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Join for content related to world history, archaeology, and historiography. Run by @its_just_b - feedback and messages welcome.
https://www.oldnorth.com/blog/festivities-and-revolution-popes-night-in-boston/
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Collection of Halloween things 🎃
/channel/historicalchan/3822
The annual Randolph-Macon Woman’s College pumpkin parade (Harrison Fisher, 1905) and suggestions for ladies' Halloween costumes (uncredited, 1911). Ladies' Home Journal.
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The Battle of Hastings took place on the 14th of October 1066... this blogpost by historian Marc Morris talks about the common assumption that Harold Godwinson was killed by an arrow in the eye.
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Members of the Eccentric Club of London, at their annual 'Friday the Thirteenth' lunch, surrounded by omens of bad luck (E. Dean, November 13th, 1936)
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Campaigners outside a polling station for the German federal elections of July 31 1932 (Georg Pahl, Berlin, 1932, colourised by Julius Backman Jääskeläinen).
From left to right the campaigners are:
NSDAP (Nazi)
A second NSDAP poster
Zentrumspartei (Centre Party)
SPD/Einheitsfront (Socialist/Iron Front)
KPD (Communist)
DNVP (German National People's Party)
DVP (German People's Party)
At nightfall ends Rosh Hashanah; the Jewish New Year. Traditions include the blowing of the Shofar (a ram horn), to scare Satan.
Pictured: Russian-Jewish soldiers in WWI praying and blowing the Shofar
11 September 1973: US-backed forces in Chile launch an illegal coup against the government of Salvador Allende. Allende dies and General Pinochet becomes President, a role he will hold until 1990.
The Chilean economy was suffering from inflation as a result of government policy. Various right-wing groups, deeply distrustful of Allende, were bolstered by the CIA and several American and European groups. Nonetheless, Allende's coalition was able to increase their vote share in elections. He became wary that figures in the military were plotting against him, but was unable to outmanoeuvre them. When the coup was launched, he could do little to defend against it.
https://tobacco.stanford.edu/cigarettes/for-your-health/medicinal-cigarettes/
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"University of Oxford researchers have contributed to the first successful extraction of ancient DNA from a 2,900 year-old clay brick. The analysis, published today, provides a fascinating insight into the diversity of plant species cultivated at that time and place, and could open the way to similar studies on clay material from different sites and time periods.
Currently housed at the National Museum of Denmark, the clay brick originates from the palace of Neo-Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II, in the ancient city of Kalhu."
https://www.biology.ox.ac.uk/article/researchers-extract-ancient-dna-from-a-2900-year-old-clay-brick-revealing-a-time-capsule-of
Nonetheless, the atomic bombings shook the Emperor also, and is what he cited in his reasons to surrender.
To be honest I could not find a good article on this question, and instead read this well-sourced discussion on /r/askhistorians.
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/jcggjg/i_heard_that_the_soviet_invasion_of_manchuria_was/g92ir0y/
Also, about that photo... (link is behind paywall, pdf below).
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/hunt-find-vj-days-mystery-kissers-sparked-uncomfortable-debate/
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/11-photos-of-vj-day-celebrations
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Pope Night (Boston, US, 1768).
This was an evolution of the British Guy Fawkes Night, held on the 5th of November. It became a generally anti-Catholic and anti-authority celebration, with effigies of the Pope frequently burnt. It often devolved into violence. After American independence, the celebration continued only in small towns.
Punkie Night is celebrated in some communities in the Westcountry of England on the last Thursday in October. The tradition is thought to date back to when wives would haul their drunken husbands back from Chiselborough fair, using punkie lanterns - hollowed out mangelwurzels used to ward off evil spirits - as their guide. Later, children joined in the festivities and would go door to door asking for candles, with the implicit threat of pranks for households that did comply.
This is one, but definitely not the only, precursor to modern Halloween trick-or-treating.
Image: Punkie Lanterns, Dalwood, 1963
www.marcmorris.org.uk/2013/10/whatultimately-decided-battle-everyone.html
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https://time.com/4325409/friday-the-13th-club-history/
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Dog Child, a North West Mounted Police scout, and his wife, The Only Handsome Woman, members of the Blackfoot Nation (Trueman & Caple, Gleichen, (Alberta, Canada), 1890s).
The man appears to be carrying a distinctive Japanese samurai sword. How a relatively isolated Native American came upon this sword must be an interesting story, but it is one that is unknown.
Source
If You Don't Read Books, You'll Soon Forget How to Read and Write (Alexander Pavlovich Mogilevsky, USSR, 1925).
The woman is reading the book Ten Days That Shook the World (John Reed, 1919), an account of the Russian revolution by an American journalist.
The event is thought to have originated from the start of the economic year in the Middle East.
Pictured: A Rosh Hashanah greetings card from Theresienstadt ghetto, Nazi-occupied Czechia, 1943.
Although some claimed the coup was to prevent a dictatorship or democratic backsliding, the government of Pinochet (second from right) became a dictatorship itself and committed widespread and depraved crimes against humanity.
Likewise, despite the coup sometimes being justified by Allende's struggling economic situation, Pinochet's government itself showed devastating economic incompetence, with corruption becoming institutionalised and the economy floundering despite dramatic liberalisation. It was only after Pinochet was finally deposed via referendum that Chile's economy began to recover.
Bat-themed outfit for a fancy dress ball. Occasions like this enabled middle and upper class women of the era to dress in ways that were far more creative and less restrictive than normal.
(Moret, La mode illustrée, 1887
Trim cigarettes (1958-9), a brand of cigarettes marketed at helping women lose weight. These were some of the last cigarettes sold in the US that were explicitly marketed as having health benefits, whilst towards the second half of the 20th century most were simply advertised as being "less irritating" or having "no adverse effects".
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This crime was made easy by the fact that many of the items had not been properly catalogued despite being at the museum for over two hundred years.
It is not surprising that such a thing should happen in an institution where jobs are often founded on personal connection rather than competence.
www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/25/artefacts-stolen-from-british-museum-may-be-untraceable-due-to-poor-records
The Two Ways of Life (Oscar Gustave Rejlander, 1857).
This photograph is made up of around thirty negatives and took about six weeks to create. It shows the life of sin (left) or virtue. Rejlander is considered the father of art photography but died penniless.
The question about VJ Day is, why did the Japanese surrender? Was it the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the threat of Soviet invasion?
The answers are contested. The reality is probably both to some extent.
The Japanese had known the war was effectively lost, but sought a peace deal from the allies that ensured the survival of the emperor and ruling class, no occupation, and Japanese-held war crimes trials. This was firmly rejected. But nonetheless it seemed possible that a negotiated surrender could be achieved, and the Japanese government was prepared to fight to the end in the event of an invasion.
But the Soviet invasion of Manchuria led to total panic and the realisation that a negotiated peace was not possible. The more they prevaricated, the more Japanese territory would fall to the Soviets, which would mean a total end to the ruling establishment and Japanese traditions. The fact that at this point the Soviets were unable to launch a naval invasion was not known.
Many veterans of the far-eastern campaign are some of the last to return home. Subsequently, many felt left-out and, as popular culture generally focused on the war in Germany, they felt forgotten. This was especially affecting to them, as they had experienced enormous brutality; especially those who had been PoWs - many simply could not speak about their memories. Later efforts have sought to fix the Burmese front's reputation as the 'forgotten war'.
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