2 Answers 2014-03-21
Just finished watching the trailer for Noah and I was wondering who would be the earliest known character from the bible that actually existed.
3 Answers 2014-03-20
Inspired to ask this question by this strange G.K. Chesterson passage and this essay heavily influenced by it.
1 Answers 2014-03-20
James being a protestant, and the Church of England still being relatively new, did the writers of the King James version try to interpret the bible in an anti-catholic manner?
1 Answers 2014-03-20
I've seen the thread about two people finding a bomb from world war 1 and the question just popped in my mind:
So... WWII started roughly 25 years after WWI ended, and given we are still finding undetonated bombs from the first world conflict 100 years after, I assume that 25 years after it was a more common occurrence.
Were the dangers of those old battlefields a known risk? Did the leaders, in its strategies, avoid the places where battles had taken place in WWI? Was it for respect, "security" or just because the change in how the war was fought between both conflicts made the old battlefields strategically irrelevant?
2 Answers 2014-03-20
I've been interested in Roman history as a whole, but it seems that the Eastern/Byzantine Empire does not have a whole lot of books dedicated to it. (I already have The Alexiad, which is great, if possibly biassed.)
Do any of the people here have any recomendation? I've searched around, and I might be a complete idiot, but even the Book list does not have a whole lot of books about this.
2 Answers 2014-03-20
I expect we'll have to keep this to the Western world, but what was the first dance to take the world by storm? These days we have a huge variety of them -- thanks to the internet -- that crop up all the time, from twerking to daggering. But this phenomenon must be quite old, indeed.
What was the first dance to take the world by storm, and how did it gain popularity? How was it viewed by the establishment?
1 Answers 2014-03-20
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/20/the-u-s-s-terrorism-double-standard/
I'm still reading it. Given what I do know about the US-Latin America relations, it doesn't seem implausible at all. However, I thought /r/AskHistorians would like to confirm the article or set the record straight, as it is pretty damning.
Thanks a lot!
(PS: I don't know much about CounterPunch, and I can see how they might not be the best source. But please stay away from the ad hominem arguments against the paper. Let's stick to the facts and interpretations, and how they hold up to reality.)
1 Answers 2014-03-20
1 Answers 2014-03-20
First I feel I should say I sincerely hope I'm not overstepping any rules by asking this. I read the FAQ, rules, and did a search to see if it had been asked before, and found nothing that told me I shouldn't submit this. I apologize if I misinterpreted the guidelines for what is an acceptable post.
My question is basically do you feel like the Civ's series is a positive thing? I can see how it might get young people interested in history, but at the same time it's short on the facts about many historical people and events portrayed in the game; and the facts it does give you have to actually put in some effort to get to.
I hope this comes off as I mean it to; a lighter question that still provides people with the opportunity to learn something from the comments. :)
10 Answers 2014-03-20
Buying up competitors: The majority of Standard Oil buyouts were not aggressive and benefited both parties. As Hidy notes, "Rockefeller and his associates ... won the confidence of competitors through comprehensive voluntary association." Many of the former executives of the firms which were bought up were offered high-ranking position in the new company and a guarantee of equality in management and were integrated into the management due to their experience in refining and their knowledge of local markets.
I mean, it seems like it would make sense to just integrate workers from the company you just bought out due to their knowledge of the area and system in general.
"Instead, the Trust was very much a cooperation of different companies[citation needed] which sought to improve their competitive advantage and which still maintained competition even in-between the member companies.
Any truth to this as well? I am trying to research it but I usually just find hundreds of articles bashing standard oil.
Here is the link: http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Standard_Oil
1 Answers 2014-03-20
I've been developing a tactical, somewhat-realistic RPG (role-playing game) combat system. While it's often necessary to sacrifice realism for fun, I like to at least know the history and consciously choose to alter or embellish as needed.
One of the real tricky parts about having "realism" in an RPG is that your system needs to be able to handle the anachronisms that will inevitably occur. At some point, you are going to have Hoplites fighting Crusaders or some other wacky combination, and you don't want the game to break. Would a Spartan spear have any chance of penetrating a good suit of maille? (Let's not actually get into an argument about this.) But this example highlights the importance of getting a good feel for the strengths and weaknesses of various weapon and armor systems, and modeling them in a way that straddles a fine line between realism and fun.
I've found a lot of good resources on the various bludgeons and spiked weapons used in the medieval period- mace, warhammer, morning star, etc. But the one fantasy trope I can't find much historical source for is the "Maul", which is usually depicted as looking like this.
I find the idea of such a weapon to be highly impractical. I used to do demolition work and swung sledgehammers all day long. A 6 or 8 lbs. sledge is about the heaviest that a mortal human can swing at a decent pace. That relatively small weight on a nice long shaft is absolutely devastating and I'm sure it could kill even the most heavily armored knight.
But even a relatively small sledge, which is probably a lot closer to a pole-hammer or bec-de-corbin, is horribly unwieldy and would leave the wielder open to counter-attack should he miss. The Maul, as it is usually pictured in fantasy, looks like it would be almost impossible to swing without spinning around like a hammer-throw, and even then the reduced speed might result in less impact force than a smaller weapon.
So that's my question: did "Mauls" exist as they typically are portrayed in fantasy, or was there really just smaller warhammers and polehammers?
1 Answers 2014-03-20
Online stuff says this happened in royalty and CK II apparently allows Zoroastrians to marry extremely close relatives.
So what's the deal with this practice? Has it been practice from the Achaemenids through Sassanids?
1 Answers 2014-03-20
1 Answers 2014-03-20
When did people realize that Alaska on the same landmass as Canada/East Coast?
I guess I'm not talking about the Aleutian islands!
1 Answers 2014-03-20
I am currently reading it and I am going to die. It's not uninteresting; it's just very dense. If you could enlighten me on just how spectacularly revolutionary this piece of work actually is, I think I can appreciate it and Locke more.
1 Answers 2014-03-20
We all know that vikings did not really wear horned helmets. However, I have a feeling that there are many more myths about vikings that historically literate people still believe, perhaps due to games like Mount&Blade/Medieval Total War and Series like Vikings, e.g that viking were inferior bowmen compared to other cultures at the time. Perhaps some altruistic historian would like to update us on the current thinking about Viking tactics, strategy, hierarchy, equipment etc?
1 Answers 2014-03-20
1 Answers 2014-03-20
I'm having trouble phrasing that question for a good title, but really I'm wondering if they were just blindly racing towards putting the first man in space? I assume the higher ups were aware of things through spies, but would say the first astronauts know what Yuri was about to do? Or about Laika?
2 Answers 2014-03-20
1 Answers 2014-03-20
