As museums encounter increasing claims on their collections, experts say much of the debate hearkens back to 1815, when the Louvre was forced to surrender the spoils of war. "In September 1815, Karl von Müffling, the Prussian governor of Paris, presented himself at the doors of the Louvre and ordered its French guards to step aside. Belgian and Dutch officials, backed by Prussian and British troops, had arrived to reclaim art treasures plundered by the French during the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. This moment is recognized by many scholars as a sea change in political attitudes toward the spoils of war and is seen as the birth of repatriation, the concept of returning cultural goods taken in times of conflict to the countries from which they were stolen." Nina Siegel for the NYT.

Dutch museum looted by Napoleon does not seek restitution An exhibition at the Mauritshuis in The Hague has revealed that the Dutch are still missing 67 paintings looted by the French in Napoleonic times (Senay Boztas for The Art Newspaper 2023). repatriation previously.

Welcome to the website dedicated to preserving the Civil War history & record of the men of the 13th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer infantry. The site was launched June 2, 2008. Since that time over 60 pages of detailed history have been added. These pages include newspaper stories, soldiers letters, diaries, memoirs, photos, and post-war reminiscences.... Content warning for language, racism, and violence.

It cost a recruit $12.50 for the privilege of enlisting in the exclusive 4th Battallion of Rifles, but before considering the fee, the applicant needed to be approved by a vote from members of the Boston Militia group. In spite of the cost there were plenty of applicants & there was no problem filling each company to its full compliment of men. The four rifle companies of the Fourth Battallion, Companies A, B, C, & D, became the nucleus of the 13th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers (...) Many of these men chose to go directly to the seat of war as privates in the 13th rather than wait for a chance at an officer's commission with another organization.(...) "They are a damned insubordinate lot," said brigade commander General John J. Abercrombie when asked what kind of troops they were. Amongst the material gathered here is this outstanding story attributed to (Union) Lieutenant Edward Rollins: Dr. Stringfellow's Slaves

Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks is a tribute album released in 1995 containing cover tracks by major local bands, including one of the last recordings made by Blind Melon's Shannon Hoon before his death (3 is a Magic Number).

Track listing "Schoolhouse Rocky" - Bob Dorough and Friends "I'm Just A Bill" - Deluxx Folk Implosion "Three Is a Magic Number" - Blind Melon "Conjunction Junction" - Better Than Ezra "Electricity, Electricity" - Goodness "No More Kings" - Pavement "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" - Ween "My Hero, Zero" - The Lemonheads "The Energy Blues" - Biz Markie "Little Twelvetoes" - Chavez "Verb: That's What's Happening" - Moby "Interplanet Janet" - Man or Astro-man? "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here" - Buffalo Tom "Unpack Your Adjectives" - Daniel Johnston "The Tale of Mr. Morton" - Skee-Lo

While investigating the heinous Osage murders for his new book, David Grann also came to know the victims' faces: One day in 2012, when I was visiting the Osage Nation Museum, in Oklahoma, I saw a panoramic photograph on the wall. Taken in 1924, the picture showed members of the Osage Nation alongside white settlers, but a section had been cut out. When I asked the museum director why, she said it contained the image of a figure so frightening that she'd decided to remove it. She then pointed to the missing panel and said, "The devil was standing right there."

"When I moved to the Netherlands a long time ago (I was 33 years old at the time), I was determined to learn Dutch quickly. I did not, of course, expect to become perfect – I knew I would occasionally fumble for words, my grammar would at times be erratic, and many (if not most) conversations with strangers would quickly lead up to the inevitable question "Where do you come from?" This, after all, is what usually happens when you learn a new language later in life – and tons and tons of research are there to support this. What I did not expect was for the same things to happen to my native German." This website created by Dr. Monika S. Schmid, Professor of Linguistics, University of York, shares information about the science of language attrition, what it looks like for adults, children, and other groups, anecdotes, media coverage, celebrity examples, and research tools.

Fred Rogers breaks the color barrier in a kiddie pool with Officer Clemmons in 1967. Fred Rogers Previously. The only known violation of Betteridge's Law of Headlines: Is Mister Rogers' Neighborhood the greatest television show ever made? by Emily St. James for AV Club. Segregation & Swimming Timeline in the United States. An episode of the podcast 5-4 discussing the Supreme Court case Palmer v. Thompson, in which the court decided that the Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the city of Jackson, Mississippi from avoiding integration by closing its public pools.

Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp, and Robert Heinlein at the Philadelphia Navy Yard: In 1942 three of the country's leading SF writers – Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and L. Sprague De Camp – all started working together at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The US had just entered WW II, and everyone wanted to contribute. Heinlein and De Camp were too old and too unfit to fight, and Asimov hated the getting-shot-and-dying part, but they still wanted to chip in. They were three of the most imaginative people in the country, so what did the Navy actually have them doing?

In 1964, the Klan killed three young activists and shocked the nation. A Mississippi town still grapples with that violent civil rights history. An oral history By Susan Levine, Photography by Michael S. Williamson for The Washington Post. Trigger warning for violence and racism. Long. Intense. Note: this is about the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi.

The Plum Island Museum of Lost Toys & Curiosities aims to raise awareness about marine pollution and the environmental impact of single-use plastics and other forms of non-sustainable consumption by removing debris from the shoreline and transforming it into art. ~ instagram gallery ~ start your own

Before World War II, a group of wealthy artists wanted to build a world largely independent of men and American racism. Their story is sumptuously illustrated by the National Portrait Gallery's sweeping exhibition "Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900-1939." Review by Mark Jenkins

If you've never read secretly under the bedclothes with a flashlight, because your father or mother or some other well meaning person has switched off the lamp on the plausible ground that it was time to sleep because you had to get up so early — If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whosecompany life seems empty and meaningless — If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next. What we can learn from the Neverending Story by Helen De Cruz (trigger warning for picture of shirtless Putin). Retro Childhood Review: The Neverending Story by Jen Zink

The European Union has twenty-four official languages, but, according to Jeremy Gardner, a senior translator at the European Court of Auditors, the real number is closer to twenty-three and a half. Gardner has compiled an anthology of offenses committed in what has come to be known as Eurenglish—an interoffice dialect that, as he writes in "A Brief List of Misused English Terms in E.U. Publications," relies upon "words that do not exist or are relatively unknown to native English speakers outside the E.U. institutions." Lauren Collins for the New Yorker (2013). A PDF version of Jeremy Gardner's report from 2016 is available here: "words that do not exist or are relatively unknown to native English speakers outside the EU institutions and often even to standard spellcheckers/grammar checkers ('planification', 'to precise' or 'telematics' for example)"

Previously includes a link to this useful Mental Floss article.