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TaurusTorus
Mar 27, 2010

Grab the bullshit by the horns

If you are a circumcised gentile American, you are likely circumcised because of John Harvey Kellogg, inventor of corn flakes, brother of the founder of Kellogg's Cereal (with whom he had a falling out over adding sugar to cereal) and fierce anti-masturbation activist. He felt that masturbation was the worst form of self abuse, and advocated circumcision to combat masturbatory urges. His equivalent procedure for women, burning off the clitoris with acid, never caught on for some reason.

TaurusTorus has a new favorite as of 04:29 on Nov 13, 2015

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cuntman.net
Mar 1, 2013

Cumslut1895 posted:

probably already removed from wikipedia

Not only is it still there, the "presumably all the soup within" part now has a citation.

SneezeOfTheDecade
Feb 6, 2011

gettin' covid all
over your posts

gleebster posted:

Nepos actually means grandson.

You will discover that "nepos" meant both "grandson" and "nephew", as well as the more general "descendant."

Captain Postal
Sep 16, 2007

goose fleet posted:

It gets better, though. Two of the people that were involved in the assassination of Franz Ferdinand at the start of World War I both lived until nearly the end of the Cold War. One lived until 1990.

1896 - 1980: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cvjetko_Popovi%C4%87
1897 - 1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaso_%C4%8Cubrilovi%C4%87

I'm imagining him watching the fall of the Berlin wall broadcast in his apartment in Sarajevo, standing up and shuffling to the TV and clicking it off, then turning and with a single tear in his eye saying reflecting on European history since 1914, the horrors of the wars, the holocaust, the genocides, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Tito and the rest and saying "Whelp. My bad."

Honj Steak
May 31, 2013

Hi there.
Jeanne Calment (1875-1997) met Van Gogh as a teenager and she remembered the construction of the Eiffel Tower.

System Metternich
Feb 28, 2010

But what did he mean by that?

Honj Steak posted:

Jeanne Calment (1875-1997) met Van Gogh as a teenager and she remembered the construction of the Eiffel Tower.

Apparently van Gogh didn't leave the best impression, either - she called him a "dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable" man :v:

I remember when I was reading random Wikipedia articles a couple of years ago and then stumbled on the article on a Puerto-Rican man who was still alive then and remembered when American forces annexed the former Spanish colony in 1898.


See this man? This is Conrad Heyer, an American farmer from Maine who posed for this portrait in 1852. He was 103 years old at the time. You're looking into the eyes of the earliest born person known to be photographed - Heyer was born in 1749 and fought in the Revolutionary War under George Washington.


In the same vein: this picture (though it is till debated) shows the Bavarian composer Max Keller (1770-1855) in the front of his house in Altötting along with his wife Josefa (to his left) and a number of friends. A hand-written signature on the back of the photo identifies the woman on his right as "Constanze Mozart" - no-one else than the widow of legendary composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart himself! Apparently this photograph was taken in 1840, which is also the reason why some still claim the picture to be a hoax - the earliest known group photograph shot in the outside dates from 1843 (Association of Hamburg artists), and there is no known photograph from Altötting this early besides from that one. On the other hand, the man in the middle is definitely Keller (so the people you'll see sometimes online claiming that the photo looks more like it was shot in the 1870s can be easily dismissed), and experts from the Bavarian police identified several facial features found in both the photograph and older painted portraits of Constanze Mozart. Personally I think that this shows Mozart, and I also think that this is unbelievably cool.

The 1843 group photo I linked has a much better quality, so one effect it also has is even stronger on me: the realisation that this photo was taken over 170 years ago! :eyepop: There was no Germany yet, in most European countries monarchy was still seen as the God-given standard of governance. In Austria (which at the time still held Venice) Emperor Ferdinand was ruling along with his trusted chancellor Metternich, while central Italy was still ruled by the the Pope. The revolution of 1848 was still years away - Marx was still in Cologne, preparing for a move to Paris after being forced to leave the newspaper he had been working for. Slavery was still legal and widespread in the American south, and the Civil War was still 18 years away. And yet here we are, looking at photographs of people who were alive back then. I love this stuff.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slćgt skal fřlge slćgters gang



In keeping with the current tangent, here are two audio recordings of the earliest born person, Helmuth von Molkte who was born October 28, 1800 (recorded in 1889):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BBkFacaBHY

Also, a whale was caught in 2007 near Alaska that had a harpoon from the late 1800s embedded in it:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1554522/Whale-had-antique-harpoon-in-its-neck.html

Honj Steak
May 31, 2013

Hi there.


This turtle was likely born in the same year as the aforementioned Conrad Heyer. It died in 2006.

