Holocaust Hero Chiune Sugihara
Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara was stationed in Lithuania when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Thousands of Jewish refugees came to the consulate seeking travel documents in order to escape the Nazis. Sugihara’s superiors in Tokyo ordered him not to issue any travel visas.
Sugihara discussed the plan with his wife Yukiko and decided to risk his career and his entire future by defying his superiors. The couple then spent 29 days issuing travel visas, up to 300 a day, as thousands of refugees stood in line at his office. Yukiko would prepare and register the visas while Chiune Sugihara would sign and stamp them, hour after hour, without breaking for meals. They would work late into the night until Yukiko would massage her husband’s weary hands in preparation for the next day. Sugihara was under orders to leave, which he could no longer delay. The family departed on September 1st, but he kept signing visas even as he boarded the train. Sugihara then tossed his official stamp out to the crowd, as he hadn’t time to stamp them all.
Sugihara’s actions enabled around 6,000 Jewish refugees to escape the Holocaust. For his efforts, Sugihara was imprisoned by the Soviets and fired from his job by the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Read the entire story at mental_floss. Link
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Sputnik 2 Anniversary
Fifty-two years ago today (November 3, 1957), Sputnik 2 launched from the Soviet Union with a dog named Laika {wiki} on board. It was a tremendous political coup for the USSR to launch a living being into orbit. Unfortunately it wasn’t so tremendous for Laika, as they made no plans for her to ever return to earth. Several stories were told of how long Laika survived in space, but the full story was finally revealed in 2002. Laika only lived a few hours before the stress and heat did her in. Her remains orbited the earth for five months until the capsule burned up on re-entry in April of 1958. In honor of the anniversary, here’s Space Doggity by Jonathon Coulton. -via Metafilter
Update: The video footage is from the song Moan by Trentemøller. -Thanks, waldemar!
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101 Historical Moments You Can Relive on YouTube
Every once in a while, someone will say, “I wish I’d been around when that happened.” You can get a taste for what it was like to live through historical moments by watching converted film footage, news reports, historic speeches, sports coverage, and even famous musical performances on YouTube. This list has links to 101 available videos, some of which you’d never think of to look for on your own. Just a few are recreations. Pictured is a screenshot from the destruction of the Berlin Wall. This resource will be useful to help my children with their history lessons! Link -via the Presurfer
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International Museum of Surgical Science
A trip through the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago will make you glad you live in the modern world instead of the “good old days”! Wired has a gallery of exhibit photos ranging from a skull that belonged to a trepanation patient to early x-ray machines. Pictured is a vest used in 1899 to correct scoliosis. If this were posted as a “What Is It?” I would guess it to be an instrument of torture. Link -via Digg
(image credit: Jim Merithew/Wired.com)
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Why So Many Different Plugs?
I went to China and took an electrical adapter with eight different plug-ins, and still managed to stay at one hotel in which none of them fit. Why are there so many types of electrical plugs and sockets in the world? When household electric use began in the late 1800s, different areas of the world settled on basically two voltage systems, 110-120 and 220-240 (with some exceptions). Then each nation had their own reasons for developing the plug-in system they have.
But once they were set up, who cared what style plug their customers used? What were you gonna do, lug your new vacuum cleaner across the ocean on a boat? Early efforts to standardize the plug by organizations like the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) had trouble taking hold—who were they to tell a country which plug to adopt?
For example, Britain incorporated fuses in the appliance plug instead of the wiring system because of a shortage of copper at the time.
You know how the British had control over India for, like, ninety years? Well, along with exporting cricket and inflicting unquantifiable cultural damage, they showed the subcontinent how to plug stuff in, the British way! Problem is, they left in 1947. The BS 1363 plug—the new one—wasn’t introduced until 1946, and didn’t see widespread adoption until a few years later. So India still uses the old British plug, as does Sri Lanka, Nepal and Namibia. Basically, the best way to guess who’s got which socket is to brush up on your WW1/WW2 history, and to have a deep passion for postcolonial literature. No, really.
Despite widespread global travel, the expense of rewiring electrical grids all over the world means there won’t be any standardization of plugs anytime soon. Read the whole story at Gizmodo. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
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The History of Daylight Saving Time in the US
Daylight Saving Time ends in most of the United States a 2AM on Sunday, November 1st (Hawaii and Arizona have been on standard time all summer). We remember which way to set our clocks by thinking “spring forward, fall back.” It makes you wonder how we ever got our clocks coordinated in the first place. Believe it or not, standard time and time zones were the railroad industry’s idea.
