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 looking for specific information on this picture. It's from a prisoner's record at the Walla Walla prison in Washington State in 1901. It says the prisoner had been a sailor, and in the line under "In what service" it says "M M." Does anyone know what this acronym means?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
This is somewhat related to a recent question, but I heard that an introductory step in the development of cairn-building/burials was by people (most likely in Brittany, France) burying their dead in middens, most likely seashell middens.
The source then said that as seashells had such a high concentration of minerals that acted as preservatives, it could have been the first step in development of purpose-built stone cairns to bury the dead in that style of grave, which then traveled from Brittany to Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland, etc.
This makes sense to me. But wanted to see if this theory had historic/archeological merit?
I had a deadline for a conference with pre-circulated papers today, but administrative issues and the lingering effects of bouts with COVID (last month) and two other major illnesses (just prior) meant that I wasn't really able to devote any attention to it until last Wednesday. Somehow, I produced an almost complete draft in seven work days and it felt good to send that mess off, but this level of combined body-mind exhaustion is not something I've felt since I turned in my dissertation many years ago.
On the plus side, it looks like I'll get to take sabbatical next year. I guess that's something.
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, September 30 - Thursday, October 06
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 3,671 | 41 comments | ‘Don’t mention the war!”, or, When did Germans become tourists again in post-WWII Europe and how were they received? |
| 2,746 | 59 comments | The car lobby is often cited as the reason public transportation was stifled in the US. But the US also had a massive powerful railroad industry in the 19th century. Did they try to counter-lobby in any way? Why did they fail? |
| 2,354 | 67 comments | There are some semi-popular memes about going back in time to give medieval peasants things like Mt. Dew, Doritos, Warheads candy etc. The joke being that peasants would never have had that 'blast of flavor.' What would have been the biggest 'blast of flavor' they would have had back then? |
| 1,924 | 32 comments | The 1931 film Frankenstein begins with a warning to the audience that the studio thinks it's too scary, and audiences might be shocked. Was this merely a marketing gimmick, or did Universal truly believe that the film was so scary compared to other films that it warranted a warning to audiences? |
| 1,745 | 51 comments | How much of the Jews' work in concentration camps was useful to the war effort and how much was just forced to inflict suffering? |
| 1,606 | 46 comments | If knitting is a relatively recent invention, how did people in Siberia, Scandinavia, Mongolia and other cold climates make heavy socks prior to adopting knitting? |
| 1,591 | 17 comments | When people look back at Middle-Ages they are quick to identify with the peasants, the commoners and their plight, whereas when looking back on Classical Greece and Rome, they identify more easily with the citizen class and the philosophers. Why the difference and when did it started? |
| 1,449 | 49 comments | What explains Japan's relatively large population compared to its size? |
| 1,408 | 40 comments | Why did the United States of America only recognize Australian sovereignty in 1940, 39 years after Australian independence? |
| 1,400 | 14 comments | Around AD 552 two Byzantine monks smuggled silkworms eggs out of China, allowing the Mediterranean to produce its own silk for the first time. Were there any consequences for those who had been duped? Did the Chinese ever figure out the heist? |
###Top 10 Comments
If you would like this roundup sent to your reddit inbox every week send me a message with the subject 'askhistorians'. Or if you want a daily roundup, use the subject 'askhistorians daily'. Or send me a chat with either askhistorians or askhistorians daily.
####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.
Q: What do you call removing all the grain, meat, vegetables, and dairy from Ireland?
A: >! A potato famine! !<
Are the German uniforms in this scene from King's Man historically accurate? And did stuff like this really happen?