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15ml0r | In America, what causes political parties to change and/or die out, and are there any parallels to the current state of the Republican Party? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15ml0r/in_america_what_causes_political_parties_to/ | {
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"Hello!\n\n\nMost political parties die out because it's something that's more or less inevitable with first past the post voting (and having a democracy in general). There is an excellent video on this topic by CGPGrey that can explain it much better then me [here](_URL_0_).\n\nThough I am not sure if this question is suited for this subreddit, I feel it's better off in /r/AskSocialScience.",
"In /r/AskHistorians we discourage questions that are:\n\n- Primarily political\n- Predicated heavily upon current events\n\nAs /u/inferioryetsuperior suggests, this question would likely be better suited to /r/AskSocialScience. I hope you have good luck with your inquiries there!"
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etj7ey | How was Muscovy (The Grand Duchy of Moscow) and later the Tsardom of Russia able to grow from being the backwater of Europe to being a Great Power with such a large population? | After being freed from Mongol rule, Muscovy didn't have a large economy nor population and was surrounded by states of equal strength such as Novgorod.
Despite this, over the years they were able to somehow gain a much bigger population (with the population of Siberia being rather small so I guess it didn't contribute much to this statistic once colonised) and economy in order to finally establish the Russian Empire and become a major European power.
How did they achieve this?
And on a side note, why is the Russian population so big, despite being historically rather small, having 6 million in 1500 compared to then Castile's 7 million or France's 15 million? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/etj7ey/how_was_muscovy_the_grand_duchy_of_moscow_and/ | {
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"First of all, thanks for the question. It’s not often that people are so deeply interested in someone’s story.\n\nThe Principality of Novgorod, the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal, the Principality of Tver, the Principality of Moscow is the core of modern Russia, this is Russia. All their divisions are very arbitrary. Moscow for Russia, is like Prussia for Germany.\n\nThis piriod (from the 13th to the 15th century) in Russian history is called feudal fragmentation. This happened after the Mongols ravaged and destroyed the city of United Rus (Kiev). Another important point, in those days there was the so-called suzerainty of the great princes of Vladimir (Vladimir-Suzdal principality). The Principality of Vladimir is the heart of Russia, the most respected and one of the oldest principalities in Russia. The authority of the Vladimir princes was recognized by all other principalities and republics of old Russia. Despite the fact that in the 14th century, Russia was still divided, in 1380 the Battle of Kulikovo took place. The majority of the Russian northern lands took part in this battle. And although a difficult victory did not lead to the end of the Horde dependence, it nevertheless had great political and spiritual significance as a symbol of the unity of the Russian people around Moscow. The Moscow and Vladimir Principality officially united (1389). From now on, the Moscow princes bore the title: Grand Duke of Moscow and Vladimir. Thus emphasizing that they are the main ones in Russia. From that moment, the Moscow princes began to \"collect\" Russian lands into a single state. In 1547, the Russian Kingdom was proclaimed: the Grand Duke of Moscow, Ivan IV, was crowned Tsar.\n\nA brief summary: why Moscow principality? Because Dmitry Donskoy bequeathed the Principality of Vladimir to his son Vasily the first (Prince of Moscow). And as you hopefully remembered, the Principality of Vladimir was the main thing in Russia, and not Moscow. And also because it was Moscow, under its command, that gathered troops against the Mongols\n\nBy the time of liberation from the Mongol yoke, the Principality of Moscow was by no means a weak state, as you say. This actually was the strongest principality of all other Russian principalities. And also the richest, due to the unification with the Principality of Vladimir.\n\nNovogorodskaya republic can be said to be a democracy with a republican form of government. They were located to the north, and not so often fought with the Tatars and Mongols. The main enemies of the New Novgorod Republic were the Swedes, who can not even remotely compare with the Mongol and Tatar army.\n\nMuscovites also fought with the Tatars and also with the Mongols. These are the strongest armies of that period on the Eurasian continent. Contrary to the opinion of “some” experts, you cannot conquer one sixth of the land without a strong army.\n\nNow about the issue of population. I’m not sure where the data indicates that in the 16th century, the population of Russia amounted to 6 million people. Russia is a huge country, and even the 16th century was such. I do not even remotely imagine how people in Russia could be counted in the 16th century. I suspect that the real population was higher.\n\n\"the backwater of Europe\"\n\nWell, depending on what is considered the backwater of Europe. Novogorodskaya, Pskov Republic were one of the first in Europe to have a republican form of government. With the republican form of government were also Switzerland, Venice, San Marino, Hamburg, Bremen, Dubrovnik Republic. From this point of view, the rest of Europe can be considered a backwater. (Except for the above republics)\n\nSerfdom was introduced in Russia during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, and the peak fell at the time of the highest dawn of the Russian Empire. So the old Russia is by no means a backwater; Russia became a political backwater during the time of the empire. Also, I'm not sure how you compare the economies of the old states. And why do you think that Russia had a weak economy.\n\nRussia was actively engaged in trade in fur, amber, honey, wax and other valuable goods. As well as jewelry. works of Russian jewelers Archaeologists find in Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany and the Baltic countries.\n\nTo summarize: Based on your incorrect assumptions, you draw incorrect conclusions.\n\nHistory says otherwise:\n\na) The Principality of Moscow was not weak. b) The Mokov Principality definitely had money, otherwise there would have been no opportunity to unite the rest of Russia under its authority.\n\nc) 16th century demographic statistics are not credible."
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13bce6 | What happened to the French army after the fall of France in WWII? Why did they not have a beach for D-Day? | I've read that upwards of [139,997](_URL_1_) French Troops were evacuated at Dunkirk. [Wikipedia](_URL_2_) says that 86,000 were rescued on June 2 and 3 alone.
Did other French Troops manage to escape France after the fall? Somehow tons of Polish forces managed to escape the Poland (wiki says: ["The Polish armed forces in the west fought under British command and numbered 195,000 in March 1944."](_URL_0_)) How did they manage to escape a German and the Communist squeeze play so effectively and manage to contribute so much on the Western Front while the French are...where are they?
Where did these guys go? Why did they choose Canada to spearhead Dieppe and Juno? Wouldn't French Troops be better suited to this job?
| AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/13bce6/what_happened_to_the_french_army_after_the_fall/ | {
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"French commandos fought at Sword Beach with the British on D-Day. \n\nThe French were granted the right to liberate Paris, and an infantry division was waiting under de Gaulle's command for that moment, but the 400,000 soldiers of Free France were mobilized in a more convenient theater - the Mediterranean, where they were garrisoning France's North African colonies. The French fought in Italy and the liberation of Corsica, and French troops were a vital component of Operation Dragoon, the landings in southern France that followed the breakout from the Normandy beachhead in the north.\n\n",
" > How did they manage to escape a German and the Communist squeeze play so effectively and manage to contribute so much on the Western Front\n\nThe were quite a few manpower sources\n\n- soldiers who escaped in 1939, mostly through Hungary and Romania (they were officially interned there, but it was relatively easy to escape as local people and officials often sympathized with Polish cause, especially in Hungary)\n\n- Polish expats (\"Polonia\") from Western Europe and Americas\n\n- Polish army that was initially created in USSR and supposed to fight on the Soviet side, but due to worsening relations ended up in the Middle East in 1942.\n\n- Wehrmacht POWs/deserters (!) - many \"German\" soldiers recruited in territories annexed by the Reich after 1939 (Silesia, Pomerania) were actually Polish. \n",
"The Poles came from several sources. In 1939, a part of the Polish army retreated into Romania to be interned. Romania was on friendly terms with France at this time, and many of the Poles managed to make their way to France to join the two infantry divisions, two mountain brigades (one of which fought in Norway and one that was training in Lebanon) and one mechanised brigade that the French raised from these men and the large Polish community in France.\n\nOne of the Polish divisions retreated into Switzerland and was interned there. The other made it south and split up, and some made it to Britain to fight on. The mechanised brigade was evacuated with the 2nd BEF from Bretagne, the mountain brigade in Norway evacuated to Britain and the mountain brigade in Lebanon crossed over to British-held Palestine to continue to fight.\n\nThe Soviets put their Polish prisoners in camps, shot most if not all their officers at Katyn and deported a massive amount of people from Eastern Poland. In 1942, they agreed to let the British take care of these people, and they were moved to Palestine to be fed, clothed and then trained (many were malnourished when they arrived, the Soviets had not treated them well).\n\nFrom the mountain brigade in Lebanon the Carpathian Brigade was formed and fought at Tobruk and in Operation Crusader. It was then merged with the men from the Soviet Union and the II. Corps was created (two divisions and an armoured brigade) which fought in Italy until the war ended.\n\nFrom the mechanised brigade and the mountain brigade in Britain (from France and Norway, respectively), the 1. Armoured Division and the Airborne Brigade were created, and they took part in several important battles, including Falaise and Market Garden, respectively."
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"http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_FRENCH_TROOPS_were_evacuated_from_Dunkirk_in_1940",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_evacuation"
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1iwalj | I heard that Gorbachev broke the Communist Party's power. How did he rise to the top if that was his intention in the first place? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1iwalj/i_heard_that_gorbachev_broke_the_communist_partys/ | {
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"[There was a similar thread a year ago](_URL_0_) with some good answers. New ones are welcome here as well though.",
"More or less, it was because the Soviet leadership understood a younger General Secretary was needed after Andropov and Cherneko both died pretty quickly after assuming office. \n\nGorbachev didn't create many waves until taking power, and he garnered the favor of the powerful chief ideologue Mikhail Suislov (who, ironically, would have viciously opposed Gorbachev's reforms had he been alive to see them). He also got the favor of Andrei Gromyko, the influencial Soviet Foreign Minister, and Gromyko proved decisive in having Gorbachev appointed over his chief rival, the more conservative Gregory Romanov."
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9p66g4 | During Matthew Perry's second visit to Japan, he threatened to send 100 ships to Japan to declare war if his demands weren't met. Did Perry have authorization to start a war? What was so imperative about Japan that the US would threaten war? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9p66g4/during_matthew_perrys_second_visit_to_japan_he/ | {
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"I saw a similar question a few weeks ago, maybe the answers there (especially /NientedeNada) will be helpful to you.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8i5ci9/why_did_usa_give_japan_an_ultimatum_to_open_their/"
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7wl1ha | Why did the Soviet Union organize its peoples into homogenous titular republics? | It seems like they would be easier to control if they were as scrambled as possible. For example, making a state half Latvian half Russian, or merging Kyrgyzstan with half of Kazakhstan. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7wl1ha/why_did_the_soviet_union_organize_its_peoples/ | {
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"Hi. Great question.\n\nI wrote an essay on this topic, so I think I can answer your question, hopefully it meets the standards. I will be using the nation of Georgia as an example of an incorporated nation-state, because it engendered a conflict between soviet leaders over how nations/republics should be treated within the USSR. The Georgian Affair, briefly, involved soviet higher-ups Dzerzhinsky and Ordzhonikidze calling in the red army to dispel political unrest over the level of autonomy that Georgia could expect to enjoy within the USSR. \n\nI think the underlying issue for your question was addressed directly by Lenin in a series of notes he dictated during Dec. 1922. titled ['The Question of Nationalities or \"Autonomisation.\"'](_URL_0_) The essays weren't published until after Lenin's death. The Question of Nationalities can be contextualised as a response to some of the problems involved in the creation of the USSR: i.e, your question, how should the state treat ethnicities and ethno-states.\n\nIn the essay, Lenin bemoaned that the current state 'apparatus' had too many hold-overs from Tsarism, and had merely been 'anointed' with 'soviet-oil,' quote:\n\n\"The apparatus we call ours is, in fact, still quite alien to us; it is a bourgeois and tsarist hotch-potch and there has been no possibility of getting rid of it in the course of the past five years without the help of other countries and because we have been \"busy\" most of the time with military engagements and the fight against famine.\"\n\n\nLenin sees national minorities in the Soviet Union as 'oppressed' nations, as the USSR as the potential 'oppressor' nation. Referring to a political struggle called 'the Georgian affair,' Lenin writes: “in this case it is better to over-do rather than undergo the concessions and leniency towards the national minorities.” He sees this as a concession to past injustices/inequalities.\n\nThe Question of Nationalities, can be read as a warning against the organs of the Soviet Union falling into imperialist or ‘chauvinist’ attitudes towards national minorities. Lenin criticises Stalin and Ordzhonikidze as ‘Great-Russian’ bullies, and is wary of Dzerzhinsky’s ‘truly Russian frame of mind.’ His addition of ‘practical measures’ reveals the fear that the union of socialist republics will be weakened if the centre regresses into ‘imperialist’ behaviours, and that this attention to the Soviet ideals is more important than the processes of centralisation and incorporation of peripheral nations into the socialist sphere.\n\n\nIn short, the USSR was organised into 'titular republics', because of foundational ideologies of the USSR regarding national minorities. Many of these ideals, however, were eroded after Lenin's death and Stalin's rise to power. \n\n\n\nSources: \n\nSmith, Jeremy. \"The Georgian Affair of 1922. Policy Failure, Personality Clash or Power Struggle?.\" Europe-Asia Studies, 1998., 519,\n\nJones, Stephen. “The Establishment of Soviet Power in Transcaucasia: The Case of Georgia 1921-1928,” Soviet Studies 40 (Oct. 1988): 616-639.\n\n"
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2c8off | Several questions on Norman Knights | Hey guys, I have some Norman Ancestry, suffice to say I'm very, very interested in Norman military history. I have several questions, if you could answer them it would be greatly appreciated.
1. I do know that Rollo made a concerted effort to adopt a Frankish styled government, but how soon did the Danes adopt Knighthood (for a lack of a better word)? And who is the first documented Knight in Norman history?
2. Were the majority of Norman Knights of pure Scandinavian stock? Or were they of both Scandinavian and Gallo-Frank/Gallo-Roman ancestry? More importantly, would this actually be an issue when a young noble was Knighted?
3. Could you explain the training cycle for your average Knight? When did they begin their training, when were they typically Knighted, what tactics did they typically focus on? How capable were they on foot, compared to horse back?
4. Compared to other Knights of their day, how did they compare?
Thanks | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2c8off/several_questions_on_norman_knights/ | {
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"1. Knighthood had not become a distinct institution at the time of the initial Norman settlement. Knighthood basically coalesced during the period of the 10th and early 11th centuries, simultaneous with the development of the duchy of Normandy.\n\n2. Not to my knowledge, no. After 150 or more years, the Norman aristocracy, besides being thoroughly culturally assimilated, was hopelessly interbred with the native population. Additionally, it should be noted that most aristocratic families of the 12th century, as illustrated by Duby's study of the Maconnais, could scarcely trace their ancestry more than a few generations.\n\n3. It's very difficult to say with certainty; what can be said is that the so-called classical method of training knights (a formal arrangement of a period of time spent as a page, followed by a period of time as a squire in service to a knight) only applied to the Late Middle Ages, if then. I can speak to the 12th century, but we really don't know as much as we would like about the earlier period of knighthood. An aristocrat might train his son, but if he were poor or undistinguished, and wished him to have a better martial education and to form better connections, he might be sent to the household of a greater lord, usually one whom the father was connected to by marriage, blood, or bond. This seems to have generally occurred around early adolescence - perhaps age twelve or thirteen. There he would have done arms training with the knights of the lord's household, learned to ride and hunt, the rituals of court and feast. Once in adulthood, he would continue to train, either with the knights of his lord's household, or, if he became landed, with the other knights of the neighborhood, who in war formed the smallest tactical unit (1-2 dozen) called a conroi.\n\n4. I don't subscribe to the view that Norman knights were innately better than those of other regions of the Frankish world. Where the Normans really stand out is the degree to which they exported military manpower abroad, and their propensity for expanding to fill any power vacuum. They produced copious numbers of younger sons with no prospect of inheritance, and unleashed them, armed and hungry for land or at least subsistence, on any region of the world in need of mercenaries. Norman mercenaries were brought into southern Italy in the mid-11th century and, before the century was through, had supplanted the local rulers and were reigning over half of the peninsula. Even before William's invasion of England, Normans had been brought over as mercenaries or military advisers, perhaps in an attempt to create a Saxon cavalry tradition."
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d6hcw2 | Why did certain fringe elements within the black American community start to associate themselves with Hebrews/Judaism. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/d6hcw2/why_did_certain_fringe_elements_within_the_black/ | {
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"Well, black slaves associated themselves with the Exodus narrative pretty early on, but if you're wondering about those groups that claim blacks are the real Jews (referred to as Black Hebrew Israelites on Wikipedia), the earliest explicit ones came in the 1880s and 1890s, the most prominent name among them being William Saunders Crowdy, a former slave from Maryland. His movement, like many of the others in the late 19th century, began with receiving a vision that told him that Jesus and the Biblical Israelites were black, and that those brought to the Americas in the Atlantic Slave Trade were descendants of the black Israelites. These teachings were appropriated by more black nationalist/separatist movements in the 1910 through the 1930s, when the Ethiopian Hebrew Congregations came into being. I made a YouTube video about it earlier this year. Here is a link to the footnoted script I used for the video. [_URL_2_](_URL_1_) Here is the video version of that if you are interested. [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)"
]
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"https://drive.google.com/open?id=1f4zzTKf0Cc3p128csbyK0U2V-5ogUvDAH_Gtjx-63gk",
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2fye7f | What is Islam's historical view of Jesus? | The standard view of Jesus (Yeshua of Nazareth) is that he claimed up-front to be the literal Son of God. By Islamic standards this is obviously horribly blasphemous, and yet Jesus is still regarded as a major prophet in Islam. How would a Muslim reconcile their faith's hardline divine unicity with a prophet who claimed to be a direct spawn/appendage of God? Or am I wrong about the general historical consensus view of Jesus, i.e. is it thought (by Muslims of anyone else) that Jesus of Nazareth did not in fact personally claim divinity, but rather the divinity of Jesus was strictly a formulation of his followers and later writers? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2fye7f/what_is_islams_historical_view_of_jesus/ | {
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"So the comments here are all talking about whether the historical Jesus claimed to be a descendant of God. Unless I'm misunderstanding your question, the answer to that question is irrelevant. The question is, how did *Muslims* view this.\n\nVery simply, they (very explicitly) reject that Jesus ever ascribed divinity to himself. The 5th chapter of the Qur'an contains many passages about Jesus. Towards the end, it has these verses:\n\n*And [beware the Day] when God will say, \"O Jesus, Son of Mary, did you say to the people, 'Take me and my mother as deities besides God?'\" He will say, \"Exalted are You! It was not for me to say that to which I have no right. If I had said it, You would have known it. You know what is within myself, and I do not know what is within Yourself. Indeed, it is You who is Knower of the unseen. I said not to them except what You commanded me - to worship God, my Lord and your Lord. And I was a witness over them as long as I was among them; but when You took me up, You were the Observer over them, and You are, over all things, Witness.*\n\nThe Islamic viewpoint is that Jesus never claimed to be anything more than a prophet and that it was later generations who overvenerated him until he became divine. In fact, there's a hadith of Muhammad where he says \"‘Do not overpraise me as the Christians have overpraised the Son of Mary. For I am but His slave. So say ‘slave of God, and His messenger’.\" The point being that \"overpraise\" of the Christians is deifying Jesus.\n\n"
]
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2ixmx5 | When Byzantines and Arabs referred to Catholics as "Franks", were they generalizing or did they truly believe all Catholic Europeans were of a single language and culture? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ixmx5/when_byzantines_and_arabs_referred_to_catholics/ | {
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"Piggy back question, did European Crusaders consider all Muslims and Middle Easters the same or did differentiate between Turks and Arabs. ",
"All those culture groups in the West at the time were Germanic, and Charlemagne had united France, and created the Holy Roman Empire, and conquered some remnants of Italy. After the death of Louis the Pious, these lands were divided by his sons in the Treaty of Verdun, so it was very easy for foreigners to still have no distinction between them long after Charlemagne's death, because they were the same Frankish rulers, but the rule did not last very long... By 888, the Carolingian Empire was on the verge of destruction, under constant attack from Vikings, and the now distinct seperation between their Germanic Eastern Francia, and Western Francia Kingdoms was more noticeable. Note that East Francia is an archaic term for the Kingdom of Germany, thus not helping to establish a difference between cultures. This being said, the educated of Byzantium most definitely knew the difference between the cultures during this time, and those who didn't, surely knew by 1000AD, as East Francia generally ceased to be a term after its fall from Frankish holding, in 962. However, the establishment of the Franks as a premier European power at these times generally leads to people just calling the entire area as they see it; a land filled with Franks, but as I said, the educated of these societies surely knew the difference of lands and specific cultures. Kind of the like modern term 'America'; when you say it we all know what you mean, but realistically, the term America can cover both continents.",
"Quick question about my purely speculative assumption: Does the term \"lingua franca\" not come from the fact that French was **the** language of the western European ruling class for a very long time?"
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1e8ehz | How did the long wars of the Medieval period last as long as they did? | I know that, for example, the 100 Years War was a series of conflicts, but still.
How do kingdoms with fairly rudimentary economies continue to raise and supply armies in the field for a century? At one point a good chunk of France including Paris is under foreign control and they're still raising armies to fight the English.
Obviously they were pushing their finances to the limits and on the brink of ruin at any given time, but I still can't quite wrap my head around it, both from the financial aspect and morale aspect (of both the nobility and peasantry).
| AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1e8ehz/how_did_the_long_wars_of_the_medieval_period_last/ | {
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" > How do kingdoms with fairly rudimentary economies continue to raise and supply armies in the field for a century?\n\nIn short, they didn't. With the exception of the crusades, medieval wars were relatively short campaigns, decided after one or two years of fighting. The crusades are a different story. The participants went voluntarily and paid for themselves most often. "
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5m9ogd | Why wasn't Isaac Newton persecuted by the church after he wrote the Principia, like Galileo was | Was it because the Anglican church was more favorable to science than the Catholic Church, or were there other factors involved? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5m9ogd/why_wasnt_isaac_newton_persecuted_by_the_church/ | {
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"At the time the *Principia* was published, British intellectual culture was reasonably tolerant of some degree of religious dissent. The 1689 Toleration Act (two years after the first edition of the Principia was published) legalised most nonconformist religious practices. Even within the Anglican Church, heterodox doctrines were being discussed relatively openly. Anglican ministers like Samuel Clarke (a close friend of Newton) were openly challenging the Thirty-Nine Articles (the core doctrines of the Church), often in their attempt to integrate Newtonian natural philosophy into the discipline.\n\nAt the same time, Newton went to great lengths to protect himself from persecution. When Wiliam Whiston - one of Newton's closest friends, and his successor at Cambridge - started associating Newtonianism with his own heretical form of Christianity, Newton publicly denounced him. He contrived to get Whiston excluded from the Royal Society, and criticised his work in Parliament. \n\nUnlike Galileo, Newton was very happy to keep quiet to win the support of the Establishment. Where he knew his views would be controversial, Newton deliberately phrased them tentatively. And he withdrew one of his more controversial writings from publication (Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture) at the last minute, likely because of a fear of persecution.",
"For one, keep in mind that Galileo's persecution was not solely caused by his scientific work; it was a lot more personal and political. However, for the sake of the question, lets ignore that caveat and answer the question anyway.\n\nFirstly, in the case of Newton, the content of his scientific discoveries did not conflict with church doctrine. It was largely theoretical work which only served to vastly improve the understanding of already existing and uncontroversial ideas (gravity, nature of light, laws of motion, calculus), whereas Galileo was an experimental scientist whose discoveries were in direct conflict with the authority of the church (i.e. heliocentrism).\n\nSecondly, Newton's theory of gravity was actually immensely useful for religion because it proved the existence of God's continuous presence in the world. Think about it this way: if gravity is a force that is imparted to the center of objects, even when at a significant distance of each other and through a vacuum, then it cannot be the result of mechanical causes (i.e. touching and pushing of atoms). If it cannot be caused mechanically, there is no natural way of causing gravity. Therefore, it must be the direct action of God in nature, which keeps the universe in harmony instead of letting it reduce into chaos.\nThis theological side of Newton's work was taken up almost immediately after he published his Principia, and not to Newton's dislike. In fact, in correspondence between Newton and Richard Bentley, Newton is quite pleased to see his work being used for theology and is more than happy to help Bentley in forming his \"Newtonian Theology\".\n\nThirdly, religious climate in late-17th century Britain was definitely different from early-17th century Italy. There were quite a few controversial atheists and freethinkers in Britain, and though they certainly weren't well-liked, they didn't go as far as to prosecute them. There was much more tolerance to different religions and the church was a lot less powerful than in Italy.\n\nFourthly, Newton was less open about his deviations from doctrine. Whereas Galileo was very eager to argue for his dissenting views on religion, Newton kept his head down when it came to controversial opinions. For instance, Newton rejected the doctrine of the trinity, which would have raised a few eyebrows in England.\n\nSources:\nBrooke, John Hedley. Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.\n\nBrooke, John Hedley. \"Religious Belief and the Content of the Sciences.\" Osiris 16 (2001): 3-28.\n\nGascoigne, John. “From Bentley to the Victorians: The Rise and Fall of British Newtonian Natural Theology.” Science in Context 2, no. 2 (1988): 219-256.\n\nGillespie, Neal C. \"Natural History, Natural Theology, and Social Order: John Ray and the 'Newtonian Ideology'.” Journal of the History of Biology 20, no. 1 (1987): 1-49.\n\nHenry, John. “’Pray do not Ascribe that Notion to Me’: God and Newton's Gravity.” In The Books of Nature and Scripture, edited by James E. Force and Richord H. Popkin, 123-47. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994.\n\nJacob, Margareth. The Newtonians and the English Revolution 1689-1720. Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1976."
