Van Gogh's Ear and it's Resurrection

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh is very famous especially for his painting Starry Night. The story of van Gogh's madness is of a dire nature to understanding him, more importantly (to this post) is the story of how he cut off his own ear.
It is said that van Gogh cut off his ear in one of his common fits of possibly bipolar madness, which came and went in storms of depression:
On December 23 1888, van Gogh was savagely angry at his friend Gauguin, regarding a Madame and he stood in front of a mirror. He cut part of his ear, taking off a part, he put it in an envelope and personally delivered to the said Madame who was at the local "house of ill repute." He told her to "Take it, it will be useful."  The prostitute fainted. She called the police the next day who found van Gogh at his home. He was admitted to the hospital, and soon recovered.

His Bandaged Ear and a Hat.

The Resurrection: 

A German museum grew living cells of van Gogh with a 3D printer and DNA from his descendants. It says on the website:

You can talk to the ear. The input sound is processed by a computer using software that converts it to simulate nerve impulses in real time. 

Quote from
May 30-July 4 2014: Diemut Strebe: Sugababe: http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/stories/storyReader%248887

Sources:
German artist 'regrows' severed Van Gogh ear: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/06/german-artist-regrows-severed-van-gogh-ear-20146316242869877.html
Van Gogh's own words after cutting his ear recorded in Paris newspaper: http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Van-Goghs-own-words-after-cutting-his-ear-recorded-in-Paris-newspaper/30392
A tale of two ears by Ben Cohen from the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC539517/?report=classic

Check out

The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh 

by Vincent van Gogh and Arnold Pomerans

Click the link and see the madness of van Gogh.

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.

It's Late Portrait Lives Wednesday! Starring Marie Antoinette: Part 1

Marie Antoinette is the most famous person of the French Revolution. As many people know she didn't survive it.  She was to the French people of her time the image and icon of unfair extravagance as some poor french people starved. The media showed her as a sickly evil harpy in newspaper pamphlets, a queen who would stoop so low as to having lesbian relationships with her ladies-in-waiting, when the truth was nothing of the kind. The truth was that the press can cause horrible things to happen to innocent people, even Marie Antoinette, a high-status French Queen who was imprisoned by her people and executed by the guillotine.

aged just a few months old

aged  about 5

aged 7

aged about 12

aged about 14

aged about 17 by Drouais

Marie, Queen of France without a crown at aged about 18

mid twenties by Gautier-Dagoty 

I thought I could do this in one post but I can't 

so stay tuned for the last part tomorrow!

I know you can't wait and are disappointed.

But here a short video about her that will make up:

and Check out

To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie Antoinette

Click on the image or go to the Scaffold!

Xerxes Punished the Sea

Xerxes' servants lashing the sea; I bet the sea
really regret it's actions after this

The Persian king Xerxes wanted to go to war with Greece, so he had a bridge built across the Hellespont Sea to aid him with this. Soon afterwards a storm destroyed the bridge and he became furious, madly furious. In fact he insisted in having the sea called the Hellespont whipped a thousand times and even ordered some primitive version of handcuffs thrown into it. Xerxes ordered his servants to say this as they whipped the sea:

"You hateful water, our master lays his judgement on you thus, for you have unjustly punished him even though he's done you no wrong! Xerxes the king will pass over you, whether you wish it or not! It is fitting that no man offer you sacrifices, for you're a muddy and salty river!"(1)

Xerxes ordered the bridge to be rebuild and after a winter's time he crossed the bridge in elated happiness.

Sources:

1.Herodotus: The Histories: Xerxes at the Hellespont (mid 5th Century BCE); http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/world_civ/worldcivreader/world_civ_reader_1/herodotus.html

2. The History of Herodotus by Herodotus, translated by George Rawlinson, Book VII; http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.7.vii.html 

3. Xerxes by Jacob Abbot; http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=abbott&book=xerxes&story=hellespont

Rasputin is Superhuman.

Rasputin: he knows what's going on.

Everyone in his life wanted to see him dead after the media showed him as a devil on human earth. He was a monk, healer and a private adviser to the Russian Czar family...who later were also murdered.  Hey, what can they do, when Death comes their way? Death meaning people trying to kill them.

