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Good evening, everyone! Happy Valentines day, for those of you who celebrate it!
First, a brief link recommendation. If you've never heard of Postsecrets, you should definitely check them out: essentially, people send in anonymous postcards with their secrets on them. Some are sad, some are quirky, some are touching, and all are absolutely awesome. This week they have a Valentine-themed series of postcard secrets for you to look at. This one was my favourite:

Furthermore, the Edmonton Journal (which, along with the National Post, I read almost every day to keep up with news about the world) apparently held a contest for the best Edmonton-themed Valentines cards, most of them poking fun at the city. This particular one was my absolute favourite, mostly because I had to cross that bridge five days a week to get to Fort Edmonton this past summer. It was murder during rush hour when it was down to one lane. >_<; It's been under construction for at least two and half years.

For more, see here!
As a side note, I did celebrate this Valentine's Day as a single person. Here's hoping that I shall find my true love in the coming year! :) I should mention that I mostly enjoy Valentine's Day because it also doubles as my dearest mother's birthday! We have flowers and chocolate about the house, then, regardless of the state of our personal lives. :) Happy birthday, mother mine! Now, tomorrow is the holiday I look forward to even more than the events of St. Valentine... Cheap Chocolate Day! Celebrated: wherever chocolate is sold!
On a final note... I actually began writing this post in response to the lovely surprise left for me at
atla_valentine. I hadn't realized that people would leave me messages! :) They made me smile. Therefore, my original plan had been, in response to people writing lovely flattering things about the history dorkery that goes on in this journal, to write a post about some of the crazy little tidbits I've been learning about in my History of Translation class... which just so happens to be what I'm studying for at the moment (even as I procrastinate reviewing for the midterm to write this post). I'll get around to that very soon! It will still happen!
I did, however, just have a thought. Maybe I could do something completely and utterly crazy and unprecedented. I could... do a history meme. I want to share the love with you guys. I love telling historical anecdotes; I like to think I got quite good at it while working at Fort Edmonton. Maybe no-one will want to play with me. I will still tell crazy history stories to the world! Just give me a direction, guys. :) What do you want to hear?
It shall be a shameless effort at trying to emulate the cool kids (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), only instead of fanfic, it will be random history tidbits, in the style of the posts that have appeared in this journal before.
THEREFORE, what I resolve to do is ask you, the readers, for history prompts! Ask me a historical question: anything you like. For instance: "who is your favourite member of European royalty and what was the most interesting thing they ever did?" "What do you think is the silliest reason a war ever started?" "What is the most unusual historical artifact you have ever seen in person?" "What can you tell me about Canada's participation in such-and-such a war?" It can even be something like "tell me the craziest thing you know about the 17th century/the bubonic plague/aboriginal history/etc., etc., ad nauseam." I shall even search for an appropriate image to accompany the historical blather!
If I don't know the answer to your question, I resolve to use my research skills and access to university databases to find the answer! You may get more coherent history squee if I've heard of the topic before, though. I have studied European history across the ages, some East Asian history, and lots of Canadian and American history, but still, don't let that limit your selection! I suspect that if you ask me something about the history of medicine or the French or English languages you will get extra-long anecdotes. Indulge your curiosity, and I will try to be interesting in return! :)
First, a brief link recommendation. If you've never heard of Postsecrets, you should definitely check them out: essentially, people send in anonymous postcards with their secrets on them. Some are sad, some are quirky, some are touching, and all are absolutely awesome. This week they have a Valentine-themed series of postcard secrets for you to look at. This one was my favourite:
Furthermore, the Edmonton Journal (which, along with the National Post, I read almost every day to keep up with news about the world) apparently held a contest for the best Edmonton-themed Valentines cards, most of them poking fun at the city. This particular one was my absolute favourite, mostly because I had to cross that bridge five days a week to get to Fort Edmonton this past summer. It was murder during rush hour when it was down to one lane. >_<; It's been under construction for at least two and half years.
For more, see here!
As a side note, I did celebrate this Valentine's Day as a single person. Here's hoping that I shall find my true love in the coming year! :) I should mention that I mostly enjoy Valentine's Day because it also doubles as my dearest mother's birthday! We have flowers and chocolate about the house, then, regardless of the state of our personal lives. :) Happy birthday, mother mine! Now, tomorrow is the holiday I look forward to even more than the events of St. Valentine... Cheap Chocolate Day! Celebrated: wherever chocolate is sold!
On a final note... I actually began writing this post in response to the lovely surprise left for me at
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
I did, however, just have a thought. Maybe I could do something completely and utterly crazy and unprecedented. I could... do a history meme. I want to share the love with you guys. I love telling historical anecdotes; I like to think I got quite good at it while working at Fort Edmonton. Maybe no-one will want to play with me. I will still tell crazy history stories to the world! Just give me a direction, guys. :) What do you want to hear?
