#history thing

[fangswandsandfairydust]

It’s A History Thing: Pockets, Purses and Reticules

http://fangswandsandfairydust.com/2018/01/purses.html How did we get from a little bag sewn into a belt to handbags?

[goddesshexerei]

15, 18, and 25 from the history asks? :)

15. Were the history classes taught in an interesting way in your school, college, or university? What would you do to improve them if you were the teacher/lecturer?

In my own experiences history generally was not taught in a very interesting and engaging way for me. I am a visual and tactile learner, and most school teach based on lectures and reading, which isn’t not well suited for me. As someone educated in education, I understand why school try to teach the way that they do, but I don’t think it is engaging. Many people including myself who love history found their love for it through narrative history, the retelling of events as they occurred as a narrative or story. Also hands-on ways of exploring history, through dramatic reenactments, visiting an archaeological site, or a museum tour can bring history out of the pages of a book and into the imagination. SO yeah more hands-on stuff and more narrative to inspire people to want to learn more history, rather than just tell them what history is important to them.

18. Look at the clock and assume the numbers are forming a historical year (e.g. 17;58 would be 1758) What is the world like in that year? Are any significant events going to occur?

It is 9:19 pm as I write this answer. I will preface that my own area of research is Roman history, and thus I am also a Byzantinist, so my knowledge tends to be the strongest around that, and I am not very knowledgeable about east Asian, Mesoamerican, or Sub-Saharan history. So 919-920 CE are some pretty interesting times in my field of study, we are smack dab in the midst of the “Macedonian Renaissance” in Byzantium (which is the surviving eastern half of the Roman Empire). So the Macedonian Dynasty, which started when stable boy Basil murders his good friend Michael III and becomes emperor, is now on it’s 3rd generation. Basil’s son Leo VI died in 912 leaving his younger brother Alexander to rule, but Alexander died within a year. Leo’s Son Constantine VII is 7 years old and so there’s a regency council which ends up shuffling hands a number of times as the Empress Zoe (Constantine’s mom), Nicholas I Mystikos (the Patriarch of Constantinople), and Leo Phokas (general and head of one of the major aristocratic clans in the empire) vie for control over the young emperor. So in 919 Romanos Lekapenos the admiral of the imperial navy, manages to deftly play the factions off against each other and maneuver his way into power. Now instead of doing what anyone would expect and even what is more logical, remove/kill the young Constantine VII as a rival for power, Romanos keeps him in a sort of comfy house arrest. So Romanos is the senior emperor running the show while Constantine plays sort of a ceremonial role. Romanos would spend the next 25 years as the senior emperor and spearhead the first territorial expansion of the empire since the arrival of Islam nearly 300 years previously. To round out the story Romanos groomed his eldest son Christopher to eventually succeed him, but Christopher died in 931, and Romanos didn’t elevated his other sons above Constantine VII for the rest of his reign. Romanos’ sons ended up ousting their father and sending him off to a monastery in forced retirement, but their coup was short lived, Constantine, who had been popular with the people managed to ride the unrest in the wake of the coup to have Romanos’ sons deposed and sent off to the same monastery as their father. The scholarly Constantine would reign on his own for the next 15 years and leave the empire to his son Romanos II. But the drama of 919-920 is the model for the whole concept of Byzantine court intrigue which is often liked to ASoIF.

25. Who is the most overrated historical figure, in your opinion?

I’m tempted to say, “all of them” as the “great man” theory of history is quite rightfully dead in academia. However I’ve seen based on my own research that eve if we claim that history is driven by events that are part of larger movements and trends, the character of the men and women who are standing on the shore when the waves break, do leave a lasting resonance with how the eventual story plays out. So I’m gonna tackle the big one, the most overrated historical figure.Jesus of Nazareth, without a doubt, is the most overrated historical figure. Christianity has had such a omnipresence in western history since 300CE, that it’s Influence is impossible to ignore or downplay, but Jesus’ own role in that is shockingly small. Jesus’ role and teaching are important, without them there would be no Christianity. However at his death it was a small and insignificant movement within the wider mystical and apocalyptical movements within Judaism at the time. St. Paul is to be credited with making the movement accessible to the wider greco-roman world. and the dozen of other early Christians who argued and thought about the theology and philosophy of this movement which could fight toe to toe with the ancient polytheistic beliefs and all of the most enlightened greco-roman philosophy. So yeah it might get me some hate mail, but Jesus is overrated.

[arachnophxbia]

Tell me a thing, History person. *pap*

{On the coronation day of a Russian tsar (which one it was escapes me currently, he (the tsar) arranged for there to be free beer for anyone who showed up (meaning, peasants). Most people showed up already drunk, but when a rumor broke out there wasn’t going to be enough beer, people started trampling each other to get some, not unlike people in the U.S on Black Friday (except more drunk and violent). A whole crapton of people died and it’s known as Bloody Sunday.}

[pantsphantom]

how am I so frEAKING GOOD AT NOT DOING WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO