texts: Why exactly eight days of mourning for Prince Philip’s death?

texts:
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh opted out for his state funeral.
Thus, an 8-day mourning period was issued instead in the United Kingdom.
I can’t figure out why that period was determined exactly in eight days (and not, say, seven as in a week, six as half a dozen, twelve, ten etc.).
I looked at Wikipedia:ChristianBurial, but unfortunately it shed no further light on the number of days that Christian tradition allows from death to burial. NewAdvent.org makes the case of “keeping the corpses of important persons for seven days” before performing the burial; it’s sorta clue, IMHO.


texts: Shantyboat communities on the upper Mississippi River Valley

texts:
Does anyone have links or resources beyond books they can direct me to that directly deal with shantyboat communities along the banks of the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri?

I'm interested in exploring, gathering, and archiving oral history around people living on or adjacent to the river.

I've already examined many of the memoirs of people living or traveling in shantyboats in the late 19th up to the mid 20th century. (Which are highly entertaining, by the way.)

And of course I've googled the most obvious resources:

+(shantyboat OR houseboat OR boathouse) mississippi river
 1800..1980 (minnesota OR wisconsin OR illinois OR iowa OR missouri)
 -rental -cruises

Any further suggestions or people I should check in with?

An aside: I don't have the rep to create likely tags, so if you can, feel free: mississippi-river oral-history houseboat communities commons


texts: Why is Finland represented as a Soviet satellite in this 1947 cartoon?

texts: The cartoon is a British one. I found it at http://lenta.ru/articles/2013/05/28/secretwar/ but without any specific attribution.


texts: When the Goths became Roman Mercenaries, who were they tasked to fight, if not the Huns?


texts: A German immigrant ancestor has a "Registration Affidavit of Alien Enemy" on file. What does that mean exactly?

texts:
While researching genealogy, I discovered that one of my ancestors had a "Registration Affidavit of Alien Enemy" document on file. It is dated 1 January 1918 and includes his fingerprints, immigration information (he was a German immigrant), and living situation.

I'm aware that there was anti-German prejudice at the time in the United States due to World War I, which is why he is labeled as an "alien enemy". But I'm unsure as to what this document actually means.

Is it merely stating that he's a German immigrant, without otherwise commenting on him? Is it saying that he was specifically identified as an individual who was hostile to Americans, perhaps through his speech or actions? Was he under individual suspicion for being a German sympathizer?

What does this "Registration Affidavit of Alien Enemy" document actually mean?


texts: What is the best historical example of conflict between two cultures with differing levels of technology?

texts:
Let me start with some background, in fiction authors like to explore situations where the human race meets another civilization. As a rule of thumb both races in one way or another - sometimes after a short period of losing - end up having the same level of technology to be capable of fighting each other. As I was building an argument for how fallacious this plot construction is it occurred to me that even better than logical arguments it would be to consider history, however the only occurrence of such a thing I was able to think of of the top of my mind was the Europeans arriving in america. So I was looking for other documented situations where two more or less isolated cultures had developed with differing levels of (military) technology before meeting.

(I am more than willing to do all the research myself, but getting a starting point has proven hard. For example, I suppose that when the romans where expanding this must have happened as well at some point, but from what I was able to find the requirement of some level of isolation did not seem to occur... or was not documented... And as a last note, I know that any war tends to be won by some level of difference in either technology (including logic) or manpower, but what I am looking for is a vast difference)


texts: In the Middle Ages, adultery was strictly condemned by the Church. How did Kings justify their extra-marital affairs?

texts: In the Middle Ages, it was not uncommon for kings and other nobles to have extra-marital affairs. Sometimes such affairs were semi-public. Even a few Popes (such as Alexander VI) had girlfriends during their papacy. Why did the Catholic church turn a blind eye to this? How did the Kings and Popes justify their behavior?


texts: First-hand sources for medieval urban life in central Europe

texts:
I am a teacher and I would like to do an exercise with my students concerning the urban life in the Middle Ages. I am looking for original, first-hand sources who describe urban life from the 11th century to the end of the 13th century, in central Europe (Flanders and France).

Does anyone know a source from an author who lived in the middle ages himself, describing what society in the cities was like back then?


texts: What effect did the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir have on Great Britain's international relations during WW2?

texts:
The Attack on Mers-el-Kébir/Battle of Mers-el-Kébir was an action that took part between the Royal Navy and the French Navy on July 3rd 1940 that was a result of Winston Churchill ordering that the French Fleet should either join the RN, with or without French crews, or be neutralised.

  It is impossible for us, your comrades up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German enemy. We are determined to fight on until the end, and if we win, as we think we shall, we shall never forget that France was our Ally, that our interests are the same as hers, and that our common enemy is Germany. Should we conquer we solemnly declare that we shall restore the greatness and territory of France. For this purpose we must make sure that the best ships of the French Navy are not used against us by the common foe. In these circumstances, His Majesty's Government have instructed me to demand that the French Fleet now at Mers el Kebir and Oran shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives;

  (a) Sail with us and continue the fight until victory against the Germans.

  (b) Sail with reduced crews under our control to a British port. The reduced crews would be repatriated at the earliest moment.
  If either of these courses is adopted by you we will restore your ships to France at the conclusion of the war or pay full compensation if they are damaged meanwhile.

  (c) Alternatively if you feel bound to stipulate that your ships should not be used against the Germans unless they break the Armistice, then sail them with us with reduced crews to some French port in the West Indies — Martinique for instance — where they can be demilitarised to our satisfaction, or perhaps be entrusted to the United States and remain safe until the end of the war, the crews being repatriated.

  If you refuse these fair offers, I must with profound regret, require you to sink your ships within 6 hours.

  Finally, failing the above, I have the orders from His Majesty's Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into German hands.

As a result of the battle, which the French fleet was not expecting, ~1300 french sailors died, a battleship sunk and 5 other ships damaged (2 British airmen also died).

Admiral James Somerville, RN (the British commander) said the action was:

  “the biggest political blunder of modern times and will rouse the
  whole world against us…we all feel thoroughly ashamed…”

and is further quoted (from a letter written to his wife) as saying:

  “In fact, I shouldn’t be surprised if I was relieved forthwith. I
  don’t mind because it was an absolutely bloody business…The truth is
  my heart wasn’t in it.”

Note: Quotes take from Military History Online.

Admiral Sommerville's quotes show that he personally felt like it was a huge mistake, that GB would regret, but what effect did the action have on Great Britain's international relations? and did it have a lasting impact on Churchill's relationship with Charles de Gaulle?


texts: Has anyone recently seen Chinese old customary greeting pose?

texts:
This may be a personal question ( meaning, coincidentally the conduct of the question has not happened in my life. ).

Fist and Palm Salute ( English ) is the traditional Chinese greeting pose, indicating the one that poses it have no enmity to the peers, but I was born in 1974, ever since in business scene nor informal scene I have never met anyone pose like this. ( Although even in linked page the pose looks like being practiced in modern China. )

Thanks to bukwyrm in the answer, Fist and Palm salute and Hold Fist Salute ( both of which are explained in the link ) are different. So though I watch many, like Jackie Chaen or Jet Li is doing the Hold Fist Salute but it is intended for Kung-Fu fighting.

I am talking about Fist and Palm salute which was already prevalent even in Three Kingdom Age, whose movie is depicting lots of Chinese generals using it back then to say something to his lords. Like this one ( I am sorry it is in Japanese ). ( 2:25~ )

Did the fist and palm salute survive the Mao's Four Olds?

If Semaphore puts is it is more observed in Taiwan not in mainland China, that might indicate something more deep. ( I have only just one been to Taiwan for a trip but did not observe carefully. ))

Out of curiosity, has it ever happened in your life if anyone met Chinese in the past?


texts:
On November 7, 1802, the american trading ship Palmyra, under Captain Cornelius Sawle, was shipwrecked on the reef, which took the vessel's name and now is known as Palmyra Atoll.
Does anybody know the exact reason why the ship itself was named Palmyra? I suppose it was named after some city/town, but I'm not sure. And there are a lot of towns and cities named Palmyra, so it's not clear which one is related to the ship.

Palmyra, Illinois
Palmyra, Indiana
Palmyra, an ancient city in Syria
and so on.

See Wikipedia:Palmyra_Disambiguation for a complete list


texts:
I would like to identify the ship name and origin (from this link)

Addtional info with picture -
Caption: Children evacuated from the interior by boat arriving in Beirut
Year Created: 1922
Source: Near East Foundation archives


texts: Why was the C-pennant chosen as the flag of ships from Allied-occupied Germany?

texts:
Is there any evidence explaining why the Allies chose the C-pennant, instead of a more intuitive letter? Why not G (for Germany) or D (for Deutschland)?

Or A for Allemagne, or S for Sachsa, or N for Německo, P for Purutia, or U for Ubudage, or T for Teutschland, or V for Vācija or F for Frángoi.... I had a look at the article Names of Germany, and 15 out of 26 letters have been the first letter of Germany's name, in some language at some point in time. That's not counting words for a German person, only the country Germany. So, it seems that it wasn't chosen for that reason... if they'd just picked a random letter there was a greater than 50% chance it would have matched up with one of those names!


texts: Were smoke signals used in conflict between European-American and Native Americans?

texts:
Native Americans are known for using smoke signals to communicate messages over long distances.

Were they able to use these to send (encoded) messages to coordinate battle against European-Americans?

Did European-Americans adopt smoke signals to communicate over long distances?


texts: Why did Ottoman Army use camels in the Siege of Vienna 1683?

texts:
I was reading up on Siege of Vienna 1529. I saw a rather curious image with camels in it:

For full resolution image, click here.

I was surprised to see Ottoman Empire using camels in the unfavorable European terrain where the camels were entirely unsuitable for operations.

The wiki article confirms usage of camels in the campaign:

  Many large-calibre cannons and artillery pieces became hopelessly
  mired or bogged down, leaving Suleiman no choice but to abandon them,
  while camels brought from the empire's Eastern provinces, unused to the difficult conditions, were lost in large numbers. Sickness and
  poor health became common among the janissaries, claiming many lives
  along the perilous journey.

