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May 11

Colorado referendum 1992

Hello,

"In 1992, Colorado voters approved by initiative an amendment to the Colorado state constitution (Amendment 2) that would have prevented any city, town, or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to recognize homosexuals as a protected class", from article Romer v. Evans

Why is this voting apparently not listed in List of Colorado ballot measures? Rosenkohl (talk) 20:48, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Because nobody's added it yet. This is the official list, if anyone feels inclined to spend a few weeks filling in the details of initiatives for a "minimum refund value on beverage containers for beer or other malted beverages, mineral water, soda water or other carbonated soft drinks" (Initiative 5, 1982). ~~Note that Amendment 2 of 1992 does _not_ appear on the list~~, although it's mentioned on the main page here. This site has the text of the initiative. Tevildo (talk) 22:01, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Correction - it does appear on the official list, it's just listed out of numerical order. Tevildo (talk) 22:04, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

May 12

First knowledge of the Great Pyramid in the West?

Roughly when, and how, did knowledge of the Great Pyramid appear in the West (i.e. London or Paris, rather than the Ottoman Empire or Islamic Spain) ? AFAIK the Crusades didn't get that close to Cairo. There is a fleeting mention of pyramids in a Shakespeare sonnet [1] and of course the story of Cleopatra. Would they have been an item for common reference at that time, as Ancient Rome or Greece were?

My perception is that Rome, Athens or Jerusalem were cultural touch stones for medieval England, but Ancient Egypt or its surviving monuments were not? Andy Dingley (talk) 10:05, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Considering Egypt had been ruled directly by a succession of Greek (Ptolemaic Kingdom) and Roman Egypt (Roman province) rulers, it would seem evident that it would be hard to keep such a large building it a secret. How much the average shit-farming peasant knew in Yorkshire in 856 would be one thing, but it would have been odd to imagine that the educated in medieval England would have not known about it. The accounts of Herodotus would have been well known, and he described them. The writings of John Mandeville mention the Pyramids of Egypt. Whether or not he actually visited them is up for debate, but he certainly knew enough to at least mention them. The knowledge of the Great Pyramids should have been known in what you're calling "the West" for as long as "the West" existed. --Jayron 32 10:34, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Shit-farming may have been strong in Yorkshire a millenium prior, but from about Description de l'Égypte to the Egypt Exploration Society, the good stuff was grown on the other other side of the world. The pyramids there were pretty great, too. Just saying. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:22, May 12, 2016 (UTC)

More: Here are accounts of various Western medieval writers discussing the Egyptian pyramids; whether the writings are accurate is one thing, but they were clearly aware of them. Western medieval writers noted there include Gregory of Tours, the Irish monk Dicuil, and the aforementioned John Mandeville. This painting is inside St Mark's Basilica in Venice. --Jayron 32 10:42, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Crusaders were in Egypt several times - for example the Fifth Crusade and Seventh Crusade in the 13th century, when they were at the Nile Delta. More relevant to this question are the Crusader invasions of Egypt in the 12th century, when they were certainly in Cairo and Giza. Unfortunately no one seems to have mentioned the pyramids. They definitely saw them though. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:20, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See Early Travelers and Explorers to the Pyramids, Part I: "European travel to Egypt, particularly to see the Great Pyramids at Giza, seems to have been inspired by the Crusaders who returned home with intriguing tales of what they had seen. Soon afterwards a trickle of pilgrims became a stream of travelers. One of the domes of St. Mark's in Venice has a 12th century mosaic of the pyramids as Joseph's granaries, an idea first suggested by the 5th century AD Latin writers Julius Honorius and Rufinus..." Alansplodge (talk) 12:18, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone. The St Marks mosaic is particularly interesting. Adam's comment, " no one seems to have mentioned the pyramids." is what really spurred this. There are numerous descriptions of the sights of Jerusalem or the Crusade castles and at least travel to Egypt, if not Cairo itself, but there seems a surprising lack of mention of these rather large and distinctive monuments. If you'd seen them, surely you'd write about them? Andy Dingley (talk) 14:18, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is a ton of medieval pilgrimage literature, but did any pilgrims ever go to Egypt? Egeria seems to have gone to Egypt, but not to Cairo. Certainly after the Islamic conquest that would have been difficult/dangerous/inadvisable, and Cairo has no particular significance for Christian pilgrims, so I'm not sure they had any reason to go there. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:34, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that they did. La description de l’Égypte au XIVe siècle par les pèlerins et les voyageurs occidentaux ("Description of Egypt in the fourteenth century by pilgrims and Western travelers") by Aryeh Graboïs, Université de Haïfa, says (courtesy of Google Translate): "The fall of the Crusader Kingdom in 1291 and the destruction of Acre had a significant impact on shipping in the Mediterranean and Europeans travel to the Middle East. From the beginning of the XIV th century, Italian merchants and especially the Venetians established new outlets in Alexandria, where they obtained privileges from the Mamluk authorities, starting with the consuls facility. This economic development favored the arrival of Western travelers in this emporium , became for them the starting point of their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Thus their Egypt tours were an opportunity to discover an exotic country, they explored mainly in the Nile Valley between Alexandria and Cairo, before starting the route of the desert that brought them Mount Sinai and Palestine". Some brief mentions of Egypt are in ITALIAN PILGRIM LITERATURE IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES by J.K. HYDE. Apparently the pilgrims were drawn to sites associated with the Old Testament and also with sites associated with the Flight into Egypt from the Nativity narrative in the Gospel of Matthew. Alansplodge (talk) 17:09, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Neat, thanks! Adam Bishop (talk) 12:22, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For those who didn't go to Sunday School, "Joseph's granaries" refers to The Book of Genesis, Chapter 41, Verses 48 and 49; "Joseph collected all the food produced in those seven years of abundance in Egypt and stored it in the cities. In each city he put the food grown in the fields surrounding it. Joseph stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea; it was so much that he stopped keeping records because it was beyond measure." and then Genesis41:56; "When the famine had spread over the whole country, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe throughout Egypt".

