Hello everyone and good riddance to 2021! As most regular readers are aware, we have a 20 Year Rule on the subreddit where we only take questions on things that happened at least 20 years before the current year. You can read more about that here if you want to know the details on why we have it, but basically it’s to ensure enough distance between the past and present that most people have calmed down and we don’t have to delete 200 comments a day arguing about Obama until at least 2028!

Last year, there was an obvious new topic that was suddenly available for discussion: 9/11. As a result, last year’s post was almost exclusively a brief summary of the historical events surrounding that. Mercifully, 2002 was a relatively quiet year for most of the world. Rather than expecting to get several questions a month on 9/11, this year we’re expecting maybe two questions all year going “huh, Switzerland joined the UN in 2002, why did that happen?” So rather than tackling a big topic, this post is going to go through some of the events that are now available for questions. Think of it more as a trip down memory lane, where we can once again remind ourselves that 20 years ago was not the 1990s, but the early 2000s, and that we are therefore getting old and further out of touch with the youth of today.

2002 - The Year of Tedious but Kind of Important Diplomatic and Legislative Stuff

Looking through the significant events of 2002, there is no massive event that seized the attention of the whole world. Instead, we find a lot of diplomatic or legislative initiatives that may have seemed tedious or uninteresting at the time for most people, but have gone on to have some significant impact around the globe. On the low end of that spectrum, there’s Switzerland joining the UN. It was the first country to join the UN via referendum (held 6 six months earlier in 2001), which overturned a 1986 referendum that went against UN membership by a three to one margin. According to their government, the Swiss considered the risk of being dragged into the Cold War by joining the UN was too great in 1986, but with that conflict many years behind them as of the 2001 referendum, the Swiss were ready to sign up.

Elsewhere in Europe, it was launch day for one of the EU’s flagship initiatives. On 1 January 2002, the Euro began to be issued as legal tender across the 12 EU countries that had chosen to adopt it. This massive change of currency was intended to make it easier for Europeans and foreign businesses to trade, as having to deal with a dozen currencies at once when doing business in the EU was something of a bother. The issuing of a pan-European currency had been discussed for decades, and the currency had technically launched in 1999 in preparation for the proper rollout. But for the first time you could walk into a cafe and buy a croissant with coins bearing the €. There were concerns about the stability of a currency being adopted by 12 different economies at once, and there were worries about inflation from throwing all this new money around, but by the end of 2002 the Euro had settled in and climbed in value from $0.82 in January to over $1 in December and things seemed to have gone pretty smoothly, even if the banknotes felt a bit like handling Monopoly money.

Two other major international initiatives also got going in 2002. In May, the African Union was launched. It aimed to fix the problems of the Organisation of African Unity that it was replacing. In July, the International Criminal Court was established with The Hague as its headquarters.

Moving east, it was a rough year in relations between the Koreas. As the 2002 FIFA World Cup was being held in South Korea, the Second Battle of Yeonpyeong was fought between two North Korean patrol boats and six South Korean vessels, resulting in one ship sunk and at least 19 men dead, 43 men wounded. In better news from eastern Asia, the nation of East Timor gained its full independence in April and joined the UN in September.

In Africa, the long running Angolan Civil War ended following over 20 years of violence. The conflict displaced around a third of Angola’s population and had involved several other peoples and nations including the Soviet Union, South Africa, Zambia, Namibia, Democratic Republic of the Congo (known as Zaire for much of the conflict), and Cuba. Although the war left Angola in a dire state that it still struggles to recover from today, at least the fighting itself was coming to a close.

In the US, 2002 was a relatively quiet year compared to those before or since. Perhaps it would be easier to cover some of the cultural juggernauts that our predominantly American audience may remember. American Idol launched, propelling Kelly Clarkson to fame. The Ice Age franchise began with its first film. Sand haters everywhere were pleased to see some representation in Star Wars: Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. Nickelback ruled the charts. Men in Black II was… also a thing. The Simpsons was already up to Season 14. In my own United Kingdom, we got a new James Bond film in the form of Die Another Day, starring John Cleese as Q, so perhaps 2002 was not the best year in popular culture. However, there were some decent successes as the modern blockbuster film took shape, with Spider-Man showing that superhero films could be serious hits, and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers released in December. In more serious and consequential news for the US, the Homeland Security Act was signed into law, and the No Child Left Behind Act was implemented, aiming to transform American security and education respectively.

Toward the end of the year, there were some disturbing omens of what was to come, and it was clear that 2003 was not shaping up to be a good one. In November, the medical community in Guangdong province, China, noted that many of its patients had a disease similar in symptoms to flu that killed around 1 in 10 of its victims. It turned out to be the result of SARS-CoV-1, a coronavirus which had jumped from a bat colony to humans. Although beginning in November, the outbreak was not taken seriously until March the following year. I suspect if it wasn’t for the sequel to SARS-CoV-1, there wouldn’t be much interest in the SARS epidemic. However, our interest in the past is overwhelmingly shaped by current events - just look back on how many questions on Afghanistan we got in September/August 2021 - so it’s worth mentioning here. But keep in mind that most questions about the SARS outbreak and whether we did or didn’t learn important lessons will actually pertain to 2003-4, or even 2019-20, so we moderators get to relax for at least another year on most of the SARS content.

