I recently noticed I have a ton of ceramic coffee mugs and a nice porcelain set of tea cups - and only one clear glass coffee mug. But all my other cups and stemware are glass. If ceramic coffee mugs are great at keeping things warm and cold, why glass? What made us switch and when? I imagine ceramic firing is cheaper than clear glass, but what do I know.

sips gin and tonic from a coffee mug

I was always the under impression that judaism as a religion originated in Europe and was simply used as an "excuse" by Christians to colonize the middle east. But I've been told that it originated in the middle east.

Which interpretation is correct?

Every September 11th, I wonder if our obsession with the 9/11 attacks is different that previously. Prior to 9/11, the only comparable attack on US soil was Pearl Harbor. In 1959, was December 7th filled with moments of silence across the country, speeches, memorial services, etc.? Or is our current reaction to 9/11 an outlier?

The Illustrious Class aircraft carriers from the Royal Navy had armored flight decks, and I've read accounts of bombs barely scratching the paint on the deck when it is detonated and kamikazes bouncing off the flight deck without doing significant damage.Meanwhile, USN carriers didn't have any sort of armor on the deck, which was completely vulnerable to bombs and Kamikazes. The USS Franklin was almost destroyed because a bomb had penetrated the flight deck and detonated in the hanger. It wasn't until the Midway Class of CVs did armored decks were introduced. Why did it take so long for the USN to introduce armored carriers when they proved their value in the Royal Navy?

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Did they ever wash up in foreign lands?

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I've always heard stories about Ancient Egyptians doing seemingly crazy stuff like using animal droppings to increase fertility or something, or George Washington's death from bloodletting, and I was wondering if in the past it was safer to just not do anything when you were sick, rather than contacting a doctor or healer of any sort.

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Were there societies where it would have been safer to do nothing than see a healer? If so, when did medicine become advanced to the point where it saved more people than it hurt?

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Thanks for any answers!

The Soviets controlled all of Berlin, and all of its suburbs in 1945. Why create this geographic oddity? Was Stalin trying to keep the USSR open to the west and have them interact?

It’s my understanding that after WW2 the communists, mostly led by the USSR under Stalin conducted brutal genocide against Germans, giving numerous historically German territories over to be settled by poles. And of course there is Kalingrad. To me, it seems almost like a “reverse lebensraum”. Why’d they do it? Wouldn’t that just agitate what was left of the German people? Why didn’t the international community care? Why did they let Poles settle for the most part, and not Russians? Why did they stop where they did, and not cleanse Central Asia, for example?

My urge to ask this was sparked after I saw a Facebook post. I'm in what is essential the general chat of my town, one of these "Town-name, State" groups where people post local political events and gossip, advertise community services, so on. Today there was a post about how "disgraceful" it was that the local paper didn't have a front page dedicated to 9/11. This post has more than 160 likes (big number for my town) and it's only going up. Tons of comments agreeing. I put "disgraceful" in quotes because I think it's worth knowing this is a subjective phrase, and not that I agree or disagree with the application of the term.

Commemoration of 9/11 seems to be a big cultural trend in my area. I've lived in New York my whole life, 90% of it spent less than an hour from the city. I can see the skyline from one of my favorite hikes (Mt. Beacon, which is 70 miles north of the City.) My degree is from SUNY at Albany. My family has lived in NYC or around it for three generations. All of my social media and news outlets are showing bombarding messages of "never forget" and "remember 9/11". I can't say this is the national experience because I don't know. But locally, it's a yearly ritual.

My question is simple: how common was this throughout history? Did American culture ritualize a scheduled yearly remembrance of tragic events like Pearl Harbor outside of calendar days like Pearl Harbor Day? Did newspapers annually memorialize it? I know a similar amount of people died (2,400+ in PH, 3k in 9/11), so I guess this is a comparison? If they did, for how long did this practice continue?

This is a big question and I hope the mods don't remove it. This is an emotional question for me and very sensitive to my community.

I'm also sorry if ritualize is the wrong phrase, I don't know what else to use here to describe it. It's a yearly thing and I'm curious about if this was a normal occurrence with similar disasters. Also also, sorry for typos. On my phone during lunch break.

Edit: and I fucked up the title. Don't post from your phone, kids.

My impression is that they just rolled over all their neighbors. However, I am unaware of any numerical, tactical or technological advantage they had:

I know that during reconstruction some places passed laws were if your grandfather didn't vote, you couldn't vote, which usually ment ex-slaves and their decedents couldn't. I know that literacy tests were also used to screen out black voters. Were there any such loop hole laws that were passed after women gained suffrage?

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My wife and I were watching a documentary recently on Prohibition in America, and this particular quote from an English traveler in the 1830s caught my attention:

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“I am sure the Americans can fix nothing without a drink. If you meet, you drink; if you part, you drink; if you make acquaintance, you drink; if you close a bargain you drink; they quarrel in their drink, and they make it up with a drink. They drink because it is hot; they drink because it is cold. If successful in elections, they drink and rejoice; if not, they drink and swear; they begin to drink early in the morning, they leave off late at night; they commence it early in life, and they continue it, until they soon drop into the grave.” – Frederick Marryat

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From what I understand, in the first half of the 19th century, Americans drank something like 7 gallons of ethanol per person, per year. That's staggering (no pun intended), especially when you consider that now, we're barely in the top 50 in the world in alcohol consumption. So what changed? Was it prohibition? From my (limited) understanding Prohibition didn't really do much to actually curtail consumption, it just took it underground.

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Hopefully this isn't a repeat question. I did a search on here before posting and didn't really turn up much.

I recently found what looks like some sort of painting for the United States Reclamation Service. It says "Never gamble, unless you hold Yuma's hand" and has Uncle Sam revealing some cards. It's copyright 1910, I'll post the pic as a comment if I can. Just wanted to see if anyone could identify it or knew the story behind what it might be.

I'm curious if they faced unusual discrimination during their first wave of settlement, or if it developed later on as they kept to their traditional style of living while their neighbors did not.

Here are several examples of muslims being referred to as "knights":

"This is the message that king Marsilie, the valiant knight, has sent you: He has much enquired concerning the true way of salvation."

"Fair Sir Ganelon, said King Marsilie, my people are such that you will never see a nobler race; I can put four hundred thousand knights into the field, can I fight against Charles and the Frenchmen?"

"Margariz is a very valiant knight, handsome and strong and swift and light."

"What folly do I hear! These gods of ours are powerless. Poor prowess they showed in Roncesvaux; they let our knights be slain, they failed my lord here in battle."

Artillery was a pretty vital part of the Roman army’s tactics, but did the navy ever experiment with, say a mounted ballista?