So not only does this prove that Camels were indeed used in the campaign but also that the results were disastrous.

So I thought maybe Ottomans learnt the lessons from this campaign. But I was surprised to see that Camels were again used in the Siege of Vienna 1683.

This is attested by testimony of King John Sobieski of Poland in the aftermath of the battle:

  Ours are treasures unheard of . . . tents, sheep, cattle and no
  small number of camels . . . it is victory as nobody ever knew
  before, the enemy now completely ruined, everything lost for them.
  They must run for their sheer lives . . . General Starhemberg hugged
  and kissed me and called me his saviour

It is also attested by archaeological finds of remains of 17th century Camels in Vienna.

Why did Ottomans use Camels again when they had been proven to be unsuitable to European theaters (In regards to both climate and terrain) in the first attempt to take Vienna?

I can come up with the following explanations:

I am mistakenly judging effectiveness of Camels by one campaign. They may have been effective normally, hence leading to Ottoman reliance upon them.
Ottomans had no other or not enough alternative beasts of burden to replace Camels or perhaps preferred the alternatives such as horses to be used by their cavalry.
Ottomans simply didn't learn any lessons from 1529 campaign.


texts: Is there any documentation on the creation of Article 1 Section II of the US constitution

texts:
I'm doing some personal research on the electoral college as it has been becoming more and more relevant in modern US elections. I've seen tons of people talking about how it was designed to protect small or slave states, however when examining James Madison's notes from September 4th, the day it was debated, all of the discussion seemed to be over how it protects from total control by the legislature and corruption. I was wondering if there was a primary source to look at that would explain somewhat the reasoning behind giving each state the same number of electors as senators and representatives combined, as that seems to be something already decided on by the first time it is proposed. I am by no means a constitutional scholar and have not read the full text of Madison's notes as of yet, so I may have overlooked an obvious answer.

Just to clarify, I am not looking for someone explaining that the electoral college was put in place because of difficulty taking a true popular vote, or to protect the people against ignorance, nor am I looking for someone to explain the three-fifths compromise. I am looking for an explanation as to why the number of electors is not directly tied to the population of the state.

Thanks!


texts: What (primary) sources are there on the life of female slaves in Classical Greece, more specifically Athens?

texts:
Since there was often a difference in what jobs male and female slaves were respectively made to work in (and there even being one exclusive to women, being a wet nurse), I was wondering whether, for example, female slaves were viewed and treated differently, whether they had, as would be my guess, a lesser chance of manumission, and how we would know about such things, meaning what primary sources do we have on female slaves specifically?

Off the top of my head I could only think of the inscription chronicling the "Sale of property confiscated from those condemned for mutilating the Herms and profaning the Mysteries" (IG I3 421), which included a list of slaves formerly belonging to the metic Kephisodoros, and named, next to price and taxes, the region they came from, at times their age, and their gender. But the price didn't seem to depend on gender all that much (correct me if I'm wrong). Other than that I thought of Aristotle's writings, but, unless I overlooked something, they mostly mention female slaves in passing.

I'd be most interested in sources from and about Athens in the Classical period (480 - 332 BC), but I'd love to read about the other city states as well, especially in comparison to Athens.

Thanks a lot :)


texts: Light cavalry in medieval western Europe?

texts:
What sorts of light cavalry were there in high (1300s) medieval western Europe (England and France)? I mean more like non ranged troops. I know that all soldiers likely owned a horse for transport, but were there any lighter types of cavalry that were perhaps used to harass, pursue, take down light infantry, etc?
Were poorer knights and men-at-arms (who could maybe only afford a mail coat) perhaps organized into a separate battle to the heavily armoured, well equipped ones?


texts: Has the United States paid US dollars as reparations to children other than a "child" of Japanese American internees during World War II?

texts:
Has the United States officially paid reparations in the form of US dollars to any parties that were a "child"

"Civil Liberties Act of 1988" (PUBLIC LAW 100-383—AUG. 10,1988; Public Law 100-383, 100th Congress; 102 Stat. 903. Public Section 105. Restitution. (a)(7)(C)(ii))

  a "child" of an eligible individual includes a recognized natural
  child, a stepchild who lived with the eligible individual in a regular
  parent-child relationship, and an adopted child

other than the children of an eligible individual who suffered

  the fundamental injustice of the evacuation, relocation, and
  internment of United States citizens and permanent resident aliens of
  Japanese ancestry during World War II

?


texts: What was the outcome of the first tank battle?

texts:
Today, April 24th, is the anniversary of the first tank battle. As noted on this Wikipedia page, it was three British tanks against three German tanks, but there is no mention of the outcome in specific regards to the tanks themselves.

Are there any accounts of the battle specifically focusing on the armored elements?


texts: Was the US dollar, the Soviet reserve currency too?

texts:
Was the Soviet rouble also backed by the US dollar, which was the global reserve currency at the time?
I remember reading something about Soviets taking aid from the US, in the 1970s, after Soviet crops were devastated.


texts: How was Chinese Communism connected to the New Culture Movement?

texts: Looking for ways that the New Culture Movement was associated with Chinese Communism or the Chinese Communist Party.


texts: Did electric weapons exist in Russia in the 1920s?

texts:
Reading "The fatal eggs" by Bulgakov, I was surprised by his reference to "electric revolvers". The novel is science fiction, but it is very much Jurassic park style. It plays in contemporary (for the publication) Russia, and there is just one unusual scientific discovery which creates an apocalyptic scene.

The electric revolvers are mentioned in passing, and don't feel like a literary device of an alternate universe. They just seem a forgettable part of the scenery. As far as I can tell, no other part of the context is unusual for the times. Some things are satirically exaggerated (the professor's expectations of his students) but all other technology mentioned, with exception of the mysterious natural phenomenon at the center of the plot, feel normal for the time.

Did they have electric weapons back then? If yes, how widespread were they - just prototypes, or some exotic-but-known technology like segways today, or were they even in wider use?

Note that while the inspiration for the question came through the book, I'm still interested in knowing whether they had access to any kind of working electric personal weapon back then, not only in knowing whether the type mentioned in the book is realistic.


texts: How would American foreigners have been treated by Mexico shortly after the beginning of WWII?

texts:
I am curious to know what everyday life might have been like for a trio of American foreigners in the northern, near-border regions of Mexico during the early days of World War Two. Specifically, I am interested in knowing how they would have been treated by the people and the government.

Note: This information is for a WWII-era RPG i'm GMing in which the players have decided to evade drafting by fleeing to Mexico (go figure).


texts: How much support did America give to the scientists working on the Manhattan Project?

texts:
How much support did America give to the scientists working on the Manhattan Project, be it financial or otherwise?

Did physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer who headed the project to develop the atomic bomb get whatever he asked for? As for the likes of Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi who built the first nuclear reactor, I understand they received some financial help before the Manhattan Project started, what about after?.


texts: In Golf history, why is Musselburgh considered the first course, when St. Andrews was where golf was first played?

texts: As the title states, Musselburgh Links is widely considered to be the first golf course, but it's also widely acknowledged that the game was invented at St. Andrews.  This disparity doesn't quite make sense.  Can anyone shed some light on the issue?


texts: Which country has been credited with the most regime changes, by historians, since 1900?

texts:
I recently discussed with an acquaintance of mine about the Russian interference in the USA presidential elections of 2016. Our discussion was more focus on the IT aspects of the saga but at one point during the discussion he stated that since the beginning of the previous century, the USA has been involved in more regime change than any other country in the world. Following this I decided to gather information to confirm/refute this and I rapidly found this list. I was aware of the most notable regime changes like the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, the 1973 Chilean coup d'état but I was surprised to find 80 entries since 1900. On the Russia side, the list contains 44 entries since 1900 which is still a high number but it is nearly twice less compare to the USA over the same period. I went rapidly through both articles and the sources mentioned seem correct. I'm lacking information regarding other countries like colonial states for example (UK or France to name few). They can be good candidates like illustrated in this question but I'm completely ignorant regarding this aspect of history. So here is the point that needs to be assessed :
Have the USA been involved in more regime change than any other country in the world since 1900 ?
To answer the question I think that the following scope is nice : both overt and covert actions aimed at altering, replacing, or preserving foreign governments.


texts: Can anyone tell me anything about the markings on these shell casings?

texts: These shell casings have been passed down. Can anyone tell me anything about the markings?


texts: What post-photographic 19th US century dark skirted stripe embroidered jacket, hard brim and top forage cap, light trousers, sword uniform is this?

texts:
What US uniform is this?

Post-photographic 19th US century dark skirted stripe embroidered jacket, hard brim and top forage cap, light trousers, sword.

(click to enlarge; picture purchased as part of an album from Pennsylvania)


texts: Did countries use insurance to compensate for their economic losses after the Black Death/Spanish flu/Asian flu?

texts:
The first insurance contracts as we know them today appeared between the 12th and 13th centuries in Italy. The Florentine chronicler Giovani Villani asserts that insurance originated in Lombardy in 1182. Modern historians place its birth between 1239 and 1245. It has been shown that insurance was known in Bruges in 1310 and in Genoa in 1329. Middle - Age, premature death thus gave rise to insurance terms that had passed before a notary which prefigured life insurance.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance#L'assurance_au_Moyen_%C3%82ge

Did countries use insurance to compensate for their economic losses after the Black Death (1352)?
I would be interested to know how they managed to compensate for the economic losses. If the quote is not correct, what other systems that could might look like what is called "insurance" today to offset losses from this pandemic?
So according to the sources and your answers, insurance in the Middle Ages was primarily maritime for trade.
And according to this page : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance
except for Germany, health insurance was created for the majority after the 1930s. Would that mean, if we remain in the context of pandemics, that insurance has not had no effect on the Spanish flu too?
If you have any information that deals with the same problem for the Asian Flu (1957), I'm interested.


texts: Did any U.S. states or cities (outside of New York) ever make a decision to construct nuclear fallout shelters for their population?

texts:
According to this Wikipedia article on fallout shelters

  Germany has protected shelters for 3% of its population, Austria for
  30%, Finland for 70%, Sweden for 81% and Switzerland for 114%

Above statement references an article on swissinfo.ch that can be found here in English.

