Why did the Ancient Egyptians after the expedition to the Land of Punt, not return and completely conquer the region? They did with Nubia that was the land of Gold, said region of Punt had incense etc.

Why would they have been comfortable with having to simply trade i.e. paying for said luxuries rather simply owning controlling the region as was done in Nubia?

In WWI, all armies used a lot of horses. But horses are scaredy. How did they manage to keep them well behaved with all the constant artillery and gun fire going on?

In some parts of Internet, it's well known that old people has been complaning about young people since Ancient times, going back to Socrates. But conversely, what is the earliest historical record we have of young people complaing about old people? (for being uptight/conservative/hypocrite/etc)

What are some good history podcasts on Spotify? I'm listening to "The History of Rome" by Mike Duncan.

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I remember hearing that one of the Ottoman leaders (maybe one of the Mehmeds) would offer defeated enemies a choice of death or being sodomized by the Ottoman leader. I have never been able to find a source this. Any truth?

Hard-core History by Dan Carlin is pretty solid

If the escalation of the powdered wig kept escalating and never slowed, what would that look like today?

History of Byzantium is a follow up to that. Mike's appeared on it a few times too.

Before the war, they were considered necessary in an army. But from the development of artillery and machine guns, it was quickly realized that they maybe shouldn't, and were replaced by tanks at the same time. Horses during WWI were used mainly for reconnaissance and sending messengers, as well as pulling artillery, ambulances and supply wagons. The benefit of them was that they could travel better over muddy or rough terrain. WWI was kind of the turning point at which they stopped being in use, though they were used a bit in the beginning.

Think of horses like dogs with a vast array of breeds and temperaments.

There are breeds and varieties of horse that are more or less sensitive/excitable. That’s why we refer to some as “hot bloods”, “warm bloods” and “cool bloods”. Race horses like arabians or thoroughbreds fall in the hot blooded category. They’re sensitive and excitable—that’s why they’re good at running fast on command—it’s prey/flight behavior. Draft horses like clydesdales fall in to the cool blood category. They’re very big and calm and stable and good for work. Warmbloods are prolific in dressage, which is based on military riding disciplines. You want them a little fast and flighty, but also a little calm and collected. They can often be big, too, because they were bred to carry knights and artillery into battle (edit: i may actually be thinking of cool bloods that were bred to make modern warmbloods, but i digress).

War horses are going to come from less temperamental hot-blooded breeds. From there, you also have a very very social animal that can be bonded to a rider and trained for certain jobs. Horses are herd animals and adept at working as a unit/following a leader. Instinctually, some horses know that sticking out from the crowd is deadly.

The highest officials would have huge powdered wigs, and servants would follow behind them to carry it above the ground. It would be normal for common people to wear shorter wigs, and even children would wear them.

My best guess would be that they may have seen it as a regional power and, considering the distance and Nubia's wealth, a military campaign may not have been feasible, sustainable, or winnable. Adding to that, the Pharoah at the time, Hatshepsut, had focused her reign on developing trade networks and undergoing large temple and public works construction projects, rather than conquest like Ramses II.

Ridiculous History is great if you're looking for bizarre/unique stories from history. Great hosts as well.

The short answer is no.

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'The Rest is History' is great

How did the first piece of code get written after we moved from the vacuum transistor style computers, I couldn’t find an answer.

I think it’s because I word it poorly, but basically, how did data get on the first blank slate piece of silicon produced.

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With royal inheritance only one heir can ascend to the throne, usually the eldest male. Has it ever happened(or how frequent) where a ruling royal family had one of their own heirs killed so another may rule instead?

Ex, killing an older son so the younger will have the right to be heir instead?

BBCs in our time

Lore

Not sure if it is on Spotify but “Tides of History” is great. Mike Duncan has been on there as a guy eat.

“You’re Dead To Me” is a good, funny one. “Tides of History” is my favourite, and he’s been doing a fairly deep dive into prehistory for a while now.

It's not what you asked, but it's similar enough that I think we should mention it. A similar practice is associated with the Ottoman Empire for a very simple reason: up until the 17th century the Empire (like many Muslim states at the time) did not have a clear succession rule beyond "be a member of the dynasty". Any child could inherit... which led to civil war. So in the mid 15th to the late 16th century it was the legal for the new sultan... to execute his brothers (at least those that could challenge him). After enough public outcry the practice was abolished and a proper succession order was made around 1600, after that the eldest son inherited the throne... the others were imprisoned (in a golden cage, but still) to prevent any trouble.

The British history podcast. The byzantine history podcast picks up after what you're listening to and the creator specifically models it after Mike Duncan's to the point where it gets kinda annoying how much he fawns over the history of rome, but its still good. Next, any of the history hit podcasts. They include narratives of events and experts coming on to talk about their latest books or research/digs. Under the history hit banner there is Dan snows show which ia general history, then Suzanna Lipscomb has "not just the tudors", then there's gone medieval with cat Jarman and someone else. And then "the ancients". They're all really good but the audio quality fluctuates wildly and Dan snows commercials are enough not to listen ( but u prob should anyhow).

And they’d be decorated like Xmas trees, with all sorts of ornamentation, sometimes lit candles, maybe a shiny star on top.

