Oh! I actually know the answer to this one! American newspaper ads charged by the letter, so a lot of people would eliminate unnecessary letters like the second L in “cancelled” or the U in “colour”. Some of these spelling changes were used so often that they stuck, and now Americans just spell some words differently.
In summary: Americans spell things weird because capitalism
It goes further back than that, though. Noah Webster attempted spelling reform with his 1828 dictionary–it was one part aesthetics and one part nationalism on his part. That’s why US English dropped the “u” from words like colour and technically spells it “canceled” instead of “cancelled.”
How on earth would you feed a city of over 200,000 people when the land around you was a swampy lake? Seems like an impossible task, but the Aztec managed it by creating floating gardens known as chinampas, then they farmed them intensively.
These ingenious creations were built up from the lake bed by piling layers of mud, decaying vegetation and reeds. This was a great way of recycling waste from the capital city Tenochtitlan. Each garden was framed and held together by wooden poles bound by reeds and then anchored to the lake floor with finely pruned willow trees. The Aztecs also dredged mud from the base of the canals which both kept the waterways clear and rejuvenate the nutrient levels in the gardens.
A variety of crops were grown, most commonly maize or corn, beans, chillies, squash, tomatoes, edible greens such as quelite and amaranth. Colourful flowers were also grown, essential produce for religious festivals and ceremonies. Each plot was systematically planned, the effective use of seedbeds allowed continuous planting and harvesting of crops.
Between each garden was a canal which enabled canoe transport. Fish and birds populated the water and were an additional source of food. [x]
This is literally so cool. Not only does it contribute to spacial efficiency, but the canals would easily keep pests, weeds, and possibly even diseases out of the respective plots. Companion planting and bio-intensive planting would be so much easier. Water-wise systems would be inherently present. Plus it looks so super neat aesthetically. I am just all about this.
Indigenous civilizations invented sustainable development way before there was a term for it.
Chiune Sugihara. This man saved 6000 Jews. He was a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania. When the Nazis began rounding up Jews, Sugihara risked his life to start issuing unlawful travel visas to Jews. He hand-wrote them 18 hrs a day. The day his consulate closed and he had to evacuate, witnesses claim he was STILL writing visas and throwing from the train as he pulled away. He saved 6000 lives. The world didn’t know what he’d done until Israel honored him in 1985, the year before he died.
Why can’t we have a movie about him?
He was often called “Sempo”, an alternative reading of the characters of his first name, as that was easier for Westerners to pronounce.
His wife, Yukiko, was also a part of this; she is often credited with suggesting the plan. The Sugihara family was held in a Soviet POW camp for 18 months until the end of the war; within a year of returning home, Sugihara was asked to resign – officially due to downsizing, but most likely because the government disagreed with his actions.
He didn’t simply grant visas – he granted visas against direct orders, after attempting three times to receive permission from the Japanese Foreign Ministry and being turned down each time. He did not “misread” orders; he was in direct violation of them, with the encouragement and support of his wife.
He was honoured as Righteous Among the Nations in 1985, a year before he died in Kamakura; he and his descendants have also been granted permanent Israeli citizenship. He was also posthumously awarded the Life Saving Cross of Lithuania (1993); Commander’s Cross Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (1996); and the Commander’s Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2007). Though not canonized, some Eastern Orthodox Christians recognize him as a saint.
Sugihara was born in Gifu on the first day of 1900, January 1. He achieved top marks in his schooling; his father wanted him to become a physician, but Sugihara wished to pursue learning English. He deliberately failed the exam by writing only his name and then entered Waseda, where he majored in English. He joined the Foreign Ministry after graduation and worked in the Manchurian Foreign Office in Harbin (where he learned Russian and German; he also converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church during this time). He resigned his post in protest over how the Japanese government treated the local Chinese citizens. He eventually married Yukiko Kikuchi, who would suggest and encourage his acts in Lithuania; they had four sons together. Chiune Sugihara passed away July 31, 1986, at the age of 86. Until her own passing in 2008, Yukiko continued as an ambassador of his legacy.
It is estimated that the Sugiharas saved between 6,000-10,000 Lithuanian and Polish Jewish people.
It’s a tragedy that the Sugiharas aren’t household names. They are among the greatest heroes of WWII. Is it because they were from an Axis Power? Is it because they aren’t European? I don’t know. But I’ve decided to always reblog them when they come across my dash. If I had the money, I would finance a movie about them.
He told an interviewer:
You want to know about my motivation, don’t you? Well. It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them. Among the refugees were the elderly and women. They were so desperate that they went so far as to kiss my shoes, Yes, I actually witnessed such scenes with my own eyes. Also, I felt at that time, that the Japanese government did not have any uniform opinion in Tokyo. Some Japanese military leaders were just scared because of the pressure from the Nazis; while other officials in the Home Ministry were simply ambivalent.
