Great Pyramid of Giza - How on earth did they build that massive structure? (too many stories but none backed evidence)

What's the current state of the art regarding the translation of Linear A? Are people actively working on it and how does that work look like on a daily basis?

How common were medieval communes that had liberty/some degree of equality for peasants and were generally independent from the lords/feudal system?

Were market economies and prosperity associated with them?

I'm trying to learn more about trade and trade routes and came across some really interesting ones (amber trade from Lithuania, tin trade in the Near East, the Indian Ocean trade network). There are some obvious ones as well I haven't looked into (Columbian exchange, Trans Saharan trade routes, Mediterranean trade routes) but what are some less well known but still cool ones y'all know of?

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How was decayed or abscessed teeth treated back then? Before antibiotics?

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The year in Ancient Egypt was divided into two parts: harvest season and flood season, when the banks of the river Nile overflowed. That meant that for half of the year, the Egyptian state had access to large numbers of idle laborers.

Add to that that they had long experience in building monuments (the Great Pyramid was hardly the first colossal monument built by Egypt).

They also had a stable system of government, which meant that they could build their monuments over a long period of time.

Also, the pyramids were built next to a quarry, and a short way from the Nile meaning that they could easily ship in stones.

We also have writings of the engineering teams who built the pyramids, along with other archeological evidence from the construction.

But 20 years is still a very short period to have built the great pyramid. The math tells that 1 stone should have been put in place for every 1 hour.

What are the origins of natives in the americas?

What happened to the indigenous population of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast when it was formed by the Soviet Union?

Been on a kick lately reading about the formation, rise, and downfall (at least as a hotspot of Jewish culture) of the JAO but this is something I haven’t been able to find any info about. There must have been people already living there when the Soviets decided to create the territory. Was curious if there was any response to suddenly finding out the new designation of the land they were on.

With a massive workforce of (off-)seasonal labourers, performing tasks for the state in an effort that saw a massive amount of the state's resources thrown into the fray. Calculations cited by Toby Wilkinson in "The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt", show that the effort of Cheops' (Khufu) pyramid could have been done by two crews of about 4000 men could have completed the job (to quarry, to haul & set in place 2.000.000+ blocks) + an equal number of men to construct and maintain the logistics of construction (ramps, scaffolding, etc) & other small army of workers for specific tasks (carpentry, pottery, cooking, etc) - all in all suggesting an estimated workforce of around 10.000 people. Most of these would only have been there according to the seasons (farmers off duty), with a small dedicated core tending to the site all-year round.

The shape of the pyramid is simple in conception, but the whole planning of the work (like the specific alignment of the building ) is nothing but impressive.

One of the most obvious one, which to my surprise you have missed here is "The Silk Route", from China to the West and Middel East crossing through Central Asia. Purpose of this route was to trade Silk from China to other parts of the world at that time.

Very uncommon from the late Carolingian era onward. One of the more notable ones that survived until around 1500 is that of Ditmarshen at the border of Denmark and the HRE.

One theory suggests that during the Ice Age (where everything on Earth was frozen–even the oceans) was the time when some of the hunter gatherer or nomadic tribes from Serbia (now in Russia) crossed the Bering Strait (A strait between the eastern end of Russia and the Western part of Alaska, today)

{Strait:- A narrow passage of water connecting two seas.} (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Relief_map_of_USA_Alaska.png).

They crossed this strait unknowingly in search of food, as this is what the tribes whould do every now and then in order to survive at that time. They would relocate time to time setting camp from one place to another hunting and gathering food for their survival, hence nomadic (as farming was not known at that time hence the main source of food for the humans were other animals–more specifically meat. Even if farming was known at that time, it would have been really difficult to grow anything given the situation).

Then when the time passed, eventually the Ice Age ended and the oceans were back to being watery/liquid as they are. The people who already crossed didn't have any way back nor did they remember any way back, plus even the boats/ships were not invented at that time to cross huge bodies of water–provided if a question arises in your mind that "why didn't they use boats".

So these people eventually ended up settled in the Americas and became native to it.

This is as simple as I could explain. But if you want deep information regarding this then you can search it on YouTube, where you can easily learn more about it with visuals.

With a pair of pliers and a sharp pull.

Basically the same thing we do today, but without any anaesthetic.

https://www.wayneoralsurgery.com/blog/what-was-dental-health-like-in-the-middle-ages/

Where can I find the logs and recordings of Henry II of England? We are trying to locate the missing location of Battle of Myriokephalon on 1176.

Or 2 stones an hour in a 12 hour shift. Or 4 stones an hour in a 12 hour shift 6 months at a time. Placing a stone every 15 minutes doesn't seem so impossible, especially if there is a queue of stones ready to go.

Yes... the Kolyma woman sharing close DNA with Native Americans really helps this theory along. -a Native American

Out of curiosity, why do you need Henry II's records? The battle saw no involvement of English forces, are you hoping to find correspondence about it?

The Jewish population of the JAO was never more than 25% and most Jews who moved there didn't stay for long (nowadays the Jewish population is below 1% - and the Oblast has existed for less than 100 years now).

In the area, it's kind of hard to tell who the "Indigenous population" are exactly (just like with the rest of Europe/Asia, because the term usually involves a distinct population group being colonised), but the majority of the Oblast was always non-Jewish, even when the Soviet Union tried to encourage Jews to settle there.

It was a relatively undeveloped area and the Soviet Union had hoped to bring in people to develop agriculture there and thought that they could find something to do with the Jews as a sort of 2 for 1 solution.

Couple interesting ones.

