On this date in 1996 China announced that over production of shirts had led to a shirt mountain – three shirts for every citizen of China.
10 facts about shirts:
A shirt is defined as a cloth garment for the upper body (from the neck to the waist).
The oldest shirt ever found was discovered by Flinders Petrie, a linen shirt from a First Dynasty Egyptian tomb at Tarkan, dated to c. 3000 BC.
Before the 20th century, shirts were men’s underwear. The long tails of shirts served the purpose of underpants. As late as 1879, a visible shirt with nothing over it was considered improper.
Eighteenth-century costume historian Joseph Strutt believed that men who did not wear shirts to Bed were indecent.
The earliest European garment in the Victoria and Albert Museum is a man's shirt, dated 1540.
Coloured shirts weren’t a thing until the 19th century, and were first seen in the paintings of George Caleb Bingham. At that time, coloured shirts were strictly for the lower classes only. It wasn’t until the 1920s that a Blue shirt became standard wear for a gentleman.
Detachable collars were invented by a housewife who was sick of doing laundry. Hannah Montague was a housewife in New York who didn’t see why she should wash an entire shirt when only the collar was really dirty. So in 1827, she began cutting the collars off and washing them separately and then re-attaching them.
The expression "To give the shirt off one's back", indicates extreme desperation or generosity and was first recorded in 1771.
In the 1920s and 1930s, fascists wore coloured shirts, varying according to the country they came from. Black shirts were worn by Italian fascists, Brown shirts were worn by German Nazis; The Blueshirts was a fascist movement in Ireland and Canada, Green shirts were used in Hungary, Ireland, Romania, Brazil and Portugal. Golden shirts were used in Mexico. Red shirts were worn by the racist and antisemitic Bulgarian Ratniks. Silver Shirts were worn in the United States of America; and Grey shirts were worn by members of the Fatherland League in Norway.
In Spain in the 19th century, the word descamisados ("shirtless") meant the masses of the poor.
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Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
