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One Hundred Years Ago

Started by Rix Gins, January 01, 2016, 08:20:14 PM

GravitySucks

Quote from: albrecht on January 10, 2016, 01:18:59 PM
Thanks!

On today (though not 100 years ago:) "the greatest ever [victory] secured by the Cross against Islam" (well, one of, at least.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vaslui

Something I've often pondered. We have A/C now (looking at those posts above) but society gets more and more "casual" with dress. I can't imagine how people lived back before A/C was invented and then cheap enough wearing suits, long dresses, etc everywhere. I guess you "get used to it" which is somewhat true and it also could be that our over use of A/C screws up our natural ability to deal with it? I know some places (universities, libraries, doctor's offices) put it down so cold that when you go outside even when it is marginally hot it feels like the Congo and you start sweating.

The answer is obvious. Global warming didn't start until al Gore found a way to monetize it.

Rix Gins

Quote from: GravitySucks on January 10, 2016, 01:16:29 PM
England lost a battleship. No loss of life, but two were injured.

Wow GS your clipping made me do a double take.  A battleship with four submerged torpedo tubes?  I wonder how well that worked out for the ship, in the years before her unfortunate sinking.

Quote from: K_Dubb on January 10, 2016, 01:49:33 PM
Two items from the Tacoma Times a hundred years ago today.  It seems Prohibition is still a little damp.
Also, taking the streetcar to go ice-skating, then gathering around the fire for hot chocolate!

The way that's worded makes it sound like the clubhouse caught fire!

K_Dubb

Quote from: albrecht on January 10, 2016, 01:18:59 PM
Something I've often pondered. We have A/C now (looking at those posts above) but society gets more and more "casual" with dress. I can't imagine how people lived back before A/C was invented and then cheap enough wearing suits, long dresses, etc everywhere. I guess you "get used to it" which is somewhat true and it also could be that our over use of A/C screws up our natural ability to deal with it? I know some places (universities, libraries, doctor's offices) put it down so cold that when you go outside even when it is marginally hot it feels like the Congo and you start sweating.

I read a Norwegian novel written maybe around 1900 where the main character passes a farmer pulling a handcart down a road on a hot summer day and remarks that, though the farmer was sweating profusely, he hadn't the sense to remove his red woolen scarf.  This was served up as an illustration of peasant stupidity.

Rix Gins

Quote from: K_Dubb on January 10, 2016, 01:49:33 PM
Two items from the Tacoma Times a hundred years ago today.  It seems Prohibition is still a little damp.
Also, taking the streetcar to go ice-skating, then gathering around the fire for hot chocolate!

Dang.  The poor guy stocked up on his booze and got nailed.  I guess MDs could still get the stuff, to help treat those pesky rheumatism cases.  ;) 

GravitySucks

Quote from: Rix Gins on January 10, 2016, 01:52:40 PM
Wow GS your clipping made me do a double take.  A battleship with four submerged torpedo tubes?  I wonder how well that worked out for the ship, in the years before her unfortunate sinking.

I don't think that a ship was ever sunk by a torpedo fired from another ship. The designers felt that since ships of the day were heavily armored above the water line, a torpedo would be an effective weapon, because it would strike below the water line.

England, at the start of World War I was a great naval power, unlike the world had ever seen.  They felt protected by her fleet, so her army only had 100,000 men in uniform. When Germany attacked France by way of Belgium, they were bound by treaty to come to France's aid. They committed 90,000 men to the defense of France's left flank.

As the war continued, they had to rely on their colonies to continue to man the front. That is why so many Canadian, Indian, Nepal, etc. soldiers were called up immediately. The US provided material support, but did not send troops until 1917.

As wars go, this was an awful, awful war. You would think that the world's leaders would have learned about the futility of world war. What a senseless waste of life.

K_Dubb

Quote from: Rix Gins on January 10, 2016, 02:02:00 PM
Dang.  The poor guy stocked up on his booze and got nailed.  I guess MDs could still get the stuff, to help treat those pesky rheumatism cases.  ;)

Haha yeah thank God for patent medicine!  Most of the nasty, bitter, botanical-flavored spirits I favor started out that way anyway.

Quote from: K_Dubb on January 10, 2016, 02:09:47 PM
Haha yeah thank God for patent medicine!  Most of the nasty, bitter, botanical-flavored spirits I favor started out that way anyway.