“In the early 19th century … localities set their own time,” said Bill Mosley, a public affairs officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“It was kind of a crazy quilt of time, time zones, and time usage. When the railroads came in, that necessitated more standardization of time so that railroad schedules could be published.”
In 1883 the U.S. railroad industry established official time zones with a set standard time within each zone. Congress eventually came on board, signing the railroad time zone system into law in 1918.
The 1918 law assigned the Interstate Commerce Commission to oversee the time zones, and legislated Daylight Saving Time. Later, the decision whether to observe DST was left up to the states. Link
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5 Frightening (But True) Space Stories
There are no aliens in these stories from NASA and the Soviet space program, just true tales of how being an astronaut is no picnic. Decompression? Landing in the wrong place? Using the toilet without a toilet? Not pleasant!
On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard wet his pants aboard Freedom 7, but Apollo bathroom facilities would get a lot worse before they got any better. I don’t think I’m the only guy to find something fundamentally frightening about a urinal that consists only of a “condom-like fitting,” a valve and the empty void of outer space. I keep thinking about that scene from “Goldfinger.”
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The History of Birth Control
Newsweek presents a pictorial history of birth control methods. We’ve come a long way since the Greek philosopher Aristotle recommended olive oil as a spermicide! Link -Thanks, Steadyburn!
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An Anniversary Worth Celebrating
On October 26th, 1977, a hospital cook in Somalia named Ali Maow Maalin was diagnosed with smallpox. What makes this so remarkable is that no naturally-occurring cases of smallpox have been diagnosed in the 32 years since.
The global eradication of smallpox was certified, based on intense verification activities in countries, by a commission of eminent scientists on 9 December 1979 and subsequently endorsed by the World Health Assembly on 8 May 1980[10][48] as Resolution WHA33.3. The first two sentences of the resolution read: “Having considered the development and results of the global program on smallpox eradication initiated by WHO in 1958 and intensified since 1967 … Declares solemnly that the world and its peoples have won freedom from smallpox, which was a most devastating disease sweeping in epidemic form through many countries since earliest time, leaving death, blindness and disfigurement in its wake and which only a decade ago was rampant in Africa, Asia and South America.”[49]
Smallpox once killed millions of people every year, and may have been responsible for up to 500 million deaths in the 20th century. National vaccination programs began in the early 1800s, but it was a global push by the World Health Organization begun in 1958 that finally led to the eradication of the disease worldwide. Link -via Bad Astronomy Blog
(image credit: CDC)
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A Teacher's Blog: The Cuban Missile Crisis
This week marks the 47th anniversary of The Cuban Missile Crisis, an event that spanned thirteen days and brought the world close to total nuclear war. It was also a valuable lesson in Presidential powers, and global negotiations.
NYC teacher Mr. D. decided to have his students re-enact the crisis, with surprising results.
I laid out a dossier of the facts of the case: missiles were discovered in Cuba by an American spy plane. The United States is under pressure from the Soviet Union to withdraw missiles from Turkey. The Russians are not saying for certain that there are missiles. The United States is prepared to escalate with possible military action.
I had the class divide into groups, take the facts and create a course of action. Amazingly, their plans mirrored the plans created by Kennedy’s cabinet and Pentagon officials in 1962. One group favored a military option, a direct strike on the Cuban missiles. Another group favored a covert operation to disable the missiles. Still another favored a unilateral pullout from Turkey as a sign of goodwill.
What was most astonishing was my last group. They actually said, “Maybe we should get other countries on our side by showing them what we have.” By doing so, they figured, it would make the Soviets look like the bad guy, the aggressor. I was floored. These were barely teenagers and they tackled delicate foreign policy like a pro.
Link with embedded video clips of Adlai Stevenson’s triumph at the U.N. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
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Nero's Rotating Dining Hall Discovered
Back in 1st century A.D. (or C.E., if it pleases you), the Romans were really starting to crank things up. Things like debauchery, poisoning of rivals, fratricide…basically setting the stage for their own eventual downfall.
