Tuesday, 28 February 2023

'He was lying,' Deng replied

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Deng found himself sitting next to Shirley MacLaine ... She was fulsome in praise for some of the benefits of Mao's policies, and told D...
Monday, 27 February 2023

There is no subjunctive perfect in Chinese

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There was something of a tussle within the family over who would translate Dr Chao's prose into English. Her daughter did much of the wo...
Saturday, 25 February 2023

Louis II ‘the German’ hanged so many criminals that the archbishop of Mainz was forced to institute special measures to stop the corpses becoming a health hazard

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Death sentences were passed far more frequently than they were implemented, because medieval kings could gain prestige from commuting them a...
Friday, 24 February 2023

Codification and other efforts at standardization proceeded quite slowly

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Codification and other efforts at standardization proceeded quite slowly. It took 52 years to dismantle the tariff barriers between Austrian...
Thursday, 23 February 2023

All other German towns [controlled] only 100 square kilometres or less

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Italy, where around 25 cities each controlled at least 1,000 square kilometres, with Florence possessing 12,000 square kilometres by 1400, w...

The Empire is a multicoloured patchwork of dynastic territories compared to the solid blocks of colour used for other, supposedly, more centralised states

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Nothing underscores the nineteenth-century interpretation more clearly: the Empire is a multicoloured patchwork of dynastic territories comp...
Monday, 20 February 2023

Soybeans have higher nutrient values than millet, but a lower rate of digestion

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The Zhou people's tendency to boil everything would not be all that helpful with soybeans, and would lead to tasteless sludge. Soybeans ...