texts: How did ancient Greek musicians tune their instruments?

texts: I am not a musical person, in fact I am trying to learn the guitar now which sort of made me think of this question. How did the Greeks, or any ancient peoples, tune their musical instruments?  From cursory research people say they either just made sure they were in relative tuning with each other or that they used a tuning fork, but if it was a tuning fork, how did they know that the fork was the correct tone?


texts: What was the internal Soviet reaction to the moon landing?

texts:
The Soviet Union was a famously restrictive place when it came to news and ideological spin, and obviously their attitude toward the United States was less than supportive and warm.  The Space Race saw a lot of competitiveness between the two countries, but when the United States landed a man on the moon, the language they used was very universal.  They phrased it very much as a victory "for all mankind," and there was a lot of talk about all people on Earth being "one."

Of course, that's easy to say when you just won the race.

What was the internal Soviet response to the news?  Did the Soviet citizens know it was happening at the time?  Was it spun as a victory for humanity, or a victory for the United States, or a loss for the Soviet Union, or what?  Was the story reported accurately, or were details changed in the retelling?


texts: What was Lester B. Pearson's motivation for instituting Canada's 40 hr. work week?

texts: Back in the 1960s, Lester B. Pearson instituted Canada's 40-hour work week as well as 2 weeks vacation and a new minimum wage. However, his motivations for doing so at that time are not clear to me. What were the current events of the time that may have motivated Pearson to make this change?


texts: Did the militarists in Japan look to the Nazis as a model during their takeover?

texts:
During Japan's transition from democracy to ultranationalist dictatorship, did they hold up the Nazis as a model, or was that not something they mentioned/thought about?

EDIT: The question wanted for clarity. Let me try again.

The period from 1912 to 1926 is sometimes known as the Taisho democracy. At any rate it was more democratic than 1930s-1945 Japan. Whether you accept that the Taisho period was real democracy or not, its downfall merits an explanation.

Someone objected to my characterisation of wartime Japan as an ultranationalist dictatorship. I think the facts of a genocidal war against the rest of Asia really speak for themselves there, and I have nothing to add to them.

Lastly, Hitler was world famous after the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, and came to power in 1933. The decisive military takeover in Japan happened in 1936 (February 26 Incident). That leaves plenty of time for people to have noticed and reacted to developments in Germany.


texts: How much were lottery prizes taxed in Soviet Union?

texts:
I was a bit surprised to learn from this YouTube video (about Lottery in Soviet Union) that lottery of the kind where you had to guess like 6 numbers out of 49 or so existed in Soviet Union since early 1970's.

According to the video, this lottery was televised starting in 1976. And the top prize for it was 25,000 rubles. The answers to this question (at Quora) indicate that salaries in Soviet Union may have been around 100-300 rubles per month.

This would mean that the 25,000 rubles was like several years wage. Which surprised me since I had thought that USSR was supposed to (try to) promote a "classless society". Openly giving one person that much more money than to the other comrades did not seem like it was contributing to this ideal, in my opinion.

On this thought I wanted to ask how much the lottery income was taxed in Soviet Union?


texts: Why was gout so prevalent in the past among rich people?

texts:
I'd like a general explanation about this fact.

I know it's a big error to judge behaviors in history with the current knowledge we have now, but for gout, people could have easily got to know that people that didn't eat as much meat or that had a more active life-style didn't suffer it.

They could have copied those behaviors to avoid it, and as they were rich they wouldn't have problems in getting other food they wished, or have time to do some physical exercise.

Despite that, it looked like they preferred getting gout.

What are the main reasons for this? Maybe it has to do with that it was considered "a commoner behavior" to eat little meat and do physical exercise?


texts:
Working with Census data and other 19th century sources, I occasionally come across the occupation of "boat crimper." I can't figure out what these boat crimpers do.

Based on the definition of "crimp," it could be a fairly innocuous term for someone who works with wires and cables on a boat. But the Wikipedia article for "crimper" takes you to the article on Shanghaiing:

  Shanghaiing refers to the practice of kidnapping people to serve as
  sailors by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or
  violence. Those engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as
  crimps.

But I'm skeptical that the "boat crimpers" I find in public records are "crimps" as in this definition. Here's a Joseph Magee who lists himself as a "boat crimper" in the Rochester City Directory. Who would list themselves as a kidnapper?

So, do any of you naval historians out there know what kind of occupation "boat crimper" was? Assuming crimpers are not crimps, were crimpers skilled, semi-skilled, or unskilled labor?


texts:
Wikipedia  says that the following image depicts the Chinese leader of a Japanese puppet state, Wang Jingwei, with Nazis. The full information on Wikipedia reads:

  Wang Jingwei having a toast with some Nazis, 1941. He always flew the ROC flag and claimed to be the legitimate government.

I would like to know, which Nazi is visible here. I see two faces beside Wang’s, but I guess only one is identifiable.


texts:
About 20 years ago I read an article in a periodical (can't remember which periodical) about a tribe of natives (I believe they were North American) who had a tradition of touching live deer. They would strip down into a loincloth, smother their bodies with ashes from a fire to mask their scent, stick grass and twigs in their hair then walk very quietly and slowly (~80 seconds per step) right up to deer. The test was to see if they could approach the deer without it noticing them or registering that they were a living being, and pluck a hair out of their tails as proof of their accomplishment. Some techniques used were to try and act like a bush, swaying with the breeze, some men got their hairs by extending their arms out like branches letting their fingers comb through the deers fur as it walked past ignorant of their presence, quickly plucking a tail hair at the last second.

I'm trying to rediscover this tribe of people, but I've so far had no luck in searching them out. Does anyone know who they were?


texts:
In Classic Mayan civilization, human sacrifices were performed.  I've read that there were days that were more and less auspicious for sacrifices, but I haven't been able to find out which days those were.

Which days in the Mayan calendar were most auspicious for performing sacrifices?


texts: What were the key differences between United States' and Indian revolutions?

texts:
The Thirteen Colonies and Indian subcontinent were two of the most significant colonies of the British Empire, yet the former was able to gain independence via a rebellion relatively early on, whilst the latter's attempts failed and only gained independence after WWII, a time when a war-weary home front was reluctant to hold on to far-off imperial holdings.

The two cases share a few similarities but many more dissimilarities. Focusing on their differences, what were the key ones that lead to the United State's successful rebellion, and India's failures? Was the US's successful rebellion a fluke, or were there factors in favor of the US, but not for India?


texts: Did Edward the Confessor choose Harold Godwinson as his successor?

texts:
It has been claimed that King Edward the Confessor chose Earl Harold Godwinson as his successor on his deathbed in January 1066.

I googled "did Edward the Confessor name Harold his heir?" and got about 651,000 results.

On the first page that came up:

1) Wikipedia: Edward the Confessor.

  Edward probably entrusted the kingdom to Harold and Edith shortly before he died on 5 January 1066. On 6 January he was buried in Westminster Abbey, and Harold was crowned on the same day.1

  In Stephen Baxter's view, Edward's "handling of the succession issue was dangerously indecisive, and contributed to one of the greatest catastrophes to which the English have ever succumbed."[38]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Confessor1

2) "The Death of Edward the Confessor and the Conflicting Claims to the English Throne".

  Some English sources claimed that on his deathbed, King Edward designated Harold as his heir. Other sources are more equivocal; the famous deathbed scene in the Bayeaux Tapestry, for example, shows Edward reaching out and touching Harold, who is kneeling beside him, but the text does not explain the meaning of this gesture. As we have seen, in the early days of 1066 the kingdom was recovering from a crisis and Harold was in pole position – did Edward believe that his succession would be best for the kingdom? We simply cannot say for sure whether the deathbed bequest took place – and even if it did, it does not mean that Harold ‘should’ have been king, or that Edward may not have designated someone else as his heir earlier in his reign.

https://history.blog.gov.uk/2016/01/05/the-death-of-edward-the-confessor-and-the-conflicting-claims-to-the-english-crown/2

3) Norman Invasion.  Biography of Edward the Confessor.

  The Normans claimed that Edward had named a Norman as his successor to the English throne. Harold Godwinson claimed that on his death bed Edward had named Harold as the next King of England. There is no mention of Edward favouring the rightful heir to the English throne, Edgar the Aethling. And to make matters even more complicated the Viking King Hardrada also believed that he had a claim to the English throne.

http://www.normaninvasion.info/biography-edward-the-confessor.htm3

4) BBC - History - Edward the Confessor.

  Consequently, shortly before his death, Edward named Harold as his successor even though he may already have promised the crown to a distant cousin, William, Duke of Normandy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/edward_confessor.shtml4

5) Enclylopedia.com - Does not discuss whether Edward named Harold his heir.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/british-and-irish-history-biographies/edward-confessor5

Websites are notorious for jumping in where angels fear to thread, and claiming something is certain when historians are uncertain.

But only one out of the first five sites claimed that it is certain that Edward the Confessor named Harold as his heir, thus indicating that historians are uncertain about that.

What do historians of Anglo Saxon England and the Norman Conquest think about the claim that Edward the Confessor on his deathbed named Harold Godwinson as heir to the English throne?


texts: Inter-ethnic conflicts in Switzerland in the 16th century

texts:
I have come across this description in Paddy Ashdown's (excellent) autobiography A Fortunate Life:

  I have often been struck by the similarities between those countries
  whose fortune (or misfortune) it is to find themselves at the junction
  of the tectonic plates of race, culture and religion. Countries like
  Switzerland, Afghanistan and Bosnia are all of them mountainous
  regions, incredibly beautiful, the battlegrounds of conquerors and the
  cockpits in which, from time to time, terrible inter-ethnic conflicts
  break out (before the Treaty of Ticino in 1516 the famously peaceful
  Switzerland of today was the Bosnia of the middle ages when it came to
  internal war and ethnic conflict).

