#The History Geeks

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

~ Anne Boleyn's Last Request, A Guest Post by Lissa Bryan ~ On April 26th, 1536, Anne Boleyn asked her chaplain, Matthew Parker, to meet with her. She had a special request to ask of him, something of utmost importance. Perhaps she had a premonition of some sort. We know little of what took place during this meeting, only what Parker himself wrote of it later. Anne Boleyn asked him to make a promise to her, and Parker spent the rest of his life trying to fulfill it. The records indicate the weather in spring of 1536 was lovely, but Anne could feel the dark clouds gathering around the throne. A storm was brewing, but the conspirators were careful to leave little trace of which direction they were heading. Anne Boleyn was a fighter, but she could not fight what she could not see. The courage and strength it took for her to behave as though everything was normal still amazes me. Anne went through the motions of being a Tudor queen with dignity and poise. The king, too, gave all outward appearance of normalcy. Though Henry was spending his nights in other palaces - where Jane Seymour was always lodged nearby - he appeared at Anne’s side for events, and they were able to present the image of a cordial relationship to the public. He dined in Anne’s apartments, went with her to mass, and still insisted foreign courts should recognize the legitimacy of his marriage. He even devised a bizarre ruse to force Eustace Chapuys into bowing to Anne, seizing the underhanded victory with apparent delight. But behind the scenes, Henry was devising a way to rid himself of the woman he had come to despise. As he stood smiling by her side, he was plotting her death. Anne had to have known Henry was trying to get rid of her. If we know about it - and we do, from the letters of Chapuys to the Imperial court - then Anne heard the gossip, too. She still had powerful supporters who kept her informed of what was going on. Anne had to have been terrified, sick with worry and anxiety. What was Henry planning? It looked like he was trying to find a way to annul their marriage. He was asking bishops about the validity of his union to Anne. It had gotten to the point where Princess Mary’s supporters were writing to her and telling her to be of good cheer, because Anne would be gone soon. On the 21st of April, Chapuys noted as an aside that Cromwell had told the French ambassador not to broach the topic of Princess Elizabeth’s marriage. Anne, who supported the French, must have been disturbed that there was no discussion of a marital alliance for the princess. Whatever was happening, it was affecting her beloved daughter, as well. On the 24th of April, a commission of Oyer and Terminer was created at Westminster. The court dealt with treason charges, and other serious crimes, and so Anne may have thought it was for someone who had denied the royal supremacy, assuming she knew about that it had convened. She had so many other things on her mind, she might not have given it a second thought. The commission was tasked with investigating and drawing up the indictment against Anne Boleyn for treason and adultery. The day after the commission was created, Henry wrote a letter referring to Anne as his “entirely beloved” wife. The wife he had already decided would have to die in order to ensure his marriage to Jane Seymour was unchallenged, and his heir with her was entirely legitimate. Even as Henry wrote those words, he knew Anne Boleyn would be dead before the letter arrived at its destination. Anne’s days were numbered, though she was unaware of it as yet. She knew something was coming, at any rate, and Anne Boleyn was a woman who tried to meet her problems head-on. On the 26th, she asked her chaplain, Matthew Parker, to meet with her. Though we don’t know the details of how the meeting was arranged, Anne would have wanted it to be private. She had a promise she wanted to extract from him, and she wouldn’t have wanted it to be overheard. It seems she was successful at keeping it quiet - no one else, including Chapuys, whose ears were always straining for the faintest sounds of gossip, reported on it. Perhaps she met with Parker under the guise of confession, the sanctity of which even Chapuys would have never dared violate. Anne asked Parker to promise her he would watch over her baby daughter, Elizabeth, if anything happened to her. She must have seen something in Parker that made her reach out to him - of all the people she could have contacted, including her own extended family, to safeguard Elizabeth and her future. Parker took the promise he made to Anne seriously, and considered himself bound to it for the rest of his life. Anne Boleyn was an amazing woman. She managed - somehow - to behave as though nothing were amiss. She performed her court duties, attended mass, even continuing to insist on proper decorum for her courtiers. Anne always managed to keep her composure in public; it was only behind the scenes that she broke down. We don’t have any records of her inner turmoil at this time. Only the letters of the courtiers and Anne’s privy purse expenses give us insight into what was happening. Anne spent the last weeks of her life ordering items for her daughter. Perhaps, psychologically, Anne was trying to “cover” her daughter as best she could with all of her clothing purchases for the child. Maybe she had the foresight to see Elizabeth would be plunged into reduced circumstances by whatever her father was planning and not be cared for according to her station. Anne was right - it was the last clothing Elizabeth would receive until her governess wrote a pleading letter begging for funds because Elizabeth had grown out of everything. Anne had done all she could to prepare Elizabeth for her uncertain future. She had filled Elizabeth’s household with loyal, supportive people, many of whom were extended family members. She had asked a powerful man in the religious reformist movement to protect Elizabeth, and she had dressed her baby warmly for the storm ahead. Anne walked these last days of April on tenterhooks, waiting to see what Henry had in store for her. She would not have long to wait.

