History, anything goes, including pictures

[Pappy]

Holes In Outhouse Doors Weren’t For Ventilation

There are many theories on why holes were cut in outhouse doors and the significance of their shape.

One theory is that the holes in the doors of outhouses were designed to let light from a lantern shine out at night. This would alert everyone that the outhouse was occupied.

It was believed the reason for the hole was to differentiate which outhouse was for the men and which was for the women, although this is disputed. Supposedly, the women’s had a crescent Moon cut into its door and the men’s had a star. If there were both shapes? It was to be used by the whole family.

The more popular belief is that the crescent shape was simply a way to open and close the door from the inside, as it seemed using expensive latching hardware would be waste on such a humble structure. Even when latches were added, the crescent Moon tradition lived on and is now a signature decoration for this piece of Americana.

Outhouse Sizes Varied

Outhouses were usually 3 to 4 feet square by 7 feet high with no window or heat. A well-built outhouse usually had a vent along the roof to vent out the chamber and a pipe from the box through the ceiling to vent out the gases. To avoid the odor reaching the home, most outhouses were built between 50 and 150 feet from the main house, often facing away from the house. They had either one or two chamber holes inside — one for the adults and a smaller one for the children.

 

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London, UK

The keeper of the Wellington Collection, Josephine Oxley, prepares the death mask of Napoleon Bonaparte for display at Apsley House on the 200th anniversary of the French leader’s death. Photograph: Christopher Ison/English Heritage/PA

 

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A sledge belonging to Empress Josephine. Photograph: Christophe Archambault/AFP/Getty Images

 

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Moscow, Russia
Russian Su-25MB armoured subsonic military attack aircraft fly over the Kremlin during a rehearsal for the Victory Day parade, being held on 9 May to commemorate the victory of the Soviet Union’s Red Army. Photograph Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA

 

[RnR]

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London, UK

The keeper of the Wellington Collection, Josephine Oxley, prepares the death mask of Napoleon Bonaparte for display at Apsley House on the 200th anniversary of the French leader’s death. Photograph: Christopher Ison/English Heritage/PA

The concept of death masks seems strange to me in 2021 but seems it's a very old tradition.

Masks of deceased persons are part of traditions in many countries. The most important process of the funeral ceremony in ancient Egypt was the mummification of the body, which, after prayers and consecration, was put into a sarcophagus enameled and decorated with gold and gems. A special element of the rite was a sculpted mask, put on the face of the deceased. This mask was believed to strengthen the spirit of the mummy and guard the soul from evil spirits on its way to the afterworld.

In the late Middle Ages, a shift took place from sculpted masks to true death masks, made of wax or plaster. These masks were not interred with the deceased. Instead, they were used in funeral ceremonies and were later kept in libraries, museums, and universities. Death masks were taken not only of deceased royalty and nobility, but also of eminent persons, including Napoleon Bonaparte whose death mask was taken on the island of Saint Helena.

In Russia, the death mask tradition dates back to the times of Peter the Great, whose death mask was taken by Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Also well known are the death masks of Nicholas I, and Alexander I. Stalin's death mask is on display at the Stalin Museum in Gori, Georgia.

 

[RnR]

5 May 2021: French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife stand in front of the Les Invalides tomb of Napoleon after laying a wreath in a ceremony to mark the 200th year since the Emperor's death on 5 May 1821 at age 51 whilst exiled on the island of Saint Helena.

 

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Children at a puppet show in Paris, 1963, at the exact moment the dragon was slain.

 

[RnR]

Holes In Outhouse Doors Weren’t For Ventilation

There are many theories on why holes were cut in outhouse doors and the significance of their shape.

One theory is that the holes in the doors of outhouses were designed to let light from a lantern shine out at night. This would alert everyone that the outhouse was occupied.