Doorways in posh neighborhoods would all be made taller or have arches added to them.

Roman Emperors: Totalis Rankium is a hilarious take on Roman history where the hosts rank each emperor on a few sliding scales. They're about to wrap up with the final Eastern Roman dynasty.

They also have a similar podcast about the American presidents, equally as funny, and Nixon just finished up.

Even today breeders and horse trainers select animals who seems undaunted by sounds, and then they expose them to more to train them. They still do this to train police horses.

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The Two princes in the Tower disappeared without a trace and were believed to have been killed by their uncle who became king in their places.

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My favourite history podcast is ‘The Siecle’, about France 1814-1914. It doesn’t update very often but it’s really excellent, well sourced, with transcripts and additional notes available on the website

Posting this here since /r/history seems to remove any post I make.

If a people considered indigenous to an area are found to have been predated by another culture does that remove the indigenous status of that people?

Obviously this could be a bit philosophical but I've always thought the term indigenous was sort of broad considering how long humans have been spreading out. I'm curious, is there only one group that can be considered indigenous to an area? If one is found that predates that group is it now the indigenous people? are they both considered indigenous?

Oxford dictionary defines it as:

>Indigenous: originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native.

So by strict definition wouldn't Africa be the only real place we're indigenous to? Is it a slippery slope to assign indigenous people to an area knowing that likely other people existed there with no evidence found thus far?

I'd love to hear all opinions but I'm specifically interested in how that idea works with historians/anthropologists working in the field.

Similar to history of Rome style

• Revolutions also by Mike Duncan
• history of byzantine, directly designed as a successor
• history of England by David Crowther - similarly systematic, more detailed/zoomed in

Other great ones

• The Rest is History: eclectic, funny, good dynamic between the two hosts but still serious history
• In Our Time: groups of academic guests discussing a massive and v eclectic set of topics with a curious nonexpert chairing and keeping it moving and asking questions listeners might.

Short answer: something like a punch card

The first pieces of silicon weren't that (functionally) different than vacuum tubes. They were harder/better/faster/stronger, but still just a series of gates that could be turned on and off. In this way, there weren't really "programmed" in the sense that you would do something to them that would physically change the silicon. To use them, there are a bunch of pins that come out of the silicon, and you have to either put power on them or ground them to get it to do what you want. The easiest way to do this is to punch holes into pieces of paper and run those through a machine that detects holes or not holes and puts power on the pins accordingly. This is a punch card.

Eventually we had things like silicon memory (RAM) that could actually store information in the silicon (as long as the power was on), but these still stored programs (which is just the sequence of on/offs that the punch cards provided) externally - for example on magnetic tapes. Nowadays we have things like flash which do permanently store those values in silicon. To get the code into that silicon we use.... another computer that already has the code in it. To get it into that computer we use.... an earlier computer. If you follow this back all the way, you will end up with punch cards, basically.

Why was there a draft in the US for the Vietnam war?

That’s super sick, the people that figured out ways to make what is essentially a super complex set of switches, and engineer a way for it to interface and write the first code is very neat.

was it something like binary? Then the binary (power and grounds or on/off from the cards) could build into more complex lines of code in the newer stuff?

Generally it's dictated by whoever was there when a colonizer showed up.

Yes, it's all binary. I believe there were a few experimental computers that used other system, but everything else is binary.

I should point out that outside of computer chips not everything is "binary" in the sense of a signal can be only in one of two states. For instance Ethernet cables can pass many different signal states. How many states depends on the speed of the connection, but it might be something like 64 or 256 different states. This is what makes it so fast. Instead of sending just a 1 or 0, you might send a "34", which actually means 01101, for example, so you are sending five binary values at once instead of just one. I'm hand waving a bit, but that's the idea. When them signal comes into your computer, it ultimately ends up being 0s and 1s again.

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"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the
frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond
words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of
elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of
restraint." -Hesiod, approx. 700 BCE

Because they were running short of volunteers… Initially a lot of people volunteered to ‘fight commies’ & ‘liberate Vietnam’, yet that fiction soon was shown for what it was and it became harder to find recruits, hence the draft.

We don’t know - Richard III might have had them killed, someone might have killed them to please Richard, maybe they just died due to other reasons. We don’t know.

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No, not in that strict sense.

Royals and nobles killing their relatives over titles was extremely common. Just for example:

• Yaropolk I of Kiev ordered the assassination of his brother, Oleg. The third brother, Vladimir the Great, fled to Scandinavia and then returned with an army and had Yaropolk killed.
• Ioannes I Tzimiskes assassinated his maternal uncle, Nikephoros II Phokas, with the help of his uncle's wife and some disgruntled generals.
• Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah is suspected to have been assassinated on the orders of his half-sister, Sitt Al-Mulk.
• Fernando I of Castile killed his brother-in-law, Bermudo III of León, in battle and then claimed the Leonese throne in right of his wife.
• Sancho II of Castile was probably assassinated on the orders of his siblings, Urraca of Zamora and Alfonso VI of León.
• Boleslaus I, Duke of Bohemia has been long-suspected of ordering the murder of his older brother, Wenceslaus (the subject of the carol, "Good King Wenceslaus".)
• Andronikos I Komnenos ordered the murders of his cousin's two children, Alexios II Komnenos and Maria Porphyrogennete Komnene (and a lot of others) to make himself emperor.
• István IV of Hungary was poisoned by supporters of his nephew while besieging Zemun.
• Arthur of Bretagne was likely killed on the orders of his paternal uncle, John I of England.
• Albrecht I of Germany was assassinated by his nephew, Johann Parricida, who was aggrieved that his uncle had not given him any land.
• Edward II of England ordered the execution of his cousin and enemy, Thomas of Lancaster. He was later deposed by his wife and disgruntled barons and probably secretly killed in prison.
• Joanna I of Naples was deposed and later murdered by her second cousin and nephew by marriage, Charles of Durazzo. Charles then tried to claim the Hungarian throne from another cousin, Maria of Hungary, but was assassinated on the orders of her mother, Elizabeta Kotromanić.
• Pedro I of Castile was personally murdered by his half-brother and enemy, Enrique de Trastámara.
• Richard II of England was deposed by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, and then likely killed later in prison on Henry's orders.
• Henry VI of England was deposed by his distant cousin, Edward IV, and eventually murdered in prison.

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Another shout for The Rest is History and In Our Time. IOT is an institution in the UK while TRIH is relatively new and has a different dynamic but both excellent in their own ways.

Maybe we will be able to piece it together soon, apparently King Charles has allowed DNA analysers to analyse two bodies in the royal crypts which are suspected to be the kids.

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Horse breeding and training in general were already ancient arts by the time of World War I and thus included breeding and training horses specifically for war.

As far back as the Middle Ages, there were already distinctions between warhorses, riding horses, and labor horses and there were also different kinds of warhorses. There were destriers (large, heavy, very expensive warhorses meant for knights), coursers (lighter and less expensive warhorses meant for knights and men-at-arms), rounceys (general purpose horses meant for riding and sometimes also for war), palfreys (riding horses only, often used by women), and cart horses (working horses used mainly for plowing and agricultural labor).

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The draft was in effect from 1940 to 1973.

Often people label earlier civilizations as “primitive” (which I take to mean less intelligent.) What are some examples of ways they were superior in intelligence?

Is there any difference between the Huns, the Mongols or the Timurids?

I would like to know more about Britain after the Romans left up to the Norman conquest. I’m more interested in how people lived (dressed, worked, interacted, ate…) than a list of battles and invasions. Any good books or documentaries to recommend? I’m not really into podcasts or YouTube videos.

Yes, but when you have enough volunteers you don’t need to enforce it. The problem was the rapid escalation.

>some examples of ways they were superior in intelligence?

None. Because no civilization is superior in intellect to another.

When talking about "primitives" people take for metric: knowledge of technology, complexity of political structure (which are usually way more complex than what outsider see). They say they are less intelligent because they assume that if they don't have steel/guns/wheel/boats/kings/huge buildings, it's because they can't, as if anyone anywhere could come up with those on the fly. While in reality we only develop those technologies if we have the need to. You need specific circumstances, not a bigger brain.

Societies are not more intelligent nowadays that they were 15 000 years ago.

The Huns have nothing to do with the Mongols. The Timurids are an off shoots of the larger mongol peoples (with Turkic influence).

The only link between them is that they are steppe people, which is a category as vast as "native Americans" or "Europeans". It's geographic and includes a lot of very different people that have nothing to do with each others.

Timurids are Mongol-Turkic people, so similar origins to Mongols of course. Huns origin is more mysterious however there are also possible links between them, Mongols, Turks, Ugrofinic tribes (Hungarians, Fins).

BBC did a podcast called "History of the world in a hundred objects" that is really nice and succinct. My go-to suggestion for those wanting to get into history in general.

Thank you!

Thank you!

On a bit of a tangent, there is a great BBC podcast 13 Minutes to the Moon that uses the final 13 minutes of the moon landing to go over all the technology etc that had to be developed to make that 13 minutes happen. The episode on the flight computer was fascinating. The code was hard wired literally on wires that were then wound/knitted to form the memory core.

I’m sure I’ve massively messed up the simple explanation, but based on the Q I think you’d enjoy the podcast, at least that episode.

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Hey thanks! I’ll check it out!

Britain After Rome, by Fleming.

They are all steppe tribes focused on pastoralism (keeping herds) and fighting with (mostly) bows from horseback.

Just wanted to point out that the premise of your question is slightly off.

The tone of your question implies that a person in power (currently ruling) would kill one of their heirs. This was unnecessary, given that they could change the heir if they wanted or could adjust the rules regarding succession. After all, the ruler is ruling, so unless they were just puppet rulers, they had power to adjust things to their desires. For the most part, something like "King Bob killed his eldest son just because he wants his second son to rule" wasn't really a thing. He could figure out a way to make it so without killing people.

One quite recent example of this is currently reigning Salman of Saudi Arabia. Upon rising to the throne, the Crown Prince title (heir to Saudi Arabia's throne) was transferred to Salman's half brother Muqrin. Soon thereafter, Salman transfered the title to one of his nephews, Muhammad. After Muhammad was arrested and charged with treason, the title was then transfered to Salman's son Mohammad.

