Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 February 4

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February 4

European-style license plate in the US

A couple of weeks ago, while in Suffolk, Virginia, I saw a car with a unique pair of license plates — they were mounted in Virginia's usual front-and-back position, and they were the standard American shape and size, but they had a European pattern. In short, it was similar to what you'd get with File:British car registration plate labels.svg if you compressed it into half the width and doubled the height, or similar to what you'd get with File:GB Motorcycle Number Plate.PNG if you widened it to American proportions. There was a left vertical strip in blue, with the EU circle-of-stars in yellow and a yellow "GB" below, and the rest of the plate was yellow with dark lettering: AE57 above, and three letters beneath. [I see from Vehicle registration plates of the United Kingdom that this would indicate a registration at Peterborough in East Anglia in late 2007 or early 2008.] The vehicle was RHD.

I've seen vehicles with European front license plates but a normal US plate in back (so just a vanity thing by someone who lives in a back-plate-only state), but never before anything with rear plates and no US plate whatsoever. But it's not as if it were just an ordinary UK vehicle, since the plates were US size. Any idea what this could be? Nyttend (talk) 03:26, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Its not uncommon to let your car be shipped in when you plan a longer stay. There are also often obvious shipped in private US-cars near US-bases in Europe. Some people probably simply take their car where ever they go. --Kharon (talk) 05:58, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

"But it's not as if it were just an ordinary UK vehicle, since the plates were US size." Can you get UK license plates made in US sizes in Peterborough? Mũeller (talk) 06:05, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't know about the UK specifically, but it's quite common to see US size plates in Europe on cars imported from the US, as these often don't have room to mount an EU size plate. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:10, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

How many people are descended from William the Conqueror, and how many are alive now?

Of course, what I'm really interested in is how one might approach such a problem, and what sort of intelligent guesses will bring us to within an order of magnitude of the truth. If William the Bastard is too difficult a case, I'd be happy to hear estimates for Genghis Khan or any other notably fertile male. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 14:04, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

I googled the general subject, and one of the first things that came up was this,[1] a list of descendants. I haven't looked far enough into it to know if the author counted them or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:20, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Bugs - I am one of the descendants! --TammyMoet (talk) 16:11, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

There is an article on Royal descent which includes the line: From a genetical, scientifical perspective, it is theoretically true that "statistically, most of the inhabitants of Western Europe are probably descended from William the Conqueror; they are equally likely to be descended from the man who groomed his charger." Wymspen (talk) 15:33, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

The quotee seems better at rhetoric than at probability theory. We know with certainty that William had nine or ten children, but we don't know that any of his grooms even had one. --Antiquary (talk) 16:56, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about that. Grooms have always had a way with brides. But we're statistically sure that no matter how prolific a seed-spiller wee Willy was, he could never quite fill his father's magnificent shoes. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:33, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Carbon_Caryatid -- you don't have to go far back into medieval history to reach a point where if a person has any living descendants at all, then that person has an overwhelmingly high probability of having tens of millions of living descendants. It's been estimated several times that all those with European ancestry in recent centuries are descendants of Charlemagne. I'm not sure that William the Conqueror is far enough back to be quite at the continental ancestor point, but he's likely to have a very large number of living descendants (though those who can prove it with documentation are a much smaller number, of course). If you're interested in the mathematics involved then you can look at the Most recent common ancestor#TMRCA of all living humans article. AnonMoos (talk) 15:37, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

By way of a reference, see Most Europeans share recent ancestors which summarises research by population geneticists Peter Ralph of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and Graham Coop of the University of California. Alansplodge (talk) 23:52, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! Carbon Caryatid (talk) 15:14, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

a novel where the New World conquered the Old

Looking for a novel where the New World civilization was more advanced technologically and colonized Europe instead of the other way around. And the disease issue went the other way too. Thanks. 70.67.222.124 (talk) 18:08, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

That form of fiction is usually called alternate history. Check out that page and our list of alternate history fiction and see if anything sounds familiar. Uchronia is an online book database that specializes in this topic and your book is almost certainly in there somewhere. Matt Deres (talk) 18:57, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

There are a list of stories along those lines, under the name Mayincatec, here Wymspen (talk) 23:36, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Not answering the question. Matt Deres (talk) 22:35, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I'd suggest a large metallic asteroid hitting half on Africa and half in the Mediterranean indentation in Tunisia causing a giant Mediterranean tsunami and some (non-nuclear) nuclear winter. Not a big enough asteroid to kill all Eurafrasians or most New Worlders but whatever gives New Worlders the biggest head start. What is the best time? Who knows, maybe 3000 BC? Or if having so much possibly accessible iron that doesn't need smelting would help more than the lower tsunami-producing stony asteroid would hurt then make it a stony asteroid. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:34, 4 February 2018 (UTC) Sagittarian Milky Way you seem to be thinking of a Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event-type winter. Moonraker (talk) 19:42, 4 February 2018 (UTC) On second thought, adjust percentage on land to produce the largest tsunami that can coexist with mild enough other effects to leave enough New Worlders and Old Worlders alive. The advanced New Worlders are at high altitude and low latitude anyway in our timeline and they'll quickly repopulate any uninhabitable parts of the New World after they become inhabitable since humans can multiply like rabbits. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:51, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the 'British Commonwealth was absorbed by the United States to become Oceania... Most of the plot takes place in London, the "chief city of Airstrip One", the Oceanic province that "had once been called England or Britain"'. Alansplodge (talk) 23:55, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

But that's also not what the question was asking for. --70.29.13.251 (talk) 02:09, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

It took about 500 years, but a win's a win. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:51, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

James Lovegrove's Age of ... is a series of novels, each one an alternate history in which some other culture became dominant instead of European/Christianity. Age of Aztec fits your description. It has the Aztec culture dominating Europe-- I'm not sure about the disease bit. Staecker (talk) 02:35, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

The New World civilisation was more advanced technologically [2]. 2A00:23C0:FCF6:4801:891A:3DF8:5917:11EE (talk) 08:52, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

That was really not the case with respect to technology -- Europeans in 1492 had iron tools and weapons, where inhabitants of the western hemisphere were still using stone. AnonMoos (talk) 04:12, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

To smoke tobacco, grind coffee and crack corn. Still three of the hippest trends in Europe, long before they were cool. Other stuff in Native American contributions is possibly true, too. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:28, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

I think you're confused about coffee, which originated in the Ethiopia area, and was not present in the pre-1492 western hemisphere. Western hemisphere peoples had plenty of arts and crafts before 1492, but they were not such as to enable them to defend themselves very effectively from sustained European assault (much less to flip the tables and conquer and colonize Europe). AnonMoos (talk) 20:10, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Not exactly confused, just a bit inept. Thinking cacao, typing coffee. But yeah, food and drugs aren't great weapons. Not sure that makes them arts and crafts, or anywhere near as useless in war. Like any young adventurers comingling away from home for the first time, our party started a bit awkwardly. White kids got lightheaded and blurry from the smoke and tripping balls from the coke. Brown kids got dangerously drunk on the newfangled hooch, taking the newfangled horses for a spin to impress the newfangled blondes, with all these newfangled guns, swords and unimpressed brunettes about. It was the powder keg to end all power keggers and exploded into a a very long night few remember, many regret and most try not to talk about.

But day broke (eventually), we felt a Great Depression, pulled ourselves together somewhat and used the money we pooled from trading corn for fuel and the lessons we learned about effectively killing ourselves through attrition to sail the ocean blue, flip the Nazi tables, conquer a fair chunk of Europe (along with unfair chunks of Asia and Africa) and establish the United Nations (still a thing!). The New World order is based everywhere now, and most (all?) of those bases are crucially stocked with universal rations of corn, chocolate and tobacco products.

As far as maintaining our manifest destiny as a superpower, we have nothing to fear except the working class running out of bubble gum. Or the Yellowstone supervolcano. Maybe the wendigo (5,000 moons is almost up). Indian Indians taking our tech jobs. Donald Trump, white-nosed bat syndrome, texting drivers. Perhaps we're not totally secure yet, but we're doing OK for land and money. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:08, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Aztec Century appears to be a somewhat more complicated version of what you're asking about in terms of colonisation, but I don't know whether it addressed any disease transfers. Chris Roberson (author)'s Celestial Empire series of novels and short stories primarily concentrated on an advanced Chinese civilisation/superpower and were mostly set in the future where the battle was over Mars. However the primary competitor was Mexica, an Aztec civilisation/super power [3]. I can't recall whether it was ever established whether Mexica had conquered any of the 'old' world. This story [4] for example refers I think to the situation where Britain (or at least England) was either under Chinese influence or free enough that people from there could approach the Chinese emperor, so it may be that never happened. (The Chinese also ended up winning the battle for Mars and I believe other aspects also implied the Chinese were more successful than Mexica by the Mars stage.) Nil Einne (talk) 10:58, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks everyone. Matt, that list was just what I needed. 70.67.222.124 (talk) 19:45, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Why doesn't the Macedonian naming dispute consider any of the true ancient names?

Articles like this always suggest a bunch of lame names for the Republic of Macedonia like "Upper Macedonia, New Macedonia, Northern Macedonia and Vardar Macedonia". What I don't understand is why the real names for the region, like Macedonia Salutaris (which strikes me as a lovely name), Macedonia Secunda, or Paeonia are not in play. As important as history is to both sides, I don't understand why they have never seemed to look there in the past 20 years of bickering. Is there an explanation? Wnt (talk) 22:37, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Because, from the perspective of both sides, the dispute is not really about what “we” call it... it’s more about not letting “them” use the name. Blueboar (talk) 23:03, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Two of those suggestions are still using Macedonia - which is what Greece objects to. The other one hasn't been used for so long that hardly anyone is aware of it. That is like suggesting that the USA should be renamed the United States of Vinland, as that is older than America (and given the number of other people living in "The Americas" who object to the USA claiming the name of the whole continent, there would be as much justification). Wymspen (talk) 23:20, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

The Greeks object to the "ahistorical" usage of Macedonia because Macedonia Prima was the province in Greece, more or less. But Macedonia Salutaris was indeed at the present location of the Republic of Macedonia. So surely they could not raise the objection of inaccuracy that was used before, right? As for USV, it has an issue in that Vinland is not known for sure to have extended into the U.S., though some sources claim relics as far as Wisconsin; in any case, it was not mostly overlapping the U.S. Wnt (talk) 01:40, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Vinland may not have been "mostly overlapping the US" - but nor does America. The US is no more than 40% of North America, and about 23% of the The Americas. Wymspen (talk) 12:11, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Its our culture and education that imprints us with the highest emotions regarding our own national identity. Remember how many wars and even genocides where justified that way and thus just be happy for everyone involved when it only causes seemingly endless bickering. --Kharon (talk) 01:15, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Wnt -- I'm sure you're well-intentioned, but neither side really derives basic legitimacy for its claims from the 4th-century A.D. Roman empire period, or from the era before Philip of Macedon's 354 B.C. conquests, so that the names you proposed are somewhat beside the point. The truth is, that a Slavic Macedonian ethnic-linguistic identity (as opposed to a Slavic Macedonian geographic identity) barely existed before the 1930s (or even the 1940s), so that the post-1991 Republic of Macedonian authorities have felt the need to over-compensate by making inflated and grandiose claims to remote historical legacies, in some cases with very clear irresponsible irredentist and territorial expansionist implications. For example, the Republic of Macedonia leaders freely lay claim to Alexander the Great and ancient Macedonia, but most of the core area of the ancient Macedonian Kingdom (including its capital Pella) lay within modern Greece. Most of the modern Republic of Macedonia lies within what was a late-conquered expansion area of the ancient Macedonian kingdom (Paeonia etc.), rather than within ancient Macedonia proper. Similarly, the first version of the modern Republic of Macedonia's flag was based on a symbol found in tomb excavations in Vergina, Greece around 1978 -- so it was very reasonable to interpret that flag as laying a claim to Greek territory. A bitter dispute involving the name "Macedonia" which is rarely covered in English-language media, is that the modern Republic of Macedonia authorities lay claim to the legacy of the pre-WW1 "Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization" (IMRO), even though probably the majority of its members/supporters regarded themselves as Bulgarians, and it was certainly not fighting for a separate territory in the modern Republic of Macedonia area only... AnonMoos (talk) 03:23, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

P.S. One of the more ludicrous or pathetic examples of Republic of Macedonia historical appropriationism is that some have tried to lay claim to the historical legacy of the "Macedonian dynasty" of Byzantine emperors, even though they were probably ethnic Armenians resettled in the medieval "Theme of Macedonia", which doesn't overlap at all with the modern Republic of Macedonia territory! AnonMoos (talk) 03:38, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I see some of what you mean at Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. The country's initial nationalism was an understandable reaction against the Ottoman Empire, and has recently included a rejection of Yugoslavia and presumably the Serbian kingdom of the past; that leaves Bulgaria and greater Macedonia as potential affiliations. That or, of course, simply going back to Paeonia, which seems like an appealing option but I suppose lacks the tourist angle unless someone can do a lot of archaeological and PR legwork. (But I can certainly think of a lovely flower for their flag, much better than that nasty Imperial Japan style sun motif, which apparently has a sound historical basis as an emblem of a healer-god later syncretized by the Greeks with Apollo, to whom paeans of thanks were offered, I think) A Macedonian site like Heraclea Lyncestis seems pretty now -- and helps remind us that yes, there were Macedonians in Macedonia at one point. My feeling about the appropriations is that if Macedonians didn't want the Paeonians using their name they should never have sent their army to conquer them, but that's just me. ;) Wnt (talk) 12:54, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Asking “Why didn’t they pick some other name from the pages of history?” is irrelevant and pointless. They didn’t, and that’s that. We can explain why they chose the name they did, but not why they didn’t choose some other name. And, please, Let’s avoid allowing thread to slip into “please share your opinion on what would have been a better name”. Blueboar (talk) 13:17, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

In general, many questions of the format "Why didn't" or "Why doesn't" are impossible to answer in this forum; that is largely because there are an infinite number of things that didn't happen in history. There is neither the space nor the energy to consider the rationales behind an infinite number of things that didn't happen. We can, perhaps, provide some references that give context for things that did happen, as Blueboar notes. --Jayron32 16:04, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

All our related articles are a bit of a struggle to read (almost... byzantine), but it seems like antiquization is the article most related to the topic of this question. It may provide some added context, if nothing else. Matt Deres (talk) 17:32, 5 February 2018 (UTC)