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'm going to be unsubscribing right after I post this, but I was curious if my perception is accurate that the extremely strict rules in this subreddit are enforced even in nested comment threads.
I fully support rule enforcement of top-level replies, while allowing non-experts to reply or even challenge the experts' claims. AskDoctors uses this policy and it works fine. Quack advice in the replies is simply downvoted, while all top-level comments are guaranteed responses from confirmed medical professionals. Sometimes the layman discussion is more valuable than the professional analysis and I literally never see it happen here, so I am assuming that is by design. I'm pretty snooty myself, but that's a bit much even for me.
I jumped into the some deep end nerdery this past week by playing my first hex and counter wargame. I had purchased GMT Games' Men of Iron Tri-Pack the week before but almost immediately got very sick with the latest bug my toddler brought back from daycare and wasn't able to play it. I finally learned the rules and played through the Agincourt scenario (chosen mostly because it's small and fit in the little bit of space I was able to carve out for gaming). I had a reasonably good time playing, even if it was just by myself, and I think I've got a decent grasp of the rules now. I'm planning to play the Courtrai scenario this weekend, if Elden Ring doesn't suck up all my attention that is!
Anybody know a source which attempts to compile overall numbers of people tried or executed by inquisitions during the Middle Ages?
If I had to take a stab at it myself, I'd guess that the number executed during the whole medieval inquisition (roughly circa 1200 to 1500) might be in the low thousands. Number of people tried probably ten times that, maybe significantly more. But although I know a bit about how the inquisition worked, I've never looked into numbers or stats about it.
Mods, I hope this is an appropriate comment on the Friday Free For All: Please! Someone who's qualified for it go give an answer to u/caer-corgi on their great question about North American river pirates. It's my understanding that there was quite a bit of piracy along the Ohio River in the early years of the United States. I've gone down rabbit trails about Big Harp and Little Harp, which I think would make great subjects for a historically accurate horror movie. And I've heard the history behind Cave-In-Rock, Illinois. I'd love to see a detailed answer by one of you historians, who are so talented and engaging in your writing, take a stab at this topic because I think many would find it incredibly interesting.
Also, I just want say how much I look forward to the Friday recap in my inbox! I especially like the random flair profile. Well done! This is probably my favorite sub.
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, February 18 - Thursday, February 24
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 5,485 | 95 comments | Vladimir Putin has just claimed that modern Ukraine was entirely created by communist Russia (specifically Lenin) and that Ukraine never had the tradition of having its own state. Is any of this accurate or true? |
| 3,406 | 56 comments | In the Arctic, there are no trees. The Inuit made use of driftwood - what did they think this material was from? |
| 3,372 | 267 comments | Do historians who study horrific historical events such as massacres and genocides suffer from mental health problems due to reading studying such subjects? |
| 2,928 | 79 comments | The 20,000 human sacrifices carried out at the Aztect's Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan each year must have created a river of blood and mound of decaying bodies. How did the Aztecs clean this up to prevent disease outbreaks? Where did the remains get buried? It must have been a hygiene nightmare. |
| 2,658 | 72 comments | My partner is curious about her African ancestry and loves mythology, but I know there is far less known about West African myths than say Greece or Mesopotamia. Where is a good place for me to start digging? |
| 2,074 | 37 comments | In an episode of The Simpsons, Bart drinks a lot of water before bed so that he wakes up early on Christmas morning. Lisa says that he stole this idea from the Native Americans. Did any tribes actually do this? |
| 1,904 | 53 comments | Athens regularly held "unpopularity contests;" the winner was exiled for a decade. Athens sent away dozens of leading citizens and war heroes. Did ostracism stabilize the democracy? Was it useful? Did the frequent recall of exiled citizens mean ostracism was counterproductive? |
| 1,791 | 15 comments | Is Daphne bridgerton's total ignorance regarding sex and the male anatomy accurate to what a woman of her social standing would have known in that time period? |
| 1,761 | 24 comments | Nations no longer seem to formally declare war. Why is that and how has it affected international conflict? |
| 1,608 | 25 comments | Did middle/upper class English people in the first half of the 20th century socialise later at night than is common now? |
###Top 10 Comments
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Having a sudden obsession with soviet russia and specifially Stalin, I pretty much read any biography/history book about the era I could get my hands on over the last couple of months. Having done so, I gotta ask: How the hell do historians ever come to make definitive statements about anything at all? Stalins time was very recent and there are tons of written/eyewitness accounts, and yet respected scholars like Kotkin, Khlevniuk or Grigor Suny cant even agree on some of the basics. What I found most astounding is that authors seem very eclectic in marking their sources as questionable or having an agenda. Trotski for example is sometimes quoted without even providing any background on his motives for making statements on Stalin. The greatest offender to me seemed Montefiore, whose Biography largely consists of exact accounts of supposed dialogue without the author ever going into questions of personal agenda or plausibility.
If only I could go back in time to study history instead of psychology :(
What was there before the SWIFT?
Was the USSR part of swift?
I’m watching the first episode of Vikings: Valhalla on Netflix, and an early scene depicts soldiers tossing what appears to be kerosene (or some other clear, low viscosity fluid) on a building and setting it aflame. Since I feel pretty confident that petroleum refinement wasn’t happening in the 11th century, what would medieval soldiers have used as fire accelerants?
Best books on Southeast Asia?
I was listening to a scholarly video which said otton-von bismark instituted a social security/welfare system for germans: Was this Considered a "leftists" policy by conservative politicians back then? If otto was in favour of social security,does this mean even more traditionally right-wing military leaders existed in pre-WW1 germany?