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Quid posted:During the Cadaver Synod, the Vatican put a deceased Pope on trial. The deceased was found guilty. The article you linked mentions "Stephen accused Formosus of perjury and of having acceded to the papacy illegally." While the source I have indicates heresy was the first charge (transcripts of the synoda horrenda were all destroyed anyway), there's still that 2nd accusation, the important one of becoming pope illegaly, that has a neat gimmick in it imho as this claim against Formosus rests on a certain technicality of papal law. An old, oft-ignored technicality was that individuals holding a diocese, that is a bishop that's connected to a bishopric/see/eparchy/synod, couldn't become pope. This technicality came from an ancient canon law/tradition that stated that bishops couldn't transfer from one diocese to another. Since the pope holds the bishopric of rome, a bishop holding a diocese somewhere else couldn't 'transfer' in. It was an old law and pretty much ignored by the 9th century since following it to the letter would've meant the vast majority of qualified papal candidates would actually be disqualified. Alright, you got yourself a technicality to prosecute a corpse. Thing was Stephen himself was a bishop of a small town before ascending to popehood as well so using this particular canon infraction seems unwise since it would question/invalidate his own papacy as well. The person, however, who ordained him was Formosus. If the cadaver synod could go so far as to invalidate the whole of Formosus' papacy, which it did, Stephen could claim he was never a bishop in the first place so, even more technically, his own ascension would still be valid and not against canon law.  Unluckily an earthquake occured a week or two later which collapsed the roof of the original Basilica Salvatoris, the cathedral church of Rome and official seat of the Pope. Since there were also rumors that Formosus' corpse was out and doing miracles, a superstitious roman mob brought down Stephen.
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Nov 6, 2015 07:20
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Lord Lambeth posted:While we're talking about Russian rulers, Olga of Kiev was my favorite. Not to be a buzz kill but, since there might be some interesting facts here anyways, she probably did not do those things exactly as written. The Christian monks who wrote about her well after the fact likely wanted to contrast her earlier pagan life, literally viking Norse or something very close, with that her of later Christian life after her conversion. In particular the monks who wrote the account were being supported by rulers of the Rurikid dynasty, the dynasty to which Olga belonged, and they wrote more broadly of the dynasty's history. This account features some (likely) polite fictions about the dynasty like the original native slavic and finnic peoples of the region peacefully requesting that Rurik, the foreign viking war-chief who would found the dynasty, become their overlord because they needed a neutral outsider who would treat everyone fairly without vested interests and thus resolve the ages old blood feuds and bring an new age of prosperity. Their account probably has some errors in the monks' own fact checking as well (e.g. using the provided birthdays and dates Olga had her first child when she was over 50) since they compiled together what was essentially part oral history, part legend at this point. Alright let's go over a couple details with this in mind. The people Olga buried alive were written being carried into the city on top of lifted boats, they thought this gesture from Olga was meant to be an honor bestowed upon them but little did they know that the viking burial rite prominently features boats as tombs (either aflame or buried into mounds). They were all thrown into a ditch and buried alive. This type of foreshadowing, Olga doing something that a Norse person might correctly interpret but an outsider wouldn't, will be common throughout the story. IIRC The people Olga torched were also carried in by boats but were ultimately killed by fire inside a bathhouse. Later on Olga generously offered an incredible Viking-style feast with booze, in honor of her late husband, to a group of 5,000 who interpreted this as a friendly gesture not knowing that at viking funerals for very important people there would be copious human sacrifice made in the deceased's honor. All 5,000 would be this sacrifice, each one of them drunk into a stupor and easily killed. Lastly Olga originally got the pigeons and sparrows for her incendiary trick from a town she laid siege too - her request seemed odd at first "all this insane lady wants from us after the siege is 3 pigeons and 3 sparrows from every house? yeah okay I'm in" but little did they know that birds are very strongly associated with Odin (ravens in particular feature prominently in Norse iconography and other legends like the one of the Raven Banner) and that Olga would use this gift to unleash Odin's knowledge and power over the Derevlians in a fiery blaze. You can see where the monks probably did some Norse-themed embellishments for their account, either as an conscious effort towards what we'd call dynasty propaganda or as an unconscious effort by reporting legends as truths (lots of medieval historians did that so it wouldn't be unusual) or probably a bit of both. That's not saying the whole thing is a fiction - other sources confirm that Olga's husband was grotesquely killed by the Derevlians when he was out extracting tribute from them and that Olga did exact a military reprisal on those responsible, now forcing the Derevlians to accept regular taxation as opposed to irregular tribute upon victory, which resulted in financial stability for the realm (a stability further enhanced by her conversion to Christianity to maintain better trade links to nearby Byzantium) but there's not much outside corroboration for the flashier parts of the story. Doesn't make Olga any less of a pro-tier medieval ruler though  That being said, it's still nice to imagine that Olga enacted an elaborate Viking Funeral-themed vengeance scheme upon some fools, once upon a time 
