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1jy8bj
|
Is there any actual historical proof that the Old Testament hasn't changed at all in all its history? Would a 2,000 year old Torah be any different from a current one?
|
We all know that the New Testament has tons of different versions, translations and compilations, but I've never actually heard of a different Old Testament than the one Orthodox Jews use today, and I was curious if any of you had an answer.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1jy8bj/is_there_any_actual_historical_proof_that_the_old/
|
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"The oldest text we have (and it's a fragment at that from Nehemiah) is from Ketef Hinnom, which puts us at ~600BC - but it's still only a few lines of text, nowhere near anything that could substantially help answer the question.\n\nUntil 1946, our oldest texts were the Masoretic Text (MT), which are 9-10th century AD. When the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered (dated to be ~400BC or later), they tended to match up with what we had in the MT (60% of the scrolls matched what we have in the MT). There are some significant variations between them, but they generally match each other accurately. One complete book of Isaiah differed by 3 words with the MT, which is pretty good for 1000+ years of transmission.\n\nThere is also the issue of the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew books, circa 3rd century BC (depending on your scholar), but nothing can be reliably dated until perhaps the 2nd century AD. The Septuagint does different from the MT in a number of ways, but nothing terribly significant again ([Timothy Michael Law](_URL_0_) has a book coming out about the differences if you're curious).\n\nSo we have some minor variations between the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint, and the MT, but it's pretty much that. Where we *do* have major variations is what is considered *canon*. The Leningrad Codex (10th century AD) is where Christians get their 39 Old Testament books from, the MT has 24 books, but the Dead Sea scrolls show that the Jewish community had a lot more than that. **If** Josephus' *Contra Apion* is accurate, then we have an acknowledgement of the closing of the Jewish canon by the 1st century AD. He had 22 books in his canon, but the differences between the MT, his 22, and the Christian 39 books is that sometimes the books were split differently (so Judges and Ruth run together as one etc.,). \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/07/heres-something-about-the-bible-of-the-first-christians-i-bet-many-of-you-didnt-know-youre-welcome/"
]
] |
|
574eeb
|
Looking for resources for answers to WW2 family history
|
My mother was with an SS Headquarters unit that surrendered to American forces in Austria in 1945. She said once that she was in the same POW camp as the future Pope Benedict XVI. Germany was paying her a pension until the day she died. She never spoke much about specifics and she has passed on now, but I have always wondered what unit she was with. As a POW, I'm sure that records exist somewhere. My question is where would be the best place to find the answer?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/574eeb/looking_for_resources_for_answers_to_ww2_family/
|
{
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"You may also want to cross-post this to /r/genealogy who might have more experience in tracking down family records."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3lt8fg
|
Do we have any records of confusion during a battle due to the opposing armies having similiar uniforms?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3lt8fg/do_we_have_any_records_of_confusion_during_a/
|
{
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"Yes, just like today the chaotic nature of battle lead to friendly fire on all sides. Here are a few examples from the Napoleonic wars.\n\n1) On July 5th 1809 the Saxons were holding off Austrians off in the village of Wagram. The Saxons were the allies of France, but they wore white uniforms which in the confusion of battle look a lot like the Austrian infantry uniforms which are also white (pictures below) when the French troops under Marshal MacDonald arrived they opened fire on the friendly Saxons.\nLater on in the day three battalions of Saxon grenadiers stormed the same village without being told that their countrymen were still there. This was in the evening at this point and in the smoke filled Wagram the white-clad Saxons look again like the Austrians and they were shot up again.\nFor reference \n_URL_7_\n_URL_1_\n\n2) At the battle of Quatre Bras in 1815 the 42nd and 92nd Highlanders both fired on retreating Dutch and Belgian cavalry who (again) wore similar uniforms to the French cavalry, and when you see dozens of horsemen galloping towards you some speaking French you do not stop to ask questions.\n\nNetherlands troops: _URL_9_\n_URL_2_\n\nFrench troops: _URL_3_\n_URL_8_\n\nAlso at Waterloo there was a time when British infantry fired on Prussians moving towards them who wear blue uniforms like the French. The Prussians however knew that the British troops were friendly and did not fire, the British soon realized their mistake and the two sides shook hands (:P). \n\nPrussians: _URL_0_\n\nFrench: _URL_5_\n\nSometimes there were even cases where friendly cavalry charged one another! In 1812 at Borodino the Saxon (they are very unlucky) cuirassiers were retreating when some French cuirassiers charged them. The Russian and Saxon cuirassiers wore similar uniforms.\n\nSaxon: _URL_4_\n\nRussian: _URL_6_ \n\nSo yes, you could find cases of friendly fire all around during the 1700/1800s, just like today.\n\n"
]
}
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[] |
[] |
[
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"http://centjours.mont-saint-jean.com/uniformes_unitePR.php?uniformes=38&drapeau=08RI01.png",
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"http://centjours.mont-saint-jean.com/uniformes_uniteBR.php?uniformes=3",
"http://centjours.mont-saint-jean.com/uniformes_uniteFR.php?uniformes=10&drapeau=",
"https://dhcwargamesblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/20120310-173715.jpg",
"http://centjours.mont-saint-jean.com/uniformes_uniteFR.php?uniformes=1&drapeau=3RI.png",
"http://images.forwallpaper.com/files/images/7/71d8/71d8c302/112212/russian-cuirassiers-1812-1814gg-since-the-beginning-of-the-war-with-napoleon.jpg",
"https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/59/70/e0/5970e04eb40c7c392cf3dc152599d560.jpg",
"http://centjours.mont-saint-jean.com/uniformes_uniteFR.php?uniformes=16&drapeau=",
"http://centjours.mont-saint-jean.com/uniformes_uniteBR.php?uniformes=2"
]
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||
1z49b7
|
Did the Rape of Nanking affect international relations
|
More specifically did it affect international relationships OTHER than the obvious China/Japan tensions, such as the relationship between Japan and the Koreas/Vietnam/Taiwan/Indonesia/Russia/etc
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1z49b7/did_the_rape_of_nanking_affect_international/
|
{
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"Short answer: Reports of Japanese attacks on civilians affected international relations, but some of the most internationally significant reports came before the Nanjing Massacre.\n\nPrior to 1931, Japan's colonization of Hokkaido, Okinawa, Taiwan, Korea, and Micronesia had all been \"legal\" in the eyes of the international community. The Manchurian incident, the setting up of the Manchukuo puppet state, and the invasion of China proper in 1937 were not viewed as legal, and caused heavy international criticism. The criticism of the invasion of Manchuria prompted Japan to withdraw from the League of Nations, and most countries refused to acknowledge Manchukuo, but more concrete actions against Japan were limited.\n\nJapan's movement into China and the well publicized violence of those attacks prompted much harsher outcry. Even before the Nanjing massacre, famous photos like [\"bloody saturday,\"](_URL_0_) (sorry, wiki) taken during the invasion of Shanghai started to turn Western public opinion firmly against Japanese expansion. This outcry, along with political concerns, led to a US Moral Embargo in 1938, halting shipments of aircrafts, related equipment, and bombs that could be used on civilians. This eventually expanded in 1939 to include airplane fuel. From that point on, the US continued a policy of steadily increasing economic restrictions in an attempt to force Japan to stop. \n\nThe US strategy fundamentally misunderstood the Japanese leadership's thinking on expansion. Rather than encouraging them to stop, the gradually tightening economic restrictions confirmed in the minds of the Japanese leadership that Japan's independence, security, and very survival depended on securing territory that would make them economically independent from Western nations. Indeed, as they ran out of the raw materials needed for the military and military industries, they began to consider even more drastic measures to secure resources. This continued search for economic independence was a major factor to Japan's decision to expand into Southeast Asia and other Pacific islands - attacking Pearl Harbor and officially starting the Pacific War in the process.\n\nEDIT: As far as the places you mentioned specifically are concerned:\n\n - The Koreas - There was no Korean state at the time. Korea had been legally part of Japan since 1910, and Korean people would have been seeing the same pro-Japanese propaganda that people in Japan saw.\n\n - Vietnam was under French colonial control, and called Indochina at the time. I'm not sure what reactions the Vietnamese people had, but the French joined in criticizing the Japanese. Later in the war, when Japan invaded Indochina, regular people's reactions were mixed, some seeing the Japanese as liberators who helped them throw off the French, others seeing them as violent conquerors.\n\n - Taiwan had been under Japanese control since 1895. They, like Korea, would have been seeing pretty much nothing but pro-Japanese propaganda\n\n - Indonesia was under Dutch colonial control. The Dutch reduced oil sales to Japan, making them more dependent on the US. The local Indonesians had mixed reactions when the Japanese eventually invaded, much like the Vietnamese.\n\n - Russia had a long history of fighting with the Japanese at this point. I'm sure they criticized Japan, but I'm not aware of any actions taken as a result. That might be my general ignorance of all things Russian, though."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Saturday_(photograph\\)"
]
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|
3njvkn
|
Alexander is reckoned to have named 20+ cities after himself. Is this a record?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3njvkn/alexander_is_reckoned_to_have_named_20_cities/
|
{
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"I actually just read an article yesterday that went over the Soviet Union's policy of renaming cities and towns after their leaders. And while it doesn't really answer the question, as Lenin did not get that many places named after him, it does provide a look at how the most recent large-scale example of renaming entities after people was undertaken, and how that changed over some five decades (the article was written in 1985).\n\nBursa, G.R.F. \"Political Changes of Names of Soviet Towns,\" *The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 63, No. 2 (April, 1984): 161-193."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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||
22fdp5
|
Is there any reference to Moses, the plagues, or the Exodus in Ancient Egyptian writings?
|
With Passover approaching, I was curious as to whether the Ancient Egyptians wrote their own account about the Exodus of the Israelites. Everything I've ever learned is from the Torah and the story of Passover told at our Seder every year. Thanks for your answers.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/22fdp5/is_there_any_reference_to_moses_the_plagues_or/
|
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"There's really nothing concrete, and even biblical scholars tend to agree that nothing on the level of the exodus actually happened. There simply isn't any archaeological evidence, despite multiple attempts to find some.\n\nThere are a few stories that seem to roughly line up with the exodus, but the most prominent one is the one I'm familiar with, so I'll recount it here.\n\nThe Jewish Historian Josephus quotes some writings by Manetho, who was an Egyptian Historian in the 3rd century BCE, who wrote about a group known as the Hyksos. Both quotes by Manetho are incomplete fragments, but the first fragment seems to indicate the the Hyksos had origins in Asia, who invaded Egypt, defeated the indigenous rulers, and briefly ruled Egypt. They were then either driven out or left (I've seen both as translations), headed to Judea and founded Jerusalem. Josephus (not Manetho) associate the Hyksos with jews, which would make this an account of the 'exodus', even if the details are significantly different.\n\nThe second fragment is a bit more relevant, if seeming a lot more questionable. An Egyptian pharaoh was told he would be able to see the gods if he purged Egypt of the unclean. He gathered all the lepers and those inflicted by disease, and sent them to the city of Avaris, which had belonged to the Hyksos in the first fragment.\n\nThe lepers, led by a priest known as Osarsiph-Moses (original name Osarsiph), rebelled and called upon the Hyksos to join them. The Hyksos do so, bringing a grand army to Egypt and conquering it for a second time, joining with the 'impure' Egyptians. They're noted to be particularly horrible rulers, making the Egyptians butcher their sacred animals and performing sacrifices. Manetho clarifies that Moses was responsible for their way of life, and that he was a priest from Heliopolis. The Hyksos rule Egypt for thirteen years, but are eventually driven out of Egypt by Pharaoh Amenophis and his son Ramses.\n\nIt's such a small fragment, and only one source, so historians would be hard pressed to go either way on it. It's possible it was made up, it's possible it was added to or changed from later.\n\nThat's the account I am most familiar with, although I'm aware of a few other (much smaller, or much more hard to relate to the exodus) accounts, generally from later in history.\n\nSources:\n\nYou can read about the fragments in [Josephus' Contra Apionem](_URL_0_).",
"There is another subreddit that you might enjoy called /r/AcademicBiblical, which goes into stuff like this.",
"Here is a really good answer about both neutral and positive evidence of the Israelites in Egypt. _URL_0_",
"Jewish history archeologist Israel Finkelstein is one of the foremost authorities on ancient Hebrew/Israelite history, and has been piecing together the story of Exodus for many years.\n\n I know that documentaries aren't always the ideal source, but I think that for this topic, the documentary I am attaching can give you a basic idea of where the current thinking is regarding Moses and the exodus.\n\nThe Bible Unearthed, episode 2.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Recently there was a large academic seminar on this exact subject. Some very heavy hitters in the various fields around the topic presented at it, and all their videos are online in one place. \n\n**Exodus: Out of Egypt** \n*Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Archaeology, Text and Memory*\n\n- [Basic list of presentation titles and speakers][1]\n- [Full Conference site with video archive][2] (The video archive is the gray expander boxes on the bottom right edge of the page.)\n\nAs an amateur, what I got from the conference is that they're still collecting arguments for and against the issue, though many have already made up their mind. There are historians, archaeologists, and document experts presenting, some of whom have spent their entire career around the same question, and the info they brought to the seminar shows how difficult answering it really is.\n\nI've pursued the same question as a hobbyist for a couple years, and this collection is the most state-of-the-art knowledge on this subject in one place that I'm aware of. There are fors and againsts from nearly every conceivable angle.\n\n[1]: < _URL_0_;\n\n[2]: < _URL_1_;\n\n",
"Ugh, I never see these things in good time.\n\nThe top comment isn't bad--I would quibble about one thing, and I'll offer a few good resources to check that will be helpful. \n\nI would never cite Josephus as any kind of reliable source as far as any purported history lying behind the biblical text. Josephus is certainly very helpful for contextualizing later writings, but if we're going to go back as far as \"1400 BCE\" (those are scare quotes) we need to find other resources.\n\nTop Commenter is right insofar as there is no archaeological or textual evidence outside of the Bible to support an historical exodus or wilderness wandering. Remember, too, that we necessarily need to take conversations about the Exodus together with conversations about the settlement history of Palestine in the early Iron Age, as the two are textually and narratively linked. That said, there is no evidence in support of what is recounted in the book of Joshua. There is no evidence of sweeping conquest of the land (we would expect to see burn layers dating to the early Iron I period at places like Jericho and Ai, but we simply don't have them).\n\nI would highlight the following resources: Finkelstein's _The Bible Unearthed_; Mazar's _Archaeology of the Land of the Bible_. (N.B., that Finkelstein espouses what is known as the \"low chronology\". He pushes everything down further than I'm comfortable with, but his popular book mentioned above is helpful and generally honest with the data.)",
"This question is dealt with in the FAQ: _URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://books.google.com.au/books?id=MpZwfMmH0n8C&pg=PR3&lpg=PR3&dq=Louis+H.+Feldman+and+John+R.+Levison,+%22Josephus%27+Contra+Apionem:+studies+in+its+character+and+context&source=bl&ots=BvriaPxqas&sig=Zv1c3QFZUzWJrb_qDGfI0TmTCFE&hl=en&ei=dh3_S8KtJsPJcaOwuY4K&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=hyksos&f=false"
],
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/134u0i/what_evidence_is_there_of_ancient_egyptian/c71ax4o?context=5"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDDs8HgOZ4o"
],
[
"http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/exodus/out-of-egypt-israels-exodus-between-text-and-memory-history-and-imagination/>",
"http://exodus.calit2.net/>"
],
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/19p1vu/do_we_know_if_the_exodus_happened_the_way_its/"
]
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|
b8hoj2
|
Why was Lesbian wine so expensive in antiquity?
|
And when did it fall out of fashion?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b8hoj2/why_was_lesbian_wine_so_expensive_in_antiquity/
|
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"Can I please have a description of what lesbian wine is? I'd prefer not to start a new thread.",
"I can answer the first part of your question, why Lesbian wine was expensive in certain places during Antiquity, but not the second as that falls outside of the scope of my knowledge.\n\n#Background of the question\n\nThe first question that comes to mind is whether Lesbian wine actually was expensive compared to other wines. The following is a bit of background on wine reputation and consumptions for readers who may not have known that Lesbian wine was expensive in the first place, but you are welcome to skip to the second part which answer the gist of the question.\n\nLesbos begins to appear in lists of regions which produce high-quality wines by the 5th Century BCE, alongside regions like Thasos, Chios, and Mende during the Classical period. These were not the only wine-producing regions in the Greek-speaking world, there were many other major wine exporters around the Aegean and the Black Sea, and by the Hellenistic period, the western Mediterranean as well. Cities like Rhodes and Knidos exported wine in bulk, but this wine had a reputation of being cheap, in terms of price and quality. The key difference between a Lesbian city like Mitylene and a city like Rhodes was not the importance of wine to their economy, but the value placed on it in the Mediterranean market. \n\nLesbian and Chian wines were particularly notable for their ability to improve with age, while poor wines turned to vinegar after as little as a year. This was all the more important given that imported wine had to spend weeks at sea, in relatively harsh conditions. Lesbos and Chios evidently maintained their stellar reputation and their viniculture industry into the Hellenistic and Roman periods, as later authors exalted their virtues as excellent wines.\n\nIt is possible to trace the exportation of wine through the discard wine jars, or *amphorae*, which were recycled or discarded when empty. Amphorae from different city-states often had unique shapes or colours. Over the course of decades, Virginia R. Grace analysed hundreds of thousands of amphorae and pottery shards to create archives of reference for styles, dating, and origin. For example, Knidian amphorae were made with distinctively red clay and ringed tips, while Rhodian amphorae were creamy and peg tipped. Lesbian amphorae often had a dark-grey colour peculiar to pottery from the island. Many amphorae from were also stamped with symbols or information which displayed their place of origin.\n\nExcavations at Athens and Alexandria reveal that the overwhelming majority of wine imported came from Knidos and Rhodes during the Hellenistic period. This lines up pretty well with the idea that wine from these regions was cheap and widely available.\n\nThe 3rd Century CE author Athenaeus wrote that individuals were at one time able to import Lesbian wine to his hometown of Naukratis, Egypt free of tax. The Roman geographer Strabo repeated an apocryphal story in which Sappho’s brother Charaxus exported Lesbian wine to Naukratis. While these are not necessarily accurate, it is true that wine from Lesbos and other parts of Greece was exported to Naukratis from the Archaic period into the Roman era.\n\n#How was Lesbian wine, and why was it so expensive?\n\nIt seems fairly clear that wine from Lesbos was more well-regarded than your run-of-the-mill cheap wine, and that it had a price tag to match. This leaves the question of why it was more highly valued, which is actually a simpler matter.\n\nTo answer this, it helps to get a sense of what ancient Greeks valued in a wine. Much like today, wine tasters looked for colour, bouquet, taste and alcohol content when assessing a wine. Unlike today, particular vintages were not more highly valued than others, nor were there patented regional varieties like Champagne or Bordeaux. There was however a large preference for wines from certain regions.\n\nThere are many reasons why certain regions may have become famous for high quality wines instead of others. The geography and climate of certain regions may naturally lend themselves to the production of certain wines, by virtue of their soil or aridity for example. This was probably the case on Lesbos, since each of its cities played a role in its famous wine exportation.\n\nIn Thasos, laws were put in place to protect buyers from unscrupulous wine merchants, and to hamper the sale of non-Thasian wines as Thasian. These measures are generally interpreted as an attempt to protect the reputation of Thasian wine, and it follows that similar laws protected the reputation of wine in other states which relied heavily on wine production.\n\nDifferent grapes were cultivated in different regions and Greek vines were actually transplanted to Egypt and Italy. The techniques of winemaking (from cultivating and tending vineyards to ripening and mixing wines) varied considerably, with local specialties and imitations developing over time.\n\nAs a result, the contents of these amphorae also held quite a bit of variety. Wine was generally divided into three colours, with black (meaning red), white/straw coloured, and amber varieties being recognised. Sometimes, four were noted and this became black, blood-red, white/straw coloured, and amber. Athenaeus cites a line from Timotheus which calls wine “the blood of Bacchus”, and later mentions a dry white wine from Mareotis. In the 1st Century AD, Pliny the Elder noted that:\n > In one part they are lustrous with a rich purple colour, while in another, again, they glow with a rosy tint, or else are glossy with their verdant hue. The grapes that are merely white or black are the common sorts.\n\nUnfortunately most of our surviving Classical Greek texts only mention winemaking techniques in passing rather than getting into the technical details. On the other hand, a wealth of Roman farming manuals from authors like Cato, Varro, and Columella exist which detail winemaking techniques in a later era.\n\nAncient Greek wines would have tasted quite a bit different from modern wines however. For one thing they were not aged in oak barrels like modern vintages, but in containers sealed with pine pitch and/or other resins which flavoured the wine inside. Although this flavouring was originally accidental, by the Classical period resinated wines were by design rather than simply necessity. Chian wines were heavily resinated which gave them a strong, unique flavour. \n\nNot all resins were admired, with some trees or regions producing distasteful resins which had to be masked with additives like salt. Sea water was also used as a preservative in wines from cities like Rhodes, Knidos, and Kos.\n\nAromatics like flowers, spices (such as saffron and myrrh), honey, fruit, and even dough were sometimes mixed with wine to improve taste. Hesiod recounts the Boeotian method of drying grapes into raisins to produce sweeter wines, a technique still used today. Pramnian wines were also produced in a similar way. \n\nMany references to Lesbian wine in Greek and Roman literature make note of its sweetness and the aromatics which were mixed with it. Apparently, Lesbian winemakers had their own technique of using sun-dried grapes to produce their signature sweet wine. \n\nPliny the Elder stated that in his time, prized Lesbian wine had “naturally a taste of sea-water”, no doubt from additives like sea water. This could mean that styles of winemaking changed, but it likely just reflects the contradictory and multi-faceted information we have about ancient wines.\n\nJames Davidson in *Courtesans and Fishcakes* cites a passage from Archestratus which praises the qualities of Lesbian wine, including its sweetness and its floral aromatics:\n > Then, when you have drawn a full measure for Zeus Saviour, you must drink an old wine, bearing on its shoulders a head hoary indeed, a wine whose wet curls are crowned with white flowers, a wine begat of wave-girdled Lesbos. And Bybline, the wine that hails from holy Phoenicia, I recommend, though I do not place it in the same rank as the other. For if you were not previously on intimate terms and it catches your tastebuds unaware, it will seem more fragrant than the Lesbian, and it does retain its bouquet for a prodigious length of time, but when you come to drink it you will find it inferior by far, while in your estimation the Lesbian will soar, worthy not merely of wine’s prerogatives but of ambrosia’s.\n\nThat might be one of the most glowing recommendations of Lesbian wine I have come across, and I am including it just for its poetry.\n\nHopefully this helps to answer your question and give you an insight into Greek wine tasting.\n\n#Sources:\n\n*The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, households, and city-states* edited by Edward M. Harris, David M. Lewis, and Mark Woomer\n\n*Amphoras and the Ancient Wine Trade* by Virginia R. Grace\n\n*The Origins and Ancient History of Wine* edited by Patrick E. McGovern, Stuart J. Katz and Solomon E. Fleming\n\n*Wine and the Vine: An historical geography of viniculture and the wine trade* by Tim Unwin\n\n*Courtesans and Fishcakes: The consuming passions of ancient Athens* by James Davidson\n\n*The Deipnosophists* by Athenaeus of Naukratis\n\n*Natural History* by Pliny the Elder\n\n*On Geography* by Strabo\n\n"
]
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[] |
[
[],
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3fsjcd
|
How did the Lancasterian kings justify their claim to the French crown?
|
As I understand it, the Hundred Year's War started back in the 1300s when Edward III of England claimed the French crown by right of inheritance from his mother Isabella, while the French insisted that the royal succession cannot pass through a female.
In the Wars of the Roses, it seems like we have a similar situation: The Lancasterians were descended from a younger son of Edward III, and the Yorkists were descended from an older son, but the Lancasterians said that their claim was better because it was a direct male descent.
If, then, the Lancasterians were committed to the principle of male descent when it comes to England, why did they continue to claim the French crown based on female descent? Were they simply hypocrites? Or did they have some clever explanation?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3fsjcd/how_did_the_lancasterian_kings_justify_their/
|
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"They didn't see the contradiction. Henry IV and V pressed Edward III \"legitimate\" claim to the French throne which they, as his descendants still held. Meanwhile their rule had been ratified by parliament with the people behind them. As far as they were concerned they were legitimate in both respects. We might call them hypocrites today, but that's a modern value judgment on some cut throat dynastic politics."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3fbtjy
|
Gaius Marius
|
I know a small amount about Marius and the reforms he made. However there seem to be few records of his personality. Could anyone direct me to somewhere with such records? Or does anyone have any knowledge of him themselves?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3fbtjy/gaius_marius/
|
{
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"As /u/maxotmtns has recommended, Plutarch's *Lives* is the best primary source for personality. However, bear in mind that everything he wrote was filtered through a) historical bias (including Sulla and Caesar's agendas) and b) his desire to bring out moral lessons in the personalities. Try the [classics archive](_URL_0_) or [Project Gutenberg](_URL_1_) for translations.\n\nAppian's *The Civil Wars* and Plutarch's *Fall of the Roman Republic* also have small sections on Marius.\n\nI'd personally recommend Colleen McCullough's *The First Man in Rome* and *The Grass Crown* for a good, if fictional, representation of his character and actions.",
"Plutarch wrote one of his Lives about him. So that could fit your bill with the requisite boulder of salt for Plutarch on personality."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/c_marius.html",
"http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14114"
],
[]
] |
|
2p2fy4
|
Before automobiles, how did major cities deal with horses dying or being hurt in traffic accidents?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2p2fy4/before_automobiles_how_did_major_cities_deal_with/
|
{
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"text": [
"Here's an article I found about this. The part specifically about horse death or injury is on the 6th page, though the rest is actually pretty interesting as well.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > In addition, horses often fell, on average once every hundred miles of travel. When this took place, the horse (weighing on average 1,300 pounds) would have to be helped to its feet, which was no mean feat. If injured badly, a fallen horse would be shot on the spot or simply abandoned to die, creating an obstruction that clogged streets and brought traffic to a halt. Dead horses were extremely unwieldy, and although special horse removal vehicles were employed, the technology of the era could not easily move such a burden. As a result, street cleaners often waited for the corpses to putrefy so they could more easily be sawed into pieces and carted off. Thus the corpses rotted in the streets, sometimes for days, with less than appealing consequences for traffic circulation, aesthetics, and public health.\n\nArticle references: \n\n* Clay McShane. Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).\n\n* Lawrence H. Larsen, “Nineteenth-Century Street Sanitation: A Study of Filth and Frustration,” Wisconsin Magazine of History, vol. 52, no. 3, Spring 1969.\n\n* Clay McShane and Joel A. Tarr. “The Centrality of the Horse in the Nineteenth Century American City,” in The Making of Urban America, ed. Raymond A. Mohl (Wilmington DE: Scholarly Resources, 1997).\n\n* Nigel Morgan, “Infant Mortality, Flies and Horses in Later-Nineteenth-Century Towns: A Case Study of Preston,” Continuity and Change, vol. 17, no. 1, 2002. \n\n* Joel A. Tarr, “The Horse: Polluter of the City,” in The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution\nin Historical Perspective, ed. Joel A. Tarr (Akron, Ohio: University of Akron Press, 1996).\n\n* Francis Michael Longstreth Thompson, ed. Horses in European Economic History: A Preliminary Canter (Great Britain: British Agricultural History Society, 1983).",
"May I ask as a follow up who would shoot an injured horse? Did people have their own firearms? The local police patrol? ",
"I have a followup question :\n\nAny reason people (the poor?) would not just cut up and eat the horse? ",
"Along the same lines I was wondering what would happen to your vehicle if your horse died? Was there a service to get a temporary horse to pull you where you needed to go? Or just buy a new horse?",
"Another question:\nI'm living in 1900 and am tired of walking, so I want to get some wheels. How much does a horse and carriage setup cost? Where do I buy it? How often do I need to replace the carriage or horses?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.uctc.net/access/30/Access%2030%20-%2002%20-%20Horse%20Power.pdf"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2wvfkb
|
Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"
|
I am currently reading (re-reading) Sun Tzu's "The Art of War". I'm really immersing myself in this book, but it seems like the more I get into it, the more ambiguous certain words/phrases get.
Im hoping this can open a lot of discussion about people who are knowledgeable in this area.
Here are 3 quotes im having difficulty understanding, and hope they can be explained.
