the adventures of theamazingxxxty

I'm the worst tumblrer ever

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 12:07:55 -0400

So sorry for the incredibly long absence. Over the last few months I finished graduate school, started my own business, moved to Memphis, TN, and am now preparing to move again to New Orleans, LA. But I make this solemn oath to start up again, delivering daily historical tibits.

xo
-theamazingxxxty

today is a special day

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 11:13:22 -0400

Seen as a symbolic victory over Nazi Germany, Joe Louis defends his heavy weight championship by knocking out Max Schmeling in the first round at Yankee Stadium on June 22, 1938.

(The knockout)

Interesting facts:
-Nicknamed The Brown Bomber, Joe Lewis is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time
-During WWII Schmeling was a paratrooper with the German Air Force and participated in the Battle of Crete.
-Lewis weighed 11 pounds at birth. 11 POUNDS!!

Also special days:
On June 22, 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt asked his supporters to leave the floor of the Republican National Convention in Chicago, leaving to endorse the formation of a new progressive party. Though officially titled the Progressive Party, after Roosevelt stated that he felt as strong as a “bull moose” to reporters, it was then known as the Bull Moose Party.

On June 22, 1611, Henry Hudson, his teenage son, and seven supporters were set adrift in a small, open boat in present-day Hudson Bay, after a mutny on his ship the Discovery.

today is a special day

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 08:31:06 -0400

On June 21, 1964, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney were killed by a Ku Klux Klan lynch mob near Meridian, Mississippi. The three young civil rights workers were working to register black voters in Mississippi, as part of the “Freedom Summer” project of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE.) Schwerner and Goodman were college students from New York, and Chaney was a native of Meridian. On the night of June 21st, the three were arrested for an alleged traffic violation and taken to the jail in Neshoba County, but released later that night. On the way back to Meridian, they were stopped by two carloads of KKK members on a remote rural road. They shot and killed the men but not before chain-whipping and mutilating Chaney. Their bodies remained undiscovered for nearly two months. In 1966 trial a Federal trial of Edgar Ray Killen and 18 other men ended in a hung jury. Almost forty years later, Killen was found guilty of recruiting the mob that carried out the killings.

"Summer is kind of like the ultimate one-night stand: hot as hell, totally thrilling, and gone before..."

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 07:48:16 -0400

“Summer is kind of like the ultimate one-night stand: hot as hell, totally thrilling, and gone before you know it.”

- -Cosmopolitan Magazine

June 21st marks the beginning of summer in the Norther Hemisphere.

On June 20, 1893, Lizzie Borden was found innocent of the ax...

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 09:40:00 -0400

On June 20, 1893, Lizzie Borden was found innocent of the ax murders of her father and stepmother.

Almost a year earlier, on August 4, 1892, Lizzie’s father Andrew had gone into town (Fall River, Mass.) to do errands, returning home around 10:45am. About 30mins later Lizzie found his body and yelled to their maid (who was on the 3rd floor of the house) for help. Soon after the maid, Bridget Sullivan, found Lizzie’s stepmother Abby dead in a guest bedroom. Both Andrew and Abby Borden had been killed by crushing blows to their skulls from a hatchet.

Lizzie’s father dead on the couch. Apparently one of his eye balls was cut in half.

Photo credits:
Lizzie (wikipedia)
Dead dad (antique photo album blog)

the magical Ella Fitzgerald was born on April 25, 1917 in...

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:20:27 -0400

the magical Ella Fitzgerald was born on April 25, 1917 in Newport News, Virginia. Her career began at Amateur Night at Harlem’s Apollo Theater. She soon went on to sing with the Chick Webb orchestra and made her first recordings in 1935.

teacupsatdawn: The Church of the Transfiguration on Kizhi...

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 23:04:51 -0400

teacupsatdawn:

The Church of the Transfiguration on Kizhi Island in Karelia, near Finland.

oh my awesome.

Drayton Hall, Charleston, SCMarch, 2011

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 15:19:37 -0400

Drayton Hall, Charleston, SC
March, 2011

Off on a magical road trip exploring the land and sites between New...