Poverty Point, is a site in Louisiana, dating to around 3200 years ago. Stone artifacts have been found at the site made with stone from as far as Ohio or Iowa. The site is also known for these strange little baked clay objects, known as Poverty Point Objects. No one's quite sure what they're for. But they were traded all over the Eastern US. Some have been found as far away as Florida.

Another cool one is Cahokia. Located in Missouri, and dating back about 1000 years. The site was a major trade hub. Getting Obsidian from as far as the Rockies, shells from the Gulf Coast, and copper from the Great Lakes. And they produced the really intricate copper plates that were traded as far as Wisconsin and Florida.

Disputed. The safest theory is they crossed the Bering Strait on foot when it was dry. It looks like this actually happened a few times. However, there are some really old artifacts in South America that question that timeline, because it would mean people had to cross from Asia and then get to South America really fast.

There's also a theory that they used small boats to travel along the shore from Asia, along the Bering Strait when it was not fully flooded, and down the western coast of America.

The book 1491 does a good job of covering the different theories.

It is possible, but the same pace over 20 years is unbelievable? Inspite of Rains, battles, summers, droughts... Too difficult to believe.

Yep. I'm a fan of toby wilkinson. But the numbers there are ridiculous

Same pace? Maybe busier some days than others.

Or are you suggesting aliens

Why? He is one of the foremost academics on the period, what makes them ludicrous?

I saw YouTube video that suggested they were able to transport the stones utilizing water pressure from the Nile River. Has anyone heard/read/ seen anything in regards to that theory? Does it have any merit?

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I had read stuff about middle eastern dialects and similarities in cultural behaviors. Any solid resources and theories regarding migration from that region?

It’s not outrageous, considering the wealth of Egypt and half year time span to get everything ready and planned each year.

Based on Genetic evidence, current running theory is they split from the people of Eastern Siberia about 30,000 years ago.

Most accepted theory right now is they crossed Beringia, a stretch of land that was exposed when the sea levels were much lower during the last glacial maximum. They then, were isolated in Beringia & Alaska for a few thousand years, before they made it past the ice sheets down to the rest of the Americas.

The exact method & route of getting past the ice sheets is up to a bit of debate. Old theory was a route through Canada down to the Midwest that opened about 13,000 years ago. but sites like Monte Verde, Page Ladson, Cooper's Ferry, and many more have been found that pre date the opening of that path.

So a different route has been hypothesized. The Coastal Migration hypothesis is that about 18,000 years ago, the Cordilleran ice sheet receded a bit exposing a chain of islands along the west coast of Canada. Using boats, or rafts, the people expanded down the coast, island hopping, following the Kelp highway.

But this Kelp highway theory has recently come under question as well. Footprints found at White Sands have been dated to around 22,000 years ago. Too early for the coastal route to have been viable. the dating of these foot prints is still in question. But if accurate, a new theory will have to be worked out on how people got from Beringia to the rest of the Americas.

No. I haven't read anything about that. All the genetic evidence points to Eastern Asia. North-East Asian genetics makes sense for the land bridge. South-East Asian genetics contributes to the boat theory.

For cultural similarities, I'd chalk that up to coincidence. People are people, so I can accept some similar behaviors and beliefs emerging in different places.

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Prior to sugar becoming commonplace in the Renaissance, tooth decay was uncommon.

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Yeah, the river used to run right in front of the sphinx monument, large boats were able to transport supplies or stones up and down the river. They had massive boats for the time period.

You can see where the lowest part of the terrain is to the left of the pathway walking up to the sphinx, that was the line of the river. You’ll definitely notice a difference

Did japan think Russia was going to invade? And that's why it surrendered to USA after the bombs ?

So with all of this new “information” coming out about older and older past civilizations, how do you think that will shake up the status quo?

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> because the term usually involves a distinct population group being colonised

I mean, is that not relevant here? Siberia was colonized by Russia at around the same time, and using many of the same methods, as the British, French, and Spanish were using in North America. In this case the Indigenous population would be whatever native Siberians were living there before Russian settlers came. With respect to the whole “De-Russification” idea the Soviets were into early on, the germ of my original post was wondering how that played in the JAO. For example, were the indigenous people there offered land elsewhere? Or were they intended to be integrated in some way?

Although even for Russian settlers I’d be interested what exactly the Soviet government told them. Was there pushback to the idea that their area was marked for Jewish settlement? Was the government plan to move them elsewhere eventually? I mean it’s entirely possible the government was winging it and hoping the details would sort themselves out, but I’m really curious what the long term plan was.

What "new information"?

A Japan Soviet war wasn't a hypothetical. The USSR did declare war on Japan in August of 45. Ad no, Japan didn't think Russia would invade, because they had a non aggression pact that was supposed to last up until april 1946. That's why the soviet border was basically not defended and the soviet took Manchuria in ten days when they declared war in August.

And yes, the idea that Japan surrendered to the Americans not so much because of the bombs (although, that is a factor to consider) but because they were afraid of what the Soviet may do (especially to the Emperor) is a theory supported by historians.

We can't be sure, since the Japanese burned a lot of records in August, but it's a theory that can and is argued for.

How does geography affect a nation?

In broad lines, it will define socioeconomic conditions, which in turn will influence the sociopolitical superstructure. Think, for example, how you won't have a land of plenty up on the slopes of the Alps with early agriculture.

More niche perhaps, take medieval Flanders, the prevalence of flooding in the coastal areas prompted the formation of large-scale land holdings, directed towards commercial exploitation, creating a proto-capitalist dynamic & in part underpinning the wealth of this region. Once you move a little inland, you see a drastic change in the structure of landownership, with widespread subsistence farming being the norm, and the land being divided in a multitude of smaller holdings.

I remember watching a video about Cahokia and I'm super interested in them. Admittedly I don't watch as many history videos or read as much as I should but I do wanna learn more.

