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El Estrago Bonito posted:In the ~200 years between Ptolemy and his descendant Cleopatra VII (ie the one you know about) there are about 30 people in the family tree. Not 30 people added to the family tree, not 30 branches of the family tree, not 30 people descended who were alive at the same time as Cleopatra, 30 people total. Spot the guy who hosed his cousin, who was also his half-sister, and they also only have two grandparents between them.
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Mar 22, 2016 16:07
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:I always found it was weird that nobility never saw the connection that their family had all these weird problems from inbreeding that the common people didn't have. "Hm, yes, obviously, I mean we gently caress our extended families and have fame, fortune and power. They don't always gently caress their extended families and have neither. Clearly, we must be doing something wrong."
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Mar 22, 2016 16:15
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Well, Consider that Charles II, despite the fact that he was genetic loving mess, ruled over the most European landmass held by a European monarch since Roman Empire, you can see the motivations behind all the niece/1st cousin loving. Unfortunately, that empire built on incest fell apart pretty quickly and led directly to the downfall of both Spain and Austria, but  .
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Mar 22, 2016 16:23
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:I always found it was weird that nobility never saw the connection that their family had all these weird problems from inbreeding that the common people didn't have. Well there probably was a higher rate of people being disfigured by disease such as being pockmarked, deformities we can cure today and the lower classes suffering debilitating injuries from hard physical labor and no medical treatment. I mean in a world with no dentists people are bound to be more accepting of physical "quirks".
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Mar 22, 2016 16:31
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xthetenth posted:The last outbreeding in his family tree was a century before his birth. Weren't his parents less genetically dissimilar than siblings, even if they weren't actually siblings themselves? Charles II was just a total shitshow.
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Mar 22, 2016 16:32
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:I always found it was weird that nobility never saw the connection that their family had all these weird problems from inbreeding that the common people didn't have. The common people were pretty inbred too. There's one story from 1750 in Norway where a guy was going to get married. He had never seen the bride before and on the day of the marriage he saw that she suffered from Huntington's disease and straight up ran away. And in 1820 a local priest had to have a sermon about not loving your brother or sister.
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Mar 22, 2016 17:18
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YeahTubaMike posted:Weren't his parents less genetically dissimilar than siblings, even if they weren't actually siblings themselves? Charles II was just a total shitshow. I believe it was that he was more genetically inbred by the crazy family tree than if he was the direct descendant of a pair of siblings.
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Mar 22, 2016 18:13
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This woman could have married Napoleon, but then married one of his friends and became the Queen of Sweden instead.
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Mar 22, 2016 19:34
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jyrka posted:Here's a fact: Ivan the Terrible is a mistranslation, a more accurate name would be Ivan the Magnificent or Ivan the Great. pedant wasteland...
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Mar 22, 2016 21:25
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I have to make a correction. I said that the House of Medici included the most popes for a family (four). I was wrong. The Counts of Tusculum produced six popes and one antipope. The Wikipedia family tree is incomplete for some reason (Benedict VII, nephew of Alberic II, is not included). 
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Mar 22, 2016 21:40
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drat dude I can't believe they forgot Benedict VII, nephew of Alberic II.
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Mar 22, 2016 22:20
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Alberic II had an uncle, a cousin, a nephew and a son who all became popes. Dude probably wondered what he was doing wrong e: wait no, Sergius III wasn't actually his uncle but just someone his mom banged on the side? Then John XI wasn't his cousin but his half-brother instead, even better System Metternich has a new favorite as of 23:21 on Mar 22, 2016 |
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Mar 22, 2016 23:18
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:I always found it was weird that nobility never saw the connection that their family had all these weird problems from inbreeding that the common people didn't have. Clearly, having a face like a sack of elbows and constantly drooling on yourself is to be considered a mark of nobility/divinity.
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Mar 23, 2016 00:43
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If anyone is interested in fun world war 1 facts, you should check out the youtube channel The Great War.
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Mar 23, 2016 00:44
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Say Nothing posted:Clearly, having a face like a sack of elbows and constantly drooling on yourself is to be considered a mark of nobility/divinity. Epilepsy, and the associated seizures were known as the "divine disease," so this is probably closer to right than wrong.