Of the many Emperors who ruled over this lifestyle, Nero stands out as one of the nastiest. But you gotta give the guy points for trying to throw a serious bash. At the time of his rule, a Roman historian named Suetonius chronicled everything, including the construction of a dining room that rotated.
Now, archeologists think they may have finally discovered this room, which was filled in and built-over in 80A.D.
Quite how the rotating dining room worked is still a bit of a mystery; some think it was by the motion of canals under the room and others think it more likely that it was manually cranked by slaves but hopefully the new funding will enable the archaeologists to confirm one way or the other.
In addition to the rotating floor, the opulent room featured fretted ivory ceilings which would pour flower petals and perfume down on Nero’s guests. Jackie118 has more fascinating history of Nero’s Rome at the link!
Link | Image: Daily Mail
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The Opium Museum
The Opium Museum is, at the heart, about the trade in rare antiques, since opium smoking paraphernalia was outlawed. Still, there are pages and pages of the history of opium and its use in countries all over the world, with many historical photographs.
Beginning in the 18th century, opium accompanied the Chinese diaspora: first to the Chinese quarters of Asian cities, and later to the Chinatowns of the West, particularly North America, where opium smoking in the Chinese manner and with Chinese-made paraphernalia became fashionable among non-Chinese.
Once the drug was banned and its paraphernalia outlawed, these illicit items were heaped into piles and burned in public bonfires. From Shanghai to Saigon to San Francisco, the means to smoke opium were destroyed along with the drug itself. So few examples of these relics remain that most experts on Chinese art are blithely unaware of just how sumptuous and opulent this art form had become during its heyday.
For serious collectors, there is information on how to identify genuine opium tools and have them appraised. Link -via Metafilter
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7 Things You Might Not Know About The Twilight Zone
Mental_floss is celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Twilight Zone in their own way, by bringing trivia about the show. For example, great acting wasn’t exactly a priority during filming of the episodes.
Interestingly enough, many of the actors in these pieces, when interviewed decades after the fact, confessed that they weren’t particularly proud of their performances. The Twilight Zone had a budget, just like any other series, and often the bulk of the money per episode had to be spent on sets and special effects. There was no luxury of multiple retakes until the actor felt just right about a particular scene. A sub-par performance wasn’t a matter of concern in most episodic television of that era, but, as William Shatner later mentioned in an interview, at that time a Twilight Zone appearance was just another job – no one ever suspected that these episodes would be aired over and over (and over!) again for years to come.
There’s more about your favorite episodes and about host Rod Serling. Link
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The History of the Chipmunks
In some cases, no one will get behind a wacky idea until there’s nothing left to lose. Such is the case with Ross Bagdasarian Sr. who recorded a novelty song called “The Witch Doctor”. As his record company was close to bankruptcy, three executives went along with recording a chorus of three sped-up voices he called The Chipmunks.
Production commenced and in just a few months leading up to Christmas of 1958, the record shot to the top of the charts, becoming one of the best selling singles of all time. Bagdasarian won two Grammy Awards, Liberty Records was saved from bankruptcy, and the Chipmunks became a household name with children all over the world.
And that’s just the beginning of the story of Simon, Theodore, and Alvin. Link -via Boing Boing
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NASA’s Lost Female Astronauts
NASA introduced the idea of female astronauts much earlier than you might realize. After all, the Soviets had launched a female cosmonaut!
In the late 1950s, the United States government contemplated training women as astronauts, and newly released medical test results show that they were just as cool and tough as the men who went to the moon.“They were all extraordinary women and outstanding pilots and great candidates for what was proposed,” said Donald Kilgore, a doctor who evaluated both male and female space flight candidates at the Lovelace Clinic, a mid-century center of aeromedical research. “They came out better than the men in many categories.”
The times being what they were, the program was scrapped, and US women did not make it into space until 1983. Link
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Return to Malibou Lake
Screenwriter John Cox posted a guest blog at Frankensteinia about his search for the site of the only location shot in the 1931 movie Frankenstein.
Where did Universal shoot the famous Maria meets the Monster scene in the classic 1931 Frankenstein? For years I could never get a straight answer. Some claimed it was shot on the Universal backlot along with the rest of the movie. But it’s clear from the size of the lake and the rugged mountains in the distance that this can’t be true.
