1819
History Porn.That's such a term, used for rare historical pictures, which catch people's breath and make them look at the pictures for a long time! comments telegram.me/fdbbot?start=historyporn_eng
Because most maps of Europe are viewed in isolation, many people underestimate the distances involved in the Russia-Ukraine war. Overlaying Europe onto the United States provides a familiar frame of reference.
In this comparison, Paris is placed over Los Angeles. That means London stretches well into the Pacific Northwest, Spain reaches toward Southern California, Italy sits around Nevada and Utah, and eastern Ukraine extends to roughly the Memphis area. While the exact placement depends on the map projection and how the overlay is aligned, the broader point remains accurate: the conflict spans an enormous geographic area.
This also helps explain some of the logistical challenges involved in modern warfare.
Military equipment, fuel, food, ammunition, and personnel must move across hundreds of miles, often through damaged infrastructure and under constant threat. Long-range missiles and drones have made distance less of a barrier than in previous wars, but supplying front-line troops still depends on vast transportation networks.
Viewing Europe at the same scale as the continental United States reminds us that what can appear to be a compact region on a world map is, in reality, made up of countries separated by distances comparable to traveling across multiple U.S. states.
Added fact:
Despite appearing relatively small on many world maps, Ukraine is the second-largest country entirely within Europe by land area, covering about 233,000 square miles (603,700 square kilometers)—making it slightly smaller than Texas but larger than every other European nation except Russia.
PORTRAIT OF A TRANSYLVANIAN SZEKLER HUNTER, year 1868, note his traditional badger fur hunting satchel. taken by early photographer and painter Ludwig Friedrich Schuller (1826 - 1906) and Austrian who fell inlove with Transylvania where he moved in 1840s and never looked back, working until his last years from Sighisoara (Ger. Schaßburg) where amongst others he printed a postcard album of Transylvanian ethnic folkswear, book where this image originates from.
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In 1876, veteran Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight entered Palo Duro Canyon by way of an old Comanche Indian trail to establish the first ranch in the area. The following year, Goodnight partnered with Englishman John Adair, and together they founded the JA Ranch, which would become one of the largest and most prominent cattle operations in Texas history.
Goodnight managed the ranch while Adair provided financing, and their partnership marked the start of a legendary ranching empire. At its height, the JA Ranch spanned nearly a million acres and grazed over 100,000 cattle, with the upper division reserved for purebred herds and the lower ranges gradually improved by better blood.
Goodnight’s experience as a scout and guide for Texas Rangers during the Civil War helped him recognize the canyon’s natural advantages for ranching, including water, shelter, and ideal grazing land.
Through their innovative breeding and ranching methods, Goodnight and Adair helped pave the way for permanent settlement in the Texas Panhandle.
The JA Ranch headquarters area was later designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960. In 1887, the Goodnight-Adair partnership ended, with Adair retaining the JA Ranch, which remains one of Texas’ great ranches in the hands of his heirs.
That same year, Goodnight established the Goodnight-Thayer Cattle Company in Armstrong County and built a spacious, two-story, Folk-Victorian-style ranch house. Visitors can tour the historic Charles and Mary Ann Goodnight Ranch State Historic Site and learn more about the legacy of these cattlemen: visitgoodnightranch.com
📸: JA Cowboy / Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Bequest of Mary Alice Pettis
Roman Ring with Small Hedgehog
An exquisite Roman gold ring set with an amethyst intaglio depicting a small hedgehog — a creature admired since antiquity for its distinctive spiny form and curious nature. The engraving is rendered with remarkable precision, capturing the hedgehog’s pointed face, tiny legs, and textured quills in delicate detail.
The heavy gold mount is equally impressive, featuring a rounded hoop and elevated bezel crafted with exceptional skill and durability, reflecting both the wealth and artistry of the Roman world.
Animal intaglios were especially popular in ancient Rome, symbolizing the beauty, strength, and mystery of nature. Romans often wore such engraved gems as personal talismans, believing animals embodied qualities such as resilience, protection, and courage. From mighty lions to humble hedgehogs, these miniature masterpieces celebrated the natural world through finely carved stone and precious metal.
90-year-old Sir Winston Churchill with his wife Clementine at the window of their Hyde Park Gate home in London on his birthday, 30 November 1964, as crowds gathered outside to celebrate. It would be his last public appearance, as he died less than two months later on 24 January 1965.
