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Picture of the Day

pu yi

Pu Yi, the last emperor of Qing Dynasty and the former head of Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo during World War II

Puyi was only two years old when his uncle, the Guangxu Emperor, died of arsenic poisoning on November 14, 1908, and the Empress Dowager selected the little boy as the new emperor before she died the very next day.

On December 2, 1908, Puyi was formally enthroned as the Xuantong Emperor, but the toddler did not like the ceremony and reportedly cried and struggled as he was named the Son of Heaven.

The child emperor spent the next four years in the Forbidden City, cut off from his birth family and surrounded by a host of eunuchs who had to obey his every childish whim. When the little boy discovered that he had that power, he would order the eunuchs caned if they displeased him in any way.

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Picture of the Day

homesteaders

Family with Their Covered Wagon During the Great Western Migration, in Loup Valley, Nebraska – 1886

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862. The new law established a three-fold homestead acquisition process: file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title.

Any U.S. citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. Government could file an application and lay claim to 160 acres of surveyed Government land.

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Why Shouldn’t You Get A PhD In History?

 

I am a PhD student in medieval history in the U.S. My remarks concern History PhD programs in the U.S. If you think this is hypocritical, so be it.

The humanities PhD is still a vocational degree to prepare students for a career teaching in academia, and there are no jobs. Do not get a PhD in history.

Look, I get it. You don’t “love history;” you love history with everything in your soul and you read history books outside your subfield for fun and you spend 90% of your free time trying to get other people to love history as much as you do, or even a quarter as much, or even just think about it for a few minutes and your day is made. I get it.

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What Was It Like To Fight Americans During World War 2?

If you were a German fighting Americans at the start of Operation Torch in Tunisia, you’d have a mixed view of American soldiers.

They were certainly brave, but they lacked experience of the British and ran into ambushes that the Brits had learned to avoid in 1941.

Their equipment was generally good, and they were well supplied.

So well supplied in fact, that you and your unit was evacuated to Sicily after your own supplies dwindled to nothing and the Americans were able to flank you.

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Picture of the Day

unwrapping mummies

Around 19th century egyptomania was so strong in europe that rich tourists would bring mummies from Egypt to unwrap them in parties.

Mummy unrollings were only one symptom of the Egyptomania sweeping England in the 19th century. Europeans had been buying mummies since Shakespeare’s times to use them as medicine, pigment or even charms; now, the Napoleonic wars and England’s colonial expanse had created a renewed interest in Egypt’s past, to the point that, as the French aristocrat and Trappist monk Abbot Ferdinand de Géramb wrote to Pasha Mohammed Ali in 1833, “it would be hardly respectable, on one’s return from Egypt, to present oneself without a mummy in one hand and a crocodile in the other.”

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Picture of the Day

Wojtek bear

Wojtek the Bear, adopted by the 22nd Transport Company’s Artillery Division in the Polish II Corps in 1942, after an Iranian boy traded the bear for food. He served alongside his human comrades during the Italian Campaign

Wojtek, often referred to as the “Soldier Bear,” was a Syrian brown bear that played a unique and heartwarming role during World War II. Found as a young cub in Iran in 1942 after it was believed his mother had been shot by hunters, Wojtek was adopted by Polish soldiers of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the Polish II Corps. As he grew under the care of the soldiers, he became more than just a mascot; he became one of them.

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Picture of the Day

The O’Halloran sisters

The O’Halloran sisters, armed with poles and boiling water, fended off the officers evicting their family during the Irish Land War, 1889

The Second Irish Land Act of 1881 had attempted to give tenants more security by paving the way for rent reductions, guarantees of the same rent for periods of 15 years, and, in some cases, eventual proprietorship.

O’Callaghan had been charging the O’Halloran family £31, which the court ordered be reduced to £22-10 shillings, a sum the family maintained was unfair, since in their grandfather’s time the rent had been as low as £13-10 shillings.

They became one of the families to participate in the Bodyke rent boycotts, and in June 1887 they prepared to resist eviction from the land their family had lived on and tended for generations.

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Picture of the Day

Adolf Hitler informs Czech President Emil Hácha of the imminent German invasion of Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939 in Berlin. Hácha suffered a heart attack during the meeting, and had to be kept awake by medical staff, eventually giving in and accepting Hitler’s surrender terms.

In the evening of 14 March 1939, Hitler invited President Hácha to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Hitler deliberately kept him waiting for hours, while Hitler watched a film.

Finally, at 1:30 a.m., on 15 March 1939, Hitler saw the President. He told Hácha that as they were speaking, the German army was about to invade Czechoslovakia.

All of Czechoslovakia’s defences were now under German control following the Munich Agreement in September of the previous year.

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Picture of the Day

One of the Hunter Brothers doing some mid-air mechanical checkups on their Stinson SM-1 Detroiter during their 23-day-long flight without landing in 1930

Ninety years ago on June 11, 1930, the four Hunter brothers began their journey to break the world record for Duration in an airplane with a flight that was to last an incredible 23 days.

The roles of the brothers were defined as follows: John and Kenneth were the pilots of record plane the City of Chicago, while Albert and Walter worked as the refuelling crew in the Big Ben. Together, they remained airborne for 553h 41m 30s, on a distance equivalent to one and a half times around the world.

Taking off from Sky Harbour Airport, USA, on June 11, the City of Chicago, a Stinson-Detroiter aircraft, landed on July 4, 1930, at the same location, eventually forced to land because of technical issues.

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Picture of the Day

4 people from the same town who fought in different wars.

4 people from the same town who fought in different wars.

The eyes of four men, captured in a single photograph, tell a story of approximately 80 years of warfare. The horrors they witnessed and the experiences they shared are reflected in their eyes, growing more profound as they aged. Each of these men went to war, yet their experiences spanned completely different types of warfare.

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