Instead, the deaths of heirs for heritage-related reasons (like adjusting who would inherit the throne) were mostly done by those who weren't ruling. People who couldn't change the rules and appoint the ruler they wanted. See the above list posted by someone else for a ton of instances for when, why, and how these deaths happened.

Anglo Saxons by Marc Morris. Just read that on holiday and loved it. In fact, I lost my copy - leaving it in a hotel - and bought another just to finish it.

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The practice of splitting the kingdom between sons (e.g. Charlemagne's heirs) was intended to prevent conflict because of there being only one heir to the throne. And, in other areas where primigeniture wasn't the rule (Holy Roman Empire, Poland, Ottomans, etc) it just wouldn't happen.

In addition, you did have cases where the ruling king (or queen) set their preferred candidate as heir, which was then ignored after death (the events leading to the Anarchy in England being a good example).

In extreme cases, the ruling king could have disqualified a disfavored heir by forcing them to join a monastery, disinheriting them for some reason, or possibly trumping up a charge against them, but I can't think of an example offhand better than Justinian having Belisarius blinded, which is only barely applicable.

I've listened to it and second that recommendation. The "13 minutes" is the amount of time it took for the Eagle to leave the orbiter and fall to the moon's surface. The episodes go through the history of the mission and the construction of the spaceship.

Finally, they play the entire 13-minute sequence. By that time, you understand the meaning of every communication between Eagle and Houston, all of the warning codes and calls and responses. It's good stuff.

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I was listening just this morning Dr Dominique Garcia discuss how the French identify their ancestors as "Gauls/Gaulois" because they are the first cited population associated to that given area. Of course there was some other populations occupying this territory before, but there's no written history about them so they would fall into the "prehistoric populations" category for most people.

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While I don't like how the term is used vs it's actual definition I think you're probably spot on here.

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The term refers to technological level and has no relation to intelligence. Stone age tech is more primitive than Bronze age which is less advanced than Iron. Primitive usually refers to societies who are at the Stone Age level of technology. The Maya were used stone edged weapons and the only metals they used were gold and silver. And yet they had advanced calendars and mathematics. Sadly most all of their many written codexes were burned by religious fanatics Catholic missionaries.

How did royal courts get their dwarves? Were families obliged to "gift" them to kings and queens or did they do so willingly, rather than raise a relatively unproductive laborer? It's said that a sister of Peter the Great owned 93 dwarves, what would their lives have been like? Do we have any written accounts from their perspective?

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Everything you are saying about Vietnam is true, but I feel like you are mischaracterizing the timing of draft and its enforcement. Elvis Presley was famously drafted during peacetime. The idea that we could maintain a fully staffed military with volunteers only, wasn’t seriously considered during this era.

What Vietnam did was contribute to killing the draft, although mandatory registration for selective service continued.

https://www.sss.gov/history-and-records/induction-statistics/

Notice that the pattern is pretty much, more people for war, fewer people for peacetime, and then it tapers off to the end of 1973, because Vietnam and the ensuing backlash and protest, exposed all of the worst problems with the draft

>did they do so willingly, rather than raise a relatively unproductive laborer?

It's that one.

When did humans “discover “ dinosaurs?

Thank you y’all! This has been really informative! Is there tech that is still used today besides knives and swords?

> obsidian knives were far sharper and more precise than metal knives. Even today some surgeons prefer obsidian to steel, in fact.

And they kill White Walkers. So if a surgeon loses the patient, there's that to not worry about.

The Great Courses has one called Medieval England. The professor is Paxton, I think. She does a great job and you can listen to it like an audiobook.

I think the "Hunger Games" movies were an artist's depiction of this. Maybe not a historian's depiction, but cosmetology is an art.

The rear view mirror of history tends to point out only the highlights. Regime changes, landmarks, major wars, that sort of thing. You can only test students on so many things, and there are huge gaps in expected common knowledge. When history teachers look back on the last 100 years from now, what do you think the highlights on school tests will be?

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Slow day at the office?

This is fiction about the period, but it's fun to read and gives you an understanding of how diverse of a culture existed in the area during that time. The first is a novel called Hild by Nicola Griffith. It's set in the 7th century, before England has been unified and you see the way various cultures are working and competing with each other, the signifiers that different languages hold, and the encroachment of Christianity and it's adaptation with local religions.

The other fun would be the Saxon Chronicles. The TV show The Last Kingdom is based on them. But it shows how the "viking" incursion of England was more of a mix of invasion, trade war, political compromise, and cultural melding.

These are obviously works of fiction that prioritize narrative over hard facts, but both authors did a lot of research and I think in this instance it's helpful to get this kind of exposure to the culture b/c it's so alien from our current conception of England. Almost no one would describe modern England first and foremost as a cultural and linguistic melting pot without an established culture. And although it's not quite true that England didn't have an established culture in the 7th century, things were a lot more in flux. These books help you understand that, and which cultures where struggling to find accommodation within what would become the idea of England in a national sense.

Behind the Bastards is an entertaining one where the host does 2-4 episode deep dives on - you guessed it - some of the worst people in history.