It was believed the reason for the hole was to differentiate which outhouse was for the men and which was for the women, although this is disputed. Supposedly, the women’s had a crescent Moon cut into its door and the men’s had a star. If there were both shapes? It was to be used by the whole family.

The more popular belief is that the crescent shape was simply a way to open and close the door from the inside, as it seemed using expensive latching hardware would be waste on such a humble structure. Even when latches were added, the crescent Moon tradition lived on and is now a signature decoration for this piece of Americana.

Outhouse Sizes Varied

Outhouses were usually 3 to 4 feet square by 7 feet high with no window or heat. A well-built outhouse usually had a vent along the roof to vent out the chamber and a pipe from the box through the ceiling to vent out the gases. To avoid the odor reaching the home, most outhouses were built between 50 and 150 feet from the main house, often facing away from the house. They had either one or two chamber holes inside — one for the adults and a smaller one for the children.
View attachment 163426

Oh how well I remember our country outhouse.

 

[RnR]

6 May 1682 – Louis XIV of France moves his court to the Palace of Versailles.

Louis XIV (1638–1715), known as Louis the Great, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who reigned as King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. Starting at the age of 4, his reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest recorded of any monarch of a sovereign country in European history. During Louis' reign, France was the leading European power.

Over the course of four building campaigns, Louis converted a hunting lodge built by Louis XIII into the spectacular Palace of Versailles. The palace achieved much of its current appearance after the third building campaign, which was followed by an official move of the royal court to Versailles on 6 May 1682. It became a dazzling, awe-inspiring setting for state affairs and the reception of foreign dignitaries.

The Palace of Versailles. The Hall of Mirrors within the Palace of Versailles. Bust of Louis XIV by Gianlorenzo Bernini.

Despite moving to Versailles Louis continued care for the capital Paris. Louis constructed the Hôtel des Invalides, a military complex and home to this day for officers and soldiers rendered infirm either by injury or old age. Louis also renovated and improved the Louvre and other royal residences. With the relocation of the court to Versailles, the Louvre was given over to the arts and the public.

 

[RnR]

6 May 1937 – Hindenburg disaster: The German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people are killed.

The Hindenburg disaster occurred on 6 May 1937, as the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock with its mooring mast at Naval Air Station Lakehurst in Manchester Township, New Jersey, United States. Of the 97 people on board, 36 passengers and 61 crewmen, there were 35 fatalities, 13 passengers and 22 crewmen. One worker on the ground was also killed, raising the final death toll to 36.

The stern of the Hindenburg begins to fall with the mooring mast in the foreground, 6 May 1937.

The disaster was the subject of spectacular newsreel coverage, photographs, and Herbert Morrison's recorded radio eyewitness reports from the landing field, which were broadcast the next day.

Video: Hindenburg Disaster. Actual Zeppelin Explosion Footage, British Pathé 1937.

 

[Pappy]

Oh how well I remember our country outhouse.

Me too RnR. Cold NY winter days and nights.

 

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2,000-year-old marble head of Augustus, Rome's first emperor, has been discovered in Isernia, an Italian town in the south central region of Molise.

Archaeologist Francesco Giancola made the exceptional discovery during restoration works to repair a medieval wall that collapsed due to strong rains in 2013.

 

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The Captains of the French & English Women's Football Teams kissing before kickoff - London, 12th of May 1925

 

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Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau carrying another PM of Canada Justin Pierre Trudeau.

 

[RnR]

7 May 1915 – During WWI the German submarine U-20 sinks RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. Public reaction to the sinking turns many formerly pro-Germans in the United States against the German Empire.

RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner that was in operation during the early 20th century. The ship was a holder of the Blue Riband, and briefly the world's largest passenger ship until the completion of her sister ship Mauretania. The Cunard Line launched Lusitania in 1906, at a time of fierce competition for the North Atlantic trade. She made a total of 202 trans-Atlantic crossings.

The Royal Navy had blockaded Germany at the start of World War I. When RMS Lusitania left New York for Britain on 1 May 1915, German submarine warfare was intensifying in the Atlantic.

