Ten Events That History Would Be Unrecognizable Without: Part One

You could make a pretty convincing argument that basically every event you learn in history class had some sort of impact on the present. But to be quite frank, I don't think that the Supreme Court's decision to go against some aspects of FDR's New Deal or the Roman emperor Caligula's war on the ocean have had an enormous impact on our everyday lives. So...here are ten events, in chronological order, that I feel have had the biggest impact on the way we live today. Well, the first five, to be more specific: all ten in one go would be overdoing it.

1) Domestication of the Horse
All right, let's get this clear: I'm not going to waste anybody's time about talking about agriculture. That's implied. Nobody gives enough credit to one very important animal, though. Horses had a big immediate impact, allowing people to travel much farther distances with much heavier loads in much less time. The horse would eventually revolutionize warfare, with inventions like the chariot and the stirrup, and transportation, with inventions like the train and car based on horse-drawn means of getting around. Horses enabled the Mongols to forge their empire, turned the tide in numerous battles, opened up the American west, and changed the way we live today.

2) Athenian Culture
Everything we know in our government got its start in Athens. The concept of democracy, of course, was born in Athens, and Plato's idea a republic got its start in the cultural center of the bronze age world. I would elaborate on that, but that just provided me with the perfect spot to move on to my next point...

3) Iron Metallurgy
We still live in the iron age, if you want to be picky about it. And history wouldn't be the same without this simple metal. Iron was lighter, less brittle, and substantially stronger than its predecessor, bronze. What's more, iron tools were easier to make, as you only needed one substance for the job (bronze is an alloy of copper and tin). Iron weapons, however, really changed the course of history. The Roman gladius won the western world's most influential empire, which undeniably altered the fate of the world, and a certain alloy of iron was destined to change warfare forever. Steel has been used in weapons since Rome's later days, and is still a major component in warships, tanks, cannons, and many other non-military items we use and see on a daily basis.

4) The Birth of Christ
Regardless of whether or not you adhere to the Christian faith, you can't deny that we would live in a very different world if this man had never been born. I don't support Seth MacFarlane's take on what today's world would have been like if Jesus had never lived, but I do think that the world would be drastically different. The Catholic Church is the single biggest entity on the planet, with over a billion adherents. It is also the world's biggest source of humanitarian aid to poorer nations. But, even more importantly, many conflicts throughout history would never have come to light if it weren't for Christianity. But more on that next time...

5) The Fall of Rome
Let's get this straight: if Rome never fell, we would be living in a Roman colony. There would be an Emperor, a massive military force, and a vastly different world. Languages like English, French, Italian and Spanish wouldn't even exist. We probably wouldn't exist: the chance of all of our ancestors surviving or having been born into or having met in a world where Rome never fell or stopped growing is basically nonexistent. The people who would exist in our stead would have no ideas of independence, or of any culture or sovereignty other than Roman, unless they lived in some place even Rome could not hope to conquer, like China or the expanses of Siberia.

Big Think: International Waters (And Where They End)

So...Portugal is over ninety percent water.

http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/652-nil-jellyfish-nation-portugal-is-97-water

Coastline counts, people. Having water can be a big difference, though it was a much bigger difference in the past, before the whole "aviation" thing came about. Oh, and those "railroads," too. It's funny - back then, a nation's marine territory was (as the article says) about as far as you could lob a cannonball. But even today, coastline is important. Most trade still goes about by sea, so having economic control over waters can be a big deal. I'll talk more about that later. It's also worth mentioning that an air force without a navy is basically worthless, assuming you're not trying to invade your neighbor. Just look at the Pacific theatre of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and even Iraq and Afghanistan. No navy, no overseas airstrikes. And square miles of ocean count for a nation's size, too. Not counting water, China is the world's third-largest nation. Counting water, the bronze goes to America. But back to the economics of it all...having control over that area is a great advantage. You can regulate shipping, have taxes, or (if you're feeling particularly gutsy) have your navy make merchant/cargo ships pay some pretty hefty fees to use your waters. For a small ex-empire like Portugal, one that lost vast amounts of territory in Africa and the Pacific, that's probably just the pick-me-up the people there need. They aren't abusing their power, either, and a combination of the two is probably why the international community hasn't made a fuss about the overlarge (by UN standards) aquatic areas claimed by Portugal.

An Interesting Paradox

It's weird to think that, even in this day and age, countries have territories. Almost half of Canada is considered part of a territory, rather than part of a province...but let's not go into that. Britain has territory in Bermuda and the Falkland Islands. France has Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Polynesia, New Caledonia, and others. And America...we have Guam, Samoa, parts of the Caribbean (including Puerto Rico), and the Northern Mariana Islands. But some things about America's territorial system don't make any sense. Here's a video about this:

Well, I can't find the video. But to sum it up: people living in America's overseas territories don't get to vote for president. And an American citizen in one of the overseas territories during the presidential election cannot vote for president, either. But here's the thing - an American citizen in Germany, Australia, China, or any foreign nation can vote for president during the elections. And I think that's just messed up. The only places in the world where Americans can't vote for their president are all American soil. I don't get it. What do we have against Guam and Puerto Rico that keeps us from making these places American states? What reason could there possibly be to keep these territories from becoming states? Plenty of Puerto Ricans support the statehood movement there, and I'm sure there aren't many in our Pacific territories who vehemently oppose statehood. Unless they've heard a bit too much about Obamacare...oh, the NSA is going to get me for that one.

This post would have worked much better if I'd been able to find the video...thanks a million, YouTube.

Big Think: Scientific Hoaxes

In honor of the day after April Fool's day, I'm going to be analyzing this article on some little-known hoaxes.

http://bigthink.com/mind-memes/5-scientific-hoaxes
(Contrary to what the link says, there are no internet memes here.)

1) "Aristotle's Masterpiece"
Just click on the link, read the description, and you'll be surprised that nobody caught on to this sooner.
"Aristotle's Masterpiece" was written during the seventeenth century, which remained popular until the middle of the nineteenth century, at which point it was discovered that Aristotle had absolutely nothing to do with the writing of this book. Shocking, isn't it? Aristotle didn't spend his time giving people sex tips! I never would have guessed! My goodness, only in Britain...

2) The Archaeoraptor
Here's where the title is a little bit of a misnomer: this isn't a hoax so much. At a site in northern China, National Geographic explorers uncovered fossils from different species that seemed to have come from the same animal. They believed it was a new species, and christened the animal Archaeoraptor liaoningensis. Or at least that's their story - I would say that there was a bit of paleontological foul play involved here. At any rate, it was discovered that A. liaoningensis was composed mostly of ancient bird bones, and the careers of those involved changed dramatically after that.

3) The Fake Research Paper
This one just goes to show how gullible people are at times. A bunch of leading scientists and science writers got together and assembled a fictional research paper about the growth of cancer cells. They sent the fake paper to over three hundred journals, and it was accepted by more than half that number. The writers were surprised - the experiments were scientifically bogus, and the "results" less than invalid.

4) The Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer
Apparently, Discover magazine photoshopped a brain onto the head of a naked mole rat and told people that it was a new species as an April Fool's joke back in the nineties. And people thought it was real. I don't think I need to elaborate much on this one.

5) The Abominable Snowman
All right, this one I take issue with. Since one sample of purported Yeti hair belonged to a bear, the Yeti obviously doesn't exist. Tell me, Big Think Editors, can you spell "Logical Fallacy"? That would be like saying I didn't exist if you found a hair you thought was mine, had it tested, and realized it was somebody else's. But who am I to judge? I'm sure people who sit around staring at a computer all the time knows much more about the natural world than a kid who spends most of his weekends in the forests of upstate New York. Tell me about how much more experience you have with this sort of thing than I do, Big Think Editors, when you spend over half an hour out in the middle of the woods after sundown. Twenty times a year.