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On the 8th of April 1904 one of the most consequential agreements in modern history was reached; the Entente Cordiale. Whilst outwardly a minor agreement over fishing rights and boundaries between Britain and France, it brought to a close a thousand years of enmity between the two countries and began their movement towards alliance as a great war in Europe drew closer.
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Social Democracy: An Alternate History is a text-based game where you play as the SPD from 1928. In it, you have to defend the SPD's interests and try to fend off the tide of anti-democracy parties. It is, as far as I can see, very difficult, but well researched.
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/forget-helldivers-the-viral-hit-thats-swallowing-all-my-time-is-this-free-browser-game-about-stopping-the-nazis-from-coming-to-power/
Compare: Fa’afafine, a traditional Samoan third gender. Biological men who identify as women, they have their history rooted in tradition and were sometimes treated with reverance, like Two Spirits.
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'Two-Spirit' is a modern term encompassing the broad Native American view of 'third gender' individuals.
(Image: Osh-Tisch, who lived as a female.)
March 20th 1916: Ota Benga, a Mbuti man who lived in America, killed himself. Ten years earlier, he had been exhibited at the St. Louis World Fair and the Bronx Zoo.
Benga was born in the Congo Free State. At some point, his tribe was attacked by a militia acting on behalf of the Belgians, killing his wife and two children. Benga was captured by slavers and eventually purchased by American Samuel Verner, who sent him to St. Louis.
Here, he was exhibited as part of a human zoo. Verner was disquieted by how he was effectively imprisoned by the fair, and Benga eventually ended up in the American Museum of Natural History.
Here, again, Benga was presented as a savage, and despite initially finding some enjoyment at the museum he became tired and homesick.
The drowned man's ghost tries to claim a new victim for the sea (Den druknedes genfærd søger at skaffe havet et nyt offer)
(Thorvald Niss, date unknown).
Zoomable image
But was the Trojan Horse actually real? Professor Julia Kindt believes it is plausible, despite attempts to explain it away as a metaphor or misunderstanding, but essentially unanswerable.
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/was-trojan-horse-real
A banal and yet remarkable discovery in Aylesbury, UK: A Roman egg, surviving intact, for about 1,700 years. The insides are preserved, which is the only time such a discovery has been made. Three other eggs were discovered, but broke, which released a "potent stench".
It may be possible to do analysis on the insides, and therefore into whichever creature laid it.
Source
In the Jade Emperor's great race of all the zodiac animals, mentioned above, the dragon was the only mythological creature. It also behaves differently in the myth than one would expect. It stopped mid-race to extinguish a fire, and saved the rabbit from drowning with its breath. This meant it only finished fifth.
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The sky of the motherland is safely protected! (Vladimir Feklyaev, USSR, 1984)
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Presentation of a haggis at a Burns Night supper, which take place on the 25th of January to celebrate the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Burns' poem Ode to a Haggis is recited before it is served (Scotland is the only place in the world where wild haggises live). The night always concludes with singing of Auld Lang Syne, which Burns also wrote.
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21 January 1924: Vladimir Lenin, head of the Soviet Union's government, died aged 53 following a series of strokes. His health had been in decline for some time. He was credited as the revolutionary who had gone from an exile to achieving power following the October Revolution over the Russian Provisional Government, establishing the first socialist state.
(Image: Lenin in his wheelchair, 1923, Maria Ulyanova).
Bolshevik poster depicting Leon Trotsky as St. George, slaying a dragon labelled "counter-revolutionary" (Viktor Deni, 1918).
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Fa’afafine were (and are) expected to carry out womanly jobs around the house. Sometimes, if there was an excess of boys born into a family, one might be chosen to be raised as a Fa’afafine - usually, however, it was not forced upon children and depended upon how they acted when young.
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Concepts of gender differed by tribe, but generally Two Spirits were seen as special in some way. As the name implies, they were seen as having two spirits in the same body, which could grant extra wisdom, creativity or insight. In some tribes like the Illinois, they were seen as wise and advice was often sought from them.
Sometimes, this view of Two Spirits as special could translate as fear, and it sometimes they could be seen as malicious, especially in the wake of natural disasters. Generally, however, they were well integrated until the European arrival.