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 08:31:07 -0400

Off on a magical road trip exploring the land and sites between New York and Georgia. So very excited! Be back sometime next week :)

today is a special day

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 08:31:07 -0400

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREW JACKSON

On March 15, 1767, future president Andrew Jackson was born the son of Irish immigrants in the Waxhaws region, which is on the border of North and South Carolina.

(image: Andrew Jackson portrait, attributed to Thomas Sully (1783-1872))

today is a special day

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 09:43:03 -0400

On March 14, 1794, Eli Whitney received a patent for his cotton gin, an machine that separated cotton fiber from seeds. There had been machines like that for centuries, but Whitney’s was the first to clean short-staple cotton and also produce up to fifty pounds of cleaned cotton in a day. This jump in production made cotton a profitable crop for the first time, and with each decade after 1800, the yield of raw cotton doubled.

(image: Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin Patent Drawing, National Archives and Records Administration)

On March 12, 2008, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned two days...

Sat, 12 Mar 2011 10:01:55 -0500

On March 12, 2008, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned two days after reports had surfaced that he was a client of a prostitution ring.

"I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would..."

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:05:10 -0500

“I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

- -Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Published on March 11, 1818, Shelly wrote the gothic ghost story in 1816 while in Geneva with husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their friend Lord Byron. Byron proposed they each write a gothic ghost story, but only Mary Shelley completed hers.

today is a special day

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:16:53 -0500

On March 10, 1876 Alexander Graham Bell summoned his assistant in another room with the first discernible speech transmitted over a telephone system, by saying “Mr. Watson, come here; I want you.” In 1877, he formed the Bell Telephone Company (with two investors) and the first commercial applications of the telephone took place.

(image: Alexander Graham Bell’s notebook entry of 10 March 1876, The Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, Library of Congress)

today is a sad day

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 08:10:52 -0500

Christopher Wallace, a.k.a Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. the Notorious B.I.G., was shot to death at a stoplight in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997. Pour some out for one of the greatest rappers ever.

…and if you don’t know, now you know, nigga

today is a special day

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:10:15 -0500

Happy International Women’s Day.

On March 8, 1884 Susan B. Anthony appeared before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives advocating for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote.

“We appear before you this morning…in favor of the submission of a Sixteenth Amendment… that shall prohibit the disfranchisement of citizens of the United States on account of Sex.”

(image: Yellow Ribbon from 1911 Suffrage Parade. Votes for Women, 1848-1921, Library of Congress)

Old Pine Street Church Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA. July,...

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 07:58:00 -0500

Old Pine Street Church Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA. July, 2011.

The Old Pine Street Church is the only pre-Revolutionary Presbyterian structure still Standing in Philadelphia. Burials on the church grounds began in1764, when the Penn brothers deeded the property to the congregation. There are around 3,000 late 18th and very early 19th century Philadelphians laid to rest, with many graves having four interments.

today is a special day

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 10:35:47 -0500

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

On March 7, 1923, The New Republic publishes Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

today is a special day

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 13:32:00 -0500

The greatest of the Italian Renaissance artists, Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on March 6, 1475. The son of a government administrator, he was born in the village of Caprese but grew up in Florence and became an artist’s apprentice at age 13.

Recognizing his obvious talent, Lorenzo de’ Medici, ruler of the Florentine republic and great patron of the arts, took him under his wing. Living in the Medici palace from 1490-1492, Michelangelo was a student of sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni and studied the Medici art collection.

In 1498 Michelangelo was commission by the French cardinal Jean de Billheres to create a sculpture for the cardinal’s funeral monument. The Pietà depicts the Virgin Mary holding the body of Jesus on her lap after the Crucifixion. Combining the Renaissance ideals of classical beauty with naturalism, the perfectly balanced figures are carved from a single block of marble.

In December 2010, a small (30cm tall) terracotta statue of the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus with a tiny winged Cupid was found in the Vatican and experts believe that it is the model Michaelangelo created to convince the cardinal to give him the commission.

Also the Pietà is theamazingxxxty’s most favorite sculpture, something so insanely beautiful and moving that she was brought to tears when she saw it during a tour of the Vatican in 1999.

(image: European Art in the Late Middle Ages, Boise State University.)

West Virginia, April 2010.

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 16:18:00 -0500

West Virginia, April 2010.