History
The hitch was called the highwayman's cutaway in 1947 by Cyrus L. Day. He related that, according to Hal McKail, the knot was attributable to the notorious 18th century English highwayman Dick Turpin. Day's book, however, suggested it for use as a quick-release mooring hitch for solo sailing.
While the knot is alleged to have actually been used by highwaymen, this claim is rejected by knot expert Geoffrey Budworth who stated, "there is no evidence to substantiate the reputation of the highwayman's hitch as a quick-getaway-knot for robbers on horseback."
Read more about this topic: Highwayman's Hitch
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)