I also found The Long, Strange History of the Pyramids as the Granaries of Joseph. Apparently, some fundamentalist Christians still hold to that belief. Such a big building with so little storage space inside... Alansplodge (talk) 15:00, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Psychologists call that the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex. Or they should, anyway. That pyramid is now owned by Hutterite wheat farmers, in any case. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:49, May 12, 2016 (UTC)

British chapel at Athens

A draft article on which I am working mentions "the British chapel at Athens". Do we have an article on this, or can anyone point me to more information about it? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 11:33, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Something on plans for the chapel in this 1837 publication - bottom right of page 20. And this 1836 publication - middle paragraph of p. 279. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:48, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably this is St Paul's Anglican Church, Athens, which is "the earliest foreign church in the Greek capital" and was "Consecrated on Palm Sunday in 1843 by the Rt. Rev. George Tomlinson, Bishop of Gibraltar". The church gets a brief mention in Wikipedia in the article about its architect, Christian Hansen, which says: "St. Paul's Church, Athens (1838–1841)". The difference between a church and chapel in this context is probably down to whether it had a resident clergyman or not. Alansplodge (talk) 12:10, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A street in Athens

Is there still a street in Athens named after Edward FitzGerald Law, the British diplomat? DuncanHill (talk) 11:52, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Our List of streets in Athens has an "Eduardo Lo Street" - can anyone confirm if this is it? DuncanHill (talk) 12:20, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can see it on Google maps and on geography.com [2] [3]. Εδουαρδου Λω sounds a reasonable transcription of Edward Law. --Lgriot (talk) 14:33, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is antivenin really 2,000 times cheaper in India?

I saw a news item about India's National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority cutting the allowable pharmaceutical prices by 55%. Looking on their site for example, "Specific Antisnake Venom Injection Polyvalent Solutions 1 ml" are capped at "484.76". There would seem to be a strong presumption, though I would like to see confirmation, that they'd be listing those prices in Indian rupees, about 66 to the dollar in 2015, i.e. this price is approximately $7.34 per vial. By contrast, the price in the U.S. is around $14,000 per vial - looking it up, I find articles like this that explain that this is 70% "hospital markup later discounted for insurers", with 27.7% "other costs including licensing fees, FDA fees, regulatory and legal costs, wholesaler fees, hospital profits etc.", and 2.1% for "clinical trials", and just 0.1% for "cost of making the antivenom". Which is to say, $14 per vial. But that is still twice the cost of the retail vial in India, and if I'm going to write a proper polemic against the racketeers who sit in the judgment seat of medicine and call everyone who would circumvent them "unethical", I'd like to make sure that the Indian price isn't based on subsidy or foreign charity. Another article, also Washington Post, says that a vial at the hospital costs $2,300 [4] and ended up turning into a $153,000 hospital bill of which $88,000 was for the venom at retail (with some n of vials, so I don't have a figure there) So I also wonder if the "apples-to-apples" comparison is between the $7.34 and the $2300, or with the $14000. Is there a good source here to close the case?

More generally, I'd like to confirm whether these values are appropriate commercial figures that can be used, such as in an infobox field for each drug, to list actual prices for the hundreds of drugs in the Indian NPPA registry. Wnt (talk) 14:17, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note that 0.1% seems rather approximate, and might mean anything from 0.05% to 0.15%, or from $7-$21. Also, the cost might be a bit lower for anti-venom produced in India than in the US. StuRat (talk) 04:03, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Immovable judges

Our article on Adolphe Crémieux notes that "as minister of justice he secured the decrees abolishing the death penalty for political offenses, and making the office of judge immovable". Immovable? Is this perhaps some reference to judicial independence, or does it have a different meaning? Nyttend (talk) 14:56, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect this is a machine translation problem; perhaps missing out on some French idiom which got missed. I can find no parallel text at the article at French Wikipedia which would indicate what this means. --Jayron 32 15:22, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Our Judiciary of France#Glossary of Key Terms has: "Inamovibilité "security of tenure": judges cannot be removed from office, except through specific disciplinary proceedings (conducted by the National Judicial Council, an independent tribunal), for infringements on their duties. They may be moved or promoted only with their consent. These protections are meant to ensure that they are independent from the executive power." Presumably before M. Crémieux, judges could be removed at the whim of government ministers. Alansplodge (talk) 15:24, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This doesn't seem to be entirely correct. In the following doctoral these (fr), read p.138, "the principle of security of tenure was more or less continuously ensured between 1789 and 1958". Crémieux' own tenure as minister of justice is alluded to on page 136. --Askedonty (talk) 17:07, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is also in DIRECT contradiction of the French Wikipedia article, which says:

Dès le 31 mars, il demande la démission d’une vingtaine de hauts magistrats et suspend ceux qui refusent d’obtempérer. Ces juges sont suspendus, les uns par Crémieux lui-même, les autres à la demande des commissaires du gouvernement (préfets provisoires). Un décret du 10 août 1849 annule les suspensions de Crémieux (démissionnaire le 5 juin 1848).

That basically says Crémieux tried to fire 20 judges, and it took a Decree (I presume of the National Assembly) to reinstate the judges. Rather than being responsible for preserving security of tenure, he was the one who tried to VIOLATE it. --Jayron 32 18:17, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Adolphe Crémieux would then not be responsible for a decree such as stated in our article. However the above mentioned thesis describes the episode with the 20 judges as a special case:

"Adolphe Crémieux prit deux décrets, les 28 janvier et 3 février 1871, afin de révoquer des magistrats qui avaient siégé dans les commissions mixtes en 1852. Or, ce ministre avait déjà exercé des fonctions analogues au sein du Gouvernement provisoire de la Seconde République, et était en conséquence favorable à l’élection des juges. Cependant, l’Assemblée nationale nouvellement élue, et composée en majorité de monarchistes et bonapartistes, annula ces décrets le 26 mars 1871. En définitive, seule la Commune de Paris proclama l’élection des juges au suffrage universel direct, pendant cette période trouble."

