History and context — Page 2

Stories in “History and context”.

• A separate shirt part reduced the washing taskDetachable collars could be removed and washed independently from a shirt. If only the collar was dirty, the…
• The lenses stayed in the hand rather than on the earsA lorgnette is a pair of spectacle lenses mounted on a handle. The user holds it in place instead of wearing…
• These glasses have no arms over the earsPince-nez glasses stay in place by pinching the bridge of the nose, without earpieces. Popular in the late ni…
• A European home garment borrowed from kimono formsThe banyan worn in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe was influenced by Japanese kimono brought…
• Ankle covers served both protection and styleHistorical spats buttoned around the ankle and covered the instep. Made from materials such as cloth or felt,…
• A plant’s pith became a lighting materialA rushlight used the pith of a rush impregnated with fat or grease as a source of light. Unlike a conventiona…
• The vessel stored tapers rather than flowersA spill vase held thin wooden sticks or tightly rolled paper tapers. These transferred fire from a fireplace…
• Lighting a fire once involved a kitA tinderbox stored items such as flint, firesteel and tinder for kindling a fire. The container kept the nece…
• A hinged bed can give its space back to the roomA Murphy bed folds upright against a wall or into a cabinet when not in use. Folding bedsteads existed before…
• An old snuffer could maintain a burning wickBefore the mid-nineteenth century, snuffer could mean a scissors-like tool for trimming a candle’s wick witho…
• The telephone table acquired its own chairA gossip bench combines a chair with a small side table for a telephone. Some included storage for a director…
• The chair cloth’s name remembers a grooming fashionAn antimacassar is a small cloth protecting a chair or sofa’s fabric. Its name recalls Macassar hair oil and…
• The fainting explanation lacks historical supportThe claim that so-called fainting couches were made for women collapsing in tight corsets lacks historical su…
• Its later name compared the bicycle’s unequal wheelsThe penny-farthing’s large front wheel and small rear wheel resemble the different sizes of British penny and…
• A lever can move a small rail vehicleA handcar is powered by its passengers or by people pushing it. A typical version uses a seesaw-like walking…
• The smoking garment kept smoke and ash off clothesThe smoking jacket was intended to absorb smoke and protect underlying clothes from falling ash. In nineteent…
• Peignoir comes from the action of combing hairPeignoir names a long outer garment associated with indoor dressing. It comes from French peigner, to comb, r…
• The 1946 single-seat car was eighty centimeters wideIn 1946, Britain’s Larmar Engineering made a small single-seat car for disabled people. It was only eighty ce…
• A dogcart could be pulled by a horseThe horse-drawn dogcart carried sporting shooters and their dogs. A ventilated box below the driver’s seat ac…
• Buckle makers asked the prince to helpIn Britain in 1791, shoe-buckle manufacturers appealed to Prince George to halt a change in fashion. He began…
• The tragic boot was contrasted with the comic shoeHigh-heeled buskins were worn by Athenian tragic actors to appear taller. The footwear could consequently sym…
• Throwing shoes into machinery is not the secure etymologySabotage is often explained through workers throwing wooden sabots into machinery. That is an alleged etymolo…
• Earlier tabi were leather footwearTabi are now commonly understood as split-toed socks, but earlier forms were footwear made from animal hide.…
• Traditional zori are symmetricalTraditional zori soles and straps are symmetrical, without separate left and right shapes. Some modern design…
• The same placement can serve a different purposeGaloshes go over shoes to keep them from getting wet or muddy. In Turkish contexts, galoş commonly refers to…
• The garden could manufacture its own antiquityGarden follies could imitate ruined abbeys or ancient temples, supplying a romantic structure where no old ru…
• The ha-ha keeps animals out while preserving the viewA ha-ha uses a sunken ditch and steep wall to restrict access, such as keeping grazing livestock out of a gar…
• The four-part arrangement could matter more than accessHigh Medieval hortus conclusus gardens commonly used a central well or fountain and paths dividing the enclos…
• The orangery originally sheltered sensitive treesAn orangery historically protected orange and other non-hardy fruit trees during winter. The term can now als…
• The icehouse stored cold rather than manufacturing itIcehouses stored winter ice from lakes or rivers with insulation such as straw or sawdust. The ice could rema…
• Counting bricks encouraged larger bricksBritain’s brick tax charged according to the number of bricks. Manufacturers responded with larger units, red…
• Soapmaking once had a daunting entry sizeBritish soapmaking rules required a minimum of one imperial ton at each boiling. Tax administration also supe…
