Welcome to the humanities section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

Select a section:

WP:RD/H

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

How can I get my question answered?

Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
Note:
- We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
- We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
- We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
- We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

October 30

Semicartograms

How can I see them? Where only latitude or longitude gets stretched but not both. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:23, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

cartogram indicates a number of methods to produce them. None of these sees to care to respect latitude or longitude, and I suspect this would produce weird, ugly, hard to understand results. Gem fr (talk) 10:08, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Is that the classic Mercator projection that nobody uses for world maps any more because it distorts areas so much once you're away from the equator? 67.164.113.165 (talk) 05:48, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No it's like a map of the US where each centidegree of longitude is stretched or compressed till longitude is measured in people instead of degrees and latitude is left alone. Or vice versa. It can be plate caree or conic projection or whatever is a good projection for that country or planet and population or post offices or pig exports or anything else you can do with a cartogram. Google doesn't show anything for this so the name must be wrong. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:44, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

UK general elections

Is there a procedure in UK elections for what happens if a party wins the election with a majority but the leader of the party loses his seat. I note that Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat may be vulnerable to the Liberal Democrat’s, and that this hasn’t happened before. Who becomes PM in the period between winning the election and electing a new leader? The chancellor? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrandrewnohome (talk • contribs) 10:00, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom#Modern_premiership may be of help Gem fr (talk) 10:24, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Likely, the party would hold an internal election for a new Party leader, who would then go to the Queen for Royal assent as the new Prime Minister. It should be noted that there are no legal, constitutional requirements for the Prime Minister; only tradition and convention establish the procedures by which they are chosen. In many other countries "We have to do it this way because that's what is written in the Constitution" is how it works. The Constitution of the United Kingdom works much more like "We do it this way because that's how we've come to do it". The Prime Minister doesn't have to be in Parliament (though tradition and convention establishes that they pretty much always are). So, the likely procedure is for the party in power to just elect a new leader. But that is not the required procedure. --Jayron 32 11:10, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

One method that has been used in other countries that use the British parliamentary model, if the party wants to keep its - now unelected - leader, is that one elected member with a safe seat will resign and the leader will run in a by-election for that seat (and hopefully be elected, this time). It means that the leader is outside parliament for a few months, but if his party has won a majority, it's not a huge deal. In the case of a minority government, it would be a lot trickier, however. I recall that there was a reference desk question on this a couple of years ago. Xuxl (talk) 12:50, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There's also the possibility of a member of the House of Lord's being PM. This article does a good job of explaining why it's very unlikely that the UK will ever again have a PM in the Lords, but it's clearly possible. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:04, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I just realized the OP's main question is "Who becomes PM in the period between winning the election and electing a new leader?" The answer is "no-one". The UK will work just fine for a few days while they work all of that out. There is no PM equivalent of "The king is dead, long live the king!", in the sense that there is no requirement that a new PM starts his/her job instantaneously upon the resignation/death/whatever of the old one. The UK State is a large, self-sufficient bureaucracy and does not need a Prime Minister to function in the short term. Nothing particularly problematic happens over that short time period when there is not a PM. There are procedures in place, likely very secretive, for handling things like authorizing the use of nuclear weapons for which we aren't going to be able to provide concrete details because they are a secret, but I'm 100% sure that it's been thought of how to handle those things when there isn't a Prime Minister.--Jayron 32 13:13, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Besides, UK is officially a monarchy, and while in effect the PM is in power, all is done in the name of the Queen/the Crown. It surely can work without a PM, or even a parliament Gem fr (talk) 14:08, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In any event, this all assumes that the PM ceases to be PM upon the election taking place or upon losing his/her seat. This isn't the case. Someone who has been appointed PM by the monarch continues to be PM until he/she resigns, is dismissed, or dies. In practice, a PM will generally not resign until the succession is clear. For example, Labour lost its majority in the 2010 general election, and it was clear on 7 May (the day after the election) that this had happened. Nevertheless, with no party now having a majority, it was not clear who would be able to form a government, and negotiations took several days; Gordon Brown continued to be PM until his resignation on 11 May, only resigning when the Conservatives had managed successfully to negotiate a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Brown tendered his resignation to the Queen, and recommended that she appoint David Cameron as his successor, which she immediately did. Proteus (Talk) 15:32, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The example of Sir Alec Douglas-Home is relevant. The 13th Earl of Home was Foreign Secretary in Harold Macmillan's government when the latter fell ill in 1963 and after some debate, Lord Home was chosen as a compromise successor. He renounced his titles and took over the running for a safe seat in Scotland which he duly won but "For twenty days, Douglas-Home was Prime Minister while a member of neither house of Parliament, a situation without modern precedent". Alansplodge (talk) 20:30, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

20 days? Peanuts! Here in Canada, John Turner was Prime Minister for 79 days during which he was not a member of either house of Parliament. (He was elected as an MP in the general election, but resigned as PM before Parliament met.) --76.69.116.4 (talk) 04:38, 1 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's not like he resigned magnanimously. His party was crushed in the 1984 Canadian federal election. They lost 95 seats (out of a prior 135). Ironically, his victory was one of the only seats the Liberals took from the Conservatives (I think possibly the only seat). --Jayron 32 15:09, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any precedent for London seceding from the UK?

The idea of 'London independence' comes up now and then in the British media, usually in vague terms. Is there any historical precedent for an ancient national capital breaking away to become fully independent? Lfh (talk) 14:01, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sort of. Paris Commune could qualify. The government moved to Versailles as the de facto Capital, and war ensued.

In such situation, war always ensue. And a side win: either the capital takes back the country, or the country takes back the capital :Gem fr (talk) 14:15, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In Europe one of the closest examples in the last 120 years would be the Republic of Central Lithuania which involved the capital of Lithuania, mostly ethnic Polish, seceding. However, the result was basically a puppet state of Poland and after a year and a half it joined Poland. So whether that was fully independent is dubious. Valenciano (talk) 14:19, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There was a plan to make the city of Jerusalem a semi-independent city-state, distinct from both the Palestinian State and the Israeli State, under the terms of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, known as the Corpus separatum (Jerusalem), but it never came to fruition. --Jayron 32 16:21, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How about Vatican City effectively seceding from Italy? Actually Italy took over the Papal states, so the Vatican seceded. They'd probably say that the Vatican is the papal state, what's left of it. deisenbe (talk) 17:52, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

But the Vatican was never the capital of Italy. It just happened to be located inside the capital, Rome. I suppose you could draw a really long bow and say a part of the capital seceded from the country, but that's not really telling it like it was. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:28, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As a related matter, the City of London is in some measures its own country sitting in the middle of London, the way Vatican City sits inside rome. 173.228.123.207 (talk) 04:49, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Invasion of Switzerland

Was there ever a plan from the Central Powers to invade/occupy/annex Switzerland during WWI? Something like the later Nazi Operation Tannenbaum. Thank you. --2.37.200.57 (talk) 14:41, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Competent enough military would have had such plan, and German military WERE competent. Just in case. You never know. When some event require such a move, you will need map, topography, major bridge, railroads, place etc. and you cannot gather that just out of google map (even nowadays). Whether you want to overthrow the Swiss government, or want to help it after it asked, you need a plan.

For instance, it is known that France had plans to move into Belgium and Netherlands in WWII, fairly detailed; it was supposed to be at the request of their gov, but would had worked pretty much the same without. We know that because these were somewhat used during the Blitzkrieg, and would not have known otherwise.

Sometimes the plan is very old, long not updated for some reason, but it always exist.

And obviously, Swiss people also have plan to counter such move, however unlikely [[1]] (

Now, was invasion of Switzerland seriously considered in WWI? We have no hint of that, and it is hard to find any rationale. Hitler wanted to incorporate in his III Reich any people even remotely German (Dutch, for instance); no such motive existed in WWI. Gem fr (talk) 15:35, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Geography has historically made invading Switzerland too difficult to consider. That is, they control the high ground already, and attacking up the sides of mountains is very costly. By WW2, paratroopers could be used to reduce that advantage, but large scale paratrooper ops weren't an option in WW1. Besides, the Central Powers had more than enough adversaries without opening up another front. (Of course, the same could be said of Nazi Germany in WW2, but that didn't stop Hitler from foolishly invading the Soviet Union, then declaring war on the US following the Pearl Harbor attack.) SinisterLefty (talk) 17:10, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Invading Switzerland was not only considered, it was actually and successfully done. The fact that invading Russia actually failed doesn't mean it had to fail and was foolish. Gem fr (talk) 18:54, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There's some kind of a point there. Not that it was not foolish, but the Germans did not face disproportionate losses before Stalingrad. --Askedonty (talk) 19:50, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link. However, it's difficult to see how Germany could have beaten the Soviet Union, as they had a massive amount of land to conquer and then hold. Even taking Moscow wouldn't have put an end to the war there. SinisterLefty (talk) 19:58, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It is difficult to see to you because hindsight bias, which seems strong in you, but it is actually very easy to build alternate history scenarios with Germany winning; you need few and not very strong if. Gem fr (talk) 04:36, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget that the Germans had successfully invaded the Russian Empire in 1917. They were expecting the same sort of collapse: "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down" (Albert Speer quoting Hitler, 1941). Alansplodge (talk) 20:01, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That rather depends on how you define success. I'm sure their goal wasn't to replace the czar with a communist dictatorship. SinisterLefty (talk) 20:23, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If it wasn't their goal, then they shouldn't have packed the infamous Sealed train full of Bolsheviks, and given it passage through to Russia. The Germans got pretty good value for their sealed-train gambit -- the Bolsheviks betrayed Russia's war allies (Britain and France) and favored Germany (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk). Immediately after WWI, the Soviets attacked Poland -- also in Germany's interests. Not to mention the Treaty of Rapallo (1922). Saying that Lenin was a German agent may be a little extreme, but German and Bolshevik interests were pretty clearly aligned from 1917 to at least 1926, and Lenin wasn't the least bit reluctant about exploiting this to the maximum degree that he could. Of course, whether German and Russian interests were aligned, was quite another question... AnonMoos (talk) 21:29, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Creating chaos by sending Lenin home might have been a goal, but not changing a government somewhat similar to their own into one diametrically opposed to, and dedicated to the overthrow of, their type of government and economic system. SinisterLefty (talk) 22:12, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Any conventional regime in Russia, whether tsarist, white military, or attemptedly democratic, would have largely been motivated by Russian nationalism and patriotism. Germany derived great advantage to itself for basically 10 years by helping install a regime in Russia which was NOT motivated by Russian nationalism and patriotism. I'm sure that Kaiser Wilhelm II was not particularly personally sympathetic to Communism (though there was more in common than you might think between the government-directed German war economy and Soviet central planning), but the Germans got great "return on investment" by facilitating the rise of Communism in Russia... AnonMoos (talk) 08:40, 1 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The aim of all that shenanigans was only to knock Russia out of the war, which allowed Germany to move 50 divisions to the Western Front for Operation Michael, the Spring Offensive in April 1918. Note that they also destabilised the UK by sponsoring the Easter Rising in Dublin, while self-determination for ethnic minorities was definitely not in the interest of the German Empire. Alansplodge (talk) 10:02, 1 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, the goal was to win WW1, and that failed, plus that may have been why their enemies were so angry and they got such bad surrender terms. And, in the case of Russia, the communist regime turned out to be a far worse enemy in WW2 (probably by executing all their opponents, so they didn't have strong internal enemies). So, overall, this meddling in other nations' internal politics was an unbridled disaster for Germany. SinisterLefty (talk) 16:30, 1 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For comparison, I can see several ways the US Confederacy could have remained independent in the 1860s, by avoiding the US Civil War entirely, or by going all-out and taking Washington at the start, before the North could mobilize, or by denying the North victories just a little bit longer, so public opinion in the North would turn against the war. SinisterLefty (talk) 06:03, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

