History, anything goes, including pictures

[RnR]

9 May 1901 – The first Parliament of Australia opened in the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne.
9 May 1927 – The federal government moved to Canberra from Melbourne with the opening of the Provisional Parliament House.
9 May 1988 – New Parliament House of Australia is opened on Capital Hill by Queen Elizabeth II.

The first Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia was opened at noon on 9 May 1901 by the Duke of Cornwall and York, later King George V. The lavish ceremony, which was attended by over 12,000 guests, took place in the Exhibition Building, Melbourne.

The Duke of Cornwall and York opens the first federal Parliament, 9 May 1901. State Library of Victoria.

In 1927, the federal government moved to Canberra from Melbourne with the opening of Old Parliament House, known formerly as the Provisional Parliament House. The construction of Old Parliament House was commenced on 28 August 1923 and completed in early 1927. It was built by the Commonwealth Department of Works, using tradesmen and materials from all over Australia. The final cost was about £600,000, which was more than three times the original estimate. It was designed to last for a maximum of 50 years until a permanent facility could be built.

Painting by Harold Septimus Power depicting the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of York for the opening of Provisional Parliament House on 9 May 1927.

In 1978 the Fraser government decided to proceed with a new building on Capital Hill, and the Parliament House Construction Authority was created. Construction began in 1981, and the House was intended to be ready by Australia Day, 26 January 1988, the 200th anniversary of European settlement in Australia. It was expected to cost A$220 million. Neither the deadline nor the budget was met. The building was finally opened by Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia on 9 May 1988, the anniversary of the opening of both the first Federal Parliament in Melbourne on 9 May 1901 by the Duke of Cornwall and York, later King George V, and of the Provisional Parliament House in Canberra on 9 May 1927 by the Duke of York, later King George VI.

Parliament House opening ceremony on 9 May 1988.

Australia's Parliament House is one of the largest buildings in the southern hemisphere. It is 300 metres long and 300 metres wide, has a floor area of more than 250,000 square metres and contains over 4500 rooms. Parliament House was the biggest building project undertaken in Australia since the 1960s and the construction of the Snowy Mountain Hydro-electric Scheme. A 10,000 strong workforce took seven years to complete it at a cost of about $1.1 billion.

 

[RnR]

9 May 1941 – The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.

German submarine U-110 was a Type IXB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that operated during World War II. She was captured by the Royal Navy on 9 May 1941 and provided a number of secret cipher documents to the British. U-110's capture, later given the code name "Operation Primrose", was one of the biggest secrets of the war, remaining so for seven months. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was only told of the capture by Winston Churchill in January 1942.

U-110 and HMS Bulldog. The Enigma Machine.

The British corvette, HMS Aubretia, located the U-boat with sonar. Aubretia and British destroyer Broadway then proceeded to drop depth charges, forcing U-110 to surface. As the crew turned out onto the U-boat's deck to evacuate they came under fire from two attacking destroyers. HMS Bulldog's boarding party, led by sub-lieutenant David Balme, got onto U-110 and stripped it of everything portable, including her Kurzsignale code book and Enigma machine. The documents captured from U-110 helped Bletchley Park codebreakers solve the German hand cipher.

The effort to break the Enigma code was not disclosed publicly until the 1970s. Since then, interest in the Enigma machine has grown.

 

[mellowyellow]

Medieval Britain’s Cancer Rates Were Ten Times Higher Than Previously Thought



A new analysis of 143 skeletons suggests the disease was more common than previously estimated, though still much rarer than today,

Conventional wisdom has long held that cancer rates in medieval Europe, before the rise of industrial pollution and tobacco smoking, must have been quite low. But a new study of individuals buried in Cambridge, England, between the 6th and 16th centuries suggests that 9 to 14 percent of medieval Britons had cancer when they died.

As Amy Barrett reports for BBC Science Focus magazine, this figure is about ten times higher than the rate indicated by previous research. The team, which published its findings in the journal Cancer, estimated rates of the disease based on X-ray and CT scans of bones from 143 skeletons buried in six cemeteries across the Cambridge area………………….

