It's the age generally known as Anglo-Saxon England (Wales, Cornwall and Yr Hen Ogledd, "the old North", were still Brittonic and Scotland was a mix of Pictish, Brittonic and Gaelic peoples.) The Viking Invasions/settlements of Great Britain and Ireland also happened in this period. That part of history in this part of the world is known in general as the 'Migration Period', the Anglo-Saxon settlement of present-day England being one of those migrations.

A Very Brief Introduction to Roman Britain

A Very Brief Introduction to The Anglo Saxons

A Very Brief Introduction to The Vikings

A Very Brief Introduction to The Normans

All Oxford University Press. Should bracket the period beginning and end (Roman and Norman) and describe the two most notable peoples/systems of the period itself, the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings.

Why did the Southern States want to expand slavery so badly?

I'm with /u/platitood on this question. The draft was initiated in the lead up to WWII and b/c of US military occupation and peace keeping duties it wasn't immediately ended after the war. Then the cold war happened and the draft became a fairly permanent part of US culture. So, there actually wasn't a draft "for" the Vietnam war. There was just a draft that had been a US rite of passage for men since 1940. Vietnam created a need for more troops, but most of the draftees didn't go to Vietnam. Only about 25% of troops in Vietnam troops were draftees. B/c of the war's modern unpopularity a misconception has grown that it was initially unpopular. That wasn't true and many happily went.

One thing that complicates this is a lot of volunteers volunteered b/c they knew that they were likely to be drafted and they would have more control over where they went and what they did if they volunteered. My dad was one of these. He is Chicano and at the Black Americans (especially in the S. where there is a history of discrimination in who they drafted to place most of the burden on the Black community) and Latinos knew they were being disproportionately placed in the more dangerous zones to protect white lives. So, my dad, knowing he would be drafted, volunteered for the Navy so he could avoid being sent to the infantry. Some estimates are that as many as 55% of volunteers were people like my dad who knew they'd be drafted and the way to assert some control over the process was to volunteer.

There was good /r/askhistorians answer on this a while ago that's worth checking out. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/by8kqr/were_there_many_volunteer_soldiers_during_vietnam/

The individual polities in what is now England had very small armies - a few hundred would be large for a powerful king. Really, they were best described as warbands. In dire situations, they'd call up the peasants in a levy known as the Fyrd.

When the Vikingrs arrived with the Great Heathen Army, they numbered in the thousands. The only way the English kind could match their numbers was with the Fyrd, and that would be pitting peasants against hardened Vikingrs.

So, the Anglo-Saxons struggled for some time against the Vikingrs and the polities they set up on the island, with Alfred the Great ultimately making massive changes to the way his society functioned, in order to have garrisoned forts prepared for them at all times. It worked, mostly, except for the times that it didn't, but it was more effective than what they had before.

The earliest accounts of dinosaur fossils, were discovered in ancient China and Greece, some hundred years before Christ. In China they were believed to be the bones of dragons.

I’ve heard of many different theories kicked around. Some involve ancient people finding dinosaur bones and guessing that they may have come from mythic beasts.

The era of Global superpowers and Globalization. Yes the world wars will still have a place in mainstream, like Napoleon. But from the a historical standpoint I think we will focus way more on the post 1945 world.

Sheep herding was a gendered profession, depending on where in the world you look. In Scandinavia, where I live, women tended to do the herding, as it’s a less physical job than other work in farming. As a result, there is a unique style of singing developed by scandinavian women as a herding technique called ”kulning”. But there are also different instruments used by herders to pass time or communicste, such as the norwegian bukkehorn.

The Huns' origins are mysterious. The most commonly purposed theory is that they were the same people as the Xiongnu mentioned in Chinese sources, but even then, it's not known whether they were Mongolic, Turkic, Iranian, Uralic, or something else.

The problem is that the only written sources on the Huns and Xiongnu were outsiders and little of their language has been preserved.

Thank you, a very thorough answer!

I'm a big fan of The Fall of Civilizations podcast by Paul Cooper. He only puts out an episode every several months, but they're exhaustively researched.

Thank you! I may have not worded my question well I see that

“England” as a singular entity didn’t exist at the time. It was several kingdoms (like in the Last Kingdom) and even within those kingdoms it was very decentralised. But really it’s impossible to fully answer your question in a Reddit comment.

England didn't really exist back then, there were a few different kingdoms making up what is now England, chief among them were Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria and Kent.

So when the vikings came, they didn't come upon a united "england" as it were, but a bunch of powerhungry warlords/kings fighting amongst themselves, if they weren't fighting the british/welsh. And even sometimes within the kingdoms itself, civil war or power struggles within their own ranks wasn't exactly uncommon either.

You responded with a snarky reply when your reply is the opposite of what the person asked. Kind of rude.

A day in the life of a medieval sheep herder (not during lambing or sheering season)

You're seeing pushback from the other posters about the term "primitive" which is inherently a value judgment. It's generally a term that's not used in history when talking about cultures. It will sometimes be used to talk about specific technologies in relation to one and other. It's usually used in the sense that some technology were a primitive version of another technology, like roman numerals being a more primitive system than a number system that has the concept of zero.

B/c of that, and the way cultures evolve, every society will have systems that are more or less advanced than other systems. While the US may have the more advanced cruise missile systems in the world, our health care system is a target of mockery for large sections of the rest of the world.

And often the system that's seen as primitive is actually too advanced for the judging group to understand. A good example is the Conquistador's impression of Tenochtitlan's system of hydro-logical urban planning. They tore it apart and to this day Mexico City has problems with flooding and water shortages b/c of a lack of understanding of the valley's hydrology.

Behind the Bastards is an entertaining one where the host does 2-4 episode deep dives on - you guessed it - some of the worst people in history.

It is but a thatched barn, where brigands drink in the reek!

Just started watching the last kingdom - cool find. After watching a few episodes so far, wondered why the English let the Danes come in and basically set up shop. Was England not a power house at that time to stop them?

Edit: thanks for everyone’s responses and sharing knowledge

This is fiction about the period, but it's fun to read and gives you an understanding of how diverse of a culture existed in the area during that time. The first is a novel called Hild by Nicola Griffith. It's set in the 7th century, before England has been unified and you see the way various cultures are working and competing with each other, the signifiers that different languages hold, and the encroachment of Christianity and it's adaptation with local religions.

The other fun would be the Saxon Chronicles. The TV show The Last Kingdom is based on them. But it shows how the "viking" incursion of England was more of a mix of invasion, trade war, political compromise, and cultural melding.

These are obviously works of fiction that prioritize narrative over hard facts, but both authors did a lot of research and I think in this instance it's helpful to get this kind of exposure to the culture b/c it's so alien from our current conception of England. Almost no one would describe modern England first and foremost as a cultural and linguistic melting pot without an established culture. And although it's not quite true that England didn't have an established culture in the 7th century, things were a lot more in flux. These books help you understand that, and which cultures where struggling to find accommodation within what would become the idea of England in a national sense.

And we’ve got 3 days to do it!

True but it’s still a huge find since not much is known about the old anglo-saxons

If there's anything Time Team taught me, it's that it'll just be a bunch of post holes since they mostly built with wood.

Slow day at the office?