Modern History (1800 – present)

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firestar464
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Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by firestar464 »

Where Did All the Thalidomide Pills Distributed in the U.S. Go?

https://archive.ph/BqNwM
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wjfox
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Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

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1997 Asian financial crisis

The 1997 Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East and Southeast Asia during the late 1990s. The crisis began in Thailand in July 1997 before spreading to several other countries with a ripple effect, raising fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. However, the recovery in 1998–1999 was rapid, and worries of a meltdown quickly subsided.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asia ... ial_crisis


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Credit: Max Roser, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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Time_Traveller
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Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by Time_Traveller »

Everest’s great mystery solved? Sandy Irvine’s remains found 100 years after tweed-clad climber vanished
1 hour ago

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The enduring mystery of Mallory and Irvine, the tweed-clad heroes of Everest last seen vanishing into a cloud as mist swept over the Himalayan summit, may finally have been solved 100 years on from the tragedy that so nearly ended in triumph.

Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, the youngest member of the 1924 Mount Everest expedition, disappeared on the upper slopes alongside George Mallory on June 8 that year while attempting to become the first people to climb the world’s highest peak.

With efforts on the coveted summit taking place in the few short years following the First World War, and with Britain having lost the race to the North and South poles in desperate circumstances, the assault on Everest represented efforts to restore the reputation of British exploration – and indeed preserve the prestige of a declining empire.

The mystery of whether the duo reached the top before their death has been debated by climbers and historians for many decades. If they succeeded, they would have accomplished the feat 29 years before Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, who made the summit in 1953.

Now, what appears to be the partial remains of Irvine have finally been uncovered in the biggest breakthrough in the great Everest mystery since Mallory’s frozen corpse was found twenty five years ago.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long ... 27740.html
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Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

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caltrek
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Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

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Who Is Really a Populist? Henry Wallace Set the Standard
by A.J. Schumann
October 8, 2024

Introduction:
Today, politicians on both sides of the aisle like to compete for the “populist” label. They would do well to consider the example of a real populist — Henry A. Wallace.

Throughout his career, Wallace championed bold, progressive policies that put the “common man” first, even when it earned him enemies. His legacy reminds us that true populism means confronting the forces that keep everyday folks down — hardship, inequality, and war.

As we contend with these issues today, Wallace offers a roadmap for the kind of bold leadership that’s long overdue.

Wallace first made his mark as FDR’s Secretary of Agriculture during the Great Depression. When the Dust Bowl turned once-productive fields into barren wastelands, Wallace oversaw New Deal programs that stabilized crop prices, protected the soil, and kept family farms afloat
.
His belief was simple: the government has a responsibility to care for people and their land. Today, as climate change batters our land and inequality pushes working families to the brink, Wallace’s approach shows how the government can step in — not with a heavy hand, but a helping one.
Read more here: https://otherwords.org/whos-really-a-p ... standard/
(HAW Website) Henry A. Wallace was the 33rd Vice President of the United States under Franklin D. Roosevelt. He also served the Roosevelt administration as Secretary of Agriculture and Secretary of Commerce, and he championed the New Deal, which launched many of the economic programs and infrastructure we use today. Wallace ran for President on a platform of progressive ideals in 1948, and his domestic policies mirror the urgent issues of our day, including wage equity, racial and gender equality, retirement security, workers’ rights, voting rights, and reducing inflation. Relevant to today’s political environment, Wallace advocated for social safety net and infrastructure policies to ensure the protection of democracy for all, and his legacy continues to fuel progressive ideals today.
Source: https://www.henrywallace.org/biography
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firestar464
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Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

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IDK can't disagree with this article, but it could be used to defend the campaigns of hopeless third-party candidates
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Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

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Dracula author's lost story unearthed after 134 years
1 hour ago

An amateur historian has discovered a long-lost short story by Bram Stoker, published just seven years before his legendary gothic novel Dracula.

Brian Cleary stumbled upon the 134-year-old ghostly tale while browsing the archives of the National Library of Ireland.

Gibbet Hill was originally published in a Dublin newspaper in 1890 - when the Irishman started working on Dracula - but has been undocumented ever since.

Stoker biographer Paul Murray says the story sheds light on his development as an author and was a significant “station on his route to publishing Dracula”.

The ghostly story tells the tale of a sailor murdered by three criminals whose bodies were strung up on a hanging gallows as a warning to passing travellers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g9119l64qo
"We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams."