see this question from awhile ago.—eric 18:58, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also Switzerland during the World Wars#World War I which has most of the answers. In both wars, Switzerland made itself useful to Germany and her allies as a financial centre independent of Britain and the USA. The article contains a redlink to Plan H, a proposed French invasion of Switzerland, but Google isn't finding any more details for me. Alansplodge (talk) 16:05, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Giant squid quote

I was reading a blog post about giant squid (source), which included the line "Many whales are found with scars from the suckers of giant squid tentacles, remnants of tremendous battles we can only imagine, fought far down in the lightless world of the ocean deep". That line sounds familiar to me. Is it a quote (or paraphrased quote) from somewhere more famous? Iapetus (talk) 16:25, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's very David Attenborough. I can't prove it, but it's the sort of thing you'd hear him saying in your head. I wouldn't even begin to know which of the stupidly-large number of nature documentaries he's written and narrated it would be in, but I would start there. Just a guess, but it's my best guess. --Jayron 32 16:50, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Or is it H.P. Lovecraft or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Both mention giant squids and would use that purple style, but I can't find the exact quote in either. We do have an article: Giant squid in popular culture. Xuxl (talk) 19:00, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason it feels like I read it in Herman Melville's Moby Dick but I can't find any reference for that. I wonder where the Owlcation website got it. MarnetteD|Talk 19:08, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

many results from "squid whale battle". No surprise you find it familiar. Gem fr (talk) 19:11, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Moby Dick and 20,000 Leagues were my initial thoughts, given that they both feature whales and/or giant squid, and the style of prose is very similar (especially Moby Dick), but I've searched the texts of both on Project Gutenberg, and can't find it or similar. I suppose Lovecraft would be another possibility, but I don't think the style quite fits (not quite purple enough, and not horrified enough). Iapetus (talk) 12:13, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not what you're looking for, Iapetus, but I was reminded of Tennyson's "The Kraken", "Below the thunders of the upper deep / Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea ..." ---Sluzzelin talk 21:28, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are on to something Sluzzelin. It fits with this part of that sites title "The Real Kraken Sea Monster" MarnetteD|Talk 21:32, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

October 31

Sarmentitii

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmentitii - does English Wikipedia have an article about this? There's none under the exact title and there's no interwiki from the German article, but maybe there is an alternate spelling that I didn't find with a minute or so of searching. Thanks. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 05:45, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

These may help: Death_by_burning#Ancient_Rome and tunica molesta. 41.165.67.114 (talk) 06:31, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Zomg, so that's what it was about :(. Thanks. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 05:00, 1 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

1945 UK General Election

How did Churchill react to his defeat in the 1945 United Kingdom general election. Did it come as a surprise to him that the country had rejected the man who had led them to victory in the Second World War. Was he disappointed, or did he view the country as ungrateful, or did he accept the defeat with good grace? He seemed like the sort of character who had a strong ego, and that this defeat would have dealt it quite a harsh blow, but that's just speculation on my part. --Andrew 14:35, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There's some information, with references for further reading should you wish to follow up for more details, at Winston Churchill#In opposition: 1945–1951 and Later life of Winston Churchill. As a note, both articles seem to imply that voters seemed to have liked Churchill but disliked the Tories, and some may have mistakenly believed that he could stay in office even if his party was defeated; after all there had been coalition/national Governments since 1931, and had minority governments for years before that (see National Government (United Kingdom), Churchill war ministry for examples. Perhaps the people had grown used to this; for example Ramsay MacDonald had repeatedly led governments for which his party did not have a majority, and by the 1930s, Britain had moved into a period where party loyalty became weak; the National Governments of the period often had a mix of Labour, Liberal, and Conservative ministers, etc. Hell, MacDonald, originally a Labour Party member (though they expelled him) led a government during a Parliament when the Conservatives held 518 seats. However, the governments of the 30s and 40s were a response to a series of crises, being in turn the Great Depression and the Second World War. By 1945, the sense was that the UK would be returning to business as usual, and strong party politics would return. The days of Labour and Conservatives getting along to move the country ahead were over. The 1945 campaign was particularly bitter; Churchill himself made a bit of a fool of himself by trying to compare Labour to the Gestapo and accused Attlee of trying to set up a Nazi-style dictatorship if he were to win. --Jayron 32 15:33, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"I must confess I found the event of last Thursday rather odd and queer, especially after all the wonderful welcomes I had from all classes. There was something pent-up in the British people after twenty years which required relief... We must expect great changes which will be hard for the departing generation to adapt themselves to." (29 July 1945, Churchill to Conservative peer Lord Qickswood who had been his best man). See Winston S. Churchill: Never Despair, 1945–1965 by Martin Gilbert (Ch. 6) which has a lengthy Google Books preview. Alansplodge (talk) 17:23, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As a reminder for those less familiar with the British parliamentary system and more used to Presidential elections, there was no direct vote for the post of Prime Minister itself, and Churchill personally was re-elected as Member of Parliament for his constituency, remaining influential nationally and internationally as the Leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition for six years before commencing his second term as Prime Minister in 1951. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.179.237 (talk) 17:55, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

