history
During the Revolution, American Women Fought for Freedom, Spied on the British, Cared for the Sick and Fell in Love. A New Exhibition Reveals Their Rich Wartime Stories
by Meilan Solly
Books in American Revolutionary War at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/196
The Divine Comedy: How Dante Provided A New World Theory
The Divine Comedy is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkh2xlLmKzY
The Divine Comedy, illustrated by Gustave Doré is available at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8800
Ministry Of Culture
https://justin-farrimond.pixels.com/featured/ministry-of-culture-justin-farrimond.html
The ephor calls, a summons to the Ministry. Iron clad buttocks shimmer with an embrocation of linseed oil and regret.
#PhotoOfTheDay #Photography #Art #Print #Architecture #History #Travel #BlackAndWhite #Vintage #Greece #Door
Maltese Tardis
https://justin-farrimond.pixels.com/featured/maltese-tardis-justin-farrimond.html
It's the Maltese Tardis, basking in transdimensional shade.
#PhotoOfTheDay #BlackAndWhite #Photography #Art #Print #Malta #Tardis #Monochrome #Heritage #History
#art #history: my fave story about marilyn monroe is how she used to pay for pigeons' freedom rather than see them gathered up from a NYC park to be killed & served in the city's restaurants.
on the 100th anniversary of her birth, i've given norma jean an eternal bird friend who surely recognises the depths & dimensions of MM's personality that most people ignored whilst she was alive.
#marilynMonroe #birds #illustration #film
What Is the Origin of the Calendar?
The modern calendar borrows influences from a collective of early calendars such as the Jewish, the Babylonian, the Roman, and the Egyptian calendars.
by Mike Cohen
https://www.thecollector.com/what-is-the-origin-of-the-calendar/
Books about Calendars at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/2284
It sounds like the plot of the Duffer Brothers' next series. After 139 years, scientists have finally discovered why wounds of Civil War soldiers at the Battle of Shiloh began to glow, Angel's Glow. Sorry, not scientists, two high school students
Researchers May Have Just Identified A Rare Portrait Of Anne Boleyn That Was Hiding In Plain Sight For 500 Years
By Kaleena Fraga
A sketch by German artist Hans Holbein the Younger created sometime in the 1530s and known only as the "Unidentified Woman" may in fact be an extremely rare portrait of Anne Boleyn.
You know #Trump wants these records destroyed
Ex #CIA Director #JohnBrennan seeks court order requiring records from investigations be preserved
#law #history #accountability
https://apnews.com/article/brennan-cia-russia-justice-department-investigation-0953e358307a391d6f1c0da14b18bf4e
😍 81 years young 💥
Happy Birthday to the georgeous, fantastic Angela Trimble aka Deborah Ann Harry, born on this day in 1945, Miami, Florida.
Photo by John Lamparski
#punkrock #womenofpunk #debbieharry #blondie #history #punkrockhistory #otd
(LONG POST) Fell down a fascinating rabbit hole today about a few little boys and a little girl in ancient China about 2100 years ago.
Emperor Wu went mad with paranoia in his old age, accusing everyone of using witchcraft against him. This led to him needlessly launching attacks on his own eldest son, who never intended to betray him, and the prince's own sons. This whole branch of the royal household was wiped out in the attack. Except... there was a baby. A brand new baby boy, only a few weeks old, the Emperor's great-grandchild. The baby's name was Bingyi.
Someone brought baby Bingyi to a prison rather than kill him as ordered. The prison warden personally took good care of him; when word got out and he was ordered to finish the job, he refused to kill the baby, knowing it would presumably cost him his life. However, the Emperor came to his senses and stopped the witch hunt. The order to kill baby Bingyi and this random prison warden along with him never came. Bingyi safely disappeared into the household of distant relatives, to live an ordinary middle-class life.
Emperor Wu died of old age, and his dying wish was for the crown to skip over all the sons he distrusted and go straight to the only one not yet old enough to have earned his distrust, the surprise offspring of a May-December fling. Emperor Zhao was still a small child. He was immediately married-on-paper to another small child, Lady Shangguan.
