[deleted]

This is a bit of a broad question I guess, since there's probably a lot to it. But I know that the Bible was compiled by a council of sorts that went through a lot of books and picked specific ones to canonize. To be clear, I am NOT asking about the post-reformation Bible that has less books than the original one when Luther removed those few, I am STRICTLY talking about the Bible as a whole, when it was put together, or as is currently the Catholic/Orthodox Bible.

Who claimed the authority to pick these books & how did they do that? And is there an clear records as to why specific books were chosen and others weren't? I know Christians think the Bible to be the direct word of God & Catholics say that the Catholic Church created the Bible, so I'm curious if any of the Church's early fathers ever wrote anything about how & why they chose the Bible to contain what it does.

What real evidence or records do we have about the creation of the Bible and what does it tell us about how & why it was done?

[deleted]

I was talking to someone about how my grandpa proposed to my grandma via telegram. He ended the telegram with "I'm not drunk either." The person I was talking to mentioned drunk calls (etc) nowadays and if drunk telegramming was actually a thing that happened.

Of course there were probably scattered instances that nobody really remembers. But were there any notable instances of sending telegrams drunk? Or any commentary from the early 20th (or late 19th) century regarding it happening?

We were wondering today in the office when jokes about 9/11 would become acceptable in polite society. When did jokes about the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor reach mainstream society?

Some time ago, while I was studying Alexander the Great, I came across Peter Green's 1974 book Alexander of Macedon. Among other things, he tries to explain the discrepancy between our two sources on Alexander's first battle against the local Persian forces (at the River Granicus) by proposing that Alexander's first assault was defeated, and he tried to cover up this defeat. On the other hand, this defeat in itself isn't even suggested in either of the records.

It's been several decades since Green made this proposal; what have other historians thought of it?

(edited as requested)

A common talking point I've heard regarding the most common of homophobic slurs is that the word which also means a bundle of sticks for starting a fire/ kindling, became associated with homosexuals because of their being burned at the stake contemporaneously with witches. Is this true? Were gay people burnt at the stake during say, The Inquisition or the Salem Witch Trials? If that's not the case how the word end up becoming a slur?

I remember reading an old article by an American woman (I think she was working for the CIA) who was attached to the Moscow embassy in the 1950s/1960s and used to sneak out of the embassy wearing a shawl so she would look like an ordinary Russian housewife and made observations about the daily life & economic situation of ordinary Russians. I don't think it was published in an ordinary mass-circulation magazine but it was linked to by an economics blog (it wasn't a blogpost though, it was definitely published in some form) and my google-fu is inadequate. Help?

For example, I've often seen "Medieval Japan" used in history texts, despite the fact that, as far as I know, Japan was largely unaffected by the fall of the Western Roman Empire on the other side of the gigantic Eurasian landmass. If we go further west to Persia or to the Arab world, the effects of the fall of the Roman Empire were probably felt to some degree, although there were of course important differences between them and Western Europe (not to mention that they preserved Ancient Greek scholarship that seems to have only resurfaced in Europe in the Late Medieval or Early Modern Period).

However, I've even seen it argued (not necessarily by historians, however) that Medieval shouldn't be applied anywhere outside Western Europe; for example, in my first year at the university, I asked an Orthodox Christian friend who was reasonably knowledgeable about the history of Orthodox countries like Russia and Greece what Medieval Greece was like, and his answer was something to the effect of "The Middle Ages didn't exist in Greece due to the continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire."

Perhaps my question first requires a clear definition of "Medieval"? Does it refer specifically to drastic social changes following the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire? Or is it based on the presence of largely decentralized, feudal power structures? I'll leave this open for the purpose of this thread.

In short, I would like to ask anyone knowledgeable about any region(s) of the Old World from 500 to 1500 outside Western Europe, how justified is it to use the term "Medieval" for your region(s) of study or knowledge? I'd love to read write-ups on different regions (i.e. Eastern Europe, as well as the various parts of Africa and Asia).

I know this is a big historiographical question, but any contributions are welcome!