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cancer-was-common-medieval-britain-180977660/

 

[mellowyellow]

Napoleon Bonaparte poisoned ‘by his own deadly cologne’



Napoleon Bonaparte was poisoned, not by arsenic as some theories suggest, but by the eau de cologne he splashed over himself compulsively, a scientist claims.

Parvez Haris, a professor in biomedical science at De Montfort University, Leicester, said that frequent exposure to essential oils in his favourite cologne explained changes in his health. A post-mortem examination by his British captors on St Helena found that he had developed gastric cancer.

Haris, a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, cited historical accounts that in 1810 Napoleon used an average of 36 to 40 bottles of cologne a month. In October 1808 he ordered 72 bottles.

Source: The Times



Source: The Times

 

[mellowyellow]

Dr. Leonid Rogozov operating himself to remove his appendix in Antarctica, 1961



Leonid Rogozov (lying down) talking to his friend Yuri Vereschagin at Novolazarevskaya

During an expedition to the Antarctic, Russian surgeon Leonid Rogozov became seriously ill. He needed an operation - and as the only doctor on the team, he realised he would have to do it himself.

 

[mellowyellow]

On 19 August 1960, two brave dogs, Belka and Strelka, went to space on board Sputnik 5. They became the first living beings to safely return from orbit, paving way for human spaceflight.

 

[RnR]

View attachment 164136

Dr. Leonid Rogozov operating himself to remove his appendix in Antarctica, 1961


View attachment 164137
Leonid Rogozov (lying down) talking to his friend Yuri Vereschagin at Novolazarevskaya

During an expedition to the Antarctic, Russian surgeon Leonid Rogozov became seriously ill. He needed an operation - and as the only doctor on the team, he realised he would have to do it himself.

Quite amazing, thanks Mellowyellow.

 

[RnR]

On 19 August 1960, two brave dogs, Belka and Strelka, went to space on board Sputnik 5. They became the first living beings to safely return from orbit, paving way for human spaceflight.

View attachment 164139

Belka and Strelka were accompanied by a grey rabbit, 42 mice, two rats, flies and several plants and fungi. All survived.

Strelka went on to have six puppies with a male dog named Pushok who participated in many ground-based space experiments, but never made it into space. One of the puppies was named Pushinka or "Fluffy" and was presented to President John F. Kennedy by Nikita Khrushchev in 1961. A Cold War romance bloomed between Pushinka and a Kennedy dog named Charlie, resulting in the birth of four puppies that JFK referred to jokingly as pupniks.

 

[RnR]

10 May 1801 – The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States starting the first Barbary War.

The First Barbary War, 1801–1805, was the first of two Barbary Wars between the United States, Sweden and the four North African states known collectively as the "Barbary States" – Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis and the Sultanate of Morocco. Pirates from the Barbary States were seizing American merchant ships and holding the crews for ransom, demanding the U.S. pay tribute to the Barbary rulers. The U.S. paid Algiers a ransom in 1786, and continued to pay up to $1 million per year over the next 15 years for the safe passage of American ships and the return of American hostages.

USS Enterprise fighting the Tripolitan polacca Tripoli. William Bainbridge Hoff, 1878. Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon at Derna, April 1805.

By 1800 the payment in ransom and tribute to the Barbary states amounted to approximately 10% of the U.S. government's annual revenues.

On Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, Yusuf Karamanli, the Pasha of Tripoli, demanded another $225,000 from the new administration. Jefferson refused the demand. Consequently, on 10 May 1801, the Pasha declared war on the U.S. Congress authorised the President to instruct the commanders of armed American vessels to seize all vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli. Ex-consul William Eaton and US Marine Corps 1st Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon led a force of eight U.S. Marines and five hundred mercenaries—Greeks from Crete, Arabs, and Berbers on a march across the desert from Alexandria, Egypt, to capture the Tripolitan city of Derna. The capturing of the city gave American negotiators leverage in securing the return of hostages and marked the end of the war.

This was the first time the United States flag was raised in victory on foreign soil.

 

[RnR]

10 May 1869 – The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah with the golden spike.

The First Transcontinental Railroad, known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route", was a 3,077 km continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Omaha, Nebraska/Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. The railroad opened for through traffic on 10 May 1869 when CPRR President Leland Stanford ceremonially drove the gold "Last Spike", later often referred to as the "Golden Spike", with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit, Utah.