Mr Crémieux was favorable to a system of elected magistrates. (The author of the thesis seems to be associating this elective process with security of tenure.) Note also that the two very strong decrees mentioned by OP are supposed to have been issued during the 1848 tenure, while the other episode was in 1871. I do not know what to think. --Askedonty (talk) 19:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

According to the French Senate website's biographical account the French language Wikipedia is not wrong and the English language Wikipedia is well informed but wrong regarding Crémieux' alleged second decree: "signa, entre autres décrets : celui qui déclarait que « dans sa pensée la peine de mort était abolie en matière politique »; et ceux qui portaient : abolition de la contrainte par corps « ancien débris de la législation romaine » (9 mars); abolition de la peine de l'exposition publique (12 avril); etc. M. Crémieux procéda dans le personnel de la magistrature à un certain nombre de révocations que le parti conservateur lui reprocha vivement." Crémieux signed various decrees of liberal inspiration among them one following which: "in his mind, death penalty was abolished in case of a political motivation". The suspension of magistrates occurred in 1848 but the Senate does not keep a serious count of them: "un certain nombre de revocations" and does not mention any decree regarding that episode. --Askedonty (talk) 20:14, 13 May 2016 (UTC) Erratum, the Senate was only quoting: "Extrait du « Dictionnaire des Parlementaires français », Robert et Cougny (1889)" --Askedonty (talk) 20:17, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's normal that an employee can only be promoted with his consent (anything else would be a breach of the contract of employment). Again, moving someone against his will may also be a breach, depending on the terms of the contract. There is an office on the tenth floor of the Royal Courts of Justice (opposite the old site of Temple Bar) which handles recidivist judges who won't resign. There are often news stories about judges misbehaving, but these generally relate to "district judges" who are basically magistrates or the old county court registrars under a new name. Once appointed to the High Court a judge is expected to stay there for life although there are opportunities for promotion. One did resign to return to private practice (many take a substantial cut in their remuneration when they accept an appointment). One was allocated a high - profile case expected to last months. He made a comment which suggested he might not be totally free from bias, and the upshot was that when he arrived at his court to open the case he spent a long time sitting on the bench wondering why nobody had turned up. In fact the case had been re - listed for hearing by another judge along the corridor. I remember on one occasion, in a case before the Court of Appeal, walking towards the designated court we saw a large gathering with reporters ahead of us. It turned out they had come for a case involving a controversial writer in the court next door and we had the place to ourselves.

Is kohl popular in Israel?

--Romanophile (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It used to be. --Jayron 32 01:12, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting reference, in particular regarding the medicinal use (it says treating one eye was permitted on the Sabbath, but doing two for cosmetic purposes was prohibited "work"). Searching kohl notes that it was originally stibnite, even if people in the modern era have lost their scientific sophistication and resorted to crushing galena, with attendant lead toxicity. And stibnite was praised by Muhammad, oddly enough, as an excellent collyrium - the same use as suggested in the link above. Searching antimony and antibacterial on PubMed finds that it was and remains a useful treatment against leishmaniasis, [5] which can cause blindness. [6] But that's a rare complication. Which leaves me with the interesting question of what common ailment for which "clearing the vision" is needed and can be produced by antimony - maybe the ancients have some things left to teach us? And regarding the original question, perhaps there's a chance we'll find it fell out of favor at the same time as some pathogen became uncommon. Wnt (talk) 02:35, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be a rarity in contemporary Israel. A Hebrew-language search via Google yields references to antiquities ("kohl utensils") and historic use in cosmetics. The Hebrew Wikipedia has no page for Kohl (cosmetic) and the Arabic Wikipedia has a brief page with illustrative photos of the substance and an antique case. -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:53, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ETA: The Arabic article makes uncited mention of its use among the Bedouin in the eyes of newborn children as a prophylactic against eye diseases. "Masa Akher," a Hebrew-language Israeli travel magazine published this article, "Kohl - a vanishing tradition" (Ayelet Ben-Meir; original publication date unclear). ~~I'll read it and add any pertinent information to the Kohl (cosmetic) page and here, later.~~-- Deborahjay (talk) 10:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above article makes little mention of current use in Israel. The author goes to Shefa-'Amr in northern Israel to interview a kohl-maker, an older woman called Umm Nasr. The latter describes and demonstrates the process of concocting the eyeliner form, which she bottles in glass. A later discussion in the article notes the use of kohl by Yemenite Jews in the eyes, to stop nosebleeds and promote healing of infected wounds, but states that the extra-ocular applications has ceased due to the substance's toxicity. -- Deborahjay (talk) 19:22, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

May 13

Grave of Charlez Russel

As you may know, the Jehovas witnesses are moving from NYC up to an other City. Does somebody know what will happen or has happen with the grave of Russel? Will it be moved also or keep on the old place? --Ip80.123 (talk) 02:59, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an article about the sale of the massive Jehovah's Witnesses real estate holdings in Brooklyn. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:19, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Charles Taze Russell, who died 100 years ago, is buried in Pittsburgh, not in Brooklyn. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:24, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Really, User:Cullen328 ? Is this not nyc ? [7] --Ip80.123 (talk) 17:45, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That photograph could be of almost anywhere, there is nothing indicative of New York. Nor of Pittsburgh, for that matter. What leads you to believe that the information presented in the Russell article is incorrect? --LarryMac | Talk 18:38, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Russell was born in Pittsburgh and is buried in the Rosemont United Cemetery in Pittsburgh. I have checked quite a few sources, including pro and anti Jehovah's Witness sources. All agree that the grave is in Pittsburgh, although they disagree about the symbolism of the nearby monument. Not a single source I can find claims that he is buried in Brooklyn. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:07, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

