In his exile in the Netherlands, William II cut down trees almost everyday – mostly to show his supporters back in Germany how strong he was and that he was ready to return to the throne. Perhaps he was frustrated too.
When reporters started to sneak onto the property to take pictures of the exiled Kaiser, William II started complaining – one of his servants told him, that it was his own fault. After all he had cut down all the trees that could have sheltered him from curious eyes.
@takingaspadetoasouffle how did Wilhelm take to being given this sort of reality check by the staff when in exile? Did it happen often?
@ladyaudleyssecrettumlbr As far as I know, it didn’t happen very often. I’ve read about this incident in the memoirs of a member of the household (Sigurd von Islemann I think), but he only said “well it’s your own fault” in the memoirs, not actually to wilhelm’s face. I do hope someone did in real life, though.
Exile was a strange “mini court” with a lot of the same etiquette (Wilhelm was addressed as “royal highness” instead of “imperial majesty”, and his second wife was also elevated in rank…but only in Doorn.) Most of the people would go by the old rules (particularly because a lot of visitors were people who’d known wilhelm before his exile), and not actually tell him unpleasant truths. HOWEVER, he did receive endless letters from all over the world telling him how awful he was; he had to put up with the “are we going to try him for war crimes?” debacle; he would have been aware of the ‘khaki election’ in Britain where David Lloyd George won with “Hang The Kaiser!” as one of his main slogans; and eventually he’d have realised that the monarchy wasn’t coming back in his lifetime. With all this in mind, I think he’d have been reasonably ok with people who weren’t his staff telling him things bluntly, but I think the old rules of the hohenzollern court would have remained for the staff. I have a feeling that von Islemann could get away with it sometimes (he was part of the entourage during the war, and followed wilhelm into exile), but I’m not sure how often he actually did it. I know that the exile entourage bitched about wilhelm in their memoirs, just like the pre-exile lot did too, so that may well have been a way to let off steam when all one wanted to do was shove the kaiser in a moat.
I kind of wish disney’s ~weird period~ had lasted longer. Like all of a sudden we were getting these films like lilo & stitch and Atlantis and the emperor’s new groove and treasure planet and they were so fun and DIFFERENT. Just thinking about what the pitches for those movies had to have been like is so surreal?? A little blue criminal alien crash lands on a Hawaiian island and gets adopted by two sisters dealing with social services that teach him about the value of family. An Inca emperor gets turned into a llama and john goodman helps him get back to his palace and one of the bad guys talks to squirrels. Treasure island but in SPACE. Like, on the surface, the premise for these films seem so random but they all TOTALLY WORKED IN REALLY GREAT WAYS??? idk I just really miss that early 2000s spark of offbeat creativity in Disney’s timeline.
Okay but the history behind this is so interesting?
All these movies came from the Florida studio, which for a long time was a backup animation studio that did work the main Burbank studio didn’t have time for.
Then in 1996 Disney decided to focus all their energy on transitioning to 3D animation. They acquired Pixar and started working on A Bug’s Life.
They basically told the Florida studio (their only remaining full-time 2D animation studio) – “Eeeeeeh, do what you want.”
And the Florida studio, for the first time, got to produce feature films:
Then in 2004 Disney decided to stop producing 2-D feature films altogether. They closed down the Florida studio and laid off all the Florida Studio animators.
A Swedish woman hitting a neo-Nazi protester with her handbag. The woman was reportedly a concentration camp survivor. [1985]
Volunteers learn how to fight fires at Pearl Harbor [c. 1941 – 1945]
Maud Wagner, the first well-known female tattoo artist in the U.S. [1907]
A 106-year old Armenian woman protecting her home with an AK-47. [1990]
Komako Kimura, a prominent Japanese suffragist at a march in New York. [October 23, 1917]
Margaret Hamilton, lead software engineer of the Apollo Project, standing next to the code she wrote by hand that was used to take humanity to the moon. [1969]
Erika, a 15-year-old Hungarian fighter who fought for freedom against the Soviet Union. [October 1956]
Sarla Thakral, 21 years old, the first Indian woman to earn a pilot license. [1936]
Voting activist Annie Lumpkins at the Little Rock city jail. [1961] (freakin’ immaculate)
Now with more awesomesauce!
