Tag: history nerd stuff

@casbakespie replied to your post “talk about #10 (Something historical related to where you live) and…”

o.O that book (and class) sound fascinating. i’m by no means a civil war buff, but i am insanely curious to find out more about it, y’know?

Oh definitely. If you want I can see if I can dig out some book recs for you? Obviously it’s not gonna get into all the little things that make the war so interesting but there were actually a few factors that went into the whole thing. Like, it’s both too simplistic and also very accurate to say it was a war fought over slavery because while Southern landholders were absolutely enraged about the potential to not be able to expand slavery further into the West, Northerners by and large still wanted to compromise. There was still this attempt to balance the wants of two different wealthy classes but no one could maintain it. Something had to give and well… the South was the first to snap. The war itself was brutal and nasty. Human rights violations up the wazoo on all sides. Racism. Surgery in a time where surgery was still dangerous as hell in places that weren’t sanitary. And the Reconstruction of the South was pathetic and absolutely part of the reason we *still* have issues in the South today. (And not just race problems, either. Poor whites were still poor and racist and beholden to wealthy whites. Former slaves got fucked over into sharecropping and the cycle of poverty that created. The infrastructure was pitiful. Andrew Johnson was an awful president. Sprinkle in some of the Gilded Age economic boom and practices that benefited the North and West while leaving the South in the dust… well it’s not hard to see why we have issues.) 

Sorry, I went on a bit of a ramble lol. But the American Civil War and it’s consequences are some of my favorite things to look at in American history. 

A Historical Make Me Choose/Talk About Master-Meme

rememberingtheromanovs:

morgauseoforkney:

(Because there aren’t enough let’s face it)

Make me choose:

1. Between two historical figures

2. Between two historical ‘periods’, reigns or eras

3. Between two conflicts

4. Between two historical objects

5. Between two historical pieces of clothing or fashion trends

6. Between two factions (anything from Lancaster and York to Whig and Tory)

7. Between two concepts (this is flexible)

8. Between two ‘areas’ of history (social, economic, military, et.c.)

9. Between two forms of transport or specific vehicles (the Mary Rose, penny farthing)

10. Between two general objects (cannons, dolls, knives)

11. Between two dishes or foods

12. Between two historians

13. Between two events

14. Between two historical couples

15. Anything you want

Talk About:

1. See the Make Me Choose Section (favourite figure, couple, place, e.t.c.)

2. Something about your own family’s history

3. A historical theory, trope, or misconception you HATE

4. A historical event you wish you’d been a fly on the wall for

5. A historical figure who you think is overrated

6. A historical figure you think is underrated

7. The oldest thing you can see from where you are sitting (can be a person).

8.  A favourite random historical anecdote or fact

9. A historical myth/legend/rumour/story (flexible)

10. Something historical related to where you live

11. Something historical related to where you were born

12. Somewhere historical you’ve been

13. Somewhere historical you’d like to go

14. A historical form of a language or dead language you wish you could speak/hear spoken

15. A historical headcanon you have

16. A piece of heraldry, historical symbol, badge, flag, e.t.c. you like/associate with

17.  A historical figure you would most like to meet in their own time

18. A historical figure you would most like to bring to the modern day

19.  Historical dinner party (who would you invite, who would you seat next to each other, what would you talk about- GO)

20. Free choice

Feel free to add your own!

Plz ask <3!

American Thanksgiving Facts

From one nerd who’s family won’t listen to them anymore…

  • In the time between the first and second Thanksgivings, America went from one settlement to thirteen colonies.
  • George Washington tried to make Thanksgiving A Thing but no dice.
  • Thanksgiving is A Thing because a woman named Sarah Hale bugged literally everyone she could think of for 15 years. She was concerned that Americans were losing their genteel nature. Abraham Lincoln finally approved Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1863.
  • Thanksgiving wasn’t set as a specific date until 1941.
  • The US Military had an influence on making turkey a staple of Thanksgiving. It was tradition for the military to serve turkey for turkey day, which exposed lots of people outside the North East to the food.
  • The tradition of gifting the president a turkey started in 1947 but pardons didn’t start until 1987 with Reagan.
  • Thanksgiving is obviously controversial, as like so many things it’s built off lies and misconceptions about the relationships between colonizers and Native peoples. If you want a better look at the history of cooperation, betrayal, and early America, i suggest reading Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathaniel Philbrick. (I haven’t read a book from a solely Native perspective in terms of the history so if you have a good suggestion please let me know!)

@omgbubblesomg I just wanted to say this here b/c I thought it was interesting but I also didn’t wanna be That Guy derailing my own post BUT…

There’s an interesting intersection where astrology (and astronomy because they used to be the same thing), “magic”, and religion collide with the development of medicine. Europe and the Middle East during the Early Modern period especially was full of “spells” designed to cure ailments and make cucumbers grow and all kinds of neat stuff. In a lot of ways it was a precursor to actual scientific practice in things like medicine, botony, and astronomy.

But of course that was then and this is now and astrology and witchcraft and religion aren’t science.