okay, how about the other one, Rutherford? is he buried in Brooklyn? --Ip80.123 (talk) 22:38, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the Findagrave entry for Russell in that Pittsburgh cemetery:[8] The pyramid has something to do with Watchtower. I don't know who Rutherford is. If I can figure that out, I'll see what I can find out. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:06, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming you mean Joseph Franklin Rutherford, Findagrave indicates his burial location is in San Diego, but there is some dispute:[9] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:14, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Newspapers.com, a pay site, has an entry on January 11, 1942, reporting Rutherford's death in San Diego, "at his palatial 'King David's' mansion." That article was relatively small. But on the 12th a more extensive article discusses a dispute over where to bury the body. He had made a deathbed wish to be buried on the estate, "in a hillside crypt at Beth-Sarim" but not buried yet because the estate was "not a legally zoned cemetery." On the 13th, it was reported that the mortician had received a permit for "temporary" interment on the Kensington Heights estate. On the 21st, it was reported that a local group was protesting the plan to bury on the estate. A public hearing was scheduled for the 24th. On the 25th, it was reported that the county denied permission to bury on the estate. On the 26th, it was reported that the JW's were appealing the decision. The last reference in 1942 is on April 21, in which it says the court upheld the zoning ordinance, and that the JW's had received permission to bury the body in New York, somewhere on "Stratton Island" [sic]. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:33, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

GenealogyBank.com, another pay site, has an entry for April 25, 1942, asserting that Rutherford was buried in Woodrow Cemetery on Staten Island. That's a Methodist cemetery. There are no Rutherford's in the cemetery's Findagrave page, but that doesn't prove anything. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:10, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Although there are unsubstantiated rumors that Rutherford was buried in San Diego, in accordance with his clearly expressed wishes, it seems much more likely that he was buried in an unmarked grave in a small JW cemetery plot adjacent to the cemetery that Bugs mentioned above. The location is Rossville, Staten Island, which is, alas, not Brooklyn. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:20, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A bit of further reading indicates the house was sold in 1947, and it's unlikely his body would have remained on the grounds, if he were even there, which does not appear to be the case. In short, Findagrave's entry for him must be wrong. And I wouldn't be surprised if his grave in Staten Island is indeed unmarked. The JW's, during the War especially, were considered disloyal if not downright un-American, so it's not surprising that the county government in San Diego wouldn't cut them any slack. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:27, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have googled a bit about this pyramid, you are right, it is really in Pennsylvania. In the background there is just an old used building of the Jehovas Witnesses. I have while googling found an information that in the year 2000 some Grave robbers / tomb Raider have opened the pyramid (I don´t know how, please tell me how) and they have stolen everything what was inside the pyramid (any Idea how they could find out there was something inside it? And what was inside it?) Why has no one before the year 2000 known how to open the pyramid and steal everything inside it? --Ip80.123 (talk) 03:46, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe they used some kind of X-ray technology. And maybe nobody knew until then that there was anything in it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:08, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As a student at the University of San Francisco decades ago, I wrote a thesis about the theological similarities and differences between the anti-war stances of the Quakers, the Mennonites and the Jehovah's Witnesses. Because the Witnesses refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, they were subject to extreme persecution in the 1930s including mob violence and burning of Kingdom Hallls, and two contradictory U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the second of which broadened religious liberty in dramatic ways. It is a fascinating story. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:10, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:18, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Minersville School District v. Gobitis is the earlier decision, and that article does a better job describing the vicious persecution that the Jehovah's Witnesses suffered in the United States in the run-up to World War II. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:26, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

what is X-ray technology ?--Ip80.123 (talk) 19:01, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What I mean is that in relatively recent years, X-ray has been used for tasks other than looking at your lungs. Techniques have been developed to see through large, solid objects. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:07, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All-time total UK MPs

Dear all,

I read today that there have been 451 women MPs in the UK, adding up all of them from every parliament. How many people overall have been MPs? I can't find the answer on search engines, so am wondering if anyone has a figure. 185.12.194.57 (talk) 11:05, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is a List of United Kingdom MPs though some of the data is missing for the early parliaments of the 19th century. It should be easy to find out how many members there were in each one (articles like First Parliament of the United Kingdom), but knowing the number of individuals who served would be very difficult to work out. If you want to go back further to the 18th century Parliaments of Great Britain and of Ireland, or even early to the Parliaments of England and of Scotland, I doubt that all of the names are even recorded outside of the archives. However, if you are comparing numbers with the number of women MPs, it is probably only those parliaments elected since women were allowed to stand which would be of relevance. 81.132.106.10 (talk) 11:57, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Records from early English and Scottish parliaments are also rather sketchy.For example, List of Parliaments of England has a lot of incomplete data, not only because Wikipedia writers haven't added it, but because professional historians know little about these excepting the dates some of them were called. Some of these we only know about because of we have a brief mention of their existence, or of some of their acts. --Jayron 32 12:28, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The names of the large majority of members are known back to the 14th-century; the History of Parliament contains information on 21,420 MPs (of the English, British and UK Parliaments) who served between 1386 and 1832. There will be some MPs about whom not even their name is known, so this is an underestimate; there have, of course, also been many MPs since 1832. Their details can be found in Stenton and Lees' Who's Who of British Members of Parliament series (up to 1979); I can't find a total number of biographies for this, but at a very rough guess I'd estimate 1-2,000 entries for each of the four volumes. Between 1979 and 2010, 1,608 MPs were elected, some of whom will appear in the last volume of Stenton and Lees. Then there are a few more MPs who have been elected since 2010. So, since 1384, the total seems to be somewhere around 30,000 MPs in total. Warofdreams talk 18:09, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Although it is a self-published source Leigh Rayment's House of Commons page is an excellent reference work. He is also constructing an alphabetical list.--The Traditionalist (talk) 12:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks all. I also emailed the House of Commons Library, who have replied saying they think it is 35000-40000 ever, though they don't have a precise figure past the 1832 Great Reform Act. From 1832 they are confident it is 10,215. And from 1918, when women were eligible to be MPs, it is 4,898. 185.12.194.57 (talk) 11:06, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Andersen (?) fairytale

