So I'm translating a section of Persius' Satires (the first one) into Dr. Seuss styled poetry. I never knew it would be so much fun. The problem is now I try to read every single bit of text I see in Anapestic Tetrameter:

Anapestic tertrameter's funny, you know

'Cause the name, by itself, its own meter will show!

But the problem, you see, is when writing like Seuss,

You just can't hope to stop; if you try, it's no use!

So for April Fools on my blog, I wrote up a few almost believable essays that are patently ridiculous after further thought and posted them. I was quite pleased by the result. My favorite was an American-Japanese baseball game played on Dec. 8th, 1941.

December 8th, 1941, Japanese controlled northern Manchuria. 2nd Lt. Baldwin S. Lügner of the US Army Corps of Engineers was the de facto commander a survey team who had spent the last 6 months working on improved mapping of Manchuria. 7 civilians and 5 additional soldiers were under his command, which he had been thrust into only a week earlier when their Captain had been injured in a climbing accident and evacuated. In the early hours of Dec. 8th (still Dec. 7th in the US), his radio man reported to him, ashen faced, that he had received an urgent message announcing a state of war between the US and Japan.

Operating in enemy territory, and their presence well known to Japanese authorities, Lt. Lügner knew that it would be a brief matter of time before they would face arrest - or worse. The Soviet border was 50 miles away, but through rough terrain, the chance of escape was next to nil. Defense positions were prepared, and all that could be done was wait. It was early the next morning that a Japanese company began their approach. Hopelessly outnumbered and wiith nothing to lose, Lt. Lügner, and one of the civilians who was quite fluent in Japanese sent up a flag of truce and walked out to talk, where they were met by the Japanese commander Major Honmonode Wanai.

Maj. Wanai was friendly, and happy to offer terms of surrender, but a man of honor, Lügner was unwilling to simply roll over, as he insisted it was palpably unfair that his men should be forced to surrender when they had been in the region on a peaceful mission agreed to by the Japanese government. In a strange stroke of luck however, the American translator, who had spent some years in Japan, recognized Wanai as the former star right fielder for the Osaka Baseball Club in the JBL, and previously of the famed Waseda High School program. A college star himself, Lügner was quickly intrigued, and decided to make a gamble. Issuing a challenge to Wanai, he insisted that his men could beat a picked team from the Japanese company, and offered to surrender with to terms the Major asked for if they lost the game, while Lügner being allowed to dictate his own terms of surrender if the American’s triumphed. An eager sportsman, even if his career had been interrupted for the war, Wanai couldn’t let a challenge to Japanese baseball supremacy go unaccepted, and duly agreed.

Runners were sent back to their base to retrieve gear, while the rest prepared a field of play. As the defenders, the Americans were allowed “Home team” status, and Lügner threw the first pitch, and inside fastball for a strike (A Swedish geologist, the lone none-American civilian in Lügner’s group and a deemed a neutral observer, served as umpire, although his understanding of the game was marginal at best). Both teams, mostly middling amateurs at best, played their hearts out, and it remained a close, low scoring game, going into the 9th inning tied 3-3. With two outs, the Japanese pulled ahead on a daring grab by Wanai of home plate on a wild pitch, but Lügner got himself under control, and put the next batter down on three straight strikes. A sac bunt, a stolen base, and a solid line drive tied the game up at the bottom of the 9th, and it moved on to extra innings.

By the 15th inning, both sides were exhausted. Although outnumbering the Americans, the Japanese had restricted themselves to three substitutions in deference to the American’s small numbers, and both sides had long since made them. Two outs, a man on first, with a 2-2 count, Lügner, fighting the fatigue of pitching the entire game, nevertheless managed to catch a low curve, sending it over the head of the left fielder. With no outfield fence, there was no “out-of-the-park” hits, and as he rounded second, Lügner knew the game was tied, but also that he had a chance to win it all. The outfielder chasing after the rolling ball grabbed it and hit the cutoff man as Lügner made his mad dash for home. With inches to spare, he dove at the plate, clearly beating the throw and giving the Americans a walk-off win with his “inside-the-park” home run.