While that is true, people's votes in the UK have multiple influences: While people may vote, in part, for the specific person they want to represent their local constituency, they are ALSO deeply aware of the importance of which party has control of Parliament and who would be Prime Minister upon the conclusion of the election should their party win, and many voters weigh that rather heavily when deciding who to vote for. A vote for your local candidate is also a vote for the leader of their party as Prime Minister. --Jayron 32 18:02, 31 October 201)9 (UTC)

2.122.179.237 -- Don't want to be annoyingly nitpicking, but it would have been "Leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition" at the time... AnonMoos (talk) 21:09, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A fair point: I copied the Article title without thinking enough about it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.179.237 (talk) 05:25, 1 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed, but I bet someone changes it back. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 04:32, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comparisons could be drawn with the landslide defeat of Herbert Hoover to FDR in 1932. Hoover's approach to "wait for the market to right itself" during the Great Depression was not appreciated by those living in poverty. Similarly, the post-war shortages in the UK would likely need more than just waiting for the markets to right themselves, at least if relief was expected anytime soon. So, Churchill's defeat was due to the economic policies of the Conservatives, not anything against him personally. SinisterLefty (talk) 18:31, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

See also BBC History - Why Churchill Lost in 1945 for a brief overview. The voters saw the Conservatives as a return to the pre-war muddle, while Labour held out the prospect of real social reform, which by and large was achieved. People wanted a change. Alansplodge (talk) 18:58, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Churchill was salty about it in Triumph and Tragedy, the last volume of his WW2 history book series. It's been ages since I read that thing though, so I don't remember any particulars. 173.228.123.207 (talk) 04:52, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ticker tape transmitter wanted

I would like to find a ticker tape transmitter to purchase as a fundraiser goal for a local nonprofit museum open to the public, ideally from a private collection but possibly from another museum. Our donor pool is enormously wealthy to be completely honest, but I understand these items are extraordinarily hard to come by (e.g. because the museum in question would certainly already have one if they could -- they have multiple ticker tape printers in their collection.)

Do auction houses or some such help with these sorts of quests? How do I find a broker for tech antiques? Is it appropriate to ask another museum how much they would be willing to part with theirs? Are there mailing lists for antique finders? Is a 5-10% finders fee reasonable in this space? Any help is most appreciated.

If we get a choice, Royal Earl House's second printing telegraph of 1849 (shown as #33, "House's Type Printing Telegraph 1849" here) would be our first choice, but honestly anything with a piano-style keyboard used to send to a printer over telegraph wires will fit the bill. Fundraiser Throwaway (talk) 19:09, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I would expect that any auction-house would put a notice online that Google would find. However, at any given time it's unlikely one will be on offer, so you would need to be patient and repeat the Google search often. Or, you might find one in a collection that isn't currently for sale, and make them an offer. Also, if the original is prohibitively expensive, you might commission the production of a replica (either functional or purely decorative). SinisterLefty (talk) 20:37, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ticker printers are easier to find than transmitters but these sources may help: [2][3] . The Wikipedia article is Ticker tape. DroneB (talk) 22:46, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Brokers specialized with such antiques do exist: here such broker, Germany. There they have many things and early type writers, with price-tags ranging well from anything to what would be that of a House's Type '1849 (which is doubtful they have but keyboard printing telegraphs are much less rare). --Askedonty (talk) 22:31, 1 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

November 3

Existence of nations before 18th century?

Do nations as category as we know them today exist before the rise of nationalism and national revival in the late 18th century? For examples, did ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chineses each have their own respective shared unified national identity regardless of their socio-economic statuses? Or are nations just made-up imagined category arbitrarily created by elites or other groups for their own purposes? 70.95.44.93 (talk) 01:16, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The article Nation, which you have probably already read, touches somewhat on these matters without providing a completely clear-cut answer, and has various links for further exploration. Of course, the World is a big place and History has a large span, so it is quite possible that similar concepts may have arisen and vanished several times in several different places and eras before becoming almost ubiquitous in modern times. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.179.237 (talk) 01:52, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Romans certainly had the concept of Roman citizenship, which conferred special privileges and obligations, and theoretically gave you the right to participate in Roman government (though you had to be physically present in Rome to exercise such rights, and they became fairly irrelevant under the Empire -- see Roman assemblies). Greeks as a whole were rarely politically united, but each individual city-state or polis had a strong political identity. AnonMoos (talk) 05:41, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The ancient Greeks did unite against common enemies, such as the Persians. SinisterLefty (talk) 07:02, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

