texts: What went into an Edo-era Hyakkumonogatari Kaidankai?

texts:
I was looking for information on the Edo-era parlour game hyakkumonogatari kaidankai. I found a lot of academic sources about kaidan themselves (the history, spread, adaption, influence, etc.) But at a certain point I realised there was almost nothing on the actual game part for any time or social class, except for the same handful of rules that have persisted to the modern day. I realise some of these answers are probably lost to time, but I would be interested to know... anything on the subject, really! (Unless I'm going about this all wrong, which is always a possibility ^^;)
In general, what I couldn’t find was information on the event as a social engagement - what was expected of the host? Given that it was at least somewhat expected to be an over-night event, how early were invitees expected to arrive, and when were they expected to leave? Was there a party/food before or after? Who got invited? What level of formality would/could they be? Did women of any class/period participate in kaidankai similar to men's? If not (or in addition) - did their have their own variations on kaidankai? Did they share the same kaidan as the men, or was there a gendered repertoire like some European magic tale traditions?
Bonus question: was this ever a practice in Ryukyu/Okinawa? If it is/was, when was it imported?


texts: What were the Nazi racial views on Hungarians and the Japanese?

texts:
Hungary and Japan were Nazi Germany's allies during WWII, yet it could not possibly be argued that the Japanese belong to the "Aryan race", and Hungarians speak a non-Indo-European language, which probably disqualifies them as Aryans too. Did the German propaganda try to account for that? Were there any statements from the Nazi officials or scholars regarding the racial status of the Hungarian and Japanese people?

Additionally, considering that the Nazi leaders planned enslavement and subsequent extermination of Poles on racial grounds, were any analogous statements made about Russians during the time the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact held? What about other Axis or pro-Axis Slavic nations such as Slovaks or Bulgarians?


texts: Did the Governor of Virginia in 1786 have the authority to veto laws passed by the Virginia General Assembly?

texts: I believe that the Act for Establishing Religious Freedom was passed by the Virginia General Assembly on January 16, 1786.  Did the Governor of Virginia at the time have the right to veto it?


texts: Troy: How could a city be built on top of an older one?

texts:
As far as I know, archaeological excavation discovered several layers of the city of Troy, each one built on top of the ruins of the older ones.

I just can imagine how that might have happened.

One possibility: The old ruins are so completely covered by mud or sand that the people building the new city just do not notice them. Or if they notice, they do not care since the old stones deep below ground do not inconvenience them, even when digging cellars.

That might happen once or twice I guess, but several times seems very unlikely to me. How long does it take for a layer of mud or sand to reach the necessary height?

Another possibility: The old city is destroyed or abandoned, but the ruins are still visible above ground. What would new settlers do? Either remove the old stones to get level ground for new buildings, or even use the old stones for the new buildings. Either way, hardly anything would be left of the old city, and very little for archeologists to dig up.

So that seems also unlikely.

What am I missing, how did it actually happen?

EDIT:

Thanks for the link to Formation of underground layers of Rome, that's almost a duplicate I guess, but since my basic problem is not answered there, I'll try to state it more precisely:

The answers so far seem to suggest the following process: The ruins are still visible, but the ground around them has risen several feet. Digging up the old stones would only create a deep hole in the ground which had to be filled again if you want a building on the new ground level: That is considered too much effort, especially if the old stones are considered not very useful as building material anymore (For mud-bricks I get that, but for Roman stones it is harder to understand). So the rubble is levelled into a flat building site and the new building is erected on top of it.

That leaves the following points unclear to me:

1) If the rubble is levelled, can it really form a stable building site? I can only imagine that if the old stones are covered with a layer of earth to form a flat surface. Doing that seems unlikely if the new surface is much higher than the ground around the building.

2) Would levelling the old rubble not destroy most archaeological traces? Why is still so much left to discover?

3) If the earth around the building rises higher and higher over centuries: Why exactly does that happen? Does it happen also outside cities? If only in cities: Is the accumulating dirt brought by wind or river floods? That seems unlikely for cities built on hills. Or is it formed by human waste? How can I imagine that: Garbage heaps beside the streets getting higher and higher and composting into earth that spills over onto the street itself where it is simply trampled down so that the street level rises, and the inhabitants don't care? What if the street is paved?


texts: When did the hypocrisy to call a dictatorship "free, democratic, republic etc." start?

texts:
If we take a look at country designations, with depressing regularity the most repressive ones call themselves e.g.:

Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)
Democratic Republic of the Congo
German Democratic Republic
Democratic Kampuchea

If you look at the Human Development Index the last entries always begin officially with "Republic of". There are also exceptions: "Republic of Botswana" or "Federal Republic of Germany" have a good record while there are also autocratic kingdoms like Saudi Arabia in contrast to parliamentary ones (United Kingdom, Netherlands, Denmark).

Is this a relatively new phenomenon in the wake of ideologies which promised to build a better system after the demise of feudalism and the outgrowth of the Industrial Revolution, or are there precedents? In history we often do not learn the full designation of countries or state-like entities.


texts:
Thus reads Wikipedia:

  In Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard III (1768),
  Walpole defended Richard III against the common belief that he
  murdered the Princes in the Tower. In this he has been followed by
  other writers, such as Josephine Tey and Valerie Anand. This work,
  according to Emile Legouis, shows that Walpole was "capable of
  critical initiative".

A while ago, I actually read the book in question and it seemed like an impressive piece of research. However, I haven't been able to find serious scholarly engagement with Walpole's work. Could it be that no professional historians noticed his well-known book for ~250 years? Or am I not looking at the right place? (I tried Google Scholar.)

UPDT: The bounty is expiring soon... hurry up... :)


texts: What happened to all the Germans living east of the Oder?

texts:
After the second world war, what happened to all the Germans living east of the Oder? I mean, are all the descendants of the Germans living in Danzig, Breslau, Königsberg, etc., concentrated in a certain area in today's Germany? Or are they scattered through out the country fully integrated?

Did they live in East Germany during the cold war?


texts: What were the borders of Egypt from 1798 to 1803?

texts:
It's very hard for me to find the borders for French Egypt during the time of Napoleon 1798-1803.

Specially the southern borders of Egypt where did they go?


texts: Switzerland's political isolation after World War II

texts: Does anyone know what were the reasons of Switzerland's political isolation on the international scene after World War II and how did it manage to break out of isolation?


texts: What was the purpose of tunnel fighting in a 17th century siege?

texts:
Since I watched the movie Alatriste, and wondered what was the usage of tunnel fighting in the 17th century, as can be seen in the Hulst siege scene.

I am aware that in medieval times, tunnels (or saps) could be dug to get close to the foundation of the walls and towers, enabling experienced engineers to knock them down (using pigs on fire, for example). However, common sense tells me that these techniques were not worth the effort in later centuries.


texts: Is eenie meenie miney mo about lynching?

texts: I've been trying to google eenie meenie miney mo, and have found pages like http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=167023.  What I was wondering is, in the original racist version, why does it say 'catch a (bleep) by its toe'?  Is that something to do with lynching?


texts: Did the Hanseatic league have any involvement with Jews?

texts: Did the Hanseatic League have any policy toward or involvement with Jews?


texts: What was the de facto rule by which the imperial title was transmitted in various Chinese dynasties?

texts:
I seek to find information about which rules or trends - if any - applied in Chinese imperial succession during different dynasties.

I found this source, but I can’t get access and what I see in the preview seems largely mythological:

For the historical times, the information seems only broadly accurate. From what I know, which Wikipedia confirms, the founding Ming emperor, the Hongwu Emperor, designated the eldest son as heir. Said heir died and Hongwu contemplated breaking his own rules, which called for primogeniture, but in the end he designated his grandson, the Jianwen Emperor. But he was overthrown by his uncle, the Yongle Emperor, so primogeniture can not have been absolutely followed.

What were the rules of succession during the different dynasties and in what fraction of successions did they really apply?

The times before Qin don’t really matter to me. Let’s also exclude the Yuan dynasty with their tanistry regulations and compare at least two other dynasties.

Edit 2

I remembered this book by Timothy Brook, which seems to contradict the above, when saying:

  he [the Emperor] was constrained by centuries of ritual institutions that laid down the rules regarding who could be emperor (the eldest son of the previous emperor) and how he could conduct himself.

I am still re-reading it, but seem to remember the central claim, that China, which as an agrarian society had favoured primogeniture for stability, inherited from the Mongols an element of tanistry. Tanistry being defined as

  the practice of brothers competing with one another to succeed their father

Edit 1

Autocorrect made a grave mistake in the title and someone kindly came along and edited it, as was necessary. But in the process a vital point of the question was lost, namely that I am interested in the rules and what happened de facto and how much of a discrepancy there is.

For example, as I outlined above, the Ming founder decided to opt for a theoretical rule of primogeniture, thereby going against the general trend in China. But in the case of Yongle this rule was broken. How often was primogeniture actually implemented during the Ming?

Different example: the author above claims that the Qing followed a policy of secret designation by the reigning emperor. Did it translate into fact? If the succession was by primogeniture or military power in 90% of the cases, that might have been the de facto rule.


texts: Why isnt William of Orange considered to have conquered England?

texts: I've always heard, colloquially, that the last successful invasion of England was in 1066. It seems to me that William of Orange, although the grandson of Charles I, was Dutch. It also seems like he invaded England and took the throne from the House of Stuart.


texts: As many Germans fled Nazism, did some spies mix in?

texts:
Many German citizens fled Germany in the 1930s to escape persecution or discrimination. Some among them got jobs in the industry, or other potentially sensitive positions. Albert Einstein obtained refugee status in 1933, and has been cited as having some kind of influence that eventually lead to the Manhattan Project.

QUESTION: Did some German spies mix among the refugees in order to infiltrate key positions in the USA or other countries?

According to my prior research, the Duquesne Spy Ring did not contain any people who came as refugees (double-check needed), but maybe other rings did?

