Simple/Short/Silly History Questions Saturday!

Submitted by AutoModerator t3_zo5t36 in history

Welcome to our Simple/Short/Silly history questions Saturday thread!

This thread is for all those history related questions that are too simple, short or a bit too silly to warrant their own post.

So, do you have a question about history and have always been afraid to ask? Well, today is your lucky day. Ask away!

Of course all our regular rules and guidelines still apply and to be just that bit extra clear:

Questions need to be historical in nature. Silly does not mean that your question should be a joke. r/history also has a discord server where you can discuss history with other enthusiasts and experts

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milmad1231 t1_j0l03pk wrote

I never really applied myself in school, I think due to big traumas I experienced as a kid. I learned to just avoid things, and I never really absorbed the information I was learning. I was pretty good at history though, and always interested in it. Now I’m an adult who spends wayyy too much time on their phone looking at stupid shit that I don’t actually care about, because I don’t know what else to do with my time and feelings. Okay I’m sorry this is long winded! The point is, where can I start with a good “history 101”? I know I can scroll here and just learn so much over time, but I’d like to just fall into something like a timeline of… everything? I guess? To help my brain not be so overwhelmed, and it also just sounds like something I would really enjoy. I want to know so much and I don’t know where to start. Thank you guys!! Sorry its so long

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AngryBlitzcrankMain t1_j0l0vts wrote

Depends where do you want to start. Prehistory, going through paleolitic people and out hominid ancestors? Starting with oldest civilizations and some easy overview? Or just follow one country/region topic and its evolution over time?

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milmad1231 t1_j0l2syf wrote

Prehistory! I just kind of fell into a Wikipedia timeline now. I read about the very early universe, early universe, and then it got a little complicated. So I found an article by The Guardian that breaks the timeline of the universe down into more layman’s terms, so I’m in the bath reading that lol Edit: article is from 2008 so I ended up confused. But I learned to check article dates so whatever lmfao

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AngryBlitzcrankMain t1_j0l3rpn wrote

I can recommend Robin´s Dunbar The Human story then. I also loved Graham Clarke, but that one is some good 40 years old now, if not more, so you can probably aim at something with more updated information.

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PolybiusChampion t1_j0lbmy1 wrote

For a quick jump into literally everything, Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything is great.

If you want the full PHD in human history Will and Ariel Durant’s multi volume The Story of Civilization is wonderful. A bit dated, but it’s bedrock in history. You can find complete sets for reasonable money.

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Bentresh t1_j0m65cv wrote

Durant’s first volume is so badly dated that it is virtually obsolete. There are far better surveys of ancient history available now.

I wrote more about this in a previous post.

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Clio90808 t1_j0m1y1f wrote

you might take a look at the History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage, delightful book....

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milmad1231 t1_j0qqzoa wrote

This book looks like a great read, thank you! Just borrowed the audiobook from Libby :)

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ImOnlyHereCauseGME t1_j0q21cl wrote

You should check out the YouTube channel called Crash Course World History. Very broad overviews of history from the beginning of agriculture to modern times. It’s done by a history teacher who tries to make it engaging and funny and relate it to why history matters. I really enjoyed the series and it made me decide which periods of history or historical events were interesting to me so that I could then do a deeper dive into those periods. Hope you find the videos as enjoyable as I did! https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9

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GSilky t1_j0qpl3h wrote

If you're interested in a book, or e-book, check out Will Durant and the story of civilization series. It's highly accessible and despite a few issues, is still useful today. He takes a broad view of what is important and spends more time on art, ideas, and processes than battles and assassinations. The writing style is superb and uses a judicious mix of details and broad strokes (he even uses a different font size for sections that are highly specialized like currency and price overviews so it's easy to skip the uninteresting), and to this day the books give me plenty of avenues for exploration.

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Boeing-B-47stratojet t1_j0rhnd3 wrote

What is your favorite obscure event in history, mine would be the Baxter rebellion

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LaoBa t1_j0x6y2d wrote

There was a Crusade in the Netherlands from 1228 until 1232.

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GOLDIEM_J t1_j0zpqll wrote

Which one was that?