I am searching for a fairytale about an imp who lived in the fireplace of two sisters, the first of them hard-working the other slothful. I thought that it was written by Hans Christian Andersen but my brief research proved my wrong. All help will be appreciated.--The Traditionalist (talk) 11:31, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This one has two sisters with the traits you are describing, but it involves a witch and a chimney. Maybe a variant? --Jayron 32 12:19, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Jayron32: No, not really. The practical-versus-idle archetype exists in a multitude of unrelated fairytales and cautionary tales (including the Three Little Pigs). What I am searching for, takes place exclusively in a house, not before the 18th century and was (again, I think) adapted into a Swedish silent film. This is why I thought it was Andersen's work. A rooster is also present, if that helps.--The Traditionalist (talk) 12:43, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If it were made into a film, then perhaps the Swedish Film Database may be helpful? --Jayron 32 13:16, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

History

How do we know so much about the history of ancient empires like Egypt or Rome? The printing press was not around back then, so most primary-source written history was from scholars now considered by historians to be unreliable or biased. However, historians seem to be able to date with mind-boggling accuracy the births and deaths of emperors, or the occurrence of cataclysmic natural and man-made events in history. Did we have other methods of ascertaining history without the need for speculation?--WaltCip (talk) 12:15, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There were historians who lived back than. Also, the printing press does not make the methods of history more reliable. We know about Roman and Greek history partly through the work of ancient Roman historians and ancient Greek historians. We aren't here to really tell you whether or not you should believe what these men have written down, but they did write things about their history, and we still have a lot of their work. The second method is via archaeology, where modern scholars analyze artifacts and locations of ancient civilizations to discover how they work. --Jayron 32 12:23, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It helps that people like to carve dates into stone monuments all around the world. Stone inscriptions in the Kathmandu Valley, Sawlumin inscription, Mesoamerican calendars, etc. Also kings had to keep track of their genealogies so things like the Abydos King List. Rmhermen (talk) 15:44, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Our article, Egyptian chronology, says: "The majority of Egyptologists agree on the outline and many details of the chronology of Ancient Egypt. This scholarly consensus is the so-called Conventional Egyptian chronology, which places the beginning of the Old Kingdom in the 27th century BC, the beginning of the Middle Kingdom in the 21st century BC and the beginning of the New Kingdom in the mid-16th century BC. Despite this consensus, disagreements remain within the scholarly community, resulting in variant chronologies diverging by about 300 years for the Early Dynastic Period..."

See Scientists Rewrite Timeline of Ancient Egypt’s First Dynasty for the role of modern techniques in changing the accepted chronologies. Alansplodge (talk) 17:06, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All or most of the so called ancient history was made up out of whole cloth by European monks. Honest (tl;dr: ~~we was kangs 'n shiiet~~ we were tsars, cyka b***t) Asmrulz (talk) 20:31, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We can go further than that. All history was made up by people before we were born. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:29, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I personally don't think it was Asmrulz (talk) 06:55, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We can say for sure that at least the Battle of Hastings was made up out of whole cloth. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:04, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ha, good one Asmrulz (talk) 17:23, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I found this this interesting (problems associated with historiography and a bit about "how we (nevertheless) know") Asmrulz (talk) 20:34, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Having multiple accounts from different sources makes us far more confident of the accuracy. More recent history, like the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, has so many sources we can be certain of when it occurred. For more distant history, it gets a bit fuzzier, but as long as they had writing, there's still a good chance we can find multiple sources. Being able to line dates up with something we can confirm scientifically, like an eclipse or volcanic eruption (see dendrochronology) certainly helps. StuRat (talk) 22:40, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Anglo Saxon Kings of England

Why when the history of England is discussed are the Anglo-Saxon kings not typically mentioned as part of the history of the rulers of England? A number of documentaries I've seen typically start with William the Conqueror and go from there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.136.44.62 (talk) 15:48, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Probably largely because the Normans imposed a culture on the country which by & large remains to this day, whereas the culture of the Anglo-Saxons is largely lost. (Citation needed, etc). --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:54, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)The pre-conquest kings of "England" were descended from the monarchy of Wessex. While Wessex "became" England, it is difficult to draw a line as to when the kings of Wessex became kings of England. But there is a brighter line between the Wessex kings and the Norman kings of England, so it's a convenient dividing line. --165.225.80.100 (talk) 15:57, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Tagishsimon: I don’t think that’s completely true, seeing as you basically speak a German and not a French dialect (although there are admittedly quite a lot of French and Latin loan words in English). Rgds ✦ _hugarheimur 16:00, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The reason is pretty much covered already, but to elaborate, the Norman conquest of England established an almost totally new political and social order. Prior to that, the island had basically been divided up into a number of petty kingdoms that only occasionally been united under a single ruler, indeed of the Anglo-Saxon "kings of England", prior to the Danish conquest of England, which remember, was only a generation before William the Conqueror, very few could claim to rule all of the Anglo-Saxon people. Some established seniority over other Kings, such as Offa and Alfred the Great, but they were the exception rather than the rule. Even after Æthelstan became undisputed King of all of the English, his arrangement wasn't permanent; there were many times when the kingdom fell back to petty kingdoms (see, for example Eadwig#Division of the Kingdom). Most of the first half of the 11th century was a complete mess for English political history, as the land passed back and forth between the Kings of Wessex (some of whom were reduced to JUST Wessex again), and the invading Danes (Sveyn, Cnut, Harthacnut, etc.). The notion that William the Conqueror took over what had been a stable, unified political state simply isn't true. England was barely a country when he showed up; it was really HIS invasion and subsequent political reforms that made England into a single, stable unitary state under a single ruler. --Jayron 32 16:20, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I found a good discussion of this issue in a long essay by Richard Barber called The Norman Conquest and the Media. Unfortunately, there are a couple of pages missing from the preview, but it starts with a poem by Eleanor Farjeon that we learned by heart at junior school: "William the first was the first of our kings / Not counting the Ethelreds Egberts and things...". Alansplodge (talk) 16:53, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

posting by banned user removed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:55, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