On the afternoon of 7 May, a German U-boat torpedoed Lusitania, 18 kilometres off the southern coast of Ireland and inside the declared war zone. A second, unexplained, internal explosion sent her to the seabed in 18 minutes, with the deaths of 1,198 passengers and crew.

Painting depicting sinking of the Lusitania by the German U-Boat U 20, 7 May 1915. German Federal Archives.

The sinking caused a storm of protest in the United States because 128 American citizens were among the dead. The sinking helped shift public opinion in the United States against Germany, and was a factor in the United States' declaration of war nearly two years later.

 

[RnR]

7 May 1992 – The Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on its first mission, STS-49.

Space Shuttle Endeavour is a retired orbiter from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, on 7 May 1992 and its 25th and final mission, STS-134, in May 2011. STS-134 was expected to be the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, but with the authorisation of STS-135, Atlantis became the last shuttle to fly.

Endeavour rollout ceremony in May 1991. Endeavour over Houston on its final flight to rest in the California Science Center in Los Angeles in September 2012.

Over the course of its 19-year spaceflight career, Endeavour logged nearly 198 million kilometres and flew around the Earth more than 4,600 times. Endeavour landed at the Kennedy Space Center at 06:34 UTC on June 1, 2011, completing its final mission. After more than twenty organisations submitted proposals to NASA for the display of an orbiter, NASA announced that Endeavour would go to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. It was delivered to Los Angeles International Airport on 21 September 2012.

 

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On May 14 1939, A Peruvian girl named Lina Medina became the youngest mother in history when she gave birth to a boy at the age of 5 years and 7 months. her baby was healthy and lived to be 40 and the identity of the father is unknown.

She was brought to a hospital by her parents at the age of five years due to increasing abdominal size. She was originally thought to have had a tumor, but her doctors determined she was in her seventh month of pregnancy. Dr Gerardo Lozada took her to Lima to have other specialists confirm that Medina was pregnant.

 

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Shortly after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in 1959, he visited the United States for two weeks, invited by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. The trip had all the features of a diplomatic tour— he met American officials, appeared on Meet the Press, and visited national landmarks such as Mount Vernon and the Lincoln Memorial.

Instead of meeting Castro, Eisenhower left Washington to play golf. Vice President Nixon met Castro in a 3-hour long meeting. Nixon asked about elections, and Castro told him that the Cuban people did not want elections. Nixon complained that Castro was “either incredibly naive about communism or under communist discipline”. Castro took full advantage of his 11-day stay. He hired a public relations firm, ate hot dogs, kissed ladies like a rock star, and held babies like a politician.

 

[RnR]

View attachment 163821

On May 14 1939, A Peruvian girl named Lina Medina became the youngest mother in history when she gave birth to a boy at the age of 5 years and 7 months. her baby was healthy and lived to be 40 and the identity of the father is unknown.

She was brought to a hospital by her parents at the age of five years due to increasing abdominal size. She was originally thought to have had a tumor, but her doctors determined she was in her seventh month of pregnancy. Dr Gerardo Lozada took her to Lima to have other specialists confirm that Medina was pregnant.

Quite remarkable.

Lina Marcela Medina de Jurado is also the youngest documented case of precocious puberty.

In medicine, precocious puberty is puberty occurring at an unusually early age. In most cases, the process is normal in every aspect except the unusually early age and simply represents a variation of normal development.

 

[RnR]

View attachment 163822

Shortly after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in 1959, he visited the United States for two weeks, invited by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. The trip had all the features of a diplomatic tour— he met American officials, appeared on Meet the Press, and visited national landmarks such as Mount Vernon and the Lincoln Memorial.

