History

2021-08-27 22:50:03 Uli Westphal has mapped out the evolution of the elephant in European art in a paper and accompanying graphic. Open / Comment

2021-08-27 00:04:01 The modern Paralympic Games can trace their roots to the 1948 Stoke-Mandeville Games. The Anglo-German Dr. Ludwig Guttman created them after spending time treating people, many of whom were veterans of war, with spinal injuries.
Most participants at the start were wheelchair-bound, but as the games became international, they diversified and were renamed the Paralympic Games, much to the happiness of the now elderly Guttman, who had long dreamt of an international competition for the disabled.
(Photo: The first Stoke-Mandeville Games (Aylesbury, UK, 1948). The contestant on the far right is Robin Isray. Due to faulty OCR the other two are not identified. The helpers, who retrieved the arrows, are the light music trio The Beverley Sisters.)
More about the history of the Paralympics Open / Comment

2021-08-25 20:43:01 Charlie Watts contemplating touring away from his wife, whilst Mick Jagger reads about the success of The Beatles (Gered Mankowitz, London, 1965).
Watts famously shunned the excessive lifestyle of the Rolling Stones and refused the advances of many women, including Playboy girls, because he loved his wife. In the 1980s he became involved in a physical altercation with Jagger, who had phoned him in the night asking for 'his drummer'. Watts left his hotel room and punched Jagger, telling him to never call him 'his drummer' again.
Source Open / Comment

2021-08-24 22:51:01 Colonialists, International Traitors, Think Carefully Before You Take Vietnam (Uncredited, 1970s). Open / Comment

2021-08-24 01:05:24 Full film:

Open / Comment

2021-08-24 01:05:10 'The Imitable Baltic Way', recalling the 23rd August 1989 Baltic Way protests that led to the independence of the Baltic states from the USSR. It's produced by the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so should be treated in the same way as any state-produced media - but it's an interesting watch. Open / Comment

2021-08-23 23:36:57 Palestinian women grinding coffee using a particular local method. (Photographer uncredited, 1905). Source Open / Comment

2021-08-22 01:43:06 Open / Comment

2021-08-22 01:38:52 An 1844 textbook claimed that a French village during the middle ages was stricken by an outbreak of cat-nuns. A single nun at 'a very large convent', for no discernible reason, began to meow like a cat. She was soon copied by some of her peers, and after some time the nuns were mewing every day for several hours. The townspeople were so annoyed that local soldiers were placed at the gates of the convent and threatened to whip the nuns if they continued. Open / Comment

2021-08-21 00:41:58 (It was probably more scary if you were a 2nd century peasant...) Open / Comment