System Metternich posted:

Ah, the joys of a simple Georgian/early Victorian English kitchen: Good conversations, good ale, the children are playing, the fire is roaring in the chimney and a small dog is running in a large wheel affixed to the wall. Wait, what?

Meet the “turnspit dog“ (canis vertigus or “dizzy dog“) or “vernepator cur“, a now extinct breed of dogs that nevertheless was a staple of large English kitchens throughout the early modern era. You've probably all seen or read the cliche image of a medieval scullion slowly turning a large piece of meat over an open fire as to prepare it for the feast. Well, this was dull and repetitive work and probably not very popular with whoever had to do it, so the 16th century (the dogs were first mentioned in 1576 as “turnespetes“, but they may well have been employed first at an even earlier date) saw an innovation that would revolutionise the kitchen: a dog, running in a wheel and thereby turning the meat - well, not automatically, but close enough. The wheels were put far away from the fire as for the dogs not to overheat, and they would also work in shifts - turning spits all day was exhausting, and so most every kitchen would keep at least two turnspits to relieve each other. Extant sources of the time even tell us that the dogs would know when their time was up and would leave their wheel as if on cue for the other one to take over. They also doubled as foot warmers, and there's the nice anecdote of the Bishop of Gloucester once giving a sermon in Bath and saying "It was then that Ezekiel saw the wheel...", when a couple of foot-warming turnspits among the audience would hear the last word and immediately run for the door, although I cannot say whether they wanted to jump into the wheel right away or tried to get the gently caress out of Dodge instead.

The usage of turnspit dogs wasn't limited to the UK, though; we know of several large kitchens in the US where they were employed as well. Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia Gazette had advertisements for both dogs and wheels, and their bad treatment by NYC hotel owners in the 19th century was one of the main reasons for the formation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The advent of automated roast spit turners, so-called “clock jacks“ or “roasting jacks“ in the 19th century would eventually lead to the breed's disappearance. By 1750 they were ubiquitous, by 1850 only poor people still had them and by 1900 they were effectively extinct, although Queen Victoria would adopt unemployed turnspits as pets.



The short-legged breed died out that quickly because most people saw them as nothing more than tools, and many sources take note of how ugly they were and that they tended to have a “morose disposition“ as well. You can be the judge of that - above you can see “Whiskey“, the only taxidermied example of a turnspit dog in existence, displayed at the Abergavenny Museum in Wales. It's not the best example of taxidermy, either. Personally I think it looks cute.

I'm no expert in dogs, so I'll have to rely on the experts who tell me that the turnspit was either a kind of Glen of Imaal Terrier or Welsh Corgi, so it may well be that the closest living relatives of the lowly wheel-running dog now are the Queen's favourite pet.

Powaqoatse posted:

Any of you know if this refers to a specific fairy tale or fable or something?

Looks like a knight with a tail riding a swan(?)

e: oh poo poo, he has hoofs too. Is he a faun or the devil?

Alhazred posted:

A roman jeweler sold false jewels to the emperor Galienus' wife Salonina he sentenced the jeweler to be eaten by lions in the arena. The jeweler was forced into the arena where he heard the lions roaring and then the doors was opened.....and out came a tiny chicken. Galienus then proclaimed “He practiced deceit, and has had it practiced on him” and let the jeweler go.

duckmaster posted:

https://archive.org/details/EDIS-SWDPC-01-04

Just a recording of a bugle call.

In 1890.

By a survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade.

And the bugle was used at Waterloo, obviously.

System Metternich posted:

Au contraire, I just learned about the Ain Sakhri Lovers, an 11,000 years old sculpture found in what is today Palestine, that, depending on the viewer's perspective, looks either like a couple having sex, tits, a cock or a vulva which imo is not only really cool but also loving hilarious.