United in a military sense, not merging independent political units into a larger one. AnonMoos (talk) 16:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

England could be described as a “nation“ before the seventeenth century (Certainly by the end of the Hundred Years War). Being on an island helps. Blueboar (talk) 13:41, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed: see The Hundred Years War and the ‘Creation’ of National Identity and the Written English Vernacular: A Reassessment which says: "The so-called ‘Hundred Years War’ and the creation of both English and French nationhood have been inextricably bound together in the historical imaginations of modern historians". Alansplodge (talk) 15:58, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The kingdom of Hungary was acknowledged as "a nation [hitherto] still unknown to us" by Pope Sylvester around 1000 AD, see Apostolic Majesty#First creation. DroneB (talk) 16:04, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Although the pope probably didn’t speak modern English in 1000 AD. I’m assuming this is one of those semi-translation errors, from Latin natio, which much rather means "a people". Cheers ⌘ _hugarheimur 17:07, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In the late middle ages and Renaissance, a very prominent use of the word natio was to refer to students of a similar ethnic or geographical background at a university -- see Nation (university) -- but this has very little to do with the modern meaning of "nation"... AnonMoos (talk) 18:13, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Declaration_of_Arbroath (1320) is argued by some to be evidence of a sense of Scottish nationhood in the 14th century. Iapetus (talk) 13:36, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Isaac Watts

Hello! We visited Newington Green,London, to see where our ancestors worked and lived in the British Enlightenment. One thing we didn't see was the W supposedly at one corner of the Green that is in memory of Isaac Watts. I also didn't see it listed in the Wikipedia article on Watts and if found, could be added to the site. We did tour the oldest terraces, New Unity Church and other sites in the area where Dr. Richard Price and his nephews William Morgan and George Cadogan Morgan lived and worked. We were happy to see new projects especially for Mary Wollstonecraft. There is much going on in the area. Our local guide also edits Wikipedia. Thanks for your time. 2600:1702:1C0:B8F0:E416:6ED:3088:CFF1 (talk) 20:55, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, IP user. I'm glad you enjoyed your visit. Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit: as long as you have a reliable published source, you are welcome to add the information to the article yourself. --ColinFine (talk) 22:11, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The "W" at Newington Green is mentioned in: The life & strange surprising adventures of Daniel Defoe (p. 9): "There is still in Newington Green today a terrace of houses dating back to the 1650s, as well as a wrought-iron gate with the monogram 'W', marking the site of the house of the Nonconformist hymn-writer Isaac Watts".

However, Historic England in its official listing says: "Frame and gate spanned by filigree pediment, ogival in outline, at the centre of which the initial "H" in an armorial shield. This may refer to Richard Heard, a London butcher who owned much of the area north of the Green at the close of the C16". There's a little photo at the very bottom of the page and it does look more like an "H" than a "W". Alansplodge (talk) 22:52, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another view of that gate in Google Street View imagery; it's just slightly northwest of Newington Green itself. I certainly can't tell if it's meant to be an H or a W. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 04:16, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

November 4

Metropolitan France & French Algeria

So, just making sure that I am actually right, French Algeria had never been legally part of Metropolitan France as it was always a colony and ended its existence as an oversea department, correct? I am asking this because some people discussing the Catalan independence movement and the Irish independence conflict seem to think that Algeria was considered an integral part of France and that its independence violated the first line of the French constitution saying that "France is one and indivisible". 70.95.44.93 (talk) 05:24, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As you see at the article you linked, "Metropolitan France" is a geographical term: the part of France that's in Europe. Overseas departments are also part of France. If you're American, Metropolitan France is like the 48 contiguous states and the overseas departments are like Alaska and Hawaii. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 06:10, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Article 1 of the French Constitution does say that France is indivisible, but Article 53 allows for treaties that cede territory, provided that there is consent from the people involved. I rather think that if a constitutional court was required to rule on this, they would say that a treaty granting independence to an overseas department, and complying with the terms of article 53 does not violate article 1. Whether this ever actually was tested in court I don't know. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 06:25, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the French constitution, it is important to note that the current French constitution, the Fifth Republic, post-dates the Algerian Crisis, indeed the Algerian Crisis was the thing which brought about the end of the Fourth French Republic. --Jayron 32 13:56, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It was adopted in 1958—during the crisis and well before Algeria was made independent. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 04:14, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

An important thing to remember about French Algeria, is that there was always a two- (or even three-) tiered class system there that existed regardless of the actual legal status of Algeria and its incorporation into the French state. There was a famous quote that said "L'Algerie, c'est la France" or "Algeria is France", implying the full incorporation of Algeria with the rest of France, but the residents of Algeria were afforded very different levels of rights depending on whether they were native Algerian (Berber, Tuareg, Arabic, etc.) people OR if they were pied noirs, OR if they were born in Metropolitan France. Generally, people of White European descent had better freedom of movement, and were usually considered full citizens of France, while those that were of non-European descent were not granted such rights. The article Indigénat would be most informative for this discussion. --Jayron 32 13:54, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Which led to some rather indignant indigénats. SinisterLefty (talk) 14:25, 4 November 2019 (UTC) [reply]