hard counter has a new favorite as of 06:37 on Dec 10, 2015 |
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Dec 9, 2015 10:32
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System Metternich posted:it tells us much more about what the author(s) thought would be cool and impressive and thereby gives us more insight into their worldview than what a literal reading of the story would give us. Sorry, university has broken me, I guess I was hoping there'd be at least one fellow nerd who might find some fun facts there anyway 
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Dec 9, 2015 20:13
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Greatbacon posted:For example, In the leadup to WWI, the German high command had developed a massive war plan that involved taking all their forces and attacking France in an attempt to knock them out of the war as quick as possible so that Germany could then pivot all of their forces to defend against the mobilization of Russia. It was a plan so embedded in the military that is was simply known as "Der Tag" or "The Day." There's always been a bit of a debate of how well entrenched a single, detailed, explicit plan (if one even existed to the degree imagined) was in German military thinking. The underlying principle(s) however, which seem perfectly rational, appear to be very important since contemporary historians were quick to defend this 'blueprint for victory.' I think this quote illustrates that principle best. quote:In the battle against France lies the decision in the war. The Republic is our most dangerous enemy, but we can hope to bring about a rapid decision here. If France is beaten in the first great battle, this country, which possesses no great manpower reserves, will hardly be in a position to conduct a long-lasting war. Russia, on the other hand, can shift her forces into the interior of her immeasurable land and can protract the war for an immeasurable time. Therefore, Germany’s entire effort must be focused on ending the war, at least on one front, with a single great blow as soon as possible Not a terrible summary of the strategic advantages Russia enjoys vs France certainly. In particular, the defenders of the Schlieffen plan point out that Moltke diverted considerable reserves of manpower from the critical right wing in the west to the east in response to Russian threats. That is he acted in a manner contrary to the supposedly 100% rigid plan. ArchangeI posted:Reportedly, his last words, on his death bed, were "Keep the right wing strong!" RIP
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Dec 16, 2015 21:17
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It is important to remember that the superiority of entrenchment & defense of the period was mostly overcome by advances in technology and intelligent applications of that technology, not just advancements in strategy or technology alone. Early ww1 commanders can scarcely be faulted for not having either. There were theaters of world war II where, despite the aggressor having tanks, planes, infantry and numbers, the attackers still had severe difficulties with overcoming an entrenched position, largely because attackers didn't have experienced commanders to make good use of those line-breaking advantages.
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Dec 20, 2015 00:50
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syscall girl posted:Remember when the history channel used to be good? TLC was another causality of ratings. It taught me that Pharaoh Snefru of the Old Kingdom built 3 pyramids during a period of innovation and prosperity and worked on developing the smooth sided pyramid vs earlier step-sided designs. Though one of his pyramids, el-heram el-kaddaab, collapsed probably before completion due to construction errors and design changes, another came out kind of lovely, the famous bent pyramid, from these attempts the ancient Egyptians probably learned how to make better pyramids with more stable incline angles and better construction techniques that would not compromise the structure. Snefru's next attempt, the Red Pyramid, came out much better and is considered the first successful smooth-sided pyramid. Now TV tells me only aliens could have made them 
hard counter has a new favorite as of 02:56 on Dec 21, 2015 |
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Dec 21, 2015 02:54
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ha ha it's all good fun to disparage nerds and the cults of personality they'll form around favored generals, weapons or vehicles on the internet but we really shouldn't drag The Father of Modern Strategy's name through the mud as well guys
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Dec 22, 2015 02:17