People in Tokyo were not united. I felt it silly to deal with them. So, I made up my mind not to wait for their reply. I knew that somebody would surely complain about me in the future. But, I myself thought this would be the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong in saving many people’s lives….The spirit of humanity, philanthropy…neighborly friendship…with this spirit, I ventured to do what I did, confronting this most difficult situation—and because of this reason, I went ahead with redoubled courage.
He died in nearly complete obscurity in Japan. His neighbors were shocked when people from all over, including Israeli diplomatic personnel, showed up at quiet little Mr. Sugihara’s funeral.
I will forever reblog this, I wish more people would know about them!
I liked this before when it had way less information. Thank you, history-sharers.
Tucked away in a corner in L.A.’s Little Tokyo is a life-sized statue of Chiune, seated on a bench and smiling gently as he holds out a visa.
The stone next to him bears a quote from the Talmud; “He who saves one life, saves the entire world.”
I had no idea it existed until a few weeks ago, but it’s since become one of my favorite pieces of public art.
Chiune Sugihara. Original antifa.
PBS made a documentary about Chiune Sugihara in 2005. If you’re interested in him, it’s definitely worth checking out. (The PBS link above even has some interactive information to go along with the film.) Ask your local library if they have a copy/can order you one from another library. You won’t be disappointed!
Why is october the 10th month of the year and not the 8th? Like it literally has ‘octo’ meaning 8 in it’s name
It used to be!! But because the Romans added the month of July in honour of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C and then later in 8 B.C they added August after Augustus Caesar, they threw off the calendar and everyone is bitter about it.
oxford was built and operational as a college before the rise of the mayans and cleopatra lived in a time nearer to pizza hut’s invention than to the pyramids being built
I need a noncomprehensive history book that covers Known World History in time periods, like “in this century, all this shit was happening concurrently” and not just all spread out so I have to piece it together like some unpaid uneducated scholar
Mongols were fighting Samurai in Japan and Knights in Europe at the same time.
Star Wars a New Hope came out the same year as the last execution in France by Guillotine.
Abraham Lincoln and Edgar Allen Poe were friends in their early 20′s.
When the Great Pyramids were being built there were areas that still had Woolly Mammoths roaming.
Harvard University didn’t teach calculus in its first few years after being established because calculus wasn’t invented yet.
Nintendo was founded two years after the Eiffel Tower was constructed
This is the book you want: The Timetables of History – going year by year (or in the earlier sections, at least century by century) and showing you what was going on in various parts of the world in several categories (e.g. Politics, Literature, Science, etc.) Super useful for visualizing what events were happening at the same time.
looking at Wikipedia’s pages for years, decades, or centuries can also be fun for this reason
adults, while forcing all children above the age of 5 to sit still, be silent, and obey orders for 7-8 hours a day with minimal breaks, reducing their exposure to fresh air and sunlight to almost nothing, forcing them to alter their natural sleeping patterns to increase productivity, and repeatedly telling them their self worth depends on their being able to follow these instructions perfectly for 13 or more years: kids these days are so lazy! they never go outside! they never want to do anything! clearly it’s not because of us!
The way we treat children is extremely inhumane, but so many adults want to dismiss it because it’s so normalized
You… You do realize that’s what it’s like to be a working adult…? And our days are even longer.
thats because an 8 hour work day is extortion and should be illegal. next question.
Either you’ve never had a job or you’re just lazy af. There’s nothing wrong with 9 to 5 jobs. Nobody is forcing people to work them and people need the hours to make more money. People get breaks too.
Please take a biology class & get some help. People shouldnt have to do work 80% of the day to survive.
2. capitalism is forcing people to work. i could just quit my job and hang out at home – but then i would lose my house and most likely starve to death, because of the way our economy works.
3. breaks for most establishments are a mere 30 minutes for an 8-hour shift; at my first job, for a 6-hour shift, your break would only be 15 minutes and any longer shift would only get 30. studies say people are more productive if for every hour you work, you get a 15-minute break – meaning, for an 8-hour shift, you’d need an hour-long break, and so on and so forth.
the way modern society views work is unhealthy for loads of reasons, not just what i mentioned here. the fact that we’re preparing children for such a torturous lifestyle is horrific.
Also like…. small children are not adults. Small children should not be held to the same standards as adults. Even if the 8 hour work day WAS healthy, it would be inhumane to hold a small child to the same standard.
