My reason for asking is due to the stereotype that a small cut in history would often get infected and make a person die. I was wondering if anyone had any information on how accurate this really is, and if there is any knowledge on how people thought about infected wounds, and how to prevent them.
1 Answers 2020-12-29
I was reading about Henry Huttleston Rogers and came across this photo. In all the historical photos I have seen of the US, I have never seen one like this, where it appears the women have some sort of complete covering over their heads. I do know that the Rogers family was incredibly wealthy, so I figure they would be at the upper end of trends at the time.
Any idea?
1 Answers 2020-12-29
Sorry if my English is bad, it's my second language.
A couple of weeks ago I heared the people in Saxony where Christianised by force (up until then I was paying attention so I couldn't tell you when).
Because I always had an interest in Religions that weren't one of the world religions and preferably thousands of years old, I looked up Germanic Gods. All I could find where the norse Gods, and now I wanted to know if they're the same or if I just had bad luck while searching for answers.
1 Answers 2020-12-29
I was checking out the recommended reading list looking for a book on the subject and only found Goldsworthy's How Rome Fell which I promptly looked up on Amazon. I found it has some significant criticism in the reviews and wondered what other books were out there (if any) that are generally held to be of a higher quality or more complete.
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1 Answers 2020-12-29
I've always thought of Thor as youthful and warlike, whereas I think of Zeus as old and wise. I actually thought Thor was the god of war until I just looked it up and clarified it.
What does this mean? Did the Norse view leadership through the lens of raw strength (ability to lift the hammer), whereas Greeks viewed leadership in a more managerial, orchestrational sense?
What are the other differences between the Norse and Greek pantheons, and what could they mean?
Is this even a valid method of historical inquiry?
1 Answers 2020-12-29
I don’t really understand how it could be economically viable to keep people fully enslaved with effectively no rights. It seems like a tremendous amount of work would have to go into keeping those people subdued, if you’re using slavery on a large scale. This could apply to any instance of slavery but I’m mostly thinking about the context of slavery in the Southern US. I don’t see how they were able to easily keep all those people enslaved, especially considering how many slaves there were. I know that some areas had more total slaves than free citizens.
1 Answers 2020-12-29
If I'm not mistaking, the American political system 'inherited' its political system from the UK. We saw four years ago how the UK chose to leave the European Union through a (non binding) referendum. Is there a historical reason as to why this is not a thing in America?
Edit: Since there are some topics that have bipartisan support that are not always acted upon by congress, why is there not a body trying to get this into US legislation?
1 Answers 2020-12-29
As far as I know William the Conqueror’s claim to the throne was predicated on two things - his relation to Emma of Normandy and a supposed promise made by Edward the Confessor.
Were these seriously the basis for his claim to the throne? And if so, why were they considered to be strong enough for the Pope to support his invasion?
1 Answers 2020-12-29
Hi,
As the title says, I’m looking for a biography on the Algerian freedom fighter Emir Abdelkader al-Jazairi which describes his life.
Ideally, if possible, I would like a book that seems to be respected by the Muslim community and doesn’t analyze the Emir’s life from an Orientalist lens.
1 Answers 2020-12-29
1 Answers 2020-12-29
1 Answers 2020-12-29
I have always been troubled that there is a lack of humor possibilities without tonal context in reviewing ancient culture. Have we not considered that some of it - maybe cat statues, are just ancient memes or were a gag?
Edit: are there any examples of this where historians later realized “oh that was kind of a joke...”
6 Answers 2020-12-29
1 Answers 2020-12-29
Just how historically accurate was 300’s interpretation of the Battle of Thermopylae. Mainly, did Xerxes’s soldiers really blindly charge without any sort of formation?
1 Answers 2020-12-29
Don't know if this is the correct place to ask this, someone might want to point me to a better place in that case I'd really appreciate it, thanks regardless.
I was reading about the Spanish royal dynasties and I found out that there's two competing houses, the ruling one and the Carlists. Although it seems that they are of the same Dynasty, Bourbons. I'm curious about what ended up happening to the ancient Spanish royal houses. The Hapsburg still exist, but is there someone that could claim to be a pretender to the Spanish throne?
Still, I'm more curious about the older ones, the Trastámara, the Asturians and the Visigoths that came before. I do wonder if there's someone, somewhere, keeping the count. Someone like, 'you know, a thousand years ago we used to rule Spain, you're the closer relative to this ancient King".