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1ahys0 | I just saw War Horse. To what extent were horses used in WW1? | Also what are the odds of a horse surviving the war. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ahys0/i_just_saw_war_horse_to_what_extent_were_horses/ | {
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"Extensively. None of the belligerants were heavily motorised and all relied on horses to haul artillery, ammunition, food, wounded and every other manner material required to fight the war.\n\nCombat wise, the use of war horses on the Western Front fizzled out when trench warfare set in. Offensives were still planned with cavalry in mind to exploit breakthroughs but none of these eventuated until 1917/1918. The Estaern Front isn't my area of expertise but from what I know, the war was much more fluid so I imagine cavalry would have played a larger part than it did in the west.\n\nIn the Middle East, horses played a huge part. The Australian Lighthorse played a major part in defeating the Ottoman Empire which also used cavalry. You may have heard of the Charge of Beersheba, one of the last major cavalry charges in history. While lighthorsemen weren't intended to fight from horseback, it happened on occasion.\n\nAs for survival rates, it depends what the horse was used for. Cavalry horses had a better chance of survival than those used for moving material. Shell fire, machine gun fire, aerial bombing, malnutrition, overwork was a major killer of horses. Many more that survived were euthanised by the veterinary corps. I was reading a book recently that had figures for the number of horses killed during the war, I'll try and find it but don't hold your breath *Desert Boys* by Peter Rees detailed the final moments the men of the Australian Lighthorse had with their mounts before they were led away and shot by the vets, I'm not ashamed to say I cried like a baby while reading it. Many soldiers said that this was a preferable fate for their horses who would have instead been sold to local Arabs and possibly/probably mistreated. An interesting tidbit, of all the horses sent overseas for the Australian Army, only one returned, the horse belonging to General William Bridges, commander of Australian forces at Gallipoli, who was killed by a sniper. His horse was shipped back to Australia and drew his coffin at his funeral.",
"[Here](_URL_1_) are a couple of [links](_URL_0_) about contributions to the war in the form of horses. The first is a CBC story mostly about one horse in particular: a mare named Morning Glory, who was shipped from Quebec to France in 1915, outlived the Colonel who took her as his personal mount, and was returned to Canada in 1918 as a hero (which was extremely unusual).\n\nThe article states an estimate from a Department of Defense historian that Canada sent over 130,000 horses to Europe for use in the war, and that a quarter of them were killed every year.\n\nI can't personally vouch for the accuracy of the second site, but it claims that over a million horses and mules were being/had been used by the British and Commonwealth forces alone by the end of the war, with a quarter million dying on the Western Front. \n\nIt wasn't only the fighting that proved a risk to the horses. The second link I provided lists various hazards such as inadequate shelter, leading to death from exposure, overcrowding leading to disease, and a lack of provisions. I also remember an anecdote from a History class I took a few years ago (sorry, no formal source - can someone help me out?) that many horses never made it past the docks when they landed in Europe after their Transatlantic voyages. Horses that could not be brought under control within a few minutes - after weeks in close quarters at sea, and with huge crowds and the sound of weapons fire surrounding them - were just shot immediately, because it was thought it would take too much time and too many resources to make them battle-ready.\n\nFor a good (if terribly sad) sort of emotional resource on the literary side, I recommend the novel *The Wars* by Timothy Findley, which discusses the war in general, but also the relationships between the men and horses there.\n\nEdit: Corrected the honourable Mr. Findley's name. Thanks /u/ploughhorse!"
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53bhk1 | Brandenburg was completely ravaged during the 30 Years War, but came out of it with a big army and their claims on Prussia and Pomerania honoured. How did this happen? | From what I know Brandenburg is an unfertile stretch of land with no natural barriers. During the war their land was plundered by Swedes, Imperials and other Germans. But then the Great Elector comes along and suddenly they have 20.000 fighting men and are a prized ally, which results in their claims being honoured and even having Poland give away sovereignty over East-Prussia.
What caused this turn-around? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/53bhk1/brandenburg_was_completely_ravaged_during_the_30/ | {
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"After inheriting the throne in 1640, the Frederick William had only a few thousand mercenaries and refugees from other armies at his disposal because of the stingy grants from the Estates. The mercenaries under his payroll terrorized the land they were supposed to defend and were, surprise, incompetent as a fighting force.\nFrederick rid the army of incompetent foreign mercenaries and Colonels who terrorized citizens for personal gain, this process taking roughly a year; Frederick won the gratitude of the Estates for rectifying the military anarchy. However, Frederick was left with only 2,500 men. Taking advantage of the Estates' gratitude, the Elector built up his army to 8,000 men by 1648.\n\nAfter the war, the Estates, wary of the Elector's power, demanded army reductions over the course of 30 years as they have done in the past. Wanting to continue his policy of military expansionism, Frederick, through political schemes and conceits, eventually built an army large enough to defy his opponents. The most important was a compromise in 1653 with the Brandenburg Estates. Junkers (land-owning nobility) were granted a large array of privileges: the Junker's fiefs were now exclusively owned by themselves, they were recognized as the only class allowed to acquire estates, and privileges shakily extorted from previous Electors, such as dominion over their peasants' lives and exemption of taxation, were officially confirmed. These privileges were exchanged for a grant of 530,000 talers, payable over 6 years. This grant allowed Frederick William to maintain a force of ~5,000 men, a small foundation to quickly build on. Frederick would eventually be able to coerce the Estates into his will; the fact that no general meetings of the Estates were held after 1653 demonstrates the Estates' waning power.\n\nIn 1655, Sweden invaded Poland (The 2nd Northern War). Frederick reasoned the war could serve as a threat (which Brandenburg joined in 1657), and began recruiting forces in Brandenburg and the principalities on the lower Rhine and beckoned the East Prussian militia. The Estates objected to contributing funds to anything besides defending their own provinces. However, already equipped with a decent size army, Frederick swept the protests aside and imposed steep new taxes to pay for new recruits.\n\n8,000 men under arms by September, 1655.\n\n22,000 by June, 1656.\n\n27,000 when the Treaty of Olivia (1660) ended hostilities.\n\nAfter this war, there were reductions to the army, but never as drastic as before. Between 1660 and 1672, Frederick kept a standing army between 7,000 and 12,000 men - no longer did Brandenburg have to build its army from scratch at the outbreak of war. Frederick died in 1688 with an army of ~30,000.\n\nSource:\n\nCraig, Gordon A. *The Politics of the Prussian Army: 1640-1945.* New York: Oxford U, 1964. Print.\n\nEdits: Some edits were made to make for easier reading.\n"
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5ku6xr | Why did British colonists view miscegenation with natives so much more negatively than Portuguese colonists did? | The /r/AskHistorians podcast episode (#50, the first one on Zimbabwe) mentions that in southern Africa, the Portuguese approved of--and even encouraged--interracial marriage because it would promote stability. The British took a very different attitude, which eventually grew into full apartheid.
But surely the British wanted stability too. So what explains the different attitudes toward racial mixing? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5ku6xr/why_did_british_colonists_view_miscegenation_with/ | {
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"This answer is maybe a bit tangential to you question, as it focused on Brazil (and the European and African population thereof), but I hope it helps!\n\nA significant portion of modern Brazil's population is mixed race, usually European descended and African descended. When the Portuguese settled Brazil, it was primarily single men who colonized the area and not, as in English colonized sections of North American, families. As a result, European men married and had children with native and African slave women.\n\n This practice of intermarriage was justified (really after the fact, in the late 19th-early 20th centuries; originally it was done out of necessity) via the concept of racial whitening, known in Brazil as Branqueamento. Essentially what branqueamiento did was assert genetic Darwinism: white genes were superior to black or native genes, and thus, over time, the black genes would stop being passed on, resulting in progressively whiter children over generations. This idea of racial relations was fundamentally different from that of the English and the Americans, first out of necessity and then out of racial \"science.\" These are two of the reasons why Brazil's population is significantly mixed-race compared to the US, which, for most of its history, was colonized by families and which developed a different set of scientific racial stereotypes."
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6nv3il | Why was it so much easier prior to World War 2 to invade other countries without risking your economy collapsing or severe economic embargoes? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6nv3il/why_was_it_so_much_easier_prior_to_world_war_2_to/ | {
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"World War 2 was the result of a centuries-long process: the escalating cost of warfare in both men and material. This is usually brought up by historians in relation to [the military revolution] (_URL_0_) of the renaissance, but remained a trend that continued until World War 2 and arguably until the present day. \n\nIt was *relatively* inexpensive and uncomplicated to invade a country and establish dominion over it in the european middle ages because armies were small, lived off the land for the most part, and could get rid of the sources of local legitimacy by destroying local families. William the Conquerer, for example, divested the Anglo-Saxon ruling class of England over the course of his reign and replaced them with a strong Norman class. He only brought approximately 10,000 men for the invasion of England. Compare this to the battle of pavia, early in the period I'm about to go over, where Charles V brought around 23,000 men to a single battle against the French, or the later battle of Kunesdorf where the Russians brought 60,000 men. At one point in the 1650s, the Spanish had 300,000 men on their military payroll. More people, of course, meant more expenses.\n\nHow did this happen?\n\nTo simplify a very complicated theory, investment in new technologies gave countries better battlefield effectiveness, encouraging further spending on new tech. At the same time, states in Europe gained the ability to tax their subjects more effectively and thus pay for this expensive tech. At the same time, new technologies and tactics such as gunpowder and pike formations gave infantry much more effectiveness. This made the focus of warfare in Europe shift from relatively small cavalry-focused armies to larger infantry focused ones. More people meant greater costs. This coincided with a population boom in the 16-1700s, resulting in even greater reserves of manpower to pull from. The end result of this was a massive increase in the size of armies, creating further costs and further burdens on the civilian population who had to provide the army's upkeep. This also coincided with the development of sophisticated supply chains and the reduction of armies' reliance on plundering the countryside, putting additional burdens on the country that began an invasion.\n\nThis trend continued throughout the 1700s, but gained a massive boost with the French Revolution. The Levee en Masse, the policy of mass conscription used by the French, pulled much greater proportions of fighting-age men to the front lines than any European polity had done before (since the dissolution of the Roman Empire, anyhow). This was the first time a European state had millions of men in their army, giving the French army a decisive advantage for a time. The other European states had to adapt to this by recruiting even more men and thus paying even more. Society began to be fundamentally restructured to support the war effort. Further population booms appeared later, creating even more available manpower\n\nBefore we get to the further escalation of this doctrine lets discuss colonization. Plenty of african polities, for example, were invaded by European powers in the late 1800s. This did not generally result in economic deprivation, however. African states did not have the technological and demographic developments that the Europeans did, keeping their armies small, inexpensive, and mostly low-tech. Invading European armies were able to be small and relatively inexpensive compared to the armies that would be used in Europe because a few hundred Europeans could beat a William-the-Conquerer-sized army of Africans in pitched battle. This is opposed to europe, where hundreds of thousands of high-tech soldiers would oppose any would-be conqueror. \n\nWorld War I resulted in even further economy-destroying developments in warfare as countries supported millions of troops and financed further weapon technology. Each country borrowed massive sums to pay for it all. Rationing was introduced. The imposition of debt on Germany after the war collapsed its economy for years. \n\nWW2 further escalated the amount society was willing to give for war. Factories were requisitioned, rationing was reintroduced, conscription was used. Society was fundamentally shaped by the war effort. This was because, of course, if a country didn't take these drastic steps, it would be beaten by the country that did. A medieval kingdom would have neither the inclination nor the administrative ability to do this, but as a result of centuries of escalating warfare, modern nations would.\n\nLess troops are generally involved in wars after WW2, but this is mainly because high-tech, high development powers largely haven't gone to war with each other. It's still not necessarily an economy-breaker to invade a low-tech country as a high-tech one. Even the massive moneypit of the Vietnam War didn't collapse the US economy, and that was a worst-case scenario. It's invading a fellow high tech country that would be extremely expensive, as total war requires incredibly large amounts of men and incredibly large amounts of material, to the point of society being restructured to provide for the war effort. This is the type of economic collapse the question mentions, and it's due to the escalation of war and state power as discussed above. \n\nAs for embargoes, these are mainly a tool to avoid these costs while still influencing other nations. Embargoes are often used by powerful countries on nations that invade others to avoid destabilizing the status quo and to serve the recently-developed ideals of self-determination and human rights. These ideals were far less powerful before the late 1800s, and had less influence on leaders of polities. It's also important to mention that trade was far less globalized before World War I, and an embargo would not necessarily have been as effective. The power and reach of any imposing country would also be less prevalent before WW2, when two global superpowers could effectively influence any nation in the world at any given time. Just for example, I doubt that if Portugal opposed Mughal expansion into India they would embargo them, and if they did I doubt it would be very effective. They would not feel the inclination to help the countries being subjected and their power is not great enough that an embargo would make a difference.\n\nFinally, I should note that the question itself is somewhat flawed. It was not, in all instances, easier prior to WW2 to invade other countries without risking one's economy collapsing, or even embargoes. The Japanese, after all, risked both with the invasion of Manchuria and China in the 1930s. King Leopold of Belgium was forced by diplomatic pressure to give up the Congo to his nation's government. It was not always so easy.\n\nTL;DR:\nIncreases in certain countries' technology, manpower, and state power escalated warfare's cost and national involvement over centuries to make it inconceivably expensive by WW2 when fighting another developed power. In addition, a variety of factors made invading other countries less diplomatically acceptable and more-easily affected by embargoes.\n\nSources\n-Renaissance France at War: Armies, Culture and Society, C.1480-1560\n-The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, by Paul Kennedy",
"To tack onto the excellent answer above, there's a distinct difference between the world economy pre-WII and the world economy today. \n\nThe premise of your question is a little flawed; pre-WWII wars still would tax a country's reserves and economy just to maintain an army, or especially a navy, but you're right in that things are more risky now. Prior to world war 2 (and still for a time after it), the developed countries (i.e. Europe and Japan) were overwhelmingly Mercantilist. Much of the mercantilist system was intrinsically tied to colonialism, for a couple obvious reasons: mercantilism was about having a 'sphere of influence' to specifically feed raw resources and capital back to the colonial master without having to rely on another developed country. In short, the british or French empires used their colonies and military might to edge other rivals OUT of whole sectors of the world, specifically to deny them access to markets while simultaneously guaranteeing it for themselves. The world economy was not really free like it is today; British companies wouldn't be competing with, say, French ones or Chinese ones (in broad strokes, but you get the gist)\n\nThis system was lambasted by pioneers in economics such as Adam Smith and by writers such as Johnathan Swift. It was, after all, based on accruing wealth to the colonial center and stressing autarky, which in turn would ensure wars would just expand needlessly without sufficient monetary incentive to avoid them. Errr, that's a rough sentence. Don't mean to get into philosophy, but the gist of what I'm saying is that a colonial Empire like Britain enjoyed economic dominance in its sphere, and that meant it didn't rely on importing goods from other developed countries. \n\nThe USA, in contrast to a lot of European powers, had its own thoughts about the world economy, likely driven by its own industrialization. In 1944 the major European allies held the Bretton Woods conference to try and figure out the post-war order, at least in economic terms, and the USA championed an agreement on open markets. \n\nThis THOUGHT, open markets, contributed to the highly interwoven world economy you find today, where the USA and China are held together by one's need for raw materials and the other's need for a marketplace to sell things to. Britain, without its colonies and thus its extraction, can still enjoy the luxuries and commodities of the world because of the principle of free trade. The World Trade Organization, founded in 1995, can probably be thought of as the pinnacle of the anti-Mercantilist order that dominated pre-WWII. The WTO ensures that developed nations are adhering to open markets and fair trade practices, making them tightly more interdependent, and as a consequence of this (very much intended by the people who first pushed for it) war between developed countries is much, much costlier. \n\nAfter all, there's just more at risk in shutting off imports. The interdependence of economies makes it so. Depriving your own people of German goods or depriving your own industries of cheap Vietnamese semiconductors is an excellent way to breed resentment among the masses and also crash your own domestic industries unintentionally. Similarly, if other countries refuse YOUR exports, then your industries aren't making any profit like they used to, since the free market incentivized them to innovate, and then with innovation they produce more than the domestic market can consume. That's an oversimplification but you can look at the case of agribusiness in the USA or the petrostate tendencies of the Russian Federation to see what I mean...they need to export to maintain profits. \n\nThis was a weird post, but I don't want to bore you in theory so I hope I didn't and I'll just stop here. Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, has a few chapters on this subject specifically talking about the European economic order, you can also try a very light academic text called U.S. Trade Policy: Balancing Economic Dreams and Political Realities by Rothgeb. It's a light touch but it'll go into far more historical detail about the changes in the int'l economy. "
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vqvjc | How did ancient fortified cities handle sewage and guard against plague and fire? | Were there any other threats to their well-being that could not be handled by military force? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vqvjc/how_did_ancient_fortified_cities_handle_sewage/ | {
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"Sewage: throw it in a hole or ditch or into the street, or even better, a river. This was sufficient until population increases in the C19th led to overcrowding and made sewers necessary. London only started building sewers in 1859, after cholera epidemics and The Great Stink; and with a population of around 2.5 million, London was obviously much larger than any ancient city.\n\nPlague: There wasn't much that could be done; there was little understanding about the causes, much less of how to prevent the spread of disease. Quarantine was used, but in most cases a city simply had no choice but to ride out the epidemic. Plague would probably result in large migration from the city, however, despite the risk of spreading infection."
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16m2bm | I'm an average English person in the 1300s, how much do I know about the world? | How knowledgeable would the average English person of the Medieval era be about current affairs, what the world looked like, where countries where etc? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16m2bm/im_an_average_english_person_in_the_1300s_how/ | {
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"Define average. An average person would have been living out on the farms. Do you mean average city dweller? They would have \"known\" much more (in our sense) than a farmer.\n\nAn average farmer would likely have been aware of a good amount of local botany--though he would not have used that term. May have known some astronomy, etc, from simply observation. Would have known how to run a farm, animals lifecycles--basically he would have known everything that was important to running a farm or subsistence agriculture during his time.",
"It depends on what you count as 'average'. Unless you are a serf who were limited to how far they could travel (perhaps a few miles from the manor unless special dispensation), freemen and everyone in the social classes above them could move quite a bit.\n\nCurrent affairs? It depends if there's a war on. That tended to bring people from all over the kingdom: e.g: Edward III's war with France in 1346, or the siege of Calais a year later - that brought 30,000 Englishmen to France. If you survive, you bring the information back home with you.\nOther methods of information exchange include the links between the clergy and the Pope, pilgrimages across Europe, court letters (which were circulated), sailors, and merchants travelling to the Low Countries and beyond. Edward III entertained the son of the 'king of India'. That is going to filter down to the ordinary person at some point, just not necessarily quickly. If you read Chaucer, he expects (or assumes) his audience to be aware of or at least understand places like Syria, Russia, Turkey, Portugal, as well as the places closer to England such as Brittany or Spain. Nobody knows what's going on outside of Christendom (yet) and it's full of speculation and factually incorrect information.\n\nMap-wise people are aware of the earth being a globe but that doesn't really mean anything until Columbus shows that it means you can travel east to go west. It was assumed that you could travel westwards from Spain to reach India in a few days, but this is a *theological* understanding, not a geographical one. The earth is full of dangerous places full of [sciopods](_URL_0_), [cynocephlapods](_URL_1_), or the [Blemmyae](_URL_2_), where people boil the sick and eat them, where dragons co-exist with elephants. It's also full misconceptions about geography- India is synonymous with Asia, Sri Lanka has two summers and two winters. \n\nSo your access to material was somewhat contingent on what class you were and who you mixed with.\n\nEdit: accidentally a word here and there.\n\nEdit 2: to save the mods more hassle.",
"I've often wondered about this. Would they know who the leaders of other countries are? Would they be aware of the pyramids? If I'm an average dude in a hot place do I know snow exists? ",
"Presumably an average person would have known at least a basic (and I mean very basic) geography of the Middle East from church? Likely their imaginations would have run wild about what the places were like in their own times (especially if they knew the holy lands were controlled by non-Christians). Thoughts?",
"_URL_0_\n\nThis article actually hits your nail *right* on its head. It concerns a peasant (former soldier) who killed a man, but then got his liege-lord to intercede with *his* liege-lord to intercede with Simon de Monfort, de facto ruler of England, so as to get himself pardoned.",
"Well if you read a book like [Montaillou](_URL_0_) by Emmanuel le Roy Ladurie you will see that these normal people in the 1300 hundreds were quite well informed about the world and had a varied viwe on the world. this is ofc southern france, but the time periode at least fits. a real good read if you are curious about common folks in the 1300´s\n\n",
"While not necessarily focused only on England, this is a great source for 14th Century Western European history: _URL_0_",
"How many people in these times had even seen a map, I'm curious?\n\nParticularly a map that covers more than the horizon's area.\n\nFor instance when did average English people begin to have a mental shape of Britain, as opposed to vague abstraction?",
"1300s in England is an interesting time to ask this question because there is the Peasant's Revolt in 1381, which raises really interesting questions about how people communicated and organized. It's one thing to be unhappy about taxation; it's quite another to be able to get a large number of people to march on the capital to complain about it. \n\nWe know from Chaucer that people who have wider experience of the world (travellers and pilgrims, for example), are likely to come back and tell stories about their experiences, but we also know from the same source that these people are generally regarded as unreliable (Chaucer says pilgrims' backpacks are full of lies). So that raises an interesting question about how you know someone who has an unusual experience is a liar.\n\nBoth of these situations seem to rely on word of mouth, which of course is something there is no textual record of. "
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17v268 | What do we know about european history before ancient greece? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17v268/what_do_we_know_about_european_history_before/ | {
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"It depends on whether you're going to be strict about your interpretation of history versus prehistory - before Herodotus you have very few (if any) written accounts that I know of about Europe, and even then, H. limits his account to a misguided attempt to source the Danube (\"Ister,\" which he places somewhere in Spain). He does give us the name \"Celts\" though. (Herodotus *The Histories* trans. Waterfield, R. 1998, 2:33)\n\n\nArchaeology can tell us more than you'd think! Albeit, prehistorically, there's no way of putting names to people, places or events beyond garbled folk memories that passed into Classic times, but we can reconstruct how people lived, trade links, different cultural styles and other physical things.\n\n\nTake the Amesbury Archer - a fairly elaborate burial found near Stonehenge, dating to the Neolithic/Bronze Age crossover. He had a fair few copper objects on his person, including knives, metalworking tools, and also barbed and tanged flint arrowheads (hence the name). It's theorised that this person was a sort of wandering smith. Isotopic analysis on his teeth shows that he came from the Alps, showing trade links between southern Britain and Central Europe as early as 2300BC. (Fitzpatrick, A.P. 2003. \"The Amesbury Archer\" in *Current Archaeology* 184, pp 146–152) \n\n\nAs an aside, he also had a limp, which always made me think of how the smith Gods like Haephestus, Vulcan and Gobhniu all shared that trait.\n\nIf you want to be *really* picky about it being written history, then I suppose we know a fair bit about Mycenae, but it depends whether you count that as true Ancient Greece or not! \n\nTL;DR No written history, lots of archaeology. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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bgjgti | Why does it seem like throughout Ancient history, tribes were continually pushing out (North, West, and South) from Eastern Europe or the Steppes? | In the 100s BC, Germanic tribes were pushing in to Gaul enough that it gave Rome pretext for invasion. Germanic tribes also went north, supplanting the natives in Scandinavia.