It shall be a shameless effort at trying to emulate the cool kids (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), only instead of fanfic, it will be random history tidbits, in the style of the posts that have appeared in this journal before.
THEREFORE, what I resolve to do is ask you, the readers, for history prompts! Ask me a historical question: anything you like. For instance: "who is your favourite member of European royalty and what was the most interesting thing they ever did?" "What do you think is the silliest reason a war ever started?" "What is the most unusual historical artifact you have ever seen in person?" "What can you tell me about Canada's participation in such-and-such a war?" It can even be something like "tell me the craziest thing you know about the 17th century/the bubonic plague/aboriginal history/etc., etc., ad nauseam." I shall even search for an appropriate image to accompany the historical blather!
If I don't know the answer to your question, I resolve to use my research skills and access to university databases to find the answer! You may get more coherent history squee if I've heard of the topic before, though. I have studied European history across the ages, some East Asian history, and lots of Canadian and American history, but still, don't let that limit your selection! I suspect that if you ask me something about the history of medicine or the French or English languages you will get extra-long anecdotes. Indulge your curiosity, and I will try to be interesting in return! :)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-15 03:15 am (UTC)How can I do anything BUT ask this now? :D
no subject
Date: 2011-02-15 04:40 am (UTC)Hmm... that was short... how about a few more?
The Blackfoot and the Cree of the North American plains are considered traditional enemies. Apparently they still get in bar fights today. Ask each side how it began and you will get different stories. Not knowing any Blackfoot personally, I only have the story that a Cree friend of mine told me. Apparently it's recent enough in that it involved some horses; horses made their way up to the Canadian plains from some escaped Spanish horses from the South and were pretty available by the 1730s/1740s up here, even before any white folks came from Eastern Canada. I'm told that it involved a lot of horse theft: like, one specific clever Cree guy going out and stealing like EVERY HORSE this one Blackfoot chief ever had. Some chiefs could accumulate herds of a hundred or more horses; it's easy to graze them on the plains, as long as you winter them near the foothills of the mountains. This Cree man was VERY persistent. ;)
PART TWO
Date: 2011-02-15 04:40 am (UTC)Essentially, after the beginning of the protestant reformation in the early 1500s (Luther's Theses really just gave voice to the malcontents), there was a century in which trouble slowly stewed, simmered, then came to a boil. In the early 1600s, most of the generation of men who were into, well, compromising and debating had essentially died off, leaving a bunch of young guys raring for a fight, just waiting for an excuse to fight the other side - either Catholic or Protestant. Now, Prague at this time was a part of the Holy Roman Empire, run out of what is now Austria but which was then a powerful if eclectic kingdom which. As you may be able to divine from the title, the Holy Roman Empire was Catholic: it gained much of its legitimacy from the Pope's approval, among other things. However, as they controlled much of Central Europe - AKA what would eventually become the modern State of Germany, AKA where Luther was from AKA the seat of protestantism - there were tensions, to say the least. In many areas to the North, the majority of the population was protestant while the ones running everything were Catholic. There will be problems. There were lots of little incidents that led to the outbreak of complicated and drawn-out religious wars, but this incident was one of the straws that broke the camel's back. I find it a bit silly in retrospect, but the participants were deadly serious.
"Defenestration" comes from the Latin roots "fenestre" ("window" - where we get the modern word fenêtre in French) and "de" ("out of"). Thus, it means to be thrown out of a window. Essentially, there was this castle in the heart of Prague with a lovely tall tower: this was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire's administration. About a half dozen young protestant hotheads rushed the tower, where two Catholic administrators (and their hapless male secretary) were working. These men seized the Catholics and threw them out of the window at the top of the tower, shouting, no joke (as my textbook wrote) an early 17th century version of: "see if your Virgin Mary will save you now."
The interesting thing is, she actually kind of did. All three men thrown from the tower lived. With broken bones, yes, but they survived, likely because they fell into a convenient dungheap or something. So this incident did end up backfiring on the Protestants because a flurry of pamphlets were published afterwards saying something like "and lo, angels sang out and saved them from the wickedness of the protestants"...
So yeah, the Defenestration of Prague didn't necessarily START a war, per se, but it was one of the last incidents in a long line of events that actually led up to open hostilities. Tadaa!
Re: PART TWO
Date: 2011-02-15 05:22 am (UTC)Just because A) Defenestration is an awesome word and B) Someone actually did that. <3
Re: PART TWO
Date: 2011-02-15 03:19 pm (UTC)I'm just waiting to find an opportunity to use the word "defenestration" in real life conversation. I'm just biding my time... It really is an epic word that needs to have more common currency amongst English speakers. :3