All-history thread

[Keranis]

A linguistics professor recently visited our uni (incidentally, she is from Lodz ) and had a lecture about development of English. Now I finally have an idea why English is such a weird language sometimes. For example, there was a Great Vowel Shift during a period from 14th to 17th century. Ever wondered why A is pronounced like /ej/? Great Vowel Shift. E pronounced like /i/, defying all logic? GVS again. The same goes for I pronounced like /ai/.

Funny thing is, nobody knows exactly why people suddenly went crazy with this. Shifting vowel pronunciation in certain ways is a natural process (though rarely on this scale, they overhauled the entire language for Pete's sake ). So new dialects spawn from nowhere and if they are popular, they stick. For some reason, British just went nuts with scrambling their vowels and they thought it was really really cool.

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Translated pony names? Sounds familiar. As a joke, some people (including me) sometimes try to translate ponies' names. Jana Jablečná (AJ) is about the most widely known. My favorite is Dášenka (Dashie )

[Tobyyy]

At three in the morning in the dark places of the mighty internet, I just discovered that in the middle-age lands considered now as Slovakia, the people used little furry animals with self-cleaning reflex such as cats, instead of a toilet paper (because there was none). This way they didn't have to worry about shortage of "cleaning supplies" since the animal cleaned itself after. It's kind af a weird, gross and disturbing fact, though I find it somehow really interesting...

[Kinro]

Wow, that’s... that's a thing

Quite *shitty* from furry friends' perspective...


Now a record -
Seven tanks taken by a single man in a single battle.
Set by Russian private, who stood in trenches with anti-tank gun, aiming at the driving over tanks' bottoms
Four PzKpfw III, two PzKpfw II and one Tiger

Battle of Kursk, 1943

[Kinro]

After the defeat in Russia, Napoleon I was trying hastily to reach the west. He stopped with his men near Neman. Poor man transported them to the other side of the river. Bonaparte was always thirsty for information, so he asked:
"How many French deserters passed this river so far?"
"None. You are first, m'lord."

Classic.

[Melgarh]

Every time I see the Winter War of Finland vs Russia, it gives me a weird giggle... Russia, with a mighty army of 316 tanks vs Finland and its small battalion of 32 tanks have actually won and reached a truce settlement!

I presume that the main cause of the catastrophic losses on the Russia side was due to interrupted supply of Vodka..

Ref.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War

[Mácaman]

talking about Winter War - one of the world most famous snipers - man called "White Death"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

[Kinro]

Reminds me of a joke
Do you know why Russians have Old Man Frost instead of Santa Claus?
Because they have bad memories of a Finn who always hits his target

[Kinro]

Talking about history.
My reenactment group is taking part in a contest (a plebiscite?) in which the first three groups are given funds to spend and I'm like to ask you for some help.

http://program-pit.org.pl/partnerzy/stow...mku-bedzin

As you can see here, we are currently fourth. The vote option is on the middle of the page saying "zagłosuj". You can vote once for every three hours. Would you kindly help me, help my brotherhood, to win, if you don't mind? I would be more than thankful.
Also, be ready, because soon I'll be refreshing the facts thread with more fun facts.

[Kinro]

In 1680 a plague (unspecified, as I know) started in Prague. Austrian Caesar Leopold I Habsburg sent a letter to king John III Sobieski in which he asked him to borrow miraculous portait of Theotokos (Mother of God) of Piekary, which was said to cure a plague in Tarnowskie Góry in 1676. Indeed, after our (I live in Piekary) Mary arrived in Prague, the disease stopped spreading. With that event the portrait gain a formal acceptance of being miraculous.
Also, I write this because the whole third stanza of Piekary anthem is mentioning that event.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0c8hwBSewdK
srsly, don't go in there, my voice is terrible

You, who in Czech capital dressed the painting of you in a new light
When its inhabitants were cured from Black Death by miracle of your gained favors

[Kinro]

Oy!
Two years ago there was an information about that Romans called barbarians because of barking they sounded like.

It's an unprecised information. Barbarbar was indeed meaning barking, but not in Latin, but in ancient Greek and that's why Greeks called them barbarians. Romans called them barbarians because of beards (barba) they were bearing on their faces.

Also, Latin letter Y was (not a big surprise) inspired by Greek letter Ypsilon. Romans used not to have a,letter describing a sound of Y, so they created one. But... How to name it?
Oh, right! Let's call it "y grecca", that literally means "Greek sound of Y"