A real trip down memory lane (if you're old enough)...
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Friday, July 12, 2019
Friday links
July 14 is Bastille Day, the anniversary of the French revolution in 1789.
These poorly translated English language T-shirts spotted In Asia are a hoot.
The Century-Long Evolution of the U.S. Army Helmet.
ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include why monkey butts are so colorful, Nikola Tesla's birthday, how to buy your kid's way into college, and the 47 names Disney considered for the 7 dwarfs.
Thursday, July 11, 2019
July 14 is Bastille Day
If you're here for Jonah Goldberg's classic article on the subject, here you go: The French are Revolting.
Allons enfants de la Patrie, Arise you children of the motherland,Le jour de gloire est arrivé! The day of glory has arrived!Contre nous de la tyrannie, Against us, tyrannyL'étendard sanglant est levé, Has raised its bloodied banner,Entendez-vous dans les campagnes Do you hear, in the fields,Mugir ces féroces soldats? The howling of these fearsome soldiers?Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras They are coming into your midstÉgorger vos fils, vos compagnes! To slit the throats of your sons and consorts!Refrain ChorusAux armes, citoyens, To arms, citizens!Formez vos bataillons, Form your battalions!Marchons, marchons! Let us march, let us march!Qu'un sang impur May impure bloodAbreuve nos sillons! Soak the furrows of our fields!~ Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1760-1836) ("La Marseillaise", first verse. Six more follow, all more or less equally bloodthirsty. *
The Storming of the Bastille by Jean-Pierre Houël |
France has neither winter nor summer nor morals - apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.
~ Mark Twain (1835-1910) (Anderson, ed., Mark Twain's Notebooks and Journals, Vol. 2, Notebook 18)
Old France , weighed down with history, prostrated by wars and revolutions, endlessly vacillating from greatness to decline, but revived, century after century, by the genius of renewal.
~ Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) (War Memoirs, Vol. 3, Ch. 7)
The Bastille was later demolished - the Place de la Bastille
sits where the fortress once stood
|
July 14th is Bastille Day (wiki), which commemorates the storming of the ancient royal prison of that name in Paris on 14 July 1789, an event which marked the beginning of the French Revolution. That storming was, of course, more symbolic than substantial - as Jonah Goldberg points out in his classic Bastille Day column, it consisted of "the capture of an almost entirely empty prison, the cold-blooded murder of six unarmed soldiers, and the execution of one French governor already captured by the mob". On that day the Bastille held only seven inmates: four forgers, two madmen, and a young rake who had displeased his father. All were freed.
The Marseillais volunteers departing, sculpted on the Arc de Triomphe |
Formally known as the Bastille Saint-Antoine, the fortress was built during the Hundred Years’ War to defend the eastern approaches of Paris from English attacks. It Consisted of eight 100-foot high towers, all linked together by equally tall walls, surrounded by 80 foot wide moat. By 1789 the Bastille was actually little used and was scheduled to be demolished, part of the reason why there were so few prisoners there that day.
*La Marseillaise, France's stirring national anthem, was written in Strasbourg on 25 April 1792 by French captain Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle and originally titled the "Marching Song of the Army of the Rhine." It gained instant popularity as a rallying song and gained its latter-day name from being first sung in the streets of Paris by newly arrived troops from Marseilles. The remaining verses are available at Wikipedia.
La Marseillaise was banned in both Vichy and German-occupied France during World War II, and also during the 19th-century French Empire under Napoleon III because of its revolutionary sentiments.
Has there every been a more stirring rendition than the one at Rick's "Café Americaine" in Casablanca?
Related post: French King Louis XVI was guillotined on January 21, 1793. Here's Allan Sherman (because if you're of a certain age it's inevitable to think of Allan Sherman when you hear La Marseillaise:
Ed's London Guide
We get asked for this pretty often - it's a PDF scanned from an old typed copy so there's no easy way to convert to text without re-typing. I may do that one of these days.
He put this together in 1992, but since most of your trip to London will involve historical sites and museums, it's still pretty applicable.
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
Tuesday links
July 9 is Nikola Tesla's birthday: bio, some science and engineering, Tesla coil music, Tesla vs Edison rap battle.
...as a conservative at my small, Minnesota-based liberal arts institution, I’ve spent the last four years defending myself against personal and political attacks from professors and peers alike.
Raising the American Weakling - there's been a 20 percent decrease in grip strength in one generation.
The 47 names Disney considered for the 7 dwarfs.
How to Buy Your Kid's Way Into College.
ICYMI, most recent links are here, and are Independence Day related - history, movies, music, inspirational speeches, the science of barbecue and of fireworks, more.
Monday, July 8, 2019
The 47 names Disney considered for the 7 dwarfs
In the 1930s, as Disney began work on the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (an adaptation of Snow White by the Brothers Grimm), the writing team compiled the following list of potential names for the seven dwarfs - characters who, in the original story, were unnamed.