The French actually prided themselves on not doing things solely on a crude racial basis -- but to get the full rights of French citizenship, a non-European had to visibly adopt French culture, and persuade the French that he was doing so. See Assimilation (French colonialism) and Évolué. Algerian Jews followed that path, but few Muslims were willing or able to do so... AnonMoos (talk) 19:09, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It was a bit of false pride, however. They policy in practice was "You can be a French citizen, so long as you abandon all of the things that make you different from us". That's bigotry anyway you slice it. They set up a series of rules designed to specifically exclude undesirables based on their ethnic/cultural heritage, and then applied those selectively against those specific ethnic/cultural groups they didn't want to change their pure country. To say it wasn't done on a crude racial basis, I assume you mean "just based on skin tone", which may be true, but there are LOTS of ways to be a bigot that do not strictly include skin tone. --Jayron 32 13:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

However, some degree of assimilation is going to be required by any society. For example, a ban on honor killings. SinisterLefty (talk) 13:47, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Being expected to follow local laws regarding murder are distinctly different from requiring people to abandon core religious tenets or other cultural practices. That's a red herring to our discussion here, which is that the French essentially required a person to abandon all meaningful aspects of their earlier culture, not just the blatantly abhorrent ones. Requiring people to not murder others with impunity is not the same as requiring them to stop being halal, or to speak a different language at home, or stop teaching their cultural stories to their children. --Jayron 32 19:20, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I never said it was the same. Forbidding women to cover their faces entirely while in public (which makes identification impossible) would be the next step towards the gray area. But, I can also see the point that allowing people to set up their own city (or part of a city) in your country, where they speak only their own language, and thus essentially exclude the locals, is more like them setting up a colony in the nation than joining it. I can see why, at the very least, they might require signs to also display the national language. In Quebec, where they weren't happy about being "colonized" by anglophones, they passed such a law. Of course, when the people making the laws are the colonizers, then, by the same token, they should largely leave the locals alone, with a few exceptions like honor killings. SinisterLefty (talk) 19:31, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's not a grey area. Unless the authorities are directly charging you with a crime, there's no requirement that you be identifiable without asking. If they want to know your name, they can ask you. If they want to know who you are, they can ask you to produce an ID card or something. You don't need to be able to be identifiable, however, if you're just going about your daily business doing nothing wrong. --Jayron 32 20:11, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is going to depend a lot on the jurisdiction, but in many places where they are putting in street cameras linked to facial recognition systems, they're going to have an issue with people going around with their faces hidden. It's gray in that it has to balance public safety with Freedom of Religion and privacy. But when the authorities definitely need to identify people, say at a border crossing, then keeping a veil on is not going to be allowed, in most places. Those that allow it have basically surrendered control of the border, as then anyone can cross with a burka on (men included). SinisterLefty (talk) 02:30, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

They are doing so. Whether the fact that they are doing so means that it is right and just that they can track and monitor every person as a matter of course, without regard for first establishing reasonable suspicion that the person has broken a law, is a different issue. The ability to catch people who have done nasty things is useful; more problematic is the ability to track people who haven't done anything wrong, in case you want to decide later that you don't like them, and create crimes to charge them with. Requiring that people accept a government's unjust and unwarranted invasion of their privacy is not a just position. --Jayron 32 17:24, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As stated above, Algeria was part of France. It was NOT a colony the way of, say, Madagascar or Vietnam. The law of the land, and the organisation of the administration, were the same law as in, say, Paris, while in a colony the law and organisation were different. However, there were two class of inhabitants: citizens, and "indigenes". Indigenes could become citizens if they so wished, but this meant their losing a number of specifics, and doing this required breaking free of social rules, for few actual benefits (racism was real, and the person would still be considered indigene by citizens, while indigenes would consider him a kind of traitor); few did it (but just follow the article Indigénat provided by Jayron32).

"France is one and indivisible" is just a constitutional rule, it can be overruled by just another constitutional rule. Which has just be done quite recently about New Caledonia (whether the Nouméa Accord process will or will not result in independence, the simple fact that independence is possible already broke the rule of indivisibility). It can also be broken de facto, which is actually the normal way as constitutions go.

Gem fr (talk) 19:06, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

1951 French legislative election in Algeria describes the way in which Algerians participated in elections for the French National Assembly by means of electoral colleges, separate ones for Europeans, non-European citizens and non-citizens. Alansplodge (talk) 20:24, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

the way you write it implies 3 colleges, when there were 2: one college for citizens (from whatever ancestry), and a second for ″indigenes″ (non citizens). Gem fr (talk) 02:51, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Twain

Were any of Mark Twain's speeches ever recorded and if so, are these in the public domain and if so, where can i find them. Please and thank you. Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 11:20, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Searching for "Mark Twain cylinder" turns up a number of leads. He apparently made several recordings, but very few survive... AnonMoos (talk) 13:08, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Library of Congress says that "Mark Twain was known to have made recordings on three occasions; unfortunately none of them are known to have survived". A recording which was previously thought to be of Twain turned out to be a friend of his impersonating him. See Mark Twain Sort of Speaks to Us October 30, 2014 by Bryan Cornell. Alansplodge (talk) 13:51, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Could you perhaps direct me toward transcripts of his speeches? Thanks Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 14:39, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Did you look at my link? The only text mentioned is The American Claimant which you can read in full here. Twain recorded some portions of the book in 1891, using it as a sort of dictation machine rather than for publication.

