In 1588, when an attempt by Philip II of Spain to invade England with the Spanish Armada was famously defeated, the English fleet mostly consisted of 500-tonne race-built galleons designed to function as floating gun-platforms. This detailed infographic shows exactly what went on below and above deck on those beasts (click to enlarge).
Here’s a Spanish galleon, for comparison.
A Clan (from Gaelc clann, ‘children’) is a traditional kinship group sharing a common surname and heritage and existing in a lineage based society. Clans in indigenous societies tend to be exogamous, meaning that their members cannot marry one another. Clans preceded more centralized forms of community organization and government and they have traces in every country. The following maps show the names and territories of historical Irish and Scottish clans (click images to enlarge).
Here’s another map of Irish clans with even more familiar sounding names:
Now to Scotland:
And here’s another map of Scottish clans with even more clans and their coats of arms:
I see this old education poster for women in a compleletely new light – in light of the current harrassment scandals hitting Planet Earth, light? Light, earthlings, is what you need in connection with gender issues.
Creepy, creepy, creepy. The recent television series has managed to draw attention to the disaster, but what you saw there was just a movie. Here are some really eerie before & after pictures from the Chernobyl cataclysm.
Apparently, people were admitted in the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum located in Weston, West Virgina, with some not so obvious reasons like novel reading, lazyness or even excitement as officer.
According to Snopes, this list is somewhat rooted in truth, even though it is often posted as a joke. It was compiled from the log book of the above-mentioned institution which documented admissions between 1864 and 1889 and has been published or referenced in several books and research papers. It has also been archived by the West Virginia Division of Culture and History. However, these entries recorded the reasons or causes why those patients were thought to have developed their underlying maladies, and so they should be read with that in mind. Yes, mind.
Uhh, this is rather creepy, but certainly interesting: from the 1910s through the 1960s, many patients at the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane in the State of New York left suitcases behind when they passed away, with nobody to claim them. Upon the center’s closure in 1995, employees found hundreds of these time capsules stored in a locked attic. (Photographs by Jon Crispin)
via Collectors’ Weekly
At the height of the Cold War, the USA and the Soviet Union both provided their citizens with guidelines on what to do in case of nuclear war. Here’s how the Soviets did it.
When in August 1945 the USA unleashed a new weapon of mass destruction against the Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it brought an end to World War II. Unlike conventional bombs, the new atomic bomb killed in two ways – by the sheer magnitude of the blast and the resulting firestorm, and by means of nuclear fallout.
In 1945, the USA still had a monopoly on this new dreadful weapon, but not for long. Four years later, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. Although the USA and the USSR had been wartime allies, by this time they had become peacetime enemies with conflicting ideologies and competing global interests. Maintaining an advantage in the power and numbers of nuclear weapons suddenly meant world power, so both nations embarked on a long and insane arms race while also preparing their citizens for a potential nuclear attack.
These images from a pamphlet show what the Russian side did to communicate the hazards.
The fear of imminent war was one of the most dominant fears of the Soviet post-war era, according to Belarus news. Soviet citizens were waiting for a new war to come more or less constantly. Take, for example, the so-called Caribbean crisis of 1962, when the USSR installed missiles with nuclear warheads in Cuba to demonstrate its strength to the United States, bringing the world on the verge of a third world war.
Soviet citizens also expected a nuclear war in 1979, when the USSR sent troops into Afghanistan. Another scary moment came in 1983, when Soviet air defenses shot down a South Korean passenger plane, and in a famous speech Ronald Reagan called the USSR an “evil empire.” Soviet propaganda, which during the entire period of the Cold War spoke about the aggressiveness of foreign opponents of the USSR (they were called “warmongers” in the newspapers), reacted to each such crisis by intensifying alarmist rhetoric, which did not at all reassure citizens.
In the course of the Cold War, the worsening of the “international situation”, the tightening of newspaper rhetoric, and the participation of the Soviet Union in local conflicts were acting as triggers for the emergence of new waves of rumors about the war. The Soviet citizen had very few opportunities to influence state politics, with all important political decisions being made by the head of the state and a group of his closest comrades. There was a most direct link between the stability of life and the personality of the head of state. Therefore, the death of a leader could cause serious anxiety, often taking on the form of fear of war.