Above Wikipedia article also mentions a plan in USA to shelter millions of people. The article states (under the heading "North America"):

  In November 1961, in Fortune magazine, an article by Gilbert Burck
  appeared that outlined the plans of Nelson Rockefeller, Edward Teller,
  Herman Kahn, and Chet Holifield for an enormous network of concrete
  lined underground fallout shelters throughout the United States
  sufficient to shelter millions of people to serve as a refuge in case
  of nuclear war.

The Wikipedia article does not state whether construction on above shelters was ever started. The next sentence just says that:

  The United States ended federal funding for the shelters in the 1970s.

Above sentence is sourced from this article at cnbc.com. My reason for excluding New York from this question is because this CNBC article does explain that New York did (in the past) have fallout shelters to house up to 11 million people.

Did any U.S. states or cities outside of New York ever make a decision to build fallout shelters for their population?


texts: Where did the SOE agents sit in the 161 squadron Short Stirlings?

texts:
If this question is better suited for a more aviation-oriented forum, please let me know.

During World War II SOE agents were dropped into occupied Europe by No. 161 squadron of the RAF. This squadron used the Short Stirling bomber up until March 1945.

In the Short Stirling, the pilots were separated from the flight engineer and wireless operator. There is also this picture on Wikipedia, which appears to show the interior of a modified Short Stirling that could carry passengers?

My question would be: In a typical 161 squadron mission, where in the Short Stirling would the agent(s) be located?

EDIT: I've reposted this question to Aviation Stackexchange and have received an answer there.


texts: How educated were the clergy during the Medieval period?

texts:
I understand that Latin was common language of clergy in Medieval times. I presume that bishops could read and write. There were also some monks responsible of copying books.

What about "normal" priests, those that wikipedia refers to as the "lower half" of the first estate? intended to work among common people, for example peasants? Did they get any education? If yes, was this education only in Latin and theology or something more?

I read this answer, but this refers more to Renaissance.


texts: Why are the Portuguese so obsessed with salted codfish?

texts:
Portugal nowadays catches only a small amount of codfish annually but imports huge amounts (especially from Norway), sometimes already salted, sometimes not.

Salted cod or bacalhau is a very common dish in whole Portugal and it is said that there exists at least one recipe for each day of the year. In the supermarkets it is a very common sight as well:

From Wikipedia

What is the historical context of eating cod, and especially salted cod? And why so much? The Spaniard's favorite fish seems to be hake nowadays, why do the Portuguese still stick with this elaborate preparation of this fish?


texts: Did Heydrich actually take orders from Himmler?

texts: Formally, as head of the RHSA, Reinhard Heydrich was Himmler's subordinate. But did he actually take orders from Himmler, or was he effectively independent?


texts: Where can I find history of Pune or `Peshwa's`?

texts:
Where can I find the history of pune or Peshwa's?

Links on Wikipedia are not enough, Please explain or paste link in answers.

To be more descriptive :
 1. Who were peshwas ?
 2. When did they exist?
 3. How did they fall, if they fell?
 4. How many years did they rule?
 5. What was relation of British-empire and Peshwas?
 6. How was this community formed?
 7. Significance
    i. Political Significance

Please help me understand this.


texts: Did collective punishment of families occur during the French Revolution?

texts:
In his classic work of historical fiction, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens suggests that family members of those sentenced to death by the various tribunals were themselves targeted for execution, if for no other reason than kinship.

To what degree was extending punishments to familial relations who would not have been indicted otherwise practiced during the French Revolution? What was the extent in numerical terms, supposing such data are available from the records of the condemned?


texts: What degree of choice did slaves have over their sexual autonomy?

texts:
What degree of choice did chattel slaves in the United States of America1have over their sexual autonomy?

Was this codified in any law?

1. Assuming scope is the USA, given the source of the Roots TV series, stated by the OP.


texts: Why is Europe so cluttered with countries?

texts: There are much more countries with smaller area in Europe than any other continent. Why is that?


texts: Sources for historical information about the life and career of Basil Zaharoff?

texts:
Basil Zaharoff seems to me to be a quite mysterious figure from World War One. He was a Greek arms dealer and industrialist who sold weapons and ammunition systems to both the sides in the war, and was one of the richest men of his day.

Are there any good books or historical documents that describe his life and career. In particular, I'm interested in his role during the First World War. Information about his personal life would also be of interest.


texts:
I'm a total novice in humanities and I want to start learning world history. Which do you guys recommend (looking for introductory and didactic books).

Thank's in advance


texts: Why could George Washington and the revolutionaries not stop Governor Tryon in New York Harbor?

texts:
On October 19, 1775, New York Governor Tryon fled the city and took refuge in the harbor, first on the British ship Halifax, then later on the Duchess of Gordon [1] [2] [3].  The book "The First Conspiracy" describes how he coordinated spies and resistance from those ships.

Why could the Patriots (American revolutionaries) not somehow neutralize Tryon?  Was it military strength, did they just not have sophisticated notions of counter-intelligence and guerrilla warfare, or some other reason?

EDIT: Timeline, for discussion.

April 1775: British and militia forces clash
June 1775: Continental Congress establishes the Continental Army (June 14), and appoints George Washington commander (June 15).
October 19, 1775: Tryon flees to the Halifax
July 4, 1776: Declaration of Independence is adopted.


texts: What was the fate of most SS members after World War II?

texts: What happened to most of the members of the SS after the war? Were they punished?


texts: In what year did Charles Proteus Steinmetz fix Ford's Generator for the famed $10,000 invoice?

texts:
Charles Proteus Steinmetz is the protagonist of an interesting tale about fixing a generator at Ford's plant. Unfortunately the Smithsonian Magazine does not state the year in which the incident happened. Some googling around also did not reveal the date.

In what year did  it happen?
How much the $10,000 invoice would cost in February 2018 figures?


texts: How were combat medics assigned to their divisions?

texts:
I'm a little confused on how combat medics were transferred around. I've heard that often times medics weren't given much more than basic medical training (while others were able to be given thorough training- just depends on what point in the war we were).

So I'm wondering, since divisions like paratroopers had specific training they had to undergo together as a company, at what point was the medic assigned to this company?

In general, I can't seem to find much about what kind of training combat medics went through (as people who simply put themselves as non-combatants or put it as their preferred area of the army, not people who're involved with it in civilian life).

(My sources would be "Medic!" by Robert Franklin and "Doctor Danger Forward" by Allen N. Towne- both excellent reads)


texts:
If you were arrested in Victorian England, and the offense was 'bailable' (i.e. too severe) you could get bail and not be stuck behind bars until your trial.

In the period, did you have to hand over cash? Or could you offer bonds, or your watch or diamond necklace?

Nowadays your friends/family can post surety for you. (Julian Assange's friends did for him, and then had to cough up when he took asylum in an Embassy.) Could your wife do it, or were women not allowed to do that sort of thing in Victorian times?

I would love to find an historical account similar to Assange's.


texts: Before 1980, was there ever an attempt to evangelise for Orthodox Christianity?

texts:
The adherents of Protestantism and Catholicism have evangelised across the world. Did Orthodox churches try to spread their religion in a similar way?

Did the Byzantines or Russians try to convert their conquered subjects to Orthodoxy? Did they send missionaries beyond their borders to spread the gospel?

I chose 'before 1980' because in the internet age, you can find someone to say anything. Just my attempt to filter out 'one dude with a website' who says we should all be Orthodox.


texts: How were Chinese Communist POWs treated after the civil war?

texts:
I was watching the film ‘The Assembly’ and the opening scene involved a battle where Chinese Nationalist troops had surrounded a group of Chinese Communists and were about to overrun them. Before the assault, the Chinese Nationalist commander offered the surrounded Communist troops a chance to surrender. They refused and successfully fought off the assault.

This scene made me wonder about what happened to Chinese Communist troops after the civil war who chose to surrender to the Nationalists during the conflict. Did the majority flee China with the Nationalists? Did the Nationalists use Chinese Communist POWs as part of prisoner exchange deals with the mainland Communist regime? Did Chinese Communist POWs simply shift back into main land Chinese society quietly, with the Communist government choosing to look the other way, so long as they kept a low profile? Or did the Chinese Communist regime treat POWs of the Nationalists very harshly, regardless of the circumstances of their capture, and subject them to some kind of “re-education” process? Finally, were Chinese Communist POWs of the Japanese treated differently altogether?


texts: Why, even, various developed countries faced Coup D'etat, Dictatorship and/or Civil War but India didn't?

texts:
Various countries even that have highly developed democracy, economy and knowledge-based society faced Coup D'etat, Dictatorship and/or Civil War.

India was an underdeveloped society, economy and had a history of colonial rule.

Why didn't India face any Coup D'etat/Dictatorship/Civil War?

What factors were active to save Indian democracy from any of those anomalies?

Or, is it their religion/culture/just the nature of the people?


texts: What made Washington DC "dominate" politics in the USA?

texts: Through history what role did Washington, DC play to become important and influence the US political system, and did it change its influence with time?


texts:
This paper contains the following remark:

  Recruits were then marched off, without proper care, to a destination
  that might be hundreds of miles away; initially they were branded and
  even chained.

Is it true that Russian recruits were at one time chained and branded? When? When did this practice stop?


texts: Why do minor political parties in the US receive so few votes?

texts:
Reading about the election statistics in the United States I was amazed about how few votes are received by the minor parties and their candidates.

For example, Gloria La Riva received only 181 votes in a country of 300-million registered voters for the presidential elections in 1992. I suspect this only marginally exceeds the number of her friends and relatives.