A few years later, Lady Shangguan's family was accused of planning a coup by Zhao's regent and executed, but she was spared on account of being too young to have possibly been in on it.
Zhao was, apparently, a completely reasonable and level-headed young man. He showed wisdom in dealing with court rumors and did not do the ridiculous things young people with power often do. When he found out that Bingyi was alive, he visited with the other boy, treated him with kindness and made sure his needs were met.
Unfortunately, Zhao dropped dead when he was 20. (No indications of foul play, he was just unlucky). He had no children; his marriage to Lady Shangguan may not have even ever been consummated. The Empress Dowager was 15 years old.
A nephew of Zhao was brought in to be the new emperor; he was slightly older than Lady Shangguan, at 17. And he... partied. Immediately. Extremely. Incessantly. He was hinted to stop. He was told to stop. He was told more boldly and explicitly to stop. He did not stop.
An entire 27 days after this loser nephew took the throne, Lady Shangguan put on her best dress, entered the court, sat down on the throne, and called for the nephew. He came in. She unrolled a list of over 1000 complaints that had accrued since he arrived at the palace. She fired him. A 15-year-old girl with no actual hard power fired the Emperor of China in front of all his ministers. And he turned around, left, and went home.
(And in a very Ancient Chinese approach, he was allowed to live but most of his attendants were executed for allowing him to grow into such a brat. Only a handful who were known to have boldly rebuked him were spared.)
Lady Shangguan was now in direct defacto control of the empire. However, she understood that trying to hold on to that for the rest of her life would be destabilizing, since her claims were paper-thin as the childless widow of a child-emperor, whose family was already executed for treason. She sent for Bingyi.
Bingyi ruled under the name Emperor Xuan, and is considered to have been one of the wisest emperors, being possessed of common sense and moral sympathy for the poor after a heathy, normal upbringing. Lady Shangguan quietly stepped back after thus saving the empire from disastrous misrule, never remarried, and was pretty much the only person on either side of her family to never get executed, exiled or driven to unalive.
Lady Shangguan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Empress_Dowager_Shangguan
Emperor Zhao: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Zhao_of_Han
Bingyi / Emperor Xuan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Xuan_of_Han
Loser Nephew: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_He_of_Changyi
The book I’m reading does not imply this about Mongols at all.
There is a reason the Great Wall of China was built.
Elizabeth Van Lew’s Heroic Career As A Civil War Spy
By Gina Dimuro
Perhaps the Union's most important spy, Elizabeth Van Lew freed prisoners and passed along crucial information gathered at the Confederate capital of Richmond.
How Did Stonehenge’s Altar Stone Arrive at Salisbury Plain?
PERTH, AUSTRALIA—According to a statement released by Curtin University, the central Altar Stone at Stonehenge was likely transported more than 430 miles from northeastern Scotland to the Salisbury Plain in carefully planned stages. It had been suggested that the more than 13,000 pounds of sandstone could have been moved by glacial activity.
https://archaeology.org/news/2026/06/04/how-did-stonehenges-altar-stone-arrive-at-salisbury-plain/
Celebrate America’s 250th Anniversary This Fourth of July http://govbooktalk.gpo.gov/2026/07/01/celebrate-americas-250th-anniversary-this-fourth-of-july/
They say this is a time "to reflect on the blessings of being a beacon of hope and democratic freedom."
Oh honey, the #AmericanEmpire has not been a beacon of anything for a good while now other than #imperialism, #warfare, #invasions, and toppling governments they disliked then enabling Right Wing dictatorships.
And before any of you exceptional gringos come to whine, read a fucking book or two.
Colonial ranting aside, you can also get the documents they mention via GovInfo. Need help? Ask your local librarian.
