#geek history

[theancientwayoflife]

~ Tetradrachm of Kingdom of Parthia with bust of Orodes II.

Culture: Greek

Period: Late Hellenistic Period

Date: 57–37 B.C.

Mint: Kingdom of Parthia

Place of origin: Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris (Babylonia)

Medium: Silver

[questionableadvice]

~ Woods Motor Vehicle Company, 1903

"Carriages, Not Machines"

As a History Geek I've always loved the period of time it takes for language and style to catch up to a new invention. Example: when early automobiles came along, they weren't necessarily viewed as something brand new, but as upgraded carriages. The Woods Company made electric/hybrid vehicles from 1899-1916 and they looked so much like carriages they were even named after them.

Behold the "Brougham" style from 1903 with a driver that looks like he's just waiting for his horses:

If you are also amused by stuff like this you can see an entire catalog of the Woods Electric Carriages over here.

[somewhereincairparavel]

hc that jason has a shit ton of perfume collections, they're all very expensive too- (most of them are gifts from absolutely random people in new rome, that he reluctantly took, but he buys some too)

he probably had this collection habit wayy back at camp jupiter. new rome definitely has cool perfume shops you can't tell me otherwise. its supposed to be a replica of rome, and rome has pretty fragrance stores. the scent of perfume just soothes him, it's his version of a caffeine addiction lol. he just sniffs one out of his 1000 perfume bottles, when he feels overstimulated and bam. he feels better.

also mini hc that jason is an impulse spender sometimes. it doesn't happen very often because he's VERY used to restricting himself from buying stuff, considering how he thinks he's isn't worthy to have those things or something, but he likes buying artistic stuff. he LOVES thrift stores omg. he's the type to cry when he sees baby onesies or blankies in a thrift store bc of the potential tragedy behind it :((

I like this hc mostly because people think he's levelheaded and reasonable ALL the time but this adds a twist to his personality yk? he doesn't have to be perfect, he has that ‘mom’ shopping desire where he splurges on potted plants, ancient books, vintage collections (music boxes, cute mini souvenirs, you name it) and like historical paintings and spend lots of time organizing.

[melodymonaei]

Reblog if you want to get a video from me ❤️😍💞 trans love.

[cravinganescape]

Nokia 9000 Communicator (1996) | The first official 'smartphone' to hit the market with a laptop-like design, featuring LCD display screen of 640 x 200 pixels and full QWERTY keyboard.

[thatonegeekygirl]

thrilled that nerds ryan bergara and shane madej make a living being extremely nerdy. absolutely phenomenal

[amuseoffyre]

History time:

Mr. Dalrymple, the eminent surgeon in episode 3 of S2 of Good Omens, appears to be inspired by Robert Knox, an Edinburgh surgeon famous because of his connection to the Burke and Hare murders in the 1820s.

He became an anatomist at the Edinburgh College of Surgeons in Newington and quickly developed a reputation as a lecturer that guaranteed him a steady flow of students, but as with Dalrymple in the show, the shortage of available cadavers was a constant and persistent problem in the city.

Since it gets a bit grisly, I'll pop it behind a thingie.

Graverobbing became so common that many of the graveyards in the city installed watchtowers to keep an eye on the graveyards and some of them had mortsafes put in place:

The coffins were locked in these cages to give the bodies time to get to the stage of decay that would render them useless to anatomists, then popped in a grave afterwards.

This is where Burke and Hare enter this story. They lived in the slums of the old town of Edinburgh and learned that the surgeons would provide money in exchange for fresh bodies, so rather than dig up the graves and risk the watchmen, they cut out the middleman and started murdering people for profit.

Robert Knox was their primary customer and he claimed to be oblivious to the crimes that were being committed, even though Burke and Hare were showing up with unsettling regularity with fresh corpses, but since they were killing the poor, no one was really paying much attention.

According to Mr. Knox, he thought the men were picking up corpses from the poor houses, though there is evidence that suggests he was aware of what was happening: one of the victims was a well-known boy with distinctive physical disabilities who would have been well-recognised. According to contemporary accounts, Knox had the young man's head, hands and feet removed, so no one would recognise him.

Since this could never be proven, he wasn't arrested for his part in the whole affair, but he was described as being "deficient in principle and heart" and public opinion spoke loud and clear. He left Edinburgh in disgrace and was eventually also debarred from teaching by the Royal College of Surgeons in England.

Eventually, laws were brought in to prevent grave robbery, but not before dozens of people were killed for profit.

[oldshowbiz]

The Ancient Brick Strip Clubs of East Toronto

[aroaceleovaldez]

Jason, Reyna, and Nico have one billion in-jokes about Mediterranean history between the bronze age to the renaissance that they find absolutely hilarious and no one else understands in the slightest. i know this in my heart to be true.

[marzipanandminutiae]

if you're terrified for your country's elections next year because a lot of people seem to think the solution to the government handling an international conflict in an abysmal and deplorable way is to let a group of total monsters who would handle it MUCH worse AND also potentially doom huge swaths of oppressed people at home as well as our entire literal planet get into power, by ignoring the way our deeply flawed but also deeply entrenched system realistically works

clap your hands...?

