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Forgotten History

... the noun "desert" originally connoted something abandoned / forsaken and only later came to mean a particular type of barren / arid place. This preceded the earliest known usage as a verb, which similarly meant "to abandon" / "to forsake", and only later came to specifically mean "to leave without permission."

Thanks for your comment EnolaGaia, the connection between the verb and noun had never really dawned on me until I was actually writing the post and as I said; it was an 'OMG' moment. :hapdan:

I suppose too that I would have to take into account the that Life of Saint Columba (Vita Columbae) would have been written in Latin, and so I'm at the mercy of the translation as to the exact words used by Adomnan in the original.

If asked, prior to making the possible connection above, though for a simile of the verb 'to desert' I would probably have said 'to abandon', i.e. the physical act of leaving someone/something in order to go to a place or places unknown. It would never have occurred to me that it might mean 'to leave someone/something in order to seek a desert' - that's what totally tickled me. :yay:

Edited to add link to Vita Columbae
 
This double-meaning of "desert" is responsible, I suppose, for the cliché of the cartoon desert-island, which was depicted as a tiny oasis of sand and palms in the midst of the ocean. In fact, the desert-island is very much a literary invention, so far as being washed-up on one is concerned. Even Alexander Selkirk requested his isolation on one! :cooll:
 
This double-meaning of "desert" is responsible, I suppose, for the cliché of the cartoon desert-island ...

Indeed ... Used as an adjective, "desert" originally meant "deserted" (uninhabited; abandoned) rather than "desert-like" (arid, sandy, etc.).

Even back when I was a child reading adventure stories I wondered why the place where isolated castaways wrestled with surviving in a jungle was called a desert island.
 
Inspired by something I mentioned on another thread...

http://www2.forteantimes.com/forum/view ... 888#866888

...regarding the Paris Massacre of 1961.

It struck me that I knew nothing of this incident, something that happened less than 20 years before my birth, but feel it is something that we should know about - regardless of whose version of events you believe.

I then remembered something else I only learned of recently which is similarly 'unremembered'. Maybe these things have just slipped through my personal radar, but I'm fairly confident that, unless you are from Wearside, you will never have heard of the Victoria Hall Disaster of 1883.

http://wearsideonline.com/the_victoria_ ... aster.html

I only heard about this a few years ago. I know it is over 100 years ago, but considering the scale of death (183) and that they were near all children I am surprised that this isn't an event wider known in the UK. We all know about Aberfan, obviously more recent, and in 100 years I'm sure people will know of Hillsborough but this - to my knowledge - is a forgotten chapter of Britain's, relatively, recent past.

See also the Tay Rail Bridge...
http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/centlib/ta ... bridge.htm

This one I did know about, mainly due to annual holidays to Aberdeen involving a trip over the Forth and Tay bridges which I always was afraid would collapse while the Intercity train was crossing!

Maybe these incidents have been forgotten for a reason, but there are other historical events - recent and long past - that seem to be well remembered.

I'd be interested to hear of other historic incidents - maybe well known locally but not wider - or things that have for one reason or another slipped from our national conciousness.

An interesting longish article about the Paris massacre.

THE FIRST TIME I heard about the episode, on a French news program, I found it hard to credit. In 1961, Parisian police chucked an untold number of Algerian migrants into the Seine and left them to drown. Decades later, the massacre still has no name; it is known simply as October 17 and it exemplifies the Republic’s failure to reckon with its colonial history. When I asked ordinary people about this once-suppressed atrocity, I discovered that I was not alone in my ignorance.

A witness named Rahim Rezigat wants to mend that broken connection to the past. For the last few years, he’s been conducting memory “walks” through Paris neighborhoods and suburbs, to places that illuminate aspects of France and Algeria’s intertwined histories. In Saint-Denis, a Paris suburb with a large Muslim population, the memory tourists visit the Basilica of Saint-Denis, a mosque, a monument to mark the abolition of colonial slavery, a four-year-old patch of lawn near the railway station that carries the name of the anti-colonialist thinker Frantz Fanon, and La Place des Victimes du 17-Octobre-1961.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article...re-what-happened-in-paris-on-october-17-1961/
 
It is almost impossible to register that a supposedly civilised democratic nation murdered a minimum of a hundred peaceful protesters in their capital. The death toll may even have been as high as 500. Lead by a Police Chief who served the nazis.
Unfortunately, it's not so impossible for folks like me, born in the U.S. in the late 1950s. While I don't think there were outright massacres of that scale here at the time, police violence perpetrated on various types of peaceful protesters, and non-protesters who just happened to be the "wrong" color, was a common occurrence in my country at the time. I was fortunate to live in an area where this type of activity was not common, but saw the news from around the country.
 
In 1961, Parisian police chucked an untold number of Algerian migrants into the Seine and left them to drown

Good god. It seems incredible that that could happen as recently as the 1960s. It's more like the kind of behavior by civic authorities that you'd associate with pogroms against the Jews, etc. in medieval times.
 
I then remembered something else I only learned of recently which is similarly 'unremembered'. Maybe these things have just slipped through my personal radar, but I'm fairly confident that, unless you are from Wearside, you will never have heard of the Victoria Hall Disaster of 1883.

http://wearsideonline.com/the_victoria_ ... aster.html

Similarly, unless you live north of the border (and possibly even if you do), it's unlikely that you will have ever heard of the Glen Cinema Fire in Paisley either. Here's the account of a survivor who had a lucky escape. The disaster is still remembered annually (includes some photos).

