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I'm Crap posted:Dude, he literally said that the reason that Danes started going a-robbing and a-reaving is because they were provoked by Charlemagne's imperialism and religious persecution. I think you, I'm Crap, are the only one reading it like that. You should look up the economic theory El Estrago Bonito got at in his post where Christian trade restrictions against pagans boxed out Vikings and/or imposed an unfair two-tiered system that prompted revenge raids staked on honor and fairness that set off the Viking age, if you dislike the idea that discrimination led to violent reprisals that later evolved into a way of life when the Norse figured out how exploitable Christians were. Theories like that ultimately don't pass judgement on who was right, who was wrong or who was the real oppressor (I don't think anyone would say a few Norse temples burnt down in Denmark justifies a few hundred years of pillaging anyway), they just try to make sense of what circumstances led to what events.
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Jan 5, 2016 21:31
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Man what a fun fact! Actual fun fact: Back in the heyday of Broadway in the first half of the 20th century, the hat check girl at legendary restaurant Sardi's, Renee Carroll, was so popular that her witticisms were quoted in the gossip columns nearly every week. Even though she was only tipped twenty-five cents a hat, she made enough to buy a six-figure apartment in Manhattan (and that's in 20s dollars), and she was such a figure of fascination that she had both a Broadway play and a film made about her. With that resume it's easy to imagine she was just a hottie who found lucrative work being visible to the rich and powerful, but she was famously very plain. This portrait by Gard (The guy who did all the old Sardi's caricatures) was considered unusually flattering, and proof of how much he must have liked her:  She wrote a really great autobiography called "In Your Hat" that I highly recommend if you can track it down.
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Jan 5, 2016 21:56
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AgentF posted:Greek fire can't melt stone aqueducts On that subject, how cool was it that 7th century warfare involved flamethrowers, and that historians still aren't sure how exactly they did it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire
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Jan 6, 2016 03:07
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Speaking of fire and ships...how about FIRE SHIPS? So your navy has this leaky old boat that has seen better days. Thing is barely seaworthy and even then probably only by technicality but you want to get one last use out of her. So what do you do? You pack her with flammable/explosive things, light her on fire, and send her sailing fast as she can into an enemy fleet with no crew on board. Eventually people started building things specifically as fire ships. "What's the big deal?" you might ask? Well, because they were on fire, had no crew, and were in the middle of the water they were kind of unpredictable. If they were filled with explosives they'd blow up but you didn't know when. More importantly when a ball of fire is careening toward your wooden, highly flammable ship "get the gently caress away" is your best response. They would either cause destruction on their own or sow panic among enemy fleets. They were also kind of difficult to stop as you couldn't exactly board them.
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Jan 6, 2016 03:19
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Stop triggering the Spanish ToxicSlurpee.
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Jan 6, 2016 03:23
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-Joyce Hatto was an arguably talented pianist who stopped recording in the Seventies. Her husband ran a record label, and began releasing many of her "new" recording in the 90's and 2000's. Joyce had cancer, and it was said that these private recordings were made when she was struggling with death. The recordings sold for thousands; they were critically praised to the point that some considered her the best pianist of our times. In 2006 it was revealed that all of her recordings were actually subtly manipulated works by other pianists, or even unadulterated commercially unavailable material. I-Tunes Gracenote program would sometimes link the songs with their actual original recordings. This embarrassed the world of classic piano music critics, as some had praised Hatto's style at length while loquaciously dismissing some of the original recordings which they were opaquely derivative of. Her husband refuges to acknowledge wrong-doing, claiming that he originally was making a shrine and legacy for his dying wife and had started by mixing "fills" in to cover her gasps of cancerous pain while playing. Others say this was a big gently caress YOU to the snoody music world which was sometimes dismissive of Hatto's genuine 70's recordings.