• The glass tax helped shape glasswareBritain’s glass tax, introduced in 1746, charged materials by weight. Makers responded with smaller objects a…
• A hair-powder tax had a family exceptionBritain’s 1795 hair-powder duty required annual certificates. A father with more than two unmarried daughters…
• Tavern clocks acquired a misleading explanationLarge British tavern clocks existed before the 1797 clock tax. The later name Act of Parliament clock helped…
• Wheatstone’s device preceded practical photographyWheatstone presented his stereoscope in 1838, before the first practical photographic processes became availa…
• Magic lanterns projected handmade picturesA magic lantern directed light through an illustrated glass slide and a lens onto a wall or screen. Early sli…
• Zoetropes turn a strip of pictures into apparent motionA zoetrope holds a sequence of pictures inside a slotted cylinder. As it turns, viewers look through the slot…
• A phenakistoscope is viewed through its discA typical phenakistoscope places sequential images and slots around a cardboard disc. The viewer spins it bef…
• A thaumatrope can put a bird inside a cageA thaumatrope carries pictures on both sides of a small disc turned by attached strings. A bird on one side a…
• Crossing sweepers cleared a pedestrian’s wayNineteenth-century crossing sweepers cleared a path through dirty urban streets in exchange for gratuities. H…
• Breeching marked a change in boys’ clothingIn parts of the Western world, young boys wore gowns or dresses before being put into breeches or trousers. T…
• An iron plate could pass heat through the wallIn parts of southern Belgium and adjacent France and Luxembourg, iron plates behind kitchen fireplaces radiat…
• Fire marks do not prove the familiar abandonment mythBritish fire insurance plaques identified buildings for company fire brigades. Yet the claim that every unmar…
• A house’s pull cords carried information mechanicallyVictorian domestic bell systems connected pulls in different rooms to a central bank of labelled bells where…
• A puzzle jug makes drinking into a challengePuzzle jugs have perforated necks that prevent a conventional drink without spilling. A hidden tube supplies…
• Fuddling cups join several vessels internallyA fuddling cup connects three or more cups or jugs through holes and tubes. Liquid entering one can reappear…
• A whist marker records two sorts of progressA typical wooden short-whist marker has five broad flaps for points and three narrow ones for games won. Chan…
• Tygs were built with three or more handlesAn English pottery tyg has at least three handles, dividing its rim into sections for several drinkers. Some…
• A Toby Jug turns costume into a functionA Toby Jug takes the form of a seated person. In the typical design, a tricorn hat forms the pouring spout an…
• Box-beds enclose the sleeping spaceA box-bed surrounds a sleeping place with a wooden enclosure, sometimes closed by a door or curtain. Such bed…
• The modern crumber shrank table cleaningBaltimore restaurateur John Henry Miller invented the modern crumber in 1939. The pocket-sized tool removes c…
• Toast racks come with a trade-offBritish toast racks date from the late eighteenth century. Holding slices apart lets water vapour escape inst…
• Mechanical banks animate the act of savingMechanical banks developed in the mid-nineteenth century. Putting in a coin or operating a lever can set figu…
• A jacquemart makes the clock’s action visibleA jacquemart is a mechanised wooden or metal figure that strikes a bell with a hammer. Often positioned on a…
• A gateleg table folds both surface and supportGateleg tables appeared in sixteenth-century England. Hinged leaves fold down when unused; pivoting legs swin…
• A canterbury separates papers uprightA canterbury is a low stand divided into upright compartments, used for objects including sheet music. Exampl…
• A tantalus leaves the decanters visibleA tantalus holds decanters while a lock prevents their unauthorised removal or use. John Betjemann patented t…
• A Davenport desk hides more than its top suggestsThe English Davenport desk has a sloping hinged top that opens over space for papers and writing tools. A sta…
• A bergère became a wheeled study chairThe French bergère is an upholstered armchair with enclosed sides. Charles Darwin modified one with wheels to…
• The photographer had feathersGerman pharmacist Julius Neubronner developed pigeon photography in 1907. A small camera travelled on a pigeo…
• The horses outnumbered the soldiersDuring Operation Cowboy in 1945, US troops moved horses from Hostau in what is now Czechia. The horses outnum…
• A horse entered a locomotive trialThe 1829 Rainhill trials tested potential railway motive power. One contender, Cycloped, used a horse walking…
• Steam could spin a sphere two millennia agoAround the first century CE, Hero of Alexandria described a sphere rotated by jets of steam from bent tubes.…
• A water organ that sounded with airThe ancient hydraulis is attributed to Ctesibius of Alexandria in the third century BCE. Hand pumps supplied…
