By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 4 August 2025
Rwanda Media Case: Genocide, “Hate Speech”, and the Difference
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Category Archives: History
There is No Certainty About the Casualty Numbers in Rwanda
No Name, No Past, No Trace: The Strange Case of “Peter Bergmann”
Did 27 Million Soviet Citizens Die Fighting the Nazis?
A Note on Viktor Zemskov’s Estimate of Soviet Fatalities in the Second World War
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 12 April 2025
Russian historian Viktor Zemskov estimated in 2012 that total Soviet losses in the “Great Fatherland War” were sixteen million (11.5 million military casualties and 4.5 million civilian deaths), a far lower total than the official Soviet claim since 1990, inherited by the Russian Federation, of twenty-seven million.
Rome’s Worst Emperor? Assessing the Sources About Elagabalus
A Note on Alexander the Great Inspiring Roman Invasions of Persia
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 February 2025
Alexander of Macedon being a model for Roman statesman went back to the era of the Republic, and this imitatio Alexandri was often expressed by trying to repeat his feat of conquering Persia.
A Note on Public Baths in Rome
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 February 2025
The first great public warm baths or thermae in Rome were completed in 25 BC, two years after the first Emperor, Octavian, officially became Augustus. For nearly forty years, payment was necessary to access these baths.
A Note on the Family of Elagabalus and Roman Rule in Syria
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 February 2025
When Septimius Severus became Roman Emperor in 193 AD, his wife, whom he had married in 187, was Julia Domna, a native of Emesa (now Homs), meaning Rome had its first Syrian Empress.
A Note on Akhenaten and Ancient Religious Revolutions
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 February 2025
The written biographies of the Roman Emperor Elagabalus (r. 218-22 AD) claim that he oversaw an effort to replace the traditional gods with the Syrian sun god of which he was the high priest, and that this was part of the reason he was overthrown. There is, however, no physical evidence for an Elagabalan religious revolution, and we have an idea of the kinds of evidence that should show up where a ruler has tried to impose a new religious dispensation and it has been rejected by his successors because we have counter-examples.
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