The first mentions of toilet paper were found in the Chinese 5th century writings and during the 14th century.
They even started regular mass production of such paper in the amounts of over 10 million sheets in only one province.
Wealthy citizens and the royal family in Beijing even had access to the several types of soft, stylized and perfumed toilet paper.
In the others parts of the world, use of paper as a cleansing accessory was almost unheard of.
There are several reasons for that – inability to produce massive and affordable quantities, inefficient or nonexistent toilet plumbing network, and more.
After centuries of using water, rags, sticks, sand, leaves, corncobs, animal furs, finally American inventor Joseph Gayetty came to his invention – commercial toilet paper!
Gayetty was born in Massachusetts USA, and worked in New York where he came to the idea of toilet paper in 1857.
We might expect ‘as thick as thieves’ to be a variant of the other commonly used ‘thick’ simile ‘as thick as two short planks’. The fact that the former expression originated as ‘as thick as two thieves’ gives more weight to that expectation.
As you may have guessed from that lead in, the two phrases are entirely unconnected. The short planks are thick in the ‘stupid’ sense of the word, whereas thieves aren’t especially stupid but are conspiratorial and that’s the meaning of ‘ thick’ in ‘as thick as thieves’.
‘Thick’ was first used to mean ‘closely allied with’ in the 18th century, as in this example from Richard Twining’s memoir Selected Papers of the Twining Family, 1781:
Mr. Pacchicrotti was at Spa. He and I were quite ‘thick.’ We rode together frequently. He drank tea with me.
Like all ‘as X as Y’ similes, ‘as thick as thieves’ depends on Y (thieves) being thought of as archetypally X (thick). The thieves had some competition. Earlier versions were ‘as thick as’… ‘inkle weavers’, ‘peas in a shell’ and ‘three in a bed’, all of which were examples of things that were especially intimate (inkle-weavers sat at looms that were close together).
These variants have now pretty much disappeared, leaving the way clear for ‘as thick as thieves’.
All I can say as an old Aussie who was a youngster in the 1950s is that I wish our Aussie barbers were as good as these American barbers back then.
So I put I put a picture on the front of Vincent D. “Gomer Pyle” from Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” which is more like the Australian Crewie that I used to be given back then.
Crew cut hairstyle.
The crew cut style has a significant meaning for the men choosing to wear it. This haircut held symbolic meaning that meant hard work ethics.
In fact, this style was adopted by the military to replace the old style, traditional buzz cut.
The reason for this change was how well the meaning behind the crew cut was taken by those around the wearer.
Source: Most Popular 1950s Mens Hairstyles – Cool Men’s Hair
Caleb Bradham of New Bern, North Carolina was a pharmacist.
Like many pharmacists at the turn of the century he had a soda fountain in his drugstore, where he served his customers refreshing drinks, that he created himself.
His most popular beverage was something he called “Brad’s drink” made of carbonated water, sugar, vanilla, rare oils, pepsin and cola nuts.
“Brad’s drink”, created in the summer of 1893, was later renamed Pepsi Cola in 1898 after the pepsin and cola nuts used in the recipe.
In 1898, Caleb Bradham wisely bought the trade name “Pepsi Cola” for $100 from a competitor from Newark, New Jersey that had gone broke.
The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired two copy books by Elizabeth Corbet Yeats (1868-1940), the sister of W.B. Yeats. In the 1890s, Elizabeth was living in London, teaching art to children and involved with the Royal Drawing Society of Great Britain and Ireland. The Society’s director, Thomas Robert Ablett, wrote the introduction to her 1896 edition.
One morning, someone in Southern California found an injured owl on their porch. It turned out to be a blind Western Screech Owl with eyes that look like a starry night.
After a visit to the vet, the owl found a new permanent home at the Wildlife Learning Center in Sylmar, California.
He was named “Zeus” after the Greek god of sky and thunder because of his stunning eyes.
The Mexican Revolution began on 20 November, 1910, and raged well into the 1920s.
It was an attempt by revolutionaries to overthrow the ruler and dictator Porfirio Diaz Mori and implement a constitution, which would aim to ensure fairer life for the farming classes.
The conflict was bloody, with around 900,000 people losing their lives. Such vast death and destruction meant that both sides were more than willing to involve women and children in combat.
One army of 5,369 revolutionaries inspected by United States officials included 1,256 women and 554 children.