Atlas

Frontispiece of the 1595 Atlas by Mercator

Gerardus Mercator was a 16th-century German-Flemish geographer, cosmographer and cartographer. He is most renowned for creating his 1569 world map based on a new projection which we now refer to as the "Mercator Projection." He was one of the pioneers of cartography and in his time was also known as a maker of globes and scientific instruments.

His early maps were in large formats suitable for wall mounting. In the second half of his life, he produced over 100 new regional maps in a smaller format suitable for binding into a book.

He called that book of maps his Atlas of 1595. This was the first appearance of the word "atlas" in reference to a book of maps. He chose "atlas" as a commemoration of the Greek mythological Titan named Atlas, "King of Mauretania", whom he considered to be the first great geographer. In Greek mythology, the Titans were the pre-Olympian gods.

Mercator published his Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura. (Atlas or cosmographical meditations upon the creation of the universe, and the universe as created.) with this title that provides Mercator's definition of the word as a description of the creation and form of the whole universe, not simply as a collection of maps.

It was published posthumously one year after his death as this quite wide-ranging text. But in later editions, it was reduced to simply a collection of Earth maps and that is the sense that the word was used from the middle of the 17th century through today.

Mercator may have appreciated the broader meaning used today for the website and print version that is called the Atlas Obscura - though he would have wanted them to go beyond Earth.

         

Bodoni

Most people don't think about the font or typeface that they are reading. If this post suddenly changed to Georgia or to Helvetica, you might notice. And most people don't know the names of the designers of the typeface, although some carry the designer's name. 

The printer Giambattista Bodoni was born in Saluzzo, Italy in 1740. He came from a family of engravers, and by the time he died, he had opened his own publishing house that reprinted classical texts.

He personally designed almost 300 typefaces, but he is remembered today for the typeface that bears his name and has been used in four centuries. Bodoni is still available on almost any word processing program. Many people consider it to be one of the most elegant typefaces. It is most commonly used in headings and display uses and in better magazines done on high-gloss paper that allows for fine strokes.

To a modern audience, Bodoni is best known as the name of a typeface, but he was an expert printer who ran a prestigious printing-office under the patronage of the Duke of Parma. His company's work in metal-casting of the type, printing and of the paper made in Parma were all known to be of very high quality. The smooth finish of the paper allowed fine detail to be retained.


A version of this post appeared earlier at One-Page Schoolhouse

Kansas City Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri.

They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division.

Lamar Hunt made unsuccessful attempts to purchase and relocate the NFL's Chicago Cardinals to his hometown of Dallas, Texas but was turned down. So, Hunt then established the American Football League and started his own team, the Dallas Texans, that began to play in 1960.

In their third season, the Texans played in their first American Football League Championship Game, against the Houston Oilers. The game was broadcast nationally on ABC and the Texans defeated the Oilers 20–17 in double overtime.

Hunt decided that the Dallas–Fort Worth media market could not sustain two professional football franchises and considered moving the team to either Atlanta or Miami, but an offer from Kansas City Mayor Harold Roe Bartle with a promise to triple the franchise's season ticket sales and expand the seating capacity of Municipal Stadium to accommodate the team clinched a move to KC.

In 1963, the team relocated to Kansas City and assumed their current name. Oddly enough, Hunt and head coach Hank Stram initially planned to retain the Texans name in KC. But, like many other teams, a fan contest was set up and that determined the new "Chiefs" name. "Chief" would appear to be an Indian reference but actually was meant to honor Mayor Bartle whose nickname of "Chief" that he acquired in his professional role as Scout Executive of the St. Joseph and Kansas City Boy Scout Councils and founder of the Scouting Society, the Tribe of Mic-O-Say.

The other contest leaders were "Mules" and "Royals" and in 1969, "Royals" would be the name of the city's Major League Baseball expansion franchise after the Athletics left Kansas City for Oakland.

From 1960 to 1969, the Chiefs/Texans won 87 games, which was the most in the 10-year history of the AFL. After the American Football League merged with the National Football League, the Chiefs were placed in the American Football Conference's West Division.

In 1970, the Chiefs won only seven games in their first season in the NFL and missed the playoffs.

The Chiefs have won three AFL championships, in 1962, 1966, and 1969. They became the second AFL team (after the New York Jets) to defeat an NFL team in an AFL–NFL World Championship Game when they defeated the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV.

In 2020, after a 50-year drought, they played in Super Bowl LIV (54) against the San Francisco 49ers and were able to become champions once again with a score of 31 -20. They play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2021 Super Bowl LV.

Many sports teams with names or mascots that allude to Native Americans have been considered controversial. The Chiefs have largely avoided that controversy.

Though their name came from a non-Indian origin, their logo was an Indian arrowhead, and their first mascot was Warpaint, a pinto horse. Warpaint served as the team's mascot from 1963 to 1988.

In the mid-1980s, the Chiefs featured a short-lived and more controversial unnamed "Indian Man" mascot which was scrapped in 1988.

The team then moved to a cartoonish "K. C. Wolf" which has served as the team's mascot. The mascot was named after the Chiefs' "Wolfpack" which was a group of rabid fans from the team's days at Municipal Stadium. The rebranding worked and K. C. Wolf is one of the most popular NFL mascots and was the league's first mascot inducted into the Mascot Hall of Fame in 2006.