Opinions were apparently divided, with Wikipedia saying the following (citing Lanouette & Silard 1992, pp. 238–242):

  [...] the director of the Manhattan Project, Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., moved to dismiss Szilard, who was still a German citizen, but the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, refused to do so.


texts: US Congress in WW2 Compared with other legislative bodies

texts:
As a British A Level Modern History student, I know that the British Parliament came together in a National Government, or a coalition of all parties during World War 2 and with the exception of a few minor disagreements they stayed pretty much united until Germany's surrender in 1945.

I also know that the German Reichstag was united under the Nazis (albeit a forced unity), also both the Japanese and Soviet governments were united in their support of the war effort.

This supports a basic premise that these nations put everything they could toward the war effort, to the extent that ideology and philosophy was irrelevant in most cases.

However I do not know about the USA during this time. We hear a lot about the strong leadership of FDR and Truman, However we rarely (in Britain anyway) hear anything about Congress during this time.

Were the parties united?

I feel from my knowledge of the US system, that the parties would have carried on with partisan politics and ignored much of the war as it was happening to far away for many of them to care, but I can image that certain commitees would have been involved, (Senate Armed Forces, Intelligence etc.).

During WWII, did Congress show solidarity with the President?


texts: More Scientific Discoveries Outside Academia Past 50 Years?

texts: I heard someone claim there have been more scientific discoveries outside of academia, in industry, the past 50 years than in academia. Is this true? Has anyone tried to quantify this?


texts: How many people were beheaded by the Guillotine in France during the French Revolution (1789-1794)?

texts:
Concerning the period of the Thermidorian Reaction we find Carlyle in his "A History" reporting the following:

  This Convention, now grown Anti-Jacobin,did,with an eye to justify and
  fortify itself, publish Lists of what the Reign of Terror had
  perpetrated: Lists of Persons Guillotined. The Lists, cries splenetic
  Abbe Montgaillard, were not complete. They contain the names of, How
  many persons thinks the reader?—Two Thousand all but a few. There were
  above Four Thousand, cries Montgaillard: so many were
  guillotined... of whom Nine
  Hundred were women. (Montgaillard, iv. 241.) It is a horrible sum of
  human lives, M. l’Abbe:—some ten times as many shot rightly on a field
  of battle, and one might have had his Glorious-Victory with Te-Deum.
  It is not far from the two-hundredth part of what perished in the
  entire Seven Years War. By which Seven Years War, did not the great
  Fritz wrench Silesia from the great Theresa; and a Pompadour, stung by
  epigrams, satisfy herself that she could not be an Agnes Sorel? The
  head of man is a strange vacant sounding-shell, M. l’Abbe; and studies
  Cocker to small purpose.

A careful reading of Carlyle indicates that he himself seems to scoff at the notion that less than two thousand (or even four thousand) were Guillotined. And from many other places in his book, it appears clear that there were far more victims of the guillotine. He mentions Forty Four thousand revolutionary committees all over France, collecting prisoners and sending them to Paris to be guillotined, as well as bands of Jacobins traversing all of France with portable guillotines that they would set up in the town square where they arrived, and haul in their victims to be beheaded - whole families at once, men women and children.

And we find a parade of "tumbrils" traversing the streets of Paris, carrying their victims to the guillotine, containing ten, twenty and as many as sixty at a time, for months on end or perhaps even a year.

The Revolutionaries also set up facilities for putting to use the human remains of their victims:

  One other thing, or rather two other things, we will still mention;
  and no more: The Blond Perukes; the Tannery at Meudon. Great talk
  is of these Perruques blondes: O Reader, they are made from the
  Heads of Guillotined women! The locks of a Duchess, in this way, may
  come to cover the scalp of a Cordwainer: her blond German Frankism his
  black Gaelic poll, if it be bald. Or they may be worn affectionately,
  as relics; ren- dering one suspect? (Mercier, ii. 134.) Citizens use
  them, not without mockery; of a rather cannibal sort. Still deeper
  into one’s heart goes that Tannery at Meudon; not mentioned among the
  other miracles of tanning! ‘At Meudon,’ says Montgaillard with
  considerable calmness, ‘there was a Tannery of Human Skins; such of
  the Guillotined as seemed worth flaying: of which perfectly good
  wash-leather was made:’ for breeches, and other uses. The skin of the
  men, he remarks, was superior in toughness (consistance) and quality
  to shamoy;

This seems to indicate that there were far more than two thousand victims - these wigs and 'leather' products appear to have been fairly widespread, and it would hardly have been worth the trouble to set up such operations at all for only one thousand victims (one thousand men and one thousand women).

When I considered the number, it seemed to me that 100,000 would be a conservative estimate. If each of the 44,000 councils sent only one to the guillotine, we already have 44,000. Do we have a clear reckoning (not a simple count but an accounting) of how many heads were actually felled by guillotine during the Revolution?


texts: Is there any historicity to the concept of Ghost Fences / Walls?

texts:
A Ghost Wall or Fence is a concept I keep coming across in historical fiction set around the Iron Age or Sub-Roman Britain. Generally, it appears as a boundary made of deceased peoples bones to either keep spirits enclosed or to ward off outside intrusion.
I first came across it in Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles, a Historical Fiction novel set in Sub-Roman Britain following one of Arthur's warriors as they try to defend against Saxon incursions, we see it used in the line:

Powys's levy stayed on the hill, too scared to cross the ghost fence, …

and:

'A ghost fence might deter the enemy', Taliesin remarked when he had
chanted a prayer for the four burning men whose souls were drifting
with the smoke to find their shadowbodies.

Later on, a version (at least in name and function) of it appears in The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind where it is used as such:

The Great Ghost Fence (usually shortened to simply 'the Ghostfence')
was an enormous shield-like wall surrounding the crater of Red
Mountain. Developed to keep the Blight and Corprus monsters contained
within the Red Mountain Region, …

And most recently it appears as the title for Sarah Moss's latest book 'Ghost Wall', the Evening Standard's review of it even states that:

A ghost wall is an Iron Age form of defence, where tribes laid skulls
out to scare invaders.

The only (pseudo) historical reference I've been able to find is an entry in the Annála Uladh for the year 561 that looks like it could have inspired later writers:

U561.2
The battle of Cúil Dreimne. It was Fraechán, son of Teimnén, who made the druidic 'fence' for Diarmait. Tuatán son of Dimán son of Sárán son of Cormac son of Eógan cast the druidic 'fence' over them. Maglaine leaped over it and he alone was killed.

I've quickly surveyed Aldhouse-Green's writings (if anyone were going to write about this I strongly guess it'd be her)  without any luck nor have I come across any excavation reports describing any similar structures for Iron Age, Roman, or Sub-Roman Britain.
Does anyone know of any archaeological or historical evidence in Iron Age to Sub-Roman Britain for this practice as described? Or is this a purely literary invention and if so does it originate with Cornwell?


texts: Were new forms of communication and media usually condemned similar to how television/video games are now?

texts: I'm sure anyone who is reading this has read at least an article, blog, or book condemning the consumption of television and video games as harmful to children, the behavior of teenagers, intelligence of adults, and bringing down civilization as we know it. I am curious to know, is this a new cultural trend or have new media always met similar resistance?


texts: Do medieval historic references to "Semites" refer to Jews or to speakers of Semitic in general?

texts:
In medieval times, we often read of Semitic pogroms and expulsions etc., for example in Spain, or after the Black Death. Do the original sources refer specifically to "Semites" or to "Jews"? And if Semites, do they mean "Jews" or "Arabs/Moors"?

This question was suggested by the observation that such anti-Semitic calls seem to coincide with the advance of the Ottomans, for example in the late fourteenth century, the fall of Constantinople, etc. Spanish, French, and English royalty often worked with Semites as bankers, so they did not have any incentive to expel them. Rather it seems that such calls originated from bottom up, so to speak.

To take a specific example, in Spain, there must have been many families who were originally Muslim, and who probably still spoke Arabic. If a preacher condemned Jews, wouldn't it be natural to include Muslims as well? Were they also massacred along with the Jews in 1366 and 1391?


texts: How close was the Soviet Union to collapsing during WW2?

texts: Are there any sources or reports which explain how close the country was to collapsing under the Nazi assault? By 'collapse' I mean 'completely lacking either the willpower (as seen by France in 1940 after the fall of Paris and the collapse of the line on the Somme) or ability (as seen by Poland as they ran out of territory to defend) such that they would not be able to amount any effective defense and need to sue for peace as soon as possible'?


texts: When did independent Mexico start trading with Asia?

texts:
Throughout the 17th and 18th century Spanish galleons shipped Chinese goods from Manila to Acapulco. After Mexican independence, Spain retained the Philippines and the galleons no longer crossed the Pacific.

The designated Committee for the Development of California recommended the creation of an "Asiatic-Mexican Company" to trade across similar Pacific routes [Reynolds: Principal Actions of the California Junta de Fomento]. The Committee represented that only a government monopoly would be able to invest enough, and bear enough risk, to trade across the Pacific Ocean. The Company was never founded, but transoceanic trade with Peru and Hawaii did happen regularly in the 1820s and 1830s.

