History questions not worth their own thread II

[Cheezy the Wiz]

A question I have pondered for some time:

In the American Civil War, there was significant fighting on the Mississippi and other rivers - a large number of warship were designed specifically for fighting on the river, etc. I know that they are strategically valuable in any war, but were there any other conflicts in which fighting on the river played such a major role?

During the War of the Triple Alliance, much was decided on the Rivers Parana and Uruguay. The Battle of Ruachuelo, in 1865, is really what turned the war around, since the river was the main way the Paraguayans were getting to Uruguay, and the Brazilans, well, kicked the living crap out of them.

The dynamics of the war were really dictated by who controlled the river, and battles mainly took place near rivers. They were, accordingly, the subject of some rather bone-headed yet ingenious antics, like laying a bridge's 4-inch chain links across the river, something which stopped the whole Argentine fleet and wound up costing them thousands of lives and just as much humiliation.

 

[Masada]

Daylight savings time is rather useful when it gets dark at five in the afternoon and gets light at five in the morning.

 

[spryllino]

Cheezy, I see nothing about chains or the Argentine fleet in that Wikipedia article.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Well the battle happened because the Paraguayan army stuck around after it laid the chains. The Argentines, being unable to cut them, decided to attack the troops on land, and were subsequently massacred.

 

[Lord Baal]

Now that's an opinion I can endorse whole-heartedly.

But why do Americans call it "daylight savings time"? It doesn't save daylight.

I know that Benjamin Franklin's original proposal to the French government - which he intended as a joke - was so that they could save on candlelight. Why that later became daylight I don't know.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Now that's an opinion I can endorse whole-heartedly.

But why do Americans call it "daylight savings time"? It doesn't save daylight.

Yes it does. It rotates the hours of daylight forward on the clock, so the sun doesn't rise at 330 AM and farmers lose valuable hours of field time because they're asleep, so they can still keep semi-normal hours. Since they aren't wasted, they are "saved," in a manner of speaking.

 

[Lord Baal]

Yes it does. It rotates the hours of daylight forward on the clock, so the sun doesn't rise at 330 AM and farmers lose valuable hours of field time because they're asleep, so they can still keep semi-normal hours. Since they aren't wasted, they are "saved," in a manner of speaking.

Then why are farmers the group who most commonly complain about DST?

 

[Masada]

Some farmers who are disadvantaged to some extent do, while others who benefit don't. Australia's size makes it interesting.

 

[Plotinus]

Daylight savings time is rather useful when it gets dark at five in the afternoon and gets light at five in the morning.

But that situation can only arise if you're already out of whack with the sun.

In the situation you describe, midday (according to the sun) must occur an hour before midday (according to the clock). So putting the clocks forward would rectify that and bring the clock into alignment with the sun, meaning that the clock would show midday at the point that really is the middle of the day.

However, in the UK at least, standard time (i.e. GMT) is already aligned with the sun. In the winter, midday (according to the clock) occurs at the same time as midday (according to the sun). So when there are twelve hours of daylight, as in your example, it would get light at six in the morning and dark at six in the evening, which presumably is what you'd prefer. Summer time in the UK (BST) puts the clocks out of sync with the sun, but in the other way, so that midday (according to the clock) occurs an hour before midday (according to the sun). That's what I don't like. So in your example, there's no need to change the clocks in summer to synchronise the clocks with the sun; the place in your example should change its entire time zone so that they're synchronised to start with (if people think things are a problem as they are).

I think.

 

[say1988]

Then why are farmers the group who most commonly complain about DST?

Dairy farmers don't like it because they have to change their milking schedule, since apparently cows don't like changing the time they are milked.

Just for your information, where I am, sunrise is about 5:30am and sets about 9:00pm today. without daylight savings times, it would be 4:30am to 8pm. Many more people get value out of the 8:00-9:00 hour than the 4:30-5:30 hour. And this is the extreme, it gets more valuable earlier in spring and later in fall as the days shorten.

Plotinus, the problem with time centred solely on noon is that people don't centre their days on noon. People tend to shift the centre to the afternoon.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Then why are farmers the group who most commonly complain about DST?

Because farmers always have to have something to complain about. Its in our blood.

 

[Plotinus]

Plotinus, the problem with time centred solely on noon is that people don't centre their days on noon. People tend to shift the centre to the afternoon.

True. But then, people don't need daylight to do the sorts of things they typically do after early evening.

(The real issue here is that I just prefer the dark to the light, so I don't need it to be light when I'm up in the evening, and indeed would rather it were dark. But evidently I'm in a minority here, so I won't argue about it any more.)

 

[say1988]

True. But then, people don't need daylight to do the sorts of things they typically do after early evening.

Lots of sports and such played into the evening and into the night. And people that have parties and such in the evenings.
For example, you guys in London would have an hour cut off of every day at Wimbledon.

 

[BuckyRea]

Because farmers always have to have something to complain about. Its in our blood.

Oh too true. On the other hand, farmers are usually the ones with the most right to complain. I teach US history and I joke with my students that most chapters in our book can probably end with the sentence "and so the farmers got screwed." It's too long to make a good punchline, but actually you could more accurately end each chapter with "and so, because of the new technology, the farmers got screwed."

Being providers of the most fundamental of primary goods, economically speaking, those in the ag industry are always going to end up on the short end of the deal with anyone in the manufacturing, retail, capital production materials, or financial sector with whom they do business. No wonder Monsanto keeps buying out Ma & Pa Kent. The fundamental act of creating civilization is usually a variation on the sentence, "You there, grow more tomatoes for me and I won't bash you over the head with this stick in the name of Quetzalcoatl."

Of course the underlined portions are subject to changes in fashion, depending on the production, technology, and religion of any given civ. They could just as easily be changed to mine more blood diamonds, farm foreclosure, and the free enterprise system. But those are piddling details, the dynamic's the same.

 

[Masada]

But that situation can only arise if you're already out of whack with the sun.

Plotinus, I don't think you get quite how large Australia is. Western Australia has a land border that is only 1,862km's long. Your whole island can fit inside a large cattle station there.

 

[sydhe]

A question I have pondered for some time:

In the American Civil War, there was significant fighting on the Mississippi and other rivers - a large number of warship were designed specifically for fighting on the river, etc. I know that they are strategically valuable in any war, but were there any other conflicts in which fighting on the river played such a major role?

The civil war near the end of the Han Dynasty was decided in the naval battle of Red Cliff on the Yangtze River (although there was considerable land action as well).

I'm sure the Nile has played a very prominent role in Egyptian warfare. When he was being beseiged in Khartoum, Gordon was being supplied by boats on the Nile, and had his own little fleet of gunboats. Eventually the Mahdi was able to cut his supply lines, but Gordon did hold out for ten months. Stupidly, because he was supposed to be evacuating people, not holding the city.

 

[bombshoo]

The Nile must have played a significant enough role in the Mahdist War for Churchill to title his 1899 book on the subject The River War.

 

[Ajidica]

Was Thomas Cromwell (Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More fame) related to Oliver Cromwell of English Civil War fame?

 

[Cynovolans]

Oliver was Thomas' great-great-grandnephew through his sister Catherine.

 

[_random_]

So I was watching the History Channel (I know, I know. Feel free to infract me.) and they had a special about Pre-Columbian exploration of the Americas. It brought up two questions:
1) What is the likely extent of Norse exploration of the Americas?
2) Aside from the Norse and those who first crossed the Bering strait, are there any cultures whom legitimate historians believe may have reached the Americas?