20 New Lines from The Epic of Gilgamesh Discovered in Iraq, Adding New Details to the Story. The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest narratives in the world, got a surprise update last month when the Sulaymaniyah Museum in the Kurdistan region of Iraq announced that it had discovered 20 new lines of the Babylonian-Era poem of gods, mortals, and monsters. Since the poem has existed in fragments since the 18th century BC, there has always been the possibility that more would turn up. And yet the version we’re familiar with — the one discovered in 1853 in Nineveh — hasn’t changed very much over recent decades.
The text remained fairly fixed — that is, until the fall of Baghdad in 2003 and the intense looting that followed yielded something new. Since that time, the History Blog notes: the [Sulaymaniyah] museum has a matter of policy paid smugglers to keep artifacts from leaving the country, no questions asked. The tablet was acquired by the museum in late 2011 as part of a collection of 80-90 tablets sold by an unnamed shady character. Via The History Blog Related content:
The Ten Greatest Space Achievements Nobody Knows About. The first EVA by Alexey Leonov. He only had a 50 foot piece of wire to tether him to the space craft and the Russians didn't account for the pressure (or lack there of) in space so his space suit ballooned up to the point where he couldn't get back though the hatch. So he had to release some pressure by undoing the seal around his glove so he could fit back in, of course this also caused him to get the bends. When the craft finally did begin re-entry into the atmosphere, they lost navigation and ended up crash landing somewhere in Siberia... where he had to wait for three days for rescue... in the middle of winter... with the bends.
Whilst fighting off wolves; hunting for bear with his bare hands; finding giant stores of gold; starting and populating the first permanent settlement in Siberia; and slowly converting the space capsule into a single engine glider that he eventually flew all the way to Moscow where he landed in Red Square. Gay marriage in the year 100 AD. Rare 3D Camera Found Containing Photos from WWI. A friend of ours was trying to get rid of stuff from her fathers home after he died. Well we found 3 boxes full of WW2 stuff he had from being in the war. Some of his old gear, coins from various countries he went to then. Letters. Even some nazi gear. But among all this was a camera and a few rolls. Until this day she didn't bother.
The End of History? - Francis Fukuyama. IN WATCHING the flow of events over the past decade or so, it is hard to avoid the feeling that something very fundamental has happened in world history. The past year has seen a flood of articles commemorating the end of the Cold War, and the fact that "peace" seems to be breaking out in many regions of the world. Most of these analyses lack any larger conceptual framework for distinguishing between what is essential and what is contingent or accidental in world history, and are predictably superficial. If Mr. Gorbachev were ousted from the Kremlin or a new Ayatollah proclaimed the millennium from a desolate Middle Eastern capital, these same commentators would scramble to announce the rebirth of a new era of conflict. And yet, all of these people sense dimly that there is some larger process at work, a process that gives coherence and order to the daily headlines. THE NOTION of the end of history is not an original one. HAVE WE in fact reached the end of history?
Notes: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. From the Collections, Sound Recordings Heard for the First Time | At the Smithsonian. Curator Carlene Stephens, on left, and collections manager Shari Stout look at a glass disc containing a sound recording from the 1880s. Photo by Rich Strauss, courtesy of the National Museum of American History One March morning in 2008, Carlene Stephens, curator of the National Museum of American History’s division of work and industry, was reading the New York Times when a drawing caught her eye. She recognized it as a phonautograph, a device held in the museum’s collections.
Credited to a Frenchman named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1857, the phonautograph recorded sound waves as squiggles on soot-covered paper, but could not play those sounds back. The article reported that scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, had managed the seemingly impossible. They played back the sounds. “When I read the article, I thought, oh my gosh,” says Stephens. “I have been taking care of these silent recordings for decades. How Did This Ancient Civilization Avoid War for 2,000 Years? The World Without Water. “Map of the world, shown as if the oceans were dried up.
Thomas Burnet was the first Englishman to attempt a scientific account of the origin of the earth. His treatise, Telluris Thoeoria Sacra, is a curious blend of geography and archaeology, which aroused considerable interest at the time. California is shown as an Island, but no Northwest passage, an unusual concession for an Englishman of this era.” - Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps. Maps of Vast Empires That No Longer Exist. Which protectorates are not listening to the US via the Snowden situation? Well, since when have the South American countries started thumbing their nose at their "friend" to the North? America started losing its grip there when they stopped installing their own regional administrators - twenty, even ten years ago, they'd have lined up to prevent Snowden from travelling there. Historically, Hong Kong would have handed him straight over, Ireland wouldn't have even considered asylum, nor would Germany and France have had so many ministers line up to say it was Europes job to protect him.
I'd argue it's a hegemony, not an empire. But it's a semantic difference. I will say that in my opinion the waxing/waning of power is non-linear. Ah, but we still had a rather large Empire before the second world war - Churchill effectively had to either give up India or lose the war, and he bitterly hated the idea of giving them their country back, (woo war hero lol). The World's Craziest Popes. Pope Formosus (891-896) Source: Blogspot, While Formosus’ pontifical reign is noted more for its brevity than its breadth, it’s the absolute insanity that defined his afterlife that makes him one of the world’s craziest popes.