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LaoBa t1_j10buna wrote

The Drenther Crusade was a military campaign launched against the inhabitants of Drenthe with the approval of the Papacy in 1228 and lasting until 1232. It was led by Willibrand, Bishop of Utrecht, commanding an army composed mostly of Frisian crusaders.

The crusade was part of a longstanding conflict[a] between the Drenthers (or Drents) and the bishopric of Utrecht over the prerogatives of the bishop and the religious practices of the Drenthers. The incident which turned the conflict into a crusade was the killing of Bishop Otto II of Utrecht in the Battle of Ane in 1227. Willibrand received papal authorization for a crusade on the grounds, it appears, that the Drenthers were heretics for defying their bishop. He preached the cross in Frisia between the summer of 1228 and the winter of 1230–31. There were several battles, but the crusade ended inconclusively in September 1232.

Hendrik van Borculo was granted the Coevorden fief. In turn, the Drenthers erected a Cistercian nunnery in repentance for the slaying of Otto II and his followers at Ane.[ When the conflict conclusively ended in 1240, the bishop's princely authority was intact but his manorial authority was weakened (soon to disappear completely) and the Drenthers were amnestied.

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Helmut1642 t1_j1hfs89 wrote

Issac Newton was the master of the royal mint (1696-1727) and invented the edging you see on coins to prevent clipping.

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feinargos t1_j0mcwcg wrote

Are there any depictions of the Gutenberg printing press from around the time it was invented or prior? Such as sketches etc.

If not, what is the earliest depiction of the printing press? Earliest I could find was over 100 years after at around 1568

Thanks for any help!

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Human_Bed_6355 t1_j0lq1gp wrote

Was just having a discussion with friends about the start of luxury brands. Would anyone be able to answer the starting prices of such brands? Like Gucci or Louis Vuitton etc

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Human_Bed_6355 t1_j0lq6cv wrote

To clarify I mean the actual luxury items they sold not the price of company.

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WorkUsername69 t1_j0sle9j wrote

I am not sure where to find the prices, but I know both started making well crafted leather luggage. I reckon these would be decently expensive even without the brand recognition they have today. I think they both didn’t get into clothing until later, where the markup of their brand is really highlighted.

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Kitahara_Kazusa1 t1_j0lu805 wrote

So I was watching the US National Archives interview with Peter Shinkle about his new book, and one thing he brings up towards the end is that, according to him

>"After the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, the Japanese formally offered to surrender, again on the condition that the Emperor keep his throne.

https://youtu.be/sRBes3Bs6I8?t=2730

He then goes on to say that Truman accepted this proposal from the Japanese. Also, if you rewind that video a bit, he says that the Japanese had made a similar offer before the atomic bombs were dropped.

This kind of contradicts a lot of what I have heard. My previous understanding was that prior to the August 14th, the Japanese had offered to surrender several times, but always with the condition that the Emperor would not only remain alive, but also retain his powers as an absolute monarch. Then on August 14th, they agreed to surrender unconditionally. I've occasionally heard things saying that prior to the Japanese agreeing to surrender we told them we would let the Emperor stay alive, but these seemed to come from less reliable sources.

Tl;dr, do any of you know exactly what kind of guarantees did the Japanese have about the treatment of the Emperor, and Japan in general, in the postwar environment in 1945?

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TheGreatOneSea t1_j0mwfeh wrote

I'm fairly certain any claim that Japan would accept the Potsdam Declaration before the nuclear bombings is just outright wrong: Japan was still operating under the assumption that the USSR might be willing to negotiate on Japan's behalf before the USSR's own invasion, so Japan still believed it might be able to hold on to something at that point.

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PolybiusChampion t1_j0m1r4s wrote

The best single volume (short) on this is Ronald Henkoff’s Inferno. In short, nothing short of unconditional surrender was acceptable to the US, and every offer from the Japanese prior to accepting the US’s position that the emperor renounce his divinity was off the table. There were even a couple of coup attempts after the 2nd bomb was dropped. Ultimately the emperor himself recorded his acceptance of the terms of surrender and that was broadcast to the country. Henkoff’s book is easily read in an afternoon and then if you want to dig further you’ll have a pretty solid base of knowledge.

