texts: Which 'evidence' is there for a claim that 'Chinese discovered America in 636'?

texts:
The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics is a branch of the Ministry of Planning, Budget, and Management. On its own website it has a history timeline with a few curious dates:

  catálogo ID: 4106
  Código municipal: 4108809
  Município: Guaíra
  Estado: Paraná - PR
  Gentílico: guairense

  Histórico: Guaíra Paraná - PR

  History

  There is historical evidence of the discovery of America before Columbus by the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, by Hindus, as well as by the Japanese and Koreans.

  636 – Chinese discover America.

  986 – The navigator Bjarni Herjolsson traveling from Iceland to Greenland was diverted from his route by a storm that led him south, taking him to new and unknown places. In 1001, back in Greenland, he told Leif Ericson, who years later followed with an expedition arriving in Helluland (land of rocks), Markland (land of wood) and Vinland (land of vines) in North America.

  1117 – The Icelandic bishop Eirik made the same route and arrived at Vinland. In 1965, the Yale Library announced to the world the discovery of an ancient map where two islands appeared, one with the name Vinland and the other with the name Brazil. (The fact was discovered in 1960 by the Norwegian Helge Ingstad who found ruins of the old wikers in New Fonndland). This map is a precise document that records the circumnavigation trip made by Father John de Plano Carpini between 1245 and 1247.

  1311 – The African king Abudakari II led a fleet of several boats from the African west coast towards the Atlantic Ocean, years later he returned only one boat reporting the discovery of America.

  1339 – The name Brazil already appears in planisférios (cartographers Mediceu, Solleri, Pinelli and Branco). The Brazilian historian Sérgio Buarque de Holanda cites that the origin of the name Brazil is due to a Celtic legend that speaks of a "land of delights".

  1474 – The most famous cartographer of the time, Paolo Toscanelli, wrote to a Portuguese friend in 1474, talking about the "Island of Antília".

  1479 – Treaty of Alcáçovas - Portugal gives up the Canary Islands but now has rights over any discovery to the south of this archipelago.

  1493 –  The Order of Christ already knew the Isola de Braçill according to the map of 1482, made by the cartographer Gracioso Benincasa, in Ancona, Italy, the map indicates: the Portuguese coast, the African coast, the Brazilian coast and the Antílias. They maintained a policy of secrecy that condemned to death those who commented on the matter.

This is an extraordinary claim on an official government website.

There are of course numerous pre-Columbian contact hypothesis. Some with a bit more, some with a large degree of less confidence for what they present.

The very specific year 636 does also appear on Wikipedia Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories – Claims of Chinese contact.

In all probability this is far from most official narratives. And not well supported. Not even in conspiracy-theory-friendly corners of the net.

Usually such claims give dates to a few decades before Columbus and the more outlandish ones go back 40000 years.

But this specific theory, for which the Brazilian institute claims there would be "evidence", seems also absent entirely from what 'theories' I could locate elsewhere.

The page seems to give credit to authors "Omar Fedato Aleksiejuk; Zido Raddatz", but all searches so far for these claims return empty and for authors back to the same.

Which theories posit that "there were Chinese discoverers of the Americas in 636"? Or which "evidence" might this institute's chronology might allude to?


texts: Did the Huns contribute to the Great Migration of Germanic Peoples into the Western Empire?

texts:
I just listed to this episode of the British History Podcast (which is excellent I might add). During the podcast, the podcaster states that climate change was a major contributor to the Anglo Saxons migrating/invading England in the Dark Ages.

I had always heard or at least thought that the Huns were a primary catalyst for forcing many of the Germanic peoples into the Western Empire. Indeed, when I looked this up on wikipedia they make this statement

  The Huns may have stimulated the Great Migration, a contributing factor in the collapse of the western Roman Empire.[19]

Whose citation leads to a single quote by  Ammianus:

  However, the seed and origin of all the ruin and various disasters that the wrath of Mars aroused... we have found to be (the invasions of the Huns)". Ammianus 1922, XXXI, ch. 2

Which seems like shaky support. Is there more support for the Huns being a cause of the Great Migration? Were the Huns a major contributing factor to the Great Migration?


texts: How common was cavalry in medieval Brittany?

texts: The House of Rohan was a dynasty of French nobles from Rohan, Brittany. The early branch existed from 12th century to about 15th century or so. My question is: to what extent did medieval Brittany (and, by extension, the House of Rohan) make use of cavalry?


texts: Where does the concept of traffic keeping to the "right" side of the street originate?

texts:
In any nation that has cars, there are well-understood rules about how to operate them.  If a road is shared by traffic going both ways, everyone will, by law and convention, stick to either the right or the left side of the road from their perspective, to facilitate safe movement of traffic.

How old is this idea of traffic staying to the "right" (i.e. designated) side of the street?  Does it predate the automobile?  Certainly it would be a useful convention for horse-drawn carriages for the same reasons it is for cars.


texts: Were the Swedish holdings in northern Germany accepting or resentful of their overlord after the Peace of Westphalia?

texts:
It is my understanding that during the 30 Years' War (especially when they first joined), Sweden was seen as liberators and champions of the Protestant cause.

Did this favorable view persist in the Swedish holdings in northern Germany after the Peace of Westphalia?  Or were the people resentful of the foreign rule?

Was there a noteworthy difference between Catholics and Protestants?

I realize that it's hard to know the opinion of people, but I think it can be gauged by either efforts to integrate more with Sweden, or efforts to gain independence from Sweden.

Were there any notable efforts in either way?  If so, were these by nobles trying to increase their own power, or were they popular in nature?


texts: What was the fastest coal-powered ship in a country's navy?

texts:
The transition from coal to oil fuel as the primary energy source for navy ships took place leading up to and during WWI.  The last British battleship to primarily use coal power was the Iron Duke class.
Oil-fuelled ships were known for higher temperature and pressure boilers that could produce faster speeds.  There was a transition period, though, in which coal was drenched in oil to allow it to burn hotter.
My question is, what was the fastest ship part of a country's navy that primarily used coal as its fuel?
It can have oil too, but mostly relied on coal.  It can also be any class, from corvette and frigate to destroyer, cruiser, or battleship.


texts: Is there any truth to the claim that freed slaves who moved to Liberia enslaved the local population?

texts:
This claim was made in a documentary I saw on youtube called 'The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia' at about 1:22, as well as on the blog BloggingWithoutMaps

I can't find strong sources to back this claim up, although some websites claim that the freed slaves (Americo-Liberians) did subject the local populace to some sort of hierarchical system and possibly forced labor.


texts: Pyramidal marae on one of the Pacific islands

texts: About 10 years ago I saw some information on the Web that an ancient pyramid-like structure (marae) existed on one of the Pacific islands, but was demolished in the end of 19th century. There was even a photo of this pyramid. Unfortunately, now I cannot find this information anymore. Does anybody know, on which island this pyramid was, and where I can read anything about it? Thank you.


texts: Is there any proof that Robin Hood existed?

texts: Is there any written proof/documentation that Robin Hood ever existed? Did he ever get arrested and got his name written in the prison books or something like that?


texts: Did Alexander the Great destroy a city to demonstrate his ability to reign?

texts:
I've always been fascinated by the figure of Alexander the Great, due to his achievements even though he was really young at the time.

There is an episode that I've heard about his early life which I can't confirm on the internet, so I thought of asking here.

From what I know, when Alexander fully earned his throne, the other poleis started to have rebellious thoughts since he was just a kid/young man, underestimating him. As a response Alexander, destroyed a single city as an example, proving that he wasn't just a kid and that he knew how to control his reign.

Is this historically accurate or just a legend that "improves" its figure in history?


texts: What was considered an epoch by the Phoenicians?

texts: The Phoenicians used a lunisolar calendar similar to the Hebrew calendar. Do we have any idea about what Phoenicians considered as an epoch for their calendar, or at least about the nature of the said epoch (was it related to a religious event, a political one, astronomical, ...)?


texts: Were fighters used as a carrier group defense tactic?

texts: Okay, i know this is probably a silly question, but were carrier based fighters ever used as a defense during an air attack combined with the use of ship based AA weapons. I mean, i know they probably were, but i just cant find any good literature which says yes or no.


texts: WWII: What navy controlled the Mediterranean during the North African Campaign?

texts:
Inspired by the question about the Strait of Gibraltar, I wondered how Germany was able to get troops to North Africa, given the naval power of Britain?  Based upon this question, I would doubt that they went through Turkey.  The Wikipedia article was interesting, but did not mention how and where German forces arrived.  Were they able to use ports in Italian controlled Libya?  Even still, why didn't Britain, simply sink the German vessels?  If Italy controlled the Mediterranean, how was Britain able land troops?

What navy controlled the Mediterranean during the North African Campaign?


texts:
I was watching a documentary regarding World War I and one of the things that was depicted was how the commercial trade was cut off from Germany by England blocking the sea which resulted in Germany being brought close to starvation, same thing happened when Germany started attacking Commercial boats on its way to England to deliver supplies, provisions and raw materials, until the US joined the conflict and helped them to avoid being brought to starvation.

My question here is, weren’t Germany and Britain self maintaining countries and economies already before World War I? What were they doing before war to provide for its people? Was all their provisions coming from the USA and other countries? Where they so reliant on other countries to basically survive?

Will appreciate if anyone has insight on this. Thanks!


texts: A clear picture of the casaulties of the Jewish people under the Third Reich

texts:
I know this is a pretty sensitive question, but I would like to get an objective answer. It is widely known that the Jewish people were persecuted by Hitler's regime, and many of them died in the concentration camps.
But I never feel like the numbers are exact, from time to time I see people's documentation about the Holocaust and the numbers are changing in wide range.

My problem is:
- first of all, there are the neo-nazis, who claim that the Holocaust never happened. Ok, that seems totally false.
- second of all, there are some Soviet-era and even some American claims about the numbers which are also looking falsified. I wouldn't wonder since there was a war which was won, and the winner always try to support their views. Especially the Soviet data is not really reliable.

