Historical Highlights #036

Posted on by M.E. Bond Posted in Historical HighlightsTagged , , ,

Short but sweet, this week’s list of historical highlights covers buried treasure and Star Wars, plus images of the Japanese American evacuation during World War II and a few other interesting links. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

If you were as dismayed as I was to learn that treasure maps drawn by pirates are completely fictional, you’ll probably be interested in this 18th century letter describing the location of a treasure buried in Philadelphia.

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A mysterious letter, penned May 14, 1716, by an unknown man in Jamaica, provides detailed directions to treasure buried in Philadelphia’s Society Hill neighborhood.

101 years after the sinking of the Lusitania, the grave-marker of “an unknown victim” was finally replaced by a gravestone with her real name. Read about it here.

This article highlights images of Japanese American incarceration that were embargoed for almost 30 years. “The images [by Dorothea Lange] transport viewers to the agonizing space between familiar homes and foreign prisons. They capture fear and defeat, but they also powerfully contest the government propaganda and hateful rhetoric aimed at vilifying Japanese Americans. Often shot from a low angle, Lange places her subjects on a visual pedestal. She restores some dignity in a moment when, many admit, they felt they had none.”

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This evacuee stands by her baggage as she waits for evacuation bus on May 9, 1942 in Centerville, California. Credit: Dorothea Lange/War Relocation Authority

Did you know that the word “trilby” (as in hat) comes from the title of Victorian novel? Now you do.

Finally, proof that Yoda really existed?

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Detail of Yoda (or a look-alike), from the Smithfield Decretals, southern France (with marginal scenes added in London), c. 1300 – c. 1340, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 30v 

Any links you’d like to add?

P.S. Are you this excited about the 2016 Canadian census?

3 thoughts on “Historical Highlights #036”

  1. Reply
    Lori Ferguson says:

    I was very nerdfully excited about the census! Having it online is a brilliant move. I was only disappointed not to have received the “long form”. I remember I must have been almost 10 years old in 1971 when my grandmother in Jacquet River received the long form. I thought it was fascinating. What stuck in my mind was that it inquired how many bathrooms were in the house. This perplexed me because Grammie had a toilet hidden behind a curtain in a little nook at the bottom of the stairs, and I wondered if she would count that as a bathroom.
    Grammie also had a wood cookstove and crabapple preserves, but those, albeit very pleasant to me, were not topics on the census.

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