Good old times!

Just read about the ultimate French assassination: the killing of French socialist leader Jean Jaurès by Raoul Villain in the cafe Croissant in Paris. It doesn't get more French than that...

Benito Mussolini being arrested after a rally to intervene in WW1 in 1915.

Reading Dominion by Tom Holland and came across this anecdote: "a peasant, only a hundred miles from Cambrai, had dreamed that a swarm of bees entered his anus, and revealed to him the iniquities of the clergy." The 1000's were a wild time...

In preparation for Sail 2025 the Argentinian tall ship Ara Libertad visits Amsterdam

Hiroshima A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb. Survivors wonder why they lived when so many others died.

As its eighty years ago today the first atomic bomb was used on Hiroshima here's a link to one of the best magazine articles of the twentieth century: www.newyorker.com/magazine/194...

In Charles V and Maria Theresa, countless dullards and not a few imbeciles and lunatics."

Kaplan quoting dame Rebecca West on the Habsburgs: this family, from the unlucky day in 2273 when the College of electors chose Rudolph of Habsburg to be king of the Romans, on account of his mediocrity, till the abdication of Charles II, in 1918, produced no genius, only two rulers of ability ⬇️

In the Netherlands the version of Dutch spoken around Haarlem is designated standard Dutch. If you speak that accent it's considered as having no accent. Thats the accent mostly used on television and radio.

Started reading this travelogue, which is quite dated as it was written based on travels before the Yugoslav war, but I think interesting nonetheless. Allegedly Bill Clinton read it and used it as an excuse not to intervene as his takeaway was that all the ethnic groups hated each other..

A bottle of French table wine labeled “Joint Operations Centre – Catering Ops Site,” featuring the NATO emblem. Photographed inside the former NATO bunker complex near Maastricht, carved into a limestone cave system.

Visited the former NATO headquarters carved into the caves near Maastricht. Apparently they had their own house wine. Hard to say if this bottle was for the officers or the enlisted ranks — the complex had separate bars for both.

#wine
#coldwarhistory

Loved the #anselmkiefer exhibition in the Van Gogh & Stedelijk!

Don't think this is going to work. It'll just confuse people...

Otto English on British food: "You might have a roast on Sunday but the vegetables would be prepared in much the same way that Vesuvius 'prepared' the people of Pompeii in 79 CE"
#OttoEnglish
#Blueskyhistory

He didn't need much convincing!

There’s a cruel poetry to finding the remains of a failed escape in a house decorated with a fresco of... a failed escape.

Love that Otto English uses the word episcopicide for the murder of a bishop in his book. According to the OED it's been obsolete and the last recorded use was in 1700. Good on him to bring it back. Thomas Becket would approve!
#ThomasBecket #HistoryNerd #ObsoleteWords #HistorySky

According to John Julius Norwich, Boniface—still cardinal Caetano at the time—had a hidden speaking tube installed leading to Celestine’s chamber, which he used to urge the reluctant pope to abdicate, allegedly by impersonating the voice of God.

Which should come as no surprise since Churchill had described Indians as a"beastly people with a beastly religion".

Just started this promising read. First chapter is on Winston Churchil and contains his thoughts on Gandhi: a "malignant and subversive fanatic" whom he wished to be "trampled by an enormous elephant"

According to Herodotus: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Nowadays the unofficial motto of the US postal service..

Just read about the 2500 year old Achaemenid messaging system.
2,700 km in 9 days, thanks to a relay of horse-riding couriers.
Faster than the Romans. Not truly surpassed until... the 19th-century telegraph.

#history

And still going strong!

Contemporary portrait of one of the parties in this 1336 charter. LFC Ch XI 19.

Is Namibia a winedrinking nation and why is the Netherlands so high on the list? Because of re-exporting?

Just found out Pakistan is an acronym 🤯, per wikipedia: The name Pakistan was coined by Choudhry Rahmat Ali, in 1933 as an acronym. He explained: "It is composed of letters taken from the names of all our homelands... Panjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and BaluchiSTAN."
#trivia #history

I meant the one with the small dog in it, I think that's a depiction of the bal des ardents, although it suits this story too!

Isn't the image of the burning people a depiction of the bal des Ardents?

Is there an option to choose the Pictish nation?

Elon Musk Wants What He Can’t Have: Wikipedia Musk and other right-wing tech figures have been on a campaign to delegitimize the digital encyclopedia. What happens if they succeed?

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...