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Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 2:51 pm
by Arneb
50 years...
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Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 3:08 pm
by Heid the Ba
Paul's dead!

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 6:16 pm
by Arneb
There never was a Paul, sheep!

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Fri Aug 09, 2019 8:24 am
by Arneb
Image

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Sun Aug 11, 2019 9:09 am
by Arneb
500 years ago today, Fernando de Magellanes (né Fernão de Magalhães but renamed in order to make the point he was travelling under Spanish orders) set sail to find a Western route to the Molukka islands. Three years later, 18 of the 250 sailors aboard one of three ships returned to Seville under the command of a captain Elcano. Magellanes had succumbed to a poisoned arrowhead he received while trying to Christianize inhabitants of the Philippine island of Mactan.

One of the 18 revenants was a gunmaster, a Hans of Aachen. He seems to have gotten a taste for travelling - even though on the Magellanes trip, they literally had to eat rats and wood shavings during the transpacific leg of their journey. He was hired for another circumnavigation of the globe. The ship failed, and as the only survivor somewhere along the East African coast, he was picked up and brought home by a Portuguese merchant ship.

Thus, Hans of Aachen became the first human to ciurcumnavigate the globe twice and live to tell the story. Of Aachen, in particular, the most un-maritime place in Europe you could ever imagine. It doesn't even have a proper river flowing through it. Water comes from above (plenty) or, 60 °C hot and reeking of rotten eggs, from hytrothermal vents below. The Improbable Hans, if ever there was one.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Sun Aug 11, 2019 7:41 pm
by Heid the Ba
Raising a glass to Hans.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 9:12 am
by Arneb
2006 - In Fürth, Germany an evening of talking, dinner, drinks (alcohol-free for one of the participants) and cards has to be unexpectedly called off due to premature rupture of the membranes.

Otherwise, it is an iteresting day, too.
30 BC Egyptian Pharao Cleopatra dies under "unclear circumstances, possibly suicide" (that's actually the expression used by the German Wikipedia!)
1833 Founding of Chicago.
1944 One of the most infamous massacres perpetrated on civilians by the German SS: 550 people, mostly woemen and children, die in Santa Anna di Strazzema.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 9:28 am
by Heid the Ba
There will be cake in your house tonight then?

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 11:27 am
by Arneb
Tomorrow. The story is tbc :D .

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Tue Aug 13, 2019 6:53 am
by Arneb
2006 - In Erlangen, Germany, after some to and fro, routine for the staff but not for those directly involved, a boy is delivered at 37 min. past midnight. The takeaway message: Seeing a newborn go from blue to pink in the first few minutes is impressive under any circumstances. Seeing it in a your firstborn and holding him in your arm while it happens defies description.

The birth just made it to coincide with an important anniversary:
1961 - The sectors of Berlin under Western Allied command are being shut off from the Eastern sector and the surrounding countryside. Construction of a wall to separate the sectors is being started.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2019 2:37 pm
by Arneb
Scotland!
1040 - Macbeth wins the Battle of Elgin and crowns himself king. Duncan I loses his marbles and his head.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2019 3:22 pm
by Heid the Ba
Ha! Things will be better from now on!

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2019 6:08 pm
by g-one
Too cool anywhere. (ActII SceneIII)

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2019 9:22 pm
by Мастер
Pakistan became independent 72 years ago today, and India tomorrow. Or yesterday and today, depending on your time zone.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 8:32 am
by Heid the Ba
Between Kashmir and HK I can't help thinking we could have done a better job.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 12:19 pm
by Arneb
For conolation, the Woodstock festival started 50 years ago.
Watch on youtube.com

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 6:22 pm
by Lianachan
Arneb wrote:Scotland!
1040 - Macbeth wins the Battle of Elgin and crowns himself king. Duncan I loses his marbles and his head.

Woooo! Macbeth! Wooo! I used to live 50 yards from where he was born. I’ve never heard that referred to as “the Battle of Elgin” before - it’s usually “in battle near Elgin” (or “at Bothnagowan” for smart arses).

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 7:33 pm
by Arneb
Lianachan wrote:
Arneb wrote:Scotland!
1040 - Macbeth wins the Battle of Elgin and crowns himself king. Duncan I loses his marbles and his head.

Woooo! Macbeth! Wooo! I used to live 50 yards from where he was born. I’ve never heard that referred to as “the Battle of Elgin” before - it’s usually “in battle near Elgin” (or “at Bothnagowan” for smart arses).

That's easy to explain . I lifted the date off the German Wikipedia and made my own uninformed translation.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 7:00 am
by Arneb
Afterthought: On August 14, 1919, hundred years ago the first Republican German Weimar constitution (the Weimar Constitution) went to effect.

I read recently that the first improtant sentences in constitutions deal mainly with the things the authors wanted to get rid off, andf the top of my head, that's a very apt description:
1776 - We, the People
1919 - The German Reich is a Republic
1948 - Human dignity is unimpeachable.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 4:22 pm
by Lianachan
Arneb wrote:
Lianachan wrote:
Arneb wrote:Scotland!
1040 - Macbeth wins the Battle of Elgin and crowns himself king. Duncan I loses his marbles and his head.

Woooo! Macbeth! Wooo! I used to live 50 yards from where he was born. I’ve never heard that referred to as “the Battle of Elgin” before - it’s usually “in battle near Elgin” (or “at Bothnagowan” for smart arses).

That's easy to explain . I lifted the date off the German Wikipedia and made my own uninformed translation.

Hope I didn’t come across as a dick there! Was just an unfamiliar term for a very familiar event. Translation considerably better than I could do onto any German website......

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 10:34 pm
by Arneb
No dickishness anywhere. Just the reminder for me how hard translations are...

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 6:33 am
by Arneb
Yesterday saw the 80th anniversary of the beginning of WWII, a day that (I hope) will live in infamy forever. On that same day, a far right-wing party gained 25 and 28 percent. respectively, of the vote in two German State parliaments, Saxonia and my own Brandenburg. The chairman of the Brandenburg party association, who will also lead the parliamentary group, has a long and unequivocal neonazi past. He is trying his best to hide it, but in my State, 25 percent of the voters cast their ballot for an implicit holocaust denier, "repopulation" conspiracy theorist and WWII revisionist who leads his parliamentary faction with a dictatorial attitude.

I am scared.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:21 am
by Heid the Ba
10th September 2001, Heid and the Mem arrived at a borrowed beach house on Fire Island where they planned to spend a few quiet days . . .

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 8:55 pm
by Arneb
Happy 250th, Alexander von Humboldt. May the things named after you never run out. You deserve it!

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 11:29 am
by Arneb
One from yesterday:

50 years ago on September 15, the German book market hardly took notice of the first edition of "Die Gefährten", a convoluted fairy-tale like story full of obscure references to a mythology nobody understood and replete with strange linguistic caprices. The book had been written by an unassuming, withdrawn Professor of English from across the Channel. Critics sometimes liked a certain high tone, sometimes shook their head at it or shrugged their shoulders along the lines of "maybe the story picks up in the sequels". It was noted, however, that the book had enjoyed some success overseas.

One prediction from a newspaper critique proved spot on: "It is a certainty we will see Frodo, the cinema hero". :p