historyandmemes:

Abigail Adams: Remember the ladies!

John Adams:

khmacleod:

Ancient moon priestesses were called virgins. ‘Virgin’ meant not married, not belonging to a man - a woman who was ‘one-in-herself’. The very word derives from a Latin root meaning strength, force, skill; and was later applied to men: virle. Ishtar, Diana, Astarte, Isis were all all called virgin, which did not refer to sexual chastity, but sexual independence. And all great culture heroes of the past, mythic or historic, were said to be born of virgin mothers: Marduk, Gilgamesh, Buddha, Osiris, Dionysus, Genghis Khan, Jesus - they were all affirmed as sons of the Great Mother, of the Original One, their worldly power deriving from her. When the Hebrews used the word, and in the original Aramaic, it meant ‘maiden’ or ‘young woman’, with no connotations to sexual chastity. But later Christian translators could not conceive of the ‘Virgin Mary’ as a woman of independent sexuality, needless to say; they distorted the meaning into sexually pure, chaste, never touched. —Monica Sjoo

61below:

stevenfresco:

sorry i have bubonic plague i can’t hang out tonight

aw rats

egowave:

(king louis xvi crytyping before getting executed) i,,,, didjngt meanb to fuck up] france and let tthe etntire 3rd esate starve ghg,,, andn nwo every.,ones mad at mw andb thehre going tto g,uillotine mee adn,, i cnat stop cryign

misteradequate:

ancient guy: i want all the dicks of persia in my ass, i love dicks, give me dicks until i drown
modern historian: well what you have to keep in mind is that ancient cultures had different ideas of how to show affection and express themselves, so it’s actually probable he was talking about his brotherly affection for his people

me, passionate about ancient rome, hand motioning exuberantly, smacking my history teacher in the face,

heroes-get-made:

Some interesting reading for a rainy day.

• Ambrose Bierce - A famous Civil War-era writer decides to leave his cushy life to go to Mexico, only to disappear forever.
• Agent 335 - One of the first U.S. spies was a woman, but who?
• The Axeman of New Orleans - This guy won’t stop coming after people with an axe until everybody plays jazz music.
• The Baychimo - When winter strikes, a ship sheds its crew–and then decides to take off without them.
• The Black Dahlia Murder (NEW!) - Who murdered and maimed this woman, and is she the only victim? [suggested by several people]
• Blair Adams (NEW!) - What is this Canadian man running from and did it find him?
  
• Cahokia  - A gigantic ancient civilization along the Mississippi is abandoned, but why? [suggested by luminescent-wanderings]
  
• The Canneto di Caronia Fires - Mysterious fires keep popping up in this small Sicilian town.
• Çatalhöyük - A 9,500-year-old city in Turkey had everything going for it, and yet it was abandoned.
  
• The Chicago Tylenol Murders - Someone laces Tylenol with poison and descends an entire city into chaos.
• The Dancing Plague - People are stricken with the need to dance, some to their deaths.
  
• D. B. Cooper - An unknown man hijacked a plane, extorted hundreds of thousands, and then parachuted to freedom.
  
• The Dyatlov Pass Incident (tw: photo of a dead body) - Several experienced mountain hikers go into a mountain range in Russia and die of unknown causes. [see also]
• Ebola in Rome  - Did an outbreak of ebola strike ancient Athens long before it ever tormented Africa?
  
• Elisa Lam - A woman, seemingly pursued by an unseen foe, disappears, only to be found inside her hotel’s water tower two weeks later.
  
• Erdstall - There are thousands of still-standing, ancient tunnels beneath central Europe, but no one knows what they’re for. [see also]
  
• Genghis Khan’s Tomb - One of the greatest and most successful rulers of all time, but no one can find his final resting place.
  
• The Hinterkaifeck Murders - Unexplained noises, missing house keys, and an entire family found dead in rural Germany.
• The Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum Theft - Some hacks in police uniforms steal a bunch of priceless art, including a Rembrandt.
• The Isdal Woman - What happened to this woman in Norway, who was she, and why were so many steps taken to conceal her identity? [suggested by whalesguts]
  
• Japan’s Ghost Ship Problem - Ships from North Korea keep showing up on Japan’s shores… filled with mutilated corpses.
  
• The Jian Seng - A giant ship is found floating with no crew and no one knows where it came from.
  
• Jimmy Hoffa - A teamster with mob ties disappears, theories abound.
• Joseph Newton Chandler III  - Is this dead identity thief the Zodiac Killer? And if so, what is his real name?
  
• The Joyita - Crew members abandon a real unsinkable ship, but why?
  
• The Lighthouse Mystery - Several Scottish lighthouse keepers disappear abruptly.
• The Lost Colony (on Roanoke Island) - A bunch of white people decide to try and colonize an island and it doesn’t go well.
• The Lost Dutchman Mine - In unforgiving territory lies a lost treasure just waiting to be found–if you don’t die first.
• The Lost Nazi Plunder - The nazis stole hoards of important items, including art and cultural artifacts. Where are they now? [see also]
  
• The Mary Celeste - A sailing ship in working order is found, still at sea, without a crew.
  
• Monsieur Chouchani - Who was this mysterious Jewish teacher and mentor of Elie Weisel who dressed like a vagabond?
  
• The Oakville Blobs - Gelatinous blobs of an unknown substance rain from the sky.
  
• The Paris Catacombs - A seemingly infinite series of tunnels filled with bones, artwork, and missing explorers. [see also]
• The Phaistos Disc - A mysterious disc, thousands of years old and covered in strange symbols, is found in Crete.
  
• Rongorongo - An undecifered set of glyphs from Easter Island, possibly a completely independent language.
  
• The Tamam Shud Case (tw: photo of a dead body) - A body shows up on a beach in Australia, and how it got there is wrapped in mystery and lies.
• Tarrare - A man who couldn’t stop eating, anything and everything.
• UVB-76 - A strange radio station in Russia broadcasts a constant buzz, broken only by strange readings of names and numbers.
  
• The Voynich Manuscript - An unbreakable code in an ancient manuscript full of strange drawings–what’s not to like?
• The Woman in the Tree (aka Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm?) - A body turns up stuffed into a tree trunk, becomes a local rallying cry.
  
• The Wow! Signal - A strong radio signal from space still has researchers stunned and baffled.
• The Zodiac Killer (NEW!) - Who is the cryptic killer behind a rash of murders? (Other than Ted Cruz.) [suggested by several people]
  

(These are the most reliable unsolved stories I could find. There are many others that require more sources to be believed or already have very plausible answers.)

Know a good one that isn’t listed? Let me know!

jonpertwee:

firmine:

infelixdidos:

voynichs:

british romanticism: i went into the woods and i found a beautiful woman, but she wasn’t really a woman, she was my Muse and the woods is my mind

american romanticism: i went into the woods and found the devil and he gave me a clock, but the clock was actually the industrial revolution and it fucking killed me

italian romanticism: i went into the woods and toppled face down over a root which proves nature is but a cruel stepmother, also this must somehow be a sign that God wants us to get rid of those fucking austrians

french romanticism: i went into the woods and found a peasant woman, but she wasn’t really a woman, she was the Republic and the woods is the people of France, wild, free and unconquered

Russian romanticism: I went into the woods, got shot, and died quietly like a decent person.

mercutihoe:

Talking about history is weird because it’s like you’re telling people stories about what happened to you and your friends once but you were not there, Alexander the Great is not your friend, and it happened over 2,000 years ago