This article says that the 1888 recording mentioned by the Library of Congress never actually existed since Thomas Edison was out when Twin visited his laboratory; however he had intended to dictate passages of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which you can read here. The final recording was "made by Gianni Bettini in 1893, in which Twain interrupted Nellie Melba’s rendition of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor". :::Alansplodge (talk) 17:55, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Or if I have misread your question, apologies and see Mark Twain's Speeches. Alansplodge (talk) 20:34, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively LibriVox recording of Mark Twain's Speeches by Mark Twain. Read in English by John Greenman. Alansplodge (talk) 20:36, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What other languages did Twain write in? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:42, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

German.—eric 18:43, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Even if there was a recording I'm am of a generation who would hear this man's voice instead :-) MarnetteD|Talk 18:48, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

November 5

Death related questions

I have several related questions, the first is that I have been told that when a person dies, their watch stops. So, my first question is, is this true? Secondly if this is true, does this apply to analogue watches only or does this include digital watches. My next question and the overarching most important piece of information I would like to know is if one is listening to music, such as on an iPod (outdated now I know) or an old Diskman or even an old Walkman, or even the new more modern devices, will these also stop when one expires. Why do these occurrences take place? Does your smart phones stop working? Thanks Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 08:57, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Watches (or other devices) stopping after death is a myth, though a google search shows it's a commonly believed one. For old analogue watches this was sometimes true in the case of violent deaths, such as accidents or fights, where a broken watch could sometimes jam the hands at the current time. Also in the days of wind-up watches, where most had to be would daily, a mechanical watch with a date function could indicate the approximate date of death when remains were found after a a considerable time. -- Q Chris (talk) 09:16, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It could be a legend started from a past frequent wished-it-was-so. If you were to come upon a person lying on the ground and you would first check their wrist in order to find their pulse, it was much better that this wrist was without a watch ticking, for your later memories if that person could not have been revived. Clocks can be a very obsessive detail in association with something turned into failing. --Askedonty (talk) 09:49, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There could be many reasons why a wind-up watch would stop around the time of death:

1. The damage caused to the watch, as mentioned above, by a violent death. This would indicate the exact time of death.

2. There could be a cause subsequent to the death, like a fire if they dropped their cigarette, or a car accident if they were driving at the time, which stops the watch. This watch would indicate a time slightly after the death.

3. The watch could just run down, with nobody to wind it. It wouldn't indicate the exact time of death, in this case.

4. If the person died of disease, then they may have been sick before dying, and have not been able to wind their watch. Again, it wouldn't indicate the exact time of death in this case.

So, for all these reasons, finding a dead person with a stopped wind-up watch would have been fairly common, hence the myth. As for digital watches or other electronic devices, these are less likely to stop, because they run much longer before the battery dies, and, if they do stop, they typically don't show the time they stopped, even if a new battery is inserted. SinisterLefty (talk) 14:02, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the legend/myth goes beyond the physical damage to watches. There are a lot of references to clocks stopping, as exemplified in My Grandfather's Clock. Conversely it was supposed to bring bring bad luck if you didn't stop a clock when someone died. -- Q Chris (talk) 14:53, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we need a separate Tall Tales ref desk. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:41, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Say, a cheap wind-up watch would often have lasted not much more than one year before the spring became unsuitable. Before the second half of that period you would already have been winding it (up?) more than once a day. --Askedonty (talk) 17:32, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Anecdote time: My analogue watch stopped at the moment my Dad passed away in 1994. He was 2 hours drive away from me, and my watch did not have a history of stopping at random times. I wasn't told he'd died till about 20 minutes later. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:09, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Jack! It is exactly to this, as of yet unexplained by science, incident to which I was referring. Some may term this supernatural, a term I disagree with. It is a known phenomena, which has not yet been fully explained by science. Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 08:55, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

See confirmation bias. SinisterLefty (talk) 09:04, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In line with above link, consider how many people who die wear a watch, or have friends or relatives who wear a watch, or die in proximity to a clock... so basically everyone. Clocks and watches can stop. It is simply inevitable, given the number of people and the number of watches, that out of all the billions of people who have ever died, a not-insignificant number of them will have died around the same time that a nearby time-keeping device stopped working. Demanding an explanation for a coincidence is profoundly unscientific when there is no evidence to suggest it is more than that. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:10, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and that's just if there is no correlation. But I listed several ways they might correlate, in the form of death causing the watch to stop (such as a fire caused by a cigarette in the dead man's mouth) or an event causing both death and the watch to stop (like illness, preventing winding of the watch prior to death). Rarely does the watch stopping cause death, but I suppose they might forget to take their critical meds if the watch alarm doesn't go off, because the watch had stopped. SinisterLefty (talk) 10:24, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In one of the Marx Brothers movies, Groucho is a horse doctor pretending to be a human doctor. He holds someone's wrist to take a pulse while looking at his watch. A few seconds go by, and then he says, "Either this man is dead, or my watch has stopped." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:33, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Teachers statistics

