Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 December 31

= December 31 =

Who was the last Head of State to directly command Field Armies?
Who was the last National Leader to personally command and direct Field Armies, in the tradition of Alexander the Great, Napoleon I, and Charles XII? --Gary123 (talk) 04:20, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Let me get the ball rolling with Antonio López de Santa Anna. That gets us up to at least 1836. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if Chiang Kai-shek took to the field after becoming head of state. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:11, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * We have List of political leaders who held active military ranks in office, which may contain the answer. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:23, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That list is incomplete. George II of Great Britain is the last British monarch to lead troops in battle, but he's not listed there (no other monarchs are either), for example.   Hot Stop   05:46, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Many monarchies are strictly apolitical. The British one, for example.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  07:40, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Did Fidel Castro directly command field armies during the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis? Ho Chi Minh also comes to mind up until 1969.   Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way   07:52, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Also could Idi Amin and Muammar Gaddafi count?  Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way  07:55, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * To some degree, we have to define what is and is not considered the "field of battle" in the modern day. For example, is a drone firing at a group of insurgents considered to be "on the field of battle"?  If so... what about the drone's operator (who directly controls the drone)?  And if we count the drone operator, what about a US President who is in direct contact with the operator and "directly" orders him to fire or hold fire?... Given the ill-defined nature of modern "fields of battle" and instant communication... there is at least an argument to be made that the President could qualify as "commanding on the field of battle" by ordering a drone strike. Blueboar (talk) 17:22, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Traditionally, the concept of a Head of State leading troops into battle is taken as a demonstration of that Head of State's bravery by putting his own life at risk. So your proposed definition might lose sight of that factor. BTW Ho Chi Minh sounds to me like the best answer so far Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 17:58, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Come to think of it, Saddam Hussein would probably claim the title for himself also Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 18:12, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I think there's a Giap in your reasoning. Some other guy was the military leader of the Viet Minh, according to the linked article. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:03, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with the suggestions above that this might be harder to define than it first seems, but having said that, I'd like to throw Albert I of Belgium's hat into the ring. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.204.16.14 (talk) 17:50, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The terminology in question here is generally applied to national leaders who travel around with a Army or naval unit and personally act as its general in combat. Directly issuing orders to military units from well away from the front line (as leaders as diverse as Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler did) generally isn't considered to be "taking the field". Nick-D (talk) 04:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Combine harvester identification


Is there any chance of getting any ID on this combine, even as simple as the make/brand name, e.g. John Deere? Apologies for the low resolution; I wasn't thinking of recording the brand until a few minutes ago, three days and 200 miles after taking the picture. Nyttend (talk) 05:38, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * It's not John Deere, since they all use green. My uneducated guess (based on Google searches) would be Massey Ferguson or Kubota, but I'm not at all familiar with that type of equipment.   Hot Stop   05:54, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for dis-confirming Deere; I'm and was thus clueless on the color issue.  I'll look forward to seeing anyone else's input.  Nyttend (talk) 06:12, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * A quick look on Google images shows that Massey Ferguson do indeed use the red / white colour scheme for their combines. This Massey looks a bit similar, but I'm no expert. Alansplodge (talk) 09:59, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * It also looks like a Case International. The key could be trying to match up the logo in the front. Even at that large resolution, it's hard to make out. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:37, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The color scheme, cab design, logo, and the front "bar" are similar to those of a White 8900 or 8700. Phleg1 (talk) 14:57, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Alice Munro's short story about high school
What is the name of her short story about a female teenager in high school. It might be set durin prom.174.3.125.23 (talk) 11:52, 31 December 2013 (UTC) 7
 * There's quite a number of them. Girls of high school age were among her most common characters. See this extract from Brad Hooper's "The Fiction of Alice Munro" for example . You'd need to give more details to identify a specific story. --Xuxl (talk) 10:05, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

New Years
In the Gregorian calendar why is New Years day celebrated on January 1st. If we calculated that it's 2013 because those are the number of years that have elapsed since the birth of Christ, shouldn't we celebrate Christmas and New Years on the same date? Or am I missing something? --Andrew 13:36, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It gets complicated. Calendar should take you someplace to get detailed answers. At the time Jesus' birth was assigned to December 25, that coincided with the winter solstice. The spring equinox coincided with March 25, which was assigned as "Annunciation Day", and was also traditionally considered to be the first day of the new year. Due to the failure over time to not necessarily count all years ending in 00 as leap years, the calendar slipped a bit, and the solstice was falling on the 21st or so. This mistake continued over centuries, and Pope Gregory's expert came up with the calendar correction to make the solstice fall on or about the 21st/22nd again, as it was falling earlier and earlier in the Julian calendar to where it was about the 10th. Had they thought of it, they could have made a further correction and had Christmas coincide with the solstice again. Or maybe they did think of it, but decided against re-tying Christmas to the pagan celebrations of the solstice. Also, the reformed calendar established January 1 as the new year rather than March 25th or 21st or whatever. In any case, Christmas has never been on January 1, at least not in the Western calendar. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:55, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Also see our article on New Year's Day.
 * As an irreverent aside... remember that the Gregorian calendar was created by clerics (priests and monks). Medieval clerics really liked feasts and celebrations.  If they  had chosen to merge Christmas and New Years... they would have had one less event to celebrate... so there was an incentive to keep them separate. Blueboar (talk) 14:32, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Good point. Even in that era they knew, on some level, that a holiday from the everyday drudgery was a useful, refreshing break. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:59, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I must be too tired right now but Bugs when you said "Due to the failure over time to not necessarily count all years ending in 00 as leap years" are you saying that they should have counted every century year as a leap year. That's what it seems to me. However, we only have leap years in one out of four century years. So 2000 is a leap year but 2100, 2200, 2300 are bot. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 17:39, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Right. I could have said it better than with that double negative. They were counting every fourth year as a leap year, and shouldn't have been for the circumstance you describe. That's what caused the equinoxes and the solstices to slide over the centuries. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:50, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * And that is one of the main differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, and it also explains why the gap between the calendars continues to grow. In 1582, when the Gregorian calendar was instituted, the gap was 10 days.  It remained so until the end of February 1700, when there was a Leap Day (29 February) in the Julian calendar but not in the Gregorian, so the gap increased to 11 days.  Then it increased to 12 days in February 1800, and to 13 days in February 1900.  It remained at 13 days in 2000 because there was a Leap Day in both calendars (that was also true in 1600).  But it will increase to 14 days in 2100, for anyone who's still using the Julian by then.  And so on.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:03, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I think Eastern Orthodox still uses it. I can't think of a lot to praise Lenin about, but one thing he did right was to bring the legal Russian calendar into alignment with the western standard. The church continued on its merry way. Maybe once winter starts coming in July, they'll catch on. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:45, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Most Eastern Orthodox now follow something called the Revised Julian calendar, which tracks with the Gregorian calendar until 2800 A.D. It's supposed to be more accurate than Gregorian, but unfortunately it's only more accurate with respect to the mean tropical year (while the vernal equinox year could be considered more significant for judging accuracy), and over thousands of years changes in year length will make any fixed leap-year interpolation rule increasingly inaccurate.  Those who stick with the old Julian calendar are "Old Calendarists"... AnonMoos (talk) 21:56, 2 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I have heard from various popular and unreliable sources that Christmas was dated to cover the pagan Yule/Saturnalia celebration, and that Yule/Saturnalia was celebrated on the first day after the winter solstice when it was evident the days were lengthening again. μηδείς (talk) 20:43, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, and likewise with Annunciation Day covering the Rites of Spring on or about March 25th. The folks who established Christmas to coincide with the solstice thought it fitting, because they had connected the Christian God with the sun god. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:49, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Medeis -- If the date of Christmas was influenced by any pre-existing non-Christian celebration, it was by dies natalis solis invicti, not really by Saturnalia, and definitely not by anything Germanic! As for Christmas vs. New Year's, for whatever reason the old (pre-Christian) Roman calendar was set up so that the equinoxes and solstices would fall about a week before the first day of a month, not on the first day of the month.  The traditional solstice/equinox calendar date was the 25th, but over the three centuries between the establishment of the Julian calendar and the Council of Nicea, the winter solstice fell back towards the 21st of December, and the Gregorian reform in 1582 was designed to restore the situation as of the Council of Nicea... AnonMoos (talk) 14:28, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I am not exactly sure what it is you are denying with an exclamation mark, AM. But our articles on Yule and Saturnalia both say the holidays were associated with the solstice, and that Christmas was timed to co-opt them.  Meanwhile, our article on Sol Invictus mentions it was a late invention, and that th association of his worship with Christmas is doubted. μηδείς (talk) 02:14, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It means that the date of Christmas was set as December 25th in the 4th century Roman empire, when probably 99% of people within the Roman empire knew nothing and cared nothing about Germanic customs, so that it seems unlikely in the extreme that Yule was a significant influence on setting the date of Christmas... AnonMoos (talk) 21:39, 2 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Nobody knew when Jesus was born. Neither January 1 nor December 25 were supposed to be his birthday, because as far as I know, no Pope ever claimed to know Jesus' birthday.  The fact that Christmas celebrates his birth doesn't mean anyone believed he was born on that day.  --Bowlhover (talk) 21:40, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Right. It was the day selected by the church to honor His birthday. Some theories hold that He was born in spring or maybe early summer when sheep were in foal. There's also the matter of which year, which is currently regarded as likely several years BC / BCE. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:12, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The sheep were in foal? Now that would have been a miracle! Round our way, sheep generally give birth to lambs. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.204.16.14 (talk) 01:11, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The term "foal" is typically applied to horses, but can also be used for other animals. Maybe "lambing" would be the better term. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:21, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:WHAAOE - in particular, Glossary of sheep husbandry. "In lamb" is the correct term, so "in foal" wasn't that far off. Tevildo (talk) 23:24, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

/* Cristian Leonel Garcia, you are invited to the Teahouse */
Good to wikipedia God me thanks to me Photo ready me outside picture need name Crisis Leonel Garcia from go Wikipedia to you back just in said picture you back class lean OK lol me look OK thanks do you Wikipedia for do your favorite OK Thanks you!!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cristian Leonel Garcia (talk • contribs) 17:36, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Um... I think you want WP:TEAHOUSE or WP:HD. Tevildo (talk) 18:05, 31 December 2013 (UTC)