Unruly History in the News #12

It was a rough week, y’all, full of highs and lows. I broke my rib last Sunday night, so I am busy recovering from that. But I also got my book manuscript back from my editor, which is very exciting! 🙌

How was your week? Tell me all about it in the comments.

This week in history acting unruly…

• Deep in the archives was proof that Panama was the site of the earliest known slave rebellion.

  

  This bay in Panama is where some of the formerly enslaved people first settled after gaining their freedom. Source.

• Did you know that a New York tabloid caught the first photo of an execution by an electric chair? It was taken surreptitiously at Sing Sing, and the person being executed was Ruth Snyder, who had murdered her husband. It caused outrage then, and the photo is still very hard to stomach now. It showed the reality of death by electrocution, turning the public against capital punishment.

• In exciting unearthings:

  • This cave full of manuscripts tells us a lot more about everyday life along the Silk Road.

  • How old do you imagine wishing wells are? A newly unearthed one in Bavaria is about 3,000 years old and full of artifacts lowered in as sacrifices.

  • A royal tomb discovered at Luxor dates to when Hatshepsut and Thutmose III co-ruled Egypt together. Hatshepsut was his stepmother who kept helping her stepson rule after he reached the age of majority.

  • Construction in Romania revealed a “princely” tomb of a Hun warrior that dates to the 5th century CE.

  • The world’s earliest runestone has been found in Norway. It might be the earliest example of writing in all of Scandinavia.

  • A weapons artifact found in Idaho proves that humans were living in the Americas 3,000 years earlier than we originally thought.

• A Medieval pendant was scanned with neutron imaging and inside were bone fragments—possibly the bones of a saint.

• This 1932 shipwreck tells a story of late-1920s excess—it was once a floating dance hall, roller rink, and speakeasy.

• Do you know the story of the Red Lady of Paviland? The skeleton was found in a cave in Wales, desperately misunderstood, and put on view at Oxford’s Museum of Natural History. Now Wales is asking for the skeleton to be returned.

• A once-lost copy of Newton’s famous Optiks is being auctioned for half a million dollars, if you still have your Christmas money lying around.

• Charles Byrne, remembered as “The Irish Giant,” wanted to be buried at sea. But his 7’7” skeleton was put on view in a London Museum. Now the museum is taking him off of view, though they are keeping his bones to do the research he was always afraid they’d do to him.

• How was Rome established? Well, some want to say twins, but the truth is that the city was established by several tribes.

• 9 events that contributed to the onset of the US Civil War.

• An update from our round-up two weeks ago: Talks between the Prime Minister of Greece and the British Museum are getting closer to an agreement that would see the Elgin Marbles returned to Greece.