texts: Thoroughbred horse history on British Islands prior to 1686

texts:
It is well established, but oft overlooked, fact that almost all thoroughbred horses on the British Islands trace their ancestry to a single stallion, called Darley Arabian, brought to Britain by one Thomas Darley in 1704. We know that there was one famous horse prior to that date, Byerley Turk, brought to Britain in 1686 (his influence on the modern horses is much more modest, but at least we know he existed).

The descendants of those horses are very well accounted for in breed books; even more so, best horses, including the aforementioned breed progenitors, were painted on canvas, so we know exactly what they looked like. This is not at all surprising, considering how popular horse racing was and still is.

It is also highly unlikely that people were not at all interested in breeding fast horses prior to 1686/1704 - after all, back then the stakes on "bet to win" could literally be one's life in battle.

So, the question is, what do we know about the thoroughbred development history prior to 1686 (in Britain or elsewhere; Britain just happens to be the best in keeping its history in orderly fashion)?

Further clarifications

It is, of course, trivial fact that the term "thoroughbred" was only invented in the beginning of 18th century. My question begs to establish how the horse breeding was organized prior to the beginning of "thoroughbred" era (the term may be British, but the concept is definitely not).

People who started the "thoroughbred" lineages definitely knew the value of good racing horse. They went through great expenses to bring those horses from the Middle East, breed them as extensively as they could and even bothered to commission portraits of those horses (so it was not an idle fancy by any measure).
We know, that prior to invention of the term "thoroughbred", racing horses went by the name "palfrey". Good palfreys were as valuable as any later day thoroughbred and were used for the same exact purpose (horse back riding).

So, does anybody has any leads on studbooks or individual portraits of horses from the pre-thoroughbred time. I, personally, can not imagine that nobody bothered to keep a lineage or portrait of one of those super-expensive palfreys or destriers (such lineage would be handy for marketing purposes back then, if nothing else; a price of a single "noble" horse, as far as we know, was comparable to a price of a village, with land, peasants and all).


texts:
Was Jodhaa bai the elder daughter of Rajput King Bharmal actually emperor Akbar's wife ??
Various texts refer to her as Mariam and Jahangir's mother, the successor of Akbar.
Well, The Jahangirnama written by Jahangir as such doesn't mention Jodhaa bai but it does mention about Mariam as his mother.
Some texts also refer Jodhaa bai as Jahangir's wife.
The Akbarnama written in three volumes by Abul Fazal- one of the nine jems in Akbar's court also does not cite Jodhaa bai.

So, my question is did Jodhaa bai exist?
If yes then what was her true identity- Mariam, princess of amber,akbar's third wife, Jahangir's mother or Jahangir's wife?


texts: Why did the film "The Longest Day" have the "cricket" training scene if the Allies received no intelligence about the hedgerows in Normandy?

texts:
I'm reading Stephen E. Ambrose's book "Citizen Soldiers" and he says that the allies had no intelligence about the high hedgerows in Normandy.

This shocked me, because I remember clearly the scene in "The Longest Day" where John Wayne trains the soldiers on how to use the cricket clicker next to hedgerows as a friend or foe detection to who's on the other side.

  “I had my pistol in one hand, my cricket in the other… I crept along the hedgerow looking for a gate. Just as I found it, I heard a stir on the other side. I drew my pistol and got all set. Then I heard the click. That was the most pleasant sound I ever heard in the entire war.” ~ General Maxwell D. Taylor, Commander of the 101st Airborne Division itstactical.com

I found some people selling Airborne Cricket Clickers, so they must have existed. This is a serious detail for it not to have ever happened.


texts: Could Battle of Stalingrad be won by Germany if they haven't lost so many aircraft in Battle of Britain?

texts:
So I come up with a question, maybe an irrational or a dumb one, but what effect would the Luftwaffe have had on the Battle of Stalingrad if they had had the ~ 2000 aircraft (lost in Battle of Britain) available for the battle? This certainly could've changed the situation there quite a bit? Or the air domination wasn't that much of a factor in Stalingrad?

So my questions are:

What effect would the Luftwaffe have had on the Battle of Stalingrad if they had had those ~ 2000 aircraft (that were lost in Battle of Britain) available for the battle?
If it had had some sort of effect, would it have been a decisive one, which in a way could influence the result of the battle or it's just a nice thing to have type of effect?


texts: Was the village of Campalagian in West Sulawesi originally a Cham settlement?

texts:
I could not find any evidence on this, except an ancestral story my grandparents told me. My great-grandmother was said to come from Campalagian, a village near Polewali, in West Sulawesi. They said that people used to say the village was originally a settlement of Vietnamese immigrants, thus granting me a bit of possible Vietnamese ancestry.

As I understand it, a collection of polities Champa did indeed exist through the 2nd to the 19th centuries, in what is now central and south Vietnam. I couldn't, however, find or understand relevant sources that might be useful in determining whether there was a Cham emigration to West Sulawesi.

This piece of folk etymology suggests that Arung Palakka, the fifteenth King of Bone (1667-1696 AD) was said to have sworn an oath on a hill far away from where the actual village now stands, called Campalagi, and that Campa means "sour" (there used to be an "asam" [sour] tree on that hill) and lagi means "again". A royal conflict occurred and the people of Campalagi Hill were forced to move to the region of Balanipa, where the village currently stands, and they were called "Campalagian" (people from Campalagi).

I find this a little suspicious, however, as the phonetic relationship between the taste "asam" (sour in Indonesian and Javanese) and the nominal asam tree might have come later, and externally, probably from Java. Not to mention that it requires hoops of reasoning (Campa -> sour, asam -> sour, thus Campa -> asam, and it's the same asam tree the Javanese people know).

What this might better suggest though is that there was already a Campalagi Hill during the time of Arung Palakka, which means the 17th century. It could be that the village name of Campalagian did indeed come from Campalagi Hill, but I'm not sure of where the hill's name came from.

I don't have other sources. So far, books related to this that I have only lists the history of the nearby Buginese heartland, by Christian Pelras, but stopped short of discussing the Mandar people. I can't understand Vietnamese sources. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


texts: Were Christian Mediterranean ports open to Muslim traders in the middle ages?

texts:
This article talks about Muslim-christian trade in the middle ages 11th-14th century, also referenced in this answer.

In brief: Trade greatly intensified after the crusaded and was conducted at first by Jewish traders, later Christian traders primarily from Italian city states dominated the scene. At the same time there was trade across the Mediterranean and along its southern by Muslim traders.

Now my question: Could Muslim traders sail to a Christian port in this time? Any port, all the time or some ports some portion of the time?

I know that there was extensive trade in the lower Dnieper area earlier, so Muslim sailors showing up in a Christian port had a precedent. On the other hand, one could expect a more hostile climate towards Muslims in the time of the crusades and later. But this is all conjecture, I'd appreciate facts.


texts: Approximately how much travel time was saved by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869?

texts: Understanding that there were a few variables involved, approximately how much travel time was saved by no longer having to travel around Africa after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869?


texts: Why would anyone from Japan be in Northern India in early 1900s?

texts:
I am trying to write a fictional history novel.

Can someone tell me why a young man from a wealthy, samurai family from Japan would be in Northern India in the early 1900s (after WW1, before WWII).

Did former samurai travel for commerce?

Can you point me in the right direction?


texts: What Happened to Hacker Culture After 1970?

texts:
"Hacker Culture" centers mainly around being really good at something for its own sake, especially in programming.  I've read a lot about it, but what I read suggests that Hacker Culture no longer really exists.  Primary sources, for example, are all dated.

It's obvious that my (younger) generation kindof stomped on it a bit, but it really feels almost as if it never existed in the first place.  The older coders I've interacted with are just as oblivious to Hacker Culture as new college grads--and yet this wasn't more than a generation or two ago!

Sidenote:

  This is particularly strange since some of this culture is (or could be) perfectly relevant today--e.g. jargon like "octal forty" (I'm drawing a blank), "cruft" (nastiness), "buzzword-compliant", "disemvowel", and so on.  Words like "copywrong", "linearithmic", and "user-obsequious" actually apply to today's centerstage issues!  This doesn't even mention the hacker's love of all things challenging and interesting and aversion to bureaucracy.  With such applicability, I would expect Hacker Culture to be alive and well.

In its time, although it wasn't mainstream, it was certainly not underground.  I wouldn't expect it to remain unchanged, but I wouldn't expect it to disappear.  My question is: what happened to Hacker Culture after about 1970?  Did it evaporate?  Become transformed in way X?  Merge with culture Y?  Did it drastically shrink in popularity, but still exists?

N.B. I originally asked this question on programmers.stackexchange.  They took exception to this, because apparently it was too opinion-based.  I thought about arguing the point, since partly subjective questions are allowed, but some of the comments I received told me it was a lost cause (such as the patently ridiculous assertion that there are no concrete answers in sociology).  While Hacker Culture is often in reference to programming, since I'm interested in understanding the history, I figure this community is a better fit.  I have rewritten, summarized, streamlined, and clarified the post for presentation here.


texts: Elevated walkway in background at 1980s Potsdamer Platz seen in Wim Wenders' film “Der Himmel über Berlin”

texts: In Wim Wenders' 1987 film “Der Himmel über Berlin” (released in English as “Wings of Desire”), several scenes are shot at Potsdamer Platz, then a big empty divided square.  In some of those scenes, some kind of bridge or elevated walkway is visible in the background, on which people can be seen walking.  Did this exist?  If so, what was it?  I can't find such a bridge or walkway on historical Potsdamer Platz photos on Wikimedia Commons, so it may be Wenders' artistic freedom, but it doesn't play any role in the story, so I can't see why he would have chosen to edit it in, which makes me think it may have been real.  Was it?


texts: What does this spear & carpentry square symbol mean?

texts: What does this symbol (placed on the shield being held by an angel figure) mean? Is there any historical explanation for what it represents?


texts: What is the approximate value of treasure seized by privateers from 1567 to 1720?

texts:
What is the approximate value for the treasure seized by Spanish privateers from English ships between 1567 and 1720?

For example, "Attacks by the Anglo-Dutch axis over the period 1567 to 1720 seized approximately X tons of gold."

References :
http://pirateattack.co.uk/history/historyofpiracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateer


texts: How common was it for Red Cross personnel to fight (in both World Wars)?

texts:
How common was it for Red Cross medical personnel to take part in military action on the battlefields (in both World Wars)?

How was this received by the combatants (friendly and enemy)?

The question is motivated by this Wikipedia page:

  9 сентября 1915 года ... во время боя Римма Иванова под
  огнём оказывала помощь раненым. Когда во время боя погибли оба офицера
  роты, она подняла роту в атаку и бросилась на вражеские окопы. Позиция
  была взята, но сама героиня получила смертельное ранение разрывной
  пулей в бедро.

  Вскоре в германских газетах был опубликован «решительный протест»
  председателя Кайзеровского Красного Креста генерала Пфюля. Ссылаясь на
  Конвенцию о нейтралитете медицинского персонала, он решительно
  заявлял, что «сёстрам милосердия не подобает на поле боя совершать
  подвиги». Этот нелепый протест даже рассматривали в штаб-квартире
  Международного Комитета Красного Креста в Женеве…

My translation:

  1915-09-09 during a battle Rimma Ivanova (sister or mercy/nurse) was helping the wounded under enemy fire.
  When both company officers were killed, she lead the company in its assault on the enemy trenches. She was mortally wounded and was decorated posthumously.
  Soon German newspapers published a protest of the Kaiser Red Cross chief who, referring to the Geneva Conventions, claimed that "battle heroism is inappropriate for medical personnel".
  This ridiculous protest was even considered in Geneva.

I had thought:

medical personnel wear the red cross sign and do not carry weapons,
targeting the red cross is a war crime.
wearing the red cross and taking active part in a military action is a war crime.

Am I wrong?


texts: What was the exact nature, extent and use of Near Eastern clay tokens?

texts:
My current knowledge of Near Eastern clay tokens is:

They were developed and used in the Fertile Crescent and Anatolia from 8000 BC
They were an accounting system with a one to one correspondence with real goods (i.e. 3 cow and 4 grain tokens meant 3 cows and 4 measures of grain)
Sumerian writing developed from clay tokens
They continued to be used until about 600 BC

If so:

Did any sort of direct precursor to clay tokens exist?

In what area and time did they first emerge?
Did they undergo any sort of development during the history of their use, save for the emergence of writing?

What was their geographic extend? Are they found at Catal Hüyük?

In what context are they usually found? Private households, temple manors or something else?

How exactly were they used?

How unique was the invention of clay tokens? Do similar systems exist elsewhere that didn't develop into fully-fledged writing?


texts: What was the nominal strength of a company in a British Regiment during the American war of Independence?

texts: How were these organised into Divisions, Grand Divisions or battalions?


texts: What color triangles did the different religious groups (those not Jews or JWs) wear in Nazi concentration camps?

texts:
I was recently reading through Anton Gill's 1989 book "The journey back from hell" regarding the experiences of concentration camp survivors.

On p.31 of this book he mentions that

  There were several thousand priests, and members of religious orders
  of both sexes, in the camps

I do realize, as is shown in this other question, that Jehovah's Witnesses wore the purple triangles. According to Anton Gill's book there were 6000 of them in the concentration camps and he says (on the same p.31) that "they attracted the special enmity of the Nazis". So I am not sure if these are the reasons why they had their own triangle color.

Anyway, presumably they were not the only religious group, besides Jews of course, that was represented there mainly because of their religious beliefs(?)

For example, according to this Wikipedia article 2720 clerics were incarcerated at Dachau.

The question I wanted to ask is: what color triangles were assigned to the members of other religious groups, i.e. those that were neither Jews or JWs?


texts: In what ways did the rise of a true middle class in Europe during the late 19th century become apparent?

texts:
The late 19th and early 20th centuries were very transformative for Europe with the rise of a real middle class. Typically before this the middle class was more of a bourgeoisie and not the middle class we know culturally and economically today.

How did this class' rise during the turn of the century become apparent economically, culturally, politically and historically?


texts: When did age gaps in marriage become looked down upon in America?

texts: I've been told by history-loving friends and read in books about in early American history, when older men, sometimes in sixties or seventies, would take younger, often teenage, wives, without popular outcry or concern. Now, it seems to be looked down upon. See this Psychology Today article and the linked study for examples. When did this shift happen?


texts: What's the difference between Route Army and Army Group?

texts:
Before and during the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the National Revolutionary Army's largest fighting unit was the Route Army (路軍), but this was soon replaced with the Army Group (集團軍).

What's the difference between the two?
If there are no notable differences, what was the motivation behind the change?


texts: What is the origin of "Crévier's supplement" in William A McDevitte's 1850 translation of Livy's Ab Urbe Condita Libri?

texts:
The 1850 translation (by William A McDevitte) of Book 41 of Livy's Ab Urbe Condita Libri (available on the Perseus website at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0149%3Abook%3D41) contains a "supplement from [the 18th century French historian Jean-Baptiste Louis] Crévier" appended to the beginning of the first chapter. This lengthy passage reads just like Livy's own prose, and appears to fill in the well-known lacuna at the beginning of Book 41.

How was this supplementary passage composed by Crévier (as it seems)?


texts: I'm Looking for a picture of a 5 masted sailing ship called Capitan Hilgendorf. (Barquentine)?

texts: The Germans trained sailors and Navy Infantrymen on this ship. I have looked at several sites with numerous information and listings. Can anyone steer me in the right direction? I know that most all of Germany's ships were dispersed among the allies for reparation. I also am aware that many of the ships were re-named.  Thanks for any help.


texts: Did the Zone Rouge in France and Belgium make a difference in WWII?

texts:
WWI left a huge impact on the European landscape - thousands of miles of trenches, torn-apart earth mixed with unexploded ordnance and chemical weapons fallout, and other nasty surprises from the "iron harvest" rendered huge areas of Belgium and France off-limits. Even today, many areas remain too dangerous to go into.

When Germany invaded France and Belgium in 1940, they would have had to pass through this treacherous terrain. Then in 1944 and 1945, the Allies would have pushed Axis forces back through the very same area.

Did the Zone play any role in the fighting, or were all sides able to avoid it without making use of the area-denial opportunity that the Zone provided?


texts: Was there any other Germanic person who gained an important position in The Byzantine Empire other than Emperor Tiberios III Apsimar?

texts:
I have read about Emperor Tiberios III, whose original name was Apsimar/Apsimaros. He was originally a droungarios in the Byzantine Fleet, and later deposed the Emperor Leontios. My question is: Were there any other Germanics beside Emperor Tiberios III who gained a significant position in the Byzantine Empire ?

Here's the link about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiberios_III


texts: What was German GDP in 1919 in Goldmarks?

texts:
The Treaty of Versailles originally demanded German reparations of ℳ 226 billion:

  In January 1921, the Allied Powers grew impatient and established the reparation sum at 226 billion gold marks. The Germans countered with an offer of 30 billion.

This was later reduced to ℳ 132 billion:

  The London Schedule of Payments of 5 May 1921 established "the full liability of all the Central Powers combined, not just Germany alone," at 132 billion gold marks. This sum was a compromise promoted by Belgium—against higher figures demanded by the French and Italians and the lower figure the British supported—that "represented an assessment of the lowest amount that public opinion ... would tolerate".

The Goldmark (gold mark) was the currency of the German Empire, and Versailles fixed the values of the "papiermark" at 1914 prices.

In order to relate this to today's economics I would be interested to know what 226 billion was as a percentage of overall German GDP. The only figure I can obtain is expressed in 1960 US dollars. I need to know what it was in Gold Marks.

Does anyone know of a way of finding out?


texts:
I found this postcard in several shops in Lisbon, Portugal. It depicts the transatlantic voyage from Lisbon to several locations in North and South America.

I wonder at what time this kind of advertisement was popular.

Some indications: I found this blog: http://20agetravel.blogspot.pt/2012/03/portugal-shortest-way-between-america.html that indicates that the postcard itself may be from 1907, however it does not give explanations why this may be so. Then the city associated to Pena Castle is called Cintra, a name not commonly in use anymore (now it is called Sintra). According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintra#History) the name was used in 1809 but I could not find information in which period the city's name became Sintra.

Full resolution here: http://flickr.com/gp/tk-link/7T2130


texts: In regards to Vichy vs Free France, what was the status of Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy?

texts:
The wikipedia article for Vichy France has a pretty good map, a low-res version of which I'll put here:

The map shows which territories were originally Vichy, and when they changed to Free French control (except for the yellow states in Southeast Asia, which came under Japanese control).

However, it's missing two French Territories: Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy. The two skyblue islands you see in the Caribbean are actually Guadeloupe and Martinique.

I would like to know if Saint Martin (the French possession, not the whole island) and Saint Barthelemy were originally under Vichy control, and when they came under Free France control. Who was governing them at the time and what statements did they make after 1940 June?


texts: Does anyone have a concrete example of the British Empire using revolution to gain control over foreign resources, governments?

texts:
I can't remember where I read this but in multiple sources I've read the saying that the "The British Empire could unfurl the winds of revolution" to achieve control over foreign resources, governments, etc.

It can be said that Germany dabbled in this art form as well by transporting and supporting Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's trip to St. Petersburg.  But does anyone have a concrete British Empire example?


texts: Help identifying a strange uniform jacket

texts:
I've got nothing to go on here other than this is quite old.  Thick navy wool with dark gray (or black) Corded striping. One gold star on right sleeve. Handwritten tag is hard to read, has a long registration number and maybe says "Redmond" at the bottom.

I've scoured both military image sources and google image searches with no luck.

Maybe this isn't military? Anyone seen something like this before?

Any advice is appreciated! Thank you!

[][1[]2


texts: How did the way commanders ask their troops to deal with the immediate death of their comrades vary by country/culture during WWII?

texts:
I have researched extensively but may not be asking the right question.  I am interested in learning how military forces were asked to deal with the death of their comrades immediately after the fact during WWII, with the understanding that answers could (should?) vary by culture.  In particular, I am interested in knowing about America/Germany/Russia -- bonus points for info on smaller players that vary by any degree of significance from the others.

