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.
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, April 10 - Thursday, April 16
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 7,792 | 144 comments | Uncle Tom of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" stands up for his beliefs, helps other slaves escape and is killed after refusing to divulge their location to his master. How did "Uncle Tom" become an epithet for a black person who betrays or abandons the African American community? |
| 5,005 | 152 comments | Rome still survives, almost three millenia after its founding. Tenochtitlan was destroyed, and Mexico City was built in its place. What's the difference in practice? |
| 4,667 | 40 comments | Due to the spread of COVID-19, some muezzins in Kuwait have changed a line in the Islamic call to prayer (Adhan) from "Hasten to prayer" to "pray in your homes". Are there other instances in history in which the Adhan temporarily changed because of some event? |
| 4,262 | 199 comments | Why Has French Culture Almost Died in Louisiana But Thrived in Quebec? |
| 3,216 | 93 comments | In the middle ages did Jewish people ever fight in medieval armies? Were there Jewish knights? |
| 2,788 | 66 comments | What was the long term economic impact of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic? |
| 2,655 | 98 comments | The Eastern Roman Empire had to pay 11,000lb (5000kg) of gold to the Sasanian Empire in 533 AD. How did this work logistically? |
| 2,584 | 58 comments | Ancient Greek sculptures were often painted. Were the colors as plain as modern recreations show them? |
| 2,386 | 79 comments | Did the portuguese ever find artifacts from America washed ashore prior to 1492? |
| 2,304 | 141 comments | Why isn't there a major city at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers (present day Cairo, IL)? |
###Top 10 Comments
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Last week we did everyones favorite historical movies, but let's take a slightly different angle today. What is your favorite bad history movie? Something that is just so terrible you can't help but love it. Did those Knights Templar win the first crusade with a Panzer Tank? Did aliens build a massive pyramid under Antarctica and fill it with other, equally dangerous aliens just to hunt?
Do any of you have any good recommendations for books on the Baltic wars that broke out shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union?
In the Norman invasion of England, how many soldiers could one ship have reasonably carried? How big would the Norman ships likely have been? I'm just trying to get a ballpark feel for how troops were moved over sea in the early middle ages.
Has the current difficulties with counting and tracking covid-19 cases, and deaths helped historians better understand how hard it is to use statistics in history? Or any thought on how this current situation can be used to shed light on past historical conundrums
This week marked the 155th anniversary of the Lincoln Assassination (is “anniversary” the right word?). Ford’s Theatre posted a good amount of content about the event on their facebook page this week, including a lecture analyzing fact and fiction of the assassination and a video tribute of readings and performances about Lincoln. I haven’t really dug through any of this yet, so I can’t attest to the quality, but it seems neat.
I was hoping to do a write up for the Saturday Showcase this week about the play Lincoln was watching, Our American Cousin, but I haven’t had the time to put that together, so that likely won’t happen. Another week (or year), maybe.