The European conquest of the Americas led to Two Spirits being persecuted. They were referred to as 'berdache,' a name considered insulting. Recently, the Two Spirit concept has been revived.
In 1906 Verner took Benga to the Bronx Zoo. Here, he took care of the animals, but the director noticed he drew a lot of attention. Eventually, Benga ended up being put on display alongside the monkeys.
The display promoted great outrage amongst many, especially from the African-American press, although the New York Times defended the exhibit. Benga was eventually allowed to roam the grounds but he was constantly antagonised by visitors.
Eventually Benga was removed and worked in a tobacco factory. Trying to find a way back to his home in Africa, conscious of having been humiliated and demeaned, he became progressively more depressed. With the outbreak of war, safe passage to the Congo became impossible. In 1916, he built a ceremonial fire and shot himself in the heart.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/03/the-man-who-was-caged-in-a-zoo
But the classic idea of Caesar's parting words - poeticised as 'et tu Brute?' by Shakespeare - may not be very accurate. In this extract, Kathryn Tempest explores the interpretations of what Caesar could have meant - including that he was simply cursing Brutus - in her book Brutus: The Noble Conspirator.
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A Dane, Niss was likely inspired by the old Nordic tales of the spirits of drowned fishermen coming to haunt their crewmates.
The ghost bares a resemblance to the draug of Scandinavian folklore.
This is discussed a bit more here. I don't know the credibility of this YouTuber but sources discussing this painting and the legends around it were scant, and it's always nice to support a small channel.
"The 8th of March: A day of rebellion by working women against kitchen slavery. Down with the vacuity of household work!" (Boris Nikolayevich Deykin, USSR, 1932).
A Soviet poster celebrating International Women's Day.
The Trojan Horse on the Mykonos Vase, c.675 BC., one of the earliest known depictions of the horse.
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Shrovetide football (Ashbourne, Derbyshire, UK, 1966).
This game, often referred to as medieval football, is played every Shrove Tuesday since the 12th century.
In Ashbourne, the entire population is split into two teams who try to push the ball to one of two stone monuments three miles apart. It takes up two days and can involve any means necessary including fighting.
Today is Lunar New Year. In China, it is associated with the dragon. The dragon is associated with fortune, wisdom, and idealism, but also inflexibility and arrogance.
Image source
"An airburst from the explosion of a comet or meteor likely caused the instant destruction of a thriving Bronze Age city of 8,000 people in the Middle East, according to a recent paper co-authored by a University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist.
The researchers presented evidence that a cosmic airburst with energy approximately 5,000 times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb destroyed the walled city of Tall el-Hammam in the southern Jordan Valley, northeast of the Dead Sea, about 3,600 years ago. It left the area unworkable for agriculture for 300 to 600 years due to an influx of salt — a fact that has caused some to argue that the site is the biblical city of Sodom in the book of Genesis."
https://www.uaf.edu/news/uaf-researcher-helps-unravel-cause-of-ancient-citys-destruction.php
Writing in 1927, Winston Churchill - long opponent of socialism - remarked by way of obituary in his book The World Crisis IV:
"[Lenin's] mind was a remarkable instrument. When its light shone it revealed the whole world, its history, its sorrows, its stupidities, its shams, and above all its wrongs. It revealed all facts in focus—the most unwelcome, the most inspiring—with an equal ray. The intellect was capacious and in some phases superb. It was capable of universal comprehension in a degree rarely reached among men. The execution of the elder brother deflected this broad white light through a prism: and the prism was red."
One Epiphany tradition is King's Cake.
This tradition may originate from Roman Saturnalia. A cake of varying forms based on region is baked and, within, a figure or bean is placed (fève). Whoever finds the fève in their portion is blessed with good luck (or, in some medieval traditions, had to pay for a round of drinks).
Painting: Le gâteau des Rois (Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1774)
Today is Epiphany, the day on which the Magi allegedly visited the newborn Jesus, bringing the Christmas period to a close.
Image: Adoration of the Magi in the Benedictional of St Æthelwold. c.963-984, England.