I am quite sure that nothing similar could happen in most other voting cultures. If a person is registered as a presidential candidate and is on the list, they no doubt will receive at least several hundreds of thousands of votes no matter how unpopular or unknown he or she is.

This is because of the following factors:

Protest voting: people who do not like the major candidates may vote for somebody unknown so to signal their protest
Confusion: somebody confused the candidate with another public figure due to a similarity in the name
Solidarity: people from the same geographical area, town or the same ethnic, religious background or the same profession or the same sex may vote for an unknown candidate just due to some background similarity. People of the same neighbourhood usually are well aware of "their" candidate even if he did not receive federal media coverage.
Random voting: people just vote for somebody with a funny name or happy number in the list
Biography readers: some elderly people in many countries still retain their a habit of thoroughly reading the candidate's biography, usually listed at the voting place and if they like they can vote despite any TV advertisement
Just mistakes: a person wanted to vote for another candidate but mistakenly selected this one. Or a mistake during the counting.

So I wonder why these factors do not have any force in the US. To me it seems completely unrealistic and fantastic that a person included in the federal presidential list can earn so few votes.


texts: Why did the US pay money to the losers, at the end of both Barbary wars?

texts:
According to Wikipedia, the US decisively won both Barbary wars and could press on if they wanted to. However, they signed peace treaties, which incredibly granted to the loser a significant sum of money. I'm quite astonished by that: why in the world would the winning side pay money to the losing side? Especially since that war was about money (tributes) in the first place?

Sure, I'm not the only one who was surprised by such an apparent nonsense, as the article itself suggest, William Eaton had similar feelings and was ignored. However, this was apparently accepted by most as normal, and I've no clue why.


texts: During WW2, why did the USA occupy Clipperton Island?

texts:
Clipperton Island is a little place southwest of Mexico. It is a very small island, owned by France, but I'm not sure if anyone inhabited it at the time of WW2.

Wikipedia says the US occupied this island from 1944 to 1945, but doesn't have a citation. I've seen other websites say it started and ended in 1945.

My question is why? And why 1944? If they wanted to protect it from the Japanese, they were about 3 years late.


texts: What are the various theories behind why Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered Sen no Rikyu to commit suicide?

texts:
From wikipedia:

  Although Rikyū had been one of Hideyoshi's closest confidants, because of crucial differences of opinion and other reasons which remain uncertain, Hideyoshi ordered him to commit ritual suicide. While Hideyoshi's reason may never be known for certain, it is known that Rikyū committed seppuku at his residence within Hideyoshi's Jurakudai villa in Kyoto in 1591 on the 28th day of the 2nd month (of the traditional Japanese lunar calendar; or April 21 when calculated according to the modern Gregorian calendar), at the age of seventy.[3][13]

"Crucial differences of opinion."- What opinion(s) was that? Is there any updates to, "While Hideyoshi's reason may never be known"? Is there more information or interesting history to this other than the few sentence on his wikipedia page, or the one sentence on Hideyoshi's page:

  In February 1591, Hideyoshi ordered Sen no Rikyū to commit suicide.[23] Rikyū had been a trusted retainer and master of the tea ceremony under both Hideyoshi and Nobunaga


texts: When did one-way mirrors become widely used by police?

texts:
Watching the BBC TV series "Life on Mars", the premise of which is that a time-travelling cop from 2000s England is transported back in time to the 1970s, where he is continually confounded by the politically-incorrect nature of policing at that time.
In one of the scenes, he is surprised to discover that one-way mirrors for police line-ups weren't in use then.  Is this true?  I always thought that one-way mirrors had been widely used by the police for this purpose for many decades.


texts: Could Egyptian hieroglyphs accurately record conversational day-to-day discussion?

texts:
Whenever I see Hieroglyphs reproduced and read the translation provided it always strikes me that the text appears very stilted and un-natural.

Could hieroglyphs be used to transcribe a normal conversation? Could a scribe accurately reproduce conversation or speech with word for word accuracy? Or is the language only really suited for royal proclamations and formal documents?


texts: Why was the Jay Treaty so hated by the American public? I've read that many people hated it, but I don't understand why. It ensured the United States would get back forts that had been taken by Britain and kept after the Revolution, strengthened trade, made sure that the US wasn't caught up in a war with some of the most powerful countries in the world, etc. Why didn't people like it?


texts: Is individual level data from British India censuses (1881 - 1941) available?

texts: If not, was there ever a record of this available? What happened to these records? If available, where can I find them?


texts: Cultural understanding of Penelope's suitors

texts:
In the Odyssey, Penelope is courted by 108 suitors, who camp out in her house/royal court indefinitely, behaving badly, while she delays them. I'm having trouble understanding the historical and cultural context here. Is enough known about the culture of Homeric Greece to definitively explain what's going on, or is it subject to interpretation? It seems clear that the suitors have an understandable motive (to take over the kingdom of Ithaca). It's less clear to me whether their behavior is meant to be seen as a total violation of cultural norms, or what norms might be violated. Features of the story such as the great length of time and the large number of suitors seem like exaggerations for effect, but are the aberrations meant to excite horror in the listener, or are they just exaggerated versions of plausible events when a queen was widowed?

The suitors end up getting killed, which is seen as just. In this culture, do they deserve death simply because they persistently courted Penelope, or because they abused her hospitality, or because of their separate misdeeds, such as the plot led by Antinous to murder Telemachus?

Does Penelope fail to eject them because she lacks the physical power, because she lacks the legal and political authority, or because she's behaving as an exaggerated model of hospitality?

Hospitality is a virtue that was much admired in the ancient world and is modeled by Telemachus in his interaction with Athena. If great hospitality is seen as an obligation of a rich noblewoman, then is she enhancing her legitimacy by showing such extreme hospitality?

If her problem is lack of physical power, does this imply that the entire kingdom of Ithaca is completely undefended simply because one man, the king, is dead or absent? Wouldn't Odysseus have made provisions for the security of his kingdom, court, and family before leaving for Troy? If Penelope wanted to kick the suitors out, could she appeal to her slaves to help her with physical force, or would that be out of the question culturally (cf. Confederate horror at freedmen fighting for the Union)? Would the suitors have weapons, armor, and training that would make it difficult for non-nobles to eject them by force?


texts:
In the Aubrey Maturin series of novels, there are at least two scenes where the protagonists are challenged to a duel:

Post-Captain - Aubrey and Maturin about Aubrey's reputation with the Admiralty
HMS Surprise - Stephen challenges another lover of Diana Villers to a duel

Now these novels are set in the period of English History [1800-1815] and are generally regarded to be meticulously researched historical fiction.

It seems to me that challenging another man to a duel (apart from being illegal), is no longer a part of English culture.

My question is: When did challenging to a duel cease to be a practice in English culture?


texts: Help identify details from a Soviet military uniform?

texts:
My family on my great-grandfather's side came from Romania and I have a picture of one of his brothers in a soviet military uniform.

I know nothing of his involvement in the military and was hoping by posting a picture of him in his uniform, someone could discern some meaning from it such as what branch he was a part of or his rank. This ancestor was born about 1899 if that helps. I don't know exactly when the photo was taken.


texts: Did the turret shown in this picture belong to a German battleship?

texts:
As @Lennart Regebro observed in an answer to another question, while the gun turret shown in the picture above is claimed to be German and from WWI, it doesn't look like German gun turrets.

Yet, @jwenting, too, agreeing with Lennart Regebro, added that the design of that turret does not conform to neither WW1 nor WW2 German capital ship turrets and pointed out that that piece did not even belong to a battleship.

So, incidentaly, it is arosed an interesting discussion that, as far as I can tell, deserves a new topic and, hence, the following question.

Can anybody show or indicate a reliable reference explaing whether that turret belonged, as it is claimed elsewhere, to a German battleship?


texts: Has this newspaper printed the wrong picture (as well as a baffling caption)?

texts:
Yesterday's Daily Express decorated its WW1 piece with a picture and caption. Link to the story here.

It was picked up on Twitter by @philipoltermann:

  Missed this at the time: Express invents new WW1 front between Kiel
  and imaginary town "Pohlberg"
  http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/423087/Don-t-mention-the-war-Meddling-Germans-tell-us-how-to-mark-the-centenary

As @philipoltermann points out there was surely no fighting near Kiel during WW1 (except perhaps for revolts/mutinies within Germany's armed forces) and where or what is "Pohlberg"? The "Kiel-Pohlberg battlefront"?

But leaving aside the caption is this picture even WW1? Helmets and kit look suspiciously WW2 era.

Can anyone confirm?


texts: When did Europeans realize Native Americans had weaker immunity to Old World diseases?

texts:
The question is fairly simple: when did Europeans come to a general knowledge that the Native Americans had weak immunity specifically to Old World diseases?

I'm looking for the first person to notice this as well as when this knowledge was known to at a large group of Europeans.


texts: Was there a contingency plan in place if Little Boy failed to detonate?

texts:
It's August 6th, 1945.  The first atomic bomb ever dropped hurtles to the ground.  Its fuse fails and with a thunk it buries itself in the ground.  The Enola Gay flies home, its crew worried they did something wrong.

Now the brass back in Washington have a problem; they just hand delivered an atomic bomb to their desperate enemies, and it might be easy to repair.

I couldn't find any contingencies about it, but I'm also not a professionally trained historian with access to primary sources. I did find plans, which were abandoned, for building a giant concrete containment vessel around the Trinity device in case that failed to completely detonate, so they could save the uranium.

My question is, what, if anything was their plan for this situation?


texts: How were interracial relationships between African-Americans and Latinos treated in Southern states before the Loving decision?

texts:
There are two states in the American south that historically had large numbers of both African-Americans and Latinos, as well as laws banning marriage between black people and white people: Texas and Florida. However, as far as I know, the laws only disallowed marriage between African-Americans and Anglo-Americans. How were these laws applied to the local Latino populations? Were these anti-miscegenation laws applied if a white Cuban wanted to marry an African-American? How were brown Latinos treated?