Cox found that the scene was filmed at Malibou Lake and set off to find the exact location of the scene, despite the knowledge that it was now in private hands, and that after almost 80 years, it might not look the same. But he was surprised at what he found! Link -via Metafilter
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A Broken Chain and a Busted Pedal
Max Hirschberg missed the last dogsled out of Dawson, Yukon because he was recovering from tetanus. So he rode a bicycle for two months to get to Nome, Alaska in order to join the Klondike gold rush in 1900. Hirschberg was 19 years old when he started the trip.
The day I left Dawson, March 2, 1900 was clear and crisp, 30° below zero. I was dressed in a flannel shirt, heavy fleece-lined overalls, a heavy mackinaw coat, a drill parka, two pairs of heavy woolen socks and felt high-top shoes, a fur cap that I pulled down over my ears, a fur nosepiece, plus fur gauntlet gloves.
Along the way, Hirschberg suffered from exposure, snowblindness, and a broken bicycle chain. He came close to drowning. His money was gone. Still, he made it to Nome. Link -via Metafilter
(image found at Center Scene)
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10 Doomsday Cults
Many religious cults are based on apocalypticism, the belief that the world is going to end. Check out ten such beliefs, their founders, and followers. One such cult is the Panacea Society.
In 1792, part-time fortune teller Joanna Southcott started collecting “divine revelations” and had them sealed in a box with strict instructions to open it only for Jesus. Her followers called themselves Southcottians and were mostly early-19th century Spiritualists. Southcott dramatically announced that she was pregnant with the messiah, Shiloh, whose birth would kill all but her followers. However, Southcott was a 64-year-old virgin who showed no signs of pregnancy. To Southcott’s credit, she began doubting her beliefs when she failed to give birth but died before she was able to do anything about it. The sudden power vacuum among the Southcottians brought out all sorts of leadership, all of whom claimed they could psychically communicate with Southcott’s box, and transformed the Southcottians into a bizarre cult that refused to bury Southcott’s corpse, believing that she would be resurrected. They renamed themselves the Panacea Society under the belief that they had healing powers, and still believe that Shiloh will descend from heaven to reboot the world at a later date.
There are nine other cults profiled at Ty.rannosaur.us. Link
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Top 10 Fascinating Facts About Cheese
This list, researched by a cheese fan, encompasses a great portion of the history of cheese as well as the different varieties and how they are made. Who knew you could buy cheese made from moose milk?
A farm in Bjurholm, Sweden actually makes moose cheese. The lactation period of moose is short, lasting from about June to August, and the farm, owned by Christer and Ulla Johansson, keeps three moose that produce only 300 kilograms of cheese per year. The moose cheese sells for roughly US$1000 per kilogram.
Before you faint over the price, remember that a kilogram is more than two pounds! Link -via Unique Daily
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Ten Crazy Geniuses
Among the scientists, inventors, engineers, and leaders who left their mark on the world are some who were mentally ill or even downright insane. The ten men in the list showed signs of paranoia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, crippling introversion, and other disorders. For example, you know Samuel Morse as the inventor of the telegraph and Morse Code, but there was more to him.
He was a little paranoid. He was determined that the Blacks, Jews, Catholics and the entire nation of Austria were working to destroy the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants of America. He wrote several books on the subject in which he talked about how the immigrants and lesser races were oppressing all the white people, how the Jews and Catholics were working together to kill Protestants, and how all of these groups met on a regular basis in the basement of an orphanage in Ireland. Oh, and Austria’s in there too somewhere.
Link -via Unique Daily
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The Rise and Fall of Big Hair
You think big hair was big in the 1980s? In the 18th century, ladies of a certain station took hairstyling to absurd lengths -or heights, actually. Social critics and caricaturists of the day had fun with the trend, as you can see in this collection of images from the period at BibliOdyssey. Link
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Who Was President? Part Two
You know about these historic events, but do you remember who was president of the United States when it happened? This Lunchtime Quiz from mental_floss will strain your historic perspective. I scored 50%, mainly by remembering the events of my lifetime. Link
Previously: Who Was President? Part One.
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Servant Until Death
Shaun Usher of deputy dog has a new blog called Letters of Note which shares classic correspondence of all kinds. One that stands out is from a slave named Vilet Lester to a member of her former owner’s family, written in 1857. Here is an excerpt.
