I took a class about Ancient Egypt last semester and we had a whole lecture dedicated to talking about how gay Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were. Their tomb walls were decorated with scenes of them ignoring their wives in favor of embracing each other. In one scene, the couple is seated at a banquet table that is usually reserved for a husband and wife. There’s an entire motif of Khnumhotep holding lotus flowers which in ancient Egyptian tradition symbolizes femininity. Khnumhotep offers the lotus flower to Niankhkhnum, something that only wives were ever depicted as doing for their husbands. In fact, Khnumhotep is repeatedly depicted as uniquely feminine, being shown smaller and shorter than his partner Niankhkhnum and being placed in the role of a woman. Size is a big deal in Egyptian art, husbands are almost always shown as being larger and taller than their wives. So for two men of equal status to be shown in once again, a marital fashion, is pretty telling. Not to mention they were literally buried together which is the strongest bond two people could share in ancient Egypt, as it would mean sharing the journey to the afterlife together. And yet 90% of the academic text about these two talks about these clues in vague terms and analyze the great “brotherhood” they shared, and the enigma of Khnumhotep being depicted as feminine. Apparently it’s too hard for archaeologists to accept homosexuality in the ancient world, as well as the possibility of trans individuals.
If I remember correctly, Poland’s secret is that the jews where being blamed all over europe (as usual) as scapegoats for the black plague. Poland was the only place that accepted Jewish refugees, so pretty much all of them moved there.
Now, one of the major causes of getting the plague was poor hygiene. This proved very effective for the plague because everyone threw their poop into the streets because there were no sewers, and literally no one bathed because it was against their religion. Unless they were jewish, who actually bathed relatively often. When all the jews moved to Poland, they brought bathing with them, and so the plague had little effect there.
Milan survived by quarantining its city and burning down the house of anyone showing early symptoms, with the entire family inside it.
I reblogged this tons of times, but the Milan info is new.
Damn Italy, you scary.
Poland:“Hey, feeling a bit down? Have a quick wash! There, you see? All better”
Milan: “Aw, feeling a bit sick are we? BURN MOTHERFUCKER, BURN!!!!!”
Also, this might have something to do with it: from what I understand, O blood type is uncommonly… common in Poland. Something to do with large families in small villages and a LOT of intermarriage. The black plague was caused by a bacterium that produced, in its waste in the human body, wastes that very closely mimic the “B” marker sugars on red blood cells that keep the body from attacking its own immune system. Anyone who has a B blood type had an immune system that was naturally desensitized to the presence of the bacterium, and therefore was more prone to developing the disease. Anyone who had an O type was doubly lucky because the O blood type means the total absence of ANY markers, A or B, meaning that their bodys’ immune system would react quickly and violently against the invaders, while someone with an A may show symptoms and recover more slowly, while someone with B would have just died. Because O is a recessive blood type, it shows in higher numbers when more people who carry the recessive genes marry other people who also carry the recessive gene. Poland, which has a nearly 700 year history of being conquered by or partnering with every other nation in the surrounding area, was primarily an agricultural country, focused around smaller, farming communities where people were legally tied to, and required to work, “their” land, and so historically never “spread” their genes across a large area. The economy was, and had been, unstable for a very long period of time leading up to the plague, the government had been ineffective and had very little reach in comparison to the armies of the other countries around for a very very long time, and so its people largely remained in small communities where multiple generations of cross-familial inbreeding could have allowed for this more recessive gene to show up more frequently. Thus, there could be a higher percentage of O blood types in any region of the country, guaranteeing less spread of the illness and moving slower when it did manage to travel. Combine this with the fact that there were very few large, urban centers where the disease would thrive, and with the above facts, and you’ve got a lovely recipe for avoiding the plague.
Interestingly enough, as a result from the plague, the entirety of Europe now has a higher percentage of people with O blood type than any other region of the world.
WHY IS THIS ALL SO COOL
When Tumblr teaches you more about the plague than 12 years of school ever did.
Just to throw a nod in, as a medieval historian, this is all credible, and is the leading theory as to the plagues effectiveness at this point. So. Enjoy your new knowledge!
