# Medieval - Pre WW2 History Thread



## KimberVaile (Jul 29, 2021)

Making a companion thread to Nexus's early and ancient history Thread.


			https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/early-and-ancient-civilizations-and-peoples-thread.1671960/page-4
		


This thread will cover everything from the early medieval period all the way up to WW1. Please no WW2 stuff or modern history as it were. That can have it's own thread.
Also, as a personal request, keep the historical dick waving over which culture or civilization is superior to a minimum. It's unprofessional and in most cases, pretty unproductive.


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## KimberVaile (Jul 29, 2021)

Now, for the reason I made this thread.






I had only just heard of this, but they managed to restore old WW1 film to be in color. It's quite fascinating how much more human and real it beocmes that way. That era suddenly doesn't seem so foreign. I hope to watch this pretty soon!


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## Attaman (Jul 29, 2021)

Humorously, I was considering reviving the Early / Ancient History thread with Bret Devereaux's A Collection of Unmitigated Pendantry blog (since it covers a fair bit of Ancient History subjects, such as Sparta's oft-overinflated / -overhyped military society and - more recently - how citizenship worked in both Republic and Imperial Rome), but this thread serves as just as good a place as any to plug it.

His posts are generally _extremely_ well cited (though with a clear preference / lean for the Mediterranean and general European theatres, from shortly before the Helenistic era to approximately around the European Renaissance), and he has some pretty solid articles (or guest articles) on everything from how cities formed and were structured to how vows and oaths worked to war elephants in India to a history of farming wheat to...

What I'm saying is that they have a _ton_ of stuff to keep people interested, be it of a historical nature or even just a "Dissecting fiction and their tropes / 'realism'". And even after that they have a fairly solid book recommendation list as a historian who's acquired a PhD.


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## KimberVaile (Jul 29, 2021)

Attaman said:


> Humorously, I was considering reviving the Early / Ancient History thread with Bret Devereaux's A Collection of Unmitigated Pendantry blog (since it covers a fair bit of Ancient History subjects, such as Sparta's oft-overinflated / -overhyped military society and - more recently - how citizenship worked in both Republic and Imperial Rome), but this thread serves as just as good a place as any to plug it.
> 
> His posts are generally _extremely_ well cited (though with a clear preference / lean for the Mediterranean and general European theatres, from shortly before the Helenistic era to approximately around the European Renaissance), and he has some pretty solid articles (or guest articles) on everything from how cities formed and were structured to how vows and oaths worked to war elephants in India to a history of farming wheat to...
> 
> What I'm saying is that they have a _ton_ of stuff to keep people interested, be it of a historical nature or even just a "Dissecting fiction and their tropes / 'realism'". And even after that they have a fairly solid book recommendation list as a historian who's acquired a PhD.


Interesting blog, his  initial write up on Roman citizenship is sourced well, generally accurate with his assertions on the founding, have not read the rest yet. It's well done though. I can't speak on other subjects he's posted in, but he's quite well versed form what I have seen. Good find.


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## Attaman (Jul 29, 2021)

KimberVaile said:


> Interesting blog, his  initial write up on Roman citizenship is sourced well, generally accurate with his assertions on the founding, have not read the rest yet. It's well done though. I can't speak on other subjects he's posted in, but he's quite well versed form what I have seen. Good find.


Indeed. Likewise it helps that he will often openly admit when he's talking areas outside his expertise (he makes a fair few mentions of this when talking of Mongol horse archers, for example; or when he makes a side post on farming related to rice). Combined with actually _sharing_ his sources (unlike a lot of such blogs which clutch them close to the writer's chest), it means even when he's just extrapolating with his opinion there's at least a chance to take a look yourself and see where things might have gone wrong: A hell of a lot easier to fact-check behind somebody and make your own conclusions when you know where they got theirs from in the first place! Also means that if somebody doesn't have the time or inclination to read the articles (especially if their somewhat snarky / informal manner of writing grates them) they can just go straight to the source material instead.


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## Frank Gulotta (Jul 30, 2021)

Medieval/early renaissance music deserves more love


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## The_biscuits_532 (Jul 31, 2021)

Shoutout to the time Peru sneezed so hard it caused a civil war in Russia


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## Nexus Cabler (Aug 1, 2021)

I recently discovered the Gun Shield





"The gunsmith Giovanni Battista of Ravenna proposed this gun shield to King Henry VIII of England, and King Henry ordered 100 to be made for his royal guards. They were really amazing and changed history forever. Many variants

There are two variants of gun-shield. One is Italian manufactured, and one British. The Italian is of smaller caliber and lighter. It is assumed the English version was meant to be used on ships, while the Italian to be handheld."


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## The_biscuits_532 (Aug 1, 2021)

Nexus Cabler said:


> I recently discovered the Gun Shield
> 
> View attachment 117520
> 
> ...


Honestly every time I read something new about Henry VIII it's even wilder. Easily my favourite person from our national history just because of how characterful he was.


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## Yastreb (Aug 2, 2021)

Nexus Cabler said:


> I recently discovered the Gun Shield
> 
> View attachment 117520
> 
> ...


Then there's the lantern shield. What happens if you strap together a shield, gauntlet, lantern, sword, plus a spike/sawblade thingy or three? You probably shouldn't, but if you do it looks like this:


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## Makoto95 (Aug 8, 2021)

i like the pirates part of history


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## Yakamaru (Aug 8, 2021)

WW2 can indeed have its own thread.

The 100 year war:





Then we have the nearly 600-years of war and conflict between Denmark and Sweden:




Granted, this video is less graphical and more topographical/geographical and have things being rather compressed.






						List of wars involving Denmark - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



Denmarks' involvement in wars, and there are quite a few of them.








						List of wars involving Sweden - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



Sweden's involvement in wars and conflicts. Like the Danes, there are quite a few of them.





						List of wars involving Norway - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



Norway's involvement in wars is far lower, though have also had its share in war too.

Scandinavia have been through a LOT of wars and conflicts in the past 1,000 years alone, and have a lot more of wars, conflicts and tribal disputes beyond that, and have probably had the most wars and conflicts compared to the rest of the world. Small countries demographically and population-wise, but have wielded a lot of power politically, economically and militarily throughout the centuries.

With the creation of the Norwegian Constitution in 1814 it created the start of a new era for our country, and a very prosperous and peaceful one at that for centuries to come.





						The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway - C. Rights of Citizens and The Legislative Power - Lovdata
					

C. Rights of Citizens and The Legislative Power




					lovdata.no
				



I've found the English version for ease of translation and reading, and the Norwegian original can be simply read by clicking on "Norwegian version" in the upper left corner. And in 1914 we separated peacefully from Sweden, effectively becoming our own independent nation.


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## KimberVaile (Sep 15, 2021)

Very interesting interview involving a German corporal and his experiences in WW1





Just kinda neat, this one, seeing a WW1 era tank being operated.
They really were as slow as people said, though pretty decent turning speed on that thing.


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## SerlisTialo (Sep 22, 2021)

this is fascinating to me because i'm from asia and a lot of this stuff is news to me


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## Punji (Sep 23, 2021)

SerlisTialo said:


> this is fascinating to me because i'm from asia and a lot of this stuff is news to me


Asia? I thought you were a black dwarf from Scottland.


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## O.D.D. (Sep 23, 2021)

Morals of the WW1 story: European royalty were kinda assholes, French commanders were bugfuck nuts (yeah just bayonet charge the German MG emplacement, dude, where's your _cran_?) and Germans pick bad fights and worse allies.  Also don't fuck with the Royal Navy.


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## SerlisTialo (Sep 23, 2021)

Punji said:


> Asia? I thought you were a black dwarf from Scottland.


what?


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## Attaman (Sep 27, 2021)

Of note: ACOUP (the formerly linked _A Collection of Unmitigated Pendantry_) is in the middle of an on-going series ATM involving Trench Warfare during WWI. Figured some people might be interested as the current subject seems to be erring towards WWI.


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## Frank Gulotta (Sep 30, 2021)

A small point that shows that hindsight is 20/20 since this is pre-WW2, the appeasement policy prior to WW2 actually DID make sense and is unjustly maligned. Germany was seen as a buffer state against an ideology that was already known back then as a mass-murderous mess (and would keep killing millions worldwide way past WW2).


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## O.D.D. (Sep 30, 2021)

Frank Gulotta said:


> A small point that shows that hindsight is 20/20 since this is pre-WW2, the appeasement policy prior to WW2 actually DID make sense and is unjustly maligned. Germany was seen as a buffer state against an ideology that was already known back then as a mass-murderous mess (and would keep killing millions worldwide way past WW2).


I'm not sure how widespread the knowledge of Nazi atrocities was at that point but as big a monster as Hitler was I can believe that the rest of Europe viewed Stalin as a more profound threat.  I don't think appeasement was the correct response even with that knowledge, though.  I believe Patton is quoted as saying we should have kept on going past Berlin all the way to Moscow.  Hard to say, even in hindsight, how that would have panned out.  The Soviets were not the beleaguered war machine the Nazis were by the end, and appeasement neither addresses the Nazis' predations nor does it offer hope against the Soviets later.  Operation Barbarossa did not weaken the Soviets nearly enough to justify keeping Hitler around.


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## Frank Gulotta (Sep 30, 2021)

O.D.D. said:


> I'm not sure how widespread the knowledge of Nazi atrocities was at that point but as big a monster as Hitler was I can believe that the rest of Europe viewed Stalin as a more profound threat.  I don't think appeasement was the correct response even with that knowledge, though.  I believe Patton is quoted as saying we should have kept on going past Berlin all the way to Moscow.  Hard to say, even in hindsight, how that would have panned out.  The Soviets were not the beleaguered war machine the Nazis were by the end, and appeasement neither addresses the Nazis' predations nor does it offer hope against the Soviets later.  Operation Barbarossa did not weaken the Soviets nearly enough to justify keeping Hitler around.


It was proven wrong when the two brands of evil signed a non aggression pact but then that's also hindsight. People were back then aware of the biggest of two evils and we have kind of forgotten it since then and instead are obsessing over the one that's been all but dead for half a century, while happily making business to this day with the bigger one, because money


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## O.D.D. (Sep 30, 2021)

Jumping between the context of "where we are now" and "where we were, in hindsight" doesn't really work well

Another reason it would have been better to nip the Nazi war machine in the bud - the Soviets ended up pillaging a lot of nasty stuff and some people too from the wreckage of Germany, though the Americans likely took as much or more

If the Nazis had been trounced before they had gotten too deep into some of their weapons projects, the Soviets would have had less to pillage

Also while Allied materiel wasn't exactly stellar before late war, the Soviets' materiel was fucking GARBAGE before Barbarossa... especially most of the stuff we gave them.  The Soviets took a lot of lend-lease M3s which were derided as tracked coffins, and rightfully so.  They made the P-39s work well, but I would consider that a bit of an outlier.  The P-40s were obsolete before the outbreak of WW2.  The Mosin-Nagant three line rifle was pretty archaic and they barely had enough ammo to keep conscripts supplied for their use.

Until the T34 with radios was brought about (and equipping them with radios happened post-Barbarossa, after the Soviets realized the T34s could still have their asses kicked by Nazi Panzers being commanded competently through radios) the Soviets had almost nothing but sheer numbers and brutality.


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## Attaman (Sep 30, 2021)

I am going to go out on a limb and say @KimberVaile doesn't want their pre-WWII Military History thread turning into "Discuss WWII specifically who were worse the Communists or the Nazis?". 

So while I _do_ genuinely enjoy discussion of logistical aspects and whatnot (and, indeed, the ACOUP articles I mentioned earlier even go on a tangent discussing logistical, materiel, and tactical advances between WWI and WWII), it might be better to either ask Kimber if they're fine having _that_ discussion in this thread (after all, it looks like the main point of the 'Pre-WWII' was less out of disinterest and more because nine times out of ten people mentioned "Let's talk Military History online" you're going to get 80% WWII, 15% Romans, 4.5% American Civil War, 0.5% Other) or to create a sister thread specifically relating to WWII and its military hardware, strategies, etcetera.

And also probably drop the "Who was worse, Hitler or Stalin?" outright. Because even discounting my own biases (which certain users may insist are why I'd request this), any discussion that starts to try quantifying "What's more evil?" with things like genocide, disappearing people, ideological purges, et al is going to be a mess even _before_ the forum's ' "No Politics" rule comes into the equation. Besides, it's not like if people _do_ want to engage in such exercises like there's any shortage of candidates _pre-_WWII to draw from. "You see, gentlemen. If we can just convince our population to throw a few million more of their children into the meat grinder, we can win through sheer attrition by the end of the decade" is a _hell_ of a military strategy, and one that was _genuinely floated_ by _multiple_ ranking generals in _multiple_ militaries during WWI, for example. Similarly "If we kill enough of their non-combatant civilian population they'll sue for peace!"


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## O.D.D. (Sep 30, 2021)

Attaman said:


> (which certain users may insist are why I'd request this)


It is and you know it

the fact that you give yourself that disclaimer is enough reason to suspect it

otherwise, yeah, sure, let's talk about pre-WW2 stuff like the atrocities of the Cheka and how the Makhnovists got fucked over by the Bolsheviks how's that work for you


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## Attaman (Oct 1, 2021)

O.D.D. said:


> It is and you know it


Nah, it's because debates on "Which is worse: Attempted genocide of [x] demographics or successful mass-murder of [y] demographics" - in addition to being off topic - are ones that _never_ end well for anyone. Again, I invite Kimber to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure they don't want their history thread split their "Interesting Medieval to Pre-WWII history" thread into people asking 'Who is burning lower in Hell?' as a vague-post way to skirt the Politics rule (which you _yourself_ admit you think I'll trying to do if that debate happens). 

And by pretty sure I mean


KimberVaile said:


> Also, as a personal request, keep the historical dick waving over which culture or civilzation is superior to a minimum. It's unprofessional and in most cases, pretty unproductive.


OP literally - explicitly - made that request.


O.D.D. said:


> otherwise, yeah, sure, let's talk about pre-WW2 stuff like the atrocities of the Cheka and how the Makhnovists got fucked over by the Bolsheviks how's that work for you


I mean, those are at least pre-WWII so as long as you can tie them into the framework of Medieval - Pre WW2 History and don't frame it in a "Who was better / worse?" more power to you! Go nuts!


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## O.D.D. (Oct 1, 2021)

Going back to the utter insanity of the Western Front for a moment I am reminded of a quote: "It is good that war is terrible, lest we grow fond of it."

The way that quote falls apart can be seen in WW1 easily - WW1 presented unprecedented (to that time anyway) levels of "terrible", an unpleasantness that many of the war's most strident advocates were completely or near completely insulated from.  Without having to face the monstrosity of the WW1 battlefield themselves, commanders, leaders and citizenry who were pro war were free to feed people into a meat grinder with little real consequence - from the aforementioned ordering of bayonet charges at MG nests to more subtly pernicious things like White Feather campaigns.  The Christmas Truce was a remarkable event that was looked poorly upon by those not in the trenches, to the point of threats of desertion charges being leveled against participants.  The White Feather campaigns were particularly reprehensible - a mass shaming campaign leveled against any man or boy perceived as being capable of fighting, that was not actively going out and dying at that precise moment.


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## Attaman (Oct 1, 2021)

To refer back to those ACOUP articles,


			
				Those ACOUP Articles said:
			
		

> Link
> 
> As Robert Doughty (op. cit.) notes quite effectively, after the desperate search in 1915 for ways either around the trench stalemate or through it (either way trying to restore a war of maneuver), Joseph Joffre, French chief of the army staff, settled on a strategic plan coordinating British, Italian, French and Russian actions designed around a strategy of ‘rupture’ by which what was meant was that if all of the allies focused on attrition in each of their various theaters, eventually one theater would break for lack of resources (that’s the rupture). He was pretty damn explicit about this, writing about the war as a “struggle of attrition” in May, 1915 and setting a plan of action in December of 1915 to “do everything they can to attrit the adversary.”
> 
> ...


This is multiple _exceedingly_ high ranked officers who independently came to the conclusion that the most pragmatic way to win, quote Bret again, was


> asking them to send their sons to fight, to endure more rationing, more shortages, more long casualty lists with the explanation that you had no plans to win the war beyond running Germany out of sons slightly faster than you ran France out of sons


That's a helluva proposal.


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## O.D.D. (Oct 1, 2021)

Attaman said:


> To refer back to those ACOUP articles,
> 
> This is multiple _exceedingly_ high ranked officers who independently came to the conclusion that the most pragmatic way to win, quote Bret again, was
> 
> That's a helluva proposal.


It would be if it weren't rather ordinary for brassholes, jingoists and ninnies to demand such things overtly or covertly even today - "drown them in blood and bodies, as long as it's not mine"

It tends to be predicated more often on sheer greed these days rather than any kind of desire to appear strong or a genuine conviction or hatred of some sort, but while history may or may not repeat it certainly does rhyme.  Most, if not all of the people at or near the top are very comfortable with signing your death warrant for material gain and other forms of personal utility.


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## Fallowfox (Oct 1, 2021)

The BBC has a three part series on the history of Vienna on their streaming service. 

The first two episodes would be relevant to this thread. Certainly you will be struck with an astonishment of the gruesomeness of life in medieval central Europe, and the depravity of its warlord monarchies.

One of the less outrageous examples was king Rudolf the second, who allowed a 'tame' tiger to roam his palace. 









						Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




The 'more' outrageous examples cannot be discussed in polite company!


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## O.D.D. (Oct 1, 2021)

Being nearly completely insulated from the consequences of idiotic or malicious decisions coupled with vast resources to expend upon such decisions will turn most people into monsters of varying caliber over time.


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## KimberVaile (Oct 6, 2021)

DieselPowered said:


> Good thread, but it's utterly ridiculous that we don't have a general history thread. (no offence to the OP. even though you're a bit too histrionic for your own good. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for sticking up for the guy you fucked over. Seriously, he messaged me after that thing and gave me some fairly critical information about the situation. I'm not going to hold it against you but yeah, you almost contributed to a suicide and you're not as clean as you wish to present). The recent history of the world, you see, is of great interest to me. 1600 to 1900 are fascinating times, although as it relates to Europe they're an embarassment to the world. Too many silly pricks drunk on their own sense of superiority and the glory of war to be truly worthwhile. We increasingly got high on the idea of prestige and glory to realize we were sending those that make up the majority of our society out to senseless deaths. Although those people didn't matter as they were below the nobility, the only people of value of course. Thank fuck we've grown from there. Here is a video about some senseless war that makes this post relevant.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm glad to return to this thread only to find it full of conflict and shit like this. This forum is full of fun surprises it seems.

Seriously, what is your fucking problem? Yeah, that'll endear me to you, you know bring up the guy who is a pathological liar that stalks me in my history thread and pin it on me for not wanting to associate with him. It's the type of shit that only somebody whose alt was his (Kyr) would say, just saying.
Develop better social skills, because social etiquette clearly isn't your forte, or critical thinking for that matter.

You're clearly just here to cause issues.


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## Punji (Oct 6, 2021)

DieselPowered said:


> Good thread, but it's utterly ridiculous that we don't have a general history thread. (no offence to the OP. even though you're a bit too histrionic for your own good. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for sticking up for the guy you fucked over. Seriously, he messaged me after that thing and gave me some fairly critical information about the situation. I'm not going to hold it against you but yeah, you almost contributed to a suicide and you're not as clean as you wish to present).


I don't really think this is the most appropriate place for an irrelevant call-out post about a situation you may not fully understand.

The last history thread had too much drama already, can't we all just have nice things for once?


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## KimberVaile (Oct 6, 2021)

Punji said:


> I don't really think this is the most appropriate place for an irrelevant call-out post about a situation you may not fully understand.
> 
> The last history thread had too much drama already, can't we all just have nice things for once?


It is rather morose, that I can unironically remark that you'd probably be asking too much from these forums.


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## Yakamaru (Oct 6, 2021)

"The definition of insanity is repeating the same things over and over again expecting different results."


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## KimberVaile (Oct 6, 2021)

Attaman said:


> I am going to go out on a limb and say @KimberVaile doesn't want their pre-WWII Military History thread turning into "Discuss WWII specifically who were worse the Communists or the Nazis?".
> 
> So while I _do_ genuinely enjoy discussion of logistical aspects and whatnot (and, indeed, the ACOUP articles I mentioned earlier even go on a tangent discussing logistical, materiel, and tactical advances between WWI and WWII), it might be better to either ask Kimber if they're fine having _that_ discussion in this thread (after all, it looks like the main point of the 'Pre-WWII' was less out of disinterest and more because nine times out of ten people mentioned "Let's talk Military History online" you're going to get 80% WWII, 15% Romans, 4.5% American Civil War, 0.5% Other) or to create a sister thread specifically relating to WWII and its military hardware, strategies, etcetera.
> 
> And also probably drop the "Who was worse, Hitler or Stalin?" outright. Because even discounting my own biases (which certain users may insist are why I'd request this), any discussion that starts to try quantifying "What's more evil?" with things like genocide, disappearing people, ideological purges, et al is going to be a mess even _before_ the forum's ' "No Politics" rule comes into the equation. Besides, it's not like if people _do_ want to engage in such exercises like there's any shortage of candidates _pre-_WWII to draw from. "You see, gentlemen. If we can just convince our population to throw a few million more of their children into the meat grinder, we can win through sheer attrition by the end of the decade" is a _hell_ of a military strategy, and one that was _genuinely floated_ by _multiple_ ranking generals in _multiple_ militaries during WWI, for example. Similarly "If we kill enough of their non-combatant civilian population they'll sue for peace!"


Getting back on track. 
Since I was away for a bit, was not able to address this.
Anyways, that would be correct Attaman. Thank you for bringing up the concern.


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## Hir (Oct 6, 2021)

DieselPowered said:


> I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for sticking up for the guy you fucked over. Seriously, he messaged me after that thing and gave me some fairly critical information about the situation. I'm not going to hold it against you but yeah, you almost contributed to a suicide and you're not as clean as you wish to present).


you're allowing yourself to be manipulated by an absolute monster that has been convicted of violent stalking for plotting against my life - repeatedly. and that isn't the only life they plotted against either, they've done it to several people before and have a violent criminal history and have a history of threatening to kill others. whether you believe kimber is 'clean' in this situation or not, kyr is insane and in need of serious psychiatric help that nobody else involved in this was able to offer and as we tried to distance ourselves from his toxic, diabolical and destructive behaviour he did some things that shocked others into disbelief. he talks about his suicide but nobody talks about mine due to his repeated credible threats against my life due to him having once being my neighbour and knowing where i lived, my route to work, the places i hanged out. this is who you're sticking up for.

your grudge against kimber is your own business but for your own good do not allow this guy to latch onto you. he will not let go and the moment you realise how much of a monster it is, it'll be too late - you'll be his next obsession and he'll never let go of you psychologically. this isn't some petty furry bullshit - this is real, had serious IRL consequences for me and if you keep reaching into this situation you'll end up burned.

but you know what might be better? *stop bringing him up. period.* he deserves absolutely no airtime on a forum he's been rightfully banned from. he gets a kick out of this. i still remember watching him turning his router off for 12 hours so his IP would reset (seemingly unaware you could do this in command prompt in 30 seconds) so he could come onto the forum and spread more hatred to a community he had zero love for. the situation between kyr and me, kimber, countless others - it's complex. and you're hearing it from someone who threatened to kill people so y'know what, what kind of bias do you think is going to be there? just let him fade into the obscurity he deserves.

edit: oh, and i'm more of a pinor noir kinda guy.

edit edit: oh and if a mod has a concern about a post being in the wrong place... i'd much rather you DM me about the fact that this guy is repeatedly brought up and weaponised against people. this is about an IRL crime that's been taken to court and resolved. i can give you all the information you require about this guy's conduct. you guys need to stop allowing him to be brought up indirectly through other people. do your job so i don't have to repeatedly go through my traumas to ensure people don't give this monster airtime.