Not one to waste his opportunity, rather than simply write agreeable terms for surrender, Lügner requested he and his men be allowed to not only keep their arms, but given an honor guard to escort them to the Soviet border. A gracious loser, Wanai agreed, even providing transportation for the small group. They were delivered into Soviet custody the next afternoon, and eventually repatriated to the United States a month later.

Maj. Wanai would face a court martial for his actions, but was cleared of the charges as it was agreed that his conduct was honorable, if incorrect. Nevertheless it ended what had been a promising career, and he would be killed in action a year later after being reassigned to Guadalcanal in punishment.

Lügner however was awarded the Silver Star for his leadership, and after a tour of the US raising war bonds, was assigned to play for the Army’s baseball team, where he led them to an inter-service championship over the Navy in 1943. Uncomfortable playing ball while others were shedding blood however, now Capt. Lügner requested a combat assignment, arriving in Europe in time to earn a second Silver Star as a combat engineer with Patton’s 3rd Army during the Battle of the Bulge. Demobilized after the war, he was offered a minor league contract by the Washington Senators, but despite several solid years AA ball, was never able to make the major league squad, with any final chance eliminated when he was mobilized for service in Korea. Once again a civilian, he would lead a successful career as a water engineer before passing away in 1983.

Of interest to probably FOURS of people who hang out here, I have moved to a new city and started a new job in the past week! Which is why I didn't get to play for any of the April Fool's stuff, but you are all exceptionally clever fandom nerds and I enjoyed reading everything. New job is a moderate bump up, I am a professional-staff level archivist now, but not faculty, which is probably a blessing at this point in my life. My new home is unbelievably trashed and I am glad it is Friday because I am plum out of archival outfits.

Good news is I still have access to my favorite databases for answering questions here, like Eighteenth Century Collections Online and the Burney Newspaper Collection. I won't say that was a major factor in my acceptance decision but I won't say it hurt... :)

This is sorta a question, sort of not. I don't want to ask it anywhere else for fear of the conspiracy theory army taking over, or for being accused of "supporting a murderer", but its about the copilot who crashed the plane:

I'm not saying I support any theory, but it does seem odd how public the investigation has been. In terms of crash investigations (not location operations), is there any precedent for releasing their evidence at every step, as they find it? From all the episodes of Mayday I've watched, it seems like they normally put together a full investigation before releasing conclusions. The way they are doing this one seems to lend credence to a certain level of skepticism, if not full-out tin foil hat wearing.

Finally my time to shine! If anyone has any questions they need not answered, i'm here. I've forgotten more than i know, and i never knew that much to begin with. Ask away!

I'll be over commenting on /r/politics or r/news until you need me.

Just wanted to type this out somewhere, might as well be AH.

Well, preparing for a couple of reenacting events next month now. Dunno why but April and May is the busiest. Which is really exciting but kind of exhausting. (And also, as much as I dislike GI reenactors they are needed in events.)

Some things on my plate right now.

1. My tailor is overloaded by the new semester and job seekers in Japan. Hope it get's here in time for public event in mid April, and end of April (Not likely) and May 1st (Hopefully).

2. Public event headcounts, real life obligations make head counting really a pain. Especially public events where the event holder needs to know for accommodation ahead of time. Got 2 coming up and I don't have final head count yet.

3. Blanks, need to submit blank orders and people are slow with their money...

4. Booby trap orders, need to hand make at least 30 booby traps (Activated by clip spring and strikes a plastic cap gun cap.) That's gonna take time...

5. A dreaded public battle might come up in July. I hate public battles. Thank god this time it's against the Russians, fighting with GI in private event is frustrating. It's even more frustrating in public events.

That's it for rants. And just to clarify, I love reenacting despite my complaints about it.

does anyone who has gone through the process have advice on going to grad school right out of undergraduate, or working first?