A photo of its front:


And here is a drawing of all possible appearances:

quote:

In the beginning he executed many portraits from life with that glowing manner of coloring which he had brought from Lombardy, and he thus made many friendships in Siena, more because that people is very kindly disposed towards strangers [foreigners] than because he was a good painter; and, besides this, he was a gay and licentious man, keeping others entertained and amused with his manner of living, which was far from creditable. In which life, since he always had about him boys and beardless youths, whom he loved more than was decent, he acquired the by-name of Sodoma; and in this name, far from taking umbrage or offence, he used to glory, writing about it songs and verses in terza rima, and singing them to the lute with no little facility. He delighted, in addition, to have about the house many kinds of extraordinary animals; badgers, squirrels, apes, marmosets, dwarf asses, horses, barbs for running races, little horses from Elba, jays, dwarf fowls, Indian turtledoves, and other suchlike animals, as many as he could lay his hands on. But, besides all these beasts, he had a raven, which had learned from him to speak so well, that in some things it imitated exactly the voice of Giovanni Antonio, and particularly in answering to anyone who knocked at the door, doing this so excellently that it seemed like Giovanni Antonio himself, as all the people of Siena know very well. In like manner, the other animals were so tame that they always flocked round anybody in the house, playing the strangest pranks and the maddest tricks in the world, insomuch that the man's house looked like a real Noah's Ark.

System Metternich posted:

Today I learned about the Marquis de Morès, a French aristocrat, cowboy, frontier ranchman, duelist, politician and arguably the world's first national socialist.

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

One time one of my friends (who was born in Glasgow but she was brought to Ontario around maybe age 9, I think) showed me a video, drunk and out of context, of an also-drunk incoherent shouting white man and asked what language I thought he was speaking.

My answer, as someone who has studied enough russian to ask for a bathroom and not much else, was something like "um, not russian but slavic, maybe he's polish or czech?"

He was a scot and Glasgow native, screaming in scots/english/whatever

Khazar-khum posted:

They probably kept every dress they ever owned. In 1916 it wasn't unusual for a lady of what we would call upper middle class to change her dress several times a day, depending on her activities. Some of the trims mentioned are very expensive, so again it wasn't unusual to salvage what they could from an old dress to add to a new one. My French-Canadian great-aunts used to do this, as well as saving every button they could from old or worn clothes. Buttons and trim could, and often still do, easily cost more than the fabric used for the clothes which they adorned.

Sweevo posted:

Samuel Pepys diary is about 5% stuff that seems completely alien from a 21st century perspective and 95% the daily writings of a guy in his 20s talking about how he stayed up late drinking with his friends, or bragging about how his mistress gave him a handjob in the theatre.

Zopotantor posted:

You can build ships out of concrete. There's an old one beached at Aptos (near Santa Cruz), CA.

Alhazred posted:

I think "fretting" is a huge understatement. The so called Kensington System that Victoria had to abide was completely stifling:
She could never be alone and had to sleep in her mother's room.
She could not walk down a stair without holding someone's hand.
She could not under any circumstances dance the waltz.
Her daily activities and behavior was recorded in pen and ink.

Tellingly the first thing Victoria did on her 18th birthday was to burn the Kensington System to the ground.

Azhais posted:

Or in other words she would not have been amused?

System Metternich posted:

Louis Bourdaloue (1632-1704) was the son of a lawyer famed for his skill in rhetorics. At the early age of 15, Louis entered the Jesuit order with the goal to follow in his father's footsteps and excel at rhetorics. He soon attained a reputation for his excellent homilies, and from 1669 on he regularly held Mass and preached at the court of King Louis XIV. His homilies were both so interesting and downright riveting that all the court flocked to his services to listen to him, bent on not missing even a single word - and his homilies also were long. So, what's a noblewoman to do when she is sitting in church listening intently to her favourite preacher, when suddenly nature calls?

Why, she takes a sauciere with her and just lets go, of course! Some smart craftsmen soon realised that money was to be made there and started producing a slightly differently shaped sauciere which was easier to piss into, calling it the "Bourdalou"


Bourdalou female urinal made from leather at the Wellcome Collection. France, 18th century

And if you ever wondered what an 18th century French noblewoman pissing into a small pot looks like, then Louis XV's official court painter François Boucher has got you covered:


"The intimate Toilette" or "A woman who pees", mid-18th century

Nucken Futz posted:

From my understanding, québécois french is closer to old timey french cuz it was sorta isolated from the classic frenglais which had of course "evolved" over time even though they deny it..

Source: married to a québécois.

Remulak posted:

In late with my Nero neck beard shot:

quote:

“Because the Irish language is as familiar to me as English, for I have always spoken it in my family, and introduce it among my grandchildren as much as I can, I have been chosen by our lord and king to teach and accustom the four Irish kings, who have sworn obedience for ever to England, to the manners of the English. I must say, that these kings who were under my management were of coarse manners and understandings; and, in spite of all I could do to soften their language and nature, very little progress has been made, for the would frequently return to their former coarse behaviour.

