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Definitely somewhat acromegalic in appearance.
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Jan 27, 2016 01:10
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From what I read it's highly likely that he was, in fact, a massive dude but his size was overstated later. Or during his lifetime because how many people in the Empire would ever actually meet the guy in person? It sounds impressive and scary to tell everybody your emperor is a 9' tall firebreathing monster that will eat your head if you misbehave.
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Jan 27, 2016 01:14
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Except he was assassinated three years into his reign  .He was probably a big, stocky dude, which in his time (a time when a lot of people are suffering from malnutrition) would've made him seem larger than life. In reality, I bet he was more than 6'2. Oda Nobunaga was also considered to be giant - he was 6 ft tall in a country of already short people who weren't getting their nutrition needs filled during childhood.
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Jan 27, 2016 01:44
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A White Guy posted:Except he was assassinated three years into his reign It's actually kind of interesting to read about historical figures that were just plain big. Chalamagne is estimated to be at least six feet tall, probably more, during a time when people didn't get much past 5'6" very often. Peter the Great was enormous; dude was 6'8". Less fun but more interesting thing I just read; apparently the ancient Egyptians ate kind of poorly and suffered as a result, up to and including pharaohs. Apparently Hatshepsut, typically portrayed as thin and beautiful, died relatively young as a fat, bald, diabetic woman with terrible teeth.
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Jan 27, 2016 02:59
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Chairman Mao was 5'11 (180cm) which was fairly tall for a Chinese person, especially at the time.
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Jan 27, 2016 03:05
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Heights tend to be exaggerated or mistranslated. Goliath was either 6'9" or 9'9", depending on which text you read.quote:Goliath's stature grew at the hand of narrators or scribes: the oldest manuscriptsthe Dead Sea Scrolls text of Samuel, the 1st century historian Josephus, and the 4th century Septuagint manuscriptsall give his height as "four cubits and a span" (6 feet 9 inches or 2.06 metres) whereas the Masoretic Text gives this as "six cubits and a span" (9 feet 9 inches or 2.97 metres; Hebrew: amm w-zre).
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Jan 27, 2016 03:08
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On the other end of the spectrum I saw Simon Bolivar's boots once and they were dinky, like they should have cartoon characters on them an a wheel in the heels.
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Jan 27, 2016 06:54
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Stalin was actually really short, 5'4. Hitler was completely average for his time, 5'8. Napoleon would've been also completely average (5'6)for the malnourished French, but pretty short by todays standards.
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Jan 27, 2016 07:38
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A White Guy posted:Stalin was actually really short, 5'4. Hitler was completely average for his time, 5'8. Napoleon would've been also completely average (5'6)for the malnourished French, but pretty short by todays standards. "Napoleon is a short French gently caress" partially because of British propaganda (he was taller than Nelson) and I heard partially because of Napoleons elite bodyguards tended to be the tallest dudes in the French army at the time, so by comparison with his bodyguards he appeared shorter than he really was.
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Jan 27, 2016 08:06
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He was also called "Le Petit Corpral", The Little Corporal, as a sign of affection.
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Jan 27, 2016 08:13
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Farmland Park posted:Chairman Mao was 5'11 (180cm) which was fairly tall for a Chinese person, especially at the time. I'm going to agree that heights tend to be exaggerated, but a six foot tall Chinese person who was born before 1900 would have been pretty impressive. To be fair, I don't think his family was particularly poor, so maybe he was well-fed and maybe was exceptionally tall, but maybe it was a little exaggerated. MAYBE: A Historian's Handbook Actually, speaking of which, can anyone recommend a book about the development of Communist China that isn't Wild Swans (just because I already own it). cash crab has a new favorite as of 08:24 on Jan 27, 2016 |
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Jan 27, 2016 08:16
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quote:Actually, speaking of which, can anyone recommend a book about the development of Communist China that isn't Wild Swans (just because I already own it). Do you mean during the Republic and the war, or post-victory? I should be able to link you to some good free electronized books on the former when I get home.