For an article in the German WP, I am researching facts about teachers' education in the U.S. Unfortunately I seem not to be able to find an absolute number of (undergraduate) college students who either graduate every year to become teachers or who successfully are being licensed or certified to work as teachers. A number for a more recent year would be ideal, but I take anything. Can anybody help and possibly give a link to a website that I must have overlooked? Thanks a lot in advance, --Stilfehler (talk) 13:18, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Are you aware that teacher certification is handled at the State level... and that each State has different criteria for teacher training? There is no uniform system in the US, and so the statistics you are looking for may not exist. Blueboar (talk) 14:12, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I know. I found that there are some US-wide statistics (overall numbers of teachers, age, etc.) and that there are statistics of new students who enroll for law school, nationwide (law school is a state thing as well), so I was dreaming of somebody counting future resp. new teachers, too... :-) --Stilfehler (talk) 14:45, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There's a shit-ton of statistics tables here to click through. That website may also have additional pages that have the data you are looking for. I would start there for your research. --Jayron 32 17:54, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot, I will check that out! --Stilfehler (talk) 20:31, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

defying a subpoena

If I receive a subpoena and ignore it or defy it, I will get arrested and charged. No one is supposed to be above the law. Why do those who blatantly defy the subpoenas to testify re: the impeachment not get arrested and charged? I would think that doing so would be a very powerful statement to the public at large that it is a fact that no one is above the law. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.223.104.13 (talk) 13:57, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

See (US) contempt of Congress. It's rare that it ever gets to the stage of imprisonment, however. Also, as a practical matter, if the person flees Washington DC (or were never there to begin with), they may be difficult to capture. SinisterLefty (talk) 14:03, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind Richard Nixon's belief that "If the president does it, it's not a crime" - and, by extension, anyone who is following his orders. As to the various defiances, every time they do that, it's just another item on the "Obstruction of Justice" checklist, which is getting pretty lengthy by now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:35, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also, also keep in mind that there is often some time between defying a subpoena and the due process necessary to charge and process someone with contempt. The rule of law still applies to people who ignore subpoenas, and it takes time for them to be charged with and processed for contempt charges (either of court or of Congress). Given that, the OP's presumption that nothing will happen to people who have defied the recent Congressional subpoena is an open question. It's literally things that have happened over the last few days, there are literally court cases right now which have been filed and which are currently deliberating over what to do in these cases. The OP needs to understand that in a civilized society, we don't just drag people behind the shed and take care of them, there is due process and due process takes time. The reason "why has nothing been done" is "because there hasn't been enough time for anyone to do anything yet". Let it work itself out before asking your questions about it. We're still in the midst of it. --Jayron 32 17:51, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As we've seen with Trump's many executive orders (or Obama's, for that matter), legal challenges put up roadblocks, and with the various legal arguing on both sides, his term might be over before a lot of things are decided. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:57, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, at some point "justice delayed = justice denied". SinisterLefty (talk) 05:43, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As is justice rushed. --Jayron 32 12:58, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In the U.S. at least, you can challenge a judicial subpoena in court, though it is true that if you lose all your challenges you will eventually face penalties if you don't comply. As the Contempt of Congress article discusses, Congressional subpoenas are a rather different beast, and also I think the Trump Administration is claiming executive privilege, which itself is fairly nebulous. The best way to think about this is as a conflict between the executive and legislature. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 06:17, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The US constitution envisions a system of checks and balances, and checking the powers of other branches requires knowledge of what they are doing, hence the use of subpoenas by the legislative branch against the executive branch. The reverse, investigations by the executive branch of the legislative branch, say for taking bribes, would be performed by the FBI or other executive departments, which could use the normal courts to obtain subpoenas. SinisterLefty (talk) 06:44, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

One of G. Gordon Liddy's applause lines in his post-prison speaking career was that he was convicted of contempt of congress, but that it was ok since he was actually guilty of that: "I really do have contempt for Congress" (audience applauds). 173.228.123.207 (talk) 10:22, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Contempt for the rule of law, actually. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:29, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, Jayron. It was just a simple question. As I don't fully understand the intricacies of politics, it seems lengthy so I asked a question. 142.46.150.122 (talk) 17:59, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

USS John C. Stennis

How did such a prestigious ship (commissioned on 9 December 1995) come to be named after "an ardent segregationist and opponent of most civil rights legislation in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s", given the multicultural nature of the modern USA? Ericoides (talk) 20:24, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So what!? Maybe in 10 years they name one after Trump. In the US political correctness is not as important as sticking to some "tradition" or worldview, for a big part of society. Remember, nearly 40% of the US population still believes in Creationism. --Kharon (talk) 21:00, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Because there were a lot of other aspects to Stennis. And because he'd died the year it was commissioned. And because Stennis was known the "Father of America's modern navy." --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 21:24, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Congress passed a law urging the navy to do so, and Ronald Reagan and Secretary William L. Ball [4] made the decision. Google for "The father of America's modern Navy."—eric 21:30, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There was even a nuclear submarine named USS Robert E. Lee--do the math. 173.228.123.207 (talk) 10:30, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The maths doesn't look great, thanks. Ericoides (talk) 11:20, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A wise person once said "America is so racist, that any criticism of racism is automatically taken as a criticism of America itself". --Jayron 32 13:00, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

November 6

Verify statement about 16th century Scots law case

High treason in the United Kingdom#Trial says:

In 1540, a Scottish court summoned Robert Leslie, who was deceased, for a trial for treason. The Estates-General declared the summons lawful; Leslie's body was exhumed, and his bones were presented at the bar of the court.

No citation is given. May I request one? 79.180.57.119 (talk) 17:23, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently goes back to the Encyclopædia Britannica 1904, although there seems to be a distinct lack of evidence of it actually happening [5]. Cheers ⌘ _hugarheimur 17:39, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]