And of course, there were signs of a major confrontation brewing between Iraq and the United States as Resolution 1441 was debated in the UN. There was growing concern over the weapons programmes of Saddam Hussein’s regime, but there were doubts regarding both the validity of those concerns and the right response to take in the face of rearmament by Saddam Hussein. The US began to build up its military in the region, Iraq did likewise, and on December 23 a US drone was shot down by an Iraqi fighter jet. This was both the first recorded combat engagement between a drone and a manned aircraft, and a significant escalation in the diplomatic crisis. But like the SARS epidemic, most questions on the Iraq War will actually pertain to 2003 onwards, so please keep questions about it strictly on the pre-war diplomatic crisis.

See you next year, when you finally get to ask a million questions about Iraq and whether [insert politician here] is really a war criminal, despite all the other interesting things that happened in 2003.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wof0xPUmW38

https://www.nonsda.org/egw/egw32.shtml

But there were others including the camisard in southern France mentioned here:

https://www.nps.gov/articles/history-of-the-shakers.htm

I just used the top link because it's fairly comprehensive as far as "lists of prophetic movements" go - a lot in one place. Not to imply that's all of them, or the limit of my question.

One thought I have had is that maybe these movements would have been more common in general if it wasn't for organized/state religion where you could be said to be heretical. Maybe it's kind of like how shamanism was common, and not a big issue where there wasn't organized state religion.

Maybe a lot of them ended up in America because of the frontier and freedom of religion, so maybe it was easier to find a way to actually grow as a movement there. Maybe it had something to do with Protestantism and a focus on a personal relationship with the divine.

But I'm really not sure. Do we know if this was for example actually an anomaly? Was it actually sort of trendy at that time? Is it weirder that it seems like there's less movements like this right now - or are there really less? Do we know what kind of historical context led to this?

Previously

Today:

You know the drill: this is the thread for all your history-related outpourings that are not necessarily questions. Minor questions that you feel don't need or merit their own threads are welcome too. Discovered a great new book, documentary, article or blog? Has your Ph.D. application been successful? Have you made an archaeological discovery in your back yard? Did you find an anecdote about the Doge of Venice telling a joke to Michel Foucault? Tell us all about it.

As usual, moderation in this thread will be relatively non-existent -- jokes, anecdotes and light-hearted banter are welcome.

In many locations, among others the Wikipedia article of the battering ram and this post on this very subreddit, I see it mentioned that battering rams were used to break down walls, in addition to gates.

While I have no problem accepting the fact that stone isn't very flexible and will crack when struck very hard with a heavy object, I have my doubts that a 'normal-sized' ram (like the one seen in this Youtube video) would be able to break through or significantly damage a 15 meters high, 3 meters thick wall in any realistic time frame, that is to say: before the ram itself, in spite of any protection on it, is destroyed by the defenders. I'm not referring to any specific wall, here, just extrapolating dimensions from looking at the Wikipedia article of known dimensions.

Of course, there were monstrosities such as the ram of Hegetor, but given the ridiculous dimensions of that thing, I wouldn't necessarily call that a standard ram — although of course, I could be all wrong on my assumptions on the size of a standard ram.

So, to reiterate my question: could a standard ram really break down a fortified wall? (Or for a secondary question: are my assumptions of the dimensions of walls and rams anywhere near accurate?)

Article in question: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-37624943

Passage from article:

Archaeologists say inspiration for the Terracotta Warriors, found at the Tomb of the First Emperor near today's Xian, may have come from Ancient Greece.

They also say ancient Greek artisans could have been training locals there in the Third Century BC.

... However there was no tradition of building life-sized human statues in China before the tomb was created. Earlier statues were simple figurines about 20cm (7.9ins) in height.

To explain how such an enormous change in skill and style could have happened, Dr Xiuzhen believes that influences must have come from outside China.

"We now think the Terracotta Army, the Acrobats and the bronze sculptures found on site have been inspired by ancient Greek sculptures and art," she said.

Prof Lukas Nickel from the University of Vienna says statues of circus acrobats recently found at the First Emperor's tomb support this theory.

The idea that because there was no previous evidence of life size statues implies outside influence implies Greek training seems like a very large stretch. However, the BBC article did not seem to do the research justice. Also, I am not sure what the statues of circus acrobats could have meant. Is there more to this?

I have checked out the NY Times archive, which provides detailed daily articles from the printed news papers of that time, quite helpful.

Also there are books from many countries like USA, UK and India, also helpful.

But I am looking for more archives with rich sources of info.

Where can I find more historical news reports about Bangladesh's 70's, 80's and 90's news online?

Thanks in advance, and a happy new year!