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Jan 27, 2016 08:42
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Farmland Park posted:"Napoleon is a short French gently caress" partially because of British propaganda (he was taller than Nelson) Another factor was likely the difference between the French and English systems of measurements at the time. The French defined the meter as 1 ten millionths of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator through Paris during the revolutionary period when they tried out an early universal metric system (the Americans and English were supposed to be in on this too but no mutual agreement could be reached so it could hardly be called universal I guess). Napoleon actually liked having a dead standardized system for measure but didn't care for the new terms and so during his era the older, colloquial, better known units for measure were brought back but now redefined in terms of new metric system. It would be easy for someone who's doing a fast calculation w/o navigating all these conversions to under report Napoleon's height. Either way it was magnificently successful propaganda. Napoleon's tendencies towards belligerence and major successes genuinely made him into a sort of spooky boogeyman to his contemporaries and some believed him to be the Antichrist. Belittling him as a short, angry general with megalomania re-framed everything he did as little man syndrome gone too far and to this day that phenomena is known as a Napoleon Complex in some circles.
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Jan 27, 2016 09:06
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hard counter posted:Either way it was magnificently successful propaganda. Napoleon's tendencies towards belligerence and major successes genuinely made him into a sort of spooky boogeyman to his contemporaries and some believed him to be the Antichrist. Belittling him as a short, angry general with megalomania re-framed everything he did as little man syndrome gone too far and to this day that phenomena is known as a Napoleon Complex in some circles. This was going on with Hitler until detailed knowledge of the Holocaust became a widespread thing and he became Literally Hitler. 
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Jan 27, 2016 09:41
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steinrokkan posted:Do you mean during the Republic and the war, or post-victory? I should be able to link you to some good free electronized books on the former when I get home. Either one, actually. Thanks! WickedHate posted:This was going on with Hitler until detailed knowledge of the Holocaust became a widespread thing and he became Literally Hitler. I never want or need context for this.
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Jan 27, 2016 14:13
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A White Guy posted:Stalin was actually really short, 5'4. Hitler was completely average for his time, 5'8. Napoleon would've been also completely average (5'6)for the malnourished French, but pretty short by todays standards. Harry Truman described Stalin as "a little squirt".
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Jan 27, 2016 14:48
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In 1969 the moon landings were watched by 600 million people. Barely a year later the American public had completely lost interest in space exploration - to such an extent that 90% of people surveyed could not remember Neil Armstrong's name. http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/07/16/331362649/neil-whosis-what-you-don-t-know-about-the-moon-landing-45-years-ago
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Jan 27, 2016 14:48
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Farmland Park posted:"Napoleon is a short French gently caress" partially because of British propaganda (he was taller than Nelson) and I heard partially because of Napoleons elite bodyguards tended to be the tallest dudes in the French army at the time, so by comparison with his bodyguards he appeared shorter than he really was. Not that you're wrong, but Lord Nelson was a pretty famously small and frail man, that's part of why his being such a brave and fighty captain was remarked upon so much - when a 5 foot 5 balding waiflike invalid is leading you from your ship, across one French first-rate, and capturing another that came to help it, it's more impressive than the same jolly impressive thing being done by a great roaring port and beef fed gorilla of a John Bull.
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Jan 27, 2016 15:42
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Are you telling me Paul Bunyan wasn't really a giant?!?
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Jan 30, 2016 17:09
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Something I stumbled on while scouring through Wikipedia: 'The Swedish kings Eric XIV (156068) and Charles IX (16041611) took their numbers according to a fictitious History of Sweden. He was actually the third Swedish king called Charles.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_IX_of_Sweden
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Jan 30, 2016 17:24
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At age eight Sun Yaoting was castrated by his father so that he could serve the Chinese emperor as an eunuch. Eight months later the emperor was deposed.
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Jan 30, 2016 17:57
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Alhazred posted:At age eight Sun Yaoting was castrated by his father so that he could serve the Chinese emperor as an eunuch. Eight months later the emperor was deposed. And boy, were those family dinners awkward after that.