1066 and all that was "a parody of the style of history teaching in English schools at the time" (1930). The book finishes with history coming to an end because the USA has become the dominant world power. Alansplodge (talk) 01:30, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And six decades before Francis Fukuyama said so. How prescient! --Shirt58 (talk) 04:28, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The exact quote is "A Bad Thing: America was thus clearly top nation, and History came to a ." [10] Alansplodge (talk) 23:54, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Which joke Americans typically don't get. --ColinFine (talk) 22:14, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, if only Cromwell had listened to the levellers and left Ireland alone. But don't start me talking, I could talk all night.--Shirt58 (talk) 12:38, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all." [11] Alansplodge (talk) 17:01, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would rather be anywhere else than here today... --Jayron 32 00:39, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Jayron32: Is that WP:SELFBLOCK request? I'm a man with a mission in two or three WP:EDITions... and everyday I write the WP:BLOCK.

Shirt58 (talk) 11:46, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As long as your aim is true... --Jayron 32 12:15, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

May 14

Finding source in Paradise of the Pacific

Can anybody help me find the exact page numbers, author and section/article of this part of the Paradise of the Pacific?

. Vol. 45. Honolulu: Press Publishing Co. August 1932. pp. 20–?. OCLC 6372692 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ev_kAAAAMAAJ. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)

--KAVEBEAR (talk) 12:51, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oak Apple Day

Why was Oak Apple Day abolished as a public holiday? DuncanHill (talk) 13:10, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Some thoughts:

1) You just naturally have to drop some old holidays to make room for new ones, or eventually every day would be a holiday. And as events recede farther and farther into history, they become less significant relative to more recent events.

2) A celebration of the restoration of the monarchy might be a natural time for those who oppose the monarchy to protest, so they might have wanted to avoid this. StuRat (talk) 13:29, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I just found this from Bolton Museums which says it was abolished "as part of a campaign to remove public holidays which had become associated with drunkenness and disorder", which seems like a miserable reason to abolish it. DuncanHill (talk) 13:32, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Our List of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, 1840–59 mentions an Observance of November 5, May 29, etc. Act 1859, but I can't find anything more about it. DuncanHill (talk) 13:42, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(Many EC) Not directly answering the question but this source [12] says

.... issued a royal warrant abolishing the so-called "State Services" (Gunpowder Plot, November 5; Martyrdom of King Charles I, January 30; and the Restoration of King Charles II, May 29) and ordering the removal of these forms from the Book of Common Prayer.

Not knowing that much about the organisation of the British government at the time, I don't quite understand if the state services part mean it abolishes the public holidays per se (bearing in mind our modern understand of these terms is likely quite different from what they were then anyway) or instead just the official religious stuff but I think it's the later. However, at a minimum, this provides some clue, so the next obvious place to look is at Guy Fawkes Night which says (link is in original):

and months later the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving

Checking out the linked article we find (red link in original):

The law was repealed in March 1859, as part of the Anniversary Days Observance Act.[5]

While the red link isn't helpful, the name of the act and the source [13] is a bit. If you check it out, you'll see it does repeal the requirement for the keeping and observance of the Twenty-ninth Day of May. BTW [14] is probably a little easier to find the exact ref since it's page 4 of the 1859 Compendious Abstract which is not near the beginning.

Some more searching finds [15] which I think suggests I'm right and the royal warrant was just about the official religious stuff.

All this still doesn't answer the question, however knowing it's the Anniversary Days Observance Act should hopefully make searching the reasons behind it clearer (e.g. Hansard). Alternatively since the 5th November is I think the most high profile of the public holidays that was cancelled, it may be a good place to look.

Actually, while looking at the earlier search results, I did see (so relating to both avenues) [16] which says

debated the removal of the 'political' services

which provides some limited answer.

There is more on the controversy surrounding November 5th. To me it sounds like this drew the strongest passions on both sides so you'd need to take some care if you do look for stuff about November 5th/ Although since the source is about November 5th it may have just didn't give an inkling of the strong passions about the other observances. I guess some of what Charles II did was contentious to parliament in 1858/1859.

Nil Einne (talk) 14:06, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)At the Restoration four services were provided in the Book of Common Prayer relating to the deliverance of the Monarchy. These were:

the Martyrdom of Charles I (30 January)
the Accession Day (currently 6 February)
the Restoration (29 May)
Gunpowder Plot (5 November, when a plot to blow up Parliament was foiled)

There were so many holidays that by the 1830s the Bank of England hardly opened at all. So the number was reduced to two - Good Friday and Christmas Day (apart from Sundays). In the 1870s a Member of Parliament, a Mr Lubbock, managed to get four additional "Bank" holidays created - Easter Monday, Whit Monday, the first Monday in August and Boxing Day (26 December). This is why Good Friday and Christmas Day are not "Bank Holidays", although the traffic wardens do not ticket you if you park on those days.

At the beginning of each reign, these services were authorised and a proclamation to that effect bound up at the end of the prayer book. In 1859 it was decided to do away with all but the accession service, and another proclamation giving effect to that was added. As the content of the prayer book could only be altered by Act of Parliament the legislation referred to above was passed. Nowadays only the proclamation relating to the accession service appears. I see that the term "Oak Apple Day" does not refer to the anniversary of the day Charles hid in an oak tree but to his restoration. It might be interesting to read the service in the prayer book to see if it throws any light on that, which I will do when I get home. 5.150.93.133 (talk) 14:38, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. To provide added support to what the IP said above, the bit about authorisation at the beginning of the reign is mentioned in my first source at least for Queen Victoria (but I didn't think it matters, seems I was wrong). Nil Einne (talk) 17:45, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Restoration of the Royal Family. "A Form of Thanksgiving with Prayer to Almighty God, for having put to an end the Great Rebellion, by the Restoration of the King and Royal Family..." from the 1812 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. As Nil Einne says above, this is not included in any modern edition of the BCP. Alansplodge (talk) 23:49, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the old Book of Common Prayer, I see that George II made two proclamations, one for the three commemorative days on 12 September 1728 from Windsor and one for the Accession Service on 14 May 1728 from St James'. By contrast, Victoria made a proclamation for all on 21 June 1837 from Kensington (i.e. the day after she became Queen).

