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Join for content related to world history, archaeology, and historiography. Run by @its_just_b - feedback and messages welcome.
Tehran, Persia (c.1873). The street is now called Mirdamad. This is one of the oldest known photos of the city.
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It was first celebrated in 624 after the Prophet Muhammad journeyed from Mecca to Medinah.
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Eid ul-Fitr at the Great Mosque of Urmia (Iran, 1926/1344).
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An Interrupted Duel (Marcus Stone, UK, 1868).
The absence of guns puts this fictional scene likely before the 1770s, when pistols were quickly adopted by the English upper classes in their duels. To reject or back down from a duel was a cause of great shame, and many people who killed during duels were sentenced lightly if at all. Nonetheless duels were a constant issue until the middle part of the 19th century when they declined in response to widespread social pressure.
https://www.nga.gov/features/life-of-animals-in-japanese-art.html
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The agreement was ratified by referendums in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. The loyalist DUP was the only major group to not participate.
Northern Ireland was given the opportunity to join the Republic if a majority of citizens consented. Since then, it has not decided to leave the UK, and there has been a softening and mixing of communities.
Also, in Sweden and Finland children dress up as Easter witches (Sweden: påskkärring, Finland: trulli) commemorating the myth of witches flying to the legendary island of Blockula to visit the devil. This happens all throughout the Easter period up until Sunday, although it is normally on Easter Saturday that they go door-to-door distributing greetings and getting sweets and chocolates.
Image source
Good Friday is the day commemorating the execution of Jesus. Jesus's execution on the cross is testified in several independent non-Christian sources.
He is believed to have survived on the cross for six hours and likely would have died of a heart attack. Had he lived longer he would have suffered the fate of the criminals on either side of him, who had their legs broken.
Image: The earliest crucifixion in an illuminated manuscript, from the Syriac Rabbula Gospels, 586 AD.
A Sámi Bear Grave on the island of Spildra in the Kvænangen fiord (Norway). Source
The bear was ìsaivoî (sacred) to the Sámi. However, it was sometimes necessary to kill a bear if they threatened or killed humans. A seven step ritual took place to do so;
1. Departure - both hunters and a shaman (noaidi) took part
2. The hunt
3. Birching - the bear's body was whipped with birch branches. The hunter who killed was affirmed as the bear's master. He received a special ring.
4. The return
5. The feast - including an apology for killing the bear.
6. Ringing the bear - the ring was attached the bear's tail and the body was carefully buried.
7. Spirit protection - blindfolded hunters' wives shot the bear skin with arrows to protect them from the creature's spirit.
Henry VIII (1491-1547) of England was known for being a tyrannical and brutish king in his later years. But he also appears to have written poetry and songs before his physical decline. A manuscript of them survives from 1518.
Image: Anonymous, c.1520
James Barry, born Margaret Ann Bulkley, a surgeon in the British army.
A compassionate and skilled medic, he served in the Crimean War alongside Florence Nightingale. He also performed the first successful caesarean section by a European in Africa. The family were so grateful that the newborn was named partly after Barry, and the name was passed down the generations to famous South African Prime Minister J. B. M. Hertzog.
He was only found to be a biological woman after his death when, against his wishes, he was autopsied. That someone, who had gained the position of Inspector General, could have fooled the British army for years when women were prohibited from serving is quite extraordinary. Many simply thought he was effeminate.
As with many historical figures, it's quite difficult to tell if they were transgender as we would understand it today. However, Barry lived his private life as a man too, and it doesn't seem that he was intersex (despite recent controversies).
According to a local legend, Jesus Christ did not die on the cross, but was replaced by his brother "Isukiri" and fled eastwards, across Siberia, to Shingō, Japan, where he died much later. In fact, apparently, he had already been to Japan during his "unknown years", a period of about 17 years where there is little evidence for his activities.
There is no evidence for this claim, and it is not taken at face value by many people. However, it is debated whether the legend may have originated from Christian missionaries visiting Japan at some point before the religion was banned in 1614, and their lives being confused by oral history with Christ himself. The legend probably has more to do with the syncretic power of Japanese folk religion than Christianity.
Charles the Bald ruled West Francia from 843 to 877. Despite his name, there is not very strong evidence that he was actually bald.
The most striking evidence against him being bald is that his enemies never made fun of him for it. Rare contemporary depictions (above) also do not show him as bald.
In medieval Europe, baldness was seen as a sign of poor health, vitality, and morality (unless voluntarily adopted as a monk). It could be that Charles' difficulty producing children was the source of the nickname.
Woman Reading a Book on a Sofa (Takehisa Yumeji, Japan, 1919)
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Earthrise (William Anders, Lunar orbit, 24 December 1968).
It is described as one of the most influential photographs ever taken, leading Anders to comment that "We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth." The photograph is often used to illustrate the uneasy reports by some astronauts of what became known as the "Overview Effect", whereby they experienced a transformative sense of awe in gazing back at the Earth in a way that was incomparable to anything ever experienced on the ground.
#Earthday
Today is Eid al-Fitr, a celebration marking the end of fasting in the Muslim holy month of Ramadam.
(Image: Eid al-Fitr procession by Bahadur Shah II, Mughal emperor.)
The original layout of Tenochtitlán (mostly razed by the Spanish) contrasted with the growth of Mexico City and the drainage of Lake Texcoco. Building upon the old site of the lake causes serious issues to this day, as well as the obvious ecological impact leading to creatures like the axolotl becoming endangered. A current project aims to reclaim some of the lake.
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A Soviet propaganda poster shop (Nina Sviridova and Dmitry Vozdvizhensky, USSR, 1986)
Source
Recent events have commemorated the Good Friday Agreement, which was signed 25 years ago on the 10th of April 1997. It saw an end to thirty years or so of conflict in Northern Ireland.
Under the agreement, the Republic of Ireland dropped their constitutional claim to the north of the island, and the territory was to remain part of the UK. However, citizens there could have Irish and British citizenship.
The paramilitaries that had claimed the lives of thousands of people were closed down, including the pro-Irish (republican/nationalist) IRA and the pro-British (loyalist) UVF. Most controversially, many people deemed terrorists and political prisoners were released.
Northern Ireland was given devolved powers which hinged on the participation of both the loyalist and nationalist communities.
Easter Sunday has many odd traditions. In some countries it is customary to go egg-rolling which involves rolling an egg down a hill, usually as a race (as in the photo, although that custom is on a Monday). The custom is often seen at the White House.
In the UK, pace-egging encompasses a wide range of activities around pace eggs, which are eggs that have been decorated. A pace egg play is a form a medieval mystery play and normally involves St. George fighting a variety of stock characters and being annoyed by Toss Pot the fool. The actors are gifted pace eggs.
Image source
You can read the many fascinating aspects of this ritual in better detail here (I didn't want to just copy);
http://early-med.archeurope.com/sami-archeology/sami-bear-ritual/
The Glow of Night
(Alfred Stieglitzm New York, 1897)
Source
One of the most famous is "Whereto should I express", the music of which also features in his Christmas carol "Green groweth the holly."
https://www.luminarium.org/renlit/whereto.htm
https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/dr-james-barry-the-importance-of-archival-discoveries/
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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-little-known-legend-of-jesus-in-japan-165354242/
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28 March 1941: Virginia Woolf, one of the greatest modernist writers of the 20th century, commits suicide in the River Ouse. She likely had bipolar disorder.
Woolf was a pioneering modernist writer who experimented with stream-of-consciousness narration and challenged traditional narrative structures. She is known for works such as "Mrs. Dalloway," "To the Lighthouse," and "A Room of One's Own," which explored themes of gender, sexuality, and mental health.
She had become depressed as a result of the war, with her London home being bombed.
Her final note to her husband Leonard reads;
Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do...
The Internet Archive has lost their Lower Court case defending their position as a CDL platform against Copyright Holders, and are trying to raise funds to escalate to higher courts
http://blog.archive.org/2023/03/25/the-fight-continues/