Right now I should graduate next spring with a bachelors in Secondary Education in History and social studies. I'm weighing the options between finding a job immediately or going for my Masters and PhD. Both have some pros and cons personally, so I'm very undecided right now. Any advice?

Anyone know of osteological evidence of dwarfs or hunchbacks being found in Mesoamerica?

I've finished teaching my first university courses - The Origins of Canada and Canada in the Modern World. My students did very well, seemed to enjoy the courses, and I'm just waiting on receiving my student evaluations. As a result of finishing these courses, I'll be ending my AskHistorians hiatus! I hope to be able to answer more questions in the near future - it's a great community and I'm looking forward to becoming more involved once again.

My little side project at work technically ended with March, though in reality, I just sent my research off into cyberspace, from whence it was received, then...nothing. So it might be done, might not be done, but the bulk is done and I return to monotony. Fun while it lasted though, and thanks to those here who helped guide me in my research, particularly /u/caffarelli and /u/CanadianHistorian.

Whole Ottoman history a 600-year long era of intellectual inertia and barrenness?

Yesterday I suddenly remembered a book I had read maybe 15 years back. It was a compilation of articles written by conservative Turkish writers from the padishah-loving religious circles. Many of them were saying that almost all intellectual efforts we see from the Ottoman centuries, including religious exegeses, are highly-specialized, sophisticated, yet unoriginal, safe derivations of what came before. No innovation of any sorts. Whole history of the empire an intellectual wasteland. It's pretty common to hear this kind of flippant criticism of the Ottomans from Kemalists, but it was really surprising to find it in a book from a decidedly traditionalist publisher.

I wondered how true it was, but as just a teenager I didn't even know where to begin to find out. I still have no clue. When I try to tackle the question with my embarrassingly limited knowledge, I just get stuck with a dozen more questions popping up, like "Compared to where? Were, say, the Chinese doing better?" or "What's 'intellectual innovation' anyway? Can we even define it when even 'advancement level's of more tangible concepts like 'technology' prove impossible to pin down?".

A liberal intellectual, Murat Belge, claims that this was a paradoxical side-effect of the utter hegemony and unrivaled central power the Ottomans enjoyed. In Europe where there were a myriad of competing kingdoms and principalities with relevant autonomy, you could, as an intellectual, a scientist, an artist, just pack up and leave for another one when yours tried to hinder or censor you craft. Had a falling out with the king of X?, you'd accept the patronage of the king of Y instead, who would take you in maybe even just to spite the other one. In the Ottoman empire, however, there was nowhere to go where you were out of the sultan's reach. Macchiavelli says European princes were envious of the absolute dominance of the Ottoman rulers, but the fragmentation in Europe turned out to be more advantageous in the long run.

I'm starting a driving job and I'm looking for historically accurate podcasts or audiobooks from any interesting period you can think of. Any recommendations that don't sacrifice historicity for entertainment?

This might be a good place to hype a history podcast by my alma mater, in which UC Berkeley History PhD candidates discuss their dissertation research, addressed at a broader audience: http://historicaloutreach.blogspot.com . If anyone knows of comparable podcasts by other universities I'd love to hear about them. Popular history doesn't have to mean non-academically-rigorous history!

So someone asked the question "Who has committed the most invasions since 1945? Was it Israel?" about an hour ago, but it was deleted for infringing the 20 year rule.

So I'd like to present my edited version(because I'm damned if I typed that out for nothing) which ends at 1995 and looks at how some analysis of history can provide vastly different statistical outcomes.

Well to begin with, we'd better define invasion. From the OED:

invade enter (a country etc.), esp. in a hostile manner and with armed force with intent to control or subdue it; attack.

The second source I'd point to is the Wikipedia page for the List of invasions. While Wikipedia is a horrendous source for many disciplines, including history, it can be quite useful for this type of quantitative history.

Going straight from their list, the tally ends up like so:

So the basic face value answer is no, Israel has not committed the most invasions. The United States takes the No. 1 position with 8, beating Israel and China by 2. However, this is just a basic look at the statistics. And there are issues with these numbers too.

