Friday Free-for-All | April 23, 2021

by AutoModerator

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.

DanKensington

Classicists, Greek religion experts, and anyone else interested! I have an important question!

Is Cerberus a Good Boy with three heads, or is Cerberus three Good Boys?

nerbovig

So I was watching a YouTube video about traffic and city development and apparently the "freeway" was communal property and it meant people were generally allowed to do as they pleased on it. Traffic laws and enforcement only slowly developed. Anyways, the description of police officers first directing ever busier intersections and serving as intermediaries in a dispute reminded me an awful lot of developing countries, and China in particular.

I find that fascinating but am not quite sure how to phrase a particular question other than to ask about the specifics on how roads went from being "you can't tell me what to do on a free way" to " driving is a privilege and everything you do on it is regulated."

Gankom

I'm planning a movie night binge with some buddies in the near future and I'm looking for good history movies. I'd love to get peoples recommendations for either of the two categories:

A) Peoples favorite historically accurate movies.

B) Peoples favorite "history" movie, accuracy be damned.

nerbovig

Also, if Columbus's spanish name is Cristobo Colon, then why is the country Colombia and not Colonbia?

flying_shadow

This fall, I'm going to be applying to grad school to study history, but my undergrad major is kinesiology. Will I have problems because of this? I've taken a couple of upper-year history courses, but not enough even for a minor. This is in Canada, by the way.

_The_Room

It's well documented that the Mongol hordes were expert horsemen. If they were forced to choose would an average warrior from that era preferred a single horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses?

subredditsummarybot

Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap

Friday, April 16 - Thursday, April 22

###Top 10 Posts

score	comments	title & link
7,308	100 comments	What did people in Afghanistan do for fun after the Taliban banned nearly every pastime?
6,183	143 comments	At what point did American Amish become noticeably "behind the times" technologically compared to their rural non-Amish neighbors? To 19th century Americans, were the Amish distinctive in terms of their use/non-use of technology? If not, were they distinctive in other ways?
5,731	62 comments	Did defenders of Jim Crow legislation explicitly argue that its purpose was to stop blacks/poor whites from voting, or did they publicly use other justifications like dealing with 'election irregularities' and 'fraud'?
3,539	361 comments	`[META]` [META] About how long ago did this sub start becoming heavily moderated?
3,367	52 comments	How did the name “Tyrone” become so commonly associated with Black Americans, even though the origins of the name are Irish?
3,167	61 comments	How was T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) percieved in the arab world after world war 1 and 2. And how is he percieved in the arab world today?
3,136	43 comments	In Machiavelli’s “The Prince,” he refers to the benefits of establishing colonies in newly conquered territories. In his day and age, what would he have meant by colonies, and were there any contemporary examples of such a practice?
2,790	31 comments	Did the United States receive any African dignitaries during Jim Crow? If so, how were they received?
2,752	29 comments	My Palestinian grandmother mentioned that tattoos were prevalent in her grandparent's generation. When did tattooing in the Levant fall out of vogue and why?
2,376	48 comments	How did Hungary, a land-locked Eastern European country that spent a little over a century under Ottoman subjugation... end up becoming one of the internationally renowned produces of paprika, an american vegetable/spice?

###Top 10 Comments

score	comment
2,072	/u/crrpit replies to [META] About how long ago did this sub start becoming heavily moderated?
1,401	/u/jbdyer replies to What were the "filler words" of previous eras? Today, we have "like, um, you know, know what I'm saying" How have these phrases evolved in style and saturation in our everyday language?
1,030	/u/GeeJo replies to Did the United States receive any African dignitaries during Jim Crow? If so, how were they received?
736	/u/SwarthyBard replies to Did Asians know about Australia?
683	/u/jbdyer replies to Did defenders of Jim Crow legislation explicitly argue that its purpose was to stop blacks/poor whites from voting, or did they publicly use other justifications like dealing with 'election irregularities' and 'fraud'?
670	/u/__4LeafTayback replies to Did defenders of Jim Crow legislation explicitly argue that its purpose was to stop blacks/poor whites from voting, or did they publicly use other justifications like dealing with 'election irregularities' and 'fraud'?
611	/u/Spaceisveryhard replies to How was T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) percieved in the arab world after world war 1 and 2. And how is he percieved in the arab world today?
542	/u/Tiako replies to I have often heard that capitalism is not a particularly valid word for preindustrial settings; what differentiates Rome's private-property based, market economy in which workers are paid wages from Capitalism?
532	/u/rashtrakuta replies to I just learned that Siddhartha Gautama was born in the "Republic of Malla" but wikipedia says little about it other than the wars over the Buddha's relics, how democratic was it?, how was it founded?, were there many other republics in India at the time?
481	/u/EnclavedMicrostate replies to Did Asians know about Australia?

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AsksRandomHistoryQs

I'm back! After a long break, I've resumed my procedurally directed musings this month. I've seen a few successes, although with the odd avenues of inquiry, I'm not surprised by the low hit rate so far. For those interested, the table I've been using to track the questions posed so far.

