#historical post

[gotylocks]

Happy 10th birthday to the best tweet of all time.

[chaylor-lover11]

Okay uuuuh here's my favorite historical moment

The polish colonization of Trinidad and Tobago

If you didn't know, the poles (specifically the polish Lithuania commonwealth)

Tried colonialism. There were actually TWO attempts at this, the first attempt was when they tried to claim/colonize a single island in the Gambia.

Surprisingly this....kinda worked for a bit until the big boys (Britian and france) kicked the out.

The second attempt was yes when they tried to colonize the island of Tobago (I swear they have a kink for trying to claim islands of small countries)

Anyways, the island of Tobago itself ended up becoming part of the modern day island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. So yeah in an alt time-line there would break 3 polish (or Lithuanian) speaking nations

If only😔

(I'm not from Poland or Lithuania this is just funny)

(no chaylor this time)

[nelyafinwe-fucker]

Holiday reminder that "Christmas" as you know it (with the tree not upside down), and it being on the 25th and the lights, presents, and yadda yadda, is actually less than 200 years old.

[autumnmobile12]

This line is probably just a random direction the writers chose, but geographically speaking, it was the Ottoman Empire that lay south of Wallachia.  At the time Castlevania takes place, the Ottomans (chiefly Islam) were very open and tolerant of other religions compared to their European neighbors and granted asylum to cultural minorities.  So not only is Trevor’s suggestion of heading south a means of escaping Dracula’s Horde, it’s also a means for Sypha’s people to escape religious persecution.

Sypha’s grandfather refers to their people as the Codrii Speakers.  The Romanian word codru means ‘forest’ and codrii means ‘woods.’  So Sypha’s people are woodland Speakers.

By the time Vlad III Dracula ascended the throne for the second time in August 1456, a comet had been sighted over Wallachia.  Based on the description by observing astronomers at the time and the calculations of moving celestial bodies, it is believed this was Halley’s Comet.  The historical Dracula interpreted the sighting as a good omen and later incorporated the famous comet in coins minted during his reign.  (Google searches show me none of the historical Dracula’s coins survive today, if he minted any specific to his reign at all.  My source for this one is a book published in 1989: Dracula, Prince of Many Faces by Florescu and McNally, pg. 83.  So make of this one what you will.)

The capital of Wallachia moved around a few times.  When the principality was first founded in 1310, it was located at Curtea de Argeș.  During the majority of Vlad III Dracula’s lifetime, it was at Târgoviște.  In the autumn of 1476, it is believed he moved the capital to Bucharest for economic and military purposes and it remains to be the capital of Romania today.  (Plus, in the context of the series, Târgoviște was a ruined city by 1476, so no wonder the ruling government cleared out.)

[lousy-old-shrimp]

Images of the real life New York House of Refuge; and some history.

Above is an image of the New York House of Refuge, found in the manager’s annual report of 1918. Downing Stadium, in the lower right corner, is what now occupies the space where the House of Refuge lay.

“A classroom scene”

“Food service”

“Class in Barbering”

“Arts and Crafts”

“Class in Carpentry—Erecting a new roof”

No caption was given for this image, but the six boys standing around the machine are inmates.

Above images were taken by John N. Miskell.

Another children’s institution was opened in 1851, by a group of wealthy businessmen who were concerned about the children arrested for vagrancy and petty crimes and sent to the punitive House of Refuge, which was founded to separate children criminals from the adults.

But besides that, let’s get into the historical New York House of Refuge.

The New York House of Refuge opened in Manhattan in 1824. It was a juvenile reformatory, designed to prevent children from the adult prisons.

In 1827, the Geneva Gazette (January 10, page 2) speaks the House of Refuge’s praise, describing a provision made for the extension and support of the Refuge as “faithfully and beneficially implied.”

A year later, the Troy Sentinel’s February 19th edition reads: “The third annual report of the managers of the New York House of Refuge has just been published. The experiment of separating juvenile, unharded delinquents, scarcely conscious, in many instances, of the full enormity of their offences, from the old and incorrigible, and of placing them in a situation to unlearn vicious habits, and to acquire virtuous ones, has succeeded hitherto to the full extent of the expectations of the benevolent individuals by whom it was undertaken. The report of this year presents a view of the good effects and prospects of the institution, no less encouraging than that of the last.”

Regrettably, I was unable to find newspaper articles on the fire in 1839.

