Part 22 (1/2)
First things first: the story that ”vodka” comes from the Russian word for ”water” is not true, though modern Russians (and many college students) may treat it that way. Vodka was first distilled from rye, and early forms of the drink probably existed by the fourteenth century, though large-scale production didn't begin until the 1600s.Vodka has long been intertwined with Russian politics. In the later fifteenth century, Ivan III made vodka production and sale a state monopoly: from 1533, vodka was sold exclusively by small taverns called kabaks kabaks, which provided one of Ivan's main sources of revenue. Food wasn't served, but customers could drink and play dice as much as they liked-leading to endless fights. In the seventeenth century there were a series of kabak kabak revolts by angry customers who thought the tavern-keepers were cheating them by diluting the vodka. (They were.) revolts by angry customers who thought the tavern-keepers were cheating them by diluting the vodka. (They were.)Vodka even played a role in foreign policy: in the late sixteenth century, the rulers of Moscow tried to convince the Nogai Tartar tribe to join a military alliance by sending them a vodka still. And of course, vodka was an important part of official functions (another Russian tradition that continues today), though the early revels sound more like frat parties than diplomatic ceremonies: it seems one governor of Moscow trained a large bear to serve pepper vodka to his guests and-if they refused-to remove their clothes, piece by piece.AND THANKS, BUT NO THANKS, FOR...
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Toxic Makeup Of all the substances you'd want to grind into a powder, mix into a paste, and spread all over your body, lead is probably pretty low on the list. Lead's toxicity is well established now. In children it causes r.e.t.a.r.ded mental development and, in extreme cases, death; adults with lead poisoning suffer from fatigue, depression, heart failure, gout, and kidney failure. But none of this was known in the sixteenth century, when Queen Elizabeth I of England wanted to look fabulous, so her ladies-in-waiting thought nothing of painting her skin with a compound of white lead. Following an attack of smallpox in 1562, Elizabeth coated her face with vinegar and white lead to cover up her smallpox scars. She also stuffed her cheeks with rags to combat the facial wasting a.s.sociated with age and disease. Anything for beauty, darling!Syphilis Nothing typifies this time period better than syphilis. That's right, an entire historical epoch is probably best summarized by a venereal disease. Why? Because syphilis spread around the world on European sailing s.h.i.+ps, just as Europeans ventured far from their home continent for the first time in centuries.There is still a great deal of debate as to whether syphilis originated in the Old World or the New, but Europeans considered the deadly venereal disease, which drove people bonkers, an American import.The Spanish claimed they got it from Native Americans, and soon gave it to Italian women during a long series of wars between Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor, and Francis I, the king of France. Thus, the Italians called syphilis ”the Spanish disease.” But when French soldiers brought the disease home from Italy, the French came to know it as ”the Italian disease.” It should come as no surprise, then, that English gentlemen visiting prost.i.tutes in France dubbed it ”the French disease,” and-in a final twist-British colonial subjects abroad called it ”the English disease.” Talk about playing the blame game.Family Jewels It turns out feminism is nothing new: the Thais were practicing a radical form of female empowerment five centuries ago. We know this because of testimony from Chinese sailors who sailed around Asia and the Indian Ocean basin. The patriarchal Chinese were shocked by what they saw in Thailand (then the kingdom of Siam).For starters, women enjoyed unusual power in Siamese society: They directed the affairs of great agricultural estates, merchant families, and ordinary households. Worse still, Siamese society seemed to have reversed the ”natural” roles of men and women. Women of the upper cla.s.s were straightforward, businesslike, and went about un-adorned, while their husbands grew their hair and nails long, wore luxurious silk garments, and prided themselves on their makeup and elaborate jewelry.The jewelry in particular took an interesting direction: when Zheng He's Chinese fleet visited Thailand in the mid-fifteenth century, it was common practice for men of the Siamese upper cla.s.ses to insert small silver beads into their s.c.r.o.t.u.ms, between their skin and testes. When this cosmetic procedure was done correctly, the beads produced a jingling sound when the men walked.Painted ”Ladies”
Sixteenth-century England had some interesting thoughts on gender roles. Consider this: though h.o.m.os.e.xuality was viewed as an abomination, it was seen as perfectly normal-decent, in fact-to dress boys in women's clothing, paint them with makeup, and have them impersonate women in public places. Often this meant their having s.e.x with adult men as prost.i.tutes.Of course, there was a good reason behind pressing boys into service as ”actresses” and prost.i.tutes: it was essential to protecting the virtue of real women. During the Elizabethan period, the English thought nothing of boys impersonating women for dramatic purposes; when William Shakespeare staged his plays at the Globe Theatre in London, it was far more respectable to have a boy playing a female role than a real woman.And since actors were considered just a step above prost.i.tutes, it wasn't a big leap to forcing boys into prost.i.tution-again as female impersonators. The name of one notorious street, ”Lad Lane,” is self-explanatory. Boy prost.i.tutes were also a common sight along the quays where English s.h.i.+ps returned to port after years circling the globe. Apparently, sailors returning from long tours of duty weren't picky when they set foot on Ol' Blighty again-the origin of the tongue-in-cheek salutation ”Hey, sailor!”BY THE NUMBERS [image]
83,000,000.
