Unruly History in the News #41
Early modern prosthetic hands, the gunfight at the OK Corral, and everyone's talking about the UK
Hello everyone,
Before we hop into this post, I wanted to let you all know that the Black Friday sale is on at Unruly Figures! This year I’m doing my wildest discount yet: 50% off all subscription options! If you haven’t become a paying subscriber of Unurly Figures yet, but have been thinking about doing git, I hope you will take this chance. I rely on subscribers to help me pay for biographies, access to archives, and more resources that make this podcast possible.
It’s only $30 for an annual subscription right now, and I would so appreciate it if you subscribed. Don’t forget that Founding Subscribers will get a free signed copy of my book when it comes out in March!
Okay, now onto the show.
This week is Thanksgiving in the US, a holiday heavily associated with the Indigenous peoples of the US who saved the colonists…and then were systematically slaughtered by them for their land. It’s probably best to at least know who some of those people were, so here’s a list of 16 Native American leaders whose names you should know.
Native Americans in the US once had a surprising ally: Richard Nixon. It’s a positive relationship I never would have expected, but Nixon “offered the broadest and most sustained commitment to supporting Native people, signing more than 50 legislative measures supporting American Indian sovereignty.”
A new interactive map shows you which Indigenous American lands you’re living on. This is pretty cool—I love visual histories and this kind of tool really helps make the vague ideas of “nomadic lives” more relatable.
In Queensland, a new mapping project is showing how extensive frontier violence was against Aboriginal people by the Native Mounted Police starting in 1849.
The US Army just cleared the names of 110 Black soldiers accused of inciting a riot in Houston in 1917—19 of them were executed by the US Government. Their families might now be eligible for withheld benefits.
Why do we remember the gunfight at the OK Corral? What was so special about it?
A sign people used to see while entering Tombstone, Arizona mentioning the Gunfight at the OK Corral. New York Public Library. Public Domain. A question that’s been on my mind lately: When did humans start waging wars? The answer might surprise you.
This article might as well have said “The Parthenon is everything; that’s just the Erechtheion.”
Hundreds of French love letters sent in the 1750s were never delivered. They remained sealed until a historian discovered them and opened them up for the first time in centuries earlier this year.
This 2,500-year-old burial chamber for an Egyptian scribe named Djehutyemhat was adorned with something surprising: magical spells meant to ward off snake bites. The ancient Egyptians revered snakes, but apparently Djehutyemhat wasn’t as much of a fan.
Djehutyemat’s tomb protected him from venomous snake bites after death. Source: Czech Institute of Egyptology at Charles University in Prague Lots out of Britain this week, so in British history:
Follow-up on the felling of the gap tree from #36: Hadrian’s Wall was damaged when the tree was cut down. The rocks forming the wall were cracked and broken; whether or not they can be repaired has not been stated (that I’ve seen).
It was in November 1854 that the Necropolis Railway opened, combining the Victorians’ love of two things: industry and mourning.
Ongoing excavations at St. Pancras have revealed a “notorious workhouse” that apparently inspired Charles Dickens.
If you ever visited Wicksteed Park near Kettering, Northamptonshire, a research team would like to hear about it! They’re collecting oral histories of the amusement park until April 2024.
How the modern Just Stop Oil protestors are taking their cues from the suffragettes-including attacking artwork.
The new season of The Crown is out, so here’s a brief history of us commoners watching the royals.
Archaeologists just discovered a centuries-old metal prosthetic hand in Bavaria! Made between 1450 and 1620, it features four prosthetic fingers worn by a middle-aged man.
With this X-ray, you can see where the prosthetic metal fingers attach to the hand. Photo credit: Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation. What are the cultural foundations of modern democracies? Do values predict democracy or do democracies form values? This study in Nature tries to find out.
New map of communication routes in early modern Spain just dropped!
That’s all for this week! Don’t forget to take advantage of the Black Friday sale before it goes away!
Poe is a beautiful feline. :).