texts: What autonomy did Bosnia lose when it was annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908?

texts:
Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia in 1878 by forcing the Ottomans to leave after 400+ years of dominion.  So I understand that Bosnia then became a territory of Austria-Hungary.  In 1908, Austria-Hungary decided to annex Bosnia.  I am trying to understand what changes the annexation introduced in terms of the local autonomy or foreign policy as it was already a territory of Austria-Hungary.  Please correct any of the assumptions if wrong.

Could it be that they only occupied Bosnia in 1878 while it still officially remained part of the Ottoman Empire, and the 1908 annexation formally acceded it to Austria-Hungary?


texts: Is this theory on origins of modern-day Romania plausible?

texts: I watched a documentary which basically claims that modern-day Romanians are not the descendants of Rome, but that the Romans and the Romanians share a common ancestor with the same language. One of their stronger arguments is that it's impossible for the Romanian language to become so latinized in the 150 years or so in which Rome occupied a small part of Romania (I think they said about 16%), because in other places where they occupied a much greater region (such as Egypt) the languages only show traces of Latin. What do you think, is this a good theory? There is also a part 2 in which they also show genetic evidence among other things, but I was not able to find a translated version of it. If you would like more detailed information from part 2, please let me know. Thanks.


texts: How was Christmas celebrated in early Byzantium?

texts: I haven't been able to find any information regarding Christmas in Eastern Rome from before the tenth century. Literally any information regarding the celebration of Christmas in the fifth and sixth century would be useful.


texts: Why was it Spain, not Tlaxcala, that dominated over Mesoamerica despite the Tlaxcaltecs being the major force in the conquest of Tenochtitlan?

texts:
It has been a question that makes me wonder, since the very first time I read about the history of the Aztecs. In the fall of Tenochtitlan, as commonly known, the Tlaxcalans (Tlaxcaltecs) was the major force, accompanied with many indigenous factions (including even factions in the Triple Aliance itself!), summed up to many 100,000s. When compared with the Spanish troops, which had only around 500-1000 men, the Spanish force was very very tiny.

Given the above facts, it is somewhat counterintuitive that, after the fall of Tenochtitlan, Spain instead of Tlaxcala seemed to be the primary dominant power in the territory, and Tlaxcalans played a more passive role (even in the process of the conquest the Tlaxcalans seemed to play a subordinate role to the Spanish, not at an equal status, despite being major force).

Why did the conquest end up this way?


texts: Extent of Empire of Lalitaditya Muktapida?

texts: I recently came across this Wikipedia page of Lalitaditya Muktapida. The map in the page shows an enormous empire of him, stretching from China to Anatolia (as far as I can make out) in a relatively well documented period of history (724 -760 AD). This surprises me because this period was dominated by Muslim armies, and I had never heard of such a vast empire based off Kashmir before (in spite of me being an Indian). So my question is: is the map in that page accurate? Or perhaps did he rule over much lesser empire?


texts: Does any library hold the archives of the Russian-American Company?

texts:
I am researching Russian visits to Alta California during the Mexican War of Independence, which were mostly or all projects of the Russian-American Company. There is a collection of Company documents in the U.S. National Archives, but it does not cover the crucial period during which Fort Ross was constructed (1812) and Russian sailors were detained by the Spanish administration (about 1815).

Apparently the company was headquartered in St. Petersburg during the relevant period. Is there an archive or library there in which records can be studied?


texts: Why were the military and civil powers split in the Late Roman Empire?

texts:
The administration of the Dominate (aka Later Roman Empire) was different in many ways from the Principate (aka Early Roman Empire).

In most cases it is rather clear why the various reforms had to be made. For example, breaking up the provinces into smaller units was part of the overall bureacratization which was itself an expedient way of extracting more revenue from a bedraggled land and population to maintain larger armies (and a larger bureacracy to boot).

However, I don't quite understand why the civil and military parts of the administration were separated.


texts: What's this 1917 shell casing, more exactly?

texts:
I've been gifted this vase that is obviously made out of a large shell casing. It has 'MARZ 1917' stamped on the bottom, plus other less understandable markings: 'St', 'G', '36', 'HL 25'. I'm attaching a photo, of course.

The diameter of the largest part at the bottom is 90 mm, i don't have a caliper but by measuring the 'lip' i think the actual tube is 80-82 mm wide at the bottom and 76-77 mm at the top (it's been deformed by the beautification process).

It's not a matter of life and death, but it would be fun if someone could shed more light on what those markings say.

Thank you!


texts: Why was communism at odds with pan-Arabism?

texts:
I can't figure this out. Communism was supposed to be against nationalism. This would seem to favor pan-Arabism, which espoused the ideal of uniting the Arab lands instead of remaining divided up more or less in the same way as the British and French had established.

I could be mistaken but this conflict seems to predate Brezhnev. Khrushchev seems to engage in the conflict too, with at least one exception, and it maybe even goes back to Stalin. So it does not appear to be linked to any leader's new doctrine or reform change.

So what were the ideological and historical reasons for these two movements being at odds with each other? Was it more of a realpolitik thing?


texts: Upper-class male cohabitation in mid-19th century USA

texts:
James Buchanan is often considered to be the first (and only so far?) gay American president. The major piece of evidence for this (at least according to wikipedia and some popular articles on this I've read) is that he shared a house for 15 years with a fellow politican and spoke of their friendship in very sentimental terms:

  I am now 'solitary and alone', having no companion in the house with
  me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded
  with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone,
  and [I] should not be astonished to find myself married to some old
  maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when
  I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic
  affection.

However, I am not sure this is very conclusive. Which prompts my question: how widespread was the phenomenon of heterosexual men sharing a house for a long time at that time and place? Were Buchanan and King a singular pair (and thus, most likely a couple) or were there many others?


texts: A Polish friend of mine stated that Columbus was of Polish heritage. Claims are made that he was a Polish immigrant to Italy, and that he came from a disgraced noble family in Poland.


texts: Who are the WWII German Officers in this picture?

texts:
Please help identify the scene.
Who are the officers?
Is this Paris after Germany's invasion?


texts: Did the United States colonize California?

texts:
Upper California was a province of Mexico from the 1820s to the 1840s (sometimes unified with Lower California). Near the end of this period it was overrun with Anglo-American men that lived apart from Spanish-speaking society. Thomas O. Larkin was the U.S. consul and President's secret agent in the capital, Monterey. When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, California became a U.S. territory. It then experienced a Gold Rush and in 1850 it became one of the United States.

Was the settlement by the United States of California considered a "colonization" by historians?


texts: Is there any way to get a list of Germans who were interned in American camps during WWII?

texts: I am trying to see if any ancestors that immigrated from Germany in the 1800's were sent to the American interment camps during WWII. Is there a list of names for the Germans who were considered “enemy aliens”?


texts:
I am curious about this statement:

  Sura was under Roman control in the time of Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) and Ptolemy (c. 100-170 CE) but was conquered by the Sasanian king Shapur I in 253 CE.

What is it refering to during Pliny, Ptolemy, and Shapur I? The only thing that I am aware of is the conquest of Trajan.


texts: Is there a genetic link between North America and Vikings?

texts: Is there any evidence of Viking genetics in the North East American Indian population? There is a blue eye trait in some East Coast tribes, especially the Iroquoian tribe of the Cherokee.


texts: How many Jewish refugee have been expelled out of Arab lands and when?

texts:
Were the Jews in Arab countries driven out after the Six Days War or in 1948 like some Palestinians in Israel? Did they lose their land?

I checked this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_refugees


texts:
Why is USS Saratoga (CV3) nicknamed "Sara Maru"?

"Maru"(丸) is a term widely used to name ships in Japan.


texts: When in September 1939 did the British diplomatic mission leave Warsaw?

texts:
On September first 1939, at 4:45 in the morning, the Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on Danzig/Gdansk. September twenty-second is when German troops completed their encirclement of Warsaw. Somewhere in between, the British diplomatic mission must have left Warsaw, but when exactly?

According to the website of the American embassy in Poland, the American ambassador left Warsaw on September fifth. But as of September third, the British were (formally) fighting the war alongside Poland, so perhaps they left later?

Edit: To be more specific, I'm interested in when the ambassor left and/or the very last diplomat.


texts: Pedophilia in ancient Greek and Roman culture

texts:
This question is inspired by an answer to: When did homosexuality become unacceptable in Europe?

I have heard from many people that pedophilia was widely practiced in ancient Greek or Roman cultures. Is this true? If true, which culture(s) was it and what is the evidence available to back such a statement?


texts:
I'm finding contradictory descriptions about how Roman legions were organized during the Gallic Wars (58-50 BC).

An appendix on Roman military organization in The Landmark Julius
Caesar highlights the maniple and says that there was "no fixed
command structure above the level of the maniple"; but the Wikipedia
article on Roman legion's says that the Marian reforms organized
around cohorts (rather than two-century maniples). Caeser himself mentions maniples a few times in his own text.
Many sources emphasize the abandoning of the early Republican distinctions among hastati, principes, and triarii by Caeser's time, replacing them with a single form of heavy infantry; but a footnote to the Oxford World's Classics edition of The Gallic War distinguishes standards triarii and notes that the other "two main standards belonged to the chief centurions of the divisions known as hastati and principes”.
Wikipedia and many other sources state that even the nominal strength of a century was 80 and in practice was considerably smaller; but a footnote in the Oxford Gallic War states that they consisted of 100 men in Caesar's time.

How was the Roman army in fact organized during Caesar's campaigns in Gaul? Would the following figure be an accurate representation? If so, what role did maniples play?


texts: The history of the idea that lack of moral censure leads to decline

texts:
"The decline of a civilization has long been linked, anecdotally, to less moral censure and a decline in manners (manners being self, usually-moral censorship)." (Brock Adams, commenting an earlier question).

My question is: what is the historical pedegree of this notion? Brock Adams has suggested "Cato, Mark Twain, Heinlein, Bismark (I think), and Churchill" but I am not sure about Twain. Cato, for certain. Gibbon also naturally comes to mind.