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Mar 23, 2016 00:53
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This is cool thread, still working through it so I'm not sure if this has been posted but I think it's pretty neat. I just read this cool story from back in the mid 1800s when Japan was a closed country and nobody was allowed to leave the country. A couple of sailors from Japan were making a simple rice delivery when they were blown off course by a typhoon. Their boat was damaged too much to be turned around so they drifted across the pacific ocean. They ended up on the west coast of what is now Washington state, where they were taken as slaves by the natives. After a while the people in Fort Vancouver found out about this and picked them up. They stayed there for a while until some Hudson's Bay Company folks realized they were Japanese thought these guys could possibly make for a negotiating piece in attempts to open Japan. They were then sent to London whereby the government was pretty displeased about the whole situation, having never been asked if they wanted to receive the castaways in the first place. They were sent to Macau for a while before an American businessman showed up and tried to sail them into Japan for the negotiation thing again, Americans really wanted to open Japan at this time. The Japanese fired cannons at them until they gave up. As said before, the country was closed and even leaving accidentally was punished with banishment.  From there everybody kind of dispersed, but there was one guy, Otokichi, who stayed on the records a bit longer. He had a good deal of success working as a sailor and translator for various parties in the area. He returned to Japan a few times, to negotiate trades and do other stuff, though he had to pretend to be a Chinese man who learned Japanese from a trader. Fully settled as a successful individual, he married a British woman (and later, Malay one) and changed his name to John Ottoson, a play on his nickname "Oto-san". He once again went back to Japan and (allegedly) played an instrumental role in negotiating the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty(itself a funny story, where the British sailed in trying to make sure the Japanese were still neutral and sort of accidentally opened trade relations). After that was done the country was no longer closed; Ottoson met a couple of cool Japanese people and was offered a chance to return to his home country. He refused, became a British citizen, went back to live with his family in Shanghai and later Singapore and died a rich man. TL;DR through a series of mishaps and miscommunications, some rural Japanese kid from the 1800s accidentally circumnavigates the globe and plays a significant role in some historical events. E: added images Jump King has a new favorite as of 16:10 on Mar 23, 2016 |
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Mar 23, 2016 03:51
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System Metternich posted:Alberic II had an uncle, a cousin, a nephew and a son who all became popes. Dude probably wondered what he was doing wrong Marozia was the alleged mistress of Sergius III, and supposedly of Pope John X. She controlled the Papacy during a period later known as the Pornocracy.
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Mar 23, 2016 07:51
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:I always found it was weird that nobility never saw the connection that their family had all these weird problems from inbreeding that the common people didn't have. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and with a protruding lower jaw, and isn't it supposed to be mostly an oval? This looks like a bell. Also the one eye doesn't seem to open right.
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Mar 23, 2016 17:24
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Aphrodite posted:Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and with a protruding lower jaw, and isn't it supposed to be mostly an oval? This looks like a bell. Also the one eye doesn't seem to open right. My favorite thing about this portrait is when you realize this is the best that dude ever looked. You just know the artist tried his damnedest to make the guy look decent, and that's the best he could do.
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Mar 23, 2016 17:46
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porkswordonboard posted:My favorite thing about this portrait is when you realize this is the best that dude ever looked. You just know the artist tried his damnedest to make the guy look decent, and that's the best he could do. Speaking of which, are they any cases on record of royalty being insulted enough by a comissioned artists rendition of them that they had the artist punished for it?
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Mar 23, 2016 17:51
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porkswordonboard posted:My favorite thing about this portrait is when you realize this is the best that dude ever looked. You just know the artist tried his damnedest to make the guy look decent, and that's the best he could do. It makes you wonder just how guys like this looked for real, without being captured through the lens of a painter who's dedicated to keeping his job by making the subject look nice. Like if Charles II looks so obviously gnarly even in the best portraits ever done of him, how disfigured was he really?
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Mar 23, 2016 19:25
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I just realized that Charles II's first wife, Marie Louise of Orleans... was also a descendant of Joanna and Phillip I of Castile. Her great grandparents on her father's side were Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria, making her and Charles II first cousins once removed. E: At least the family was up-front about their problems. His monogram is basically the biohazard symbol. Nth Doctor has a new favorite as of 19:51 on Mar 23, 2016 |
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Mar 23, 2016 19:32
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chitoryu12 posted:It makes you wonder just how guys like this looked for real, without being captured through the lens of a painter who's dedicated to keeping his job by making the subject look nice. Like if Charles II looks so obviously gnarly even in the best portraits ever done of him, how disfigured was he really? You should apply for a grant and a permit from the Spanish government to exhume his body and find out.
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Mar 23, 2016 21:02
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Jaramin posted:You should apply for a grant and a permit from the Spanish government to exhume his body and find out. Out of curiosity, I looked it up. He's buried in the Pantheon of Kings in the Royal Crypt of the Monastery of El Escorial, a popular tourist attraction near Madrid.
