36
votes
How did people in the desert stay cool in the past?
Homo sapiens evolved near the equator so have always had to deal with hot temperatures. There are a lot of articles about how people stayed cool in the days before air conditioning:
Staying out of ...
- 595
21
votes
How did people in the desert stay cool in the past?
SHORT ANSWER
Ancient Egyptians kept cool by using, among other things,
Mud brick walls to keep houses cool
Windows for cross draft
Vents in the roof to help air circulate
Matting for window shades
...
- 108k
14
votes
Accepted
Who was Dionysodorus of Melos?
Pauly's Realencyclopädie has 24 people of that name, among them a mathematician from "Amisene" (sic, its capital is Amisos, nowadays known as Samsun) and a geometer from Melos. No person ...
- 6,357
9
votes
Who were the social elites of the European middle ages?
If I'm going to address this in context, the general point is that all we have to go by is written records, and in eras of low literacy, that means all we get is the perspective of the few literate ...
- 121k
6
votes
Who were the social elites of the European middle ages?
An excellent example is Lollardy in England.
Today many people read the Lollards through a lens of modern left wing movements. Ironically this is a useful reading: the Lollards were educated ...
- 14.5k
5
votes
Who were the social elites of the European middle ages?
You won't get a clear definition, as this changes from century to century, from area to area, and also in the eye of the beholder.
Village priests were often poor, illiterate or barely literate, and ...
- 17.4k
3
votes
Do we know who the Italian is?
There was probably no such person. He made the man up to make a general point, though similar people existed, and it's likely Orwell met them.
I admire Orwell and agree with the political beliefs he ...
- 13.9k
1
vote
Accepted
Were regular citizens of the Republic of Venice permitted to own and carry arms/weapons?
There is at least some evidence that carrying of arms in Venice was legally restricted during the oligarchic period from around 1300 to the 1600s. Reference: Carew Hazlitt, The Venetian Republic, 2 ...
- 398
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