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Kitahara_Kazusa1 t1_j0m3yxn wrote

Yeah, that's about what I thought, which is why I thought it was so strange that a published author was saying that Truman did accept a conditional surrender. But I guess he is just wrong on this point

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PolybiusChampion t1_j0m7kk4 wrote

People tend to conflate some of the issues around the surrender for various reasons. The quick and dirty facts are that the surrender was unconditional and nothing short of complete acceptance of the allied occupation and creation of a post war constitution was going to fly. Now, the issue of the emperor was a little opaque. McArthur could have removed him day one, and that’s what Hirohito expected to happen, but McArthur decided he’d be better off with him at the head of a constitutional monarchy but he did require him to formally renounce his divinity in Jan. of 1946.

Prior to the formal surrender acceptance the Japanese had been steadfast that the emperor would remain, and remain divine.

The safe, swift and mostly violence free immediate landing of troops on Japan was an amazing result after such a brutal war.

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Larielia t1_j0pklb5 wrote

What are some good books or lectures about Egypt after the end of the Ptolemaic Dynasty?

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rockelephant t1_j0pqj8n wrote

Did Roman soldiers go through some kind of a medical exam before joining?

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MeatballDom t1_j0yba57 wrote

There's a reference in Polybius (I believe, can check in the morning), that discusses Romans bringing in captured Carthaginian mercenaries in the First Punic War. In this, the Romans were said to have made note of physical attributes that the individuals had and put them in different roles depending on that. We do have to be careful about taking this as gospel for a couple of reasons, but it does at least tell us that Polybius didn't view this as an abnormal practice or out of the realm of possibility (or even his imagination). We have some Roman infantry specialists around here so hopefully someone can comment on the possible practice further.

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Equivalent_Alps_8321 t1_j12lp48 wrote

Hey guys what did the American founding fathers think of Napoleon and his adventures? Just realized I've never read anything about it.

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cbk714 t1_j1casnl wrote

The founding fathers were split on their views. Thomas Jefferson replaced Franklin as ambassador of France in 1785 and remained there until two months after Bastille Day (1789). He was in favor of a monarchy falling and even helped Lafayette with drafting a new constitution for France.

Washington and Adams, on the other hand, thought it was economic suicide to aid the French. America was is incredible debt at the time. In addition, entering or aiding in the war would make America vulnerable to attack. Only six years had passed since Great Britain recognized America as independent. GB could’ve used the alliance as an excuse to start up another war.

Lastly, the revolution in France turned ugly quickly. The beheadings of any and all aristocrats turned many founding fathers off to the idea of lending a hand.

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Dragev_ t1_j1i5499 wrote

Wouldn't they also have been affected by the extreme anti-religious trend of the revolutionaries? I don't know much of American history but I've always had the impression the founding fathers were (at least mostly) Christians.

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IlanWerblow t1_j1jz491 wrote

Many of the founders were actually deists. While they were raised Christian, several of their beliefs were more closely to Deism. That was a theology based on a hands-off version of God and more of a focus on the natural world. Their focus was not as much on the religious side of the French Revolution, but as was stated earlier, the economic or political rights side.

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GOLDIEM_J t1_j1fp2x7 wrote

How far would you agree that Henry VIII's marriages are over-discussed in comparison to other aspects of his reign?

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Gerasans t1_j0mm88f wrote

Why most of world currency is 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 (x10, x100)? Does every country comes to this by its own way, or was it just copying one country? (Ancient or medieval)?

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Nostezuma t1_j0mw3bi wrote

I think this is just the most useful and easy way to count and bring/pay various amounts from small things like groceries to big stuff. Just easy to count. But it is actually an inyeresting question.

Medieval cureency was mad, heck, even quete recently UK had remnanet of that in form of guiness etc

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Helmut1642 t1_j1hflhd wrote

Medieval currency was based on the value of the metal and as inflation, metal supply and the purity of the metal, so new coins was minted. Then they also made coins to fit common transactions.

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Kobbett t1_j0n704w wrote

Decimal currencies make things much easier for accounting reasons - so much simpler to total the columns. Earlier currencies might vary the coin values depending on the value of the different metals used.
Until 1971 Britain's coinage (in pennies) would have been 1,3,6,12,24,30,60,240 and 252 for the Guinea, which was no longer a minted coin by then, but was - and still is - used for certain transactions.

