This list of "mind-blowing" historical facts has been shared by quite a few of my friends on Facebook during the last few days. I was expecting to cringe like never before, but it seemed mostly decent. Some of the comparisons were a bit dumb, but nothing that immediately made my alarm bells ring.
The one thing that really did catch my eye was the one about isolated populations of wooly mammoths surviving for far longer than is commonly understood and only finally dying out a touch under 4000 years ago. I have vague recollections of reading this claim previously, followed by an immediate correction along the lines of "oups, that was actually an urban legend lol". I was about to smugly let all of my friends know about this, but a quick googling and the Wikipedia page for mammoths seemed to support it.
Can anyone tell me for certain if this claim is actually true, or just a widely reported piece of misinformation?
1 Answers 2014-03-02
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In my grandfather's wallet I found this photo (http://imgur.com/hN7lnND) among 1950s era photos of his kids. He was a Los Angeles local. That looks like the presidential seal to me, so I'm wondering who that might be behind the podium. Any thoughts?
2 Answers 2014-03-02
I've been re-reading The Big Con, which describes con artists in the 20s and 30s pulling off scams which allegedly netted hundreds of thousands of dollars. Tonight I happened to catch a rerun of the movie "The Sting", which is basically playing "The Wire" game from that book; where they claim to be intercepting horse-race results; the mark can't lose if he puts on a big bet, but at the last minute "something goes wrong" and he loses the money.
To make it convincing, they hire dozens of "extras" to pretend they are in a bookmaker's shop; the book claims they could also be in a Stock Brokers, or one of a number of other "scenes" designed to fool the victim.
The "roper" finds the mark, and the "inside man" tells him the tale; but they also needed lots of other con men to play out the roles of ordinary people in a fake store.
The movie is basically just a chapter from that book, with a Hollywood adaptation (excellently done, it must be said).
The modern TV series "[Hustle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustle_(TV_series))" is based pretty much entirely on the book too.
Is there good evidence that long-cons like this existed, or was it just one big urban myth, which got documented in a really appealing way, and lives on in our minds to this day?
1 Answers 2014-03-02
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During a discussion on the recent controversy surrounding SodaStream, the idea was brought up that the premise of Israelis and Palestinians working together in the same factory for the same wages might actually help foster peace in the West Bank region.
To answer this, I tried looking back through my basic knowledge of history to see if something like this ever happened in the past, but I couldn't come up with anything. After all, industry and capitalism as we know it is only, what, 200 years old? That can't be much time to set a historical precedent.
That said, I want to see if maybe there's something I missed, and two peoples who had years' worth of bloody conflict behind them did, at one point, punch the same clock and earn the same wages together.
1 Answers 2014-03-02
Reading on the Norman conquest of Southern Italy I came across the rank "protosphatarius" given by the Emperor. What does it mean and how high position was this in the imperial hierarchy?
2 Answers 2014-03-02
California has a demorgraphic of a little over 6% African American. It is higher in places like Oakland (28%), Los Angeles (10%), and Sacramento (16%). After the abolition of slavery what were some motives for them to settle 3000 miles away from the south instead of just heading north like most others? Or was it a few decades down the line that the African American population grew in the west?
3 Answers 2014-03-02
Was red actually a meaningful colour for the Romans? Did they dress their soldiers in red clothes like in movies and reenactments? Even maps constantly present the Roman territories in red. Is there a historical basis for this focus on red?
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Sadly the AMA is over, but you can still read the questions and answers here. Thank you!
Hey /r/AskHistorians,
~~We're happy to announce that Irish historian, and host of the Irish History Podcast, Fin Dwyer will be fielding questions over at /r/IrishHistory. Fin, if you don't know, specializes in Medieval history and recently released a book called "Witches, Spies, and Stockholm Syndrome Life in Medieval Ireland." He's answering questions right now over at /r/IrishHistory and we'd love it if you guys dropped by to ask the sort of excellent questions this community is known for. ~~
Just follow this link to get to the AMA.
And, as always, we'd like to thank this sub for its support, you guys always make our Irish History AMAs so much better!
1 Answers 2014-03-02
This is my first post, sorry if it's a bit vague.
I'm an undergrad and I'm taking a history of landscape architecture course. Our professor mentioned that it is dangerous to try and analyze the decisions of historical figures through the framework of modern thought, as many of the things we take for granted (striving for self-improvement, seeking out knowledge for the sake of knowledge) are in fact humanist ideas that have been deeply ingrained in Western culture since the Renaissance.
This was FASCINATING to me. I had learned previously in a sociology class that people from East Asian cultures had very different concepts of self and their role as an individual vs. one part of a group. It had never occurred to me that this divide existed not only geographically, but across time as well.
So, broadly: How did the typical Westerner used to think? How did they view themselves and their place in the world? How might their ambitions have differed from our own? I apologize if this question is too broad in scope, but I'm interested in ANY information on how thought and perception has changed as various philosophies and ideals have taken root in western culture.
4 Answers 2014-03-02
I was recently watching Boondocks and a character was fighting with metal bracelets around his arms. This reminded me in many old Asian movies depicting old masters of combat wielding numerous bronze bracelets on their arms to stop a sword hit or generally make their arm a metal weapon. Was this a viable tactic? It seems like these bracelets would not be very effective sliding up and down the arm and creating friction constantly.
Are they more a training tool and not actually used in combat?
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Today:
Welcome to this week's instalment of /r/AskHistorians' Day of Reflection. Nobody can read everything that appears here each day, 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.
5 Answers 2014-03-02
Whenever an origin of Romanians discussion pops out between two people, one being Romanian, sometimes the other debater will state that only romanian historians actively believe the pure, unadulturated theory of dacian origin, mixed with roman and then some slavic influence. While the last two seem pretty clear, the first one is always "mm, are you sure? I don't think so. People say it's dubious". But I've never heard actual historians saying this, so I ask you guys. Who are our ancestors?
1 Answers 2014-03-02
A question we were discussing in class, and just wondering if I forgot any points, thoughts, or viewpoints on this.
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I am in the 10th grade and have a question on my sack/test asking how hitler came to power, I already know lots about it but want to see what other factors there were.
1 Answers 2014-03-02
Someone told me that Easter was related to the Babylonian deity Ishtar. Is this true?
1 Answers 2014-03-02
We're studying Rome right now, and are finishing off the topic of the Cursus Honorum but I wanted to know why it worked for so long.
Since it was mainly Patricians, couldn't they have really corrupted the system to get ahead? They would've had the wealth to buy votes in their favour, surel, and the Senators could've allied to vote a particular person as a consul if they'd been bribed.
1 Answers 2014-03-02