I see some attempts to get a clear picture, for example David Cole's interviews in Auschwitz. He made a low-cost documentary on this subject in 1992. He seems to me a little bit more reliable than some Soviet-era officiers or the neo-nazi sources. He claims that - and it is pretty believable to me - the Germans mostly forced the Jews to work and more of the Jews died in poor conditions than in the gas chambers.
But since I am not an Historian I can't really judge it.

So the point of the question is: Is there any normal objective source on this subject?


texts: Historical Instances like the settlement of Pitcairn Island

texts: Are there any more instances in recorded history where a group of people have formed a isolated island society like the mutineers of the HMS Bounty and their Tahitian captives did on Pitcairn Island?


texts: Primary Sources for the Seizure of the Mint

texts:
What primary sources are there for Charles the First's 1640 seizure of gold from the Tower mint?

It is described here in the tertiary source, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England#Finances


texts: Why was Independence Day in America established on July 4?

texts:
July 4 is the date that the Declaration of Independence was ratified. Why was that the date chosen for Independence Day, rather than any of these dates (not to the exclusion of others; these just seem equally or more plausible than July 4):

July 2 (1776), when the Americans voted unanimously on the Declaration (it is noteworthy that John Adams predicted this date, rather than the fourth, as being the most important day on the calendar)
October 17 (1781), the surrender at Yorktown, unofficially concluding the Revolutionary War
January 14 (1783), when the Treaty of Paris was ratified
September 3 (1783), when the Treaty of Paris was officially concluded, also officially concluding the Revolutionary War
November 25 (1783), when the last British soldiers pulled out from the US

So why pick on July 4, when there are so many other dates they could have chosen?

All facts are from here and here.


texts: Manufacturing plans of historic industrial or military goods

texts:
So far I have only been a passive reader of History Stack Exchange and I think it is a great community that gives me a lot interesting topics to follow up.

My question:
A number of questions I have seen so far deal with industrial or military goods (cars, ships, planes etc.). I wonder if the blue prints for these "goods" are archived in some place, as I would consider them as part of our universal human heritage. So, for example, would it be possible to get hold of the blue prints of a 19th century steam engine or a WWII plane? Is there some national or international organization that collects information like that?


texts: Why can I visit battlefields, but not battleships?

texts:
Why are warships declared as war graves prohibiting divers from even visiting them (let alone entering them or taking artifacts) and yet I as a pedestrian I can freely visit the Somme or any other battlefield?

Sorry if this isn't the correct forum for this question.


texts: Did USSR used tactics learned during the winter war against Germany?

texts: Did the Red Army use tactics from Finland against Germany ? I searched for a while and I have never found any trace of it ...


texts: What was the reason for the Dutch attack on Venezuela in 1908?

texts:
The Netherlands attacked Venezuela in 1908, which resulted in the overthrow of Venezuelan President Cipriano Castro. According to the New York Times article Dutch at War with Venezuela, the Dutch said that attack was:

  [...] a reprisal against Castro's government, which refuses to give satisfaction for his unfriendly acts toward Holland.

but did not explain what the "unfriendly acts" were. Wikipedia's Dutch–Venezuelan crisis of 1908 is slightly more detailed:

  a dispute broke out [...] on the grounds of the harbouring of Jewish refugees from Coro in Curaçao.

But did not give references or citations on this statement, and did not explain who was harbouring the refugees, what they had to do with Venezuela and the Netherlands, and how this led to an attack and overthrow of a foreign government.


texts: What is the origin of South Indian languages?

texts: I have heard that Malayalam is a more recent language ( 800 years old?) ... DEVELOPED by the assimilation of Tamil with Sanskrit. I know Tamil is an ancient language, and the Telegu -Kannada origin is an entirely different thread..


texts: Why didn't Rutgers, College of William & Mary, St John's College (Annapolis Maryland) get famous like Ivy League?

texts:
Higher education in the American colonies started with a small endowment and donation from John Harvard to the Massachusetts Bay college that was later renamed in his honor. The school served young men (all White, save a few Indigenous men connected to the Harvard Indian College, until the 1900s) and operated more like a boarding school than a college as we think of it today. The average age of students was around 15.5.

As the various colonies developed needs to formalize education, men in positions of power or access to power (i.e. non-disabled White men) in early America created spaces for formal education for their sons. So, just as Boston begot Harvard, New Haven men established Yale, Princeton men established Princeton, etc. In total, 10 institutions were established during the colonial era. They are:

Harvard University
Collegiate School (Yale University)
College of New Jersey (Princeton University)
King's College (Columbia University)
College of Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania)
College of Rhode Island (Brown University)
Dartmouth College
College of William & Mary
Queen's College (Rutgers University)
St. John's College (originally King William's School) in Annapolis, Maryland.

1-7 constitute the Ivy League. But why not 8-10? How did 1-7 get world reputation and fame, but not 8-9?

I know William & Mary is public  and largely focuses on its undergraduate programs. It has some respected graduate schools, but it focusses on undergraduate education. Of note W&M is technically the 2nd oldest school in the US because it received its charter in 1693. However, it predates Harvard, and simply received its charter after Harvard.


texts: Stalin's arch rival Trotsky was exiled, but why did Stalin wait until later before sending assassins to finish him off?


texts: Through what developments did Sweden end up in war in northern Africa in early 1800's?

texts:
Sweden was one of the warring parties in the First Barbary War (1801-1805) with 3 frigates from the Swedish navy.

I had read that Sweden had a colony in Gold Coast (modern Ghana), taken from the Dutch, from 1650 to 1663, but was not aware that the Scandinavian country was doing any business in Africa in 1800's.

One thought was that perhaps this had something to do with pirates from Africa stealing Europeans to slavery, but the sources I have found on this do not mention Swedish victims. For example the Wikipedia article on Barbary Wars says that British and American ships had been attacked:

  Since the 1600s, the Barbary pirates had attacked British shipping
  along the North Coast of Africa, holding captives for ransom or
  enslaving them. Ransoms were generally raised by families and local
  church groups. The British became familiar with captivity narratives
  written by Barbary pirates' prisoners and slaves.[5]

  During the American Revolutionary War, the pirates attacked American
  ships.

This Wikipedia article does also mention that the pirates from northern Africa had attacked coastal towns in Europe all the way to Iceland:

  In addition to seizing ships, they engaged in razzias, raids on
  European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain,
  and Portugal, but also in England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Ireland,
  and as far away as Iceland. The main purpose of their attacks was to
  capture European slaves for the Arab slave market in North Africa.4

The source referenced by the above section is a BBC article titled "British Slaves on the Barbary Coast". This article estimates the number of Europeans taken as slaves to be as high as 1,250,000:

  for the 250 years between 1530 and 1780, the figure could easily have
  been as high as 1,250,000 - this is only just over a tenth of the
  Africans taken as slaves to the Americas from 1500 to 1800, but a
  considerable figure nevertheless.

Still none of these sources explicitly mention Swedish prisoners.

Question:

What kind of business or involvement did Sweden have in northern Africa and what developments lead to it being a party in the First Barbary War?


texts: Effect of propaganda during the American War of Independence

texts:
In what way did propaganda play a part in the solidifying of American identity in the American War of Independence, and how was propaganda used by the British at home to generate support for the war?

I'd be particularly interested in any examples of propaganda media used by the actors in the war, and why.

edit: Propaganda as published media intended to sway support to one side or the other.


texts: Chinese Copper Cash Coin. "咸豐通寶 Xianfeng Tongbao"

texts: I found this Chinese copper coin, which I believe is a 4/2 characters type. One side is almost legible, the other not due to sea corrosion. I am reluctant to clean it without knowing what or from which period it may be. Any advice as to cleaning or interpretation will be appreciated.


texts:
Many computer games (like Civilization and Endless Space), implement a "culture" or "influence" score that applies outward pressure on national borders. These scores are depicted as being raised by arts funding and buildings like museums and theatres. As a result, the arts appear to be moving borders: quite straightforwardly, if you build a museum your national borders will start moving outwards. Land will be (sometimes) be taken from enemies as if by conquest, and virgin territory will be marked as your on maps as you gain the rights to control entry and exit.

Has anything like this ever happened? If necessary, broaden the scope to indirect effects: has support for the arts ever lead to an expansion of borders?


texts: How did the Axis intend to hold the Caucasus?

texts:
We all know how the Axis offensive in 1942 led to the "turning point" battle of Stalingrad and the eventual defeat of the Third Reich, and that this offensive had been launched in order to capture and hold the Caucasus.

The last bit is important. Merely capturing the Caucasus was not the aim of Operation Blau, but the acquisition of its resources (primarily oil). These resources would require infrastructure, logistics, and long-term extraction. The entire region once held, would have to have been secured against any potential offensives by the Red Army.

How did the German High Command hope to accomplish this?

The Axis offensive was always going to create a massive salient, with a relatively narrow corridor of Axis control for both industrial and military transportation. The southern border of the Caucasus has a natural defensive boundary, but I don't believe that anything other than the Volga could act as a potential barrier. Was there any plans for how to defend such a large area?


texts: Egypt was called Khemet in the early period (Old Kingdom) and later Misr (a name that remains even today) but I am wondering when they changed the name from Khemet to Misr, what century would be considered a good precision answer, if possible.


texts: How could a prisoner get lessons to read, write and do mathematics in jail, while innocent people didn't get the basic knowledge in 18th-19th century?

texts:
I am currently reading Les Miserables manga version ( Which takes place in France, as I recall). In the picture below, the main character has just got his freedom from Toulon Jail. The officer said that,

  You must've learned, reading, writing and arithmetic at the prisoner's school

Why did people get these lessons when they were in jail? Why didn't they get this basic knowledge, like writing and reading, when they are just a innocent person? Is this a result of some of the social hierarchy in France?


texts: Did Empress Cixi divert funds for the Beiyang Fleet to build the Summer Palace?

texts:
There is a popular story that Empress Dowager Cixi diverted funds originally intended for the Beiyang Fleet in order to upgrade the Summer Palace. This is significant because the amount - approx. 22 million silver taels - is large, and the Beiyang Fleet later suffered a humiliating loss to Japan, leading to a significant shift in the balance of power.

