TIL: Today I Learned

[Takhisis]

See? Pollution is the best form of public healthcare, Syn. It's all corporate responsibility.

TIL that before Istanbul, the city was called Constantinople.
And before it was called Constantinople, the city was called...

Spoiler :

Byzantium!

Of the Byzantine Empire duh.

Byzantion. Please.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

TIL that before Istanbul, the city was called Constantinople.
And before it was called Constantinople, the city was called...

Spoiler :

Byzantium!

Of the Byzantine Empire duh.

I learned that over 35 years ago, from a Robert Silverberg novel called Up the Line. It's about a 21st-century guy who gets a job as a Time Courier, escorting groups of tourists into the past for time tours. His specialty is the "Byzantium run" and things go okay for the most part until a couple of his tourists muck everything up.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

TIL that before Istanbul, the city was called Constantinople.
And before it was called Constantinople, the city was called...

Spoiler :

Byzantium!

Of the Byzantine Empire duh.

They never called themselves the Byzantine Empire, fyi.

 

[Lexicus]

Byzantion. Please.

IIRC it was called Byzantium under Roman rule but before Constantine?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yup the city was called Byzantium when it was Greek and then when it was owned by Rome up until Constantine. But the empire itself was always called Rome. It's only with hindsight that historians applied the name Byzantine Empire to differentiate it from the Roman Empire 'proper'.

 

[Kyriakos]

IIRC it was called Byzantium under Roman rule but before Constantine?

The city was originally a colony of Megara, named Byzantion

 

[Lexicus]

Yup. But the empire itself was always called Rome. It's only with hindsight that historians applied the name Byzantine Empire to differentiate it from the Roman Empire 'proper'.

Sure - Basileia tōn Rhōmaiōn in the original Greek. Historians consider the "Byzantine Empire" to have begun when Heraklios changed the official language of the Eastern empire to Greek, as well as his reorganization of the military along more feudal lines.

The city was originally a colony of Megara, named Byzantion

Right, way back in the 600s BC, but when it came under Roman rule I'm pretty sure they called it Byzantium until Constantine showed up.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Where is "Xen when we need him?

 

[Takhisis]

Dangit, not, it's Byzantion in Greek and Byzantium in Latin. The upper strata of Roman society prided themselves on speaking Greek in any case.

 

[Lohrenswald]

It's actually called St. Atatürkburg

 

[Gori the Grey]

If you learn ancient Greek from the textbook I learned it from, the first sentence you learn is to ploion esti en buzdantion.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Wow, that's a lot of learning!


TIL that I have holes in the back of my throat called tonsils.
One actually had stuff in it!

So I bought a water plunger at Wal-Mart for $2 and cleaned it out.
My throat feels clear for the first time in 5 years.

Spoiler for gross mouth video:

Spoiler :

 

[Birdjaguar]

My tonsils were removed when I was about 6.

 

[Kaitzilla]

TIL a very large seaplane had to fly over 20,000 miles across the whole world west to get back to the USA when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in late 1941.

Find out what happens when you put 90 octane gasoline in engines that need 100!
An epic journey where death was certain a couple of times.

Part 1
https://medium.com/@garius/the-long...ntally-circumnavigated-the-world-c04ca734c6bb

Part 2
https://medium.com/lapsed-historian/the-long-way-round-part-2-dff698a18a60

Part 3
https://medium.com/lapsed-historian/the-long-way-round-part-3-70a315c26788

 

[Zkribbler]

TIL that before Istanbul, the city was called Constantinople.

Obviously your no expert on Tin Pan Alley songs.

 

[Kyriakos]

The dank meme thread is that way --------->

(as - hopefully - Tak would say)

 

[Broken_Erika]

The dank meme thread is that way --------->

(as - hopefully - Tak would say)

We have a dark meme thread? Where?

 

[Takhisis]

It's actually called St. Atatürkburg

Look, any civilised person just calls it ‘the City’, OK? One would think you Varangians would have learned this after over a millennium.

We have a dark meme thread? Where?

It says ‘dank’, but, hey, a dark meme thread is an interesting idea.

 

[Lohrenswald]

no screw it, fudge the not-funny not-clever reply I was making

I am angry at you takhisis, for giving me an alert on this site for the most dreadfully boring and trite reply you could have made

you should have not posted at all

if there was a dislike button I would have pressed it

your post was not just unapreciated, but directly disliked
because either you tried to annoy me which is bad on its own, or you tried to be funny, which you failed miserably at

I refuse to play on your terms. Either quit this behaviour, or I will quit interacting with you (which you seem to care at least somewhat about, since you responded to me in the first place)

 

[Synobun]

You're not you when you're hungry.