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## TyraWadman (Oct 6, 2021)

DieselPowered said:


> Good thread, but it's utterly ridiculous that we don't have a general history thread. (no offence to the OP. even though you're a bit too histrionic for your own good. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for sticking up for the guy you fucked over. Seriously, he messaged me after that thing and gave me some fairly critical information about the situation. I'm not going to hold it against you but yeah, you almost contributed to a suicide and you're not as clean as you wish to present)





DieselPowered said:


> *Does this really serve to accomplish anything?*
> 
> If the guy's mental stop antagonizing him, it's not hard.
> *I doubt anyone's hands are clean in this clusterfuck, but it's none of our business. Take it somewhere else.*



Sorry to everyone else for adding to the pile. I just thought it would be an important reminder from yourself.

I have only seen or heard of 'Kyr' through them stalking/doxxing here on FAF (repeatedly). Even as an outsider looking in and not knowing anything more about anyone, Kyr is clearly in desperate need of therapy. Possibly even medication. Don't let pity blind you. If someone can't let go of their ex, _despite the claims of severe mental distress they were allegedly put through_, there is something seriously wrong with them and it would be wise to leave that work to the professionals (and not just make passive-aggressive jabs at people who otherwise haven't said nor mentioned anything of it since).


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## Hir (Oct 6, 2021)

they desperately need mental help. when i was clearing out their old flat that they trashed and abandoned i found an appointment for counselling in writing that they didn't attend due to fleeing the city. i don't know how much help they're getting now, or what medication they're on - but they're deluded about the entire situation. whether that's their fault or not, i can't tell you.

but none of us owed him anything - we had every right to cut ties. his mental health is, and will always be, his responsibility and his business. his stalking/doxxing is true, he doxxed kimber and sent letters to his home address. he knew my home address due to being my neighbour - spent many nights in my flat at the time as a friend. i arguably knew him better than anybody. i earnestly, genuinely tried to help him for years. he won't admit that, probably because in his mental state he doesn't realise it. but realise when you are talking to him you are talking to someone through the mental gaze of someone who is mentally ill and deluded.

but also understand you're talking to victims of that, people who are extremely hurt by his actions. it can be tough to see things in a balanced view from that. i often forget it's someone who's mentally ill and feel extremely hurt and angry from the huge upheaval in my life he caused.

i ask you very, very kindly and firmly - *stop bringing him up*. it helps nobody and only compounds any of the issues he's facing, stopping him from having any chance of seeing things in a more balanced way. he'll never move on if this place repeatedly brings him back.


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## Frank Gulotta (Oct 6, 2021)




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## DieselPowered (Oct 6, 2021)

KimberVaile said:


> I'm glad to return to this thread only to find it full of conflict and shit like this. This forum is full of fun surprises it seems.
> 
> Seriously, what is your fucking problem? Yeah, that'll endear me to you, you know bring up the guy who is a pathological liar that stalks me in my history thread and pin it on me for not wanting to associate with him. It's the type of shit that only somebody whose alt was his (Kyr) would say, just saying.
> Develop better social skills, because social etiquette clearly isn't your forte or critical thinking for that matter.
> ...


This is what i get for drunkposting on a furry forum. The guy thanked me for sticking up for him and let me know some details from his side, lo and behold monsters don't exist. Simple as that. I don't care about your grudges or old wounds, and i've seen well enough how you treat people around here to know there was a grain of truth in what i was told.  Now pack in the insults or i'll start treating you like you treat others who tell you things you don't like.

Now, back to something that's actually interesting.


----------



## Nexus Cabler (Oct 6, 2021)

DieselPowered said:


> This is what i get for drunkposting on a furry forum. The guy thanked me for sticking up for him and let me know some details from his side, lo and behold monsters don't exist. Simple as that. I don't care about your grudges or old wounds, and i've seen well enough how you treat people around here to know there was a grain of truth in what i was told.  Now pack in the insults or i'll start treating you like you treat others who tell you things you don't like.
> 
> Now, back to something that's actually interesting.


Hi Diesel, I see you haven't learned anything from the last outcome for when you pulled this little stunt.

I wasn't planning on derailing the this thread, but you just had to go and be disgusting when no body was doing anything. You are willfully ignorant of the person you are defending, and using their testimony to target users you aren't fond of.

It's shallow, obvious, and displays forum behavior I haven't seen in a while. (The kind that's not what one should be proud of, in case you were unaware)
You have no merit, nor solid evidence contrary to Hir's experiences (who has already told you that he doesn't want this garbage brought up). You only bring to the table a obvious grudge masquerading as "sticking up for the little guy".

It ain't a good look for you, Diesel.

You do not have any right to be threatening to be nasty towards others, so don't even try it, sweetie. It won't go well for you.


----------



## TyraWadman (Oct 6, 2021)

I think the best solution would be to ignore(block) the user. If they try to use the excuse of drunkposting on one of your threads again, at least it will be something mods can take action against.


----------



## KimberVaile (Oct 6, 2021)

DieselPowered said:


> This is what i get for drunkposting on a furry forum. The guy thanked me for sticking up for him and let me know some details from his side, lo and behold monsters don't exist. Simple as that. I don't care about your grudges or old wounds, and i've seen well enough how you treat people around here to know there was a grain of truth in what i was told.  Now pack in the insults or i'll start treating you like you treat others who tell you things you don't like.
> 
> Now, back to something that's actually interesting.


I treat people as they treat me, so don't come whining to me that I'm throwing your bile back in your face. You threw the first punch, and now you're sore you got hit back. I'm not going to apologize for defending myself from blatant bullshit and insults. (Believe it or not, I didn't set up this history thread with the intent of obtaining what your opinion on me is.) But yes, how dare I prevent people from using me as a doormat.
Are you really trying to threaten me like he did? What a beacon of morality you are. I can see why you two get along so well.


----------



## DieselPowered (Oct 6, 2021)

Nexus Cabler said:


> Hi Diesel, I see you haven't learned anything from the last outcome for when you pulled this little stunt.
> 
> I wasn't planning on derailing the this thread, but you just had to go and be disgusting when no body was doing anything. You are willfully ignorant of the person you are defending, and using their testimony to target users you aren't fond of.
> 
> ...


I found myself thrown into this shit, i shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place. Yes. Unfortunately i am, and unfortunately i will stick up for the little guy. No grudges here, simply an opinion that goes against the grain. I have a tendency to do that, and if people want to throw shit my way for it so be it. Now if you want this buried i suggest you don't drag it out.


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## Rimna (Oct 7, 2021)

Frank Gulotta said:


>



I see monke I press like


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## Hir (Oct 7, 2021)

DieselPowered said:


> i will stick up for the little guy.


your little guy threatened to kill people. multiple people.

this isn't some petty furry drama - this went to court. and i won.

at this point i'm convinced you're being intentionally belligerent and playing devil's advocate.



DieselPowered said:


> I found myself thrown into this shit, i shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place.



play stupid games, win stupid prizes. we warned you about this guy - he's dangerous. now you're headfirst into a fight you know nothing about and the moment you realize it's too late to get out of it, he'll latch onto you too.

good luck with that, diesel.


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## Fallowfox (Oct 7, 2021)

The dramas herein are beyond my comprehension.


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## Hir (Oct 7, 2021)

I've contacted staff to try and control this and they've done nothing. I'm tired of being the person setting this straight.

I'm surprised diesel hasn't reached out directly to me if he wanted to know what really happened.


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## TyraWadman (Oct 7, 2021)

Hir said:


> I've contacted staff to try and control this and they've done nothing. I'm tired of being the person setting this straight.
> 
> I'm surprised diesel hasn't reached out directly to me if he wanted to know what really happened.


Well, in this particular instance, you'd first have to block Diesel.  And then any other time they attempt to contact you, they can take action. Either that or they just haven't gotten to your ticket yet. 

Kimber would need to do the same to preserve their current/future thread(s). I know it's not fair that y'all have to keep adapting, but I'm sure the silence will be nicer than the former.


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## Attaman (Oct 7, 2021)




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## Hir (Oct 7, 2021)

maybe this will spring the staff to actually... you know, do something...


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## Hir (Oct 8, 2021)

DieselPowered said:


> Now, as the story goes. He once said "i'll kill you" in anger then, after months of ridicule and forced isolation


ohhhhh no no no no. is that really what he's teling you? this was sustained for a very long time, sometimes daily during that time. i have receipts - it's police evidence. the murder suicide was his plan from the very first threat - indeed, that _was_ his very first threat. he just kept repeating it with various levels of grandeur. this went on for a year and a half.

where is this 'ridicule' by the way? i wasn't here for a start - and i did everything i could to stay away from him. i wanted nothing to do with him. this ridicule was entirely in his head. that isn't me insulting him by the way, he was mentally ill, so i can't blame him for feeling like he was being ridiculed but i certainly didn't deserve to be at the tail end of his death threats.

as for his £3k... that would be separate from the court ruling. i didn't pursue anything after that, i just wanted to get on with my life. he certainly didn't get that £3k from me or anybody else involved in his crimes but i'm frankly not interested. i hope he used it on something useful to him. do i think he's profoundly mentally ill? sure. do i think me, or anyone else in this is the cause of that? fuck no. and this constant emboldening him is not helping him move on.

again, i find it interesting that you're accepting stories about me from someone who wanted me dead for a year plus as opposed to from me directly. all i ever did was want max to leave me alone.

edit: oh and i remember you now too... i can occasionally be defensive about my music and you caught me on a bad day. apologies. i don't generally expect a huge wall of text review in a telegram metal chat so i was just a bit confused by it - caught me out of leftfield. i ended up leaving that chat because i didn't really get on with a few members there, so i thought you looked a bit familiar but i couldn't place it. plus i've been prepping the new album which has kept me very busy.


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## KimberVaile (Oct 8, 2021)

DieselPowered said:


> He later turned on Kimber after months of ridicule (notice he said Kyr was a problem to be ignored and mocked so that fits). A rather grave consequence to your actions there.


Just for the record. I didn't ridicule him until he started evading the block I put on him, which is right when he started going on incessantly about killing Hir and started blabbering about 'teaching me a lesson.' I tried to distance myself, and he tried to attack me for it. I don't let people bully me into submission, for better or worse. So, I pushed back, because it made me feel much less like a victim. Hir addressed the rest quite well. I would like to politely suggest before you cast judgment and make comments about a situation this severe, that you consider getting all sides of the story. It would be preferable that any further questions be taken to dms, though. If required, I can answer any questions about the situation there.

The thread has been derailed quite a bit already. Not blaming anybody in particular, just saying.


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## DieselPowered (Oct 8, 2021)

@Hir
As he told it he was done with you from the beginning too, he made himself homeless to get away from you. Partially because he wanted nothing more to do with you and partially because he was getting thoughts about attacking you and didn't actually want to. So no, the murder suicide wasn't the plan from the start and i'll take his word for that. He owned his shit, both to me and to the courts by pleading guilty from the start of their involvement. Even admitted to being an asshole for what he'd done but it seems he stopped caring about that a while ago. Feeling less like a victim was actually the reason he gave for some of his actions too, so there you go. 
As the story goes he wanted to leave you behind and focus on the people he'd met away from you but you ended up working your supposed magic on them, so he simply couldn't. As for the ridicule, only you know what went on behind closed doors. I'm also sure anyone would try to posit a reasonable explanation when it comes to claims of protecting animal abusers so i won't be fully trusting that, i'm sure you can understand.

Now, i know this started because my drunken stream of conciousness led me to "shit, OP contributed to a suicide attempt" (and it's telling that the suicide aspect has been, until recently, absent from your claims), but i'm going to tell you what i told the other guy. If you want this buried don't drag it out, simple. Get on with your day, i won't be responding to this any further.

Back to the point of the thread, eh.


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## KimberVaile (Oct 8, 2021)

How strange that they never reached out to get Hir's or my side of the story, almost like this whole farce was just a justification to spew bile at people they don't like! Anyways, I think we've had enough of somebody simping for an attempted murderer and refusing to apologize for the mess they caused.


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## KimberVaile (Oct 8, 2021)

Here's a pretty interesting tidbit about inns. Apparently they were rather uncommon during the middle ages!


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## pilgrimfromoblivion (Oct 8, 2021)

KimberVaile said:


> Here's a pretty interesting tidbit about inns. Apparently they were rather uncommon during the middle ages!








That thumbnail though. "Medieval Inns were not Taverns, and were quite uncommon."


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## DieselPowered (Oct 8, 2021)

KimberVaile said:


> Yes, I think we've had enough of somebody simping for an attempted murder and refusing to apologize for the mess they caused.


If pointing out that this guy isn't comparable to jeffrey dahmer in any reasonable way is simping then guilty as charged, learn to take responsibility for your own actions and maybe similar things won't happen to you in the future.

Now, here's one of many gems from the Rogues Gallery.


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## KimberVaile (Oct 8, 2021)

DieselPowered said:


> If pointing out that this guy isn't comparable to jeffrey dahmer in any reasonable way is simping then guilty as charged, learn to take responsibility for your own actions and maybe similar things won't happen to you in the future.
> 
> Now, here's one of many gems from the Rogues Gallery.


Oh, so much for you being done here, huh? Take your own advice. You peddled lies and accusations at me while only having one side of the story and put it somewhere where it didn't belong. You sure you weren't one of OJ's lawyers?


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## DieselPowered (Oct 8, 2021)

KimberVaile said:


> Oh, so much for you being done here, huh? Take your own advice. You peddled lies and accusations at me while only having one side of the story and put it somewhere where it didn't belong. You sure you weren't one of OJ's lawyers?


as i said, if you want it buried don't drag it out. Learn. 

And yes, OJ was a tough case. Surprised i pulled that one off!


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## KimberVaile (Oct 8, 2021)

DieselPowered said:


> as i said, if you want it buried don't drag it out. Learn.
> 
> And yes, OJ was a tough case. Surprised i pulled that one off!


Oh I see now, one of those people that need to get the last word in. So it's an ego thing!
You've very important Diesel, you're a big boy with a big smart brain with all kinds of big thinky thoughts.
Feel better?


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## DieselPowered (Oct 8, 2021)

KimberVaile said:


> Oh I see now, one of those people that need to get the last word in. So it's an ego thing!
> You've very important Diesel, you're a big boy with a big smart brain with all kinds of big thinky thoughts.
> Feel better?


Very, i'm glad you've recognised that.

Now if you really want to tell your side of the story my DMS are open, if not at the very least stop shitting up your own thread.


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## Hir (Oct 8, 2021)

there are several points there that are so contradictory i'm astounded you don't see it yourself. or perhaps you do - but it's evident that you're taking what i say at bad faith. you say he fled to get away from me but the whole reason he flipped was because i cut him off - so which is it? and again - i have receipts that he is not telling you the truth about the threats.

as for people he met 'away from me', that isn't true either - he always came back to the same communities or people who were connected very closely to those communities. people who knew what happened. they would then reach out to me or people who knew me to ask the truth of the matter, and i told them. you have to understand this was during a time i was still receiving death threats sometimes daily - so i was simply honest about that. naturally, these people didn't want him in his community. i sure as hell didn't go around following him to people who had zero connection to me. i even found him in my own servers a few times, making alts etc. i'm now detaching this assessment from emotion - it clearly shows mental illness, inability to move on. but being frank his mental illness wasn't my responsibility in the same way my trauma, anxiety, depression etc. from these circumstances wasn't his or anyone else's around me.

consider how easy it would have been to go into one of the many thousands of servers away from me... would have been a cinch. why do you think he chose the ones directly linked to my friends and myself? perhaps he was paranoid about what i was saying about him behind his back - again you could put two and two together. but that isn't the picture he's painting with this explanation to you. if he was just honest and said that, i'd be more understanding of his explanations he's giving you. for the record, as well, i didn't discuss him publicly in forums if i could get away with it except for a few times where he discussed me and i needed to set the record straight.

what you consider 'reasonable explanations' aren't reasonable in a way that exonerates his behaviour. yes, perhaps to some sense of logic it may explain it - but it doesn't point any blame in the opposite field. i did absolutely nothing. i stand by it.

but at this point, fine. i've resolved to try and move on with my life and i will do so, and arguing with a stranger on the internet isn't doing me any favours. if you were interested in hearing my side of it, you'd have PM'd me already, and yet you haven't. i was his best irl friend for... man, i actually lost track of years. had to be 2013 to 2019 i think? i knew him exceptionally well. i may have used hyperbole in my language in this thread before but i know more about his past behaviour than you do and what he's done to other people, not just me and kim. he is genuinely dangerous. please watch your back.

consider this the line in the sand, but i would earnestly appreciate this not being brought up in the future. i'm tired of the subject, i'm done with it and frankly he should be too. everybody involved in this is. if he genuinely wishes to move on he should leave this place behind. it has been a negative influence on him now for years.


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## Nexus Cabler (Oct 8, 2021)

Medieval English longbows could fire an arrow more than 300 yards and required so much strength that the skeletons of medieval archers can be identified by their enlarged left arms.


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## KimberVaile (Oct 8, 2021)

Good little documentary on medieval life in various European countries.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Oct 8, 2021)

Been doing a Mughal campaign in Europa Universalis recently, and been reading on them on the side. Pretty interesting guys

- Founded by Afghan Warlord Zahid-ud-Din Muhammad Babur Gurkani in 1526. He was the Paternal Great x2 Grandson of Tamerlane (Uzbek Warlord, founder of the Timurid Empire), and the  Maternal Great x12 Grandson of Genghis Khan (As most of you'll know - Mongol Warlord, founder of the Mongol Empire)
- Babur actually lost all his titles in 1501. He went on to conquer Kabul (Capital of modern Afghanistan) three years later though, and allied with the Ottomans and Safavid Persians to invade the Delhi Sultanate (under the Lodi Dynasty at the time), after which he declared the new Empire
- The Rajputs under Rana Sanga invaded the new empire in the following year, with a 2:1 numeric advantage, only to get his ass handed to him at Khanwa. The Mughal capital was moved from Kabul to Agra (near Delhi, location of the Taj Mahal) afterwards.

- Babur's son - Humayan, was deposed for a while by one of his generals, Sher Shah Suri, and his son, Islam, between 1538 and 1555, as they established the Sur Empire in it's place. Humayan's exile in Safavid Persia actually helped strengthen diplomatic ties, and Persian influence within the empire when he restored it.

- His son, Emperor Akbar, reformed the legal and economic systems in order to reduce reliance on loot from conquests. That being said though, Akbar had everything north of Deccan under his posession by the end of his reign. Akbar strengthened relations with European colonists, and attempted to diefy himself in order to unify the disparate religious groups within the empire.

- His son, Jahangir, was a total crackhead with opiate issues, and revoked his father's religious reforms, leading to opposition from the Sikh community.

- His son, Shah Jahan, built the Taj Mahal to honour his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal - mother of future Emperor Aurangazeb. He also went on to conquer Deccan.

- His eldest, Dara Shikoh, became regent due to his father's illnesss, and attempted to mend relations between Muslims and Hindus, but was promptly deposed by Aurangazeb, who had support of the more fundamentalist muslim authorities.
- Aurangazeb executed his brother, and kept his brother imprisoned until his death. He went on to transform the empire into the most powerful economy on the planet, and attempted to convert citizens to Islam
- Aurangazeb's empire consisted of most of the subcontinent by the time of his death, but most of it was in open revolt due to his religious reforms. Whilst he is considered controversial as a result, it should be noted he personally employed more Hindus than any of his predecessors, and opposed bigotry against the Hindus and Shiite Muslims.

- The Emperors that followed Aurangazeb had to deal with constant interfighting, the rise of local Empires, like the Marathas.
- By the rule of Shah Alam II (1759-1806), the empire was in steep decline, and effectively a puppet state of Afghanistan
- Their protection transferred to the British East India Company, following the Second Anglo-Maratha War in 1805.
- The British continuously annexed territory until Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar rebelled in 1857, and was defeated and exiled to British Burma until his death.

- Twenty Years later, Queen Victoria of Great Britain took on the title Empress of India, formally ending the Mughal Empire. British monarchs held this title until 1947, when George VI dissolved it, becoming King of India instead until it's independence in 1950.

yes I looked all this up again whilst typing it, I only remembered the outline lol


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## Flamingo (Oct 9, 2021)

Hir said:


> maybe this will spring the staff to actually... you know, do something...


My apologies, I sleep from time to time. Not often, but occasionally.


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## Flamingo (Oct 9, 2021)

> Medieval - Pre WW2 History Thread​


Did all that drama happen before 1939?


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## Frank Gulotta (Oct 9, 2021)

Attaman said:


> View attachment 120419


I've got to assume this is another passive-aggressive post about me since nobody even mentioned the 1930s except me; but last time I checked WW2 started in 1939 and everything I've mentioned happened prior to that, which means it's literally and objectively pre-WW2

Just how bothered were you by the points I made that you feel the need to derail the thread with irrelevant memes?


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## Flamingo (Oct 9, 2021)




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## TyraWadman (Oct 9, 2021)

Frank Gulotta said:


> I've got to assume this is another passive-aggressive post about me since nobody even mentioned the 1930s except me; but last time I checked WW2 started in 1939 and everything I've mentioned happened prior to that, which means it's literally and objectively pre-WW2
> 
> Just how bothered were you by the points I made that you feel the need to derail the thread with irrelevant memes?


Pretty sure this was posted in response to the drama that kept bumping the thread.


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## Frank Gulotta (Oct 9, 2021)

Here's more pretty medieval music, ironically I've contributed more medieval/renaissance material to this thread than the person who insists that I'm talking about WW2 (who's by the way the only person here talking about WW2)




Pilgrim song, enjoy


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## Frank Gulotta (Oct 9, 2021)

TyraWadman said:


> Pretty sure this was posted in response to the drama that kept bumping the thread.


None of it talks about WW2 at all tho. If it's about the drama, then it's utterly off-topic bullshit; if it's about my post, then it's just regular bullshit


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## The_biscuits_532 (Oct 9, 2021)

Frank Gulotta said:


> I've got to assume this is another passive-aggressive post about me since nobody even mentioned the 1930s except me; but last time I checked WW2 started in 1939 and everything I've mentioned happened prior to that, which means it's literally and objectively pre-WW2
> 
> Just how bothered were you by the points I made that you feel the need to derail the thread with irrelevant memes?