Ok so we all know that the answer to “Where did Captain America learn to
steal a car?” is “Nazi Germany” but I think the more pressing question
here is when the fuck did this complete maniac get a driver’s license
Because ok, Mighty Mouse 1.0 is too poor to own a car, too short to
reach the pedals, has vision problems, and is a goddamn New Yorker in the motherfucking 1930s, why on earth would he ever have learned to drive?
So this little bastard can’t even tell the gas from the brakes, he gets
all beefified, he goes on tour with the USO. Unless one of the showgirls
coached him through stalling out a car all over some Hollywood back
lot, he still can’t drive. He goes to Europe. At some point, some genius
looks at him and thinks “this strapping specimen of American hunkhood
obviously knows his way around a vehicle, let’s give him a motorcycle,”
and Steve “no parachute” Rogers is like “how hard could this be?” and
promptly wraps himself around approximately eight trees at the same time.
So then he’s kickin’ ass, fightin’ Hydra, and it’s just months of Bucky being like
“give me the goddamn keys, Steven,” and Dum Dum and Morita endlessly
encouraging his fucking insane Fury Road bullshit, like the Howling Commandos just use “grenade” as code for “Rogers” when they’re reporting
why yet another truck has been destroyed beyond recognition. Yes, sir, another grenade, I agree, sir, it’s very odd that we keep losing vehicles in the same way, that’s the third this month alone
So then he’s in the future and SHIELD is sorting his shit out, and
they’re not going to force Captain goddamn America to wait in line at
the DMV, they’re all in complete awe in him and they’ve seen the old
reels of him on his bike, so when they issue him his driver’s license without any type of road test
they go ahead and give him a motorcycle license too
and steve is like …neat.
Ok so then Bucky is back, shit is settled down, everyone’s heading
somewhere and Steve gets in the driver’s seat and Buck’s like WHOA WHOA
WHOA are you people out of your goddamn minds?! Why is Steve driving, is
this some kind of mission, are we heading into a combat zone, is the
plan for the vehicle to get blown up?? GIVE ME THE GODDAMN KEYS STEVEN
And Sam is all “what are you talking about, Steve’s a great driver, I saw him jump his bike over a car once”
And Buck is all “yes but have you seen him use a turn signal?”
And Steve’s like, “Listen, we never needed to ‘signal’ our ‘turns’ in Nazi Germany.”
And after that Bucky always drives.
Fin.
okay but
this is basically how just about everyone in the us army in ww2 learned to drive
most infantrymen didn’t receive any instruction in vehicle use, but during ww2 they shipped about half a million jeeps overseas. most of them got used by logistics units and a lot got shipped to russia, but there were still so dang many of them that they would hand them to just about anyone who could have an excuse to use one.
gotta run a message? here’s a jeep. running gear up the line? take a jeep. got a 24 hour pass? just bring this jeep back safe, will you? you’re a cartoonist? here’s your own jeep. they handed them out like candy to everyone.
it wasn’t unreasonable on the face of it because the us was a car culture basically from the minute the car was invented, so most rural kids knew how to drive already. but tons of them didn’t, and at some point they’d almost certainly end up behind the wheel of a jeep.
as a result, accidents were hilariously common.
they pretty much assumed everyone knew how to drive based on the exact same logic used in this post. it was only after the war that somebody sat down and was like, yo, maybe we should make sure these kids know what a car is before we let them drive them.
ok but did every kid have a certain historical time period that they were REALLY into?? like I was super into the california gold rush when I was 9 for no reason
So, when I was doing my thesis on whether or not fanfiction should be considered a legitimate genre of literature, my advising professor asked me for examples. I gave him the generic ones, of course - “Pride & Prejudice and Zombies” is a horror fanfic of “Pride & Prejudice”, “50 Shades of Grey” is an erotica fic of “Twilight" - and that seemed to make him understand what fanfiction is, but not how it’s useful. So I thought about it, and, after about a minute, I said, “Paradise Lost is basically a fanfiction of the Book of Genesis. And The Divine Comedy is an epic self-insertion fic for Catholic doctrine. So, basically, you were teaching us fanfiction last semester.” I had never before seen a grown man’s eyes widen with such fear, incomprehension, disgust, awe, and understanding.
what she means:
it's 2 am and I can't stop thinking about the Pied Piper. Initially i thought it was just an old faerie tale but i've been reading up on it and it turns out that at some point in the town of Hamelin, a bunch of children really did go missing all at once in fact a stained glass window in the local church in 1300 was made to tell the story AND Hamelin's written history literally BEGINS in 1384 with the sentence "it is 100 years since our children left." There are a ton of theories about what the piper could actually represent but historians are pretty much convinced that something did take away children en masse in the 1200s in Hamelin and to this day we still use the phrase "it's time to pay the piper." When will we pay him? Who was he???? Like okay I see the theories but what if some flute paying faerie really just led a bunch of kids away in 1284 I cannot get over this.