When did the Mexican state or Mexican companies begin direct trade with Asian countries?


texts: Who started the "katana is the soul of the Samurai" meme?

texts: Samurai used to be defined by their ability to use horses and bows in the early history of Japan.  This moved to using the sword, first tachi then katana.  Within the Tokugawa period, the katana became an almost mythical status and spiritual symbol -- as far as I know.  But who started the meme that the katana is a reflection of the soul of the samurai?


texts: Did Man Ray photograph Nimet Eloui Bey in the all together?

texts:
I'm currently researching the photographer and model Lee Miller and the photographers, painters and models she knew, as well as anyone else to whom she was close.
One of the people Miller was closest to in her life was, of course, her first husband Aziz Eloui Bey. Their union involved an interesting four-way meeting of hearts. Eloui Bey was still married to his first wife when he met Miller, the model Nimet Eloui Bey. Miller was also attached, being in an intimate relationship with the photographer and painter Man Ray. It's well known that the other two vertices of this love quadrilateral knew each other: Man Ray photographed Nimet, clothed, several times. I was curious about just how familiar this relationship became, hence my question: Did Man Ray ever photograph Nimet in the all together? (Did anyone?)
Here's what I've managed to find in my research so far:

I've found one of Man Ray's nude studies which looks like it might depict Nimet. You can view it here. (Be warned that, while the image in question is artistic rather than pornographic, it does nevertheless depict a woman fully nude.)
The only information about the above image that I could find stated that it was taken around 1935.
According to Carolyn Burke's Lee Miller: A Life, Nimet threatened her husband Aziz Aloui Bey with suicide when he left her for Miller. I remember reading one - admittedly not very reputable - article stating that she did in fact take her own life. Meanwhile, according to Anthony Penrose's The Lives of Lee Miller, Nimet drank herself to death in a hotel room in 1932. Was she alive at the time the above nude photograph was taken?
If she was alive at the time, is there any other reason why she couldn't be the woman in the above nude photograph?

I'll leave you with a clothed portrait of Nimet, with her head in a similar position to that in the unclothed portrait I linked to above. (Numerous other pictures of her face are available by Googling "Nimet Eloui Bey".)

A snip showing the face from the linked photo for comparison:


texts: How area of a country used to be calculated?

texts:
Before satellites and other modern techniques, how the area of countries/territories/regions used to be calculated?

I can understand that plotting boundaries is an easier task, even without the advanced technologies we have today. However, finding the area is a much more complicated task because of uneven terrain, forests and buildings/structures etc.


texts: Who kept official records in 19th century America?

texts:
I'm curious about records and archives in America during the 19th century. Was there any record keeping done? Who did it? Was there a place people could have gone to view public records?

For example records involving the law - were they kept somehow? Criminal records or crime reports?

And I know the government during this time period started keeping birth and death certificates - who was doing this?

Also were there libraries archiving newspapers this early?

I'm just curious I guess how information was stored and maintained, especially in smaller towns out west. Was this a concept that didn't really exist back then?


texts: Why iron is not discussed more as a probable cause of "Bronze age collapse"?

texts:
Most discussed possible causes for Bronze Age Collapse are

Climate change

Droughts (either natural, or caused by deforestation)
Volcanic eruption

Sea People

But Bonze Age Collapse is also begining of Iron age. It seem rather obvious question to ask if the main cause was the iron itself?

At high-shool I heave heard that Dorians who invaded Mycenean Greece and Crete were equipped by iron weapons. But I never saw this discussed more broadly in context of Bronze Age Collapse in general (Egypt, Hittite, Assyria ...).

Were military and socio-economic changes caused by spread of iron technology (similarly as European colonialism and industrial revolution, end of feudalism are strongly connected to technological disruption and caused collapse of large empires - Ottoman, Mugdal India, Qing China ... )

I don't speak so much about iron weapons being superior to bronze weapons, or about invaders (sea people) heaving particularly good iron weapons.

What I find more reasonable, is to consider that centralized power-structure of these societies was build around control of these rare resources (bronze,copper,tin). When iron started to spread, they loose "monopoly on power" and failed to adjust.

EDIT:

The conection of Broze age collapse with ironworking is discussed to some degree
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse#Ironworking

Nevertheless, considering how obvious this question is for an outsider (i.e. not profesional archeologist or historian) I would assume, historians would spend more time explaining why this is not the primary hypothesis.


texts: How many Old Bolsheviks outlived Stalin?

texts:
The term "Old Bolshevik" refers to those who joined the Bolshevik party before the Russian Revolution of 1917.  According to D. A. Chygayev (as quoted by Mark Deutsch), in 1922 there were 44,148 living Old Bolsheviks.  It is known that many of these were targeted by the Great Purge of the 1930s.  Some sources go far as to say that nearly all of them were prosecuted and/or executed.

However, there do seem to be exceptions.  Elena Stasova, for example, was a member of the Bolsheviks from the beginning, and served on the Central Committee before and during the revolution.  She was untouched by the purge, retired peacefully in 1946, and died twenty years later.

Are there any estimates of the exact number of Old Bolsheviks who, like Stasova, survived the purges (i.e., were never charged, or were charged but fully acquitted) and outlived Stalin?  If not, is there at least a list of some of the more notable ones?


texts: Did Mete Khan and Hsiung-nu serve the Chinese Emperor?

texts:
I was reading Nicolae Jorga's "History of Ottoman Empire vol. 1" and he gave information that Mete Khan, who freed Hsiung-nu people from the rule of Yue-chi, was a servant of the Chinese Emperor. But at the bottom of the page there is an editorial note saying, "During the time of Mete Khan, Huns were not serving China".

Common sense dictates that Mete Khan is, of course he wasn't serving China but from where did Jorga have the idea?


texts: What was the longest a World War II submarine stayed at sea without being resupplied at a port?

texts:
The US Balao-class and Gato-class submarines had enough provisions to stay on patrol for 75 days under normal operating conditions. Information on other long-range submarines has proved hard to find, although this site mentions that British O, P and R class submarines had a range of 20,000 miles, but there is no mention of actual or possible duration at sea without being resupplied. What I am looking for here is the longest period submariners went without being able to set foot on (friendly) land.

The US navy had submarine tenders (supply ships, nod to justCal's comment) which could supply submarines at sea, which opens up the possibility of greatly increasing the aforementioned period of 75 days for some US subs. The Germans also had at least one submarine tender, the SS Saar, which was operational throughout the war. Thus, submarine crews could have remained at sea for extended periods during WWII without being able to set foot on land for some R & R.

What is the most number of days that a submarine remained at sea during WWII without going to a port to be resupplied (but which may have been resupplied at sea by supply ships)?

Also, were there any submarines of other navies (British, German, Japanese, Russian) which could stay at sea longer than this (75 days) without being resupplied? By 'could', I mean under relatively normal operating conditions (i.e. without the crew resorting to such extreme measures as drawing of straws / cannibalism, as suggested by Scott's comment).


texts: Why didn't Pakistan try to wrest Kashmir from India in 1962 but tried to do so in 1965?

texts:
In 1962, India and China fought a war in a region east of Bhutan where the two countries shared a border. Am I right? And, in that war, the Indian army was totally outclassed by the Chinese, something even the Indian sources admit.

However, there was no attempts from Pakistan --- during the Indo-China in 1962 --- to try to wrest Kashmir (or part of it) from India, although a military dictator, named Ayyub Khan, was all-and-all here in Pakistan. I have even learned that even the Chinese urged Pakistan to try to seize the initiative, but the USA clearly warned Pakistan against indulging in any such adventure.

On the other hand, about three years later, in 1965, that very General Ayub Khan made the Pakistani Army to launch an incursion into Kashmir, which led India to push its army across the Radcliffe Line into the Pakistani Punjab, thus starting a 17-day war in September 1965.

Zulfiqaar Ali Bhutto's name is also mentioned amongst either those who provoked Ayyub to launch an adventure in 1965 or amongst those who were cross with Ayyub for not taking the opportunity offered by the Chinese in 1962.

Now I am wondering why did Gen. Ayyub Khan did in 1965, three years after the India-China 1962 war, what he did not do in 1962?

Why did Ayyub wait three years to allow the Indian army to regroup and recover from the reverses they had suffered at the hands of the Chinese in 1962?

Is it mere a tactical blunder and a political / military miscalculation? Or, was there some sort of self-centered traitorous intent at play that led the Pakistani leadership of the time to commit such follies?

I would appreciate any references (in the form of authentic and well-rated books, articles, documentaries, etc) on the relevant chains of events in this whole episode.

PS:

It is a plain fact that the Indian Army is, and has been, much larger than the Pakistani Army; so Pakistan simply could not afford to take on India unless the latter was engaged in something else, as the case in 1962. So it is all the more foolish on the part of the military leadership in Pakistan to even contemplate what they actually did in 1965. Am I right?


texts: Has a government ever been elected with the full 100% of the votes?

texts:
In recent history, many Dictatorships have been elected with unbelievable results. For example Al Sisi in Egypt with 96,6 % of the votes, or  Abd al-Rab Mansur al-Hadi in Yemen with 99,8%.

I would like to know whether a government/president has ever been elected with 100% of the votes.

It doesn't matter whether the state is recognized or de facto exists.
It doesn't need to be proven that the elections were rigged either, although information about this is welcome.
I am looking for elections for the head, government or parliament of an independent state though, so not small political entities within countries where say all 15 inhabitants voted for the same guy.


texts: What factors contributed to Jews moving out of the Middle East?

texts: History shows that the Jews started moving out of the Middle East in the 1000s? Until then there were no major Jewish centers outside the Middle East (Babylon, Egypt, etc.) except for Rome. By the 1100's, most Jewish activity took place in Western Europe. What factors contributed to this transition?


texts: What are some cases where a country bought land from another country, other than the United States?

texts: Most of the examples have to do with the United States, like Alaska, the Louisiana Purchase, etc. What are some purchases of land in history that involved other countries?


texts: Codification of Sharia by the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century

texts:
The wikipedia entry about Rashidun Caliphate says:

  According to Noah Feldman, a law professor at Harvard University, the legal scholars and jurists who once upheld the rule of law were replaced by a law governed by the state due to the codification of Sharia by the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century:

The citation provided for the above quote refers to this article which says:

  In the early 19th century, the Ottoman empire responded to military
  setbacks with an internal reform movement. The most important reform
  was the attempt to codify Shariah. This Westernizing process, foreign
  to the Islamic legal tradition, sought to transform Shariah from a
  body of doctrines and principles to be discovered by the human efforts
  of the scholars into a set of rules that could be looked up in a book.