Random fun fact:
He predicted his own death and the Czar's:

“When the bell tolls three times, it will announce that I have been killed. If I am killed by common men, you and your children will rule Russia for centuries to come; if I am killed by one of your stock, you and your family will be killed by the Russian people! Pray Tsar of Russia. Pray.”

The people who plotted to kill bated him by inviting him to tea."Oh, Why don't you come and have so tea with us sometime?" I imagined the plotting murderers said to him. The plotting murderers were Vasily, Vladimir, Prince Felix, Grand Duke Dmitri, Dr. Lizavert, and Lt. Sukhotin, like I said a lot of people wanted to kill Rasputin.

Felix was the one who invited him for tea. When Rasputin arrived the other plotters hid in the other room getting drunk. Felix gave him some cyanide to kill him, which was hidden in his food. But for some reason, when he ate the poison, it did not kill him, it just made him feel unwell. So Felix invited him to pray to the crucifix in the room and Rasputin agreed. As Rasputin knelt to kiss the cross, Felix shot him in the back.

Felix thought he had killed Rasputin so he allowed the other plotters to emerge and Dmitri, Lizavert, and Sukhotin left to burn the monk's possessions. Felix and Vladimir waited for them to return to get rid of the body. As they did, Vladimir left the room to drink more. Then Felix yelled to him "...Shoot him. He is alive! He is running away!" Vladimir chased Rasputin, shot him in the back and head, and when Rasputin was down, he went and hit him hard in the head...just to make sure he died this time (gosh, didn't they know when to give a guy a break!?).

Felix, then, became 'enraged' at the sight of Rasputin's face, I'd like to say he became crazy; He started hitting his face with a dumbbell, even after that Rasputin was still alive so they threw him in a river.  He was dead. May I say Superhuman?

Sources:
Murder of Grigori Rasputin: http://www.omolenko.com/en/rasputin/platonov-murder.htm 
Rasputin Quotes: http://historyofrussia.org/rasputin-quotes/

A Preview and a Vacation

I'm going to be taking a vacation (I'm going to New York City!) starting on Sunday, June 29.  But I am going to be scheduling posts in advance and since I sort of know what is coming up in posts, I'm giving you a preview. There will be Queen Charlotte, wife of Mad George III, Elizabeth Bathory,  Dracula, and another one  and others

Carlos, the Mad Heir that died at 23.

Carlos, 2 years after his fall from stairs

At first Carlos was just a weird result of inbreeding and mental instability, his parents were like half siblings in the eyes of genetics. But after an accidental trip down the stairs that caused head trauma, he became insane. In one story, when he was given smaller shoes, smaller than he liked, he in all his insanity forced the shoemaker to eat them. He became so reckless, that he even had some thoughts about murdering his father, King Philip II.

Philip II

Philip recognized how dangerous his son was becoming, and ordered him to be kept prisoner in his (Carlos') rooms. This act and being stuck in a prison, caused Carlos to become suicidal, though not taking any action, since threatening was all enough. Meanwhile he was becoming every day more sick in his prison and eventually his time came, and he died after six months of being in there.
At least that is the account.
Rumors spread after his death that Philip had killed him in a result of a love affair between the prince and Philip's new wife. But really will you believe those?



Sources:
Wikipedia and
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=morris&book=spanish&story=reckless this is a really interesting story about Carlos, I recommend reading it.

Caligula to Appoint His Horse to Highest Office

There are so many interesting things about the Roman Emperor Caligula. He was mad, like many Emperors at that ancient time. The time before pills and lunatic asylums were invented.  He never missed a chance to show how crazy he was. Just one example:

Caligula, not the worst looking.
If you have to learn anything today
learn that if you go insane it always helps to look good.

He loved his horse, Incitatus, and wanted to appoint him a consul, the highest office you can acquire, second to the emperor. He treated his horse very well, he fed it oats with gold flakes in it and kept it in a stable built out of marble. It must have been a site to see or even hear about. The horse had servants and could invite people to dine with him, not that the horse ever did.

After 5 years of power, Caligula was assassinated along with his wife and daughter.