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Jan 6, 2016 08:35
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The suggestion that the author of the plays of William Shakespeare was actually either Edward de Vere, Kit Marlowe, Francis Bacon or some other random punter is some conspiracy level garbo, particularly given that several modern computerised data-matching algorithms have since proven conclusively that none of those candidates share any credible stylistic similarities to ol' Shakesy.
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Jan 6, 2016 10:39
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That said, the life of William Shakespeare is undoubtedly shrouded in shadow. We simply do not know enough about the author himself to piece together a reliable biography, and there are several years where "Shakespeare" seems to disappear altogether.
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Jan 6, 2016 10:47
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My personal favorite theory is that Shakespeare wasn't one guy. Or even a guy all the time. There's a theory floating around that some of the plays were written by a woman and the name was just something they slapped on stuff with enough similarity because women weren't allowed to be important at the time.
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Jan 6, 2016 11:16
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ToxicSlurpee posted:My personal favorite theory is that Shakespeare wasn't one guy. Or even a guy all the time. There's a theory floating around that some of the plays were written by a woman and the name was just something they slapped on stuff with enough similarity because women weren't allowed to be important at the time. But if you're not controversial, how are you going to make a name for yourself and rake in the cash from book deals? On that note, two German commanders were quoted as saying this of the British in WWI: quote:Ludendorff: The English soldiers fight like lions. Good catchphrase, and it helps paint a picture of the British command as being composed of General Melchett clones. Unfortunately, the quote is completely unsubstantiated. It was useful for the historian who initially quoted it though, as it helped substantiate the views in his book.
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Jan 6, 2016 13:21
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A nation of shop keeping lions and donkeys.
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Jan 6, 2016 14:47
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Homestar Runner posted:The suggestion that the author of the plays of William Shakespeare was actually either Edward de Vere, Kit Marlowe, Francis Bacon or some other random punter is some conspiracy level garbo, particularly given that several modern computerised data-matching algorithms have since proven conclusively that none of those candidates share any credible stylistic similarities to ol' Shakesy. That's because Marlowe didn't write any of his won plays - he was too busy writing Shakespeare's! So who wrote Marlowe's, you ask? Well, Shakespeare had a lot of time on his hands... 
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Jan 6, 2016 17:10
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Ichabod Sexbeast posted:That's because Marlowe didn't write any of his won plays - he was too busy writing Shakespeare's! So who wrote Marlowe's, you ask? Well, Shakespeare had a lot of time on his hands... The "Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare" garbage started in the 19th C, when literary critics were dumbfounded that the son of a marginal glover in 16th C Avon could create poetry too difficult for most literary critics of their own day.
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Jan 6, 2016 17:26
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hard counter posted:I think you, I'm Crap, are the only one reading it like that. hard counter posted:Speaking of Charlemagne there's a theory with some traction that his aggressive Christianizing of Europe led to the Viking Age. Some Franks high on zeal burn down some Norse temples in lower Denmark and the local Vikings go on a revenge raid or two and figure out that Christian churches are both rich and easy pickings, thus leading to a medieval gold-rush of sorts. At the very least Charlemagne's proselytizing by sword would have raised tensions contributing to Norse aggression. hard counter posted:Speaking of Charlemagne there's a theory with some traction that his aggressive Christianizing of Europe led to the Viking Age.  What can I have been thinking?Do you have any kind of sources about when and how this supposed burning of Norse temples by Franks in Denmark took place, by the way?
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Jan 6, 2016 21:14
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The Saxon pagans were allied with the Danes was the point, but i'm pretty sure we are getting tired of arguing with overly defensive christians so let's just drop it?
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Jan 6, 2016 22:23
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I'm Crap posted:Do you have any kind of sources about when and how this supposed burning of Norse temples by Franks in Denmark took place, by the way? Yeah I located my source. Here's the crux of the events as relevant to the theory: In 772 Charlemagne began his attack on the Saxons on the north eastern border, he begun by crossing the river Ediel and destroying Irminsul the most sacred shrine of the Saxon's pagan religion, and possible seat of their religion, and targeting other nearby pagan churches. Irminsul was probably the Saxon equivalent of the Norse worldtree, Yggrasil, The Royal Frankish annuals records that Charlemagne "would persist in these attacks until the Saxons were defeated and forced to accept Christianity or were entirely exterminated." The Saxons responded in kind with the burning of a Christian Church at Fritzlar in 773. These exchanges would escalate and culminated in the Verdun massacre by Charlemagne in 783 and other acts of violence. Anyway in 776 Widukind, the leader of the Saxon resistance, fled to his brother-in-law's, a Danish king who would soon begin expansion of the dannevirke fortifications in anticipation of a Frankish invasion. Norse archaeological sites associated with this period of events (and after) show a marked increase in the intensity of self-arming and religious iconography and a set of temples associated with Norse artifacts, not Saxon, was burnt down near Ejder dated to this period. It's unlikely the Franks would have known or cared for the difference between pagan Saxons and pagan Norse during their campaigns. These attacks would predate any known account of Norse pillaging. Scholars posit, if the assumed sequences of events is correct, that the Norse either directly raided the Franks in response or sought easier targets for revenge, and it certainly may have contributed to the expansion of the dannevirke. In any case these revenge raids probably proved profitable and so the Norse would exploit Christians for essentially hundreds of years afterward. E: In the future I should probably try to post things that are more fun 
hard counter has a new favorite as of 01:04 on Jan 7, 2016 |
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Jan 6, 2016 22:52
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I'm Crap posted:
To be fair it can also be read as a neutral "Due to a period of skirmishes, the pagans learned that raids into settled territories can be profitable" instead of the loaded "Frankish imperialism provoked the pagans into waging war"
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Jan 6, 2016 23:12
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hard counter posted:In the future I should probably try to post things that are more fun For the love of god could you both shut up and quit ruining the thread. Nobody cares who's got the bigger dick about Charlemagne facts. There's an entire form full of history spergs you could be inflicting yourselves on instead of furiously masturbating in the middle of the one half-decent thread in PYF. I'm Crap posted:You're right, I'm crazy.
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Jan 6, 2016 23:45
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Widukind did nothing wrong.
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Jan 7, 2016 00:07
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:For the love of god could you both shut up and quit ruining the thread. Nobody cares who's got the bigger dick about Charlemagne facts. There's an entire form full of history spergs you could be inflicting yourselves on instead of furiously masturbating in the middle of the one half-decent thread in PYF. The tone is unnecessarily defensive but I found it hella interesting. It all depends on your definition of fun. My historical fun fact: Theodore Judah, one of the main planners and engineers of the Transcontinental railroad, surveyed the Sierra Nevada passes himself and chose Donner Pass. He surveyed quite a lot of the route himself, and his nickname was "Crazy Judah" which is pretty straightforward, and he rocked a hat: 
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Jan 7, 2016 01:09
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Nice neckbeard
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Jan 7, 2016 01:27
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Really surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, considering it's one of those bat-poo poo coincidences that make history so much fun to read about. quote:Robert Lincoln was once saved from possible serious injury or death by Edwin Booth, whose brother, John Wilkes Booth, was the assassin of Robert's father. The incident took place on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey. The exact date of the incident is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1863 or early 1864, before John Wilkes Booth's assassination of President Lincoln (April 14, 1865).
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Jan 7, 2016 01:45
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People who know machines probably know what a Stirling Engine is. They're...kind of a big deal. They're a heat-based steam engine. They're also a rather early steam engine invention. They were invented by a Scottish minister by the name of Robert Stirling, hence the name. Now, at the time steam engines were...well...let's just say a bit temperamental. As in they tended to explode, vomit shrapnel and hot steam everywhere, and maim and kill people. This was also before the Bessemer Process came about that made steel cheaper and just plain better. The steel of the era was "meh" by today's standards and iron itself wasn't really up to the job. Steam engines were useful so they ended up being "literally everywhere" but they were also dangerous as hell. One of the prevailing theories for his motivation was that Stirling, a priest who actually loving acted like one, decided that enough was enough. There had to be a way for steam engine workers to not have such an incredibly dangerous job. See, the other side of it was that his dad was an engineer. Even though Robert himself studied to be a priest he was still interested in engineering and no slouch with machines. He got to work and created the Stirling Engine which was not only safer but just plain better. They were more powerful, more efficient, and way safer. Over time he worked with his brother to improve them. All told he spent a significant chunk of his life ensuring that industrial work was just plain safer. If memory serves he also came away with a decent paycheck out of it but also decided not to be an rear end in a top hat tycoon about it. The most interesting part is that he had no freaking clue why his engines worked. It wasn't until later that somebody else figured out the math behind it all.
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Jan 7, 2016 03:17
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Oh baby, is that engine design ever hot.  Are we sure this wasn't some kind of primitive fucksaw engine
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Jan 7, 2016 03:41
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There's also several different designs for Stirling engines. But the big thing is having two chambers that can take turns with hot air expanding in one chamber and the other chamber cooling/shrinking. Add a heat source and you're good to go. They're also really damned nifty because they can work off of literally anything. All you need is a source of heat: the sun, burning brush, or even radioactive material (if you happen to have a pile of sub-critical plutonium around that you're using as a bed-warmer).
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Jan 7, 2016 04:44
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I can't let this talk of Stirling Engines go without showing this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCGTNArwJ0s
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Jan 7, 2016 04:47
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Alkydere posted:There's also several different designs for Stirling engines. But the big thing is having two chambers that can take turns with hot air expanding in one chamber and the other chamber cooling/shrinking. Add a heat source and you're good to go. It's even possible to make a small Stirling engine you can heat by holding it in your hand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCGTNArwJ0s You just need a heat source that produces enough heat for the engine. Small engines can be run by candles.
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Jan 7, 2016 04:47
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ToxicSlurpee posted:It's even possible to make a small Stirling engine you can heat by holding it in your hand. I like how he mentions if he put it on a piece of ice it would spin the other direction. Stirling engines can literally work off of a source of cold, it just needs a temperature difference, which is pretty loving cool from an engineering standpoint.
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Jan 7, 2016 04:58
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The Stirling Engine: God's Mechanical Cock
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Jan 7, 2016 05:02
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Scythian nomads, searching the barren reaches of the Gobi Desert for gold nuggets, told stories of griffins. These animals, with the head, wings, and claws of an eagle and the body of a lion, protected this gold. Although no one lived to see a living griffin, their skeletons littered the desert. Over the centuries, griffins acquired a host of behavioral traits: they lived in pairs, had nests like birds, used their front claws for evicerating those unlucky enough to come across one, etc, etc. These reports filtered into a myriad of cultures, getting recorded in Persian, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek and Roman history. When trade was active between Scythian tribes and centers of civilization, very few people doubted that the griffin was a real animal. But once trading routes began to die off with the decay of the Roman Empire, artists began to improvise on the basic myth. Depictions of the griffin eventually became so ornate and unrealistic that by the time the Enlightenment rolled around it had become just another mythological creature, created whole cloth by ancient storytellers. But it turns out that the griffin probably had a basis in reality. This is Protoceratops:  As it turns out, the Gobi Desert has some of the richest vertebrate fossil deposits in the world. In fact, it's difficult to travel around the desert and not run into a fossil eroding out of the sands. The area is rich with protoceratopsids, and it's not hard to see how classical depictions of griffins could have come from these. (One problem is they're pretty small; they're only about knee-high, not the lion-sized creatures of legend) Incidentally, the Gobi is also surrounded by mountains rich in gold, and as the gold erodes out of these mountains it gets blown around the desert floor, where some of it ends up in protoceratops nests. This association of griffins and gold isn't surprising, since birds are known to hoard shiny things. And if you look at the shorter front legs, it would be perfectly reasonable to assume that they stood on their back legs while ripping with their front legs. And, since the environment at the time was so good at preserving fossils, there's been hundreds of egg-filled nests found, some with protoceratops sitting on top of them or near them. The stories that we have of griffins from antiquity are probably based on descriptions of dinosaur bones dating back 6,000 to 9,000 years. I find that really cool.
