Hat With History - Bonaparte's Hat For Sale

[vintage68]

Very cool. If I had the money I would bid on it.

 

[jamespowers]

Let us also remember that the Vikings were and their descendents still are the tallest people in the world based on The World Book of Facts. Gens have a lot to do with how tall you are.

 

[hatsRme]

Or short.

 

[vintage68]

Vikings were my peeps!

 

[KingAndrew]

I did a double take on the idea of "decades," too. But I'm teaching US History this semester and that was the claim in the textbook. It was apparently not unusual to see Yankees live into their 70s and 80s. By the way, the book also said that colonists in the Chesapeake region had lives a decade shorter than Yankees, due to factors such as malaria and more frequent childbirth associated with earlier marriage.

However, my web searching hasn't provided much additional information, other than the nugget that British life expectancy at birth was under 50 all through the 18th century--even for peers of the realm. I'd love to know what evidence there is for all of these claims, though. Your skepticism seems pretty reasonable to me.

 

[jamespowers]

Vikings were my peeps!

And you are 6'3"

 

[The Good]

That's very interesting! I didn't know that 19 hats in total have survived to be known in the present day as belonging to him. I wonder if Napoleon Bonaparte's other hats look the same, or if there's a non-bicorne hat in the collection somewhere. Of course, the man is most well known because of his bicorne hats; most people probably think of Napoleon looking at them.

 

[Blackthorn]

He probably would have been a member here.

I think he'd have been a bartender.

 

[hatsRme]

Wasn't Bonaparte the inventor of the Napoleon Complex?

 

[KingAndrew]

Napoleon was the namesake of the complex, but I'm sure it was some psychologist who originated the idea and name.

Actually, for someone with such a strong ego, the Emperor of the French seems not to have named all that many things after himself. Unlike Alexander, for instance, who founded a dozen cities named "Alexandria" all across the territory between Egypt and Kazahkstan.

It's true that we all connect Napoleon to the bicorne hat, although certainly it was won by many at the time (just as Lincoln's style of top hat was worn by millions of other men who are less well known today). I'm sure Bonaparte must have owned other styles of hats, although I have no idea if any survive.

 

[DJH]

BBC News has a nice little video on the auction: http://bcove.me/x5c3798v

 

[Joao Encarnado]

Such a misuse of a giant brim...

 

[jhe888]

I'm hoping cocked hats come back in style.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

The hat has sold for one & a half million euros.......:eeek:

 

[LuvMyMan]

According to what I was seeing, American Revolutionary War soldiers were quite a bit taller than Britain's Lobsterbacks and taller than most Europeans at the time. Americans stayed taller all the way until the last 20 years when Swedes surpassed us. Again, it all has to do with diet and availability of foodstuffs. Americans have been well fed since the beginning.

I think you are 100% correct! It is also made clear about you MEN in what the late Mae West had to say on the matter...."it is not the men in my life...but..the life in my men".....lol!

 

[LuvMyMan]

Wonder if that hat was made from 100% beaver?

 

[Joao Encarnado]

Wonder if that hat was made from 100% beaver?

That is something I would like to know too.