I wish I could remember where I saw the article about the widespread abuse and addiction to patent medicines among women and children around the turn of the 20th Century. Most of them contained opium and/or high percentages of alcohol, and they offered the only respectable option for women who wanted to unwind and relax back in those days, since going to saloons and drinking alcohol in public was generally not acceptable. However, taking "medicine" was a different story altogether. Unfortunately, many women became addicted to opium that way, and often their children did as well from getting a daily dose as a preventative measure against all manner of ailments. What I remember most about the article are all the accompanying old family photos of women and children with haggard, sunken faces and dull, lifeless eyes who were patent medicine junkies. It was quite a revelation.

Yorkshire pud

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on January 10, 2016, 02:40:36 PM
I wish I could remember where I saw the article about the widespread abuse and addiction to patent medicines among women and children around the turn of the 20th Century. Most of them contained opium and/or high percentages of alcohol, and they offered the only respectable option for women who wanted to unwind and relax back in those days, since going to saloons and drinking alcohol in public was generally not acceptable. However, taking "medicine" was a different story altogether. Unfortunately, many women became addicted to opium that way, and often their children did as well from getting a daily dose as a preventative measure against all manner of ailments. What I remember most about the article are all the accompanying old family photos of women and children with haggard, sunken faces and dull, lifeless eyes who were patent medicine junkies. It was quite a revelation.


Hmmm, it does explain a lot though... You're rehabilitated now so it's going to be fine.

K_Dubb

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on January 10, 2016, 02:40:36 PM
I wish I could remember where I saw the article about the widespread abuse and addiction to patent medicines among women and children around the turn of the 20th Century. Most of them contained opium and/or high percentages of alcohol, and they offered the only respectable option for women who wanted to unwind and relax back in those days, since going to saloons and drinking alcohol in public was generally not acceptable. However, taking "medicine" was a different story altogether. Unfortunately, many women became addicted to opium that way, and often their children did as well from getting a daily dose as a preventative measure against all manner of ailments. What I remember most about the article are all the accompanying old family photos of women and children with haggard, sunken faces and dull, lifeless eyes who were patent medicine junkies. It was quite a revelation.

Would love to read that.  I've wondered how much of the era's near-obsession with purgatives was due to all those opiates.

Quote from: K_Dubb on January 10, 2016, 02:51:33 PM
Would love to read that.  I've wondered how much of the era's near-obsession with purgatives was due to all those opiates.

I've been trying unsuccessfully to find it, but I did run across this interesting bit of info about "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup For Children," which promised to "relieve griping in the bowels" and often did so by killing the afflicted with overdoses of the morphine that was not listed on the label. That'll teach those bowels not to gripe.

http://www.goodmedicinebadbehavior.org/explore/history_of_prescription_drugs.html

Quote from: Yorkshire pud on January 10, 2016, 02:51:16 PM

Hmmm, it does explain a lot though... You're rehabilitated now so it's going to be fine.

I see your bowels are still griping, though.

albrecht

Quote from: K_Dubb on January 10, 2016, 02:51:33 PM
Would love to read that.  I've wondered how much of the era's near-obsession with purgatives was due to all those opiates.
Maybe so! Now days we get our doctors to give them to us. I see now all these tv ads for some prescription medicine to help people deal with their constipation due to opioids. 

In another way we haven't changed...looking at stuff about WWI in the Mesopotamian theater and so many of the places of famous battles/sieges are the same friggin places that we are (or were) fighting in now.

Rix Gins

Quote from: GravitySucks on January 10, 2016, 02:09:46 PM
I don't think that a ship was ever sunk by a torpedo fired from another ship. The designers felt that since ships of the day were heavily armored above the water line, a torpedo would be an effective weapon, because it would strike below the water line.

England, at the start of World War I was a great naval power, unlike the world had ever seen.  They felt protected by her fleet, so her army only had 100,000 men in uniform. When Germany attacked France by way of Belgium, they were bound by treaty to come to France's aid. They committed 90,000 men to the defense of France's left flank.

As the war continued, they had to rely on their colonies to continue to man the front. That is why so many Canadian, Indian, Nepal, etc. soldiers were called up immediately. The US provided material support, but did not send troops until 1917.

As wars go, this was an awful, awful war. You would think that the world's leaders would have learned about the futility of world war. What a senseless waste of life.

