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BarnBuster
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On August 24,79 A.D., after centuries of dormancy, Mount Vesuvius erupts in southern Italy, devastating the prosperous Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing thousands. The cities, buried under a thick layer of volcanic material and mud, were never rebuilt and largely forgotten in the course of history. In the 18th century, Pompeii and Herculaneum were rediscovered and excavated, providing an unprecedented archaeological record of the everyday life of an ancient civilization, startlingly preserved in sudden death.
The ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum thrived near the base of Mount Vesuvius at the Bay of Naples. In the time of the early Roman Empire, 20,000 people lived in Pompeii, including merchants, manufacturers, and farmers who exploited the rich soil of the region with numerous vineyards and orchards. None suspected that the black fertile earth was the legacy of earlier eruptions of Mount Vesuvius. Herculaneum was a city of 5,000 and a favorite summer destination for rich Romans. Named for the mythic hero Hercules, Herculaneum housed opulent villas and grand Roman baths. Gambling artifacts found in Herculaneum and a brothel unearthed in Pompeii attest to the decadent nature of the cities. There were smaller resort communities in the area as well, such as the quiet little town of Stabiae.
At noon on August 24, 79 A.D., this pleasure and prosperity came to an end when the peak of Mount Vesuvius exploded, propelling a 10-mile mushroom cloud of ash and pumice into the stratosphere. For the next 12 hours, volcanic ash and a hail of pumice stones up to 3 inches in diameter showered Pompeii, forcing the city’s occupants to flee in terror. Some 2,000 people stayed in Pompeii, holed up in cellars or stone structures, hoping to wait out the eruption.
A westerly wind protected Herculaneum from the initial stage of the eruption, but then a giant cloud of hot ash and gas surged down the western flank of Vesuvius, engulfing the city and burning or asphyxiating all who remained. This lethal cloud was followed by a flood of volcanic mud and rock, burying the city.
The people who remained in Pompeii were killed on the morning of August 25 when a cloud of toxic gas poured into the city, suffocating all that remained. A flow of rock and ash followed, collapsing roofs and walls and burying the dead.
Much of what we know about the eruption comes from an account by Pliny the Younger, who was staying west along the Bay of Naples when Vesuvius exploded. In two letters to the historian Tacitus, he told of how “people covered their heads with pillows, the only defense against a shower of stones,” and of how “a dark and horrible cloud charged with combustible matter suddenly broke and set forth. Some bewailed their own fate. Others prayed to die.” Pliny, only 17 at the time, escaped the catastrophe and later became a noted Roman writer and administrator. His uncle, Pliny the Elder, was less lucky. Pliny the Elder, a celebrated naturalist, at the time of the eruption was the commander of the Roman fleet in the Bay of Naples. After Vesuvius exploded, he took his boats across the bay to Stabiae, to investigate the eruption and reassure terrified citizens. After going ashore, he was overcome by toxic gas and died.
According to Pliny the Younger’s account, the eruption lasted 18 hours. Pompeii was buried under 14 to 17 feet of ash and pumice, and the nearby seacoast was drastically changed. Herculaneum was buried under more than 60 feet of mud and volcanic material. Some residents of Pompeii later returned to dig out their destroyed homes and salvage their valuables, but many treasures were left and then forgotten.
In the 18th century, a well digger unearthed a marble statue on the site of Herculaneum. The local government excavated some other valuable art objects, but the project was abandoned. In 1748, a farmer found traces of Pompeii beneath his vineyard. Since then, excavations have gone on nearly without interruption until the present. In 1927, the Italian government resumed the excavation of Herculaneum, retrieving numerous art treasures, including bronze and marble statues and paintings.
The remains of 2,000 men, women, and children were found at Pompeii. After perishing from asphyxiation, their bodies were covered with ash that hardened and preserved the outline of their bodies. Later, their bodies decomposed to skeletal remains, leaving a kind of plaster mold behind. Archaeologists who found these molds filled the hollows with plaster, revealing in grim detail the death pose of the victims of Vesuvius. The rest of the city is likewise frozen in time, and ordinary objects that tell the story of everyday life in Pompeii are as valuable to archaeologists as the great unearthed statues and frescoes. It was not until 1982 that the first human remains were found at Herculaneum, and these hundreds of skeletons bear ghastly burn marks that testifies to horrifying deaths.
Today, Mount Vesuvius is the only active volcano on the European mainland. Its last eruption was in 1944 and its last major eruption was in 1631. Another eruption is expected in the near future, which could be devastating for the 700,000 people who live in the “death zones” around Vesuvius.
raratt
Well-Known Member
DarkWeb
Well-Known Member
lokie
Well-Known Member
My hero performing the last act of DEFIANCE.
