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 found out that an article I’ve been working on will be published with revisions, which is exciting! It’s about an attempt by the Canadian government in 1908 to deport all South Asian immigrants from British Columbia to British Honduras for indentured labour.
How hard would it be to overcome the plains indian stereotypes in favor of a more nuanced view of native americans?
In particular, I'm imagining a big budget film adaptation of the Lewis and Clarke expedition, that would realistically depict all of the 20 or so tribes encountered along the journey.
Would a hypothetical art director for such a movie be able to research the clothing, architecture, complexions, bone structure, and economy of all these tribes, enough to make each tribe look distinct from each other?
(The assumption here is that the movie makers don't want to make any arbitrary artistic choices just to look good. Also that the expedition is not perticularly heroic or beneficial, just the early phase of what will become an onslaught)
Also I'm curious about how many of those silver friendship medallions handed out by the expedition still survive to this day, and if so, how many are still in native american possesion.
I minted a new PhD this week! What's more, they're one who has a good tenure-track job waiting for them. It's been a lousy year in general for department, field, and profession, but this is an absolute win. I'm delivering the bottle of champagne early next week.
This is an example seeking question so doesn't fit anywhere else but I was really curious and it's the sort of question that's difficult to research. How many cases have there been of a member of a legislature having been murdered by other members of the same country's legislature? (directly, ie not something like opposition members persecuted by the government). I came across the case of Stjepan Radić being killed by Puniša Račić in Yugoslavia in 1928 and was wondering - the only example I can think of where it *almost* happened was the near murder of Charles Sumner.
So I have an example gathering question, based in politics (shocker I know.)
I'm looking for historical examples of a particular political system. One in which the people are divided into groups of 150 people, each group gets to select one representative, and every 150 representatives forms a group, which selects a representative and so on until you can no longer divide by 150.
In terms of history the specific number 150 isn't necessary, but I'm looking for systems similar to this and historical examples. I couldn't find anything on Wikipedia, but that may largely be due to it being under a name I'm not familiar with. Any help would be greatly appreciated ^ ^
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, May 14 - Thursday, May 20
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 6,010 | 125 comments | Let's educate ourselves on the history of Israel/Palestine |
| 5,418 | 101 comments | How did tracksuits (especially the ones with stripes on their sides) become an inherent part of Russian/East Slavic culture? |
| 4,278 | 135 comments | When did it stop being acceptable to openly conquer other nations? |
| 3,484 | 111 comments | I've heard all my life that the Middle East was essentially peaceful coexistence between Jews and Muslims until Western mandates divided territory arbitrarily. How much of this is fact versus fiction? |
| 3,150 | 66 comments | [Great Question!] When I look up the history of Mongol women in the era of Genghis Khan and his sons/grandsons I only find information on Mongol queens and princesses. How did the other 99.9% of Mongol women live? |
| 2,983 | 31 comments | Is there any evidence that thinkers in ancient Rome or Greece postulated what life would be like thousands of years into the future? What did they say about how they expected humanity to be living in our modern times? |
| 2,912 | 65 comments | [Ships and Shipping] Did Medieval European warships ever have mounted ballistas or other siege weapons for ship-to-ship combat, or has Dungeons & Dragons lied to me? |
| 2,873 | 115 comments | Has anyone ever survived execution in the roman arena by killing all opponents? |
| 2,318 | 11 comments | [Great Question!] NYC's Book Row had 48 bookstores at its height. What distinguished them and kept them in business? What sort of book culture supported such a density of booksellers? |
| 2,146 | 46 comments | In the movie "The Patriot", Col. Martin and General Cornwallis enter some kind of formalized parley. Were negotiations generally this ritualized? If so, are the rules written down somewhere? |
###Top 10 Comments
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Any historians who are willing to suggest quality books for a library collection?