However, sources seem to disagree with why the Beiyang Fleet was underfunded, and whether it had anything to do with construction works at the Summer Palace. There are two sources cited by Wikipedia, one supporting the story, the other claiming that the fleet was defunded by Emperor Guangxu, who did not believe Japan posed a serious threat and that the funds were better spent elsewhere, and that Cixi was generally supportive of growing the fleet. The sources are respectively:

Zhu, Weizheng (Apr 23, 2015). Rereading Modern Chinese History. BRILL. p. 351.
Chang, Jung (2013). The Concubine Who Launched Modern China: Empress Dowager Cixi. New York: Anchor Books. pp. 160–161. ISBN 9780307456700.

Cixi is a controversial figure in Chinese history, traditionally painted as a villain who held China back from modernisation, but in recent decades her image has rehabilitated somewhat. There is also an element of sexism, as many women in Chinese history are traditionally depicted poorly. However, neither claim disputes the extravagant cost of the Summer Palace reconstruction, at a time when Qing China was beset by crises.

Therefore, the questions are:

Did Cixi divert funds originally intended for the fleet to construct the Summer Palace?
If not, where did the funds come from? Were they diverted from elsewhere?
If noot Cixi, Who defunded the Beiyang Fleet, and why?


texts: Did the Ukraine and Moldova belong to Russia between 1905-1918?

texts: Between the years of 1905-1918?  Were the countries of Moldova and Ukraine part of the Russian Federation? Or were they their own independent state / country.?


texts: Who are some people (or well-known fictional characters) that drew a lot of media attention in 18th/19th century Europe/US?

texts:
Suppose someone is suddenly exposed to a barrage of media attention today, they might say something like "I feel like a Kardashian".

What if I have a character (in Europe) experiencing something similar in the 1850s, who are some of the analogous public figures that they might reference - "I feel like ____"?


texts: When did they start mass-producing imitation leather?

texts:
More specifically, I'm reading "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov which describes in some detail the American landscape of the late 1940's. Here's a quote:

  On especially tropical afternoons, in the sticky closeness of the
  siesta, I liked the cool feel of armchair leather against my massive
  nakedness

This takes place at a motel in the sticks. Could it have been real leather? In a motel?


texts: In the "Immigrationist theory" of Romanians (Vlachs), how did they became the vast majority in Transylvania?

texts:
The origins of Romanians is, for me, one of history's more interesting problems and I mostly agree with the "Immigrationist  theory".

The great mystery for me is how could they become the majority in Transylvania if not already there? They are now about 70% (2011 census). I did not found much around Internet: "The first official estimation to the demographic breakdown in Transylvania is the estimation of the the Austrian administrative authority (Verwaltungsgericht) from 1712-1713. According to that the population of Transylvania was 47% Hungarian, 34% Romanian and 19% Saxon. However this is not based on census data." (from Did Transylvania, historically speaking, belong to the Romanians or the Hungarians?) But there is no accurate data, I believe: Demographics and historical research (wikipedia).

My interest is pure historical, not political. Are there in the world situations when the original population was slowly replaced by immigrants?

Please help me articulate a good question.


texts: John the Fearless: John I or John II? Can the French and the English agree?

texts:
I am comparing the English and French wikipedia articles about John the Fearless:

The English article has him as "John II of Burgundy" while the French article says he's John I of Burgundy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Fearless
" John the Fearless (French: Jean sans Peur, Dutch: Jan zonder Vrees), also John II, Duke of Burgundy, known as John of Valois and John of Burgundy (28 May 1371 – 10 September 1419), was Duke of Burgundy from 1404 to 1419. "

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Ier_de_Bourgogne
Jean Ier de Bourgogne, dit « Jean sans Peur », duc de Bourgogne, comte de Flandre, d'Artois et de Charolais, comte palatin de Bourgogne, seigneur de Mâcon, Chalon et autres lieux (° 28 mai 1371 à Dijon - † 10 septembre 1419 à Montereau-Fault-Yonne) était un prince français de la maison capétienne de Valois.

Comparing the two articles with the list of the Dukes of Burgundy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Burgundy#House_of_Valois-Burgundy_.281361.E2.80.931482.29
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_ducs_de_Bourgogne#Seconde_Maison_de_Bourgogne_.28Valois-Bourgogne.29
reveals that the English list has one Duke not listed in the French list:
John I the Good (Jean Ier le Bon) 1361-1363.

I am confused. I can hardly believe it's a gross mistake by the wikipedia editors. Are French history books different from English ones?  After all, during that whole period, the French and the English crown were very close, with the two countries almost becoming one kingdom.   I wonder if this is a case of different accepted 'official' timelines in both countries.


texts: Is Snyder's claim about Soviet-German friendship propaganda posters (1939‒41) supportible?

texts:
Upon reading Putin’s New Nostalgia article by Timothy Snyder, I was specifically intrigued by one particular historical point he mentioned. Given the charged nature of current events, and Snyder’s apparent bias, I had found a lot of his statements suspicious (some of which were hard to verify, or they did not warrant unequivocal language he chose to use, etc.). But one of them, I thought, would be easy to confirm by available historical record as it concerned official propaganda around the time of Molotov-Ribbentrop :

  Between 1939 and 1941, the Soviet Union presented Nazi Germany in its own internal propaganda as a friendly state, ceased to criticize German policies, and began to publish Nazi speeches. People at public rallies occasionally misspoke, praising “Comrade Hitler” or calling for “the triumph of international fascism.” Swastikas began to appear on buildings or even on posters of Soviet leaders.

Some of it seemed far-fetched to me. Now, I would completely understand the desire by the Soviet government to present positively the trade and economic cooperation agreements with the state that was deemed previously hostile (given the Nazi destruction of political left and labour movement in the mid-1930s). However, the complete turn-about in propaganda to a full-blown support of Nazi regime did not appear likely.

Reckoning it would be easy to find relevant posters, I started to search for swastikas on pre-war Soviet posters, for Soviet pro-Nazi posters, for posters about Soviet-German friendship ca. 1940 etc. and came up largely empty-handed. Even assuming that Soviet leadership ordered destruction of pro-Nazi propaganda after German invasion, it is hard to believe that nothing fell through the cracks.

The only thing that turned up was the following poster, that was allegedly drawn up in 1940, to signify joint Soviet-German attack on imperial Britain, and then redrawn later with Berlin instead of London. However, it can possibly be a fake, because the Gothic font used in both is different (evidenced by the letter “н”), and the fact that the plane on both posters resembles Handley Page Hampden, and not any of the common German twin-engine bombers or heavy fighters, such as Bf 110, He 111 or Ju 88:

Here is another version, that is much better quality art, has style- and period-appropriate choice of font, and clearly attributed to famous Kykryniksy caricaturists and the poet Samuil Marshak:

So, the question: are there properly sourced books or peer-reviewed articles on which Snyder based his statements?


texts: Where is the location of this large stump and monument (lighthouse?) background?

texts: On back of photo "Yellow fir 12 ft. dia. monument in background." The photo is from a collection of logging photos from Washington State and British Columbia.


texts:
It is usually agreed that the Russian serfdom which was abolished in the mid-19th century originated in the 16th century as a form of martial law needed for armed campaigns and was especially strengthened by Peter the Great in the 17th-18th centuries.

This hints that by 16th century classical slavery (for which Russian word "раб" would be used) was already abolished or extremely rare. Yet we know that at some stage there was quite widespread slavery at least in Kievan Rus. Given this I wonder when slavery went out of use and was formally abolished in Russia?


texts: How did society regard identical twins in the 17th century in Europe?

texts: How did society react about and approach identical twins in Europe, mainly around the 17th century?


texts: Were there cases where an ethnic newspaper had the highest circulation in a country?

texts:
Were there cases where a locally-published newspaper catering to, and read by an ethnic minority group had a circulation exceeding that of any other newspaper in a country?

Examples:

Fictional Americentric example: La Opinión having a higher circulation than USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and all other newspapers.
Hypothetical contrived (and presumably unlikely) example:
Suppose a country, named "X", has a lingua franca named "L".  Suppose this country is composed of majority ethnic group A, and minority ethnic groups B and C. Suppose that in addition to the lingua franca, members of each ethnic group know their own language (e.g. person of ethnic group A speaks "A", person of ethnic group B speaks "B"), but not the language of the other two ethnic groups. In this country, there are newspapers in language "L", newspapers in language "A", newspapers in language "B", etc. The daily circulation of a newspaper published in language "B" exceeds that of any other newspaper in the country, including that of the newspaper of record (presumably published in language "L").
Contemporary example: the Sin Chew Daily (星洲日報), a Malaysian daily published in Mandarin Chinese.

I wish to know if there are historical precedents for the contemporary example listed above.


texts: How big were Ancient China military forces?

texts: When reading about warfare records in ancient China, I see a lot of references to "# of chariots" instead of "#k soldiers" or something like that. Do we know how big these armies actually were? As in, if a state sent "300 chariots to the battle", how big a force was that actually?


texts: Are there any independent historical records of ancient Persia allowing freedom of worship for the Jews?

texts:
Starting from this claim that the king of Persia respected the Jewish' God.

http://niv.scripturetext.com/daniel/6.htm

The only surviving text is the Jewish text.

Are there independent sources of ancient Persia's record corroborating this?


texts: How were the territories added to (and thus the limits set in) the Holy Roman Empire

texts:
I've seen a similar question but not with the answer I'm looking for.

