An eclectic collection of history facts and tidbits
“In leaving tropical environments behind, our ancestors also escaped many of the parasites and disease organisms to which their predecessors and tropical contemporaries were accustomed. Health and vigor improved accordingly, and multiplication of human numbers assumed a hitherto unparalleled scale.”
From Plagues and People by William H. McNeill
“…when the baby Alexander had just begun to walk and talk, the world had seemed set in its course. The Greeks would fight endless wars over the meaningless question of which city-state would exercise brief hegemony. An ossified but operational Persian Empire would continue to dominate an extensive core. People at the fringes of the empire- western Anatolia, Egypt, and India- would continue to find ways to avoid Persian domination, and ambitious local governors would periodically assert a tenuous independence. Macedon would continue in its role as underperforming giant with great human and natural resources, but lacking effective central government.
Some of those assumptions began to change as Alexander’s father, Philip, consolidated royal power in Macedon, brought the mainland Greeks under his control, and laid plans for an Asian expedition that would add the rich provinces of western Anatolia to his burgeoning Macedonian Empire. But in the dozen years since Alexander had inherited the throne of Macedon, the pace had accelerated wildly. So much had changed for an unimaginable number of people across Europe and Asia, as long-entrenched systems of government had been suddenly overturned. The treasure-houses of the Persian Empire, packed with the carefully hoarded loot of two centuries of plunder and efficient taxation, had been thrown open. Tons of silver and gold spilled into the Euro-Asian economy. The Greek language, and rich cultural heritage it brought with it, was becoming the new lingua franca. Everything, it seemed, would be made anew.”
From I Wish I’d Been There, Book Two edited by Bryon Hollinshead and Theodore K. Rabb
“Latin, in distinct contrast, didn’t so much decline as evolve. It became the Romance languages. It is not too much to say that French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian are essentially modern versions of Latin.
If we must fix a date for when Latin stopped being Latin and instead became these other languages, the year 813 is a convenient milestone. It was then that Charlemagne ordered that sermons throughout his realm be delivered in the ‘lingua romana rustica’ and not the customary ‘lingua latina.’
But of course you cannot draw a line and say that the language was Latin on this side and Italian and French on that. As late as the thirteenth century, Dante was still regarding his own Florentine tongue as Latin. And indeed it is still possible to construct long passages of modern Italian that are identical to ancient Latin.”
From The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson
“In sixteenth-century Venice, violence was ritualized to the point where several times each year, workers and artisans would gather on a Sunday or a holiday afternoon to battle with sticks and fists for the possession of a bridge. These prearranged, organized ‘wars’ would be watched regularly by thousands of spectators.”
From A Short History of Renaissance and Reformation Age: Dances Over Fire and Water by Jonathan W. Zophy
Little known fact- Renaissance Venice had their own version of The Purge
“Although the origins of each are still the subject of speculation among scholars, tragedy probably evolved from fertility rituals surrounding the death and decay of the crops, while comedy seems to have developed out of village revels celebrating seasonal rebirth.”
From Landmarks in Humanities by Gloria K. Fiero
Stalingrad, which so famously held off German advances for more than five months, with fighting in the streets and high civilian casualties, had many remarkable stories. Here are a few.
- the Stalingrad Tractor Factory had been re-purposed to make tanks, primarily the T-34. When most of the…
“Harold E. Stearns, one of the most thoughtful critics of Americanism in the early 20s, identified ‘willingness’ as ‘the old and traditional American’ style of spiritual generosity in a material world. It affirmed character and will, resisting what seemed to be unalterable ‘economic and social forces.’
‘Willingness’ was, according to Stearns, part (and the best part) of our national character. It was clearly a form of greatness, part of the reason why Gatsby is the Great Gatsby.”
From Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and the Twenties by Ronald Berman
“[TG] Lee milked his cows in a 10x10 foot lean-to on Bumby Avenue. In 1955, Lee sold 20 acres at Colonial Drive and Bumby Avenue to a New York real estate group for $200,000 in preparation for building the $3.5 million Colonial Plaza shopping center. It would be the largest retail project up to that time, and it later became Central Florida’s first mall. Another 2,000 acres of former Lee pasture between Conway and Orlando International Airport is now LeeVista Inc.”
From Flashbacks: The Story of Central Florida’s Past by Jim Robison
“He sent back to Athens three hundred suits of Persian armor to tell the Greeks of his victory. Along with the armor was a message: ‘Alexander, son of Philip, and the Greeks…dedicate these spoils, taken from the Persians who dwell in Asia.’ The Greeks would know that their defeat in Athens one hundred and fifty years earlier had been avenged. Alexander wanted the Greeks to believe that he fought for them and not just for his own glory.”
From Alexander the Great: World Conqueror by Michael Burgan