“kids today with their smartphones and sexting and naked pictures are so irresponsible!!!” well in the 1820′s the Emperor of Brazil D. Pedro I sent letters to his lover calling himself “big devil” and “fiery little fire” containing drawings of his own dick and actual pubic hair and now that’s historical document so
when i was working in special collections i had a WWII letter that had a little squiggle and said “turn me upside down!” on the paper so I did that and it was a drawing of a dick ejaculating. #romance
then when I told a co-worker she said I was lucky it didn’t have any “suspicious stains” accompanying the letter which HAS happened on archival (19th century and earlier) letters before.
i mean like at least when you get a sext no one a hundred years later is gonna have to look at your jizz stains as historical evidence. which i am super grateful for.
have finally gotten off work (have one day off, have to work Easter, boooo) and am trying to relax by watching project runway on my dvr
keep getting infuriated by project runway going “baroque = medieval”
me: “baroque is 1600-1750 - you’re not even anywhere NEAR medieval you’re past the Renaissance and straight into the Enlightenment and early modern period and while baroque is a synonym for overwrought and fancy you keep acting like the baroque period is synonymous with the medieval period and just noooooo why what this is terrible your challenge inspiration included straight-up classic jousting and knights and a kingly-type guy”
One helen is sufficient good looks to launch one thousand ships, and to cause the destruction by fire of an entire city. The objective standards of Ship Launching and Arson may now be used to analyze feminine beauty. […] The table below will be of assistance:
- Attohelen (ah) 10-18 helens: Light up a Lucky While Strolling past a Shipyard
- Femtohelen (fh) 10-15 helens: Burn a Dinner Candle & Spit a Toothpick into a Water Glass
- Picohelen (ph) 10-12 helens: Barbecue a Couple of Steaks & Toss an Inner Tube Into the Pool
- Nanohelen (nh) 10-9 helens: Send the Old Man on a Canoe Trip & Build a Good Roaring Blaze in the Fireplace
- Microhelen (µh) 10-6 helens: Christen a Motor Boat & Start a Grass Fire
- Millihelen (mh) 10-3 helens: Launch One Homeric Warship & Burn Down a House
- Centihelen (ch) 10-2 helens: Incinerate a City Block & Launch Christopher Columbus’ Entire Fleet: The “Niña” (40 tons), the “Pinta” (50 tons) and the “Santa Maria” (100 tons)
- Decihelen (dh) 10-1 helens: Torch the Central Business District of Oakland, California, & Launch the Clipper Ship “Flying Cloud” (1783 tons)
- Helen (h): Raze One City & Launch the WWI US Battleship “Delaware” (20,000 tons)
- Dekahelen (dah) 10 helens: Oversee the Incendiary Bombing of Ten Cities and Launch the Aircraft Carriers “Theodore Roosevelt” (91,487 tons) and “Dwight D. Eisenhower (91,487 tons)
- Hectohelen (hh) 102 helens: Instigate a Major Modern Conflict & Launch the Oil Platform “Stratfjord B” (with ballast, 899,360 tons), the Supertanker “Seawise Giant” (624,038 dead- weight tonnage); the Oil/Ore Carrier “World Gala” (282,460 dwt tonnage) and the Bulk-Ore Tanker “Hoei Maru” (208,000 dwt tonnage)
- Kilohelen (kh) 103 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Million Greek Warships & Spark a Nuclear Confrontation
- Megahelen (Mh) 106 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Billion Greek Warships & Blow Up the World
- Gigahelen (Gh) 109 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Trillion Greek Warships & Destroy the Solar System
- Terahelen (Th) 1012 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Thousand Trillion Greek Warships and Make Serious Inroads on the Welfare of the Galaxy
It is to be hoped that beauty exceeding the Hectohelen class evades even the most ambitious.