  Once the law existed in codified form, however, the law itself was
  able to replace the scholars as the source of authority. Codification
  took from the scholars their all-important claim to have the final say
  over the content of the law and transferred that power to the state.
  To placate the scholars, the government kept the Shariah courts
  running but restricted them to handling family-law matters.

When did (exactly what year) this "codification of Sharia" happen? And how did this affect the rule of law in the Ottoman Empire?


texts: What kind of gas caused the end of excavations/tunneling of the "villa of the papyrii" in the 18th century?

texts: The reason why excavations of the Villa of the papyrii in Herculaneum had to end is usually cited to be "gas invading the tunnels". That is a common problem in coal mining. However, volcanic deposits, unlike coal, do not release toxic gas. What kind of gas is this referring to?


texts:
During the "Heroic Age" of Antarctic exploration (roughly 1890 to 1920), did any expeditions use coal as a fuel or heat source?  I'm not just asking what they carried while walking in the interior, I'm interested in what they used at their stationary encampments on the coast as well.

Comparing the success and failure of different expeditions, methods of transportation and keeping warm are believed to have made quite a difference.


texts: Mudéjar revolt of 1264–66: how were the Mudéjars armed?

texts:
In the Mudéjar revolt of 1264–66, the recently conquered Muslim subjects (also called Mudéjars) in Castile rebelled against the crown, and were helped by the Muslim Kingdom of Granada. In the beginning, the rebels took towns with garrison and castles, e.g. Jerez as well as "three hundred cities, great towns and castles" (probably an exaggeration, but still).

Other than the outside forces of Granada, which might be substantial because it is an independent kingdom, how were the rebelling Muslim subjects themselves armed? Given that they were able to take cities and castles, I assume they were quite well-armed. Did they have swords, pikes, bows? How about cavalry? What kind of siege weapons did they have, if any? How did they get it, was it normal for them to have access to these as Castile's subjects?


texts: What was the significance of the term "Lollard" in describing religious dissenters?

texts: When John Wycliffe's followers gained support from the common people, why did the church call them Lollards? What does Lollard mean? Why didn't they just call them Wycliffites?


texts: What are the historical reasons for religious and political negative attitudes towards homosexuality?

texts:
First of all, let me say that I know this is a very delicate issue. In no way should my question be seen as an attempt to endorse negative attitudes towards the LGTB community. I am seeking objective, historical evidence; not speculation or personal opinion.

According to this Wikipedia article, "many forms of religion, including the Eastern faiths and Abrahamic faiths, do not support gay sex. Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism, Mormonism, Orthodox Judaism and Islam hold the view that gay sex is a sin and that its practice and acceptance in society weakens moral standards and undermines the family."

Moreover, according a 2009 report by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, 80 countries in the world consider homosexuality illegal, with five of them punishing homosexual acts with death.

It seems that the movement to push for the acceptance of LGTB rights is recent when compared to a relatively long history of religious and political entities holding negative attitudes towards homosexuality.

What are some of the historical reasons behind this?


texts: Did American forces specifically target officers during the revolutionary war?

texts:
There is a story that says that American revolutionaries fought unconventionally against the British, including targeting their officers, which was not done between European forces.

Is this true or is it a myth? If it is a myth, what factors may have lead to and sustained it?

Sources:

WikiAnswers says it's true and due to long range rifles used by colonists; previously weapons were incapable of such accuracy.
This forum thread says it's a myth from History Channel


texts: British occupations in Europe during the Napoleonic wars

texts:
It's hard to find information about the British occupations in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars, specially after 1812.

Were Belgium, Mallorca, Sicily and/or Sardinia occupied by the British?

I know that the British attempted to invade Corsica but failed.


texts: Why did the German Military and Police not intervene during the years of NSDAP ascend?

texts:
I am currently following a free course provided by the Open University which features a brief timeline on the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler.

This timeline dates Hitler's entry into politics to 1920, 13 years before the Enabling Act.

As early as 1923, armed putsch attempts are made by the NSDAP and here, the police steps in, showing loyalty to the government.

I read further sources on the Enabling Act of 1933 and if get them correctly, coercion (e.g by armed SA staff) was used to a great extent to persuade delegates of other parties to vote for the Act. Members of the KPD were even detained (and / or murdered?) to neutralize them.

Why did armed, governmental forces not step in here, anymore?

I do understand that in the interjacent years, a good deal of Germans gained confidence in the NSDAP and that, naturally, a considerable portion of the forces must have supported the ascending Hitler. But given the fact that in early 1933 only a third of Reichstag seats were held by the NSDAP, I deduce that a significant share of personnel must have been at least in doubt about the party's ambitions.

So, why did the German Military and Police not intervene during the years of NSDAP ascend?


texts: How could Poles from Kresy be enough to repopulate entire regions of Poland?

texts:
After the second World War, Poland's borders moved about 200km to the west due to the demands of Stalin. Poles located in the east of their country had to resettle to the western lands newly "acquired" from Germany. Areas which were repopulated by Poles from the formerly-eastern polish regions (also called Kresy) include:

Warsaw, whose population was almost entirely decimated during the war
Gdańsk, who only had a small minority of ~10% Polish people during the war
Szczecin and Pomerania, which was entirely German before the war
Mazuria, although there was people speaking a Polish dialect most of them considered themselves German so they had to leave
Eastern Brandeburg
Most of Silesia, including it's former capital Wrocław

In addition to that, many places which were already in pre-war Poland were completely burned-down by Nazis so they had to be re-populated as well, such as Warsaw. Those repopulated regions were very large close to 1/3 of modern Poland, and include 4 major cities (Warsaw, Gdańsk, Szczecin, Wrocław), and even more minor cities.

However, the majority of the Kresy were already populated by Bielarussian and Ukrainians prior to the war. Poles were already in minority in those regions, except in cities. So people who could resettle those lands came from:

Wilno
Lwów
Minor cities

I fail to see how could people from 2 major cities could suffice repopulate 4 major cities

(This question is purposely similar to my previous question about sudetenland)


texts: Where can I find clean maps of colonial America?

texts:
I have been trying to find maps of North America with the various territories, but the closest I can find are actual maps made from that time.

Where can I find clean, modern (projection) maps of North America from the 1600's onward?


texts: Did anyone ever use comedy as a combat tactic?

texts:
Fighters are known to use war-cries, taunts, gestures and postures before engaging their enemy in order to increase their own adrenaline or to intimidate the enemy or throw off their concentration.

A Chinese emperor once conscripted criminal prisoners to approach the enemy and then commit suicide in order to mortify the enemy.

Is there any historic account of trying to make the enemy laugh as a diversion tactic?


texts: What police uniforms are being worn in the film "Alone in Berlin"?

texts:
I recently saw the film Alone in Berlin starring Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson. It is a fictionalised account of the novel Every man dies alone by Hans Fallada, based on the true life story of Otto and Elise Hempel.

The Hempels, having lost their only child, their son Hans, in combat, in grief and desperation conduct a hopeless personal campaign against the Nazi state.

The film is an excellent period drama, and went to some length to provide authenticity of 1940s surroundings, in street, public environment, and domestic scenery.

During the course of the film two different police forces are involved - regular plain clothes police, and the SS. (It did seem surprising that the SS would have been messing with such relatively small-time dissent. I would have expected investigations to have been overseen by the Gestapo.) However the SS officers were not wearing their characteristic black uniforms, but grey-blue tunics and darkish trousers. To me this seemed more to resemble the Wehrmacht uniform.

Is there a historian of Nazi Germany who might be able to explain why the Gestapo would not have been involved, and why the SS were not wearing black tunics?


texts: What is the age of the oldest written proof of Christianity?

texts: I don't mean the approximate time when a certain book in the bible was probably written but the age of the oldest copy of a book in the new testament, or other corroborating literature.


texts: What's the last record of pagan believers in Europe?

texts:
When was the last group of pagans wiped out? I'm interested in mainland Europe and the British isles, not fringe areas like Greenland.

Edit: I am talking about authentic, contiguous, non Abrahamic religion.


texts: How was Canadian sovereignty in the arctic threatened in the 1950s?

texts:
Wikipedia article on the settlement of Grise Fiord in the Canadian Arctic strongly suggests that Canada in the 1950s was striving to populate its arctic territory in response to challenges to its sovereignty.

I had always assumed Canadian control of everything between Greenland and Alaska was undisputed. In what ways were other nations or organisations seeking to undermine Canadian sovereignty in the area?


texts: What are the Ancient Egyptian words for these concepts?

texts: I just want to know what words ancient Egyptians might have used for "country", "nation", "state", "kingdom", and "empire" (especially empire), preferably in their oldest forms. Can anybody help me out with that?


texts: How was library classification done in English-speaking libraries prior to the 19th century?

texts:
I was reading about major library classification systems. The major one in English-speaking lands seems to be the Dewey Decimal Classification system, which was invented in 1876. Several other classification systems seem to have appeared around that time, such as the Cutter Expansive Classification in 1882, but none seem to predate the 19th century.

Before the 19th century, how were books typically classified in libraries in English-speaking regions?

Were books organized alphabetically by author and/or title?
Were books organized by length?
Was there a prior classification system that was later (by Dewey et al.) seen as insufficient for 19th century work?
Did each library typically have its own idiosyncratic classification system (e.g. going to a new library essentially required learning a new system)?
Were books stored in a random or arbitrary jumble, with librarians expected to memorize their own collection ("Uhh, oh yes, I think I left Johnson's World Atlas 1764 on the third shelf of the third floor near the painting of Henry VII. It's sandwiched between a copy of Shakespeare and a French cookbook. If you see a copy of Ye Olde Source Booke of Donjons and Ye Dragones Moderne et Antient, you are on the wrong shelf!")?


texts: What rights did women have in Switzerland in the first few years of the 20th century?

texts: What were the legal rights of women in Switzerland in 1900-1905? Did women have the right to own property such as jewelry?   Did items of value belong to her father if she was under the age of 24?  Did they belong to her husband if she was married?


texts: Why did Gen. Lee (Civil War) surrender to the U.S?

texts:
I am sure, from different sources, that his men were willing to fight to the death, even if they were surrounded. Also, if they were willing to fight in the first place, because the issue was so important, why did he give up there? Why not keep fighting?