What were the main inter-ethnic (racial, cultural, religious) dimensions of the 16th-century and perhaps earlier conflict in Switzerland that the author is referring to here?


texts: Did the US gov't pay the Cherokee for their lands in Georgia?

texts:
According to the Treaty of New Echota, ratified by the US Senate in 1836, the US government was supposed to pay the Cherokee Nation $5 million for their lands in and around Georgia.  In exchange, the Cherokee would leave that region and settle across the Mississippi.

Did the government actually pay the $5 million?

I know there was a division among the Cherokee of whether to accept the treaty or not, and most of them chose to remain on their land, then being forcibly removed (which is a different sad story).  But the removal of the Cherokee was done under the auspices of the Treaty of New Echota, so was the payment required by the treaty ever made?


texts: Why did the Spartans learn to read and write if they weren't allowed to keep records?

texts: I recently watched a TED-Ed video about Spartan society in Ancient Greece. The video discusses how Spartans were forbidden to keep records. Then it goes on to describe how the Spartans learned to read and write. Why would they need to know these skills if they could never use them?


texts: Who was included in the "Moors" of Spain?

texts: I am confused by a bunch of different meanings for the word Moor. Were the Moors strictly the Spanish Muslims or all Muslims? Were the Moors all non-Christians in Spain or just Muslims? Who exactly was included in the Moors of Spain?


texts: How did the the Soviet-China near-war in 1969 affect the supply of arms to North Vietnam?

texts:
This is a bit of what I am looking for:vietnamwar/chinese-and-soviet-involvement/, but it seems incomplete.

Specifically, as the Soviets increased their aid to North Vietnam, where did Soviet weapons transit through past 1969 or so, when China and the USSR had a brief border war?

Normally, the weapons could easily leave the USSR, transit through China and get to North Vietnam.  But what arrangements were made to keep the flow going once the Soviet-Chinese border froze up?  Did Soviet weapons transit by sea to Hanoi?  Did land shipments stop but then resume once a ceasefire was reached? (the "hot" phase of the border incidents was pretty short)

Just to be clear, this question has nothing to do with how weapons got from North Vietnam into South Vietnam, but only how they got from Soviet factories to North Vietnamese hands.

To be precise: Soviet-Chinese armed clashes happened in March 1969 and August 1969.  I'm interested in weapons supplies between then and Sept 11, 1969 when Chinese/USSR agreed to re-exchange ambassadors.


texts: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German polymath. I've found information that say he was a polyglot who wrote primarily in Latin, French and German, but I cannot find any specific info about the other languages he spoke or wrote in.


texts: On 1941 Dec 7, could Japan have targeted the Panama Canal instead of Pearl Harbor in a surprise attack?

texts:
This question comes from a slightly related one.

At the time of WW2, most US industry was on the East Coast, including all of the shipbuilding for Carriers and Battleships. If the Panama Canal went down, it would greatly reduce the logistics of the US Navy in the Pacific.

So I want to know, did the Japanese Navy have the ability to destroy it in a surprise attack, let's say on 1941 Dec 7?

What I know so far:

The Panama Canal has 6 water locks per lane. The locks have concrete walls but hollow steel gates, as per this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-CaBIKTl4M , at 1:11:00 you can see they are a hollow frame. 1 bomb or torpedo will probably blow a hole in it, though it might not be enough to instantly drain the locks.
Japanese Dive Bombers had the training, as evidenced by the many carrier hits they got in early WW2 (Coral Sea, Midway.) Note, I'm talking about hits, not necessarily kills. I reviewed those two battles and many times, the US Carriers got hit but survived (US Carriers seem a lot more stalwart than Japanese Carriers at that time). I'm only trying to point out that Japanese Dive Bombers seemed to have good training and accuracy.
Edit: The Panama Canal Locks are powered by the Gatun Hydroelectric Dam. Maybe all you need to do is smash that dam, and the locks are suddenly worthless. I do not know for sure how long it takes to repair a hydroelectric dam, but it has to be on the order of months. From reading about bouncing bombs going after dams in Germany, they appear to be significant logistical targets.
The Doolittle Raid (made by America) got 2 carriers, 4 cruisers, and 8 destroyers very close to Japan before being detected, and that was when they were already at war (1942 Apr 18).
Japan actually designed and built some submarine aircraft carriers meant to raid the Panama Canal, so apparently they believed the Canal's defenses were not good enough to stop an aerial attack.
The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor IRL was a total surprise, despite seeing airplanes on radar.

What I don't know:

what AA defenses the Canal had at that time.
what range and endurance a Japanese Naval Group had.
possibly other things that make it impossible or unlikely.

I'm trying to keep this specific so it doesn't get closed as too broad or too opinion based. I'm asking if the Japanese Navy had the ability. I'm not asking if it was a viable strategy or sound war plan.


texts: Did the 1st Marine Division use the M3 carbine on Okinawa?

texts: I wanted to know if the 1st Marine Division used the M3 infrared sniper carbine on Okinawa during World War II.


texts: Did Sparta give citizenship to the helots who participated on its side in the Battle of Plataea?

texts:
What happened to the 35,000 helots that fought at Plataea?

Were they made Spartan citizens?

I just felt this might have been disruptive to Spartan society.

I've checked Wikipedia,  Google..  related questions on stackexchange and been unable to find an answer.


texts: How much of Nazi iconography came from Hitler?

texts:
The Nazis were, as much as any other political group in modern history, masters of iconography and symbolism.  The swastika, the eagle and wreath, the solid stone architecture, the sweeping art deco designs, the long red banners, the unique salute, the cathedral of light, and so on.  They consistently used symbolism and iconography to spread their message and demonstrate their power to the world.

I'm wondering, how much of that symbolism came from Hitler himself, and how much came from people around him?  Obviously some of those symbols (like the swastika and the eagle/wreath) are much older than Nazism, but someone still had to have the thought, "hey, you know that old symbol from history, let's use that."

Was that person Hitler?  Or did he just approve someone else's design?  I'm trying to get a sense of how much personal talent Hitler had for iconic design, vs how much talent he had for identifying talented people who could help his cause.


texts: Does a Baal human sacrifice statue from Carthage exist?

texts:
While I was reading a Roman history book, it said that people from Carthage used to sacrifice children by placing them on the arms of Baal's statue and letting them roll to the fire.

What would be the actual shape and disposal of Baal's figure, fire and children, and is there an existing image of that statue?


texts: What caused the 1979 Iranian revolution to become Islamic?

texts: How did an initially anti-Shah revolution become an Islamic revolution? Was it because of Khomenei's return to Iran such that he seized the Iranian revolution?


texts: How did the countries devolved from USSR turn from communism to democracy or other ideology peacefully after the collapse?

texts: After the Soviet Union dissolution, the countries independent from the Union, or the countries in the East Europe that were puppets of the Soviet Union turned to the current government without a civil war like most of the nations wanting to change their ideology. Those country also have their own military; it is possible for them to use the military power to stay in power. But it seems nobody did so, except Eastern Germany which used its army to suppress the riots. (Actually, I don’t know a lot about that period, maybe there are some more). And what makes me more confused is none of those countries stayed in communism. (Does that mean the Soviet Union might have a incomptent propaganda department?)


texts: Were cavalry used in the First World War?

texts: Due to the nature of trench warfare, a cavalry or a horse-back squad would’ve been rather useless in the war. But, I also know that countries had not anticipated trench warfare – they didn’t know that their troops were going to dig holes in the ground to defend themselves from enemy machine guns. So I was just wondering if any countries  deployed their cavalry.


texts: Why did the First Mexican Empire replace 60% of its Regency?

texts:
From September of 1821 until Agustín I ascended the throne, a five-man Imperial Regency governed independent Mexico. Initially it included Agustín Iturbide (the same), José Isidro Yáñez, Manuel Bárcena, Manuel Velázquez, and Juan O'Donojú, who dying soon thereafter, was replaced by bishop José Antonio Pérez. In April of 1822, the last three regency seats were reassigned to Conde de Heras, Nicolás Bravo, and Miguel Valentín. (This is due to The Mexican Empire of Iturbide by Timothy Anna, pp. 37, 56.) The high clergy thus went from two to zero seats on the regency, though Iturbide was very pro-clergy.

Why, after six months, did the composition of the regency change so dramatically?


texts: Did Jamsetji Tata write a letter to Swami Vivekananda?

texts:
Many sites 1, 2, ... claim that Jamsetji Tata  wrote a letter to Swami Vivekananda on 23rd November, 1898.

Is it true that Jamshedji Tata wrote such a letter?


texts: What post 18thC countries rulers escaped to a remote/separate region and hung on while the country collapsed under revolution?

texts: Other than Taiwan/China, what other countries had revolutions where the ruling party/rulers escaped to a remote area or region and held onto power as a country/government while the rest of the country fell under revolution?  I'm more concerned with governments post 18th Century.  I'd rather focus on countries that had governments which continued and actually continued within the original borders at some point, so if the government fled to another location and continued there without control within the original borders I would not include them in my list.  So Tibet would be excluded since the ruling government is not within the original borders of the country.


texts: Value of commodity money outside of the place it was minted

texts:
How was the exchange rate determined between different commodity currencies?

E.g., country X mints gold Zorkmids, each weighing 5g, and country Y mints gold Zennys, each weighting 8 grams. When Ms.XX travels from X to Y, she exchanges her Zorkmids for Zennys, and when Mr.YY travels from Y to X, he exchanges his Zennys for Zorkmids.

Ignoring seigniorage and debasement, they should exchange 8 Zorkmids for each 5 Zennys (plus the moneychanger fee, smaller in a large town during market, larger otherwise - how large, BTW?).

My question is: how was the aforementioned exchange rate (8:5) affected by the non-physical circumstances I neglected?

E.g., relationships between X & Y - war vs. peace, amount of trade/travel between them.

What if the king of X imposes a ban on exporting gold coins?

How would that affect the exchange rate?
What could the fluctuation be?
E.g., can one lose 20% of value because of the exchange rate?

