https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhch%C4%81l
Iranians constructed these deep structures that engineered in a such a way to grow ice in the winter and keep the ice for the entirety of summer. They made a kind of sorbet as a dessert.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faloodeh
Thanks for sharing this! Great read!
American education teaches a lot about the US but little about the history of specific European countries and in turn EU countries teach little about American history ( IIRC during my education we covered the entirety of the US history in half a year and then went back to more local history )
It's always quite amazing to realize that other countries mostly have just as much of a rich history as your own.
And whats wrong with this ? It shouldn't take multiple years to teach the history of a country who's been around for ~250 years now.
Here in Europe, US is understood to mean United States, the country (declaration of independence and all that jazz). America(s) is a separate concept.
European history doesn't start where the last government was established either, it goes back all the way, regardless of who happened to think it was their country at the time.
The state inherits history.
In the end, all those that learn history are doomed to watch history repeat itself.
But history is a bit fluid in that it's not beholden to specific national borders. And we might study the history of the land the U.S. occupies and colloquially call it U.S. history even though most of it happened before there was a U.S. and may not always follow the current borders.
And I think there is a clear distinction that can reasonably be made if someone is referring to the history of the state or the history of the land and be conscious that they're not always mutually exclusive.
But then, organizing by geology might not make the most sense, either. Then, where does European history end and Asian history begin, or African history? Where does North American history end and Mesoamerican history begin?
Dividing it up by geology makes it easier to categorise.
On topic: Iran is an absolutely stunning country. Second to none with respect to its nature, people and history. What happened there with the Arab conquests (and especially since the Islamic Golden Age), their sad and unsuccessful struggles for independence, is a crying shame. But still one of the proudest, most beautiful regions of the world.
Native American history is tens of thousands of years old and we learn very little at school (in Europe) aside from the stereotypes that the film industry and other cariacatures afford. I think we learned a bit about Columbus in the UK (I assume Spain does a better job)? We never learned about South America at all, save that it was something to do with why we kept looting Spanish ships. Neither did we learn about the Middle East which seems bizarre, given its role in early civilisation.
Europeans are (largely) either descendants of one of the ancient empires or were significantly affected by them through conquest. The native Americans (in both hemispheres) were on the receiving end of European conquest and had their culture decimated or plundered. There's also a lot of very visible (and impressive) Roman, Egyptian and Greek culture lying around to visit, not to mention extensive written histories of all three. While there are similar sites in the Americas, there are fewer and they're often less visible or are quite inaccessible.
To the best of my knowledge, there's a limited written record from the North America prior to the invasion (" discovery") - apart from in Norse sagas chronicling the viking arrival around 1000 AD (and while the sagas are an important source, they're hardly known for their reliability, in part because of the often long gap between events and when the sagas were first written down).
Both south and north American indigenous civilizations were AFAIK largely without a written record.
Admittedly, the 'general' history we did in the first 3 years of secondary school (11-14) we covered mostly western history, but it covered Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, etc. We did some English history (Boudicca, Alfred, is all I can remember now).
In the optional GCSE History I did (14-16) we did little English history as far as I remember and covered inter-war Germany + rise of Hitler, Vietnam war, Chinese Communist Revolution, formation of Israel, Cuban Missile Crisis and probably some more I've now forgotten.
EDIT: I actually now remember we did cover Cromwell + English Civil war as well as William the Orange and the Suez crisis, probably at least one of those in GCSE. Slightly modified to reflect this.
A lot of those do directly impact the UK, although when we covered China, it was still fairly weak compared to its present position in the world.
Weirdly we learnt almost nothing about the British Empire, which I think is sad because some people have a rose-tinted view of it. You can't begin to form an actual opinion until you know the history, the good and the bad etc.
I've learnt a lot of my English history from Bernard Cornwell historical fiction books.
[] Started with Charlemagne being crowned as Holy Roman Emperor when the Eastern Empress (Mother?) Irene still lives. Even to the point of friendly relationship between the Roman Emperor on Aachen and Arab Caliph on Baghdad, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid–Carolingian_alliance
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Salamis 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae
Thoroughly recommended, as you say I was fairly ignorant to most all the history of this region
There's also these, which are marvels of desert engineering:
BTW, love Faloodeh! Also, not to be confused with Falooda (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falooda).
https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=fir...
The British destroyed a lot of their advanced ancient technology, which is probably why it's not taught as much.