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.
So, I've been relatively absent from contributing on AH for a few months so I might as well say something.
I've been contributing to AskHistorians as a flair for well over 3 years now. I've covered topics regarding Italian history from the Risorgimento to the birth of the Republic, added some great reads regarding the Kingdom of Italy to the AskHistorians booklist, contributed to some fun april fools threads, and had wonderful talks with a ton of swell people along the way.
My contributing was mainly allowed by my relatively free time schedule and slow paced personal life, but as of the past year or 2 I've had my time increasingly taken up by job and personal matters. Between me becoming a flair and now, I got married, started a family, bought a house, and changed jobs. The job change in particular began eating up all my time to where I can't dedicate that solid 1-3 hours writing out a longform answer that I'm proud of unless a good question happens to be asked on a weekend. Since real life sucks and takes up all my time, I'm retiring from contributing on AskHistorians. I'm thankful for everyone I've met during my long stay here and won't forget the pleasure of his place feeding into my love for history and giving me a platform to simp over Garibaldi hopefully teach people some cool Italian history.
Thank you to everyone!
I wrote a fun article for the latest issue of Epoch Magazine about a subject that I have been working on the side of my regular research.
It is a short biography of John Panzio Tockson (c. 1838 - 1887), an African man who came to Gothenburg, Sweden in the mid-1850s and ended up becoming employed by the king. I explore his life, what we know about him, how he was seen by Swedes, and putting his life within the larger context of Afro-Swedish history. Tockson's story has fascinated me for years and to finally be able to write something to make his story more known to a wider audience has truly been a joy.
You can find the article here: The Last Court Morian.
What are some funny historical moments?
Inspired by this answer which describes how Martin Luther upon being called a Hussite and had to go and read about Jan Hus before coming back and saying the church was wrong to condemn him.
For my own contribution, in 1583 when the news reached Hugh O’Neill that Turlough O’Neill had died, he rushed to Ulster to claim the Earldom only to be told Turlough had actually drank himself into a 24-hour coma and was awake again.
If you haven't seen it yet, check out the Give a gift of History with the AskHistorians 2022 Holiday Book Recommendation Thread! Come suggest your favorite history books, or see if you can find a new one to catch your eye.
I wanted to share this for Tuesday Trivia - Dance. I am a flamenco afficiado and I used to sing (sometimes dance) until I lost my voice. I am suffering from writer's block lately so I didn't.
Here is my favorite dancer of my generation - Eva Yerbabuena - dancing a Soleá. It is one of the oldest flamenco styles and rhythms and one of the most difficult to sing. It is tremendously soulful (cante jondo = deep singing). This is one of my favorite performances of hers. You can feel it through the screen.
One more sleep to the weekend!
Been very busy last two weeks but hope to be around far more. Had a fun day today, after two very enjoyable recording sessions, finished with recordings for the year for a 3kingdom podcast u/10thousand_stars and I are involved with.
Idea is we discuss novel themes chapter by chapter but also the history behind the era and in deep dives episodes, getting into the history of a particular subject (today, a dive into the Turbans). Been pleased with how it has gone so far but now up to the editing
Hopefully the episodes will be up early next year
Hope everyone has a great weekend and a cheerful December
What's a good book for a young teenager starting to have an interest in history?
I've greatly enjoyed reading through Bret Devereaux's blog ACOUP and was wondering if anyone knew of other similar blogs that take detailed but layman accessible dives into topics.
I have a particular interest in learning about non metal (no copper/bronze/iron tools/weapons) societies be it the Neolithic or pre Colombian Americas, including hunter gatherers, agriculture, and city formation in those periods/regions (how did subsistence, trade, building, organization, warfare, etc work).
But otherwise I find anything interesting, especially if it is more focused on how systems work (generalizable) and comparing different systems.
Please tell me all of your historical facts about crows.
Specific question: I once heard that a USA president had a pet crow (Thomas Jefferson is who comes to mind, but I may be wrong), is this true? If yes, how did it come about? Did he have other odd pets? Was this even considered a pet or was it a wild crow that was fond of him?
I've been enjoying Ian Mortimer's "Time Traveler's Guide" series. Is there anything similar for other regions of Europe in the Early Modern Era?
What I like is getting a taste of everyday life of people from different backgrounds along with the other social and cultural contexts at play.
Are there any books, collections, etc good for finding stories/details of just everyday people being people? Like historical graffiti, that super burnt pan that was buried in someone's yard, and such.
How accepted are Eberhard Zangger's studies on Hittites, Arzawa and Luwians? I've been watching his Luwian Studies Youtube channel videos and it seems like he is jumping to conclusions from relatively weak evidence. But I am no expert. He also thinks the Sea Peoples were the Arzawa.
Here is one if anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4-2MMBn_is
What are some historical dramas that are so accurate you can truly learn a lot about the time period from watching them?
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, November 25 - Thursday, December 01
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 7,779 | 107 comments | [Great Question!] Could people do backflips/front flips in ancient times? |
| 2,914 | 145 comments | Mods at /r/worldnews are permabanning anyone who says the Holodomor does not qualify as genocide. Is it the dominant view among historians that the Holodomor was a deliberate effort by Soviet authorities to exterminate one or more ethnic groups? |
| 2,756 | 39 comments | W. E. B. Du Bois saw the issue of lynching in America was aberrant, and that simply explaining to white people that black people were not threats would end it. After seeing Sam Hose's knuckles for sale at Atlanta, he changed his mind. How did this revelation change his opinon and methods? |
| 2,456 | 47 comments | Almost everything today feels like it is owned by eight or ten major parent companies. What changed to make the United States go from Anti-Corporate philosophies in the 1890s-1910s during Theodore Roosevelt’s “Trust Busting” era to lead to the modern economic practices? |
| 2,351 | 63 comments | In traditional Hawaiian culture women would be put to death for eating pork, coconuts, taro, several types of fish, and 67 out of 70 varieties of bananas. What did Hawaiian women subsist off of? Why was there such a drastic limitation on what women could eat? |
| 2,188 | 68 comments | Why are Europeans so obsessed with lions? They don't have any lions but they are there on flags, coat of arms, furniture and historical buildings |
| 1,714 | 31 comments | Why is Han Chinese considered a single ethnic group despite having multiple languages and customs across its population? |
| 1,591 | 29 comments | In the early years of the United States, the US Marshals were the Federal law enforcement service. Why was a new agency (FBI) created to take over their role, with the Marshals relegated to mostly court order enforcement and escort, rather than continue using them as the general Federal LEO service? |
| 1,559 | 64 comments | Why are Romani rarely mentioned in the Holocaust? |
| 1,462 | 63 comments | If you were enlisted in World War 1 in 1914 on the Western Front, how likely were you to survive to the end of the war? |
###Top 10 Comments
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During the rape of Nanking, did soldiers usually kill the women before raping them or after? (making it necrophilia)