During its existence, HRE had limits including and excluding territories that did not follow any criteria according to the members of the HRE. Many members had national possessions (call it territories, provinces, whatever you like) inside and outside the limits of the HRE (most obvious cases are Prussia and Austria) and some non-members had territories inside the HRE (like Denmark or France).

I guess it was the Emperor who decided to include or exclude a territory in the HRE but according with which criteria? Why was not every territory belonging to a member automatically "engulfed" within the borders of the HRE?

Since this question is often, very often, misinterpreted, to avoid confusion, I'll clarify it. I'm not asking about how did the HRE worked, or what the HRE was. I have extensive knowledge on European History so I already know what the HRE was.

The fact is that some territories were incorporated to the HRE at some points in history. Who took such decision? The emperor? If so, why the emperor did not integrate Hungary (in personal union to the rulers of Austria, elector member of the HRE)? Why the emperor did not integrate East Prussia (the region, not the kingdom), belonging to the elector member Brandenburg? So, summarizing, what was the criteria to include or exclude a territory in the HRE?


texts: What was the rationale behind restrictions on camera ownership in post-war Germany?

texts:
According to the accepted answer to this question:

  There are very few photographs from occupied Germany because it was illegal for Germans to own cameras and similar regulations were enforced to prevent allied soldiers owning cameras or from taking pictures. It was also illegal to take aerial photographs of occupied Germany.

Why was this?  Was the intent to keep information away from the Germans or to keep information away from the Soviets?


texts: Did pre-Columbian Americans know the spherical shape of the Earth?

texts:
The Maya are known for their astronomy and mathematics, most notably their famous calculation of the length of a year. I was surprised to learn that they supported a flat Earth model, though to be fair, a spherical Earth wasn't yet fully accepted in the Old World, either.

Do we know if other pre-Columbian societies knew the true shape of the Earth? It doesn't look like there's much research on this topic, which is maybe not surprising given the lack of written records. I'm interested in knowing what oral tradition says about this. In any case, you don't need advanced technology to discover that the Earth is a sphere, and the conclusion may have been reached independently many times in Eurasia (the link describes Pythagoras, Aryabhata, Zhang Heng, Yu Xi, and Li Ye, among others).


texts: What is the history of the tradition of the out-going president attending the inauguration of his successor?

texts:
I understand that for a long time it has been customary that when a president of the United States is succeeded, he sits near the president-elect at the inauguration before the president-elect is sworn in as the new president.
But in some historical documentary on TV (maybe on the History Channel — I'm not sure) it was reported that when John Adams was succeeded by Thomas Jefferson, Adams left the White House early in the morning to go back to Massachusetts and did not meet with Jefferson nor attend the inauguration.
So my question is: What is the history of this custom? In which instances was this done and in which was it not done?


texts: What did "opening day" mean in the 18th century?

texts:
I was singing the hymn Oh God Our Hope in Ages Past today in Church, and noticed something interesting.

The fifth verse reads as follows:

Time, like an ever rolling stream, bears all who breathe away;
they fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.

Now I had always half-jokingly assumed this was some sports reference, as "opening day" to me means the first day of the season for an athletic league. However, I noticed that the words here are credited to Isaac Watts in the early 1700's. This is before any organized sporting leagues I know of.

Given that, I'm at a loss. What the heck is he getting when he says "opening day" here?


texts:
My grandpa had this knife and we do not know anything about it. It seems to be very interesting and I am very curious as to what kind of knife this is and where it came from.

Edit: Grandpa was born in the 1930s. The knife looks the same on both sides. This question is tagged "United States".


texts: Did contemporary scholars draw a connection between Great Schism and Crab Nebula Supernova (1054 A.D.)?

texts:
Did any contemporary scholars draw a connection between the occurrence of the Great Schism and the Crab Nebula Supernova, which both occurred around the middle of 1054 A.D.?

I already asked at Christianity SE, and got a couple of good answers about people who recently made the connection, including a theory that it may have been invisible around Europe because of a volcanic eruption in Iceland.


texts: Why is ancient chinese rocket so decorated?

texts:
This picture doesn't make sense. Who would want to carve a head statue just for a rocket that will blow up?

How does it work?


texts: Was smoking ever considered a throat cure?

texts:
In the movie The King's Speech Prince Bertie at some point says his doctors had advised him to smoke, in order to improve his throat's condition.

Does this stupid suggestion represent actual medical consensus of the 1920's or were the screenwriters just being creative?


texts: How was the United States able to produce excellent tanks in 1942?

texts:
Most military histories of the war in North Africa, and especially those produced from a British point-of-view, emphasise the greenness of the American troops which landed there in 1942. There is a tendency to compare them unfavourably with the battle-hardened Germans (and British) who'd already been fighting for three years. The Americans had a lot to learn in 1942 (though everyone agrees they did learn quickly).

Yet those same histories will also suggest one of the keys to the British finally defeating Rommel in Egypt and Libya in late 1942 was the arrival of large quantities of the excellent American Grant and Sherman tanks. British tanks like the Valentines and Mathildas used in the region between 1940 and 1942 don't seem to have been anything like as good.

So my question is, how was the United States able to produce such good designs and such well built tanks so early in the war (early from a US point of view)? Without experience of war and with an isolationist mentality up until 1941 where had these excellent tank designs sprung from? Why weren't their tank designs as green as their troops?


texts: What are the chances that my ancestor from Massachusetts in 1670 was a Russian Jew?

texts: I have family who claim that their ancestor who was in Massachusetts by 1670 was from Russia, and was Jewish!  What are the chances?


texts: How do historians and linguists know how to pronounce the names from non-phonetic scripts?

texts:
If we take hieroglyphic writings like the Egyptian one, an Egyptologist knows that this hieroglyph must be interpreted as Nefertiti.

Or we can see in the following Sumerian cuneiform script that there is a syllabic representation of each cuneiform symbol.

Since these writings (and others) are ideographic, I understand how I could interpret these ideas by translating them into my language.

However, how do historians and linguists extract names or syllabic groups from this type of writing, especially when they are dead languages?


texts: Why was Poland spared from the Black Death?

texts:
The featured image of the Wikipedia page for the Black Death is a gif showing the spread of the bubonic plague throughout Europe. There are a few places where the plague never spread to, including the area around Milan. But most notably, the entire Kingdom of Poland is spared, even as virtually every other region is infected.

The Wikipedia page itself just says the following:

  The plague spared some parts of Europe, including the Kingdom of Poland, the majority of the Basque Country and isolated parts of Belgium and the Netherlands.

But it never gives an explanation why Poland would be spared. Was Poland just lucky, or was something else at play?


texts: What is the oldest quote or poem in known history?

texts:
What is the oldest quote, poem, words of wisdom ever written in known history?
I'm guessing it's Kemetian or Babylonian.
I've read some on the internet that I know from memory but cannot verify them, such as the following,
"A contented mind is a hidden treasure."

Pharoah Akhenaten ~1350BC

"Be still my heart. You have known worse than this."

Homer 1100BC?


texts: Did the Romans melt down looted golden objects or did they keep them intact?

texts:
The most famous such object is, of course, the Menorah which is reported to have surfaced up later in Constantinople via Carthage, so it seems to have been kept intact.

But I am wondering if there was a general policy or custom as the Romans would have presumably looted over the centuries many large golden objects from conquered lands. Are there other known examples where the provenance can be traced?


texts: Was there a serious proposal to offer India territory in East Africa?

texts:
In the recent World Service series The War That Changed The World the episode dealing with India contains a rather extraordinary claim.

A panel member, an Indian, says there was a notion during WW1 that India might get her "own" colony in German East Africa as a prize for her substantial contribution of troops and money to the British war effort.

Perhaps not so extraordinary, Several British Empire dominions did receive their own colonies or mandates. Australia, South Africa and New Zealand helped carve up Germany's colonial possessions.

The notion that India could gain her own overseas empire ... were there any serious proposals?


texts: What was President Jimmy Carter's role in the Iranian Revolution?

texts:
Iran was a friend to the USA until Carter traveled to Iran and immediately afterwards Iran faced revolution. Khomeini went to Iran from France.

On November 4, 1979, an angry mob of young Islamic revolutionaries overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 Americans hostage, etc...

Now Iran is an enemy of the USA.
I really don't understand why President Carter did not support Shah of Iran as a friend.

What exactly was Jimmy Carter's role in the Iranian Revolution?


texts: Where is (or was) the biggest medieval drawbridge?

texts:
A pretty straightforward question. I'm trying to find the largest drawbridge in medieval Europe, and it's more difficult than it seemed at first.
At least I want to know if it would be possible to build a 10m long drawbridge with 15th century technology.


texts: What was the most recent Catholic coronation ceremony of a king?

texts:
What was the most recent Catholic coronation ceremony of a king*?

Karl of Austria's, December 1916?

*excluding popes, who are both civil kings and heads of the Catholic Church


texts: Does US law permit spending taxpayers' money to support foreign political parties?

texts:
Here is a video, showing a number of Russian opposition activists visiting U.S. embassy before Russian presidential elections:

http://www.youtube.com/v/yf3LjntNX20?version=3&feature=player_detailpage

On way back they all say a completely identical phrase to the camera (actually held by an amauter) "You are Surkov's propaganda" (Surkov is a Putin's deputy)

It is known that U.S. openly supports Russian opposition.

Thus my question is whether it is permitted in the US to spend the taxpayers' money to support pro-US parties in foreign countries?

If so, whether it is permitted for a currently ruling party in the US to spend the state money to support their own political agenda abroad?

How this was arranged formerly and whether there were any political or judicial controversies about this issue?


texts: Did the USSR have a more positive relationship with France than other west european countries after 1945?

texts: France and the USSR were allies before World War 2. A number of things intervened before then and 1945, not limited to the war itself. After the war, did Soviet officials publicly (or privately) acknowledge France as closer to them diplomatically than its neighbours?


texts:
How were drawbridges and portcullises used tactically?
I was recently asked why medieval castles would have both a drawbridge and a portcullis. After giving an explanation, I realized that it was just an assumption, and I had no sources for what I’d said.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve assumed that the reason for having both is that each had a complementary action – the portcullis could block the entrance very quickly (under gravity) whilst the drawbridge could open the entrance (i.e. be lowered) just as quickly. Using the two together would give the defenders a method of letting small groups of allies through the defenses with little chance of the attackers breaking through. If the defenders want to (for example) send out a raiding party, they can start by slowly raising the portcullis, then at the right moment drop the drawbridge, let the group out, and then rather than having to rely on slowly and laboriously winding the drawbridge up to secure they castle again, they can release the portcullis and be secure again in a fraction of a second. Once the portcullis is down, the castle is secure they can take their time winding the drawbridge back up. Similar idea for when the raiding party comes back.
So, is the above just a mis-remembered story on my part, or is there any truth to it? How would drawbridges and portcullises be used together, and are there any explanations in the historical record?


texts: What was the treatment of Polish POW in British or Soviet uniform in WW2?

texts:
Suppose that Polish soldier, member of Polish Armed Forces in the West, becomes a German POW. How good or bad would have be treated ? Like UK/US POW (relatively mildly) or like Polish POWs from 1939 (somewhat harsher) ? Is there a chance he would be considered an illegal combatant and executed ?
Same question about Polish Armed Forces in the East. Would Germans treat them like captured Soviet soldiers (very poorly) or perhaps somewhat better ?
Sources that I have found (this for example) do not mention these two groups, they only mention original Polish POW from 1939, and captured members of Armia Krajowa.


texts: Why didn't Hitler invade Middle East for resources first before invading Soviet Union?

texts:
Why didn't Hitler invade Middle East for resources instead of Soviet Union? Or at least invade Middle East first to secure the resources needed for sustained military operation?

I understand Hitler had long yearned for a showndown with the Bolshevism. But considering the raw material dependency Germany had towards USSR prior to Operation Barbarossa would mean (even more) serious shortage on oil, grain, wood products and various metals -- as expensive as Soviet products may be.

How much resource production did Nazi Germany seize from western USSR? The cost of occupying conquered Soviet territory seems likely greater to me. I seriously doubt, whatever the amount is, it would cover the increased demand from military operations and lost Soviet imports otherwise. Germany may have had a stockpile of materials. But according to the linked Wikipedia article, the stockpile of oil would deplete completely by June 1941 using British estimates which was without Operation Barbarossa and rubber stockpile would expire in two months after the import through USSR is cut off. What appears to me is that Nazi Germany did not have the ability to sustain a war against USSR for more than half a year. If that is indeed true, then the resource shortage is one way to see how the Nazi leadership had no contingency for Operation Barbarossa to last for even more than half a year. It is one thing to hope for a swift victory but it is pure stupidity to expect a swift victory as a certainty.

So why then would Hitler invade USSR prior to resource security which would mean security in arm production which would result in sustained strategic military superiority? Why not invade or puppet Greece, Turkey and then through Turkey invade Middle East, securing the alluminun and other metals and the oil that Germany needed? That would also open up access to British Raj and even Singapore with all the rubber out there. (Can trade with Japan by then.) Nazi Germany did end up invading Greece after all


texts: What evidence is there of tank-vs-tank combat in Asia during the second world war?

texts:
It has been known that the Japanese army during the Second World War did not value tanks highly and as such they were not always used effectively and had significantly worse characteristics than Allied armoured vehicles.

I have been struggling to find evidence of Japanese armour going head to head with Allied armour, can anyone give any examples of armoured warfare between the allies and the Japanese during the second world war?


texts: Have Paralympics been the specific target of boycotts?

texts:
Prior to Sochi, have countries completely or partially boycotted Paralympic games as a political protest in and of itself, without it being the follow-on of the Olympics being boycotted?

Non-example: Elbonia boycotts Sydney 2000 Olympics, and also boycotts Sydney 2000 Paralympics.

Valid example: Elbonia competes at Sydney 2000 Olympics. Part of the way through the Paralympics, Australia announces it'll resume culling of kangaroos. Elbonia ceases competing at the Paralympics in protest.


texts: Who does Irenaeus call "a certain person among the ancients"?

texts:
In his Against Heresies (c. 180 AD), Ireneaus of Lyon writes

[God] pronounced no curse against Adam personally, but against the
ground, in reference to his works, as a certain person among the
ancients has observed: “God did indeed transfer the curse to the
earth, that it might not remain in man.”

Who is Irenaeus quoting here? The Ante-Nicene Christian Library gives a cross-reference to Genesis 3:16, but does not identify the ancient writer. I can't even tell if it refers to a Christian writer or a pre-Christian writer!


texts: Why wasn’t the USSR “rebranded” communist?

texts:
I found that the Third International  sponsored a worldwide transformation of former “socialist” parties (that was concretely related to the rejection of so-called “reformism”, to be somewhat upgraded to a more revolutionary stance, aiming to the “proletariat dictatorship”), who were thus prompted to become “communist” even in their names.
Why did not the same idea apply to the USSR, that always kept its “socialist” definition?


texts: how did the Cynics of Greece and Rome eat

texts:
How did the Ancient Cynics like Diogenes eat during their time? I know they only believed in eating natural foods but don't know how they procured it. If they didn't believe in wealth, they could not have bought it.

Did they beg for it?
Did they steal it?
Did they keep small gardens or forage?
Did they work for it?


texts: My Latin dictionary only lists ere for sir, which is how a slave would address his/her master. But how would a lower status Roman address a person of higher status - for instance, a wage-labourer to an employer, a shopkeeper to a high-status customer, any "commoner" to an aristocrat or, indeed, a slave to one who was not his/her master?


texts: Has the side with better equipment and worse logistics ever won?

texts: The side with better logistics seems to always win. The ostfront is a good example of logistics overcoming quality. What is the clearest example of the reverse happening?


texts: Why did France make an alliance with the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont in the 1850's?

texts: It is clear why Cavour wanted the alliance, but what benefits would France have from allying itself to a relatively weak (as far as I know) kingdom?


texts: Was England called England in the days of King Arthur?

texts:
King Arthur is a legendary king who is said to have ruled Britain in the early days of post-Roman Britain.  Now Thomas Malory's famous novel "La Morte D'Arthur" puts the following inscription on the stone that Arthur pulls the sword out of: "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of all England."

My question is, is this an anachronism?  Would England have been called England in the days of King Arthur, i.e. early post-Roman Britain?  I'm aware that Saxons came into Britain during the early post-Roman period, and in fact feature prominently in the Arthurian romances, but when did the Angles come?  They're the Germanic tribe after which England is named.

The oldest reference to the Sword in the Stone seems to in Robert de Boron's poem "Merlin", which only survives in fragments.  There is more reference to this in the Prose Merlin, a prose work based on Robert de Boron's poem.  In this chapter of the Prose Merlin, the inscription says "Who taketh this swerde out of this ston sholde be kynge by the eleccion of Jhesu Criste." or with modern spelling "Who taketh this sword out of this stone should be king by the election of Jesus Christ." So the inscription doesn't mention England.


texts: What happened to the wealth of the Rothschild banking family?

texts:
The Rothschild family was possibly the richest banking family in human history. Given the power of compounding over time and the large principal sum that they start with, they should easily be the world's richest family today. Besides, bankers should be pretty good money managers themselves and they should be quite competent in managing their own money. Yet today, nobody on Forbes' list of 500 richest persons in the world bears the surname Rothschild.

What happened to the wealth of the Rothschild banking family over the years?


texts: How do the efforts of the Jesuits in China differ from their efforts in Japan?

texts:
Question

How do the efforts of the Jesuits in Ming China China differ from their efforts in Japan?

I know that when the Jesuits arrived in both countries, they started to convert people into Christianity and they also increased the trade relations in both countries but I do not know the difference


texts: How could ancient people determine the winter solstice was occurring?

texts:
How could astronomers in the ancient world determine that the winter solstice was occurring?  According to whoever edited the Wikipedia article on the winter solstice, it's too hard for modern amateurs to recognize when it happens.

By "ancient world", let's go with the definition of 500 AD or earlier.

Note that I'm asking about their methods for determining the solstice, not whether they could do so.


texts: How did native Americans and European colonists conduct their trades?

texts:
I'm curious to know how Natives Americans and Europeans colonists traded during the colonization of north-east America.

what kind of currencies (if any) were used? Or did they barter?


texts: Where can I find a blank outline of Silk Road routes?

texts: I am looking for a blank outline map of Silk Road routes from the Pacific to Europe including African and European cities and outposts. Ideally the route(s) will be pre-drawn. Students label cities/outposts. Current sources insufficient.


texts: How did Asian Americans manage to become richer than an average American?

texts:
By "richer" I mean higher median income.

Large-scale immigration of Asians to the United States began in the 19th century. In the beginning, most of them were poorer than an average American. Nevertheless, in the subsequent century, the income of Asian Americans was gradually increasing. Nowadays, they have higher median income than an average American.

Personal and Household income in the United States in 2005:

How did they achieve this even though they originally came from countries much poorer than the United States?


texts: What happens if a vassal inherits not under the control of their sovereign?

texts:
For example, suppose some count in France inherits a county in the Holy Roman Empire. Does the count become a vassal of both the King of France and the HRE?

What if said Count inherited a whole Kingdom? Does their original county now belong to the new Kingdom they inherited?


texts: Harvard Architecture: How did Harvard Mark I separate data and instruction?

texts:
How did Harvard Mark I separate data and instruction?

I have read the article in Wikipedia but I didn't understand how data and instruction was separated using a punched paper tape. It said

  "The Mark I read its instructions from a 24 channel punched paper tape
  and executed the current instruction and then read in the next one. It
  had no conditional branch instruction. This meant that complex
  programs had to be physically long. A loop was accomplished by joining
  the end of the paper tape containing the program back to the beginning
  of the tape (literally creating a loop)."

then said

  "This separation of data and instructions is known as the Harvard
  architecture"

I didn't understand this line, it reads instructions from the paper tape but where is the data?


texts: Source of quote attributed to Cesar Chavez: "You are never strong enough that you don't need help."

texts:
You are never strong enough that you don't need help.

Does anybody know when, where, or in what context Cesar Chavez said this quote?  Some Google searching implies that he said it, but none of the links I found gave any context for the quote.

Also, I apologize if this is the wrong StackExchange for this question -- I'm not quite sure where to put it.  If you have a better suggestion, please let me know.  Thanks!


texts: Did officers use cases / bags / pouches in the 18th century?

texts:
Military officers in the 18th century usually did not have any cases or boxes. Normal soldiers for example often had cartridge boxes.

I usually hear, that officers had servants/etc to take care of carrying stuff around. This generally makes a lot of sense in the context. For example, officers usually were noble. And the nobility was used to letting servants take care of things.

But I still wonder, if officers never had the need or desire to take some things with them personally and not give them to a servant. For example on a journey (maybe alone), in the field, or on a construction place.
Those things could range from a bulk of highly important papers/maps to maybe personal stuff, that they would not want to give out of their hands. I mean carry directly with themselves.
Very small amounts could be put in the pockets of the coat, of course. But what about a bulk of maps, or some very costly small instruments?

IF this desire/need existed, the obvious question is: Where did they put it? There were surely some good options to choose from.

Summary of questions:

Did officers ever had the desire/need to carry around some amount of things/papers/instruments/etc directly attached to the person?
If so, what did they use for this?

If the answer to (1) is "definitely no", please try to include some convincing points. For example, that there were always superior options to choose from.

For (2) a small selection of typical options with a small reference would be great. Nobody expects a complete list. If you have some personal favorite, include it, of course.

Background: I have seen some very few (modern) drawings of 18th century officer uniforms with cartridge boxes. But the text for those drawings did not indicate any details.


texts: Can anyone identify this painting of a Cossack?

texts: Can anyone identify the name and artist of this painting?


texts: Were Christians really burned for lighting by Nero?

texts:
I presume after fire of Rome Nero persecuted Christians. But it is the form of persecution which interest me since Tacitus writes

  Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

What I want to know is it even possible that people can be used as source of light at all? I say this because it really takes a lot of fuel and effort to burn dead people lying down (in cremation) then it can not be the easiest and even effective way to torture, humiliate people and send message to society (who are on tied straight up) which I suppose was the goal of Nero.


texts: Origin of the Petropavlovsk artillery company

texts:
The frontier port of Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka, was an army outpost which acquired an artillery company at some point before the garrison was dissolved in 1812 and the port became regional capital in 1813.

According to Clerke, in 1779, "only a sergeant and ten soldiers lived there". Frances Barkley wrote that on her arrival in 1792 she was "surprised by the report of three great Guns". According to Viskovatov's Uniforms of Russian army during the Napoleonic war,  volume 8, by 1801 there was an Artillery Garrison Company in the port. In 1804, Löwenstern, Krusenstern, and Langsdorff of the Nadezhda all mentioned artillery officers. Viskovatov, volume 12, has quite a lot on the distinctions between sorts of army artillery companies, but doesn't describe this one.

When was the Petropavlovsk artillery company established?


texts: How did Carthage Lose the First Punic War to Rome?

texts:
(264 to 241 BC) Carthage seemed to have many significant strategic advantages at the beginning of the conflict.

Carthage Generals were both experienced and accomplished.
Carthage had a larger and wealthier territory.

  Carthage was a republic that dominated the political, military and economic affairs of the western Mediterranean Sea.

Economic Advantages.

  Carthage was the Mediterranean's largest producer of silver, mined in Iberia.
  Carthaginian trade-relations with the Iberians, and the naval might that enforced Carthage's monopoly on this trade and the Atlantic tin trade,made it the sole significant broker of tin and maker of bronze in its day.
  In addition to manufacturing, Carthage practised highly advanced and productive agriculture,using iron ploughs, irrigation,and crop rotation.

The Carthage Navy was both larger and more experienced than that of Rome who built their Navy for the war.  The Romans territory at the beginning of the First Punic war was all connected on the Italian peninsula so Rome didn't require a significant Navy at the time, while the Carthage territory was distributed around the Mediteranian did require sailors for both trade and defense.
Carthage had the large Army.

  Meanwhile, Carthage had begun to build a mercenary army in Africa, which was to be shipped to Sicily to meet the Romans. According to the historian Philinus, this army was composed of 50,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and 60 elephants and partly composed of Ligurians, Celts and Iberians.

Sicily, a major front for the war favored the use of the Navy which was a Carthage strength.

  Sicily is a hilly volcanic island, with geographical obstacles and rough terrain making lines of communication difficult to maintain. For this reason, land warfare played a secondary role in the First Punic War.

Carthage had heavily fortified and defended towns on Sicily a major front in the war.  These towns were used as both refuges and supply depots during the conflict.
Carthage had the Elephant which was the super weapon/terror weapon of the time; devastating to enemy formations like the Roman Phalanx.
Hannibal’s Superweapon: The War Elephant

Example of the Effectiveness of War Elephants,  in the First Punic War battle of Bagradas the Carthaginians under the command of Xanthippus used a line of 100 war elephants to help destroy the Romans.  The War Elephants were the vanguard, engaged first and tied down the bulk of the Roman infantry in the center.

   Wikipedia Battle of Bagradas: The Romans lost 12,000 men killed and 500 men captured, while the Carthaginians lost only 800 men. (The Roman General Regulus was also captured.)

What were Rome's strategic advantages, and more importantly how did they marshal these strategies to win a war fought around the Mediterranean against an entrenched superior sea and economic power?

Again I'm looking for the strategies Rome employed not just the tactics.

Source for this question


texts: When was the first pentecostal church created?

texts: When and where was the first pentecostal church created?


texts: Beside the USSR and the Chinese communist history, have there been other counterintelligence operations that turned into large scale witchhunt?

texts:
Few people realize that, when war is elected to settle disputes, one's comrades are just as dangerous as their enemies due to counter-intelligence operations. Allegations are often made to settle personal grudges, but experience has showed that during war, when allegations are made against someone, it is very costly to give the benefit of the doubt.

The Chinese communist history from 1921 to 1976 was one of repeated dramas in which counter-intelligence operations turned into witch hunt. Yet, the CPC defeated KMT. On the other hand, the KMT owed its defeat as much to strategic blunders as to spy and espionage: generals were turned into rivals; divisions after divisions of KMT infantry were subverted.

Unscrupulousness has to be a necessary quality of a successful general: first he needs to be merciless to enemies; secondly, when it is necessary to send his soldiers to harm's way, he should not let the number of casualties interfere with his decision making; finally, when it comes to spies, it is definitely safer to purge a thousand innocents than to let slip one real spy through the net.

I wonder if this large scale counterintelligence-turned witch hunt is what war entails. In other words, counterintelligence-turned which hunt is common and necessary on both sides as soon as war is chosen to settle disputes.


texts: How were de jure lands determined during the Middle Ages in Western Europe?

texts:
I was continuing my research on the strained relationship of France and England during the Middle-Ages. As I was reading up on Philip II Augustus of France in Wikipedia I stumbled upon this:

  The Angevin kings of England (the line of rulers to which Henry II belonged), were Philip's most powerful and dangerous vassals as Dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine and Counts of Anjou. Philip made it his life's work to destroy Angevin power in France.

Additionally:

  In 1202, disaffected patrons petitioned the French king to summon John to answer their charges in his capacity as John's feudal lord in France.

And finally:

  What Philip had gained through victory in war, he sought to confirm by legal means. Philip, again acting as John's liege lord over his French lands, summoned him to appear before the Court of the Twelve Peers of France to answer for the murder of Arthur of Brittany. John requested safe conduct, but Philip only agreed to allow him to come in peace, while providing for his return only if it were allowed to after the judgment of his peers. Not willing to risk his life on such a guarantee, John refused to appear, so Philip summarily dispossessed the English of all lands.

These quotes strike me as peculiar. It implies either that the crown of England was not considered equal to the crown to France or that the Kings of England were at the same time bound to the French Kingdom due to holding lands within its de jure territory. For me it creates more confusion over an already hazy subject, the rules/laws that governed feudal society and hierarchy. As I understand might was right during the Middle Ages in international relations and I shouldn't be surprised that Philip dispossessed the English from their lands having defeated them. However there were laws that governed inheritance and the English Plantagenet Kings had inherited the Angevin lands. Interesting unrelated note: both John and his brother Richard were accused of murder and lost possessions on such dubious accusations.

To conclude my question is how were de jure lands of a crown decided? Since the Kings of England inherited lands from another kingdom weren't they automatically transferred to the jurisdiction of the English crown?

My search insofar has come up with nothing other than references on feudal law in relation to specific kingdoms and not on international relations law such as this.


texts: What is the most complete study of Count Benyowszky?

texts:
Maurice Benyowsky was a notorious adventurer who wrote a well-known, highly fictionalized autobiography (Memoirs and Travels of Mauritius Augustus Count de Benyowsky). His supposed exploits became famous enough to be the basis of plays and operas.

This is a source request: has any modern scholar sought to sort the fact from the fiction? I did find a breezy 1989 biographical sketch in French, Héros ou imposteur? Un aventurier au XVIIIe siècle by Miklós Molnár, but there seems to be much more to the story. The best work on him might have been done in the Hungarian or Polish languages; several relevant books were written in the late 1800s. The multiple spellings of his surname make searching for him rather a challenge.


texts:
When did hand cannons change to handguns?
The Wikipedia article doesn’t address when the change happens in my opinion, but I could be wrong.

