Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 April 6

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April 6

PIRA vs. Tugendhat

Resolved

I'm trying to refimprove the part of the Christopher Tugendhat, Baron Tugendhat article about the Provisional IRA's attack on him in 1980. It's easy for me to reference that he was attacked and that the attack missed (Tim Pat Coogan's The IRA and Christopher Andrew's Defence of the Realm both do that, but in passing). Finding a reference for the date, location, and other details isn't so easy. 1980 in the Irish Republican Army dates it at 17th December in Brussels, but is unsourced. Can anyone (perhaps with access to some newspaper archive that Google can't find for me) see if they can find a decent report of the incident (and of the PIRA's belated admission of responsibility)? -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 00:01, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

From The Times (london, england), Thursday, Dec 04, 1980; pg. 1; Issue 60793 - "Tugendhat Escape in Brussells shooting" From Michael Hornsby, Brussells, Dec 03.

Shots were fired today at Mr Christopher Tugendhat, the British EEC Commisioner in charge of the Community's budget, as he left home for work. Nobody was hurt.

Mr Tugendhat left his house in the Ixelles district of Brussells at 9.15am to drive to the European Commissions offices. His wife, Julia, was with him.

Two shots were fired from a stationary car with either one or two men inside. One bullet narrowly missed Mr Tugendhat because he moved unexpectedly. The second struck his car.

The assailants then drove off at speed. Their car was reported to have Dutch number plates, giving rise to suspicion that the attack might have been made by Irish Republican sympathizers or activists based in The Netherlands.

Mr Tugendhat said later : "It was closer than I would have liked," He refused to speculate on the motives for the attack.

It is thought that the attack could be related to the hunger strike by IRA detainess demanding political status in the Maze prison in Belfast.

A spokesman for the Commission said that Mr Tugendhat would be given a permanent bodyguard until further notice. Usually only Mr Roy Jenkins, President of the European Commission, is given round-the-clock security protection.

A British spokesman declined to say whether any special security measures would be taken to protect diplomats as a result of today's incident. He said : "Our security precautions are always under review, and we are well aware of the risks of the present situation."

In a statement, the Commission said it had been shocked to learn of the attack and "unreservedly condemns violent acts of this kind. It expresses its sympathy and support for Mr Tugendhat and his family".

Mr Tugendhat's wife is known under her maiden name, Julia Dobson, as an author of children's books. They have two sons both of whom were at school at the time of the shooting.

Mr Tugendhat, who is 43 and a former Conservative MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, joined the Commission in 1977. He has been reappointed for another four-year term starting in January and hopes to retain control of the budget portfolio.

The IRA claimed responsibility for the killing of Sir Richard Sykes, the British Ambassador in The Hague in March 1979.

HTH. Nanonic (talk) 01:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

That's just the ticket. Thanks! -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 09:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

flat round static dynamic character

This may sound like a homework question but it isn't. In The Cask of Amontillado, which character is flat, which character is round, which character is static and which character is dynamic? In Trifles, which character is flat, which character is round, which character is static and which character is dynamic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.89.40.171 (talk) 00:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

What you appear to be asking is about a specific type of character theory which classifies characters into types known as "flat" "static" "dynamic" and "round". I am not familiar with this particular theory, but likely you have been exposed to it if you are answering the question. That is, whether or not this is a homework problem, in the context of where you got the question from should have been presented the definitions of "flat" "static" etc. characters. So you need to find those definitions, read them, and then apply them to the characters from the story. --Jayron32 02:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Found a little bit more: the wikipedia article and section Character_(arts)#Dynamic_vs._static has a very brief, unreferenced description of some of your character types, but does not go into enough detail to be useful, unfortunately. --Jayron32 03:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Who produced The Lonely Island's "We're Back!"?

I haven't been able to find out who the producer is. I'm thinking it might be DJ Khaled, since they say on their web site: "Ask DJ Khaled, WE THE BEST!" I haven't been able to confirm this, however, and the album is not out until May 10. Anyone knows how to find this kind of information? Lampman (talk) 01:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Aztecs and Spaniards

Hello. I just read the fascinating article about Tlaxcala. It made me wonder, though, how did the two civilizations, Spanish and Tlaxcala, with cultures totally isolated from each other until then, manage to forge diplomatic treaties and military alliances, while without a common language, I'd assume even trading would be difficult? 212.68.15.66 (talk) 07:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Presumably they would have developed a pidgin to communicate in. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