I know that in other states, like New York, that had no anti-miscegenation as well as large numbers of Latinos and African-Americans it was common for the two groups to get married; because they were forced to live in a lot of the same neighbourhoods. Were Latinos in Texas and Florida in the same situation?


texts: When and why did smiling at strangers and in photos become customary in the United States?

texts:
In the US, in my experience, it's customary to smile when meeting a stranger. Even in an interaction as casual as passing someone in the street without a word, a smile is normal and expected.

In other countries this is not the case. For example in Russia, smiling at a stranger is seen as odd and possibly suspicious.

In the US people also typically smile in photographs, often irrespective of what their expression was before they saw the camera. In Russia, they don't.

In very old US photographs people seldom smiled, although this could be explained by the difficulty of maintaining a smile through the lengthy exposure process.

When did smiling become the norm in the United States, and why did it happen? Or, when and why did smiling fall out of fashion elsewhere?


texts: What is the difference between a typescript and manuscript?

texts:
I'm looking through a finding guide that uses a few abbreviations:

Ts (typescript)
Ms (manuscript)
Tss (typescript, signed)
AMs (autographed—written by author—manuscript)
AMss (autographed manuscript, signed)

Is the difference between a manuscript and typescript mainly that manuscripts are always handwritten and typescripts are always typed?


texts: Moving day in Paris, France in the 19th century

texts:
Is it true that rental agreements or leases in Paris France all used to start/end on the same day? I think this would have been in the mid/late 19th century or earlier. I know Quebec, Canada had a similar setup at one time

Apparently the day was chaotic what with the demand for wagons or trucks to move furniture etc. My question relates to checking out provenance for a French Armoire with unique 'knock-down' features.

Any specifics appreciated.


texts: is this a correct ottoman map in year 1803m

texts:
I found this map on the internet .. in the comments many people said it might be wrong.

  1-The name of the countries are wrong  with wrong border.

  2-Its too accurate.

  3-Its not arabic language either its not ottoman.

This is the most critics about the map.

So is this map correct ?

I think its not because the name of the countries. But what about the accuracy and its langauge


texts: How did commoners in late medieval to early modern Europe learn to read?

texts:
Literacy in the early Middle Ages was very low, but as I recall, by the time of Reformation quite a lot of commoners could read. Even if they were not very good in reading and writing, by the 17th century many had a copy of the Bible they could read, as well as pamphlets posted on important occasions, etc.

How did they learn to read? Compulsory and state-founded primary education emerged mostly after this period, so who taught the peasants of 15th and 16th centuries how to read?


texts: Obviously she eventually became pharaoh/queen, but as the daughter of the king was she technically a princess?


texts:
I've always been very much interested in the origin of these people and the way they served Iran. However, the origin and fate of these people has always been a mystery for me and despite reading about them I couldn't get my answers. Therefore I pose my questions about them here:

Origin of Parthians: As far as I know they were the third wave of Iranians who reached the Iranian plateau. However, despite them being depicted in base-reliefs of Persepolis, they seem somehow "absent" during the era of the Achaemenid Empire (in the sense that there are not mentioned as the glorious warriors who appeared later in facing Romans). Do we know if they were really absent in the sense of not many of them living under Achaemenid rule?
Seen as Persians?: Later, after the collapse of the empire they somehow got absorbed into the Sassanian court in the sense that they maintained the Seven Parthian clans as part of their feudal aristocracy. But back then were they seen as Persians? Like was it different to live in the Sassanian empire as a Parthian man or as a Persian man?
Where are they now?: After the muslim invasion, the persians were defending their lands side by side with parthians but step by step they had to go deeper into the eastern lands of the empire as they were receiving defeats after defeats. But then after the final fall of the Sassanids, the parthians also disappeared with them from the historical texts (I know this sentence is not fully accurate but to me it seems as if they finally somehow merged with the persians into one). So the question is: where are they now? are they Tajiks or some Afgans? or are they simply reffered to as Persians nowadays?

Please let me know if some parts of the questions have to be put in a more accurate way.


texts: What is this military patch with the silhouette of a pegasus on it?

texts: I found this patch among my grandfather's things.  I know it's a military patch of some sort because it was with his war memorabilia.  He served in the European theater during WWII, if that helps at all.  Can someone identify this unit patch?


texts: Why does the word "al-Ahmar" appear in the name of ibn al-Ahmar?

texts:
Muhammad I of Granada, the founder the last Spanish Muslim kingdom, was also known by the name "Ibn al-Ahmar" ("son of al-Ahmar") The dynasty he founded, the Nasrid dynasty, was also known as "Banu al-Ahmar" ("children of al-Ahmar").

It seems that ''ahmar'' simply means "red" in Arabic. How did Muhammad I and the dynasty come to be associated with these names?


texts: Did the Netherlands join the anti-Japanese oil embargo later than US? If so why?

texts:
From Wikipedia's Dutch East Indies Campaign:

  President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order on 26 July 1941 which froze all of Japan's U.S. assets and embargoed all oil exports to Japan. In addition, the Dutch government in exile, at the urging of the Allies and with the support of Queen Wilhelmina, broke its economic treaty with Japan and joined the embargo in August.

But...from Wikipedia's Events Leading to Pearl Harbor:

  Responding to Japanese occupation of key airfields in Indochina (July 24) following an agreement between Japan and Vichy France, the U.S. froze Japanese assets on July 26, 1941, and on August 1 established an embargo on oil and gasoline exports to Japan.

Both of those articles have citations. So now I'm left wondering exactly when the oil embargo happened. Jly 26? Aug 01? Some other date? And did the Netherlands really join late?

That really piques my curiosity. Why would the Netherlands government join such an embargo late? Surely they were informed and requested to join it in the first place. Otherwise the oil embargo from America wouldn't have accomplished much. Indonesia had more than enough oil for Japan's needs (indeed, that's why they invaded).


texts: Is it true that slavery was endemic in Sub-Saharan Africa previous to the establishment of the trans-Atlantic slave trade?

texts:
Stefan Molyneux claims in The Truth About The Crusades that:

  Islam dominated slave trade between the 7th and the 15th century,
  while the Christians entered the market of human flesh much later -
  1519 to 1815 is the period of Christian slave trading.

Apart from the conflating verbiage (Muslim traders might have dominated the slave trade, but it is hard to believe that the religion itself had a direct interest in it; the trans-Atlantic slave trade was certainly dominated by Christian traders, but that hardly makes it a "Christian slave trade"), is there any substance for such claim?

He also claims in The Truth about Slavery: Past, Present and Future that:

  Slavery was indigenous to African and Arab countries before it made
  its way to Europe.

Besides the obvious fact that slavery was thriving in Europe (Greece, Rome) before Islam or Christianity even existed, is there any truth to the claim that slavery was reintroduced to Europe in the 16th century, following (or even directly caused by) its expansion in the Muslim world?


texts: Why did Europe not see Roman-era numbers of men participating in battles until the 17th century?

texts:
Typical decisive battles in Roman times involve 4+ legions - around 20,000 men + auxiliaries giving a total of about 30,000 men, on the Roman side only. Battles in even the late middle ages and early modern age typically involve 30,000 men in total. Even Alexander the Great mustered over 40,000 men in tiny Greece with an estimated population of 3,000,000 whereas mighty France with an estimated population of 13,000,000 in the years before the black plague could only barely match that number at Crecy.

Given the increase in population over 1,500 years later, why did the early modern world not see more battles of ancient classical scale?


texts: Were the Germans quoting Hamlet to describe their existential struggle in the Great War?

texts:
To illustrate how the Great War came to be viewed increasingly by Germans as an existential struggle, Max Hastings, in his Catastrophe: 1914: Europe Goes to War (p. 542), describes how

The words sein oder nichtsein — 'to be or not to be' - were
constantly on people's lips.

Does this phrase, as implied, enter the German language from Hamlet? Were the Germans indeed quoting Shakespeare as they fought the British? Or does the phase have an independent origin — if not in English, at least in German?


texts: What type of warship is this (likely WW2)?

texts:
I know it's not much to go on, but can anyone identify the type of vessel in the photo?
Being officers, there is no cap tally for me to try and zoom in on.


texts: Why did Catholic church wait for 350 years to accept "Galileo's idea"?

texts:
In 1992 Pope John Paul II officially conceded that the Earth was not stationary - it revolved around the sun

The time that took to be accepted Galileo was right about the kind of relationship between the earth and the sun makes a question about the reason! Was it a political reaction by the Pope to be more popular or a symbolic reaction by the church to try to compensate its dark history or not a real reaction that had not happened before because of church's doubts?


texts: How did the forces required for invading Norway compare to those actually used for invading North Africa?

texts:
During World War II, Churchill envisioned a possible Allied invasion of northern Norway called Operation Jupiter. This idea was "tabled" (postponed) in 1941, because Britain felt that it lacked the naval (and air) resources to pull it off.

In 1942, Britain got additional naval and air resources from America, and successfully pulled off Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa. Using that as a basis for comparison, how did the Allied naval and air resources actually used in Operation Torch compare with those called for in Operation Jupiter? What other military issues (geography, supply, etc.) might have argued in favor of Torch over Jupiter?

Edit:

According to James Macgregor Burns, in "Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom," Churchill revisited "Jupiter" in mid-1942 before acquiescing to "Torch." Also, while there are many sources on the Torch Operation, I can't find (or have overlooked) the relevant details for Jupiter. I want to make a (factual) comparison of the two sets of requirements (actual for one, proposed for the other), to better understand the decision-making process. One commenter suggested that the answer may lie in the two sets of geographies instead of the two sets of force levels, if the two required force levels were comparable.


texts: Where is the bloodiest square mile on Earth?

texts:
In terms of repeated wars and other violent encounters, where have the most people died throughout history (cumulatively over time) within one square mile?