The 5 November service commemorates not only the Gunpowder Plot but also the arrival of William III. Old Style and New Style dates has a bit about him leaving Holland on the 11th and arriving on the 5th. What mode of transport was he using that the journey took him four days? There is some strong language:

the most traiterous [note the spelling] and bloody - intended Massacre ... Popish treachery ... Popish tyranny ... secret contrivance and hellish malice of Popish conspirators

Antonia Fraser's book explains the reasons for the discontinuance well. 5.150.93.133 (talk) 10:27, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On the point of William's arrival at Brixham, he travelled with a large invasion fleet. He was aided by a fortuitous wind that allowed him to pass down the Channel in the "wrong direction" (the prevailing wind from the south-west would normally make this very difficult) and it also prevented James's Royal Navy from leaving port to intercept them; it was therefore described as a "Protestant wind". [17] This source says that he arrived on the 4th, but was persuaded to wait for the 5th to disembark as it was a more propitious date. The choice of the West Country for a landing was because it was a hotbed of anti-Jacobite sentiment, especially after the failed Monmouth Rebellion, ("the Revolt of the West") and the Battle of Sedgmoor, the Bloody Assizes and the arrest of Bishop Trelawny ("And shall Trelawny live? / Or shall Trelawny die? / Here's twenty thousand Cornish men / Will know the reason why!"). Alansplodge (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Farrah Abraham

Does somebody of you know if the deflowered women Farrah Abraham has arabic ancestry or jewish ancestry? Her Name just sound very much foreign and she does look even like other very famous arabic women, for example Karima El Mahroug (an arabic prostitute) or the cute Zahia Dehar. I haven´t found anything with google about this case.--Ip80.123 (talk) 22:43, 14 May 2016 (UTC) [reply]

side discussion that does not point to references--Jayron 32 14:15, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

"Deflowered"? Did you beam down from the 19th century? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:58, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing beats actually reading the article, which states that she is an American of Syrian, Italian, Sicilian and Danish ancestry, though the reliability of the source seems weak at first glance. Farrah is a name derived from Arabic that means "Joy". I have a good friend who is an Iranian Jew named Farrah. As for "Abraham", that sounds Jewish but could be an Americanization of the Arabic equivalent "Ibrahim". So, it seems that she is a 100% American of mixed ancestry including some Middle Eastern ancestry, but we do not know her religious ancestry. Please avoid demeaning terminology in the future. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:39, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much User talk:Cullen328. Yes Baseball Bugs, I am beam down. If you love deflowered girls like Farrah, its really good for you, I can not love this person. Especially not if somebody find out, she is a moslem, like Zahia Dehar or Karima Ruby. That takes the cake. --Ip80.123 (talk) 03:51, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The subject is a living person, and we have rules about WP:BLP here, so watch your comments. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:06, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Your behavior here is way out of line, Ip80.123. Stop insulting living people, or you will most certainly be blocked. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:45, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia article you linked to, Farrah Abraham, discusses her ancestry. There's nothing else we have to add. --Jayron 32 14:15, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

D'oh! I misread the heading as "Father Abraham"! Alansplodge (talk) 17:04, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ISIS uniforms

Discussion I was having with someone today - help me clear up. Do ISIS wear their famous black uniforms as a deliberate nod to the nazi SS, or is it that they wear them for the *same reason* as the SS (i.e. the psychological connotations of black)? --146.90.120.170 (talk) 23:23, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

First, is it a verifiable fact that they wear black? Second, if it is so, then there could be any reason for it - like maybe they got a good volume discount price on black clothing at their local Sam's Club. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:27, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They don't have uniforms, per see, but do tend to wear all black when they want to make an impression. When they are hiding from drones or soldiers, they wear civilian clothes. StuRat (talk) 01:13, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See Black Standard. Black has a long history of symbolism in Islam. --71.110.8.102 (talk) 02:06, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the standard tactical uniform of ISIS fighters is camouflage. Spanish authorities siezed a shipment of 20,000 such camouflage uniforms to ISIS. It is true that senior ISIS commanders wear black uniforms off the active battlefield, and that ISIS victory parades include combatants dressed in black. But that is for their perverted propaganda show routines, not for everyday combat. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:57, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Nazi SS didn't wear black in combat. They wore camouflage uniforms. They wore black when on parade. We've had this discussion before. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 14:15, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So, black uniforms is a kind of dress uniform both for Nazis and ISIS?Llaanngg (talk) 17:49, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

May 16

Shares of stock

When Emperor Norton died, his apartment was searched, and among the findings (to quote our article) were "his letters to Queen Victoria and 98 shares of stock in a defunct gold mine". The source is a print book (online, see page 231); it says 98,200, but that's beside the point. How can one "find" shares of stock in an apartment, since they're bookkeeping entries representing ownership of a portion of a corporation? Could this merely mean that the searchers found a stock certificate for the shares? Nyttend (talk) 00:34, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That was not necessarily as true in the past as it is today. To buy stock, you took ownership of actual stock certificates. --Jayron 32 00:38, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"In the past" is not all that long ago, either. I received paper share certificates for stock I bought in about 1982 (in Canada). --69.159.60.83 (talk) 05:47, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Some shares of stock are not registered: Bearer bond. At least, the owner is not registered in an accounting book. If you lay your hands on them, they are yours. It is as if it were cash. --Llaanngg (talk) 01:32, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Except a Bond (finance) is not a Share (finance). While both bearer bonds and stock certificates represent unregistered securities, they are distinctly different. A bond is an instrument of debt and a share is an instrument of ownership. When you buy a bond, you become a creditor of the company in question. When you buy stock, you become an owner of the company in question. Those are two very different roles. --Jayron 32 02:08, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bearer instrument is of interest. In the 19th century, these were fairly common financial instruments. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:10, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Currency basket

