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 was thinking about this the other day and figured the Friday thread was the perfect place for it.
Whats a story, tale or 'lesson' from history that you find you frequently think about? Maybe its more philosophical, maybe its just a wacky event. But something that just pops into your head fairly frequently or randomly and gets you thinking.
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, December 03 - Thursday, December 09
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 4,424 | 69 comments | Where did pop Christianity get the idea that people become angels when they die, when this isn’t suggested anywhere in the Bible? |
| 3,769 | 53 comments | [Wealth] Was Paris cheap in the 1920s or artists well off? |
| 3,677 | 38 comments | What was the public reaction when, in 1924, Hubble discovered that our galaxy was not the entire universe, but rather one minute component of a vastly larger cosmos? |
| 2,730 | 48 comments | George Washington, describing his behavior as president, declared that he did not want to be shut away from citizens “like an eastern Lama.” How would an American statesman know about the Dalai Lama in faraway Tibet? |
| 2,513 | 60 comments | Was Hans Christian Andersen mentally disabled or just really eccentric? |
| 2,469 | 139 comments | What kind of "street clutter" would an ancient Roman city have had? |
| 2,279 | 69 comments | [Great Question!] In fiction, the idea of a hidden city is not uncommon (Gondolin and Braavos, from LOTR's and ASOIAF's worlds respectively, for example), but is that based on any real historical city? Where does that idea even come from? |
| 1,998 | 81 comments | Why did pre-marital sex become a taboo concept in Abrahamic religions? Was it just a way of shunning pagan religions? |
| 1,958 | 139 comments | How did George H.W. Bush manage to lose the 1992 election after the success of Desert Storm? |
| 1,950 | 24 comments | Tsar Nicholas II had a massive tattoo of a dragon covering his whole lower forearm, which he got as a youth on a trip to Japan. Irony of a Japanese tattoo aside, what would people have thought of the Tsar with a dragon tattoo? |
###Top 10 Comments
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Good Friday morning, historians and fellow history nerds!
I've been enjoying a lot of pop history channels on YouTube, but I've pretty much exhausted their content, and I'd like to hear your recommendations for more. I understand that these videos are nowhere close to academically rigorous, but they've definitely been my gateway to AskHistorians answers on many topics. Ones that I've enjoyed so far, in no particular order:
I'm open to other media such as TV shows, podcasts, or books as well. Any blend of history and entertainment -- as long as it at least attempts some degree of accuracy -- would be great!
Is there a site somewhere that has a listing of which bibliography a certain book is in? So for example, in the past I've asked about American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund Morgan and what kind of furthering research there is since the book is several decades old. Basically this would be some way to search American Slavery, American Freedom and get a list of books that include it in their bibliography.
If there isn't, uh, is that something that would be appropriate to have? Do you know if that would run into some sort of copyright issue?
Sorry, this is a pretty spur of the moment thought, rather than any true commitment, but figured I would see if there are any reactions to it.
Don't you hate it when a book is missing a page?