Breakfast Links: Week of July 18, 2016

Breakfast Links are served - our weekly round-up of fav links to other web sites, articles, blogs, and images via Twitter.
• How the corset turned into a girdle, 1900-1919.
• The now-forgotten " girl mayors " of the 1920s became the first face of feminism.
• Keeping khaki-kool during World War One.
• Baunscheidt's Lebenswecker: the 19thc " life-awakener " (and now considered fraudlent.)
• The peculiar history of cows in the OED.
• Video: Short video of magnificently embroidered early 20thc evening dress .
• The (almost lost) art of handwriting .
• How and when did the thirteen colonies learn of the Declaration of Independence ?
• Image: 19thc purse made from hundreds of melon seeds.
• Magical photographs of fireflies in Japan.
• The rich and fascinating history of dhaka muslin .
• Ten strangest deaths of Roman emperors .
• Descendants of a South Carolina plantation owner and slaves unite to have dinner together 181 years later.
• The 18thc anatomist who celebrated life with dioramas of death.
• Image: Photographer Margaret Bourke-White sets up camera on a gargoyle on the 61st floor of the Chrysler Building, 1934.
• Cleopatra's Needle : how an Egyptian obelisk ended up by the Thames.
• "An extraordinary delivery of rabbits": how Mary Tofts convinced doctors she'd given birth to rabbits, 1726.
• Creating La Dolce Vita in post-war Italy.
• The surprisingly raucous home life of James and Dolley Madison .
• Why women led anti-suffrage movements against themselves.
• Silk-dyers in 18thc London.
• Image: Women's day at the free public bathing house in the East River, NYC, 1876.
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.
Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring. Private collection.