(To clarify my meaning, J.B. Bury had written two books about the history of ideas: "History of the Freedom of Thought (1914)" and "Idea of Progress (1920)"; I am looking for a similar history of the idea of moral decline).


texts: What role did Fourcroy play in Lavoisier's execution?

texts:
Wikipedia is very sketchy and hazy on this subject:

  By his conduct as a member of the Convention, Fourcroy has been
  accused of contributing to Lavoisier's death. Baron Cuvier, in his
  Eloge historique of Fourcroy, repelled such charges. The Encyclopædia
  Britannica Eleventh Edition says that although active, though secret,
  participation cannot be proved against Fourcroy, he can scarcely be
  acquitted of time-serving indifference. See the works in the
  Bibliography below for other opinions.


texts: Why couldn't the US persuade Russia, Japan's neighbor to the west, to let it attack Japan from its territory in the later years of WWII?

texts: The U.S. sure did a lot of time-consuming island hopping to get to Japan's mainland, but Russia is right next to Japan on the west. Setting up a front next to Japan in Russia would have been very difficult to impossible early in the war, and Russia absolutely did not want an eastern front while fighting Germany, but what about in 1943, 44, and certainly 45? Russia had a nonaggression pact with Japan, but they could have broken it anytime they wanted (as they did in 1945). Did the U.S. or other allies even try to get Russia to let them set up across from Japan?


texts: Why didn't the Roman Princeps restructure or dismantle the Praetorian Guard?

texts:
Why did the princeps/emperors of various dynasties prior to Constantine the Great (d.337 AD) allow the Praetorian Guard to continue to amass such power and repeatedly cause trouble, including palace coups?

It would appear that the Praetorian Guard gained their reputation for having some power over the principate, rather than the principate or dominate having power over them, with the rise of Sejanus who consolidated the Praetorian Guard into one camp under a prefecture. Prefects of the Praetorian Guard would prove to be troublesome from that time, but the Praetorian Guard remained problematic as an institution even if prefects were executed.

There were notably different units of guards who were chosen by the emperor himself to protect him. (The Imperial German Bodyguard, the Speculatores, and the and Equites Singulares). Despite this, the Praetorian Guard remained powerful.

If the Praetorian Guard and its prefecture created repeated problems then why were they not restructured or reduced? Why not circulate elite veterans of various legions or rotate the Guard?

The only compelling reason I can think of is the need to have absolute discretion and trust, but this is probably why the Princeps rotated their personal bodyguards. The Praetorian Guard were the only ones allowed to be armed in certain areas of Rome, and their loyalty was to the 'Emperor' first before the Roman Senate or People. Perhaps it was problematic to rotate other units of the legions through the Guard as the Praetorian Guard was specifically loyal to the institution of the principate.

Constantine the Great, who seemed to be adept at consolidating imperial power, finally dissolved the Praetorian Guard in around 313 AD.


texts: What do these symbols & annotations in medieval and related texts mean?

texts:
Looking at some texts and not sure what these symbols mean in these few cases. Wondering if one could just list off real quick what the purpose is of the symbols or patterns (like the spacing patterns), and if they can be removed or changed to something else.

Purpose of spacing and lines here
 Verbum supernum prodiens,
   Nec Patris linquens dexteram,
 Ad opus suum exiens,
   Venit advitae vesperam.

Meaning of », «, and <hor> in this, and angle brackets here too:

<hor>nas    byrnadh næfre.»
Hleothrode dha    hearogeong cyning:
«Ne dhis ne dagadh eastan,    ne her draca ne fleogedh,
ne her dhisse healle    hornas ne byrnadh.
5
Ac her forth beradh;    fugelas singadh,
gylledh græghama,    gudhwudu hlynnedh,
scyld scefte oncwydh.    Nu scynedh thes mona
wadhol under wolcnum.    Nu arisadh weadæda
dhe dhisne folces nidh    fremman willadh.
10
Ac onwacnigeadh nu,    wigend mine,
habbadh eowre linda,    hicgeath on ellen,
winnadh on orde,    wesadh onmode!»

The meaning of the brackets [foo] in here and here:

...[b]et thuyhte th...[Th]o stod on old...

Meaning of the angle brackets < and > here:

ni < sterro > nohheinig noh sunna ni s c ,

Meaning of the bars and spacing here (the indent to Kyrie and related, and the bars):
 U nsar trohtîn hât farsalt sancte pêtre giuualt,
 daz he mac ginerian |      ze imo dingênten man.
   Kyrie Eleyson. christe eleyson. |

The bars here (maybe it means half-lines, not sure):

De los sos ojos | tan fuerte mientre lorando

For (1), I'm wondering if the spacing needs to be like that (in addition to if it has a purpose). If the spacing doesn't need to be exactly like that, wondering if I could change it to be however I want (such as just flat left side, no odd/even indentation).
For the square brackets like [foo], wondering if they are inserting text into the document (the one who uploaded this text), or if that's something else.
Have no idea what the other types of brackets like < and » are for.


texts: Did Viet Nam suffer a famine any time during the 1980s? And if not, how close was it to famine?

texts:
Wikipedia claims that

  In 1988, Vietnam suffered a famine that afflicted millions.

But its only citation is this 1988 NYT article that mentions "famine fears".

A 2002 Economist article states that

  Thanks to a disastrous attempt to force all the country's small family farms to merge into giant collectives, Vietnam flirted with famine in the 1980s.

So did Viet Nam suffer from a famine any time during the 1980s? And if not, how close did it come to famine?


texts: How did the upper class stay wealthy in the past?

texts: If I am not mistaken, people in the past tended to have enough offspring so that they increased the population of their family until the maximum sustainable population was reached, due to the lack of birth control and what have you. Since the upper classes tended to have large amounts resources, why didn't they keep increasing their population until they reached the maximum sustainable population, which would make them quite poor? Did the upper class simply not stay in power for long enough for them to become overpopulated? Did people not want to reproduce as much as I think they did? I haven't found anything discussing this after googling it.


texts: In what period were signature rubrics used?

texts: A rubric is a flourish embellishing a signature; it's both decorative and a security feature. At least with regard to European languages, signatures are still used but rubrics were, as far as I can tell, abandoned. More or less when did they come in and out of style?


texts: Were children often renamed in late Saxon England?

texts:
In Bernard Cornwall's The Last Kingdom the protagonist is renamed at age 10 or so after his brother, aged 16+, is killed by Danes. The protagonist is an Alderman's second son in Northumberland and is renamed to have the same name as his father. He is then re-baptised  with the new name.
Was this a common practice (or done at all) in late Saxon England or elsewhere in Europe? If so, when did the practice die out?


texts: What did parchment and papyrus cost in the Roman Empire?

texts:
How much do we know of the costs of parchment and papyrus in Roman Empire? I'm especially interested in their cost ratio. So far I found some accounts for the other ends of the antiquity: in 301 a sheet of parchment cost  40 denarii (taking value of a denarius at the time it should be slightly less than 7 grams of silver), and there are some accounts of cost of papyrus in Greece before its conquest by the Romans - the costs in Egypt varied around 1 drachm (4.3 gram of silver) and were almost double in Greece. All the other sources found in the initial search were behind paywall.
My initial guessing, which I hope will be corrected by links to facts and/or references and summaries of studies:

I assume the parchment cost didn't change much in time (which still may mean that it was twice more or less expensive in 1st century AD than in 301) or space (Pergamon is unlikely to be the only production center)
I also assume that papyrus cost changed significantly in time, at least after Roman conquest of Egypt
I assume that the cost of papyrus varied a lot in space, it could be several time more expensive in Britain than in Egypt

The time scope of my question is first four centuries AD.


texts:
I am curious if there are any historical examples whereby the territorial and/or demographic majority of a country seceded from a minority as perhaps they realize maintaining it is more trouble than it's worth and yields a more optimal net result than controlling it by force.

For a hypothetical example, if China decided to, rather than forcefully assimilate Uighurs into Chinese society, it would be easier for the rest of China to secede from Uighuristan regardless of what the Uighurs thought about it (maybe they like being a part, for some reason, and don't want independence). Or if Northern Macedonia decided to force ethnic Albanians from the west of the country to secede as they would rather have a more culturally homogeneous country.

I'd like to know whether there are any historical instances of such policy.


texts:
What were the influences of Freemasonry in the wars of liberation of Latino American countries from Spanish Colonialism?

The main leaders of the wars of independence of the countries of Latino American were Masons. (See citations below) How were the impacts of Freemasonry in these struggles?

References of a few Latino Americans heroes that were freemason, there are many more.

in spanish, sorry:

Freemasons by nationality

Simón Bolivar (Venezuela)

José Martí (Cuba)

Antonio Maceo (Cuba)

José de la Riva Agüero (Perú)

José Bonifácio (Brasil)

Francisco de Paula Santander (Colombia)


texts:
Psychological pricing sets price to slightly below a round  value, (e.g. $19.99 instead of  $20) The seller reduces the price by the smallest possible unit, but relies on the customer to perceive a larger discount.

Is it possible to find out who began to use this psychological method of pricing and when?


texts: What is this card, and why does it go "on the hat"?

texts:
This document is from the papers of a family whose ancestors immigrated from Germany to the United States in the late 19th century:

Transcript:

Zwilchenbart
Basel
9 Centralbahnplatz 9
New York
1 Broadway
gegenüber Castle Garden
Aelteste bedeutendste General-Agentur für Auswanderung
Amerikanische Bank
Einzug von Erbschaften, Besorgung von Liquidationen
Geldwechsel

and then on the sides, in German and French:

Diese Karte ist vor Austritt aus dem Castle Garden auf den Hut zu stecken.
Prière de fixer cette carte sur le chapeau avant de sortir du Castle Garden.

