A Horrible Historical Bias
An ancient prejudice against Jews that has led to violent persecutions of Jewish communities throughout history.
What is Anti-Semitism?
The Black Death was a series of outbreaks of this specific kind of plague.
What is Bubonic?
The social, political, and economic structure of much of Medieval Europe.
What is Feudalism?
This historical era marks a period that occurs after the Middle Ages and Renaissance. We live in it now.
What is Modernity?
Each of his four sons were born in this capital city.
What is Washington D.C.?
The Church promoted anti-semitism by blaming Jewish communities for this medieval pandemic.
What is the Plague or Black Death?
The plague was spread by the bite of these types of parasites, AFTER they became carriers by biting rats first.
What are ticks and fleas?
Serf comes from servus, the Latin for slave. While the medieval serf was NOT someone else's property, he or she had almost zero ability to do this.
A sign of modernity is a lessening of religious faith as the answer to every question and an increased reliance on this system of inquiry, which is based on reason, logic, and experimentation.
What is science?
Before he moved to North Carolina, he lived in this midwestern state.
What is Indiana?
European anti-semitism reached its nadir when this German dictator implemented "The Final Solution," killing some six million Jews during The Holocaust.
Who is Adolph Hitler?
Given the speed the plague's spread, it is likely that the disease was also transmitted in this way.
What is "by air" or "airborne"?
Kinghts and nobles pledged this to those above them in the feudal hierarchy. It meant they needed to provide military service in exchange for land rights.
What is fealty?
One sign of modernity is the move away from kings and monarchs and towards this type of political entity.
What are countries or nation states?
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, he played this game in college. It was originally invented by Native Americans and was far more violent than it is today.
What is lacrosse?
Recent headlines indicate that Jews in this European country are being accused of profiting from the COVID pandemic.
What is France?
These types of drugs make the plague much less dangerous today.
What are antibiotics?
Perhaps surprisingly, there may have been fewer of these for a serf than a laborer in the modern age.
What are work days?
A sign of the modern age is movement away from rigid social roles and towards a greater degree of this.
What are individual rights and greater self-determination?
When he was sixteen, his parents let him buy a used example of this potentially dangerous form of transportation, only because the engine would not start at the time. (Later, he got it going...)
What is a motorcycle?
A completely false Medieval rumor that Jews sacrificed Christian children.
What is the blood libel?
The plague created this situation, which ultimately helped many serfs gain greater economic power and social freedom.
What is a shortage of agricultural labor?
When the lord was absent from the manor, serfs had to resolve these sorts of issues on their own. This led to the creation of informal serf-led courts.
What are legal questions/problems?
The modern age also marks a movement away from 1) agriculture and 2) rural living and towards these different ways of life.
What are 1) goods and services-based economies and 2) the growth of cities?
This occasional side-hustle involves using ropes, other climbing gear, and power tools.
What is tree work?