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.
Have you or your loved ones been affected by the inexplicable Spain-shaped gap in the AskHistorians booklist on Modern Europe?
Then I have good news! Thanks to an atypical lack of ideas on how best to procrastinate earlier this week, I made a new 'Spain' section of the booklist. Now, you can get all* the recommendations you need about modern Spanish** history, in one convenient location!
*^(about 10)
**^(provided that you really just wanted to know about the Spanish Civil War, like all the other cool kids.)
Hello, all! The documentary "Most Likely To Succeed" was recently released on a bunch of digital platforms, including Amazon Prime. I'm slowly working on updating the Wikipedia page about the glaring and/or disconcerting history mistakes in the film so if you know anyone who watches it and tries to hit you with, "Did you know Prussia invented school!?!", please send them to the page!
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, June 28 - Thursday, July 04
| Top 10 Posts | score | link to comments |
|---|---|---|
| In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed, the Soviet archives were opened and historians had access to a lot of previously secret information. Did anything found in the archives radically change the perception historians had of certain events? Did they find anything new they had never known about before? | 4,774 | 235 comments |
| In September 1992, Nine Network aired Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos, a programme so apparently objectionable that it was pulled off the air 24 minutes into its 60 minute run. Why was it ever made in the first place, and why was the plug pulled after they'd already made it? | 4,214 | 147 comments |
| Why did the Nigerian Civil War (the Biafran War) have such a bizzare amount and combination of countries as belligerents for each side? | 3,960 | 30 comments |
| The Epic of Gilgamesh was rediscovered in 1853. How did the Victorian sensibilities of the time react to its very frank depictions of sexuality? | 3,682 | 35 comments |
| Did ancient Romans call each other by their "first name" (praenomen, e.g., “Hello, Marcus”), or would they have called each other by “last names” (nomen & cognomen, e.g., “Hello, Cicero”)? | 3,331 | 98 comments |
| I'm a palace servant in Shang China. The Emperor just died, and I'd rather not go to the grave with him. What are my options? | 3,119 | 112 comments |
| How did the Roman aqueducts not have dirty, bug infested water in them? | 2,742 | 83 comments |
| I have read that the demise of streetcars in the U.S. was due to a conspiracy by GM and other auto manufacturers. I've also read that this is an urban legend. What's the truth? | 2,070 | 125 comments |
| In the new Netflix series “The Last Czars” there are a number of black, sub-Saharan guards in the Romanovs’ palace. Is such casting historically accurate and if so, how would they have ended up in such prestigious roles? | 1,984 | 60 comments |
| Germany clearly went from a democracy in 1932 to a fascist dictatorship in 1933. But when did Japan go from an absolute monarchy in the Meiji period to a liberal democracy and then to a totalitarian dictatorship in WW2? | 1,688 | 46 comments |
Please let me know if you have suggestions to make this roundup better for /r/askhistorians. I can search for posts based off keywords in the title, URL and flair. And I can also search for comments.
If you would like this roundup sent to your inbox every day send me a message with the subject 'askhistorians'. Or if you only want a weekly roundup, use the subject 'askhistorians weekly'
However, I can do more.. you can have me search for any keywords you want on any subreddit you want. Send a message with the subject ['set askhistorians'](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=subredditsummarybot&subject=set%20askhistorians&message=200%0A25%2C%20keyword1%2C%20another keyphrase%2C%20last example) and in the message: specify a number of upvotes that must be reached, and then an optional list of keywords you want to search for, separated by commas. You can have as many lines as you'd like, as long as they follow this format:
200
50, keyword1, another keyphrase, last example
You can also do ['set askhistorians weekly'](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=subredditsummarybot&subject=set%20askhistorians%20weekly&message=200%0A25%2C%20keyword1%2C%20another keyphrase%2C%20last example) And you can replace askhistorians with any subreddit.
See my wiki to learn more: click here
I found out the Swedish State Historic Museum has put their 3d-scans online. (which they need to market better - I've known they had the scans for some time now but not that it was online!)
So I've downloaded the model for the Alunda Elk, a beautiful neolithic ceremonial axe shaped like an elk (US:moose) head. It's one of the more famous artifacts in this country from that period. Now I've ordered a high-quality metal 3d printing of it! Hope it turns out well. I'd like to make my own copy out of stone but it'd be good to have a physical model to work from then.
Does anyone know of any subreddits or other online communities that have writing groups for more academically inclined work? I'm planning on applying for a PhD in the future and I know I need to work on my writing skills. I'll probably just be writing book reviews since I won't have a university library at my disposal. There's only so much that I can self critique and having a commitment device would be really helpful as well.
Are there any books or sources for the culture and life (and politics if possible) of Berbers and other indigenous North Africans or desert people in the 4th or 5th centuries CE? Anyone have advice for beginning research on this?
A few weeks ago I mentioned an extension that u/almost_useless has been working on to try and allow readers of the sub to get a more accurate idea of the comment count in a thread. While it is still a work in progress, they have done some improvements, and we'd love to get some more feedback on it!
I also added a completely new feature where you can "monitor" up to 10 questions by clicking monitor next to the comment count.
When you install the application you will get a button in the toolbar that says AH. Click that and it will show your list of monitored topics. It will also show a number that indicate how many topics have answers. It gets updated in the background every 6 hours. That seemed like reasonable compromise so it does not send too much traffic to the reddit servers but still get kind of fast updates.
Installation:
Download the correct zip file for firefox or chrome
For desktop unzip and follow the instructions here:
For Firefox for android rename .zip to .xpi and follow these instructions
In FF this developer install does not survive a re-start.
If you do like the mobile version and enable unsigned xpi it will be permanently installed on the desktop also.
Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, thank you!