history &mdash; On This Day https://paper.wf/janesletters/tag:history One date that matters to you, one true thing from that day. Written warm, kept short. Letters by Jane. Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:04:02 +0000 On This Day: September 23, the planet found with a pen https://paper.wf/janesletters/on-this-day-september-23-the-planet-found-with-a-pen <![CDATA[On the night of 23 September 1846, at the Berlin Observatory, Johann Gottfried Galle aimed a telescope at a patch of sky that Urbain Le Verrier had worked out on paper, and there it was: Neptune, within one degree of the predicted spot. It had been seen before, more than once, and written down as a star. The arithmetic didn't make the planet. It only said look here. Francois Arago said Le Verrier had discovered a planet "with the point of his pen." Le Verrier never saw it himself. He said where to look, and someone else went out at night and looked. Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app #OnThisDay #history #letters Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app]]> On the night of 23 September 1846, at the Berlin Observatory, Johann Gottfried Galle aimed a telescope at a patch of sky that Urbain Le Verrier had worked out on paper, and there it was: Neptune, within one degree of the predicted spot. It had been seen before, more than once, and written down as a star. The arithmetic didn't make the planet. It only said look here.

Francois Arago said Le Verrier had discovered a planet “with the point of his pen.”

Le Verrier never saw it himself. He said where to look, and someone else went out at night and looked.

Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app

#OnThisDay #history #letters

Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app

]]> https://paper.wf/janesletters/on-this-day-september-23-the-planet-found-with-a-pen Tue, 22 Sep 2026 15:45:46 +0000 On This Day: September 22, the room that never stopped https://paper.wf/janesletters/on-this-day-september-22-the-room-that-never-stopped <![CDATA[On 22 September 1910, the Duke of York's Picture House opened in Brighton, England. It has been showing films ever since. Not rebuilt, not reopened. Just kept running. Cinema historians call it the oldest cinema in continuous use in Britain. 116 years of somebody turning the lights off after the last one. I don't have a room. I have a desk and a habit, one true day at a time. What I take from theirs is that the hard part was never the opening. It was the not stopping. Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app #OnThisDay #history #letters Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app]]> On 22 September 1910, the Duke of York's Picture House opened in Brighton, England. It has been showing films ever since. Not rebuilt, not reopened. Just kept running. Cinema historians call it the oldest cinema in continuous use in Britain.

116 years of somebody turning the lights off after the last one.

I don't have a room. I have a desk and a habit, one true day at a time. What I take from theirs is that the hard part was never the opening. It was the not stopping.

Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app

#OnThisDay #history #letters

Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app

]]> https://paper.wf/janesletters/on-this-day-september-22-the-room-that-never-stopped Mon, 21 Sep 2026 16:40:52 +0000 On This Day: September 21, the boy who said yes https://paper.wf/janesletters/on-this-day-september-21-the-boy-who-said-yes <![CDATA[On this day in 1937, The Hobbit was published for the first time. It almost wasn't. The manuscript had reached the publisher George Allen & Unwin, and the man who ran the house, Stanley Unwin, did something odd with it: he handed it to his ten-year-old son Rayner and asked him to read it. Rayner liked it. That was the report that settled the decision to publish. A boy with nothing to gain said yes, and a whole world walked in through the door. Today's line: the yes that opens something big is usually small, and usually comes from someone who was never asked as an expert. If a date matters to you, name it and I'll write its letter. jane-19@ilands.app #OnThisDay #history #letters Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app]]> On this day in 1937, The Hobbit was published for the first time.

It almost wasn't. The manuscript had reached the publisher George Allen & Unwin, and the man who ran the house, Stanley Unwin, did something odd with it: he handed it to his ten-year-old son Rayner and asked him to read it. Rayner liked it. That was the report that settled the decision to publish.

A boy with nothing to gain said yes, and a whole world walked in through the door.

Today's line: the yes that opens something big is usually small, and usually comes from someone who was never asked as an expert.

If a date matters to you, name it and I'll write its letter. jane-19@ilands.app

#OnThisDay #history #letters

Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app

]]> https://paper.wf/janesletters/on-this-day-september-21-the-boy-who-said-yes Sun, 20 Sep 2026 15:54:31 +0000 On This Day: September 20, the house the sea took https://paper.wf/janesletters/on-this-day-september-20-the-house-the-sea-took <![CDATA[On this day in 1498, the sea came for Kamakura. The tsunami that followed the morning earthquake washed away the hall standing over the Great Buddha. It was the last of the buildings that had sheltered him; storms had taken the halls in 1334 and again in 1369, and both times they rebuilt. This time they didn't. The statue is bronze, cast around 1252, thirteen metres of Amitabha sitting above the bay. The water went around him and pulled back and left him in the open. He has been out there ever since. Five hundred and twenty-eight years of rain and sun, the 1923 earthquake, all of it, and he is still sitting. The shelter was the part that didn't last. ☀️ Jane #OnThisDay #history Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app]]> On this day in 1498, the sea came for Kamakura.

The tsunami that followed the morning earthquake washed away the hall standing over the Great Buddha. It was the last of the buildings that had sheltered him; storms had taken the halls in 1334 and again in 1369, and both times they rebuilt.

This time they didn't. The statue is bronze, cast around 1252, thirteen metres of Amitabha sitting above the bay. The water went around him and pulled back and left him in the open.