The school system was literally designed to train people for factory work back when child labour was legal so that should tell you how fucked that is
And the 8 hour workday isn’t some gold standard or ancient tradition. It’s just the best that the union warriors could get at the time. They were hoping we’d build on their victories.
an edible cracker with just one side. mathematically impossible and yet here I am monching on it.
‘scuit’ comes from the french word for ‘bake’, ‘cuire’ as bastardized by adoption by the brittish and a few hundred years
‘biscuit’ meant ‘twice-baked’, originally meaning items like hardtack which were double baked to dry them as a preservative measure long before things like sugar and butter were introduced. if you see a historical doccument use the word ‘biscuit’ do not be fooled to think ‘being a pirate mustve been pretty cool, they ate nothing but cookies’ – they were made of misery to last long enough to be used in museum displays or as paving stones
‘triscuit’ is toasted after the normal biscuit process, thrice baked
thus the monoscuit is a cookie thats soft and chewy because it was only baked once, not twice
behold the monoscuit/scuit
Why is this called a biscuit:
when brittish colonists settled in the americas they no longer had to preserve biscuits for storage or sea voyages so instead baked them once and left them soft, often with buttermilk or whey to convert cheap staples/byproducts into filling items to bulk out the meal to make a small amount of greasy meat feed a whole family. considering hardtack biscuits were typically eaten by dipping them in grease or gravy untill they became soft enough to eat without breaking a tooth this was a pretty short leap of ‘just dont make them rock hard if im not baking for the army’ but didnt drop the name because its been used for centuries and people forgot its french for ‘twice baked’ back in the tudor era, biscuit was just a lump of cooked dough that wasnt leavened bread as far as they cared
thus the buttermilk biscuit and the hardtack biscuit existed at the same time. ‘cookies’ then came to america via german and dutch immigrants as tiny cakes made with butter, sugar/molasses, and eggs before ‘tea biscuits’ as england knew them due to the new availability of cheap sugar- which is why ‘biscuit’ and ‘cookie’ are separate items in america but the same item in the UK
the evolution of the biscuit has forks on its family tree
I love it when a shitpost turns into an actually interesting post.
marvel is disney’s forever cash cow! it appeals to children, teens, and sweaty adults! it’s all quite loud and colorful, with the same safe formula every time, but with different directors and tweaks to make it whatever the fuck memorable each time. plus the reliance on violence to push the plot will give them those dank US military checks until explosions go extinct. truly we live in horrific times but i don’t really care
thank u all for letting me know the military quit cutting checks for the MCU after Avengers because they got offended bc the fictional magic men are an alternative to the american military. i’m sorry i was misinformed but more importantly that’s really, really, really, really, really fucking funny
Really (about military)?😕 I am not even surprise because Captain America The Winter Soldier is lowkey critic of it.
They actually namedrop Operation Paperclip in Winter Soldier, which shocked me when I watched it the first time— when Zola talks about how the Nazi-analogue group Hydra survived in plain sight, with direct approval from the US government on top of its infiltration into the government itself.
Operation Paperclip irl was a (now declassified) government ratline program where the US selected notable Nazi scientists, engineers, etc., to sponsor for American immigration with new identities to protect & hide their old identities, sparing them from punishment for their war crimes so long as they continued their work here on behalf of the American government rather than the Third Reich.
I remember watching the film & going, “Ah, so that’s why there’s fewer government vehicles & military extras than is the standard for scenes of this scale, they gave up the DOD money.”
All of which—
positioning Captain America in direct opposition to a fake government agency infiltrated by fake Nazis & saying that the Nazis corrupted everything so badly that he had to throw the whole agency away…
and then that pissing off real government & military officials, who methinks doth protest too much;
(because those military personnel were/are still touchy over public perception of what the US gov’t. actually did during & after WW2, versus the myth of American heroism pushed by mainstream media & public education in this country; the truth disrupts the status quo, even with make believe Nazis, and thus unacceptable)
and who then decided to take away funds they had previously earmarked for this franchise back when they were happy to use it as positive propaganda/for recruitment & advertisement
—is, in fact, really, really, really, really, really fucking funny.
(1) I didn’t think I could love Winter Soldier more, and yet here we are,
(2) At the same time subsequent movies keep pushing Good Guy With Gun as The Only Reasonable Way, so clearly someone is still trying to score.
Also, another “amusing” tidbit about Operation Paperclip: Most of those scientists were settled at NASA think-tanks, almost all of which ‘just happened to be’ in the South. Jim Crow country, to be exact, and some of the same places that are seeing the sharpest outbreaks of Neo Naziism today.
Because racist Nazi grandpas are heroes to racist Nazi grandkids on the US dime, don’tchaknow.
wupacing 