In the 4th and 5th century, Goths and Lombards and Vandals moved West, leading to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The 5th century also saw the push by the Huns (perhaps causing the former?).
Around the 7th century, the Avars, the 12th century the Mongols.
Not to mention the continual invasions in to Anatolia of steppe tribes/peoples.
Was the birthrate lower in the Roman Republic/Empire? Is the Steppe particularly fertile? Am I basing this question off of an incomplete understanding? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bgjgti/why_does_it_seem_like_throughout_ancient_history/ | {
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"This is a good question with no possible good answer. In each case, the variables were different, and we should add to this the hypothesized \"migration\" of the Proto-Indo-Europeans into Europe, from some homeland variously located in the western Russia forested steppe or perhaps from Anatolia. Nobody really knows exactly how it happened, but the linguistic data demands a \"homeland\" of some sort. If that is the case, and just for simplicity we say for now that it was the western Russian steppe, then we know they did not just go to the West: the went south, into Iran, and East into India and even the deserts of western China. They had really scary new weapons at their disposal: the wheel, the horse, the metal plow, cruel social stratification, and the knowledge of how to weave wool into cloth.\n\nYou mentioned the Germanic invasions of the late 2nd century BCE. No ancient author seems to know why exactly the Cimbri \"migrated,\" or from where, and we can these days safely put aside Poseidonius' assertion that they left Jutland because the sea was flooding in. Overpopulation, as you guess, could have been a contributor, but there isn't enough evidence to say for sure. Caesar gives us a relatively thorough account of another such migration, of the Gallic Helvetii in 58 BCE, and even then we do not really get a clear understanding of why exactly they decide to pack up their entire civilization and risk the ire of their neighbors, Roman and Gallic, to seek a new land. Caesar reports that they got sick and tired of being harassed by the Germans to their east.\n\nHarassment was probably the reason for the mass confusion of Eastern Europe at the end of antiquity. As you guess, I think most scholars uneasily accept the Huns to be the bogeyman which sent everything in their path fleeing westwards. Post antique movements into Europe had their own inputs. The point is: there is no one unifying impetus for it all. The viewpoint which makes it seem uncanny springs from a Eurocentric point of view (all these pushy others appearing from the lands beyond rising sun). If we shift the view to, say the Volgue, or the Kyrgistan, we get a very different idea of the same events."
]
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46ygrz | When did Gold become a standard backer of currency, and why? | If I recall correctly, the British Empire began the tradition, mainly because it benefited them economically. What exact time period did they begin doing this, and was there a certain event or driving force that brought about this policy? There has to be reason other than gold being shiny and people being fond of treasure, right?
If the reason that gold became a backer of currency is simply that people value treasure, then at what point in history did this valuation occur, and why? If I am correct, gold has no major practical uses.
Also, were there previous societies (Rome, China, etc.) that valued gold similarly (or other materials)? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/46ygrz/when_did_gold_become_a_standard_backer_of/ | {
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"d08ttyv",
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"Your question, I think, has an incorrect supposition, in that gold \"became a backer\" of other currency. Gold has been used as money and currency since coinage was invented, and before that it was used in trade both in \"raw\" form and in the form of finished products. Gold does not tarnish or rust or \"rot\" like other metals, and is extremely ductile, and thus easily worked and drawn out. It is valuable for these properties as well as its relative scarcity.\n\nThe trend throughout modern history has been first to replace gold as currency with banknotes, as gold was at times considered \"cumbersome\", both for the practical reasons of carrying and storing it and also because the supply of gold cannot be inflated at will. At first, these notes were pegged to metals in order to represent claims to the physical money that people were accustomed to (hence the term backing), but more recently these notes exist simply as fiat paper. That said, gold is still money, even though it is rarely used as currency at present.\n\nValuations for gold were historically rather stable and based on its scarcity relative to silver, which was a much more common currency. This ratio was for millennia in the range of 12 or 15:1 by weight. Alexander's shipments of spoil from his campaign in the East altered the ratio with an influx of gold into the West. At later times, the ratios were set by government fixing. This could cause problems, for example, if other entities had different valuations or if large deposits of either metal were discovered. More recently the ratio has fluctuated much more wildly.",
"Gold and silver have alternated and often co-existed as monetary standards for perhaps 27 centuries, gold often being preferred for state reserves or large-scale trade (presumably in part because you needed only around a tenth of the weight), silver or other metals (copper and alloys) for everyday use (you could make lower-denomination coins). Europeans have tended to prefer gold when they could get their hands on it, Asians silver, perhaps because it's more useful. \n\nThat worked fine when Europe found itself with a windfall of tens of thousands of tons of silver in the centuries after 1492 (in fact starting three decades earlier with strikes in central Europe), using it to oil the wheels of commerce and pay for exotic imports from the east. In the 16th-19th centuries most of Europe effectively operated a bimetallic standard, with both silver and gold coins whose relative value varied with that of the two metals. \n\nSir Isaac Newton is commonly credited with establishing the modern gold standard by setting the golden Guinea at 21 silver shillings in 1717, overvaluing gold and driving silver out of circulation to be shipped abroad or melted down: in fact he seems rather to have failed to correct a half-century-old mismatch between the two units, whether by accident or design (\"If things be let alone till silver money be a little scarcer, the Gold will fall of itself,\" he wrote). \n\nFortunately for Britain, gold became a good deal more readily available in the 18th century thanks to gold finds in Brazil and the special relationship with Portugal, and the country officially moved to gold in 1816. The US and Europe followed between the 1870s and 1890s, a move often seen as connected with the period's severe price depression: this time discoveries in South Africa, the Yukon and Alaska came to the rescue. \n\nSuspended in most of Europe in 1914 and restored in modified form in the 1920s, the standard outlived its usefulness in another still deeper Depression this time with no Klondike in sight, being abandoned successively by the major players in 1931-36. While currencies resumed their link to gold after WW2 there would be no return to fixed rates, with devaluations aplenty until the agony was finally ended in the early 1970s. "
]
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[],
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2c5lzy | WW2 German Security Regiments, specifically 286th Security Regiment before and during Op. Bagration | Hello, I've been trying to find some information on the 286th Security Regiment, and German security regiments in general.
Generally I've been trying to figure out what their TO & E looked like and what an average security regiment would be doing on the Eastern Front during 1944/45.
Specifically I would like to know information about the 286th Security Regiment during Bagration. All I was able to find out so far was that it was a part of the 4th Army East of Orsha. At this time it consisted of:
Grenadier Regiment 638 (French volunteers that would eventually be folded into SS Charlemagne)
Infantry Regiment 61
Infantry Regiment 122
Infantry Regiment 354
II./ Artillery Regiment 213
Alarm Battalion 704 (Most likely not in existence)
Signals Battalion 825
Reiterhundertschaft 286 (Apparently a small cavalry company)
Although I;m not sure what kind of equipment each of these units would have. I wouldn't imagine they would be equipped like a normal Infantry Division or Grenadier Division, but I could be wrong.
The 286th was destroyed during Bagration with most of the rest of the 4th Army, although 400 men from Grenadier Regiment 638 held a crossing at the Bryobransk or Berezina river (possibly the city of Borisov on the Berezina) with the support of five Tiger tanks and Stuka dive bombers later in the battle. Different sources mention Bryobransk and Berezina, but they all agree on the Tigers and Stukas. I wasn't able to find Bryobransk river, but I thought it might be talking about Borisov which would put it on the Berezina.
Unfortunately this is all the information I've been able to find. Security Divisions aren't quite as cool as most everything else and information seems pretty scarce. At least as far as their organization down to Company level and combat experience. There is quite a bit of info regarding their participation in the killings of civilians. However, that isn't information that I am interested in. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2c5lzy/ww2_german_security_regiments_specifically_286th/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjcb3pw"
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"text": [
"I take that you mean the 286. Sicherungs-division (Security Division), not regiment?\n\nThe division was created on the 15th of March 1941 and was a rear area security division. It guarded rail and road junctions, important infrastructure and industries and conducted extremely brutal anti-partisan operations.\n\nBy the time of Operation Bagration, the division had absorbed;\n\nGrenadier-Regiment 638 (French volunteers).\n\nSicherungs-Regimenter 44, 78, z.b.V. 631, z.b.V. 632 and 931.\n\nIm Februar 1944 unterstanden der Division zusätzlich das französische Grenadier-Regiment 638, die Sicherungs-Regimenter 44, 78, z.b.V. 631, z.b.V. 632 und 931.\n\nBy Operation Bagration, it was under command of Generalleutnant Hans Oschmann."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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57mg4w | What was the reaction of Henry VII and his court to the news of the New World? | Was there any recorded commentary? Were there any early plans to colonize, or was that not in the interests of England at the time? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/57mg4w/what_was_the_reaction_of_henry_vii_and_his_court/ | {
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"*I can offer a partial answer to this question but I readily defer to other historians for whom this area is their primary expertise.*\n\nHenry VII was originally unwilling to support an expedition west in search of a new sea route to markets in the east. He had met with Christopher Columbus' younger brother Bartolomeo in 1489 and had apparently been unimpressed with his condition and proposal. Long after the fact, Sir Francis Bacon recorded in the early 1620s that Bartolomeo had been captured by pirates on his journey to England and had arrived at court in a state that did not well serve his cause. \"And it so fortuned that he was taken by pirates at sea, by which accidental implement he was long here he came to the King; so long that before he had received a capitulation with the King for his brother the enterprise by him was achieved, and so the West-Indies by providence were then reserved for the crown of Castilia.\" Sir Francis Bacon, *The History of the Reign of Henry VII* (Cambridge: CUP, 1998), 157\n\nThere does appear to be evidence that English ships had nonetheless been searching west even before the first successful voyage of Christopher. The Spanish envoy Pedro de Ayala in a letter to his king stated in 1498, \"Merchants of Bristol have for the last seven years annually sent out ships in search of the island of Brazil and the seven cities.\" Bergenroth, *Calendar* I. 177, no. 210.\n\nFollowing Christopher's first successful voyage to the New World in 1492 and his safe return the following year Henry VII changed his mind regarding the potential possibilities for trade via the west and chose to give his support to the Genoese explorer John Cabot. In exchange for a trading monopoly to all lands discovered he would license Cabot and five ships to undertake such an expedition. However it is important to note that the King did not financially support Cabot in this endeavour. The King issued him letters patent in 1496 but it was left to Cabot and his partners to finance the expedition themselves. It appears that Cabot decided to assign a portion of his rights by charter to his backers and was effectively \"mortgaging his future.\" Evan Jones, \"The Matthew of Bristol and the Financiers of John Cabot's 1497 Voyage to North America\" *English Historical Review* Vol. 121, No. 492 (Jun., 2006), pp. 781\n\nThankfully for Cabot he successfully crossed the Atlantic for the first time in 1497 under English banners. He returned that year for an audience with the King and was celebrated at court for his achievements. He received a substantial sum and was assigned a pension to support him in future endeavours. For decades thereafter Bristol would become a centre for financing and supporting expeditions of this kind to the the New World in pursuit of new routes to Orient. David Harris Sacks, *The Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic Economy, 1450-1700* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 51. \n\nThe King would continue to support other expeditions to the west from Bristol until the end of his reign. \n "
]
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2me45r | During the Bush War, the Rhodesian Light Infantry earned a reputation for being perhaps the best counter-insurgency force in the world. Was this reputation deserved? How did they achieve such incredible results? | Because conflict in the 21st century is all about asymmetrical warfare involving stateless combatants (and occasionally containing only stateless combatants) I was wondering what lessons we (NATO, UNSC etc) can learn from the Bush war, and whether we can tailor these approaches to peacekeeping style operations. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2me45r/during_the_bush_war_the_rhodesian_light_infantry/ | {
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"I've previously written an answer to a similar question [here](_URL_0_).\n\nNeedless to say, they worked very well as a *military* force but as a counter-insurgency force, they were actually downright awful. Unfortunately, the post-Bush War literature (often written by the RLI themselves) were quite happy to overlook this and if you browse the many armchair military forums around the web, you will see an almost insane amount of praise for the RLI - very much like how they praise the Waffen-SS.",
"What incredible results? The Lancaster House Agreement and the rapid transition of Rhodesia to Zimbabwe? I don't mean to bite your head off but this is an important matter that really speaks to the heart of your question: the Ian Smith government *lost* the war and failed to keep any of its political objectives in the aftermath, obviously their counter-insurgency strategy wasn't effective overall. It's much more instructive to look at the *political* reasons Rhodesian UDI failed than to lost cause the valiance or tactical proficiency of the Rhodesian armed forces. \n\nWhy, despite unquestioned conventional military superiority, was the UDI government forced to surrender? The short answer is international isolation, which produced a situation where the nationalist guerillas could base themselves in safe zones of neighboring countries and import Communist bloc military aid to their heart's content. The Rhodesian government had to mess around with sanctions busting and face continual difficulties in supply, to say nothing of the morale eroding exclusion from international sporting events. This political context creates an atmosphere of inevitability; when the rebels can operate across borders it's not possible to defeat them permanently by military means. The nationalists merely need to wait, and keep fighting, until their beleaguered opponents lose their resolve and the whole weight of international opinion comes down on the side of majority rule.\n\nIf there's one lesson counter-insurgents should learn from the Rhodesian Bush War it's the overriding importance of political factors. Counter-insurgents need to internalize what insurgents understand, what is the very foundation of the theory of guerilla warfare: that war is a continuation of politics that exists to achieve political aims. Political aims that are themselves impossible cannot be achieved militarily. When UDI was declared in 1965 the aim of white minority might not be quite impossible but it's pretty close to it, we are well into the era of decolonization and [the erosion of British backing for its white colonial project.](_URL_0_). \n\nIt's an interesting counter-factual that if instead of UDI the white Rhodesians had pursued a more subtle program of white supremacy they might have maintained their power longer. Imagine that instead of blowing up relations with the U.K. and world by declaring UDI on the principle of white supremacy Ian Smith's government in the early 60s had paid lip service to equality while keeping land ownership and other prerogatives stacked in favor of whites. I think there are some other colonial contexts, British East Africa or Caribbean colonies, that suggest this would have been a much longer lasting way of maintaining white minority interests against rising nationalist claims."
]
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[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2hmgrd/why_was_the_war_in_rhodesia_rhodesian_bush_war/cku03c1"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_of_Change_%28speech%29"
]
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|
2elua7 | How did they take photos in WW2 invasions? | Like how they got a picture of Allied powers invading a beach and Benito Mussolini-Adolf Hitler being together? Do they have like soldiers with cameras there? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2elua7/how_did_they_take_photos_in_ww2_invasions/ | {
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"I will answer this from the perspective of two photos which I think are famous within the Invasion of Normandy.\n\nThe first being: \"Into the Jaws of Death\", photographed by Robert F. Sargent. He was the chief photographer mate in the US Coast Guard. I did a lot of digging for this answer. A chief photographer mate serves as the Navys professional photographer. Here is the general info on the position from about careers: US Military.\n\n\"They operate different kinds of still and video equipment on a variety of assignments. PHs cover news events, ceremonies, accident investigations and provide photography for release to Navy and civilian publications or for use in Navy historical documents. Their work may include portrait photography, photographic copying, aerial photography for map making and reconnaissance, scanning and editing of digital video images along with the production of training films, video news reports and all other types of audiovisual work. Along with the training provided to support all aspects of photographic laboratory work, some PHs receive additional training in the troubleshooting and repair and maintenance of photographic equipment and camera repair. This is a five-year enlistment program.\"\n\nSource: _URL_2_\n\nWith regard to Robert F. Sargent his job was to take photos of the invasion for those specified purposes. He took professional photos as a means of documentation. This particular shot (Into the Jaws of Death) is of Company E, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division landing on Omaha Beach .\n\nAnother example would be someone who is civilian and not associated with the military. Robert Capa of LIFE Magazine also captured images of Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. On D-Day he took eleven photos from what I am reading and they selected ten of them for publication in LIFE Magazine on June 19, 1944. He says the following about his experience,\n\n\"The war correspondent has his stake — his life — in his own hands, and he can put it on this horse or that horse, or he can put it back in his pocket at the very last minute ... I am a gambler. I decided to go in with Company E in the first wave.\"\n\nHe risked his life on many occasions to get the shots and is quoted as saying, \"If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough.\" Capa is an individual who got the photos that are known for being iconic today. He is just one individual who worked to capture a moment so that we may see what the action on the front line looked like. It is as close as a civilian can get to experiencing war.\n\nI recommend this website for more on Robert Capa: _URL_0_.\n\nPicture of Capa's work: _URL_1_\n\nHopefully this has helped you out and answered your question. I enjoyed answering it and doing some of my own research for it."
]
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"http://www.skylighters.org/photos/robertcapa.html",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Capa#mediaviewer/File:Capa,_D-Day1.jpg",
"http://usmilitary.about.com/od/enlistedjob1/a/ph.htm"
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|
9pledg | Body Hair Removal - Why does modern western society prefer women hairless? | Men have been shaving their beards for a few centuries, sure. But what about chests, legs, underarms, genitalia? How did body hair removal come into fashion, and is it the first time the world has seen this trend? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9pledg/body_hair_removal_why_does_modern_western_society/ | {
"a_id": [
"e83lwhm"
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"text": [
"Not to discourage further discussion, but the [faq](_URL_1_) features a few comments on hair, including a [great](_URL_0_) answer by /u/sunagainstgold ."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5qj3i3/when_did_women_in_europe_begin_shaving_their_legs/dd0iz15/?st=jcjh9v3f&sh=2d482123",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/dailylife#wiki_hair"
]
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|
2la9f5 | Caligula had a painful headache followed by a coma. Could he have suffered brain damage causing his claims of divinity and other erratic behaviour? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2la9f5/caligula_had_a_painful_headache_followed_by_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"clt8oo8"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"This is getting out of the realm of history and into speculative neuropathology, but a [frontal lobe tumor](_URL_0_) could have caused erratic mood swings, impaired judgment, and bursts of aggression and hypersexuality, not to mention agonizing headaches. [Brain damage](_URL_1_) to the frontal lobe (link goes to PDF) could have had a similar effect. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_lobe_disorder",
"https://www.wlu.ca/forms/3305/Frontal_Lobe_Dysfunction.pdf"
]
] |
||
3ws70l | Given how loud, and often insatiable a human infant can be, how do you think we were still able to evolve and thrive as a species? What were some early parenting tactics that kept us from becoming food? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3ws70l/given_how_loud_and_often_insatiable_a_human/ | {
"a_id": [
"cxyofpt"
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"text": [
"This is really a question about pre-history, possibly even pre-Homo sapiens sapiens, and I would recommend you try /r/AskAnthropology or else /r/AskScience, as they are better suited for questions about evolution like this."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
ctgoav | Was Lucius Verus a good emperor? | There is a lot of talk about the 5 good emperors their accomplishments and good character but they were not the only ones that ruled during that time. Why is Lucius Verus omitted from being discussed jointly with the 5? Was he a bad ruler( in any context), or was it that he didnt accomplish anything of note? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ctgoav/was_lucius_verus_a_good_emperor/ | {
"a_id": [
"exkxolm"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The distinguishing characteristics of Lucius Verus were his hedonism, his affability and his dimness. At no point in his life did he ever display anything more than a passing interest in the affairs of state or even in warfare. He was marginalized by the Emperor Antonius and when Marcus accepted him as Co-Emperor it is generally accepted that this was more a practical necessity as Marcus had notoriously poor luck in children (he had 10 with only one son surviving to adulthood). During his eight years in \"power\" before his untimely death, he occupied himself primarily with chariot races, feasting and ribaldry. When he was placed in charge of armies in the field against the Parthians, the contemporary chroniclers could only praise him for taking the time to show his face at the front and for delegating decision making to competent generals, hardly the stuff legends are built upon. He is only considered a second rate emperor rather than a bad emperor because of his charm and good nature, separating him from the murderous excesses of Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Caracalla and Heliogabalus. \n\nFrank McLynn describes him thusly: \"Lucius Verus was one of those popular, charismatic yet ultimately empty-headed and second-rate personalities either in power or close to power that we encounter throughout history; many of the contemporary descriptions make him seem an uncanny pre-echo of Henrey II's son, Henry the Young King, a charming hedonist, spendthrift and profligate...as a youth he was known for his affairs with young men...he liked to trawl the taverns and low dives of Rome in disguise...he had a peculiar habit of smashing the cups in taverns with coins...a fanatical supporter of the Greens...the cost of one of his feasts was estimated at six billion sesterces\". \n\nInformation taken primarily from Frank McLynn's biography of Marcus Aurelius, \"Marcus Aurelius: Warrior, Philosopher, Emperor\"."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
4ca6rd | Who was responsible for blowing up the USS Maine in Cuba in 1898? | Has this ever been fully resolved?