Zwilchenbart is the name of a bank in Basel, about which the U.S. consul in Basel writes in 1900:

It has been for very many years occupied with the transportation and with the financial arrangements of travelers, tourists, and emigrants.
(source)

This fits with the card's characterization of Zwilchenbart as "[The] oldest [and] most important general agency for emigration" (my translation).
However, I don't see anything that says what this card is for. The bilingual instruction on the side only puzzles me more:

This card is [for one] to stick (pin?) on [one's] hat before leaving Castle Garden.
(my translation of the German)

Castle Garden was New York's immigrant processing center from 1855 to 1890. The card indicates that Zwilchenbart has a bank branch opposite Castle Garden.
My best guess is that the card is a bank membership card, but if so, I'm puzzled that it seems entirely generic and doesn't bear any information about the account holder. What is this card for, and why are immigrants instructed to attach it to their hat?


texts: Were there any Muslims left in the Indian side of the Punjab after the 1947 riots?

texts:
As is well-known to those acquainted with the history of the Indo-Pak subcontinent, there were large-scale riots in Punjab in 1947 when the province of the British Indian colony was partitioned along religious lines between the newly formed countries of Pakistan and India. The Hindus and Sikhs were victimised on the Pakistani side of the Punjab, whereas the Muslims had to suffer ethnic cleansing on the Indian side. The result was that the Hindus and Sikhs from the Pakistani Punjab migrated to India, and the Muslims from the Indian Punjab migrated to Pakistan.

There were religiously motivated riots in other parts of the subcontinent as well, but the Punjab riots were the most deadly.

Am I right?

Now my question is as follows:

Were there any Muslims in East Punjab who didn't migrate to Pakistan and managed to stay in their homes just as before? And if so, how were they able to do so in the face of death and plunder and kidnapping and rape of the womensfolks? What sort of trials and tribulations did those people had to go through in the period from July-August 1947 onward?

In particular, are the adherents of the Ahmedi version of Islam who are now living in Qaadian, District Gordaspur, in East Punjab the descendants of those Punjabis who stayed back? Didn't the rioting hordes of the Hindus and Sikhs didn't try to kill them, loot their belongings, and force them to flee? Did the rioters not try to vandalise Qaadian and all the institutions of the Jamaat-e-Ahmediyah in that town?

I would appreciate some authentic references on ths subjects also being included in the answers!


texts: Did Roman military require uniform weapons?

texts:
It seems to me that weapons were quite expensive in ancient world. At the same time there could be much of captured and imported weapons available. So did the Roman military prohibit use of captured weapons and weapons acquired by the the soldiers privately?

Did the military distribute captured weapons to the soldiers or what was the use of such weapons? Were they auctioned, re-cast to standard weapons or what?


texts: Should I trust a church history book that's more than 50 years old?

texts: I found a history book (A History of the Christian Church, Revised Edition by Williston Walker) at my local used book store. It was copyrighted in 1959. Have there been any developments in research since then (new archaeological discoveries, etc) that would be significant enough to motivate me to find a more recent book? How concerned should I be about error or incompleteness in an older history book?


texts: What makes studying science different from studying the history of science?

texts: Put differently, do science historians need to explain, say, the discovery of thermodynamics in a mathematically rigorous manner like a physicist would? Or can they omit the highly technical aspects of thermodynamics from their study and just focus on relevant records written in a language accessible to them?


texts: Is it true that Cadwallon ap Cadfan married a half sister of Penda of Mercia?

texts:
It was stated by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudo historical Historia Regnum Britannia that Cadwallon ap Cadfan married a half sister of Penda of Mercia.

Did he get that from other sources? Is it true. If so it affects if the monarchs of Mercia have known descendants.


texts: Why was there lack of food during WW2 in the UK?

texts:
Why was there lack of food during the WW2 in the UK?

I understand the lack of food in the countries occupied by Germans, as they recruited a lot of agricultural products for their war machinery. But why there had to be ration books in the non-occupied UK, which had to feed more or less the same amount of people as before the war? What was the mechanism leading to the lack of food there?


texts: What was the first battle in history fought by vast-majority-% "distance-shooting" non-mechanized force?

texts:
Historically, armies usually had a balance between warriors with projectile weapons (bows/guns) and close combat edged weapons (sword/pike/axe etc...).

This was necessary because ranged weapons of the time were not good enough to prevent armored-enough (or just fast-enough) force to close in with the shooters and hack them down with swords.

In some armies the same warriors fulfilled both roles (e.g. Mongols, gun-equiped cavalrymen of 30 year war, or bayonetted riflemen), but the "swordsman/pikeman" role was just as required as with separated roles. Even Mongols, after raining down arrows on an enemy, closed in for edged weapon fight - same with 30-year-war cavalry or infantry tercios.

This is obviously not the case today, where handheld edged weapons are a last-resort backup and rarely used in full-on combat outside urban fighting, or even including it.

My question is:

What was the first battle that clearly was fought - by both sides - in the modern way, with vast majority of the fighting, by design, being done by firing projectile weapons at a distance?

To clarify the question in response to comments:

"At a distance" - Simply means that the casualty was inflicted by a solid object propelled away from the soldier, and NOT held in the hand. In other words, a bullet shot from a gun counts. Clubbing over the head with the gun stock doesn't.[0]
"Vast majority" as measured by either:

Most importantly, casualty ratios from ranged weapon wounds vs. handheld weapon wounds.

Yeah, a US Army infantryman today is trained and able to kill an enemy with a bayonet, an entrenching tool, a combat knife, or a pencil or toothpick if need be. But in a random infantry-on-infantry battle, how many enemy casualties are inflicted by toothpicks, how many by bayonets/knives, and how many by bullets?
Alternately, by attempted attacks (where attempted attack is a fired bullet or a single strike with edged weapon)

"By design" - meaning that your doctrine, your training, and your expected and actual battle intends for that vast-majority fighting (as defined above) to be with ranged weapon.

This is important to eliminate useless trivial example where a small force came in for regular ancient-style sword infantry fight, got 10 people killed at a distance from a bow, got frightened and ran away before closing in because the enemy was too numerically superior. The casualty ratio is 10/0 for range weapons, but that is by accident, not design.
This is about personal ranged weapons (say, man-portable). Bows, rifles, muskets.

It excludes things like artillery/airplanes/tanks.

[0] - Minor complication would be included in whether hand-thrown edged weapons count as range weapons (which might plausibly introduce as a possible answer some Javelin-exclusive battle I'm not aware of), as hand-held edge weapons (in which case "range weapons distance" must be increased to exceed throw distance), or simply ignored which introduces neither of those 2 complexities


texts: Could there be frozen animals under Antarctica's ice sheets?

texts:
Similar to how we occassionally dig up frozen mammoths from the Siberian permafrost, could there be animals and plants frozen under the Antarctic ice sheets? I understand that at various times in the past Antarctica was surprisingly temperate.
I guess a lot would have been destroyed by the action of the glaciers, but there might also be some eddies or  protected locations down there.
Depending on when Antartica froze up, if there are frozen animals under the ice, what kind of animals might we expect to find? Are we talking dinosaurs, giant marsupials, or only wingless flies?
I could ask this question on Earth Science Stack Exchange, or Biology Stack Exchange, but I'm hoping to get the history/archaeology perspective here if there is one.
Cheers!


texts: Has the Scythe ever been used as a weapon?

texts:
In Victor Hugo's  The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Clopin Trouillefou uses a scythe to great effect:

  One was noticed who had a large, glittering scythe, and who, for a long time, mowed the legs of the horses. He was frightful. He was singing a ditty, with a nasal intonation, he swung and drew back his scythe incessantly. At every blow he traced around him a great circle of severed limbs. He advanced thus into the very thickest of the cavalry, with the tranquil slowness, the lolling of the head and the regular breathing of a harvester attacking a field of wheat.

My question is, has a scythe ever been used in such a fashion historically? I aware that war scythes have their blades mounted parallel with the shaft, and this is not what I am looking for. Has a scythe in its "traditional" arrangement been used in warfare?

Edit:
I am looking specifically for examples from the middle ages or later.


texts: How could Eratosthenes measure the circumference of the Earth?

texts:
Some 2,200 years ago, Eratosthenes calculated the radius of the Earth.

  A brief recap

  Plant a stick in the ground vertically, and wait until the sun is directly above the stick, that is until there is no shadow cast (or as is said to be the case historically, stand at the bottom of a very deep well in Syene and see the sun perfectly above you).

  If at the same time, a friend plants a second stick in the ground in Alexandria (which was known to be about 800km from Syene), and then measures the length of the shadow, one could calculate the circumference of the Earth.

  See also Cosmos: Sagan on Eratosthenes' calculation of Earth's Circumference

The problem I have never been able to figure out is how did Eratosthenes and his "theoretical friend" in Seyene know they were measuring the length of the shadow at the same time?

In fact, how could Eratosthenes prove that any two measurements of the sun happened "at the same time", when the primary way time was measured at the time was based on the sun?


texts:
Was there anywhere in history where the enslaved were able to enslave others?

Was there a slave hierarchy?

I read the slavery wikipedia entry, it mentions that in various cultures people retained some rights while enslaved.

But was there anywhere in the world, anytime in history, where slaves retained enough rights to be slave owners while being enslaved?


texts: Was There a Specified Period Between Declaring War and Attacking Before World War II?

texts: Japan started a war with the United States by attacking Pearl Harbor without a formal declaration of war. The United States reacted not only by declaring war on Japan but vowing to destroy Japan so it could not repeat such an attack. This led to the island hopping campaign whose purpose was to culminate in an invasion of Japan and the overthrow of its government. I believe that Japan could have avoided this situation if they had first declared war and then attacked. My question is: in any treaties or international agreements that existed at that time, was there a specifed period between declaring war and carrying out an actual attack? For example, if Japan had declared war on December 6 and then attacked Pearl Harbor 24 hours later, would that have avoided some of the huge animosity generated by their sneak attack?


texts: Who was the Irishman that betrayed Coronel's gold claim?

texts:
Antonio Coronel was a Mexican Californio who like many other Spanish speakers was ejected by Anglos from his claim in the Gold Rush, about April, 1849. Quoting from the published translation of his memoir, Tales of Mexican California:

  I was elected captain of the group in order to lay down some ground rules to ensure our safety. ... No one was to go to Sutter's Mill. ... In Ramon Carrillo's party there was an Irishman, long established in the country -- a good fellow, but fond of his whiskey. ... Féliz and the Irishman had gotten over two pounds of gold between them in the first week. ... But Saturday night the Irishman disappeared with his share of gold to Sutter's Mill. He got drunk and revealed all our business, plans, rules, and so forth. ... Every day more and more armed men came by to make inquiries, as before, but they were so familiar with our affairs that by Saturday the gunmen had set up camp beside us. ... At about 10am, a hundred of those soulless bandits invaded our claims, while we were down in them.

