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.
My new favorite quote by Agatha Christi : An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her.
I posted this "question" on r/badhistory but i think it's worth posting it here too:
I think people are way too harsh on Brutus and the so called liberators.
I know Caesar is well regarded in popular culture but the extent on which they are villanized is way over the top, the whole narrative stating that their motives were entirely egotistical and for the benefit of the evil senate aristocrats only simply does not make sense to me, especially since a lot of them were personally benefitting from Caesar's rule and a sizable number were former Caesarians.
From what i have read it seems that it is much more likely that their motives were genuine, Caesar really was overstepping a lot of bounds after all, i don't think they were some kind of misinterpreted heroes but the way they are popularly regarded is just not fair imo.
Can anyone more knowledgeable than me throw in their two cents ?
This might be a stupid/overly broad question. But I'm wondering what was going on around the world during approx. 4BC-30AD (so roughly the time Jesus was alive, though I know the dates aren't settled on that).
Obviously a lot was going on, but other than the Roman Empire were there any interesting events during that time I can research, or just books/articles about a country/location at that specific time? I've checked the askhistorians wiki but couldn't see anything though I may have missed it.
Tis the season of sitting around and swapping stories, so with that theme I ask of you: What are some of your favorite Christmas or Holiday themed stories? Personal or historical, hit me up with them!
I think this is the perfect place to say this: Merry Christmas, r/AskHistorians!
I discovered via YouTube Autoplay just a few hours ago this most excellent piece pairing throat-singing with bagpipes AND EVERYONE MUST HEAR IT AND HEAR OF IT
Are there any good documentaries that I can stream that are about pre-Roman civilitations?
I’m watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special, and I keep wondering how radical the jazz music was for the time. It’s especially wild that it’s wrapped into a prime time TV special with a (nowadays) pretty conservative message about ignoring the commercialization in favor of the religious root of the season.
I'd just like to say that I appreciate the moderation on this sub and similar ones like it. To keep only high-quality, referenced answers and remove the low-quality/troll posts. Thank you for your hard work, mods.
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, December 17 - Thursday, December 23
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 3,079 | 40 comments | Did people in Medieval Europe really practice "Genital Parenting" |
| 2,981 | 93 comments | American history education has a quirk where it "jumps" from the earliest settler colonies (Jamestown, Plymouth, etc.) to the Colonial Era and the Revolutionary War. What exactly happened in between these two major "episodes"? Explanations on native peoples, slaves, etc. are greatly appreciated. |
| 2,859 | 44 comments | We all know of Mansa Musa, possibly the richest man to ever exist. To Westerners, he seems to have been the greatest of Mali rulers, as visible in games like Civilization. Yet native sources seem to pay him little attention. Who would native Malians have considered their greatest ruler? |
| 2,654 | 75 comments | Americans moved west in the 19th century, often fleeing eroded and exhausted farmsteads and searching for new land to cultivate. You don't hear about farmers ruining land in Asia, even over dozens of generations. Why were colonial Americans so destructive to the land? |
| 2,203 | 62 comments | How likely is it that Tibetan shirpas could have climbed Mount Everest centuries ago and it just didn't get recorded? |
| 2,050 | 4 comments | [Great Question!] Nowadays, when making a sizeable trip, it takes a good amount of reading: road signs, train tables, etc. How did rising literacy change the way people move across their own countries and beyond? |
| 2,008 | 52 comments | Did average Roman slaves really have more time off work than the average US worker? |
| 1,910 | 54 comments | The lightbulb conspiracy (in Europe and the US) engineered planned obsolescence into their bulbs. Did the same thing occur in the Soviet Union? |
| 1,825 | 23 comments | In Chinese Feng Shui buildings must be built with doors facing south for bedrooms, west for kitchens, and other very specific rules for how buildings can be designed. Is there a historical reason for this? |
| 1,626 | 196 comments | [Meta] Meta question: why do so many questions here have a ‘role play’ element? |
###Top 10 Comments
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Did 16th century England celebrate Christmas Eve or Christmas Day differently after Henry the Eighth became head of the church?
Is the Modern History TV youtube channel a reliable source for information? The videos are entertaining but more frequently feel like conjecture than historical fact.
What do AH think of doc The Battle of Midway 1942: Told from the Japanese Perspective.????