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kojohn11 t1_j0zwjef wrote

Was George McClellan a really bad general? I’m reading Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin and just cannot believe how bad of a general he seems. Is he commonly recognized by military historians to have been a bad general? He strikes me as someone who must have gotten where he did solely on a familia basis. He seemed very narcissistic, cocky, but yet ultimately inept. Were there any remarkably tactful acts he performed? Additionally, it also seems like he remained in a position with a modicum of responsibility solely because he was hyped up, but there doesn’t seem to be any legitimacy behind the hype.

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phillipgoodrich t1_j112qaz wrote

From a perspective of 150 years, it would appear that the overarching problem between McClellan and Lincoln was Lincoln's inability to articulate the strategy of the war as perceived by himself, and therefore McClellan's inability to approach the war as a federal official suppressing a traitorous revolt by upstart rebels. As a result, McClellan's dallying and failing to pursue Lee aggressively led to a tacit recognition of the validiity of the CSA military as a legitimate army. It was almost as if McClellan had de facto recognized the CSA as an entity. Which of course enraged Lincoln. And also explains why Lincoln was so deeply relieved when Grant finally took command along with Sherman, and advised Lincoln that they would approach this as an unconditional effort to suppress a revolution. Lincoln's statement that "This man fights!" was no casual comment; he needed a general who would chase the last active rebel to hell and back until every active rebel was hanged. McClellan was never of this mindset, even in the waning days of the war.

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DadTaunWesHere t1_j12hnwk wrote

Idk how much of this was propaganda of the time, but wasn't McClellan also focused on the presidency in '64? I know he eventually ran against Lincoln, banking on the support of his men who largely enjoyed his leadership.

My favorite George B. quote: "The President is no more than a well-meaning baboon. I went to the White House directly after tea, where I found "The Original Gorilla", about as intelligent as ever."

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phillipgoodrich t1_j18advm wrote

Indeed, McClellan had at least implied, if not openly asserted, that were he elected POTUS in 1864, he would pursue an armistice with the CSA (thus recognizing their legitimacy, and the separation of the CSA from the USA!). Lincoln certainly took this seriously, which would explain his encouragement of Sherman's destruction of Georgia. Lincoln felt he needed a rapid improvement in the prosecution of the war, with at least the appearance of inevitable CSA capitulation.

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phillipgoodrich t1_j18b7j6 wrote

Apropos nothing, it is interesting from a general historical standpoint to look at the consequences of "regime change" to the success of any nation's prosecution of a war. Certainly in the U.S., regime change has almost invariably culminated in a death knell for any war effort (FDR doesn't really count, as his VP succeeded to the POTUS, and the US army was within 50 miles of Berlin when FDR suffered his fatal stroke). But, e.g., Johnson to Nixon, and then Bush to Obama, produced a nightmarish drag on war efforts.

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Helmut1642 t1_j1hf3h6 wrote

The answers below are all factors but he was and average general vs the best in Lee, after all both sides asked him to run their armies. He got bluffed into thinking Lee had twice as many troops than he had, still less the McClellan. McClellan thought it was between 1.5 to 1 and 2 to 1, he wanted the 3 to 1, which the military thinking of time would mean he would win, with the wrong odds he might it would be bloody and he was facing a more experienced and "better" general.
So he waited pulling in more troops which gave away the initiative when (in hindsight) he could have smashed the south and knocked a few years off the war.

There were poorer generals in the war on both sides but he allowed Lee to build a army and then failed to win when he did fight.

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GOLDIEM_J t1_j13lz63 wrote

Did the Romans notice linguistic similarities between Latin and the Celtic and Germanic languages in the same way the Portuguese did when they reached India?

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ThatGIRLkimT t1_j15nj9t wrote

What is your favorite book about history?

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FewYou6643 t1_j1a9wml wrote

I'm trying to evaluate the weight of certain historical events and their impact on our lives as we know it today...

Is it fair to say that, if for example, had William the Conqueror not conquered Britain in 1066, then many Brits alive today would not have come into existence? In other words, it disrupted life to such an extent that if it had not happened, our ancestral parents would never have met, and we'd have a completely different set of "people" in existence today.

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TheIrises t1_j1cb2is wrote

Man that is a loaded question. It’s the whole butterfly effect when regarded to history.