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Jan 7, 2016 07:37
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It's not a huge leap to guess that most of our mythological creatures probably stem from people seeing huge bones and going 'what the hell is that'. When all you have are the bones, imagination kinda just fills the gap. Fun fact: Like most of our holidays, Valentine's day stems from a more ancient holiday. Here's neat little video on Lupercalia.
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Jan 7, 2016 07:53
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pol pot? big jerk 
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Jan 7, 2016 08:09
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A White Guy posted:It's not a huge leap to guess that most of our mythological creatures probably stem from people seeing huge bones and going 'what the hell is that'. When all you have are the bones, imagination kinda just fills the gap. There's also the theory that the cyclops myth grew from dwarf elephant skulls
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Jan 7, 2016 08:17
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Say Nothing posted:On that subject, how cool was it that 7th century warfare involved flamethrowers, and that historians still aren't sure how exactly they did it. While unsure, I do believe they are uniformly unsurprised.
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Jan 7, 2016 09:36
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Back To 99 posted:The Saxon pagans were allied with the Danes was the point, but i'm pretty sure we are getting tired of arguing with overly defensive christians so let's just drop it? Yeah let's change the subject. Pope Gregory IX condemned cats as satanic and issued death warrants for them resulting in a sustained cat holocaust. One century later the bubonic plague, spread by rats, killed 100 million people. While not the cause, the lack of cats in Europe may have been unhelpful.
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Jan 7, 2016 10:57
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Anosmoman posted:Yeah let's change the subject. Pope Gregory IX condemned cats as satanic and issued death warrants for them resulting in a sustained cat holocaust. One century later the bubonic plague, spread by rats, killed 100 million people. While not the cause, the lack of cats in Europe may have been unhelpful. Eh, I'm not too sure about this. Gregory only mentioned that black cats were supposedly part of the Satanic rituals he condemned; he doesn't actually call for them to be killed, and the only source I can find for this is one historian who again doesn't give any primary sources.
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Jan 7, 2016 13:55
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Of course the black cats were to blame.
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Jan 7, 2016 22:11
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Matthias Buchinger was a German quadriplegic who was born in 1674 as the youngest of nine children. Normally this would mean that a short and hard life would be laid in front of him, if even that at all. But Buchinger persevered, and even more: he proved to be one of the most talented artists, magicians and even illustrators of his age, touring at first Germany and then even Europe. In the 1720s he moved to Ireland, where he soon become famous and well-respected. Buchinger was not only a talented showman and artists (some of his illustrations are extremely detailed, which becomes even more remarkable when you remember, well, no arms) but reportedly also a great marksman and musician. Besides his work he had two hobbies: building ships in bottles, and loving. He had at least 14 children by four different women (all of them, especially the last one, beat him up on the reg though) and may have had even more, noone knows for sure. In 1726 a poem was written about him and his exploits, titles "The Greatest German Alive"  . Buchinger died in 1740 after a long and eventful life. It doesn't get much more badass than this, imo. Buchinger in a 1705 self-portrait.  A 1709 portrayal pf Buchinger along with various pictures showing off what he could do, e.g. "woodcutting", "shaving himself", "reloading a gun", "playing dice" etc.  Another self-portrait made in 1724. Do you see something special with his hair? Let's zoom in...  Oh my God, it's full of psalms! 
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Jan 8, 2016 16:05
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System Metternich posted:
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Jan 8, 2016 16:29
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I've seen this guy referenced all the time, and it never explains how. I wish there was an illustration of him holding a gun so we could see how the gently caress he pulled it off. Or some description at all of how he could do poo poo.
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Jan 8, 2016 16:53
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