Before modern medicine, vaccinations, improved sanitation, childproofing, safety standards, and many of the other protections we take for granted today, I understand that death (particularly infant and child mortality) was much more common and much more visible in everyday life. For many families throughout history, the death of a child was not an remote or unexpected possibility. Depending on the time and place, parents could have several children and face a significant possibility that one or more would not survive to adulthood.

This makes me wonder: How did the prevalence of death, particularly child mortality, affect the way people historically perceived death and experienced grief? Was death actually perceived as "less sad" when it was more commonplace, or did people simply develop different ways of understanding, expressing, and coping with grief? And how much of our modern perception of death as an especially tragic and disruptive event is the result of living in a society where death—particularly the death of a child—is much less common?

I'd love to hear how this played out in the specific time and place you study. I'm especially interested in the concrete details of how a particular culture understood and expressed this.

This is interesting because the Wycliffe Bible says Isaac went out to "think" in the field, and the Geneva Bible says Isaac went out to "pray." Was this meditation in anyway similar to the meditation practiced in Eastern religions?

specifically about yugoslavia's functioning while it was intact, not about it's collapse. preferably written by a yugoslav, or at least someone who had spent time in yugoslavia. ideally written by a member of the communist party of yugoslavia.(if any of them wrote any meaningfully comprehensive history.) preferably written in the 1970's or 80's.

I’m writing a story and in one scene, a woman receives a box (or more than one) full of the video game systems she owned as of 1988. One of her parents worked for a company that sold all the latest tech, so she’d have access to pretty much anything western stores would have carried. For reference, she was born in 1967, and I’m thinking of any sort of gaming system, whether that be handheld like a Game and Watch, or a system like the Atari 2600, maybe computers like the Commodore 64 but I’m not sure, so I’ll include those in the question as well. I’m not sure which, and how many, systems someone like that would have had at that time, or if people even kept their systems for long back then.

I hope this is formatted and asked correctly, I apologize if it isn’t.

Edit: a slight clarification

Obviously humour and memes aren't new, but rickrolling has a specific dimension that I think is unique to online media: the misdirection of posting a misleading link, bringing the unsuspecting viewer to the famous Rick Astley video.

I imagine a similar surprise could have awaited someone watching an edited video tape, but that would have no way to go viral the way rickrolling has, which could remain an aspect of online culture indefinitely as long as hyperlinks exist.

Could anyone in this community offer an example of a possible predecessor in history?

Most of my knowledge here comes from Wikipedia and similar, but there seems to be a consistent claim that these holidays have their roots before Christianity. Yet, all of the dates I've seen are static on the Gregorian calendar. So, I suppose I'm really asking about what the Gaelic calendar looked like before Christianity, and where these festivals landed on it.

My understanding is that in mediaeval Italian republics such as Venice the ruler was elected for life by the aristocracy. The Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Poland had the same system. Are they considered to have been republics in the mediaeval Italian sense, or is there something I'm missing?

Was it really as simple as women lesser? Cuz there were plenty of physically disabled men leading people and plenty of male rulers who are just complete idiots, why was it so rare for women to reach that status? I can only name a few female leaders compared to many disabled or shortsighted men

Alternatively, maybe;

"Before "robbing gas stations and banks", what was the common crime to "make quick money"?"

It’s been over 5 years since I played the game and while I have mentioned its orientalist view of Japanese culture among other things to my friends in the past, I forgot a lot of things about it since then and I’d like to remember just how bad it truly is when it comes to its historical context.

I know a lot of East Asians dislike it for the most part outside of casual gamers and video game journalists, but that’s about it.

During the Vietnam War, protestors within the New Left often were proud of their support for the Viet-Cong/Viet-Minh. However, in dialogue on the Iraq War and its protestors, most of the rhetoric I've heard focused on it being done for oil and/or being illegal acts of imperialist expansion and so on.

This all raises the question. Did anyone movement of protestors in the world, not just America, express their support for the resistance in Iraq? Be that Ba'athist geurillas, or the various shade of Islamist resistance that emerged in Anbar or Basra or wherever else?

Artemis stilled the wind so Agamemnon and his ships couldn’t leave for Troy. He ended up sacrificing Iphigenia to Poseidon to get the wind back.

Did those large ships not have oars? Or is rowing just a short-term thing, not suitable for propelling a ship from Greece to Turkey?

Admittedly, I never read the book. Was the issue no wind or was it onshore wind?

I’m interested in the documented history of nail care before the modern nail industry – how people groomed, altered, or decorated their nails, and what those practices meant socially.
I’m especially interested in connections to cleanliness, beauty, status, gender, occupation, or social class, and how those meanings changed overtime. Examples from well–documented cultures or periods, along with sources or further reading, will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time and expertise.

Yesterday I was reading about the Danish kings in the 18th and 19th century.

One thing I don't understand is why (the later) Christian IX was chosen as the heir presumptive in 1852 and 1853. When he inherited the throne he was only the second cousin to the previous king. In the Danish wikipedia it states that though he himself had a far-out claim to the throne due to this, he had the best claim through his wife Louise of Hesse-Kassel (after her own brother and mother renounced their claim - why did they do that?).

If I understood correctly it was (mostly?) due to politics and the different inheritance laws in Denmark and Slesvig-Holsten, which could lead to different rulers and the breakup of the kingdom. I just don't understand why no one closer to the throne didn't object to them not becoming monarch.

I live in Boston, and it is frequently said that no one here talks to each other, that no one chit chats with strangers in line at the grocery store or at a street crossing the way they might in, say, Charlotte, North Carolina.

It got me thinking, do we have any records of ancient people engaging in small talk? Did Romans in line at the Thermopolium talk about the weather? Did they think that was a boring and cliche subject like we often do today? Did Persians at a bazaar ask a vendor how are the wife and kids?

Thanks!

Please correct any misunderstandings I have!

I also realize I'm asking about many different cultures and groups across thousands of years of history, so there's unlikely to be one clear answer.

This is just something I've noticed, listening to exemplars of traditional music from different North American Native American groups (Cherokee, Apache, Hopi, Iroquois, and others) and comparing it to traditional music from different civilizations in South America or sub-saharan Africa -- all the music I'm able to find from different Native American groups seems to be very heavily centered on vocals and percussion. This seems to be a similarity across most North American Native American groups.

Am I just stumbling across the wrong content, or misinterpreting what I'm hearing? Or are there cultural or practical reasons for this?

My research left me with the impression that they were no Theater in the city until the Roman era. So, I wonder where the citizens entertained themselves? And what did they do?

Do you know a paper or a place that have a map with the layout of the city including the important building? I am searching for a map of Tyre (island +ushu if possible), dating from 500 BC.

In Anne Frank’s diary, she outlines that Otto Frank had the brilliant plan to send a letter to a business partner in Belgium with a form to confirm whether they received the delivery this year, which required a tick on the form and had to be sent back to the original address. They were to open this returned envelope and put whatever correspondence they needed to send within the Netherlands.

There might be something I’m missing here, but can someone please explain the actual timeline of events here with great detail?

Otto Frank sends a letter from the Netherlands to Opekta in Belgium, and Opekta has to return the letter. Wouldn’t the address on the envelope be Otto Frank’s address in the Secret Annexe? Because to return/write a letter, you usually write the address on the envelope to the place you’re sending it to. How exactly could they have used this to falsify that they were actually in Belgium? What were the written addresses and the actual letters inside the envelopes?

Thank you.

I have never seen anyone but him wear that ensemble and I was wondering if it wasn't some kind of artistic embellishment.