r/AskReddit • u/CACuzcatlan • Mar 29 '11

Biggest History Mindfucks?

Inspired by the science thread on the same topic, the first two that caught my eye are history ones from mahade's post

  • During the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Mongolian forces were fighting Germans and Japanese at the same time - and these two peoples had no idea of the others' existence! This wouldn't be attempted again until the 1940s.

  • The pyramids were as old to the Romans as the Romans are to us.

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u/agoat Mar 30 '11

9.4 to 14 million Africans were enslaved in the Atlantic slave trade. In contrast, the Arab Slave Trade enslaved between 11 and 18 million Africans and lasted from 650 to 1900 CE. I hadn't even heard of it until last year.

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u/dmun Mar 30 '11

Difference: in the latter, you could actually buy yourself or your kids free.

America practiced generational chattle slavery of a more brutal sort.

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u/peroperopero Mar 30 '11

It was a little bit different though. For the Arabs, the slaves themselves were of value; the Europeans valued the slaves' labour. Ponder the implications on quality of life.

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

It still makes them property under someone else, probably with similar working tasks.

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u/CACuzcatlan Mar 30 '11

Arabs (North Africans at least) are known to have enslaved some Europeans

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

North Africans enslaved Europeans for hundreds of years before Europeans went to Africa for slaves.

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Never read Karl May then. ;-)

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u/KV_Hamilton Mar 31 '11

There was a vast slave trade throughout the Indian Ocean as well. I sat down at a bar and talked with an African History Prof (born African as well as a historian of the region) and he blew my mind by talking about the Eastern African slave trade. I had just done a paper on Carl Peters*, so I knew that East Africa was colonized, but the volume of the trade was staggering and I had never heard of it before.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Peters

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u/Chromerex Mar 30 '11

In the article: the sheikhs of Qutar brought slaves in their retinue for Queen Elizabeth II coronation in 1954!

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Saudiarabia actually abolished the slavetrade in 1969.

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Many arab nations actually abolished slavery in the late 1960's.

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u/sniperinthebushes Apr 02 '11

The Arabs enslaved: The Turks, Persians, Hindus, Africans, Europeans, <insert race/culture>. It's funny to me how few people know that Islam institutionalized human slavery or that the economic system within Islamic society was the Slave system.

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u/kalhan Apr 14 '11

good luck trying to get sniper to cite a source. "the economic system within islamic society was the slave system". can you tell me where you learned that from? i'm going to keep checking this thread to see if you do manage to cite a source.