See Malinche, for example. --Belchman (talk) 12:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Malinche is a key part of the story, but there were others like her. The stories of Gerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero demonstrate that there was contact between Spaniards and Mesoamerican peoples (in this case, Maya). Before Cortes conquered the Aztecs, he landed in Maya territory and made contact with people who could speak both a Mayan language and Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. As we know, there were at least two people who could speak the same Mayan language (probably Chontal). These bilinguals would have been able to instruct others, and, since Cortes acquired a number of indigenous allies, such as Tlaxcala, we can assume that some of them learned Spanish, initially most likely from the bilinguals accompanying Cortes. Marco polo (talk) 20:01, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

How to read and appreciate poetry

I am able to appreciate poetry when listening to it being read by a good narrator. However if I pick up a poetry book and read to myself it is just not enjoyable - it is mentally more like a list of words than hearing a poem. Is reading and enjoying poetry something you can learn? If so how? -- Q Chris (talk) 09:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Try Harold Bloom's How to Read and Why (New York: 2000. ISBN 0-684-85906-8). Lampman (talk) 10:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Poetry is not just about the lexical meaning of whatever the words are. It's also about the music in the words. The reason you like listening to a narrator is that you can hear the music in the words. Reading poetry in silence is like reading a musical score in silence: you might get a rough sense of what's going on, but it does not reveal its true glories until you hear it out loud. So, stop reading poetry to yourself and start reading it out loud. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 12:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Bloom says the same, and he also recommends memorizing poems as a means of really appreciating them. —Kevin Myers 12:43, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree with that, especially for works where there's greater or more sophisticated use of alliteration and syncopation (as opposed to more straightforward rhyming iambic lines or something). I've read a decent amount of poetry and can tell you that, with practice, you can essentially "read aloud in your head" so that you can capture more of what the poet is going for without, say, disturbing everyone else in the library. :) I'm sure there's lots of ways to develop the skill; I did it more-or-less accidentally as I whispered and then lip-sync'ed and then "read aloud in my head" the stuff I was reading to avoid bothering others (and being embarrassed for moving my lips while reading...). Matt Deres (talk) 13:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I will order the book and try learning and reading aloud. -- Q Chris (talk) 06:20, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, reading aloud is a great way to improve your understanding and enjoyment of poetry. Find a nice spot in a park or up on the Downs, down by the sea, curled up in a branch of your favourite tree or wherever, and go for it! DuncanHill (talk) 12:21, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

cleanup after Hiroshima?

How were they able to cleanup the residual radioactivity after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such that people again live there? Will people ever again be able to live in the Fukushima exclusion zone?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 14:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The article about the bomb itself, Little Boy, has at least some information on the subject of radiation. The bomb was detonated in the air, so there was no bomb crater and not much local fallout. Regarding the Fukushima exclusion zone, I suspect it's apples-and-oranges comparison, as you might be dealing with issues like the radioactive half-life of the materials. A look at Chernobyl disaster might give some clues. They're basically still working on it, almost 25 years later. Meanwhile, in 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami I'm not seeing anything about an exclusion zone. What did I overlook? Does wikipedia have anything specifically about that zone? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:36, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

There is a nice discussion of this here and here, by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation. Of note: "As for Hiroshima and Nagasaki proper, the longest-lasting induced radionuclide that occurred in amounts sufficient to cause concern was cesium-134 (with a half-life of about 2 years)." I don't think they did clean up the residual radioactivity — they just rebuilt. People who lived in Hiroshima and Nagasaki immediately after the bombings did have a statistically significant increase in leukemia and solid cancers in the immediate five years or so after the bombs went off, but it was not huge compared to the background level, and I'm not sure how much of that is attributed to residual radioactivity rather than the acute exposure of those there right as or immediately after the bombs went off. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

A bit tangential, but one of the Japanese bomb articles talked about some poor schmo who was in Hiroshima on business and suffered burns from the bomb but was otherwise OK. Luckily, he made it back to his home within a couple of days - in Nagasaki! He lived a fairly long time despite exposure to both bombs, but he did eventually die from cancer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:54, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It's true. There are a number "double survivors" who were exposed to both bombs. On the up side, surviving two atomic bombs, while not ideal from a long-term health point of view, can be seen as fairly lucky. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