My only frame of reference is my own experience through multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.  When a member of our company was killed, our Senior NCO or company commander would brief us within 24 hours.  We would be given 2 minutes following the announcement to pay respects silently, collect ourselves, and get back to work (so to speak).  A ceremony/vigil was usually arranged as early as a week to as late as 3 months later, as mission parameters permitted.

Of course, the garrisoned environment we know/enjoy today varies significantly from the garrisoned battlefront conditions troops knew during WWII.  Can anyone offer insight into how different countries/cultures dealt with the death of their comrades within the first 24 hours of their demise?


texts: How was Euclid's Elements likely written?

texts:
How was Euclid's Elements written? I mean, what type of paper, ink and pen did Euclid likely use?

As I guess there is no definite answer on this, you can also answer:

How did people in 300 BC write in ancient Greece?

Was writing at that time comparable to writing on a modern paper with a modern pen (especially regarding speed / accuracy)?


texts: Why were Catholic priests so instrumental in the Mexican independence movement?

texts:
Catholic priests were leading figures in the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence.

In 1810, Hidalgo gave the Grito de Dolores; in 1811, Morelos occupied Acapulco and Mercado took San Blas. All three were executed.

Later, professional soldiers took over the war effort and succeeded in achieving independence. Iturbide, the first individual ruler of independent Mexico, kept conservative clerics in his inner circle during his short rule.  Religious doctrines can be deployed to support any kind of policies, but I'd expect collaboration like this from ranking members of a state church, more than violent uprisings.

Why were the churchmen so prominent in the independence struggle?


texts: How was it possible for people to remain enslaved until 1869?

texts:
In this article, we read that Wood's enslaver marched his slaves to Texas after the Civil War where she remained enslaved to him until 1869. This is the first I have heard of this. How is this possible? Texas of course was part of the USA after the war. How common was this and what was the legal status of the abducted people? What did the local government try to do about it and what the the federal government try to do?

The history of slavery in Texas article in Wikipedia mentions nothing about post-war enslavement.


texts: Whose colors/coat-of-arms did men-of-arms wear in a feudal army, 14th century?

texts:
During the feudal age in Europe there were some kind of hierarchy among nobles, for example, a small lord provided military service to a larger lord, which did the same to a yet larger lord, etc. which at the end might serve a monarch such as a king.

Whose colors or coat-of-arms were worn by men-at-arms in a battle, for example in the shields, surcoat or armors? Did they wear the colors of their immediate lord? How could armies distinguishes friend or foe if there were hundreds of coat-of-arms?

Or did they use the colors of their monarch or the army? In this case how would the men of different lords be distinguished? And how easy were changing these when the political situation changed, e.g. serving different army, feud between lords under the same monarch?

The time and place I'm looking at is mid 14th century in Western Europe, during the beginning of the Hundred Years' War.


texts: Is Alexander Matrosov's service record publicly available?

texts:
Alexander Matrosov is a Hero of the Soviet Union who perished on the 27th of February in 1943 during the Battles of Rzhev (8th of January, 1942 - 31rd of March, 1943) when he blocked the fascist embrasure with his own body.
I want to see Alexander Matrosov's service record. Is such a document publicly available? If so, where can I find it?


texts:
When we were studying the french revolution, back when I was 15, I remember asking my teacher what was the point of killing a king to end up having an emperor. She didn't bother too much answering but she did say that it wasn't the same thing, like implying that with Napoleon things were better.

Now, I do realize that Napoleon was the emperor so to some extent he was indeed a dictator, but, to what extent? I mean, was his regime more "benevolent" than what is expected when you have a  dictatorship (like Stalin's, Franco's...)?, did he take decisions that improved society which would make him be regarded as a good leader?

What were the differences in French society between having Napoleon as Emperor vs. having the Louis as kings? Was Napoleon's power less (or more) absolute than the Louis.' Was Napoleon less (or more) tyrannical in his use of power? Were there greater (lesser) checks on Napoleon's power than on the kings? Was Napoleon somehow a better (worse) ruler than the kings because he rose to power on talent, rather than birth?


texts: What are the "blue books" of Mr. Balfour?

texts:
In the book The Balfour declaration by Jonathan Schneer p133 there is a critic of prime minister Arthur Balfour that reads

"Critics accused him of laziness because he could not be bothered to read blue books."

What are these blue books? Legal issues of the English parliament?


texts: Are there any documented cases from ancient or medieval times of someone escaping captivity by cross-dressing?

texts:
In 1642, at the beginning of the English Civil War, the Irish Royalist Daniel O'Neill escaped from the Tower of London where he had been imprisoned by the Parliamentarians by

  tying bed sheets and a tablecloth together and dressing as a woman

Also, according to the ballad Gude Wallace, William Wallace evaded capture by dressing as a woman. Probably more historically reliable is the case of Bonnie Prince Charlie who avoided capture disguised as Flora McDonald's maid in 1746. Then there is the case of Catalina de Erauso, a Spanish woman who escaped from a convent dressed as a man in 1600.

None of these qualify, though, as all are either post medieval and / or not escapes from captivity (although one might argue a case about escaping from a convent).

Are there any documented cases of anyone in Ancient or Medieval times successfully escaping from captivity by cross-dressing?

By 'escape from captivity', I am specifically excluding cases of avoiding capture. I'm only interested in cases where someone was already being held captive, preferably in a prison or cell.


texts: Where did one-in-a-million chance of nuking the atmosphere come from?

texts:
There's a well-known story that, while developing the atom bomb, the scientists at Los Alamos determined that there was a one-in-a-million chance that setting off the bomb would cause the atmosphere to ignite in a nuclear chain reaction, destroying all life on Earth.

I know how that number would have been calculated: by assuming that a self-sustaining chain reaction would occur, determining what values for nuclear properties would be required to produce it, and comparing those values to the size of the error bars on the measured values.

Yes, there was a serious concern among Manhattan Project scientists that a self-sustaining nitrogen-nitrogen fusion reaction might occur.  A paper by Konopinski, Marvin, and Teller, Ignition of the Atmosphere with Nuclear Bombs, examined this possibility and concluded that it wouldn't happen

However, I've read the paper, and it doesn't come up with a chance of one in a million, or any probability at all.  Instead, it calculates a "safety factor", and determines that in a worst-case scenario, with the least-favorable possible values for the nuclear properties of nitrogen*, there was a safety factor of 1.6: the reaction would lose energy 1.6 times too quickly to become self-sustaining.

So, where did the "one in a million" number come from?

* The two main uncertainties were the reaction cross-section, which was assumed to be equal to the geometric cross-section, and the distribution of reaction energy, which was assumed to go 100% to the reaction products.  It's physically impossible for either value to be more wrong than this.


texts: In real terms how many alcoholics were there before prohibition vs after prohibition?

texts: I would like to know the actual number of alcoholics and/or the rate of alcoholism say in 1918 and 1933. Many thanks.


texts: Where did the term "Middle Ages" come from? Who was the first known person to use that term?


texts: What proportion of the population of Soviet Union were taken into custody by the state during Stalin's time?

texts:
Started reading The Gulag Archipelago, and its sort of mind numbing, the scale of it described in the book.
Some were taken and summarily executed, some were tried and executed, some were sent to internal exile, some were sent to the Archipelago, some were put in penal battalions, and many other things.

But it does not put a number on them. Indeed, he concedes the incompleteness of his knowledge already.

Was wondering if we have any data today?

How many people in ratio to the population were taken by the state? (in the generation that lived under Stalin)

Is it 1 in 5? 1 in 10? 1 in 1000?

Additional

Not directly relevant to the question, but, interesting when put in backdrop of Gulag Archipelago.

  Timur and His Squad (Timur I yevo komanda, Тимур и его команда) is a short novel by Arkady Gaidar, written and first published in 1940. The book, telling the story of a gang of village kids who sneak around secretly doing good deeds, protecting families whose fathers and husbands are in the Red Army, and doing battle against nasty hooligans had a huge impact upon the young Soviet audiences. Timurite movement (Timurovtsy), involving thousands of children, became a massive phenomenon all over the country. Timur and His Squad remained part of the curriculum in every Soviet school even up into the 1990s

I read this book when I was like 10. I think it was written to give the impression of flow of normal life, where kids can have quests and adventures in the neighborhood. No crimes, no shortages, no mention of repressions.

Came upon it from a group of marxists, who used to organize book exhibitions, of old books from the time strong Indo-Soviet ties. Books used to be translated from Russian to Hindi on quite a large scale.


texts: How would you find and get introduced to a patron in old Rome?

texts:
As the question said, how would you get introduced to a Patron in old Rome?
Would you merely go to the Roman version of the town hall and inquire about which people were available as patrons and then show up at meeting hours and introduce your work and hope he would take you on?
Or was it it more of a "I know a guy, who knows a guy whose roommate´s uncle is friends with someone who knows of a patron and for 5 Aureus I will set the wheels in motion, to get you introduced to him and he MIGHT take you on as a client.
Or was patronage more about who you were, as in since your uncle was a general under Caesar Augustus, your uncle can use his connections and write you a letter of introduction to the family of Pompaius who will become your patron.
Basically unless you were someone or your family was, would you NEVER get introduced to a possible patron?


texts: The destruction of the Mycenaean palaces and the Sea-peoples

texts:
I am reading about the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces lately and there are a couple of theories to explain their destruction.

One of those theories supposes that the Sea people, who raided the Hittite Kingdom and Egypt, also raided Mycenae.

The wiki-entry for "Sea-Peoples" identifies them with inhabitants of Greece. As far as I know, Greece went straight into the dark ages and the Sea-people were one of the theories to explain this. Now at the same time, some think that the Sea-people were from Greece. How does this fit together? What am I missing?


texts: Who were the Wright brothers' competitors?

texts:
I heard that there was a person who was sponsored by the government to make the first flying airplane. The Wright brothers beat him to it and this made him really depressed and he gave up his career.

Who was he? his name?

Thank you.
/Google didnt help me much


texts: Why is Baja California often shown as an island on maps between 1500 and 1700?

texts:
Several maps done in the 16th & 17th Centuries show a huge island off the western coast of America.  At its lower end, it looks a lot like baja california, but it is clearly an island, as opposed to a peninsula.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Insel_Kalifornien_1650.jpg is an example link

How did it get this way, and who figured out that the maps were wrong?


texts: Why did Mozambique join the British Commonwealth?

texts:
In short, the Commonwealth originated in the British Empire, as an association of Britain and its former colonies.

