/u/TheTromboneGeek's posts

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For much of European history, criminal punishment was extraordinarily brutal by today's standards, with mutilation and death far from uncommon. What led to the decline of violent punishment in the modern era?

27 upvotes • r/AskHistorians

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We know quite a bit about public entertainment in the Roman Empire, with gladiator fights, chariot races, circuses, and more. What was public entertainment like in Abbasid-era Baghdad? Was there an equivalent to the Coliseum? Did they shed blood for sport?

20 upvotes • r/AskHistorians

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According to my textbook, under the Qin emperor the Chinese build 4,000 miles of roads in just TWELVE YEARS, from 222 B.C.E. to 210 B.C.E. That rivals the network built by the Romans, and it took the Romans several hundred years to build theirs. How on earth was this done so quickly?

19 upvotes • r/AskHistorians

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How do we know what Ancient Egyptian (or any ancient language) sounded like? How accurate are names like “Osiris” and “Tutankhamen” to what they actually sounded like when spoken by Ancient Egyptians?

15 upvotes • r/AskHistorians

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In the game Crusader Kings 2, peasant uprisings are a common, if minor, annoyance. How common were such uprisings in real-world medieval Europe?

15 upvotes • r/AskHistorians

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Where does the idea that masturbation will make you go blind (and give you hairy palms, and all the others) come from?

15 upvotes • r/AskHistorians

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Why do bakers have an extra in their dozen?

14 upvotes • r/AskHistorians

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In 1551, Ottoman engineer Taqi al-Din sketched a design for what we would now recognize as a steam engine. However, he couldn't think of a use for it other than turning a spit, and never built one. With that in mind, have historians identified what determines whether or not an invention "takes off"?

12 upvotes • r/AskHistorians

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I'm a petty criminal living in 1500s England with a death wish. What crime do I have to commit to get the death penalty?

8 upvotes • r/AskHistorians

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I recently heard somewhere- I can't remember where, unfortunately- that feudalism, as we commonly think of it, didn't actually exist. Is this true?

8 upvotes • r/AskHistorians

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Title	Upvotes	Subreddit	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
For much of European history, criminal punishment was extraordinarily brutal by today's standards, with mutilation and death far from uncommon. What led to the decline of violent punishment in the modern era?	27	AskHistorians
We know quite a bit about public entertainment in the Roman Empire, with gladiator fights, chariot races, circuses, and more. What was public entertainment like in Abbasid-era Baghdad? Was there an equivalent to the Coliseum? Did they shed blood for sport?	20	AskHistorians
According to my textbook, under the Qin emperor the Chinese build 4,000 miles of roads in just TWELVE YEARS, from 222 B.C.E. to 210 B.C.E. That rivals the network built by the Romans, and it took the Romans several hundred years to build theirs. How on earth was this done so quickly?	19	AskHistorians
How do we know what Ancient Egyptian (or any ancient language) sounded like? How accurate are names like “Osiris” and “Tutankhamen” to what they actually sounded like when spoken by Ancient Egyptians?	15	AskHistorians
In the game Crusader Kings 2, peasant uprisings are a common, if minor, annoyance. How common were such uprisings in real-world medieval Europe?	15	AskHistorians
Where does the idea that masturbation will make you go blind (and give you hairy palms, and all the others) come from?	15	AskHistorians
Why do bakers have an extra in their dozen?	14	AskHistorians
In 1551, Ottoman engineer Taqi al-Din sketched a design for what we would now recognize as a steam engine. However, he couldn't think of a use for it other than turning a spit, and never built one. With that in mind, have historians identified what determines whether or not an invention "takes off"?	12	AskHistorians
I'm a petty criminal living in 1500s England with a death wish. What crime do I have to commit to get the death penalty?	8	AskHistorians
I recently heard somewhere- I can't remember where, unfortunately- that feudalism, as we commonly think of it, didn't actually exist. Is this true?	8	AskHistorians