estimated European population, 1345, pre-Black Death 57,000,000.
European population in 1352, post-Black Death 81,000,000.
European population in 1500 >300.
number of autonomous territorial units in the Holy Roman Empire in 1500 6,000%.
profit margin of Vasco de Gama's first trading expedition to India in 1498 95%.
percentage of cargo from India unloaded in Lisbon, Portugal, that was black pepper, over next two decades 40,000,000.
estimated native population of Americas pre-1492 10,000,000.
estimated native population of Americas by mid-1500s 300,000.
estimated native population of Hispaniola in 1492 60,000.
estimated native population of Hispaniola in 1508 <>
estimated native population of Hispaniola in 1548 6,000,000.
annual silver output, in ounces, of Spanish possessions by 1585 2,000,000,000.
total silver output, in ounces, of the Potosi mine in Bolivia, to date 3,000.
number of Spaniards in Potosi in 1611 76,000.
number of Indian slaves in Potosi in 1611
60.
tons of silver captured by Francis Drake from the Spanish in two raids, 1573 and 1579 7,000.
number of soldiers in the last Byzantine army protecting Constantinople in 1453 100,000.
estimated number of Ottoman soldiers besieging the city under Mehmet II 8,800,000.
hectares of farmland devastated by Mongols reclaimed by the Ming Dynasty 40,987.
number of water reservoirs repaired by the Ming 1,000,000,000.
number of trees planted by the Ming to renew forests destroyed by Mongols 1,500.
length, in miles, of Great Wall rebuilt by Ming Emperors to keep Mongols out 400.
number of raids by one nomadic tribe, the T'u chije Turks, across the Great Wall
WAR AND SLAVERY (AND, UH, ENLIGHTENMENT).
(15751750)
IN A NUTSh.e.l.l.
In the two centuries following the Protestant Reformation, Europeans inflicted incredible violence on themselves and the rest of the world, all in the name of G.o.d. (Good old-fas.h.i.+oned greed was actually behind most of it.) In Europe, the king of Spain, Philip II, was determined to seize control of the British Isles, destroy Protestantism, and force the English to embrace the Catholic Church again. He built a huge fleet, the Spanish Armada, but the English teamed up to defeat the Armada and save England.
Although the English beat Philip, fifty years later they were torn apart by an internal religious conflict between different groups of Protestants, which led to civil war and the execution of the English king, Charles I-an act that horrified Europe in an age of ”absolute monarchs.” Meanwhile, the dissatisfaction of one group of Protestant radicals called Puritans led them to leave England and settle in the New World.
Back on ”the Continent,” the early seventeenth century saw Germany torn apart by a b.l.o.o.d.y conflict between Catholics and Protestants-the Thirty Years' War. And a half century after Philip's Armada bit the big one, Louis XIV, the ”Sun King” of France, dreamed up a similarly ambitious plan: basically, conquering Europe. Like Philip, Louis said he was protecting Catholicism. (Yet somehow this involved trying to conquer Catholic countries, too.) To the east, the heirs of Ivan III of Moscow embarked on a series of conquests that created one of the largest empires in history. Styling themselves successors to the Roman emperors (czars and and czarinas czarinas, from Caesar Caesar), they came to rule an empire that stretched from Poland to Alaska-an astonis.h.i.+ng distance of 4,600 miles, encompa.s.sing 14 time zones and 130 million people.
The year 1644 also saw the overthrow of China's Ming Dynasty. The new rulers, Manchu barbarians from the forests of northern China, weren't quite as brutal as the Mongols, so their new dynasty, the ”Q'ing,” managed to control China. During the Q'ing Dynasty, China ruled more territory than at any other time in history-but soon discovered it had fallen far behind Europe in technology and governance.
Indeed, Europe was on the move in every arena, usually as violently as possible. The outlook for the non-European parts of the world was looking grim.
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN.
1589.
Spanish Armada is defeated.