Random note: I remember reading a while ago that the start date is taught differently in different nations

In Asia and the Pacific - either 19/9/1931 or 7/7/1937, the date Japan invaded Manchuria and the date of the Marco Polo Bridge incident respectively.

According to A J P Taylor - 11/12/1941. In his opinion, both the Second Sino-Japanese War and the German Conquests occurred in parallel until then, with America's entry post-Pearl Harbour into both tying them together as one war.

According to Antony Beevor - 11/5/1939, with the Japanese invasion of Soviet-backed Mongolia and the Battle of Khalkhin Gol

In Spain - 17/7/1936, the start of the Civil War, which had backing from both major factions in the coming World War.

In Africa - 3/10/1935, when Italy invaded Abyssinia/ Ethiopia.

(again yes I had to look this up again for certainty)


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## Frank Gulotta (Oct 9, 2021)

The_biscuits_532 said:


> Random note: I remember reading a while ago that the start date is taught differently in different nations
> 
> In Asia and the Pacific - either 19/9/1931 or 7/7/1937, the date Japan invaded Manchuria and the date of the Marco Polo Bridge incident respectively.
> 
> ...


There are also historians who argue that both world wars should count as one big 30 years war with times of relative calm in between, like the other 30 years war. So... yeah


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## pilgrimfromoblivion (Oct 9, 2021)

This dude's family tree probably goes in a straight line good grief


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## The_biscuits_532 (Oct 9, 2021)

Frank Gulotta said:


> There are also historians who argue that both world wars should count as one big 30 years war with times of relative calm in between, like the other 30 years war. So... yeah


Yeah the Hundred Years war was like that. In actuality: 
1) The Edwardian War (1337-1353, English Victory)
2) The Caroline War (1369-1389, French Victory)
3) The Lancastrian War (1415-1453, French Victory)

And hell, some have argued that the 18th century was a second Hundred Years war, due to:
1) The Nine Years' War (1688-1697, Treaty of Ryswick)
2) The War of Spanish Succession (1701-1697, Treaties of Utrecht, Rastatt and Baden)
3) The War of Austrian Succession (1742-1748, Prussian-British Victory)
4) Father Le Loutre's War (1749-1755, British Victory)
5) The Second Carnatic War (1749-1754, British Victory)
6) The Seven Years' War (1756-1763, Prussian-British Victory)
7) The Anglo-French War (1778-1783, Including the American Revolution, French Victory)
8) The French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802, French Victory)
9) The Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815, British-led Coalition Victory)


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## The_biscuits_532 (Oct 9, 2021)

pilgrimfromoblivion said:


> This dude's family tree probably goes in a straight line good grief


Oh shit Charles II of Spain right? Didn't he have one ball, that was tiny and black like a peppercorn or something?


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## pilgrimfromoblivion (Oct 9, 2021)

The_biscuits_532 said:


> Oh shit Charles II of Spain right? Didn't he have one ball, that was tiny and black like a peppercorn or something?


He only lived till about 35 if I can remember, and once he died they said he only had one shrivelled testicle that was black. He never had any kids, and a bunch of people were actually doing the ruling for him. Once he died, I think that's what started the war of the Spanish Sucession.


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## Rimna (Oct 9, 2021)

Since I'm a nerd, I would like to share a channel that is dedicated to stringed instruments, some of which fall in the era of Medieval - Pre-WW2:






From what I can tell, he really knows his stuff. Maybe also check out his video on the Baroque guitar:





The guitars were very different back then. I think they were gorgeous, and they sound beautiful.


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## Frank Gulotta (Oct 9, 2021)

Wouldn't be complete without Hildegard von Bingen, 11th century monastery music. Hypnotic


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## pilgrimfromoblivion (Oct 9, 2021)

Frank Gulotta said:


> Wouldn't be complete without Hildegard von Bingen, 11th century monastery music. Hypnotic







This her?


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## Fallowfox (Oct 10, 2021)

Some aspects of history people may not know.

-The start of the medieval period saw the decline of 'Manicheanism', a religion that was briefly the main rival to Christianity in Europe and which may have hugely influenced European Christianity. Named after the Jewish Christian Mani, who was from what is now Iran, the religion combined influenced from Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Buddhism- spreading as far west as Britain and as far east as China.


Spoiler











-The Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, conquered large parts of what is now France beginning in 719.
This means that there were Islamic armies marching into northern France before the generally accepted start of the Viking age- which is something I found surprising.








						Battle of Tours - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## pilgrimfromoblivion (Oct 10, 2021)

Erasmus died at age 69. BASED.


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## Yakamaru (Oct 10, 2021)

Fallowfox said:


> Some aspects of history people may not know.
> 
> -The start of the medieval period saw the decline of 'Manicheanism', a religion that was briefly the main rival to Christianity in Europe and which may have hugely influenced European Christianity. Named after the Jewish Christian Mani, who was from what is now Iran, the religion combined influenced from Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Buddhism- spreading as far west as Britain and as far east as China.
> 
> ...


*Deus Vult intensifies*


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## Wodenofthegays (Oct 10, 2021)

Fallowfox said:


> -The Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, conquered large parts of what is now France beginning in 719.
> This means that there were Islamic armies marching into northern France before the generally accepted start of the Viking age- which is something I found surprising.



Not just an Islamic empire, one of the largest, most diverse, and most important empires in history!

The Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates are unbelievably important to modern history. They didn't just change Arabia, they changed the whole damn world. Add a dash of Sublime Porte on top vis-à-vis the Ottoman Sultans and you've got the basis for a lot of modern popular culture worldwide from law to architecture.

For example, modern music in the Americas and Europe is almost entirely derived from Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman court culture and tools during the medieval and renaissance periods, and the influence this has alone on the modern world is almost unbelievable. They brought so much stuff that would become fundamental to our cultures today.

Purple Haze? That famous sound comes from Jimi Hendrix mastering an old Arabic instrument.
Ever dream of or see somebody walk down the aisle to a harp? They brought that one over too.
Superman's and the Avengers' themes? Just the modern American version of Turkish army music.

Speaking of, Turkish music is where popular music as an idea actually springs from. The Ottomans were marching around Europe doing what you do during the Renaissance when you see eastern Europe or the Balkans are in chaos, and the western and central Europeans absolutely loved the bands that marched with them even if they didn't love the armies.

People in the USA saw and loved marches so much from European composers and a little stint in Tripoli that they made them their whole identity for a good chunk of a century. We were so obsessed with them that we started army bands and university bands and primary school bands and formalized music education as a whole-life-affair. March and the big band and ragtime that came from them were pretty popular music, one might say.

And having a nation full of people that knew and loved instruments kind of resulted in the USA developing these Arabic, Turkish, and other near-east roots and spreading them across the whole world with a US twist.

I think its amazing in a small-world kind of way, and that's literally just one piece of the mountain of Arabic, Turkish, and general near-east influence on Europe.



Yakamaru said:


> *Deus Vult intensifies*



Spit it out in English, not Latin, and explain what god wills exactly.

Saying religious extremist shit in public is cringe, especially if its by a coward who's gonna say its a joke.


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## Nexus Cabler (Oct 10, 2021)

Before around 1600, a game of chess could be won by capturing all of your opponent’s pieces, leaving just the king, a style of play known as “annihilation”. In the Medieval period, most players considered it nobler to win by checkmate instead, so annihilation became a half-win, for a while until it was no longer practiced.








						Checkmate - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## Yakamaru (Oct 10, 2021)

Speaking of Medieval history.. This is a pretty good channel for watching Medieval weapons being made using modern tools.






Katanas, claymores, tridents.. This guy makes all kinds of cool stuff from the Middle Ages. 

Then there's Tod's Workshop dealing with Medieval weapons and testing them with their modern counterparts.


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## pilgrimfromoblivion (Oct 10, 2021)

Wodenofthegays said:


> Spit it out in English, not Latin, and explain what god wills exactly.
> 
> Saying religious extremist shit in public is cringe, especially if its by a coward who's gonna say its a joke.


Jesus Christ, relax. I get that the meme was overused and a bit cringe at this point, but chill the fuck out


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## Frank Gulotta (Oct 10, 2021)

pilgrimfromoblivion said:


> Jesus Christ, relax. I get that the meme was overused and a bit cringe at this point, but chill the fuck out


Not to mention ironic, following all this celebration of muslim imperialism


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## Attaman (Oct 10, 2021)

Since I'm:
1) About to have dinner with family;
2) Mentioned the blog recently as _well_ as the subject matter of WWI in Global History;
and
3) "Terrible people that predate WWII";
all came up at once, have ACOUP's article on Luigi Cadorna (with honorable mention of a couple other "Christ how horrifying" Generals from the same approximate era).


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## KimberVaile (Oct 10, 2021)

Guys, guys. Let's relax. I don't want the thread to tank again.

Anyways. Alot of new subjects to brush up, I'd like to thank everybody for their recent contributions. They've been quiet interesting for me to look into further thus far.


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## Nexus Cabler (Oct 10, 2021)

I found there is a lot of art of Medieval knights fighting snails

















It could equally be a social metaphor, as it could be just medieval humor.

Either way, these are going in my favorites folder.


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## KimberVaile (Oct 10, 2021)

A historical debate I often see brought up is the Longbow vs Musket Debate. Being that I am a geek, I always found the debate quite interesting and have some of my own takes on it.

The longbow was generally considered an effective weapon in the middle ages for some time, some of the most famously effective uses of the bow included the Battle of Crecy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415. Both battles had the English Longbows serving a decisive role in defeating the French army.

The draw weight of the longbows ranged from 90-180 lb. The draw weight of the bow largely depended on the physical prowess of the person behind the bow. Contrary to popular culture portrayals you needed to be in excellent physical shape to use a warbow with any sort of appreciable punch to it. It is known that becoming proficient in the longbow was a years long process. To train somebody to be accurate with a longbow was a years long process. The training was such an issue in fact, that it become law under Henry the 8th required that you practice archery once a week, and that bows be made affordable for common folk. Heck, the game of cricket was even banned because it interfered with archery practice!

Many historians debate why the Musket replaced the Longbow, though it's more accurate to say it simply replaced the crossbow's role by exceeding it. As the arquebus, then later musket, existed alongside the longbow for some time before it was phased out.

Commonly many who are perplexed by why the longbow fell out of favor in favor of the musket will remark that a longbow has at least four times the firing rate of the musket, and bring up that, the longbow was more than capable of matching the crossbow in raw power and range. So, if the musket simply took the role of the crossbow, why did it eventually supplant the Longbow?

A couple of factors. One of the most commonly cited factors, is that the amount of training required to use a musket is much less demanding. A few weeks and you're a fairly decent shot. So, you could essentially field a much larger and competent force in less time. However, muskets were complex pieces of equipment, so for the benefit of a less intensive training time, the up front cost for something as complex as a musket quickly eclipsed the cost of something like a longbow which, was in fact very cheap to make in comparison.

What people often overlook though, is that 1. Longbows were not standardized, the draw weight of a longbow depended on the physical training and conditioning of the person, different people, had different limits on what draw weight was tolerable for them.
Muskets comparably, were standardized, and more importantly, the act of firing your musket was not so physically exhausting. Pulling back a 180 lb war bow repeatedly will tire you out quite quickly, it's hardly a wonder why it took so long to train people to use warbows with such high draw weight.
Standardization was important with muskets, because eventually bayonets were added to the muskets.

It might seem like a minor point, but the addition of bayonets is a huge advantage, your ranged weapon as it were, could also function as a spear. Compare this to a longbow, you'd have to cumbersomely put away your bow and pull out a sword from your sheath. Which, as a weapon, a sword is much less effective than a spear. This is why charges were so common with musket weapons in fact. A musket easily can double as an effective melee weapon in a pinch.

Another important factor here, is that muskets were far more lethal than arrows. Arrows don't penetrate as deeply, it could often require multiple arrows to down somebody, especially if the enemy has a shield or good armor. Even with a high draw weight, you may be given some trouble. A musket, comparatively are much more lethal. A single shot is usually enough to keep somebody down or put them out of the fight. They were essentially mini cannons, after all. They also had an easier time penetrating armor, though, armor was still effective at stopping quite a few shots regardless of the weapon.

It's also worth considering, that being able to preload a shot is something a bow has a harder time of doing, this combined with how much easier it is to stage an ambush in the woods with a musket, make these weapons better for guerrilla attacks. Firing a 180 lb warbow behind cover is not very feasible, but firing a musket behind cover is quite feasible!

Anywho, I rambled about crap that people don't care about for long enough. Thanks for reading if you did!


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## Attaman (Oct 10, 2021)

I think two reasons a lot of people fail to understand why gunpowder surpassed longbows and crossbows are that:
1) The falloff in terms of penetration against armor increases _significantly_ faster with the latter two than the former-most.
2) A comparison between 'maximum' ranges is better looked at in regards to 'effective' ranges.

Also, for clarification: To some degree, muskets (particularly early on) were not 'standardized' in regards to firing. You could get wildly different quality powder, as well as different amounts packed in the weapon (though decent training could at least reduce the latter). Otherwise fairly spot on there.

Back to 1 and 2, though...

Firearms retained decent armor penetration capabilities, depending on model, era, and so-on, from anywhere around 50m to 100m. Larger Tercio firearms prove quite lethal upward of 200m, but those things had stands for a reason and many people may want to discount them (and so I shall for this discussion). Looking at a 50m-100m sweet spot, may sound rather paltry when put in comparison to the English Longbow (in some cases as little as 1/7th the number floated around!)... but the longbow has two things working against it. 

First, firing at the same target at 100m the longbow is probably losing about 10% of its energy. Which... okay, yeah. That doesn't sound like a lot. Even without taking into account the relative difference in projectile energy, a 10% loss in your shot's energy while still in the _lower bounds_ of the sweet spot of your optimal range while at the _edge_ of another weapon's effective maximum range seems a no-brainer. Particularly if you just kept relocating your archers to stay outside the effective range of the musketeers. Gradually, slowly, you'll whittle them down. Right?

But there's a second problem associated with weapon penetration. ...On top the third problem of "Drawing a longbow is fucking tiring", but Kimber already touched on that. 

Specifically: You know how a musket is probably going to be make a clean, direct strike? As a basic principle of "Projectile shoot straight forward and hit's what's in its path"? Arrows are descending. Which almost always means they're going to be at an angle. Now, if anyone's familiar with the principles of tank (or other armored vehicle design), what is the absolute _worst_ direction from which you can strike armor at? An angle. Direct fire often features _less_ of an angle (significantly so!), but still has a noticeable one in comparison to the likes of crossbows and firearms.

Thus, while the English Longbow had an effective range against _unarmored_ targets upward of 350m, its effectiveness against _armored_ targets was _significantly_ reduced. An effective range that was reduced even further as: Do know what the improvements to metallurgy that allowed for the proliferation of firearms _also_ allowed? Cheap(er), more sophisticated metal armour.

To some degree, crossbows were better suited than longbows to counteract both these factors due to being more directly aimed _and_ having an on-paper greater penetration capacity _and_ requiring less training than a good longbow user. But a big "in practice" hang-up there is that a good crossbow (probably steel, if trying to get in a slugging match with a firearm) is going to still be expensive, and even moreso if you're intending for it to be used in field work versus exclusively for sieges. 

And if you're going for an expensive piece of equipment that requires maintenance, has good armor penetration capabilities at a range, and requires comparatively little training... firearms are _right there_.

Which neatly ties into Point 2, that once you accounted for all the above a firearm had a surprisingly good 'effective' range. Particularly when you take into account the morale shock factor of the deafening sound of an entire line of muskets going off, a line (maybe even two) of people dropping, and that well-trained formations were quite proficient at keeping at loosing one wall of fire after another (indeed: Often times the sheer amount of smoke being produced by such tactics were what forced a slow in the firing).


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## Fallowfox (Oct 11, 2021)

Another aspect of the medieval world that is often not appreciated is the eastward expansion of Scandinavian influence during the Viking age. 
Norse / Varangian migrants, known as the 'Rus', penetrated deep into what's now western Russia's rivers, reaching as far as the Black Sea, Byzantine Empire and what is now Iraq. Trade networks reached so far that Buddhist ornaments from the Indian subcontinent have been found in the central Baltic. 








						Helgö - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




Another aspect of Norse history that is often not very emphasised was the scale of their slave trading. Procurement of slaves in Ireland operated at a scale that was in some ways comparable to the Atlantic slave trade. Slaves taken in Ireland were sold as far east as the Baltic and what is now Russia.


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## Fallowfox (Oct 12, 2021)

The richest man who ever likely lived was Mansa Musa, emperor of Mali.
Fourteenth century Mali was probably the world's largest producer of gold at the time, supplying most of North Africa and Europe. 

Mansa Musa's famous travels and predilection for excessive spending on massive building projects, contributed to the rise of the famous city of Timbuktu.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Oct 12, 2021)

Fallowfox said:


> The richest man who ever likely lived was Mansa Musa, emperor of Mali.
> Fourteenth century Mali was probably the world's largest producer of gold at the time, supplying most of North Africa and Europe.
> 
> Mansa Musa's famous travels and predilection for excessive spending on massive building projects, contributed to the rise of the famous city of Timbuktu.


From what I remember, whilst on Hajj he gave away so much money he crashed the economies of Egypt and several other north African nations.


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## Nexus Cabler (Oct 12, 2021)

Something interesting I've found was the trans-Saharan slave trade, ranging from the 16th to 19th century. It was a staple to the sustainability and rise of the Ottoman empire. While official figures on the exact number of slaves captured from Africa in the Trans Sahara trade are contested, most scholars put the estimate at about nine million. Unsurprisingly do to inhumane conditions, as well as castration of young male slaves over 50% of those taken from Africa died before arriving. They also acquired slaves from India, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, and as far as Iceland, due to pirating.

This was not just for labor performing slaves, but also sexual, as women were a huge demand in the Ottaman market during the time.
Thankfully these practices declined around 1970 due to pressures from Britain and America, but it should be noted that slavery was a keystone to the Ottoman empires technological and economic accomplishments, much many other civilizations throughout history.

The takeaway being that ironically the romanticized Ottoman's influence to the worlds cultures that Westerners, as some say, allegedly are oblivious to was primarily possible from the benefits provided by the enslavement of these very Westerners and much of the world themselves.


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## pilgrimfromoblivion (Oct 12, 2021)

Nexus Cabler said:


> Something interesting I've found was the trans-Saharan slave trade, ranging from the 16th to 19th century. It was a staple to the sustainability and rise of the Ottoman empire. While official figures on the exact number of slaves captured from Africa in the Trans Sahara trade are contested, most scholars put the estimate at about nine million. Unsurprisingly do to inhumane conditions, as well as castration of young male slaves over 50% of those taken from Africa died before arriving.
> 
> They also acquired slaves from India, Netherlands, Italy, and as far as Iceland, due to pirating.
> 
> ...


this was a nice piece of info. i only ever knew the ottoman empire  as the bad guys in battlefield 1.


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## Frank Gulotta (Oct 13, 2021)

Basrelief from mount Saint Michel. Representations of Hell always provide the best creative drive for body horror

ALso daily reminder that medieval music is delightful


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## Fallowfox (Oct 13, 2021)

Nexus Cabler said:


> Something interesting I've found was the trans-Saharan slave trade, ranging from the 16th to 19th century. It was a staple to the sustainability and rise of the Ottoman empire. While official figures on the exact number of slaves captured from Africa in the Trans Sahara trade are contested, most scholars put the estimate at about nine million. Unsurprisingly do to inhumane conditions, as well as castration of young male slaves over 50% of those taken from Africa died before arriving. They also acquired slaves from India, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, and as far as Iceland, due to pirating.
> 
> This was not just for labor performing slaves, but also sexual, as women were a huge demand in the Ottaman market during the time.
> Thankfully these practices declined around 1970 due to pressures from Britain and America, but it should be noted that slavery was a keystone to the Ottoman empires technological and economic accomplishments, much many other civilizations throughout history.
> ...



I wonder whether there's any genetic signal of NW Europeans or sub-saharan Africans in the eastern Mediterranean because of the Barbary slave trade?
I think there's a signal of Turkish and middle-eastern ancestry in south-east Europe, which corresponds with the Ottoman occupation, but I haven't read much about it.


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## Frank Gulotta (Oct 17, 2021)

Speaking of slavery, it's likely the main reason why Pakistan and Bangladesh even exist. When Tamerlane invaded India, he enslaved millions of Hindus (killing hundreds thousands more), and converting to islam was the only way for these people to escape slavery. Pakistan and Bangladesh are populated by their descendants. Eerie when you think about it


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## The_biscuits_532 (Oct 17, 2021)

Frank Gulotta said:


> Speaking of slavery, it's likely the main reason why Pakistan and Bangladesh even exist. When Tamerlane invaded India, he enslaved millions of Hindus (killing hundreds thousands more), and converting to islam was the only way for these people to escape slavery. Pakistan and Bangladesh are populated by their descendants. Eerie when you think about it


I don't doubt his descendants - the Mughals, weren't also responsible. As I noted earlier, the emperors from Aurangazeb onwards were somewhat harsher on the native Hindus, Jains and Sikhs, leading to the eventual collapse of the empire.


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## Fallowfox (Oct 17, 2021)

Frank Gulotta said:


> Speaking of slavery, it's likely the main reason why Pakistan and Bangladesh even exist. When Tamerlane invaded India, he enslaved millions of Hindus (killing hundreds thousands more), and converting to islam was the only way for these people to escape slavery. Pakistan and Bangladesh are populated by their descendants. Eerie when you think about it



You've made a mistake. 

When Timur Gurkani/ 'Tamerlane' invaded India, it was already part of an Islamic sultanate.
This sultanate had existed for over 100 years before Timur was born, and had already pursued a policy of Islamic conversion.









						Timur - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				











						Delhi Sultanate - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




So I don't think Timur Gurkani can fully be given credit for the Islamisation of the Indian subcontinent. It's certainly true that Timur massacred hundreds of thousands of people in India, but I can't find any evidence that he took millions of slaves and converted them. 
The slaves he took were mostly transported _out_ of the Indian subcontinent, back to Samarkand in central Asia.


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## Wodenofthegays (Oct 17, 2021)

Frank Gulotta said:


> Speaking of slavery, it's likely the main reason why Pakistan and Bangladesh even exist. When Tamerlane invaded India, he enslaved millions of Hindus (killing hundreds thousands more), and converting to islam was the only way for these people to escape slavery. Pakistan and Bangladesh are populated by their descendants. Eerie when you think about it



I can't find any evidence for that narrative of conversion besides some disgusting Hindutva websites trying to compare Muslims in India to the Nazis perpetrating the Holocaust.

Its right-wing junk-bin Islamophobia and its a baseless claim.

As @Fallowfox pointed out, conversion of that area had already been started and was well underway, and Timur did enslave people - everywhere that he conquered, not just India.


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## Ennui Elemental (Oct 17, 2021)

Wodenofthegays said:


> I can't find any evidence for that narrative of conversion besides some disgusting Hindutva websites trying to compare Muslims in India to the Nazis perpetrating the Holocaust.
> 
> Its right-wing junk-bin Islamophobia and its a baseless claim.
> 
> As @Fallowfox pointed out, conversion of that area had already been started and was well underway, and Timur did enslave people - everywhere that he conquered, not just India.