What if the king of Y declares the existing 8g Zennys "invalid" and issues "new Zennys" of 6g - have something like that ever happen? (this is not debasement, the new coins have a new name, new stamp &c).
How would that affect the exchange rate of the "old Zennys"?

Obviously, melting one type of coins and minting the new one (don't you need the kings permission to do that?) is an arbitrage opportunity which would limit the fluctuations of the exchange rate. How much?

If it matters, I am interested in, e.g., these times and places:

"3 musketeers" - 17th century Western Europe
2nd-5th centuries common era Middle East (Judea & Babylonia)


texts: Why were children photographed In Crete, Greece around mid-late 1940's photos with the stamp on the back “A M Crown Copyright Reserved”?

texts:
I have a few old photos from about the mid to late 1940's in Crete, Greece (the civil war occurred during the time). There is a specific stamp on the back of two photos which is marked A M Crown Copyright Reserved. Any guesses why only the children were photographed by the British photographers?
One photo is a family (my relatives) who were kids and teenagers then, standing close together looking straight into the camera as if they were told to stand like that with their arms down next to their sides. They were not smiling. And a few looked "concerned" in the photos. Before recently, I thought it was a "family" photo. But now I am not so sure. Maybe it was a family photo.
Furthermore, the other small picture I have with the same stamp on the back is only of the small boy from the other photo. He is standing in front of some kind of painted or printed mural on a cloth backdrop that shows a scene of a column, stairs, stair rails, and a wooden look image in the back of a wall.
I did some research and all I could find is that the British forces and photographers were in Greece at that time and it wasn't the best of times.
I found this info:

"The A crown M was the copyright mark of the Air Ministry, now ministry of Defence. I was a photographer in the RAF and all photographs had to be stamped on the reverse" ephotozine.com


texts: I want to know where and in what age these 2 coins were produced:


texts: Which native groups were hostile to the fur trade in North America?

texts:
From c. 1600-1830, there was a major fur trade going on in North America.

Which native groups were hostile to the fur trade?

I've read that the Iroquois were seen as dangerous by the fur traders, and so they would avoid Iroquois lands, but I have no confirmation of that.


texts: Why is the late Russian Empire associated with Byzantium while having little in common with it?

texts:
I have started reading the book A people's tragedy by Orlando Figes about the Russian revolution. I am no historian, however having read a few pages I have a few questions about the repeated comparison of some facets of the pre-revolutionary Russian regime to Byzantium.

The second principle from Muscovy was the idea of personal rule: as the embodiment of God on earth... This too had distinguished the Byzantine tradition of despotism from the Western absolutist state.

Also,

... much preferred the older title Tsar (derived from the Greek term kaisar), which went back to the Byzantine era and carried religious connotations of paternal rule.

To me the comparison between Byzantine despotism and Russian despotism seems stretched and superficial. Despite the millennium long history, no dynasty in Byzantium ever came close to ruling over 300 years, while the Romanovs did rule for that long. Uprisings and pretenders were very common in Byzantium, perhaps all too common (as is described in the book 'The Byzantine Republic'). This was not the case in Russia. In fact, it seems to me that Russia is much closer in this regard to late medieval/early modern western-European kingdoms like France and England, where to my understanding the king had to be completely incapable of ruling for people to seriously contemplate a change of dynasty.
The divine rights of rulers is not a Byzantine invention (as far as I understand, it goes back at least to Roman times), and it is definitely not a uniquely Byzantine phenomenon.
The title Tsar is not Byzantine and was first used by the Bulgarians. Thus the choice of Tsar seems to be more nuanced than simply 'going back to Byzantine era' as the author puts it. The way the author phrases it as an embrace of Byzantine style seems an oversimplification.
Now, as the author of the book puts it later, the Russian elites did view the autocratic style of ruling as 'Byzantine' as opposed to a more western style. However, it seems to me that they are projecting their ideas backward in time as the relations between the ruler and the people in Byzantium was quite different from those in contemporary Russia.
To sum up, it seems to me that there is a massive difference between Byzantium and the late Russian empire in the way people viewed the relations between themselves and the ruler. Comparing pre-revolutionary Russia to a state which ceased to exist so many centuries ago feels forced and completely arbitrary. There may be other not so distant in time states which the pre-revolutionary Russia may be more fittingly compared to. What am I missing?


texts: How prominent were taverns in medieval Europe?

texts:
Taverns as defined as a 'commercial establishment in the business of selling alcohol'.

I'm aware that taverns existed in some parts of Europe during the late medieval period, but I don't know quite how far back they go, or if they existed for the entirety of the medieval era how common they were across Europe through the centuries.


texts: Who was the last person "Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered" under British jurisdiction?

texts:
Every year on Nov. 5 English speaking people are reminded of the punishment meted out to Guy Fawkes for his unsuccessful gunpowder plot. The penalty for treason at the time was to be hung, drawn, and quartered:

  hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered (chopped into four pieces).

Note that the drawing process was performed prior to death, and was the origin both for the 8th Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" and the phrasing in American capital sentences "hung by the neck until dead" (my emphasis).

Fawkes avoided the worst part of the sentence by falling (or perhaps being pushed) off the gallows during his ascent. However his corpse was still beheaded and quartered, with the quarters distributed to the corners of the kingdom.

My question is: Do we know who the last person is who suffered the punishment of being "hanged, drawn and quartered"?

I have seen claims that the punishment was performed by both sides in the American Revolution, so strictly speaking this question would only cover American Patriots so executed by the British. However as the punishment was only abolished a century later, these incidences are most likely not amongst the last performed.


texts: Why did the Native American city of Cahokia die out?

texts:
From AD 600-1400, the Mississippian native Americans had a massive city near the present site of St. Louis, MO. It was one of the world's largest cities at the time, and was the largest pre-Columbian city north of the Aztec civilization with a population of about 30,000 people. But by AD 1400, before any European settlers ever stepped foot on the continent, it died out completely.

My question is, why was the city of Cahokia ultimately abandoned?


texts: How many people were in an average Iron Age Celtic settlement?

texts:
How many people were in an average Celtic settlement (or tribe - not sure if they correspond as one to one) in the Iron Age?

My intuitive estimation is "from 100 to 5000".

I know the Iron Age is long enough but information on any time range would be nice.


texts: What was Africa's political system like before European imperialism?

texts:
During the Scramble of Africa (1881 - 1914), Europeans basically controlled the entire content. They also implemented their own form of government and culture in many of these places. However, what were the previous forms of political systems like in Africa right before European imperialism?

I'll be more specific.

In the 1870s, France, Britain, and Portugal controlled some colonies near the coast, as they were the easiest to access (by boat). This included the coast of Algeria, the coasts of West Africa, and some coastal regions to the South. But, the majority of inland Africa remained untouched. Those areas were sometimes under rule of a dictator or an empire.

So what were these empires areas like, and how did their government function?

EDIT:

Just to clarify on the time frame for this question, I'm looking for information about Africa's political system somewhere around the 1870s, right before the Scramble for Africa happened.

Also, I'm not referring to the nomadic-like tribes that didn't govern themselves under a specific government, but rather the empires and dictators that controlled specific regions.


texts: How much did helping the American Revolution cost France?

texts:
I recall reading somewhere that the expenses of the war were ruinous for France and that the gains didn't offset them, this being one of the causes that forced Louis  XVI to convene the Estates General (and what ensued is well-known).

Is it true? Did the American Revolution ruin France's already unhealthy finances? Was is a the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back or was it just a drop in an ocean of debt that had no overall impact on the French budget?

(this is partly inspired by this question).


texts: Was the mortality rate among Irish emigrants to Canada really ten times those to America? If so, why?

texts:
In a Reddit AMA with an Irish historian, he made this claim about emigration during the Great Famine:

  In 1847 around 20% of emigrants on the Canadian route died at sea or just after arrival. They were travelling largely on timber hulks that had been refitted and were totally unsuitable. The American route was far safer and studies indicate a death rate of 2%.

It seems quite extraordinary to me that the relatively small extra distance required to get to Quebec over New York should result in a tenfold increase in mortality.

I'm presuming the claim is true: the source is a specialist historian after all. And it's well known that Grosse Isle has the largest mass grave of famine victims outside Ireland, with some five thousand bodies.

So, what were the factors that made the journey to Canada so much more dangerous?


texts: Why are there shields present on the sides of Henry VIII ships, did they serve any function or was it pure decoration?

texts:
reading about the Field of the cloth of gold, I came across some paintings commissioned by Henry VIII himself.

This painting of Henry VIII embarking at Dover to meet with Francis I caught my eye as his ships where lined with different shields with different iconography.

Are these shields used by knights in the event of boarding, or to show which knights where on board that particular ship or just purely decorational?


texts: Does the number of legs in the air of a horse statue indicate how its rider died?

texts:
I have heard that the number of legs a horse has in the air in a statue indicates how the rider died. According to what I have understood:

2 legs in the air: rider died in battle
1 leg in the air: rider died by wounds made in battle
0 legs in the air: rider died by any other reason

Is there any truth in this, or was it a tradition at any point or place?


texts: Is there a term historians use for an unknown person?

texts:
History documentaries (especially about the ancient past) often use representative actors to illustrate the narration. This usually happens when describing events where the participant's names are unknown. If someone wanted to use this method in a written work, they could use a phrase like “for example, humans...” and generalize.  But is there a more specific term that historians use?
Examples: Ancient human remains are given names such as Ötzi because the human's real name is unknown. Similar cases are "Pete Marsh" in lieu of "Lindow Man" and "Ginger" referring to one of the Gebelein mummies.
A second example is the use of "Nomen Nescio" which is similar to the English use of "John Doe."
A third example is shown in this excerpt from Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: A Textbook on History and Religion by K. L. Noll.

In summary, what phrase would describe unknown persons, either when the real name is unknown or their existence is unrecorded? Based on what I've looked at so far, a term used in the study of Counterfactual history could be relevant.
To be extra clear and to avoid discussion, this is not asking what the ‘best’ or ‘ideal’ term would be, only whether such a term exists or not.


texts: In Georgian England, what was a water-party?

texts:
In the early 20th century novel The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy, there are several references made to something called a water-party, with no elaboration other than that it's happening on a Wednesday and people are expected to bring presents.

I was curious, so I googled the term several ways, and found nothing. What does a water-party mean in the context of Georgian England, or possibly in the context of the early twentieth century if it's an anachronism? Or is it just an odd way of saying a party on or near the water?


texts: Does the Proto Canaanite ‘mother serpent’the Pyramid text of Unas/Wenis have another known name or epithet?

texts:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070129100250.htm

The mother serpent in the Pyramid text of Unas/Wenis mentions the mother serpent in Proto Canaanite.

Is this mother serpent known to the scientific community under another name or epithet that is more familiar?

Below some speculation explaining the context in which I am thinking and why I am interested in the question to see if there is cross cultural parallels to be found.

In the Torah there is a talking snake as well and the person this snake talks to according to the Torah is the first mother Eve.


texts: Was the title of Pasha bestowed or used in the Indian subcontinent?

texts:
Was the title of pasha often bestowed or used in the Indian subcontinent before, say, 1914? If so, which authority bestowed these titles? Are there any well-known examples of pre-1914 pashas?

The title of pasha was of course primarily an Ottoman Turkish innovation. What is less well-known, but common knowledge nevertheless, is that the title continued to be bestowed in the Kingdom of Egypt even after the Ottoman Empire collapsed. I used to believe that paşalar were created only by these two states - until I made a recent discovery.
It seems like Pasha is actually a fairly common surname in Pakistan and Iran, the Pakistani general Ahmad Shuja Pasha being a prominent example. Is there a connection - other than the sound of the word - between these pashas and those created by the Ottoman sultans? If so, how? The etymology of paşa is unclear: some suggest a corruption of the Persian padishah, while others suggest a variety of purely Turkish origins; in either case, it's not really a Persian word, and certainly not a title coined in the Indian subcontinent. The Ottoman Empire never extended to Iran or Pakistan, so why would an Ottoman title crop up here?
I'm aware that the title bey, widely used in the Ottoman Empire, is used in the subcontinent to this day. But this dual occurrence makes more sense to me than that of pasha. Bey is older, and is firmly rooted in the Iranian-Central Asian heritage which the Ottomans and Mughals shared; the same cannot be said of pasha.


texts: Who coined the term "Golden Age" in reference to musical theatre?

texts:
Typically, the Golden Age of Broadway/Musical Theatre is considered to have taken place from the 1940s to the 1960s (some definitions are more specific, citing something like 1943 to 1959).

It was considered a time in which Rodgers and Hammerstein changed the face of American musical theatre, but who started calling it the "Golden Age"? Who coined that phrase in reference to the theatre?


texts:
Did Genghis Khan's people generally shoe their mounts?

If so, did it begin before they began their expansion, or did they acquire the practise along the way?


texts: How and when was the modern company ownership structure invented?

texts:
More specifically I mean the very common structure with the following roles:

Shareholders
Board members
CEO

When was this structure invented, and how?

It would also be very interesting to get any hints into why this structure has become the norm for large companies globally.


texts: Why did the recorded history of Poland start after the reign of Miezsko I?

texts:
Norman Davies says this in his book, God's Playground, Volume I regarding Miezsko I:

  He started the recorded history of the Poles which has continued without a break from that day to this.

Even I have noticed that when I read about Miezsko's father, Siemomysl, on Wikipedia, exact dates of birth and death are not known. However, after Miezsko, most of the dates of events are exactly recorded. Same is the fate of youtube videos regarding Polish history

Why is it that the recorded history of Poland began after Miezsko I's reign?
How does his baptism or unification of land led to suddenly pens jotting down events?

What  was amiss before his reign?


texts: Number of foreigners in the Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht during WWII

texts:
During World War II, thousands of non-German men fought in the Waffen-SS and in the Wehrmacht. People from all Europe, volunteers from neutral and occupied countries and enemy prisoners. Even Russian and Arab units existed.

How many were there? It would be interesting to know the numbers grouped by country.


texts: Did the Nazis ever cite Martin Luther's "The Jews and their lies" to justify the holocaust?

texts:
Did the Nazis ever cite Martin Luther's "The Jews and their lies" to justify the Holocaust and their generally antisemitic ideas?

I've been looking and thus far haven't found much, just wondering if there are any records of something like this happening or not.


texts: What kind of ink was used by medieval scribes in Iceland, given that there were no plant galls for iron-gall ink?

texts:
Iceland was deforested since early settlement, and possibly never had oaks. It has no gall wasps either.
I understand that Iceland was very isolated in medieval times.
So without oak galls, how did they make the ink the famous medieval Icelandic literature was written with?


texts:
The Japanese archipelago is generally scarce in natural resources, but Japan has a large deposit of precious metals in the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine, and a few other mines, to a smaller extent. Japan produced a large share of the world's silver throughout the early modern period. (In fact, 1/3 of the world silver production, at its peak. Yes, I was surprised to learn that it was not Mexico!)

In the Tokugawa era, silver mined from Iwami Ginzan provided an abundant source of precious metals good for international trade. Therefore, Japan was able to purchase  large amounts of goods (such as firearms) from the European maritime powers.

Later in the 19th century, Japan was able to industrialize quickly in the early Meiji period. Although the Iwami Ginzan mine has declined by then, I guess that Japan's rich deposit of precious metals might still have been instrumental in the country's industrialization, as precious metal deposits provided abundant funds for e.g. the furnishing of industrial equipment.

Is there any economic history account of the role of Japan's precious metal deposits in the roles of the country's early industrialization? To be specific, what are the numbers? How much did the precious metal deposits contribute to the furnishing of equipment, for example? I am looking for a quantitative answer here.


texts: Did the Romans hold the Isle of Wight and surrounding areas before the invasion in 43 AD?

texts: In this video it shows the Isle of Wight and the area around it including Southampton and Portsmouth being under Roman control beginning during Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain. However my brief research into the history of the Isle of Wight, Southampton and Portsmouth confuses me as I see no mention of them owning it before the official Roman invasion. Did they actually own that area before the official invasion during Claudius' reign?


texts: How do historians deal with Historical Bias?

texts:
A while ago while watching Crash Course World History, John Green mentioned how Alexander the Great died from the flu despite many people from that time claiming that he died in battle (because this is more heroic and fitting for a king). Also, in an archeology textbook, I read about how the popular representation of Neanderthals (depicted as ape-like hairy beasts) is completely wrong because plenty of archaeologists in the early 20th century thought that all “cave men” were unintelligent and savage.

Given that for most of human history, all that we know from our past comes from spoken word or fragments of written records. How can we discern what actually happened from fabrications? Perhaps is it more important to know more about who’s telling the story than the actual story in this case?


texts: Who was responsible for the murder of Elizabeth Short, AKA the Black Dahlia? Was it a doctor who was formerly married to a police captain's daughter?

texts: I read there was a fairly good case for such a doctor by the name of *Patrick S. O'Reilly, *who had strong sadistic tendencies, and a missing pectoral, which fitted the lacerations on her body, and relation to police (he was formerly married to a daughter of a police captain), which could have greatly assisted in a cover-up. Also were there any murders with similar modus operandi and patterns in adjacent years/locations?


texts: Origin of the "Tartar" troops in the First Opium War

texts: During the First Opium War, on the march to Peking, many of the battles that occurred did not involve Chinese soldiers, but fighters that the British described as "Tartars," being vaguely described as either Mongolians or Turks. Who were these men and from where did they come. Were they Mongolians or Turks or both or some others? One thing to note is that the Manchu themselves have sometimes been described as "Tartars," so there is the possibility that they were actually Manchu.


texts: Were there any Roman villas in Britain which were used rather than destroyed after the Romans left?

texts:
As noted in the post Are there any ideas as to what the English landscape was like before the arrival of the Angles?
, the infrastructure and buildings which the Romans left behind gradually fell apart, mostly abandoned and used as sources of building materials for other constructions. However, this Britain Express article Roman villas in England says

  The golden age of the villa in England was in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. After that they fell into disuse or were taken over for other purposes.

The article cites no examples of these villas 'taken over for other purposes' and I haven't been able to find any. I think I've seen a picture of church which actually used part of a wall of a villa (i.e. not rebuilt from Roman ruins), but I just can't remember where (and I could be mistaken).

On the continent, Wikipedia says that

  the Italian villa system of late Antiquity survived into the early Medieval period in the form of monasteries

and it appears that the same happened in Spain and possibly France.

This article on the villa at Rivenhall in Essex from Historic England says

  It has been suggested that the villa building itself may have been
  reused as an early church or mausoleum.

but this is the closest I have come to finding anything (note the use of 'suggested' in the text above).

Are there any examples of Roman villas in Britain which were taken over and used for another purpose (monastery or otherwise)?

Note: I'm not interested in examples of stones from Roman buildings being taken from the original cite and reused elsewhere as there are numerous such places.


texts: How do I interpret this 17th century English ledger?

texts:
I'm an auditor.  A colleague and I were discussing some 17th century English ledgers (pictured below). These come from the English Levant Company. However, we aren't sure how to interpret them.  How do we read these documents?

To be clear - I don't mean we are having trouble with the script or language. We aren't sure what the various columns mean.  The three right-most column seems to be an amount (so the first amount is 7, 05, 00). The two columns to the left of it also looks like an amount, but it isn't totaled at the end. It also isn't clear how these two sets of columns relate (if at all).


texts: America vs. Australia as a "Penal Colony"

texts:
The common explanation for the usage of Australia as a penal colony is that the American Revolution made the usage of America as one no longer tenable.
From Wikipedia, "On Convicts in Australia":

  Alternatives to the American colonies were investigated...

But I'm wondering why then are the methods so different? If they just switched over, the model should be the same logically speaking.

The usage of America as a penal colony is explained as a transfer of prisoners sold as indentured servants. Were these indentured servents treated differently than other indentured servants? I believe that the colony of Georgia, which would be similar to penal colonies in Australia never operated. Is it in any way a model for Australia? How did the Australian model, convict transport, develop?


texts: Did "music pendants" exist in the 1800s/early 1900s?

texts:
I watched somebody play a video game recently (Maid of Sker) which is a period horror set in the late 1800s, and in it there is an object that caught my attention.

They call it a "music pendant" and it looks almost like the movement of a pocket watch. I've looked up "music pendant" online but can only find things that look like this:

Did these objects really exist, or is it a work of fiction?


texts: Why did Indonesia use a separate currency for West Irian before 1973?

texts:
In 1963, Indonesia took control of Western New Guinea (formerly a Dutch colony whose status was separated from the rest of Indonesia/Dutch East Indies since 1949), and renamed it West Irian. One curious detail was that Indonesia issued a special currency, the West Irian Rupiah (WIR), which is exchangable 1:1 to the Netherlands New Guinean gulden, and is distinct from the standard Rupiah used in the rest of Indonesia. According to Wikipedia, only in 1971 was the Indonesian rupiah (IDR) introduced in the territory, used alongside the WIR until 1973 when the IDR becomes the only legal tender.

The Wikipedia article says that the New Guinean gulden was a stronger currency than the IDR, and that the IDR was experiencing a high level of inflation. I guess this means the IDR was somewhat undesirable, but I still don't understand the logic of having a different currency in one part of your country, especially when it's a new region that you're trying to integrate. Wouldn't this be an obstacle for commerce with the new territory? If inflation is a concern, wouldn't the WIR still be susceptible to inflation?

From the Indonesian point of view, what was the advantages of having the West Irian rupiah? How would things be much worse if Indonesian rupiah was used immediately? How about the negative effects from having separate currencies?


texts: Did any country adopt a straight pull bolt-action rifle?

texts: I know that Canada developed the Ross-rifle, but was it officially adopted? I'm also interested in adoption not only for infantry, but for any armed forces.


texts:
There is a small Hanuman temple about 30 kilometers south of Hubli in my home state of Karnataka in India. Below is the image of Lord Hanuman's idol. The idol certainly looks quite old, but the folks here say that it was constructed by none other than Janmejaya himself, the grandson of Arjuna of Mahabharat fame.

Can someone verify if this temple is really that old?


texts: Why did South Carolina continue to select their Presidential Electors by legislative choice until after the Civil War?

texts:
Looking back through a history of the electoral college, many of the states did not at first actually have a popular vote to decide the electors for president. Instead many states chose electors by having the state legislative branch choose the Electors for their state, with only a few of the states putting the decision to a popular vote.

For example in the 1800 election of Thomas Jefferson, only Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and Rhode Island held a popular vote, with all other states having the legislative assembly decide the electors (except Tennessee which had an unique system).

However, over the course of a couple of decades, most states switched to a popular vote, excepting South Carolina. South Carolina continued to have the legislative body choose the electors all the way until the end of the Civil War, where upon they started using a popular vote to decide electors.

What were the reasons for South Carolina to not use a popular vote to decide the Electors for so long compared to other states and why did they finally decide to put the decision to a popular vote in future elections after the Civil War?


texts: How long has western civilization known the body contains a significant fraction of water?

texts:
Body water is the water that makes up more than half of the average human body.

Before the advent of modern physiology, humorism associated Phlegm with water, and my (relatively limited) understanding of the theory suggests that this was supposed to be "balanced" with the other three. I haven't been able to find what that "balance" is, but at least some significant fraction of the human body was water. Humors having been described in the writings of Galen between 130 and 201 AD somewhere is the earliest reference I could find for the human body containing water.

Looking for an earlier scientific reference, I've skimmed De Rerum Natura for references to water, but didn't see it mentioned in particular reference to human anatomy. It describes water as being one of the four traditional elements, but doesn't say whether there's any in the human body.

Is there an earlier reference for the human body's water content? When did western civilization decide humans were wet?


texts: How would gender equality in WWI have affected UK population?

texts:
Gender equality in the armed forces is in the news. The UK army has just appointed its first front line fighting woman officer. There is discussion in US government about having women register for the draft. In a future war, if both men and women are allowed to fight, then, if there is compulsory conscription, it is hard to imagine how both men and women would not have to be compelled to fight. In WWI, only men were compelled to fight.

The UK in World War One lost something over 700000 young people (almost all men) killed. This did make a significant dent in the UK population, but the population recovered relatively quickly. I have been struggling to find accurate details for the population history. The National Archives site that supplies older data seems to be broken - I cannot make the filter or search function work in chrome or firefox. The current UK government site is all Flash-based, and I cannot see Flash documents here for security reasons.

Is detailed UK population data for the period before and after WWI available and accessible online, please?

Had the UK lost, instead of 700k men killed, 350k young men and 350k young women, it seems likely that the way that the population recovered after the war would have been different.

Has any numerical analysis been made of how gender equality in war would affect population recovery or family structure?

While the answer below from @user2448131 makes an excellent point, it's not clear how to use this information to deduce the effect of gender balance on population recovery. The flu was immediately after the war, so the actual UK population recovery was in the context of the deaths of about 100k women and 800k men (flu and war combined), and it's hard to see how to extrapolate this to a putative 400k women and 400k men. I'd like to know if any study has been done on population recovery in modern times when the number of deaths of men and women are equal. Perhaps looking at population recovery in a nation unaffected by war deaths? Spain? But where can I find detailed population data?


texts: Is the Prologue to Eunuchus the earliest recorded defense of literary fair use?

texts:
In Eunuchus by the Roman playwright Terence, there is a prologue penned for the explicit purpose of justifying the author's reuse of existing characters. In a section, the author identifies some common literary tropes of his time and defends his reuse on those grounds:

  When the officials were present, a run-through began. He cried out that it was a thief, not an author,
  who had put the play on, but that he hadn’t put one over on him all
  the same. He said that there was a play called The Toady by Naevius
  and Plautus, an old play, and that the characters of the parasite and
  the soldier had been lifted from it.
  If that wrong has been done, it was done through the author’s
  ignorance, not because he was keen to commit a theft. That this is so,
  you will now be able to judge. There’s a play called The Toady by
  Menander; in it there’s a parasite (the Toady) and a boastful soldier.
  The author does not deny that he has transferred those characters to
  his Eunuch, from the Greek play; but he does utterly deny that he
  knew those plays had been written previously in Latin. And if he’s not
  allowed to use the same characters as someone else has used, how is
  it more allowable to show a running slave, to make his mothers
  good and his prostitutes bad, [a parasite gluttonous and a soldier
  boastful,] to write about a supposititious baby, the deception of an
   old man by a slave, love, hate, suspicion? In short, there’s nothing
  said today that has not been said before. So it’s right that you should
  acknowledge and allow it, if new writers do what old ones used to do.

From the Peter Brown translation

This seems very similar to the justification behind the modern legal doctrine of fair use. Is this the earliest example of such a defense, or is there an earlier instance of defending recycling intellectual property in a literary context?


texts: How historically accurate are the Assassin's Creed games?

texts:
I've been highly entertained recently watching youtube videos of a game series called Assassin's Creed. It tells the story of a family who are members of a Order (called Assasins) who have waged a war with another group (Templars) for hundreds of years. Each game seems fixed on one member of the family in a specific time period. The first one was set during the Crusades of the England's Richard, the second one during the rise of the Borgia family in Italy and then recently in America before and during the Revolution. During these stories they interact with many historical events and figures.

For those familiar with these games, are the portrayals accurate?


texts: Where did Metternich say the Balkans began?

texts: Statesman and politician of Austrian Empire, Klemens von Metternich made somewhere his famous remark that "Balkan already begins on some road south from Vienna". Does anybody knows where was that road, according to Metternich?


texts: Did anyone find gold in California before 1848?

texts: Is there any documentation or evidence of anyone finding gold in California before the discovery at Sutter's Mill in 1848?


texts: How did wills work in times of Oscar Wilde?

texts:
Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest contains the following lines (shortened as marked for this purpose) in its third act:

JACK.  I beg your pardon for interrupting you, Lady Bracknell, but this engagement is quite out of the question.  I am Miss Cardew’s guardian, and she cannot marry without my consent until she comes of age.  That consent I absolutely decline to give.
[...]
LADY BRACKNELL.  [To Cecily.]  Come here, sweet child.  [Cecily goes over.]  How old are you, dear?
CECILY.  Well, I am really only eighteen, but I always admit to twenty when I go to evening parties.
LADY BRACKNELL.   [...]  Eighteen, but admitting to twenty at evening parties.  Well, it will not be very long before you are of age and free from the restraints of tutelage.  So I don’t think your guardian’s consent is, after all, a matter of any importance.
JACK.  Pray excuse me, Lady Bracknell, for interrupting you again, but it is only fair to tell you that according to the terms of her grandfather’s will Miss Cardew does not come legally of age till she is thirty-five.
[...]
CECILY.  Algy, could you wait for me till I was thirty-five?

From what I've found, the legal age (for self-decided marriage) at that time was 21 (and this is actually indirectly referenced by Bracknell). I could understand if the inheritance of the grandfather was only made available by the age of 35 (but that wouldn't really make any sense, as it would pose a problem unsolvable by Jack's consent), but was it actually possible to alter the legal age of marriage in such a way? Or is it just artistic licence on Wilde's part?


texts:
Which texts/works were lost due to the Mongol invasions of Baghdad?
Baghdad was a center for learning and there seems to be an immense literature loss during the sack of that city, just like the losses from Alexandria library.


texts: Has there been any big collisions with ice bergs after Titantic or during the Age of Sail? What happened? Especially during WW2, wasn't there a lot of naval moments in the Arctic?


texts: Was the US close to running out of volunteer manpower during the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars?

texts: I remember during the early-middle days of the Iraq War there were growing concerns on the need to reinstate conscription to shore up US troop numbers. Was there any legitimate concern behind this or was it just political/media fear-mongering?


texts: What uniform are these gentlemen wearing?

texts:
What uniform are these four guys wearing, and what medal is the central guy wearing? Possibilities are likely something Austro-hungarian or Romanian, possibly around 1900. Bonus question: what are they drinking?
This photo belonged to my wife's late grandfather, who emigrated to the U.S. from Poland (Galicia) in 1921. That's about all I can tell you. If you're interested in the medal, the photo is grainy enough that I can't see any more detail. Now, if the cord is a marksmanship award established in 1926, that creates a temporal problem; though perhaps the photo was mailed to him later.

Here's a closeup of the medal and coincidentally, the bottle.

More notes: The grandfather in question, Solomon Zeidenstein, was born in 1904 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1921. There is some resemblance between him (though he's much older in all photos) and the soldier at left. There's also some resemblance between his older brother Abraham and the soldier at right. But that would mean a 16-year-old in uniform in 1920. Was anyone that young called up during the war with Russia, even when Warsaw was in danger?


texts: What happened to the S.A. (Sturmabteilung; "Stormtroopers") after The Night of the Long Knives?

texts:
I'm reading The Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany by Warren B. Marris, Jr. (Nelson-Hall, Chicago), 1982 for an eassay. It outlines the power that the Sturmabteilung (abbreviated S.A., trans Stormtroopers, also known as The Brown Shirts) had in 1934: It had its own "private air force, medical service, engineers corps, and intelligence service." (pg 201)

What happened to these divisions after Hitler had the leaders murdered on June 30th, 1934, "The Night of the Long Knives"? Were they taken over by the military, the S.S. or kept by the weakened S.A.? It seems unlikely that such valuable forces would be disbanded while Hitler was re-arming Germany, but given the greatly decreased importance of the S.A. it also seems unlikely they remained under S.A. command.

If answers could include citations I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you.


texts: Has any country ever diverted an international flight in order to arrest a wanted person?

texts:
Belarus recently came under scrutiny for forcing a Ryanair plane to divert so they could capture a wanted person on board:

A Ryanair plane from Greece to Lithuania was diverted to Belarus for
several hours on Sunday, with activists saying it was done to arrest a
dissident journalist on board.
European nations reacted with outrage, accusing Belarus of "state
terrorism".
The ex-editor of the Nexta group, Roman Protasevich, was detained
before the plane was allowed to resume its flight. BBC

Is this the first time an incident like this happened?


texts: When was the use of detailed maps for military campaigns widely adopted?

texts:
I remember definitively, they were there during the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon himself was a part of one Bureau of Topography for a while.

An auxiliary question, how did they ever get to survey lands in rival countries?
Or was stealing maps really a thing?


texts: The Constitution of the United States: Background material for the original, esp. the Bill of Rights?

texts:
During the work and debate around the Constitution of the United States; where there much background-material like surveys, notes and minutes (from debates)?  How much of such material have survived?  I guess especially minutes from committee-meetings and the actual debate is of special interest.

I'm particular interested in the Bill of Rights, especially the 2nd amendment - how a strong militia is unnecessary for the security of the individual state, and how this depended on the citizen's right to own arms.

Are there any background material left that could clear-up what was most important for the founders; a militia to secure the state, or that the citizen could own arms (regardless of the state's security)?

I believe there are at least some information that have survived, in particular regarding how one representative was against the whole enumeration of rights, as he feared a future government would read it as "citizens have no rights except these", instead of "citizen have many/all rights, but we'll mention these in particular because they're so important" - which is the reason for the 9th amendment.


texts: Did the cold war affect the development of the internet?

texts:
What were the influence of the Cold War in the internet origin or their development.

Did DARPA's support of the creation of the internet explicitly address cold war fears? The cold war was the central theme of the Defense Department; if they funded a project, it had cold war implications

The Wikipedia article about ARPANET said

  The network was initially funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later DARPA) within the U.S. Department of Defense for use by its projects at universities and research laboratories in the US.

The creation date that Wikipedia show is 1969, this was in the middle of the Cold War.

I'm from Cuba where for example the MININT is behind of the all study in technologies and communications. When I studied in Cuba the MININT was the principal sponsor of all our projects in the college.

How do the Cold War directly or indirectly influence in the development of the internet?

Through the U.S. Department of Defense in the way the people work in the process, were there pressure in the project? the U.S. Department of Defense gave money to the university, they gave technology material or people , motivated for the Cold War and competition against USSR and their fears to a possible nuclear war.


texts: Why didn't captains of ships like the MS St Louis beach on uninhabited islands, after being rejected by North America and UK?

texts:
For Jewish refugees, any island west of UK would be safer than continental Europe.

Even if these deserted islands (like Greenland, Ireland's Blasket Islands, Scotland's Barra Isles, most of Canada's Arctic, Faroe Islands), and uninhabited region belonged to a nation state, a nation state might not have known of their beaching.

Even if a nation state did know that Jewish refugee ships beached, what's the worst that could happen to these Jewish refugees on these uninhabited regions?
At war, and experiencing rations and shortages, would Canada or Greenland (under Denmark or US) truly have spent time and resources, and risked their ships and seamen, to forcibly return them to Europe?

Wikipedia avows that

At one point he [Captain Schröder] made plans to wreck the ship on the British coast to force the government to take in the passengers as refugees.

Thus why didn't he do this, but at uninhabited regions?

[I rewrote numerals with numbers]

Of the 620 St. Louis passengers who returned to continental Europe, we determined that 87 were able to emigrate before Germany invaded western Europe on May 10, 1940. 254 passengers in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands after that date died during the Holocaust. Most of these people were murdered in the killing centers of Auschwitz and Sobibór; the rest died in internment camps, in hiding or attempting to evade the Nazis. 365 of the 620 passengers who returned to continental Europe survived the war. Of the 288 passengers sent to Britain, the vast majority were alive at war's end.[21]


texts: What is this possible old coin found in Western Ukraine?

texts:
I think, at early eighties, when I was a child, I found this “coin” in my room, at the second floor of a standard Soviet building in Lviv, a city at the west of Ukraine. The house was build, as far as I know, in 1963.

Images in a resolution 600 DPI are here and here.
The diameter is 2 cm.
I don’t know what is it and how it occurred in my room.
I have not seen any symbol or emblem strongly resembling that on the “coin” on other coins or medals before or later, so I do not offer anything to compare this to.
But I wish to identify this historical thing, before I shall pass into history myself.


texts: Why America was not discovered from the left land at Bering strait?

texts:
At 66 01' 03.27'' N - 169 45' 27.89'' V the height is 626m (2053 foot)
The distance to the horizon is 89.4 kilometres (30.7 miles)
From that point ~ 5 kilometres (3 miles) on the America land is visible.

This is a strange situation

And if they go at Big Diomede Island at 65 46' 30.56'' N - 169 04' 13.54'' V where the height is 478m (1568 foot) the horizon is at 78.1 km (48 miles) and the land sight is 32 km (20 miles)


texts: What was the largest battle fought by ancient Rome?

texts:
What was the largest battle, by number of participants, in which ancient Rome took part? Not counting sieges.

A quick Google search reveals nothing authoritative, but some discussion threads mention the battles of Adrianople (295K), Arausio (280K), Vercellae (260K), and -although a bit of a siege- Alesia (260K) - suggested by @ed.hank.

All these numbers come from Wikipedia, and can vary a lot, so I'm looking for something more reliable. My hope is some historian has addressed this, being the question so basic (and quite infantile).


texts: What would slaves in the Roman Empire call their masters?

texts: I need to make a video for a history class on the Roman empire and the rise of Christianity, but there are many things that I cannot find. If you answer, thank you.


texts: In the Middle East, everybody calls this country something more like "Urdun" or "Ordon". How did it come to be called "Jordan" in the West? What is the history of the name of this country?


texts: When did western doctors first start predicting prenatal diseases and disabilities?

texts:
At what point did western medicine become invested in the idea of predicting that children might be born with specific illnesses or disabilities prior to their actual birth? And at what point did these predictions become accurate?

I am less interested in:

Maternal prohibitions. I.e. if you drink or behave in a certain way your child will be born disabled.

Character formation. i.e. if the mother has sex during pregnancy the child will grow up libidinous, or the like.

Heredity. i.e. inbreeding causes disability in the long term.

And more interested in what might, quite imperfectly, be called natural illness. That is, when doctors began to predict specific prenatal diseases and disabilities with mechanical causes based at least partially on medical observation or tests. I'd also like to know when these observations and tests first became effective for predicting whichever conditions.


texts: Does a reputation for cruelty to PoWs give a tactical advantage?

texts:
Among warring factions, some groups throughout history have sought to strike fear into their adversaries by 'making examples' of any members of the opposing force(s) that they capture alive, by means of torture and the like.

At first glance, this would seem to lead to a tactical advantage, as soldiers might be too scared to oppose them in the first place (lest they get captured), or perhaps commit suicide if capture seemed inevitable.

I'm looking for historical precedents that either illustrate the success of this approach, or that discredit it tactically.


texts: What were the divisions of the city of Paris between the 12th and 13th centuries?

texts:
What were the divisions (neighborhoods/districts) of the city of Paris during the medieval period? I know there is a division between left and right bank and Ilé de la cité, but I believe there should be more specific neighborhoods or regions, such as a street of artisans, noble neighborhoods and so on.

Are there any maps showing these divisions?


texts: Historical and biblical names for bottles of wine

texts:
According to sources like the linked sizes list at Wikipedia entry about bottles of champagne and other kinds of wine, various sizes of bottles took their names after ancient Jewish kings and other Biblical persons, from Jeroboam for 3l bottle as far as to Melchizedek for a bottle ten times bigger.

The questions are: why, when and by who such typology was provided?


texts: How much infrastructure damage has there been in Iraq, after the invasion?

texts: I know that thousands up to a millions (depending on source) of people have died due to the conflict, but how much damage to infrastructure has been caused? I read somewhere that it was $1 trillion but it did not list what kind of buildings were damaged (hospitals, electricity, school etc...).


texts: Pancrace Royer was a well known French harpsichordist who published a book in 1746. He died in 1755, but I can't find the cause of death (which would probably be easier if I knew French). Does anyone know of a source stating how he died?


texts: Why are some Pharaohs depicted wearing the red or the white crowns even after the unification of Egypt?

texts:
We know that the red "Deshret" crown was used by the Pharaohs of Lower Egypt (Or in occasions related only to Lower Egypt), and the white "Hedjet" crown was used by Pharaohs of Upper Egypt (Or in occasions related only to Upper Egypt).

After the unification of Egypt, both crowns were merged into one and that crown was called the Pschent.

My questions is: Why are some Pharaohs shown wearing either crowns even after the unification of Egypt?

Example: Thutmose III is depicted "Smiting his enemies" in a relief on the seventh pylon in Karnak (which is in Upper Egypt) wearing the Deshret crown of Lower Egypt.

At the same time, still in Karnak on another wall not very far from the first wall, Thutmose III is shown wearing the Hedjet crown.

How come?


texts: What is the meaning of George S Patton's quote "Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more?"

texts: George S Patton said that "Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more." What doe this mean?


texts: How did bank transactions (or "data" transactions) work when it took people weeks to travel vast distances?

texts:
I am designing a prototype for a distributed database that could work across vast distances of space, like the goals behind IPFS working at planetary, or galactic, scale. I want to solve the problem, at least theoretically (with a practical prototype POC in JavaScript demonstrating the key algorithms), of doing database transactions when the data is in different planets or different stars or different galaxies. What this boils down to is that, latency will be a problem no matter what. Things can only move so fast, and it takes 8 minutes for light to travel from the sun to the earth, let alone from one planetary system to another. So none of the traditional distributed consensus or transaction algorithms would probably work in my understanding (like two-phase commit).
What I imagine so far is that you would have the database copied in several places within a planet. This would be for data that is common to the planet. You can get away with latency issues here at least. Then every so often someone wants to do some data transaction with the data on another planet. You can't get away with latency here. So what do you do?
You do something like how communication may have worked hundreds of years ago when people travelled by horse or by foot. How did they guarantee atomicity in that situation? What are the types of things they would do to keep their data "in sync" in different parts of the world, and resolve any conflicts that may have emerged? It may take weeks or months to send messages from one place to the next. What happens during this time? How would you translate this to a database system?

Say for example you want to perform an ATM transaction and your origin planet is PlanetA at StarX, while you're visiting PlanetB in StarY. When you make a purchase with a universal form of money on StarY:PlanetB, it should at some point deduct that amount from StarX:PlanetA. If you are on your last pennies and charge something for $5 on StarY:PlanetB, it should know you are out of money. Meanwhile, your partner is on StarZ:PlanetC a hundred million miles in the opposite direction. You both are using the same credit card and deducting from the same bank account at your origin, StarX:PlanetA. How would you go about allowing for both people to get on with their lives and purchase things with their ÅTM card?

Perhaps you would divide the money to start, so you each get half to spend. Then when you run out, you can ping (and wait for weeks) to ask your partner for more money or something. Perhaps you would copy your half of the bank account to your current location, and deduct your stuff locally, syncing it slowly (over weeks) to the origin planet.
How would you solve this problem? Of doing an ATM transaction with multiple people sharing a bank account across these vast distances? Besides this specific question, I would be interested to know more generally where I can find more info on this sort of topic. But the key question is that, how to handle database transactions where the latency is a very long time (days or weeks or longer)? The key-er question is, how did people throughout history perform such "atomic" transactions when they had to travel vast distances very slowly?
I believe this is a valid problem to solve, as we will soon likely have to deal with at least communicating between Mars and Earth, where it takes about 3 minutes for light to travel. And once we are capable of that, then communicating with other planets or solar systems might be in order.
Maybe NASA communicating with their satellites might have some insight .
If bank transactions are a bad example for history, then what is a better example? Perhaps war plans is a better example. Perhaps purchasing land was another example, or trading of some sort.


texts: Why were there "hussars" all across Europe?

texts:
From what I read, hussars are originally a cavalry forces in Medieval Hungary. But then it became a class of light cavalry that were in service in many European nations, and during the Napoleonic wars: (according to Wikipedia: Hussar)

  Most of the great European powers raised hussar regiments. The armies
  of France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia had included hussar regiments
  since the mid-18th century. In the case of Britain four light dragoon
  regiments were converted to hussars in 1806–1807.

Why were there such widespread adoption and why are they called hussars? What common characteristics do these regiments have that link them to the original hussars in Medieval Hungary and that separated them from other light cavalry class like lancers, dragoons or uhlans?


texts: What kind of football was played in 645 Japan?

texts:
In the book History of Japan by Richard Mason, the author states in chapter 3:

In the year 645, opponents of the Soga leaders struck back. The final coup was preceded by careful preparations that included a famous meeting at a football game between the two leading Soga aristocrats, the head of the Nakatomi clam, named Kamatari (614-69), and a young imperial prince, Naka no ōe (626-71).

To what football is the author referring? It obviously can not be association football (soccer) or American football, as these were not introduced to Japan (or even invented) for more than a thousand years after the events described above.


texts: Did the 1962 comedy album about JFK impact the presidency or US prestige abroad?

texts:
On October 22, 1962 -- the same day President Kennedy appeared on television to announce the discovery of nuclear armed missiles in Cuba and the American response -- commedian and JFK impressionist Vaughn Meader and others recorded the smash hit comedy album "The First Family" which poked fun at Kennedy and his family quite gently by today's standards.  From its release in November 1962, it went to top Billboard's charts in just two weeks, won a Grammy as album of the year, spawned a sequel, and Kennedy, himself, gave copies of the record  to friends as Christmas presents and referred to it and Meader at times in speeches.  But initially, many record companies rejected the album.  James Hagerty, a former press secretary to President Eisenhower and an executive of ABC-Paramount records, not only rejected the recording, but warned that release of the album would be "degrading to the presidency" and that "every Communist country in the world would love this record."

The album also opened some ridicule to foreign leaders.  In the skit, "Economy Lunch," French president Charles DeGaulle, West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and Soviet premier Khrushchev are putting in orders for a businessman's lunch from a deli.  DeGaulle declares that he wants "duck under glass," and after being told that their having sandwiches, he orders a "duck under glass sandwich."  Khrushchev demures that the president shouldn't order anything special for him, "I'll just have a little of what everyone else is eating."  But when Adenauer orders an "western sandwich," Khrushchev demands the eastern half of Adenauer's western sandwich.

In the months before Kennedy's assassination (an event that also ruined Meader's life and career), did this comic view of the White House and its foreign policy have any negative impact to the US abroad, as Hagerty predicted?


texts: What is the oldest example of complaints against wealth being due to closeness to the ruler?

texts:
Consider the sentence “The king is the one at whose side wealth walks”. It is taken from the Babylonian Theodicy, a poem which was written somewhere between 1500 B.C. and 1100 B.C. and which is therefore more than 3000 years old. Actually, within the poem that sentence is described as a widely spread opinion.
This may well be the oldest known complaint about the fact that being in good terms with whoever rules a country is the surest way of becoming rich. Does anyone know an older one? Or, if this is indeed the oldest known one, which one would be the second oldest?


texts: You know how in an earlier time passengers used to get bored crossing the empty expense separating Pacific states from the rest of civilization (the first trains took a bit longer than ours) and they would shoot buffalo and passenger pigeons (a kind of bird) through the window? Uh, when did that stop allowing that? Frankly if you took out a rifle on a first world train now (even if their windows could open) you would scare a lot of people. Or did they only do that in private sleeping compartments? Or then again I know nothing about this time, who knows maybe once you got on the train at Omaha everyone open carried like the Wild West and your seatmate wouldn't be noticed if he suddenly decided to unholster his self-defense revolver and kill a bison.


texts: Was having one breadwinner in the family feasible in the early 1900s because of greater pay, lower cost of living, or both compared to today?

texts:
Today it is common in western countries for both spouses in a family to hold jobs and jointly be "breadwinners" and for many is an economic necessity. However in the past, it was common to only have one person (usually the husband) be the breadwinner, and this was economically feasible.

If we compare those times (say, the early 1900s) to today and adjust for inflation, was one breadwinner economically possible because of greater pay, lower cost of living, or some mixture of both?


texts: Time frame of Rita Indiana's video "Da Pa' lo' Do'" (Dominican Republic)

texts:
This question is about the history of the Dominican Republic.  Look at the uniform shown in the beginning of Rita Indiana's video "Da Pa' lo' Do'," which means "There's enough for both," where "both" means D.R. and Haiti.

What historical period does this uniform represent?  Red jacket, blue trim, white pants.  I wonder if this was the Spanish infantry uniform.  During what period(s) was the Spanish infantry active in the western part of the island, or along the border?

But perhaps this is the Haitian army's uniform, and the setting is the Haitian occupation of the eastern part of the island?

What about the second character's uniform?  It's a strange blue -- not a navy blue.  Is this a low-budget or non-historically correct version of the navy I see for that period when I look in google images?  Or is it supposed to represent the ragtag style dress of the Haitian revolutionary forces?  I am very, very confused what sides these two soldiers are supposed to represent, and what the historical period is supposed to be.  I understand the theme of the song and the video but I'm having trouble getting the details.

Bonus question: what was the D.R. called during Spanish rule (1861-1863)?  I would like to know, ideally, what it was called in English and also what it was called in Spanish, if there was a different name in the two languages.


texts: Was there a church around 1800 in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky?

texts: Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, founded in 1742, had just 85 residents in 1792. According to "So Far From Home" (Farris, ed.), a priest named Yakov Volkov was there in the 1790s. Was there a church? Because the Kamchatka diocese was not created until around 1840, was it in the Irkutsk diocese?


texts: Why did the wagon forts of the Hussites fade away?

texts:
The wagon forts of Hussites were quite successful tactically, and helped them repel five crusades from European leaders.
I was wondering why did the wagon fort tactics not see a wider adoption in contemporary warfare.
These in particular and mobile fortifications in general...

  In the 15th century, during the Hussite Wars, the Hussites
  developed tactics of using the tabors, called vozová hradba in Czech
  or Wagenburg by the Germans, as mobile fortifications. When the
  Hussite army faced a numerically superior opponent, the Bohemians
  usually formed a square of the armed wagons, joined them with iron
  chains, and defended the resulting fortification against charges of
  the enemy. Such a camp was easy to establish and practically
  invulnerable to enemy cavalry.

  The crew of each wagon consisted of 18 to 21 soldiers: 4 to 8 crossbowmen, 2 handgunners, 6 to 8 soldiers equipped with pikes or flails, 2 shield carriers and 2 drivers. The wagons would normally form a square, and inside the square would usually be the cavalry. There were two principal stages of the battle using the wagon fort: defensive and counterattack.

A video. Not very academic, but good to get a feel of the era.


texts: Why does the name "England" hold no reference to the Saxons?

texts:
Something that has always surprised me was that originally Saxon kings were referred to as kings of the Angles or kings of the English when they conquered or reconquered the Germanic parts of the island of Britain.

Is there a reason why any reference to their Saxon origin was dropped?


texts:
Pablo Vicente de Solá was a Spanish military officer who served resisting the Hidalgo Revolt and then as the last Spanish governor of Alta California. [Nuttall: The Gobernantes of Spanish Upper California: A Profile]. He ended his Mexican political career by serving on the Committee for the Development of California [Reynolds: Principal Actions of the California Junta De Fomento 1825-1827]. He was thought to have  died in 1826 [Johnson: Pablo Vicente de Solá: Transitional Governor of Alta California] but in Reynolds, his signature appeared on a Junta document from 1827.

Between 1827 and 1834 the Mexican government passed several laws mandating that Spaniards (gachupines) leave the country. It succeeded in expelling at least three quarters of the Mexicans of Spanish birth, particularly the military men and bureaucrats [Sims: The Expulsion of Mexico's Spaniards, 1821-1836].

Was Solá among those expelled?


texts: If archaeology shows that people abandoned the ancient Trojan region around the 6th century BC, why do we have so few written evidences of that?

texts:
My professor told us that people lived around the location of ancient Troy up to the beginning of the 6th century BC and moved away mostly because they couldn't deal with prices in Neorion Harbour.

If that is true, and considering all the culture and wealth the ancient peoples who lived there had, shouldn't more data about them have been found since Heinrich Schliemann's findings?


texts: Has there been a recorded account of a cabin boy inspiring mutiny on board a ship?

texts: I’ve googled... Ask.com’ed... Nothing... I havent found ANY account of a cabin boy either killing a captain or leading a mutiny on any vessel or ship anywhere.  Anyone have any recorded account or historic journal space where they have? I’m sure there has... Maybe a captian going too far in training or the like had to have happened!


texts: Were there any naval engagements during the Mongol invasions of Japan?

texts:
During the 13th century, the Yuan empire made two invasion attempts at Japan, in the battles of Bun'ei and Kōan. In both cases, the samurai defenders fought the Mongols off their beachheads, and the bulk of the invaders were defeated due to storms.

However, I've noticed that the descriptions of both invasions do not mention any Japanese navy or naval engagements. In both cases, the invaders quickly took the neighboring Iki and Tsushima islands, only encountering resistance once they've landed in Kyushu, where the samurai forces were gathered.

Did Japan simply have no navy to speak of during this time, or was it determined that they had no hope of fighting the large Mongol navy on the seas?


texts: Why didn't trench warfare produce a similar stalemate on the eastern front in World War I?

texts:
After fall of 1914, World War I on the western front was characterized by trench warfare. That is to say that soldiers in trenches protected by machine guns and barbed wire occupied such strong defenses that attacks involving hundreds of thousands of men would do well to advance a few miles at a time. This lasted until the spring of 1918 when German numerical superiority and new, "storm" tactics upset the balance one way, and the arrival of fresh American troops and new equipment such as tanks upset the balance the other way.

Germany's eastern front was not nearly as static (against the Russians). Why was that? Was it because of factors such as weather and terrain, or were the Russians slower to adopt trench warfare tactics than the Germans, British, or French?


texts: Is there any evidence of post-landbridge travel across the Bering Strait?

texts:
During the era of the landbridge across the Bering Strait, evidence suggests that people traveled from Asia to North America by foot, becoming the first humans in the Americas and the ancestors of the Native American peoples.

That being said, even today the Bering Strait isn't terribly wide.  About 50 miles at its narrowest point, roughly analogous to the English Channel and closer than Japan is to Korea.  It's not a terribly hospitable environment at either end, so travel might not have been considered worth it, but given how humans tend to work their way into every nook and cranny of a landscape, it seems odd that there wasn't consistent (if infrequent) travel between Alaska and Siberia even after the landbridge disappeared.

Is there any evidence for travel, especially consistent back-and-forth travel, between Asia and North America before the modern age, but after the landbridge disappeared and foot-travel became impossible?


texts: What is the original source of this 16th century image of a French town holiday with musicians in a tree?

texts:
Several sites have this image below but none give any information about the original source.

Image source: fineartamerica. The same image can also be found at Granger and (on various items such as towels and mugs) at Pixels.

The only available information is:

  FRENCH TOWN, 16th CENTURY. Holiday in a small French town. People
  dance the farandole and play jeu de mail.

The farandole is "an open-chain community dance" (French Wikipedia has a much better article) while jeu de mail is

  a form of ground billiards, using one or more balls, a stick with a
  mallet-like head

What is the original source of this image?

I'm also curious about the musicians in the tree and have not been able to find any other such depictions, from either the Early Modern or Medieval periods. Knowing the original source of the image above might throw some light on this.

Was this just a bit of artistic license or was it not unusual to have some of the musicians up a tree (assuming there was a 'serviceable' one in the vicinity), or perhaps it was a regional 'tradition'? Examples (images or written accounts) from Medieval or Early Modern times would be acceptable.


texts: Were Medieval Islamic peoples in Northern Eurasia given religious dispensations due to the long diurnal cycles?

texts:
Christian troops in Northern Europe were given Papal dispensation to allow them to follow religious practices properly during the long(er) diurnal cycle at those latitudes. Were Medieval Islamic peoples given similar exemptions (i.e., for fasting and prayer times) for their religious practices? When is the first such dispensation from?

As a similar example, Catholic religious warriors in Northern Europe were given special dispensation for performing their religious practices in the long northern days/nights:

Apart. from such reverses, the crusader castles of Livonia provided secure bases from which the brethren could conduct siege operations of their own against enemies. These could be of quite long duration, and the peculiar problems associated with the lack of daylight in midwinter are acknowledged in a special privilege the Livonian Master obtained from the Pope in 1344. Having in mind the 'hard labours and infinite dangers' of the 'athletes of Christ and intrepid warriors against the pagans and infidels in Livonia' it was decided:

that they be allowed to carry along portable altars for their priests or others, and in proper and decent places before a day is gone or while there is still light, to celebrate Mass.

—Turnbull, 'Crusader Castles of the Teutonic Knights (2) The Stone Castles of Latvia and Estonia 1185-1560'

Modern Muslims in the far north have similar dispensations:

"What to do during the Midnight Sun and on Polar Nights has been a big point of debate for us," says Sandra Maryam Moe, deputy director of Alnor. Her husband, Andrew Ibrahim Wenhem, is the mosque's registrar, overseeing the legal paperwork of marriages, divorces and deaths. "We finally asked a shaykh in Saudi Arabia, and he gave us a fatwa [instruction] with three choices: Follow the timetable of Makkah, follow the timetable of the nearest city that does have a sunrise or sunset, or estimate the time and set a fixed schedule. We decided to follow Makkah for the part of Ramadan that falls under the Midnight Sun or Polar Nights, and then, for the other times, we follow our own sun."

This is echoed in Ruthven's 'Historical Atlas of Islam' in more or less the same terms.

However, these sources don't show when these Islamic dispensations were first introduced. Islamic warriors would have experienced problems on the same scale to the German knights from at least the 13th century on—and traders might have done so previously—in the Rus territories, Volga Bulgaria, and Cuman lands that share latitudes with Terra Mariana (map source):

Note that I'm not saying that the polar night itself was a problem in Medieval times for Islamic travellers/warbands/traders as described in the modern article above, but that the long summer & short winter days would have been. However, even without the polar night, the long days & nights would have been problematic. This would have probably caused problems with at least fasting but perhaps also prayers.
As an example, Vilnius doesn't even have astronomical twilight for more than half a month. Going further north, as into Volga Bulgaria, would be lighter of that level in the winter.


texts:
Humankind has a sad, horrible history of intentional mass murder and murder–suicide by airplane and road vehicle.

Are there known cases of a sailor or an officer on a ship trying to kill himself and all his crewmates?

More will probably be known about failed attempts to compromise a ship than "successful" ones.

Lars Bosteen and LangLangC have given good answers describing desperate acts in the heat of battle. I appreciate and upvoted these answers, but I'm reluctant to accept wartime acts as murder–suicides since the victims were already in immediate danger of losing their lives.

Before asking, I did several keyword searches on combinations of terms like ship, sabotage, sinking, sailor, and of course, murder–suicide. Needless to say, I didn't find any examples of same, thus the question.