This will include deaths at the hands of others, or themselves, using any conventional weapons (as described here)

Most things I've read have been about one day, or one battle, that is claims the most killed. I'm asking about at any time between the birth of homo-sapiens to now.


texts:
In October 1910, the Austro-Hungarian embassy requested that the United States extradite a certain Moritz Ormai, the charge being forgery. The request was granted, as noted in this letter to the US State Department, dated October 11, 1910:

  With your valued note of the 8th instant, serial No. 596, your
  excellency was so good as to send me a warrant for the surrender of
  Moritz Ormai.

There's a footnote for "serial No. 596" but simply says "Not printed." The letter also mentions that Ormai may have

  committed other crimes that come under the provisions of the
  extradition treaty

and that

  The royal Hungarian ministry of justice is gathering the evidence in
  the case

Then, in a letter dated October 21, the request for an additional warrant was dropped:

  I have the honor to inform your excellency that my Government has
  given up extending the request for extradition of Moritz Ormai to
  other crimes and that said person was embarked yesterday.

That appears to be the final mention of Moritz Ormai in the communications between the Austo-Hungarian embassy and the US State Department. Copies of these communications can also be found, for example, here.

The application for a second warrant seems to have been out of concern that the first would expire before Ormai could be shipped back to Austria-Hungary. Given this, and that extraditions are not usually for what governments consider to be minor crimes, it seems that the Austro-Hungarians were very keen to get their hands on Ormai. The extradition seems to have been done under the terms of the Extradition Convention Between the United States and Austria-Hungary; July 3, 1856, which states that extraditions could be for

  ...murder, or assault with intent to commit murder, or piracy, or arson,
  or robbery, or forgery, or the fabrication or circulation of
  counterfeit money, whether coin or paper money, or the embezzlement of
  public moneys...

Curious as to what Moritz Ormai forged and what other crimes he was suspected of, as well as what ultimately happened to him, I did some googling but found no other mention of this individual online (results simply gave me lots of links to ‘St. Moritz’ and to the Italian word ‘ormai’, meaning ‘by now’ or ‘almost’).

What did Moritz Ormai forge and what happened to him? Currency forgery seems a possibility, but I can find no evidence in support of this – or any other information about him.


texts:
This 2009 Guardian article claims that Mussolini was paid 100 £ per week during War World I to write pro-war propaganda articles on his newspaper "Il Popolo D'Italia".
The article is reportedly based on the work of Peter Martland according to Wikipedia former historian of Cambridge University.
The story seems plausible, however, I can not find on the web any reference besides newspaper articles.
This Daily Mail article states "Dr Martland's findings were included in Christopher Andrew's history of MI5, Defence of the Realm, published last week."
However, a quick search of the word "Mussolini" into "Defence of the Realm by Christopher" Andrew results in:
"Hoare’s counter-subversion operations included bribing pro-Allied journalists, among them the former socialist Benito Mussolini, who in 1919 was to found the Fascist movement. Hoare paid Mussolini the then considerable sum of £100 a week.119"
with note 119 being:
"119 CUL Templewood Papers, Part III, Italy and the Vatican 1917–1918, files 1–5. Hoare’s other tasks in Rome included counter-espionage and curtailing the extensive contraband activities (especially flows of specie and other prohibited goods to and from Germany through Switzerland)."
So the book seems not to refer to Dr Martland work but directly to the  Templewood Papers which are not available online.
The question is:
Can someone provide a source for the claim that MI5 paid Mussolini to do pro-war propaganda? Maybe a reference to Martland's research or some passage of Templewood Papers.


texts:
If you have read Jared Diamond's works, you already know the question.

There is a coincidence between planetary scale climate change, human settlement and megafauna extinctions. From giant kangaroos in Australia to elephant birds in Madagascar, from New Zealand and Hawaii in the Pacific to North and South America most of the species that lived outside Eurasia and Africa and weighted more than about 30kg became extinct in the recent past.

People argue about what was the cause: over hunting, difficulties adapting to the new environment, humans carrying new diseases/pests or altering the environment by using fire.

This is a nice place where to start, but: where do I continue? Are you aware of any recent development in the field and/or of a summarizing work about state of the art research?


texts: 17th century Japanese colonies in Southeast Asia?

texts:
After a period of exposure to European interests, Japan secluded itself in the 1630s. George Lensen wrote in "The Russian Push Towards Japan":

  On the eve of her seclusion, Japan had begun to expand into southeast Asia and her countrymen had made their way to the Philippines, Annam, Siam, and Java, establishing flourishing colonies there. But her voluntary isolation had compelled Japan not only to restrict her territorial expansion, but to scuttle her naval efforts, and to discontinue the construction of big seagoing vessels.

How substantial were those Japanese colonies and how long did they last? Were they primarily trading posts or attempts at administering territory? Java is much farther south than the other locations cited, so why was it a destination?


texts: What does D·G·R·IMP·S·A·G·H·B·REX·A·A·B·L·D stand for?

texts:
I came across a medal commemorating the coronation of Leopold II as Holy Roman Emperor in 1790.

The inscription on the obverse of the medal is:

LEOPOLDUS II D·G·R·IMP·S·A·G·H·B·REX·A·A·B·L·D·

With so many interpuncts in the inscription it is clear to me that Leopold II had many titles, though it seems that the medallist heavily abbreviated almost all of them. What are the titles that the inscription mentions?

Here is a picture of the medal in case I messed up one of the interpuncts:

The image was taken by me.


texts: Why the difference of opinion about the disappearance of Subhas Chandra Bose

texts:
A year back, Harvard professor Sugata Bose released a biography of the Indian leader Subhas Chandra Bose which claimed to lay all speculation regarding his death to rest. However, last week, a veteran journalist Anuj Dhar released a book which claims to show documents obtained from India's government to prove that the evidence points to exactly the other direction. According to Dhar, documents obtained using the Right to Information Act show that the famous freedom fighter, who was popularly known as "Netaji" (leader) in India, had actually escaped to Soviet Russia in 1945, and that the news of the plane crash was a subterfuge that allowed Bose to escape. The Government of India's last inquiry also supports Dhar's claim. India's government itself seems to have an ambiguous stance on this matter.

Why is it that historians are not able to agree on someone's disappearance over 65 years after it occurred? And why has this great disappearance mystery, about such a famous and controversial Indian leader, not received much attention from historians?

I will be grateful for your replies.

Update I went through the preview of Dhar's book given on Amazon. It claims India's government responsible for intentionally sabotaging its own inquiry into Bose's disappearance. Dhar himself is fighting a judicial battle in Delhi Hight Court over the government's refusal to show some documents related to Bose's disappearance.

Update 2 In case anyone is interested about the latest news on the disappearance story, there is a story about a monk dying in 1985 in Faizabad in India. Many people (including three journalists) had claimed that the monk was Bose in disguise. The High Court of Uttar Pradesh has just ordered the government to conduct an inquiry into this incident.


texts: What are these 2 compartments next to these war chariots?

texts:
Consider chariots like this:

What are those 2 compartments on the side of the chariot, above the wheel. The ones that cross over each other making an 'x'. I've tried researching but have unfortunately not found much about what purpose they serve.


texts: Did Radio Free Europe say that the Allies would come to the rescue during the Hungarian Revolution?

texts:
I found this video (in Spanish) where a woman claims that Radio Free Europe encouraged the Hungarians to resist, and that aid was on its way.

Is this true? Is there any evidence?
And if it is true, why did Radio Free Europa do this?


texts: Did the Romans Hold Territory in Ukraine?

texts: I noticed on the Wikipedia article for Septimius Severus the map of the empire in 210 shows area around Odessa and Yuzhne. Did the Romans actually hold these areas as colonies or incorporated into a province at all? Or is Wikipedia messing with me?


texts: Is the person in this "Yellow Peril" NZ cartoon Maori?

texts:
In this anti-Asian 1907 NZ cartoon, is the person being entangled by the octopus in this cartoon meant to be Maori?

The clothing and long hair suggest it's not a white New Zealander (pakeha),
but I assume that more likely than not, people with an anti-Asian prejudice from that time would regard Maoris as inferior to whites. Should I interpret the figure as a metaphorical representation of NZ, one that'd be used even by people who'd be prejudiced against Maoris?


texts:
I'm reading the Grágás laws of early Iceland and have come across a passage I don't understand:

K155, Ib p.47

"If a man kisses a woman in private, with no one else present and with her consent, then he incurs a penalty of three marks and the case lies with the same man as an intercourse case would. But if she takes offence at it, then the case lies with her and the penalty is lesser outlawry."

Does this refer to a kiss between any man and a woman or does it specifically related to one or the other being married? Did this law apply if two unmarried but consenting individuals kissed?


texts: What can be said about the state budget (aerarium + fiscus + a.militare + etc) spending of the Roman Empire at the time of Augustus, say 14 A.D.?  Can it be estimated in sesterces?


texts: Is the photograph "England’s Revenge in India" real, staged, or fake?

texts:
Might have an interesting puzzle for you here…

This picture, titled "England's Revenge in India", appeared in a Nazi propaganda book against Britain published in 1941:

The propaganda book claims that this is a photograph from 1857, published in the English newspaper Picture Post in 1939. (Note that the captions/titles on the linked page are literal extracts from the book, not research by the author, merely translated by him from German.)

It bears a very close resemblance to this Vasily Vereshchagin painting from 1884:

What is going on here? I see three possibilities:

The photo is genuine, and the painting traces the photo.
The photo is staged, and the painting traces the photo.
The painting came first, and the "photo" is the painting with some clever pre-digital photo editing.

However I'm really stumped as to which one is the answer. I can't find any reference to a 1939 Picture Post photo with that title, but Picture Post is a very well known and well archived publisher.

The Wikipedia page "Blowing from a gun" features the painting and alleges that the image is anachronistic — that the British soldiers are wearing the wrong uniform for the alleged age of the incident. Note that the photograph has the same uniforms, so if true, that would indicate that either the photograph is staged or that it is an edit of the painting.

