political history news

Haha, Ufonaut Petak is back from a neverending patrol with this discussion of how the reception of Stalin’s Constitution of 1938 looked like in Uzbekistan. No pun intended in relation to Hungary…

‘That punk rocker’s mohawk is wicked’. Dammy, is ‘wicked’ 80s slang? I still used it in the 90s…

The amazing images below by Ron Blakey are snapshots from the paleotectonic evolution of North America and Europe. The first sequence shows the evolution of the North American continent starting 510 million years ago, through the accretion and dissolution of Pangaea into the most recent Ice Age and, in the final image, its present-day configuration.

The following images show the evolution of Europe from an Antarctic archipelago through a tropical island chain to present day Europe. The first sequence starts roughly 450 million years ago and continues to the Jurassic, 200 million years ago. The second sequence begins approximately 150 million years ago and extends to the present day. All maps by Ron Blakey.

via Venue

Wonder what that poor dog is doing in that hamster wheel in the picture below? Well, the hot, smoky kitchens of 17th-century Europe had a lot of things besides the large open fire and the iron roasting spit that would surprise you today.

Yes, those kitchens had a giant hamster wheel-like contraption holding a small, live, constantly running dog. For hundreds of years the now-extinct turnspit dog, also called Canis Vertigus (“dizzy dog”), vernepator cur, kitchen dog and turn-tyke, was specially bred to turn a roasting mechanism for frying meat. Weirdly enough, this special dog breed was a then high-tech fixture for the professional and home cook from the 16th century until the mid-1800s.

Take a closer look at the poor thing:

As you might imagine, turnspit dogs had a difficult lot in life as far as working dogs go. According to Stephen Coren in his book The Pawprints of History, the lucky ones “worked in pairs, with one dog trading places with its mate every couple of hours.” Dry heat radiated from toothsome foods the dog could never quite reach, and turnspit dogs weren’t necessarily supplied with water on-shift. Coren adds that for the tired pups “that were considered lazy, the cook might put a hot coal into the wheel to make the dog move its feet more quickly.”

One wonders whether or not these poor heat dogs were what hot dogs were named after… But no, according to Wikipedia, the term hot dog can be traced back to the 1800s when German sausage makers were accused of using dog meat in their sausages. And since consumption of dog meat in Germany was common, the suspicion was “occasionally justified”.

via Atlas Obscura

This ABC of Juvenile Gangs appeared as a sidebar in the San Diego Union, February 12, 1961. It was recently unearthed by a historian whose husband is the guy behind This Modern World, where we stumbled upon this. Hey little bird, pick up. Drop that ace and jump in your gorilla vine.

Wow, I thought Stalin would be No. 1 but apparently that’s not at all the case. 1 blood drop represents 1 million souls, and someone here has got 78… (click to enlarge)

Map of Hollywood in 1928 by Harrison Godwin showing principal streets and places of interest (click to enlarge). Wow, do we love the detail, and the era generally…

Google’s ‘Music Timeline’ microsite visualizes music trends from 1950 to present, by popularity. Besides being informative, it is also interactive, and that makes it fun to mess around with.

In the interactive version you’ll have some really interesting options to choose from. When you click on one of the genres, for example, you’ll get a more detailed visualization of that genre’s popularity along with a list of the most popular albums of the time in that genre.

Interested in how your favourite band’s popularity changed over the years? No problems, you can also search by album or artist. Here’s how it looks for Black Sabbath, for example:

Cool, ain’t it?

Earthlings, as I was looking at this picture I started to wonder: are you early or late humans? Well, I guess only time will tell, but I love these old photos of you…

It’s creepy to even think how many people died because of this kind of magic throughout history, without having the faintest idea why. Even creepier is the fact that the deadliest mineral ever used by man is still being mined in some countries (Canada only stopped asbestos mining recently in 2011). Here’s how it was advertised for farmers, for example:

But what exactly is the problem with asbestos? Well, according to Wikipedia, prolonged inhalation of asbestos fibers can cause serious and fatal illnesses including lung cancer, mesothelioma, and asbestosis (a type of pneumoconiosis). Furthermore,

The severity of asbestos-related diseases, the material’s extremely widespread use in many areas of life, its continuing long-term use after harmful health effects were known or suspected, and the slow emergence of symptoms decades after exposure ceased, made asbestos litigation the longest, most expensive mass tort in U.S. history and a much lesser legal issue in most other countries involved.