This is a great idea! I'm new to reddit and am happy to post a bit about my subjects' lives! I study the early to mid 19th century Orthodox Jewish press in Europe. I love thinking about the "everyday" reading practices that they would have had (and would have had to develop) in order to encounter what was then a very new form of media - the periodical news paper!

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In the late 18th and early 19th century, it was not uncommon for "reading" to involve multiple people to sit and listen to one person recite aloud from the periodical. Then the paper would change hands and be "read" again! A favorite fact: According to Peter Fritzsche, as late as 1841, for the average newspaper in Berlin, a single copy would be "read" by 25 people (with an even higher number of listeners). Think of how your every day life involves acts of reading, small and large, and how seamlessly we assimilate information from the written word about the "events around us" to our mental schema! For the early 19th century reader of ephemera this process was not yet to be taken for granted. One article from as late as 1856 serves simply to justify how a weekly "record of events" might be useful to the Orthodox Jews of central Europe. Reading, like all other skills, had to be disciplined!

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So while I can't say with confidence what "a day in the life" of one of my subjects might be. I can imagine that he or she (and, indeed, though these papers were targeted at men, some sections were subtly geared towards women!) might trek to the post office* pick up her copy of the partisan newspapers of the moment. Perhaps he has one copy of a Polish language paper with nationalist sympathies in the face of Habsburg hegemony and one copy of Hamagid, in which he is sure he will find only news that is suitable for his religion and cosmology. He takes the papers with him to the local synagogue, where he sits and reads - perhaps aloud to the group of men around him. On his table perhaps are printed editions of the Talmud, but these sit next to his newspapers When he finishes, perhaps he writes down passages from the newspapers that he finds particularly useful so as to "preserve" them. Then he will pass on the paper to another person in his kehila, so as to spare them the subscription fee and trip to the post office.

*fun fact. In 1846-7 articles, there is no Hebrew word for "post office" or "post man" and so sometimes the German word Breiftrager is transliterated, while others different hebrew words are combined systematically. By 1856, writers seem to have settled on a convention for how to refer in Hebrew to the place where one gets the mail and the person from whom one gets the mail.)

So you want to be a nun in the middle of the 17th century? Great! So you want to do it in Germany? Okay, yeah, you could have made better decisions.

From the late Middle Ages on, the Church officially doubled and tripled down on the "cloistered" aspect of monastic life for women--that is, the requirement to stay secluded from society behind convent walls. By the mid-17th century, women's monasteries did often have kind of "public outreach" services: the Ursulines (especially) running schools for local girls is the famous example.

But in general, early modern nuns stayed in their monasteries. The dad in Mary Poppins had nothing on the strict routine of their lives. Every community followed a double set of schedules: first, one dictated by the Rule of their order (Cistercian, Dominican, etc); second, one within that general guideline called a customary that set out specific principles for their house. Then there might even be informal but standard schedules--the nuns of St. Katharina's Nuremberg in the 15th century instructed the St. Katharina's St. Gall sisters to institute a period of private reading every day after the midday meal.

Monastic life centered on a series of eight prayers at specific times during the day and night:

• Lauds - 3 am
• Prime - 6 am
• Terce - 9 am
• Sext - 12 noon
• None - 3 pm
• Vespers - 6 pm
• Compline - 9 pm
• Matins - 12 midnight

The standard division isn't for neatness' sake. Until the fourteenth century, European time was monastic time: people in secular society operated according to the bells on monastery churches tolling the (monastic) Hours. "o'clock" arises with the spread of clocks as literally that: the time on the clock face.

These prayers weren't prayers like we think today, though. The Divine Office was prayed communally, with the nuns chanting a (set, of course) schedule of Psalms as a choir.

In between Hours, nuns had periods of time for individual prayer and meditation, and for work. "Work" had a wide variety of meanings over the centuries. For early modern German nuns, it might include things like: teaching at a convent school, farming (really), sewing and embroidering vestments and altarcloths for local parishes, tasks needed to run the monastery. But whatever the task, it was regimented, regular, and expected.

But then there was this little thing called the Thirty Years' War, that completely ripped apart Germans' lives--and the Thirty Years' War didn't stop at cloister walls. Suddenly, nuns who had signed on for a life of quiet prayer, reading, writing, relative freedom from male oversight, and bog standard day to day life were thrown into a wild, terrifying "new normal."

Klara Staiger, abbess of the Augustinian house Marienstein near Eichstätt, had to shepherd her sisters through the dreadful 1630s run of Swedish troops as well as a last gasp of war in the 1640s. For her, "new normal" meant every day going out to local butchers and bakers looking for food, only to be told there wasn't any. "New normal" meant once a week, trekking to a nearby men's community to get barrels of beer (an ordinary drink). "New normal" meant adding to the community's daily prayers that invading soldiers wouldn't rape them. And "new normal" meant, with depressing regularity, fleeing to a nearby castle or even all the way to Ingolstadt outside Nuremberg for safety.

The war also added a whole new realm of "work" responsibilities. Maria Magdalena Haidenbucher, abbess of Frauenchiemsee, never had to flee with her own nuns. However, their house swelled in size to accommodate refugee nuns! Other sisters found themselves caring even for wounded soldiers--enemy or friendly, it did not matter.

Oh, and for Maria Anna Junius, a Dominican nun at Heiliggrab outside Bamberg, "new normal" meant having to give lip service in official convent records to the evils of witches and the rectitude of the witch trials--while dealing with the fact that both of her parents had been executed as witches. Her father, the mayor of Bamberg, after smuggling this letter out of jail to Maria's sister:

Innocent have I come into prison, innocent have I been tortured, innocent must I die. For whoever comes into the witch prison must become a witch or be tortured until he invents something out of his head and - God pity him- bethinks him of something. I will tell you how it has gone with me. When I was the first time put to the torture.

The daily life of nuns was supposed to be daily life. In the Thirty Years' War, it became anything but.

Life wasn't so different at the turn of the last century for a woman, living in rural Missouri at the turn of the 20th century. Alice was an optician who lived with her parents until she married at the age of 38. She was still working, and she and her husband were building a new house.

This house would be very different than any house ever built in the area, and was being worked on by a contractor from Chicago. They had shipped in most of the materials, along with a machine to make the concrete blocks that the house would be constructed from. Everyone in town was watch as construction went along on the house. It would have hot and cold running water, as well as a radiator in every room. She and her husband had picked out the plan and ordered it from the Sears catalog. Her husband kept track of the workers from the ice house he owned across the street. Their home would be modern.

After work Alice was headed to a meeting at the Unitarian church to help plan the Christmas program for poor children, as she had done every year since she had come home after graduated from school. She was glad to have a few hours with her lady friends and away from her father-in-law who they were living with during construction of their home. He was a cranky old man who had been a Colonel in the Union Army until he had been stripped of his rank for opposing emancipation. He'd still be running around extracting loyalty oaths if he had his way.

Alice was looking forward to a new world, in a new century. Her house would get built, she would have one daughter, who would live into the 21st century. She would continue to work until age and illness forced her retirement. Her husband would die when their daughter was only two. She and her daughter would continue to live in the house with her daughter eventually taking over her business. Alice would die of cancer when her daughter was in her late 30's.

Sources include: http://cdm16795.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p16795coll17/id/13606/rec/5 , 1909, Missouri Agriculture Reports, 1865-Present , "Cement for the Farm" pgs 421-462 (picture of house on pg 421.