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Mans posted:Being a Roman emperor was a really bad job A related factoid that people may not be aware of since Rome became so idealized in western imagination was that there was a considerable number of civil wars and general strife during the whole course of its existence. Some of the more famous rebellions were led by people like Spartacus, Quintus Sertorius (defeated roman army after roman army, was on the verge of negotiating a recognized independence before assassination) and Arminius (best known for the Teutoberg massacre). The late 2nd century and 3rd centuries saw a civil war featuring 5 emperors, then another war with 6 Emperors and then another 50 year struggle loosely termed the crisis of the third century that featured 2 breakaway empires, the Gallic Empire and Palmyrene Empire, and a total of 26 legitimized Roman Emperors. Anyway another one of these rebellious-type dudes, Viriatus, led a longish insurgency (149-139BC) which saw the use of a combination of guerrilla and conventional warfares that severely bloodied Roman noses thanks to Viriatus's cunning. Like Sertorius he was on the verge of a recognized independence for his part of Hispania. More accurately he had achieved that goal with the signing of a real treaty. The issue was that some Romans considered such a treaty borderline treasonous to the empire and secretly opted to both resume hostilities and remove Viriatus quietly. When Viriatus sent some emissaries to Rome those people were bribed into becoming assassins for a large sum of money. After slaying Viriatus in his sleep the assassins returned for their reward and received only the reply of "Rome does not pay traitors," supposedly. Despite this powerplay move the area would not be fully quiet for several decades. Another rebellion was occurring simultaneous to this one in roughly the same area, the second Numantine War wherein a dude named Jugurtha served the Roman side of the conflict. Jugurtha, in turn, would go on to resist Rome in a war known as the Jugurthine War. Jugurtha similarly proved too canny for the Roman generals so Rome negotiated yet another betrayal, this one from one of his war allies (his father in-law Bocchus actually) that saw Jugurtha trapped, captured and later killed. Bocchus's lands were divided between his two sons upon his death who then fought with each other in the names of whoever was vying for the title of Roman Emperor at the time (e.g. one son would pick Octavian, the other Mark Antony). Not that it mattered since it all belonged to Rome after Bocchus II died. lol hard counter has a new favorite as of 09:21 on Jan 4, 2016 |
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Jan 2, 2016 04:47
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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. Baracula posted:I'm sure the Saxons and Lombards appreciated his peacemaking Pretty much any empire maker in history has been a massive asshat, short of the dudes pulling together a community of other oppressed people maybe.
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Jan 4, 2016 04:53
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Snapchat A Titty posted:Interesting, I would like to know more! I'll try to hit you with some proper sources later but wiki has a small section on this for now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Age#Probable_causes_of_Norse_expansion
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Jan 4, 2016 08:37
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Plucky Brit posted:Hahahaha I guess you aren't familiar with charles da mang quote:Charlemagne issued a number of decrees designed to break Saxon resistance and to inflict capital punishment on anyone observing heathen practices or disrespecting the king's peace. His severe and uncompromising position, which earned him the title "butcher of Saxons", caused his close adviser Alcuin of York, later abbot of Saint Martin's Abbey at Tours, to urge leniency, as God's word should be spread not by the sword but by persuasion; but the wars continued. Since there were pagans in almost every direction Charles had a whole lot of heathens to beat up 
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Jan 4, 2016 18:33
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I meant that as an example of christian aggression. Widukind, the leader of the Saxon resistance would however flee to Denmark when things weren't going well and at around this time the Danes expanded a set of defensive fortifications called the Danevirke in anticipation of a Frankish invasion that never came.
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Jan 4, 2016 18:59
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Plucky Brit posted:So the attack on Lindisfarne was a retaliation for all those Northumbrian raids on the Danes? I know most historians date the start of the Viking Age to Lindisfarne 793 but that wasn't the first bit of Viking activity ever, it wasn't even the first bit of Viking activity in the British Isles since lesser records exist of Norwegians showing up in the Isle of Portland in 789 (perhaps just on a trading expedition that went badly sour) and Mercia already had a charter for organizing defenses against pagan seamen in 792, albeit that could be referring to Frisian pirates. Anyway the Norse had been raiding the coasts of western and northern Frankia concurrent to these events, possibly even starting there though the records left behind aren't nearly as good or as famous as the correspondence between Alcuin and the Lindisfarne priests that form the best information available re: the early Viking raids. Ultimately, like the first post says, the theory is just that Charlemagne's anti-pagan activities snagged some Norsemen and provoked revenge raids that also taught the Vikings that Christian churches, in general, were rich & easy pickings and so the Norse went on a medieval gold rush to wherever men prayed under a cross.