1. **Section- Making of Plans** "If he is angry, disconcert him"
2. **Section- Strategic Offense** "Ignorant meddling in military appointments perplexes officers and men"
3. **Section-Empty and Full** "Oh, subtlety of subtleties! Without form! Oh, mystery of mysteries! Without sound! He Is master of his enemy's fate"
Edit:Typo
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2wvfkb/sun_tzus_the_art_of_war/
|
{
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"I'm not an expert by any means, but I'll give it a go.\n\n1). \"If he is angry, disconcert him\": When a person is angry or generally emotionally charged they will not be thinking logically and will have a greater tendency towards rash, impulsive and ill thought out decisions. So you would want to confuse or misinform them so that in a moment of anger the enemy would make a blunder that cost a battle or even a war. An example could be the battle of Larissa; Alexios Komnenos knows that he can not defeat the Normans in a head on confrontation so he sets up a trap. The main roman force lines up in battle order and engages the normans. After a brief period though they were to turn and \"pretend to run pell-mell\". This occurs and Bohemond (the Norman commander) believing the battle won pursues the 'fleeing' romans, far from his own now chaotic forces. Alexios then attacks the norman camp with a force he kept in reserve, killing many of the normans in the process and gaining a victory. When messengers finally arrived to tell Bohemond the news they found him \"eating grapes. He was bragging loudly, full of his own vainglory.\" Naturally it was quite a shock to him to see that he had in fact lost.\n\n2). \"Ignorant meddling in military appointments perplexes officers and men\": Similar to before, only this time the issues are within your army. If there is a senior officer who is ill informed of the current situation then they may give orders which conflict with those from other officers. The men serving beneath them will then be unsure as to what action to take. This lack of coordination could end up with an error being committed that could end up in a defeat.\n\n3). \"Oh, subtlety of subtleties! Without form! Oh, mystery of mysteries! Without sound! He Is master of his enemy's fate\": Hmm, this is an interesting one. this could be advice to a commander not to obvious as to his plan of battle. If your forces show no discernible shape or pattern of deployment (that can be seen anyway) then your enemy will not know how to prepare, giving you the initiative (which has been critical in every battle fought).\nAbout the second part; unless I am mistaken The art of war advocates the use of espionage. If you were able to infiltrate the enemies forces and implant spies then the commander will not know who they can trust or what could happen next. They will either commit many resources to counter this unseen threat or even go fully on the defensive, both of which hand the initiative to you.\nAn possible extension; In WW2 the soviets used partisan forces, that is groups who would operate behind enemy lines launching ambushes and sabotaing infrastructure. The germans would never know which way to turn and thus incurred severe losses from these guerilla forces.\n\nOf course what I say is probably riddles with innaccuracies and gross generalisations but I hope that I am on the right track and that this helps you.\n\nSources: The Alexiad (Anna Komnena).",
"Well, depending on how patient you are, [_URL_2_ has a hyperlinked copy of Sunzi ](_URL_1_) – you can click on any character and get their dictionary entry on it.\n\n It’s very interesting to see the etymology of Chinese characters, I think… often there are pretty interesting correspondences, or even little stories behind how one character gets put together.\n\nThe presentation at [Wengu](_URL_0_) is a little easier - it's an old English translation (Giles), with Chinese characters there on the page. The character definitions are a little harder to follow, though (at least if you mouse-over rather than click on each character). \n\nThey've also got a French translation (from Amiot, an interesting guy - but I can't read French, so can't speak to the translation at all). \n\nGiles translates your \"Strategic Offense\" passage, for example, as: \n\n > By attempting to govern an army in the same way as he administers a kingdom, being ignorant of the conditions which obtain in an army. This causes restlessness in the soldier's minds.\n\nWith the footnote: \n\n > 1. Ts`ao Kung's note is, freely translated: \"The military sphere and the civil sphere are wholly distinct; you can't handle an army in kid gloves.\" And Chang Yu says: \"Humanity and justice are the principles on which to govern a state, but not an army; opportunism and flexibility, on the other hand, are military rather than civil virtues to assimilate the governing of an army\"–to that of a State, understood.\n\nYou can also go through character-by-character (vertically, from the top right) to read the original. \n\n*Edit: top right - sorry. It's more obvious if you look at the page... the \"top\" little bamboo strip.*\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?l=Sunzi&s=0",
"http://www.zhongwen.com/bingfa.htm",
"Zhongwen.com"
]
] |
|
20t22m
|
How did it come about that men wear pants and women wear skirts?
|
I was watching an old tv show and it showed a woman in the late 1800s or so out on the farm, running from a boar, when she tripped over her skirt. It got me wondering why women traditionally wore (and still wear) skirts and dresses, but especially in historical times? I can think of very few pre-modern activities in which wearing a long skirt would be advantageous - hunting, riding a horse, farming, running from a wild animal... Why didn't both sexes' fashion evolve to wear pants?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/20t22m/how_did_it_come_about_that_men_wear_pants_and/
|
{
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"Alrighty guys, putting on my mod hat here for a reminder of what posts here entail :) \n\nFirst, I want to preface this by noting that **yes, we know that this is on the front page of the sub and yes, we also know that there are no quality answers in this thread.** That's okay. If you cannot contribute an [answer that conforms to the standards that we uphold in this subreddit](_URL_1_), then please refrain from posting - all it does is clutter the thread, necessitating us to prune it. Using popular history is not a source. A few lines is not a good post. Something that you heard once at a museum is also not an academic source. If you'd like further clarification on what we'll remove on sight, please feel free to check out the [rules in the sidebar!](_URL_0_) :)\n\n**We do not lower our standards for popular threads. Please keep that in mind.**",
"Additional question to this subject, is the shaving of legs by women related to their wearing of dresses/skirts or unrelated. If it's unrelated I'll just open a new question about it.",
"A question to add on:\n\nI've heard a few times in the past that women's skirts, as well as high heels and longer hair, are all basically motivated by reducing the mobility of women (just as OP points out a skirt would do) and women were denigrated for adopting the more practical \"male\" modes of flat shoes, cropped hair, and pants.\n\nAny truth to that? I know that Catherine de Medici was the one to introduce high heels, and I think it's also true that men have worn their hair long at various points in history, but it doesn't necessarily negate the point. ",
"I'll take a stab at this, a brief one though. I was a Classics major in college. One thing I was interested in was ancient clothing.\n\nFrom a western (Euro-centric) view, trousers were worn by people the Greeks considered barbarians, like the Bactrians and Armenians. They were also worn by their arch enemies, the [Persians](_URL_0_). The Romans carried on this tradition. They considered trousers effete and barbarous (Lever, James. Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. Thames and Hudson, 1995, 2010). Eventually, as Rome took over more of the world, trousers were more practical for men when riding horses, working, and for warmth. Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire) court dress still consisted of robes, but trousers being more often worn by men, since they were more practical. When you look at what men were wearing it was often hose with a short or long robe over it. Sometimes two pairs of hose were worn: a tight under pair and a looser over pair. Eventually, this became \"long johns\" and trousers.\n\nAs for women, in many ways before modern tampons and sanitary napkins, skirts made much more sense. As a modern woman, I can attest to this. If one menstruates for five days a month, it is cleaner and easier to wear a skirt. For woman, urination is also more practical with a skirt. Men can \"just whip it out,\" women have to squat. Also, if a woman is pregnant, a skirt or dress that can be easily adjusted makes more sense. Eventually, what is common becomes traditional. From a Biblical point of view (Deut 22:5) “The woman shall not put on [the weapons/armor of a warrior], neither shall a [warrior] put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.” This came to mean that a woman should not wear the clothing of a man, i.e., trousers. Hence, we get a traditional view that trousers are for men, skirts for women, and kilts for the Scots.\n\nedited for clarity.",
"Not to be a self-aggrandizing douchenozzle, but [let me link to my own post](_URL_1_) in another thread, showing that men wore skirts for about 3000 years, commonly, in Egypt. \n\nThis was also [the case in Ancient Assyria](_URL_0_), and, from the relatively scant evidence we have, in [ancient Babylonia and Sumeria](_URL_2_), as well. \n\nClassical Greeks and Romans wore tunics, which were not skirts, but which did not have divided leg-like parts, and Roman soldiers wore a \"skirt\" of leather feathers (or *pteruges*) around their leather underpants. \n\nSkirts were very common as a male garment, in other words, for thousands of years.\n\nThere are a variety of theories as to why pants took over. One possibility is that the advent of horseback riding, especially in long-distance travel and combat, necessitated a garment that would minimize chafing of the legs both against the horse and against any grasses or leaves, etc. that one would ride around against. ",
"Anne Hollander's book *Sex and Suits* argues that the first truly tailored/fitted garments in Western history was the cloth padding worn under armor by knights and other fighting men. At this time, both men and women basically wore bags that weren't shaped to the body. The padding suits gradually influenced military uniform, which in turn influenced government fashion, which in turn influenced menswear in general. The older style did hang around on men, particularly in the uniforms of institutions that wish to project stability and authority, i.e. the gowns or robes worn by priests and judges. \n\nAs women were not part of the new institutions of the modern European period, they did not adopt the body-fitted fashions, and retained the older \"bag\" paradigm in the form of dresses and skirts. You often did see women wearing fitted garments on their upper bodies, though. \n\nIn Western fashion history, it's men who are the innovators, and women pick up bits and pieces of it as men abandon them. Women didn't really start wearing pants or trousers in public until the 1930s or so, revealing at least the shape of their lower bodies for the first time.\n\nPracticality really isn't high on the list of reasons why people wear the things they do. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1jsabs/what_it_means_to_post_a_good_answer_in/"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.ospreypublishing.com/store/book.aspx?bookcode=p2501"
],
[
"http://www.fashion-era.com/ancient_costume/assyrian_clothing_pictures_assur.htm",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/20mvnh/did_ancient_egyptian_men_walk_around_shirtless_as/cg5gh04",
"http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/fashion_costume_culture/The-Ancient-World-Mesopotamia/Mesopotamian-Clothing.html"
],
[]
] |
|
1959g3
|
When did the construction and maintenance of roads become almost purely a function of the state?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1959g3/when_did_the_construction_and_maintenance_of/
|
{
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"text": [
"First of all, to build a road, you need to have the authority over the territories through which the road would pass. Also, the state had the resources for the big projects. And of course, it needed the income from the trade, so the state had the motivation to improve transport on larger scale. \n\nIn 5th century BC, Darius I the Great started an extensive road system for Persia (Iran), including the Royal Road, which was one of the finest highways of its time. From about 4th century BC, the Roman Empire built straight strong stone Roman roads throughout Europe and North Africa, in support of its military campaigns.\n\nIn England, \"pavage grants\", originally made for paving the marketplace or streets of towns, began also to be used for maintaining some roads between towns in the 14th century. These grants were made by \"letters patent\", almost invariably for a limited term ( the time to pay for the required works).\n\nThe Highways Act 1555 in Britain transferred responsibility for maintaining roads from government to local parishes, but this resulted in a poor and variable state of roads. The parishes struggled to find funds. To remedy this, the first of the \"Turnpike trusts\" was established around 1706, to build good roads and collect tolls from passing vehicles.\n\nDuring the early 19th century the concept of the turnpike trust was adopted and adapted to manage roads within the British Empire (Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa) and in the USA.Turnpikes declined with the coming of the railways and then the Local Government Act of 1888 gave responsibility for maintaining main roads to county councils and county borough councils.\n\nBy the early Victorian period toll gates were perceived as an impediment to free trade. The railway era spelt disaster for most turnpike trusts. by the 1870s it was feasible for Parliament to close the trusts progressively without leaving an unacceptable financial burden on local communities. The Local Government Act of 1888 gave responsibility for maintaining main roads to county councils and county borough councils. \n\nModern highway systems developed in the 20th century as the automobile gained popularity. In the USA The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 (Phipps Act) enacted a fund to create an extensive highway system. In 1922, the first blueprint for a national highway system (the Pershing Map) was published. The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 allocated $25 billion for the construction of the 41,000 miles (66,000 km) long Interstate Highway System over a 20-year period.\n\nIn Great Britain the Special Roads Act 1949 provided the legislative basis for similar roads, later mostly termed \"motorways\". Those are also build and maintained by the state (and not by the local authorities) because they go through several \"local authorities\" and are of national (and not local) importance. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
v7zem
|
What is the least number of times the Bible has been translated?
|
From the new testament, at least. Jesus spoke Aramaic, so I imagine it started there. Then Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, "Old" English, and finally modern English.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/v7zem/what_is_the_least_number_of_times_the_bible_has/
|
{
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"text": [
"I'm writing not as a biblical scholar, but as someone who knows his Greek.\n\nNearly all of the New Testament was originally written in Greek, and any decent modern translation will be translated directly from that. An indirect translation is always inferior to a direct one (unless the intermediate translator knew something that the modern translators don't have access to -- but that's not the case here). If your translation is from French or Latin, it may have some value as a collector's item but it's useless for critical purposes.\n\nIIRC the first three gospels (*Matthew*, *Mark*, *Luke*) *may* have originally been written in Aramaic -- or maybe only Q was, I don't know (the style of *Luke* makes me suspect the Greek is the original text; *Matthew* and *Mark* are much less fluent). I vaguely recall reading that there have been doubts about *John* as well, but its Greek is so fluent, so sophisticated, so literary, and so educated, that I find it *very* hard to believe it's a translation. I'm not aware of any suggestion that any of the New Testament ever went through a Hebrew phase.\n\nFor every other book in the New Testament we have something reasonably close to the original text (at least as close as any normal ancient text, anyway).\n\nEdit: corrections because I'm experimenting with night mode and it's really hard to read text in the composition box.",
"It should be \"fewest\", not \"least\". \n\nAnd the answer is zero. The New Testament gospels were written in Greek, and you can download a copy of the New Testament in Greek today. Every modern English translation was translated directly from the most reliable Greek texts, the Great uncial codices, which date from the 300s AD."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
5r9u2g
|
What was average day-to-day life like for someone living in a city in one of the Gothic kingdoms after the fall of the Western Roman Empire?
|
[deleted]
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5r9u2g/what_was_average_daytoday_life_like_for_someone/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dd5iu44"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"The Fall of Rome wasn't a sudden or particularly shocking event. The Empire had been falling apart for some time. Odoacer and Theodoric only officialized what had been going on for centuries. \n\n[As I explained in this answer](_URL_0_), In the immediate aftermath of the transition from Odoacer's consulship to Theodoric's proclamation as *Rex Italiae*, a \"Roman\" was any member of society who spoke Latin as a first language.\n\nThere certainly were associations tied to speaking Latin and middle/upper class urban lifestyle, while \"Goths\" or other \"Non-Romans\" would have been expected to have arrived in Italy from other parts of the Empire to perform manual labor or serve in the army. Theodoric himself would astutely comment, \"A poor Roman plays the Goth, a rich Goth the Roman.\"\n\nGenerally, the cultural pressure and desire to Romanize would lead to there being mostly a number of people speaking Vulgar Latin. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/user/AlviseFalier/?count=50&after=t1_dc8v2kg"
]
] |
|
415uvr
|
Why are the Manchurians who established the Jin dynasty referred to as "Jurchens" while Manchurians who established the Qing dynasty are referred to as "Manchurians"? Why two separate names?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/415uvr/why_are_the_manchurians_who_established_the_jin/
|
{
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"text": [
"To put it simply, they were the same people. \n\nAccording to Mark C. Elliot's *The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China*, 47-48:\n\n > In the search for Manchu origins, the most important point to note is that in the beginning, there was no Manchu nation, only many Jurchen tribes. The name \"Manchu\" and the creation of a unified state came about a virtually the same time, in the 1630s, prior to which time it is correct only to speak of Jurchen (*Nvzhen/Jusen*) peoples, Jurchen tribes, Jurchen leaders, and Jurchen institutions....\n\n\n > ....The core of what would become the \"Manchu\" people - that is, the people at the center of the banner system - were originally either Jianzhou or Haixi Jurchens, along with two of the Yeren tribes; the rest of the Yeren were never integrated, socially, politically, or economically, into what later became Manchu structures.\n\nIt's worth noting that prior to the establishment of the Qing, Nurhaci was the Khan of the Later Jin (後金), which he claimed to be the successor state to the Jurchen Jin dynasty.\n\nOn page 63, Elliot talks about the creation of the Manchu identity under Hong Taiji:\n > These efforts at consolidation came to a climax in the mid-1630s, a major watershed in the development of the Jurchen state. First, the name \"Manchu\" was officially adopted in 1635 as the name for all Jurchen people.\n\nThe use of the term \"Manchu\" served to forge a new pan-Jurchen identity. This new identity was used to unite the divided Jurchen tribes into a single entity to combat the Ming.",
"Lordtiandao's answer is good, but I'll just add that Manchurians generally consider themselves to be descended from Jurchens, but not exactly the same.\n\nI think an equivalent would be that English people consider themselves to be descended from Anglo-Saxons, but if we talk about \"The Anglo-Saxons did this\" we don't generally mean something that the English did last year, we mean in the 600s.\n\n(At the risk of personal anecdotes, I actually live in Manchuria and have discussed this a little with some Manchu)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1qokd2
|
Did the Communists vote for Hitler in 33?
|
Ayn Rand makes this charge and says they did it so they could kill off capitalism and parliamentary democracy and then try to take on the Nazis. Is there any truth in this?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1qokd2/did_the_communists_vote_for_hitler_in_33/
|
{
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"text": [
"The communists were known to be one of the harsher adversaries of the Nazis, beginning in the 20ies, they would storm meetings of each other, just to instigate large mass-brawls and of course, sporadically had street wars. The leader of the Communists, Thälmann - who ran against Hindenburg in 1925 and Hitler and Hindenburg in 1932 in the elections for Reichspräsident - was put into prison in 1933 and was executed in 1944.\n\nThe Socialists were the only ones in the Reichstag who voted against the Ermächtigungsgesetz, the Communists would certainly have, if they had not been in hiding or arrested or had fled.\n\nWhen the Nazis took power, there were quite a lot Communists who tried to resist them, this is generally not well known in the West - (at least not in West-Germany) mainly because the early FRG didn't care at all and later the FRG didn't care to look among Communists. With the exception of Georg Elser. In East- Germany, however, it is well known for obvious reasons.\n\nSo, in the end, they didn't. \n\nThere is, however, a bit of a mixed blessing in this. The problem was that the communists did play a role in the destabilizing of the Weimar Republic. They wouldn't go into coalitions with any other party, which meant that after July 1932 no democratic coalition was possible, as KPD and NSDAP would have had an absolute majority. \nSo, in theory, if they would have coalied with the democratic parties, Hitler COULD have been stopped - at least for some time.",
"[Source for the Rand claim.](_URL_5_)\n\nIt's a pretty questionable argument. I certainly don't think it's 'a matter of record'. It's worth noting that Objectivism is part of a starkly individualistic/anti-statist and extremely pro-capitalist political tradition (hence Rand's influence on modern libertarianism). So her political perspective is ardently anti-fascist *and* anti-communist. In short: she has a decided interest in vilifying both.\n\nOne problem with the claim is the idea that 'The Communists' voted as a monolithic bloc. But the bigger problem is that the data just doesn't support it. \n\nHere's the data for NSDAP, KPD and SPD (as the two main leftist parties) from the July 1932, November 1932 and March 1933 elections: \n\n07/1932 [[Wikipedia table](_URL_0_) / [original source in German](_URL_4_)]\n* NSDAP - 13,779,017\n* SPD - 7,959,712\n* KPD - 5,369,708\n\n11/1932 [[Wikipedia table](_URL_1_) / [original source in German](_URL_2_)]\n* NSDAP - 11,737,395\n* SPD - 7,251,690\n* KPD - 5,980,614\n\n03/1933 [[Wikipedia table](_URL_3_) / [original source in German](_URL_6_)]\n* NSDAP - 17,277,180\n* SPD - 7,516,243\n* KPD - 4,848,058\n\nThose (pretty level) trends don't show the party faithful moving from the left to the Nazis. In fact, the numbers of votes for the KPD in these three elections are pretty much the highest the party saw during the Weimar period - and that's despite the fact that the communists have been repressed and quasi-outlawed since the first months of Hitler's chancellorship. \n\nCertainly the KPD were obsessed with their rivalry with the SPD, and it's pretty facile to imagine a united leftist front existed (in fact, the absence thereof is often pointed to as part of the reason the Nazis were able to achieve power), but the idea of KPD-Nazi collaboration is generally only found way out on the fringes of the scholarship."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_July_1932#Results",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_November_1932",
"http://www.gonschior.de/weimar/Deutschland/RT7.html",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March_1933#Results",
"http://www.gonschior.de/weimar/Deutschland/RT6.html",
"http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/fascism_and_communism-socialism.html",
"http://www.gonschior.de/weimar/Deutschland/RT8.html"
]
] |
|
2e7k7l
|
Has a King ever died when their first born was still in the womb?
|
I was just thinking that this would throw up a question over who was legitimately the first in line for the throne. Then I got to thinking about probabilities and assumed it mist have happened before. Was wondering if it had and, if so, what had happened?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2e7k7l/has_a_king_ever_died_when_their_first_born_was/
|
{
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"This was the case with Alexander the Great in 323 BC, his wife Roxane was six to eight months pregnant with Alexander's child. After Alexander died his generals basically carved up the Empire into pieces, but Antipater was named regent of Macedonia. The newborn infant of Alexander was to become king when he came of age, but the kingship was shared with Alexander's half-brother Arrhidaeus for awhile. Antipater died, and in 316 BC Cassander took over power in Macedonia. Killing Alexander’s mother Olympia, and on the orders of Cassander, Claucias also killed Roxane and Alexander the Great’s son and heir. ",
"Shapur II of the Sassanid Empire was crowned *in utero* by having the crown placed on his mother's belly, he ended up ruling for 70 years.",
"I believe this happened in 1316 during the reign of Louis X of Capetian France ('the Hutin', son of Philip IV 'the fair'). His wife, Clemence of Hungary gave birth to Jean I (the Posthumous) after his death. Jean I himself only survived 5 days, and was promptly usurped by Philip V of France (Louis X's brother)\nThis was done over Louis' daughter Joan. Joan's legitimacy was under question due to an earlier affair by Louis X's first wife Maurguriette of Burgandy (known as the Tower of Nesle affair). Philip used the precedent of Salic law to achieve this.\n\nAs a result of this, and due to Philip's own death in 1322 heir-less, it resulted in the coronation of Charles IV, youngest brother, who also died heir-less, and due to the marriage of Isabella (Philip IV's eldest daughter) to Edward II of England, precipitated the Hundred Year's War - as Isabella's son Edward III considered himself King of France (though eventually the English house of Plantagenet lost to the house of Valois - members of the dynasty formed from Phillip IV's younger brother, Charles de Valois)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
8d67he
|
Why did the Vikings prefer silver to gold?
|
Every time I read about a Viking hoard being discovered the treasure seems to be silver. Was there a religious purpose to silver? Or was it simply more common than gold?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8d67he/why_did_the_vikings_prefer_silver_to_gold/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dxkuna0"
],
"score": [
20
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"text": [
"During the late 800s, as the Abbasid caliphate reconsolidated after the [Anarchy of Samarra](_URL_3_), Central Asia witnessed an economic boom which was probably one of the most sudden and dramatic in the course of global history. Although there were numerous social, political, and cultural factors, one of the most important material factors was the opening of silver mines in the Hindu Kush and the massive mint at [Tashkent](_URL_4_) (Ar. al-Shash, modern Tashkent in Uzbekistan).\n\nNumbers in medieval sources must always be treated with caution, but even taken with a grain of salt, the silver production reported for the Abbasid caliphate is astounding. In the 980s, the geographer [al-Maqdisi](_URL_5_) estimated that the mints of al-Shash processed 30 tons of silver annually. By comparison, the [Potosí](_URL_1_) silver mine which bankrolled the Spanish Empire produced about 40,000 tons of silver spread out over 200 years. The great Swedish historian [Sture Bolin](_URL_6_) estimated that in the year 800, the caliphate was generating an income of 400 million dirhams, or about 25 times the total world production of silver in 1500.\n\nTo give a bit of perspective for the effects of this Islamic silver boom on the Viking Age, consider the [Spillings hoard](_URL_0_). This hoard was buried on Gotland in the Baltic Sea around 871. It's the largest silver treasure of the Viking Age, consisting of 14,000 dirhams and scraps of silver jewelry and bars. Altogether, the coins and scrap comprise a grand total of 67 kg / 148 lbs of silver.\n\nFrom an Islamic perspective, that's nothing: 0.25% of the annual production from al-Shash, and 0.0035% of the caliphate's annual budget. According to one source, the [minimum a soldier would accept for pay](_URL_2_) was 200 dirhams: the Spillings hoard could keep 70 soldiers in the field for a year, or hire a modest-sized army of 25,000 troops for a day.\n\nWithin the longer scope of Scandinavian history, a quick walk through any Scandinavian history museum will show that gold emerged as the prestige material during the Roman period, followed briefly by glass during the 700s, and ultimately replaced by silver during the 800s. Ultimately, as Scandinavians tried to forge networks to the economic powerhouses of the Mediterranean and Central Asia, they tended to rely on whatever those complex societies offered them as means of exchange."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spillings_Hoard",
"https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/potosi-silver-mines",
"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-2281.00145",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_at_Samarra",
"http://nomisma.org/id/al-shash",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Maqdisi",
"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03585522.1953.10409898"
]
] |
|
7wo8uv
|
(Not sure if SFW)How much of a factor was 'Rape and Pillage' in motivating troops during pre-modern warfare?
|
I'm doing research on the Nanking Massacre, and several authors compare the event to pre-modern wars and sieges. For example, Masahiro Yamamoto calls it an 'old-style atrocity'. Some claim that the opportunity for rape and loot was a motivation for many japanese soldiers during WW2, just like it was in the pre-modern era.
Dan Carlin said something very similar in 'Prophets of Doom', which takes place around the siege of Munster during the reformation.
Link to Prophets of Doom: _URL_0_ (The 'rape and pillage' quote is at 2:37:00)
My question is, how valid is this idea? Was the opportunity for rape and loot a significant factor in motivating troops to go to war during ancient or medieval times? And if so, is the comparison to what happened in China during WW2 a valid one?
It seems to me that it is, but I'm struggling to find any good sources on this.
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7wo8uv/not_sure_if_sfwhow_much_of_a_factor_was_rape_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"du2pfph"
],
"score": [
14
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"text": [
"Followup question: I have heard that \"raping and pillaging\" in this sort of context, as well as wonton destruction of infanstructure/leveling of cities in the was virtually unheard of, or at least less common in warfare in precolimbian Mesoamerica. Is that accurate?"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN8A4ygoEgo"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
3ir9og
|
Does anybody know what this is?
|
As the title says, it's from Norway, found in a gård(farm) where their specialty was making shoes(cobbler). If you could expand on what it is, it would be greatly appreciated
_URL_0_
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3ir9og/does_anybody_know_what_this_is/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cuix5xa"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"You might get better answers in /r/WhatIsThisThing . "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://imgur.com/H16ML2v"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
432znm
|
How were people understood as mentally ill treated in colonial Africa?
|
My understanding is that the acceptance of seeing behavior disturbances as "mental illness" that could and ought to be treated, above all through institutionalized care, *in Europe* is really just getting started along with the beginnings of wide-scale white imperialism in Africa. (Wiki's "history of psychiatry" page puts that development just a fringe bit earlier, with hints in the late 18C.)
What happened when this relatively new perspective was exported to African colonies and forced on various groups of people? Do we see differences in British versus French colonies, power struggles between European and African parties, white doctors less/equally committed to their patients than back in Europe? What happened to the actual people who were the objects of this new European understanding and treatment?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/432znm/how_were_people_understood_as_mentally_ill/
|
{
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"czfile5"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"I'm ashamed to say that I know next to enough about Psychiatry in Colonial Africa, I've done some digging though and there is something to get our teeth into so let's go on a little journey...\n\n > What happened when this relatively new perspective was exported to African colonies and forced on various groups of people?\n\nJust to save time later on, I'm going to put the field of African psychiatry within the context of the colonial era & of from what McCulloch describes: Psychiatry in Colonial Africa was described as \"ethnopsychiatry\" which held it's place in between that of standard psychiatry & social anthropology even though McCulloch says there's a clear distinction between all of these terms. \n\nHistorian, Jock McCulloch tells us that some psychiatrists abused their medical expertise & didn't treat their all that spiffingly. In British Kenya, Psychiatry wasn't taken all that seriously as McCulloch states that when the senior medical officer of Nairobi's Mathare mental hospital (a psychiatrist called \"Cobb\") was let go there didn't seem to much urgency or much attention given to find a suitable qualified replacement thus Carothers (an ordinary physician who wasn't a psychiatrist by trade) was employed. However Carothers did make colonial african psychiatry into somewhat of an importance as by the time he returned to the UK in 1950 after spending 12 years in Kenya he'd written several papers & was hailed as the foremost expert on \"the african mind\".\n\nThe colonists didn't see treating ill mental health as all that important compared to keeping outbreaks of cholera & malaria at bay plus the fact that it would cost a bit to travel. & This then meant few psychiatrists actually had experienced African societies or spoken to Africans themselves however that didn't stop psychiatrists theorising about how mental illnesses affect the african mind.\n\nOne such person was French anthropologist & philosopher, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl who believed in the concept of \"primitive mentality\". (this concept who later influence Carl Jung's theory of the \"collective unconscious\") In Levy-Bruhl's *How Natives Think* (1910), he proposed two minds: *western minds* & *primitive minds*. Whereas *western minds* used logic & could differentiate fantasy from reality *primitive minds* could not & therefore primitive minds had to resort to using symbolism to make sense of the more complex ideas (e.g. this is similar to how some countries speaking by majority worship one faith & its majority as well as the symbols used in conjunction with said belief). It's my belief that Levy-Bruhl used his theory of primitive mentality to try and explain to his fellow scholars why the African perception & experience of mental illness might differ from a European one not taking into account any other contributing factors. So you can see that even though this idea can & was used, it doesn't necessarily mean it has any academic, scientific or ethical merit. I do believe though that unfortunately Levy-Bruhl's theory helped to firmly cemented how colonists would perceive & go about treating mentally ill africans. \n\nGoing back to Jock McCulloch, he states that in the first two decades of 20th Century, colonists thought so little of mental health that they classed psychiatric asylums as types of prisons. \n\nApart from South Africa (which was colonised by a variety of different european groups) & French Algeria, white settlements in Africa were very small^[1] add that to resistance, drought, economic poverty etc & those small settlements were fragile & not worth really nothing in this context.\n\nOne psychiatrist that was certainly influenced by Levy-Bruhl's *primitive mentality* was Sigmund Freud. Freud in his *Totem and Taboo* (1913) proposed that a *copy* of how prehistoric humans lived could be found in settlements of africa. E.g. Freud believed that Africans were more susceptible to incestous relationships than their European cousins as they had a stronger *id* (the unconscious primal part of our brain) & a weaker *ego* (\"realistic compass\" of the brain) and *superego* (\"moral compass\" of the brain) compared to Europeans. \n\n > Do we see differences in British versus French colonies, power struggles between European and African parties, white doctors less/equally committed to their patients than back in Europe?\n\nEssentially, there were differences in how different colonial powers treated the people they governed e.g. As I stated above the treatment of psychiatric patients in French Algeria would've been more sustained & stable than in say Portuguese Angola. Even though in the larger settlements you'd think treatment would be more inclusive (especially when we think that one of the most influential psychiatrists in Algeria was Franz Fanon of Martinique afro-caribbean descent) they weren't. \nUsing Fanon & Algeria as an example; Fanon defended the colonised people's right to use violence against the French in the Algerian War however Fanon also wrote that humans that were not considered as such by their colonisers then they shouldn't be classified by humanity's law. In the context, Fanon was arguing that those colonised powers who use armed force shouldn't be punished in the same way because they weren't seen as being on the same level, However this could also be extrapolated to the medical ethics of psychiatry.\n\nHopefully that wasn't too convoluted, I'm going to ping /u/EsotericR, /u/khosikulu, /u/seringen & /u/profrhodes just incase what I've discussed about Africa needs to be corrected. \n\n[1] = For example in 1940, the european populations of Angola was 44,000, 27,000 in Mozambique & 10,000 in Tanganyika. \n\n**Sources & Further Reading:**\n\n1) McCulloch. J (1995): Colonial Psychiatry and the African Mind\n\n2) Keller. C. R. (2008): Colonial Madness: Psychiatry in French North Africa\n\n3) Carothers. C. J. (1953); The African mind in health and disease: A study in ethnopsychiatry\n\n4) Levy-Bruhl. L (1910); How Natives Think.\n\n5) Freud. S (1913); Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics\n\n6) Fanon. F (1961): The Wretched of the Earth\n\nIf you have any more questions feel free to ask & I'll do my best to answer them"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2shsde
|
"War poets" and literary works of common soldiers had more or less defined the cultural perspective of WW 1. What context should we be aware of when using them to study WW1?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2shsde/war_poets_and_literary_works_of_common_soldiers/
|
{
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"text": [
"Very briefly?\n\n* While their suffering was certainly real and we don't want to diminish them at all...they were by no means to be taken as the 'standard' response to the war. \n\nThe fact is is that significant amounts of men did not fight in horribly tragic battles, many men did not even see the front line trenches at all or even any trenches whatsoever. Many men who went to the front *have distinctly positive experiences with it*, yes, even men who were injured. For every primary source you can drop of me of someone saying post-war about how horrible and useless it all was I'll drop you one of someone going what a jolly good show it was and what an adventure it was. Find me someone in the Northern sector of the first day of the Somme and you'll find a man who hates Haig with a passion find me one in the Southern sector and you got one who is having a blast walking over those German positions.\n\nIt's why works like Ernst Jünger's *Storm of Steel* isn't popular and read in every High School in America but Erich Remarque's *All Quiet on the Western Front* is; the former is a German perspective *which has a distinctly positive memory of the war* while the latter fits in line with this common trope of 'the war was useless, everything was useless, realism blah blah'. While that is useful to people talking about cultural history (and it really, *really* is as it did paint an entire generation) in terms of military and social history of the First World War it is misleading; it creates inherent bias' before you even go into it with the assumption that the entire war 'had no point' and that the Generals were stupid and it was total horror for every single person involved.\n\n* Most important of all *their understanding of the war was inherently limited.* \n\nThey were frontline riflemen. They were grunts. They do not understand strategic and operational complexity. Someone who fought in the Somme would see the cavalcade of human suffering around them and wonder 'why are we doing this' but we can know with retrospect it was the turning point of the war which made the Germans all but abandon the Western Front. The fact is we can not use their understanding to make grand statements about the state of the war or even the state of the tactics used. They don't see the grand scheme of things like we do in 2015 they just know their buddy got blown up in an artillery barrage and they went mad after a week of bombardment on their sector. They don't care about fancy strategic pressure or stormtrooper tactics or whatever they just care about the fact that all their friends are dead. \n\nAgain, that is not to minimize their losses or their experience -- it was very real and I am sympathetic to it but if we're speaking from a strictly academic standpoint it needs to be held in balance with other viewpoints even if they aren't the vogue narrative about the war. \n\nIn *The Great War: Myth and Memory* by Dan Todman there is actually an entire chapter on these 'war poets', I'd highly suggest this book for really this entire subject as it covers it comprehensively. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3zf9qe
|
Do Cartoons have any value as a historical source?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3zf9qe/do_cartoons_have_any_value_as_a_historical_source/
|
{
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"text": [
"Yes. Absolutely. I'm not sure if you are talking about [cartoons like these](_URL_0_) as we find them in newspapers or things like superman. Either way they are very useful and give us a quick and relatively easy to digest slice of public opinion. The cartoon maker wants the image that he creates to be easy to understand. He wants something that people can look at, digest quickly, agree with and then move on. In the above example it seems quite clear, even if you knew nothing about Hitler, that he is supported by two men, von Papen and Hindenburg. If either one of them goes away then Hitler falls. This is despite the Nazi party in the background, the two walk alone, carrying Hitler, indicating that despite Hitler's popularity and the party machine behind him that the two of them can make or break him. Similar can be done with older cartoons up to the present day. They are an invaluable source for the historian.\n\nAs for more conventional superman type things you could say that they tell us about the social attitudes of the time. What is an archetypal hero meant to be like? How does he, as the ideal man, treat women for instance? What is a villain like? A Soviet agent? Gangster? Does he have any obvious racial characteristics? For instance, if he had a big nose and side locks you could draw the conclusion that the artist and the audience don't think very highly of Jews. In that view cartoons might be very useful to a social historian looking for evidence of social attitudes and practices. ",
