What is random chance?
2025-11-30 13:54 Random chance is what can’t be controlled or predicted. A great deal can be predicted like the movements of the celestial bodies. This is then a matter of physics which can be calculated rather easily.
Weather is outside human control
2025-11-18 12:33 Some have hard coming to terms with the idea something can’t be controlled.  The fear they display leads to the most absurd ideas.  I have read about people denying that natural weather phenomena would exist nowadays.
Opportunity can’t be taken for granted
2025-10-16 13:47 Some people’s view of history is exaggeratedly person-centred.  The development of society is supposed to be driven by single famous individuals.  The resources for such a person is not spent a though at if it has varied.
Taking historical figures down to earth
2025-09-30 12:42 Some famous historical individuals are the subject of metaphorical worship by their fans.  Others have paid authors to depict themselves with superhuman characteristics.  In the 19th century people might have believed such descriptions.
How we can know what historical figures looked like
2025-09-17 12:35 Cameras has only existed since the 1840ies.  The first photos showed people belonging to the upper classes.  If these become clear enough people at best look normal.  They were not any beauties, no.
Myths of descent
2025-09-11 20:10 It is common to ascribe to someone the characteristics of a specific ancestor.  Why would this particular one matter and not all the others?  As I have pointed out before genetic similarity decrease by half for each degree of relationship.
The difference between ethnicity and population
2025-08-30 18:24 I don’t want to speak of “human races”.  It would far too easily lead to the myth that they would be essentially different from each other.  In addition there is often a belief they would have sharp borders.
African involvement in the Transatlantic slave trade
2025-08-24 19:18 There is an idea of only Europeans having enslaved people from Sub-Saharan Africa.  They are claimed to have raided and kidnapped the locals.  The trouble is the slave trade went on for several centuries.
The American catastrophe
2025-08-11 16:43 The depopulation of the Americas took place in the 16th and 17th centuries. Naturally, regional collapses had already taken place earlier. Maybe the most famous is the Mayan culture’s collapse.
How infectious diseases work
2025-08-08 12:20 Infectious diseases is always something transferred to the affected.  Contagions don’t arise spontaneously when people do certain things.  Instead they have to be conveyed from someone already infected.