Why did Mozambique (a former Portuguese colony) join?


texts: How and Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?

texts:
How did the Soviet Union collapse? (Collapse meaning loss of central power over its member states who declared their independence.)

Was it economic, and to what extent?
Was it Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher's military, and to what degree did military pressure act as a causative effect?
Was it "Openness" and "Restructuring", to what degree was this propaganda or actually formative?

How does an empire with a history of manipulating events and public perceptions in other nations fail to hold itself together? Were all of its states nearing open rebellion? If so, why? Iron-fisted corrupt officials? Empty store shelves? Poverty in every class but the elite?

The Kims have managed to keep their grasp on North Korea. China's leadership would quickly put down insurrection. Cuba, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, no signs of waning control. Why could the USSR, under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, not maintain control?


texts: What cipher did Jefferson and Madison use to correspond?

texts:
In Richard Brookhiser's James Madison, he states that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison used a cipher while corresponding.  He doesn't go into details about how the cipher worked.  Rather, he shows snippets of correspondence with certain words italicized to indicate that they were encrypted somehow.

What details of the encryption technique are available?  Was it actually a cipher?  Or, seeing how individual words were the encrypted, was it some sort of book code?


texts: After the split with Stalin, what was Yugoslavia's official attitude towards Soviet history before Stalin's takeover?

texts:
In 1939, Tito published a pamphlet attacking Trotsky and Trotskyism. Unsurprising since he was still no different to any other Communist at that time, and was a supporter of Stalin.

Josip Broz Tito: Trotskyism and Its Helpers

As is well known, Tito split from the Soviet sphere after the Second World War.

Presumably Stalin came in for a rhetorical kicking after that, but did that extend to all of Soviet history? Was Lenin still revered? Did Tito continue to vilify Trotsky, Bukharin and so on, or rehabilitate them, or just ignore them?

You could argue that Titoism was Bukharinism realised and the polar opposite of Trotskyism, but it would be unsurprising if Tito just brushed them all under the carpet.


texts:
Why is there such a concentration of early neolithic temples on Malta?

Seven world heritage sites, plus several other significant locations (see Megalithic Temples of Malta) adds up to a lot of temple tons per Malta's 316 square kilometers. That's one site every 24 square kilometers.

Is this density reflected elsewhere in Europe, or North Africa, or the Mediterranean? My impression is that it isn't.

If there are more temple tons per square km in Malta, then either:

More were built in Malta or ...
Same number were built everywhere but were taken down/eroded everywhere else.

So I guess my question is, did Malta 3000BC have more spare capacity than everywhere else? Or otherwise where did all the other temples go?

edit: When I say "temple ton" I mean a ton of stone in a discretionary neolithic structure. Like a measure of effort available from the population.


texts: Is there any data that supports or refutes the claim made in this paper about the Harappan/Indus Valley civilization?

texts:
I came across an old  article recently, about the collapse of the Harappan civilization. Here's the paper it is based on-
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3387054/

I found this to be the most compelling explanation so far, because the evidence seems to back it up. However, I'm surprised because I've barely ever heard or seen this article/paper being discussed anywhere (or maybe I'm bad at finding such discussions).

It might sound like an opinion-based question because I want to know what people think about this theory, but I also want to know if there is any more data that supports or strongly refutes this claim.

EDIT- Explaining the claim (not sure if claim is the right word because there's quite a lot of evidence)- The claim is that climate change and drought forced the IVC people (barring few small farming communities) to move eastward towards the Ganges. And this is backed by the fact that a large number of IVC sites of the late-Harappan era were found closer to the Ganges.

I wanted to know how widely is this accepted, or are there any papers that refute this?


texts:
Naval button?

I found this at an former telegraph, pony express and stage stop in NV. It looks like a rivet used mostly for leather or pouches from my research but I really can't  ID it for sure


texts: Why does the US House of Representatives have a ceremonial mace, but the Senate does not?

texts:
The US House of Representatives has its own ceremonial mace, which was apparently one of the first things that they authorized once they met for the first time.  However, the Senate does not seem to have an equivalent.  It has a gavel, which fills a similar (albeit much less impressive) niche, but as far as I can tell, the gavel acquired its importance from the fact it has been used for so long.

Why did the early Senate not authorize a mace for itself?  Was it even discussed?


texts: Did the Mayans have plantations of cacao trees, or did they simply gather the fruit from cacao trees in the wild?


texts: In the Palestine Partition Plan, why was Jaffa allocated to the Arab state?

texts:
I'm reading through the document, "The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem, Part II" by the United Nations. Under the provisions of the Palestine Resolution, they note that Palestine was partitioned into eight sections:

The territory of Palestine was divided into eight parts. Three were allotted to the Jewish state, three to the Arab state. The seventh, Jaffa, was to form an Arab enclave in Jewish territory (Annex I).
The eight part was to be Jerusalem as a corpus separatum under a special international regime... (p. 36)

However, the document makes no mention of why this seventh partition was made.
The annex refers to a partition diagram of the region of Palestine. I've copied the relevant portion of the general map here:

In this diagram, orange regions are designated Arab, blue regions are designated for a Jewish state, and the green line represents the UNSCOP's proposed boundary.
What was the motivation behind this seventh partition?


texts: Did Robert Devereux's monopoly on sweet wine encroach upon Sir Christopher Hatton's monopoly on wine?

texts:
I know that Robert Devereux was given a monopoly on sweet wine following the death of Robert Dudley, his step-father and the previous holder of this monopoly, but I recently read that Sir Christopher Hatton was also given a monopoly on wine in general (Tudor textbook mentioning Hatton's monopoly). Would Devereux's monopoly not have impinged upon Hatton's?
Thank you!


texts: Why did the Spanish government award a decoration to Chiang Kai-Shek?

texts:
In 1936 the republican government granted Chiang the Order of Isabella the Catholic.1 Why did they do that?

The Wikipedia article on Chiang is where I got this from.


texts: What is the meaning of the images on the medal granted with the Nobel prize?

texts:
I have just seen the . One side of the medal is portrait of Alfred Nobel; the other side is two women where one is with bared nipples.

Can you help me with data and meaning of this awkwardness. I believe there are some history and an interesting background. I will be glad If anyone explains me the significance and symbology of the portrait.


texts: Are there representation of wheat in the Gobekli Tepe temple?

texts:
While reading "Homo Sapiens" by Harari, I have been fascinated by the link made between wheat emergence and this prehistoric stone temple. A colleague told me about pseudo history in this book, so I went checking this fact that I took for granted.

Indeed, like stated by Harari, the temple is considered by researchers as a monument built by hunters thanks to animal bones found.

I read once that there were wheat representation on the pillars. Unfortunately, none of the pictures I managed to see with google search image were resembling wheat.

Are there recognized representation of wheat in the Gobekli Tepe temple ? Any link to picture of them is welcome.
More generally, is there a consensus establishing/recognizing the emergence of wheat linked to Gobekli Tepe temple or the people who built it ?

Indeed, I had read report that the ancestor of wheat had been traced thanks to DNA to a wheat species in the center of Turkey, Einkorn Wheat.

  Evidence from DNA fingerprinting suggests einkorn was first
  domesticated near Karaca Dağ in southeast Turkey, an area in which a
  number of PPNB farming villages have been found.

So that could match.


texts: During the Great Depression, did the US Army do a study involving paying people to dig a hole and fill it back up?

texts: This website indicates a study was done by the US army but it offers no citation or identifying information.  I've scoured to try to find the answer myself but am running short on time.  Is it true?


texts:
I kind of get it, but Worlds Together, Worlds Apart uses this term a lot and it seems really confusing what fundamentally defines a strong state. In specific, I am learning about Bactria's split from the Seleucid kingdom to become a "strong state". Does a strong state have to be a military state? Or just have a strong military? Maybe just economically strong?

(These questions are just to get the juices flowing; if you can provide a better explanation without answering them, be my guest.)

(Also, any better tag ideas? Leave in the comments, and I don't have enough reputation to create new ones.


texts: What were the dates & details of assassinations in Vienna, Austria of Bulgarian defectors Veselin Stoyov, Peter Niezamov, and Ivan Kolev (circa 1974)?

texts:
Anna Zechenter of the Institute of National Remembrance in Krakow, Poland has written an article entitled "KGB Poisons" which discloses that the 1974 kidnapping in Denmark of Boris Arsov, a Bulgarian defector, coincided with the shooting of three Bulgarian immigrants in Vienna.  The three murdered men were helping Eastern Bloc defectors to escape to the West.  They were Veselin Stoyov, Pieter Niezamov, and Ivan Kolev.  According to Zechenter, Austrian police immediately identified the killer, a Bulgarian State Security agent, but he was protected by the Bulgarian government and managed to escape justice.

Any information on the exact dates of the shootings of the three men, and the circumstances/locations of the crimes, would be greatly appreciated. Citations of relevant newspaper stories, law enforcement investigations, archival records, and scholarly works about these killings would be very helpful.


texts:
This is a question about evolution of weapons technology. Destroyer is a class of ships which exists already for more than a century. One of its main characteristics is speed (these are generally the fastest large surface displacing vessels). Here is a little table of typical destroyers maximal speeds (in knots) arranged by years (name, year, power in 1000shp, max speed):
Cossak (1885) 14, 26,
Wickes (1917) 25, 35.3
Clemson (1918) 28, 35.5
Fubuki (1926) 50, 38
Fantasque (1935) 74-81, 40 (the fastest ever built)
Sims (1937) 51, 37
Fletcher (1941) 60,  36.5
Adams (1964) 52, 33
Spruance (1980) 80, 32.5
Arleigh Burke (1988) 53, 30
The data is from Wikipedia. The length (the most important characteristic for speed) is roughly the same for most vessels, and does not show any clear pattern. It seems that all modern ones have max speed about 30. Can anyone explain this strange pattern? Speed becomes less relevant after
the mid 30s? Why?
EDIT. Let me clarify and address some answers. I was not asking about nomenclature of the ship classes, or their names, or the age of sail. The question I wanted to ask was:

Why the top speed of the fastest (surface, displacing) ships shows such a strange pattern of evolution?

