#18th Century Peru

[la-solemulo]

La Virgen de la Soledad

The Virgin of Solitude

Oil on canvas

Unknown artist of the Cusco School Dated early 18th Century

Private collection

Please donate if you can: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-a-family-from-gaza-to-evacuate-and-reunite

[nickiisthings]

The Chinese in Latin America

The majority of people are unaware of the spread of the chinese peoples in many caribbean and latin american countries. Countries such as Guyana Suriname and Peru have a significant population of chinese inhabitants dating back to the 19th century. To put it in frame, celebrities such as Central Cee (guyanese-chinese and Irish) are of such ancestry.

Suriname 🇸🇷

Suriname, as most aren’t aware, is a small yet culturally fascinating nation that defies all odds. Located in the northeastern part of South America, Suriname stands out as the only Latin American country with Dutch as its official language. Adding to its linguistic charm, Sranan Tongo, a local creole language, is also widely spoken.

Chinese immigration to Suriname began in the mid-19th century, with the first wave arriving as indentured laborers to work on plantations, today they are well adjusted to suriname’s cultural and societal tapestry.

Guyana 🇬🇾

Guyana, Guyana is situated on the northeastern coast of South America, bordered by suriname among many.Its capital city is Georgetown and its oficial language is english making it unique among latin american countries. Guyana has a diverse population with significant ethnic groups including Indo-Guyanese, Afro-Guyanese, Amerindian, and mixed-race communities.

Chinese immigration to Guyana also began in the mid-19th century, with Chinese laborers arriving to work on sugar plantations. Over time, many transitioned to owning businesses and contributing to the country's economic development.

Peru 🇵🇪

It is situated in the southwestern part of the latin american continent. The capital city, Lima, is renowned for its culinary scene, blending indigenous, Spanish, and Asian influences. Peru is also known for its vibrant traditions, colorful festivals, and the preservation of Quechua culture and language.

Chinese immigrants, primarily from the Guangdong province, initially arrived in Peru to work as laborers in agriculture, railroads, and guano mining. Over time, they settled in urban areas, particularly Lima, and established thriving businesses, including the popular "chifa" restaurants that blend Chinese and Peruvian culinary traditions.

[solnunquamoccidit]

Ciudad de los Reyes - Catedral Metropolitana de San Juan Evangelista Coro

detail of the archepiscopal stall

Repositorio Institucional PUCP

[scotianostra]

Today is World Heritage Day

Oiginally known as the International Monuments and Sites Da it is a global celebration of this planet’s heritage. It’s all about increasing the awareness of the importance of the diversity of cultural and natural heritage and preserving this heritage for future generations..

In Scotland we’re lucky enough to have no less than six UNESCO World Heritage Sites. they are;

St Kilda.

The remote Hebridean island archipelago is one of only two-dozen global locations with World Heritage Status for both natural and cultural significance.

The archipelago shares this honour with natural and cultural wonders such as the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu in Peru and Mount Athos in Greece.

I'd love to visit, but it is a wee bit too expensive for me.

Edinburgh Old and New Towns.

Some people have asked me which part of Edinburgh is covered by this title, well the simple answer is all of it!

The capital is a city of many eras, and its World Heritage Site comprises both the old and new towns. The Auld Toon has preserved much of its medieval street plan and Reformation-era buildings along the wynds of the Royal Mile.

The (relatively) New town contrasts this perfectly with neoclassical and Georgian architecture in regimented order.

Antonine Wall.

I've explored many parts of the wall. Constructed around 142 AD by the Romans, the Antonine Wall marked the north-west frontier of their empire. Stretching from the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde, the Antonine Wall separated the civilised Romans from the wild Caledonians.

The Heart of Neolithic Orkney

I've not visited The Northen Isles as yet, plans were in the early stages to go this year, but my friend ended up in hospita and is still recuprating, hopefully we can get something sorted when she becomes more able.

The Orkney mainland is synonymous with archaeology. It boasts the mysterious standing stones at the Ring of Brodgar and megaliths at Standing Stones of Stenness, as well as the 5,000-year-old settlement of Skara Brae and chambered cairn and passage grave of Maeshowe. Together these four sites form the heart of Neolithic Orkney, which was given World Heritage status in 1999.

The Forth Bridge

I remember as a bairn drawing and painting the bridge with a steam train going over it, but the train going over the "bumps!"