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Jan 30, 2016 18:24
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Vindolanda posted:Not that you're wrong, but Lord Nelson was a pretty famously small and frail man, that's part of why his being such a brave and fighty captain was remarked upon so much - when a 5 foot 5 balding waiflike invalid is leading you from your ship, across one French first-rate, and capturing another that came to help it, it's more impressive than the same jolly impressive thing being done by a great roaring port and beef fed gorilla of a John Bull.
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Jan 30, 2016 18:49
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Kennel posted:And boy, were those family dinners awkward after that. Luckily for his father, Sun Yaoting was sent to a work camp after the revolution.
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Jan 30, 2016 19:23
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HEY GAL posted:Frederick the Great was about that tiny, and about that brave I remember reading that marrying Frederick with Maria Theresa was briefly considered. How seriously was that being considered, and how different would the geopolitical situation have been had it happened?
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Jan 30, 2016 19:24
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Alhazred posted:At age eight Sun Yaoting was castrated by his father so that he could serve the Chinese emperor as an eunuch. Eight months later the emperor was deposed. Castrati were extremely popular in European music throughout the Early Modern Era, especially when it came to Italian opera. Historians estimate that at its peak in the 1720s and 30s more than 4000 boys were castrated - per year. This practice only declined in popularity from the late 18th century on. The last role explicitly written for a castrato was in a 1824 opera. In 1861, the newly unified Kingdom of Italy forbade castration. The practice lingered on in the Vatican, but even there no new castrati could be hired by papal decree from 1878 on. Alessandro Moreschi, he last papal castrato (and probably the very last altogether) continued to sing in Rome until 1914. He's also the only one who was recorded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6U8VZ6riNk Don't be too surprised when he sounds rather bad in your ears: he was already past his prime when the recordings were made in 1904, and while some say that he just wasn't very good, other scholars point to contemporary listening habits and expectations being substantially different from back then.
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Jan 30, 2016 20:15
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System Metternich posted:Castrati were extremely popular in European music throughout the Early Modern Era, especially when it came to Italian opera. Historians estimate that at its peak in the 1720s and 30s more than 4000 boys were castrated - per year. This practice only declined in popularity from the late 18th century on. The last role explicitly written for a castrato was in a 1824 opera. In 1861, the newly unified Kingdom of Italy forbade castration. The practice lingered on in the Vatican, but even there no new castrati could be hired by papal decree from 1878 on. Alessandro Moreschi, he last papal castrato (and probably the very last altogether) continued to sing in Rome until 1914. He's also the only one who was recorded: I've always wondered about this kind of stuff. I bet there are still kids who are medically or accidentally castrated, how unethical would it be to try to raise one into a castrati singer? And if I was the manager a bunch of them do you think they'd let us play on Conan?
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Jan 30, 2016 20:25
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Ever wondered what Calvin Coolidge sounded like? This is the first recording (with video) of an American president: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5puwTrLRhmw Also literally everyone and everything involved with this video is long dead
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Jan 30, 2016 20:27
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goose fleet posted:Ever wondered what Calvin Coolidge sounded like? This is the first recording (with video) of an American president: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5puwTrLRhmw Not exactly an unstoppable force of charisma was he
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Jan 30, 2016 21:15
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Aesop Poprock posted:I've always wondered about this kind of stuff. I bet there are still kids who are medically or accidentally castrated, how unethical would it be to try to raise one into a castrati singer? And if I was the manager a bunch of them do you think they'd let us play on Conan? Moreschi was probably actually castrated for medical reasons. One of the differences between now and then is that a boy who for whatever reason lost his nuts growing up is likely going to get hormone treatment which is a major difference. It's also far less likely for a boy to be castrated for any reason nowadays. If memory serves the castrati were also only specifically castrated to preserve beautiful, young voices; the chances of a kid castrated now for any reason also happening to have a voice to be preserved is pretty slim. Of course making it at all acceptable behavior in any situation encourages it. You'd end up with parents "accidentally" castrating any vocally talented boys they might have hoping they'd go on to a career of wealth and fame. Better to just say "nah, let's knock this poo poo off."