[ec] The relevant articles about Fukushima are Fukushima I nuclear accidents and Japanese reaction to Fukushima I nuclear accidents. The danger from radiation from these nuclear accidents is vastly greater than the radiation danger from the World War II bombs. As the article Little Boy points out, each of these bombs contained less than a kilogram of radioactive material, which was dispersed in the atmosphere. As www.infowars.com/the-amount-of-radioactive-fuel-at-fukushima-dwarfs-chernobyl/ ^{infowars.com is fringe, does not meet our sourcing guidelines and should not be used} this article] points out, there are about 4,277 metric tons, or more than 4 million kilograms, of radioactive material concentrated at the Fukushima reactor site. Marco polo (talk) 15:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec twice) See also the map in Timeline of the Fukushima I nuclear accidents. As for Hiroshima, our article air burst says For the Hiroshima bomb an air burst 1800 to 2000 feet (550 to 610m) above the ground was chosen "to achieve maximum blast effects, and to minimize residual radiation on the ground as it was hoped our troops would soon occupy the city". Oda Mari (talk) 15:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that Chernobyl is the right analogy. It seems more and more likely that a meltdown cannot be avoided, in which case the exclusion zone would probably need to be extended and would remain uninhabitable perhaps for centuries. Marco polo (talk) 15:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

According to International Nuclear Event Scale, Chernobyl is the only level 7 while the Japan incidents are 5's. If what you say is true, they might have to invent a level 8. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:48, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It is likely that multiple partial meltdowns have already occurred. This is what that event looks like. There is little possibility of any further meltdowns, massive fallout releases or of any further core breaches. The reactors and storage pools are being cooled now and decay heat in the reactors that were running at the time of the accidents is almost entirely gone. For instance, a meltdown occurred at Three Mile Island - but there is no permanent exclusion zone and there were no deaths linked to that event. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 17:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Your comments are at odds with recently published news articles on the topic. According to this source, a real risk of a complete meltdown remains. In such a meltdown, the radioactive material would melt through the bottom of the containment vessel and into the environment. Furthermore, according to this recent article, there is a risk of explosions shooting radioactive material into the air, where wind could spread it, similar to Chernobyl. The people attempting to control the reactors have not found a sustainable way to keep them cool. Continuing to pour water on them could only result in a steady release of radioactive water into the environment over an unknown duration of time and could risk a further dangerous compromise of the containment structures (due to the weight of the water). I'm not sure what is the basis for your claim that there is "little possibility" of any further meltdowns or your claim that that the decay heat in the reactors is "almost entirely gone." Can you provide sources? Marco polo (talk) 17:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Pouring water also has to be done very carefully; if the water is too cold, you can break the uranium rods and create another huge mess, as is what happened in Hungary. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

And adding cold water to very hot rods is part of what creates the hydrogen/oxygen mixture that leads to potential small-scale explosions, which can damage the containment dome, etc. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Solvency of Railroad Retirement Vs. Social Security

I've looked into railroading as a career, and after reading job descriptions and lists of benefits, they all mention that railroaders receive "Railroad Retirement" benefits, rather than social security. Railroad retirement is presented as a parallel system to social security, but exclusively for railroad workers. Given the issues surrounding the solvency of social security, I am wondering if Railroad Retirement has similar issues. Regards, RadManCF ☢ open frequency 17:44, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Guessing that you might be talking about the US, I suppose the Railroad Retirement Board might be relevant. I don't see that it discusses your question, but from what it does say about funding it does not seem likely to me that its prospects will be very different from social security. --ColinFine (talk) 23:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Stalin denounces "leftism" in music

Hey all. [1] is a 1936 Pravda article review of Lady Macbeth by Shostakovich. The article was possibly written by Stalin and certainly in line with prevailing Soviet opinion of the time. It includes, for example, attacks on the "petty bourgeois" nature of the opera. But it also criticises it, as I read it, of being "leftist" (Левацкое in the original, I think), obviously meant as some sort of counterpoint to socialist realism rather than the conventional sense of the term. What exactly did this imply? I can't find information on it anywhere. Regards, - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]}

Hey you. Some good starting points would be:

• Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (opera)
• Dmitri Shostakovich#First denunciation and Dmitri Shostakovich#Second denunciation, and
• Zhdanov Doctrine. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

A guess: Left Opposition. If "Leftist" for Stalin means Left Opposition, then he's probably using it as a blanket way for associating it with Trotskyism, which as you probably know was a common Stalinist tactic for declaring that something that ostensibly looked socialist was really anti-Soviet. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Don't know exactly what "left-wing" would have meant in that context, but the key terms in Stalinist art criticism were Socialist realism vs. so-called "Formalism"... AnonMoos (talk) 22:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