As we now know, Bashful, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, and Sneezy were picked. The name of their leader, Doc, was chosen at a later date, although I don't see Happy on this list, either.
By the way, in 1912 the story had been adapted for the Broadway stage, and the names chosen for the dwarfs were Blick, Flick, Glick, Snick, Plick, Whick, and Quee.
Here's the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Original Theatrical Trailer from 1937:
Here's the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Original Theatrical Trailer from 1937:
And here are the options they compiled (What the heck is Neurtsy? And why leave off Sleazy and Smutty?):
- Awful
- Baldy
- Bashful
- Biggo-Ego
- Burpy
- Daffy
- Deafy
- Dippy
- Dirty
- Dizzy
- Doleful
- Dopey
- Dumpy
- Flabby
- Gabby
- Grumpy
- Hickey
- Hoppy
- Hotsy
- Hungry
- Jaunty
- Jumpy
- Lazy
- Neurtsy
- Nifty
- Puffy
- Sappy
- Scrappy
- Shifty
- Shorty
- Silly
- Sleepy
- Snappy
- Sneezy
- Sneezy-Wheezy
- Sniffy
- Snoopy
- Soulful
- Strutty
- Stuffy
- Swift
- Tearful
- Thrifty
- Weepy
- Wheezy
- Wistful
- Woeful
via Lists of Note
Sunday, July 7, 2019
July 9 is Nikola Tesla's birthday: bio, Tesla coil music, Tesla vs Edison rap battle
Want a quick explanation of everything Tesla? Check out this infographic at The Oatmeal.
Epic Rap Battles of History — Nikola Tesla vs Thomas Edison:
The video below is based on stories about Tesla's lost papers and documents, about how the government secreted them away somewhere: The Missing Secrets Of Nikola Tesla from The Phenomenon Archives (described as "A documentary series that takes an in-depth look at the topics found in recently de-classified government documents. It explores well-known issues with new information that has been sequestered from the public"):
Tesla Coils Play the Inspector Gadget Theme Song, Sweet Home Alabama (with an included explanation of how it works), and more Tesla coil music.
Here's Biography.com on Tesla.
By 1917, Tesla had sold the site for $20,000 to pay bills at the Waldorf. That same year, the transmission tower was blown up by the buyers and sold for scrap.
In 2013 it was purchased by a non-profit for the purpose of building a Tesla museum, with the help a fund-raining effort from The Oatmeal. Here's an NPR story on the purchase. More on Wardenclyffe and the likely methods employed in its operation here.
A brief bio:
July 9 is the anniversary of the birth of Serbian-American electrical-engineering genius and futurist Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) (wiki), to a Serbian-Orthodox priest in Croatia. Tesla displayed remarkable intuition for mechanical and electrical phenomena while still a youth, and although he studied physics sporadically in Graz and Prague, he was largely self-taught in scientific and engineering subjects.
July 9 is the anniversary of the birth of Serbian-American electrical-engineering genius and futurist Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) (wiki), to a Serbian-Orthodox priest in Croatia. Tesla displayed remarkable intuition for mechanical and electrical phenomena while still a youth, and although he studied physics sporadically in Graz and Prague, he was largely self-taught in scientific and engineering subjects.
In 1881. he began working at the Budapest Telephone Exchange as a technician, but within a year he transferred to an Edison subsidiary in France, designing electrical equipment. Two years later, he relocated to New York City, where he worked directly for Thomas Edison but resigned several years later in a dispute over pay.
Subsequently, Tesla moved out on his own, eventually forming a company to commercialize his own inventions for the improvement of electric motors and generators operating largely on alternating current (vice Edison's direct current). Most importantly, he invented the concept of polyphase alternating-current power systems and the AC induction motor, which used a rotating magnetic field to propel the rotor.
In 1888, Tesla licensed his patents to George Westinghouse, who used them to devise alternating-current alternatives to Edison's DC systems for generating and distributing electrical power, and eventually alternating current prevailed as the national standard.*
In 1891, Tesla became an American citizen and established his own laboratory in New York City to work on a wide variety of electrical developments, including X-ray technology, radio, and high-voltage/high-frequency apparatus. Among the latter was the "Tesla coil," a device for developing extremely high voltages and creating spectacular displays of artificial lightning.
In 1899, he moved his operations to Colorado Springs and concentrated on devising a system for the wireless transmission of electrical power through the atmosphere (but never realized it at a practical level). He also developed concepts for vertical takeoff/landing aircraft, remote controlled vehicles, and an early directed energy weapon. He ultimately received nearly 300 patents for his discoveries.
Since Tesla had sold his most lucrative patents to Westinghouse and plowed what money he earned later into further experimentation, he died in relative poverty in 1943. Although vastly overshadowed by Edison in the popular imagination, it was Tesla who was primarily responsible for the concepts underlying the electrical power grids used world-wide today.
Alternating Current (AC) vs. Direct Current (DC) |
Related: The Greatest Inventions Nikola Tesla Never Created.
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