In 1904 a woman was arrested in New York City for smoking in public.
Vroom
In 1903 British traffic law set a maximum motorcar speed of 20 mph.
Run-of-the-Mill
This morning I went to my gym and did thirty minutes on the step-climber. I call it the Escalator from Hell. It combines the worst aspects of a Stairmaster with the worst aspects of a treadmill; to whit, you have to simulate walking up stairs like you would on a Stairmaster, but the pace isn’t determined by you, so you can’t slow down without reprogramming the machine. You have to stick to the machine’s pace as you would on a treadmill. So you can’t cheat. It’s brutal.
As I staggered off the machine on wobbly legs, gasping for breath, I got to thinking about who invented such devices. Turns out, treadmills (and treadwheels, as they were once called) go back thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians used them to hoist water from the Nile to irrigate their fields. The Ancient Romans used them to crush olives, and also to lift huge stones (with a treadwheel crane, known as a magna rola). Here’s a painting by Brueghel that shows workers on a treadwheel crane constructing the Tower of Babel. Can you see the workers moving the wheel from the inside?
The basic types of treadwheels were horizontal or vertical. With the horizontal types, an animal (generally a quadruped such as a horse, donkey, or ox) pushed or pulled a roller around a circular trough. The vertical type was best powered by bipeds—usually serfs, slaves, and convicts. The person would climb in place, turning the mechanism in order to pump water, grind grain, knead dough, or hoist minerals out of a mine.
The vaults and towers of many of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe were raised by human-powered treadwheels. Large country estates and castles, which were generally built on tops of hills so the inhabitants could better defend themselves from attackers, needed treadwheels to raise water.
Treadwheels were used in prisons in Britain starting around 1818, and, a bit later, in the United States.
Major, Kenneth (1980). “The Pre-Industrial Sources of Power: Muscle Power”. History Today. Retrieved March 09, 2013.
The Use Of Treadmills In Pre-Industrial Times”. Treadmill Review Guru. Retrieved March 09, 2013.
Vogel, Steven (March, 2002). “A short history of muscle-powered machines: what goes around comes around— and does useful work”. Natural History (magazine). Retrieved March 09, 2013.sara
images:
13th century Treadmill crane By Marie Reed (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
19th century prison treadmill via Wikimedia Commons
Vroom Vroom
The first coast to coast crossing of the American continent by motorcar took place in 1903. The journey took 65 days.
They Went That-A-Way
The job of an explorer has never been a healthy one. I blogged before about how Henry Hudson (1565-1611) met his end; his disgruntled crew mutinied and set him adrift on the Hudson Bay in winter, never to be seen again.
Here’s how some other explorers died:
Ferdinand Magellan (1480 – 1521) became a religious fanatic, was shot with arrows, and (possibly) eaten by cannibals. (I’ve blogged about him, too.)
Hernando Cortes (1485 – 1547) died of a fever, or possibly dysentery.
Vasco Nunez de Balboa was accused by one of his enemies of treason against Spain—most likely unfairly—and was beheaded.
Juan Ponce de León (1474 – 1521) died of infection from a poisoned arrow wound.
Francisco Pizzaro (1471 or 1476 – 1541) was assassinated by the embittered son of a guy he’d ordered executed.
Hernando De Soto (1496/7 – 1542) died of malaria.
Sir Francis Drake (ca 1540 – 1596) died of either yellow fever or malaria.
Sir Walter Raleigh (1480 – 1521) was beheaded by Queen Elizabeth’s successor, King James.
Giovanni da Verrazzano (1485 – 1528) was eaten by cannibals.
Ferdinand Magellan via http://www.biography.com/people/ferdinand-magellan-9395202
Hernando Cortes. Engraving by W. Holl, published by Charles Knight Library of Congress LC-USZ62-33515
Balboa’s first sight of the Pacific Ocean. (1890) NYPL digital collection
Juan Ponce de León from the Florida Photographic Collection
Francisco Pizzaro via Wikimedia
Hernando De Soto via WIkimedia
Sir Francis Drake by Nicholas Hilliard (http://tudor-portraits.com)
Sir Walter Raleigh by Nicholas Hilliard via Wikimedia
Giovanni da Verrazzano via Wikimedia
Ancient Bling
Both men and women Egyptians loved to adorn themselves with jewelry and other gewgaws. Gold was so plentiful in Egypt that it cost half of what silver did.