The ceremony for the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, Utah, 10 May 1869.

The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants. The total area of the land grants to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific was larger than the area of the state of Texas.

The railroad experimented by hiring local emigrant Chinese as manual labourers, many of whom were escaping the poverty and terrors of the Taiping Rebellion in the Guangdong province in China. When they proved themselves as workers, the CPRR from that point forward preferred to hire Chinese, and even set up recruiting efforts in Canton. Despite their small stature and lack of experience, the Chinese labourers were responsible for most of the heavy manual labor since only a very limited amount of that work could be done by animals, simple machines, or black powder.

 

[RnR]

10 May 1994 – Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918–2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 10 May 1994 to 16 June 1999.

Nelson Mandela being sworn in as South Africa's first black president, 10 may 1994.

He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalised racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress party from 1991 to 1997.

 

[mellowyellow]

Draining and cleaning the canals in Venice, 1956

 

[hawkdon]

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Draining and cleaning the canals in Venice, 1956

wow what a mess to clean......

 

[RnR]

View attachment 164296
Draining and cleaning the canals in Venice, 1956

What a job!!

 

[RnR]

11 May 1310 – Philip IV of France has fifty-four members of the Knights Templar burned at the stake, ostensibly for heresy.

Philip IV (1268–1314), called Philip the Fair or the Iron King, was King of France from 1285 until his death. To further strengthen the monarchy, he tried to control the French clergy and entered in conflict with Pope Boniface VIII. In 1306, Philip the Fair expelled the Jews from France and, in 1307, he annihilated the order of the Knights Templar. Philip was in debt to both groups and saw them as a "state within the state".

Philip the Fair. Templars being burned at the stake under Philip IV. Painting made in 1480. Another depiction.

The Templars in France, unlike the ones in England, were subjected to torture and so often confessed to these heresies. There was shock throughout Europe when all Templars were arrested in France on the same day in 1307. By March 1314 the last of the Templars were burnt at the stake, supposedly cursing the Pope and Philip IV that they would both die within the year. Both did indeed die within the year. Pope Clement V, who is remembered for suppressing the order of the Knights Templar and allowing the execution of many of its members, died on 20 April 1314 aged 50. Philip IV died on 29 November 1314 aged 46, a few weeks after suffering a cerebral stroke.

 

[RnR]

11 May 1812 – Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the British House of Commons.

Spencer Perceval KC (1 November 1762 – 11 May 1812) was a British statesman who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1809 until his assassination in May 1812.

Perceval is the only British prime minister to have been murdered.

At the head of a weak ministry, Perceval faced a number of crises during his term in office including an inquiry into the Walcheren expedition, the madness of King George III, economic depression and Luddite riots. He overcame these crises, successfully pursued the Peninsular War in the face of opposition defeatism, and won the support of the Prince Regent.

Posthumous portrait of Spencer Perceval by George Francis Joseph. Book about the assassin John Bellingham. Artist's impressions of the assassination of Spencer Perceval, 11 May 1812.

His position was looking stronger by the spring of 1812, when he was shot dead by an assassin in the lobby of the House of Commons. His attacker was John Bellingham, a Liverpool merchant with a grievance against the government. Bellingham was detained and, four days after the murder, was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. He was hanged at Newgate Prison one week later on 18 May.

 

[RnR]

11 May 1813 – In Australia, William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth lead an expedition to cross the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Their route opens up inland Australia for continued expansion throughout the 19th century.

"On Tuesday, May 11, 1813, Mr. Gregory Blaxland, Mr. William Wentworth, and Lieutenant Lawson, attended by four servants, with five dogs, and four horses laden with provisions, ammunition, and other necessities, left Mr. Blaxland's farm at South Creek, for the purpose of endeavouring to effect a passage over the Blue Mountains, between the Western River, and the River Grose."
— Gregory Blaxland.

Commemorative stamps and a sketch of their route, prepared by Frank Walker in 1913 where the Great Western Road has been inserted to show how closely it has followed the track of the explorers in its general direction.