This still baffles me -
Does anyone know why?


texts: What kind of knife is this and where is it from?

texts: I was given this knife by someone who says it is an antique. This person is also very old and forgetful. Can anybody identify this knife?


texts: Do we know where in Clermont was the second Council of Clermont held?

texts: I know that the second Council of Clermont was (of course) in Clermont, Auvergne but do we know where (in terms of venue) it was held?  Which church, hall or public venue that Pope Urban II gave his speech that started the First Crusade?


texts: How did Red Army achieve to manipulate German Army in 1942 and 1943?

texts:
I had read during past days some books and internet texts about the East front campaign, during WW2. I took some information out of that, and it is very surprising to me.

First, I read that Russian losses were far more important than what I expected. A ratio of 1 German infantryman to 6 Russians was claimed. The same for tanks, a little less for airplanes.
Second, this ratio comes from a tactical effectiveness so high that, even with such a slaughter in their forces, Russians do not manage to break enough of German forces to make them give up the fight
Third, two strategic situations are explained as followed:

1: 1942, at the end of the battle of Stalingrad: While German general Hoth is trying to save the 6th Army by a counterattack, he encountered heavy resistance. But the decisive factor is the Soviet offensive Little Saturn, which hampered the attack by threatening flanks and rears and forced Germans to deploy their forces.
Source: Did the Torch operation help doom the Germans at Stalingrad?

2: 1943, battle of Kursk: The Germans are able to repell all Soviet counterattacks and destroy thousands of Russian tanks on both north and south sides of the battlefield. They come close to breaktrhough when the SS Panzerkorps break the third and last line of defense on the South. However, a Soviet offensive on the Don river force the Germans (Hitler and OKH decision, Manstein did not want) to stop the attack on Kursk and deploy some already engaged forces. However, the Russian offensive is entirely repelled with only a few (SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, which is 1 panzerdivision out of 4 constituing the SS Panzerkorps) troops taken out of the South side of Kursk. Still, the Germans entirely withdraw to their position of 5th July (willingly because Soviet counterattacks still failed) and then are pushed back by the Soviet counteroffensives on Orel and Kharkov.
Source: Roman Toppel, Kursk

There are plenty of explanations on why the Soviet army suffered so high losses and had that low tactival effectiveness against the Wehrmacht. I am ok with those explanations.
What I don't understand is how an offensive, made by another part of the Red Army which is not more effective, and is equally repelled (for example on the Don in 1943), could have deny the Germans the possibility to continue their attacks? And continue to inflict those 1:6 casualties ratios?

Also, considering the commonly accepted force ratios (see wikipedia) in the battle of Kursk, how did the Soviet Army manage to keep an offensive stand?

The question behind those questions is also: are we really sure of those numbers of losses (which comes from latest studies on Russian archives), because I can't imagine at all how they have led Soviet army to a final victory on the East Front?

EDIT from comment:
Actually I am not sure what I am asking, because I am not sure what I am trying to understand. I have two questions, each at different scales:

First, on local strategic scale: how is it possible that the offensives I mentioned stopped German actions, even if they were repelled with not that much German troops being distracted from German actions.
Second, over all the war: with a casualty ratio so high, how did Soviet union stood?- the casualty ratio is higher than the force ratio, so attrition war is supposed to have succeed for German side- how did Soviet troops maintained morale with that high casualties?


texts: Why did Stalin and the Soviet leadership have Leon Trotsky assassinated?

texts: Leon Trotsky was killed with a mountaineering ice axe in Mexico. The method of murder chosen was interesting. If he was a political fugitive in far off Mexico, why bother dealing with him? What about Trotsky's communist ideology differed from Stalin's and caused the perceived threat to the Soviet state?


texts: When was the Yemenite Jewish community isolated from the rest of the Jewish world?

texts: The Yemenite Torah and Tanach is almost completely identical to that of the Jews in Europe, but there are a few minor spelling differences. When were the communities separated such that these spelling differences might have developed?


texts: Why and when did agriculture lose its prestige?

texts:
I do not know whether running a farm has ever been considered the most prestigious kind of work, but it is certainly nowhere near as prestigious as for example being a doctor, at least in my part of the world. The exception is maybe if one runs a winery.

Why is it like this? Does it have historical reasons? If this changed over time, when did it loose its prestige?

I am mostly after a non-localized answer, but in case someone wants to know, my part of the world is Northern-Europe.


texts: Where to find birth records for those born in Ireland pre-Independence?

texts:
So I've got a relation that was born 8th February 1917 Tuam,  Galway, Ireland.  Now at that time Ireland was under British rule but shortly afterwards gained independence (that's my understanding anyway).

So I'm trying to trace the birth certificate and I'm wondering about open questions such as: was she 'British' or 'Irish' or did she start 'British' and become 'Irish' automatically as a child?

And more to the point - where am I likely to find her birth certificate? Would that sort of thing have been centrally held at the time?


texts: Can you explain how officers were able to refuse orders historically in France? Elsewhere?

texts: I've read several biographies that pertained to military history in England and France especially around the time of Napoleon. I noticed that the authors referenced the ruler requesting the service of generals. How did that system work? Were generals able to refuse orders? How was that structure managed?


texts: Did the Bush administration or their successors ever comment on the alleged Taliban warning about 9/11?

texts:
I was going through some old news reports and I was shocked to find a BBC report from 2002 that the Afghan Taliban warned the Americans and the UN of an impending attack on US by Al-Qaeda however their warning was not taken seriously by the Americans for a number of reasons.

The reporter cites unnamed American officials acknowledging that the warning was indeed conveyed but Americans weren't particularly bothered by it due to a lot of such reports being received by intel sources. Unnamed sources aren't exactly my favorites so let's just say it is dubious if the warning was ever received by the Americans.

Nevertheless, I was looking around for any official comments on this warning by any Official in Bush Administration or their successors but can't seem to find any. Have any American Political, Military, Diplomatic notable figures commented on that? Is their any acknowledgement of there being such a warning?

(If this question is more suitable for Skeptics SE, I'll be grateful if the Mods could migrate it there.)


texts: When did we find out time of day changes with longitude?

texts:
I know that Greenwich mean time was established in 1675, as an aid to navigation. Portuguese and Spanish navigators in the 15th century also appeared to be aware of the usefulness of timekeeping for longitudinal navigation, though they lacked sufficiently accurate clocks to implement the technique.

My question is this: when was the fundamental principle discovered? When did travelers first notice that, if you go to the west, the Sun rises and sets later?


texts:
In the 20th century many states restricted the capacity of their populations to emigrate.  Most famously, Churchill described the variety of emigration, financial and political restrictions in Central Europe—imposed by the Soviet Union—as an "iron curtain" due to their cohesive and impervious nature.  As a result, pervasive emigration restrictions are interesting—what's their history?

Have there been other examples in history (say, up to the 19th century) where countries did not allow their citizens to emigrate or travel abroad, save by very special permit?

The only example that comes to my mind is Frederick II prohibiting study in foreign universities, but I am thinking more of blanket prohibitions.

EDIT: The answers so far are very interesting but I am mainly interested here in external passports.


texts: Did one or both sides of the cold war plan to strategically attack the others' food production?

texts:
I'm basically defining 'Cold War', for the purpose of this question as the whole stretch of time between 1947 and 1991. During this time did either side plan to attack the other's food production on a strategic scale?

According to Wikipedia on biological weapons, both sides developed anti-agricultural biological weapons (diseases against crops or livestock + delivery system). The US used Agent Orange 'defenisvely' as part of scorched earth tactics in Vietnam.

Where there ever plans, on either side, for strategic attacks on the other side's food production? Say, a doctrine around when and if and how to attack the enemy's food production - or more exact, the enemy population's food supply?

Maybe deliberately starving civilians is a war crime in a way that bombing them is not, so plans along that line may be more classified than others, so maybe we don't know. An answer along the lines "nothing to be found with a comprehensive research" is fine by me.


texts: In the French Empire, what was the difference between french colonies éphémèras and comptoirs français?

texts:
Just a quick question I've been unable to google an answer to. I was looking at this map, to get a better idea of the progress of French colonialism in the 19th century.

A couple of google and word searches only turned up that a comptoir was a trading post -- so my assumption is that it reflects an administrative difference between settler and trading colonies, but bot speaking French I'd like to know for sure, in whatever detail you're willing to provide. Thanks for your time.


texts: What relation do the early sexual experiences of Lolita and her classmates bear to the real experience of children in New England in 1947?

texts:
In the last pages of part 1 of Nabokov's Lolita the title character's abuser Humbert relates 12 year old Dolores's (Lolita is H's nickname for her) description of her own previous sexual experiences, in the course of which she mentions ways in which some of her coevals at school had been "pretty bad." She implies that by the end of 6th grade several of the class had experience of sexual intercourse. My own prejudices concerning the not famously permissive 1940s would not have led me to expect this.

I would be curious to discover any evidence concerning the actual level of sexual development and experience shown by New England 6th graders in the 1940s, as well as any theories on whether it was the author's intention that the reader should accept Lolita's portrait of her pre-adolescent milieu as plausible, or whether it is deliberately surprising.

N.B. - having posted this on the Literature Stack Exchange, a commenter suggested it might be more the domain of the historian - please refrain from making the reverse suggestion here!


texts: When and why did marriage become about love?

texts:
In ancient times, marriage was an institution among the wealthy, arranged entirely by parents as part of their political and economic strategy. Many cultures saw love as an impediment to marriage, best practiced outside of it. When did the modern idea of love-based marriage become common?