Let's just get this right the fuck out of the way: if you use the word "Islamophobia" to handwave any notion that Islam does not have nor ever has had completely clean hands and a spotless record your opinion is shit and should be flushed.  Muslims can absolutely be amazing people but the religion is and always has been practiced to some extent as one of conquest and subjugation, it was and still is permissive of and even encourages slavery.  The Ahmadiyya are the only sect I would EVER grant any manner of moral high ground and they are actively persecuted by both other Muslims and to some extent by dumb assholes who hate "dirty Ay-rabs".  I feel for them and despise the hands they have been dealt but can do little of worth beyond refusing to condone Wahhabists and refusing to toss history down the fucking memory hole just so people like you can champion a brutal, atavistic Bronze Age conquest religion.  Back then they were not out of place in the world, but now they need to grow the fuck up, like all the other fucking Abrahamics need to do and continue doing.

Understand, the more you defend Wahhabists the less likely the religion as a whole will ever outgrow its bad habits, including honor culture, persecution of LGBT, rank misogyny on a level western feminists are terrified of even TOUCHING UPON in a worthwhile fashion, and slavery which hangs on in modern day in Muslim countries and about nowhere fucking else.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Oct 17, 2021)

Thought I'd have a look. The first Islamic nations to rule over Pakistan were the Umayyads (661-750) and the Saffarids (861-1003)

From what I can tell, only small areas came under Umayyad rule, but most of Pakistan came under Saffarid rule


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## KimberVaile (Oct 17, 2021)

It is disheartening that this thread causes so much friction.


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## Ennui Elemental (Oct 17, 2021)

KimberVaile said:


> It is disheartening this thread causes so much friction.


History is full of ugly shit that people keep forgetting or excusing and then repeating.  It's a contentious subject even by my milquetoast college history professor's admission, and not in the least because people keep trying to do the aforementioned excuse/forget/deny/rewrite.  A wise man learns from mistakes others make, and a wise historian does not bury the past to serve a modern purpose.
E: I'll add the Chinese Uighurs and the Rohingya to the list of unfairly persecuted Muslim demographics too, just to be thorough.  Bosnians too.
The Bosnians tie into the thread nicely actually, seeing as one of the flimsy "justifications" for recent atrocity visited upon them is the result of a grudge/revenge cycle against the Ottomans from way back, because the Balkans have a long unhappy history.


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## Attaman (Oct 18, 2021)

Oh yeah, since I realize now that they haven't been mentioned in here prior to now: The Extra Credit channel on Youtube, while not exactly _scholarly_ (most of their series' are officially followed up by at least one fact-check video that can go on for 10+ minutes, and even disregarding much of the information is condensed and selective for Edutainment purposes), is usually both relatively entertaining _and_ a good starting point to see if a particular subject, era, or so-on might catch your interest. They also cover a wide variety of topics, from more typical things like "Specific battles / wars" to "Relatively niche historic leaders, movements, (scientific / philosophical) revolutions, etcetera".

There is a moderately noticeable difference between older and newer videos that might lead to somebody who enjoys one set disliking the other (predominantly due to changes in staff and production), but either way it's - again - typically a good spot to at least pick at the surface of some subject or another. 

I'm not suggesting any specific videos from them as, to reiterate yet again for emphasis: Some people may like one era's presentation more than the other, and they tend to go through a wide variety of topics in an edutainment fashion so it's kind of moot to suggest one video when even the longest series' tend to be less than an hour _and_ have little in the way of follow-up (at least any time that or the next year).


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## Minerva_Minx (Oct 18, 2021)

Ooh, didn't know we had history threads.  Have to get a friend to be furry or accept furry for his Roman and my Etruscan. Another thread.
 I would tend to agree on the Hinduvta rewrite, which is current history rewrite to the Marxist rewrite.  Marxism held Islam subjugated and converted Hinxu to Islam which would be a distortion o  13th century turn rulership of the area.  Ironically, I can't remember the two rulers names who were there, but I think they targeted Buddhivistas more than Hindus as the caste system was either beginning or in place.
Marxism, anyway, was used to change taxation to slavery.  Hinduvta sees Marxism as a rewrite, but used the notion for Islamaphobic purposes.  Really hard to get all the info in a short paragraph.
Culture and history are really interesting to experience.  Might need a burqa for next outing...


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## Fallowfox (Oct 18, 2021)

'Fucking hostile' appears to be_ living up to his name_. I'm not going to take his political speech seriously, because I think we're all more grown up than that.

A point of interest though: Hinduism and Judaism both have roots that extend into the Bronze age, something like over 3000 years ago. Islam is a fairly recent religion though; it has its origins in the early middle-ages.



Wodenofthegays said:


> I can't find any evidence for that narrative of conversion besides some disgusting Hindutva websites trying to compare Muslims in India to the Nazis perpetrating the Holocaust.
> 
> Its right-wing junk-bin Islamophobia and its a baseless claim.
> 
> As @Fallowfox pointed out, conversion of that area had already been started and was well underway, and Timur did enslave people - everywhere that he conquered, not just India.



The mythology Frank posted also made me suspect the source was an edited Hindutva 'simplification' of history in which all of the various central-Asian influences in the subcontinents' history were rolled into a single man. It really gave me the impression that it is intended to persuade the reader that religious variety in India is the result of a historical indignity, and that religious difference is the root cause of the suffering caused by partition.

The British Empire's role is very much the Elephant in the Indian subcontinent in this discussion, lol.


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## Minerva_Minx (Oct 18, 2021)

The_biscuits_532 said:


> Thought I'd have a look. The first Islamic nations to rule over Pakistan were the Umayyads (661-750) and the Saffarids (861-1003)
> 
> From what I can tell, only small areas came under Umayyad rule, but most of Pakistan came under Saffarid rule


Ok, crazy, but this was most likely due to the Islamic Age of Enlightement which lasted until the 12th-13th century.  They actually were more adventurous and open during this scientific movement -to a point - likely due to impact of the Crusades and need for soldiers.  I could see the Muslim transformation of Pakistan and some of India due to coffee trade routes and ports.


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## Ennui Elemental (Oct 18, 2021)

Minerva_Minx said:


> Ok, crazy, but this was most likely due to the Islamic Age of Enlightement which lasted until the 12th-13th century.  They actually were more adventurous and open during this scientific movement -to a point - likely due to impact of the Crusades and need for soldiers.  I could see the Muslim transformation of Pakistan and some of India due to coffee trade routes and ports.


After the first one shit went completely off the fucking rails.  I understand the whole "fuck those Seljuks for killing pilgrims" to some extent but someone should have dialed it the fuck down well before that Children's Crusade happened.

Wars predicated on religion, not even once.


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## Nexus Cabler (Oct 18, 2021)

A little trivia about castles

The construction and maintenance of a medieval castle would cost around 40 percent of the annual income of a king.

While the wooden structures were cheap, swift and easy-to-build, the stone structures involved having to pay for stonemasons, expensive stone, transportation, mining and a larger construction force.

Add that to the interior decoration of paintings, ornaments, and furniture, and you would be looking at one of the most prominent status symbols of luxury during that time.





(Ross Castle, Ireland)


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## Minerva_Minx (Oct 18, 2021)

F***ing Hostile said:


> After the first one shit went completely off the fucking rails.  I understand the whole "fuck those Seljuks for killing pilgrims" to some extent but someone should have dialed it the fuck down well before that Children's Crusade happened.
> 
> Wars predicated on religion, not even once.



1095 was the First Crusade, which signaled the beginning of the End of Islamic Enlightenment and the rise of Christian Theocracy and culminating in the Western Schism.  So not sure how the Asian adventurism of Islam in the 8th to 10th century is totally connected with Al-Sirah Salubb and the Children's Crusade of 1212, or dissolution of the Seljuk empire in 1194.  Or, since the Seljuk empire was in current Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Syria what it's immediate impact was.  Can you elaborate?  I would also be interested in you take on ibn Abdullah's 6th-7th century conquest and confirmation of Judaic and early Christian beliefs.


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## Attaman (Oct 18, 2021)

I mean, shit went completely off the rails during the First Crusade. Hell, it went off the rails _before_: Just take a look at what happened when Peter the Hermit tried marching his People's Crusade to the Middle East. It's almost comical how many Christians (and how much Christian territory) was plundered, razed, and otherwise fucked up before even leaving Europe... by a Christian army.



Nexus Cabler said:


> A little trivia about castles
> 
> The construction and maintenance of a medieval castle would cost around 40 percent of the annual income of a king.
> 
> ...


An interesting thing to note is that what most people think of when they hear "castle" is not what the majority of historic castles even resembled. In part because what we consider a castle _today_, the fact that wooden structures have held up significantly less well over the millennia than stone ones, and that what is a "Castle" is fairly arbitrary and distinct category compared to what was considered a castle _back then_.

Of course, that's also because a castle's primary role required... a bit less than what a lot of people think they did. At least during the Middle Ages. A force of, like, a score light to medium cavalry (not even necessarily permanently stationed there: _Capable_ of being housed there!) was a Big Fucking Deal. Both because of what the access to horses fit for combat inferred, and the fact that it doesn't take much to _really_ fuck up attempts to scavenge / a logistical train.

Hell, even taking out the cavalry, again you did _not_ need much. Logistics cause a lot of history to make a ton more sense, but also look a bit more boring to the average casual historian.


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## Minerva_Minx (Oct 18, 2021)

Attaman said:


> I mean, shit went completely off the rails during the First Crusade. Hell, it went off the rails _before_: Just take a look at what happened when Peter the Hermit tried marching his People's Crusade to the Middle East. It's almost comical how many Christians (and how much Christian territory) was plundered, razed, and otherwise fucked up before even leaving Europe... by a Christian army.
> 
> 
> An interesting thing to note is that what most people think of when they hear "castle" is not what the majority of historic castles even resembled. In part because what we consider a castle _today_, the fact that wooden structures have held up significantly less well over the millennia than stone ones, and that what is a "Castle" is fairly arbitrary and distinct category compared to what was considered a castle _back then_.
> ...


Oh hell, suicide rate alone nearly matched disease and not even to Byzantium!


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## Ennui Elemental (Oct 18, 2021)

Minerva_Minx said:


> 1095 was the First Crusade, which signaled the beginning of the End of Islamic Enlightenment and the rise of Christian Theocracy and culminating in the Western Schism.  So not sure how the Asian adventurism of Islam in the 8th to 10th century is totally connected with Al-Sirah Salubb and the Children's Crusade of 1212, or dissolution of the Seljuk empire in 1194.  Or, since the Seljuk empire was in current Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Syria what it's immediate impact was.  Can you elaborate?  I would also be interested in you take on ibn Abdullah's 6th-7th century conquest and confirmation of Judaic and early Christian beliefs.


I remember the slayings of pilgrim caravans into the holy land being attributed to Seljuk Turk marauders.  Whether I'm misremembering a literal decades-old history lesson or not I'm not sure anymore.

Since Islam wasn't really a thing before 622 afaik and my professor went over the barest details of how that went down, the name ibn Abdullah is not doing more than ringing a faint bell.  Most of the Crusades are only tied together strongly by the Catholic Church needing to find some place to dump second and third sons into early graves, and the Children's Crusade was just the crazy going up another notch because why the fuck not.


Fallowfox said:


> 'Fucking hostile' appears to be_ living up to his name_. I'm not going to take his political speech seriously, because I think we're all more grown up than that.


Mm yes you throw that shade you throw it hard


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## Minerva_Minx (Oct 18, 2021)

F***ing Hostile said:


> I remember the slayings of pilgrim caravans into the holy land being attributed to Seljuk Turk marauders.  Whether I'm misremembering a literal decades-old history lesson or not I'm not sure anymore.
> 
> Since Islam wasn't really a thing before 622 afaik and my professor went over the barest details of how that went down, the name ibn Abdullah is not doing more than ringing a faint bell.  Most of the Crusades are only tied together strongly by the Catholic Church needing to find some place to dump second and third sons into early graves, and the Children's Crusade was just the crazy going up another notch because why the fuck not.
> 
> Mm yes you throw that shade you throw it hard


The Seljuk Turks captured Jerusalem in the 1070s and it created the First Crusade.  Essentially, this play destroyed the Byzantine and Seljuk Empires and set in motion the political and financial power of the Catholic Church, which was skeptical of Islam (Moors) and saw them as a rising competitor as Muhammed ibn Adullah's successors elevated him to Messiah over Christ, and the Rashidun Caliphate's riches.  Jerusalem was set as the objective due to its importance to Christianity via Catholicism.  it also was the start of centralizing power in the Church.  The ramifications of these actions persist even today.

I can see the Seljuk taking of Jerusalem being a catalyst for the Sunni-Shia split as the Seljuk, by their Sunni leanings, tolerated the Nazali and their more Shi'a tendencies,  but not affording same statusand vice versa.  The Nazali were more tolerant of the Judaic culture which made them more successful.  Again, though, the Seljuk Empire was deposed almost 3 decades before the first Crusaders arrived.

As for Islam not being a thing in 622, the Rashidan Caliphate was created in 632 under Abu Bakr, after Muhammed ibn Abdullah's death after much of the conquest and conversion of the Middle East.  So religion did play a HUGE part in the conflicts of the following centuries and today.

The Children's Crusade of 1212 never made it out of Europe and was also not Church santioned.  Disease, malnutrition, suicide and poor morale plagued this disaster/debacle.  They were also pueri, which could be attributed as either child or lowest class of peasant or farmer.  So calling it Children's Crusade is more akin to us calling them "Walking Dead" in a military sense.  Their notoriety would establish cause for the fifth Crusade about 6 or 7 years later.

As for castles, the castle at Kizkalesi (Castle by the Sea in Mercin) in Turkey was built after the First Crusade and did see action from time to time.  It would have been used as a port and outpost, protected by the surrounding waters. Yilan Kale (Snake Castle) near Adana, Turkey was similarly built around this time and was used to monitor the nearby riverway, most likely.  Both have dramatic and stunning views of the local area and were clearly useful, as well as modified multiple times due to damage and rebuilds.


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## Fallowfox (Oct 19, 2021)

Because I want to post some actual content. 

The Sutton hoo Anglo-saxon ship burial in eastern England dates to a the 6th or 7th century, a period that used to be thought of as a 'dark age' in western Europe. 

The burial contains fine treasures that include

-Garnet gemstones from the Indian subcontinent
-Textile from Syria
-Silver from Byzantium 
-Treasures decorated in Middle-Eastern or East-African motifs, and inscribed in Greek. 
-Silver spoons with cruciform decorations

The collection of fine grave goods almost exactly reproduces legends of a King's burial from the epic poem Beowulf, that had previously been assumed to be fanciful exaggeration. 

This was 'the' most significant archaeological find in the history of England, and revolutionised the way this period of history is viewed. 



F***ing Hostile said:


> Mm yes you throw that shade you throw it hard



Hostile, this is a thread about history- not about encouraging people to regard cultural or religious groups as brutal or uncivilised people with ignoble pasts.

You posted earlier that you disapprove of people rewriting history and that 'a wise historian does not bury the past to serve a modern purpose', so you can surely support the fact that I noticed the error Frank posted, and support Woden for identifying that it is a modern fabrication designed to serve the purpose of promoting religious conflict.
So you can see that it's nonsense to accuse Woden of championing a 'brutal atavistic Bronze-age[sic] conquest religion', because these facts champion _nobody's_ religion. They are neutral.

If I and Woden _had_ said nothing, then people could have ended up believing a version of history in which the past was buried to serve a sinister modern purpose.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Oct 19, 2021)

The Tunguska Incident

In the early hours of June 30th, 1908, Evenki tribesmen and Russian settlers witnessed a blinding blue light just to the northwest of Lake Baikal, following which was a rapidly-expanding cloud, and a pillar of fire shooting into the sky.

 Ten minutes later, a shockwave knocked people over for miles, and shattered windows. It was detected as far away as the United States, and modern day Indonesia. 

In the nights following, there was light in the skies above Eurasia.

In the words of a Mr Semenov:


> At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara Trading Post [approximately 65 kilometres (40 mi) south of the explosion], facing north. […] I suddenly saw that directly to the north, over Onkoul's Tunguska Road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest [as Semenov showed, about 50 degrees up—expedition note]. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few metres. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the Earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn, a part of the iron lock snapped.


And a local Tribesmen, Chuchan:


> We had a hut by the river with my brother Chekaren. We were sleeping. Suddenly we both woke up at the same time. Somebody shoved us. We heard whistling and felt strong wind. Chekaren said 'Can you hear all those birds flying overhead?' We were both in the hut, couldn't see what was going on outside. Suddenly, I got shoved again, this time so hard I fell into the fire. I got scared. Chekaren got scared too. We started crying out for father, mother, brother, but no one answered. There was noise beyond the hut, we could hear trees falling down. Chekaren and I got out of our sleeping bags and wanted to run out, but then the thunder struck. This was the first thunder. The Earth began to move and rock, the wind hit our hut and knocked it over. My body was pushed down by sticks, but my head was in the clear. Then I saw a wonder: trees were falling, the branches were on fire, it became mighty bright, how can I say this, as if there was a second sun, my eyes were hurting, I even closed them. It was like what the Russians call lightning. And immediately there was a loud thunderclap. This was the second thunder. The morning was sunny, there were no clouds, our Sun was shining brightly as usual, and suddenly there came a second one!
> 
> Chekaren and I had some difficulty getting out from under the remains of our hut. Then we saw that above, but in a different place, there was another flash, and loud thunder came. This was the third thunder strike. Wind came again, knocked us off our feet, struck the fallen trees.
> 
> ...


Following WW1 and the Russian Civil War, investigations were held as to the cause. An expedition led by a Mr Kulik found one probable cause:

A meteor impact. The largest in recorded history - this is still true today. 

He returned six years later to search for the crater, with the aid of local tribesmen. They didn't find it - but instead an 8km wide zone deep in the forests, where trees had been stripped of their branches. As they approached the centre, they found the trees knocked radially from the centre. 

Later research in the 60s determined the zone of destruction was actually shaped more like a butterfly, and occupied 2,150 km2. 

Later on, it was discovered the ground was littered with silicate spheres, and iridium similar to that found at the KPG Boundary level, and it was determined to have been an airburst impact of around 30 megatons - somewhat less powerful than the Tsar Bomba, but twice as explosive as Castle Bravo, and 2000 times stronger than Hiroshima's Little Boy. 

It's thought to have killed three people. If it'd had landed somewhere more populous, the 20th century would've been wildly different. Imagine WW1, for instance, if Berlin just got deleted off the map by a wayward chunk of space debris.


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## Yastreb (Oct 20, 2021)

The_biscuits_532 said:


> The Tunguska Incident
> 
> In the early hours of June 30th, 1908, Evenki tribesmen and Russian settlers witnessed a blinding blue light just to the northwest of Lake Baikal, following which was a rapidly-expanding cloud, and a pillar of fire shooting into the sky.
> 
> ...


If I remember correctly those Evenki tribesmen were 15 kilometers from the hypocenter. With that kind of radius of destruction there could have been maybe millions of casualities if it had happened over some city in China or India. It's a good thing most of the Earth was (and still is) so sparsely populated.

The bright nights are an interesting thing. Apparently in Finland it became so bright that some people thought it was the end times and took shelter in cellars and saunas, or so I have heard from old people who heard the story from their own grandparents.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Oct 20, 2021)

Yastreb said:


> If I remember correctly those Evenki tribesmen were 15 kilometers from the hypocenter. With that kind of radius of destruction there could have been maybe millions of casualities if it had happened over some city in China or India. It's a good thing most of the Earth was (and still is) so sparsely populated.
> 
> The bright nights are an interesting thing. Apparently in Finland it became so bright that some people thought it was the end times and took shelter in cellars and saunas, or so I have heard from old people who heard the story from their own grandparents.


There was actually a similar incident a few years ago, which some of you may remember. This time the meteor was only half the size, but above the somewhat more populated Chelyabinsk. Fortunately there weren't any casualties, but there was nearly 2000 injuries.


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## Ennui Elemental (Oct 20, 2021)

Does Russia actually have a higher incidence of meteorite strikes and bolides or do they just happen to get the more memorable events?


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## ben909 (Oct 20, 2021)

F***ing Hostile said:


> Does Russia actually have a higher incidence of meteorite strikes and bolides or do they just happen to get the more memorable events?


lot of land, bigger target


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## Ennui Elemental (Oct 20, 2021)

ben909 said:


> lot of land, bigger target


That occurred to me, though do they actually have a higher incidence with that taken into account compared to the rest of the Earth?


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## Minerva_Minx (Oct 20, 2021)

About ~3500-4000 years ago, a lower airburst destroyed several village during the Bronze Age in the Middle East.  The impact of space debris on civilization is pretty awesome.



F***ing Hostile said:


> Does Russia actually have a higher incidence of meteorite strikes and bolides or do they just happen to get the more memorable events?


Siberia is a pretty big landmass.  Australia and the US used to take pretty good impacts at one point pre-Ice Age.  Think South Africa was number 2 size.

Pacific Ocean is still routinely hit. 

As far as percentage, based on land, no appreciable difference.


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## Ennui Elemental (Oct 20, 2021)

Wonder if there's any way to track the incidence of past ocean splashdowns or bolides that occur over water.  Probably not, barring old sailor's logs and dredging the bottom of the oceans like the Pacific to look for unusual concentrations of nickel/iron/etc that can't be easily explained otherwise.


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## ben909 (Oct 20, 2021)

F***ing Hostile said:


> Wonder if there's any way to track the incidence of past ocean splashdowns or bolides that occur over water.  Probably not, barring old sailor's logs and dredging the bottom of the oceans like the Pacific to look for unusual concentrations of nickel/iron/etc that can't be easily explained otherwise.


iron deposits on the ocean floor could be natural


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## Ennui Elemental (Oct 20, 2021)

ben909 said:


> iron deposits on the ocean floor could be natural


Yes, though a super high concentration in a given area might raise eyebrows if it can't be explained easily via currents and mantle upflow via ocean floor vents


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## Minerva_Minx (Oct 20, 2021)

Edscottite, stony-iron and shocked quartz are indicators, if you can get a sample.

Also, it can screw up my radios.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Oct 20, 2021)

Tsangyang Gyatso, the Sixth Dalai Lama (1683-1706):

- Born to a Monpa family in Arunchal Pradesh, India (or rather, the the territory that would become it)
- Had a severe infection in his early childhood. Following his recovery, his family thought he was protected by the heavens
- Discovered by the monks at age 16
- Really didn't vibe with their rules, Often stayed out late drinking, sleeping with prostitutes and singing
- Apparently was pretty great at music. Especially love songs.
- Kidnapped in 1706 by the Qing administration, and deposed in favour of Ngawang Yeshey Gyatso.
- This was not recognised by the Tibetans, although Ngawang Yeshey is considered an incarnation of the Buddhist avatar of Compassion, Avalokitesvara.
- Disappeared suddenly whilst being taken through the Qinghai region.


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## Fallowfox (Oct 20, 2021)

ben909 said:


> iron deposits on the ocean floor could be natural



You're right; sea-floor transition metal deposits such as 'magnanese nodules' are actually very common. 

