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{ "a_id": [ "cjjnu9j" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "What essentially happened was that the Spanish became importers as opposed to exporters. Spain was so wealthy, that they simply paid for all of the goods they required from other European nations including textiles, weapons, ships even. Spain would simply buy it since they had enough wealth to outsource any internal development. This eventually led to their downfall as well, because at the turn of the industrial revolution Spain was so far behind the rest of Europe in terms of industry that they lost a lot of their stature and prestige.\n\nI wouldn't say it became worthless, because they were using it to purchase all of their needs and the rest of Europe was more than happy to provide those services for Spain, but it eventually did lead to stunting the advancement of the nation itself. However, I am not an export in economics, so it may have had a larger economic affect than I am aware of " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "egh8gb2" ], "score": [ 16 ], "text": [ "The early modern period-- the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century is often referred to as a time of \"military revolution\", a term associated with Michael Roberts' 1955 lecture of the same name. While Geoffrey Parker and others have raised good points about some of the more exuberant claims, the core of the military revolution argument remains intact-- armies in 1750 looked very different than they did in 1600.\n\nThe most immediately obvious of these changes was that the pike had largely disappeared from the battlefield\n\nSome reasons for this change spring to mind as most important:\n\n1. A musket and pike formation has much less firepower than an all musket formation. The musket with bayonet is less capable than the pike, but it's adequate, and \"adequate + more firepower\" is better than \"some pikes with a longer reach and less firepower\"\n2. The challenges of commanding a combined musket and pike formation like the Spanish *tercio* were very, very complex, requiring a high degree of skill and training. Getting musketeers to firing position was a challenge. The musket and pike formations were the province of skilled professional soldiers, but as armies got bigger and recruited less experienced men, less complex formations were favored.\n3. Firearms steadily improved in quality, and armies got better at using them. Starting from the rather finicky, expensive and esoteric arquebus firepower evolved to much more easily manufactured, economical and reliable muskets: firepower got better, while pikes didn't. It was readily understood that firepower was increasing in capability, whereas polearms were little different from Alexander's *sarissa*\n4. As firepower increased in efficacy, fewer battles were decided by melee. In the musket and pike formations, the notion had been that firepower was essentially an auxiliary force, a way of harassing and attriting the enemy, but that the decisive blow would be delivered by the collision of forces. 18th and 19th century forces did still come to blows hand to hand, but they typically fired many more rounds and did far more damage to the enemy by firepower before that happened. Many formations broke without ever having reached the enemy, or like Napoleon's Guard at Waterloo, were so bloodied and shaky from losses due to firepower that they had little shock effectiveness left when they finally reached the enemy.\n5. As firepower improved, the threat from cavalry diminished. Horse are big targets, and by the end of the 18th century, cavalry was largely unable to break a well formed square-- in the Napoleonic wars, if memory serves, that happened only once, at the skirmish/battle of Garcia Hernandez in 1812. If bayonets and firepower were good enough to ward off cavalry, that was good enough; and they were most of the time. Cavalry had to surprise unprepared infantry, or run down broken formations to be effective-- against prepared infantry, they became progressively less effective in the 16th and 17th centuries.\n\nSources:\n\n[\"Doctors of the Military Discipline\": Technical Expertise and the Paradigm of the Spanish Soldier in the Early Modern Period](_URL_3_)\n\n[Tactical Evolution in the French Army, 1560-1660](_URL_4_)\n\n[Close Order and Close Quarter: The Culture of Combat in the West](_URL_1_)\n\n[Michael Roberts- The Military Revolution, 1560-1660](_URL_0_)\n\n[The \"Military Revolution,\" 1560-1660--a Myth?](_URL_2_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.scribd.com/document/334551719/Michael-Roberts-The-Military-Revolution-1560-1660", "https://www.jstor.org/stable/40109603?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=musket&searchText=pike&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dmusket%2Bpike&ab_segments=0%2Ftbsub-1%2Frelevance_config_with_tbsub&refreqid=search%3A1e568c9eea8f3545a13f15cff9e4e315", "https://www.jstor.org/stable/1879826?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=musket&searchText=pike&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dmusket%2Bpike&ab_segments=0%2Ftbsub-1%2Frelevance_config_with_tbsub&refreqid=search%3A1e568c9eea8f3545a13f15cff9e4e315", "https://www.jstor.org/stable/2544269?