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Picture of the Day

Scold's Bridle

(photo: Jecini Colorizations)

Scold’s Bridle from Armagh Jail – Ireland. early 1900s – a woman sitting with the bridle over her face, to stop her from speaking.

A scold’s bridle, sometimes called a witch’s bridle, a brank’s bridle, or simply branks, was an instrument of punishment, as a form of torture and public humiliation. The device was an iron muzzle in an iron framework that enclosed the head (although some bridles were masks that depicted suffering). A bridle-bit (or curb-plate), about 2 in × 1 in (5.1 cm × 2.5 cm) in size, was slid into the mouth and pressed down on top of the tongue as a compress. This prevented speaking and resulted in many unpleasant side effects for the wearer, including excessive salivation and fatigue in the mouth.

First recorded in Scotland in 1567, the branks were also used in England and its colonies. The kirk-sessions and barony courts in Scotland inflicted the contraption mostly on female transgressors and women considered to be rude, nags or common scolds.

Picture of the Day

Marianne Bachmeier

On March 6, 1981, Marianne Bachmeier opened fire in a courthouse in West Germany. She was aiming for the murderer of her 7-year-old daughter — and she shot him six times. As she was dragged from the courtroom, Bachmeier was reportedly heard mumbling, “Unfortunately, I only got the pig from behind.”⁠

On May 5, 1980, Anna Bachmeier skipped school to meet with a classmate friend, though she first visited the apartment of neighbor Klaus Grabowski (35) to play with his cats. Grabowski had been convicted of child molestation twice before, and eventually volunteered for chemical castration in 1976. The process inhibits the libido of the patient with the hopes they will not reoffend. It was later revealed Grabowski had begun hormone treatments to reverse the effects of the castration.

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Picture of the Day

Kids remote learning during a polio outbreak in the 1940s. Teachers read lessons over the radio.

In 1937, a severe polio epidemic hit the U.S. At the time, this contagious virus had no cure, and it crippled or paralyzed some of those it infected. Across the country, playgrounds and pools closed, and children were banned from movie theaters and other public spaces. Chicago had a record 109 cases in August, prompting the Board of Health to postpone the start of school for three weeks.

This delay sparked the first large-scale “radio school” experiment through a highly innovative – though largely untested – program. Some 315,000 children in grades 3 through 8 continued their education at home, receiving lessons on the radio.

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Picture of the Day

Billie Holiday performing “Strange Fruit” at Café Society, the first integrated nightclub in New York 1939

The song protests the lynching of Black Americans, with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit of trees. Her 1939 rendition of this song was included in the US National Recording Registry in 2003.

She was under exclusive contract to Columbia Records at the time, and she approached them with the song…and they refused to record or publish it. Her personal producer also refused to have anything to do with recording it. They didn’t want Southern white people to boycott their label.

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Picture of the Day

The KKK used to run a youth group called the Klu Klux Kiddies

They were the children of the Ku Klux Klan, and their baptism included more than a promise to God. Along with their vows to raise religious children, their parents dedicated their children to “the principles and ideals of Americanism.” To an outsider, that promise might sound like a patriotic one. But to the KKK, it meant dedicating the children to a lifetime upholding segregation, bigotry, and the violent suppression of anyone who was not a white Protestant.

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Picture of the Day

Eduard Bloch

Eduard Bloch, Hitler’s childhood doctor, and a Jew. When Hitler’s mother couldn’t afford cancer treatment, Bloch reduced his prices. Teenage Adolf declared undying gratitude, and when Austria was annexed, Hitler kept his word and granted the doctor special protection by the Gestapo

Even after the two had parted ways after Klara’s death, Adolf continued to keep in touch with Bloch by sending him postcards. Some of those were even personally hand-painted by Adolf himself.

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Picture of the Day

chief hatuey

(photo: "Hatuey monument” by Michal Zalewski)

Before being burned alive by the Spaniards, Chief Hatuey was asked if he wanted to accept Christianity and go to heaven. Hatuey asked if Spaniards go to heaven, to which the priest said that they do. Hatuey then stated that he’d rather go to hell where he wouldn’t see such cruel people. 

Here is the God [pointing to a basket of gold and jewels] the Spaniards worship. For these they fight and kill; for these they persecute us and that is why we have to throw them into the sea… They tell us, these tyrants, that they adore a God of peace and equality, and yet they usurp our land and make us their slaves. They speak to us of an immortal soul and of their eternal rewards and punishments, and yet they rob our belongings, seduce our women, violate our daughters. Incapable of matching us in valor, these cowards cover themselves with iron that our weapons cannot break…

Picture of the Day

american airline stewardess

Portrait of an American Airlines stewardess posing in uniform on an airplane in 1967, part of an ad campaign for the airline.

The post-WWII America changed drastically and millions of Americans started to travel on airplanes and the stewardess profession expanded further.

Now, young working women did not have to change bedpans or take dictation; they could travel the world, meet important people, and lead exciting lives. The stewardess position was well paid, prestigious, and adventurous – and it quickly became the nation’s most coveted job for women.

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Picture of the Day

A Soviet propaganda poster from 1944 depicting legions of German soldiers destined to die in the Russian winter thanks to Hitler’s orders.

If you read the journal entries from Wilhelm Hoffman who was fought and died in Stalingrad, this poster hits even harder. When they showed up they thought it would be a quick fight and they would be home by Christmas. As time went on the entries go from arrogant to impressed with the “Russian spirit” to disheartened at how long its taking to sack the city and the lack or reinforcements to despair once they are resigned to their fate that they will either freeze/starve to death or be killed by the Russians.

“The street is no longer measured by meters but by corpses … Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke; it is a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, one of those scorching howling bleeding nights, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure.“

Picture of the Day

last man to die in ww2

“The Last Man to Die in WWII” Leipzig, Germany April 18, 1945

War photographer Robert Capa took this iconic photo of an American soldier shot and killed by a German soldier in the battle for Leipzig on April 18, 1945. The soldier became known as the ′′ last man to die′′ in WWII after the picture appeared in Life’s Victory Parade magazine.

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