htmlwings:

ikenbot:

This Day in Astronomy History: Feb. 13, 1633: Church vs. Galileo

Galileo Galilei, who has run afoul of the church for his theories concerning heliocentrism and for insulting his old friend Pope Urban VIII, arrives in Rome to face an ecclesiastical court on charges of committing heresy.

Galileo’s long-running feud with the Roman Catholic Church over whether the Earth revolved around the sun (the Copernican view advocated by Galileo) or the sun around the Earth (the Aristotelian view echoed in the scriptures) seemed amicably resolved by 1632. But that was before the publication of Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, a book that the pope had allowed to be published as long as his own views on the subject were included.

Galileo included them, but inexplicably (for no malicious intent on the part of Galileo has ever been proven) put Urban’s words into the mouth of his character Simplicius, a defender of Aristotelian geocentrism who was often proved wrong and considered something of a fool. This didn’t go down too well in Rome and Galileo was summoned to face the Inquisition.

He was found guilty and the sentence was severe: He was forced to renounce heliocentrism, Dialogue was banned and Galileo spent the remainder of his life under house arrest. In this last he was lucky: The original sentence called for imprisonment.

Interesting fact about Galileo and heliocentricism: there’s an ongoing historiographical debate regarding whether the Inquisition’s arguably strong reaction to his work was caused primarily by post-Reformation tension within the Church, or by Galileo’s abrasive (to say the LEAST) personality. Most of us, I think, are taught the former in school, but even cursory research will show you that Galileo’s ongoing impudence probably had more to do with it than we might like to think.

Yeah, I’ve been learning this, too.  From what I’ve read, the church was willing to change their minds about heliocentrism if Galileo had mathematical proof, which he did not (yet).  But Galileo was apparently quite an ass to the pope. 

lastreetsblog:

Via Copenhagenize

very true

cognitivedissonance:

ncpolitics:

Feminist snark, 1915 style

I support snarkiness from all periods of time

I second that.

(Source: anarchistsoup)

picturesofwar:

This day in history:

Minutes before giving a speech on a campaign stop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Theodore Roosevelt is shot in an assassination attempt.  

The would-be assassin’s bullet is slowed down after travelling through a steel eyeglass case and the folded, fifty page speech he intended to give, stopping in his chest.  Realizing that he wasn’t coughing up blood, Roosevelt figured he was well enough to go ahead and deliver his speech rather than rush to the hospital.

He spoke for the next 90 minutes, opening with the words:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”

Doctors deemed it too risky to remove the bullet, and Roosevelt carried it with him inside his body for the rest of his life.

October 14, 1912 - 100 years ago today

ancientpeoples:

7 Wonders of the Ancient World: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. They were purportedly built in the ancient city-state of Babylon, near present-day Al Hillah, Babil province, in Iraq. The Hanging Gardens were not the only World Wonder in Babylon; the city walls and obelisk attributed to Queen Semiramis were also featured in ancient lists of Wonders (though not the list of 7 Ancient ones).

The gardens were attributed to the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled between 605 and 562 BC. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his homesick wife, Amytis of Media, who longed for the plants of her homeland. The gardens were said to have been destroyed by several earthquakes after the 2nd century BC.

Ancient Greek historians, Strabo and Philo, gave us these descriptions of the hanging gardens of Babylon:

Strabo:

“The Garden is quadrangular, and each side is four plethra long. It consists of arched vaults which are located on chequered cube-like foundations.. The ascent of the uppermost terrace-roofs is made by a stairway…”

Philo:

“The Hanging Garden has plants cultivated above ground level, and the roots of the trees are embedded in an upper terrace rather than in the earth. The whole mass is supported on stone columns… Streams of water emerging from elevated sources flow down sloping channels… These waters irrigate the whole garden saturating the roots of plants and keeping the whole area moist. Hence the grass is permanently green and the leaves of trees grow firmly attached to supple branches… This is a work of art of royal luxury and its most striking feature is that the labor of cultivation is suspended above the heads of the spectators.”

However, no cuneiform texts describing the Hanging Gardens have ever been found. 

Ancient writers describe the possible use of something similar to an Archimedes screw as a process of irrigating the terraced gardens. Estimates based on descriptions of the gardens in ancient sources say the Hanging Gardens would have required a minimum amount of 8,200 gallons (37,000 liters) of water per day. Nebuchadnezzar II is also reported to have used massive slabs of stone, a technique not otherwise attested in Babylon, to prevent the water from eroding the ground.

There is some controversy as to whether the Hanging Gardens were an actual construction or a poetic creation, owing to the lack of documentation in contemporaneous Babylonian sources. There is also no mention of Nebuchadnezzar’s wife Amyitis (or any other wives), although a political marriage to a Median or Persian would not have been unusual. Herodotus, writing about Babylon closest in time to Nebuchadnezzar II, does not mention the Hanging Gardens in his Histories. However, it is possible that cuneiform texts on the Hanging Gardens may yet be found.

This is relevant to my interests

ticklethebears:

Portland Oregon, Then and now by Tinflower on Flickr.

via turnitalltoashes: archdaily.com

crookedindifference:

RMS Lusitania (1910)

bigmapblog:

Map of Oregon showing trading depots (1838)

Wow… it says the “Walla Matte” river instead of “Willamette”…

kv96ic28:

Passengers boarding a zeppelin.

Hark! A Vagrant

INSTA-REBLOG!

Shibam Hadhramaut (sometimes called the Manhattan or Chicago of the desert) is a floodplain city in Yemen dating back to the 3rd century AD. It was an important stop on the spice and incense route. Due to Bedouin attacks and powerful family rivalries, the city was carefully planned with streets and squares in a grid pattern, behind a fortified wall. The mud-brick buildings themselves are the most notable, rising from 5-8 (up to 11 in some sources) stories, making them one of the oldest examples of “urban planning based on multi-storeyed construction.” (UNESCO) 

via captainplanit

And later the actor’s brother went and killed the boy’s father?

The boy’s father was…

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