Unruly History in the News #58
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms and mother-figures out there! And if your mom isn’t in your life for any reason, I hope you can find some peace today.
This week, in history acting unruly…
Mother’s Day is one of those rare holidays where we actually have a founding date and story. The holiday is only a little over 100 years old and was started by a Philadelphia woman named Anna Jarvis.
If you’re into holiday origin stories, you might like this episode about Sir Henry Cole, who started the tradition of sending Christmas cards.
In the Medieval Era there was a tradition of allowing workers who had moved away from their homes to go visit their mothers on Laetare Sunday (the fourth Sunday in Lent).
Mother’s Day has occasionally been a good launch day for activism. On Mother’s Day in 1968, Coretta Scott King gave a rousing speech that helped launch the Poor People’s Campaign.
You might have seen the meme that Mother’s Day is the day of with the lowest crime of the year (because mom’s are too busy having brunch with their families to commit crimes) but, unfortunately, this isn’t true. The data just doesn’t back this one up.
And for the final bit of Mother’s Day history, learn why Anna Jarvis, founder of the holiday, quickly turned against it.
More than 1,000 gold coins from the 17th-century were found in an English home during renovations. They were probably buried during the English Civil War.
In historical mysteries:
The lost colony of Roanoke was one of the first history mysteries I ever got really into. For hundreds of years, the mystery of what became of the 100 or so people living on the island has remained unsolved. But now archaeologists have found some evidence that backs up the most plausible theory: The colonists were absobed into the local Indigenous tribe.
Speaking of disappearing societies, historians have never been able to explain what happened to Tartessos, in modern-day Spain and Portugal. Unlike Roanoke, Tastessos was thriving when it suddenly disappeared in the sixth century BCE. Now historians are discovering new evidence to suggest that the disappearnace migth not have been as immediate and complete as once thought.
For over a century, archaeologists have been trying to figure out what a few symbols meant in a 2,700-year-old temple in modern-day Khorsabad, Iraq. Now Trinity Assyriologist Dr Martin Worthington might have puzzled out that the five symbols spell out the ruler’s name (Sargon) while also making him immortal by placing his names in the stars.
This lion is one of the symbols from the ancient temple. The late 19th-century drawing is held at the New York Public Library.
You may be familiar with Beethoven, but were you aware he was deaf and quite ill later in life? Scientists recently examined his hair and discovered it was full of arsenic, lead, and mercury, which probably explains some (perhaps most) of his medical issues.
Though blue jeans are often associated with the 1970s (and the iconic 2001 Britney AMA moment), humans may have started wearing denim as early as the 17th century. And there are paintings to prove it.
A Woman Sewing With Two Children, by an unknown painter dubbed ‘Master of the Blue Jeans.’ Credit: Galerie Canesso. Already once-restored walls collapsed at the historic Shahr-e Belqeys in Iran, making people concerned that further restoration/preservation might not be possible. People in charge are blaming the site’s problems on a lack of funding, though the ongoing violent repression in Iran after the death Mahsa Amini probably also has something to do with it.
