Saturday, October 4, 2014

Breakfast Links: Week of September 29, 2014

Saturday, October 4, 2014
Welcome to Breakfast Links - our weekly round-up of fav links to other web sites, blogs, articles, and images, gathered for you via Twitter.
Flowers of the sky: hundreds of years of comets, meteors, meteorites and shooting stars.
• Fascinating images reveal the true colors of ancient Greek statues.
• Heartbreaking: the last days of an iconic 19th c. Shingle Style house overlooking the harbor in Beverly, MA .
Image: Merton College Library, Oxford - the oldest continually operational library, open since 1376
• All a matter of taste: hideous hats from the 18th-19th centuries.
• Beautiful photographic portraits of 1920s Zeigfeld Follies showgirls.
• Children history forgot: 18th c. calico print workers could be as young as six.
• Fantastic manuscript: Japanese scroll c. 1800 showing European ship designs.
Image: Fan vaulting in Beauchamp chantry, Tewkesbury Abbey.
• Why 19th c. women refused the relief of anesthesia.
• Seventy-five years of historical costume design and research at Colonial Williamsburg.
• Why are packets of food that belonged to a Nazi war criminal sitting in a Maryland basement?
• Little Miss Muffet and her dad: 17th c. spiders.
Image: A 2000year old Thracian chariot found buried in Bulgaria along with the horses that pulled it.
• Behold! Everything you ever wanted to know about the 19th c. tazzle man.
• When a NYC medical student seeks to become an expert in poisons in 1915, a millionaire ends up dead in this house.
Image: Hampton Court Palace Astronomical Clock, commissioned by Henry VIII and completed in 1540.
• Handknit by Scottish women, the historically-inspired knitwear in Outlander may be the best part of the show.
• Ten historical myths that everyone believes because of Hollywood.
Image: Marvelous woman's French silk brocade hooded jacket, c.1760-1770.
Paintings of mysterious interiors by Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershoi (1864-1916.)
• The mechanical leech, the anti-crime bow-tie, and seven other preposterous Victorian inventions.
• "Love is in the (h)air: how hair was used in 17th-19th c jewelery.
• Eight things you may not know about the guillotine.
• "To the next burglar": Mark Twain's front-door notice to prospective thieves.
• Dancing on the dead in dirty old London.
Image: Shocker! "Disgraceful Conduct on a Steam Launch", 1895.
• "So you think you can sew, Mr. Saint?" Thomas Saint, who first patented a design for a sewing machine in 1790.
• Just for fun: Swedish scientists sneak Bob Dylan lyrics into scholarly articles as part of long-running bet.
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.

4 comments:

Donna said...

Thanks again for featuring me in this august company! Always appreciated. The iconic Shingle-style Loring House is actually across the harbor in Beverly, Massachusetts--but thanks for calling attention to its demise. Preservationists and architects alike are in mourning here.

Isabella Bradford/Susan Holloway Scott said...

Duly corrected, Donna. I think I was so overwhelmed that I missed the exact location. Hard to believe that such a house has somehow slipped through all the preservation safeguards and will be destroyed for the sake of one more soulless McMansion-by-the-Sea.

Lillian Marek said...

How do you manage to find all these fascinating tidbits every week? Aside from the Loring House, I love the Hammershoi paintings and the Follies girls.
Thank you.

Hels said...

Re women in labour, the History Today evidence (sorry I don't have the date) suggested that doctors would only offer pain relief via anaesthesia to upper class women. Working class women were not offered pain relief, regardless of medical condition.

 
Two Nerdy History Girls. Design by Pocket