One of our most iconic and beloved bridges, the Forth Bridge was named a World Heritage Site in 2015 just after its 125th anniversary. The bridge was one of the most ambitious projects of its kind ever attempted at the time. When it opened it had the longest single cantilever bridge span in the world.

New Lanark

The last mill closed in the 1960s but a restoration programme saved the 18th-century village from falling into dilapidation.

It is an early example of utopian socialism in Scotland as well as a planned settlement – making New Lanark an important milestone in the historical development of urban planning. I have never visited, I must say I much prefer my ruined castles and abbeys.

[mapsontheweb]

Spanish America

"Atlas des premières colonisations", Autrement, 2013

by cartesdhistoire

[ltwilliammowett]

Reales, pieces of eight, doubloones and ducats

Who doesn't know it, in films and books there are always stories about great pirate treasures and lots of coins are shown. But what kind of coins are they? Here is a small overview.

Silver real

Silver coin: 8 reales Fernando VI, Viceroyalty of New Spain - 1757 (x)

The real was a coin and a currency in Spain for several centuries after the mid-14th century, weighing 0,12 ounces (3,43g) of silver, and these were eight reales to a peso, hence the term " pieces of eight" for pesos.

Silver piece of eight or Spanish Dollar

Spanish piece of eight, 1780 (x)

Was an early Spanish silver dollar sized coin, with a content of 25.563 g = 0.822 oz t fine silver. As Spanish mints issued silver denominations smaller than eight reales relatively infrequently, these coins would sometimes be chopped up into smaller pieces to provide small change. In the 17th and 18th centuries, so many were in circulation that they were accepted almost anywhere in the world. The American doller sign $ was derived from the figure 8 stamped on the side of the piece of eight, the silver peso (or piaster). They were minted at Mexico City and Lima in Peru, and were common currency in all of England's colonies, being valued at four shillings and sixpence. Often they wre cut into eight pieces for ease of transaction, so that two bits made a quarter. The origin of the American phrase, not worth two bits, is from the days when the English colonies around Massachusetts used this Spanish money. Pieces of eight were produced for about 300 years, in Mexcio, Peru and Colombia, and they became the standard unit of trade between Europe and China. They wre legal tender in the USA until 1857. Before the Spanish started exploiting Potosi in Peru (in today's Bolivia), silver was almost as valuable as gold in the Old World. Such were the quantities taken from the New World, that silver dropped to about a 1/5 of the value of gold. The Spanish exported four billion pesos of silver and gold from the New World between 1492 and 1830.

Gold ducat

Gold ducat of Venice. Doge Andrea Gritti, Italy, 1523-38 (x)

This was the European gold trade coin, containing around 3.5 grams (0.11 troy ounces) of 98.6% fine gold, during the late medieval and early modern period. The name derives from ducatus, the Latin form of the title of the Doge of Venice, whre the ducat was first issued 1284. Called the ducado, it was worth less than a doubloon, about 10-11 silver reales, and was known to the British seaman as a ducat. The coin was copied throughout mainland Europe, and coins of the ducat standard were struck in several European countries up to the 20th century.

Gold doubloon (doblôn)

Spanish 4-doubloon, or doubloon of 8 escudos, stamped as minted in Mexico city mint in 1798 (x)

This was an early Spanish gold coin, worth approximately $4 (four Spanish dollars) or 32 reales, and weighing 6.766 grams (0.218 troy ounce) of 22-karat gold (or 0.917 fine; hence 6.2 g fine gold). The name originally applying to the gold excelente of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was later transferred to the two escudo coin issued by Spain and the Spanish colonies in the Americas. It was the largest Spanish gold coin, weighing slightly less than an ounce of gold, and originates from the Latin word duplus, or double. A doubloon was worth about seven weeks wages to a sailor.

[blueiscoool]

The Hunt: El Dorado, Fabled City of Gold, Remains Hidden in the Amazon

Centuries have seen countless explorers brave hardships to find the fabled city.

An ancient city of gold somewhere in South America is rumored to have been so fabulously opulent that it has become an expression for any place where people can amass great fortunes. But it has been so elusive that it has become synonymous, like the Holy Grail, with a prized object long sought but never found. Countless men have given their lives in the search for its riches as they ran out of supplies and food, were felled by disease, or encountered violent resistance along the way.

The goal of numerous explorers over centuries, from crews with wooden ships and horses to teams with drones and radar, El Dorado is a lost city, reportedly stretching over great distances in the Amazon rainforest and hidden from prying eyes by its remoteness and the warlike peoples in the forest around it. (The region got its name, in fact, from Spanish explorer Francisco Orellana, who compared the fighting women he encountered during his own search with the Amazons of ancient Greece.)