The death in 1982 of Brezhnev, who had served as general secretary for almost twenty years, caused some Soviet citizens strong anxiety and a sense of the impending apocalypse. Particularly susceptible to this feeling were children who had not yet reached the age when jokes were told about the elderly general secretary. There were rumors that a war would come, that Brezhnev held the “key” of the world in his hand, and now his fist is unclenched and… “. A former Leningrad schoolgirl said that on the day of Brezhnev’s death, her neighbor, a 12-year-old boy, came from school crying and saying, “I was also afraid that there would be a war.”
Although Soviet citizens were taught in civil defense lessons what to do in the event of a nuclear war – soak clothes with a special solution, put on a cotton-gauze bandage, run to a bomb shelter – many understood that all these actions in the event of a nuclear apocalypse would not save anybody.
This knowledge is evidenced, in particular, by dreams. The most “optimistic” version of a dream on the topic of nuclear war would be a plot where the dreamer finds himself in an empty ruined city and realizes that he has entered the space of the post-apocalypse and all living things around him have died. More typical was the version described by Soviet film director Andrei Tarkovsky below, where the dreamer, noticing a nuclear mushroom on the horizon, wakes up in horror from the realization of the inevitability of the end.
Instructions for using the bomb shelter often did not reassure, but, on the contrary, inspired anxiety, especially that sometimes life showed their complete uselessness. Upon a strong explosion at the Sverdlovsk-Sortirovochnaya railway station in the city of Sverdlovsk in 1989, some citizens, waking up early in the morning from a strong jolt and seeing a glow in the sky, decided that a nuclear war had begun and they needed to go to a bomb shelter.
Someone even packed a bag with the things necessary for the bomb shelter, but before leaving the apartment she realized that she did not know where it was and did not understand how to proceed at all. All the actions she had been trained to do proved to be useless.
Some parents and older relatives in general, however, did not share the children’s fear inspired by military instructors, teachers and counselors. The desire of a child to write a letter to Reagan, to find a gas mask for a dog, or to definitely run to a bomb shelter on a training alert caused bewilderment or a smile in the elders.
A reader told Belarus News how she was worried when her parents stayed at home during a training trip to a bomb shelter. Another, fearful of the nuclear threat, wrote a letter to Reagan but did not send it because she was ridiculed by her older brother.
Nevertheless, adults sometimes had terrible dreams about a nuclear explosion too. It was such a dream that director Andrei Tarkovsky wrote about in his diary in 1982:
I fell asleep – and I dreamed of a village and a heavy, gloomy and dangerous dark purple sky. Strangely lit and scary. Suddenly I realized that it was an atomic mushroom against the sky, and not dawn. It was getting hotter and hotter, I looked around: a crowd of people in a panic looked back at the sky and rushed somewhere to the side. I was rushing after everyone, but stopped. “Where to run? Why?” It’s already too late anyway. Then this crowd… Panic… It’s better to stay where you are and die without fuss. God, it was scary!
The expectation of a nuclear war caused not only fear of the enormous destructive power of nuclear weapons, but also a feeling of helplessness, doom and inability to control the situation – and this feeling is very well conveyed in the description of Tarkovsky’s dream.
Of course, this feeling was not specifically Soviet – it was experienced by people on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
These days those feelings are again intensifying again. Back then, soviet citizens could only keep their fingers crossed, but today most of us in the world have more freedom to stand up against any form of war. So let’s do it.
Sources: 1, 2
Gosh, that would be a helluva building if it was ever built. This amazing infographic was published in Science and Mechanics in 1935, so a long time ago, but who knows? We might need to build it one day.
As shown by the infographic and the maps below, San Francisco’s Waterfront area is actually built on the discarded hulks of mid-19th-century ships once used as storage units, houses and hostels.
The Gold Rush utterly transformed California’s demographics. In April 1850 a San Francisco harbourmaster estimated that no less than 62,000 people from across the globe had arrived in the city by the Bay in the preceding 12 months. About 500 ships clogged up Yerba Buena Cove and vicinity.
