A daily miasma of frivolity by two wanna-be cultural critics. Or: just, like, some good links, dude.

Tag Archives: history

Dec 21 2012
Mark Twain, probably

The secret life of ciabatta

The secret life of ciabatta

The Guardian in 1999:

July 1982. Israel invades Lebanon, Britain declares an end to hostilities in the Falklands, and, at a mill in Adria, a town near Venice, a small band of dedicated flour experts talk dough. One of their number, Arnaldo Cavallari, a miller in his late forties, is especially excited. For years, Rome could only look on, horrified, as large-scale baguette imports from France threatened to monopolise the lucrative sandwich market in Italy. It was time to hit back with an equally commercially viable product. After weeks spent testing new dough mixes and bake-times, refining and adapting existing regional loaves and using his own mineral- and gluten-rich flour, Cavallari came up with Italy’s very own dedicated snack bread. He called it Ciabatta Polesano. It was hailed as the bread that saved Italy, and rocked the sandwich world.

Really cool piece, lots of great history. I found it through a citation on the Wikipedia article for ciabatta.

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Dec 14 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Let’s talk about how Assassin’s Creed 3 depicts the American Revolution

Let’s talk about how Assassin’s Creed 3 depicts the American Revolution

Nice post on Nightmare Mode:

We thought it might be interesting to compare how the American Revolution was taught to an American vs a Canadian in light of Assassin’s Creed 3 (made by a Canadian studio!) So we got two NM contributors to examine what the game depicts.

There aren’t too many places that would post a lengthy conversation between two guys about the teaching of history and how that affects history’s portrayal in video games. Nightmare Mode is one of them. Check it out.

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Nov 29 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Former OED editor covertly deleted thousand of words, book claims

Former OED editor covertly deleted thousand of words, book claims

Alison Flood, The Guardian:

An eminent former editor of the Oxford English Dictionary covertly deleted thousands of words because of their foreign origins and bizarrely blamed previous editors, according to claims in a book published this week.

Robert Burchfield’s efforts to rewrite the dictionary have been uncovered by Sarah Ogilvie, a linguist, lexicographer and former editor on the OED.

Ogilvie worked for 11 years to research and write Words of the World, published by Cambridge University Press, which challenges the widely held belief that editors of the OED between 1884 and 1933 were Anglocentric Oxford dons obsessed with preserving the Queen’s English, and that it was not until Robert Burchfield’s four supplements, produced between 1972 and 1986, that the dictionary was opened up to the wider world.

An absolutely bonkers story. Who would do something like this? Why?

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Sep 20 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Jesus’ Wife Mentioned on Fourth-Century Papyrus Fragment

Jesus’ Wife Mentioned on Fourth-Century Papyrus Fragment

Elizabeth Lopatto, Bloomberg:

A scrap of papyrus dated to the fourth century has written on it in the ancient Coptic language, “Jesus said to them, my wife,” reopening the debate about whether Jesus was married, as some early Christians believed.

Neat. I found this part pretty fascinating too:

“One of the things we do know is that very rarely in ancient literature was the marital status of men discussed,” [Professor Karen] King said in a conference call with reporters. “Silence in marital status is normal.”

Only women were identified in terms of family relationships, as someone’s sister, mother, or wife, King said. The question of whether Jesus married came up later when people wanted to use him as a model for their lives, she said.

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Sep 17 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Invasion orders found wrapped around cigars in field led to bloodiest day in U.S. history

Invasion orders found wrapped around cigars in field led to bloodiest day in U.S. history

Christopher Sullivan, AP:

… Gen. Robert E. Lee’s secret Special Orders No. 191, detailing the Southern commander’s audacious plans for an invasion of enemy territory that would propel the Confederates to victory. Carelessly left behind as Lee’s army marched north, [a] copy was spotted in a field by the Indianans, and Lee’s name jumped out as Mitchell and Bloss read it.

When they passed their stunning find up the chain of command, Lee’s counterpart, the famously cautious Union Gen. George McClellan, exclaimed, “Now I know what to do!”

Four days later came the cataclysmic clash along the Antietam near Sharpsburg — what James McPherson, the eminent Civil War historian, has called “arguably … THE event of the war.”

The orders were found wrapped around a few cigars in a farm field. History is totally weird sometimes.

NBC News’s PhotoBlog posted images of the orders and a bunch of neato historical photos.

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Aug 24 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Amelia Earhart’s Plane Debris Possibly Located in Western Pacific

Amelia Earhart’s Plane Debris Possibly Located in Western Pacific

The Maritime Executive:

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which has been investigating the infamous Amelia Earhart plane crash for years, have recently discovered what is thought to be pieces of her plane in the waters off Nikumaroro island in Kiribati – a southwestern Pacific republic.

The underwater mission began on July 12th and used an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) to man the operation. Hours of high-definition data was produced. The famed Lockheed Electra aircraft was not immediately identified due to a harsh marine environment and technical difficulties.

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Aug 05 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Wikipedia: Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion

Wikipedia: Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion

The 25th anniversary of this is coming up. I had never heard about it until now.

The Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion was a television signal hijacking in Chicago, Illinois, on the evening of November 22, 1987. It is an example of what is known in the television business as broadcast signal intrusion. The intruder was successful in interrupting two television stations within three hours. Neither the hijacker nor the accomplices have ever been found or identified.

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Jan 28 2012
Mark Twain, probably

President Tyler’s grandchildren still alive

President Tyler’s grandchildren still alive

Eric Pfeiffer, writing on Yahoo! News’s The Sideshow blog:

John Tyler was born in 1790. He became the 10th president of the United States in 1841 after William Henry Harrison died in office. Tyler fathered Lyon Gardiner Tyler in 1853, at age 63. Then, at the age of 71, Lyon Gardiner Tyler fathered Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. in 1924 and four years later at age 75, Harrison Ruffin Tyler. Both men are still alive today.

Nuts. Click through for a bunch more facts about Tyler — most of which I’m sure the well-read (and well-groomed) Nullary Sources already know.

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Dec 24 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Pearl Harbor surprise: Photo of female firefighters wasn’t from Dec. 7

Pearl Harbor surprise: Photo of female firefighters wasn’t from Dec. 7

Bill Dedman on MSNBC’s Open Channel blog:

In the 70 years since the attack on Pearl Harbor, a dramatic photo of female firefighters has been published many times in magazines, history books and online as a depiction of action on Dec. 7, 1941. We published it this past week on msnbc.com. Now, with the help of our readers, we’ve located one of the women, who says the photo was definitely not taken on that day.

Really awesome piece involving crowdsourcing, personal history, and politics.

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Oct 07 2011
Mark Twain, probably

The Shoulders of Giants

The Shoulders of Giants

Dana Horn, writing in Science about Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who discovered that the Sun was made mostly of hydrogen — but is not given proper credit.

Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Her newspaper obituaries do not mention her greatest discovery. Even today, when it has become fashionable for historians to highlight the accomplishments of great female scientists, other astronomers are given precedence, or her name is listed as merely one of many. But there is no need to visit an Astronomy Hall of Fame to see how faint the memory of Payne-Gaposchkin has become. A glance at any elementary physical science textbook will do the trick. Every high school student knows that Isaac Newton discovered gravity, that Charles Darwin discovered evolution, and that Albert Einstein discovered the relativity of time. But when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.

(Via Aaron Diaz.)

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