The party first saw the plains beyond the mountains from Mount York. They continued on to Mount Blaxland 25 km south of the site of Lithgow, on the western side of the mountains.

They party made their way over the mountains, following the ridges, and completed the crossing in 21 days. The explorers' success has been attributed to their methodical approach and their decision to travel on the ridges instead of through the valleys. The three explorers and two of their servants would set out each day, leaving the other two men at their campsite, and mark out a trail, before turning back later in the day to cut a path for the horses and allow the rest of the party to progress. From this point Blaxland declared there was enough forest or grassland "to support the stock of the colony for thirty years", while Lawson called it "the best watered Country of any I have seen in the Colony". The party then turned back, making the return journey in six days.

 

[RnR]

12 May 1784 – The Treaty of Paris signed on 3 September 1783, takes effect.

The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on 3 September 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War or the American War of Independence. The treaty came into effect on 12 May 1784 and set the boundaries between the British Empire and the United States, on lines "exceedingly generous" to the latter.

Benjamin West's painting of the delegations at the Treaty of Paris: John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, and William Temple Franklin. The British delegation refused to pose, and the painting was never completed.

The Treaty of Paris was a highly favourable treaty for the United States, and deliberately so from the British point of view. British Prime Minister Shelburne foresaw highly profitable two-way trade between Britain and the rapidly growing United States, which turned out to be a very accurate prediction as time went by.

 

[RnR]

12 May 1820 – Florence Nightingale, Italian-English nurse, social reformer and statistician is born.

Florence Nightingale, OM, RRC, DStJ (12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English social reformer and statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager of nurses trained by her during the Crimean War, where she organised the tending to wounded soldiers. She gave nursing a highly favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night.

Florence Nightingale, photograph by Henry Hering circa 1860, National Portrait Gallery, London. The Lady with the Lamp, popular lithograph reproduction of a painting of Nightingale by Henrietta Rae, 1891. Florence Nightingale, middle, in 1886 with her graduating class of nurses from St Thomas' outside Claydon House, Buckinghamshire.

Florence Nightingale's most famous contribution came during the Crimean War, which became her central focus when reports got back to Britain about the horrific conditions for the wounded. On 21 October 1854, she and the staff of 38 women volunteer nurses that she trained were sent to the Ottoman Empire. During her first winter at Scutari, 4,077 soldiers died there. Ten times more soldiers died from illnesses such as typhus, typhoid, cholera and dysentery than from battle wounds.

Nightingale believed that the death rates were due to poor nutrition, lack of supplies, stale air and overworking of the soldiers. This experience influenced her later career, when she advocated sanitary living conditions as of great importance. Consequently, she reduced peacetime deaths in the army and turned her attention to the sanitary design of hospitals and the introduction of sanitation in working-class homes.

 

[RnR]

12 May 1932 – Ten weeks after the Lindberg kidnapping and abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, Charles Jr., is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from home.

On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., 20-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was abducted from his home in Highfields, New Jersey, United States. The morning after the kidnapping, authorities notified President Herbert Hoover of the crime. The Bureau of Investigation was authorised to investigate the case, while the United States Coast Guard, the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Immigration Service and the Washington, D.C. police were told their services might be required. Ransom letters were then received over a prolonged period of time.

Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. Word of the kidnapping spread quickly. Hundreds of people converged on the estate, destroying the scene-of-crime footprint evidence.

During a thirty month period, a number of the ransom bills were spent throughout New York City. In September 1934 Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested for the crime. When Hauptmann was arrested, he was carrying a 20-dollar gold certificate, and over $14,000 of the ransom money was found in his garage. After a trial that lasted from January 2 to February 13, 1935, he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Despite his conviction, he continued to profess his innocence, but all appeals failed and he was executed in the electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison on 3 April 1936.

 

[mellowyellow]

Jesse Owens in London after winning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics.

 

[RnR]

View attachment 164497
Jesse Owens in London after winning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics.

Stunning achievements ... sad aftermath.

