Today:
You know the drill: this is the thread for all your history-related outpourings that are not necessarily questions. Minor questions that you feel don't need or merit their own threads are welcome too. Discovered a great new book, documentary, article or blog? Has your Ph.D. application been successful? Have you made an archaeological discovery in your back yard? Did you find an anecdote about the Doge of Venice telling a joke to Michel Foucault? Tell us all about it.
As usual, moderation in this thread will be relatively non-existent -- jokes, anecdotes and light-hearted banter are welcome.
A little announcement!
Tomorrow a team of AskHistorians very own flairs will hold a Panel AMA and answer questions on the Iberian Peninsula, Spain and to a modest extent Portugal.
Our team will include experts covering periods from the Roman ages, through medieval times, across their Early Modern Empires and the fate of Iberian Jewish population, all the way to modernity and Spanish Civil war, World Wars and Franco.
If you have any questions, stop by tomorrow and ask!
I recently had the honor of assisting in the return of a medal earned by a local soldier to its rightful owners. Sgt. Ralph F. Greeley was originally from around the North Platte, Nebraska area, and his engraved Purple Heart was found at a flea market in Missouri and was returned to the Nebraska National Guard Museum in Seward. He was married while stationed in California, and it is believed that his wife was the last person to have possession of the medal. It was originally going to be a small local story, but while doing research for the historian I'm interning for to help him write the article, I incidentally found out through an official U.S. Army history, and then an original funerary document, that Ralph also earned the Distinguished Service Cross (which has yet to be found; his wife whom he married while stationed in California is believed to have been the last person in possession of his medals), which caused the story to blow up. 1011 News from Lincoln got into contact with some of Ralph's surviving family who still live in the area at their own volition and brought them out to the Museum to film a two-part story and present them with the medal, although I couldn't make it to meet them (they plan to be here for the 4th of July and the unveiling of two new exhibits we currently have in progress). WOWT in Omaha also picked up the story, as did KRQE in Albuquerque.
It's my birthday! I'm 30 years old! I spent my day attending an academic conference on the Invasion of Ireland (it's the 850th anniversary of the event) because I'm a huge nerd - it's not even my area!
I'm also currently getting over a miserable cold, but that's less exciting.
For anyone that's been interested in some of the articles I've posted over the last couple of years regarding pulp authors: there's now a book. Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard & Others collects many of my essays and articles that have appeared online and in print, as well as a couple of original and expanded pieces you haven't seen yet - examining Howard's interactions with fellow pulp writers like H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Frank Belknap Long, Seabury Quinn, R. H. Barlow, Henry S. Whitehead, his agent Otis Adelbert Kline, the mystic William Lumley and more; there are works that touch on Howard's work in the amateur press and his thoughts on marijuana.
Most of these essays rely very strongly on the correspondence between Lovecraft & Robert E. Howard - and Lovecraft's correspondence about Howard with various other writers in the circle. These are resources that provide much more light and context on Howard's life and work than his letters by themselves provide, since many times we can get more insight into different angles of a conversation or the flow of events - fans of Lovecraft might find this book interesting if only on that angle.
Many of my essays get nominated for Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards; last year one of them actually won. So I like to think there's a bit of scholarly value to them.
Available from Hippocampus Press and on Amazon for US$20 - that'll probably go up in a bit, since my other book normally goes for $25 retail:
https://www.amazon.com/Weird-Talers-Essays-Robert-Howard/dp/1614982589/
First off....y'all some wonderful humans. This is one of my favorite subs.
Second: I sit here scrolling and sometimes see what I would consider easily searched for and answered questions. I often wonder how many of the posters on here are students trying to be lazy.
If any of the mods are professors are you keenly aware of the midterm/finals schedule and does it affect how you perceive questions?
Why did the German Ringvereines not become a thing in America, unlike the Italian Mafia and Irish Mob? Though they likely would have been overshadowed by the Italians/Irish, they likely could have had a (if smaller) presence in major Midwestern cities with heavy German heritage like Milwaukee, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Omaha.
How many of the Jews fled Judaea during the wars with the Roman Empire? How many stayed and assimilated or subordinated themselves?
OH! I loooove this one! (stolen from r/science):
Prehistoric Traders Cheated Rich People With Fake Amber Jewelry
If you were to Truman Show a small village of newborns in a historical setting, what era and location would it be?
Does anyone know and/or know where I can find an image of what the original Gadsden Flag really looked like? I have read that it may or may not have had the snake on grass like it does now, that it probably faced left, and that it had 13 rattles. I have searched but cannot find an image or a definite description!
I think I once ran across a purported first-hand account of the public performance of rituals within the Temple of Herod by (iirc) a Roman traveler, who was not a Jew. Not Benjamin of Tudela.
Again, I seem to recall that this account was only a couple of pages, and was included at the end of a larger mostly unrelated document, possibly an English translation of the Talmud. Chances are I read this at sacred-texts.com some time after 2004 but before 2010.
If this sounds familiar to anyone, or you can point me towards the document (especially if it is legitimate) I would greatly appreciate.
Or, if you think this needs to be it's own top-level query, please let me know.
Who designed the AskHistorians Snoos?