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=spanish&searchText=tercio&searchText=pike&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dspanish%2Btercio%2Bpike%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff&ab_segments=0%2Ftbsub-1%2Frelevance_config_with_tbsub&refreqid=search%3A898a217ad7b51cccd6ea487629f08f78", "https://www.jstor.org/stable/286581?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=spanish&searchText=tercio&searchText=pike&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dspanish%2Btercio%2Bpike%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff&ab_segments=0%2Ftbsub-1%2Frelevance_config_with_tbsub&refreqid=search%3A898a217ad7b51cccd6ea487629f08f78" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ci6g2ku" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Hello!\nAnother related question, how much did the supply of Allied apparel affect the combat strength of the Soviet army during the continuation war against Finland? I've heard anecdotes that one of the key reasons Finland was forced into an armistice was that the useful equipment used in the continuation war was primarily US -supplied military gear " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ew9zfvg" ], "score": [ 10 ], "text": [ "You may want to be more specific - countless technological advancements have contributed to the kind of combat aircraft we see today. If we ignore electronics (which nowadays are arguably the most important part of combat aircraft design) and armament, the biggest areas of improvement are engines and propulsion, aerodynamic design, and materials. I'll try to do a broad overview of things - let me know if there's anything specific you want me to elaborate on. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe triplanes made famous in WW1 - the Sopwith Triplane and Fokker Dr.I - were alarmingly simple aircraft. They were largely made of canvas stretched over a wood frame with wires spanning around the aircraft to provide structural support to critical areas like the wings. Structural support would be the driving reason behind the biplane and triplane layouts, as the wings could be braced off of eachother with wires and struts. Airfoils - the cross-section of the wing - were very rudimentary, often consisting of just a single layer of canvas stretched over the top of an airfoil-shaped wood frame. Engines were perhaps the most terrifying feature of these designs - the rotary engines popular during WW1 were mounted in such a way that they spun with the propeller. Combined with the very light construction of the airframe, the several hundred pounds of engine spinning at the same speed as the propeller on the front of the plane led to dangerous gyroscopic effects that made the aircraft very difficult to control at low speeds. On the topic of the propulsion, propellers of the time were simple fixed-pitch propellers and almost always two-bladed.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nGoing forward, every aspect of these aircraft would be improved upon. Better structural design and materials would allow for simpler biplane structures with fewer wires and struts or even monoplane designs if the wings were made thick enough. New materials contributed to this, particularly the aluminum alloy known as Duralumin, which would make the use of metal in aircraft structures feasible. The first all-metal aircraft - the Junkers J I - appeared during WW1 and in fact was a monoplane, but metal construction would catch on more commonly by replacing the wood structure underneath the canvas with metal tubing. All-metal designs would become the norm during WW2, although control surfaces often remained canvas-covered frames even in otherwise all-metal designs. Aerodynamic design massively improved, with groups like NACA (predecessor to America's NASA) doing huge amounts of research in the design of airfoils, engine cowlings, and various other aerodynamic features. New developments in propulsion would allow engineers to make the most of these new aerodynamic developments. Through the interwar period, engines became significantly more powerful and, perhaps more critically, significantly more reliable. During WW1 and the early interwar period, it was common for large multi-engined aircraft to have the engines serviceable in flight (see many of the Riesenflugzeug Germany used in WW1). Come WW2, however, such a feature is unheard of on aircraft - engines were reliable enough for even long endurance flights. Whereas the Fokker Dr.I mounted a 110 hp rotary engine in 1917 and the one of the premier aircraft engines at the end of the war was the American 400hp Liberty engine, fighter engines by 1939 were of the 1,000 hp class - the DB 601, Rolls-Royce Merlin, and Hispano-Suiza 12Y. By the end of the war, engines like the Wasp Major were pushing to nearly 4,000 hp. Just as important as added engine power was improved propeller design. Variable-pitch propellers would become commonplace in the interwar period, allowing the pitch of the propeller to be tailored to factors like the speed of the aircraft, air density, and RPM of the propeller. The ultimate result of these developments in propulsion was that aircraft were able to become faster and - more significantly - heavier. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nOnce we get to the postwar era, some new factors become important. The increasing speed of aircraft during WW2 had seen aircraft pushing up against supersonic flight at the extremes of their performance, but it wouldn't be until after WW2 that engineers were really capable of designing for transonic flight. The theory of supersonic flight had largely been figured out during the interwar period, but the kind of understanding of transonic flight necessary for supersonic aircraft wasn't developed until after WW2. Developments like swept wings, conically-cambered delta wings, and area-ruling would further contribute to high-speed flight, and would have applications outside of supersonic aircraft (as we see with modern airliners). New propulsion also drastically changed flight profiles. Both piston engines and turbines lose power as altitude increases, but turbines proved more suited to high altitudes thanks to their greater power/thrust output. Jet engines replaced propellers for most applications, and where propellers remained, they were most often replaced by turoprops - effectively a propeller powered by a jet turbine - to provide a more powerful powerplant in a more compact and lighter package.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nFrom there, however, surprisingly little has changed in the grand scheme of things. Most of the advances for several decades have been the introduction finite-element-analysis using supercomputers for aerodynamic analysis (alongside wind tunnels), new materials improving structures and powerplants, and electronics (both hardware and software) improving capabilities of airframes." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d8wrdis" ], "score": [ 28 ], "text": [ "Yes, this is based in history. The British went through numerous versions of the phonetic alphabet and during the WWI period, it was indeed Apples, Butter, Charlie, Duff, etc. [Tables here](_URL_0_)\n\nDue to issues with differences in the phonetic alphabet, and difficulty in pronouncing certain words, after WW2, the newly formed International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) drafted up a new phonetic alphabet, which is frequently called the NATO alphabet as NATO was one of the first major organizations to adopt it in full for all of its militaries. [History here from ICAO](_URL_1_)" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.royalsignals.org.uk/articles/alpha.htm", "http://www.icao.int/secretariat/PostalHistory/annex_10_aeronautical_telecommunications.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dcz2ks5" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "Pliny the Elder in Natural History seems well aware of bird migration in the first century AD. He claims cranes fly from the east of India: \n\n > The tracts over which they travel must be immense, if we only consider that they come all the way from the Eastern Sea.\n\nBut he doesn’t know where storks come from:\n\n > Up to the present time it has not been ascertained from what place the storks come, or whither they go when they leave us. There can be no doubt but that, like the cranes, they come from a very great distance, the cranes being our winter, the storks our summer, guests.\n\nHe thinks swallows don’t migrate that far:\n\n > The swallow, the only bird that is carnivorous among those which have not hooked talons, takes its departure also during the winter months; but it only goes to neighbouring countries, seeking sunny retreats there on the mountain sides; sometimes they have been found in such spots bare and quite unfledged.\n\n…and claims the thrush winters in the north, not the south:\n\n > they are often to be seen in places where they seek their food during the winter: hence it is that in winter, more especially, the thrush is so often to be seen in Germany.\n\nPliny also points out that geese and swans migrate, and interestingly even knows the V-formation makes for easier flying.\n\n > The flocks, forming a point, move along with great impetus, much, indeed, after the manner of our Liburnian beaked galleys; and it is by doing so that they are enabled to cleave the air more easily than if they presented to it a broad front. The flight gradually enlarges in the rear, much in the form of a wedge, presenting a vast surface to the breeze, as it impels them onward; those that follow place their necks on those that go before, while the leading birds, as they become weary, fall to the rear. \n\nPliny actually categorises some birds on their migration, or non-migration, which you can see in [Book X](_URL_0_).\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D10" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "csrsrrb" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "Do you mean \"where over 50% of the adult population could vote\"?\n\nSince in most democracies approximately half the adult population are women, your question can be re-phrased as which democracy first had both, broad adult suffrage and women voters? That would be the British colony of New Zealand in 1893, followed by the colony of South Australia in 1894 and then the Commonwealth of Australia (no longer a colony) in 1903." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "fbf74se" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "The historical accuracy of events portrayed in the Bible change depending on the books and division of the Bible. Generally, the farther back in the past a Biblical story takes place, the more likely it is the details of the story are inaccurate if the story has any basis in history at all. For example, the invasion of Jerusalem by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II in 597 BC is an unquestioned historic fact, it is an event recounted throughout several books in the Hebrew Bible, as well as being chronicled by the Babylonians themselves. Whereas the events in the Torah/Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) are largely agreed to have not happened in the way the Bible describes them. What is worth noting, however, is that though the stories of the Pentateuch did not happen as they are portrayed, it is likely that many of the stories of the Pentateuch are mythologized accounts loosely based off of real world events. For example, there is no archaeological evidence for the figure Abraham, Abraham’s journey, though, is described in Genesis as a journey from Mesopotamia (“Ur of the Chaldeans”) to the land of Canaan. Archaeological evidence has shown similar migration patterns among the Amorites, who likewise migrated from Mesopotamia to Canaan. It is theorized the Biblical authors had some kind of awareness to these migration patterns, but that Abraham was a later edition to the story.\n\nThe Book of Judges is placed in the Historical Books section of the Christian Old Testament (The Historical Books are the books from Joshua to Esther, in the Hebrew Bible/TaNaKh, Judges is placed within the Nevi'im (prophetic books)) Judges is a continuation of the narrative presented in Joshua. The description of the Israelites under Joshua taking over Canaan has been under great academic skepticism. Current archaeological evidence suggests that rather than the Israelites taking over Canaan by force, they integrated into the land over the span of many generations. If Joshua is like Genesis in that the stories presented often contain mythologized accounts of history, then it is possible the conquest of Canaan as described in Joshua may be dramatized renditions of small scale revolts that sporadically happened during the transition of the Canaanites controlling the land to the Israelites.\n\nSeveral of the kings described in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles have been identified as real figures (such as Omri of Israel, Josiah of Judah, and Zedekiah of Judah), but the existence of the earlier kings (such as in 1 Kings, and especially in 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel) is much more controversial. The books of Samuel describe Israel as being a united monarchy from Syria to Edom (Edom being south of Jerusalem). Apart from the Hebrew Bible, however, there are no major sources of the United Kingdom of Israel, what has been theorized is that David, if he existed, rather than being the king of all Israel, was likely a tribal king who controlled a much smaller portion of land than the dimensions given in the Biblical account. It has been speculated that the story of David was promoted by later kings of Judah to validate their rule (the kings of Judah saw themselves as being part of the “House of David”), and to potentially control the northern Kingdom of Israel as David, after all, was said to have ruled all Israel as well as what was then Judah.\n\nMuch like the account of the first kings of Israel, the Book of Judges presents Israel as a sort of unity. Whenever a judge is described, they are never described as judging the specific tribe they are from, but Israel, in the story of Othniel becoming the first judge of Israel, it is stated “and he \\[Othniel\\] judged Israel” (Judges 3:10, NRSV). The judges period appears to serve as a sort of prologue as to why Israel was ruled by kings, the judges are contrasted by kings in a few ways\n\n1. The judges are chosen by God: Whenever a dynasty in Israel lost popularity with the populous, the books of Kings and Chronicles tells of how they would be overthrown, and a new dynasty of kings would take over. The judges are described as being determined not by overthrowing the current ruler, or gaining popularity, but by being men (and women, as Deborah was among the judges named) handpicked by God Himself.\n2. The judges did not rule by hereditary rule: The judges described did not belong in the same family as each other, Judges portrays God as choosing who should judge Israel not based on familial ties and lineages, but by those God sees as worthy to judge.\n\n1 Samuel tells of the end of the period of judges with the abdication of Samuel the final judge of Israel, and the coronation of Saul the first king of Israel. The kings are contrasted with the judges, the judges are depicted as righteous leaders chosen by God, whereas several of the kings of Judah and all of the kings of Northern Israel are described as sinful. Again, if the figures in Judges were based on actual historical figures, it is unlikely they would have ruled the whole land of Canaan as the Book of Judges implies, especially when one considers the commonly accepted time period the Israelites entered Canaan (circa 1250 BC) and compare it to when Judges would have taken place when using Biblical chronology (circa 1500-1000 BC).\n\nApologies if much of my answer seems speculative, though scholars are pretty much certain that the events in the Pentateuch did not happen in the way the Bible describes it, the time period between the judges and kings of Israel is much more uncertain, and is hotly debated.\n\nSources\n\n“ABC 5 (Jerusalem Chronicle).” *Livius*, 26 July 2017, [_URL_4_](_URL_4_).\n\n“Archeology of the Hebrew Bible.” *PBS*, Public Broadcasting Service, 18 Nov. 2008, [_URL_3_](_URL_3_).\n\nAstle, Cynthia. “Is There Archaeological Evidence About the Story of Abraham?” *Learn Religions*, Learn Religions, 4 May 2019, [_URL_1_](_URL_1_).\n\nDever, William G. “Archaeology and the Israelite 'Conquest'.” *W.Dever Archaelogy & Conquest ABD*, [_URL_5_](_URL_0_).\n\n“The City of David and Solomon.” *David and Solomon: Myth or Reality*, [_URL_6_](_URL_6_).\n\nThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Canaan.” *Encyclopædia Britannica*, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 11 Oct. 2019, [_URL_2_](_URL_2_)." ] }