Tales of El Dorado, its name Spanish for “the golden,” began with the Muisca peoples’ perhaps-mythical account of a tribal chief who, in an initiation rite, coated himself in gold. He then went onto Lake Guatavita, near present-day Bogotá, threw a pile of gold objects into the water, and washed the gold off himself as his attendants also threw an abundance of gold objects into the lake. The 16th-century Spanish referred to him as the Golden Man or the Golden King.

“This is the ceremony that became the famous El Dorado, which has taken so many lives and fortunes,” according to a 1638 letter from writer Juan Rodríguez Freyle. That pile of loot was soon fused in the lore with an account of an entire city made of gold. Others posited that the city was called Manoa and was situated on the shores of a legendary Lake Parima, which has also never been found.

Supposedly one of the first to claim he visited it was the Spanish explorer Juan Martinez, who reported that the locals had brought him there blindfolded in 1531 and allowed him to witness it, and that he traveled an entire day through its streets before reaching the emperor’s palace.

When Francisco Pizarro conquered the gold-rich Inca civilization in Peru in 1532, Spaniards believed all the more firmly in the fabled El Dorado. Francisco de Orellana, a relative of Pizarro, unwittingly traveled the entire length of the Amazon, the world’s longest river, in his search for it.

Some gold did turn up in a lake, seeming to justify the continued search. After he found Guatavita, a sacred lake in the Andes, in 1537, conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada partly emptied it using a bucket chain. From its depths emerged a few thousand pesos of gold.

Bogotá entrepreneur Antonio de Sepúlveda, for his part, cut an enormous notch in the bank of the lake in 1580, removing a great deal of water before the notch collapsed and killed many of the workers. For his trouble, he uncovered three times as much gold as Quesada had, and sent it to King Philip II of Spain. Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century German explorer, would calculate that there could be as much as $300 million in gold in the lake.

English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh went looking for El Dorado in 1594, followed by the Spanish conquistadores, who scoured modern-day Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil in the search. Less well-known expeditions continued over the 17th and 18th centuries, bodies piling up but ultimately turning up nothing.

In findings from a major scientific investigation, Von Humboldt would claim, ca. 1800, to have disproven the existence of the lake El Dorado is meant to have flanked. In the following decades, two other researchers came to the same conclusion.

But the legend did not die. The search was revived a century later, when an English company drained the lake almost entirely. Despite their efforts, they extracted artifacts worth only about £500, some of which went to the British Museum, some of which sold at Sotheby’s London. In 1965, the Colombian government designated the lake as off-limits to further attempts.

The quest continues with the help of modern technology. A team led by Venezuelan archaeologist-explorer Jose Miguel Perez-Gomez went looking, employing aerial and satellite remote sensing surveys obtained from NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Missions (SRTM), the Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) instrument, and TanDEM-X synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors from the German Aeropsace Center’s Microwave and Radar Institute, according to a 2019 paper. Of all the unlikely results, their findings strongly resembled the outlines of a lake in a map drawn by none other than Sir Walter Raleigh.

The area is not without rich natural resources, so dreams of a city of gold can perhaps be forgiven. Illegal extraction operations are underway to this day, in fact, in what the Venezuelan government in 2016 designated the Orinoco Mining Arc, which covers 12 percent of the country’s territory and is rich not only in gold but also bauxite, coltan, and diamonds, possibly totaling some $2 trillion in value. You can literally see the modern gold mining from space: in 2021, an astronaut passing over eastern Peru in the International Space Station used a Nikon camera to snap a photo that reveals numerous gold prospecting pits.

Over the years, El Dorado has shown up in popular culture countless times, from a 1989 Neil Young record to video games, a board game, and the Cadillac Eldorado. So even as the city has remained stubbornly hidden over centuries, it is, in its way, all around us.

By Brian Boucher.

[thatwobblychair]

CoD The Other Good Guys Bear! Edition

What if the rest of the good guys in call of duty were bears? Part 2 - see Part 1 for 141 as bears

More bear facts! Cause bears are truly the best! 🐻💯

Alejandro: Mexican Grizzly Bear*

Ursus arctos nelsoni - now Ursus arctos horribilis

*depiction of what a mexican grizzly bear may have looked like alive

A now extinct subspecies of the grizzly bear that once inhabited northern Mexico. Due to its predation on cattle farms, they were considered pests and hunted by farmers. By the 1960s there were less than 30 individuals remaining. In 1974 the last known individual was shot in Sonora.