Instead of meeting Castro, Eisenhower left Washington to play golf. Vice President Nixon met Castro in a 3-hour long meeting. Nixon asked about elections, and Castro told him that the Cuban people did not want elections. Nixon complained that Castro was “either incredibly naive about communism or under communist discipline”. Castro took full advantage of his 11-day stay. He hired a public relations firm, ate hot dogs, kissed ladies like a rock star, and held babies like a politician.

Remarkable photo ... the meeting of polar opposites.

Castro took full advantage of his 11-day stay. He hired a public relations firm, ate hot dogs, kissed ladies like a rock star, and held babies like a politician.

Sounds like Castro had a good time in the US.

 

[RnR]

8 May 1876 – Truganini, then believed to be the last full-blooded Tasmanian Aborigine, dies.

Truganini, circa 1812–8 May 1876, was a woman widely considered to have been the last full-blooded Aboriginal Tasmanian, although she was outlived by Fanny Cochrane Smith, 1834–1905, who in 1889 was officially recognised as the last full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal. Truganini was born about 1812 on Bruny Island, located south of the Van Diemen's Land capital Hobart. She was a daughter of Mangana, Chief of the Bruny Island people. Her name, in the Bruny Island language, was the name of the grey saltbush Atriplex cinerea.

When Truganini met George Augustus Robinson, the Protector of Aboriginals, in 1829, her mother had been killed by sailors, her uncle shot by a soldier, her sister abducted by sealers, and her fiancé brutally murdered by timber-cutters, who then repeatedly sexually abused her. In 1830, Robinson moved Truganini and her husband, Woorrady, to Flinders Island with the last surviving Tasmanian Aboriginals, numbering approximately 100. The stated aim of isolation was to save them, but many of the group died from influenza and other diseases.

Truganini in 1866. Benjamin Law's 1835 bust of Truganini, commissioned by George Augustus Robinson. Photo showing the last four Tasmanian Aborigines believed to be Bessie Smith, William Lanney, Mary Ann Arthur and Truganini seated on the right.

In 1856, the few surviving Tasmanian Aboriginals on Flinders Island, including Truganini, were moved to a settlement at Oyster Cove, south of Hobart. By 1861 the number of survivors at Oyster Cove was only fourteen. According to another report in The Times Truganini later married a Tasmanian Aboriginal, William Lanney, known as "King Billy", who died in March 1869. By 1873, Truganini was the sole survivor of the Oyster Cove group, and was again moved to Hobart. She died three years later and was buried at the former Female Factory at Cascades, a suburb of Hobart.

 

[RnR]

8 May 1886 – Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine.

John Stith Pemberton (1831–1888) was an American pharmacist who is best known as the developer and founder of Coca-Cola. On 8 May 1886, he developed an early version of a beverage that would later become world-famous as Coca-Cola. In April 1865, Pemberton had sustained a sabre wound to the chest during the Battle of Columbus in the American Civil War. He soon became addicted to the morphine used to ease his pain. In 1866, seeking a cure for his addiction, he began to experiment with painkillers that would serve as opium-free alternatives to morphine. He began experimenting with coca and coca wines, eventually creating a recipe that contained extracts of kola nut and damiana, which he called Pemberton's French Wine Coca.

Robinson’s hand wrote the Spencerian script on the bottles and ads. Pemberton made many health claims for his product, touting it as a "valuable brain tonic" that would cure headaches, relieve exhaustion, and calm nerves, and marketed it as "delicious, refreshing, pure joy, exhilarating", and "invigorating".

Pemberton relied on Atlanta drugstore owner-proprietor Willis E. Venable to test, and help him perfect, the recipe for the beverage, which he formulated by trial and error. He blended the base syrup with carbonated water by accident when trying to make a glassful of another beverage. Pemberton decided then to sell this as a fountain drink rather than a medicine. Frank Mason Robinson came up with the name "Coca-Cola" for the alliterative sound, which was popular among other wine medicines of the time.