I was going to mention 'shocked quartz' or micro-diamond, but @Minerva_Minx is on the ball already! ;D
Rare 'siderophile' elements such as Iridium, can also be an indicators for asteroids. These elements aren't present at high concentrations at Earth's surface because they tended to dissolve into the metal-phase during core formation.


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## Yastreb (Oct 21, 2021)

Don't you only get shock metamorphism when the asteroid hits solid ground at high velocity? With ocean impacts the object would have to be something like a kilometer across to get to the ocean floor without disintegrating and losing its energy long before.



Minerva_Minx said:


> About ~3500-4000 years ago, a lower airburst destroyed several village during the Bronze Age in the Middle East.  The impact of space debris on civilization is pretty awesome.


This event is heavily disputed.


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## Fallowfox (Oct 21, 2021)

Yastreb said:


> Don't you only get shock metamorphism when the asteroid hits solid ground at high velocity? With ocean impacts the object would have to be something like a kilometer across to get to the ocean floor without disintegrating and losing its energy long before.



Sounds like a reasonable idea. I don't know how much geology is done on marine craters outside of shallow continental shelf settings anyway. Ocean crust tends to be recycled relatively rapidly on geological time-scales, so what are the chances that any piece of ocean crust has been around long enough to be hit by a massive enough impactor to leave a mark?

I checked wikipedia for curiosity, all of the confirmed impact craters are continental or shallow continental shelf:








						List of impact craters on Earth - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




and of the 'possible' impact craters, only 1 is unambiguously deep-sea, but it isn't a confirmed impact and it is suspiciously near a mid-oceanic ridge. 





						List of possible impact structures on Earth - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## Fallowfox (Oct 23, 2021)

Portraits of Ogedi Khan, the son of Gengis Khan, show he may have had red hair. 






Also, recently L'anse aux Meadows was in the news, after dendrochronology appears to date the exact time of Viking activity to around 1021 AD. 








						Vikings settled in North America in 1021AD, study says
					

Scientists say they have precisely dated a camp in Newfoundland, Canada, thanks to a new technique.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## Fallowfox (Oct 30, 2021)

Timbuktu was twice the size of London in the middle Ages.


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## Frank Gulotta (Nov 7, 2021)




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## The_biscuits_532 (Nov 8, 2021)

List of games that Buddha would not play - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org


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## Yastreb (Nov 9, 2021)

The_biscuits_532 said:


> List of games that Buddha would not play - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So if it were not for religious reasons, Buddha would have played with little toy carts and ploughs all day?


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## Fallowfox (Nov 16, 2021)

The 'Horseshoe arch' famous in Moorish architecture, may have in fact originated with the Visigoths. 

The Arab name for Spain 'Al-Andalus' may refer to Spain's previous invasion by the Vandals.

The introduction of the Arabic oud in Spain caused extra strings to be widely adopted in European guitars, and a new style of playing that would ultimately lead to modern guitar styles.


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## Frank Gulotta (Nov 27, 2021)

Not sure where or how to put this. But Japanese music is unique in its ability to take very old melodies and adapt them to contemporary genres, it's a culture that's so consistent, it's able to transcend time
Here's a melody from (i think) the 16th century, in beach rock style


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## Punji (Dec 4, 2021)




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## Fallowfox (Dec 16, 2021)

British or Irish reached remote Faroe Islands before Vikings
					

People from Britain or Ireland may have reached the remote Faroe Islands before the Vikings.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				



I found this today.
Volcanic ash layers can be dated, and evidence of the presence of livestock exists on the Faroe Islands beneath ash layers pre-dating the commonly accepted date for Viking expansion.
So it is possible people from mainland Britain or Ireland had reached the Faroes in 500 AD, *hundreds of years* before the Norse.

Typically Y-chromosomes in the Faroe islands indicate Scandinavian ancestry while Mitochondrial DNA indicates British and Irish origins.
This has usually been interpreted as evidence that Viking settlers brought British and Irish women with them.

However, if British and Irish settlers had arrived hundreds of years before Norse settlers, that is an alternative explanation for mixed ancestry, especially since Y-chromosomes can change very rapidly in a population even if the overall ancestry isn't changing much.


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## Frank Gulotta (Dec 16, 2021)

Almost forgot to post some medieval/renaissance music today!


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## Nexus Cabler (Dec 16, 2021)

Contrary to today's teachings, Luis Ladimer is not the father of the electric lights, nor is Edison. The first electric illumination devices date back to 1802

Sir Humphry Davy, an English physician, created the first electric light by passing a current through a platinum strip. The glow did not last long, but it marked the beginning of the history with light bulbs. In 1809, Davy demonstrated the first carbon arc lamp at the Royal Institute in London by connecting two wires to a battery and attaching a charcoal strip between the other ends of the wires.

A massive improvement followed through with the work of Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov, a Russian electrician, who developed the first practical arc lamp known as the "Yablochkov Candle." Yablochkov used two parallel carbon rods to extend the life of the battery. During the Paris World's Fair of 1878, about 64 Yablochkov candles were installed on the Avenue de l'Opéra, Plade du Théâtre Francais and around the Place de l'Opéra, earning the city the famous nickname of "City of Lights." The success of the exhibition was influential in bringing electric lighting to the masses, and arc lamps were soon installed on many streets in the United States and Europe.

These two individuals work would pave the way for the later improvements.


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## Yastreb (Dec 17, 2021)

Nexus Cabler said:


> Contrary to today's teachings, Luis Ladimer is not the father of the electric lights, nor is Edison. The first electric illumination devices date back to 1802
> 
> Sir Humphry Davy, an English physician, created the first electric light by passing a current through a platinum strip. The glow did not last long, but it marked the beginning of the history with light bulbs. In 1809, Davy demonstrated the first carbon arc lamp at the Royal Institute in London by connecting two wires to a battery and attaching a charcoal strip between the other ends of the wires.
> 
> ...


Edison introduced the first commercially successful incandescent light bulbs, but he definitely didn't invent electric lights or anything like that. I thought this was common knowledge!


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## The_biscuits_532 (Dec 17, 2021)

O shit just realised I haven't spoke about the Inca Empire here yet

- Preceded by two large empires - the Tiwanaku (600-1000), and the Wari (600-1100)

- Founded in 1438 by Pachakutiq - whose name means something along the lines of "He who shakes the earth" or "he who overturns space and time", both of which are badass

- Casting my mind back to _Horrible Histories_, Pachakutiq had a thing for turning people intos carecrows, and their arms into flutes

- Machu Pichu, the most famous Inca ruin, was Pachakutiq's personal estate. 

- Used a flag almost identical to the gay pride flag, which is still the flag of their capital, Qusqu/ Cuzco

- At its peak, possibly the largest nation in the western Hemisphere, by area. They had a population of 10 million at their peak

- Primary culture was Quechua, although the Quechua only comprised a tenth of the empire. The Quechua name for the empire was Tawantisuyu, the Four Realms, in reference to the four states it was divided into. "Inca" translated to "lord". 

- The four states were Chinchasuyu (NW), Antisuyu (NE), Kuntisuyu (SW) and Qullasuyu (SE)

- Somehow managed everything without inventing metal tools, the wheel, or the domestication of mountable animals

- Hell, they didn't even have writing. They used Quipu Knots to record information

- No concept of commerce, used a barter system for their economy

- The state religion, Inti, was literally just "praise the sun". 

- Okay it was a bit more involved than that. Viracocha created the universe, they did human sacrifice, reincarnation was a thing

-They had this weird practise of forcing children's heads to grow into strange shapes. This was used to physically differentiate the upper and lower classes 

- Developed basic refrigeration technology - Chuño was a food made by freezing potatoes at high altitudes

- Oh yeah, all their infrastructure was built on the top of the second largest mountain range on the planet. Again, without wheels or mountable animals. 

- They did however, domestic Llamas, Alpaca, and Guinea Pigs

- Francisco Pizarro arrived in the empire in 1526 on recon, and returned 6 years later with intentions of conquest. However, it was a lot easier than anticipated - he arrived to find the empire in disarray. 

- The death of Sapa Inca Huayna Capac from smallpox, as well as his primary heir, had led to his two younger sons, Atahualpa and Huascar, fighting in a civil war. 

- The Inca obviously had a massive technological disadvantage, still being barely on the cusp of the bronze age, but Pizarre only had around 170 soldiers with him, and it wasn't exactly a case like the Aztecs; the Inca weren't brutal tyrants that the Spanish could inspire a revolution against. That being said, many of the other native groups really didn't mind the change in authority. 

- The Spanish did fight them a few times beforehand, but they tried to approach Atahualpa to convert him to Catholicism, and demand his fealty to King Charles of Spain. He declined, and they kidnapped him. He paid the ransom of an entire cell's worth of gold, but they refused to release him. 

- Meanwhile they also assassinated Huascar, and pinned the blame on Atahualpa, using it as an excuse to execute him. 

- A third brother Manco Inca Yupanqui, was installed by the Spanish as a puppet king for some time, but following increasing encroachment by the spanish, he established the Neo-Incan Empire in Vilcabamba, in 1537.

- The Neo-Incan Empire was able to resist annexation for nearly another 40 years, until the Spanish finally deposed Túpac Amaru in 1572. 

- There was a number of attempts to revive the empire all the way until Peru's independence, such as under Juan Santos Atahualpa, or Túpac Amaru II. 

- Many of the former citizens in the empire were enslaved in mines by the spanish, if they survived both the smallpox and the conquest. 

- Gender obviously wasn't the same as in Western concepts, pre contact. All children were considered "Rutuchikuy", between reaching an age of self-sufficiency (Newborns were "Wawa" and weren't given much societal investment due to the obvious mortality rates in a pre-industrial society). At the onset of puberty a celebration would be held, and they would be declared "Warachikuy" (Men) or "Qikuchikuy" (Women). Any that reached the age of 90 would be "Ruku"

- Gender roles in adulthood had some overlap but the society was mostly patriarchal. Interestingly though, inheritance followed gender lines. Men would inherit all of their father's wealth, and women all their mother's.


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## Yastreb (Dec 18, 2021)

The_biscuits_532 said:


> - Hell, they didn't even have writing. They used Quipu Knots to record information


Some think Quipu was a form of writing, though most experts don't accept this and believe it was used only to record numbers.



The_biscuits_532 said:


> -They had this weird practise of forcing children's heads to grow into strange shapes. This was used to physically differentiate the upper and lower classes


The Maya did this too. If I remember correctly the Maya wanted their heads be shaped like ears of corn while the Inca tried to shape them like a mountain peak.


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## Frank Gulotta (Dec 18, 2021)

Yastreb said:


> The Maya did this too. If I remember correctly the Maya wanted their heads be shaped like ears of corn while the Inca tried to shape them like a mountain peak.


There is some archeological evidence found in Paracas, Peru, that people actually born with cone shaped heads have existed https://www.express.co.uk/news/weir...Elongated-Paracas-Skulls-could-change-history (just ignore the clickbait fake news title, it's not likely aliens) and several cultures could've seeked to emulate their appearance. Sounds like it could make sense, given the massive disadvantages that came with head binding, a lifetime of crippling headaches and mental troubles, that makes people wonder why anyone would do that with people who were born to rule.

Could be bullshit but I find it asinine to believe we know everything, especially if in the process we just discard interesting archeological findings. Breakthroughs can still happen in our understanding of unrecorded history.


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## Fallowfox (Dec 18, 2021)

Central Asian cultures like the Hun were also famous for head-binding. 
This also occurred even in western Europe, in Germany, France, Norway and Italy, during the period after the decline of the western Roman Empire. 

I checked wikipedia and there appear to be examples from almost every continent, and there are links to cited work attesting that practice continued in remote European areas right into the 20th century.


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## Frank Gulotta (Dec 19, 2021)

HAHAHAHAHAHA!


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## The_biscuits_532 (Dec 19, 2021)

Read a bit on Greenlandic history recently

Apparently it was a bit warmer when they first settled it

Apparently during famines, "the old and helpless were killed and thrown over cliffs".

Apparently the initial settlements died out around 1350-1450, due to the little ice age, likely caused by volcanism in New Zealand.


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## Fallowfox (Dec 19, 2021)

The_biscuits_532 said:


> Read a bit on Greenlandic history recently
> 
> Apparently it was a bit warmer when they first settled it
> 
> ...



I find it surprising that the Norse reached Greenland before its current Inuit population did. 

Most cultures' experience of Greenland appear to have been 'arrived in Greenland, clung to existence and then died out,'.


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## tentiv (Dec 20, 2021)

More mythology than history, but I thoroughly enjoyed this rendition of Beowulf, sung in Old English and accompanied by a lyre.


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## Kope (Dec 20, 2021)

20 Of The Slowest Historical Torture Methods We Can't Believe Living Souls Had to Endure
					

20 of the slowest and most painful historical torture methods you would not want to endure




					historycollection.com


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## Wodenofthegays (Dec 20, 2021)

The_biscuits_532 said:


> - No concept of commerce, used a barter system for their economy



Barter systems only exist in the modern world when systems of capital collapse and were essentially invented as an ancient fact by Adam Smith to justify his works. If markets predated the state, that gave some credence to the idea that the emergence of capitalism was a good, natural thing.

Modern research on what the Quechua and other local people of the time actually did has largely been tainted by that and is often biased towards attempting to prove that point a priori.

If you look at contemporary accounts, it was similar to a lot of pre-nation-state systems in which land was largely used as-needed based on loose precedent rather than owned and leased under a codified judicial system, gift-giving was the primary method of exchange for luxury and the community largely provided for the base needs of the community.

Inca Garcilaso de la Vega spent a lot of time explaining this to Europeans in his Royal Commentaries of the Incas. They had trouble understanding living outside of a newly developing system of markets, the nation-state, and capital. We do as well in the modern world were those things are all the more entrenched.

Here are a few chapter titles as a taste:

"Gold, silver, and other objects of value were not offered as tribute, but as presents."
"They supplied clothing for their subjects; there were no beggars"
"The laws and ordinances of the Incas for the benefit of their vassals"

That's not to say that it was all good, for example the Sapa Inca could force anyone within Tiwantansuyu to perform labor for them as they were the head of royal family and, because of this, divine.

It is however, not barter.



The_biscuits_532 said:


> - The Inca obviously had a massive technological disadvantage



I contest that idea, and so did many writers of the past about many indigenous peoples. Inca Garcilaso de la Vega dedicates a whole book of one of his texts to describing marvels and oddities of technology from Cusco.

They didn't have a massive technological disadvantage; they just didnt conduct war at the scale Europeans did, so they never really needed to develop those tools of war.

You don't need to smelt bronze or iron if you're not waging war. The stuff holds an edge and you can make a lot of it fast, but that's not appealing to anybody that doesn't suffer the wars Asia, North Africa, western Africa, and Europe did. Making pottery, textiles, and tools from much more easily-extracted resources makes much more sense in the world of medieval and renaissance Peru, and their technological development reflects that.

Were the kings and queens of Spain less advanced than the Sapa Inca because they didn't have quipucamayocs advising them?

*Edit to note*: in the gift-giving chapter above it relates to the gift-giving of peasants, the Inca, and their vassals to the Sapa Inca and his governance, but the chapter speaks about how these things are so common and their ownership within the society


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## Frank Gulotta (Dec 30, 2021)

Been looking for this interpretation, which I've heard in a compilation a while ago




I don't know how accurate it is to how they would've sang it back then but it's a banger


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## Fallowfox (Dec 30, 2021)

@Wodenofthegays
I checked, and the Inca did have metallurgy, including alloys such as bronze- and they did make armour and metal clubs. Bronze clubs and helmets were both used in their warfare.

Putting this aside, I think there's a semantic confusion about what a 'technological disadvantage' is.

If your civilisation has not developed iron or steel, this doesn't mean it's not technologically _sophisticated_. Ancient Egypt was aware of but rarely used iron for much of its duration, for example.
But if you have to make war with a civilisation that_ has_ those technologies, this is a big disadvantage.

I also don't agree that there's no need for technologies such as steel if you don't rely on them for warfare; these technologies have many applications outside of warfare.


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## Attaman (Dec 30, 2021)

My understanding is that the Inca were _pretty good_ at fighting the Spanish,when there weren't hostages involved or the whole matter of "Smallpox going through their communities as a Black Plague 2.0" or whatnot. They were _very _accomplished slingers to the point that Alfonso Enríquez (a veteran of conflict with the Inca and eventual Admiral of Castile) explicitly referred to them as only "slightly lesser to a harquebus", which is generally _not_ the sort of thing said lightly by an occupying force.

My guess is that part of the protestation against the "technological disadvantage" bit is that a _lot_ of people overestimate the "guns and steel" part of the conquest of the (South) Americas and underestimate the mix of politicking, the sheer damage done by disease / pathogens, and in some cases just straight blind _luck_. Likewise that a lot of people look at "They did not shift almost entirely to metal tools" as "technological disadvantage" whereas there's a _lot_ more to technology than "What do you make it out of?" It can be _critically important_ for some things, yeah, but it reflects the rather spotty categorization of history built around Stone -> Polished Stone -> Copper -> Bronze -> Iron -> Steel which disregards both a slew of complicated factors _around_ such things and that this tends to be based on regions that had a very specific combination of materials available to them (the Bronze Age is only really a thing _because_ the necessary materials were available to alloy bronze into creation in adequate quantities, for example, as there's nothing preventing a jump straight from copper to iron).


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## The_biscuits_532 (Dec 30, 2021)

Fallowfox said:


> @Wodenofthegays
> I checked, and the Inca did have metallurgy, including alloys such as bronze- and they did make armour and metal clubs. Bronze clubs and helmets were both used in their warfare.
> 
> Putting this aside, I think there's a semantic confusion about what a 'technological disadvantage' is.
> ...


Yes that was my point exactly. The Inca were fine against other local civilisations, but had no way of piercing the Spanish metal armour.


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## KimberVaile (Dec 30, 2021)

The_biscuits_532 said:


> Yes that was my point exactly. The Inca were fine against other local civilisations, but had no way of piercing the Spanish metal armour.



Agreed.

Necessity is the mother of invention. The few wars the Incans had, were against opponents that did not utilize metals, and the Incans were among the most powerful civilizations in that region. For what reason would they need the reinforced metal weapons?

History is too often made into sports matches were you got a team you want to win.

The Incans were not lesser for having less sturdy tools of war than the Spanish, but they were technological less advanced in that area and it was a strong factor for why they were overrun. I would attribute the Europeans having steel weapons at least partially as a product of intense competition. Many European inventions can be attributed to competition between multiple countries within the continent forcing innovation. At the end of the day, that's more about the conditions of life and existence in Europe producing an environment were competition and innovation being more prioritized/seen as more necessary. It has nothing to do with x country being better or anything of the sort.

People often grossly underestimate how much effect your environment has on you. It played a key role in the distinct military advantages the Spanish brought, but like with everything, that wasn't the full story. There's always more to it than one singular factor.


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## Attaman (Dec 30, 2021)

The_biscuits_532 said:


> Yes that was my point exactly. The Inca were fine against other local civilisations, but had no way of piercing the Spanish metal armour.


I will reiterate their Slings.

Like, seriously: I know film and video games and D&D and whatnot have given people a skewed perception of slings as "Child Weapon" or "Thing That Is Technically A Weapon I Guess", but proficient and accomplished slingers are considered up until the _Age of Gunpowder_ second only to _Firearms_ for a reason (and again, don't just take my word on it: A contemporary veteran of the Spanish-Inca conflicts explicitly called them only slightly lesser than their arquebus'). Incan slingers were _scary_, quite capable of downing both Spanish warhorses _and_ their riders even into use of metal armor and early firearms. They fell out of favor less because they aren't useful (if anything they're quite effective against a variety of armor that arrows and the like aren't) but for much the same reason firearms rapidly displaced the assorted bows: Because the amount of training needed to become an adequate Slinger is significantly higher than that of alternatives. 

Which is part of why I refer back to Smallpox and whatnot: When you've very recently been on the receiving end of a horrific plague, "A surplus of highly fit, trained, and specialized individuals" is usually not in the cards. A couple months of good drilling can get you reasonably adequate gunners. Slingers can take _years_ to get in the same position (casual perusal suggests approximately two years to hit a stationary plate-sized target at 60' with a sling).


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## KimberVaile (Dec 30, 2021)

Attaman said:


> I will reiterate their Slings.
> 
> Like, seriously: I know film and video games and D&D and whatnot have given people a skewed perception of slings as "Child Weapon" or "Thing That Is Technically A Weapon I Guess", but proficient and accomplished slingers are considered up until the _Age of Gunpowder_ second only to _Firearms_ for a reason (and again, don't just take my word on it: A contemporary veteran of the Spanish-Inca conflicts explicitly called them only slightly lesser than their arquebus'). Incan slingers were _scary_, quite capable of downing both Spanish warhorses _and_ their riders even into use of metal armor and early firearms. They fell out of favor less because they aren't useful (if anything they're quite effective against a variety of armor that arrows and the like aren't) but for much the same reason firearms rapidly displaced the assorted bows: Because the amount of training needed to become an adequate Slinger is significantly higher than that of alternatives.
> 
> Which is part of why I refer back to Smallpox and whatnot: When you've very recently been on the receiving end of a horrific plague, "A surplus of highly fit, trained, and specialized individuals" is usually not in the cards. A couple months of good drilling can get you reasonably adequate gunners. Slingers can take _years_ to get in the same position (casual perusal suggests approximately two years to hit a stationary plate-sized target at 60' with a sling).


To add some context, the Spanish armor that was brought was quite effective and helped give them an advantage too.

Many of the Spanish had to buy their own armor. So, it does depend, though the more wealthy cavalrymen usually carried great quality armor. Penetrating armor like that even with an arquebus was a tall order. We're talking specifically crafted armor weighing around 60 lbs. It wasn't shabby stuff. Less wealthy Spanish brought along simple breastplates or just lighter chainmail which while less protective was similarly of high quality. The Spanish armor does deserve some recognition for the quality it brought. I'd say the biggest issues were the heat more than anything. A decent amount of Spanish actually ended up adopting Incan armor and combing it with some of their own due to how severe the heat was to deal with while in plate armor.

Suffice to say it was no exaggeration ,the Spanish brought pretty high quality armor, even the lighter stuff. It's biggest weakness was less it's protection and more the practicality of wearing full plate in such brutally hot environments. That's not to say they didn't help of course. They still did quite a bit for the Spanish.

That's also not to deny that Slings weren't effective, they've been a long staple of warfare for a reason, they're not particularly expensive to make, and when you get close enough bring quite a bit of power behind them. In terms of weapons, the common soldiers weapons were mostly Halberds, pikes, broadswords, and crossbows. The Spanish Arquebusss were actually more specialty weapons, and not standard issue, though quite effective when used.   Calvary used lances or swords. All weapons were proven and quite effective. Though I'd argue the most devastating weapon they brought were their light cannons. The projectiles being launched were capable of lopping off a person's leg and keep going, with the potential to harm or kill multiple dozens in it's line of path. The damage it caused was considered severe enough that the Incans would make loose formations to mitigate the effect.