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Mar 23, 2016 21:41
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There's a good (but fairly weird) book by Mexican author Carlos Fuentes called Terra Nostra, which features Spanish King Phillip II as a major character, and deals with the construction of El Escorial. Towards the end of the book he has a vision of his descendants decline into decadence and inbreeding, the vision ends with him seeing a disfigured and retarded Charles II and having an "oh gently caress" moment.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:35
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The really interesting thing about Charles II's family (he was a Habsburg, by the way...or Hapsburg, depending on who you ask) is that the "Hapsburg Lip" that his jaw showed was considered a sign of the family. It was however the result of many generations of inbreeding. Nobody else really had it but it was a very pronounced underbite as well as a deformity of the jaw. Charles II wasn't even able to chew his food his was so bad. When he died the doctor that examined his corpse was all like "what the everloving gently caress? How was this guy even alive?" he was so hosed up. You can actually Google it and find pictures of other Hapsburgs that had the same poo poo going on just not quite as severely. It was considered a mark of pride to have that jaw line despite the difficulties it caused. This is also possibly why it is so pronounced in Charles II's portraits; you could look at the guy and say "yup, Hapsburg" based on the jaw line alone. The Hapsburgs were also around for like 500 years and controlled almost every title that was "Emperor" or "King" in Europe at one point or another. The house ended up becoming absurdly powerful but wanted to maintain that so they tried to...uh...keep it in the family... in more ways than one. In the short term their political marriages dramatically increased, and then maintained, their wealth and influence but then ultimately ruined them as they began to produce seriously inbred idiot kings.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:39
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Mar 23, 2016 22:46
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So much for symmetry = beauty.
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Mar 23, 2016 23:12
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 This is the London Stone. The poor lighting and thick cage make it hard to see easily and if you do get a good look it's not all that impressive. It's got a very drab colouration, it's not big and it seems to have a very average shape. It's an important rock though. There's records of it dating back to the 1100s. It was landmark throughout the middle ages and is referenced in a number of historical documents, so we know people have cared about it for a while. It can definitely be seen on the first map of London for example and was said to be bolted to the ground, presumably so it wasn't stolen.  (I went through a lot of trouble to find this fucker, but here it is on the copperplate map) A rebel army once entered London and the leader slapped his sword on the stone, proclaiming himself to be the lord of the city. That wasn't a particular tradition or anything, just a symbol of their success that he was able to reach the London stone. At some point it became a tourist attraction in it's own right, one of the things to see in London, people felt it was a bit inconvenient though, so they moved what was left of it to around to keep it secure and out of the way. Oh yeah, it was apparently broken at some point, but we're not sure when or how and we know it wasn't that big to begin with. It stayed on the walls of a church for a while, even surviving the blitz when the church didn't. It continues to be shuffled around from building to building as they are demolished or redeveloped over the years. Most recently, it was stuck behind some newsstands and not easily accessible, though this month plans were finalized to once again demolish the building the stone is in and move it somewhere else, probably to the museum of London. So why was the stone so important?  There are a bunch of theories, but it's all guesswork really. A lot of people think it has something to do with the Romans, or maybe the native Celts. I think at one point there was a theory that it had been brought in from continental europe but geologic analysis proved it was just a typical stone of the region. Even the earliest reports of it from hundreds of years ago are like "nobody really remembers the significance of the stone"TL;DR there's a boring old stone in London and it's important enough to preserve but nobody knows why. Jump King has a new favorite as of 23:33 on Mar 23, 2016 |
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Mar 23, 2016 23:14
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The really great thing about that stone is that "people have records of this fucker for 1,000 years" is suddenly more than enough reason to keep track of it. It's just plain neat to see something that has that much history behind it even it's just a boring ol' rock.
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Mar 24, 2016 01:23
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The man who described the Douglas Fir (a common conifer in the Pacific Northwest) was a Scott by the name of David Douglas. He explored all along the Pacific Northwest coast, unimaginatively naming plants after various parts of Scotland, himself, and his wife. He died in Hawaii in 1834, when he fell into a pit trap that was dug to capture an escaped bull. Unfortunately, the said bull fell into the trap about thirty minutes after him, directly on top of the poor guy. A marker was placed there in 1856, and eventually, someone planted some Douglas Firs there in the late 19th century.