2,000-Year-Old Man Looks Like He’s Preparing For Deadly Volcanic Explosion By Masturbating
INSTAGRAM/POMPEII_PARCO_ARCHEOLOGICO
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius, a volcano located in Italy’s Gulf of Naples, in 79 A.D. left thousands of people dead—and their city eerily preserved and left intact under layers of ash, dust, and debris.
The excavation provided a goldmine for scientists, who were able to get a closer look than ever before on how people in that city actually lived.
But the intact remains of one man looks like it got a little too personal: A photo shared on the Archaeological Park of Pompeii’s Instagram seems to show a man preparing for the upcoming volcanic eruption with a little eruption of his own.
This content is imported from Instagram. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
Yes, the photo looks like the man is masturbating. In fact, Twitter accounts took the photo and ran—this one, which was shared more than 30,000 times, included the caption “Masturbating man, Pompeii, 79 CE.”
But the original caption, which was shared by the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, made no mention of any kind of self-love at all: A translation of their post simply called it, “Plaster cast of a victim of the eruption.”
In fact, archaeology expert Pierpaolo Petrone of the University of Naples, who has studied Pompeii remains, set the record straight to The Daily Dot. (For more important news delivered right to your inbox, sign up for our Daily Dose newsletter.)
“The individual in the photo is an adult man, killed by the hot pyroclastic surge (hot gas and ash cloud, which killed most of the population living around Mount Vesuvius), with both arms and legs flexed due to the heat,” he told them.
The “strange” positioning of the limbs seen on Pompeii victims—not just the man in question here—may just be due to the effect of the heat on their bodies after they died, which makes them appear like they’re grasping. (Think you masturbate too much? Our sex professor lets you know if that’s possible.)
So get your mind out of the gutter. This guy wasn’t engaging in some last-minute self-love.
2,000-Year-Old Man Looks Like He’s Preparing For Deadly Volcanic Explosion By Masturbating
But killjoy scientists have a different explanation
I still think he was rubbing one out.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
The Camp Logan Mutiny (also called the Houston Riot of 1917) occurred on 23 August 1917. It was a mutiny and riot by 156 soldiers of the Third Battalion of the all-black Twenty-fourth United States Infantry Regiment.
The riot occurred after members of the Houston Police Department harassed members of the local black community and the black soldiers who attempted to intervene were also violently accosted. The black soldiers mutinied and marched on Houston, shooting and killing numerous people.
It took place over a single night, and resulted in the deaths of 11 civilians and five policemen. Four soldiers were also killed from friendly fire and Sergeant Vida Henry, who led the mutineers, died by suicide. The soldiers were tried at three courts-martial for mutiny. Nineteen were executed, and 41 were sentenced to life imprisonment.
The ugly history of Camp Logan
Around 2 a.m. on a sticky August night in 1917, a 35-year old Army sergeant named Vida Henry sat exhausted and bleeding by the Southern Pacific railroad tracks just west of downtown Houston. As he watched his men slowly melt into the darkness, the first steps of a long trudge toward a dubious...
injinji
Well-Known Member
99 years ago today. . . . . .
For five days from late August to early September 1921, some 10,000 armed coal miners confronted 3,000 lawmen and strikebreakers (called the Logan Defenders)[4] who were backed by coal mine operators during the miners' attempt to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields when tensions rose between workers and mine management. The battle ended after approximately one million rounds were fired[5] and the United States Army, represented by the West Virginia National Guard, intervened by presidential order.[6]
en.wikipedia.org
For five days from late August to early September 1921, some 10,000 armed coal miners confronted 3,000 lawmen and strikebreakers (called the Logan Defenders)[4] who were backed by coal mine operators during the miners' attempt to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields when tensions rose between workers and mine management. The battle ended after approximately one million rounds were fired[5] and the United States Army, represented by the West Virginia National Guard, intervened by presidential order.[6]
Battle of Blair Mountain - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
The most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history occurs on Krakatoa (also called Krakatau), a small, uninhabited volcanic island located west of Sumatra in Indonesia, on August 27, 1883. Most of the 36,417 people who died—90 percent—were killed by tsunamis. The remaining 10 percent fell victim to falling debris called tephra and pyroclastic flows, hot, fast moving masses of volcanic gas and ash. Victims washed up months later as far away as the east coast of Africa.
The blast was equal to 3,000 Hiroshima-size atom bombs, 26 times more powerful than the strongest hydrogen bomb, and 18 times more powerful than the Mt. St. Helens blast. Tsunamis as high as 100 feet were created The explosions hurled an estimated 11 cubic miles (45 cubic km) of debris into the atmosphere, darkening skies up to 275 miles (442 km) from the volcano. In the immediate vicinity, the dawn did not return for three days.