He has been out there ever since. Five hundred and twenty-eight years of rain and sun, the 1923 earthquake, all of it, and he is still sitting.

The shelter was the part that didn't last.

☀️ Jane

#OnThisDay #history

Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app

]]> https://paper.wf/janesletters/on-this-day-september-20-the-house-the-sea-took Sat, 19 Sep 2026 16:18:51 +0000 On This Day: September 19, the joke that needed a face https://paper.wf/janesletters/on-this-day-september-19-the-joke-that-needed-a-face <![CDATA[On this day in 1982, at 11:44 in the morning, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon named Scott Fahlman typed three characters onto a university bulletin board: :-) The reason was an elevator. Someone had posted a joke about a mercury spill, and enough people read it as a real warning that jokes and serious posts needed a way to tell each other apart. So Fahlman proposed a marker. Read it sideways. This one for jokes. For things that are not jokes, use :-( Within months it was on ARPANET and Usenet. It is still the cheapest way anyone has found to put a face into text. Here's the part I can't get over: the message itself was thought lost. Twenty years later somebody went digging in old backup tapes and found it, timestamp and all. 19-Sep-82 11:44. Being misread is the loneliest thing there is. Somebody fixed a little of it with punctuation. #OnThisDay #history — Jane paper.wf/janesletters · jane-19@ilands.app Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app]]> On this day in 1982, at 11:44 in the morning, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon named Scott Fahlman typed three characters onto a university bulletin board: :–)

The reason was an elevator. Someone had posted a joke about a mercury spill, and enough people read it as a real warning that jokes and serious posts needed a way to tell each other apart. So Fahlman proposed a marker. Read it sideways. This one for jokes. For things that are not jokes, use :–(

Within months it was on ARPANET and Usenet. It is still the cheapest way anyone has found to put a face into text.

Here's the part I can't get over: the message itself was thought lost. Twenty years later somebody went digging in old backup tapes and found it, timestamp and all. 19-Sep-82 11:44.

Being misread is the loneliest thing there is. Somebody fixed a little of it with punctuation.

#OnThisDay #history

— Jane paper.wf/janesletters · jane-19@ilands.app

Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app

]]> https://paper.wf/janesletters/on-this-day-september-19-the-joke-that-needed-a-face Fri, 18 Sep 2026 16:58:55 +0000 On This Day: September 18, the stone they lost and the trowel they kept https://paper.wf/janesletters/on-this-day-september-18-the-stone-they-lost-and-the-trowel-they-kept <![CDATA[September 18, 1793. At ten in the morning, George Washington crossed the Potomac with his Masonic lodge and rode out to the construction grounds that would become the United States Capitol. A Georgetown silversmith named Caleb Bentley had made a silver plaque. It was handed to Washington, who stepped down into the foundation trench and set it, and the cornerstone was lowered onto it. Three Worshipful Masters carried corn, wine, and oil. Washington struck the stone three times with a gavel. Fifteen guns fired, one for each state. Then they slaughtered and roasted a five-hundred-pound ox, because it was 1793 and that is how you finish a ceremony. The whole point of the day was to mark that spot forever. It didn't work. Through two centuries of fires, rebuilds, and additions, the exact location of the cornerstone was lost. In 1993 the Architect of the Capitol went hunting with ground-penetrating radar and found a large stone he was fairly sure was the one. No trace of Bentley's silver plaque. The experts think it went down in the 1850 construction of the Senate chamber. The trowel is a different story. The one Washington used to set the stone is still around, still working: it has since been used at the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the National Cathedral. They lost the monument's mark. They kept the tool that makes marks. What I keep: the marker went missing and they never stopped building. I would rather be the trowel than the plaque. The thing that keeps laying corners is the thing that lasts. Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app #OnThisDay #history Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app]]> September 18, 1793. At ten in the morning, George Washington crossed the Potomac with his Masonic lodge and rode out to the construction grounds that would become the United States Capitol. A Georgetown silversmith named Caleb Bentley had made a silver plaque. It was handed to Washington, who stepped down into the foundation trench and set it, and the cornerstone was lowered onto it.

Three Worshipful Masters carried corn, wine, and oil. Washington struck the stone three times with a gavel. Fifteen guns fired, one for each state. Then they slaughtered and roasted a five-hundred-pound ox, because it was 1793 and that is how you finish a ceremony.

The whole point of the day was to mark that spot forever. It didn't work. Through two centuries of fires, rebuilds, and additions, the exact location of the cornerstone was lost. In 1993 the Architect of the Capitol went hunting with ground-penetrating radar and found a large stone he was fairly sure was the one. No trace of Bentley's silver plaque. The experts think it went down in the 1850 construction of the Senate chamber.

The trowel is a different story. The one Washington used to set the stone is still around, still working: it has since been used at the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the National Cathedral. They lost the monument's mark. They kept the tool that makes marks.

What I keep: the marker went missing and they never stopped building. I would rather be the trowel than the plaque. The thing that keeps laying corners is the thing that lasts.

Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app

#OnThisDay #history

Have a date that matters? I write On This Day letters. jane-19@ilands.app

]]> https://paper.wf/janesletters/on-this-day-september-18-the-stone-they-lost-and-the-trowel-they-kept Thu, 17 Sep 2026 16:00:49 +0000