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Archives of the Unionville Republican, Putnam County Missouri Library

Private collection of papers, letters, and photographs from the Shelton Home

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I am a local historian, I did study history in college, I have only been published in state and local history periodicals and anthologies. I currently live in the house mentioned. The local library and historical society holds most of this information, much of it had been lost until I uncovered information in my attic during my homes renovation. I went on to learn many things that weren't part of any collection, especially about my town being a copperhead town during the civil war. I am not an expert, but I am trying to gather and organize as much information as I can find from my town's founding in the late 1850's to present.

This is such a fun topic— I'm really glad you guys posted this, the responses are all so fantastic! Here goes:

Want to be a student nurse in 1950s London? First off, you have plenty lots of hospitals to apply to—but which ones accept you often depends on your parents and family background (though nobody will ever say it as such). Although all London’s hospitals were under the aegis of the NHS, pre-war distinctions and class prejudices remained. White middle-class girls from “respectable families” gained entry into London’s prestigious teaching hospitals, such as St Bartholomew’s and St Thomas’ Hospital (St Thomas’ hospital was home to the Nightingale School of Nursing). It wasn’t until the 1970s that St Bart’s hired nurses who had trained at other hospitals. Outside the teaching hospitals, prospective students could apply to the hospitals run by London County Council—these included the Westminster Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital, Charing Cross Hospital, as well as five major mental hospitals in Surrey—or hospitals that had formerly been workhouses. The LCC hospitals were much more amenable to hiring black nurses, as well, partly because their own staff position was frequently very dire.

Once a nurse was accepted, she moved into the hospital’s nurses’ home. Student nurses lived in hospital accommodations well into the 1970s. Regardless of age, nurses “living in” (as it was called) were supervised by a “home sister” in charge of the nurses’ home. They were also subject to a strict late night curfew—if a nurse wanted to be out past 10 PM, she would have to ask the hospital matron, who was in charge of all nursing in the hospital, for a late pass. Their rooms were also inspected for cleanliness and tidiness. One newspaper reported in the 1930s that nurses were only allowed nine items on their dresser tables. If a nurse left her room sloppy and untidy, the matron or assistant matron might make a note of it on her character reference.

In these accommodations, there was no sleeping in, especially if you wanted to make breakfast in the staff cafeteria before your 7:30 AM shift. By the 1950s student nurses alternated between “blocks” of time studying theory in the classroom, and “blocks” of ward placement, but for these purposes we’ll assume our student nurses is placed in a ward. After making sure that her uniform is perfectly starched and her cap is pinned on properly, a nurse would head down to breakfast in the hospital cafeteria before reporting to her ward.

Work on the ward varied considerably depending on which ward a nurse was assigned to and what other nurses were working on it. Nurses’ memoirs especially emphasize the role of the ward sister, who supervised all nursing care on the ward and essentially wielded the power of life and death over both patients and student nurses. The ward sister could take a student nurse to task for any infraction, no matter how minor, and at the end of a student’s ward placement, the sister presented the matron with a report on her behavior. Greta Barnes, a student nurse at St Bart’s, accorded in her diary that she was told off for not referring to her ward, the “Annie Zunz Ward” as the “Annie Zunz Ward”— she referred to it just as “Annie.”

Sister isn’t really too bad as long as you keep on the right side of her. She is young, dark and attractive but is quite moody and unpredictable. I heard her swearing back to a patient who was swearing at her, which is interesting because we have just heard that she is leaving Barts shortly to become a medical missionary… (Wednesday’s entry)

I cannot believe this. Yesterday I went from ward to ward to try and track down a cup and saucer and plate which we had lost. This morning Sister summoned me to her room, and gave me a dressing down because she said that three sisters, all independent of each oner, had reported to her that one of her nurses (me) in search of lost crockery had come on their ward saying she was from Annie. I just didn’t think to say Annie Zunz. Honestly, you would think that sisters with patients dying on their hands would have better things to notice. (Sunday’s entry)

(Hospitals took lost crockery very seriously—they counted exactly how many utensils, plates, etc., were returned to the cafeteria.)

A first year student nurse usually spent her time in the sluice room cleaning bedpans and other equipment by hand, or else making up beds and serving tea for patients. Second and third year nurses were allowed more responsibility—nursing leaders argued this gradual escalation of responsibility was essential to making good nurses. Midday was often taken up with preparing the patients’ lunches, serving patients’ lunches, and then cleaning up from lunch. After the patients had lunch, some nurses working the dreaded “split shift” had a two to three hour break—but they were expected to come onto the ward again and work until late in the evening. Other nurses took a shorter break for lunch and then returned to check on patients.

Life on the wards also stopped when it was time for the hospital consultants to do their rounds. A student nurse was not supposed to speak or interrupt the consultant or the junior doctors accompanying him. But student nurses often interacted with doctors, even if the ward sister was the official liaison between the nursing and medical staff on a ward. Greta Barnes offers this particularly funny anecdote about running into a houseman (junior doctor) on the ward:

I was walking down the ward and suddenly a houseman came from behind the curtain bed with his hands dripping with blood.

“Scissors, Nurse, scissors.”

“Scissors? Scissors?” I couldn’t even think what scissors were. As luck would have it I instinctively went to my top pocket and produced my scissors. So far, so good. Then he asked me to cut some plaster for him. Where should I cut it? Near the barrel? In the middle? At the end? We are taught exactly how to do procedures in the classroom so I felt sure there must be a correct place. Anyway, I compromised by cutting it between the barrel and the middle. He didn’t complain.

At the end of her shift, a nurse took her dinner in the cafeteria and retired to the nurses’ home—most homes had an amply sized sitting area with chairs and tables, a radio, and sometimes a television set. But far more nurses were just dead tired and went to sleep, to start everything again the next day.

Secondary sources: Barbara Melosh, The Physician’s Hand: Work Culture & Conflict in American Nursing (1982); Susan Reverby, Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing (1987); Julia Hallam, Nursing The Image: Media, Culture, and Professional Identity (2000).

Primary sources: For this account I relied on Greta Barnes’s book Scissors, Nurse, Scissors, which is an edited reproduction of the diary she kept while nursing at St Bart’s (it’s really very fun, with tons of pictures)– plus accounts of nursing in the Nursing Times and primary source materials from various London-area hospital archives. A Nurse in Time by Evelyn Prentiss and Yes Sister No Sister by Jennifer Craig are both very good nursing memoirs, with the caveat that they were written 30 to 40 years after their authors trained as nurses.

I've been researching the Khmer Rouge. Lots of people have heard those words but aren't really familiar with what it involved. Before I do the day in the life, a quick rundown of events.

United States was bombing Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War, ostensibly to target Viet Cong who were hiding there. A lot of civilians were killed. Pol Pot, who was educated in France and had strong Communist ideals wanted to create an agrarian utopia and set the whole country of Cambodia to "Year Zero" and abolish all modern things, including currency, education, music, arts, you name it.

Henry Kissinger was instrumental in creating a perfect storm where Pol Pot could take power and once it was underway, he suppressed and ignored information about what was happening. Under his influence, America supported Lon Nol as Prime Minister and supported his overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk via a civil war. All factions were very corrupt and there was no good choice for the people.

Pol Pot was able to use the suffering that the people were enduring under the Vietnamese and Americans to drum up support for his Khmer Rouge. A sort of Third Reich for Cambodia.

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge, after defeating Lon Nol, infiltrated all the cities and forced everyone to evacuate at gunpoint, telling them that the Americans were going to bomb and they could all come back in three days. They forced the people to march, took their valuables, and killed anyone who was obviously educated or influential.

The people were forced to remote areas to build Pol Pot's "utopia" by clearing jungle to build farms, work the farms, and build various infrastructure.

After getting to these remote locations, a day in the life for many was to get up in the wee hours and work the rice fields, clear jungle, dig and transport rocks and dirt, and other intense, back-breaking work. Families were intentionally separated. People had to remain silent as anything they said might be construed to be against the Khmer Rouge and then they'd be executed. If they were educated, literate, or held an artistic or complex job previously, they had to hide that. If found out, they were executed. People were killed for having soft hands, wearing glasses, any appearance of being anything other than a rural farmer or some other simple, uneducated person.

They were fed a thin broth with a few grains of rice. Starvation was rampant and people weren't allowed to eat anything they weren't given by the Khmer Rouge, or they'd be executed. Still, they would sneak whatever they could. Rats, snakes, snails, spiders, anything remotely edible was secretly eaten. Hundreds of thousands died of starvation.

If they got sick or injured, they would be executed, left to die, or transported to a "hospital" which was a shack where they would be ignored until they died.

Thousands of mass graves, known as the killing fields, were filled with the bodies of those who died through execution, torture, starvation, disease, etc.

At night people would try not to even whisper as spies known as "chhlops" would hide near their dwellings to report anything suspicious. Many were dragged off to Tuol Sleng, a high school turned prison in Phnom Penh. There, they would be tortured until they confessed ridiculous crimes such as being a CIA spy or trying to sabotage the Khmer Rouge somehow. After their "confession" they were executed. Most of these executions were not with a gun, but with clubs, farming implements, axes, or whatever else was at hand in order to conserve bullets. They were told "to keep you is no benefit, to lose you is no loss".

Every day was starvation, disease, hard physical labor, and being surrounded by death and yet hoping to survive.

On January 7, 1979, the Vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge. Survivors tried to escape to Thailand, but the land everywhere was riddled with landmines. If escapees didn't die from mines, continued starvation and disease would get them. Thai soldiers would shoot them if they were seen. Some made it to refugee camps and many still died there.

In all, nearly two million people died, which was a quarter of Cambodia's population.

Eventually, the Vietnamese left and the Khmer Rouge kept trying to regain its former power but just didn't have the manpower. Still, those loyal continued to kill rampantly.

The current Prime Minister, Hun Sen, was a Khmer Rouge commander, so they are still in power, in a way. Yet they have abandoned their ideals for an agrarian society and now are selling off Cambodia's natural resources mostly to China, as well as a few other countries, at a very rapid rate. They now seek money, the thing that they previously considered evil.

A current day in the life for survivors, if they didn't manage to escape Cambodia and live elsewhere, is to try to scrape by however they can, often selling food or driving tuktuks, while dealing with severe PTSD with no resources to treat it.

They are not allowed to speak ill of Hun Sen, or they disappear or are jailed. They even seek to get Cambodians who have relocated to other countries who speak out.

Just a few months ago, an election was held where the opposition party was forcibly dissolved and its members disallowed from taking part in politics for the next five years. Hun Sen was unanimously "voted" into power again.

Gonna take the opportunity to look at someone I've written about here before: the native Mexican scholar Domingo de Chimalpahin. He has left us the largest corpus of writings by any known Nahua author. This is one small perspective on what someone's day might have been like in early 17th century Mexico City.

When I say Mexico City, we can imagine a large multicultural city – one of the first truly global cities. The silver trade was the motor of the Spanish economy for centuries. By this time it connected Spanish overseas possessions like Peru and the Philippines to Spain, with New Spain (Mexico) at its centre. And Mexico City was the colonial centre of New Spain. This was not a “neutral” economic exchange: Asians, Africans and native Americans from all over came or were brought to Mexico City, often as slaves or forced laborers.

And the past kept intruding. Mexico City was built on top of ruins of the former Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, on the large Lake Tezcoco. The complex system of dams and agriculture of the Aztecs had been destroyed by the Spaniards, and in Chimalpahin's day the city was troubled by regular floodings. This map from 1572 is not so historically accurate scale-wise but gives a nice impression of the and lake. All these larger developments shaped Chimalpahin's life and are reflected in his writings.

Domingo de Chimalpahin lived in Xolloco, outside the city proper (but today part of it), in a church. The small church of San Antonio Abad belonged to the order of the Antonites, for whom Chimalpahin worked as a mayoral, so a kind of groundskeeper. His tasks included looking after the buildings and probably helping the priests. On the side though he found time to work on his monumental history writings – which is how we know a little about him today. For most native elites and even historians of that time the information is scarce indeed.

This historian work for him included collecting indigenous and Spanish sources, and copying chronicles and religious works in addition to writing. His writings' main focus was on his home state of Chalco-Amanemeca further to the South-east, but also on Mexico City. Oh and before I forget, Xolloco was the place of the first famous encounter between Cortes and Moctezuma – maybe a reason why Chimalpahin copied Gomára's work describing the conquest and just this meeting.

Another place of some importance to the historian was the large Fransciscan library in the city. Susan Schroeder argues that Chimalpahin and other native writers (like Alva Ixtlilxochitl) may have had access to the libraries' works which housed many native manuscripts and European books. They may have exchanged works and ideas there. We know that he also met native nobles, including noble women, who lent him other important manuscripts. Chimalpahin may have had access to these circles through his work, since he was only from the lower rungs of Chalca nobility. So we get glimpses of a social life between native nobility and historians from him.

The best map I could find online is much later from the 18th century and so doesn't show these places - but it does the plaza mayor (main square) and cathedral that are still on the same location today (nrs. 8 & 9 on there).

This is the work part, but that's not all. It's hard to say what a typical day would have been like for Chimalpahin, since he only records important events – esp. the deeds of religious and secular leaders - in his Diario and rarely mentions himself. Still from these mentions we get a sense of his interests: as could be expected, Chimalpahin notes many religious events, including big ceremonies for feast days. These could include elements of earlier indigenous parades or deities mixed with Spanish ones.

But he also gets quite detailed on conflicts in his neighbourhood. These include one priest who abused his power by overtaxing native people so frequently that finally one native woman went to complain of the abuses. While initially this did not work out, in the end church authorities had the priest leave his post. This and other passages are interesting also for perspectives Chimalpahin offers on women and their agency at that time.

Apart from his work and his surroundings, Chimalpahin comments on major events including meteorological phenomena, including strong rains that led to floodings of the city. Eventually these were one reason for the draining of lake Tezcoco initiated by the colonial administration in the early 17th century which would be taken up again centuries later. These immense draining works were mostly done by thousands of native people under horrible conditions, some of which is mentioned.

Moreover Chimalpahin describes remarkable phenomena like eclipses and their effects on people who were understandably bewildered and afraid. Other large events include the first Japanese diplomatic missions to Mexico City, and a supposed slave rebellion that the Spaniards feared and by hanging its leaders.

So basically, depending how “special” the day was I could see Chimalpahin doing his “day job” chores working in his church; later working on his own writings on the side; meeting other native scholars and elites; maybe strolling near Lake Tezcoco, if there were no floodings that day; and observing some feuds and gossip in his neighbourhood. With some luck he might even get to see an eclipse.