Who was the Irishman?

One prominent Irish immigrant in Northern California was Timothy Murphy, previously known to buy liquor at Fort Ross; nonetheless, as a mission administrator and rancho grantee, he seems unlikely to have mined in someone else's party.


texts: Why was John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry treason?

texts:
In Article 3 Section 3 of the Constitution, it says that

  Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

So I understand, maybe, how arming people to hurt others is treason because the "others" who will be hurt are Americans. So is it treason if, for example, a gun store owner provides a gun to someone s/he knows will use it to hurt others? I'm sure that's something, maybe indirect murder or something, but is it treason? If not, why was John Brown's raid treason?


texts: If the UK received the highest amount of Marshall Aid, why was it broke?

texts:
After WW2, Marshall Aid was distributed across Europe to facilitate the rebuilding of countries devastated by the war. West Germany received a large amount of this, and soon had a thriving economy.

However, the UK (one of the victors of the war) apparently received the single highest volume of aid, but was quite obviously on its knees financially (some bomb damage in London apparently not being repaired for decades). Was post-war bankruptcy purely down to the outstanding debt incurred through Anglo-American war time loans?

Finally, if these outstanding debts owed to the US and Canada really were what crippled the UK financially, why not just write off the debt and not bother with Marshall Aid at all to the UK?


texts: Did Bismarck have any influence on Hitler?

texts:
There were some similarities between the two brilliant statesmen. Both Bismarck and Hitler were against popular forms of governments such as democracy. Bismarck and Hitler both had similar disdain for socialism, though Hitler was much more tyrannical. Bismarck simply framed the socialists for an assassination attempt on the German emperor while Hitler burned down the Reichstag building to further his anti-socialist propaganda. However, Hitler believed in transforming the world into a Nazi Earth while Bismarck believed that Germany should gain whatever land it deserves.

  The German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, mastermind of the German unification, and the charismatic dictator of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler, were similar in many respects. Both were brilliant statesman, masters of manipulating the interests of others in order to achieve their goals. Both practiced realpolitik, willing to backstab, connive, and use blatantly illegal methods to gain power and prestige, both for themselves and for their nations. Both were loyal to a fault to their native lands. And both showed their policies to be dominated by a single, overarching goal for the entire time they were in power. (Source)

I am not sure if Hitler ever got to meet Bismarck because when Bismarck died in July 1898, Hitler must have been about 9 years old. But did Bismarck's persona and his role in unifying German states into a powerful German Empire have any influence on Hitler and if yes, how? I would also like to know if Hitler has mentioned anything about Bismarck in Mein Kampf and if he has said anything about Bismarck's vision and ideology?


texts: Is there any evidence besides the scriptures that the Ark of the Covenant existed?

texts:
Is there any historical evidence that the Ark of the Covenant really existed? What physical or written evidence is there, excluding the scriptures?

Note: I am not discounting the writings of the Bible or Christianity. I am asking if there is any other writings without the pretense of Christian association that mentions the Ark or any other physical evidence.


texts: Did the US government officially apologize for Indian Removal Act and Native American Indian genocide?

texts:
Have the US government officially apologized for Indian Removal Act and Native American Indian genocide?

If yes, could you provide more information when did it happen and who (which president or other high US authority) did apologize?


texts: What evidence is there relating to Matilda of Scotland as a wife (to Henry I) and mother (to Empress Matilda and William the Adelin)?

texts:
The information I have relates mostly to Matilda/Edith as her husband’s loyal regent during his frequent trips to Normandy. I have also found references to her good works, an interest in architecture and Henry’s apparent fondness for her despite his numerous mistresses and at least 22 illegitimate children, not all of them from before his marriage.

Kings having mistresses and illegitimate children was nothing unusual in medieval times, but Henry outdid even the Merry Monarch Charles II. Matilda/Edith certainly knew about most of this before she married him. Am I right in assuming that she simply accepted her husband’s philandering despite (probably) a lot of gossip behind her back?

Finally, I believe that the children were looked after by relatives and trusted servants but, although there are a number of references in the chronicles about the relationship between Henry and his children, I can’t find anything about Matilda/Edith as a parent. Do we know anything about her as a mother?


texts: What decides who goes in the front rank in a line infantry formation?

texts:
In an infantry formation, the front ranks seems to have much higher chance of being killed because they are exposed to the enemy front.

This thread explains how soldiers are arranged in Roman military formation. In the 18th-19th century era line infantry, what usually decides who goes in front? It seems unfair if just one person has to be in front all the time.. And if there is any consistent rule, how is it enforced? Or there is no preference at all, so it just depends on luck whether you get the front rank or not?

To clarify, I'm especially interested in the personal (the soldier) point of view regarding this, i.e. why they would want to be in what must be an unfairly disadvantaged position, but some insight about the tactical consideration is also welcome


texts: Are there any records that indicate a submarine vs submarine battle?

texts:
I am aware of only one which is the U-864 was sunk by the HMS Venturer but that was when both were being submerged -- according to wikipedia.  Is that accurate?  Which battles did happen between two (or more) submarines whether they were submerged or not?

While the WW2 tag is there, I am interested in the whole history of submarine warfare from 1775 to now a days.


texts: Where can you find online the voting records for the both Houses of the UK Parliament?

texts:
I wish to see online, for any past Bill of Parliament, in the House of Commons:
which MPs (in the House of Commons) and which peers (in the House of Lords) voted in favour and in opposition.
For instance, I desire this information for Bills that failed to abolish slavery:

But time was lost during the lengthy inquiries by the privy council committee for trade and plantations (1788) and by the Commons itself (1789-1790), and Wilberforce's motion for abolition was disappointingly defeated by 163 to 88 votes in 1791. In the following year, a compromise was reached in the Commons whereby the trade was to be prohibited from 1796.
These were partial measures which only slightly improved the horrific conditions experienced during the notorious middle passage.
The House of Lords stalled the motion pending its own inquiry, which was eventually allowed to lapse because of the wars against revolutionary France. Wilberforce introduced an abolition motion in most subsequent sessions, and these were occasionally lost by only narrow margins, including by only four votes in 1796, when several supporters had deserted the chamber for the pleasures of the opera house.

and the successful Slave Trade Act 1807:

The effect of Stephen's 1806 act was to reduce the trade by two-thirds, paving the way for the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in February 1807. The Prime Minister, Lord Grenville, introduced the Slave Trade Abolition Bill in the House of Lords on the 2nd January 1807 when it received a first reading. The House of Lords, voted for the abolition of the slave trade on 5th February by 100 votes to 34; after an impassioned speech by the Prime minister, despite opposition from the West India Lobby. The bill was debated for ten hours in the House of Commons on 23rd February. At 4am the next morning the House voted in favour of the Bill by 283 votes to 16. Finally on 25 March 1807 the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act received its royal assent, abolishing the slave trade in the British colonies and making it illegal to carry enslaved people in British ships.


texts: What currently existing IT companies collaborated with Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy?

texts:
I am aware that IBM has designed the tabulator machines to calculate information dealing with the extermination of Jews, but are there any other currently existing corporations which have helped Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy.

Note: I am specifically interested in the corporations which have done something to help, not mearly existed on those territories during that time.


texts:
In a question about leaders who rose quickly from "nothing" to supreme power, someone suggested Hitler, someone else Napoleon, then it was noticed that Hitler was a foreigner (Austrian who came into power in Germany), then it was remarked that Napoleon was Corsican (not exactly a foreigner, but anyway borderline French).

And then I notice that Stalin was Georgian, Victor Emmanuel Piedmontese, Bismarck Prussian, Getúlio Vargas a Gaúcho. All of them either "foreign" to the (most important) nation they led, or at least coming from the farthest borders of that nation.

To ask about the causes of such pattern (or whether it is a mere coincidence) would probably be deemed too broad or opinion-based to be properly answered.

So, to be objective, is there any study, book or paper, that deals with this curious set of facts?

(To notice, I am not talking about dynastic issues. True, many princes become sovereigns in foreign nations, through marriage or invitation, but that's not the issue. I am talking about actual leaders, i.e., people who won elections or revolutions or staged coup d'etats)


texts: Why was Napoleon not executed or imprisoned?

texts:
I wonder why the Allies did not execute or imprison Napoleon for life after both times when he was captured. Even more, they risked by granting him an island in possession. This is quite illogical given that they portrayed him as an evil murderer and usurper.

Only two reasons come to mind in this light:

That they did not want to create a precedent of murdering a head of state so that they not to be murdered similarly in case of defeat.
That they somewhat recognized Napoleon as a legitimate leader or at least recognized something of his impact as positive.

May be there were other reasons, for example, the Catholic church did not want to revoke the title of emperor from him?

What were the actual reasons?


texts:
I found a hag stone the other day and am planning on stringing it as an amulet. My research indicates such amulets were in use over much of Europe, particularly Western Europe, as well as Egypt and Russia (not really sure if Russia is considered Europe or Asia).
I know that the power of these amulets was derived from the stones themselves, not from symbols or sigils like some such objects.Link
That being said, were they ever engraved with symbols meant to enhance their perceived power? Despite reading that they’re common archaeological finds, I’m having difficulty finding ancient examples amongst all the contemporary ones.
I don’t want to carve the stone with Celtic, Nordic, etc symbols if those cultures only wore them plain. Ruins the point of potentially using this in reenactment costumes one day. Any information would be wonderful, thanks!


texts: Did Chinese Hundred Schools of Thought influence Ancient Greek Philosophy?

texts:
As a beginning student of Chinese I am also learning a bit more about Chinese history. As such I am more and more impressed by the quality of thought that has been left behind by Chinese philosophers from the Hundred Schools of Thought period (770 to 221 BC) during the Era of Warring States , i.e. Confucius (551–479 BC), Laozi (6th century BCE), Zhuangzi (369–286 BC), etc. So many main lines of contemporary philosophic thought seemed to be alive and mature already at that remote time.
Pre-Socratic and later Hellenistic Philosophy began in Ancient Greece also in 6th century onward with Plato (428-347 BC), Socrates (469-399 BC), Aristotle (384-322 BC), Epicurus (341-270 BC), Zeno  (c. 334 BC – c. 262 BC), etc.
What do we know about possible historic influences from China on developments in Greece (or the other way around). I am aware of one book (Thomas C. McEvilley: The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies) whose title and table of contents seem relevant to influences from India, but have not read it yet. I would also be interested in historic influences for religious thought (from Buddhism, say).


texts: In 19th century France, were police able to send people to jail without a trial, as presented in "Les Misérables"?

texts:
This is inspired by this question from Literature.se
In the book, the police inspector Javert arrests a prostitute who has attacked an "upstanding citizen". Following this arrest he thinks to himself:

This class of women is consigned by our laws entirely to
the discretion of the police. The latter do what they please,
punish them, as seems good to them, and confiscate at their
will those two sorry things which they entitle their industry and their liberty. Javert was impassive; his grave face
betrayed no emotion whatever. Nevertheless, he was seriously and deeply preoccupied. It was one of those moments
when he was exercising without control, but subject to all
the scruples of a severe conscience, his redoubtable discretionary power. At that moment he was conscious that his
police agent’s stool was a tribunal. He was entering judgment. He judged and condemned

Eventually, his ruling (six months in jail) is overruled by a mayor, who cities a particular law allowing him to do so:

‘The matter to which you refer is one connected with the
municipal police. According to the terms of articles nine,
eleven, fifteen, and sixty-six of the code of criminal examination, I am the judge. I order that this woman shall be set
at liberty.’

Is the scene presented in book realistic for that time and place? I know, that there might be a difference in sending someone to jail, as opposed to prison (even currently, one can be sent to jail by police for about 48 hours without conviction), but 6 months of arrest without a trial seems a bit harsh.
I've tried searching for the arrest rules in the 19th century France, but unfortunately met quite a few paywalls, like for example the book "
The Promise of Punishment: Prisons in Nineteenth-Century France" which is not available for free.
So, from the purely historical point of view - are the actions depicted by this fragments historically accurate?


texts: In 1916, did an amputee, invalided out of the French army, get a pension?

texts: Did an amputee, invalided out of the French army, get a pension in 1916, and if so, how much in francs per year?


texts:
Are there any maps still surviving that were made in the Byzantine Empire?

There are plenty of maps from Western Europe during this time period, but I haven't heard of any surviving from the eastern empire.


texts: Why do some painted portraits show the subject pointing?

texts:
I've just been to the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland and I noticed that many of the portraits show the subject pointing at something, often out of the frame, for example this one.

Why is this?


texts: Why did Al Smith win six "Dixiecrat" states, and very little else?

texts:
Al Smith was the governor of New York who ran for President against Herbert Hoover in 1928. A factor in the race was that he was also the first Catholic to run on a major party ticket (John F. Kennedy was the second).
Smith won two New England states, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where his Catholic background probably helped, rather than hurt him (and narrowly lost his home state of New York). Apart from that, he won six future "Dixiecrat" states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, most of which were won by Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George Wallace in 1968 as right-wing "independent" Democrats.
These "Dixiecrat" states were most influenced by the Ku Klux Klan, which were highly anti-Catholic. Yet Smith won these states, while most of the rest of the country voted against him, including southern states like Virginia, North Carolina and Florida. (Texas was close.)
Why was that?


texts: Why did families in 6th century Mecca send their babies to be raised in the desert?

texts:
Biographies of Muhammad mentions that in his early childhood he was looked after by a wet-nurse Halimah, from a few days after his birth until he was 4. It seems customary for Meccan families to do so:

  In Mecca, it was customary to entrust infants to wet nurses belonging
  to the nomadic Bedouin tribes living in the nearby desert. (source)

Why did they have this custom? Mecca being a relatively wealthy city at that time, presumably the quality of life and chance of survival is better than the desert. Why is it desirable to have desert nomads raise your baby?


texts: Health precautions before going into Battle of Trafalgar and other battles

texts:
Tom Pocock's The Terror Before Trafalgar: Nelson, Napoleon, and the Secret War contains this memorable description of preparations aboard HMS Victory immediately before the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805:

  The ships' companies were given a meal and changed their clothes. The
  officers put on clean underwear to minimize the risk of infection if
  they were wounded; the seamen tied cloths around their heads to stop
  sweat running into their eyes and as little protection for their ears
  from the noise of gunfire. Nelson himself toured the gun decks,
  talking and joking with the guns' crews, who had laid out their shot,
  powder charges, rammers and spongers, and the restraining ropes on the
  gun carriages and sanded the decks so that they would not slip in the
  blood that would soon be swilling around them.

My question is: were such sensible health precautions as changing one's dirty underwear (in an attempt to minimize infection if skin were penetrated by weaponry) common at the time and were they perhaps even recorded in military manuals and regulations?


texts: Was early Sumerian civilization wiped out by a flood?

texts:
Sumerian texts speak of a worldwide flood that wiped out most of mankind's achievements on earth.  I had always suspected such a flood -- even if only covering all of Sumer -- was mythical, but then I read the following on Wikipedia:

  Archaeologists have confirmed the presence of a widespread layer of riverine silt deposits, shortly after the Piora oscillation, interrupting the sequence of settlement, that left a few feet of yellow sediment in the cities of Shuruppak and Uruk and extended as far north as Kish.

There's no citation listed, unfortunately.

So is there any reliable archaeological evidence of this flood?  Can anyone point me in the right direction?  A few feet of sediment means there must have been a major event, so I'm surprised I hadn't run across this before.


texts: Codex A for Herodotus' Histories and questions about discovery of the fragments of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri

texts:
This question is related to this one: Where can I find the primary source for Herodotus' Histories?.  Thank you to everyone who provided information there.  That really helped!

I have some related questions.  The context is: I am arguing with someone who hosts a blog/online community and who claims that ancient history is "a hoax".  His argument focuses on evidence of/citations of primary sources for Herodotus' Histories (as an example) as well as the recent discovery of fragments of the original Oxyrhynchus Papyri.  He uses an inductive argument with a weak inference/conclusion.  I am trying to find more evidence but I have not studied these topics. The answers to the last question I posted helped so, again, thank you.

Here are the questions he came back with when I shared the information you all provided:

"What is the provenance of this source (codex A)? Who discovered it,
how did they date it, when was it first cited, and who has
owned/possessed this material ever since?"
"those fragments (Oxyrhynchus Papyri) were ‘discovered’ about 120 years ago. In a ‘rubbish dump’. By two Oxford Scholars. Who also happened to find papyrus fragments of the works of Plato, Euclid, Sophocles, homer, and others, in the same ‘rubbish dump’.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyrhynchus_Papyri. Do you see a potential problem here? Or does this story seem believable to you?"

I suggested that he ask these questions of the community here himself, but I haven't heard back.

Any help with these questions and specifically facts or perspectives that may help with the suspicion/hoax claim would be useful.  The argument he is using is weak, and I've already pointed that out, but I'm looking for historical facts/perspectives that some of you may have.

Thanks in advance!


texts: Why are the Rohingya not recognized in Myanmar (Burma), amongst the other 135 ethnic groups?

texts:
The government of Myanmar (Burma) officially recognizes 135 ethnic groups. This sounds like, to use a technical term, 'a lot'. It would thus seem that they tried to be pretty inclusive, at least when making these official designations.

Yet the Rohingya are not one of these 135 groups. What are the historical reasons for this omission?

(I am aware from current events that they are heavily discriminated against, Muslim, etc. But historically what would have been the justification for simply leaving them out of a whopping 135 groups?)


texts: Why has there only been one dynasty in the history of Japan?

texts:
I'm kinda surprised that there's been only one dynasty (Yamato) in Japan up until now, unlike China with one group wiping out another group and starting a new dynasty constantly.  Looking at Wikipedia's list of other countries, nearly all of them had multiple dynasties in its history.

Were there no groups that fought to claim the throne in Japan (like in China)?


texts: What was the official attitude to Cromwell after the Glorious Revolution?

texts:
Under the restored Stuarts, obviously, Cromwell was vilified. Actually, his exhumed head was publicly displayed on a pike for more than 20 years during their rule (wikipedia devotes a separate article to the head's posthumous adventures).

But did the official position on Cromwell change after the Glorious Revolution as expounded by the new government?

EDIT: The question originates with my bemusement at seeing a poem by Locke, containing very high praise of Cromwell. It was written in 1654 when Cromwell was at the height of his power but it was then reprinted in a 1707 anthology called Poems on Affairs of State and which contains "Several Poems in Praise of Oliver Cromwell"  It's available here and here.

EDIT #2: To make it perfectly clear, I am not asking about modern attitudes to Cromwell. I am asking about the period spanned by the reigns of, say, William & Mary, Anne, and George I.


texts: Conscientious objectors in Germany during WWI

texts:
Was there a special treatment for conscientious objectors in Germany during WWI? I know that Britain had a process of exemptions, which was however rather harshly and sparingly administered (see wiki). However wikipedia is silent on Germany at the same time (or maybe I didn't know where to look).

Also, how prevalent was conscientious objection in Germany then? Again, we have statistics for Britain readily available online but the German information is not lying close to the surface.


texts: Why was Stalin surprised by the German attack in June 1941?

texts: Although he was warned by many, including Churchill, of the forthcoming German attack on 22 June, Stalin did not believe those warnings and was surprised when the attack started. I believe the question of why this happened has been researched by historians. Is there any recently published work on this question? Is there some kind of agreement among historians to explain why Stalin chose to ignore all warnings?


texts: Historically, was the War of 1812 ever called by another name?

texts:
In the wildly popular Youtube chanel Crash Course, the narrator states that the War of 1812 bears that title only because of the historians' "great imagination" and mentions three humorous names that could very well describe the War of 1812.

This got me to thinking: did the War of 1812 ever have a (relatively) commonly-used name other than or more descriptive than "War of 1812"?

Please include reliable sources in your answer.


texts:
When and where did the first metal key locks appear (not the door bolts)?

When did they became widespread?


texts: Why was "consumption of gypsum" seen as relevant medical problem following 'De Materia Medica'?

texts:
"It [lye ash] is also drunk against the consumption of gypsum and the bite of the spider."

But why would consumption of relevant amounts of gypsum occur in the first place?

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/De_Materia_Medica/Book_1#187


texts: Did Crimea and Russia exchange Ukraine for the Taganrog region?

texts: Did Ukraine give Russia the Taganrog region in exchange for Crimea?


texts: How did people from the ancient world, like Warring States period China, melt a high temperature metal like iron when the high temp crucible was not even invented nor having a fire source hot enough to melt them?


texts: Who standardized the Roman measurements?

texts: Was there a single ruler that standardized Roman measurements, like Qinshihuangdi for China? I remember in history class we talked about how the Romans had standard weight units in markets and axle widths for roads. Were these imposed by the government? Or did a common measurement just end up slowly pervading the entire empire? (e.g. some popular chariot-maker used axles 1.4m wide, which created 1.4m wide ruts, which led more people to build 1.4m wide chariots, which created deeper 1.4m wide ruts, cycling ad infinitum)


texts: How much faster is the theoretical rate of progress than the historical rate of progress?

texts:
Any technological, scientific, philosophical, creative milestone had certain prerequisites before it could realistically occur. We build on the past. This doesn’t mean that once these prerequisites were in place the advancement or discovery occurred immediately.
Were one to analyze prerequisites required for a breakthrough (say Einstein’s theory of relativity, or farming) one could posit that it could have occurred earlier. In this sense, one could compare the rate of progress against a hypothetical faster rate.
Has any study like this been performed?


texts: Bears on Bicycles - What are early examples of photographs or paintings showing bicycles used with animals in circus acts?

texts:
Bicycles became popular during the early to mid-nineteenth-century. Around the same time, Isaac A. Van Amburgh was active as the first circus wild animal trainer.

When did the practice of training animals to ride bicycles begin? Is there any advertising or art that depicts early examples of this type of circus act?


texts: How did the ancient Chinese coordinate armies of tens and hundreds of thousands?

texts:
According to what I've read, during the Warring States period and also later during the Three Kingdoms period there were armies of the magnitude of (a few) hundred thousands.

How could they coordinate such an immense mass of people? How could they provide the logistics? These armies had to be separated into smaller armies I suppose. Then how could the different battalions work together despite the distance?


texts:
I'm trying to research the incomes and expenditures of a small village in medieval England.

The village occupies a formerly abandoned settlement situated against an abandoned castle. The village is a farming community, with not much beyond a smith. The village also has a church and a mayor.

I've already calculated the settlement's possible incomes, now I'm just trying to figure out how and what that money could be spent on.


texts: An online old style Julian calendar for England?

texts:
The calendar (new style) act 1750 adopted the Gregorian calendar in England from 1752, and changed the start of the civil year from 25 March to 1 January.

So, 1748-03-24 (old style) would have been followed by 1749-03-25 (old style) in the Julian calendar.

And, 1752-12-31 (new style) would have been followed by 1753-01-01 (new style) in the Gregorian calendar.

There seems to have been some informal use of new style dates in England before this time. Pepys's diary used new style dates nearly a century before they were officially adopted.

Leap years in the period before 1752 occurred when the new style year was divisible by 4, even though the official calendar used old style years. This page provides evidence of this (in the discussion of the London Gazette), and this page notes the evidence from the Parliamentary Journal.

Does anyone know of an online calendar that presents a correct year-at-a-glance view of the official old style calendar with the correct leap years? For example, a calendar starting on 1595-03-25 and ending on 1595-03-24, and including 1595-02-29? None of the Julian calendars I have found online do this.

If nobody can come up with a web page I will have to write one, but that is quite a chore :-( especially actually getting it right.


texts: What are the origins of the Shinto religion?

texts: Shinto's recorded history is typically dated to the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, but most sources suggest that oral traditions go back much further than this. What evidence is there to support this - asides from simply saying 'if it was recorded it must have had an oral tradition'?


texts: How would the Germans have sent the Zimmerman telegraph if the German-American telegraph line was cut?

texts: If the British cut the telegraph line across Atlantic, how would the Germans send the telegram?


texts: Where (if anywhere) were X-ray machines put on trains or trolleys to image "Everybody over 14 years old"?

texts:
The background image in this X-ray analysis sotfware page shows what looks like a trolley or train car on tracks with a sign that says "X-ray Now: Everybody over 14 years old".

Where might this have been and when? Was this practice widespread worldwide at some time in the past? What was the advertised purpose, and if there was an underlying purpose different than that, what might it have been?

Screen Shot of http://maud.radiographema.eu/moPTT/ click for full size view:


texts: Why did the Persian army lose the battle of Marathon?

texts: Persian army was an absolutely massive army,and persian empire defeated famous empires such as babylon using it, you know that then Greece wasn't a united country and it was built from different city-states,so naturally it doesn't have a well trained and united army,and Persian army was at least 200000 man large,so why was it defeated and why was it retreated from Greece land after it?(note:I'm not a professional historician or something else,so do not expect me to ask professional questions.I'm just a twelve year old student who is trying to learn )


texts: State of temporary recklessness of ancient Greeks

texts:
It was once explained to me that in ancient Greece when a person was reflecting on their own action that they later recognised as reckless or shameful, they would say that the gods have "blinded" them temporarily.

There was a specific (one-word) expression for that state. Anyone happen to know what this expresion would be? I would also appreciate any source where this state is explained in more detail.


texts: What pretext did Hitler use to justify Operation Barbarossa?

texts:
At the beginning of WW2, Nazi Germany orchestrated the infamous Gleiwitz Incident, which was used by Hitler to publicly declare, that since 5:45 we are returning fire.

The invasion of Poland triggered the UK and France to declare war on Germany. The USSR, on the other hand, was in a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany.

Was there any justification provided to the public by the government or Hitler himself as to why the Wehrmacht was invading the USSR? Or by this stage of WW2, had the war already progressed beyond the point where there was any need for reasons as to why attack another country?

Both the German and the English Wikipedia are quite silent on the topic of the public justification of Operation Barbarossa. They discuss the planning and the timeline, yet there is no mention of any propaganda activities.

Only Hitler's views on Bolshevism, which were made public in his book, are discussed.


texts: What made Port Arthur (Manchuria) a better port for Russia than Vladivostok?

texts:
In 1897, Russia leased Port Arthur, Manchuria as a Pacific port to supplement its existing holding of Vladivostok.

Port Arthur is at about 39 degrees N. latitude; Vladivostok is at 43 degrees N. latitude. For reference, Seattle, Washington is at 47 degrees N. latitude. Yet Vladivostok is much colder than Port Arthur, and also much colder than Seattle.

Why is that? I read something about a Siberian "front" from Lake Baikal that affects Vladivostok. Yet Port Arthur is almost ten degrees longitude west of Vladivostok, which is to say that it is closer to Lake Baikal. So doesn't it have similar problems? Did it just "barely" miss the front and why?

Or did Russia have other reasons for preferring Port Arthur besides climate?


texts: How did St. Genevieve manage to feed the Parisians during the 10-year-long blockade?

texts:
This is what Wikipedia has to say:

  Late in the 3rd century AD, the invasion of Germanic tribes, beginning with the Alamans in 275 AD, caused many of the residents of the left bank to leave that part of the city and move to the safety of the Île de la Cité. Many of the monuments on the left bank were abandoned, and the stones used to build a wall around the Île de la Cité, the first city wall of Paris.

And then, 200 years later:

  In 461, the city was threatened again by the Salian Franks, led by Childeric I (436-481). The siege of the city lasted ten years. Once again Geneviève organized the defense. She rescued the city by bringing wheat to the hungry city from Brie and Champagne on a flotilla of eleven barges.

Okay, so, even if Paris still consisted only of the walled Cité and the population was fairly small (a few hundred people, perhaps?), traveling to Champagne and then coming back with eleven (!!) barges is still a pretty monumental task. How can you sneak that many barges in without being seen? How can you sneak them out again? Or did Childeric allow it? Take a look at this picture:

La Cite is the larger island. The smaller one behind it is the Island of St. Louis. In order to travel to Champagne by water, you'd have o head south (towards us). With Childeric's troops stationed on both sides of the river, and his boats patrolling the waters day and night, Genevieve seems to have made repeated trips out of the city, and then back in - how?

Apart from that, what was so important about Paris (such as it was in those days) that the siege went on for ten years?

Something's wrong with the picture here. What am I missing?


texts:
After WWII, many Nazis sought and found refuge in Argentina. The proportion to which that happened certainly couldn't be carried out without some level of complicity from the Argentine establishment and power elites, or at least motivated disregard.

Did Peron actively interpose to bring Nazis over?
Assuming 'yes' to the above and that Peron wasn't really a fascist but more like a populist with some fascist sympathies, what motives did he have to host Nazis? E.g. was he looking to feel some engineering cadre or what was his agenda?


texts: When did "cultural appropriation" become a concept?

texts: Acts which nowadays are called cultural appropriation have been going on for a long time in the US, at least since the 19th century. But when did certain behaviours start getting labelled in the US as cultural appropriation and as a bad thing to do?


texts: What is the oldest "commercial logo" known?

texts:
I'm writing a paper on logos, iconography and different forms of identifications for trade activities. The paper starts with history of logos, which is pretty easy and known. However, I'm wondering: which is the oldest "brand logotype" ever?
To define a brand logotype, I use the following characteristics:

It needs to have a name
Preferably, it should have a purpose
(activity) and/or icon or symbol
It needs to be strictly related to
trading or any economic PRIVATE activity

So, for example, a brand logotype is NOT an Egyptian Cartouche or the Ichthys, because they don't represent a commercial activity or brand.
So far, the oldest I could find is a bronze plate from Song Dinasty for Liu's Needle Shop , which is part of an advertisement commonly accepted as the oldest advertisement ever (just not necessarily the oldest BRAND). However, I'm not sure that's correct. I have seen advertisements in Pompeii, Herculanus and Ostia (sadly, I don't remember if there was a brand per se, the closest I can remember is a tavern in Ostia Antica that had some kind of sign at the entrance, which could have been merely decorative). And it seems to me ancient Egyptian, Roman or even Greek traders needed some kind of brand identification.
Anyways... is Liu's Needle Shop the oldest brand ever or is there an older one?


texts: What land did Polish nationalists claim in 1914?

texts:
In the early 20th century, Poland was split between Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany. However, clear borders of the "country" did not exist.

When the country was finally re-created after the Great War, it was extremely tough to put definitive borders in place, which led to war with almost all of its neighbours:

A short war with Czechoslovakia
A de-facto war with Germany (the "Silesian Uprisings")
The Polish-Soviet war
And finally, a war with Ukraine.

Thus, the borders of the Second Polish Republic were created with wars, rather than based on the principles of self-determination, where regions, which considered themselves as part of Poland, joined.

Exactly what lands did the Polish nationalists claim in 1914, before the utopia of a newborn Polish state had to clash with reality?


texts: Why didn't China vote in UNSC Resolution 344?

texts:
According to this Wikipedia article, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 344 in 1973 with 10 votes from non-permanent members and 4 abstentions from the permanent members France, USSR, UK, and US. But the article says China was a permanent member at the time yet doesn't mention what China's vote was.

Did China really not vote on this resolution, and if so, why not (and why 'not participate' rather than 'abstain')? Was China maybe boycotting the UN or UN Security Council at the time? Why did the other permanent members abstain?


texts: Is there a known origin for the Beaufort motto "Mutare vel Timere Sperno"?

texts:
The House of Beaufort (and cadet branch the House of Somerset) use the motto "Mutare vel timere sperno" ("I scorn to change or to fear").

I assume it references the Beaufort loyalty to and support of the House of Lancaster in the War of the Roses, originating perhaps in the time of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, but cannot find any mention of its origin.


texts: Why didn't Russia help Saddam Hussein as it is helping Syria now?

texts:
Wasn't Saddam an ally of Russia?

If Russia wasn't his ally, who was his ally?

Syria is looking like a strong ally of Russia as it was the case of Serbia. Russians played direct roles to save these countries.

Then what was in Saddam's mind?


texts: What was the content of Solzhenitsyn's critique of the West?

texts:
Solzhenitsyn is a dissident writer in the former Soviet Union. He's famous for writing the Gulag Archipelago. I recall that he eventually managed to escape to the West, in fact to the USA where after taking a good look around he denounced the the West too.

Once a dissident, always a dissident I suppose. I also recall that he was dropped like a hot potato by the West. I imagine its easy to cheer on a dissident in the 'enemy camp' but not so nice when his critique is turned upon the West.

I'm curious though now about what exactly was the content of his critique. It must have stung, as he was dropped very quickly.

edit

In the article published by the Washington Post by Lee Lescaze in 1978 he is reported to have said:

  Western societies have taken on a terrible similarity to the state-controlled societies of the communist world in its suffocation of spiritual life ... He says that Western society is morally bankrupt ... He attacks moral cowardice, selfishness and complacency ... materialism, sharp legal manoeuvring, a press that invades privacy, TV stupor and intolerable music.

Having just been to a local department store I can see very well what he means by intolerable music. It's a sad indictment on a society that has had so many great musicians and composers. The report does not give any specific details about why S is making the criticisms he has. It paints his criticisms with a very broad-brush. I'm looking for sources that are more specific about his critiques. For example, Lee further reports:

  'A decline in courage' is the most striking feature of what he calls the 'spiritual exhaustion' of the West ... [And] 'the forces of evil have begun their decisive offensive, you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. Where is the joy in that?' ... He attacks the Western press ... for reflecting more clearly than any other part of society 'the hastiness and superficiality' that he calls the 'psychic disease of the 20th C'

Q. What does he mean by the 'forces of evil have begun their decisive offensive'? Has he been clarified elsewhere in his writings what he means by this?


texts: Can you identify this military uniform? Montana 1850-1920

texts:
Portrait taken in Montana-best guess between 1850 and 1920. WWI??  Slouch hat. Single-breasted coat with 5 or 6 buttons. Breast pocket on each side; diagonal, flap with button. Knee-high boots. Curvy double-lines of embroidery above sleeve cuffs. Soldier formally posed sitting on tree stumps with hands on thighs, left foot/knee higher up (resting on stump part), lattice fence in right background.
    This is one of the few photographs from my husband's family. Could it be a Forest Service uniform? Civil war? WWI?
   Any help would be appreciated.


texts: Why are some school systems from September–July versus others that go April–March?

texts:
I've heard from colleagues and on-line sources that the Japanese school system starts the school year on 1st of April and I've heard the same used to be true in Germany. In Belgium, where I live, I think we've always had September-to-July school years.
Belgium is a relatively old country, founded in 1830, and (child) labour laws were not yet high on the agenda back then. So, is my theory that we have a September system because farmers wanted to use child labour during the summer months' harvest a good one? Modern Japan and Germany were both founded around 1870 when labour regulation, labour emancipation and social harmony were already more of an issue.
Of course my theory could be silly and critics might say that I've not asked a good question until this point. So: How to explain the differences in school year timing across different regions and nations of the world?


texts: When did Galilee become part of Iudaea? When did it become separate?

texts: According to Wikipedia, Galilee "briefly became a part of it[i.e. Iudaea province], then separated from it for two to three centuries". When did these two events happen? Sources encouraged.


texts: What made India pull out troops and return the captured territory at the end of 1971 Indo-Pak war?

texts:
Indian forces during 1971 had decimated the Pakistani troops in Eastern theater resulting in one of the largest post WWII surrender including 90,000 soldiers.

While Pakistan was in a non-negotiable position, India still pulled out its troops liberating Bangladesh from Pakistan.

But what actually made India pull out troops from Pakistan and give back the captured the territory?


texts:
Did RAF fighter pilots wear ties while flying in WW2?

It seems like that would be uncomfortable, if not dangerous, while you are experiencing high-Gs and low oxygen. However, the above movie includes Wellum himself (portrayed above), so presumably the producers had a chance to consult him.


texts:
George Lensen's "The Russian Push Toward Japan", 1959, cites Okamoto Ryunosuke, "Nichi-Ro kosho Hokkaido shiko", 1898, to say:

  Matsudaira Sadanobu states that guns for defenses must be of bronze. There was a bronze reservoir in Osaka. He suggested that it be replaced by one of stone, and the bronze melted and made into cannons.

Under what circumstances would anyone construct a reservoir of bronze? Is reservoir even the right word here? Was it melted down after all?


texts: What was the first book translated from Japanese to any of the European languages?

texts:
What was the first Japanese book translated and published in one of the European languages?

By "first" I mean the date of translation, not the original.


texts: Were there religious wars between two sects in Hinduism?

texts:
Shaivism and Vaishnavism, are two major sects within the umbrella of Hinduism, each with a different deity as their Supreme God.
This difference, is thought to have, in the ancient and even recent past, resulted in several differences and thus "religion - based wars" between the two sects. Resulting in vandalism and lootings of kingdoms of one sect by the other. The impact is posited to be present in the form of several vandalized structures found on across India.
What's the historical veracity of these claims?
I'd like to get an account of those war and how they might have impacted the development of both sects in terms of their theology and sometimes outright mind boggling stories. An example : The Story Of Prahalada-Narsimha, Sharaba, Gandarbherunda, Prtayangira.


texts: Was there ever a single collection of the Corpus Juris Civilis and has it survived?

texts:
Title just about says it.

The parts (the Codex, Digesta, Institutiones, and Novellae) of the Corpus Juris Civilis were finished in 529, 533, and 534. So it is possible that by the time one was finished, the previous existed in multiple copies.

My question is: was there ever a single, physical, original edition of the Corpus, and if so does this edition survive today, or was its creation more manifold?


texts: What was the Catholic Church's opinion of Diệm's South Vietnam?

texts:
I've started watching The Vietnam War, and would like to know something incidental to the early stages of this conflict.

Ngo Dinh Diem led an increasingly brutal and unashamedly pro-Catholic minority government in South Vietnam which ruled over a majority Buddhist population.  Diem's policies treated the Buddhist majority with open contempt and worked to promote only Catholic interests.  Diem's elder brother, Ngo Dinh Thuc, was also a Catholic bishop.

What did the Catholic Church publicly and privately think of Diem's South Vietnamese regime?  It's hard to believe that they were ignorant of what was going on, so did they turn a blind eye to any ethical issues* presented by the regime because it was Catholic?

*Vote rigging, nepotism, corruption, persecution of Buddhists, land theft, summary execution, persecution of non-Buddhist local religions, etc.


texts: Did American policymakers seriously consider scaling down Lend Lease Aid to the Soviet Union after the battle of Kursk?

texts:
In 1941, Senator (and future President) Harry Truman famously said, "If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany." General Patton wanted to re-arm defeated German troops and join them in sending the Red Army back to Russia at the very end of the original war.

Such a result might have been achieved by scaling back, or even "turning off" the flow of "Lend Lease" aid to the Soviet Union after it started winning the war at the battle of Kursk. The enormous Soviet advances of 1943-44 were greatly assisted by American trucks, fuel, and other supplies. Without this aid, it might have taken the Soviet Union until mid-1945, instead of mid-1944, to regain her pre-war frontier. Meaning that the Americans could have been the first to arrive in Berlin, and perhaps Warsaw or even points further east.

Did anyone in the U.S. military or government advocate such a "Machiavellian" policy? Were there people who counterargued that keeping up the flow of Lend Lease aid would save American lives?


texts: Was hay invented only in the Middle Ages in Europe?

texts:
I stumbled upon the following remark from Freeman Dyson:

  The most important invention of the last two thousand years was hay. In the classical world of Greece and Rome and in all earlier times, there was no hay. Civilization could exist only in warm climates where horses could stay alive through the winter by grazing. Without grass in winter you could not have horses, and without horses you could not have urban civilization. Some time during the so-called dark ages, some unknown genius invented hay, forests were turned into meadows, hay was reaped and stored, and civilization moved north over the Alps. So hay gave birth to Vienna and Paris and London and Berlin, and later to Moscow and New York.

