1 Answers 2016-04-10
I was watching Gladiator (I know...) and one thing that really struck me was that somehow everyone watching was able to hear one man yelling about what was happening.
To me, that's pretty clearly ridiculous. But it raised the question: how did people know what was going on in the arena? Were there fliers or something telling the audience what sort of battles were to take place?
I guess that raises another question in my mind: were some gladiators more "celebrities" than others? And if so, how did those watching know who they were?
1 Answers 2016-04-10
I feel like most medieval discussion I hear is focused on Western Europe, along with some talk of the middle east and occasionally mentioning the area where modern-day Russia (rus?) is. But I would love to know what was happening closer to the Mediterranean during that time period. Christianity was spreading, but was it feudal like Europe? Was it fairly similar to how the slavic region was developing? (I know the languages are intertwined to some degree). Finally, did any great art or thinkers come out of this location at this time, and why don't we here more about it?
3 Answers 2016-04-10
An individuals reputation was incredibly important with military accomplishment being a factor of that. I remember reading something regarding that individuals would wear just a toga with no tunic in order to allow their scars to be seen?
1 Answers 2016-04-10
If Stalin, in particular, was unaware of the extent to which FDR was handicapped, how did the US keep the Russians from realizing this during meetings between FDR and Stalin, like at Potsdam or Yalta?
1 Answers 2016-04-10
1 Answers 2016-04-10
I have read, in passing, that English soldiers considered some revolutionary American soldiers to be borderline barbaric due to their employ of guerrilla tactics. What was the logic that made the British officers think this way? I can imagine what their thinking might be, but I want to hear it from the sources. There have got to be some personal journals or even period philosophy (not just american revolutionary) that should explains the rationale for it in depth, but I just can't find it.
Also, I have a nagging feeling that this question has been asked before, but I haven't been able to find it.
1 Answers 2016-04-10
I understand, at least from Wikipedia, that he's referencing gossip and scandals at the time. But a lot of the song lyrics seem to be suggesting society was now prone to scandal or somehow salacious conduct was more acceptable generally. Was this a commonly held opinion at the time? Was it really "anything goes" in the 30s? Especially since I understood the 20s to be considered more "open" than the following decades...
1 Answers 2016-04-10
3 Answers 2016-04-10
So that it took longer than a year to send combat troops to largest war in history at that point, and against the strongest military in that war. Why did the military was not battle ready prior to 1914, and why nothing have done to build it up between 1914-1917 while war was raging in Europe like hell and was at America's door. When US troops started to deploy to Western front in 1918, most used British/French artillery, aircraft, tanks and other many equipment. This is interesting considering that this same military was to become very well organized, most technologically advanced and biggest in the world less than 30 years after that.
1 Answers 2016-04-10
Hello reader, I am just researching about China's development of national identity during pre-mao era (18th C+) and ESPECIALLY during the 20th C.
QS:
How China's national identity developed in the midst of the Mao era, where the New Cultural movement occurred and it proposed basically the DESTRUCTION of traditions and values of the past. I read somewhere that China turned to Marxism in efforts to form a national identity founded on class struggle, would this be accurate? But post-Mao they turned back to Ethnic nationalism.
Possible examples for the methods China has used to manipulate/distort Chinese history or the importance of history as a concept in general, in order to satisfy its national identity? Or even some clarification on the reimagining of ZENG GUO FAN that was promoted at the time
1 Answers 2016-04-10
I've been sucked into a Watergate binge over the last few days. It's fascinating, but the narrative gets muddy because everybody who was involved is/was a liar. That said, John Dean gets a lot of credit for being the only one to tell the truth, while there is a lot of evidence pointing to him being the central hub of the cover-up. Is there any evidence about who was the primary driver of the Watergate break-in? What was it's relationship to the Ellsburg psychiatrist break-in? And finally, is there any consensus on the role of the DC Call Girl ring in the break-in (either as a source of dirt for Nixon or as a reason for John Dean covering things up)?
