The Ottoman empire features in the latest LRB. Perry Anderson explains the Ottoman’s birth, expansion, and death; as well as Kemal Pasha’s ascent.

[Read now!]

Unfortunately the Ottomans are neglected in school history lessons, so here’s a couple of articles for those interested. The University of Michigan have written a concise history:

The Ottoman state began as one of many small Turkish states that emerged in Asia Minor during the breakdown of the empire of the Seljuk Turks. The Ottoman Turks began to absorb the other states, and during the reign (1451–81) of Muhammad II they ended all other local Turkish dynasties. The early phase of Ottoman expansion took place under Osman I, Orkhan, Murad I, and Beyazid I at the expense of the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria, and Serbia.

[Read now!]

While, Long Island University have prepared two meaty podcasts about the Ottoman empire; focusing on labour history and warfare respectively.

Welcome to the first half of what will be a double-header of Ottoman imperial history. My first guest on today’s show is Professor Donald Quataert, Professor of History at Binghamton University of the State University of New York. Professor Quataert has produced numerous works related to the Ottoman Empire, including his excellent concise volume, The Ottoman Empire 1700-1922 published by Cambridge University Press. Today he will be indulging us with a few words and comments on his new book related to his special field of interest, economic history and workers. It is entitled, Miners and the State in the Ottoman Empire: Zonguldak Coalfield, 1822-1920, recently published by Berghan Books. He joins us today from his home in Upstate New York.

[Listen now!]

Here on part II of our Ottoman double header we bring you a look at the history of Ottoman warfare. Now over the coming hour we’re not simply going to be talking about battles and soldiers but the significance of things military and martial in the Middle East during the reign of the long Ottoman Empire. Now there’s no better person to talk about things Ottoman and military than our guest today, Virginia Aksan. She is a professor of history at McMaster University and is the author of a new book, Ottoman Wars: 1700-1870 published by Longman Press. She speaks to us today from her office in beautiful downtown Hamilton, Ontario.

[Listen now!]

Extra: [Map of Ottoman expansion]

 I’m back, after a none to conveniant interlude.

 Oh! And you can find us at www.dailymis.com (or www.dailymiscellany.com) now.

There are many things I’ve always wanted to study but haven’t found the time for. One of these is the geological timeline; that’s all the Precambrian, Jurassic, Mesozoic stuff. I was prompted to action today after reading H.G. Wells’ “Short History of the World” [Read now for free!; popups on linked site].

So, over the coming week, 25th August to 31st August, I will be serialising a guide to the geological timeline.

But first, what is the geological timeline?

Geologists have divided Earth’s history into a series of time intervals. These time intervals are not equal in length like the hours in a day. Instead the time intervals are variable in length. This is because geologic time is divided using significant events in the history of the Earth. For example, the boundary between the Permian and Triassic is marked by a global extinction in which a large percentage of Earth’s plant and animal species were eliminated. Another example is the boundary between the Precambrian and the Paleozoic which is marked by the first appearance of animals with hard parts.

[Read an introduction!]

The geological timeline is composed of eons, eras, periods, and epochs. Eons are the longest geological time units, and epochs the smallest. This means there are many eras in an eon, and many periods in an era, etcetera.

Rock outcrops have layers, and it was upon these that the original timeline was developed.

[William] Hutton [1769-1839], a Scottish geologist, first proposed formally the fundamental principle used to classify rocks according to their relative ages. He concluded, after studying rocks at many outcrops, that each layer represented a specific interval of geologic time. Further, he proposed that wherever uncontorted layers were exposed, the bottom layer was deposited first and was, therefore, the oldest layer exposed; each succeeding layer, up to the topmost one, was progressively younger.

[Read introduction to relative geologic time!]

These layers are called stata (statum singular). The Earth’s history could now be separated into distinct periods based on the makeup of the strata; for example, the sudden introduction of fossils indicates a new geological age.

Modern geologists use radioactive techniques to date individual stratum, this contrasts with the original this-is-older-than-that-system. [Read "How to age a rock" now!]

I will not go on, for now; however, here’s a wonderful .pdf version of the geological timeline. [View now!] And, for those of you who can’t wait for the first post in the serialisation here’s some intelligent interactive timelines. [Timeline 1], [Timeline 2]

I’d still love other writers to help me with Daily Miscellany. If you’d like to join the team email me directly at ekpyrotic@gmail.com.