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[ [ "http://individual.utoronto.ca/mfkolarcik/texts/WDeverArchaeology_ConquestABD.html", "https://www.learnreligions.com/archaeological-evidence-abraham-bible-4590053", "https://www.britannica.com/place/Canaan-historical-region-Middle-East", "https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/archeology-hebrew-bible/", "https://www.livius.org/sources/content/mesopotamian-chronicles-content/abc-5-jerusalem-chronicle/", "http://individual.utoronto.ca/mfkolarcik/texts/WDeverArchaeology\\_ConquestABD.html", "https://www.bu.edu/mzank/Jerusalem/cp/DavidSolomonmyth.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c8lljqr", "c8llrro" ], "score": [ 13, 6 ], "text": [ "I'm mostly familiar with things from the minority-side of things, not the German side. But Imperial Germany did emancipate its Jews, giving them political rights, along with other countries during this era. This (along with the enlightenment) produced new religious movements in Judaism, particularly the Reform movement. The result of this was that Jews tried to re-identify themselves as \"Germans of the Mosaic faith\" (the same nationality and ethnicity as their neighbors, but a different religion). This meant that Jews in Imperial Germany were meaningfully participating in German society, which at the time was fairly new in Europe (but was occurring at roughly the same time in Europe). German Jews started to be more German culturally, and started replacing Western Yiddish with High German. [This guy](_URL_1_) is a good example of a proponent of this.\n\nI really don't know to what extent this was encouraged by the German government, but given that they emancipated the Jews I imagine it was. So they essentially wanted to incorporate the Jews into being a sub-grouping of Germans, rather than a group on their own. Of course, the pendulum ultimately swung the other way, and in the early 1900s the dualling philosophies among the Jewish thinkers were whether Jews ought to be part of nationalist movements (adopting the national identity of their countries of residence. Note that non-Jewish nationalists sometimes opposed this) or develop a Jewish nationalist movement, namely Zionism. Various events and convincing writers caused the latter to become dominant in the end, but in Imperial Germany the two views were very much both present, with the former being dominant.\n\nedit: See [here](_URL_2_) and [here](_URL_0_) for sources and more information", "Yes, the German Empire was far from being a homogeneous society (if there ever was one ...) after its unification in 1871. First, you have to keep in mind that \"the Germans\" themselves (or rather Prussians, Hessians, Bavarians, Franconians etc.) were split almost evenly into Catholics and Protestants. Unified by protestant Prussia, the German states with catholic majorities remained uneasy with the hegemony of Protestantism in the new German state. The fact, that the early Empire (still under Chancellor Otto v. Bismarck) waged a \"culture war\" against Catholicism, deeming Catholics as unpatriotic and thralls of Rome, did not help either.\n\nIn relation to the Catholicism issue Germany's minorities are less important, although in the case of the Polish minority (which was also Germany's largest minority) both issues are inseperably connected, as most Poles are Catholics. The Polish minority of Germany was mainly a part of the Prussian state, whose territories stretched eastwards. The Prussian authorities did in fact try to stamp out Polish identity and significance. This \"Germanization\" policy included laws to enshrine German as exclusive institutional and court language, attempts to outlaw any foreign language clubs and of course general institutional discrimination of Poles to push them out of business and land ownership. As of now, off the top of my head, I can't judge the effectiveness of these measures (although I don't remember them to be), until I can look it up more precisely. Anyway, Polish communities, clubs, societies and newspapers were significant in East Prussia and in the Ruhr Area (due to labour migration) well into the 1930s. Only the National Socialists destroyed them in the end.