Fun facts!

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Smaug's Smokey Hole said:
I don't know how it was everywhere but here the process of last names came through identifiers. If you were Anders, son of Magnus then then at one point it got jotted down as Anders Magnusson (notice that there's to S, american Anderson is AndersSon and so on). Other than that people got a last name based on locations where they live like "Berg" (mountain), Beck (brook), Brook (beck) and so on. It was a census thing, good to know if there is peasants to round up for war.
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Sorry for double posting.

In the same vein, until the Meiji Revolution in Japan all commoners didn't had an official surname. They used their trade as their own surname since only people of noble origins (like warlords) or people that have been taken in by a clan (become a professional soldier) were allowed to have a surname.

One of the few instances where a commoner had a surname was the case of Toyotomi Hideyosi, who was a peddler of the name Munekita Tokijiro that served Nobunaga to such a great extent that he granted him a new name and a fiefdom, eventually rising to become the most powerful commoner of Japan (he didn't became Shogun because he wasn't of noble origins tho).
 
Scarecrows became a useful deterrent in Medeival Britain after the Black Plague eliminated most of the children who were tasked with scaring birds away from crops. (Source)

That's right - those uncanny, stiff effigies of people in raggedy clothing exist thanks to one of the most devestating pandemics in human history.

Funnily enough, my neighbors decided to put scarecrows in their front gardens last week.
 
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In 80 AD, Flavius Josephus recorded the first known incident of mooning.

Josephus recorded that in the procuratorship of Ventidius Cumanus, at around the beginning of the First Roman–Jewish War, a soldier in the Roman army mooned Jewish pilgrims at the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem who had gathered for Passover, and "spake such words as you might expect upon such a posture" causing a riot in which youths threw stones at the soldiers, who then called in reinforcements—the pilgrims panicked, and the ensuing stampede resulted in the death of ten thousand Jews.
 
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During the Spanish Civil War, the siege of the Alcazar of Toledo was one of the most costly and unecessary operations for both sides in the war.

The siege lasted 4 months in which the republican troops (republicans in Spain were commies/socialists btw), which vastly outnumbered the rebels inside the fortress and had air support and artillery, didn't managed to break the siege and were eventually encircled and routed by the national army (AKA, the fascists).

This siege was incredibly unecessary for the republicans since Toledo was a place with no strategic importance except for the weapons factory there, which was sabotaged by the rebels the day the army arrived. The republicans sent a considerable force (around 15.000 soldiers) to quash this isolated uprising of barely 800 people because they saw it as easy propaganda to show they had things under control. This became one of the most disasterous operations in the war, giving an enormous advantage to Franco's army, mainly due to the inmense incompetence of the army's generals and that most of the troops were militia and/or fresh recruits. As well, the republicans wanted everyone to see that they would crush the fascists, so they had journalists from all major publications of foreign newspapers to see the siege end. Franco took advantage of this and moved his troops to liberate the fortress, routing the enemy, saving the ones on his side (since most inside the fortress were conscripted civilians) and dealing an important blow to the republic in front of the world.

Important to note is that the day the siege started, the commander of the fortress, Colonel Moscardó, was asked to surrender or they would execute his son outside of the fortress. His son told him to don't give up and Moscardó told the republicans to save up time and shoot his son already.
 
horrorfan89 said:
The only person accused of witchcraft during the salem witch trials who wasn't executed was shock of shocks...tituba the black house slave who taught magic to the three Parris girls who started the whole thing. Ironically it was probably her status as a slave that spared her life. She remained in jail because her owner John Parris refusing to pay her legal fees and reclaim her, so she was ultimately sold off to another owner at the cost of said fees, her fate following the release from prison remains unknown.
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On that note, no one was burned at the stake in the Witch Trials.
Drowned, stoned, pressed with rocks, and hanged, yes. But not burned.

And it wasn't just women. Men and animals were also tried and killed.
 
It took approximately 70 days to make an Egyptian mummy, almost all mummies save for those of high priests, the wealthy and especially the pharaoh were prepared the same way. Organ removal, drying via narton salt and sand, rubbed with oils and spices then wrapped and sealed in a sarcophagus. The aforementioned royal mummies would often have jewelry and scared tokens slipped in between their wrappings and have elaborate funerals held where being a mourner could be a paid job.

Women would often mourn the dead by shaving their eyebrows off, throwing sand in their faces and hitting themselves

Cats were second only to humans as the most mummified creatures in egypt often being buried with their owners.


The worship of cats had changed very little since the days of ancient egypt


Nick Obre said:
On that note, no one was burned at the stake in the Witch Trials.
Drowned, stoned, pressed with rocks, and hanged, yes. But not burned.

And it wasn't just women. Men and animals were also tried and killed.
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The wikipedia article on the witch trails puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that a majority of the accused were women...and one token possibly black hag from Barbados🤔
 
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A popular expression in german to say "Different, but still good" is 0815 ( said: null acht funfzig).

This makes reference to a model of light machinegun (simply known by the model number) that was introduced during WW2 to substitute the MG34 in the battlefield. The soldiers knew it was a different machinegun that in effect, worked the same as the previous one.
 
Emperor Nero married a "young boy" named Sporus, had him castrated, and generally tried to "make a woman out of him." He married him in a dowry and bridal veil. This boy was presented as a woman in name (being called lady, empress, etc.).

Sporus is said to have physically favored Poppaea Sabina, one of Nero's wives who died in childbirth (though some rumors state Nero kicked her to death).

Guys I cannot even scratch this surface of this.
 
An independent clause is a clause in a sentence that relies on the main clause but if you removed it the sentence would be perfectly fine
like "the ball, having been kicked by Marie, rolled down the street."
"the ball rolled down the street."
You can tell if text is directly translated word for word from either German or French if they keep independent clauses in. For Angloids don't normally use independent clauses in speech, they say something like "Marie kicked the ball and it rolled down the street."
 
Austrian Conscript 1915 said:
For Angloids don't normally use independent clauses in speech, they say something like "Marie kicked the ball and it rolled down the street."
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Maybe not in speech, but we certainly use them in writing often. And academics often speak in a convoluted way that uses complex syntax even when it isn't necessary.
 
The current Spanish constitution was created as an agreement between the late fascist government and the spanish political parties of the 70s.

The dictatorship was in its last leg after Franco died and so the military saw it fit that things changed since they knew they wouldn't be able to keep everything in order. That is why they reached out to the leaders of all exiled political parties and proposed a constitution... Under certain conditions that were non negotiable. These conditions were things that the politicians saw as inocuous (such as having the King, who is a figurehead) or absolutely necessary (such as no territories of Spain can secede). They came to terms and the agreement was reached: Spain would have democracy under that constitution which was approved with the votes of every single party except the Vasque independentists.
 
The Jetsons despite only being given one season in 1962 was so insanely popular in reruns that two new seasons where commissioned over 20 years later in 1985 and 1987.
 
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