The History of Tattoos

During the middle ages, tattoos became a permanent souvenir of religious pilgrimages. In court cases which sometimes relied on identifiable tattoos to make convictions, tattoos were more common than you'd think. But it was in the nineteenth century that they really took off as a a trend for everyone. The future king george the fifth got one in 18 81 at only 16, a blue and red dragon done by an artist in yokohama. Aristocratic men and women got them, and this set the trend for everybody else. Permanent make up even caught on, with some people getting their eyebrows and lip rouge tattooed on,. presumably to avoid the whole mouse skin thing.