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Graduation Traditions
Since it’s that time of year where students from all over receive their diplomas after years of hard work. We decided to do a short post on where some of the traditions actually started. The Graduation cap, which is sometimes called a mortarboard, due to the fact it resembled the mortar board used by bricklayers. The mortarboard is believed to have developed from the biretta. The Biretta is worn by Roman Catholic clergy and academics, typically in red or black, square, upright with three or four peaks. The Graduation tassel has been worn on graduation cap for centuries, In the last 40 or 50 years student started moving the tassel…
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The Ghost Girls
From its discovery in 1898, radium was considered a wonder of science. It glowed with an unearthly beauty. It delighted its discoverers, Marie Sklodowska Curie and her husband Pierre, who called it “My beautiful radium”. It was used in spas and clinics as a cure for everything from cancer to constipation. It was used in makeup, jewelry and paints. At the height of World War I, it was used to make the hands and dials of wristwatches glow in the dark. Girls all over the country flocked to make these watches as they paid up to three times what they could have been paid at any other wartime factory.…
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Huixtocihuatl- Goddess of Salt
Salt has been a source of wealth since ancient times. The human body must have some form of salt to survive and before the advent of refrigeration it was one of the main ways to preserve food. Salt was associated with sex and fertility as well for some reason, which has proved fodder for psychoanalysts. So as a source of wealth and sex, it is natural salt had its own deity. The Aztecs were no exception. Huixtocihuatl was a fertility goddess who was patron of salt and salt waters. She was also the patroness of salt making and the discoverer of salt itself. Huixtocihuatl was the older sister of the…
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The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811
New Madrid, Missouri was at the back end of nowhere. It was technically a respectably sized town on the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Natchez, but this was not a great achievement. In 1811, the population was about 1,000 people made up of farmers, fur traders and pioneers supplemented by French Creoles and Native Americans traveling on the great river. However, the events there beginning in 1811 shook the world. Literally. Related posts: September 11 Memorial and Museum USS Indianapolis – July 1945 The State of Franklin The Great Fire of 1910
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The Assassination of Domitian
Titus Flavius Domitianius was born the youngest son of Emperor Vespasian in 51 CE. This was prior to his father’s rise to emperor of Rome. (For more on Emperor Vespasian, please see this post http://www.historynaked.com/emperor-titus-flavius-vespasian/ ) His older brother, Titus, and his father were close, leaving Domitian on the outside looking in. After a stunning turn of events, Vespasian became emperor and passed the throne to his oldest son Titus on his death. Titus was groomed as Vespasian’s heir, and it was assumed Titus would marry and pass the throne on to his sons. Domitian was relegated to being a patron of the arts, and was none too happy about…