Edit: maps

Sander Leiel was one of the most wealthy men in Elsinore when he was alive, in the first half of the 16th century. He was one of the two mayors, danish cities ordinarily had two mayors, who were citizens, and a third post almost as important, that was chosen by the king, or the local noble. It's fairly obvious when looking at the transcriptions of the events at city hall( written down by city-scribes, and surviving to today), that Leiel was much more powerful than the other mayor, and the representative of the monarch. At least, the cases tried in city hall(this was before seperation of power, so the city council and mayors also made up the judge and jury) are often against people in debt to him, or otherwise economically tied to him.

Many of these city-hall meetings/court cases were very grounded in what was going on in people's lives, perhaps more similar to discussions in a neighbourhood meeting than a city council meeting today. Therefore, we know that one of his regular annoyances was that the other people in Elsinore were not good at keeping their animals under control, at least according to him. Once, he declared that he had experienced a loose dog run into his house, destrying things/taking mud with him, and Leiel was very quick to go to city council to either remind, or declare to people that dogs should be kept on a leash. Another time, he said that pigs shouldn't walk around on the street, and here he explicitly called out another citizen, whose huge hog was just walking around the main street of the city. Something that obviously gravely annoyed Leiel.

Most days however, wasn't spent with mayoral work. Outside of being a merchant, he also ran the Sound Toll, which was what gave him much of his wealth. this was a toll on all ships that were not Hansa passing the sound between Skåne and Zealand, which is very narrow at Elsinore. Trading ships from all over Europe would have to stop at Elsinore, and pay a toll in whatever goods they were transporting. This was a major source for income for danish kings, and of course, the man who ran it could be counted amongst the wealthiest in the country. Before Leiel, it had been an inherited job, but the last of that family ran the business really poorly, so it was given to a proven merchant, who also just happened to be the political leader of the city, thereby tying all important non-noble positions to one man.

When Leiel went home from a day of work, he would probably not have spoken danish, but rather english or scots. Sander Leiel's name was actually Alexander Lyle(but was called Sander Leiel in danish). He was the son of scottish immigrants, and when he married, he married into another scottish family in Elsinore, but a woman who was born and grew up in Scotland. Elsinore was truly multicultural at the time, with permanent citizens of German, Scottish, Danish and Norwegian backgrounds, not to mention the many, many different places traders came from when they were forced to go to port.

Sources:

Hjorth, Karen: Helsingør Stadsbog 1554-1555, 1559-1560 og 1561-1565. 1. edition. Selskabet for udgivelse af kilder til dansk historie, 1981.

Kroman, Erik: Helsingør Stadsbog 1549-1556. 1. edition. Selskabet for udgivelse af kilder til dansk historie, 1971.

Laurits Pedersen: Helsingør i sundtoldstiden 1426-1857. vol. II, Tidshistorie. 1. edition. Nyt Nordisk Forlag - Arnold Busck, 1929.

All of these sources are in danish, the first two are "stadsbøger" town books, those are the place were transscriptions of meetings in city hall were written, and the city scribe would also sometimes describe events he was witness to, related to official Elsinore business. There are so many interesting looks into daily life in these sources, but unfortunately, I really doubt they've been translated.

Let's make a visit to the twilight of the Roman Republic! We'll spend a day in the shoes caligae of Aulus Agerius Flamma, a veteran centurion conceived after his tata came home from fighting Jugurtha but born before tata came home from fighting the German menace. His full legal name is more properly A. Agerius f. A n. A Flamma. His tribe is Aemilia, so when he's in Rome like today, he can don his toga and properly vote in the tribal assemblies (only when there's an assembly, there's nothing going on right now) and have his vote count for something, unlike the folks in the urban tribes. Now, about the cognomen Flamma, funny joke that, but Aulus avitus married a lady with hair so red she could light six haystacks on fire, so some wit stuck Flamma on him. Aulus, his tata, and his brother didn't inherit avita's hair, but baby sister Ageria certainly wears fire on her head!

Edepol, getting sidetracked! Aulus Flamma would have fought from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, as Roman Republican soldiers would enlist for service with different generals for specific campaigns and many would re-enlist after their discharges (Long-term career service terms were legally established by Augustus).

Aulus Flamma considers himself "between campaigns" right now, having served with Pompeius Magnus when he conquered the East and gotten enough loot to jump up to the Second Class, the principes, though just that bit short of being in the First Class known as triarii. He owns a business or two in Rome, including a tavern on the Via Subura Major and another by the Port of Rome, and about a hundred iugera of good land in Campania he rents out. Business is good, his daughter Ageria Secunda and her husband Titus Titius help out, but having enough wine on hand for his taverns is his responsibility. Early in the morning, Aulus would head down to the emporium at the Port of Rome and buy up for the day ahead. Nothing fancy like Falernian or Chian, just a few dozen dozen amphora to slake the thirsts of laborers as they came and went. There was also the matter of snacks and foods, so off he'd go to the Forum Boarium, the Macellum, and whichever else of the markets he thought would have the foods his customers would want today. True, he could send one of his slaves to handle the shopping, but it was best for the owner to keep on top of everything himself.

The markets were very close to the Forum Romanum, so he could also take a peak, see if some orator or another was up on the rostra causing chaos.

After the shopping was done, he would walk down to the Subura, visit his daughter, who ran his tavern there; the Subura was a far safer place for his little girl to handle than the Port of Rome! Too many rough types came by that tavern for him to feel comfortable with her as tavernkeeper. He'd say hello to his grandchildren if they weren't out playing and then be back to his Port tavern in time for the afternoon rush.

On the way back, he might have thought of his daughter's happy domestic life. His wife Sextia had died many years ago, and while visiting the brothel scratched the itch, it didn't fill the loneliness. Perhaps he ought to buy a nice slave girl to warm his bed and heart. Then again, that rich widow Seia had been dropping hints she was interested in a second marriage and while he wasn't quite old enough to be her father, the attention from a rich woman fifteen years his junior was flattering.

Back in his Port tavern, he would discover a letter had been delivered from his son, Aulus Iunior, doing his tata proud by fighting in Gaius Caesar's Legio VII in Gaul. Literate like any good legionary, Aulus Senior would read his son recounting his adventures in Britain of all places! Britain, right up there are the edge of the world! Why, Aulus Senior had fought Samnites at the Colline Gate, Lusitanians in Spain, Spartacani in Italy, Pontics and Armenians in the East, but he'd always fought in ground known to Rome! Aulus Iunior had gone to terra incognita, to a land so forgotten by time that warriors still fought on chariots!

With great pride, Aulus Senior would stand up in the middle of his tavern and read out his son's adventure to his patrons, who would be amazed at what Caesar was doing and the talk would focus on what great fellows Caesar, Pompeius Magnus, and Marcus Crassus were. Wine would flow as customers debated who was the best general Rome had ever produced and where those three might go next. With those three leading Rome's armies, the Republic was safe.

Aulus would have left out a postscript or two from his son's letter: apparently, winter had come down harder than expected up north, and Aulus Iunior just might be in danger of freezing his mentula off, so if tata would be so kind, would he send up 50 sesterces so his filio could buy enough warm stockings to keep his mentula where they belonged? In addition, to send his fondest regards along to the pretty Negidia, sister of the military tribune Numerius Negidius of the Caelian Hill.

Maybe it was high time he re-enlisted. Being a Roman of the Second Class was comfortable, but the loot from Caesar might be enough to get him into the First Class as an eques! The old boy loved having evocatus like him around, since those hoary veterans were worth their weight in gold on the battlefield. Yes, high time he signed up with Caesar, taught those young cunnii how real soldiers fought. But first, a pair of laborers were trying to start a brawl in his tavern and he needed to show them how hoary old centurions kept the peace...