A senseless waste of life...that's it in a nutshell.  Of course, great technical strides were made out of necessity.  One of my fave WWI books is "Yankee Ingenuity In The Great War" by Frank Parker Stockbridge.  I guess it could have been titled "Engineers At War."  Big gob of items covered like the Liberty Motor, linen used in aircraft coverings, automatic aerial cameras, depth bombs for getting at subs, and all sorts of things.  Poison gas, too, but that wasn't much of an aid to humanity.  The Yanks were developing a poison called Lewisite.  [An oily liquid of an amber color and with the odor of geranium blossoms.  It is highly explosive and on contact with water it bursts into flame.  Let loose in the open air, it diffuses into a gas which kills instantly on the inhalation of the smallest amount that can be measured by science.  A single drop on the hand is sufficient to cause death after a few hours; persons poisoned by Lewisite die in fearful agony.  The pain on contact is acute and almost unendurable.  It penetrates through the skin and poisons the blood.  It affects the kidneys first.  Then it hardens the cell-tissues of the lungs, causing strangulation and contraction of the heart.]  Chemical dept. had a 150 tons of the stuff but thankfully the war ended before it could be put to use.  You can look Lewisite up and find that, nasty as the stuff was, harsher chemical mixes have since been developed. 

Jackstar

I don't get how you people seem to routinely forget that there are people on this planet who engage in the practice of blood sacrifice, and from that perspective, World War I was a stunning success.

They even pulled a sequel.

Quote from: Jackstar on January 10, 2016, 04:07:27 PM
I don't get how you people seem to routinely forget that there are people on this planet who engage in the practice of blood sacrifice, and from that perspective, World War I was a stunning success.

They even pulled a sequel.

I can't believe people actually fell for all that "war to end all wars" jazz they were fed after the Armistice.

Jackstar

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on January 10, 2016, 04:10:50 PM
I can't believe people actually fell for all that "war to end all wars" jazz they were fed after the Armistice.

There was a lot of pre-Millennium propaganda being spewed by the Guns'N'Butter Gang. They owned all the communication platforms, so it was easy to promote the idea that it was gonna be the last war before Judgment Day, which of course is always right around the corner. There was some idea about the calendar being wrong, 1900 was really 2000, that kind of thing. We're all so much more... sophisticated now.

Quote from: GravitySucks on January 10, 2016, 02:09:46 PM
I don't think that a ship was ever sunk by a torpedo fired from another ship. The designers felt that since ships of the day were heavily armored above the water line, a torpedo would be an effective weapon, because it would strike below the water line.

England, at the start of World War I was a great naval power, unlike the world had ever seen.  They felt protected by her fleet, so her army only had 100,000 men in uniform. When Germany attacked France by way of Belgium, they were bound by treaty to come to France's aid. They committed 90,000 men to the defense of France's left flank.

As the war continued, they had to rely on their colonies to continue to man the front. That is why so many Canadian, Indian, Nepal, etc. soldiers were called up immediately. The US provided material support, but did not send troops until 1917.

As wars go, this was an awful, awful war. You would think that the world's leaders would have learned about the futility of world war. What a senseless waste of life.

From that particular ship almost certainly no ship was ever sunk by those tubes.  What a clunky arrangement.  In a general, of course lots of ships have been sunk by torpedo's fired from trainable tubes fired another ship.   A destroyer with trainable torpedo tubes was a formidable weapon - especially at night.   

It is an interesting question regarding static, submerged tubes.  If they were fitted on a Q Ship that would work well but in a normal surface engagement it would be
a real fluke to score a hit.    Well worth further study.

As far as the Great War goes, well it was horrific beyond comprehension. 

Quote from: Jackstar on January 10, 2016, 04:17:57 PM
There was a lot of pre-Millennium propaganda being spewed by the Guns'N'Butter Gang. They owned all the communication platforms, so it was easy to promote the idea that it was gonna be the last war before Judgment Day, which of course is always right around the corner. There was some idea about the calendar being wrong, 1900 was really 2000, that kind of thing. We're all so much more... sophisticated now.

