Learn More! A History Round Up of the Best From the Web

This week, real life too over and killed any interest in writing. Real life and some dodgy medication. But I did do a lot of 'surfing the web' as all the cool kids in my geriatric ward call it. I did discover some amazing historical articles and info from the web, and here's some highlights!

Learn more about...war!

 

Inventories of War

Photographer Thom Atkinson complied a gallery of what a soldier's kit and equipment for war would look like across time. With help from historians, museums, re-enactment societies, and soldiers, Atkinson laid out and shot pictures of kits from 1066's Warrior outfit to a Sapper's gear in 2014. One of the main things to look for in these pictures is how little the basic need for food and entertainment items has changed.

Obscure Wars

I'm not usually a fan of lists for lists sake, but this Chicago Tribune list of Obscure Wars is a pretty good info dump that you can go bounce off of to google and find out more about these silly wars, including the Jaybird-Woodpecker War of the USA, or the 12-year War of the Oaken Bucket, when thousands of people died because a bucket was stolen. Seriously.

A bucket similar to this one caused a war. No I'm not drunk but those people must have been.

Learn more about...Computers!

The Computer History Museum

I found this gem while I was trying to figure out when ARPANET began (1962). While this site is a gateway to the museum in California, it has some great on-line exhibits on  the first 2000 years of computer history, their PDP-1 restoration project, and a This Day in History section. A very cool site to get your history bytes from. (ohhhh...me so funny.)

Like today - August 3, 1977 - Radio Shack released the TSR-180, their first computer release. I had a Tandy 1000 I still miss...

Learn more about....sports!

 

The Commonwealth Games

The last ten days I've been following the Glasgow 2014 games, mostly because it was my Great-Grandad's home town, and I like these much better than the overblown Olympics to watch. The first one was held in Hamilton, Ontario in 1930, with only 400 people competing. over 4500 athletes are participating in this year's games. This years were of course declared the best ever, and Canada did well, placing 3rd in the medal standing.

But I don't think dressing as a shinny donuts or dancing candies is a good way to end it.

And on that note, I'm off to actually write a very overdue article for Eden Keeper, which does not involve the dance of the gum drops.