It'd be disengenious to say these militatry tech advantages were the only factor of course. The Spanish brought along maybe a couple hundred men to face a couple thousand. Even with technological advantages, it's a bit unrealistic to say there wasn't another factor helping them. Smallpox likely played an effect on Incan morale as well as reducing total numbers that were able to be fielded. Which is to say nothing of how the food supply was impacted by it.


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## Attaman (Dec 30, 2021)

KimberVaile said:


> To add some context, the Spanish armor that was brought was quite effective and helped give them an advantage too.
> 
> Many of the Spanish had to buy their own armor. So, it does depend, though the more wealthy cavalrymen usually carried great quality armor. Penetrating armor like that even with an arquebus was a tall order. We're talking specifically crafted armor weighing around 60 lbs. It wasn't shabby stuff. Less wealthy Spanish brought along simple breastplates or just lighter chainmail which while less protective was similarly of high quality. The Spanish armor does deserve some recognition for the quality it brought. I'd say the biggest issues were the heat more than anything. A decent amount of Spanish actually ended up adopting Incan armor and combing it with some of their own due to how severe the heat was to deal with while in plate armor.


Oh, this isn't to deny Spanish kit or military prowess: There's a _reason_ the Spanish Tercio basically either dominated or shaped European land warfare for... some time.

It _is_ to say that people underestimate just how dangerous rocks can be in the right situations. Another good example outside slings being how a lot of movies seem to show rocks being used defenders almost as a 'last resort' and rarely doing anything unless / solely being in the realm of "About the size of cinderblocks". In actuality, from above and practically guaranteed to land down on either a head or shoulder (armored or not) you don't even necessarily need something the size of a brick to cause terminal injury.

Kinetic Energy: It's a bitch.


KimberVaile said:


> That's also not to deny that Slings weren't effective, they've been a long staple of warfare for a reason, they're not particularly expensive to make, and when you get close enough bring quite a bit of power behind them. In terms of weapons, the common soldiers weapons were mostly Halberds, pikes, broadswords, and crossbows


This is part of why I point out that a Spanish Veteran specifically highlighted the Sling as only slightly lesser than the (sic) Harquebus. Said source also makes mention of - through personal experience - watching slings break swords with lucky strikes, on top of aforementioned "Watched it kill cavalry and steed alike". 

I guess the best way to put it into comparison for anyone who doesn't military: There was a relatively recent study in Israel that basically says "If you have reason to suspect you're being pelted by slingers: Don _riot gear,_ try to park yourself _at least 60m away_, and above all else _wear your helmet - visor-down _- if anywhere within 200m". This is their advice for protection against serious injury slings. And while even incomplete plate tends to have some distinct advantages over riot gear, it gives a good idea of just how such things could happen and why it would be decidedly Not Fun (TM) to face a polity well known for the quality of its slingers.


KimberVaile said:


> It'd be disengenious to say these militatry tech advantages were the only factor of course. The Spanish brought along maybe a couple hundred men to face a couple thousand. Even with technological advantages, it's a bit unrealistic to say there wasn't another factor helping them. Smallpox likely played an effect on Incan morale as well as reducing total numbers that were able to be fielded. Which is to say nothing of how the food supply was impacted by it.


I would argue that biggest things by far were disease, alliances (which is going to tie into #4), luck (if ever there is an ideal time to launch an invasion: "In the aftermath of a plague that killed the previous leader and has lead to a civil war during a succession crisis" is quite hard to beat!) and the Spanish's shameless willingness to break any treaty / brokerage if it turned out convenient for them. When such things weren't in their favor, there's a reason the numbers fielded to see results tended to climb _significantly_ higher to hold onto territories (as well as why certain groups - like the Mapuche - were so effective at being a thorn in the Spaniards' sides).


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## Kope (Dec 31, 2021)

I sometimes wish guns weren’t a thing and we could all go back to melee combat. It feels more skillful : p


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## KimberVaile (Dec 31, 2021)

Attaman said:


> Oh, this isn't to deny Spanish kit or military prowess: There's a _reason_ the Spanish Tercio basically either dominated or shaped European land warfare for... some time.
> 
> It _is_ to say that people underestimate just how dangerous rocks can be in the right situations. Another good example outside slings being how a lot of movies seem to show rocks being used defenders almost as a 'last resort' and rarely doing anything unless / solely being in the realm of "About the size of cinderblocks". In actuality, from above and practically guaranteed to land down on either a head or shoulder (armored or not) you don't even necessarily need something the size of a brick to cause terminal injury.
> 
> ...


Do agree, it's easy to underestimate a sling, but it's plenty deadly, and before the advent of the composite bow, had considerably more power behind it than an arrow.
It's not a poor weapon, and I don't doubt that it was considered such a dangerous weapon by the Spanish. Even with armor, the sheer force of getting hit by a sling is a very real threat to you. While you'll likely survive a hit, it will be quite painful and more concerning, if you can get knocked down by it, (very possible due to the force) your throat will be exposed, which is a very dangerous position for somebody in heavier plate armor. This has a lot to do with how exposed your throat is.

Disease was probably the strongest factor, with Spanish military technology and tactics as a close second. It was a strong reason for why a couple hundred men were able to whittle down an empire of 10 million, (Auxiliaries and native allies that came a little later helped even things too) even if it was as weakened as it was, it's still an empire, and toppling an empire which such few numbers is no small task. The technology helped a lot to make the small numbers more substantial at the very least. The conquistador cavalry, cannons, and arquebusses were strong pillars of their army. Luck also greater helped of course. Especially considering that there was a civil war not too long before the arrival of the Spanish. After the conquest of the Incan empire, there was quite a bit of push back and a pretty substantial resistance to them. The Incans gave the Spanish trouble with clever use of guerilla tactics, they realized open conflict wasn't always the best option, and adapted to what I believe was a mix of guerilla tactics, some open conflict and misdirection. They ended up learning how the Spanish fought pretty well and there were several instances where the Incan line would fall back and would lead Spanish Cavalry to canyons, where they would then trigger avalanches on them and rain missile weapons down on them. Which I think goes to show how ill advised it was to underestimate the Incans like that.

I'd argue that were it not for Spanish Fortifications, the war could have easily turned on them. Which at the very least, is good stargetic forethought on the Spanish's part to lay down forts at key strategic points.


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## Fallowfox (Dec 31, 2021)

KimberVaile said:


> Agreed.
> 
> Necessity is the mother of invention. The *few wars *the Incans had, were against opponents that did not utilize metals, and the Incans were among the most powerful civilizations in that region. For what reason would they need the reinforced metal weapons?



I should point out that the Inca used bronze and copper weapons and armour, and that they were an empire that conquered surrounding cultures through war.

Iron-smelting wasn't a European invention; it was introduced to us from the east.

The transition from bronze to iron happened in Europe after a catastrophic collapse of many bronze-age cultures, that still isn't fully understood.
So it is a bit difficult to explain why an iron-age developed in Europe but not South America. Maybe it was down to chance.


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## KimberVaile (Dec 31, 2021)

Fallowfox said:


> I should point out that the Inca used bronze and copper weapons and armour, and that they were an empire that conquered surrounding cultures through war.
> 
> Iron-smelting wasn't a European invention; it was introduced to us from the east.
> 
> ...


I didn't say iron smelting was a European invention. I said that necessity is the mother of Invention. The ways in which Europeans were able to manipulate and refine their metals a large part of why they were able to have such refined and well made suits of armor and weapons. They made alot of advancements and refinements to metal working, armor making and weapon making through their environments. The environment this happened in involved many countries constantly in a state of competition towards them. The Incans comparatively eliminated/conquered their competitors rather quickly.
There's more to it than the material used, it's how the metals were refined, smithed and so on that is important too. So I'm not simply saying they lacked iron smelting, it also concerns the techniques used to get the most out of the materials used, which can be it's own discussion altogether. The Italians in particular were famous were the high quality of armor they produced at the time the Conquistadors were active.

Which is a long way of saying, knowing that Iron can be smelted won't mean anything if you don't know the best way to shape it into something useful. What does matter is the techniques used in forging the metals.


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## Frank Gulotta (Dec 31, 2021)

Kope said:


> I sometimes wish guns weren’t a thing and we could all go back to melee combat. It feels more skillful : p


There's always been ranged weapons, and they require their own sets of skills. I'm positive if prehistoric people could HUNT with javelins they also warred with them. Slingers were also a key part of ancient armies. They decorated their projectiles with yo mama jokes, in the same way as WW2 bomber crews would write insults on the bombs they were going to drop. Humanity is a young species and for now, the same patterns replicate again and again.


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## TurbidCyno (Dec 31, 2021)

I think I read somewhere that slings were about as potent as a .44 magnum and had enough concussive force to negate most armors of the period.


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## KimberVaile (Dec 31, 2021)

TurbidCyno said:


> I think I read somewhere that slings were about as potent as a .44 magnum and had enough concussive force to negate most armors of the period.











						Ancient Slingshot Was as Deadly as a .44 Magnum
					

An excavation in Scotland shows that Roman soldiers used lead ammo with lethal accuracy.




					www.nationalgeographic.com
				




This article likely, which referenced the Roman use of slings that used 'whistling bullets' to damage the morale of their enemies. The most commonly used armor then was a sort of chainmail. Keep in mind the total power of impact and penetration are different categories, but still impressive nonetheless.


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## Kope (Dec 31, 2021)

Frank Gulotta said:


> There's always been ranged weapons, and they require their own sets of skills. I'm positive if prehistoric people could HUNT with javelins they also warred with them. Slingers were also a key part of ancient armies. They decorated their projectiles with yo mama jokes, in the same way as WW2 bomber crews would write insults on the bombs they were going to drop. Humanity is a young species and for now, the same patterns replicate again and again.


is there no hope for us then to break the cycle


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## Nexus Cabler (Dec 31, 2021)

It does require more skill in melee combat

But it would take years of training and discipline to master a close combat weapon like a longsword, cudgel, or spear. It also required the user to be physically fit enough and strong enough to be efficient with it. This was very resource and time consuming.

What made guns a game changer for humanity was that anyone who picked one up instantly became dangerous. They were made on large scale manufacturing, and they were generally easy to operate. Any person wielding an ax, club, or sword could be easily disposed with modern firearms.

Suddenly it made a smaller and weaker person able to defend themselves from a much more powerful and larger individual that would have easily disposed of them back in Medieval weapon times, and large-scale armies no longer had to be as concerned with how quickly you could run a mile or how much you could lift so long as you knew how to aim and hit your target.

I cannot see us going back to early weapons unless there was no other option.


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## Attaman (Dec 31, 2021)

Another good example, to go back to slings, is that it could take upwards of years to get somebody to reliably hit a stationary plate-sized target at a distance of 60ft.

Yes: In return (particularly if using a Sling-Staff, which can get even _more_ oomph) you had a weapon that was horrendously lethal at shorter ranges and required nowhere _near_ the industry behind firearms (no need to have specialists who can smith the barrels or chemists who can mix the powder or...). But... to use another example? Chariots were _the_ pinnacle of warfare at one point. But even disregarding their limited terrain capacity, one of the things that held them back and eventually lead to their replacement was that it took a _good deal of training_ to have good charioteers (both in regards to driver and rider).

This is a _fairly significant problem_ when it comes to pre-modern societies as very likely the vast majority of your population is going to be farmers (who are going to both be more valuable in their fields _and_ have limited campaign seasons further reducing how quickly and efficiently you can train them). Hence why Charioteers were often drawn from the upper social crust (or, if not drawn from it initially, very quickly stayed there). Or why there was a _significant_ change in European armies, fortifications, et al between Antiquity (which saw adequate logistical coordination and whatnot to field enormous armies) and the Medieval era (wherein professional armies were few and far between as opposed to retainers and fyrd and whatnot).

Also, even moreso than bows and crossbows (which themselves are moreso than slings), firearms are relatively easy to arrange for coordinated volley fire. To say nothing of the morale aspect of training wherein often times archers, slingers, and so-on could fairly readily find their kills (might even _see_ them in the act of being killed) while firearms offered a _lot_ of distraction as well as deniability / disconnect.

All the above matters a bit less if you can actually equip, train, and maintain a standing professional army, but in the context of where Europe was at for much of CE firearms _enormously_ streamlined the process.

... Once again I must recommend ACOUP as over time you'll pick up on a lot of stuff re:Logistics, Morale, and so-on and it tends to frame a lot of historical developments much more readily.

[1]Insofar as the ground between 60ft and 60m can be considered 'short'. While true that an English Longbow had a hypothetical maximum range of almost 300m, most bows _significantly_ lost power after the first couple hundred feet, and if aiming to penetrate armor would be lucky past 100ft.


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## Frank Gulotta (Dec 31, 2021)

Kope said:


> is there no hope for us then to break the cycle


Why break the cycle? the bad things about humanity are often caused by people who have the arrogance of believing our nature needs to be changed


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## Fallowfox (Jan 1, 2022)

KimberVaile said:


> I didn't say iron smelting was a European invention. I said that necessity is the mother of Invention. The ways in which Europeans were able to manipulate and refine their metals a large part of why they were able to have such refined and well made suits of armor and weapons. They made alot of advancements and refinements to metal working, armor making and weapon making through their environments. The environment this happened in involved many countries constantly in a state of competition towards them. The Incans comparatively eliminated/conquered their competitors rather quickly.
> There's more to it than the material used, it's how the metals were refined, smithed and so on that is important too. So I'm not simply saying they lacked iron smelting, it also concerns the techniques used to get the most out of the materials used, which can be it's own discussion altogether. The Italians in particular were famous were the high quality of armor they produced at the time the Conquistadors were active.
> 
> Which is a long way of saying, knowing that Iron can be smelted won't mean anything if you don't know the best way to shape it into something useful. What does matter is the techniques used in forging the metals.



I don't know whether the Inca's local enemies were eliminated quickly by them; I don't know the history well enough. 

I agree that centuries of conflict involving sophisticated metal work explains why European conquerors had one of many technological advantage in war. 
I also think having a written language may have presented a fundamental advantage over South-American cultures that didn't have this technology.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Jan 1, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> I don't know whether the Inca's local enemies were eliminated quickly by them; I don't know the history well enough.
> 
> I agree that centuries of conflict involving sophisticated metal work explains why European conquerors had one of many technological advantage in war.
> I also think having a written language may have presented a fundamental advantage over South-American cultures that didn't have this technology.


Oddly enough, there is one former Spanish territory that doesn't have a Spanish speaking majority

Paraguay



> 46.3% Spanish and Guaraní (or Jopara), 34% only Guaraní, and 15.3% only Spanish; the rest speak other languages.


- Wikipedia

Apparently the main reasons were that Paraguay was relatively isolated compared to the rest of Latin America, and many of the natives flat-out refused to learn Spanish. Rural citizens are more likely to speak it, which has lead to discrimination against speakers, with the stereotype being that they're uneducated and poor.


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## Yastreb (Jan 2, 2022)

Speaking of Paraguay, lets talk about the War of the Triple Alliance.

Basically the president of Paraguay in the 1860s had some really big ambitions and decided it would be a good idea to invade Brazil and Argentina at the same time. When this surprisingly backfired he refused to surrender even after the entire country was occupied and kept fighting a guerilla campaign. Estimates of casualties vary wildly but were probably around half of the Paraguayan population. The women-to-men ratio in Paraguay after the war was about 4 to 1, in some areas 20 to 1.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Jan 2, 2022)

Yastreb said:


> Speaking of Paraguay, lets talk about the War of the Triple Alliance.
> 
> Basically the president of Paraguay in the 1860s had some really big ambitions and decided it would be a good idea to invade Brazil and Argentina at the same time. When this surprisingly backfired he refused to surrender even after the entire country was occupied and kept fighting a guerilla campaign. Estimates of casualties vary wildly but were probably around half of the Paraguayan population. The women-to-men ratio in Paraguay after the war was about 4 to 1, in some areas 20 to 1.


I remember reading about this. Apparently the only reason we still have Paraguay is because the US President at the time recommended they keep it as a buffer state between Argentina and Brazil. 

I also remember reading one of their dictators (either him or another one) made it illegal to marry a member of your own race. Gonna go verify that now, brb


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## The_biscuits_532 (Jan 2, 2022)

Apparently it was a different guy, but yes it did happen. 

From Wikipedia 


> In March 1814, Francia imposed a law that no Spaniard may intermarry with another Spaniard, and that they may only wed mestizos, Amerindians, or Africans. This was done to eliminate any socioeconomic disparities along racial lines, and also to end the predominantly criollo and peninsulare influence in Paraguay. De Francia himself was not a mestizo (although his paternal grandfather was Afro-Brazilian), but feared that racial disparities would create tensions that could threaten his absolute rule.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Jan 6, 2022)

Republic of Pirates - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org
				




Speaks for itself really


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## Comfy-Girl (Jan 6, 2022)

There never was a skull on the original Jolly Roger flag, but it wasn't entirely invented by popular fiction either.
Pirates did actually paint skulls along the sides of their boats to show how many men they had killed.
It was a quick and easy way to gauge the proficiency of a pirate captain within the pirate subculture.
Except for Le Check who exaggerated his numbers and was killed for doing so.

It's called the "jolly roger" because Roger was a slang term for a gay man and since it was both illegal and socially inacceptable to be gay in those times pirates tended to seek out gay people because they'd be unemployed and desperate for money. It's jolly because these "rogers" are free to live their lives without prejudice and not suffer because of it. Though in reality they were being exploited, the concept was good advertisement for any pirates looking to get people willingly joining their crew.

I'm not going to explain what the two crossed bones represent because i think you can figure it out from what i said. Often however it was just simplified to two swipes of white paint in a cross shape. Didn't need to be more complicated than that. You see a black flag with a big white X on it and nobody needs to tell you that's a pirate ship. The reason the flag was black was also to attract slaves seeking freedom in much the same way they exploited the gay community.

To be fair, living on a boat almost entirely populated by people who were following the dream of equal rights did occasionally result in ships that genuinely represented that especially when the concept of mutiny was always on the table, but none of these pirate groups ever really became that successful. Despite the fact the most successful ships were exploiting those groups, they didn't have any ill-will to the ships that chose freedom. They just respected them as fellow pirates and got on with their lives.


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## Frank Gulotta (Jan 6, 2022)

Comfy-Girl said:


> There never was a skull on the original Jolly Roger flag, but it wasn't entirely invented by popular fiction either.
> Pirates did actually paint skulls along the sides of their boats to show how many men they had killed.
> It was a quick and easy way to gauge the proficiency of a pirate captain within the pirate subculture.
> Except for Le Check who exaggerated his numbers and was killed for doing so.
> ...


There was never an official flag for pirates, the closest to an organisation it ever came to was privateers who worked for monarchs. At sea everybody communicated through flags, and gruesome imagery was often used to send a clear message as to a ship crew's intentions. As such skulls as well as full skeletons were actually used a lot. Although from what I've read the flags tended to be red rather than black (a color that had fuckall to do with anyone's skin color by the way). If we could avoid rewriting history for politically correct purposes that would be great


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## Kope (Jan 6, 2022)

Frank Gulotta said:


> There was never an official flag for pirates, the closest to an organisation it ever came to was privateers who worked for monarchs. At sea everybody communicated through flags, and gruesome imagery was often used to send a clear message as to a ship crew's intentions. As such skulls as well as full skeletons were actually used a lot. Although from what I've read the flags tended to be red rather than black (a color that had fuckall to do with anyone's skin color by the way). If we could avoid rewriting history for politically correct purposes that would be great


What has been re written?


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## Comfy-Girl (Jan 7, 2022)

oh. brown apparently. not red or black.

and even though they did do a lot of luring slaves with the promise of freedom, the flag had nothing to do with it.


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## Yastreb (Jan 7, 2022)

Comfy-Girl said:


> There never was a skull on the original Jolly Roger flag, but it wasn't entirely invented by popular fiction either.
> Pirates did actually paint skulls along the sides of their boats to show how many men they had killed.
> It was a quick and easy way to gauge the proficiency of a pirate captain within the pirate subculture.
> Except for Le Check who exaggerated his numbers and was killed for doing so.
> ...


Sounds interesting. What is your source on the origin of the name?


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## Fallowfox (Jan 7, 2022)

While I'd like to believe the romantic backstory to the jolly roger that comfy girl suggested, I cannot find any source to support the idea that it is true. :S 

Moreover, pirates through the ages have regularly taken slaves in raids and actively participated in slave trades- so their relationship to this gruesome industry is much more complex than what comfy girl described.



Kope said:


> What has been re written?




There have been numerous examples of large historical errors posted in this thread. They usually contort history to make it appear more sympathetic to contemporary political causes. E.g. regarding pirates as a group that dreamed of equality.
Ironically, Frank has actually been responsible for some of these, but I am glad he noticed this latest one.


----------



## Kope (Jan 7, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> While I'd like to believe the romantic backstory to the jolly roger that comfy girl suggested, I cannot find any source to support the idea that it is true. :S
> 
> Moreover, pirates through the ages have regularly taken slaves in raids and actively participated in slave trades- so their relationship to this gruesome industry is much more complex than what comfy girl described.
> 
> ...


I’ve been kinda skimming though to the bottom of the thread tbh.


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## KimberVaile (Jan 13, 2022)

Italians Avoided Pizza for Centuries—Tourism Changed Everything
					

Pizza’s dominance on the international gastronomic stage hinges not on a glorious past rooted in antiquity so much as an anthropological phenomenon that has come to be known as the “pizza effect.”




					food52.com
				




Fun little article, I'd have never thought pizza had such curious origins!


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## Frank Gulotta (Feb 19, 2022)




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## Fallowfox (Feb 21, 2022)

Usman dan Fodio founded the Sokoto Caliphate in west Africa in the 1800's, in part because of his religious belief that there should be a prohibition on some types of slavery. 

But by the end of his life the giant Caliphate was probably one of the largest holders of slaves on the entire continent.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Feb 21, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> Usman dan Fodio founded the Sokoto Caliphate in west Africa in the 1800's, in part because of his religious belief that there should be a prohibition on some types of slavery.
> 
> But by the end of his life the giant Caliphate was probably one of the largest holders of slaves on the entire continent.


I like how I only know about Sokoto because of how it's one of the worst nations in Europa Universalis 4
In that it's incredibly hard to form, as it's basically based on RNG due to Usman's appearance event.
And then that only happens like, a few years before the game ends anyway


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## Fallowfox (Feb 22, 2022)

The_biscuits_532 said:


> I like how I only know about Sokoto because of how it's one of the worst nations in Europa Universalis 4
> In that it's incredibly hard to form, as it's basically based on RNG due to Usman's appearance event.
> And then that only happens like, a few years before the game ends anyway


I thought I would be able to mention a massive country that nobody had ever heard of but you know too much! ;D


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## Frank Gulotta (Mar 5, 2022)




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## Fallowfox (Mar 6, 2022)

Ulugh Beg was a Sultan in the fifteenth century in what is now Uzbekistan.
He is famous for making significant contributions to astronomy, and his calculation for the length of Earth's year is only 1 minute different from contemporary methods. 

He built an observatory- which means astronomical observatories existed in central Asia at least 100 years before Europe.