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Jan 5, 2016 07:35
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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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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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Solice Kirsk posted:When did "conservation" actually become a thing that the majority of people got behind? Was it sometime in the 1800's? I'd love to know when we went from "Boy, you don't see too many of these animals anymore.....pass me the rifle so I can shoot and eat it," to "Boy, you don't see too many of these animals around....we should stop shooting them." Depends on how loose your definition is. William the Conqueror, for example, set up laws defining certain forests as legally distinct w/supposedly harsh punishments for poaching animals from these areas if you weren't highborn. Those places could be considered a sort of early wildlife preserve. It was more for the noble's benefit than the animals' though. Can't bag a hart if your serfs have been depopulating the woods.
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Jan 15, 2016 19:23
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If I had to personally refine Diamond's own point in GGS it's that isolation is the civilization killer. The diffusion of new ideas, technologies, crops, domesticated animals, etc is what ultimately keeps groups of humans roughly on par with each other - independent discovery of any of those things is a much, much slower process which may not even be possible for a group whose local geography/biodiversity actually prohibits any sort of local development. Plants and animals that actually tolerate domestication are exceedingly rare, rare enough that you're totally reliant on chance blessing your local fauna with something you can work with rather than having the raw ingenuity to domesticate. Eurasia, as a distinct geographic entity with a unique biodiversity, possessed a number of advantages that allowed an easy transmission of all those things and, in general, peoples from Eurasia have been ahead of people from other continents for reasons unrelated to the genetic differences between ethnicities. These eurasian advantages, historically, never spread outward due to barriers that essentially isolated the other populations. The ultimate killer re: isolation, however, is that civilizations that achieve high population densities with a close relationship with domesticated animals tend to develop horrible contagions. Consider recent fears over Swine and Bird Flu. A new pathogen derived from an existing pathogen that attacks animal populations that, through mutation, can now attack humans is likely to be a total unknown to our immune system, making us very susceptible to illness and even death. AIDs, for example, is a recently derived pathogen that initially just targeted chimps. The conquest of the New World was achieved mainly through depopulation of the local peoples who were exposed to new pathogens the Europeans inadvertently carried with them, first unintentionally then intentionally. The local populations, thanks to isolation, had no chance develop any sort of resistance. I've read that that 90-95% of New World fell to disease. To give more weight to those abstract numbers imagine that you're on the other side and that the enemy can eliminate 95% of your army and support population just by arriving. You have next to no chance full stop. Diamond notes that equatorial areas with terrific tropical diseases have generally been resistant to colonization for similar reasons despite the technological superiority of any potential colonizers - the local peoples can tolerate tropical pathogens that easily kill Europeans leading to poor opportunities for conquest and subsequently limited, if any, colonization. IMHO the same general principle applies to the internal issue of Europe and Asia within Eurasia, a topic Diamond awkwardly struggles with, but that's amateur speculation on my part and not a historical fun fact.
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Jan 25, 2016 04:36
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Kenning posted:Diamond lets his theories get way, way, way ahead of his data, and has a bad habit of switching scales of analysis when it's inconvenient for his ideas. His whole east-west axis theory relies on treating Eurasia as a singular entity, and arguing that Eurasian people dominated Africans, Americans, and Australiasians. Except, Eurasians didn't do anything. Europeans did. It's appropriate in this case to consider Eurasia as a single entity since its societies, however distinct, enjoyed a degree of cultural diffusion and mutual exchange unlike any links between Europe and the Americas/Asia and the Americas prior to the 15th century. Enormous trade networks allowed Asian commodities to enter European markets regardless of the distances required and things like the silk road were historically very important to the involved states/peoples. Ultimately that main point of GGS was to explain why it was going to be somebody from Eurasia, not Australia, that would become the colonizers. He extrapolates way too hard and theorizes way too widely to explain the Europe vs Asia split within Eurasian but I can appreciate why he did so. The intent was to describe the immense importance of local factors/diffusion and their affects on the grand course of civilizations over genetic/ideological explanation for the same. The Asia/Europe split would be the last bastion of someone clinging to genetic explanations. Definitely got a little pop-sciencey there though. E: For people who haven't read the book, Diamond loosely supposed that Asia was too centralized so that idiotic, idiosyncratic decisions made by a single hereditary ruler could stall the development of a whole peoples if those decisions were bad enough. Europe was centralized enough to be highly organized, but still sufficiently divided that it was both insulated from the bad decisions of a single ruler and that its various conflicts bred innovation. This was probably the section of his book that was criticized most (no real data here, just anecdotes), aside from the largely deterministic tone of the text and the older scientific data that has since become outdated. hard counter has a new favorite as of 08:50 on Jan 25, 2016 |
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Jan 25, 2016 08:09
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Farmland Park posted:"Napoleon is a short French gently caress" partially because of British propaganda (he was taller than Nelson) Another factor was likely the difference between the French and English systems of measurements at the time. The French defined the meter as 1 ten millionths of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator through Paris during the revolutionary period when they tried out an early universal metric system (the Americans and English were supposed to be in on this too but no mutual agreement could be reached so it could hardly be called universal I guess). Napoleon actually liked having a dead standardized system for measure but didn't care for the new terms and so during his era the older, colloquial, better known units for measure were brought back but now redefined in terms of new metric system. It would be easy for someone who's doing a fast calculation w/o navigating all these conversions to under report Napoleon's height. Either way it was magnificently successful propaganda. Napoleon's tendencies towards belligerence and major successes genuinely made him into a sort of spooky boogeyman to his contemporaries and some believed him to be the Antichrist. Belittling him as a short, angry general with megalomania re-framed everything he did as little man syndrome gone too far and to this day that phenomena is known as a Napoleon Complex in some circles.
