In a world withoutthe benefit of the internet it could take decades for cat memes to circulate throughout Europe while an email could take several months to deliver - a speed surpassed by AOL as long ago as 2014. So how could news be efficiently spread to an illiterate, turnip-obsessed public? The answer was to use illustrations to convey complex ideas. Chaucer himself records the latest treatise on hamster rearing arriving in Chichester and the peasantry pouring over its sage advice even while they coughed out their intestines during the Great Scratching Sickness of 1364.
Hygiene standards were low in the Medieval World, leading to endemic dysentery and a consequent chronic paper shortage. Scribes took the sensible decision to pass on their knowledge in the spaces alongside the script of a popular self-help book of the day, The Holy Bible. The superstitious psycho-babble of this frankly bizarre publication now seems as incomprehensible as it is dated, but the wisdom of the Medieval Marginalia often hidden in its darkest corners speaks to us down the ages.
(more...)
...that wearing a Top Hat is not only a sound fashion choice, it gives you somewhere to hide candy?
...that to the untrained ear, John Aglethorpe's Ode to the Monotony of Life may simply sound like one continuous, monotonous tone, but the song is actually composed mostly of alterations between the A sharp and B flat notes tied together?
1939 - The inaugural Axis of Evil Hot Dog Eating Competition is held in Rome; Japanese Emperor Hirohito defeats Adolf Hitler by a slim margin due to Hitler's insistence on adding sauerkraut to each hot dog.
Artist representation of the famous Charge of the Chainsaw Brigade, a pivotal moment on the road to victory which demonstrated the wisdom of bringing Canadianlumberjacks into the war.