\n\nThe German Empire had no laws regarding Jews or any other religious affiliation. Full legal equality of all German citizens, Christian or not, was provided for -- in theory. Anti-Semitism ran rampant (as it did in other parts of Europe as well), race and eugenics theorists tinkered with ideas how to \"deal\" with the \"Jewish question\", i.e. if Jews could be a part of German society or were alien to it by nature. Long story short, while there was no legal discrimination of Jews, the climate of late 19th/early 20th century Germany was hostile to Jews and especially open \"Jewishness\". " ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Jews#From_Moses_Mendelssohn_.281778.29_to_the_Nazis_.281933.29", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Rathenau", "http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/germany.html" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cdje3su", "cdjfc09" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "In physics I would note electricity, and electromagnetic theory (which allows radio) is perhaps a separate discovery. The steam engine is also an obvious one, or if you prefer theory you could say thermodynamics - but the applications side was clearly first here. I guess this could also be considered engineering, as could the internal combustion engine, which also shades into chemistry. Going back into prehistory, you have the lever! Or, more generally, mechanical advantage, which allows the spear thrower, the bow, the crossbow, and the catapult. \n\nChemistry: Gunpowder is perhaps debatable, being discovered well before modern science per se. Antibiotics, although you could consider it biology. Plastics, oh boy. Condoms without latex really suck.\n\nBiology: Genetic engineering - take your pick: The old-fashioned kind with crossbreeding and culling that created all the modern cereals and cattle breeds, or the kind that people get hysterical about that uses pipettes. The latter is perhaps mostly a false alarm so far. The Pill! (Possibly chemistry?) Machine guns are not really practical without smokeless powder - the residue of black powder will foul it very quickly - but I don't know if this gives you the social change you want; at any rate it's pretty indirect. ", "1911: Rutherford's gold foil experiment, which lead to the Bohr model and modern quantum mechanics...\n\nMendelev's periodic table: The first periodic table identifies several previously unknown elements and eventually grows to the current form\n\nLavoisier (1794.): Discovered oxygen, moved chemistry towards quantitative science, helped develop the metric system now used in science.\n\nOrganic chemistry: Revolutionised how we see the world, allowing the development of polymers, drugs etc.\n\nThese are a few chemistry based discoveries which I think are important." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "f0uzv54" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "It isn't known exactly how tobacco first came to Japan. In the mid-to-late 16th century, tobacco was spreading in East Asia and South-East Asia, probably through multiple routes: Portuguese sailors/traders from Europe or Brazil, Dutch sailors/traders, Spanish sailors/traders from Mexico and the Philippines, and Arab and Indian sailors/traders. By one or more (and most likely it was through multiple routes), tobacco was known around the East and SE Asian maritime world in the 16th century. But the early 16th century it was being grown in China and Japan.\n\nThe 16th century also saw the rise of the tea ceremony in Japan. Tea already had a long history in Japan, having been introduced from China and grown in Japan in the early 9th century. The classic tea of the tea ceremony, made with *matcha* powder, arrived in China in the 12th century, and was drunk by Buddhist priests. It spread to the samurai class in the 13th century, and was popular in the 14th century. The tea ceremony, as opposed to merely drinking tea, was assuming a recognisably modern form in the 16th century, brought into this shape by the first recognised tea masters. Perhaps the most famous and influential of these tea masters was Rikyū, who smoked, and might have introduced smoking tobacco to the tea ceremony. Smoking as part of the tea ceremony did help spread smoking in cultured elite circles in Japan. If Rikyū was responsible, the inclusion of smoking in the tea ceremony took place before his death in 1591.\n\nJapan was already exporting tobacco to SE Asia by 1634, so production was well-established by then.\n\nFor a brief summary of the introduction of tobacco to Japan, see\n\n* Barnabas Tatsuya Suzuki, \"Tobacco culture in Japan\", pp 76-83 in Sander L. Gilman and Zhou Xun, *Smoke: A Global History of Smoking*, Reaktion, 2004. Further chapters discuss Edo Period smoking in Japan, and also modern Japan.\n\nThere is also discussion of the early history of tobacco in East Asia in\n\n* Benedict, Carol, *Golden-Silk Smoke: A History of Tobacco in China, 1550-2010*, University of California Press, 2011. \n\nIn both of these books, one thing that stands out is that we don't know much about the details of the introduction of tobacco in either Japan or China. By the time we have good evidence, it's already there, and being smoked." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cfubmav" ], "score": [ 14 ], "text": [ "The Han Chinese knew a decent amount, but largely shrouded in myth. Here is a list of historical documents:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe ones translated by John Hill are the best. There are descriptions and names for the chief cities of the Eastern empire, primary exports, notable flora, some not entirely nonsensical reports about the Roman political system, and so on.\n\nThe Japanese, at least as late as the Heian period, knew very little about the world beyond China, Korea, and Central Asia. One writer has his character shipwrecked in Persia while sailing from Japan to China, which should give you an idea." ] }