#Reading "Ibn Fadlān and the Land of Darkness" and this map took me RIGHT back to the very first time I ever saw a map that looked like it:
As a 7 year old reading my uncle's copy LotR. The style of the maps are so similar I blame that for misreading "Ural Mountains" on this map as "Uruk-Hai Mountains" Yrch! 🤦♂️😂 #Bookstodon #History #Nonfiction @bookstodon
You are not expected to understand this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Commentary_on_the_UNIX_Operating_System
![A screenshot from Wikpedia.
Title: You are not expected to understand this
Text read:
The infamous program comment "You are not expected to understand this" occurs on line 2238 of the source code (Lions' Commentary, p. 22) at the end of a comment explaining the process exchange mechanism. It refers to line 325 of the file slp.c.[9] The source code reads:[10][11]
The source code:
/*
* If the new process paused because it was
* swapped out, set the stack level to the last call
* to savu(u_ssav). This means that the return
* which is executed immediately after the call to aretu
* actually returns from the last routine which did
* the savu.
*
* You are not expected to understand this.
*/
if(rp->p_flag&SSWAP) {
rp->p_flag =& ~SSWAP;
aretu(u.u_ssav);
}
Taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Commentary_on_the_UNIX_Operating_System](/proxy/post_attachment/1111351/c287bda5b6.png "A screenshot from Wikpedia.
Title: You are not expected to understand this
Text read:
The infamous program comment \"You are not expected to understand this\" occurs on line 2238 of the source code (Lions' Commentary, p. 22) at the end of a comment explaining the process exchange mechanism. It refers to line 325 of the file slp.c.[9] The source code reads:[10][11]
The source code:
/*
* If the new process paused because it was
* swapped out, set the stack level to the last call
* to savu(u_ssav). This means that the return
* which is executed immediately after the call to aretu
* actually returns from the last routine which did
* the savu.
*
* You are not expected to understand this.
*/
if(rp->p_flag&SSWAP) {
rp->p_flag =& ~SSWAP;
aretu(u.u_ssav);
}
Taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Commentary_on_the_UNIX_Operating_System")
The Broken Gramophone and the Stolen Land
The story of a broken gramophone and a piece of stolen land. A personal account of my family's legacy, caught between fascist violence and the calculated greed of those who wore the banner of anti-fascism for personal gain.
https://my-notes.dragas.net/2025/07/11/the-broken-gramophone-and-the-stolen-land/
On this day in 1942, Anne Frank received her first diary for her 13th birthday. On the cover page, she wrote: 'I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support." When she went into hiding during the Holocaust, her diary was one of the first items she packed.
Journeys in Film offers free Holocaust Education resources based on award-winning films to support educators who are teaching "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl".
Learn more:
#AnneFrankDay #AnneFrankTag #AnneFrank #DiaryOfAnneFrank #HolocaustEducation #Education #TeachingResources #Homeschooling #Bookstodon #OTD #Histodons #History
Anne Frank (June 12, 1929 – February 1945) for her thirteenth birthday received a diary. She began to write about her life, the people around her, short stories — even a novel.
She dreamed of becoming a writer.
War left us only her diary.
It stole the girl, the books she never wrote, and the life she should have had.
#AnneFrank #diary #writers #war #author #reading #books #bookstodon @bookstodon #booksky #bookstagram #book #readingcommunity #literature #history #ww2
Doing another round of my course, "Relics in Antiquity and the Middle Ages," Jul. 23-Aug. 27
This will be my 5th time teaching it, 3rd time online, and every time I learn as much from the students as I hope they learn from me. If you're interested in religion or medieval history, check out my course page!
https://kentnavalesi.neocities.org/RelicsHome
I do all my advertising on the fediverse, so boosts appreciated!
@medievodons @histodons #history #ReligiousStudies #Catholicism #education #Christianity
40 years ago today
Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth at CBGB, New York City on June 13, 1986.
Photo by Ebet Roberts
#punk #punks #punkrock #womenofpunk #kimgordon #leeranaldo #cbgb #history #punkrockhistory #otd
13 of the Most Unusual Fourth of July Traditions in U.S. History
Americans have come up with a variety of interesting and unexpected ways to celebrate the Fourth of July over the last 250 years!
"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" at PG:
