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cqhlps | In the show The Last Kingdom, they show multiple times that a viking must die with a weapon in his hand, what is the historical context of this ritual and purpose? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cqhlps/in_the_show_the_last_kingdom_they_show_multiple/ | {
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"The Last Kingdom generally isn't considered to be historically accurate. There's about [three years](_URL_0_) worth of questions on AskHistorians. Most are unanswered, and the few that have attracted discussion tend to view the show as an erroneous (and possibly problematic) depiction of the medieval past. Many of the most popular tropes from the show replicate fantasies also popularized by the History Channel's Vikings series, and Ask Historians has a whole [FAQ section](_URL_1_) on that.\n\nI've watched a season or two of the show and enjoyed it as an adventure story that occasionally draws on images from the past. The basic premise, however—that Viking-Age England pitted Christian Anglo-Saxons against pagan Danes—is entirely unsubstantiated.\n\nThere's good reason to believe that Alfred accepted a subordinate position to the \"Danish\" rulers of Mercia in the 870s (based on coins he minted in London while it was under Danish rule), and his later claims in the 890s that he represented Anglo-Saxon England was basically a way to assert rulership over neighboring areas never before ruled by Wessex. Alfred's nephew Æthelwold, who seems to be a bit of a buffoon in the show, actually seems to have had more success unifying Northumbria and East Anglia, to the point where he held sway over Mercia and might have unified all of Anglo-Saxon England—had he not died in battle against his father's former kingdom of Wessex. In Ireland, Æthelwold was remembered as 'king of the Saxons of the North' in the Annals of Ulster. At any rate, I think these two characters exemplify how ethnicity and religion were messy and perhaps even irrelevant to many actors in the early Viking Age.\n\nIn contrast, personal relationships were extremely important, and I think the show does a decent job at showing how these might sometimes trump what we might today consider rational political concerns. But the identity politics of the modern world—categorizing people according to ethnicity or religion and then pursuing policies of genocide to create 'pure' national communities—are problems of the 20th century, not the 9th."
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33yvrs | Why did the wehrmacht and luftwaffe have so many aces in ww2 | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/33yvrs/why_did_the_wehrmacht_and_luftwaffe_have_so_many/ | {
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"They didn't send their pilots home. American and Commonwealth pilots (can't speak for the Russians) had tours of duty, where they'd undergo a certain amount of missions before they were sent home to train other pilots. German pilots would fly missions until they were killed, injured, or captured, leading to individual pilots flying a ridiculous amount of missions and gaining experience, but not being able to pass this knowledge onto the recruits. ",
"Quoting an [earlier answer on German kill counts](_URL_1_) here, but followup questions are always encouraged!\n\nIt is also worth pointing out that while the Germans did have roughly 2500 aces, the Soviets had more at roughly 3000 and the US had nearly 1300 despite its late entry into the war. If you look at the list of [top scoring aces](_URL_0_) the list is dominated by German pilots. You have to scroll down a *long* way to get to Richard Bong, the first American listed. Most of the factors that allowed these high kill counts for the top aces translate to creating aces in general.\n\n-------------------\n\nThere were several factors that contributed to the astronomical kill counts accumulated by German fighter pilots. The most important in my opinion is that they stayed in combat from whenever it was that they started until they were killed or incapacitated. The US and Commonwealth fighter forces were far more likely to rotate pilots out of combat into other roles such as training. For Hartmann in particular, that meant combat from 1942 to the end of the war with few breaks.\n\nA second contributing factor was the excellence of German fighters. The Bf 109 was a very good fighter (especially early in the war), and the Germans were able to deploy it in combat in the Spanish Civil War via the Condor Legion. This allowed them to have combat experience that could be passed down to younger German pilots. This actual experience cannot be discounted. Even little things like learning what is likely to malfunction during combat is vital. This is especially true for learning what is important and what can be ignored in combat. Every model of plane is going to have its eccentricities, and knowing what you can safely ignore and what you must address immediately can be a lifesaver.\n\nAnother major factor in the large kill counts for German pilots is that they faced some seriously obsolescent aircraft on the eastern front. At the beginning of the war, their opposition had few fighters that could match the 109, and many aircraft that were hopelessly outclassed. The Russians also employed P-39 Airacobras among other aircraft supplied by the US, many of which were not a match for Hartmann's aircraft. Having a technological edge is huge in aerial combat.\n\nThe last factor I will mention is that the German aces were highly skilled. While it would be difficult to measure Hartmann's skill against an Allied ace, that he was an excellent combat pilot is beyond debate.\n\nLastly, there is some controversy over the claimed kill numbers. Some do not think that the German claims are accurate, and assert that the actual numbers are less than a third of the claimed counts. So far, I have not seen compelling evidence from these doubters, but that does not mean they can be completely dismissed.",
"/u/Domini_Canes has put the Skewed kill counts of the Luftwaffe into excellent perspective in answering this question, but I just want to add an addendum concerning Wehrmacht \"Panzer Aces\" and the apparent plethora of them compared to the paucity of them for the Allies.\n\nThe short answer is: The Western Allies in particular simply did not track it. We have *two* recorded \"Tank Aces\"; Lafayette Pool, a member of the US 3rd Armored, and Sydney Walters, a Canadian Armoured Corps member. The latter's kill count is listed in most sources as 18 enemy tanks. By contrast, Pool is listed as having destroyed \"over 200\" vehicles; of various classes, and you have to dig deep to find the breakdown of them. Both numbers for both aces are small, and their kill counts are indistinct and confusing. I will posit this: Their kill counts are most likely higher, but their *recorded* kills are realistic given the circumstances they occurred in. Further more their kills are tallied in a relatively short space of time, Pool's basically being limited to the Normandy Campaign and Walters from his unit's (2nd Armored Brigade, an independent flag level formation) arrival in Normandy to the end of the war.\n\nThe entire concept of 'tank aces' is incredibly hard to swallow, and there's just a myriad number of problems with Wehrmacht tank kill counts. First is just plain old fog of war; its quite hard to keep track of what the hell is happening around you in an armored vehicle, and the entire idea that you can pinpoint who killed what in anything beyond small unit action requires a great suspension of disbelief; and this is avoiding the problems of returned-to-combat vehicles, what constitutes a 'kill' and confirming kills in retreat. Secondly is the idea that it was in Nazi Germany's greatest interest to cultivate a cult of aces; attempting to show their individual fighting man as skilled, professional and superior to their enemy's. We see their ideological enemy, the Soviets, adopt a similar mentality as well, with Beevor mentioning Sniper Aces and even \"mortar aces\" and other such skilled infantrymen being mentioned and glorified in much the same way as skilled Fighter pilots or Tank commanders would be. They therefore went out of their way to embed reporters with notable tankmen and do their best to drum up the idea and image of superiority and skill; they bothered to keep track. I'd say that by contrast that it simply *wasn't* something that the Western Allies cared to attempt to track, and while the Allies definitely had their share of Fighter aces like Dick Bong, 'wreckage counts' for armored engagements tend to be touted proudly in *unit*, not individual histories for the United States et al.",
"Thanks for all the answers",
"I just want to point out that the Luftwaffe was part of the Wehrmacht. The Wehrmacht was the Defence Force (yes, even the Nazis considered their military a defence force). It consisted of the Luftwaffe (Air Force), Heer (Army) and Kriegsmarine (Navy). "
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1hztxr | How strong was the support for a monarchy in post-revolutionary war US? | Which, if any, of the 'Founding Fathers' were for making George Washington an actual king instead of President? Was their monarchy based on that of England/France/elsewhere? How did they imagine succession? When did this idea eventually lose any meaningful support? Did they believe in a divine right to rule? Otherwise, from where did this aristocracy originate? Thanks for your time and knowledge. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1hztxr/how_strong_was_the_support_for_a_monarchy_in/ | {
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"This is an important question, and one which is full of misconceptions. I remember that when I was a kid, my elementary school put on some kind of play about the Founding Fathers, and in order to dramatize this issue, the play introduced the audience to a character with big, ugly fake teeth and a crazy hillbilly accent, who was identified as a direct descendent of George Washington (this, despite the fact that Washington had no children). The point was to show the overall irrationality of monarchy, and the wisdom of Washington and the Founders.\n\nBut the problem with that sort of scene is that it massively oversimplifies early Americans' ideas concerning monarchy. The revolutionary generation for the most part saw monarchy as an element of government to be balanced alongside aristocracy and democracy (as Montesquieu wrote). The exact nature of that balance was a matter of debate. Hamilton famously proposed an \"elective monarch\" during the Constitutional Convention. The President would be elected, and serve for life unless removed, along the lines of how Supreme Court Judges serve today. This measure was resoundingly defeated. The current system of four-year terms was preferred. However, the President was essentially intended to fulfill the role of the monarch in this mixed government (with other elements of the federal government filling out the roles of aristocracy and democracy).\n\nAs far as I can think of, Hamilton was the only major political figure in the period to make such a proposal (and in 1787, during the Convention, his renown was considerably less than it is today). To answer your second question, Hamilton, being a noted Anglophile, was inspired by the British model, which he conceived of as the best system of government existing to that point. \n\nIt's important to remember that for most of the late 18th century, monarchy was considered a legitimate and efficient form of government. Many of the political thinkers of the time would have agreed with Montesquieu that governments should be adapted to the temper of their peoples. So where a constitutional monarchy was appropriate in Britain, a more mixed system was suitable to the U.S. \n\nIt was only in the early 19th century that Americans began to view monarchy as an inherent vice. Before the American Revolution, as Brendan McConville has shown in his excellent book The King's Three Faces, the British colonists in what would become the United States forged deep and abiding emotional connections with the British monarch that took time to decay. Furthermore, during the American Revolution, Americans praised and admired Louis XVI for his help. By the mid-1790s, and early 19th century, however, Jeffersonians began to attempt to differentiate themselves from Federalists by calling Hamilton and his ilk \"monocrats\" or \"monarchists,\" suggesting the beginning of a long-term change in Americans' perceptions of monarchy."
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a5t3w6 | Primary sources on Caesars invasion of Gaul | i'm having trouble finding primary sources on Caesars invasion of Gaul besides his book the The Gallic wars. Can you help me? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a5t3w6/primary_sources_on_caesars_invasion_of_gaul/ | {
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"There are other primary sources, but all are later than, and at least partially reliant on, Caesar's *Commentaries*.\n\nPlutarch's [Life of Caesar](_URL_1_) (15-27) summarizes the Gallic Wars. Suetonius' [Life](_URL_0_) (22-5) does the same, very briefly. There is a much more substantial account in Books 38-40 of Cassius Dio's [Roman History](_URL_2_) \\- but be advised that Dio was writing almost three centuries later, and has a habit (like many ancient historians) of inventing speeches for his characters. "
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"http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Caesar*.html",
"http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/home.html"
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3aynwo | Why was the Latin Empire of Constantinople also called the Empire of Romania or *Imperium Romaniae* ? | Is Empire of Romania just a vague translation of the Latin name or are there official papers with that name? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3aynwo/why_was_the_latin_empire_of_constantinople_also/ | {
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"It appears to just be an alternative translation of '*Imperium Romaniae*', the contemporary name given to the Byzantine Empire, which I've seen translated into English both as 'the Roman Empire' and 'the Empire of Romania'."
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7dacf4 | Why did William land at Pevensey and not Hastings? | Was there less defence? Better docks? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7dacf4/why_did_william_land_at_pevensey_and_not_hastings/ | {
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"Looking at a modern map, it's hard to imagine why an invasion force would have chosen a featureless spot like Pevensey to land at. We need to look at a map of the coastline as it existed in 1066, before generations of silting, coastal erosion and land reclamation works fundamentally changed the outline of Britain.\n\nThere are dramatic differences. The sea - and brackish coastal marshes - reached as far inland as Cambridge; much of Somerset was also an arm of the sea. And Pevensey was a substantial, sheltered bay, [as this close-up, with the modern coastline in lighter tone, and the contemporary one in a darker shade, shows](_URL_0_).\n\n**Source**\n\nDavid Hill, *An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England, 700-1066* (1981)",
"The generally accepted answer is that there was more room for landing ships that Pevensey, in addition to an old Roman fortification large enough for the entire army to camp in. According to Bernard Bachrach, there may also have been the remnants of a Roman deep water port, which would have allowed the unloading of the larger ships directly onto the docks, rather than cargo and horses being lowered over the side, placed into lighters and then ferried ashore. I've not seen any other authors back this last idea, but it's not impossible, as Pevensey was later one arm of the Cinque Port of Hastings.\n\nHowever, Christopher Hewitt has recently suggested that Pevensey was not a large bay, but instead \"more akin to a large marsh with loosely defined fluvial channels\". This is based on the 14th century Gough Map, which doesn't show any bay at Pevensey, as well as late 16th century maps drawn up in anticipation of the Spanish Armada which show the area as marshy. However, this does not mean that Pevensey was not a good choice for a large fleet: it may only have flooded periodically, the tides were lower at the time of year when William arrived and, furthermore, there would have still been plenty of channels and dry areas at the edges where ships could be beached. Small boats, combined with pontoons, could also have been used to cross the channels in the marsh if required, and we know that small boats were used to transport supplies.\n\nThe reason why a large bay would be ideal is that William had a lot of ships, and he couldn't know how long he would have to land his forces before considerable opposition was brought against him. It's generally accepted that he had at least 700 larger ships to transport his men and horses, but the total may have exceeded a thousand, without counting the smaller vessels used to transport the supplies. With the widespread deployment of Anglo-Saxon troops prior to William's delays, the speed at which they could move and the quality of the message service, he couldn't afford to take three or four days to unload all his men.\n\nApart from the Roman fort and the large area on which to land, Pevensey was also the end point for a system of medieval roads that linked up with a Roman road and lead deep into Wessex, where Harold held a considerable amount of land. This would make raiding his lands, destroying Harold's credibility with his people and his economic base, easier, and the Roman roads also offered quicker access to London than the medieval roads leading from Hastings. Pevensey also had multiple mills in close proximity, important for less time consuming production of flour, multiple salt houses, which would have aided in the preservation of meat, and some of the richest land in the south of England was directly west of Pevensey, which would have gone a good way towards providing money to pay William's men.\n\nWhy William chose to move most of his forces to Hastings is hard to discern. His strategic plans may have changed, or Pevensey might have proven unsuitable for a large army, either due to lack of accommodation or less food reserves than expected. Hastings likely did have better port facilities, and William might have had a significant number of early cogs and proto-hulcs that Pevensey couldn't handle. Being a larger town, Hastings probably also had more food available for the army and, additionally, it had a small mint which might have provided William with more money to pay his troops.\n\nHonestly, though, this is all speculation. While we have reasonable evidence for road networks, the relative importance of the ports, fiscal value of land and land ownership, we have almost no evidence of William's strategic plans in the lead up to the Battle of Hastings, and none as to why he chose to land at Pevensey over Hastings, or why he then moved to Hastings. Almost no fragments of administrative documents for the Conquest exist, and the remaining evidence comes from chronicles, all of which are biased in one direction or the other, some in verse and others written decades after the events, but still within living memory and drawing on anecdotes and now-lost sources. Interpreting it isn't easy, and everyone has their own version of what they think happened. This is all just my best guess, based on the primary and secondary sources I've read.\n\n**Sources**\n\n* *The Battle of Hastings*, ed. Stephen Morillo, The Boydell Press, 1996\n* Bachrach, Bernard S. “On the Origins of William the Conqueror's Horse Transports.” *Technology and Culture*, vol. 26, no. 3, 1985, pp. 505–531. JSTOR, JSTOR, _URL_2_.\n* Bachrach, B. S. (2002). Some Observations on the Military Administration of the Norman Conquest. In B. S. Bachrach (Ed.), *Warfare and Military Organization in Pre-Crusade Europe* (pp. 1-25). London, UK.\n* [*The Battle of Hastings 1066*](_URL_0_), by Michael Lawson, 3rd Edition\n* Morris, Marc, *The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England*, Pegasus Books, 2013\n* Hewitt, Christopher E. M., \"The Battle of Hastings: A Geographic Perspective\" (2016). *Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository*. 3628. _URL_1_"
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94k89y | Why didn't Stalin's associates assassinate him or commit a coup? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/94k89y/why_didnt_stalins_associates_assassinate_him_or/ | {
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"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!"
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aux3ic | Academically speaking is there a rigid definition for what is and isn't a Civil War? | \----Edit
Damn never mind. I just made the post and thought to myself, damn man you didn't even search before posting your question and [lo and behold](_URL_0_)
\----
& #x200B;
I was having this train of thought recently that the American Revolutionary War against the British is much more like a civil war than the actual Civil War of 1861.
The Revolutionary War was a war between the seating government and a disenfranchised group that had little to no political power. The only thing making it not a civil war is that the government's "seat of power" (I don't know if that is an accurate term) is, geographically speaking, not based inside the state itself.
The Civil War was a war between the seating government and a group of people that, for all intents and purposes, had complete economic and political sovereignty. The only thing making it a Civil War is that the United States are considered one nation.
It feels a little like the Revolutionary War was more of a civil war than the Civil War. Or at the very least that both are not really civil wars.
Similarly to genocide having strict academic definitions, are there some strict definitions about civil war that I could compare to these two events? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aux3ic/academically_speaking_is_there_a_rigid_definition/ | {
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"There's no harm in asking a good question twice! As the original responder in the linked thread, happy to address any follow ups you might have (although my ability to comment on 18-19th century American history is... limited).\n\nI would highlight that civil war isn't as strictly defined as genocide, partly due to academic neglect (there's a reason Armitage's book was a big deal), but also because genocide had to be defined legally as well as conceptually when it was written into international law after the Second World War (most obviously in the 1948 Convention on Genocide). Civil War, on the other hand, is not a crime in and of itself."
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2m3lcw | The Sunni / Shi'a split seems grounded in a fairly innocuous and ancient dispute. Leaving aside their respective beliefs about the succession, what events have led to the sharp and violent conflict between these two groups? | It's just hard to believe that the dispute is only about a 14 hundred year-old argument about who should be in charge. There must be historical events that gave rise to the fierce and lasting division. Yes? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2m3lcw/the_sunni_shia_split_seems_grounded_in_a_fairly/ | {
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" > It's just hard to believe that the dispute is only about a 14 hundred year-old argument about who should be in charge.\n\nWell, yes and no. If you boil down the argument to a simplistic level, then yes, it is about an argument over who should be in charge after Muhammad. Which seems innocuous at first glance. \n\nOn the other hand, that above interpretation ignores the ramifications of said rift. The main one being the *Hadith*, or the reports by others regarding the words of the Prophet. The *Hadith* is important as it also serves as a means of clarification regarding Islamic jurisprudence and tenets. \n\nThe *Hadith* is not only a collection of narratives regarding the Prophet written by others, but also details the chain from where the narratives originated. Now, here is where the debate regarding succession plays a critical part in the Sunni vs Shia issue - both branches follow very different *Hadiths*, because some narrators are seen by the other side as untrustworthy. For instance, the Sunni accept the words of Abu Bakr and his supporters; the Shia instead prefer the words of Ali and his supporters. \n\nWhat does this all mean in practical terms? It means both branches have very different methods of worship and interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence. Two examples would be in how they pray, and how marriages are arranged [i.e. Shia allow fixed-term marriages, Sunni completely reject this concept]. \n\nSo on that point alone, regarding what is \"proper\" Islamic practice...that has been the source of much conflict. However, there have been points where Sunni and Shia have cooperated as well, so hasn't been all pain and bloodshed.\n\nETA: The [Battle of Karbala](_URL_0_) was the first major battle between Sunni and Shia and caused a lot of division and animosity between the two groups. Apologies for the Wiki link but it seemed to be a good general summary of the battle itself. ",
"I'm sure there are scholars of Islamic History who can explain the earlier events better than I can, but what I find significant is that the Shia-Sunni divide has not always been as divisive as it is today. Not that long ago intermarriage between Sunnis and Shias was common across the Middle East. The big event in contemporary history seems to be the Iranian Revolution in 1978/79. \n\nKhomeini's revolution was not initially a solely Shia revolution, but an Islamic revolution. Faced with a radical challenge to both their religious and political legitimacy, Gulf Monarchies began to promote the Shia-Sunni divide as a means of undermining Khomeini's appeal. For example, they funded the writing of anti-Shia polemics and accused any opposition of being part of a 'Shia conspiracy'. The Iranian government soon joined in on the promotion of sectarian rhetoric. Vali Nasr's book 'The Shia Revival' goes into a lot of detail on this point.",
"hi! you'll find more info in these posts\n\n* [What are the roots of the divide between Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims?](_URL_2_)\n\n* [Why exactly do the Sunni's and the Shiites hate each other so much?](_URL_4_)\n\n* [What precipitated the split of Sunni and Shia Islam?](_URL_3_)\n\n* [How and why did the Sunni/Shi'a schism become a highly divisive issue in the Arab world?](_URL_1_)\n\n* [When, why and how did the Sunni/Shi'a split become a theological, and not just political, divide?](_URL_0_)",
"Since the split between Sunnis and Shia there have been long periods of brutal conflict between the two sides and long periods of detente.\n\nIn the early 20th century when modern Islamism first began developing it largely took a pan-Islamic/non-sectarian approach. Early Muslim Brotherhood figures (who are Sunnis) considered Shia Muslims and the Dawa Party (a Shia Islamist group which now runs Iraq) initially had Sunni founders. During the early/mid 20th century Islamists spent most of their time confronting Communists and secular Pan-Arabists who were the dominant political forces in the region at the time.\n\nWhen Khomeini (who was a Shia cleric) took power in Iran he furthered this Pan-Islamic world view. He was very interested in spreading his revolution across the Islamic world and didn't want to play up the sectarian divide. He supported Sunni Palestinian groups for example. He also decried almost all existing Arab regimes and offered assistance to Islamist groups fighting them.\n\nAround this time (late '70s/'80s) the Saudi Arabian government was starting to go from rich to ridiculously, obscenely rich. The Saudis are Salafiyn/Wahabbiyn and so have never liked Shia, but the fact that Shia leaders in Iran were now calling out the Saudi royal family for it's corruption and hypocrisy and generally [making them look bad](_URL_0_) put the Saudi propaganda machine into overdrive.\n\nThe Saudis were funding Salafi groups across the Muslim world on a massive scale, and during the '80s and '90s these groups began to redouble their anti-Shia rhetoric. This anti-Shia stance was strongly supported by the USA and \"secular\" Arab regimes who were threatened by Iran and it's revolutionary/destabilizing foreign policy. This anti-Shia propaganda was successful and these days it's not uncommon for normal, non-Salafi Sunni Arabs to causally express the belief that Shia are not Muslims.\n\nThis growing beef has been exacerbated by the fact that Sunni rulers in countries like Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia have historically disenfranchised Shia populations in their countries. Iran took advantage of this and funded Shia groups/militias to challenge this discrimination. Saudis and Gulfis have responded to this by funding various Sunni groups/militias to fight the Shia. When these groups inevitably slaughter members of the other sect it further fans the flames of sectarian hatred."
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2fqgs1/when_why_and_how_did_the_sunnishia_split_become_a/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/137z0e/how_and_why_did_the_sunnishia_schism_become_a/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1923ur/what_are_the_roots_of_the_divide_between_sunni/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2l5d0w/what_precipitated_the_split_of_sunni_and_shia/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1fmbcc/why_exactly_do_the_sunnis_and_the_shiites_hate/"
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43rjcz | The majority of North Africa people is berber or arab ? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/43rjcz/the_majority_of_north_africa_people_is_berber_or/ | {
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6mclpb | Do contemporary historians operate under the assumption that their published works, and some of their conclusions are going to come across as anachronistic, or 'dated,' at some point in the not too distant future? | I read an offhanded comment in a post today which noted that a couple of Reddit threads which addressed a similar question to OPs were a bit old, but that the third link was recent and a good read. That got me wondering. Those 'old' answers were obviously younger that this sub, and they're already losing authority.
Is influencing those who come after the best that any historian can realistically hope for while writing in his time?
Do you have to accept that certain things you write about, and terms or phrases you use, are going to sound bigoted or prejudiced in a few decades, in areas you have no reason to suspect society will become sensitive to? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6mclpb/do_contemporary_historians_operate_under_the/ | {
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"In AskHistorians specifically, sometimes an answer being called \"old\" can mean it's from the earliest years of the sub when standards were...not what they are now. If you comb through sections of the FAQ that haven't been revamped in the last 8 months or so (still a substantial portion, unfortunately), you'll catch a LOT of these. Suffice to say there is a *lot* of block-quoting from Wiki.\n\nAs far as historians more generally, I think it's fair to say we are all on a spectrum between two points: (a) History is THE BEST and I want to know EVERYTHING and I want to understand EVERYTHING the BESTEST and the RIGHTEST OH MY GOSH, and (b) This is *my* territory and *I* am right about it. *In general*, I tend to see people tilt wonderfully towards the former. \n\nFirst, scholars' views change over time. /u/commustar and I were discussing the work of Timothy Pauketat, North American archaeologist and grandmaster of Cahokia research the other day--one of Pauketat's recent books is *Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions,* in which among other things, he argues that \"chiefdom\" is a broken term for understanding past civilizations (specifically Eastern Woodlands and Mississippian Native Americans; similar criticism has been levelled at e.g. scholars of early Africa)--not just useless, but actually *misleading*, since it carries with it modern assumptions about simplicitly/complexity and the homogenizing tendency to view \"chiefdoms\" as structurally similar. Well...*Chiefdoms/Delusions* was published in 2007. Pauketat's foundational-to-Cahokia-research first book, published in 1994? *The Ascent of Chiefs.*\n\nSecond, challenges from other researchers mean something really important that's often hidden from those working in popular field: other people paying attention to your topic! This can be as focused as \"the textual transmission of *Piers Plowman* among women\" or as broad as \"Pacific islander political history.\" More research means more knowledge, period. There are unfortunately some scholars who will double-down on their first theory in the face of additional information (my master's thesis resulted from noticing the changing details of footnotes on the same piece of information in the body text over someone's career), but again, I generally see people *psyched* to go to an entire conference panel on the obscure person they research, or so eager to hear about a new book in their field.\n\nYour last question, OP, is a little different, and I think refers to the \"everyone in the past was a horrible person by today's standards\" problem ('...she's quite progressive for her time because she puts Jews in the *nice* part of hell.') On the face of it, the answer is pretty clearly that scholars go along with what is \"trendy\" in scholarship at a given moment because it gets you published, and that's important. More seriously--I think historians (and scholars of various things in the past, like 19th century literature or 18th century art or whatever) are both keenly aware of this problem and *accepting* of it. It is what it is. We all have to just sort of embrace that our \"good\" subjects (I am not talking about people who were objectively horrible here) would not be so good if you plopped them in today's world, and study them in their own contexts. Hopefully our work, too, will be studied *in its context* when scholars in 100 years are writing the historiography of our field.\n\nI mean, is it annoying to think I'm wrong? Yeah. I have an AH answer that I was *super awesome proud of*. I used like 15 sources to piece together an answer for OP on a question that's never been comprehensively addressed.\n\nAnd then two weeks later, I came across a primary source mention (uncited in scholarship, to my knowledge--at least, everyone I've told has been amazed) that blew about 50% of the answer to smithereens. Grrr.\n\nBut at least now I know more.",
"There will, we hope, always be new sources that add more information to the stories we tell.\n\nThere will also, we assume, be new perspectives, interpretations, questions to be asked. \n\nBoth of these add up to the sensible notion that while we labor to produce the best work we can in our own time, the future may judge it differently. One can hope that one's work today will contribute to that future — that, to some degree, there is some sort of cumulative knowledge production, in the same way that Newton's work, while incomplete by the later standard of Einstein, is still useful and, even in areas where it is surpassed, still made important contributions that led to the \"better\" state. \n\nOn the other hand, I think historians who are thoughtful about knowledge, esp. the kind produced by historians, recognize that there is never going to be any \"final story\" about the past. There will always be different stories to tell; the idea of some kind of \"perfect\" version of the past is itself essentially incoherent, even for relatively limited topics. Can there ever be any perfect understanding of the French Revolution? Of slavery? Of World War II? I mean, what would such a thing even _look like_? \n\nAnyway, it means there will always be needs for historians in the future, which is a good thing.\n\nAs for questions about future sensibilities: we all live in our own contexts and can only be as thoughtful and sensitive as we can be. Terminologies change over time and that is hard to predict or help. One does one's best. If that leads to future judgment — so be it. It is better to try and say something true, and be judged wrong, than to shrink from the endeavor out of fear of the future, in my view.",
"I love the answers on this thread, so many good points have been made! A quick note I would like to add is on the use of historiography in the study of a field or subject. (Side note: Unfortunately I have only just earned my BA in History, so I'm not at all what would be considered an expert, please bear with me!) \nThe idea that a historian's work will be considered \"old\" or \"outdated\" is really an important factor in this particular field. Historiography is, simply put, the study of how a subject has been studied by historians over time. In my personal experience, I have used this field to study how writers and historians have written about Anne Boleyn, from her contemporaries up to ours. It offers another (albeit meta) layer of understanding of the subject, as well as its historical context. This also helps create an understanding of why we have whatever assumptions or biases towards historical subjects today. So to answer the second question specifically, I believe that, no matter the subject, a historian can hope that their work will not only give insights into how their subject was understood in the historian's own historical context, but also how this subject will be understood in the years to come."
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2kixb7 | Can you summarize how Gandhi ended apartheid in India revolutionize non-violent protest? | My girlfriend lives in Venezuela and has never heard of Gandhi. I tried explaining to her the basics but I feel that I wasn't able to hit the mark. It felt like I wasn't giving him enough credit.
What are the most interesting things about Gandhi? How has he impacted the world?
Long comments are also accept :D
Thanks in advance!
Edit: historical context is very appreciated
Also please ignore my spelling and grammar mistakes, I can't be perfect all the time. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2kixb7/can_you_summarize_how_gandhi_ended_apartheid_in/ | {
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"I answered a question somewhat parallel to this [here](_URL_1_). I think it is very relevant to your question, so I will copy-paste it:\n\n > One really important thing to recognize is that the Indian Independence Movement was a dynamic and evolving movement which took place over many decades, and that Gandhi's own views on violence and non-violence changed as time went on, and were influenced by the actions of people like Bhagat Singh and organizations like the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army. So its not as easy to create a clean separation between \"Gandhi the pacifist\" and \"Bhagat Singh the militant\", as is common. \n\n > I think the single best book to understand this is Francis G. Hutchins' [*India's Revolution: Gandhi and the Quit India Movement*](_URL_2_). The basic thesis of the book is that India won its Independence through violent insurrection and the growing push toward mass revolutionary war. The evidence that Hutchins' gives for this is the fact that the elites of the British Raj were fully determined to hold on to India after WW2, and passed many laws and regulations in the late '30s and early '40s to curb the reforms toward independence that had been passed during the '20s and early '30s that devolved more power to indigenous state governments, away from the central British-controlled government of India. \n\n > This reversal of previous British policy radicalized the leaders of the Indian National Congress, and in the context of World War 2, even Gandhi started becoming more accepting of violence as a legitimate means of political/social change. A large part of this was the threat of Japanese invasion of India, and the question of what Indians ought to do if such an invasion occurred. Gandhi preferred a mass, non-violent resistance to such a state of affairs--but also decided that he could not fault people if they decided to take violent action against them. But the result of such a stance toward the Japanese also radicalized his views on the proper way to resist the British--why would violence be acceptable toward the Japanese, and not the British, if both empires were illegitimate occupiers of South Asia? \n\n > This lead to Gandhi arguing that while non-violence was the highest form of struggle, taking violent action was better than doing nothing and passively being victimized and exploited. This laid the groundwork for the INC's plans for the Quit India Movement, which was hyped up a lot as being the final struggle against the British, and which called on all Indians to give the movement their all, as well as to feel free to use their own morals and judgement in how to best resist the British. This rhetoric (which was a significant escalation over previous movements), combined with the fact that the entire INC leadership was arrested after the August 8th declaration of the launch of the movement, meant that INC rank-and-file members felt like they had the moral authority to escalate into a mass violent insurrection. \n\n > And it was a very explosive rebellion; you can [see the statistics of the casualties, property damage, and types of attacks that took place during the rebellion](_URL_0_). Mobs of thousands burned down government buildings, destroyed railroad stations and post offices, tore down telegram poles, and clashed with police. After troops were deployed and the street protests and violence died down, rebels took to bomb attacks and guerrilla attacks against British infrastructure and officials, killing people in their villas and bombing police stations. All in all, British authority completely collapsed in large swathes of the country, and in some places like Midnapur, Bengal, authority was *never* fully restored. \n\n > The violence of this movement was arguably enhanced also by the existence of the Indian National Army, lead by Subhas Chandra Bose and funded by the Japanese, which was fighting against the British Army through South-East Asia in a more traditional military war. Bose regularly broadcast propaganda via radio into India, and the rebels of the Quit India Movement broadcast this messages and helped people obtain smuggled radio systems to tune in. So yes, Bose and the INC, while not directly succeeded in their military conflict, definitely contributed to the atmosphere of revolution that was taking over India at the time. \n\n > After the movement went past its climax and was seemingly repressed in most parts of the country, Hutchins documents how the elites of the British Raj had completely lost their will to try to re-impose their authority and act to maintain hegemony in the postwar period. In the Viceroy's mind:\n\n > > Before the Quit India movement, his concern had been whether Parliament would back him up. Now, the viceroy’s chief concern was that the cabinet and the British public opinion in general would not fully grasp the seriousness of his situation and the difficulty he would face in merely holding on to power, let alone undertaking new initiatives (Hutchins 1973: 285). \n\n > The unrest also continued through 1945 and 1946, especially during the [Royal Indian Navy Mutiny](_URL_3_), during which thousands of Indian sailors mutinied and lead violent street protests in major coastal cities, torching government buildings and attacking officials. \n\n > So yes, ultimately I think it is definitely clear that violence had a key, if not critical, role to play in securing India's independence. Less clear, however, is whether one can easily and cleanly distinguish Gandhi as purely a pacifist; by the '40s, Gandhi did not have as much of a stern view on violence as he did when he and the movement was younger. \n"
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18zy9n | In 300BC where the San hunter gatherers still the only people living in the area of modern day South Africa? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/18zy9n/in_300bc_where_the_san_hunter_gatherers_still_the/ | {
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"Based on Mitchell's *Archaeology of Southern Africa* and Chris Ehret's *Civilizations of Africa*, yes. However, the name \"San\" actually covers up a significant debate among historians of the region: it may actually have been a number of different groups of hunter-gatherers, representing several migrations and language groups originally, who collectively became \"San\" to Europeans, Khoikhoi, and Bantu-speakers alike. It's hard to be sure because linguistic fusion and adaptation have erased and altered so very much, and having such separate nodes that don't all leave historical evidence means it's frustrating to try and figure anything out. (If I find the article I have that talks about this in terms of unsurpassed genetic diversity as well as historical distribution, I'll post the reference. It's kind of fascinating. Wikipedia cites Tishkoff et al. for genetic diversity itself but that's not the paper I've got.)\n\nKhoikhoi pastoralists are known in the Northern Cape and Free State after around 100CE. Bantu-speakers in former Tongaland (KZN today) appear no later than 300CE. So yeah, you're probably only going to find small (~20-30 person) groups of hunter-gatherers at that point, but they'll be all across the region."
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1lhpto | What was the daily life like for a Royal Navy sailor during the 18th Century? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1lhpto/what_was_the_daily_life_like_for_a_royal_navy/ | {
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"Most likely terrible. A lot of sailors were forced into the navy by press gangs. Your pay was poor, you were dirty, smelly, and had poor diet. On the flip side sometimes the food on a ship was better than what you could get at home. You were confined to sleeping in a hammock in a damp dark and claustrophobic environment and disease spread quickly. You were, above all, disposable, and the only real comfort you had was ale, which was pretty much the only thing available to drink since water never stayed fresh for very long. The food was monotonous at best, and rotten at worst. Typical food consisted of hard, stale and most likely maggot infested biscuits, rock hard cheese, and salted beef that turned to jerky. Occasionally fresh fruits and vegetables were available but again could not be kept for long. Most likely you would get scurvy amongst a host of other nutrition related diseases/illnesses. You of course were the lowest class of crew on the ship, so anyone with even a slight amount of authority could make you do their bidding. This includes such dangerous jobs as raising/lowering sails, if you fell from the rigging you were probably dead. If you survived but broke a limb you'd probably have it amputated, which ran the risk of infection. In battle you'd have to man a cannon with your crew mates, and if there was an impact near yours you'd be facing a hail of red hot splinters and a large iron ball that could punch a hole straight through your chest. In all probability you would die before getting back home.",
"You might want to check out [*Kydd*, by Julian Stockwin](_URL_0_). Its an historical-fiction account of a man pressed into the Royal Navy in the late 1600's. Its fiction but the author has done his homework to my knowledge. It takes you all the way through life as a pressed man which would be the lowest person on the ship. The author continues the series for at least 10 more books, taking the reader and main character well into the 18th century. "
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127syg | Native American Artifact we found in my Aunt's house - I'd love to more about this: | Cross posted to whatisthisthing: [Native American Beaded Leather](_URL_0_) | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/127syg/native_american_artifact_we_found_in_my_aunts/ | {
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"Those look like trade beads to me, not wampum. I'm guessing it's a panel off a bag, maybe a saddle bag. Probably Cheyenne or Sioux from the patterns. What are the dimensions?",
"Wampum are large, usually tubular beads made from quahog or whelk shells. They are either purple or white and are made by tribes around New York and Massachusetts. So this has zero to nothing to do with wampum.\n\nThis piece has laned-stitched (also called hump stitch or, rather pejoratively, lazy stitch) seed beads, probably from Europe, on a hide base (likely deer but can't tell just from a photo). The stitching looks to be cotton or silk thread instead of sinew, so that suggests that it was made in the late 19th or 20th century.\n\nIt's definitely Plains and possibly Lakota/Dakota based on the color choices or designs. [Christie Verzolles](_URL_0_) is a respected appraiser of Native American art, but you'd have to pay her to appraise your piece (probably worth it). \n\nOtherwise, you could try your luck emailing the image to a Plains Indian art museum and maybe a kind person will take the time to share information about the piece. Places you might try include Red Cloud Heritage Center; Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming; or the Museum of the Plains Indian"
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2jmobd | When was the last time that a piece of land on Earth was not claimed by a country? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2jmobd/when_was_the_last_time_that_a_piece_of_land_on/ | {
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"The answer to this question is \"now\". At this moment [Bir Tawil](_URL_0_) is unclaimed by any country. It is on the border between Egypt and Sudan. Both Egypt and Sudan claim a larger piece of land closer to the Red Sea, and both consider Bir Tawil to belong to the other country.\n\n[Note this is one example of unclaimed land; there may be others though I'm not immediately aware of any. This one example answers your question though.]",
"There are still pieces of land left unclaimed. Apart from Bir Tawil as /u/edXcitizen87539319 has just said, there is also a large tract of Antarctica that was never claimed by any sovereign nation. In fact, nder the Antarctic Treaty, all present claims on Antarctic land are unrecognised.",
"Follow-up: Disregarding the 2 currently unclaimed pieces of land (Bir Tawil and Marie Byrd Land), what was the last piece of territory to be claimed?",
"In addition to what has already been mentioned, there is some land along the Danube rover in Eastern Europe that are unclaimed due to a border dispute between Croatia and Serbia: _URL_0_\n\nAlso, the vast majority of the land on Earth is unclaimed because it is covered with salt water. If it breaks the surface due to geological processes then it is claimed almost immediately.\n\nIn addition, celestial bodies have not been claimed by any country, although this could be a potential source of future conflict."
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153s30 | Were there any escapes by German prisoners of war in WW2, were they are drastic as those dramatised such as the Great Escape? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/153s30/were_there_any_escapes_by_german_prisoners_of_war/ | {
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"_URL_0_ - In short, even more so.",
"[Here's an interesting read.](_URL_0_) At the outbreak of WW2, a decision was made to ship Axis POWs to the UK ASAP, and then on to Canada to eliminate, as much as possible, a successful escape. When the US entered the war, prisoners were sent there as well. While escapes did happen, the chances of being successful were virtually nil.",
"There is [Georg Gärtner](_URL_0_) who escaped from a POW camp in New Mexico and surrendered in 1985 and [Cornelius Rost](_URL_2_) who escaped from a Soviet Gulag camp in Siberia. The second escape was made into [a movie](_URL_1_).",
"My wife's grandfather, Hungarian, served in the German infantry in WW2 on the Eastern front. He spent time in an American POW camp after the German surrender. His dramatic \"escape\" came about because one of the American guards was of Hungarian descent, and had family in a nearby town in Hungary. Not speaking Magyar, he asked my wife's grandfather to come with him to the town to translate. After finding his family, he just let Grandpa go on his way. \n\nA dramatic escape indeed.",
"_URL_1_ \n\n\"70 prisoners escaped from Island Farm through a tunnel dug from Hut Nine (the only hut now left standing).\"\n\nThey were all rounded up in fairly short order but some of the details are fascinating and funny. There is a channel 4 documentary on it as well, here, _URL_0_\nwhich, while a bit long winded has some good bits. ",
"[Otto Skorzeny](_URL_1_) liberating Mussolini from prison is at LEAST as exciting as the Great Escape.\n\nSmiling [Otto](_URL_0_) - now, THERE'S a Nazi for ya.",
"My grandfather was a POW guard for German POW's in WWII. According to him, most did not try or want to escape. They mostly thought of themselves as pretty lucky: they weren't dying in futility in Russia, and as American prisoners, they were treated relatively well. They even spoke to my grandfather in Yiddish (he's Jewish, and that was the easiest language for communication).\n\nSorry there aren't any sources or citations, but all of this came from an Oral History project I did in high school.\n\n",
"A lot of German POWs captured by the United States during WW2 were shipped back to the continental United States on empty supply ships. The thought was that the U.S. was sending food and supplies TO Europe, so why keep prisoners there that would have to be fed.\n\nA lot of the POWs were kept in low-security camps in the states. The POWs would go on work details into the towns and cities that they were in. The U.S. treated these POWs relatively well (e.g. fairly good food, private rooms for officers) and the POWs rarely tried to escape (after all where would they go?)\n\nAfter the war was over, Germany was decimated so a lot of these POWs decided to stay in American. They ended up marrying Americans and having relatively normal lives.\n\nA great book on this subject is *Stallag Wisconsin* by Betty Cowley.",
"[This](_URL_0_) article details an escape attempt from a Texas POW camp. [Camp Hearne](_URL_1_) is actually being restored by historians and has a pretty cool museum. Worth a visit.",
"Yes there were i dont know if you could call them great escape style with dead prison guards and explosions. My grandmother tells a story about when she was 6 years old. There was a pow camp in the high desert of arizona where she lived. She said one night it was raining and someone knocked on the door and my great grandfather answeredthe door shotgun in hand ( as you do in Arizona in 1944) the person atthe door was speakig very broken english asked for food water and directions. My grandmother said he was about 6'4 blonde athletic. Her father let him in and started talking to him. The german asked so i found map where is salt river? He was expecting to ride it to sea bt if youve been to Arizona its land locked and the salt river is dirt ravenes most of the time. My greatgrandfather gave him directions a canteen and some cans of beans and let him on his way.",
"My home town of Wainwrigt, Alberta was a POW camp. Going by what the museum tour guide, and a couple people who gave a tour of the military base (it became a training centre in the Cold War and is now used to prep troops for Afghanistan), they were quite lax towards the German prisoners. After all, it was a farming community in the middle of the prairies, which can go from -40 in the winter to +35 in the summer, where would they go? The Germans reportedly enjoyed (or at least, didn't mind) Wainwright so much that many moved back there or other parts of Canada after the war. \n\nI also remember reading a story on Ask Reddit about a Redditor's grandfather who was a German POW somewhere in Ontario, Canada who went fishing as a POW, caught a snapping turtle, carved a swastika in the turtle's shell, and the recaught the turtle by coincidence years later after he moved to Canada after the war. \n\nI don't really have sources for either of these anecdotes, but they serve as an example of what it would have been like to be a POW in Canada. They were lax here presumably simply because of the \"where are you gonna go?\" factor.",
"Oh yes! my personal favorite story that I know of is the story of [Franz von Werra](_URL_1_). He tried escaping twice from POW camps in Britain. The British were not amused, as they moved him to Canada. He jumped out of a moving train in Canada during the transfer and made it to then neutral USA, and before he could be extradited, made it to Mexico, then to South America, then to Spain, and then to Germany. He got back to Germany in April 1941 and was killed in October that same year. He is the only German POW to have successfully escaped to make it back to Germany. Of course, you can look at this [list](_URL_0_) of \"I Almost Made It\" moments.\n\nEDIT: Oh... didn't know someone already linked this",
"I know of an Italian soldier, a Sergeant-Major (Sargeant-Maggiore) served with the Germans in North Africa and is still alive approaching his 100th birthday; was captured and POW'd in the North of England. I wouldn't call it POW because he had a job, was billeted, and went to work with other Italians without any guards or fences. Its one of the main reasons he wanted to come to Canada. \n",
"Yes. I have no evidence except the word of my now deceased grandfather, but he was one of them. ",
"Not German, but there was a significant breakout of Japanese POW's in the Australian country town of Cowra. A number of Australian guards were killed after the POW's voted that it was better to die than live in shame as a POW. They rushed the gates en masse and quite a few got away but they were eventually all rounded up within days by the AIF. The is a good Australian mini-series about it \"The Cowra Breakout\"",
"My grandfather, who was an officer in the Waffen-SS, was prisoner in an american POW-Camp in Austria after getting shot in the stomach during the Invasion of Normandy. (He only survived because he had \"taken a good shit\" prior to getting wounded, so no feces could enter the bloodstream...)\n\nHowever, he and two of his comrades tried to escape by loosening the same fencepost every day over a few weeks when feeling unobserved. When the day of the \"Great Escape\" came, they ripped out the fencepost and ran away, one of the three got shot. My Grandpa and his other comrad however made it to a nearby forrest, through which they managed to escape. During their way back to Germany, they lived 6 months in forrests and on fields, the local farmers supporting them with food and shelter when possible.\n\nIt's not that great of a story, but he's my grandpa so I think it's pretty cool :D\n\nTL;DR: I only exist because my Grandfather took a dump at the right time.\n\n",
"So many interesting stories, cheers."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_von_Werra"
],
[
"http://www.historynet.com/the-not-so-great-escape-german-pows-in-the-us-during-wwii.htm"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_G%C3%A4rtner",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Far_as_My_Feet_Will_Carry_Me",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Rost"
],
[],
[
"http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-welsh-great-escape/4od",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Farm#The_.22Forgotten.22_Great_Escape"
],
[
"http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTMz3b8nS5RA_3sH0TfQR_-e3aOx0N9s9ZB1nzfGs97rUPcCTdc0VsRlCnW",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Skorzeny#The_liberation_of_Mussolini"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Historians-bringing-long-forgotten-German-POW-3360193.php",
"http://camphearne.com/"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prisoner-of-war_escapes#Axis",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_von_Werra"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
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||
6ttubl | What do we know about the average Confederate soldier's motives? | 1) Did they know or care that the Civil war was fought over slavery?
2) How did they view the North?
3) Why was secession from the Union so strongly supported (if it was supported by the troops)? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6ttubl/what_do_we_know_about_the_average_confederate/ | {
"a_id": [
"dlnn6fc"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Hi there! More can be said on this but you'll likely find [this old answer](_URL_0_) to be of interest!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/67fvaf/was_the_average_confederate_soldier_a_strong/dgq8tn2/"
]
] |
|
7yzl11 | If the axis powers had discovered they were being deceived prior to the Normandy invasion, would they even have had enough resources to defend against it anyway? | I ask because from what I understand, the Germans were already spread thin and were starting to lean a bit more towards the losing side even before D-day | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7yzl11/if_the_axis_powers_had_discovered_they_were_being/ | {
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"text": [
"An interesting hypothetical question. To assume the Germans were not deceived to the full extent by Operation *Fortitude*, but to still allow the Allies some realistic security maintenance as would accompany almost any large offensive, one could argue that the Germans could have defeated the landings if they had placed their mobile forces in the optimum locations.\n\nThe essence of the Allies' success was in their getting their units ashore on the day without having to face any serious resistance from the various Panzer and SS Panzer divisions Hitler had positioned in France to resist the invasion. The management of these was the subject of controversy among the German leadership and led to a convoluted command structure that compromised the defence, but given the overall success of *Fortitude* in making the Germans prepare for another landing in Calais, whether their tanks were positioned close to the beaches, or inland, was probably moot: in the event the Allies were able to build up their defence and establish a viable perimeter before the German tanks arrived in force.\n\nYou are right the Germans faced the invasion with many handicaps: the principal one being the almost complete destruction of their air power, the destruction of their transport networks and the paucity of their equipment. But against this, a major opposed amphibious landing is perhaps the most difficult of military operations and it would take many days for the Allies to build up a force capable of resisting a majority of the armoured forces the Germans had available, even given Allied air superiority. In the first days the bridgehead was delicate indeed, and much of the delay in securing objectives, such as the reversal in the morning at Omaha or the failure to press on to Caen, was the result of resistance by small units and in some cases individual strongpoints.\n\nOnce the battle of Normandy began in earnest, the Allied trump card was often artillery, a mass of which was on hand to stop German infantry or armoured attacks. To deploy all this artillery needed space and time, and to resist such attacks required depth.\n\nOne can make an excellent case that had Rommel been able to position the 1st SS, 2nd SS, and 12SS Panzer divisions close to the invasion beaches the landings could have faced defeat. He had several other Panzer Divisons available as well. The Allies knew delaying them was crucial and this was the main objective of their deception plans. But once ashore, over for just a week, even an attack by the full mass of these units could probably have been held.\n\nSources:\n*Six Armies In Normandy* John Keegan; \n*Gold Beach: Jig* Tim Saunders; \n*D-Day: Spearhead of Invasion* R.W Thompson; \n*Das Reich* Max Hastings; \n*The Secrets of D-Day* Gilles Perrault;\n*A Bodyguard of Lies* Anthony Brown."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2h1ojv | How has the adolescent brain changed through history or across cultures? | I'm a high school teacher, and one of the things drilled into my head during my training was that adolescents, even ones approaching adulthood during their senior year, are not just "mini" adults; their brains have different parts at different stages of development. Parts that will later be able to expertise control on impulsivity or planning or spatial awareness (etc) are still developing and will be for a few more years. It has been a few years, but I recall something like 22-ish was the general age when the brain's parts were laid out, but there is always plasticity.
But I also recall from earlier classes hearing about how adulthood started earlier at other stages in history (Here's where I am a little unsure). And I know it varies in different cultures. I've heard talk of the "invention" of adolescence, if that is actually a thing.
So, my question boils down to how was the adolescent brain different OR how did adolescents deal with these difference in their brains during an earlier adulthood OR am I completely off base and my understanding of adulthood is off? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2h1ojv/how_has_the_adolescent_brain_changed_through/ | {
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"Generally speaking most historians assume that the *physical* development of young people has changed very little over time - which means that the way young people's brains and decision-making capacities develop has always been more or less the same. There's one caveat to that, which is that there's pretty good evidence that the average age when children enter puberty has been declining steadily over the past 100 - 150 years. But apart from that, the process of mental/physical development appears to be quite consistent, both cross-culturally and across history. \n\nSo the simple answer to your question is that the \"adolescent brain\" hasn't really changed at all over the course of history - what *has* changed is the cultural and social role that society expects young people to fill between the onset of puberty and their early twenties. \n\nTerms like \"adolescent\" and \"teenager\" are relatively modern inventions. The idea of the \"teenager\" only dates back to the 1940s, and the idea that adolescence is a distinct, special stage of life did not develop until the late nineteenth century, and did not become widely recognized until the early twentieth century, when a psychologist named G. Stanley Hall wrote a book called *Adolescence,* and famously defined adolescence as a period of \"storm and strife\" during which adolescents needed a lot of special supervision and guidance from adults. This is the so-called \"invention\" of adolescence that you were talking about. \n\nPrior to that, the thing to remember is that the vast majority of people who were what we would call \"teenagers\" today entered the labor force at a young age and worked full time - so they would be expected to work, and to act, much like people who were much older than them. But they weren't necessarily considered \"adults\" either - adulthood was something that people achieved by getting married, having children, and becoming financially/materially independent, rather than something that you became when you reached a certain age. \n\nSo prior to the early twentieth century, people in this age group were most often referred to as \"youths.\" History is full of many examples of people lamenting (and occasionally praising) the reckless, impulsive behavior of \"youth\" - so there are a lot of indications that adolescents sometimes showed a lot of the same behaviors that we associate with being a \"teenager\" today. But the really important thing to recognize here is that a lot of what we think of as common \"teenage\" behavior is only really common because of the cultural context that we live in. Young people today act like teenagers because our society gives them the time, space, and resources to do so - we keep them out of the labor force, we isolate them with their age-peers in schools, and we give them quite a lot of leeway to decide how they will spend their own time. As scholars like Grace Palladino have argued, our society actually *depends* on teenagers to serve an important role as consumers in our society; we actually encourage them to be trend-setters in terms of fashion/music/style, and there are whole industries that depend on teenagers as their primary market - and all of that affects how young people behave, how we respond to them, how they think and what we think *about* them. The very idea of \"adolescence\" is culturally-defined.\n\nTo illustrate this, contrast the life of a teenager attending school today with the life that most adolescent/teen-aged young people would have led prior to industrialization; they would have spent the vast majority of their time working, and with people of a variety of different ages (most likely family members) rather than at school with their age-peers. Someone living that life would often just be expected or even *required* to act more like an adult than we expect young people to today - in short, they had fewer opportunities to engage in the kinds of stereotypical \"adolescent\" behaviors that we assume are \"natural\" in adolescents today. [note, though, that this doesn't mean that what we think of as \"adolescence\" is any more \"natural\" than the life of a young, 16th century peasant - both are just different examples of how the process of human development can be incorporated into a cultural identity/role.]\n\nThe **tl/dr**, then, is that the psychological/physical development of young people going through puberty has always been more or less the same - but the cultural context that gives meaning to that experience has changed. Euro-American societies used to expect young people to work and act more like adults from a young age, so while they weren't really \"mini adults,\" the experiences and behavior of \"youth\" was different. It's important not to confuse what we know about young people's mental/psychological development with the role that we expect them to play in our culture - as a consumer society that prizes and protects youth, that keeps young people out of the labor force and makes them spend most of their time with people their own age, we actually foster a lot of the behavior that seems like \"natural\" adolescent behavior to us. In a sense, they behave in certain ways because we as a society *expect* them to. History (and other cultures) provide many examples of how the process of human development can be compatible with completely different cultural roles and patterns of behavior for young people - and the real lesson there is that young people are certainly capable of acting a lot more like adults than our society expects them to. \n\n**Sources:**\n\nKent Baxter, *The modern age: turn-of-the-century American culture and the invention of adolescence*\n\nSarah Chinn, *Inventing modern adolescence: the children of immigrants in turn-of-the-century America* \n\nGrace Palladino, *Teenagers: An American History* \n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1nb4bi | Were slave soldiers ever used in warfare? Are there any records of large scale use of slaves in armies? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1nb4bi/were_slave_soldiers_ever_used_in_warfare_are/ | {
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"Janissaries in Ottoman Empire (_URL_0_):\n\nThe Janissaries were kapıkulları (sing. kapıkulu), \"door servants\" or \"slaves of the Porte\", neither freemen nor ordinary slaves (Turkish: köle). They were subject to strict discipline and were the first army to wear a uniform, but were paid salaries and pensions on retirement and formed a distinctive social class. As such they became one of the ruling classes of the Ottoman Empire, rivaling the Turkish aristocracy. The brightest of the Janissaries were sent to the Palace institution. Enderun. Through a system of Meritocracy the Janissaries in fact held enormous power and stopped all efforts at military reformation.\n\nAccording to military historian Michael Antonucci and economic historians Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane, every five years the Turkish administrators would scour their regions, primarily the Balkans, for the strongest sons of the sultan's Christian subjects. These boys, usually between the ages of 10 and 20, were then taken from their parents and given to the Turkish families in the provinces to learn Turkish language and customs, and the rules of Islam.\n\nThe recruits were indoctrinated into Islam. They were supervised twenty four hours a day and subjected to severe discipline, prohibited from growing a beard and taking up a skill other than war, or marrying. As a result the Janissaries were extremely well disciplined troops but became members of the Askeri class, the first class citizens or military class. Most were non-Muslims because it was not permissible to enslave a Muslim.",
"Absolutely. The slave-warriors of medieval Egypt, known as the Mamluks after the Arabic word for 'owned', formed the core of the armies of the Ayyubid Caliphate. Most Mamluks were of Turkish or Caucasian origin rather than being natives. Members of this military caste were highly respected in society despite not being freemen, and eventually they grew powerful enough to eventually seize power and establish their own Mamluk Sultanate from 1250-1517. \n\n",
"The Mongolians of Genghis Khan's army used slaves from conquered cities to sack other cities. Basically you were enslaved and told to be the leading force on an assault on your neighbor. Either do it and probably die, or don't and definitely die. Through many campaigns, the majority of the army would be slaves from conquered places just used as fodder for the Mongolian Cavalry. Source: The Empire of the Steppes, by Rene Grousset",
"The Athenians in 406 BC were so short of rowers that in the battle of Arginusae, slaves who rowed for the City were offered their freedom"
]
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2epccm | Historiographical question- What are some good sources for someone wanting to learn more about the Islamic tenure in Italy? | Hello,
While my main impetus of study is Islamic civilization in Spain, I'm very curious about expanding my knowledge of the much less talked about Islamic civilization in Italy (to have a more well rounded idea of Muslim impact on Europe as a whole). Are there some good sources I could use to begin? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2epccm/historiographical_question_what_are_some_good/ | {
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"ck1qowh"
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"text": [
"I'd start with Alex Metcalf's *The Muslims of Medieval Italy*, (Edinburgh, 2009) as a general introduction [(some chapters are available from his _URL_0_ page, along with a number of articles)](http://lancaster._URL_0_/AlexMetcalfe), then look at Jeremy John's *Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Dīwān*, (Cambridge, 2002). Since you'll need to contextualise this within Sicilian history I'd also look at [this introductory bibliography](_URL_1_) on the Normans in Siciliy. "
]
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"academia.edu",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2d9dje/questions_on_the_normans_of_sicily/",
"http://lancaster.academia.edu/AlexMetcalfe"
]
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|
3zvl8f | When did the idea that Radiation could cause mutations or lead to superpowers become popular in media? | There are numerous examples of the origin story of the superhero being exposed to radiation and gaining superpowers, did these idea's only arise at the birth of the nuclear age? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3zvl8f/when_did_the_idea_that_radiation_could_cause/ | {
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"Yes, the popularity of atomic superpowers and origin stories into comics relates almost directly to the use of the first nuclear bombs and to the ensuing Cold War--and reveal a lot about anxieties and hopes of the time. \n\nAtomic Thunderbolt and Atoman were both introduced in 1946. Atoman is a nuclear physicist who absorbs the power of radiation by working with uranium. Atomic Thunderbolt, on the other hand, has his origin in a different sort of scientific experiment: a professor striving to create humans who are *immune* to the dangers of radiation! (It's comics, so predictably the experiment succeeded once but killed its inventor in the process.)\n\nA really good look at the influence of nuclear bombs on superheroes is from the Golden Age version of The Atom, Al Pratt. His introduction is actually 1940--he chooses his superhero moniker based on his childhood nickname \"Atomic Al\" *because he was small as an atom.* He doesn't have superpowers...yet. He was marginally popular, and actually ceased to appear in *All-American Heroes* sometime in early 1945. Well! Unleash the knowledge of how powerful atoms can be on the world, and you can't have your Atom languish in obscurity. DC brought him back--and in 1948, they retconned in superpowers for him: super-strength, including the \"atomic punch,\" derived from exposure to radiation during a WW2-era battle.\n\nThe early 1950s were a lull in the publication of superhero comics, but atomic awareness was still quite prominent. The *Attack* comic published a run of *Atomic Attack!* in 1953 of World War III-type stories. Michael Scheibach, *Atomic Narratives and American Youth: Coming of Age with the Atom, 1945-1955*, discusses how comic books were also used to serve an educational purpose, from having heroes experience the portrayed-as-mild impact of a nuclear bomb *test* to full-blown Very Special Episode-type stuff like *Dagwood Splits the Atom* (from the *Blondie* comic).\n\nAnd from the \"hey kids, it's not all bad\" camp, my personal favorite is *Atomic Rabbit*, brave defender of Rabbitville, who gains superpowers by eating uranium-enriched carrots.",
"Radiation-induced mutation has been known by scientists since 1926, when it was used as a tool to study genetics (the work was done by Hermann J. Muller, working with fruit flies in the famous laboratory of T.H. Morgan at Columbia University). Prior to that, there were already radiation \"fads\" in popular culture, but they were about radiation making you healthy, not leading to the creation of mutant offspring. The death of Pittsburgh socialite Eben Myers from massive over exposures to radium-based \"therapies\" in 1931 caused the first majorly negative press about radiation in the United States.\n\nWhich does not quite give us an exact answer to your question, but does seem to line up with the emergence of some of these tropes. In the 1936 movie, _The Invisible Ray_, a scientist (played by Boris Karloff, no less) developed a radium-based beam that could destroy cities, but in the process gave himself radiation-related powers (glowed in the dark, could kill at a touch), though these seem more related to exposure than mutation.\n\nFrom what I can tell, these sorts of \"power\" tropes were pretty rare, though, until the creation of nuclear weapons, in which all manner of radiation-related tropes sprung up in popular media, from the \"massive bugs\" to the \"superpowers\" approach. In the early 1960s, Stan Lee spawned a whole series of \"radiation-induced powered\" superheroes (Fantastic Four = 1961; Spider-Man = 1962; Incredible Hulk = 1962; Daredevil = 1964), perhaps not coincidentally linked to the major debates about nuclear fallout that were taking place (and would lead to the signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963), much less other nuclear issues at the height of the transition from the \"atomic age\" to the \"nuclear age\" in popular lingo (civilian nuclear power = 1957; Cuban Missile Crisis = 1962). I am sure some comic buffs can find a few earlier characters, but it is interesting to me how many of these characters spring up in the 1960s (Captain Atom = 1960, Dr. Solar = 1962, Negative Man = 1963, Nukla = 1965), and how many of the original \"powers\" characters got their powers from other sources (Superman = extraterrestrial; Captain Marvel = magic; The Flash, Captain America = chemicals/serums). (While digging around, I also came across \"Atom Man,\" from 1950, but notably he gets no biological powers from the radiation, he just uses radiation-powered weaponry.)\n\nI am not a comics buff, so I am going for some low-hanging fruit above. I would be surprised if there were no radioactive-powered superheroes or villains before the 1960s, but it is interesting how the trope seems to really take off then. (Edited to add that I see /u/sunagainstgold has a few interesting pre-1960s examples.)\n\nOn the history of the imagery of radioactivity, my favorite book, which is quite wonderful, is Spencer Weart's _Nuclear Fear: A History of Images_ (1988), and its revised edition, _The Rise of Nuclear Fear_ (2012). This has immense and valuable information about the early (pre-World War II) pop culture aspects of radioactivity. My friend and colleague Luis Campos also has a wonderful book on the science side of this early period that came out recently: _Radium and the Secret of Life_ (2015). "
]
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[],
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] |
|
ayv333 | Why do wine glasses traditionally have stems? | We now have stemless glasses, but when and why did stemmed glassware become common? Does the stem keep the hand from warming the wine? Is the stem a handle, or does it serve only an aesthetic purpose? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ayv333/why_do_wine_glasses_traditionally_have_stems/ | {
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"A relevant answer [here](_URL_0_) by /u/XenophontheAthenian addresses your question in part. Stemmed glasses are ancient in origin.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nYes, wineglasses have stems to keep your hand from warming the wine. This is especially important for white wine and sparkling wines like Champagne, which are served cold. This is also why in a fancy restaurant sparkling wines are served in buckets of ice, and served with a napkin or towel wrapped around the neck of the bottle, to keep the wine cold as it's poured. Stems also allow you to look at the wine in the light, which for red wine can be very beautiful and test the wine for \"legs\", when you tip the wineglass from one side to the other or swirl the wine around. You can see wine legs [here](_URL_1_), though the woman in the video is not using a stemmed glass. Stems keep the bowl of the glass clean from oily fingers, again to make the wine nicer to look at."
]
} | [] | [] | [
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/46gvc5/when_did_it_become_customary_to_drink_wine_from/",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ePLGMTI8hY&feature=youtu.be&t=27"
]
] |
|
2o444z | Is there evidence suggesting that the United States would have gone to war with Germany in 1941 absent Hitler's declaration of war after Pearl Harbor? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2o444z/is_there_evidence_suggesting_that_the_united/ | {
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"Hey there, /u/JCAPS766. Your question is kind of subjective, so it's difficult to answer. Let's ask Adolf Hitler what he thinks.\n\n > \"With no attempt at an official denial, there has now been revealed in America President Roosevelt's plan by which, at the latest in 1943, Germany and Italy were to be attacked in Europe by military means. In this way, the sincere efforts of Germany and Italy to prevent an extension of the war and to maintain relations with the U.S.A. — in spite of the unbearable provocations which have been carried on for years by President Roosevelt — have been frustrated. Germany and Italy have been finally compelled, in view of this, and in loyalty to the Tri-Partite act, to carry on the struggle against the U.S.A. and England jointly and side by side with Japan for the defense and thus for the maintenance of the liberty and independence of their nations and empires.\"\n\nThat dense little paragraph was [delivered by Hitler on Dec. 11, 1941 in a speech to the Reichstag](_URL_1_). It was his declaration of war on the United States.\n\nNow, you should be puzzled by Hitler's assertion that the U.S. planned to attack Germany in 1943. (I'll give you a moment to go back, re-read that sentence and become puzzled.)\n\nThe source of that assertion was [the famous \"Big Leak,\" the huge scoop published by the Chicago *Tribune* one week earlier](_URL_2_). In a damning expose, the *Tribune* published details of the War Department's \"Rainbow Five\" war plan. In its story, the *Tribune* exposed how the U.S. military planned to wage war on the Axis powers.\n\nThis was a huge deal — FDR had promised during his 1940 presidential campaign to keep Americans out of the war in Europe. Most Americans believed that promise, and FDR was re-elected by a huge margin. Despite that pledge, America had become increasingly involved in the war. FDR led the creation of the Lend-Lease Act, which sent war supplies overseas. He sent U.S. Merchant Marine ships into war zones including the Red Sea. He sent the U.S. Navy on active \"neutrality patrols\" in the Atlantic. \n\nDestroyers on neutrality patrols actively collaborated with British antisubmarine efforts and sometimes paid the consequences. On Sept. 11, 1941, the destroyer *Greer* was torpedoed by a German submarine — after three hours in which the *Greer* had been stalking the submarine. (Roosevelt neglected to mention the second half of that action.) On Oct. 31, 1941, the destroyer *Ruben James* was sunk by a German submarine, the first American warship loss of WWII (if you ignore the gunboat *Panay*.)\n\nDespite all this, American public opinion remained against entering the war. In August 1941, after Roosevelt's meeting with Churchill in Newfoundland, the *Tribune* had caused a furor by declaring that the two men were planning an American expeditionary force to Europe to fight in the war.\n\nAt the time of the \"Big Leak,\" you have to remember that the idea of war planning was not well known in the United States. Most members of the public believed that war would not strike out of the blue. They believed that there would be time to prepare, much as there had been in WWI. That was why the \"Big Leak\" was such a big deal. In the few days between the \"Big Leak\" and the attack on Pearl Harbor, it seemed to provide evidence to the neutrality movement in the United States that Roosevelt was lying about his campaign promises and planning to get the U.S. involved with a war against Germany, regardless of what the public thought.\n\nNow, was that actually true? **We don't know. We don't have a smoking gun.**\n\nLet's look at what happened between Dec. 7 and Dec. 11, 1941. Roosevelt's \"Day of Infamy\" speech does not mention Germany once. The day after that famous speech, however, Roosevelt [delivered one of his famous radio Fireside Chats](_URL_0_). Here's an excerpt from toward the end of the speech:\n\n > \"Your Government knows that for weeks Germany has been telling Japan that if Japan did not attack the United States, Japan would not share in dividing the spoils with Germany when peace came. She was promised by Germany that if she came in she would receive the complete and perpetual control of the whole of the Pacific area-and that means not only the Far East, not only all of the islands in the Pacific, but also a stranglehold on the west coast of North, Central, and South America.\n\n > We also know that Germany and Japan are conducting their military and naval operations in accordance with a joint plan. That plan considers all peoples and nations which are not helping the Axis powers as common enemies of each and every one of the Axis powers.\n\n > That is their simple and obvious grand strategy. That is why the American people must realize that it can be matched only with similar grand strategy. We must realize for example that Japanese successes against the United States in the Pacific are helpful to German operations in Libya; that any German success against the Caucasus is inevitably an assistance to Japan in her operations against the Dutch East Indies; that a German attack against Algiers or Morocco opens the way to a German attack against South America.\n\n > On the other side of the picture, we must learn to know that guerilla warfare against the Germans in Serbia helps us; that a successful Russian offensive against the Germans helps us; and that British successes on land or sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands.\n\n > Remember always that Germany and Italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the United States at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with Britain and Russia. And Germany puts all the other republics of the Americas into the category of enemies. The people of the hemisphere can be honored by that.\"\n\nNow, you have to look at what we do know and make up your mind. Do you consider the existence of war plans to be evidence that Roosevelt intended to use them? Do you consider the U.S. Navy's increasingly aggressive actions in the Atlantic to be evidence that Roosevelt was trying to force a war? Do you consider Roosevelt's Dec. 9 speech to be evidence that he was looking to extend the war?\n\nUnless someone turns up a definitive statement, the evidence will be in the mind of the reader."
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2nhhf0 | Did Romans talk (dialect) like modern Italians? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2nhhf0/did_romans_talk_dialect_like_modern_italians/ | {
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"Reconstructing elite Roman dialect, for which we have reams of literature, is difficult enough, but it is virtually impossible to do so for vulgar Latin. That being said, there are a few instances where we can see the dialectical change from classical Latin to Vulgar Latin is retained in modern Italian, one example being the change in the \"au\" sound to either \"o\" or \"a\", which can be seen in the way the Latin Laurentius became the Italian Lorenzo. One of the most amusing pieces of evidence for this is a passage from Suetonius, \"Vespasian\" 22:\n\n > Yet many of his remarks are still remembered which are full of fine wit, and among them the following. When an ex-consul called Mestrius Florus called his attention to the fact that the proper pronunciation was *plaustra* rather than *plostra*, he greeted him next day as \"Flaurus.\"\n\nOf course, this should not be taken to mean that Italians and Romans spoke very similarly--there is two thousand years between them--but rather that the change from classical Latin to the modern Romance languages was well underway by the time of the so-called high empire."
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82mw3v | Did the Nazis and the Soviets see FDR's New Deal as "socialism"? | American right-wing commentators occasionally lambaste the New Deal as "socialism." What were German fascist and Soviet ideological assessments of Roosevelt's economic ideas? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/82mw3v/did_the_nazis_and_the_soviets_see_fdrs_new_deal/ | {
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"Four the most part, no, neither the USSR's leadership nor the Third Reich's really see \"socialism\" or \"national socialism\" mirrored in FDR's New Deal. The important thing to realize though is that \"socialism\" meant different things in both dictatorships. But even by these distinct metrics, the New Deal fell short of them. \n\nThe Soviet case in rejecting the New Deal was more thought-out and comprehensive than the Third Reich's. This was because the USSR had an ideology- Marxist-Leninism- that had a clear definition of what socialism was and how to achieve it. In Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, socialism was the indeterminate stage between a revolution and the communist utopia predicted by Marx where man would want for nothing. Socialism would come through the state control over the economy but the state would in turn be controlled by the workers through the mechanism of a communist party. So for there to be *real* socialism for a Marxist-Leninist, not only did there have to be a revolution but such a revolution had to be led by a vanguardist and disciplined communist party. \n\nThis formula was one of the reasons why Soviet leaders and propaganda organs tended to dismiss the New Deal. Not only was it a byproduct of the establishment American political system, it did not fundamentally alter the structures of American society. The 1979 entry on the New Deal in the *Great Soviet Encyclopedia* is an instructive look at this dismissive attitude:\n\n > New Deal \n\n > a system of measures undertaken by the US government between 1933 and 1938 to mitigate the contradictions of American capitalism, which had been aggravated as a result of the economic crisis of 1929–33. The New Deal is associated with President F. D. Roosevelt.\n\n > During the first period of the New Deal (1933–34) laws advantageous to large-scale employers were passed. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which was passed in 1933, provided for the introduction into various branches of industry of “codes of fair competition,” which fixed production costs and levels of output and allocated market areas. Basically, the codes supported the largest monopolies at the expense of small and middle-level employers. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), which was passed in 1933, was designed to raise prices for farm products by paying monetary compensation to farmers who reduced sown areas and livestock herds. These and subsequent New Deal economic measures directed at state regulation of the economy constituted an important stage in the development of state-monopoly capitalism in the USA.\n\n > A number of laws were passed during the second period of the New Deal (1935–38), a time marked by the growth of the working-class and democratic movements: Among those passed in 1935 were the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act), which reinforced NIRA provisions concerning the right of workers to organize trade unions and conclude collective agreements, and the law providing for social security and for aid to the unemployed, the first such law in the history of the USA. The Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) established minimum wages and the maximum length of the workday for certain categories of workers.\n\n > The labor and social laws of the New Deal expressed the government’s aim to *deaden the class struggle and weaken the workers’ and mass democratic movement* {emphasis mine}. Through their struggle to expand the framework of bourgeois democracy, the toiling masses forced the ruling circles of the USA to undertake reforms and compromises.\n\nGranted, the *GSE* entry was written over forty years after the New Deal and during the Brezhnevian neo-Stalinist period, but it does outline the basic objections a doctrinaire Marxist-Leninist would have over the New Deal. One, state regulation was done in cooperation with moneyed capital interests. FDR was not seeking to change socioeconomic relations or concentrations of wealth. Second, the New Deal's programs could not alter the fundamental logic of historical development in which capitalism's contradictions created the very conditions for a revolution. In this Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, the solutions to these contradictions were often the cause for the next stage of the dialectic. Finally, and related to the second point, the New Deal sought to reform capitalism which in Marxism is unreformable. \n\nNow there was some tactical embracing of elements of the New Deal during the 1930s. Soviet agitprop would occasionally commend FDR for working with \"progressive forces\" within the US such as grass-roots unions. This positive line was more often associated with the \"Popular Front\" era of the early and mid-1930s of global communism where communist parties made common cause with their \"bourgeois\" counterparts in the left to fight the emerging fascist threat. But there was a Janus-faced element to this view of the US where some Soviet commentators found the New Deal a species of fascism. The CPUSA in 1933 declared the New Deal to be \"a program of fascistization and the most intense preparations for imperialist war.\" Ilf and Petrov's famous 1935 road trip across America interspersed between celebrations of America's \"can-do\" attitude and the examples of grinding poverty and close-mindedness evident in the darker corners of US society. Stalin in private would argue that the New Deal's successes were always incomplete compared to the Soviet 5YPs which were unburdened by bourgeois norms. Stalin himself could alternate between Popular Front-like overtures to FDR and cold dismissal of America's efforts to alleviate the Depression. But events within America were generally pretty marginal within Soviet discourses in the 1930s; events in Europe and East Asia were more directly concerned with Soviet security than FDR's \"Alphabet soup\" of government programs. \n\nStalin's general ambivalence to the US was mirrored in German estimations of the New Deal. The NSDAP press displayed the same tendencies as the USSR's to either celebrate the New Deal as a pale reflection of Hitler's domestic program or condemn it as a pitiful attempt to achieve German successes without the fundamental catalysts of a strong political party or a vital leader like Hitler. The more positive estimations of the US tended to cluster in the early stages of the Nazi seizure of power- ca. 1933-35- when the diplomatic relationship between Germany and the US was relatively cordial. The Nazi press did comment favorably on the New Deal's handling of the banks and that the CCC was proof that the Americans were copying the *Arbeitsdienst* (which itself was a Weimar era program that the NSDAP claimed as its own and militarized) and other German relief programs. But the growth of American Jewish boycotts as well as US reporting on Nazi violence compelled a more negative assessment of American political developments in the German press. Hitler would maintain in private conversations the few times the New Deal came up that it was emblematic of a Jewish-dominated polity and it lacked the genuine racial character of National Socialism. \n\nIn a curious parallel to some of the Soviets' praising of the New Deal as an American Popular Front, the Germans sought to cultivate anti-New Dealers as US policy towards Germany became more hostile under FDR. Hitler granted Herbert Hoover a private audience in March 1938 and the German dictator not only noted that the National Socialist experiment was different in character than the New Deal, but that anti-New Dealers shared common ground with the NSDAP on account of their anti-communism. German envoys to the US also cultivated contacts within the isolationist wing of the Republican Party as well as the Army, which in turn made it appear as if the New Deal was more unpopular than it was and there was little for Germany to gain by lauding it. \n\nThe German courtship of anti-New Dealers bore only modest fruit as it strengthened what was already a strong resistance to FDR's initiatives. But as early as 1933/34, it was already becoming apparent among anti-New Dealers that likening the New Deal to Hitler's Germany was a viable way to attack the American program as a claw of governmental dictatorship. There were several press commentaries such as those in the conservative *New York Herald Tribune* that likened the NRA's \"Blue Eagle\" program to the proliferation of NSDAP paraphernalia like swastikas. Other 1930s commentators likened the Blue Eagle to the *Winterhilfswerk* (Winter Relief) which used voluntary charity by individuals and businesses who in turn received a badge showing their national solidarity. There were also concerns even within the New Deal coalition that the programs were imbibing German antidemocratic methods. One of the criticisms of the CCC was that the involvement of the Army and the issuance of uniforms made it too much like the Nazi *Arbeitsdienst* for an American republic. \n\n"
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4aus9s | [Book Request] Resources on Apartheid in South Africa | I am a school librarian doing collection development on South Africa, specifically on Apartheid. In looking at the [Books and Resources list](_URL_0_), I cannot find any recommendations for this topic. What books would you recommend on Apartheid, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the ANC, or just general histories of South Africa? I would also welcome published collections of primary documents.
*Note: I messaged the moderators and they suggested I post this request here.* | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4aus9s/book_request_resources_on_apartheid_in_south/ | {
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"I'm pretty sure /u/khosikulu can recommend a great many histories. \n\nI'd like to plug more of a first-person/new journalism account, Rian Malan's *My Traitor's Heart*, which is a really good read that comes at things from a more emotional perspective while still encompassing the facts of apartheid, from its inception (his ancestor was one of the architects of the ideology) to the despair the system engendered in what turned out to be its final years. \n\n[Here's the *NY Times* review](_URL_0_) when it came out. \n\nI'm also a fan of H.C. Bosman, but that's even more on the cultural side - he was a journalist who wrote some sardonic, clever, well-crafted short stories in the 1930s and 40s. Very good at capturing Boer culture and attitudes, though not a great source of facts. *Mafeking Road* is probably the best collection to start with. ",
"*Country of My Skull* is a 1998 nonfiction book by Antjie Krog primarily about the findings of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as per Google, and it was the foundation text of my History of South Africa course at Wellesley.",
"Saul Dubow's 2014 history of apartheid from Oxford, David Welsh's *Rise and Fall of Apartheid* (2011), and other specific works like Desmond Tutu (*No Future Without Forgiveness*) are worthwhile. In the first two, you have good bibliographies. Some key exposes like *The Cordoned Heart* and Ernest Cole's *House of Bondage*--the latter hard to get but absolutely gutwrenching in its photography, by a black photographer who escaped SA--are also very moving for students. I can't write more at present because I am actually in the field in South Africa--but I may have more specific notes if necessary."
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2ikzqa | [META] Which popular historians do you actually trust? | I'm looking for interesting easy-to-read historical articles, but I'm tired of coming across poorly researched garbage. Who should I look up?
Sorry if this is the wrong place for this post. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ikzqa/meta_which_popular_historians_do_you_actually/ | {
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"I'm a big fan of Margret MacMillian, she mainly writes about 20th Century diplomatic history. She has an accessible prose, but most importantly, she's damn smart and does her research. \n\nI liked \"Paris 1919\" and am currently reading \"The War that Ended Peace\".",
"George Chauncey. I love cultural histories and discourse (Foucault) analysis. I'd highly recommend his book \"Gay New York.\" ",
"A couple of preface comments:\n\n1. [Meta] posts refer to issues within the 'sub not questions about historiography.\n2. Popular historians do not tend to write historical articles. Articles are published in journals, such as the *English History Review*, *Speculum*, etc.. These are usually only read by academics or students. \n\nI do not trust popular *historians* because they are writing for a popular audience and not an academic one. This means they have no incentive to qualify their statements or really pay attention to any contemporary historiographical debates. So if I were to 'trust' a popular historian then they would need to prove themselves first. This might create a confirmation bias as I'm unlikely to read a popular historian's book unless it's old or reputedly 'problematic' (as was the case with *A Distant Mirror* by Barbara Tuchman - which someone will invariably recommend).\n\nIf you are looking for well-researched popular *history* then look for books written by professional academic historians.\n\nThe trouble here is distinguishing between whether these books are aimed at an academic or popular audience - and for that I can only recommend doing your market research. You'll only get out as much as you put in. \n\nTwo of my favourite popular histories written and researched by academics are by David Carpenter and Guy Halsall.",
" > Which popular historians do you trust?\n\nNone of them.\n\nThat sounds harsh, but let me explain. I don't really trust *any* historian--popular or not. There are some amazing historians out there that I think are much less likely to screw up than others, but people screw up all the time. I greatly respect Paul Preston's work, for example. Still, I read his latest work--*The Spanish Holocaust*--with a critical eye. You don't have to be radically skeptical of everything any historian says, but I think you shouldn't just trust *me*, much less someone else.\n\nThere are a bunch of popular historians that I like, though. Antony Beevor's work has been very good. Mark Kurlansky has been consistently very good. Rick Atkinson's recent trilogy was very good. I have really enjoyed a number of books from journalists and veterans about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. \n\nDo you have a particular subject that you're interested in? Have you checked out [our book list](_URL_0_)?",
"I would point to Charles Mann, author of *1491* and *1493*, as an example of pop-history/anthropology done right. Mann is less attempting to push his own theory than he is popularizing the academic consensus while highlighting promising trends in the research. More importantly, he does this with a firm grasp on what makes an academic position accepted and useful, rather than controversial and \"exciting.\" \n\nHe's broadcasting and translating academia, in other words, instead of pushing his own agenda. He's also [hunting horses instead of zebras](_URL_0_).\n\nContrast this with someone like, oh let's say, Gavin Menzies, author of *Shit I Pulled Out of My Ass*. He writes with a clear agenda to \"prove\" his own position, and utilizes the thin, conspiracy level evidence to do so. It's red flags all over the place.\n\nLike domini_canes notes though, all sources need to be critically evaluated. The best way to do this is to, well, read more. It's not simply a matter of 9 out of 10 pop histories agreeing, but of checking their sources and even reading the primary source material itself (when available). Jumping into reading academic articles really isn't that huge of a stretch. Just with regards to access, JSTOR offers what is essentially a library card with their free account. Just about any university library will also have public access, with varying levels of availability to their online journal access, but always providing a wealth of hardcopy material. \n\nI'd always recommend reading multiple sources on a topic before solidifying your own position. Cramming in some journal time not only allows you to read several different views in the time it takes to read a book, but also builds your knowledge base so you can start to identify what popular writings are full of shit, simplified, well-done, etc.",
"I don't know whether it'd be appropriate to call him a \"popular historian\" given his professional background, but I pretty much trust Ronald James (/u/itsallfolklore) unequivocally when it comes to the history of folklore. I don't know if there are any modern books on folklore that are more accessible to a lay audience than his \"Introduction to Folklore\". ",
"Richard Rhodes does good, solid work and is copious with his citations. He's a good model of someone who, while not trained formally as a historian, understands the job and can also write extremely well for a general audience. He's doesn't oversimplify things. On nuclear matters his work is as reliable as the work of academic historians (if not more reliable than some of the academics). The only things I have ever seen Rhodes' work be criticized by is that he takes a very individual-centric narrative mode — he wants to show you the magical moment when inspiration dawned on any given issue. Academic historians of science and technology would point out that inspiration and understanding are tricky things, and not always (and perhaps not often) encapsulated in one, easy moment. But one can see why, for works aimed at a popular audience, this narrative mode is used."
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25t5xv | How well did freed gladiators actually fare in ancient Rome? Was there a stigma attached to the status, or was it more of a "cool, edgy" type social status? What did they do for work? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/25t5xv/how_well_did_freed_gladiators_actually_fare_in/ | {
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"Actually answering the question is problematic! Most of our extant literary sources focus on the moral/philosophical issues surrounding gladiatorial combat in general, rather than specifics of the arena. And even fewer go into the lives of the gladiators. \n\nWhat I can tell you is that popular opinion of certain successful gladiators echoes the modern idea of a celebrity: people would cheer for their favourite and large amounts of money would be spent to get them into the area. Take, for example, the Emperor Tibierius who payed 1000 gold pieces to freed gladiators to return to the arena (Seut., Tib. 7).\n\nThat it took 1000 gold pieces to convince rudiarii to return is telling, both of the risk involved and the status held by gladiators. But it tells us nothing of how that respect translated to the world outside the arena. \n\n[This](_URL_0_) is a great bibliography which might furnish you with more information!"
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11d9to | Why did the Orthodox/Roman Catholic Schism not cause the same cultural and political problems as the Protestant reformation? | It does seem that the protestant reformation was based on much more substantial differences than the Schism. However the latter seems to have caused few if any problems at all. Given how murderous renaissance europeans could be when it came to the reformation, it seems unusual that their ancestors took the schism in their stride. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11d9to/why_did_the_orthodoxroman_catholic_schism_not/ | {
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"The great schism was more of a clarification of differences that had developed throughout centuries: there was no abrupt break with tradition, just a confirmation of separation. As such, there was no such revolutionary aspect to it as there were to the later Catholic heresies.",
"I'm not sure I disagree with the premise of the question. Not all of the crusades were against the Muslims, some were against the Orthodox Church. I wonder if the problems caused by the schism were lumped in with the issues caused by the ascendency of Islam and that may be why they've been largely forgotten by popular history in the West? Don't know how you'd go about unpicking that though. ",
"1) as others have pointed out, the Great Schism happened over a long period of time. It was more a recognition of what was already happening. There were several concerted efforts made early in the millennium to reunite the two branches of the Church.\n\n2) There was a pretty clear geographical split. The *entire* Greek Church (for example) split away/the entire Roman Church split away (whichever way you want to look at it). Contrast this with the situation in modern-day Germany, and the geographics get a lot messier. When you look at 'shared' sites such as the [Church of the Nativity](_URL_0_) things get a lot messier as well.\n\n3) This is a closely related point to the above, but the borders of Catholicism and Orthodoxy more or less follow the division between the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantines). Latin was the primary language in one, Greek in the other. The Western empire collapsed before the Eastern, and so the Western Church was put in a position of greater relative power earlier, as was more used to throwing political weight around.\n\n3) The Reformation 'popped' like it did in large part because of pressure that had built up across Western Christendom for centuries. The Vatican's violent reaction to the 'proto-reformers' such as Jan Hus, the Waldensians, Wycliffe meant that reform was going to come with a lot of broken eggs.\n\n4) finally, there were significant & violent splits within Orthodoxy ([Old Believers](_URL_1_) for example). I'd want to defer to someone more familiar with Russian History on that topic though."
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2mamyk | Were there cultures that have had different systems instead of the typical 4 seasons (fall, winter, spring, summer)? | If so, what other kinds of ideas have there been? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mamyk/were_there_cultures_that_have_had_different/ | {
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"As Nyarlonthep said, seasons differ around the world. For a couple concrete examples, the Ju/'hoansi (a !Kung San group), living in a semi-arid subtropical savanna/woodland area, divided the year into five seasons- spring rains (a time of light, scattered thundershowers), main summer rains (heavy warm-weather rains), fall (after the end of rains but before cold weather), winter (cold, dry weather), and spring (the return of hot weather but before spring rains). Obviously they have their own words for each season (things like \"spring rains\" are just translations). The seasons have social aspects too- during the rainy seasons, people dispersed and lived in small groups, while they aggregated around big, reliable water sources in the dry ones. Other San groups similarly divided up the year according to the local climate, though I don't know the specifics.\n\nFor more on Ju/'hoansi seasons and seasonal activities (and generally for starting learning about the Ju/'hoansi), look up Richard B. Lee's books. *The !Kung San* is great; *The Dobe Ju/'hoansi* covers most of the same ground, but more accessibly (it's meant for undergraduate courses).\n\nA second example, at the risk of brushing against the 20-year rule (though I'm sure this nomenclature is much older than 20 years), is where I do fieldwork in Ecuador. Everyone talks about summer and winter, but no fall or spring. \"Summer\", at least in western Ecuador, just means the dry season, while \"winter\" is the wet one. At my field site in a very wet subtropical montane forest \"dry\" merely means that it doesn't rain *every* day, though in either higher altitude cloud forests or southwestern dry forests the dry season really does get dry (and in the dry forests, trees lose their leaves in the summer)."
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bum3ri | How has Japanese food been influenced by American food? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bum3ri/how_has_japanese_food_been_influenced_by_american/ | {
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"The most visible influence is American fast food. McDonald's and KFC are very common, and other chains such as Burger King and Wendy's are there too. There are also local versions - Japanese American-style fast food chains such as Lotteria and MOS Burger. Hamburgers, pizza, and KFC-style chicken - American cuisine's gift to Japan!\n\nLess visible, but featured even more often on the Japanese table, is bread. Bread has a long history in Japan, with European bread arriving in the 16th century. The Meiji Restoration and modernisation/industrialisation brought bread back into the picture again, with Japanese breads such as filled buns appearing alongside European-style breads such as baguettes. However, it was post-war hunger that made bread a vital part of the diet. Japan came to the end of WW2 in a state of starvation - US emergency food aid saved many Japanese lives, and much of that food aid was in the form of wheat. Some of that wheat became noodles and gyoza skins, and much of it became bread. With post-war starvation long over, how common is bread now? About 50% of Japanese people have bread for breakfast, younger people more often, older people less often (Ashkenazi, 2000). Bread provides a quick breakfast, it feels modern, and goes well with coffee in the morning (or toast with milk for the younger breakfasters).\n\nBreakfast cereal - another American influence - is also common. The milk could also be considered influenced by American food, as the post-war US food aid was also milk-prominent, and helped drive the growth of dairy consumption.\n\nMore broadly, there has been a lot of Western influence on Japanese food from the late 19th century onwards. The influences above are the ones that appear to be most specifically American, rather than simply Western.\n\nBibliography:\n\nAshkenazi, Michael, et al. *The Essence of Japanese Cuisine: An Essay on Food and Culture*, Routledge, 2000.\n\nCwiertka, Katarzyna J. *Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity*, Reaktion, 2006.\n\nVaclav Smil, Kazuhiko Kobayashi. *Japan's Dietary Transition and Its Impacts*, MIT Press, 2012."
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679spk | Did the Japanese during the sengoku jidai use anything analogous to pike and shot tactics in europe? | They had the technology spears, an ample supply of matchlock firearms and contact with the Portugese. I've read several books where it says Oda Nobunaga used revolutionary firearms tactics to defeat Takeda calvalry but I never could find out what these tactics were. Was it something similiar to pike and shot or completely different? What sort of firearm tactics were employed if it wasn't similar to pick and shot? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/679spk/did_the_japanese_during_the_sengoku_jidai_use/ | {
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"Depends on what you mean by \"pike and shot\". They had \"pike\" and they had \"shot\", but things were quite a bit different from the tercio or Maurice's checkerboard.\n\nOur ideas for combat unit tactics, deployments, and unit composition are based on Edo era art screens and military manuals. So how far back into the Sengoku it applies is a mystery, especially before the widespread use of guns, which plays a vital role in what info we have. We know by examining muster rolls that in the Sengoku as armies got larger there was a significant increase in the number of archers and especially people using yari (pikes, spears, but also tridents and halberds), but as guns were introduced, a lot of people using yari and almost all (but not all) archers were switched to guns. Because of this, we don't know exactly how far back our knowledge applies. And while we know how the late-Sengoku and early Edo unit deploys, we don't really know exactly how the unit fights beyond the obvious (though I guess that's the same in Europe for most of the period). You can read about composition [here](_URL_1_)\n\nThe 兵要緑 (*Heiyōryoku* \"Record of Important Military Matters\") list some tactics by name for the small teams that make up a unit, from which some assumptions could be made. But as it doesn't describe in detail what those tactics are, we can't really be certain. I am eagerly waiting for other manuals in the National Archives to come off copyright so I can read them online.\n\nWith that said, let me just describe what I *do* see from art screens like [this](_URL_2_) and [this](_URL_0_), Naganuma Tansai's *Heiyōryoku*, and Hōjō Ujinaga's 兵法雄鑑 (*Heihōyūkan* \"the Art of War - Male Volume\"). What they show is that units are between about 250 to 800 in size. At the front of the unit would be 2 to 4 squads of 4 to 5 teams of 4 to 5 men commanded by 1 officer each who may or may not be mounted and who may have up to 2 helpers and a flag carrier (squad commanders did). These teams were either all gunners and all archers, with a ratio of 2 or 3 gunner team to 1 archer team, or all teams were a mix of gunner and archers, with about 3 to 4 gunners to 1 archer. The 4 or 5 of teams were in line (officers were a couple of steps back), though there's a gap between teams. And the team's position relative to each other could probably be changed based on tactical need, but we are not told that explicitly. If the unit were standardized in equipment, the archer team would be deployed behind the gunner teams. They are assumed to begin the battle by shooting, with the archers, whether individuals or an inter team, covering the gunner while they load.\n\nBehind them a few meters back were deployed either armored samurai on foot (I've seen mounted depictions though) or yari teams. Depictions differ on who goes first. In either case they were in ranks of 1 or 2 deep, so in *much* thinner lines than in Europe.\n\nBehind *them* was the commander, his aides and guards, and the flag team, being in reserve. If the cavalry team haven't been deployed yet, they are deployed behind the commander. Camp followers and support staff/equipment were deployed behind the entire army. It is assumed the commander would judge the situation of combat to order the yari team and foot samurai forward, and if then order his cavalry to plug gaps or exploit and pursue. But again, this is not explicitly stated, at least not in the *Heiyōryoku*.\n\nThis depiction rules out any type of mass cavalry charge, as mounted troops are dispersed into individual small units. The *Heiyōryoku*'s unit of roughly 560 men has 50 mounted. It also rules out push of pike for the reason there's not enough pikes in enough depth to push. But this does not mean in the mid-Sengoku, when two thirds of a formation were made of yari (but yari doesn't mean pike, remember) it couldn't have happened. But we don't see any depiction of it happening.\n\nThe *Heiyōryoku* lists some gunner tactics like shooting standing up, shooting sitting, shooting from the hip (no idea how or why), shooting in turn, and a few ways of firing by team that I can only assume the above gunner deployment depiction could be changed to employ them. Unfortunately Naganuma doesn't go into details on what these tactics actually are. If only he goes into the details he does about using gunners doing siege assault/defense and as rearguard. And yes, a few of these can be interpreted as volley/rank shooting by the unit's fire teams. In Naganuma's case, there were 3 squads of 5 teams of 5, which comes to 50 to 60 gunners and 15 to 25 archers. While gunners outnumber yari (designated yari anyway), both make up a minority of the formation and the arms of almost half of the unit is actually unspecified. These were probably squires of mounted men who followed them on foot, or men who otherwise fighting on foot who used whatever they were used to.\n\nWas what I just said analogous to pike-and-shot? You decide. Two clear differences are that 1) units had a huge mix of all sorts of equipment without any standardization of size and deployment and 2) the deployment was loose but in depth instead of packed \ntightly together shoulder-to-shoulder.\n\nAs for Oda Nobunaga at Nagashino, the traditional depiction, as recorded in the *Shinchōki* is that he divided three thousand gunners into three ranks and had them fire in volley of a thousand each. This has been ruled out. The account is untrustworthy, with the more contemporary *Shinchōkoki* not mentioning it and saying Nobunaga only had one thousand gunners. It is also physically impossible, and in fact very stupid if you think about it.\n\nThis does not rule out volley fire by local, small units as seen in the depiction above, but we are not told that's the reason Nobunaga won (we're not told it was Nobunaga who developed it either, for all we know the Takeda could have fought in a similar style) [EDIT: Though, to be fair, we *are* told Nobunaga won by shooting apart the Takeda attack with gunfire]. What we are told as the decisive factor was the fact that, having brought an army three times the size of the Takeda force to the field, Nobunaga dug in (possibly quite elaborately) and then sent a separate force on a round-a-bout way to relieve Nagashino Castle and cut off the Takeda line of retreat and force the Takeda to make a choice: either risk battle and attack an entrenched army 2.5~3 times the size and risk losing badly (though he might not have known it was three times the size, as Nobunaga seemed to have taken care to hide the disposition of his army), or turn tails and run and be pursued and lose for sure but keep his army a bit more in tact. By the description of the *Shinchōki*, the battle was not decided by unit tactics, but by overall battle tactical considerations."
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5rh3hm | During the Islamic Golden Age, did the religious prohibition of alcohol apply to the use of alcohol in scientific experiments? | The word "Alcohol" itself has Arabic origins, so it seems likely it would have been studied during the Islamic Golden Age. If the prohibition of alcohol did apply to its use in scientific experiments, were there any notable controversies that occurred during this period as a result? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5rh3hm/during_the_islamic_golden_age_did_the_religious/ | {
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"Follow on question: Were there any similar taboos among Renaissance Christians that may have impacted scientific work?",
"As most of the scientists in that era were also religious characteristics, they werent so comfortable with the use of alcohol but however most of them used it in their researches and in fact some of them even suggested that it was healthy to drink.\n\nAvicenna, in his book the canon of medicine, talks about the alcohol use and the ways of using it. (I found it in the p.263 in turkish translation)\nAnd there is still a big discussion in the islamic world if he used it as a drink. Most of them are not from reliable sources, like some religious leader or hand of the king accusing Avicenna with wine use. So, there was definitely controversions, but since Avicenna himself didnt define himself a muslim, i think it is not the best example.\n\nBut Scientists such as Ömer Khayyam or Abu zayd al balkhi were definitely using it as a medicine substance and also drink.\nÖmer Khayyam has a specific part in his \"Epistle of Nowruz\" about \"the benefits of wine\".\n\nBut generally speaking, in the islamic science world there was not much notable controversion in that time or now when it came to the use of alcohol as medicine or substance of an experience.\n\nI hope it helped and sorry for the flaws in my english. ",
"As I've alluded to before, while its possible that there was some controversy given that both are intoxicating substances, to some extent, the knowledge that wine, beer, spirits, and distilled alcohol all contain the same intoxicating chemical only dates to the 18th century. \n\nSo while the word \"alcohol\" is Arabic, the Arabs wouldn't have ascribed that name to intoxicating beverages or seen them as the same. In fact, the word \"alcohol\" only means the \"essence\" of something. Eventually, the term was applied in the West to the distilled beverages that resulted from distilling wine, and thus became synonymous with the \"essence of wine\", and only was recognized as the common chemical to all of these substances much later. \n\nThat being said, all can cause something that can be identified as intoxication, so its possible there was some prohibitions on them, but the Muslims weren't knowingly drinking something with the same essence as a forbidden substance.\n\nI actually took a course on this and my professor is actually a big researcher in the field of the societal history of alcohol, so if anyone would like any further info I'd be happy to answer!"
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ynr1o | Why didn't ancient people know how the insides of our body was like if they witnessed "dissection" at war? | I'm asking this because we think it took the Renaissance to truly examine human corpses and body and get real anatomy done since Galen and other ancient physicians weren't allowed to dissect bodies.
However, didn't they witness accidental dissection in times of war? How did they react to the sudden exposure of innards? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ynr1o/why_didnt_ancient_people_know_how_the_insides_of/ | {
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"There's a world of difference between a careful and thorough anatomical dissection as we started to gradually perform from the late 1500s onward and looking at someone's guts spilled open on a battlefield"
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96ocg4 | Was there a ranking system of Spanish Conquistadors? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/96ocg4/was_there_a_ranking_system_of_spanish/ | {
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19w0e2 | Was Jesus a historical figure? | What is the evidence we have for his existence, and do you believe the Jesus Mythicism (a la Richard Carrier and Robert M. Price) is a legitimate position to hold? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/19w0e2/was_jesus_a_historical_figure/ | {
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"This gets asked a whole lot. See [here](_URL_0_). The tl;dr is that the fact that a Galilean fellow named Jesus had some nifty ideas and was crucified is the broad consensus. I tend to think the objections to a historical Jesus are mostly unfounded. There really isn't any other information we'd expect for a historical iterant preacher in the Galilee (i.e. we've got as much info as we'd expect for a real figure like him) and the mythological parallels are often overstated."
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/religion#wiki_did_jesus_exist.3F"
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1qooh9 | What were troops like back in the hundred years war? | (1)Did the armies of consist mostly of noble knights, professional soldiers, mercenaries, conscripts or even volunteers?
(2)What battle tactics were used during the war? Would the battle of Crécy (1346) (longbow archers combined with unmounted knights) be a good example for english standart tactics? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1qooh9/what_were_troops_like_back_in_the_hundred_years/ | {
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"I can only speak for English Longbowman who were raised and equipped through the Feudal system as and when the King required them for a campaign. For almost the entirety of the Hundred Years War the English were on the offensive and so didn't need to maintain a large standing army for defence.\n\nFamously archery was not only encouraged, but also practiced by law with statutes obliging men of fighting age to practice with the bow on a weekly basis. This meant that the King could call upon a corps of highly-trained archers at relatively short notice. The critical path, however, was equipment - bows and arrows needed to be manufactured and stored in case of crisis. Whilst arrows could be manufactured relatively quickly, a longbow took four years from the wood being cut to the finished article; the process could be hurried, but the quality of the bow would be reduced. In order to control this, Henry V specifically employed a Master of Arrows (one Nicholas Mynot) to oversee the manufacture, procurement and storage of bows and arrows for his 1415 campaign.\n\nLongbowmen have entered into English legend as a breed of superhuman archers and, whilst some wild claims have been made, we do know that any English archer could fire ten arrows in a minute at ranges up to 300 yards which means that at Crecy in 1346 English Archers shot around 30,000 arrows in the first 90 seconds of the battle alone and used around 500,000 arrows during the whole course of the battle. That 90 seconds is around the time it would take a French horseman to advance 300 yards so it gives you an idea of the longbow's worth as an area effect weapon.\n\nAs a result of this, the English army was highly dependent on archers and they would typically make up the bulk of any English force. English knights, and even the King, had a habit of fighting on foot in order to protect their archers. Geoffrey the Baker records Edward, Prince of Wales, likening his archers to royalty ahead of the Battle of Poitiers in 1356:\n\n > “Your manhood hath bin alwaies known to me, in great dangers, which sheweth that you are not degenerate from true sonnes of English men, but to be descended from the blood of... Kings of England”\n\n**References**\n\nBarker, J. (2005), *Agincourt*, London, Abacus.\n\nBradbury, J. (1985), *The Medieval Archer*, Woodbridge, Boydell Press.\n\nGoldberg, P. J. P. (2004), *Medieval England: A Social History*, London, Hodder Arnold.\n\nHardy, R. (2006), *Longbow: a Social and Military History*, Stroud, Sutton Publishing Limited.\n\nMortimer, I. (2008), *The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation*, London, Vintage Books.\n\nNorman, A.V. B. and Pottinger, D. (1966), *English Weapons and Warfare 449 - 1660*, New York, Dorset Press.\n\nThompson, E. M. (1889), *Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynbroke*, translated by E. M. Thompson, Oxford.",
"(1) France at the time used many mercenaries from Genoa, who were famed for their crossbowmen (which had a range only beaten by the warbow/longbow), who were also protected by huge pavise shields. However, France had a huge noble class to rely upon for the main fighting, so they would have been able to field a HUGE amount of heavy, well armoured cavalry for charges, and a huge amount of well-armoured infantry. Infantry would have used mainly swords, maces and poleaxes I believe.\n\nEnglish armies were less cavalry based, mainly archers and men-at-arms.\n\n(2) Crecy is a good example, minus the cannon that Edward III used at the battle. This is the first use of cannon by Europeans I believe in an open battle. Crecy, Agincourt and Poitiers were all won through English arrows, however, remember that the arrows would have run out perhaps 5 to 10 minutes into the battle at the rate at which the English fired them.\n\nThe rest was all down to the clash of men-at-arms. I believe the English won Poitiers and Agincourt mainly through the French being weighed down by heavy armour, while the nimble English archers (spent of arrows) could weave in and out and tire their enemy. The pole-axe was a very useful weapon used by us at the time - mace, knife and spike all rolled into one.\n\nLongbow arrows were also strategically used - bodkin arrows, a long, slender, pointed end, could pierce even Milanese steel-plated armour, so these were shot at the well armoured troops. Broadhead arrows were wider and used to take down horses/cavalry.\n\nNo battle is ever the same, but I think we used to place our archers at the flanks so both flanks could fire into the middle-mass of advancing enemy troops. "
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3v9z8p | Did medieval or renaissance English monarchs have bodyguards? | I'm curious if these figures retained actual personal bodyguards (as opposed to soldiers who happened to protect their residences), or if it was simply hard enough to access them that it wasn't considered necessary. Given that much of the male nobility consisted of trained fighters, many of whom (one presumes) were extremely loyal to the monarch, perhaps they felt safe enough with just them hanging around? It struck me that in all my various readings about various English monarchs, I'd seen mention of the regular proximity of friends, office-seekers, serving staff, and even jesters, but never of people whose job was simply protection. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3v9z8p/did_medieval_or_renaissance_english_monarchs_have/ | {
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"You're correct in assuming that many of the household attendants of the king would have martial experience. When the royal household went to war, many of its members (including professionals such as armorers and tailors) also fought, often as archers. So a fair number of the various hangers-on you mention would have combat experience to some degree. \n\nHowever, English kings from about 1300 on also maintained men who were professional bodyguards. Prior to Richard II, it seems that the usual number of bodyguards was 24 mounted archers. In 1360, the 24 men of the king's bodyguard at Calais were each issued 1 \"painted bow,\" a hundred arrows, and ten bowstrings. Edward III's guard were apparently issued with some kind of special quiver, which is unusual because English archers typically carried their arrows tied to their belts. Richard II expanded the institution of \"archers of the crown.\" He not only increased the actual number of archers of the crown, but created a separate bodyguard of at least three hundred men drawn from Chester county, which Richard directly ruled. It seems that the massive expansion of the Cheshire archers was done in an effort to skirt Parliamentary regulations, which attempted to limit the king's bodyguard of archers to the traditional 24 men. \n\nThere is a certain amount of doubt as to the nature of their service. Some of these men had other duties (with titles like \"yeoman of the chamber\" or \"groom of the chamber\"), but that does not exclude them from the capacity to commit violence in the name of the king. Their socioeconomic background is also unclear. Since their wages often went unpaid, it is presumed that many, if not all, of these men would have had some other means of supporting themselves on a day-to-day basis. Richard II's Cheshire guards, being much larger in size, had a very wide range in status, ranging from men with substantial property to men who owned no land but a handful of livestock. \n\nSources: \n*The Soldier in Late Medieval England*, by Adrian Bell, Anne Curry, Andy King, and David Simpkin\n\n*Investigating the Socio-Economic Origins of English Archers in the Second Half of the 14th Century*, Gary Baker, Journal of Medieval Military History, Vol. XII\n\n*The Medieval Inventories of the Tower Armories 1320-1410*, Roland Thomas Richardson, University of York "
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551x04 | Did Greek city-states have mayors? Also did each deme also possess some form of a city council? | More specifically, if they did what sort of powers did they have and what city functions did they oversee? If not how were city state functions overseen? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/551x04/did_greek_citystates_have_mayors_also_did_each/ | {
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"So, demes as administrative units were generally a feature of Athens, although some other cities also had them. At Athens the demes replaced the tribes as the minor administrative units after Cleisthenes' revision of the constitution: at Athens a tribe (φυλή) was formed from taking one of the ten \"thirds\" (τριττύες) of each zone, City, Coastline, or Interior. The τριττύες themselves were composed of a varying number of demes, of which there were in Attica 139. The tribes were generally the more important administrative units, but the demes had a certain share of organization. Though the tribes formed the basis of distribution of seats within the βουλή (500 members chosen by taking fifty from each of the ten tribes) the distribution of members within each tribe was supposed to be done proportionally with the size of the demes it contained. Each deme elected a local δήμαρχος (which, amusingly, is the word that later authors use to describe the Roman tribunate), whose duties mainly involved registering new demesmen, as well as some other minor administrative functions. Other than that the demes operated kind of like miniature versions of the city. Demes held individual assemblies, and could appoint whatever officials they thought were necessary as they saw fit. Demes were in charge of organizing their own festivals and maintaining their own finances as they saw fit, with whatever means had been voted on in their own assemblies. Some demes even set up inscriptions documenting their public activities, e.g. Eleusis\n\nOther cities had radically different methods of lower-level administrative organization. A fair number of cities used demes (I think it's like 28 known cities, something like that) but many did not, and of those that did we generally don't have the documentation to compare them to the Athenian system following Cleisthenes. Many cities maintained their older tribes--at Corinth, for example, the eight tribes formed the basis of all minor administrative duties"
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2e3utl | How did "In God We Trust" become so popular in America? | Even finding its way on the one dollar
Afaik wanted the aerican founding fathers a nation that isn't based on religion
Extras: how come religious extremism is becomming so popular recently, specifically christian extremists in the usa | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2e3utl/how_did_in_god_we_trust_become_so_popular_in/ | {
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"The phrase \"In God We Trust\" was first printed on paper money in 1957 but had been used on coins since the Civil War era. Many historians, and even the [US Treasury](_URL_0_), have attributed these acts as responses to increased religious sentiment in America. Religious revivals are typical in times of strife or uncertainty, as people grasp for higher powers to save them from worldly pains. During the Civil War, not only were politics messy but so was the changing economic landscape of the country. There were years of drought, war destroyed fields, and an influx of immigrants flooding the nation. If Americans could trust that current events were part of God's plan, it was easier to swallow discomforts and failures and even expect a better tomorrow.\n\nSo, what was happening in the late 1950s to merit a second inscription on our currency? The Cold War, to name the big one. At any moment, it seems, the world could end in an atomic explosion. Countries were still recovering from the horrors of WWII and the Communists appeared to be closing in on the very vulnerable Southeast Asia. America was a big one for democracy, itself based on the principle that God created all men equally. It's motto, in God We Trust was a morale booster, a warning to enemies that the American plan was the divine plan, and an explanation. "
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a8r2fa | To what extent are the number of deaths caused by Stalin and Mao Zedong disputed? Is the denial of their atrocities communist propaganda, or are the millions of reported deaths anti-communist propaganda? Would denying the atrocities of the Stalin and Mao Zedong be similar to denying the Holocaust? | I ask this question because I was just banned from r/LateStageCapitalism for spreading “anti-communist propaganda” by saying that socialism has been given a bad connotation due to the atrocities committed by Stalin and Mao Zedong, and was given this link:
_URL_0_
Obviously I’m going to believe the facts over a communist subreddit but still I am curious about the claims that millions didn’t die under communist USSR and China.
Thanks | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a8r2fa/to_what_extent_are_the_number_of_deaths_caused_by/ | {
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"There are substantial disputes, because neither Stalin nor Mao were cheerful about people inquiring into the issue. It's also debatable as to just how many of the deaths were attributable to purposeful intention, and how many to starvation due to incompetence and a political zeal for impractical ideas about agriculture (see, for example Stalin's support for Lysenko).\n\nTo take Mao as an example, he gets a bee in his bonnet that peasants should all eat together, and that the very idea of cooking your own food for your own family is some kind of bourgeois landlordism. He sends cadres into villages who actually confiscate cooking and eating utensils, along with every scrap of food. People panic, food production plummets, and a lot of people starve.\n\nIs this intentional murder?\n\nThe same question is asked about Stalin's famines. You'll find Anne Applebaum making a persuasive case for \"yes, Stalin really meant this to happen-- famine was an intentional punishment for political enemies, real or perceived\". But Stephen Kotkin sees that matter differently, essentially that famine was more the result of a disastrously misguided collectivization process than an intentional strategy of mass starvation.\n\nIts clear that we can ascribe many deaths to intentional murder-- but there's a large category of deaths that are going to be legitimately characterized differently by different people. Whatever the case, what you can say for certain is: both men ruled with knowing brutality. They killed, and they terrorized, and they intended to do so. They also would seem to have killed a lot of people through indifference and an ideological approach to agriculture that resulted in famine.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSources:\n\nKotkin & Applebaum are both working with the latest documents coming out of opened Soviet era archives, and come to somewhat different conclusions. Neither is wrong, reading the two source together you'll get a flavor for the open issues.\n\n[Red Famine -- Anne Applebaum](_URL_2_)\n\n[Waiting for Hitler -- Stephen Kotkin](_URL_0_)\n\n[Mao's Great Famine -- Frank Dikotter](_URL_1_)\n\n\\- Dikotter is looking here specifically at the famine, as distinct from the Cultural Revolution and other acts of revolutionary violence. He's definitely in the \"Mao was an intentional killer camp\""
]
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ad7j1i | How do I know I can trust a book I'm reading, or a show I'm watching? | So I picked up History of Rome on Spotify, and it's been fun because while I love history, I'm not well versed in the ins and outs, but anyway..
So the tales of Romulus and how he single-handedly created Rome, if it was written in a book and published, it might tempt someone, and then that person moves on to believe all the tales of Romulus and how he did it all himself, as opposed to the second half of the Spotify episode, in which the narrator talks about it being a morphing of many many people into one, to make it an easy tale to tell. Who did this? Romulus. Who did that? Romulus. Who do I talk to about this? Romulus.
So with that said..How do I trust a book or source of education if I'd be going into every read doubting the truth behind it, especially when you get to a certain era, and a lot of it becomes a game Chinese whispers, because Rome, Ancient Greece, and early Shogun Japan are very much my favorite times in history to read little factoids about, but it's a lot of hearsay so that's why I'm posting here.
How do you read a book and trust in it? Do I have to adjust and go in with the mindset of "what I may come to know as a fact may be wrong in a few years."
Thanks. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ad7j1i/how_do_i_know_i_can_trust_a_book_im_reading_or_a/ | {
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" > How do you read a book and trust in it?\n\nPractice source analysis: ask who wrote this and why. Consider where the author was born, raised, educated, their socioeconomic background, family connections, and institutional affiliations.\n\nRead widely. Seek out authors that disagree and read them. Sometimes the truth lies with one side, sometimes it lies in a synthesis and fusion of various sides. There are often as many sides as there are experts in the field.\n\nConsider the arguments made. Are the points made evidence-based or ideology-based? Some ideological frameworks are good guesses in the absence of evidence (and there is sadly all to often inadequate or imperfect evidence), but don't be afraid to overturn or carve out exceptions to an ideological statement if the evidence contradicts it. History is messy.\n\n > Do I have to adjust and go in with the mindset of \"what I may come to know as a fact may be wrong in a few years.\"\n\nThe moment you cease to question what you know and how you know it you cease to practice science. Provisional beliefs cultivate a curious mind.",
"It's important to understand that sources and other forms of evidence determine the extent of what we know about any time or event or person. Many many books have been written and entire political or religious movements develop and argue about what \"truth\" constitutes. Some things and events are unknowable because there just isn't enough evidence to show us one way or another. So, no one knows what Christopher Columbus, William Wallace or Robert Hooke looked like. No one can know who fired first at Lexington, or how Harold died at Hastings, we don't know how many of the Roman Kings were actual individuals. But that does not mean nothing is knowable even with distant periods like Rome. We can make safe assumptions that most documents that survive from that period at least have some element of truth to them. People like Livy and Polybius, or Cato left us detailed accounts about events they witnessed or past events that they studied with evidence lost to modern times. We must always relay their reports with some skepticism but there is no reason to entirely discount them. The best thing to do is to read more and look at the footnotes that explain where a writer draws their conclusions from. If you would like a basic intro to the Roman period including an explanation of its limited sources I suggest SPQR by Mary Beard.",
"There are academic fads. History seems to be somewhat less subject to them than other humanities, but they still exist. You will get a very different view of a period of history reading two books written 30 years apart. The nature of history is that authors have to choose what to include and what to exclude. \n\nBut like science -- nothing is fixed. You have to be ready to drop a theory/fact on the basis of evidence. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nSome first filters: \n\n\n* Avoid books that don't cite sources. There should at \\*least\\* be a bibliography per chapter, or a chapter based, \"further reading\" \n* It's ok to read popularized accounts. Take with a grain of salt, but they can give you a quick overview.\n* Look at the qualifications of the author. Erich von Daniken is not considered a reputable source. There is an engineer out who has a theory that the Homerian tales are transplanted from the Baltic region by migration. It's getting some interest by historians/classics scholars but is far from accepted at this time. That said, new theories are often put forward by people outside the field. But understand standard views first.\n* Read reviews of the books you are considering reading. This will give you some idea if other historians regard the book as a good one.\n* If a book has had multiple printings it can mean it was popular. But popularity can be either from sensationalism, or from being well regarded by other historians. In any case it's had a chance for errors to be corrected. Points for a book that has been reprinted. \n* It's a good idea to make notes. This seems like a waste of time for a hobbyist but even noting the chief ideas on a chapter by chapter basis will let you find things later."
]
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[],
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ddjrkb | Why were paramarines not used in the Pacific theater in WW2 but were used in Europe? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ddjrkb/why_were_paramarines_not_used_in_the_pacific/ | {
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"If you are specifically referencing U.S. Marine Corps paratroopers, they were not used in Europe. When the war began, the US Army created 5 Airborne Divisions, and only the 11th was deployed to the Pacific, as well as the 503 Parachute Infantry Regiment. The Marines did create 4 battalions of Marine paratroopers, but they did not see actual parachute insertions (although a few were planned). \n\nThere are two key reasons actual jumps weren't used as much in the Pacific. One is the terrain. For much of the operations in the Pacific theater, the terrain favored only a very few areas of approach. You couldn't just pick any side of an island and go in there. You needed a proper landing beach, and just as well, to land airborne or glider troops, you need VERY favorable terrain, which was not often available. Besides that, airborne ops are very tricky, and nearly every one undertaken in WWII was rife with problems. Even when everything is planned right, things will go wrong. When the 503 PIR jumped onto Noemfoor Island in 1944, the jump was too low, causing over 100 injuries from hitting too hard.\n\nThe second issue is that for the Marines, their Raider and Paramarine units were used to (moderate) success as assault forces into 1943 in the Solomons and the ill-fated Makin Raid. Although they were well-trained and fought well, they had to always contend with being an \"elite within the elite,\" which never sat too well with higher ups in the Marine Corps, and they also had to face the growth of the Corps. With the need to to build two new Divisions, the Marines needed personnel to fill them, particularly with combat-experienced men. Most of the paramarines were moved into the 5th MarDiv, many of them serving on Iwo Jima as regular infantry, although they were still jump qualified. Harlon Block and Ira Hayes, two men who were part of the second (and more recognized) flag raising at Iwo Jima were paramarines, as well as Hank Hansen, who participated in the first flag raising."
]
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[]
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1l64i9 | What if the Conquistadors had never invaded South America? What would be the dominant civilization? How far do you think their power would spread? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1l64i9/what_if_the_conquistadors_had_never_invaded_south/ | {
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"this question is better suited to /r/HistoricalWhatIf : in this sub, it's against the rules for respondents to speculate"
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17zlx9 | I heard a tidbit from Heston Blumenthal who was investigating Roman recipes. He mentioned those recipes tend to be very strong tasting to us due to Romans having significantly dulled their taste buds because of the lead piping they used in their plumbing. Is that true? | It seems a bit anecdotal and probably hit just a small portion of the rich Romans who could afford plumbing and who could actually record their recipes.
Still, I'd be interested to know more!
Edit: Thanks for the replies, *reductio ad plumbum* it is! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17zlx9/i_heard_a_tidbit_from_heston_blumenthal_who_was/ | {
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"Heston almost certainly got his recipes from [Apicus](_URL_0_). Apicus is quite a refined cook, and was not writing recipes for 'the common man' as such. This can partly be seen in his usage of pepper and other spices which were very expensive in Roman times. Now, he does have some complicated recipes, but he also has the simple: for example, on asparagus:\n\n > Asparagus [to be most agreeable] must be peeled, washed and dried and immersed in boiling water backward (*reversum* - i.e. the head above water).\n\nWithout knowing what Heston ate, I would guess it is most likely that he tried some of the more fancy meals and that these are a bit 'rich'.",
"Oh joy, another variant of the old *reductio ad plumbum*.\n\nAncient Roman cuisine was no more rich than modern Indian and Chinese. Personal anecdote here, but after spending a month in Taiwan I remember thinking that the food back home was pretty bland. Blumenthal shouldn't assume that the modern, European style cuisine he is trained in is some sort of universal standard, and that every deviation from it needs to be explained.",
"No, lead piping does not affect water quality. If you live in an older industrial revolution city, chances are your tap water flows through at least some lead pipe still. The amount of lead pipe drops by the day, but it is still there. I suppose it is possible Roman lead pipes were made differently, and somehow leached lead into the water, but I doubt it. Leadsmithing is a pretty ancient craft.\n\nSource: My Dad is a water treatment specialist."
]
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fi2ops | Where did this stereotype of the French Foreign Legion come from? | When I was growing up, the stereotype of the French Foreign Legion we always heard about was that a man would get rejected by a woman and then be so hurt and upset that he would run off to France to join the Foreign Legion there. I've duckduckgoed this, but am not finding information about it. I have found information about the Legion accepting people who have been misfits or refugees and want to start a new life, but I'm not finding anything at all about the stereotype of joining due to heartache. It seemed to come up a lot in Looney Tunes cartoons.
Does anyone know if there was a source of this stereotype? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fi2ops/where_did_this_stereotype_of_the_french_foreign/ | {
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"At least for English language material, it is principally a product of interwar romanticism about the Legion, which is far and away best exemplified by the book *Beau Geste*, published in 1924 by the English author P. C. Wren, and which tells the story of three English brothers who are gentlemen, yet in hard times, under suspicion for a crime they of course didn't commit, and one... yes... unable to pursue the romance he wants. So they go off and join the Legion to start a new life. Several films in the period were also made, the big one being a 1939 flick starring Gary Cooper. Whether Wren himself ever served is a matter of debate with no clear answers as identities in the Legion were of course masked.\n\nThe image that this and other works pushed is well summarized by Douglas Porch in the introduction to his work on the unit as:\n\n > [A] mongrel unit recruited among the scrapings of humanity, perhaps even among the criminal classes, but also containing a fairly sizable contingent of “gentlemen rankers” who fled into the Legion to escape a dark past or out of a desire for adventure.\n\nThat isn't to say there weren't men there who were really driven by those reasons... accused of a crime, seeking a thrill, escaping a jilted romance... This wasn't something created out of whole cloth, as it was a reputation that the Legion had been cultivating in the years before WWI (although more common in French speaking circles than English), and buoyed by its very real policies about identity with the famed *anonymat*, but they were a *very* small minority. Far more common were men who had nothing else in life, and looked to the Legion as an option of last resort - \"victims that misery or hopelessness have thrown into the chasm of the Legion\" as one writer described most of their number.\n\nBut it is the \"*Beau Geste* Romantics\", as Porch calls them, that fixate the imagination. The \"men of good family and education who after being jilted or enduring some other downturn in their affairs sought to bury their misfortunes, and themselves, in the Legion\". It makes for a compelling story, as seen with *Beau Geste*, not to mention an ensuring one, as seen with the parodies such as Looney Tunes that you mention, or Laurel & Hardy's *Beau Hunks*.\n\nI think it is important to keep in mind that \"wanting to start a new life\" *is* similar to the \"joining due to heartache\". Both cases are men trying to get away from something in their past that disappointed them, and find a new start, which the Legion appeared to offer. Another writer of the period, who had served in the early 1900s, broke the Legion into four broad groups of men:\n\n > 1. The miserable, without work who prefer to enlist rather than beg and sleep under bridges. \n > 2. Those who seek adventure, generally the very young. \n > 3. Deserters. \n > 4. Adventurers who come to forget their mistakes or who would like to be forgotten by society. Romantic hews spring up sometimes, and it is these cases, purely exceptional, which give rise to the legend that kings having lost their thrones, bishops who misplaced their miters or generals who lost their stars make up the majority of legionnaires.\n\nBut while that last group might have been tiny, it is important to keep in mind that the Legion itself liked to cultivate that image, as it of course helped with their reputation. As Georges Manue put it, “The legionnaires are mythomaniacs, inventors of fables which they are the first to believe in”. After all, they might mostly be petty criminals on the run or the poor driven to no alternative, but it is much nicer to have *other* people think maybe you are the younger son of an English Lord mending your broken heart.\n\nThe irony too is that Beau Geste was *not* popular in France. The 1926 and 1939 films were both prohibited in France for quite some time. Although the story in many ways painted that oddly romantic image of the Legion, it also had the heroes desert, after all, and we can't be having that, now can we! The French authorities would have none of that. Even though much of the romanticism leaned into tropes already present in French and Legion discourse, it was a bridge too far, but it had little impact, and it is likely that in a bit of the tail wagging the dog, the portrayal of the Legion in that way helped *boost* recruitment of English speakers in the late '20s and early '30s as men took that image of the Legion to be closer to reality than it really was. More than a few were in for a rude awakening.\n\nSo anyways, the sum of it is that the image of the jilted lover running off to drown his sorrows in the Legion is part of the larger trope which, in English language literature, we see principally rising up in the 1920s from *Beau Geste*, which sought to paint the Legion as a haven not only for the scum of the earth, but a certain kind of English gentleman, a man of true honor, and, to return to Porch's eloquent description, \"bolstered the notion that behind every legionnaire lay a story of more than ordinary interest, suggested an upper-class presence in the ranks and delivered on the promise of redemption that Legion service was meant to bestow.\"\n\n**Sources**\n\nPorch, Douglas. *French Foreign Legion.* Skyhorse Publishing, 2010.\n\nWindrow, Martin. *Our Friends Beneath the Sands: The Foreign Legion in France's Colonial Conquests 1870-1935*. Orion, 2010."
]
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[]
] |
|
1f1fle | I live in French Louisiana in 1803. How will the Louisiana Purchase change my life? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1f1fle/i_live_in_french_louisiana_in_1803_how_will_the/ | {
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"That depends on your location within the state, your race, and your nationality.\n\nEdit: OP should provide more context so the historical archaeologists here who study Louisiana (and also from the state--me) could better answer your questions. So tell me WHO you are and I'll tell you what your life was like after the Purchase. ",
"So, I'll explain a little for ya.\n\nInitially, for the first few years, very little to not at all. \n\nOnly in larger laws that pertain to national government did anything change, which mean import and export tarrifs, citizenships, things like that. Louisiana [even to this day](_URL_8_), is governed under Napoleonic Code and not English Law, like the rest of the United States (even though the Napoleonic Code wasn't formally published until 1804). This means that while your criminal laws changed, civil code largely stayed the same; property laws, family law, tort, things like that, stayed French.\n\nNow, nominally, you hadn't really been French in Louisiana unless you lived south of Lake Pontchartrain anyway for a few decades. France controlled only New Orleans and its neighboring parishes.\n\nNow, when the United States took over, they marched in a few troops down to the [Cabildo](_URL_5_) and had a changing of possesion ceremony, and [William C.C. Claiborne](_URL_6_) took command of the [Territory of Orleans](_URL_11_). [You got your own United States Circuit Court](_URL_4_), the only time this ever happened in American history for a Territory. This is because Louisiana was so heavily populated and important to the trade of the United States. New Orleans was key to import and export for the interior of the U.S.'s territory west of the Appalachians. We will come back to that.\n\nNow, because most of the Louisiana Territory up until 1800 was owned by the Spanish (betcha didn't know that), the Spanish actually had maintained a free black militia to help defend the territory, the local [creole](_URL_4_) population never cared for it (creole at the time meant colony born white people, not the mixed race term it now means), and the new Governor Claiborne actually kept it around and considered it a legitimate regiment, giving it regimental colours and everything, and they continued to exist for quite a few decades after. \n\nFree people of color (Freedmen), were actually very common in the area (something in the order of 7 to 10 thousand). They conducted business on a very nearly equal footing as whites, a practice confirmed in Louisiana law as late as [1856](_URL_9_). So there was no massive suppression of blacks like you would think, in fact, New Orleans was probably at the time, much as it remained for much of its history even until today, the most racially tolerant (tolerant, not integrated or embracing...big difference there) city in the South, if not all of the U.S. Culturally, these Freedmen conducted business on an equal footing (but you still were probably not going to get invited to the big fancy Mardi Gras balls). \n\nYou have to remember, that New Orleans was still very much a frontier city in 1803. Mississippi, Alabama, Northern Louisiana, East Texas, was still very much \"Indian Country\" [This was Mississippi in 1820](_URL_2_). The territories surrounding South Louisiana were largely still Indian Lands, meaning that the only way to get to New Orleans was down the river or down the [Natchez Trace](_URL_0_), or other similar Indian Roads. Cut throats, river pirates (yes, a real thing), smugglers, real pirates (Jean Lafitte), still existed. Instead of the French or Spanish authorities, it was now men like Claiborne or Jackson and the American [Revenue Cutter Service](_URL_10_) trying to regulate the coastal and swampy areas.\n\nNew Orleans was the Tombstone/San Francisco/Dodge City of the first half of the 19th Century. Careers were made here (Andrew Jackson), or [came to an end](_URL_1_). [There was scheming](_URL_1_#Travels_to_the_Ohio_Valley_and_Louisiana_Territory). [Spies and traitors](_URL_7_). \n\nWelcome to the New American Frontier. Indians, French and Spanish spies, smugglers, traders, pirates, [slave revolts](_URL_12_), voodoo, exiles, scheming politicians, racial tensions. \n\nHave fun. Try the boudain."
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr_conspiracy#Travels_to_the_Ohio_Valley_and_Louisiana_Territory",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_District_of_Orleans",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cabildo",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._C._Claiborne",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wilkinson",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Louisiana",
"http://oldlibrary.westga.edu/~history/FacultyUpdated/vasconcellos/comparative%20slavery%20spr%2012/foner%20free%20people%20of%20color.pdf",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Revenue_Cutter_Service",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territory_of_Orleans",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1811_German_Coast_Uprising"
]
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||
esh9n3 | Were there many influential Asians philosophers/thinkers non-Chinese/Indians/Arabs? | Everytime I search for Asian philosophy I find only Laozi, Confucius, Sun-Tzu, Buda and other Indians, and also Muslim philosophers.
I can't find influential non-Muslim, non-Buddhist, non-Confucianist philosophers. Any help? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/esh9n3/were_there_many_influential_asians/ | {
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" > non-Chinese/Indians/Arabs?\n\nThere were many, including one of the most influential: ibn Sina (AKA Avicenna), who was Persian. Also prominent was al-Biruni. There was a strong intellectual tradition in Persia and Central Asia before the Islamic conquest, and this tradition continued - many of the famous Medieval thinkers in the Islamic world were Persians/Central Asians. Al-Ghazali, author of the very influential *Incoherence of the Philosophers* can also be mentioned as an influential Persian thinker. There were many others.\n\nAl-Farabi, the \"Second Teacher\" (Aristotle being the First Teacher) was possibly Turkic. If so, he would be the most influential Medieval Turkic philosopher. However, his ethnicity is uncertain, and he might have been Persian or Sogdian.\n\nAnother highly influential thinker of uncertain ethnicity was Bodhidharma, who might have been Central Asian (but also might have been Indian).\n\n > non-Muslim, non-Buddhist, non-Confucianist philosophers.\n\nThe first part of the question was about ethnicity, and this part is about religion and/or philosophical school. Firstly, there are intellectual traditions outside Islam, Buddhism, and Confucianism. In India, there are Hindu and Jain traditions of thought. Across the Islamic world, there were many influential Jewish and Christian thinkers, and in China, there were non-Confucian traditions such as Daoism and Mohism (with Zhuangzi AKA Chuang Tzu AKA Zhuang Zhou and Mozi AKA Mo Tzu AKA Mo Di as representative influential thinkers of each).\n\nAre there influential non-Chinese/Indian/Arab thinkers who were also non-Muslin/Buddhist/Confucian? This results in a smaller list. There were surely many Persian and Central Asian thinkers from before the Islamic conquest whose names and works have been lost to us. Some we know of, but know very little of, such as Zarathustra (AKA Zoroaster), founder of Zoroastrianism. Others we know more about, such as Mani, founder Manichaeism. Shapur ibn Sahl (Sābūr ibn Sahl) was an influential Persian Christian medical writer. There were also many influential Jewish thinkers in Asia, such as Abu'l-Barakāt AKA Baruch ben Malka (who converted to Islam) and ibn Kammuna (who pushed his luck with writings that were viewed as anti-Islamic). We can also mention Jesus, who turned out to be highly influential. (Note that many of the influential Medieval non-Christian thinkers in Europe were Jewish too.)\n\nThe Asian Greek world also produced many thinkers, from early scientist-philosophers such as Thales through to influential early Christians (e.g., Paul)."
]
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3ehycs | World War II Airplane Graveyard in Pacific Ocean - was it normal to dump a lot of (valuable) material in the ocean? | After reading and seeing this cool article _URL_0_ I am wondering is it normal that the U.S. after WWII ended just dumped so much valuable and millions worth of aircraft into the ocean? Was it legal to do so? Why didn't they re-use them or sell them? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3ehycs/world_war_ii_airplane_graveyard_in_pacific_ocean/ | {
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"Legal - in international water, and at the time rules on dumping in the ocean either didnt exist or were very lax.... and anyways, who was around to enforce the rules?\n\nTo re-use or sell them, you have to bring them back to the US, have autioneers, and people to scrap them. Airplane recycling now is quite profitable. Back then it was labour intensive if possible at all. An anyways, there'd be few buyers for bombers and fighter planes - if the government would let a private owner buy one at all. And not that many millionaires/billionaires at that time were also qualified pilots (Hughes and a few). Of any of the planes in that article that might have been useful an resold for any significant money, would have been the C-46s. You used to see C-46s, and C-47 Skytrains and similar medium two engined cargo planes from WWII hauling stuff and people around Africa, southeast Asia well into the 90s.\n\nBut for commercial flight, as soon as the war ended Boeing, Lockheed etc. switched over to commercial designed-as-for airliners, with greater range, fuel efficiency and passenger comfort (the Super Constellation for one) And remember, the de Haviland Comet (first get airliner) flew in 1949 - everyone knew the jet era was coming. Why would anyone want worthless prop-planes?\n\nHaving big air forces is expensive to maintain. You just won the war, you still have factories pumping out new and better planes at home, enough to see you through the next decade or two and it will cost you thousands of dollars to cargo ship or ferry carrier it home.... or the hassle of ferrying mechanics and air crews back over there to fuel, fix and fly them home.\n\nMuch easier and cheaper to dump them. The US still does this. All those HUMVEES and US gear kicking around Iraq and Afghanistan? Much cheaper to sell it to the locals than haul it back.\n\nI am curious on the random mish-mash of planes though and what exactly they would be doing there. I know the Marshall Islands were used as staging for later campaigns like Palau. That would explain the B-26s and the F-4s... but the TBFs and SPDs were carrier aircraft. Maybe these were spares from some carrier wings? Did the USN ever operate extensive patrols from land bases?\n\nedit: I guess I didn't really answer your question, why dump it in the ocean? If its on dry land it could potentially be used by someone if they're willing to go to the effort. Could blow it up with a bomb, but bombs are also expensive.\n\n[just found this from here as well. makes sense.](_URL_0_)\n\n > The practice was very widespread and began, IIRC, back in 1944. With budget restraints, the Navy was capped at 35,000 aircraft. However, factories were producing planes faster than they were being lost. While measures were put into action to reduce production, they took some time to take effect. As a result, to meet the cap, Admiral King declared that damaged planes and war-weary ones were to be dumped overboard. This allowed the USN to keep the newly produced planes at the expense of the older ones.\nGoing from memory here, so I want to double check this. But it was in \"Fast Carriers: The Forging of an Air Navy\" by Clark G. Reynolds. \n\nand another one in that thread also points out you don't want all this cheap military gear coming home and bottoming out the market domestically. Why buy a new pickup truck when I can get a used army truck for $100? The auto makers would have a fit."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.argunners.com/gallery-wwii-airplane-graveyard-in-pacific-ocean/"
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[
"http://www.ww2f.com/topic/33857-dumping-of-carrier-planes-going-home/"
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34oysm | In English-language historiography, pre-Ming Chinese emperors are typically referred to by their (posthumously assigned) temple names. How would they have been addressed when they were alive? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/34oysm/in_englishlanguage_historiography_preming_chinese/ | {
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"All emperors would have been referred to by the title 天子, son of heaven, regardless of period. \nIn Chinese historiography, they are referred to posthumously by their temple name, then from the Ming onward, by the reign period name. \nBear in mind that they also had family names, but I am not sure who, if any would still use that name after the installation as emperor. "
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6qhlkr | Why did the Portugese Empire decline? | The Portugese got there empire first, and had vast amounts of wealth, but why did they decline and the British take over the lead in European Imperial nations?
Was there one event, was it a problem with the bureaucracy of the empire, or was it a slow decline?
Mny thks | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6qhlkr/why_did_the_portugese_empire_decline/ | {
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"The decline was a complex process but it comes down to few key points: \n \n**1) Portugal was a small country in size and population that had controlled vast areas** (mostly just forts and key cities, but a lot of those) from Brazil, though Morocco and rest of Africa to Indian ocean, Indonesia, China and Japan. \nThere was always trouble in at least one of those areas, and there was always debate of which of various theaters (Brazil, Morocco, Africa, India, East Asia) should be prioritized or abandoned \n\n\n**2) While politically and military successful in the 16th century, the Empire was on a very weak economic footing. While incomes were huge, expenses were even larger.** \n\nFor example, the India operation was supposed to be in theory perfectly self sustainable. The Crown would import pepper and spices at high prices to earn such a profit it would easily pay the ships sent there including losses. While the fortresses and ships in Asia would pay themselves by using naval superiority to force all trade to pass through Portuguese ports and tax it. However, while the operational part of this system did work to a great extent, it just didn't seem to generate enough profit. Crown had to often send lot of money and resources to Asia to help military operations. While one or few bad years did not mean immediate catastrophe, their effect was piling up in more and more in debt. \n\n**3) in 1578, young, rash and heirless king Sebastian of Portugal died leading an army in Morocco. His death caused the throne of Portugal to pass to Spanish Habsburg king Philip II two years later.** \nThis merger pulled Portugal into the ongoing conflict between Spain and Netherlands (and soon England) which were anyway already looking into the opportunities currently held by Portugal. \nPortugal rebelled and left this Iberian Union in 1640 but damage was already done.\n\n\nWhich bring us to : \n\n**4) The competition of Dutch and English by the way of their charted Companies which were arguably the better economic format with which they had access to much more capital and resources.** \n\n\nTheir entering the scene caused (or was coincidental to) many changes in local power balance. And this local allied help was at times instrumental in driving Portuguese out ( as it was also instrumental for Portuguese establishing and keeping their positions in the first place) \nThe English helped Persians take Hormuz, a key position in Persian gulf, from Portuguese in 1622. Portuguese relocated to Muscat but were driven from there in 1650 by newly risen Oman sultanate, which also took Zanzibar. They invaded Mozambique too but didn't manage to take it completely and Portuguese remained \nThe Dutch took Malacca in 1641 with crucial help of the local Sultan, and joined the Ceylon civil war against the Portuguese to capture it for themselves. \n\nJapan kicked out Portuguese due to (simplified version) the unrest caused by jesuits conversion activity, and took again the Dutch as trade partners.\n\nDutch also took Indian Malabar coast from the Portuguese (their first strongholds), parts of West Africa (Elmina), as well at points Brazil and Angola. \nBut it was not that the Portuguese were only losing, At places they resisted for a long time, Goa was under assault several times, as was Macau, but they did not fall. And after initial losses Portuguese retook Brazil and Angola \n\n\n**5) Economy and trade in general changed** \n\nWhile the Portuguese were located themselves mainly in Western India (home to pepper), Dutch positioned themselves in Indonesia, which was home to the spices and since recently also pepper. Portuguese lost their prime pepper importer position and as pepper and spices were imported in huge quantities, prices massively dropped. \nWith the fall of importance of pepper a new item was becoming more and more sought after throughout the 17th century: Indian textiles. Here it is the English who were best positioned for the domination of this trade and they exploited in it full.\n\nWith Asia's role much reduced in importance for Portuguese, they themselves re-orientated to Brazil and Angola and the sugar and other plantations there. I do not mind calling it declined but their Empire remained while in different form together with some of the key colonies in the East which were still there. Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Goa, Diu, Macao.\n\n\n"
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924bm1 | Is it true that the Roman Emperor Caligula wanted his horse to be a senator? What else do we know of his rule? | I remember reading this somewhere and found it generally interesting and wanted to know if there is any credibility to it. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/924bm1/is_it_true_that_the_roman_emperor_caligula_wanted/ | {
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"I wrote about Caligula's horse [here](_URL_0_) a while ago.\n\nThat Caligula made his horse consul or wanted to make his horse consul is something that pops up from time to time, that as best I can tell, is the result of bad reading. Suetonius is the source for the incident, and clearly says it's a rumor, and the context Suetonius sets that comment in makes me confident it's a joke at Caligula's expense.\n\nIt's popular to try to rehabilitate Caligula in part by making this horse business a joke Caligula pulled on the senate - a measured insult. Winterling in his biography of Caligula uses it this way, and is a good example of the pro-Caligula use of this story:\n > Dio reports how Caligula invited Incitatus (“Hotspur”), his favorite race horse, to dinner, fed him barley corn made of gold, toasted him with golden goblets, and planned to make him a consul. [Dio is copying Suetonius here]....\n > \n > There is no way now to know whether everyone in Rome got this joke. Nor can we tell whether Suetonius understood it later or—as seems more likely—failed to understand it on purpose, since he makes use of it to present the emperor as insane.\n\nAs I note in my linked comment, this is a bad reading because Suetonius says it was a rumor, and Winterling here presents the affair as a fact. Suetonius is careful to distinguish his facts from his rumors, and I have to think Winterling either overlooked Suetonius outright stating this was a rumor or chose to credit the story despite Suetonius saying it's a rumor.\n\nIt's a popular story and it's possible there's an argument for the pro-Caligula position as a good reading, but I don't know it."
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1r52st | How did ancient libraries keep track of the items they contained? | And how would someone go about finding a specific work in a given library? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1r52st/how_did_ancient_libraries_keep_track_of_the_items/ | {
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"Great question. It seems the collection of the Great Library of Alexandria was divided into three sections: roughly \n1) Greek History and Literature\n2) Letters, maps and analysis of the texts in 1)\n3) Foreign language texts\n\nAlso developed was a \"Tables of Persons Eminent in Every Branch of Learning Together With a List of Their Writings\", called 'pinakes', essentially a catalogue of the library.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Ancient covers a very large time and a lot of cultures, so I'd have to limit it to one specific era and culture. \n \nThe Greeks had a classification system of sorts. Nothing like the modern Dewey, UDC, or Library of Congress systems, but quite recognisable regardless. \n \nWe know that around 296 BCE a Greek called Callimachus who lived in Alexandria created a bibliographical index of the contents of the Library. His index was called [\"Pinakes\"](_URL_0_) and covered 120 books. In them he divided all the books in the library into 11 subjects, 6 for poetry (epic, elegy, iambics, melodrama tragedy, comedy), and 5 in prose (history, rhetoric, philosophy, medicine, law)”. So it is logical to assume that the library itself already used this subject classification system. The name of the index, Pinakes, refers to the index tablets hanging above the pots that stored scrolls, so that also indicates that he was working with an already established system. \n \n\"Under each division, individual authors were arranged in alphabetical order; and each name was followed by a short bibliographical notice and a critical account of the author's writings\" (R. Pfeiffer, The Pinakes Fragments) \nI do not know, and would love to know, how he'd have handled new scrolls within the existing index. I'd imagine that pages would have to be updated regularly.",
"It varied by time and place, of course, but they did have catalogues, as others have pointed out. I'll leave aside Kallimachos' *Pinakes* (\"tables\"), since other posters have already covered that. Two tablets dating to ca. 2000 BCE have been found at Nippur with lists of literary works; as well as showing that the Sumerians had catalogues, they also illustrate that they weren't as systematic as modern catalogues: the two tablets catalogue the same collection, but each has around twenty titles that the other lacks. Several tablets have been discovered from the Hittite capital, Hattusa, from ca. 1400-1300, that look a bit more thorough at least: they have very detailed lists, with information about the number of tablets a text occupies, how many are missing, the contents of the work, and occasionally, the name of the author.\n\nOne tactic that was widely practised throughout antiquity, in practically all libraries, was to put a colophon at the end of a volume at the start or in the middle of a series; this is a note at the end that points the reader to the next one in the same work. For example, the surviving texts of *Gilgamesh* have colophons at the end of each tablet directing the reader as to which tablet comes next. The same was done in Greek and Roman collections. Often a colophon could take the form of the first couple of lines of the next volume, so the browser would immediately know that s/he had got the right one. Some catalogues did this too: there's one catalogue of hymns in Ashurbanipal's library that gives the first line of each hymn.\n\nOne colophon from Ashurbanipal's library is especially elaborate and telling:\n\n > Palace of Ashurbanipal, King of the World, King of Assyria, who trusts in Ashur and Ninlil, whom Nabu and Tashmetu gave wide-open ears and who was given profound insight. ...The wisdom of Nabu, the signs of writing, as many as have been devised, I wrote on tablets, **I arranged [the tablets] in series, I collated [them],** and for my royal contemplation and recital I placed them in my palace.\n\nAs to how you physically find the volume you want: we have decent information on this from Greco-Roman libraries. [Here's a famous 4th century CE Roman relief showing someone taking a scroll from its shelf.](_URL_0_) Notice:\n\n1. The scrolls aren't stacked too high: they're not that light (those are wrapped into solid cylinders, and surviving papyri show that they were indeed rolled tight) and you need to be able to get to the ones on the bottom.\n\n2. You have multiple compartments to aid in organisation. This would be especially helpful in the case of a large work, like say Pliny's *Natural history*, which would fill a lot of scrolls.\n\n3. Each scroll has a tag attached to it. The Romans called these *tituli* \"labels\" -- and hence the modern word \"title\". These seem to have been made from vellum, not papyrus, according to a reference in Cicero. It seems that this derives from a similar practice in older libraries that contained tablets, rather than scrolls: in Ashurbanipal's library, each *series* of tablets had a tag hanging over it (it isn't as easy to attach a tag to a tablet).\n\n(Incidentally this relief dates to the time when the scroll was starting to be replaced by the codex, i.e. the modern-style volume with multiple leaves bound together.) By the way, unfortunately the relief itself has been lost or destroyed: we only have modern drawings of it. I believe there is evidence of compartments that were narrower than the ones in the relief, which would be helpful for smaller works, but I can't pin down the evidence for that just now."
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112t7s | Any recommendations for a good Cold War or modern United States history grad program? | I'm interested in nuclear weapons, but not 100% set on that as a focus. I didn't really think about grad school until the spring quarter of my senior year, so I'm lacking in a second language. However, I did write my senior thesis and I have three good recommendations. My GPA is 3.75. I'm very positive that I will not get into Princeton/Harvard, but I think I have a shot at state schools.
One of my professors recommended American University and Ohio State. Any recommendations for teachers, schools or programs?
Thanks! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/112t7s/any_recommendations_for_a_good_cold_war_or_modern/ | {
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"Figure out your likely time/space focus. Instead of \"nuclear weapons,\" think \"US, Diplo, 20th/Cold War.\" Then find programmes that not only produce PhDs in that general field, but whose faculty in that field have clout and (importantly) whose graduates *get jobs*. You should look for fields the way they're advertised generally, although if you have an existing interest it can help you narrow your search to advisors with similar interests. Most new grads coming out of a BA programme won't be expected to have a clear topic defined. A lot of us move around in our fields, sometimes substantially.\n\nThen, start making contacts with the faculty who would be your likely advisors. You can rule out some otherwise good schools if you find out that an advisor is not taking students, or is insufferable, or warns you off because of conditions in the Department or University (low pay, infighting, whatever). That will save you some fruitless applications.\n\nMore importantly, it will assure that your advisor will know your name when the file comes across their desk (as it assuredly will before any decision is made--that's how it works in our Department too). If they have spoken to you or corresponded with you, they will usually be more sympathetic and may be willing to go to bat for you. This is how I got into my PhD institution, which was a top-10 programme for my field--and I did it with a lower GPA than you have! \n\nSo don't rule out the Harvards or Princetons. But make personal contacts wherever you can. It often boils down to who you know, but also who knows you. Your GRE scores will carry weight, and your GPA will (with it) get you looked at, but ultimately the decisions are usually made by the advisors in consultation with a grad admissions committee. If they don't know you, they're not likely to fight for you.\n\nJust my two cents. I don't know US/Cold War programs comparatively, but this advice was given me, and I've given it to my undergrads, and everyone who's followed it has done unexpectedly well. Good luck.\n\n(Also make sure you have a \"plan B\" in case you hate grad school--never put all your eggs in the history basket, and be wary of accepting any admission that doesn't come with a good funding package.)"
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10ecy3 | Tell me some odd cultural practices or beliefs from your period. | Are there any odd cultural practices or beliefs in your respective areas of history that just make you go "wtf"? (Odd by our modern day standards, that is.)
A belief of the ancient Greeks is what inspired the question:
> When Phryne was accused of profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries, she was defended by the orator Hypereides, one of her lovers. When it seemed as if the verdict would be unfavourable, Hypereides tore open her robe and displayed her body, most notably her breasts, which so moved them that they acquitted her. ... The judges' change of heart was not simply because they were overcome by the beauty of her naked body, but because such unusual physical beauty was often seen as a facet of divinity or a mark of divine favor during those times. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/10ecy3/tell_me_some_odd_cultural_practices_or_beliefs/ | {
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"Balto-Slavic men would masturbate into a hole in the ground to make the land more fertile. ",
"Carthaginian religion had a daily/yearly - I know, I wish I could be more specific, it's one of the two- ritual in which they **killed/burned their god's** at the start of an evening and revived them at the start of the next morning.\n\nThe \"aspect\" - a representation of the god - would be burned with \"the scent of a ‘štrny’\" and awakened again by burning another \"aspect\" with ‘štrny’ that has somehow been made divine.\nThe only person allowed to practice this rite was the priest who bore the impressive title of 'awakener of the gods' (some references to this title add \"of the dead god). \n\nThis title was generally held by the highest magistrates of Carthage and this in turn tells us of the extreme significance of religious duties to the Carthaginians.",
"Ireland had/has some pretty interesting folk beliefs. I'll prefix all of this with the fact that it's been a few years since I took my class on Irish folklore and I'm probably messing up some of the details.\n\n\n- In the 1930/40's, one of the oldest Medieval Irish manuscripts to survive was found by a researcher for (I think) University College Dublinwho went to check out a report of an early-medieval illuminated manuscript somewhere on a farm on the outskirts of a small village in the West of Ireland. When he arrived he found that the book was indeed there, but was horribly and almost irreparably water-damaged. it was being used to make \"holy water\" as a folk remedy to cure cows of eye infections. They made this \"holy water\" by quickly dunking this priceless 1000+ year old vellum manuscript into a bucket of water and then carefully drying it out for a couple of days afterwards. Because it was only in the water for a brief second it held up pretty well over the years, all things considered (and no, that wasn't its intended purpose. The researcher had no idea how long that specific book had been used for that purpose) [Found a source](_URL_0_)\n\n- (Don't remember the details on this one) Once upon a time on the Aran Islands just off the coast of Southwest Ireland, it was a customary practice for pregnant women to sleep with an open bowl or bottle of either the husband's or midwife's (can't remember which) urine in the room with them in order to ward off evil spirits who would cause a miscarriage or otherwise hurt the baby. Aran Island folk beliefs are...interesting, to say the least.",
"Speaking in terms of the Edwardian era: the hobble skirt. It's one of the least practical fashion items ever invented, but people were just *mad* for them. [Here's an astounding postcard](_URL_0_) from the period that features one. \n\nThe basic principle is a regular skirt that's either cinched with a belt or cut so slenderly that the woman wearing it is only able to walk in a slow, waddling fashion. \"But wait,\" you object; \"isn't that both incredibly dangerous and irredeemably stupid?\" Oh, but it is. \"Then why?\" \n\nThe answer to that is more difficult, but I surmise it has something to do with an attendant craze -- the widespread interest in what was called \"Japonism.\" Essentially, from the 1870s(ish) onward people throughout Europe became really, really interested in \"Oriental\" culture and art, and this interest saw highly stylized adaptations of it filter into western productions across all sorts of fields -- think of the success of something like Gilbert & Sullivan's *Mikado* or Puccini's *Madama Butterfly*, for example. The hobbled skirt was thought to be suitably evocative of the stylized kimonos found in pictures of geishas, and fashion followed in turn.\n\nIt also helped shore up the \"coke bottle\" shape that is often found so alluring in women. The skirt, coupled with the corset up top, worked dark miracles.",
"Lynching and lynch culture. Anyone who cares to look into the history of lynching in the United States from roughly 1880 to 1960 is in for a gut-wrenching read. I wish I had the exact numbers on me, but from I believe from about 1890 to 1940, there was, on average, one lynching per week, so somewhere between 2600 and 3000 lynchings over the course of 50 years. And those were just recorded numbers. There were plenty of people lynched in small, backwoods areas who never made the official tally; there were also those who went through the \"justice\" system and were legally executed, though by no means was any justice done. ",
"Medieval Irish kings had an unusual coronation ceremony, which would involve having sex with a horse, then cutting up the horse and cooking it. The king then gets into the cauldron and eats the horse while bathing in the soup, and eats the soup by grabbing handfuls from around himself.\n\nGerald of Wales witnessed this in Ulster, so it may have just been one tribe's custom."
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2pg33w | Why didn't Genghis Khan invade Western Europe? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2pg33w/why_didnt_genghis_khan_invade_western_europe/ | {
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"Ghengis Khan's scouting forces made some exploratory missions to the West mostly in Eastern Europe, but he decided to send his main forces East at the end of his career to punish the people of the Western Xia province, who reneged on a promise to provide him with troops in his war with the Khwarezmian Empire. \n\nSome good books on the formation of the Mongol Empire are \"Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection\" by John Man and \"Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World\" by Jack Weatherford. \n",
"There are two main reasons that I know of: the death of Ogedai Khan in December 1241 is the first, and the second is that the Mongol goals had been completed - they only wanted Hungary. \n\nOgedai Khan's death left the position of Great Khan open and without a guaranteed successor. The Mongols didn't adhere to \"the eldest son inherits\". Ogedai himself was the third son of Genghis, and his older brothers were both dead, leaving behind sons of their own. Because there was no clear rule about succession, it was open. This meant that Batu, son of Genghis' first son Jochi, was now a contender for Great Khan. Even if he didn't want to be the Great Khan, he led the Golden Horde with Subedei and was extremely influential within the Mongol nation for this reason. Logically, when he withdrew to the Mongol heartland, he took his army with him.\n\nThe second reason is that the goals of the Mongols had been achieved. Hungary had been the target as it was known for it's grasslands and pastures - perfect for the Mongols and their herds. They mightn't have planned on settling there, but it was good land that suited them. Beyond Hungary lay much rougher terrain that was ill suited for them. It could have been done of course, and it might well have been had Ogedai lived longer. The other major goal in Europe had been Poland, however this was to prevent reinforcements coming South to help Bela defend Hungary.\n\nSo the Mongols had the ability to continue west into Europe, but didn't. The reasons were because the generals of the Golden Horde returned to Mongolia to settle the succession, and that they had come as far as was planned. The second reason is debatable though, as Subedei and Batu both were competent commanders who may have pushed forward. This is however, speculative.\n\nSource: *Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection* by John Man."
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3ltsqp | Monday Methods | Commemoration and Historical Memory | Today's topic was inspired by /u/jedilibrarian and /u/caffarelli, though I have modified the premise a bit.
Anniversaries and public holidays are hugely influential in bringing historical events to public consciousness.
As a demonstration of this, I would direct readers to check out /r/wwi and view a sample of the many articles about the ongoing centennial commemorations for that war, and the debates about how it should be remembered.
With this in mind, how do historians interact with commemorative holidays? Is the increased attention a chance to reach out and engage the public in a discussion about history? Do round number anniversaries offer a chance to step back and reassess the meaning of an event?
Does a focus on anniversaries or specific days privilege topics that can be neatly dated, like battles and wars, over harder to date movements such as labor history or women's suffrage?
Also, how do historians deal with holidays originally intended to celebrate a person or event, where popular sentiment is now ambivalent or critical? I am thinking specifically of Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, or Washington and Lee day in Virginia. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3ltsqp/monday_methods_commemoration_and_historical_memory/ | {
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" > Does a focus on anniversaries or specific days privilege topics that can be neatly dated, like battles and wars, over harder to date movements such as labor history or women's suffrage?\n\nI would argue that to a significant extent, the possibility of being \"neatly dated\" is the *result* of privileging certain subjects and types of people, not a cause. The post is framed in terms of the WWI centennial, sure, but at least in America, it's much more, well, frequent to have the surge in shared Facebook articles, CNN mentions, etc., on a designated \"Day\" like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day or Veterans' Day. \n\nThe OP mentioned labor history. We *have* a Labor Day! And yet if I want a discussion of actual labor history beyond \"If you like weekends, thank a union\" tweets, I'd have to turn specifically to progressive political economy bloggers. CNN isn't going to take up that mantle. May Day is also International Workers' Day, commemorating the Haymarket riots. It's even the designated \"Labor Day\" in a lot of countries. But does that get any attention from the lens of labor history? Not that I've noticed in the U.S. (Perhaps it fares better in countries that have a less contentious relationship with even the *word* socialism?)\n\nBasically, if there is already interest in a topic, it will find a Day or make a TV channel.\n\nNow, an exception. I'm a medievalist, and we *love* to host conferences and publish volumes honoring the x00th birthday and deathday of anyone who was even slightly someone in the Middle Ages. As academic history goes, sweeping claims of reinterpreting a beloved (or not) figure are generally mitigated by the actual scholarship. However, these anniversaries do push the famous people of the Middle Ages into the spotlight. That can be a concern owing to the nature of medieval sources, and how rarely we have enough information about individuals to even date their birth and death. It certainly narrows the field down to a rather elite sliver of the medieval population. We'll never have a \"Millennial Anniversary of the Invention of Three Field Rotation Commemorative Volume\" highlighting peasants' contributions to popular intellectual life. But there was certainly a whole lot of new discussion around Hildegard of Bingen around 1979! (She died in 1179). Since a lot of academics do write articles and papers \"for the conference\" \"for the volume,\" anniversaries like that really can weight scholarship in particular directions. But I'm not sure this is as relevant for a media culture that tends to ignore what it doesn't already regard as interesting, instead of see it as a chance for another line on the CV.\n\n(I hope non-flaired users can take a swing at these threads! I think this is a really interesting topic and hope to hear from some people whose historical interests tend to be more politicized.)",
"So, my passion is European Armour, but I also reenact the War of 1812. And we recently wrapped up a Bicentennial.\n\nIt was interesting to see how different places commemorated a largely forgotten (in the US) conflict that ended with Status Quo Ante Bellum. I didn't make it up to the Canadian commemorations but I heard they were about as patriotic and chest-thumbing as Canandians tend to get (perhaps I exaggerate). Here in Maryland, they were mostly a kind of local pride thing - Baltimore as the center of American Resistance to the British, St Michaels as 'The Town the Fooled the British', and Havre de Grace displayed great enthusiasm for being sacked and burned. Even Bladensburg, the most disgraceful day in American Military History, someone gave itself the motto of 'undaunted' and made much of Joshua Barney standing tall and very little of the fleeing militia. Little Brookeville, MD, made much of being 'Capitol for a Day.' It is almost like this kind of historic local pride seeks to match the historic importance of one's home town with a person's own sense of place. Brookeville is important to people, so they wanted it to be important.\n\nProbably the line of commemoration I found most poignant was celebrating 200 years of peace between the US, Britain and Canada (to the point where our friends had our own Treaty of Ghent commemoration). But this isn't just about the study of the events themselves, but trying to find something meaningful in a war that can be hard to make sense of."
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91yw92 | How were tickets sold to sporting events/shows before computers tracked which seats had already been sold? | I recently went to a baseball game with my girlfriend and we picked our exact seats then went in, first thing i thought was how was this done prior to computers? Was it all done with general admission, with a first come first serve rule? Were there seperate ticket windows for seperate price sections? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/91yw92/how_were_tickets_sold_to_sporting_eventsshows/ | {
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"In my experience, printers had the ability to print tickets for each seat by section row number. These were then arranged on board by the same. You then asked the box office for the ones you wanted.\n\nOf course you had to deal directly with the box office."
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9o5ku4 | How did the IRA get funding? | There was a post on Historyporn that was locked so I couldn't ask it there. I'm curious to how the IRA received funding. I'd imagine they were considered a terrorist group by most of the world so how did they receive such an arsenal of weapons and funding to keep going for so long? I don't see their regional fight to be of any interest to the Soviets. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9o5ku4/how_did_the_ira_get_funding/ | {
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"Could I request a clarification? Are you looking only for answers regarding the IRA during the \"Troubles\" or are you looking for the entire length of the existence of the IRA? ",
"Added question - I have heard a significant amount of money was received from American Irish Catholics, and am curious what percentage came from the US and other Irish populations elsewhere in the world. Part of my family was Irish Catholic, and I remember people collecting money at Clancy Brothers concerts in the 70s to aid Ireland. I am very curious if that was funneled to illegal activities. \n edit grammar"
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14u4tn | What is the current state of research on the 13th century catastrophe in the Mediterranean? | I am curious as to what the current consensus on what happened around 1200 BC in the Mediterranean, is. Has there been any new developments in the research that makes the matter more clear?
There are many specific questions that relate to this issue:
What happened to the Hittites, the New Kingdom of Egypt and the Mycenaean kingdoms?
What was the identity of the Sea Peoples?
What caused the Dorian invasion?
| AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/14u4tn/what_is_the_current_state_of_research_on_the_13th/ | {
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"\"13th century\" in your title is misleading if you mean 13th century **BC**.\n\nPrevious discussions of the sea peoples [here](_URL_0_) and [here](_URL_1_)."
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el24qa | What was going to happen to Hitler if he didn’t shoot himself? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/el24qa/what_was_going_to_happen_to_hitler_if_he_didnt/ | {
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2vdb65 | was there ever a roman citizen/soldier that took over another country for himself | marcus antonius doesn't count | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2vdb65/was_there_ever_a_roman_citizensoldier_that_took/ | {
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"This is a difficult question, because there are many instances of Romans exercising various degrees of sovereignty over territory independent of existing Roman government institutions. However, since you mention ‘country’ this makes me think you are referring to a Roman in control of a recognised, independent political-territorial entity which was not part of the Roman state. Here the answer is yes. \n\nOne example is in Asia Minor, when Rome began to exert influence over the area but didn’t want to formally integrate it into the state apparatus. There was at least one small client state which was ruled by a Roman citizen. This was an independent state, recognised by Rome as such.\n\nHowever, it would be understandable to question exactly how much independence this small state really had.\n\nSource: Stephen Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor\n"
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1iuiiv | How did the Roman population maintain itself between around 100 BC and 40 BC, considering that this seemed to be period of almost constant war? | The wars with Mithridates, the Civil Wars between Sulla/Marius and Caesar/Pompey, as well as the "purges" under Sulla, the Social War, Spartacus' revolt, Pompey's campaign in Spain, and the campaigns of Lucullus and Pompey in Armenia and Pontus, all in such close succession, must have placed an incredible demand on the population for able-bodied young men. I once read that less than half of Roman children lived to adulthood, if this is true, did Rome simply have a large enough birthrate or was its population already so large by this time that it could afford to lose this many men and still continue to grow?
Edit: Based on u/Agrippa911 response, I would change the question to encapsulate Italy as whole, since the Social Wars and Spartacus' revolt in particular were fought exclusively in Italy. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1iuiiv/how_did_the_roman_population_maintain_itself/ | {
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"In part the question is who do you consider a Roman? \n\nPreviously the Roman army was half comprised of allied soldiers. Now as time went on, the percentage of allied soldiers went up as Rome started to suffer manpower woes. It wasn't that the Romans were short of people, they still had hundreds of thousands - but too few met the property requirements (this is due to the growth of megafarms and increasing impoverishment of small-holder farms).\n\nBut during and after the Social Wars (91-88BCE) Rome was forced to extend citizenship to all the people in Italy. So all of a sudden, their population jumps dramatically.\n\nAlso keep in mind that all the political purges targeted a relatively small portion of the general populace. It would be mostly directed at political opponents and their allies. Occasionally a community would support the wrong side and have their taken away but most non-elites were unaffected. \n\n",
"One (recently-popular) theory is that a post-Punic-war baby boom led to huge population growth that Rome could not handle, leading to political unrest which was only truly settled by the thinning of the population in the various civil wars.",
"In addition to Agrippa911's remarks about the Italian allies being granted citizenship, I should point out that the military reforms of Gaius Marius in 107 eliminated the property requirement to enlist in the Roman army. This allowed Roman commanders to enrol legions from the poor, unlanded Roman commoners - a vastly greater pool of manpower than the land-owning elites. With the additional extension of citizenship to all peoples of Italy, it was suddenly not a challenge to raise a Roman army, a fact which was exploited to the fullest by the various Roman commanders who raised, equipped, and trained legions for themselves. This had the additional benefit (for the commander, at least) of making these Roman legionnaires rabidly loyal to their general, since he was responsible for paying their wages and hopefully setting them up with land after retirement. \n\nObviously, all this newly-available manpower made it possible for the Romans to field enough men to keep their enemies at bay... but it also led to civil war, as men like Marius and Sulla (and later Pompey and Caesar) now had the means to impose their will on the rest of the Republic without relying on elected offices. ",
"It is quite difficult to have a bad enough war to actually make a dent in *population*, per se. Observe that most soldiers do not become casualties (at least, in any particular action), and most casualties are wounds. (Actually most casualties before 1900 or so are disease, but that was probably about the same for soldiers and civilians.) Ten percent is, as a rule of thumb, considered a very high casualty rate, enough to stop an attack in its tracks and cause the unit to be worthless for some time; the likes of Cannae and the Somme are very rare. \n\nAnother part of the answer is that Rome might have been short on *mobilisable* manpower, that is, young men ready to volunteer for the Legions; but that doesn't mean they were short on men in any absolute sense. Observe that the potential soldiers are presumably making some sort of risk/reward calculation. The reward is some combination of prestige, loot, glory, adventure, and feminine approval. The risk is the chance of death and wounds. I'm not saying young men do any sort of weighted-utility calculation; but still, these sort of considerations must appear *somewhere* in the decision process, not formally but intuitively. Now, if you call for volunteers, you get those young men who think the reward is high relative to the risk. If those ones take high casualties, then the ones that remain see, presumably, the same reward, but they should increase their estimate of the risk - and by construction these are the ones who didn't want to volunteer with the *old, better* reward/risk ratio. So you don't get a whole lot of recruits on your second and subsequent calls for volunteers, even though there are perhaps a lot of remaining young men in an absolute sense. Of course, if you start conscripting them that's something else again. You can see this at work in Britain in the Great War: Initially there was a call for volunteers, and a massive response. Then, somewhere between the third and fourth hundred thousands (roughly speaking), the calculus changed; the men who were going to volunteer given the available social pressure had done so, and the rest weren't exactly being encouraged by the immense casualty lists. Eventually Britain introduced conscription, because it was that or not have an army in the field. \n\nYou do get wars that depopulate areas, but the cause is more people *fleeing* than people *dying*; and even when they die, it's more often because of plague and famine than combat. "
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soo47 | What do you consider the most egregiously (and demonstrably) false but widely believed historical myth? | I'm wondering about specific facts, but general attitudes would be interesting, too.
Ideally, this would be a "fact" commonly found in history books.
Edit: If you put up something false, perhaps you could follow it up with the good information. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/soo47/what_do_you_consider_the_most_egregiously_and/ | {
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"\"The French always surrender.\" Actually, they don't. ",
"The vikings, horned helmets one is probably the most demonstrably false one I could think of. There are others, but they'd be far more controversial. \n \nI'll post mine as a controversial one; \n\nNation-States are a construct that appeared out of 19th century Europe imposing its own political realities on everyone else, catalysed by the treaties following the end of the world wars. \n \nThey are often presented as \"eternal nations\" and something deeply rooted in culture and this is a falsehood. Europe is the only place they really took hold naturally and this is because of the geographic makeup of Europe itself.",
"The American Revolution was won because the Americans hid behind rocks and trees. It's a huge disservice to the men who fought on both (all?) sides of the war.",
"That Christopher Columbus was a bold visionary who realized that the earth was round. The ancient Greeks had proved that fact, and even had a decent estimate for the circumference of the earth. Columbus thought that estimates of the time were wrong, and that the earth was much smaller than it really is. He was very lucky that there was a continent or two and some islands in the way.",
"Darwin came up with natural selection by looking at finches.\n\nEinstein was shit at math and his wife did the really hard stuff for him.\n\nBombing the Nazi heavy water facilities is what stopped the Germans from getting an atomic bomb.\n\nAny claims regarding when we proved that the Earth goes around the Sun and not visa versa, are wrought with problems. Be it Newton, Bradley etc. The safe bet would be to go with Bessel (stellar parallax) but no one likes to believe that we didn't have knock down empirical evidence for heliocentrism before the early 19th century.\n\nEDIT: As per bakonydraco, this last debate really only makes sense in the period before Einstein's miracle year when we still had absolute space and time to hang on to.",
"Might as well say it;\n\nThat the western front was the main part of WW2 in Europe.",
"The fact that Napoleon is always portrayed as being extremely short. He wasn't that short, guys. ",
"That the Catholic Church is anti Science, vis-à-vis Galileo. He was an Astronomer in the employ of the Vatican. His theory was rejected because he could not prove it. He tried to use the tides as proof, but that was rejected then as now. He insisted it was true (we know now that it is), despite an absence of proof, and then mocked the Pope, his only supporter in Rome, for not accepting his theory as fact immediately. He was placed under house arrest for being an ass, basically. **Not** for challenging the geocentric views of the time. \n\nEdit: This link provides a fairly accurate depiction of the events of the Galileo Affair\n _URL_0_",
"I like foundation myths. In the US, we tend to idolize the founding Fathers by turning their childhoods and exploits during the Revolutionary War into folklore rather than historical fact. Some of these have already been mentioned in the thread.\n\nPerhaps my favorite foundation myths are the ones that stick around even after being disproven, either because they are useful or simply that people like them. King Arthur, for one. Polydore Vergil did a pretty thorough dismantling of the Arthur myth in the 1530s, but it just seemed to spark a bit of patriotic ruin-digging in order to prove the Italian interloper wrong. It didn't happen. By the time Spenser stuck Arthur in the Faerie Queene and referred to the old Tudor mythic genealogies that traced a line from Queen Elizabeth all the way back to Arthur, Cadwalder, and even Brutus the Trojan, the idea was long since considered quaint.\n\nBut concurrently, historiographers who took great pleasure in dismantling Arthur kept other parts of uniquely English foundation myths... So what if they weren't founded by a Trojan just like Rome? The English church was founded separate from and equal to the Roman church by none other than Joseph of Arimathea...and that lovely little foundation myth actually outlasted Arthur among the early modern elites. Maybe it served their newly protestant purposes? I don't know, but at the very least Joseph wasn't at the forefront of a full-on Humanist historiographical attack like Arthur was, so he managed to skate by just a little bit longer.\n\nThere are tons of these little nationalistic bits of mythology that we cling to and almost all of them seem to make great stories--which is, after all, a good enough reason to keep them around a bit longer even if we have to tell them with a wink. ",
"**X** person sailed across the Pacific/Atlantic ocean in **Y** boat design so civilization **Z** must have been able to do it. Could and did are different. *grumble grumble",
"abner doubleday invented baseball",
"The Pyramids were built by Jewish Slaves, or slaves in general. Every time I hear that, I shed a silent tear for ancient history.",
"That the Crusades had a huge effect on the Islamic world. Aside from the people living in and immediately around the areas they conquered no one else really cared. ",
"Well done! I hope this thread has a revival a few weeks down the line. Quite a few I've heard before (Galileo, Columbus (this one gets my goat), heliocentrism) but the most of the rest are new to me (Napoleon, Darwin's finches, and more). Seems like there is quite a bit of passion for this topic. :D",
"Knights were \"chivalrous\". The modern concept of chivalry comes from a 19th century interest in the medieval period, in which the upper class basically liked to play dress up and go to tournaments...\n\nChivalry, in its original and most of its continued evolution, was something of a code of conduct in warfare. Don't fight on a sunday unless its against non-Christians, obey your liege lord, don't bang your liege lords daughters, don't kill priests, try not to loot monasteries, do your best not to kill peasants. \n\nKnights were not nice people.",
"That Hernan Cortez conquered the Aztec Empire with a few hundred men, all by himself. The reality of the matter was that Cortez was successful only because he had the aid of a huge army of native warriors from both enemy states of the Aztec Empire and rebelling ones as well. ",
"White People enslaved black people by walking into Africa with nets.",
"Gutenberg invented the printing press.",
"If it involves the discovery of America it's almost invariably false. Colombus most certainly did not discover America (in fact pretty much everything the common person is taught about that man is a lie, as well as what him and his people did to the Caribbean Islanders). In fact there's relatively good evidence to indicate that people from Rome, Phoenicia, Polynesians, and even Japan had visited the Americas, even before Lief Erickson. However, all of that is moot because AMERICA WAS DISCOVERED SOMETIME BETWEEN 40,000 B.C. AND 25,000 B.C.! I mean really, for fucks sake. \n\nOh, let's not also forget the idea that pre-Colombian Native American cultures were some how inferior to that of European ones. I mean, hell, there are some who even go so far as to say that the societies and government structures of some tribes directly influenced the first Enlightenment thinkers.\n\nOh, also, just as an Irish pet peeve, the Famine. The worst thing that they ever did was call it the potato famine. It wasn't the potatoes that killed the Irish, it was god damn British policies regarding the paying of rent. Had the British not completely ignored the situation the Famine would have been far less destructive. Oh and you know what, while we're on the subject of Ireland: CROMWELL! I'm sorry, I just can't stand it when I see him praised as a hero of liberty or crap like that. The guy committed genocide in Ireland and Scotland, plain and simple. And yet he's praised. ",
"Related to an above comment, that samurai were spiritual individuals dedicated to honour and martial arts. I've heard and read things about bushido that make my blood boil. Like 'chivalry', the meaning of 'bushido' was more or less invented in the 20th century and applied to a caste of tax-collectors and government officials whose swords were mostly ceremonial.\n\n'The Last Samurai' isn't even the worst of it. Talking to hardcore anime fans is sometimes really grating; there seems to be this attitude among certain people that Japan is this super amazing nation with a superior culture, and that somehow explains away the darker parts of its past, especially during the Second World War.",
"Here's one that never gets mentioned: that Spain was a brutal regime who tortured it's citizens and enslaved the New World. This is known as the [Black Legend](_URL_0_).\n",
"That the civil war was purely about states rights, independent from the issue of slavery. ",
"There aren't/weren't cities in Africa.\n\nPeople don't wear business suits there/everyone is National Geographic poor.\n\nEuropeans went into Africa, as in made \"first contact\" after the Renascence.\n",
"The entirety of the Puritan myth.",
"WWI started immediately after the archduke was assassinated and only had a western front.\n",
"Cortez conquered the Aztecs.\n\n(Not mentioning Tenochitlan had a million people in it)",
"I don't want to be that person but, Jews were not the only ones pursued and persecuted during the Nazi regime. I may have my education to blame for this, but I am pretty sure it is not widely understood.",
"Medieval armor was so heavy and cumbersome that knights had to be hoisted onto their horses and if de-horsed in combat would flail about like upended turtles. ",
"That the founding fathers of the US had a grasp on economics, and that our government is designed to be efficient. Adam Smith's \"The Wealth of Nations\" was only published in 1776. Alexander Hamilton argues against this in his \"Report on Manufacturers\" in 1791. James Madison also cites it in the same year arguing against a national bank. Thomas Jefferson recommends it to John Norvell in 1807 claiming \"in the subjects of money and economics, Smith's Wealth of Nations is the best book to be read, unless Say's Political Economy can be had\". It is unlikely that any of the founding fathers would have had a complex understanding of the field during the constitutional conventions and were mainly driven by philosophical thought, as well as mercantilist trade. Ronald Coase suggests that if the British had implemented Smith's proposal granting colonies representation in the British parliament proportional to their contributions to public revenues, the Revolutionary War would have never happened, and America would now be ruling England.\n\nTl;dr The founding fathers knew shit about economics. If the British parliament had been introduced to the field, 1776 would have never happened.",
"The Jews were used as slave labor to build the pyramids.",
"My biggest history myth that is propagated as truth is that Coolidge/Hoover got us into the Great Depression with \"free markets\" and that Roosevelt's New Deal and WW2 got us out of it. It's all a crock of shit to be honest, Rothbard did a pretty good job of refuting it in \"Americas Great Depression\" but it is still taught as gospel in every high school and college history class around. ",
" > Murrica saved the day in WW2!\n\nThey did contribute in Europe and the team effort of fighting Japan is overshadowed by nukes and pearl harbor. (and the fact that the war was over shortly after the nukes)\n\nOverall the majority of fighting was done by others. This doesn't mean the US contribution didn't help, it just means that people pretending the US is the sole reason the war was won are very wrong.",
"That millions of people were killed in the Spanish Inquisition. Try a couple [thousand.](_URL_0_)",
"The idea of the French as \"Cheese-eating surrender-monkeys\" (Thanks, Bush...). According to [Leopold von Ranke (via WP)](_URL_0_), \"There have been 53 major wars in Europe, France had been a belligerent in 49 of them; UK 43. In 185 battles that France had fought over the past 800 years, their armies had won 132 times, lost 43 times and drawn only 10, giving the French military the best record of any country in Europe\"",
"God, where do I begin...?\n\n**Kilts** - As we know them, Invented by Lancastrian Quakers as practical industrial garb.\n\n**'Clan' Tartans** - 'Codified' in the 19th century by people trying to make a quick bob or two. Clan Chief's (who by that time would be more of an English gentleman than a highland patriarch-cum-war leader) would walk into a tailors, pick out a pattern he fancied, which would then be marketed as 'Hunting MacGregor' or some such rubbish.\n\n**Bagpipes** - The ones you hear on every street in Edinburgh during August are more appropriate Belgian than they are Scottish. Real Scottish bagpipes were smaller and more highpitched.\n\nNot to undermine their current existence as symbols of National Identity in Scotland, but I wish people were more aware of their history.\n\nIn contrast however: **Scottish Gaelic** - Despite what lots of people would have you think, Gaelic was not originally confined to the North West of Scotland, but was probably the first langauge of everywhere except the very South East (Lothians, Berwickshire, Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire).\n\n**Gunpowder Plot** - Even without taking into the account the *V for Vendetta* bullshit, it was as much about Scottophobia as it was about Papism.",
"that Ben Franklin tied a key to a kite to discover electricity. NO",
"People were not \"shorter back then\" when talking about the past 100-200 years of American history. Beds were really short because most people slept sitting up, not because they were less than 5 feet tall. Not the most egregious, but a huge peeve of mine.",
"Herbert Hoover was laissez-faire.\n\nHe in fact started many new interventions into the economy to try to damped the effect of the Depression. Roosevelt later went on to thank Hoover for some of the policies he began."
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1z86sa | Did ancient cultures differentiate between raven and crow? | Not really much else to ask: Did they have different words for crow and raven? They obviously didn't know the biological differences, but could they tell them apart? Did they know the raven isn't just a large crow?
edit: I was asking specifically about European cultures, but did any? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1z86sa/did_ancient_cultures_differentiate_between_raven/ | {
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"Yes indeed! This won't be a terribly long answer, but the good news is that I'm actually in the process of writing a research paper that involves Ovid's *Metamorphoses* - Which is essentially a volume of books of poetry that detail Roman myth (with a heavy political undertone, but that's neither here nor there). The question you ask is actually answered completely in lines 531-595 of Book 2 - I'll quote them here for you :) (I, unfortunately, don't have my copy on me, so I'm using an online translation located [here](_URL_0_).) \n\n > These peacocks had only recently been painted, when Argus was killed, **at the same time that your wings, Corvus, croaking Raven, were suddenly changed to black, though they were white before. He was once a bird with silver-white plumage, equal to the spotless doves, not inferior to the geese, those saviours of the Capitol with their watchful cries, or the swan, the lover of rivers. His speech condemned him. Because of his ready speech he, who was once snow white, was now white’s opposite.**\n\n > Coronis of Larissa was the loveliest girl in all Thessaly. Certainly she pleased you, god of Delphi. Well, as long as she was faithful, or not caught out. But that bird of Phoebus [The Raven] discovered her adultery and, merciless informer, flew straight to his master to reveal the secret crime. The garrulous Crow followed with flapping wings, wanting to know everything, but when he heard the reason, he said ‘This journey will do you no good: don’t ignore my prophecy! See what I was, see what I am, and search out the justice in it. Truth was my downfall.’\n\n...and then he goes into the story of how the Crow came to be. It's a really good read, actually! I highly recommend it, even if I prefer the translation that I have :)"
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elvnde | What percentage of the roman legions would be composed of non-italian men? | What percentage ( more or less) of the roman legions would be composed of people that weren't from the italian peninsula? I suppose it would depend on the legion in particular, but what would be the normal percentage? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/elvnde/what_percentage_of_the_roman_legions_would_be/ | {
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"We're not sure. We do know that the proportion of Italians in the legions decreased rapidly over the course of the first century AD, and that already by the end of the first century BC non-Italians were becoming a significant minority. Brunt's estimate that by the ascension of Claudius Italians were only a bare majority (some 60%) and that the Flavians saw a massive increase in provincial enlistment (such that by the end of Domitian's reign only 20% of the legions were recruited from Italy) such that by Trajan's time only 1% of the legions were Italian in origin is still usually taken as the standard view."
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1e6yrs | How did early modern english theater goers react to the issue of race in Othello? | Were people unsettled by seeing the main role taken on by a dark skinned character? I'm guessing they used blackface for othello? Did the play perpetuate fears surrounding miscegenation?
| AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1e6yrs/how_did_early_modern_english_theater_goers_react/ | {
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"My America I professor used the example of Otello to describe the seemingly radical treatment africans received in the 13 colonies compared to spanish america.\n\nHis bridge to Otello was: At the time Shakesphere wrote it, the englishmen were not yet involved heavily with their colonies and the building of an economic system based on african slavery, and they were not really much in contact with whole societies of dark skinned people. \n\nWith this situation inside, the british did not give much thought to black people being a group inside their society, other than novelties on court, black people weren't given much thought on the time Otello was written, hence a their place of power in that narrative.\n\nThe discourse of race was present when the british were more involved with colony building and slave trade. And with such, the role of black people inside their society was imagined with the role they assumed: Outsiders and Slaves. That's why my professor said it was so difficult to have social ascenssion for slaves and ex-slaves in british societies. \n\nThe society at Shakesphere's time would have seen Otello as something different, but not bad. But a couple decades more, i think it would be ill-received, because of how the british society imagined their place in their society.",
"Woohoo! Here we go!\n\nWhile we have practically no information about audience reaction to the original run of Othello, the English playgoing populace was not without ethnocentric sensibilities. Jews (See: Merchant of Venice) were generally considered persona non grata and characters of other faiths, ethnicities, and nationalities (though not uncommon in 14th-15th century London) were regarded with at least a base amount of suspicion.\n\nThere are multiple ways to approach the issue of race and sex in Othello & they are primarily (but not entirely) due to choices made by directors and actors. Othello is the play's main protagonist, but he is directly responsible for the murder of Desdemona. Iago holds very strong racist views towards the Moor of Venice in private and describes his union with Desdemona in foul and hateful terms:\n\n**Iago (Act 1, Scene 1, Line 90-93):**\n\n*Even now, now, very now, an old black ram*\n\n*Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise;*\n\n*Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,*\n\n*Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:*\n\n**Iago (1.1.119):**\n\n*I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter*\n\n*and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.*\n\nIago is not alone in his hatred for the dark-skinned general. Other characters reveal an entire society suspicious of Othello due to race. Roderigo calls him \"thick-lips\" (1.1.68), and \"lascivious\" (1.1.129). Brabantio is convinced that his daughter cannot truly love The Moor except by magical charms claiming that his daughter, Desdemona, is \"abused, stol'n…and corrupted By spells and medicines\" (1.3.62-63). Othello himself says that he is \"black and [has] not those soft parts of conversation\" (3.3.279-280). When he hears that his wife is unfaithful, he says he will \"tear her all to pieces\" (3.3.446). In Act 4 Othello actually strikes Desdemona, showing evidence of a violent temper, lack of self-control, and proneness to abuse. It is up to the actor & director's discretion as to just how abusive and murderous Othello is.\n\nOn the other hand, Othello's violent actions are clearly the result of deception on the part of Iago. Many of the other characters in the play share a deep respect for Othello. Cassio, for example, asks the \"heavens [to] Give him defense against the elements\" (2.1.46-47) and begs Jove to guard him (2.1.79). Even Iago himself admits that Othello is \"of a constant loving, noble nature [and] will prove to Desdemona A most dear husband\" (2.1.290-292).\n\nThe character of Othello is exceedingly eloquent as evidenced by his many speeches especially the famous one from Act 1, Scene 3. He claims that he won Desdemona's heart through his stories and words. He also claims to have \"done the state some service\" (5.2.349) and is confident in his innocence claiming that his \"parts, [his] title, and [his] perfect soul Shall manifest [him] rightly\" (1.2.31-32). By the end of the play it is glaringly obvious that Othello's worst actions are the result of Iago's evil nature.\n\nIn conclusion: The racist tensions in Othello are very complicated. Iago is far and away the most vocally racist character, but his racism is never portrayed positively. Although the protagonist is shown to be brave and noble, he is also shown as violent and rash (a common stereotype of Moorish people in ~1603). Othello's relationship with Desdemona is described in nasty, bestial terms, and the negative opinions expressed about him are in far stronger terms than the positive ones. On top of all this, the image of Othello beating and strangling Desdemona are powerful images that played into negative opinions about peoples of Moorish descent. Othello's own language occasionally shows him to be uncivilized and not in control of his emotions and passions. His violent actions (despite Iago's influence) are the result of his own jealousy and rage.\n\n**TL;DR: Othello can be (and *probably* was) viewed in both racist and non-racist terms. The original audience would have left the theatre either rethinking their own prejudices or reinforcing them depending on their own interpretations and the choices made by the director.**\n\nEDIT: Format, spelling, and grammar\n\nSource of quotations: [Arden Shakespeare version of \"Othello\", third series](_URL_0_)."
]
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u7424 | Was the bow and arrow invented once, or many times across human history? | The bow and arrow seems to be a ubiquitous tool across nearly all human cultures. Does the archaeological record show that it was invented once and spread across the globe between peoples? Or is it more likely that it was invented independently by different peoples at different times in human history?
I understand that the answer is likely to be that no one really knows, but any theories would be appreciated. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u7424/was_the_bow_and_arrow_invented_once_or_many_times/ | {
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"We don't really have any way of knowing, as you said. But we've probably been using sharp, pointy sticks for as long we've been around, and the sling was developed thousands of years ago. The bow is an off shoot from the sling, and was probably the next logical step for anyone looking to chuck their pointy stick farther while staying away from the man eating giant cat monsters. \nEdit: I was wrong about the sling, and apparently the spear thrower dates back almost 400,000 years! I stand by wanting to avoid man eating giant cat monsters though.",
"My recollection is that evidence points to multiple origins, though I could be wrong. Really bow and arrow are prehistorical and thus more of a question for r/archaeology or anthropology.",
"I know that the Mongolians/that part of the world invented the Composite bow either before or spantenously with the long bow. Something about the tree's in that part of the world provided for the vastly more compact and effective shape. This is what helped Ghenghis, a long with the big population and lots of horses to conquer half the planet.",
"This is not necessarily a history question, but I know John Shea who is an archaeologist at Stony Brook University is the leading expert at ancient weapons. The throwing spear and eventually the bow had it's origins in one place where it eventually spread across the globe.\n\nI believe the arrow was invented by the Egyptians where it eventually spread into the Middle East and Europe. The arrow did not rise independently several times. \n\nAgain, I'm not an expert at this but John Shea is your man. He's published tons of papers on this. Definitely look it up. I'll find you some papers if I can pull it up. \n\n**Edit** Here is a website where you can ask John Shea. _URL_0_ The guy is brilliant. I've had a ton of friends that worked for him. He even had a special on tv like two years ago. He's a bit of a superstar in the field. You can ask away. "
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3abcj9 | Have Muslim Countries ever experienced military weakness during Ramadan? | It seems as if a time during which food intake is limited would be a severe weakness for soldiers. Are there any examples of this influencing warfare? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3abcj9/have_muslim_countries_ever_experienced_military/ | {
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"I don't think so, because Muslims can be exempt from fasting for several reasons, and fighting a war is one of those. \n\n > Narrated Ubaidullah bin Abdullah bin Utba: Ibn Abbas said, Allah's Apostle fought the Ghazwa (i.e. battles of Al-Fath during Ramadan.\"Narrated Az-Zuhri: Ibn Al-Musaiyab (also) said the same. Ibn `Abbas added, \"The Prophet fasted and when he reached Al-Kadid, a place where there is water between Kudaid and 'Usfan, he broke his fast and did not fast afterwards till the whole month had passed away. \n\n([Bukhari, 5:573](_URL_0_))"
]
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[
"https://books.google.com/books?id=-cpUAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT356&lpg=PT356&dq=did+they+fast+during+badr?&source=bl&ots=acImdVYA47&sig=pQT52zlmRgMcR_xrHMICH3yd96Y&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mx-DVZK5II2JuwSElKmQCA&ved=0CBwQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=did%20they%20fast%20during%20badr%3F&f=false"
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|
2ba6ur | How did Hittite Craftsmen develop Ironworking and what were some of their techniques? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ba6ur/how_did_hittite_craftsmen_develop_ironworking_and/ | {
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"I should insert a sort of note to clarify something: The thesis that the rise of the Hittite Empire was enabled by control of ironworking is now generally thoroughly rejected. The argument is based almost entirely on a single letter discussing a shipment of iron as well as various textual references to ironworking, but this does not prove much except that they used iron for things. More importantly, studies of Hittite texts indicate that most references to iron are for small ceremonial objects rather than large military consignments and that the apparent increase in references to iron is largely an artifact of the fact that most of our extant Hittite texts are from late in the Hittite Empire to begin with. It is also eminently unclear how much quality control Hittite ironworkers were able to maintain; scientifically examined iron artifacts from the Hittite period suggest at least a certain amount of mining some essentially useless ores only to find that they could not be usefully forged and that they did not yet understand how to control the carbon content of iron well enough for consistent large-scale production. They did, have a clear understanding both of smelting and forging iron, itself a difficult technical achievement, but it's not at all clear that this was a major factor in their imperial success. More likely important is a combination of external political factors(the collapse of Babylon as a real regional power, the downfall of the Mitanni Empire) and internal political factors(the very flexible succession system, which allowed for more talented younger siblings to claim power over older siblings, and the remarkably ability of the Hittite royal house to survive seemingly catastrophic territorial losses, up to and including the loss of the capital Hattuša itself at various points)."
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ez7nku | Primary sources in English on Famine in China | Hi there,
I am in search of a primary source on famine in China to assign in class. Curriculum is in English. I normally rely on the Fordham Uni primary source depository - but nothing on famine.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ez7nku/primary_sources_in_english_on_famine_in_china/ | {
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"Are you looking for information on a specific famine? China, unfortunately, has had its fair share of famines in the past. If you need primary sources in English, Chinese government documents, newspapers, journals etc are obviously off the table. However, in the past two centuries, China has had a number of English-language newspapers as well as missionary journals. One of the biggest English-language newspapers was *The North China Daily* (founded as *The North China Herald*). They ran a lot of editorials during the \"Great North China Famine\" from 1876-1879. One of the largest missionary journals in China was the *Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal*. You could also look into foreign newspapers that ran during times of famine. I'll list a few here. \n\n\"THE CHINA FAMINE RELIEF FUND.\" 1889.The Graphic 40 (1) (Dec 28): 775.\n\n*The Graphic* was a newspaper based in London. They reported on the relief effort taking place during the Great North China Famine. \n\n\n\n\nSpeer, Robert E. 1907. \"SEVERE FAMINE IN CHINA.: AN APPEAL FROM THE MISSIONARIES FOR A RELIEF FUND.\" New York Observer and Chronicle (1833-1912), Jan 10, 57.\n\nThis is a piece by Robert Speer in the *New York Observer and Chronicle* where he reprints an appeal made by missionaries in China that was originally printed in *The North China Herald*\n\n\nSome good secondary sources in English on various 19th and 20th century famines in China: \n\nDikötter, Frank. 2010. Mao's great famine: the history of China's most devastating catastrophe, 1958-62. London: Bloomsbury.\n\nThis is about the Great Chinese Famine from 1958-62, often called \"The Three Years of Difficulties\"\n\nEdgerton-Tarpley, Kathryn and Cormac Ó Gráda. Tears from Iron: Cultural Responses to Famine in Nineteenth-Century China. University of California Press, 2008.\n\n\n\nIf you need sources on a specific famine I'd be happy to provide some but unfortunately 'famines in China' covers a huge range so I can only offer a few here."
]
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69st74 | Why did the U.S. decide to bomb civilian cities with atomic bombs rather than military targets during WWII? | I'm pretty sure the US even sent out flyers that said for people to move out of the cities before they bombed it. So why was a civilian city targeted instead of a military base? It would seem much more beneficial to bomb an enemy's military base/command center/whatever than a city. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/69st74/why_did_the_us_decide_to_bomb_civilian_cities/ | {
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"Hi there -- while there's always more to be said on this topic, [this section of our FAQ](_URL_0_) deals specifically with atomic bomb targeting, while [this answer](_URL_1_) from u/restricteddata deals with the question of warning leaflets. ",
"You can read the minutes of the [May 1945 Target Committee meeting online](_URL_4_). They are more interesting and provocative than any simple summary can give you, and they are \"straight from the horse's mouth,\" as they say. The short answer is they wanted it to be a spectacular display, that they deliberately chose military targets located within urban areas to maximally display the damage, and that Nagasaki was actually quite a minor target (it was added to the final target list [only after Kyoto was removed](_URL_2_), and [was not the primary target for the second bomb](_URL_1_)). \n\nAs the Target Committee meeting makes clear, the primary consideration was the \"psychological effect\" of the use of the bomb, not a military result:\n\n > It was agreed that psychological factors in the target selection were of great importance. Two aspects of this are (1) obtaining the greatest psychological effect against Japan and (2) making the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it is released.\n\nThey also concluded:\n\n > It was agreed that for the initial use of the weapon any small and strictly military objective should be located in a much larger area subject to blast damage in order to avoid undue risks of the weapon being lost due to bad placing of the bomb.\n\nAnyway. It is worth reading, if you are interested in reconstructing their point of view from the time, and not the later justifications that were offered up when people started to question it (including other American military commanders, many of whom began to publish statements [claiming the atomic bombs were unnecessary](_URL_3_)).\n\nThere were no warning leaflets about the atomic bomb dropped prior to the bombs themselves; [that is a myth](_URL_0_)."
]
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/faq/militaryhistory/wwii/usa#wiki_atomic_bomb_targeting",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/49j807/did_the_us_warn_civilians_in_hiroshima_about_the/d0txfcd/"
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"http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/04/26/a-day-too-late/",
"http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/22/luck-kokura/",
"http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/08/kyoto-misconception/",
"http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-presidents-talk-about-when-they-talk-about-hiroshima",
"http://www.dannen.com/decision/targets.html"
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3a5q1x | Middle ages: As soon as one was suspected to be a witch, was that an almost certain death sentence? | The image I have of trials where people were judged on being witches or not is mainly shaped by mainstream media. In many TV shows and films these trials are often like:" either she drowns, when we put heavy stones on her and throw her in the lake or she survives and she is a witch".
Either outcome meant death.
That is what I am wondering. Once you were on trial, were you basically already sentenced to death? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3a5q1x/middle_ages_as_soon_as_one_was_suspected_to_be_a/ | {
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"Are you interested in witch trials in the Middle Ages specifically or are you interested in deaths after/during interrogatory practices/tests during witch trials in general? I only ask, because most witch trials took place during the Rennaissance/early modern period (and the ordeal of cold water, you mention, is also mainly associated with witch trials during that time).\n\nI assume, you are interested in the conundrum that, from a modern standpoint, witch trials seem to have had no possibility for a positve outcome for the defendant. Is that correct?\nIn this case the answer is very quick: \nThis assumption is due to the common \"knowledge\" of tests such as \"if she sinks, she is innocent, if she doesn't, she is guilty, let's burn her\" (Interesting side note: During the middle ages, the ordeal of cold water was just the other way around: If you floated, you were considered innocent). But that's not true. In most cases, the person immersed into the water was tied to a rope, so (s)he (many defendants in witch trials were male!) could be pulled out immediately.\n\nSources:\n[Polish witches](_URL_1_). [Notice the vodka part! A very nice touch!]\n\n[Germany, as late as the 19th(!) century](_URL_2_)\n\n[Footnote 1 (the article mentioned by Zguta is about witches in Russia in the 17th century, but not available freely as far as I know, hence this link)](_URL_0_)",
"Am I misinformed or is this question mixing up two different witch tests.\n\nI though stacking stones on people (which is apparently called \"peine forte et dure\") was a separate thing from the more common practice of dunking (throwing people in the water to see if they drowned). Is this question just mixing the two up, or were there stones involved in dunking?",
"Most witch trials found place outside of the middle ages during the early modern period from about 1500 to 1700, with a peak around the wars of religion. In fact the belief that witches were even a thing amongst clergy weren't common until the end of the 1300s. I am personally most familiar with the witch trials in Northern Norway in the 1600s and early 1700s, and most of this post will concern these, but should also hold true in the large picture for the rest of Europe. Most of the peaks in numbers of witch trials found place around disasters, such as wars or famines, but also during small disasters such as ship wrecks (a common belief was that witches could turn themselves into whales and sink ships). Being suspected was normally not enough, and you would get your day in court to prove your innocence or to have your guilt proven. \n\nThe accused in witch trials were typically not the average citizen, but rather outsiders. People with different religious outlooks, different ethnicity, antisocial tendencies, new arrivals in the community, people who lived alone or those people just considered weird. Upstanding citizens who were accused would more often than not be released thanks to character testimony from a spouse or friend in good standing and be released. This meant that a lot of the people who were accused of being a witch was already disliked by the rest of the community and therefore already had a strike against them. \n\nWhat you were accused off and when you were accused had a lot of impact on your chance of being convicted. For instance if you were accused of using witchcraft against a local lord or magistrate your chance of acquittal was not very good. Similarly if there had been some sort of catastrophe and blood lust in the community was high you also had a relatively low chance of acquittal. If someone who had already appeared before a trial had named you, often under torture, your chance of being found guilty was also quite high. If you were accused of witchcraft without co-conspirators outside of a time of great upheaval, your chances of being acquitted was fairly good, to basically certain depending on time and place.\n\nWho held your trial was also quite important. Local courts were typically not staffed by professional lawyers, but rather by important members of the community, such as priests and other powerful local persons. It was common advice in Northern Norway to try to delay your case until someone from the capital came along to judge cases, as they were typically professional, better educated and more liberal.\n\nIn other words whether you were found guilty or not depended on your societal status, age, religion, what you were accusation were, the timing, and who you were tried by.\n\n",
"I come from North Berwick in Scotland, which was the site of one of the biggest witch trials in Scottish history, so we it was a very common subject at school. They loved the dramatic stories of \"ducking\" and burning at the stake but in reality it didn't work like that. \n\nDucking witches was more common elsewhere from what I have read but in Scotland the only recorded usage of it was in 1597 at St Andrews. In the case of the leaders of the North Berwick \"coven\" a confession was extracted through torture before they were executed. \n\nIn this case the time between accusing and executing was short because the plot was to murder the king but in other cases it was not uncommon for investigations to take years before formal charges were laid. Also in many cases suspects were acquitted.\n\n_URL_0_",
"We must not generalize here. The outcome of a witch trial depended on a great number of things, so there's just a few tendencies we might state:\n\nReligious conflict with neighboring territories and/or religious zealotry (NOT the confession itself!) could fuel the desire to actually execute the defendants. Hence the high trial:execution ratio in the bishoprics Bamberg and Würzburg during the counter-reformation (as they were small Catholic territories surrounded by Protestant territories) vs the very few executions in Ireland with its consolidated unrivaled Catholicism. As to the number of trials in the latter, the literature I used unfortunately does not give any numbers.\n\nPower and personal stance of the head of state could influence the development and outcome of trials: In Mecklenburg, 50% of the 4000 defendants were executed whereas in the Electoral Palatinate, the elector prohibited such trials in the first place.\n\nTo put it in a nutshell, Early Modern (because this is actually the time of widespread trials, not the Middle Ages) witch trials certainly did not always end with the execution of the defendant even though there were times and regions where you were very likely to end up on the stake. I am afraid I just cannot give you absolute numbers on that as it is rarely stated how many trials there were in the first place.\n\n\nSources:\n\n• Behringer, Wolfgang: Hexen und Hexenprozesse in Deutschland, Munich 2010.#\n\n• Schwerhoff, Gerd: Strafjustiz und Gerechtigkeit in historischer Perspektive - das Beispiel der Hexenprozesse, in: Justiz und Gerechtigkeit. Historische Beiträge (16.-19. Jahrhundert), ed. Andrea Griesebner/ Martin Scheutz/ Herwig Weigl, Innsbruck 2002, pp. 33-40. \n\n• Voltmer, Rita/Irsigler, Franz: Die europäischen Hexenverfolgungen der Frühen Neuzeit - Vorurteile, Faktoren und Bilanzen, in: Hexenwahn. Ängste der Neuzeit (ed. Rosmarie Beier De-Haan/Rita Voltmer/Franz Irsigler), Berlin 2002, pp. 30-45.\n"
]
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[
"https://books.google.de/books?id=dy0Eympsh7MC&pg=PA146&dq=witches+ordeal+water+rope&hl=de&sa=X&ei=6sKBVdDANa3G7Abm4Ze4BQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q&f=false",
"https://books.google.de/books?id=7BgqR2QIPeMC&pg=PA69&dq=witches+ordeal+water+rope&hl=de&sa=X&ei=OMKBVdfcO-mc7AbimYOQCw&ved=0CFcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false",
"https://books.google.de/books?id=en2xAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA112&dq=witches+ordeal+water+rope&hl=de&sa=X&ei=6sKBVdDANa3G7Abm4Ze4BQ&ved=0CCgQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q&f=false"
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1y2h4a | What is holding Israel from total invasion of Palestinian territories? | Usually when a country invades another it doesn't leave "islands" inside it. For instance when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia they didn't leave -say- out Bruno. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1y2h4a/what_is_holding_israel_from_total_invasion_of/ | {
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"Could you perhaps clarify what you mean?\n\nIsrael is already occupying all of what are considered to be the Palestinian territories i.e. the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They seized them from Jordan and Egypt respectively during the Six-Day War in 1967.",
"First, the question in what *is* holding back Israel breaks the 20-year rule. Luckily, the present situation developed prior to 20-years ago (or the framework of it did, anyway).\n\nSo after '67, Israel *did* occupy the entirety of the West Bank and Gaza, along with the Golan (which is mostly an unrelated situation)--Jordan and Egypt had previously been in various states of occupation there. After the war, the entire area was under Israeli military administration.\n\nThat changed around 20 years ago. The First Intifada in the late 80s and early 90s was the first mass Palestinian action against Israeli occupation of the territories specifically. The result was the Oslo Accord, the first part of which was agreed to in 1993.\n\nThe basic premise of this was that the Palestinian Authority would have partial sovereignty over certain areas, which would eventually be part of a move towards a Palestinian state. This was the \"roadmap to peace\"--Oslo I began a planned transition to Palestinian independence. Israel then de-occupied certain areas, and ceded authority to the PA. This began with Gaza and Jericho, but later extended to other parts of the West Bank (which is what's within the 20-year rule).\n\nEssentially, the question isn't why Israel doesn't occupy the whole thing--the question is why Israel disengaged from certain areas. And that occurred as part of the early 90s peace process."
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1m4d09 | Looking for information on Appalachian folklore. | I'm looking for information or resources on Appalachian folklore, particularly northern Appalachia, with a focus on supernatural lore. Many of the websites I've stumbled upon appear to be historically-questionably pagan-type sites. I'm looking mainly for early folklore, but any time period would be helpful.
This is literally my first post on reddit, so let me know if there's something I need to fix, etc. the content of my question, the subreddit I'm posting to, or anything else! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1m4d09/looking_for_information_on_appalachian_folklore/ | {
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"If you are looking for very, very early, there is a whole chapter devoted to folk beliefs among the Scotch-Irish immigrants that settled in Appalachia in \"Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways Into America\" by David Hackett Fischer. \n\nIn particular, I remember a few about butter. The more hair, the less harm. Tossing a frog in will help it turn to butter. If it will not turn to butter, a witch may have placed a spell on your churn. You must then heat a couple iron nails red hot and toss them in. This will burn the witch who has a hold on your churn, and force them to release it. "
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37u2ss | Did the Soviet Union have crop-dusting as heartland America did? | My roommate is from mainland China and only has anecdotal stories to share, but I'm curious as to the state of Soviet crop maintenance as opposed to the States, which was prevalent in the late 70s to now. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/37u2ss/did_the_soviet_union_have_cropdusting_as/ | {
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"Yes. While I do not know a lot of the specifics about what chemicals were used for crop maintenance by the Soviets, the USSR certainly did employ crop-dusting aircraft rather extensively. The Antonov An-2 for example was actually nicknamed the *\"Kukuruznik\"* - which loosely translates as *\"corn crop duster\"*. It first flew in 1946, and was used primarily as both a utility/transport and crop-dusting aircraft. \n\nLater, in the 1970s and 80s, the Polish-made PZL M-15 *Belphegor* was a jet-powered aircraft that was designed specifically for crop-dusting work, and it saw a lot of airtime over Soviet farmland. The Soviets used them quite a bit to dust their large-scale state-owned [Sovkhoz](_URL_1_) and [Kolkhoz](_URL_0_) farm collectives with pesticide and fertilizing agents."
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dgnejj | How did soldiers first react to facing tanks on the battlefield? | It’s a pretty straightforward question but I feel like the answers will be anything but, the question came to mind while replaying Battlefield I earlier today I wondered how terrifying or shocking t must have been to actually see a tank for the first time, let alone being told to take one down.
In documentaries online I saw how they were used to go over trenches, mitigating the one defense that the soldiers would have previously been used to, and cover vast distances in weeks.
I know that modern soldiers still face off against tanks, and the psychological trauma they can bring, but I imagine that knowing they exist, and seeing them in action in media, would at least give you some advantage compared to what the first soldiers to face them would have to drawl with. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dgnejj/how_did_soldiers_first_react_to_facing_tanks_on/ | {
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"The first use of Tanks on the battlefield occurred at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette 15th-22nd September 1916. The tank force deployed were beset with mechanical failures resulting in a reduced number actually joining the battle as intended - in total, of the fifty tanks in France, 49 were assembled for the attack, 36 reached the front line and 27 reached the German front line but only six reached the final objective. Whilst considered an allied victory an analysis of the battle concluded that while the use of tanks was beneficial to the battle they were not a decisive factor in the outcome due to unreliability. German troops were reported to have panicked at the first sight of tanks and were unable to effectively counter them - however they did manage to destroy two using artillery during the battle. The Germans were also confused by inaccurate reports of the nature of the new weapons and this led to an incoherent response on their part in developing tactics to oppose tanks on the battlefield. To summarize German forces were confused and panicked by the appearance of tanks but did not flee in terror and still mounted an effective defense during the battle. As most German troops did not have any means of attacking tanks or any idea of how to do so effectively when they did breach German lines it was described as a \"slaughter\"."
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1yxwip | Did the "Founding Fathers" ever have competition? | Was there ever a group before, during, or immediately after the Revolutionary War that felt like THEY should be the ones to decide in which direction the country should go? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1yxwip/did_the_founding_fathers_ever_have_competition/ | {
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"The founding fathers was/is not a set defined group of people. As such there is no way readily identify who is and isn't one, and there are plenty of people in a gray area. I think your answer is easier to answer if you're talking about the second wave of politicians who arose post 1800, like Clay and Calhoun and their interactions with the remaining members of the founding generation."
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5a7sjo | What did the arabs think about european full plate armor, and why didnt they have full plate armor of their own? | I cant recall having seen any Mamluk or Moorish full plate armor, why didnt the islamic empires use them? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5a7sjo/what_did_the_arabs_think_about_european_full/ | {
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"Not being a historian of the 14th through 16th century Middle East, I can't speak to the Moorish or Turkish or Mamluke reaction to plate armour. Perhaps one of any Ottoman/Mamluk/Moorish historians can help with this. I also cannot say definitively that the Ottomans, Manluks or Moors did not use full plate armour, though I am not aware of any examples other than some 15th century sallets that may be Moorish.\n\nRegarding the second part of your question, this is a very difficult question. It is hard enough to explain why something -did- happen in one time or place. Trying to describe why it -didn't- happen in another is often even harder. This is because it requires two complete sets of knowledge - all the factors that led to a historical event or development in once place or time, and the way in which they were lacking in some other place or time when it -didn't- happen. To a certain extent this applies to the question of adopting technologies - even if something is developed in one place that has contact with another, this doesn't mean that the technology will be adopted - it might just not make sense in the other historical context. We are used to thinking of technologies as 'better' than other technologies, but sometimes they are different tools for different tasks.\n\nIn many ways, it is perhaps more illuminating to see plate armour as a great exception to most iron or steel armour in history, which is made of mail or smaller plates. Rather than assuming that plate armour is the natural development of armour, we can look at it as a unique development from a particular time and place. I try to explain in [this answer](_URL_0_) -some- of the factors that allowed for and led to the adoption of plate armour in Europe. It is not an explanation of why it wasn't adopted in other regions, since I cannot speak to the metallurgical traditions, social organization and 'way of war' of societies outside of Europe."
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1cvkho | Did Medieval kings/lords really lead the charge? | After watching movies like Braveheart or just hearing about medieval battles, I cannot fathom how a lord/king would survive leading his army to charge into an enemy army. Let's say each side had 10,000 soldiers, how would a king lead the vanguard? He can't possibly cleave his way through the entire line, how did they survive? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1cvkho/did_medieval_kingslords_really_lead_the_charge/ | {
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"Yes they did. King George II was the last king to personally lead a english army into battle. King John of Bohemia, despite being blind,was killed at Crecy in 1346 (his retainers would lead his horse into the thick of the fighting,where he would then flail his sword around). Harald Hardrada of Norway was killed at Stamford Bridge. Alexander the Great was almost killed in battle early in his conquest of Persia, leading the charge.\n\nOftentimes, the King had an elite guard. Harald Godwinson had the Housekarls, William the Conqueror (and many others in the Continental style of armies) had a heavy cavalry escort. \n\nSo yes, Kings went straight into the fight, often with an escort comprised of the most well trained and equipped soldiers in the army. Honor and glory were at stake, and face could be lost if the King was not seen as brave.",
"You're right in that it sounds romanticized, but in fact they often did. Not only was it seen as their duty, but it was also a point of considerable pride amongst the medieval nobility. \n\nI remember coming across during my research in the *History of William Marshal* an argument involving Ranulf III, Earl of Chester, before the Battle of Lincoln in 1217. Ranulf was a prominent magnate of the old school Anglo-Norman nobility, so, not a king but certainly a 'lord'). In the poem, he got into a rather heated argument with the Norman knights with whom he was fighting, about who would lead the vanguard. He actually threatened to *withdraw his support* from the battle if he was not granted this \"privilege\". The threat was not taken lightly, as he was granted the position. (They won the battle by the way). If you're interested, this appears on p. 313 of the edition translated by David Crouch. \n\nEDIT: Oh, and he was 47 - a ripe old age in the thirteenth century! \n\n",
"/u/Emperor_NOPEolean and /u/icaforp have some great answers here. For some further context, I'll just add what I wrote previously when this question was asked:\n\n\nTo further understand why leaders took their place in the front line of battles one has to understand the foundational basis of the feudal system. Boiled down to its essence, the feudal system that arose in Europe in the middle ages can be described as the common people supporting a warrior class who protects them. That is, the dukes, kings, etc. that you mention are personally responsible for the protection of the people who feed them.\n\n\nThis may be especially important early in the period (6th-11th centuries) before the warrior class was (comparatively) large. Even if the leader wasn't among the most dangerous men on the field (though he likely was - having been raised from birth to be so or having taken the position by strength of arms) it was incredibly important for the morale of both the common people and the warrior class to have their leader fulfilling his (God-appointed) role.",
"If you're looking for more answers, this is [one of the questions in the FAQ](_URL_0_).",
"This is going to combine elements from a number of different periods, but in a relatively direct way to try to answer your question.\n\nFirstly, many rulers had access to equipment and armour greatly superior to those of your common soldiers. Most ancient and medieval armies were not dominated by professional or even semi-professional soldiers (with some exceptions) but by levies. That's not to imply they were bad at what they did, but they usually relied on relatively little protection; for example, your typical Hittite spearmen only had a wicker/ox-hide shield and many of the spearmen in Persian armies only had wicker shields. As time went on, you might have some cotton armour or even boiled leather if you were lucky. Contrast this to those who were professionals or semi-professionals, who might have scale armour, a corselet, or a cuirass to protect their chest, along with helmets and a heavier shield. These men would often outrank the levies socially. In some societies, those undertaking less armoured roles were actively looked down upon; in Classical Greece, commentators were rather disparaging as to the efforts of the *peltastai*, the skirmishers who were not operating as hoplites. The kings and those near to them in rank would generally go for the best equipment that money could buy, because it showed off their social status, because it showed off their potency as elites of society, and because they were important in battles and likely to need protection. This could easily lead to a situation in which men armed with wicker shields and spears were facing a King in full bronze armour, with a bronze shield and a bronze sword. Or in the period you're interested in, a king with a steel plate, greaves, chainmail and a steel longsword.\n\nSecondly, they might not do this all of the time. You have your Alexanders and Richards Coeur de Lion on the one hand who were killed or wounded in direct combat and seem to have thrown themselves directly into the fray quite often. Then you have Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire, who clearly didn't charge over the battlements of Constantinople but who did charge with his personal bodyguard over the course of his war with Moldavia. The decision to personally intervene was clearly one with several factors behind it; morale is often a key factor on these battles and seeing their King directly intervening might cause flagging men to be inspired, they might feel the need to demonstrate personal bravery to enhance their prestige, their better equipment could often make the King and his bodyguard an elite unit capable of turning the tide of battle in their own right. Many of the accounts of Alexander the Great's life from the ancient world point out (or have historical figures point out to him) how rash he was for risking his life in these battles when his death would have caused the entire expedition to come to a complete halt. The idea that leaders were risking themselves and their causes by fighting hand-to-hand clearly occured to people, it wasn't as though this idea hadn't occurred. But given that many of these kings did not intervene in each battle, I would wager that the choice to do so was one that was made in reaction to particular circumstances. Alexander the Great in particular is relatively unusual in that he seems to have done this every single time, and his battle plans often relied upon his own cavalry charges being effective.\n\nIn addition, most battles were not to the death but to the breaking point. The King was not fighting all 10,000 enemy men at once, nor would he usually have to kill all of them. This is why I mentioned morale earlier- forcing an army to quit the field or rout in disorder was the more common result of battles, not slaughters to the last man. The reason that Cannae was such a devastating battle in the Roman imagination was because rather than a rout occuring, most of the Roman army had actually been destroyed with less than 5% escaping. Depending on the campaign and the period, pitched battles would often not be particularly common in the first place; small skirmishes and raids were by far the greater part of warfare, and several periods are far more dominated by sieges than pitched battles. So the possibility of risking your life on the battlefield, as a king, would not be an every day occurence but would be an uncommon and serious set of circumstances.\n\nIt's also worth pointing out, but others have said so already, that these kings and lords all across this eras would have bodyguards and personal units. They were not literally charging by themselves, but with an attached unit of extremely well trained and armoured loyal retainers. ",
"Jean de Joinville, the friend and biographer of France's King Louis IX, thought that Louis' leading men into battle was a great act of chivalry. When laying out the plan of his book to his readers, he says this: \"The second book will tell us of his deeds of knightly prowess and great daring, which were such that four times I saw him put himself in danger of death to save his followers from harm, as you shall hear. The first occasion was when we touched land before Damietta [in 1249]; when all his council urged him, so I heard, to wait until he should see how his knights fared at their landing; because if he went ashore with them and was slain along with his followers, the cause would be lost. But if he waited in his ship, he might make good the loss and win back the land of Egypt. And he would listen to none of them, but leaped all armed into the sea, his shield about his neck and his spear in his hand, and was one of the first ashore.\"",
"I have a (true) story that pertains to this, and contributes to the conversation.\n\nOn the first day of the Battle of [Bannockburn](_URL_0_) King Robert the Bruce of Scotland was on his riding horse (not his war horse, it was a much smaller, weaker pony lacking any armor what so ever). He was of course with a guard but they were some distance off. King Robert the Bruce was not expecting battle and thus wore only a linen shirt and trousers. He was only armed with a one-handed ax of which he showed a certain fondness for. Suddenly during the day a. English knight named Henry de Bohun (He was fully equipped to do battle, lance and all) spotted the Scottish King, feeling brave and wanting to win renown he charged ahead of his companions with his lance lowered and aim at the king. The king saw this, (Keep in mind his pony is very short) stood up in his saddle and torqued his body to the right and in doing so swung evaded the knights lance. The knight was then punished because in the King's right hand was his trusty ax, which he buried into the knights skull. The impact was so tremendous that it split the knights helmet (No cheap tin-foil cap) and the knights skull in two. In the process however he broke the shaft of his ax, which he later fretted.\n\nHe is my favorite illustration of this event: (NOTE: Robert is poorly depicted as he lacked a shield and any armor at all, his horse would have been much shorter) [IMG]_URL_1_[/IMG]\n\nYou may enjoy the story told on the wikipedia page (linked above) more than my theatrics."
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6t9kvd | What are the differences between Nazi Germany and communist USSR in terms of government? | [deleted] | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6t9kvd/what_are_the_differences_between_nazi_germany_and/ | {
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"Expanded from an [earlier answer of mine](_URL_0_)\n\nThe idea that Stalin and Hitler represented two sides of the same authoritarian coin was one that dated back to when the actual dictatorships existed. The German Marxist emigre Otto Rühle would maintain in works like [\"The Struggle Against Fascism Begins with the Struggle Against Bolshevism\"](_URL_1_) that Stalin's state was simply \"Red Fascism\" while Hannah Arendt would argue that both dictatorships exerted power in near-identical ways by fragmenting and terrorizing populations. Much of this critique actually picked up on the fascist concept of a totalitarian order in which the state organized and regimented society. While some of Mussolini's ideologues use totalitarianism in a positive sense, the term acquired a pejorative sense by the 1940s. The totalitarian theory emerged as one of the dominant paradigms in US academia during the first half of the Cold War and it enjoyed a wide currency among intellectuals. Counter-intuitively, totalitarianism held sway among a broad political spectrum, ranging from far-right anticommunists like the John Birchers, to centrist Cold War liberals, and disaffected Trotskyites and others on the Left like the Schachtmanites who felt that the Soviet experiment went off the rails into dictatorship because of the ideological deficiencies of its helmsmen. \n\nThe problem with totalitarianism is these comparisons only work on the most superficial levels. Both regimes had leadership cults, single party systems, secret police, and other benchmarks of the modern dictatorship for sure, but *how* each of these functioned as a mechanism or authoritarian rule varied quite widely. The NSDAP for example, sought to coordinate and bring in a broad swath of German society and co-opt existing structures. The Gestapo and other security organs recruited among various existing German police and disaffected professionals (Wildt's \"uncompromising generation\" of radicalized young men) while the Cheka/NKVD created its own police organization more or less from scratch. The trajectory of the CPSU under Stalin operated quite differently with it creating a number of structures rather than coexisting with existing ones like the NSDAP. Stalin's leadership cult was a different matter than that of Hitler's. A cult of personality in an avowedly Marxist-Leninist state was itself a contradiction; Marxism was about the evolution of broad social forces, not the individual leader transcending them. Stalin instead preferred his depictions to not be Stalin the man, but rather Stalin as the symbol of the cause. In contrast, the Hitler cult was deeply personalist and wrapped up Hitler's own self-inflated biography as a genius with the political philosophy of *Führerprinzip*. Hitler himself was an load-bearing member of the National Socialist state as there was very little thought given to succession and none of his entourage had close to a mass following to continue the cause after his death. The Soviet dictatorship in contrast not only survived Stalin's death but reverted to the type of collective leadership with a \"first among equals\" like Khrushchev that had characterized the Lenin period. \n\nRacism and other forms of ethnic-based discrimination were another departure between the two ideologies. While there was a low-grade antisemitism within the Soviet system as well as an increasingly patronizing approach to non-European minorities within the USSR, biological racism did not have much of an official sanction within the USSR. Quite the opposite, prior to 1941, open outbursts of antisemitism were a disciplinary offense and the Stalinist state associated racism as a tool of fascism. Stalinist repression of Jews may have been encouraged by lingering antisemitism among the state authorities, but there needed to be some other rationale to officially justify it. The postwar antisemitic turn like the Doctor's Plot was justified not because Jews were innately traitorous, but because the state alleged a Zionist plot was forming within the USSR to undermine the state. This is quite different than the Third Reich which placed biological racism at the center of many of its various policies. The purging of Jews from German life was not because of the actions of a few, but because of who the Jews were in the Nazi racial schema. In the USSR, a Sovietized Jew (that is non-practicing and holding the \"right\" kind of politics) could achieve a degree success within the system, most famously in the example of Molotov, even if antisemitism made Jewish background a dangerous liability. The idea of a Nazified Jew was antithetical to the whole National Socialist *Staatsidee*. Even those individuals with partial Jewish heritage like Erhard Milch had to both demonstrate their indispensability as well as have the right social networks to avoid summary dismissal and discrimination. \n\nNationalism also shows another point of divergence. It is not too controversial of a point to claim that the Third Reich was a hypernationalist state and Third Reich ideologues often claimed all of the German heritage as precursors to the movement. The Stalinist approach to Russian history and nationalism was much more selective and only gathered steam during the Second World War. Only a few tsarist figures were reappropriated as Bolsheviks born in the wrong era; typically these were military generals, intellectuals, and artists. And although the Great Russian nation became the first among brothers within the Soviet family of nations, the Soviet state did not try to erase recognized nations either. The policy of *korenizatsiia* (indiginzation- termed by Terry Martin Soviet affirmative action) allowed Soviet national minorities a degree of power within their own SSRs. Granted such power was mediated through the Communist Party as well as the local state bureaucracy and it did presuppose a degree of supplication to Soviet power, but it was still a mechanism for non-Russian participation in the Soviet experiment. The Nazi approach to national minorities had no such structures aside from extemporized categories of racial lieutenants like the Slovaks. Additionally, while Stalin's ethnic cleansings such as that of the Crimean Tartars could be quite severe, the USSR never made the conceptual leap that these ethnic groups did not deserve a right to *exist*. Nazi thinking of defined racial enemies was genocidal in its impulses from the very start and the right conditions made an already violent form of discrimination truly murderous. \n\nOther areas also show broad differences between the two states. Soviet developmentalism and industrialization under Stalin reflected various precepts present in Marxist-Leninism with an aim to a certain end, namely the erection of socialism and the creation of a communist utopia. Massive industrial projects like Magnitogorsk were a Promethean attempt to bring about an industrial transformation of the country. The mass projects of Hitler served to glorify the existing order, even if they had an ideological gloss of being in the service of a \"thousand year Reich.\" Moreover, the reams of social history produced on Germany since the 1960s and the USSR since the late 1980s has shown that the lived experience of both dictatorships was markedly different. While many Germans experienced Nazism as a process of taking over existing institutions and milieus, communism often created these from the ground up. Career paths, education, and multiple aspects of daily life all were all influenced by these different facets of dictatorial rule. \n\nComparison between Nazi Germany and the USSR under Stalin really don't illuminate much for either regime. The broad comparisons are there, but the details are quite important. A Ferrari Testarossa may share a number of features in common with a Ford Taurus- both were means of automobile transport introduced in the mid-1980s, have four rubber wheels, steering wheels, brakes, bumpers, use bovine branding, can be initialed as F.T., etc.- but one car is clearly different than the other. "
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17l1li | Were the Soviets or other communists at all concerned with environmental issues or preservation? | I'm just curious. I hear so much about Russia's terrible environmental record these days. Obviously China is pretty bad.
But what about the Soviets? Or any other communist countries? Were there any genuine efforts to preserve natural resources or limit pollution?
Or perhaps was the lack of a consumer culture just inherently less wasteful? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17l1li/were_the_soviets_or_other_communists_at_all/ | {
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"The 'elites' were not as they had to promote and support heavy industry which polluted the environment. They couldn't afford (politically) to be too invested in the environment. The 'common' man however could see the effects of heavy industrialization on themselves and the environment. In Russia there was no need to perserve some of their resources (coal, oil and iron) because they had so much of it. There may have well been Communist countries who were environmentally conscious but none come to mind. You could argue that they were more wasteful by artificially supporting 19th century industries in the 20th century. \n\nI do not have an internet source to refer to but check out Mark Mazower's Dark Continent (Chapter 11) it address the issue but doesn't dive too deep. ",
"I can't really address this in serious detail, but Stevezilla touched on something that's important to point out. \n\nThe Stalinist philosophy of government emphasized the development of heavy, and typically quite polluting, industry. This philosophy affected most nations within the Soviet sphere of influence, albeit to varying degrees. Even after Khrushchev's de-Stalinization movement from the mid-1950s to early 1960s, it was difficult to convince the Soviet state planning committee ([GOSPLAN](_URL_1_)) that the USSR needed to prioritize more consumer-oriented industry. Brezhnev later reversed what few gains had been made in addition to reviving the [Ministry of Construction of Heavy Industry](_URL_0_). This was at the height of Cold War tensions, and everyone involved was afraid of what decreasing Soviet industrial capacity would do to their chances in the event of a war. (The Soviets knew, even if the Americans did not, that their economy was incredibly inefficient even during peacetime and would have problems weathering wartime disruptions or shortages.) The mania for heavy industry over other areas of the economy is one of the reasons why communist nations in general couldn't provide the quality or variety of consumer goods seen elsewhere in the West. \n\nI think it would be inaccurate to say that the lack of consumer culture in the USSR was inherently less wasteful. The extreme popularity of Western clothing, food, and media in the Soviet bloc argues against any serious philosophical distinction between the two cultures; it was a problem of capacity and state support, not inclination on the part of the populace.\n\nHeavy industry isn't known for being particularly \"green,\" and I've never read anything that suggested it was an overriding concern on the part of Soviet planners. However, environmentalism itself wasn't really a scientific, much less popular, concern until the latter half of the 20th century, and we can't really describe this as a deliberate dismissal of the environment on the part of Soviet planners. Their concerns were largely political.",
"I'm sure there were *some* communists that were concerned with the environment, but for the most part, the Soviets were more of an industry-first economy. Another thing you have to consider is that the Soviets of the 1920s were not the Soviets of the 1980s -- governments change over time. They passed some [environmental protection laws in the 70s](_URL_0_), but they didn't get enforced too often.\n\nThe draining of the [Aral Sea is kind of telling.](_URL_3_) They literally made a sea dry up, all so they could grow cotton.\n\nAnd they [didn't have too much concern](_URL_1_) for a lake that contains a significant portion of the world's fresh water.\n\nI think its fairly safe to say, however, the environment was the least of the Soviet Union's concerns. They had trouble with conservation -- mostly the [conservation of people.](_URL_2_)"
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24y5wy | Woodrow Wilson refused to meet with Ho Chi Minh in the 1920s. What kind of connection does that have with the resulting conflict in Vietnam later in the century? | I just came across that fascinating tidbit of history whilst writing my final papers for a foreign policy course. Anyhow, I understand Ho Chi Minh (tried?) to meet with Woodrow Wilson and hoped to meet with other democratic big dogs with certain goals for his people in Indochina/Vietnam. Can someone explain the evolution of this timeline between then and the Vietnam War? How did he get to hope to meet with these guys? What sort of effect can it be traced back to the Vietnam War? Did he reconcile? I recognize I'm all over the place, I'm just trying to get some interpretive perspective on this seemingly pretty important fact!
| AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24y5wy/woodrow_wilson_refused_to_meet_with_ho_chi_minh/ | {
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"Yes, Ho Chi Minh did try to meet with Woodrow Wilson to gain some measure of support for Vietnamese independence. It did not work out. One of Wilson's Fourteen Points encouraged the self-determination of the people of Austria-Hungary. Ho thought that Wilson would therefore back self-determination for the Vietnamese as well. More broadly, many Vietnamese intellectuals of the time period greatly respected the US as a nation that had successfully thrown off the colonial yoke during its own war of independence. Unfortunately, Wilson ignored Ho's repeated requests for a meeting, which caused Ho to begin turning away from the United States. Ho, along with many other Vietnamese anti-colonial figures, began focusing on building a homegrown revolutionary movement based on Marxism-Leninism rather than Wilsonian principles.\n\nAs a French colony, Vietnam experienced numerous anti-colonial uprisings, beginning almost immediately after France established full control in 1885. All of these uprisings failed, generally because they were too easily isolated. Most of them were shot through with informers from the *Surete*, or French secret police. None of them could articulate a cohesive vision for what an independent Vietnam would look like. Initial efforts were focused on restoring the old Vietnamese monarchy - this was known as the *Can Vuong*, or \"Aid the King\" movement. When the French crushed this movement in 1889, they also moved towards co-opting Vietnamese intellectuals. France never had many troops stationed in Vietnam, so the best way to control the populace on a day-to-day basis was to get these intellectuals, many of whom held a lot of power in their communities (they were regional politicians, or \"mandarins\") on their side. As time went on, fewer and fewer people could remember an independent Vietnam. Moreover, most Vietnamese understood that their countrymen were aiding the French. The two most important anti-colonial figures of the 1885 - 1925 period, Phan Boi Chau and Phan Chu Trinh, were unsuccessful in their efforts. Phan Chu Trinh believed that the real enemy was the Vietnamese monarchy, and that the French could help Vietnam modernize and eventually achieve independence. France was interested in doing no such thing - Vietnam was mostly a way for them to maintain naval bases in the Pacific as well as make money through the rubber trade. Phan Boi Chau believed in kicking out the French. While he accomplished a lot, most notably writing a popular history of how Vietnam fell to the French (History of the Loss of Vietnam, or *Viet Nam Vong Quoc Su*) he ended his life under house arrest. Not until 1925 did anti-colonial movements begin to coalesce into something more lasting.\n\nBeginning in 1925, a wave of intellectual debates swept Vietnam. Scholars began to reject the idea that France was at all necessary for Vietnam's development. Many collaborating intellectuals had made that argument for years, but by 1928, they lost their influence. Communism began to become popular as a coherent political philosophy for Vietnamese anti-colonialism, largely replacing Confucianism, which had no credibility among this this younger group of scholars since the old Confucian royal court had collaborated. Many intellectuals, including Ho Chi Minh, began organizing political parties dedicated to kicking out the French. In 1925, Ho organized the Revolutionary Youth League (*Thanh Nien*). Unlike previous groups, which had relied on one charismatic leader with regional popularity, *Thanh Nien* focused on achieving national liberation through an organized resistance network. Although the party fell apart in 1928, the overall organizational idea carried over into the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), which arose from the wreckage of *Thanh Nien* and a number of other groups. \n\nThe ICP slowly built support throughout the 1930s, generally with the USSR's help (although there was quite a lot of tension between the ICP and Moscow at times due to disagreements over how the ICP should organize). The Great Depression hit Vietnam hard, and many previously-neutral Vietnamese began supporting the ICP after losing everything. By the time World War II started, the ICP had built a great deal of support, but they were not yet strong enough to take on the French. That became clear in 1940, when the French put down a Communist revolt in Nam Ky, which was an ICP hotbed. \n\nIn 1941, the ICP held a special meeting where they founded the Viet Minh, which was to be a broad-based league of anti-colonial groups dedicated to achieving Vietnamese independence. While any group could join, the ICP maintained nominal control over the Viet Minh. Japan seized Vietnam in 1940, and although they left the French to carry out ordinary administrative activities, most people knew who was really in charge. The Viet Minh aided the Allies against the Japanese by conducting espionage and sabotaging Japanese facilities. In March 1945, the Japanese kicked the French out from Indochina permanently. Five months later, Japan surrendered, and the ensuing power vacuum led millions of Vietnamese to rise up in mass demonstrations against any resumption of colonial rule. This was the August Revolution, and it allowed the Viet Minh to seize power on September 2nd of that year. All of this is important because the French tried to move back in to Vietnam with British support very shortly afterward. When they did so, they encountered stiff resistance from the Viet Minh government, and the ensuing tensions led to the onset of the First Indochina War in late 1946. \n\nAlthough many Vietnamese intellectuals were sympathetic to the US, the Americans did not think particularly well of the Vietnamese. Many Vietnamese intellectuals admired how the US had thrown off British colonialism. These intellectuals, many of whom were ICP leaders, thought in Social Darwinist terms whereby the US was a superior nation that had succeeded against great odds. Americans like Franklin Roosevelt thought of Vietnam in more negative Social Darwinist terms - Vietnamese were backward and needed to be educated and civilized. Many Americans, including FDR, thought that the US could remake Vietnam in America's image. To this end FDR wanted to establish a system of trusteeship over postwar Vietnam similar to what the US had done in the Philippines. But the French resisted this plan, and FDR (and later Truman) wound up supporting France (needed to maintain the US-France alliance, after all). American policymakers never shook their image of Vietnamese (and East Asians in general) as infantile, which led to them believing that Vietnamese were not fit for self-government. This attitude, along with a deepening sense of anti-communism, meant that the US never supported Vietnamese independence as Ho hoped it might. While historians should generally stay away from counterfactual thinking, it's important to remember that while Ho was a dedicated Marxist-Leninist, he was also a Vietnamese patriot. Had the US supported him, it's possible that he would have become independent of the Soviet orbit, as Tito did.\n\nEDIT: typos.\n\nSources:\n\nBradley, Mark Philip. *Imagining Vietnam and America: The Making of Post-Colonial Vietnam, 1919-1950.* UNC Press, 2000.\n\nKhanh, Huynh Kim. *Vietnamese Communism 1925-1945.* Cornell University Press, 1982.\n\nLogevall, Fredrik. *Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam.* Random House, 2012.\n\nManela, Erez. *The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anti-Colonial Nationalism.* Oxford University Press, 2009.\n\nMarr, David G. *Vietnamese Anticolonialism, 1885-1925.* University of California Press, 1971.\n\nMarr, David G. *Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920-1945.* University of California Press, 1981.\n\nMarr, David G. *Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power.* University of California Press, 1997.\n\nTønnesson, Stein. *The Vietnamese Revolution of 1945: Roosevelt, Ho Chi Minh and de Gaulle in a World At War.* PRIO, 1991. "
]
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1airoz | Literacy in Medieval England | I was talking to a medieval historian at a party and he mentioned his area of study had shown a remarkably high literacy rate, even at quite low income level for men and women. He was talking of 50 or 60%. Alas, I've forgotten his name and I would love to know more.
Can any one supply further sources available to the layperson? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1airoz/literacy_in_medieval_england/ | {
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"I'll suggest [Nicholas Orme](_URL_0_) for the later middle ages, as his corpus pretty much covers England. If you have journal access, then try *Literacy in England, Scotland and Wales, 1500-1900* by WB Stephens in *History of Education Quarterly, 20, 4 (1990)* pages 545-71\n\nThe 14th century really is the point at which literacy begins to go mainstream. I've never heard 50-60% literacy rates - I've heard an overall literacy rate of 10% by 1500, but the 16th century is where it really rockets, but I wouldn't classify that as medieval.\n\n"
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3rthv4 | Did the individual cultures of Spanish colonists have any effects that we can see today in North and South America. | As far a I know, it's a bit inaccurate to think of Spain having always been "Spanish". Even today, there are many different languages and cultural subgroups like in Valencia, Catalunya, Andalusia, Galicia, the Basque region, etc other than the "standard" Castillian culture and language. One can assume that back during the colonial era, these differences were even greater. So my question is, did the regions settled by Spain become influenced in culture by those who came over from Spain, and can we see these influences today? Or were most colonists Castillian in origin or am I totally totally off base about Spanish culture(s)? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3rthv4/did_the_individual_cultures_of_spanish_colonists/ | {
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"Yes, during the colonial region that differences between the Spanish regions were as great as they are today or perhaps even greater. \n\n > So my question is, did the regions settled by Spain become influenced in culture by those who came over from Spain, and can we see these influences today? \n\nIn a way, yes. It is difficult to assess (although there are probably some studies about this particular topic), but some influences are noticeable. For instance, during the times of the Spanish Empire, the port of Seville, in Andalusia, was awarded royal monopoly of all commerce, transport and basically any form of contact with the colonies in the Americas. That meant that all ships that went and came had to depart from and arrive to Seville. Andalusian culture has had as a consequence a meaningful impact on the \"Spanish\" culture of the Americas, and alongside Castilian culture is probably the one with greatest influence in the new world (others like Catalan, Aragonese and Basque have had minimal impact).\n\nThe Spanish colonial architecture, although highly variable from region to region and with local American influences, has many identifiable Castilian and Andalusian traits. On the other hand Basque architecture or Aragonese architecture (which are quite distinct) have had a minor impact. \n\nThe Andalusian dialect of Spanish is also believed to have been the basis for the current forms of Latin American Spanish, as it is very distinct from standard Castilian Spanish, lacks the /θ/ sound (replaced by the /s/ sound) and prefers the use of *ustedes* to *vosotros* for the 2nd person plural.\n\n > Or were most colonists Castillian in origin or am I totally totally off base about Spanish culture(s)?\n\nMost were Castilians and Andalusians, but bear in mind that Andalusians are basically Castilians that repopulated the Al-Andalus region after the Reconquista. That's why in the Hispanic population of the Americas surnames of Castilian origin (*Fernández*, *Pérez*, *González*, *Suárez*, etc.) are amazingly frequent while other surnames such as Basque, Galician or Catalan are much more uncommon, Catalan especially. \n\nThere were not American regions settled by specific Spanish populations (such as a city settled mostly by Basques, another one by Andalusians, etc.), most were mixed but with a higher number of Castilians and Andalusians."
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4l357z | What Political Parties existed in the Confederacy? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4l357z/what_political_parties_existed_in_the_confederacy/ | {
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"There weren't any political parties in the Confederacy, and that's one reason posited by historians for why the Confederate government was so weak. There were no party lines to rally to, or party positions to uphold, or party infrastructure to call on. Not the way that the Union government called on Republicans. And there was no organized opposition to funnel discontent through, the way that the Democrats operated in the North. At least, that's what James McPherson suggests.\n\nThat said, rough factions did exist in the Confederate polity. For details there, look to Kenneth C. Martis and Gyula Pauer's [atlas](_URL_0_). They usefully identify certain politicians as pro or anti-administration, much in the way that historians classify the factions in the US Congress during the Washington administration. Essentially, those members elected from occupied territory, or from areas with heavy slave populations, supported the Davis administration. Those from the back country, the hills and mountains without much in the way of human chattel, opposed many war measures. But those are generalizations."
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2pv752 | Napoleon and Washington | What were the differences in training, logistics, and tactics between the Army of Italy under Napoleon and the Revolutionary Army under Washington? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2pv752/napoleon_and_washington/ | {
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"I disagree with /u/cazador5 on his analysis of Napoleon only because it's too broad and he doesn't focus on the Army of Italy under Napoleon.\n\nWith gaining command of the Army of Italy, Napoleon was expected to fail or at best, keep the Austrian army occupied while others push into Germany. With that said, the army of Italy could be compared to the Continental Army under Washington. However, the large difference is in that of leadership. Napoleon's Army of Italy and Washington's Continental Army were roughly the same size but the largest difference was the style of warfare.\n\nWashington continued the focus on linear warfare that would continue up until the Revolutionary era. However, this would be due to both the people that trained his men (such as Baron von Struben) and the need for organization, however I can't speak much about Washington's army. Napoleon focused on fast, maneuver warfare to augment and help cover for the poor training and lower numbers of men that could fight. However, it was partly due to the interest of French morale (they would be better at moving and with bayonet charges rather than firing in a nice formal line), influence from Napoleon's reading (such as reading about Alexander, Julius Caesar, and other histories such as on Gustavus Aldophus and other famous captains of history), and the tactical ability to move around a more tactically inflexible enemy.\n\nFurther, the need to move fast and quick was because of poor logistics. This is before the high quality logistics that Napoleon depended on and his Chief of Staff Berthier certainly did a lot to simplify and make logistics easier. However, it would always be a problem because Italy was a secondary theatre to the French Director. \n\nTraining was kept to a minimum for the sake of speed, logistics, and need. Soldiers wouldn't need to be trained in anything but movement (formation movement and holding formation during combat). \n\nThe large difference between Washington and Napoleon is methodology. Washington was certainly an old style commander while Napoleon would be the proverbial cutting edge of military leadership."
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22bib6 | Did medieval kings really rule absolutely and with impunity? | Okay... so I've been watching a lot of Game of Thrones, and it got me wondering if it was a realistic depiction of kings. Could a king really do as they pleased? I understand that people believed in the "divine right of kings" but were there examples of kings being deposed when they went too far? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/22bib6/did_medieval_kings_really_rule_absolutely_and/ | {
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"The divine right of kings is actually a relatively late invention.\n\nThe answer to your questions is that medieval kings were absolute monarchs right up to the point at which they weren't. That is, you can issue all the edicts you want, but if you don't have the power to enforce them, they won't be enforced. The French monarchy spent most of the first two centuries of the second millenium consolidating its immediate power base, for example, before being able to expand it outward. Moreover, every decree you make will probably piss *somebody* off, so ruling was (and is) a balancing act. Piss off too many people, and you won't live very long.\n\nThe best book on the subject, and one of my favorite books period, is:\n\n* Kantorowicz, Ernst Hartwig. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology. Princeton Paperbacks. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1997.\n",
"Absolutism wasn't invented until the 17th century, so that was after the Middle Ages were over. During the Middle Ages, there was generally some sort of division of powers between the king and other princes. For example the Golden Bull of 1356 in Germany or the Magna Charta Libertatum of 1251 in England were laws that limited the rights of the kings with respect to other nobles. The kings of the Holy Roman Empire tried hard to establish a hereditary monarchy during the Middle Ages -- but they ultimately failed; the other princes insisted on their right to elect the king. During the late Middle Ages, many cities managed to become basically independent from royal rule -- they called themselves free cities. Then there was the church: many kings got into conflicts with the Pope, and lost.\n\nSo: no. Absolute rule in the Middle Ages is fictional. That said, there was no concept of civil rights either -- the ones who balanced a king's powers were other nobles and not the common people.",
"Kings varied a lot in how powerful they were - partly due to how rich or poor they were, also how diplomatic they were in dealing with powerful nobles and neighbouring kings, and partly also to how lucky they might be. Coming to the throne as a child (eg several generations of the Stuart kings of Scotland), being defeated in battle (many kings), having a bout of illness or insanity (eg Charles the Mad of France, who believed he was made of glass and lost half of France, and his grandson Henry VI of England who seems to have had delusions) were opportunities for the big aristocracy to enhance their powers or for neighbouring countries to invade. As telkanuru says, they may have been absolute monarchs in theory, but in practice they weren't. English monarchs also depended for part of their income on Parliament, which might or might not be easy to influence or control - which of course leads to the English Civil Wars and a king having his head cut off. Charles I seems honestly to have believed he was king by divine right, but the axeman thought differently.",
"John Gillingham (a very reputable scholar on kingship, chivalry, and many other aspects of the central middle ages) has made a copy of his paper ['Expectations of Empire: Some twelfth- and early thirteenth-century English views of what their kings could actually do'](_URL_0_) available on his _URL_1_ profile."
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16tbjd | How much credit can the Indian Independence Movement take for Indian Independence in 1947, and how much of it was due to World War II? | Growing up reading History text books in India, there is almost no mention of World War II in the leadup to Independence. How much credit can the local freedom fighters take, and how much credit is due to international events outside their control? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16tbjd/how_much_credit_can_the_indian_independence/ | {
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"I'd love to know the answer to this as well. \n\nRelatedly, what is the most important precursor state to modern India?\n\nMughals, Maharastra, British Raj?\n\nI think Indian's are taught that their modern state is a spiritual successor to the Maharastra Empire, but I've found it hard to find good historical accounts in the west about that particular state - especially when compared to the British Raj or the Mughal Empire."
]
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1bgl7e | To what extent is it accurate to refer to the Soviet Union as Russia? | E.G. Referring to Operation Barbarossa as the invasion of Russia. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1bgl7e/to_what_extent_is_it_accurate_to_refer_to_the/ | {
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"The Soviet Union was technically a union of soviet socialist republics, hence USSR, and Russia was both one of those republics, and the most dominant. The Russians were the ethnic group most prominent in higher circles of ruling politics, and imparted their culture and language upon most other republics. So, Barbarossa WAS an invasion of 'Russia', so in that sense it wouldn't be inaccurate. \n\nThe trickiness comes when you say things like \"X number of Russians were killed in the battle of Berlin.\" It's rather disrespectful to the many tens of thousands of non-Russians that served, willingly or unwillingly, in the Soviet armies. The same goes for the pre-1917 Russian Empire though. The Tsar was actually crowned 'Tsar of all Russias', which included non-ethnic Russian regions of Belarus, Ukraine, Poland (at different times), the Caucasus, the Crimea, etc.\n\nMost of the time, if you're not writing an academic paper, or if in that paper you emphasize that you know the difference, and you're just doing so for convenience's sake, it's not a big deal."
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376i68 | How do you find trustworthy books and avoid bad history? | Hi, AskHistorians!
When I want to learn more on a period, I generally go to the library or amazon and look for books. But I am often at a loss to find the reference book among the available selection.
Sure, I will stay away if the back cover seems sensationalist. But otherwise, what can I do to sort the wheat from the chaff? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/376i68/how_do_you_find_trustworthy_books_and_avoid_bad/ | {
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"It's a little tricky without the book in your hand. But there are still some common sense things you can check.\n\n1. Is it used by respectable schools? If a upper level undergrad or grad history course at Yale or something lists it in the syllabus, it's probably not a terrible book. Check it's actually a specialized history class though, sometimes tangential history readings will get assigned for other classes and sometimes these readings aren't well thought out.\n\n2. What do academics think about it? You can get a free account on, say, JSTOR to read reviews. Just about every book worth reading has a corresponding review.\n\n3. Who is the author? Generally I prefer famous professors more than others, but there are obvious caveats here. Sometimes the professor in question is controversial (Ferguson / Landes?) or working outside their field (Diamond?). Of course you don't have to be a professor to do excellent work. But if the author is truly excellent, regardless of their credentials, you should be able to find widespread praise from academics.\n\n4. How big is the scope? Beware of *big* history. Beware of books with outsized scope to length ratios. The bigger the subject matter the greater the risk of some terrible blanket generalization / oversimplification / outright falsehood. A book that purports to explain the entire history of homo sapiens is almost guaranteed to be bad. A book on early 80's Atari games less so.\n\n5. When was it written? All else being equal, I will prefer more recent work.\n\nIf you actually have the book in your hands, then the first thing to do is to flip to the foreward / prologue and then to the bibliography.\n\n1. Skim the introduction. If the book makes political claims of any sort, toss it immediately. If instead the book reviews prior work on the subject and places its own content in the context of broader research, keep reading. Bonus points if it acknowledges its own limitations up front.\n\n2. Look at the length and quality of the bibliography. The longer the better. The drier the better.\n\n3. Flip through the book. Does it critically and rigorously engage with primary sources and prior research? Does it throw out elaborations and caveats with every argument it makes? Or is it just breezy narrative?\n\nFinally for some subjects I think it's absolutely necessary that the author have significant technical expertise in a relevant field. I would not bother reading a book on, say, 20th century globalization, written by anyone without an extensive background in economics. I would not bother reading a book on, say, the early quantum mechanics debate, written by anyone without an extensive background in physics.",
"as there is no \"universal truth\", you should take everything with a little grain of salt and think about the intentions the author/publisher might have had, that way even sensationalist media can give you a picture of the truth. if you try to get many different opinions/views on your topic, you should end up with an own solid opinion. at least thats what my history teacher always encouraged us to do.",
"Could anyone recommend/critique the *Cambridge Histories*? I'm currently going through the Japanese histories ones and am looking forward to the Ancient History ones (2nd ed.). \n\nI've leafed through a few others but some seem a bit dated (i.e. haven't been revised in 20 or so years). Still worth it or are older volumes not as trustworthy as newer research?",
"Has it won prizes? If a book has won the Wolfson prize for instance it is one of the two best history books published in the UK in that year. I'm not sure about other prizes but just look them up. Also read reviews, they are indispensable. ",
"If you have access to a college or university library see if they subscribe to Choice Reviews, either the physical magazine or the online version with back issues. It's geared towards academic librarians looking for books, reference sources and databases for the library collection, but the reviews are succinct and written by experts in their fields. ",
"One thing I'd add with history on very recent events is that you should be skeptical about the author if they had any involvement in the events described, and whether their previous stance or version of those events stands up. I know the issue of bias seems obvious and I don't want to discredit every historical tome written by an involved party, like The Gathering Storm, but sometimes it is very obvious to anyone who is already familiar with a subject but not necessarily others.\n\nFor example, Ken Adelman was one of the \"hawk\" (ie. very anti-Soviet) advisors in the Reagan administration of the 1980's. In 2013 he published a book about the Reykjavik Summit between the USA and USSR in 1986, which has very little previous scholarship on it and is treated by most histories of the Cold War as a remarkable footnote but nevertheless a bit of a footnote, even though some participants (allegedly including Gorbachev) have attached great importance to it as part of a process. Adelman, with a clear agenda, takes this academic indecision or indifference to Reykjavik and uses it to justify his support of the widely discredited \"triumphalist\" view of the end of the Cold War. \n\nFrom the very start his book is basically dismissive of historiography of the end of the Cold War that doesn't fulfill his own clearly politically motivated view and cherry picks the Reykjavik evidence while making anecdotal claims about what happened in the actual leader discussions beyond what we know from the scripts. For example he seems to portray Gorbachev as angsty or losing control early on, even though Reagan's account seems to contradict this and also Adelman *wasn't in the room*. I had to read the transcripts for my dissertation and while there is a grain of truth to some of the things he claims (like how Gorbachev did occasionally get frustrated and how he did seem to struggle on the brief moments that they talked about ideology) they are broadly claims made in the spirit of speculative revisionism with an agenda. Having sidestepped academic opinion and of course making such speculative claims, he also gives some claims that are just outright wrong, such as suggesting the Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze had zero impact on Gorbachev's foreign policy.\n\nHowever, if you had little experience or understanding of the topic beforehand - the summit itself or the end of the Cold War - it might be difficult to anticipate the problems with this book, even if a cursory Google search or look at the author description will show that he was a US government member; it doesn't show his interest in displaying Reykjavik as a sort of American triumph. His criticism of existing narratives would be easy to take at face value for some I feel.\n\nThe way to avoid this is, as I said, investigating the authors background, but also what can help is to read some academic or even newspaper reviews of the book. Thankfully every review I could find of the book pointed out that as you get into it Adelman pulls no punches about his agenda and that this view shouldn't be treated anywhere near as gospel just because there isn't much historiography of Reykjavik. "
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2rruao | How were the first women's uniforms designed for modern militaries? | Reposting this question in hopes of getting an answer:
> I'm specifically thinking about US uniforms for Women's Auxiliaries during WWII and after, but I think this question is particular enough that I can leave it open to any military. (I was looking in particular at [these fine specimens of uniformology](_URL_0_) when I thought to ask this.)
> When women started joining the armed forces, how did they go about developing uniform code for them? Was there an active effort to make the women's uniforms parallel to men's uniforms, or was consideration given to current fashions and standards of modesty? Were any fashion designers consulted? Why do so many uniforms for women include skirts, which are a highly gendered piece of clothing and kinda impractical to boot? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2rruao/how_were_the_first_womens_uniforms_designed_for/ | {
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"Interesting question!\n\nLet's start with your last question, since that's actually fairly straightforward to answer. \n\n > Why do so many uniforms for women include skirts, which are a highly gendered piece of clothing and kinda impractical to boot?\n\nYou basically answered your own question right there... Skirts *are* a highly gendered piece of clothing, and they were consciously chosen for women's uniforms because, even though women were being allowed to serve in the military, they were still considered *apart* from the traditional masculine military narrative. \n\nAs M. Michaela Hampf puts it:\n\n > Despite the successful institutional integration of the women’s corps into the U.S. Army, the women remained the constitutive outside of the organization. The uniforms with their symbolic as well as material aspects highlight the contradictions in the process of integrating women into the military. Military and societal discourses on women and soldiers were materialized in the design of the women’s uniforms. Likewise, the way the uniforms were procured and distributed by the army reflects the reluctance with which the Army regarded the women’s Corps as a military institution. This brings the power structures into view, within which the construction of the category woman/soldier took place. At the same time, the construction of the woman/soldier was determined by the use(s) the women themselves made of the uniform. ([Release a Man for Combat: The Women's Army Corps During World War II](_URL_2_))\n\nHampf then goes on to say:\n\n > The symbolic character is highlighted by the choice and design of the uniform and insignia during the initial period of the WAAC. During the planning phase questions of how “feminine” and how “soldier like” Waacs were supposed to look in order to comply with both societal expectations and military expediency were negotiated of the design of the uniform. The enormous amount of advertising for the uniform was thought necessary in order to convey the notion of a “respectable femininity” further emphasizes the symbolic significance. The constant changes in the appearance of the uniform during the war also express the importance and fragility of this concept. ([Ibid.](_URL_1_))\n\nAs for how the first women's uniforms were developed (again, this is from a United States military perspective-- Anyone with info on non-U.S. military uniforms for women please chime in), it's like anything with the military... It's design by committee. In fact, other than [the SS having Hugo Boss on the payroll](_URL_4_) designing their (admittedly pretty snazzy) uniforms, American military uniforms were put together by a senior group of military leaders, and women's uniforms were apparently no different. Hampf goes into a lot of detail talking about how the Army's Quartermaster Corps, which had designed men's uniforms for over 200 years by the time WWII rolled around, had a hell of a time figuring out how to strike the societally necessary balance between \"ladylike\" and \"utilitarian.\" It was so inconvenient for women enlistees that there were complaints constantly about the skirted uniforms being impractical for the jobs that needed to be done. Hampf outlines the response from the War Department to these issues in a sadly hilarious little missive known as \"Pamphlet 35-2: The WAC Officer -- A Guide To Successful Leadership\":\n\n > The woman in uniform in the military setting is often doing a man’s work. Yet she must constantly remember that her effectiveness is going to be decreased if she tries to imitate the man or if she tries to trade on her sex. She must remain feminine in her personality; be military in the performance of her duty. She should not be afraid to accept gracefully the courtesies which American men naturally accord to women.\n\n\n^I ^will ^refrain ^from ^making ^any ^editorial ^comment ^here.\n\nAnyway, the book I'm pulling all of this from has a wealth of info about the creation of the women's Army corps in WWII, and if you're interested in this topic, I definitely recommend it. \n\nAnother journal that looks good is [A Companion to Women's Military History](_URL_3_), but it's admittedly covering a broader range of military history than just the 20th century. There's also [Fighting Different Wars: Experience, Memory, and the First World War in Britain](_URL_0_), which has a chapter dedicated to men and women's service in the preceding war to WWII.\n\n**Edited for spelling and formatting**",
"I believe the [Army Uniform Board] (_URL_0_) wanted the female uniforms to look more fashionable in order to attract more women to service after WWII. \n\n[Hattie Carnegie] (_URL_2_) designed the Army Green uniform for women in 1950. [More about that] (_URL_1_)\n\nI believe for the most part women held roles like clerical work, analyzing photos, etc. So the need for their uniforms to be battle-functional was small. (That's not to say women weren't in situations where a skirt is a hindrance, nor is it to say that there weren't women in pants. I just think it wasn't a large enough number that the military thought it necessary to change the uniform.)"
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/support/uniforms/uniformregulations/chapter6/Pages/6701.aspx"
] | [
[
"https://books.google.com/books?id=2lngjC7hKcAC&pg=PA17&dq=women%27s+uniforms+world+war+2&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Dh6vVJamFoLYggTeoYLgBA&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBTgU#v=onepage&q=women's%20uniforms%20world%20war%202&f=false",
"https://books.google.com/books?id=dPGF3rqJlyEC&lpg=PA174&dq=women's%20uniforms%20world%20war%202&pg=PA175#v=onepage&q=women's%20uniforms%20world%20war%202&f=false",
"https://books.google.com/books?id=dPGF3rqJlyEC&pg=PA174&dq=women%27s+uniforms+world+war+2&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4B2vVNOfM8myggSKz4H4Bw&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=women's%20uniforms%20world%20war%202&f=false",
"https://books.google.com/books?id=UoHbxKfyTcUC&pg=PA614&dq=women%27s+uniforms+world+war+2&hl=en&sa=X&ei=AR6vVNfPGsykgwSX5IPQDQ&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=women's%20uniforms%20world%20war%202&f=false",
"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-15008682"
],
[
"http://www.army.mil/article/42045/the-army-uniform-board-aub/",
"http://www.qmfound.com/Army_Green_Uniform.htm#An%20Army%20Green%20Uniform%20for%20All-Year%20Wear",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattie_Carnegie"
]
] |
|
1icd0x | Monday Mysteries | Least-accurate historical books and films | **Previously:**
- [Literary mysteries](_URL_13_)
- [Contested reputations](_URL_10_)
- [Family/ancestral mysteries](_URL_6_)
- [Challenges in your research](_URL_3_)
- [Lost Lands and Peoples](_URL_1_)
- [Local History Mysteries](_URL_7_)
- [Fakes, Frauds and Flim-Flam](_URL_2_)
- [Unsolved Crimes](_URL_12_)
- [Mysterious Ruins](_URL_5_)
- [Decline and Fall](_URL_8_)
- [Lost and Found Treasure](_URL_4_)
- [Missing Documents and Texts](_URL_0_)
- [Notable Disappearances](_URL_9_)
**Today:**
The "Monday Mysteries" series will be focused on, well, mysteries -- historical matters that present us with problems of some sort, and not just the usual ones that plague historiography as it is. Situations in which our whole understanding of them would turn on a (so far) unknown variable, like the sinking of the Lusitania; situations in which we only know that something did happen, but not necessarily how or why, like the deaths of Richard III's nephews in the Tower of London; situations in which something has become lost, or become found, or turned out never to have been at all -- like the art of Greek fire, or the Antikythera mechanism, or the historical Coriolanus, respectively.
**This week, we'll be returning to a topic that has proven to be a perennial favourite: which popular films and books do the** ***worst*** **job presenting or portraying their historical subject matter?**
- What novels do the worst job at maintaining a semblance of historical accuracy while also claiming to be doing so?
- What about non-fictional or historiographical works? Are there any you can think of in your field that fling success to the side and seem instead to embrace failure as an old friend?
- What about films set in the past or based on historical events?
- What about especially poor documentaries?
Moderation will be relatively light in this thread, as always, but please ensure that your answers are thorough, informative and respectful.
**Next week, on Monday Mysteries: We'll be turning the lens back upon ourselves once more to discuss those areas of history or historical study that continue to give us trouble. Can't understand Hayden White? Does food history baffle you? Are half your primary sources in a language you can barely read? If so, we'll want to hear about it!**
---
And speaking of historical films, we have **[an open discussion](_URL_11_)** of Stanley Kubrick's 1957 film ***Paths of Glory*** going on over in /r/WWI today -- if you have anything to say about it, please feel free to stop by! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1icd0x/monday_mysteries_leastaccurate_historical_books/ | {
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"Two movies spring to mind that are both relevant to my interests. The Patriot and Braveheart. For crimes against history (and arguably other things!) Mel Gibson needs arrested and locked away somewhere.\n\nI was discussing on irc that, when Braveheart was released in '95, I was an impressionable 12 year old and I thought that this was the best thing since sliced bread. I tried to watch it again half a year ago and had to switch it off when the lack of a bridge at The Battle of Stirling Bridge put the final nail in the coffin. Gibson's excuse for removing the most important piece of the battlefield? *\"It got in the way\"*. Got to hate how historical fact gets in the way, eh?",
"Although I do enjoy watching them, any film about to Middle Ages in grossly inaccurate. *Becket*, for instance, treats the two Kings, Louis VI and Henry II, as sovereigns with strong concepts and national identity, while in fact their conflict was more of a civil war between two French princes. A even worse example of historical inaccuracy is the recent *Robin Hood* film starring Russell Crowe. The French speak French, while the Angevins speak English. Richard I acts as a man of the people, interacting with his troops as an equal never mind that they would have spoken different languages and a king would never have acted as an equal to his troops. *A knight's tale*, while fun to watch, is humorously inaccurate. Chaucer is a wandering poet, when in reality he was a courtier and gentleman. All the noblemen mentioned are somewhat made up (there's a reference to the Duke of Burgundy at a tournament in the mid 1350s, when the Duke of Burgundy would then have been 10 years old!) and it really seems like the writers were just making things up using history books for children as a reference. These movies can be enjoyable to watch, but they make me cringe with their errors. They make no attempt to accurately portray the medieval mindset or culture. ",
"I've written quite a bit on this topic in /r/BadHistory:\n\n* [The Patriot](_URL_0_)\n\n* [Sahara](_URL_4_)\n\n* [The Legend of Zorro](_URL_6_)\n\n* [Rebels and Redcoats](_URL_3_)\n\n* [Mythbusters](_URL_5_)\n\nThough slight off topic, I've done it for video games, too:\n\n* [Age of Empires III](_URL_1_)\n\n* [Assassin's Creed III](_URL_2_)\n\nOne of the themes that I constantly come back to is intention. If a movie, book, video game, or other form of popular media is portraying itself as historically accurate, I think it's fair to assess it as such. If, like *Pirates of the Caribbean*, it has no such illusions, I think it's a bit of a silly exercise to tear it apart. Thoughts and opinions?",
"OK, so this is so wide open in my area as to be most easily summed up as: all of them. That's maybe not *quite* fair, but it's pretty certain you pick up anything fictional on Jacobites (or hell, all of Scottish history), it'll be romanticized and inaccurate.\n\n*Rob Roy* comes to mind, primarily as Sir Walter Scott had a very heavy hand in establishing that Scottish Romanticism that infests basically everything afterward. Now I have to say that I enjoyed *Rob Roy* both times I read it--there's some great observations and one of my favourite (and possibly only) grammatically based insults--but it definitely simplifies the conflict into a Catholic-Protestant one. The highlanders are basically \"noble savages,\" having their own moral code outside the norms expected by English narrator Francis Osbaldistone and generally seen by him as somewhat less, often showing characteristics of the *teuchter* stereotype (think Scottish-style country bumpkin).\n\nSo I don't wind up wandering into novel critique rather than history, I'll also add that Scott's creation of a Scottish culture here sort of filled a void left after the second Jacobite Rising (1745), when various laws functionally outlawed many aspects of Gaelic culture and the later Highland Clearances damaged it further. In other words, there's good mixed in with the bad. Also, before anyone asks, I have see the movie *Rob Roy*, but it was so long ago I couldn't add any useful commentary about it.\n\nDiana Gabaldon's *Outlander* series also deserves mention. To its credit, though, it's NOT intended as historical fiction in spite of what many will tell you--it's more of a historical romance with light sci-fi elements and that's enough to make me forgive a lot of its historical problems. After all, when your main character is a time-travelling WWII nurse who meets the Loch Ness monster, historical accuracy is maybe not high on the list.\n\nOn the other hand, it bugs me to no end that so many people feel that this is a good and accurate description of the culture, language and time period. Highland society is depicted as entirely feudal, when the actual clan system had been fading for nearly a century before the book('s historical section) takes place (some time in the 1740s--You can read more in L. Murray Pittock's *The Myth of the Jacobite Clans*). Jamie, the main highland character, is supposed to be a Gaelic speaker also fluent in English. However, his \"accent\" is Doric. That's maybe more of a linguistic complaint than a historical one, but Doric sounds nothing like a Gaelic accent in English--there are arguments it's a separate language (leaving aside debates of language v. dialect). When he does speak Gaelic, it's clearly been translated with a dictionary and not by a native speaker. I'm sure it's fine if it looks like \"flavouring,\" but it's pretty funny when you understand.\n\nAs for the historic portrayal, she draws straight from Scottish Romanticism, giving her characters clan tartans (not really a thing) and providing very anachronistic medical treatment which is accepted as normal. Early 20th century drugs can be perfectly synthesized from herbal compounds--again, forgivable given the genre of the novel.\n\nThere's also a lot of really interesting stuff about the portrayal of Jacobitism in music, but I'll just post a [PDF](_URL_0_) that gives an excellent run-down of two writers, Robert Burns and Baroness Nairne, since this post is already getting long.\n\nEdit: I forgot to mention my annoyance with the title \"Outlander\": supposedly, it's the translation of the Gaelic word *Sassenach*. Unfortunately, a *sassenach* is one from *Sassain*, the Gaelic name of England. So rather than meaning \"foreigner\" or the poetic \"outlander\", it just means \"Englishman.\"",
"My personal favorite is *Indiana Jones and The Temple of the Crystal Skull*. Jones parades through Peru talking about translating an Andean *written language* \"if I take it through Mayan first.\" Okay Dr. Jones, way to assume that all New World languages can translate each other - where's the Rosetta Stone between Maya and Inka, two vastly different cultures doing stuff at completely different times? - and also to translate a written language that doesn't. Exist. Ever.\n\n\"Oh look, it's near Nasca, where the lines can only be seen from the sky!\" Yeah, and from the immediately adjacent mountains where Toribio Xesspe actually first spotted them. \"Let's go check out the ruined site\" that inexplicably looks like Guatemala. And the ending...just...I can't.\n\nNow, here's what you actually make an Indy flick from: the disappearance of Punchao, the Inka solar aspect idol of daylight. Said to be a statue of a ten year old boy entirely of gold, it was put out on the Qorikancha's patio every sunrise and taken in every dusk - it was incredibly important. \n\nAnd it disappeared. Nobody knows if the Inka Remnant secreted it away, or if the conquistadors melted it down, or what. But if Indy will go after the Holy Grail and the Cross of Coronado he owes it to look closer at the *real* treasures of the New World. ",
"So, [the Farinelli movie](_URL_1_). (Someone's uploaded the whole thing to Youtube, and there's lots of snippets of the songs on there too, if you're curious go take a look.) So much going on with that one. Everything from the music to the personalities is wrong, and it makes me sad, because it's the *one time* one of my guys makes it to the movies! \n\nIn the movie Farinelli was portrayed as a womanizer and very combative with other people including Handel, but there is absolutely no evidence that he was anything like that, and ample evidence for him being a polite, diplomatic, respectable sort of guy. He was a devout Catholic, and [he may have even been gay.](_URL_0_) Many castrati did enjoy spreading their celebrity with the ladies, including Caffarelli and Tenducci, but there aren't any sorts of exciting tales about Farinelli's sexy exploits. He also kept his high-ranking position in the Spanish court through 2 rulers, and got rather amicably fired with a nice pension by the 3rd (who just didn't like music), which indicates a guy who really knew how to get along with people. Carlo Broschi Farinelli was, by all accounts and evidence, a pretty nice man. \n\nThe sex scenes are pretty strange. He and his brother like to share women, where Carlo gets them all warmed up and excited and then Riccardo swoops in to \"finish the deed\" while Carlo watches from a chair. This is, you know, just not something most siblings would be in to period, plus, totally misses the obvious point of sleeping with a castrated man if you're a lady. They wanted to make an artistic point about the sexual incompleteness of emasculation and how unhappy he is with his sex life, which is fine, but it's not very likely anyone did this, and there's certainly no record of it. \n\nThere is also no evidence of personal animosity between Farinelli and Handel, as was portrayed in the movie. They were working at rival opera houses in London at the time, but there is no evidence that things got unprofessional. Most likely story is that Handel heard him sing early on in Italy and opted not to try to work with him, probably because Farinelli's acting according to contemporary reports was pretty awful, and most of the singers Handel liked to work with had decent acting ability. \n\nIn the movie Handel is portrayed as dismissive and mean towards castrati, but in reality Handel had good working relationships with many castrati, including top names like Senesino (who was the leading man for many of his best operas during his London period), Caffarelli (whose voice inspired Handel's most famous aria, \"Ombra mai fu\"), Nicolini, Bernacchi, and more. Handel and Senesino both had difficult personalities according to contemporaries, and the fact that they managed to work together for many years indicates he didn't have a big beef with castrati. \n\nThe music they used in the movie is pretty much random stuff from the period. Every once in a while there will be snippets of an actual Farinelli aria, but there's a Caffarelli aria in the scene when he battles the trumpet player, and he also sings \"Lascia ch'io pianga\" in a big dramatic scene, which was written for a woman. In the climatic opera scene he actually appears to be singing a one-man-band version of *Rinaldo* because he sings two arias from two different characters, and there's no one else on the stage. Farinelli had a lot of interesting music (and he occasionally wrote some for himself!) so it's a bummer they went without it in order to highlight Handel, who never wrote for him. \n\nThere's lots of other little things the movie got wrong, but I care mostly about the discredit they did to Handel and Carlo Broschi's personalities, which, if they were still alive, could make a decent case for slander, and the rather casual discarding of his amazing body of musical work. They should have made a movie about Caffarelli, he was crazy, he had lots of sex and almost killed a guy in a duel about French opera, and was vain about both his singing and his looks, so I'm not sure how you could possibly make a movie that would slander him! ",
"In the spirit of this thread, I think all of you are giving off too many [negative waves](_URL_0_). \n\nThis, of course, comes from Kelly's Heroes. And it features the incomparable Donald Sutherland as the aptly named Sgt. Oddball. This character has been somehow sent back in time from the 60's or 70's and keeps complaining about the \"negative waves\" from other characters. He is a tank commander, and i'll let him describe his modified Sherman:\n\n > Well, yeah, man, you see, like, all the tanks we come up against are bigger and better than ours, so all we can hope to do is, like, scare 'em away, y'know. This gun is an ordinary 76mm but we add this piece of pipe onto it, and the Krauts think, like, maybe it's a 90mm. We got our own ammunition, it's filled with paint. When we fire it, it makes... pretty pictures. Scares the hell outta people! We have a loudspeaker here, and when we go into battle we play music, very loud. It kind of... calms us down. \n\nThis movie and Oddball in particular are favorites of mine *because* they are so far from historical accuracy. If the movie got these things slightly wrong, I would be worked up into a lather and could rant for days on the subject. Since so much of this movie is farcical, I can sit back and laugh while enjoying a beer, leaving history on the bookshelf for a spell while I am simply entertained.",
"*The Last of the Mohicans* with Daniel Day Lewis , based on the popular novel by James Fenimore Cooper, has some positively repulsive uses of the literary trope \"Noble Savage\" during the French and Indian War. \n\nThe movie, for those who aren't familiar, follows the actions of a tiny band of Native Americans who are the last of their tribe [The Mohicans]. The tribe elder adopted a white son many years ago, and raised him as his own. He does have his own son, and the three of them revel and hunt with settlers, acting as their advocate, albeit as a largely neutral party.\n\nIn come the French, with their Native American Allies (true), however their allies are all cold blooded \"savages\" (false), a word that is bandied about moreoften than people die in this action packed historical disaster. The Native Americans attack \"defenseless\" settlers, typified by screaming helpless women, burn their houses with them inside, but take no possessions, because they hate all material things. The action, arguably meant to be a representation of negative relations and retaliatory sentiment, remains the backdrop to the evil Native-American leader, Magua.\n\nMagua has qualms with pleasing the white man (another phrase generously used in any scene featuring the Native Americans), and takes a hardline stance against them. This manifests itself in the copious amount of a.) betrayal b.) cold hearted killing c.) propensity to lodge a tomahawk in seemingly anyone, at any time d.) scalping e.) eating peoples hearts to avenge loved ones and f.) more scalping. \n\nOverall it is just a delightful family-friendly film featuring all your favorite Native American stereotypes that tries to underscore Native American alliances with French forces, and the savagery of the Frontier. Meanwhile, the Mohicians, with their token white half-brother, set out on a quest to save a damsel in distress, and act as the only moral control in the entire story, wrapping up the misrepresentations of Colonial-Era Native American relations on the Frontier. ",
"Some of the movies being ripped in this thread are really fluff entertainment that's not supposed to be taken seriously. Zorro? Indiana Jones?\n\nI'd be much more interested in how people see the accuracies of movies that are presented as historically accurate, \"serious\" films - Apollo 13, All The President's Men, Saving Private Ryan... these \"Oscar bait\" films actually make the public think they know \"what actually happened\".",
"I guess this is a minor gripe, but it's something I notice more and more now that I'm paying attention to it. Every film - and I'm not kidding, nearly every single one - set during the French Revolution gets at least a few parts of the process of execution by guillotine wrong.\n\nAny adaptation of _A Tale of Two Cities_ is a case in point. Take [this 1980 made-for-TV](_URL_2_) version as an example. In this clip, Sidney Carton has taken Charles Darnay's place on the chopping block. He is being led by cart from the Conciergerie, where all criminals condemned to death were held, to the Place de la Révolution (currently the Place de la Concorde) where the guillotine platform stood.\n\nFirst of all, the hair and the clothes. Condemned prisoners - men and women - **always had their hair cut short above the neck** before they ever left the Conciergerie so as not to impede the cutting of the blade. They remove their ties, their waistcoats or frock coats, and have their shirt collars removed or cut away. Their **hands are always bound behind their backs** from the moment they set foot outside. These criteria are not negotiable.\n\nSidney Carton's flowing locks? He never would have had them. Holding hands with that woman prisoner? Impossible without some very awkward positioning.\n\nSecond, the cart ride itself. Each tumbril that transported condemned prisoners was always accompanied by a mounted escort of _gendarmes_. Because of this, **no one would _ever_ throw anything at the prisoners**. A few onlookers might shout obscenities, but that was about it. Since executions became quite frequent under the Terror, they rarely drew as large a crowd as we see in movies. A lot of people showed up when Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were executed, but others would draw maybe a hundred onlookers.\n\nThird, if there are multiple prisoners, the assistant executioners would **arrange the prisoners in a straight line, backs facing the platform** so they can't see the guillotine. During this entire time, the military escort is still guarding the prisoners, so the likelihood of the crowd getting close enough to touch or harass them is slim to nil. The executioners did not treat the prisoners roughly; too often movies want to show a prisoner \"struggling\" as he or she is led to the guillotine (see below for why that's impossible).\n\nThen there's the guillotine itself. [An accurate French guillotine](_URL_4_) is about twelve to fourteen feet high and two and a half feet wide. It would have a 90-pound drop blade - known as a _mouton_ - and it would have a plank used for sliding the condemned into place called a _bascule_. The condemned, hands already tied behind their back, would be lashed to the _bascule_ with rope at the elbow- and knee-level while still standing, then tilted over flat on their stomach, slid forward and locked into place with the stock, called a _lunette_. Once the prisoner is effectively immobilized, the executioner would pull a lever on the side, which released the blade to fall and sever the condemned's head from their body.\n\nThe thing that movies screw up the most often is the rope. Films always portray the blade of the guillotine as being attached to a rope, usually threaded through a spool or pulley near the top. The device works by someone merely pulling the blade up by the rope and then releasing the rope to drop the blade. \n\nThis is horribly, _horribly_ wrong.\n\nWith a real guillotine, **_there is no rope_** when it drops. The whole idea behind the guillotine was that it was a more scientific, convenient, and humane method of execution; the guillotine was designed to minimize the opportunity for the execution to be botched. Nothing was meant to impede the fall of the blade once it was released, and thus the blade isn't attached to anything when it falls. What holds the blade in place is a small double hook near the top that unclasps when the executioner throws the switch. \n\nYet there's that rope, still attached when the blade falls. The same thing happens in the [1958 theatrical version](_URL_0_) of _A Tale of Two Cities_. Practically every movie with a guillotine makes this mistake.\n\nOther films will frequently get the proportions of the guillotine wrong, making it [too tall](_URL_3_) or [too wide](_URL_1_). They'll also frequently leave out the _bascule_, depicting a guillotine whose _lunette_ is level with the ground and that the executioner would have to wrestle the condemned to the ground to use (and where will the blade fall, into the platform?).\n\n**EDIT**: fixed broken link.\n\n\n\n",
"I'm interested in how people here feel about the norwegian war world II resistance movie: Max Manus. ",
"Coming a little late to the game, but if we're going to talk movies I have to mention *Philadelphia.* Technically not historical, as it was made in 1993 and set around the same time, but it has now become a part of history. I know a lot of people love this movie (who doesn't love Tom Hanks?) but it drives me crazy with its portrayal of gay men. It's a good legal drama, but a really problematic movie about homophobia and AIDS. ",
"Actually, I've got a question for /u/NMW. I read your post about a month ago over on /r/films when you were discussing the historical inaccuracies of *The Trench*, starring Daniel Craig. After reading your post, I was curious as to which WW1 movies you think ARE historically accurate?\n\nOne of my favorites, [The Lost Battalion,] (_URL_0_) seems somewhat more historically accurate than other WW1 movies i've seen. I remember catching a showing of the film on the History Channel (back when it showed historically related material) where two historians were invited to offer their insights toward the film, and their overall conclusion was that the producers did a pretty good job in keeping with the facts. One aspect that the film doesn't represent very well, however, is the day to day trench life (due to the subject matter taking place in the Argonne Forest.) What are your thoughts? Others may weigh in as well!\n\nEdit: I linked a Youtube copy of the movie above. ",
"could anyone give me a list or direct me to a list of good historically accurate movies by any chance",
"I'd like to throw in my two cents. When I was growing up, one of my favorite TV shows that I watched was \"Baa Baa Black Sheep\" (later renamed to Black Sheep Squadron during its syndication,) which was a semi-autobiographical account of the exploits of one of the most famous Marine fighter squadrons in the South Pacific during WWII. I say semi-autobiographical because the lead technical adviser to the show was none other than the squadron's CO, Maj. Gregory \"Pappy\" Boyington, who was portrayed by Robert Conrad. The show, which ran for two seasons, illustrated various aspects of life as a combat aviator in the South Pacific during the Battle of the Solomon Sea, although the series was fundamentally jingoistic, cliche, and VERY inconsistent with the true history of VMF-214. \n\nDespite the historical inaccuracies (more on that in a second,) one of the best things about the series is the aerial photography. Shots that depict formation flying, aerial dogfighting tactics, combat reenactments, and aircraft takeoff/landing/taxiing are incredible considering the time period (1970's.) Also, the show tried to implement archival footage in aerial combat scenes, to give the show a more “true to life” feel. Sometimes it worked, but other times it was quite obvious that the archival footage didn’t match up to the reenactment. For example, one episode showed a B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber coming in for a landing with one wheel down (actual archival WWII footage of a damaged B-17 attempting an emergency landing) only to taxi down the runway (modern footage) with the other wheel having magically appeared. After the pilot cuts the engines, he gets out and says that he has flown in some supplies to the squadron. Despite the obvious “magic wheel,” this scenario is highly unlikely for two reasons: first, a heavy bomber needs a FAR longer runway than a fighter aircraft, especially when comparing the B-17 to the F4U Corsair, due to the huge weight difference between the two. Also, why use a heavy bomber when you could use a proper supply plane (such as the Douglass C-47 Skytrain,) which was rated to operate from the shorter runways used at fighter based airfields.\n\nAnother instance of an archival/modern footage blooper was in the case of an aircraft carrier crash landing. The modern footage showed an F4U Corsair (flown by a malaria ridden Pappy Boyington) coming in for a landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier (shown using footage of a modern “angled deck” aircraft carrier,) yet when the plane lands, archival footage of an F6F Hellcat crashing into the superstructure of a WWII “straight deck” aircraft carrier is shown. Also, there is a small inconsistency in the landing approach of the Corsair in the modern footage: the Corsair was known for having a prominent engine cowling with a high angle. This prevented pilots from flying straight at the carrier during its landing approach, as they often couldn’t see the landing signal officer. As a result, they had to fly in a 90 degree gentle curve upon approach, and straighten out at the last possible second. \n \nHowever, the real inconsistencies are the episode plots and the overall environment of the island. Beginning in the second half of the first season, a hospital full of nurses somehow appears on the other end of the island. This results in more than a few drunken parties between the pilots and the nurses, at a time when Vella La Cava was a front line airfield. (Interesting fact: Vella La Cava was the pseudonym given to the real life Vella LaVella, which was the actual island the Black Sheep were based out of. The same was done for Espiritos Santos, a major airfield that the Allies used during the Battle of the Solomon Sea, which was portrayed as the island Espiritos Marcos in the series.) In some episodes, the pilots, nurses, and maintenance crews have to fight off waves of Japanese soldiers that have somehow invaded the island and started an assault on the airfield! (This event is not entirely fictional; during the most tense months of fighting on Guadalcanal in 1942, the Cactus Air Force was constantly having to fly ground support missions within a few hundred yards of their own airfield.) \n\nThe show did do a good job of portraying a few very famous missions that were carried out during the war. The mission that resulted in the death of Admiral Yamamoto is loosely portrayed, as well as a mission that Charles Lindbergh flew with VMF-222 against the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul (again, very loosely portrayed.) Also, a portrayal of the “engine/fuel leaning techniques” that Lindbergh taught to American P-38 pilots is shown in one episode.\n\n",
"I'd be interested in a historial accuracy summary of Master and Commander.",
"I've recently decided to read Hanna Arendt's \"Eichman in Jerusalem\" and to my surprise, when i got to the chapter on deportations, what i read about Greece, a subject i have studied and on which i have easy access to bibliography, was in direct contrast to what i remembered. A brief summary of what she claims is:\n\n Alois Brunner and Wisliceny arrived, on February 1943, in Thessaloniki, a city where aprox. 50.000 Jews were living, as Eichman's emmissaries with orders to enforce the Endlosung. With the help of the Military Commander of Thessaloniki, Max Merten, in two months time, all Jews of Thessaloniki were deported to Auschwitz, with the exception of 200 members of the Jewish Counsil and their families. Greeks were indifferent to the fate of Jews, and some partisan groups even commended the Germans on their efforts. On the fall of 1943, the same fate awaited the aprox. 13.000 Jews of southern Greece, who until that time were protected by the Italian Military Authorities. Many Greek Jews replaced the Hungarian Sonderkommandos in Auschwitz, and survived until 1944, when after an uprise only one of them survived. Greek indifference on the fate of Jews continued even after the war, when Max Merten visited Greece, was arrested and then released to german authorities. This is a direct quote from the book\" \"His case is probably unique, as other countries' courts imposed severe sentences to war criminals\". This is, more or less the gist of it. In contrast to Greece's indifference, Bulgaria and Rumania fought for \"their\" Jews. \n\nThis account has many innacuracies and, some of it, is completely false. This part is true:\n > Alois Brunner and Wisliceny arrived, on February 1943, in Thessaloniki, a city where aprox. 50.000 Greek Jews were living, as Eichman's emmissaries with orders to enforce the Endlosung. \n\nIndeed, it was Brunner, Wisliceny and Merten who orchestrated the deportation of the Greek Jews to Auschwitz. The first two were sent by Eichman, to Thessaloniki, which was the first city in Greece to suffer at the hands of the germans. But, it was the usual mix of inability to believe anything bad would happen to the jewish people in the hands of the germans (even though this is 1943 we're talking about, and some rumours must have reached the ears of Greek Jews), the willingness to collaborate with them in order to avoid retribution, and the clever escalation of anti-semitic measures in a short period of time, that proved to be, as in other cases, deadly for the fate of the Greek Jews of Thessaloniki. \n\nIn Thessaloniki, the Greek ex servicemen's association reacted angrily when disabled jewish war veterans were required to register, and after more interventions of behalf of the Jews, the germans threatened to execute them. And, even though, the authorities did little to nothing to help the Jews of Thessaloniki, one must not forget this was a city under german occupation, the authorities had no power over the matter and it was the first Greek city in which Endlosung was enforced. Furthermore, as the Bulgarians were eagerly awaiting to get their hands on Thessaloniki after the war, local authorities believed Max Merten was an advocate of the Greek side and did not want to forfeit his support on this matter. The little to none assimilition of Salonican Jews in the Greek society, did not help their cause either. \n\nAthens, on the other hand was completely different. Apart from the Greeks who hid their jewish neighbours in all of the country, the authorities directly opposed the deportations. Archbishop Damaskinos, condemned them in many formal letters to the prime minister and to the german plenipotentiary. He aproved the issue of pre-dated baptism certificates to Jews, only a small number of whom was actually baptised. The head of the police, issued 1.200 false identity cards to Jews. Even more are saved because of the resistanse. The fate of Thessaloniki, gave valuable lessons to the rest of the Greeks. The Athens Synagogue register vanishes, after a fake burglary, conveniently attributed to a fascist anti-semitic organization, after which, the germans had no clue as to the exact number of the Athenian Jews. The \"anti-semitic\" resistance organizes a fake kidnap of the Chief Rabbi of Athens, Bartzilai, in order to further obstruct the germans, and to avoid the fate Salonican Jews had under the guidance of Chief Rabbi Koretz, a highly controversial figure. Bartzilai and his family, remain with the resistance until the end of the war.\n\nSo, Hanna Arendt's claim on the Greeks' indifference to the fate of the Jews is not only innacurate, but downright false. Comparison between Greece, Bulgaria and Rumania is also uncalled for, because Greece was an occupied country, whereas Bulgaria and Rumania were Germany's allies.\n\nAs for the last part, the one about Merten's release:\nMax Merten arrived in Greece to testify at the trial of his former interpreter, in his official capacity as the Secretary of the german Ministry of Justice. He was recognized by his victims, was arrested by Greek authorities, indicted, tried and sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment, of which he served 2,5 years. The Greek Government succumbed to german pressure to extradite Merten to germany, under the condition that he will be tried by the german courts on his involvement to the deportations of Greek Jews to concentration camps. Merten was arrested as soon as he set foot on germany, and was detained for 11 days, after which he was set free.\n\nSo. From my limited knowledge of this specific chapter of history, and the research and conclusions of esteemed historians, this is not a very historically accurate book. Heck! It is not even accurate about current events!\n\nSources:\nM.Mazower, Salonica, city of ghosts, Harper Perennial 2005, pp. 422-442.\nH. Fleischer, Stemma kai Swastica, Papazisi, pp. 296-358. \nFor the trial of Merten, which is also mentioned in H. Fleicher's book, there are only Greek and German articles in the wikipedia. As the german one is less than a stub, i will paste the link to the Greek one, here, _URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1cvbaz/monday_mysteries_missing_documents_and_texts/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1g1we7/monday_mysteries_lost_lands_and_peoples/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1f57b0/monday_mysteries_fakes_frauds_and_flimflammery_in/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gj0q2/monday_mysteries_what_in_your_research_is_proving/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1dcbb3/monday_mysteries_lost_and_found_treasure/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1e9el2/monday_mysteries_ancient_ruins/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gz7ac/monday_mysteries_your_family_mysteries/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1fl9uw/monday_mysteries_local_history_mysteries/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1dslor/monday_mysteries_decline_and_fall/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ce73h/monday_mysteries_notable_disappearances/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1hfffk/monday_mysteries_contested_reputations/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/wwi/comments/1icejy/monday_at_the_movies_paths_of_glory_1957/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1eoypm/monday_mysteries_unsolved_crimes_in_history/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1hv6me/monday_mysteries_literary_mysteries/"
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1fy2kd/assassins_creed_iii_charles_lee_looks_like_an_80s/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1fsekp/rebels_redcoats_proof_that_even_respected_sources/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1fpu6c/clive_cusslers_sahara_perhaps_the_first_time_the/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1fnhis/reenactors_and_presentism_dont_trust/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1flmt8/the_legend_of_zorro_what_happens_when_producers/"
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"http://ecti.pennpress.org/PennPress/journals/ecti/sampleArticle2.pdf"
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1hhv5p/tuesday_trivia_historys_greatest_bromances_and/caunf7s",
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"http://litreactor.com/sites/default/files/images/column/2012/10/tale-of-two-cities-kill.jpg",
"http://kootation.com/uploads/galleryhistoricalfigures.com*images*Guillotine_Full.jpg"
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7erqd4 | Can someone tell me about the crowns of monarchs? Where and when were they made? By whom? How did they make sure it would fit a great many different sizes of head? Were some lost? What happened to the French crown? | Just generally being curious about crowns as physical and symbolical objects here! | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7erqd4/can_someone_tell_me_about_the_crowns_of_monarchs/ | {
"a_id": [
"dq76h16"
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"score": [
30
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"text": [
"Hi there -- this older answer from u/sunagainstgold should provide some insight for you: \n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5yuhxi/what_would_happen_if_the_crown_was_literally_too/"
]
] |
|
aixjln | Culturally, who were the people of geographic Wales before the arrival of the Romans in the first century? How (if at all) were they separate from the Britons? | I'm just trying to get my head around this. I've read a lot indicating that 'Britons' was used to refer to a general grouping of loose and un-unified tribes, and I've also found that Wales was also composed of loose tribes. So I'm wondering what distinction there would be between them. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aixjln/culturally_who_were_the_people_of_geographic/ | {
"a_id": [
"eetz4hg"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"There would be no distinction, the term \"Welsh\" wouldn't be used until Anglo Saxons showed up after Roman evacuation, coming from an old germanic term for \"stranger\" or \"foreigner\"\nThe word \"Vlach\" in Romania has a similar origin, when germanic tribes moved in they began calling natives in the region as such"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1fh315 | During the prohibition era, was wine still used as Christ's blood in the Catholic church? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1fh315/during_the_prohibition_era_was_wine_still_used_as/ | {
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"The Volstead Act contained provisions for religious use; the Catholic Church was permitted to contract wineries specifically to supply sacramental wine.\n\nCouldn't find a 'proper' source quickly but: _URL_0_",
"The law made specific exemptions for religious practices, among other things. So priests (and not just Catholic ones) that wanted to continue using wine could have done so, although it probably became more expensive. The religious exemption was often used as a loophole to acquire wine for other uses. Those who wanted to get in the swing of temperance could have watered down their wine or used weaker grape juice; some do this today.",
"Yes. The following is an excerpt (bolded by me) of the [Volstead Act](_URL_0_) of 1920:\n\n > TITLE II.\nPROHIBITION OF INTOXICATING BEVERAGES.\n\n > SEC. 3. No person shall on or after the date when the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States goes into effect, manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess my intoxicating liquor except as authorized in this Act, and all the provisions of this Act shall be liberally construed to the end that the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage may be prevented.\n\n > Liquor for non beverage purposes and **wine for sacramental purposes** may be manufactured, purchased, sold, bartered, transported, imported, exported, delivered, furnished and possessed, but only as herein provided, and the commissioner may, upon application, issue permits therefore: Provided, That nothing in this Act shall prohibit the purchase and sale of warehouse receipts covering distilled spirits on deposit in Government bonded warehouses, and no special tax liability shall attach to the business of purchasing and selling such warehouse receipts. ...\n\nEDIT: See also this [prescription form for medicinal liquor](_URL_1_) from the period.",
"Don't have any sources on hand, but religious and cultural exemptions were made whereby Jewish and Italian Catholic populations could still incorporate wine into their services. Vinting wine at home was also legal for these purposes.\n\nA quick wiki search shows the third intended purpose of the Volstead Act was: \n > to ensure an ample supply of alcohol and promote its use in scientific research and in the development of fuel, dye and other lawful industries and practices, such as religious rituals.[9]",
"I hope this is okay as a follow-up question: Why do you specify *Catholic* church in your question? Do American Protestants generally not use wine in the communion?",
"Worth noting that peyote, although illegal for consumption in the US, is perfectly legal as religious expression in the Native American Church. It's transport and distribution is complex, but legal.",
"An excellent book you can read on this subject is [Last Call](_URL_0_) by Daniel Okrent. There were a few exemptions to the Volstead Act, one of which was for sacramental wine. As happened with most of the exemptions to the act, an industry sprang up around it. So you had stores that sold sacramental wine. Mainly it was controlled by Rabbis and members of the Jewish faith because they drank wine in the home as opposed to the catholics who drank in church. The rabbis would frequently overstate the number in their congregation as a way to be able to order more wine to sell. \n\nThere was also a provision that allowed doctors to prescribe alcohol for various ailments. People would visit the clinic, go to a sham visit with the doctor and get their prescription for the pharmacy. Doctors could schedule a great many visits in one day because the exams were so short. At one point the AMA came out against doctors being able to prescribe alcohol. They reversed themselves very quickly once doctors loss of income from the decision caused many complaints. "
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||
1hu5pv | What could President Buchanan have done that might be affective in keeping the American Civil War from happening? | edit- that might have been affective
Based on what I knowledge I have of the Civil War it seems like it was going to happen one way or another, but were there any actions that he could have or you think he should have taken to prevent war? I am reading about D.C. in the war in a book called Freedom Rising and I was wondering if Buchanan could have sent troops to South Carolina immediately after they seceded? How large was the military at the time could they mobilize and would they have considering there were Southern leaders in the military? Also would Buchanan even have been able to make this move without approval from Congress who would I assume control the money to pay soldiers and purchase provisions?
What else could have possibly been done, or was he just in a hopeless situation? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1hu5pv/what_could_president_buchanan_have_done_that/ | {
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"It don't know if by that point Civil War could have been prevented, but there is a reason why historians consistently consider Buchanan to be one of the worst Presidents.\n\nOne thing that he could have done was to heed the advice of his generals. As early as October 1860, the commanding General of the Army, Winfield Scott, was warning Buchanan that Lincoln's election could cause sucession, and he recommended that troops be deployed to secure Federal forts in the South. Buchanan ignored his recommendations. Not surprisingly, when the South seceded, the Federal garrisons quickly fell to the Confederacy.\n\nThe other thing was that he never took a strong position after the states began to secede. Even as the states were seceding, he felt that while succession was illegal, the federal government could not stop the states from seceding. Thus, while the Confederacy was being formed, Buchanan essentially sat on his hands and did nothing to stop them.\n\nSource: Klein, Philip S. (1962). President James Buchanan: A Biography (1995 ed.). Newtown, Connecticut: American Political Biography Press. ISBN 0-945707-11-8."
]
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[]
] |
|
69dekc | During the Age of Discovery, were there any military ship designs that were completely unique to one nation or another? | I just recently became aware of Korea's Admiral Yi and the "Turtle Ship" he and his navy employed. I was wondering if there were any other examples of ships so unique? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/69dekc/during_the_age_of_discovery_were_there_any/ | {
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"text": [
"There was a great deal of difference in designs of ships among navies in the Age of Sail, but nothing would stay unique for long. The often-cited example is the difference between the English and Spanish fleets at the time of the Armada -- broadly speaking, the English ships were built longer, lower, and more weatherly, and employed different tactics from the Spanish galleons. The English fleet was able to harass the Armada, break up its cohesion, and prevent the Spanish ships from being effective fighting machines, and eventually [chase them up the Channel and out of reach of Parma's army](_URL_1_) in the Netherlands (which was the goal of the Armada -- to ferry Parma across the Channel). \n\nBut in general, advances in shipbuilding would be studied and copied by other nations -- the French and Spanish, for example, liked hiring English/British and Irish expats as shipbuilders, preferably those who had had experience in English building yards. As a single example, the frigate type of ship originated in the Low Countries (specifically, as a ship used by Dunkirker privateers in the last half of the 17th century), then was copied by the French and English. \n\nHere are some older comments I've written about ship construction, if they're of interest: \n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_4_\n\n_URL_5_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_3_\n\nNow there were certainly types of ships that you'd find in certain areas -- the xebec comes to mind as a Mediterranean ship, as do galleys that were used there even up through the 1800s -- but at least in Western Europe, shipbuilding was a craft that tended to converge. \n\nIf you have follow up questions about any of the above, let me know! "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2709jm/how_would_a_britishhms_frigate_built_in_1715/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/380rqq/with_most_of_the_spanish_ships_still_sea_worthy/crrxx00/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/44sivx/ship_design_and_construction_in_the_age_of_sail/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1lmtd5/what_advances_in_naval_technology_were_made/cc103fr/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/27ye2f/did_the_royal_navy_build_all_its_ships_in_britain/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/20x9kz/classes_of_vessels_during_the_age_of_sail/"
]
] |
Subsets and Splits