I'm looking at two key time periods: the Renaissance, with the end of feudalism and the rise of the middle class, and the Enlightenment, with the rise of individualism and the end of arranged marriage. The Renaissance seems to be when the idea reached cultural popularity, with The Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare, but the precise time at which it became actual practice and the cause remain elusive. I have heard it attributed to the new middle class wanting upward mobility, to the end of feudalism reducing the need for intranational political alliances, and much earlier to the church wanting to control the masses. What factors were most important to the development of modern marriage, and when?

Between these periods, there was a time when marriage was still arranged, but it was often said that couples would "grow into love." At this point, was marriage still serving primarily to further family interests, or was it now serving the happiness of the couple, with the assumptions that money was an important contribution to the marriage and that parents were better at making this decision than their children? Was the arrangement of marriage still done for familial strategy that was not eliminated until the Enlightenment, or was it a vestige of the past that people simply continued until Enlightenment individualism found that people were better at finding happiness on their own?

I'm interested primarily in the history of Western marriage culture, but shifts in other cultures would provide interesting context.


texts: Has the US Congress's power to declare war been rendered superfluous by recent conflicts?

texts: After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the Congress of the United States formally declared war on Japan.  After Germany declared war on the United States, the Congress then formally declared war on Germany. However for all subsequent conflicts that the United States has been involved (Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan), there has been no formal declaration of war. Instead, these conflicts have been justified as UN police actions, UN peacekeeping activities, requests by local governments, security threats, etc.  Congress has passed resolutions but no declarations.  It now appears that the position of the President as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces has usurped the power of Congress to control whether the US goes to war or not.


texts: Which battle was the most lopsided result in terms of casualties?

texts:
I have recently read about two ancient battles that were won by a much smaller army and/or lead to very different casualties:

Defeat of Boudica - according to Roman accounts only 400 Romans died as opposed to 80,000 of Boudica's forces, thus resulting in a 1 : 200 casualties ratio. However, the figure is considered unrealistic.
Battle of Alesia - casualties were about 12,800 Romans and 250,000 from Gallic Confederation, resulting in 1 : 20 casualties ratio.

Are these the most "efficient" battles in the history?

I am interested in significant battles there were fought between at least 10,000 soldiers.


texts: What books Napoleon Bonaparte used to read?

texts:
I am interested to know the books that Napoleon Bonaparte had read,and perhaps make a list about it. According to a Quora's answer, Napoleon had read:

Rousseau - La Nouvelle Héloïse, the Social Contract
Voltaire’s biography of Charles XII


texts: How widespread was dueling in the United States from its formation to 1860?

texts:
I saw a different question that sparked my interest in this subject. Several important people in American history have died dueling, so my question is how widespread was duelling in the U.S until 1860?

It seems that dueling could just be a upper class activity since until the western expansion only the rich land owning class seemed to die dueling, or was it that the lower classes would have dueled too, especially in the west? Was dueling in the U.S. more or less confined to some regions or classes?


texts: What were French actions against Germany during September 1939?

texts:
In Poland "Phoney war" is treated as betrayal by UK and France, who only declared war against Germany and did not perform any other actions. This combined with Soviet attack on 17th September is said to be one of main reasons of lost of the war.

I have read this question and associated answers, I don't want to ask why western Allies did not invade Germany to support Poland, it is clearly explained in choster's answer.

However, in my opinion, it is not 100% fair to say UK did not do anything. The Royal Navy began fightings at the very beginning and one can believe it was everything they could do. Sources say France launched Saar Offensive and "Britain and France also began a naval blockade of Germany on 3 September which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort." (source). However, I can't find what this blockade look on the French side. All I can imagine was (like in WW1) that UK was responsible for North Atlantic (including North Sea) while France -- for Mediterranean (which has little sense as Italy was neutral then and there was no other enemy country like Austria-Hungary or Turkey during WW1).

What major or even minor actions did France performed during late 1939?


texts:
Are there any church hymns that would be in use in the early (16th to early 18th centuries) Anglican church, and would be distinctly Anglican? (In the kind of way in which Ein Feste Burg is distinctly Lutheran).

I imagine they did use other Protestant hymns like the aforementioned Ein Feste Burg, as well as earlier Christian texts. But was there anything representative specifically of Anglicanism, 'iconic' for it?


texts: What was normal attire for Hindu kings in the 15th century?

texts:
I was reading through "A History of India" by John Keay when I came across a few paragraphs which talk about Hindu kings' attire (or the lack of it) in the 15th century. Travellers like Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo and Abdur Razzaq gave evidences in their accounts for the native non-Muslim kings wearing little to nothing at all, women going about the streets with bare breasts, etc.

These accounts seem to specifically refer to the hot Southern parts of India. What about North Indian rulers? Were the Mauryan and Guptan rulers unused to clothes too? And in South India, could we ascertain when (non-Muslim) rulers started clothing themselves? How about the Vijayanagara kings and the Maratha kings, Shivaji and Shambhaji?


texts:
Where exactly (coordinates) was the Mary Celeste shipwrecked (according to Wikipedia:

On January 3, 1885, Mary Celeste approached the port via the channel between Gonâve Island and the mainland, in which lay a large and well-charted coral reef, the Rochelois Bank. Parker deliberately ran the ship on to this reef, ripping out her bottom and wrecking her beyond repair.

See my map of major U.S. maritime disasters here.


texts: What caused the decline of the Spanish empire?

texts: What caused the gradual decline of the Spanish colonial empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? A post I read claimed that the Spanish overestimated their wealth, and my teacher pointed out to me that "nobody liked them". To what extent are these claims true, and what were some other reasons? Thanks!


texts: How large were the East India Company armed forces?

texts: The British East India Company maintained an armed force large and competent enough to subdue and control Mughal India, but just how large was it? How comparable was it to contemporary national military forces?


texts: What is the full text of the song about the failed battle of Kiska?

texts:
I came across a mention of the song about the failed battle of Kiska in the audiobook "The Rising Sun". I started googling, but found only two mentions, both on Google Books. Is there the full text of the song available?

If the question is offtopic on History, feel free to move it to Literature SE.


texts:
There were two temples in Jerusalem. I've seen conflicting statements about their heights. So this is a few questions in one:

What was the average height (from the foundation) of each of the two temples?
How tall was the highest point (from the foundation) of each of the two temples?
How high above sea level was each of the two temples?


texts: Has a foreign power ever sought to compel another country to abide by international law by means of that country's internal judiciary?

texts:
Suppose there are two countries which have a treaty or convention between them. One country thinks the other has infringed upon it.

Have there been any instances where the first country filed a suit in the courts of the other to make it abide by the treaty?


texts: What was the Japanese or Axis motivation to drag US into the War?

texts: Making an enemy out of a neutral country when you are at war with many others means there is one more enemy to fight. So what was the plan of Japan or the Axis to drag US into the war? Did they think they could make the US a Japanese colony? If so how did they plan to win such invasion?


texts:
During World War II German soldiers were given a drug called Pervitin, which was a form of methamphetamine and is considered having given them a significant advantage during the war.

Was any stimulant used in wars before WW2 that gave a significant advantage to soldiers?

From what I read on Wikipedia, the first widespread used of methamphetamine was during world war II, but perhaps other stimulants were used earlier.


texts: Please help decipher this artist signature in Hebrew

texts:
I acquired a couple years 2 paintings by the same artist. From my research, the signature is in Hebrew.
The paintings were acquired in Austin, Texas but I don't think these are from United States but imported from Europe. The depicted scenes are European. First one is a cityscape of maybe Paris and the other one is 2 boats in a port with a European building in the back. Seems to be mid 20th century


texts: Are fiefdoms near the Capital assigned to trusted allies or the opposite, and why?

texts:
Our professor of Chinese History (in a document you can't access without a university account) when talking about feudal age China (before 221 BCE) makes a passing remark. She says in Ancient China the fiefs near the capital were probably given to the most trusted nobles. In an other paper I remember reading the exact opposite about feudal Japan. Namely that the least trusted nobles were kept  close to the capital. This also ties with what I read in Wikipedia about the European Marquess:

  The theoretical distinction between a marquess and other titles has, since the Middle Ages, faded into obscurity. In times past, the distinction between a count and a marquess was that the land of a marquess, called a march, was on the border of the country, while a count's land, called a county, often was not. As a result of this, a marquess was trusted to defend and fortify against potentially hostile neighbours and was thus more important and ranked higher than a count

Given that some countries mostly suffer from internal unrest and others mostly from external enemies, this is not necessarily a contradiction. Still I am fairly sure China fought external enemies far more frequently than Japan, thus  I wonder: Is it true that China and Japan used a completely opposite rationale in assigning the fiefdoms and were both well chosen for the country in question?


texts: How did horses become animals of fancy while donkeys largely didn't?

texts:
Horses seem to be a much more common sight in so-called "developed" (or rather "heavily mechanized") countries than donkeys are while the latter seem to be still quite popular in many "developing" countries†. The accepted reason for this seems to be that donkeys were/are commonly used as beasts of burden/work animals, but of course are likely replaced by mechanization once countries become "developed".

Work/draft horses seem to have followed a similar pattern of decline; However, horses in general are still quite popular in developed countries and even draft horses enjoy some niche roles despite the fact that they don't really do "work" in the way it was meant before: Many are used for ceremonial purposes, animal fancy, sport, etc.

Therefore, if horses can "evolve" into having roles outside of "work", why hasn't the same thing happened with donkeys?‡ — Where are the fancy donkey breeds? Donkey dressage contests? Donkeys dressed up in foofy costumes pulling tourists around?

† This is of course a gross generalization, as e.g. China and Mexico could hardly be called "under-developed" yet they both have loads of donkeys.

‡ In fact, there are some e.g. donkey breeding contests, etc. but they are extremely uncommon in comparison to the amount of analogous events for horses.


texts: How Heavy was a Spinning Jenny or Spinning Mule?

texts:
The spinning jenny, water frame and spinning mule were textile spinning frames used during the industrial revolution.