Firstly, how do we look at territories that changed their names or added to their countries during this period? North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam in 1976, becoming the united country called Vietnam. The new Vietnam added 4 invasions to its own tally, which if combined with North Vietnam would surpass all other nations on the list. Considering that the union of North and South Vietnam was not an equal one, but a conquest, and that those responsible for the invasions committed by North Vietnam were the same leaders during the later spate of invasions, I would argue that there is merit in counting the totals together. This would put

Secondly, the status of territories. Palestine is a notorious example. Looking at the list of invasions, I am certain some are not appearing there under Israel's tally, and that some may be missing too from their opponents in the wars that have occurred in that region since 1945. As well as that, there are contested territories which undoubtedly raise the issue of who is in control of land? I would suggest that France's invasions of Vietnam in 1945 and 1946 might not count at all as Vietnam was a French possession at the time, and that Vietnam had not truly thrown off the influence of France at this point

Thirdly, how do we count invasions that occur as part of one war? For example, Israel is give three invasions for the Six Day War in 1967, which was a simultaneous attack, and a part of one operation. But to take this as a measure of aggression would be wrong as the three nations were in alliance with each other. As well as this, /u/tayaravaknin points out that Israel was not the aggressor, yet by definiton, those were legitimate invasions.

Lastly on the issue of numbers, is the quality of Wikipedia as a source. As I said, it can be exceptionally useful, but it is also subject to the bias of those making edits. As they are not professionals, but volunteers(much like us here, in fact), they are more likely to be swayed by personal biases than a professional might be. As I pointed out above, I suspect several instances that would count as invasions may have been missed from the list. I'm not sure how the United States in Vietnam, for example, doesn't qualify at any point.

To all historians: How do you consolidate your knowledge? I've been reading The Search for Modern China by Spence. By the time I finish the 5th or 6th chapter, I forget some parts of the 1st. Even though I remember the general themes, I forget some details. The way I've tried to get around it is to make notes and summarise the chapter. How do you guys do it? I hope I can take some skills with me to university :)

My main area of study is revolutionary history, from the French revolution through the revolutions of Russia, China, and Spain. I'm also highly interested in the military history relevant to WWII, including things like the European resistance movements themselves. From all of this, though, my primary areas are the Russian revolution and the development of the USSR (mainly early years through to Stalin's death) and the Spanish civil war, specifically the activities of the anarchists and socialists during that period.

If anyone wishes to discuss these things, or has any questions, please feel free to ask here or inbox me, and I'll be happy to help you. It doesn't have to be history either, I'm also more than happy to discuss politics and philosophy if you're interested.

I was wondering if anyone can answer some questions that I have?: Could someone please explain what was going on in Russia between 1891-1952? Specifically I'm interested in knowing anything about the Tsars & their demise, Lenin, the various revolutions that took place, Rasputin, his relationship with the Tsars & why historians think he was a main cause of Tsarist Russia? I've heard of Orlando Figes' Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991 is that any good in answering the questions I have?

What led to Mussolini's creation of fascism/or use of fascism in Italy? What did Italy do before fascism to cement the path it eventually went down? Between 1943-1945 what made Mussolini's colleagues turn on him?

What does Herodotus's Histories & Sallust's Histories tell us about how Greeks & Romans viewed each other, themselves, the same events & how has this influenced modern historians ideas about the Greco-Roman world?

Also why were the Soviets in Afghanistan from 1979-1989? How prevalent was middle eastern terrorism before this point? Has the Soviet-Afghan war caused any animosity between followers of Al-Qaeda & Russia, America, Russian/American intelligence? Thanks so much for any help received! :)

Not sure why I thought of this, but does anyone know the history of those conical paper party hats? Wikipedia has some history, but the citations seem to be lacking. Just curious if anyone has some solid history on where those hats come from.

how common was it for windows and windowers in the antbellum south to take slave mistress and men?