[The History Geeks]

[theancientwayoflife]

~ Tetradrachm of Kingdom of Parthia with bust of Orodes II.

Culture: Greek

Period: Late Hellenistic Period

Date: 57–37 B.C.

Mint: Kingdom of Parthia

Place of origin: Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris (Babylonia)

Medium: Silver

[melodymonaei]

Reblog if you want to get a video from me ❤️😍💞 trans love.

[cravinganescape]

Nokia 9000 Communicator (1996) | The first official 'smartphone' to hit the market with a laptop-like design, featuring LCD display screen of 640 x 200 pixels and full QWERTY keyboard.

[thatonegeekygirl]

thrilled that nerds ryan bergara and shane madej make a living being extremely nerdy. absolutely phenomenal

[somewhereincairparavel]

Headcanon that Jason Grace takes his Roman history obsession to the next level, to the point where he has totally read illegal/restricted books in camp Jupiter before. Yk how there are restricted libraries? Camp Jupiter totally has tons of those only elite members can access. Jason totally exploits his position just for more history info.

Yk how annabeth said in Mark of Athena, that Jason looks like he knows way TOO much but simply doesn't tell anyone? Well he does. he has dark af secrets and tea, he'd literally be looking for an opportunity to spill all of it 👀 he has certainly read very um. Questionable things.

(another hc that annabeth is literally the only one he spills these stuff to bc she is legit the only one who gets the art of history, also, she totally bribed him for information, we know that canonically they both DID have nerdy discussions w e/o. Annabeth said in moa that Jason had described the exteriors of new Rome in perfect detail to her and how Reyna was supposed to look like, in the lost hero, those two spent hours researching about the Roman/Greek forms of gods by interrogating clovis + Piper noted how well they both debated about the Athena parthenos without any blame or hostility, just perfectly fitting their collective pieces of research information together. Ugh this friendship was such a wasted potential. It's literally no wonder that annabeth cried till she was sick for Jason's death. They weren't close friends or anything, but they intellectually respected eachother in a very healthy way, it was refreshing to read about tbh.

Jason and annabeth are the OG nerd friends fr.

[amuseoffyre]

History time:

Mr. Dalrymple, the eminent surgeon in episode 3 of S2 of Good Omens, appears to be inspired by Robert Knox, an Edinburgh surgeon famous because of his connection to the Burke and Hare murders in the 1820s.

He became an anatomist at the Edinburgh College of Surgeons in Newington and quickly developed a reputation as a lecturer that guaranteed him a steady flow of students, but as with Dalrymple in the show, the shortage of available cadavers was a constant and persistent problem in the city.

Since it gets a bit grisly, I'll pop it behind a thingie.

Graverobbing became so common that many of the graveyards in the city installed watchtowers to keep an eye on the graveyards and some of them had mortsafes put in place:

The coffins were locked in these cages to give the bodies time to get to the stage of decay that would render them useless to anatomists, then popped in a grave afterwards.

This is where Burke and Hare enter this story. They lived in the slums of the old town of Edinburgh and learned that the surgeons would provide money in exchange for fresh bodies, so rather than dig up the graves and risk the watchmen, they cut out the middleman and started murdering people for profit.

Robert Knox was their primary customer and he claimed to be oblivious to the crimes that were being committed, even though Burke and Hare were showing up with unsettling regularity with fresh corpses, but since they were killing the poor, no one was really paying much attention.

According to Mr. Knox, he thought the men were picking up corpses from the poor houses, though there is evidence that suggests he was aware of what was happening: one of the victims was a well-known boy with distinctive physical disabilities who would have been well-recognised. According to contemporary accounts, Knox had the young man's head, hands and feet removed, so no one would recognise him.

Since this could never be proven, he wasn't arrested for his part in the whole affair, but he was described as being "deficient in principle and heart" and public opinion spoke loud and clear. He left Edinburgh in disgrace and was eventually also debarred from teaching by the Royal College of Surgeons in England.

Eventually, laws were brought in to prevent grave robbery, but not before dozens of people were killed for profit.