According to Big Think, many of these ships passed through ‘Rotten Row’, Charles Hare’s ship-breaking yard, which was operated by Chinese crews. About 200 of the more valuable ships were repurposed as storage for coal, flour, water and other goods in high demand; as boarding houses and hotels; and in one case (though not the same case) even as a jail and a church.
Eventually, many of the remaining boats were sunk to give way to water lots, which were dispensed on condition that buyers fill them with land (to bring the shoreline closer to the deeper part of the Bay). Around 45 of them are known to lie beneath downtown San Francisco. Some are marked with plaques or an outline on the street, but most ships in this ghost fleet remain forgotten. Marine historian James Delgado suspects some 30 more are still undiscovered, resting beneath a few dozen feet of silt.
The maps below list the ones we know of that are still ‘anchored’ in Yerba Buena Cove, roughly a century and a half after it was filled in. Many more can be found in a list of over 300 ships, which among the ‘sepulchred vessels’ also mentions the Cadmus, which brought Lafayette to America in 1824, and the Plover, which sailed the Arctic in search of the doomed Franklin expedition. Here’s in another go at the same thing, with more ships and their graves indicated (and their fates detailed below).
Le Baron – Owned by Fairpool & Jonse, lay for a long time near Long Wharf, and finally sunk near North Point dock.
Palmyra – Inside of India Dock, or what is now Battery, between Greenwich and Filbert, was a small brig. Her position was about what is now the corner of Battery and Greenwich streets.
Japan – Captain Hoyt had the bark Japan. She was finally broken up by Batchelder at Cowell’s wharf.
Envoy – The vessel went down north of Union street between Front & Battery streets and when the mud was squeezed up by filling Front street the old hulk reappeared and Burns stripped copper from the Hull selling the metal for 10 a pound.
Philip Hone – A store-ship, named after the Mayor of New York, gradually covered up by the filling in. The houses on Union street, opposite the Union street school, came out in this vessel.
Fortuna – aka Fortune. Used for a period as a hotel on the block now bounded by Battery and Front, Vallejo and Green streets. She was finally broken up by Hare.
Arkansas – aka the Old Ship. The ship was hauled up Pacific street, to near the northeast corner of Battery, and was used for many years as a store ship, and finally her forecastle was used as a tavern. A hotel was finally built over her. These days, you can still get a drink at The Old Ship Saloon, at 298 Pacific Avenue.
Garnet – An American brig.
Cordova – Used as a storeship for some time and finally as a water ship. Water sold for $1 and $2 a bucket in those days.
Elmira – Sunk by Captain Crowell at the corner of Pacific and Davis streets.
Inez – An old New Bedford whaler, sunk at the northwest corner of Pacific and Drumm streets on the line of Drumm, with her bow toward Pacific.
Edwin – Lay near Pacific Wharf, was made a bonded warehousing ship, built over.
Ricardo – Lying next to the remains of the Almandrilina, it was also owned by capt. Roberts and brought round the Horn by him, with full cargoes for the gold fields, afterwards converted into warehouses, and finally into boarding and lodging houses until they were covered over.
Magnolia, Brilliant – Brigs used for storage ships and boarding houses.
Balance – Built in Calcutta of teak wood, 92 years old when she arrived in San Francisco. She was captured from the British in the War of 1812 by James DeWolf’s Yankee privateer True Blooded Yankee, who re-christened her the Balance to balance a ship lost by him a short time before captured by a British cruiser. Went into the mud to remain at the corner of Front and Jackson streets.
Globe – Used as a cistern for the storage of water to be used in case of fire.
Alida – A white-painted ship, brought into port by two Norwegians.
Hardie – An English brig, about twenty feet from the Noble and directly opposite Clark street.
Noble – Used as a storage ship.
Bethel – English ship buried at the corner of Drumm and Clark streets. Her bow points toward Drumm.
Georgean – Between Jackson and Washington, west of Battery Street.