Why when the scientists divided the continents didn't consider Europe and Asia as one continent? And who made this division any way ?

Thanks.. that's really interesting. I wonder if theres any evidence from the Russian side that they really were thinking of invading

Tons. It wasn't a secret at all. We have communications between the Soviet and the Allies and the Americans especially had asked Stalin for a long time to attack Japan in order to lessen the burden of the Pacific front. The answer was always "yes, when we're done with Germany". And so when they were done with Germany in may, they put a lot of troops in the east and attacked.

It wasn't a secret it was a military plan coordinated with the rest of the Allies.

As for their plans for Japan specifically it's a bit harder to determine, true. But they still got Korea and tried to took the whole peninsula in 1950 (Korean war and all that).

Book recommendation over 19th century western history?

Root canal therapy wasn't invented until the mid-18th century, so the only real treatment for severely decayed or abscessed teeth was to pull them.

In Europe, this was most often performed by a barber-surgeon and painkiller was limited to a swig of alcohol, if that. This is a quote from a popular history book about Catherine the Great's experience with dentists of her time:

>One day as a teenager, after suffering weeks from a decayed tooth, the future Catherine the Great agreed to have it pulled. A “surgeon” came to her room armed with a pair of pliers and yanked out the offending tooth—and a chunk of jawbone as well. Blood gushed all over her gown. The swelling and pain were so shocking that Catherine did not leave her room for a month, and even when the swelling went down, the dentist’s five fingers were imprinted in blue and yellow bruises at the bottom of her cheek.

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Is it true that archaeologists have found evidence of Viking presence in another part of Newfoundland, other than L’anse aux Meadows? What’s the latest?

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Why did Hitler killed Röhm? He didnt trust him or why? Im talking about the Röhm Purge. Thank you for answers in advance!

> Siberia was colonized by Russia at around the same time, and using many of the same methods, as the British, French, and Spanish were using in North America. In this case the Indigenous population would be whatever native Siberians were living there before Russian settlers came.

I think in many ways it's much less comparable to the British, French and Spanish colonialization of North America and more like the European expansions within Europe (for example France with Alsace or Spain with the Basque country). The area of the JAO for example was under Chinese control (as part of Manchuria) until the mid-1800s. After that, it came to Imperial Russia, who settled Cossacks from Transbaikalia there to secure the border, ethnic Russians and Ukrainians also moved into the area. But these settlers came in the Imperial Time, long before the JAO was officially established in 1934.

So before the JAO was established, there were Cossacks, Russians, Ukrainians plus some Koreans and Tungusic people - but it was relatively sparsely inhabited. Since the Soviet Union was also afraid of the border being vulnerable, they wanted to settle people there in larger numbers.

At the same time, the big Jewish settlements in the USSR at the time were in Ukraine (before the war, Jews were the largest population group in Odesa, for example) - but there were also pretty frequent pogroms against them and the situation was tense.

So the long-term plan was to have the Jews live in a new Autonomous Oblast (giving them an amount of self-determination, though mostly on paper, thus counteracting Zionism which was a pretty popular ideology among Soviet Jews in the 1920s-30s and simultaneously appeasing tensions with antisemites in other places) and therefore bringing development to the border.

Birobidzhan (the capital) is a relatively young city and was mostly developed under Stalin. In the early years, relatively many Jews came (but again, they were always a minority), but the problem was that Stalin was very antisemitic, so the Jewish political institutions were very often targeted.

As far as I know, the people who were already living in the area were never supposed to leave and in fact, non-Jews also migrated there along with Jews the whole time. Making it Jewish was more of a prestige object, but on the whole, the Soviet Union at the time was quite suspicious of religion, so it's not like it was supposed to be an actually culturally Jewish place in the sense that it was supposed to have Jewish inspired laws or anything.

Are there any good storytelling/documentary books about Polynesians like James Schultz wrote about native Americans?

Administrators want the money or power or both

Röhm presented a rival faction within the party, a pillar for rivals to gather around. To quote some random Kurgan immortal challenging this kilt wearing bloke: "There can be only one". Hitler didn't want to share the light.

Who knows, that varies from person to person, not really something you can make blanket statements on.

What’s the difference between the variations in communism: Marxism vs Leninism vs Bolshevism etc. I’m reading a biography on Stalin right now and ngl this shit is confusing af

How were trades accomplished during the early medieval age? What was used as a common currency before coins or anything like that ?

They used coinage, or tally sticks, or any kind of common unit of exchange they agreed on. The important thing was having a medium of currency to enable trade; what was fairly uniform was the realisation that the form itself was not that important. It didn't matter if the medium was valuable in and of itself. By the early medieval age coinage was well established.

Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma on the Arkansas River traded in Bois dArc blanks for building bows.

I'm just here to point out that you keep on waving off every explanation as "ridiculous" but you readily accepted a story involving tamed elephants in Egypt in 2500 BC, which is not backed by evidence.

What were some major events that happened marking the transition between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Medieval Age?

Who were the strangest man during the Russian Civil War?

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Marxism is the theories of Marx & Engels, generally referring to the economic, historical and sociological theories of both. Leninism is the theories of Lenin regarding the running of a post-capitalist, pre-communist state. Bolshevism more or less refers to the broader ideology of the Bolsheviks which could mean Stalinism or could mean Trotskyism

Where is the other surviving chest from the Boston Tea Party (Not the Robinson chest)? What is the story of this other chest, and what does it look like?

Anybody have good book suggestions that cover the various civilizations and empires?

In the Middle Ages people bathed regularly, and bath houses were literally one of the most, if not the most, popular places to go.