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Jan 27, 2016 09:06
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Jaramin posted:For a lot of those old recordings the equipment they used was really bad at picking up low frequencies in a person's voice, so they sound higher than they actually were. While that makes sense, only Woodrow and Franklin sounded at all firm and stately by my modern standards imho, there definitely seems to be a softer quality to the older accent; especially considering that half those men would have received their enculturation/accent over 160 years ago so it would be a very old accent indeed. I'm sure the transition of early colonials speaking with an identifiably British accent to modern folk speaking with a distinct regional accent is long and interesting.
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Feb 1, 2016 07:52
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Verus posted:You really think it's more likely that Americans added a shitload of R sounds in random places than that most British accents dropped them? I didn't say an identifiably modern British accent, of which there are numerous regional subdivisions as well, just whatever it was they brought over and passed on to the earliest generations that eventually diverged enough from one another to become distinct regional American accents. In a modestly related factoid, the elite classes of England mostly spoke French after the successful Norman invasion, or rather an Anglo-Norman French hybrid, that was used in a number of legal and literary works from the 11th to the 15th alongside Latin. Frequent marriages back to the continent also kept French strong in the nobility. Some scholars hold that it was one particularly nasty bout of black plague, which happened to unevenly attack tutors and other lower intelligentsia/support classes, that brought about a shift toward English as many gaps were created in society by the death toll. At the very least, the black death was probably responsible for the Great Vowel Shift wherein a major and broad change in English pronunciation led to some disparities, now oddities, between the spelling of a word and its actual articulation when speaking.
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Feb 1, 2016 19:53
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:I always assumed that eunichs were somehow chemically castrated. I imagined getting a surgery like that would be pretty much a 1% success rate back then. I've read that 50% would have been the expected contemporary rate with a skilled 'physician' but I can't recall my source at the moment - odds weren't great in any case. Surgical castration using methods that can be described as a single stroke makes perfect sense though. In a time before anesthesia surgeons felt that taking too long to operate was a form of barbaric cruelty since the patient would be aware of every little cut and movement (not to mention the medical implications of the patient going into shock) and medical practitioners were encouraged to work as quickly as possible. Working fast also limited exposure to pathogens and the like. There's that factoid lately floating around on the net of the surgery with a 300% mortality rate. In his haste to perform a speedy amputation a surgeon sliced into his assistant's fingers, leading his death, the death of the patient from the botched amputation and the death of someone nearby via heart attack/horror. That surgeon wasn't particularly incompetent either, to the contrary, he was very good by the standards of the time. hard counter has a new favorite as of 20:07 on Feb 3, 2016 |
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Feb 3, 2016 07:31
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syscall girl posted:Although it's highly fictionalized The Knick has some graphic depictions of the race against the clock type of surgical techniques and it's horrifying. I could see that. If you looked into the article I linked, there's some discussion of pre-hygiene surgery and it gets pretty  quote:"surgeons operated in blood-stiffened frock coats – the stiffer the coat, the prouder the busy surgeon",
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Feb 3, 2016 08:28
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Shakespeare's works contain a "your mom" joke. One of the oldest written jokes found in English was a dick joke. In an old Viking epic one of the heroes is cursed with a penis so huge he couldn't have sex with his wife anymore. The oldest known joke is a 4,000 year old Sumarian phrase: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." I'm pretty sure you could modernize the telling a bit and still get a laugh with what amounts to a verbal ancient artifact. You can find even older humor elsewhere if you count the hieroglyphics of drunks throwing up found inside pyramid walls and other preserved Egyptian structures. If you really want to commune with the past, check out the types of graffiti that were found inside Pompeii.