P.S.: Just to be clear, I'm not denying any of the numerous horrific crimes of the British Empire upon India. I'm purely curious about the origins of this strange photograph.


texts: Those Who Do Not Learn History Are Doomed To Repeat It?

texts:
A very well known and circulated idea/quote is: "Those Who Do Not Learn History Are Doomed To Repeat It." Most often attributed to huge massacres and wars, in particular The Holocaust. The idea goes that, individuals/societies/groups (it is not clear) that are ignorant of history, are more likely to do bad things that are directly relatable with things that have been done in the past.

But I am skeptical of its validity. From my limited knowledge of history, that phrase does not make any sense. Isn't it well understood that Hitler was inspired by his knowledge of history to try and exterminate the Jews? Did he not give historical evidence to his peers to convince them that it was a good idea. I sort of think I remember that he used the argument that the Mongolians successfully wiped out an entire sub-group of Chinese and were not reviled for it, to convince his party members that the Holocaust was a good idea.

Am I misremembering/misunderstanding this history? Would it be fair to say that knowledge of history was a significant contributing factor to the Holocaust and other brutal programs of the Nazi regime? DO you think that this saying is more generally true?


texts: I am talking about the Eastern Front coalition in Sudan. Although the article on Wikipedia is informative, I can't see when it was founded, or when the groups that make it up were founded (except for the SPLA).


texts: Are there examples of stone age cultures living in proximity close to iron age cultures without adapting to metal use?

texts:
BACKGROUND

I was reading about the technological diffusion of metallurgy, and started to wonder if there were good historical examples of stone age peoples living near to or having extensive contact with iron age or even early medieval cultures, but without either adapting to metal use or quickly being  eradicated or absorbed. (In this case quickly might be 100-200 years.)

In other words, I'm looking for examples of technological diffusion failing where intuitively one might think it would succeed. My hope is that I can find enough examples to do some reading and identify common themes. I'd prefer to focus on the Old World, unless there are a dearth of good examples there, as I'm much more interested in why cultures might develop differently in close proximity than to the reactions of Amerindian and Mesoamerican cultures to a foreign transplant. (Still, if someone with good knowledge of New World cultures thinks they have something to say here then I'm always happy to learn.)

QUESTION

Are there examples of stone age cultures that had lived close to or had contact with iron age or medieval cultures, but did not adapt to metal technology?

EDIT: The current answer by LangLangC is excellent, but I'd like to gather a few more examples, so I'm offering this bounty to whoever can provide the most new ones. Thanks!


texts: Military reforms after the battle of Manzikert?

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After the battle of Manzikert and during Alexius's reign was there any attempt towards military reform to go back to the theme peasant-soldier system instead of mercenaries?

In John Julius Norwich's Byzantine Empire he suggests that one of the reasons the Byzantines lost the battle of Manzikert was the Emperor Ducas's weakening the military by using mercenaries which were unreliable prior to Emperor Romanos Diogenes and a relative of Ducas's betrayal in battle along with splitting the army and marching too late into the day.

Did Emperor Alexius do anything to go back to the theme peasant-soldier system instead of mercenaries?

The reason usually given is that because the Byzantines lost most of Asia minor they lost most of the peasant-soldier population but surely between the rest of the remaining Balkans and a little bit of Italy until he lost it to the Normans there should have still been a large manpower available for a peasant-soldier theme system to work.

Or was he also scared to go back to a powerful military class that could oust him at anytime? If so he clearly put himself before the interests of the Empire and as such maybe was not such a good emperor. But this would be strange given that his uncle emperor Isaac tried to reform the military back to prominence.

It does seem strange given that Roman/Byzantine armies had been smashed to pieces before and even harder that they should have not recovered.


texts:
Why were so few Luftwaffe attacks flown against the Normandy beaches on 6 June 1944?

I understand there were roughly 200 aircraft available in France/Belgium, and yet there were only 2 aircraft that strafed one of the beaches? The answer I found via google was "the aircraft were held back until reinforcements could be brought up from Germany."

I am wondering if there were other reasons. For example:

Fuel availability
Allied air superiority over the beaches
Holding the aircraft in reserve for the anticipated invasion at Calais

The Allies seemed to be expecting the Luftwaffe, judging by the number of barrage balloons over the beaches. Why was the Luftwaffe held back when the Allied invasion forces were at their most vulnerable?


texts: How pervasive was the idea that we had reached "the end of history" in America during the ninties?

texts:
Sorry if this is ill-defined.
I've heard that in the nineties, there was a pervasive idea in American society that were on the cusp of a liberal utopia, in which there would be no war between nations because they would all be tangled in a massive network of global trade and that technological development would make life better and better, without end. This was apparently exemplified by Francis Fukayama's book "The End of History and the Last Man."

Have there been any studies done that quantize how many and how much people believed in "the end of history?" How much did it vary by demographic? Are there similar, contemporary studies we can compare the other studies to?
How much did people believe in the end of history? If you can't give a data-based answer, I'm also interested in personal anecdotes.
Even if very few people did believe in the end of history, how much did the media believe in an "end of history?" This again seems to be difficult to quantize and probably heavily variable. If you can give a personal anecdote for this one it'd suffice.

Thanks!


texts: What did the founding fathers of America think about immigration?

texts:
Once time ago Benjamin Franklin asked "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us, instead of our Anglifying them?" and Thomas Jefferson, as is well known, warned about mass immigration.

Franklin's question and Jefferson's warning make me think to another question, did the founding fathers support immigration or, more precisely, was the right of immigration a allowed American principle since the days of the founding fathers? Or, did most of them were against immigration high levels, as they occurred in Pennsylvania?


texts: What is the origin of the "wheat and chessboard" legend?

texts:
The "wheat and chessboard" fable describes a geometric problem that is often quoted in stories about the invention of chess. According to Wikipedia, the main theme of the fable is:

  When the creator of the game of chess (in some tellings an ancient Indian mathematician, in others a legendary dravida vellalar named Sessa or Sissa) showed his invention to the ruler of the country, the ruler was so pleased that he gave the inventor the right to name his prize for the invention. The man, who was very wise, asked the king this: that for the first square of the chess board, he would receive one grain of wheat (in some tellings, rice), two for the second one, four on the third one, and so forth, doubling the amount each time. The ruler, arithmetically unaware, quickly accepted the inventor's offer, even getting offended by his perceived notion that the inventor was asking for such a low price, and ordered the treasurer to count and hand over the wheat to the inventor. However, when the treasurer took more than a week to calculate the amount of wheat, the ruler asked him for a reason for his tardiness. The treasurer then gave him the result of the calculation, and explained that it would take more than all the assets of the kingdom to give the inventor the reward. The story ends with the inventor becoming the new king. (In other variations of the story the king punishes the inventor.)

In some variations, wheat is replaced by rice.

What are the origins of the fable? More specifically, and since chances are the fable was passed down through oral tradition, what are the earliest recorded instances of it?


texts: Is living at home into adulthood a modern phenomenon?

texts:
I'm looking into my family history and one of my ancestors in 1901 was still living at home with his father, mother and younger siblings at age 25 in England.

This is atypical with most of the ancestors I've found so far, as most married very young and left home before they were 20. Was it socially exceptable to live at home with your parents for that long? Id like to know more about whether he may have been a help or a hindrance, bearing in mind he had two younger brothers, one 20 and one 18, that were perfectly capable of looking after his ageing father who was 57.

So to revert to my question was this a kind of freak event or was it common for children to live with their parents as adults in this period of history like it is today (at least in England)?


texts: Is there a student of Arnold J Toynbee with an opinion about the state and fate of Western Civilization?

texts:
Toynbee studied history centering his work on the life and death of civilizations.

As Wikipedia says:

  Toynbee argued that "Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder."
  For Toynbee, civilizations were not intangible or unalterable machines
  but a network of social relationships within the border and therefore
  subject to both wise and unwise decisions they made.

Toynbee said:

  Of the twenty or so civilizations known to modern Western historians,
  all except our own appear to be dead or moribund, and, when we
  diagnose each case, in extremis or post mortem, we invariably find
  that the cause of death has been either War or Class or some
  combination of the two. To date, these two plagues have been deadly
  enough, in partnership, to kill off nineteen out of twenty
  representatives of this recently evolved species of human society;
  but, up to now, the deadliness of these scourges has had a saving
  limit.

A lot of changed since he passed away, and when he was alive was at the time of Cold War, and he didn't see the fall of Soviet Empire and we don't know how would have interpreted the times that followed.

So is there a student of Toynbee that discuses his legacy and what would be his conclusions about the current state and fate of Western  Civilization on which of Toynbee stages is? Are we in the Universal State stage? Have we entered the Breakdown/Disintegration phase?


texts: Which English king voided noble land claims after a certain date?

texts:
If my memory holds, a medieval English king ruled that noble lands were falsely held and should be returned to the crown. Parliament, of course, rejected this seizure. King and parliament compromised that only claims proven to date back to a certain prior reign were legitimate.
I've queried dozens of search terms and scanned (i.e. Cmd+F, "land") the Wikipedia entries for the kings of the the 13th and 14th centuries. I can't find which king decreed this law, and thus turn to you:
Which English king demanded the return of lands to the crown, ultimately compromising that land with claims prior to — — were legitimate?
This question is spurred by learning today that time immemorial once legally meant before the reign of Edward II – leading me to wonder if Edward II was the monarch whose reign legitimated land claims. Why time immemorial was tied to Edward II’s is not, though, the focus of this question.
Edit: This final tangent is, it seems, contentious. Thi terse source sets Edward II's reign as the legal event horizon, whereas this blog and Wikipedia more expansively refer to the 1295 Statute of Westminster, which recognizes Richard I's reign as relevant. More supported, the latter appears more likely – leaving the question of why some sources refer to Edward II. However, again, this is not the point of this question.


texts: Why are the Lesser Antilles so politically fragmented?

texts:
St. Kitts and Nevis and Antigua and Barbuda are both English/English Creole speaking, and are right next to each other. Why are they not linked politically?

