texts: What is the historical evidence for asserting Huns were one and the same as Xiongnu?

texts:
This question is very close to a previous question, Who were the Huns and/or Xiongnu?, but I hope it is clear that I'm not asking the same point.

In fact, I'm asking about the common assumption such as the one held by that earlier question, by asking explicitly:

Why do we believe (or on what basis make the assertion) that the Huns were the Xiongnu?

Example 1: On the earlier question, Who were the Huns and/or Xiongnu?, the question itself makes the assertion that they could be one and the same. But it was not explained why they could be (one and the same). Therefore, I am getting into the rationale, why OP or other readers are assuming the Huns and Xiongnu are related.

Example 2: This was an answer to the question which also made an assertion that the Xiongnu and Huns are related but, unfortunately, did not provide any historical documents/reasons, except referring to a blog/website that made an assertion.

If you need me to clarify my question further, please tell me in the comments but do say how this question is confusing or unclear.


texts: Why Europe became more developed although metal was first discovered and used in Asia/Africa?

texts:
Copper was first discovered and used in Middle East.

Iron was first discovered in Egypt.

What were the factors that allowed the development of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations (the father of European development)?

What were the factors that triggered industrial revolution?

Or, is it a coincidence that Europe is more developed now?


texts: Did the Soviet Union hand over thousands of Jews to the Nazis in the spirit of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact?

texts:
The most recent episode of the Italian documentary TV series Ulisse - Il piacere della scoperta (Ulysses - The pleasure of discovery) covered the deportation of Jews from Italy, and at some point it was stated that

before the outbreak of World War II, Stalin's Russia handed over thousands and thousands of Jews to the Nazis, in the spirit of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

Emphasis mine, but the way the host put it, he meant to specify that there weren't instructions for this action in the documents, but it was still done to please the Nazis - for what it's worth, the Italian phrase used by the host was in omaggio al Patto.
Is this true, in any way, or is it blatantly false?

It has been suggested that what the commentator said might have had a figurative meaning, as in handing Poland, and thus its Poles and Jews, to the Nazis. I also thought of this interpretation at some point, but it is not possible. Here is the transcript of the complete passage, in Italian:

Quello che è avvenuto in Europa 70 anni fa è certamente ad opera della Germania nazista, ma è stata aiutata molte volte localmente, per così dire. Nel caso del quartiere ebraico di Roma c'erano dei fascisti che aiutavano le SS, e anche nel resto d'Italia. Ma altrove è successa la stessa cosa, a volte in un modo ancora più organizzato, perché se pensate alla Francia di Vichy era proprio la polizia francese che andava a catturare gli ebrei e li consegnava ai nazisti. E nel caso della Russia di Stalin c'è un altro esempio: prima dello scoppio della guerra, erano proprio i russi a consegnare ai tedeschi, ai nazisti, migliaia e migliaia di ebrei, diciamo in omaggio ad un accordo che la Germania e la Russia avevano fatto, l'accordo Molotov-Ribbentrop, che aveva stabilito per così dire una specie di pace tra le due nazioni.

I already paraphrased above the bit about Stalin's Russia, I'll consider the previous part:

What happened in Europe 70 years ago is certainly due to Nazi Germany, but it was often aided locally. Fascists in Rome and the rest of Italy helped the SS; elsewhere the same thing occurred, but in an even more organized way, because in Vichy France the police captured and handed over Jews to the Nazis.
And in the case of Stalin's Russia there is another example: before the outbreak of the war, it was the Russians themselves who delivered to the Germans, the Nazis, thousands and thousands of Jews, let's say in homage to an agreement that Germany and Russia had made, the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement, which had established, so to speak, a kind of peace between the two nations.

In this context, it is clear that the host is going through instances of concrete collaboration, not figurative.


texts: Why didn't the linguistic split overlap with the religion split in Prussian Silesia?

texts:
The Prussian province of Silesia was split in two "halves", the northwest, centered around Breslau (Wrocław), was mostly Protestant, German-speaking, and was akin to other regions of the kingdom of Prussia. The southeast, centered around Oppeln (Opole) however was very different as its inhabitants were very devout Catholics and mostly spoke a variety of Polish language.

The reason why the linguistic and religious borders overlap is quite simple: as the Prussian authorities tried to ban the Polish language and replace it with German, Protestants believers welcomed this move as a sign of economical progress and didn't resist the change, while Catholics saw this as aggression against their identity and actively resisted the change - and Catholic religious education was the only public place outside home where kid could learn the Polish language, which was banned from schools.

While the vast majority of the Silesian population could be fit in either the "Protestant German from Lower Silesia" or the "Catholic Pole from Upper Silesia" cliches, the linguistic and religious border actually didn't overlap as much as we'd expect.

The linguistic border was more or less on a North/South axis between Namslau (Namysłów) and Neustadt (Prudnik).

On the other side the religious border was an West/East axis between Neurode (Nowa Ruda) and Kreuzburg (Kluczbork).

This means there existed a triangle where the population was predominantly German and Catholic arround Glatz (Kłodzko) and Neisse (Nysa). There also existed a region which was predominately Protestant and Polish speaking around Kreuzburg (Kluczbork), and this city is even today one of the very few cities in Poland where the major church at "Rynek" marketplace is a Protestant church.

I am well aware that those maps mostly represent rural areas. Urban areas, including even small towns, were growing quickly and were inhabited by people who came from various areas of the country to work, so they were always multicultural religiously and when applicable, linguistically. On the other hand rural areas which made most of the land were mostly inhabited by people who are from here since a long time and the population is typically not growing much, so they are much less subject to change their linguistic and/or religious traditions.

My question is: How did those two "excentric" areas come into existence? Why didn't Catholics around Glatz and Neisse resist Germanisation like the other upper Silesians did? And why did the Protestants around Kreuzburg continue to speak Polish when all the other Protestants in the province switched to German in the 19th century?


texts: Why did the start of the Roman consular year move?

texts:
Thus quoth wikipedia:

  The first day of the consular term changed several times during Roman
  history. It became 1 January in 153 BC.

Question is: why? (And what is the source, since wiki is unsourced on this point?)


texts: Were there any Crypto-Olympian worshipers after 380 AD/CE?

texts:
In 380 AD/CE, the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius issued The Edict of Thessaloniki which nationalized Christianity within Greece, Asia Minor, Italy, as well as other parts of The Roman Empire, while also ending the centuries old Greco-Roman Olympian religion. The Temples were destroyed, closed or in many cases, converted into Churches. If my memory is correct, theatrical performances at places, such as Epidaurus and Delphi were discontinued and the Olympic Games had also ended under Theodosius' orders.  The Christianization of Greece, Asia Minor and the Italian peninsula, also resulted in the discontinuation of Olympianism.

However, is there any textual evidence that proves or is there any plausible/ credible circumstantial evidence which refers to a percentage of Greeks and Romans who practiced their Olympian religion in secret-(literally "behind closed doors") during the 400's AD/CE?-(that is to say between The Edict of Thessaloniki and The Fall of The Roman Empire in 476 AD/CE).  In other words, were there any Crypto-Olympian worshipers in Greece, Asia Minor and/or Italy after 380 AD/CE?


texts: Did Caesar hold proconsular imperium for his entire governorship?

texts:
In order to hold a governorship during the late Roman Republic the magistrate needed to be a pro magistratu, specifically proquaestor, propraetor or proconsular.

Since Caesar was appointed his provinces having served a term as the senior consul, does this mean he would have held proconsular imperium for the entire 5 - later extended to 10 - year length of his governorship?


texts: Was it ever possible to see students with burka/paranji having education at the schools and universities of the Uzbek Soviet Republic?

texts:
Despite strict 'hujum' (assault in English) policies against veiling as part of the liberation of women in Muslim populated less-developed areas of the Soviet Union during the early years of the revolution, it is stated that the burka/paranji was extensively worn in states such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan till it went out of fashion in the 60's.

A photo reportedly taken in 1967 showing Uzbek women with paranji in a classroom:

I heard that it was even possible to see students wearing paranjis, a burka-like full body covering veil, at the university in Tashkent back in the 50's. (I don't have details and evidences on this unfortunately.) Could this ever be allowed? Some resources indicate that even wives of high-level members of the communist party in the region were wearing paranji. I believe if somehow paranji was allowed at places of education, it could be worn on the condition that students unveil their faces. Otherwise I'm not sure how the students were able to read and write in the classroom.


texts:
I wonder if there were any books written in the Middle Ages that argued the case for a republic versus a monarchy. On the opposite side we can find Dante's De Monarchia (and probably many others) who argued for monarchy.

Marsilius of Padua might be an example of what I am looking for - or might not. After all his work was heavily used in imperialist and royalist ideology, so he must have been a queer sort of republican, if at all. (I haven't yet read his works myself, so I hope I'm not distorting too much). Also, he seems to  have been more concerned with the opposition between secular and ecclesiastical power rather than with various forms of secular government.

Let's say for time limits, anything preceding Machiavelli.


texts: What is the origin/history of the practice of standing up if an elder or respectable is approaching?

texts:
It is usually witnessed that whenever someone respectable (parents), of a higher status (king/president) or an elderly approaches e.g. enters the room, people tend to stand-up as a sign of respect.

What is the origin/history of this act of paying respect?


texts: What were the rules of the migration to the Louisiana Territory in USA?

texts:
To my best knowledge, at the point of Louisiana Purchase, the area was inhabited mostly by Native Americans. At the time there existed some legislation regarding how the settlement should look like. The latest, at the time, was the Land Act of 1804. However, it applied only to the territory to the east of the Mississippi River. I can I am wondering what were the rules applying to pioneers travelling further to the West. Did they have some support of the government, did they have to pay for the land?

EDIT:

I am asking about the first settlers, not necessarily the people that visited this area at the time (e.g. to explore it or hunt) but the ones that have built their houses, set up farms etc. Those who have funded this infrastructure.

The period I am interested in is after Louisiana became USA territory. Specifically, the US government take on managing them. If no one cared about what was happening there, it is a fine answer. However, I would like to see the sources stating that.


texts: Which came first, the shield or the sword?

texts:
According to the history stated in Wikipedia:

  The oldest form of shield was a protection device designed to block
  attacks by hand weapons, such as swords, axes and maces, or ranged
  weapon sling-stones and arrows.

Does this mean that the swords (or other weapons) came first before the shield? However, I am also thinking that shields were also made to block attacks from wild animals, for example, not just from hand weapons.

Is there historical evidence indicating which came first?


texts: How can the value of older currencies be expressed in modern units? How is the conversion rate calculated?

texts:
We can pretty often read something like.. "He owned this sum of silver/gold which is equal to this sum of dollars in our time."

But how is this calculated? How can you know what a 1000 dollars was in Roman Empire for example? By comparing prices for some goods? But is it an adequate method?


texts: How pro-Soviet was India join during the cold war?

texts: Why did India end up tilting" to the Soviet pole during the Cold Wars, while Pakistan was pro- US pole? And to what degree was India pro Soviet?


texts: What is the origin of "With an iron fist, we will drive humanity to happiness?"

texts:
What is the origin and context of the Marxist/Leninist quote "With an iron fist, we will drive humanity to happiness?"   Rather than just the name of the author, some background would be helpful.  For example, here is a citation on Stalin's quote regarding the Pope:

"The Pope! How many divisions has he got?"

Said sarcastically to Pierre Laval in 1935, in response to
being asked whether he could do anything with Russian Catholics
to help Laval win favour with the Pope, to counter the increasing
threat of Nazism; as quoted in The Second World War (1948)
by Winston Churchill vol. 1, ch. 8, p. 105.

Googling has produced limited results, with no dependable attribution.   The closest I've come is this:

The administration at Solovki put up a sign at the main camp,
which captured perfectly the Leninist program. It read, “With an
Iron Fist, We Will Lead Humanity to Happiness.”

If this is the extent of the information available, that's fine, but I thought I would double check..


texts:
What are the unique and distinct features of the study of history in terms of:

Epistemology
Purpose
Theory
Method
Methodology

Does the study of history produce unique perceptions?

Does the study of history involve unique practices or outputs?

From the lay persons perspective:

how do we know what happened;
why do we study it; and,
how do we study it?


texts: Was anyone a notable participant in both the American Revolution and the Latin American Wars of Independence (as a liberator)?

texts:
As the American Revolution and the Latin American Wars of Independence occurred within about 30 years of each other, presumably some people with an appetite for liberating colonies participated in both.

I briefly looked the list of Founding Fathers and of Libertadores and saw no obvious overlap. So unless freedom fighting is strictly a young man's game, my question is:

Were there any people of note who participated in both the American Revolution and the Latin American Wars of Independence, on the side of the colonists?


texts:
I recall someone (may MP at the time) said something like.

  No one that is in real need should be discouraged from using a
  workhouse due to its standard of housing and food, but on one that is
  not in real need should wish to use one due to its standard of housing
  and food.

Can anyone recall who said it and the correct wording.


texts: During the Middle Ages, how many people could fishing feed?

texts:
I known fishing was pretty popular in the middle-age.

But I don't know how many people could be fed by a single fisher?

I'd like to know it mostly for river fishing but I'm also interested by sea fishing.
I'm thinking about small villages with local fishing to ensure food supply.

Context:

Period: Early Middle age
Location: Small isolated village (~250 people)
Environment: Large river with plenty of fish

I'm looking for an average number (don't take in account the competition factor).


texts: Is it possible to find out on what Roman day of the week Jesus resurrected?

texts:
According to the bible Jesus resurrected at the first day of the week. Nowadays we would call that day Sunday. But the first day of the week is based on the Hebrew calendar. In those days the Jews were colonized by the Roman empire and they used the Julian calendar. The week of the Romans in those days had 8 days and were called from A till H. I don't know what their 'holy day' was or their rest day.

But is it possible in some way to find out how the Hebrew weekdays in the time of Jesus' resurrection correspond with the Roman days?


texts: Why were even royals in medieval europe living without running water and sewerage?

texts: History books say that after the fall of Rome, 'we' lost our understanding of their technology. But aqueducts, lots of Rome's buildings etc were still standing, monasteries had washing and toilet facilities, castles and palaces were built. Why were even the rich apparently content to live in stink, sit in windy garderobes etc? - you don't need more to see what I'm getting at. In fact was this the state of 'Europe' or were there wide differences?


texts: Why is Jackson's valley campaign considered a Confederate victory?

texts:
Wikipedia article on the campaign

I'm curious why Jackson's valley campaign is considered a victorious Confederate campaign. Yes, Jackson won almost all the battles that were fought, but as I understand it, by the end of the campaign the Union held the valley. Not only did they have more total soldiers in the valley (52k vs. 17k) at the close of the campaign, Jackson and his command left the valley to join the Peninsula campaign, i.e. the Union forces still in the valley were unopposed.  Jackson had won several battles and kept the Union armies away from the Peninsula, which would make this campaign a strategic victory. However, the article says:

  If the Federals could reach Staunton in the upper Valley, they would threaten the vital Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, which ran from Richmond to the Mississippi River. Stonewall Jackson wrote to a staff member, "If this Valley is lost, Virginia is lost."

If we assume that Jackson was right, then since the Union was in control of the Valley at the end of the campaign, the campaign was also a strategic Union victory that threatened Confederate authority over Virginia. Presumably, at some point later in the war, the Confederates went back into the Valley and drove the Union armies out (or the Union armies voluntarily left), and that would be the actual victorious Confederate campaign.

As a comparison, the Battle of Wavre in the Napoleonic Wars is a French victory even though this "French victory" strongly contributed to the Allies winning the Waterloo campaign. Similarly, it sounds like Jackson's Valley campaign is a Union victory even though this "Union victory" strongly contributed to the Confederates winning the Peninsula campaign.

Am I missing something?


texts: Is there ANY relation between Pennsylvania and Transylvania?

texts: Like the title asks, is there ANY relation between Pennsylvania and Transylvania, historically or otherwise, or are the names simply very odd coincidences?


texts: What did the Catholic Church do to promote human rights of non-christians from 1500s to mid 1900s?

texts:
Clarifications: When I say Church, I mean anybody who recognises the authority of the Pope over him. Also, I am referring to efforts on a mass scale, that is papal bulls, formal policies etc. I am not interested in small-scale local efforts initiated by low-ranking members. Also, efforts with the primary aim of converting non-christians to christianity do not count.

The influence of the Church seems to have been considerable during the early 1500s, as shown by the Papal Bull Inter Caetera. In contrast, the influence of the Church has waned in the modern world. Since the modern position of the Church with regards to human rights is very liberal, I wish to know whether the Church actually promoted human rights when it had influence.

Specifically, I wish to know about the efforts to promote the human rights of the :

non-christian indigenous people in Colonised nations
Slaves
Indigenous population in nations overtaken by a Christian population (i.e. US, Australia etc.)


texts:
Yuri Semyonov's history "The Conquest of Siberia: An Epic of Human Passions" says:

Journeys to Siberia were always measured in years. In an old book the author, in order to make clear how long a journey through Siberia must take, told in all seriousness the following story:
The Empress Elizabeth desired to make the acquaintance of her most distant subjects, and commanded that six maidens should be sent to her at St Petersburg from Kamchatka. They were selected at Bolsheryetsk. The journey took so long that all became mothers before their arrival at Irkutsk. In spite of the dismissal of the officer accompanying them, they all reached St Petersburg again pregnant.

Elizabeth ruled from 1741 to 1762, when Bolsheryetesk was the seat of the regional commandant and the sea route to Okhotsk was already open. I assume that the maidens in question were Itelmen, natives of southern Kamchatka.
What's the origin of this story?


texts: Are there any books solely about the Umayyad Invasion of Gaul?

texts:
I am very fascinated by the Umayyad Invasion of Gaul (the Arabic wiki-page on this subject is very interesting, though it starts with a lengthy description of the condition of Franks) and I am looking for a book SOLELY from start to end dedicated to this subject. I tried to find it on the Internet but to no avail, maybe there is not a single book on the Umayyad Invasion of Gaul due to the ephemerality of the invasion: I don't know for sure; but if indeed there is, please give reference/URL address.

EDIT: The book is preferable, but any research paper on the subject will do also!

Thanks in advance!


texts: What happened to aircraft if their aircraft carrier was damaged?

texts:
Obviously if a plane takes off from a carrier but can't return because the carrier is damaged or sunk, it has to go somewhere. Or if it can't reach an airfield, its crew would need to ditch it and eject if possible.

During WW2 (or other operations involving carriers), were there standing orders/procedures for air crew if/when these situations arose? Are there any actual incidents you could reference?


texts: What are the origins of Pakistani laws on "blasphemy?"

texts:
Pakistan appears to have draconian laws against "blasphemy" of the Prophet Mohammed, Islam, or the Koran?

How and when did such laws originate in Pakistan? Are they largely the result, for instance, of the long British occupation (of "India") and the result of British attitudes against libel? Or did they have its origins in Islam?

If the latter, are the laws similar to those of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, or other parts of the Islamic world? Why would Pakistan's brand of Islamic law be more like these countries' than say, the milder version of Indonesia, another Islamic country?

http://www.scotsman.com/news/international/blasphemy-claim-against-ambassador-1-2803346

Edit:

Please note that the question about Indonesia was indirectly answered, years later, by my answer to this question: Why is Indonesia a Muslim country?


texts: Did the US military just kill more Russians in Syria than they ever did during the Cold War?

texts:
EDIT: It is understood that the US military generally was not in direct confrontation with the Soviets during the Cold War (hence it being Cold). It's also true that even during a cold war "things" happen, either deliberately or not, that result in casualties to the opposing side, and the casualties inflicted might not necessarily be acknowledged by government officials on either side.

Recently, US forces inflicted casualties on a force of Russian mercenaries in Syria. I read an article by David French at National Review Online about it, and he stated that, if the larger casualty reports are to be believed, the US military killed more Russians in a single engagement than it did in any single engagement during the cold war.

Numbers like 200 and 300 Russian dead have been bandied about; ignoring the question of the reliability of these numbers and how many actually were killed, if those high estimates were correct, would David French's statement be correct?

Restated, during the Cold War, did the US military ever kill anywhere near that number of people of Russian (or Soviet, if we are being broad) nationality in a single incident? Incident meaning an isolated event where casualties were incurred, such as the accidental downing of a transport plane, not sporadic fighting between a few combatants, as in espionage or aerial dog fighting.

Bonus points: If David French's statement is correct, would that mean that this was the single largest incident of US on Russian casualties in history? To my knowledge, the only large-ish military engagement we had directly against Russians was our intervention in Archangelsk during the Russian civil war right after WW1, so it seems very possible.


texts:
USS Reprisal was the first ship of what was to become the United States Navy. Wikipedia says:

  On September 14, 1777, Reprisal left France, for the United States.
  About October 1, Reprisal was lost off the banks of Newfoundland and
  all 129 on board, except the cook, went down with her.

Numerous other sources mention the same thing, but with no other details or references. One forum post claims that it sank in a storm. What do we know about how the ship sank?

Did it sink due to a storm?
Were the other ships in the squadron (Dolphin and Lexington) sailing with it when it sank?
If the other vessels were present, are there any written accounts from the crew of those ships?
Are there any written accounts from the cook who survived?
Has the shipwreck ever been found?


texts: What was the legal process of raising a legion in late Republican Rome?

texts:
I've read some about both the Roman army and the Late Republican period, but realized that, while I understand well enough how legions worked in the field, I have only a very incomplete idea of who could actually raise them in the post-Marian pre-Principate army. In other words, who had the authority to do it, how did get that right, what if any political and religious hoops did they have to jump through, and how and when was the process subverted? For example, clearly consuls and proconsuls could raise legions, did the right stop with them?

A search of wikipedia and the ancient history encyclopedia turned up a scattering of useful information, but nothing that I felt that I could piece together into a systemic overview, however abbreviated. I'm interested in not just legions proper, but any Late Republican post-Marian military force capable of taking to the field. Thanks for your time.


texts:
Rosaura Sánchez's Telling Identities contains this statement:

  Except for two very brief periods, the California territory had no ships of its own to travel up and down the coast or to San Blas and the Sandwich Islands, although there were small sailboats and rowboats for short-distance travel.

So who owned an ocean-going ship and when? Sánchez treats the matter as well known, so perhaps the answer is in Bancroft, but her description isn't detailed enough to follow up.

Possibly related: Which trade ship did not return to California from China?


texts: Is this a Sherman, and if so what model?

texts:
A River Oaks, Houston, TX, attorney recently purchased and parked outside his home  a fully functional World War Two tank.

Note: The original newspaper article claimed the tank was "fully functional" - but the main gun was disabled by drilling a hole through it prior to departing France.

To my untrained eye it appears to be a Sherman, but I am looking for a more expert opinion. Can anyone definitely determine the type and model of this tank, along with any other interesting specifications?

  "The problem is there is no action [the Homeowners' Association] can take," said Buzbee. "They can ticket it or they can try to tow it, but the truth is unless I decide to move it, it's not going anywhere."

Presumably this is a serial number of some sort.

I'm not sure what these numbers represent.

More details, with thanks to called2voyage

https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/complete-story-river-oaks-tank/


texts: What is the position of modern scholarship as regarding the claims of professor Samuel Rafinesque in his book about the indigenous Americans

texts:
Here is an excerpt of a 19th century book by Professor Rafinesque:

  PROFESSOR CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE (THE PRIMITIVE BLACK NATIONS OF
  AMERICA 1832)

  "The Native American Negroes or black Indians have been seen in
  Brazil, Guyana, Caraccas, Popayan, Choco, North California and etc:

  The Aroras or Caroras of Cumana, were black, but with fine features
  and long hair, like the Jolofs and Gallas of Africa.

  The Esteros latitude 32, are like the Hottentots and the Numuquas,
  Tambukis, and many other Nigritian tribes, not black, but dark brown,
  yet complete Negroes, with large thick lips, broad flat noses, and
  very ugly, with hair crisped or curly. All these tribes live in New
  California The Aroras or Caroras of Cumana, were black, but with fine
  features and long hair, like the Jolofs and Gallas of Africa.

  The American Negroes of Quarenqua, in Choco, (the great level plain
  900 miles long, 90 wide, separating the Andes of South America from
  the mountains of Panama,) were black and with woolly heads in 1506.
  They are mentioned by Dangleria, and all the early accurate writers.

  The Yemasees or Jamasi were remarkably Black people Notices of Florida
  and the Campaigns; The Ancient Caracoles of Hayti, represented as a
  Nation of Beasts by the Historical Songs

  The Califurnams of the Carib Islands, called Black Caribs or Guauini
  by others, are a black branch of Caribs.

  The Arquahos of Cutara mentioned by Garcias in the West Indies, quite
  black.

  The Aroras of Raleigh or Yaruras of the Spaniards, ugly black or brown
  Negroes, yet existing near the Oronoco, and language known, called
  Monkeys by their neighbors The Chaymas of Guyana, brown Negroes like
  Hottentots,

  The Manjipas and Porcigis of Nienhof, the Motayas of Knivet are all of
  Brazil, brown Negroes with curly hair.

  The Nigritas of Martyr in Darien, yet existing in Choco under the name
  of Chuanas or Gaunas or Chinos (Dariente). Ugly black or red Negroes.

  The Manabies of Popayan (in Columbia) blackish with Negro features and
  hair.

  The Guabas and Jaras of Tagugalpa (Tegucigalpa) near the Honduras. The
  Enslen or Esteros of New California, ugly blackish Negroes.

  The black Indians met by the Spaniards in Louisiana in 1543.

  The Moon-eyed Negroes, and Albinos, destroyed by the Cherokees, and
  seen in Panama."

This is a huge load of information. So I will like to know the position of modern scholarship on this issue. I would also like to know the credibility of this writer, and the factors that may have led him to publish this work.


texts: What was the available transport to Kimberley in 1871?

texts:
The DeBeers diamond company was not actually named for the founders, but for two farmers who discovered diamonds on their land in 1871, and sold the farm to be developed into a diamond mine, the place coming to be named Kimberley after an English politician. It soon attracted tens of thousands of people looking for work in or around the mines.
What transport was available for getting to Kimberley? Suppose you were a hopeful miner in, say, King William's Town, as likely a starting point as any. That's 675 kilometers away. The landscape around Kimberley looks like arid scrubland. I don't think there would've been any railways near there at that time; presumably not many roads, nor many places to stop along what roads there were. Horses were expensive, and needed food and water. And it doesn't seem like it would be easy to walk hundreds of kilometers through arid scrubland with few signposts or resting places.
What transport did people use to get there?


texts: Why did the the US House of Representatives stop reading George Washington's farewell address on his birthday?

texts:
In January 1862, during the American Civil War, thousands of Philadelphia residents signed a petition requesting the Congress to commemorate the 130th anniversary of Washington's birth by reading his Farewell Address "in one or the other of the Houses of Congress.” First read in the United States House of Representatives in February 1862, the reading of Washington's address became a tradition in both houses by 1899.
In 1984, however, the House of Representatives abandoned the practice. The Senate continues this tradition into modern times, observing Washington's Birthday by selecting a member of the Senate, alternating between political parties each year, to read the address aloud on the Senate floor.
Wikipedia- George Washington's Farewell Address

Why did the the House of Representatives stop reading George Washington's Farewell address in 1984?


texts: What was the judicial body in 16th century France called?

texts:
I was listening to a series of audio lectures on Religious wars in Europe. In the lecture on French wars of religion, there was a mention of a judicial authority in Paris.
However, I couldn't catch the name because the audio was unclear. However the name started with a 'P'. Can someone help me with its name so that I can know more about it?


texts: Information on first stages of road formation between villages and towns

texts:
I am researching how road networks are formed over time.  I've read several papers on the topic but they are all from a macro point of view.  They list formative factors such as trade and environment but are lacking in the micro details.

For example I have villages A and B in say around 7000 BC.  I want to model how the trails would start between the villages.  Did people first start following wild animal trails?  Livestock trails?  Avoid gradients higher than a specific angle?  Maximum size boulder that might be moved for a trail?  Max depth of mud early people would move through? ...

Does anyone know of a book/paper/study that expands on the initial establishment of human trails?


texts: What is the English name for the "Исламский джихад - Джамаат моджахедов" organization?

texts:
Russia's list of designated terrorist organizations contains a list of names that are easily identifiable, except this one that I can't identify:

  Исламский джихад - Джамаат моджахедов

I could find some info about it in Russian, but not in English.

How is this organization known as in the English-speaking world?

Google Translate says "Islamic Jihad - Jamaat Mujahideen".


texts: Printing - When did advertisements in colour became commonplace?

texts: I wonder when colourful advertisements became commonplace in print (such as magazines or occasionally newspapers). I can imagine that colourful printing was far more expensive - so at what point did it became more affordable? What technology, if any, was responsible for this?


texts: Why did the rest of the Eastern Bloc not invade Yugoslavia?

texts:
When Tito was resisting Stalin/Soviet rule, according to the Wikipedia article on Tito:

  An invasion of Yugoslavia was planned to be carried out in 1949 via the combined forces of neighbouring Soviet satellite states of Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania, followed by the subsequent removal of Tito's government.

But this invasion does not seem to have taken place. Why not? The article doesn't seem to explain.


texts: Did Hezbollah kidnap Russian diplomats, and Russia subsequently dismember Hezbollah family members?

texts:
I heard this story several years ago, I don't recall the exact details, and I don't even know if the story is real or not (if it is real, I'm guessing it may be exaggerated). Can anyone confirm this story, or clarify the events?
Here's what I remember:
Hezbollah kidnapped Russian diplomats (2 or more, don't remember), and Russian special forces responded by kidnapping family members of Hezbollah leadership, and cutting off some... (either fingers or toes) and sending the body parts to Hezbollah leaders with a message like, "Release the diplomats (then some threat about more family members and more body parts if they weren't released, along with some version of we know where you live)"  and it worked, the Russian diplomats were quickly released.
that's the end of the story, any chance the story is real? any known publications? anything?


texts: Is that armistice wagon photograph authentic?

texts:
The armistice on November 11th, 1918, was signed between 5:00 AM and 5:30 AM, french time (which was at this time UTC+0, one hour earlier than today). Wikipedia has a photo of the event, presumably taken at 5:30 AM (*)

However, it seems hard to imagine this photo could have been taken by night. According to this website the sunrise time in Compièges on November 11th is 7:52 AM (UTC+1), which makes it on 1918 rising at 6:52 AM (UTC).

So this armistice photograph would have been taken in the dark, 1h22 before sunrise. This makes me wonder, is this photograph really authentic ?

(Note: At the time of asking this question, Wikipedia stated that the photo was taken at 5:30 AM, this was edited since by Evargalo)


texts: How rigorously do combat engineers follow command hierarchy?

texts:
This is related to chain of command

I am interested if certain branches are looser than others when it comes to chain of command. The reason being that engineering, especially combat engineering, may require distributed decision making for handling issues among different domain areas.

e.g. Does the military allow informal flat structures at times, and has this ever played out in theaters of war, specifically

Korean War
Vietnam War
Somalia Intervention
Bosnian War


texts: Who is this particular inventor from XIX century?

texts:
I came acros with the following description about a certain inventor from XIX century:

  An illustrious 19th-century European character who amassed an immense fortune thanks to his more than three hundred inventions, has passed to the annals of history for having developed a device with a photosynthetic organism that was a true economic reef for this inventor. After making a public demonstration of the benefits of this invention in British territory, the German authorities and the Scandinavian countries began to manufacture it, while the British, somewhat more reluctant, would authorize its production several years later. When its use was extended to the industry or public works, among others, the patent made the assets of this character increase substantially.

Additional background: It was also mentioned that this particular substance is related to the inventor:

We have strong beliefs about aspirin but the inventor does not match the description. We also though about Dynamite invented by Alfred Nobel.


texts:
According to the philosopher Proclus, a man named Marcellus was an author of a book called "Aethiopica". This i presume, is a historical work about Africa. According to Proclus, Marcellus gives a description about the mythical island of Atlantis in his work.

Do we know anything more about this Marcellus or his work "Aethiopica"? Is he mentioned by any other historians?


texts: What language did Petlura speak casually?

texts:
In Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard" one of the characters, Turbin alleges that Simon Petlura does not speak Ukrainian language himself despite the measures he took to promote it.

Are there any historical sources about what language Petlura in fact preferred to speak?


texts: Were there any specific laws/treaties enshrining the Principle of Distinction in the 18th century?

texts:
Hathaway and Shapiro (2017):

By the middle of the eighteenth century, European armies had come to recognize a “Principle of Distinction,” the doctrine central to modern humanitarian law, which distinguishes between soldiers and civilians and protects the latter from the former. ...
The radical depopulation of cities and villages so characteristic of the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ceased by the middle of the eighteenth century, as the inhabitants no longer had to flee from gangs of undisciplined soldiers who raided their homes, raped the women, and killed for sport.

What I'm a bit puzzled by though--and Hathaway and Shapiro fail to discuss--is whether there were any specific laws/treaties that enshrined this Principle of Distinction. They do go on to discuss international treaties signed in the 19th century, but I'm wondering how this Principle of Distinction was effective in the 18th century. (Briefly googling I wasn't able to find much about this.)


texts: Why aren't the Silesian Uprisings, especially the 3rd, refered to as a "war"?

texts:
Three Silesian Uprising happened in 1919, 1920 and 1921. While the first is definitely an "ordinary" uprising, the second is closer to be a civil war.

The third uprising is definitely a civil war. There was two armies fighting, a front, general who commands the armies, and causalities by hundreds. Paramilitaries from inner Germany and inner Poland played a major role and came to fight, not just the Upper Silesians. The war had a duration of 3 months. How can such a major even be refereed to only as an "uprising"? Isn't that a major euphemism for what happened?

In Switzerland the War of Sondernbund lasted only 3 weeks and did 93 casualties, and is refereed to as a "war". That is orders of magnitudes less than even the 1st uprising.


texts: What happened when the Çatalhöyük burial holes were full and the houses had no more room?

texts:
Çatalhöyük was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7100 BC to 5700 BC, and flourished around 7000 BC.
The deceased in this village where bonded closely together and placed in a hole under the sleeping area. Dr. Amy Bogaard explains this was so the living could live with their ancestors.

As a part of ritual life, the people of Çatalhöyük buried their dead within the village. Human remains have been found in pits beneath the floors and, especially, beneath hearths, the platforms within the main rooms, and under beds. Bodies were tightly flexed before burial and were often placed in baskets or wound and wrapped in reed mats. Disarticulated bones in some graves suggest that bodies may have been exposed in the open air for a time before the bones were gathered and buried. In some cases, graves were disturbed, and the individual's head removed from the skeleton. These heads may have been used in rituals, as some were found in other areas of the community. In a woman's grave spinning whorls were recovered and in a man's grave, stone axes. Some skulls were plastered and painted with ochre to recreate faces, a custom more characteristic of Neolithic sites in Syria and at Neolithic Jericho than at sites closer by.
Wikipedia page on Çatalhöyük

Çatalhöyük has also been covered in "The Story of God with Morgan Freeman" series SE01 EP03 where Dr. Amy Bogaard explains (around 9:40) that the graves would be opened for ritual purposes and to add new bodies. Youtube link 2:30
My question is what happened when the burial holes were full and no more room was in the house?


texts: What happened to Dirk Willems' family after his martyrdom?

texts:
From Wikipedia

  Dirk Willems
  was a Dutch martyred Anabaptist who is most famous for escaping from prison, turning around to rescue his pursuer —who had fallen through thin ice while chasing Willems— to then be recaptured, tortured and killed for his faith.

What happened to his family after his death?  Did he have any family?


texts: Operation Felix was the seizure of Gibraltar (a British naval base at the tip of the Mediterranean Sea) by the Nazis during World War 2. The Nazis believed if they could take control of Gibraltar, which was strategically important, they could take control of the Mediterranean and invade French North Africa. It seemed like the plan was going to go forward, but it was stopped. What happened?


texts: What were Argentina's intentions for the Falkland Islanders?

texts:
Argentina must have assumed in 1982 that its occupation of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) would be successful and that Argentinian sovereignty over the territory would be accepted. What were the Argentinians' intentions for the local population?

Did they expect to grant the local population the right to continue living there?

Were the Falklanders immediately in April 1982 (or were they going to be) classed as citizens of Argentina or resident aliens or was some kind of special title given to them?

The official name would have been the Malvinas of course. But were they planning to be relaxed about the name at all? Would locals have been allowed to carry on calling it the Falklands, whatever the official name? Such as in English language newspapers?

Were there to be forced deportations of the local population on any scale? Were there plans to settle the territories systematically with Argentinians?


texts: How common were professional musicians before the advent of recorded music?

texts:
I was talking to some economist friends about the future of the music business if musicians couldn't earn any money outside of live performances and swag sales, and I proposed that we could use the music industry prior to the widespread introduction of recorded music sales as a potential avenue of exploration.

Are there any good sources on the number of professional musicians in the US and Europe in the 19th century and earlier?

We recognize there are a number of challenges with this potential analysis (substitution between recorded and live music means that musicians today might face lower demand for performances, the concept of a professional musician as we understand it might not have emerged until fairly recently), but we'd love to have an idea about the validity of the no-recorded-music-revenue-means-no-musicians argument that we hear so much.


texts: Did Western China have special-named martial arts during Islamic era?

texts:
Islam brought by Prophet Mohammad had reached (parts of) Central Asia in less than 50 years after his death. Central Asia, especially China, is nowadays famous of its martial arts. Even in some muslim countries, e.g. Indonesia and Egypt, there is some martial art which is believed originated from Central Asia, specifically Turkestan and Western China. Thus I am interested in tracking the source of this martial art.

Based on my reading, I got some names such as shurul khan (shoo-rool-khan) and thifan po khan (tee-fun-poh-khan). However I found only sources available in Bahasa Indonesia or Malay which are based on Zhodam old book. There I found some words which sound like Turkic language but I can't verify them, such as shurul khan (shoo-rool-khan), thifan po khan (tee-fun-poh-khan), kagrul (kag-rool), badur (bah-dur), ahund (ah-hoon), turgul (toor-ghool), tamid (tah-mid), banetin (bah-net-teen), tsenkay (sand-kai), liqud (lee-kood).

DISCLAIMER: The spellings above are only my personal approach, I don't know  exactly :)

The question

Do you have any historical information about martial arts in Western China (and also Turkestan in general, e.g. Uyghur (Xinjiang), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, etc) in Islamic era? In addition about my reading, do words above really exist in Turkic languages (e.g. Uyghur)?


texts: Did any of the bystanders express their reactions after realizing that they'd experienced the death of Antoni Gaudí?

texts:
Gaudí's death, on 7th June 1926, when he was struck by a tram while crossing a road, is generally described in narratives along the lines of 'the unkempt look of the wounded person made the onlookers delay with calling for assistance'. This is, for example, the story as provided on Wikipedia, with the first person who recognises Gaudí as Gaudí said to be Mosén Gil Parés on the following day. Wikipedia notes three books as sources for the above.
What I'm wondering is whether the few people who helped Gaudí realized they were assisting him? Alternatively, did any of the other onlookers (who didn't help) comment on their inaction after realizing it was Gaudí they ignored?

A more coherent narrative of Gaudí's death is provided here (translated from Spanish or Catalan based on the spelling (errors)—which I preserved for this copy as in the source):

The Catalan architect, key figure of modernism and one of the pioneers of the avant-garde of the twentieth century, is hit by a tram.Lying on the sidewalk, his unkempt appearance condemns him. He died three days later.
... The artist receives a terrible impact on the ribs and temple. Critically injured, he is lying on the ground unconscious.
His worn clothes, fastened with safety pins instead of buttons and dusty shoes that cover their wrapped in strips of cloth feet, give a poor appearance.
Most passersby, taking him for a beggar because of his unkempt appearance, denied their help. Only two of them are offered to assist him: Antonio Roig, managing the port, and Antonio Noria. They are trying unsuccessfully to arrest four taxis; the first three refuse to transport the wounded, fearful that the blood staining the upholstery of their vehicles. The fourth not even stop to see the body lying on the sidewalk.
A policeman approaches the tumult surrounding the artist and imposing his authority, requires a taxi to take him. To ensure that it will be properly cared for, he rises to the vehicle. The officer ordered the old man to move to the nearby dispensary Round San Pedro, 37.
The logbook will record center cursory examination of the wounded: ‘trauma at the height of the right ear and commotion of the patient, who calls himself Antonio Gaudi … It seems that the artist is appreciated regained lucidity for a brief moment, long enough to provide their identity, so far unknown data because the artist was undocumented. In their pockets not wearing more than the book of the Gospels, a rosary, a handkerchief and the little key from his desk.
The doctor on duty, to the serious condition of the injured, ordered his transfer to Hospital after administering a spasmodic.
Finally the fate wants Gaudí is transferred to the Hospital de la Santa Creu, but it’s too late. The next day is recognized by the chaplain of the Sagrada Familia, Mosen Gil Parés, good friend.

This account seems to be a (machine or just poor) translation of the newsitem from La Vanguardia which also names the policeman as Ramón Pérez. A similar French narrative is here with items that look like newspaper cutouts, but I can't see (zoom to) when they are from.
What I'm wondering is whether Antonio Roig or Antonio Noria realized that it was Gaudí they were helping—and left an account of their own thoughts about the event. The policeman's notes shows that he had heard, but might not have believed the statement that the dying man was 'Antoni Gaudí' (or he might have had him taken to a better hospital to begin with). Did Ramón Pérez comment on this event at all? Or, did any of the other onlookers (noted in the above as "most passersby denied their help" or "la mayoría de los transeúntes le niegan su ayuda") comment on how they didn't help the old architect?


texts: How was Napoleon able to take power from the Republic

texts: Napoleon took power less than a generation after the French Revolution. He had a lot of support from the Army and the people, how was this possible?  Why would the French people support someone who was essentially making himself king after they had so recently gotten rid of their king, rejecting the very idea of monarchy.  Yet there was very little resistance to the transition from republic to empire. How did this happen?


texts: What was the source of "presidium" as used by the Soviets?

texts:
A presidium/praesidium, was frequently used by the Soviets to refer to various executive councils such as the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet which in 1938 replaced the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee that had existed since 1922. This use looks to be quite novel—with very few other contemporary examples—so I am wondering who thought of it. Where does the Soviet use of presidium for their executive councils come from?
In 1922, presidium was used in the German Republic (and previously also in the German Empire). This seems to be the closest (geographically) and most prominent usage of the word before the Soviets chose it, but choosing a word that's prime connotation relates to Imperial Germany sounds odd—though not impossible. Some comments have mentioned the wider usage of 'präsidium' in the Germanic cultural sphere, so perhaps this is the real source.
Similarly, both Sweden and Norway also used this term, but I've not seen a clean link to the Soviet regime. The Greek Parliament also has a presidium, but this only seems to have been in use since 1973 so this cannot have been a source.
Meanwhile, wiktionary notes that the English 'presidium' is actually borrowed from the Russian which was borrowed from the Latin. The Latin is defined as:

defence, protection, help, aid, assistance
guard, garrison, convoy, escort

Which doesn't make it an obvious root for what the Soviets used the word for.
Wikipedia's original article also notes that the Socialist International uses this now, but this is a 1951 organisation. The article on the First International notes a president but not a presidium; article on the Second mentions neither. The article on the Third International or Comintern specifies a presidium, but this is in 1930 after its use in the Soviet Union from 1922.
In other words, I did not find a plausible source (except the German, Swedish, and Norwegian uses that don't have an etymological link to the Russian term) for the use of presidium. Does anyone have evidence for any of these sources for the word?


texts: Was there ever a situation where members of two warring militaries were on leave in the same neutral location?

texts: Or not necessarily on leave, but in some capacity where they were present in numbers but not allowed to fight?


texts: Is there an established metric in historiography for what constitutes a “modernized” country?

texts:
Since the first industrial revolution there’s been a clear and dramatic acceleration in the development of technology, with accompanying impacts on social and political cultural norms, creating dramatic gulfs of wealth, technology, and culture between large portions off the world. As this influence rapidly spread through parts of Asia and the Middle East etc the picture was complicated.

What do historians use as a (presumably rough, contested) metric to decide how “modernized “ a country is. Is this purely a question of infrastructure? I’m particularly curious about governmental and social aspects. As a bonus question, do historians not generally think of words “modernity” or the more charged “developed” as making the basis of useful question, and if so why not?

This is obviously a question which has at least some potential to be contentious, please forgive any of ignorance on my part. Thanks for your time.


texts: Was the Reichspropaganda-Leitung (RPL) known to the Germany public?

texts: I noticed that the Nazi propaganda department was literally called "Reichspropaganda-Leitung (RPL)", "the propaganda office". Was this the public name of it, or, a secret name used behind closed doors?


texts:
Here we read of the Scottish Highland Clearances:

  A young journalist sent by the “Scotsman” to the Highlands exhibited the same racism, writing in 1847 that the Highlanders were “an inferior race to the Lowland Saxon.”  Robert Knox, the Edinburgh surgeon who bought the bodies the gravesnatchers Burke and Hare stole, believed in the superiority of the “Anglo-Saxon race” and wrote that the Highlanders “must be forced from the soil.”

Some have said this is mere evictions due to a failure to pay rent. Some say it is racially motivated. Some say it is a land-grab.

My question is: What were the motivating factors in the Scottish Highland Clearances?


texts: How many British navy officers were from lower classes at the end of 18th century?

texts:
Helping my daughter with a presentation about Cook, I looked for English sources about his biography and was surprised to read that he was a son of a farmer hand - practically, the bottom of the lower class.

Was it real? I mean, he could be really the son of that rich farmer, and had much better support at start?

What was the statistics about bourgeoisie/worker/farmer sons among navy officers in England? For me numbers before the industrial revolution and after it are interesting: The end of 18 and 19 centuries.

I don't hope there are full tables about that somewhere. Any information would be gladly accepted.

In Russia, for example, even at the end of 19th cent, admiral Makarov, the son of a boatswain, was accepted as a funny exception. Only aristocracy of blue blood could send their sons to be navy officers. The plebs could become officers and even serve at navy, but they didn't get navy officer titles.


texts: How did shells, bones, and other trinkets work as currency?

texts: One often hears stories about civilised and pre-civilised societies using shells, bones, and other trinkets as currency. How exactly did this system work? Taking the example of shells, did they have to be the same type of shell, have the same weight or was the system completely arbitrary?


texts: What is the difference between the Nobel Banquet and the Nobel Anniversary Dinner?

texts:
On December 10, 1945, the Nobel Banquet took place in Sweden and the "5th Annual Nobel Anniversary Dinner" took place in New York City.

I understand that the Nobel Prizes are always presented in Sweden and Norway, but I'm confused as to why there was an additional event occurring on the same day.


texts: Did Stalin have any designs on Turkey and Greece?

texts:
I know of the famous Percentages Agreement between Stalin and Churchill. As is commonly known, Stalin reneged on his promise in regards to Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania which eliminated all British influence by 1950, but at the same time kept his promise on Greece and Yugoslavia.

My question is, was Stalin intending to renege his promise on Greece and Turkey as well, but was thwarted? Was there a Soviet conspiracy to start/further support communist insurgencies in these countries, or did Stalin keep his sphere of influence?


texts: Why did early attempts to transport milk to London by rail meet with 'much criticism'?

texts:
According to the Wikipedia article on milk (referring to transporting milk to London by rail),

  The Great Western Railway was an early and enthusiastic adopter, and
  began to transport milk into London from Maidenhead in 1860, despite
  much criticism.

The nearest footnote link (47) makes no mention of this. This article on the Great Western Railway offers no clues, nor doea Freight Operations - Non Passenger Coaching Stock - Milk (though it goes into a lot detail on transporting milk). Another, on British railway milk trains only starts with 1923. The British Railway Milk Tank Wagon article mentions a potential problem - milk 'self-churning'.

Was the criticism of the early transporting of milk due to a problem with the quality of the milk upon arrival, or was there some other reason for this criticism?


texts:
I'm trying to find a list of Roman Imperial Coins that were used around 0 CE/AD.

Most of the my searches turn up lots of shopping pages. After sorting through tons of listings, I can find lists that have Roman and Greek coins, but either the pages have no information to differentiate between Roman vs Greek, or they have no year placement. Most pages don't even match with information.

Anyone know a reliable site with Roman currency that dates around 0 CE?


texts: How extensive was the Allies use of inflatable decoy tanks during D-Day preparations?

texts:
I have seen in a couple WW2 documentaries, that inflatable decoy tanks were used during d-day preparations to fool the German military.

How extensive was this use? How many inflatable tanks were manufactured? How many were deployed at once in view? I can only ever find a video of one or two inflatable tanks at once.

Is there any media of there actually been a sizable amount of these deployed at once?


texts: What is the average travel speed for railways between European capitals in the late 19th century?

texts:
Most sources I checked only present how the maximum train speed developed over time. For example, the top speed for a passenger train in 1854 was around 130 km/h. This record was set by a steam-powered train in the UK and I assume this was accomplished on a straight line with tracks in perfect condition and no passengers.

The average speed for train travel would of course be way slower. Train tracks have to bend and curve to match the surrounding terrain and depending on the level of maintenance, these tracks would not always be in the best condition, especially in rural areas. In addition, such trains would have to stop regularly at train stations, in order to allow passengers to board and exit the train.

According to Wikipedia, the average travel speed of steam railways went from 50 km/h in the 1870s to 90 km/h in the 1910s. But I’m not sure if these number reflect short, medium or long distance travel. This question focusses mostly on long distance travel. The following sub-questions are my main interest:

What is the average travel speed of a train going from one European capital to another in the late 19th century? The traveller in question would choose the fastest rail connection, probably avoiding regional trains in favour of long-distance traffic options. Of course I'm not looking for detailed statistics about the railway connection between each and every European country. Just the average speed a train would travel each day.

However, if someone has detailed information about the connection between Vienna/Paris and Vienna/Berlin, it would be much appreciated.

Would such trains also travel during the night? I know that sleeping cars are around for a long time, but I’m not sure how frequently they were in use on different routes.
How much would such cross-country trains be impeded or delayed by customs posts?


texts: Did Jiang Baili receive a sword from Emperor Meiji for graduating first of his class?

texts:
Jiang Baili was a famous Chinese military trainer who attended the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. Some sources, including the Wikipedia article, claims that he graduated top of the class and that this requires the Japanese Emperor to award him with a sword. The Wikipedia article references the book Studying the Enemy: Japan Hands in Republican China and Their Quest for National Identity, 1925-1945 (East Asia: History, Politics, Sociology and Culture) by Christiane I. Reinhold. The exact passage is available in Google Books, but is a bit thin on details:

Upon graduation, Jiang stayed in Japan and was admitted to the Seijo Gakko, the Japanese army preparatory school; and in 1904, sponsored by Liang Qichao, Jiang enrolled in the Shikan Gakko, the Japanese military academy. During his student days, Jiang Baili joined Chinese revolutionary circles in Japan, organized with his fellow students from Zhejiang province, and became a member of the Tongmenghui.
In 1905, Jiang Baili graduated first of his class, much to the chagrin of the Japanese that a Chinese would beat out the Japanese competition. Even more infuriating was that the graduation ceremonies demanded that the Japanese Emperor would honor the best student by personally handing him a sword.

Other books also mention this, including other claims like administrators reorganising the class structure so that they won't have to award the sword to a foreigner.
But I've also read that there's no such rule for awarding swords, and that this rule actually existed at the Army War College, which was much more prestigious, requiring students to be previous graduates at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy, plus also two to six years' field experience as lieutenant in the Japanese military, and that the top six graduates from each year would receive a sword from the Emperor. It would be highly improbable for any foreigner to have such experience.
So did Jiang Baili actually receive a sword, or was supposed to receive a sword? Did the Imperial Japanese Army Academy have such a rule for giving out swords?


texts: Was a passport needed to travel between UK and France in 1972?

texts:
In Hitchcock's 1972 film Frenzy (at about the time 00:54:55) a character says: We can get a day trip to France. You don't need a passport. (He is a commoner, no diplomatic status etc, in fact a fugitive from justice, unjustly accused...)

I think that the plot of the movie happens at about the same date as the creation of the movie.

Is it true that no passport was needed to go from London to Paris at that time? Was it because of the means of transport - namely boat in this case?

If yes:  when was passport control introduced?


texts: Did the British government oppose racial segregation in South Africa from 1815-1931?

texts:
In South Africa, the Afrikaners' political movements, including the National Party, took the lead in extending segregation in the first half of the 20th-century.

Anglo-Africans were less enthusiastic about segregation, but still racist. Their political organisation, the United Party, opposed the move from discrimination to full-blown apartheid in the 1940s.

What was the perspective of the British government? Was this an issue at all, at any point from the time they arrived in South Africa (about 1815?) to the end of their direct influence when they passed the Statute of Westminster in 1931? Did it feature in either of the Boer wars?


texts: Why don't Americans claim English ancestry?

texts:
Through a lot of American Movies and TV shows, and also my personal experiences of interacting with people in America, I know that most White Americans are informed of their European ancestry, and are also able to locate the regions of their ancestry/descent (to a certain number of generations of which they are aware).

According to the U.S Census statistics, it seems that among all of the American population, German-Americans had the highest percentage, followed by the Irish-Americans and so on. Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I've also noticed that among all the White Americans, it seems that the English-Americans (Americans whose ancestry can be traced back to England) are the least vocal about their ethnicity? I think the U.S Census wasn't able to report an exact number of this as well. A lot of people I've interacted with make sure to explicitly specify that they're Irish, or Italian, or German and what not, but I still haven't met someone who said that he/she has English ancestry. So I was just curious to understand if/why this got phased out, considering they should logically be the community with the largest population in the U.S, and if there could possibly be any historical reasoning for this, or is it just me?


texts: Study of causal structures and dynamics in history?

texts:
I was not really sure how to phrase this question, but ok, let me try nonetheless. My background is in natural sciences, but I have always been interested in history as well. Over past years I have also been reading some of the authors like Diamond,
Tainter,
Huntington,
Fukuyama,
and recently also
Turchin (*).
Based on this literature I formed some mixed views on this works above and what they teach us about dynamical processes in the history of human societies. I quite liked the approach taken by Turchin, but then again I should be aware of my potential biases.

Based on that, I would be interested in knowing more about:

is there a uniform academic field(s) of research that e.g. these authors could be categorized in, or are most of these individual disjointed approaches in what seem as related subjects?
are there specialized papers, articles, journals for this kind of fields, topics? Are there regular conferences/debates/meetings organized on the subject?
what is the current stage of using approaches like the study of dynamical systems (in the broadest sense) in the modeling of historical processes?
are there groups and departments at the universities and institutes that use math. modeling, and computational sciences, to study topics in history (or sociology for that matter) (like e.g. Turchin)
are there some mainstream views in the field(s) on these subjects of dynamical approaches to study history or is the bulk of the discussion still at a level of questioning the feasibility of these concepts?

I was hoping to get a bit wider perspective on the subject here,
so I would quite appreciate any comments/views/reading suggestions.

(*) I do not want to imply that the list of authors is in any way representative, it is rather my personal random cross-section of the matter.

Edit

Bibliography:
Diamond:
Guns, Germs, and Steel,
Collapse,
Tainter: The Collapse of Complex Societies,
Huntington: Clash of Civilizations,
Fukuyama: The Origins of Political Order,
Political Order and Political Decay,
Turchin: Historical Dynamics, War and Peace and War, Secular Cycles.

Edit II
(Feb/2020)

I have recently stumbled upon an article by
Alessandro Maini published in a jurnal of Biophysical Economics
and Resource Quality, giving a critical review of Turchin's
"Historical dynamics" approach, referenced above. Discussions, as well as references in the article, are related to my original question.

Maini, A. Biophys Econ Sust (2020), vol. 5(1), pages 1-21: On Historical Dynamics by P. Turchin


texts: Was Hitler ever a member of the Reichstag?

texts:
Pretty much what the title says. Hitler apparently wasn't noted for any parliamentary activity; either he was never a member of the Reichstag (MR), or he was a quite non-notable MR.

Ballots of the Reichstag elections show his name under the party name of the NSDAP, so I suppose he was a candidate. But perhaps I am wrong.

So, in detail, the doubts are:

Was Hitler ever a candidate to the Reichstag, or his name in the ballot was merely symbolic?
If he was a candidate, was he in the position it appears in the ballot, as the first on the list, or again this was merely to facilitate the identification of the party, so that voters who would vote "for Hitler" but would have trouble identifying him with the NSDAP, and in fact he was placed much lower in the list?
If he was a candidate, and was elected (which if he was first of list he certainly was) did he ever took charge of his parliamentary seat, or did he decline (probably because his policy was that he would be Reichskanzler  or nothing?
If he was elected and seated, did he ever make any speech on the floor, or fostered any bill or other kind of parliamentary project?


texts: In what way and to what extent did the USSR exert influence on Mongolia?

texts:
I am asking this in relation to a comment by @Wladimir Palant on my answer to another thread. In his comment, Wladimir compared Mongolia to the Warsaw Pact countries in being heavily influenced by the USSR.

My question is, what form did such influence take? Can people give clear examples where the USSR intervened in Mongolian affairs?

There are three items I have uncovered so far. Firstly the Red Russians inspired and aided the communist revolution in Mongolia after the White Russians had already intervened there. Secondly during WWII, the USSR sent troops to Mongolia to hold the Japanese and later invaded north China from Mongolia. Thirdly, the USSR held about about 50,000 troops in Mongolia until recent times.

Can anyone expand on this list and to what extent was the USSR's influence welcomed, sought out, or opposed, by the Mongolian people.


texts: Did people in China resort to cannibalism during the reign of Mao?

texts: I have often heard and read this, but I wonder if credible sources can support these claims. I even heard stories of merchants selling human flesh and children under 12 sold to be eaten. I read about this in "comprendre le pouvoir" by Noam Chomsky and in tuersenserie.org; there's a letter in which Albert Fish talks about a friend of him who went to China and developed a taste for human flesh because merchants were selling it everywhere.


texts: In British heraldry, what happens when a woman with a coat of arms marries someone without?

texts: I'm aware this isn't very time-specific, and not sure if the right SE, but what happens when a woman who belongs to a noble family and has a coat of arms, marries someone without a coat of arms etc.?


texts:
There is plenty of evidence that people painted or etched graffiti in Ancient Rome.

I was curious whether and how the authorities removed the graffiti, did they paint over it or wash it off (and presumably paint back the original color)?

Especially with the etches, I can't imagine that would have been easy to remove. I couldn't find any sources in my search though I might not have been looking thorough enough.


texts: Was Nobunaga the founder of 3 lines of riflemen formation?

texts:
During Battle of Nagashino, Oda Nobunaga ordered his riflemen to make three lines and shoot in a certain order, that is the first line will shoot, followed by the second line. While the second line shoots, the first line will begin refilling their gun. By the time the third line finished shooting, the first line would be ready to shoot again.

This kind of formation enables his riflemen to shoot continuously. At that time, the way to fight riflemen was to let them shoot and then cut them down when they are refilling their gun. By having his riflemen shooting continuously, he successfully annihilated the Takeda cavalry.

Was Nobunaga the inventor of this formation? Or did he only made it famous after using it to great success? If so, then who was the inventor?


texts: Who was the shepherd that discovered the Gobekli Tepe?

texts:
I was watching a National Geographic documentary about the famous "Göbekli Tepe". In many of the articles and in the documentary - they say it was discovered by "a shepherd" or "the shepherd" or "the old shepherd".

I did some google searches with "shepherd" + "gobekli tepe" and didn't manage to know the name yet?

So does the shepard have a name or other identifier? What group/tribe did he belong to?

Wikipedia does not mention the shepherd:

  "In 1994, Klaus Schmidt, now of the German Archaeological Institute, who had previously been working at Nevalı Çori, was looking for another site to dig, leading a team of his own. He reviewed the archaeological literature on the surrounding area, found the Chicago researchers’ brief description of Göbekli Tepe, and decided to give it another look. With his knowledge of comparable objects at Nevalı Çori, he recognized the possibility that the rocks and slabs were parts of T-shaped pillars." Wikipedia


texts: What would have happened had Stalin not had the Siberian forces help?

texts:
During World War II, part of the reason that Germany was stopped cold(pun intended) on the Russian front was due to the fact that Stalin was able to move all the Siberian troops that had been defending the coast against a potential Japanese invasion. In fact, 28 divisions had been moved from Eastern Russia to defend Russia at the Battle of Moscow since Stalin knew that Japan could not afford to invade Russia due to their complete involvement with the USA alone.

My question: Could Germany have defeated the Russians and still held off the Western Front had Japan kept its original plan to invade Russia from the East and hold all of their Siberian troops at bay?

Would they have been able to conquer Moscow and defeat Russia if Japan had not become so involved in fight the United States in the Pacific?


texts: What did European people of the 5th century AD eat during spring and what was the availability?

texts:
It is commonly believed that winter during that age was a period of starvation, with very limited means of procuring food.
If the above is true, what did the commoners (peasants, serfs, etc) have to eat during spring? I think the crops would take months to harvest, there would still be some ice thawing.
Would they hunt? Was there a crop / fruit / vegetable that grew during winter that could be consumed in spring?
How much food was available? Was the "winter famine" over right after winter, or how much time did it take for the food supply / distribution to spread out?


texts: Which Imperial Russian officials created and verified passports?

texts:
In Imperial Russia (as in other states) passports were required for interior travel. They were issued to individuals and had a finite duration. I'm guessing that being found away from home without a passport was a crime.

A letter from Natalia Shelikhova says state peasants usually got 3-year passports. Russian-American Company employees, who had to travel farther, used 7-year passports. According to G.A. Miller's Kodiak Kreol, these were issued at Irkutsk to those that had "travel papers and passports from their home regions". Irkutsk is not very close to Russian America, so perhaps it was a rather high functionary that was writing the documents; the distinction between passports and "travel papers" is not clear to me.

Around 1800, which officials were empowered to write passports, and which officials would ever demand them of travelers?


texts: Did Britain briefly recognize Mahmud Barzanji as King of Kurdistan?

texts:
The wiki entry on Mahmud Barzanji is very poorly written and very far from neutral. I turned to the Russian entry which is at least well-written and contains many interesting facts - some of them perhaps too interesting to be true, I am afraid. As there are no sources cited at all in the Russian entry it's hard to tell truth from fiction.

One striking fact mentioned there is that when Barzanji proclaimed himself King for the second time in 1922 he was supposedly recognized by the British and even received a congratulatory telegram sent in the name of the British Monarch.

This seems very suspicious to me, both on logical grounds and because there is no hint of anything like this in an academic paper which details the stormy relations between Barzanji and the British during 1922-1924.

So, what is the truth of the matter? Did the British really recognize Barzanji as King?

UPDT:
Just bumping this...


texts: Quantitative comparison of transportation cost per kilometer over the centuries?

texts: I am interested to see research on the development of transportation costs over the centuries. I realize the difficulty with researching this topic so I am interested in anything, which can enlighten me on the subject. The research will possibly be focused on types of transportation like over-land transportation, passenger transportation, transportation of letters and so on. The important thing is that the research enables a quantitative comparison over several hundred years. The research should show the impact of innovations and building of infrastructure so I can develop an understanding of the impact these these have had.


texts: Did the Nazi regime always or often prioritize transport trains to the death camps over military transport?

texts:
Moishe Postone claims in his essay Anti‑Semitism and National Socialism (emphasis mine):

  No functionalist explanation of the Holocaust and no scapegoat theory of anti‑Semitism can even begin to explain why, in the last years of the war, when the German forces were being crushed by the Red Army, a significant proportion of vehicles was deflected from logistical support and used to transport Jews to the gas chambers.

I've seen this claim elsewhere too as it points to a crucial element in some analysises of antisemitism. I have doubts, as I seem to recall that for example prisoners where forced on Death Marches because trains where not available. I don't intend to attack Mr Postones scholarship in general, for all I know this was state of historical knowledge back when the essay was written.

Is the claim that "significant proportion of vehicles was deflected from logistical support and used to transport Jews to the gas chambers" true?


texts: What laws of war existed before the modern international treaties and conventions?

texts: Were there laws governing the rules of conducting war before modern (20th century) international  treaties and conventions such as the Geneva conventions? For example, were there rules regarding the treatment of prisoners, non-combatants, neutrals, etc., respecting diplomats, parlay/truce, the definition of combatants, allowed/forbidden weapons, etc.? Who defined the rules and how were they enforced?


texts: At which point in time did the majority of German population become aware of the Holocaust?

texts:
I've read the wikipedia pages on Responsibility for the Holocaust and German Resistance to Nazism but the answer is not clear. It's established that large numbers of Germans were aware of the Holocaust from the beginning: those who were involved in its implementation. It doesn't necessarily follow that the majority of the German public were aware of the scale and details, because those involved may have had strong reasons not to communicate this information.

I'm sure there are no German newspapers of the time reporting on the gas chambers and numbers exterminated.

Are there autobiographies from ordinary German citizens about the time of the war, containing information about their level of awareness of the Holocaust's proceedings and scale?


texts: If the heir to a Kingdom is called Crown Prince, what is the heir to a Duchy called?

texts:
Just like the title said.

What a heir to a hereditary Duchy is called? (as opposed to someone appointed by a King). I mean a Duchy where the Duke inherited his title to his son/daughter.

Since the only sovereign Duchy in the world is Grand Duchy of Luxembourg where they styled the heir as "Hereditary Grand Duke", then is by the same analogy, the heir of a hereditary Duchy is "Hereditary Duke"?


texts: What was the strategic importance of Moscow to the Soviet Union in Dec 1941?

texts:
According Rodric Braithwaite the British Ambassador to Russia in 2005
  "Four-fifths of the fighting in Europe took place on the Eastern Front, and that is where the Germans suffered 90% of their casualties," Braithwaite, the British ambassador, said in 2005. "Even after D-Day, two-thirds of the German forces were in the East. If they had not been there, they would have been in France, and there would have been no D-Day. And that is why the Russians tend to think it was they who won the war, and why I tend to think that they are right."

The Nazi Invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa Jun-Dec 1941  was the "largest military operation in history — more men, tanks, guns and aircraft were deployed than in any other offensive."  By Sept 30, 1941 the Battle of Moscow was about to begin.  The Soviets would take more military deaths in that single battle than the United States or Britain took in all of WW2, both European and Pacific theatre's combined.   So precarious was Stalin's hold on Moscow that by October of 1941 Stalin ordered the "evacuation of the military leadership, the communist Party and the civil authority" from the Soviet Capital. By the end of November, "German reconnaissance units were just 12 miles from Moscow, so close they could see the towers of the city through their binoculars."

The Soviet Union was of great importance to the allies in WWII, what was the strategic importance of Moscow to the Soviet Union?

  My question
  What was the strategic importance of Moscow Dec 1941?  It's importance in the Soviet Union's ongoing war effort.

Battle of Moscow the Soviets endured 514,338 killed or missing.  The United States had 407,300 military deaths in WWII from all causes.  Britain : 383,700  France 210,000, Soviet Union 8,700,000 to 11,400,000

Comments

  from sempaiscuba
  I'm not quite sure what you're asking for. I assume you're looking for something more than what is covered in the Wikipedia article on the Battle of Moscow that you cited in your question.

That article talks about the Battle of Moscow being extremely costly in lives and a primary target of the German Invasion of the Soviet Union.  It says that Hitler delayed his attack on Moscow to "secure Ukraine's food and mineral resources",  which implies that the German Generals who planned operation Barbarossa thought the Moscow was more important than Ukraine's food and mineral reserves.  This broader wikipedia article Operation Barbarossa speaks more directly of this disagreement between hitler and his generals.

  Hitler, in many discussions with his generals, repeated his order of "Leningrad first, the Donbass second, Moscow third"; but he consistently emphasized the destruction of the Red Army over the achievement of specific terrain objectives. Hitler believed Moscow to be of "no great importance" in the defeat of the Soviet Union and instead believed victory would come with the destruction of the Red Army west of the capital, especially west of the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers, and this pervaded the plan for Barbarossa.  This belief later led to disputes between Hitler and several German senior officers, including Heinz Guderian, Gerhard Engel, Fedor von Bock and Franz Halder, who believed the decisive victory could only be delivered at Moscow. They were unable to sway Hitler, who had grown overconfident in his own military judgment as a result of the rapid successes in Western Europe.

.
So my question is why was Moscow so strategically valuable?   Why did German's professional military generals believe it was the key to defeating the Soviet Union? Hitler delayed the attack on Moscow to pursue, the Red Army directly, food stuffs, mineral reserves and oil.   Why did Hitler's generals believe these pursuits were distractions and Moscow should have remained the priority?   Why did his Generals think Moscow was so strategic?   That is not discussed in either wiki article.


texts: Was it common practice for men to kiss on the lips in 1920s USA?

texts:
I recently watched a documentary about Eugene Debs, which included film of his release from prison in 1921.  I was surprised to see that many of the men present greeted him by kissing him on the lips.

Was this practice widespread at the time?


texts: Did the British East India Company operate in the West Indies?

texts:
This question in the Science Fiction and fantasy stack exchange asks about the British East India Company operating in the West Indies.  According to Wikipedia, there were a number of East India Companies.

Austrian.
British.  Came to rule India.
Danish.
Dutch.  Came to rule Indonesia.
French.  Fought the British for influence and control in India.
Portuguese.  Lost most of their colonies to the Dutch and British.
Swedish.

According to Wikipedia, there were also a number of West India Companies.

Danish.  Ruled Danish Caribbean Islands.
Dutch.  Ruled New Netherlands, & some Caribbean islands, etc.
French.  Ruled all French colonies in the Atlantic Ocean 1664-1674.
Swedish.

It would be natural to suppose that there could have been a British West India Company that monopolized all trade with British colonies in the Caribbean.

But there didn't seem to be any British West India Company.  Did the British East India Company operate in the Caribbean?

If anyone answers, they can also answer and/or link to this question?


texts: Which head of state had the most gaps in their rule?

texts:
Inspired by this question, which head of state in history has had the largest number of non-consecutive periods of rule?  One answer on that question has given Gruffudd ap Cynan, King of Gwynedd as an example, having had 4 periods of rule (thus 3 gaps).
Note that unlike the linked question, I'm including not just monarchs in this but any head of state.  However, we should rule out people who have been head of state in multiple forms back-to-back without a gap in between.  (Vladimir Putin, for example, has alternated between President and Prime Minister of Russia a few times, but he was never out of power in between those role changes.)


texts: Where I can find historical literacy rates of Eastern European countries?

texts:
I am looking for literacy rate of Eastern European countries for last 100 (or more) years. I am especially interested in Russia and Poland.

The only data I was able to find was OurWorldInData and some data on wolframalpha.com (for last 30 or so years).


texts: What do we know culturally about Cheddar Man?

texts:
There's a lot of press today about a new DNA study of Cheddar Man, who lived about 9,000 years ago in what's now the English county of Somerset. They concentrated on the genes for hair, skin, and eye pigmentation, and found out that he had rather dark skin, dark hair, and blue eyes. A facial reconstruction with the proper coloring is shown here.

Picture from story in The Guardian

I'm seeing a lot of people talking like they see a resemblance with modern Welsh or other Celtic peoples, so I think it would be good to look into exactly what Cultural lineage he might share with modern Britons.

So the question is, what exactly was the culture of this man, and are any of the modern cultures of the British Isles descended from it?


texts: Why and when were ancient Egyptian hieroglyph phonograms used?

texts:
There are writings on the walls of some Egyptian temples of Hellenistic period written in Egyptian hieroglyph phonograms. However it was strange for me to know that these are Greek texts actually.

When did Egyptians start to use phonograms? Are there 24 letters because of Greek alphabet?

Did anybody during Hellenistic period speak ancient Egyptian language? Did anyone use ideograms that time?

If yes, why  are there Greek texts on the walls written in phonograms? I thought that either there should have been Egyptian texts or Greek in Greek letters? Is it just for design purpose? Or was it an attempt to imitate styles of ancient great pharaohs?


texts: Why did King Charles II cede New Amsterdam / New York to his brother James, Duke of York, in 1664?

texts:
On Wikipedia we read:

In 1664, King Charles II of England ceded to his brother, the Duke of
York, later King James II, a large tract of land that included all of
New Netherland. This came at a period of considerable conflict between
England and the Netherlands in the Anglo-Dutch Wars. Four English
ships bearing 450 men, commanded by Richard Nicolls, seized the Dutch
colony.

My question is: Why did King Charles cede New Amsterdam/ New York to James in 1664?
As in, my assumption is that Royal Family property is common, and doesn’t need to be transferred or ceded.


texts:
Assume the following scenario:
In the late days of the Roman Republic a consul is assaulted on the streets of the city by an angry mob, abetted by his political enemies. His lictors run away, leaving the consul:

1) To be killed

2) To be beaten

3) To run for his life

4) To get late from his duties

Are the lictors in these cases punishable for their desertion?


texts: How frequently were girls adopted in Ancient Rome?

texts:
Looking over Wikipedia's article on adoption in Ancient Rome, I notice that it mentions that adoption of females "was much less common" than adoption of males.  I don't see any sources for that statement, though one female adoptee is mentioned: Clodia.

As best as scholars can tell, what was the approximate rate of adoption of females in comparison to males in Ancient Rome?  I'm particularly interested in the late republic/early empire years (perhaps 200 BC to 200 AD), if that helps narrow the question.


texts: What is the most noteworthy defection of a member of the Nazi party to the Allies during WWII?

texts:
During WWII, before it became clear the Nazis were going to lose, is there any especially noteworthy examples of a member or members of the Nazi party defecting to the Allies?

I'm aware noteworthy is fairly ambiguous, but I'm not really sure how else to phrase the question.


texts: Is there documentary evidence that Stalin intended/prepared to fight Germany after the Nazi-Soviet pact?

texts:
It's often said the peace was only both sides buying time. There's ample evidence Hitler always intended to break the pact. Did Stalin?

Suvorov's thesis that Stalin was preparing for an offensive against Germany has been debunked. Stalin's actions (such as shooting agents who reported threatening German troop movements, as British spies) suggest to me that he did not have plans to attack Germany, nor did he anticipate a German attack.


texts: What was the role of the Soviet Navy during WWII?

texts: Most books about WWII speak of the naval battles of Allied and Axis powers during the war, but none about the Soviet Navy. The Soviets had an active fleet at the time - why did it not engage the Germans at sea?


texts: Statistics on pre-revolutionary Russian education

texts: I'm looking for some statistics (and I know this may not even exist) about education rates in pre-revolutionary Russian society (by pre-revolutionary I'm looking for between 1890 and 1917).  Someone may have come across them somewhere, but I'm basically trying to get evidence to support the notion that education rates in the aforementioned era gradually increased.


texts: Normandy: Why did the landing craft open on the front?

texts:
I assume this beach scenario was typical on D-Day. (Graphic violence)

It shows a landing craft reaching the shore, where it lowers a hatch on the front of the craft, exposing the invading soldiers to a hail of bullets. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. The ones who survive seem to do so by hopping over the side of the boat into the water.

So why on Earth did the boats open at the front?


texts: What is the origin of the first dynasty in Scotland?

texts: Who gave anyone the authority to appoint themselves and hence start a royal line? I assume today's royalty come from this royal line The standard answer is Kenneth Macalpine as far as I can see with lesser kings before him, I assume between Scotland and England this where out modern/current royals come from, I was trying to pinpoint exactly where the royalty came from in the first place, I take it they were generally self appointed. Scotland has immense amount of history, very difficult working where things originate from, it seems like the Vikings were possibly the root of most of history or royals


texts: When did commercial studio photography become common?

texts:
I was looking at this Wikipedia article, History of photography, and I wondered when commercial photography studios became common place and affordable for the average person.

According to the article, cameras became refined between 1851 and 1884. Photo quality became better and better and the equipment became more portable. Photographers like Mathew Brady documented historical events and took portrait photos of famous people. In the 1870's, photography studios were popping up all over. Even smaller towns like Tombstone AZ had a photography studio.

What I'm looking for that I couldn't locate on Wikipedia was the point at which photography studios and professional photography as a profession really took off. I'd assume it's during the time period I mentioned but were there certain events/people that led the way in this mass commercialization? What was the tipping point between it being something for inventors to tinker with vs. a popular money-making enterprise?

Basically, I'm looking for commercial/marketing innovation rather than technical innovation, a Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg rather than a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.


texts: What is the history of the "surrender" gesture?

texts:
The surrender gesture seems to be obvious to us - you drop your weapon, put your hands up and maybe drop to your knees or even prostrate yourself.

But were those gestures universal across the globe in the past? Were there situations, when soldiers continue to attack surrendering enemies not because of the "blood lust" or the "take no prisoners" order but simply because they didn't understand, that their opponent gave up fighting?

I have vague recollection of such instances during the Kosciuszko uprising 1794, where Polish peasants didn't understand surrender gestures made by Russian soldiers and Rommel's complains about the brutality of New Zealand Maoris killing surrendering German soldiers *, but I can't bring any evidence here.

In the "white flag" article on Wikipedia, we can read that

  Before [the introduction of the white flag], Roman armies would surrender by holding their shields above their heads

This gesture would definitely be lost on many other cultures, probably even ones existing at the same time in Europe.

This was during conversation between Erwin Rommel and the captured NZ officer George H Clifton where the German general berates the Kiwis for their "gangster" tactics in killing unarmed prisoners of war after what must have been the Breakout at Minqar Qaim, for which the Clifton replied that the massacre was due to their being a "large number of Maoris in the Division".