Approximately how heavy were these machines?


texts: What was the South actually afraid Lincoln or Congress would do that precipitated the Civil War?

texts:
While the US Civil War was fought over slavery, it doesn't appear that an interpretation of law from the 19th century supports the notion that Congress or the President could have eliminated slavery without a constitutional amendment. This would have required the consent of at least some of the slave states. (See law.stackexchange where we discussed this exact legal question.) Instead, it seems that Congress could have chipped away at slavery over time with a thousand cuts until it became uneconomical.

Given that, were there specific slavery-hostile actions that the Southern states were afraid that the Northern-dominated federal government would take that directly provoked the Civil War? It seems unlikely that the South seceded from the union purely over the political climate and without a direct threat.

I've reviewed answers to questions such as Why did Lincoln election prompt Southern states to secede? and Why did Southern states secede? but these questions seem to gloss over the fact that nothing seemed to immediately threaten Southern slavery. Admission of additional non-slave states had a long-term potential impact of making the 13th Amendment possible to ratify without the support of any Southern state. But, why not wait until the tipping point -- the fight over the admission of the last state that would tip the balance? Or why not wait until the ratification fight over the 13th Amendment itself?


texts: What percentage of NAACP in the 1910s was Jewish?

texts:
However, by the mid-1910s, the NAACP had several prominent Jewish members. Brothers Joel and Arthur Spingarn served as board chairman and chief legal counsel, respectively. Herbert Lehman served on the executive committee. Lillian Wald and Walter Sachs served on the board. Jacob Schiffand Paul Warburg were financiers for the organization. By 1920, Herbert Seligmann was director of public relations and Martha Greuning served as his assistant. Other prominent Jewish figures involved in the NAACP founding were Jacob Billikopf, Julius Rosenwald, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch and Rabbi Stephen Wise. No wonder Marcus Garvey stormed out of the NAACP headquarters in 1917 complaining that it was a White organization.

https://fanghornforest.wordpress.com/2015/11/18/national-association-for-the-advancement-of-kosher-people/


texts: How obvious was lend-lease equipment to the average Soviet soldier?

texts:
As the question says, was the average USSR soldier aware that the equipment isssued to them had come from the United States? Jeeps and aircraft are well known to have been sent to the USSR - would the driver/pilot have known just by visual inspection that this was American equipment? E.g. branding, other markings in English, imperial units on the instrument panels, etc.? Were the rest of the soldiers aware of the provenance of the equipment that was used to support them?

Apart from the drivers and pilots actually using the equipment, would, say, an infantry grunt who only sees it all in passing, know it’s not Soviet equipment?


texts: Were the doors kept open for the entire Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention?

texts:
On November 20, 1787, the fourth day of the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, before any debates had taken place, it was "Ordered,  That the doors of the Convention be left open during the session" on motion of Thomas McKean, seconded by James Smilie (330).  On November 21, the Pennsylvania Herald wrote:

  It has been doubted, says a correspondent, whether the doors of the ensuing Convention will be kept open; but from the very constitution of that body, it cannot be otherwise; for the plan of the federal government is to be submitted to the people, yet as it would be highly inconvenient, if not impracticable, to lay it before the citizens at large, it is agreed to submit it to a part for the whole.  Whatever therefore is transacted by the Convention is, in fact, transacted by the people. and to exclude them from hearing what passes is in effect excluding them from a share in their own act.  Besides this reason, it will doubtless be remembered that the secret proceedings of the Federal Convention, by preventing its members from a knowledge of the sentiments of the people, which might have guided their decisions, has probably been the source of all the opposition that is now made to the plan of government devised by that body. (qtd. in 331, note 4)

So were the doors actually left open for the whole convention, or just for the November 20 session?

Work Cited

Jensen, Merrill, ed. The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution. Vol. 2. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976. Print.


texts: Did Charlemagne ever visit Constantinople?

texts:
The answer to this question, is probably no.  There doesn't appear to be any significant historical evidence pointing to Charlemagne traveling beyond Italy. However, there is perhaps one exception......The Aachen Palace-Cathedral.

It is well known within historical circles that Charlemagne was very impressed with the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople. He was so impressed with the Saint Sophia's architecture that he commissioned his Palace-Cathedral in Aachen to be designed in the Byzantine style-(namely the Cathedral's interior).

Now it is likely the case that Charlemagne's Architect(s) may have been the ones who visited the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople and wrote blueprints for the architectural style of the Aachen Palace-Cathedral. But, then again, perhaps Charlemagne himself visited Constantinople on a rare State or Diplomatic visit and viewed the Saint Sophia Cathedral with his own eyes.

Again, it seems unlikely that Charlemagne traveled beyond Italy; however there may be some available historical evidence which would contradict such a traditionally held position.


texts: How were the Venera Probe missions received/presented in the Western world during the space race?

texts:
I can find barely any historical documentation on this subject.

If you know anything about its development, please chip in as well.

I'm writing a paper on the missions and putting them into historical context, mainly their impact on the space race.

I did a lot of Googling, and a lot of information is available on the technicalities, but nearly nothing I found puts the missions into historical context.

Even simple things such as who worked on these probes is hard to find. I believe BBC stated that this is because a lot of things were kept in secret.

However, I found and ordered a nice book -  Soviet Robots in the Solar System: Mission Technologies and Discoveries

It outlines some of the key players behind the Soviet space scene, and goes a bit into internal politics and development, but nothing on secrecy or wide impact on the space race is said.

Basically at this point I'm trying to figure out why most(some of the missions were spun-off as successful even though they didn't achieve their goal.) of the info was secret and only released when USSR fell, and how everyone else reacted to the information released. I can't find which particular missions were kept in secret.

I know it's a pretty loaded question, but I just can't seem to find anything to be able to scope it down. Year ~64 onwards.


texts: Why would Jesus' parents travel to their birthplace for a Roman census?

texts:
The Gospel According to Luke says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem because his parents had to travel to their place of origin for a census:

  1 Now in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the
  world should be enrolled. 2 This was the first enrollment made when
  Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to enroll themselves,
  everyone to his own city. 4 Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of
  the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to David’s city, which is called
  Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David; 5 to
  enroll himself with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him as
  wife, being pregnant. -- Luke 2:1-5, World English Bible

Why not just count the people where they were, as we do today?

Are there non-Christian sources that substantiate the existence of such a requirement, or explain its purpose? Are there non-Christian sources that would cast doubt on this account, or reasons to think that it was an invention by a later generation that was concerned with linking Jesus to David?


texts: Is there validity to the claim of a scavenger hunting barter economy in the history of money?

texts: I've read in economics textbooks, and seen in videos like this, saying that before money, there was a barter economy was based on a coincidence of wants, and people would have to go on basically a scavenger hunt if they needed something that they didn't have the wanted exchange for. This sounds totally ridiculous that any society would be based off of this, let alone all societies before money, as it's being sold in economic texts. Nor I have ever heard of such a society that operates in such a manner, at least not locally. Maybe with some trade with other societies that local ones probably weren't totally dependent on, they would only be interested in certain products. It sounds like modern people projecting their norms on former societies, like the idea that one claims for themselves everything they use. Like the use of money, like wampum being thought of as the same as money. I read in People of the Deer by Farley Mowat that the Inuit had no concept of claiming things individually, people worked together and shared spoils together. I wouldn't think it would be totally black or white either, some things may be claimed individually, like horses, or by ruling elites, like titular ownership. Or is there ample evidence that such scavenger hunt barter economy societies were the general rule before money?


texts:
During a class a friend of mine brought up an African Clicking language. I don't have a lot of information about this.

Which language groups in Africa include clicking, and what is known about the cultural and ethnic origins of clicking languages in Africa.


texts: Were East Germans more acquiescent to Soviet domination than the rest of Eastern Europe and if so, why?

texts:
Most Eastern European states had some form of revolt or another against the Soviet regime, e.g. 1956 Hungary, 1968 Czech Republic and 1980 Polish strikes. However, there was no major uprising in East Germany (presumably because of the large number of Soviet soldiers stationed there) and Germany threw out Honecker after the Czechs, Hungarians and Poles. Were Germans really just more acquiescing of the Soviet domination, or was this public order solely to do with the large number of Soviet troops in the area?

I ask because even today there are still lingering sentiments of Russophobia in Hungarians and especially Poles, but an East German would be apathetic.


texts: What troop categories were used historically?

texts:
To my understanding, modern terminology such as infantry, cavalry and artillery, and especially light vs heavy and roles like skirmishers etc. generally originate from 17-18th century European efforts at military reforms and standardisation.

However, Renaissance-era terminology aren't designed with ancient history in mind. How did the ancients categorise contemporary troop types and battlefield roles when debating about military matters? Some basic categories are universal like foot vs mounted troops. There are also known historical categories, such as chariot vs horse troops from the earliest Sumerian days. Others still are open questions based on my own limited knowledge: Were ancient melee cavalry also divided into two roles (light and heavy) just like in modern terms, or were they differently categorised, perhaps by the roles suited to different levels of armour protection - no armour, partial armour, full catacphract, and giant elephants?

When identifying different battlefield roles and the categories of soldiers that fill them, in what way are the ancient ways of describing contemporary armies similar and different to the modern way of identifying the same ancient armies? In this question, "ancient" is defined as encompassing all time periods before the Renaissance, during which modern terminology originated. Up till the systematic adoption of gunpowder, warfare had not seen revolutionary changes since the domestication of beasts of war.

While the focus is on the world stretching between Europe and the Near East, any info on Asia would be a worthy addition to an answer as well.

Edit: Perhaps I should clarify that I don't really need a detailed treatment of every civilisation (that is just a bonus if it is feasibly achievable). All I want to know is how much the ancients and us think alike - a rather simple generic answer, as long as it is supported with evidence from ancient military thinking/theories. Exactly how they differ from us, or how the ancient Assyrians, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, Indians, Chinese, Mongols etc. view the conduct of war is good-to-know if available, but not necessary. What I describe above are just examples of how things may be done differently in the past to prove my point.


texts:
Did the Germans use the V1 and V2 missile system on the Eastern Front in World War 2?

