ninme

This is really cool:

The Times - Star exhibit in Smithsonian is long-lost gem looted from Louis XVI

The discovery of a lump of lead in Paris has enabled experts to prove that the Hope Diamond, a star exhibit of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, is the long-lost centrepiece of the crown jewels of prerevolutionary [...]

Categories: History

The Times - Barbary pirates struck as far north as Iceland Bribery was no answer to the coastal raids. History Notebook by Graham Stewart

Skipping the million or so kidnappings and getting right to the entertaining bits (the end of this really made me laugh):

The Church organised payment for their release: collection boxes were fitted [...]

Categories: History

I’ve had this open for a while but don’t really know enough about the subject to comment on it. It is interesting, though, and I think it’s going after my thing about trashing every well-meaning idea done in an illiberal age since we’re liberal now and would go about executing the well-meaning idea in a [...]

Categories: History

A Wiki article of unimaginable wealth: List of unusual deaths

Of special interest:

1959: In the Dyatlov Pass incident, Nine ski hikers in the Ural Mountains abandoned their camp in the middle of the night in apparent terror, some clad only in their underwear despite sub-zero weather. Six of the hikers died of hypothermia [...]

Categories: History

click to enlarge

I had this comic on my wall for years and years and then my mom cleaned at some point and tho she swore she’d have never thrown it out it still was gone and I’ve never been able to find it again but Comics.com has put all their archives online and Gerard Vanderleun [...]

Categories: History

Ohh, for the old days…

The Times - When the BBC banned baskets and fig leaves It’s not the first time the airwaves have turned blue. History Notebook by Graham Stewart

In 1950, the BBC Green Book established rules for what was off limits. “There is an absolute ban upon the following,” it announced, “jokes about [...]

Categories: History

WSJ - Nestled in the Lap of Luxury, by CHRISTINE ROSEN

Retailers mentioned (linked here for Heart-of-Darknessesque gawking purposes): Pottery Barn Kids, Baby & Child Restoration Hardware, Garnet Hill Kids, Posh Tots, and Tea Collection.

Categories: History

The Sunday Times - Final word

We (unhappy) band of brothers It’s taken them 593 years, but the French have finally devised an excuse for losing the battle of Agincourt: the rosbifs cheated. French academics gathered at the battle site yesterday on St Crispin’s Day, the anniversary of the battle, and [...]

Categories: History

The Times - In 1931, banks were top of Labour’s hit list Financiers were a target for being too conservative, now they have been nationalised for not being conservative enough, by Graham Stewart

It is surely a bittersweet moment for British socialism: 77 years after the Labour Party first fought a general election pledging to [...]

Categories: History

A little conversation piece (read: something to draw out Rueful Red):

It’s Simon Schama! On America! On the Beeb.

Oh well. I like him anyway. Discuss.

(The above has all referred to the video embedded. Which I would embed here but the Beeb is weird like that.)

Categories: History

The Times - Russian admits massacre of the Tsar and his family was a Bolshevik crime

The ruling may not change the lives of the family, but it does represent a milestone: it is the closest that any post-Soviet government has come to accepting the criminal nature of Bolshevik rule. Westerners [...]

Categories: History

Hehehe:

The Times - We survived the last banking Armageddon The 1931 crash casts a grim shadow over the present financial crisis. History Notebook by Graham Stewart

The spectre of 1929 hangs over the present financial crisis. Indeed, the City of London’s exposure to America’s toxic debts makes reference to the Wall Street Crash inevitable. It [...]

Categories: History

I had a productive day, and then had a delicious dinner at Wann Izakaya (Mondays are all-day happy hour!!!) so I’ll limit myself to just this, this evening:

Michael Gove, Conservative MP for Surrey Heath, in The Times:

[T]he whole idea of county distinctions has been eroded in our lifetimes. It used to be the [...]

Categories: History

Friday night after work we went to Steelhead Diner for dinner, then we saw Burn After Reading, which was good, although the pacing could have been punchier. But as a follow-up to a Big Oscar-Winning Movie, it was a nice, light-hearted transition piece. Very good acting all around, although the big stars make you think [...]

Categories: History

Hey, guess what! I have a whole bunch of stuff to do! So here, mea culpa, me and my blog: love did tear us apart.

The Times - How Chairman Mao led China to humiliation The Great Helmsman’s mishandling of the nuclear crisis with the Soviet Union was a turning point in world history, by George Walden

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