LAHI

Welcome to the LAHI site, where history enthusiasts gather. Do you have interesting historical trivia? Send it here!

[heaveninawildflower]

‘Fruit on a Branch, After an Old Painting’ (Edo period).

Artist Unidentified, Japanese (possibly Yamamoto Chikuun (1819-88)).

Woodblock print.

Image and text information courtesy MFA Boston.

[archaeologicalnews]

Headless Body Might Be One of America's 1st Politicians … and Slave Owners

Archaeologists digging in a 400-year-old church in Jamestown, Virginia, have found a headless body that might be that of Sir George Yeardley, one of the first politicians — and slave owners — in the American colonies.

Few people have heard of Yeardley, but he played a key role in America’s history. The Jamestown governor oversaw the House of Burgesses, the first elective governing body in the English colonies.

Scientists still aren’t sure if the headless body is Yeardley’s, but shortly after uncovering the skeleton, they made another finding that could help answer that question. They discovered a handful of teeth, 10 in all, on Sunday (July 22) that fit into a skull previously unearthed in the church.

If DNA from the teeth and skull matches that from Yeardley’s living descendants, then scientists will be able to identify Yeardley’s body. Read more.

[lahionline]

LAHi Presents: Seriously Trivial

A US Navy aircraft carrier, USS Ticonderoga, departed from Subic Bay on December 5, 1965. An attack jet from the carrier carrying the B46 nuclear bomb fell into the sea near Kikai Island, Kagoshima Prefecture in Japan. The bomb, attack jet, and its pilot were never found and remain lost to this day. Sources: "Japan Asks Details On Lost H-Bomb". The Washington Post. May 10, 1989. p. A-35. “H-Bomb Lost at Sea in 65 Off Okinawa, U.S. Admits.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times,  May 9 1989, articles.latimes.com/1989-05-09/news/mn-3000_1_nuclear-weapons-nuclear-reactors-william-m-arkin. "U.S. Confirms '65 Loss of H-Bomb Near Japanese Islands". The Washington Post. Reuters. May 9, 1989. p. A-27.

[lahionline]

LAHi presents: Seriously Trivial Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli once hatched a plan to reverse the current of the river Arno into landlocked Florence from Pisa (which at the time was one of their chief rivals). They planned to do so through a series of canals, redirecting the flow of the river Arno into Florence in order to provide farmers with irrigation and to free Florence from its commercial dependency on Pisa, which used to charge Florentine merchants for the ships that went through it. However, the plan didn’t work out, and eventually the two parted ways. Machiavelli continued on to write “The Prince”, and da Vinci continued to pursue his other endeavours. Sources: Masters, Roger D. Fortune is a river: Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavellis magnificent dream to change the course of Florentine history. Plume, 1999. Bramly, Serge, and Sian Reynolds. Leonardo: the Artist and the Man. Penguin, 1994. Poster by Nic Calilung

[lahionline]

LAHi presents: Seriously Trivial During the Japanese invasion of Joseon Korea in late 1500’s, the Japanese soldiers killed Korean civilians, including women and children, and took their noses as war trophies. It was a custom in East Asia to take the heads of slain enemies as a war trophy. But because heads were inconvenient to transport back to Japan during wartime, the Japanese took noses and ears of the slain people back to their country. Today, there are various monuments and tombs of those noses and ears. One of the most notable example of those would be Mimizuka in Kyoto. Source: "Mimizuka." Atlas Obscura. November 07, 2010. Accessed October 09, 2017. http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mimizuka. Poster by Nic Calilung

[willkommen-in-germany]

Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 - today is Tag der Deutschen Einheit (Day of German Unity or German Reunification Day). It’s Germany’s national day, celebrated annually on 3 October as a public holiday. It commemorates the anniversary of the German Reunification, which was formally completed in 1990, when the goal of a united Germany that originated in the middle of the 19th century, was fulfilled again. The name thus addresses neither the re-union nor the union, but the unity of Germany.

