treatises on penises

queelez:

lord-of-the-nerds:

discordion:

When he was 2 years old, he fell out of a second story window and fractured his skull

When he was 6 years old, he mistakenly drank boric acid.

When he was 9 years old, he fell over a small cliff and broke his leg.

When he was 11 years old, he contracted measles and was in a coma for nine days.

When he was 14 years old, he broke his arm when he caught it in a carriage door.

When he was 19 years old, he was struck on the head by a falling brick.

When he was 23 years old, he almost died from the effects of tainted wine.

When he was 29 years old, Adolph Sax invented the saxophone.

clearly someone didn’t want that saxophone invented 

#incompetent time-travelling saxophone haters

(via persisting)

fuckyeahhistorycrushes:

Henry Lincoln Johnson (1897-1929) was a sergeant of the 369th Infantry Regiment, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters, during WWI. The first African-American regiment to be sent to Europe as part of the American Expeditionary Force, the 369th on the whole did some pretty badass stuff. During one battle, the regiment advanced ahead of its French counterparts on both flanks and risked being cut off; by the time the 369th managed to regroup and pull back, it had advanced fourteen kilometers ahead of the French through serious German resistance.

Sgt. Henry Lincoln Johnson became one of the regiment’s most celebrated members when he came under attack from an enemy patrol while on guard duty on May 14, 1918. Armed with only his rifle and a bolo knife (a machete-type knife originally used as a farming tool in the Philippines), many lesser men might have retreated or called for reinforcements. However, Sgt. Johnson wasn’t going to let something like a twenty-four man German Patrol get in his way.

Sgt. Johnson proceeded to single-handedly fight off the enemy patrol, despite serious injuries, and rescued his comrade (and fellow historical hottie) Pvt. Needham Roberts from capture, along with saving the lives of countless other soldiers in the process. This earned him the nickname “The Black Death” and earned him the first Croix de Guerre ever awarded to an American soldier by the French government.

Tragically, Sgt. Johnson died young and destitute in 1929 at a Veteran’s Hospital in New Lenox, Illinois with no official recognition from the US military. However, in 1996 he was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart by President Clinton and in 2003 a Distinguished Service Cross (the second highest award in the US Army) was presented to his son Herman A. Johnson—who was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen and something of a badass in his own right—on behalf of his father.

determinatenegation:

doux-amer:

determinatenegation:

Pablo Picasso - Massacre in Korea

“In 2008 the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation commission found 1,222 instances of mass killings, with at least 215 of these involving U.S. troops or airplanes massacring unarmed civilians. At Cheongwon in central Korea, up to 7,000 people were slaughtered.”

The U.S. committed an uncountable amount of acts designated as “war crimes”, including widespread use of chemical and biological weapons such as the plague, and intentionally destroying hydroelectric dams that provided drinking water for 75% of the population. In total around 5 million Koreans lost their lives. 

Remember No Gun Ri, Jeju, Yeosun, and the countless other instances of mass extermination by the U.S.

Reblogging this because most of my followers probably don’t know about this and this is important regardless of whether or not you’re Korean. SERIOUSLY, READ THIS. This is important if you’re an American (well, in my opinion, it’s important even if you’re not) and if you want to better understand why, aside from the obvious, the U.S. and North Korea don’t get along and why the DPRK hates the U.S so much.

I’m going to condense this into bullets and put the main points in bold because I know that if this is super long, you guys are definitely going all TL;DR and scroll past this post. Anyway, if you have any questions, feel free to ask and I’ll try to answer to the best of my limited knowledge:

• The U.S., not Korea, was completely responsible for splitting Korea into two, which everyone in Korea wanted to avoid. This happened in 1945 at the end of WWII with the surrender of Japan (not with the 1953 Korean War armistice which basically just reaffirmed things that were already in place). 
• Yes, armistice, not treaty. Even though it’s been 63 years since the start of the war (and 60 since the armistice), the war has never officially ended. The two Koreas are technically still at war. This explains the South’s mandatory military service required of all their male citizens and why, if the North declares war, it’s a continuation of an existing war rather than a completely new one.
• The U.S. is also partially at fault for the Korean War happening. After WWII, they put those who were in power during colonial rule back into influential positions in the South, pissing off a lot of people in the North for a lot of reasons, namely that many of these people were Japanese sympathizers or collaborators. Basically, they put the old Japanese machinery back into place and if you know anything of the Japanese occupation of Korea, you’ll know why they were angry. It’s also why the North didn’t see the South’s government as legitimate. Yeah, somehow the U.S. thought it was a great idea to put people who supported their enemies during the war in power again.
• The American strategy during the Korean War was to wipe out all life in tactical locality. They carpet-bombed the North with bombs and napalm with next to no concern for civilian casualties. 
  
• According to U.S. Air Force estimates, “the scale of urban destruction quite exceeded that in Germany and Japan.” Yes, you read correctly. Feel free to go “WTH?” especially considering how tiny North Korea is (46,541 sq. miles). It’s about the same size as Pennsylvania (46,055 sq. miles). Compare that to Germany (137,800 sq. miles) and Japan (145,925 sq. miles).  
• More bombs were dropped in Korea by the U.S. than had been dropped in the entire Pacific theater in World War II. Also a huge WTH if you guys know how bad the war was in the Pacific.
• By 1953, at least 50% of 18 out of North Korea’s 22 major cities were obliterated.
• Nearly 10% of the Korean population died during the war, the majority from the North.
• The aerial bombardment of North Korea inflicted the greatest loss of civilian life in the Korean War by far.