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Feb 15, 2016 08:57
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Fact: people at one point wished for a "dark Zelda game". Check out the concept art for some of the older Zelda games. You could almost see something Dark Soulsy if you squint hard enough. http://imgur.com/a/BdGK2 Byzantine posted:"The one who buggers a fire burns his penis". Wisdom for the ages, right there. Some of it is straight graffiti but it looks like some of those ancient scribbles were meant to be broadly seen, like the guy looking for information re: his stolen copper pot and the dude advertising: "Palmyra: the thirst-quencher."
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Feb 15, 2016 09:31
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PYF Historical Fun Fart
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Feb 24, 2016 19:48
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Feb 27, 2016 07:28
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Alkydere posted:katanas really are not good swords. Katanas are fine so long as you don't go hog wild over the mythos and realize that, like most weapons, it was purpose built for an objective with limited uses outside that purpose. A rapier is a comparable European weapon (specialized for the thrust instead) that was pretty great for its intended purpose but had issues with other uses. Not many working examples survive intact because its ends were prone to breakage. A rapier's body would also probably fail like the katana's if you subjected it to a hard contact test too (not the kind in the video linked). In a related fact, the vikings were in a similar position where readily accessible local sources of ore were of the lovely bog iron variety (in their case) so they coped with advanced forging techniques that were comparable to the blast furnaces of later periods. Since they had plenty of coal they did not need to meticulously layer their product. Once in a while a norse trader would come back from Persia with ore /iron of high quality and those, coupled with the aforementioned advanced forging techniques, produced some great weapons for the period. There was a documentary a few years ago about a particular maker of them (with a Frankish name iirc) but it was mostly a speculative piece about the manufacture techniques than a reconstructive history. hard counter has a new favorite as of 22:35 on Feb 27, 2016 |
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Feb 27, 2016 22:32
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Snapchat A Titty posted:A historical maker? I would be interested in that if you can remember more. Only a wiki source, but this was the particular maker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulfberht_swords in the documentary iirc. Something the wiki doesn't mention is that there were a number of other makers (most with norse names) producing swords of similar quality so this kind of manufacture is more likely to be a Northern thing than a Central European thing but that's really a minor point - it's hard to be definitive about stuff like this anyway.
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Feb 27, 2016 23:02
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HEY GAL posted:the only difference between a military sword and a civilian sword, prior to the 18th century, is that the first one is carried by a soldier, hand Are you sure? It's my understanding at least with rapier type weapons that one kind was optimized for pure and only thrust (some people call those tucks but trying to type a sword by name is risky business) while the other was lighter and had some ability to cut on top of the usual  . The military/civilian difference comes up in that civilian duels were unarmored while military fights called for a more resilient blade that could maybe poke through mail so it seems like one was optimized for civilian duels and the other military. I mean you probably still saw the lighter one in organized war and vice versa since nobody regulates anything but that still seems like a valid difference that'd come up when you make a requisition for one.
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Feb 28, 2016 02:21
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HEY GAL posted:about proto-rapiers? yes i am. you're not going to be able to sword a guy in plate armor anyway and most soldiers wore civilian clothing I when I said mail I meant chain and the like. Even a dude in full plate would probably use chain or lesser around joints where inflexible plate would be less appropriate. Not everyone on the field could go up all the way to full plate in any case. Lighter civilian dueling rapiers were modestly prone to breaking inside a soft person from the sources I've read, the ones with a military use in mind were made to be heavier to withstand the wear and tear of more rigorous use where it'll encounter denser materials or just plain more force as during a mounted charge. e: I should clarify that when I said some call the the heavier kind a tuck, I didn't mean strictly the ones with the 'S' shape on the cross guard or similar. The difference has more to do with the blade than what kind of hilt it has. Either way, what about boar-swords and the like? Those swords would be too specialized for civilian hunting to be of practical value to a soldier.   The heavy lugs on top were there to prevent the hunted animal from finishing its charge and goring the hunter despite being impaled. The design on this one is kind of funky but they usually had a screw-type point to really skewer whatever beast they were hunting. hard counter has a new favorite as of 07:56 on Feb 28, 2016 |
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Feb 28, 2016 07:31
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Not the specific one I was thinking of since there's dozens and dozens of different makers (some ID'd in cyrillic script, some using Norse runes and others with just abstract marks probably intended as maker's stamps) that can also be found of similar construction.