We have heard the legendary use of these missile systems on the Western Front, which in my opinion were counter-productive, just stiffening the resolve of the British, American, and "western" allies to speed up the war.

But we hear very little about deployment of these missile systems against the Russians, which makes me wonder if they were deployed on the Eastern Front at all. If not, why were they not used against the Russians?


texts: Where can I find a reliable archive of Hitler's speeches?

texts:
Working on the answer for this question, I wanted a copy of Hitler's speech from March 16, 1935 which is so often referenced in German rearmament.  I found a translation, but it's on der-fuehrer.org which is some Neo-Nazi web site.  Not only don't I trust their academic rigor, I don't want to send anyone to their site.  Other, more reliable, archives did not have this speech.

This problem comes up a lot.

Where can I find reliable archives of Hitler's speeches and proclamations?  Preferably original German with English translations, but even just German will do.


texts: What these footnote like symbols are in Aristotle's Metaphysics on Perseus

texts:
Here It looks like this:

  [980α] [21]...ἄνθρ...[25]...τοῖς δ᾽...[980β][21]...[981α] [1] καὶ δοκεῖ ... φησὶ Πῶλος, ἡ [5] δ᾽ ἀπειρία ... ἐστίν: [10] ...

I get that the 980α and the like are section numbers, but I'm not sure what the other one like [21] is. The book starts at 21, maybe that means it's starting at line 21 and something is missing at the beginning, I'm not sure. Wondering what it means.

Also wondering what the "section" means. Here they have books and chapters, not sure why these sections are numbered like this.


texts: How was the political landscape of Tibet during the era of fragmentation?

texts:
When reading about the end of the Tibetan empire, information about the political situation of the area is scarce (most authors focus a lot on the religion).

Basically, who was de facto or de jure in charge of its regions? The buddhist monastic schools?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Maybe I wasnt't too clear, sorry for that. I want to know the political landscape of Tibet at the time. I know there was no single power looming over it, but which were the most influent imperial houses and religious schools?


texts: What type of provisions would seafarers use in the mid 19th century?

texts:
What was the composition of seafarers' provisions in the mid-19th century? What types of items would they have taken with them for a long trip?

For example — for just travelling on a light trip from Glasgow to Magellan Bay and back, planning to spend half a year at sea, in the summer of 1846.


texts: Are there ancient historical sources which have been permanently lost?

texts:
I'm in a Year 11 Ancient history class studying Rome, and whenever I look over ancient sources on wikipedia, there is always a list of lost works, and occasionally a sentence describing how unfortunate it is we don't have one of them, for whatever particular reason.

I'm curious though, are these actually works that are lost permanently, or are we still discovering more of these currently?

Take Suetonius as an example of such a historian.


texts: Are the Swiss flag and the flag/coat of arms of Piedmont related?

texts:
Below is a picture of a flag I recently saw in a restaurant, that looked to me like the Swiss flag with a bridge drawn on it:

Through image search I discovered this was actually the coat of arms of the region of Piedmont, in Italy.

Now given the similarities to the Swiss flag and the proximity of the regions (Piedmont borders the Italian speaking south part of Switzerland) it seems likely there could be some common root between those flags.

Hence my question whether the Swiss flag somehow evolved from the Piedmont one or if there's some other commonality between them?


texts: How did they manage accuracy with traction trebuchets?

texts:
Traction trebuchets were the earliest kind of trebuchet, where instead of the more familiar counterweight, the force came from lots of men pulling ropes attached to the short arm:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet#/media/File:SiJiao_Pao-t1.jpg

I'm not familiar with the physics, but since the force is provided via direct manpower, wouldn't it be difficult to manage its accuracy, such as when the men pulling the ropes get tired?

How did siege engineers manage accuracy for such a device? Were there any special techniques, or did they just try to get everyone to pull with the same force?


texts: British royal titles for regions not in Britain

texts:
Royal titles for the British aristocracy seem to be associated with regions within Britain, particularly England; such as the Duke of Cambridge or the Princess of York.

Were there ever royal titles for other parts of the "Realm" that were not part of Britain, such as the Prince of Ireland or the Viscount of Virginia or the Duke of Saskatchewan?


texts: "Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin."

texts:
[Source:] Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.

Would someone please explain the history behind Baron Acton's quote above? For instance, Greek belonged to only one of the many language families.


texts: Why did the father of algebra speak Arabic instead of Persian?

texts:
I'm reading about algebra and the man most associated with its creation or popularisation, Muhammad al-Khwarizmi. We know that algebra comes from the Arabic "al-jabr", but what I don't understand is why a Persian mathematician would write a treatise in Arabic.

Obviously, I'm thinking in terms of modern times, and that Arabs aren't Persians. Arabs speak Arabic, and Persians speak, well, Persian, or Farsi, known by other names in nearby countries.

What's the reason that a Persian man living between 780 – 850 AD would write in Arabic? Is it because the Persian lands were administrated by Arab-speaking people and therefore Arabic was the official language? Or was it more that Arabic was the language of academia and the educated, much like Mediaeval Latin in Europe or Greek in other places in history?

Also as a follow-up question, the word "algorithm" also comes from this man:

  algorithm
  The Arabic source, al-Ḵwārizmī was a name given to the 9th-century
  mathematician Abū Ja‘far Muhammad ibn Mūsa, author of widely
  translated works on algebra and arithmetic. Oxford Living
  Dictionaries

It's said that the word comes from an Arabic source. So again, why did a Persian man have an Arabic name? Or was that just the Arabic name given to him?


texts: Why did the Umayyads spare some of the male members of the Family (Ahl-al-Bait) after Karbala?

texts:
Given that it's the Islamic month of Muharram, there's something that I have always wondered about the Battle of Karbala fought between Umayyad Empire and the family of the Prophet Muhammad.

In the battle that was fought for annihilating the risk that the family of the Prophet posed to the nascent Umayyad Empire, Umayyad army killed nearly every male member of the family. There were however some exceptions like:

Ali Bin Hussayn (eldest living Son of the Imam Hussayn, did not participate in the battle due to sickness). Some sources report that Umayyads did intend to kill him as well but spared him on intercession of his aunt Zainab bint Ali. It seems very uncharacteristic however that the men who would go on to put Prophet Muhammad's eldest grand daughter in chains soon afterwards, humiliate her, respected her so much that they would listen to her at all.
Muhammad Al-Baqir (son of Ali Bin Hussayn). He was a child of some 3-4 years at the Battle. The Umayyads had killed his 6 months old uncle Ali Al-Asghar in the battle so it seems unlikely that his age might have been the reason why he was spared.
Zaid Bin Hassan (son of Imam Hassan) Spared for unknown reasons.
Hassan al-Muthanna (son of Imam Hassan) Fought and wounded, taken captive, spared for unknown reasons. Some sources report one of his maternal uncles was a high ranking commander in the Umayyad army who saved him.

The traditions from different authors are even more confusing due to conflicting accounts and possible sectarian bias.

For the life of me, I can't rationalize why a tyrant like Yazid I would spare some men of his rival family, fully aware how much trouble they could cause him (Umayyad Empire was at one point about to fall during reign of Marwan I due to Hashemite rebellion and even the successor Abbasid Empire had to fight claimants from the Ahl-Al-Bait). So why would he spare them? Mercy? I feel it very uncharacteristic to see some mercy from people who did not even spare  infants. Some political motive i.e. pacifying the supporters of Ahl-Al-Bait? It didn't pacify them at all, if anything, it made them hate the Umayyads forever. So why would the Umayyads do that? Certainly it would have been very easy for them to put an end to "Caliph from Ahl-al-Bayt" question for all eternity after the battle?


texts: How much materiel was shipped to Continental Europe per month, after D-Day?

texts:
Once D-Day landed (1944 Jun 06), how much materiel was shipped into Continental Europe by the Western Allies per month? Did this monthly figure change much by 1945 May?

Materiel includes basically everything, the food, weapons, ammo, fuel, equipment, etc. I'm looking for an agglomerated weight, like 10,000 tons per month.

Note, I'll accept an answer for just the materiel that came through France, just through Italy, or a total figure for both, as long as it's specified which is which. I'm not interested in the lend-lease materiel that went to Russia because I already have those figures. I want just the Western Allied imports after D-Day, to compare it to lend-lease Russian stuff.


texts: In Indian census, were the children of a Thug recorded as "Yet to Be Thug"?

texts:
I read (can't remember where at the moment) that in a population census (probably around 1911) the child of a thug used to be recorded as  "yet to be thug" in profession column in India. This is because of criminal tribe act, around 1900. I searched in Internet but could not find anything.
I might have misplaced the time, but I am quite sure that an academic in lecture mentioned what I wrote, now, a way should be examining the document of census of British Empire around that time but only document I can find is piketty
Is it true? How can I find a reference to cite?


texts: How could a chariot work against a phalanx?

texts:
During Battle of Gaugamela

  Darius now launched his chariots at those troops under Alexander's
  personal command... Those chariots who made it through the barrage of
  javelins charged the Macedonian lines, which responded by opening up
  their ranks, creating alleys through which the chariots passed
  harmlessly.

How can chariots, which have relatively soft horses in front, charge at a phalanx bristling with spears?
How can a phalanx open its ranks? The warriors can make the sarissas vertical, but how can they move fast enough to open the ranks before the chariot approaches?
Okay, they opened the ranks, now the chariot is between them - why does it not turn 90 degrees and attack the broken-up phalanx from the flank?
What damage can a chariot inflict on the enemy?

crash into him? But a wall of sarissas should stop the horses!
scythe? but this requires the chariot to run by the enemy which can just back away a little bit (like the "open the ranks" above)?
warriors shooting arrows and throwing javelins from the chariot? How can they actually hit a target from such a shaky platform?