"Oh, heck yeah! \n\nFirst, it should be stated that just about anything has value as a historical source, but works of expressive art are always rich in historical information if you know what to look for. \n\nThe first thing you want to do is identify the creator, or group of creators responsible for the work and the audience, or the group that is intended to consume the work. As a historical source cartoons can tell you both what the creator wanted to say and what the audience wanted to hear. As works of popular culture, cartoons are often very receptive to the audience.\n\nLet's take [Private Snafu](_URL_0_) as an easy example. The Private Snafu cartoons were commissioned by the U.S. Army as training and orientation films during WWII and produced by legendary director Frank Capra. They featured many of the best known names of the Golden Age of animation, such as Tex Avery and Chuck Jones and included Theodore Geisel (later Dr. Seuss) among their writers. As training films, they largely focused on negative examples of Snafu failing to follow army protocol in regards to malaria prevention. As traditional cartoon morality plays, they warn against waste, laziness and ignorance, often at the cost of Snafu's life. These qualities tell us what the U.S. Army wanted to say with the Snafu cartoons, and therefore inform us of the internal problems that the Army felt it needed to address. \n\nThe audience is another interesting quality of the Snafu cartoons. The original motivation for the Army behind making a training cartoon was that it could target the less literate recruits. As it was made exclusively for military consumption, the creators could assume that the entire audience was young, male, American and mostly likely Christian. The Snafu cartoons are tailored for this audience, being slightly more bawdy than the very visually similar Warner Brothers fare, which can be surreal to modern viewers. They feature heavy use of pinup girls and Christian imagery and every effort was made to make Snafu reflect the typical soldier, down to his working class Brooklyn accent. Towards the end of the Snafu cartoons, after Germany's surrender, Snafu becomes increasingly competent and diligent, reflecting the soldier's own growing confidence in victory. These qualities not only make Snafu an interesting reflection of its audience, but also show what the form of cartoons in the Golden Age might look like when narrowly targeted. \n\nSo not only does Snafu tell us about the people that made it, some of the most famous names in animation, but also the people that watched it, one of the most studied groups in popular history. Snafu is kind of an easy example because of its ties to a major historical event, but any cartoon can be effectively analyzed as a historical source if you try hard enough.\n\nSource: [Private Snafu: What can a Cartoon tell us about the U.S. Military in WWII](_URL_1_)\n\nFurther reading: Animating Culture by Eric Smodin (Smodin, Eric.\n Animating Culture: Hollywood Cartoons from the Sound Era\n. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1993.)",
"Indeed, looking at any form of entertainment will give you an idea of what was happening when it was made. While most of the examples in the thread are american, looking at those made in other countries can tell you a lot about their cultures and political environments. \n\nPropaganda cartoons were everywhere, particularly during WWII. There were quite a few cartoons made under nazi germany as Hitler was a huge Disney fan, the most well known of these were [Der Storenfried](_URL_4_), and [Einigkeit Macht Stark](_URL_6_). Japan famously had [Momotaro's Sea Eagles](_URL_3_) which featured cartoon animals bombing an evil [oni](_URL_8_) island base (the americans at pearl harbor). \n\nSpeaking of demonizing the americans, [north korea](_URL_5_) has a [slew of cartoons](_URL_7_) about defending Korea [from the evil american ways](_URL_9_). [They are a sight to behold](_URL_2_). A few years ago, one of these famously made rounds on the internet which depicts the [americans as evil wolves that pilot cgi robotic jet crows](_URL_10_). \n\n[I've also talked about soviet animation before](_URL_0_), but it really is an interesting subject. Unlike many other forms of media at the time, animation was allowed a certain degree of creative freedom in regards to what it could show. If you are interested in the subject, I recommend checking out [this dailymotion channel](_URL_1_) which uploads subtitled russian cartoons. ",
"Absolutely. A useful, if rather mechanical approach is to follow this scheme:\nFind Out Before As Clues Are Hidden\nFigures, Objects, Background, Actions, Captions (or speech), Author, Historical context.\nBy the time one has carried out this brief process one should be able to say what the cartoon is of, what is happening and where, what is being said, who designed it and when it was used.\nThis one, for example, is really useful on Britain's stance on the partition of Ireland _URL_0_ "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/temporarytriangle.jpg"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuQVnBUWYiQ",
"https://www.academia.edu/8050230/Private_Snafu_What_can_a_cartoon_tell_us_about_the_U.S._military_in_World_WarII"
],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2jpc2z/how_did_animated_film_in_the_soviet_union_compare/cle1c9n?context=3",
"http://www.dailymotion.com/eus347",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CE8q5K66_0",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6I5FjPxDuU&feature=youtu.be",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8MUYCVD-VM",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8tbzxIgxFs",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjSP_5S9P20",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sszrqJ01gE",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylz_EBZAXO4",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSS572GZq2A"
],
[
"https://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/forum/uploads/monthly_03_2007/post-5215-1175202511.jpg"
]
] |
||
5i1jbu
|
After World War 2, why didn't the allies restore the Korean royal family to the throne?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5i1jbu/after_world_war_2_why_didnt_the_allies_restore/
|
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"Why would they have? Sorry if this doesn't follow sub guidelines, I'm just curious about your thought process and that would help in formulating an answer.",
"The main reason would be that the Korean Provisional Government based in China was the recognized government of Korea. The government in exile was founded in 1919 with Syngman Rhee as the first president. It was made up of people from all over Korea, north and south, and it was the government that negotiated with the Allies. After Pearl Harbor, KPG members went to Washington to point out that Koreans were NOT Japanese and that they shouldn't be interned. Syngman Rhee spent a good portion of the 20's and 30's lobbying on behalf of the provisional government in Washington. When the war was finally over, Rhee was flown in on a US military plane and his group rose up over the other groups and won the elections in the South.\n\nThere were a few royal family members still around, BUT the Joseon dynasty had ended in 1894-95. The Korean Empire was founded, but the Japanese assassinated the Queen and were meddling so much that there was no real push to bring the royal family back. Further, many members of the royal family had either supported the Japanese, married into the Japanese royal family, and/or fought for the Japanese Imperial Army. The Allies wouldn't have restored a royal family that supported the Japanese both tacitly and openly after 35-50 years.",
"What happened to the Korean royal family after this? Do they have known descendants?",
"While many houses were \"restored\" to rule in the aftermath of WWI, were there examples where this was done after WWII? Around World War I, in some places (I'm thinking specifically of the Middle East and to some extent the Balkans), royal houses were sometimes put on the throne even when they didn't have historical ties to the lands that they ruled. However, the same thing did not happen after WWII and even many monarchies that were in power at the start of the war were abolished by 1950, particularly those that ended up in the Soviet sphere of influence, but monarchs that were seen as close to the Fascists were also in danger of abolition. \n\nLooking at Europe, 1930 had far more monarchs than 1950. Indeed, besides those monarchs who went into exile with the allies, the only monarch who lost power before WWII and regained power after WWII I can think of is the King of Spain. Monarchy was abolished by the Republicans in 1931 and was brought back in steps by Franco, but this was mostly unrelated to WWII. The Korean house had been out of power for several decades by the start of the war. \n\nAs Soviet satellites, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania all abolished their monarchies after shortly WWII. Funnily enough, some of these former royal houses (as commoners) have begun participating in post-Communist public life. Notably, [Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha](_URL_5_) was Tsar/King of Bulgaria 1943-1946 (he was only born in 1937 so he had little power, obviously) and then was elected prime minster 2001-2005! Not to venture too far into Bulgarian politics past the 20 year line, but he was not commonly seen as a successful prime minister and he retired from politics in 2009 when his party won no seats. ~~The former ruling houses of Romania and Hungary~~ The former ruling house of Romania has also returned after communism as public figures, but not explicitly political ones and certainly not as monarchs. \n\nAlbania's story is somewhat similar, except they unambiguously lost their monarchy at the start of the war (in 1939, the Italians invaded and voted Victor Emanuel, already King of Italy, as King of Albania as well) and unsurprisingly the communists did not return former King Zog (an interesting figure even by Balkan standards) to the throne. Yugoslavia's king fled during the War, Yugoslavia was broken up, the King deposed, and when it was put back together under communist rule, there was no iniative to restore a monarch. Contrast this with Greece, where the monarch fled during the course of the War, and came back shortly after the war when the first elections brought pro-monarchist parties to power (the monarchy in Greece was abolished in the 1970's after a coup; the monarch had been in exile since the coup came to power in 67). \n\nThe climate after WWII was just very different from the climate after WWI, when royal houses were restored and set up almost willy-nilly by the victors and their allies. Read sometime how Jordan ended up with a king after WWI--in short, Abdullah's brother Faisal was supposed to be king of *Syria*, but they got kicked out, and Abdullah basically showed up in Jordan with three hundred armed men, declared himself Emir of the British mandate, and the British basically just accepted this; Abdullah had previously been proclaimed King of Iraq, but rejected it so that Faisal, who'd just been kicked out of Syria, could be king there. \n\nAfter WW2, on the other hand, even Britain kept power from the former princes who ruled princely states within in Colonial India as it moved towards independence and partition. If the country ended up behind the Iron Curtain, not only were royal houses not returned, but existing monarchies were abolished. The Westen allies didn't fight this even with monarchs who they had been (relatively) close to, as in Yugoslavia. \n\nIf the country ended up in Western influence, the exile monarchs were only brought back to some standing if the government wanted it, as with Greece in '46 and Spain later. The Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Norway had royal houses that went into exile during the War as well and were welcomed back. That is, it was treated as a domestic issue, not an interenational one. Post-fascist Italy, for instance, held [a referendum and ended the monarchy in 1946](_URL_0_). The Danish King never left, but avoided much association with the fascists (indeed, he was if anything seen as somewhat anti-Fascist, as demonstrated by the [telegram crisis](_URL_2_)). The Belgian King Leopold III, also never left, but had hot and cold relationships both with the Fascists and with the government in exile. His personal [post-War status was unclear](_URL_3_), though the royal house seems to have been supported more generally--his brother severed as Prince Regent until a [plebsicite](_URL_6_) allowed Leopold III to return (Belgium is and was a very divided country and, in Walloonia where he was least popular, his return was treated with protests and strikes and so he almost immediate announced that he was abdicating in favor of his son). So outside the Soviet sphere of influence, it seems very much up to domestic political actors what the role of the royal families (both those who stayed and those who went in exile) would be. \n\nNow, I don't know much about Korea specifically, but judging from what we see in Europe we can see a few things. First, there would be obvious Communist opposition to the return of royal houses everywhere, and considering the allies didn't push for it anywhere else that Communists controlled, even with friendly monarchs (the former King of Yugoslavia was commissioned in the British Royal Air Force) who had actually been in power at the start of the war, there's no reason to expect for them to push for it over Communists opposition. This may have been a big factor in partitioned Korea, where the North was a Soviet satellite and the the allied powers in the South did not want to antagonize the North. \n\nSecond, if the royal house was seen as a fascist collaborators (which the little I've read suggests they might have been seen as such, considering they received Japanese titles and what not), there's no reason to expect that they would be restored and a decent possibly that this alone might be enough to abolish them, cf. the Italian monarchy and to a degree Belgium. \n\nThird, royal houses were only really restored if there was domestic political support for their restoration, cf. Greece and Spain, as well as Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Norway and places like that. This doesn't seem to be the case in Korea. [Yi Kang](_URL_4_), the head of the once ruling house of Korea, apparently visited the Shanghai-based [Provisional Government of Korea](_URL_1_) in 1919 and found little support for his claim there, according to Wikipedia. Many of the Provisional Government people obviously later became important in South Korea politics. It seems they carried their apathy towards the royal house with them when they returned to power.\n\nIn short, there seemed to be no one pushing for royal houses broadly on the international scale after WWII as there had been after WWI. These things were left up to domestic politics. Domestically in Korea, it seems like there was clear opposition to restoring the royal house and, as far as I can see in a quick glance through, little political support. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_institutional_referendum,_1946",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Government_of_Korea",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_Crisis",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Question",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Kang",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon_Saxe-Coburg-Gotha",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_monarchy_referendum,_1950"
]
] |
||
db1xhg
|
Why was there such a sudden explosion of creativity in Rock music in the mid 1960s?
|
Music that could be called "Rock & Roll" had debatably been around since the mid 1940s, and there had been a rather steady stylistic evolution in the music as the years moved on past that point. However, in the mid 1960s (especially 1966) there appears to have been an unprecedented leap in style, composition, and diversity of ethos in the wider Rock music community.
Here's some examples to better illustrate what I'm getting at. In the 5 year stretch from around 1959 to 1964, Rock musicians went from producing songs like [Johnny B. Goode](_URL_0_) to songs like [You Really Got Me](_URL_2_). This is definitely a pretty significant stylistic shift, but 5 years after 1964, rock bands like King Crimson were releasing songs like [this](_URL_1_). The complexity of the composition, and the diversity of sounds and influences on that track are all metaphorically light years ahead of what was coming out in 1964, despite the relative difference in time not being all that great.
I find that this disparity exists even on a smaller scale. There is a massive difference between The Beatles' 1965 album "Rubber Soul," and their subsequent 1966 album "Revolver." The same can be said when comparing the Beach Boys' 1965 album "The Beach Boys Today!" and their famous 1966 album "Pet Sounds." 1966 also saw the professional debuts of Frank Zappa, The Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, and more whose interpretations of Rock music were so unprecedented that they shifted the very concept of what "Rock music" could even be.
Why was this shift so sudden in comparison to the relatively more steady evolution that Rock music had been undergoing in the 2 decades preceding the mid 1960s?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/db1xhg/why_was_there_such_a_sudden_explosion_of/
|
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"Yes: what occurred around 1964-1965 in rock music was indeed a dramatic shift in the meaning of the music. Elijah Wald in *How The Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll* argues for a distinction between pre-Beatles *rock'n'roll* and post-Beatles *rock*, whereby *rock'n'roll* refers to rhythm & blues-influenced music that's basically fun music to dance to, and *rock* refers to a more art-focused, counterculture aesthetic, but which has as its base the sounds of rock'n'roll. \n\nGround zero for this distinction was the interactions between the Beatles and Bob Dylan, whereby listening to Bob Dylan (both musically and in terms of choice of drugs) encouraged the Beatles to write not just what might come across as trite boy-girl lyrics (like 'She Loves You') and instead to be more culturally aware in their lyrics (e.g., 'Norwegian Wood', which has surrealist very-Dylan lyrics). Similarly, the Beatles' sound encouraged Bob Dylan, on something like the 1965 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', to move towards making music influenced by rock'n'roll but with a distinctively counterculture folk flavour. At about this point, the Beatles ceased to make *rock'n'roll*, and Bob Dylan ceased to make *folk* - they were both making *rock*, which had a new aesthetic and creative goals to either. \n\nBob Dylan, before 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', was a star on the countercultural folk scene, but in wider culture probably best known as the author of Peter Paul and Mary's 'Blowing In The Wind'. After 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' and especially 'Like A Rolling Stone' (a #2 single), from later in 1965, Bob Dylan was a genuine pop star. The Byrds had a #1 single with a Beatlesque rock version of Bob Dylan's 'Mr Tambourine Man' (which Dylan had only recorded in an acoustic version). Barry McGuire had a #1 with 'Eve Of Destruction', which was clearly modelled on Bob Dylan's new rock sound (its songwriter P.F. Sloan being a big fan). Similarly, the Beatles' recordings of 1965, which had a broader palette than their previous work (with the Beatles famously incorporating sitar on 'Norwegian Wood', amongst other innovations), continued to be successful - their fans were growing with them. \n\nAnd yes, this does come down to the fans: the first crop of baby boomers were already adults or were approaching adulthood at this point - someone born in 1948 would turn 17 in 1965. And, famously, this baby boom in Western countries (caused by the resumption of peace after World War II, and a situation of economic growth) led to a distinct demographic spike, meaning that baby boomers had a lot of cultural power, with advertisers and entertainment companies aiming to target the youth market (something which had never been as strongly pushed as previously).\n\nBefore around 1965, the American counterculture - the subculture in which (leftist) people protested against the dominant culture and politics of the time was the folk counterculture, a counterculture which was anti-individualist and anti-modern capitalist consumer culture. The baby boomers, however, were generally not interested in this - they had grown up individualist in a consumer culture and quite liked it. Their concerns with the broader culture were that they often felt it was stultifying their individualism, that they were being trained to be men in grey suits. Instead, what the baby boomers cottoned onto around 1965 in San Francisco was a new counterculture - hippie. This was kind of an evolution of the 1950s Beatnik culture like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (who unlike Kerouac was fairly happy to hitch his wagon to the hippies). The hippies tried to expand their minds with psychoactive substances, were profoundly about authentic individual expression (within a certain collective ethos), and made a big show of rejecting mainstream society - thus the long hair on men, the casual clothing, the 'free love'. Certainly not every baby boomer was a hippie - the generation famously votes quite conservatively these days - but the hippie aesthetic was nonetheless still quite attractive to a generation born into the particular situation it was born into.\n\nOnce the hippies had become a national phenomenon, musicians discovered that there was a market for increasingly ambitious, arty music that allowed them to express some sort of 'authentic' self (within particular creative bounds). The music also, very often, demonstrated the musicians' sympathy with the counterculture at a time when lines were being drawn over culture war stuff like Vietnam, the nature of modern masculinity, etc. \n\nHowever, it's also important to note that - basically - the music of the 1960s that we remember is only a very small portion of the overall gumbo of pop music of the time. You mention Jimi Hendrix - who only really ever had one pop hit in the US, 'All Along The Watchtower' - and Frank Zappa and the Velvet Underground - who never had big pop hits; this was music whose current esteem reflects the esteem in which the counterculture of the era held that music (rather than the broad populace). And for every very forward thinking Beatles or Beach Boys, there were still plenty of rather boring pop hits who were playing it very safe during this era. To some extent, the sixties as we now remember it forgets the rather boring pop hits - the Engelbert Humperdincks and Gary Lewis & the Playboys types - because they don't fit the baby boomer narrative (which also selectively chooses more modern mainstream pop music to contrast it against, rather than the music of now which is its counterculture equivalent and which can be just as innovative and unprecedented and reflecting its times.)",
"Followup question: one of the tropes is that the arrival of LSD on the scene in the early 60s was a catalyst for this change. How much does the evidence bear that out?",
"Hi. Thanks for such a cogent reply. For me, I take exception with Dylan’s influence. Yes he did introduce them to marijuana (mkay) and John definitely was interested in his style however, I would point to “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” as an example, definitely not “Norwegian Wood. “. My impression is after YGtHYLA, they were pretty bored with Dylan’s song writing style and John had already moved to a more introspective writing style example: “Help”. \n\nLeo Fender’s entry into the electric guitar/amp market changed everything. Compared to a Gibson, a Stratocaster was pretty cheap(still the same today). An aspiring musician could go to their local music store and rent to own a Fender or some type of single coil knock off for an affordable price. More importantly, the biggest change to that mid sixties 64-67 sound was the recording process. In such a short period, bands went from recording themselves in mono in a single take to multi tracking and looping, etc. The recording process had become a more creative output than ever before. If you listen to Floyd’s “Arnold Layne” single and then “Piper at the Gates of Dawn”, both from ‘67, there is a huge leap forward. To be sure though, this new musical zeitgeist was pioneered by the Beatles. Lastly, John’s influences from the art world are many times overlooked, but he was in art school. His friendship with Stewart, Astrid and Klaus had a huge artistic impact on him. He was the only Beatle that did receive formal art training and let’s face it, he did meet Yoko (for bad or good) at her avante garde art show. \n\nThanks for taking the time for discussion today. This period and the punk scene are two of my favorite topics. As a musician and amateur historian, I do recommend “A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of The Beatles” by Mark Hertzgaard. I feel like most of the other stuff written on them just doesn’t get into their musicianship enough.",
"I would suggest, perhaps if only to emphasize the point, that the development of musical technology was a factor -- Les Paul is given much of the credit for at least applying multitrack recording to popular music. Electric guitars had been around for a little while, but with greater prosperity that the fifties brought, the sixties exploited it in new ways such that plugging a guitar into an amplifier and putting it through a wah-wah pedal became accessible to far more people. Even such things as distortion, which Dave Davies (The Kinks) accomplished by slicing the cones in his speakers to accomplish for \"You Really Got Me\", were still new. That song is claimed by both Heavy Metal and Punk historians as a precursor (the Metal Heads are correct, the Punks should look to Eddie Cochran). Reverb machinery on vocals and instruments and ways to use it were still being discovered as well. \n\nElvis was putting out rock (and roll) only a decade before\"Pet Sounds\" but things advanced a good deal in that time. Of course, the surrounding ethos about tearing down established norms contributed to people willing to listen to music they might not have a few years earlier. It also helps to remember how much truly awful music the sixties brought out -- to me the soundtrack to Easy Rider is unlistenable (except for \"Born To Be Wild\"). \n\nI would also caution, not to question the question, but the sixties are very much exaggerated in terms of music (as with politics, culture, social values, many other things). People tend to forget what people were really listening to. The original Billboard #1 song for 1966 was \"[The Ballad of the Green Berets](_URL_1_)\" -- which is not exactly cutting edge counter culture. It drops to #10 on a revised later version of the list, but even there, Sinatra (both Frank and Nancy) show up in the top ten. Similarly, music had gone through much of the same challenges earlier in the century that had affected art, with Surrealism and Futurism -- the latter notably had a demonstration of \"[The Art of Noises](_URL_0_)\" that was essentially that -- machine noises turned into a style of \"music\". The name was later taken by The [Art of Noise](_URL_2_), an 80s experimental music group. The Futurists, though, were only a more extreme version of all the atonal music coming out then that shook the norms. People sometimes forget that when they say that \"Black Progressive Death Metal\" is not really music, the same was being said of Jazz in the 1910s. \n\nIn the same vein, the late seventies saw a surge in innovation, from the DIY Punks returning to the \"Three chords, three minutes\" idea of 1955, Metal coming on after that, and industrial acts and other avant garde styles coming on in their wake. All changing one thing or another, and the computer continues to allow desktop music production such that anyone can do anything. Getting heard is another matter. So this all is not to say 1965 was not important, but that it can be oversold as a seminal time in music."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf4rxCB4lys",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLstJH23p7k",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqTOi8gpC6A"
] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.icareifyoulisten.com/2017/12/luigi-russolo-futurist-manifesto-the-art-of-noises-revisited/",
"https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjp0e3Z0oPlAhWrTt8KHcmsDnEQyCkIUDAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dm5WJJVSE_BE&usg=AOvVaw3JkzoqBNL1reBVCphhVcbp",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hxyJc_UFyw&list=OLAK5uy_l2LyEQkzVF5S2sTBHBxhtYaZSzpCTERhY&index=3"
]
] |
|
6hwyhu
|
Its is true than Nazi Germany offered peace treaty to the Allies?
|
Someone tell that the Nazi Germany offered like 13 peace treaties to the allies but were rejected by the "Zionists".
I asked him if he has something to corroborate that information but it did not give me anything, I do not believe in that things of "Zionists" , but I have the doubt if that of the "peace treaties" was real.
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6hwyhu/its_is_true_than_nazi_germany_offered_peace/
|
{
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"Your acquaintance is peddling Nazi apologia nonsense. \n\nBroadly speaking there were two major peace offers Hitler made during the war. The first was in October 1939 when after the victorious Polish campaign and Anglo-French inactivity in the West, Hitler offered in a series of speeches an offer to end the war on the argument that the Polish matter had been settled and Germany was willing to forgive the Anglo-French for declaring war on Germany over Poland. The second major offer was in July 1940 where Hitler offered Britain what he termed a final appeal to peace in the wake of the conquest of France and the Low Countries. Again, the basic terms were to accept Germany's conquests as a *fait accompli* and to end hostilities. Hitler did not maintain any real offers for a peace offer from July 1940 onward. Various members of his entourage such as Goebbels and von Ribbentrop recognized after Stalingrad that victory was unlikely and at times pressured Hitler to send out feelers but Hitler did not budge. Goebbels's diary records he brought up the issue of a separate peace to Hitler both in autumn of 1943 and June 1944, and both times Hitler rebuffed such ideas as impractical. \n\nAll of this leads to the question of the sincerity of the 1939 and 1940 offers of peace. In short, they were not that sincere of a peace offer. One of the reasons why they feature so prominently among neo-Nazi circles today is because these offers' audience was not so much the Anglo-French leaders as to the German people. The war itself was not terribly popular among the German populace and the fact that the Polish war had spiraled into a major war with two great powers summoned up unsettling memories of the last war. The fact that the war continued after Poland's fall was a source of anxiety, Thus Hitler's peace campaign had a PR component to it where he sought to persuade the German public that Germany did not want this war and place the onus for continuing it on the Anglo-French leaders. The 1940 peace offer doubled-down on this blame-shifting and the rhetoric of Hitler's speeches on this matter painted him as the aggrieved party and Churchill as the one who was not listening to reason. \n\nEven had there been sincerity behind these initiatives, these offers were dead letters. The basic preconditions for both were that the Allies accept all of Germany's territorial claims and give sanction to Hitler's violation of international treaties and agreements. Even die-hard *Realpolitiker*s at the time recognized that accepting German hegemony on Europe was dangerous and that Germany had shown that it could not be trusted. Why should these Allied powers have put faith in a peace treaty when Hitler had already shown little concern with other agreements that bound Germany's behavior. Germany had already broken or unilaterally abrogated the Munich Pact, the German-Polish Nonaggression Treaty, the Anglo-German Naval Treaty, and a host of other bilateral and international agreements with Germany by 1939. There was nothing to indicate in either 1939 or 1940 that Hitler had changed and there was no rational cost-benefit ratio that favored a peace with Germany. \n\nFinally, Zionists held **NO** political power in Allied countries. In the USSR, zionism was often equated with a dangerous form of ideological counter-revolutionary activism and membership in pre-Revolutionary zionist groups actually made Jews a target during the Great Purges of the 1930s. In both the US and UK, there were very few Jews in political power and those few who were in positions of power were highly assimilated Jews like Henry Morgenthau, and not believers in a separate Jewish race and state. The idea that Jews were in control of all three Allied powers was one of the staples of Nazi propaganda such as this famous [propaganda poster](_URL_0_). Such antisemitic propaganda had multiple purposes, not the least of which was to obscure the fact that Hitler's drive for war and diplomatic bungling had united three very ideologically-different great powers and formed enough of a common ground for them to unite together in spite of these differences. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.ushmm.org/m/img/17401A-500x700.jpg"
]
] |
|
44dehe
|
Was the (European) discovery of the Great Lakes documented? If so, what did they believe was found?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/44dehe/was_the_european_discovery_of_the_great_lakes/
|
{
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"czq5z4a"
],
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"text": [
"Can you clarify or expand on your question a bit? The French explorers of the 17th century described and mapped the Great Lakes [as summarized here.](_URL_0_)\n\nThey believed they had found very large lakes in the middle of the continent that were the source of the St. Lawrence River—as indeed they had. There was also the *possibility* that the lakes fed another river (or a short portage led to a river system) that flowed southwestward to the Pacific, but once Marquette and Jolliet descended the Mississippi all the way to present-day Arkansas, they realized that it must instead flow into the Gulf of Mexico."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.uwgb.edu/wisfrench/library/articles/maps/maps.htm"
]
] |
||
8jowfz
|
As a historian, how should I read Foucault?
|
People who are quite fond of Foucault often tell me that Foucault does not understand himself as doing history and I should not read Foucault as a historian. With that said, how should I read Foucault?
I ask because it seems strange to me. When I read the first chapter of say *Discipline and Punish* it seems to me that Foucault is making what I would call a historical argument. He is talking about a change in practice from one time to another and then offering an interpretation of that change along with thoughts on what caused the change. That seems to me what historians do. (Albeit it is also what anthropologists and sociologists do.)
Am I misreading Foucault there? Am I being to general? Is there a particular way that I should Foucault rather than reading Foucault as a Historian?
(By the by, I like what I've read of Foucault.)
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8jowfz/as_a_historian_how_should_i_read_foucault/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dz1cg0x"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"I am sure others have different views on this, but if you understand Foucault's work on his own terms, in _Discipline and Punish_ he is doing the work of _genealogy_ (italicized to make sure we are not confusing it with looking up one's family tree) and not _history_ (or _archaeology_, which is what he said he was doing in _Order of Things_). For Foucault, both _archaeology_ and _genealogy_ are forms of philosophy that do use historical methodology (stories of change over time), but are less concerned with historical accuracy than uncovering unconscious shifts in _discourse_ (the latter magic term being key to all-things-Foucault). \n\nAs a historian, I read this as something like a form of philosophical-intellectual history that does not mind taking very large flights of fancy and does not mind jettisoning (or just not discovering) inconvenient evidence when it comes to making a nice, complete-feeling argument. And this is of course historians' main problem with Foucault: the history doesn't totally add up. \n\nSo if you say, \"don't read Foucault like a historian,\" what it means is, \"don't cite Foucault for the actual transformation of 19th-century prisons as a historical subject; instead, see his work as a form of philosophy that while certainly informed by the past, is not at all exhaustive about the complexities of said past.\"\n\nNow you might protest that this seems to let him get away with quite a lot. Which it does. It is a very generous reading of Foucault to say that his work is still useful even though there are probably lots of errors in its history. And saying \"I don't understand myself as a historian\" is a lame excuse for getting the history wrong (I don't understand myself as an accountant, but that doesn't stop the IRS from being all snippy with me when I make mistakes on my tax documents). One's perspective on this will entirely depend on how useful one finds Foucault. I find him useful, though again, I wouldn't cite him as the authoritative historical source on, say, prisons, mental illness, Victorian sexuality, and so on — if I engage with him, it's his broader ideas about power, sexuality, and so on, not the historical specifics."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3l0wrw
|
Is there any solid historical evidence for Jesus travelling to the East in his youth?
|
There's a theory that in Jesus's 'lost years' (the time of his young life that's not discussed in the Bible) he travelled east to India, and maybe other places, and learned a lot of Hindu/Buddhist/whatever teachings, which would later help to inform his own philosophy.
Is there any solid evidence for this? Or is it all merely speculation?
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AskHistorians
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3l0wrw/is_there_any_solid_historical_evidence_for_jesus/
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{
"a_id": [
"cv2aq3q"
],
"score": [
25
],
"text": [
"In short no, there's no evidence that Jesus traveled to India or engaged with Hindu or Buddhist though.\n\nHere's a [comment thread](_URL_0_) in which I address some of the India question directly."
]
}
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[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/37ie8s/was_jesus_a_buddhist_monk/cro4vzn"
]
] |
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g3dshr
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Was it true that Hitler dismantled Christianity in Germany, arresting most of the clergy and replacing every cross with swastikas?
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I think I put it out there in the title, but this sounds like bunk history to me, but I can't find sources confirming or denying it.
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AskHistorians
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/g3dshr/was_it_true_that_hitler_dismantled_christianity/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fnqzmkp"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"u/commiespaceinvader had a great answer about this topic [here](_URL_0_)"
]
}
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[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8mou6l/comment/dzphmdf?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=comment_expand"
]
] |
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80belt
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Why did Kaliningrad remain with Russia after the fall of the USSR?
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AskHistorians
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/80belt/why_did_kaliningrad_remain_with_russia_after_the/
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{
"a_id": [
"duun6fl"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Not trying to discourage discussion, but this has been asked a few times and this one in particular has a good response by /u/kieslowskifan:\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/42iwb6/why_does_kaliningrad_belong_to_russia/"
]
] |
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dco900
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A couple of questions about knights in full plate armor
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I'm referring to late medieval knights 14th century or so.
First of all, the helm. Most suits of armor shown in museums and by medias have closed helmets or mobile visors that severely restrict vision. This is all well and good while on horseback or during a tourney, but did they really wear those while fighting on foot too? I'd say situational awareness and not being jumped from behind are more important while in melee, but I couldn't find informations about this. I imagine that, having squires and in general an entourage of people to support them, they could have more than one helmet at their disposal, but again, I struggle to find reliable informations about this fact.
Also, I know that tournament armor and battle armor were different, with the latter being lighter and more mobile, but did they also have different armor for when they were to fight on foot rather than on horse (if they knew in advance of course)?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dco900/a_couple_of_questions_about_knights_in_full_plate/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f2afyol"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Full plate harnesses didn’t actually become the norm for professional warriors until the early to mid 15th century. \n\nThat being said, there is currently no consensus agreement among historians on how knights and men at arms preferred to wear their helmets in close combat. Most likely it came down to each man’s personal preference and how comfortable he felt in his armor. If you look around you can find contemporary depictions of men fighting with closed face helmets, open visors, coifs only and a variety of other combinations. When it comes to armor, you are always trying to strike a balance between protection, mobility and awareness. \n\nLike you mentioned, wearing a closed face helmet like a Hounskull Bascinet or an earlier Greathelm would certainly provide a high degree of protection for the face, but severely limit your vision, breathing and hearing. \n\nIn my personal opinion, I think the most common (but not universal) thing to do would be to keep your visor closed while on horseback or while advancing under missile attack, but then open it or remove it when melee was engaged. \n\nI’m sure this post will get removed since I didn’t include any links, but figured I’d throw in my 2c."
]
}
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[
[]
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1ia7fq
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When did humans fully map out our reproductive system?
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I'm talking everything except the actual act. Menstruation, ejaculation, what each organ does, etc.
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AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ia7fq/when_did_humans_fully_map_out_our_reproductive/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cb2hoa1"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I know that the first person to scientifically study ejaculate was [Leeuwenhoek](_URL_0_), which he did at the request of the Royal Society in 1677. Prior to his work (he was one of the first to apply microscopes in the same way Galileo applied telescopes), even single celled organisms were unknown. His study led him to theorize that \"animalcules\" (sperm) were somehow responsible for fertilization.\n\nTakes some real dedication for a Dutchman living in the 17th C. to say to his wife \"actually don't wash that off, I need to study it\" but apparently that's what happened.\n\n[SOURCE](_URL_1_)"
]
}
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[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeuwenhoek",
"http://www.scielo.org.ar/pdf/ram/v42n4/v42n4a13.pdf"
]
] |
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3kwkjj
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US Military: We used to have awesome regional and cultural regiments with unique histories and uniforms. Why did these get assimilated into one standard?
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[deleted]
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AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3kwkjj/us_military_we_used_to_have_awesome_regional_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cv1ff61"
],
"score": [
13
],
"text": [
"I believe the thread you might be looking for is this one:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSorry if I'm wrong. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17v4jz/when_did_the_us_military_switch_from_state_units/"
]
] |
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1vmde3
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Did women have more legal rights in England before the Norman conquest?
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I'm reading that in Anglo-saxon England women could hold property, inherit, establish their own wills, and that landgrants were often to both the husband and wife. It says that after the conquest, women no longer had any of these rights.
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AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1vmde3/did_women_have_more_legal_rights_in_england/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cetv251"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"This is a question that has become somewhat of a trope in early English history, as well as women's studies. Pauline Stafford in \"Women and the Norman Conquest\" points out that the history of this idea is itself an interesting historical question which points to the intentions of the various writers who proposed it. From Tacitus in 1st century Rome to John Mitchell Kemble in 19th century London, various writers have pushed the idea that the Germanic/Anglo-Saxon woman was better-off than women of other cultures. \n\nUnfortunately, they all had rather interesting reasons for propounding this view:\n \n > \"Tacitus' Germanic women, for example, were a foil to the decadence of contemporary Rome, which he, like many of his contemporaries, blamed on women. Society for him is healthy when women are chaste, mothers and controlled by their husbands, not when they visit the theatre and the baths, exchange love letters with their lovers and fail to breastfeed. Tacitus constructs a Germanic woman with which to beat the Romans of his own day\"\n\n[...]\n\n > \"Kemble, using Anglo-Saxon women against the feminists of his own day, was happy to echo the ancient Roman. He placed Anglo-Saxon women and their high status firmly within the home, that sacred place where women were 'near akin to divinity'. But there they should stay.[...] Early English women happily accepted men's representation of them in public life, content to be beings of a higher nature. They did not clamour and rave for the rights of women. Kemble's Teutonic women are a mid-nineteenth-century conservative male pipe dream.\"\n\nStafford does a pretty good job dismantling the view that the Norman Conquest ended a sort-of Golden Age for women in England. She points out that, while many have claimed that Anglo-Saxon women were, ostensibly, given greater legal rights with regards to holding, inheriting and divesting property, pre-Conquest women only held about 5% of the land, and most of *that* was held by only 8 women who were from particularly powerful noble families or the Royal Family itself. Her handling of the morning gift/dowry idea - that Anglo-Saxon women had control over land that they brought into the marriage, while Norman women did not - is also excellent. She shows that, not only did dowry exist in pre-Conquest England but that examples exist of post-Conquest women controlling both dower and dowry.\n\nIn the end, she concludes, \"there are many [serious arguments] for abandoning the idea of 1066 as a turning point of great significance in the history of English women, and for jettisoning the Anglo-Saxon Golden Age. Both ideas are more a product of the political concerns of past historians than of the experience of the eleventh century\""
]
}
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[
[]
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1gath6
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When, why, and how has the idea of building on an Indian burial ground become such an American taboo?
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AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gath6/when_why_and_how_has_the_idea_of_building_on_an/
|
{
"a_id": [
"caijbqu"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"The film \"Poltergeist\" from 1982 popularized the idea of vengeful spirits causing a haunting because the house had been built on an Indian burial ground. I do not know if this was a pre-existing taboo or if the film invented it. I know that it plays into the \"magical Native American\" stereotype in that it assumes that natives had mystical powers to prevent their grave sites from being profaned."
]
}
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[
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6ggml7
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WW2 Japanese Naval Doctrine, what exactly was it?
|
I watch a lot of documentaries on the second World War, but one thing that they seem to universally disagree on is WHAT, exactly, the Japanese Naval Doctrine was at all. Maybe this isn't a great question, but I'm simply confused. I have heard that they emphasized big gun battleships and cruiser, or they emphasized carriers, or they even emphasized night torpedo attacks from destroyers. So if somebody could clarify, that would be great!
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6ggml7/ww2_japanese_naval_doctrine_what_exactly_was_it/
|
{
"a_id": [
"diqeol0",
"diqfcr2"
],
"score": [
15,
19
],
"text": [
"Japanese naval doctrine in this period is generally classified as a 'decisive battle' doctrine. The primary aim for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was to fight a single battle which would completely destroy the opposition's ability to fight a war at sea. This was informed by the experiences of the Russo-Japanese War, where such a battle was fought at Tsushima. The theorised decisive battle was to be a complex, combined arms battle, with roles for all three classes of ships you mention, as well as for land-based aircraft. Carriers and aircraft were to open the battle, with three key objectives; destroy enemy carriers, protect the fleet against enemy air attacks, and attrit the enemy battlefleet. This would be further damaged by a nighttime torpedo engagement, in which the Japanese screen would use the cover of night and the range of their torpedoes to compensate for their comparable fragility. The battleline, so weakened, would then be easy prey for its Japanese counterparts. This was a capable, but complex doctrine with two major points of failure. Firstly, it created a brittle force - as it would only have to fight a single battle, there was no need to train reinforcements and replacements. However, losses to aircraft maintainers at Midway and to aircrew in the Solomons would prove this wrong in real-world conditions. Secondly, it would encourage IJN commanders to create complex plans. These were hugely vulnerable to defeats in detail, as at Midway and Leyte Gulf. ",
"Almost all of those things are correct all at once!\n\nJapanese naval doctrine was extremely focused on the Decisive Battle. The idea was articulated by Mahan (an American admiral) and the substance was basically that defeating the enemy's fleet was the most important aspect of naval warfare; yes, convoy protection and blockade and troop landings, but none of that mattered if you couldn't actually beat the opponent's main strength (and was a lot easier if you DID beat their main strength).\n\nThe Battle of Tsushima, which was the climax of the Russo-Japanese War, drove this point home with the Japanese leadership; the Japanese fleet engaged the Russian fleet and effectively annihilated it, removing Russia's ability (or at least their will) to continue the war.\n\nThe Japanese thus needed to figure out a way to successfully prosecute the Decisive Battle in the face of American opposition (the US being the Navy's assumed opponent in any such encounter). This was very tricky to plan, as the US had a significant advantage in ships due to the Washington Treaty (and after the treaty was abandoned, due to being a lot bigger and wealthier than Japan). At the time, it was appreciated that a numeric advantage in battleships led to a big advantage in combat - six ships versus six ships would be a nasty brawl, but twelve versus six would win much more easily and with a lot less damage. So how did they plan to win?\n\nThe attack was planned to begin the night before the general fleet engagement. Various Japanese destroyer groups, each with a light cruiser as a flagship, would approach from various directions in the dark and execute what was hoped to be a massive simultaneous torpedo attack. The idea was that this would be unexpected as such operations are -hideously- difficult to pull off, and the Japanese trained their ships relentlessly to be able to do it; this training ended up paying off in the waters off Guadalcanal on more than one occasion.\n\nBeyond the night attack, the Japanese planned to deliver more firepower, with better aim. Their ships had a very notable emphasis on armament and speed, with less emphasis on armor and seaworthiness; more than one class of Japanese vessel had to be redesigned due to being too top-heavy or not structurally sound enough to weather heavy storms. The Japanese had several heavy cruisers that were in excess of the Washington Treaty's 10,000-ton limit (and not by a little, in some cases). They hoped to out-range and out-gun the US battle line, to get hits from beyond the effective range of US ships and to get more hits at equivalent ranges. The super-battleships were another outgrowth of this kind of thinking; if the Japanese could not have more ships, at least they could have larger ones with better armament.\n\nIronically, the carrier groups were not expected to contribute to this much more than performing scouting duties and interfering with US carrier operations. The Japanese did effectively develop carrier doctrine to a high degree, but it wasn't something that was integrated clearly into the Decisive Battle thinking in the Japanese leadership. Likewise, submarines weren't expected to do much more than provide picket lines and maybe pick off a few ships.\n\nIt probably wouldn't have worked. The Japanese plans required a lot of coordination and generally rested on the assumption that the Americans would come in fat, dumb, and happy - but the US navy had its own defensive doctrines. The Japanese advantages in training, superior night optics, etc., were almost completely obviated by US developments in radar.\n\nBeyond that, it assumed that the US would also seek a decisive battle; it's been argued that the very success of Pearl Harbor made that impossible by sinking a large portion of the US battle line, and forcing the US to take a more round-about approach focused on carrier warfare and commerce interdiction.\n\nIf you're interested in the topic of the pre-WW2 Japanese navy, I definitely recommend reading *Kaigun* by Evans and Peattie, which goes into the various topics of naval construction, design, leadership, and doctrine in great and enjoyable detail."
]
}
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[
[],
[]
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2tzgfy
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It's often highlighted that 50% of Rome's expenditures went towards its military. Were they an outlier, or did other ancient civilizations spend as much, or more?
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The 50% figure is often brought up to compare the large role/importance of the Roman military in comparison to the proportionally smaller investments made in the armed forces by modern countries - but wouldn't Rome, an incredibly advanced bureaucratic state for the time, have had more non-military (infrastructure, etc) financial obligations than other city-states/empires of the time? It seems like the 50% figure should really be on the low end of military expenditures, in the context of the era.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2tzgfy/its_often_highlighted_that_50_of_romes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"co41wwg"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"I might want to mention that whilst I can't confirm or deny the Southern Song figure (is there a source?), Southern Song existed in almost a state of perpetual total defensive war against the Jurchens or Mongols. \n\nIf you look at a more \"normal\" period of the Chinese Empire like the Eastern Han Dynasty (which granted is also an incredible avanced bureaucratic state of the time)....it's very hard to calculate a percentage but the Eastern Han Empire was estimated to spend relatively, very little on its standing military (which comprised of only border garrisons and a professional army of 4,000 in the capital). Scheidel estimated that for the Han Empire's military expenditure to match Rome's, **it would need a standing professional army of half a million**, which basically never came close to happening.\n\n\nSource: State Power in Ancient China and Rome, Walter Scheidel"
]
}
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[
[]
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783gpa
|
Would a Massachusetts farmer in the 1780's vote to ratify the constitution?
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AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/783gpa/would_a_massachusetts_farmer_in_the_1780s_vote_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dorodnj"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I don't quite understand your question. What information are you trying to ascertain? Because of the 355 men who voted in the state to ratify the [United States Constitution on February 6th, 1788](_URL_0_) were farmers. Now many of these farmers were wealthy landowners, but still many of them were farmers nonetheless. Are you asking about farmers who participated in events like Shays' Rebellion? Are you curious about what the Massachusetts populace felt in regards to a strong national government?"
]
}
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[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://historylessons.net/the-massachusetts-compromise"
]
] |
||
32h375
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Prior to the devolution of its constituent countries, did Yugoslavians think of themselves primarily as Yugoslavian or as Serbs, Croats, etc.?
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How strong was Yugoslav identity within the country itself?
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AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/32h375/prior_to_the_devolution_of_its_constituent/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cqbakk4"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"According to the [population census of 1981](_URL_0_) (the last one before breakup), only 5.4% people declared themselves Yugoslav. The census of 1971 that number was even lower 1.2%\n\nBased on that data, and the various personal annegdotes one might easily find, I would conclude that people were primarily thinking of themselves as Serbs, Croats and their respective nations."
]
}
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[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Socialist_Federal_Republic_of_Yugoslavia"
]
] |
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3fie8z
|
Did Ronald Reagan commit treason?
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I've seen people recently saying things about Ronald Reagan committing treason as a presidential candidate, negotiating with the Iranians to keep holding the hostages until he was elected, etc. I've never seen anything like this before, so I was just wondering what merit this claim has.
|
AskHistorians
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http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3fie8z/did_ronald_reagan_commit_treason/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ctp0dvo"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"This theory goes by the name of \"October Suprise\" because of a book by the same name by Gary Sick. The basic allegation is that William Casey, Reagan's campaign manager who had CIA connections, conducted secret negotiations with the Iranians. Congress investigated this theory in 1992-3 and released a House report and a Senate report that the evidence for the theory wasn't well founded.\n\nThe basics of the hostage deal that ended the Iran Hostage Crisis was that assets of Iran frozen by the US would be unfrozen and that the US would allow the Iranian regime to sue the Shah's family holding assets abroad in exchange for return of the hostages.\n\nIn Mark Bowden's book, \"Guests of the Ayatollah\", interviews with Iranians involved in the hostage negotiations suggest that their motivation to do the deal was that they needed the frozen funds for military equipment for the war with ~~Iran~~ Iraq that started in September 1980 (i.e. before the U.S. election). Iran made several last minute overtures to the U.S. before the election day which were refused by the Carter administration because they were not in U.S. interests, even though a deal would have profited Carter politically. Negotiations by the Carter administration continued for the three months between the elections and Reagan's inauguration. Carter's hand in negotiations was strengthened by the fact that Reagan was not guaranteed to continue negotiations and his public remarks implied (without stating) he might consider a bloody military reprisal. Bowden's interviews with Iranians involved suggest that they decided to delay the deal's completion until the last moment as a deliberate effort to insult and humiliate the Carter administration they had opposed for several years."
]
}
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2ptrxf
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Did threats of retribution make roman citizens safe?
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A poster on Slashdot claimed "Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the Earth unharmed, cloaked only in the protection of the words civis Romanus -- I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens."
This clearly seems like hyperbole, but is there any kind of interesting related truth?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ptrxf/did_threats_of_retribution_make_roman_citizens/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cn03f0v"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"This is hyperbolic, yes. But it is less so if you keep in mind the context that the majority of Romans considered Rome itself to be the extent of \"the world\".\n\nThe idea that a Roman could literally go anywhere on Earth without harm does not seem grounded in reality.\n\nHowever, within the borders of Rome and in the surrounding mileage where the reach of Rome was infinitely possible, Roman citizens were afforded a wide berth of courtesy and consideration. The classic example of this is from the Bible, in Acts 22.\n\n24 The tribune directed that he was to be brought into the barracks, and ordered him to be examined by flogging, to find out the reason for this outcry against him. \n25 But when they had tied him up with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, ‘Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who is uncondemned?’ \n26 When the centurion heard that, he went to the tribune and said to him, ‘What are you about to do? This man is a Roman citizen.’ \n27 The tribune came and asked Paul, ‘Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ \n28 The tribune answered, ‘It cost me a large sum of money to get my citizenship.’ Paul said, ‘But I was born a citizen.’ \n29 Immediately those who were about to examine him drew back from him; and the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him.\n\nHere, all Paul had to do was claim he was a citizen and they immediately relented the flogging. They were under the impression he was not, as citizenship was reasonably rare among conquered populations, especially so far away from the heart of the empire.\n\nThe earlier and earlier you look at Rome, the more exclusive and privilege-rich the status of citizenship was. As she aged, Rome began to grant citizenship more freely as a rite of reward for service, for art, for philanthropy, for military success, for alliance, for payment, and so on.\n\nThe status of \"civis Romanus\" seems to have only worked where Rome could actually reach. Where they could meaningfully retaliate if a Citizen of Rome were threatened or killed without the proper courtesies."
]
}
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[
[]
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cl2s9y
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How did nomadic societies do metalwork?
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I've long been aware that nomadic societies such as the Mongols had access to heavy armor, though perhaps rarer then sedentary civilizations. But though I'm aware they possessed and could make complex armor, I've long wondered how exactly they did it. Did they use mobile forges? Were there stationary forges built? Please answer, I'm dying to know!
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cl2s9y/how_did_nomadic_societies_do_metalwork/
|
{
"a_id": [
"evxdpme"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Forging is a relatively simple process: heat up the workpiece in a fire, and hammer it into shape (of course, significant skill is required to do it well). It can be done with a very basic and portable toolkit, consisting of a hammer (which can be a stone), and anvil (also a stone), and bellows. Beyond this, one needs a hole in the ground (for the fire), and the raw materials: charcoal and iron and/or steel.\n\nJust to show how minimal a basic forge can be:\n\n* _URL_2_\n\n* _URL_4_\n\n* _URL_3_\n\n* _URL_0_\n\nWhile these are not nomadic examples, the key part of the toolkit is portable, and nomad-friendly (and in some cases, blacksmiths in sedentary societies are itinerant, travelling from village to village, taking their toolkit with them).\n\nIf you have pack animals or wagons/carts, a more complex toolkit will typically include chisels, files, punches, and so on.\n\nWhat these simple toolkits limit the smith to is fairly small workpieces. This could explain the popularity of lamellar armour (and lamellar helmets) among nomads of the Eurasian steppe. Making large sheets of iron/steel suitable for plate armour benefits greatly from large forges, and industrial tools such as large water-powered hammers (see _URL_6_ for some discussion of this by u/WARitter and myself.)\n\nNot so relevant to armour, but casting of bronze, silver, gold to produce various small objects can also be done with a portable toolkit.\n\nA greater difficulty is trying to make iron/steel on the move. Ore needs to be collected, charcoal needs to be made, a furnace built, and then the ore smelted. The classic furnace used for smelting in most regions was the bloomery furnace, which benefits from large size (typically, steel production is more efficieny, compared with a small bloomery which is likely to produce only low-carbon iron). If one was to stay in one region long enough, with available iron ore (e.g., bog iron) and trees (to make charcoal from), this can be done by nomads. However, the grasslands where pastoral nomads commonly live are often quite treeless. Where forested regions border the grassy steppes, they are often much better suited to iron-making; such areas were important sources of iron for the steppe. For example,\n\n* Ziniakov, N. (1988). \"Ferrous Metallurgy and Blacksmith Production of the Altay Turks in the Sixth to Tenth Centuries A.D.\" *Arctic Anthropology* 25(2), 84-100 _URL_1_\n\ndiscussed iron-making in the Altai, both smelting and smithing. \n\nThe iron can be obtained by the nomads either as tribute or trade. Similarly, urban areas near the steppes could provide iron through tribute and/or trade. Finishing metal objects also came through trade and tribute; legal bans on selling weapons to steppe peoples shows that this trade (a) included weapons and (b) the rulers of the states such weapons came from would have preferred that it didn't include weapons.\n\nTo return to your point about heavy armour, it's worth noting that \"heavy armour\" doesn't require iron. One common resource for pastoral nomads is animal skins, and thus rawhide was often the material of choice for armour. While rawhide armour needs to be quite thick to provide reliable protection against arrows (Japanese rawhide armour typically use lamellae (*kozane*) 3mm or more thick, and these overlapped so that incoming arrows faced a minimum of 6mm), it can provide such reliable protection. Iron appears to provide better protection for a given weight (see _URL_5_ where I reply to a question by u/Rough_Dan on the comparison of iron with rawhide - it looks better, but the results come from very different tests)."
]
}
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[
[
"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sarawak;_a_native_Kalabit_smithy._Photograph._Wellcome_V0037410.jpg",
"http://www.jstor.org/stable/40316169",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5hHtuAUPU0",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmrpWw8nThA",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX7xyAEqs10",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9wh17q/armor_rawhide_vs_leather_vs_hardenedboiled_leather/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bwmt7v/in_medieval_fantasies_blacksmiths_are_depicted/"
]
] |
|
6yodis
|
Is there any explanation for the absurdly long reigns on the Sumerian king list?
|
When they say someone ruled for 800 years, what did they think they were talking about? What was their justification for thinking someone could live that long? Were there just 20 monarchs in a row who used the same name? Is it a hyperbole created by the fact that monarchs would have been healthier and lived longer? Were they merely filling in the gaps for periods where they didn't know who the ruler was?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6yodis/is_there_any_explanation_for_the_absurdly_long/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dmpcmr9"
],
"score": [
26
],
"text": [
"/u/kookingpot and /u/husky54 addressed the SKL in [this thread](_URL_2_) about the fantastically long-lived biblical patriarchs. (See kookingpot's answer [here](_URL_0_) and husky54's response [here](_URL_1_).) I tend to agree with the latter that the reigns were methods of \"stretching\" history and the names of recorded kings far back into prehistory; people in Mesopotamia knew their origins were ancient, but they were rather off the mark about exactly how ancient Mesopotamia was. \n\nTo their responses, I'll add that assigning fantastically long reigns to early rulers is known from other cultures as well. In Egypt, for example, Manetho recorded that the first dynasty of (divine) kings ruled over Egypt for 13,900 years. See *Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt* (pp. 130-131). "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/412z1w/biblical_historians_why_are_the_lifespans_of/cyz9uj4/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/412z1w/biblical_historians_why_are_the_lifespans_of/cyzbz9f/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/412z1w/biblical_historians_why_are_the_lifespans_of/"
]
] |
|
xw2eg
|
Swedish Campaign at Bohemia (thirty years war 1618-1648)
|
Was it a brief one ? Did the Austrians fought back ? Any possible sources for studying ?
Thank you in advance !
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/xw2eg/swedish_campaign_at_bohemia_thirty_years_war/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5q6n87"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"The Swedish intervention in the war was not brief, lasting from 1630 to the end of the war. However the Swedish supremacy only lasted a few years, mainly 1630-32. The catholics and imperials certainly fought back, with varying success.\n\nFurther, the Swedish campaign itself can be divided into two in accordance with the phase of the war. In 1630-35, often known as the Swedish phase of the war, the Swedes fought in the empire (although not much in Bohemia, if that's your main interest) as the strongest of the protestant armies. Gustavus Adolphus was a capable leader and was able to rally the protestant princes and defeat the catholic armies in Breitenfeld. However, Gustavus' death at the battle of Lützen in 1632 broke the morale of the protestant side, which started to suffer losses. In 1635, with the Swedish army crushed, a peace favoring the emperor and catholics was made.\n\n1635-48, or the French phase, was triggered by the open warfare of the French, who had until then only provided monetary aid to the protestants. The peace of 1635 didn't satisfy the French, who feared the growing Habsburg power. Sweden was again dragged into the war by French monetary support. Even though the Swedes gained victories with and without their French allies, it was clear that they no longer were the leading state on the \"protestant\" side. When peace was finally made, it was dictated by French terms. This phase did see some action in Bohemia itself, namely the battle of Prague, which was also the last battle in the war.\n\nOverall, the war is pretty well covered in literature because of its significance, although I can't suggest anything about the Swedish campaign specifically. The one I've read myself is The Thirty Years War: The Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618-48 by Ronald G. Asch."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
a3ejvk
|
Why didn't Chiang Kai-Shek attempt to invade China during the great famine or the chaos of the Cultural Revolution?
|
[deleted]
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a3ejvk/why_didnt_chiang_kaishek_attempt_to_invade_china/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eb5hb7s"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Hey there,\n\nJust to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.\n\nIf you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
5to5ep
|
Who are some modern Military Commanders (20th century onward) who are viewed by their respective countries in the same regard Americans hold Patton and McCarthy?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5to5ep/who_are_some_modern_military_commanders_20th/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ddntugu"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I assume you mean MacArthur for reference? Certainly McCarthy has an extensive reputation and shadow in the American consciousness, but it has little to do with military exploits."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
tklv9
|
Prospects for an Aspiring Chinese History Graduate Student
|
Hey Reddit. My life goal is to obtain a Phd in Chinese history, specifically Late Qing history. Truly there's nothing else I want to do with my life: I've know that this was what I wanted for years, and despite all the negatives concerning academia I have never wavered from my ambitions.
I've just recently graduated from a decent (but not excellent) university: JMU in Virginia. I did well, finishing up with a 3.775 GPA. I've had Chinese language instruction for six semesters, and am about to leave for a year in Beijing to study Mandarin. Currently I am working diligently on my writing sample discussing historical perceptions toward Xinjiang.
Right now, I could use any form of constructive advice or criticism. Based on the little information I've provided, will I be a competitive candidate for MA or Phd programs? I've been told that academia isn't worth pursuing unless you can get into an excellent program. Therefore I'm looking at schools like UW, Georgetown, UCSD, UVA, and many others. I realize choosing a program depends heavily upon faculty and an applicant's particular interest, but does anyone know of outstanding universities for Chinese history? How realistic is it to get into a second tier MA program and then enter a superior Phd program? Any other advice?
Thanks Reddit, I really appreciate any feedback.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/tklv9/prospects_for_an_aspiring_chinese_history/
|
{
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"c4nfhov",
"c4ng2k9",
"c4ng9v1",
"c4ngmda",
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2,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
" I went through a couple semesters of mandarin and one of Chinese history. I can still pick out characters and carry on a very simple conversation. I wanted to do the same thing. But I quit because there really aren't very many options. You could teach English there, they like having native speakers, but you don't have to speak mandarin to do that, you have to pay your own travel expenses, you'd have to get a separate certification. You could try to get venture capitalists to fund research but there's little interest in that now that they flooded and looted the most interesting portions of their history. You could try to publish books on it, but is just a small amount of supplemental income. Or you could teach and that is its own can of worms. There is some archeological work, but its usually in other fields and that's not a stable job you can depend on since its usually dependent on grants/venture capitalists for support. Other than that, the degree has little to no practical applications and none of those things offer the type of income that a phd deserves. Most of your options are barely enough to live on.",
"You can always look overseas! I got my MA at SOAS in London. My field wasn't Chinese history, but diaspora/migration studies and it was really good, one of the better schools in the world for this sort of stuff. The history department at the school, especially in research, is especially robust and I can't imagine it being a slouch in Chinese history specifically. I do have to warn you that if you're not entirely proficient in Chinese, it'll be much more difficult. I'm fluent and didn't need to take any classes, but I had a lot of classmates who were in the Chinese program there, which was stellar. The problem of course is that as an international student you'll be hard pressed to get scholarships and you'll have to pay out of pocket, which is a pain in the ass. Also, the MA is one year, and it's a lot of stuff to cover in a year so I don't know if that's a pro or con. It assumes that you had a robust undergraduate education. You'll also meet a lot of like-minded people. Again, my field wasn't a strictly history field, so we had a lot more development-types around. Also, it's wicked competitive. Good luck!\n\nEDIT: Also, I can't tell you what employment prospects are, since my academic trajectory got completely derailed afterward I got out and now I'm going to law school. My friend with my degree is teaching community college right now.",
"The year in China is definitely a big plus! That's what I did. After undergrad I spent a year in China teaching English, but that was just an excuse to be here. The language and culture is almost impossible to wrap your head around without spending time in the country. \n\nAs snackburros said, don't limit yourself to the US as far as graduate programs. If your Chinese is good, consider grad school in China. Even if it isn't, there are now some decent internationally acclaimed programs at some of the better Chinese universities for politics and history that are taught in English. In fact, several of the programs are exclusively open to foreign applicants. If I recall correctly, Peking University (北大) has one such program. I'm not sure about their entrance requirements but it might be worth checking out. Snackburros mentioned the cost issue, which is one advantage to considering Chinese schools: they are pretty cheap. Last I looked, Beida was like $4000 a semester, and that's for grad school.\n\nFor the US, what are your GRE scores like? Also, for the better programs, research history is incredibly important. Did you get involved with any research your professors were doing in undergrad? Having your name attached to some published work is a major plus. If not, make sure your writing sample is polished and shows off your research skills. \n\nAlmost all schools that offer a PhD will encourage you to go straight through in that program. The problem with trying for a MA first is that you won't get as much financial aid, so money can be an issue there. However, people switch programs after getting a Master's all the time, but in that case it depends a lot on your relationship with the faculty. Try to make sure whatever school you pick has faculty with your research interests.\n\nAs far as prospects after grad school, your options are understandably narrow. Obviously the huge majority of opportunities will be in academia, and there aren't many there. If you don't want to work in academia, then a PhD is probably overkill. If you want to get involved in international business, whether through consultation or something similar, a MA, working/living experience in China, and knowledge of the language are the most important things. Right now I am guest lecturing at a school here in China. Once you get to China and spend time here the doors really open up. They have an insatiable desire for foreign experts right now so getting your foot in the door is pretty easy. Working in China you won't make major money compared to the US, but foreigners employed by Chinese companies or institutions generally make great money relative to living expenses in China.\n\nIf you have some more specific questions, feel free to shoot me a PM!",
"You are better off going to Taiwan to study since knowledge of traditional Chinese characters is going to be extremely useful for Chinese history. Yes, you can get a lot of text already transcribed to simplified characters, but the ambiguities that arise from this can be quite confusing. In any case, reading the original text is always better.\n\nSwitching to simplified characters after learning traditional characters is easy; going the other way, not so easy based on my observing Mainland and Taiwanese colleagues, as well as my own experiences.\n\nI've also found that Taiwanese, because of their continued emphasis on studying history, culture, and literary (文言文) Chinese in schools, have retained a much greater understanding of traditional thought than those on the Mainland. Absorbing this makes it easier to understand the context of earlier Chinese history. ",
"Try _URL_0_. There's a sizeable community of current and aspiring history graduate students and they are pretty good at answering questions like this."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"thegradcafe.com"
]
] |
|
6hp3nz
|
What are the pre-islamic origins of women using a veil?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6hp3nz/what_are_the_preislamic_origins_of_women_using_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dj0g4zc"
],
"score": [
15
],
"text": [
"Not to discourage further discussion but /u/frogbrooks [answered](_URL_0_) a similar question a short time ago."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/686h4y/was_the_veil_for_women_invented_by_early_muslims/dgw5sbg/"
]
] |
||
1oujaq
|
How did the fur trade affect the Susquehannocks?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1oujaq/how_did_the_fur_trade_affect_the_susquehannocks/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccvuxj7",
"ccvyn7z"
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3,
2
],
"text": [
"The Susquehannocks had an unhappy history, and eventually the tribe became extinct. The fur trade, allowed them to acquire guns, and perhaps survive against their numerous enemies for longer than they would have otherwise.\n\nThe Susquehannocks were speakers of an Iroquois language, but they were not members of the Iroquois Confederacy (we don't know why. This happened pre-European contact.). In fact, the Iroquois Confederacy were their most powerful and deadly enemies. Their other borders were occupied by Algonquian tribes, which were more often enemies than allies to the Susquehannocks. These Algonquian tribes eventually were mostly replaced by European settlers.\n\nThe Susquehannocks are thought to have become involved quite early in a long series of wars resisting Iroquois expansion. They are certainly a tribe that put up a stauncher resistance to the Iroquois than many others. One reason they were able to do this was that they acquired firearms early in the 1600s, first from the Dutch, but then mostly from the Swedish colony in Delaware (1638-1655). The Susquehannocks seemed to have had a profitable alliance with the Swedes for as long as the Swedish Colony existed. The Swedes even provided the Susquehannock with cannon (they are one of the few Indian tribes known to have used cannon in war).\n\nThey paid for their guns, of course, with beaver furs. One of their long term problems was that their territories were not extensive enough to sustain a massive beaver harvest, and they were cut off from fresh beaver lands to the west by the Iroquois.\n\nUnfortunately for the Susquehannocks, their allies, the Swedes, were taken over by the Dutch just when the Susquehannocks were fighting for their lives in a two front war against Maryland and the Iroquois. They signed a peace, giving a lot of their lands to Maryland in 1652, so they could concentrate on the dangerous Iroquois threat, but in 1656, they were forced to conclude a disadvantageous peace with the Iroquois.\n\nThe Iroquois then turned on the Susquehannocks allies and tributary tribes, smashing the Shawnee, and driving them West, and almost obliterating the Delaware. The peace fell apart in 1663, and by 1669 the war with the Iroquois and a smallpox epidemic had reduced the Susquehannocks from an estimated 5,000-7,000 people in 1600 to only 300 warriors.\n\nBy 1676 the Susquehannocks had been defeated and driven off their lands by the Iroquois. Most of the survivors surrendered and joined the Iroquois where they were mostly absorbed. \n\nA small remnant of the tribe settled in Conestoga, Pennsylvania, where they converted to Christianity. In 1763, after Indian attacks in the Pontiac Uprising angered the colonists, the last 20 Susquehannocks in Conestoga were beaten to death by a mob known as the \"Paxton Boys\".\n\nIn the midst of the long and failing struggle against the Iroquois, it was the fur trade in Beaver, which allowed the Susquehannocks to build the crucial Swedish alliance, which supplied them with guns and ammo. It was difficult, though for the tribe to harvest enough beaver from their limited lands to meet their needs. It is also speculated that the tribe did not really have the manpower to simultaneously trap beaver and fight war on two fronts.\n\nOf course, one of the reasons for unrelenting military pressure on the Susquehannocks by the Iroquois was in order to take over their fur trade, or promote an Iroquois monopoly in the fur trade. But this was not the only reason for war. The Iroquois war seems to have begun before European settlement, and before the fur trade existed.\n\nSources: \n\n_URL_4_\n_URL_3_\n_URL_1_\n_URL_0_\n_URL_2_",
"I don't believe the colonial governments made much of an effort to trade fairly with the Native Americans. In 1682, Jacob Young of Maryland was compelled to travel from Cecil County at the head of the Chesapeake Bay to the colonial capital of St. Mary's on the Potomac River. Young had served as an interpreter between the Maryland Colony and the Susquehannocks. From what I can discern, Young was on friendly terms with the Susquehannocks and dealt fairly with them. The General Assembly summoned Young to offer proof that he had not \"switched teams.\" \n\"The said Jacob Young utterly denyeth that he ever Alienated or at any time Endeavoured to Alienate his Affec-tion from the Lord Proprietary of this Province and his Govdoth utterly deny he ever Contracted Marriage or took to Wife an Indian Woman of the Susquehannah\nNations, and doth utterly Deny he ever had a Child or Chil-dren by any Such Susquehannah Wife, nor was ever at any time Concerned for the said Susquehannah Nation or any other Indian Nation whatsoever, against his Majesties Subjects the good People of this Province.\" \n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.lancasterhistory.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2286&Itemid=365",
"http://www.hsobc.org/on-the-susquehannocks-natives-having-previously-used-what-is-now-baltimore-county-as-hunting-grounds/",
"https://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS257&=&q=manchester%2C+ma&oq=manchester%2C+ma&gs_l=igoogle.3..0l10.1619.10277.0.11609.14.8.0.6.6.0.138.740.6j2.8.0...0.0...1ac.1.12.igoogle.CrzA4KL5Fnc#hl=en&q=susquehannocks+history",
"http://www.dickshovel.com/susque.html",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Sweden"
],
[
"http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000007/html/am7--387.html"
]
] |
||
3hlcug
|
[Help] book recommendations to spark my sisters interest in history!
|
Hi reddit, long time lurker. My 15 year old sister chose modern history (mostly 20th century) as a subject next year and while she says that history interests her, she doesn't seem too passionate about it. Any recommendations on books that might spark her interest?
Thanks so much in advance. She just needs that initial push and I know she'll kill the subject.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3hlcug/help_book_recommendations_to_spark_my_sisters/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cu8eok0",
"cu8euzz",
"cu8fou3"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"What is your sister interested in? Is she interested in the history of a particular country of the 20th century? A particular event? A particular individual? I think you need to give us more to go on than just 20th century history. :)",
"Lay reader here. Since you've had no replies for an hour, I thought I'd weigh in.\n\nThere's a sub-genre of books that people call \"biographies of things.\" They take one topic and expand on it. Essentially they're history books. There are so many good ones. I'll give you three:\n\nCod, by Mark Kurlansky\n\nScurvy, by Stephen R. Bown\n\nLesser Beasts, by Mark Essig",
"It depends on whar she's interested in, but the Cartoon History of the World and World History: The Comic (Larry Gonick Zak Zabell), which were interesting for me to read as an adult. Otherwise, very readable books are Courtesans and Fishcakes, The World of Pompeii (John Dobbins, Peter Foss), Women in the Viking Age (Jesch), Medieval Children (Nicholas Orme), Humour in the Dutch Culture of the Golden Age (Rudolf Dekker), 1491 (Charles Mann), Daily Lives of Civilians in Wartime Asia (Stewart Lone)- those are the books which I love best and find most readable. I like social history and the whole daily lives of people type history...I'm terrible at dates and have no clue and little interest in military history though. Your sister probably has different interests but I can recommend a long list of books to do with medieval Europe's judicial system and criminals, a ton of stuff about Vikings and a fair amount of books on Slavic folklore throughout history. I doubt many people find it interesting (although there are some great historical fictions about the first subject) but if she does, ask away. \n\nWould she be interested in some historical fiction? Or some historical documentaries (or accurate enough movies set in the past)?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3agfjc
|
Was Germany a Great Power before WW1?
|
Basically this questions kind of bothers me since I graduated. Earlier this year my history teacher said that before WW1 Germany was too weak to be a Great Power but too strong to be considered secondary. Is this true?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3agfjc/was_germany_a_great_power_before_ww1/
|
{
"a_id": [
"csce63p"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"No, Germany has unquestionably being a great power since 1871. Prussia before it was unquestionably a great power since 1742. Germany was, by the virtue of her population, industry, a well educated intellectual elite and a strong military tradition, the strongest continental power in Europe by 1914. A subjective ranking of great powers in 1914 across the world would probably place Germany as the third strongest, after the UK and the US.\n\nWhat was true however is that Germany was not strong enough to be a true global power on the same scale as Britain, nor continental wide power like the US and Russia became. In many ways both WWI and WWII can be seen as an attempt by Germany to transform itself from a mere European continental power to a true global power.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
540pxe
|
Does anyone have information on the "7th Development Battalion" active in World War I?
|
Hi everybody, I hope this question is appropriate for this subreddit.
I am researching musician [Luke Jordan](_URL_0_) and discovered that he served in the war for the "7th Development Battalion". All my research so far hasn't got me anywhere regarding this unit, or indeed what a Development Battalion is. If anyone out there has information regarding this unit or Development Battalions, I'd be very grateful.
Thanks!
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/540pxe/does_anyone_have_information_on_the_7th/
|
{
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"d7xyg85",
"d7yif6k"
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"Luke Jordan and many other men like him ended up in a Development Battalion because they were considered temporarily unfit for any other unit. \n\nTo be classified as fit for duty, the ideal would be to have a man classified as Class A: Free from disease, physically fit (able to perform a day's labor, walk five miles, have normal hearing and eye-sight) and more or less be able to function and serve as a normal servicemen whether in a combat unit or in a logistical or other types of support units. Before we dive deeper into what made a person unfit and thus eligible for a development battalion, we need to ask ourselves the obvious question.\n\nWhat exactly was a Development Battalion?\n\nAt the time of the publishing of Major E.B. Johns' book *Camp Travis and its part in the world war* (1918/1919), he states that there were 51 of these battalions spread across the United States to improve, to *develop*, men to be fit for service. Men who had already been assigned to units but were found to be incapable of serving in a normal unit where removed and placed in a development battalion if they hadn't already been placed there immediately. \n\nWhat made a man unfit to serve and made them eligible for a development battalion? There were many different categories. For example, you could be an individual who simply can't adjust to military life. You could also have a curable injury, disability or disease (such as a venereal disease) which keeps you from performing to your full extent but isn't serious enough to warrant an immediate discharge. You could be illiterate or be an immigrant who can't write or speak English that well, in which case you were put in an educational section where you would be taught how to write and speak proper English so as to function well in a military context. You also had men who were conscientious objectors being sent to these battalions as well as \"alien enemies\" - nationals of the Central Powers who were drafted into the American Army.\n\nWe get an example of how it could look like for a man to end up in a development battalion. From Johns:\n\n > The man came in the first draft from East Texas, and \nin his physical examination it was found that he had a bad \nleg and was unfit for service. He was sent home but not \ndischarged. With the next draft, back came the man. \nStill nothing had been done to his leg, and still he was unfit \nfor service. Again he was sent home, but he still could \nnot be discharged. Third draft, back comes the man to \nCamp Travis, bad leg worse and less fit for service than \never. This time, however, he was sent to the development \nbattalion. There he was turned over to the physicians \nand surgeon, who made a thorough and comprehensive \nstudy of his case. An operation was decided upon. This \nhad now been performed and the man is recovering rapidly \nin the Base Hospital. After three weeks of convalescence, \nthese operative cases are brought back to the development \nbattalion where they are given the particular physical \ntraining suited to their needs.\n\nWhen put in a development battalion, you would have been evaluated and placed in a section that suited your personal issue. If you were illiterate, you'd be placed in an educational section where, as mentioned before, you'd be instructed in the English language. If you were physically unfit, like the East Texas man previously mentioned, you'd be placed with other men in your own situation and given physical training suited to your particular needs. Specific help was given to those who required it, as shown above in the case of the East Texas man or as in the case of the 16th Battalion at Camp Travis that was made up of men with orthopedic issues. Those men who had flat feet were actually given special shoes to solve some of their problems as well as physical training.\n\nJohns again:\n\n > Various exercises have been devised to strengthening the weak muscles. A man walks up an incline on his tip-toes and down on his heels; he walks on a little trough contrivance that makes his feet turn in, and in this way and others the trouble with his feet is corrected. \n\nIf against all odds you failed to develop or improve your condition, whether it be mentally or physically, you would be discharged. \n\nNow, since I'm not familiar with Luke Jordan, I wouldn't be able to tell you why he ended up in a development battalion or what his particular battalion consisted of. Every camp had their own battalions and they were all numbered the same way (so there could be several 7th Development Battalions, for example). Either way, I hope this helps you understand Luke Jordan's war time service.\n\nSources:\n\n*The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, Volume XIII. Section IV, Development Battalions* (1927).\n\n*Camp Travis and its part in the world war* by Major E.B. Johns (1918/1919).",
"Another good reference (I was going to answer, but Bernadito beat me to it) is: \"Report of the Surgeon General to the Secretary of War\", 1919, Volume II, especially pages 1031 and following. The development battalion appears to have been sort of a combination of a remedial physical training battalion and a \"medical holding\" unit and a general training unit for service members who were not currently fit for full military service. On 9 May 1918, the War Department issued General Orders # 45, which directed the establishment of such units at every large camp or cantonment. The whole function of them was to rehabilitate less than fully-physically fit soldiers, or to recommend assignments for them in duties which did not require full physical fitness. It is noted that \"about 15\" camps developed such units which were felt to be very effective (more definitive numbers may be found in subsequent Surgeon General Reports, but I don't have time right now to do the research. In these units, troops were rapidly classified and either promptly discharged or given courses in physical development (under the supervision of medical officers) with the goal of enabling them to perform at least limited military duties. Some of these units had special companies for soldiers with VD, where they were kept until treated or diagnosed as non-treatable. About 225,000 soldiers were assigned to these units, of which 34% were VD, 13 % Orthopedic, 2% mental conditions, 5% heart complaints, and 24% \"miscellaneous physical conditions\". Of interest is that 22% were classified as \"non-English speaking, illiterates, morally unfit, conscientious objectors, draft evaders, and enemy aliens\"--- so it wasn't used solely as a medical rehab unit, as originally envisioned, but as a holding/training unit to evaluate and improve military capabilities of soldiers with many deficiencies. Only 18% were returned to full military duty (Class A), 20% to limited overseas duty, 19% to limited stateside service, and 36,000 were discharged from the Army. Just under a 1000 deserted, and 1356 died. I have not found any references to the battalions being numbered, so have not been able to look up the 7th Development Battalion. I suspect that information on this may be found in the book series \"The Medical Department of the U.S. Army in the World War\", but I don't have that at hand right now. I hope that helps a bit.\n"
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Jordan"
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[
[],
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b03qc9
|
What tools and processes do historians use to discern the difference between finds that point to rituals or religion and finds that are merely part of daily life?
|
I was watching a show that suggested, after finding a charred boulder near a Mayan settlement, that it must have been involved in a historical fire ritual rather than the more simple possibility that it had been part of a cooking or celebration area. What tools and best practices do historians and archaeologists have to help categorize finds as ritual as opposed to being related to daily life?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b03qc9/what_tools_and_processes_do_historians_use_to/
|
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"This seems like more of an archeological question, but from a historians part of view, very often the two go hand in hand. For many cultures, religion and ritual were part of daily life, through things like daily prayer or daily offerings to a god/gods. For something more specific to like what you’re asking about from a documentary, I’d have to see the specific details, but in general it’s pretty easy to differentiate between a fire for food versus a fire for metalworking, as an example, based on what was actually being burned, the distance from a home, the likely temperature of the flame, etc. However, it is very possible that the same fire could be used for both religious and practical purposes."
]
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|
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[]
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f3zhhu
|
Of the top 20 tallest statues in the world, 15 depict a Buddha or are Buddhist in nature. How did a religion typically associated with aeseticism and impermanence come to produce such ostentatious art?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f3zhhu/of_the_top_20_tallest_statues_in_the_world_15/
|
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"I am no historian, but a study of Buddhism in Japan has been a large focus of my studies in university lately, and I am a student of history. In an extremely oversimplified layman's terms; (forgive me historians who know a LOT more than me, I may be wrong in some respects)\n\n1. Buddhism is not as simple as we think of it. Like Christianity it has MANY sects that range in beliefs on enlightenment/salvation widely. \nFrom those that believe in a monastery life separate from most of society with strict rules to be reborn as a higher being, to Zen, which focuses on meditation and personal, sudden enlightenment (among other things), to those who believe that simply speaking the name of Amida Buddha is enough to be saved in Amida's pure land (similar to Christian paradise or Heaven in many ways). \n\nTo say Buddhism is all the same is like saying Catholics, protestants, Mormons, and Southern Baptists (among the many, many others) are the same. \n\nIn Japan, historically many sects believed that contributing to a great project like the building of a statue to honor one of the Buddhas could have been seen as a way to get closer to enlightenment or intone the mercy of said Buddha. It was similar to tithes and donations in the Christian church for many sects of Buddhism. \n\nThis doesn't directly answer your question, but I hope it contributes to understanding why some sects do have a greater focus on statues and material representations of spiritual things. \n\nSimply put, to the western student, sometimes Buddhism feels like a paradox or inconsistent, but to people in the east these paradoxes are often wholly and readily accepted.",
"I am a scholar neither of Buddhism nor of Buddhist art. Since I have, however, had occasion to read about the Indo-Greek origins of Buddhist monumental sculpture, I'd like to offer a few provisional comments while we wait for an actual expert on the topic.\n\nFirst, to make an obvious point, most of those mega-Buddhas were set up in the last 25 years, and should thus be interpreted in the contexts of national/regional pride and modern economic strength. They do, however, draw on an ancient tradition of colossal sculpture - as attested by the world's 18th tallest statue, a ninth-century Buddha near Leshan, China. \n\nI cannot pretend to trace the combination of religious, economic, and political factors that underpinned the creation of any particular image. But I can call attention to the fact that the tradition of monumental sculpture in Buddhism was very likely inspired, at least in broad outline, by Greek artistic conventions. \n\nAfter Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, substantial numbers of Greeks settled in Bactria - roughly northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan - bringing their language and culture with them. To take a famous example, Ai-Khanoum, a Greek city in the heart of northern Afghanistan, had every amenity of a Hellenistic polis: a gymnasium, a theater, and - most pertinently - dozens of statues depicting gods, heroes, and local worthies. A few of these statues, such as the cult image of Zeus in the city's primary temple, were colossal. \n\nAi-Khanoum itself was wiped off the map by nomads in the mid-second century, and the Greek kingdom of Bactria lasted little longer. Many of the Greek settlers, however, fled south into what is now northern Pakistan and northwestern India, which had been a province of the Bactrian kingdom. In this region, a motley assortment of Greek kings reigned, and occasionally ruled, for another century and a half, presiding over a realm in which Greek religion and Greek art coexisted and intermingled with their Indian counterparts. A remarkable number of Greeks converted to - or at least publicly expressed sympathy for - Buddhism, describing themselves as \"Yavanas\" (a corruption of \"Ionians\") in dedicatory inscriptions etched into the walls of Buddhist caves. \n\nThe Indo-Greek kingdom disintegrated around the end of the first century BCE, and its territories were soon absorbed by the great Kushan Empire. But in Gandhara, part of the old Indo-Greek heartland, a remarkable artistic tradition, clearly inspired by Hellenistic conventions, continued to thrive. There is some scholarly debate over whether the Greek element so evident in Gandhara art should be understood in terms of Indo-Greek survival or fresh influence conveyed via the Hellenophile Parthians. Whatever its sources, however, the depth of this Greek influence is impossible to deny. \n\nIt was in Gandhara, and during the first century flowering of that region's characteristic Greco-Buddhist art, that some of the earliest known sculptural representations of the Buddha appeared. Until this point, the Buddha had been represented aniconically - often by footprints, a tree, or a stupa. Now, in Gandhara, he began to be represented as a man, in statues that blended traditional Indian depictions of yakshas (nature spirits) with Hellenistic clothing and artistic conventions. [This statue](_URL_0_) is a good example.\n\nSculpture on a monumental scale was not, of course, a purely Greek innovation. But it was the Greek-inflected Gandhara tradition, which spread through the Kushan Empire, that dominated the iconography of the colossal (and now tragically destroyed) Bamiyan Buddhas, which may have been begun as early as the third century. As you can see in [this picture](_URL_1_), the robe of the larger Bamiyan Buddha was characterized by the Hellenistic-style drapery of the Gandhara style. \n\nDoes this mean that the colossal statues of the Buddha carved in Central Asia and (later) in China and Japan were directly inspired by the great cult statues of Greek temples? Of course not. Artistic influence is never so simple. But I do think that, in the distant lineage of all the gargantuan Buddhas on Wikipedia's big statue list, you'd find a little Greek DNA. \n\nThis, again, is only a partial answer. But I hope that it can at least complement the definitive response that a true expert will (hopefully) provide.",
"A similar question has been asked before and answered by u/troymcclurehere [here](_URL_0_) about how the creation and gifting of Buddhist artworks was a way to generate merit, which may help you.",
"I'm going to have a crack at answering this question. It's late and there's a lot to discuss, so forgive my typos and organization. I've also been working on this for many hours, and it's already 2 in the morning, so I'm afraid I'll have to continue my response some hours after I've posted this initial one. I hope this is okay, it already partially answers and illuminates some of the things brought up in the question.\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n^^edit ^^1: ^^I ^^accidentally ^^deleted ^^two ^^paragraphs ^^of ^^followup. ^^I'll ^^need ^^to ^^rewrite ^^them, ^^and ^^retrace ^^some ^^sources. ^^I've ^^also ^^included ^^additional ^^information ^^regarding ^^Japan. ^^Will ^^then ^^discuss ^^modern ^^statues, ^^and ^^finally, ^^criticism ^^and ^^issues.\n\n^^edit ^^2: ^^I ^^have ^^a ^^third ^^comment ^^discussing ^^modern ^^statues, ^^which ^^is ^^what ^^op ^^is ^^referencing. ^^There ^^are ^^less ^^readings ^^available ^^than ^^with ^^pre-modern ^^statues, ^^but ^^I've ^^tried ^^to ^^shed ^^some ^^light ^^on ^^Chinese ^^and ^^Japanese ^^projects. ^^I'm ^^reaching ^^the ^^limit ^^of ^^my ^^ability ^^through ^^fatigue, ^^if ^^possible ^^I'll ^^have ^^one ^^more ^^section ^^on ^^the ^^criticism ^^of ^^these ^^\"ostentatious\" ^^art.\n\n^^edit ^^3: ^^It's ^^5:20 ^^am, ^^I ^^will ^^polish ^^up ^^my ^^grammar, ^^writing, ^^and ^^formatting ^^when ^^I've ^^gotten ^^some ^^rest. ^^There ^^may ^^also ^^be ^^some ^^small ^^technical ^^errors ^^to ^^fix. ^^For ^^now ^^I've ^^addressed ^^most ^^of ^^what ^^I've ^^wanted ^^to ^^say, ^^if ^^there's ^^anything ^^else ^^that ^^comes ^^to ^^mind ^^I ^^may ^^add ^^it. ^^Cheers ^^all.\n\n^^edit ^^4: ^^Fixed ^^some ^^things.\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n\n---\n\n**Part 1 - Background in Understanding Buddhism and its Visual Aesthetics**\n\n---\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\nFirstly, I find the question somewhat problematic in discussing Buddhism and its ideals. Without going into too much detail and losing focus on the main question at hand, it's crucial to discuss how popular western understanding of Buddhism is heavily built upon the work of Buddhist propagation in the 20th century. In the 1900's onwards, Buddhism would begin to truly take hold in Europe and America as a practice, where previously knowledge of the religion (and I do say religion, this is a wholly separate and complicated argument and matter which we will not explore not) mostly came from explorers, missionaries, historians, and philosophers. Theravadin Buddhism occupied the most interest in the first half of the 20th century, accessible due to colonial presence in Theravadin countries. With Japan's defeat in World War II, Zen came to be truly globalized. Tibetan traditions also have a notable presence, greatly due to the political situation of the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the Dalai Lama's subsequent flight and advocacy work. A second wave of immigration from Southeast Asia can be credit from -political, economic, and social instability, prompting growing communities of Vietnamese Mahayanan and Southeast Theravadin traditions.\n\nWhy do I mention all this? Because the practice of Buddhism in the west is noticeably different than in Asia. Whereas Western Buddhism heavily focuses on and specializes in meditation and contemplation, the various kinds of Buddhism in Asia treat the religion on a much more intimate, everyday, and cultural level. In the same manner a churchgoer interacts with the community through practice, ritual, holidays, etc, the Buddhist in Asia does not only focus on the dharma, but the relationship with the laity and the monastic. Historically, the monks were the vanguard of the tradition, and they served the community by offering the spiritual, moral, ethical, ritual, educational guidance. Laypersons were observers and offered whatever was necessary to sustain the monastery. The differences in proportion of layperson to monk in the west and east must also be highlighted. Fewer ordained and qualified teachers in the west means the entire practice of Buddhism needed to change, and the monk-layperson relationship drastically adapted to new conditions.\n\nAs such, there have been efforts to alter, deemphasis, and deminish the religious and worship aspects of Buddhism, to be compatible with spiritual trends and social circumstances of the mid to late 20th century. We must understand that Christianity's overwhelming historical presence in Europe and America has heavily impacted society and culture. Alternative options to the dominant norm are always sought after, and Buddhism is one of them. This was especially the case in the 20th century, with the growth of New Religion Movements and a tendency to look towards Asia as a guide for spirituality. This further shapes how Buddhism is to be shared and taught with a different kind of audience. (This is why we also see differences today with American Buddhism and Ethnic Buddhism, the kind practiced by ethnic and immigrant communities.) Meditation and personal insight as a means to achieve liberation and spiritual cultivation is a major focus accessible to the laity in America and Europe. It is not just something reserved for the dedicated monks, the common layperson can participate too. And this is compatible with western conditions, as Buddhism offers a path that isn't in servitude towards a God or higher being, but rather, the personal self. This is why we might mainly focus on or understand the dharma and its ideas as concepts such as the paramitas and the Four Noble Truths. It is also critical to distinguish *detachment* from *asceticism*, which is something discussed in the Middle Way and cautioned by the Buddha. Asceticism is an extreme, not encouraged in Buddhism. However, there are historical instances of intensive devotional acts, but this cannot be considered the norm. The lifestyle of the monastic is certainly rigid, restrained, and intense, but ascetic is somewhat of a misleading term.\n\nTo return to my main point here, Buddhism in the east and west are engaged and understood differently. We may understand parts of the dharma as removing attachment, reliance, craving, towards material and impermanent things. These elements, of course, aren't neglected in Asia, but the Buddha and other Buddhist figures represent other ideas of wisdom, salvation, guidance, and meaning. This is why you may find gilded figurines and statues in Tibet and Southeast Asia. Why the offering of merit is so crucial to Burmese society. Why temple goers regularly prey and offer incense in China. Simply put, aesthetics, images, and physical, consumable, and tangible things help one to understand and engage with Buddhism. This is effected by, effects, and intermingles with culture of whichever society Buddhism is in. Ostentatious art is just a natural result of this.\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\n---\n\n**Part 2a - Answering the Main Question, On Statues and Grandiosity**\n\n---\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\nOkay, so now that we somewhat understand why some arts and aesthetics of Buddhism may be fanciful and extravagant, why are Buddhist statues so darn big?\n\nWe must explore this by dividing time between the pre-modern and modern world. Firstly, we can consider the ancient world and earlier Buddhism. I will try to create a narrative from three examples, Central Asia, China, and Japan, each relying on the preceding civilization with the transmission of Buddhism and its art and practices.\n\nBuddhism originated in the Northern India/Nepal region, and made its way south and west. Buddhism would take an immense hold in Gandhara/Central Asia, up until the great social changes of Islamic conquest. As such, Buddhism spread through the Silk Road, and would be impacted by other ideas with it. Alexander's conquests brought the importance of Hellenistic culture to Persia, Central Asia, India, and China. This is significant as the Greco-Roman valuing of the human figure would dramatically influence art in the aforementioned regions. There is some debate in art history regarding the significance and impact of cultures on one another, though. Large statues of human-like and animal figures existed in Egypt and the Achaemenid Empire. Subjects can vary, be it royalty, rulers, deities, or other mythological figures. Nevertheless, it could be fair to suggest that Hellenistic, Egyptian, and Persian aesthetic values had some impact on Central Asia.\n\nThis is why the Bamyan Statues, destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban, are/were such important examples of early Buddhist art. Previously, depictions of the Buddha and other Buddhist figures in the Gandharan region might take form in stupas and statues, but those would not exceed 10m/33ft in height. The larger Buddha in Bamiyan was 53m/174ft in height, while the smaller was 35m/115ft. Not only that, the famous monk-traveler Xuanzang describes them as to be decorated with precious stones and gold. These large statues would be an imposing and awe-inspiring site, one highly praised by residents and visitors alike. It would also represent the devotion of the people, the power of the ruler, and the admiration and respect followers would have towards the Buddha."
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1f7y6p
|
Is it true that Alexander the Great used interpreters to speak to his Greek speaking soldiers?
|
Was the ancient Macedonian tongue incomprehensible to a Greek speaking person?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1f7y6p/is_it_true_that_alexander_the_great_used/
|
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"If you're asking \"Is it true\", then where does the assertion originally come from?\n\nAlexander would have obviously had \"Macedonian\" as his mother-tongue, probably a Thraco-Illyrian language with a mix of Attic or Aeolic Greek. \n\nSince Alexander and his companions-to-be were given a Greek education by Aristotle, he most certainly would have been taught Attic (Classical Greek), and he may have known the Aeolic Greek dialect as well.\n\nI found my info from [here](_URL_0_) if you're interested in reading more. ",
"Probably not. It is assumed that he learned greek during the lessons with Aristoteles or other scholars and that it was mandatory for a \"prince\" like him.\n\nAfter the death of Philip II., he had to replace him in a lot of positions, not only as the \"king\" (better: basileus) of Macedonia. One of that positions was the chairman of the Amphictyonic League, where he had to speak to envoys from all over Greek. It is unlikely that he used an interpreter in this important religious case. \n\nAnother example for the importance of speaking greek for Alexander was his role as the leader of the League of Corinth, when he had convince the other members of the necessity for the campaign against Persia. \n\nIn the case of speaking in front of his soldiers, we also have to think about the moral of the troops, which was quite down in the last two years of the campaign. It is more useful to talk directly to the troops, not with the help of an interpreter. \n\n\nSources: \n\nBarcelo, Pedro: Alexander der Große\nLane Fox, Robin: Alexander the Great"
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[] |
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"http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/AncientMacedonia/shea2.html"
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|
14x1bx
|
In my history class we're doing a mock trial of King Louis XVI of France in 1793. I'm the defense lawyer and I need some help
|
So, I need some kind of argument and evidence to back it up. Obviously Louis was found guilty, but the court was heavily biased, but it's tough when you know you're arguing on the wrong side.
What points are there that I can make (and evidence, preferably with citations) which I can use to argue his case?
Also, are there any sources around of what Louis actually said, and what the prosecution actually said, so I can rebuttle some of the statements originally given?
Thanks in advance.
Edit: Thanks for all the help. Just to let anyone who's interested know - the class could not make a unanimous decision so the trial was "postponed pending further evidence" - so in this case, the defense won. Thanks for all the sources, quotes and general help!
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/14x1bx/in_my_history_class_were_doing_a_mock_trial_of/
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"While Wikipedia isn't good for finding information that's well-founded/academically acceptable, it's great for tracking down sources. There're a couple of books listed on [the page for his trial](_URL_0_), which your local library might have. It's also a good jumping-off point for doing research and finding more reputable/academically acceptable resources online.",
"Refuse to accept the court's authority and legitimacy. The so called National Assembly is functionally a coup of middle class Parisians. They have no recognition from any other government as being the legitimate government of France. The idea of treason is laughable. Just because a paramilitary force has taken captive the legitimate leader of the nation, doesn't render that leader's self defense as high treason. ",
"[Here](_URL_2_) is a good source.\n\n[Here](_URL_1_) is some of what was actually said in the trial.\n\nWhat I would use as a defence lawyer would be this statement by Saint-Just, a leading Jacobin:\n\n > ...he was executed not for what he had done but for what he was: a menace to the Republic\n\nand while he said it after the execution of Louis, it does reveal a great deal about how the Jacobins thought and the true motive behind Louis' execution.\n\nAnother factor I would mention would be the *appel nominal* - Marat called for each deputy of the Convention to publicly declare his decision on whether Louis was guilty or innocent. Once again, a subversion of justice. No one voted that Louis was innocent, but 310 voted for a reprieve: clearly, the Convention is being pressured and intimidated into the trial.\n\nSome more numbers: 749 total deputies, 693 guilty votes.\n\n387 votes for death penalty, 288 for imprisonment.\n\n310 for a reprieve, 380 against a reprieve.\n\nThese reveal that a majority of the Convention is likely moderate and hesitant to support the execution of Louis, but were probably pressured into supporting his trial.\n\nAnother thing which the prosecution attempted to hold against Louis was the bloodshed at the Tuileries on 10 August 1792. An argument against that would be that the King ordered his Swiss Guard not to fire on the attacking revolutionaries, who proceeded to massacre 600 Swiss, with the killing or wounding of 390 of the attackers.\n\nAnother earlier example of the intimidation of the Legislature - this time the Legislative Assembly - was when the revolutionaries invaded it and forced it to recognise the orders for a new revolutionary Commune, which ordered the attack on the Tuileries. Although the Assembly maintained power over France, the Commune had power in Paris.\n\nI'll edit in more facts as they come to me.\n\nEDIT 1: throughout this thread there seems to be some confusion about the legislative body in France.\nIt was initally called the National Assembly. When Louis accepted the constitution, it became the Legislative Assembly. When Louis was overthrown, a new legislature called the National Convention was created, with no members of the previous Assembly (due to the self-denying ordinance preventing them from serving in it).\n\nEDIT 2: More examples of the intimidation of the Convention. In Paris, all 24 members of the Convention were Jacobins and republicans - clearly, the moderates and royalists are not represented. This is clearly undemocratic.\n\nOver half of the Girondin deputies in the assembly voted to execute Louis, but the Jacobins still branded them as royalists. It is clear that the execution and trial of Louis is a political play and sham by the Jacobins.\n\nEDIT 3: Marat blames the Assembly - whose successor is now putting Louis on trial - for complicity in the flight to Varennes [here](_URL_0_). It must be concluded that one or the other has no legitimate authority and is manipulating the situation for its own ends.",
" > you know you're arguing on the wrong side\n\nI don't know about this. Sure, you're against the side that won, but arguably Louis shouldn't be blamed just for being a king. He was born into it, one could argue there's nothing he could have done differently.",
"I love David Jordan's *The Kings Trial: Louis XVI vs the French Revolution*. I highly recommend picking it up, because it meshes much of the history with the politics, and contextualizes the arguments Louis and his defense attorneys try to use, and why.\n\nThe defense generally stayed away from challenging the legitimacy of the court trying him - he had indeed recognized the authority of the legislature himself earlier. And legal obstacles delayed, not stopped injustice. It would further fan the flames. So the route they chose was that Louis had done nothing to break the law. He argued that he was not answerable for any actions prior to his acceptance of the constitution (since he was a divine right monarch then - which would address his sending of troops to surround Paris), and that the evidence against him had been illegally seized (referring to the armoire de fer).\n\nIn terms of crafting the argument, it was very much targeted at the moderates in the crowd, because the radical Jacobins would not be swayed.\n\nSo, the stance they took was a pro-royalist history. Louis *had* actually enabled the revolution by calling the estates. He had also demanded the first and second estates join the third in the Tennis Court, essentially recognizing their authority. In 1789 he was declared the \"restorer of French liberty\" and voluntarily gave up his powers.\n\nAs mentioned earlier, this focuses on Post-constitutional actions of Louis for which he was accused. It was primarily argued that the Constitution limited his authority, and he could not posses the power to do all that he was accused of, nor could he be held responsible for using what little power he *was* given.\n\nIt was also quite crucial to note that Louis would \"argue for his life, not beg for it\", and in this regard shifted from formality to pathos, and displayed a profound sense of dignity in the process, working closely with his lawyers every step of the way, and refusing their council at points or on arguments.",
"I wrote a pretty comprehensive term paper on this a few years back, I can give you more detail when I get home, but I pretty good argument would be that he was a \"victim of circumstance\". A lot of what occurred during his reign was in the making for a long time, and Louis XVI did attempt to make some compromises. His trial was actually pretty unjust in my opinion.\n",
"Does anyone here realize that OP didn't have to do one bit of research for a project? Isn't the point of history about researching things yourself and coming to ultimate conclusions based on the material you have read? The top posts simply gave him all the answers without him actually having to search through material which is part of the whole point of doing historical research in the first place. When did this subreddit become \"do my homework for me\"?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Louis_XVI"
],
[],
[
"http://www.marxists.org/history/france/revolution/marat/1791/king.htm",
"http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/louis_trial.html",
"http://www.marxists.org/archive/jaures/1901/history/trial-king.htm"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
25f45p
|
Why has the Arabic language remained the same over centuries while other languages, like English have changed drastically?
|
I am bilingual in Arabic and English. Although its not exactly the same, I don't have a hard time reading Arabic texts that is a thousand year old, while its impossible to do that with English. I can not speak of other languages as I haven't really experienced them.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/25f45p/why_has_the_arabic_language_remained_the_same/
|
{
"a_id": [
"chgkpvw"
],
"score": [
28
],
"text": [
"This is mainly due to the influence of the Koran. Educated Muslims were always expected to understand the Koran in its original language. However -- colloquial Arabic actually has changed greatly since medieval days, to the point that an Arabic speaker from, say, Morocco, might have difficulty understanding street conversations in Lebanon or Saudi Arabia. It's possible for people to have conversations in formal Arabic (\"fosha\") but it's a little unusual. \n\nOther cultures with classical languages that are still readily understandable by educated peoples would include Chinese and Jewish. Until the 19th century Latin was broadly understood by educated Europeans. "
]
}
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[] |
[] |
[
[]
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ads3m4
|
Every so often, we see pictures of people in Middle Eastern countries looking super-western and modern. When did the ME become super-conservative?
|
We see pictures from the 60s of people in Iran wearing what hippies in America wore. We saw pictures of the Bin Laden family (with Osama before he became a fundamentalist and murderous terrorist) wearing jeans and T-shirts. When did this all change, and why?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ads3m4/every_so_often_we_see_pictures_of_people_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"edjvnq1"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"Not to discourage further answers, but /u/yodatsracist gave a great response [here](_URL_0_)!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/askhistorians/comments/81y4iq/_/dv6v9jq"
]
] |
|
3xfpf7
|
Would a typical Ancient Roman keep a weapon in their home to defend themselves? What type of weapon might they have used?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3xfpf7/would_a_typical_ancient_roman_keep_a_weapon_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cy4olgl"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Before the creation of the professional army, a Roman citizen would keep a weapon in his home because he was expected to. The armed forces of Rome consisted of citizens called up to fight with whatever equipment they possessed. The rich could afford to buy themselves nice armour, a shield, sword, and spear or throwing spears; poorer citizens might only have a few of these items, or, if they could not afford a sword or spear, they would arm themselves with javelins or a simple sling. In peacetime these things would of course be kept around the house.\n\nTo my knowledge, though, there is no reference in any ancient source to the threat of home invasion that is often used nowadays as a justification for keeping weapons in the house. It doesn't seem to have been something people were very worried about. Even in wartime, the common response to the threat of invasion was to seek refuge in a city or stronghold, rather than to stock up on weapons in one's own property. (I would be happy to be corrected on this by someone more familiar with the Roman material.)\n"
]
}
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[
[]
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1rhktw
|
How was blood regarded in medicine during medieval times?
|
I remember that I once picked up the fact that in medieval times people believed all blood would be the same. E.g. pig's blood, human blood etc. I'm referring to around 800-1000 AD in central Europe, but I'm not sure.
I know about the common blood drain practice of these days but would still find it interesting if there have been any attempts to actually donate blood or if this idea was seem as ridiculous.
As for the time-frame, feel free to contribute about whatever timespan or region you know.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1rhktw/how_was_blood_regarded_in_medicine_during/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cdncjcb"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Medieval Europe borrowed exclusively from ancient medical precedents and intermixed these with spiritual causations like sin, fate, and other supernatural powers. The most prominent source was the ancient Greek, Hippocrates. He is where modern medicine gets its \"Hippocratic Oath.\" He was the first to synthesise and record (despite there being earlier references, like the Egyptians) the idea of the four humours. These four humours were the cause of health. \n\nThe four humors of Hippocratic medicine are black bile (Gk. melan chole), yellow bile (Gk. chole), phlegm (Gk. phlegma), and blood (Gk. haima). These are to be kept in balance or else sickness occurs. Increasing and decreasing these four elements was a central component of medieval, European medicine and some Islamic medicinal theory as well. Avicenna would be the most prominent amongst the Islamic medical theorists; he borrowed heavily from another ancient Greek, Galen. The four humours corresponded with the four states of hot,wet,cold, dry. Theophrastus, who was a successor to Aristotle in his school, would attribute the humours to aspects of character, thus one with too much blood was \"sanguine\".\n\nAn interesting medieval character to look at, though later than your stated dates(*The Canterbury Tales* are late 14th century), would be [Chaucer's Physician.](_URL_0_). His description in the \"General Prologue\" is short at just 33 lines. The link I have provided contains a bilateral version with the Middle and Modern English.\n \n He knew the cause of every sickness,\n Whether it brings heat or cold, moisture or dryness,\n And where engendered, and of what humour;\n He was a very good practitioner.\n\n Well he knew the old Esculapius,\n And Deiscorides, and also Rufus,\n Old Hippocrates, Hali, and Galen,\n Serapion, Rhazes, and Avicen,\n Averroes, Gilbertus, and Constantine,\n Bernard and Gatisden, and John Damascene."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.librarius.com/canttran/genpro/genpro413-446.htm"
]
] |
|
4x9ac6
|
Did ancient China have tattoos? And if so, what was the depiction and purpose?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4x9ac6/did_ancient_china_have_tattoos_and_if_so_what_was/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d6dwetd"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"There had been a few different types of tattoos in imperial and pre-imperial China. \n\nOriginally, tattoos were associated with non-Han \"barbarians\". For example, in *Book of Rites* (礼记), it has been noted that a group of non-Han people in the east wear their hair down their backs and have tattoos on their bodies.\n\nSince the Zhou Dynasty, some criminals would have characters tattooed on their faces as a punishment to indicate that they've committed a major crime. The idea is that they'd be carrying their prison record on their face wherever they go. The specific crimes associated with this type of punishment and its implementation vary depending on the time period. This practice lasted throughout China's imperial history and was finally abolished in the Qing Dynasty.\n\nTowards the end of the Tang Dynasty, some military governors were known to tattoo their conscripted soldiers to make it easier to catch deserters. By the time of the Southern Song dynasty, some military units used tattoos (facial or otherwise) as a symbol of bravery. \n\nDuring the late Yuan Dynasty, Shi Nai'an wrote *Water Margin*, a novel about bandits in the Song Dynasty. In this novel, three characters are known to be extensively tattooed for aesthetic reasons: [Lu Zhishen](_URL_1_), Yan Qing ([modern interpretation](_URL_2_)), and [Shi Jin](_URL_0_). This implies that by the mid 1300s, when the novel was written, tattoo as body art was not unheard of."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://g.hiphotos.baidu.com/baike/c0%3Dbaike116%2C5%2C5%2C116%2C38/sign=ff19ffc08913632701e0ca61f0e6cb89/f31fbe096b63f62485a65a1f8444ebf81a4ca337.jpg",
"http://b.hiphotos.baidu.com/baike/c0%3Dbaike80%2C5%2C5%2C80%2C26/sign=747007e34210b912abccfeaca2949766/09fa513d269759ee840c2093b7fb43166d22df0e.jpg",
"http://img4.imgtn.bdimg.com/it/u=4169392169,1498980345&fm=21&gp=0.jpg"
]
] |
||
drupvt
|
When did popular music start adopting Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus and when did it become the de facto standard?
|
The wiki page for "Song Structures" didn't help. I can trace it as far as early 60s (She Loves You by The Beatles).
When was the first music in this structure recorded and around which period did it become the default Song Structure.
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/drupvt/when_did_popular_music_start_adopting/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f6lincg"
],
"score": [
33
],
"text": [
"Before the early 1960s, 20th century pop music typically followed an 'A-A-B-A' structure, where a verse was repeated twice, and then followed by a bridge/alternate section, before returning to the verse. Think 'Anything Goes' written by Cole Porter or 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?' by Gerry Goffin and Carole King - basically a whole lot of American commercial songwriting, whether Tin Pan Alley or Brill Building. In this form there isn't really a separate chorus section, but there's often a single line at the end of the verse that is repeated at the end of every verse, which is often the title of the song. What 'verse-chorus-verse-chorus' structure does, essentially, is to replace the first 'A's in the 'A-A-B-A' with two separate sections - the verse and the chorus, so the structure becomes Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Verse-Chorus, with various possible variations on the theme (ending with Chorus-Chorus, or inserting 'pre-choruses' or 'post-choruses' within that overall structure).\n\nBroadly speaking, however, an entirely different tradition that rises out of folk music and finds its way into country music and rhythm & blues in the 1940s and 1950s often has what gets called 'simple verse structure', which is to say that there is no structure - there is simply a verse which is repeated over and over, and that's the structure. One variant on the simple verse structure is a structure where the melody and the chords stay the same, but every second verse is a repeated verse which stays the same throughout the song (i.e., a chorus). Alternatively, the verse might be broken up into two halves, where the first half of the verse differs in each verse, but the second half stays the same (i.e., a chorus).\n\nBroadly speaking, a lot of rock'n'roll songs of the 1950s had a structure along the lines of these simple verse variants, mildly tarted up in the hope of commercial success. 'Tutti Frutti' by Little Richard from 1956 uses the alternating repeated simple verse form - the verse and the chorus are basically the same, but the chorus has the nonsense syllables that repeat the same way every time, while the verse has different lyrics about different women (for example, Sue, who knows just what to do, etc). 'Rock Around The Clock' does the other variant - the first half of a verse details the particular parts of the clock we're currently at, and the second half repeats what is to be done at all times of the clock (e.g., rock). 'Rock'n'Roll Music' by Chuck Berry, I think, varies between an A (the 12 bar blues-style chorus) and B (the more Latin-sounding section: 'don't care to hear them play a tango').\n\nMusically, von Appen and Frei-Hauenschild (2015) argue that Leiber & Stoller-written rock'n'roll songs like the Coaster's 1959 track 'Poison Ivy', where they begin to lean a little more heavily on AABA structure, rather than simple verse structure, definitely presage things like 'She Loves You' by combining an R & B sound and style with more classic American commercial songwriting. \n\nBut it's with bands like the Beach Boys and the Beatles circa 1963-64 where these two forms start to become combined (and in more ways musically than just song structure) and the combined form becomes particularly popular. Lennon and McCartney, in their early years, professed a wish to become 'the English Goffin & King', but they had grown up with rock'n'roll, and the Beatles' sound was what was then a quite hard edged rock'n'roll sound. Similarly, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys had deeply imbibed Tin Pan Alley songwriting through the Four Freshmen's vocal arrangements of the songs of the likes of Cole Porter and George Gershwin, and was deeply influenced by the Brill Building sound (Goffin & King, et al), what with his idolisation of Phil Spector's wall of sound. But the Beach Boys, of course, were a surf rock band, and were also deeply influenced by Chuck Berry to the point of plagiarism ('Surfin' USA'). \n\nUnsurprisingly, given their influences, these songwriters eventually gravitated towards combining the structural elements of rock'n'roll and the structural elements of more traditional pop songwriting, writing songs with both verses and choruses, but also with an overall structure reminiscent of the AABA form (e.g., with a middle 8/bridge section). And because the Beatles and the Beach Boys were both phenomenally popular and widely, widely imitated, verse-chorus form fairly quickly became the new normal. \n\nTo give a sense of its take up in the 1960s, let's take the songwriters at Motown, who were fairly unambiguously just trying (and succeeding) to write hits. The first big Motown hit that I think unambiguously has verse-chorus form in the Beatles/Beach Boys sense is Marvin Gaye's 'How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)' from late 1964. By 1965 they begin to use the verse-chorus form more often, as with 'Stop! In The Name Of Love' by the Supremes, 'Tracks of My Tears' by the Miracles, and 'It's The Same Old Song' by the Four Tops, and I'd say it becomes fairly default by 1966 in Motown's songwriting, I'd say (see 'Get Ready' by the Temptations, 'Reach Out (I'll Be There)' by the Four Tops, 'Keep Me Hangin' On' by the Supremes, and 'Ain't Too Proud To Beg' by the Temptations', etc etc).\n\nAnd yes, 'She Loves You' (the Beatles' fourth single) may well be their first released song to unambiguously have the 'verse-chorus' structure. The Beach Boys, according to O'Regan (2014), used the verse-chorus format from early on (e.g., 'Surfin Safari', their first Capitol single), along the lines of Chuck Berry's usage in 'Rock'n'Roll Music' - it's in 1964 Beach Boys songs like 'I Get Around' and 'Don't Worry Baby' that Wilson's use of the verse-chorus structure starts to aim towards the more sophisticated AABA-influenced verse-chorus song structure the Beatles were using on 'She Loves You'.\n\nSources: \n\n* *When I Grow Up: The Development of the Beach Boys’ Sound (1962-1966)* (PhD thesis) by Jade O'Regan, 2014\n\n* 'AABA, Refrain, Chorus, Bridge, Prechorus - Song forms and their historical development' by Ralf von Appen and Markus Frei-Hauenschild in the journal *Samples* (2015)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2532bp
|
During The Troubles, who were the primary IRA bomb makers? How did they learn their trade?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2532bp/during_the_troubles_who_were_the_primary_ira_bomb/
|
{
"a_id": [
"chduys9"
],
"score": [
3
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"text": [
"Arguably, the Provisional IRA's most successful operation during the entire course of the Troubles was the Warrenpoint ambush, in which two remote controlled IED's were detonated, and occurred on August 27, 1979. The first detonation hit a truck convoy, the second IED was planted where the PIRA believed the medivac element would respond to care for the soldiers killed or injured in the first detonation. In all, 18 British soldiers were killed, and 6 seriously wounded.\n\nThe South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional IRA was responsible for the attack, and the bomb makers are believed to be Brendan Burns and Joe Brennan. Incidentally, Burns was later killed when his own bomb prematurely detonated. \n\nThe South Armagh Brigade was considered by far the most capable part of the IRA, and controlled much of the ground in South Armagh, making ground transportation extremely hazardous for the British Army garrisoned there. I highly recommend Toby Harnden's \"Bandit Country\" as the most in depth study of the South Armagh Brigade of the PIRA. The same brigade was also tasked by the PIRA leadership with carrying out most if not all of the 'spectaculars' (to use their terminology) in England. Frequently, the bombs would be constructed near the town of Crossmaglen in South Armagh and be transported to England in semi-truck trailers. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2dhxxy
|
Why was the British defence of Greece in WWII so light?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2dhxxy/why_was_the_british_defence_of_greece_in_wwii_so/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjq029k",
"cjq10m5",
"cjqbf76"
],
"score": [
8,
3,
2
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"text": [
"With the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact holding and America not in the war, the British Commonwealth was virtually alone in October 1940, still fighting the Battle of Britain (albeit the final throes) when Italy invaded Greece. Although the immediate threat of a German invasion of Britain passed, the Luftwaffe continued heavy attacks into 1941 holding down the RAF (the aircraft eventually despatched to Greece were aged Gladiators and Blenheims, Spitfires held back for the defence of Britain), and the army were engaged in North Africa as well as re-arming after losing a massive amount of heavy equipment in France (\"We had lost the whole equipment of the Army to which all the first-fruits of our factories had hitherto been given. Many months must elapse, even if the existing programmes were fulfilled without interruption by the enemy, before this loss could be repaired.\" Winston Churchill, *The Second World War*). There just weren't the resources to support Greece at that point, especially as it wasn't a strategic priority (\"Loss of Greece and Balkans by no means a major catastrophe for us, provided Turkey remains honest neutral.\" *ibid*)\n\nIn early 1941, with the Italians heavily defeated in Libya and stalled in Greece, the situation seemed to have slightly improved. With Germany preparing to move into the Balkans, and the threat of Rommel and the Afrika Korps not fully appreciated, the British despatched what they could from Egypt ('W' Force), weakening their position in North Africa in the process. The hope was to galvanise a combined Balkan effort: \"It was not what we could send ourselves that could decide the Balkan issue. Our limited hope was to stir and organise united action. If at the wave of our wand Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey would all act together, it seemed to us that Hitler might either let the Balkans off for the time being or become so heavily engages with our combined forces as to create a major front in that theatre.\" (*ibid*) With Turkey remaining neutral and the rapid fall of Yugoslavia, that faint hope was crushed.",
"Initially - when the Italians invaded - the Greeks didn't want British support, they feared retaliation by the Germans in response. After a change of leadership, and the subsequent German invasion, they finally allowed the British in, but even then, it was not enough to combat the superior German forces. ",
"A quick note before I go into detail. It was hardly a \"British\" defence. The majority of Allied troops in Greece in 1941 were Greek (the Greek army had about 400,000 men at the time). And a sizable portion of the other troops involved in Greece's defense were from the Commonwealth (the 6th Australian Division and the New Zealand 2nd Division both played major roles in the defense of Greece).\n\nThe fact Greece fell in less than a month can be chalked up to a variety of factors. \n\nFirst off, the Greek Army was woefully unprepared for war. Greece wasn't an industrial nation, and that meant it didn't have adequate artillery, transport, small arms, or ammunition. Greek troops had been fighting since August 1940 (when Italy had invaded northern Greece) and the fighting had further depleted Greece's already limited supplies of war material. So when the Germans made a concerted, mechanized attack on Greece, the Greeks simply didn't have the resources to repel them. \n\nSecondly, the Axis powers were able to establish air superiority over Greece. Italy's Regia Aeronautica and the German Luftwaffe effectively ruled the skies over Greece in 1941. Stuka dive bombers interdicted Allied supply convoys, harassed retreating troops, sunk ships, hammered strongpoints, and generally made life miserable for the Allies in Greece. Germany Bf109s and Bf110s quickly swept the handful of RAF Hurricanes and Gladiators from the skies. The loss of air superiority left Greek and British Imperial troops at a severe disadvantage in the defense of Greece.\n\nThirdly, the German and Italian forces invading Greece badly outnumbered the Greek and British Imperial defenders. This allowed them to outflank, encircle, and overwhelm Allied troops and allowed them to keep up a constant pressure on the Allied defenders. \n\nFourthly, there were major strategic failures on the Allies' part. The Greeks had serious gaps in their defensive lines (especially in the north-west) and the Germans were able to exploit them during their invasion. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
7p64ux
|
Bad middle ages art
|
If people (monks) spent all their time writing and drawing funny pictures in the margins, why are they not that great at drawing?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7p64ux/bad_middle_ages_art/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dsevy2y",
"dsevz1a"
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text": [
"At least judging by the way this question is phrased, it sounds like it's just a matter of taste, which we can't really help you with. I happen to adore the illustrations in illuminated manuscripts. The [Winchester](_URL_1_) and [Morgan](_URL_0_) Bibles are two of my favorites.",
"[Who](_URL_8_) [says](_URL_1_) [that](_URL_9_) [medieval](_URL_2_) [people](_URL_6_) [can't](_URL_0_) [draw](_URL_5_)?\n\nBut seriously, you may be interested in some recent threads on the subject of medieval art: [1](_URL_7_), [2](_URL_4_), [3](_URL_3_).\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.themorgan.org/collection/Crusader-Bible/thumbs",
"http://www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk/gallery/the-winchester-bible/"
],
[
"http://libraries.slu.edu/digital/mssexhibit07/images/york01.jpg",
"http://psalter.library.uu.nl/page?p=11&res=3&x=0&y=364",
"http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10509412z/f21.image.r=villard%20de%20honnecourt",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7jkfrv/how_did_the_leap_from_medieval_art_to_renaissance/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7kku88/why_did_art_decline_in_the_middle_ages/",
"http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_11695_f005v",
"http://blog.metmuseum.org/penandparchment/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/cat380r2_49f.jpg",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/74eedm/why_did_prerenaissance_christian_art_degrade_so/dny8p1m/",
"http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/index.php?DRIS_ID=MS58_003v",
"https://lib.ugent.be/viewer/archive.ugent.be%3A018970A2-B1E8-11DF-A2E0-A70579F64438#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=14&r=0&xywh=1475%2C2744%2C7434%2C5370"
]
] |
|
7hp149
|
To what extent did the British give Israel to the Jews, and to what extent did the Jews take it from the British by force?
|
I was discussing Palestine with a Palestinian student of mine the other day, and he mentioned Britain giving the Jews Israel. My impression was rather, 1)the Balfour Declaration said in the future the Jews would get a homeland, but nothing much was done about it 2) Britain allowed Jewish immigrants to move to Israel, and after WW2 lots of Jewish refugees (I remember something about how they limited the refugees allowed there, but then there was a bunch of refugees stuck on ships dying off the coast, so they relented and let them all in), and then the Israelis, angry at what they saw as British failure to protect them, had a revolution (I remember something about the King David hotel being blown up?) where they fought the Palestinians and essentially chased the British off with their tails between their legs, then declaring the creation of the State of Israel.
But I don't know that much about the period, and of course, reading about it on the internet is somewhat suspect since it's so ideologically charged.
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7hp149/to_what_extent_did_the_british_give_israel_to_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dqt9bun"
],
"score": [
22
],
"text": [
"Hi there,\n\nThe first point of yours is correct, in that the British never acted on giving Jews the \"national homeland\" promised, definitely not in the form of a state. While they did allow Jewish immigration, they did not make a concrete proposal for ending the British Mandate and creating a Jewish state until 1937, and that proposal was never implemented. Indeed, in 1922 the Churchill White Paper actually walked back the claim that Jews had been promised a state, and claimed it was solely promised a \"national homeland\" (which is textually true) and that this does not necessarily mean a state in all of Palestine, or even most of it, or even any of it in some sense.\n\nYour second point is also correct, but only in part. It is true that the British allowed Jewish immigrants to move to Israel, but after WWII they made efforts to prevent Jewish immigration. In fact, those efforts began prior to WWII, with the British White Paper of 1939, that placed a limit on Jewish immigration. Jews largely gave up on legal immigration following that white paper, and chose to arrive illegally and be smuggled in. Even when Jews had arrived illegally, they were sometimes caught en route and sent to prison camps, or sent back to displaced persons camps. Your reference to ships off the coast is likely a reference to what is known as the *Exodus* affair. A ship carrying Holocaust survivors arrived in the British Mandate, or was due to, and was attacked in international waters and taken over by British forces, who killed 4 passengers during the raid. They were then taken to the port of Haifa, loaded onto prison ships (all of this happening in view of the UN Special Committee on Palestine's members, which Zionist leaders coordinated since they knew it would influence them in favor of a Jewish state), and sent to France. France refused to unload anyone who did not want to be unloaded, and so the British took the ships to Germany, unloading the Holocaust survivors back into the British-controlled area of Germany, the state where the Holocaust had been engineered. Obviously, this was a very unpopular occurrence, but British immigration policy did not really ease up; in reality, Holocaust survivors mostly flooded into Israel after Israel won the war (or through illegal immigration), and not thanks to the British.\n\nThe Israelis (at this point, best described simply as \"Zionists\", as Israel did not exist) did not have a \"revolution\", but they did launch a campaign to try and get the British to leave and abdicate the Mandate. This was initially considered following the 1939 White Paper, but at the outbreak of WWII, Zionist groups set it aside. David Ben-Gurion, Israel's biggest Founding Father, famously said that they would fight the White Paper as if there was no WWII, and fight WWII as if there was no White Paper, essentially saying that Zionist groups would not fight the British for the time being. The exception was a small, fringe group with roughly 400-500 members at its peak, called Lehi, who continued to fight the British through guerrilla and terrorist tactics. Irgun (also known as \"Etzel\") was also a smaller group, though it peaked at around 3-5,000 members, and it also carried out attacks, but it did not begin to carry them out again until 1944. Haganah, the main force and which peaked in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of members, waited until the end of WWII before joining in the campaign. Haganah was least willing to target civilians, while Etzel was more accepting of civilian casualties, and Lehi was even more extreme. The King David Hotel Bombing, which was perpetrated by Etzel, was one example; while Irgun maintained that they warned the British to evacuate the hotel, which was being used as a command base, the British insisted no such warning occurred and there is not really any evidence that a warning did happen. The bombing was extremely deadly and killed a large number of civilians.\n\nThe British eventually did decide to leave, but this was due to more than merely the Zionist campaign of sabotage and attacks. The British had already had to deal with a Palestinian revolt that lasted from 1936-39, and Palestinian groups were still quite restless as well and wanted the British gone. At the same time, Britain was struggling to reconstruct itself following WWII, and facing troubles in other colonial holdings. They had little to no interests left in the area either, and eventually simply decided it wasn't worth the trouble. They also saw coming violence, lack of ability to create a solution both sides would accept, and estimated that 100,000 troops would be needed to calm the situation, which they simply were not willing to commit.\n\nThey handed the problem over to the UN, which was the successor to the League of Nations. The League of Nations was the one who granted the British their Mandate and control in the first place, or at least solidified it, after WWI and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The UN sent a committee I mentioned above, UNSCOP, which proposed a partition. To make a long story short, UNSCOP's partition passed the UN General Assembly with some minor revisions in UNGA Resolution 181, which was a recommendation to the UN Security Council to implement the partition plan. Following passage of the plan, violence began (historians believe the violence spiraled following an attack by an Arab militia on a Jewish bus), and a civil war began. The British were still in the area and still technically had control, but were evacuating and wanted no part in the fighting for the most part. After essentially winning the civil war, on May 14, 1948, Israel declared itself into existing effective at midnight on May 15, and at that moment, the Arab states surrounding Israel invaded, in a war that of course Israel eventually won, and which set what we now call the \"1967 lines\", which were the armistice lines of where the Arab and Israeli armies stopped when they signed ceasefires (but not peace deals, of course, and not border agreements) following the 1948 war."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
44y9a7
|
Recommendations for Authoritative Books on Legal History/Analysis?
|
Looking for academic-type books that actually analyze the development of the legal/jurisprudential principles, not just the history of the people and parties involved. Also, not looking to buy law school casebooks.
For example, "A detailed history of the Fourth Amendment/Search and Seizure right is X, a detailed history of the establishment clause is Y "
EDIT - Should clarify that I mean American legal history/analysis, which includes English common law leading up to the American Revolution. Also, not looking for multivolume treatises.
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/44y9a7/recommendations_for_authoritative_books_on_legal/
|
{
"a_id": [
"czttzhf"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I see I have been Batsignaled.\n\nI think one of the best books I've read on the evolution of constitutional law in the United States is Friedman's *The Will of the People.* You also can't miss by reading Holmes' *The Common Law.* With Holmes, the usual issues that arise from reading an 1880s legal treatise still apply, but it's actually a pretty solid read, even 140 years later."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
9svcu9
|
Since it is Spooky time, did other countries go through a Salem Witch Trial type event like we did in America?
|
Always wondered if other countries ever had an event similar to this for similar reasons and this is the best place to ask!
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9svcu9/since_it_is_spooky_time_did_other_countries_go/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e8rt3d6"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The Salem witch trials can actually be seen as one of the last gasps of the witchcraft panic that gripped Europe and its colonies starting in the 15th century. Indeed, in 1735 the Witchcraft Act in England banned not *witchcraft* but *pretending to be a witch* for profit. \n\nOf course, no case is going to be exactly like Salem in terms of town-village relations, family politics, and--not least--the swiftness and persistence of public outcry against the trials, both in and well beyond Salem. But if you'll allow for some flexibility--yes, early modern Europe provides far more than its share of hysteria over a belief in the presence of witches that flared up and consumed a town.\n\nThe \"witch trial era\" should not be taken to imply consistence persecution of people as alleged witches (hereinafter: just \"witches,\" although it must be noted that there was no such thing as actual witches or witchcraft). Instead, accusations *tended* to follow a couple of patterns (with plenty of exceptions). On one hand, there could be isolated accusations of one person, or of a group of people loosely connected. William Bradford Smith uncovered cases in Franconia (Germany) where a group of women connected somehow to a single man ended up accused, for example. \n\nOn the other, an entire town could descend into chaos as accusations and executions flew every...witch...way. These situations were often sparked by the arrival of an inquisitor/witch hunter, usually a lawyer, in a town. Torturing a suspected witch would yield the names of other witches, whose torture would lead to other witches, and on down the line until panic burned itself out/the wrong person was accused and local authorities shut things down.\n\nOne of the most infamous cases of this is Bamberg in 1628-1631, in which even the town's mayor was accused, tortured, and burned. But in addition to being so important an official as the mayor, Johannes Junius managed to smuggle out of prison, before his execution, a letter recounting his experiences under torture.\n\nJunius revealed to his daughter how the inquisitors got the names of witches. Once he was so desperate from the torture that he would say *anything*, they basically had him mentally go from house to house, street to street, and told him the number of people on that street who were witches that he would have to name.\n\nBamberg is just one case among far, far too many--scholars estimate that around 50,000 people, 85% of them women, were burned, drowned, or hanged as witches from the fifteenth into the eighteenth century. So while the specifics of the Salem witch trials were unique, the general atmosphere and horror were definitely not."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1qzyun
|
Did Adolf Hitler have any rivals in the Nazi party, who very well could have been just as awful, had they been elected?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1qzyun/did_adolf_hitler_have_any_rivals_in_the_nazi/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cdi83cu"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Hitler faced a serious challenge from the Socialist faction of the National Socialist movement. Those were represented by men like Ernest Rohm and Gregor Strasser, they wanted to purge the old economic and aristocratic elite somewhat like they were in the Soviet Union. They had their base of support in the SA (the brown shirts), working class men who formed the street level brawlers of the Nazi party and largely their base of support in the early days of the party.\n\nHitler purged them in 1934 in the night of the long knives, both to remove them as a threat in their own right, and to solidify an alliance with the conservative industrial capitalists and military officer corp. Both of whom viewed the left leaning Nazis as a threat to themselves (Rohm wanted to replace the Reichswher with the SA for example)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5csxe3
|
How accurate is this Vox article saying that the Electoral College was originally created to protect slave states (and by extension slavery)?
|
[Link](_URL_0_)
I'm inclined to doubt the accuracy of the claim, given how saturated left-wing sites are right now with anti-electoral college articles. However, I only know about how the electoral college functions, not what it was created for. Is the Vox article true, half true, pants on fire, or something in between?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5csxe3/how_accurate_is_this_vox_article_saying_that_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d9zhg1s"
],
"score": [
36
],
"text": [
"So I just answered a similar question [here](_URL_0_) and also I went into some more detail on my [blog](_URL_1_).\n\nThat said, I have never really seen a claim by a legitimate historian stating that the main reason for the electoral college was to protect the south (but this doesn't make the claim necessarily untrue). \n\nStrangely, they assert that had they not adopted this system \"the south would have lost every time,\" only fits if the majority of the population was slave, rather than free, which isn't the case. Rather it benefited the North to have the system, especially at the time of its creation because they had many small states with tiny populations (VT, NH, RI, NJ) that would head much smaller voices had it been a popular vote. Also, if you look at early elections, like the election of 1800, two northern states voted for Jefferson and would have likely done the same if it was a popular vote. This means that northern states would have still had many of their people voting for southern candidates especially since the country was not divided as the nation would be come in the ensuing decades. Granted, some states with high slave populations did benefit more from the system since they could claim more citizens for electoral votes, but by 1800, States like VA still had a white male population that was significantly larger than any other state. Also worth mentioning that one of the biggest proponents of the electoral college system was Alexander Hamilton, who was from New York."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/12/13598316/donald-trump-electoral-college-slavery-akhil-reed-amar"
] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5cjoex/was_the_electoral_college_really_intended_as_a/d9xfvzb/",
"http://rethinkingtherevolution.com/blog/2016-electoral-college2"
]
] |
|
42b8f6
|
A historic description of a lunar crater being formed?
|
A long time ago, I read an interesting book, where they tried to shed more light on natural phenomena we know happened in the past, by studying contemporary texts: Most of there contemporary descriptions didn't know what they were describing, so a lot of it was trying to figure out that 'evil fire from the mouth of the mountain' meant a volcano eruption.
One of the descriptions was thought to maybe be about the formation of a lunar crater. I remember it as being from the middle ages, but maybe it was older. It described how the 'snake in the night sky' got bitten in the tail, which made it twist with pain. Todays historians believed this was a crecent moon that got struck by a meteor, which caused an "earth quake" (moon quake?") on the moon, hence 'twisting in pain'. I remember I looked up what the crater was, and was impressed that it was a clearly visible one, but now I can't remember which it was :( I tried googleing, but I think my memory is too vague to search relevant words.
Does this ring a bell for any historians? I imagine that such a description would be quite significant, so I'm surprised I've not heard more of it.
On a slightly related note, any other historic, cryptic descriptions of major phenomena in the past? I find it really interesting to read what people thought they saw, and then reading the actual explanations.
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/42b8f6/a_historic_description_of_a_lunar_crater_being/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cz95ysm",
"cz960sd"
],
"score": [
9,
9
],
"text": [
"The Canterbury Chronicle for the year 1178 CE (which was written by a monk named Gervase) contains an entry that reads:\n\n\"This year on the 18th of June, when the Moon, a slim crescent, first became visible, a marvelous phenomenon was seen by several men who were watching it. Suddenly, the upper horn of the crescent was split in two. From the mid point of the division, a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out over a considerable distance fire, hot coals and sparks. The body of the Moon which was below, writhed like a wounded snake. This happened a dozen times or more, and when the Moon returned to normal, the whole crescent took on a blackish appearance.”\n\nThere has been a great deal of speculation about what this means. \n\nIn 1976, Jack Hartung (a geologist) theorized that the monks witnessed the creation of the Giordano Bruno crater on the Moon.\n\nThis has since been questioned, and possibly debunked, but as I am not an astronomer, I'm not sure what the current consensus view is.\n\nIn any event, it is quite common in medieval chronicles for portents and omens to be described, sometimes involving things like comets and other space or sky-related phenomena, especially right before some local disaster is recorded, as a sign from God. (A famous example is the blood red comet supposedly sighted before the first assault of the Vikings on Lindisfarne in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.)\n\nSo, it is an open question, so far as I know, whether the Canterbury Chronicle has any truth to it.",
"You might be referring to an incident recorded in the Chronicle of Gervase of Canterbury, which took place about an hour after sunset on June 18, 1178. \n\n > From the midpoint of the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the Moon which was below writhed, as it were in anxiety, and to put it in the words of those who reported it to me and saw it with their own eyes, the Moon throbbed like a wounded snake. Afterwards it resumed its proper state. This phenomenon was repeated a dozen times or more, the flame assuming various twisting shapes at random and then returning to normal. Then, after these transformations, the Moon from horn to horn, that is along its whole length, took on a blackish appearance.\n\nIn 1976, geologist Jack Hartung suggested that the Giordano Bruno crater on the far side of the Moon is roughly the right size, location, and age to match Gervase's description.\n\nThe problem is, an impact that size would have kicked up tons of lunar material into space and causing a *massive* meteor shower on Earth roughly a week later...no such event has been found in any astronomical archives, including those of Europe, Arabia, China, Korea, and Japan.\n\nThe current hypothesis is that the monks saw a large exploding meteorite, and happened to be in exactly the right place so that meteorite looked like it was impacting the moon. \n\nThis would also explain why it wasn't recorded elsewhere...it's hard to believe a Lunar impact which was visible to the naked eye would have only been noticed and recorded by a few monks in England, when it would have been visible to half of the planet.\n\nSource: [_URL_0_: The Mysterious Case of Crater Giordano Bruno](_URL_1_)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"NASA.gov",
"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast26apr_1/"
]
] |
|
vnvxo
|
Was Leni Riefenstahl a Nazi sympathizer?
|
I know that she vehemently denied it throughout her life, is there a definitive answer?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vnvxo/was_leni_riefenstahl_a_nazi_sympathizer/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c563lcz",
"c5677vy"
],
"score": [
5,
6
],
"text": [
"Define Nazi sympathizer.\n\nFollow the party, work for it, and help it? Yes, she was.\n\nAnti-semite? A definite answer is difficult.",
"After accompanying an Infanterie Division into Poland as a war correspondent she witnessed the massacring of a number of civilians, which she claims she protested against. After filming Hitler in Warsaw she never created anymore Nazi related footage. It's very possible that she was swept up with the Nazi's when they first took power, as many young and naive Germans were, but when she saw the result of this she rejected the national socialist ideals.\n\nHowever this is all coming from her biography after the fact, so it should be considered with a grain of salt, however I still wouldn't label her a 'Nazi sympathiser'."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3bxz5a
|
Rare Nazi/German Coin?
|
A customer accidentally gave me this coin while at work (about the size of a U.S. dime). Pictures posted below.