It looks like the navies do not care about high speed of their fastest ships since the late 30s, or at least that this is a secondary concern.
One answer suggests an interesting possibility that the data that I used are not reliable. Can anyone suggest a more reliable source of statistics?
EDIT2. Thanks to all who answered. All answers which really address the question split into two classes:

That the pattern I noticed does not exist in reality and comes from faulty data. (That is Fantasque, for example was not really faster than a 21st century destroyer).

That the max speed of destroyers in not an important concern for modern navies.

I do not know how to decide between these two. Not enough reliable data cited in the answers.
Edit. I found a book which provides a partial answer:
French Destroyers: torpilleurs d’escadre and contre-torpilleurs
by JOHN JORDAN and JEAN MOULIN
Seaforth Publishing, 2015, ISBN 978-1848321984.
An extended review of the book that I read suggests explanation 2 from the alternatives mentioned above. Some 1930s destroyers were built with the purpose to maximize speed at the expense of other characteristics. Later experience (WWII) showed that this approach was unjustified.


texts: When could California mission priests perform confirmation?

texts:
The Franciscan priests at California missions were empowered with the faculties to perform sacraments like baptism and marriage. A stricter standard applied in the case of the faculty of confirmation -- that it be performed by bishops. California's bishop was inaccessibly far away in Sonora.

In the era of Serra and Lasuen the priests enjoyed a faculty of confirmation which somehow expired in 1795. Payeras complained about its twenty-five year absence in 1820. Was the faculty ever granted again before the diocese of Monterey was created in 1840?


texts: The John de la Pole tomb in Wingfield church has his feet resting on a lion with a forked tail. Does the forked tail symbolize anything please?


texts: How did Britain govern the thirteen colonies?

texts:
In the 18th century, if I understand correctly, the king of England appointed the governors of the thirteen colonies in North America.  How far beyond royal appointments of governors did British rule extend?

One obvious answer is that in the 1760s the British Parliament began trying to impose taxes on Americans --- money to be sent from America to Britain.

Another is that when Britain went to war against France in 1756, colonial Americans helped the British conquer the French colony of Canada.

After the taxation laws of the 1760s some American statesmen took the position that the colonies had their own legislatures and, although they were subjects of the same king as the British, and the king therefore appointed their governors, the British Parliament had no more right to legislate for America the the Virginia House of Burgesses had to legislate for England.  So a question is: before the tax acts, how extensive was legislation by Parliament that was intended to be enforced in America, and how effective was the enforcement?

Added somewhat later: Another instance of governing from England was the order-in-council signed by King George III on July 20, 1764, stating that the disputed territory claimed by both New York and New Hampshire belonged to New York.  That disputed territory is what later became the state of Vermont.  The ruling followed an ex-parte hearing, i.e. the king and council heard from only one side: the province of New York.  Then in 1767 a further order was issued in response to a petition from the inhabitants of the "New Hampshire Grants", as that territory was then called, saying the province of New York ought to recognize New Hampshire land grants issued before the order-in-council of 1764.  However, this was clearly not routine governance.


texts: Help identify this camouflage military style jacket?

texts: I have a camo military jacket I can't seem to find anywhere what it is. It has a paratrooper flap at the back. It has no labels.


texts: How do we know that prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies were egalitarian?

texts:
In the Wikipedia article on Patriarchy it says:

  Anthropological, archaeological, and evolutionary psychological
  evidence suggests that most prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies were
  relatively egalitarian.

However I couldn’t find out what concrete evidence we have that prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies were egalitarian. I couldn’t find it in the sources either. How do we know this?


texts:
Tisquantum (January 1, 1585 – November 30, 1622), also known as Squanto, was the Native American who assisted the Pilgrims after their first winter in the New World and was integral to their survival.

In an unreferenced piece Wikipedia says: "It is a commonly held belief that he helped them recover from an extremely hard first winter by teaching them the native method of maize cultivation. This story claimed a method that utilized local fish (menhaden) to fertilize crops. He is commonly thought to have taught the colonists how to catch the menhaden necessary to fertilize maize in the native fashion along with the methods by which they could catch eels and other local wildlife for food."

Even if I'm not a horticulturist, after reading the piece above, just because it is not directly referenced, two questions arose to my mind:

1) Did Native Americans really use fish as fertilizer?

2) If the answer to 1) is no, by who Squanto have learned that horticultural technique?


texts: Which RAF squadrons and aircraft types took part in the bombing of Berlin on the 25th of August 1940?

texts:
The first RAF raid of Berlin in WW2 took place on the 25th of August 1940 in retaliation for German bombing of London.  The accounts I can find claim that there were 81 or 95 aircraft involved, (Handley Page Hampden bombers and/or Wellington bombers), supposedly from four squadrons including 44 and 50 (45 Squadron is also mentioned in some reports but it seems that this was based in North Africa at the time!?!?).

The bombing is said to have moved the focus of Luftwaffe attacks from RAF bases to British cities and contributed to the German failure to gain air supremacy during the Battle of Britain.

Is there a definitive record of which RAF squadrons and aircraft types took part in the bombing of Berlin on the 25th of August 1940?


texts: What is the story behind the Education of Alexander the Great by Aristotle - Jose Armet Portanell

texts:
I was given this task to form a paragraph after this picture (by drawing inferences) but I can't even figure out, where to start. Can someone tell me what's the story behind this picture?
Thanks.


texts: Did any Nazi court convict officers of atrocities that went "too far" even by SS standards?

texts:
The English language Wikipedia article on the Dirlewanger Brigade in Belarus quotes Martin Kitchen, The Third Reich: Charisma and Community, p. 267, stating that the unit:

  committed such shocking atrocities in the Soviet Union, in the pursuit of partisans, that even an SS court was called upon to investigate

In contemporary history, we consider that Nazi war crimes, in particular Waffen SS (but also Wehrmacht) crimes in central and eastern Europe, are the epitome of war crime atrocities.  I was therefore somewhat surprised to read that an SS court would investigate atrocities committed against citizens of Nazi occupied territories, because I cannot imagine what may constitute going "too far" and that the SS effectively was given a free hand to do as it pleased.  Although the article does not state any ruling of the SS court, I suppose Dirlewanger was acquitted or it would have said otherwise.  On the other hand, if not even Oskar Dirlewanger was convicted then probably nobody was.

Are there any documented cases of where SS or other Nazi courts having convicted any soldiers, officers, or otherwise, for atrocities / war crimes that went "too far" even by the standards of the SS / Nazi?


texts: Construction of the Great Cothon of Carthage

texts:
I'm fascinated by the Great Cothon of Carthage, but when I try to learn more about it online, there's surprisingly little information.  Everyone has physical descriptions of the size and shape, but what I'm looking for is information about when it was built and by whom, as well as whether it was developed in phases and expansions vs being built in its full scope during the original construction.

Can anyone shed any light about the development of the Great Cothon?

The best date I have for the founding of Carthage is some time in the 800s BC, which leaves a margin of over 600 years before a description from 200 BC would be written, so I'm wondering if anyone has a more precise date than that.
Large construction projects are often associated with a particular ruler, so I'm wondering who that might be.
Circular harbors may be harder to expand than others, but they're certainly able to be renovated, destroyed, rebuilt, or reinforced from wood to brick to stone, for example. I'm wondering if any of that happened.


texts: Why is Napoleon III seen as a bad leader?

texts: I'm asking that because, with the exception of the defeats against Prussia and Mexico, he succeeded to raise France as a fully industrial nation, gave some rights to the workers (like the right of strike) and played a major role in the creation of both Italy and Romania. So why is he seen as incompetent ?


texts:
Context: I am going to be starting a D&D campaign in a world based on ancient Greece, rather than your classic western european medieval fantasy land. This will probably not be the only question regarding everyday life in that place and period, as I am no historian.

If a band of regular folk are travelling throughout the ancient Greek countryside and they happen upon a village where they decide to stay for the night, where could they stay for the night? Would they be able to find a room to rent for the night, food and drink aplenty and local to gossip with?

If so, what typical food would they be able to find there? What would have made up the carbs in your everyday meal back then? Was there meat every day? What would they have washed it down with?


texts: What is the equivalent in France of the "Victorian era"?

texts:
By Victorian era I mean the moral rigidity and the dominance of the bourgeoisie. We had the same culture in France but I can't find the proper term to phrase it.

For example how would you translate "Victorians" in the sentence below to a public which doesn't have a clue about English history (so a literal translation won't work) but who has some knowledge about French history.

  The refusal to acknowledge human nature is like the Victorians’ embarrassment about sex, only worse: it distorts our science and scholarship, our public discourse, and our day-to-day lives. (Steven Pinker)


texts: Was there a movement for "humane" slavery?

texts:
Many of us are familiar with the movements for "free-range" or "humane" animal products. I have heard that in the antebellum US there were similar movements for "humane" slave products.

Is this true? While I heard this specifically about the US, I would be interested in similar movements worldwide too.

EDIT: with most ethical movements, there are a range of intensities with which people respond. For example: with environmentalism, some people just advocate switching to CFLs, whereas others advocate not driving, never eating meat, etc. This latter group is analogous to the "abolitionists" of slavery.