At least it had some positive impacts:

Safety regulations were tightened in the wake of the disaster; many municipal authorities made inspections of cinemas compulsory. The Cinematograph Act 1909 was amended to ensure that cinemas had more exits, that doors opened outwards and that they were fitted with push bars. A limitation was also placed on the seating capacity of cinemas.[11]
 
Could've put this in the Witches thread but as it's history..

Interesting bbc 3 way podcast with presenter, academic, & comedian about witches in Europe.

The Witch Craze

A few snippets

It all started with a book written by a German monk in 1480s

Accused were mainly older women

Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins appointed himself & earned a decent living carrying out his mission

Burning favoured in Scotland, hanging in England

Best guesstimate of executions - 90,000 during the heyday from 1560 - 1660
 
Local students discover a section of forgotten and unmarked graves and get a marker placed for the dead.

https://www.cleveland.com/community...icans-graves-at-butternut-ridge-cemetery.html
------------------------------------
“This particular group came across an old, hand-drawn map of (Butternut Ridge Cemetery) with a section that said ‘colored people’ were buried here, but there are no stones.”

What the students discovered was that Butternut Ridge Cemetery, which dates back to the early 19th century, had an area of unmarked “colored people” graves. They found references to two family names -- Peake and Cousins -- and at least 12 graves in total.
 
Local students discover a section of forgotten and unmarked graves and get a marker placed for the dead.

https://www.cleveland.com/community...icans-graves-at-butternut-ridge-cemetery.html
------------------------------------
“This particular group came across an old, hand-drawn map of (Butternut Ridge Cemetery) with a section that said ‘colored people’ were buried here, but there are no stones.”

What the students discovered was that Butternut Ridge Cemetery, which dates back to the early 19th century, had an area of unmarked “colored people” graves. They found references to two family names -- Peake and Cousins -- and at least 12 graves in total.

That's brilliant and highly respectful.
 
A Tandum Velocipede, 1910 with baby seat .. early hipsters ..

abike01.jpg


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocipede
 
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Victorians were able to buy tea cups that protected their moustaches ..

Yep - moustache cups, invented by British potter Harvey Adams in the 1860s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moustache_cup

Such cups are still marketed to this day - especially since men's facial hair became trendy again. One can also purchase separate moustache guards designed to be attached to a variety of cups or glasses.
 
Yep - moustache cups, invented by British potter Harvey Adams in the 1860s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moustache_cup

Such cups are still marketed to this day - especially since men's facial hair became trendy again. One can also purchase separate moustache guards designed to be attached to a variety of cups or glasses.

These mugs were available as a gimmick in the '70s, when I gave them as gifts to relations.
 
Another Scottish disaster; I grew up a few miles south of Eyemouth and the storm of 1881 is still very much remembered locally.
A small detail that the article desn't mention is that some of the boats that made it back to Eyemouth were wrecked on the Hurker rocks, within sight (and sound) of the beach, where the sailors' loved ones could see them. The fishermen clung to the rocks, but thrown and rocket propelled ropes couldn't reach them. Finally, a fisherman who had not gone to sea that day tied a rope around his waist and tried to swim with it out to the Hurkers. He drowned.
His wife and family were refused compensation and assistence from the monies that had been raised nation-wide as the authorities determined that he wasn't actually a victim of the disaster.

Incidentally, fans of the MCU may recognise "New Asgard" in the photo at the head of the article, aka St Abb's village, a couple of miles north of Eyemouth, and also a village (along with Burnmouth, Cove and Newhaven) that lost boats and men in the 1881 storm.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/1...hat-claimed-189-lives-but-which-few-remember/

The Hurkers in the background (left) of a modern photo:
https://images.app.goo.gl/DEh6QsGNjG2vSB2PA
 
Should be of interest to some here. Also included are the contents pages and index. Additional articles are on the right-hand sidebar.

Irish Officers in the British Forces - Sample Chapter, by Steven O'Connor

Introduction p 1

Irish recruitment to the British forces, 1750–1921 p 3

The British forces and Irish history since 1922 p 11

Introduction

It is now accepted that the phrase ‘de Valera’s Ireland’ should be treatedsceptically and that Ireland in the 1930s and 1940s defies simple labels. Similarly, Irish veterans of the British forces rejected the label thatthey were ‘West British’: that having a positive perception of Britainor serving British interests negated being Irish, indeed that they were‘anti-Irish’. Yet as recently as 2006 one letter-writer to the Irish Times found preposterous ‘the notion that Irishmen in the British army eithernow or in the past deserve special attention because they claim to beIrish soldiers or to serve Ireland’.

Such a view does not do justice to thecomplexities of Irish history. Irish officers regarded themselves as Irishmen and women, and enlistment gave no indication of their views ofthe historical rights and wrongs of British–Irish relations. Among themcould be found the sons and daughters of unionists, home-rulers andrepublicans. Indeed many had had family relations who fought in theGreat War and other relations who participated in the 1916 Rising.Similarly, they saw no conflict between joining the wartime Britishforces and, at the same time, firmly supporting de Valera’s invocationof southern Ireland’s right to remain neutral. ...

https://www.academia.edu/6368362/Ir...Forces_-_Sample_Chapter?email_work_card=title

https://sorbonne-fr.academia.edu/StevenOConnor
 

Update / Follow-Up ...

The lead researcher (Rachel Lance) has now written a book about the case, and her more extensive article published in Smithsonian magazine gives further details on the story of her inquiry and the bases for her conclusions.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/hist...e-nature+(Science+&+Nature+|+Smithsonian.com)
 
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