You're seeing pushback from the other posters about the term "primitive" which is inherently a value judgment. It's generally a term that's not used in history when talking about cultures. It will sometimes be used to talk about specific technologies in relation to one and other. It's usually used in the sense that some technology were a primitive version of another technology, like roman numerals being a more primitive system than a number system that has the concept of zero.

B/c of that, and the way cultures evolve, every society will have systems that are more or less advanced than other systems. While the US may have the more advanced cruise missile systems in the world, our health care system is a target of mockery for large sections of the rest of the world.

And often the system that's seen as primitive is actually too advanced for the judging group to understand. A good example is the Conquistador's impression of Tenochtitlan's system of hydro-logical urban planning. They tore it apart and to this day Mexico City has problems with flooding and water shortages b/c of a lack of understanding of the valley's hydrology.

A day in the life of a medieval sheep herder (not during lambing or sheering season)

You responded with a snarky reply when your reply is the opposite of what the person asked. Kind of rude.

Thank you! I may have not worded my question well I see that

I'm a big fan of The Fall of Civilizations podcast by Paul Cooper. He only puts out an episode every several months, but they're exhaustively researched.

Thank you, a very thorough answer!

The Huns' origins are mysterious. The most commonly purposed theory is that they were the same people as the Xiongnu mentioned in Chinese sources, but even then, it's not known whether they were Mongolic, Turkic, Iranian, Uralic, or something else.

The problem is that the only written sources on the Huns and Xiongnu were outsiders and little of their language has been preserved.

Sheep herding was a gendered profession, depending on where in the world you look. In Scandinavia, where I live, women tended to do the herding, as it’s a less physical job than other work in farming. As a result, there is a unique style of singing developed by scandinavian women as a herding technique called ”kulning”. But there are also different instruments used by herders to pass time or communicste, such as the norwegian bukkehorn.

The era of Global superpowers and Globalization. Yes the world wars will still have a place in mainstream, like Napoleon. But from the a historical standpoint I think we will focus way more on the post 1945 world.

I’ve heard of many different theories kicked around. Some involve ancient people finding dinosaur bones and guessing that they may have come from mythic beasts.

The earliest accounts of dinosaur fossils, were discovered in ancient China and Greece, some hundred years before Christ. In China they were believed to be the bones of dragons.

I'm with /u/platitood on this question. The draft was initiated in the lead up to WWII and b/c of US military occupation and peace keeping duties it wasn't immediately ended after the war. Then the cold war happened and the draft became a fairly permanent part of US culture. So, there actually wasn't a draft "for" the Vietnam war. There was just a draft that had been a US rite of passage for men since 1940. Vietnam created a need for more troops, but most of the draftees didn't go to Vietnam. Only about 25% of troops in Vietnam troops were draftees. B/c of the war's modern unpopularity a misconception has grown that it was initially unpopular. That wasn't true and many happily went.

One thing that complicates this is a lot of volunteers volunteered b/c they knew that they were likely to be drafted and they would have more control over where they went and what they did if they volunteered. My dad was one of these. He is Chicano and at the Black Americans (especially in the S. where there is a history of discrimination in who they drafted to place most of the burden on the Black community) and Latinos knew they were being disproportionately placed in the more dangerous zones to protect white lives. So, my dad, knowing he would be drafted, volunteered for the Navy so he could avoid being sent to the infantry. Some estimates are that as many as 55% of volunteers were people like my dad who knew they'd be drafted and the way to assert some control over the process was to volunteer.

There was good /r/askhistorians answer on this a while ago that's worth checking out. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/by8kqr/were_there_many_volunteer_soldiers_during_vietnam/

Why did the Southern States want to expand slavery so badly?

It's the age generally known as Anglo-Saxon England (Wales, Cornwall and Yr Hen Ogledd, "the old North", were still Brittonic and Scotland was a mix of Pictish, Brittonic and Gaelic peoples.) The Viking Invasions/settlements of Great Britain and Ireland also happened in this period. That part of history in this part of the world is known in general as the 'Migration Period', the Anglo-Saxon settlement of present-day England being one of those migrations.

A Very Brief Introduction to Roman Britain

A Very Brief Introduction to The Anglo Saxons

A Very Brief Introduction to The Vikings

A Very Brief Introduction to The Normans

All Oxford University Press. Should bracket the period beginning and end (Roman and Norman) and describe the two most notable peoples/systems of the period itself, the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings.

Which is older? Ancient or Antiquity?

Indigenous is used politically to describe people who have been subjected to colonialism and the nastiness that goes along with that, like forced assimilation campaigns and even genocide.

While technically yes all humans are native to Africa, no one's yet come up with a better term to describe groups such as Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians, Ainu, Chechens, Chukchi, Buryats, Cham, Sámi, Navajo, Cherokee, and Maya.

"In Our Time" is an incredible podcast that's been going for decades (firstly as a radio programme) on the BBC. Not sure about how accessible BBC podcasts are outside the UK though.

