texts: Had there been instances of national states banning harmful imports before the mid-19th C Opium Wars?

texts:
Background
To my current understanding, James Matheson in his »The British trade with China« argued that China might have originally had the right to refuse trading with Britain, but that they lost such right by consenting- even tacitly- to the Opium trade. One passage that I interpret in the above sense reads:

Without discussing the question, whether the Chinese are absolutely warranted, in justice to their fellow-nations, in shutting out all the rest of the world from any participation in the benefits of so prodigious a portion of the most desirable parts of the earth,—even when that participation would be attended with corresponding advantages to themselves,—it may be contended that China has long since surrendered such rights, and is no longer in a position to enforce them, as against the British nation; that her conduct, during the last century or two, has amounted, not merely to a simple permission to us to carry on our trade with her, but has conferred upon us perfect rights, such as are accompanied by the right-of compelling the fulfilment of the corresponding obligations.

Thence stems my question:
Question
Were there no instances before the mid 19th century Opium wars of a national state legally banning harmful imports? Were the above arguments more than facetious excuses by the legal standards of the time? Hadn’t Britain’s Empire in particular ever banned from import any product that they thought harmful and dangerous and no longer to be tolerated?
Let’s not go back to the time before the advent of Nations
Edit

Very rightly the term “national state” has been criticised. Unfortunately I am unsure how to better phrase this. My point is that Matheson (as far as I understand from my first reading) heavily draws upon Vattel’s “The Law of Nations” for defending the supposed British rights. I seek examples of states that have accepted “The Law of Nations” but enacted similar trade bans as the Qing did.


texts: What was the attitude of Brazil's government towards the Spanish Civil War?

texts:
I suppose you could argue it's not uber-important what they thought about a war on another continent in which they had no direct stake, but all the other countries in Latin America couldn't afford to ignore it completely. See American Hemispheric Perspectives on the Spanish Civil War

Vargas was in favour of the Allies during the Second World War, and wasn't particularly troubled by a distant USSR. But did he follow Salazar in supporting the rebels, or just do nothing at all?


texts: Did Saint Paul preach at the Theater in Philippi?

texts: We know that Saint Paul traveled to and spent much time in Philippi-(in the North of Greece).  In fact, Saint Paul began his European mainland mission in Ancient Neapolis-(present-day Kavala) and then onto nearby Philippi.  It is well recorded within The Acts of The Apostles of Paul's preaching to the Philippians, as well as conducting a baptismal ceremony and his imprisonment. However, did Paul ever preach his message within the Theater at Philippi? I ask this, because it would seem to me that Saint Paul would have used the Theater in Philippi as a center of missionary preaching, the way he used the Theater in Ephesus for his missionary preaching.


texts: How did Mongol nomads acquire metal weapons?

texts:
Metal-working requires a furnace, heavy tools and of-course metal ore and yet nomadic Mongols were able to obtain metal weapons, so either they worked metal or traded it. But if they worked metal how were they able to move the tools around? And surely nomads didn't mine ore, right?

About.com claims, though without any citations:

  Mongolia's nomadic people have at times hungered for goods from settled cultures - things like fine metal-work, silk cloth, and weapons. To get these items, the Mongols would unite and raid surrounding peoples.

Right so this paper talks about how the Hunnu empire - which as far as I can gather are the predecessors of Mongolians - had metal working orkshops, yet it also explicitly describes them as nomadic ??

  In excavations of the sites of ancient Hunnu towns[...]iron works and various kinds of cast-iron ware have been discovered.

.

  However, the mighty empire of the nomads did not last long


texts: How did the ruling class in the Muslim world react to the discovery and colonization of the Americas?

texts:
Since Columbus' voyage in 1492, the Europeans began to explore and colonize the Americas. During the next century, the Spanish (and the Portuguese?) extracted a lot of wealth from the Americas, beginning the expansion of territories, and power, resulting in Empire that became the dominant naval and economic powers at the expense of Islamic powers, such as the Ottoman Empire.
How did policymakers in the Muslim world react to this development? Especially in the parts that interacted with the Europeans, such as the Ottoman Empire, Morocco, or the Barbary States? Did this come into their attention, and did they plan some response to stop or disrupt it?


texts: Creating a "focused research question" for a history paper, unsure how to create a question that inspires debate

texts:
My topic: Systematic oppression through education as demonstrated in black children (in the 1900s)
I'll explain each of my drafts and why they didn't work:

Why where black children oppressed through education? Just a starting naive approach, this does not work because it assumes that black children were oppressed in the first place, and it is too broad.

What did the south intend to gain by segregating black children to subpar education facilities.  This, I was told by my history teacher, does not invoke debate (I'm not sure if this is true, because can't the south's motives be argued?)

I'm not sure where to go from here, maybe I can set up a question that debates between the south's justification of segregation and ? I'd really appreciate any help.

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, or the wrong type of question, but I'm truly at a loss here and need help.


texts: Can anyone help ID the uniform in the picture? It's probly WWI, Maybe Austria or Italian or Czech?

texts: This is a picture of my grandfather. Paul Boratko. We think he was born in Austria, but married a woman from Slovakia and imigrated to the USA after WWI. I'm trying to ID the uniform in this picture. I appologize for the relfection from the glass, but hope there is enough detail to ID the uniform.


texts: What is the significance of 4200 BCE in context of farming replacing foraging in Europe?

texts:
This is a question relating to how and, in particular, why foragers were colonized by farmers (settled societies) of Hilly Flanks (uplands of Fertile Crescent of Southwest Asia).

According to Ian Morris in "Why the West Rules--for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future" (Picador, 2011), there were  debates between Colin Renfrew & Luca Cavalli-Sforza on the one side, and Bryan Sykes about farmers replacing foragers in Europe, from the point of view of genetics.

I'm not going to regurgitate the debate here (b'cos its irrelevant to my question) but here's the gist of my question: In the context of farming culture replacing foragers: What happened in Europe (especially Baltic region) during 4200 BCE?.

I ask this because of the way Morris wrote this sentence, and the implication, it is a generally known or accepted fact. Unfortunately, I am not certain what he meant. Here's the relevant parts of the paragraph, pg. 112:

  Predestination

  ...

  We frankly do not know why farming did finally move north after 4200 BCE. Some archaeologists emphasize push factors, proposing that farmers multiplied to the the point that they steamrollered all opposition; others stress pull factors, proposing that a crisis within forager society opened  the north to invasion. But however it ended, the Baltic exception seems to prove the rule that once farming appeared in the Hilly Flanks the original affluent society could not survive..

Note: In the context of anthropology and the paragraph above, the original affluent society is referring to foragers. This term is by Marshall Sahlins. Wikipedia has more.

The way I've understood Morris is in the highlights (by me). It seems to indicate Morris is referring to some event that is definitive and clearly important, and also generally accepted in mainstream European history. Unfortunately, I do not know this topic.

My research on this is to look at Morris' newer book (2015), "Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve", pg. 151, has essentially the same point and timeline (4200 BCE). Unfortunately, there are no relevant footnotes in these paragraphs.

Hence, again, why is 4200 BCE a significant date and what is this accepted thesis of farmers replacing foragers. A name or paper will do, because I'd like to read up on this.

Clarification:

I am not asking if Morris was right or wrong as such. What I am asking is simply why is the 4200 BCE stated so explicitly? Was there a particular event or thesis that Morris is referring to that happened during 4200 BCE? Because, migration is a process and it is therefore, in my opinion, not stated as a specific date per se, but usually a range, say, 5200 to 4200 BCE. The heart of it is, am I missing something (a known or accepted thesis) on this matter.


texts: Is there any evidence that the book of Isaiah was written before Cyrus?

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The OT Prophet Isaiah lived in the 8th-century BC. Cyrus, the Emperor of Persia, lived well over one hundred years later: Cyrus (580-529 BC) was the first Achaemenid Emperor. Yet The Book of Isaiah in Chapters 44 and 45 speaks of Cyrus in no uncertain terms:

Isaiah 44-28

  Who is saying of Cyrus, My shepherd, And all my delight He doth
  perfect, So as to say of Jerusalem, Thou art built, And of the temple,
  Thou art founded.

Isaiah 45-1

  Thus said Jehovah, To His anointed, to Cyrus, Whose right hand I have
  laid hold on, To subdue nations before him, Yea, loins of kings I
  loose, To open before him two-leaved doors, Yea, gates are not shut:

If this is so, it's a miracle.

However, it is possible that the book of Isaiah is simply written after the event and written in a way that make it look as if it could predict prophecy. How do we know which one is right?

Note: I used Young Literal Translation because it transliterate YHWH into Yehovah where all other translation seems to take more "liberty". To me, it's much less confusing.

If there are significant differences that may change the meaning, I'll consider all translations.

Note2: In Christian world, this sort of "I told you so" fulfillment lead to disputes of when a text is actually written. For example, Christian gospel "may" have predicted fall of Jerusalem before 70 AD. This causes a dispute over when the Gospel was actually written. See: Who says Jesus couldnt predict the fall of Jerusalem


texts: When did ancient religions start to experience dropping numbers of adherents in Europe?

texts:
I am talking about ancient Greek, Roman and Norwegian religions.

When did ancient religions start to lose ground to modern religions such as Catholicism in Europe?


texts: Why did India sign the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation?

texts:
India had a policy of non-alignment during the cold war. But just before war broke out between India and Pakistan in December 1971, India signed the treaty in August 1971.

What were the reasons that made India to do this?


texts: "America is the richest country in the history of the world" -- Would a historian consider this true?

texts:
Bernie Sanders recently described the United States as "the richest country in the history of the world," to make a point about income inequality.

I understand that this was meant as a rhetorical point, but I'm curious how historians would evaluate such a statement literally.  We're not the wealthiest nation based on per capita GDP, and it seems like it would be hard to compare our economy to historical civilizations, like for instance, The Roman Empire or the British Empire under Pax Brittanica.

Is there a way that historians measure the wealth of nations comparatively over large spans of time?  And is there any measure by which a historian would definitively describe the United States as the richest country in the history of the world?