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Feb 29, 2016 09:12
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Take these as you will, knowing their sourcesquote:In 569 B.C., according to Greek historian Herodotus, a single fart sparked a revolt against King Apries of Egypt. quote:A fart in Jerusalem in 44 A.D. led to the deaths of 10,000 people. Josephus (37-100 AD) describes an anti-Semitic Roman soldier who dropped one before a crowd of Jews celebrating Passover. The soldier "pulled back his garment, and cowering down after an indecent manner, turned his breech to the Jews, and spake such words as you might expect upon such a posture." This angered the Jews, the angriest of whom began stoning the soldiers. The Roman leader of Jerusalem, Cumanus responded with force and a riot ensued. Most of the dead were Jews killed as they trampled each other trying to escape the Temple, where they crowded when the Roman Army arrived. quote:Benjamin Franklin wrote an essay called "Fart Proudly." Distributed to friends but never published, it includes the lines: "A few Stems of Asparagus eaten, shall give our Urine a disagreable Odour; and a Pill of Turpentine no bigger than a Pea, shall bestow on it the pleasing Smell of Violets. And why should it be thought more impossible in Nature, to find Means of making a Perfume of our Wind than of our Water?" Fart proudly, goons. hard counter has a new favorite as of 05:44 on Mar 2, 2016 |
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Mar 1, 2016 22:39
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There's the The Lowland Hundred if you like Legends & Folklore and their influence on people. Long enough that I might as well just link it http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/wales/w_mid/article_1.shtml
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Mar 2, 2016 20:15
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A Fancy 400 lbs posted:Ancient historians loved casting aspersions on the sex life of their enemies and their enemies' families as it called into question their lineage and therefore their position in society while simultaneously being really embarrassing to even just publicly deny. It's basically "When did you stop beating your wife?" taken to the next level. A real common set of accusations I've found when 'civilized' people write about 'barbarian' peoples is that the barbarians will worship dark gods of war, drink out of their enemies' skulls, swim in fountains of blood, have unwholesome family structures and have the really weird, really bad kind of sex with each other. I've seen Scythians, Xiongnu, Vikings, Celtic peoples, Mongols, Mayans, etc, etc, etc get described as such from a variety of western and non-western sources. It's bizarrely common, like it''s humanity's default for describing spooky strangers.
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Mar 30, 2016 04:17
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The crusades were also kind of a lovely thing to do because the Muslims controlling the area at the time didn't really care if Christians wanted to visit Jerusalem. For the most part Christians were a largely ignored minority in the area, as were the Jews. Pilgrims were welcome to come in whatever numbers they wanted so long as they didn't cause problems. Non-Muslims could live in the area and get mostly left alone. Merchants could do their thing too. Yeah that's a little too gross a summary. In the East the Byzantines had been hemorrhaging and/or stalemating their eastern territories in endless border conflicts w/the neighboring Muslims in struggles that had a particularly religious flavor, unlike the other conflicts they were having with other neighbors. The west was doing no better where almost the whole of modern day Spain had been conquered through holy war. The particular zeal and success of Muslims was thought to be tied to their militant religious rhetoric that could entice and embolden soldiers whilst giving them a common cause. This type of thinking can be found in a general strategy book, Tactica written by Leo VI the Wise, where Leo spends some time discussing the idea that Christianity as a whole should develop so called Muslim-like stances towards holy war. Church leaders and other religious scholars on both sides of the schism were also writing about this subject as well around the time of Urban II. You could argue that Urban II's motivations were chiefly political since this was a way for the western church to influence the east, perhaps becoming the first among equals once again (among a whole lot of other positives for the Pope, being able to call down a crusade is a big deal) rather than a genuine belief that Christian Doctrine is best expressed through holy war. Obviously the crusades have since become an embarrassment both philosophically within a church that asks its adherents to love their enemies as much as they love themselves and politically (in the East) where perhaps the most longstanding result wrung out of the whole thing was the smashing of Byzantium in the 4th.
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Apr 15, 2016 18:44
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Jack of Hearts posted:If Anna Komnene is reliable, the situation in Anatolia had more or less stabilized under her father by 1096, and also, the first thing the crusaders tried to do when they got to Constantinople was attack the walls, because western Europeans (i.e., barbarians) are big dopes. "If." - that spartan guy, you know the one.