I’m asking mostly for curiosities sake.
I know that hand cannons started in the Middle Ages, but I’m not sure when they became handguns myself.
I’m also not sure if there’s any hand cannon variants out there.
I’m mostly asking for a technical change.


texts: Which EU countries insisted on unanimous voting for trade deals?

texts:
Question prompted by this tweet by Jo Maugham in reaction to a HuffPost article:

  Humiliating, really, but if we leave the EU we'll have to brown-nose every single one of the Member States: Luxembourg, Sofia, Ljubljana - they all get a veto over the new trade deal we'll need with our largest trading partner.

There were rounds of haggling in the 2000s, leading to the Nice and Lisbon treaties. Among the topics were whether everything should be decided using some flavor of majority votes. In the end, unanimous votes prevailed for a few key topics.

Which countries were opposed to the EU passing trade deals using a majority vote rather than a unanimous vote in the run up to the Nice and Lisbon treaties? Was the UK among those that were firmly opposed to it?

Edit: For clarity, this is not a question about Johnson vs Major or Blair or Brown specifically. Rather, this is an objective question about which countries were against majority voting in that specific topic back when majority rule was extended -- which it was, massively. (Intuitively I'd expect France and Germany to be in the list; and yes, the UK. I'm basically curious about which countries pushed hard to keep what was the status quo in place on this topic.)

Edit 2: For further context, one of the drivers behind the (failed) Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe and the subsequent treaties of Nice and Lisbon was to break the recurring EU deadlocks owing to needing a unanimity of countries to agree on just about every topic. The resulting treaties greatly expanded areas where EU decision making could proceed using an easier to get majority of countries. Some countries were generally in favor of expanding this to just about every topic at the time. Others were warier on specific pet issues, and this resulted in the current compromise where the rule of thumb is a majority vote except on some topics. The question is asking which countries blocked going from unanimity to majority on trade.

Edit 3: For further context, the Common Commercial Policy has been part of EU competency since the Treaty of Rome in 1957, and has been getting its mandate through qualified majority voting from the get go. But the treaties it negotiates then don't take effect until all EU countries agree to (and ratify) them.


texts: Why didn't SW Virginia join West Virginia?

texts: When West Virginia seceded from Virginia, how come the southwestern part of what is now the Commonwealth of Virginia didn't join West Virginia when they are geographically and culturally a lot more like West Virginia then the rest of Virginia?


texts: Have fair-skinned peoples ever been the lower/oppressed class?

texts:
In many societies around the globe today we see that the darker skinned peoples are generally of a lower social status than the fair skinned peoples of the same area, or that fair skin is considered preferable to dark skin. Even in India today women are marketed skin-lightening creams.

However, has there ever been society in which the fairer skinned peoples were either of a lower social standing than the dark-skinned people, or where darker skin was preferable to fair skin? I am aware of the phenomenon of sun-bathing to darken the skin, but so far as I know this is not used to convey the image of increased social status as the skin-lightening creams are, but rather used to convey the image of one who has an outdoor lifestyle or has "lazy time" to spend in the sun.


texts: Were Western (French, US or other) powers involved in the coup against Captain Sankara of Burkina Faso?

texts:
I have researched this head of state of Burkina Faso using different papers, wiki articles, programs and French DGSE books to form an opinion on this puzzling character.

It seems Captain Thomas Sankara was a revolutionary at its purest, building his country from scratch — infrastructure, food for his people, schooling for all, economic self-reliance for his country as well as for Africa.

Being a soldier, who a lot of times end up becoming dictators, I agree he had a strong hand to apply these changes and sometimes he took controversial decisions. However, there is no evidence of genocide, torture, wrongful incarceration and so on.... nothing like what was seen in African countries during revolution.

Yet he was assassinated for all the good he was trying to do.

The official version is that a consortium of African nations led by Compaore orchestrated the coup d'etat.

However, there are suggestions that Western countries including the French and US secret services and possibly others were behind all this because he was a threat to them and their authority.

Is there any evidence of a conspiracy here?

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

EDIT:

Not interested in his political views or anything if the sort. It doesn't bear on the answer I am asking.


texts: Did German win any victories between Normandy and Bulge?

texts:
In regards to World War II, I always hear about the great number of Allied victories won between the Battle of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. Very little is spoken of German victories.

Are there any instances where the Germans achieved a short-term victory in western Europe after D-Day and before the Battle of the Bulge? What are the most notable of these?


texts: How did the British Navy pass orders to its fleet before radio?

texts: During the 18th and 19th century, the British Navy had ships all over the world, and communicating with them had to be difficult.  After all, the Battle of New Orleans happened after the British had signed the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812.  Although many ship captains or fleet commodores had great freedom to operate tactically within their sphere of influence, what system of communication did the Royal Navy use to pass orders and receive reports from its ships far away?  Assuming that orders had to travel by courier on fast sailing ships, did the Navy rely only upon its own ships to pass messages, or did it use fast commercial vessels?  Was their a back-up system in case the courier was interecepted?  Typically, how long did the process take?


texts: Were the Spanish aware that American mainland existed after discovering the Caribbean?

texts: After the Spanish (Castille) first discovered The Caribbean (Nowday Dominican Republic, Cuba ect.) in the late 1400s / Early 1500s were they aware / did they predict that mainland North and South America existed?


texts: In Scandinavia, was there a cultural continuity from Goths to Vikings or were they two different groups of people?

texts:
The earliest origin of the Gothic people/culture is commonly placed on the Scandinavian peninsula, in the region of Götaland (in southern Sweden) and/or the island of Gotland (off the eastern coast of Sweden).

Similarly the origin of Vikings is often placed in the area of Roslagen (roughly around where Stockholm is located).

These localities are shown in the image at the bottom of this question.

Question is: In Sweden, was there a cultural continuity from the Gothic culture to the Viking culture, or were these two different groups of people?


texts:
Willem de Vlamingh is reportedly the first European to have seen black swans near modern-day Perth, Western Australia in 1697. The 'black swan' had existed in Europe as a metaphor for about fifteen centuries by this point. Therefore, it wouldn't be surprising if such reports of a sighting of a black swan would go unbelieved. What were the contemporary European reactions of de Vlamingh's sightings of black swans?

Regarding the use of black swan as a metaphor:

The Roman satirist Juvenal wrote in AD 82 of rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno ("a rare bird in the lands, and very like a black swan"). He meant something whose rarity would compare with that of a black swan, or in other words, as a black swan did not exist, neither did the supposed characteristics of the "rare bird" with which it was being compared. The phrase passed into several European languages as a popular proverb, including English, in which the first four words ("a rare bird in the land") are often used ironically. For some 1500 years, the black swan existed in the European imagination as a metaphor for that which could not exist.

The Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh made the first European record of sighting a black swan in 1697, when he sailed into, and named, the Swan River on the western coast of New Holland. The sighting was significant in Europe, where "all swans are white" had long been used as a standard example of a well-known truth. In 1726, two birds were captured near Dirk Hartog Island, 850 kilometres (530 mi) north of the Swan River, and taken to Batavia (now Jakarta) as proof of their existence.

The emphasis here is mine with the effect that it looks as if the Europeans wanted to prove the existence of these birds to a larger European population.
Further, LifeOnPerth writes:

Ready to turn back, Willem observed the then unknown "Black Swan".  Back in those days everyone believed that swans had to be white.  This spooked the expedition, which then decided they had seen enough.  The moment when Willem's, and the swan's eyes first met, has been immortalised in a statue erected near the site.

And:

The Black Swan is the only entirely black coloured swan in the world, which explains why they startled Willem de Vlamingh when he first saw them in 1697.  Everybody thought swans had to be white, so a statue commemorating this historical moment has been erected on the Swan River.

This site only says:

For 1,500 years the black swan was a European euphemism for something that could never happen. One can only imagine the impact on Western Renaissance thinking when news that black swans were real reached Europe.

But doesn't describe the actual reactions. Matter of fact, I've not seen any of these overviews writing anything as to whether de Vlamingh was considered credible or not. So, what contemporary reactions did de Vlamingh's reported sighting elicit?


texts: How many died during St. Lawrence Island 1878-1880 famine?

texts:
Do we have any accurate figures of deaths during the 1878-1880 St. Lawrence Island famine?

Wikipedia states the population had been decimated, but attributes that to both deaths and migration.

Encyclopedia Arctica states

  These are the remnants of a much larger population which was greatly
  reduced by a severe epidemic and famine which struck in the winter of
  1878-79, killing hundreds of people then living in villages on all
  sides of the island. Since then the entire eastern end as well as most
  of the north and south coasts of the island have been uninhabited.


texts: Why was the Aztec Empire known as an Empire?

texts:
Wikipedia defines an Empire as following:

  The term "empire" does not have a precise definition, but is generally
  applied to political entities that are considered to be especially
  large by the standards of their time and that have acquired a
  significant part of their territory by conquest.

When one thinks of an Empire, a large state comes to mind which comprises of multiple cultures, ethnicities and a formidable military. But then when one looks at the Aztec Empire, it all goes wrong. Compared to contemporary and historical empires, one could say that Aztec Empire was not even large enough to be a duchy in Europe or Emirate in Asia. Also neither was it a singular political entity in traditional concept of Empires (but the counter argument here would be the Holy Roman Empire). It comprised of only 117,501 sq mi of area. I asked few friends about it but they disregard the area based on claims that Aztecs had no horses which were backbone of communications and expansion in that era.

My Question is why are they referred to as the Aztec Empire? Why not use more modest and realistic titles of Confederation or Kingdom?


texts: Was there any connection between the Ottonians and Benedictines?

texts:
The Ottonians and Benedictines were expanding across Europe around the same time. However, other than in Rome they didn't have much overlap.  I've heard references in some history and medieval architecture classes that there was some sort of antagonism between the two.  Is this something that is findable in sources?  Was there any contact or friction between the two groups of any kind?  Some checking in the books I have on the period never covered this and a quick Google search did not come up with anything.  Were there relations between the two, and if so, what were they?  If there are sources on them I'd be curious to see them.