This is my first post on the history site, so please be gentle.


texts:
San Andreas, seat of Calaveras County, is one of several Gold Rush towns retaining a Spanish name (though now misspelled). Numerous secondary sources attribute its founding to "Mexicans". These Mexican miners could have crossed the new border or been Californios.

Who gave San Andreas its name?

One possible clue is Martina Castro, who had grown up on Rancho San Andrés, and whose family mined nearby (Ronald Powell, The Castros of Soquel, pp. 31-32).


texts: Why were the Thirteen Colonies more successful, both economically and socially, than other colonies?

texts:
The Thirteen Colonies had an incredibly rocky start, running out of food and surrounded by Indian tribes which were not pacified until much later. Yet 200 years later, the population in the colonies eclipses many if not every other European colonial settlement in the Americas, including - New Granada, New Spain, Rio de la Plata, New France and Louisiana.

For example, 1770 Boston was larger and more economically active than Montreal, New Orleans, Veracruz, Havana, Buenos Aires or Cartagena, and yet taking just Boston would not allow one to dominate the entire area as opposed to the other cities in which the loss thereof is usually enough for you to claim the entire colony on the peace table.

So how and why were the 13 colonies so successful?


texts:
This coin has been in our family for over 70 years. I have seen hundreds of these coins on line but, I have never seen one like this. Do you have any thoughts on where this coin may have come from?
Thank you ...
Tony


texts: What was Finland's role in the siege of Leningrad?

texts:
My understanding was that Finland was not really pro Nazi Germany, but merely wanted to recover the lands lost to the Soviet Union in the Winter War of 1939-40. That is, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

My further understanding was that individual Leningraders had a chance of obtaining food by going to the border with Finland and trading valuables for food with the local farmers, with minimal interference from Finnish soldiers. At any rate, the Finns appeared to be a lot more humane in the conduct of the siege of Leningrad than the Germans.

Given the context of the time, was there a chance that the siege of Leningrad could have been lifted (on the Finnish frontier) if the Soviets had offered to return the lands taken in the Winter War? (My understanding was that Stalin once considered offering Finland peace on those terms, then re-considered when the troops brought back from Siberia started winning the battle of Moscow.) Would a peace with Finland have helped Leningrad, or did transportation issues mean that most supplies for Leningrad would still have to come from the southern, German-controlled direction?


texts: Was construction work involving hydraulic cements in ancient Rome restricted to the summer season?

texts:
Are Italian winter temperatures reliably warm enough for processing of opus caementicium ?

Was building activity seasonal for other reasons?


texts: Vikings: The sagas of Ragnar Lothbrock and his sons

texts:
In the TV-show Vikings the sagas revolve around Ragnar and his sons.
I was wondering whether there existed other Vikings who were more famous or conquered more than Ragnar or his sons did. This is excluding Ragnars brother Rollo of course.


texts: How many German soldiers were there by the time Nazi Germany surrendered?

texts:
How many German soldiers were out there fighting by the time Nazi Germany surrendered ? (What I mean by surrendered is 8th of may 1945)

I read this and it says in early may there were around 800K axis soldiers still in Pragua and it had me thinking, why weren't they in Berlin ?

And how many more were out there and surrendered after Hitler committed suicide ?

I am asking only about soldiers, not considering young boys and old people sent out as soldiers. But those who actually armed and capable of fighting.


texts: What does the eighth samurai crest / symbol in this picture signify?

texts:
I would like to ask you all to explain the meaning of the 8-th symbol in this picture*:

I would like to also know what are those symbols? Thank you very much.

* Source: http://www.samurai-store.com/armor/images/options/list_samurai_crest_1.jpg


texts: Which is more correct, Carlos I or Carlos V?

texts:
I asked this in the Spanish StackExchange and they send me here.

One very well known emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) is known as Charles V (or in Spanish: Carlos V), but it is also known as Charles I of Spain (Spanish: Carlos I de España). I think I get why he has two titles, but if somebody were to speak in short form what would be most popular in Spanish ("Carlos V" or "Carlos I")?

There has to be one that it is used more in casual/short form than the other. In English and French it is usually Charles V. I guess in Spanish it would be "Carlos I" as it was the name used in Spain, and Hispanic America belonged mainly to Spain.

How could I check this? I tried Ngram but it goes against my intuition (there might be biased to Carlos V due to historical sources/other languages). Spanish Wikipedia
uses "Carlos I".
For a more precise context, I would like to discuss his influence in Latin America. What term should I use in Spanish? Is there a rule?


texts: What is the earliest reliably dated event exact to the year?

texts:
How far does reliable counting of the years reach into the past:

with the help of dating methods?
using only primary sources?


texts: What were the American-equipped armies of Nationalist China equipped with?

texts:
During the latter years of WWII, the US equipped and trained a number of Chinese (Kuomintang) armies to fight the Japanese. Initially the Chinese armies were greatly inferior, armed with bolt-action rifles and a very limited amount of artillery; brought to modern standards, these armies outclassed their Japanese counterparts, with the semi-automatic M1 Garand rifle and fully-automatic Thompson submachine gun providing devastating firepower.

What were such armies (e.g. the New 1st Army) typically equipped with? How many guns and artillery of each type?


texts: During the Siege of Alesia, why were certain Roman forts located outside the circumvallation lines?

texts:
I am reading Caesar's Gallic Triumph, Alesia 52BC by Peter Inker, and he provides a few maps of the camps and forts around Alesia.  Two of the camps (camp H & K) are located outside of his cirumvellations lines, so they are completely exposed on all sides to Gauls. The only mention of the two in the book is that camp K housed Caesars cavalry and guarded the approaches to the river, and that camp H could also hold cavalry and guarded the northern plain and the Oze river. Evidence that they held cavalry has been found in later archaeological digs.

The locations of these camps just dont make much sense to me,  for one they can be completely surrounded (especially in the case of H).  Also as the majority of the Gauls were camped betweeen the Oze and Ozerain, so for the cavalry in camp K to attack the main Gaulic force they would have to cross the Ozerain first before entering battle, which does not seem very wise.

Caesar obviously knew that the Gauls would concentrate in the Plain of Laumes (which is why he had the stoutest defense there) so why would he put forts in these locations? what role did they play?

UPDATE:  After watching a documentary on the subject where they reconstructed the fort from archaeological digs, they came up with this map, which clearly shows the cavalry camps connected to the main camps.  I can't say which is 100% correct but this newer maps definitely makes more sense to me.


texts: What kind of heavy horses did the Manchu use?

texts:
My friend told me that the Manchus would link 4 horses together and fight. Yufei then cut off the horses feet and won anyway.

Is this true? Where can I learn about 4 horses tied together?


texts: What was the difference in taxation amounts before and after the American Revolution?

texts: I would like to know the difference in the amount Americans were taxed before and after the revolution. Did taxes go up or down (or stay the same)? How did an average citizen's taxation amount change after the revolution?


texts: What is the source of a half remembered art history quote possibly about Bruneleschi's Florence Cathedral?

texts:
I'm trying to track down an exact quote which I remember very vaguely, having read it over ten years ago in some art or art history book whose title I no longer recall. I think the quote is attributed to a Renaissance painter or architect who, upon first glimpsing from afar some architectural wonder of that time (I want to say the dome of Bruneleschi's Florence Cathedral?) said something to the effect of "Bruneleschi, I cannot imitate you, but I will surpass you nonetheless".
Some or all of these names may be off, but that is the general gist of the quote. This is all I got. I've been trying to track this down for hours.


texts: When did Germany begin to store it's gold deposits abroad?

texts:
I just learned from this question that Germany is storing it's gold reserves around the globe.

When did this practice start? What was occurring at that time that drove the decision?

And an optional speculative question: what political goals could be driving the request to fetch the gold back?


texts: Attempts to return the War to the South's favor after Gettysburg?

texts:
With regards to the Union victory at Gettysburg being the turning point of the American Civil War:

Were there any major Confederate victories after the battle of Gettysburg?
Did the Confederacy ever come close to returning the war to their favor?
If they did come close are their any battles that historians regard as a battle that if it had gone the other way it would have led to a longer/drawn out war?

Or would I be more correct in thinking that following the battle of Gettysburg it seemed that any chance of a Confederacy victory was very slim?


texts: Did people on the Bridge of Death in Pripyat actually die?

texts:
It is a long-circulating claim that the Pripyat residents and policemen who watched the Chernobyl explosion from a railway bridge, mostly (or even all) died. Sometimes even a dose of 500 rem (which is usually fatal with ARS, not only by some later cancer) is quoted.  It made into the recent miniseries, which is not a hitorical source, not even a documentary, but is renowned for historical accuracy, and when it takes liberties (like the character of Komjuk, it admits it in the epilogue, exactly where the death bridge claim is sounded)
Truthorfiction claims that their fate is unknown, but that the story is unlikely, since people survived with hospitalization even in the control room or among the firefighters, even though they were much closer to the reactor, than the unlucky spectators.
However, it is not very convincing: The people in the control room had many concrete walls between them and the reactor, and the pieces and ashes of the core did not fall on their heads. Most of them would have survived, had they not made heroic efforts to contain the damage and rescue fellow workers. But I do not find it impossible that people geometrically farther, but by evil winds reciving the bulk of the fallout, would have fared way worse
The Truthorfiction page on the question only generally quotes sources about how "the exact death toll is unknown", but only mentions the circumstantial evidence of "they were farther than proven survivors", which as said above, seems whacky.
I have found however an interview with Pripyat evacuees: It seems that these persons at the bridge had not developed ARS, but had later (and sometimes fatal) health problems which they attributed to the disaster. So not everybody died (as Guardian had found people to interview), and the dose should have been lower than 500 rem
Is there documentation somewhere, that Truthorfiction might have overlooked, that would shed light on the

number of people on the bridge

The percentage of them who actually got acute radiation syndrome (ie radiation poisoning/burns)

The percentage of them who later died of long term effects?


texts: Need help identifying 2 old coins? Struck coins, one with two standing human figures facing each other

texts:
Can anyone tell me what these 2 coins are ?
How can I safely clean them?


texts: When was the last time that the U.S. as a country, state, or city was occupied by foreign troops?

texts:
Of recent wars (1900 to today) I can only think of instances of the U.S. sending offensive troops to occupy other nations.

I understand that we've been attacked by the likes of Pearl Harbor and 9/11 but when was the most recent time that a foreign power had military occupancy on the U.S.'s soil/waters?

My research has led me to Wikipedia's list of military occupations but I am uncertain whether or not Guam counts and the list doesn't go back very far.


texts: Why didn't Caesar move against Sextus Pompey immediately after Munda?

texts:
I am very familiar with the story of the civil war and the various players in it.  I have read the sources from Livy, Suetonius, to more modern authors but none has ever answered why Caesar did not move against Sextus before the latter was able to build his base of power.

Possible answers I have come up with were, Sextus was not yet that powerful and Caesar possibly underestimated how influential he would become, but I think even this is not a full answer.  Caesar had obviously seen what Pompey's children were capable of in Africa and Hispania, where he only narrowly avoided defeat.  Additionally, he had seen just how powerful the Pompey name was in recruiting soldiers and allies (especially in the areas like Hispania where Pompey had his power bases.) Because of these reasons, Sextus eventually became a major problem for Augustus.

It seems foolish for Caesar to depart for Parthia while he still had Sextus on his flank running around free. What was Caesar's reason for this?


texts: What was the primary source Brugsch used to argue for Egyptian monotheism?

texts:
There is a theory held by some that Ancient Egypt had a degree of monotheism (A certain Emmanuel de Rougé even going as far as saying, in 1839, "The Egyptian religion is a pure monotheism, which manifested itself externally by a symbolic polytheism."). I do not agree with the theory, but am interested in three quotes I keep encountering.

Heinrich Karl Brugsch supposedly found these in ancient Egyptian writings:

  God is one and alone, and none other existeth with Him

And

  God is the eternal One, He is eternal and infinite and endureth for ever and aye

And

  God is merciful unto those who reverence Him, and He heareth him that calleth upon Him. God knoweth him that acknowledgeth Him, He rewardeth him that serveth Him, and He protecteth him that followeth Him

These quotes are from Dr. Brugsch's Religion und mythologie der alten Aegypter of 1887 but is unfortunately in German so I can't read it and doesn't seem to have many actual hieroglyphics in it.

Can anyone find the original source of these Ancient Egyptian quotes and write them out in Hieroglyphics and provide their pronunciation?

  [He puts footnote 103 after listing these quotes, which has this reference]


texts: How old is the Egyptian winged disk? Is it Assyrian?

texts:
I assumed that the Winged disk was brought to Egypt by the Assyrians, and used prolifically during the Amarna period. However, I  read on Wikipedia and elsewhere that it's known since the Old Kingdom, specifically Sneferu. I cannot find any examples of this.

What are the earliest examples of its use in Egypt?


texts: Which nation forced Romans to change their armor?

texts: I remember reading somewhere that at a certain point in history thanks to archaic steel an enemy of Rome had swords that could cut through armor with ease causing a large change in Roman military but I forgot which country it was.


texts: How much did Didius Julianus pay to become emperor of Rome?

texts: According to Wikipedia, Didius Julianus was proclaimed Roman Emperor in AD 193 by the Praetorian Guard after offering them 25,000 sesterces per soldier (outbidding Sulpicianus's offer of 20,000 sesterces each).  But "25,000 sesterces" is just a number.  How much money would that have been, compared to the yearly pay of a typical soldier (or a typical Praetorian)?


texts: How hard did they beat up Henry II after the murder of Thomas Becket?

texts:
The story of the murder of Thomas Becket was one I learned at school and it's stuck with me. I was doing a little reading tonight and was surprised to find this paragraph on Wikipedia:

The king performed a public act of penance on 12 July 1174 at Canterbury, when he publicly confessed his sins, and then allowed each bishop present... to give him five blows from a rod, then each of the 80 monks of Canterbury Cathedral gave the king three blows. The king then offered gifts to Becket's shrine and spent a vigil at Becket's tomb.

80 monks with three blows each is 240 blows, and that's before we start counting the bishops. So Henry probably took 250+ beats from the clergy. My question is: how hard were these blows? Are we talking about ceremonial taps here? Because I imagine 250 of anything more than that is gonna leave a bruise. What are the rules when you're beating up your monarch? Are certain kinds of strike off-limits, or is it AOK to try and score a homerun with the royal noggin?


texts: When did the British monarch become an emperor?

texts: When did the British monarch become an Emperor? I know that Queen Victoria became Empress of India, that there is an order of the British Empire, but is there such a thing as a British Emperor?


texts: What kind of AA defenses did the US East Coast have around the time of Paukenschlag?

texts:
Operation Paukenschlag (drumbeat/thunderclap), which Wikipedia likes to call the Second Happy Time, occurred from 1942 January to August. During this time, German U-Boats sank a huge amount of ships on the US East Coast.

During this time, what was the state of US AA defenses on the East Coast? For example, how many AA guns did a city like New York have? How many airfields were nearby and how many aircraft were ready to defend? What kind of aircraft were they and what were their armaments? And crucially, did these AA defenses increase significantly from January to August?

With hindsight, we know that Germany had no possible air power near the US East Coast. But at the time there were fears of an invasion. So I would like to know the state of the US AA defenses on the east coast.


texts: Why did some Enlightenment thinkers despise democracy?

texts:
The wikipedia page on the Enlightenment has this interesting quote:

The leaders of the Enlightenment were not especially democratic, as
they more often look to absolute monarchs as the key to imposing
reforms designed by the intellectuals. Voltaire despised democracy and
said the absolute monarch must be enlightened and must act as dictated
by reason and justice – in other words, be a "philosopher-king".

Why did Voltaire despise democracy and how widespread was this view?


texts: When did the allies start evacuating from the Dunkirk mole during the Dunkirk evacuation?

texts:
I have two dates in mind, 22 May 1940 and and 27 May 1940. It makes more sense that they started evacuating from the mole the 22 of may but I've also heard the 27 from BBC.

The 22 of May was the date when Capt. Tennant arrived to Dunkirk and he was, if I'm correct, the one who ordered the evacuation from the Dunkirk mole.

I don't think that the 27 makes any sense because this means that Capt. Tennant would have waited five days (from the 22) before he made the order and time was not really something that they had a lot of during the evacuation.
Which is correct?


texts: Why did the Allied Forces choose Normandy as their geographic point of invasion?

texts: It seems that the fact that Normandy lies close to the United Kingdom must have played a role. However, parts of the Netherlands and Belgium are (almost) just as close, or even closer. So why not start the invasion there? Where there political reasons (e.g. de Gaulle wanting to have France liberated first) or perhaps military reasons for this choice?


texts: Influential kings/emperors at the time of Maria Theresa

texts: By reading the book by Basset For God and Kaiser, the author seems to be pretty fond of the ruling of Maria Theresa. It is pointed out that Maria Theresa an influential Empress of the XVIII century. I was wondering two things: 1) whether if this is considered true in the western countries and 2) if there are  Kings or Emperors of the same period, in the East, whose influence could be considered to be the same order of magnitude as Maria Theresa was to her Empire.


texts: When and why was the Shinkolobwe Mine flooded and re-opened?

texts:
The Shinkolobwe Mine was the best Uranium mine during WW2. It had great concentration of uranium oxides on the order of 20% to 65%. By contrast, all other Uranium mines I've read about had concentrations no greater than 1%. It's located in the Belgian Congo, today the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This makes it a very strategic site for the Manhattan Project.

However, the wikipedia article mentions this:

  The mine was closed in 1939 and flooded. The US Army sent a squad from its Corps of Engineers to reopen the mine, expand the aerodromes in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) and Elizabethville (now Lubumbashi), and extend the port at Matadi, on the Congo River. Between 1942 and 1944, about 30,000 tons of uranium ore were sold to the US Army.

(It's worth nothing that there's no citation for any of that.)

This brings up a few questions.

Exactly when was the mine flooded?
Why was it flooded? No other Uranium mine compared to this. Was it German "Scortched Earth" practice? (Belgian Congo was owned by Belgium, although Belgium had not yet been invaded as of 1939.)
Exactly when did the US Army Corp of Engineers arrive?
Exactly when did the mine begin producing again?

Googling around only brought me results on current affairs. Apparently the mine is shut down today but the UN monitors it as a security risk with lots of rumors.


texts: Identification of port and country. Identification of ships. WWII era, from a German Kriegsmarine album


texts:
What was Greek fire?

I read in my history book that it was a flamethrower. But in certain fantasy movies it's been portrayed as something similar to dynamite. What was it dynamite or what? Did it even exist?


texts: To what extent was the Cold War caused by post World War 2 economics?

texts:
Quite a while ago I wrote an essay for college on the causes of the First Cold War (Seeing as in some schools of thought, the Cold War can be split into 2 distinct "conflicts" or stages) looking primarily at it from an economic standpoint.

In the end I summarised that the cold war was caused by a mixture of factors that included the relative delay in the western allies fighting on mainland Europe (Stalin push for D-Day to happen much earlier than it did), the massive difference in casualties (at it's worst it could have been as much as 15 Soviet deaths to every allied death), the fact that Europe's and Russia's economies were decimated by WW2 where as the US doubled it's GDP and profited off of the Lend Lease Programme, Stalins/Russia's Xenophobia and ideological differences.

So, my question to you is: To what extent was the Cold War caused by economic differences? or was the Cold War caused more by the the political strain between the US/UK and Russia over the events of WW2, particularly the rush for Berlin etc? or could it have been the US fear of Communism/Soviet fear of Capitalism?

As a side note, much of my research came from two books - "Inside the Kremlins Cold War" - Zubok and Pleshakov and "Russia, America and the Cold War" - McCauley.


texts: Why did 1906 Iranian constitutionalists use the Belgian constitution as inspiration?

texts:
The Constitutional Revolution of Iran in 1906 resulted in a constitution that established a parliament and a constitutional monarchy. Interestingly, it was based on the Belgian constitution.

Was there any reason that Belgium was particularly chosen as a model? There was a lot of constitutional monarchies in the West at that time. Belgium wasn't among the most prestigious or famous of them, and I couldn't think of any special similarities between Iran and Belgium.


texts: Why is the Confederacy frequently depicted as heroic in film and literature?

texts:
I was watching a remastered video from The Rebel and it occurs to me that often, if not the majority of the time, it is the Confederacy before, during and after the war which is shown in a sort of idealized/heroic way. Gone With the Wind was a very successful film in which again the South is treated fairly sympathetically. There are many other examples whereas I can't think of too many films in which the Union is shown in a positive light.

It is not like Hollywood was dominated by people with roots in the South -- maybe D. W. Griffith is the one example of a major director/producer from a Southern state.

Is it simply that the South, having lost after a long but doomed struggle, is better suited to be shown sympathetically? Or is there some other reason for this treatment of the Confederacy in art?


texts: Why is the USA the world's strongest country?

texts:
The USA has been the world's strongest country for a long time now.

Even after the rise of China as one of the dominant economies in the world, the USA is still the world's top economy.

Does the USA just happen to be the world's strongest economy, or are there any historical traits involved?


texts: Challenges Margaret Thatcher faced as a woman?

texts:
As the first and only woman who served as Prime minister for Britain, What are some challenges she faced as a woman and how she dealt with them?
Its hard to find correct information about her because half of the population loved her and other half loathed.


texts: Are Amazighs the inventors of the so called Arabic numerals?

texts:
From this link, I read that an Algerian professor published a thesis where he stated that what we call Arabic numerals are not Arabic as they have been invented and used for the first time in Bejaia which was (and still is) a pure Amazigh (not Arabic) region in North of Algeria.

Note that Arabs of today use Indian numerals instead which this may also explain their rejection of Arabic numerals as they have been invented (at least in their actual form) in Bejaia.

Original publication is this:    A. Boucenna: ON THE ORIGIN OF  THE ARABIC NUMERALS

Is this true?


texts:
I have heard of a project of cataloging and digitizing of all of Mount Athos documents. Is there a website to find more information about this project, and to follow its progress?

I'm having a hard time finding anything on the internet.


texts: Why does the Star of David feature on these African coins from 20th century?

texts: Why does the Star of David feature on these African coins from 1936 and 1959?


texts: Was the interior of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople ever covered with mosaic icons?

texts:
The Church of Hagia Sophia has several prominent surviving icons that have stood the test of time and still exist today.

A list of the surviving mosaics and their estimated dating are as follows:

The Imperial Gate mosaic ( 9th - 10th centuries)
Southwestern entrance mosaic
Apse mosaics (The Panagia and Child mosaic ) ( 29 March 867 )
Emperor Alexander mosaic
Empress Zoe mosaic (11th century)
Comnenus mosaic (1122 AD )
Deësis mosaic (1261 AD)
Northern tympanum mosaics (St John Chrisostom & St Ignatius )

source (wikipedia)

In addition to these, the interior is decorated with Christian crosses, geometric patterns and floral designs (which i assume are Byzantine in origin)

One would expect the most important Church in the Eastern Roman Empire to be richly decorated with mosaic iconography like other Byzantine churches. Instead, the interior (today) is mostly bare marble while the ceiling and higher up parts of the building are decorated with the surviving mosaics and floral/geometric patterns.
In contrast, other surviving Byzantine churches such as the church of Chora, the churches in Mystra and churches in other major Byzantine commercial centers such as in Thessalonika and Ioannina are heavily decorated with iconography.

Understandably, a fair amount of the original interior decoration would have been destroyed over time by Iconoclasts, Crusaders, Ottomans and also natural disasters but it begs the question: Do we know what the original decorations of the church where like? i.e. How much of the current decorations are from subsequent restoration attempts? Also, was the Church ever covered in iconography like other Byzantine churches?

Attempts at modern simulation of what the original Hagia Sophia might have looked like curiously do not depict iconography as part of the reconstructions. Some example images here and here

So is there any written or archaeological evidence that may point towards Hagia Sophia having at one point been covered in Icons? Or are there any descriptions of icons and mosaics that existed that are now lost?


texts:
I have a few ancestors that fought in the 48th VA Infantry Regiment, most of whom were captured at Mule Shoe during the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.

The Mule Shoe was a half-mile long, mile-deep bulge in the Confederate lines held by Johnson's division . The Mule Shoe itself was attacked twice, first on May 10th and later taken by the Union on May 12th. Around 3,000 Confederates were captures during this second battle.

Why were Lee's lines positioned in such a way to have this bulge in the first place? Why didn't he reposition his lines following the first attack if he knew it was a weak spot?


texts: What explains this dip in Indonesian GDP growth rate in 1982?

texts:
In the years preceding it, Indonesia had been growing swimmingly, with rates as high as 9.9%, and just 8.1% in 1981. Suddenly, a solitary dip to 2.2% occurred in 1982:

Google helpfully produced a comparison with Malaysia and the Philippines, and it seems that their economies dropped too, but only much later. Meanwhile, Indonesia took a dip in 1982, and recovered a year later to 8.4% when the Malaysian and Philippines economies were sunk.

One possible explanation is the early 1980s recession in the West triggered by the 1979 Iran revolution causing oil prices to skyrocket, but I don't know how this would have affected Indonesian economy and why the waves seemed to hold on a little longer for the Malaysian and Filipino ones.


texts: Was Swastika a universally-recognized symbol of fascism as early as 1925?

texts:
In the Soviet sci-fi film "Napoleon Gas" of 1925, there is a secret society, called "Fascist Order Black Klan" in the United States. The order's uniform seems to be similar to that of the Ku Klux Klan except they wear clothing of black color instead of white, and with a huge swastika on it. The order's aim is to destroy the USSR, it has as its (secret) member the US war minister, who illegally produces chemical weapons in a plant, disguising it as an aniline paint and is a member of the "International Fascist League".
It seems from the film, the swastika symbol is closely associated with fascism, including the international one. Is this feature of the film anachronistic and a fantasy of the authors, or does it reflect the realities of 1925?
UPDATE
This question is not about swastika being an anti-semitic symbol, but about its association with fascism specifically. As I know, fascist Italy did not use swastika as its symbol and Hitler's party was far from coming to power, so what made the authors use the swastika as an emblem of an American fascist society (that assembled an air unit to bomb Leningrad with illegally produced chemical weapons later in the film)?


texts: What's the difference between Potur and Şalvar?

texts: I'm researching the clothing of 16th-century Ottoman clothing, and I keep getting Potur and Şalvar as "trousers." Was there a difference between them or were the words synonymous?


texts: How many were "deliberately" killed after Stalin's rule in Soviet Russia?

texts:
According to Wikipedia, the historian Timothy D. Snyder argues that Stalin might have deliberately killed about 6 to 9 million people. Other historians estimate a much higher number of deaths due to Stalin's rule, including deaths of famines, which were deliberately caused by Stalin.

I'm not interested in the exact number of deaths caused by Stalin, what I am interested in is how many people were killed "deliberately" after Stalin's rule in Soviet Russia.

Gathering from the same Wikipedia article, the ways people were deliberately killed are the following:

Executions
Death through gulags
Death through deportation
Death through (intentionally created) hunger
...

I wonder how many were deliberately killed in these manners or others after Stalin's rule? I mean the time period of 1953 - 1989.


texts: Why didn't Germany blockade the Strait of Gibraltar during WW2?

texts:
The Strait of Gibraltar, at its narrowest point, is about 14 km wide. Why didn't Germany blockade it during WW2?

It seems to me that only a handful of submarines and destroyers could do the job. Wasn't the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) capable of blockading it? Did submarine wolf packs at least hunt at that chokepoint?

The blockade would apply to US/UK/USSR ships, but allow Spanish and other neutral countries of course. Presumably this would not be a political problem for Spain.

Note: I'm not talking about the Gibraltar Fortress under British control. That's a different matter.


texts: Why was Patriarch Nikon removed from power?

texts:
Why did he lose the grace of Tzar Alexey?
Which enemies conspired against him and how?


texts: Are there registers of the scores and participation in ancient Olympic games?

texts:
There are sources listing who (i.e. which country) participated in each Modern Olympic Game and the scores achieved by them.

Does such data exist for the Ancient Olympic Games? Are there information about who participated and who won what? If there are such information, were they compiled and recorded by a "organizational team" or something similar, or were they eventually mentioned by spectator authors in their accounts?


texts: How to find the population and mortality in London during the period 1760-1834?

texts:
I have to reconstruct the graph showing death rates from infectious diseases and from all causes in London. But I have trouble with finding the data for the period 1760-1834.

In the graph are shown three curves:

Annual numbers of deaths per million inhabitants.
Annual numbers of deaths from "measles, fevers, whooping-cough and diphtheria" per million inhabitants.
Annual numbers of deaths from smallpox per million inhabitants.

The annual absolute numbers of deaths from all causes and from smallpox are presented in the Second Report of the Royal Commission, p. 290-291, but for the years 1832, 1833 and 1834 the data does not exist for deaths assigned to "all causes". To obtain the normalized value (referred to a million inhabitants) I need the London population values for the same period. The London population I found in the Third Report of the Royal Commission, p. 196, but only for the years 1780-1831. So it does not cover the required interval 1760-1834. Therefore my questions are: How to find the London population for each year in the periods 1760-1779 and 1832-1834? How to find the London total mortality in 1832-1834?
Probably I have to use the referenced Bills of Mortality, but I don't know how to find the requested data in these documents.
Even more difficult seems to be the problem of finding the data concerning combined "measles, fevers, whooping-cough and diphtheria", because the referenced book A History of Epidemics in Britain does not cover the whole period with mortality of these diseases.
If someone could help, I will be very grateful.
EDIT:
I found the book Statistics of the British Empire, by John Marshall, 1837. It contains the annual numbers of deaths due to various diseases in the requested period, but unfortunately it has some scanning errors - the table concerning the "period IV" (1790-1831) has not got its first page. Only the last part of the table is present in the book. Has anybody the complete version of this book?
Moreover: Probably some of the data I am looking for are presented in the Annual Report of the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board for 1884, page 32 Fourteenth Annual Report of the Local Government Board 1884-1885, pages 31, 32. But I have no idea where to find this book. Do you have the access to it? It contains no additional data.


texts: Why was North and South America less developed than other parts of the world?

texts:
Let me preface this with stating that the pre-columbian period of mesoamerica and the Andes Mountain regions are my favorite areas of study and I am fully aware of the advanced civilizations that spawned there:  The Incans, Mayans, Olmec, Toltec, Aztec, Zapotec, Mixtec, etc. to name a few.  But, if you look at the largest and most influential civilizations in the world, they are mainly contained to the Eurasian continent.  To name a few:  Romans, Greeks, Phoenicians, Chinese, Mongolians, Persians, Siam, Portuguese, Spanish, French, English, Ottomans, etc.  The Phoenicians did not cover much land, but they were arguably the best seafaring society of their day.  Their civilization was partly the basis of the Greeks which did have a very successful empire.  The mongols had the biggest empire ever (maybe the British were bigger, but I feel the mongols were much more impressive given the time).  The Chinese have historically been the most powerful civilization ever (except for the last ~two centuries).

Do not get me wrong, the Aztec and Incans were amazing civilizations and my two favorite ones to study, but they never covered the same area and had as much influence as civilizations in Eurasia and northern Africa.  The Aztecs only took over central mexico.  The Inca actually were a decent size, but that is really the only one out of all the Americas.

I think that the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea offer a similar seafaring potential that the Mediterranean offered.  I would have expected one or two civilizations to really take advantage of the water and really take over this area like the Romans did in Europe.  I just think there are several areas in the Americas that geographically would be ripe for lots of trade and conquest like we saw in Eurasia.


texts: Symbolism in illustration for a book by Riccati

texts:
The front cover of the book Opere (1761) by Jacopo Riccati, author of the celebrated Riccati equation, has the illustration depicted below. What is the symbolism incorporated in this illustration? (This question was originally posted here.)

Closeup:

Edit (Jan 20, 2017):  These two figures are most likely Ecclesia and Synagoga with science linked to Ecclesia and therefore enlightenment and triumph over those who blind themselves to the truth. See my comments and links to Graham's answer. The monstrance, palm frond, and blindfold can be found in Reuben's tapestry as depicted and described in the links.


texts: Where did Southern Fried Chicken come from?

texts:
Wikipedia claims origins both in Scottish and West African cuisine. The problem I have with that is that the story I tend to see about the Scots-Irish who immigrated to North America is that they settled the highland upper south, not the deep south where the plantations (and thus most of the West African slaves) were. So the two cultures may well have not had much chance to interact.

So how much contribution, if any, did the Scottish and West African traditions of fried chicken really have with modern Southern Fried chicken?


texts: Did JFK really say "Hitler is one of the greatest men…one of the most significant figures that ever lived"?

texts:
¿Did JFK really say:

  Hitler is one of the greatest men, the old trust him, the young idolize him. It is the worship of a national hero who has served his country.…Within a few years, Adolf Hitler will emerge from the hatred which surrounds him as one of the most significant figures that ever lived.

If so, when and where did he say this?


texts: Why is a pocket-battleship large in size ?

texts:
Why is it called a pocket-battleship when it’s large in size? Isn’t anything with pocket as prefix meant to be small ?

I was reading up on Graf Spee - The German pocket-battleship.


texts: Source of quote attributed to Florence Nightingale: To understand God's thoughts we must study statistics

texts:
This is another classic quotation in the history of statistics, attributed to Florence Nightingale:

  To understand God's thoughts we must study statistics, for these are
  the measure of his purpose.

It is a great quote, and many people use it, but I have been unable to find an actual source for this quotation. Among many other places, it appears in https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale, one of the few that provides any attribution:

  As quoted in Chance Rules : An Informal Guide to Probability, Risk,
  and Statistics (1999) by Brian Everitt, p. 137

But that does not contain an actual source of a writing by FN.  In searching for this, I came across The Collected Works of Florence Nightingale, http://www.uoguelph.ca/~cwfn/index.htm, but am unable to find this quote there.  Can anybody help?


texts: How did people deal with ice on the roads during the horse-and-buggy era?

texts:
Before there were cars, people traveled in a horse-drawn carriage, sometimes over cobble-stone covered roads.

Back in those days, was anything done to keep the traveled roads free from ice or snow? Were accidents due to ice or snow relatively uncommon?


texts: To what extent did the CPC avoid fighting with the Japanese?

texts:
There's general agreement that the Japanese invasion of China benefited the CPC by interrupting the civil war, forcing the KMT to fight the Japanese instead of continuing the CPC purge, which they were almost successful in doing. The CPC and KMT did mostly fight the Japanese instead of each other, with the CPC carrying out guerilla operations with the Eighth Route Army. The bulk of the fighting, at least conventional, was with the KMT.

Some claim that the relatively low participation of CPC in the defence of China is due to their opportunism, that they deliberately avoided conflict in order to preserve their forces for the inevitable resumption of the civil war. Another interpretation is that it was more due to their lack of manpower and war materiel. Which of these is closer to the truth?

Some facts that I've found so far (unfortunately they are from books that I don't own and can't verify):

After the Long March in 1935, the CPC were left with ~8000 military personnel. At the outbreak of the war, this number was ~30,000. At the end of the war, this was ~1,200,000.
The last major operation carried out by CPC during the war with Japan was the Hundred Regiments Offensive in late-1940, which involved ~400,000 of CPC's troops. The commanding officer, Peng Dehuai, was criticised by Mao for revealing their strength to the KMT, and was later purged in the Cultural Revolution.

Does anyone have more insight into this period of CPC history? I realise this is a highly-contentious period, so please stick to the facts and back up your answers with evidence.


texts: Was Zhukov's wit portrayed accurately in The Death of Stalin?

texts:
The Death of Stalin is a black comedy about a period of Soviet history running from the event from which the title is taken to the execution of Beria near the end of the film.
I am perfectly aware that the film takes liberties with history regarding the events as they unfold; among other things, Beria is not whacked the same day that he is first arrested, but after a period of several months.
What I am curious about is the portrayal of Marshall Georgy Zhukov. In the film he is portrayed by Jason Isaacs (who is clearly having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have) as a witty and confident person.
The confident part I believe we can accept as being true to life; the fellow was, after all, the chief ranking officer of an army that had won its last major conflict.
What I am curious to know is if the historical record depicts the same fountain of dry humor that we see in the film.
If the correct answer is that history has nothing to say on this, that's acceptable.


texts: During the Great Depression, roughly what proportion of Americans lived below the World Bank PPP $1.25/day poverty line?

texts:
The $1.25 PPP/day standard (in 2005 dollars), as defined by the World Bank Wikipedia. To be more specific, let's pick the year 1932, which is roughly when the Great Depression was said to be at its worst. 0%? 5%? 10%?

Edit to clarify: A very common mistake (even here on History StackExchange) is to believe that the $1.25/day standard means having literally 1.25 US dollars and converting it at current exchange rates to the local currency. One then proceeds to claim that "Oh, prices of everything in these Less Developed Countries are so much lower, so this $1.25 can go much further there. This measure is therefore 'ludicrous'."

Sadly this is not at all what the $1.25/day (2005 PPP) standard means. It means being literally as poor as someone in say Michigan (or somewhere in the US where prices of stuff are close to the US average) in 2005, with $1.25 a day. It means being literally only being able to buy what a Michigander in 2005 could buy with $1.25 a day. Please note the new link to the definition of purchasing power parity.

See for example this blog post for laymen.

Of course, there are many practical difficulties with accurately counting the number of people in the world who are this miserable, but at least conceptually, this is what the World Bank measure is meant to capture. And sadly, according to both the World Bank and the UN, there are still today well over a billion people who are this miserable.


texts: How common was banditry in 16th & 17th century Great Britain and Ireland?

texts: I want to know about highwaymen and thieves and brigands who preyed on travellers. so, I am not interested in other organised criminal gangs such as smugglers or urban thieves.


texts: What prevented the Finns from building a "counter ice road" to disrupt the "Road of Life?"

texts:
During the siege of Leningrad, the Soviets built an ice road over Lake Ladoga called the Road of Life to supply Leningrad during the winter months.
What prevented the Axis (the Finns and a few German units) from building a similar road from Finland over the northern part of the lake from which to attack/disrupt/interdict this supply route? I'm "mirroring" the axiom that the best way to fight an attempt at "undermining" was to "countermine." Your mine intercepts their mine and you head it off before it is complete. Also, given the experience of the Winter War, perhaps the most threatening attack was that of Finnish snipers, on skis.
Was it physically infeasible to do so? Or was it physically feasible, but it didn't fit it in with the Finns' overall military and political strategy?


texts: Gregório Amúrrio: dates of birth and death

texts:
Gregório Amúrrio was a Franciscan missionary in California during the late 1700s.  He was one of the five original missionaries to Alta California, and the co-founder of Mission San Juan Capistrano.

When was he born and when did he die?


texts: What were the EMP effects, if any, of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

texts:
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) is generated from any atomic bomb, as far as I know. An EMP could destroy the electronics of many devices, including lighting, electric motors, radios, phones, etc.

So why haven't we read any about that at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What was the range of disabled electronics? How long before radio or telegraph communications was restored? Were things repairable or else how long did it take to replace them?

Or is there something wrong in my assumptions?


texts: To what extent was prohibition supported by the American public?

texts:
I read an answer here that said the prohibition was imposed on cities against their will.

A bit of research on Google seem to say that it was pushed through because people didn't realize even wine and beer would be banned. All in all it seems that many people were not very enthusiastic about Prohibition.

But are there objective measures of just how much people supported or didn't support Prohibition?

Were there any opinion polls and how accurate are they?


texts: Did the poor performance of the Red Army in the Winter War significantly contribute to German underestimation of the USSR's military capacity?

texts:
Wikipedia says in the article on the Winter War:

  Perhaps more importantly, the very poor performance of the Red Army
  encouraged Hitler to think that an attack on the Soviet Union would be
  successful.

This statement makes ample sense but it is not backed by any citation of documentary evidence. Do you know of such evidence?


texts: Did the Germans have enough bombers to conduct "strategic" bombing of the Soviet Union?

texts:
The Germans have been criticized for not using strategic bombing against Soviet factories, oil fields, etc. to suppress Soviet weapons production.

On the other hand, it is hard to argue with the Germans' battlefield success (given the relative numbers of troops, tanks, artillery etc.), much of which was due to tactical bombing.

Given this fact, and the fact that German plane production didn't reach its peak until 1943-44, did the Germans have enough bombers to spare for strategic bombing in 1941-1942? Or are there any military historians who suggest that Germany would have been better off spending more bombers for strategic bombing, even at the expense of the battlefield successes they did enjoy?


texts: When did the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad connect Baltimore city to any Ohio city?

texts:
Found a lot of information about Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (including a map from 1874 which both cities are connected), but can't find when and how, specifically, the company made the connection. It is about junctioning with another company's rails, right?

Another question: The story of government offered a prize to companies to connect their rails to some specific city, is that true?


texts: What was the foreign policy of 1791 France?

texts:
Having done some research on my own had yielded little to no results on pre-radical revolutionary France regarding foreign policy.

I am specifically looking for arguments during the constitutional convention during the National Assembly during 1791 of France's foreign policy ideals.


texts: Why was the massive Human Wave attack used in WWI?

texts: If the Human Wave Attack wave tactic is in all the lights, a invitation to a carnage, why was it so largely used in battles in WWI? Weren't other tactical options available at the time that could have been used ?


texts: How accurately could ancient astronomers find latitude and longitude?

texts:
In classical times, say, 200 BC to 400 AD, how accurately could an astronomer determine their latitude and longitude? Could they find their position to the nearest degree? Minute? Second?

I'm guessing they could find their latitude fairly accurately, but did not have a good way of determining their longitude — but I'm really not sure.

Note: This doesn't have to be at sea, it could be determining the position of a site on land.  And I'm looking for how accurately they could determine latitude/longitude, not simply whether they could.


texts:
From 1885 to 1929, the Irish Parliamentary Party held the seat Liverpool Scotland in England.

Why did the Irish Parliamentary Party choose to contest a seat in England, and what factors contributed to their win?  Did this constituency house a large Irish population?  Did they ever contest any other seats?

I found this article but it focusses more on the biography of the MP than on the background of how an Irish nationalist represented an English seat.


texts: Are there any specific events which grants a soldier permission to execute a prisoner on sight? (Like in the movie: Fury)

texts:
I recently watched the movie Fury. Although the movie is full of historical inaccuracies as usual, there are some events looked very questionable to me.

In a scene, the U.S. soldiers capture a German soldier who wears a coat of an U.S. soldier, probably killed by him or taken by him just to be used. U.S. soldiers immediately decide to execute him. He is a regular private at his 40's, not an SS, and he looks like a nice person who begs for his life and shows the pictures of his family and children. Yet all U.S. soldiers enjoy killing him, acting like shooting him is a normal act.

Now, I obviously know that the U.S. soldiers were not saints, one can guess that they committed war crimes when no one is around. And there is the heat of war, finding an enemy with your comrade's coat on may raise tension, etc.

But still.. They were acting like it's their legal right to shoot him. Does this makes sense to you?

The only thing I can think of is that getting caught while wearing a U.S. coat may make you a spy just like in Operation Greif. But the movie never mentioned that, and these German spies were judged and shot by execution squad - not killed for fun.

There is another scene which they shoot an evil SS officer who ordered some children to be hanged. The U.S. officer calmly ordered one of his sergeants to shoot him, the sergeant says "Auf wiedersein a..hole" and shoots him with a joy. Now, this time there was less drama, because the guy was pure evil, so it's ok if nobody asks a question. There was even an unnecessarily glorious music in the background. But again...They were acting like it's their legal right.

Sorry for the long post, the here are the questions:

Are there any specific events which grants a sergeant, or an officer or a soldier to execute a prisoner on sight? (Except the conditions which the prisoner can cause a trouble, of course.)
Was the German Army that evil in the eyes of the U.S. Army in WW2? In Fury, they were all enjoying watching German soldiers burn alive.

This doesn't make sense to me, because even in WW2 there was a gallantry between each sides except some occasions. (In fact, movies shot before 1980's shows a lot of comradery between them.)  Even in "Saving Private Ryan", which is a pure U.S. propaganda, they were hesitating when it comes to shoot a prisoner who just killed one of his friends.


texts: Why did Abraham Lincoln decline the governorship of Oregon Territory in 1849?

texts:
In 1849, when Abe Lincoln was still a young lawyer, according to my book on Washington State history, he was offered the governorship of Oregon Territory—which, it would seem, was a lucrative position even in those days. However, this seems to have been only a minor event for him personally; I can find no reference to Mr. Lincolnn being offered the governorship in any of my numerous Lincoln biographies, even Sandburg's super-detailed one.

So I'm left wondering, why did the young Abraham Lincoln decline to become Governor of Oregon? If possible, I'd like to know from historical sources what reasons he gave for declining this position; and if that's not possible, what historians speculate may have been the reasons.


texts: Tomb of the Unknown soldier: why do they relax their jaw?

texts:
During the changing of the guard, I have always noticed the relief commander either relaxes their jaw before most sentences they say, or actively juts it out for every sentence (depending on the individual commander).  Being one of the more enshrined rituals in the United States military, I'm assuming there's a symbolic meaning to everything.  What is the symbolism/practical purpose of this particular motion?

EDIT: one good example occurs at 4:55 or so when the relief commander says "forward, march."  The camera shifts to see his face just before "march" as the jaw movement is noticeable then.  Another good timestamp is around 6:15


texts: Why didn't France and the UK invade Germany in September 1939?

texts:
On September 3rd 1939, when UK and France declared war on Germany, both ordinary Polish people and government officials became enthusiastic. There were spontaneous demonstrations of support for the French and British allies. People truly believed that Germans would soon be defeated.

And, from what I see, those thoughts were reasonable — if an allied offensive, no matter how poorly prepared, took place, the Allies would soon be in Berlin. Hitler left only 23 divisions on the Western front, while the Allies had 110 divisions. And those German divisions were poorly equipped. The French had 4 to 1 advantage in artillery, 80 to 1 advantage in tanks and the Germans hardly had any planes there. During the Nuremberg trials, General Alfred Jodl admitted that Germany would have easily been defeated in 1939 had the Allies helped the Poles.

Hitler gambled and concentrated the bulk of manpower, as well as nearly all mechanised units and Luftwaffe in Poland. And it's not like it was just a logistical challenge of transfering those resources to the Western front in case of an Allied offensive — the Poles managed to destroy much of that equipment and that's the reason why the Wehrmacht generals asked Hitler to postpone the invasion of France for next year.

What exactly failed in the Allied camp in 1939? Was it military intelligence? Poor strategy of supreme command?


texts: Were the heavy war reparations on Germany after World War I the main cause of its hyperinflation in 1923?

texts:
World War I victors imposed severe war reparations on Germany. When Germany defaulted, France invaded the Ruhr which was the most heavily industrialized area in Germany to force reparations themselves. If Germany persists in default, it risks further invasion. The easy way out was to print money and inflate the debt away. One can argue that Germany had really no choice but to print money. Because the war reparations were so huge, the money printing was excessive. This created the conditions for hyperinflation to happen later.

Were the heavy war reparations after World War I the main cause of hyperinflation in Germany in 1923?


texts: Why are Mary I, Mary II and Anne not as famous as Elizabeth I, Victoria and Elizabeth II?

texts: As far as I know these were the only reigning queens of England/The United Kingdom. I have always wondered why some are not as well known/popular. Elizabeth II makes sense for obvious reasons, but other than that I am puzzled.


texts: After watching the last episode of the anime Chaos;Child, I (and possibly other people) come into a question, Who was Woodburn Heron? His research is quoted in the anime, but when you search on Google you can only find his article "The Pathology of Boredom" and other articles in collaboration with Donald O. Hebb, nothing in specific related to the person itself. When I read the article cited above, I understood the quote done by the anime, the research about sensorial restriction, but who was that guy? What more he studied? His is importance so small? Why would the Chaos;Child authors quote it then? I ask in the hope that someone who has studied psychology and related more academically has come up with some information about it someday and can share it with us, something that books (lost in some specific library ~I didn't find anything in the public library of my city (not that I had any hope of finding it in that)~) probably have, but the internet has not yet.


texts: Were there any successful attempts by the Allies to "turn" groups of Axis soldiers?

texts:
Toward the end of World War II, Germany had to utilize non-German soldiers, some of them from occupied countries like Poland and the Ukraine. At places like Omaha Beach, Normandy, individual Poles spontaneously defected, particularly when spoken to by Polish-Americans.

On the eastern front, the Germans managed to "turn" a whole division or more of captured Soviet soldiers under General Vlasov into fighting for the Germans against the Soviet Union.

Were there cases of the Allies seeking and receiving the defection of groups of soldiers recruited by the Germans (or Japanese)?

I'm excluding Italians (except when in German, not Italian uniform), since Italy itself was successfully "turned" by the Allies. Ditto for Vichy French soldiers in North Africa (unless in German uniform).


texts:
King Tafur's men reportedly ate human flesh during the first crusade. The same was said of King Richard and his men during the second crusade:

King Richard shall warrant
There is no flesh so nourrissant
Unto and English man,
Partridge, plover, heron ne swan
Cox ne ox, sheep ne swine,
As the head of a Sarezyn.

Studies in early English Literature

What evidence is there that these reports are true or false? Have other occurrences been reported?


texts: Why didn't Romans fight in a single line formation?

texts:
I read that historically, Romans fought in checker board formation, composed of 3 lines. But I play Rome Total War and in the game, that deployment means a nice recipe for high casualties. In the game, I deploy a single line, with my cavalry (or a couple of units) protecting the flanks, and as soon as the center of the line engages, rush my troops at the flanks to the rear of the enemy and order them to charge at these engaged troops from their rear, killing them and their morale in a very short amount of time and winning the battle. Now I know that RTW is just a game but it is a realistically made game indeed. And thinking about this tactic, it makes a lot of sense to me. So I wonder, why didn't the Romans employ a similar tactic in their battles? My main concerns for the multiple line formation are:

1) Wouldn't this deployment have shortened their width and made them more prone to encirclement?

2) If it didn't, then it must be the case that Romans had always fought with a numerical advantage. In that case, the battle is already not a very balanced battle.

Having these in mind, I can't see how 3 lines provides an advantage over a single line.


texts: Did ancient Germans take pride in leaving the land untouched?

texts:
I remember reading something along those lines, perhaps in the De Bello Gallico. Can anyone provide source material to confirm this?

EDIT: I think the claim was also that the tribes there were somewhat nomadic in nature, or at least didn't settle anywhere for too long, in fear of becoming soft or something like that.

EDIT2: Strabo VII.2 "All these nations easily change their abode, on account of the scantiness of provisions, and because they neither cultivate the lands nor accumulate wealth, but dwell in miserable huts, and satisfy their wants from day to day, the most part of their food being supplied by the herd, as amongst the nomade races, and in imitation of them they transfer their households in waggons, wandering with their cattle to any place which may appear most advantageous"

that sounds like it but I don't think it's the one I'm looking for :) I recall specifically something about "taking pride" in not cultivating the land.

sources:

wiki
perseus


texts: How many military coups was the USA involved in continental America?

texts:
Chomsky recently pointed out that the mass migration seen on our TVs from Central America has its roots in USA meddling in the governance of countries south of its border. For example the military coup in Honduras in 2009 overthrowing the government of Manuel Zelayo and Haiti in 2004 and 2010.

Q. Over the last century, that is from 1917-2017 how many governments have been overthrown south of its border with either the direct or indirect help of the USA.

Q. Has the USA ever attempted to meddle in the internal affairs of the country North of its border -Canada?


texts: Were Napoleon's chances of being caught after Waterloo high or low?

texts:
The battle itself is well-described, but afterwards sources become more sketchy.
It appears that after being defeated at Waterloo Napoleon abandoned his troops at the end of June 18 and fled to Paris in 3 days to find renewed support.

Two Coalition units, one of which may have been the Dutch 6th Hussars led by Boreel were in hot pursuit. Some sources claim the remnants of his army went to Paris too.

June 22 1815 he abdicated when it became clear no support was left.
June 29 he retired toward Rochefort to avoid Prussian troops at the gates of Paris.
July 15 he surrendered himself to Captain Frederick Maitland of HMS Bellerophon. By that time Coalition troops had already entered Paris.

Now my question is, how near was Napoleon at any time to being caught and imprisoned? Although support was gone, his allies did not touch him. He had to abandon his carriage after the battle but in fact it looks he was never much at risk. In the end he surrendered to the party of his choice because he couldn't leave France. Was there any dedicated action from the Coalition?

Some sources I verified:

The Hundred Days (Wikipedia)
The Battler of Waterloo (Wikipedia)
The Waterloo Campaign (Wikipedia)
Napoleon's Defeat at Waterloo (History.com)
The Dutch 6th Hussars
Why We'd Be Better Off if Napoleon Never Lost at Waterloo

EDIT to fill in the story from Waterloo to Paris (not covered by the answer)

Getting away from the Waterloo battlefield

The Imperial Guard recoiled in heavy crossfire, the battlefront collapsed and by 20:00 Napoleon fled. He left the army in disarray with only two Guard squares to cover the rear. Travelling with some aides and light cavalry the pursuing Prussian forces did not catch him in the chaos, although his carriage had to be abandoned for a horse in the crush of fugutives during the night.

Getting to Paris

On the way to Paris he paused several hours in Philippeville to organise the defense of nearby fortresses, arrange the collection of disorganised troops and to gather the remainder of the army at Paris.
Napoleon reached Paris in 3 days. The pursuing armies encountered resistence and took 10 days to get near Paris following a different route.

Although sometimes physically exhausted Napoleon appears to have been very much in control and perhaps just a bit lucky during this stage.


texts: What was the price of gunpowder in Victorian England? Any quantity will do.


texts: What is the state of the art historical analysis of claims that Carthaginians discovered America?

texts:
The Carthaginians, and the Phoenicians in general, are renowned for their seafaring abilities. There is evidence for their circumnavigation of Africa, and strong evidence for the fact that Hanno the Navigator reached modern Cameroon.

The geologist Mark McMenamin, working with computer-enhanced images of gold coins minted in Carthage between 350 and 320 BC, analyzed a series of misterious designs appearing on these coins, the meaning of which has long puzzled scholars. McMenamin interpreted the designs as a map of the ancient world, including the area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and the land mass representing the Americas.

If this is true, these coins not only represent the oldest maps found to date, but would also indicate that Carthaginian explorers had sailed to the New World.

According to Diodorus Siculus:

  [...] in the deep off Africa is an island of considerable size...fruitful, much of it mountainous.... Through it flow navigable rivers....The Phoenicians had discovered it by accident after having planted many colonies throughout Africa.

We also have another clue. In 1872, four pieces of a stone tablet inscribed with strange characters were found on a Brazilian plantation near the Paraiba River. A copy of the inscription was sent by the owner of the property to Dr. Ladislau Netto, director of the Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro. After studying the document carefully, Dr. Netto announced to a startled world that the inscription recorded the arrival of Phoenician mariners in Brazil centuries before Christ. Unfortunately, an Indian rebellion broke out in the Paraiba region that same year and in the ensuing confusion, the plantation in question was never located and the stone itself was never recovered. A copy of the inscription was sent to the eminent French historian and philologist Ernest Renan who declared it a fake, and Netto was ridiculed by the academic establishment of his day.

Renan based his conclusion on the fact that the text contained certain grammatical errors and incorrect expressions that forced him to question its authenticity. A century later, an American scholar, Cyrus H. Gordon, revisited the Paraiba inscription and arrived at the opposite conclusion. The inscription, he claims, contains grammatical forms and expressions that have been recently discovered and were unknown to linguistic experts of the 19th century like Renan and Netto. Therefore, he contends, the document could not have been a fake. Gordon's translation reads, in part:

  We are sons of Canaan from Sidon...We sailed from Ezion-geber into the Red Sea and voyaged with ten ships. We were at sea together for two years around Africa but were separated by the hand of Baal and we were no longer with our companions. So we have come here, twelve men and three women...may the exalted gods and goddesses favor us.

What is the state of the art take on these claims?


texts:
Why did piracy thrive in the late 17th and early 18th centuries?
Was it because the sailors in the Royal Navy and privateers were not satisfied with their pay? Was it because since many wars were ending there was just less demand for seamen?

I've researched a few websites and none of them give a concrete answer as to why it began.

If an answer could also include certain wars and other resources which would be good for understanding the golden age of piracy from its origins, that would be great.


texts: Was murdering a slave illegal in American slavery, and if so, what punishments were given for it?

texts: Was there any punishment for killing slaves, and what punishment was given for it, and was it enforced?


texts: Why is there a statue of Francis Drake in Coquimbo, Chile?

texts:
The English buccaneer Sir Francis Drake had a rather hostile relationship with the Spanish Empire and its colonies, including Chile. As quoted in Wikipedia,

  [Francis Drake] sacked the port of Valparaíso [ ] in Chile
  where he also captured a ship full of Chilean wine.

Now, a bit north of Vaparaíso, in Coquimbo there is a statue of the said pirate towering over the Bay of Coquimbo. I found a blog post stating that the statue has been rededicated to local fishermen but the question remains:

Why was a statue of Francis Drake constructed in Coquimbo (or Chile for that matter) in the first place? And who erected it?


texts: Did Kim Jong-Il wrest away power (rather than inherit it) from Kim Il-Sung in a power struggle?

texts:
I know little about North Korean history, but their official narrative and what I had also believed is that - long story short - Kim Jong-Il basically just inherited his dictatorial powers from his father, as per his father's wishes.

There does not seem to be anything on the Wikipedia page of either Kim Jong-Il or Kim Il-Sung that contradicts this "long story short" version of North Korean history.

Yet, I was surprised to read in Jang Jin-Sung's Dear Leader (2014) that there was in fact a vicious power struggle.

So my questions are:

(1) Is Jang correct? (2) If he is correct, was this already common knowledge amongst students of North Korean history, and just unfamiliar to the broader public? Or are these new and surprising revelations?

Some excerpts:

  Although we reached our conclusion reluctantly, the overwhelming
  evidence that demonstrated the enmity and power struggles between the
  son and the father (including documents showing how father and son had
  announced directly opposing policies at the same time) left us with no
  alternative. We had to concede that, while Kim Jong-il’s legitimacy
  might have been based on hereditary succession from father to son in
  terms of the official narrative, in reality it had involved usurpation
  by the son of the father. Kim Jong-il had consolidated power by
  wresting it away from his father instead of receiving it from him.

...

  Kim Il-sung’s associates began to disappear one by one, and those who
  remained grew increasingly disgruntled by the fact that their children
  were being relegated to provincial postings, dead-end government
  positions or military ranks outside the power structure of the Party.
  The disaffected supporters of Kim Il-sung confronted the issue by
  going as a group to the Mount Keumsu assembly hall (also known as the
  Palace of the Supreme Leader) on 15 April 1982, Kim Il-sung’s
  birthday, to discuss the issue with the Supreme Leader himself.

  By this time, however, Kim Il-sung was merely a figurehead. All power
  in the state had been meticulously routed to Kim Jong-il through the
  OGD’s tentacled reach, with positions of real authority occupied by
  Kim Jong-il’s classmates from Kim Il-sung University. Kim Jong-il’s
  power over the Supreme Leader himself was absolute: Kim Il-sung had to
  request permission from the Party’s OGD before he could meet up with
  any of his supporters or old comrades. His own powers were restricted
  to those that would continue to make him appear powerful to North
  Koreans and outsiders alike, such as on-site inspections and
  diplomatic authority. Even Section 1 of the Guards Command, the
  personal bodyguards of Kim Il-sung, now answered directly to the
  Party’s OGD. In this way, a leader who had once received close
  protection from a loyal cohort of guards lived out his last days under
  the close surveillance of a cohort loyal to Kim Jong-il.