However, I'm wondering what the former group is analogous to. There must've been people who said "Sure, slavery is bad, but it's just too big of a change. For now, let's focus on treating slaves better." Were there any such movements?


texts: Did Mao Zedong and Chinese communists collude with the Japanese during the Sino-Japanese War?

texts:
Whilst answering another question on in which the CCP was militarily involved in the Sino-Japanese War, To what extent did the CPC avoid fighting with the Japanese? I came across groundbreaking and truly astounding information that the Chinese had apparently initiated a truce with the Japanese.
This was all done whilst the CCP spread propaganda about the GMD/KMT avoiding confrontation with the Japanese, running away in women's clothing ... so this all undermines their role in the war (or what little role they actually played), despite the current PRC claiming its greatness and bravery. From a Chinese standpoint, I believe this is vital information that shakes the foundation on which the PRC was established - Mao not only committed mass atrocities, he also betrayed the Chinese people - yet his portrait still hangs in the centre of Tiananmen Square. I am trying to demonstrate the significance of this.
I ask this question in hopes of further clarification on the incident; are there any different sources that also shed-light on this and confirm/assure credibility?
In the question, I used this source, http://www.japanpolicyforum.jp/archives/diplomacy/pt20160517095311.html, however, I find web discussion sources rather obscure, so I also found this Chinese language BBC report which talks about the same Japanese Professor as in the source above. http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/world/2015/12/151225_japan_professor_book - google can translate it to English, but so far I have not found an English version. I shall loosely translate some bits of the article: (please bear with my english)

In November 2015, Homare Endō, Professor of Tsukuba University, Japan, published her book Mao Zedong: the Man who Conspired with the Japanese in Japan.
[今年11月，日本筑波大學名譽教授遠藤譽撰寫的《毛澤東 與日軍共謀的男人》一書在日本出版。]
She quotes Iwai Iiyi's Recollections of Shanghai: "Contrary to Chinese official sources, the CCP agents obtained information on the Nationalist Revolutionary Army (NRA) through the United Front, only to hand it over to the Japanese, with the intention to weaken the GMD."
[但遠藤收集的岩井回憶錄《回想的上海》中則明確說，「事實完全相反，是中共特務把通過國共合作得到的蔣介石為首的國民黨軍隊的情報提供給日方，目的存在弱化國民黨的意圖」。]
Facing the invading Japanese in 1937, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army wanted to fight a war of resistance, but Mao Zedong insisted that only 10% of the troops should be committed to the Sino-Japanese War. Iwai Iiyi's Recollections of Shanghai also revealed that Pan Hannian [a professional spy from the CPC Central Intelligence Group’s Secret Service (Spy) Division.] had, through Yuan Shicheng, proposed to discuss the matters/arrangements for "truce" in the Northern [Chinese] regions. Because Iwai lacked skills/experience/knowledge in military matters, this proposal was handed over to Colonel Kagesa Sadaaki [who was Imperial Japanese Army General Staff]. From then on, Pan Hannian began directly communicating/being in contact with the Japanese military.
[1937年，面對入侵的日軍，中共八路軍和新四軍希望抗戰，但毛澤東則堅持只拿出10%兵力用於抗戰。岩井《回想的上海》還披露，潘漢年通過袁殊向岩井提議，商談共軍與日軍在華北戰場上「停戰」的事宜，岩井因不懂軍事，把該建議轉手影佐，潘漢年從此開始直接與日軍接觸。]


texts: What do we mean when we say history is a science?

texts:
When Mark the moderator says "history is a science", what does he mean?

I know what someone means when they say "biology is a science". They mean "I can express my rationality in terms of the living world as it really is. And I can demonstrate my rationality by replicating the results of experiments and making predictions about living things that will turn out to be true.

How does one scientifically demonstrate their historical rationality?


texts: What methods did the Old Babylonian society use for solving equations?

texts:
According to the Wikipedia article on the Abacus, Ettore Carruccio stated in Mathematics and Logic In History and In Contemporary Thought that the Old Babylonians:

  may have used the abacus for the operations of addition and subtraction; however, this primitive device proved difficult to use for more complex calculations

translated by Isabel Quigly

The Old Babylonians, however, performed more complex mathematics than basic arithmetic. In the well referenced Wikipedia article on Babylonian mathematics it is stated that there is evidence they solved equations algebraically. Analysis of the Plimpton 322 tablet even seems to indicate they calculated a list of Pythagorean triples "too many and too large to have been obtained by brute force".

What methods then did the Old Babylonians use for solving equations? Were other devices aside from the abacus employed, or were these mostly manual methods on tablets? How did their manual methods differ from those we use today?

I'm not sure how much information we have on their mathematics. If there is a lot available, then this may be a little broad--in that case a summary of the state of research with links to good starting places to read about the research would make a useful answer.

Referenced Wikipedia articles:

Abacus
Babylonian mathematics

Note: I have discovered papers such as this, but I am unable to ascertain whether the paper is reputable (I'm unfamiliar with the scholars in this field) or whether it contains much in the way of an answer to my question. It would be nice to know that before purchasing access to a paper at random. In this case, the paper seems to be freely accessible and at a glance appears scholarly, yet I still cannot verify if it represents the current state of research.


texts: When did the Hebrews stop speaking Hebrew and start speaking Aramaic?

texts:
The Torah was written Hebrew, and most of the old testament was written in Hebrew, although parts of Daniel were written in Aramaic. By the time of the 1st century, Aramaic was the common language for the people living in Palestine.

At what point in time, or what period of time, did the Jewish people living in the region stop speaking Hebrew as common language and start speaking Aramaic and why?


texts: When did Tsar Nicholas II become Tsar of Russia?

texts:
I'm having trouble understanding the technicalities of throne inheritance in the Tsardom.

Did Nicholas II become Tsar after his fathers' death on the 1st of November 1894, or did he become Tsar after his coronation on 26 May 1896?

I'm asking this because I don't know if it's completely correct to call Nicholas II a Tsar between 1st of November 1894 and 26 May 1896.


texts: Did Soviet cars have seatbelts or laws enforcing them?

texts:
I know in America, the seatbelt has a history involving legislation and Ralph Nader, and didn't really exist before the 1960's.

What about in the Soviet Union? Did they go through a similar process? When, if ever, was the seatbelt implemented in Soviet cars, and were there laws enforcing their use?


texts: In WWII, what were the major differences in tank combat on the eastern and western fronts?

texts:
Nearly every nation deployed tanks in World War II. What are some differences in tactics between the eastern front in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the western front in France, the Low Countries, and Germany? On the western front, I'm specifically interested post D-Day.

Some specific questions relating to the topic:

Differences in German armored tactics between the fronts
Differences in how each front utilized anti-tank weaponry
Differences in how often forces combined infantry and armor (i.e. the prevalence of tank-only groups vs. mixed unit groups)


texts: Row for powers of 10 on 1950's French typewriter keyboards

texts:
In the movie Populaire, 1950's-era French typewriter keyboards are shown with dedicated "1", "10", "100", "1...", "10...", "100...", "1M", and "10M" keys on the top row.

Was there a dedicated type bar for each of these keys?

What did the, e.g., "10..." and "10M" keys produce?


texts: Are there any shapefiles that have been generated dealing with East Asian film history?

texts: I am working on a project that looks at the 1961 Japanese film Buddha and its reception in East and Southeast Asia. In particular, I want to create a map using GIS to show, in essence, the relative penetration of film as a mode of popular entertainment in various East and Southeast Asian countries (Japan, Laos, Thailand, Burma, etc.) in 1960 (or thereabouts). I am thinking that this can be expressed in terms of movie-theaters-per-capita or simply number of movie theaters in a given urban district. Ideally, I would like to work with shapefiles that have already been generated to visually represent this data, but databases that have this information would also be very helpful. Does anyone have any knowledge of any such resources?


texts: Did anyone in England in the 1680's wear a beard?

texts:
I'm trying to find any examples of beards in England during the 1680s.
I know they weren't popular but that doesn't mean they didn't exist at all.
A picture would be ideal, although I appreciate this is unlikely!


texts: What present-day monarchs descend from Rodrigo de Borgia, a.k.a., Pope Alexander VI?

texts: I understand all enthroned and dethroned Catholic royal families (except for the Grimaldis) and even some Protestant German royal families like Hessen, Mecklenburg and the Prussian Hohenzollern descend from Pope Alexander VI — via his daughter Lucrezia — but I am not sure whether some other Protestant families currently reigning share this controversial and colourful ancestor.


texts: What is the origin of Friedensreich Hundertwasser's surname?

texts:
This is my first time posting on History.SE, so I hope my question is appropriate for this site.

I've tried to look up the nationality of Friedensreich Hundertwasser's parents, that is Ernst and Elsa Stowasser. I managed to find out that she was Jewish and he Christian, however I found nothing on the which country they were born in (or perhaps even their further origins).

The reason I am asking is the peculiar name "Stowasser", "sto" meaning "hundred" in Czech.

Thanks!


texts: Prior to Christianity, did some or all Greeks commonly believe in Greek mythology as historical fact?

texts:
Prior to the spread of Christianity, religion in Greece centered around worship of the Greek pantheon, and Greek mythology included many stories to explain historical fact, such as the founding of Thebes or man geting fire at Mount Olympus, though granted mythology, like religious practices, did vary somewhat among the Greeks from place to place.

My question is, did Greeks in ancient (or even more recent) times believe that these things happened, or did they understand that they were just tall tales and myth?


texts: Did the US's push to dissolve the imperial preference become an underlying reason for the collapse of the British empire

texts: Here are some articles (history.state.gov and umich.edu) talking about the US push to dissolve the imperial preference system. In the conferences that occurred during WW2 the US told Britain explicitly that they must dissolve the imperial preference system.  From here can one construct an argument that the financial burden the empire, without the benefit of its imperial preference all but guaranteed the end of the British empire.


texts: Which Allied forces held the French-Italian border from Operation Dragoon to the end of WWII in Europe?

texts:
Since the Germans and their puppet state the Italian Social Republic continued to hold northern Italy almost to the end of the war, it was necessary for the Allies to man the fortifications on the Italian-French border; the opposition did the same to prevent an additional invasion of Italy.

I haven't been able to find any sources in English that tell me which units held the allied side of the border. The best I've found tells me that there were French Chasseur regiments there, which is perfectly reasonable, but not which regiments, nor how many.


texts: How does history as a scholarly discipline or disciplinary practice justify its existence as a social practice?

texts:
The discipline of history as emergent in the 19th century in its scholarly practice or intellectual discipline exists as a social phenomena in many contemporary societies.

Contemporary societies contest the meaning and importance of their practices.

How do historians justify themselves to their societies?