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Think “BMW RV” and you get the Vixen 21 TD: a low-slung, wind-cheating motorhome with a rear-mounted BMW 2.4L turbodiesel (114 hp) and a manual transaxle, quietly doing ~30 mpg at 55 mph while sounding like a 524td moonlighting as a camper.
It cornered better than RVs had any right to, but at 6'3" tall you’d pop the roof to stand up—because Bavarian efficiency doesn’t include extra inches. Later gas SEs tried to fix the headroom, yet the cult legend remains the diesel: the closest the world ever got to a BMW-powered touring hotel on wheels.
An incredibly lucky crash landing from a U.S. Navy F6F Hellcat fighter plane on the USS Monterey which was sailing in the Pacific Ocean, 1944 (WW2).
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1932, Donetsk region. The property of dispossessed peasants is being transported to the brigade yard in the village of Udachne, Pokrovskyi district, Donetsk Oblast.
Photo by: Marko Zalizniak
In Ukraine, we’ve got this old pagan tradition to welcome spring — people were doing it way before Christianity came to the country. These days, it’s become part of the Easter celebration, kinda mixing our ancient roots with Ukrainian culture and Christian faith.
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Nigel Van Wyck — "The End of the Affair"
American artist Nigel Van Wyck is known for his paintings that are at the intersection of realism and narrative art. His works are dedicated to urban life and depict scenes from bars, streets, beaches and parks, reflecting ordinary moments of everyday life. However, Van Wyck does not limit himself to just accurately reproducing these scenes. His paintings do not simply capture reality - they convey it with a deep emotional subtext.
As a storyteller, Van Wyck explores human relationships, the inner world and emotions. His paintings sometimes capture intimate, personal moments that resonate with the viewer, immersing them in the "poetry of banality." This is a unique approach to depicting everyday life, where even the most ordinary scenes acquire additional meaning, becoming a reflection of complex human experiences.
The painting "The End of the Affair" can be interpreted as a metaphor for the end of some significant chapter in life. Van Wyk's work masterfully conveys the emotions of farewell, nostalgia and the realization of loss, making it not just an image, but a real story, full of depth and inner meaning.
When archaeologists excavated ancient Pompeii they also uncovered the remains of brothels which bear testament to the guilty pleasures of the ancient Romans.
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This 1877 photo of the gold rush at Deadwood, Dakota Territory is arguably the best photo ever captured of a western boom town. Taken by photographer F. J. Haynes, this remarkable image captures Main Street in the thriving gold camp just about a year after it was founded. The man standing in the foreground is likely sheriff Seth Bullock.
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A crowd of angry parents hurl insults at 6 year-old Ruby Bridges as she enters a traditionally all-white school, the first black child to do so in the United States South, 1960. Bridges is 70 years old today.
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"Dillon! You son of a b*tch!" Nobody can forget the iconic, muscle-bound mid-air handshake between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers that defined 1980s action cinema. Seeing them next to each other again highlights the incredible, enduring legacy of their screen camaraderie and the pure testosterone-fueled energy of that era.
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This series of photos was created as part of the project of documenting the Romanian national noble costumes of the 19th century - ethnographic research by Simona Laiu
© Anna Senik
ethnic photographer
www.annasenik.com.ua
Knight became known as the “North Pond Hermit,” one of the strangest survival stories in modern American history. In 1986, he left ordinary life behind, walked into the woods of central Maine, and built a hidden camp not far from cabins around North Pond.
For nearly three decades, he survived by breaking into nearby homes and summer camps, usually at night, taking food, batteries, propane, clothing, books, and other supplies.
Locals knew someone was stealing from them, but the burglar became almost mythical because he left so few clues and avoided nearly all human contact.
Knight said he never lit a fire because smoke might reveal his location, even during brutal Maine winters.
His isolation finally ended in 2013, when a game warden caught him after he triggered a surveillance sensor while stealing from a camp kitchen.
His story is fascinating, but also complicated. To some, he was a modern hermit. To the people he stole from for 27 years, he was a deeply unsettling intruder.
Added fact: Knight later said that during his 27 years in the woods, he spoke to another person only once: a brief “hi” to a passing hiker sometime in the 1990s.