The Spanish said it was an accident (coal bunker next to magazine caused the explosion)
Sampson Board's Inquiry in 1898 said it was a mine
Vreeland Board in 1911 said it was an external explosion, but different from what the Sampson Board described
Rickover Investigation in 1974 concluded the explosion was caused internally
A 1998 National Geographic investigation was unconclusive
A 2002 History channel investigation seemed to agree with the Spanish conclusion
How thorough were any of these investigations? Was it just an accident that the US capitalized on to go to war? Or was it really a Spanish attack? Did aliens blow it up? Or do we just not know? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4ca6rd/who_was_responsible_for_blowing_up_the_uss_maine/ | {
"a_id": [
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"At the moment most historians agree that it was an accident. There is at the very least no evidence that the destruction of the Maine was premeditated. One of the most important historians currently living who studies Cuba, specializing in the 1890s, was satisfied to simply cite the Rickover Investigation's conclusions (that it was an accident) and move on. _URL_0_\n\nSome contemporary Americans certainly believed the Spanish had done it, as Perez points out in that same article. But we have yet to come up with any proof that Spaniards planted a mine (much less a good reason reason, since the last thing Spain wanted was US intervention in the war).\n\nSome still push that it was a false flag operation by the US to enter the war. This was certainly the narrative of the post-1959 Cuban government. As of right now, however, this interpretation hasn't been able to present any proof. Interview with one such official can be found here: _URL_1_\n\nAs years go by and the rapprochement with the US becomes more real, Cuban politicians push this narrative less and less, or if they honestly believe it they keep it private.\n\nPushing the narrative that it was a premeditated by someone is more of a political position (a way to criticize the US, Spain, or whoever) than it is a tenable position among historians.",
"/u/The_Alaskan had an excellent comment about this a year ago. [Link here](_URL_1_).\n\n > **The current academic consensus is that there is no consensus.**\n\n > Let's review.\n\n > [There have been four major investigations into the sinking of the Maine:](_URL_3_) \n > • The first took place in 1898, immediately after the sinking. The McKinley administration created a naval board of inquiry that concluded unanimously that the ship was sunk \"only by the explosion of a mine situated under the bottom of the ship at about frame 18, and somewhat on the port side of the ship.\"\n\n > • The second investigation took place in 1911. President Taft ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to study the wreckage. Never to do anything by halves, the Corps built a cofferdam around the ship's wreckage, pumped out all the water and examined the exposed hull. Hundreds of photographs were taken, and the Corps removed much of the wreckage. A revised board of inquiry reaffirmed that a mine sank the ship, but it concluded the mine had detonated at a different place.\n\n > • The third investigation came in 1974, when Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the nuclear Navy, asked historians to re-examine the case. The historians dredged Spanish archives and consulted with foreign militaries about their own experience with internal explosions. They consulted professional engineers to analyze the 1911 photographs and took into context the \"natural tendency to look for reasons for the loss that did not reflect upon the Navy.\" This study resulted in [How the Battleship Maine was Destroyed](_URL_2_). That book concluded the explosion was, \"without a doubt,\" internal.\n\n > • The fourth investigation came in 1999 and was conducted by the National Geographic Society. NGS commissioned a study by Advanced Marine Enterprises, which conducted the first detailed computer modeling of the disaster. AME stated that a coal fire within a bunker could have raised the temperature within one of the Maine's magazines to hazardous levels within a few hours. As to a mine strike, AME found that even a simple mine consisting of 100 pounds of black powder and a contact fuse could have sunk the ship. \"If so, the mine must have been perfectly placed, which under the circumstances would have been as much a matter of luck as skill.” While it did not discount either option for the Maine's destruction, AME ultimately concluded (based on the 1911 photographs) that there was more evidence in favor of the Maine's destruction by a mine.\n\n > [Let's review the competing evidence for each side, and you can make up your mind.](_URL_0_)\n\n > For a mine detonation:\n\n > • The Maine carried a type of bituminous coal that rarely spontaneously combusted.\n\n > • Bunker A16 was not situated by a boiler or any other external heat source, and spontaneous combustion does not occur unless there is a heat source to speed up the process. \n\n > • When Bunker A16 was inspected the morning of the disaster, the temperature was only 59 degrees Fahrenheit. \n\n > • The Maine's temperature sensor system did not indicate any dangerous rise in temperature on the morning of the last inspection. \n\n > • Discipline on the Maine was excellent, and regular inspections of coal bunkers for hazards, as well as the implementation of precautions for preventing bunker fires, were diligently carried out. \n\n > • A number of witnesses stated that they heard two distinct explosions several seconds apart. If anything else besides a mine had triggered the magazine explosion, then witnesses would have only heard one blast, because the only explosion would have been that of the magazines. \n\n > • The only reason that two explosions would have been heard is if something besides the magazine had exploded, such as a mine.\n\n > • Divers who examined the bottom plates of the Maine reported that they were bent inward. This was subsequently confirmed with 1911 photographs.\n\n > • Divers spotted a large hole on the floor of Havana harbor, something that would not have occurred with a magazine explosion. Those are directed upward, toward the path of least resistance. \n\n > For an internal explosion:\n\n > • Spontaneous combustion of coal was a fairly frequent problem on ships built after the American Civil War. Coal was exposed to air, oxidized and began burning. The heat was transferred to the ship's magazines, causing an explosion. \n\n > • The Maine's bituminous coal was more subject to spontaneous combustion than anthracite coal. Furthermore, higher moisture content increases the danger of spontaneous combustion. The Maine had spent most of the previous three months in Key West or nearby, where tropical moisture predominates.\n\n > • Bunker A16 had not been inspected since 8 a.m. The explosion occurred around 9:40 p.m. There was ample time (12 hours) for a coal bunker fire to smolder into a disaster. \n\n > • From 1894 to 1908, more than 20 coal bunker fires were reported on U.S. Navy ships. \n\n > • No one reported seeing a geyser of water thrown up during the explosion, a common sight when mines explode underwater.\n\n > • No one reported seeing any dead fish in the harbor and these would have been seen if there had been an external blast. \n\n > • Inward bending of the plates could have been caused by water displacement occurring at the same time the front of the ship was breaking away from the rear.\n\n > -------------------------------------------------------------\n\n > ADVERTISEMENT: Read and subscribe to /r/100yearsago\n"
]
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"http://www.jstor.org/stable/3640268?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents",
"http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/14/world/havana-journal-remember-maine-cubans-see-american-plot-continuing-this-day.html?pagewanted=all"
],
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"http://www.dcte.udel.edu/hlp/resources/overseas/competing_evidence.pdf",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2kma0f/in_my_high_school_history_classes_the_fate_of_the/clmsu6x",
"http://www.iprr.org/reviews/Rickoverreview.html",
"http://www.loc.gov/law/help/usconlaw/pdf/Maine.1898.pdf"
]
] |
|
17n7vc | Beijing's smog has been in the news recently and there's been a greater focus on Chinese pollution. Did Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan face similar environmental degradation as they developed or are China's problems worse? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17n7vc/beijings_smog_has_been_in_the_news_recently_and/ | {
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"Absolutely true. In fact, some of the worst known environmental disasters occurred in Japan in the 20th century. Chief among those was riparian and seawater dumping of heavy metals like mercury by Japanese chemical manufacturing companies like Shin Nihon Chisso, in collusion with the Japanese government itself.\n\nThe [Minamata story](_URL_0_) is absolutely horrifying. In 1951, Chisso began releasing organic mercury as part of their wastewater at the Minamata factory in Kyushu. The mercury poisoned the entire ecosystem, getting into the fish and then into the fishermen and their families. Soon symptoms of extreme mercury poising began appearing in fishing villages surrounding the factory, the mysterious \"Minamata disease\". The company began investigating, and soon realized they were causing the disease by their dumping. However, rather than stop it, or let people know, they played dumb and ordered the company doctors to stay quite while the poisoning continued. \n\nEven though Chisso wouldn't allow outside researchers access to their wastewater (which would have cleared up the issue immediately), by 1956, researchers at a local university had correctly identified what the mysterious Minamata disease actually was. However, as soon as they began making their findings public, Chisso and the Japanese government stepped in to discredit their research, and paid hack scientists to propose countertheories to confuse the issue. Chisso had an obvious financial interest at stake, and MITI was concerned that inevitable environmental regulations would impede the \"Japanese miracle\" that was then transforming their country. \n\nThus they pimped all sorts of false theories: fertilizer runoff, leaking military ordinance, bacterial blooms, and - most atrociously - filthy hygiene in rural fishing communities. The Kyushu researchers who had identified the factory as the cause were called country bumpkins, and big-name researchers from Tokyo came out to say it couldn't possibly be the factory. The press, a willing participant in the \"economic miracle\" narrative, ate this up. Listen to this interview between a reporter and one of the Kumamoto University researchers who had correctly identified Chisso's mercury as the problem (perhaps compare to the contemporary debate about climate change:)\n\n > Q: Selenium, manganese, thallium...the average layman just doesn't trust you any more. Why have you changed your minds three or four times?\n\n > A: The main thing for us is discovering the cause of the disease; we're not trying to oppose the factory. It can't be helped if the result is harmful to the factory. As for our coming up with three different theories, when you do research that's what happens; there's no need for me to defend this...\n\n > Q: Won't you just change your minds a fourth time and come out with another theory...\n\n > A: That won't happen...\n\n > Q: Maybe not, but why does Kumamoto University confuse laymen by putting out all these haphazard theories?\n\n > A: They're not haphazard. That's just the way the research happened to turn out...\n\n > Q: When you can't give a satisfactory explanation to a layman like me, I can't help thinking yours is really a country university. Scholars from the center [meaning Tokyo] are much better...\n\nSo, the poisoning continued. Because nearly half the people in Minamata either worked at Chisso factory or a connected business, those who spoke out were seen as enemies of the community. By far the absolute worst aspect of this tragedy: those fishermen and their families who contracted the disease were ostracized and ignored, for fear that local fish would be unsellable. In fact, we simply don't know how many people were poisoned because they hid their symptoms out of fear. \n\nIn 1959, eight years after poisoning of the bay began, Chisso corporation installed a Cyclator to purify their wastewater and claimed that - even though there was no definitive proof they were the cause of Minamata disease - their Cyclator ensured that the alleged problem was corrected. \n\nHowever, it was all a lie - the company consciously knew that the Cyclator would do nothing to scrub the mercury out of the water, and installed it simply to deflect the growing rumors. Thanks to this lie, the poisoning continued for another *ten years*. \n\nHorrifying evidence of the effect of mercury on developing fetuses came out of these decades. Doctors in Kumamoto noticed an immense spike in birth defects in those communities affected by Minamata disease. [Photographic documentation](_URL_1_) of those born with congenital mercury poising by W. Eugene Smith and his wife led to widespread international outrage but no action in Minamata itself. \n\nIt wasn't until 1969, after nearly two decades of continuous poisoning, that the truth about the company's multiple coverups became fully known. Chisso had dumped so much organic mercury into the water that Minamata Bay's seafloor qualified as a mercury mine. \n\nsource: Timothy S. George, *Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan* (2001)\n\nedit for spelling\n",
"I would consider China to be in an Industrial Revolution right now. If you look what happened to the peppered moth \"specifically, a genetically determined dark, or melanic, form of the moth replaced the lighter form as industrial pollution killed lichens on the bark of trees and also coated the bark with a layer of soot. The effect has come to be known as industrial melanism, and its existence is not in dispute (see Forrest and Gross 2004, 107-111 for a review).\" The Skeptical Inquirer29. 2 (Mar/Apr 2005): 23-28. Matt Young; Ian Musgrave.\n\nSorry about the citation, I do not know a better way of doing it in this form.\n\nBut, disputable or not as evidence, the industrial revolution in the Western concept caused much pollution, if not more because that was before we started monitoring it. China is in the midst of their own industrial revolution and it will take some time before it is fixed.",
"Almost all countries faced worsening environmental conditions as they developed. Japan and South Korea were and are increasingly pumping out more and more CO2. No country does pollution quite like China, however.\n\n[This](_URL_0_) Wikipedia page show the top producers of pollution in the world in recent years. \n\nBecause world-wide measuring of CO2 levels is a relatively new idea, I'm struggling to find pollution data that fits into the subs 20 year rule."
]
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"http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/tomoko-uemura-in-her-bath/"
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[],
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"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions#section_1"
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27uvoy | (LANGUAGE HISTORY) How closely is the Kazakh (and other central Asian languages) related to the languages of northern native First Nation tribes considering they were their predecessor. | So me and my girlfriend, who is Kazakh, have been talking about how similar Nations like the Inuits are to central asians. She has seen videos of the spoken inuit and agrees it sound somewhat similar to kazakh minus the harshness on the throat.
Is any of this founded or is this a classic case of correlation not causation? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/27uvoy/language_history_how_closely_is_the_kazakh_and/ | {
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"You can also try /r/linguistics and /r/AskAnthropology ",
"Kazakh is a Turkic language, related to other Turkic languages like Turkish, Chuvash, Khalaj, Uyghur, and Sakha. From multiple lines of evidence, including the earliest Turkic inscriptions, as well as records of Turkic peoples in Chinese histories, we know that the Turkic peoples originated more or less in modern Mongolia. There are some fringe theories that claim Turkic languages are related to Mongolic and Tungusic languages in a so-called Altaic language family (or even higher level groupings), but none of these are accepted by mainstream historical linguists.\n\nInuit is an Eskimo-Aleut language, whose other members include Aleut, spoken in the Aleutian Islands, as well as the Inuit dialect chain (in which neighbors can understand one another, but the varieties at the extremes are incomprehensible), which ranges from Tunumiit on the east coast of Greenland to Iñupiat on the north and northwestern coast of Alaska; and also several Yupik languages, spoken in west and southwest Alaska, as well as on the Chukotka Peninsula, in the Russian Far Eat. These languages do not have any higher level relationships that have had any kind of acceptance.\n\nSo to answer in brief, Kazakh and Inuit have no demonstrable relationship to one another.\n\nWhat may be going on is that there are several sounds that are somewhat uncommon in the world's languages, [uvular consonants](_URL_0_), common to both Kazakh and Inuit, perhaps not common to many other languages you have heard."
]
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sn8oy | Could someone list out why there are so many people in Pakistan and India with the family name, "Khan". | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/sn8oy/could_someone_list_out_why_there_are_so_many/ | {
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"I might be wrong, but it could be down to a fairly small number of surnames. Considering both of those countries have a high population, that would likely make the number of Khans seem a lot higher too. The same is common in Vietnam, where the name Nguyen is very common (up to 40% [maybe 60%; not certain of the population have it), so if you increase the population the repetition of names seems even more common. This is just a theory though and could be very off the mark.",
"Well, it goes without saying that Khan was a name for Mongol leaders, its meaning falling somewhere in between 'chief', 'king', 'emperor' and 'governor' and Pakistan and India identified strongly with Mongol leaders after the reigns of Tamurlane and Babur. The wiki page _URL_0_ is actually pretty good for this. The Mughals in India often wanted to stress descent, real or imagined, from Tamurlane and thus Genghis Khan, and one of the results of this was a proliferation of people giving themselves a royal lineage through a 'royal' surname.\n\nNote the proliferation in other regions of similar surnames. Malak/Malik in Arabic, Shah in the Persian speaking world, and even the surname 'King' in English. A personal favorite of mine was [Malik Shah](_URL_1_); The king so nice they named him (king) twice."
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4zctjd | Why was the U.S. carrier fleet scrapped so quickly after WW2 and why didn't they simply sell them off or give them away or just use them? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4zctjd/why_was_the_us_carrier_fleet_scrapped_so_quickly/ | {
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"So I sort of take issue with the basic premise of your question. That the carrier force was quickly scrapped and not supplemental to allies after the war, or made use of.\n\nOf the Essex class and the 24 completed, just 2!, would never see active service following WW2. The Franklin and Bunker Hill had both been badly damaged, and while the damage could at least be repaired the USN actually kept these reconditioned ships in their pocket to use as basically blank slates for refits to try out, instead of needing to take an active ship out of service. However as larger carriers, heavier aircraft, and other Essex's soaked up more money and needs, the 2 were sold off for scrap in the mid 60's.\n\nWhile the rest of the class got several decades of usage. The SCB-27 and SCB-125 programs were complex overhauls for the class which kept them useful for years. They added new catapults, rearranged the location of elevators, and added the now universal angled flight deck. That allowed carriers like Intrepid, Oriskany, and Bonhomme Richard to even deploy to Yankee Station off Vietnam along with their newer larger cousins like the Forrestals. \n\nHowever the size of the ships, and power available for the catapults limited their viability intot he 60's. They were limited to operating lighter smaller jets, and turbo prop aircraft, or helicopters. While they could be useful for striking land targets in close proximity like Vietnam, for open ocean, or as part of a task force this increasingly limited what they could do. Many found themselves converted to helicopter carriers like Boxer, amphibious assault ships like Valley Forge, or as useful for ASW patrol aircraft carriers. Others found more unique usage, the Tarawa later became an aircraft transport. And also as a unique use the Antietam spent over a decade in Florida as a training carrier for Pensacola, followed by Lexington until the early 90's. \n\nAs to why we didn't sell off or transfer some carriers. Well we did actually. The French got 2 smaller carriers, and the Spanish 1. But consider that any other nation that had need had another buyer. The RN was selling off much faster and aggressively, and had a few easy customers. The Canadians and Aussies both took possession of ex-RN carriers, while the Argentinians, Brazilians, and even Dutch all bought some too. \n\nWhile the British had their own stable of carriers and no need to buy any, and the French were not in a position to operate any large fleet carriers. \n\nThe USN was also unwilling to easily part with good usable hulls for carriers in the late 40's. As no new carriers were being built, and the Midway class had been cut in half the Carrier Admirals were anxious to not be the victim of the USAF seeking to establish primacy as the US military's air power wing. And if they could sell of a few of their carriers, why not all of them and let the Air Force do the job? The tension over the future of carriers and the Cancellation of the USS United States led to it spilling over into a series of sharp public comments and hearing known as the Revolt of the Admirals. "
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1okuqo | How was concert etiquette in the major Baroque, Classical & Romantic periods of music different to the classical/art music concert etiquette of today? | Today I had a lecture on Beethoven's piano concertos, specifically No. 4 where the piano begins quietly on its own. My lecturer mentioned that the audience may not have even noticed it beginning because people did not treat performances with the same reverence as they would today. This led me to thinking, how has concert etiquette changed throughout the major periods of musical history? (Not referring to modern popular/rock music concerts) | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1okuqo/how_was_concert_etiquette_in_the_major_baroque/ | {
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"OHH YAY! Crowd behavior is my absolute favorite topic of opera history! \n\nIn the good old days music crowds were RUDE as HECK. There was no concept of showing respect for the art or the performers as we do now. Talking through performances was totally normal, and so was eating food, drinking wine, reading books (the opera house was lit as normal with candles, no darkening), getting up whenever, booing and hissing, and calling for encores of favorite bits in the middle of the performance, all acceptable. And that's just the floor seats! (Which were the cheap seats then, mostly middle class.) If you were a rich person in a box you could nap, play cards, have sex (draw the shutters first), go visiting in the other boxes, and even cook food on little braziers. (opera tailgating!) \n\nImagine a baseball game crowd from today -- take away the guy with the margarita backpack thing because it wasn't invented yet, but other than him you've essentially got a baroque/classical music crowd. They might shush up and watch when someone hits a pop fly (or sings a choice aria) but otherwise, do whatever you want. \n\nWhy did it change? Two things -- on the French side, the influx of more middle class and bourgeoisie who were not used to opera around the time of Napoleon quieted French opera down gradually (though it took a while!) On the German side, Wagner's reforms in opera had a big effect, he's the one who started turning off the lights and making \"immersion\" techniques in opera watching. By the end of the Romantic period things were pretty quiet. The Italians were the absolute last to adopt the new norm in crowd behavior, I have tales of Italian opera shout-outs as late as the 1970s. There's actually a school of thought that the way we watch old operas and enjoy old live music now is wrong and historically inaccurate! \n\nIf you want to read about music crowd behavior you cannot do better than *The Gilded Stage: a social history of opera.* Dense but awesome! "
]
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[]
] |
|
1awywu | Can anyone explain early 19th century European Exchange rates? | I am currently re-reading Alexandre Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo" and am having difficulty understanding currency values. Often, numerous currencies are mentioned in regard to one another in seemingly arbitrary relationships. Mostly things like Crowns, Francs, Louis & Piastries(?) are referenced but I have gleaned very little of their relationships. The book, as you may know, takes place around the Napoleanic era and I am chiefly interested in the first 3 decades of the 19th century. Does anyone know the values of these currencies, and anything else that could be noteworthy?
Ninja: Wording | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1awywu/can_anyone_explain_early_19th_century_european/ | {
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"It is a bit complicated - most countries had capped their currency either to gold or to silver - however, as gold and silver varied in value and the exchange rate coins against coins remained fixed, some coins simply vanished from circulation when the metal value in them became greater than the exchange rate to other coins.\n\nLots of coins was discontinued, but continued a life in book-keeping. Many denominations never existed as a coin, only in 2-, 5- 10-, or 20-multiples of its value, and other coins, like US ones (dime, quarter etc) were commonly known by their nicknames.\n\nFor example, in Britain 1816 onwards;\n\n1 guinea was worth 21 shillings.\n\n1 pound was worth 20 shillings.\n\n1 shilling was worth 12 pennies.\n\n1 penny was worth 2 halfpennies.\n\n1 halfpenny was worth 2 farthings.\n\nThe shilling was a silver coin that contained 5,23 grams of silver. The guinea was a gold coin that contained 7,7 grams of gold. When 21 shilling coins (109,8 grams of silver) was worth less than 1 guinea coin (7,7 grams of gold) people would exchange shillings for guineas and melt the guineas to sell the gold and make a profit - the guinea then disappears from distribution. The guinea was discontinued for this specific reason - the last ones made was minted 1813 to pay Wellington's army in Spain, as the locals only accepted gold. The state had to pay 27 shillings in paper money for the gold needed for 1 guinea (a net loss of 6 shilling, not counting minting costs) per coin.\n\nFrance had during the time of \"The Count of Monte Cristo\" (1816 onwards) this system;\n\n1 gold franc was worth 100 centimes.\n\nA crown was a 5-shilling coin (thus containing 26,15 grams of silver).\n\nA franc was a 1-franc gold coin containing 0,29 grams of gold.\n\nA Louis d'Or was a pre-revolutionary or post-Napoleon gold coin. The post-Napoleon coin was worth 20 gold francs (thus 5,8 grams of gold), the pre-revolutionary one was worth 24 livres and contained 7,01 grams of gold. There were Napoleonic era 20 francs gold coins with Napoleon's profile on circulating still, and they were called \"Napoleons\".\n\nPiastra was the unofficial nickname of a Two Sicilies 120 grana silver coin (containing 22,93 grams of silver).\n\n1 ducat was worth 100 grana.\n\n1 grana was worth 2 tornesels.\n\nIt quickly gets complicated with gold and silver coins. People would often \"shave\" the edges of the coins and melt the silver or gold for its value and still using the coin at its full value. The state or corrupt minters reducing silver or gold value in the coins for their own profit was also common."
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4bocdz | Roman historians - how was bread baked in the roman society, and what role did it play? (following a diet) | Lovely historians,
I am doing an experiment where I am following the old ancient roman food culture in terms of diet for 120 days. I am trying to be as accurate as possible and documenting everything I do in a blog. I've been in contact with many universities and now recently traveled to Italy myself in order to research the topic. I want it to be as close to 100% authentic in regards of recipes and ingredients as possible.
The only thing which I'm having some challenges with is the bread, and what role it played in the old roman society. Also with what crops it was baked and how these were treated.
Perhaps the historians at Reddit can offer me some more insight? If you have any valuable info, please let me know. It would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much! | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4bocdz/roman_historians_how_was_bread_baked_in_the_roman/ | {
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"Spelt was the best friend of the common man. However, different classes consumed different [kinds of bread](_URL_0_) and there were several varieties, besides. Are you looking to try all of them or emulate the average Roman? The British Museum and a Michelin chef recently tried out [a recipe](_URL_1_) from a large bakery in Herculaneum. It's a kind of sourdough.\n\nHard and soft grains yield different breads; with the introduction of new, higher-quality grains from Africa & Sicily, bread types expanded. Grains were first toasted, then ground to separate the chaff. Removing chaff from wheat, like bran from rice, leaves a better-tasting product. In this case, the bread was softer, spongier, and less acidic.\n\nTypically, slaves, soldiers, and the poor would consume barley, rye, and oat bread. It was typically quite hard; sailors and soldiers ate a kind of bread which was essentially hard tack. These are more resistant to mold but rather unpalatable, and bad for sopping up stews and the like. Barley is extremely hardy and at the time had a much higher yield than any other grain. I think I remember a professor telling me that in the 2nd half of the first millennium in Britain, it was an 8:1 bushel ratio for what you reaped:what you sowed. Wheat was nearly 1:1. So figure that's not much different from Roman times.\n\nThroughout history, the higher you get in class, the finer and whiter your flour will be. Wheat flour was highly coveted because wheat yields were so low. Good wheat breads would often have luxuries like oil, candied fruit, wine, and milk mixed in. Bread has been a very good indicator of status throughout time. Different types of wheat will give higher or lower quality breads. Semolina and durum are better for pasta and gruel, but semolina was used to make a less attractive, biscuit-y kind of bread.\n\nUnleavened bread was the norm until relatively late in human history, as we know from the writings of Plinio, the Elder. Romans would have eaten flatbread or a kind of gruel known as *polta* mixed with cooked meat, when available."