Similar question for, e.g. Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

I understand that the West Indies Federation failed, but why not more modest attempts at a federation?


texts: Are Emil Ludwig's “Talks with Mussolini” reliable?

texts:
In 1932 Emil Ludwig interviewed over several days Benito Mussolini and then published with Mondadori publishing house the result, as the book Talks with Mussolini. After having approved the draft with only minimal corrections, Mussolini blocked the book and imposed more extended modifications. Nowadays the complete version is available (in Italian, since 1950).

My question is: are the talks as reported by Ludwig reliable? In other words, may we take the sentences attributed to Mussolini as his own?


texts: How did the Swedes integrate Geats, Danes, Walloons, Finns & others?

texts:
I noticed that Sweden has been successful in pacifying a bitter rivalry with Denmark overtime. Last time they had a conflict was just 200 years ago. But many other countries still have really rancorous rivalries and ethnic conflicts. It seems like once all external threats have been subdued in one way or another, the population has nothing else to do but to improve their own condition, so Sweden blossoming into what it is now makes sense. But how did they do this? Not only integrating leftover Danes from annexing what is now southern Sweden(Scania most notably), they also had an influx of Walloons 500 years ago, Finns 300 years ago, and in the ancient past Geats & Gutes who were conquered. I haven't been successful in finding any books discussing this, only books talking about who conquered what, who went where, who lived where and facts like that.

Why is it that all of these just integrated into Swedish society and accepted their role as Swedes instead of harboring resentment for hundreds of years such as Serbs in Slavonia against Croatia for instance, or Northern- and Southern Yemenites, Catalonians and Spaniards, or ethnicities in Central Asia which have the same predominant religion and history, same ethnic family(Altaic/Turkic), so many centuries of unity through empires, but still they don't count themselves as, for instance, Kazakhs if they are Uzbeks living in Kazakhstan?


texts: What proportion of revolutions that overthrew tyrannical regimes made things as bad or worse?

texts:
I realize that a phrase like "as bad or worse" is subjective. By what metric do we decide if a new regime is "better" or "worse" than an old one?

However, I want to know if this is a known area of research in historical revolutions. History seems to be full of cases where a horrible government that oppresses its people eventually gets overthrown by well-meaning rebels, but because those rebels are either incompetent, more malicious than their supporters thought, or simply very naive about the difficulty of running a state effectively, their replacement regime ends up being worse. Judging from what I have heard, my intuition is that regime-changing revolutions almost never get replaced with better regimes. But, of course, my intuition is very vulnerable to the availability heuristic. It would be nice if someone has tried to evaluate this objectively.

While I recognize the subjectivity of how "good" a state is, I think you can pick some metrics (such as homicide rate, rate of death from starvation, overall state wealth, etc) to judge what happened to a state post-revolution.

What proportion of regime-changing revolutions turned out better/worse than the regime it overthrew, by any metric? Additionally, is this an open question being researched by quantitative historians? If so, links to the most salient publications on the topic would be greatly appreciated.


texts: What was the social condition of a pregnant single woman in the late 1970s in England?

texts:
I am writing a story set in the late 1970s in England. One of my characters, a 17 year old girl, gets pregnant, and the father of the baby disappears for various reasons. I want my story to be as realistic and historically accurate as possible, so I would like to know what kind of situations would my character believably have to face.
I have done some research on the subject, and I found that in the late 60s "although society is less punitive towards the mother than [...] fifty years ago, there is still considerable residual hostility to single mothers", as  this article put it. It is my understanding that in the 70s, opinions and attitudes varied wildly among social groups. However I have not been able to find a real answer to my questions: what was the social condition, overall, of a pregnant single woman (let's say even an older teen) in the late 70s in England? Was she able to get a job while pregnant or after the pregnancy? Could she finish her education? Would she reasonably be able to talk about her problems and go to friends or family for help, or was it more likely for her to try and face her problems alone out of shame, as some women did ten or twenty years earlier? Was an illigitimate pregnancy still considered a huge scandal by some, especially in the middle class? Did hostels for unmarried mothers still exist?

(P.S.: sorry for any mistake, English is not my first language).


texts: Did the German ship SS Hansa (former Albert Ballin) continue her journey to the West after 30 January 1945?

texts:
Looking for  refugees or families of refugees who were on board the Hansa on January 30th 1945 when she left Gotenhafen with the Wilhelm Gustloff. I am trying to find out what happened to the Hansa and TF-1 when they experienced mechanical problems around the peninsula of Hela and had to go back, leaving the Gustloff and destroyer Löwe to continue their journey alone.

My mother was 5 years old then and was supposed to board the Gustloff with her mother. They arrived at Gotenhafen too late, the Gustloff was already full and were told to board the “Gustloff Geleit” instead. She remembered that the ship broke down and they spent several days in icy waters before they reached Swinemünde (?) and the refugee centre of Luneburg. From there they proceeded to Markoldendorf where they were registered on 7th February 1945.

According to the Hansa Captain’s son Normann-Ulf Neitzel, the Hansa would not have entered Swinemünde but would have continued her journey to Kiel. This makes sense as Luneburg is closer to Kiel than Swinemünde. I have researched this extensively but so far have not received a definite answer nor encountered any refugees who were on the ship. Survivors of the Wilhelm Gustloff and refugees from the Walter Rau don’t seem to remember seeing the Hansa except briefly before embarking.


texts: Earlier U.S. law enforcement raids on lawyers' communications

texts:
The office of the personal lawyer of the U.S. President has been raided by the FBI.

Clients' communications with their attorneys are protected by the doctrine of attorney-client privilege, or legal professional privilege. Therefore, reporting indicates, the U.S. Justice Department only performs such raids after meeting special criteria like the approval of a top-level bureaucrat and establishing the likelihood of records being flushed if the target had warning.

I couldn't think of another time investigators raided an attorney's office, so I tried a few searches without any success. NPR said a by-the-books law enforcement raid on an attorney's communications and records was "rare but not unheard of". Until the present case, what was the most significant or consequent of these actions in the United States?


texts: When and by whom was the Tirupati Tirumala temple in India built?

texts:
India's second wealthiest temple, Tirupati Tirumala Venkateswara Temple does not seem to have a clear history about its origin. The Wikipedia entry does not provide proper details on who exactly built this temple atop a mountain or the approximate date when it was built. Even if it were disputed, there must be historians' educated guesses and opinions on this.

Could someone flesh out these details from a reliable source?


texts: Was Nebuchadnezzar made King in a year other than 605 BC?

texts:
According to a Babylonian astronomy observation text, there was a lunar eclipse in Nebuchadnezzar's 32nd year. This eclipse has been placed at 568 BC.

I'm assuming we can then affirm that Nebuchadnezzar was made King in 605 BC due to the information in this event. However, I'm aware that the Babylonians used a lunar 354.37 day year. It was only until about 500 BC that they began introducing the metonic cycle which would've made their calendar more fitting to the solar year.

If I'm correct, wouldn't have Nebuchadnezzar's 32nd 354.37 year been different to a 32nd 365.242 year?

And again, if this is right, wouldn't have Nebuchadnezzar been made King in a different year other than 605 BC?


texts: Is there any example of one country devastating a third?

texts:
My question comes from a video game I am playing:

I am playing Austria, in Napoleonic wars. I am fighting France as main adversary, but I just captured and looted Bavaria and Saxony, two little states allied to France. Thus, some countryside with no resources (looted) will separate my territory from the great danger caused by France.

The particularity is that I am specifically attacking in order to loot (gain resources) and retreat to let France recover the devastated territory. France will have to pay for re-building them, and I will have the resources to develop my armies.

I am wondering if there is such examples in history? I already find two, but there are not really what I am searching:

Trojan war: Achilles looted multiple cities allied to Troy, but the problem is that Troy was already surrounded so this did not lead to the protection of Troy
Nazi Germany retreating in Baltic states: multiple destruction's were made to block the advance of the Red Army, but the Baltic states were already part of Soviet Union (after previous annexation) and were not captured in the intent of looting them and then quitting them.

EDIT:
Thanks for the Edit by Tom to the question.
To answer the comment:
The third country, being devastated, could be either neutral or already an enemy. But it should be independent from the first enemy.

EDIT 2:

Not sure why the example in video game did not lead to a specific case I was searching for, but I will try theoretically to explain what I am looking for:

Country A: A country with military forces and a territory
Country B: A country with military forces and a territory, at war with A
Country C: A country with military forces and a territory, at war with A. It is not a protectorate of B. OR C is neutral to A and B's conflict

Country A has a plan, at a certain stage of the war:
An army enters the territory of C. It loots the territory.
By looting, I mean:

Go inside a city, destroy the infrastructure of military and economical use
In the rural parts, burn the crops

The A army might have to fight successfully armies of C, in order to loot. Then the army withdrawals, before any reinforcement from B could have been sent to C.
C is very weakened by this action, so B sends some armies to help C protect its territory against a potential new raid, or even to seize control of C's territory.
A is keeping its armies for new fights against B or C, depending on their initiatives.

Note:
What I described in the plan of A.
If any problem is encountered, I am even more interested to learn about the case. For example:

If the raid of A in C's territory is more costly to A in military resources than to C (ie looting is not efficient)
If the raid of A in C's territory is opposed to B's reinforcements before it could retreat

Date limit:
No date limit, but the objective of looting might change at the different dates.


texts: What did the top minds of the late 17th century have to say about Salem witch trials?

texts: I think of Newton, Hooke, Leibniz, Wren, Locke -- assuming they knew hard to believe they would not have thought it crazy but I have read nothing about Newton, et al saying anything.


texts: Why was there a perceived high rate of AIDS infection among Haitians?

texts:
In the early days of AIDS, the disease was referred to by the CDC as the 4H disease, due to their high infection among hemophiliacs, homosexuals, heroin users, and Haitians. The first three groups are susceptible to AIDS via straightforward blood or sex transmission. What caused the Haitian cluster?
CDC = Centers for Disease Control and Prevention