Louisa – A schooner, previously a yacht of the King of the Hawaiian Islands. Did storage duty for a time, then broken up.
Niantic – Stranded on the corner of Clay and Sansome, was covered over with a shingle roof and converted into offices and stores on deck, while the hull was divided into warehouses. A hollow pile was driven down through the stern below the salt-water line and about the best water in the town was pumped from that well. After a fire destroyed most of the structure, what remained became the foundation for the Niantic Hotel, which stood until 1872. At its most recent rediscovery, in 1978, most of the stern was destroyed, and numerous artifacts salvaged, including two pistols, a rifle and derringer, 13 bottles of champagne, stoneware ink bottles, leather-bound books, bolts of fabric, cabin doors, hundred-year-old brass paper clips, copper sheeting, and nails.
General Harrison – Uncovered at the northwest corner of Battery and Clay during construction in 2001. An 11-storey hotel now stands over the site. An outline of the hull on the sidewalk memorialises the ship.
Fame – A brig on the corner of Clay and Front Streets, broken up by Hare, and mentioned in 1857 as “fast disappearing”.
Francis Ann – On the corner of Clay and Front streets, broken up by Hare.
Elizabeth – Used as a bonded storeship for the port, eventually broken up and sunk about 100 feet along East street, between Clay and Merchant, in about thirty-five feet of water.
Apollo – The rotting hulk was rediscovered several times during construction work in the early 20th century. In it were found coins of 1840, an American penny of 1825, a British penny of 1797, pipes, a large nugget, a sextant, ship’s fittings, and more.
Euphemia – Used as San Francisco’s first jail and simultaneously as California’s first insane asylum, until the asylum was built at Stockton.
Thomas Bennett – Contained a grocery store. At the southwest corner of Sacramento and Front, she lies parallel with Sacramento with her bow pointed towards Battery street.
Henry Lee – Lay for a long time on California Street on the site later occupied by Selby’s store.
Tecumseh – On the southwest corner of California and Battery streets, sold by the United States Marshall and broken up.
Salem – Lay for several years on California street on the site of Hooker’s store.
Autumn – A storeship, on Davis street, near Market, broken up by Hare.
Rome – A three-masted vessel sunk in 1852 at the southwest corner of Market and East streets, its hulk used as a coal ship. Her bow touched the edge of Market Street. Later, the Ensign saloon was built over her. In the mid-1990s, crews digging an extension to the Muni Metro system rediscovered her. She was deemed too large to remove. Thousands Metro passengers travelling outbound from Folsom Street to Embarcadero Station unwittingly pass through the Rome’s forward hull each day.
Othello – Used as a storeship on Stewart street.
Byron – The bark Byron was broken up at Mission Street near Main street in the early fifties.
Trescott – On the corner of Main and Mission. Goss & White, owners, and Captain L. L. Batchelder, keeper. Finally broken up.
Panama – Converted into Seamen’s Bethel, for which she was used for many years. There was a Methodist Church in the Panama, on Davis street, between Washington and Clay, and Father Taylor was the minister. He had a real pretty wife and I think that was the reason that the boys chipped in so liberally. Finally, some parties who did not have the fear of God in them, stole all the pews one fine night, and others carried off the pulpit, and that ended the conversion of sinners on the water front. When religious services were no longer held there she was taken to Beale and Mission and cut up.
Callao – At Mission & Beale Streets, the Calleo was broken up and left there.
In the comments section of the article on Big Think, one reader mentioned discovering a ship with over 320 Chinese skeletons on board while doing construction work in the early 70’s, at Fremont and Market: “The other operator, a despicable individual whose name I’ll keep anonymous in case he’s still alive, worked alongside me, and he was stealing their gold teeth”. A Chinese benevolent society eventually buried the remains at Colma, a curious city south of San Francisco that was founded as a necropolis, with cemeteries for every denomination. An independent city even today, the dead outnumber the living (app. 1,800) by about a thousand to one.
via Xenofiles, Big Think
Meet the monsters that once roamed North America, including the hell pig, the terror bird, and the short-faced bear. These infographics were created by Beth Zaiken as signages for the Natural History Museum.
