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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 May 8

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May 8

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People in Jesus' time

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How many people did live on the Earth, when Jesus Christ lived on the Earth 109.240.93.48 (talk) 08:27, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

see List of states by population in 1 AD.-gadfium 08:34, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We also have World population#Ancient and post-classical history which doesn't directly answer the OP's question.
Estimates of historical world population#Historical population has a table of the estimates from various experts, the lowest for 1 AD being 150 million (by John Tanton) and the highest 300 million (by the Population Reference Bureau and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs).
Alansplodge (talk) 10:20, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note also that estimates of ancient-era populations tend to be very inexact. Modern historians note, for instance, that we have no firm evidence on the population of the Roman Empire, with the surviving records being dubious or difficult to interpret (e.g., it's often not clear if slaves were counted despite making up a large part of the Empire's population). Estimates of population sizes vary widely as a result. Nick-D (talk) 23:51, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Conveniently for this question, the Chinese empire took a population count in 2 A.D., but even so, assessing the number of people living outside of the great empires is going to be an inspired guess. Alansplodge (talk) 12:01, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Take those caveats and dial them to 11 for pre-Columbian New World populations due to political and other underlying factors. Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas has more. Matt Deres (talk) 15:55, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mary, Mary, quite contrary

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The feast day of St Mary Magdalene is, and always has been, observed on 22 July. Looking through old prayer books produced by a variety of printers I note that, without exception, in those printed between 1669 and 1719 S. Mary Magdalene is marked against 21 July. What is the reason for this? 80.44.94.253 (talk) 18:10, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I only found:
"To the faithful, Mary Magdalen's bones had come to rest at St Maximin, and to this day Provençals commemorate their saint in the week of 21–[2]8 July. Midnight mass is celebrated on the night of 21-[2]2 July in the cold, dank grotto..."
Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor by Susan Haskin (p. 132). Alansplodge (talk) 11:04, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This could be the old way of beginning a day at sunset the previous day. For example, those who consider Christmas to start after sundown on the 24th. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:12, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
See Christmas Eve: "... due in part to the Christian liturgical day starting at sunset, a practice inherited from Jewish tradition and based on the story of Creation in the Book of Genesis: "And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day." Martinevans123 (talk) 12:32, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

History of 20th century

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Is it possible or impossible to determine how or why history is determined for 21st century or decades throughout 21st century. What I mean for example is 1990s and all decades are apart of history for 20th century. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.104.30 (talk) 22:14, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing that the original poster is interested in the periodization of history, whereby a specific time might be referred to as part of the 20th century, or part of the 1960s, or part of the Cold War, etc. etc. --76.71.5.208 (talk) 01:58, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the OP will come back and clarify. (They DO speak English in Australia, right?) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:18, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Strewth yeah. HiLo48 (talk) 04:21, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
See history. By definition, everything that happened in the past is history.--Shantavira|feed me 07:56, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say there are at least three, probably four definitions of "history": 1) Everything that happened in the past; 2) everything that happened in the past that humans wrote down at the time; 3) the academic discipline of attempting to work out what happened in the past by studying what was written at the time, and 4) the school subject of teaching pupils about what historians have found out about what happened in the past. And then there's historiography, the study of how the study and teaching of history has changed over time, which possibly the sort of thing the OP is ascking about. Iapetus (talk) 09:01, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Some history is determined not by examining writing, but by examining objects, artifacts, geographic features, oral traditions, etc. It isn't all reading and interpreting writing. --Jayron32 18:33, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know when decades become historic? like the 90s are for 20th century? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.104.30 (talk) 05:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As Shantavira suggests, a given time period becomes historic once it's over. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:12, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This Australian was born in the late 1940s. Growing up I learnt an awful about the two World Wars, from parents and at school. Only discovered the Korean War had happened pretty much by accident during my teens, knowledge later expanded through watching M*A*S*H. (That was a documentary, wasn't it?) Some more recent history takes a long time to become textbook history. HiLo48 (talk) 03:41, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I had a friend who was a history teacher that had a good operational definition for history (which reflected the difficulty many students face in history classes), "History is everything that happened before I was born, and it all happened at the same time". It reflects the problem many people have with providing context for events which one did not personally experience themselves, and is the source of entertainment found in all of those "lists of surprising historical facts" like "Betty White is older than sliced bread" or "Cleopatra lived closer in time to now than she did to the construction of the Pyramids of Giza". For most people, history is an assemblage of unconnected trivia which has little chronological or temporal significance to their daily lives. --Jayron32 18:38, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There are (at least) two meanings for "historic": 1) "of history" or simply part of the historic record, and 2) "history making" or of uniquely important significance in history. All prior decades (of which there are historic records) fit into the 1st meaning; many also fit into the 2nd. 107.15.157.44 (talk) 20:34, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's hard to imagine a recent decade where nothing of significance happened. But maybe the OP will come back again and try to clarify further. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:20, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on your definition of "recent" -- how about the 1610s BC? 107.15.157.44 (talk) 04:20, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Let Wikipedia notability rules be your guide. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:24, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe non-notable decades should be referred to WP:AfD? 107.15.157.44 (talk) 05:31, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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