(I cannot understand trying to stop heinous and unnecessary killing- which disgusts and saddens me, too! how could it not?! -by handing the election to people who want to do even more of that exact thing. the math isn't mathing, as they say)

[astriiformes]

People joke about the plot point in Back to the Future where Doc hits his head and the idea for the flux capacitor occurs to him but honestly, I've always interpreted it less as "hitting his head magically gave him a vision of something to invent" and more "he had a weird moment of clarity about an idea he'd been mulling over for a while"

Partially because, yes, it makes more sense, but also. He's a nuclear physicist in 1955. He would have been finishing his graduate degree at Caltech in the 1930s, at the same time that Richard Chace Tolman (of Tolman's Paradox fame) was a professor there. Do you know one of the big questions physicists were seriously throwing around during that point in time? You can't tell me that Doc wasn't already thinking constantly about how to make time travel work -- with his colleagues before he became more of a recluse, and then later on his own time -- considering it was one of the biggest questions in theoretical physics (and I imagine his interests always swung pretty heavily that direction given, well. Doc).

So like. Obviously it's comedic. The Back to the Future movies are comedies. But also. Love to think about time travel as an idea he was toying around with ever since he was young that then one day landed on his doorstep in the form of a very bewildered teenager.

[shadoedseptmbr]

Something I would like to ask if my writing friends (art friends too but it will process differently for you, I suppose)

Keep journals. Document.

Document what is happening, your views on how we got here. What you learned in school vs what you learned from the people in your life.

If the worst things happen, write down names and times and who cooperated and who didn't.

Write about who we lose. Who gets fired. About the price of eggs. About clothes and book swaps. About the librarians and the professors and the little circle at your yarn shop. About when it rains and doesn't and when the hummingbirds show up.

Do it offline, in hardcopy, if you can. Digital is brutally ephemeral.

The history of after is built on the housekeeping budget notes and the marginalia. The greatest treasures in research are common folk who thought big thoughts and scribbled a few lines of current events now and again, as an afterthought.

Heck, write your monster fucking stories in there, too. Facts certainly never stopped Herodotus.

Do it for the tired little grad student four hundred years from now who goes to their advisor with a tattered notebook and says, "I think this has some facts I need, they've got like sixteen years of climate data, even if I'm pretty sure we can ignore the bit about flanged, candy colored alien dicking."

And the advisor who gets to say, "like heck I'm ignoring the dicking."

[questionableadvice]

~ A Girl and Her Hair, 1947, Published by Proctor & Gamble Co.

Today in Surprising Things People Had to be Taught: shampoo! A brief History Geek* look at the 20th century history of shampoo and hair washing:

The first commercial soap specifically for hair was invented in 1914 and sold in London. Before this, people would use boiled soap shavings (1) dissolved in water, or other homemade mixtures. Drene was the first shampoo containing synthetic surfactants instead of just diluted soap and it wasn't introduced until the mid-1930s, which means this ad was meant for people who were unfamiliar with shampoo as we think of it today. It wasn't until the 1960s that shampoo began containing polymers to help prevent damage by detergent. And then in the 1970s companies began ad campaigns telling us it was dirty and unhealthy not to shampoo several times a week and an entire drugstore aisle was born!

*I've done research and tried to be accurate but let me know if I've missed anything!

(1) often containing lye

[somewhereincairparavel]

Headcanon that Jason Grace takes his Roman history obsession to the next level, to the point where he has totally read illegal/restricted books in camp Jupiter before. Yk how there are restricted libraries? Camp Jupiter totally has tons of those only elite members can access. Jason totally exploits his position just for more history info.

Yk how annabeth said in Mark of Athena, that Jason looks like he knows way TOO much but simply doesn't tell anyone? Well he does. he has dark af secrets and tea, he'd literally be looking for an opportunity to spill all of it 👀 he has certainly read very um. Questionable things.

(another hc that annabeth is literally the only one he spills these stuff to bc she is legit the only one who gets the art of history, also, she totally bribed him for information, we know that canonically they both DID have nerdy discussions w e/o. Annabeth said in moa that Jason had described the exteriors of new Rome in perfect detail to her and how Reyna was supposed to look like, in the lost hero, those two spent hours researching about the Roman/Greek forms of gods by interrogating clovis + Piper noted how well they both debated about the Athena parthenos without any blame or hostility, just perfectly fitting their collective pieces of research information together. Ugh this friendship was such a wasted potential. It's literally no wonder that annabeth cried till she was sick for Jason's death. They weren't close friends or anything, but they intellectually respected eachother in a very healthy way, it was refreshing to read about tbh.

Jason and annabeth are the OG nerd friends fr.

[nihalsthings]

Some other artifacts from Ephesus.

What's so significant about this location is the fact that it was home to many different, great civilizations including ancient greeks, imperial romans and early christians, and it is said to be founded by Amazonians. It was first built in 10th century BC, but recent excavations stretched the timeline all the way back to 6000 BC. The intricate works made out of stone, ivory, clay, marble, copper and gold carry the fingerprints of so many different cultures. It's hard not to feel amazed by such a big piece of human history while walking around.

Tiny cups with powder are make-up containers. Just imagine the greek or roman woman who use these to have her make-up done, and go out to see the play in the great theatre nearby, which had the capacity of 20k people! Right below them are surgical tools, crafted in great detail.

Tiny egyptian priest statute is a bonus and was a lovely surprise to see here. It was naturally a low-light environment so the photos aren't excellent, but I did my best.

[thatonegeekygirl]

shane jumping ship like violet jessop leaped from the britannic’s lifeboat in that one episode of puppet history