via The National Archives Blog by Benjamin Trowbridge
‘…so ought not this event in any history to be forgotten. Then it is well that I tell it to you!’
The French attempt to recapture Calais from England on 1/2 January 1350 in the Chronicle of Jean Froissart. Note the man on the drawbridge wearing the green and red cape with gold trimming receiving a sack of money. He is one of the central characters in this story. (source: Wikicommons)
This noteworthy historical event described by the Black Prince’s biographer was in fact the little known attempt by French forces during the Hundred Years War to recapture the English held town of Calais by means of bribery and subterfuge.
Calais was only a recently won prize for King Edward III, who had paid a high price in military and financial resources to secure its surrender in August 1347.
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via Interesting Literature
Edgar Allan Poe’s mother died in 1811, when Poe was only two years old. His father had walked out the year before, so Poe became an orphan with his mother’s death. He was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia, and would live with them until he had reached adulthood, although the Allans never formally adopted him. His middle name (really a second surname) was derived from his ‘adopted’ parents. He was probably named Edgar, by the way, after Edgar in King Lear: his (biological) parents were both actors, who were starring in a production of Shakespeare’s play when their son was born. Poe wrote ‘To My Mother’ in 18.
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via the Big Think blog by Robby Berman
DNA analysis reveals the Taino people who welcomed Columbus to the New World were not eradicated after all.
When Columbus arrived, the Caribbean islands were populated by people known now as the “Taino.” Most likely they were descendants of the Arawaks of South America, and Taino was actually just their language — at the time, they were known as Lucayans locally in the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles areas they dominated. They courteously greeted Christopher Columbus when he landed in the New World, but within 30 years, according to Spanish accounts, the Taino were all gone, victims of European pathogens — smallpox in particular — and the brutality of the newcomers. Locals have long insisted that this isn’t true, that they were simply written out of history. Now a DNA analysis reveals the locals were right, and at least one modern Caribbean population includes Lucayan Taino descendants.
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via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Lignum vitae is an extraordinarily dense and hard wood, so kiwami japan wanted to see if a knife made of the wood could maintain a sharp blade. An interesting and relaxing experiment.
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via the Guardian by Nicola Davis in Austin
Language was necessary for the spread of toolmaking technology, as well as for boat-building and sailing, researchers suggest. Illustration: Alamy Stock Photo
They had bodies similar to modern humans, could make tools, and were possibly the first to cook. Now one expert is arguing that Homo erectus might have been a mariner – complete with sailing lingo.
Homo erectus first appeared in Africa more than 1.8m years ago and is thought to be the first archaic human to leave the continent.
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via About History by Alcibiades
1) GAMBESON:
The gambeson is a full body jacket armor made out of quilted linen or wool, stuffed with cloth or horsehair and was the most cheap and easy to make armor, allowing any peasant equipped with it to become a decently armored soldier on the battlefield. Offering a decent defense against slash attacks, near immunity to bludgeoning its weak point were thrust attacks and piercing. As mail armor became more dominantly used, as well as plate later on, the gambeson essentially became what was worn beneath those two to provide even more defense for the soldier, and prevented injuries inflicted upon the skin by being a buffer zone between the body and armor, yet it was highly hated to be worn as it was insulatory and uncomfortable during any season apart from winter.
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via Interesting Literature
Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti is one of the greatest of the Elizabethan sonnet sequences; after Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella (which was the first great sonnet sequence in English), it is perhaps the greatest of all. Sonnet LXXV from Amoretti, beginning ‘One day I wrote her name upon the strand’, is probably the most famous poem in the cycle, and deserves closer analysis for its innovative use of a popular conceit.
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via the Big Think blog: Amaury Triaud and Michaël Gillon in AEON
It would be disappointing and surprising if Earth were the only template for habitability in the Universe.
Written speculation about life beyond the confines of Earth dates back thousands of years, to the time of the Greek philosophers Epicurus and Democritus. Unrecorded curiosity about this question undoubtedly goes back much further still. Remarkably, today’s generation seems about to get an answer from the study of exoplanets – planets orbiting other stars than the Sun. The early results are upending many assumptions from that long history.
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via Arts & Letters Daily: Richard Gunderman in the Smithsonian
/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/9f/e9/9fe988b5-f191-4fbb-9192-430c8b313c09/file-20180209-51694-inx5sh.jpg)
The aspiring author knew Olivia Langdon was the one when he first laid eyes on a photograph of her
The year 2018 marks the 150th anniversary of one of the great courtships in American history, the wooing of an unenthusiastic 22-year-old Olivia Langdon by a completely smitten 32-year-old Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain.
Continue reading Another fascinating time-waster for you!
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via Boing Boing by Andrea James
In December 2005, NASA lost contact with the IMAGE satellite. After trying to reconnect for two years, the agency gave up. Over a decade later, hobbyist Scott Tilley was able to confirm that IMAGE is not only still in orbit, but also transmitting data.
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