History questions not worth their own thread

[bombshoo]

What's the history of oral hygiene?

(I'm talking way back)

The ancients were fairly big on it. The Egyptians made brushes out of bones and twigs and used stems from leaves to "floss" even. The Romans and Greeks actually did similar things. It was about removing gunk from teeth rather than long term cleanliness however. "toothpaste" was made be these civilizations using flowers and olive oil. Again, this was probably not so much about keeping teeth in but just making the breath smell better.

A modernish toothbrush as we know was it believe it not, invented in England around Victorian times. These disseminated to almost everywhere by the 20th century but practicing oral hygiene doesn't seem to have become common for the average family until the 1920s-1950s.

Dentistry has a long and complex history that is simply too much to cover here. If you are really interested in this kind of stuff, I recommend a book called Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity by Virginia Smith. I randomly checked it out from the library a while ago and it turned out to be fairly interesting.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I know that some Romans would swirl their own urine as a sterilizer and tooth bleacher. So it was kind of an easy thing to pick on, since if you had pearly whites everyone knew how you got them. Still, its better than tooth decay.

 

[Cutlass]

Before the invention of cars people used sleighs (and sleighriding was a 'popular' pastime) and horse-drawn carriages (which have higher/bigger wheels than the average car or even truck) and naval transportation to get to another town. Clearing and maintaining roads was, in general, a local rather than a national task. I'm guessing the national car association doesn't have a pre-modern precursor. But the topic is no specialty of mine, so...

See, the reason I ask is that there are a couple of authors of fantasy novels who have stories where roads are cleared. Not just in city centers or business districts, but roads as a whole, even across rural areas. Which considering the amount of labor involved, seems impracticable at best. Once upon a time, things like this were used:

Which were horse or ox drawn and packed down the snow on roads so that sleighs could go over them easily. So I was curious if there was any known examples of roads really being cleared, instead of packed down.

 

[Yared]

Okay, thanks

 

[SG-17]

Did fighter aircraft in WWII (on either side) have radios for intra-squadron or to-ground communication? I'm pretty sure that larger support aircraft such as bombers did, but I do not recall if fighters did as well.

More specifically, did fighter planes launched from aircraft carriers (like the Corsair) use radios?

 

[Mathalamus]

not a pure history question but..

how many square kilometers did Old Constantinople have?

i tried finding it on Wikipedia but i cant find it..

 

[say1988]

Did fighter aircraft in WWII (on either side) have radios for intra-squadron or to-ground communication? I'm pretty sure that larger support aircraft such as bombers did, but I do not recall if fighters did as well.

I believe most (with the possible exception of the oldest planes in use at the start) did have radios. The Corsair in particular definitely had them. Though it was very common for them to be inoperable.

 

[flyingchicken]

not a pure history question but..

how many square kilometers did Old Constantinople have?

i tried finding it on Wikipedia but i cant find it..

Spoiler :

Do the math.

 

[Mathalamus]

that will take me hours to figure out. i should mention that my math skills are dismal and i can only do areas in simple shapes

 

[say1988]

Approximate it as one or more simple shapes.

 

[Yared]

Make squares with 100-200 meters sides and divided it all into those.

 

[Mathalamus]

i found otu the Circumference of the City walls (the outermost one) which is 18 miles. i did some calculations ( radius times pi squared) and it said 798 square miles. im sure its far too large for Constantinople. its slightly less than twice the size of new york city.

 

[Yared]

It's Radius * Radius * Pi, not Radius * Pi * Pi.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

And that assumes a circular shape anyways, in reality the less circular it is, the smaller it will be with any given circumference.

 

[say1988]

That won't work. The city is not a perfect circle, and hence by making it a circle you increase the area (circles are the most efficient shape in this regard).

A circle with a circumference of 1 has an area of 0.0796.
A square with the same perimeter has an area of 0.0625.
A rectangle with a side ratio of 2:1 has an area of 0.0556.
An equilateral triangle (same perimeter) has an area of 0.0241.

Look at that map, and you will see why your area is inaccurate.

Go with the divide it up into regular shapes (in any way you choose) and add all those areas and you can get a good approximation.

 

[Mathalamus]

i measured it ( using a rectangular area of measurement) and came up with 13.6 square kilometers. it should be smaller (it only took up at most 50% of it), around 4-7 square kilometers. that's the best i could come up with. does anyone agree with that?

sorry but i don't have the tools to do complicated measuring of it. counting every square, triangle or anything else will take time.

 

[say1988]

Use paint. Draw lines. Measure. Calculate. Or go all out and print it. And no, I wont do it for you. It isn't hard.

 

[r16]

Was the Apollo Moon Landing shown on Soviet television or reported in their news? I doubt they could hide that it took place by that point so I'd think it'd be better for them just to admit it happened but I don't really know their reaction to it within the country.

my parents emigrated from Bulgaria , and they remember they watched it live on TV . Bulgaria , often described as more Moscowist then Moscow itself , probably means the Soviets also celebrated the "man's great step" on the moon .

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Did fighter aircraft in WWII (on either side) have radios for intra-squadron or to-ground communication? I'm pretty sure that larger support aircraft such as bombers did, but I do not recall if fighters did as well.

More specifically, did fighter planes launched from aircraft carriers (like the Corsair) use radios?

Yup. Air-ground coordination was essential for combined-arms warfare and especially blitz krieg. Carrier-borne planes were probably the first to actually get radios.

my parents emigrated from Bulgaria , and they remember they watched it live on TV . Bulgaria , often described as more Moscowist then Moscow itself , probably means the Soviets also celebrated the "man's great step" on the moon .

The Soviets could still revel in winning the initial space race.

 

[LightSpectra]

A work I was reading offhandedly mentioned that Kaiser Joseph II was considering entering the American Revolutionary War against France. Could anybody who is knowledgeable on the subject elaborate on the matter?