It was smaller than grizzly bears from the United states and Canada, and its colouration was said to range from a pale yellow to greyish-white with a darker undertone, though some individuals were described to be darker and reddish brown.

Due to its silvery fur, it was called 'el olso plateado' (the silvery bear) in Spanish, though it's name in the Ópatas language (an indigenous Mexican people's) was 'pissini'.

Rudy: Spectacled Bear "Andean Bear"

Tremarctos ornatus

The last remaining short-faced bear, native to the Andes Mountains in northern and western South America. Though all bears are omnivores, the spectacled bear has a mostly herbivorous diet with only 5-7% of their diet being meat.

The bear is named after it's distinctive eye markings, though not all spectacled bears may have such markings. Individuals can have highly variable fur patterns making it relatively easy to distinguish from one another.

It's short face and broad snout is thought to be an adaptation to a carnivorous diet despite it's herbivorous preferences.

Paddington Bear is said to be a Spectacled Bear from Peru.

Farah: Asian Black Bear "Moon Bear"

Ursus thibetanus

A medium sized bear native to Asia and highly adapted to arboreal life. It can be found in parts of Korea, China, Japan, eastern Russia, the Himalayas, southeastern Iran and northern India. It is listed as vulnerable due to deforestation and poaching for its body parts (used in traditional medicines).

The name 'moon bear' is given due to its distinctive creamy white cresent fur patch, though in some individuals it is "V" shaped. It has a powerful upper body stronger than it's lower limbs and are known to be the most bipedal of bears.

It has a reputation for extreme aggression despite their reclusive nature and there have been documented reports of unprovoked attacks. They are said to be more aggressive than the Eurasian Brown Bears that may cohabit the same areas and the American Black Bear.

Alex: American Black Bear

Ursus americanus

Alongside the Brown Bear, it is one of the only Bear species not threatened with extinction.

Despite living in North America, it is more closely related to the Asian Black Bear and Sun Bear than Grizzly Bears (North American Brown Bears) and Polar Bears. It's ancestors are thought to have split off from the Sun Bear.

Black Bears are distinguished from Grizzly Bears who may cohabit the same area, with their longer tall ears, straight face profile, shorter claws and lack of distinctive hump.

Teddy bears, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Smokey Bear are all inspired by the American Black Bear.

Nikolai: Polar Bear

Ursus maritimus

A large bear native to the Arctic. It is closely related to the Brown Bear and can hybridise with them though this is rare and not often seen. (See Grolar Bears)

They are the most carnivorous of all bear species (hypercarnivores), specialising in hunting seals through ambush attacks. Polar Bears are usually solitary but can be found in groups on land. They can form stable 'alliances' based on dominance hierarchies outside of breeding seasons with the largest males at the top.

It's common name was given in 1771, and was previously referred to as 'white bear', 'ice bear', 'sea bear', 'Greenland bear' in 13th - 18th century Europe. The Netsilik cultures (Inuit) named it 'nanook' and have several additional different names for them depending on sex and age of the polar bear.

Laswell: Kodiak Bear "Kodiak/Alaskan Brown Bear"

Ursus arctos middendorffi

Named after it's habitation of the Kodiak Archipelago in southwest Alaska, the Kodiak bear is the largest subspecies of Brown Bear, with some individuals comparable to the Polar Bear in size.

An island bear, it is 1.5-2x larger than it's mainland cousins the grizzly bear, though physically and physiologically, the two bears are very similar.

Due to its tendancy to feed in dense groups, it has thought to have developed more complex social behaviours (in comparison to mainland grizzly bears) to minimise infighting/fatalities via both verbal/ body posturing and social structures.

+

All info taken from wiki. Please let me know if ther any mistakes.

[oleworm]

I really need to read more about history and how life actually was for regular people in different places and time periods because whenever I hear somebody talking about working multiple jobs and barely being able to support themselves it makes me think of that enslaved man in 18th century Viceroyalty of Peru who killed himself because he was working multiple jobs and couldn’t afford to both support himself and his family and pay the amount that the one who enslaved him demanded from him (an accepted practice at the time—at least for anyone who wasn’t an abolitionist). I can understand why the comparison came to mind but surely there are examples closer than that. I suspect, though, that such situations have been rather common, or more common than uncommon, to put it one way.

I spend too much time on the Computer (or more terrible than that, the Phone), so I understand that the English-dominated discussion of current trends in Society, or the Economy, etc, overrepresents the grievances of citizens of countries that have been very prosperous in the past few decades. Those are parts of the world, but they’re not “the” world!

(All of this to say I should read more books and less of what’s on the Computer.)

[noelcollection]

Publications of the New World

The James Smith Noel Collection has closed out another exciting exhibit, this time the topic was the New World of the Americas as experienced by Europe and other explorers. The exhibit: Exploration of the New World features the culture and intriguing history of Central and South America as it was experienced in the resources produced in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. We welcomed visitors to the mysterious, ancient rituals of the Pre-Columbian Mayans, the Aztecs of Mexico, and the Incas of Peru. We also showcased the advancements in architecture, science, and community development while marveling at the natural beauty of the regions.

One of the cases displayed a fascinating book which was originally published in Spanish and later translated into English. The edition house in the Noel Collection was published in 1688 of The royal commentaries of Peru, : in two parts. The first part Treating the Original of their Incas or Kings: Of their Idolatry … by Garcilaso de la Vega. Vega wrote a pivotal account of Incan history. Vega has a unique personal connection to the Incan world being a descendant of royal Incan lineage. He was half Spanish and Incan, his father being Spanish, and he chronicled Incan history, culture, and destruction as a result of the Spanish conquest. We featured a portion of text that discussed the minerals, precious metals, and natural resources found in Peru, such as, gold, silver, and mercury or quicksilver.

Vega was born as Gómez Suárez de Figueroa in April of 1539, and became known as El Inca. He ventured to Spain when he was 21 where he obtained an informal education and remained until his death in April of 1616. His father died in 1559 and Vega relocated to Spain two years later to seek acknowledgement as the natural son of the Spanish conquistador. His paternal uncle became his protector. While he primarily wrote on the Incan civilization, Spanish conquest, and an account of De Soto’s exploration of Florida.

 Gómez Suárez de Figueroa was born in Cuzco, Peru; his father is recorded as being Sabastian Garcilaso de la Vega y Vargas, a Spanish captain, and his mother was Palla Chimpu Ocllo. When his mother was baptized after the fall of Cuzo and renamed Isabel Suarez Chimpu Ocllo, she was descended from Inca nobility, the daughter of Tupac Huallap and granddaughter of Tupac Yupanqui. Vega’s parents were not married in the Catholic church, resulting in his birth being considered illegitimate and he was given his mother’s surname. Vega was a child when his father left and married a younger Spanish noblewoman. His mother married and had two daughters. His first language was Quechua but learned Spanish as a child.

After moving to Spain, he received a European education and the works he produced was considered to have great literary value. He traveled to Montilla and met his father’s brother, Alonso de Vargas, who took him as his protector to help Vega make his way. He traveled to Madrid and petitioned the crown for acknowledgement. He was allowed the name of Garcilaso de la Vega, or "El Inca" or "Inca Garcilaso de la Vega" due to his mixed heritage. He had first-hand experience of the daily-life of the Inca life which heavily influenced his writings. His education allowed him to accurately describe the political system, labor force, and social life of the Incan empire.

Vega, Garcilaso de la (1688) The royal commentaries of Peru, : in two parts. The first part Treating the Original of their Incas or Kings: Of their Idolatry … London: Printed by Miles Flesher … https://bit.ly/3UxrtdH

Exhibit link: https://bit.ly/3y7k657

[la-solemulo]

Virgen de la Soledad o de los Dolores

Virgin of Solitude or Sorrows

Oil on canvas

Unknown artist of the Cusco School Dated 18th Century

Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum collection, USA

Please donate if you can: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-kamlas-family-find-safety-in-egypt

[fabiansociety]

so a lot of the dna of fallout is built on a canticle for leibowitz, which was itself drawing on the loss of technological learning in europe following the collapse of the western roman empire… but that loss was geographic, not universal. classical knowledge was retained and built upon for centuries in the islamic world; the renaissance kicked off in europe because a wealth of arabic translations and commentaries on classical writers came into europe through muslim spain and the expansion and retraction of the ottoman empire. fallout has moved fairly far away from the idea of an intellectual dark age, inasmuch as it ever really had one, but it would be interesting for NCR traders or brotherhood scouts to get far enough towards South America that they encounter the thriving and advanced civilizations of venezuela, colombia, or peru. they had some bad years following the great war, sure, but they weren't primary targets the way the US was, so all the prewar technology is still there, iterated on with 200 years of further experimentation and adaptation to a world lacking in the easy extractive resources that the former great powers relied on. where the brotherhood of steel's pretensions to being keepers of knowledge isn't just self-aggrandizement, but positively quaint. power armor is suddenly as antiquated as plate mail would be to an 18th century musketeer.