Hygiene took a notorious nose dive in the following centuries (King Louis XIV was the 17th-18th century, for instance), which were not in the Middle Ages.

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Thank you for your enthusiasm.Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos contacts or tries to contact to Henry II about the war with a letter to Henry II. In the letter, Manuel I Komnenos says that he also sends ambassadors with the letter. But, we don't know if this letter even reached out to the Henry II. If the letter reached, there is a high chance of finding registered documents about it, and this can lead us to some new informations to pinpoint the exact location. Sadly, there are only few sources to gather information about this war, and none of them gives the exact place of the war. Due to the lack of ground survey about this matter, many cities claims that this war happened in their territory. If we can find the logs, we maybe can find the true location of this war.

We regularly find new information through archaeology. Once archaeologists can dig up new evidence it can be examined, and it can be added to our understanding of all the relevant fields.

History isn't like a jigsaw puzzle, there is no final missing piece, it's more like a never ending brick wall. Sometimes there are bricks missing in the middle that need to be replaced, sometimes there's new information found that makes the wall higher, or wider, but it's still very sturdy and isn't going to fall over just because a new brick is found.

There's no "status quo" to shake up, finding new information, adding to understanding, and arguing for new perspectives is what academics do. Anyone who is telling you that there's some grand conspiracy has a reason to be lying to you. Go on down to your local university library and read through some historical journals (or see if you can get free access on Jstor) and read some recent articles on new finds. Academia is constantly telling older historians that they got things wrong, it's part of the process. There's no point in publishing a work to say "good job, chaps, nothing's changed" it's a necessity of the job to continually make new arguments, new positions, and change the field. It's a requirement for getting a PhD to do work that no one has done before. And that's a good thing!

Im not sure what you mean by strange but the bloody baron is pretty eyecatching. The Lions led by donkeys podcast also has a good series on him.

Thanks! Highlander fan, am I right? :D

Gotta love those!

Mountain ranges/coast lines provide natural boundaries that are better at defending invasion.

Which way a river flows can also have an impact. The Alps to the north west and the Danube flowing east had a pretty big impact on Austria's ultimate sphere of influence, for example.

I'm looking for information on how the historical mongols tanned leather. I've seen one vague reference to them using 'fermented milk, butter, and egg yolks', but I'm looking for actual details.

By the time the nuclear bombs were dropped, it was already clear that Japan had lost the war. In fact, Japan was already willing to conditionally surrender, but as I'm sure you can appreciate, after the horrors of WW2 the allies were interested in nothing less than an unconditional surrender.

Japan was hoping that the Soviets would be able to broker a peace between the two parties that was more favourable to Japan.

The bombing of Nagasaki and the declaration of war by the USSR happened on the same day, and there is considerable debate amongst historians about what ultimately led Japan to finally surrender.

I'm personally in the camp that the Soviet invasion was vastly more impactful than the Atomic bombs, but that's appeared to be somewhat unpopular on reddit in the past.

Many of the North American roads and trade routes were formed by migrating animals who traveled to find salt. Some of these routes are major roads and highways now.

Your confusion on this makes sense, because there is no universal agreement on the number of continents.

You'll learn a number in school, but not all schools are going by the same system. There can be as many as seven, and as few as four continents. The main disagreements come down to the Americas, and Europe, Asia (and even Africa). There's no wrong way to divide them though. If you view a continent as one continual landmass, then: America, Eurasia, or Afro-Eurasia are all totally acceptable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Number

How else can they be viewed, and why? Well, a large part of viewing them as distinct and separate comes down to cultural views. With Eurasia there has been a strong divide between East and West since antiquity. While Greeks, and Romans, both made conquests into the East, these territories have always been harder to hold because of the large extent of land and the amount of powers that traditionally have existed, which also means it's been harder to extend cultural imperialism into the region, which makes them different. They would then view them as "the other" and othering cultures is incredibly common. Whether it's Persia, or later the Ottomans, there's a strong "us" vs "them" in history.

Historians and sociologists have long looked at this phenomenon, and works like Edward Said's Orientalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book) brought the problematic nature of these views to the forefront of academia in the 70s, which has resulted in some change in academia at least, but there are still cultural hangarounds.

Funnily enough, it's the opposite in regards to the Americas which was seen as one continent for quite some time, and the US would lay claim over the influence (to put it very kindly) of the entire hemisphere with the Monroe Doctrine. But, by the middle to end of the 20th century you see a shift where there is a desire to disconnect from (what we would call) South America, and a desire to other them. And while Canadians might not like being called American because of the term's association with the USA, people in the southern countries can get annoyed with the term's more popular meaning in English because they see themselves as American because everyone on the/both continent/s are by their nature American.

In short: there's no wrong way to view the number of continents, the separations other than just connected landmass are mainly due to geopolitics, historical isolation, culture, and othering.

Know what I can search for to learn more?

I read this tale where a Japanese dude wrestled with a fully armored sword wielding samurai and beat him off with martial arts. How often did hand to hand combat occur against melee users?

Salt

Author Jared Diamond might have some notes about trade routes, especially the book Collapse.

Canonically, Western Rome 'falling' in 476 (end of Antiquity) and the shift of Latin to Greek as the administrative language of the Eastern Roman Empire by the end of the 7th century, following the Arab conquests & the loss of their eastern provinces (end of Late Antiquity). All in all, these are arbitrary pickings. They don't necessarily correspond to major events in reality. More significant than Odoacar deposing the last Western Roman Emperor is, for example, the establishment of the Carolingian Empire, or prior to this the Renovatio Imperii of Justinian and the ensuing Justinian Plague.

It actually happened very often, especially if both men were similarly armed and armored. I'm gonna assume you're referring to pre-modern battles since you mention Samurais and swords.