• A Bible misprint reversed a commandmentA 1631 London Bible edition omitted not from the commandment forbidding adultery. The missing negative revers…
• The people waiting for 22 October 1844In the United States, Millerites awaited Christ’s return. The movement adopted 22 October 1844 as the expecte…
• The fighting lasted less than an hourBritain and Zanzibar fought on 27 August 1896 amid a dispute over the sultan’s succession. British forces bom…
• A two-hundred-tonne bell that never rangThe Tsar Bell at Moscow’s Kremlin stands about six metres tall and weighs roughly two hundred tonnes. Cast in…
• The strange shape below the portraits becomes a skullHolbein’s 1533 painting The Ambassadors includes a stretched shape below its two figures. An anamorphic disto…
• The fake tanks were only partly hiddenIn World War II, the US Ghost Army used inflatable vehicles to suggest the presence of troops. Some concealme…
• The victory vase was too heavy for the galleryA marble urn originally intended for Napoleon passed to Britain after his defeat and was carved to celebrate…
• 518 shells, but no enemy fleetIn July 1943, US ships west of Kiska fired at radar contacts believed to be enemy vessels. Two battleships fi…
• A coffee habit became a cantataBach’s Coffee Cantata, written in the 1730s, is a secular comic work. Its fictional father tries to make his…
• Mozart wrote a memorial verse for his petMozart bought a starling in 1784. After its death about three years later, biographical accounts describe a f…
• At five in the morning, traffic used the other sideOn 3 September 1967, Sweden switched from left-hand to right-hand traffic. Vehicles permitted on the roads du…
• New York once demonstrated an air-powered subwayOpened in 1870, Beach Pneumatic Transit ran a single shuttle through a short underground tunnel. A large blow…
• Old parchment, still-unread writingThe Voynich manuscript combines illustrations with writing that lacks an established decipherment. Its parchm…
• An encyclopedia in writing without encoded meaningLuigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus, first published in 1981, presents an imaginary world in strange illustr…
• Opened in July, collapsed in NovemberWashington’s first Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened on 1 July 1940. Its wind-driven movement had already earned i…
• The proposed telegraph used snailsIn France in 1850, Benoit claimed that previously mated snails could communicate at a distance. His apparatus…
• London had an underground railway for postLondon’s Post Office Railway opened in 1927, using small driverless trains to move mail between sorting offic…
• The claimant could not speak the heir’s childhood languageIn 1866, an Australian butcher claimed to be Roger Tichborne, a missing British heir. Roger’s mother accepted…
• A nineteenth-century machine sent signatures over wiresCaselli’s pantelegraph was an early facsimile device for sending handwriting and drawings over telegraph line…
• The Egg War involved gunfire, not thrown eggsIn 1863, competing collectors fought over seabird eggs on California’s Farallon Islands. On 4 June, an attemp…
• A Sunday dust storm darkened the plainsOn 14 April 1935, a severe dust storm swept the American plains. Known as Black Sunday, it forced people to s…
• The shipment arrived with more camels than it began withIn 1855, Congress funded an experiment using camels for US military transport. A team acquired 33 animals aro…
• The gold boxes reached Paris with lead insideOn 15 May 1855, gold bound for France was stolen from a train in England and replaced with lead. The boxes co…
• Fuel for a 1907 motoring race travelled by camelThe 1907 Peking-to-Paris race relied on fuel stations arranged along its route. Camels carried supplies ahead…
• The sunken battleship stood bow-down in the seabedHMS Victoria sank after colliding with another British ship during manoeuvres off Lebanon in 1893, with heavy…
• Planted gems made an American diamond field look genuineIn 1872, two men persuaded investors that they had found a rich American gem deposit. They had actually plant…
• Disaster relief led to a Christmas gift across the borderBoston sent relief after the 1917 Halifax harbour explosion in Canada. Halifax sent a Christmas tree in thank…
• Edo’s recovery changed the streets as well as replacing homesThe Great Fire of Meireki in 1657 destroyed much of Edo and the castle’s main keep. Reconstruction widened st…
• The forces landing on Kiska found no Japanese garrisonAmerican and Canadian forces landed on Kiska in the Aleutians in August 1943, after the Japanese garrison had…
• A false report of Napoleon’s death moved London’s marketIn February 1814, a man claiming to be an officer arrived in Dover with news that Napoleon had died. As the s…
• Men protesting tolls adopted the name Rebecca’s DaughtersBetween 1839 and 1843, farmers and agricultural workers in Wales protested burdens including road tolls. Some…
