Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 May 13

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May 13

Grave of Charlez Russel

As you may know, the Jehovas witnesses are moving from NYC up to an other City. Does somebody know what will happen or has happen with the grave of Russel? Will it be moved also or keep on the old place? --Ip80.123 (talk) 02:59, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Here is an article about the sale of the massive Jehovah's Witnesses real estate holdings in Brooklyn. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:19, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Charles Taze Russell, who died 100 years ago, is buried in Pittsburgh, not in Brooklyn. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:24, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Really, User:Cullen328 ? Is this not nyc ? [1] --Ip80.123 (talk) 17:45, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

That photograph could be of almost anywhere, there is nothing indicative of New York. Nor of Pittsburgh, for that matter. What leads you to believe that the information presented in the Russell article is incorrect? --LarryMac | Talk 18:38, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Russell was born in Pittsburgh and is buried in the Rosemont United Cemetery in Pittsburgh. I have checked quite a few sources, including pro and anti Jehovah's Witness sources. All agree that the grave is in Pittsburgh, although they disagree about the symbolism of the nearby monument. Not a single source I can find claims that he is buried in Brooklyn. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:07, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

okay, how about the other one, Rutherford? is he buried in Brooklyn? --Ip80.123 (talk) 22:38, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Here's the Findagrave entry for Russell in that Pittsburgh cemetery:[2] The pyramid has something to do with Watchtower. I don't know who Rutherford is. If I can figure that out, I'll see what I can find out. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:06, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Assuming you mean Joseph Franklin Rutherford, Findagrave indicates his burial location is in San Diego, but there is some dispute:[3] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:14, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Newspapers.com, a pay site, has an entry on January 11, 1942, reporting Rutherford's death in San Diego, "at his palatial 'King David's' mansion." That article was relatively small. But on the 12th a more extensive article discusses a dispute over where to bury the body. He had made a deathbed wish to be buried on the estate, "in a hillside crypt at Beth-Sarim" but not buried yet because the estate was "not a legally zoned cemetery." On the 13th, it was reported that the mortician had received a permit for "temporary" interment on the Kensington Heights estate. On the 21st, it was reported that a local group was protesting the plan to bury on the estate. A public hearing was scheduled for the 24th. On the 25th, it was reported that the county denied permission to bury on the estate. On the 26th, it was reported that the JW's were appealing the decision. The last reference in 1942 is on April 21, in which it says the court upheld the zoning ordinance, and that the JW's had received permission to bury the body in New York, somewhere on "Stratton Island" [sic]. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:33, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

GenealogyBank.com, another pay site, has an entry for April 25, 1942, asserting that Rutherford was buried in Woodrow Cemetery on Staten Island. That's a Methodist cemetery. There are no Rutherford's in the cemetery's Findagrave page, but that doesn't prove anything. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:10, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Although there are unsubstantiated rumors that Rutherford was buried in San Diego, in accordance with his clearly expressed wishes, it seems much more likely that he was buried in an unmarked grave in a small JW cemetery plot adjacent to the cemetery that Bugs mentioned above. The location is Rossville, Staten Island, which is, alas, not Brooklyn. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:20, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

A bit of further reading indicates the house was sold in 1947, and it's unlikely his body would have remained on the grounds, if he were even there, which does not appear to be the case. In short, Findagrave's entry for him must be wrong. And I wouldn't be surprised if his grave in Staten Island is indeed unmarked. The JW's, during the War especially, were considered disloyal if not downright un-American, so it's not surprising that the county government in San Diego wouldn't cut them any slack. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:27, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

I have googled a bit about this pyramid, you are right, it is really in Pennsylvania. In the background there is just an old used building of the Jehovas Witnesses. I have while googling found an information that in the year 2000 some Grave robbers / tomb Raider have opened the pyramid (I don´t know how, please tell me how) and they have stolen everything what was inside the pyramid (any Idea how they could find out there was something inside it? And what was inside it?) Why has no one before the year 2000 known how to open the pyramid and steal everything inside it? --Ip80.123 (talk) 03:46, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Maybe they used some kind of X-ray technology. And maybe nobody knew until then that there was anything in it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:08, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

As a student at the University of San Francisco decades ago, I wrote a thesis about the theological similarities and differences between the anti-war stances of the Quakers, the Mennonites and the Jehovah's Witnesses. Because the Witnesses refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, they were subject to extreme persecution in the 1930s including mob violence and burning of Kingdom Hallls, and two contradictory U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the second of which broadened religious liberty in dramatic ways. It is a fascinating story. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:10, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

See West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:18, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Minersville School District v. Gobitis is the earlier decision, and that article does a better job describing the vicious persecution that the Jehovah's Witnesses suffered in the United States in the run-up to World War II. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:26, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

what is X-ray technology ?--Ip80.123 (talk) 19:01, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

What I mean is that in relatively recent years, X-ray has been used for tasks other than looking at your lungs. Techniques have been developed to see through large, solid objects. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:07, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

All-time total UK MPs

Dear all,

I read today that there have been 451 women MPs in the UK, adding up all of them from every parliament. How many people overall have been MPs? I can't find the answer on search engines, so am wondering if anyone has a figure. 185.12.194.57 (talk) 11:05, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

There is a List of United Kingdom MPs though some of the data is missing for the early parliaments of the 19th century. It should be easy to find out how many members there were in each one (articles like First Parliament of the United Kingdom), but knowing the number of individuals who served would be very difficult to work out. If you want to go back further to the 18th century Parliaments of Great Britain and of Ireland, or even early to the Parliaments of England and of Scotland, I doubt that all of the names are even recorded outside of the archives. However, if you are comparing numbers with the number of women MPs, it is probably only those parliaments elected since women were allowed to stand which would be of relevance. 81.132.106.10 (talk) 11:57, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Records from early English and Scottish parliaments are also rather sketchy.For example, List of Parliaments of England has a lot of incomplete data, not only because Wikipedia writers haven't added it, but because professional historians know little about these excepting the dates some of them were called. Some of these we only know about because of we have a brief mention of their existence, or of some of their acts. --Jayron32 12:28, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

The names of the large majority of members are known back to the 14th-century; the History of Parliament contains information on 21,420 MPs (of the English, British and UK Parliaments) who served between 1386 and 1832. There will be some MPs about whom not even their name is known, so this is an underestimate; there have, of course, also been many MPs since 1832. Their details can be found in Stenton and Lees' Who's Who of British Members of Parliament series (up to 1979); I can't find a total number of biographies for this, but at a very rough guess I'd estimate 1-2,000 entries for each of the four volumes. Between 1979 and 2010, 1,608 MPs were elected, some of whom will appear in the last volume of Stenton and Lees. Then there are a few more MPs who have been elected since 2010. So, since 1384, the total seems to be somewhere around 30,000 MPs in total. Warofdreams talk 18:09, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Although it is a self-published source Leigh Rayment's House of Commons page is an excellent reference work. He is also constructing an alphabetical list.--The Traditionalist (talk) 12:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks all. I also emailed the House of Commons Library, who have replied saying they think it is 35000-40000 ever, though they don't have a precise figure past the 1832 Great Reform Act. From 1832 they are confident it is 10,215. And from 1918, when women were eligible to be MPs, it is 4,898. 185.12.194.57 (talk) 11:06, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Andersen (?) fairytale

I am searching for a fairytale about an imp who lived in the fireplace of two sisters, the first of them hard-working the other slothful. I thought that it was written by Hans Christian Andersen but my brief research proved my wrong. All help will be appreciated.--The Traditionalist (talk) 11:31, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

This one has two sisters with the traits you are describing, but it involves a witch and a chimney. Maybe a variant? --Jayron32 12:19, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

@Jayron32: No, not really. The practical-versus-idle archetype exists in a multitude of unrelated fairytales and cautionary tales (including the Three Little Pigs). What I am searching for, takes place exclusively in a house, not before the 18th century and was (again, I think) adapted into a Swedish silent film. This is why I thought it was Andersen's work. A rooster is also present, if that helps.--The Traditionalist (talk) 12:43, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

If it were made into a film, then perhaps the Swedish Film Database may be helpful? --Jayron32 13:16, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

History

How do we know so much about the history of ancient empires like Egypt or Rome? The printing press was not around back then, so most primary-source written history was from scholars now considered by historians to be unreliable or biased. However, historians seem to be able to date with mind-boggling accuracy the births and deaths of emperors, or the occurrence of cataclysmic natural and man-made events in history. Did we have other methods of ascertaining history without the need for speculation?--WaltCip (talk) 12:15, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

There were historians who lived back than. Also, the printing press does not make the methods of history more reliable. We know about Roman and Greek history partly through the work of ancient Roman historians and ancient Greek historians. We aren't here to really tell you whether or not you should believe what these men have written down, but they did write things about their history, and we still have a lot of their work. The second method is via archaeology, where modern scholars analyze artifacts and locations of ancient civilizations to discover how they work. --Jayron32 12:23, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

It helps that people like to carve dates into stone monuments all around the world. Stone inscriptions in the Kathmandu Valley, Sawlumin inscription, Mesoamerican calendars, etc. Also kings had to keep track of their genealogies so things like the Abydos King List. Rmhermen (talk) 15:44, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Our article, Egyptian chronology, says: "The majority of Egyptologists agree on the outline and many details of the chronology of Ancient Egypt. This scholarly consensus is the so-called Conventional Egyptian chronology, which places the beginning of the Old Kingdom in the 27th century BC, the beginning of the Middle Kingdom in the 21st century BC and the beginning of the New Kingdom in the mid-16th century BC. Despite this consensus, disagreements remain within the scholarly community, resulting in variant chronologies diverging by about 300 years for the Early Dynastic Period..."