See also "Music: Young Russia", a 1938 New York Times article by Artur Rodziński. Quote: "Two years ago, Soviet Russia officially banned "Leftist" tendencies in music and art, held up James Joyce's polyperverse novel Ulysses, "written in English that can hardly be understood by Englishmen," as a celebrated example. Two years before that, Nazi Germany had banned exactly the same types of modernistic art as kulturbolschewistisch". ---Sluzzelin talk 06:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Orlando Figes lists a number of attacks "against the artistic avant-garde", a "continuing campaign" at that time, in the 1930s. The Joyce criticism came from Karl Radek who called Ulysses "a dung heap swarming with maggots and photograped by a movie camera through a microscope", referring to the maggot scene zoom-in on rotting meat in Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. Eisenstein's work was a victim too; Bezhin Meadow came to an ordered halt, and was denounced "for its 'formalist' and religious character". Figes sees the Pravda's severe attack on Lady Macbeth as yet another element in this campaign. Quote:

"This renewed assault against the avant-garde involved a counter-revolution in cultural politics. As the 1930s wore on, the regime completely abandoned its commitment to the revolutionary idea of establishing a 'proletarian' or 'Soviet' form of culture that could be distinguished from the culture of the past. Instead, it promoted a return to the nationalist traditions of the nineteenth century, which it reinvented in its own distorted forms as Socialist Realism."

Orlando Figes, Natasha's Dance - A Cultural History of Russia, Penguin Books, 2002, p 480, ISBN 9780140297966. ---Sluzzelin talk 07:20, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

For an earlier example, see also OBERIU. A lot of the poets had written and performed under names containing the word "leftist", which in the late 1920s meant avant-garde, culturally, but Trotskyist, politically, as pointed out by Mr.98. The Leningrad Press Club (the venue where the poets performed in public) "insisted" on a name-change which led to the new name OBERIU. But it made no difference in the end, as "Stalin's purges precluded the formation of any such "leftist" or "radical" public artistic groupings" and this particular group stopped performing after 1931. ---Sluzzelin talk 07:35, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

A guess, but perhaps the Swedish "vänsterism" could be an equivalent. It is a term rarely used outside the left itself, and carries a negative connotation of being overly radical/dogmatic. The same as differntiation between "Radical" and "Radicalist". --Soman (talk) 19:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I unfortunately know no Swedish and have no way of sensing the meaning of this interesting word, but one thing I'd like to point out is that Pravda's usage of "leftist" means quite the opposite of overly dogmatic. It was particularly the absurdists, surrealists or nihilists, but also other modernist deviants from dogma that irked those who strived to please Stalin against their better cultural judgment (e.g. Radek). ---Sluzzelin talk 20:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Denouncing of 'Leftism' wasn't exactly directed at the Left Opposition, the term originates in an earlier dispute. Do note this translation File:20-lenin-infantilesickness.jpg. --Soman (talk) 04:04, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

does the e in the google logo look like it's laughing?

I am visually impaired and cannot see in such detail. Would you say the e in the google logo looks like it's laughing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.122.96.11 (talk) 20:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, I suppose it does. Looking at the Google logo article, it says the font used is Catull BQ, which has the same lower-case 'e' (that is, this isn't a typographical whimsy of Google's). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

That's an excellent link. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

It's been that way for years and someone finally picked up on that. Kind of like the FedEx logo, which appears to have a subliminal "arrow" within it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Or that the Toyota Trucks logo looks like Frank Zappa's mustache (Google Image it...) Lampman (talk) 23:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

You're right. The resemblance is uncanny. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Wow. I've never noticed that before, but you're right. I'm never going to be able to unsee that... --Jayron32 15:51, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Which one do you mean? The regular logo, or one of the several themed logos displayed only for a day? – b_jonas 08:26, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The regular logo, which is visible in the upper left corner of the link you provided, has had that "laughing e" for at least 10 years. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:31, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

thanks guys

Thanks for the responses, guys! (OP here). Now I can tell you that I'm not really visually impaired; the reason I asked that way is that until I got your answer of "yeah, it kind of does" the question would have sounded like it's coming from a paranoid schizophrenic!! ("The e in the Google logo is laughing at me!") linky. Thanks for the nice work, guys! 188.156.224.145 (talk) 10:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

We were just humoring you. Actually, you are the only one who's seeing that. >:) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

If you look at the lower case of that font, several of the "curvy" letters, including 3 of the 5 distinct letters in "Google", appear to "lean to the left" a bit, resulting in that funny look to the "e". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:00, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

re: Gurdjieff - error or confusion on the Gurdjieff page?

Hello all. Firstly the reason I didn't put this in the Gurdjieff talk page was that I didn't think it was important enough, and I don't know enough. In the Gurdjieff page, half way through the section titled "Group Work", it says:

In addition, one should never violate the one basic rule in group-work which guarantees the harmonious development of the Work: the practice of external considering.[citation needed] Whenever group-work fails, the failure may be traced[by whom?] to a lack of external considering among its members.[30][verification needed]

I don't understand the phrase' external considering' as used here. GIG and Ouspensky's main idea here was do NOT identify, identification being one of the main causes of sleep. Also Ouspensky defines in his book The Psy.of.MPE 'Considering' to be 'Identification with people', which he says is bad and G says is bad. This should be re-worded, or am I missunderstanding the sentence?

Also, G and O both clearly said rule #1 is "Don't Lie', meaning 'Don't talk about what you do not know, or cannot know', and O says in PoMPE that breaking this rule is the number one reason a group will break up, the breaking of secrecy.

So is the page wrong, badly worded, or am I misunderstanding?

Thank you, David, blucat —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.142.19.65 (talk) 21:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Assuming you're talking about George Gurdjieff, the article reads like it was written by someone who does not know English well, so that specific statement is hard to interpret as-is. If someone who knows English natively is also familiar with that historical figure, maybe they could review the article and see if they can fix it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Women regents co-reigned and male did not?

When I read about the smaller vassal states in France, the Netherlands and Greece during the middle ages, I noticed that female rulers reigned alone much less than male. There where two different peculiarities.

1.) In the case of a female heir to the throne, she often shared her inheritence with her sister rather than inheriting the undivided state as a male heir would have. Why was this? Was two women considered to equal one man?

2.) The second was that her husband was normally appointed her co-ruler. Why was this? Did it ever hapen that a wife was appointed her husbands co-ruler?

I hope someone could help me with both of my questions. They are general rather than pertaining to a specific state: I wonder if there where any officiall philosophy around this. Thanks in advance. --Aciram (talk) 21:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

France had Salic law which excluded queen-regnants (women ruling for themselves) from the throne. In traditional British common law, if there is a son, or more than one son, in a family, then the eldest son is the heir, but if there is no son, then usually all daughters are equal "co-heiresses". This co-heiress rule never applied to the throne of England/Scotland/Britain, but it did apply to placing some baronies "in abeyance"... AnonMoos (talk) 22:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Why where the daughters co-heiresses? Why wasn't simply the eldest daughter the heir? --Aciram (talk) 11:47, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I really don't know "why", but that's the way it was done. See partly Abeyance#Peerage_law. There's currently no article on co-heiress, but it seems that there could be... AnonMoos (talk) 13:42, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I gather that in English common law there is no seniority among sisters. (Can't say why I think that, though.) —Tamfang (talk) 02:01, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I actually cannot think of a time in France where there was ever a Queen Regnant, or where there were Duchesses/Countesses regnant in any of the various fiefdoms of France proper. The situation you describe where a husband in named a king when his wife inherits a throne is called becoming a king jure uxoris, lit. "by the right of his wife", but such a situation has never occured in France since women cannot inherit in the first place. There are some states on the periphery of France where queens could inherit, for example the Kingdom of Navarre had several queens regnant, such as Jeanne d'Albret. It was through her husband that the Bourbon kings of France and Spain descend. There have been very powerful queens of France who did not officially reign, but operated as a sort of Éminence grise. See Catherine de' Medici for an example of that. --Jayron32 02:11, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Anne of Brittany was duchess-regnant, as was her daughter, but Brittany wasn't part of France at the time...actually, the requirement that they find husbands, and the fact that their husbands happened to be kings of France, was what finally incorporated Brittany into France. I think there were some other duchesses-regnant before them, as well. Another example is crusader Jerusalem, where there were a few queens-regnant, and this was perfectly legal. However, the queen, or any other female heir, no matter how small the fief, was expected to find a husband. There is one case where the widowed queen was married off to another man while still pregnant with her first husband's child. I don't think any of those queens ruled by themselves. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:18, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Another powerful de facto ruler of France was Anne de Beaujeu, who acted as regent for her brother Charles VIII of France. She has been described as one of the most powerful women in the late 15th century. There were also very influential royal mistresses who exerted considerable political power in France such as Diane de Poitiers and Madame de Pompadour.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:59, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I did not use the right words, but there are many examples of women inheriting French fiefdoms; Eleonore of Aquitaine is one - she was ruling duchess of Aqutaine. Here are several examples of women rulers in the French County of Boulonge; Count of Boulogne. Perhaps I did not phrase it directly, but these were French language fiefdoms in present day France. My question was not if women could inherit the French throne. My question was why men could be their wives co-regents and not the other way around, and why tow sisters could share their inheritence of a throne and not two brothers. --Aciram (talk) 17:38, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Those aren't French fiefdoms. Aquitaine, at the time Eleanor inherited it wasn't a proper fief of France; its relationship to the French Crown was like that of Brittany; it was an independant duchy and not subject to France at all. It had earlier been a Frankish duchy, but very early on it had broken away from the Merovingian kings and had established itself as fully independent. Indeed, prior to the Hundred Years Wars, most of those duchies and counties were de facto independent of France, and some were de jure independent (see Franche Comte and Brittany); the French King had no power to enforce his laws on those states anymore than the Chinese Emperor did, they ran their own affairs and followed their own laws. So-called "salic law" only really made a difference when it came to enforcing the Valois claims to the French throne over the Plantagenet claims; there's little evidence it was ever considered seriously before then; you'll note that all of the female countesses regnant and duchesses regnant ruled prior to the 1450's, most many centuries before then. The process of developing France into a nation state is tied up in the Hundred Years Wars, and "Salic Law" is part of that; prior to the 15th century, it makes little sense to consider anything outside of the Crown lands of France as under direct influence of the King. --Jayron32 05:30, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