• In Britain, 2 September 1752 was followed by 14 SeptemberWhen Britain changed calendars in 1752, Wednesday 2 September was followed by Thursday 14 September. Eleven d…
• An attack on a harbour acquired a very personal nicknameIn 1587, Francis Drake’s fleet raided Cádiz in Spain, destroying or capturing ships and supplies. The expedit…
• Road improvements exposed an ancient Vancouver village siteMarpole Midden in Vancouver, Canada, occupies the site of an ancient Musqueam village and burial ground. Road…
• Widespread sheep escapes were reported in England in 1888On the night of 3 November 1888, many sheep reportedly escaped enclosures across Oxfordshire, England. The ne…
• The Battle of the ShirtsScottish clans fought near Loch Lochy in 1544. Tradition explains the name Battle of the Shirts by saying the…
• War scares at home, a toast on the groundIn 1898, French and British-Egyptian forces met at Fashoda, in present-day South Sudan. Their colonial rivalr…
• Social exclusion reached the CabinetBetween 1829 and 1831, John and Peggy Eaton faced exclusion from Washington social circles. Criticism of thei…
• The new city hall became a tentVancouver incorporated as a city in April 1886. On June 13, land-clearing fires spread and destroyed much of…
• A damaged home and a fleetA mob attacked British subject David Pacifico’s home in Athens in 1847. The unresolved compensation dispute b…
• Those cannonballs are decorationsMoscow’s bronze Tsar Cannon was cast in 1586. The large iron balls displayed in front of it were made in 1834…
• Salt taxation became a rebellionIn 1540, Perugia rebelled against a papal salt tax that challenged its existing exemption. Salt mattered for…
• A city fire interrupted the starsThe 1827 fire in Turku, Finland, interrupted astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander’s work at the hilltop ob…
• An old storm became an age questionA destructive storm struck Ireland on January 6, 1839. After old-age pensions were introduced, some applicant…
• Rowing to a governor’s inaugurationOn January 10, 1862, Leland Stanford travelled by rowboat to his inauguration building in Sacramento. Severe…
• Not riding, so others could workThe 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott challenged a policy excluding Black and South Asian workers from bus-crew jobs.…
• The firefighting water froze againDuring New York’s fire of December 16, 1835, severe cold had frozen major water sources. Firefighters cut thr…
• Old-looking paper did not make it genuineThe salamander letter sparked debate over early Latter Day Saint history in the 1980s. Some experts accepted…
• Opera by telephone in 1890Paris’s théâtrophone became a service in 1890, sending theatre and opera performances over telephone connecti…
• A novelist’s revenge became an art hoaxIn 1924, American writer Paul Jordan-Smith devised a fake art movement after his wife’s paintings received a…
• A town resisted easier through travelIn 1853, a plan to standardize railway gauges near Erie, Pennsylvania, triggered a conflict. Transfers brough…
• A street called the fire’s endHamburg’s great fire began in May 1842. After three days and nights, a change in wind and the remaining old c…
• A stone device selected jurorsAncient Athens used the kleroterion to select citizens for offices and juries. Identification tokens fitted i…
• Brick buildings replaced a wooden commercial quarterBucharest’s 1847 fire destroyed much of its central commercial district. Small, crowded wooden buildings were…
• A successful penny service was taken overLondon’s Penny Post began in 1680, delivering within the city and nearby suburbs for a flat penny. Its succes…
• Their utopia still needed farming lessonsIn 1794, British poets Coleridge and Southey planned an egalitarian community in America. They imagined only…
• About 55 km of pipes carried the city’s documentsPrague’s pneumatic post opened to the public in 1889. Its underground network extended to roughly 55 km, carr…
• Before railway mania came canal maniaIn Britain in the 1790s, canal building attracted a rush of investment and new proposals. Successful waterway…
• Even barbers set up on the frozen ThamesAt London’s 1608 frost fair, stalls and tents occupied the frozen River Thames. Barbers, pubs, fruit sellers…
• Gin was encouraged, then repeatedly restrictedIn early eighteenth-century Britain, especially London, gin consumption rose rapidly. Policies encouraging do…
• A machine for stockings dates to 1589William Lee invented the stocking frame in England in 1589. It imitated hand-knitting movements. Early versio…
• An exhausted farm became a “desert” attractionA Maine farm lost its topsoil through nineteenth-century farming and sheep overgrazing, exposing sand underne…
• An explosion flattened a vast Siberian forestOn 30 June 1908, the Tunguska explosion struck Siberia, flattening roughly 2,150 square kilometres of forest.…
• Some schools marked children for speaking WelshMainly in the nineteenth century, some Welsh schools used a token, often wooden, to mark children heard speak…