A couple of years ago I read a countdown, in New Scientist, of the most puzzling scientific mysteries; I found a similar article yesterday. While I felt the article was a little too light on information for this blog here it is for those interested:

[Extract] For more than a decade, physicists in Japan have been seeing cosmic rays that should not exist. Cosmic rays are particles - mostly protons but sometimes heavy atomic nuclei - that travel through the universe at close to the speed of light. Some cosmic rays detected on Earth are produced in violent events such as supernovae, but we still don’t know the origins of the highest-energy particles, which are the most energetic particles ever seen in nature. But that’s not the real mystery…

[Read now!]

To make a map [of the world] cartographers have to project a spherical image (the globe) onto a flat surface, which means that flat maps are morphed versions of reality. John Savard writes:

But when one is drawing a map of the whole world, or even a whole country, one has to decide how one is going to represent our spherical world on flat paper. Many different solutions have been developed over the years [images here], and a few of them will be examined on these pages.

[Read now!]

For a more in-depth analysis the Cartography Society of the Netherlands have published a 120 page beginners guide to map projections.

[Read now!]

Caroline Winter investigate why we, English speakers, capitalise the ‘I’.

There’s no grammatical reason for doing so, and oddly enough, the majuscule “I” appears only in English…[even] the supposedly snobbish French leave all personal pronouns in the unassuming lowercase

[Read now!]

The Scientific American asks: what makes a high-aptitude mind? Apparently the answer is threefold: size, efficiency, and dogged hard work.

Using EEG, Alexander’s team found that resting eight- to 12-hertz alpha brain waves were significantly more powerful in 30 adolescents of average ability than they were in 30 gifted adolescents, whose alpha-wave signal resembled those of older, college-age students. The results suggest that gifted kids’ brains use relatively little energy while idle and in this respect resemble more developmentally advanced human brains.

[Read now!]

‘Way with Words‘, a US radio show, investigates the accent.

For true word nerds, it’s a guilty pleasure. You meet a stranger, and you find yourself listening closely to that person’s way of speaking as you try to guess the accent.

[Listen now!]

‘The Orwell Prize‘, an annual prize for political writing, is currently serialising George Orwell’s diaries in blog format. While the posts are a little lack lustre so far:

Drizzly. Dense mist in evening. Yellow moon.

I’m sure, or hope, they’ll pick up.

[Read now!]

I was reading through a list of endangered languages [here], which led to a little research. John Noble Wilford, of the New York Times, writes:

Of the estimated 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, linguists say, nearly half are in danger of extinction and likely to disappear in this century. In fact, one falls out of use about every two weeks. [Read now!]

Wilford goes on to subtly criticise English’s “dominance“; while, John McWhorter, of the New York Sun, welcomes it.

…the prospect we are taught to dread — that one day all the world’s people will speak one language — is one I would welcome. Surely easier communication, while no cure-all, would be a good thing worldwide. [Read now!]

Was researching the Punic Wars (264 BCE - 146 BCE) today; unfortunately, my trusty “Conflicts that Changed the World” didn’t cover them. Instead I found a delightful paper by Stanford Holst, which profiles the Phoenician’s fall from peaceful appeaser to military failure.

Its population of over half a million people was slaughtered or sold into slavery, and it is said that not one stone was left upon another in the city. The path of war had exacted a shocking price, and the Phoenicians were gone.

Holst goes to question where Phoenician civilization would have been today had it not engaged with Rome in the Punic Wars.

If, instead, the usual Phoenician practice of peaceful negotiation had come into play—prior to the First Punic War—what might have resulted? That is impossible to say with any certainty. But parallels are seen in history—particularly the history of Persia and the Phoenicians.

[Read now!]

The Daily Miscellany is looking for co-writers. If you would like to write on a new, but ambitious, blog please email me directly at ekpyrotic@gmail.com.

Profile of Englishman Neil Entwistle, who murdered his wife and daughter in 2006.

In January 2006, Neil Entwistle, a seemingly ordinary 27-year-old Englishman with an honours degree from the University of York, who had been living in the US for barely four months, shot dead his American wife, Rachel, and their baby daughter, Lillian, with a long-barrelled Colt .22 revolver borrowed from his father-in-law’s gun collection.

[Read now!]

‘lot about recently deceased Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the news. Andrew Cusack gives the most thorough, and articulate, analysis of his life and works. [Read now!]

Here’s an extract, from ‘The Romans‘, by R.H.Barrow, which gives a terse history of Roman civilisation:

Roman history is usually divided into three parts, though other divisions would have some justification: the period (i) of the Kings, (ii) of the Republic, (iii) of the Empire.

(i) According to the commonest tradition, Rome was founded in 753 B.C., and Tarquinius Superbus, the last of the kings, was ejected in 510 B.C. The accounts of this period as they have reached us largely legend, but legend which enshrines elements of history: these elements have been isolated, with the aid of archaeology and the comparative study of origins and the method of ’survivals’. This period concerns us hardly at all.

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