Tennessee Trash

Bramley Cottage 🏡

Europe’s oldest universities still have rooms like this. Quiet, grand, and full of centuries of knowledge 📚 This is what a real library should look like. F. Smuglewicz Hall at Vilnius University Library, Lithuania (est. 1570) Who else wants to disappear here for a week?

On April 13, 1204 Constantinople had fallen to the Fourth Crusade! An army raised to support the Holy Land had seized the greatest city in Christendom. “In truth, they were exposed as frauds.” Constantinople was despoiled - a tragic story of gold, blood, and destruction “On that day on which the City fell, the despoilers…spread out in all directions, seized everything inside as plunder.” The people suffered: “some bemoaned the abduction and deflowering of a beautiful young daughter of marriageable age or bewailed the loss of a spouse, while others moaned some other calamity as they made their way.” Refugees poured out: “the chiefs decided to allow those who so desired to depart. Gathered into groups, they went forth wrapped in tatters, wasted away from fasting, ashen in complexion, their visages corpse-like, and their eyes bloodshot, shedding more blood than tears.” Hagia Sophia was desecrated: “The table of sacrifice, fashioned from every kind of precious material and fused by fire into one whole - blended together into a perfection of one multicolored thing of beauty, truly extraordinary…was broken into pieces and divided.” “In order to remove the pure silver which overlay the railing of the bema, the wondrous pulpit and the gates, as well as that which covered a great many other adornments, all of which were plated with gold, they led to the very sanctuary of the temple itself mules and asses. “Moreover, a certain silly woman laden with sins, the handmaid of demons…waxing wanton against Christ, sat upon the synthronon and intoned a song, and then whirled about and kicked up her heels in dance.” The city was in darkness… “There were lamentations and cries of woe and weeping in the narrow ways, wailing at the crossroads, moaning in the temples, outcries of men, screams of women, the taking of captives, and the dragging about, tearing in pieces, and raping of bodies heretofore sound and whole.” “Thus it was that Constantine’s fair city, the common delight and boast of all nations, was laid waste by fire and blackened by soot, taken and emptied of all wealth.” Not even the tombs of emperors or ancient statues were spared in the frenzied sacking. This “was the lot of all the sacred church treasures, countless in number and unsurpassed in beauty. They found it fitting to bring out as so much booty the all-hallowed vessels and furnishings which had been wrought with incomparable elegance & craftsmanship from rare material.” “They were exposed as frauds. Seeking to avenge the Holy Sepulcher, they raged openly against Christ and sinned by overturning the Cross with the cross they bore on their backs (the True Cross relic), not even shuddering to trample on it for the sake of a little gold and silver” “Such then, to make a long story short, were the outrageous crimes committed by Western armies against the inheritance of Christ. Without showing any feelings of humanity whatsoever, they exacted from all their money and chattel, dwellings and clothing, leaving to them nothing” Source: O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates

It’s a really tough choice, but I think baby otters are probably the cutest baby animals on the planet 🥺

Name one thing more valuable than money?

The coolest landing technique ever.

"Hero" is a Greek word (ἥρως) but its ancient range of meaning was much broader than in contemporary English. Today, Prof. Angie Hobbs @drangiehobbs of @sheffielduni turns to Plato to reveal the complex challenges he found in epic idea(l)s of "heroism": antigonejournal.com/2026/04/plato-…

After spending 25 years as a mechanic. Carl Allamby decided in his 40s to go back to school and chase his dream of becoming a doctor. At 51, he now works in the ER. Proving it's never too late to change your life.

We will soon find out our clothes are killing us.

Ancient Greeks and Romans had their own favorites among Homeric heroes, but Odysseus was always beloved. Archaeologists studying sites around Ithaca, Odysseus’ home island, have found centuries’ worth of offerings incised with dedications to the hero. archaeology.org/issues/may-jun…

Gold, tempera, fresco, stained glass, painted arches . . . Throwing in the best of everything for the glory of God at Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy.

There are not enough baby goats on this app

Victorian-era bird-shaped perfume bottle from circa 1880–1890.

In early spring of 1886, when he was nearing sixty, Tolstoy decided to walk from his Moscow home to his ancestral estate, Yasnaya Polyana, outside of Tula, a distance of more than two hundred kilometers. "I am walking, mainly, to recuperate from the luxuries of life and perhaps to take part a bit the real life," he wrote a friend. He left, without a clear plan, a pack on his back and a couple friends at his side. He spent the nights on the floor of peasant huts, often sleeping with a dozen other travelers. He ate bread and cabbage soup. He gathered material for future stories. "It was, as I’d assumed it would be, one of the best memories of my life," he wrote his wife upon arriving at Yasnaya Polyana, complaining of "a little tiredness." (probably not him in the photo)

The Grand Chat Polymorphe, a functional sculpture in the form of a bar, created by French artist François-Xavier Lalanne.

It's impossible not to fall in love with Italy, especially Portofino.

Look at this cat that's mistaken for a calf because it has the same pattern as the cat. 😂

A 3500-year-old amber bear amulet, found in a peat bog near Slupsk, Poland.