To pick a nit: the Bourbon kings inherited the throne of France through the husband of Jeanne d'Albret, but he had no relevant Spanish ancestry. —Tamfang (talk) 05:59, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I see. I called them French because they where French language states, that is all. But as you can see from my original question, France and whether women could inherit thrones in France was never the question I made here, so it is a shame that the replies are mainly about things I never asked for. France was just one of the areas in Europe i mentioned. I wished I had simply said "Mideavel Europe" now. If you look at the original questions I made, they where not about France, so I will repeat them in the hope that someone can answer them.

These where the questions I made:

1.) In the case of a female heir to the throne, she often shared her inheritence with her sister rather than inheriting the undivided state as a male heir would have. Why was this? Was two women considered to equal one man?

2.) The second was that her husband was normally appointed her co-ruler. Why was this? Did it ever hapen that a wife was appointed her husbands co-ruler?

Note: the questions above are not whethere women could inherit the royal throne of France. Are there anyone who culd answer theese questions? I would be gratefull. Thank you in advance. --Aciram (talk) 11:44, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Those questions were answered, but in the interest of re-answering them (since the answers got lost in the tangents), for the answer to question 1, see abeyance. For the answer to question 2, see jure uxoris. --Jayron32 13:47, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

It was really not the case that "two women were considered to equal one man" in English Common Law (that actually applies to Islamic inheritance law) -- rather, no one daughter was favored over any other daughter for purposes of inheritance... AnonMoos (talk) 13:52, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

The role of Empress Wan Rong of Manchuria

I wonder : did Wan Rong, empress of the japanese puppet state in Manchuria in 1934-1945, have any officiall tasks? What was the role designed for her by the japanese? Was she present at officiall ceremonies, did she perform representation, was she a known figure to the public? Was she visible in society, or was she rather isolated from society by the japanese? Thank you. --Aciram (talk) 22:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Weird children's book

Hi. Can anyone help me track down the title of a book I read when I was about 12... it was set in some kind of ancient society, but there were strange spheres, which I think were living creatures, that were kitted out with metal spikes, which would roll over (and kill) people for reasons that I can't remember. Is that sufficiently vague? Thanks --Dweller (talk) 22:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The old L. Frank Baum book Queen Zixi of Ix has a similar type of creature (the "Roly-Rogues"), but is less bloody than what you seem to be describing... AnonMoos (talk) 22:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Nope, what I remember was dark and fairly scary and definitely gruesomely bloody. Thanks though. --Dweller (talk) 15:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps The Tripods? It's not set in ancient times, but it does depict a devolved society menaced by creatures in (hemi-)spheres with rather spiky legs. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 04:25, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

The Tripods did little if any violence "on stage". —Tamfang (talk) 07:50, 11 April 2011 (UTC)