Interesting Historical Factoids

[hecatmoggie]

Phil Collins ... Sussudio ... what did the song mean? what's the word mean ?


"Sussudio" was just a word that came out of Phil Collins' mouth when he was playing around with a drum machine. The song was about a girl he was looking about

 

[GIJane]

I'm no expert on the Oregon trail but from all I've heard (read) those engaged upon it were a motley crew which in majority comprised neither gun-savvy huntsmen nor carriers of reliable shooting hardware, but rather farmers more accustomed to ploughs.

Not necessarily capable of proper fire arm maintenance and training.

But to return to my original point, overall more people died from gun accidents than from Indian attacks.

Early settlers were depended on a well maintained weapon for meat and protection. Many were citizen soldiers as was common of the time. I don't think they were simple hayseed farmers who shot themselves in the foot at will.

Additionally, my people did a fair amount of killing. Don't sell them short.

 

[HK.227]

Child labor.
In the West it supposedly has it's roots in the ancient hostage system, where you exchange family members with your neighbours to guarantee peace.
Most of these hostages were children who were put to work by their hosts (alongside their own children), and eventually it developed into a system where it became normal to send your kids out to work for other people. This continued long after the hostage system had been abandoned, and became a cultural phenomena where being sent to live with strangers and work for them was considered a normal part of growing up. Then around age 14 you would confirm your baptism and officially become an adult, free to choose your own job rather than have your parents negotiate on your behalf.

Myths and fairy Tales.
Grimms Fairy Tales are widely considered to have two versions, one grim and dark, and the other toned down for the children. In fact both versions are toned down, as the really old fairy tales are much more brutal than the supposedly uncensored versions. The villains of really old tales (Grimms and otherwise) are often recast as animals, trolls, or fey to justify the acts perpetrated against them by the protagonists. Some of this may be a post-Christian phenomena, as torturing and murdering your neighbours wasn't considered Christian, whilst doing it to non-humans may have been more acceptable. I've read some of the stuff that couldn't be sanitized enough to make it into Grimms, and they matter-of-factly tell of things that make Hannibal Lecter look positively benign by comparison.

Why are pirates often portrayed with silly accents?
I don't know. They just ARRRRRRRRR!

 

[JohnRawls]

Introduction of foreign troops as auxiliary and later in to the legions themselves gave the Roman Empire several more centuries of life to the contrary belief.

Largest reason why Rome weakened was due to plagues that affected them more than others due to high levels of urbanisation for that time and Roman Empire got unlucky when it got hit by 2 massive plagues in the span of a 100 years. (Antonine plague that ended the reign of good emperors and Cyprian plague. Both of them were as devastating as the black death actually Cyprian might have been even worse)

What really killed the empire were Diocletian reforms that basically introduced serfdom/feudalism along with the guild system in to the empire to deal with the consequences of the latest plague and to save "essential skills".

 

[gman]

Thomas Edison didn’t invent most of the stuff he patented. It’s fair to say that Edison was one of the world’s most notorious intellectual property thieves.

I had heard that before. If it’s true that should be made a part of history. Our real history has been very sanitized.

 

[Chagos]

I had heard that before. If it’s true that should be made a part of history. Our real history has been very sanitized.

Once it's cemented, history is practically immune to correction.

The Wright brothers having been the first to conduct a motorized flight is another example.

Orville died on January 30, 1948. As part of the Smithsonian's final deal with his executors, the Flyer was returned to the United States and put on display. A clause in the contract required the Smithsonian to claim primacy for the Wrights, on pain of losing the prize exhibit.

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

Of course controversy remains over this, yet the Smithsonian's endorsement of the Wright's Bros. claim to primacy is highly suspicious.

 

[gman]

Once it's cemented, history is practically immune to correction.

The Wright brothers having been the first to conduct a motorized flight is another example.

It’s my understanding that it was a Frenchman who conducted the first successful flight.

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

Of course controversy remains over this, yet the Smithsonian's endorsement of the Wright's Bros. claim to primacy is highly suspicious.

 

[Chagos]

American actress (Austrian born) Hedy Lamarr was an inventive genius who pioneered the technology that would one day form the basis for today’s WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems.