[solnunquamoccidit]

La fundación de Lima

by José Effio (Peruvian, 1845-1920) 1897

Museo de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú

[emmaklee]

Our Lady of the Rosary of Pomata (Peru, 17th-18th century)

[rabbitcruiser]

International Water Fall Day

International Waterfall Day is celebrated every year on June 16 to celebrate these magnificent and scenic beauties. Waterfalls are found all around the world and are incredibly important to the local communities living around them. The cascade of water is not just a wonder for the eyes but they also have a majestic quality to them that’s indescribable. Imagine trekking for miles, drenched in sweat and beaten down by the sun, only to finally walk through a clearing and look up at the sky to see what looks like water pouring from the heavens.

History of International WaterFall Day

A waterfall is usually defined as a point in a river where the water flows over a steep drop. As there are many types and methods used to classify waterfalls, what constitutes a waterfall continues to be debated. Despite being such an important part of human lives and history, waterfalls have not been very much researched, although Alexander von Humboldt did write about them in the 1820s. There is no name for the specific field of researching waterfalls but it is popular to describe studying waterfalls as ’waterfallology.’

European explorers used to document the waterfalls they came across. In 1493, Christopher Columbus wrote about Carbet Falls in Guadeloupe, which could be the first waterfall Europeans recorded seeing in the Americas. However, Geographer Brian J. Hudson suggests that it was uncommon to specifically name waterfalls until the 18th century.

This trend of, specifically, Europeans naming waterfalls is following people’s increased scientific focus on nature at the time, the rise of Romanticism, and the increased importance of hydropower due to the Industrial Revolution. However, European explorers would often ignore the names native peoples had originally given these waterfalls in favor of a more ’European’ name. For example, Scottish physician and explorer David Livingstone named Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria, even though it was already known as Mosi-oa-Tunya by the people native to the area.

Waterfall exploration continues to this day. Waterfalls are visited by people in droves mainly because they make great tourist sites; it is not just because they are beautiful, but also because they are relatively uncommon.

International WaterFall Day timeline

Late 1600sNiagara and Saint Anthony Falls

Belgian missionary Louis Hennepin visits North America and provides early descriptions of the Niagara Falls and Saint Anthony Falls.

1884“Waterfallology”

Geologist William Morris Davis, known as the "father of American geography," writes and publishes an early paper on waterfalls.

November 16, 1933Jimmy Angel Spots the Angel Falls

American aviator Jimmy Angel flies over the waterfall now known as Angel Falls, while on a flight searching for a valuable ore bed.

March 9, 2006The Exploration Continues

The Gocta Cataracts,  a perennial waterfall with two drops located in Bongara, Peru, is first announced to the world.

International WaterFall Day FAQs

How do you survive falling over a waterfall?

Jumping off a waterfall is dangerous and can be fatal. However, if you find yourself in the unfortunate situation of tripping over one, these steps might help: Take a deep breath while you’re still in the air; go over the falls feet first and jump out and away from the edge; cover your head with your arms; start swimming as soon as you hit the water to avoid hitting the rocks at the bottom and continue downstream, away from the falls.

What are the most popular waterfalls?

Waterfalls found on all continents serve as popular tourist sites. Some of the famous ones in the world are Niagara Falls, Victoria Falls, Angel Falls, Yosemite Falls, Jog Falls, Iguazu Falls, and Sutherland Falls, among others.

How are waterfalls formed?

Waterfalls are formed when the riverbed suddenly changes from soft to hard rock. Rapids are created where a fast-flowing river cuts quickly downward through a bed of hard and soft rocks. The quicker erosion of the soft rock beneath the hard rock results in the hard rock to be elevated above the stream bed.  Afterward, a vertical drop will eventually (after many, many years) begin to form as more of the soft rock gets eroded.

International WaterFall Day Activities

Visit a waterfall

Admire them from home

Explore exotic places

Fill up your car and drive to your nearest waterfall for a lovely day out. Make a picnic out of it by inviting your friends and family!