Usually, the majority of an army was infantrymen wielding melee weapons, and in fact the word "melee" refers to the confusing, scary part of pre-modern battles where two infantry contingents finally clash and don't have much room to maneuver.

Medieval European martial arts manuals have sections on hand to hand combat, including grappling an enemy with a sword or spear with and without your own weapons.

Indian martial arts under the broad label of Kalaripayattu include armed and unarmed instruction. Same with Chinese martial arts.

I don't really know much about other parts of the world, but wrestling and grappling seems to be a fairly universal past-time. You even see Mongol and Turkic wrestling traditions, and those dudes were most famous for horseback fighting. Those skills would probably be necessary for lance-wielding cavalry if they get dismounted.

I meant like, Bruce Lee punching an armored knight out.

Oh, that uh I dunno. I'm sure it happened just super rarely.

I apologize because this isn’t a book but I saw a video a few months ago that I liked. It’s on YouTube the video is called timeline of world history and the poster is called useful charts. A nice 17 minute summary of major world empires and other important historical topics. Very general but covers major empires across the world, I liked it a lot.

Start with your local library and ask them, fund of information most of the time.

I wonder often what people with bad vision did before glasses were readily available. Just die off?

If it was evident that they couldn't see (blindness was very evident) they might be exposed (abandoned and left to die). The extent of how often exposure actually happened, and what its actual intentions were, is debated though, but it is something that pops up often in common myth (Moses, Romulus, etc).

But then you have to consider what we might actually use glasses for today. Not everyone is near or totally blind, most people just need them for things like reading road signs while driving, or reading books. But, in antiquity these things might not have been as necessary (especially driving). So a lot of these people would have lived fairly normal lives.

And once you lived past a certain age, you were expected to live a life into old age, so teeth would fall out, eyes would weaken, and other parts of the body stopped working as well just as they do today. But you would stay as part of the family, live with them, and be taken care of.

As for things to help people read, certain crystals, and glass, can magnify things (hence a magnifying glass) and these things were known and used for reading and other purposes since antiquity.

Is there a real thing as "Manna" (bible reference). Didnt do a deep dive online but trying to figure out if it is even a real thing nowadays. Can imagine popcorn from heaven - that could fill up a few thousand...

Were there many examples in history when a Shia dynasty ruled a country with a Sunni majority (or vice versa)? If so, were there any revolts on a religious basis?

Thanks i knew about this guy already and I meant like insane peoples during the civil war. Like the Ruler of all Russia who was an admiral and an ukrainian anarchist who made a short lived anarchist state in Ukraine.

Fatimid Dynasty Egypt was a Shia dynasty ruling a Sunni majority but I can't recall any revolts by the Sunnis

There were a few, but most revolts were about taxation/power struggles. The Fatimids were not to heavy on the proselytizing.

E.H. Gombrich.

A Little History of The World

Did the battlefront failure of the USSR in the Russo-Finnish Winter War in 1939 give Hitler the confidence to invade the USSR in 1941? It was mentioned in the linked video but I am thinking that even without this Hitler would have invaded the USSR. Thoughts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gba7ApKhHWY

Invading the USSR was always going to be a necessity. Hitler needed to secure access to oil in the Caucasus and possibly Iran (who were keen to ally with him).

The Soviets had a Non-Aggression Pact with the Nazis that was supposed to last until 1949, but they broke it in 1941. I think it's more likely that the Winter War simply shifted the invasion timetable earlier.

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The Ukrainian anarchist was Nestor Makhno and I think the Admiral was Aleksandr Kolchak.

Neither of them were all that weird compared to Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, but that's only because Ungern-Sternberg was such a massive weirdo, he was in a class all by his own. The only figures who get close to him are Grigori Semyonov, Boris Annenkov, Ivan Kalmykov, and Aleksandr Dutov. An American general, William Sidney Graves, wrote of them:

>Semenoff and Kalmikoff soldiers, under the protection of Japanese troops, were roaming the country like wild animals, killing and robbing the people, and these murders could have been stopped any day Japan wished. If questions were asked about these brutal murders, the reply was that the people murdered were Bolsheviks and this explanation, apparently, satisfied the world. Conditions were represented as being horrible in Eastern Siberia, and that life was the cheapest thing there. There were horrible murders committed, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks as the world believes. I am well on the side of safety when I say that the anti-Bolsheviks killed one hundred people in Eastern Siberia, to every one killed by the Bolsheviks.

Other rather odd people involved in the Russian Civil War could include:

• Georgi Atarbekov: Armenian Bolshevik and Chekist. Bragged about having personally stabbed Nikolai Ruzsky.
• Aleksandr Eiduk: Latvian Chekist and poet who wrote verses about the joys of killing.
• Naftaly Frenkel: Former smuggler turned builder of the Gulag
• Mikhail Kedrov: Chekist and pianist. Notorious for his cruelty.
• Lavr Kornilov: Cossack and White general who loved mass murder and the Totenkampf
• Béla Kun: Hungarian journalist turned Bolshevik. Tried to start a Soviet regime in Hungary, but failed and was forced to flee back to Russia.
• Vladimir Purishkevich: One of the killers of Rasputin; extreme anti-Semite, proto-fascist, and supporter of Kornilov
• Sidney Reilly: British spy, probably Ukrainian by birth. Involved with an abortive plot with Savinkov to overthrow the Bolsheviks.
• Boris Savinkov: Terrorist, drug addict, novelist, and womanizer
• Maria Spiridonova: Terrorist and assassin who looked like a schoolmarm. Initially an ally of the Bolsheviks, she later turned on them and orchestrated the assassination of the German ambassador, Count Mirbach.
• Semyon Ter-Petrosian: Better known as Kamo. An early friend and ally of Stalin who was responsible for the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery

These are really interesting persons to research! Thanks!