1 Answers 2016-04-10
If there was such a point, why weren't the weapons used?
On a similar note, in what way would the absence of nuclear weapons have changed the dynamics of the cold war? My understanding is that the Soviet Union had far more troops than the Americans, and the atomic bomb acted as a deterrent to possible Soviet aggression. Would the absence of nuclear weapons led to direct armed conflict? I do realize that a lot of this might be speculation, but it would be interesting to get people's perspective on this.
3 Answers 2016-04-10
Hi there historians,
I'm currently doing a history 101 course at uni and it seems to me that the Out of Africa hypothesis is still widely regarded as fact. I mean, I learnt it as fact in highschool, and it certainly seems convincing enough- but every few weeks I see articles popping up debating and debunking the theory. I saw a big one recently on /r/science (sadly I can't find the link) that claimed there were Asian ancestors without a trace of neanderthal DNA, thus contesting the theory.
Any one of you guys got some definitive answers for me?
Thanks
2 Answers 2016-04-10
Hello AskHistorians! It has been about three years since the very first AMA on AH, the famous "Massive China Panel". With this in mind, we've assembled a crack team once again, of some familiar faces and some new, to answer whatever questions you have related to the history of China in general! Without further ado, let's get to the intros:
Do keep in mind that our panelists are in many timezones, so your question may not be answered in the seconds just after asking. Don't feel discouraged, and please be patient!
68 Answers 2016-04-10
Today:
Welcome to this week's instalment of /r/AskHistorians' Sunday Digest (formerly the Day of Reflection). Nobody can read all the questions and answers that are posted here, so in this thread we invite you to share anything you'd like to highlight from the last week - an interesting discussion, an informative answer, an insightful question that was overlooked, or anything else.
4 Answers 2016-04-10
4 Answers 2016-04-10
Was there any coordination between pirate crews, as in, was there any effort to stay out of each others way or team up for bigger prizes? Or was it rather a free-for-all scenario?
1 Answers 2016-04-10
3 Answers 2016-04-10
First off, if this question isn't appropriate for this sub, I'm sorry and understand if it will be deleted.
Ok, to the matter at hand. This is the picture:
http://i41.tinypic.com/ifbech.jpg
I'm wondering what this image is portraying and who or what is the source behind it. I found it while looking up medieval bosnian history.
From what I see there are Hungarian knights to the left, the latin text mentions Bosnia, and I know there have been numerous battles between the Bosnians and Hungarians during the middle ages.
1 Answers 2016-04-10
Browsing the OED (...as one does), I notice a whole lot of "opium X" expressions noted from the very late 18th into the mid 19th century, mostly related to opium consumption and its problems (opium den, opium sky, opium-shattered, etc.). I understand the timing in the general context of trade and Chinoiserie, but how did all this opium consumption affect people's lives and the overall nature/direction of contemporary English society and culture? Like, did opium dens become "the room where it happened," or did people escape there because opium made them the room where nothing happened and if so was this seen as a problem, etc.
(I am not looking for a primer on the Opium Wars/maneuvering to legalize the opium trade.)
1 Answers 2016-04-10
A little niche, I know, but I've recently been travelling in Japan, and was surprised to see that the current capital Tokyo is built on a random mess of curvy streets, while the ancient capital of Kyoto is a grid, which I always thought was a very modern innovation of city planning. If Kyoto is one of Japan's oldest cities (dating back to at least 794 AD), why is it structured like this compared to the more scattershot Toyko, which only really developed into a city from 1869 onwards?
Edit: Woah thank you guys for all the excellent information!
4 Answers 2016-04-10
So, I made this thread asking about this in r/history, but the people in that thread have been telling me I should've/still should ask the question in here instead, to get some really in-depth, accurate answers to some of the questions I asked. I'm still not sure if this is violating any rules or not, so, if it is, I apologize, and obviously delete this accordingly.
