So it goes....

An interesting aside, as I look at newspapers from the WWII-era. I'm currently looking at Philippine paratroopers (oh, don't you tell me you haven't), and I noticed this item in the Wilmington Morning Star from 27 April 1945:

I only mention it because it confirms the treatment of POWs from the 106th Infantry, the only division that was wiped off the organizational tables during the war. It was overrun at the opening of the Battle of the Bulge. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, which drew on his experiences as a POW, mentions the boxcars and lack of facilities, as well as being contracted to work in food factories in Germany. Vonnegut also mentioned that one guard beat him up a little bit after he told them what was going to happen to them when the Russians came.

Man Versus Lion (Kind Of)

Writer and health scholar Natalia Petrzela sent out a tweet yesterday mentioning turn of the 20th century strongman and showman Eugen Sandow's book, Strength and How to Obtain It. I was instantly struck by Sandow's account of fighting a lion, Commodore, bare-handed. The lion was muzzled and wore big cat mittens. Sandow was clearly a character. He was involved in a lawsuit revolving around who was the first person to carry a horse in England, and he apparently tried to get those horses declared to be non-taxable work implements. If you compare the two accounts of the fight, I think you will find some discrepancies.

Here's the account as the story appeared in San Francisco's The Morning Call on 23 May 1894:

Source: Chronicling America 

Ringing in 1919

Just a little look at the front pages of newspapers 100 years ago. I think that it's safe to say I really, really like the Chronicling America website run by the Library of Congress.

Source: The Evening Star (Wash, D.C.) 

Source: Draugas: Lithuanian Daily Friend (Chicago)

Source: The Chattanooga News 

Source: The Carson City Daily Appeal

&

Source: The Alaska Daily Empire(Juneau)

Source: The Grand Forks Herald

Source: The Guthrie Daily Leader (OK)

Source: New York Sun

Source: The Topeka State Journal


Source: The Free Trader Journal (Ottawa, Il.)

Source: Dziennik Chicagoski

Can I at least call in sick?

This is what happens when you send your telephone sanitizers off-planet. 

Source: http://cdm16100.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16100coll11/id/1377

Ye Olde Quackerie: Nuga-Tone

In the course of starting up this blog, I've come across an interesting topic that needs more attention than I could give it here. So, here's a manly man with a lively liver in a posing pouch.

Source: The Bee (Omaha) 17 March 1920

Ye Olde Quackerie: Rexall Americanitis Elixir

This splendid nerve food will cure your nervous derangement!

The Ward County Independent., February 21, 1907

Ye Olde Quackerie: Acker's Remedy