See Scientists Rewrite Timeline of Ancient Egypt’s First Dynasty for the role of modern techniques in changing the accepted chronologies. Alansplodge (talk) 17:06, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

All or most of the so called ancient history was made up out of whole cloth by European monks. Honest (tl;dr: we was kangs 'n shiiet we were tsars, cyka b***t) Asmrulz (talk) 20:31, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

We can go further than that. All history was made up by people before we were born. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:29, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

I personally don't think it was Asmrulz (talk) 06:55, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

We can say for sure that at least the Battle of Hastings was made up out of whole cloth. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:04, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Ha, good one Asmrulz (talk) 17:23, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

I found this this interesting (problems associated with historiography and a bit about "how we (nevertheless) know") Asmrulz (talk) 20:34, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Having multiple accounts from different sources makes us far more confident of the accuracy. More recent history, like the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, has so many sources we can be certain of when it occurred. For more distant history, it gets a bit fuzzier, but as long as they had writing, there's still a good chance we can find multiple sources. Being able to line dates up with something we can confirm scientifically, like an eclipse or volcanic eruption (see dendrochronology) certainly helps. StuRat (talk) 22:40, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Anglo Saxon Kings of England

Why when the history of England is discussed are the Anglo-Saxon kings not typically mentioned as part of the history of the rulers of England? A number of documentaries I've seen typically start with William the Conqueror and go from there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.136.44.62 (talk) 15:48, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Probably largely because the Normans imposed a culture on the country which by & large remains to this day, whereas the culture of the Anglo-Saxons is largely lost. (Citation needed, etc). --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:54, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

(ec)The pre-conquest kings of "England" were descended from the monarchy of Wessex. While Wessex "became" England, it is difficult to draw a line as to when the kings of Wessex became kings of England. But there is a brighter line between the Wessex kings and the Norman kings of England, so it's a convenient dividing line. --165.225.80.100 (talk) 15:57, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

@Tagishsimon: I don’t think that’s completely true, seeing as you basically speak a German and not a French dialect (although there are admittedly quite a lot of French and Latin loan words in English). Rgds ✦ _hugarheimur 16:00, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

The reason is pretty much covered already, but to elaborate, the Norman conquest of England established an almost totally new political and social order. Prior to that, the island had basically been divided up into a number of petty kingdoms that only occasionally been united under a single ruler, indeed of the Anglo-Saxon "kings of England", prior to the Danish conquest of England, which remember, was only a generation before William the Conqueror, very few could claim to rule all of the Anglo-Saxon people. Some established seniority over other Kings, such as Offa and Alfred the Great, but they were the exception rather than the rule. Even after Æthelstan became undisputed King of all of the English, his arrangement wasn't permanent; there were many times when the kingdom fell back to petty kingdoms (see, for example Eadwig#Division of the Kingdom). Most of the first half of the 11th century was a complete mess for English political history, as the land passed back and forth between the Kings of Wessex (some of whom were reduced to JUST Wessex again), and the invading Danes (Sveyn, Cnut, Harthacnut, etc.). The notion that William the Conqueror took over what had been a stable, unified political state simply isn't true. England was barely a country when he showed up; it was really HIS invasion and subsequent political reforms that made England into a single, stable unitary state under a single ruler. --Jayron32 16:20, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

I found a good discussion of this issue in a long essay by Richard Barber called The Norman Conquest and the Media. Unfortunately, there are a couple of pages missing from the preview, but it starts with a poem by Eleanor Farjeon that we learned by heart at junior school: "William the first was the first of our kings / Not counting the Ethelreds Egberts and things...". Alansplodge (talk) 16:53, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

posting by banned user removed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:55, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

1066 and all that was "a parody of the style of history teaching in English schools at the time" (1930). The book finishes with history coming to an end because the USA has become the dominant world power. Alansplodge (talk) 01:30, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

And six decades before Francis Fukuyama said so. How prescient! --Shirt58 (talk) 04:28, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

The exact quote is "A Bad Thing: America was thus clearly top nation, and History came to a ." [4] Alansplodge (talk) 23:54, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Which joke Americans typically don't get. --ColinFine (talk) 22:14, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Oh, if only Cromwell had listened to the levellers and left Ireland alone. But don't start me talking, I could talk all night.--Shirt58 (talk) 12:38, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

"With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all." [5] Alansplodge (talk) 17:01, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

I would rather be anywhere else than here today... --Jayron32 00:39, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

@Jayron32: Is that WP:SELFBLOCK request? I'm a man with a mission in two or three WP:EDITions... and everyday I write the WP:BLOCK. Shirt58 (talk) 11:46, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

As long as your aim is true... --Jayron32 12:15, 16 May 2016 (UTC)