Part 1

So, what was daily life onboard an American submarine in World War One like.

Just over one-hundred and one years ago the US had decided to become a belligerent. To that end, the Royal Navy needed help with its Anti-Uboat campaign. In fact, April 1917 saw the most tonnage sunk of any month during WW1. The British were at a critical point. It wouldn't be until December of 1917 that the American submarines made their way to Europe, and it wouldn't be until March when they started making actual war patrols.

Daily Activities

So what was a general, daily schedule like? A lot of this is taken from an operations manual produced by Lt. Commander James C. Van de Carr, as he was a Skipper onboard the U.S.S. L-10 (Temporarily re-designated as U.S.S. AL-10 while in European waters) and had much first hand experience.

I have converted times for this chart to a 24 hour clock

The definition of "Trim down" is to essentially find the boat's balance while submerged, so that way you're not rising or sinking, and are keeping a steady course. In some cases this did mean leaving the top of the conning tower above the water, but not always. And from reading other pieces of writing from Lt. Commander Van de Carr, he used "trim down" and "submerge" fairly interchangeably.

So to put that in perspective 0400-1300 were spent in some manner underwater. 1500-2000 were also spent in some manner underwater. As well, Van de Carr writes that

On a very dark night, the boat should remain submerged all night, at 60 feet, and a listening watch maintained.

This instruction also applied to when there was stormy weather. So very often an American submarine could/would spend a vast majority of their day underwater. In the "usual" day you'd spend about 14 hours underwater. More if the conditions did not permit you to surface. What would sailors be doing with their time? Luckily Van de Carr had also illuminated a "Station Bill" for American submariners. A "Station Bill" is essentially a sailor's schedule - what watch they would be on and what jobs they would be doing. Van de Carr writes that the sailors would have 4 hours on and 8 off at night, and 8 on and 4 off during the day. As well, the L class technically had a compliment of 2 officers and 18 men, however I have seen photographs with the same amount of men as listed in this chart such as this one.

So the submarine would have a total of 3 officers, and 27 men. These men would be split into 3 men groups based upon their rating. Machinist Mates for example would be working in the Engine Room, or on steering the boat. Gunner's Mates would be working with the rudders and batteries, etc...

So what were these patrols actually like? In a word, tedious. For about 8 days an American submarine would be patrolling along a predesignated route, hoping to find a German U-Boat. Only twenty times did the Americans make any sort of contact with a U-Boat. It was otherwise a long, tedious experience. Day in and day out in a small steel tube, with nothing but water for miles. The sailors had to do their jobs no matter what, even though they wanted badly to encounter the Germans.

That's not to say that German submarines were the only source of excitement. They were far from it. Oftentimes equipment would breakdown and the sailors would have to work to jury-rig some sort of replacement, or limp back home. An example would be from the L-5: The connecting rod for the scavenging pump piston valves on the port engine “parted”, and with no available spare, the Chief Machinist’s Mate created a “sleeve of [thin] bronze and secured broken parts together”. The boats were unreliable and these sorts of repairs happened frequently. Not just to the batteries or engines either, as other parts were liable to breakdown easily – such as the Periscope. Fixing the periscope at sea was difficult and essentially froze the boat in place, leaving them very vulnerable until it was cleaned up and ready to go.

As well, the Americans were also frequent recipients of friendly fire. In European waters, the AL-10, while being skippered by Lt. Commander Van de Carr, was actually depth charged by American destroyers! Along the American coast, merchant vessels often fired upon American submarines, scared that they were a U-Boat. This is an example from the N-5

As the ship advanced, she fired about fifteen shells from bow and stern guns, and continued firing to within 2000 yards. Seeing that she would not cease firing, we hoisted and waved a white blanket, and held two sets of colors out plainly for them to see. […] when the ship was about 1000 yards away, she fired six rounds of shrapnel, all of which went about 50 yards short.

An encounter with a German U-Boat would be as such (from Lt. L.J Stecher in the Naval Institute Proceedings

The U.S.S. AL-4 was cruising on her patrol “billet” charging batteries, when on her starboard bow, at a distance of about 1000 yards, the officer of the watch sighted a periscope. He immediately made the “Crash” dive signal and the submarine dived. Her hull had hardly settled below the water, when a torpedo from the hostile craft passed directly over her.

Daily life was routine, filled with maintenance, diving, and paying close attention for German submarines. Occasionally the tedium would be broken up with some friendly fire, or an encounter with a German submarine. Only two American submariners were killed during the war. One sailor fell overboard as his submarine was transiting to Ireland, and the other was an officer who was observing onboard the HMS H5, which never returned to port.

EDIT: I just realized I forgot what some of the jobs actually were. For example, listeners did what it says on the tin. They would be at the listening station, which on the inside was almost like a pair of headphones or a stethoscope, and would continuously listen for the sound of propellers or other noises. If you were in the torpedo room you'd be performing maintenance on the torpedoes and making sure they're ready to be placed in a tube for firing. If you're in the Engine Room, you'd be doing maintenance on the engines, things like that.

A day in the life of the (not so) Wild West:

Alfred Doten (1830-1903), noted journalist and an acquaintance of Mark Twain, began a daily journal when he left for the California Gold Rush in 1849. He moved to Nevada and eventually became a reporter and then newspaper editor on the Comstock (Virginia City and Gold Hill) during the height of the gold and silver Bonanza (hence the TV show), but also in the years of decline - all the while keeping his journal.

Walter Van Tilburg Clark (The Oxbow Incident and Track of the Cat) transcribed and published nearly half of the journals into three impossible large volumes (1973). With the internet, the realization that there was an opportunity to allow the public access to the entire collection. I'm part of a team of volunteers who are transcribing the entire dairies, checking Clark's work, and providing annotation. There are many marvels in the 53 years of diaries, but I was recently struck by the poignant description of the handful days spanning his proposal at age 44 to Mary (aka Mrs Stoddard) and their wedding, all of which took place on the shore (and in the middle) of Lake Tahoe, July 1873:

Tuesday July 15 AM a little showery – PM clear. Today some of our parties were out fishing & succeeded very well. I busied myself making an instrument of music out of an old soap box, fitting it with strings I had brought from home. Succeeded in making a pretty fair instrument – a sort of compromise between a banjo and guitar – Called it a “Boxelina.” PM I took a stroll along shore to the southward a short distance to Mrs Stoddard’s trees where she goes to rusticate & read in the cool shade by the margin of the water. I staid there some time keeping her company. We had an interesting talk – I proposed and was accepted. Evening we took a short row together out on the Lake, after which we all gathered around the fire, out of doors as usual. I gave them several songs & tunes with the “Boxelina.” Then we had couple of games of whist in the house. Bed at 11 – Cool night. Good for sleeping.