It hurled pumice 34 miles (there are varying reports of the height of the ash column ,bb) into the air that fell 3,313 miles away 10 days later. Winds from the blast circled the earth seven times before they died down and waves escaped from the Indian Ocean below Cape Horn in the Atlantic and radiated into the English Channel, 11,500 miles away. Ash fell as far away as New York, and humans bones were carried 4,500 miles across the Indian ocean to Zanzibar. There was so much ash that in Nicaragua, on the other side of the Pacific, the sun was blue. After the eruption, floating pumice fields—nearly 10 feet deep in places—clogged ports, interrupting trade.
The islands of Krakatoa were completely sterilized by the blasts. Areas with rich rain forests were replaced by barren wasteland. In some places the ash was heaped in piles 200 feet thick.
The noise was the loudest in recorded history. It was heard distinctly in central Australia 3000 kilometers away. Five thousand kilometers on the small island of Rodiguez "the roar of heavy guns" was heard and a captain ordered his ship out to sea. The sound was literally deafening. It was estimated and that anyone within ten miles of the explosions would become deaf immediately. Eardrums of sailors forty miles away were broken. The sound was estimated to be around 180 decibels.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
On Aug. 28, 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. This historic speech helped galvanize the Civil Rights Movement and brought the plight of the disenfranchised to a larger national and international audience.
The demonstrators–Black and white, poor and rich–came together in the nation’s capital to demand voting rights and equal opportunity for African Americans and to appeal for an end to racial segregation and discrimination.
The peaceful rally was the largest assembly for a redress of grievances that the capital had ever seen, and King was the last speaker. With the statue of Abraham Lincoln—the Great Emancipator—towering behind him, King used the rhetorical talents he had developed as a Baptist preacher to show how, as he put it, the “Negro is still not free.” He told of the struggle ahead, stressing the importance of continued action and nonviolent protest. Coming to the end of his prepared text (which, like other speakers that day, he had limited to seven minutes), he was overwhelmed by the moment and launched into an improvised sermon. He began the refrain that made the speech one of the best known in U.S. history, second only to Lincoln’s 1863 “Gettysburg Address”
In the year after the March on Washington, the civil rights movement achieved two of its greatest successes: the ratification of the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished the poll tax and thus a barrier to poor African American voters in the South; and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public facilities. In October 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr., was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On April 4, 1968, he was shot to death while standing on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee—he was 39 years old. The gunman was escaped convict James Earl Ray.
Excerpts:
“I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream.”
“I have a dream that one day right there in Alabama little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”
“Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.”
“We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed — we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.”
“The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”
“Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”
“We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back.”
“Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.”
“We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.”
“In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.”
“When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
Hurricane Katrina makes landfall near New Orleans, Louisiana, as a Category 4 hurricane on August 29, 2005. Despite being only the third most powerful storm of the 2005 hurricane season, Katrina was among the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States. In the wake of the storm, there were over 50 failures of the levees and flood walls surrounding New Orleans and its suburbs. The levee and flood wall failures caused widespread flooding.
After briefly coming ashore in southern Florida on August 25 as a Category 1 hurricane, Katrina gained strength before slamming into the Gulf Coast on August 29. In addition to bringing devastation to the New Orleans area, the hurricane caused damage along the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama, as well as other parts of Louisiana.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city on August 28, when Katrina briefly achieved Category 5 status and the National Weather Service predicted “devastating” damage to the area. But an estimated 150,000 people, who either did not want to or did not have the resources to leave, ignored the order and stayed behind. The storm brought sustained winds of 145 miles per hour, which cut power lines and destroyed homes, even turning cars into projectile missiles. Katrina caused record storm surges all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
The surges overwhelmed the levees that protected New Orleans, located at six feet below sea level, from Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. Soon, 80 percent of the city was flooded up to the rooftops of many homes and small buildings.
Tens of thousands of people sought shelter in the New Orleans Convention Center and the Louisiana Superdome. The situation in both places quickly deteriorated, as food and water ran low and conditions became unsanitary. Frustration mounted as it took up to two days for a full-scale relief effort to begin. In the meantime, the stranded residents suffered from heat, hunger, and a lack of medical care.
Reports of looting, rape, and even murder began to surface. As news networks broadcast scenes from the devastated city to the world, it became obvious that a vast majority of the victims were African-American and poor, leading to difficult questions among the public about the state of racial equality in the United States. The federal government and President George W. Bush were roundly criticized for what was perceived as their slow response to the disaster. The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Michael Brown, resigned amid the ensuing controversy.
Finally, on September 1, the tens of thousands of people staying in the damaged Superdome and Convention Center begin to be moved to the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, and another mandatory evacuation order was issued for the city. The next day, military convoys arrived with supplies and the National Guard was brought in to bring a halt to lawlessness. Efforts began to collect and identify corpses. On September 6, eight days after the hurricane, the Army Corps of Engineers finally completed temporary repairs to the three major holes in New Orleans’ levee system and were able to begin pumping water out of the city.