-H.G Wells.
Tadasuke
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How modernisation and the loss of Japan’s samurai culture benefited people in Japan

Post by Tadasuke »

How modernisation and the loss of Japan’s samurai culture benefited people in Japan:
In the mid-19th century, Japan’s feudal society underwent a profound transformation during the Meiji Restoration, embracing Westernization and modernization. The shift from isolationism to openness resulted in rapid industrialization and technological advancements, improving living standards, education, and social mobility for ordinary citizens. This article examines Japan’s journey from a closed society to a prosperous nation, dispelling romanticized notions of the “good old days” and highlighting the benefits of progress and innovation.

[....]

By 1855, Western machinery and factory organization had been introduced at Nagasaki for the maintenance of warships, and a spurt of building began in 1860 under Dutch leadership. It was Englishmen who in 1867 constructed the first steam powered spinning plant, the Kagoshima Spinning Factory. . . . By 1882, the Osaka Spinning Company operated 16 mules, 10,500 spindles and was practically powered by steam. . . . From 1870 to 1872, 245 railway engineers arrived in Japan from Europe. . . . Telegraphic communication was also established by the British from 1871.
the article with text or audio version
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
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ponies to electrons to photons (history of mail)

Post by Tadasuke »

Before April 3, 1860, it took 25 days to send a message 2,000 miles from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. On that day, the innovative Pony Express cut delivery times to 10 days and reigned for 18 months as the fastest way to deliver information across the United States. Riders travelled 75–100 miles, switching horses every 10–15 miles.

In its early days the service cost $5 for every half ounce of mail. Blue-collar hourly compensation (wages and benefits) in 1861 was 8 cents an hour, so it took 62.5 hours of work to pay for a half-ounce letter. Blue-collar workers earn around $35 an hour today, so the cost of sending a letter would be equivalent to $2,187. Mail prices were later reduced to just $1, but that would still be equivalent to $437.50 today.
the article with both text and audio (which is 5 minutes long)
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
Tadasuke
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farming in the USA from 1910 to 2015

Post by Tadasuke »

To begin with, the “decline” of rural America is in part a statistical illusion. Counties close to cities that were once classified as rural (“non-metro”) have regularly been reclassified as urban (“metro”) because of a steady spillover of new residents from cities. Between 1963 and 2013, 24 percent of all counties in America were for this reason reclassified as urban. Younger Americans may still be moving into cities, but more established American families are spilling outward at the same time, bringing their money with them, which enriches rural counties while eventually re-classifying them as urban. These more prosperous areas are then no longer counted as rural, so the improvement fails to show up in the data. The counties still classified as rural today hold only 14 percent of our population, and many are indeed struggling, but this is usually due to their distance from cities rather than a disappearance of small, traditional family farms.

[....]

Life on a small farm also meant social isolation during much of the week, and the work was physically unsafe, with roughly three thousand deaths every year from farm accidents at late as the 1950s. In addition, some of the cultural values embraced by small family farms were far from admirable. Chil­dren were valued more for their labour than for their learning, so education was sacrificed. As late as 1950, farm children still received, on average, three fewer years of schooling compared to urban children.

[....]

But what about damage to the natural environment? Here, as well, modern modern farming has proved to be more of a blessing than a curse. From today’s vantage point, pre-modern farming methods can appear more “sustainable” than today’s methods, because they were mostly chemical free, but the drawback was how little food they produced for every acre of plowed land. Agricultural output in the United States has tripled since 1940. If we had tried to triple production using the low-yield methods of the past, we would need to plow three times as much land, cut more forests, and destroy more wildlife habitat. Fortunately, thanks to an introduction of hybrid seeds and greater use of manufactured chemical fertilisers, America’s farms found a way to increase crop yields dramatically on lands already plowed, enough by 1950 to halt agricultural land expansion entirely.
the article with text and audio version (over 10 minutes long)
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
Tadasuke
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how greatly refrigeration helps

Post by Tadasuke »

It is over the last century that American households went from zero to nearly 100 percent in refrigerator use. Indeed, market penetration was already above 80 percent by the 1940s. Thanks to a fridge in every kitchen, and along with other major advances like pasteurization, food-related illness and mortality have seen a precipitous decline.

[....]

The slow march to a completely electrified world is 90 percent complete. We have finally reached the point where most of the developing world has joined the developed world in being electrified, but about 750 million people still don’t have it. Worse, by adding in those lacking access to reliable electricity, the number jumps to 3.5 billion, according to one estimate. In Africa, less than half the population enjoys access to reliable electricity.