So basically, the U.S. never talks about this. I never learned ANY of this growing up. All I learned from high school was that the North started the Korean War (only partially true; they did invade, but things had been going on before 1950 due to American actions and conflicts originating from the colonial era) and that the U.S. and South Korea (democracy! Good!) went against North Korea and China (Communism! Bad!). I was shocked when I learned all this last semester and basically, it makes it a lot easier to understand the deep seated hatred North Korea holds towards the United States today. I’m not saying the North wasn’t aggressive during the war; they were as were the South, but it’s kind of strange how while it was the U.S. that wreaked the most devastation during the war, the North is seen as the ultimate aggressor. 

Like do you guys understand? The U.S. committed war crimes and NO ONE TALKS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS SO IMPORTANT IN UNDERSTANDING WHY NORTH KOREA ACTS THE WAY IT DOES RIGHT NOW (not including the events that happen from 1953 and on with the collapse of the USSR, the 1990s famine, and basically just how the U.S. dealt and interacted with the DPRK in the second half of the 20th century). 

Anyway, sorry this is disgustingly long, but I just think it’s really important for people to learn and know. :/

Thank you for adding that information. This information should be required reading for all humans.

(via taykash)

blackhistoryalbum:

Black Victorians | 1890s

(via kyungree)

coeurgryffondor:

youhavereachedtheendofpie:

dduane:

othartryggvassen:

elgin-marbles:

coleytangerina:

Some graffiti found in Pompeii’s ruins: 

• Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!
• Restituta, take off your tunic, please, and show us your hairy privates.
• I screwed the barmaid.
• Apollinaris, the doctor of the emperor Titus, defecated well here.
• I screwed a lot of girls here.
• Sollemnes, you screw well!
• Theophilus, don’t perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog.

Nice to see nothing has changed.

There is a website with all of the graffiti

absolutely nothing has changed

Retweeting again for the joy of Pompeiian graffiti. God, what their texts and tweets would have been like…

tell me one more time how history is dull I dare you

I’ve a shirt with some of the graffiti on it untranslated. I love my Classical Studies club.

(via angrbodas)

thehappysorceress:

knowledgeequalsblackpower:

I was researching Mormons and slavery when I came across the amazing Bridget “Biddy” Mason.

Biddy was born a slave in 1818 (sources say in Mississippi or Georgia), yet she would die in Los Angeles in 1891, free from slavery and one of the richest women in Southern California.

At age 18, she was given to the Smiths as a wedding gift.

…in 1848, with a wagon train’s “Roll ‘em out!,” Biddy’s master, Robert Smith, moved his family from Mississippi to the new Mormon “City of the Saints” by the Great Salt Lake. All day, every day, Biddy walked behind her master’s covered wagons in the dust and mud made by wagon wheels and hooves, keeping watch on his animals. When the wagons stopped at night, she cooked meals over the campfire, washed clothes in the river and nursed anyone who was sick.

With one of her children on her back, she walked the entire trek which took about 7 months.

Two and a half years after they reached Utah Territory, Mr. Smith was sent to help the new Mormon settlement in San Bernardino. They arrived in California in 1851.

Mr. Smith soon learned that California was a free state. He didn’t tell this to his 14 slaves, but Biddy saw other black people working for themselves. She talked to them, and she discovered something in California that was better than gold. She discovered she could be free.

Biddy had been a slave her entire life. She couldn’t read or write, she didn’t have a penny in her pocket, and she had three daughters to care for. But Biddy wanted to be free. She wanted her daughters to be free.

Mr. Smith wanted them to be slaves, his slaves.

So, in December 1855, he began a move to the slave state of Texas. Biddy did not want to go. 

One of her friends, black businessman, Robert Owens, alerted the local sheriff to the presence of slaves, and the sheriff placed Smith’s slaves in jail for protection.

Then Biddy talked to Judge Benjamin Hayes in his office at the Los Angeles County Courthouse. (She wasn’t allowed to speak in the courtroom because she was black. [SOME “FREE” STATE, HUH?]) In January 1856, Judge Hayes ruled that Biddy, her daughters and all Mr. Smith’s slaves were “free forever … to work for themselves in peace and without fear.”

Biddy was free. Now she needed a last name, a place to live and a job. She took the name “Mason,” perhaps from one of the Mormon trailblazers.

Biddy and her daughters stayed with Owens and his family and began working as a nurse.

Dr. Griffin paid Biddy Mason $2.50 a day, and she saved every penny. She dreamed of owning something a slave could never own — land. By 1866, Biddy had saved $250. She bought a piece of land with vineyards and willow trees out in the country, on 3rd and Spring streets.

Biddy had two little houses built on her property to rent. She kept saving her money and she bought more property. By the 1880s, people were flooding into Los Angeles. They needed land. Biddy’s land became very valuable, and she sold some of it.

Soon Biddy Mason was rich. She could buy anything she wanted. And what she wanted was something that gave her great joy — she wanted to help others.

She continued to doctor people, but now she did it free. She paid for things churches needed but couldn’t afford. She visited prisoners in the county jail, took them food and prayed with them. She was one of the founders of the First AME Church of Los Angeles. She taught other women how to be nurses and midwives. She started a school and day-care center for children, bought groceries for people in need and took those who were homeless into her home.

(via LA Times, California Social Work Hall of Distinction)

Biddy Mason definitely deserves my ‘awesome ladies’ tag.

(via morbidfashion)

amordragon:

Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Her newspaper obituaries do not mention her greatest discovery. […] Every high school student knows that Isaac Newton discovered gravity, that Charles Darwin discovered evolution, and that Albert Einstein discovered the relativity of time. But when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a truly extraordinary woman.

(via taykash)

sideofdork:

gingerrqueer:

thunder-cock:

heavenly-divine:

Never saw this picture in my history book!

But we damn well should have

(via curiouscake)