“I will more particularly relate the charge that was given me over them, and how I 580 managed it. The king of England intended these four kings should adopt the manners, appearance, and dress of the English, for he wanted to create them knights. He have them first a very handsome house in the city of Dublin for themselves and attendants, where I was ordered to resided with them, and never to leave the house without an absolute necessity. I lived with them for three or four days without any way interfering, that we might become accustomed to each other, and I allowed them to act just as they pleased. I observed, that as they sat at table, they made grimaces, that did not seem to me graceful nor becoming, and I resolved in my own mind to make them drop that custom. When these kings were seated at table, and the first dish was served, they would make their minstrels and principal servants sit beside them, and eat from their plates and drink from their cups. They told me, this was a praiseworthy custom of their country, where everything was in common but the bed. I permitted this to be done for three days; but on the fourth I ordered the tables to be laid out and covered properly, placing the four kings at an upper table, the minstrels at another below, and the servants lower still. They looked at each other, and refused to eat, saying I had deprived them of their old custom in which they had been brought up. I replied with a smile, to appease them, that their custom was not decent nor suitable to their rank, nor would it be honourable for them to continue it; for that now they should conform to the manners of the English, and to instruct them in these particulars was the motive of my residence with them, having been so ordered by the king of England and his council. When they heard this they made no further opposition to whatever I proposed, from having themselves under the obedience of England, and continued good-humouredly to persevere in it as long as I staid with them.

“They had another custom I knew to be common in the country, which was the not wearing breeches. I had, in consequence, plenty of breeches made of linen and cloth, which I gave to the kings and their attendants, and accustomed them to wear them. I took away many rude articles, as well in their dress as other things, and had great difficulty at the first to induce them to wear robes of silken cloth, trimmed with squirrel-skin or minever, for the kings only wrapped themselves up in an Irish cloak. In riding, they neither used saddles nor stirrups, and I had some trouble to make them conform in this respect to the English manners.

Red Bones posted:

The circumstances of the Norman invasion of Ireland are kind of farcical. A regional Irish king hired a bunch of Norman mercenaries to assist him in a succession dispute, and then the noble died during the fighting and the Normans were finding it so easy to conquer Irish territory that they just kept on going with it. Then the English king joined the invasion because the Norman mercenaries were technically his subjects, and he didn't want them to establish their own fiefdoms outside of his control. The rest is (bloody, miserable, colonial) history.

Sucrose posted:

Interesting. About what year was this?

BasicLich posted:

this individual was 10 years old during the Jack the Ripper murders and Slavery was banned in Brazil

He was 11 when the Eiffel Tower was completed, when Van Gogh painted Starry Night and when Aspirin was patented.

He was 12 during the Wounded Knee Massacre, the first Electric Chair Execution, The invention of the cardboard box, when Kaiser Wilhelm II dismissed Otto Von Bismarck

He was 14 when Basketball was invented, when the Nutcracker Suite premiered in St. Petersburg

Alhazred posted:

Another polar fact: Scott actually helped prove that the continental drift theory was correct. He found fossils of the glossopteris trees that showed that Antarctica was once joined with other continents. Unfortunately for him, carrying big rocks in his backpack didn't exactly improve his chances of survival.

With polar ship it was more about how it was constructed, rather than what material they used. If a ship got caught in the ice it would be crushed, even if was made of wood. Nansen contructed a ship that was designed to be pushed up instead of down for one of his expeditions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fram_(ship)

Alhazred posted:

Alhazred posted:

Nansen helped hundred of thousands of refugees and saved Norway from a famine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fridtjof_Nansen#Statesman_and_humanitarian
I don't think one dead fox is enough to tip the scales in his disfavor.

Philippe posted:

Is there a possibility for him to get beatified by the Catholic Church, you think?

Wikipedia posted:

As an example of his benevolence of character may be mentioned his rushing off to the sickbed of Rouget de Lisle, the author of the Marseillaise Hymn, modelling and carving him in marble without delay, making a lottery of the work, and sending to the poet in the extremity of need the proceeds.

Philippe posted:

No chance for a St. Anger, then.

Bummer.