Is it really true, that hay was only invented in the Middle Ages in Europe? Is hay really such an important invention? What about other civilization like e.g. the Mongols who used a lot of horses. Didn't they also have hay?


texts: How do historians verify historical claims?

texts: What are some common methods to verify historical claims?


texts:
I was reading the Wikipedia page on Kafr Yasif where it is stated that:

 Kafr Yasif appears in the writings of the Roman Jewish historian Josephus Flavius.

without providing a reference. I googled and found a couple of website that claim the same thing, but couldn't find any details.

I don't think anyone would know this off the top of their head but is there an accessible way to search Josephus' works for mentions of Kafr Yasif?


texts: How have terms of English governance of Ireland been viewed in history?

texts:
The following Treaty of Mellifont, made with Hugh O'Neill, England's most hard-core opponent, is reasonably representative. Under the treaty, after the Irish lost a war, were the following key terms:

  1) O'Neill would be pardoned for his past rebellious acts.
  2) O'Neill would get to keep most, but not all, of his lands.
  3) English law would supplant Irish "brehon" law (a system somewhat similar to English case law).
  4) O'Neill could no longer support the Catholic Church.
  5) O"Neill could no longer support Irish bards (minstrels, storytellers of Irish lore).
  6) English would be the official language. O'Neill would have to give up his Irish title in return for an English one, the Earl of Tyrone.

These terms were considered "generous" at the time, according to Wikipedia. Would they been considered so in later times by professional historians including today? Or would they be considered a form of cultural imperialism at some point?


texts: When is the first recorded instance of someone dying for a principle?

texts:
When we think of martyrs, we often go back to the early Christians as the typical examples - dying for the idea that they should worship one God and no other. Another often quoted example is Socrates - dying for the idea of open enquiry. I know that people have died throughout history but I am looking to see if there are earlier examples that fit the definition:

  a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle.

I'm looking for specific people or groups of people that died a martyr's death (either in historical fact or literature). To attempt to hone the definition further, I am looking for people who placed an idea before their own safety or the safety of their kin and who had the choice to act otherwise.


texts: What was it like to have type 1 diabetes in the early 20th century?

texts: Someone in my family died in 1924 of type 1 diabetes at the age of 26. What would life have been like for her? Would she have been in the hospital frequently? What was the average life-expectancy for someone with type 1 diabetes back then?


texts: Why did the Lead Dart replace the Pilum?

texts:
As I understand it, early through to mid Roman Armies use the javelin style Pilum. I've read that the late Roman army used Lead Darts, or Plumbata, in the same or a very similar fashion.

Was the Plumbata superior to the Pilum in design? Why were Pila phased out in favour of Plumbata?


texts:
How did 2nd century Romans decide where to build Hadrian's wall? It is located exactly at the narrowest east-west section of the island. They had no laser theodolites, lenses, aerial observation methods, or map stores.

Amazingly enough, they built a second more northerly wall at another narrows, so coincidence has to be ruled out.


texts: How do I organise my "What-if" research paper?

texts:
I am a young, inexperienced freshman in high school, and my class has been assigned a short research paper. It involves asking a what-if question regarding historical cause-and-effect (for example, "if Hitler had never been born, would the Holocaust have transpired?"), taking a simple Yes/No stance and then supporting your claims with evidence. To all of those seasoned in these activities, it may seem like cookie-cutter business. But I'm afraid I made a fatal flaw early on.

You see, because our class is naturally unaccustomed to writing long-winded essays where evidence and references reign supreme, the teacher has conveniently broken down the assignment into small, manageable chunks. The topic I chose was, to quote:

"If the Inca empire hadn't suffered a civil war, would the Spanish have been able to conquer them as easily?"

I chose this topic because my nationality lies in Peru, the country from where the empire originated from. But what I find is a conflicting number of sources, both in literature and on the internet.  My original intent was to say "No", and build off from there, but there seems to be an almost equal number of reasons to argue "Yes". I'm even considering switching sides entirely, but I fear doing so will be messy affair, especially since I've already turned in my rough thesis to the teacher.

What I ask for is how some of you professionals handle research papers such as these. If not an immediate quencher of my unquenchable worries, at least it'll give me a sense of direction and boost my meager confidence.


texts: What happened to Mao Zedong's first wife?

texts:
Reading Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow, I noted that Mao Zedong was married four times. His first wife gets only a passing remark in the book. She was called Luo, she was some 4 to 6 years older than Mao, and it was an arranged marriage that Mao did not take seriously.

Googling I found little else other than she died just one or two years later.

Can anyone elaborate on the relationship between Mao and Luo? Also, what happened to her? Why, when and how did she die?


texts: When did Europeans make their first well-attested visit to mainland Alaska?

texts:
To my surprise, I could not find a straightforward answer to this question. When did Europeans first set foot in mainland Alaska? I could easily find that:

Vitus Bering, a Dane of Russian allegiance, was the first in insular Alaska. He and his men reached Kayak island (2 km from the mainland at its nearest point) and Kodiak island (50 km from the mainland) in 1741.
James Cook mapped the coasts of southern Alaska in his third voyage (1776-1780).
The Russians built fort St. George in Kasilof on the Alaskan mainland in 1786.

So it must have happened between 1741 and 1786, but when and by whom?
To be clear, I am more interested in the first factual visit (such and such visited mainland Alaska in 17xx...) than in deductions (such and such must have visited by 17xx...).


texts: Did the "ancients" use lead plates to prevent pain in their knees?

texts:
While reading The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, I came upon the following line:

  Just before tea I told Nantz the anecdote of the ancients using lead plates to prevent pain in their knees, the expression which I use, & which she understands, to mean desire.

It's a conversation between two female lovers, however no sexual act between them is mentioned up to this line.

I have never heard of such a pain-relief device, moreover one that could be understood within a context of "desire".

Searching on Internet on this topic yielded no results. Can anyone shed some light on this?


texts: Is there evidence for the use of the solenarion in late Medieval Ethiopia?

texts:
Shihab al-Umari, an Arab historian of the 14th century, wrote much of what's know of Emperor of Ethiopia Amda Seyon I campaigns against the Muslim States, namely Awfat, Dawaru, Arababni, Hadya, Sharkha, Bali and Dara.

Prof. Taddesse Tamrat cites al-Umari [1] (emphasis mine):

  "their weapons of war are the bow with arrows resembling the nussab;
  swords, spears and lances. Some warriors fight with swords and with
  narrow and long shields. But their principal weapon is the spear which
  resembles a long lance. There are some [warriors] who fling darts
  which are [similar to] short arrows, with a long bow resembling a
  cross-bow."

Now, the way the phrase is worded makes it resembles the description of a solenarion, that is, an arrow-guide used in conjunction with a bow that allows one to shoot really short arrows, seemingly to really long range. This device, used while attached in some places and detached in others, is known under many names among Byzantines ("solenarion", σωληνάριον), Turks ("majra" or "nawak"), Chinese ("tongjian", 筒箭) and Korean ("tong-ah", 통아) sources. I've read similar accounts on ancient Christian Nubia as well, sometimes mentioning poisoned darts.

Is there solid evidence of the use of it among Nubian and or Ethiopian medieval militaries? Perhaps al-Umari or other historian under the Mamluks could have mentioned it in other works.

Alternatively, is the presence of the cross-bow attested in Ethiopia during Amda Seyon I times?

[1] Tamrat, T. (1968). Church and state in Ethiopia, 1270-1527 (Doctoral dissertation, SOAS, University of London).


texts: Did US and Soviet nuclear war policies allow for a pause?

texts:
In the HBO made-for-tv movie "By Dawn's Early Light", the commander of the navy (codename "Harpoon") explains to the US President that USAF nuclear bombers are at their positive check points and await further orders. Asked about why those bombers weren't yet sent for a nuclear strike against Soviet Union, Harpoon responds that it's meant to give a moment of pause and make both sides reconsider their actions.

Does it have any basis in real-life procedures, or was it made up for the movie? For such a procedure to work, it would have to be reflected in analogous Soviet procedure, too.


texts: Forms of address of Roman Magistrates under Constantinus

texts:
In The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon mentions that Roman magistrates under Constantinus the Great had such titles as; your Sincerity, your Gravity, your Excellency, your Eminence, your sublime and wonderful Magnitude, your illustrious and magnificent Highness (Ch. 27 in Volume 2).  I have been trying to find them in the original language with no avail.  I am not even sure if they were originally in Latin or Greek.

A note in Decline and Fall suggests Gibbon took those "wonderful" titles from Notitia Dignitatum.  I have consulted that too, but cannot seem to find anything related.

I hope someone could help me.  Thanks in advance.


texts: How did the Bolsheviks fund their government?

texts:
I came across this from a telegram sent by a Mr. Lindley in Russia to Mr. Balfour in London.—

(Received November 28.)
(Telegraphic.)
Archangel, November 27, 1918.
Principal reason why Bolsheviks have lasted so long is their unlimited supply of paper money, and I venture to recommend particular attention be paid to this side of the problem. This paper money enables them not only to pay their way in Russia but to build up credits abroad, which are to be used to produce chaos in every civilised country. It is the first time in history that an anarchist society has unlimited resources.
I am absolutely convinced nothing is to be gained by having dealings with Bolsheviks. Over and over again they have shown themselves devoid of all scruples, and if it is inconvenient to punish their crimes and rid the world of them by force, the only alternative consistent with self-respect is to treat them like pariahs.

Source: A collection of reports on Bolshevism in Russia
Great Britain. Foreign Office.
April 1919
So, a major source of revenue for the Bolsheviks was the unlimited printing of paper money.
Another major source was declaring anyone with anything worth taking to be an "enemy of the people", executing them, then taking all their stuff. But both those sources seem to have built in limits. You run out of people to execute and dispossess and, at some point, paper money will launch hyperinflation.
What other sources did they have? The starving population wasn't going to be able to pay much in the way of taxes.


texts: Did any relevant Mexican authority ever acknowledge the secession of Texas before the start of the Mexican-American War?

texts: I am an amateur historian with only a couple days' research under my belt, but I am putting together a theory that paints the Mexican-American War as a war of purely American aggression (Texas as the Crimea of the U.S.). Perhaps this theory has already been accepted by historians?