[oldshowbiz]

The Ancient Brick Strip Clubs of East Toronto

[aroaceleovaldez]

Jason, Reyna, and Nico have one billion in-jokes about Mediterranean history between the bronze age to the renaissance that they find absolutely hilarious and no one else understands in the slightest. i know this in my heart to be true.

[marzipanandminutiae]

if you're terrified for your country's elections next year because a lot of people seem to think the solution to the government handling an international conflict in an abysmal and deplorable way is to let a group of total monsters who would handle it MUCH worse AND also potentially doom huge swaths of oppressed people at home as well as our entire literal planet get into power, by ignoring the way our deeply flawed but also deeply entrenched system realistically works

clap your hands...?

(I cannot understand trying to stop heinous and unnecessary killing- which disgusts and saddens me, too! how could it not?! -by handing the election to people who want to do even more of that exact thing. the math isn't mathing, as they say)

[pine4pple-b0i]

one of my favorite things about rdr2 is how the writers would pull things from actual history and work them into the game.

todays example: the opening line of the game is “By 1899, the age of outlaws and gunslingers was at an end.” in real life, one of the last stage coach robberies ever done was in may of 1899. when does the game’s timeline start? may of 1899.

it’s just so cool to see how much detail was put into this beautiful, beautiful game, and the parallels between real life and the game

[peaceloveandhistory]

Today in 1882, Thomas Edison, and his partner Edward H. Johnson created the very first string of electric lights intended for a Christmas Tree. People originally illuminated their trees with candles, which as you can guess was a dangerous practice leading to many house fires. Edison and Johnson hand-wired 80 red, white, and blue bulbs, and hung them around the Christmas tree. During this time many people mistrusted electricity, it wasn't until 1895, when President Grover Cleveland had the White House family Christmas tree illuminated by hundreds of multicolored bulbs, people started to change their minds. It is important to remember for the time being, families would have to hire a wire man which would have cost $2,000 in today's dollars. It wouldn't be until 1903 when General Electric began to sell preassembled kits of stringed Christmas lights, as a more affordable option.

[melodymonaei]

My trans ass is an art of cock 🍆🍑🍑 Reblog if you wanna get my private stories on Snapchat

[astriiformes]

Comparing your work to other people's is a great way to kill your joy for a thing so let me be clear and say this is not that, I am just a human person with human emotions and sometimes that means needing to be the tiniest bit petty and then moving on. You know. For your health or something.

There is a very popular cosplayer who coincidentally keeps doing the same costumes as me, and I am just the tiniest bit annoyed about it, because as is the case with many (...most) very popular cosplayers, they have a very specific, airbrushed, conventionally attractive, perfect makeup, etc aesthetic to all their photos that is. Not what I personally value in cosplay, at least. Which is fine! Different people having different approaches to costumes is part of what makes cosplay such an interesting hobby!

But it does bother me a tiny bit that the work I put into my costumes is not necessarily the kind of work that gets attention, and it does make it a little glaringly obvious when it's The Same Characters.

(Also you all know the kinds of characters I cosplay. I gravitate towards them in part because they have weird energy, not super put together attractive energy. But that's only part of my point.)

Anyways. I do not follow them on Instagram because why would I do that, but nonetheless I saw that they're apparently also doing a Laois cosplay now, which I guarantee will get lots more attention than mine. And for the most part that's fine, I love cosplay and I love doing my weird little thing and I especially love that I do in fact know other people that value the same things as me & that we have fun together. I will have a great time in my fun little costume, dressing up with my friends in their fun little costumes and I am looking forward to it. And I do not actually need likes to validate that I am becoming a pretty damn good cosplayer (whose stuff is better quality than many popular cosplayers' because I care more about craftsmanship than I do getting attention). I am even thinking pretty seriously about having Laois be my first ever competition costume if the armor turns out alright, because I think I'm genuinely getting to that level.

But it would just be kind of neat if being a weird little guy with weird little ideas who is into the hobby because I like sourcing historical patterns and materials and thinking about the worldbuilding that goes into costumes and creating neat little "in-universe" ephemera to hand out to people and all the things I like didn't always mean getting overshadowed by Instagram Perfect Attractive People.

Alas. Okay glad that's out of my system I'm normal again. I'm going to make some more chain mail.

[thatonegeekygirl]

shane jumping ship like violet jessop leaped from the britannic’s lifeboat in that one episode of puppet history

[badbucky]

everyone knows jamie tartt would love the barbie movie but lets not underestimate how FERAL he’d go for oppenheimer. he’d have such a hard time shutting up about it after watching. “i still can’t believe they made him discuss the teller calculations with EINSTEIN. he didn’t go to fucking einstein! that’s just inaccurate! everyone knows he went to compton about- hey, are you even listening? roy!”