An unreliable electricity supply can significantly undercut the advantages of refrigeration, as anyone who has had to clean out the fridge after an extended blackout can attest. More progress on both the availability and reliability of electricity is still needed if the benefits of refrigeration are to become universal.
the article with both text and audio (almost 9 minutes long)
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
Tadasuke
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how motor vehicles helped restore New England’s forests

Post by Tadasuke »

Before we had cars, we relied on horses and mules—millions of them. In cities, they carried riders, delivered goods, and pulled cabs, wagons, omnibuses, and fire engines. On farms, they cleared land, ploughed fields, and turned mills. As America’s cities rapidly expanded, so too did their stables and those of the farmers that fed them.

[....]

From a conservationist’s perspective, cars beat horses because of energy density. A well-worked draft horse could eat 30,000 calories of hay and oats each day, or the output of four acres of fertile 1930s cropland. A modern delivery van driving 100 miles a day (doing the work of multiple teams of horses) might consume 10 gallons of diesel fuel, refined from a tiny fraction of a typical oil well’s daily production. Each gallon of diesel contains around 35,000 calories (if only horses could digest it) and comes from underground reservoirs, leaving the surface mostly untouched.

Cars also don’t have to be kept alive. An idle horse needs 10,000 to 15,000 calories per day just to keep breathing; an undriven car needs none. Electric vehicles have the potential to spare even more land. With a footprint of 12 acres—enough land for just three horses—California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant can power over four million Teslas driving 40 miles a day (roughly the American average). That should hammer in how incredibly perverse it is that we use over 50 million acres of U.S. farmland to grow feedstock for biofuels.

Back in the 1930s, lamenting the horse’s decline and its economic effect on farmers, the Horse Association of America extrapolated from the 1900 horse-human ratio and calculated that 54 million acres of U.S. farmland had been spared by the automobile. The country’s population has nearly tripled since then, and we live much richer lives. If our cities were fed by horse plough and our packages delivered by horse cart, hundreds of millions of acres of our forests would now be meadow.
the article about horses, machinery, cars, trees, farmland and feedstock (audio version included)
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
firestar464
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Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by firestar464 »

I'm sure you realize that Human Progress is not a reliable source on the environment, right?
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wjfox
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Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

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humanprogress.org is a fossil fuel propaganda website, funded by the Cato Institute.
firestar464
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Re: ponies to electrons to photons (history of mail)

Post by firestar464 »

Tadasuke wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2024 10:54 am
Before April 3, 1860, it took 25 days to send a message 2,000 miles from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. On that day, the innovative Pony Express cut delivery times to 10 days and reigned for 18 months as the fastest way to deliver information across the United States. Riders travelled 75–100 miles, switching horses every 10–15 miles.

In its early days the service cost $5 for every half ounce of mail. Blue-collar hourly compensation (wages and benefits) in 1861 was 8 cents an hour, so it took 62.5 hours of work to pay for a half-ounce letter. Blue-collar workers earn around $35 an hour today, so the cost of sending a letter would be equivalent to $2,187. Mail prices were later reduced to just $1, but that would still be equivalent to $437.50 today.
the article with both text and audio (which is 5 minutes long)
IDK the article is good but it's honestly quite cringe that they touted Jordan Peterson's endorsement of their new book :?
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Re: Modern History (1800 – present)

Post by Tadasuke »

wjfox wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2024 6:05 pm humanprogress.org is a fossil fuel propaganda website, funded by the Cato Institute.
This is an extreme simplification. Just because they are not hugely opposed to fossil fuels doesn't mean they a 'propaganda website' for them. Without fossil fuels we would be stuck in medieval stasis with no hope of reaching further. Humans would be using oars and sails for ships in 2024.

Because I regularly read them, I know they often endorse electric vehicles (they straight away say they are the future) and opting for having various sources of energy for the electric grid, including wind, tidal wave and solar (with battery storage). They actually say that coal plants aren't that great and nuclear power plants are much better. Fossil fuel power plants have been getting cleaner in their output over decades. And btw, CO2 helps plants grow.

In no way they want us to remain in status quo. They literally write that climate change is real, that large changes are certainly needed, that cleaner air and water is important, that completely defeating aging and all diseases is a major goal for humans. They state that accelerating change is a good path forward. And Jordan Peterson is also not opposed to electric vehicles or to wind and solar. They just don't like the whole degrowth or eco-communism rhetoric.
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
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