Suggestions & Comments on the Conference

Hmh, history. A pretty big topic. How can we handle this? Should we just throw up topics as we feel like? Should they be structured by localities (Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, India, Middle East, North America, South America,...), Countries we're interested in/come from, epochs (stone age, bronze age, iron age, historic epochs), cultures (Kelts, Chinese Culture, Egypt)? Perhaps a combination would be best, structuring epochs and regions... But perhaps thats too clumsy: Prehistory: Africa Prehistory: Europe ... B.C.: Mesopotamia B.C.: Egypt B.C.: China B.C.: Greece ... up through Medieval Ages in various locations, through all the other muddlin' messes right to the 20th Century: Europe 20th Century: America etc. What do you think?

I agree: we at least need some sort of structure to start with - a bit like the index of a history book - otherwise things could become very confused in here. We should give people who come here the opportunity to select precisely that which interests them - they should have to search around for hours, 'cos that would just make them lose interest. If the first 20 topics are organized into making good sense to newcomers, then it doesn't matter so much if the rest of the topics are a bit scattered accordi g to developing interests. Or what?

They should indeed NOT have to search for hours ... sorry, I'm a bit slaphappy ....

Are we going to have a standard for dating? I noted you used BC. Most journals now use BCE and CE for Before the Common Era and Common Era. Any thoughts on that?

Is that political correctness or what? ;-D I think even the muslims are going to celebrate the millenium! And is that the great Satan's overflowing influence or what? :-D

I am just asking because the journals of archaeology which I read all use BCE and CE... Not being picky, just aking...

(probably...)

It really doesn't make a whole lot of difference re: BCE or BC really. The date is the same. and it's not just the Muslims who object ;-D Besides, we all know the Millenium doesn't start until 2001. So much for accuracy in dating...

Karen, thank you for poinmting that out. It is making me crazy with all of the advertising of the new millennium coming in 3 months...makew that a year and three months!

It is thanks to those errors in dating, and to different peoples counting dates differently (BTW, Karen, what is the starting point for Jewish dating? I read we're in year 5 thousand something)that the millenium has no significance at all except as a pretext for a big party and lots of marketing.

...all for the want of a year 0 ...

A useless fact (with a twist) about technology: The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? Roman war chariots first made the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels and wagons. Since the chariots were made for, or by Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder which horse's rear came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war-horses. And now, the twist to the story... There's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. Thiokol makes the SRBs at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses behinds. So, the major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined by the width of a Horse's [rear]! Think about it!

Loved it! Thank you, Marcia :-)

There is a much longer story of how the price of laundry soap (or whatever simple household item) caused the demise of the British Empire. I lovve stories like that. That is why James Burke's Connections is my favorite all time TV series. Amazing connections of events leading from the mundane to the world shattering events.

I've never heard of that series and it sounds like an absolute must for me! Is it online, do you know?

You would love it ( JAmes Burke's "Connections")...it ran on The Learning Channel and on Discovery Channel. Perhaps they are available there. Books have also come out by him taken from the series. It is wonderful and worthy of watching many times over.