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|
1w8obm | How much gold was actually found in California during the Gold rush? | You always read of people becoming wealthy from selling supplies to prospectors, but did any prospectors get really wealthy from gold finds? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1w8obm/how_much_gold_was_actually_found_in_california/ | {
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"Some prospectors (better referred to as placer miners for the first period of the '49ers) became modestly rich, meaning they obtained enough money (in the low 5 figures) to purchase \"that farm back home.\" Most of the 300,000 or so '49ers who came to California between 1849 and the early 1850s did well enough, but mainly because the Pacific Coast was so abundant in resources and opportunities (and especially non-mining opportunities). But the vast majority did not become millionaires.\n\nBetween 1848 and 1860 (a period which includes some hard rock, underground mining as well as the destructive hydraulic mining) roughly $300,000,000 was produced, this at a time when gold sold for roughly $16 per ounce, meaning that the period produced over 1 million pounds of gold. Because much of the period was dominated by small groups of miners, much of this wealth was distributed - in an uneven but a necessarily broad way - among the hundreds of thousands who arrived. See [this source](_URL_1_) for example. And see [this collection of gold rush letters](_URL_0_) which I helped edit for background as to what life, success, and failure was like.\n\nCompare this to the Great Comstock Lode in Nevada - first strike in 1859 with productivity for twenty years (followed by uneven periods of prosperity from mining). During that period roughly $350,000,000 in gold ($16 per ounce) and silver ($1.60 per ounce) was produced. But this was in a small, four mile line of mines as opposed to the California Gold Country that included a great expanse of the western slope of the Sierra. The Comstock produced roughly 500,000 pounds of gold and 5 million pounds of silver. In today's terms, both rushes would have produced sums in the tens of billions (with gold hovering around $1,250 per ounce and silver at about $20 per ounce).\n\nOn the Comstock, a few capitalists made most of the money, but laborers did very well, being the highest paid industrial works in the world with a $4 daily minimum for underground work (compare this to 75 cents for canal diggers or $1.25 per day for workers at the Colt Factory at Hartford (see the National Historic Landmark nomination for the Colt district). The California Gold Rush wasn't great for many, but it helped set up some. But as I said, the best thing about the gold rush for most was landing on the West Coast. \n\nFor the Comstock, see [my book on the subject.](_URL_2_)"
]
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"http://www.nvbooks.nevada.edu/NewForthcoming/Titles/The%20Gold%20Rush%20Letters%20of%20E.%20Allen%20Grosh%20and%20Hosea%20B.%20Grosh;2251?1&PHPSESSID=8bc3333f8d04710092233b6a8d7cf840",
"http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist383/GoldRush.html",
"http://www.nvbooks.nevada.edu/Browse/Titles/The%20Roar%20and%20the%20Silence;1791;1256?PHPSESSID=8bc3333f8d04710092233b6a8d7cf840"
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1vzpyo | Why is Julius Caesar a household name, but Sulla and Marius are not? | Why are Caesar, Antony and Pompey so popular, but Marius and Sulla are not? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1vzpyo/why_is_julius_caesar_a_household_name_but_sulla/ | {
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"I would say Shakespeare. \n\n\"Et tu Brutus\" is something everyone knows but cant actually be attributed to Caesar, but it was immortalized in Shakespeare's plays. Much like how Romeo and Juliet are household names but the stories they originally came from are not.",
"Not to deny that Shakespeare had some importance in immortalizing Julius Caesar, but the Bible was also probably heavily influential.\n\n \"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's\" \n\nThe Bible makes several references to \"Caesar\" (meaning any Roman Emperor, not just Julius Caesar). The Bible does not mention Sulla and Marius.\n\nSince the Bible was probably the most influential book in Western civilization, its use of the word \"Caesar\" probably popularized that title (and therefore, Julius Caesar as the originator of that title) throughout Europe, and not just in England or English speaking countries."
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2typ4d | Apparently when shown footage of the Holocaust during the Nuremberg trials, Goering was shocked and speechless. Why would this be? | I've watched a couple of documentaries and they all show the same thing, Goering being very shocked when forced to watch film of Allied entrance into holocaust camps. Bodies, disease, etc. Was he faking it? It makes no sense because he was a pretty hardcore racist himself.
(I'm not an anti-Semite by the way and certainly not trying to defend the man, just curious why he showed surprise at being shown the camps) | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2typ4d/apparently_when_shown_footage_of_the_holocaust/ | {
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"Do you have a link to a video showing his reaction? ",
"No more guesses, posts that do not directly answer the original question or answers like : \"No historical info here, but even if he did know about the camps it's one thing to hear about them, and another thing to see them with your own eyes.\" When you post an answer on Askhistorians, it must be in-depth, meaning that it should be more than one or two sentences or based on a single Google search; as it says in our rules: \n\n > Being able to use Google to find an article that seems related to the question does not magically make you an expert. If you can contribute nothing more than your skills at using Google to find an article, please don't post. \n\nYour answer must also be non-speculative, meaning no answers relying on guesses or common sense. Including any phrase like \"I guess...\", \"It makes sense to me that...\" or \"It's only common sense.\" is a good way to have your post removed. \n\nIf you any of this is still unclear to you, please consult our rules, found in the sidebar.\n",
"Besides Himmler the top Nazis had very little to do with the actual running of the administrative side of the concentration camps or even the holocaust in general. As such it wouldn't be surprising if this was Goering's actual first look into what was actually happening in the concentration camps. \n\nFurthermore top Nazis could be quite squeamish, for example when Himmler went to observe a shooting of Jews in occupied Russia he had a near nervous breakdown from what he saw:\n\n > Himmler became very uncomfortable, very quickly. As the firing squad started, Himmler, was even more nervous. During every volley he looked to the ground. When two women could not die, Himmler yelled to the police sergeant not to torture them\n\n\nGoering actually had quite an interesting history with concentration camps, he opening the first one, Dachua in 1933, and he (along with Himmler) was responsible for ordering Reinhard Heydriech to organize the \"final solution\" to the Jewish question in Europe. \n\nAfter the failures of his Luftwaffe, Goering kinda took a backseat in politics, he was still active but the administrative aspects of things like the holocaust and the concentration camps would have been handed over completely to Himmler. This happened right around 1942 which is when the liquidation of ghettoes and mass gassings in camps began to happen. \n\nOf course, it's also possible that Goering was lying to make himself seem more innocent or ignorant of the concentration camps; but I would point out that at Nuremburg Goering bragged about setting up the concentration camps, so I do think there was a genuine shock factor at seeing the footage.\n\nI would also like to second requests for a link, because I've never noticed this in documentaries on Nuremberg and would be interested in seeing something discussing Goering's reaction. ",
"I take it from the question, that this was an event that was part of the trial itself - specifically that he was in the trial, and this was evidence being presented to justify conviction. Is there any historical evidence to point to this simply being a reaction of a person realizing that there was damning evidence that would lead to his conviction and, thus, execution?"
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29be3f | How did Americans react when they learned that Hirohito would not only escape prosecution but also keep the throne following WWII? | Looking at all the propaganda posters during the war, it seems Hirohito was by far the most hated man in America, moreso than even Hitler. The deal with the Emperor doesn't seem to have been something that affected Macarthur's career, either. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/29be3f/how_did_americans_react_when_they_learned_that/ | {
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"I can give a little explanation of why and how the governments on both sides made sure there wasn't a massive adverse reaction, if not really what the reaction was.\n\nBoth the Japanese and the Americans expended a significant amount of effort in the post war period to portray the Japanese people and Hirohito in particular as pawns of the Japanese military that were dragged unwillingly into a war. For the Japanese the reasons for this are obvious - they didn't want to be hated and punished for their atrocities, they wanted to do everything they could to distance themselves from it in fact.\n\nFor the Americans there were significant advantages too. Ultimately in the post war period the US saw Japan as a potential significant stabilizing influence in Asia, and a powerful ally against the communists. In order to get the US populace to support this they had to try to undo a degree of their war time propaganda casting the Japanese as a whole as evil. As Hirohito and the imperial family was a major sticking point in negotiations, they had to cover them as well in this, as they couldn't really afford to oust the Emperor.\n\nHow much is this true however is dubious. Hirohito and the populace and a whole certainly didn't seem opposed to the war early on, and members of the imperial family committed significant war crimes during the war most noticeably Prince Asaka's role in the rape of Nanking. Ultimately however it was expedient for both sides, so it became the prevailing view it certainly helped that Hirohito took steps to surrender at the end of th war, and appeared contrite, and it is certainly true that most of Hirohito's power was symbolic, but I'm not sure it is true to cast them as unwilling.",
"Related, was anybody mad that we insisted on unconditional surrender then let them keep the emperor? If we had told them up front they'd keep their emperor, peace might have come sooner.",
"I have a follow up question - how is the Japanese defeat handled in current times? Is it totally glossed over? How is it handled in respect to the national pride that Japanese hold so valuable? How does it compare to how Germans and Italiand handled defeat?"
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2zhrga | Where Can I Learn More About Maroon Communities? | Richard Dunn's *Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planeter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713* mentions maroon communities and how they interacted with Indies colonial activities throughout the book, and even has a reference to something referred to in the index as the "Maroon Wars". However, he does not really go into much detail about them. Thus, I was wondering if anyone knew of any other books I could look up to find out more about these communities. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2zhrga/where_can_i_learn_more_about_maroon_communities/ | {
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"Richard Price's Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas is the classic text and covers maroons all over the Caribbean and the Americas. It came out in the 70s but has seen subsequent editions. A good place to start looking at the different communities, the wars, etc. "
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dgcxmd | When and where does the "stereotypical" image of a caveman come from? Why do we seem to all agree that cavemen wear cheeta skins, wield clubs, and say "ooga booga?" | Obviously nobody was around writing stuff during prehistory, so this image of a caveman had to come from someone's imagination. When, where, and why did this come to be the image of a caveman? My first thought was the Flintstones, but it seems like they relied on some familiarity with the imagery. Is this idea from colonialism and stereotypes of "primitive" natives? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dgcxmd/when_and_where_does_the_stereotypical_image_of_a/ | {
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"French paleontologist, Marcellin Boule, was the first scientist to describe the Homo neanderthalensis as ape-like in the 1920s, probably leading to the ooga booga part of your question (also, an 1886 short story by Andrew Lang first described the practice of clubbing a woman over the head and dragging her home; cavemen behaviour was seen as primitive, ‘not like us‘). This version of the Homo became to be used interchangeably with the term caveman (although science tells us there were dozens of species of the genus Homo before Homo sapiens monopolized being a human; e.g. the Homo denisova was only discovered in 2010). This term is derived from the fact that the earliest traces of ancient Homini were found in caves, most famously paintings, long before archaeologists unearthed more substantial evidence of their culture. Considering your clothing question: At first, I thought Hollywood, as they have shaped many historically inaccurate looks collectively accepted to be the real thing (e.g. in the monumental antiquity movies popular in the 1940s and 50s). But then I found illustrations of pelt-wearing hunter-gatherers dating back to the 19th century (e.g. the cover of Pierre Boitard‘s 1861 novel, Paris Before Man), so I‘d assume the sentiment of wearing fur is rooted simply in the image of cavemen hunting animals, and that, of course, they would fashion clothing out of their skins (as we still do today). The cliché one-shoulder-strap fur toga seems unlikely though because if you lived somewhere warm enough to not cover your shoulders and legs, fur probably would have been to hot for clothing. Characteristics like that were popularized in comics beginning in the 1910s; in those iterations cavemen were often depicted as living alongside dinosaurs (which they actually have missed by an unfortunate 60 million years). \n\nConclusion: The image of the caveman was first shaped in the 19th century following the discovery of ancient human species (Homo neanderthalensis was found in Germany in 1856), depicting him as a primitive version of us. This sentiment was build on in the early 20th century through comics and movies.",
"Other commentators have hit the nail on the head pretty well. There's a lot of intermixing factors for where this conception came from \n\n\n1) The general belief in the \"primitive-ness\" or \"apeness\" of the Neanderthals, due to them being the first pre-modern human fossils ever found. The first Neanderthal skulls were found even before Darwin' published Origin of Species, so you have to remember that a lot these early interpretations were based upon the lack of the fossil record, how humans evolved (or if they evolved at all), and an over emphasis on \"primitive\" traits seen in the Neanderthal and H. heidelbergensis fossils. Many of these early fossils were found in caves, which drove the \"caveman\" conception. \n\n\n2) Eurocentrism played a big role in shaping these conceptions as well. I mentioned in an early comment about the racism in construction our evolutionary tree. Early paleoanthropologists often either believed in unilineal origins (one single line of descent) or polygenism (multiple origins, not to be confused with multiregionalism). The unilinealist perspective would place all modern humans in order of evolution, with White Europeans and the top, and Black Africans at the bottom, and then just below Africans would be Neanderthals and Homo erectus (\"Java man\" was discovered in 1898). The multiple origins perspective was similar, but all human species evolved independently in different areas. This was still used to argue for a racial hierarchy of evolution, stating that peoples like the Khoi san were evolutionary relics. The racist and colonialist attitudes towards hunter-gatherers in Africa shaped the conception of Neanderthals and other \"primitive cavemen\", since in their mind, they were almost the same thing. This also had a huge effect on interpreting the fossil and archaeological record in Africa and Asia. \n\n\n3) The persistent need to separate ourselves (modern H. sapiens) as unique in our cultural abilities, language, art, etc. This involves both of the above historically, but it still persists in arguments to this day about what defines us as a species (beyond morphology). Conceptualizing earlier species as \"less human\" serves this to define our uniqueness. \n\n\nI recommend (as I did below) checking out: \n\n\nDebating humankind's place in nature, 1860-2000 : the nature of paleoanthropology by Richard Delisle. (2007) \n\n\nFor a more recent perspective on how Eurocentrism and Colonialism have shaped out conceptions of the emergence of modern humans, Arthreya and Ackermann have a great chapter in a book about the subject. Here's the pre-print accessible version: \n\n\nAthreya, Sheela, and Rebecca R. Ackermann. 2018. “Colonialism and Narratives of Human Origins in Asia and Africa.” AfricArXiv. August 18. doi:10.31730/_URL_0_."
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dagy9h | Do you know any ancient or medieval recipes that you've cooked/might be worth cooking or maybe a list/book of recipes or general food and food preparation? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dagy9h/do_you_know_any_ancient_or_medieval_recipes_that/ | {
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"The website you want is [Medieval Cookery](_URL_1_). They've got:\n\n* Links to [digitized versions of actual medieval cookbooks](_URL_3_)--some in translation, some in the original languages. These aren't going to be recipes in the modern sense; ones with measurements and such don't start appearing in any appreciable amount until the very late 18C or 19C, and there's a lot of \"and add spices\" or such. But they're really, really cool to look at, and a good place to start.\n\n* Links to [online modernized recipes to follow, adapted from medieval outline-versions](_URL_2_)\n\n* A list of [recommended books and cookbooks you can buy](_URL_0_)\n\nI also own the books *Pleyn Delit* and *The Medieval Kitchen*, which are modernized versions of medieval recipes.\n\nI hope this gives you some good, uh, food for thought and further reading!\n\nHappy feasting!"
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1sun0m | Can someone help me identify this object? Possibly Native American (Fort ancient culture). | To me it looks like a generic ax head/chisel morphotype from the Hopewell or Fort Ancient cultures. My father and uncle found them as kids just after the first rain on a plowed and disced field just outside Fairfield Ohio. It is part of a larger collection found in the same area.
[side view 1] (_URL_3_)
[side view 2] (_URL_1_)
[front view] (_URL_0_)
[top view] (_URL_2_)
If anyone is curious about the rest of the collection I can upload more pictures. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1sun0m/can_someone_help_me_identify_this_object_possibly/ | {
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"Looks like a stone celt. _URL_0_\n\nAs a guess, I'd imagine it's an ax from the Adena culture, which inhabited the area you're talking about during the period in which axes similar to this one were in use. _URL_2_\n\nI'm not an expert, but hopefully that will help you. I would get in touch with local universities or historical societies (they exist in Ohio) for more information — nothing like local knowledge.\n\nMore information: _URL_1_",
"It's definitely a celt, as /u/Biolight said. Context would certainly help in identifying it. Assuming the projectile points I can see in the background of the \"front view\" can from the same site, we can probably eliminate Fort Ancient. At first glance, I don't see any stereotypical Adena points either. While Hopewell then becomes the most likely option, it's not the only one left. At the moment, I'm leaning toward post-Hopewell Late Woodland actually, but I might revise that upon seeing more. \n\nHonestly, though, you should definitely contact the Ohio Historical Society on this one. If the site contained multiple artifacts, there still could be useful information that could be retrieved from it with a proper excavation. The OHS could get you in touch with the right people to get the ball rolling on that one."
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"http://i.imgur.com/V6w5gaB.jpg",
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adena_culture"
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267he8 | What happened in Turkey and C. Asia during WW2? | More specifically, Turkey and the -stans? I can't find anything pertaining to the political, social and economic situation of Turkey at that time, and C. Asia seems to be an industrial footnote to the Soviet war machine. Are there any books of note covering these subjects? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/267he8/what_happened_in_turkey_and_c_asia_during_ww2/ | {
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"I can briefly explain Turkey: Turkey for the most part stayed out of the war, as it had allies on all sides and Atatürk had officially adopted a policy of \"[peace at home, peace in the world](_URL_3_)\" in the 1930's, which his successors carried on. Turkey's treatment of the Jews in WW2 is perhaps the most interesting part of Turkey's WW2 policy. On the one hand, they were one of the few countries that actively offered refugee status to Jewish intellectuals and their families, for a [total of a few hundred people](_URL_6_). More importantly, they offered unparalleled protection for Turkish Jews and former Turkish Jews in territories under Nazi occupation. For [historic reasons](_URL_8_), many Middle Eastern Jews ended up in France. Turkish citizenship at the time required people to register every ten years or so while living abroad, and many of these emigrants had allowed their Turkish citizenship to lapse. To regain citizenship, you had to prove that you had family in Turkey. In a remarkably coordinated effort, the cosmopolitan Turkish diplomatic staff of France worked to save these Turkish and former Turkish Jews. \n\nIn the interest of time, let me just quote from an old post:\n\n > Four Turkish diplomats, **[Selahattin Ülkümen](_URL_7_), [Behiç Erkin](_URL_1_), [Namık Kemal Yolga](_URL_4_),** and **[Necdet Kent](_URL_0_)** all worked together to save \"Turkish Jews\" from death. I use quotation marks because Turkish Jews had to check in the consulates to maintain their Turkish citizenship. Many failed to do so, and so legally their Turkish citizenship lapsed. The consulates in France (where the largest Turkish emigre community was) under ambassador Behiç Erkin chose to ignore that. To regain Turkish citizenship, one had to prove one had relatives still in Turkey (I believe). It's widely alleged that the Turkish consulates accepted the statement “I am Turkish, my relatives live in Turkey” in Turkish (no matter how poorly pronounced) as \"proof\" of Turkish citizenship and provided the necessary papers. But that's not all. On Rhodes, where there was a large Jewish community, when the Germans started to depart the Jews, Turkish Consul Selahattin Ülkümen demanded that the Turkish Jews (and any of their non-Turkish spouses and children) be saved. When the commander refused on the basis that they were due for transportation under Nazi law, Ülkümen said \"under Turkish law all citizens were equal. We didn’t differentiate between citizens who were Jewish, Christian or Muslim,\" and explained that if the commander continued with the deportation of Turkish citizens, he would turn this into an international incident. The Nazi commander relented, though the Turkish consulted ended up being bombed killing Ülkümen's pregnant wife and two consular employees. However, the Turkish Jewish survived on Rhodes. Their neighbors with Greek passports on Rhodes were almost entirely destroyed in the Shoah, with fewer than 1 in 10 surviving the War.\n\n > When Necdet Kent found out the gestapo were rounding people up based on circumcision, Kent explained to the Nazis that this did not prove Jewishness. \"When I saw the emptiness in the commander's eyes, I realize that he did not understand what I am saying. And I said that I will accept to be examined by their doctors.\" He told the Germans that Muslim men, including himself, were also circumcised. More impressively, Kent found out that 80 Turkish Jews had been rounded up and set to be deported to Germany. They were already loaded in to cattle cars. Kent later recalled, \"To this day, I remember the inscription on the wagon: 'This wagon may be loaded with 20 heads of cattle and 500 kilograms of grass'.\" As was typical for Turkish diplomats (who seem to have the most coordinated policy for protecting their Jewish countrymen), Kent demanded that the Turkish citizens be released. The Gestapo commander said they were Jews and refused to release them. Kent then himself got on the train and refused to leave without the Turkish citizens. The train left with him still on board and, at the next station, the German officials had a car waiting for him, apologizing for the mistake and offering to take him back. Again he refused to leave without his co-nationals. Eventually, the German officials relented. Again, he makes the moral choice seem wonderfully simple, \"As a representative of a government that rejected such treatment for religious beliefs, I could not consider leaving them there.\" Namık Kemal Yolga describes the success the Turkish consular staff had in saving all the Turkish Jews they could find:\n\n > > Every time we learnt that a Turkish Jew was captured and sent to Drancy, the Turkish Embassy sent an ultimatum to the German Embassy in Paris and demanded his/her release, specifically pointing out that the Turkish Constitution does not discriminate its people for their race or religion, therefore Turkish Jews are Turkish nationals and Germans have no right to arrest them as Turkey was a neutral country during the war. Then I used to go to Drancy to pick him/her up with my car and put them in a safe house. As far as I know, only one Turkish Jew from Bordeaux was sent to a camp in Germany as the Turkish Embassy was not aware of his arrest at the time.\n\nHowever, while Jews from abroad were well treated, Jews domestically were not always treated well. I am referring to the famous \"[Wealth Tax](_URL_2_)\" of 1942 that was specifically targeted towards Jews, Armenians, and Greeks and, besides providing immediate money for the government, was also meant to help kick start a Muslim entrepreneurial middle class (which really hadn't existed in the Ottoman Empire--traders and businessmen were disproportionately minorities; see also \"[middle man minorities](_URL_9_)\"). The Wealth Tax, and the subsequent [pogrom of 1955](_URL_5_), are generally pointed to as the two reasons why the Istanbul's large minority population of the 1930's was greatly diminished through emigration (particularly by Jews Israel and Greeks to Greece; Armenians had less ideal options) by the 1970's. \n\nThere were various smaller political intrigues in the Turkish political scene, but for the most part, the biggest event of the era was the Wealth Tax. Turkey was mainly focused on internal development (through things like Village Institutes and People's Houses), import-substitution industrialization (focused on \"the three whites\": sugar, flour, and cloth), and political opposition was relatively weak in this period (after the crushing of the [last major revolt in 1938](_URL_10_)). The transition to democracy was 1945-1950, which opened up Turkey politically somewhat, as did it's NATO membership, but during this period it was going through a particularly strong isolationist period. "
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necdet_Kent",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behi%C3%A7_Erkin",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varl%C4%B1k_Vergisi",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_at_Home,_Peace_in_the_World",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam%C4%B1k_Kemal_Yolga",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_pogrom",
"http://www.dw.de/turkeys-jewish-past/a-16391658",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sel%C3%A2hattin_%C3%9Clk%C3%BCmen",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_Isra%C3%A9lite_Universelle",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleman_minority",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dersim_Rebellion"
]
] |
|
68iok9 | What was a rare or weird culinary treat (for the poor, rich, or anyone between) in your time period and region of expertise? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/68iok9/what_was_a_rare_or_weird_culinary_treat_for_the/ | {
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"Taking \"treat\" rather generously:\n\n > Looking back, I find that drinking, in this country at least, has been divided more or less definitely into various epochs, in each of which a different brand of poison and hell-fire dominated the thirsts of the people. Right after prohibition came in, everybody drank a tonic known as Force, which bore a picture on its label of Samson tearing the lion — and its effect was similar; they alternated this with another tonic known as Lyko. Then followed a fruit extract period, until the companies began bringing out extracts without alcoholic content. I still recall the fervent and sincere bitter blasphemies of staunch souls who had quaffed numbers of bottles of extracts, before discovering their nonalcoholic nature. Then came the boom-days of Jamaica ginger, which exceeded all epochs before and since. I doubt not that even now the mad-houses are filled with the gibbering votaries of jake. Legislation interfered with jake, and the makers of white mule, red eye and rot-gut came into their own. Of course, these drinks had been interwoven in all the other periods. Alternating poisons were hair-tonics, wood-alcohol and canned heat. I’ve seen old soaks who apparently preferred canned heat to anything else.\n\n- Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, 13 July 1932, *Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard* 2.383\n\nThat was about 17 months before the repeal of Prohibition was ratified. Force, Lyko, and Samson were nominally tonics; patent medicines based on alcohol and sold as drugs. Jamaica Ginger was technically a fluid extract; United States Pharmacopeia requirements called for 4% solids in a solution of alcohol and water (which varied between 70-90% ABV, depending on manufacturer). The resulting drink was too bitter for most folks (including Robert E. Howard) to choke down easily, and the government inspected shipments to make sure they had enough solids by boiling them off and measuring the residue. Canny bootleggers managed to find a solid that wouldn't boil off and wasn't bitter - but it turned out the substance they used was a neurotoxin. Tens of thousands of imbibers suffered gradual paralysis of the extremities - which gave way to a distinctive walk, called \"Jake leg.\" African Americans were disproportionately affected, and there was little to be done for the suffers - you can read up on the grim details in [The Public Health Service and Jamaica Ginger Paralysis in the 1930s](_URL_0_). Blues singers like Tommy Johnson immortalized the condition with songs like [Alcohol and Jake Blues](_URL_1_).\n\nJohnson was a bad alcoholic himself, and was familiar with another of the potables Howard mentioned - canned heat.\n\nEthanol (ethyl alcohol) is a useful chemical for more than inebriation; as a solvent and a flammable substance it has uses in any number of products, including hair tonics, perfumes, colognes, and aftershaves, etc. Those desperate enough for a drink could—\n and did—prove that these were not completely toxic. A similar chemical, in taste, smell, and properties is methanol (methyl alcohol, wood alcohol); however, while both ethanol and methanol are central nervous system depressants, the metabolization of methanol causes the formation of formic acid, which can cause blindness and acidosis, and methanol is highly toxic even in small amounts.\n\nIn products like canned heat (often known under the brand name Sterno), ethanol is “denatured” by the addition of methanol; the production of denatured alcohol and its use in products was legal during Prohibition specifically because it rendered those products undrinkable...or at least, it should have. The desperate, the ignorant, and the greedy who were unaware of—or did not care about—the toxicity of methanol could and did consume it, or served it to others. The dangers and attraction were summed up in Tommy Johnson’s [“Canned Heat Blues”](_URL_2_) from 1928:\n\n > Crying, canned heat, canned heat, mama, crying, sure, Lord, killing me.\n\n > Crying, canned heat, mama, sure, Lord killing me.\n\n > Takes alcorub to take these canned heat blues.\n\n“Alcorub” is rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol); which is likewise toxic when ingested, though less so than methanol."
