Adolf Hitler personally could not stand the smell of smoke, and considered cigarettes a waste of money. The Nazis banned smoking in restaurants and on public transportation. They also curtailed advertisements of smoking and cigarettes, had a high tobacco tax, and the supplies of cigarettes were rationed once the war began.
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Facebook has over 800 million users, and researchers have been busy studying them. Here are some of the positive and negative ways the site is impacting people’s lives.
(Mostly negative.)
Nüshu (literally “women’s writing” in Chinese) is a syllabic script created and used exclusively by women in the Jiangyong County in Hunan province of southern China. Up until the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) women were forbidden access to formal education, and so Nüshu was developed in secrecy as a means to communicate. Since its discovery in 1982, Nüshu remains to be the only gender-specific writing system in the world.
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LISTEN/// ONLY REAL - CADILLAC GIRL
The mix of hip-hop, blues and surf rock is probably the oddest combination you’re likely to hear today, but Only Real’s unique sound is really something. The mid-point between Gorillaz and what The Clash would sound like if they were a contemporary band, “Cadillac Girl” is the perfect accompaniment to the current balmy weather we’re experiencing
A B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building on the morning of July 28, 1945. New York Times photographer Ernie Sisto had two of his friends hold his belt while he dangled off the side of the building to snap this photo.
The Strange (and Formerly Sexist) Economics of Engagement Rings
Once upon a time, diamond rings weren’t just gifts. They were, frankly, virginity insurance.
A now-obsolete law called the “Breach of Promise to Marry” once allowed women to sue men for breaking off an engagement. Back then, there was a high premium on women being virgins when they married — or at least when they got engaged. Surveys from the 1940s show that roughly half of engaged couples reported being intimate before the big day. If the groom-to-be walked out after he and the bride-to-be had sex, that left her in a precarious position. From a social angle, she had been permanently “damaged.” From an economic angle, she had lost her market value. So Breach of Promise to Marry was born.
But in the 1930s, states began striking down the “Breach of Promise to Marry” law. By 1945, 16 states representing nearly half of the nation’s population had made Breach of Promise a historical relic. At the same time, the diamond engagement ring began its transformation from decorative to de rigueur. Legal scholar Margaret Brinig doesn’t think that’s a coincidence, and she has the math to prove it. Regressing the percent of people living in states without Breach of Promise against a handful of other variables — including advertising, per capita income and the price of diamonds — Brinig found that this legal change was actually the most significant factor in the rise of the diamond engagement ring. It’s historically plausible. The initial mini-surge in diamond imports came in 1935, four years before DeBeers launched its celebrated advertising campaign. So, what’s going on here?
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When Opium Was For Newborns And Bayer Sold Heroin
There was a time when mothers gave their babies opium, people bought hallucinogens at the local bar, and anxious patriots sent hypodermic needles and cocaine to soldiers as a present. It was called The Great Binge, and it’s probably wrong to feel sad that it’s over.
Today we have Bayer Aspirin. It relieves headaches. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, they had Bayer Heroin. It was most often a cough syrup, though it probably took care of headaches as well. Heroin was not a slang term developed for a drug, but an actual brand name claimed by the drug company. (They have since allowed their proprietary claim on the name to lapse.) This, and many other drugs were used for everyday maladies like dry throats, menstrual cramps, and babies who cried too long. The period between 1870 and 1918 was called The Great Binge — and people shoved everything into their bodies that they could.