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Jan 30, 2016 21:16
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goose fleet posted:Ever wondered what Calvin Coolidge sounded like? This is the first recording (with video) of an American president: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5puwTrLRhmw Now I have to add 'Straighten Coolidge's tie' to my list of Time Machine goals.
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Jan 30, 2016 21:26
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My castrati post made me wonder what other interesting "lasts" I could find The Beguines were a monastic community of women which was started around 1200 in what is today Belgium and the Netherlands and quickly exploded in popularity. They weren't a canonically defined order, so the vows the members had to say had to be periodically renewed, and it was absolutely possible to return to a "normal", non-monastic life thereafter. The Beguines (and their male counterpart, the Beghards or Lollards) directly catered to men and women from the lowest classes: former prostitutes, beggars, and so on who otherwise would have a hard time entering a convent. During the 14th century, many Beguines became part of mystical movements within the church which were views by the authorities with much scepticism and later suffered from full-on persecution. You can't write a cultural or religious history especially of the 14th century without mentioning the impact of the Beguines. The last Beguine was called Marcella Pattyn and died in 2013 in Kortrijk, Belgium. The last public execution in the US was that of Rainey Bethea who was hanged in 1936 in Kentucky after being convicted of raping and murdering a 70-year-old woman. The growd which had gathered to watch his execution was estimated at about 20,000 people. The last woman to be (legally) executed as a witch was Anna Göldi from Sennwald, Switzerland. Göldi had worked as a maidservant for Johann Jakob Tschudi, one of the richest and most powerful men in Glarus. After being accused of literally spitting nails and conjuring even more nails into the milk of one of Tschudi's daughters, she finally confessed to conspiring with the Devil under torture and was sentenced to death by the sword, a sentence which was carried out immediately. Her trial and death were regarded as scandalous by people all over Europe even at the time, though, which was probably the reason why the reason for her sentence was changed to "poisoning" in the official documents. Later historians discovered that Göldi probably had had an affair with Tschudi who wanted to remove all evidence of his infidelity. The Etruscans were a people living in Northern Italy who greatly influenced the early history of Rome (which originally was an Etruscan colony). The last known person to be able to speak and write the language (which remains mostly undeciphered and unknown today) was the Roman emperor Claudius (died in 54 BC) who was married to an Etruscan. Claudius compiled several works about Etruscan vocabulary and grammar by personally interviewing some of the last remaning speakers of the language he could find. Sadly, all his works about the language are lost. There are exactly two people still living who were born in the 19th century: Susannah Mushatt Jones from the US and Emma Morana from Italy. Both were born in 1899. (I know that formally speaking the year 1900 still belongs to the 19th century if we count that too, the number of still living people rises to four with Violet Brown from Jamaica and Nabi Tajima from Japan added to the list)The last person to die from smallpox (one of the deadliest diseases throughout human history) was the British photographer Janet Parker in 1978, who had contracted it in a Birmingham medical laboratory. Smallpox is one of only two diseases (the other being rinderpest) which is officially considered to be totally eradicated.
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Jan 30, 2016 21:31
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Fun facts about Coolidge! He was known as "Silent Cal" because of his tendency to just plain not talk. The guy was just plain quiet and said as few words as possible. Even when he declined to run for president again he didn't even say. He just wrote something to the effect of "I'm not running again" on some scraps of paper, handed them to some reporters, and went home without saying a single word to them. As non-social as he was he generally ate dinner at dinner parties and gatherings. When asked why a quiet guy would eat at big gatherings so often he just replied "have to eat somewhere." This last bit my be apocryphal but apparently at one particular party a young woman followed him around and chattered at him for most of the meal. Coolidge, being Silent Cal, didn't talk to her at all. Eventually she said "you know I bet a friend of mine that I could get you to say three words to me." He looked at her, said "you lose," and never spoke to anybody else the entire evening.