You can always ask these questions, but at a point it is too much. It’s like asking “What would have happened if World War One didn’t occur?” Well perhaps World War Two wouldn’t have occurred, but could a different war had occurred? We wouldn’t know and we could argue for days and get nowhere.

Every single event in history made the world today. The better question to ask is how did each event lead to new technologies and how did they lead to new events, rather than asking what would have happened if something didn’t occur. If William the Conqueror had not conquered Britain would the Anglo-Saxons be in power? We could continue to ask the questions but we wouldn’t know because more events would occur after that which would continue to reshape the world.

So yes, you can ask them, but the question is, should you?

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Kurta_711 t1_j1crmda wrote

Any good series (video/documentary) on French history? Looking for Roman to Early Modern periods, and including the Norman Conquest.

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Rindrago t1_j1du9i1 wrote

hey, what sub Reddit can I ask the general population, not specialists, about their insights on an unspecified historical events?

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en43rs t1_j1duoj0 wrote

A sub completely unrelated to history: asking subs likes r/AskReddit or r/NoStupidQuestions. A sub where people are not specialist... this one.
This is the non specialist sub. The professional specific is r/AskHistorians

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GOLDIEM_J t1_j0zpnqy wrote

Why was the Iliad considered to be historical in medieval times despite everyone being Christian (aka not pagan) back then?

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en43rs t1_j10qz2h wrote

What? I don't understand your question.

Please rephrase are you asking: if people thought that people in the Illiad were Christians? That it happened "recently", in their era? That being Christian they didn't believe in history?

What do you mean?

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GOLDIEM_J t1_j118z5x wrote

During the Middle Ages, many in Europe considered the Iliad to be a historical account (just as the ancient Greeks and Romans did.) The epic cycle is a pagan tradition, whereas most of Europe was Christianised throughout the middle ages. Why would Christian Europe hold this view of the pagan Iliad and Odyssey?

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MeatballDom t1_j11q96l wrote

Do you mean regarding the gods being present, or just that it was written by pagans?

All history books from before the common era were written by pagans, but they didn't doubt the historicity of say the battles at Thermopylae or Actium. Early Christian historians, such as Clement of Alexandria, actually dealt with this "problem" early on by still recognising important historical gains made by pagans. So there was no outright dismissal of everything pagan, just some cultural elements -- but even that was a very slow process and mostly occurred later.

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GOLDIEM_J t1_j11tqwd wrote

I am fully aware that medieval Christians would've considered people from classical antiquity, such as Xerxes or Augustus, to have been historical as we do today. Are you saying that they would've thought of Iliad characters the same way? Did they consider the Trojan war to be a historical event only with theological/supernatural embellishments? Would they not have thought of it as a fringe religious text?

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MeatballDom t1_j124bac wrote

Yes, they thought them to be real events, and were passed to them in smaller Latin forms which were well known, but still mentioned other gods.

There's a couple of ways of looking at the gods themselves though, including just placing the Christian God into the story instead. The Greeks simply encountered him, but could only use their own mythologies to explain this, so these stories became muddied. Or at least that's the sort of thinking you might encounter.

Or that they simply added in the gods because they believed them to be helping them, just as a soldier in the Middle Ages might pray to god before battle as well and find him "there" even if never literally seeing or speaking to him.

It would be a few more hundred years before people started to be a bit more skeptical of the events of the Trojan War as passed down by bards and later written down in the form we know it as (well, the two main surviving accounts of many that are now lost). But there were still people who considered them authentic accounts of a war well into the modern age, with Schliemann having been made many efforts to "prove" these stories true, to the point of fabrication or mishandling of archeological finds to try and fit the narrative into it. Today we are fairly certain that Troy existed, and we're fairly certain the site as identified by Calvert (and later more famously, by Schliemann) is indeed the true Troy, and we know that it went through many wars, including one that would match up chronologically to around when we could place such a Trojan War, but we don't believe that the details laid out in the Iliad are historical (though whoever Homer was/were he/she/they were clearly inspired by elements, including some similarly named individuals that didn't have the exact roles detailed in the book but were popular in the region that Troy was in. So there are elements there.

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gtfc123 t1_j10m9eo wrote

Who was the kinkiest Roman Emperor- and why?

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