 

[RnR]

8 May 1912 – Paramount Pictures is founded.

In 1912 William Wadsworth Hodkinson founded and became president of the first nationwide film distributor, Paramount Pictures Corporation. However Paramount Pictures dates its existence from the 8 May 1912 founding date of the Famous Players Film Company by Adolph Zukor. That same year, another aspiring producer, Jesse L. Lasky, opened his Lasky Feature Play Company. Starting in 1914, both Lasky and Famous Players released their films through Hodkinson’s Paramount Pictures Corporation. In 1916, Zukor manoeuvred a three-way merger of his Famous Players, the Lasky Company, and Paramount. Zukor and Lasky bought Hodkinson out of Paramount, and merged the three companies into one. Zukor soon fired Hodkinson and took over as president of Paramount.

Adolph Zukor, Jesse L. Lasky, William Wadsworth Hodkinson. Lasky's original studio, known as "The Barn”, as it appeared in the mid 1920s. Paramount Pictures' first logo, based on a design by its founder William Wadsworth Hodkinson, used from 1917 to 1967.

In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 22 actors and actresses under contract and honoured each with a star on the logo. These fortunate few would become the first "movie stars."

 

[Pappy]

This Day In History: It was in the early hours of May 6th, 1875 when the old wooden railroad trestle (top image/Nunda Historical Society) at what is now Letchworth State Park caught fire and collapsed into the Genesee River gorge. At the time, the bridge—built in the 1850’s—was considered among the most sensational structures in the world. The fire was believed to have started from sparks from the last Erie Railroad steam train that crossed the Genesee River that night. One theory is that the fire was allowed to occur since the wooden structure was in such disrepair. At any rate, the night watchman on call that evening/early morning never properly put out the sparks from his watering station. William Pryor Letchworth watched from his residence there (the Glen Iris Inn) as the fire burned out of control in those overnight hours, the giant wood structure collapsing into the river. Astoundingly, in less than three months, the iron trestle was built in the same spot and lasted nearly 143 years (second image). The iron trestle gave way to the spectacular Genesee Arch Bridge (last image) in December of 2017, a structure built to last well over 100 years.

 

[RnR]

9 May 1671 – Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempts to steal England's Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.

Colonel Thomas Blood (1618–1680) was an Anglo-Irish officer and self-styled colonel best known for his attempt to steal the Crown Jewels of England from the Tower of London in 1671. He had switched allegiances from Royalist to Roundhead during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. After Blood's attempt to to storm Dublin Castle, usurp the government, and kidnap James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, for ransom, and despite his status as a wanted man, he returned to England.

Blood did not lie low for long, and within six months he made his notorious attempt to steal the Crown Jewels. In April or May 1671 he visited the Tower of London dressed as a parson and accompanied by a female companion pretending to be his wife, paying the fee to view the Crown Jewels. His wife feigned illness and the newly appointed Master of the Jewel House, 77-year-old Talbot Edwards and his wife assisted her in their apartment. Blood then used this contact to cultivate the Edwards. On 9 May 1671, in furtherance of the deception, Blood convinced Edwards to show the jewels to him, his supposed nephew, and two of his friends while they waited for a dinner that Mrs Edwards was to put on for Blood and his companions. The group overcame Edwards and Blood removed the protective grille. Blood used a mallet to flatten St. Edward's Crown so that he could hide it beneath his clerical coat.

The group was disturbed. As Blood and his gang fled to their horses waiting at St Catherine's Gate, they dropped the sceptre and fired on the warders who attempted to stop them, wounding one. One drawbridge guard was struck with fear and failed to discharge his musket. As they ran along the Tower wharf it is said they joined the calls for alarm to confuse the guards until they were chased down by Captain Beckman, brother-in-law of the younger Edwards. Although Blood shot at him, he missed and was captured before reaching the Iron Gate.

Having fallen from his cloak, the crown was found while Blood refused to give up, struggling with his captors and declaring, "It was a gallant attempt, however unsuccessful! It was for a crown!"