Central Asian civilisation and mathematics was incredibly advanced for the time, because Arab armies acquired the secret of paper making from China in the 8th century. 
By contrast, Europeans had to rely on stretched animal skins for making parchment, which meant producing and distributing literature was only possible for people who were incredibly wealthy. 

Paper was eventually introduced to Europe through what was then Muslim Spain.

So that's a story which involves 3 different civilisations and all of the continents in the Old World.


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## Baron Tredegar (Mar 6, 2022)

My mind is still trying to comprehend the Siege of Suiyang. Chinese civil wars are insane.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 6, 2022)

Baron Tredegar said:


> My mind is still trying to comprehend the Siege of Suiyang. Chinese civil wars are insane.



Share more detail?


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## Baron Tredegar (Mar 6, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> Share more detail?


The cities defenders ate 10,000 to 20,000 civilians.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 6, 2022)

Baron Tredegar said:


> The cities defenders ate 10,000 to 20,000 civilians.



...Holy jebus


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## Baron Tredegar (Mar 6, 2022)

There is also the Taiping Rebellion, which was led by a guy named Hong Xiuquan who thought he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. It wound up being the bloodiest civil war in human history.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 6, 2022)

Baron Tredegar said:


> There is also the Taiping Rebellion, which was led by a guy named Hong Xiuquan who thought he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. It wound up being the bloodiest civil war in human history.



Europe: the middle ages were rough. 

China: Hold my beer.


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## Yastreb (Mar 7, 2022)

Baron Tredegar said:


> There is also the Taiping Rebellion, which was led by a guy named Hong Xiuquan who thought he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. It wound up being the bloodiest civil war in human history.


Not just the bloodiest civil war but also the second bloodiest war overall, only surpassed by WW2. For comparison I think WW1 is at about the 6th place.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 9, 2022)

A 600 page book in Bruges in the Medieval period cost as much as a house. 
At points in the Roman empire, a poet's complete works could be purchased for the equivalent of an average person's daily wage.


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## Yastreb (Mar 10, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> A 600 page book in Bruges in the Medieval period cost as much as a house.
> At points in the Roman empire, a poet's complete works could be purchased for the equivalent of an average person's daily wage.


The latter would have been written on papyrus, I assume?


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## Fallowfox (Mar 10, 2022)

Yastreb said:


> The latter would have been written on papyrus, I assume?


Yes. I am surprised that there was no successful attempt to produce an alternative to papyrus produced from european reeds or grasses.


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## Frank Gulotta (Mar 11, 2022)




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## pilgrimfromoblivion (Mar 12, 2022)

Baron Tredegar said:


> There is also the Taiping Rebellion, which was led by a guy named Hong Xiuquan who thought he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. It wound up being the bloodiest civil war in human history.


America supported him at first, because they thought having more Christianity was cool, till they realized he was fucking insane and knew nothing about Jesus.


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## Baron Tredegar (Mar 12, 2022)

pilgrimfromoblivion said:


> America supported him at first, because they thought having more Christianity was cool, till they realized he was fucking insane and knew nothing about Jesus.


It kind of makes the Boxer rebellion make a lot more sense. No wonder China didnt want Christians and westerners in the country after dealing with this nutcase.


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## pilgrimfromoblivion (Mar 15, 2022)

Back in 1614, DRM wasn't a thing, so while Cervantes was working on the sequel to Don Quixote, a guy under a psuedonym called Alonso made his own sequel.
>makes his own sequel to your book while you're making the sequel
>leaves


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## Frank Gulotta (Mar 20, 2022)

Pretty interesting, so they also had UFOs back then!


Baron Tredegar said:


> It kind of makes the Boxer rebellion make a lot more sense. No wonder China didnt want Christians and westerners in the country after dealing with this nutcase.


A huge leap in logic there, there's been Christians in China since at least the 7th century, they even have their own catholic church nowadays (although it's but another puppet of the communist party), many millions of Chinese people practice Christianity on their own. Chinese elites' superiority complex and xenophobia didn't really need any given nutcase to kick in.


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## Baron Tredegar (Mar 20, 2022)

Frank Gulotta said:


> Pretty interesting, so they also had UFOs back then!
> 
> A huge leap in logic there, there's been Christians in China since at least the 7th century, they even have their own catholic church nowadays (although it's but another puppet of the communist party), many millions of Chinese people practice Christianity on their own. Chinese elites' superiority complex and xenophobia didn't really need any given nutcase to kick in.


These wars were only around thirty years apart. While Christians have been in China for centuries the massive influx of foreign missionaries in the 1800s made Christianity visible like it had never been before. The Qing imperial court and their sympathizers saw foreign influence as a threat to their very culture and existence. The Taiping rebellion was a long and bloody conflict motivated by Protestant ideologies that was brought over by western missionaries. 20-30 million people died in the rebellion, it would be safe to assume an event like that would be a catalyst for even more distrust of foreigners and foreign influence.


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## Frank Gulotta (Mar 20, 2022)

Baron Tredegar said:


> These wars were only around thirty years apart. While Christians have been in China for centuries the massive influx of foreign missionaries in the 1800s made Christianity visible like it had never been before. The Qing imperial court and their sympathizers saw foreign influence as a threat to their very culture and existence. The Taiping rebellion was a long and bloody conflict motivated by Protestant ideologies that was brought over by western missionaries. 20-30 million people died in the rebellion, it would be safe to assume an event like that would be a catalyst for even more distrust of foreigners and foreign influence.


Why the hatred towards foreigners then, Hong Xiuquan was ethnic Han


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## Baron Tredegar (Mar 20, 2022)

Frank Gulotta said:


> Why the hatred towards foreigners then, Hong Xiuquan was ethnic Han


He had a foreign ideology and was converted to Christianity by an American missionary named Edwin Stevens. I guess a good comparison would be if some American guy attempted a Juche revolution in the US.


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## Frank Gulotta (Mar 20, 2022)

Baron Tredegar said:


> He had a foreign ideology and was converted to Christianity by an American missionary named Edwin Stevens. I guess a good comparison would be if some American guy attempted a Juche revolution in the US.


mao zedong also had a foreign ideology, he's also killed a lot more people than that, yet he's considered a national hero


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## Baron Tredegar (Mar 20, 2022)

Frank Gulotta said:


> mao zedong also had a foreign ideology, he's also killed a lot more people than that, yet he's considered a national hero


In recent years in China there has been pushback against celebrating Mao and more support for recognizing him as the dictator he was.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Mar 29, 2022)

Russia could've been Islamic, but they chose Vodka instead

No, seriously



> The Primary Chronicle reports that in the year 987, after consultation with his boyars, Vladimir the Great sent envoys to study the religions of the various neighboring nations whose representatives had been urging him to embrace their respective faiths. The result is described by the chronicler Nestor. He reported that Islam was undesirable due to its prohibition of alcoholic beverages and pork.[23] Vladimir remarked on the occasion:* "Drinking is the joy of all Rus'. We cannot exist without that pleasure."*[23] Ukrainian and Russian sources also describe Vladimir consulting with Jewish envoys and questioning them about their religion, but ultimately rejecting it as well, saying that their loss of Jerusalem was evidence that they had been abandoned by God.











						Vladimir the Great - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## Yastreb (Mar 30, 2022)

Sigurd the Mighty, a viking ruler in nothern Scotland, was bit to death by the severed head of a rival leader he had killed.



> According to the _Orkneyinga saga_, towards the end of his reign, Sigurd challenged a native ruler, Máel Brigte the Buck-Toothed, to a 40-man-a-side battle. Treacherously, Sigurd brought 80 men to the fight. Máel Brigte was defeated and beheaded. Sigurd strapped the head to his saddle as a trophy, but as Sigurd rode, Máel Brigte's buck-tooth scratched his leg. The leg became inflamed and infected, and as a result Sigurd died.



Another embarassing death was that of Archduchess Mathilda of Austria: she was caught smoking by her father, tried to quickly hide the cigarette but instead managed to set her dress on fire and burned on spot.


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## Baron Tredegar (Mar 30, 2022)

Yastreb said:


> Sigurd the Mighty, a viking ruler in nothern Scotland, was bit to death by the severed head of a rival leader he had killed.
> 
> 
> 
> Another embarassing death was that of Archduchess Mathilda of Austria: she was caught smoking by his father, tried to quickly hide the cigarette but instead managed to set her dress on fire and burned on spot.


Strange deaths are a morbid fascination of mine. In 1902 in Hawaii a man was beaten to death with a Bible in an exorcism gone wrong. Apparently one English duke in the 1400s drowned in a barrel of wine. Then there is my ancestor Edmund Fitzalan, 2nd Earl of Arundel, who was executed by the wife of Edward II. He was ordered to be beheaded but the sword was blunt so it took 22 strokes to fully sever his head from his body. Apparently after he died he got his own cult.


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## Yastreb (Mar 30, 2022)

Baron Tredegar said:


> Strange deaths are a morbid fascination of mine. In 1902 in Hawaii a man was beaten to death with a Bible in an exorcism gone wrong. Apparently one English duke in the 1400s drowned in a barrel of wine. Then there is my ancestor Edmund Fitzalan, 2nd Earl of Arundel, who was executed by the wife of Edward II. He was ordered to be beheaded but the sword was blunt so it took 22 strokes to fully sever his head from his body. Apparently after he died he got his own cult.


How about tripping over a tombstone during a funeral procession and being crushed by the coffin?


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## Baron Tredegar (Mar 30, 2022)

Yastreb said:


> How about tripping over a tombstone during a funeral procession and being crushed by the coffin?


How about that dude in 1st Maccabees who killed a Seleucid war elephant only to be crushed by said elephant?


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## Frank Gulotta (Apr 6, 2022)




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## The_biscuits_532 (Apr 6, 2022)

Frank Gulotta said:


>


That's a lil before the medieval period lol

But cats though... 

An exception can be made


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## Yastreb (Apr 7, 2022)

Frank Gulotta said:


>


Alternative title: How Cats Domesticated Us (Twice)


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## Fallowfox (Apr 7, 2022)

The Kingdom of Aksum was a powerful Christian Empire in East Africa and the western Arabian peninsula at the beginning of the Medieval period. It is well known for constructing many decorative stone towers and for being one of the first Kingdoms of Africa to mint it owns coins.
While Aksum was Christian, it played an important role in other world religions; early Muslims were temporarily offered protection in Aksum, as the relationship between Mohammed and Mecca deteriorated.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Apr 7, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> The Kingdom of Aksum was a powerful Christian Empire in East Africa and the western Arabian peninsula at the beginning of the Medieval period. It is well known for constructing many decorative stone towers and for being one of the first Kingdoms of Africa to mint it owns coins.
> While Aksum was Christian, it played an important role in other world religions; early Muslims were temporarily offered protection in Aksum, as the relationship between Mohammed and Mecca deteriorated.


It's also the earliest extent of the Ethiopian state - whilst nations had existed in the region prior, Aksum was the first to adopt the name, and obviously it was the first to adopt Ethiopia's signature form of Coptic Christianity. 

Aksum would collapse however, and was succeeded by the Zagwe, and then the Ethiopian Empire, which lasted right up until the 1974 USSR-backed Derg military coup.


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## Fallowfox (Apr 8, 2022)

Turkic languages like Mongolian_ look _similar to Chinese pictograms, but they are actually written in alphabets that descend from Egyptian hieroglyphics via Phoenician.

Old Turkic, written in the medieval period, looks very similar to Norse runes.


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## TurbidCyno (Apr 8, 2022)

Ben Franklin believed there was something we could eat to make farts smell better and he wrote an inquiry to the Royal Academy of Brussels about it.


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## Fallowfox (Apr 18, 2022)

Manichaeism was a religion that spread extensively between the 3rd and 6th centuries AD, (it may have already been mentioned in this thread).
Manichaeism has 4 major prophets, including Jesus.

In Manichaeism Jesus manifests in 6 different forms, does not possess a real human body, was never physically born, and he lives* on the Moon*. :}




Spoiler













This is a Yuan dynasty silk painting of Jesus on the Moon.


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## TurbidCyno (Apr 18, 2022)

Wasn't Saint Augustine a Manichean for a while?


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## Fallowfox (Apr 19, 2022)

TurbidCyno said:


> Wasn't Saint Augustine a Manichean for a while?


Yes, I think he was threatened with death to oblige his conversion?

A lot of Manicheans were forcibly converted to Christianity in the Roman Empire, or murdered.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Apr 19, 2022)

Musket Wars - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




Following the arrival of European traders in New Zealand after 1769, the indigenous Maori people massively escalated their intertribal conflicts, due to the accessibility of european weaponry. The first recorded battle was at Moremonui, in 1807, between the Ngapuhi and the Ngati Whatua. The Ngapuhi actually had the technological advantage, but they were so inexperienced with firearms that the Ngati Whatua overwhelmed them with traditional weaponry. Soon after however, the Ngati Whatua were defeated in a siege against the Kai Tutae, who had firearms.

From around 1818 onwards the Ngapuhi rose to become the dominant tribe, after they hoarded firearms. They didn't directly annex the other tribes, but instead turned them into tributaries, taking slaves and Taonga (cultural treasures). The slaves were used to raise crops, such as the introduced Potato and Flax, and domestic animals such as Pigs, so they could sell them for more weapons. They even started selling Mokomokai, or Smoked Heads. Potatoes in particular are considered to be incredibly important to the war, as their relative ease to cultivate allowed for more time for warfare.

In 1821, the warlord Hongi Hika of the Ngapuhi departed with english missionaries to England, where he bought some 400 muskets - mostly manufactured cheaply in Birmingham. Most were Tupara, a variety of two-barrelled shotgun. Many missionaries tried to prevent the spread of firearms, but the Ngapuhi threatened them into selling the weapons.

Hongi would go onto defeat the Ngati Paoa, Ngati Maru, Waikato, Te Awara, and Ngati Whatua following his return.

In 1835, the war spread to the Chatham Islands, after exiled Toa Warriors belonging to the Ngati Mutunga, Ngati Tama, and Ngati Toa hijacked a British ship. The native Moriori initially welcomed them, but conflict broke out after the murder of a 12 year olf Moriori girl. The Moriori government, or Hui, convened at Te Awapatiki, where they decided to maintain a pacifist stance on religious grounds. The Maori however thought they were preparing for war, and killed around 10% of the population, then outlawed their language, destroyed their sacred sites, and prevented them from having children. As of 1863, only 101 (down from 1700) Moriori survived, but now they have rebounded to 738, 36 of which remain on the Chatham Islands.

In the Musket Wars, the Maori developed the Pa, a sort of hybrid between a fortress and the trenches later used in World War 1. Women were also employed in them to reload depleted weapons between shots,

I actually first found out about the Musket Wars from this Maori-language thrash-metal band. It's members are Dutch-Maori


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## The_biscuits_532 (Apr 20, 2022)

Shoutout to Fucik's "Entry of The Gladiators" an 1897 marching song meant to be used in military contexts. 

HOWEVER, you might know it as

clown music


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## KimberVaile (Apr 24, 2022)

Interesting insight! Can't say I am surprised eithier, Medieval Europe was a tough place.


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## Nexus Cabler (Apr 24, 2022)

Plot twist, Medieval Europe was more hygienic than we thought. :0






Secondly, they had a lot of free time, more than most of us these days. It wasn't as miserable of a life as we are often told.


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## Attaman (Apr 24, 2022)

Oh hey, that sounds like a new YT name. I wonder what-


			
				Some Sample Video Titles said:
			
		

> My position on whitewashing and blackwashing
> Tiktoker calls me supremacist. My response
> Do academics hate YouTubers?


Oh _*come on *_YT. Just once can you have a history channel that both _isn’t_ ExtraCredit _and_ isn’t going to make me go full Event Horizon looking at my new “Recommended Videos” list? Once? 

This isn’t meant as a drag on you or that specific video Zippy (I’m on mobile at work ATM and pretty sure they wouldn’t like me listening to medieval bathing practices on the clock, so I haven’t watched it yet). Just that I’d like to be able to watch videos on Roman plumbing or Indian Elephant rearing from somebody _other _than ExtraCredits and not have my Recommended Video feed _go places _when I just want nifty history facts or music similar to what I already consume. 

Thumbnail: “Come with me on a tour of Göbekli Tepe”
Me: *Click*
Recommended Videos: “Hey Attaman, did you know the Inca were given civilization by aliens?”
Me: “For fuck’s sake.”


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## Nexus Cabler (Apr 24, 2022)

Attaman said:


> Oh hey, that sounds like a new YT name. I wonder what-
> 
> Oh _*come on *_YT. Just once can you have a history channel that both _isn’t_ ExtraCredit _and_ isn’t going to make me go full Event Horizon looking at my new “Recommended Videos” list? Once?
> 
> ...


Oh wow, okay, so I didn't notice those were some video titles of theirs. I guess that's kind of on me for just YouTube searching "Cool Medieval fact videos" and not checking out what other content they had.

I don't intend to drag the youtubers personal views in the thread. I'd rather not take the thread down a disastrous road.


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## Frank Gulotta (Apr 24, 2022)

ZippyZap said:


> Oh wow, okay, so I didn't notice those were some video titles of theirs. I guess that's kind of on me for just YouTube searching "Cool Medieval fact videos" and not checking out what other content they had.
> 
> I don't intend to drag the youtubers personal views in the thread. I'd rather not take the thread down a disastrous road.


I've actually watched the "a tiktoker called me a white supremacist" video unlike I suspect this other person, and it's exactly what you'd expect when you hear someone's accused of being a white supremacist these days, said tiktoker is pushing a batshit conspiracy theory about ancient Rome being a myth, here's the jest of it https://www.yahoo.com/news/history-tiktokers-viral-claim-ancient-193234464.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall, academics have called bullshit on it, I'm sure they're white supremacists too. What I'm not sure about is whether or not that video being recommended warranted whatever attaman was upset about, my guts say no.

Metatron is actually a great source for little historic facts such as what made the Burgundian knight stand out from his time, or why TV shows grossly misrepresent the efficiency of chain mail.


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## Fallowfox (Apr 24, 2022)

A recent analysis of nitrogen isotopes in medieval graves suggests that Anglo-Saxon elites had mostly vegetarian diets, similar to every-day people. 
It had previously been expected that higher social castes would consume more meat, but no evidence of this can be found. 









						Cambridge University study finds Anglo-Saxon kings were mostly vegetarian
					

Peasants occasionally hosted lavish meat feasts for their rulers, researchers say.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## Nexus Cabler (Apr 24, 2022)

Frank Gulotta said:


> I've actually watched the "a tiktoker called me a white supremacist" video unlike I suspect this other person, and it's exactly what you'd expect when you hear someone's accused of being a white supremacist these days, said tiktoker is pushing a batshit conspiracy theory about ancient Rome being a myth, here's the jest of it https://www.yahoo.com/news/history-tiktokers-viral-claim-ancient-193234464.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall, academics have called bullshit on it, I'm sure they're white supremacists too. What I'm not sure about is whether or not that video being recommended warranted whatever attaman was upset about, my guts say no.
> 
> Metatron is actually a great source for little historic facts such as what made the Burgundian knight stand out from his time, or why TV shows grossly misrepresent the efficiency of chain mail.


I'm sure they do have some good academically backed videos and I won't make any assumptions on who they are personally. It sounds like they have some good factual content that is useful, but I'd just like to personally stay on the thread topic now if that's alright.




Fallowfox said:


> A recent analysis of nitrogen isotopes in medieval graves suggests that Anglo-Saxon elites had mostly vegetarian diets, similar to every-day people.
> It had previously been expected that higher social castes would consume more meat, but no evidence of this can be found.
> 
> 
> ...



I can imagine that meat consumption was glamorized a lot back if it was reserved for specific occasions. Perhaps that's why we see a lot of mentioning of it. With all the crop fields and vegetation food available around nobility lands I'm not surprised that they ate nonmeat more often due to it being more abundant.


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## Frank Gulotta (Apr 24, 2022)

ZippyZap said:


> I'm sure they do have some good academically backed videos and I won't make any assumptions on who they are personally. It sounds like they have some good factual content that is useful, but I'd just like to personally stay on the thread topic now if that's alright.


But then it's rambling about youtube recommended results that would be off-topic, while the debunking of a conspiracy theory about ancient Rome would be perfectly on-topic.


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## Fallowfox (Apr 24, 2022)

In general I avoid this whole debate by avoiding youtube! ;3



ZippyZap said:


> I can imagine that meat consumption was glamorized a lot back if it was reserved for specific occasions. Perhaps that's why we see a lot of mentioning of it. With all the crop fields and vegetation food available around nobility lands I'm not surprised that they ate nonmeat more often due to it being more abundant.



Yeah I think 'self-reported' diet usually says a lot about a person's aspirations. People post WWII often claimed their diets included a lot more butter and sugar than they really did. 

People today often claim they drink a lot less alcohol than they really do. 

My favourite bit about this study though is that Scandinavian skeletons show a distinct signature of fish-eating.


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## Attaman (Apr 24, 2022)

Fun corrections of misinformation / theories related to ancient Rome? I love that subject! As does Prof. Bret Devereaux, and since I haven't shilled for ACOUP in a bit have a couple of fun and nicely sourced posts in recent months.

Or for those who want at least something of an abstract:
1's about media dressing itself in historicity while only paying a minimal of lip-service / often little more than aesthetic accuracy, 2 delves into the particular nuances of dictatorship and whatnot as it applied to Ancient Rome (also, for those who wish to avoid current event references in their history binges, makes a point of a couple recent geo-political events), and 3+ are all about causes / nuances behind the collapse of Ancient Rome (and has also, for its earlier articles, been linked before).


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## KimberVaile (Apr 24, 2022)

Attaman said:


> Fun corrections of misinformation / theories related to ancient Rome? I love that subject! As does Prof. Bret Devereaux, and since I haven't shilled for ACOUP in a bit have a couple of fun and nicely sourced posts in recent months.
> 
> Or for those who want at least something of an abstract:
> 1's about media dressing itself in historicity while only paying a minimal of lip-service / often little more than aesthetic accuracy, 2 delves into the particular nuances of dictatorship and whatnot as it applied to Ancient Rome (also, for those who wish to avoid current event references in their history binges, makes a point of a couple recent geo-political events), and 3+ are all about causes / nuances behind the collapse of Ancient Rome (and has also, for its earlier articles, been linked before).


I'm quite impressed at how consistently insightful Devereaux is. I've appreciated his run down of the fall of Rome in particular. I think the only thing I would mildly disagree with, is that the recovery period for the fall of the Western Roman Empires might be a little longer than his estimate. Admittedly though, I've always felt the Middle Ages for a good portion of it's entirety, was a pretty harsh and brutal age and a step back compared to what came before for quite some time.


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## Fallowfox (Apr 25, 2022)

KimberVaile said:


> I'm quite impressed at how consistently insightful Devereaux is. I've appreciated his run down of the fall of Rome in particular. I think the only thing I would mildly disagree with, is that the recovery period for the fall of the Western Roman Empires might be a little longer than his estimate. Admittedly though, I've always felt the Middle Ages for a good portion of it's entirety, was a pretty harsh and brutal age and a step back compared to what came before for quite some time.


