[NEWS] Five history links: Himalayas, bad maps, United States, Ontario Prohibition, Easter Island

[rfmcdonald]

• Reddit's unresolvedmysteries highlights a historical conundrum: Who were these hundreds of people from all over Asia who died in a remote district of the Indian Himalayas centuries ago?


• Smithsonian Magazine notes why 18th century Europeans prized even wildly inaccurate maps and images of colonial cities in the Americas.


• J.M. Opal's argument at The Conversation that the United States, dominated by a rigid oligarchy, is as unreformable as 18th century Britain is depressing.


• The suggestion of Dan Malleck at The Conversation, looking back at the Ontario pre-Prohibition history of unregulated alcohol sales, that the Ford deregulation of marijuana sales might be short-sighted, seems plausible.


• George Dvorsky at Gizmodo shares the latest evidence that pre-contact Easter Island did not undergo a great violent collapse, with no signs of a major conflict.