For readers from societies where historians are fully funded and unmolested ready examples include:

Dawkins defunding of Australian humanities popularisation in the 1980s combined with the spectacle of bicentennial official history.
John Howard’s defunding of humanities research and promotion of pseudo historical attacks on Australian historiography during the history wars
the Goldhagen debate on German ethnic culpability for the holocaust
Irving versus Penguin books


texts: What date format was used at Pompeii around the Mt Vesuvius eruption

texts: I saw a recent television commercial with a modern person at the Mt Vesuvius eruption asking a Pompeii resident the year. The resident answers with 79 AD. But I thought the zero point for the BC/AD system, the birthdate of Jesus, was reversed engineered centuries later. So what would the resident have said (modulo the conversation would have been in Latin(?) instead of English) as the year?


texts: Is the use by old masters of camera obscura and optics in general a taboo topic in Art History, or was David Hockney's thesis wrong?

texts:
About 20 years ago, David Hockney made in his book "Secret Knowledge" a powerful case for the hypothesis that a revolution was set off in Western painting by the use of camera obscura and other optical instruments from the 15th century onwards.

According to his very convincing thesis, the breathtaking realism of (especially portrait) paintings by Van Eyck, Vermeer, Velazquez etc. could never have been achieved by simply "eyeballing" the subject. By the beginning of the 19th century, the technique was so widespread and refined, that many "paintings" were de facto "photographs" before the advent of photography itself.

Of course, this crucial introduction and generalization of "photographic" painting, without which the evolution of Western art over the past 500 years would be impossible to understand, could be seen as "cheating".
Is the controversy caused by "Secret Knowledge" justified?
Have art historians given Hockney's thesis the attention it deserves?

Examples of old masters' works which "couldn't be just a painting":
Van Eyck's "Man in an Turban, 1433
Holbein's "Thomas More", 1527

Wikipedia on contemporary photorealism:
"Photorealist painting cannot exist without the photograph. In Photorealism, change and movement must be frozen in time which must then be accurately represented by the artist. Photorealists gather their imagery and information with the camera and photograph. Once the photograph is developed (usually onto a photographic slide) the artist will systematically transfer the image from the photographic slide onto canvases. Usually this is done either by projecting the slide onto the canvas or by using traditional grid techniques. The resulting images are often direct copies of the original photograph but are usually larger than the original photograph or slide. This results in the photorealist style being tight and precise, often with an emphasis on imagery that requires a high level of technical prowess and virtuosity to simulate, such as reflections in specular surfaces and the geometric rigor of man-made environs."


texts: Did the Nazis identify as being Fascists? How exactly did they view themselves?

texts:
In the 1920s, Italy established the National Fascist Party (Italian: Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF ) Hitler adopted much from his Italian allies including their fascist ideals. Even the infamous straight-armed salute was actually an old Roman salute. However, Hitler's group was called the National Socialist German Workers' Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP) Considering Hitler appealed to the disenfranchised and downtrodden masses as Germany was in a rough shape at the time; calling it the NSDAP is fitting but Socialism and Fascism are on opposite sides of the political spectrum which eludes the latter.

Answers to this older question Did Hitler get called a fascist by his opponents within Germany? Did he or other Nazis have a problem with that? tell that the words "Fascist" and "Fascism" already projected a negative image and was used to defame Hitler and his Nazi ideals. But he and the entire Nazi party were fascists weren't they? That's simply a fact. To slander Hitler by calling him and his obviously fascist group "fascist" would just be redundant. Unless, they never openly proclaim to being such.

I cannot find a single account by any actual Nazi party member at the time claiming themselves fascist. Instead finding mostly socialist and nationalistic sentiments. So did the german people under nazi rule openly identify as being fascist like Italy? or did they view themselves differently regardless if Hitler knew they were?


texts: What East German laws and regulations were extended to the West after unification?

texts:
Legally speaking, the reunification of Germany in 1990 was not a merger of two equal states resulting in a new country. Rather, it is better characterized as the absorption of the German Democratic Republic (the GDR, or East Germany) into the Federal Republic of Germany (the FRG, or West Germany).  The GDR and its laws effectively ceased to exist, whereas the laws and constitution of the FRG remained largely the same.

I am interested in learning about those unusual cases where the FRG decided to adopt laws and legal ordinances from the GDR and to apply them across all of Germany.  The only example that comes to mind is the traffic law concerning right turns on red lights.  Quoth Wikipedia:

  In Germany, right turns on red are only permitted, after a complete
  stop, when a specific sign is present. This rule was first introduced
  in 1978 in East Germany and was originally supposed to become obsolete
  together with the East German highway code by the end of 1990,
  following German reunification. However, authorities were unable to
  remove the signs in time, and public opinion caused them to leave the
  regulation unchanged, even extending its scope to the former areas of
  West Germany in 1994. By 1999, there were 300 turn-on-red
  intersections in West Germany while East Germany featured 2,500; the
  numbers in West Germany have risen considerably since then, though,
  and as of 2002 a total of 5,000 turn-on-red intersections were
  counted, with 48% in West Germany.

Are there any other notable examples of country-wide FRG laws or regulations being replaced or superseded by ones formerly in use in the GDR?  If there are a lot of such cases, are these summarized in a book or other (online) source?


texts: What was the size of surface of a cereal crop needed per man per year during the Dark Ages in Western Europe?

texts:
If I'm a peasant during the dark ages, what surface (in meters (<- I am in advance on my time)) I need to farm to get enough cereal (for bread and brew) ?

how many cereals (in kg (<- again, I'm in advance on my time) this surface will deliver per year ?


texts:
This question concerns the history of England in the 15th century.

In Political Ideals (1917), Bertrand Russell wrote

  The stage we have reached in the affairs of Europe corresponds to the stage reached in our internal affairs during the Wars of the Roses, when turbulent barons frustrated the attempt to make them keep the king's peace.

Now, my questions are:

Who is meant by "the king"?
What is meant by "the king's peace"? Peace in social sense? Or peace of mind (=mental health)?

My own surmise is that Russell is referring to the mental problems of Henry VI.


texts: In the 18th c., did/would China accept gold from Europe as trade payment? Why / why not?

texts:
In reading about the historical Opium situation in China, the silver trade is mentioned again and again. I get the impression that China only accepted silver, even though I have never seen gold mentioned at all.

I am not a scholar, but to my knowledge gold has never been rejected as an exchange medium between large states conducting massive trade with each other, especially if they already accept silver.

At least, until I read about this. China seems to be a curious counter-example.

I read Wiki's article on Opium History in China, which led me to read about the Canton System. That article says:

  This trade relationship, where Europeans paid for Chinese products with silver, and silver alone, formed the trade paradigm upon which the Canton System was built.

It has a source, but the wording is slightly different:

  As a result, silver was the preferred, and eventually only medium of exchange.

Key-word "eventually". Are there exact dates known, or at least the year, when silver became literally the only accepted payment? This would imply something else was accepted before-hand. Was it gold?

Traditionally gold has been much more valuable than silver, pound for pound. If silver is accepted, then gold should be too, unless there is some significant reason. I am searching for that reason.

I learned that silver mining was very low in China at the time. Therefore silver would be relatively more valuable to the Chinese than to the Europeans. But what about gold mining? Did China somehow have more gold production than silver production, and thus silver was more valuable to them than gold?

I also read that Europe developed a major trade deficit of silver over time. This would imply they sought out and tried other mediums, and in fact is one reason for the Opium Wars. Did they at least try gold? And if so, why was it rejected?

If they never even tried, the question has to be "Would". Otherwise the question has to be "Did".

If necessary I will open related questions about the domestic silver-gold exchange rates that existed in Europe and China at the time.


texts: Was the Volga really Russia's last line of defense before the Urals?

texts:
That was a claim made by General Vasily Chuikov in "The Battle For Stalingrad." He even went so far as to postulate a German column heading for Alma-Ata (Kazakhstan), toward the Chinese border. That was also the message of Stalin's Order 227, "Not One Step back."

How much truth was there to such claims? My question arises from my sketchy knowledge of the geography and topography of Russia east of the Volga. Is it rugged, inhospitable territory that would have swallowed up any German army attempting to cross it? Is it more like the Ukraine where German armor could have roamed at will? Or is it an intermediate case (e.g. few obstacles, but also few supplies)?

There is another issue. I might be willing to accept Chuikov's claim if "Volga" meant the part of the river around say, Kazan, on roughly the same latitude as Sverdlovsk and Magnitogorsk, where the Soviet Union relocated a large part of its manufacturing capacity. But the context of Chuikov's remarks was "Stalingrad," which is well south of these places (as well as west). How would that fact affect the answer to the question?


texts: What is the oldest inscription of Yahweh found?

texts:
Is it true that Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch found an inscription of Yahweh around 2500 BC?

I've heard of the Stela of Mesha dated around 900 BC but I also came across Friedrich Delitzsch and his controversial lecture, "Babel and Bible" where he has mentioned that the oldest inscription of Yahweh was found on 3 tablets dated 2000 BC. I have not heard anyone challenge Friedrich Delitzsch at a scholarly level except for Dr. Michael Heiser who happens to be a scholar of the Hebrew language but not really a historian.


texts: What was a "Qua" in a "Subsidy of Armour" in 1590?

texts:
The Archbishop of Canterbury decreed in 1590 that clergy should provide men and armour for the defence of the realm against the King of Spain. Clergy in the diocese of Lincoln had a "Subsidy of Armour" recorded by the diocese then later published by the Lincoln Record Society.

A note in that record says

  The items enumerated are lances, light horses, petronels (ie large pistols used especially by horsemen), muskets, corslets, calivers (ie light muskets or harquebuses), bows, bills and halberds

However, quite a few of the clergy provided "A Qua:" (the colon indicating abbreviation) and that doesn't match anything in the note. A "Quarrel" seems a rather tiny donation compared to a light horse, so seems unlikely.

What was a "Qua:" in this list?

Update
One page in that list spells a Qua-word in full:

Was "Qua" an abbreviation for "Qualiuer", and is that an alternative spelling of "caliver"?


texts: Where can I find a high tide for the Atlantic coast of France from 11 July to mid August 1941?

texts: I am researching an alternate-history novel and have the raid on St. Nazaire happening in 1941. I need a high tide for the night-time raid.  Is there any place I can find tide tables for that time period?


texts: Do authoritative Jewish historical records record the expulsion

texts:
The following wiki extract demonstrates the possibility that the Muhammad's expulsion of Banu Qaynuqa and execution of Banu Qurayza to be a myth. Do authoritative Jewish historical records track or record this incident, if yes where it is recorded ?

