Ides of March - TheHistoryBlog.com No 1

 It is Jan 4th and I've been scheduling some posts. During my breaks, I surf. I have no idea how I managed to stumble across TheHistoryBlog - but it's been a lot of fun. The blogger goes by the name livius and you can Google that name if you are interested. He has been blogging daily (just like me) for longer than I have been blogging. (13 years for livius vs 11 years for jean) I found several interesting posts and I am going to plunk some of the items into some off-topic posts. If you are a huge history buff, you can just read all his posts. Scanning through them month-by-month has been entertaining me as I stay hunkered during this time of the *more virulent strain.*

The images and link is about the possible theft of one of Darwin's notebooks. It is the one that includes his picture of the tree of life. The penmanship is -what- ? I don't know what word to use. We feel sorry for the people who have to figure out what it says. The article includes a *translation* of the chicken-scratching.

You might want to read the whole article. As usual, the parts that I find interesting are the obscure details, like how long the notebook has been missing and how many items they have and how long it will take to complete the search in case they have just misplaced it. Luckily, they had taken high-res images of the book, so at least they have that. Until they put someone like me in charge of maintaining files of images.

I will be posting some additional articles from time to time. I do not get complaints about off-topic posts. And sometimes I get thank yous. So, perhaps we like some variety. Maybe the tree will inspire some envelope art

Link to Darwin's notebook blogpost.  -- a jumping off point if you want to peruse additional articles about artifacts.

Orientation of the tree as he probably drew it.

Orientation if you want to try reading what he wrote.

The 2-page spread of the notebook.

Why did I mention the Ides of March?

No reason. It's just one of those factoids that is stuck in my head, even though I had no idea what Ides of anything means. But, now I do. I did remember that it was the death-date of Julius Caesar. But, it is also the last date of celebrating the new year -- for some people. Not me. Two and a half months is way too long to celebrate anything.