mcdspot

Dancing mania. In July 1518, numerous people in Strasbourg, France fell subject to an epidemic of ceaseless dancing, dying over the course of a month from heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion.

Fascinating sets of historical photos from the New York Public Library.

Letters of Note is one of my favorite new websites, although I cannot view it at work because I wouldn’t get anything done. Simply put, it’s a collection of rare, important, or otherwise culturally relevant letters, with transcriptions. For starters, check out this letter from Kurt Vonnegut to his family, written from a repatriation camp after he was rescued from the nazis in 1945.

Interesting article on the mysterious Antikythera mechanism, a “device so astonishing that its discovery is like finding a functional Buick in medieval Europe.”

The Kunyu Wanguo Quantu or “Map of the Myriad Countries of the World” was made in 1602 and shows an astounding grasp of geography, unheard of in that age. This is one of the most significant maps in existence.

Pompeii is now on Google street view

Amazing. 2,500 years ago, Native Americans put bling in their grills

Ancient peoples of southern North America went to “dentists”—among the earliest known—to beautify their chompers with notches, grooves, and semiprecious gems, according to a recent analysis of thousands of teeth examined from collections in Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (such as the skull above, found in Chiapas, Mexico).

This and other great discoveries of 2009 can be found here.

Black and WTF.

I love World War II history.

Introducing Operation Cornflakes.

Before this day I had never heard of Johann Winckelmann, yet this man had an immense influence on/defined what we consider noble and beautiful in art. Who gets to define these things? This is from Wikipedia, of course:

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (December 9, 1717 – June 8, 1768) a German art historian and archaeologist, [1] was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art. “The prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology,” Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the history of art. Many consider him the father of the discipline of art history. His would be the decisive influence on the rise of the neoclassical movement during the late eighteenth century. His writings influenced not only a new science of archaeology and art history but Western painting, sculpture, literature and even philosophy. Winckelmann’s History of Ancient Art (1764) was one of the first books written in German to become a classic of European literature. His subsequent influence on Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Hölderlin, Heine, Nietzsche, George, and Spengler has been provocatively called “the Tyranny of Greece over Germany.”

Further reading on this man reveals many, many interesting things.

This list of twenty Islamic inventions which changed the world is compelling.

I’ve posted about similar pictures before, but here is another site with photos taken years later of places photographed during World War II.

A Danish expert said on Friday that a 15th century Vinland Map, the first known map depicting part of America prior to Christopher Columbus’ arrival on the continent, is almost certainly authentic. The map confirms the New World was known not only to Norseman but also to other Europeans at least 50 years prior to Columbus’s arrival.

I’ve heard that Cape Cod and the Outter Banks were rough on boats in the 19th century, but Sable Island must have really sucked.

Mark Twain was a motivational speaker in his own right. Exactly what he motivated us to do is up for debate.

If you’re a WWII fan, you’ll want to check out Battle Detective, a website run by a guy named Tom who has more than a passing interest in the subject. Of particular fascination is the collection of reader-submitted “Now and Then” photos taken all over Europe, like this one in the Ardennes:

If you’re okay with this sort of historic obsession, you’ll also appreciate Jacques Wood’s flickr photostream.

“It is an old maxim and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay the fiddler. Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen, whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly opposed to the people’s money being used to pay the fiddler . . . all this to settle a question in which the people have no interest, and about which they care nothing. These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people, and now, that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people’s money to settle the quarrel.”

– Abraham Lincoln in a January 11, 1837 speech to the Illinois Legislature Concerning the state bank.

It’s Friday, which calls for an entertaining article on the history of beer.

* the Sumerian patron goddess of brewing

In the 1890s Josiah Flynt took a few journeys on American railroads with the tramps and hobos. Here’s what he had to say about his adventures.