Red Bones
Aug 9, 2012

"I think he's a bad enough person to stay ghost through his sheer love of child-killing."

Considering history in terms of the human experience is something I find really enjoyable, so let's knock it back a little bit further to a couple of bits of archaeology that suggest some very human experiences:

The sudden, frustrating realisation that you have left your spears back in that cave;

My personal favourite, a ten year old boy walking through a cave, the walls lit by the burning torch in his hand as a large dog keeps pace beside him, twenty-six thousand years ago.

BlueDiablo
Aug 15, 2001

Slippery when sexy!

Peanut President posted:

Some small time ruler in central asia killed a peaceful trade caravan of mongolians. Genghis Khan had the guy captured alive and executed him by pouring molten silver into his eyes.

Uh, that "small time ruler in Central Asia" was the goddamn successor to the Persians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_Khwarezmia

Edit: In fact, Ghengis Khan hosed Khwarezmia so hard that he undid thousands of years of careful irrigation projects and essentially reverted the area that is now modern Iran into a desert. And also he killed the last Caliph of Baghdad by rolling him into a carpet and trampling him with horses.

And depending on who you ask, he killed so many people that the average temperature of the Earth dropped a few degrees.

BlueDiablo has a new favorite as of 14:16 on Nov 13, 2015

ArchangeI
Jul 15, 2010

Red Bones posted:

Considering history in terms of the human experience is something I find really enjoyable, so let's knock it back a little bit further to a couple of bits of archaeology that suggest some very human experiences:

The sudden, frustrating realisation that you have left your spears back in that cave;

My personal favourite, a ten year old boy walking through a cave, the walls lit by the burning torch in his hand as a large dog keeps pace beside him, twenty-six thousand years ago.

In the same vein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onfim

Have some drawings by Onfim, age 7 (or 807, depending on how you want to count it). Featuring Onfim on a firebreathing horse being a badass knight/centaur.

Red Bones
Aug 9, 2012

"I think he's a bad enough person to stay ghost through his sheer love of child-killing."



Fun fact, children have been drawing pictures of themselves doing cool things for time immemorial.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slćgt skal fřlge slćgters gang



I've always loved his severe eyebrows on that one.

goose willis
Jun 14, 2015

Get ready for teh wacky laughz0r!
Constantinople fell in 1453 and Columbus made his first voyage in 1492, so there are definitely people at the time that would have seen both the final collapse of the Roman Empire and the "discovery" of the New World.

Samovar
Jun 4, 2011

I'm 😤 not a 🦸🏻‍♂️hero...🧜🏻



There's a recording of Otto von Bismark's voice.

Frogfingers
Oct 10, 2012

goose fleet posted:

Constantinople fell in 1453 and Columbus made his first voyage in 1492, so there are definitely people at the time that would have seen both the final collapse of the Roman Empire and the "discovery" of the New World.

There's some amazing trivia about the fall of Constantinople. I think Dan Carlin once spoke of this guy who worked for the Byzantines collapsing Ottoman tunnels during the siege. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Grant

I think the crescent moon and star being significant in Islam comes from the conquest as well, but I'm not 100% on that.

Coheed and Camembert
Feb 11, 2012
Did you know Richard Nixon was probably our gooniest President? It's true!

quote:

Throwing out the first pitch on Opening Day, he dropped the ball. At military awards ceremonies, Nixon would drop medals and sometimes stab the recipient with the pin...a Nixon White House military aide...had to take the pins off the backs of the medals and replace them with clip-on devices... Nixon loved pomp and ceremony but he couldn’t get it quite right; his pant legs always seemed to be too short and he once ordered the White House guards dressed in uniforms that made them look like extras in a comic opera. Nixon was helpless at small talk and spilled soup on himself at state dinners. (Seeing a chance to kill two birds with one stone, he ordered the soup course eliminated and was relieved to reduce the time of the dinners to 58 minutes, measured on a stopwatch. “Real men don’t like soup,” he explained.)


He was at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr and he bumped into Jackie Kennedy. He says that the service must have brought back many memories for her. :geno:

During the Watergate hearings, he was, needless to say, stressed out. He watched the movie Patton a lot to gain inspiration. At his lowest point at the end of his presidency, he considered suicide and actually called Henry Kissinger to his office in the middle of the night, extremely drunk. They prayed and cried together. Nixon didn't remember doing so the following day.

His successor, Gerald Ford, also liked to hit the sauce, particularly martinis at lunch time or before meetings. When he slurred words one time in the beginning of his term, his aides actually had to tell him no more drinks at lunch.