In all, it is believed that the hurricane caused more than 1,300 deaths and up to $150 billion in damages to both private property and public infrastructure. It is estimated that only about $40 billion of that number will be covered by insurance. One million people were displaced by the disaster, a phenomenon unseen in the United States since the Great Depression. Four hundred thousand people lost their jobs as a result of the disaster. Offers of international aid poured in from around the world, even from poor countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Private donations from U.S. citizens alone approached $600 million.
The storm also set off 36 tornadoes in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, resulting in one death.
President Bush declared September 16 a national day of remembrance for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
In a 2006 federal report, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers admitted that the flood-control complex surrounding New Orleans had been incomplete, insufficient and improperly maintained. "The hurricane protection system in New Orleans and southeast Louisiana was a system in name only," said the report.
injinji
Well-Known Member
I try not to spam up this thread with music. But it's the Bird's 100th birthday.
Charles "Charlie" Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" and "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist and composer.[1] Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop,[2] a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. Parker was a blazingly fast virtuoso and introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. Primarily a player of the alto saxophone, Bird's tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber.
Parker acquired the nickname "Yardbird" early in his career on the road with Jay McShann.[3] This, and the shortened form "Bird", continued to be used for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as "Yardbird Suite", "Ornithology", "Bird Gets the Worm", and "Bird of Paradise". Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer.[citation needed]
Charles "Charlie" Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" and "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist and composer.[1] Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop,[2] a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. Parker was a blazingly fast virtuoso and introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. Primarily a player of the alto saxophone, Bird's tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber.
Parker acquired the nickname "Yardbird" early in his career on the road with Jay McShann.[3] This, and the shortened form "Bird", continued to be used for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as "Yardbird Suite", "Ornithology", "Bird Gets the Worm", and "Bird of Paradise". Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer.[citation needed]
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
71 years ago the Soviet Union fired its first atom bomb.
injinji
Well-Known Member
There was an hour long program last night on NPR about CP. As most NPR stuff it was well done, playing interviews from the folks who played with him. The most interesting part was about taxation. It seems that during the war, there was city, state and federal tax on bands. The more players and singers, the more tax. Trios were the cheapest way to go because of the taxes. You had to be a really good technical player to find a spot in a trio. So this was the biggest driver to the bebop movement.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
Shortly after midnight on August 31, 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales—affectionately known as "the People’s Princess"—dies in a car crash in Paris. She was 36. Her boyfriend, the Egyptian-born socialite Dodi Fayed, and the driver of the car, Henri Paul, died as well.
Princess Diana was one of the most popular public figures in the world. Her death was met with a massive outpouring of grief. Mourners began visiting Kensington Palace immediately, leaving bouquets at the home where the princess, also known as Lady Di, would never return. Piles of flowers reached some 30 feet from the palace's gate.
Diana and Dodi—who had been vacationing in the French Riviera—arrived in Paris earlier the previous day. They left the Ritz Paris just after midnight, intending to go to Dodi’s apartment on the Rue Arsène Houssaye. As soon as they departed the hotel, a swarm of paparazzi on motorcycles began aggressively tailing their car. About three minutes later, the driver lost control and crashed into a pillar at the entrance of the Pont de l'Alma tunnel.
Dodi and the driver were pronounced dead at the scene. Diana was taken to the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital and declared dead at 6:00 am. (A fourth passenger, Diana’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, was seriously injured but survived.) Diana's former husband Prince Charles, as well as her sisters and other members of the Royal Family, arrived in Paris that morning. Diana’s body was then taken back to London.
Like much of her life, her death was a full-blown media sensation, and the subject of many conspiracy theories. At first, the paparazzi hounding the car were blamed for the crash, but later it was revealed that the driver was under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs. A formal investigation concluded the paparazzi did not cause the collision.
Diana’s funeral in London, on September 6, was watched by over 2 billion people. She was survived by her two sons, Prince William, who was 15 at the time, and Prince Harry, who was 12.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
On this day 161years ago, the Carrington Event peaked, a geomagnetic storm following a coronal mass ejection. Back then the only extended conductive bodies were telegraph lines and railroads. Today’s electrified economy would be crippled by a similar event.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Carrington Event - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
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BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
That morning, on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay, the Japanese envoys Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu signed their names on the Instrument of Surrender. The time was recorded as 4 minutes past 9 o'clock. Afterward, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Commander in the Southwest Pacific and Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, also signed. He accepted the Japanese surrender "for the United States, Republic of China, United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and in the interests of the other United Nations at war with Japan."
On September 6, Col. Bernard Thielen brought the surrender document and a second imperial rescript back to Washington, DC. The following day, Thielen presented the documents to President Truman in a formal White House ceremony. The documents were then exhibited at the National Archives after a dignified ceremony led by General Wainwright. Finally, on October 1, 1945, they were formally received (accessioned) into the holdings of the National Archives.