The bond links in the above section led me to National debt of the United States, which mentions how the Kuwaiti dinar is pegged to a basket of currencies. "Basket of currencies": how do you peg your currency to multiple others? Is this like pegging the value of something else to the value of a mutual fund, so the average (whether mean, median, or some other measure, I don't care) value of the fund's stocks is what your "something else" is actually pegged to? Neither Currency basket nor Basket (finance) explains this very well, although the former article seems to support my guess. Nyttend (talk) 02:23, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Your guess is correct. So e.g. if your basket has 2/3 weight on the US dollar and 1/3 weight on the euro, then if the dollar goes up 6% relative to other currencies and the euro goes up 3% relative to other currencies then you would have your currency go up by (2/3)×6% + (1/3)×3% = 5%. Loraof (talk) 04:07, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That is true, with a note that the weights of the currencies will fluctuate (i.e., in the example above, dollar will have a higher weight after the rate changes), since the amounts of currency in the basket are fixed (although they may be re-fixed), whereas the weights change.

To put that in simple terms, when you (if you happen to be a central bank) have a simple dollar peg you are saying "one unit of my currency is worth 1 dollar (as an example) and I promise to give 1 dollar to anyone who brings me one unit of my currency". When you have a basket, that would be "one unit of my currency is worth 1 dollars, 1 euro and 50 yen (again, as an example) and I promise to give all that currency to anyone who brings me one unit of my currency". See how the SDR, a widely used currency basket, is made. No longer a penguin (talk) 08:24, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Perceptions of "the beginning of history" in England vs. the rest of Britain and Ireland

The earlier question about English king lists reminded me of something I've been wondering for a while. (I'm not sure if its answerable here - it's possibly too much about opinions - but I'll give it ago). While my school history lessons weren't quite as bad as 1066 and All That, I did somewhat come away with the impression that nothing important happened in England before the Romans came, and the real history of England didn't begin until the Norman Conquest. This makes me wonder two things:

How widespread is/was this impression of English history? (The previous question and answers suggest it wasn't unique to me).
When is "real" history generally thought to begin in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, where the Roman and Norman invasions came later or not at all? Is such a question even meaningful in those countries?

(I suppose by "real history begins" I mean a point that (it is perceived) marks the boundary between a time where everything is too poorly documented, too remote, or too different to be meaningful or significant to later ages, and a time where events become more understandable and relevant. Or something like that). Iapetus (talk) 09:44, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Before the Romans arrived, there was no written history in the British Isles because the inhabitants didn't write. The Romans did indeed find inhabitants here when they got here in 55BC with Julius Caesar's famous invasion, and you can piece together various things from authors such as Tacitus, but really this is where history becomes archaeology. Then we had the "Dark Ages" when the Romans left. Now things have moved on since this era was glossed over with "Dark Ages - nobody knows", but it still gets basically ignored in schools. TV programmes such as Time Team have helped enormously with the public perception of this period of time, but even then we are still reliant on archaeology rather than written stories which are contemporaneous. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:03, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The division between history and prehistory may now be rather old fashioned, as archaeology has taught us a great deal about what happened before there were written records. However, the big difference that remains is between history with names (of people and places) and the effectively anonymous history which preceded the written record. The Romans did not just conquer England - they also controlled Wales and, for a while, the southern part of Scotland. There are some mentions in Roman records which predate the actual invasions, and there are some references to Ireland - which the Romans never invaded, but did know about and trade with. Written history within Ireland starts in the early 5th century, when the country was first converted to Christianity: the church was always a great keeper of records. 81.132.106.10 (talk) 11:05, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Iapetus, regarding I did somewhat come away with the impression that nothing important happened in England before the Romans came:

I think you may have fallen prey to the perception that a lack of written records about Period X = nothing important happened during Period X. By definition, we don't know what happened during Period X, but the answer is almost certainly NOT "nothing important". It's very hard to have a course on something of which we have no knowledge, so it's not at all surprising that no time is spent on teaching it, and that all history-teaching resources are focussed on those parts of the past of which we do actually have knowledge. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:22, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think the OP's focus is on common perception, rather than the "reality" of academic historiography. I can't answer the OP's question about Scotland, Ireland and Wales, but certainly going to school in Australia in the 90s the high school history curriculum conveyed the impression that Act I was the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and then Act II started with 1066 and the death of Edward the Confessor. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:31, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

England as a concept didn't exist until there were a group of people called the English to inhabit said land. According to most accepted histories, those people didn't arrive until the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, and the subsequent drift in culture and language from their Germanic forbearers; that didn't really happen until probably the 7th century. Speaking of England prior to that doesn't make sense because the English as a people didn't exist. There was Celtic Britain and Roman Britain, but "English Britain" can't be spoken about before it existed! --Jayron 32 12:18, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

When were totem poles first descibed in writing?

The mysterious absence of the Great Pyramids in the accounts of Western visitors (above) got me thinking. Totem poles are massive and impressive objects, yet my understanding is that early European explorers of the west coast of North America didn't mention them. I've looked at Maritime fur trade and Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast but can't find what I'm looking for. Two things really: 1) what were the first written descriptions of the totem poles? and 2) why do modern scholars believe that it took so long for these giant carvings to reach the written record? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 13:13, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The giant poles we now expect do not seem to have been carved much before 1800 - it was only with the introduction of imported iron and steel tools that the local populations of the Pacific coast were able to carve on that scale. Earlier carving appears to have been mostly house posts, door frames, and similar smaller objects. A check on an online dictionary gave the first use of the words "totem pole" as 1808. 81.132.106.10 (talk) 13:30, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Magyar raids in Northern France?

Hey people, Did the Magyars ever reach Northern France, to where Abbeville is? Please provide reliable sources.

Thanks!