Category: History

History Native Americans Retronaut World War Ii Wwii

The Navajo code talkers that helped the U.S. win WWII

sudshr47 November 28, 2017

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c. 1943

Navajo code talkers Cpl. Henry Bake, Jr. and PFC George H. Kirk transmit messages during combat on Bougainville.

Image: Fotosearch/Getty Images

Shortly after the entry of the United States into World War II, Philip Johnston approached the Marine Corps with a proposal that could help tip the scales in the Pacific Theater.

Johnston was the child of missionaries, and had grown up on a Navajo reservation. He was one of just a handful of outsiders who could speak the Navajo language fluently.

He proposed developing a code based on this language, one that could be transmitted and decrypted quickly and orally on the battlefield — and that would be virtually impossible for the Japanese to crack. Read more…

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Black Friday family Genetics Health History

If you’ve always wanted to do an AncestryDNA kit, now’s your chance — they’re 40% off for Black Friday

sudshr47 November 24, 2017

Just to let you know, if you buy something featured here, Mashable might earn an affiliate commission.
Many of us have some idea of our family’s history from stuff our parents or grandparents told us, but wouldn’t it be cool to do a DNA test and have…

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Food History Pie Recipes Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving taste testers ate lots of pie to see if ancient recipes hold up

sudshr47 November 22, 2017

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Thanksgiving means one thing: pie. And lots of it.

The UC Berkeley Library scoured its collection of 900 cookbooks to find old recipes for Thanksgiving pies and then baked them and put them to the test.

The library went deep and found a recipe for “pompkin” pie from the 1796 cookbook, American Cookery — the first known cookbook written by an American, according to the library.

Other recipes tested included a sweet potato pie from What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking from 1881 and quince pie from the 1940 book The Martha Washington Cook Book. Read more…

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Air Travel Airplane Aviation History United Airlines

United gave its final 747 aircraft a 1970s sendoff

sudshr47 November 7, 2017

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United flight 747 made history Tuesday morning. 

The flight from San Francisco to Honolulu was the final flight on the airline’s last Boeing 747 aircraft. It all came fill circle after the first commercial flight departed on the same route on June 23, 1970 — 47 years ago.

This wasn’t just any old takeoff — it was an homage to the ’70s with the flight crew decked out in original uniforms and even the ticket jackets throwing it back a few decades.

Welcome to the 70’s! It’s a 🎉 in SFO as employees get ready to board the Friend Ship to HNL! #BeingUnited #UA747Farewell pic.twitter.com/td60P0ESri

— We Are United (@weareunited) November 7, 2017 Read more…

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History Italy Rape Culture Retronaut Women S Rights

The woman who defied Italian tradition by refusing to marry her rapist

sudshr47 November 5, 2017

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Franca Viola.

Image: Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images

Last month, actress and director Asia Argento voiced her disgust with criticism from the Italian public after she came forward with rape allegations against Harvey Weinstein. “Italy is far behind the rest of the world in its view of women,” she told the press of her native country.

50 years ago, Italy was rocked by one woman’s courageous efforts to challenge the country’s treatment of rape victims — the lessons of which are sadly still relevant

In 1966, Franca Viola became the first Italian woman to take to court a cultural convention that would have her marry her rapist. With the eyes of a nation upon Viola, her statement to her rapist from the stand became a rallying cry for other women to follow suit. Read more…

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Food History New York City Restaurants Retronaut

Coffee, conversation, and community: Inside NYC’s vanished cafeterias

sudshr47 November 5, 2017

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Image: Marcia Bricker Halperin

One frigid day in February 1975, Marcia Bricker Halperin, a budding street photographer, was shooting storefront windows on Kings Highway in Brooklyn. With her fingers practically frozen to her Pentax, she slipped into a Dubrow’s Cafeteria to defrost.

I took a ticket from the man at the door and found myself looking out at a tableau of amazing faces between the coffee urns and steam tables teeming with choices and the muraled walls under high ceilings with modernist, space-age lighting.
Marcia Bricker Halperin

Image: Marcia Bricker Halperin

Image: Marcia Bricker Halperin Read more…

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1970s Chicago History New York Retronaut

Lush color photos capture the cityscapes of New York in Chicago in the ’70s and ’80s

sudshr47 November 4, 2017

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1984

Dave’s Restaurant, New York.

Image: Wayne Sorce/Joseph Bellows Gallery

Born in Chicago in 1946, Wayne Sorce studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and went on to have a distinguished career in photography.

In the 1970s and ‘80s, Sorce explored the urban landscapes of New York and Chicago with his large format camera, making precisely balanced compositions of color, geometry, and light that also recorded the era’s particular styles of signage, advertising, and automobile design.

Wayne Sorce: Urban Color, an exhibit of cityscapes by Sorce and his contemporaries, is on display at Joseph Bellows Gallery in La Jolla, California through Nov. 30. Read more…

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Future Future Tech Futurism History Retronaut

What people in 1900 thought life would be like in the technological paradise of 2000

sudshr47 November 4, 2017

Personal flying machines.Image: Hildebrands/Public DomainIn 1900, German chocolate company Hildebrands produced a series of postcards imagining the wonders of life in the year 2000.The optimistic renderings envisioned people in Victorian fashions enjo…

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