Category History

Few ancient civilizations were as developed and prosperous as that of the Indus Valley. It had remarkably organized cities, a thriving economy, a better quality of life than that of many other civilizations.

A still mysterious civilization

The civilization of the Indus Valley is not as well known as those of Mesopotamia and Egypt which existed at the same time, presumably because its writing has not yet been deciphered.

So we still do not know much about the functioning of this society. Even its origins remain mysterious, it is not known when it appeared precisely.

This civilization had its golden age between 2600 and 1900 BC, with the two largest cities, Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, in particular, but it certainly appeared long before, perhaps even before the Mesopotamian civilizations. It could therefore be the first civilization of humanity.

An ideal geographical location

As the name suggests, this civilization was established along the Indus River which today flows mainly in Pakistan.

The Indus Valley is located at the eastern end of the rains that washed down the Mediterranean and the Middle East and at the western end of the Indian monsoon. The population therefore lived precisely where these two climatic systems meet.

The valley thus experiences two wet seasons, winter and summer, which allowed farmers to harvest two annual harvests. In Antiquity, the Indus Valley was therefore a particularly fertile region.

Thanks to these enormous agricultural yields, the economy was surplus, even flourishing, which allowed the populations to export the surplus food. Indeed, this civilization was very oriented towards trade.

Flourishing trade

At its peak, between 2600 and 1900 BC, the Indus Valley civilization extended over approximately 800,000 km², but its trade network extended far beyond. Harappan merchants did business in China, Southeast Asia, and Mesopotamia.

They exported all kinds of goods, agricultural products like cotton, a crop very greedy in water, which was relatively easy to cultivate in an area so watered by the rains.

The Harappans also took objects, pottery, ceramic or terracotta dishes, often of good quality.

Innovative technologies

They also sold ornaments (statuettes, figurines, etc) in copper and bronze thanks to a process ahead of its time and even still used today : Lost-wax casting

It is a process in which molten metal replaces, by melting it, a wax model placed in a mold. This technique allows complex parts to be cast in one piece (without welding) with great precision in details.

To guarantee trade, trust is essential. Sellers and buyers must trust each other. Nowadays, trademarks, like logos or labels.

But thousands of years ago the people of the Indus Valley had already invented this. In particular, they used terracotta seals which had the same function as modern brands. They attested to the quality of the product and to the merchant’s membership of a particular community.

Planned cities

The Harappan cities were organized according to a very rational, resolutely modern plan. The streets, the buildings were all tailor-made.

The cities obeyed mathematical principles. The length of the buildings was greater than their width at a fixed ratio and accurate to less than 1 %, which made the architecture complex. These proportions may have obeyed cosmic forces, very present in Hindu mythology.

Running water is often associated with ancient Rome. Yet the cities of the Indus were also equipped with a remarkable water supply system, thousands of years before the Romans.

The houses had bathrooms and toilets. The waste water was evacuated, thanks to terracotta pipes, in gutters then in the river.

A peaceful society?

Once again, for lack of torn writing, little is known about Harappan society. However, archaeological excavations would indicate that these societies were relatively peaceful and egalitarian.

The towns were surrounded by ramparts but nothing indicates that they had a defensive function, they were rather used to control the influx of people and goods. In addition, few weapons were found.

The rarity, even the absence of wars can be explained by the trade which had a particular important place in the valley of Indus. Indeed, trading partners rarely go to war.

An egalitarian society?

Archaeologists have not found any royal palaces or religious temples. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any, but then they were modest in size.

This would therefore indicate that the Harappan societies were more egalitarian than the Mesopotamian and Egyptian societies which had, for their part, monumental palaces and temples for the elites and priests.

Mysterious disappearance

After a golden age of 7 centuries, the civilization of the Indus Valley ended up disappearing around 1900 BC for reasons still unknown.

However, it is likely that at the time the region was ravaged by epidemics due to the long distance trade which brought diseases from far away lands, such as leprosy and tuberculosis, which surely contributed to the decline of this civilization.

In addition, at this time, the region’s climate probably dried up, reducing agricultural yields. Societies were ravaged by malnutrition and even famine.

Finally, the decline of this civilization has undoubtedly destabilized the social order, which would have created violent conflicts as evidenced by many damaged skeletons dating from this period.

 

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Technology and advancement have brought us so far that there were some jobs which are now obsolete or entirely changed.

Following are some which are old forgotten jobs.

Pre-radar Listener

These were used to detect enemy aircraft.

Pre-Radar listener is one of them. During war times these pre-radar listeners were used to detect the enemy approaches. They had built in a way that could capture sound from some good distances and were used for reporting and surveillance.

Bowling Alley Pinsetter

Workers usually young boys used to work at bowling alleys. Their job was to set up the pins for customers. Really used to be a very busy job.

