PYF Historical Fun Fact: (USER LOSETH POSTYNG PRIVILYGES FOR FOUR AND TWENTY HOURS)

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Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

twoday posted:

- The colony of New France was not completely sold during the Louisiana purchase, and part of North America is still under French control.

- The Azores were an outpost of the Carthagian Empire.

Carthage had a habit on sending its admirals on far flung journeys. Himilco discovered the British Isles and Hanno the Navigator sailed south and around sub-Saharan Africa as far as Gabon, discovering gorillas and describing accurately the details of Mt. Cameroon before he turned back.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2015 15:44

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 19:43

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

System Metternich posted:

All extant Celtic languages (Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Welsh and Breton) are members of the Insular Celtic Group, whereas all Continental Celtic languages have gone extinct. Cornish died a slow death during the 17th and 18th century, and the last native Manx speaker died in 1974. Both languages undergo revival efforts, though, and for both there's even a handful of native speakers again!

I think you'll find Breton quite continental. Besides this, Basque is a Celtic language, too, is it not?

# ¿ Nov 4, 2015 17:45

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

System Metternich posted:

While Breton is indeed spoken on the continent, it was brought to the region by Britonic settlers from south-west England and Wales in the 4th century and therefore forms part of the "Insular Celtic" linguistic subgroup. You can still see this in the names of the petty kingdoms formed by them there: Domnon�e (Devon), Cornouaille (Cornwall) and L�on (Caerleon in southern Wales). Basque is a so-called "language isolate", i.e. there are no known relatives of it. It is quite possibly the only remaining pre-Indo-European language of Europe.

Now that is strange. The area of Brittany has basically always been nominally Celtic. Why would island Celtic supplant continental?

Alright, now I have to redeem myself with a true fact. Everyone has heard of the Silk Road between the edges of China and the old extents of the Roman empire. But before that there was another road; the Amber road, stretching from the southern baltic coast down to the Med. Polish amber has shown up on a staggering amount of truly ancient artefacts, including beads on Tutankhamen's clothing.

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

# ¿ Nov 4, 2015 18:31

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

NLJP posted:

Well, the Bretons seem to come from (celtic, of course) British soldiers who accompanied a Roman commander, Magnus Maximus, across the waters to Gaul into Italy in 387 to contest for the imperial throne. He failed and much of his army settled in Britanny. This was long after romanisation of Gaul so the continental Celtic language had already basically been supplanted by vulgar latin/celtic dialetcs. He was a hugely popular man in Britain and he was a culture hero character for a long time there and is still remembered today as Macsen Wlaedig with plenty of old stories. It's a cool weird story and there's quite a lot more too it though some of it is rather vague. The linguistic evidence definitely backs the basic story up though.

He's often been connected to Arthurian stories in latter days since it is reckoned his death marked the end of Roman Britain.

That makes sense because I saw a study of Breton male names and they're basically all connected with warfare for some reason, such is clear now. I wish I had saved the link.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2015 20:26

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

NLJP posted:

Not heard of that! Please link it if you find it, sounds interesting.

http://www.wales.ac.uk/resources/documents/research/bretonpatronymsbritishheroicage.pdf I did some Googling for you, enjoy.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2015 21:29

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

The elephants rode into the Alps by Hannibal were an extinct species that lived in what used to be the extremely fertile northern Sahara.

The European lion went extinct somewhere between the first and second crusade. This is why you see it on really old tincture everywhere from Norway to Persia.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2015 09:53

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

trickybiscuits posted:

Fitzcarraldo itself was based on a real story, so maybe watch that too.

Fitzcarraldo the movie is actually more hardcore than real life, because when the event it was based on was portaging the boat over the mountain, they disassembled it first.

Speaking of, the way Constantinople was won by the Ottomans involved portaging half their navy over what is now the modern-day Galata district to get into the golden horn, the city's cloistered harbour. There is a palace on the waterfront in the spot where the Sultan's ships made landfall there today. The reason they had to do this was because of the Byzantines/ERE's famous chain. On each side of the horn they had a winch tower, which in a crisis they would turn to draw up the chain, which normally rests on the seabed, but sat just above the water line to bisect any ship that dared enter.

The only person to defeat the chain is said to be King Harald Hardrada of Norway (long story), weighing down the aft of his shallow longboat, and then shifting the weight to "surf" over it and escape from the city.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2015 04:49

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

Loxbourne posted:

Mascara you say? Yes, for the still-common practice of painting the area around one's eyes black to cut down on glare.

You could see some raccoon-faced sailors as late as WW2.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2015 19:27

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

Atreiden posted:

I know this was some pages back, but it really annoyed me.

Sorry but this is not true at all. The European Lion went extinct in the holocene period and there is no Archeological evidence for it in historic time. You might as well talk about the European Griffon or Dragon, since you see that from Norway to Spain. If you look at antic greek art, it's clear that they don't have first hand knowledge about Lions. They often portrays female Lions with manes. It's also clear that they portray Asiatic lions, since they have to dark spots above the eyes, which both roman and greek artist thought was small horns. Medieval lions in art are even worse, since they are poor copies of what little antique art, they had access to.

Goddamn it, you're right, the animal I was thinking of that went extinct was the auroch, a wild bovine.

Here, I'll tie up all my posts about Norway, lions, the Byzantines and ill-fated decisions. I'll throw in some Napoleon to boot.