It has all sorts of interesting markings, including the swastika of course.
I was just curious as to whether anyone could find out what this coin was/is and if it was worth anything?
I could always bring it to a coin shop...but never know if they would give me a decent price for it, if I wanted to sell.
Image 1: _URL_0_
Image 2: _URL_1_
Image 3: _URL_2_
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3bxz5a/rare_nazigerman_coin/
|
{
"a_id": [
"csqm4dk"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"_URL_0_\n\nThat link should have all the information you need on the coin. According to recent sales on eBay it is selling for a little under a dollar. You may think to yourself why is such a rare price of Nazi memorabilia and history so cheap? That is because it is a coin and there are millions of them made, supply massively exceeds demand. According to the link above around 75 million specifically of that coin was made.\n\n\nIn conclusion, a historic and interesting piece to be sure but not at all rare or valuable."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://imgur.com/oYpkgS6",
"http://imgur.com/KZgGpZ8",
"http://imgur.com/viS2I4o"
] |
[
[
"http://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1917.html"
]
] |
|
xc3xk
|
[META] New Subreddit: AskCultures! It's like AskHistorians for the present!
|
Hi r/AskHistorians. I've started a new subreddit inspired by you to provide a place to ask similar questions to the ones you post here, but about the present.
Reddit allows us to learn so much about different places, peoples, cultures, languages, races and religions, but much of the information ends being sensationalist and biased. We frequently discuss the politics of other countries, but either to bash them or to bash the US. We frequently discuss religion, but almost always to dismiss it. We discuss race relations... but you know how that goes.
My idea is to have a place where we can actually *learn*. Ask the people who actually live there and experience those things directly. Get both sides or the story w.r.t. current events from around the world.
I urge you all the subscribe and start asking and answering. The more people we get, the more we can do with it. Eventually we may have a panel of experts like /r/AskHistorians, but /r/AskCultures will always be more about the people I guess. Anyone can answer, as long as you're being factual and honest.
Finally, I have very little (read zero) experience with running a subreddit. If anyone wants to volunteer to be a mod, please pm me. I am open to almost any idea to make this work right now.
Much love!
[Link](_URL_0_)
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/xc3xk/meta_new_subreddit_askcultures_its_like/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5l5rbr",
"c5l5xtn",
"c5lb24l"
],
"score": [
2,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"Sounds like an interesting idea! Chalk up another subscriber.",
"What differentiates /r/Askcultures from /r/AskACountry?",
"Welp, I saw that nobody answered your first question, so I did. I have a lot of personal and academic connection to the topic. You're lucky I'm slacking off from studying for my law school final tomorrow and hanging out on Reddit instead, hah."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskCultures"
] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5l03k3
|
How Did Russia/Soviet Union Not Collapse After the Population Losses from WWI, Famine, Soviet Purges, and WWII?
|
When you read about Russian and then Soviet history between 1900 and 1945 you hear about so many deaths from war, famine, and political oppression, you have to wonder how anyone was even left in the country. How was Russia not a barren wasteland completely devoid of human life by 1945?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5l03k3/how_did_russiasoviet_union_not_collapse_after_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dbs1vq7"
],
"score": [
23
],
"text": [
"I think there are two problems at play here. First, is the estimates that get thrown around are often at their maximums. Second, is the a combination of demographic/chronology. \n\nSo, to start we have numbers from the Soviet government on the population of the Soviet Union during the time frame. Sadly we do not have a complete census before the Soviet Union that would be relevant. To start, the Soviets pegged their population during their first census in 1926 at 147 million. Now, things get dicey with numbers and historians have argued about the numbers since they were published. In 1936 the Soviet Union did another census. The census came back with 161 million originally. The results were tossed and the official numbers was 170 million. Finally, we have the last census that is relevant, in 1959. The number was 208 million. \n\nNow looking past raw data and at the history. Russia suffered greatly through these years. But, not as much as we had originally thought. The idea that Stalin killed “20 million” is very outdated and not really the consensus among historians now. The rough estimate, which is probably the most accurate we can get at this point is between 6 - 9 million dead.^1 This includes the highest cost on human life, the Famine of 1932-1933 (also known as the holodomor). The “Great Terror” and collectivization and its discontents being the runner up until the Second World War. We can see the dip in expected population growth between 1926 and 1936, with Stalin ordering a “new” census with more “accurate” numbers. \n\nHowever, hopefully the second problem is kind of coming into focus. Even with the terrible loss of life, the Soviet Union still grew. At the onset of Stalin, Russia had a population of 147 million and even after with the first census numbers, still grew to 161 million even after losing 6 - 9 million to Stalin’s regime. It endured, then endured even still through the Second World War with the losses between 13 - 31 million lives. It gained territory so the numbers are skewed, however the Russian State (within the USSR) still grew after the Second World War and 1959. The effects were felt, no doubt, it was massive death never before seen in Russia. \n\nSo to sum up. The Soviet Union did suffer, however its population endured because the original historical estimates were off, and additionally the amount of time during each catastrophic loss of life was spread out. \n\n^1 Source for these numbers are from Timothy Snyders article *Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Killed More?* in NYBooks. The full article can be found [here](_URL_0_). The relevant quote is:\n > For the Soviets during the Stalin period, the analogous figures are approximately six million and nine million. These figures are of course subject to revision, but it is very unlikely that the consensus will change again as radically as it has since the opening of Eastern European archives in the 1990s."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/03/10/hitler-vs-stalin-who-killed-more/"
]
] |
|
523cry
|
There has been a murder in 16th century England! How do we find who's responsible and bring him to justice?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/523cry/there_has_been_a_murder_in_16th_century_england/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d7gyzxk",
"d7h8vaq"
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text": [
"I have a 2-part follow-up question, if it's allowed here:\n\nWhat was the most petty (least serious?) crime that would actually be investigated at that time? Would it depend on the victim's status/rank within the community?",
"[This](_URL_0_) thread may be useful -- /u/LordKettering and /u/bakuraptor give detailed answers that aren't exactly sixteenth century England, but may provide more reading of this nature"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1247fn/its_year_xxxx_of_your_specialty_a_dead_body_is/"
]
] |
||
fc1p4f
|
What would a 13th century wedding amongst the nobility of the Crusader States have looked like?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fc1p4f/what_would_a_13th_century_wedding_amongst_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fjt49r4"
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"Sorry it took so long to answer this - it’s a good question, and I was trying to find descriptions of a “typical” wedding, but there aren’t really any, especially for the 13th century. It seems that there wasn’t really a standard wedding ceremony, at least not one that anyone felt was worth commenting on in detail. There are lots of mentions of marriages, but usually they only say that a wedding took place, and not what exactly happened during one.\n\nOne chronicle, the “Old French Continuation of William of Tyre”, notes that in Jerusalem, marriages were usually conducted in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity within the city’s cathedral, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre:\n\n > “This chapel was large and roomy, for all the brides in the city came to be married there, and it also held the font in which children were baptized.” (Rothelin, pg. 15) \n\nPresumably this was the case in the 12th century, since the crusaders only controlled Jerusalem for a short time in the 13th century, between 1229 and 1244. \n\nOtherwise, when the capital of the kingdom was in Acre, marriages often took place in the Church of the Holy Cross. For example, John of Brienne married the queen of Jerusalem, Maria of Montferrat, in that church in 1210, and the ceremony was presided by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Afterwards, John and Maria were crowned king and queen in Tyre. Coronations usually took place in Tyre rather than Acre (or Jerusalem). \n\nJohn and Maria’s daughter, Queen Isabella II, had an atypical royal wedding in Acre in 1225. She was supposed to marry the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, but Frederick was still in Italy at the time. So, one of Frederick’s representatives arrived in Acre, there was a marriage by proxy, and then Isabella sailed off to Italy, where there was another wedding ceremony with Frederick in person. \n\nThere are a couple of descriptions of weddings but they aren’t from the 13th century, so they don’t exactly fit your question. They’re from the late 12th century though, so hopefully that helps. \n\nOne is the marriage of Humphrey IV of Toron and the future queen Isabella I of Jerusalem in 1183, which took place in the castle of Kerak. During the wedding, Saladin showed up to besiege the castle:\n\n > “Great crowds of helpless people of every description and of both sexes filled the castle within, a burden rather than a help to the besieged. There were many actors and performers on the flute and psaltery and other people who had flocked thither from all over the country for the festivities attending the wedding. The anticipations of all these were sadly thwarted, for where they had expected to find gains and wedding jollity they encountered martial combats and warlike doings, far different from the pursuits to which they were accustomed.” (William of Tyre, vol. 2, pg. 500)\n\nWilliam was the major Latin historian of the 12th-century kingdom, but his chronicle was translated and expanded in French in the 13th century (the “Old French continuation” I mentioned above). The French translator sometimes added gossip and anecdotes to William’s account. Here, the French version says that Saladin had once been held hostage at Kerak as a child (which is definitely not true!), so he remembered the castle fondly and didn’t want to disturb the wedding. Humphrey’s mother sent Saladin some bread, wine, and meat from the ceremony, and Saladin promised not to attack the part of the castle where the wedding was taking place. (This is sometimes interpreted as “they gave Saladin some wedding cake”, which is funny but not really what the chronicle says.) \n\nAnother description of a wedding comes from a Spanish Muslim pilgrim, Ibn Jubayr, who visited crusader Tyre in 1185: \n\n > “An alluring worldly spectacle deserving of record was a nuptial procession which we witnessed one day near the port in Tyre. All the Christians, men and women, had assembled, and were formed in two lines at the bride's door. Trumpets, flutes, and all the musical instruments were played until she proudly emerged between two men who held her right and left as though they were her kindred. She was most elegantly garbed in a beautiful dress from. which trailed, according to their traditional style, a long train of golden silk. On her head she wore a golden diadem covered by a net of woven gold, and on her breast was a like arrangement. Proud she was in her ornaments and dress, walking with little steps of half a span, like a dove, or in the manner of a wisp of cloud. God protect us from the seduction of the sight. Before her went Christian notables in their finest and most splendid clothing, their trains falling behind them. Behind her were her peers and equals of the Christian women, parading in their richest apparel and proud of bearing in their superb ornaments. Leading them all were the musical instruments. The Muslims and the other Christian onlookers formed two ranks-along the route, and gazed on them without reproof. So they passed along until they brought her to the house of the groom; and all that day they feasted.” (Ibn Jubayr, pg. 320-321)\n\nThis isn’t the 13th century, and it’s apparently not a noble woman either, so it’s somewhat far removed from your question…but it is a crusader wedding at least. Ibn Jubayr seems to be kind of fantasizing a bit (\"God protect us from the seduction\") but otherwise nothing about his description seems to be obviously untrue.\n\nSo marriages could take place in the cathedral, or a parish church, or in the case of Humphrey and Isabella, in a castle chapel. Ibn Jubayr doesn’t mention a church, but that wedding probably started off at the cathedral in Tyre.\n\nAlthough we don’t have descriptions of an actual 13th-century ceremony, there is a lot of discussion of marriage in secular crusader law and in church law (canon law). The bride and groom both had to consent to the marriage, so no one could be forced to get married against their will. \n\nTechnically the church would also have to make sure they weren’t related within the “prohibited degrees”. Up to the 12th century the couple couldn’t be related within seven generations, or they couldn’t be related by marriage in various other ways. But that made it extremely difficult to find anyone to marry since European nobles were all pretty closely related. In 1215 the church changed it to four generations, but even that was still difficult, and nobles quite often married cousins who were more closely related than they were supposed to be. The church generally pretended not to notice.\n\nA cleric had to marry the couple, whether a simple parish priest, or a bishop or archbishop, or all the way up to the Patriarch. The bride might receive a ring, as Isabella II did (from Frederick II’s proxy). There would be a mass and a sermon - the story of the wedding at Cana from the Bible, where Jesus turned water into wine, was a popular medieval wedding sermon. For the the crusaders this was all the more relevant when they actually controlled Cana (or at least, a site near Nazareth that they identified as Cana). \n\nFor the nobility, girls had to be at least 12 and boys 13, which seems extremely young…but sometimes they really did get married that young. Humphrey and Isabella I were about 13 and 11 when they got married and Isabella II was 13 (Frederick was 31). Isabella II actually died in childbirth when she was only 15. But that probably wasn’t typical for lower nobility and certainly not for non-aristocratic marriages. A marriage might be contracted by their parents when they were that young, but they probably didn’t get married until they were older teenagers at least.\n\nIn Jerusalem brides seem to have had more power to decide who they would marry, and when, and even if they would get married at all. Noble women could own or inherit land, which was unusual in itself, since women usually weren’t allowed to own property in Europe. If the land owed military service to the king, women weren’t allowed to serve in the military, so they were expected to get married. Their husband could then provide the expected service. \n\nThe same was true for land-owning widows. There were often lots of widows around because of the frequent warfare in the kingdom, and they were “encouraged” to remarry. But the king or any other male relative couldn’t force them to marry, they were allowed to choose a husband on their own. The laws of the kingdom also allowed a woman over 60 years old to remain unmarried, even if she owned land.\n\nLastly, it’s apparently possible that Christians and Muslims could get married in the crusader states, although it was extremely unlikely and it never happened among the nobility. But the nobles did marry eastern Christians (Greeks and Armenians, at least)."
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19bt21
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From my understanding, several European countries wanted North America during the 1700s, so why did England end up winning it?
|
Forgive me if this question has been asked before, but I checked the popular questions. I've always known that many countries tried to gain control of the North American continent, but in the end, England was the one who got it, thus leading to the Revolutionary War, etc. So, can anyone tell me, how and why did England end up getting control? Thanks.
|
AskHistorians
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http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/19bt21/from_my_understanding_several_european_countries/
|
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"The control of North America was continually contested, and England never managed to gain control entirely, save for a very brief period following the French and Indian War.\n\nThe French held Canada until the Siege of Quebec, but the British hold following this was tenuous. Sir Guy Carleton, British Governor-General of Canada, complained loudly to Britain that during the American invasion of Quebec in 1775-76 that the Canadians could not be relied upon. The French Canadian subject of the British had only been subjects for about a decade, and had largely retained French colonial culture due to the Quebec Act. The Quebec Act preserved the standing social order in Canada and legalized Catholicism there (a move which greatly angered the subjects of the thirteen colonies). Without a strong attachment to the British government, the French Canadians were waiting out the invasion of Canada to see who would come out on top militarily, and then seize the opportunity to side with the victors.\n\nSpanish Florida was likewise ceded to the British in the wake of the French and Indian War with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Like Canada, the Spanish colonists largely retained Spanish colonial culture. There was not much of a move to settle British colonists in Florida, nor really to impose strong British administration there. Florida largely acted as a military post and jumping-off-point for potential action in the Caribbean. Unlike the French in Canada, the Spanish managed to seize Flordia back from the British and retained control. British rule in Florida lasted a scant twenty years.\n\nWe also shouldn't forget that North America includes the Western half of the continent as well, where the British only had a presence in modern day Oregon. Otherwise, the Russians, French, and Spanish held the territory.",
"Just to add my voice of support to LordKettering and Irishfafnir's points below - Anglophone North America was far from being the entirety of the story. If you have the time, I'd suggest a glance at Eliga Gould's 'Entangled Atlantic Histories: A Response from the Anglo-American Periphery' from the June 2007 *AHR*. \n\nWhilst the argument may slightly overstate its case, the idea it presents is that that 18th century Anglophone North America was little more than an addendum to the more sizable and advanced Hispanophone sphere. So essentially Gould's answer to your question would be that Britain's holdings in North America in the 18th century were smaller and less significant than the Spanish Empire.\n\nAlso, just as a point of etiquette - it's Britain, not England. England ceased to exist as an independent nation in 1707, as did the English Empire."
]
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182yx9
|
Has there ever been a nationalist government where 2 different races were praised as the national ethnic group?
|
I believe China had a nationalist government with 5 ethnic groups.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/182yx9/has_there_ever_been_a_nationalist_government/
|
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"Why stop at two? Switzerland has French, German, Italian and Rhaeto-Romansch language speakers, yet the country is quite nationalistic and the fact that there are four different groups is often cited by the Swiss themselves as a strength and a source fo the country's greatness. \n\nIf by \"race\" you mean \"different skin color\", why not look at present-day America, where at least a large number of people consider African-Americans as much the \"national ethnic group\" as whites - and the United States is nothing if not nationalistic.",
"[Five races under one union](_URL_1_) was an early motto of the KMT. However, the KMT was really more of a liberal nationalist movement, so this attempt at inclusionism isn't really surprising. It's not like they were fascists who simply thought more than one race should dominate over all the others. However, I suppose it does have somewhat imperialist overtones. The Manchus and Hans are likely perfectly happy to both be considered \"Chinese\". Tibetan, Mongol, and Turkish support is obviously much more iffy (it's hard to quantify how much; obviously, you can't take polls in the area, but I think a lot of people in the west might be exaggerating things simply because they don't like China). While Tibetans, Turks, and Mongols don't make up a large percentage, of the country population wise, if they split off into their own autonomous nations, they'd take a great deal of land (something like [this](_URL_0_), although you can tell it was clearly made by a Tibetan nationalists by the ludicrously large slice given to Tibet). Hard-right nationalist took the \"we are superior and deserve to lord over other races\" approach it came to nationalism, they didn't try the pandering approach often used by empires desperate to reconcile themselves with liberal ideas.",
"Canada, to a certain extent. Lots of Canadian nationalism focuses on the unique relationship between the English and the French.",
"I've seen some multilingual stone inscriptions in China dating from Qian Long (Qing dynasty, reigned 1735-1796) in Chinese, Tibetan and Manchu scripts. While I don't read any of them myself, the English translation seemed to be part of an attempt to establish a single national identity through propaganda. Qian Long was very nationalistic, but it would appear that Tibet and by inference Tibetans were viewed as \"inside the fence\". He himself was Manchu, of course.",
"I'm not sure if it meets the exact requirements but why not Austria-Hungary? ",
"During WWII, the Nazi backed Ustase government was like this. Now the Ustase were Croatian fascists, and the area the Germans gave them had large populations of Bosniaks and Serbs. Bosniaks were protected and seen as equal to Croats, but Serbs were hated with an undying passion. There is no doubt that given enough time, the Ustase would have convinced the Germans to ship Serbs to the death camps alongside Jews and Romani. Those memories came rushing to the fore in the 1990's when the Serbs did their own bout of war crimes, fearing that this time they were about to be wiped out.\n\nAlso Pakistan, even the word Pakistan has letters representing the different ethnicity\n\nP=Punjab\nA=Afghania (Pathan)\nK=Kashmir\nI\nS=Sindh\nTAN=Baluchistan",
"It's hard to understand what you mean by \"nationalist.\"\n\nThe political-philosophy of \"nationalism\" is a relatively recent phenomena (19th century), and which strives to align political structures and power with \"nations\" in the ethno-linguistic-cultural sense. \n\nAs an idea for political organization it has its strengths and weaknesses. "
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5o3iqu
|
ELI5: Were the Nazis given fair trials?
|
I feel like, due to the negative opinion of them both then and now, their trials may not have been exactly fair. It seems like the "Guilty" verdict was in place before the trials even began.
This question applies to trials immediately after Nazi Germany's loss in WWII (Nuremberg, for example) and modern-day Nazi trials.
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AskHistorians
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5o3iqu/eli5_were_the_nazis_given_fair_trials/
|
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"While you're waiting for other answers, you might be interested in /u/kieslowskifan's comment in this thread:\n\n[Was the Nuremburg trials a kangaroo court?](_URL_0_)",
"Hi Historians. Related to this question, did any of the judges or other lawyers involved in the trials write any books later about the trials? I saw one listed in the other thread that's linked but I was wondering if anyone else wrote something. I read a book years ago by someone involved but he wasn't legally trained, and as a lawyer I felt he misunderstood the legal issues. \n\nAlso are any of the written judgements from Nuremberg readily available online?",
"The truth is that many Nazis were simply forgotten about. \n\nThe party hierarchy and more prominent war criminals were tried at Nuremberg or later captured but rank and file (i.e SS, SD and Gestapto) members were 'de-Nazified'. This was a process in which individuals went before a board and stated how they were not really Nazis and even produced evidence in the form of statements from a member of the public in which a good deed not in keeping with Nazi stereotype was recounted. \n\nThere are a number of reasons behind this but the three main ones were that firstly there needed to be a definitive end to the Nazism, where the British and American administrations could begin to work with the democratic Germany. Secondly, whilst the German administration wanted to be seen to be ridding the country of Nazism, it also wanted the process to be clear and swift. Thirdly and perhaps most significantly, all public workers had links to the Nazi party in some shape or form, from being enthusiastic Nazis pre 1933, 'March Violets' who joined soon after the Nazi party came to power, or simply by association. To remove these people from society would have catastrophic affects on the rebuilding of Germany. Britain and America wanted at some level a strong post-war Germany prior to the end of hostilities. By 1947 such feeling was much stronger. A strong, prosperous Germany would not only reduce the likelihood of another Hitler rising from the ashes of the war but it would also reduce the reconstruction aid needed and provide a strong ally in any future war with the USSR. \n\nDestroying the civil service, judiciary and police force may have been an effective way of de-nazification but it would result in losing the best and brightest minds at a time when they needed them the most. ",
"As a related question, I seem to recall anecdotes about the Russian judges not really caring about due process as understood by the Anglophone judges and just wanting to declare (virtually) everyone guilty. Is that perception generally correct?",
"It depends on what you mean by \"fair.\" Fair can mean either procedural fairness or substantive fairness. The procedures of the Nuremberg Trials basically accorded with procedural due process. There are several things we would consider to be necessary, at a minimum, for procedural due process:\n\n1. right to counsel\n2. right to examine the evidence against you and to submit your own evidence (i.e., no secret evidence)\n3. right to answer the charges brought against you in open court (i.e., no secret proceedings in which you cannot participate)\n\nBy and large, the defendants at Nuremberg had these rights. There are some questions as to the extent they had the right to see all the evidence against them before the trials. It is also true that hearsay was admissible, but lots of countries' judicial systems allow for hearsay to be admitted or, like the common law, have a prohibition that is a Swiss cheese of exceptions. So the admissibility of hearsay probably doesn't make the trials \"unfair\" in and of itself. \n\nThe more interesting question is substantive fairness. There must be a law that is \"fair.\" Typically, we consider several things necessary, at a minimum, for this:\n\n1. the law must be public (i.e., no secret laws)\n2. the law must be pre-existing (i.e., no ex post facto application of a law or other form of retroactive illegality)\n3. the law must apply equally (i.e., there must be a rational reason to treat different classes of people differently before the law)\n\nThis all raised a bunch of fascinating questions that the Nuremberg tribunals wrestled with, and their answers changed the development of international law going foreward. For example, what law could you accuse the Nuremberg defendants of violating? The Charter had three classes of crimes, but what do they mean? Are we to apply German law, and if so in what contexts? What is German law anyway, is it German law before the Nazi regime took over or after? What these defendants did was probably allowed by the laws of the Nazi regime, but the laws of the Nazi regime themselves violated what we would consider to be fair laws. Is there \"law\" that exists outside of the State, or is the \"law\" merely the rules that the State puts in place? Perhaps the Nazi violation of the Weimer Constitution meant that after the point of that violation the laws of the Nazi regime ceased to be legitimate laws of Germany. But what does that say about routine matters, or is it just that the laws specifically relating to certain subjects were illegitimate? Maybe the Nuremberg defendants violated international law, but what does that mean? International law is usually restricted to States, so is it the State that is guilty or the perpetrators acting on behalf of the State? Did they violate the customary laws of war? What about their acts not on the battlefield? Sending your own citizens to death camps far from the front doesn't seem to fit with our traditional conception of \"war\" or a situation where the laws of war apply. Is there a broader conception of what \"war\" means? What does the phrase in the Charter \"crimes against humanity\" mean? It seems to be a new category of crime in the international order, but does this mean it is an ex post facto application? Does the Charter simply embody the existing international law, or is it somehow creating new international law? Is the whole thing an ex post facto application then? If it merely embodies existing law, what is that existing law?\n\nThe Nuremberg Tribunal ultimately decided that they were to apply international law as embodied by the Charter, that there was long-standing precedent of tribunals trying individuals for crimes conducted during a war, and that an individual could be tried for such a violation of international law even where the laws or direct orders of the State mandated a violation. \n\nSources: The best is probably *United States of America, French Republic, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics v. Herman Wilhelm Goering, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop et al.*, 6. F.R.D. 69 (1946). The tribunal walks through all the issues in the judgement. \n\nI also pulled out my old law school case book called *International Relations*, 5th Edition, by Janis and Noyes.\n\nAs a side note, there's also a famous essay written in 1949 called The Case of the Speluncean Explorers that deals with a lot of these issues in a metaphorical way. (_URL_0_)"
]
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5f2ymd
|
When did humans start peeing standing up and/or into specialized vessels?
|
I'm talking about like how men hold their penises while urinating, not just releasing a stream while standing instead of while crouching.
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AskHistorians
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5f2ymd/when_did_humans_start_peeing_standing_up_andor/
|
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"Hi, while it's possible that you'll get answers here, questions on pre-history (which I'm *guessing* this is) are worth x-posting to our sister sub, /r/AskAnthropology"
]
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[
[]
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cstyoh
|
We often hear about about tensions between the Western Allies and the USSR during WWII, but very little about tensions between the British and the Americans. Before and during WWII, how did the way Brits and Yanks see each other and the future postwar world evolve? What tensions were there?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cstyoh/we_often_hear_about_about_tensions_between_the/
|
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"I'm late. Very late. Apologies for the formatting, I'm on mobile. As a disclaimer, I will only be referring to my area of expertise, international relations. Going in depth into economic and military issues would be to have to dig into sources that beyond my field.\n\nTo answer your question we need to take a look at three concepts of international relations theory. First, bilateralism. Second, the so-called Special Relationship. Third, something I've spoken about before, Realpolitik.\n\n**Bilateralism**\n\nAs in every aspect of life, this concept refers to the construction and the development of relations between two specific, discernable entities, in this case, States. In the sphere that concerns international relations and foreign policy, bilateralism has existed since the concept of sovereignty was established in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. It encompasses every official interaction between two sovereign States, be them military, cultural, economic or political in nature.\n\nI won't go as far as the beginning of the US-UK relations, I'll circunscribe my answer to the periods you asked about.\n\nWhat most articles and books will tell you about their relationship during the inter-war period is that they viewed and judged each other through the lens is isolationism. That is indeed true, but why?\n\n*The great depression*\n\nIn a rather good compilation called International Bibliography of Historical Sciences, Massimo Mastrogregori (2009) cites prof. Kevin Smith, describing that the isolationism caused by the economic crisis in 1929 was responsible for a period of diplomatic and social tension between the two countries. Americans viewed British imperialism as anachronistic and uncivilised for the XXI century. On the other side of the pond, the British government, particularly during Lloyd George's tenure, was weary of Wilsonian idealism. Later on, Roosevelt became increasingly worried of Neville Chamberlain's ideas of support towards Nazi Germany. During the 30's, tensions were high enough to have both sides grow apart, while staying allies nevertheless.\n\nThe tensions began to subside due to:\n\n**The Special Relationship**\n\nChamberlain failed in one of the most important series of events in international history, those that led to WWII. So enters the stage Sir Winston Churchill. Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Chancellor of the Exchequer, First Lord of the Admiralty. A cunning strategist, a ruthless conservative. One of the key players in the war, Churchill was a realist and a pragmatist above all else (more on that later, those are not adjectives based on my opinion, they're actual political stances). As such, he believed in joining forces with whomever was stronger in the stage.\n\nAfter the Nazis dissolved what had been France, they dissolved the agreement that had ruled geopolitics since 1904: the entente cordiale, an agreement between the United Kingdom and France. Because of that, it became necessary for Churchill to find a new, stronger ally. According to David Reynolds in The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance, 1937–1941: a Study in Competitive Co-operation (1981), he found said ally in Roosevelt and the United States.\n\nThus, the Special Relationship was born. It has been defined as many things, but according to Reynolds, it is fragile. However, when it was born, during the war, it was strong, and marked a significant difference with the previous tensions.\n\nBut why? Because of:\n\n**Realpolitik**\n\nI'm paraphrasing from an earlier comment. Esther Barbé in *The Balance of Power in International Relations Theory* (1987) describes it as a German term that refers to a specific systemic approach to geopolitics, which has existed for thousands of years. It is directly associated with pragmatism and realism, and its essence is this: considering the facts of a matter, the specific circumstances and characteristics of an event, as well as carefully analysing the consequences of an action, should be more important than any ideological considerations. Some figures associated with Realpolitik are Niccolo Machiavelli, Otto von Bismarck and, more recently, Henry Kissinger.\n\nIn the context of these countries and this period, it's important because both nations understood that, in order to achieve the mutual goal of winning the war and therefore emerging as keepers of the peace and defenders of freedom, they needed pragmatism. And pragmatism dictated the need to put aside past grievances and tensions, in order to assist each other in furthering their short and mid term objectives. Therefore, began a period of strengthened diplomatic relations, of cultural exchange, of acceptance of differences and exaltation of similarities. \n\nThis favourable foreign policy impacted social views as well. The US stopped being the rebellious offspring in British eyes, becoming the prodigal daughter, while Britain stopped being an antiquated icon of opulence and oppression from the US' perspective, becoming a revered and respected ancestor."
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[
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1d4i92
|
What's the difference between: Client, Associated, Protectorate, Tributary, Satellite, Puppet and Vassal states?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1d4i92/whats_the_difference_between_client_associated/
|
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"Why is this in /r/AskHistorians? Sounds like a political science question to me, unless you have historical examples of each you'd like to compare. Without context, they're just words, and their meaning in the present and at various times in the past are not necessarily the same. Basically: OP, more information please?",
"It appears that the differences between these is a matter of relation of the smaller state to the larger state. A protectorate may be a sovereign nation or a colony, they receive some form of militaristic protection in return for some action on their behalf (Britain and Qatar ?-1971 CE). A tributary is a state which submits to a more powerful state and generally turns over some portion of its economy as tribute; the smaller state may enjoy some protection from the larger but not necessarily (Persia and all of its tributes 700–400 BCE). A satellite state is a state that is independent from but is ideologically and politically influenced heavily by a larger state (Russia and the former USSR hinterland 1989-present CE). A puppet state is a state that is formally independent but is actually manipulated by an outside state (Britain and the Kingdom of Iraq 1941-47 CE). \n\nI am unfamiliar with Client and Associated states and the term Vassal state can be equally applied to protectorate, tributary and puppet states."
]
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[],
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38sqti
|
How did the German garrisons in Normandy react to the airborne phase of Operation Overlord with regards to the imminent amphibious invasion that was to commence in a few hours time?
|
With two entire US Airborne divisions and numerous Commonwealth detachments parachuting into Normandy in the small hours of June 6th, did the Germans catch on to the fact that a much larger invasion was to succeed it or did they just treat the airborne phase as an isolated situation until the main invasion force arrived a few hours later?
I know the plan with Overlord in general was to try and catch the Germans relatively unawares, but I wonder how much of the element of surprise was lost when the paratroopers flew in, given that it was a good four hours before the amphibious assaults began.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/38sqti/how_did_the_german_garrisons_in_normandy_react_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"crxl43l"
],
"score": [
26
],
"text": [
"The Western Allies employed massive deception actions in order to distract the Germans on D Day. One of the key components was operation Titanic. Titanic involved dropping hundreds of dummy paratroops away from Normandy to hopefully draw German forces away from beaches.\n\nSome of the dummies had fireworks attached to simulate gunfire. Others had explosives that would sound like mortars, and would destroy the dummy, leaving just the chute behind for the Germans to find. The British even sent some actual SAS troops who played recordings of gunfire and of men talking to make it sound like thousands of men were landing. Most of the SAS men were killed.\n\nThe result was everything the Allies could have hoped for. The Germans were put on alert when they started receiving reports of paratroops. But general Hans Speidel actually ordered the alert canceled for his men when they found dummies. General Rundstedt ordered the 12th SS panzer division to Lisieux to deal with a theoretical landing there. And the 352 reserve division was ordered *away* from the Omaha and Gold beaches and the actual 101st Airborne drop zones in order to search the woods and bocage area to the south, for what proved to be dummy paratroops. The fact that the actual paratroop drops were screwed up actually added to the confusion. The German commanders were receiving reports all along the coasts, and for some distance inland, of paratroops everywhere. And what they kept finding was dummies.\n\nIn addition the Allies launched a massive air campaign. Over 14,000 sorties were flown by the Allies from dusk June 5th to dusk June 6th. And a lot of these sorties were well away from Normandy. In addition to just raw deception, they were also targeting transportation and communication links. Bombers and fighters were attacking bridges, rail stock, radio towers and more.\n\nThe French also started a major sabotage campaign on the night of the fifth. Partisans were out targeting the same kinds of things as the air forces were. In the dark it is hard to tell the difference between a partisan and a paratroop. And it is even harder to communicate it back to your commander when the radio tower has been knocked down and the phone line has been cut.\n\nMary Barbier's *D-day Deception* covers the deception operations including Titanic quite well."