I think the main issue is they just don't have enough examples of it. So it's mostly looking for more of it, hopefully with either new symbols or in different arrangements or with some kind of context clue.

There's a fun book about the translation of Linear B by Margalit Fox called the Riddle of the Labyrinth. It shows what what kind of volume of symbols is needed to account for things like if the writing is gendered or to account for different people's writing styles.

If you read the Diamond book, you should also read Questioning Collapse where various experts in the fields Diamond looks at in Collapse explain the mistakes he makes.

I'm looking for the name of the woman depicted on Paul Stahr's "Be Patriotic" World War I propaganda posters. Did war propaganda mascots often go without names?

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Neat! Thank you! It's fantastic to have a contrary look at his assertions. What are a few that stood to you?

Given that the USA has a long history of mentally unstable, gun wielding murderers, is it possible that LH Oswald was in fact a gun nut who managed to kill JFK alone?

It's actually one of the more plausible theories. Oswald was a disturbed ne'er-do-well who seems to have been hungry for attention any way he could get it. He initially wanted to kill the ultra right wing general Edwin Walker, but failed and later just happened to be living in Dallas when JFK visited.

Narratively, though, this isn't satisfying, which is a big reason, I think, why the conspiracies continue to flourish.

Röhm was also irritated that Hitler got the backing of some major bankers and industrialists. He wanted there to be another revolution in which the state would play a more central role in an anti-capitalist sense, to end monopolies and nationalise industry and land. He was the "left wing" of the nazi party. He also was one if the very few people who called Hitler by his first name and was not scared of him. He led the SA, which by 1934 numbered some 3 million men whilst the Reichswehr was limited to 100,000 under the terms of the treaty of Versailles, so was in fact a potential future threat to Hitler.

Japan was infinitely more scared of a communist Soviet invasion than a US invasion. They were fanatically anti-communist. The end of the war in Europe meant Stalin was able to send troops eastwards and their invasion was very immanent. Their declaration of war on the day of the atomic bomb was perfectly timed.

You might find this paper and interview interesting: https://www.econtalk.org/omer-moav-on-the-emergence-of-the-state/

Paper: https://bse.eu/research/working-papers/cereals-appropriability-and-hierarchy

It talks about how the development of cereal grains can have an impact on state formation. I don't fully buy into it b/c it seems a little too deterministic, but it's definitely an interesting idea.

So, this is a fringe theory from the late 1800s that Mormons basically made up out of whole cloth to show that the Book of Mormon had some historical basis. It was never taken seriously outside those circles. When people started actually studying the genetics of Native American peoples and their languages it proved there's no evidence at all. All the genetic and linguistic evidence points back to the Altai mountain area.

There's a good paper on the NIH's site about this. Abscessed teeth was an incredibly deadly condition. The paper cites evidence from the 1500s that put it as the 5th or 6th leading cause of death. Basically if you didn't get the tooth removed and cleaned early, it was a serious life threatening condition.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10686905/

I would check out Richard Evan's Pursuit of Power. It covers the period from the end of the Napoleonic wars until the beginning of the WWI. It covers the major trends, politics, intellectual, and scientific history of the period.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/529358/the-pursuit-of-power-by-richard-j-evans/

I don't normally recommend David Graeber's book, Debt. But this is one topic that it was actually really good on. It talks about the way people traded when money was scarce, which is most of human history in most places.

There's a lot of valid criticism of the book so I would maybe check out the wikipedia entry on it to get the outlines of the debate and to help read it critically b/c Graeber is a great writer and he's can be very convincing if you're only getting his side of the story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years

Unless you were extremely blind, before the industrial age it wasn't all that important. You don't need to see all that great to plow a furrow or swing a scythe or to watch for stray animals, etc. Most people didn't read very much, if at all. If you couldn't see well you wouldn't be apprenticed into a trade where it mattered if you weren't a farmer, and most people were farmers.

I think just the fundamental argument of the book is important b/c Diamond made the same mistake in GG&S about how societies actually exist. They don't just suddenly disappear. They are constantly adapting and changing. The Conquest of Mexico didn't happen in the short time span Diamond portrayed it as happening, it took hundreds of years, fighting was ongoing in the Yucatan until the 20th century and the state still has issues with control there and in Chiapas and the hills of Oaxaca. He takes the same kind of assumptions throughout Collapse and they just don't pan out when you look at the peoples who these experts still are working with, even though they are supposed to have "disappeared."

It's the only acceptable explanation. Even his wife was sure of it too until she realised she could make money off of conspiracy nuts.

Could Gilles de Rais’s killings have been influenced by the death of joan of arc?

Like /u/MeatballDom points out, history moves more through Kuhnian shifts than Popperian revolutions. With that said, I think we're getting some exciting evidence that is pushing back the timeline of settlement in the Americas and if the evidence pans out and we find more, it could be a big shift.

Also, with new technologies like Lidar we're finding out more about settlement patterns and urbanization. It sees that we had underestimated the size of population centers throughout the Americas. Combined with the earlier settlement info, we might very well increase estimates of the populations of the Americas at the time of settlement from about 40ish million, which is kind of the standard right now, to one of the higher end estimate ranges.

But it's not a sudden shift. People have been arguing this for decades and slowly building and examining an evidentiary record for these theories.

Its hard to say if they happened at all, let alone what they might have been potentionally influenced by.

IIRC the later Persian kingdoms like the safarids had majority Sunni populations.

Agree with all. The guy was a sniper trained by the US military; no surprise that he knew how to use a rifle with a sight.