Bakhmut,
2020: mural “Community of Happy People”
2022: russkiy mir (russian world)— happiness gone
Today marks 17 years since the start of the Russian invasion of Georgia (Sakartvelo). The conflict primarily centered around the Russian-backed breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which had declared independence from Georgia in the early 1990s. Tensions between Georgia and the Russian-backed separatists had been ongoing for years, with occasional outbreaks of violence.
On August 1, 2008, the situation escalated when the pro-Russian South Ossetian separatists started shelling Georgian villages and broke a 1992 ceasefire agreement. The shelling was done to trigger a Georgian military response, which would be used as a pretext for the planned Russian invasion. In response, Georgian forces launched an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia.
Just like the recent invasion of Ukraine, Russia falsely accused Georgia of committing “genocide” against the separatists and launched a full-scale invasion of Georgia on August 7. The Russian military quickly overwhelmed the Georgian forces with airstrikes and ground operations. Numerous coordinated cyber attacks accompanied the invasion.
After several days of intense fighting, a ceasefire agreement brokered by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy was reached on August 12, 2008. The ceasefire called for an immediate cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of Russian and Georgian forces to pre-war positions.
Following the war, Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a move that was condemned by Georgia and most of the international community. Georgia, along with other countries, considers the regions to be occupied territories. The conflict resulted in significant damage to infrastructure, displacement of civilians, and loss of life.
Many ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia were destroyed, and 30,000 Georgians were forcibly displaced from South Ossetia during a campaign of ethnic cleansing by the separatists. In 2022, the Hague-based International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for three de facto South Ossetian officials believed to be involved in war crimes against ethnic Georgians during the conflict.
caption by @combatpix
LONG HAIR
Traditionally, long hair was always a symbol of masculinity. All of history's great warriors had long hair, from the Greeks (who wrote odes to their heroes' hair) to the Nordic, from the American Indians (famous for their long shiny hair) to the Japanese. And the longer and beautiful the hair was, the more manly the warrior was considered. Vikings flaunted their braids and samurai wore their long hair as a symbol of their honor (they cut their braid when they lose honor).
When a warrior was captured, his mane was cut to humiliate him, to take away his beauty. That custom resumed in what is today military service. There when new soldiers begin their training the first thing they do is cut their hair to undermine their self-esteem, make them submissive and make them see who's boss.
The Romans were the ones who "invented" short hair so to speak, between the 1st and 5th centuries AD.. In battles they believed this gave them defensive advantages, since their opponents couldn't grab them by the hair. This also helped them to recognize each other in the battlefield.
Short hair on men is a relatively new "invention" that has nothing to do with aesthetics.
But today we often see men being humiliated, sometimes called "gay" for wearing long hair, not knowing that short hair is actually the "anti-masculine" and is a repressive social imposition, while long hair symbolizes freedom.
You might be interested in hearing the full version of the song from the video above. It’s performed by a group that specializes in ancient Ukrainian folk music. This particular piece is sung during a traditional spring festival called Haiivky.
The band doesn’t just use Ukrainian folk motifs — they perform with authentic, historical instruments and recreate melodies that were played 300 to 400 years ago (maybe even older).
Their repertoire also includes old Orthodox psalms, performed in a unique Volynian style. Even if you're not religious, the lyrics are often deeply reflective and meaningful across time.
This type of music is known as Haiivky (songs sung in groves) or Vesnianky (spring songs), many of which were ritualistic and even linked to fortune-telling and ancient beliefs.
What you see in the video is called haiuvannya — a traditional Ukrainian spring celebration that usually took place right after Easter. It involved singing, dancing, games, and rituals in nature — most often in groves, hence the name. It was a way of honoring nature and the rebirth of life after winter.
Girls especially took part in these celebrations — leading circle dances, singing ritual songs, and weaving flower wreaths. It often looked like a little open-air folk festival with games, laughter, and traditional ceremonies.
Hope you found this interesting!
Happy Easter to all of you!
https://youtu.be/U_KPjhRw6eE?si=7QVi1ZFyqqf3bAKq
1970s downtown Houston was like 75% parking space.
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Chief Joseph Rides to Surrender. by Howard Terpening.
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GREAT hat, maybe a 7" brim?
Cowboy on the 6666 Ranch about 1925..
Adolf Hitler performing Elon Musk salute, Berlin, 1933.
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A food store clerk in Tallahassee, Florida, 1962.
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A reusable grocery-shopping list from the 1930’s.
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