]
}
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[
[]
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aw2hje
|
When and where did the first major port or harbour dredging operations take place? What vessels and equipment were used?
|
By "first major" I mostly mean "early notable". I searched for information on the topic online but somehow failed to find anything not related to modern dredging efforts and ships. I am writing a fantasy story involving a maritime nation using different types of ports and harbours, and would like to understand how to approach this particular aspect in a historical context.
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aw2hje/when_and_where_did_the_first_major_port_or/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ehk5g5c"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Thank you for this very interesting question, though I cannot directly answer your question about 'When & Where'. \n\n & nbsp;\n\nMany medieval famous ports like Dorestad and Bruges now in Low Countries became almost out of use by the end of the Middle Ages due to the sediment deposition by rivers. While I cannot find a reference to any measure taken by human to keep the sediment coming, some Europeans certainly tried to prevent further artificial damage to the waterways, that is to say, the lifeline to their port towns, at least in the Later Middle Ages. \n\n & nbsp;\n\nLatest since the end of the 13th century, we can find prohibitions against the illegal dumping of the ballast from ships into either waterways or the port itself under penalty of 3 marks silver in many cities around the Baltic Sea like Hamburg, Wismar, and Copenhagen. The shipper and sailors were required to deposit such ballast only to a certain assigned places, and town dwellers even sometimes seemed to recycle the deposited ballast for the large-construction activity in their city (Cf. Ansorge et al. 2002 for Wismer). On the other hand, it was the authority's responsibility to provide ships with the ballast, and special officials (names varied in different cities, though) had been appointed to take care of depositing and preparing the ballast for coming and going ships since the late 15th century, and it was one of the duty of citizens living by the port to report any illegal act of damaging the port as well as waterways to these officials. In some cities, violators of these regulations were liable not only to fines, but also forced under the imprisonment or the expulsion from the town. The official earned not only their salary from the city council, but also the third of such fines in Hamburg. \n\n & nbsp;\n\nIn principle, every citizen were also expected to corporate with the town authority's instruction to clean waterways as well as the harbor. In not self-governing Copenhagen where the king of Denmark was also the authority of the town, foreign visitors had also to follow the instruction of the king to keep the harbor clean. Special tax was sometimes imposed upon the citizens to enforce this kind of cleaning activity, though I cannot find what kind of tools were actually used for the cleaning. To check the primary sources texts perhaps will shed some light on this activity. \n\n & nbsp; \n\nIn addition to these more 'regular' maintenance activities, Hamburg city council in the middle of the 16th century invested quite an amount of money to improve/ keep waterways clean and navigiable for the large ships by some pavements of logs, sand asnd stones. They also hired two special civil engineers of the Dutch origin, namely Antonius Bardun and his son from Seeland, to fulfill this job in ca. 1540. So, I assume that this large-scale building activity includes some dregding operations as well, and that the Netherlands could be regarded as a pioneer of this field of activity in the 16th century, but I unfortunately knew little about harbors and the building activity there, sorry. \n\n & nbsp;\n\nReferences: \n\n* [Ansorge, Jörg, Peter Frenzel & Melanie Thomas. 'Cogs, sand and beer – a palaeontological analysis of medieval ballast sand in the harbour of Wismar (Southwestern Baltic Sea Coast, Germany)'. In: *Umweltarchäologie – Naturkatastrophen und Umweltwandel im archäologischen Befund*, ed. H. -R. Bork, H. Meller & M. Gerlach, pp. 161-73. Halle:Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte Halle (Saale), 2011.](_URL_0_) \n* Deggim, Christina. *Hafenleben in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit: Seehandel und Arbeitsregerungen in Hamburg und Kopenhagen von 13. bis zum 17. Jahrhundert.* Hamburg: Convent Verlag, 2005. (in German) \n\n[Edited]: fixes spelling. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255979115_Cogs_sand_and_beer_-_a_palaeontological_analysis_of_medieval_ballast_sand_in_the_harbour_of_Wismar_Southwestern_Baltic_Sea_Coast_Germany"
]
] |
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1ttog8
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Did the Bolsheviks usurp a popular revolution between February and October 1917 ?
|
I know it is the case the that the Bolsheviks did not have majority support in Russia in 1917 as is shown by the elections in November 1917. However they weren't by any means small players by coming second with 23% of the vote. I understand the Bolsheviks gained a lot of support especially in cities through being vehemently against continuing fighting in the First World War and using populist slogans such as 'Bread, Peace and Land'.
This may point to a hijacking of the revolution, however this raises the question, that just because a party uses populist propaganda does that not mean they don't believe in what they are propagating? And if it the Bolsheviks did usurp the revolution, then surely all successful factions in every revolution have usurped their particular revolution?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ttog8/did_the_bolsheviks_usurp_a_popular_revolution/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cebevdp",
"cebqgvr"
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text": [
"This is a topic that I've studied extensively. It's an incredibly complicated period of Russian history, so I don't think I'll be able to do it justice. The upshot here is that the February Revolution was a largely spontaneous event fueled by the Russian people's war weariness and hunger. Unfortunately, even with the fall of the Romanov dynasty, the Provisional Government under Georgy Lvov (and later Alexander Kerensky) decided to honor Russia's international obligations instead of suing for peace.\n\nThis led to continued discontent both at home and in the military. During the summer of 1917, there was constant rioting and demonstrations. Russia was not a happy place.\n\nTo answer your question, the Bolsheviks took advantage of a very unstable situation. However, I wouldn't say they hijacked the revolution. It should be noted that the \"revolution\" took about a day to conclude, and really only took place in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). Basically they were pushing the current guy out of the way and yelling \"King of the Hill!\" When the provisional government fell, *several* factions -- both domestic and foreign -- were then engaged in a bloody civil war that lasted until 1922.\n\nI'm not going to touch on your generalization about usurping revolutions, 'cause it's a conclusion that couldn't begin to support itself.",
"Most of the historians, in especially from the 60's onwards (be careful however, there is a slant of partisan support, especially during the 60's -90's) would argue similar to your case. I'm going by my highschool textbook here.\n\nBut, those influenced by the Cold War had argued that the Bolsheviks DID 'usurp' the revolution between February and October, due to their ability to 'exploit' the situation. Richard Pipes for example, had advocated and promoted 'every discontented group what it wanted' , where \"land socialization\" was promised to the peasants, and offered syndicalist trends of worker control to the urban workers. Other factors, he notes, also state that this 'deception' was applied to the then Provisional Government by advocating one party dictatorship and the transfer of power to the soviets and the Constituent Assembly. This can be seen in Lenin's \"April Thesis\" he published in 1917, where if you read Pipe's arguments, that Lenin was 'mad' or most likely insane. He therefore calls that, by the time Lenin assumed a myriad of false lies and promises, it allowed the Bolsheviks to ascend to political authority with their 'coup' by October.\n\nWith historians such as Pipes that highlight that the Bolsheviks exploited the popular revolution, it is easy to be persuaded by the idea that the Bolsheviks did 'usurp' the revolution. It can only appear as such in retrospect, but with more historians omitting themselves from such partisan stance that Pipes highlights, like docandersonn points out, there are other factors that come into play. Some historians, such as Sheila Fitzpatrick/ Edward Acton present the case that during these months between February and October, the Bolsheviks did -not- usurp/exploit the popularity, but instead they changed their political course to meet the needs of the population. It was this alignment with popular sentiment that gave the Bolsheviks a rise in their support, and it was this, evident by late September - the Bolsheviks had almost or more than 50% of support in the Second Russian Congress. It was during this period that the Bolsheviks presented themselves as a better alternative by promising reforms such as workers control to legalising the land taking the peasantry were illegally carrying out.\n\n Other factors include the fallacies and the incompetence of the Provisional Government itself -- its absorption with continuing the Great War further undermined their legitimacy that they sort to protect Russia. So how does these \"Revisionist\" (sorry if I offended you historians out there, I read the other thread a few yonks back and you all got fired up about this term) historians state that it differed from 'exploiting' like the previous generation argued? To support this claim, they used the example such as the July Days - where Fitzpatrick reveals that the Bolshevik party had dismissed the popular crowd of embittered Kronstant sailors and displeased workers that showed up, noting Lenin's quote that it was 'not ready yet'. Other evidence includes the failure of the June Offensive, where the failure of Russian advancement liquidated the last forms of support for the war, to the Keresnky Offense by late August. As a result, this accelerated the support the Bolsheviks had, leading to the Bolsheviks 'taking over' by October. \n\nThus, it is evident that, and you must understand - that there are lots of parameters and variables that you must account for when you are looking at revolutions. While your suggestion is generally popular when it comes to historical Revolution, I would admit that your question would be a bit of a generalization, just like docandersonn said. \n\nSource:\n\n* Richard Pipes' *Did the Russian Revolution Have to Happen?* \n* Richard Malone *Analysing the Russian Revolution*\n* Stephen Lee *Lenin and the Revolutionary Russia*\n"
]
}
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[
[],
[]
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ep1ced
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Do we overestimate the importance of the translation of the bible?
|
This thought came to me the other day, mainly due to the fact that the story sold to most people is that medieval Europe was a literacy wasteland. If almost nobody could ready, how did the bible translation help revolutionize society?
I'm assuming that the upper crust of society was already learned in Latin, so I don't so how translating the bible to English/German etc....would help them? And the upper crusts "serfs" almost certainly could not read so, someone, please, break it down for me. Why is this given so much importance?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ep1ced/do_we_overestimate_the_importance_of_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fehrt6b"
],
"score": [
18
],
"text": [
"Well, the reason today's histories give it so much importance is easy: Luther; we listen to Luther. Protestant partisanship has dominated historiography on late medieval religion and the Reformation so completely that even scholars didn't realize it until the late 20th century. So we unite \"sola scriptura\" with Luther's German Bible (and other vernacular ones that *followed* it). \n\nBut Luther, like quite a few clerics of his day, had a tendency to substitute propaganda for fact. By 1500, there were eighteen printed editions of the Bible in German. With 300 to 1000 copies per edition, that probably means about 9000 printed vernacular Bibles in High German-speaking areas alone. To say nothing of manuscript copies, individual Testaments and books, plenaries that contained the biblical text rearranged to match what passages were read in church each day...and so on.\n\nTrue, even vernacular literacy rates were rock-bottom low. (30-50% in the most cosmopolitan of cities; negligible in rural areas). But in the 15th century, sermons were massively popular public events. And at least according to surviving books of sample sermons, priests--especially if they didn't have time--were encouraged to explain the Latin reading in German...or, if they didn't have time or didn't have the education, to just read the darn thing. In German. 15th century priests absolutely placed a premium on people being able to understand lessons. (More so, it seems, than in earlier centuries). And the literate population? Some of the most literate groups included nuns, monks, and priests--many of whom fought bitterly to stay subject to Rome.\n\nOh, right, and the years around 1500 are widely accepted in scholarship as the most *ecclesiastically* devout in the Middle Ages--the most loyal to the Church.\n\nRight.\n\n...Except...then...when Miriam Chrisman looked at middle-class lay-written propaganda from the early Reformation, she found that the ONE uniting feature in all of them was the need for the \"word of God.\" When rural peasants revolted against the nobility in 1525, they appealed to \"God's law\" and \"God's word\" as the legal justification for their rebellion.\n\nWell, crap.\n\nSo, scholars are just beginning to study the impact of the vernacular Bible in the fifteenth century, and there isn't really any major work on the jump from that to the Luther movement. I think you can say, however, that it wasn't so much the Bible in the vernacular that caused the Reformation, or revolutionized the church, or however one might phrase it. Instead, it was more the *idea* of the Bible as something (a) accessible, and (b) *sola*--that is, the *only* authority. \n\n\"Das wort gottes\", in a sense, gave people immediate access to God, salvation, and even power on Earth--or at least, gave them that hope.\n\n~~\n\nFurther Reading: Anthony Gow is probably the best scholar on the 15th century Bible in High German (Luther's language). Miriam Chrisman's *Conflicting Visions of Reform* is an excellent English-language overview of lay propaganda pamphlets from Germany."
]
}
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[
[]
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2jdujd
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What to ask a Holocaust Survivor?
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I have the privilege of being in a class a holocaust survivor will be speaking to tomorrow afternoon. What do y'all suggest I should ask him when he opens the floor for questions? He was 13 when he was taken into the camps. Came to America and served in the Korean war. Has lived in Houston since he came to America.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2jdujd/what_to_ask_a_holocaust_survivor/
|
{
"a_id": [
"clascbb",
"claujgb",
"claunwl",
"clb3s8r"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Hmmm...there are many that come to mind. Most survivors who speak in public will answer most any question. I would establish the camp they were located in and how the guards were toward the prisoners. I would probably ask how they believe we can avoid losing the facts that the holocaust happened since so many people (and more seem to come out daily) deny it ever happened. ",
"How were you able to overcome the pain of what you went through to go on with your life? Do you ever feel sorry for yourself or get depressed?\n Can you make any generalization about the type of person who was more likely to survive? \n",
"Do you think that what happened to seemingly otherwise normal people in Germany could happen again? The indoctrination of thousands of German youth into the SS death squads? If so, what is the best course of action as a society we can take to make sure this never happens again? ",
"I was at a talk given by a group of survivors a few years ago. Someone in the audience asked them whether or not they thought the whole experience was a learning experience for humanity -- was their terrible sacrifice 'worth it' to make humanity better? There were varied and highly interesting responses. "
]
}
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[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
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2uo3ut
|
Why was there so much rape and pillaging in ancient times?
|
I feel like the average person these days would never consider actually rapping someone, even with no consequence I couldn't imagine doing that. Is that through education or something with our brains?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2uo3ut/why_was_there_so_much_rape_and_pillaging_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"coahann",
"coak3wi"
],
"score": [
5,
9
],
"text": [
"1.Very broad question\n\n2. Don't underestimate how often rape happens in modem war. Look at World War 2 or Vietnam.\n\n3. When people say \"rape and pillage\", originally rape meant \"take\". It refers to rampant stealing.\n\n The amount of rape and pillage there would be depends on the circumstances of the war and cultures invoked, not terribly different then now. Mongols were infamous for raping (in both ways) and pillaging, but there was a lack of both in Roman civil wars for example ",
"As other commenters have said:\n\n1. Rape as in forcibly coerced sexual acts is still fairly common in war time. Wartime rape is by no means something confined to the past.\n\n2. The word \"rape\" originally had a meaning closer to \"steal\" and then aquired the meaning \"kidnapping for sex\" (by anaology with stealing\". It's current meaning of \"sexual assult\" first appears in the 1400s, but doesn't become the primary usage until the 19th or 20th century, at which point the older meaning of \"steal\" was totally eclipsed. So the older phrase \"loot, rape, and pillage\" was a poetic way of saying \"steal, steal, and steal some more\".\n\n3. Sexual violence has been a part of pretty much every human society since time immemorial. It's just social attitudes toward it's acceptability and treatment of victims that has changed. Sorry, that's the ugly truth.\n\n4. As much of it grates on our modern sensebilities, rape in wartime should probably be viewed as an aspect of \"mistreatment of civilians\" rather than akin to ordinary sexual assault, which occurs under rather different social circumstances."
]
}
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[
[],
[]
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5ymjyf
|
Watching MASH and a question struck me: as an officer and a doctor, what kind of military training would a drafted MD get in the Korean War (any other war is fine)?
|
Would it be the same bootcamp everyone else went to or would they have a relatively easy time of it?
Apologies if this has been asked, Google wasn't much help.
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5ymjyf/watching_mash_and_a_question_struck_me_as_an/
|
{
"a_id": [
"derbqmy"
],
"score": [
20
],
"text": [
"Staff Corps, Limited Duty, Direct Commission, and really any classification of officer for the US that was not expected to be a 'War Fighter\" or in direct support have traditionally had more abbreviated training regimens that also did tend to be less intense. In part this was from the obvious, that their main qualifications and skills were earned previous to their entering service, and partly to keep service an attractive option and the pipeline moving quickly for valuable subject matter experts. \n\nThe modern scheme which emerged post Vietnam essentially allows Staff Corps Officers to bypass basic Officer Candidate School(OCS) or any previous ROTC or Academy time and jump to the next phase. This is what is known as Basic Officer's Leadership Course or BOLC(pronounced Bowl-ick), this is where most of an officer's actual professional training in how to operate in Big Army occurs. While OCS is mostly about indoctrinating the officer candidates into how to think as an officer and leader, follow orders, act as a team, and screen out those not physically or mentally up to snuff. So for Staff or other officers then you can add in some marching, some PT, some learning things like rank recognition, and the organization of their future commands as a shorter program. An Army Doctor is never going to need to lead a platoon in close order drill, or conduct a patrol, so while exercises like that have a certain value (even before they are officially taught the Army way then as stress, teamwork, and leadership tests) so you don't need to be spending as much time on it. While an Army Chaplin doesn't have a pressing need to have expert level land nav skills either as another example of stuff that if present is nowhere to the same depth. \n\nAll the branches then have some slight variations, the Navy then instead of a BLOC system has a far different officer training pipeline. So they run their Officer Candidate School out of Newport and alongside have Officer Development School for their Staff and Restricted Line Officers. Its both shorter and less \"in your face\" being 5 weeks vs 12 for OCS. From there newly minted officers could end up at either follow on training of their first commands. "
]
}
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[
[]
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4ocsrm
|
Was Charlemagne religious motivated in his dealings with the Vikings?
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[deleted]
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4ocsrm/was_charlemagne_religious_motivated_in_his/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d4bxw3n"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Clarification: are you referring to the Viking raiders who began pillaging the Frankish coast towards the end of his rule, or the Saxon kingdom in modern Germany who also worshipped the Norse pantheon?"
]
}
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[] |
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[
[]
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1kf16q
|
Can the traditional "campaigning season" be applied to Viking raids?
|
Athelstan's law codes at Grately say that *byrg* should repaired by Rogation Days, i.e. by April, in time for what traditionally has been seen as the start of the military campaigning season, yet the *Anglo-Saxon Chronicle* makes persistent references to Vikings overwintering near English towns. Would these have been hostile occupations, or literal winter camps?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1kf16q/can_the_traditional_campaigning_season_be_applied/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbohce3"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Yes; normally Vikings would only raid seasonally. However, during the later period of Viking activity in Britain, they also established winter camps, in Ireland called Longphorts. These camps were before mainly used as a temporary base during raids (particularly near river mouths or on promontories in the sea, a 'nes' in Danish and still a familiar component of British placenames), but during the later 9th century Vikings also used these and other more-or-less fortified places as overwintering camps. I don't know of any significant military actions undertaken during winter from these camps, so I assume them to be simply places to stay without having to make the long and dangerous journey back to Scandinavia."
]
}
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[
[]
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1tf3ly
|
How strong was opposition to German reunification inside Germany? What were the major arguments?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1tf3ly/how_strong_was_opposition_to_german_reunification/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ce7etzg",
"ce7gpun",
"ce7rnje",
"ce7slu2"
],
"score": [
5,
18,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Just to add, were there any significant differences in how East and West Germans viewed reunification? Were any East Germans wanting to avoid reunification but promote democratic and capitalist reforms? ",
"There are a couple of things that caused some people to oppose unification. The first and foremost is that the GDR was a socialist state. While many embraced economic reform, there were loyal socialists in eastern Germany. The GDR had also been under the sphere of the bloc, meaning that media, products, trends and many other aspects of daily life were very different in the two Germanies - there was a cultural difference between the two. \n\nAs far as communist countries went, the GDR was the place to be. Thy had the strongest economy, quality of life, etc. West Germany more or less absorbed the East, meaning that the East forfeited its political and economic institutions. This would he a big blow to a country that had previously been a model if success!\n\nEach country's citizens had grown up with different interpretations/ideologies concerning Germany's history, particularly about the fascist period. To the East, fascism was the end result of capitalism, which meant that the West was blamed for it and that the Third Reich was understood to have been an inevitable embodiment of capitalism that led to the socialist revolution. To the West, the Third Reich was blamed on faulty political ideology - western democracy was the answer. The two countries has different understandings of their histories, which was a difficult factor for some. \n\nAlso, Germany as we know it today didn't appear until 1871, when the wars of unification brought together the Prussian Empire with over 300 city/church states. Canada (est. 1867) is an older country than Germany, which was reduced in size in 1919, existed under new political and economic structures in the 30s, devastated by war, and then cut apart and reassembled by Britain, the US, France and the USSR. Because of the various young and tumultuous compositions of pre-war Germany, there is some debate as to whether or not it should be called \"unification\" or \"re-unification\", as in 1989, they were quit literally two different countries with distinct cultures and understandings of their history. \n\nI hope that helps - they were quite literally two different countries with distinct cultures, histories and institutions. ",
"Weren't some in the West wary of the financial cost to it of subsidizing the East upon unification? There was also some controversy about exchanging Eastern currency 1-for-1 for Western Marks. It was seen as a giveaway to the East. ",
"If you speak german you could watch old episodes of the [Tagesschau](_URL_0_) from 1990. There you see that especially the SPD und Oscar Lafontaine was opposed to quick reunification, because of the major social and economic differences."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/tsvorzwanzigjahren126~_origin-08770167-e3c2-45f7-a0b4-001139c0bbce.html"
]
] |
||
1jjoaf
|
Was There Any Major Resistance By Troopers in the German Army During WWII?
|
Due to the Germans treatment of Jews and other minorities, were there any major times when German soldiers rebelled or disobeyed orders?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1jjoaf/was_there_any_major_resistance_by_troopers_in_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbffnaz"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Disobeying orders doesn't have to mean resistance. Germans were in fact allowed to refuse certain orders. That was actually one of the reasons why the gas chambers were selected as a method of killing as quite a lot of those taking part in the Holocaust found that they couldn't keep doing it. The Germans weren't the dumb idiots you usually see in movies who just shoot everyone for refusing to carry out distasteful orders. They had procedures to deal with that which didn't result in just throwing the person up against a wall and shooting them. They'd usually just be reassigned, possibly to a combat posting. Himmler was actually becoming quite worried at the rate of opting out of those carrying out the Holocaust, and he actually requested to witness an execution to judge for himself, which he found sickening, before he decided upon the gas chambers. The gas chambers enabled those carrying out the Holocaust to distance themselves from it as all they basically had to do was walk up to a hole, drop some pellets down it, and walk away. The herding of prisoners into the chambers, the collection of the bodies afterwards, and their disposal, was usually the job of those such as the Sonderkommando, who were prisoners allowed to live, for a while, if they agreed to do those jobs. "
]
}
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[] |
[
[]
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1eyw01
|
Field Marshal Montgomery - tactical genius who outfoxed Rommel, or timid self-interested career soldier who delayed the fall Germany, or both?
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My early impressions of Montgomery were that he was one of the great heroes of the war whose tactical ability was credited with being a major factor of the reversal of Allied fortunes in North Africa. However after reading Stephen Ambrose's excellent book on D-Day I'm left with the opinion that he was deeply concerned with his career prospects, post-war honours and spent much of his energies claiming credit for victories that weren't his. His leadership after D-Day is described as overly cautious and Ambrose suggests this lead to many missed opportunities and extending the war.
To what extent is his reputation as war hero and excellent tactician earned, or was it more propaganda than fact? Is it fair to say his timidity prolonged the war in Europe?
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AskHistorians
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http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1eyw01/field_marshal_montgomery_tactical_genius_who/
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{
"a_id": [
"ca59nk9"
],
"score": [
27
],
"text": [
"When I rate generals, I use four categories.\n\n**Tactics**\n\nA general needs to be able to win battles against his enemies. He must be able to use his own forces and know their strengths and weaknesses and those of his enemies. He needs to be able to fight in many different kinds of terrain, in enemy lands as well as his own, against conventional and unconventional warfare, in ambuhes and regular warfare.\n\nI would rate Montgomery as an average to good tactician. This was not his greatest strengths, but he was not bad either. He did nto show that much sophistication in France 1940 nor in Egypt or France 1944, but British troops were more focused around set-piece battle than manouvre warfare anyway. Market-Garden was a very good plan spoiled by faulty intelligence and Montgomery's inability to see the probelsm that arose when the Germans reinforced the area.\n\n**Strategy**\n\nA general needs see the big picture, and use his victories to knock out enemies of the war, he needs follow up on successes and not go headlong into pursuits where he will be stranded. He needs to get allies and improve his positions without fighting. He needs to have an understanding on how to undermine the enemy ability to fight and use his victories well.\n\nMongomery was good to excellent in this field. He knew how to grind down German forces, he knew how to keep his own forces alive and the attrition of warfare impossible to meet for the enemy and possible to meet for his own forces. Market-Garden was as a plan a very good move foiled by multiple problems, among them faulty intelligence.\n\n**Politics**\n\nThe general needs keep in position despite others trying to remove him. He needs to get allies, and he needs to work with those allies. He needs to secure resources for himself, work with his seniors, juniors and equals. He needs to drum warring tribes together against a common foe. Will what he builds last as a legacy? He needs to appoint the right men to the right place and promote competent people.\n\nMontgomery was actually excellent in this field. It requires a big ego, but he was able to work well with both subordinates and superiors, as well as allies. Even if he had conflicts and rivalry, with for example Patton, he never let that get in the way of fighting - perhaps with the exception of his refusal to abandon Market-Garden. He was able to secure the resources he needed and work within the political system of his country and his allies.\n\n**Organisation**\n\nA general needs to be able to organise troops so they fight well and the civil society (if a ruler) to provide him with more troops, supplies and other things needed to fight. He needs to keep himself involved only at a level above and a level below his own, and have focus on what he needs to do. He needs to understand logistics.\n\nThis is Montgomery's greatest strength. He was a masterful logistican, knew very well the weaknesses and strengths of the British and Commonwealth Forces and was able to to build up superiority enough to compensate for any weaknesses in his forces compared to axis troops.\n\nOverall, Montgomery had the makings of an army group commander and as such he was a very good General. As a corps or divisional commander, his relative lack of tactical skill would have shown.\n\nI consider him the right man in the right position for the British 1942-1945 - they hardly had anyone who could have done the job better at the time."
]
}
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69m8iq
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Were Sunnis always the largest Muslim sect?
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In the 11th Century, i could say that most muslim lands were ruled by either Shi'ites or Ibadis.
The Fatimids in North Africa and the Levant, the Buyids in Iran and Iraq, the Qarmatians in Eastern Arabia, all of these being Shia, in addition to all the Ibadi dynasties in Morocco and Oman.
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AskHistorians
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/69m8iq/were_sunnis_always_the_largest_muslim_sect/
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{
"a_id": [
"dh8goln"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"Let me rephrase that for you. \"Was there every a time when non-Sunni's were the largest Muslim sect?\" \n\nThe reason I rephrase your question is that \"Sunni\" isn't necessarily the most accurate term to use. Certainly, I don't believe any of Muhammad's companions would refer to themselves as \"Sunni\". That term crystallizes later. In general, recent scholarship favors the term \"proto-Sunni\" to refer to the mainstream traditionalists in the early era of Islam (at least from a theological view). The boundaries of Sunnism as outlined in the seminal work *Aqeedah at-Tahawiyyah* were actually in (at least somewhat) flux in the early century or two. People as important in Sunni theology as Nu'man ibn Thabit (Abu Hanifa) held views that are not strictly \"Sunni\". In particular, his ranking of Ali as third highest of Muhammad's companions and not number four. Also some of the views on the issue of what constitutes belief, where some proto-Sunnis had views shared with the Murji'ah and even the Khawarij. These issues didn't really coalesce into a unified theology known as Sunnism until quite some time.\n\nTo address the intent of your question rather than nitpick though :-). Yes, mainstream traditionalists were always the largest sect. Groups believing in an esoteric knowledge carried by Muhammad's family (aka proto-Shi'as crystallizing into the Zaydis, Imamis, and Isma'ilis) were never the majority.\n\nI'd recommend reading *The Roots and Achievements of the Early Proto-Sunni Movement: A Profile and Interpretation* by Matthew J. Kuiper for more about the issue of proto-Sunnis."
]
}
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55yrh3
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How much censorship, if any at all, were american and european newspapers under in the 19th century?
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I had a discussion with a friend were he claimed that newspaper during that century were merely puppets of the state that wrote nothing but propaganda pieces and that freedom of the press was nonexistant. As an example he said that the battle of Waterloo were reported as a resounding victory for the french in french newspapers. I feel a bit skeptical, so I thought I would ask some experts. Were there major newspapers during that time period that were similar to the standard we have today? Could a person alive during that time read newspapers that gave him a reasonably accurate portrayal of what was going on in the world?
And as the title says, how much censorship was there?
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AskHistorians
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/55yrh3/how_much_censorship_if_any_at_all_were_american/
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{
"a_id": [
"d8fgjqy"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"I can only speak for Austria, but here's what I know. During the late 18th century, Joseph II insisted a series of liberalizing reforms aiming to not only modernize the Austrian Bureaucracy, but also to encourage freedom of the press and other intellectual freedoms we associate with the Enlightenment. His policies of press freedom though, ended up being curbed in the latter of his reign when newspapers, such as the Wiener Zeitung, criticized his Germanization policies and religious freedoms given to Protestants and Jews. Under his successors, such as Franz II/I, there was far greater censorship of nearly every facet of life, including the press. This is especially clear with the Chancellorship of Metternich, one of the main proponents of conservatism in the post-napoleonic era. Metternich also virtually ruled Austria during the reign of Ferdinand I, due to Ferdinand's mental deficiencies.\n\nWhen we get to the reign of Franz Joseph in 1848, following the abdication of Ferdinand I, we again see the push towards censorship. Franz Joseph sought to model his rule on the absolutist precedent of Franz II/I, and would push for greater autocracy and censorship within the empire, especially to make sure a revolt such as Hungary's in 1848 would never happen again. This policy can be seen throughout the Habsburg state. In 1860, for example Count Agenor Guluchowski, a minister of state in charge of implementing the new constitution, pushed for heavy censorship of the press through \"administrative pressure\" on the papers. Ultimately, he was dismissed by Franz Joseph when other ministers realized the untenableness of this plan. Nevertheless, the amount of freedom given to the press would always serve as an issue of contention within the Dual-Monarchy, especially as the bureaucracy had its roots in the liberalism of Joseph.\n\nSources:\nJohn Deak, \"Forging a Multinational State: State Making in Imperial Austria from the Enlightenment to the First World War.\""
]
}
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46jfxd
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How do Indian historians view the Emperor Ashoka?
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I was talking with a collection of colleagues and the conversation switched to religions and I mentioned the reforms that Ashoka Maurya set up in India.
_URL_0_
One of these colleagues family was from India and he said my positive opinion of Ashoka was 'wrong', and stated that he did a lot to weaken India and pave the way for chaos and invasion. I disagreed and he said that he knew better than I and I didn't know what I was talking about. I told him i disagreed from what I read and left it at that. But where does Ashoka line up in Indian history - is he viewed as a failure? Is it a case of cultural perspective with Sikh and Hindu peoples see this Buddhist king as 'tainted'?
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AskHistorians
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/46jfxd/how_do_indian_historians_view_the_emperor_ashoka/
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{
"a_id": [
"d068ehk"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
" > Is it a case of cultural perspective with Sikh and Hindu peoples see this Buddhist king as 'tainted'?\n\nI doubt that. Hindu Indians picked the [Ashoka Chakra](_URL_3_) as their symbol on the [Indian flag](_URL_4_). Ashoka's [Lion Capital](_URL_2_) is India's [National Symbol](_URL_0_), was displayed on India's [first ever domestic stamp](_URL_1_). It used to be the watermark on every Indian banknote. You will find Ashoka's symbols widely in use across India to this day.\n\nNor is it a matter of Hindus versus Buddhists. Most Hindus think of Buddhists as \"cousins\", in the sense that Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism, a related Dharmic religion which has coexisted with Hinduism in India for thousands of years. Many Hindus consider Buddhists to be yet another variety of Hindus, and Buddha can easily take a place among the plethora of Hindu gods.\n\nI think what you may be referring to is more a criticism of Ashoka's policies. After Ashoka converted to Buddhism, he turned to non-violence, which meant no wars, not even defensive wars. He lost interest in maintaining his empire, many of his own sons and daughters became Buddhist monks and nuns. Less than fifty years after his death, the enormous empire built by his father Bindusar and grandfather Chandragupta was no more. Centuries of infighting among the resultant kingdoms followed.\n\nSome people may consider this a bad thing, since they see a direct relationship between Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism and the breakup of the Mauryan Empire. But overall, Ashoka is a much celebrated figure in India."
]
}
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[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka#Contributions"
] |
[
[
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Emblem_of_India.svg",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/India_1947_Ashoka_Lions_1_and_half_annas.jpg",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2c/Sarnath_Lion_Capital_of_Ashoka.jpg",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Ashoka_Chakra_Y.svg/1024px-Ashoka_Chakra_Y.svg.png",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/41/Flag_of_India.svg/1350px-Flag_of_India.svg.png"
]
] |
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