Lamplighter

Workers were required to refuel and extinguish the lamplights. These lamplighters used long sticks to light the lamp and refuel before the bulbs and electric lamps were introduced

Switchboard Operators.

Not long ago, these workers were an essential part of the telephone networks. They used to connect long distance calls by switching pins.

 

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The Prison System in the 18th, 19th and beginning of the 20th century was solely based on punishing

So, you might think the prison system today is harsh. Think again. In the 19th century the US and Britain prison systems were based on punishing prisoners to the point that they wouldn’t commit a crime again in fear of landing in prison.

How bad was it?

First let me tell you about this one

The Eastern State Prison

The eastern state prison was a 40,000 square meter prison, and was for a long time the largest building in the US.

The Eastern State Prison’s system was basically based on completely isolating the prisoner, so for his whole sentence he would not see nor communicate with another inmate ever.

* When the prisoner was first shoved to his cell, a mask was put over his head to prevent him from seeing another prisoner.

* The walls were extra thick to prevent communication by knocking on the wall

* When the prisoners arrived they were all given a number, which was the only name they were allowed to go by

* The prisoners received food through a hole in the wall to prevent catching an eye contact with the guard

And you think just that is bad? Because there’s more.

* In many prisons the prisoner had to pay just to sleep on a bed and sometimes also to be released.

So if you didn’t have any money, you could be just left inside the prison for a couple more years after your sentence.

* The prison food was truly awful.

Often the prisoners just received nothing more than a little bit of porridge, gruel or soup for every meal.

* The work was most often completely meaningless

This was a very common tactic in prisons, to rob the prisoner of the joy that comes from a job well done, because, well, he hadn’t really achieved anything at all.

Some of the work prisoners did included:

The Crank

Prisoners had to turn a crank up to 10,000 times per day, with absolutely no purpose

The Penal Treadmill

Basically stairs that whenever you stepped up, it turned, so to avoid falling of you just had to keep stepping

Breaking rocks with a sledgehammer

Now, you might think they needed smaller rocks for making roads or building something but that was not the case. It on purpose had no meaning.

 

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Evariste Galois

He was killed in 1832 at age 20 in a duel over “une femme”.

On the night before the duel he wrote a letter containing 60 pages of his math findings. In 1846 Liouville published his results on group theory, but it was only around 1870 that Camille Jordan finally understood it and its implications… Unlike Gauss, whose math works were mostly questions that other persons later discovered on their own, all of Galois’s findings were original and revolutionary.

So we make Galois survive the duel and live five years longer. I assume the near death experience would motivated him to properly expose his ideas. This would accelerate math development of groups theory a whole four decades, but most important, the great math minds that were alive and productive during this time interval will have the chance to work upon it. Imagine Gauss and Riemann having access to Galois’s ideas and tools- it is like giving the minds behind the Manhattan project access to a modern PC to design and calculate his A-Bombs.

One can safely assume that magnetism theory and relativity would be formulated earlier as well- Cantor would achieve his own results earlier and likely expand upon them. Galois’s death delayed math development at least 40 years, in the time frame exactly before math gave birth to relativity and quantum mechanics.

Then we enter the speculation scenario: if between 17y and 20y Galois produced such revolutionary results, what would he do living five years longer? Would he solve Fermat’s last theorem?! Galois’s mind worked in ways alien to most humans minds, the kind of genius we are blessed with once a century, if that much.

 

Credit : Quora

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Anne Frank.

Now, you’re probably thinking “Why Anne? I thought we knew a lot about her!” And you’re correct, we know a lot about Anne Frank, but there’s something people don’t get.

Two diaries came from Anne. One was A Diary of a Young Girl and the other was The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition.

The first edition (A Diary of a Young Girl) is the edited version. Such edits were made by Anne’s father, Otto Frank, and some came from Anne herself.

So, what was left out of The Diary of a Young Girl? Lots of stuff, actually.

For one, Anne’s mother is painted in a very different light, a more positive light. Secondly, Anne made her writing better when she edited her diary. She added things she’d forgotten, reworked some parts, and sometimes cut out whole sections.

Lastly, Anne was much more explicit in her sexuality. In her unedited version, we come to learn Anne likes girls. (Among other things, but that’s what I want to talk about today).

It is speculated that Anne Frank was bisexual. Now, that is a great piece of representation, however, Anne Frank is not a bisexual icon.

She died because she was Jewish. Not because of her sexuality.

When someone says “Anne Frank is a bicon,” they are forgetting why she died. Yes, people who weren’t Jewish died in the holocaust, but you should never say that in replying to Jewish people talking about it.

To be clear: it is okay to talk about the LGBT community (and many other minorities) who were killed in the holocaust. But, you should talk about that separate from talking about the Jews who were killed.

For example, it would be wrong if someone were to say “Jews were killed in the holocaust, but so were other people, so it’s not even that big of a deal.”

Anne Frank should be remembered for being Jewish, not being bisexual.

Credit : Quora 

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