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.
Here's a fun exercise for what's turning out to be a slow Friday for me: let's say an HBO exec approaches you, asks you to develop an 8-part limited series about something from your area of expertise/interest, and gives you a virtually unlimited budget. What do you pick, why, and who do you cast (remember, unlimited budget)?
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, January 14 - Thursday, January 20
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 3,448 | 63 comments | Did people make paper airplanes before there were real airplanes? What did they call them? |
| 2,787 | 50 comments | According to Wikipedia, the French casualties at Agincourt included three dukes, nine counts, a Viscount, an Archbishop, the Constable of France, Master of the Royal Household, and 3-5,000 other knights and squires. What would the effect of such a catastrophe had on the French feudal system? |
| 2,712 | 24 comments | China's first university, the Imperial University of Peking, was founded in 1898, but it surely had much older educational institutions. What distinguishes a "university" in the Western understanding from these older academies, and why did China find it necessary to establish one? |
| 2,667 | 26 comments | During WW2, were there people who thought the war was a hoax? I don’t mean holocaust denialism, but people who insisted that things like rationing and war bonds were politically motivated and unnecessary because there was no actual war? Asking particularly about Americans but also curious globally. |
| 2,369 | 86 comments | Early episodes of "Seinfeld" often include scenes of relatively well-off characters going to communal laundromats. Was it uncommon for New Yorkers in the 1990s to own their own washers/dryers? If so, is that something specific to New York or a wider trend? |
| 1,953 | 61 comments | [Minorities] Native Americans and horses were both in America before horses went extinct and were reintroduced by Europeans. Do any Native American groups "remember" horses through something like an oral tradition? Is there archaeological evidence of Native Americans hunting, taming, making art of horses, etc? |
| 1,880 | 78 comments | The ancient Christian writer Justin Martyr (~150 AD) argued that skeptics should just go to Bethlehem and look at the tax records. Would the Roman government have reasonably retained tax / census records that long? |
| 1,802 | 58 comments | What is the current consensus on recent articles on Anne Frank and how her family were discovered? |
| 1,772 | 175 comments | [AMA] I'm Dr. Scott Johnston, author of THE CLOCKS ARE TELLING LIES: SCIENCE, SOCIETY, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF TIME. Ask me anything about the history of global timekeeping! |
| 1,690 | 56 comments | What was the purpose/structure of a Harem? |
###Top 10 Comments
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####Please let me know if you have suggestions to make this roundup better for /r/askhistorians or if there are other subreddits that you think I should post in. I can search for posts based off keywords in the title, URL and flair. And I can also find the top comments overall or in specific threads.
Is there a word for "stuff that's referred to but not explained in historical texts because it was so common at the time that nobody thought it would ever need explaining"
Is there a resident expert on US Army organization? Specifically Vietnam era.
I want to re-ask my question "did the 1968 flu pandemic affect/influence the worldwide protest movements of that year" but it's a bit weird because I expect the answer to be "No." If so I could see how it would be hard to answer. But maybe I'm completely wrong!
Ok! I have a question that’s too short for a post. Who was the Russian author who wrote like 3000 pages and sold them in like two months to save himself from debt collectors he knew were coming by horseback?
RemindMe bot link is not working properly, at least for me. Anyone know wois a moderator I can ask about this?