I'm personally very interested in the US Civil War. B/c of that one of my favorite history podcasts is The Rogue Historian. He has lots of good interviews with people who study or work in the field. https://keithharrishistory.com/

I also really like The New Books Network history channel. It's a podcast with interviews of authors of academic books on history. There's a lot of content and not all of it is interesting. I don't listen to every podcast, I just focus on ones I think are interesting. But there is a huge amount of content. If it's too much you can focus on more specific types of history. https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/history-1/history

I've also recently started listening to History That Doesn't Suck: https://historythatdoesntsuck.com/

and Backstory: https://www.backstoryradio.org/

These are more general history podcasts for the everyday listener but they have interesting stuff.

I'd also recommend all of Mike Duncan's work and the wonderful BBC podcast In Our Times. In Our Times is especially fascinating and I think it's a great model of what good public media could provide to the public.

I also like Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. I will say that Dan focuses on narrative and he uses a lot of older texts that fall into the Great Man trope. That means his podcasts have a lot of bad information and a fairly limited historical viewpoint. But they are interesting to listen to. They're just a little too focused on war from an upper class white male perspective. Dan's getting better though and is starting to try and consider other viewpoints on the topic.

As Bentresh said, all of our tech is the end of a long line. Without writing we have no history of the source for so many things. For me the most prevalent is textiles and cordage and basketry. In only a few instances do these items get preserved and yet we still use ropes and shoe laces and now we weave items out of carbon fiber.

Fair enough, thanks!

This is a tough question and I don't think I've ever come across a good definition or any criteria. Part of the problem is that the realization that people moved around a lot before Europeans showed up, is kind of a recent phenomenon. It's obvious if you think about it for a few minutes, and it's even evident in texts, but it wasn't really considered important until the late 60s when cultural studies got established and people started seriously researching the question.

It's interesting how unseriously your question was taken until the last few decades b/c we have stories and information like part of the "Aztec" origin myth is that they migrated to the Mexico City valley in waves between 600 and 1000 CE, so it was staring us in the face the whole time. Another interesting one is when the Spaniards first arrived in Texas they were approached by Jumano people who were looking for allies b/c they were being pushed out of the area by Comanche and Apache peoples.

Good question. I often see people saying "but that's not ancient, ancient refers to (usually the fall of Western Rome, or something like it)" which is partially true within a certain context. But the word can be used in other areas -- including histories -- in different contexts. For example, you might describe an Atari as an ancient video game system (to use a very extreme example) because in comparison to the PS5 it is. But you could not refer to an Atari videogame as an ancient game, because games themselves do go back into antiquity (note the usage there).

And while it's less common in modern scholarship, you can find works describing the ancient history of places like New Zealand, covering periods around 1300 CE because that's when we're getting the earliest human activity there. the Ancient Art sub had to try and figure out cut-off dates, and while I'm sure there's some work that could be done on it, they decided that this would depend on geographical location. https://www.reddit.com/r/ancient_art/comments/k62ml1/ancient_art_timelines_and_rules/

But with antiquity there's less wiggle room. When used on its own it usually refers to the regions around the Mediterranean up to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. You can use it in other specific examples, but you would need to be specific on where if you wanted to be understood. But it would stick out like a sore thumb if you used it to describe video games from antiquity, or claim that the Maori tribe had existed since antiquity. This even gets carried over in terms like antiquities, which have a fairly time sensitive meaning, or at least a stronger cut-off.

So while neither ancient nor antiquity are older, the term ancient has a much longer span and can be used in more contexts than antiquity. Hopefully I've made sense.

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There's two main reasons. One is more pragmatic and the other is about long term political interests. The first one is that at the time, cotton exhausted the soil. Plantation crops, especially cotton couldn't keep being planted on the same soil economically. In this period there wasn't as much understanding of soil maintenance and health, and while there was some chemical fertilizer (Daniel Immerwahr's book, How To Hide An Empire gets into the importance to the development of American empire bird guano was b/c of its use as fertilizer) it wasn't as economical to transport into the south and use. So the Southern states constantly wanted new territory to expand to.

The political reason was that free states were expanding. B/c of the Constitutional preferences for slave owners in the Constitution, the South was able to impose their interests on the Northern states. But if the North population kept expanding faster than the south, and if the US added more free states, the South's advantage thanks to the 3/5ths clause would totally disappear and it's stranglehold on the Senate would be gone. At the time of the Civil War, the south had only about 1/3 of the population of the North. On top of that, 1/3 of the South's population was enslaved, so their interests were represented and they gave a representational boost to their enslavers against Northerners. So, if the balance of population kept shifting, the South, already weak in the House, would be totally ignored, and their abuse of minority power in the Senate would be totally sidelined. They had to keep expanding and adding more slave states or become a political non-entity.

Fire, not just for cooking, the slash and burn method for cultivation.

I meannn dinosaurs basically are dragons

So would that mean that "Bibilcal times" is older than "ancient" since the fall of Western Rome happens after large portions of the Old Testament?

And side note: your Atari example makes me feel rather ancient and antiquated. lol

Up to the fall of Western Rome, so everything that happened before then is definitely ancient, including the historical events of the Bible.

Same!

Generally speaking, how did the movie Braveheart deviate from actual history?

That's going to depend massively on the future political landscape: 100 years ago, France would have told you that German history would be much more important to study for the future of Europe than US history, because they would have no way of knowing how greatly circumstances would change during the Cold War.