Edit: More Nixon facts, just because I enjoy them so drat much. He usually ate lunch by himself at his desk, every single day.
It was mostly the same meal of rye crackers, skim milk, a canned Dole pineapple ring, and a scoop of cottage cheese.

You know that picture of Nixon and Elvis Presley in the White House? According to the National Archives, it's the most requested photo of all time by far, even more than the flag being hoisted at Iwo Jima.

Coheed and Camembert has a new favorite as of 17:04 on Nov 13, 2015

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy

Frogfingers posted:

I think the crescent moon and star being significant in Islam comes from the conquest as well, but I'm not 100% on that.

The star-and-crescent was the symbol of the House of Osman (Ottoman). It became a symbol of Islam in the mid-20th century.

Ironically, it's of pagan origin, representing ancient Turkic gods.

Accordion Man
Nov 7, 2012


Buglord

Riosan posted:

Did you know Richard Nixon was probably our gooniest President? It's true!


He was at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr and he bumped into Jackie Kennedy. He says that the service must have brought back many memories for her. :geno:

During the Watergate hearings, he was, needless to say, stressed out. He watched the movie Patton a lot to gain inspiration. At his lowest point at the end of his presidency, he considered suicide and actually called Henry Kissinger to his office in the middle of the night, extremely drunk. They prayed and cried together. Nixon didn't remember doing so the following day.

His successor, Gerald Ford, also liked to hit the sauce, particularly martinis at lunch time or before meetings. When he slurred words one time in the beginning of his term, his aides actually had to tell him no more drinks at lunch.

Edit: More Nixon facts, just because I enjoy them so drat much. He usually ate lunch by himself at his desk, every single day.
It was mostly the same meal of rye crackers, skim milk, a canned Dole pineapple ring, and a scoop of cottage cheese.

You know that picture of Nixon and Elvis Presley in the White House? According to the National Archives, it's the most requested photo of all time by far, even more than the flag being hoisted at Iwo Jima.
It's not super common knowledge, but the Watergate break-in was just the last of many missions conducted by Nixon's personal spy ring, The Plumbers, who were in action for several years during his presidency. Their purpose was to find incriminating evidence in order to blackmail people who Nixon viewed as enemies such as Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, as well as to sabotage the Democratic party by any means they could.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug

BlueDiablo posted:

Uh, that "small time ruler in Central Asia" was the goddamn successor to the Persians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_Khwarezmia

Edit: In fact, Ghengis Khan hosed Khwarezmia so hard that he undid thousands of years of careful irrigation projects and essentially reverted the area that is now modern Iran into a desert. And also he killed the last Caliph of Baghdad by rolling him into a carpet and trampling him with horses.

And depending on who you ask, he killed so many people that the average temperature of the Earth dropped a few degrees.

Considering that a successful living thing is the one that has the most offspring Genghis Khan is the most successful recent human to have lived. Not only did his raping, murdering, and pillaging remove a lot of competition from the world (as far as his genes went) the raping, murdering, and pillaging left a lot of his bastard children in his wake. The theory is that he currently has over 1,000,000 descendants.

Of course the most successful humans, by that metric, are Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. Every single human alive (yes, all seven billion of us) is a direct descendant of these two people. No, they did not know each other; they lived thousands of years apart.

cash crab
Apr 5, 2015

all the time i am eating from the trashcan. the name of this trashcan is ideology


Red Bones posted:



Fun fact, children have been drawing pictures of themselves doing cool things for time immemorial.

What is this? I love it.


goose fleet posted:

Constantinople fell in 1453 and Columbus made his first voyage in 1492, so there are definitely people at the time that would have seen both the final collapse of the Roman Empire and the "discovery" of the New World.

This actually kind of freaks me out. I always think of history as this linear thing where everything politely waits a few years for other things to happen, regardless of location.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Anne Frank were born in the same year, about six months apart. It's always strange how you place them in such dramatically different places in history. Similarly, Barbara Walters was also born in the same year.

Communist Zombie
Nov 1, 2011

BlueDiablo posted:

Uh, that "small time ruler in Central Asia" was the goddamn successor to the Persians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_Khwarezmia

Edit: In fact, Ghengis Khan hosed Khwarezmia so hard that he undid thousands of years of careful irrigation projects and essentially reverted the area that is now modern Iran into a desert. And also he killed the last Caliph of Baghdad by rolling him into a carpet and trampling him with horses.

And depending on who you ask, he killed so many people that the average temperature of the Earth dropped a few degrees.

Didnt his rampaging also gently caress them up so bad that they only recently (last 50 years) got back up to pre Khan population levels?

Honj Steak
May 31, 2013

Hi there.

cash crab posted:

What is this? I love it.