]
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[
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1382135/",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayltwUwpW04",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGuoOyeUj-w"
]
] |
||
8him3y | How historically accurate was the video game Red Dead Redemption? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8him3y/how_historically_accurate_was_the_video_game_red/ | {
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"text": [
"To help others who haven’t played the game, can you be more specific about what part of the game you want to know if it is historically accurate?"
]
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[]
] |
||
6pa927 | Why was Baldur Von Schirach the only other Nazi war criminal kept imprisoned for as long as Albert Speer? | Yes, I know Hess was there longer | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6pa927/why_was_baldur_von_schirach_the_only_other_nazi/ | {
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"The immediate answer was that of the \"Spandau Seven,\" von Schirach was comparatively younger (bn. 1907) compared to the three prisoners released earlier before their sentences were up- von Neurath (bn. 1873), Raeder (bn. 1876), and Funk (bn. 1890). All three of these men developed notable health issues within their incarceration. These health issues dovetailed with an active clemency body within the FRG for the early release of IMT convicts. Dönitz only received a ten-year sentence and was released on time. Von Shirach did develop a blood clot in his arteries that might have allowed him a slightly earlier release, a fact that rankled Albert Speer who also had the same sentence. But the Spandau authorities released both men on the same day, 30 September 1966, when their sentence was up. \n\nThe larger reason for why von Schirach and Speer had to serve their sentence and why Hess had to linger on until the 1980s was the breakdown of inter-Allied unity in the immediate aftermath of the war. The Allies made wartime agreements that Spandau and the IMT convicts would be the collective responsibility of Allies. Four representatives of each country (US, UK, France, USSR) governed Spandau and a complex set of prison management evolved around this clumsy relationship. The structure of the wartime agreements over Nazi war criminals convicted by the IMT made it so that collective agreement was needed for either early release or other changes with the management of Spandau. This was in stark contrast to the relationship that evolved with war criminals convicted by the Subsequent Nuremberg proceedings and various national trials of German offenders. Here the FRG government could conduct bilateral talks with the jailing authority to gain clemency. Bonn found it got much traction out of the US, for example, in light of the Cold War and most of the convictions of the American NMTs were either overturned or prisoners amnestied. \n\nSuch \"amnesty fever\" was not going to happen in Spandau with the Soviets having a veto over the process. The Soviets and the GDR learned very early on in the Cold War that Western softness on Nazi criminals was a valuable propaganda point and they were not going to cede this advantage. Having the Soviets in Spandau hold the line against the amnesty fever in the West was valuable moral high ground the Soviets would not surrender. In short, it cost the Soviets nothing to maintain a hard line on Spandau while they could simultaneously portray the West as soft on Nazism. Potentially reversing themselves on Spandau was also a chip the Soviets could use with Bonn in its semi-clandestine dealings with the FRG by holding out the potential of amnesty in exchange for some other concession. Soviet officials were appreciative that health problems could make these men martyrs, hence the early releases. But this left the other Spandau inmates who were in relatively good health with little choice but to serve out their sentences. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
58m9vl | Where can I learn more about the history of political Buddhism? | I recently listened to the AskHistorians podcast about Buddhism in Tibet and Bhutan, and the rise and machinations of people like Pagsam Wangpo and Ngawang Namgyal. I found this endlessly fascinating, particularly the way theological justification was given for things like resolving successions and inheritance, and the way Buddhism wove itself into the political systems of the area at the time.
I want to know more about the history of political Buddhism, if such a phrase can be used, but I don't know where to look to find good sources. To clarify, my interest doesn't stop at the Himalayan region; for instance, I'm also aware that Buddhism was a big deal for the political climate of Japan in the first millennium, and very much interested in knowing more about that, too, as well as similar history as it concerns other parts of East Asia. What are some good sources that are reasonably accessible to someone who is not a historian and lacks access to university libraries and the like?
| AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/58m9vl/where_can_i_learn_more_about_the_history_of/ | {
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"Hi there! I was the interviewee for that episode and I'd recommend if you're interested in Tibet and Bhutan further, to take a look at the [_URL_0_](booklist.) \n\nBuddhism has always been mildly political. Remember that even in the earliest retellings of the Buddha's life, he was born a Prince who rejected his fate as a world-conqueror. Wherever it spread to, it also became ingrained with local and eventually national politics. \n\nI don't know of any books that deal strictly with the relationship between Buddhism (at large) and politics (at large). (Though that doesn't mean they don't exist, they just haven't come across my radar.) One possibility might be *A Very Short Introduction to Buddhist Ethics* by Damien Keown. But that would only exacerbate the point that you'd have to look at a specific area, teaching, or lineage to find a work of any real authority. \n\nI can list a few examples that would show the difficulty of this process: \n- In modern Bhutan, people registered as \"religious officials\" are not allowed to vote or hold public office. This includes monks, lay priests, shamans/shamanesses, etc. Bhutan also doesn't use conscription and culturally the military is considered a \"sinful\" career because of its association with killing. In Korea, there are no child initiates allowed, monks freely vote, and all the ones I've spoken to have told me they were proud to serve their time in the military because they are \"patriotic Koreans.\" \n- Other than in Tibet and Bhutan where Buddhist sects captured and held power using monastic structures, there are countless other examples of Buddhist sects wielding secular power in the world. The Ikko Ikki in Japan come particularly to mind. And Japan's continuing trouble with Sokka Gakkai may be a modern comparison with them. \n- Burma has once been described to me as a blend between \"Buddhist paradise and totalitarian state.\" The Sangha in Burma has been at odds with the military government for decades now. This whole adventure has been vigorously documented. \n\nThe myriad differences in local histories, cultures, and economies make it difficult to make any sort of blanket statement about Buddhism and politics. In 1392, the Yi Dynasty came to power in Joseon Korea and immediately expelled the Buddhists from positions of power, relegating the Koreans to the mountains where they could do less social damage (as the Joseon court saw it). In Tibet or Bhutan, such a thing was virtually impossible, but that doesn't mean there wasn't room for various sects to try to gain power over the other, as was discussed in the podcast. \n\nIf you pick a country, it'd be easier to narrow down its relationship with government and Buddhism. Right now I'm reading *Tibetan Nation* by Warren W. Smith. It's a pretty comprehensive history of Tibet and the origins of the Tibetan ethny and national identity, which is impossible to discuss without constantly discussing Buddhism. I'm also reading *A History of Tibet* by the Fifth Dalai Lama (trans. Zahiruddin Ahmad). As a book written by a monk, it's not hard to see where Buddhism might make an appearance (i.e. everywhere). Chapter 1 Part 2 is titled \"The Life of the Buddha.\" In other words: before HHDL5 talks about the country he rules, he recounts the life of Siddhartha Gautama. (Are there any histories of Italy that start with the life of Jesus?) \n\nI also just finished Samuel Hawley's *The Imjin War* which discussed a topic that has been a bit of an obsession for me: how did Korean monks, after being persecuted for centuries, suddenly rise up to fight the Japanese, (at the request of the Korean King!)? Did Seosan/Hyujong feel any remorse at breaking his Vinaya vows to fight Hideyoshi's aggression? \n\nBuddhism has a 2,500 year history. It's experience is tied intimately with the cultures that founded it. The experience of Japanese warrior monks who fought with Oda Nobunaga in the 1500s, is entirely different from those Buddhists who ruled and managed entire Kingdoms in the Himalayas, or protestors who continue to fight against the dictatorship in Burma/Myanmar. \n\nIt'd be best to start looking at certain countries and eras for better understanding and suggestions. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/innerasia#wiki_tibet_and_bhutan"
]
] |
|
wgc50 | What was the medical specifications of a British World War One CONSCRIPTED soldier? | ie. weight, size, eyesight requirements. I was literally thinking the other day wondering if I would have been conscripted - I am 22 and single but have quite bad sight in my right eye. I was kinda of looking for like a table of requirements or something. I think itd be pretty interesting.
Also, how much were the rules bent so that people not able to pass the requirements, were waved through into the ranks. Was there much of a urge to go to the front during conscription (after kitcheners 'pals')? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/wgc50/what_was_the_medical_specifications_of_a_british/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nFun little bit here on the rush to enlist at the war's beginning.",
"I'll come back to this later once I find some good sources.\n\nThe physical requirements for British soldiers decreased as the war went on. This was a fairly universal trend as all the best men were killed or already conscripted by the later years of the conflict. British soldiers in particular were known to be especially unhealthy when compared to Dominion troops. While this may have some roots in the belief the natural environments of Canada and Australia bred tough, manly men there is probably some truth to it.\n\nBritish conscripts were typically urban and didn't have the greatest diets. British Field Service Regulations 1914 puts the average height of an infantryman at 5'3\", considerably shorter than today. Apart from being short, an infantryman couldn't have flat feet or poor eyesight either.\n\nFrom the first hand accounts I've read, requirements were bent and waived quite a lot. I'm sure for every one that got through many more didn't, but accounts of young boys fighting are fairly widespread. There was actually a unit of Canadian youth that were removed from frontline duty and stationed in Wales for most of the war, though they rioted at the end as demobilization stalled."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://books.google.com/books?id=YPA1dGj_N18C&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=medical+requirement+british+1914&source=bl&ots=JDySSIGrpJ&sig=FmkGHceli2M90EzZiLO5wAcD6SY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kBv_T7DKLcbn0QGL_4XOBg&ved=0CFQQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=medical%20requirement%20british%201914&f=false"
],
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|
8dw7gx | Shinobi/Ninjas, Bushido and Seppuku | First of all, apologies for misspellings.
Now onto the core of the question (Spoilers for the Danish novel 'Ternet Ninja' ahead). I've just finished a novel where a ninja doll is possessed by a ninja from the late 16th century. In the backstory to this ninja, he was charged with protecting the children of his village, but failing, he committed seppuku, as dictated by bushido.
I know that the author is passionate about eastern culture, especially the samurai, but I still have reservations about the historical accuracy of this background story, since it was my understanding that ninjas (shinobi?) were considered to be honourless and therefore not living by bushido, while I also thought seppuku was exclusively for samurai.
Am I entirely off on these assumption, or is the author misinformed? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8dw7gx/shinobininjas_bushido_and_seppuku/ | {
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"Hey I meant to write you an answer a while ago, but life got in the way. I hope you'll still find this helpful. It's a bit of an info-dump with lots of links to previous answers and resources.\n\n > I still have reservations about the historical accuracy of this background story, since it was my understanding that ninjas (shinobi?) were considered to be honourless and therefore not living by bushido, while I also thought seppuku was exclusively for samurai.\n\n > Am I entirely off on these assumption, or is the author misinformed?\n\nBoth the author's details and your assumptions are wrong in different respects. But it's quite possible the author isn't trying for strict historical accuracy. Ninja fiction has a long pedigree in Japan, with lots of features that date back a few centuries, so it' s very possible for a ninja story to be true to the historical literary tradition, rather than true to real events. This is giving the author the benefit of the doubt, since I don't know anything about his personal approach or claims about accuracy.\n\nSo, the first problem here is that Bushido is a constructed modern idea. This has been covered in depth on this sub a few times, so here's my round-up of Bushido information.\n\n-- -\n\nNitobe and his concept of “Bushido” are *the* biggest pitfalls in Japanese history. To quote Cameron Hurst in his essay, *Death, Honor, and Loyalty: The Bushido Ideal*.\n\n > One wonders whether the modern Japanese themselves, let alone those of us in the West, would ever have heard of bushido had it not been for the efforts of Nitobe Inazo (1863-1933). In almost every way imaginable, Nitobe was the least qualified Japanese of his age to have been informing anyone of Japan's history and culture.\n\nThere are some good posts already on Ask Historians about Bushido, so I won’t reproduce them. Check out \n\n[Was the way of Bushido ever documented in a book, if so what should I read?]( _URL_3_) answered by /u/bigbluepanda and /u/ParallelPain . They recommend some good journal articles and books on the subject, but I’m going to link to some open-access versions of articles on Bushido, in case you can’t access JSTOR or a quality library.\n\n-\t[Bushidó or Bull? A Medieval Historian’s Perspective on the Imperial Army and the Japanese Warrior Tradition]( _URL_1_) By Karl F. Friday. This addresses the question of whether there’s a continuity over all those years from medieval samurai to WWII, so it should be interesting to you.\n-\t[Death, Honor, and Loyalty: The Bushido Ideal]( _URL_7_) By G. Cameron Hurst III. Gives the full story of how Nitobe and others misread and cherrypicked sources to create a new modern ideology of Bushido.\n-\t[The Historical Foundations of Bushido](_URL_6_) by Karl Friday. I like this one because it’s actually an archived version of a post Karl Friday made on a martial arts board answering members’ questions. A historian who is out there dealing with the public and writing in plain, readable language: my hero!\n-\t/u/ParallelPain mentions Oleg Benesch’s book, [*Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushido: Inventing the Way of the Samurai*](_URL_5_), as *the* book on the modern development of Bushido, but if you want to check Benesch out but can’t access his book, his entire PHD thesis is open-access: [Bushido : the creation of a martial ethic in late Meiji Japan](_URL_2_)\n\nBushido's an invented tradition, but one with real influence on 20th century society. In pre-Meiji Japan, most people weren't samurai, and didn't idealize samurai honour or aspire to follow such a code themselves. Modern Japan often does idealize samurai honour and continuously redefines \"Bushido\" as an aspirational code for everyone. In Imperial Japan, samurai honour was redefined as unquestioning loyalty to the Emperor. Today \"Bushido\" in Japanese pop culture is often about being true to your values, even when it means going *against* authority. It's an interesting transformation.\n\n\n- - - \n\nSecond, the concept of \"ninja\" is a tricky thing it itself. As I explained in a previous post\n\n > There is no doubt that \"shinobi\" warfare existed, it's documented from one end of Japan to another over centuries. And there is also no doubt that certain individuals were good at it and worked for their masters' benefit. Some of those individuals were indeed Iga and Koga people.\n\n > The key issue with the ninja tradition, though, is a) was there a particular Iga and/or Koga tradition of shinobi warfare, famed outside Iga and Koga? and b) did Iga and Koga warriors skilled in shinobi warfare ply their trade outside of their own territories and local wars?\n\n > There's absolutely no evidence from the Sengoku period of either of those things.\n\nThere's more elaboration on the problem of \"ninja\" in my posts to these threads:\n[How many koku would a ninja in medieval Japan get paid for a typical assassination?](_URL_0_) and its follow-up [Were there actually female ninjas](_URL_4_). As explained in those posts, plenty of the individuals identified in legend/history as practicing shinobi warfare *were* samurai. \n\nAs for seppuku, putting aside ninjas, it wouldn't even be usual for a late 16th century *samurai* to commit seppuku because he'd failed to protect his charges. As historian Cameron Hurst wrote, \"few warriors actually took their own lives except under circumstances of imminent defeat and death at the hands of the enemy.\" (I wrote a bit about [seppuku in the age of war here](_URL_8_). )\n\nA person committing suicide out of grief and shame from not being able to protect children is completely relatable, so I don't think the idea of a character having done that is ahistorical, but attributing it to a strict expectation of seppuku via \"bushido\" is a mistake.\n\nAll in all, writing about ninja clans in any context is going to involve a lot of anachronism and fiction by definition."
]
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6rja8q/how_many_koku_would_a_ninja_in_medieval_japan_get/",
"http://ejmas.com/jalt/jaltart_friday_0301.htm",
"https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0071589",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/52sewz/was_the_way_of_bushido_ever_documented_in_a_book/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/85s2ml/were_there_actually_female_ninjas_in_koga_andor/",
"https://books.google.ca/books?id=xc1LBAAAQBAJ",
"https://koryu.com/library/kfriday2.html",
"http://enlight.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/ew26464.htm",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8eg41r/what_would_happen_if_a_samurai_refused_to_commit/dxxdcgr/"
]
] |
|
1qfi3p | What did the ancients think menstruation was? How did they explain what it's function was? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1qfi3p/what_did_the_ancients_think_menstruation_was_how/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdcarx0"
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"text": [
"There a lot of varying accounts in Egypt about what really caused menstruation, medicinal papyri say a lot of different things on menstruation, but there weren't any big theories on what actually caused menstruation. For the most part, menstruation was seen as a monthly hygienic process for women, but it wasn't uncommon at all for it to carry a spiritual/magical connotation. \n\nMenstrual blood was a common ingredient in medicines. Most likely because it was a product of women, it carried womanly connotations and was used more often in medicines for fertility or feminine ailments rather than standard ones. \n\nThis isn't relevant to the question but I thought you might find it interesting that they actually had products for menstrual care. In medical papyri, tampons made of linen, papyrus, or other cloths were common in menstrual care and were recommended for further use sometimes as an instrument of general vaginal care. Sometimes these tampons were disposable, other time, when made out of less disposable cloths more likely, they could be washed and re-used.\n\nThere wasn't a clear-cut medical definition for menstruation in Ancient Egypt, but the concept of menstruation and the clearing of those fluids certainly held a magical/spiritual context."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3g2uzu | Wooden plane parts? | Hello fellow history buffs! I'm looking for some information on some plane parts I found, they appear to be wooden frames skinned with navy blue painted plywood. They were found near Ewa Marine Airbase in Hawaii sometime in the 1960's. They look as though they were part of a plane that had been shot up. The only problem is I can't find anything about a plane with wood parts stationed at that base. I can post pictures if you think it'll help. Thanks | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3g2uzu/wooden_plane_parts/ | {
"a_id": [
"ctucobq"
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"might as well post the pictures"
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|
equx2l | How did Medieval Catholic Mass evolve to how it is today? | If I were to attend one, say, in the 14th Century or something, would there be a major difference? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/equx2l/how_did_medieval_catholic_mass_evolve_to_how_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"feypt5c"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"Yes. To respond somewhat quickly to you there have been multiple iteration of the \"Mass\" throughout the history of Catholicism. If we were to isolate two key moments I would undoubtedly say the Council of Trento (1545-1563) and the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) because they both had a major role in shaping the mass (as the core of any major religious ceremony in catholic liturgy). In particular the Mass that we know today (the series of religious rites culminating in holy communion) as the main spiritual moment is a product of Trento and is therefore often referred to as \"Tridentine\". It basically tried to overhaul the complex and often devolved ensemble of rites that existed during the middle ages. Of course this was largely on paper until the different dioceses started to give a somewhat uniform education to priests through the seminars system, a feat that would take centuries to reach. The Vatican II basically modernised the blueprint but kept the centrality of the Mass as the main rite. The most known changes were the switch from Latin to \"common\" in most masses and the \"inclusion\" of lay parishioners in the rite through service books and such.\n\nSo basically you would realistically not have a single \"mass\" in the XIV century but rather multiple rites (some culminating with communion although relatively rare) that could change between dioceses. One example of diocesan peculiarity is the \"Ambrosian Church\" of the Archdiocese of Milano. \n\nIf you are interested in medieval religious practice I would personally recommend to look into Anglican liturgy since \"Anglo-Catholic\" or \"High church\" congregations have a deeper tradition of medieval rites as they were not involved in the Counter-reformation."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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35wsyh | What stopped free blacks in the pre-Civil War American South from being re-enslaved by white people? | Is it that they were deemed able to own themselves, and so were protected under property law? I'm just trying to understand the social and legal constructs that allowed for some blacks to be free (though second-class citizens) during that time. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/35wsyh/what_stopped_free_blacks_in_the_precivil_war/ | {
"a_id": [
"cr8nf5e"
],
"score": [
29
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"text": [
"There are numerous examples of this actually happening to black people. Not just in the South, but multiple free black men in the North were kidnapped and sold into slavery down South. If you didn't have documentation on you that said you were free, simply walking down the wrong road could mean the end of you being free. And again, even times when free men had the necessary documents, they were ignored and sold into slavery anyway."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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6mgzr0 | Are Julius Caesar's remains still extant? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6mgzr0/are_julius_caesars_remains_still_extant/ | {
"a_id": [
"dk1kblp"
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"text": [
"Julius Caesar's remains are not extant, because he was cremated, not buried. The Temple of Caesar was built on the site of his cremation, in the main square of the Roman Forum, but only the altars remain of it now. There was also a wax-statue displaying the stab wounds in the Forum, but has also disappeared since. \n\n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
14ah6s | How was 18th century Britain interacting with the Arab world? | I'm thinking in terms of commerce, intellectual and literary exchange, etc. How was 18th century Britain influenced (if at all) by this part of the world? Any information you could share would be useful. I am also grateful for any books or articles you could recommend on this topic. Thank you! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/14ah6s/how_was_18th_century_britain_interacting_with_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"c7bg30c"
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"text": [
"Arabia was part of the Ottoman Empire. As such, that would be your frame of reference.\n\nTry Gerald Maclean, [*Looking East: English Writing and the Ottoman Empire Before 1800*](_URL_0_). But the development, progressively, of an orientalist paradigm was certainly part of the intellectual relationship, including fetishization of the East. I'm not sure what, if anything, Arabia thought about Britain before 1800. It's only at the end of the 18th century, with Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, when you get really substantial political engagement."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/137331447"
]
] |
|
2divti | Why did the British and Ottomans and French team up against Russia in the Siege of Crimea? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2divti/why_did_the_british_and_ottomans_and_french_team/ | {
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"After the Battle of Sinope, Russian Navy dominated the Black Sea, which brought up the threat of Russian attack on Bospor and subsequently Dardanelles, thus opening the way into Mediterannean, something British and French governments and elites took very seriously."
