp Kengir in May and June 1954. Its duration and intensity distinguished it from other Gulag uprisings in the same period. After the murder of some of their fellow prisoners by guards, Kengir inmates launched a rebellion and proceeded to seize the entire camp compound, holding it for weeks and creating a period of freedom for themselves unique in the history of the Gulag.
Khinalug is among the most ancient and continuously inhabited places in the world, with history of over 5,000 years. Before the conversion to Christianity of Caucasian Albania in the 3rd century and Islam in the 7th century, the people of Khinalug were followers of the prophet Zoroaster, who established Zoroastrianism. Because of the high altitude and remoteness of Khinalug it managed to survive and withstand many invasions and therefore many historical sites in Khinalug are still intact and are considered holy places of Zoroastrianism.
The Kray twins were English gangsters who were foremost perpetrators of organised crime in London’s East End during the 1950s and ’60s. Ronald, commonly referred to as Ron or Ronnie, most likely suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. With their gang, “The Firm”, the Krays were involved in armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, assaults, and the murders of Jack “The Hat” McVitie and George Cornell. As West End nightclub owners, they mixed with prominent entertainers including Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and with politicians. The Krays were much feared within their milieu, and in the ’60s became celebrities in their own right, even being photographed by David Baileyand interviewed on television.
The Lewis Chessmen are a group of 78 chess pieces from the 12th century most of which are carved in walrus ivory, discovered in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland. Thanks to Clément for this.
Ling long women’s magazine, published in Shanghai from 1931 to 1937, was popular during a time of dramatic material, social, and political change in China.
The maîtresse-en-titre was the chief mistress of the king of France. It was a semi-official position which came with its own apartments. The title really came into use during the reign of Henry IV of France and continued till the end of the Ancien Régime.
The Maunsell Sea Forts were small fortified towers built in the Thames and Mersey estuaries during the Second World War to help defend the United Kingdom.
Antanas Mockus is a Colombian mathematician, philosopher, and politician. He was mayor of Bogotá for two (non-consecutive) terms, during which he became known for springing surprising and humorous initiatives upon the city’s inhabitants. These tended to involve grand gestures, including local artists or personal appearances by the mayor himself—taking a shower in a commercial about conserving water, or walking the streets dressed in spandex and a cape as Supercitizen. In a notable 1993 incident, when confronted with a disruptive group of students, he mooned them. He later explained his action by saying “Innovative behavior can be useful when you run out of words”, and linked it to philosopher Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “symbolic violence.”
Charles Moore was an American photographer most famous for his photographs documenting the Civil Rights Era.
Oracle bones are pieces of bone normally from ox scapula or turtle plastron (underside) which are used for divination chiefly during the late Shang Dynasty. The bones are inscribed with divination in oracle bone script by using a bronze pin. They were later heated until crack lines appeared in which the divinations are read.
Purple Rain Riot was an anti-apartheid protest held in Cape Town on September 2, 1989, four days before South Africa’s racially segregated parliament held its elections. A police water cannon with purple dye was turned on thousands of Mass Democratic Movement supporters who poured into the city in an attempt to march on South Africa’s Parliament. White office blocks adjacent to Greenmarket Square were sprayed purple four stories high as a protester leapt onto the roof of the water cannon vehicle, seized the nozzle and attempted to turn the jet away from the crowds.
Roxelana was the wife of Süleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire. Hürrem’s influence over the Sultan soon became legendary; she was to bear Süleyman five children, in an astonishing break with tradition, eventually was freed and became his legal wife, making Süleyman the first Ottoman Emperor to have a wed wife since Orhan Gazi.
A common newspaper practice in the early years of the 20th century in Western Australia was the production of a few copies of the first edition printed on cloth in addition to paper copies. Usually printed on silk or cotton, they are a beautiful and enduring memento of the birth of a newspaper. When is Maison Martin Margiela gonna do this?
Silphium was a plant that was used in classical antiquity as a rich seasoning and as a medicine. It was the essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene, and was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant.
The Stork Club was a nightclub in New York City from 1929 to 1965.
The theatre was the final design by the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, Renaissance, and was not completed until after his death. The trompe-l’œil onstage scenery, designed by Vincenzo Scamozzi, to give the appearance of long streets receding to a distant horizon, was installed in 1585 for the very first performance held in the theatre, and is the oldest surviving stage set still in existence.
The Ephemera Society of America is a non-profit organization formed in 1980 to cultivate and encourage interest in ephemera and the history identified with it.
Rafael Trujillo ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. His 30 years in power, to Dominicans known as the Trujillo Era (Spanish: La Era de Trujillo), is considered one of the bloodiest ever in the Americas, as well as a time of a classic personality cult, when monuments to Trujillo were in abundance. It has been estimated that Trujillo’s rule was responsible for the death of more than 50,000 people. At the suggestion of Mario Fermín Cabral, Congress voted overwhelmingly in 1936 to rename the capital from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo. The province of San Cristobal was created as “Trujillo,” and the nation’s highest peak, Pico Duarte, was renamed in his honor. Statues of “El Jefe” were mass-produced and erected across the Republic, and bridges and public buildings were named in his honor. The nation’s newspapers now had praise for Trujillo as part of the front page, and license plates included the slogan “Viva Trujillo!” An electric sign was erected in Ciudad Trujillo so that “Dios y Trujillo” could be seen at night as well as in the day. Eventually, even churches were required to post the slogan, “Dios en cielo, Trujillo en tierra” (God in Heaven, Trujillo on Earth). Trujillo was recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize by his admirers, but the committee declined the suggestion. When he received (or summoned) a visitor, his four bodyguards would have submachine guns trained upon the “guest” during the meeting.
Villa Torlonia is a villa and surrounding gardens in Rome, Italy, formerly belonging to the Torlonia family. Disused for a time, Mussolini rented it from the Torlonia for one lira a year to use as his state residence from the 1920s onwards. It was abandoned after 1945, and allowed to decay in the following decades, but recent restoration work has allowed it to be opened to the public as a museum owned and operated by Rome’s municipality.
Built in 1913, Grand Central Terminal, in New York City, is the largest train station in the world, in terms of number of platforms. Therefore, it’s only natural that there be various hidden nooks, corners and spaces, such as the network of underground tracks, storage areas and tunnels. Weaved amidst them all is an unlisted train platform, known as Track 61, with a secret entrance and passageway leading to an elevator going straight up to the world-famous Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
Few men have acquired so scandalous a reputation as did Basil Zaharoff, alias Count Zacharoff, alias Prince Zacharias Basileus Zacharoff, known to his intimates as “Zedzed.” Born in Anatolia, then part of the Ottoman Empire, perhaps in 1849, Zaharoff was a brothel tout, bigamist and arsonist, a benefactor of great universities and an intimate of royalty who reached his peak of infamy as an international arms dealer—a “merchant of death,” as his many enemies preferred it.
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots in 1943 during World War II that erupted in Los Angeles, California between European-American sailors and Marines stationed throughout the city and Latinoyouths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored.