Female pilots leaving their B-17, “Pistol Packin’ Mama” [c. 1941 – 1945]
The first basketball team from Smith college. [1902]
Filipino guerilla, Captain Nieves Fernandez, shows a US soldier how she killed Japanese soldiers during the occupation. [1944]
Afghani medical students. [1962] (man, screw fundamentalism.)
A British sergeant training members of the ‘mum’s army’ Women’s Home Defence Corps during the Battle of Britain. [1940]
and just to wrap up…
Nina Simone, one of the most talented vocalists of the 20th century.
Have you considered that those scientists might be bias and pushing an agenda. Gender is a biological absolute.
Gender is highly contextualized by time and place. Like, if you want to talk about scientists being biased and pushing an agenda, look at modern western science for pushing a flawed binary narrative.
Non-binary genders are not a modern invention. The idea of third genders/non-binary genders is as old as human civilization, because gender is socially constructed and subjective, and people’s ideas about gender have changed over time and between cultures.
In Mesopotamian mythology, among the earliest written records of humanity, there are references to types of people who are not men and not women. In a Sumerian creation myth found on a stone tablet from the second millennium BC, the goddess Ninmah fashions a being “with no male organ and no female organ”, for whom Enki finds a position in society: “to stand before the king”.
In Babylonia, Sumer and Assyria, certain types of individuals who performed religious duties in the service of Inanna/Ishtar have been described as a third gender.
Inscribed pottery shards from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (2000–1800 BCE), found near ancient Thebes (now Luxor, Egypt), list three human genders: tai (male), sḫt (“sekhet”) and hmt (female).
The Vedas (c. 1500 BC–500 BC) describe individuals as belonging to one of three categories, according to one’s nature or prakrti. These are also spelled out in the Kama Sutra (c. 4th century AD) and elsewhere as pums-prakrti (male-nature), stri-prakrti (female-nature), and tritiya-prakrti (third-nature).
Many have interpreted the “eunuchs” of the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean world as a third gender that inhabited a liminal space between women and men, understood in their societies as somehow neither or both. In the Historia Augusta, the eunuch body is described as a tertium genus hominum (a third human gender),
The ancient Maya civilization may have recognised a third gender, according to historian Matthew Looper. Looper notes the androgynous Maize Deity and masculine Moon goddess of Maya mythology, and iconography and inscriptions where rulers embody or impersonate these deities. He suggests that the third gender could also include two-spirit individuals with special roles such as healers or diviners
Anthropologist Rosemary Joyce agrees, writing that “gender was a fluid potential, not a fixed category, before the Spaniards came to Mesoamerica. Childhood training and ritual shaped, but did not set, adult gender, which could encompass third genders and alternative sexualities as well as “male” and “female.” At the height of the Classic period, Maya rulers presented themselves as embodying the entire range of gender possibilities, from male through female, by wearing blended costumes and playing male and female roles in state ceremonies.“
Andean Studies scholar Michael Horswell writes that third-gendered ritual attendants to chuqui chinchay, a jaguar deity in Incan mythology, were “vital actors in Andean ceremonies” prior to Spanish colonisation.
Two-spirit individuals are viewed in some Native American cultures as having two identities occupying one body. Their dress is usually a mixture of traditionally male and traditionally female articles, or they may dress as a man one day, and a woman on another.
In Pakistan, the hijras are officially recognized as third gender by the government,
Well that’s stupid. All this proves is that special snowflakes are older then we thought.
Wait, did someone argue myth when discussing science? Really? There isn’t a third gender, there are genetic mutations and abnormalities. There are genetic flukes that are usually sterile because they are mess ups and their genetics were never meant to continue.
What my examples show if that GENDER has been conceptualized as something separate from biological sex for THOUSANDS of years. The idea that gender is a self identification that does not always align with expectations based on sex is not new and it is not isolated. THAT is what my examples are demonstrating.
And not all people with atypical chromosomal and genital genotypes and phenotypes are sterile. And their existence should point us toward the fact that sex is a complicated interaction between SEVERAL FACTORS, with some combinations more common than others- not a neat set binary.
Watching people try to claim that gender = sex, and further that sex = binary, and then flailing their arms like Muppets when they’re given, you know, tons of sources going back thousands of years, is always awkward.