Appreciate the beauty of waterfalls from the comfort of your home by hanging their pictures around your house and watching tourism videos on YouTube. Post pictures on your social media to share these wondrous sites with your friends.

Visit other places if you can’t make a trip to a waterfall. Use this day as an opportunity to satisfy your wanderlust and appease the travel-hungry explorer in you!

5 Facts About Waterfalls That Will Blow Your Mind

Angel Falls is extremely tall

There are thousands of waterfalls worldwide

Niagara Falls is very clean

They can be loud

They can  freeze over

Venezuela’s Angel Falls is the world's longest waterfall at 3,212 feet, with the water turning into mist before it hits the base of the waterfall.

There are still many waterfalls in the world that have yet to be recorded and named, leaving the list of waterfalls in the World Waterfall Database to be incomplete.

The water in Niagara Falls is so clean that it can even be used as drinking water.

The roar from the famous Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe is so loud that it can be heard from 25 miles away.

Some waterfalls freeze for at least part of the year,  leaving mountaineers able to climb them to practice and test their skills.

Why We Love International WaterFall Day

They’re beautiful

They have religious significance

They’re important sources of power

Waterfalls are popular tourist sites for a reason. They’re beautiful and can have an amazing de-stressing and calming effect on you. Who wouldn’t want to visit a place like that?

People in different cultures also attach religious significance to waterfalls in their regions. ‘Misogi,’ which means ‘water cleansing’ in Japanese, is a popular Shinto practice in Japan where people stand under a waterfall to purify their souls.

Hydroelectricity can be generated from naturally existing waterfalls, although most hydroelectric plants generate water from man-made falls. They are made by building dams, thus restricting the natural flow of the river into channels where the water can power turbines.

Source

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Could pink be Earth’s oldest color? That’s the implication of a 2018 study that found bright-pink pigments in 1.1 billion-year-old rocks — thanks to the fossils of the billions of tiny cyanobacteria that once dominated oceans.

The natural world has long been painted with every permutation of pink — whether embedded deep in ancient rock, sported by shrimp-hungry flamingoes, or simply lining the shores of Bermuda’s pink-sand beaches.

And yet the color carries a lot of cultural baggage.

As pink made the jump from nature’s palette to human adornment, it gathered connotations of colonialism, beauty, power, and gender.

How did pink become such a cultural flashpoint? As the world takes a revitalized interest in the hot-pink planet inhabited by Barbie, here’s a short history of the compelling color.

Admiration for pink in the ancient world

Early humans quickly transitioned from admiring pink in the natural world to attempting to wear it.

For example, in the Andes Mountains about 9,000 years ago, fierce hunters in what is now Peru wore tailored leather clothing with a pink hue thanks to red ochre, an iron oxide pigment that is one of the oldest natural pigments used by humans.

Humans weren’t content just to smear this pigment on cave walls or use it while tanning their leather garments.

As far back as ancient Egypt, humans used ochre to tint their lips and cheeks.

When applied to human skin, the red pigment created a blush-like pink that onlookers associated with love, sexuality, and beauty.

Lookalike concoctions prevailed around the world, employing everything from crushed strawberries to red amaranth.

The color of cosmetics—and colonialism

Though the word’s etymology is unknown, the word “pink” was used to describe the color in the 18th century.

By then, pink had become inextricably tied with colonialism — as demand for the pigment for cosmetics drove Europeans to harvest natural resources in other parts of the world.

For example, in a bid to make pinkish pigments from the bark and red sap of brazilwood trees, European traders forced enslaved workers to cut down so many of Brazil’s eponymous trees that the country was left deforested and the tree nearly driven extinct.

During this Era of Exploration, consumers also got their pink cheeks and lips from other pigments like carmine, derived from cochineal insects harvested in Central and South America under similar conditions.

Meanwhile, the color also had a more literal association with colonialism:

During this time, the British Empire grew so massive that the color pink — which mapmakers used to mark its territories worldwide — dominated the world map.

Pink becomes a bona fide fashion craze

As red tints became more accessible and cheaper, 18th-century European aristocrats indulged a passion for pink.

Art historian Michel Pastoureau writes that “the most privileged classes of European society wanted pastels, halftones, and the newest innovations in color shades in order to distinguish themselves from the middle classes, who now had access to bright, strong, and reliable colors.”

Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV of France during the 1740s and 1750s, used the color as a signature.

The artists who painted her and created fine objects for her many homes used pink in all their designs, even her carriages, and she helped further popularize the hue throughout Europe.

