PYF Historical Fun Fact: (USER LOSETH POSTYNG PRIVILYGES FOR FOUR AND TWENTY HOURS)

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > PYF Historical Fun Fact: (USER LOSETH POSTYNG PRIVILYGES FOR FOUR AND TWENTY HOURS)

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.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2015 04:35

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 17:43

cuntman.net: Mar 1, 2013

FreudianSlippers posted:

It's form Titus Androniocus which is generally considered to be Shakespeare worst play, mostly because of all the extreme violence and depravity depicted in it. There are some theories that it might be meant to be some sort of parody of the revenge plays that were popular at the time. It's pretty rad.

DEMETRIUS
Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON
That which thou canst not undo.
CHIRON
Thou hast undone our mother.
AARON
Villain, I have done thy mother.

Note that Aaron literally has hosed their mother and they're discussing the birth of a biracial bastard child resulting from that affair, something the sons worry will be bad for their mother's reputation and maybe piss off her husband who happens to be emperor of Rome. The mother also sends the baby to Aaron specifically asking him to please murder it so they can go about their affairs but he refuses, despite basically being satan, and flees Rome with the baby. Then the titular hero of the play murders the empress's sons, who previously raped and mutilated his daughter, bakes them into a pie and tricks their mother into eating it. He also kills honour kills his daughter. Basically everyone dies, the end.

"Even among revenge tragedies, Titus Andronicus is particularly brutal. It has 14 killings, 9 of them on stage, 6 severed members, 1 rape (or 2 or 3 depending on how you count), 1 live burial, 1 case of insanity, and 1 of cannibalism � an average of 5.2 atrocities per act, or one for every 97 lines."

I always thought this description was pretty funny.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2015 08:41

cuntman.net: Mar 1, 2013

steinrokkan posted:

Arsenic in 19th century is a pretty fascinating subject. In addition to it being used as a miracle cure for all sorts of maladies, a wallpaper and textile dye, or as a pesticide, arsenic compounds were also a popular food additive for a time, used as green coloring.

One of the most common compounds, the Scheele's green, became unfortunately associated with green-colored sweets in Scotland as in the second half of the 19th ct. Scottish people became extremely infatuated with the color green, and vendors happily turned to arsenic as a cheap dye. The country became saturated with arsenic-laced sweets and the following health crisis scarred the public consciousness in the region, going as far as to make green confectionery mostly unmarketable in Scotland for much of the 20th century.

Though it should be noted that while Scotland was an extreme case due to a fad-inspired spike in the popularity of green foods, arsenic coloring was used pretty much world-wide.

There's some evidence that Napoleon's death was due to poisoning by his Scheele's green wallpaper.

RC and Moon Pie posted:

Not a fun fact really, but a historical oddity. While browsing WIkipedia for information on the Cadeby mining disaster, I stumbled upon the 1858 Bradford sweets poisoning.

Candymaker sends buddy to buy cheaper sugar alternative. He accidentally buys arsenic. No one notices. A candymaker and the seller immediately become sick but fail to notice a connection other than that their candy looks weird. It's sold cheap. 21 people die.

A somewhat similar incident led to the FDA's current role. Some people found that a chemical called sulfanilimide could be useful against bacterial infections. Naturally, people decided to start selling it and looked for a way to make it taste better because well, it's medicine. A company called Massengill came up with a solution called Elixer Sulfanilimide made up of 10% sulfanilimide, 16% water, and 72% diethylene glycol. Diethylene glycol is sweet-tasting, but also toxic. 105 people died before investigators figured out the cause.

The drug laws at the time only prevented mislabeling of the contents of a product, so Massengill only paid a small fine for false advertising. Public outrage over this led to Congress passing an act that requires companies to ensure the safety of their drugs with the FDA given power to regulate this process.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2015 05:17

cuntman.net: Mar 1, 2013

Alhazred posted:

There's more evidence that he died of stomach cancer.

Oh, huh.

Still, his wallpaper definitely contained Scheele's green and St. Helena's climate had the conditions for it to release arsenic. Some other members of the household also showed signs of arsenic poisoning. I think it's likely that his wallpaper had a negative effect on his health and may have sped up his death.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2015 22:07

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