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.
It's done. I finally finished my dissertation, got all my committee members to sign off on it, and received the university's approval. Unfortunately, due to a bureaucratic mishap (as I recently learned, someone forgot to file some important paperwork for me after I defended my prospectus three years ago), it may take another few months for the university to officially grant me the PhD.
My dissertation discusses ancient Thracian ethnicity and ethnogenesis as well as the experiences of Thracians in multicultural settings, like Attica and Hellenistic Egypt. At the encouragement of my advisor, I'm looking to turn my research into a monograph one day.
Anyhow, I just feel immense relief at being done with grad school!
You ever play Akinator to see if it can guess the more obscure characters from your area of expertise? Ever able to stump it?
I’m pretty sure it was able to identify Ludwig Zamenhof, but it struggled for a while and eventually gave up when it couldn’t guess Johann Martin Schleyer. That was at a family gathering where a lot of people were trying to beat it, and I was the only one who could.
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, September 09 - Thursday, September 15
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 4,939 | 514 comments | [Megathread] Queen Elizabeth II has died |
| 3,012 | 52 comments | Did anyone remember Gilgamesh before it was rediscovered? |
| 2,596 | 69 comments | Black clothing was used in Ancient Greece, but natural black dye is extremely difficult to make. How did they do it? Would us recognize it as black or was it a deep/dark shadow of other colours? |
| 2,355 | 67 comments | [Great Question!] What was happening in the English language that led to a brief period that coined "exocentric verb-noun compound agent nouns?" (explanation in thread) |
| 2,298 | 114 comments | In WWII Americans wanted Lugers and samurai swords as trophies. What did the Axis powers look for on the battlefield? |
| 2,107 | 77 comments | So, is the whole "Native Americans didn't believe in property" thing a myth? |
| 1,892 | 31 comments | What was going on in Ireland at beginning of the 20th century (1901, specifically) that might have encouraged my great-great-grandparents to give their children's ages as consistently 3-5 years younger than reality for the 1901 Census of Ireland? |
| 1,847 | 88 comments | When did Europeans stop building castles? When was the last defensive castle made? |
| 1,774 | 125 comments | How valid are the claims Mother Teresa was a 'sadist' who made the poor suffer? |
| 1,352 | 10 comments | In medieval times, were there "single player games" like we have today? As, say, solitaire or a rubix cube? |
###Top 10 Comments
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Have there been any major historical events that happened because of pets?