]
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[]
] |
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4am850 | Before around the 1980s or 90s, most countries only had one, two, or three TV channels, but starting in the 80s and 90s they began to proliferate. What changed in that time? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4am850/before_around_the_1980s_or_90s_most_countries/ | {
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"In the Middle East the big difference was the launch of the first telecommunications satellites in the 1980s and 90s like Arabsat. This was combined with the launch of some of the first independent (i.e. non-state) TV enterprises around the same time. This started in Lebanon where the first independent TV news network was launched by a local warlord during the Lebanese Civil War and then proliferated from there. Satellite TV remains the norm for TV in the Middle East to this day despite some attempts to limit it in certain countries over controversies about Al-Jazeera and attempts at state restrictions and stuff like that, but that's all within our 20 year rule.\n\nedit: fixed a sentence"
]
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29fu3a | I'm home with pharyngitis and craving entertaining, accurate and can't-look-away historical documentaries. | Preferably ones I can access on YouTube. Ive seen all by Mary Beard -- I love those! Any suggestions? Apologies if this is not an appropriate question for this sub. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/29fu3a/im_home_with_pharyngitis_and_craving_entertaining/ | {
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"Here are a few that stick in my mind as being more entertaining/compelling; you should be able to find them online or at your library:\n\n* BBC series *Voyages of Discovery* (2006) - hosted by enthusiastic Australian explorer [Paul Rose](_URL_1_), who tells the stories of a few explorers while retracing their routes. Rose has a flair for the dramatic and really gets into the stories and the adventure of the thing. The only expedition I can comment on regarding accuracy is Fridtjof Nansen's North Pole attempt (episode 3 \"The Ice King\"): IMO the program was mostly accurate, but had one claim wrong: that Nansen shocked his crew with his decision to leave the ship and ski for the pole; in fact, this had always been \"Plan B\" and a few crew-members had even volunteered for the mission before he had announced the decision. In any case, if you're looking for entertaining and gripping in a historical documentary, this is the series that jumps out for me.\n\n* BBC series *A History of Ancient Britain* (2011) and *A History of Celtic Britain* (2011) - not gripping, but very engaging. Hosted by the ever-passionate Scottish archaeologist Neil Oliver. Lots of on-location shooting, meetings with specialist archaeologists, and close-up looks at artifacts keep these programs moving.\n\n* Chilean doc *Nostalgia de la Luz* (Nostalgia for the Light) (2010) by Patricio Guzmán - more fascinating than entertaining, since it ties together astronomers and people still coming to grips with losses during the Pinochet regime. Probably more serious and artsy than you're looking for, but very unexpected, beautiful and profound.\n\n* ok, this isn't entertaining, but it is very compelling and [warning] quite disturbing. But if you're into top quality history docs, this is worth seeing. German/Israeli doc *A Film Unfinished* (2010) by Yael Hersonski shows the unfinished footage of a Nazi propaganda film shot in the Warsaw Ghetto, and the reactions of survivors as they view the footage. [website](_URL_0_)\n\n\n"
]
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[
"http://www.afilmunfinished.com/",
"http://www.paulrose.org/voyages-discovery.html"
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|
3fjbtb | Why is Anglicanism not as prevalent in former British colonies as Catholicism is in former Spanish/Portuguese colonies? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3fjbtb/why_is_anglicanism_not_as_prevalent_in_former/ | {
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"In a word, Time. The first European powers to reach the New World were Spain and Portugal, these two heavily Catholic nations led the way in colonial expansion for a good two hundred years before the United Kingdom had left Britannia giving them ample time to proselytize and evangelize. Even British possessions gained from other powers, such as Quebec or South Africa, had longstanding Christian traditions before British control. Simply put, the British were too late to the game to have any real long-term religious conversion before decolonization in the 1960s-1970s. I'm more than happy to answer questions about specific regions and religions (especially African) if you have anything additional you'd like to ask. Religious confrontation outside of the European sphere is an interesting affair. \n\n**Sources:**\n\n*A History of the Church in Africa* Sundkler, Steed\n\n*Spain and Portugal in the New World 1492-1700* McAlister\n"
]
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[]
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||
15qinq | Soviet Russian USSSR experts, what can you tell me about this real photo double postcard? | _URL_0_ | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15qinq/soviet_russian_usssr_experts_what_can_you_tell_me/ | {
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"Do you have an alternate way of sharing that image? It prompts me to sign into Yahoo.",
"Translation: Solemn meeting on the day of the opening of the Dnerperoges 10 Oct 1932.\n\nIt was apparently taken at the opening of the [Dnieper Hydroelectric Station](_URL_0_)."
]
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4oh8ft | were Americans allowed to own cannons under the second amendment? | "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
basically, did the term "arms" refer only to the individual firearms of the time, or would it have been acceptable for an average person to own a cannon? are there any recorded instances of cannon ownership?
(i realize there's sort of a political tint to this question but i think it would be hard to ask a question about the second amendment that isn't political so i hope i at least phrased it in a neutral way) | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4oh8ft/were_americans_allowed_to_own_cannons_under_the/ | {
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"Yes, private citizens were allowed to own cannons, and many did. It was very common for private merchant ships (for example) to be equipped with cannons. They were called \"armed merchantmen\" - so yes, \"arms\" definitely did include cannons.\n\nHowever, strictly speaking, the Second Amendment only protected cannons (and other firearms) from Federal bans. Along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, it only applied against the Federal government - states were allowed to do whatever they wanted, subject to their own Constitutions and Bills of Rights, which frequently incorporated similar or identical provisions. This lasted until the early 1900's, when the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated it against the states. For more details, I'd recommend [this good comment](_URL_0_) from /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov.",
"I've come across two incidences of private ownership of cannons in my nineteenth century reading. Both occur in Territorial Kansas, where the Kansas-Nebraska Act had left the question of whether Kansas (and any other territory) would have slavery or not up to the people there in the hopes that this would spare the nation any political turmoil. The theory was that if you took the slavery question out of Washington, it became a local matter that no one much cared about except locals. There's a huge deal of really interesting background here, but I'm just going to hit the high points on the way to the cannons.\n\nThe problem with letting the local people decide for or against slavery, aside from the slavery, is that it doesn't really resolve anything. Specifically, what was the legal status of human property in Kansas before those locals decided one way or the other? If you opposed slavery, it was that slavery was a creature of mere municipal law with no explicit sanction in the law of the nation. Thus, Kansas was free until voted slave. If you were for slavery, then slavery was national law already and applied in Kansas until the territory voted otherwise. You can make a decent argument either way.\n\nMissouri's most enslaved areas lay adjacent to Kansas and they weren't about to just sit by and let a bunch of abolitionists, backed by wealthy New England corporations, set up shop next door. From Kansas' very first election, for a delegate to Congress on November 29, 1854, they came over the border in organized bands. They had expenses paid by major planters and activities coordinated through masonic lodges. The job was to go to the polls and vote, despite the Kansas-Nebraska Act clearly saying that only actual residents of Kansas could do so. If anybody objected, or anybody not looking “sound on the goose” (proslavery) tried to vote, then they would make trouble. One fellow managed to cast a vote by lying about his proslavery bona fides, at which point the crowd literally carried him aloft. Another, John Wakefield, objected strenuously to all of this. He was threatened credibly enough that he took refuge with the election judges and claimed their protection for the day.\n\nBut there's no cannon in that story. Lots of guns and knives, though. The cannon came out for the March 30, 1855 elections. For these, Kansans would elect a legislature that could, in principle, hold an immediate vote on whether or not to have slavery in Kansas. They would also be in charge and so shape the development of the state thoroughly to their liking. The Missourians wouldn't miss that and came over in the thousands. They included a future governor of the state (Claiborne Fox Jackson) and just-former (and stil not aware that he wouldn't be re-elected) Senator David Rice Atchison. Atchison was instrumental in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He came to Kansas that day boasting that he and his border ruffians would take the territory, boasting of the eleven hundred men from his own county who had come to vote\n\n > and if that ain’t enough we can send five thousand-enough to kill every God-damned abolitionist in the Territory \n\nThis man had recently been President Pro Tempore of the Senate, incidentally. \n\nAtchison wasn't kidding. Edward Chapman was present that day and later told his story to a congressional committee sent out to investigate:\n\n > They claimed that they had a right to come here and vote; all they asked was to vote here peaceably, and if they could not do it peaceably they must resort to some other means. Most of them had double-barreled shot-guns, and guns of various descriptions, and most of them had side-arms. I saw a couple pieces of artillery. \n\nThat's not figurative artillery. Chapman saw the proslavery men settle down in a large camp near his house, so he went out to have a talk. He recognized Claiborne Jackson by sight and got introduced around, all very pleasant. They just wanted to vote, you see? Peaceably, even! \n\nChapman and some associates of his left the camp and he went on to Lawrence, where a fair helping of the Missourians had gathered. (Others went to attend other polling places.) He got near to the Lawrence polls before one of the Missourians called him aside and asked point-blank if Lawrence would give them any trouble. Chapman thought probably not, probably taking the lesson from all the weaponry that the proslavery men had on hand as one tends to. The other guy said he hoped Chapman was right. Chapman answered to the effect that Lawrence did have men enough to make a fight of it if they caused trouble. \n\nOh really? The other guy\n\n > thought there would be no use in doing that, and invited me to go down a short distance with him. We went to a wagon, and he lifted up a cloth and some blankets, and remarked to me that there was a couple of “bull-dogs” they had, loaded with musket-balls. They were all covered up in the hay, with the exception of the rims of them; they were a couple of brass cannon. \n\nThe cannon wasn't used that day, but the Missourians didn't haul it all the way for the hell of it and they proved, quite often, that they were willing to use more than threats of violence to carry Kansas elections. They would vote peacefully, unless someone gave them reason to do otherwise. In another district, they literally tried to knock down the cabin where the voting took place and held the election workers at gunpoint until they resigned.\n\nThe proslavery men carried the day and spent most of the summer of 1855 consolidating their hold on Kansas, culimating in a draconian set of laws that literally made saying slavery did not exist in Kansas into a crime. They also got the governor replaced with a more proslavery one and purged from the legislature the few antislavery Kansans elected fair and square in districts where the first governor had ordered new elections after getting solid proof of shenanigans. (That governor, Andrew Horatio Reeder, took the precaution of announcing the special elections while under armed guard.)\n\nThat's two cannons for you. I have one more. At the end of November, 1855, a claim dispute with political overtones ended in the murder of an antislavery settler, Charles Dow, by a proslavery settler, Franklin Coleman. Through a convoluted series of events, this led to the new governor of Kansas, Wilson Shannon, ordering the county sheriff (who was one of the guys who held election judges at gunpoint in the district where they tried to knock the house down) to serve a warrant on Jacob Branson. Branson was a friend of Dow's, had his own land dispute with Coleman, and was also an officer in the not-so-secret militia that antislavery Kansans had set up to protect themselves from proslavery attacks. And occasionally burn down the houses of proslavery settlers. Coleman suspected that Dow had something to do with the burning out of his proslavery neighbor, whose claim Dow had then taken up. \n\nIncidentally, it looks quite a lot like Shannon might have sent the sheriff, Samuel Jones, off with a blank commission so he could make someone justice of the peace in exchange for issuing the warrant against Branson. The whole business is convoluted like this.\n\nThe murder took place not too far from Lawrence. Jones went off and arrested Branson, though given it was December and in the middle of the night, he found Branson sans pants. Branson had to plead with him a bit to get permission to put some on. (Seriously; Branson recounts it in his testimony on the subject)\n\nJones was pretty obvious in going for Branson, assemblying a posse of fifteen or so men and making a fair fuss. People noticed and a party of Branson's fellow militiamen, if from the Lawrence chapter rather than his immediate neighborhood, got together, intercepted Jones, and rescued Branson. They took him off to Lawrence, which was by this point the major antislavery headquarters in the territory.\n\nJones would not take that laying down. He went to Franklin (a town, not Franklin Coleman) and wrote off a letter for his allies in Missouri. He sent that, then wrote a second one to the governor to explain that the law was being thwarted and Lawrence was full of crazies bent on rebellion. It was anarchy.\n\n(back in a moment for part two)"
]
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5wlc7n | What was flying like in 1960s America for African-Americans? | I'm having a little bit of trouble researching this topic. The novel I'm writing has a scene where our main character, who is black, is supposed to fly from a fictional city to Chicago in 1968.
He is portrayed as an average middle class African-American boy.
Is it unrealistic for him to be flying?
And how far, in advance, could one purchase a ticket for a flight in 1968?
Thanks in advance. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5wlc7n/what_was_flying_like_in_1960s_america_for/ | {
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"In the sixties air travel wasn’t quite as popular as today; [travel by air was much more expensive than by rail or bus](_URL_1_); travel by bus cost $2.73 rail $0.71 and air $34.13 (Unadjusted for inflation). [With the average salary of all Americans in 1965](_URL_3_) being $6,900 and Nonwhite Americans being $3,971, when the opportunities for travel arose, traveling by air wasn’t much of an economic option. Not to say that Blacks didn’t at all it just wasn’t all that common.\nYet when the opportunity to fly arose from what I can tell the airlines themselves didn’t assign seating based on race yet Blacks still faced discrimination at the airports. [Congressman Charles Diggs](_URL_0_) of Michigan in a letter to Robert F. Six, President of Continental Airlines noted that at some airports in the south there were white’s only waiting rooms, restrooms, restaurants. Taxi Cabs and limousines would only patron white costumers. Yet he noted that in “Chattanoga(sic) I experienced the strange paradox of permitting Negros to eat in the same restaurant without restrictions, but prohibiting them from using the same toilet facilities as white people.” \n While the airlines didn’t segregate seating, they did however discriminate on hiring pilots and crew, these jobs were restricted to whites till 1963 when [Marlon Green](_URL_2_) won a lawsuit against the above mentioned Continental Airlines.\n\n*edit: Formatting. ",
"To piggyback on this question, I know there was a booklet that helped African Americans on road trips, were there any suggestions in that booklet about air travel? "
]
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"https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/america-by-air/online/abaImage.cfm?webID=308.p7",
"https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_03_18.html",
"http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/aviations-jackie-robinson-16161631/",
"https://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-051.pdf"
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2ug9xm | When did it become an acceptable practice to be in debt? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ug9xm/when_did_it_become_an_acceptable_practice_to_be/ | {
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"As you no doubt know, debt used to be a crime punishable by imprisonment and other measures. The first inklings of change started to happen as early industrialization took hold; to engage in industrial efforts, capital needed to be accumulated in large amounts, and the easiest way to shuffle capital around is through debt. However, you could still be imprisoned for defaulting, which made no sense because they were also held accountable for the charges accrued while holding them, while unable to work to pay off the debt. The US stopped using federal law to imprison debtors in 1833, leaving it to states to determine individual action. \n\nIn my opinion, the interesting stuff happens in the twentieth century. It is only in the time of the New Deal that, through encouraging federal rulings and financial legislature, it becomes socially acceptable, fairly common and definitely profitable (for banks) for Americans to have debt. This was in keeping with Keynesian economics, which dictated that by encouraging spending (even of borrowed money) the surplus of material goods could be used up, and America would no longer be drowning in gluts of worthless corn and other products. In World War II, revolving credit was created to help control inflation. In the postwar world is when credit (monthly, normalized debt) became standard practice for avidly consuming Americans, buying goods and products of all sorts to outfit their tidy new suburban homes (also paid for through debt.) Only in the 1970s does going into debt stop making sense as the economy tanks and stagflation sets in; at the same time, Americans are using modern credit cards widely and perpetuating an industry of money-making out of debt.\n\nLouis Hyman describes the initial 'financial revolution' really well on his opening page :\n > While personal lending had always existed, before 1917 it had never been legal to charge interest rates high enough to turn a profit and, equally important, lenders had never been able to resell their customers' debts or borrow against them. In short, personal debt had never been able to be a normal business. [...] By the end of the twentieth century, however, such petty loans to workers had become one of American capitalism's most significant products, extracted and traded as if debt were just another commodity, as real as steel.\n\nAnd also:\n > For borrowers, the fungibility of money meant that one form of debt could be paid off with another, The modern debt regime relied on this convertibility, not only to transform installment contracts into personal loans or credit card debts into home equity plans, but to turn the wages of labor into debt repayment as well. [...] For lenders, transforming capital into debt was the essence of their business.\n\nLouis Hyman, Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011). \n\n\nEDIT: Something Hyman doesn't dwell on but I think is well worth pondering is that the U.S. government itself paved the way for American consumer debt by example in the crucial period of World War I that he cites. Debt was acceptable, even instrumental to achieving one's goals, because the United States government was deep in it, too! As detailed in Julia Ott's study of American stock-owning practices, \n > Policymakers looked upon mass investment in federal war debt as a means of encouraging a widespread sense of identity with the war effort and the nation itself [...] even for those lacking full political rights. [... at a time when] Americans grappled with the very definition of citizenship. [...] Investment both made and manifested citizenship, as the citizen-investor assumed full membership in the polity with his or her acquisition of war debt. \n\nJulia C Ott, When Wall Street Met Main Street: The Quest for an Investors’ Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011).[Sorry to butcher it, but I didn't want to type the whole page up]"
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eo560j | Were left-handed swordsmen in the middle ages more valuable? | I read online that it was advantageous to have them on your side when invading a fortress so they were often awarded signing bonuses when recruited. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/eo560j/were_lefthanded_swordsmen_in_the_middle_ages_more/ | {
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"What we know of the historical fencing sources from the early modern period is that opinions seem to differ! (If you know fencing instructors, this is the most unsurprising thing ever)\n\nLiechtenaur (one of the earlier sources c. 1400) makes passing mention of teaching lefties to fence left-handed. \n\nThibault, writing c.1630, makes the surprisingly modern argument that left-handers were more difficult to fence because the other fencer is less used to fencing a left-hander than a right-hander.\n\nBut then you have de Viema, writing in 1639, going on an awesome rant about how everybody says lefties are more dangerous, but they're wrong, and how he fixes them into righthanders.\n\n > It has been the opinion among the vulgar that the lefty has an \n advantage over the righty in arms. The opinion has been well-received, because the vulgar teaching is (and has been) so far\nfrom reason that I find being a left-handed man better than being a\n*diestro* of the vulgar. Being a lefty is one of the greatest misfortunes that a man can have, and as I have proven in this science, the natural movements do not let us know this science. The lefty (a man we call backward) uses the movements of his defense with great profile of the body and straightness of the sword, and the\nright-handed man, by his own nature, places the sword obtuse, and\nthe body squared, with which the lefty has an advantage. But the\ndiestro that will come to know this science will easily be lord over the lefty, and thus I will give some blows so that the master can teach his disciple the mode that they have to have to play with lefties. These will be with the master taking the sword in his left hand, embodying the master, which is to provide the actions\nand postures that the lefty can make. Working it well, and giving\nto each blow the beginning and end that it deserves, he will see that\nthe same blows will serve in favor of the lefty, only that they appear\nto be done opposite; these will be the generals that we deal with.\n\n\n > I am one of the men that have abhorred lefties most in this\nworld. I am not scared that a man is left-handed, but in this I place\nthe blame on his parents for not remedying it truly, as with this it\nwill be enough in order to not be so. \n\n\n > We go such that if that a man was found left-handed, he must become right-handed, or at least be left- and right-handed. As much as it is a fault to be left-handed, it is an honor to be righthanded, and to do with two hands. If until now it has been difficult for a lefty to become a righty, in this book will be found such ease with little teaching and continuous use, that in two months he will have reason and way in order to be a righty. \n\nIn any case, since your online source didn't have a source for signing bonuses or lefties in sieges, I think it's likely just made up. It's difficult to refute as categorically never happened though, because the middle ages is a long time and we can expect different military men and fencing instructors to have different views in the same way as they did later in the Early Modern period.\n\n*Sources: Angelo, Sidney \"The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe\"*\n\n[de Viema's awesome rant is in Chapter IIII of Part Three online here in PDF, about p. 133](_URL_0_)"
]
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2qqclb | During the age of sail, what was the procedure for a reasonably sized ship to weather a hurricane? | The main thing I was thinking about is, with the helm being open to the elements, was some poor, unfortunate soul required to remain topside to steer? Or is there some mechanism to use below decks? But I'm also looking for more general procedure that they would follow in an effort to survive. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2qqclb/during_the_age_of_sail_what_was_the_procedure_for/ | {
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"Given that the age of sail spans human history up until say 1840 or so, that's a broad question :-) but generally, stay stern to the winds, either by setting a small headsail or a stern anchor; batten everything down, and pump constantly. In the northern hemisphere, if possible, try to steer south and slightly west to stay out of the path of the intense winds. ",
"For the most part there would always be crew on deck standing watch with at least one officer. If it got bad enough they would wake up the rest of the crew. Occasionally you could lash the helm fast but that meant that you would be in trouble if you had to use it suddenly. \n\nWhat would happen though would be that men aloft would be brought down to the deck for safety and sails would be reefed and brought in. \n\nYour options were usually either to run before the storm or head up into it. Running isn't a bad option but waves breaking over the stern and sudden changes could be problematic and dangerous. Heading up into the storm will be rougher but retain a larger degree of control over the ship and the helm. For both you would have a minimum of sails out, a jib or two and everything else reefed or brought in.\n\nThe goal is to not be taking the waves broadside, and ships are designed to take them on the bow. \n\nThis really hasn't changed in modern times. Even in modern ocean racing there will always be someone awake on deck in case of an emergency.\n\nTrying to find an old book that describes some of it in the context of the USN in 1812, but Ive also taught beginner sailing and raced including a few Annapolis to Bermuda trips. \n\nIf sailing just wasn't an option then yes, drop the sea anchor, leave a small headsail up, leave a skeleton crew above to keep an eye out(they would likely tie on to something) and pray. But ships and crews throughout history can be remarkable resilient and take a beating from the elements. ",
"Many good answers here, and some contradictory ones. There seems to be some disagreement about whether heaving to, or keeping the bow into the wind is better, or whether running with the wind under bare poles or a storm headsail is safer.\n\nRunning would be safer in most circumstance, as long as there was sea room to leeward. (Being caught off a lee shore in a hurricane force storm was very dangerous.) Running would be especially beneficial if your ship was in the \"safe quadrant\" (to the left of the track of the hurricane in the Northern Hemisphere - reversed in the Southern), as running before the wind would take you out of the path of the storm, and into lesser winds and calmer seas. \n\nOne preparation which might be made, if there was enough warning of the building storm, and if the crew were large enough to accomplish it safely, would be to strike the Royal and T'gallant yards, and the T'gallant masts, as this would reduce weight and windage aloft.",
" > unfortunate soul required to remain topside to steer\n\nyes, storm watch is generally 30 minutes on the helm as opposed to 4 hours, but when conditions get to that point heave to or lay a hull are the options.\n\nRunning before high winds is madness, it is incredibly difficult to maintain the helm whilst running and a gybe will destroy the rigging, I would never consider running before anything above a [force 8. At force 12](_URL_0_) the deck would be unmanned due to the inability to breath the air, it's full of sea foam by that time. \n\nA hurricane is very predictable and can be used to make a passage faster, some captians of old were notorious for making their passengers suffer mal du mer due to the penchant for skirting hurricanes to use the winds. \n\nSource, traditionally rigged sloop sailor. "
]
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] |
|
3w7onf | Why did the Warsaw Pact intervene in Czechoslovakia in 1968 but not in Poland in 1980? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3w7onf/why_did_the_warsaw_pact_intervene_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"cxu1y57"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"There were several reasons for this, the Soviet Union went from initially tepidly in favor of intervention to firmly against intervening.\n\n1) Unlike in 1968, the Soviet Union at the time was already engaged in a war in Afghanistan which was escalating. Not only did this serve as a distraction militarily, but also politically it warned the Soviet politburo that an intervention might not be as quick and smooth as 1968. And in fact if the Polish choose to resist and the elements of the Polish army rebel it would lead to a bloody, expensive conflict.\n\n2) The Soviet economy was already strained both by the war in Afghanistan itself as well as western sanctions in response to the war. The United States warned the Soviets that sanctions would be toughened should the Soviets intervene.\n\n3) The existence of a government in Poland which could theoretically suppress the anti-government movement. Unlike in 1968 when the Czech government itself strayed from the Soviet guided version of Communism under Dubcek, the Polish government under Jaruzelski was determined to crack down on the solidarity. The possibility existed therefore for the situation to be resolved without Soviet intervention.\n\n4) The feeling by the 1980s that the Soviet Union had overextended itself in its foreign policy and that Communism itself as system was beginning to falter. The priority need was therefore to concentrate resources on the Soviet Union itself rather than on intervening to save Communism abroad.\n\nSource: Binders Blunders and Wars by David C. Gompert, Hans Binnendijk, Bonny Lin"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3amxuv | What are some Biblical figures, that can be historically confirmed? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3amxuv/what_are_some_biblical_figures_that_can_be/ | {
"a_id": [
"cse7ena",
"csekzw1",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The rulers of Babylon, mentioned in the Old Testament book of Daniel, have independent, local, primary sources that confirm they were actual historical figures. Unfortunately, the book of Exodus does not provide the name of the Pharaoh of Egypt. Nor are there any surviving Egyptian sources that confirms the Exodus story.",
"Lawrence Mykytiuk recently published [a list of 50 people](_URL_0_), a popular extension of his earlier thesis. \n\nPart of the problem of historical identification with anyone in the bible is the lack of documentation which is a problem across the ANE in general. About half the names in the bible are unknown outside the bible, although every now and then [a new confirmation](_URL_1_) pops up (in this case of the name, not the person). This is probably due to the poor levels of documentation.",
"In the deuterocanonical books of Maccabees (they're in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles), Alexander the Great [sets the story in motion](_URL_0_). \n\nHe's about as historically confirmed as you can get from that period, I think. \n\n1 Maccabees was probably written a little more than a century BCE. \n\nAlso: there are war elephants in these books. War elephants. I don't think you'll find them elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. \n\n\n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/50-people-in-the-bible-confirmed-archaeologically/",
"http://www.antiquities.org.il/article_eng.aspx?sec_id=25&subj_id=240&id=4122"
],
[
"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Maccabees+1&version=NRSV"
]
] |
||
fhsoar | Did Ancient Peoples observe Galaxies? | I wonder if the Swastika could be a representation of Andromeda or even the Whirlpool Galaxy. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fhsoar/did_ancient_peoples_observe_galaxies/ | {
"a_id": [
"fkddyer"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"There are few naked-eye visible galaxies. Other than the Milky Way, the only galaxies brighter than 6th magnitude are the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellenic Cloud, the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Triangulum Galaxy. Of these, the LMC and SMC, both nearby satellite galaxies of our own, are fuzzy patches of light, and Andromeda is a fuzzy elliptical blob. These three were known long ago (but the LMC and SMC are southern sky objects, and not known to ancient peoples in the northern hemisphere). None of the three has a naked-eye appearance appearance that would suggest a swastika.\n\nTriangulum, seen through a good telescope, has a much more visible spiral structure. However, it is much dimmer than Andromeda, towards the limits of what can be seen with the naked eye, and its spiral structure is not apparent to the naked eye.\n\nThe spiral nature of spiral galaxies was only recognised in 1845 when William Parsons observed the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) using a 72\" telescope. Earlier telescopic obsevations (e.g., when Messier discovered it in 1773 - it's too dim to be seen with the naked eye) failed to see the spiral structure. Without seeing the spiral appearance of spiral galaxies, there would be no reasons to symbolise them with a swastika."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
329vu0 | "Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them" Is this true? If so, what years where those? If false, when was the last year without war? | This is a commonly repeated factoid that seems to come from the 2003 book [What Every Person Should Know About War](_URL_0_) by Chris Hedges. Is it true? When, exactly, was the last year in human history where two governments were not fighting each other? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/329vu0/of_the_past_3400_years_humans_have_been_entirely/ | {
"a_id": [
"cq983hp",
"cq9umo8"
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"score": [
3,
4
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"text": [
"Hopefully someone will drop by to address that specific claim, but meanwhile, you may be interested in this post from the FAQ \n\n_URL_0_",
"Isn't this an unanswerable question? For much of that time we don't have any sources on what was going on in the Americas for example. While we could've had one or two years of peace in Europe and Asia (though I doubt it) we don't know what happened in the Americas. Could've been loads of wars."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/books/chapters/0713-1st-hedges.html"
] | [
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1j0etg/what_is_the_longest_span_of_time_the_world_has/"
],
[]
] |
|
z3wi6 | Questions Related to Pyramids (Egypt, Mexico) | I just saw the [The Revelation of the Pyramids](_URL_0_). It blew my mind when they started to talk about Pi/Golden Number and Astrology. But then i read some comments on this video and I got confuse.
