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BravestOfTheLamps posted:The Colosseum was inhabited during the Middle Ages. Not only inhabited, but like many ancient structures it was used as a fortress by important families. There are relief panels from the outside bearing the marks of musket balls etc., and it was also used as a manufactory. Along the theme of Ancient Rome, until the fascist period the Tiber would flood every now and again, filling the forum and low areas with silt. Because this built up after the decline of the western empire, many monuments are significantly better preserved at 20 feet above the present (and ancient) ground level. Some arches have been really knocked about by the axle bosses of early medieval carts.
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Nov 11, 2015 23:22
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Angry Salami posted:The royal palace in Hawaii had electric lighting four years before the White House and more than a decade before Buckingham Palace. The Hawaiian king Kalakaua spent a lot of his reign traveling the world - he was the first head of state to circumnavigate the world, and the first foreign leader to meet with a Japanese emperor. On his world tour, he met Thomas Edison and saw a demonstration of electric lightbulbs, and was so impressed he made it a priority to have them installed when the palace was next renovated. One of the earliest country houses in the UK to have electric lighting had regular small ceiling fires due to the high power and poor insulation used in the first systems. The solution was to throw a cushion at the ceiling and thereby put it out.* Similarly, the first Royal Navy ship to have electric lighting was a wooden one, and the lights ran on basically unprotected six hundred volt systems. After a few electric shocks and fires, the system was altered. *I think I read this in a Bill Bryson book, and given his combined tendency to make things up and repeat unsupported any story that makes aristocrats look bad....I dunno.
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Nov 14, 2015 13:12
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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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ToxicSlurpee posted:Yeah malaria isn't all that deadly. There are over 200 million cases a year but it kills less than a million people right now. It's also caused by a parasite rather than a virus so it's easier to treat without vaccines. Given that it's spread by mosquitoes it's also not a horrifyingly virulent death plague like smallpox. And you can treat syphilis with it! Just give your patient malaria, wrap them in blankets and let them heat up to the point of near death. This kills the syph, and then you treat the malaria with G&Ts on the verandah.
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Feb 11, 2016 15:40
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ToxicSlurpee posted:
When Elizabeth died Sir Robert Carey rode from London to Edinburgh over around two days in order to be the first to bring the news, due to a tradition of rewarding messengers even if the message was not unexpected. He probably spent the entire time in the saddle and at a gallop, changing horses at each Royal posthouse, and therefore would almost certainly have worn his arse entirely off.
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Apr 15, 2016 08:29
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ChocNitty posted:Were most ancient battles fought with a beer buzz? I would imagine most soldiers got a good wine buzz before a battle to help give them courage. I wouldnt be surprised if they trained for battle with an alcohol buzz, so they became accustomed to getting the job done while a little toasted. . I was watching a documentary on Hannibal and they mentioned a lybian infantry who were renowned for fighting sober. Alexander slept in for the battle of gaugamela, a battle of which he knew how profoundly important it was, he must have slept in because he got wasted the night before. Probably had to have a few bloody marys to cure his hangover. Everybody in the past up until about 1850 was a little bit drunk all the time. Just enough to make them better at things like empire building.
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Jul 15, 2017 07:53
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Krankenstyle posted:I'm aware. Just wondering if some weird posh assholes were offended by the presence or lack of salt. “The people we don’t like do things differently, and have made themselves look foolish when they visit” is a pretty long lived anecdote.
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Aug 2, 2018 22:49
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Solice Kirsk posted:Probably not. I think they made it up so it didn't sound like they shot a guy in the back of the head while he was eating candy. There is a theory that Russia pushed for a while which said that Rasputin was killed with a British revolver, probably by a British military intelligence agent at the Russian court. Russia (or the Soviet Union, can’t remember the date but it was after 1960-ish) was doing a whole “look at the perfidious British spy interfering in our internal affairs” thing, until somebody mentioned “James Bond” and that people outside Russia rather liked the idea of British spies all over the place.
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Sep 27, 2018 15:50
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Ichabod Sexbeast posted:Convincing new recruits it's an ancient and honourable warrior tradition is probably an ancient and honourable warrior tradition though Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister (1827-1912), was the pioneer of antiseptic surgery. Robert Liston (1794-1847) was the first man to use ether anaesthetic in Europe, and was a famously fast surgeon in a time when speed was the best way to improve survival. The 300% mortality case may be apocryphal, especially as he was apparently rather abrasive, so when asked about his operations he didn’t say much and people just made up stories. He did punch Robert Knox for disrespectful treatment of a body used for dissection, and was a very successful charity surgeon so one can see why people might not have got on with him.
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Jul 23, 2019 09:51
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bunnyofdoom posted:Literally yes! The company which made it, IIRC, had no actual connection with him. They just figured shoving his name on the bottle would make it seem healthier and clean and poo poo and people gobbled it up I’m posting between stops on the Underground so can’t check, but I think performing surgery in an antiseptic environment (Lister’s method involved carbolic acid washes) was called “Listeric surgery” sometimes early on, so the word “Lister” became synonymous with hygiene through chemicals. The burns from carbolic acid on open wounds prompted modern aseptic surgery, where the operating area, surgeons, instruments, and patient are thoroughly cleaned before the first incision.
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Jul 23, 2019 17:59
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Mr. Belpit posted:He was a draftee for which army? Muslims mercenaries in Ireland
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Feb 21, 2021 23:02
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BalloonFish posted:What I'm saying is that provincial coal merchants in 1890s Britain were smarter than the Nazis. On a related note, when the nazis were getting started they added something like 500 on to the start of all the membership card numbers. It does make you look more numerous, but on the other hand I feel people might wonder why the founders were #501 etc. I suppose that’s one of many reasons to purge the early party.
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Jun 7, 2021 09:51
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