...

  Kim Jong-il refused to fulfil even one of his father’s simplest last
  requests. Kim Il-sung had said that when he died, he wanted to be
  buried alongside his fallen comrades at the Mount Daesung
  Revolutionary Martyrs’ Memorial. After his death, his ex-guerrilla
  comrades even signed a group petition for this wish to be carried out.
  But Kim Jong-il thought that if Kim Il-sung’s body were laid to rest
  at this location, the authority of his father’s revolutionary comrades
  would be seen to be reasserted, which might in turn threaten his own
  power because he had once taken away theirs.


texts: Could the 1864 US presidential election have been postponed?

texts:
This article on HistoryNet makes the following observation about the 1864 election:

  The 1864 race for the White House was the United States’ first presidential election during wartime. Proposals to postpone the election until the war ended gained little serious consideration.

(my emphasis)

The suggestion that some aides urged Lincoln to suspend the election is also mentioned in this article from BBC News.

Now, it seems that the proposals to postpone the election met little support, and Lincoln rejected them. However, if Lincoln and enough other senior politicians had wanted the election delayed, would that have been possible without a constitutional amendment?

Would the legal feasibility of such a postponement in 2020 be any different from the 1864 case?  (Note: A recent poll showed many Republican voters would favour postponing the 2020 election if large-scale voter fraud were a concern. )


texts: Was the London Times available in 1861 in villages?

texts: How much access to national news would a person living in an English village in 1861 have? When did The Times and The Telegraph start distributing nationally, not just to major towns?


texts: What "exactly" is the difference between "Clan" and "Family"?

texts:
The reason why I ask this question, is, because there are many non Japanese who would like to say ( For example ) Takeda Clan,  instead of Takeda Family.

We Japanese do not hold a huge meeting like Gathering 2009. today. ( Since through Sengoku Era many families perished and flourished. )

Now according to the explanation of the Scottish clan, ,

  Many clans have their own clan chief; those that do not are known as armigerous clans.. Japan had not such a armigerous clan, which which should be registered to Court of the Lord Lyon,

Now let's see the entry to the armigerous clan, it says

  An armigerous clan is a Scottish clan, family or name which is registered with the Court of the Lord Lyon and once had a chief who bore undifferenced arms, but does not have a chief currently recognized as such by Lyon Court.

And as I made a comment to Mark C Wallace, English speakers don't distinguish correctly between the name of "clan" and "family" at all.

In reference to Takeda clan ( in my sense it should be Takeda family ),

it says,

  The Takeda clan (武田氏 Takeda-shi) was a Japanese clan active from the late Heian period until the late 16th century.

and it also says

  In this Japanese name, the family name is Takeda.

I am getting totally perplexed. Do native speakers or historians fully understand the difference of these 2 terms?

Side note : Japanese families were or did just perish if they lost their "chief" and Japanese Samurai system had no armigerous clan system like the above mentioned Wiki and were not regulated by the Court Lyon, the public body, the Samurai families in Japan made their pledge to a family, the Biggest and Mightiest family among them ( If it was Hojo the de facto Shognate, or Ashikaga Shogunate or Tokugawa Shogunate ( they were all family too. They had a chief, even though how old they they were ( even the "chief" was 4 r 5 years old. ) and together with the members of the biggest family made their laws and regulations and economic and religious policy. The family without its chief was unthinkable.  I think it would be completely different from the Scottish clan. ( But yer some choose to use the word "clan". )

Can anybody clarify furthermore the difference between these 2 terms so that later on they are going to be used properly?

Thank you for your assistance in advance.


texts: How would ancient Sumerian astronomers predict length of the next lunar month?

texts:
I know we can do these predictions with extreme degree of precision now, using our extensive knowledge of celestial orbiting patterns and principles.

With Sumerian civilization being one of the earliest to appear, how would these ancient people be able to predict whether the next month will last 29 or 30 days? Would social calendar matching celestial positions down to a day matter that much for them?

Would Sumer be able to predict these things accurately enough based purely on statistical data from observations of moon phase dates and sizes, or would they just decide if the month ended after the fact?


texts: Why did the Mongols outlaw intermarriage between the Mongols and the Chinese and forbid the Chinese from learning the Mongolian language?

texts:
When the Mongols invaded China and established the Yuan dynasty, why did they outlaw intermarriage and forbid the Chinese from learning the Mongolian language?

I am reading this from a textbook for AP World History, "Traditions & Encounters." I was wondering why the Mongols did not force upon the subject Chinese to make them assimilate into their culture fully. I've seen this trend many times in history where a dominating group tries to remove the subject group's culture in order to control them.


texts: Did Napoleon Bonaparte ever try capturing what is today considered modern day Israel? Did he ever visit the land independently of capturing it?


texts: How did Greece avoid the Soviet sphere of influence?

texts:
It seems to me that east of Italy / Germany all of Europe was in the Soviet sphere of influence, with the blatant exception of Greece. I'm sure that the long coast made access to Western influence easier, assuming that Western influence is what the Greek hegemony of the time wanted. But why? Was Greek a failure of Soviet influence? Was Greek a success of Western influence? How much of this can be attributed to internal Greek policy and culture (birthplace of democracy)?

Edit: The Wikipedia article on Greece glosses over the Greek civil war, but having found the page that describes the war in detail the answer to this question resides in there. In short: NATO involvement and lots of dead Greeks. Thanks to Anixx for pointing me in the right direction.


texts: Why does some US banknotes have abstract art on the reverse instead of detailed scenes of history/monuments?

texts: Most US paper currency has detailed images of national monuments or historical scenes on the reverse side. Why wasn't the same treatment given to all currency, such as the $500 bill? It simply features lots of 500s.


texts: In Romance of the Three Kingdoms why do people still use bamboo sticks when paper had already been invented?

texts:
By the time of the setting of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, paper had already been invented. Why do kings often (according to the movies) receive letters on bamboo sticks?

Is this historically accurate?


texts: How did the Falasha make contact with Jews outside Ethiopia?

texts:
I just read a book about an expedition to Ethiopia, The Last of Free Africa, published 1928. The author Gordon MacCreagh writes:

An astounding fact which should be of absorbing interest to Jews the world over is that there exists today in Abyssinia a lost tribe of Jews known as the Falasha, who have been isolated for so many centuries that , while retaining the Jewish faith in practically all its ancient purity, they had actually no knowledge that any other Jews existed.
It was not until almost yesterday, 1906 in fact, that definite knowledge of brothers in the faith came to these Falasha through a letter written by a congregation of European rabbis. In reply to which they wrote: "... News of your existence was to us hitherto only fable. Now have we [through your letter] received knowledge and certainty. Therefore, do we rejoice..."

Is this true? Where can I read more? Reading the original letters would be cool, but I don't even know what language they were written in.


texts: Has an entire generation of a young children in a civilization ever been orphaned and raised as loyals?

texts:
In a movie I watched a ruler kills all of the adults in a kingdom in order to raise the young children (who were too young to remember or at least understand the event) as loyal soldiers.

Has anything like this ever happened in history? If so, which was the largest occurance?


texts: In early Western democracies what percentage of men were eligible to vote?

texts:
From what I've seen in the below sources, it appears that a large number of men didn't vote during the early times. May I know if this is true to most places as well? Why was this the case and when did most men get their right to vote?

Source 1

In early-19th-century Britain, very few people had the right to vote. A survey conducted in 1780 revealed that the electorate in England and Wales consisted of just 214,000 people - less than 3% of the total population of approximately 8 million. In Scotland the electorate was even smaller: in 1831 a mere 4,500 men, out of a population of more than 2.6 million people, were entitled to vote in parliamentary elections.

Source 2

America: At the time of the first Presidential election in 1789, only 6 percent of the population–white, male property owners–was eligible to vote.

Source 3

Between 1867 and 1874 in Canada only <12% of the population eligible to vote


texts: How could I find the original text of Leonardo Da Vinci's fable "La fiamma e la candela"?

texts:
I have a special interest on fables. By wandering on Gallica, I found out from the work of Joséphin Péladan: Textes choisis : pensées, théories, préceptes, fables et facéties / Léonard de Vinci that Da Vinci has actually wrote some fables. Out of curiosity, I wanted to find the original manuscript of the first fable I came across : La fiamma e la candela (see also Wikisource). Péladan indicated that it is sourced from C. A. 67, r. where C. A. stands for Codice Atlantico de l'Ambrossienne à Milan, 1891. I checked the folio 67, recto of the online project of Codex Atlanticus, but didn't find anything relevant as that page involves machine and artillery.
My question is: how could I find the original fable on the Codex Atlanticus manuscript ?


texts: Why pretend Elser, Thalmann & other dissidents had been killed in air raids?

texts:
Richard Evans' The Third Reich at War, like most other substantial histories of the twilight years of Third Reich, paints a picture of quite startling brutality directed against its own population (let alone enemy combatants, Jews, gypsies etc).

Executions for offences such as looting, shirking, stealing and minor acts of anti-Nazi defiance seem to have become routine, and any remaining adherence by the judiciary to the rule of law exercised independently of the Nazi party seems to have collapsed towards the end of 1944.

Why then, as Evans states, were the authorities so keen, in the cases of Ernst Thalmann (leading communist) and Georg Elser (who attempted to assassinate Hitler), to cover up the fact that they'd been executed late in the war? In both cases the story went out that they'd been killed in air raids.

What did the authorities have to lose by admitting (even trumpeting) that such (in their eyes) dangerous and treacherous characters had been executed?


texts: Was the secession of the Confederate states illegal?

texts:
Putting aside their reasons for wanting to do so and all the emotional responses they would provoke, was the secession of states from the Union to eventually form the Confederacy an illegal act in itself? Was it just something that nobody was sure of until somebody bothered to try it?

If it wasn't illegal per se then, is it now? Did the post-war Union act to make it more difficult for states to secede in the future?


texts: What is Russia's official reason for invading Crimea?

texts: I'm having trouble finding Russia's official reason for invading the Crimea region of Ukraine. If my memory serves me right, didn't they change the reason halfway through the invasion?