What I would like to see are sources that note the contact between the two and what sort of diplomacy or contact is noted between a religious order the size and influence of the benedictines and the Ottonians.


texts: Is George Louis known to have considered the assumption of a different regnal name in Great Britain?

texts:
At the time of George Louis' ascension to the throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain, neither England, Scotland, nor Great Britain had ever had a king called "George". There were earlier George's in the royal families (at least two—George, Duke of Bedford and George, Duke of Clarence), but the most recent "George" associated in any way with England was Anne's husband, George of Denmark.

Therefore, is George Louis known to have considered using a different regnal name in his new kingdom that would have aligned him more with English and Scottish traditions?

There was some (historic) precedence for this in Scotland:

  When John, Earl of Carrick ascended the Scottish throne in 1390, it was deemed imprudent for him to take the regnal name of "John II", as recent kings named John had turned out badly: in England as well as in Scotland. Furthermore, royal propaganda of the time held that John Balliol had not been a legitimate king of Scotland, making the new king's regnal number also a tricky issue. To avoid these problems, John took the regnal name of Robert III, honouring his father and great-grandfather.

Admittedly, George's descent would have suggested 'Charles' to him (if the above logic had been continued) which wouldn't have been very good, but 'James' and 'Henry' should also have been available options.

With regards to using different regnal names in different places, it seems to have been possible—though perhaps not common—with Wikipedia noting Otto III of Bavaria who ruled in Hungary as Béla V.


texts: English society in the early 19th century: Was aristocracy including royal members?

texts: I'm currently working on english social classes in the early 19th century, and wondered: was aristocracy including royal members, or only gentry + peers?


texts: Did Hirohito offer to stand trial for war crimes, but was turned down by the US?

texts:
At the end of WW2, did Emperor Hirohito volunteer to stand trial for war crimes? Was he planning to plead guilty? Did the US refuse all this?

Please make a citation because I would like to read more about this if at all possible.


texts:
Did Nejd (Saudi Arabia) actually engage the Ottoman Empire during WWI or did they just fight al Rashid (Jabal Shammer), who was loyal to the Ottomans?

Did al Rashid fight the Allied forces?


texts: Why was it deemed necessary that the “average person… knows they are on the border”, which resulted in the creation of the US-Canadian border slash?

texts:
The Atlas Obscura's US-Canada Border Slash, says:

  The Slash was initially deforested for the sole purpose of, according to the IBC, making sure that the “average person… knows they are on the border.” It all started in the 1800s, when the US-Canada border line was set at the 49th parallel. The Slash was cut and over 8,000 original border markers were laid down, most of which are still standing along The Slash to this day. Unfortunately, there was no GPS system at the time, so the border markers were inadvertently placed in a zig-zaggy fashion, straying north or south of the official 49th parallel border by an average of 295 feet. The lack of sufficient cartography also led to irregular border cutoffs such as Point Roberts and the Northwest Angle.

Question: Was there a particular need to "mak(e) sure that the 'average person… knows they are on the border'" that led to the slash, perhaps a dispute due to an ambiguity, or a treaty that required it? Or was this just a common-sense move who's time had come? Where there any particular immediate political or economic benefits to its implementation?


texts: Does a description of the original design for the Great Seal of the United States by Simitiere survive?

texts:
The Great Seal of the United States by U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs contains details as to Pierre Eugene du Simitiere's role in designing the Great Seal of the United States

  Finally they sought the help of a talented “drawer” and portrait
  artist, Pierre Eugene du Simitiere. To the post of consultant, Du
  Simitiere brought some knowledge of heraldry—the art of describing
  coats of arms—and also experience in designing seals.

The center of the original proposed design for the Great Seal of the United States by Pierre Eugene du Simitiere in 1776 appears to depict a heraldic shield which includes a Lion (heraldry), a Fleur-de-lis, and a Double-headed eagle, though this observation is not possible to verify based on the linked document, as there is no description within the document for the original proposed drawing.

Did Pierre Eugene du Simitiere specifically publish, leave in his notes and journals; or, do other primary source records exist of, a description the original proposed design of the Great Seal of the United States?


texts: Are there any examples of retrial for longer prison sentences?

texts:
Today I've read in 'Journey into the Whirlwind' by Eugenia Ginzburg, that prisoners in the USSR could be re-sentenced. They had been accused and found guilty of a crime (usually counter-revolutionary behavior), and already received a certain prison sentence (let's say five years). Later, when the Soviet government deemed these crimes worthy of a stricter punishment, they re-tried the prisoners to give them a longer sentence (let's say ten years).

Sometimes I find modern day examples of people having been found guilty being exonerated, since the law has become less strict on a certain issue (possession of marijuana for example). They're still guilty of whatever they did, but the sentence is less harsh. However, this is the first time I've read of a law becoming more harsh, and people being punished harder for the same crime they were already (being) sentenced for. Are there more historical examples of this?

Short disclaimer: I am not looking for people being retried because of new evidence or witnesses, or receiving a different sentence after an appeal. It's the exact same crime, the same ruling (guilty), only the punishment is harsher.


texts: Was Tibet ruled by Yuan Dynasty empires?

texts: Did Yuan dynasty empires ever ruled Tibet as they claim or was it always an independent state as claimed by The Tibetan Govt in Exile?


texts: What is the impact of 18th to 19th century colonialism on the live of the common people of the colonial empires

texts:
This topic suddenly came to me when I was doing my homework. I went online to search but most of the articles only talked about the impacts on the country or place that was being colonized.

According to what I have learned, colonies in 18th and 19th centuries were regarded as a place to supply raw materials for the home nation's industrial development. However, these benefits were only usable by the industrial capitalists...right?

What other social, economical, political impact does colonialism have on the common people of the home nation(majority of the society, espcially the lower class)? Does colonialism,and essentially, other land claims for resource benefit the majority(of the home nation, of the world)?


texts: When did the modern discourse of equality develop?

texts:
I know that racial segregation was gone by the end of 1968, and that New Zealand allowed Women to vote in 1893, from which most of the world followed. But, the thought of a world where everyone, regardless of religion, race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, should be treated equally is a relatively new idea.

When did we start aspiring to achieve something like the modern notion of equality?


texts: Was there a rule against non-Muslims wearing the colour green in the Ottoman empire?

texts:
On the wikipedia page titled Green in Islam, it is stated that:

  In the Ottoman Empire, the wearing of a green turban was a privilege afforded to the descendants of Muhammad

Also, in the book Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire , it states that:

  Green was for muslims only

Yet at the same time, traditional clothing of various Christian communities like the Greeks and Bulgarians in Thrace, Sarakatsani and Vlachs often used green fabric to make whole garments or to use in embroidery.

Was it a law that green was to be permitted to Muslims only? Or was it just a cultural attitude held in the society at the time that was rarely policed?


texts: What was the relationship between Ottoman emperor Murat IV and his mother Kosem Sultan?

texts: Was the relationship between Murat IV and his mother Kosem Sultan really bad? Did Kosem Sultan intervene a lot when her son assumed absolute power?


texts: What was the context of this famous Genghis Khan quote?

texts:
It is often quoted that Genghis Khan said:

  The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.

Where does this quote come from? What did he mean when saying it? Do we actually have confirmation that he even did say this?

I've looked around and haven't found much. It's not in the Secret History of the Mongols. I've found a blog saying that it's quoted in Ibn Battuta's travelogues (writing over a hundred years after Genghis' death), possibly as a way to denigrate the Mongols:

http://albeityacademic.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/capturing-chinggis-qahan-in-secret.html

But I don't have access to Battuta's original text.

Did Battuta get it from any earlier source? Is the quote actually consistent with Mongols' self-portrayal, or is it just a volley in the propaganda wars between the Mongols and their enemies?


texts: What was the League of Sublime and Perfect Masters?

texts: What was the League of the Sublime and Perfect Masters, created when the Congress of Viena was  finished?  What role did it play in Italian Reunification?


texts: Is there discussion among scholars about whether the Agamemnon of the Iliad was was closely based on a real person, probably with some embellishments and inaccuracies? What books, if any, could I read that explicity discuss Agamemnon's historicity?


texts: What was the status of merchants during the feudal age in Europe? Did they, like peasants, serve/have allegiance to certain land owning lord? If yes, do they have different status or privileges from usual peasants? Or are they free from allegiance? If the latter, how did they become free from feudal lords who were generally powerful?


texts: Where are (records of) historic wildfires?

texts:
Wikipedia's articles on wildfires cover geologic evidence of wildfires through the late Tertiary era, and a large number of articles on individual fires starting around 1900.  Other than a half-dozen articles on fires in the 1800s, there's nothing about wildfires in the rest of human history: neither articles on individual fires nor mentions in larger-coverage articles.

Why not?  I find it hard to believe that there were no disastrous large-scale fires for most of the 6000 years of recorded history.  Europe, China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia aren't exactly the world's most fire-prone locations, but they do have the occasional wildfire.  Further, the Spanish started settling the fire-prone California coast in the late 1600s, and the British settled the even-more-flammable Australia a century later, so this seems unlikely.  Were the fires simply not seen as being worth writing about?


texts: Are modern handguns a major reason for democratization?

texts:
I had a history teacher who argued that a major reason for the fall of the feudal system, was that the knights lost their military superiority because of development in weapon technology (longbow, pike and halberd) and tactical use of these weapons. He also stretched this argument further to say that modern democracies would not have developed now had it not been for the development of cheap and effective handguns that were easy to master and that could be used with great effect by small unorganized groups of ordinary people.

Are modern handguns one of the main reasons why modern democracies have developed? Can this thesis find support in the rise and fall of democracies in the antiquity?