Thank you for your response. Every illuminating. 🙂

Almost the entire thing. Beyond the vaguest possible plot outline, nothing in Braveheart is accurate. William Wallace did exist. There was a Battle of Stirling Bridge. But aside from the historical labels, there's no historical fact there.

The Timurid Dynasty and their subjects were ethnically diverse but they were majority Turkic and Persian, basically the same as people in places like present-day Kazakhstan and Tajikstan. Timur claimed to be descended from a cousin of Genghis, while his mother was probably a Turk who spoke Persian or a Persian. One of Timur's ancestors married a granddaughter of Genghis, so his dynasty called themselves "Gurkani" or "Son-In-Law."

The Mongols come from, well, Mongolia. Their language isn't related to Turkic or Persian languages. You'll notice I'm separating people pretty broadly by language groups but back then they probably didn't see themselves that different ethnically in a broad sense from Turkic nomads. There was plenty of intermarriage between Turkic and Mongolic speakers.

Nobody knows 100% sure who the Huns were. They predate the Timurids and Mongols by roughly 700 years, and there isn't as clear written records linking them the way the Timurids and Mongols are. We have hardly anything of their language documented, but based on the names of their rulers they were probably Turkic speakers. There appears to be continuity between them and the Bulgars, the Turkic overlords of the people who would become the Bulgarians, so that's a little bit more evidence towards them being Turkic speakers.

The word "Hun" is etymologically related to Xiongnu (if you ever watched Mulan, that's who the "Huns" she fought are based on), the major confederation of Steppe people in the late BCs and early ADs. That confederation probably included the ancestors of Mongols and Turks, but their language the language of the ruling dynasty doesn't seem to be either. Dynasty names over time become ethnic names pretty often (like how Han is used for ethnic Chinese people but originated from the Han Dynasty), so it's probable that some of the Huns' ancestors took on the Dynasty name of their rulers and eventually considered themselves Xiongnu ethnically, then rode West and South. That's the earliest possible link between them and the Mongols.

And unlike the movie, the Battle of Stirling Bridge did actually involve a bridge.

The Egyptians didn't have chariots or horses until 1600 BC so their main method of supply/troop transport was via boat on the Nile. Wherever the Land of Punt was, it didn't seem to be reachable by the Nile.

If Punt was in Arabia, the Egyptians would have had to build an expensive invasion fleet of seaworthy ships, which is outside of their expertise with river ships. If Punt is in Eritrea or Ethiopia, it's too far from the Nile; there is a tributary that flows in that general area called the Atbarah AKA Black Nile but it's not as big or deep as the Nile and not conducive to large boats.

By the time the Egyptians got horses, Kush/Nubia was very strong and the Egyptians had too many problems in the North (the Hittites, whoever was in control of Mesopotamia, the Sea Peoples) to really expand into where Punt might be.

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Thank you! Really well covered.

Thank you!

You are forgetting that Edward I and Patrick McGoohan are/were exactly the same height. They got that right :-).

Just for starters:

• William Wallace was a member of the minor nobility, not a commoner.
• Medieval Scotsmen did not wear kilts. Indeed, even the kilt's predecessor, the belted plaid, dates only to the 16th century.
• Edward I did not institute right of the first night in Scotland.
• Isabelle of France was around 10 at the time of William Wallace's execution and didn't marry Edward II until two years later, when she was 12.

How far do you agree that in the English educational system, kings who generally fit in with the stereotypical "king" epitome (eg John, Henry VIII, Charles I) are given an unfair precedent?

My word! Is everyone here so sensitive?

By definition, "ancient" means everything before the Middle Ages, commonly understood as everything before 500 CE. So that includes ancient Egypt, Sumer, the Hittites, China, Greece and Rome, etc. On the other hand, when people mention "antiquity," they're generally talking about the period of ancient history circa 800 BCE to 500 CE. This is defined as the period coinciding with the Greco-Roman period, but it's important to note that there were other important developments going on in other parts of the world during this time as well.

What is the stereotypical king epitome to you, and you mean they get preferred attention?

You may have heard the statement that everything Henry VIII did and how he asserted his authority on those around him has come to be viewed as the epitome of the word "king." Dictator-like kings, as exemplified in the examples provided, is more or less what I mean. I remember looking at John, Henry VIII and the Civil War in history class, but other than that, I mean I can't help but feel that the curriculum is selectivist in what they prefer to teach. Not much about the Anglo-Saxon period or even that the Plantagenets also held large sways of France. But anyway, back to my question, do you understand it better now?

Yes, that clears up what you are aiming at. While I’m not English myself, I have a very strong preference for history books concerning English history. What I would surmise based on your example is that these sovereigns all are central to periods of socio-political ferment on which a general education will generally pay the most attention, even if - if were to go into academic detail - we can make many remarks around these. General education in any case tends to have this type of focus.

I guess socio-political changes through time is practically all history is in the educational sense rather than historical events as a whole.

Hey guys, looking for a history podcast recommendation. Mike Duncan's History of Rome was my first ever history podcast, I loved it and when that ended I switched straight to History of Byzantium and loved that even more. I've reached the end of that podcast so I am now 450 episodes deep into narrative history. The year is 1180 and I don't want to stop, I want to continue the story, in chronological order...