It's from the Onfim drawings Archangel linked one post before that.

MisterBibs
Jul 17, 2010

dolla dolla
bill y'all
Fun Shoe

BlueDiablo posted:

And also he killed the last Caliph of Baghdad by rolling him into a carpet and trampling him with horses.

Ooh, ooh, I have a Fun Fact: this sort of death was considered a respectful one, since it didn't spill the holy/royal man's blood like a sword would.

Edit: the last Caliph was a dumbass:

quote:

The Caliph had been deluded by promises from his Vizier that the Mongols could be driven off literally by the women of the city throwing stones at them, and did the worst of all things: nothing. He neither raised an army to defend Baghdad nor did he attempt to negotiate with Hulagu. Instead he sent weak threats to the Mongol warlord.

DO NOT TAUNT THE MONGOLS

MisterBibs has a new favorite as of 20:06 on Nov 13, 2015

cash crab
Apr 5, 2015

all the time i am eating from the trashcan. the name of this trashcan is ideology


Honj Steak posted:

It's from the Onfim drawings Archangel linked one post before that.

Oh, poo poo, sorry. Thanks.

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

The Mongols also destroyed the library of Baghdad which the world center of science, philosophy and general learning and reportedly held a lot of very rare old texts. So basically the library of Alexandria all over again.

Besesoth posted:

You will discover that "nepos" meant both "grandson" and "nephew", as well as the more general "descendant."

Simlarly both ancient norse and modern Icelandic have "frćndi" which literally means "kinsman" but is used as the word for uncle, cousin and nephew. The female equivalent is "frćnka" which is also used in hip-hop slang as a word for women so you get songs that sound like the rapper is bragging how incestuous he is.

To tie this back to history it is used in hávamál.

Deyr fé deyja frćndur,
deyr sjálfur iđ sama;
en orđstír
deyr aldregi
hveim er sér góđan getur.

Deyr fé,
deyja frćndur,
deyr sjálfur iđ sama.
Ég veit einn,
ađ aldrei deyr;
dómur um dauđan hvern.

or

Cattle die, kindred die,
Every man is mortal:
But the good name never dies
Of one who has done well.

Cattle die, kindred die,
Every man is mortal:
But I know one thing that never dies,
The glory of the great dead.

Hávamal is a collection of poems where Odin lays down the law and tells people how to live a good life. It basically boils down to treating guests well, knowing when to shut up and doing everything in moderation. It was written down in the 12th or 13th century when Iceland had bee christian for centuries but is supposedly based on pagan rhymes that had been preserved orally for much longer. There are some obvious christian influences that no doubt creeped in throughout the centuries or were inserted by the author.

goose fleet posted:

Constantinople fell in 1453 and Columbus made his first voyage in 1492, so there are definitely people at the time that would have seen both the final collapse of the Roman Empire and the "discovery" of the New World.

It's possible that at least a few people born in the 90's will live to see the 22nd century having lived in three centuries and probably seen both the rise and fall of the cyber-Roman empire and the discovery of techno-Americ@.

FreudianSlippers has a new favorite as of 21:24 on Nov 13, 2015

Disinterested
Jun 29, 2011

You look like you're still raking it in. Still killing 'em?
Frederick William of Prussia, Frederick the great's father, hated the French so much that he had people executed in traditional French clothes. He was also an appalling father and had canes with which to beat William placed around his palaces so that something was always on hand during his episodes of gout.

MizPiz
May 29, 2013

by Athanatos

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

The star-and-crescent was the symbol of the House of Osman (Ottoman). It became a symbol of Islam in the mid-20th century.

Ironically, it's of pagan origin, representing ancient Turkic gods.

Think I'm starting to see a pattern with the Abrahamic religions. :v:

Yes, I'm well aware it's a common practice for cultural institutions, including religions.

ContinuityNewTimes
Dec 30, 2010

Я выдуман напрочь

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

The star-and-crescent was the symbol of the House of Osman (Ottoman). It became a symbol of Islam in the mid-20th century.

Ironically, it's of pagan origin, representing ancient Turkic gods.

The star and crescent was one of the symbols of Byzantium dating back to pre-roman times

ContinuityNewTimes
Dec 30, 2010

Я выдуман напрочь
Full circle

System Metternich
Feb 28, 2010

But what did he mean by that?

Disinterested posted:

Frederick William of Prussia, Frederick the great's father, hated the French so much that he had people executed in traditional French clothes. He was also an appalling father and had canes with which to beat William placed around his palaces so that something was always on hand during his episodes of gout.

