What questions do you have about stuff from History, or am I the only one?

[EverySongbirdSays]

Hi all, HQ here. We're moving this thread over to History Club now where Songbird will be starting a Part 2 thread for more History quizzical shenanigans

The main history thing I've been pondering for the last couple of days since the weather shifted is the history of clothes.

So... how did Early Man manage in the winter, how did they make clothes out of animal skin?

After that, I understand that clothes production as we know it today began with the industrial revolution.

But how did people manage for clothes you know before we had cotton or machinery

How/when did we realise you could knit wool to make a jumper?

I'm sorry if it's a bit of a stupid question

Has anyone got any stupid questions I might know the answer to ?

Sorry LRD, you're right. I should have said 'could be used'.

I've been reading this book on the lives of early modern women that discusses a lot of the periods/childbirth/etc stuff.

Yes but tooth decay certainly came in as a massive prob with the arrival of sugar. Weren't Liz I teeth black and rotten
Yes, but a problem for the rich. :)
Did she? Could it explain why she never had children?

More children doesn't mean knackered mothers. The eldest would have worked hard, instead of being in school, for example.
Children didn't have to be entertained.

So Elizabeth Woodville wasn't a witch then either Jack ?

Another I don't get is the USA. Like originally, it was 13 states and we (Britain) owned it

But how did that work? How on earth was it effectively governed? When they paid taxes did literal coins go on a literal boat back to the UK. Was it attacked by pirates like ALL THE TIME?

As for the Southern states I gt that they were owned by France/Spain for a bit but what about like Illinois and Montana and Michigan, who "owned" them before and how did they end up being in America?

I feel like that is something basic I used to know, or should know. But I don't know.

I've been pondering since I got into Hamilton

So Elizabeth Woodville wasn't a witch then either Jack ?

Another I don't get is the USA. Like originally, it was 13 states and we (Britain) owned it

But how did that work? How on earth was it effectively governed? When they paid taxes did literal coins go on a literal boat back to the UK. Was it attacked by pirates like ALL THE TIME?

As for the Southern states I gt that they were owned by France/Spain for a bit but what about like Illinois and Montana and Michigan, who "owned" them before and how did they end up being in America?

I feel like that is something basic I used to know, or should know. But I don't know.

I've been pondering since I got into Hamilton

I often also wonder about surgery. I know originally surgeons and doctors were different and a surgeon basically had no medical training and would like let your blood or cut off bits.. why go to one?!

Re. cutting off bits - you've got to remember that back then, they had no antibiotics. So if you had a badly infected wound on your leg, say, you might well end up with a choice between letting your leg go gangrenous and certain death from blood poisoning, or letting a surgeon hack the infected leg off.
Which would be painful (no anaesthetics either), and you'd risk death through blood loss or the new wound getting infected too, but you'd be trading certain death for a chance at survival.

Yes, I mean with children often times children worked. And so brought in household income. Chimney sweeps. Maids etc.

The Romans used a sponge on a stick, and a pot of vinegar and water to wipe themselves after using the toilet.
so when it says in the Bible that a Roman centurian offered Jesus a drink of vinegar and water from a sponge on a stick when he was dying on the cross, was that a toilet stick?
Because I was told in Sunday School that it was an act of charity. the soldier could have got into trouble for doing it. But now I wonder if it was an insult.

Yes, taxes were taken by boat to the mother country.
Yes, pirates could attack such ships. Other ships just sank. It was risky.
Some pirates worked for governments and attacked ships from other countries.
English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, etc were all trying to outdo each other.

If you're working for a government surely you're a navy, not pirates?

Who was in charge of daily law and order?

I think it's a bit like hired guns. Like they'd be disavowed.

Those pirates?! Hmmm Non Monsieur not us

(tee hee hee)

LRD come back and educate us some more! Surely you don't have better things to do with your Sunday?

Not sure about the idea of pens in houses being used as playpens for children, but in Shakespeare's birhplace there used to be a contraption in the kitchen that functioned as a baby walker. It was basically a pole running from ceiling to floor with a short pole coming off it horizontally and a hoop at the end of that. The baby went in the hoop and could walk round in circles, I would think it was a way of keeping them safe in what must have been a dangerous environment.

The states were run by governors appointed by the London government. Taxation was a catalyst for the Revolution - No Taxation Without Representation. Boston Tea Party.
All the money collected was not necessarily shipped back to London because some money would be needed to pay for goods and services within the colonies. Piracy was a problem.
France lost its holdings on the continent because of European wars. I forget the details of the Louisiana Purchase. Canada was wrested from the French too.
Texas became part of the US by war with the Spanish/Mexicans.
The states west of the Mississippi didn't exist until there was an expansion westwards after the Civil War.

Like in modern times.
We just help the rebels, we are not at war with the government.

Also, rarely in ealier times there was a "navy" or even an "army". Fleets and armies tended to be put together for specific campaigns.
State sponsored pirates would be basically self employed.

Interesting thread! Marking place to pop in later

Early technological developments in the stone age happened very slowly and gradually. Basically most 'new' ideas are developments of old ones, or linking two or more ideas together. You need a. the time to ponder and experiment b. the need to develop something c. the ideas to build on. The more development, the more ideas, the more development, the more free time to develop, the more ideas and so on as a positive feedback loop. It gathers pace through the ages, with some periods seeing a decrease in development after a civilisation collapses.

So with clothes, my theory is:
people gradually lost hair because of our need to sweat during long hunting sessions on the african plains. As people started to move north and climates changed, they needed more clothing so developed animal skin clothes. Stone age people used all available resources for example they found uses for every part of the deer. At some point someone must have taken the idea of using twisted bark and applied it to twisting wool. They would have straightened the fibres by combing (with a tongue possibly?) and then transferred making bark into a tying material to wool. They would have developed thatching, so weaving or tying knots with wool would have been the next step. To create warmer insulated clothes inspired by the wooly sheep they saw about them.

Interestingly, tudor people did not have buttons. They tied themselves into their clothing, so buttons are a more recent development.

I can picture weaving starting from making nets, say for catching animals or fish, or holding things, as in a basket.

At some point, with the strings becoming finer, it would be possible to make thinner and more flexible materials, which would have been initially used as coverings, capes, etc, and then made up to more complex clothes or bigger pieces of fabric.

The states west of the Mississippi didn't exist until there was an expansion westwards after the Civil War

So what were they? What was there? Native American reservations? Empty space?

I've also always wondered who first thought to milk an animal and then decide it was a good idea for humans to drink it.

And toast. Wonder how that came about? I bloody love toast so whoever thought it a good idea to hold bread if front of a fire deserves a best idea ever award

So what were they? What was there? Native American reservations? Empty space?

They were the territories of different native tribes or nations. Not as modern state boundaries, btw.

Reservations are inventions to contain the natives.

Thanks Lweji, I've been looking at it wrong!

Milk isn't that hard. Humans breastfeed and see cows doing the same. Think, that must be high in fat nutrients etc

How did it take so long to invent sliced bread? that's only 100 years old.

How did they 'invent the wheel'?

The thing about milk is. I'm assuming how mothers fed babies was very clear so the obvious connection was made.

Why they thought it would be suitable for human consumption....

Oooo I know. Babies whose mum died in childbirth. How did juddering christ will we feed it. Lets have a go on the cow.