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Join for content related to world history, archaeology, and historiography. Run by @its_just_b - feedback and messages welcome.
Novelist Elinor Glyn with Candide and Zadig (Paul Tanqueray, 1931)
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D-Day revisited is an informative, well-presented website:
http://d-dayrevisited.co.uk/d-day/cost-of-battle.html
And here are some myths:
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/05/opinion/opinion-d-day-myth-reality/index.html
The first Philadelphia pride march, 1972. (Photo: Kay Tobin Lahusen)
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28 May 1923: The Irish Civil War ends when Frank Aiken and Éamon de Valera (pictured) order an effective surrender of the Irish Republican Army. The war had been fought between the IRA and pro-treaty forces. The pro-treaty forces had supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty which allowed Ireland independence under the British monarch and the partition of the island into north and south.
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In October 1904, Russian warships opened fire on a group of defenceless British fishing boats. Despite having the capacity to utterly annihilate the boats, they were able to destroy only one, killing two of the crew. The incident ended with Russian warships firing on each other, and the crew of one ship laying down upon the deck with lifejackets on, believing they were sinking.
Known as the Dogger Bank incident, it nearly led to war between Great Britain and Russia.
As it turned out, the Russian fleet had believed the British boats were Japanese torpedo boats, overlooking the impossibility of the Japanese reaching the North Sea, as a result of widespread paranoia. Their crews were inexperienced, many being peasants.
This was not the Baltic Fleet's finest hour, but it was not their lowest either. After a long and arduous journey to Japan, taking several months, they were immediately apprehended by the Japanese fleet and routed.
The last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, 1858. Once spanning a vast territory over modern-day India and Pakistan, by his time the Mughal Empire was reduced to the city of Delhi. He lent a debatable amount of support to the Sepoy Rebellion against the East India Company, and during his trial was betrayed by an ally. Consequently, he was exiled to Rangoon where he later died in frail health. This is probably the only photograph of him, and consequently the only photo of a Mughal Emperor.
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A 3D scan of the decaying wreck of the Titanic, released for the first time. The resting place of the ship is 2.3 miles below the surface and, since it is unable to be raised, scientists have instead been trying to capture as much of it as possible.
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The bouncing bomb was known for its extensive and intensive testing period and inventor Barnes Wallis (pictured). Many failed prototypes were tried to design a bomb that could reach the dams and explode after sinking. They were tested in Reculver, Kent, and the Fleet, in Dorset, where a golfball-like prototype is still present. The end result was more cylindrical.
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The Atlantic being transformed into 'Lake Winston Churchill' perhaps a reference to Churchill being half-American.
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'My Country, Tis of Thee' - Life Magazine, February 10 1916.
In response to an earlier German publication.
Source
More posters like this:
https://my-ussr.ru/soviet-posters/holidays/136-posters-of-the-ussr-for-the-holidays-the-day-of-the-great-victory-day-may-9.html
There are lots of specifics and bizarre elements about the ceremony. For example, some elements of Scottish coronations are fused in, such as in how the monarch is crowned atop the "Stone of Destiny" upon which all Scottish monarchs are crowned.
Such is the nature of a ceremony that is in many ways completely outdated. Even many surviving European monarchies no longer carry out a coronation. Since monarchy is now firmly hereditary, and there is no chance of a challenger, the main reasons for it happening are gone. It survives as a purported personification of political continuity and adherence to the rule of law.
They then receive the homage, where everyone present swears fealty. In times where those present might be planning a rebellion, this was also a very important part.
Image: The homage at the coronation of George VI (1937).
However the coronation's homage to Biblical traditions can be seen in the reciting of the Biblical passage about 'Zadok the Priest', which was put to music by Handel in 1727.
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British troops, Juno.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/94101/d-day-landings-in-photos
Pōtatau Te Wherowhero was a Māori warrior. Facing growing encroachments by European settlers, the Māori sought to create a king to increase their influence against the British.
Te Wherowhero was asked. He responded "I am a snail. And what can a snail do?"
What exactly this meant was obviously lost on the early anthropologists who wrote down his words.
In any case, he eventually accepted the kingship, and tried to work with the British before dying in 1860. The Māori king still exists today.
(Image: George French Angas, 1847)
Village near Calcutta (Garden Reach) (Frederick Fiebig, India, 1851).
Garden Reach was a suburb of Calcutta where large 'garden houses' stood along the river's edge. This area appears to be more impoverished. The photograph has been hand-coloured.
The British Museum says that 'some 250 of [Fiebig's] photographs relate to Calcutta and form the earliest extensive photographic documentation of the city, made at a time when photography was just starting to supplant the engraving and the lithograph as the dominant medium of visual record.
Source
Map of the Great Trek of the Boers (1835-1846).
The Boers were a group of isolationist white settlers in what is now South Africa. They came into conflict with the growing British administration for a number of reasons, partly due to their desire to simply be left alone, but perhaps most prominently the British opposition to slavery, which they practiced. They therefore decided to trek northwards into the lands of various African tribes.
Whether the raid was a success is debated. Two of three dams were breached. The unusual manoeuvres needed to drop the bombs put the crews in especial danger and there was a 40% casualty rate.
The bombs did have an impact on Nazi industry, and Albert Speer commented that he was puzzled as to why the British did not follow up the success.
There were several thousand civilian deaths, many being slave workers. The Nazis realised, however, that the civilians living nearby regarded the dams as a legitimate target, and they could not use the casualties as propaganda.
16-17 May is the anniversary of the 1943 Dambusters raid. This raid by 19 British Lancaster Bombers was carried out on the Eder, Möhne and Sorpe dams in Nazi territory, which were used for hydroelectric power and various other military-industrial applications. The raid was notable because of both its military importance and the novel use of the 'bouncing bomb' to destroy the dams.
(Image: Simon Atack)
In response to Life Magazine, the pro-German American The Fatherland, edited by George Sylvester Viereck, published this cover imagining America if they joined Britain (February 23 1916).
Source
The first Eurovision Song Contest was held in Lugano, Switzerland. At this time the infrastructure was very limited for television transmission.
Switzerland's Lys Assia won with the song 'Refrains'.
Archaeologists from the University of Zadar have found an ancient neolithic-era road. It appears it connected an Hvar culture settlement with the island of Korčula. Not much is known about the Hvar people, but lots of tools and pottery have also been found.
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"We defended the peace - we will keep the peace!"
(Alexander Pogrebinsky and B. Khenkin, 1985).
A Soviet Victory Day poster celebrating 40 years since the end of the war. The motif "We defended the peace - we will keep the peace" ("Мир отстояли - мир сохраним") was a common theme.
The monarch then probably wants to go home. The crown is actually very heavy and they are probably tired. Unfortunately for them they then have to go in a procession, if there is no riot, like that at William I's coronation.
Image: The Coronation Procession of Elizabeth I of England, 1559.
The monarch is then invested. Here they receive an orb, representing Christ's rule over the world, a ring representing their ceremonial marriage to the nation, and a sceptre. They are then crowned. This is the most important part of the service and the one most depicted in art and propaganda.
Images: detail from The Coronation of King Edward VII by Edwin Austin Abbey, Coronation of Henry IV (1399) by Jean Froissart.
After this the monarch is anointed with sacred oil, using the oldest item in the coronation regalia; the very seriously named Coronation Spoon. This part is considered too sacred to be televised.
Image: Queen Victoria Receiving the Sacrament at her Coronation, 28 June 1838 by Charles Robert Leslie