Couching cataracts appears to be as old as civilization, and is recorded in cultures in both the Greco-Roman and Indian ancient civilizations. Experts in this technique could apply orbital pressure and dislodge a clouded lens into the posterior chamber, thus restoring a modicum of vision. Jesus pulled off this maneuver in Mark 8: 22-26.

Probably not: a biographical essay of Gilles in The Hundred Years War Part III: Further Considerations mentions that his parents died in a gruesome hunting accident that he may have witnessed and that at 16, he kidnapped and forcibly married his cousin, Catherine de Thouars, with the connivance of his maternal grandfather and guardian, Jean de Craon. Jean and Gilles later attempted to kidnap and then threatened Catherine's mother, Beatrice de Montjean, who had decided to remarry, as they feared that her new marriage would cause the loss of some Thouars lands. Years later (possibly at the behest of Georges de La Trémoille), they successfully kidnapped Charles VII's mother-in-law, Yolanda of Aragon.

Later, in 1427 (two years before the appearance of Jeanne), Gilles already liked to watch the executions of pro-English French nobles who had been taken prisoner.

>Interestingly, the defeated English were usually allowed to escape with their lives; by contrast, if an anglophile Frenchman fell into Gilles’s hands was invariably executed as a traitor. One historian describes Gilles’ treatment of such men: He would have them all hung from tall poles that were driven into the ground … Gilles would then stay to watch them fitfully kick, their necks in the noose, until the last spasms of their agony.

Do you think there is enough info about Genghis Khan for a final project? I am in 9th grade, so it shouldn’t be very hard, but I need to say his birth, upbringing, early life, accomplishments, setbacks, controversies, and demise in a biography.

But the Easter Island was the bedrock of that book, and there weren't any people there, correct?

I mean, when he says imagine being the last guy to cut down the last tree, that's Shel Silverstein level there.

Oh yes. Listen to the Hardcore History on the Mongol Empire. Don't plagiarize, though. Absorb the story and write it.

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There is plenty of written sources about him and he's one of the better known historical figures. Starting with so called Secret History of Mongols.

There is no evidence of Winter War having any direct influence on Hitler's plans. The goal of invasion of the USSR was laid down by Hitler before he even came to power. It was (in his opinion) necessity to carve out "living space" and colonial empire for Germany and Hitler saw that space in the Eastern Europe.

As for timetable, it was set by the developments on the Western front and general situation in Europe and had nothing to do with Finland.

(Eastern Asiatic) martial arts were generally developed as a substitute to combat with weapons where weapons were restricted. For example when some classes of the society were forbidden to own weapons (slaves, peasants) or geographical restrictions of weapons (ban of weapons in towns). This actually includes not just bare hand fighting but also substituting weapons with some other objects and tools, like farming tools (nunchagu might be the most famous example).

Therefore it's safe to say that it occurred often. But that does not mean that it was a good or proficient way of fighting. More like something out of necessity.

That's a large complex topic. Barter was always in use, but as a substitute of money as we understand them, couple of different things were used in different location across the globe. Generally speaking these were objects/materials that had it's own high value, were durable, easy to store and transport. Metal in different forms, usually ingots of different shapes. That includes not just precious metals but also iron, cooper and bronze. That eventually led to actual coins. Cloth was used, again, in different forms, including actual costumes and garments. Today cloth is cheap, but in pre-industrial era cloth was very laborious to make and expensive. Animal skins were used, especially luxury ones. More exotic objects could be used, usually in some smaller isolated and more primitive societies: sea shells, coral beans -usually in placed where these were been imported, not where they were abundant.

Bolshevism does not exist as a theory. Bolsheviks was name of the party, not a theory. Leninism also does not exist per see, what exist is Marxism-Leninism, which is theoretical extension/modification of Marxism made by Lenin and his colleagues born from a necessity to actually implement Marxist theory in practice. Or in other words to reconcile Marxist theory with practice in actual conditions of Russia and Europe as experienced by Lenin and his Bolsheviks.

And yes, it is confusing.

Russia did invade. But Japan was hoping to the last moment that USSR will stay neutral and could be used to negotiate some end of war agreement with Western Allies that would not be unconditional surrender. When Russia did declare war and then overrun in the very short time Japanese army in Manchuria and Korea, it was the last straw.

Historians still argue what was the the event that made Japan surrender, atomic bombs or Russian war declaration.

Fair enough.

Tin trade from Ireland in to Mediterranean dating back perhaps to Bronze Age. Ancient Greeks called Ireland "The Tin Island/s".

"Peasant" is a very general term that have very little social meaning. Peasants were people who grew food (including raising animals) and they could include anything from a slave to rich free farmer who could himself own slaves and servants -and anything in between, depending on time period and location.

In popular culture Medieval "peasant" is associated with "serf", but that's completely wrong association.

Medieval European societies were very hierarchical, starting with very strong hierarchy in the family. "Equality" basically did not exist at all anywhere, it could only exist between people of the same social status, that is you could find it in institutions like guilds (and then only to a degree) and not places and communities.

Thanks

Just wondering how far back domestic violence goes? When did that idea even form and then become the norm in the first place?

Why were the european and pacific theaters of ww2 considered apart of the same war despite being so seperate?

Because they are linked.

Is Japan's war in China related to Germany's wars? Not at all. But Japan's war with the Wester Allies definitely is. Japan only attacked because they thought the Germans were going to win in Russia (it's just a few months after Barbarossa), Germany declared war on the US just after Pearl Harbor.

To be clear, it's not a side front of Germany's wars, it's its own thing. If you see WW2 as only the Third Reich's War then yes it's completely distinct. But it's under the same umbrella because it is also linked to it. The participants are basically the same on the Allied side and Japan and Germany are allies... so it makes no sense to treat it as something wholly distinct. It's basically the same as the Eastern Front of WW2, it's clearly different from the Western Front, but still part of the same global thing.