They also told me I should've narrowed down "medieval" a bit more, since that's an enormous time span, and also maybe narrow the geographical region down a bit more.
So, I guess I'll go with 11th-13th century England/north-western Europe as the default time and place, since someone in that thread said that that era is considered to be the golden age of "Castles" in Europe.
I got a bit carried away with all the questions and whatnot, but here they are (if it's too much, obviously feel free to only answer some of them. And also feel free to answer about questions I didn't even think to ask, if you feel I missed any important questions that would've made for interesting answers):
What was the population-demographic (of the castle) like? I.e. how many servants were there relative to the total population of the castle? What about clergy? Lookouts/guards? Nobility? Guests? Other? (especially in a large castle with as much as perhaps several hundred total people living in, or directly-associated to the castle on a daily basis)
What kinds of foods might they have eaten (I realize this would vary depending on whether it was an English castle or Germanic or Frankish or whatever, and also from sub-region to sub-region), so, maybe that wasn't too good of a question, but still wonder about sort of the logistics of it, like if there were certain types of food that they generally preferred, due to being able to make large feast-like meals of it to serve the entire castle-population at once, for the main meal of the day, like gigantic vats of soup/stew, or huge roasts of large animals, or what, etc.
What was the toilet/sewage system (if any) usually like? I.e. where/what-into did they poop and pee, and where/how did it get moved away from the castle (if at all). And did the protocols vary in regards to this depending on whether which hierarchical class the person belonged (nobility/clergy/military/peasant/guests/etc)
Did they tend to have any daily, or weekly, or monthly, or whateverly "rituals" or "traditions" that were specific to castle-life, or maybe not specific just to castles, but of the era, that would normally have been going on in these castles on a fairly regular basis. I don't know what type of thing it might be, but maybe something weird and kind of formal/traditional that a time traveler would be all like "whoa wtf is going on up in hurrrr..." type of reaction when seeing it happen for the first time?
Were there any well known types of superstitions particular to castles that tended to pervade in most large castles (i.e. "don't spill the candle wax on the hallway floor, or a ghost will haunt the corridors for 7 days and 7 nights thereafter" or some superstition-ey types of stuff like that, which were relevant to "castle life"? Preferably ones where the same exact or nearly-exact type of superstition existed in a whole bunch of different castles across a country/countries, as like a "castle thing", or something.
Were there any activities or behaviors that were considered really bad manners or poor form to be doing inside a castle (and/or maybe stuff which most, or a significant-minority of them still did anyway, in secret, even though it was something you "weren't supposed to do" in a medieval castle in general)?
What were the most common, or popular, or interesting forms of punishment that were used inside these types of castles (or different types depending on what hierarchical class the offender belonged to, maybe?) What would've been some common things people got punished for? What types of equipment or setups did they use? Did large portions of the castle population "participate" in the administering of the punishment, or just the guards, or a special punisher-guy (maybe the same guy as the executioner, if they had one?) etc?
When did they tend to go to bed, and when did they tend to get up in the morning? (I assume it would depend on which hierarchical class they belonged to within the castle hierarchy, but not sure). Also, I assume that maybe they stayed up later on certain nights, like if they had an equivalent version of "Friday Nights" or something, or a very regularly-recurring holiday type of thing, where the night before it, they partied/stayed up later etc. I'm particularly curious about the LESS formal/annual-only types of bigtime "holidays" but more like, something more equivalent to a "friday night" in modern-day equivalency, (if there was such a thing/such an equivalent, that is)
Would there have been lots of flags, or very large/tall flags/flagpoles on most of these castles? Or huge banners or coats of arms on the exterior and/or interior of these castles?