So I began wondering recently...
A perception of intellectual decline in Western Europe as Rome receded may have been related to the division of the empire and reduced access to papyrus, 
because that meant expensive velum was the only option and extensive production of texts became less common. 

I think the idea of the early middle ages as a 'dark' age of recession has increasingly been brought into question though because of discoveries like Sutton Hoo in the 20th century.


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## KimberVaile (Apr 25, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> So I began wondering recently...
> A perception of intellectual decline in Western Europe as Rome receded may have been related to the division of the empire and reduced access to papyrus,
> because that meant expensive velum was the only option and extensive production of texts became less common.
> 
> I think the idea of the early middle ages as a 'dark' age of recession has increasingly been brought into question though because of discoveries like Sutton Hoo in the 20th century.


The articles Attaman link actually supports that at least the early Middle Ages was overwhelmingly a step back in the first few centuries and the archeological evidence proves that living standards precipitously decreased in the aftermath. And naturally when living standards are so poor, literacy tends to fall in tandem as the focus largely becomes more on subsistence than extracurriculars. It's hard to really disagree with what the archeological evidence suggest there. The acrholoegical sites clearly show how badly the population and living standards declined as the Roman Empire itself declined.

Additionally, the Romans were using parchment and tandem with papyrus. So they could have switched over to parchment if the need arise. The evidence left behind paints a partiuclar picture that is rather hard to ignore.


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## Fallowfox (Apr 25, 2022)

KimberVaile said:


> The articles Attaman link actually supports that at least the early Middle Ages was overwhelmingly a step back in the first few centuries and the archeological evidence proves that living standards precipitously decreased in the aftermath. And naturally when living standards are so poor, literacy tends to fall in tandem as the focus largely becomes more on subsistence than extracurriculars. It's hard to really disagree with what the archeological evidence suggest there. The acrholoegical sites clearly show how badly the population and living standards declined as the Roman Empire itself declined.
> 
> Additionally, the Romans were using parchment and tandem with papyrus. So they could have switched over to parchment if the need arise. The evidence left behind paints a partiuclar picture that is rather hard to ignore.








						Collections: Rome: Decline and Fall?  Part I: Words
					

This week we’re going to start tackling a complex and much debated question: ‘how bad was the fall of Rome (in the West)?’ This was the topic that won the vote among the patrons o…




					acoup.blog
				




Is this the one I should be reading? At least, there a variety of comments about literature here. 

I need some help being pointed to discussion of reduced standard of living, and some context about whether this was general across western Europe, or more restricted to Britain.


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## KimberVaile (Apr 25, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> Collections: Rome: Decline and Fall?  Part I: Words
> 
> 
> This week we’re going to start tackling a complex and much debated question: ‘how bad was the fall of Rome (in the West)?’ This was the topic that won the vote among the patrons o…
> ...











						Collections: Rome: Decline and Fall?  Part III: Things
					

This is the third and final part (I, II) of our series tackling the complicated and still debated question of ‘how bad was the fall of Rome (in the West)?’ In our first part, we looked …




					acoup.blog
				




There is a section titled "Living Standards". It describes in appreciable detail how living standards during and after the decline were lower and that the arechological sites support this.


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## Fallowfox (Apr 25, 2022)

KimberVaile said:


> Collections: Rome: Decline and Fall?  Part III: Things
> 
> 
> This is the third and final part (I, II) of our series tackling the complicated and still debated question of ‘how bad was the fall of Rome (in the West)?’ In our first part, we looked …
> ...


There's a post-publication note linking to this paper, which appears to show a different pattern.


			https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X18302600
		


This is actually authored by the_ same scientist_, which is interesting. They clarify that their earlier study reached a different conclusion because the sample size of bones was small and geographically restricted.
But I need time to read both of the papers. I feel like maybe the initial study describes the femurs of *British* people, who were not necessarily experiencing the same story as other people who had lived in the footprint of Rome?

What do you think?


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## KimberVaile (Apr 25, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> There's a post-publication note linking to this paper, which appears to show a different pattern.
> 
> 
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X18302600
> ...


Some problems with both studies is the sample size, while large, it is not large enough for all periods of the Roman Empire that is 'assured'. Or a smoking gun conclusion. This study you linked now is larger and encompasses more area, but I think it would be better served to focus more on 200-500 AD and focus on a particular city to have definitive proof. And since we are talking a civilization that lasted 2000 years, unfortunately both samples would benefit for being more specific. Same geographic area and within a 200 year span. Even with that, I think biologically, shorter people don't always mean they were malnourished, many non health related reason could possibly explain it.

As far as I recall Roman Britain was as badly affected by the decline as Rome. Both studies reveal something, but I have concerns at the same time. I just tend to think the femur length evidence can prove a little tricky in general. Especially with how diverse Rome tended to be with it's ethnicity at times.

My concerns about the evidence aside, the most compelling pieces of information there are related to animal bone deposits.

Animal bone deposits were also given in one of the studies, and since meat was considered a luxury then, the amount of  animal bones was used as a way to try and decipher the collective state at the time period. This suffers a bit from sample size too, but seems to imply the peak was 50 AD. There was additional speculation about height not being an entirely accurate indicator of overall health at times. So at least, the archeological evidence for femur length may not be as relevant. I'm a bit short myself, haha. I don't tend to think I have horrible health but that's anecdotal and bedsides the main point.

So the femur length has some dimensions and other variables to it that might make things difficult. Especially consider being short does not always mean you had poor health. Other factors like lead records in ice cores, meat consumption and ship wrecks prove more foolproof.


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## Fallowfox (Apr 26, 2022)

KimberVaile said:


> Some problems with both studies is the sample size, while large, it is not large enough for all periods of the Roman Empire that is 'assured'. Or a smoking gun conclusion. This study you linked now is larger and encompasses more area, but I think it would be better served to focus more on 200-500 AD and focus on a particular city to have definitive proof. And since we are talking a civilization that lasted 2000 years, unfortunately both samples would benefit for being more specific. Same geographic area and within a 200 year span. Even with that, I think biologically, shorter people don't always mean they were malnourished, many non health related reason could possibly explain it.
> 
> As far as I recall Roman Britain was as badly affected by the decline as Rome. Both studies reveal something, but I have concerns at the same time. I just tend to think the femur length evidence can prove a little tricky in general. Especially with how diverse Rome tended to be with it's ethnicity at times.
> 
> ...



Apologies for the brevity of this post. 
The frequency of animal bones might be misleading because there isn't a linear relationship between bone number and the mass of food that produced them, so the number of bones can reflect shifts or regional patterns in the types of meat that were available, rather than total meat consumption. 

Whether total meat consumption should be interpreted as a good indicator of population health is an interesting question in itself. 

My personal perspective at this time is that I need to read more, and by some other authors than Jongman, before developing firmer beliefs about whether life became substantially worse in the early middle ages. At the moment my perspective is edging around the possibility that it might not be possible to come to a highly confident answer- but that may just belie my own ignorance.


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## KimberVaile (Apr 26, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> Apologies for the brevity of this post.
> The frequency of animal bones might be misleading because there isn't a linear relationship between bone number and the mass of food that produced them, so the number of bones can reflect shifts or regional patterns in the types of meat that were available, rather than total meat consumption.
> 
> Whether total meat consumption should be interpreted as a good indicator of population health is an interesting question in itself.
> ...


As mentioned, meat consumption is a luxury usually and what's important is that this is in tandem with other studies that all point to the same conclusion. There are some variables, yes though the animal bones were from bone assemblages. Though it should be mentioned that in most cases, good stanrdads of living are very directly correlated to the health of the economy.

To explain the other pieces of archeological evidence simply. Minting silver back then created lead fumes. When the Roman Empire was declining it was in severe economic turmoil. To address this, the Western Roman Empire debased their currency heavily, which is usually the death throes of an empire. Because they debased their currency with other material like copper, the lead found in the ice sheets were significantly lower during the times of the decline. This is collaborated with evidence of shipwrecks. Shipwrecks from the decline era, for example, show a decrease in the quality of the coinage in the empire during this era of decline.

The archaeological evidence makes it very clear, in these cases, and like with the massive decrease in meat consumption, indicates the turmoil of the period of decline.

If you wish to verify the archeological evidence,try "Development and Crisis in Ancient Rome: the Role of Mediterranean Trade"
Another article titled "Lead pollution recorded in Greenland ice indicates European emissions tracked plagues, wars, and imperial expansion during antiquity" paint a similar picture. The importance being all these pieces of evidence support the idea that living standards drastically declined during the Fall of Rome.

One single source won't prove anything, but multiple sources pointing in a particular direction will.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Apr 26, 2022)

I'm noticing a lot of roman talk for a medieval-period-onwards thread...


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## KimberVaile (Apr 26, 2022)

The_biscuits_532 said:


> I'm noticing a lot of roman talk for a medieval-period-onwards thread...


Because the discussion details the tail end of the Western Roman Empire which is seated near the beggining of the middle ages. The Fall of the empire is often cited to have started the Medieval period in Europe as well.


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## Frank Gulotta (Apr 26, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> The frequency of animal bones might be misleading because there isn't a linear relationship between bone number and the mass of food that produced them, so the number of bones can reflect shifts or regional patterns in the types of meat that were available, rather than total meat consumption.


Bones are less reliable time witnesses than metal or terracotta also because people used animal bones for all sorts of things. They got consumed/melted/otherwise moved around a lot.


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## Fallowfox (Apr 27, 2022)

Frank Gulotta said:


> Bones are less reliable time witnesses than metal or terracotta also because people used animal bones for all sorts of things. They got consumed/melted/otherwise moved around a lot.


A fair point. 

As an aside, it always amazes me that basic questions within written history like 'what did people eat in the middle ages?' often do not have clear answers.


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## Frank Gulotta (Apr 27, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> A fair point.
> 
> As an aside, it always amazes me that basic questions within written history like 'what did people eat in the middle ages?' often do not have clear answers.


We know more about the eating habits of that guy who died in a bog thousands of years ago because he was so well-preserved, people who found him called the cops because they thought the murderer was still around.


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## Baron Tredegar (Apr 27, 2022)

Frank Gulotta said:


> We know more about the eating habits of that guy who died in a bog thousands of years ago because he was so well-preserved, people who found him called the cops because they thought the murderer was still around.


But what if he is? I say an alien vampire did it. jk


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## Frank Gulotta (Apr 27, 2022)

Baron Tredegar said:


> But what if he is? I say an alien vampire did it. jk


He also stole my lunch


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## Baron Tredegar (Apr 27, 2022)

Frank Gulotta said:


> He also stole my lunch


Those alien vampires, murdering bog men and stealing lunches, will there ever be an end to it?


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## Fallowfox (Apr 29, 2022)

I completed my read-through of Jongman et al., 2019.

-'Health' is a derived variable produced by a factor analysis of several different long-bones. (population size ~10,000 individuals, but it's spatio-temporally inhomogeneous).
-When Rome is at its most economically productive, its population highest, and its long-distance trade networks most intense, the index for population health is lowest.
-Geographic subsets show that this is not a result of the sample geography of bones evolving over time.
-The health of people in the early middle ages appears to increase as Rome declines, de-urbanisation occurs over centuries and the population size is reduced.

This might be because well-connected Roman societies full of dense urban dwellings resulted in high levels of disease and poor health outcomes, so when the material wealth of the empire declined, and urban centres depopulated, the health of subsequent generations of people improved.
This pattern of health anti-correlating with material wealth and population is called 'Malthusian' population dynamics.

So this is a different way of viewing the decline of Rome and the passage into the early middle ages in Western Europe, representing a trade-off between health and wealth.


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## KimberVaile (Apr 29, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> I completed my read-through of Jongman et al., 2019.
> 
> -'Health' is a derived variable produced by a factor analysis of several different long-bones. (population size ~10,000 individuals, but it's spatio-temporally inhomogeneous).
> -When Rome is at its most economically productive, its population highest, and its long-distance trade networks most intense, the index for population health is lowest.
> ...


"Health" In the sense of the historical trend of most very large cities through most of history have poor health. This is not always true for smaller towns and cities. Focusing on a handful of large cities will not tell the complete or full picture.


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## Fallowfox (Apr 29, 2022)

KimberVaile said:


> "Health" In the sense of the historical trend of most very large cities more most of history have poor health. This is not always true for smaller towns and cities.



It's one possible explanation for improved skeletal signs of health in the early middle ages. 

Maybe there are other explanations for why health improved. I think the diversity of influenza lineages (should expect to see wide-spread occurrences of single lineages in a well-connected society), or the amount of tuberculosis pathology in bones, would be a good way of testing whether disease burden is the cause.


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## Frank Gulotta (May 1, 2022)

Yay it's may! this time of the year had a special place in the heart of people in the middle ages and renaissance. I don't think other months get as much exposure in the musical production of the time, if any. To my knowledge only April gets named, in one of the examples below and it's basically to say "let's not talk about that shit anymore it's May now"


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## Baron Tredegar (May 3, 2022)

The Bogd Khan is a really interesting guy. He will probably remain the only Theocratic head of a communist monarchy to ever exist.








						Bogd Khan - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				











						Bogd Khanate of Mongolia - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## Yastreb (May 4, 2022)

Baron Tredegar said:


> The Bogd Khan is a really interesting guy. He will probably remain the only Theocratic head of a communist monarchy to ever exist.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Around the same time Mongolia was also briefly ruled by the crazy Russian monarchist warlord Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. The fact that someone with the name "von Ungern-Sternberg" has been the ruler of _Mongolia_ is one of the most bizarre historical facts I know.


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## The_biscuits_532 (May 4, 2022)

Yastreb said:


> Around the same time Mongolia was also briefly ruled by the crazy Russian monarchist warlord Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. The fact that someone with the name "von Ungern-Sternberg" has been the ruler of _Mongolia_ is one of the most bizarre historical facts I know.


Yeah I've heard a bit about Ungern. Dude was absolutely insane. From what I remember he was of Hungarian-German descent but he was a total mongolaboo who thought he was a descendant of Genghis


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## Nexus Cabler (May 4, 2022)

Soldiers in World War 1 acknowledging all the horses that died during the war.


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## Baron Tredegar (May 4, 2022)

Yastreb said:


> Around the same time Mongolia was also briefly ruled by the crazy Russian monarchist warlord Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. The fact that someone with the name "von Ungern-Sternberg" has been the ruler of _Mongolia_ is one of the most bizarre historical facts I know.





The_biscuits_532 said:


> Yeah I've heard a bit about Ungern. Dude was absolutely insane. From what I remember he was of Hungarian-German descent but he was a total mongolaboo who thought he was a descendant of Genghis


The dude thought he could bring back the Tsar and the Mongol Empire. The cognitive dissonance was strong with him.


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## Yastreb (May 5, 2022)

The longest papal conclave ever.

The pope Clement IV died in 1268. At the time the rules about conclaves were pretty different from now. First of all they were always held where the previous pope had died, in this case the Italian town of Viterbo. Also there was no rule requiring the cardinals to stay behind closed doors, so one might speculate they liked it a bit too much in Viterbo and were in absolutely no hurry to find a new pope. On top of that they were divided into four opposing factions so there was no way anyone could get the needed supermajority.

After the conclave had lasted for a year one of the 19 cardinals died, but this did not discourage the others. Another one died the following year. At this point the town's officials decided this was ridiculous and, to encourage a quick decision, ordered the remaining cardinals to be locked in one building and not to be let out. Furthermore they were only supplied water and dry bread from now on, nothing else. Finally the building's roof was removed so the cardinals had to suffer from rain and cold.

Still the factions were so entrenched they lasted one full year in these conditions before being able to find a compromise and elect Gregory X.





_Seriously guys._


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## Yastreb (May 9, 2022)

There's lots of gems in papal history. Pope John XII apparently died while having sex with a woman called Stefanetta, possibly from a stroke or maybe because Stefanetta's husband caught them in the act and threw the pope out the window.


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## Fallowfox (May 9, 2022)

I'm amazed there are still popes given what a good argument the popes themselves have made against the position over the centuries.


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## Punji (May 9, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> I'm amazed there are still popes given what a good argument the popes themselves have made against the position over the centuries.


One could say the same of any position of authority.


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## Fallowfox (May 9, 2022)

Punji said:


> One could say the same of any position of authority.



It's just a joke about the entertaining goofy nonsense the popes got up to.

But to bring relevance to this, the popes _themselves_ have declared each other illegitimate with more vigour than even Sinead O'connor.
There have even been situations where 2 or more popes sat at once, and attempted to declare one another 'antipopes'.

Popes in Avignon, Rome and Pisa all at the same time in 1409.


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## Frank Gulotta (May 29, 2022)

I love thinking of alternate history where different powers gain prominence and influence their area in their unique way. Burgundy was ahead in many ways in the mid 15th century. I wonder what Europe would look like today if Burgundy had prevailed. It might've only been up to Joan of Arc in this case. Here's a Burgundian patriotic anthem




Which has a Polish version for some reason which is awesome!


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## KimberVaile (Jun 1, 2022)

Something of a pet peeve of mine, but I find it rather egotistical that people tend to assume they're leagues more intelligent than people in the past, based on nothing but having hindsight on past events. More educated maybe, but that's not the same as being more intelligent.

Civil war surgeons often get flak because of the amount of amputations they performed. Of course that myth that they are incompetent is completely ignoring the fact that a civil war minie ball is going to cause far more immense damage to a human body than a bullet from the highest caliber modern firearm available. When a musket minie ball impacted bone, it shattered it completely 9 times out of 10. Hence, because the bone was shattered, literally all they could do at the time was amputate to prevent death in most cases. It's not due to 'incompetence', it's a giant ball of lead being fired at high velocity, and that's probably going to shatter your bone if you're unlucky enough to get hit by it on one of your limbs.

Civil war surgeons did the best that they could with what tools they had available. They weren't idiots, they were taking the only measure they could to assist the wounded most of the time. Again, what exactly do you do about a shattered bone in that time period?

Civil war amputation is more of a testament to how terrible a weapon the Springfield musket was more than anything to do with 'incompetence'. Yes, some surgeons were quacks, but to make it out to be like that was the standard is inaccurate and plays down how traumatizing it would be to spend each day hacking off limbs.






__





						Civil War Battlefield Surgery | eHISTORY
					






					ehistory.osu.edu


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## Frank Gulotta (Jun 1, 2022)

KimberVaile said:


> Something of a pet peeve of mine, but I find it rather egotistical that people tend to assume they're leagues more intelligent than people in the past, based on nothing but having hindsight on past events. More educated maybe, but that's not the same as being more intelligent.
> 
> Civil war surgeons often get flak because of the amount of amputations they performed. Of course that myth is completely ignoring the fact that a civil war minie ball is going to far more immense damage to a human body than a bullet from the highest caliber modern firearm available. When a musket minie ball impacted bone, it shattered it completely 9 times out of 10. Hence, because the bone was shattered, literally all they could do at the time was amputate to prevent death in most cases. It's not due to 'incompetence', it's a giant ball of lead being fired at high velocity, and that's probably going to shatter your bone if you're unlucky enough to get hit by it on one of your limbs.
> 
> ...


I remember reading that people in the past were actually smarter on average than people nowadays, which makes sense as they didn't have as many devices as we do doing their thinking for them.


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## Punji (Jun 1, 2022)

KimberVaile said:


> Something of a pet peeve of mine, but I find it rather egotistical that people tend to assume they're leagues more intelligent than people in the past, based on nothing but having hindsight on past events. More educated maybe, but that's not the same as being more intelligent.
> 
> Civil war surgeons often get flak because of the amount of amputations they performed. Of course that myth is completely ignoring the fact that a civil war minie ball is going to cause far more immense damage to a human body than a bullet from the highest caliber modern firearm available. When a musket minie ball impacted bone, it shattered it completely 9 times out of 10. Hence, because the bone was shattered, literally all they could do at the time was amputate to prevent death in most cases. It's not due to 'incompetence', it's a giant ball of lead being fired at high velocity, and that's probably going to shatter your bone if you're unlucky enough to get hit by it on one of your limbs.
> 
> ...


Just to imagine the pain of a completely shattered bone. Not only the pain from the impact and initial wound but the numerous smaller stabbing impacts of bone fragments splintering through the periosteum into the muscle tissue.

The huge amount of pain and blood and fear and knowing if he survived it would be as an amputee would be horrifying. The poor men who fought in these wars were braver than most.


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## Baron Tredegar (Jun 1, 2022)

Frank Gulotta said:


> I remember reading that people in the past were actually smarter on average than people nowadays, which makes sense as they didn't have as many devices as we do doing their thinking for them.


It pains me to think of how much knowledge was lost in the Libraries in Alexandria and Baghdad.


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## Nexus Cabler (Jun 1, 2022)

What a medieval toilet in a castle looked like.





Homicidal rabbits in manuscripts.





A medieval surgeon repaired this broken bone with riveted copper plate






These are cat prints still imprinted on old manuscript from the 1100s


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## Baud (Jul 9, 2022)

I am just slightly obsessed with WW1 so here's some of the stuff I got. First a German M18 gas mask modified to fit French M17 filters to be used by the Belgian army during the war:










From left to right: an Italian propaganda booklet from 1917 titled "If the Germans came...", piece of barbed wire from an Italian battlefield, British foldable wire cutters, Austro-Hungarian stahlhelm helmet, Italian bayonet for the Carcano 91, French Adrian helmet, two shards of French shells, Austro-Hungarian mess tin with gas mask container on top, and finally the mask from above:






An Italian Adrian helmet will probably join them in a few days.


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## The_biscuits_532 (Jul 9, 2022)

Been reading on Portuguese and Brazilian history recently 

Apparently Emperor Peter I and IV of Brazil and Portugal was a notorious womaniser, but his first wife tolerated it because she was _absolutely_ into him. Like completely crazy about the guy. 

Anyway so she died and John suddenly realised *"oh fuck what is wrong with me she was the best thing ever and I treated her like actual garbage"*

On one occasion shortly after her death it's said his current mistress walked in on him cuddling his ex wife's portrait crying about it. 

He swore to be better and tried to arrange a marriage with one of the European powers but they were all totally aware of his reputation by that point, so it was kinda difficult. He eventually did remarry, to a woman from one of the smaller German principalities, and he kept to his word, and was completely faithful to her. 

Honestly that entire generation had so much goddamn drama

- His grandmother (Queen Maria) and grandfather (King Peter III) were uncle and niece but were so into each other that when he died, her mental health just imploded and she spent the rest of her life bedridden and screaming

- His mother (Charlotte) was constantly trying to undermine his father's (King John) rule. Despite Peter's own activities later in life, he despised her for her affairs, and went on record calling her a bitch as an adult 

- Peter was told by his father to declare independence from Portugal. King John could tell it was inevitable anyway so he felt having his son rule in Brazil was the best option. Despite this, the throne did still pass to Peter. For like a minute before he threw it at his daughter, who became Maria II

- Maria was planned to marry her uncle, Michael, but he backstabbed both of them and seized power in Portugal. Peter had to abdicate in Brazil to travel back to Europe and help. 

- His son, Peter II, became Brazil's second and last independent monarch. He was by all accounts a super cool guy who was loved by everyone, and he reigned for nearly 60 years - until the army overthrew him for abolishing slavery.


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