Often decanted in barber shops is the old joke:
There is only one thing that stops hair from falling——the floor.
Our hats are off to the scientific-community of 1914 that tried to make the above gag even more forgettable than it already was, however, the search for the cure for baldness continues into the Twenty-First Century.
Miracle Hats (Popular Mechanics, July & November, 1914) Read More »
The attached article tells the story of American Legion Post 43, which is housed at 2035 North Highland Avenue in Hollywood, California. Designed by the Weston brothers in 1930 (both men were members) the building represents not only the home of the a Legion post but also [serves as] a memorial to the fighting divisions of the American Army and every American who took part in the World War.
Hollywood, California: American Legion Post 43 (American Legion Monthly, 1930) Read More »
Matthew Weiss is a German-English translator specializing in historical texts, bringing old language into the present without sacrificing its sense of heritage and with an emphasis on idiom, colloquialism and immediacy. Areas of translating expertise also include poetry, fiction, Holocaust and war documentation, diaries, theatrical and motion picture scripts, film subtitles, librettos, but also journalism, technical writing and all manner of online content.
Click here to read his translation of a 1914 short story.
Our German-English Translator Read More »
The attached paragraph first appeared in an 1893 book pertaining to home economics -and in the chapter concerning the benefits of wedlock, the cynical, old Victorian opines:
…there are more good wives in the world than there are good husbands, which I verily believe.
Men Are Cads (Manners, Culture and Dress, 1893) Read More »
Even as early as 1921 the world was noticing that in the U.S., that old Yankee mantra about avoiding foreign entanglements (a distortion of Washington’s Farewell Address) was being updated with a disclaimer: avoid foreign entanglements except when oil is involved.
Having put the Prussians in their place three years earlier, oil had become the new peace-time obsession for the Americans and their British ally – but it was to be the bane in their relationship: the Anglo-American irritant as Sydney Brooks remarked in FORTNIGHT REVIEW. With car manufacturers filling orders to placate a booming consumer market, the Brits pumped oil in Mesopotamia, the Americans in Texas while the oil companies from both locals vied for the rights to explore Latin America and the Caribbean.
Scrambling for Oil (Literary Digest, 1921) Read More »
There just aren’t that many funny wills around that are devised with the intention of rendering the last word in a bad marriage or to dispense petty revenge on those who remained above-ground – that is why we found these two columns so amusing.
Funny Wills… (Coronet Magazine, 1952) Read More »
Up all hours and badly in need of sleep, the pointy headed historians at this website have examined all other possibilities and – leaving no stone un-turned, mind you – have unanimously voted in favor of dubbing this the weirdest invention of 1912…
The Weirdest Invention of 1912 (Popular Mechanics, 1912) Read More »
This is a very interesting magazine article concerning the 1920s British experience in Iraq (Mesopotamia); regardless as to where the reader stands concerning the 2003 Iraq War, you will find a striking similarity in the language used in this piece and the articles printed prior to the U.S. infantry surge of 2008:
Unless there is a complete change of policy, Mesopotamia, which has been the grave of empires, is now likely to be the grave of the Coalition.
Click here to read more articles about the British struggle for 1920s Mesopotamia.
‘Troublesome Mesopotamia” (Literary Digest, 1920) Read More »
The attached article briefly recalls the general discomfort that the German government experienced when confronted with a unique social sect called German-Americans. As handsome and affable as they might have been, these volk still irked the Kaiser and his administrators to a high degree, although this article points out that the Fatherland was warming to them slowly.
This article makes a number of references to the Bancroft Treaty and how the agreement pertained to a particular German-American family named Meyer. After years spent in the U.S., Meyer the elder returned to Germany along with his wife and children – the story became a news-worthy when it was revealed that his draft-age son, a naturalized Yank, resisted military conscription and was thrown in the hoosegow. It was at that moment when the American embassy stepped forward.
Not surprisngly, Hitler didn’t like German-Americans any better than the Kaiser…
Germany and the German-Americans (Literary Digest, 1897) Read More »
One of the weirdest inventions found in the annals of Italian military history was reserved for sheep. The funny pictures attached herein were snapped during the Italian adventures in Ethiopia, when sheep parachuting from the sky was not thought of as anything unusual and the story goes that the far-flung Italian infantry simply could not bare to have the standard pre-packaged processed food that most armies have to suffer and so an accommodating military air-dropped do-it-tour-self Ossobuco kits.
Sheep from the Sky (Click Magazine, 1938) Read More »
