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.
I just wanted to give yet another shout-out to the moderators on this sub: last week I actually managed to see a low-quality response to a question, and it was an "oh, wow" moment! The fact that it was noteworthy to see a response that hadn't yet been nuked by the mod team speaks to the consistent, speedy, and quality moderation of r/AskHistorians, and why I love coming here so much. Thanks again, everyone!
I got accepted to speak at the 18th Saga Conference next summer about the (near-absence of) the Baltic in _Ragnars saga_ in a spatial/directional analysis of the text, which means I get to travel to Finland for the first time! I'm very excited!
Did diary entries from 1918 bemoan the year due to pandemics and war in the same way social media posts today bemoan 2020 for pandemics, aussie fires etc
What is this kind of spiral writing called? Like, what would I search to find more examples like that?
Truman once remarked that he did not understand how the US Army could "produce men such as Robert E. Lee, John J. Pershing, Eisenhower, and Bradley and at the same time produce Custers, Pattons, and MacArthur."
Can I please have an elaboration on what that meant? I understand all the aforementioned names were american military leaders of renown from different eras? Thanks in advance!
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, November 06 - Thursday, November 12
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 8,876 | 573 comments | Did George W. Bush really steal an election in the 2000 USA election? |
| 7,046 | 154 comments | What caused Ronald Reagan to win by such a massive majority of electoral votes (525) in 1984? |
| 6,400 | 73 comments | It is 1943, I am a high school teacher in Paris, France. We have been under German occupation for 2 years now. How has my teaching curriculum changed under Nazi rule? |
| 5,498 | 55 comments | [Great Question!] Rebecca, pet raccoon of Calvin Coolidge, was originally brought to the White House with the intention of being eaten at a Thanksgiving dinner. Was eating raccoons common among high society in 1920s America, and if so, when and why did it go out of fashion? |
| 4,902 | 75 comments | In Tupac Shakur's 1993 track, Po Na Blues, he says: "To my brothers in the barrio, you livin' worse than the ns in the ghetto". What was the disparity in the quality-of-life between Mexican-American and African-American communities of the time? |
| 4,899 | 99 comments | Historically and linguistically, what makes people categorize British/French/etc. accents as "sexy" and Asian/Indian accents as "unattractive?" When in American history did this attitude develop? |
| 4,733 | 100 comments | Where did the cartoonish bomb originate? The black sphere with a short wick? |
| 3,600 | 41 comments | How old is the myth of the "monster under the bed"? When and where did it originate? |
| 3,534 | 14 comments | [Elections and Campaigns] Charles Curtis, Herbert Hoover's vice president, was of half Native American and half white ancestry, making him the first person of color to serve as VP. What was the public reaction to the nomination and election of a mixed-race/Native American person at this time? |
| 2,718 | 80 comments | How could you tell a slave from a free man in Ancient Rome? Was there a defining brand/mark? Could escaped slaves easily blend in to urban populations? |
###Top 10 Comments
H. P. Lovecraft has a reputation these days as a racist; if you read an article on it in a newspaper or online someone is going to probably use the word "virulent" or point to the name of his cat as an example of how terrible he was.
It is important to realize that Lovecraft was racist. He was also racist at a time when racism was very common and prominent in both national and international discourse. I don't normally like to harp on particular examples, but one of them crossed my radar lately - Black Magic (1929) by Paul Morand, which is the only book on black people we know Lovecraft owned (and presumably read). For anyone morbidly curious about that, I've written a review of the book with a synopsis of all eight stories - and NSFW warning now for racist language and ideas. Not pleasant reading, but sometimes useful as a marker for how far from the norm Lovecraft was.
A good friend told me that her mother was a revolutionary fighter during "The Troubles". Any suggestions for researching the Cumann na mBan?
When people started keeping diaries?
Weird question, but: if the lost city of Atlantis HAD existed, let’s say it was 100% proven real. What would be the odds that the people in the city spoke Latin?