The system forming the basis involved the use of “frequency hopping” amongst radio waves, with both transmitter and receiver hopping to new frequencies together.

Not the only thing she thought up, airplane wing designs having been among many others.

 

[Infinite Chaos]

American actress (Austrian born) Hedy Lamarr was an inventive genius

I remember reading this once and not believing it simply because of the career she chose.

My little "factoid" was that the Medjay warriors of the ancient empire of Kush becamae known by the Romans as "Blemmyes"

Later on in history, "Blemmyes" became figures of fantasy - a race of people with no heads but their faces were on their chests.

Despite not seeing them in person, in 1598, Sir Walter Raleigh came back from his explorations of South America speaking of another of these mythical races “a nation of people whose heades appeare not aboue their shoulders” who “are reported to haue their eyes in their shoulders and their mouths in the middle of their breasts and that a long train of haire groweth backward betwen their shoulders”.

The mythical "Blemmye" or "Blemmy"

Mythical Creatures: The Headless Blemmyes

Although people living in medieval Europe knew a lot more of the wider world than many initially think, with strong trade links in Asia and northern Africa, they were still intrigued about what lay…

justhistoryposts.com

 

[Allan]

Mao reportedly did that to sparrows on account of believing that they ate up all crops' seeds.

He started a campaign by which people had to kill sparrows or keep chasing them until they died of exhaustion.

Millions obeyed and the result was an insect plague.

There is historical film of Chinese people chasing down sparrows.



Realizing his mistake Mao wrote to Stalin requesting hundreds of thousands of birds urgently be shipped from Russia to China.

Iirc the request was ignored.

 

[GIJane]

American actress (Austrian born) Hedy Lamarr was an inventive genius who pioneered the technology that would one day form the basis for today’s WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems.

The system forming the basis involved the use of “frequency hopping” amongst radio waves, with both transmitter and receiver hopping to new frequencies together.

Not the only thing she thought up, airplane wing designs having been among many others.

Hedley.

 

[gman]

Hedley.

Hedy

 

[JohnRawls]

Another fun factoid for you nerds:

You remember Sparta? As in ancient Sparta, you know those 6 pack spear wielding Persian pleb slayers 100 to 1 and they still win. Yes, that Sparta.

Well in reality it was a society of what we would call "Cucks" basically. Their society was probably the first if not the first in the Western world to implement some hardcore institutional reforms which made them that powerful. First of all, they were proto communists before there was communism because every single male(citizen) in Spartan society didnt work and straight away recieved a plot of land and a bunch of Helot slaves(Universal basic income/aristocracy). Then the society itself was not really run by men but by women since they wielded vast majority of property and wealth. It is hard to estimate the exact figures but it could speculated up-to 90% of all property and wealth was in female hands. This stemmed from their very progressive inheritance laws for the time and even nowadays that if husband dies then all his property goes to his wife. So over time this produced very rich female land owners and property owners. And you know, males died pretty often in that time because of war and other things. Males were basically slaves to the military and Spartan kings were only war generals and religious figures. Legislature and voting was also controlled by the females through their wealth and bribes. You can't exactly wage a war without funding which the females all held in their hands so one would argue that politics was also in the hands of women. Male population was oppressed to such a degree that every time they were allowed to leave Sparta, they went on debauchery sprees often described in many Ancient Greek literature pieces.

So long story short Sparta was the first proto-communist state and a matriarchy to a large degree. Their whole power stemmed from the power of their institutions and not really some godly power to create warriors. They were pretty good in social propaganda also that they have to follow those rules so local Greeks won't rise up and kill them all(Helots, their greek slaves)

 

[gman]

Very interesting. So, what ethnicity were the Spartans if they weren’t Greek?

 

[JohnRawls]

Very interesting. So, what ethnicity were the Spartans if they weren’t Greek?

They believed they were descendants of Heracles so they arrived somewhere from Crete and conquered south of Lakonia and they are the overworld and local greek are slaves/Helots.

 

[GIJane]

Hedy

You didn't see Blazing Saddles?

 

[gman]

You didn't see Blazing Saddles?

Yes, numerous times. It’s one of my favorite Mel Brooks movies. But I had given a thought to that when I read your post but it didn’t seem to fit the thread.