I am well and this is Injoying good hlth and has ever Since I Left Randolph. whend I left Randolf I went to Rockingham and Stad there five weaks and then I left there and went to Richmon virgina to be Sold and I Stade there three days and was bought by a man by the name of Groover and braught to Georgia and he kept me about Nine months and he being a trader Sold me to a man by the name of Rimes and he Sold me to a man by the name of Lester and he has owned me four years and Says that he will keep me til death Siperates us without Some of my old north Caroliner friends wants to buy me again. my Dear Mistress I cannot tell my fealings nor how bad I wish to See youand old Boss and Mss Rahol and Mother. I do not now which I want to See the worst Miss Rahol or mother I have thaugh that I wanted to See mother but never befour did I no what it was to want to See a parent and could not.
The post contains a transcript of the entire letter and a photograph of the handwriting. Link
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MagazineArt
MagazineArt is an extensive collection of magazine cover art from the 19th and 20th centuries, featuring hundreds of different publications. You could spend hours browsing the archives here! Shown is the January 1924 issue of Theatre Magazine. Link -via Metafilter
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13 Awesome Stone Circles
A few days ago, you read about Clonehenges, art installations that are made to resemble the original Stonehenge. You might not realize that Stonehenge is far from the only ancient stone circle in the UK, and there are some in Europe and North America as well. WebEcoist looks at 13 of these circles, including the pictured Avebury Stone Circle in England, which is bigger and older than Stonehenge! Link
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11 Firsts In Internet History
Have you ever wondered what the first item sold on eBay was? Or who ran the first banner ad on the internet? Or what the first spam massage tried to sell? 11Points has those firsts and more, including this picture, which was the first image on the internet in 1992. It was uploaded by programmer Silvano de Gennaro in Geneva at the request of World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee.
Berners-Lee asked Gennaro to scan some photos from a CERN party and post them on that page. Gennaro didn’t really get what he was talking about but scanned in the photos, FTPed them to the server and linked them to a page. The picture of the four women, complete with their early ’90s “Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead” fashion sense, was the first one ever viewed in a web browser.
Link -via Unique Daily
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When was the Internet Born?
It was 40 years ago today, September 2, 1969 that scientists connected two computers at UCLA with a 15-foot cable and the machines were able to communicate with each other. The test data was meaningless, but the breakthrough eventually led to the formation of the internet, but there were plenty of other milestones. Which date is the birthday of the internet?
September 2, 1969: First time two computers communicated with each other.
Oct 29, 1969: Message sent from computer to computer in different locations.
1971: The first email was sent.
Jan 1, 1983: ARPANET adopted the standard TCP/IP protocol.
March 1989: Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.
April 22, 1993: Mosaic became the first web browser.
Which date should we designate as the birthday of the internet? Link -via Buzzfeed
(image credit: Flickr user lemonfridge)
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The 6 Most Horrific Bosses of All Time
You may think you have a difficult, greedy, egotistical boss, but you haven’t met anyone like the boss who locked his employees inside a factory, or the boss who paid in script only redeemable at his stores, or the one who made his employees analyze animal poop. Then there was Bryant and May who decided to save money on the material they made matches from.
They had a better idea. They had been making their matches with the extremely flammable but otherwise safe red phosphorous. But there was this other kind, white phosphorous, that was way cheaper. And there was absolutely no downside.
Oh, except it would literally eat your face off when you handled it.
The description of what happened to the employees may make you queasy. Read about all six horrific bosses at Cracked. Link
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Unusual And Marvelous Maps
I love looking at ancient maps. Even those that are relatively correct feature fantastic artwork in the spaces that would otherwise have no information. But some of those extra decorations had a purpose.
The richly decorated Carta Marina, from 1539 might seem a little crude by today’s standards but modern satellite imaging revealed that the sea monsters shown in parts of the ocean on the map actually correspond to well known storm fronts, dangerous currents and maritime hazards. This was perhaps just a method of depicting this at the time, as a warning to sailors venturing into these areas
This picture is just a small detail of the Carta Marina. See the full map and many others in a roundup of old maps at Dark Roasted Blend. Link
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Where's That Landmark?
You know about these famous landmarks, but do you know where to go to see them? In this Lunchtime Quiz from mental_floss, you’ll be given a landmark and you decide where it is. It’s a bit harder than you might think. I scored 77%. Link
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