Longest Known Beard in History

Hans Langseth who died in 1927, had the longest known beard in history. When he died, it was measured at 18.6 feet long.

Hans Langseth at 66

He started to grow this beard at 19 for a local beard-growing competition. After the competition ended, Hans continued to grow his now flowing facial hair.

At his death, 17.6 feet of Hans' beard was cut off, which i now in the Smithsonian.






Sources:
Hans Langseth: http://hanslangseth.com/HansLangseth/index.html
"The World's Longest Beard Is One Of The Smithsonian's Strangest Artifacts": http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/smithsonian-home-worlds-longest-beard-180953370/?no-ist

A Portrait Lives: Mary, Queen of Scots

I really haven't been consistent with my Portrait Lives, but I'll just do them whenever for now because I have been occupied, but I haven't forgotten!

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots had a tragic life. She was imprisoned. One time by her own people and she fled to England where she was imprisoned, found to have plotted against Queen Elizabeth I and executed. These are just a few of the facts that make her such a tragic figure.

aged about 6

aged  about 13

aged about 15

aged about 17

aged about 17-18

in her early twenties

aged about 36

aged about 33

Her execution at aged 45

Sources: 

Cathlolic Encloypedia, Mary Queen of Scots: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09764a.htm

Bobby Leach and his Death.

Here's a meme:

Totally True.

For those who use Google Translate,
it reads Bobby Leach went across Niagara Falls in a Barrel, he died after he slipped on an orange peel.

Made free from Imgur.
Sources;
Find a Grave Memorial.

5 Facts You Didn't Know About Pocahontas.

She is commonly referred to as a Disney character who saved John Smith (in the movie, not exactly in real life). She was much more than that. She was a real historical person who faced hardships.

1. She was baptized with the name 'Rebecca.'

2. There is a portrait of her (right)

3. She died at about 22.

4. She was married two times.
5. When she died she left her husband John Rolfe a widow, he may have died after an Indian attack. 

Links/Sources/More Information:
John Rolfe (1585-1622): http://www.virtualjamestown.org/jrolfe.html
Pocahontas: http://www.powhatanmuseum.com/Pocahontas.html

Thomas Chatterton: Poet and a Fraud

I may be inconsistent in posting but you can be sure that I will post on Saturdays, just to let you guys know.
I am like half asleep now but let's do a post! (talking partly to myself and partly to you)

Unusual Death: Thomas Chatterton

Thomas Chatterton was a poet whose gifts are largely unnoticed, he would sit and write and read all day when a child. He was a child of the eighteenth century and also was a fraud.

A representation of his death by Henry Wallis.

Poetry gives poets the opportunity to paint the world in their own image, though Tom chose to write in the guise of another.  He said that the were by Thomas Rowley who was a fifteenth century poet and monk. Yet even though he was proclaimed a fraud, the brilliancy of his poetry is unanimous. A modernized snippet from exclassics.com of a poem of his:

"[Look in his gloomed face, his sprightly there scan;How woe-be-gone, how withered, forewarned, dead!Haste to the church graves, accursed man!Haste to the coffin, the only bedroom bed.Cale, as the clay which will grow on thy head,Is Charity and Love among high elves;Knights and Barons live for pleasure and themselves.]"

You must notice how beautiful flowing his poetry is, but when you read it closely you can see a little of the depression he suffered. He had stopped eating, depression had overcome him. When he was offered food, he said he was not hungry, in truth he had not eaten in three days.  He returned to his attic where he had once written marvelous poems, now he was poor in money and in happiness. He carried with him a bottle...of arsenic. He drank it then tore his literary remains. He was only seventeen.



Yet you might not know that he is a Romantic poetry icon, a poem by John Keats was dedicated to him, and he is the subject of novels.


Sources:

1911 Encyclopedia Britannia: Thomas Chatterton: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Chatterton,_Thomas

Special Collection Department: Forging a Collection: Thomas Chatterton and the Rowley Forgeries: http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/forgery/rowley.htm

Portrait Lives: Adolf Hitler

It's Portrait Lives Saturday!
Every Saturday features a Portrait Lives, which is a weekly post showing the age progression in specific historical figures through contemporary portraits of them. 

He is always shown and thought of as worst person in history, most certainly one of the most insane political figures in history, and he was. He was responsible for over 4 million Jews being dehumanized and executed.

Here is a Portrait Lives about him:

He was born on April 20, 1889 in Austria.

Hitler as an infant, kinda cute but evil

aged about 11

Early twenties when he began serving in World War I.

Hitler in his late twenties during time
in army

in his early thirties

aged about 41. The year after this portrait he would run for
president...and lose.

Hitler aged about 38, this
is about when the Nazis
 came to power

Aged about 43, around this time he is appointed German Chancellor
 because who wants to be president (second in command)?
I bet the German people were thinking
"didn't he just lose the election
for president?"

about 44, was Chancellor now Dictator-Chancellor.
Concentration camps have
been opened, horrible large-scale
discriminating systematic war crimes.

about 47

aged about 48

A year before Hitler and Mussolini
 declared war on US, about 52.

about 56, the year he died

In 1945, he committed suicide by shooting himself in his mouth.

Sources:
Adolf Hitler: Table of Contents: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitlertoc.html
A Madman: A sober look at Hitler's Health: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/medicating-a-madman-a-sober-look-at-hitler-s-health-a-675991.html

Extra Pictures:

British Army in Europe.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: sheets with portraits of Hitler.

Check out

Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography

by John Toland

Hitler at a window.

10 Facts You Don't Know About Charlie Chaplin

Here are 10 facts you don't know about the famous actor and director:

What did he do?

1. He had a young child that died.

His child with his first wife, Mildred died after just 3 days. His name was Norman Spencer Chaplin. 2 years later Mildred and Chaplin divorced.

2. He was born in the same year as Adolf Hitler, Otto Frank, and Robert Taft.

3. He met Gandhi...

Proof is in the picture.

4. ...and Albert Einstein.

Way to go, Chaplin!

He knew who to meet.

5. He was exiled from the US.

it was for political reasons. He returned to win an Oscar and receive the longest standing ovation in the history of the Academy.

6. When he was 54, he married his third wife, an 18-year-old.

He was married to her for the longest, since the marriage was ended by his death.

7. That third woman he married (just mentioned) was Oona O'Neill the daughter of the famous playwright Eugene O'Neill.

They had eight children.

Chaplin and his third wife, Oona.

8. His body was stolen and held for ransom.

Yep, just a year after he died, his body was stolen. More info here.

9. His mother became mentally ill when he was a boy.

She had had two illegitimate children in and before her marriage. her husband had died before she drifted into insanity when he was 37. Charlie and his step-brother Sydney were taken in by the State.

10. He played a role as Jewish Barber who is mistaken as Hitler.

In the Great Dictator, Chaplin played a Jewish barber who is mistaken for Adenoid Hynkel and the dictator himself. Even though, Hitler is known by a different name in this movie it is easy to see that it is Hynkel is Hitler. The whole film, in fact, can be seen as just a parody of Hitler. Below is the trailer for the movie.

Sources:
Down but not out...:http://chaplin.bfi.org.uk/resources/bfi/biog/biog.php?fid=biog1
Edna Purivance: http://www.ednapurviance.org/
Chaplin A Life: http://www.chaplinalife.com/
Fun Trivia: http://www.funtrivia.com/en/celebrities/chaplin-charlie-16030.html
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032553/

Check out
The Autobiography of Charlie Chaplin
Click the picture link to know it all. Click it.

How Dick Turpin was Found.

Yep, Dick is definitely a murderer.

Dick Turpin was the focal point of a legend. He was supposed to be handsome and the center of a story full of romance. But this was not how it happened. He acted as a fictional hero a popular William Ainsworth novel and other famous fictitious accounts, and soon fiction mingled with fact and 'eclipsed' his real life. He wasn't and isn't a murderer and robber anymore in the public eye, and this could act as the time of glory he never had. However, you have me to set you straight.
So here is the daunting account of his arrest and subsequent death.
Dick was a highwayman (a person who robbed people by force on roads) and a murderer of a man who threatened to turn him in. He was a wanted man by the police and disguised himself as John Palmer.  And there is where the fun part comes in.

The "letter being returned, unopened, to the Post-Office... because the brother would not pay the postage of it."(1) Then by sure coincidence Mr. Smith saw the letter, see Mr. Smith had taught Dick to write and knew in fact that John Palmer was actually Dick Turpin. He told the authorities and Palmer alias Turpin was hung.

Sources:
1. Richard Turpin: http://www.exclassics.com/newgate/ng193.htm
2.Dick Turpin: http://www.stand-and-deliver.org.uk/highwaymen/dick_turpin.htm

Quiz and Battle on History

Here is something fun I made up on the top of my head (in a rush). A battle between me and you on a Quiz on History! Beware, I am competitive!

It is 7 questions. If you get 0 right I win. You get more than 4 questions right I just lost by a little. You get more than 6 right I lose by a long stretch. You get the 7 right...which is unpractically impossible...anyway I lose.

Afterwards you can highlight next to the right of the questions to see the answer.

Ok, here are some more rules:

You can't look them up.

Try to do your best (because you're gonna need it).

1. Where was the skeleton of King Richard III found? C

A. buried in a popular place in London.  B. buried in a yard in Oxford  C. buried in a parking lot


2.  What image in the Sistine Chapel absolutely revolutionized painting? B

A. Delphic Sibyl

B. Creation of Adam

C. Expulsion of Adam and Eve

3. What medical conditions was suggested that Lisa might have in Mona Lisa? C.
A. Pregnancy and blindness
B. Scoliosis and Limb Paralysis
C. Tumor and a lump






4. Who was the one of the first child actors or actresses? E. At least that I know of.
A. Nelly Gwynn
B. Shirley Temple
C. Isa Bowman
D. Susanna Centlivre
E. Master Betty

from Arm Chair General

5. Who is this? (on the right) B.
A. Marat

B. Robespierre

C. George Washington

D. Guy Carleton

6. What did Michelangelo do when a critic said that there were too many naked people in the Sistine Chapel? A.

A. He drew him in Hell in the last judgement with a snake biting his privates

B. Slapped him

C. Made him disappear

D. Was above anger, he drew him in heaven with wings in the last judgement.

7.  Whose last reported words were "we are running on north and south?" C.

A. James Garfield

B. JFK, Jr. 

C. Amelia Earhart

D. Robert Lee

So did I win or did you!?

Check out 

National Geographic Almanac of World History, 2nd Edition

by Various
Don't you wanna support printed books? just click.

Portrait Lives: Marie Antoinette: Part 2

Marie Antoinette has too many portraits to put in just one post.

profile at aged about 26

aged  about 28

aged about 30 with her children

aged about 32

aged about 33

aged about 36

aged about 37-8 in prison

aged about 38

her death, on her way

her death, more, Marie is like oops i stepped on your foot.

After a bad haircut, she was executed at a quarter after 12 pm in a white gown, whites are easily stained so it was never worn again.

Sources: 

My mind, 

Remembering Marie-Antoinette: The Martyr, the Whore, and the Icon: http://www.uta.edu/modl/cultural-constructions/200705/html/kilgore.html

Marie Antoinette: http://blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/historians-craft/marieantoinetteinthepubliceye/