What happened to the Trastámara? No closer relative that could keep the dynasty from extinguishing? Is it really extint? No living Trastámara today that can claim royal blood?
Sorry for my bad English, don't really know where to ask, but hopefully it's understandable enough to reach the central point.
1 Answers 2020-12-29
I was reading a comment thread on r/historywhatif post regarding if julius caesar was never assassinated, and the military conquests he had planned. The comments claimed that even if he conquered the parthinians and germans, that time would be stretched too this and forced to give up territory. Which prompts me to ask:
What does it take for an empire to hold on to territory after a military conquest?
How large could an empire grow without immediately collapsing after the conqueror dies?
1 Answers 2020-12-29
Dropping the Bomb: Hiroshima & Nagasaki
I have seen a lot of debate over the validity of claims made in this video, in particular:
That the atomic bombings had little impact on the internal debates within the Japanese leadership over surrender.
That the atomic bombings were not done to avoid an invasion, and an invasion was never seriously considered.
That the American leadership were aware of the dire situation in Japan, and the inevitability of its surrender.
And that ultimately the bombings had little impact on accelerating an end to the war, and that they were largely used for political purposes more than for military necessity.
To me, a regular person, it seems well sourced and appears to represent these sources faithfully. It has influenced my opinions on the necessity and impact of the bombings, and appears to largely agree with the FAQ posts here on r/askhistorians. However, I'm wondering what the people on this subreddit think about it, and if they can provide any criticisms or extra perspectives to consider.
If desired I can attempt to provide timstamps for the points I outlined above, as it is quite a lengthy video.
1 Answers 2020-12-29
I'm very curious as to the accuracy of this, and to know what sec education was actually like for women during the regency era!
1 Answers 2020-12-29
1 Answers 2020-12-29
I read that at the time of Jesus of Nazareth as much as 10% of the Roman Empire's population was Jewish. Based on some brief googling it looks like the population of the Roman Empire in the early 1st Century was about 50 million. So the Jewish population at the time would have been as high as 5 million just in the Roman Empire with more in areas such as Babylonia and Arabia. Yet today jewish people number less than 20 million, possibly as low as 14 million, in the entire world. Even before the Holocaust the global Jewish populaiton was apparently 16.6 million ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/07/02/has-the-global-jewish-population-finally-rebounded-from-the-holocaust-not-exactly/ )So I am curious as to why the Jewish population is as low as it is given global population growth. The global population seems to have been around 200 million in the year 1 CE and at the start of World War II was a little over 2 billion. Given population growth and the assumption of static demography that would put the Jewish population just within the area of the former Roman Empire at about 50 million. Yet the total Jewish population in the world at the start of the War, and before the Holocaust, was less than half of that. Obviously part of the reason for the slower growth was pogroms against Jews during the Middle Ages. But there was also a lot of significant population loss events for the general population which did not effect Jewish people to the same magnitude they effected the general population. For example, the Black Death may have killed as much as half of Europeans, but Jewish people were much more likely to survive because of better sanitary conditions because of their dietary restrictions and because they were relatively isolated from the rest of the population. So I was wondering what explains the decline in the relative population of jewish people as compared to the rest of the population between the early 1st Century and the beginning of World War II. Was it that a huge portion of the descendants of Jews from the early 1st Century ended up converting to Christianity or Islam and integrated into their respective cultures? I took a class on the Abrahamic religions in college and the Professor seemed to imply that the rabbis did not like how close Judaism and Christianity were because it was causing them to lose members to conversion so they changed prayers and some of the books in the Bible to create a greater difference between the two religions. I also know Islam imposed a tax on Jews and Christians during the Caliphates. It seems to me then, based on what I know, that much of that reduction in the relative number of jewish people is because of jewish conversion to the other two Abrahamic religions. Is this correct or is there some other explanation for the relative decline of the global Jewish population even before the Holocaust?
1 Answers 2020-12-29
Question is in title. I have read that a lot of ritual sites and groves were destroyed during the christianization of Britain and churches were built on top of them. Are there any that were not destroyed that still exist?
Edit: There seems to be an upvote/downvote war between Christians and Pagans I guess my question won't be answered :D
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I only learnt about this episode in Bizarre European History today, but I wondered why the other Spaniards didn't retalliate, let alone the ruler of Galicia at the time!
1 Answers 2020-12-29