In Germany, Owens had been allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites. When Owens returned to the United States, he was greeted in New York City by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. A Manhattan ticker-tape parade was held in his honour along Broadway's Canyon of Heroes. After the parade, Owens was not permitted to enter through the main doors of the Waldorf Astoria New York and instead forced to travel up to the reception honouring him in a freight elevator. President Franklin D. Roosevelt never invited Jesse Owens to the White House following his triumphs at the Olympic Games.

After the games had ended, the entire Olympic team was invited to compete in Sweden. Owens decided to capitalise on his success by returning to the United States to take up some of the more lucrative endorsement offers. United States athletic officials were furious and withdrew his amateur status, which immediately ended his career.

 

[Mr. Ed]

1. Dead mouse paste for toothaches​

In ancient Egypt, doctors used to smash and blend a dead mouse with other ingredients and put this paste right onto the aching tooth or the swollen gum to relieve pain.​

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Image credit: Piberyger/wikimedia, Image source: www.cac.es
If you had suffered from a toothache in ancient Egypt, mice would have been the best answer to your ailment. Toothaches were very common in Egypt due to the presence of sand particles in their diet.

Sand would get into almost everything, including food. Because of the gritty effect of sand, chewing it would often wear down the enamel that covers the tooth. This, in turn, would expose the nerves and blood vessels leading to the pain.

Apparently, Egyptians came to the conclusion that dead mice were an effective remedy for this issue. They would mash the dead mice into a paste and apply it directly to the afflicted area. In case people had serious toothaches, whole dead mice would be directly inserted into their mouth. This treatment even expanded to rural England in the 1920s.

Obviously, this treatment never worked in curing the pain but led to even more serious problems. Applying rotting objects to exposed blood vessels and nerves would surely turn a tiresome pain into a full-blown infection. (source)

 

[Mr. Ed]

Hair (musical)​

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



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This article is about the musical. For the musical film, see Hair (film).
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado and music by Galt MacDermot. The work reflects the creators' observations of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the late 1960s, and several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement. The musical's profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, and its nude scene caused much comment and controversy.[1]

The musical broke new ground in musical theatre by defining the genre of "rock musical", using a racially integrated cast, and inviting the audience onstage for a "Be-In" finale.[2]

Hair tells the story of the "tribe", a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the "Age of Aquarius" living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War. Claude, his good friend Berger, their roommate Sheila and their friends struggle to balance their young lives, loves, and the sexual revolution with their rebellion against the war and their conservative parents and society. Ultimately, Claude must decide whether to resist the draft as his friends have done, or to succumb to the pressures of his parents (and conservative America) to serve in Vietnam, compromising his pacifist principles and risking his life.

After an off-Broadway debut on October 17, 1967, at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and a subsequent run at the Cheetah nightclub from December 1967 through January 1968, the show opened on Broadway in April 1968 and ran for 1,750 performances. Simultaneous productions in cities across the United States and Europe followed shortly thereafter, including a successful London production that ran for 1,997 performances. Since then, numerous productions have been staged around the world, spawning dozens of recordings of the musical, including the 3 million-selling original Broadway cast recording. Some of the songs from its score became Top 10 hits, and a feature film adaptation was released in 1979. A Broadway revival opened in 2009, earning strong reviews and winning the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Musical. In 2008, Time wrote, "Today Hair seems, if anything, more daring than ever

 

[mellowyellow]

​

Prague residents surround Soviet tanks in front of the Czechoslovak Radio building, in central Prague, during the first day of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. August 21, 1968.​

In 1968, during a period called the “Prague Spring,” Alexander Dubček, the newly elected leader of Czechoslovakia, enacted pro-democracy reforms that loosened state control and expanded individual rights, giving hope to citizens and angering the Soviet Union. Soviet leaders in Moscow believed that Czechoslovakia, a member of the Warsaw Pact, had gone too far, and summoned the country’s leaders for discussions. By late summer, the talks were not going the way the Kremlin had wanted, so more than 2,000 tanks and thousands more Warsaw Pact troops were sent to invade and occupy the country on August 21. In the first weeks, occupying soldiers were met with protests and limited resistance, and more than 70 civilians were killed in the conflicts. Within the following year, resistance faded, Dubček was removed from office, his reforms were undone, and a more Soviet-controlled government was installed.