Unruly History in the News #26

Good morning everyone!

Happy Pride Month to LGBTQ+ folks and allies everywhere. 🏳️‍🌈 Let’s not forget that the first Pride was a riot—this month is about equality, not rainbow capitalism.

Want to learn about the Stonewall Riots—and the woman who threw the first punch there? Check out my episode on Stormé DeLarverie:

Also—sorry this history news update is coming a day late, this weekend got away from me. The spring cleaning bug hit me late this year and I have been turning out my drawers and purging all sorts of things. Goodwill is going to start turning me away soon. Anyone else doing rounds of home improvements right now?

All right, last week, in history acting unruly:

• Huge news: “Scientists have uncovered an extraordinary network of Preclassic Maya multi-tiered cities, towns, and villages that date back to 1,000 BCE in Guatemala.” Not one city—a whole kingdom. This is set to change what we know about early Mayan civilization.

• May 31 marked the 102nd anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. The story of this brutal attack on the thriving Black community of Tulsa, Oklahoma was covered up for years.

• In June 1943, white servicemen targeted and attacked young men of color in Los Angeles. The ensuing week-long riot became known as the Zoot Suit Riots, based on the fashion the young men wore. Last month, the LA County Board finally condemned the actions. (The LA Times, which reported in 1943 that the servicemen were teaching the young men an important moral lesson by beating them issued an actual apology in 2018.)

  

  “A crowd of people gathers outside Central Jail in Los Angeles where wearers of 'Zoot Suits' are being held following the 'Zoot Suit Riots' on June 8th, 1943.” Photo and caption by UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images.

• Noticing that June seems to be a bad month for riots? Historically, many large-scale riots have occurred at the beginning of summer, when it’s hot enough that people are irritable but not so hot that they don’t want to do anything.

• A few art news stories to join together:

  • Thanks to a chef with eagle eyes, this Van Gogh painting has been given a new name.

  • Did the famous artist Vermeer hide himself in this painting? It wouldn’t be the first time a new image has been discovered under old paint.

  • After the invasion of Poland in 1939, the Nazis looted some 660,000 artworks (and killed thousands of people). Last week, a 16th-century painting was finally repatriated to Poland after being discovered in Japan. Only 600 works have been returned so far—less than 1% of what was originally stolen.

  • I love cats, but I have questions about the Vienna tourism board’s decision to use AI to recreate famous Viennese works of art with cats.

  • Vienna, in partnership with Google Arts & Culture, has also been using AI to reconstruct Gustav Klimt’s destroyed artwork. After his death in 1918, the Nazis confiscated several examples of Klimt’s artwork and labeled them degenerate—they were subsequently burned. Now this is a use of AI in art that I can get behind.

  • An incredibly rare painting by Fra Angelico is going on auction at Christie’s next month. This is only the third time in a century that the artist’s work is available for sale. If you have £4m laying around to bid, please consider upgrading your subscription while you wait for the bidding to start.

• Do we have… a second moon that we haven’t known about all this time?

• Have you heard about the failed attempt to make the US a hippo-eating nation?

• A History of Sexism in Wine Culture. Despite the fact that women are more likely to be supertasters, meaning we have more sensitive palates due to a history of gathering, we have often been discriminated against in the food & beverage industry as not having the temperament to be serious connoisseurs.

• Otzi the Iceman: What scientists know about modern health and ancient life after studying him for 30+ years.

• Has the mystery of what happened in the Dyatlov Pass in 1959 been solved?

• When we talk about Egypt, we always talk about mummies and pyramids. But there’s also a rich history of cave painting in the legendary Zerzura oasis. The explorers who found it didn’t find an oasis—climate change had long ago transformed this part of southern Egypt into a desert—but they did find marvelous Stone Age cave paintings in Gilf Kebir that date to 4000 BCE.

Short one this week! Hope you all enjoyed this.