Friday links

Daylight Saving Time ends this weekend: here's some DST history (including Ben Franklin's satirical proposal), stories and video. Related: EU pushes on with talks to scrap daylight saving time.

In Medieval Europe, No Outfit Was Complete Without a Personal Eating Knife.

The Science of Good Chocolate.

The physiognomy of eyebrows: everything you wanted to know about eyebrow interpretation from the 16th century.

O'Connor, Rehnquist And A Supreme Marriage Proposal: one future Supreme Court Justice proposed to another, and they kept the secret for almost 70 years. 

From Elizabeth Taylor to Adolph Hitler, Presenting History’s Greatest Decoys.

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include Halloween stuff, the partisan makeup of different occupations, a gallery of 1930s-era British open-air schools, and the anniversary of 3 major battles: Agincourt, the charge of the Light Brigade and Leyte Gulf.

Wednesday links

October 10th, 732 is the anniversary of the clash of civilizations at the Battle of Tours.

Throwing Knives Is Growing More Popular. Here’s How to Get Started

When drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot dead in 1993, his four hippopotamuses were left to fend for themselves in a pond. Now, there are dozens of them.

100 years ago - Why October 1918 Was America's Deadliest Month Ever: "By the time it abated in 1920, the Spanish flu had killed 675,000 Americans and left hundreds of thousands of children orphaned. Not only did more Americans die of the Spanish flu than in World War I, more died than in all the wars of the 20th century combined. Globally, the pandemic infected a third of the planet’s population and killed an estimated 50 million people."

The epic task of breeding fruit flies for life on Titan.

The Century-Long Scientific Journey of the Affordable Grocery Store Orchid.

ICYMI, Monday's links are here, and include DIY colonoscopies (plus a roundup of funny colonoscopy videos), the vegetable peeler that changed the world, the 2018 World Snail Racing Championship, and, from the late 1800s, a list of reasons for admission to an insane asylum.

Pictorial History of the Pocket Knife

Pocket knives have been around for a long time, although I would guess that multitools, in the form of Swiss Army knives* or the more (to me) versatile Leatherman/Gerber type are more popular these days. I suppose it used to be pretty much exclusively a boy thing, and probably still is if you only consider people who actually carry them in pockets.  One of the advantages of carrying a purse, though, is that you have room for the bulkier tools popular these days (I carry this one, which was a gift from one of my kids). 

My favorite of those included in this article has to be this early Swiss Army-esque number from Rome, circa 200 AD:

Here's the earliest they mention, from Austria, ~ 600 - 500 B.C.:

Wikipedia has this Roman pocket knife, along with a modern re-construction:

And here's a switchblade from ~ 1750:

See the original article, along with lots more images,at Cool Material. More information at Art of Manliness: Every Man Should Carry a Pocket Knife, and still more here and at Wikipedia.

* Per Today I Found Out, the term “Swiss Army Knife” was coined by United States soldiers after WWII. The soldiers had trouble pronouncing the original name of “Schweizer Offiziersmesser” (Swiss Officer’s Knife) and thus began calling the multi-tool a “Swiss Army Knife”. This ultimate Swiss Army knife can be yours for a mere $1,349: