texts:
What kind of religions did ancient aboriginals of Australia follow?
Was there religion monotheistic, pantheistic or polytheistic?
In Wikipedia I read this

Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology is the sacred spirituality represented in the stories performed by Aboriginal Australians within each of the language groups across Australia in their ceremonies. Aboriginal spirituality includes the Dreamtime (the Dreaming), songlines, and Aboriginal oral literature.

The page speak a whole lot about religion and mythology but never tell what kind of belief system do Australian aboriginals have?
Another thing I found on Australian Aboriginal culture wiki page

Aboriginal Australians' oral tradition and spiritual values build on reverence for the land and on a belief in the Dreamtime, or Dreaming. The Dreaming is considered to be both the ancient time of creation and the present-day reality of Dreaming. It describes the Aboriginal cosmology, and includes the ancestral stories about the supernatural creator-beings and how they created places. Each story can be called a "Dreaming", with the whole continent is criss-crossed by of Dreamings or ancestral tracks, also represented by songlines.


texts:
Why do some slave narratives from the WPA seem so positive?

For example:

  Freedom is all right, but de niggers was better off befo’ surrender, kaze den dey was looked after an’ dey didn’ get in no trouble fightin’ an’ killin’ like dey do dese days. If a nigger cut up an’ got sassy in slavery times, his Ole Marse give him a good whippin’ an’ he went way back an’ set down an’ ‘haved hese’f. If he was sick, Marse an’ Mistis looked after him, an’ if he needed store medicine, it was bought an’ give to him; he didn’ have to pay nothin’. Dey didn’ even have to think ’bout clothes nor nothin’ like dat, dey was wove an’ made an’ give to dem. Maybe everybody’s Marse and Mistis wuzn’ good as Marse George and Mis’ Betsy, but dey was de same as a mammy an’ pappy to us niggers. WPA


texts: What was the true status of Hessian mercenaries?

texts: Were the Revolutionary War Hessian mercenaries that fought with the British pressed into service by the Hessian government in Hesse. or were they truly voluntary mercenaries that had signed up with the British army for individual gain?


texts:
I was watching a footage from (I believe an early stage) Vietnam War and here and there I see Vietnameses troopers among American troopers. You can distinguish them by red robe on their necks (like for example at 9:52 min. of this YouTube video: DIRTY SECRETS of VIETNAM - Booby Traps & Snares). And I suppose those were translators.

I believe that during the 1960's in Vietnam it was not so common to speak English so is there any information where those Vietnamese translators were recruited from (maybe some students or something)?


texts: Did Native Americans sabotage telegraph lines running through their territory?

texts: In the 1800s in the Western US, there were a number of telegraph lines running through territory mostly inhabited by Indians.  Did they ever sabotage the lines?


texts: What was happening to bank deposits during WW2?

texts: I'm curious what was happening with people's money in banks in countries involved in World War Two. Were they frozen, lost or banks were functioning no matter who was currently controlling territory?


texts: When did FDR announce he was running a 3rd time, and was there any outrage?

texts:
When did President Franklin Roosevelt announce he was running again for a 3rd term? And was there any shock or outrage at this?

I noticed the Vice President, John Garner, actually ran against FDR in the primary. That's what led to Henry Wallace on the ticket. I also noticed that the Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie, did make some criticism of the 3rd term but it didn't seem that strong.

There appears to be a lack of serious or strong criticism and I'm trying to understand why. It appears people trusted FDR for a war, and yet America was supposedly very isolationist, so I am having trouble why most Americans would vote for FDR when he appears, to me, very vulnerable to these criticism.

Edit: Another way of saying this: Most of the country was isolationist. Therefore, if the war in Europe is heating up, why tolerate a hawk for a 3rd term?


texts: Which early Imperial Roman writer said this about grains?

texts:
I definitively although vaguely recall a quote by a (first century AD?) Roman that asserts more or less that civilised Romans use wheat in baking, whereas Germans/Celts (I forget which) would use rye (or barley perhaps?), which in Rome is "only fit for the livestock" or such, in his words. It may specifically be in the context of bread.

I have searched for this quote to no avail, so if anyone could kindly direct me to its source and author, I would much appreciate it.

Note: To be clear, I'm not thinking of Samuel Johnson's quote relating to the English and Scots, although there are obvious parallels.


texts: Which of these quotes are actually Einstein's (if any)?

texts:
Two very similar-sounding quotes have come to my ear, both supposedly said by Albert Einstein.

The first quote is:

  “If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” ― Albert Einstein

The second quote is:

  “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.” ― Albert Einstein

The close similarity between them could point towards them being the very same quote in misquoted versions.

Which did Albert Einstein actually say? If any...


texts: What prevented the Mongolian Empire from expanding into Europe?

texts: The Mongolian Empire reached quite a vast extent according to the map below and leaders such as Genghis Khan seemed to defeat all their enemies consistently. Yet, the empire never extended into Europe, or even the Baltic states. What prevented them from invading and succeeding like the Huns did, for example?


texts: Are there any sources which talk about the experience of attending a 15th/16th century fencing school?

texts: I'm interested to know of any material which describes the experience of being a student at a medieval period fencing school e.g. once which may have been run by a Master teaching in the Lichtenauer longsword tradition or other similar period weapons.


texts: Why did Great Britain switch its alliance to France?

texts:
England (and its succeeding states) were at war with France for close to 1000 years. First it was over land, then they competed over religion, then they competed over colonies.

For much of that time, England was allied with various German states.

All of a sudden, in World War 1 the UK found itself an ally with France and at war with Germany.

What caused this change?


texts: What incentives were there for Soviet and Chinese politicians to try climb to the top when there was so much history of deposing their own?

texts:
USSR had  1936-1938 Great Purge, 1941 Red Army purges, Leningrad affair. Beria was executed. Nikita Khrushchev, Zhukov, Podgorny were ousted.

In China, Hua Goufeng was ousted, Zhao Ziyang house arrested, Hu Yaobang forcibly resigned, Gang of Four and Bo Xilal convicted.

What were the specific potential rewards for junior Soviet and Chinese politicians to rise to the top, when there was a substantial chance that they could end up like their former leaders who were overthrown or worse?
Even for the leaders who weren't overthrown, is there any evidence that they were continuously worried about being overthrown?


texts: Why were the British so reluctant to allow Jewish migration to Palestine?

texts:
Not sure if this is the correct forum to ask this, but I'm currently reading 'Exodus' by Leon Uris, and I'm curious as to why the British were so reluctant in letting Jewish people in Palestine.

This is only very softly explained in the book, but I'm curious to a more in-depth look and explanation.


texts: Who was the last/is the current count of Orsay?

texts:
Alfred d'Orsay (1801-1852), comte d'Orsay, had no children so I believed that the title passed to his sister Ida d'Orsay (who is mentioned to be countess of Orsay on various websites) and then to her eldest son Agénor de Gramont (1819-1880) (10th duke of Gramont) only still living child Antonia Gabrielle Léontine.

However, there are two issues here:

Agénor Antonia never used the title "compte d'Orsay" as far as I know,
the title was never claimed again.

So who was the last count of Orsay, and who is the last person we have trace of who could claim it?


texts: Who developed the Nazi psychology techniques?

texts:
Who developed all those Nazi tricks, such as

Ordering the victims to bring possessions with them
Selecting only the tall ones one day and only the short ones the other day so to make impression it is for some kind of work rather than execution.
Asking the victims to write letters to the relatives before being executed.
Make the victims complicit and feel guilty, asking mother to chose which of the two kids to kill, making son to kill father etc.
Elevating and giving uniforms to some victims so they to help.
Issuing "Jewish money" in the ghettos.
Distributing Jewish property to the locals so they to feel complicit as well.
Special shops for Ukrainians in Poland.
Making some non-German people to sign papers that they were Germans so to always feel in danger.

etc.

I think some of these techniques are very complicated. For instance, no other prison in history ever enjoyed such level of autonomy and self-government as Nazi concentration camps not to say, ghettos, even though in most prisons people are not killed and usually get released.

How the Nazis managed to make people to help kill themselves, hand over all possessions, report their saviors, trust what Nazis were saying etc?

The question is not limited to treatment of civilians but also the way Nazis made Germans to fight till the end (possibly making all the army complicit in atrocities), how they made foreign leaders to trust them and perceive invasions as "provocations", possibly by makinge foreign powers (Poland, the USSR) complicit as well in partitioning other countries before being invaded themselves etc.

Who developed such a great range of various deception and compelling techniques? Is is somehow connected with how they treated mentally ill? Were there any known psychiatrists who studied human behavior behind this?


texts: What happened to the coins in ancient Greece and Rome when monarchs changed?

texts:
Were there any instances in the ancient periods of Greece and Rome, where the succeeding monarchs/state leaders refused to acknowledge the coins issued by the preceding monarch, i.e., decreed the previous coins as illegal tenders? If that ever happened, were the populace being given new coins in exchange for the old ones or those old ones became only as good as the metals that could be extracted from it by melting or any other method? Was there any instance where the monarch invalidated the old coins and refused to take any liability for those coins?

If there are no such instances in Greece/Rome but similar event(s) happened in places other than Greece or Rome and in any period other than ancient, mention of that will work as well.


texts: Why was there no concerted effort to end the Barbary pirate raids until the 1800's?

texts:
Barbary pirate raids on the Mediterranean coast led to widespread depopulation of the coasts from Venice to Malaga with the obvious exception of the larger cities. The pirate raids also seem to be the most frequent during the 17th-18th centuries, when many European countries were on the rise. France, who reached her apogee in the late 17th century, did almost nothing to safeguard her citizens on the south coast. Britain, instead of using her Naval supremacy to crush the pirates, struck a deal with them whereby no ship under the British flag would be a target in return for a tribute (although this was probably a case of Realpolitik; the British realized that the Barbary pirates did far more damage to their adversaries than to them).

So why was there no concerted effort by the Europeans to stamp out the Barbary pirates in the 17th-18th centuries?


texts: In particular, how were large-scale operations like war campaigns organized, how were logistics tracked, and how did people ensure that complex chains of time-sensitive events were carried out correctly? What pen and paper (or other) methods existed?


texts:
This article states:

  To put it in broader perspective, Muslim population has steadily grown
  from 13% in 1800 to 16% in 1850 to 20% in 1900 to 25% in 1947 and
  anywhere between 30 to 33% today taking into account the geographical
  area of pre-partitioned India. These statistics are available from
  various sources.

It doesn't provide any reference that I can check.

This book estimates that India's population may have been 185 million in 1800 AD.

But it doesn't give any estimate of the Muslim population.

13% of 185 million = 24.05 million. Is it a correct estimate?

According to most widely accepted estimate by historians, What was the population of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent in 1800 AD?

(If such data is not available, I would be happy with estimates of between 1800 and 1850)


texts: What did Kong Rong say about Cao Cao that got Kong Rong killed?

texts:
The Wikipedia article on Kong Rong says:

  In 208, Kong Rong spoke ill of Cao Cao before an emissary from Sun
  Quan, a warlord occupying southeast China. Cao Cao then sentenced him
  to death. According to the Spring and Autumn Annals of Wei (魏氏春秋) by
  Sun Sheng (孫盛), Kong Rong's two eight-year-old sons (a nine-year-old
  son and a seven-year-old daughter according to the Book of Later Han)
  were playing a game of weiqi when their father was arrested. When
  others urged them to escape, they answered:

    How could there be unbroken eggs under a toppled nest?

What did Kong Rong say to end up like that?


texts: Couldn't an army of archers easily defeat Macedonian style phalanxes?

texts:
At that time of military history, it seems the phalanx was the accepted supreme military style that won battles. So countries tried to outdo each to see who could do the phalanx best.

Since archers are able to provide ranged fire, but the phalanx had to stay in their formation, why couldn't a vaunted, specialised phalanx army be easily defeated by an army of multiple clumps of many archers?

The archers could just keep their distance, shooting into the phalanx, at a high trajectory if necessary to get over any shields being held at the front of the body. If the phalanx charged at any one clump of archers, they would simply retreat, at a run if necessary, while on the other sides of the phalanx the other clumps of archers could meanwhile advance and keep shooting. The phalanx would be under constant fire from all directions, and never able to close with the enemy, so all their long spears and disciplined formation technique would be useless. Eventually, the number of arrows would take their toll and the phalanx would be whittled down and defeated.

Was it not considered the honourable way to fight, it was only honourable to meet phalanx to phalanx?

Or would roaming cavalry be too easily able to hassle the archers? But the clumps of archers could have been protected from cavalry by infantry with long spears, or by their own protective light cavalry.

For countries who weren't as good with the phalanx, why didn't they try this method?


texts: How did Tenures Abolition Act of 1660 change feudalism in England?

texts:
The Tenures Abolition Act of 1660, according to Wikipedia, "changed the nature of feudal land tenure in England". It:

  .. replaced various types of military and religious service tenants owed to the Crown with socage, and compensated the monarch with an annual fixed payment of £100,000 to be raised by means of a new tax on alcohol. Frankalmoin, copyhold, and certain aspects of grand serjeanty were excluded.

According to Wikipedia's entry on socage, it is:

  one of the feudal duties and hence land tenure forms in the feudal system. A farmer, for example, held the land in exchange for a clearly defined, fixed payment to be made at specified intervals to his feudal lord, who in turn had his own feudal obligations, to the farmer and to the Crown.

These explanations still confuse me. Let me pose the question like this:

If I'm an average peasant Joe, how does this act change my relationship to my land and to my lord? Does it mean I now pay rent on the land, kind of like today's renter-landlord relationship? What was the relationship before the act? And if it's about the relationship between peasant, lord and the land being worked, what does it have to do with the monarch who now has to be "compensated" with £100,000?


texts: Did the 49 star USA flag see significant adoption by the American public?

texts:
1959, the 48 star flag, which had been in use since 1912, was being retired and replaced with a 49 star flag thanks to Alaska becoming a state.

While government bodies would have swapped out their flags right away, I can imagine that since Hawaii was already about to become a state too, the public might have decided to wait for the 50 star flag to be introduced before buying a new one.

During the one year it was the official flag, did the 49 star flag see significant adoption by the American public?


texts: Why did the Germans forbid the possession of pet pigeons in Rostov-on-Don in 1941?

texts:
Photograph made by Max Alpert shows a dead boy holding a pigeon. It seems that the child has been tortured before he was killed.

Source: Federal Archive Agency of Russia,  Russian state archive of photographic and movie documents, item nr. 0-259138 (Российский государственный архив кинофотодокументов, aрхивный номер: 0-259138)

According to Russian Wikipedia the name of this boy was Victor Ivanovich Cherevichkin and the Germans killed him because he did not kill his pigeons. After they occupied Rostov-on-Don (the hometown of this boy), the issued an order that made illegal to own pet pigeons.

The boy hid his pigeons at home and was killed for that by the Germans.

Why did the Germans not allow people to own pigeons? What made the possession of pigeons so dangerous that it justified the killing of a child?

Update 1 (2019-04-07 00:09 CET): Here is the Original text from Russian Wikipedia article:

  22 ноября 1941 года был издан приказ об уничтожении голубей в районах города Ростова. Вопреки предписанию немецкого командования об уничтожении принадлежащих местному населению домашних голубей, подросток в течение недели скрывал имевшихся у него птиц.

  28 ноября 1941 года немцы застали Виктора Черевичкина выпускающим нескольких голубей у здания, в котором размещался штаб, и обнаружили в сарае во дворе его дома голубятню.


texts: Did an English company famous for its hidden purpose in the 1720s ever reveal its undertaking?

texts:
The Wikipedia article for the South Sea Company says that: "Among the many companies to go public in 1720 is - famously - one that advertised itself as 'a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is'".

I was curious as to whether anything ever came of this company, but a google search yielded no real further information on the company. Was this just another company in that investment-frenzy phase, or did it ever amount to anything more (and what did the company actually do)?


texts: Why was the British University Grants Committee abolished in 1988?

texts:
Wikipedia says that:

  The UGC was wound up on 1 April 1989, with its powers transferred to a
  new body, the Universities Funding Council, which was directly
  responsible to Parliament.

But it's not really clear was was going on.

Was the UGC faulted for specific failings?
Who came up with the initiative to abolish the UGC?
Was there significant opposition to the move?


texts: Why was Africa colonized last of the continents in the Age of Discovery?

texts: One thing that I always wondered is during the time where European powers were dividing up the world amongst themselves (1500-1900 roughly), why was it that Africa seemed to lag behind in colonization, compared to other continents such as the Americas?


texts: Why were bastards historically not able to inherit nobility or monarchy from  their parents? What about being a bastard made one unfit to rule? For example William IV of the UK was succeeded by his niece Queen Victoria instead of any of his children because all 10 of them were bastards.


texts: First Roman battles after the Marian reforms

texts:
I'm quite interested in the removal of the Hastati, Principes and Triarii elements introduced by the Marian reforms in 107 BC, and how it affected the Roman army at first.

Looking on Wikipedia for Roman battles just after the reform brings two Roman defeats in the Cimbrian War: the Battle of Burdigala (107 BC) and the disastrous Battle of Arausio (105 BC).

Both articles mention other causes for defeat, but I'm wondering if inexperience in a new system on the battlefield played a part.

Of course, in case the new Marian legions didn't made their debut in neither of those battles, where was it and what impact had the new composition of the army?


texts: Responsibilities of a naval chaplain in the Spanish empire

texts:
In the beginning of the 19th century Agustín Fernández was chaplain of the naval base at San Blas. Records in the colonial section of the Mexican national archive, summarized in all caps, refer to his role several ways:

"CAPELLAN DE LOS BUQUES" (chaplain of the ships)
"AUXILIAR DEL PAQUEBOT 'PRINCIPE ASTURIAS'" (auxiliary of the packetboat "Principe Asturias")
"CAPELLAN DEL APOSTADERO DE SAN BLAS" (chaplain of the San Blas station)

Other than provide confession to mariners, what did a naval chaplain like Fernández do? Given that reference to a specific ship, would the chaplain have served on voyages as well as in port?


texts: Who was the ruler (Halach Uinik) of the pre-conquest Mayan state (Kuchkabal) of Can Pech around the beginning of the 16th century? If not the individual, the dynasty?


texts: Who thought there might be a war between the British Empire and the United States of America in the 1920s?

texts:
A naval arms race in the 1920s grew ugly enough that commentators on
  both sides of the Atlantic were claiming war “not unthinkable.”

This quote is from a lecture by an academic called John Moser; he doesn't give any more details though.

Who were these commentators? How serious was the threat of war, and what if any were the disputes other than naval supremacy? Someone suggested it was over a refusal to pay back Britain's WW1 debt. Wikipedia's article on Britain's national debt mentions some irregularities there, but doesn't say it was serious enough that people thought about war.


texts: What happened to the burial sites of Edward I's children?

texts:
Despite being spared the destruction wrought upon other religious sites during the dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII, there appear to be quite a few ‘lost’ burial locations in Westminster Abbey. Tombs and bones often get disturbed or lost during reconstruction or rebuilding work. For example, there was a major find in 2015 of medieval bones believed to date from the 11th and 12th centuries, placed there during the rebuilding of the abbey in the reign of Henry III. However, the lost burials of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile's young children post date this – they were, in fact, the grandchildren of Henry III.

One infant, Beatrice, was said to be buried at the feet of Henry III. Alphonso, who was heir to the throne for most of his life until he died a few months short of his eleventh birthday, was buried in the nave, but the location is now unknown. His older brothers, John and Henry, were also buried in the abbey but, again, I believe these burial sites are lost.

I've not been able to find information on any major construction work that might have destroyed these burial sites, nor evidence that they were moved.

Is it known what happened to them?


texts: Is there information about statistics of the quality of treatment of slaves in pre-abolition USA?

texts:
In the USA before the abolition of slavery, it's easy to conceptualize that different slave-owners treated their slaves differently. There might have been sadists who tortured their slaves, and there might have been those who were kind with them and considered them almost family. And probably many between the two extremes who only cared about profit.

However, is there any information about their statistical distribution? Around how much percent were excessively brutal with their slaves, and around how much percent were treating their slaves humanely?

Please, no general opinions or politically motivated rants. I'm only interested in serious sources. The perfect answer would cite surveys or statistics, or if such information is non-existent, then contemporary sources from which an approximation could be reliably inferred.


texts: How did Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof end up on the list of prisoners to be released, by Black September?

texts:
After seeing the movie The Baader-Meinhof Komplex, I was confused by one part, which was how Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof ended up on the list of prisoners to be released at the 1972 Olympics.

I know that the group trained in Jordan with the PLO –– but is it assumed that Black September, a splinter group, knew who they were?

Out of 200 prisoners whose release was demanded, only these two were in German prison.  How did that happen?


texts:
I read this in the source cited in this answer

  Initially the Soviet assistance in China’s nuclear programme was
  limited to the civil nuclear energy field. However, Moscow’s attitude
  shifted in 1957 when Khrushchev needed the support from the CCP
  leaders in dealing with the political struggle within his own party.
  In return, Moscow signed a comprehensive weapon technology transfer
  agreement with Beijing in October 1957 that included provision for
  additional Soviet nuclear assistance as well as the furnishing of some
  surface-to-surface, surface-to-air, and anti-ship missiles. sinodefense.com

Question is: what could posibly the CCP do for Khrushchev in his interal power struggles?


texts: Questions historians ask that non-historian enthusiasts don't?

texts: Long-time history buff looking to take my game to the next level, so to speak. I am interested both in writing historical/alt-history fiction and maybe doing some podcasts on historical phenomena I find interesting, but I have no formal training as a historian and am curious what those with an actual historiographic background would say are driving questions in the field that are often overlooked by non-historians.


texts: Can anyone tell me about this old portrait of George Washington?

texts: I’ve searched online, and can’t seem to find this exact portrait of him. There are always differences in the ruffles, lips, nose, etc. Also, what type of print is this and roughly how old is it?


texts: How would you address a merchant in the High Middle Ages?

texts: If you were to address a powerful and affluent noble with a wide monopoly over trade in the 11th-13th centuries, what would you call them? (Assuming you are of lesser rank to them) Would it be Sir, Lord, Master? If there is any information on specific titles from different regional languages, Swedish/German/Danish would be preferred. Any insight would be much appreciated.


texts: Why have "classical" given names (seemingly) had greater persistence in American black culture?

texts:
This is not quite a duplicate of Did American slave holders typically give their slaves the names of Roman nobility?. Over there, two sheds' answer gives a compelling argument that it wasn't so much that slaves had classical names, as everyone had classical names in the 19th century, from Ulysses S. Grant to Junius Brutus Booth. The argument is that if you saw the name "Cornelius" on a résumé in 1830, it might just as well be a white American's name as a black American's. I have no reason to disbelieve this argument.

However, if I saw the name "Cornelius" on an American résumé in, say, 1940 — or 1970 — or 2010 — then, frankly, I'd guess that the holder of that name was black.
The same goes for most of the other classical names on two sheds' list: Julius, Lucius, Octavia, Brutus, Cornelius, Cassius, Marcus, Rufus, Cyrus, Darius.

This isn't to say that there aren't any white kids named Marcus. But my impression is that these names have had more staying power with African-Americans. So my question is, "Why?"

Part of the answer might be conservatism-in-naming; that is, you name your kid after his grandfather for a few generations, and suddenly you have a bunch of Luciuses running around in 2019. Conservatism among blacks (black Americans are more religious than white Americans, for example), and/or conservatism in the Deep South (example) followed by exportation of the culture elsewhere.

Part of the answer might be that certain names become "traditional" by being names of heroes — I don't think of Martin or Rosa as "black" names, but I bet they're statistically more frequent among black families these days — and perhaps the 19th century (when a lot of people had classical names) was a fertile time for heroes in black culture more than in mainstream culture? That could explain a bump in popularity for Marcus and Cassius at least. (And of course Cassius got a second bump in the '60s.) But that hypothesis doesn't explain all the classical names, just a few of them.

Could someone with more historical/cultural knowledge try to paint a fuller picture here?


texts: What's the most ancient known example of a woman challenging feminine gender roles?

texts:
One example of that would be the goddess Inanna from Sumerian pantheon. She rejected to live as her culture felt a woman should live, namely, bear and raise children, do the housework, etc. In most myths she is childless, despite being fertile. She is the goddess of war, the activity that is thought to be male. She had sex with many men despite standards. She definitely doesn't choose to live according to female standards of her time (time when she was worshiped).

However, are there earlier examples of similar thought in the history? It does not have to be a real real woman - it can be a fictional character or a message.


texts: What was the goal of Nicolas de Larmessin etched pictures of artisans?

texts:
Nicolas de Larmessin created etched pictures of many different artisans and skilled laborers. Does anyone know what the goal of this artwork was? They are very interesting and detailed images, but I don't understand their role or intended audience.

Thanks

Habit de caffetier

To See some more of his works!

http://www.retronaut.com/2012/07/costumes-by-nicolas-de-larmessin-ii-1700/


texts: What was the size of the Chola Empire's navy under Raja Raja Chola I?

texts:
Raja Raja Chola I was an Indian emperor who lived around the 11th century. He created an empire in South India through conquests, including naval campaigns. He was able to conquer Sri Lanka and the Maldives thanks to his fleet.

I would like to know the size of his navy. How many ships and men did it consist of?


texts: What was the Julian Calendar aligned to?

texts:
I understand that the Julian Calendar was introduced to align the length of the calendar to the tropical year, i.e. make the average year 365.25 days long. However, what I'm still trying to figure out is that were they trying to align the start of the calendar with? Or, put it another way, why 1 January is not aligned to a solstice, equinox or some other astronomical event?

Wikipedia currently states (emphasis mine):

  The first step of the [Julian] reform was to realign the start of the calendar year (1 January) to the tropical year by making 46 BC (708 AUC) 445 days long, compensating for the intercalations which had been missed during Caesar's pontificate. This year had already been extended from 355 to 378 days by the insertion of a regular intercalary month in February. When Caesar decreed the reform, probably shortly after his return from the African campaign in late Quintilis (July), he added 67 more days by inserting two extraordinary intercalary months between November and December.

Realign the start of the year to what of the tropical year? A footnote further explains:

  It is not known why he decided that 67 was the correct number of days to add. Ideler suggested (Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie II 123-125) that he intended to align the winter solstice to a traditional date of 25 December. The number may compensate for three omitted intercalary months (67 = 22+23+22). It also made the distance from 1 March 46 BC, the original New Years Day in the Roman calendar, to 1 January 45 BC 365 days.

But why was the date 25 December special or traditional at that point in time?


texts: What is so unique about ushabti that makes them valued and popular?

texts:
I know what a shabti is, but what is the uniqueness in shabti that makes it valuable. I tried searching shabti, but all I got is: "They are small man like clay figures who come to life to serve their master." So the question is, what is so unique about ushabti that makes them valued and popular?

(Note: ushabti is the plural noun of shabti)


texts: Why were the first Universities created?

texts: I have read through my world history book and did some research online, but I have been unable to learn why the first Universities were created?


texts: For how long were freed slaves in Ancient Rome supposed to wear a Pileus hat?

texts:
The Pileus hat article on Wikipedia says that in Ancient Rome, when a slave was freed, there was a ceremony in which his head was shaved and a pileus "was placed upon it".

In the SE question: How did people distinguish slaves from free people in Ancient Rome?, user Tyler Durden addresses this.

My question is: for how long did they have to wear the hat? Until the hair had grown again? Please, tell me it was not for life.

Also:

   HATS


texts:
I want to know the origin of Rap.

Does it's origin really go back to arabian poets? Or can Rapping also be traced back to its African roots?


texts: Did WW1 produce a "Baby Boom" like demographic effect in USA or elsewhere?

texts:
When WW2 American veterans returned home in 1945, one of the well known effects was the demographic one known as "Baby Boom" - a sharp spike in birth rate from 1946 till 1957 or 1964, depending on your definitions.

Was there a similar demographic effect in USA (or elsewhere in the world) from returning veterans of WW1?


texts: What was Gandhi's post-factum view of the Partition?

texts: Gandhi was vehemently opposed to the Partition of India and tried to avoid it. But what was his stance on it once it had happened? Did he accept it as fait accompli or did he envision some scheme for re-unification in the future? Did he express his views on the matter in print before he was murdered?


texts: How true is the statement "Soviet troops got into Berlin riding American trucks, walking in American boots and using American trains"?

texts: In other words, how significant was American lend-lease in helping the Soviet front? Would the Soviets be suffering a lot more had lend-lease not happen, or was it not as significant as people make out?


texts: What is the earliest recorded reference to a bubble floating in the air?

texts: What is the earliest reference to a bubble floating in the air?


texts: How was silver/gold mining done in colonial Americas?

texts:
I've heard a lot about the vast amounts of silver and gold that Spain brought back from the Americas. I imagine that they looted the Aztecs and other peoples at first, but silver/gold exports continued for a long time, so there must have been mines.

How were these mines operated? Particular in the days before machinery and explosives, this must have been very hard labor. How many people worked a mine and how was the ore extracted? How did they keep the mine from filling with water (either rainwater or groundwater)?

The time frame I'm interested in is 1500-1750, maybe 1800 max.


texts: What's the story behind Allahabad's name?

texts:
Recently, Allahabad was renamed as Prayagraj by the right-wing government in Uttar Pradesh, India. The reason offered by the chief minister, Yogi Adityanath was that the Mughal emperor Akbar had imposed Islam on a Hindu holy place and he was righting the wrongs of Akbar. Is it true?
But all across history, I have studied that Akbar was a secular ruler. So what is the real story behind Allahabad's name?


texts: Military tactics specifically aimed against cavalry horses

texts:
Were tactics specifically aimed against horses common in past cavalry warfare and what forms did they take?

For instance, did opponents try to harm (poison or shoot-them-first), distract (loud noises) or detract (opposite-sex horses in battle :) these then all-important animals? Could it be said that breeds of horses were selected for their "mental" as much as physical stamina, and how did people (towards the end of the ages of cavalry warfare, say) train or equip war horses against specific hostile measures. (I do e.g. imagine that in imperial times there must have been huge horse stables even during times of peace, with a lot of surrounding infrastructure including medical, security, etc.)


texts: What do we know about the squadron that evacuated Moore's force after Corunna?

texts:
Upon being appointed commander of British forces in Iberia, and Napoleon's subsequent invasion with Le Grande Armee, Sir John  Moore's  retreated to a defensive position near the port of Corunna, in preparation for an evacuation. Moore himself dies repulsing French attempts to prevent the evacuation with the Battle of Corunna

I'm interested in general details of the squadron that evacuated Sir John  Moore's British force following the Battle of Corunna. In particular I'm attempting to build up a general knowledge of how military transport of British troops occurred during the Napoleonic Era. This particular evacuation would be one of the largest such, involving over 15,000 troops and organized on fairly short notice.

The level of detail would, ideally:
- distinguish which vessels did and didn't carry troops;
- provide the rating of each vessel; and
- distinguish permanent Royal Navy vessels from any commandeered   temporarily just for the mission.


texts: What solar event caused massive aurora borealis in the mid 1960's?

texts:
Living in Belleville, Ontario (north shore of Lake Ontario, about the midpoint running east-west), in the mid 1960's I recall two incidences between roughly November 1965 and February 1968 when the aurora borealis (northern lights) was so bright and high in the sky that we noticed from our living room, above the houses just across the street.
Even seeing the aurora in the vicinity of Belleville today, even in a darkness preserve, seems outrageously far fetched as it is never visible within a couple of hundred miles. The notion of detecting it from inside a lighted room, even faintly, likewise approaches absurdity for most of the populated regions of Canada.
It is updated several times hourly and of course varies with solar conditions, but here is a 30 minute Aurora Forecast projected from solar flux currently detected at Earth's L1 Lagrangian point (with a history of the past 24 hours). As is clearly apparent, the aurora is almost never visible anywhere near the locale of Belleville, Ontario.
Is it possible to identify the solar events or effects that caused the aurora to be visible so far south?


texts: What defined a Jew in the context of WW2?

texts:
What made a Jew?
It's a complex question, primarily because borders in Central and Eastern Europe were moving back and forth in the 150 years preceding WW2, mostly because Poland was annexed for over a century by Germans, Russians and Austria-Hungary Empire. That said there were groups of people that could not be easily associated with any nationality.
What I have been considering:
Mother tongue
Hebrew, Yiddish but also Russian, German, Polish and Hungarian.
However, not all Hebrew or Yiddish speakers were religious.
Citizenship
None of them had Israeli citizenship as Jews haven't had their own state before WW2.
Polish, German, Russian, Hungarian and Austrian.
Ethnicity
Clear but not much data about it.
Religion
Judaism
On top of these categories, there came an assimilation. Poland used to be called Paradise for Jews (Paradisus Iudaeorum), so it is hardly surprising that many of Jews, despite their religion were primarily identifying themselves as Poles and not as Jews. Despite their religion.

many Jews by religion - almost 12% - considered Polish to be their
mother tongue in 1931.[3][8] However, actually an even much higher
percent of Jews by religion - over 25% - considered themselves to be
ethnically (or in terms of national identity) Poles, according to the
previous census of 1921.

What was a single objective measure to identify who was a Jew during WW2 across all nations, across all states, across all religions and all war activities?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_census_of_1931


texts: Was the "natural born citizen" requirement for the President inserted into the US Constitution by Alexander Hamilton's enemies?

texts: Having recently read the biography of Alexander Hamilton, it occurred to me that there is a possibility that the requirement, written into the Constitution, that the President be a "natural born citizen" was inserted by Alexander Hamilton's enemies to prevent him from rising to the office as a hero of the revolution, despite his West Indies roots?  I've seen little discussion in the Federalist papers regarding the intent of the founders.


texts: Why was the number of U.S. Representatives limited?

texts:
According to this Wikipedia article, the number of Representatives was limited to 435 in 1911 (bumped to 437 when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted and then bumped back to 435 four years later).

How (and why) was the decision made to stick with 435?


texts: Before the Civil War, did the USA ever offer something like a "5-year plan" for the South to abolish slavery?

texts:
Before the U.S. Civil War broke out, did the North ever offer any sort of gradual slavery abolishment deal to the South, instead of demanding that the South stop slavery immediately? I imagine the sudden abolishment of slavery would be quite a serious shock to the industries in the South that relied on it.

In other words, did the North offer something like a "5-year plan" for abolishment, and maybe a little cash to all the Southern states to ease the economic adjustment for them? Perhaps after those 5 years any slaves left would be freed by force?

Maybe this could have helped avoid the Civil War altogether?


texts: Who stood for the Roman consulship in absentia?

texts:
I'm trying to find precedents for Caesar's request in 50 BC to stand for the consulship in absentia (i.e. without returning to Rome as a private citizen), which was ultimately refused by the Senate.

I've found mentions of Marius being elected in absentia in 105 BC whilst he was campaigning in Africa, although none of the articles provide a source. Does anyone know what the source is, and if there are any other attested examples of this (regardless of whether the request was granted or refused)?


texts: How was Pre-Samurai Japan structured ? What part did solders and warriors play in the yayoi culture and how did the Yamato state wage war ?

texts:
I've always been fascinated about the history of ancient Japan before the Samurai. A period rarely written about, and never truly brought to light in films or any form of media.

I was wondering what these men wore for protection, how their armours looked like, what weapons they used. What their relationship was with the state, and how they were organised. How different was a Yamato/Kofun warrior from a Samurai, and did they use shields ?


texts: Are there any histories of indigenous Americans who were brought to Europe?

texts: I have read brief accounts of indigenous Americans who were brought to Europe in the wake of Columbus's arrival, including a family of Inuit who were brought to meet Elizabeth I but died shortly after arrival. Does anyone know of any more detailed studies or comprehensive histories of some of these individuals?


texts: Why is Jesus' crucifixion dated to AD 30–33?

texts:
I've read pretty much everywhere that the consensus is that Jesus died between AD 30–33, but I can't seem to find where this conclusion comes from.

Are there some historical sources or pieces of evidence that have suggested this dating? Otherwise, how have scholars arrived at this dating?


texts: Has there been any evidence of Denisovan DNA outside of the Denisova Caves?

texts: Is this the only known source of Denisova hominins genetics?


texts: This image attributes all three uniforms to the Red Army of 1918-1922. I wonder whether the proposed time frame and/or details authentic. For me the first one looks like it was taken from the 1940s and the other two look like they were taken from 19th century.


texts: Were UK Parliamentary constituencies ever altered before 1832?

texts: Seats in the House of Commons orginally represented boroughs and towns. The Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 altered the district map by eliminating some boroughs and changing the number of seats in others. Had any such change ever been made before?


texts:
In 1818 the Chief Manager of the Russian-American Company, Hagemeister, wrote to his subordinate manager Potorochin:

  When sperm whales are cast up try to collect the teeth. Send the brains here in barrels, marked with a special inscription. Near the kidneys, in the intestines of these whales, ambergris may be found; order it collected wherever possible....

The teeth were decorative trade items and the ambergris was used in perfuming. Potorochin's station also supplied whale oil for lighting. What was the use of the barrels of brains?


texts: Where did Metternich say Asia/the Balkans begin at the Landstrasse/Rennweg? Does anyone have a source?

texts:
I have found several variations on this, but always the source has been unattributed (or attributed to a source that itself has no attribution!)#
So - can anyone provide a contemporary source, and what was the actual comment?

der Balkan auf der Landstraße beginnt
der Balkan beginnt  am Rennweg
Asien beginnt auf dem landstrasse
Asien beginnt an dem landstrasse
Asien beginnt auf am Rennweg
Asien beginnt an dem landstrasse


texts: Why would selling watermelons in bulk be mocking?

texts:
The following passage mentions African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, but the  bold's figurative, possibly racist meaning eludes me.

Source: The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (1 ed. 2007; but 2008 Reprint ed. exists, p. 137 Top.

    That tap on the shoulder, metaphorical or not, Will Marion Cook
  came to know well when he returned to America. He tried to make
  his name as a violinist, advertising himself improbably as a "musical
  phenomenon performing some of the masterpieces upon his violin
  with one hand." Making little headway, he then formed the William
  Marion Cook Orchestra, with Frederick Douglass as honorary president. At around the same time, Cook wrote, or began writing, an
  opera based on Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Toni's Cabin. Most significantly, in 1893, he went to Chicago to participate in the World's
  Columbian Exposition, a momentous event at which America declared its new status as a world power. In an effort to counteract the
  stereotypes of black savagery that figured in some of the fair's
  displays—crowds flocked to watch and hear the African drummers of
  Dahomey Village—Douglass organized a Colored People's Day,
  which aimed to affirm the nobility of the black American experience. Newspapers mocked Douglass by speculating that watermelons
  would be sold in bulk. [Bold mine]


texts:
A simple question really. I'm trying to find a word and my Google-fu has failed me.

Baron is to Barony
Duke is to Duchy
Earl is to what?


texts:
Does anybody know of research papers or academic resources that study the full development and growth of medieval cities? I mean, from village stage to city stage. Or maybe cities did not develop that way. I'm trying to know what usually happened, in the most accurate and comprehensive way possible, since the "foundation" of what would be a city up to c. AD 1450. I know of course that most surviving cities c. AD 500 were old roman forts etc., but were there any cities founded in Europe in the middle ages that are chronicled?

I am also curious about population in cities and villages. I mean, I know large medieval cities had around 20,000 people, but where did they live? As far as I know, medieval houses were not that big and there weren't many of them in cities and villages.

By the way, I'm only talking Europe here.

Thanks!


texts: Has a German U-Boat ever transported an American during WW2?

texts:
In the new TV series Das Boot (not the movie), a German U-Boat is used to transport an American civilian during the war.

Is this inspired by real events in any way, or is this pure fantasia nonsense?


texts: Was "Death Traps" by Belton Y. Cooper historically accurate?

texts: Was the WW2 memoir "Death Traps" by Belton Cooper historically accurate?


texts: How did the US Navy raise sunken battleships in WWII?

texts:
I recently got the opportunity to visit the Pearl Harbor Memorial.  In the informational video that they show guests, they mentioned a detail I found fascinating: most of the ships sunk in the Japanese surprise attack, including several of the massive battleships, ended up being raised and put back into service in the war.

That made me wonder. How did they go about re-floating a ship as enormous as a battleship, with a sinking hole in it, with 1940s technology?  What was the process like for doing that?


texts: Why did Empress Elizabeth and Catherine the Great of Russia have such different policies toward Frederick the Great?

texts:
Elizabeth of Russia seemed to consider Frederick the Great Russia's worst enemy. She waged the Seven Years' War in order to conquer East Prussia (which she planned to exchange to Poland for territory further north and east), and to restore Silesia to Austria. While she may have aimed for "border adjustments" with Poland, it seems unlikely that she would consented to one or more partitions of Poland in which Prussia would also benefit.

On the other hand, Catherine the Great undertook the first of several partitions of Poland with the same Frederick the Great, which gave Russia territory along Poland's northeastern fringes, but seemed to benefit Prussia much more proportionately, with West Prussia connecting East Prussia to Brandenburg proper, thus becoming far more dangerous to Russia.

Why was there so nearly opposite directions in the two policies by two rulers of the same country, one shortly after the other, toward a common antagonist, Frederick the Great? Was German-born Catherine more pro-German (or Elizabeth more anti-German)? Was it because Catherine was more expansionist and Elizabeth more "safety first" oriented? Also Frederick was considered something of a misogynist; he notably said of Austria's Maria Theresa, "she weeps and takes" (a slice of Poland). Did he similarly insult Elizabeth?


texts: Where did Batista announce his resignation?

texts: Wikipedia says, "On December 31, 1958, at a New Year's Eve party, Batista [then dictator of Cuba] told his Cabinet and top officials that he was leaving the country." The scene is famously depicted in the Godfather Part 2. My question is, where was the party in real life (perhaps some hotel and casino in Havana)?


texts: Why did Gorbachev go to see "Prince Igor" after the August 1991 coup attempt?

texts:
After the 1991 coup attempt in the Soviet Union failed, Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev arrived back in Moscow in the wee hours of August 21.  That night or the night after, it was reported on US news that the Gorbachevs attended the "historically significant" Alexander Borodin opera Prince Igor.

Now, this could have merely been an attempt to show a return to normalcy (it wasn't; the Soviet Union was effectively dead within a week).  But given the extreme scripting of everything in the Soviet Union, and in light of the "historically significant" remark, was there any significance to the opera being Prince Igor specifically?

My research has shown me precisely bupkus. I'm afraid the only evidence I can find for this is my recollection of the news reported at the time.


texts: Why did Stalin push for the Great Purge against the Red Army in 1936?

texts: From what we now know of Stalin, he seemed to have believed in the basics of Marxist-Leninism. As a communist, didn't he fear that killing his own military's leadership would seriously endanger the world's only socialist experiment against capitalist rivals? 1936 moreover was several years after the rise of Hitler. Didn't Stalin realize an escalation of political tensions was going to lead to war soon? There is every indication that Stalin was a ruthless, cruel man. He also displayed moments of great opportunism and caution during his rise to political power throughout the 1930s and his later conduct during the war, after 1942. What motivation beyond paranoia led to the purges, which seems like such a self-evident detrimental policy?


texts:
why hitler and his Nazis and germans hates the Jews, Why hitler has provoked people to hate (if he really provokes) jews. And why did he spend lot of time and money to kill the jews instead of doing war ?

And why did he put Halocaust is most proiority in his agenda ?

I did some research on this but I did not find any clue on this, even hitler did not mention any dislike or hateing of jews in his autobiographhy mein kampf.

I found some artcles answered on this but every article is reffreing to Hitler likes Aryan Race only shoul live, then if that is the case ? why does he particularly hates Jews ? why he dont hate other races ?


texts: Who was the first Russian in space (not Soviet)?

texts: I know Yuri Gagarin was the first Soviet, and man, in space. Who was the first Russian (not Soviet) in space?


texts: Was pie crust originally meant for throwing away in England?

texts:
I'm trying to find the sources on youtube (last part about the English making a pie crust for throwing away)
Also would that be a sin of gluttony in wasting food?


texts: How large was a Byzantine administrative Bandon?

texts:
Wikipedia states that in the Byzantine context a Bandon could denote a cavalry unit of 300, a military unit of 200-400 or an administrative unit. It further claims that originally the military and administrative unit coincided, but that they later diverged.
Does anyone know examples of how large these administrative units were? Are we talking about small cities with their surroundings (in which case a large percentage of relevant males were in the army) or something much larger?


texts: Context of sign telling Japanese people to "keep moving"

texts:
In this picture, someone has put up a sign saying "JAPS KEEP MOVING - THIS IS A WHITE MAN'S NEIGHBORHOOD". In case this was not enough, the window has a sign saying "JAPS KEEP OUT" and some other illegible sign.

The photo is from around 1920, though lots of people assume it's from World War 2.

What's the context of this sign? What did white Americans have against Japanese people around that time?


texts: Austria and Iron Curtain during Cold War

texts:
Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech from 1946 contains the following famous passage:

  From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain
  has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the
  capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw,
  Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia ...

Why did Churchill include Vienna (capital of Austria) in that list? Was it perhaps because the exact fate of Austria (which became fully independent only in 1955) was yet unknown also to him? In 1946 the country was divided into four zones of Allied occupation with the Soviet zone surrounding Vienna but comprising only about a quarter of the city (similar to Berlin). Or was it perhaps because Churchill considered a future neutral state (and that was Austria's designation from 1955) along the Iron Curtain to be de-facto in the Soviet sphere?

I remember from Conrad Black's Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom that at the Yalta conference in 1945 Churchill had floated the idea of reconstituting the western and southern German-speaking parts of defeated Nazi Germany as a state based on Vienna (both Roosevelt and Stalin disapproved, because of the relation to imperial Hapsburg history), so Churchill certainly was not ignorant about or uninterested in the history or fate of Vienna.


texts: What is the most common calendar for pre-Julian dates?

texts: When I read some date of event that happened before introduction of Julian calendar by Caesar, what calendar that date is more likely to refer? Proleptic Julian calendar or proleptic Gregorian calendar? For example, legendary date of Rome's foundation is the 21st of April, 752 BC. What calendar does this date refer? Because calculation of JDN of this date in two calendars differ by 7 days.


texts: Why did many Hungarians support Maria Theresa?

texts:
In the first decade of the 18th century, Hungarians fought a very exhausting and, in the end, unsuccessful war to secede from the Habsburg Empire and re-establish their old kingdom.

That time, the Habsburgs were too powerful to topple.

However, only 30 years later, the Empire was crumbling, its former allies turning against it, and as Maria Theresa inherited her father's throne, France, Prussia, and Bavaria attacked her with overwhelmingly superior forces. Maria Theresa asked the Hungarians for help, and they agreed, crowned her as their monarch, and provided much needed assistance in the war which followed.

The events themselves are well known and well documented. What is not entirely clear to me, is the Hungarians' motivation. Why did they support her? What did they expect to achieve by that? This could have been the perfect opportunity to regain independence. They didn't even have to start another secession war, all they would have had to do is just stay home, don't intervene, and let Austria crumble by herself.

The Ottomans' strength was already declining at that time, so the Hungarians didn't have any strong enemies threatening them which they couldn't have faced alone.

The sole hint I was able to put together was that the Hungarian Catholic nobility might have feared the Protestant minority becoming too strong, and they wanted a dedicated Catholic ruling dynasty. However, had this been the only reason, they could have elected a Catholic ruler from among themselves; they did have the required legislation to do so, and there was more than one precedent in doing so.
Also, although she later proved to be a strong Catholic ruler, she was only 23 years old at the time of her coronation, without any powerful mentor figure, and she practically went to the Hungarians begging them for support.


texts: What kind of apparel did Carthaginians wear?

texts: Did Carthaginians wear togas like the Romans did? Did they wear laurels? What kind of other clothing might they have worn? (If you're looking for a specific time period - around the beginning of the Second Punic War.)


texts: What are these "Papal States" in Germany after 1648?

texts:
I don't usually watch this person's videos, but I couldn't find another one. What do the "Papal States" in Germany after the Peace of Westphalia represent? I especially want to know what affected the politics of the empire or Prussia. A few keywords or an overview would be helpful.

Here is a link to the video at the specific time: https://youtu.be/dMmZ976B3M0?t=27


texts:
It is from this BBC page on landmarks being preserved from D-Day.

The body looks a bit like a Sherman, but the turret isn't like anything I've ever seen before.


texts: Once formed, could a Confederate militia company find replacements to remain an effective force? How?

texts:
As I understand it, Confederate militia companies were formed of 100 men recruited at the beginning of the war often from within the same county.  Disease, battle losses and desertions obviously took their toll.  One of my great grandfather's served in the 12th Georgia and his company was decimated at Spotsylvania Courthouse; he and three of his brothers were taken prisoner.  Was it possible then to bring up new conscripts and recruits to fill out the thinner companies?  If so, where were they trained and how were they integrated to the existing units?

If not, what happened to the troops in below-strength companies?  Were they merged with other units?  On the brigade level, if say Baker Company was cannibalized to bring Able Company up to strength, could the brigade commander call on his state to create and train a replacement company?


texts: Were 12 prisoners used to demonstrate the first steam locomotive?

texts:
I have recently read in The Book of Secrets that the first time the steam locomotive started in England no one was willing to sit in it even after being paid money to do so because no one thought it would stop once started. In the end, it was proved by having 12 prisoners ride in it. Is this story true? I have my doubts since I can't find any similar info on the web.

  Do you know what happened in England? When the first train started, no one was ready
  to sit in it -- no one! Many people were persuaded, bribed, they were given money to sit
  in the train, but at the last point they escaped. They said, "Firstly, steam cannot do such
  miracles. Such a simple thing as steam cannot do such miracles. And if the engine starts,
  that means that the devil is at work somewhere. The devil is running the thing, it is not
  the steam. And what is the guarantee that once the thing starts you will be capable of
  stopping it?"

  So twelve criminals from the jail were brought as passengers.
  Anyhow they were going to die, anyhow they were sentenced to death, so there was no
  problem if the train was not going to stop. Then the mad driver who thought that it was
  going to stop, the scientist who had invented it and these twelve passengers who were
  anyhow going to be killed, they alone would all be killed. "Such a simple thing as
  steam," they said at that time. But now no one says this, because now it is working and
  you know it.


texts:
Can anyone help identify this aircraft. I was told it is a Northrup design. Looks pre WWII to me.
Al


texts: Did the Tlingits benefit from resisting the Russians more than other Alaskan tribes?

texts:
The Russian-American Company had ongoing problems with the Tlingit (Kolosh) people living near its colonial headquarters. In other words, the Tlingits resisted incursion more effectively than other groups more completely subjugated by the Russians.

Insofar as the Tlingits were more determined or more able to defend their sovereignty, did they succeed in preserving their culture and interests better than the Haida, Kwakiutl, Aluutiq, etc.?


texts: What mechanisms made Stalinism triumphant in Russia?

texts:
What mechanisms would you guys think made Stalinism triumphant?

Firstly, what do you guys think, was Stalinism totalitarian? Was Stalin the absolute ruler over the totality of society and politics? Or perhaps a revised theory best suits the regime? Secondly, what would be your reason for Stalinism being successful? I'd say simply, because the Stalinist regime was never overthrown (coup nor revolution).

Coercion must be discusses and the terror within and without the
party. This is because it prevented social resistance and political opposition threatening the regime.
Ideology? Do you guys believe that ideology legitimised the
regime and its actions?
Other forms of legitimation in the form of the Cult of
Personality perhaps.
Where there political factors which accounted for the triumph? What allowed Stalin to keep grip of power other than fear? Clientelism? The structure of the Stalinist Political system promoting centralised power?
Soviet Economics should be discussed also. Yes it was triumphant but (and this may sound stupid) but why did the Stalinist regime want a prosperous economy? Was it to show the Capitalist states that Communism can advance and overtake them? Was it also to prepare for what Stalin foresaw as an inevitable war?
Finally, probably the hardest to define is 'social'. How did society make Stalinism triumphant? The totalitarian model would state that society's labour would be the reason for economic triumph, but would a revised theory perhaps discuss a soviet society which supported and maintained the regime in power? Where there classes which benefited from the terror for example? Did people prosper from Stalinist rule (oligarchs). I believe this to be the most interesting and hardest point of Stalinism. Your opinions on this will potentially re-define Stalinism from Totalitarian to something else.

Looking forward to hearing your views on this and others?


texts: Latest recorded government sanctioned use of scaphism or cyphonism (torture)?

texts:
Scaphism, also known as "the boats", and cyphonism both seem to involve smearing an individual in honey and exposing them outdoors to insects for a prolonged period of time as a form of torture. Plutarch reported that Mithridates, the killer of Cyrus the Younger during the Battle of Cunaxa in 401 BC, survived scaphism for 17 days before dying. The Mongols also practiced a similar type of torture. This type of torture seems particularly excruciating.

What is the latest recorded use of this type of torture (smearing in honey and outdoor exposure) with government support? Is it still in use today? This dictionary definition for cyphonism claims it is still in use in some Oriental nations but I could not find any proof and the definition is unclear on whether it is referring to government sanctioned use of cyphonism.


texts: Why is Christopher Columbus credited for "discovering" America?

texts:
Even if we ignore the millions of native Americans who lived in the continent before Columbus "discovered" it, even if we ignore other civilizations (eg: Polynesians, Phoenicians, Chinese, Arabs, etc.) who might have been to the American continent...

We still have the Vikings, who have actually established settlements in the Americas centuries before Columbus set sail. And this position is widely accepted, so why is Columbus still considered the one who "discovered" America?


texts:
Technically this is pre-history, but maybe someone can answer this.

I was listening to a podcast about the spread of megalithic structures in Europe. A modern basis of research on this is the dating of megalithic structures via isotopical methods. A research article related to the podcast links the origin and first exploitation of this method to "Renfrew C. Before Civilisation. Penguin; London: 1973.", which I unfortunately cannot access.

The issue confusing me, that Renfew 1973 apparently exploited first is that

  However, since the 1970s, the number of C14 dates of megaliths has expanded enormously.

(from Paulsson 2019)

Now I'm wondering: How can a megalith be dated via the C14 method? Obviously a rock cannot be dated directly via C14, as rocks are not alive and rock formation timescales and C14 decay timescales are vastly different.

So I imagine the assigning of an age to megalithic structures must work via associated burial items? What if there are no burial items to be found, like in lone-standing dolmen?


texts: Was slave labor used in rebuilding the White House?

texts:
Michelle Obama recently gave a graduation address in which she said.

  every single day ... I wake up in a house that was built by slaves

While slave labor was used in building the white house, that house was burned by the British during the war of 1812. I'm curious whether the subsequent reconstruction involved slave labor.

As the original structure was built at least in part by slave labor, the First Lady's comments seem appropriate regardless of the answer. I'm simply curious whether the current White House in which she wakes up every morning was actually built by slaves.


texts: What's the significance of "Sprinkler" (bottle)

texts:
Wikimedia Commons lists a few bottles named "Sprinkler" (Islamic, 17th–18th century). What was the use of this kind of bottle? By searching on Google for "sprinkler bottle" I got some similar looking bottles, some of them made of metal, named "rose water sprinkler"

Wikipedia: "Rose water is often sprinkled in Indian weddings to welcome guests." - Youtube How to use a Rose Water Sprinkler

Who used such sprinklers, what for, and since when?


texts: When did *wooden* 'nails' (pegs) for clay roof tiles go out of fashion?

texts:
Judging by Google searches, wooden 'nails' for fixing roof tiles are definitely a thing of the past. However almost all the searches I have attempted (in an area I don't know my way around) have only turned up offers to sell metal or plastic 'nails'. The closest I came to anything useful were:

ROOFING from English Heritage, and

How to Tell the Age of a Barn from Superior Hardwoods at least mentions nails but they are metal, and the context is USA, similarly History & Photo Examples of Nails from InspectAPedia.

Wikipedia has Treenail but those are used differently.

At least a drawing of one at PEG TILES IN SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND from the Society For The Protection Of Ancient Buildings (bottom left on page 3).

So I have searched, but unsuccessfully, for some indication of when wooden pegs ceased to be in common use (replaced by metal ones) for 'fixing' clay tiles (hand-made) for roofs. In particular for southern England (specifically, West Sussex).

Can anyone indicate a date?

I'd guess about the middle of the 19th Century.


texts: Why did the Dutch, French & British acquire minor colonies in South America?

texts:
We know that South America was partitioned between Spain and Portugal in the early days of empire when Spain and Portugal were the major powers. Later, in the 19th century, when Spain and Portugal went into decline, the countries of South America gained independence.

Somewhere along the line the colonial powers which across the globe had generally superseded Spain and Portugal, namely Britain, France and the Netherlands, gained a foothold in South America in Guyana/Guiana/Surinam.

So why did Britain, France and the Netherlands take a limited bite of the North-East of the continent of South America? Why bother to seize any of it? Why not seize all of it?


texts: What are recent historically significant accounts of direct democracy?

texts:
True democracy in the sense that each person gets a vote, not on representation, but on the issues themselves.

The interest is in:

How far such systems may have scaled.
More recent examples.
The failure and successes of such systems.


texts: What kind of siege weapons were used during Punic wars?

texts: I would like to know which kind of siege weapons were used during Punic wars on both sides, there is not very much information around.


texts: Were there many foreigners fighting during the American civil war?

texts: Apart from Philippe d'Orléans and his brother, as well as Patrick Cleburne, were there many foreigners fighting during the American civil war ? Any other famous cases ?


texts: Why did Charles V divide his holdings as he did?

texts:
Even as monarchs go, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor was one lucky individual. He inherited Austria and the job of Holy Roman Emperor, as well as the Netherlands (including Belgium) through his father, whose parents were Maximilian of Austria and Marie of Burgundy (this province, but not the Netherlands, was lost to the French).  On his mother's side, he inherited Spain through her parents, Ferdinand and Isabella.

When Charles V abdicated, he divided his holdings, with his brother Ferdinand inheriting Austria and the Holy Roman Empire. His son, Philip II, received Spain (which had come through Charles' mother), and the Netherlands (which had come through Charles' father).

Why did Charles V divide his Empire at all? Did the Spanish and German sides have trouble getting along? More to the point, why did he give the Netherlands, which had come through the German side of the family to Philip, along with Spain, instead of to Ferdinand, when the Holy Roman Empire was at least contiguous to the Netherlands? (Spain was not.)


texts: Why has Nepal never been conquered or colonized?

texts: Why has no country conquered or colonized Nepal? Nepal lost the Anglo-Nepalese War with East India Company but was not colonized.


texts: Are there any tanks with the gun and autoloader outside the main turret?

texts:
Basically as title. I've been thinking about this hybrid turret design for quite some time now. Essentially, I had this idea for a potential design for a tank turret that could be accomplished with an autoloader, where the turret is manned and conventional, but the main gun mechanism's roof rises like in an oscillating turret to allow a large negative angle.
One big trade-off of tank design is height vs negative elevation; the lower the gun is able to swing, the higher the roof has to be above its mounting point, but also the better the tank can peek over ridges from a hull-down position. The oscillating turret concept avoids this, allowing the gun to be fixed just under the roof of the turret, but has its own problems involving the split in armor needed for the roof to tilt. If the breech of the gun were outside the crew compartment, though, it could rise above the roof of the turret without requiring a compromise in crew protection. The gun itself might be somewhat less protected, but the mantlet has always been a weak point of tank turrets anyway.
My question is, has anyone ever actually experimented with such a system? I would like to know if it's practical and if it's been done.


texts: Is there a historical source that might explain why so many countries use 35 as a minimum age for the president / the highest office person?

texts:
Reading the list of presidential qualifications by country I have noticed that in many countries the minimum required age is 35 (some countries raise it to 40). I am wondering if there is any historical data related to where this limit comes from.
My assumption is that there must be a common source for this limit and it is not a coincidence that it is a shared value among so many states.
Question: Is there a historical source that might explain why so many countries use 35 as a minimum age for the president / the person holding the highest office?


texts: Did classical Romans wear any sort of swimwear?

texts: Say that a classical Roman decided they wanted to go for a swim in a lake or at a beach, and they expected other people to be able to see them. Would they have worn some sort of swimwear or gone nude? If they did wear swimwear, what would it have looked like?


texts: Why was the spread of Christianity scattered compared to other major religions?

texts:
This video of the spread of world religions makes Christianity look like an anomaly.

Every other religion spreads out smoothly from a central point, growing at the edges. Christianity begins as a shotgun-splatter across Europe and grows from there.

Is this an accurate portrayal, and why is it so different from the others?


texts: Did Italian irredentists ever lay claim to the Swiss Canton of Tessin?

texts:
The Italian irredentists wanted all Italian-speaking regions to be annexed by Italy, most specifically parts of Austria-Hungary, and this is why Italy joined the entente during the Great War, in order to try to get those territories annexed. They partially succeeded, yet only part of their claims were annexed by Italy (they also claimed areas that are today part of Slovenia and Croatia).

Now my question is : Did the irreentists also have claims on the Swiss Canton of Tessin, which is also Italian speaking, and is today the biggest native Italian speaking community outside of Italy (if emigration doesn't count)?


texts: What is the history of "industrial date coding" (year followed by week number)?

texts:
Does anyone know the history of the common date format that the
ISO week date is based on.  The Wikipedia article mentioned it was previously known as "Industrial date coding".  Usually, it looks something like 2019w10 or 2019-w10 or 19w10, for the 10th week of the year 2019.  See ISO 8601 for the current ISO definition.

It seems like a format from another era where delivering something the "week of" was close enough.  Something like "Ya I can get those 20 tons of coal to you by 1890w04".  Did this come out of business delivery dates or some sort of government standard?  Is it still relevant today, where waiting two hours for an Amazon package taxes our patience?


texts: How many troops did the Confederate and Union army have in each year of the Civil War?

texts: How many troops did each army of the civil war have in each year of the war from 1861-1864 and how many casualties did they have each year?


texts: Where can I find reliable primary sources written by Ancient Egyptian laborers?

texts:
I am working on a Year 12 New Kingdom Pharaoh assignment. I have chosen Ramesses II and must determine if he was an effective king. I have decided that he was, but now I just have to provide the evidence.

What I am looking for is written archaeological evidence written by workers during and after Ramesses II reign. I need positive writings when Ramesses was king and negative things when he died.

I cannot find anything on Google. Does anyone know where I can find such information?


texts: GDP per capita of major combatants before and after WWII?

texts:
Perhaps this is difficult to measure and maybe not even a good metric for anything meaningful, but what was the GDP and GDP per capita for nations around the world immediately before World War II?  Immediately after World War II?

Are there any good sources of GDP statistics, especially for the major combatants?


texts: How much was the wealthy elite harmed by the Bolshevik revolution?

texts:
One of the stated benefits of communism is supposed to be that the property of the extremely wealthy will be seized and redistributed. However, a common criticism states that the extremely wealthy will simply take most of their wealth and flee the country, and the only ones to be redistributed will be the slightly well-off and the middle class.

I'm curious about the fate of the super-wealthy Russians during and after the communist revolution. Were most of them able to flee the country, or otherwise avoid repercussions from the new regime? Were those that evaded the risk to their lives able to keep much of their wealth? Was their lifestyle impacted significantly?


texts: How true is this observation concerning battle?

texts:
I came across a quote:

“One who risks his life in battle has the best chance of saving it; one who flees to save it is most likely to lose it” (Anthologia Lyrica Graeca, ed. E. Diehl2 1936-42.)

The poet lived in c. 8 century BC. To what extent was this observation true at the time and why? How does this compare to now?


texts: Were Quintidis holidays in the French Republican calendar?

texts:
I did some research on the French Republican calendar and found some contradictory information on weekly (or decadian?) holidays.
Wikipedia (and most other articles I found) mention:

The calendar was abolished because having a ten-day working week gave workers less rest (one day off every ten instead of one day off every seven);

In school I learned that Quintidi and Décadi were holidays (so, each 5th day was a holiday).
Nevertheless, the argument for less rest  is still valid, since there were a lot of additional Christians holidays.
There are also some hits on the web regarding a half holiday solution.

Office, schools, shops and tribunals were required to close on quintidi afternoons, apart from the décadi. So, there was one and a half free days each 10 days, slightly better than a free day each seven-days week.

Does anyone have detailed information about this topic?


texts: Why does the monarchy of Belgium still exist after Leopold 2?

texts:
I was browsing the internet and came across the post Which Dictator Killed the Most People. It seems that Leopold 2 had a lot of people killed.
This got me thinking, I don't see for example heirs of Hitler (or related to him) rule Germany, that would be absurd. Though in case of Leopold 2, his lineage is still the royal family currently in Belgium. How is this possible ? Is it because they are not direct descendants ? Or are these killings not comparable to other killings under dictators ?

I know the information I saw is not from the history books and so on. I don't know a lot about history, normally I'm not even remotely interested in this stuff, though this I find very strange and intriguing. If someone could shed some light and clarify what I am missing ?


texts: Was the UN critically involved in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis?

texts:
Is there any evidence to show that the Cuban Missile Crisis was scaled back because of the actions of UN personnel acting in their UN role?

The topic came up recently about precedent for UN having impact on crises. The Cuban Missile Crisis is probably the last major situation on the globe, followed by Kosovo, Georgia, Sudan, and Iraq/Afghanistan.


texts: Apart from Australia, has a serving head of government or state disappeared without trace?

texts:
In December 1967, then-serving prime minister of Australia, Harold Holt, disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach, Victoria. His body was never found, though an inquest held much later stated that the cause of death was drowning.

Has such an occurrence happened in recent history, defined by being recent enough to have rapid communication such as the telegram and widespread recognition of what the individual looked like such as photography, to either a serving head of government, or a serving head of state, for any other country?

I had a quick skim over List of people who disappeared mysteriously and "Real Life" in Never Found the Body in TV Tropes (warning: not productivity safe) and didn't find any other examples.


texts: What evidence is there of the vision aids people used before the invention of eyeglasses in about 1286?

texts:
The Wikipedia article on glasses says ‘scattered evidence exists for use of vision aid devices in Greek and Roman times’ but only cites the example of Nero’s emerald. This article on Magnifying glasses states

  Historians seem to agree that the Romans were the first to discover
  glass in the first century AD......The Romans were probably looking
  through the glass and discovered that the objects looked larger. They
  experimented with different shapes and found that glass that was
  thicker at the center and thinner on the outside magnified the object
  that was being observed....the benefits of these lenses were not
  appreciated until the 13th century, when scientists used them to study
  tiny insects.

This is puzzling as anyone looking through a glass bottle of water cannot help but notice magnification. There is another reason for questioning the accuracy of the article: the sentence about Romans discovering glass in the 1st century AD.

The Wikipedia article on the History of Glass cites several examples of glass objects pre-dating Roman times by at least a thousand years. On the other hand, I haven’t been able to find images of glass vision aids pre-dating the invention of eyeglasses (but there are plenty of images of bottles, beads e.t.c.).

Is there any evidence of glass vision aids? Or did they use something else? In particular, I’m thinking of 9th to 12th century monks poring over manuscripts and writing chronicles in dodgy candlelight (or is this just a movie cliche?). Although people probably had better eyesight in earlier times, presbyopia was noted in ancient sources (e.g. by Plutarch), and I’m thinking that many of these monks – especially the ones past 40 – would have found magnification very useful, even essential.


texts:
Erwin König Was a sniper supposedly killed by Vasily Zaytsev in the Battle of Stalingrad. The diary of Vasily Zaytsev mentions killing Erwin Konig, and there is a sniper scope in Russia, but there is no record of Erwin in Germany.
Now the conspiracy theory: (from Erwin Konig's wiki page)

Since the German Army has no record of a Maj. Erwin König it is possible that the German Army destroyed any record of König after learning of his possible death at the hands of Zaytsev. The defeat of the German forces by the Soviet forces in the Battle of Stalingrad was a major blow to German morale and according to many historians, was the beginning of the end of the Third Reich. This explains one possible motive for the German military to destroy records of König, as König's death at the hands of a "sub-human" Russian Communist would add to the humiliating defeat of the German forces at Stalingrad....
At the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow there is a rifle scope that supposedly belonged to a Wehrmacht sniper called Erwin König. In a post-war visit to Berlin, Zaytsev was allegedly confronted by a woman who told him she was König's daughter, with Soviet authorities quickly evacuating Zaytsev to avoid any confrontation.

Oh the other hand, Soviet propaganda was rife with fictitious stories to boost morale during a time when the war was so uncertain.


texts: Did the Romans use any other materials to reinforce their concrete?

texts:
I have been reading about Roman concrete (300BC-300AD) and how it has greater strength than current concrete mixtures.  So far, my research has shown that they did not use re-bar in their structures. But did the Romans use anything external (like fiber, wood, etc) to improve their concrete's tensile strength?

For reference this was the source I was reading:

The Mechanics of Imperial Roman Concrete and the
Structural Design of Vaulted Monuments


texts: Where were Racka sheep brought to Europe from and when?

texts:
These are Racka sheep. The Racka is a unique breed with both ewes and rams possessing long spiral shaped horns. This sheep is a bit of a mystery, a mystery whose solving will shed new light on the history of the Balkans.
(You can read what we know about this type of sheep here, where the quote is from:
Racka sheep

Does anyone have any information about this type of sheep being depicted on any Iron or Bronze age reliefs or drawings from Middle east or Central Asia?


texts: What kind of car did Lij Samson Beyene crash?

texts:
Lij Samson, a grandson of Haile Selassie, died at 28 or 29. According to biographer Haggai Erlich:

  In July 1963 one of his grandsons, Lij Samson, was killed. The prince drove recklessly after a night in Addis Ababa's bars and crashed his automobile.

His life is summed up in an online genealogy:

  Dejazmatch Samson Beyene. b. at Addis Ababa, 1934, educ. Columbia Univ, Ithaca, New York, USA. Taken to Italy and confined there by the Italians in 1936. Released and returned to Ethiopia 1943. Consul-General New York 1956-1959, Counselor Ethiopian legation Stockholm 1959-1960, Charges d’Affaires Stockholm 1960-1963. m. at Addis Ababa, 1959 Woizero Koremtit Andargatchew (b. at London, 3rd December 1939; m. second, Captain Haile Girmai, and d. at London, 29th December 2012, leaving further issue), daughter of H.E. Ras Andargatchew Masai, sometime Viceroy of Eritrea, by his first wife, Woizero Sergut. He was k. in a car crash, 10th July 1963, having had issue, an only son....

In what model of car did he die?


texts: Was the internment camp Thalerhof the first concentration camp in Europe?

texts:
During World War I, Austrohungarian authorities ran a so-called internment camp in Thalerhof (close to Graz in modern Austria). According to Encyclopedia of Ukraine

  The first 2,000 prisoners at Thalerhof, the largest camp, arrived on 4 September 1914, and by late 1914 the camp held 8,000 prisoners, 5,700 of them Ukrainians. In November 1916 it had 2,717 prisoners; 85 percent were Ukrainian, 76 percent were peasants, and 7 percent were Greek Catholic priests. Between 1914 and 1916, 14,000 internees passed through the camp. Its strict regime, the authorities' arbitrary actions, the starvation rations, the extremely unsanitary conditions, and various outbreaks of typhus and other diseases resulted in a high mortality rate among the prisoners. Although 1,767 deaths were registered, it can be assumed that there were many more; between 17 January and 31 March 1915 alone, 524 people died.

Were there institutions with similar levels of mortality in Europe prior to Thalerhof? In other words, can Thalerhof be considered the first concentration camp in Europe (putting aside the harmless sounding "internment camp" name)?

If not, what was the first concentration camp in Europe?

Results of my research: There were concentration camps run by the British at the beginning of the 20th century:

  A few years later during the Boer War, in what is modern South Africa, Britain's General Kitchener used "concentration camps" to contain hostile civilians. These were mainly Boers, whites of Dutch origin. Blacks were also subjected to this treatment. Some 28,000 whites and 14,000 blacks died in Kitchener's camps. The tactic played a major part in winning the war for the empire.

Source

The article does not say whether or not those concentration camps were located in Britain or South Africa.

Prior to that, there were concentration camps in Cuba, invented by the Spanish general Weyler.

There is a question about concentration camps in general, but it does not mention any European, pre 1930-s concentration camps.

Update 1: My definition of concentration camp:

An institution where civilians (no prisoners of war) are involuntarily kept under conditions that lead to a significantly higher mortality rate than outside that institution in that region.

By this definition, if

the mortality rate of Thalerhof inmates was significantly higher than the average mortality in Western Ukraine in 1914 and
its inmates were put their against their will (i. e. would not go there if they had the choice),

then Thalerhof is a concentration camp.


texts: What was the primary reason for the rise and success of the Roman republic / empire?

texts:
The Roman republic and its successor, the Roman empire, were extremely successful. The territory of the empire did encompass several times the size of the early republic.

What was the primary cause of this success? Technological or organisational superiority ? What was different in Rome in comparison to regions of similar geography and civilization (around the Mediterranean at the time) ?


texts: If the nazi is a far-right party, why is it socialist?

texts: The Nazi Party stands for the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), which sounds like a name for a communist party, why is it considered a far-right party? Isn't it a far-left party, or was socialism considered to be far-right at the time?


texts: What documented criteria (if any) did the CIA use to determine targets for political assassination during the Cold War?

texts: Did the CIA follow a documented set of criteria when determining targets for political assassination during the Cold War, especially in regards to foreign heads of state or government? There have been examples from history where the CIA assassinated foreign leaders, "on orders from the White House", but would they have always been blind orders, or was a defined, protocols-based evaluation process implemented first?


texts: Did India turn down a permanent seat in the UN in 1955?

texts:
As per this article, India was offered a permanent seat on the UN Security Council in 1955 but Jawaharlal Nehru turned it down and the seat went to China. In light of the current lobbying that India is making for a permanent seat, what prompted Nehru to turn it down?

Update: As per this news item, India did not receive any offer. So I believe the question becomes, who to believe, The Washington Post or The Hindu?


texts: Who said "Anything a machine can do, a machine should do"?

texts:
Alternately, "anything that can be done by a machine, should be done by a machine".

I have heard variants of these quotes attributed to Brigham Young, but I have not been able to find any reliable sources to confirm that. If he did say something like this, I would like to know where it is documented; and if not, I'd like to know who the quote can be properly attributed to, and what its proper context is.


texts: Were women in 1st century Israel not trusted as witnesses in court?

texts:
A common thing I've heard growing up is that women living in Israel in the 1st century couldn't be witnesses in a court of law because [reasons].

The times that I've heard this said it has also normally been preceded by something along the lines of "...the first Christian evangelists in the world were women because Jesus appeared to Mary and Martha first and instructed them to inform the other disciples, who were men. This is amazing because..."


texts: Is Attila The Hun's Throne actually located in The Veneto?

texts: Torcello Island is a small island approximately 5 miles East of Venice. The island's "claim to fame" is a small ancient stone chair which has been nicknamed, "Attila's Throne"-(named after, Attila "The Hun").  Now, the historical evidence suggests that this ancient stone chair was the actual Seat of Power for the Island's Bishop beginning in the mid 500's AD/CE-(and the ancient stone chair may have also been The Seat of Power for the island's earliest Governor).  The legend, however, suggests that Attila "The Hun" was actually enthroned on Torcello Island. Does anyone believe that this ancient stone chair on a remote Italian island, was the actual Seat of Power for the Father and King of the Huns?


texts: What kind of missile flew with such speed in 1st century BCE?

texts:
Lucretius in De rerum natura, book 6 verses 310 tries to explain the nature of lightning.
Apparently he  says that a body moving quickly through the air acquires some heat.
The Latin verse is:

non alia longe ratione ac plumbea saepe
fervida fit glans in cursu, cum multa rigoris
corpora dimittens ignem concepit in auris.

English translation

And when, swift-winged, the ball of missle lead
Heats, by degree its gross unkindled parts
Losing, and fires by atoms gained from air

Also lines 182-183 of Book VI:

Melted, as melt the missile balls, at times
Of lead shot rapid.

Lucretius wrote in 1-st century BC. What kind of "missile leads" could fly at that time with such velocity that they could be appreciably heated by air? Heated so much that they are melted??
Edit. Let us make a simple calculation. Specific heat capacity of lead is
0.13, J/(g.K) (from Wikipedia). So to heat a 100 g lead bullet by 10 degrees one needs the energy of 130 J, or about 13 Kilogram-force.meters. A slinger probably cannot transfer much more energy to a projectile. And it does not matter how this energy is converted to heat: by air friction or by the impact. Very far from "melting lead".


texts: What's the origin of the movement to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union?

texts: Who first proposed that the UK should leave the EU, and why? How did this movement grow in support?


texts: How to make a proper chiton and himation?

texts: I have been searching for instructions on how to make a proper chiton and himation, but can't find anything with a good level of detail and historical accuracy.  Could someone point me to such a source, or else provide such directions?


texts: What was the cost of buying Silk in the Roman Empire

texts:
Is there any information extant of the cost one would pay for silk in the Roman Empire. Was it difficult for one to find silk to even buy?

If that value fluctuated, and if it can be known, I am interested in the times around 200 AD in Alexandria, Egypt.


texts: Did emperor Kangxi indirectly contribute to China's massive population and subsequent problem?

texts: Emperor Kangxi, especially towards the latter part of his reign, firmly believed that China was in a secure economic position and the treasury was adequate. To stimulate economic activity, he froze all head taxes, (tax based on population count). This was also done because he wanted a more accurate census from local officials, who tended to under report in order to pay less taxes. By freezing this head tax, did Kangxi unknowingly trigger an unsustainable population growth? Or did he simply get a better head count without further consequences? Were there any  significant consequences to this action?


texts: What was the population of the Roman Empire around 210 AD?

texts:
I'm trying to calculate which percentage of Roman population was involved in the military. According to this article Imperial Roman Army, in 211 AD the size of the Imperial Roman army was around 450,000 at its peak.

Is an estimate of the population of the empire around 210 AD known?


texts: Did the "I have a dream" speech make a big impact at the time it was spoken?

texts: Most Americans know the famous "I have a dream" speech by Martin Luther King. Was this speech actually influential back in 1963 or did it become famous afterwards?


texts: What was the age of majority in France and Belgium in 1945?

texts:
What was the age at which a child became an adult, for purposes of executing a legal document, in France and Belgium at the end of the Second World War?  I cannot find a site that gives a history of the Age of Majority in Europe.

Is anyone aware of one?


texts: Do we consider Carthage as belonging to a different civilization from the Phoenician one?

texts:
Carthage was founded by Phoenicians settlers around 800 BC. Because of its position, and being in a relatively calm area (compared to their homeland), Carthage quickly rose in importance, overtaking not only Tyre, but the entire Phoenicia in both richness and power.

Its inhabitants, descendents of ancient settlers, founded a large number of colonies themselves, ultimately building an empire.

While sharing much with the Phoenicians, they also showed distinct traits. For instance they controlled a vast territory, compared to their ancestors, which relied on trading posts rather than colonies. They were excellent military commanders, whereas the Phoenicians did not produce a general worth of Hannibal.

Are they sufficiently different to be considered a distinct civilization?