What were the lookout-posts/sentries/guards/military-security situations typically like (not during formal "war" time, but like, in more ordinary periods of castle life). Did they sound a horn, or ring a huge bell or something if an unexpected party of guests was approaching from off in the distance? Send a meeting-force to go "meet them at the gate"? Everyone in the castle freak out and become glued to the windows? Everyone be non-chalant/HAF about it like nbd? I feel like I need to know more about this whole aspect.
Did a lot of these castles really actually have a moat and a drawbridge? And if they did, did they really put alligators/crocodiles and stuff like that into said moats? Or is that more of a fable-vibe type of thing and not how it usually was like in real life?
Did they usually have pets (none? small amount-but-only-for-nobility? Tons, roaming all around?) inside or around the castle? I.e. dogs, cats, etc?
Did most castles tend to have really bad issues with infestations a lot of the time (cockroaches, rodents, bedbugs, fleas, ticks, bats, etc)? And if so, was there any type of proactive measures they tended to try to take to avoid said infestations, or to try to mitigate them to some extent? Or, after-the-fact did they take any formal/semi-formal attempts at getting rid of said infestations once they occurred? Would most of the castle residents be so used to it that they tended to have a casual attitude about it, like not jump up and down and yell and shriek if a mouse ran across their lap while they were eating dinner or lying in bed, or was it something they spazzed about the same way we do nowadays?
Did most large castles contain a "library" or "library-room"?
What about other specific dedicated-room types of rooms? I.e. an indoor "theater" room, or dart-throwing room, or communal-bathing room, or cards/table-game playing room, or anything like that? And if they did, or if it was only for the upper-class members of the hierarchy, were there any smaller/crappier equivalent rooms/gathering-places for the members of the lower classes, where they hung out/did stuff all in a specific room (prior to going off to their sleeping quarters or whatever, or was that pretty much it for them, like they did any "stuff" they were gonna do, in said "sleeping quarters"?
Was there much weed smoking going on in any, most, or all of these big European castles during the middle ages? What about any other drugs (other than alcohol, I mean). Psychedelic mushrooms maybe? Some natural plant-form of uppers, downers, or opiates maybe?
What was the prostitute situation like in castles? Did any of them actually live inside the castle itself? Or did they just live nearby and come in as guests (or secretly get hurried in through the rear entrance, if it was considered shameful/taboo?), or were there not really any hookers in these sorts of castles for the most part?
Not sure what my question in regards to homosexuality would even be, in regards to castles, other than just figuring that it would be even tougher for homosexuals to have their sex with it going unnoticed, given the physical confines/layout of the castle-setting, so, I guess if there was any interesting historical facts/theories about homosexual lifestyle within a large castle, I'd be curious to hear about it, or anything interesting there is to know about it in regards to castles during medieval times. (I assume it was considered taboo/not allowed, but no clue whether it was like EXTRA severely not allowed in a castle compared to the regular country outside the castle, or LESS severely not allowed/authority-figures "looked the other way" about it, or what the whole vibe tended to be like about it. (Also, if there was anything noteworthy to mention in terms of the differences between man-on-man homosexuality vs woman-on-woman homosexuality, in a castle, if this is relevant/noteworthy in some way maybe)
Were there any specific sexual fetishes that seemed to occur at an unusually high rate (relative to the overall country population/culture in the overall land of the country rather than just specifically the castles themselves), as a result of living that "castle lifestyle"? Like, more bondage, or whipping, or I don't even know what exactly, but some sort of well known castle-specific sexual fetishes that were considered an open-secret in "castle culture" or something?
What about general nudity? (Not just in a sexual context). Were the attitudes and/or everydayish-opportunities about males seeing other males naked, females seeing other females naked, and most importantly, males seeing females naked or females seeing males naked, in castle life, that were different in any way than non-castle life in the same regions in the same eras? Like, did the confined-quarters aspect of large amounts of people all living in the same building, have any notable effects in regards to nudity, and what they thought about it/how they handled it/what types of nudity-related scenarios were going down on the regular?
1 Answers 2016-04-10