My questions are
1. How authentic this documentary is ?
2. Are there any possible links of Pyramids of Egypt with Mayan Civilization Pyramids ?
3. The link which this documentary has developed between Eastern Islands statues > Pyramids > Mohenjadaru civilization > Temple of Gods ... is it possible ?
Any thoughts comments on this video would be appreciated. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/z3wi6/questions_related_to_pyramids_egypt_mexico/ | {
"a_id": [
"c61xh5y",
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"text": [
"An interesting fact about the Egyptian pyramids is that the first pyramids weren't perfect, they were step pyramids. For example, [Sneferu's pyramid](_URL_1_) at Meidum was the first attempt at a pyramid with straight sides, but it was far from perfect, as you can see. Even older is [step pyramid at Saqqara](_URL_2_), built by Djoser of the first dynasty.\n\nLack of historical education and popular culture make us think that the three famous pyramids practically appeared from nowhere; this is not the case, it was rather a very human process of architecture improvement.\n\nAnd FYI, the [Mayan pyramid of Chichen Itza](_URL_0_) was built between the 9th and 12th centuries CE, 3000 years later than the Egyptian pyramids. Nothing to do with them. (For perspective, while the Mayans were building their pyramids, European Christians were building their monasteries and copying their scriptures, and the Egyptians were ruled by Arabs and had already adopted Islam)",
"You should post concrete claims from the documentary. We're not going to watch it.\n\nTo address Pi, though, if you're building something, and you make something a yard tall, and then you make a wheel that's a yard tall, and you measure out the base with that wheel as \"500 rotations of my wheel\" then you'll get Pi falling out of the ratios all over the place, just because of Geometry. \n\nPeople made pyramids because the job inherently gets easier in one sense (fewer blocks to move) as it gets harder in another sense (gotta put them higher up). It's just a matter of how long you can afford to pay the contractors (or locals... the pyramids were likely overseen by skilled workmen and the labor done by people in the \"off season\" when they didn't have to plant or harvest). 20 years isn't too long to build a huge pyramid if you've got the entire city working on it. \n\nAncient people weren't stupid, and you can do a lot with logs and sleds and rope and a couple hundred strong men to pull things.\n\nEdit: You want your mind to be blown, read the *facts* we know about Gobekli Tepe, which would have been as ancient to the people that built Stonehenge as the people who built Stonehenge are to us.\n\n* _URL_1_\n* _URL_2_\n* _URL_0_",
"Postmodest is right; we're not going to watch it. \n\nBut I want to say this: Pyramids are built all around the world because it's the easiest way to build something that's really high. "
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooy2LTJoMVM&feature=player_embedded"
] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Castillo,_Chichen_Itza",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pyramid_of_sneferu_Meidum_01.jpg",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saqqara_pyramid.jpg"
],
[
"http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/mann-text",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe",
"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-tepe.html"
],
[]
] |
|
49yyjg | What did the Mughals call their empire? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/49yyjg/what_did_the_mughals_call_their_empire/ | {
"a_id": [
"d0w44gl"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"\"Gurkani\" or \"Gurkaniyan\", which means \"son-in-law\". A reference to the fact that Timur married a Chinggisid, which meant he was a \"son-in-law\" of sorts of Genghis Khan; legitimacy from the Chinggisid line was important in Central Asia when Timur and his descendants ruled there."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
fncl75 | Could Chile having the best economy in latin america be attributed to Augusto Pinochet's reign? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fncl75/could_chile_having_the_best_economy_in_latin/ | {
"a_id": [
"fm3kof9"
],
"score": [
9
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"text": [
"This is a difficult topic because there hasn't been enough time passed to decide a definitive answer. Where one stands on the issue is likely attributed to one's political views. As I'm sure you know, Pinochet solicited the help of economist Milton Friedman and his \"Chicago Boys\" to revamp the Chilean economy. Put at its very simplest, Chile had previously freely elected Salvador Allende, a self-proclaimed Marxist, as president in 1970. Allende's Socialist platform included nationalizing large-scale industries, particularly copper mining. In addition to land reform, nationalization was part of several programs to redistribute wealth and improve the socio-economic conditions of poor Chilean citizens. These policies did provide aid for several societal issues, such as an increase in educational enrollment, increases in state expenditure in health, and decreases in malnutrition. Unfortunately it also created devastating inflation. Put at it's absolute simplest, anti-communist sentiments combined with middle-class dissatisfaction and military action resulted in a coup that installed Pinochet's US-backed military regime in 1973. \n\nThis is the reality that Pinochet, Friedman and the Chicago Boys entered into with their policies. Pinochet (and his international backers) pretty much opposed everything that Marxist Allende had put in place. This is a post about the economy so I won't even get into Operation Condor (but gosh it's exceedingly dark). Pinochet, wanting to resurrect the economy that had fallen during Allende's Socialist policies asked for the help of renowned Libertarian economic theorists. Milton Friedman and his disciples advocated deregulation, privatization and free market policies. Following these objectives, the Chicago Boys went about implementing economic reforms informed by economic liberalism. These neoliberal policies created what is referred to as \"The Chilean Miracle,\" painting Chile's economic experiment as a resounding success that reinvigorated the economy and undid many of the devastating effects of Allende's Popular Unity coalition. \n\nSeveral historians have nonetheless made clear the the Chilean working class is no better off from this Neoliberal \"Experiment.\" \"Victims of the Chilean Miracle\" is an edited volume by many leading scholars that asserts that any attempt at unionization was swiftly and painfully denied after 1973. Even after the restoration of democracy in 1988, historians argue that the Chilean government have not been able to restore the rightful living conditions of the Chilean working class. To me, Chile is a particularly terrifying example of going along with the status quo. Even after the coup, many middle-class Chileans went along with Pinochet because they were not personally disadvantaged by the new regime's policies. \n\nDoes having a great economy for investment supersede having many of your citizens living in poverty? This is the same question that the US faces. Only time will tell if Pinochet's policies were beneficial to the majority of Chileans. Historians tend to argue \"No\" but I'm sure other's will argue the opposite."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1bonj1 | How exactly was the famine in Ukraine ended? | Through my research I have come to understand that the famine was kept hidden from the public and media, people were writing fake articles to essentially satisfy the public and keep Stalin safe. Then I read about a guy named Gareth Jones, who went into Ukraine illegally and wrote articles about what he saw and what was happening. I ran into a few other names as well, people who initially started getting the word out about the Holodomor.
Here's where I run into a gap, I know what happened, and I know about the beginnings of the exposure, and then I just know of the post memorial stuff.
So what happened? Why was the famine actually stopped? Was it really because of these few people's articles? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1bonj1/how_exactly_was_the_famine_in_ukraine_ended/ | {
"a_id": [
"c98t150"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"How the Holodomor ended is easy. The Soviet Union stopped exporting so much grain. The Soviet Union exported 1,730,000 tons of grain in 1933, and it exported smaller and smaller amounts of grain until 1940, when exports of grain to Germany reversed six years of declining Soviet grain exports. \n\nWhy the Politboro reversed this policy is more nuanced. As the first five year plan was finished, there was less need to import foreign machine tools and pay for technical assistance. So there was less need to earn foreign currancy. The Communist Party thought they had imposed socialism on the collective farmers and decided to stop punishing them. Stalin's second wife died during the Holodomar. The official Party Line is that she commited suicide, after she took an unauthorized trip to the Black Earth region of Russia and saw the horrors of the Holodomor, first hand. She had a big fight with Stalin hours before she died. There is no evidence that Stalin killed her himself, but the events of that evening might have convinced Stalin that his forced collectivization policies had gone to far. It certainly had more impact on Stalin than a few articles in the western press that exposed how bad the famine in the Ukraine really was. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
7nvqfe | What do we know about author of Epic of Gilgamesh? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7nvqfe/what_do_we_know_about_author_of_epic_of_gilgamesh/ | {
"a_id": [
"ds51m5f"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Hey there!\n\nThere is actually a great thread on the Epic of Gilgamesh over at /r/history.\n\n[Follow this link!](_URL_0_)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/7njejb/is_the_epic_of_gilgamesh_the_oldest_story_out/"
]
] |
||
3hxcbe | How did the tribes allied with Cortez react to his sacking of Teotihaucan? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3hxcbe/how_did_the_tribes_allied_with_cortez_react_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"cubeta5"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Do you perhaps mean Tenochtitlan?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
ee033w | How instrumental was the ‘ever victorious army’ in putting down the Taiping Rebellion? | For those who are curious, the Ever Victorious Army was an army that participated in fighting the Taiping Rebellion between 1860-1864. It was a Chinese force that was led by European/American officers. I have no idea if it was formed by the Qing government or grew organically from the foreign districts in Shanghai.
From what limited information I know, the army only consisted of 5,000 men at it’s peak. This seems like a drop in the bucket in the scale of Chinese warfare where the number of combatants can often exceed 100,000 men. Some sources say that it essentially won the war and others do not mention it at all. So was the ‘ever victorious army’ really as important as it is made out to be, or is this opinion the result of romanticism/a Eurocentric worldview? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ee033w/how_instrumental_was_the_ever_victorious_army_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"fbo81ij"
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"text": [
"For important context, the basics of the Ever-Victorious Army are as follows. In June 1860, in response to a recent Taiping campaign on the Lower Yangtze that would reach Shanghai in mid-August, an American mercenary named Frederick Townsend Ward obtained backing from a consortium of Shanghai bankers to form a unit called the Shanghai Foreign-Arms Corps, which initially numbered around 100 men. After an ignominious attempt to attack the Taiping-held fortified town of Songjiang, an enlarged corps of around 250 men successfully took the town in a second attempt on 16 July, but with over 60% casualties. This costly success nevertheless built Ward a reputation, one seemingly not dampened significantly by the fact that his force suffered nearly 50% casualties in an attack on another Taiping garrison town at Qingpu on 30 July, among whom was Ward, badly wounded after being shot in the face. Leaving China to convalesce, Ward returned to Shanghai in the spring of 1861 (after the initial Taiping threat had gone) and reassembled the Foreign-Arms Corps, suffering another defeat at Qingpu that also led to his temporary arrest by Western authorities, concerned that his mercenary activity – and their failure to constrain it – constituted a breach of British and American guarantees of neutrality in the Qing-Taiping conflict. \n\nThis defeat also caused him to move away from a force consisting solely of Western and Filipino mercenaries towards a composite force of Western officers and Chinese troops, latterly named the Ever-Victorious Army, which achieved its first major success against the Taiping on 10 February 1862, shortly after which formal British and French intervention against the Taiping commenced, resolving Ward's legal ambiguity. While reasonably successful when fighting in concert with British and French regulars and Qing loyalist militias, Ward was fatally wounded on 20 September. The Ever-Victorious Army went into a limbo period, with its leadership being bandied around first to his second-in-command, the fellow American Henry Burgevine, then to an interim British commander taken from the Royal Navy, then, finally, on 25 March 1863, to Charles George Gordon, a Royal Engineer. Gordon achieved reasonable success with the now formally British-backed force, but he himself was a rather irascible man whose relationship with his subordinates, his superiors, Ward's old financiers and basically anyone who wasn't British was distinctly subpar. On 6 December, General Li Hongzhang's massacre of captured Taiping commanders at Suzhou led Gordon to resign. While he resumed his leadership of the force in mid-February 1864, it continued fighting in northern Jiangxi only until May, and was disbanded in June. In mid-July, loyalist troops of Zeng Guofan's Hunan Army captured the Taiping capital of Nanjing.\n\nSo aside from the troop numbers (which I'll get to in a moment) here's another quantitative reason for why we shouldn't put too much stock in the EVA: in a war that was being fought year-round for over 160 months (from January 1851 to July 1864, if we exclude the subsequent mopping-up campaigns), the EVA was only active for, give or take, 20 months, 22 if you count the two iterations of the Foreign-Arms Corps. Also, the eastern theatre it fought in was not the one that directly brought down the Taiping: it was Zeng Guofan, advancing downriver from the west in a war of sieges and positional engagements, who captured the Taiping stronghold of Anqing and in turn the capital at Nanjing, not Li Hongzhang, fighting a mobile campaign upriver from the Yangtze delta in the east. As noted, the EVA was only really ever victorious when operating in concert with other, larger formations such as the Anhui Army of Li Hongzhang, a couple of early successes against mostly small and isolated Taiping contingents notwithstanding. From a more cynical point of view, it was a part-time auxiliary unit in a secondary theatre of the fighting.\n\nBut does that mean it was necessarily completely unimportant? Let's start with the strategic overview. A useful point of comparison might be the contemporaneous American Civil War. One way of looking at the American Civil War would be to say that the war was fought in the East but won in the West – that while all the big, important battles like Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Cold Harbor happened in the Eastern theatre, what made Union victory possible in that theatre was the damage caused in the Western theatre to the Confederate economy. Similarly, you might argue that the Taiping Civil War was fought in the West but won in the East – that the grand coalition of Qing, militia, British, French and mercenary forces waging a mobile campaign around Shanghai both cut off the Taiping from potential resources from international trade and tied down what resources they did still have, limiting their ability to respond to Zeng Guofan.\n\nThe first problem with that – as far as the EVA is concerned – is the chronology. Arguably, by the time the EVA actually emerged as a significant fighting force in 1862, the Taiping had already lost their last practical chance of defeating Zeng Guofan without active Western support. Zeng's capture of Anqing in September 1861 cut the supply line linking Taiping forces in Anhui and Hubei to their capital at Nanjing, which led to the near-complete recapture of the two provinces in the coming months and effectively annihilating their existing economic base. So even if we do accept the idea that the war was won in the East (with Taiping troops tied down as garrisons, without the benefit of holding Shanghai), the EVA emerged after that victory had already been achieved. \n\nThe second is that the extent to which the EVA provided a unique service is, at best, questionable. It was not necessarily better at operating small arms than British and French regulars. It was not necessarily better at employing artillery (which it did have a large amount of) than Qing loyalist crews. It was not necessarily better at providing waterborne support than the British and French navies. Moreover, it was not even the only Westernised force in existence, though it certainly served as somewhat of a model for them. From the Ningbo customs office in the summer of 1863, French naval officer Prosper Giquel assembled the Franco-Chinese Corps, latterly titled the Ever-Triumphant Army, which came to number around 3000 troops. In October 1862, the somewhat enigmatic 'Ever-Secure Army', merged into the Ever-Victorious Army when it fell under Gordon's command, was assembled by Captain Roderick Dew and placed under the command of British officer James Cooke; and many others followed. From Augustus Lindley's *Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh* (1866) (emphasis his):\n\n > At this time Gordon's force mustered, all told, about 5,000 men; Kingsley's, 1,000; Cooke's, 1,500; and the Franco-Manchoo contingents, commanded respectively by *Generals* D'Aguibelle [sic], Giquel, and Bonnefoi [sic], from 3,000 to 4,000. Subsequently other legions and artillery corps attached to the irregular Imperial troops, about 2,500 in all, were formed and commanded by *Colonels* Bailey, Howard, Rhode, & c., while the total force of trained Chinese generally maintained the relative strength here given, viz., 14,000.\n\nWhile the EVA may have served as a model for the other forces, in so doing it proved that it was not irreplaceable, and indeed at its height was probably outnumbered by its imitators – Lindley here possibly exaggerates the size of Gordon's force, which he himself estimated at no more than 3500.\n\nThe third is that the EVA, as stated before, rarely operated alone. Yes, it would sometimes fight individual engagements without outside support being directly engaged, but it was ultimately always attached to some formation or another, serving as the vanguard to a larger army that would have to detach its less effective elements for garrison duty. Ward operated, until June 1862, as a subordinate of the Jiangsu governor, and then under Li Hongzhang, as did Gordon during his time as EVA commander. While Ward sometimes (but very rarely after spring 1862) fought alone, Gordon's force was incredibly artillery-heavy (at 1 gun per 125 men (excluding siege artillery), an extraordinarily high amount by European standards), and more or less always fought within reinforcement distance of the Huai Army's main body.\n\nIn short, the EVA was, for what it was, quite effective *mano e mano*. However, in the grand scheme of things it was very much a drop in the ocean, as you suggest. Yet its did develop a reputation, for a few reasons. First, it served as a clear instance of Western officers showing the Chinese how it's done, so to speak. Second, Westerners were in it, which is more than could be said for any of the fighting in the western theatre. Thirdly, its success in the field – irrespective of its causes – was certainly real. Fourthly, its activities were eagerly reported on by China correspondents. Probably most importantly, Gordon's long-term reputation as a British national hero (especially following his death in Sudan in 1884) meant that the EVA would always receive some mention in retrospectives of 'Chinese' Gordon's career. Hence, from William McGonagall's most sublime eulogy [*General Gordon, the Hero of Khartoum*](_URL_0_):\n\n > Once when leading a storming party the soldiers drew back, \n > But he quickly observed that courage they did lack, \n > Then he calmly lighted a cigar, and turned cheerfully round, \n > And the soldiers rushed boldly on with a bound. \n\n > And they carried the position without delay, \n > And the Chinese rebels soon gave way, \n > Because God was with him during the day, \n > And with those that trust Him for ever and aye."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://web.archive.org/web/20190522092800/http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/gems/general-gordon-the-hero-of-khartoum"
]
] |
|
b25evn | Why and when did we associate green with "go" and red with "stop"? | Was there some delegation that decided or was it more intuitive than that? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b25evn/why_and_when_did_we_associate_green_with_go_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"eirbasz"
],
"score": [
137
],
"text": [
"This was [also asked recently on the Short Answers thread](_URL_0_). I provided an answer to it [here](_URL_0_) from a linguistic perspective."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aq6wna/short_answers_to_simple_questions_february_13_2019/egknq21/"
]
] |
|
318uvk | Prior to contact with Europeans during the Age of Discovery, were firearms known in India and Africa? | Supposedly knowledge of firearms and gunpowder were transmitted along the Silk Road from China to Europe. Did it spread along the trade routes to India and Africa as well? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/318uvk/prior_to_contact_with_europeans_during_the_age_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"cpzrd91"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
" Yes they were. Gunpowder was adopted by the Arabs early on and since they had conquered North Africa it spread throughout that region.\n\nIndia was much closer to the Chinese who most likely came up with gunpowder in the first place, and either got access to it themselves through trading or something, or when they got conquered by the Mongols. (The Mongols are also one way gunpowder might have been introduced to Europe).\n\nCertainly both India and the Muslim world were familiar with gunpowder by the 14th, mid-14th centuries. Now for the rest of Africa it gets murky for me, perhaps someone can illustrate me, certainly several regions like the Ghana Empire or the Mali Empire had contact with Muslim traders and slavers and religious proselytizers so they at least knew of guns, and most likely had access to some amount of them, but other more isolated, less developed areas, I'd assume they didn't learn of the existence of such things until centuries later.\n\n\n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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4mn98t | What were the major influences of Danish on the Norwegian language? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4mn98t/what_were_the_major_influences_of_danish_on_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"d3x3ier"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The different German languages and dialects. Germany(back then only as a cultural enitity) being a large power and a neighbour to Denmark naturally influenced the Danish languages up until the 20th century when English became more dominant. German was in the Scandinavian area the lingua franca, and the language of the elites and thus a large influence.\nThe largest influence on the Norwegian language was Danish, since they often shared a king or Norway being a subject to Denmark. THis means that German played a role in the development of the Norweigan language. Also, there are two Norwegian languages. Bokmål and Nynorsk. Bokmål is the most commonly spoken and is a mix of old Norwegian and Danish. Nynorsk is a modern attempt to recreate the \"true\" Norwegian language.\n\nIt should however be noted that Danish and German already have a lot of similarities since they are both Germanic languages.\n\nFollow-up questions are welcomed! I can recommend some literature aswell if you want."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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