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Jan 30, 2016 21:32
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System Metternich posted:The last woman to be (legally) executed as a witch was Anna Göldi from Sennwald, Switzerland. Göldi had worked as a maidservant for Johann Jakob Tschudi, one of the richest and most powerful men in Glarus. After being accused of literally spitting nails and conjuring even more nails into the milk of one of Tschudi's daughters, she finally confessed to conspiring with the Devil under torture and was sentenced to death by the sword, a sentence which was carried out immediately. Her trial and death were regarded as scandalous by people all over Europe even at the time, though, which was probably the reason why the reason for her sentence was changed to "poisoning" in the official documents. Later historians discovered that Göldi probably had had an affair with Tschudi who wanted to remove all evidence of his infidelity. The last witch trial took place in 1944. During a seance Helen Duncan spoke with a deceased sailor from HMS Barham and revealed that the ship had been sunk in the Mediterranean, although the War Office did not officially release this fact until several months later. Fearing that Duncan might reveal more the government arrested her and sentenced her to nine months in prison. The Witchcraft Acts wasn't repealed until 1951.Which didn't stop the police from raiding Duncan's apartment in 1956, this time trying to arrest her for fraud. Five weeks later she died.
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Jan 30, 2016 21:43
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goose fleet posted:Ever wondered what Calvin Coolidge sounded like? This is the first recording (with video) of an American president: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5puwTrLRhmw This is Bismarck and Helmuth von Moltke, talking into the new weird thing that Edison invented. They're kind of self-conscious, like old men making their first selfie. Link at the bottom of this article: http://io9.gizmodo.com/5881146/the-only-known-recording-of-otto-von-bismarcks-voice-has-been-discovered Here's some background, etc. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/science/bismarcks-voice-among-restored-edison-recordings.html Von Moltke was 89--born in 1800 and talking into a phonograph horn and now you can hear him on the Internet.
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Jan 30, 2016 21:45
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Alhazred posted:The last witch trial took place in 1944. During a seance Helen Duncan spoke with a deceased sailor from HMS Barham and revealed that the ship had been sunk in the Mediterranean, although the War Office did not officially release this fact until several months later. Fearing that Duncan might reveal more the government arrested her and sentenced her to nine months in prison. The Witchcraft Acts wasn't repealed until 1951.Which didn't stop the police from raiding Duncan's apartment in 1956, this time trying to arrest her for fraud. Five weeks later she died. The Witchcraft Acts only made it illegal for any person to claim to possess magical powers, though, and the Navy was only interested in who could have leaked that information to her. WIkipedia posted:During World War II, in November 1941, Duncan held a séance in Portsmouth at which she claimed the spirit materialization of a sailor told her HMS Barham had been sunk.[9] Because the sinking of HMS Barham was revealed, in strict confidence, only to the relatives of casualties, and not announced to the public until late January 1942, the Navy started to take an interest in her activities. Two Lieutenants were among her audience at a séance on 14 January 1944. One of these was a Lieutenant Worth who was not impressed as a white cloth figure had appeared behind the curtains claiming to be his aunt but he had no deceased aunt. In the same sitting another figure appeared claiming to be his sister but Worth replied his sister was alive and well.[9] Worth was disgusted by the séance and reported it to the police. This was followed up on 19 January, when undercover policemen arrested her at another séance as a white-shrouded manifestation appeared.[20] This proved to be Duncan herself, in a white cloth which she attempted to conceal when discovered, and she was arrested. 
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Jan 30, 2016 21:54
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Man, that awkward feeling when a Ghost claims to be a dead aunt you didn't know you had. Looks like one of your grandparents has a bit of dirty laundry...
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Jan 30, 2016 22:59
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Haha I seriously would've loved to have seen how the "dead aunt" reacted when he was like "I don't have one". I'm hoping it just awkwardly stood there for the rest of the session.
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Jan 31, 2016 00:18
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So what tipped him off was that he didn't have a dead aunt or a dead sister rather than there is no such thing as ghosts and it was a real human person under a white bed sheet?
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Jan 31, 2016 00:22
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Aesop Poprock posted:Haha I seriously would've loved to have seen how the "dead aunt" reacted when he was like "I don't have one". I'm hoping it just awkwardly stood there for the rest of the session. This isn't the schadenfreude thread but oh boy do I have you covered.
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Jan 31, 2016 00:22
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