• Even fire and furs could not stop her shiveringEurope suffered an exceptionally cold winter in 1708–1709. The Duchess of Orléans described shivering and bar…
• An experimental railway used tunnel air in 1864An experimental railway operated in London’s Crystal Palace Park in 1864. A large bristle collar around the c…
• A fleet bound for the Far East fired on British fishermenDuring the Russo-Japanese War in October 1904, a Russian fleet heading east mistook British fishing trawlers…
• Defoe reported windmills catching fire in fierce windA major storm struck England and nearby areas in 1703. Daniel Defoe published an account the following year.…
• Onion speculation left the contents worth less than their containerIn 1950s Chicago, two traders bought large quantities of onions and onion futures, then flooded the market. P…
• A harbour celebration ended in a disturbanceIn 1809, a feast marked completion of Bristol’s harbour works, with about a thousand workers invited. Roast o…
• A rivalry between actors became a deadly theatre riotIn May 1849, rivalry involving American actor Edwin Forrest and British actor William Charles Macready helped…
• Young newspaper sellers won a buyback agreementIn 1899, young newspaper sellers in New York stopped selling two publishers’ papers in protest at wholesale p…
• Bicycle popularity drew in too many manufacturersIn the 1890s, safety bicycles and pneumatic tyres helped drive a cycling craze. In the United States, sales g…
• The Forty Elephants were a women’s theft gangIn late nineteenth- and twentieth-century London, a women’s crime group was known as the Forty Elephants. It…
• A missing shipment put newspaper printers in charge of stampsIn 1856, an expected stamp shipment failed to reach British Guiana. The postmaster authorised local newspaper…
• Protest letters carried the name of a fictional leaderDuring the Swing Riots of 1830, agricultural workers in England protested low wages, harsh conditions and mac…
• A meeting about high prices turned into a warehouse attackIn February 1837, New Yorkers gathered to protest rising prices, especially flour. Rumours accused merchants…
• News of an approaching revolutionary force was falseIn June 1817, an armed rising took place around Pentrich in England. A report that a revolutionary force was…
• Theatre protesters brought in a coffin for higher pricesWhen London’s rebuilt Covent Garden theatre raised some admission prices in 1809, patrons protested during pe…
• A border-defence fort turned out to be in CanadaIn 1816 the United States began building a fort at the northern end of Lake Champlain. A new survey placed th…
• A peace settlement triggered violent protests in TokyoIn September 1905, opposition to the treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War brought protesters to Hibiya in Tok…
• Textile protesters signed letters with the name of Ned LuddThe Luddite movement spread in England from 1811. Textile workers protested pay, working conditions and the u…
• A researcher compared a supposed new water with his sweatPolywater attracted attention in the 1960s as a proposed new form of water with unusual properties, including…
• About a third of the authorised railways were never builtRailway shares became a British investment craze in the 1840s. In 1846 Parliament passed 263 acts to establis…
• London crowds once chased a captured stag on a holidayNineteenth-century London tradespeople and workers gathered in Epping Forest on Easter Monday. A previously c…
• Clipped silver coins helped prompt England’s recoinageBy the late seventeenth century, older English silver coins had lost metal through clipped edges. Machine-str…
• A crowd awaiting a balloon flight destroyed the balloonAt a public flight in Leicester on 11 July 1864, rumours challenged whether the balloon was the newest and la…
• Opposing lawyers fought in court during the Anti-Rent trialsNew York’s Anti-Rent War of 1839–1845 involved tenants resisting the collection of rents. At a leaders’ retri…
• A veteran organised Baltimore after its bank riotIn August 1835, anger over a bank failure led to attacks on homes in Baltimore. After the mayor resigned, 83-…
• Garibaldi biscuits acquired a less appetising aliasBritain’s Garibaldi biscuit is named for the Italian unification leader. Currants pressed between thin layers…
• Rancid butter prompted a Harvard rebellion in 1766Harvard students protested over food in 1766. The university acknowledged that much of the butter served was…
• Munich’s beer-price dispute became a riot in 1844In May 1844, beer-price increases prompted protests in Munich, Bavaria. Workers and artisans took part, and t…
• Straw-hat policing erupted two days earlyNew York once had an unwritten convention against men wearing straw hats after September 15. In 1922, youths…
• Greek signalling synchronised two separate water vesselsAn ancient Greek system placed matching water vessels on separate hills, with coded rods floating inside. Tor…
• Swedish surplus bikes became affordable everyday transportSweden had six bicycle infantry regiments in 1939. Its m/42 military bicycle offered an upright riding positi…