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Apr 15, 2016 21:18
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A White Guy posted:When Saladin captured Jerusalem about a hundred years later, he was much nicer and let the Christian inhabitants flee with their lives and property. A wrinkle here, when Saladin captured Jerusalem there was much less of a fuss over it - the siege lasted like 2-3 weeks and ended through negotiation. The city capitulated with supposedly ridiculous foodstores, supplies and equipment - everything needed for a prolonged siege. The city didn't immediately surrender but resisted briefly inflicting lopsided casualties on Saladin's forces, even after a wall went down. The writing, however, was on the Not saying Saladin wasn't nice as far as conquerors go though, after paying the meager negotiated ransom the better off Christians left with an absurd amount of wealth unmolested with full escort. A large number of the unramsoned people left behind were simply freed if they were too young, too old or wretchedly poor (a lot of people still did get sold to slavery tho) and Christians of local descent were allowed to remain - in some cases their lives improved if they belonged to a sect condemned by Catholicism. They weren't treated as vile heretics anymore, just as generic non-Muslims with some rights. As an aside, to me the most vivid description of how bad the massacre of Jerusalem was during the first crusade was its aftermath still apparent years later. During rainfalls the streets were still hazardously slippery from dissolved fat. Not exactly a fun historical fact 
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Apr 16, 2016 04:32
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As Nero Danced posted:Speaking of Molotov and Finland, At one point in late 1939 he, his German counterpart Ribbentrop, and Hitler himself were meeting in Berlin and came up with the idea to propose the Soviet Union joining the Tripartite pact (basically the Axis powers). Got so far as to telegram a proposed treaty to Stalin, but the whole thing fell apart when Hitler didn't want to let the Soviets have Finland. Are you sure? I know the situation was more complex than usually presented but it's always been my understanding that Hitler was definitely willing to put Finland in the Soviet Sphere, though viewing the Soviets as inevitable competition down the line, but later it was the Soviet's extremely poor performance on their end of the attempted conquest of Finland that swayed Germany otherwise. During the initial stages Germany was willing to honor co-operative blockades against Finland and Sweden was strongly encouraged to not intervene more directly even if Germany was otherwise unimpressed by the sudden Baltic invasions. As a side note Finns, by the estimates of eugenicists and the like, were definitely not Aryan/Germanic/Scandinavian but rather a lesser people so there were no objections based on nazi ideology (though Finns were given honorary status when the two became co-belligerents later on iirc). Nonetheless it seemed from their sour performance like the USSR was 'a rotten door waiting to be kicked down' so Germany adjusted its long-term/short-term plans accordingly, incorrectly anticipating a USSR that would collapse faster than Britain.
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May 1, 2016 07:24
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As Nero Danced posted:They had agreed previously that Finland belonged to the Soviets, but they kept finding German troops in Finland. The proposal that the Soviets sent back to Berlin November 17 said in article one that German troops should be withdrawn immediately from Finland. Operation Barbarossa was drafted less than a month later. Another thing that didn't help was Stalin's purges of military officers during the 30s, so by the time the Red Army had to do anything it was in lovely shape. I can see where you're coming from now, we're just arguing from slightly different points in 1940. The Russian offensive in Finland was from Nov to March '39-'40, a 3 month mini-war during which Germany blocked Franco-British intervention by pressuring Norway and Sweden to remain staunchly and strictly neutral - to the point where Sweden was told to end even humanitarian aid near its closing stages. A naval blockade of international arrivals was also supported by Germany. The failure of Tripartite Pact you're talking about was in Nov '40, 8 months after the war had been concluded and the balance of international relations had shifted since then. bongwizzard posted:The thing we cant loose sight of is that the Finns were fuckin nazi lovers, and we can never let them forget that. P. much. As Finland sought to better previously distant ties with Germany in mid-40 criticisms of Germany were censored in the press (the nazis loved this) and a former PM was made ambassador to Berlin iirc. German foreign ministry representatives started visiting around the time France folded and in August German arms dealers were making trips - eventually instead of using Swedish ports for troop transfers to Norway they were using Finnish ports and a formalized troop transfer agreement was made - it seemed like Germany was infringing on the Soviet's Sphere of influence now. It was at this point where Germany was willing to strain its relations with the USSR over a tiny potential ally, albeit one with a favorable staging area, for a war they were going to eventually wage anyway.
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May 2, 2016 01:56
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