So I'm looking for a podcast I can binge that

1. is set in Europe or the Middle East

2. narrative format (e.g. year by year storytelling)

3. begins at OR includes the latter half of the 12th century (1150-1200 AD), so I can jump straight to where I left off

4. preferably follows a similar format to HoR/HoB - so, military history but also economic, social, religion etc

5. I actually preferred HoB's more academic approach - interviews with leading historians interspersed through the narrative, so if possible would love that

Any ideas?

A lot of failure kings (like the ones you mentioned and I'd also add Henry III, Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI, and George IV, among others) tend to get a lot of focus in history classes because their reigns tended to bring about a lot of abrupt changes and often mark turning points in history.

I don't understand the rules of this sub, if questions are only for r/askhistorians, then why is the main page always full of well questions? Even the question is not aimed at "experts".

Is it just a dice roll, on whether the mods let your specific question be posted?

>if questions are only for r/askhistorians

You're literally in a thread designed for questions, so no, questions aren't only for askhistorians.

> then why is the main page always full of well questions?

It's not? (edit: went back, over the past 50 submissions allowed on the page only 5 of them are questions/discussions) There can be questions in the main page IF they follow the rules, these are much stricter than the ones allowed here, namely that they have to show prior research, an understanding of the historiography, a substantial write-up, and have a question capable of generating discussion. We require that because 99% of the time questions asked can be answered with a bit of research, and a bit of time.

Edit: I will add that sometimes we do send detailed questions to other subs because they are more likely to have the base of users that will be best to answer it. If you, for example, post here with a detailed question trying to understand a passage of ancient Greek text we'll suggest you take it to /r/AncientGreek because 99% of our users don't know any Greek and the comment thread will just be full of 300 quotes.

I can't offer much in terms of your target time period, but if you like Duncan, and the narrative, chronological format, I'd highly recommend his Revolutions podcast.

England, US, France, so on and so on, in order pretty much, up to the USSR.

The best part is that he not covers them in order, but makes a point of discussing how they are intertwined. Which ones triggered or inspired others, how they relate, how some of them drew on lessons from the previous

Battle of Leuctra seems pretty famous for its insane 50 deep column from the Theban sides. Is there any other battles you have in mind where a deep column is used to great effect?

Dawn Wind by Rosemary Sutcliff is another good (childrens) novel about the life of a commoner in the Saxon age.

It's the other side of Europe from byzantium bur David Crowthers history of England is good. Same narrative format with lots or polticial/military but not ignoring social, economic etc. Some interviews with historians and guest spots but not loads.

You can start with episode 35 or so. Means you start with Henry II (crowned 1154) who is the first angevin king and pretty interesting/significant.

In addition to what's been mentioned as far as political power, it's also worth noting the role of capitalism and industrialization. As capitalism expanded into a global market and technology made it possible to process and produce things like textile products more quickly, you see the plantation system develop into a labor system, and white plantation owners relied on unfree labor to continue growing that. It's worth noting that even a lot of anti-slavery white Americans pre-emancipation are against enslaved labor not because they necessarily care about enslaved African Americans, but because they feel that it's a threat to free white labor.

Some sources to check out if you're interested in exploring the connection between capitalism and slavery:

Slave Country

Slavery's Capitalism

The Half Has Never Been Told

The History of the Crusades podcast is pretty decent. Not as good as either Mike Duncan's stuff or HoB, but it has been very consistent and has already covered a ton of time. By now the narrative has shifted from the Middle East to the Reconquista period in the Iberian Peninsula and the Patreon extra episodes are currently on the Hussite Crusade.

Ancient Rome - how many times will a soldier throw their javelin/pila before charging in and how good is the result?

If you have any references for this, that'd be nice too.

According to Edmund Morris in The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, the President invited “all citizens who are sober, washed, and free of bodily advertising,” to come and meet him.

What does bodily advertising mean?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_billboard

Does anyone know any good YouTube videos that describe the nine years war? Literally seems like no one's covered it!

I’ve just found an interest in history and have just been listening to podcasts/ audiobooks in no particular order, is this a good was to learn or should I try more in a more sequential order ?

Yes this is ok. Although reading some summary of the world's (or country/region) history wouldn't hurt to better understand the context of things.

If you want to stay with Byzantium, Totalus Rankium is currently in 1330, you can just pick up after Manuel's death. It's really good, but keep in mind that it's a comedy podcast and that in order to make it funnier they take primary sources at face value (although overall it's still pretty accurate, just not as nuanced as Robin's).

Yeah it's pretty amazing that they recognized the bones as being you know somewhat reptilian or whatever the word is.

In addition to the recommendations below, a couple that I've been enjoying here in the UK.

• You're Dead To Me - Greg Jenner is joined by a historian and a comedian to look at a person, event etc.

• The Rest Is History - historians Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland (not that one) likewise discuss a range of historical topics.

• Empire - William Dalrymple and Anita Anand on the history of colonialism and Empire. They've started with the British in India, a nation they are both connected with bur I believe intend to continue looking at different European powers and different subject areas.