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1500 questions
37
votes
10 answers
Are modern Greeks related to the ancient Greeks?
Greece has been subject to many many invasions since the 7th century and there must have been a serious mixing of peoples. In a similar situation, we do not usually consider the French or the Germans to be lineal descendants of the Romans. So can…
Felix Goldberg
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37
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2 answers
When did the U.S. Army start saying "oh-six-hundred" for "6 AM"?
Last night I was watching The Pale Blue Eye (2022), a (bad) period piece set at West Point in the year 1830. At the 21m50s mark, Captain Hitchcock (Simon McBurney) snaps at a cadet:
Effective oh-six-hundred tomorrow morning, all men will only…
Quuxplusone
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37
votes
5 answers
How did early adopters of the automobile fill up their cars?
Presumably when Henry Ford started cranking out the first Model Ts there weren't any gas stations yet. I mean there wasn't yet a large market to distribute gasoline to cars, so it seems like there wouldn't be any gas stations. Yet people did buy…
Mark Rogers
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37
votes
2 answers
When and why did garum disappear?
Garum or liquamen was, apparently, extremely popular in classical Rome, consumed by rich and poor on a daily basis, almost on par with bread. It was also known to other Mediterranean civilizations. Alas, this dish is extinct now.
When and why did it…
Michael
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37
votes
3 answers
Did all the the -stan sovereign state names appear synchronously?
-stan is a Persian suffix that seems functionally equivalent to the Germanic -land.
Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan are the sovereign -stan states.
Even though -stan is a Persian suffix only…
user52066
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37
votes
3 answers
What was the pound (unit of weight) initially equal to?
Studying history, you can often come across the old non-metric units of measurement. And while usually by a name of a unit one can understand what was taken as its basis, in the case of the pound, there is no clarity at all.
A unit of measurement…
Eagle
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37
votes
2 answers
Did the Romans leave any technical instruction manuals behind?
Did Romans write instructional manuals on architecture, building etc.?
I am curious as to why so much of the Roman's knowledge of architecture and construction was lost in medieval times, especially since there did exist people able to read Latin…
user7090
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37
votes
4 answers
Why were the drawings of Colossus burnt after WW2 and why was its very existence "of course" kept secret?
After VJ Day, suddenly it was all over. Eight of the ten Colossi were dismantled in Bletchley Park. Two went to Eastcote in North London and then to GCHQ at Cheltenham. These last two were dismantled in about 1960 and in 1960 all the drawings of…
Cordaryl
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37
votes
1 answer
Why did Bayer lose aspirin and heroin trademarks under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles?
As read in the article Heroin by Wikipedia:
Bayer lost some of its trademark rights to heroin (as well as aspirin) under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles following the German defeat in World War I. 83 84
The second reference is of The Guardian's…
fedorqui
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37
votes
3 answers
Is there a historical explanation as to why the USA people are so litigious compared to the French?
I'm French and I often hear that people in USA tend to sue for almost anything. I don't hear the same about countries neighboring France (Spain, Italia, Belgium, etc..) and, since a good part of USA citizens historically came from Europe, I'm…
Ælis
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37
votes
3 answers
How did the ancient Greeks synchronize time?
How the time synchronization was achieved in ancient Greece? The context of this question is about Eratosthenes and his calculation of the size of the Earth based on Sun casting shadows with different length and angle in the same time in two cities…
Didzis Lauva
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37
votes
3 answers
Who is this young 'Prince'?
The photo below was found in an envelope among a bundle of family photos which were recently handed down on the English side of my family.
Aside from the photo itself, the only clues are as follows:
The word 'Prince' is written on the back of the…
Lars Bosteen
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37
votes
7 answers
What's the rationale for shipping coins back to Spain from its colonies?
Since the days of Pirates! the thought of capturing the Spanish treasure fleet on its way back somewhere in the Spanish Main was a primary target because of all the gold and silver it transported to Spain.
Some of the colonies were rich in gold and…
LаngLаngС
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37
votes
1 answer
Why did the Royal Society in 1771 believe that a continent further south than Australia should exist?
In reading the wikipedia article on Captain Cook's 2nd voyage, I noticed the
comment:
Despite this evidence to the contrary, Alexander Dalrymple and others of the Royal Society still believed that a massive southern continent should exist.
[p. 182…
Pieter Geerkens
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37
votes
3 answers
How and when was the modern company ownership structure invented?
More specifically I mean the very common structure with the following roles:
Shareholders
Board members
CEO
When was this structure invented, and how?
It would also be very interesting to get any hints into why this structure has become the norm…
dajoh
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