Monday July 21 Cloudy – Morning showery – My birth day – 44 years old today – AM I staid in to write another letter to the News – Was out at the Stoddard tree – She came and we had a sociable chat which ended in fixing the wedding day for next Thursday – I took a boat after dinner & sailed down to Tahoe City – tried to telegraph for Bishop Whitaker to come over to splice us, but this being a private side line, and the main line being too busy, I could effect nothing – at 20 minutes of 7 I started back home – The breeze had died away so I had to row all the way – missed in the dark and went past – got to the “logging camp” a mile and a half above McKinney’s – Had to turn back – Home at 10 – Bed at 10 ½ –

Tuesday July 22 Clear & pleasant – Sailed over to Glenbrook with Chubbuck and Gray in McKinney’s big boat “Transit” – Chubbuck telegraphed for me to Rev Mr McGrath to come over here and marry me to Mrs Stoddard – Took some time to arrange matters, but we succeeded at last – McGrath to bring the license, ring etc & start tonight for Tahoe City – Started for home at 6 ½ oclock PM, with Jewet Adams as passenger with us – Had to row out of the Cove – Had light breeze afterward, & boat over half the way home – Had to pull rest of way – 15 miles across – Reached home at 3 oclock – Sent telegrams to Sharon, & also to all three Storey County newspapers, telling that we were to be married on middle of Lake Tahoe tomorrow, & inviting whole world to the wedding –

Wednesday July 23 The same – rose at 8 – Went out under the Stoddard tree & started on another letter to the News – About 4 PM the steamer Governor Stanford touched at landing and landed a visitor – Mr Watson from Gold Hill – About same time John McKinney’s small boat arrived from Tahoe with Rev McGrath, Mrs Batterman and her son Chris Batterman on board – Evening we had best concert yet – Boxelina, harmonica, etc – lots of singing & some dancing – McGrath danced “Ten Thousand Miles Away” – Chris Batterman had lots of crackers, bombs, & fizzle wheels, etc along & he did some lively fireworks for a while – Bed at 11 – McGrath slept with me – My last night at McKinney’s and of liberty –

Thursday July 24 Clear, warm & very pleasant – One of the finest, calmest and pleasantest days ever seen on the lake – Two boats arrived from Tahoe City about noon with four ladies, including Mrs Dr Younger (nee Annie Lane) and several gents, coming to my wedding – The steamer Gov Stanford arrived from Glenbrook about same time with large party on board for same purpose – Waited about an hour, when all hands got aboard and started out with John McKinney’s yacht, the “Transit” towing astern – About 3 or 4 miles out toward middle of lake, steamer stopped – Boat pulled alongside – took us & wedding party on board, about 20 in all – shoved off from steamers starboard quarter short distance and Rev Mr McGrath married us standing up – Lots of kissing – 3 cheers from the people on board steamer – About 100 in all present – Got on board again and went back to McKinneys & landed those from there & then started up the lake – On way back to McK’s opened my basket of champagne & used it up – Preacher bottled up a written account of the affair & threw it overboard – Mr & Mrs Chubbuck & Mr & Mrs Gray went too – Wheeler also left for Va – Ceremony took place about 2 ½ oclock PM – At 4 ½ PM were at head of Emerald Bay – Did not stop, as no passengers for or from there – left for Glenbrook – Arrived at 6 ½ oclock – Plenty of company there at hotel, although many have left the last few days – Vesey gave hearty welcome – While at dinner Capt Lyon and Billy Virden arrived from Gold Hill knowing I & wife had come to Glenbrook – After supper had ball in ball room short distance from hotel – Gay time – I danced three quadrilles, the first with my wife – Went to room & finished my letter for the paper & gave it to Billy to take home – gave Capt all the items of wedding, etc – They were to leave early in the morning on return to Gold Hill – At 1 o’clock retired to bed, where I found my wife –

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People don't usually think of pirates as having been literate and prolific writers but they in fact sometimes were, especially earlier in the 17th century when most pirates were called buccaneers and tried to pass themselves off as legitimate privateers. In April 1680, several hundred mostly English buccaneers with dozens of Indian guides crossed over the Isthmus of Panama on foot to raid the Spanish coasts of the Americas on the Pacific side. There was no war between England and Spain and these men had no valid privateering commissions against the Spanish, but they came up with a scheme to find some Darien Indians living in the jungles of Panama who were at war with the Spanish and get an Indian ruler to authorize them as a legitimate monarch to attack the Spanish in lieu of European privateering commissions. Ultimately despite this shaky legal justification, Charles II of England was satisfied with it in 1682 and had the buccaneers acquitted of piracy charges despite furious complaints from the Spanish ambassador.

This and other buccaneer voyages in the South Seas throughout the 1680s were well documented in detailed published journals by English buccaneers involved like William Dampier, Basil Ringrose, Lionel Wafer, John Cox, Bartholomew Sharp, as well as Frenchmen Raveneau de Lussan and Etienne de Montauban, among others. It's hard to really say what an "average day" is like for anyone but I think especially so for people like buccaneers who were engaged in a career of violent theft and fighting. The sense I get from reading their journals is that there were sometimes weeks or months of almost continuous fighting and strenuous life-threatening activity, followed by weeks or months of very mundane sailing or provisioning along the coasts in which not much would happen. It's very similar to how soldiers' lives are often described. It wasn't all action and it wasn't all dulldrum. I'll just try to give some interesting "slices of life" from the journals. It wasn't all action and it wasn't all boredom.

The English buccaneer William Dampier opens the narration of his journal on April 17, 1681, after having just separated from the main party of buccaneers in the Pacific under captain Bartholomew Sharp (in which Dampier's friend Basil Ringrose chose to remain) and head back across the Isthmus of Panama to the Caribbean (I've written more about this expedition here):

April the 17th 1681, about ten o'clock in the morning, being 12 leagues north-west from the island Plata, we left Captain Sharp and those who were willing to go with him in the ship and embarked into our launch and canoes, designing for the river of Santa Maria, in the Gulf of St. Michael, which is about 200 leagues from the isle of Plata. We were in number 44 white men who bore arms, a Spanish Indian who bore arms also; and two Moskito Indians who always bear arms amongst the privateers and are much valued by them for striking fish, and turtle or tortoise, and manatee or sea-cow; and five slaves taken in the South Seas, who fell to our share. (Dampier, 10)

On April 18, they captured a Spanish bark without a fight which made their voyage less cramped and on April 29 they arrived on the coast. On May 1, they began their 50-100 mile forced march across the Isthmus and an order was given out to kill any man who fell behind so that they didn't fall into Spanish hands and give them away:

Being landed May the 1st, we began our march about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, directing our course by our pocket compasses north-east and, having gone about 2 miles, we came to the foot of a hill where we built small huts and lay all night; having excessive rains till 12 o'clock. (Dampier, 18)

The next day they came upon some Indian villages with women who they got food from. On May 3, they tried to convince an Indian man they found who spoke broken Spanish to guide them but he seemed angry and evasive responses. They tried tempting him with gifts including money, hatchets, knives and other things until finally a buccaneer took out a woman's petticoat he had gotten and gave it to the Indian's wife:

We were now at a great loss, not knowing what course to take, for we tempted him with beads, money, hatchets, machetes, or long knives; but nothing would work on him, till one of our men took a sky-coloured petticoat out of his bag and put it on his wife; who was so much pleased with the present that she immediately began to chatter to her husband, and soon brought him into a better humour.

This is a wonderful idea for a topic! I'm studying the religious and cultural history of early modern (and especially 17th and 18th centuries) Catholics in Central Europe, and from that viewpoint one could conceivably write a "day in the life of" text from (at least) three different perspectives, each with quite different outcomes: 1. a diocesan priest doing his job in the church or chapel he is assigned to; 2. a religious monk or nun living their life in the monastery (though I see that u/sunagainstgold already wrote a wonderful post about just that) and 3. a layperson exercising their faith either at home, on the street or in church. In that vein, I figures that it might be a good idea to write not from the viewpoint of a person, but of an object, i.e. "A day in the life of an early modern Catholic church"

So, let's say that you somehow managed to warp back in time and find yourself standing at the door to a Catholic parish church somewhere in Bavaria or Austria during the early 18th century. Depending on whether the church stands in a more rural or more urban environment you might notice one prominent change before even entering the church itself, and that is the location of the graveyard. Medieval and early modern parish churches (and occasionally other churches that had the right to a cemetery without being a parish church, mostly because they used to be one sometime during the past) very often had the graveyard directly surrounding the church building itself, following an ancient belief that Christians should be buried as close to sacred space as possible, i.e. the relics kept in a church and of course God Himself, present in the host. Clergy and other important people were often buried in the church itself, while less influential people found their grave directly outside of the church, which was surrounded on all sides by its graveyard - ad sanctos, apud ecclesiam as it was called, roughly translated to "next to the saints and at the church". Through this a kind of community between the living and the dead was created: Both participated at communal worship with their corporal presence both above and below the ground, and both directed their prayer towards God, as Catholic doctrine held and still holds that prayer and worship do not end with death, and that in fact the dead can still intercede on behalf of the living. This sort of set-up mostly vanished in the cities and towns by the late 18th century, as additional space was needed and because the public authorities worried that keeping cemeteries right in the middle of a bustling town might lead to additional health concerns. Many rural churches in Bavaria and Austria still keep the graveyard right outside of the church, whereas nothing remains to remind visitors of the fact that e.g. the square surrounding St Stephen's cathedral in Vienna used to be a graveyard two and a half centuries ago.

What did a graveyard like this look like? In most cases gravestones like we have them nowadays weren't used, both because of space constraints and because most people simply couldn't afford one. The dead were often marked with wooden crosses where their names were painted on, although in many cases not even that might happen. Those who were sufficiently well-off might arrange for a memorial plaque to be added to outer walls of the church, or they paid for iron or stone crosses to be erected over their graves. Neatly ordered rows of graves were yet unknown, and early modern depictions of graveyards in e.g. Vienna show it to be pretty chaotic to modern eyes. The limited space and the quickly growing populations sometimes necessitated the building of additional ossuaries, which often also doubled as graveyard chapels. In these ossuaries you might find an enormous amount of bones, sometimes neatly ordered in rows of skulls, femurs etc., sometimes just wildly thrown on a pile. Chances were that there were a lot of people going around - those were public spaces, after all, and seeing as pretty much everybody went to church there was always an occasion to meet up and gossip. Standing outside of a church you might see children playing between the graves, dogs and other animals just running around, people standing at the grave of a recently deceased loved one, or gossiping, or even conducting business negotiations. Maybe there is a funeral going on in the background, or two, or even three at the same time, and you hear a fourth one approaching in the form of a funeral conduct: people wanted to die in style, and if it was in any way possible wanted their funeral to be a mass event with many people participating, so that their social status might be broadcasted or even amplified one last time. There are cases of well-off people setting good amounts of money aside in their will to make sure that people would participate in the funeral conduct, even if they needed to be paid. Curious on-lookers might even spontaneously join in, maybe out of respect or to find out who had died or maybe just because they wanted to receive the priest's blessing at the end of the service, too.

But enough about the exterior of the church, let us finally take a step inside! After we've first admired the goods of the various vendors strewn around the church, of course. Vendors? Yes, as for people selling their goods the public spaces surrounding a church were prime real estate. This was especially common around pilgrimage churches, where in some cases to this day you might find various stalls offering rosaries, crucifixes, prayer cards and other things that might interest a pilgrim, but it also happened around elsewhere too. St Peter's in Vienna is an especially gregarious example of this: At least nineteen stalls were to be found directly next to the church, selling everything from sauerkraut to cheese and dried fruit, offering shoe repairs and sharpening your scissors. In another building right next to the church the city guard was stationed along with a number of prison cells. The confraternity administering the church complained to no end about the noise and the bad smells surrounding the church on all sides, but it took until the mid-19th century for the last vendor stalls to finally disappear. While the graveyard of St Peter's had ceased to be "active" by the late Middle Ages, many remnants of it were still visible all over the square which also was popularly called the "St Peter's graveyard" well into the 19th century.

But enough, now we go in for real! Some things like the smell of incense and candles might be familiar to church-goers of today as well, but the sheer amount of people in church doing whatever might still surprise you. Early modern churches had a ton of side altars for two reasons: Firstly, every priest was obliged to read Mass at least once a day, and secondly: due to the prevailing popular beliefs of the time most people tried to have as many Masses as possible read for themselves after death of for their loved ones. As a result there was a huge number of priests (simply because there was enough money going around for ordination being a valid life choice), who in turn had to read a huge number of Masses. The cheapest Mass you could order in Vienna ran for about half a guilder, in Spain it was two reales, in France a not too cheap and not too expensive Mass cost about 30 sous. St Stephen's alone had 39 altars where at the very least around 150-200 Masses were read per day, beginning early in the morning and going on until well after sunset.

So, going into the church you might see a Mass going on at the main altar, with a good number of people participating at the service. But there are also priests reading Mass at a number of side altars; at some there are also people celebrating along, at others there is literally only the priest and an altar boy and nobody else. You hear singing from at least three different altars, and all of them sing a different song. The priests are celebrating according to the Tridentine Rite, i.e. muttering in Latin and facing away from the people, which is why most of the people present to the service are either talking to each other or praying the rosary, not really taking heed of what the priest is doing. There are lots of people going to confession, and there are long queues at the booth where those priests that tend to be lax are sitting, whereas the stricter priests don't see as much traffic. People are all over the place attending Mass, or praying, or gossiping, or selling livestock to each other (yes, really); teenagers might take the opportunity to flirt with each other, or throw paper planes down the gallery, and in the background an exasperated priest tries to teach the new altar boys the intricacies of assisting at Mass. One of the priests reading Mass at the side altars doesn't look too healthy; he is probably one of the "Mass-readers", i.e. priests without a secure prebend who earned money by reading Masses "for hire". There were dozens, maybe hundreds, in some cases even thousands of those in every large Catholic city, and many of them were both undocumented workers (which is why we don't know a lot about them) and desperately poor. People are constantly coming and going, and in comparison to today it must have been pretty loud - the idea of church being a space where the sacrality of the location needs to be honoured by disciplined behaviour is something that first appears in Protestantism and only later makes its way over to Catholicism. Depending on when and where you are you might not even see actual pews - seating in church was also mostly an innovation of the Early Modern Era, and in some areas it arrived quite late.

An early modern Catholic church was only one of many locations and spaces where religion was practiced, but it was probably the most lively one; a spot where religion "happened" all the time, but also all other facets of life. In any case it would have been very different from churches nowadays!

August 2,1861 at the capital of the colony of Vancouver Island which is now Victoria, British Columbia.

The steam powered side wheeler "The Cariboo" sits idle at a wharf in Victoria. She was built to replace the steamboat "Fort Yale" which had sunk in April, just four months before.

The boiler of the "Fort Yale" exploded and sunk her on her way to Yale, the head of navigation on the Fraser River and the center of the Fraser River Gold Rush. The explosion destroyed the wheelhouse and killed 4 people, including her captain Smith Jamieson. She was a popular vessel with the gold seekers because she had a reputation for being fast and on time. She held a speed record for making the upriver trip from New Westminster to Yale in just seven and a half hours. To keep this record during the fast waters of the spring runoff the captain had the engineer block the pressure release valve on the boiler. This increased steam pressure which delivered more power to the engine.

