PolledHistory

 Hello! Today's Friday Special for history is titled "Basil II and the Macedonian Dynasty". This is the fourth Friday special and the last about some kind of Roman state.  Since we left off in 565 AD in our previous Friday Special, lots have happened to the Eastern Roman Empire. Firstly, was a radical change in Eastern Roman culture, from ancient Roman culture to more of a unique Greek culture over time. The 600s and 700s were a great time of trouble for the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire - the old enemies of Rome, the Sassanids, had done lots of damage, but a new, worse threat had came from the south - Arabia and the Islamic Caliphates, which wiped off Sasania and parts of the Byzantine Empire.  Even in 717, the Umayyads, a Muslim Arab caliphate, besieged the city of Constantinople, but failed due to a Byzantine (Byzantine refers to the Eastern Roman Empire) technology of greek fire, an ingenious weapon that dispenses fire.  In 867 AD, Basil I became sole emp...

 Hello! After a week of polling, our result is the Antonine Plague with 4 out of the seven votes in all.  165 AD, in the Roman Empire under the competent emperor Marcus Aurelius. Soldiers from the land of Seleucia has gone back home to the empire. These soldiers have caught a disease that would plague the world - the Roman Empire and other portions of the Western World for more than a decade. The disease is currently guessed to be a case of smallpox, caused by viruses. Currently, the Variola virus, the virus responsible for the disease, has been eradicated and trapped into laboratories. But back then, there was not as advanced healthcare technology. Two thousand Romans every day died because of the plague, and roughly ten million people died, with a shocking twenty five percent fatality rate if you get it. Covid-19, the latest large pandemic of today that locked us into our homes for a few years, has a three percent fatality rate.  The Roman physician Galen, one of the mo...

 Hello! Today's Fridaily bonus history blog is about Justinian. Last time, we discussed the 3rd Century Crisis, and about 300 years after that is our topic. Before we begin let's lookmat the background and connect it with the last topic. After Diocletian, whose reforms solved the crisis was the Tetrarchy - the rule of four co emperors, then Constantine reunited things, then Constantine's relatives would rule for the next forty years. Then Theodosius came out on top by the 380s AD, and after him was a divided empire - the Eastern and Western roman empire.  The Western Roman Empire fell less than a hundred years after the division, but the Eastern Empire survived. In fact, the Eastern Roman Empire (publicly known as the Byzantine Empire) would survive another millenium after Theodosius' death. After the Fall of Western Rome (476 ad), in the Eastern Roman Empire there was now a man called Justin I. He is not the main character in our story yet, but he would lead the way to...

 Hello! After a week of polling with a surprisingly high vote amount, one topic has won by quite a lot - the history of the Greco Persian wars. Let's begin! The Greco-Persian wars were a series of famous conflicts between the Achaenemid Persian empire we covered in our very first post and the coalition of city states in Greece working together to defeat a larger threat - Persia. It begins with the Achaenemid conquest of Asia Minor, especially Turkey. They took the Greek Ionian cities. When the Ionians rebelled against Persia, Athens, among the most powerful Greek city states, sent aid to the rebels. King Darius of Persia as greatly angered at this, and he began the Greco-Persian Wars circa 500 BC. The first major action in the war was the campaign by Persia against Macedon and Thrace under the commander Kardomius. Mardonius tried to sail for southern Greece, but his fleet was wrecked in a storm. Darius then tried to force Greece to surrender, but the city states of Athens and Spart...

 Hello! This friday special is about the Crisis of the 3rd Century, a major time period and event in history between 235 and 285 AD - fifty years. Just from the name "Crisis of the 3rd Century", we know it was a crisis (which it definitely was) and we know that it was during the 3rd century, which was when it took place. Before we study the actual event, let's see the background. 180 AD in the bustling streets of the ancient city of Rome. The emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius had died, and Commodus his son became emperor. This event ended a period in history known as the Time of the Five Good Emperors (between 98 and 180 AD) - nearly a century of prosperity in the Roman empire following the sucession of emperor Domitian and Nerva's ascent to the throne. Commodus began a line of usually bad or mediocre kings that worsened the great state of the empire during the better days of their predecessors. In 235 AD, fifty five years after Marcus Aurelius' death, Severus A...

 Hello! After a week of polling, the entry "The History of the United States" has prevailed among the other three entries with one more vote than the second place topic. So let's begin! Today, the United States I'm talking about is the country and not much before it was actually founded.  The backstory begins in 1492. Christopher Columbus had travelled from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean and have founded islands in the Caribbean. The Spanish begin to colonize Mexico, Central America, and South America. The Portuguese jump in to the colonialist action, colonizing Brazil in South America. The English (not yet the United Kingdom) and the French also found colonies of their own. The English create thirteen major colonies in the East Coast of Northern America, and the French control Central Northern America. In 1756, the British, French, Spanish, Prussian, Russian, and Swedish nations (and more) are embroiled into a huge conflict named the Seven Years War (for it lasted s...

 Hello! Though it isn't Sunday, I will make an additional post for Science and History blog. The History theme today I chose, and is the Second Punic War.  The Second Punic War is a very interesting war (well, at least to me), and was between 218 and 201 BC. Within these seventeen years of war was 300 000 men. To put that in comparison, the total population of both sides of the war was 250 000 for Rome and Carthage's numbers are unsure.  Before we can dive into the Second Punic War, let's see the background.  Agrigentum, 262 BC. The Romans - which at the time wasn't the massive Mediterannean-wide empire as it was later, was in battle against the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians were a North African empire founded in 814, about six hundred years earlier. They were descendants of the Phoenicians, which is in modern day Lebanon (thus, they are basically related to the Canaanites). This was one of the major battles of the 1st Punic War. Rome (which was at the time, just ...

 Hello! Today's poll result is: ANOTHER TIE! Weird thing is, the sciencefordummies poll also tied. I chose History of Philosophy, as it tied with History of Religion (History of Currency did not get any votes). The history of Philsophy begins in 624 BC in Greece, with the birth of Thales of Miletus. Miletus is a city in modern day Turkey. Thales is regarded as the first philosopher - the first deep thinker. He was interested in metaphysics (the study of the universe and its composition), specifically he asked, "What is the common substance of the universe, that builds all other?".  He concluded water was this central substance. Obviously, he was wrong, but what he asked, and his attempt, was vital. Pythagoras in Greece, born in 570 BC, who was one of the students of one of the students of one of the students of Thales, thought numbers was the common substance. He also created the Pythagorean Theorem, a geometrical equation in mathematics. Democritus lived around this time...