Question	Answered?	Category Time	Category Area	Category Topic
What sort of understanding of the human body existed within cultures found in the "Iron Age" Southern Levant, and how did it impact what sort of medical care would be practiced there in that period?	No	21 Classical Antiquity	23 Israel-Palestine	35 Medicine
How did the on-going, and escalating, involvement of the United States military in Vietnam from the mid-60s onwards impact the socio-cultural fabric of the military community domestically within the United States?	No	4 1960s	26 North America	28 Military Life
In the 12th and 13th centuries the Kingdom of Norway was wracked by a century of power-struggles. How did this instability and continual turnover of rule impact the concept of a unified "Norway" internally, and perception of the Kingdom to outsiders?	Yes	18 High Medieval	8 Scandinavia	51 National Identity
What were the polices Peron's government in regards to indigenous rights within Argentina and their responses to his takeover, and how, it at all, did their treatment differ compared to that prior to the 1943 Coup?	No	6 1940s	76 South America	52 Minority Politics
As practiced in medieval Europe, especially the latter period as enslavement came be to be practiced less widely, how was the 'personhood' of the enslaved generally conceptualized?	No	17 Late Medieval	3 Europe	47 Servitude/Slavery
As African nations went through the process of decolonization and declaring independence in the post-WWII period, what sort of patterns can be seen in how they handled concepts of citizenship and voting rights, especially for women and ethnic minorities?	No	12 Cold War/Post-War	69 Africa	71 Suffrage
How were non-hetero sexual orientations viewed and controlled within China and by the CCP, and how, if at all, did the reforms periods post-Mao change treatment for such persons?	No	2 1980s	73 Asia	33 Homosexuality/Sexual Orientation
How did literary trends in early/mid-19th c. Latin America reflect the many independence movements that characterized the period?	No	13 19th Century	31 Latin America	58 Literature/Poetry
As European powers carved out or solidified their colonial holdings in Asia during the 19th c., such as with India and China, to what degree did preexisting "pan-Indian" or "pan-Chinese" identities exist, and how did such foreign imposition impact their further developments?	No	13 19th Century	70 Asia	51 National Identity
Within Greek communities of Ottoman Empire in the century or so before the independence of Greece, how was the practice of Christianity regulated, and to what degree was Ottoman oversight influenced by the intertwining of the Greek Orthodox Church and rising nationalist sentiments?	No	14 18th Century	11 Greece	34 Religion
During British rule in Egypt, how much oversight did the colonial administrators have over educational institutions and opportunities that catered to the Egyptian population? What changes in particular was there between Ottoman rule and British?	No	9 1910s	43 Egypt	20 Schooling
What was behind the explosion in popularity of Calypso music in the mid-20th century?	No	6 1940s	29 Caribbean	59 Music
Entering the 20th century, to what degree did indigenous peoples in the Pacific, such as on Fiji or the Solomons, retain their own religious practices versus adaptation of Christianity brought by the colonizing powers?	No	10 1900s	33 Oceania	34 Religion
To what extent did common folk in c. 1200 Europe have an understanding of the physical bounds and geography of the larger polity they were a part of? Would an English laborer, if shown an unlabeled map of the kingdom, recognize it as "England"?	No	18 High Medieval	57 Europe	44 Maps
During the Apartheid era, how much authority and independence of action was afforded to the Zulu king within KwaZulu?	No	2 1980s	69 Africa	17 Daily Life - Nobility
What sort of sports and games were popular in the early Srivijaya Empire on the Malay Archipelago?	No	20 Late Antiquity	45 Indonesia	11 Sports
During the East Africa Campaign of WWI, how readily available was provisioning and providing for basic hygiene? How much did it differ between European troops, indigenous raised units, and the porters used to support the campaign?	No	25 WWI	69 Africa	8 Hygiene
During the Second World War, and the accompanying influx of men from the Allied militaries into North Africa, how did the practice, scope, and views towards sex work in Egypt adapt in response?	Yes	6 1940s	43 Egypt	7 Sexual Practices
How did Mayans of the Post-Classical period conceptualize death and afterlife, and what sort of funerary rituals accompanied the passing of someone?	No	18 High Medieval	61 North America	43 Death
During the Nicaraguan Revolution, what did combat operations by the Contras and the government look like, and what was the impact of the arms funneled to the Contras by the United States?	No	2 1980s	27 Central America	27 Battle

razor21792

What do you guys think of Behind the Bastards, the podcast by Robert Evans. I realize that he's biased, but is his history any good?

Diabeater10

One of my favorite topics is revolutionary America and specifically Appalachia during that time period. Check out the Battle or Kings mountain and the “over mountain men” brutal stuff, but super interesting and is a cool look at the early American who helped tame the FIRST “wild west”.

dmdrmr

In old Catholic Times, if your city was cool enough to get a cathedral was that the only Catholic Church? or were there other sub-churches you could attend?

godofimagination

Were the Vikings who went to Constantinople from Denmark, Norway, or Sweden?

Zooasaurus

Bros I'm just on the prep stage of my thesis and I already feel burned out and dead inside :(

NAAnymore

What's your favorite historical fact?

hexennacht666

Can anyone recommend a book on how medieval castles or fortresses were designed?