Frederick William was a complete nutcase. He loved his army so much that 85% of all state expenses were directed to the army. The entire society was militarised, so much that at its peak 5% of the entire population stood in arms with God knows how many being in a supporting role. He despised the Baroque showmanship at his father's court so much that he cut down expenses on literally everything except the army. When he was a kid, he grew up togerther with George August of Hanover, the later King George I of England. He beat him up on the reg, and George loving hated Frederick for that for the rest of his life. And when his son, the later Frederick the Great, tried to escape his father's madness together with a friend, Hand Hermann von Katte (who may or may not have been his lover). The escape attempt failed, and Frederick William forced his own son to watch as Katte was executed.

And the funniest thing? Even though Frederick William built up Prussia's army to one of the strongest forces of its time, he was still super cautious in all of his foreign policy. Some say that he simply treated his army as others might their model trains: they will spare no expenses to build up a massive collection, but actually use them in a way that might (even slightly) hurt them? Never.

SeanBeansShako
Nov 20, 2009

Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.

Disinterested posted:

Frederick William of Prussia, Frederick the great's father, hated the French so much that he had people executed in traditional French clothes. He was also an appalling father and had canes with which to beat William placed around his palaces so that something was always on hand during his episodes of gout.

Germankingsandtheirsons.txt.

HEY GUNS
Oct 11, 2012

FOPTIMUS PRIME

System Metternich posted:

And when his son, the later Frederick the Great, tried to escape his father's madness together with a friend, Hand Hermann von Katte (who may or may not have been his lover)
lol frederick was gay as hell son, nothing wrong with that

so was eugene of savoy, the best general nobody's ever heard of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Eugene_of_Savoy#Private_life_and_death

SeanBeansShako
Nov 20, 2009

Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.
Frederick The Great won in the end, he got to play the flute all day surrounded by burly tall as hell Grenadiers. gently caress you dad indeed.

xthetenth
Dec 30, 2012

Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

HEY GAL posted:

lol frederick was gay as hell son, nothing wrong with that

Nahh, there's a lot wrong with him not sucking it up and having sex with a woman.

doodlebugs
Feb 18, 2015

by Lowtax

Communist Zombie posted:

Didnt his rampaging also gently caress them up so bad that they only recently (last 50 years) got back up to pre Khan population levels?

He killed 75% of the population and his wife was also named Bort.

trickybiscuits
Jan 13, 2008

yospos
I looked up "sooterkin" and "sootikin" both and apologize sincerely- I was wrong. "Sootikin" isn't a word and "sooterkin" is from a Dutch term. I'm sorry. It was just so horrible that I really wanted it to be true.

Here are some less awful facts:

Orange carrots are a relatively recent development, probably dating to the late 17th or early 18th century. Before that carrots were red, white, purple, or yellow. Source Orange carrots became more popular because they are sweeter than these other breeds.

The Dutch more or less invented the stock market, as well as the first economic boom and bust in 1637. The object of this economic bubble? Tulips, which had been brought into Europe from Constantinople. Source

And another interesting fact about the Dutch: because so many Dutch trade ships were funded by multiple people, decisions onboard the ship were made with the agreement of several crew members representing different interests. Decisions on land were also made with the agreement of investors and representatives. This was so widespread and taken for granted that democratic government began to take shape in the Netherlands long before it did in most other parts of the modern world- especially in the later sixteenth century, when several provinces of the Netherlands formed a confederacy with an overarching representative government. This was the beginning of the Dutch Republic. (Source: this book I'm helping my friend re-copy-edit because some dumbass sent the wrong text file to the printer's, dammit!)

Carbon dioxide
Oct 9, 2012

As your source says, carrots were yellow, and then most probably were bred and selected to become orange in the Netherlands.

The story goes that the Dutch did this mainly to honour the royal house of Orange.

Frogfingers
Oct 10, 2012

FreudianSlippers posted:

Simlarly both ancient norse and modern Icelandic have "frćndi" which literally means "kinsman" but is used as the word for uncle, cousin and nephew. The female equivalent is "frćnka" which is also used in hip-hop slang as a word for women so you get songs that sound like the rapper is bragging how incestuous he is.

A very real danger for the Icelandic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhUNZIegntw

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Angry Salami
Jul 27, 2013

Don't trust the skull.
The royal palace in Hawaii had electric lighting four years before the White House and more than a decade before Buckingham Palace. The Hawaiian king Kalakaua spent a lot of his reign traveling the world - he was the first head of state to circumnavigate the world, and the first foreign leader to meet with a Japanese emperor. On his world tour, he met Thomas Edison and saw a demonstration of electric lightbulbs, and was so impressed he made it a priority to have them installed when the palace was next renovated.

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