This is the Piraeus Lion:

Sculpted in the mid-4th century BC, this sat in the Athenian harbour until it was plundered by raiding Venetians during the Turkish wars. Now it sits outside the old Venetian arsenal. Why does any of this matter? Well a group of Varangians turned it into a makeshift runestone to commemorate their capture of the old port of Athens during some period of upheaval in the 11th or 12th century. Its a cool mix of ancient and medieval in a strange place.

Venice was home to many items of value after the 4th crusade, including the old imperial crowns:

Unfortunately, his imperial and royal majesty, the Corsican ogre, sieged Venice during his European tour and ransacked all of the old family's valuables, including the crowns, which he melted for gold.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2015 06:30

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

goose fleet posted:

Constantinople fell in 1453 and Columbus made his first voyage in 1492, so there are definitely people at the time that would have seen both the final collapse of the Roman Empire and the "discovery" of the New World.

There's some amazing trivia about the fall of Constantinople. I think Dan Carlin once spoke of this guy who worked for the Byzantines collapsing Ottoman tunnels during the siege. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Grant

I think the crescent moon and star being significant in Islam comes from the conquest as well, but I'm not 100% on that.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2015 15:53

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

FreudianSlippers posted:

Simlarly both ancient norse and modern Icelandic have "fr�ndi" which literally means "kinsman" but is used as the word for uncle, cousin and nephew. The female equivalent is "fr�nka" which is also used in hip-hop slang as a word for women so you get songs that sound like the rapper is bragging how incestuous he is.

A very real danger for the Icelandic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhUNZIegntw

# ¿ Nov 14, 2015 11:03

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

RagnarokAngel posted:

You're not telling me anything I didn't know. If it makes you feel better I'll remember to use the term western Roman emperor here.

Try and keep this in mind, if all an emperor is known for before he is assassinated is his goofball impulses it usually means he didn't gently caress up anything too badly. He was most surely a puppet controlled by his mother until their murders. The Roman Empire at that time was so lumbering and distant from border to border that most places on the edges had military rule or de facto autonomy and one kid used as a human rubber stamp in the middle couldn't mess it up too badly unless he tried.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 14:36

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

syscall girl posted:

Is Putin a tsar/caesar? Because one gets the feeling he'd like that honorific.

Their coat of arms is a doubled-headed eagle, which is a late Byzantine thing, so they're definitely still trying to project that kind of authority.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 23:31

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

Nckdictator posted:

Related to this I just found out Americans might've had a double-headed eagle on the Great Seal.

I wouldn't be surprised. A lot of American imagery is directly Roman. Bald eagles, colossal statues of presidents in monuments, in fact, Abraham Lincoln's hands rest on a pair of fasces, the Roman symbol of authority.

System Metternich posted:

Not many people know this, but

Those walls are still there and are big enough and span far enough that the course that runs between the inner and out wall is wide enough to play a game of basketball on, the inner walls are still pretty intact and used to be rented apartments in times of peace, and currently hold a fair few Syrian refugees, and the moat of the outer wall is thick enough that it has been converted into highway tunnel.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2017 09:39

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

Nessus posted:

Do they still have that giant chain I heard about in a Turisas song?

Some of it is in the archaeological museum. You can touch it.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2017 14:18

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

Piss was also vital component of making gunpowder and still is a big part of leather tanning.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2017 09:53

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

syscall girl posted:

Nevertheless Fry and Davies are infallible

I disagree, I saw the show maybe a couple of months ago and they had something like this factoid spoken of:

QI posted:

Ambrose (ad 338-397), Bishop of Milan, appears to have been the first person in Europe who could read without moving his lips; or, at least, that�s the interpretation generally given to this passage from the Confessions of St Augustine of Hippo.

�When [Ambrose] read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still. Anyone could approach him freely and guests were not commonly announced, so that often, when we came to visit him, we found him reading like this in silence, for he never read aloud.�

Although there are various references to it in antiquity (Henry Chadwick says that it was �uncommon, but not unknown� � e.g. it is attributed by Plutarch to Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, and there are characters in Greek plays who read silently on stage), silent reading seems to have been a lost art in Europe in Ambrose�s time. The passage from the Confessions doesn�t directly state that Ambrose was unique, of course, but it is clear that the scholarly Augustine regarded silent reading as being akin to a conjuring trick of some sort.

And fail to mention the actual interesting part: It's because if you've seen any writing in Latin from antiquity, you know that its all one block o' text. Spaces between words (at least anywhere west of Greece) was invented in like the 7th century by Irish monks. Before then the closest you had were dashes or interpuncts between sentences.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2017 15:14

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

Gaius Marius posted:

I actually brought this up after seeing the mentioned passage in my own reading of the Confessions and took it to the ancient history thread and the general consensus was that the idea that silent reading was uncommon or unknown in the ancient world is a myth.

grbs.library.duke.edu/article/download/10731/4297
A link to the paper posted in the thread refuting the claim
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3486446&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=545
A link to the thread I asked the question about half way down the thread.

Yeah I think I remember that discussion as well. I think that it's correct for people who had literacy education back then, but there would have to be a few people who bootstrapped and self-taught themselves letters. Sounding out words is definitely a developmental phase.

Also enough about water-cooled guns. Its a warzone, nobody wants to give up their water ration to a loving machine gun, of course they're going to piss in there.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2017 02:16

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 19:43

Frogfingers: Oct 10, 2012

It would be ironic if the berserkers were the only ones drinking water instead of beer before going into battle. Naked because they're making GBS threads uncontrollably and utterly fearless because they're deep in a fever fugue.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2017 06:38

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