 In Muhammad and the Jews: A Re-examination, he questions the validity of the accepted accounts of Muhammad's expulsion of Banu Qaynuqa and execution of Banu Qurayza.

The earliest surviving biography of Muhammad are recension of Ibn Ishaq's (d. 768) "Life of the Apostle of God". Ahmad argues that Muslim historians and Orientalists have failed to take into account that Ibn Ishaq's book, written some 120 to 130 years after Muhammad's death during the Abbasid Caliphate, was strongly influenced by the environment in which it was written. Ahmad accepts Ibn Ishaq as a sincere historian, but states that "a historian is very much part of his time. He cannot isolate himself from the climate of opinion in which he breathes" and argues that "Ibn Ishaq's view regarding Muhammad's relation with the Jews were strongly influenced by his own reaction to Jewish life under the Abbasids".[5]

Ahmad further argues that the account given by Ibn Ishaq cannot possibly be accurate,[5] as, for example, states that the beheading and burial of 600-900 men would have been physically too colossal an undertaking for a small city like Medina,. He also writes that the corpses would have constituted an obvious menace to public health.[1]

To support his thesis, Ahmad also points to Jewish sources' silence about the alleged atrocity.[5]

Harold Kasimow, in a 1982 review for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion wrote:

Dr. Ahmad has carefully considered all the early Islamic sources and the Jewish writings dealing with the period...Although I was not totally convinced by the evidence presented, there were moments during my reading when Dr. Ahmad did create doubt in my mind about the accuracy of the traditional history of the time. And that, after all, was his intent.[5]

Also the story of Banu Quraiza in Ibn Ishaq on expulsion of Jews is conflicting with the following constition of Madina:

  Article 20 Non-Muslim minorities (Jews) have the same right of life
  protection (like Muslims) A Jew, who obeys us( the state) shall enjoys
  the same right of life protection( as the believers do), so long as
  they (the believers) are not wronged by him. (the Jews), and he does
  not help (others) against them.

So does this account of expulsion and massacre of Jews bear any historical authenticity?


texts: How big a factor was the failing economy to the downfall of the Roman Empire?

texts: How large a factor was the economy failing and Rome facing bankruptcy to their downfall when you compare it to the likes of political corruption and the rise of Christianity?


texts:
In ancient times, ships would often be at sea for extended periods of time. During this time, I'm assuming they must have done some form of cooking, otherwise they would have just eaten cold, pre-prepared food for the whole time between stops at ports.

As these ships were wooden and possibly covered with tar for waterproofing, how would they have cooked without risking a fire in the galley?

From the research I've done so far, ships a couple hundred years ago would have had a barrel/bin filled with sand on which they lit their fires:

Sailing ship provisions - Food and drink

I can't find any references for ships further back in history (this is possibly because I'm not sure how/what to search for).

If possible, I'm mostly interested in Egyptian and Middle Eastern ships.


texts:
I recently came across an article about a tradition of USN not to consider submarines lost, but rather being on a permanent patrol.

After trying to find more information about the topic pretty much everything I could find is this image from Wikipedia.

Does anyone have an idea about when and why did this habit originate?


texts: Why did the Ottoman Empire not industrialize like France, Germany or Belgium?

texts: Why did the Ottoman Empire not industrialize or not reach the level of those nations?


texts: Who ruled India when the Abbasid ruler Harun al-Rashid was the Caliph of Baghdad?

texts:
Who ruled India when the 5th Abbasid ruler Harun Al-Rashid was the Caliph of Baghdad?

How many rulers were there in Indian subcontinent?

Which areas did they rule?


texts: Which tools were available in 1933 for the Chinese government to intervene in the money market?

texts:
I do not have profound knowledge of the Chinese banking sector in the 1930s, but, for instance,

  Tamagna, Frank M. Banking and finance in China. International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1942.

mentions that at this time Chinese banks were divided into modern and native banks, all issuing their own money, partly covered by silver reserves. In my understanding this means that there was no way for any governmental organization to control, for instance, inflation, which probably had an effect also on the ability to control any trading interaction with other nations.

I presume this view is rather naive and instead some implicit control mechanisms were in line - any explanation or comment to shed light on this issue would be highly appreciated.


texts: Why has the Brazilian currency been changed so often throughout its history?

texts: It seems like currency in Brazil has been changed many times over the period of its existence. The last time the currency changed was in 1994, with the introduction of the modern Brazilian Real (BRL, R$). Why has Brazil's currency been changed so often?


texts: What were Catherine the Great's orders to von Böhm?

texts:
In about 1773, Catherine the Great appointed Magnus Karl von Böhm (or Behm, depending on the roundtrip transliteration) governor of Kamchatka. The peninsula had been pacified and the natives were being mistreated (impressed into labor, charged excessive fur tribute, and so on).

According to Forsyth's A History of the Peoples of Siberia, she gave him "lengthy instructions" to "introduce justice and honesty".

What exactly were the empress's instructions to her new governor? Was her principal motivation moral or political?


texts: Are there any battles that have been extensively studied across the world?

texts: Has there been any historical battle which became so universally well regarded, that military academies from across the world would would study it? Or are most military academies inherently biased towards studying battles in their own national history?


texts: How did medieval serfs obtain their iron goods?

texts:
Serfs were farmers who paid taxes in agricultural produce and subsisted on the remainder. As I understand it, they (unlike freeholders) did not sell their produce or manufactured goods for personal income, so they wouldn’t have been able to buy things with currency. How, then, did they obtain the iron implements they needed for their work and survival? Did they just petition their lord for whatever they needed?

Edit:
I’ve researched the definitions of terms such as freeholders/franklins, villeins, serfs, cottars, and bordars. I know the issue is a little complicated, because the Middle Ages was a long period, and definitions and roles changed over time and varied across countries. Much of that research has stemmed from reading the Domesday Book and seeing unfamiliar terms in it. I’ve gotten some additional context from reading works such as the Canterbury Tales, The Pillars of the Earth, and Tain Bo Cuailnge.

My research led me to understand that freeholders could sell their produce for monetary income; whereas serfs owed their lords labor, were required to pay a tax of food to him and the Church, did not technically own personal property, did not have the freedom to travel, did not have personal rights beyond the permissions granted to them by their lord, and did not receive monetary income for their work. My impression was that a serf’s produce was his lord’s to sell at market, rather than his to sell for his own personal profit. Maybe I don’t have a clear understanding of the nature of ownership in the serf-lord relationship, and unintentionally made incorrect inferences.

Even if the context I stated was incorrect, I believe the actual question remains valid: How did they obtain these goods?

I appreciate being corrected whenever any of my statements is wrong, because I came here for information, and those corrections increase my knowledge even beyond the scope of the question. I’m willing to rewrite the question in any way necessary. I’d just like to be told how I should restate my question to make it acceptable, rather than having it dismissed outright for being poorly structured.


texts: Was the factional civil war that broke out in Angola after its independence in 1975 based on tribal rivalry?

texts: Was the factional civil war that broke out in Angola after its independence from Portugal in 1975 primarily based on tribal rivalries.        (with an ideological cover)?


texts: How were Warrant Officers appointed to Royal Navy ships during the Age of Sail?

texts:
As I understand it, Warrant Officers got their name from the warrant issued by the Admiralty (depending on the applicant having the correct qualifications). From the descriptions I've read, these officers were appointed by the Admiralty itself rather than being hired by the Captain or 'encouraged' by the Impress Service.

The Admiralty Instructions provides a list of the duties of each warrant officer but offers no clue as to how they were appointed to their roles. More modern sources, seem to follow the same pattern in describing who they were and what they did but not how they got to be there.

How was this process of appointment conducted? For example, did the Admiralty maintain a list of warrant holders and allocate them in turn as posts became available? Did the Captains have any say in who was appointed to the post?


texts: Why didn't Hitler have more submarines in the English channel?

texts: Hitler was expecting an invasion somewhere on the coast of north of France. So why didn't he have more submarines there that could torpedo the invading allied fleet when they were crossing the channel?


texts: What intelligence successes did the Axis have in WW2?

texts:
Most of us are aware of multiple Allied intelligence victories in WW2. But no such things about the Axis? Were they that inefficient? I have read various theories how Abwehr members were themselves working against the Nazi. Also since both Ultra and its Japanese equivalent were compromised, was it basically game over and they couldn't do anything?

I have read some examples here, but this seems more of reconnaissance at army level then intelligence gathering.


texts: How and why did Polish rule over the Ukraine "downwardly deviate" from Lithuanian rule?

texts:
In the Middle Ages, "Lithuania" ruled over not only the modern Lithuania, but also modern Belarus and large parts of the modern western Ukraine. The inhabitants of these "Ukrainian" territories seemed to accept Lithuanian rule for over two centuries without problems.

But in the 17th century, Poland (Lithuania's partner in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) started taking over Ukrainian affairs. This led to the revolt of the Cossacks and other Ukrainians such as Bogdan Kmelnytsky mid-century.

My understanding is that that Poles were far less benevolent to the Ukrainians than the Lithuanians. The questions are, in what ways, and why? That is, why did Polish nobles "stir the pot" when Lithuanian rulers had "pacified" the region for over two centuries? (For instance, the Kmelnytsky article refers to a "Vilius (Lithuanina) panagyric" praising him.)


texts: Has Britain's 1940 invasion of Iceland been downplayed by historians?

texts:
On the face of it Operation Fork (Britain's invasion of Iceland in 1940) wasn't so terribly different from Germany's territorial landgrabs in 1939 and 1940.

Britain and her allies will have portrayed it as an essential and benign act, temporary in nature and aimed at defending a "friend" from a mutual foe. But a less generous interpretation might be to equate it with Germany's occupation of Denmark or the Netherlands.

Operation Fork goes almost entirely unmentioned in English language histories of the second world war, perhaps because it doesn't fit with the popular notion of 1940s Britain - standing alone against German aggression.

Did Nazi Germany's propagandists use Operation Fork in the propaganda war with Britain? How was it perceived in neutral countries?