Most self-proclaimed reputable scholars place the the blame for that calendar mix-up squarely on the makers of Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup For Children.


albrecht

Re: WWI. I was perusing my copy of "Germany and the Next War" earlier and it is frankly amazing. Friedrich Adolf Julius von Bernhardi spells it out and is very derisive of diplomacy (that Germany settled the Moroccan situation without a fight, etc.) Basically, to him and some of the others of that type: war is necessary, war is good, war bring progress/worth to society/humanity/personality, treaties are just a means to stall between war, war is natural, etc. He, basically, said "we are going to another war and we need it" at the time in which much of the mainstream opinion was talking about "war is dead" what with all the trade, finance, modern weaponry, etc.

albrecht

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on January 10, 2016, 04:44:36 PM
Now this is how people should wage war!

http://www.businessinsider.com/canada-and-denmark-whiskey-war-over-hans-island-2016-1
Ha! That is awesome. Though with the "warming" I'm guessing those types of claims will be handled more seriously. Russia is really ramping up stuff and claims. And, btw, I thought Denmark was 'giving' Greenland away back to the natives? Home rule and then independence? Or was that stopped or I'm just misremembering/misinformed?

GravitySucks

Quote from: Walks_At_Night on January 10, 2016, 04:20:11 PM
From that particular ship almost certainly no ship was ever sunk by those tubes.  What a clunky arrangement.  In a general, of course lots of ships have been sunk by torpedo's fired from trainable tubes fired another ship.   A destroyer with trainable torpedo tubes was a formidable weapon - especially at night.   

It is an interesting question regarding static, submerged tubes.  If they were fitted on a Q Ship that would work well but in a normal surface engagement it would be
a real fluke to score a hit.    Well worth further study.

As far as the Great War goes, well it was horrific beyond comprehension.

I guess I should have been more clear. i meant in WWI as far as ships being sunk.

Rix Gins

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on January 10, 2016, 04:35:37 PM
Most For Children. self-proclaimed reputable scholars place the the blame for that calendar mix-up squarely on the makers of Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup

I see Bud Lite has adopted the Mrs. Winslow bottle design.


trostol

January 10 â€" Sune Bergström, Swedish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)

Quote from: GravitySucks on January 10, 2016, 05:30:44 PM
I guess I should have been more clear. i meant in WWI as far as ships being sunk.

This doesn't answer that specific question but it's a fascinating web site regarding
torpedo fire control:

http://www.tvre.org/en/home-page

In full disclosure my Dad was a torpedoman on a destroyer in WWII so I guess I have
more than a casual interest.

Rix Gins



Here is a picture of Pancho Villa in 1916.  I had written up a post stating that he and some members of his revolutionary army had stopped a train on this day back in 1916.  I wrote that they pulled 17 U.S. mining engineers off the train, robbed them and then shot 16 of them dead.  Supposedly he was pissed off that President Wilson had formally recognized the Carranza government. But then I found out that facts regarding this event are rather sketchy so I pulled the post.  There are some who think that Villa was responsible, and others who think not.  One thing is for sure, the terrible massacre did occur on this day, a hundred years ago.  It's called The Massacre at Santa Isabel, Chihuahua.


GravitySucks

Quote from: Walks_At_Night on January 10, 2016, 06:12:28 PM
This doesn't answer that specific question but it's a fascinating web site regarding
torpedo fire control:

http://www.tvre.org/en/home-page

In full disclosure my Dad was a torpedoman on a destroyer in WWII so I guess I have
more than a casual interest.

Evidently bothe sides started building and deploying smaller "torpedo boats" during the war. This link talks about all of the technology that was used for the first time in WWI(planes, poison gas, tanks, flamethrowers, etc. There are some references to the Torpedo Boats towards the end.

http://www.history-of-american-wars.com/world-war-1-weapons.html

Uncle Duke

Quote from: GravitySucks on January 10, 2016, 01:16:29 PM
England lost a battleship. No loss of life, but two were injured.

The pre-dreadnoughts were deathtraps, amazing no one died.  Both the Brits and French lost pre-dreadnoughts at Gallipoli, to mines and subs, with significant loss of life.  I specifically remember the French "Bouvet" lost almost the entire crew after hitting a Turkish mine.  The science, if not the application, of "damage control" technology advanced significantly between the world wars.

Quote from: albrecht on January 10, 2016, 01:18:59 PM
Thanks!

Any time!

QuoteSomething I've often pondered. We have A/C now... I guess you "get used to it" which is somewhat true and it also could be that our over use of A/C screws up our natural ability to deal with it? I know some places (universities, libraries, doctor's offices) put it down so cold that when you go outside even when it is marginally hot it feels like the Congo and you start sweating.

Just about every business where I live runs its A/C at about 68F during the summer, which is ridiculous when it's in the nineties and humid. It really is a shock on the system to go from one extreme to the other like that.  That could be bumped up to 74, which would be very comfortable and would save a lot of money as well.

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