Oddities, curiousities and strangness in history [2]

Yep, she's one of the few people on tv I love watching. I love her dress style too

{{ Pretty much as far as I can tell all her documentaries are on youtube. Ive been watching one a day. }}

cool

This all seems very interesting to me, but I have difficulty keeping it all straight in my head:

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/stonehenge-may-rebuilt-welsh-stone-000200291.html

That darn ring of stones has been a talking point for so many years so many ideas of why & who & how. Id like to know who decided that certain stone & that colour was the right choice ?
" alright lads, Ive found this lovely stone, great colour, will look a treat once its up, trouble is, Ive only found one & the rest is in bloody Wales , oh well, heave ho boys", & everyone was fine with this ? Oh yeah, we'll drag a ton of stone a 100 miles to where youwant it.

Say what?!! I learned long ago that we couldn't distinguish different sounds until we categorized them, but...

We only know what we think our brain tells us. Its all wev got to go by I guess And its a kind of repititian. If you keep saying Roses are red thats all your brain bucket remembers & is happy with. Going by what this young guy says, what are we not seeing ?

That circle with green dots that all looked about the same to us but some african tribe would be able to rattle off a number of different colors: that was eye opening. Though I'm not sure he showed us the actual varieties of green they'd identify.

I never realized that most of the iconography around witches dated back to when women were the primary ale brewers (hence the term "ale-wife"), ale being a household item back then; and when some women began to sell their ale at the market place they'd wear distinctive pointed hats, have a cauldron going, and cats to keep mice away from the grains. Male brewers around 1500 started spreading around the rumor they were witches to drive off the competition.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/women-used-dominate-beer-industry-until-witch-accusations-started-pouring-180977171/?utm_source=smithsoniantopic&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20210314-weekender&spMailingID=44612658&spUserID=NzQwNDU4NjU0MTYS1&spJobID=1961022327&spReportId=MTk2MTAyMjMyNwS2

{{ An interesting take on it. In the UK it was largely down to James 1(VI of England) who was big in his early years on going after Witches, and even attended their torture. He seems to have had a change of heart in later life instructing that judges shoul be especially wary of trusting accusations of witchcraft. But witchcraft as a punishable offence by death stayed on the books until 1735 when the Courts viewed witchcraft as 'impossible' but you could still be charged with falsely claiming to be a witch or claiming to have supernatural powers which was still punishable, just no longer by torture and death. It was seen as more like committing fraud.

Only issue Id have with that article is that by the middleages most brewing in Europe was been done in monastries and nunnieries. So while women were still brewing (which they had been the major brewers in history until then) it was largely the Church which took over the commercialisation and selling of ale here. I think the article might understate somewhat the financial interest and profit to be gained from the Church in tarring these women with the name witch.}}

I wonder if that has something to do with many protestant denominations coming out against alcohol?

I think the witches hat originated in Wales. The Welsh national costume from the nineteenth century in particular. I have old photos of my relatives in those hats.

Were those pointy or flat at the top? High flat tops are associated with Puritans over here, who definitely were beer drinkers. I suppose the temperance movement didn't start until the late 19th century.

Notable for the film footage in this report. Looking for something else, a major residential and industrial complex was found under the sands of Egypt.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/inside-egypts-3-000-old-083011063.html

{{ Saw this yeterday, an amazing discovery that should add a lot to our knowledge of the time. Especially as it should give us some more information surrounding Ahkenaten, and the first monotheism in known history. }}

I feel we get almost too much about that guy: even Tut was related. I'd rather we get more about the pyramids, brief though that time was.

{{ We know a suprising little about the circumstances of his new religion however, our how it was reveived by the general populace, not to mention the priests of the other Gods he was getting rid of. In no small part as his successors did all they could to destroy any sign he ever existed, we only have a pieced together outline of that period. }}

This is quite fun.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/emperor-tiberius-murder-investigation

the crew of one of Henry VIII warships was more racially diverse than expected. HOWEVER I have to think that extrapolating the diversity of a population based on their mariners is extremely naive. Mariners were ALWAYS diverse in the age of sail; they are the natural travelers at a time when travel was difficult.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/shipwreck-reveals-surprising-racial-diversity-henry-viii-s-england-n1266366

exactly, they would press gang men from ports around the world if they lacked sailors, its a bit of a stretch to say the whole population was 'diverse'.

Incredible detail. I didn't realize box springs existed in the late 1800's.

The many comparisons between east and west remind me of the comparisons between east and west legal systems given by my chinese ex not-girlfriend gave to her cousin who was visiting. A lesson in contrasts.

Nice discussion of the bible.

It's good to see the typical American welcome to foreigners (yes, even in the time of Trump) goes back so far, and even encompassed the Japanese. But I've felt that same welcome in Europe and Argentina, though more a sense of confusion or tolerance in China. I think that may be more the affinity for Asian/Asian Western/Western visitors than anything else. But the American openness to strangers has been remarked on constantly by Europeans as a surprise and even an annoyance at times.