Praise continues to be issued in newspapers, The Corrector saying in 1844 (March 13, Page 3): “The Refuge is a very useful institution, and is believed to be admirably wall managed. It receives an annuity from the state.”

In the 1850s, the Refuge seemed to take a downturn. In 1855, The Daily Tribune edition on November 20th says:

“The reader may be curious to know what the consequence is if a boy fails to perform his task. He is punished of course, and this in various ways. He may have nothing but bread at his meals for a certain length of time; he may be put in the “lock-up” in total darkness without a bed to sleep on, and with bread and water for food; he may be locked in his own bedroom from Saturday night to Monday morning (quite a common thing), fisted twice in the mean time, with a partial allowance of bread and water. But, perhaps, the more usual punishment for getting short of work is by the rattan—the boy being made to lie over a stool of the end of a bench so as to draw the trousers tight, while the deputy superintendent uses the rattan according to his liking. As one instance of this kind, I might mention his severely flogging a boy over a stool, and speaking with me about it after sending him back to his work, said that the boy seemed willing enough to work, and he thought tried to get his task done, but somehow or other failed to do it.”

At the time of this article, the tasks they were failing to complete were of the same situations as sweatshop workers. Articles praised this method, although it was rough on the little boys taken in on vagrancy.

On May 14th of 1880, the New York Tribune wrote this:

“The committee first examined the food of the asylum. They found the flour was of low grade. ‘The testimony of the bakers and of others showed that sometimes there were worms in it.’ The committee further say respecting the bread and the butter:

“A number of witnesses testified that the bread sometimes bore evidences of having been gnawed by rats or mice, and that they had seen their excrement upon it. The bread is stored in an attic room … and it was evident from the excrement about the room that the place was infested with rats. The bread was wholly unprotected from these and other vermin. … The new and the old bread was packed indiscriminately, and as a consequence some of it because too old for use before placed on the table. Several loaves were selected by the committee from the stock on hand which were found to be hard and sour, and unfit for consumption. This bread was admitted to be a week old. This neglect of so staple an article of food the committee regard inexcusable. …. Several tubs of the [butter] on hand were examined, and the butter was rancid and offensive.”

The article continues on to explain that the good and fit food was given to the officers, as were fruits and vegetables, while the boys only received fruits on holidays.

Cont. “The committee says that the boys have been treated harshly by the employees of their contractors. ‘This roughness,’ they say, ‘consisted in cuffing, slapping in the face and shaking by their neck, and while there is no evidence of violent injury having been inflicted, it is not impossible, in view of the generality of the practice, and the supineness, indifference or connivance of the overseers, that cases of greater severity than those appearing in evidence occurred. … It appears that under the contract system it has been customary at times to report the more indolent boys or those who were short in their task hourly, and to inflict upon them corporal punishment several times during the same day.”

In 1883, it is claimed that the House of refuge improved under the direction of the Board of Health, the committee mentioned in the above quotations.

There is barely a mention of the House of Refuge in the year of 1899, when an old instructor at the House of Refuge got his watch stolen. He received it back, and the thief said he recognized it as belonging to his old instructor in the House of Refuge. Not very great at reforming thiefs, then.

With this, I conclude this post. Below is an image found in the August 15, 1900 edition of the New York Tribune

[laferelady]

Maxim Averin as Peter I the Great (The Cathedral, trailer / Собор, трейлер)

[mariesse]

Baroness Sophia Nikolaevna de Bode (1897–1918) - a volunteer, ensign. A graduate of the Institute for Noble Maidens (Smolny institute) in 1914. From the first days of the October Socialist Revolution she took part in the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks - in Moscow, then on the Don. In 1917 she went to serve in the women's shock battalion, then she studied at the officers' courses at the Alexander College. After completing the courses produced in the rank of ensign. Commanded a squad of cadets during the October battles in Moscow, was wounded in the leg at the Nikitsky gate during battles with the Bolsheviks. Participant of the First Kuban Campaign (The Ice March) of the Volunteer Army. She died in the cavalry attack of General Erdelyi during the first assault of Ekaterinodar, in the suburbs of the Gardens. According to the recollections of the volunteers, a horse was killed under a horse attack, she was able to get up and ran to catch up with the attackers, who were galloping ahead, at that moment she was killed by a bullet. In August 1918, after the occupation of Ekaterinodar by the Volunteer Army, the remains of her and some other volunteers were found and buried in Ekaterinodar. Sophia was remembered for her incredible courage, talent of a cavalryman and boundless cruelty to the Bolsheviks. Place of burial is unknown.