So doing a little research of my own, I think "Trailing the Giant Panda"
by Theodore and Kermit Roosevelt (sons of the US President) is where the
1927 date comes from, though I can't get access to the book myself,
though related texts seem to point to a 1929 expedition. A contemporary
review in "The Geographic Journal" Vol. 75 No. 2, Feb 1930
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/1784124) says of the book "It is written
for people who have never been at any rate in China, nor will the
average Asiatic traveller learn anything new from it" (though query what
the reviewer knows of the experience of Asiatic travellers).
Then there's a 1934 expedition to document pandas for the American
Museum of Natural History documented in "Notes on the Giant Panda" from
Journal of Mammalogy (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1374303), which notes
that local guides were important to locating pandas for study (though
the author discards their knowledge offhand, alas...).
Based on this, I don't think that it's reasonable to, without
qualification, say that pandas were discovered in 1927. Western
discovery, perhaps, though even then, the World Wildlife Fund claims
that a French guy got his hand on a panda skin in 1869, and then they
have a different date for the Roosevelt expedition
(https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?13588/History-of-the-Giant-Panda). I
wasn't able to confirm anything about this 1869 date, however.
I don't know what the standard is or should be to change listings in BSD
calendar, but I feel that, at a minimum, this one should be clarified.
On 2024-09-08 19:31, Rob Schmersel wrote:
On Sun, 8 Sep 2024 18:47:55 +0300
Fletcher Porter <m...@fletcherporter.com> wrote:
|/src/usr.bin/calendar/calendars/calendar.history:436| reads
|11/09 Giant panda discovered (?!), China, 1927 |
I'm wondering if there's a citation for this? It seem a bit
unbelievable that people and pandas would've coexisted nearby to each
other for thousands of years without ever coming into contact.
Indeed, to the extent that it can be trusted, Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_panda#Early_references) claims that
a 1st century BCE Chinese empress was buried with a panda skull. 1927
could be around the time that there was a European discovery of
pandas, but I don't see that particular date corroborated anywhere,
and that's anyway not what this line claims.
I wonder if this line could be qualified to whatever "discovered
(?!)" actually meant to the author of this line ("first published
about in an international journal", "first seen by Europeans", etc)
or removed since I'd reckon it's more likely than not that this is
incorrect.
Sincerely,
Fletcher Porter
No reputable links, but:
https://www.brainyhistory.com/events/1927/november_9_1927_87078.html
https://husheduphistory.com/post/132902471923/proof-of-pandas
https://www.facebook.com/TheEconomist/posts/bad-at-sex-picky-about-food-the-giant-panda-was-discovered-in-china-on-this-day-/10153722470389060/
