texts: Did medieval scholars believe the Earth was round?

texts:
There seems to be almost a consensus that the medieval belief on flat earth is a myth. Wikipedia even has a whole article dedicated to this subject, and the general argument is that the "flat earth myth" was constructed by 19th century scholars who wished ill on the Church.

However, I recently came across this book "The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization". In chapter two, the author Jonathan Lyons claims that most medieval scholars indeed did believe earth to be flat. He bases this on the fact that a 6th century scholar, Isidore of Seville, made a mistake when translating ancient Greek texts to Latin, which lead to a hugely popular medieval encyclopedia claiming that the Earth was actually flat. Lyons proposes that while another author of the same era, a British monk named Beda, did indeed study the original texts of Plinius and did discover that the earth was round, his work was not as widespread as Isidores and thus the "Flat Earth" became a consensus among the scholars of the Middle Ages, even though some retained knowledge of the spherical form of Earth.

Since most internet sources on medieval flat earth theory do not even mention Etymologiae, yet it does seem to have been an influential work, it is left unclear whether most medieval scholars in Europe believed Earth to be round or flat. Which one is it?


texts: Were the Islamic Caliphates (Umayyad and Abbasid) and the Mongol Empires truly as benevolent as they are portrayed?

texts:
My history textbooks insist on the same idea: these empires were religiously tolerant, allowed trade to flourish, and improved the quality of life for the subjects.

On the other hand, all the European empires (British, Spanish, French) are portrayed as oppressive because they subjugated, enslaved, and oftentimes massacred native populations.

Is this comparison true? I find it hard to believe that the other empires were not oppressive as well.

How would you compare being a indian subject of the British empire to being a Spanish subject of the Abbasid empire?

Actually I asked my history teacher about IS vs the Abbasid Caliphate and he said the Abbasid caliphate was more tolerant in its rule.  But IS practices imperialism which aims at gaining power as well as terrorism. On the other hand the Abbasid empire only practiced imperialism.


texts: How did people clean their teeth in the past? (Greco-Roman to medieval age)

texts: How did people clean their teeth in the past? How in these days the tooth decay was faced?


texts: What is the history of Research and Development laboratories?

texts: When did Research and Development laboratories (R&D labs) emerge?  What was the institutional and intellectual context?  Have they undergone major changes in their nature?  What role have R&D labs played in their surrounding economy?


texts: Why was the Old Wardour Castle not demolished after the English Civil War?

texts:
After the English Civil War, some strongholds such as Corfe Castle were slighted, that is demolished, by order of Parliament.

Another Royalist castle, the (Old) Wardour Castle appears to not have been slighted and only sports battle damage. Why was this?


texts: Where can I find a personal account of freedom of a slave in America after 1863

texts:
The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 declared free all slaves in the Confederacy. In 1865 the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the whole country. I am familiar with the context.

What I am looking for is an account of how a particular slave gained his/her freedom, after 1863. How did they learn of the proclamation or the abolition? What did they say and do? What did his/her master say and do? How did they transition to freedom?

All books I have seen talk about Lincoln and the legal and military aspects. I would like a very concrete story, focused on the human side.


texts: What jobs exempted one from being conscripted in the UK during World War 2?

texts: During the Second World War, what jobs in the United Kingdom meant that their holders were exempt from being called up for military service?


texts: Did Yuri Gagarin really hear a ticking sound during his journey into outer space?

texts:
In the movie, Another Earth, Rhoda told John that Yuri Gagarin heard a ticking sound during his journey into outer space. He couldn't find the source, and eventually came to love that ticking sound.

Did this really happen to Yuri Gagarin?


texts:
What was life like for an adult Victorian chimney sweep?

I'm looking into my family history at the moment and my great-great-grandfather is listed on an 1881 census as a chimney sweep. I thought this was a child labourer's profession and have never heard of an adult chimney sweep in the UK before.

What would life have been like for him? Was this an undignified profession? What was a chimney sweep's lifestyle like in Victorian Britain?


texts: Why was there a surge in the US incarceration rate during the 1990s?

texts:
This surge seems to only have stabilized in the last decade and spans roughly 1980–2005. What is its cause? Even when accounting for population growth, the graph does not look much different.

(Image source: Wikipedia – United States incarceration rate)


texts: Why/how did German arms output peak in 1944 when they were running out of oil?

texts:
For instance, aircraft production rose from 15 thousand in 1942 to 40 thousand in 1944, while tank production approximately doubled over that span, according to Paul Kennedy's "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers." Yet many weapons in the latter year weren't properly deployed because of lack of fuel.

I was wondering whether Germany's war effort might have been better served by producing fewer weapons and using the fuel savings to deploy them better.

But perhaps that isn't the right question. So the question is: How did the fuel expenditure needed to produce a tank or airplane compare to its fuel usage over the course of say, a year?

I know that Albert Speer's mass production techniques had a lot to do with  the productivity increase, so could the allocation of resources to production as opposed to use had something to do with Hitler's greater trust of Speer than his generals?


texts:
What metal woodworking tools should I expect to find in the household of a 14th century  well-off peasant farmer from Hampshire? (Answering more broadly is acceptable, but it might help to give this question a frame as narrow as I could think of, in order to allow weighing of evidence.)

In particular, how specialized are his tool possessions?
Would a household own an felling axe and a chopping axe and a billhook? Multiple ones, even? Or would they have to do with fewer, less specialized tools?

I know of one medieval inventory from 1297 listing both an axe (unspecified) and a bill, http://www.uv.es/consum/briggs.pdf. I know that in the easily searchable databases for both manuscript illuminations and archeological finds axes are far more prevalent than bills, but those are not restricted to the agricultural context (eg. illuminations showing the carpenter Joseph, who is shown with an axe as a tool of trade). Is this due to the fact that one of the main applications of bill hooks, hedge laying, only became a major agricultural activity post middle-ages?


texts: Where and when stuntman Ian B. Jamieson performed in Poland in '80?

texts:
I've these 3 old pictures of mine:

So my question is:

Where and when stuntman Ian Bruce Jamieson performed in Poland?

Some known details:

The pictures are from around 1986 taken in Szczecin, Poland. On the picture you can also find reference to Auto Moto Rodeo (Polish automotive revue). I think there is also a Ian's book Kaskader which suppose to describe this event (but I don't have it). It seems there is not much details at Wikipedia. This could be potentially on Sea Days in Szczecin on 21 june 1986, but it's just a guess (link). Potential places are near Odra river, King Chrobry's Embankment.

Based on above, is there any way of historically confirming the place and the date?


texts: How did the Declaration of Independence end up in the United States?

texts:
From what I understand the Declaration of Independence was largely disregarded by the English leaders. So, why did it not just get lost in mounds of paperwork like happens to unimportant documents today? Also, how did the original end up back in the states? Did we just ask them: "Hi, you know that treasonous document we sent you? Can we have it back to put on display for all posterity?"

P.S. I am assuming that we have the original in our  possession and that we sent the original to the king.


texts: When did Napoleon start to be regarded as a French national hero?

texts:
Napoleon was a very controversial figure at the time of his death. A large percentage of French were monarchists and pro-Bourbons. Many others were Republicans or Socialists who were against personal dictatorships.

Instead, in the days of the Great War, he was widely seen as a French national hero, and now that perception is almost unanimous. When and how did this change in public opinion happen?


texts: Which mythological/historical/fictional character is cited as a symbol for constant improvement or dogged persistence in re-doing his task?

texts:
I would rather ask this if there was a Stacks site for Literature. But, I need to ask it here:

I am searching for a mythical or fictional (and if there is one, historical) figure (or tale, or animal, or object) whose tale is often cited when one needs to emphasize constant improvement or dogged persistence in doing your task (even at the cost of seeing it partially or totally undone and having to re-do it all-over again).

The closest I can think of is Sisyphus' punishment, but I am looking for something which is more positive and meaningful, and which gives a sense of accumulation of experience from this constantly repeating arduous activity.

Google searches for constant improvement often results in kaizen, Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement. This is not bad, but it usually comes with a baggage of business model connotations and already has specific elements or references of implementation. Also, kaizen is often used as a team model, but I am looking for a solitary or individual example.

I would appreciate all your help and answers.

I wrote mythological, or fictional, or historical, but I am open to anything relevant religious or scientific tales, symbols or examples as well.
(Please ignore the tag, because I could not create new tags.)


texts: What is the oldest verifiably correctly translated written work?

texts:
How old is the oldest written work where we have translated what is written on it in correctly that is verified?

Sigh. I've tried writing that sentence in a way that is understandable and am having trouble, which is fairly ironic. I guess I'm looking for the current demarcation of prehistory to history, but from the standpoint of writing that we have successfully translated beyond "we know someone wrote these symbols, but don't know what they were trying to say."

I've read the wiki page on prehistory and it says while in the past prehistory was 'that time before writing,' many historical scholars are moving beyond the writing and into artifacts. I'm currently interested in the oldest translated written works.


texts: What convinced the Europeans that they hadn't landed in Asia?

texts:
Famously, when Columbus (and several other European explorers) landed in the New World, they thought they'd reached Asia.  Hence, for example, our use of the word "Indians" for the local peoples.  Even those who didn't believe Columbus's claim of being able to sail west to Asia must have questioned their beliefs for a moment: after all, he'd landed somewhere, and where could it be but Asia?

Eventually, though, it became obvious that it wasn't Asia, and the European powers got down to business exploring and claiming and colonizing and such.

But what exactly tipped them off?  What were the things they pointed to and said, "I don't think this is Asia, because..."  Were there Europeans who were well-travelled or well-educated enough to accurately know what China looked like, and to know that this wasn't it?  Did they hear reports from the East along the lines of "We don't know who you're talking to, but it isn't us"?  How did they know that the stories of magical lands to the East weren't simply exaggerated, or that they hadn't landed in a poor, unsettled equivalent of the Philippines, off the Asian coast?