A new boat was built. Quickly because there were enormous profits to be made on the Fraser River. It was larger and supposed to be faster than her predecessor because the fastest boat got the most business. The "Cariboo" was captained by one of the best pilots on the Fraser - Archibald Jamieson, brother to recently deceased Smith Jamieson. Also on board was brother James Jamieson who was the assistant engineer.

The morning was foggy and peaceful as Captain Jamieson supervised the loading and welcomed the passengers aboard for his ships maiden voyage. The ocean was quiet when orders were given to release the mooring lines and the "Fort Yale" left the harbour bound for the Fraser River gold fields. No sooner had the boat left the harbour a violent explosion was heard at the docks. Rescue crews raced out to rescue survivors. A coroner's inquest into the explosion learned that the Jamieson brothers blocked off the pressure relief valve on the boiler believing that a new boiler could withstand the higher pressure and they would have a faster trip.

All but three of the people on board survived. One passenger died and both of the Jamieson brothers. They were the fourth and fifth of the brothers to die on the water. The first died in 1854 on a dock on the Columbia River when the "Gazelle" exploded in her berth. The second captained the "Portland" on the Willamette River. He died when his engine lost power above the canyon and his ship went plunging downstream through the rapids.

Sources:

Tiller's Folly

George and Helen Akrigg's British Columbia Chronicles, volume II

British Columbia Gold Rush Press

British Columbia - Yukon Sternwheel Days

My apologies for the horrible writing. I typed it on my phone where editing is a nightmare. :/

This is plain awesome.

I love the high bar that the sub sets, it really forces top tier responses to questions, but letting the guard down for more trivial stuff (hehe) is probably a good thing for a little bit of a nicer community to form and for people that don't feel confident giving a fully developed excrusiatingly studied reply to still contribute a bit (and maybe to help more hobby historians acquire better methods instead of just removing their answers).

Hope this goes as well as it seems to be going and cheers to whomever came up with the idea!

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It’s the early sixth century BC. Massalia (now Marseille) was the westernmost Greek settlement in the Mediterranean Sea. A couple of decades earlier Greeks from the Ionian cities in Asia, under leadership of Protis of Phocaea, left their home and travelled for weeks across the sea. They were given permission to settle on the land by the Celtic/Ligurian chieftain Nannos. Several decades after its foundation it was still a small settlement, maybe just a few thousand people in total. A far cry from the large city it was going to become.

Most people were farmers, but trade was important as well because Massalia was the gateway to the Celtic markets. The rich citizens of the town imported wine from the Italian poleis and traded the wine and other Greek wares with the thirsty Celtic chieftains in exchange for gold and iron.

One day, a farmer, let’s call him Androkles, was about to start his normal routine. He got up at sunrise and had his modest breakfast of a piece of bread dipped in wine on the way to his small plot of land. He had to leave the town, go past the makeshift wooden wall cutting off the small promontory on which the settlement was located, and continue on to his farmland.

He had only a small plot of land, just enough to provide for him and his wife. First, he would collect the eggs of his chickens. Then he checked his small garden with vegetables and herbs and made a mental note to ask his wife to take out the weeds growing in between. After that he went to his field of barley. It was summer and he would soon have to start harvesting his cereals. He didn’t have much to do today, but luckily there was a floral festival held in the town and Androkles was already daydreaming of drinking wine all day until he couldn’t walk anymore.

He planned to go back to his house before the festivities began. He was about to leave when one of his neighbors quickly and nervously came to him. Androkles was told he had the come back to the settlement immediately, but no reason was given. He was explicitly told not to panic, which he found odd, since there was nothing to panic about, except maybe the weird behavior of his neighbor.

Inside the settlement all inhabitants and traders who were present gathered in the agora. Nobody seemed to know what was going on. The chairman of the Council finally emerged from the temple of Artemis. He started explaining what all the fuzz was about. Nannos, the chieftain who granted the Greeks permission to settle the land, was dead. His son Comanus had taken his place and had gathered several thousand Celtic warriors to attack and plunder the town. His force was already gathering outside the town, but he was waiting until nightfall when all the Greeks were in a deep wine-induced sleep.

It was clear the Greeks were heavily outnumbered, they didn’t have enough ships to quickly evacuate the city and they had no place to run. The chairman gave an impressive speech, reminded the Greeks of their glorious descent from the gods and their superiority over these savage and drunk barbarians. The people of Massalia were riled up, and every man, both young and old, both citizen and trader alike, prepared for battle.

Brilliant idea! Love this subreddit and this'll share some diverse stories and histories.

You're a regular average person at home sat in front of the TV. You might have your family or others with you as well. Flicking through the three channels, there's a new sitcom on the BBC that you start watching. It's an obscure show about two young Liverpool women looking for love, work, and a happy life. The sitcom called The Liver Birds was born in 1968, and would form part of a rich history that still influences the media today.

I'm a researcher in post-WW2 British comedy, specifically on television. I'm fascinated by the cultural and social history expressed through comedy, and how a time period's issues can be subtly produced. The average person's access to comedy was much less effort than during or before WW2. After the sharp growth in households owning a TV in the 1950s-60s, the genre experienced a boom of era-defining content.

The previous access to broadcast media was radio and film, and regular visitors to cinemas and theatres decreased over this period. Radio maintained a steady popularity, but television comedy was to enter a Golden Age in the 1970s

In the UK during the 1970s, it wasn't uncommon to have 20 million viewers on one programme at its broadcasting time. Christmas specials provided astonishing numbers, hitting 30 million for a number of programmes over the 1970s and 1980s.

But the real star was the comedy, and several writers and performers are now firmly in the British cultural image. An average week for Britain's TV viewers would have at least four to five scheduled comedies over three channels for the week. Producing the programmes was cheap, got the ratings, and established a constant stream of produced comedies.

Situation comedies were the primary format of British comedy until the mid-1980s. There was a huge variety of programmes and subjects to engage with, and largely the formats was considered family friendly with a few exceptions.

But the subjects of these groundbreaking comedies is now seen as offensive, politically incorrect, and outdated. Racial and sexist humour was a mainstay, as well as jokes on social class, foreign nationality, and homosexuality. On sitcom, Love Thy Neighbour, is a notorious 30 minute show of racial slurs and ignorance.

However, the average man or woman in the 1970s would likely not be as affected by such content. The comedies are a product of their time and as such it's unfair to project our principles onto them. At the dawn of the 1980s, a movement formed of young and politically motivated comedians sought to challenge the dominance of this humour. The Alternative Comedy Movement has had a significant effect on our modern pedagogy for the genre, but at the time the old sitcom formats prevailed.

So if you were born in the 1950s, you would have been able to access a wealth of talent on television that would have defined your childhood. Even now, the 'nostalgia' of comedy is an influential memory. In the 1970s, you could switch between the three available channels at 7pm and it would be a guarantee that a comedy was being broadcasted.

British comedy has been exported across the world and influenced our culture and national image immensely. The 'British sense of humour' is obscure, witty, and high regarded. An amazing era, from a very human perspective!

This is something I can really get behind! I am fairly new to reddit and I’m already hooked. After discovering this I’m afraid it’ll only get worse! Cheers, and looking forward to engaging with everyone on this sub!

Not a historian myself, but I’ve always loved reading about history. I have to say that whoever came up with the idea for this was brilliant. Even aspects of history that don’t spark my particular interest are intriguing when taught in this fashion. I just wanted to say thanks to OP and to all the contributors for their fascinating stories.