Histeria's Boston Tea Party

An interesting children's cartoon explaining the Boston Tea Party, including a send-up of the Monty Python cheese shop sketch.

Horrible Histories HHTV News Storming The Bastile

Happy Bastille Day! It's easy to forget that the French Revolution took place during a country-wide famine, but the French peasants surely didn't.

Robot Chicken: 1776

Happy Screw-Paying-Taxes day! Granted, paying taxes to a foreign power that doesn't represent you or your interests in government really sucks. C'mon King George, you could've let there be American rotten boroughs too. It wouldn't've changed the House of Commons all that much....

Horrible Histories George The IV Who Are You ?

George IV actually did open all the caskets in Westminster Abbey to see who was there, though I imagine it wasn't as entertaining as this.

Emoticons 4eva, my good sir

Here are the earliest known emoticons, from the 1890s. I am all astonishment. Or would be, if I would figure out how to replicate it on a laptop keyboard.

Garmin Napoleon Ad from Super Bowl XLII

This one is an oldie, but a goodie, though the Amateur Historian wishes to point out that Napoleon was actually of average height, the British just didn't understand the metric system.

Drunk Author Texts

Quite an accurate representation of a drunk text from Wordsworth to his sister. Visit the Paris Review website here for more.

If you want the basket, put the kittens in the brass thing.

Robbing famously witty authors is always a bad idea, though it does give the authors a chance to display their satirical talents. The notice here is from Mark Twain, who was robbed of his silverware on September 8th, 1908. After the burglars were caught, Twain commissioned this notice to hang on his door.

Meet the Seventh Planet, George

The seventh planet, Uranus, was discovered at the end of the eighteenth century by the musician and amateur astronomer William Herschel. He was tentative about calling it a planet instead of comet until the Astronomer Royal had received confirmation of its existence and mathematical calculations of its orbit. The great problem then came of naming the first planet discovered since ancient times.

Herschel, who was a Hanoverian like George III, and who had recently received a royal appointment and yearly stipend from George III suggested naming it 'George's Star' or, in Latin, 'Georgium Sidus'. This was understandably unpopular with the world outside of Britain and the planet was eventually named after Greek mythology again: Uranus. 

Given how easily mispronounced the name 'Uranus' continues to be, perhaps 'George' isn't that bad a name for a planet.

Dance 'the Albatross!'

On a lighter note, it seems that no one really understood The Ancient Mariner when it came out.

Most of the people who bought the first edition were sailors, thinking it was a naval song book.