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Queen Elizabeth has reigned for an incredible 30% of US history. That is from Matt Glassman.

This is chart via Max Roser. You can argue that decarbonization isn’t happening fast enough, but it’s definitely happening.

Via Ethan Mollick, who is an excellent twitter follow,

It is our tendency to fixate on the 1st solution we come up with, preventing us from finding better ones

I’ve definitely felt the pull that comes from my first idea on how to solve a problem and how difficult it is to set it aside. Sadly the abstract doesn’t give any strategies for neutralizing the effect.

is closer in time than you think it is. From Scientific American:

In 2004 mathematical modeling and computer simulations by a group of statisticians led by Douglas Rohde, then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, indicated that our most recent common ancestor probably lived no earlier than 1400 B.C. and possibly as recently as A.D. 55. In the time of Egypt’s Queen Nefertiti, someone from whom we are all descended was likely alive somewhere in the world.

The mechanism here, which is intuitive as soon as you understand it is that the number of branches in your family tree grows exponentially as it goes backwards. But that’s not all:

“Branches of your family tree don’t consistently diverge,” Rutherford says. Instead “they begin to loop back into each other.” As a result, many of your ancestors occupy multiple slots in your family tree. For example, “your great-great-great-great-great-grandmother might have also been your great-great-great-great-aunt,” he explains.

Some other surprising estimates from this article:

• It is estimated that everyone alive today in South America has at least some European ancestry

• It is estimated that “nearly everyone of Jewish ancestry has ancestors who were expelled from Spain beginning in 1492”

Via Max Roser

Inspired by my recent favorite podcast The Rest is History, I finally read the copy of The Gallic Wars that I had lying around. It is Julius Caesar’s account of conquering the various peoples of Gaul and bringing their territory firmly under Roman rule.

The book is surprisingly readable and relatable, even two thousand years later. The fact that it was Caesar’s own account of his campaigns is really fantastic. Even though you can’t take it all at face value, how often, even in the modern era do we have a first hand account from someone of Caesar’s stature?

I love the fact that Caesar wrote these accounts in order to raise his own status in Rome. The image that came to mind for me are the giant status updates that teams send inside of tech companies to keep everyone up-to-date on project status and build momentum. Julius Caesar was literally doing this!!! And he became dictator for life!

Caesar comes across as charismatic. His ability to project confidence and rally his teams despite the odds ahead of them is compelling. You can see why the men wanted to follow him. He both pushed them and related to them. Like a character from The Sopranos or The Wire, you root for him despite the human cost of his actions. He claims to have killed a million Gauls. Historians consider this to be an exaggeration… but still, this is who you find yourself rooting for!

The high point of the book is the Siege of Alesia, where the Romans surround their foe Vercingetorix in Alesia and then put a wall around their siege in order to hold off the force that had been sent to relieve Alesia. Absolutely astounding and not the sort of thing that works out for a lesser general. If you’ve never heard of this, take the time to read the wikipedia article. It’s worth it.

Vercingetorix is a tragic figure in his own right. His appeals to liberty and self rule resonate today. He is clearly a talented leader, going toe-to-toe with Caesar. And yet he comes on a little too late and is not quite able to unify the Gallic tribes enough to prevail. I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a novel / movie / Netflix show made from his perspective yet.

I’m not a military historian, but I was struck by how often Caesar created advantages for himself by showing up places where his enemy didn’t expect him to be or by understanding what his enemy was going to do via intelligence. He also does a great job of weighing the cost of inaction — frequently the risks he takes are due to his assessment that delaying an engagement is an even greater risk.

Despite the readability, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re already interested in the topic. I am a total dork for Roman history and I still got lost in the names of tribes, commanders, and local rulers.