You’d think at some point they might examine the idea that the people shouting “there’s only ever been a binary” might have an agenda, but … no such luck.
And here, esteemed audience, can we see the goalpost mover in their natural habitat. As you can see they are utterly immune to citations and scientific proof, a fascinating ability found mainly in niche dwellers like the male rights bawler and the common racist. Careful now, we’ll try to get a closer look –
EVERY TIME SOMEONE BRINGS UP THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA I GET SO ANGRY.
The library was destroyed over 1000’s of years ago. The library consisted of thousands of scrolls and books about mathematics, engineering, physiology, geography, blueprints, medicine, plays, & important scriptures. Thinkers from all over the Mediterranean used to come to Alexandria to study.Most of the major work of civilization up until that point was lost. If the library still survived till this day, society may have been more advanced and we would sure know more about the ancient world.
That graphic grinds my gears every time I see it
romans.
Julius Caesar to be precise
Remember this when you’re conquering. Keep the books.
THIS HURTS MY HEART SO MUCH EVERY TIME ITS BROUGHT UP
Julius Caesar needs to be stabbed for this
I know we should totally stab Caesar
Does March 15th sound good for everyone??
Oh.
Oh god no.
Oh GOD no.
Okay, so first off, Holy Eurocentricism, Batman. Alexandria wasn’t that huge a loss, all things considered, since there were contemporary libraries of comparable size all over the world, including, but not limited to, the Library of Timgad in Algeria, the Imperial Library of Constantinople, the Library of Nalanda (which is is also considered the first University) in India,
The Academy of Gundishapur in Iran, and the Theological Library of Cæsaria Marina in Israel. All of which contained at a minimum of 3000 volumes.
Next!
Thinkers from all over the Mediterranean used to come to Alexandria to
study.Most of the major work of civilization up until that point was
lost. If the library still survived till this day, society may have been
more advanced and we would sure know more about the ancient world.
So gratuitously incorrect! I mean, did you even read the (incredibly simplified but essentially accurate) blurb from Ultrafacts? Very few of the manuscripts or scrolls in Alexandria were originals, and even those that were were in no way at all the only copies. And because of the miracle of scribal errors (oh GOD do I hate scribal errors) there’s no way that the copies would have been 100% true to the original anyway. That’s the thing with manual transmission of works: Transcription errors, ‘helpful’ emendations, spelling mistakes, and all sorts of other shit gets thrown in every time a manuscript is copied, despite best efforts. Also, how in the hell would society have been more advanced? It’s not like 3rd Century Greeks were using nuclear fission or 4th century Egyptians had the Internet. Hell, most of what we used for physics and calculus and optics and chemistry and all the rest is based on Islamic sources, which wouldn’t be written for two hundred years after the last sacking of Alexandria. Seriously. Look up
Al-jabr wa’l muqabalah
and marvel at the fact that most of our algebra (including the goddamn name) came from that single school.
And then the Chart.
The goddamn Chart.
Because a) way to paint all Christians between 500CE and 1500CE as anti-science and backwards, b) way to ignore the tradition of Monastic education, and c) way to ignore 1000 years of education and science OUTSIDE OF WESTERN EUROPE. I mean, Christ, even if it wasn’t so goddamn racist, The Chart ignores the fact that the fucking University of Paris was founded in 1150, and most education was handled by the Church, as they were the guys who had the infrastructure to do so, except for that whole Carolingian Renaissance when Charlemagne decided that “hey, universal literacy and a uniform script would be awesome” and then introduced them. In the 8th fucking Century. Or the Ottonian Renaissance in Central Europe during the 11th century. Or the 12th Century Renaissance when Islamic scholarship hit Western Europe. I mean, it’s not like Western Europeans (because that’s all the Chart seems to concern itself with) were living naked and without fire in the ruins of Glorious Rome until 1st January 1500 when they invented SCIENCE and were able to build houses and start fires and create clothing again. It’s not like scholars like Alcuin of York or the Venerable Bede or Saxo Grammaticus or the First Grammarian weren’t, you know, Christians.
TL;DR: Decent if Simplified Ultrafact post is Decent if Simplified. Bad and racist commentary is bad and racist.