How does the bronze age collapse compare to the crisis of the late middle ages?

I'm thinking of taking a trip to Pennsylvania this summer with the primary goal of seeing some historical sites. So far on my list is Gettysburg, Valley Forge and Braddock's Field. Possibly might also head north to the Watkins Glen area.

What are some other can't miss historical sites in Pennsylvania or nearby?

Consider one saw the widespread collapse of a larger number of settled civilizations for centuries to come, whereas the other - while basking in societal/systemic collapse & a massive deathtoll - saw the reformation of the medieval world socioeconomically and politically over the span of a few generations.

This. The late medieval crisis could maybe be compared to the late antiquity early medieval crises : fall of the Roman Empire in the west, Justinian plague, Arab conquests of the near east and Persia.

Just like there is no real beginning to the idea of kings (one man has authority is not a complex idea) being a dick to people around you isn’t an “idea”, it’s just an expression of having relationships. If relationships exist, some are bad. It may even predate us being Homo Sapiens.

Are there any good informative books about Japanese soldiers that were captured during WW2?

> and their invasion was very immanent.

The Soviets were completely unprepared to invade Japan. Preliminary battles showed the Japanese could fight the Soviets to a standstill, and Japanese resistance, always stiff, was expected to be extreme. The Soviets had a massive shortage of ships necessary for amphibious invasion, and their previous efforts had been shockingly bad in terms of communication (no ship to shore radio contact, for instance) and cohesion.

>They were fanatically anti-communist.

The Japanese were also rabidly anti-American.

Nat Geo did a documentary a few years back called "JFK: The Lost Bullet" that gave very compelling evidence that LHO was the lone shooter.

Daylamis and Buyids, too. The Safavids, however, were those who'd push for the active conversion, which was somewhat of a novelty.

What does it mean for the age old Phalanx vs Legion debate when the armies of Italy eventually adopted the pike? Whenever I bring up this topic during a Phalanx vs Legion debate, I rarely get a response, probably because I'm not debating historians.

"Following its 1506 military reforms, Florence had an army armed 70% with pikes, 10% with muskets, and the remaining 20% with halberds. In Venice the proportions were first fixed in 1548, at 10% halberds, 30% arquebuses, and 60% pikes."

On 9th August the USSR invaded Manchuko with 1.6 million men, 5500 tanks & 5300 aircraft, killing tens of thousands of Japanese and capturing over 600,000 within days. The rapid collapse of their huge army there convinced many in Japan's government to declare unconditional surrender.

I'd check out Antietam. I went Gettysburg, then Antietam basically back to back.

If we restore an ancient historical ruins, would it still be authentic?

>informative books about Japanese soldiers that were captured during WW2?

• "Japanese Prisoners of War" by Philip Towle - This book examines the experiences of Japanese soldiers who were captured by the Americans during World War II. The book draws on primary sources and interviews with former prisoners to provide a comprehensive account of the conditions in American POW camps, as well as the treatment of Japanese prisoners after the war. (Towle, P. (1998). Japanese Prisoners of War. The University Press of Kentucky.)
• "The Great Captains: The Art of War in the Campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon" by Theodore Ayrault Dodge - While not solely focused on Japanese prisoners, this book does provide an account of the experiences of Japanese soldiers captured by the Americans during World War II. The book includes a chapter on the Pacific War, which describes the capture of Japanese soldiers and their treatment in American captivity. (Dodge, T. A. (2012). The Great Captains: The Art of War in the Campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. Simon and Schuster.)
• "The Pacific War: From Pearl Harbor to Okinawa" by William B. Hopkins - This book provides a detailed account of the Pacific War, including the capture of Japanese soldiers by the Americans. The book draws on primary sources and archival material to provide a comprehensive overview of the war in the Pacific, from the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor to the final battles in Okinawa. (Hopkins, W. B. (2019). The Pacific War: From Pearl Harbor to Okinawa. Casemate Publishers.)

>Is there a real thing as "Manna" (bible reference). Didnt do a deep dive online but trying to figure out if it is even a real thing nowadays.

There is ongoing debate among scholars and researchers about what the biblical manna actually was and whether it exists as a real thing today. Here is a citation to an article that discusses some of the possible explanations for manna:

Zohary, M. (2012). The Plants of the Bible: Second Edition Revised and Enlarged. Cambridge University Press.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the plants mentioned in the Bible, including manna. The author discusses various theories about what manna might have been, including the resin of the tamarisk tree, the sap of the manna ash tree, and the excretion of certain insects. However, the author also notes that none of these explanations are entirely conclusive, and that the true identity of manna remains a mystery

>I wonder often what people with bad vision did before glasses were readily available.

Before the invention of glasses, people with bad vision had limited options for correcting their eyesight. Here are some historical methods that were used:

• Squinting: Some people with mild to moderate myopia (near-sightedness) could compensate for their blurred distance vision by squinting, which temporarily improves the focus of the eye.
• Using Magnifying Glasses: Magnifying glasses have been around since the 13th century, and they were sometimes used as a crude form of corrective lenses by people with presbyopia (age-related farsightedness). They could also be used for specific tasks, such as reading small print.
• Improvised Lenses: In ancient Rome, the philosopher Seneca reportedly used a glass globe filled with water to magnify text. Later on, in the Middle Ages, people would sometimes use convex or concave gems or crystals to create makeshift lenses.
• Seeking Help from Others: People with poor eyesight may have relied on others to read and write for them or to guide them around. This could include family members, servants, or professional scribes.