[lahionline]

LaHi presents: Seriously Trivial King Taejong of the Joseon Dynasty was one of the toughest kings from the period. Once, while on a hunting trip, he fell from his horse. The King was embarrassed, and ordered his attendants not to let the royal recorders know that he fell. It was the recorders’ job to record everything that happened around the court, especially things about the king. Since the recorders were so dedicated to doing their job, they wrote that the king fell from his horse and ordered his attendants not to let the recorders know. Source: Taejong Sillok Book 7. 5th year of King Taejong’s Reign (1404), February 8. Poster by Nic Calilung Visit our website at http://lahionline.tumblr.com

[thekimonogallery]

Decorative Paper with Design of Chrysanthemums.  Woodblock print, mid-19th century, Japan, by an unknown artist

[lahionline]

LaHi presents: Seriously Trivial As a production of “The Maid’s Tragedy” was running late in 1661, the manager had said, to explain the delay, that “The Queen is not shav’d yet.” During the Monarchy Restoration, women started to play female roles in the theatre. One of the last males to take on female roles was Edward Kynaston, who took on the role as The Queen in “The Maid’s Tragedy” in 1661, King Charles II had come earlier than expected to a show of the play, and he began to get impatient as to why the play wasn’t starting yet. The manager, who thought that honesty was the best policy, explained to his majesty that “the Queen is not shav’d yet.” Sources: Crofton, Ian. History without the boring bits. London, Quercus, 2015. Haggerty, G. E. "“The Queen was not shav’d yet”: Edward Kynaston and the Regendering of the Restoration Stage." The Eighteenth Century, vol. 50 no. 4, 2009, pp. 309-326. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/ecy.0.0045 Poster by Nic Calilung

[centuriespast]

The oldest known sculpture of a horse. Carved in mammoth ivory, the Vogelherd Horse is 35,000 years old.

[viktor-sbor]

A magpie which has been with a gunner since the Battle of the Somme. July, 1917 by Victor P. Via Flickr: Source : www.collectionscanada.gc.ca

[greatwar-1914]

Austro-Hungarian stormtroopers on the Isonzo front, September 1917.

[runawayhorses]

Yukio Mishima

[lahionline]

LaHi presents: Seriously Trivial Some sculptures from the Greek and Roman times were coloured with bright hues. These pigments, however, faded away with exposure to light and time. Some painted statues had their colours scrubbed off by restorers. A leading archaeologist and art historian in the 18th century, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, even claimed that the white, bare sculptures were purer. "The whiter the body is, the more beautiful it is as well," he wrote. "Color contributes to beauty, but it is not beauty. Color should have a minor part in the consideration of beauty, because it is not [color] but structure that constitutes its essence." In 2003, however, a pair of married German archaeologists, Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann, were able to display their discoveries in the presence of different pigments in 20 classical sculptures after nearly two decades of research. Sources: Gurewitsch, Matthew. “True Colors.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 July 2008, www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/true-colors-17888/?all. Accessed 10 Sept. 2017. Walsh, Colleen, et al. “Colorizing classic statues returns them to antiquity.” Harvard Gazette, 1 Oct. 2007, news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/10/colorizing-classic-statues-returns-them-to-antiquity/. Accessed 10 Sept. 2017. Poster by Nic Calilung

[centuriespast]

14,000 years ago, by lamplight, two bison were expertly modelled in wet clay in the dark recesses of Le Tuc d'Audoubert cave in SW France

[greatwar-1914]

British troops “stand-to,” September 8, 1917. Since attacks were most likely at dawn or dusk, regiments in the trenches would stay ready at first light with rifles and bayonets.

[lahionline]

LAHi Presents: Seriously Trivial Tulips were imported from the Ottoman Empire in 1559, and quickly became popular because of their beauty. In the beginning, prices rose because of wealthy collectors who were truly interested in the varying breeds of tulip. But soon, the growing demand attracted people who bought them up to resell them at higher prices, assuming that the price would grow higher. In 1636, however, the bubble burst, and prices ended up dropping by 90 % as the bottom of the market fell out. Sources: Aline Sullivan and International Herald Tribune. "8 Fat Swine for a Tulip:A Brief History of Bursts." The New York Times. October 10, 1998. Accessed September 10, 2017. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/10/your-money/8-fat-swine-for-a-tulipa-brief-history-of-bursts.html. Mackay, Charles. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. London: Office of the National Illustrated Library. 1852. Library of Economics and Liberty [Online] available from http://www.econlib.org/library/Mackay/macEx3.html; accessed 10 September 2017; Internet. Sass, Erik, et al. The mental floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp through Civilization’s Best Bits. New York, Harper, 2009 Poster by: Nic Calilung