The emergence of synthetic dyes in the mid-19th century — which gave rise to the purple-pink color known as mauve — made pink more accessible than ever before.

By the 1930s, bright pink had become a bona fide fashion craze.

Avant-garde fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli made “shocking pink” her signature color, helping spread the vogue for women’s wear.

It worked: By 1935, even local newspapers like the News and Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, were declaring that “PINK IS FAVORITE.”

And in 1939, a royal commentator wrote in London’s Daily Telegraph that pink was so popular, it was nearly ubiquitous for both bridesmaids and debutantes.

“So general is the pink craze,” the paper wrote, “that some women are rebelling against it.”

Pink is for…boys?

Around the same time, pink gained relevance in another realm: baby fashion.

Gender and baby fashion had intersected for years; around World War I, etiquette guides and fashion advice columns began advising that mothers dress their children in clothing with gender-specific hues.

But which colors? A 1927 retailer survey on infant clothing colors published in TIME shows a split nation, with retailers like Filene’s and Marshall Field’s recommending pink for boys, but Macy’s, Bullock’s, and others claiming pink was best for girls.

By the 1960s, however, mothers began buying pink clothing for their female babies, dressing their male children in pastel blues.

“None of this transition happened by childcare expert fiat or industry proclamation,” writes historian Jo B. Paoletti.

Instead, pink gained steam as a signifier of a baby’s female sex as part of a post-World War II push to reinforce traditional gender roles in American homes — and the realization by retailers that they could make more money that way.

“The more baby clothing could be designed for an individual child — and sex was the easiest and most obvious way to distinguish babies — the harder it would be for parents to hand down clothing from one child to the next, and the more clothing they would have to buy as their family grew,” Paoletti writes.

Soon, retailers featured entire “pink aisles” packed with pink-colored clothing and toys for tiny consumers.

The dark side of pink

Pink was also rejected by some as a symbol of weakness or even sinister intent.

In Nazi Germany, for example, the color was used to brand gay men in concentration and death camps.

As the Cold War emerged, suspected Communist sympathizers were given the derogatory name of “pinkos” — a term that referred to a person with “red” tendencies toward radical politics.

Meanwhile, members of the women’s liberation movement attempted to distance themselves from a color that had become inextricably linked with femininity and sexuality — think: Marilyn Monroe slinking down a staircase in a shocking pink gown, surrounded by tuxedoed men.

Anti-feminists, meanwhile, embraced pink.

Author Helen B. Andelin, for example, made public appearances in all-pink ensembles in the 1960s and 1970s during lectures encouraging women to abandon feminism and embrace lives as housewives.

Reclaiming pink

Pink remains associated with femininity to this day — but in recent decades, groups once disdainfully branded with the color have made moves to reclaim it.

In the LGBTQ community, for example, people who were once forced to wear pink as outcasts have adopted the hue as a symbol of their movement for social justice.

In 1987, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) adopted a bubble-gum pink triangle in its “Silence = Death” campaign to increase awareness of HIV-AIDS and destigmatize the disease.

It was just one example of pink being used to represent gay pride.

Some feminists have also reclaimed the color, fighting gender stereotypes with a tongue-in-cheek adoption of all shades of rose, fuchsia, and bubble-gum pink.

At the 2017 Women’s March, for example, a sea of protesters wearing pink, cat-eared “pussy hats” protested the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose lewd remarks about female genitalia during a leaked interview drew worldwide condemnation.

Today, pink is what you make of it — and it has grown in popularity once more.

In 2016, Pantone announced that a shade of dusty pink — dubbed Millennial Pink for the generation that had embraced it—was its Color of the Year.

This year, Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie movie helped fuel the rise of the pink-drenched “Barbiecore” aesthetic, inspiring admirers to saturate their homes and wardrobes with every shade of pink.

According to Axios, searches for the term “Barbiecore aesthetic room” rose over 1,000 percent between May 2022 and May 2023, reflecting consumers’ craving for as-pink-as-possible interiors.

There’s no telling which permutation of pink will captivate us next — but given the colorful history of the hues that fall somewhere between white and red, pink’s next heyday is probably right around the corner.

Barbie would approve of the pink petals on this beach morning glory.

Pink flowers like this one get their rosy tinge from a group of biological pigments called anthocyanins, which attract pollinators — and human admirers — to colors ranging from the palest carnation to the most ostentatious tropical fuchsia.