Well Preserved
I went to see Hamlet last week at the Yale Repertory Theater, starring Paul Giamatti. It was quite good, and I liked Paul Giamatti in the role, although I think I preferred him more as a sleazy film producer in Big Fat Liar. I get pretty twitchy if plays run long, and this was very much on the long side (3 ½ plus hours). But I enjoyed the sword fight at the end.
I’d read Hamlet in college, and seen the movie a couple of times, but it was during this performance that some lines jumped out at me for the first time. They’re in the gravedigger’s scene (just before Hamlet holds up the skull and delivers his famous “Alas, poor Yorick” speech). Here’s what made me prick up my ears:
GRAVEDIGGER
Faith, if he be not rotten before he die—as we have many pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in— he will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.
HAMLET
Why he more than another?
GRAVEDIGGER
Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade that he will keep out water a great while, and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
When I read this in college, I had no clue what tanners were or did, outside of a vague idea that they made leather. But Shakespeare’s audience would have been all too familiar with what the gravedigger was talking about. Everyone knew about the tanning trade, because it was probably the smelliest job one could have during an extremely smelly period of history. It’s the process of turning animal hides into leather.
Tanners got hides from local butchers and slaughterhouses. During Shakespeare’s time, the bloody, hairy, slimy hides were first soaked for several weeks in a solution of lime and urine, where they gradually rotted. The tanner then hauled out the rotten hides and scraped off the guts and hair. The fatty bits were sent off to be made into soap.
Next, the dehaired hide was soaked in—brace yourself—a solution of watered-down dog poop. Something about the enzymes in the poop helped to soften up the leather. It worked even better if the poop soup was warmed up, adding to the aromas and further enraging the neighbors.
Finally, the hide was soaked in the “tanning” solution, which was a brew made of watered-down oak bark. Then they were stretched out and dried. It was a dismal job, but someone had to do it.
Image: Library of Congress LC-USZC4-5016
Bird Blast
In 1849 and again in 1852, the U.S. imported house sparrows from Germany as a defense against caterpillars. They multiplied rapidly. Prior to 1849, the species was not found in America.
Where To?
Paris may have been the first European city to introduce house numbering, in 1512. London house numbering was adopted in 1764.
Codswallop
Note: In honor of April Fool’s Day, I’m reposting a previous blog about a great April Fool’s Day prank by the fun lovin’ Guybrarians and medieval curators at the British Library. The problem is, now I’ve tipped you off that it was a prank. To really appreciate the joke, please click on the link to the news item first, and pretend you don’t know it’s a prank.
I recently stumbled across a remarkable news item from this past April. (Don’t judge. That’s pretty cutting-edge for a history blog.) Curators of the medieval manuscripts division at the British Library announced that a long-lost medieval cookbook has been discovered. It contains recipes for hedgehogs, blackbirds and unicorns. The library’s curators believe that the cookbook was compiled by a well-known fourteenth century chef named Geoffrey Fule, who worked in the kitchens of Philippa of Hainault, Queen of England (1328-1369). “After recipes for herring, tripe and codswallop (fish stew, a popular dish in the Middle Ages) comes that beginning ‘Taketh one unicorne’. The recipe calls for the beast to be marinaded [sic] in cloves and garlic, and then roasted on a griddle.”
But then the article mentions a recipe from the book that calls for baking blackbirds into a pie. The writer of the article speculates that this medieval recipe book might be where that traditional English nursery rhyme originated.
That’s what tipped me off that the article was a bunch of codswallop.* From what I’ve read, that well-known nursery song originated as a coded message in the early 1700s to recruit pirates for the crew of the notorious Blackbeard. Every line means something, starting with the “Sing a song of sixpence/a pocketful of rye.” Blackbeard promised recruits a standard payment of sixpence a day, and also a “pocket full” (a leather pouch) of rye whiskey. The “blackbirds” were Blackbeard’s men, who sometimes feigned distress in order to lure unsuspecting ships to sail close, when the men would jump out and board it.
Then I noticed the date of the news item—April 1st. And I noted the name of the alleged cookbook author—“Geoffrey Fule.” A quick search proved that no such cookbook has been found, and that it was all an April Fool’s Day prank by those zany, fun-lovin’ medievalist curators at the British Library.
*which is another clue that should have tipped me off but didn’t. According to several sources, “codswallop,” meaning “Yeah, right,” or “As IF,” or “balderdash,” didn’t enter the language until–cough–1959.
credits:
Detail of a unicorn on the grill in Geoffrey Fule’s cookbook, England, mid-14th century (London, British Library, MS Additional 142012, f. 137r)
Blackbeard the Pirate, Engraved by Benjamin Cole, 1724