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Mar 24, 2016 01:55
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A White Guy posted:The man who described the Douglas Fir (a common conifer in the Pacific Northwest) was a Scott by the name of David Douglas. He explored all along the Pacific Northwest coast, unimaginatively naming plants after various parts of Scotland, himself, and his wife. He died in Hawaii in 1834, when he fell into a pit trap that was dug to capture an escaped bull. Unfortunately, the said bull fell into the trap about thirty minutes after him, directly on top of the poor guy. A marker was placed there in 1856, and eventually, someone planted some Douglas Firs there in the late 19th century. This reminds me of when James Christy discovered Pluto's moon, Charon. Generally if you discover something you have a decent shot at naming it, but the naming scheme for space objects is a little strict. In the case of planets and their moons, you usually named things after Roman or Greek myths. Pluto was named after the Roman version of Hades, so the only accepted name would be a figure associated with Hades. The lead choice among the other Scientists was Persephone, the wife of Hades. Not wanting Hades to have all the fun, Christy tried to name the moon after his wife, Char. Apparently disregarding the naming conventions, he proposed the name Charon as a more sciency sounding version. Completely unbeknownst to Christy, Charon was actually the name of a figure in Greek myth. Charon was the ferryman of the river styx. The other scientists thought it was a good enough choice and the name stuck. As a bit of an astronomical injoke, the name is pronounce with a soft c (sharon) rather than a hard c like the Greeks would have used (Karon) Jump King has a new favorite as of 02:30 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 02:22
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The really great thing about that stone is that "people have records of this fucker for 1,000 years" is suddenly more than enough reason to keep track of it. It's just plain neat to see something that has that much history behind it even it's just a boring ol' rock. Absolutely. It says a lot about the value of history that some average rock is notable just because we've kept it around so long. It makes sense now, but you really have to wonder what was originally so important though. The first mayor of London was even named after the thing, some people maybe thought it was the other way around, but nope, records of the stone go even earlier than that guy. The stone is eternal. E: whoops, didn't mean to double post
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Mar 24, 2016 02:47
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ToxicSlurpee posted:When he died the doctor that examined his corpse was all like "what the everloving gently caress? How was this guy even alive?" he was so hosed up. quote:The physician who practiced his autopsy stated that his body "did not contain a single drop of blood; his heart was the size of a peppercorn; his lungs corroded; his intestines rotten and gangrenous; he had a single testicle, black as coal, and his head was full of water."
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Mar 24, 2016 02:53
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How come you never see that stone in any tourist material. "Come to London, we have a stone that's pretty old.". I mean London was founded around the year 43 so it's a pretty recent stone compared to the city itself and you've got to wonder what the stone was doing for the first thousand or so years of London being London.
FreudianSlippers has a new favorite as of 05:04 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 05:01
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As far as artifacts go, I've always wondered what happened to the Alter of Victory. It was captured in the Pyrrhic War, placed in the Senate by Augustus once he became the undisputed leader of the
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Mar 24, 2016 22:27
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It's not impossible that it might show up. They just rediscovered a rune stone that had been missing for over 200 years (some long-dead farmer used it to build steps for his front door). Google Translate link to the press release: https://translate.google.com/transl...200-aar-1345612
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Mar 24, 2016 22:51
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Marco Polo saw a rhino in Sumatra and thought it was a unicorn.quote:They have hair like that of a buffalo, feet like those of an elephant, and a horn in the middle of the forehead, which is black and very thick. They do no mischief, however, with the horn, but with the tongue alone; for this is covered all over with long and strong prickles [and when savage with any one they crush him under their knees and then rasp him with their tongue]. The head resembles that of a wild boar, and they carry it ever bent towards the ground. They delight much to abide in mire and mud. 'Tis a passing ugly beast to look upon, and is not in the least like that which our stories tell of as being caught in the lap of a virgin; in fact, 'tis altogether different from what we fancied.
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Mar 26, 2016 17:46
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The first known poet and author was a high priestess named Enheduanna. To make it better her poem is all about how awesome she was. Enheduanna is also one of the earliest women in history whose name is known.
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Mar 26, 2016 20:32
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Nth Doctor posted:I just realized that Charles II's first wife, Marie Louise of Orleans... was also a descendant of Joanna and Phillip I of Castile. Her great grandparents on her father's side were Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria, making her and Charles II first cousins once removed. Marie-Louise was the niece of Louis XIV. She didn't want to go, but naturally had no choice. Her life there was a living Hell. Her French-speaking parrot was strangled, her maids tortured, her every move watched by people who hated her for being French. When there were no children, her life went from bad to worse. She collapsed one day, with stomach pain, giving her love to the king before she passed. She was 26. The French court assumed she'd been poisoned; doctors seem to have claimed 'appendicitis'. Wikipedia sugarcoats her time as queen, but here it is anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Louise_of_Orl%C3%A9ans_(1662%E2%80%931689)
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Mar 29, 2016 09:13
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