Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Top 10 Historical Mysteries

There’s some good ones in here I hadn’t even heard of.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Europe: Year 1000 AD

Here’s a map of Europe in year 1000. Pretty cool. 

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Images that Shook the World

Lots of famous, iconic images. It’s amazing how one picture can have so much social impact. Sometimes they can give the wrong idea.

The one of the naked girl running in Vietnam is popular with anti-war people. But where did that girl end up and is living today? You guessed it. America. Gosh, why would she come to live in a Capitalist oppressors country after all that? Maybe its because Communism sucks?

The one where the Vietnamese officer shoots a man in the head, that officer ended up in the US also. He had a liquor store in Orange County until he died a few years back. 

Monday, June 04, 2007

Human Crossings

The history of man’s wanderings. According to what they can determine anywy. Notce that there were several periods of ice and warming during that time. And not an SUV in sight. 

Saturday, May 26, 2007

The Pyramids are Made of Concrete?

“What started as a two-hour project turned into a five-year odyssey that I undertook with one of my graduate students, Adrish Ganguly, and a colleague in France, Gilles Hug,” Barsoum says.

A year and a half later, after extensive scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations and other testing, Barsoum and his research group finally began to draw some conclusions about the pyramids. They found that the tiniest structures within the inner and outer casing stones were indeed consistent with a reconstituted limestone. The cement binding the limestone aggregate was either silicon dioxide (the building block of quartz) or a calcium and magnesium-rich silicate mineral.

The stones also had a high water content—unusual for the normally dry, natural limestone found on the Giza plateau—and the cementing phases, in both the inner and outer casing stones, were amorphous, in other words, their atoms were not arranged in a regular and periodic array. Sedimentary rocks such as limestone are seldom, if ever, amorphous.

The sample chemistries the researchers found do not exist anywhere in nature. “Therefore,” says Barsoum, “it’s very improbable that the outer and inner casing stones that we examined were chiseled from a natural limestone block.”

More startlingly, Barsoum and another of his graduate students, Aaron Sakulich, recently discovered the presence of silicon dioxide nanoscale spheres (with diameters only billionths of a meter across) in one of the samples. This discovery further confirms that these blocks are not natural limestone.

Very interesting. But not impossible. The Romans had their own version of concrete also. We’ve learned over the years that the ancients were much mroe advanced than anyone thought. 

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Life is Better Now

I’ve been saying for years that we live in better, and more enlightened times. If you study history as I have, the facts are inescapable. But many people who only know what they see on television fail tp understand that and despair for our future. This article in the New Republic explains why they’re wrong.

And I have to say, it’s refreshing to see this in a liberal magazine, because the left is so negative and gloomy on the whole. The pessimism, fueled by belief in conspiracies doesn’t help one’s outlook.

We really live in the best times in recorded history, despite all the things we hate. Just in my lifetime, I have seen a lot of positive change. When I was a little kid they still had segregation in the south. Presidents and other leaders were assassinated. Most of the poor nations on earth were run by dictators (a bigger percentage than today). Medical science was more backward. Opportunities to be independent and self employed were much scarcer.

Sure, there are lots of things to be unhappy about today. But on the whole, things are better. Which is one reason I have a problem with those who would muck things up by sending us back instead of forward. 

Friday, March 23, 2007

20 Historical Myths

I knew some of these, but there are some surprising ones here. I knew this one, but many people don’t.

4. Columbus proved that the Earth was round

It was American author Washington Irving, some 500 years after Columbus sailed to America, who first portrayed the Italian explorer as launching on his voyage to prove that the Earth was round, defying the common, flat-earther belief of the time. In fact, most educated Europeans in Columbus’s day knew that the world was round. Since the fourth century BC, almost nobody has believed that the Earth is flat. Even if that wasn’t the case, Columbus would never have set out to prove that the Earth was round… simply because he didn’t believe it himself! Columbus thought that the Earth was pear-shaped. He set sail to prove something else: that Asia was much closer than anyone thought. Even in this, he was wrong. To further besmirch his memory, it should also be noted that he never set foot on mainland America. The closest he came was the Bahamas. Pear-shaped, indeed!

Monday, March 19, 2007

Greek God Geneology

As Borat would say, Niice.

I’ve been into Greek Mythology since I was a little kid. I still have a Greek Mythology book that I found in Pearl Harbor Elementary when I was like 6 or 7. I liked it so much my mom bought it for me.

Since many Greek gods have conflicting stories of their birth, this tries to deal with the common lineage.

Still, a nice reference. If you click on the names it takes you to a Wikipedia article for that god. 

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The History of Hemp

Even if you don’t smoke weed (I don’t), this is a very interesting and important film which explores the use of hemp through the ages and why it became illegal. I used to be against legalization but I’ve changed my mind over the years.  This plant has far too many uses to be illegal. But it’s illegal because it’s so useful. Many corporations saw it as competition for products they had patented. It’s time we stopped letting huge corporations dictate things to the rest of us, through their political influence. 

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Lost Cities of the World

This site has lots of images of many of the world’s lost cites. Lots of amazing images here.