A year following his death, the rather batty Pope Stephen VI ordered Formosus’ desiccated body to be exhumed and put on trial. Known as the Cadaver Synod, Formosus’ corpse was dressed in papal vestments and convicted accordingly.In the ruling, it was declared that Formosus was unworthy of the pontificate, and all acts and measures made under his papacy were declared null and void. Such was the case for three of his fingers, as they had been used in various “illegitimate” consecrations. Pope Sergius III (904-911) Source: All Posters, Pope John XII (955-964) 10 Civilizations That Disappeared Under Mysterious Circumstances. What Thomas Kuhn Really Thought about Scientific “Truth” | Cross-Check. In 1991, when I was a staff writer for Scientific American, I wrote a letter to Thomas Kuhn, then at MIT. I said I wanted to profile him for Scientific American and “tell readers how you developed your views of the process of science.”
When he didn’t respond, I called. Kuhn was reluctant to do the interview. He distrusted journalists, and he was still peeved by an old Scientific American review of his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. When I persisted, Kuhn asked to see other profiles I had done, and I mailed him pieces on his MIT colleagues Claude Shannon and Noam Chomsky. I finally wore Kuhn down, and in February 1991 I interviewed him for more than three hours in his cluttered office. He was one of the most ambiguous, ambivalent thinkers I have ever encountered, which helps explain why he is still interpreted in so many divergent and even contradictory ways.
The Structure of Thomas Kuhn “Look,” Thomas Kuhn said. But isn’t mathematics a kind of universal language? Jean-Baptiste Michel: The mathematics of history. Printed books existed nearly 600 years before Gutenberg's Bible. Anthropologist: When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite. Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.
Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the "Office of Same-Sex Union" (10th and 11th century), and the "Order for Uniting Two Men" (11th and 12th century). These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.
The Greatest Speeches In Modern History. I Am Prepared To Die, Nelson Mandela One of the most memorable speeches in modern history comes from Nelson Mandela, the man who fought tirelessly against South African apartheid. His revolutionary work, however, had him wrongfully arrested in 1962 on charges of treason and for inciting the public to strike against the government. Mandela was sentenced to life in prison but delivered this great speech during his trial. One-liner: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.
It is an ideal, which I hope to live for and to achieve. Greatest Modern History Speeches: Quit India, Mahatma Gandhi Suppressed under British rule for almost a century, the Quit India movement and Mahatma Gandhi’s subsequent speech prompted the Indian people to fight for their freedom. “In the democracy which I have envisaged, a democracy established by non-violence, there will be equal freedom for all. What Vikings really looked like. The fine decoration of the Oseberg ship in Norway, which was buried in the year 834, provides clues to what Vikings looked like. Inside the ship were two women and the archaeologists believe the ship has served as a sarcophagus.
(Photo: Annie Dalbéra) There’s no shortage of myths about the appearance of our notorious Viking ancestors. To find out more about these myths, ScienceNordic’s Danish partner site, videnskab.dk, asked its Facebook readers to list their favourite myths about what the Vikings looked like. We have picked out five myths from the resulting debate and asked researchers to help us confirm or bust these myths. Armed with this information, our graphic designer then took a shot at drawing some examples of our infamous forefathers, which you can see in our picture gallery.
The five myths are: MYTH 1: Vikings were dirty and unkempt Unwashed, rough warriors with froth hanging out of the corners of the mouth. But that’s unlikely to be true: It wasn’t enough just to be clean. Hack Story. This insanely sinister infographic illustrates the power of the world's strongest nuke. Chain Letter Evolution.
Letter from Heaven (top), 1795. Above title. Send-a-Dime money chain letter, 1935. Lead to section 4.1. Springfield MO pyramid craze, 1935. Near end of section 4.1. Acknowledgments I could not have conducted this study without the assistance and friendship of Dr. Special thanks also go to Alan E. I have received much needed help with foreign language chain letters. Though I am solely responsible for the approach and presentation here, this effort was sustained because a few people expressed interest. A list of those who provided one or more paper chain letters appears on the information page for the archive. 1-1 Introduction.
Seeking paper chain letters. Overview. Using a collection of 750 dated paper chain letters, I have identified types and variations that appear and disappear over the years. Subtle methods that increase replication include: The use of ambiguity and obfuscation to deal with such questions as: Does simply passing on the received letter avoid bad luck? Religion. The Evolution Of Europe. The Best Insults In History. The Best Insults In History: Winston Churchill The extremely witty and much-loved British Prime Minister Winston Churchill tops the list with his verbal spat with Lady Astor. The conservative dame forever admonished Churchill for his cigars and alcohol habits, and Churchill was not one to take the insults lying down. Of their famous squabbles, the most memorable is when Astor commented, “If you were my husband, I’d poison your tea.” Churchill’s riposte? Gandhi His vocalization of non-violence doesn’t mean Gandhi wasn’t lethal with his wit.
Rare, Beautiful and Disturbing Objects From the National Library of Medicine | Wired Science. Who Was Casanova? | Travel. Purchased in 2010 for $9.6 million, a new record for a manuscript sale, the original version of Casanova’s erotic memoir has achieved the status of a French sacred relic. At least, gaining access to its famously risqué pages is now a solemn process, heavy with Old World pomp. After a lengthy correspondence to prove my credentials, I made my way on a drizzly afternoon to the oldest wing of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, a grandiose Baroque edifice on rue de Richelieu near the Louvre. Within those hallowed halls, built around a pair of ancien régime aristocratic mansions, I waited by marble statues of the greats of French literature, Rousseau, Molière and Voltaire, before being led through a domed reading room filled with scholars into the private sanctum of the library offices.
After traipsing up and down endless stairwells and half-lit corridors, I was eventually seated in a special reading room overlooking a stone courtyard. “Look!” Noam Chomsky's life in pictures - Image 1. Why did it take so long to invent the wheel? GARUDA. The World's Strangest Recorded Deaths. How the Chicken Conquered the World | History & Archaeology.
The Weirdest Unsolved Mysteries of World War II. Socrates Plato Aristotle | History of Philosophy without any gaps. The Classic, Beautiful and Controversial Books That Changed Science Forever | Wired Science. Alan Turing's Legacy Lives On | Wired Science. Alan Turing's Extraordinary, Tragically Short Life: A Timeline | Wired Science. A tribute to Turing, the father of modern computing. The complete history of philosophy visualized in one graph. 10 Greatest Moments in Flight. Why Is Pink for Girls and Blue for Boys? | Color-Gender Associations. When Continental Drift Was Considered Pseudoscience. Dissecting World War II Deaths. CALIFORNIA. Coxcox. Inicio Biblioteca Digital Mundial. Neil MacGregor: 2600 years of history in one object. Amazing Soviet Propaganda Posters: Stalin And WWII Era.
From the Archives: MLK in the Media. Animated History Of Aviation. The pentagram. Are the streets of Washington, D.C. supposed to form a pentagram? On the Trail of the First Americans [Interactive] Situationist International. History of Linux. The Axis Plan To Invade America In 1942. The Four Most Important Battles Of Ancient Greece. ONLINE EXHIBITION (Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu, Library of Congress) Ancestry5_large.jpg (JPEG Imagen, 3000x1536 píxeles) - Escalado (33%) (9) Hiroshima & Nagasaki (fotos despues de las bombas) History of the world through facebook. 10 juguetes tecnológicos que marcaron época. Himno a la Nikkal, la canción más antigua del mundo. Fotos. Historia de la Tecnología: In memoriam 2011. Top 5 Misconceptions About Columbus | Christopher Columbus & Intrepid Explorers | Columbus Day | Flat-Earth Myth & Who Discovered the Americas.
13 Halloween Superstitions & Traditions Explained | Black Cats & Witches | Jack-o'-Lanterns & Trick-or-Treating | History of Halloween. Image Gallery: Beautiful Nubian Art | Medieval Churches & Selib | Nubian Artwork & Archaeology. 100 Years of Humans in Antarctica | Behind the Scenes. Ten Historic Female Scientists You Should Know. Five Historic Female Mathematicians You Should Know. Ada Lovelace. Playing It Again: The Big Business of Rereleases | Reel Culture. How the Potato Changed the World | History & Archaeology. From the Collections, Sound Recordings Heard for the First Time | Around The Mall. When the Smithsonian discovered an ancient Egyptian colony in the Grand Canyon. Watch the first kiss in the history of cinema, filmed by Thomas Edison. History of the world in 100 seconds, according to Wikipedia. Edison vs. Westinghouse: A Shocking Rivalry | Past Imperfect. Shipping Timetables Debunk Darwin Plagiarism Accusations.
Picknicking in the Polar Fog | Food & Think. Musicians Wage War Against Robots | Paleofuture. The Origin of Blue Jeans | Around The Mall. The Monuments That Were Never Built | History & Archaeology. Un reader del año 1935. Carl Sagan and "The Sounds of Earth" | Around The Mall. The Doomed South Pole Voyage's Remaining Photographs | History & Archaeology. A Different Kind of Dinner Bell in the Antarctic | Food & Think. How Thomas Jefferson Created His Own Bible. FirstSounds.ORG. A mobile phone from 1922? Not quite. | Paleofuture. The Surprising Subject of the First Book of Photographs | The Artful Amoeba. Where Did Dragons Come From? A US government program secretly injected people with plutonium. Five Books on World War I | History & Archaeology. The Man Who Busted the 'Banksters' | Past Imperfect.
Hollywood star whose invention paved the way for Wi-Fi. Dot-dash-diss: The gentleman hacker's 1903 lulz - tech - 27 December 2011. Hacktivists: Doin’ It For the Lulz Since 1903 | Discoblog.