How did the Europeans deduce that they'd discovered a new continent, rather than arriving in Asia?


texts: Why did physicians recommend curing the "dancing plague" with more dancing?

texts:
The Dancing Plague of 1518 was an event in which nearly 400 people in Strasbourg danced for days on end, some even dying of exhaustion or other causes. One section of the Wikipedia article has me confused (emphasis mine):

  As the dancing plague worsened, concerned nobles sought the advice of local physicians, who ruled out astrological and supernatural causes, instead announcing that the plague was a "natural disease" caused by "hot blood". However, instead of prescribing bleeding, authorities encouraged more dancing, in part by opening two guildhalls and a grain market, and even constructing a wooden stage. The authorities did this because they believed that the dancers would recover only if they danced continuously night and day. To increase the effectiveness of the cure, authorities even paid for musicians to keep the afflicted moving.

Given that the physicians of the time gave a diagnosis of "hot blood", why was dancing considered a superior option to bleeding (the typical treatment for such diagnoses)? And more importantly, if people were dying of dancing to the point of exhaustion, why did the authorities encourage more dancing? Wouldn't that lead to more people dying?


texts: About the use of the arrow shaped tool in archaological digs

texts:
I have seen the arrow-shaped tool and the board (shown in below image) in quite a few photos from archaeological digs.

I had some questions about the arrow shaped tool:

Does it have a name?
What is it's function?
Is it pointing at the board or to a specific direction like the
magnetic north pole?
What do the markings on it mean?


texts: What was the first map of Antarctica having a shape based on real evidence?

texts:
Antarctica was the last continent to be discovered, and the first confirmed landfall was on January 24, 1895. However, most discussions of "early" world maps seem to peter out well before that, such as this Wikipedia article which only goes up to 1630.

The situation is muddied even more by the fact that Antarctica (known then as Terra Australis) appeared on many world maps before it was even discovered, such as this 1570 map. However, this is based on arguments from legends and various erroneous information, rather than on any actual evidence.

Surely after humanity first set foot on the "last continent", it wasn't long before they started mapping the real shape of it. When was the first map produced based on this real information (regardless of whether it was actually "accurate" in the era before we had artificial satellite technology etc)?

This question is made even more important by the fact that a world map incorporating this shape would be "largely" complete, although world maps would arguably not really be complete (in terms of approximate landmass shapes) until the first whole maps of Severnaya Zemlya were completed in 1932.


texts: What other pairs of wars have had a ~25 year interval?

texts: The I and II world wars are 25 years apart, which is within the length of one generation. This is interesting, because it creates a premise for an entire part of a generation to be both without fathers and grandfathers. Have there been other wars separated by the length of one generation (20-30 years)?


texts: Millions of pictures and countless hours of video were taken during World War II. Why is it so hard to find archives online?

texts:
I've looked into this quite a bit and found collections in the National Archives and various websites, but they are small and highlight the best photos.  Do you really need to travel to archives or order collections to see photos?
Especially now with such a internet based society, it seems important to have as many of these pictures online and easily accessible so that people don't forget.


texts: How and when did Jews get to the shores of the Baltic?


texts: Why did Britain object to the Ottomans bringing its ships-of-the-line against Russia in the beginning of the Crimean War?

texts:
I came across this in the "Background section" of Wikipedia article Battle of Sinop.

  Fighting at sea between Imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire had
  been going on for weeks, and the Ottomans had sent several squadrons
  into the Black Sea to patrol. One of these squadrons, under Osman
  Pasha, ended up at Sinope, joining the frigate Kaid Zafer which had
  been part of an earlier patrol, and being joined by the steam frigate
  Taif from a smaller squadron. The Ottomans had wanted to send ships of
  the line to Sinope, but the British ambassador in Constantinople,
  Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, had objected to this plan, and only
  frigates were sent.

I have a couple of related questions about this. How could a nation "object" to another nation's war strategy? And why did the Ottomans comply? This seemed to be a bad move, because at the Battle of Sinop, these frigates got annihilated by Russian ships (which included 6 ships-of-the-line).

And why did Britain object to this? Britain would enter the war later on the Ottomans' side, so why the heck did they object when their future allies tried their best to win the war?


texts: Was there really a Communist presidential nominee or political party in the 1876 election?

texts:
In David Leip's political atlas, it says that 'Communist' gained 32 votes in the 1876 presidential election. The name of the candidates and the state where these votes were counted doesn't appear.

Of course 32 votes isn't many, but I'm surprised even the word was in use back then. Is this website kosher?


texts: What was it like for a coastal village to experience a Viking raid in around the tenth century?

texts:
Were fishing villages really completely at the mercy of these Vikings, or could they defend them selves? Did villagers have their own weapons? Could they expect any support from a Lord or Land Baron? Why did Vikings put so many buildings to the torch, or is that just Hollywood? Did villagers have any lookouts or advance warning to a Viking raid?

I know monasteries were also raided by Vikings, and the monks were actually tough fighters who fought back! What weapons were used by both sides? Were the monasteries made defensible, and is this reflected in their design?


texts: Who first outlawed homosexuality in the Indian sub-continent?

texts: I have learnt somewhere that in India the British made homosexuality illegal in 1861 through Article 377 of the Indian Penal Code, terming it as "an act against the order of the nature". Was this the first time homosexuality was outlawed in India? If not, who was the very first to do so in the Indo-Pak subcontinent? Was it the one of the Muslim rulers?


texts: How many cattle were slaughtered in Alta California?

texts:
Spanish and Mexican Alta California was a primarily cattle-based economy. The wealth of ranchers was measured in the size of their herd. Beef, manteca, and leather were used liberally, and hide and tallow were exported.
How many cattle were killed, either annually or in total?


texts: In U.S. military forces, did black soldiers suffer a heavy racial segregation during World War II?

texts:
Source: BBC

  In his book, Mr Hitchcock raises another issue that rarely features in
  euphoric folk-memories of liberation: Allied looting, and worse.

  "The theft and looting of Normandy households and farmsteads by
  liberating soldiers began on June 6 and never stopped during the
  entire summer," he writes.

  One woman - from the town of Colombieres - is quoted as saying that
  "the enthusiasm for the liberators is diminishing. They are looting...
  everything, and going into houses everywhere on the pretext of looking
  for Germans."      Even more feared, of course, was the crime of rape -
  and here too the true picture has arguably been expunged from popular
  memory.

  According to American historian J Robert Lilly, there were around
  3,500 rapes by American servicemen in France between June 1944 and the
  end of the war. "The evidence shows that sexual violence against women
  in liberated France was common," writes Mr Hitchcock.

  "It also shows that black soldiers convicted of such awful acts
  received very severe punishments, while white soldiers received
  lighter sentences." Of 29 soldiers executed for rape by the US
  military authorities, 25 were black - though African-Americans did not
  represent nearly so high a proportion of convictions.

After reading the last paragraph a question arises: In the U.S. military forces, did black soldiers suffer a heavy racial segregation as late as World War II?


texts:
What was the age distribution in the Bronze Age?  How do I find out?

I've seen citations "around" (encyclopedias and wikipedia) that say the life expectancy in the Bronze Age was around 26
yet this number has to be skewed low due to higher infant mortality rates

So my question is basically:

Q: if you are living in a Bronze Age village, how old are your various neighbors?


texts:
The story of the Trojan Horse is very well known in the West, but did it actually exist, and if so what was it?

Although the Odyssey is mostly mythical and fantastic, we know that a few elements were based on reality: we know Troy exists, and some Trojan War did exist in some form, although we know very few details. Therefore I suspect the Trojan Horse may have some basis in reality, although it may have been something totally different:

Was it some sort of siege weapon, or tactic?
Or an infiltration of some sort?
Or something else entirely?

Given that the Trojan War coincides with (and is somewhat symbolic of) the late bronze age collapse, we have scant evidence and may never know for sure. Nevertheless, what evidence do we have of what the Trojan Horse was? Or what are the leading theories?


texts: Did the USA win the counter insurgency war in the Vietnam war?

texts:
What happened in the aftermath of the Tet offensive to the Viet Cong?  Was it actually broken or did it just incorporate into the North Viet Nam army?

Edit: I am fully aware that the USA lost the Vietnam war.  I am not interested in reiteration of that fact.  What I am interested in is the operations against the Viet Cong.  The fact that the North invaded the South and took over is not debatable.  But how much was the Viet Cong part of that victory? How much did it contribute to it or was it eradicated/assimilated into the North Vietnam army?

This question focuses on the counter insurgency part of the war which could be won but the overall war lost -- again, I know the USA lost the Vietnam war.


texts: Did the Allies try to "bribe" Franco to join them in World War II?

texts:
At a meeting in Hendaye, Spain, Franco presented a list of demands to Hitler that the latter would have to meet in order for Spain to formally join the Axis. This included the right to capture and retain Gibraltar, overseas colonies like Morocco belonging to France, plus economic assistance in the form of food and fuel. Important in Franco's calculations was the fear of British (and later American) retaliation.
(During World War I, both sides tried to win the favor of Italy by offering her concessions in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and elsewhere, before Italy selected the "Allies" that is, the Triple Entente. This was in spite of the fact that Italy was initially allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary.) And they won Portuguese cooperation in World War II in the use of the Azores for anti-submarine operations.)
During World War II, did the Allies try to induce Franco to join them, even to the point at least trying to "low bid" the above-mentioned Franco demands by offering say, economic assistance but no colonies?


texts: Did Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Finance Minister of Louis XIV, sanction mass executions for reasons of economic policies?

texts:
In his book, The Mystery of Capitalism, author De Soto claims that Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Finance Minister under Louis XIV, had people executed for economic reasons.  Colbert is still a widely admired figure in the French education system, notably for his promotion of French manufacturing, so I am wondering if there is any basis for these claims.

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/d/desoto-capital.html?oref=login

  when Jean-Baptiste Colbert's technocrats executed 16,000 small entrepreneurs whose only crime was manufacturing and importing cotton cloth in violation of France's industrial codes.

Even in smaller numbers?


texts: How did native Australians arrive at the continent 65000 years ago? If by crossing the seas either from Africa or from South Asia, how did they navigate? How advanced might have been their knowledge of maritime navigation? Could they have followed the Sea turtles along the major ocean currents if they were a seafaring civilization?


texts: When did the allies find out about the killing of Jews during WW2

texts:
When watching "Saving Private Ryan" I noticed during the opening scene that one of the soldiers (who is Jewish) gets emotional when he discovers a Hitler Youth knife, I could only assume it was suggested that he knew about the killing of Jews. However when watching "Band of Brothers" the soldiers are very surprised when they discover the concentration camp and this occurs well after the Normandy Landings.

My question is when did the general public in allied countries such as the UK and America find out about the killing of Jews? After doing some research I have realised that allied governments knew about what would later be known as the Holocaust but I could not find a definitive answer to when the public found out about it.


texts: When did Phintys say "A woman's particular virtue is modesty . . ."?

texts:
I recently came across an interesting quote in a book I was reading. Here's the excerpt from the book:

"A woman's particular virtue is modesty (σωφοσυνη), for by it she is enabled to honor and love her husband" (Phintys, daughter of Callicrates, a Pythagorean philosopher).155
155.  From book 4 of Joannes Stobaeus's anthology accessed through the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae of University of California, Irvine.

I'm wondering when Phintys said this?


texts: What was the status of specialized workers during Greek times?

texts:
In Ancient Greece, what kind of social status would specialized workers have? Did they have any extra privileges when compared to the average person, and did they have less rights than rulers and other executives? If so, then what? By special worker, I mean people such as blacksmiths, jewelers etc.

I realize this is similar to the question on Rome, but this is sort of a follow up.


texts: How was Herodotus able to get accounts of the Battle of Thermopylae?

texts: How was Herodotus able to get accounts of the last stand of Thermopylae if the entire rear guard died alongside Leonidas? It is said he recorded the last words of the Spartans "stranger go tell Sparta we lie here obedient to her laws " and the fall of Leonidas and the Homeric battle of both sides to recover his corpse.


texts:
It's a widely repeated claim that the alphabet was invented only once:
Britannica:

The invention of the alphabet is a major achievement of Western culture. It is also unique; the alphabet was invented only once, though it has been borrowed by many cultures.

David Deutsch (2011):

every alphabet-based writing system that has ever existed is either descended from or inspired by that Phoenician one.

Denise Schmandt-Besserat (2014):

Because the alphabet was invented only once, all the many alphabets of the world, including Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, Brahmani and Cyrillic, derive from Proto-Sinaitic.

Frank Moore Cross (1991):

The alphabet was invented only once. All alphabetic writing derives ultimately from an Old Cannanite alphabet and its immediate descendant, the Early Linear Phoenician alphabet.

William Flexner (2004):

the alphabet was invented only once: There is, strictly speaking, only one alphabet in the entire world. All alphabets in use or known ever to have been in use — the Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Cyrillic, Arabic, Sanscrit, Tamil, Korean and all the rest — trace in one way or another to the alphabet developed, perhaps in some way out of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, in the ancient Syria-Palestine region.

Is the above true?
Isn't for example Hangul an alphabet that was invented independently (did not descend from and was not inspired by the Phoenician/Near East one)? (Wikipedia also suggests several other possibilities.)


texts: In the Egyptian city of Amarna, archaeological expeditions have revealed numerous graves of people who appear to have worked very hard while being malnourished. One recent article on the subject says that Mary Shepperson said, "We hope that future DNA analysis of the bones might clarify the geographical origins of the North Tombs Cemetery skeletons." Have the DNA analysis results been published? If so, what are the findings?


texts:
Baku was the single largest source of oil in the Soviet Union in World War II. The Germans captured Maikop and seemed on the verge of capturing Grozny. But Baku was much larger than either of the other two and was much better defended. For instance, while the Germans launched air strikes against Grozny, they were unable to bomb Baku because of its strong fighter defense, according to sources such "Marching Orders." Baku also had the advantage of being at the "far" end of the Caucasus Mountains from where the Germans were.

The Soviets were ultimately successful in defending Stalingrad (and Grozny), but lost strongholds such as Odessa, and Sevastopol. Using "Sevastopol"metrics to "guesstimate" the feasibility of the Germans taking Baku, I am looking for the relevant historical facts about what the Soviets actually employed defending Baku:

How large a garrison, X, in men and machines, was there at Baku, such that the Germans would need an attack force of approximately 2X?
The Germans had complete air supremacy at Sevastopol. How strong was the Soviet air force at Baku, and how much air power would be needed to gain air supremacy over that force?
Sevastopol was ultimately captured because of the use of 65 large caliber assault guns. (These guns were later sent to Leningrad.) How possible was it to ship/deploy such guns across the Caucaus Mountains.


texts: Was there a social stigma for British born/living in India prior to WW2/Indian independence?

texts:
My father (1926 - 2007) always said he was  born and raised in England until immigrating to Australia in 1947 after being discharged from the army. I have now found out through his army records that he was born and lived in India until joining the army. Trying to find some understanding for the secret/deception. Both his parents were British.

Yes, he had British citizenship. Getting his birth certificate was how this started. No record of him or his family in Grassmoor, Derbyshire where he said he was brought up. There are records in India. Just confused why this would be kept secret by his whole family who all immigrated to Australia. No family members left to interrogate.


texts: Has scholarship shown that persecuted religious minorities have tended to be financially successful?

texts:
In this interview with Neal Stephenson, talking about the historical basis for his Baroque Cycle series of novels, he makes the remark that

  ... persecuted religious minorities, if they’re not persecuted out of existence, often manage to achieve disproportionate wealth. It happened with Jews, Armenians, Huguenots. Earlier in this project, I could have rattled off five more

Is there any evidence for this statement? What are other historical examples of persecuted religious minorities who have become financially successful as a result of their persecution?

If there is evidence that the statement is true, then what are the proposed explanations?


texts: What are the main reasons historians give for the Soviet Union's collapse?

texts:
(I thought that How and Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? is a good question so would like to rephrase it a bit but the question was too far gone to edit)

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 with many former USSR states breaking away to form their own countries. One major short-term reason for this is the collapse of the Soviet client states in the Warsaw Pact in 1989. However, what are some of the long term reasons argued by historians for the USSR's complete demise?


texts: When did F become S in typeography, and why?

texts:
I'm sure you've all noticed documents in English from the 1700's often have 'F' where, if written now, there would be an 'S'.  You can see what I'm talking about a few times in this example, like at the beginning where it says "Prayers faid" or in the date "Tuefday November 26. 1700."

What's going on with this?  When did it start?  When did it stop?


texts: What was the contemporary popular opinion of the Anglo-Irish Treaty?

texts:
After the Irish War of Independence (also known as The [Black and] Tan War), the Irish and British signed a treaty in 1921, which created the Irish Free State and started the process of gradual independence from British rule.
The Irish Republican Army, which had been the primary military force on the Irish side, split in reaction to the treaty, because it failed to grant their demands:

Complete independence from Britain (the treaty granted only partial autonomy and self-determination of domestic affairs, but not total independence and sovereignty over international relations and self defense).

An Irish Republic encompassing the entire island of Ireland (only 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland were included in the Free State).

The total separation from the British crown (the treaty required Irish politicians to sign an oath of loyalty to the crown).

As a result of the split within the ranks of the IRA, a disastrous civil war ensued, in which more lives were lost than had been lost in the war of independence.  The rival factions were labeled "Pro-treaty" (or "Treatyites") and "Anti-treaty" forces.
Do we have any contemporary evidence of popular opinion in the Irish Free State regarding the treaty?


texts: Some of the Jataka Tales are supposed to be about the Buddha in prior lives so the entire collection is touted as Buddhist by many.  However, other sources will say they are tales handed down through oral tradition that begins before recorded history.  My guess is many of the tales were already favorite tales that Buddha added two cents too, and a few were new, but that is only a guess.  Is there any good evidence about the origins of some or all of these tales?


texts:
Seems that every single place I go nowadays, they have valet parking: restaurants, bars, airports, etc. The other day I got to think about this dreadful service (I have enough skills to park my own car and I really don't mind if I park 2 blocks away, I can walk - thanks!), I assume this tradition out dates the invention of the automobile, where people took someone else's horses / carriages to the stables. However, I really couldn't find any reliable source and oddly enough, Wikipedia's article on it is quite vague.
A really dodgy website called valetparking.com states that it originated in the US in the 1930's, however I believe it might have appeared long before this.

Are there any reliable sources of the origin of valet parking?


texts: Was the tugboat ever part of a WWII battle group?

texts:
It would seem a pretty logical addition to a WWII battle group to have one of more tugs for the capital ships (heck, any ship), yet I don't see much evidence of that. Let me elaborate.

I was an Army officer for support company. If I recall correctly (it was a LONG time ago), we had several wreckers whose jobs was to retrieve tanks or other vehicles that had been disabled. A couple were fully armored and capable of towing the heavy tanks of the day (M60A3 and M1, just introduced) under fire if necessary.

I have been reading about several incidents in WWII involving US capital ships: Yorktown, Hornet, and Chicago. They were crippled and trying to make it to safer waters. Of the ships, only the Chicago was ever towed by a tugboat (the equivalent of my wrecker) and not at first. Without a tugboat, ships like the Yorktown could only be towed at 3-5 knots, but I hear of Navajo class tugs with speeds better than 15 knots. Under load I haven't been able to find a source but I would think it much better than 3-5 knots.

Considering how important capital ships were, especially carriers like Hornet and Yorktown, why wasn't there a tug or two handy in the event they became disabled? Seems like in the case of Yorktown especially, speedy evacuation could have saved her. In addition, using a tug would mean freeing another ship to continue the fight. Why weren't there tugs available at Midway, Santa Cruz or other confrontations where they might have been able to quickly take other ships to safer waters? TIA


texts: Naming of (strategic) hills on a map as numbers (example Hill 60)

texts:
I'm a native to the Ypres region. Here we still have hills retaining their names given during WW1: Hill 60, Hill 62, Hill 41,...

I did some research on the naming of the hills. And during my research I found a similar practice during WW2, Korean war & Vietnam war. For earlier & latter wars, I couldn't find trustworthy examples.

Who's idea was it to designate hilltops with names referring tot their height & when (which war) was it first implemented?

Some Examples

Vietnam: Hill 875
Vietnam: Hill 488
Korea: Hill 282
WW2: Hill 609
WW2: Hill 112
WW1: Hill 60 - Ypres
WW1: Hill 60 - Gallipoli
WW1: Hill 35


texts:
What is the oldest example of the Joseph Campbell's monomyth (AKA: Hero's Journey) story structure ?

I know about Homer's Odyssey (circa VII BC). Are there any older examples ?


texts: Why are the police never responsible for guarding the Head of the State?

texts: Why does the military provide the Head of State's honor guard? Why is the Head of State always accompanied by military personnel? Why don't the police escort the Head of State?


texts: What precipitated the rise of social safety nets in the United States?

texts:
In the United States we received changes in the social safety net over the past century with the big changes coming in the form of social security and medicaid/medicate as well as other programs.  The "Great Society" under the Johnson administration in the 1960's was the last big program change/introduction.  Yet in early American society there was a lot of basis on self-sufficiency that often is touted as coming from the Protestant roots of many who came here.  Somewhere along the way that self-sufficiency changed to where the government needed to step in and offer aid to many, including the poor, citizens of this country.  In looking at our history we went in just over a hundred years from self-sufficiency and an expanding country to bread/soup lines in the Great Depresson.

What precipitated this change?  Was it industrialization?  Social forces that changed in the late 19thC due to immigration?  Were the uneven economic cycles of the 19thC a cause?  I'm looking for historical root causes that would have allowed for a change in social norms to where it was ok for people to accept help from the government, rather than expect it to stay out of their way.


texts: Did Stalin want to restore the Russian Empire's borders?

texts:
On one hand, it seems so because the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact defined the border between the two spheres of influence to be the border of the Russian Empire before WWI. On the other hand, the USSR ended up annexing more than was agreed in the pact, e.g., Lvov (a.k.a. Lviv, Lemberg), which had been Austrian before WWI.

Do we know if it was Stalin's intent to restore the Russian Empire's borders, or maybe just a trick to foil Germany?


texts: Was Napoleon's General Joachim Murat of Turkish descent?

texts: Joachim Murat was a General allegiant to Napoleon and very successfull in his military career. Though his very German first name I wondered if he has Turkish origin too because his second name suggests that, after all 'Murat' is a very common Turkish name although the Generals second name was pronounced differently, as it can be seen here in the first section of the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Murat


texts: What factors led to the 30% devaluation of pound sterling in 1949?

texts:
In 1949, Britain devalued the pound sterling by 30%. This was a major world economic event given that the pound was and still is one of the major currencies in the world. In fact, 9 other countries followed suit then. They were Australia, India, South Africa, New Zealand, Eire, Denmark, Norway, Egypt, and Israel. Interestingly, several among those who devalued were former British colonies.

Given that savings are destroyed in a currency devaluation, it should be interpreted as a disaster and outrage. Yet, this move was praised as a constructive step (http://century.theguardian.com/1940-1949/Story/0,,105127,00.html).

What factors led to the devaluation of pound sterling in 1949 by 30%?


texts: Did Iqbal offer funeral prayers for the killer of someone who wrote a blasphemous book?

texts:
In 1929, Ilmuddin killed a man called Rajpal for writing a blasphemous book against Muhammad. He was later hanged by the British government.

According to several sources (like here), the national poet of Pakistan, Iqbal, himself placed Ilmuddin’s body in the grave and gave a short eulogy.

I cannot find any reliable source to authenticate this claim. What was the eulogy, and did Jinnah also attend the funeral?

Edit:  I'm looking for sources written by academics and professional historians. Even popular columns written by historians would do


texts: Where can I find more information about this use of Yakuza against a demonstration in 1960?

texts:
This (german) article states that in 1960 Japan's President Nobosuke Kishi hired 28000 Yakuza as thugs against an anti-American demonstration.

I find nothing indicating this in the wikipedia article about him, But there is some mention of riots in 1960 against a Japanese-American mutual assistance agreement. So I'm interested in finding an article about this incident. I'd be interested to understand:

What was the political leaning of the protesters?
Can one say that the "typical" Yakuza was leaning more toward the left or right, and did this influence the decision of some Yakuza to do this?
Did the Yakuza have a stance on the political issue (US-Japans support agreement)?
Was such a use of Yakuza thugs by the state in any way typical (even at a smaller scale)?
Is the number of 28000 Yakuza remotely true? (3000 riot cops can be a suffocating presence, why ten times the number?) Were the events spread out over several cities?
What was to gain for the Yakuza?

Edit to add:
The article I quote is about the loss of members the Yakuza experienced recently, and how they try to hire new guys with a webpage. It also goes into the relative openness with which the Yakuza operate in Japan. There's not much onfo about the incident, I'll translate the paragraph:

  The criminals have good connections to the political shpere. In the last years, a few ministers had to lay down their offices as their friendships to the crminals were to close. One minister, for example, had a brother at the top of a Yakuza group - the politician had to leave office. But up till now, there a foto showing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with Ichu Nagamoto, a leading member of the Yamaguchi-Gumi. The Prime Minister claims not to know the man. Tha's enough (to avoid consequences). Interestingly, it is proven that the politicians grandfather, Nobosuke Ishi, then prime minister,  mobilizied 28000 Yakuza to beat on an anti-american demonstration in 1960.


texts: How exactly were the titles of the Roman emperors passed on to their heirs

texts:
I understand that the emperors held their office not under the one title "emperor" but under several different titles, all the major magisterial positions of the Republic. So, how did all these titles get inherited by the heirs? Did the heirs inherit all of the tiles simultaneously after the death of the previous emperor? Also, what happened when the emperor did not have an heir, did the person who became emperor after that gain all those titles simultaneously? When exactly did the title "emperor" become an actual title?

One more question, why did the emperors adopt heirs? Did they understand that giving such high power to just anybody due to their relation to themselves was not an efficient way to choose an emperor?


texts: What did the ancient Eastern world think of the ancient Greeks?

texts:
The opinions of the Greeks the Eastern world which notably included the Persians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Indians and Egyptians are known to all. They elaborated at length through their literature their thoughts on this matter and indeed it is certainly very interesting that we have so diverse a set of data from which we can pick out in detail their sentiments of the "barbarians" of Asia that were in the East from the Greek world.

However, prior and around the conquests of Alexander, I have yet to come across anything through which we may obtain any distinct notion of what these Eastern peoples thought of the Greeks. For example, the Persians were well acquainted with the Greeks yet we know nothing what they thought of them. Yet, the very identity of ancient Persia that we have largely comes from the writers of the ancient Greek world.

It should be kept in mind that when I refer to "ancient", I have in mind probably the period from 800 BC  to about 100 BC. After this period, much data becomes available through the writings of the Jews and other peoples but I know nothing of the period before this.

It is significant that Berossus, a native Babylonian of the early 3rd century BC, appears to have written a history of Babylonia and certainly other things as well but I am not aware of any fragment of anything related to the Greeks in his work. Manetho is another good example, he seems to have shared his opinions of the Jews as we're well aware from the writings of Josephus centuries later yet nothing on anything related to Europe.

There is a silence, which is even terrifying to some degree, present in the Eastern literature regarding the world that laid in Europe. On the one hand, we have the Greeks who composed large compositions on the ancient world of the East, elaborated many of their manners and customs, their character, their government, their rites and whatever that seemed interesting and certainly the Greeks were very much interested in the world of Asia.

Herodotus' Histories may even be labeled a proto-ethnographical work, due to his great interest in the diverse customs of the world. The Greeks were highly fascinated by the peoples of Asia (which at that time largely included, if I am not mistaken, all the parts of the Achaemenid Empire such as Persia itself, Mesoptamia, India..etc). Another writer is Ctesias who is similar, and there is also Aristoxenus (a student of Aristotle) who tells us of an interesting anecdote in which Socrates is rebuked by an Indian philosopher, which seems that he may have had information available relating to the Brahmins. There is also Plato and Aristotle himself, in whose writings we find numerous references to the peoples of East.

Yet, what did the people of the East themselves think of the Greeks? Were they curious about them? Did they find anything unusual about them? What did they think about their customs? What did they think about their religion and their women? And more importantly, what did they think about their democracy which surely must have seemed something extremely strange? What did they find most "barbaric" about the Greeks?

All the data that we have on this matter I think comes from a time when the peoples of the East had been heavily Hellenized and thus I think there's significantly less of the "wonder" quotient. That's why I picked the period from 800 to 100 BC. Ofcourse, before 800 BC, we have not an negligible amount of references to the Greeks in the writings of the Hittites and Assyrians. Indeed, the famous "Philistines" it has been supposed may be the Greeks themselves by many scholars of this century, who so disturbed the Jews. Yet even there, we find not much of importance.

Thus the question may stated once again as simply as possible: The Greeks had a lot to say about the East, what did the East have to say? Did they said anything at all?


texts: What did participants experience in the Nazi one month training course for teachers?

texts:
Hitler set up one month training camps for teachers that emphasized Nazi ideology and the importance of promoting those idea in their classrooms.
I am interested in how the training was organised, methods of indoctrination. Are there any anecdotal sources that illustrate the experience from the participants  view point. What was it like for any participant  who questioned the morality of the content?  Any account of personal experience particularly  valuable.
Unfortunately i have been unable anywhere to find more than a passing reference to question.  Research material on German Nazi education does no more than acknowledge their existence. I am interested in the experiences of teachers who had to attend these training events.

Sadly I have been unable to find any source that help answer my question


texts: What were acceptance criteria/process to the Vienna Fine Arts Academy in 1906-7?

texts:
One famous applicant rejected by the Vienna Fine Arts Academy was of course, Hitler. I got to thinking: so who was accepted instead?

To make sense of this we would need to know how was the admission process structured: were the applicants ranked and the top N (how many, btw?) accepted? Or was each applicant initially screened on his own merits/demerits before being compared to the others?

I realize there might be insufficient information to figure this one out, but the question is of the kind that is hard to put aside...


texts: Nationalisation during wartime in the West: With or without compensation?

texts:
I was just reading about the forerunner to Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (Bavarian Aircraftworks, who designed and manufactured the legendary ME/BF-109 fighter).

Apparently the owner, Herr Otto, was forced to step down from his leadership of the company when it was forcibly nationalised (after some pressure on Otto to hand it over due to problems serving the Germany's need for aircraft during WWI).

In western/capitalist nations, when this has occurred during wartime, is compensation likely to be offered, or is it more often a simple case of expropriation? Are there are any international laws / conventions stating that compensation must be offered for this to be considered legal (post-war, when the action might be retroactively challenged in court)?


texts: When did the Soviets get the ability to drop a nuclear bomb on the United States?

texts:
I'm researching the history of the Cold War and I have the impression that the Soviets failed to develop a bomber capable of flying from Russia to the United States until 1956, when the Tu-95 bomber entered service. The R-7 ICBM was developed in 1957.

If this is correct, then

the Russians developed a nuclear bomb in 1949, but
it was useless as a weapon against the US until 1956 because they couldn't drop the bomb on America (they had the bomb, but no suitable means of transportation).

At what point in time did the USSR get the ability to nuke the major areas in the US (i. e. bomb plus aircraft or rocket to deliver it from Russia to the US) ?

By "major areas" I mean big cities and important military objects.


texts: Cost of producing posters in World War I

texts: I know that a lot of posters were printed out during World War I, but am confused by the cost for the government to produce all these. A google search normally yields some results, but this time it is very confusing:  Google on the cost of printing posters I have also been unable to find the number of posters printed out.


texts: How did ancient Nomadic communities conduct trade?

texts:
Given that nomads are always on the move, how would you conduct trade with one another? Or maybe a better question did they even conduct trade with one another?

Were there always cities/villages where nomadic communities were prevalent where they could gather to meet/share news/trade? IE were there cities in ancient Mongolia and ancient Americas?

The question I am asking is the one in the title, the other questions in the descriptions are just to explain that question in more detail.


texts: Street Team Games played by boys in Balkans of early 20th Century

texts:
In today's world, probably the most typical neighborhood game played in teams by boys in most countries is football (soccer).

I would like to ask what were the team Games played by boys (let's say aged 8 to 14) of the Balkans (then Ottoman Empire) during early 20th century or late 19th century.

The important aspect is the game to have a team spirit, and played in the neighborhood  (streets etc).  Even though teams are not official, boys typically make teams of their own neighborhood, or schools, or ethnic groups etc.


texts: Explaining the data in the 2004 Republican primary results

texts:
So even a casual observer of American primary elections understands that it's rare for a sitting American president to face any kind of challenge in election primary season, in recent history at least.

Nevertheless, as I understand it, the elections do take place and the president does have to renew his candidacy.

The 2004 republican primaries were of course won by sitting president George Bush. Details of this "one horse race" campaign are to be found in Wikipedia.

Can anyone explain to an outsider a few things?

How is it a challenger named as "Bill Wyatt" can get three second places (including 10% in Oklahoma) and yet be such a complete unknown as to not even have a Wikipedia entry?
If Bill Wyatt is from Californina, as the page says, and assuming that no-hopers only do well in their own state where they've got half a chance of some media coverage (or in New Hampshire or Iowa where it's worth making a special effort), then what's he doing achieving meaningful results in Louisiana and Oklahoma?
When George Bush gets 95% in Tennesee and no other candidate is scored at all where do the other 5% of votes go? If "spoilt votes" or "write ins" then how is it feasible that Bush managed a full 100% in California with not a single spoilt vote?
If the sitting president won every primary and every challenger scored 0 delegates, then how come the pages says he won only 1608 of the total 2509 delegates?


texts: What equipment and formations did the Muslim armies employ against the Crusades?

texts: One can easily find articles on Wikipedia about typical tactical formations of Romans, but I haven't found such information on the Muslim world, specifically during the crusades. Did the Muslim armies who fought the European crusaders employ any documented formations? What were their main weapons?


texts: What drugs were used in England during the High Middle Ages?

texts:
It's well known that alcohol was brewed and drunk throughout the Middle ages in England, but I wonder what is known from archaeological evidence and contemporary sources about what other drugs were consumed and what societal attitudes towards them were?

Opium was known from ancient Greek times, and grows quite well in the English climate, and Magic Mushrooms grow wild in Britain today so I presume they were also available to people of the time. Given the human propensity for getting high, it seems safe to assume that people in this period were taking these drugs recreationally but isn't anything actually known about the consumption of these and other drugs?

I am particularly interested in sources relating to use in England around the end of the 12th century, but any sources related to European use in that approximate era would also be of interest.


texts: How Was Roman Military Equipment Created and Distributed

texts:
When discussing the logistics of Roman armies, I usually see consumables and seigework discussed the most.  However, I've been wondering about how the arms, armor, and tools were created and distributed.

Were they created centrally somewhere?  On site at army camps?  Or did they buy them from independent craftsmen?

I know that in the earlier parts of the Republic, soldiers were often required to procure their own arms, but I'm curious what the process was later on.  Particularly in the more permanent legions of the Empire.


texts: Did Sun Tzu's "Art of War" influence Napoleon's philosophy of war and strategy?

texts:
The "Art of War" by Sun Tzu is to my knowledge one of the most important and oldest books (besides Clausewitz, Machiavelli) about the philosophy of war and military strategy.

Were historians able to find out if the French translation from 1772 influenced Napoleon and significantly changed the planning and course of battles compared to battles before this date?


texts: What was the influence of dead people on Johnson's 1948 election victory?

texts:
It has been alleged for years that Johnson captured his Senate seat through fraud, but the book, "Means of Ascent,", by Robert A. Caro, goes into great detail to tell how the future President overcame a 20,000-vote deficit to achieve his famous 87-vote victory in the 1948 Democratic runoff primary against a former Governor, Coke Stevenson. (Source: The New York Times, February 11, 1990.)

I don't have access to the book, and I couldn't find any other reference for those details, but in a news article published on Victoria Advocate.com, titled "Election Fraud Never So Flagrant As With LBJ's Box 13," it is written:

  We still hear about election fraud today, but generally nothing quite
  so flagrantly evident as it was with Box 13. Not that he potential
  does not still exist for such, like recent reports in New York that
  there are some 77,000 people in that state's  new database of
  registered voters who are deceased - some who are said to have somehow
  castes votes from the grave.

  It is not always easy to understand just how that happen, but it does,
  as it did in 1948 in Texas.

It is clear that the string of words "as it did in 1948 in Texas" refers to deceased person who 'would have' voted in that election.

Therefore, the questions are: What was the influence of deceased people to the Johnson's election? Can they actually have led to his election?


texts:
How fortified was Cyprus during WW2? By that I mean how many Allied naval ships were defending it, how many aircraft and airbases, and how many troops with what equipment?

The period I'm most interested in is summer 1940 to the end of 1941.

So far I've found very little. Wikipedia does not have an article about Cyprus during WW2, and I could not confirm which port the British were stationed in. This article was interesting, but it only explained that the Battle of Crete was bloody enough to dissuade Hitler from hopping to Cyprus next. He probably didn't wanna delay Barbarossa any further anyway.

Nevertheless, I would like to know how fortified the island was.


texts: Did men and women feast together in early medieval East Francia?

texts:
I am interested in important feasts of the upper classes (nobility), e.g., Easter or the baptism of important heirs, in the Eastern Frankish kingdom around 900 AD, specifically the Duchy of Saxony.

Different sources and my own considerations do not allow for a conclusion on whether men and women were together or in different rooms at these occasions:

Wikipedia says that the genders feasted separately in the early Middle Ages and only in the High Middle Ages with their courtly culture, they came together again.
On the other hand, Saxony was culturally closer to its Northern neighbors and considerably more “barbaric” than the rest of the Frankish sphere of influence.


texts: What was the contemporary reaction to Dante's Divine Comedy?

texts:
Dante's Divine Comedy is one of the great classics of world literature: a poem about Dante's journey through the three afterlives of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. During the course of these adventures Dante meets several historical people, including philosophers, artists and rulers, as well as contemporaries of Dante himself, in various stages of the afterlife.

From a modern perspective, it seems like the Divine Comedy is a work that would likely cause significant controversy: not only does it present a "fanfic version" of the afterlives, it also places several real people in each, while Catholic dogma asserts it is impossible to know for sure whether a person died in Divine Grace or not. Essentially, Dante recognizes saints not recognized by Catholic church. Even forgoing religious objections, several people would likely have differing political or personal reasons for objecting to Dante's "judgment" regarding the souls in the three afterlives.

Did any of these issues, or other issues concerning the Divine Comedy, spark notable controversy soon after the poem's release?


texts: Why did Canadian Provincial leaders take the path to Confederation (on July 1, 1867) instead of separate states?

texts:
Though Canadian Provincial leaders had a lot of divisions Sir John A. MacDonald and Sir George Cartier and others came to an agreement and made it possible to form a confederation.

Canadian Confederation (French: Confédération canadienne) was the process by which the British colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into one Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. –

Can anybody tell me was it because of pure compromising and sacrificing mentality that it was possible to form a Confederation? Or Were there any other components to it? For example, building a trans-Pacific railway road. Or to avoid the civil war. Or giving special privilege.


texts: Can anyone identify this woman’s uniform?

texts: Found this photo in a box of family pictures from England.  Most photos were prior to WW1


texts: How much did revolvers cost in Victorian England?

texts: What was the general price range for a decent revolver in Victorian England?


texts: Was there a Stick-Grenade prior to the Stielhandgranate?

texts:
Most people are familiar with the Stielhandgranate that appeared in 1915, and saw use in both world wars. The question I have, is whether it was the first of its kind, a stick-grenade? Were there no stick-grenade designs before it?

This would be very surprising if it was the first of its kind, as stick-grenades seem like a simple technology (that is, an explosive attached to a long handle, for the purpose of throwing it farther). In particular, I could see it having great use to the grenadiers in the 17th century.

Was it perhaps, because grenades in the earlier days of powder warfare were too heavy to make use of this design?


texts: How profitable was India for the British Empire in the 1800s?

texts:
I recently read Imperial Twilight, an excellent history of the opium wars. The author claims several times that while the British trade with China was very lucrative, India was by contrast "spectacularly unprofitable" and that the East India Company there would have "quickly gone bankrupt" without the opium money that supplemented their more legitimate ventures.

This caught me by surprise, because my impression was that the British valued their possessions in India as being generally very profitable, and that British nabobs had a reputation for getting rich there long before the opium trade took off. It feels like there's some context or caveat that I'm missing here.

How profitable was India for the British Empire, and what were the most important sources of Indian wealth in the 1800s? (Particularly in the decades leading up to the First Opium War.)


texts: How was religious diversity represented in the Thirteen Colonies?

texts:
I understand that many settlers of the original thirteen English colonies in America were Protestants (or Puritans, specifically) who left Europe in search for better religious freedom.
However, since many settlers were driven by economic motives, there must have been decent religious diversity in America even during the period of colonization (up to 1776).
How was this reflected in everyday life? Was there, for instance, a protestant majority who took power and suppressed other beliefs? Were there many different churches competing with each other? What where the daily implications of this fact for the common settler?
I am aware that an answer to this may differ greatly when taking into account different colonies of different origins.
I am mainly asking about the southern colonies, that is, Virginia, Georgia, Maryland and the Carolinas.
I am also looking specifically at the eighteenth century, when development of the colonies was well underway.


texts: When did the term "Nationality" first come into use? How did ancient civilizations refer to themselves? By ethnicity?

texts: When was the term "Nationality" first came into use? How did ancient civilizations refer to themselves? When we refer to Ancient Civilizations, did they consider themselves a nation in the modern sense and applied this to other civilizations? Saying he is of Roman, Persian, Egyptian Nationality? or was it only a reference to the cities people came from? How  and when did the term nationality develop to be is current form?


texts: Is there a Greek myth of Poseidon "dating" his daughter in the form of a dolphin?

texts:
On Saturday Night Live, there was a skit in which Greek god Poseidon said that he took the form of a dolphin and raped his daughter. Do we have literary or other evidence for such a myth?

It might have been a joke, I know there's plenty of myths about Zeus having sex in the form of an animal and I think a similar myth about Poseidon could exist.


texts: How many ships did the fleet of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) possess at its peak (around 1670)?

texts:
The Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (1602–1800) was a huge Dutch company primarily earning lots of revenue in the spice trade among other activities.

For this work they needed a lot of ships from lightly armed merchant ships to ships of the line to defend said merchants and their holdings in other countries.

Is there any detailed record about how many ships the VOC operated and owned at their peak?

On the Dutch Rijksmeuseum site I only get numbers of personnel

  Following the establishment of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), two or three fleets would sail each year from the Dutch Republic to Asia. Bigger ships were built for the voyage, to carry more people and more produce. It generally took eight months to reach the East Indies. An average of seven knots (13 kilometres per hour) was considered a good speed. Along the route, the VOC set up trading posts where ships could take on provisions for the next stage. Between 1602 and 1610, 8,500 people sailed to the East. The numbers soon rose: in the 17th century an average of 4,000 people sailed to East Asia each year; and in the 18th century even more. Eastindiamen could carry hundreds of passengers.

It seems there was an explosion in the amount of people sailing for the VOC but I cannot find any sources on the amount of ships they had in their possession.


texts: What was Poland's posture during the Seven Years' War?

texts:
Poland seems like the "invisible" party during the Seven Years' War Ostensibly, it was fought between France, Austria, and Russia on one side, and Prussia, plus Great Britain-Hannover on the other.

Yet Poland was actually quite "involved," willy-nilly.

King Augustus III of Saxony was also the elected King of Poland in a "personal union.
In order to attack Prussia, Russian troops had to cross Polish territory (modern Latvia and  Lithuania to get to East Prussia, and Pomerania to get to Brandenburg).

The trigger event was Frederick the Great's occupation of Saxony in 1756.

Did this constitute an attack on Poland that started an undeclared war between Prussia and Poland? Did Russian soldiers cross Poland with the blessing/invitation of Augustus III? Did the Russians "officially" justify their entry into Poland in terms of rescuing Saxony (and protecting Poland) from Frederick the Great? If it had won the war, Russia planned to seize East Prussia and exchange it to Poland for other considerations: Did Russia proffer this to Poland in exchange for passage?

Are there any records or writings about how the Polish government (or its leaders) felt about these issues? Why didn't they take a more active role by e.g. declaring war on Frederick the Great on behalf of their Saxon king?


texts: Was there relative peace in the Middle East before the end of the Great War?

texts:
I just finished reading Eugene Rogan's book The Fall of the Ottomans.

The vast majority of the book covers the years 1914 - 1918 (i.e. WWI), before concluding with the redistribution of the Ottoman Empire by the victors from 1918 to 1920.

Rogan discusses how the redistribution of the land at this time is the ultimate cause of the major aspects of conflict that occupy much of the Middle East up to the present day. Some examples:

France were given occupation of Syria, and established Lebanon as a separate Christian state, which has subsequently resulted in much violence between Syria and Lebanon, as well as civil wars within Lebanon as Muslims have come to outnumber Christians, up to the present day.
The Kurdish people were divided amongst Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, who have been embroiled in conflict with their host governments up to the present day.
Since WWI, Iraq has rarely seen an extended period of peace, with consistent revolutions, coups and wars.
The contradictions of the Balfour agreement (vaguely outlining it as a Jewish state with full implementation of all other religions within in) have resulted in Arab-Israeli conflicts to the present day.
Israel continue to occupy parts of Syria, and is yet to relinquish to Palestinian territories to Gaza and the West Bank.
Palestinian refugees remain scattered across Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

How did the dynamic of peace actually change in these regions following WWI?

Was there much more peace prior to the Great War?

If someone were to argue that the European powers are responsible for the conflict in the Middle East up to the present day, would there be a good response through arguing that conflict was rife even prior to the War?


texts: Nothing included on this old photograph other than it is a seaplane. Is it possible to know the manufacturer and where it was flown?


texts: Identification of ship and seaplane type

texts: Can anyone give clues on the type of ship and seaplane and the time frame?


texts: Why was Calcutta a node in the opium smuggling network prior to the Opium Wars in China?

texts:
As per Wikipedia's History of Kolkata page:

  After the territorial conquest of Bengal in 1757, the British East India Company pursued a monopoly on production and export of opium from India. The company bought opium from local traders and later directly from farmers, and sold it at auction in Calcutta. From there much of it was smuggled to Canton in China by foreign traders, eventually leading to the First Opium War (1839–1842).

Given that Calcutta was not anywhere near Canton and there weren't any direct routes (or were there?) from Calcutta to Canton, why was Calcutta chosen for those auctions instead of some place closer? Was it simply because it was under British control or was there any other reason?

Also, what routes did these smugglers take to smuggle opium from Calcutta to Canton?


texts: Why were the doors of ghettos locked at night?

texts:
I've heard that some hundreds of years ago, in many places, the Jews were forced to live in ghettos and that the doors to the ghetto were locked at night.  (See, for example, https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/venice-life-in-the-first-ghetto.)

The question is, why were the doors locked?  What unwanted events might have happened at night that locking the doors would prevent?


texts: Where can I find an English translation of 'Il Fioretto della Bibbia'?

texts:
I am currently reading The Cheese and the Worms, in which the author (Carlo Ginzburg) frequently cites a works of the apocryphal gospels titled Il Fioretto della Bibbia, an Italian translation of a medieval Catalan chronicle compiled from various sources.

Are any surviving (English) translations of this works in circulation? I have tried searching for this title but most results are in Italian so it might have escaped me.

The original works was presumably written in Catalan, but since I do not know how this title is translated into English (The Sword of the Bible perhaps?), let alone Medieval Catalan, I haven't had much success in my search for the original either.

I'm currently using the Stack Exchange mobile app and can't find a link to the Do's and Don'ts so I apologize if this is off-topic.


texts: What made Stalingrad a turning point in the second world war?

texts: Operation "Barbarossa" the German plan to invade the Soviet Union was a colossal success until Stalingrad. Capturing one third of the European Soviet Union and having the Luftwaffe taking monopoly of the sky, encircling the Russians in the Ukraine all German success was neutralized in the Soviet winter offensive. Even more it turned against them. From where such radical turn point of the situation? Is it a result giving allied aid to ports such as Murmansk?


texts: Is the "refuse" side of this American Revolutionary War document really empty?

texts:
I am doing genealogy work (not a genealogy question) and noticed my ancestors on a list regarding who would agree to fight the Britain in the American Revolutionary War.

The document is from people near Boston, MA where it looks like the government sent out a "circular" to collect signatures from those who agreed or refused to support the Revolution.

It looks my ancestor made it on the "lets fight" list but it appears to me that the "refuse" list is empty? Was this a printing/formatting error or does it look like no one refused the cause? I would think at least some colonists would remain loyal to the crown.

Also, I'm not sure of the line I highlighted in the text. What does "Extract from the Minutes" mean? Perhaps the "refuse" list is outside of this document?

The content I am describing is from page 330-336 in the link below.

https://books.google.com/books?id=8H-YOoZSdCMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+History+of+Londonderry,+Comprising+the+Towns+of+Derry+and+Londonderry,+N.+H.&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiXlcmq8OnVAhWC6oMKHRJlCEkQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false


texts: Is there an example of a civil rights movement supporter with a record of being against it?

texts:
I wonder if someone knows any example of a public figure who was (or is now) perceived as anti-civil rights movement in the values or decisions they stood for, but then switched their public agenda for political means?

Specifically, I wonder if someone rallied in the civil rights movement in the 60s, despite a record of not believing in the values of the movement, and instead using it to attack and criticize the established government for their own political interests, such as appearing "better" than the government in the eyes of the members of the movement and public in general.


texts: What determined who would be on the front lines of a large infantry engagement?

texts:
In Ancient and Middle Aged European Armies, what decided whether a soldier was at the front lines or just in the normal center-back? Was it a status symbol or honor to be in the front lines?
Please specify the country and age that this was in your answer. Anywhere where there were large scale battles.
I'm surprised about the little of information I can find on the subject and I'm quite curious what were the factors if there were any.
In essence I'm trying to figure out when you look at any kind of infantry regiment charging into battle who and what determined who was at the front of the lines.


texts: Does anyone know what type of structure this is?

texts: I came across this picture taken at an ancient Roman site (name & location not provided) and was wondering what kind of structure it is. I've searched for fountains, wells, milestones, and memorials, but was not able to find anything similar to this one. Would appreciate it if someone knows what it is and how it was used! Plus I'd like to know if there's a Latin name for it. Thanks.


texts: Wikipedia has an example Bill of Mortality from 1665, listing the causes of death for the London area.  Many of the terms in it are unfamiliar, though, eg. "Kings Evill", "Rupture", "Livergrown".  In modern terms, what are these people recorded as dying of?


texts: How would slaves have addressed their masters in Ancient Greece?

texts:
In Ancient Rome, slaves addressed their masters as Dominus or Domina (male or female, respectively).

Would the slaves (or servants) of Ancient Greece have used a similar title, or would they have simply used their masters's names?


texts: 1785 state [sic -- see the postscript below] census of Vermont?

texts:
In 1785 Vermont was a de-facto independent country that was unrecognized largely because the government of New York adamantly insisted that Vermont was legally part of New York (as King George III had ruled it was, in 1764).

It is asserted on this page that that unrecognized state conducted a census in 1785, and has some links to data (for example this page lists heads of households in Ferrisburgh Township who were enumerated in that census.

But this page asserts "No Vermont State Census Records are known to exist."

Can the contradiction be resolved?
Where can one find authoritative information about this?
In 1791, just after deciding to grant Vermont's latest petition for admission to thte Union, Congress decided Vermont would have two representatives in Congress, and that the census conducted the previous year throughout the U.S. but not in Vermont would get extended to Vermont in 1791.  Might their decision on the number of representatives have been based on an actual enumeration, namely the 1785 census?

PS: The comment by "SMS von der Tann" posted below confuses matters.  Let us recall that

In 1777 Vermont's declaration of independence and constitution referred to that polity as "the State of Vermont".
Unlike what happened with most (maybe all?) states admitted later the State of Vermont was not succeeded by a new entity when it was admitted.  The 1786 constitution of the State of Vermont continued in effect until two years after Vermont was admitted to the Union. Thomas Chittenden began a one-year term of office as governor of Vermont in October 1790, and somewhat less than five months into that one-year term, Vermont was admitted to the Union, and he did not then begin a new term as governor of a new entity, but as a matter of course continued his one-year term uninterrupted, as did other officers of the state.  Thus the status of the State of Vermont changed from that of a not-fully-recognized independent country to that of one of the states of the Union, but the state did not begin its existence at that time.

Thus a census conducted by the government of Vermont in 1785 can reasonably be called a state census, construing the word "state" in the sense in which the term was used in the constitution of Vermont that was then in effect, rather than as meaning one of the states within the Union.


texts: Advanced sub-saharan civilizations prior to cross-atlantic slave trade?

texts:
I came across the following passage in Desmond Morris' 1969 book The Human Zoo. In it the author is arguing that sub-saharan Africa contained advanced civilizations prior to the commencement of the cross-atlantic slave trade. Which specific cities (civilizations) and which visitors from the 13th and 14th century may he be referring to?

  Let us take just one glimpse at an ancient Negro city in West Africa,
  as it was seen over three and a half centuries ago by an early Dutch
  traveller. He wrote:

  "The town seemeth to be very great; when you enter into it, you go into
  a great broad street … seven or eight times broader than Warmes street
  in Amsterdam … you see many streets on the sides thereof, which also
  go right forth … The houses in the town stand in good order one close
  and even with the other, as the houses in Holland stand .. The King’s
  Court is very great, within it having many great four-square plains,
  which round about them have galleries … I was so far within the court
  that I passed over four such great plain, and wherever I looked, still
  I saw gates upon gates to go into other places …"

  Hardly a crude mud-hut village. Nor could the inhabitants of these
  ancient West African civilisations be described as ferocious,
  spear-waving savages. As early as the middle of the fourteenth century
  a sophisticated visitor remarked on the ease of travel and the
  reliable availability of food and good lodgings for the night. He
  commented:

  "There is complete security in their country. Neither traveller nor
  inhabitant in it has anything to fear from robbers or men of violence."


texts: Why were bows referred to as "Indian Artillery"?

texts:
So, I recently asked a question about dueling with bows.

The top answer for that included an account in The Scottish Journal which described bows and arrows as "Indian Artillery", which is a completely new term to me.

Does anyone know where this term comes from? If it was common-place? Just in Scotland, or further afield?

Here are images from the other SE Post


texts: What happened to all the historical photos taken by Malcolm X?

texts:
In his autobiography, Malcolm X often mentions carrying numerous cameras around, including a film movie camera. There are also plenty of photos showing him with a camera. However neither his official autobiography nor any websites I could turn up contain any of the photos made by him.

Considering the potential historical importance of the photos he took, where are they stored now? Did they disappear after his death?


texts: Was Carausius the grandfather of Magnus Maximus?

texts:
According to Wikipedia, and Geni.com, the British usurper Carausius c. 286 is the grandfather of Magnus Maximus c. 383. This would chronologically make sense, but is a little bizarre. From what I understand, Carausius was a Menapiian (Belgian). I would like to find another source. Maximus' father is listed as Flavius Iulius Eucherius. His uncle was Theodosius the elder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Maximus


texts: Which Roman towns (outside of Italy) have been very well preserved?

texts: Are there Roman towns within Europe, North Africa and/or the Middle East that have been very well preserved? I am not referring to a specific temple, theater or stadium, but actual towns/(or small cities) which have remained well preserved for nearly 2000 years.


texts: Why did the Portuguese colonies stay united whereas the Spanish ones split up?

texts: Why did the South-American Portuguese colonies unite into one country, Brazil, whereas the South-American Spanish colonies split into many different countries, i.e. Argentina, Peru, Chile, etc?


texts: In Antiquity, were Persian arrows considered superior to their Greek counterparts?

texts:
In Xenophon's Anabasis I ran into the following part:

  The Persian bows are also large, and consequently the Cretans could
  make good use of all the arrows that fell into their hands; in fact,
  they were continually using the enemy's arrows, and practised
  themselves in long-range work by shooting them into the air. In the
  villages, furthermore, the Greeks found gut in abundance and lead for
  the use of their slingers.

Xen. Anab. 3.4.17

Translation by "Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 3. Carleton L. Brownson. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. 1922."

Xenophon points to the fact that the Cretans used arrows taken from their Persian foes all the time (διατελέω in Greek) and even started training to use them more efficiently.

The question: were the ancient Persian arrows that superior so the Cretan archers started using them exclusively and trained for them?


texts: As newly independent countries after WWI, why didn't Baltic states have sovereignty dispute and war each other like other Eastern European countries?

texts:
After the WWI, many independent countries emerged and the borders between these countries, and also the existing Eastern European countries, were not clear, leading to territorial claims, disputes and large scale conflicts, including:

Poland - Czechoslovakia

Poland - Lithuania

Poland - Russia

Hungary - Czechoslovakia

Hungary - Romania

Romania - Bulgaria

Bulgaria - Greece

Greece - Turkey

Italy - Yugoslavia

Were there sovereignty disputes between the Baltic states? Were there sovereignty dispute between the states and Russia? And why would that be and how did the Baltic states avoid that?


texts: Is there any evidence to support the claim that the United States was "suckered into WW1" by Zionists, made by Benjamin Freedman in his 1961 speech?

texts:
In the comments to another question another user of History:SE made a remarkable, if unbelievable, claim:

  Actually, Germany was shocked when the US declared war and entered on the side of Great Britain. The entry of the US quickly brought an exhausted Germany, but not as exhausted as England, France, and Russia, to its knees. The Germans wouldn't find out why the US had suddenly and inexplicably entered the war until they were sitting around the table at the Treaty of Versailles. And, yes, WWII began at that table. What the Germans discovered was so shocking that it shocks us still. Indeed, if I know my StackExchange, I'll bet their discovery was so shocking the mods will ban you for repeating it

Naturally, I was intrigued.  Having studied those peace negotiations I wondered what it was that could possibly have shocked that German delegation and this user.  The reply was:

  Well, I'm talking about the Balfour Declaration, of which the Germans had no knowledge until Versailles, wherein the British, who controlled Palestine at the time, promised a group of Jewish financiers (including German Jews) the land of Palestine in return for bringing the US into the war against Germany. Viola! My source is Benjamin Freedman, who claims to have been involved with the Versailles negotiations, from a speech he gave in DC in 1961.

In essence, Benjamin Freedman claims that America had been 'tricked' into joining World War One on the side of the allies by Zionists in return for the promise of Palestine, and that the Balfour Declaration was a kind of 'receipt' for services rendered.

I suggested that the user post a question, citing his source, and asking whether there was any evidence to support Mr Freedman's claims.  Unfortunately, rather than doing so, the user posted something rather different.

Nonetheless, the question has been raised and – as historians – we should endeavour to answer it.

So, is there any evidence to support the claims made by Benjamin Freedman in his 1961 speech, and repeated in comments here on this site?


texts:
Being European, I know history of World War II from Europe's perspective (and mainly with focus on Czechoslovakia).

So:

Was a land belonging to Australia ever attacked during WW2?

For scope of question, it does not to be mainland, but if there are islands belonging to Australia, that applies to (Pearl Harbour and USA example).

And if yes, what was the most important battle?


texts: Has there ever been any assassination so that another assassination could happen during the first one's funeral?

texts:
I was reading a review of a book in the article Fascistas catalanes: pocos, pero al abrigo de los poderes (Catalan fascists: few, but with a shelter of the powers) and I found an interesting reference:

  Los planes de complots fracasados podían contarse por decenas, como el intento de asesinato de Niceto Alcalá Zamora el 6 de abril de 1932. Los extremistas pretendían una carambola: en el entierro de Alcalá Zamora matar a Manuel Azaña.

That is:

  The failed plot plans could be counted in dozens, such as the attempted assassination of Niceto Alcalá Zamora on April 6, 1932. The extremists wanted a fluke: at Alcalá Zamora's burial, to kill Manuel Azaña.

Alcalá Zamora was the President of the Republic of Spain, while Manuel Azaña was the Prime Minister, and also one of the top leaders in the country.

Note the usage of carambola in Spanish, which is a reference to the cannon (or carom) in billiards: clipping an object ball with the cue ball to attempt to send either or both to desirable locations.

So the idea of those fascists was to kill someone so they could get another dignitary into a specific place, and then kill them. This did not work to them, but prompted me to guess: has this ever worked in history? Has there ever been a dignitary killing that then led to the killing of another, most important, one?

It is important to highlight the assassination part, otherwise the tuple Stalin-Gottwald would count, since the president of Czechoslovakia died after attending the USSR's leader's funeral and catching a cold there.

My research did not find any case, since most of the references to assassination and funeral I found are nowadays (April 2020) biased towards the Qasem Soleimani assassination and the deaths in his funeral.


texts: Population disparities between New York City and Boston

texts: Both Boston and New York City are incredibly important early settlements that still thrive to this day. Given the early advantages of Boston I would assume that it would be one of the top 5 largest cities in the USA, however it is only ranked as the 21st largest. New York City has at least 13 times the population of Boston. What has led to this large disparity between New York City and Boston? Are they simply geographical limitations or are the reasons ultimately political/economic/cultural in nature?


texts: Was it not possible to exploit the gaps between each pre-modern melee formation?

texts:
Soldiers seem to be split into their respective companies or battalions but on the battlefield instead of presenting a complete front line they split up and leave gaps in the line between each battalion or company. Was it therefore not possible for a group of men to force themselves between this gap?

I imagine this would be even easier in a pike formation where it is quite unwieldy to swing your pike around.

Like this:

P P P
R   R


texts: How do vetoes affect re-votes in US Congress?

texts:
I would think that a president challenging the will of congress would cause congress to vote differently out of principle but am curious if this is true.

Throughout history, what is the percentage increase or decrease in congressmen and women who vote for a bill after it has been vetoed?

cross-asked on politics.stackexchange here


texts: First time the sail ship technology took off

texts:
At what point in history did the sail ship technology take off for the first time?
And by that I mean sail ships that significantly eased trade across water and which got produced in significant quantities over significant times.

There were Triremes back in classical times but the image is they were partially powered by slaves rowing down below indicating they weren't that advanced at the time. You can never row your way across large distances cheaply.

Then sailships were continuously becoming better in the 9th century in northern Europe, but I'm not sure how much further back their development goes and what was going on elsewhere.

I find this question important because the ability to send things cheaply from A to B (be it people, ideas or general trade) is a fundamental building block of civilization. Which makes the sail ship a very fundamental technology in history.


texts: Were women in 17th century France as cloistered as suggested here?

texts:
I am reading some books by/about Sr Helen Prejean, and in one, came across the following assertion regarding the founding of her religious community, The Sisters of St Joseph, in France, circa 1650:

  The first members of the order dressed like widows because their initial mission was to take care of homeless children, and widows were the only women who could move through the streets unaccompanied.

Sister Helen The Spiritual Journey of Sister Helen Prejean CAROL LEE FLINDERS, Ph. D 2012

Were French women as socially constrained as this suggests? I can understand unmarried women requiring a chaperon/e, but would respectable matrons not be able to move about freely, to shop, visit, attend church etc?


texts: What exactly were the religious beliefs of Gemistus Plethon?

texts:
According to wikipedia:

  [Gemistus Plethon] was a Greek scholar of Neoplatonic philosophy. He was one of the chief pioneers of the revival of Greek learning in Western Europe. In the dying years of the Byzantine Empire, he advocated a return to the Olympian gods of the ancient world.

I have read history books on Byzantium which touch only briefly on Gemistus Plethon. I have also just read his wikipedia article.

I will admit, the wikipedia article makes out Plethon's religious views to be very confusing (at least to me). It makes mention of Greek Polytheism, Zoroastrianism, Esotericism and belief in a single "supreme being".

Yet at the same time, he was also well versed in Christian theology and held opinions on how to best resolve the conflicts facing the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church.

I guess my real question is, was Plethon an actual worshipper of the ancient Greek gods? or was he just a dissenter who combined heaps of beliefs from ancient cultures to form his own kind of religion? Did he ever claim himself to be a polytheist?


texts: Were there communes in Imperial Germany?

texts:
I wonder about the territorial division of Imperial Germany.

The empire was divided among 26 states (in German Bundesstaaten).

Each of them had an internal division system which of course differers from state to state.

It appears that Prussia and the Grand-duchy of Baden had a 3-level administrative division,

while other states had either 2 levels or just 1-level division.

The lowest division was a Circle (in German Kreis) which consisted of

either 1 city, or a dozen of Rural villages, or in some cases, both.

My question is, were the Circles divided into communes (in German Gemeinde)

that consisted of only one or possibly two villages?

I find no trace of German communes before 1945, but I might be wrong.


texts: Has Nursing Always Been Female Dominated Like Today (90+%)?

texts:
I had a discussion with a nursing friend (male nurse) and he said that he wouldn't be a nurse if he had the chance again due to often being asked to do things no other nurse wants (like getting the undesirable patients, doing the dirtier/nastier work, etc).  He made an observation that I can't find any data on - in the past, men may have been more likely to be nurses because all jobs sucked in the past, such as dangerous farming or mining (much more dangerous than today).  Relatively speaking, his point was nursing wasn't as bad comparatively in those times, thus more men would have been likely to do it.

In the United States, 92% of nurses are female, but I can't seem to find any data about male nursing 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago, even though nursing has been around a while.  Is there any historic data of gender and nursing from 50-100 years ago as a comparative point?


texts: When did office chairs get their fifth wheel?

texts:
Modern swiveling office chairs almost universally have five wheels on five legs, while vintage chairs often have only four. The fifth wheel adds a lot of stability against tipping over; the physics and geometry of this arrangement must have been obvious quite a long time ago. This related question on a sister site shows that the change was in place by the 1980s, as well as naming reasons motivating it.

When did the fifth wheel and leg become normalized in the manufacture of office chairs?


texts: Who were the highest-ranking officers of each belligerent nation, who parachuted with troops in Operation Market Garden?

texts:
Was erstwhile (MG) James M. Gavin the highest-ranking US general officer?
Please see the question's title. I know that U.K. soldiers parachuted, but don't know if any Canadians, Polish did.

  Gavin assumed command of the 82nd Airborne Division on August 8, 1944, and was promoted to major general in October.[9] For the first time, Gavin would lead the 82nd Airborne into combat. On Sunday, September 17, Operation Market Garden took off. Market Garden, devised by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, consisted of an airborne attack of three British and American airborne divisions. The 82nd was to take the bridge across the Maas river in Grave, seize at least one of four bridges across the Maas-Waal canal, and the bridge across the Waal river in Nijmegen. The 82nd was also to take control of the high grounds in the vicinity of Groesbeek, a small Dutch town near the German border. The ultimate objective of the offensive was Arnhem.

  In the drop into the Netherlands, Gavin landed on hard pavement instead of grass, injuring his back. He had it inspected by a doctor a few days later, who claimed that his back was fine, and so Gavin continued normally throughout the entirety of the war. Five years later, he had his back examined at Walter Reed Hospital, where he learned that he had, in fact, fractured two discs in the jump.[10]