I don’t even care about the Library of Alexandria but jesus Jim that gif is so amazing I love this post xD
Fun fact: Though being gay in the 40s sucked, being gay in the military was easier, and pretty common. There were apparently, at one point in time time so many lesbians in the military that when they tried to crack down on it, the girls wrote back and said “Look I can give you the names, but you’ll lose some of your best officers, and half your nurses and secretaries.” And they pretty much shut up about it unless you were especially bad at subtlety. (Source: Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers. A good source for gay history from 1900s onwards.)
Sergeant Phelps worked for General Eisenhower. Four decades after Eisenhower had defeated the Axis powers, Phelps recalled an extraordinary event. One day the general told her, “I’m giving you an order to ferret those lesbians out.’ We’re going to get rid of them.”
“I looked at him and then I looked at his secretary. who was standing next to me, and I said, ‘Well, sir, if the general pleases, sir, I’ll be happy to do this investigation for you. But you have to know that the first name on the list will be mine.’
“And he kind of was taken aback a bit. And then this woman standing next to me said, ‘Sir, if the general pleases, you must be aware that Sergeant Phelps’s name may be second, but mine will be first.’
“Then I looked at him, and I said, ‘Sir, you’re right. They’re lesbians in the WAC battalion. And if the general is prepared to replace all the file clerks, all the section commanders, all of the drivers—every woman in the WAC detachment—and there were about nine hundred and eighty something of us—then I’ll be happy to make the list. But I think the general should be aware that among those women are the most highly decorated women in the war. There have been no cases of illegal pregnancies. There have been no cases of AWOL. There have been no cases of misconduct. And as a matter of fact, every six months since we’ve been here, sir, the general has awarded us a commendation for meritorious service.’
“And he said, ‘Forget the order.’
– The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America
I’ve reblogged this before but it didn’t have these comments and HOLY HOT DAMN DID IT NEED THEM.
This is my most favourite of stories about this time period okay ❤
I’m just gonna reblog this again because it’s one of my favorite pictures ever.
That girl in the chair seems like such a badass I bet she was the leader of the crew.
I want to write about these girls.
When I was a teenager my mother found my grandmother’s (her mother) school scrapbook. It included things like photos, notes, and a two page spread of every demerit she ever received over the course of her formal education. Each of them set aside with little tags like she was so fucking proud of them. They were all for things like, “Unladylike behavior” or, “Skirt too short” or, “refuses to listen to authority”. I loved that spread so much.
Hey so I have 4 boxes of original TOS Star Trek slash zines (the slash that started it all, from the 60′s-70′s, when people would type slash up on a word processor, print it out, bind them by hand, and mail them out to fans on mailing lists, LIKE THESE ARE ARCHEOLOGICALLY FASCINATING) that I don’t have space for when I move.
I’d love for someone to use these for academic purposes, like writing about the origins of slash fiction, studies of sexuality/erotica, female sexuality (this was something mostly women did in secret, for free, that was the grandmother of things like Ao3 and Fanfiction.net,) etc.
Would anyone want these? I’m selling them basically just for the shipping price. I don’t want them to end up in the trash somewhere or in the backroom of a Goodwill forever.
Please share/reblog to anyone you know who could use em!! The pictures below are only a fourth of what I have.
The OP has been contacted about this, but, for others who are interested, the OTW’s Open Doors manages a Special Collections project with the University of Iowa Libraries called the Fan Culture Preservation Project. The collection includes zines, fannish flyers, paper memorabilia, con programs, and other hard copy fanworks and fannish documents. They’re always happy to get new contributions, so if you have anything lying around in a box somewhere that you’re not sure what to do with, go check it out.
I am so grateful that we can all work together to preserve fan history. -Colleen
Guys I literally immediately thought THAT UNIVERSITY OF IOWA THING because I got to go and visit with @saosmash and @teztime last year because they have several issues of the zine that Sao’s late mom did back in the 70s. We went in on a day that special collections weren’t usually open, but they put together a box for us and we got to go through and laugh and scan them so Sao could have this piece of history that was both her fandom and her mother. It was beautiful and so wonderful that someone had saved these things. Some of the issues Sao and her family still have copies of, but there were ones that had been lost to the family over the years and she’d never seen.
Stuff like this is so important.
Thank you so much for sharing this story. It made me tear up.
Waiting for Winter 