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[ [ "http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/texts.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cca8r9g" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "\nHey! A question on my field!\n\nFirst, 'erotic literature' (very good use of the correct term) was first printed in the late 1490's, the pioneer in the field being Pietro Aretino, of course.\n\nThe short answer is... What public?\n\nThe public, by and large could not read. Reading was still mostly limited to the upper classes, though it becomes much more widespread in the 18th century (1700's), and you see booksellers like Edmund Curll making a living selling erotic and controversial books. In the 1600's however, the seventeenth century, there was not really a reading 'public.'\n\nMost of what was published (in England) was in Latin and Italian, many of them reprints of Aretino's works. Some of the more famous works were written in this era, like *Nashe's Dildoe*, and *The School of Venus* (1680). \n\nWhat does survive from the seventeenth century (again, England), however, are erotic manuscripts. These manuscripts were absolutely fascinating items. You could think of them as group-notebooks. What this means is that maybe there would be a group of male college students (and these manuscripts are mostly found intact in University records), and individuals would write various things in them for everyone to read. Some things erotic, some things not. For example, there may be a recipe for \"cleaning the quente (cunt)\" alongside a long erotic poem. Another manuscript might have a recipe for curing a hangover alongside of a copied letter, a political satire. There was no real organization or coherence to them, although towards the end of the era, tables of contents began to be imposed after the fact.\n\nErotic manuscripts were essentially not 'literature' as they had a lack of coherence to them. They were, however, erotic 'discourse.' What I mean by this is that pornography might be used to launch social. religious, or political criticism. \n\nThe most famous of these might be Rochester's Satyr (Satire) on Charles II, in which he says: \n\"In th' isle of Britain, long since famous grown/ For breeding the best cunts in Christendom,/ There reigns, and oh! long may he reign and thrive, / The easiest King and best-bred man alive.\" and uses erotic discourse to accuse of the King of being too busy fucking and not busy enough overseeing the affairs of state." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cssgd81" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "You might want to check out:\n\n- [When did the Monetary system using \"paper money\" we have today start?](_URL_0_)\n\n- [What are the earliest dates for paper money?](_URL_1_)\n\n- [How did they prevent counterfeiting of paper money before modern things like holograms, fluorescent ink, and microprinting?](_URL_2_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1r87lu/when_did_the_monetary_system_using_paper_money_we/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/103vfh/what_are_the_earliest_dates_for_paper_money/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1s7vbr/how_did_they_prevent_counterfeiting_of_paper/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dim45o3" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Former speaker Newt Gingrich was an assistant professor of history at West Georgia College before being elected to Congress." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d0r3lf9", "d0r95ho" ], "score": [ 2, 3 ], "text": [ "Additional question (if permitted by mod overlords, please delete if not): is there a good english language book on this that does not look at this purely in reference to the lead up to the world wars?", "\"The Long Nineteenth Century\" by Blackburn is a general history of Germany, ending with WW1. You'll find plenty of information to get started in the book, as it is well sourced. I don't recall it being too specific in that area, but would certainly not hurt to start your search. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cg4atfu" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "An anonymous chronicler writing during the civil wars of the 1320s, wrote that:\n\n > ...upon looking on him [Piers Gaveston] the son of the king immediately felt such love for him that he entered into a covenant of constancy, and bound himself with him before all other mortals with a bond of indissoluble love, firmly drawn up and fastened with a knot.\n\nThe modern judgement on this by Edward's biographer [J. R. S. Phillips](_URL_0_) is that: \n\n > Such comments have led to the modern assumption that their relationship was definitely sexual. The evidence for this, however, is far from clear. While some of the chroniclers' remarks about Edward II can be interpreted as implying homosexuality or bisexuality, too many of them are either much later in date or the product of hostility, or a combination of the two, and thus not acceptable at face value." ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._S._Phillips" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cgwakyv", "cgwfjrp" ], "score": [ 30, 22 ], "text": [ "So basically, history in the last 50 years has moved from the \"Great Man History\", or more specifically the standard politico-military histories that were oh so popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, towards cultural/social history. \n\nThe difference between cultural and social history is pretty goddamn slim, but basically they both study the history of people. An intermediate step was called Marxist history, or the study of the \"proletariat\", and that got cleaned up to (it got a haircut, put on a suit, and threw out its Che Guevara t-shirt. Fuckin' sellout.) \"bottom up\" history. Basically, all four really tried to figure out what everybody else was doing when the \"Great Men\" went out a'conquer-in. \n\nIn the case of Cultural/Social history, they really try to understand trends, experiences, and groups. Social historians look mainly for those trends and macro-level conclusions, which can be extrapolated down to fit smaller groups (usually). OTOH, cultural history focuses on \"microhistories\", or really small tales, vignettes, and stories of people, places, traditions, rituals, or other really unique things. These stories are then wrapped up into a larger connection to society in that place, at that time.\n\nActually, I would kinda say that Cultural history has really \"taken over\" history, and its really now the dominant, hegemonic, methodology for most historians. Or it is at my school, its hard to tell what the outside world is like sometimes. Schools are like echo-chambers in some ways. \n\nA great person to read, to try and see this method in practice is Natalie Zemon Davis. She has a collection of Essays (*Society and Culture in Early Modern France*), which is 8 essays that detail specific groups, rituals, etc. of early modern French life, and then connect them to great French Culture, and also modern society. An example: She has one essay about Journeyman printers in Lyons. These printers formed a group, the Griffarions (I *think* I spelled that right), which was sort of a trade union. This \"union\" then went around the town pissing off all the Protestants, killing scabs, and raising hell. The protestants kicked them out following their rise to power in Lyons. That essay really shows what Cultural History is: I take a small topic, explore it in detail, then connect it to something larger and more meaningful. \n\nThe major problem I have with cultural history, and especially its stats in the discipline now (again, where Im at in it) is its *too* powerful. Before, there was no balance between the \"great men\" and the little guys. Now theres no balance the other way, and nobody wants to talk \"traditional\" European history. Thats great if you really love, say, sexual history, and writing about the sexual mores of Victorian women really gets your motor running. In this methodology, youll do well. Me, I like War. And Tanks. And Strategy. Im a \"lines on the map\" kind of guy. I really want to talk about Bismarck, and the Molktes, and Marshall. But thats not the history thats popular right now, so sometimes I feel left out of the whole \"micro-cultural-history\" party. So thats my big criticism with the current direction of things. That and the fucking post-modernist school. Seriously. Fuck those guys. \n\nAlso, I notice your flair is Japanese history. Im not up on my Asian historiography, but Im pretty sure that native Asian historians are likely practicing their own specific kinds of historiography. There is enough trouble trying to apply what Ive just said to other Anglophone countries like England, let alone the rest of Europe, or *Asia*. \n\n > what sort of epistemic theories underpin different \"camps\" in current historical practice?\n\nI would answer this, if I knew what it meant. ", "In some ways the Great Man theory was a metanarrative, and I think metanarratives are in general less emphasized these days. The Great Man theory suggests that well... Great (or more perhaps \"important\") Men are the driving force in history. You acknowledge this in your question, but I think the question of \"what makes history go\" as you say has fallen a bit out of fashion. Certainly there are still people who are trying to answer that question, but many historians have eschewed it in favor of using different frameworks to explain different things.\n\nAs an example the Marxists metanarrative, which is quite far from the Great Man theory in that it posits that class conflict is the driving force behind history, has also pretty much gone out of fashion. But that does not mean that Marxist analysis has gone entirely out of fashion. Instead, it means that historians tend to use his insights about class and historical materialism in a more focused way. To poke and prod some bit of history to see what insights come, rather than try to place them into a grand narrative. \n\nI can not really speak for everyone, so I will just speak for myself. To me historical methods and theories are part of a sort of \"toolbox\" from which I can take out a particular thing when it is the right tool for the job. I will say that this - as a rule - is a bit of a post-modern position. I don't really think of myself as primarily a post-modernist. However, I do think that is probably has some post-structuralist leanings as you'll notice when you read the rest. So be it.\n\nFor example, I think discourse analysis can be incredibly powerful and useful as an analytical tool. But at the same time I don't need to buy into the idea that \"all the world's a text.\" Just as seeing the usefulness of post-modern theory in general to understand the way people understood (or understand) the world, how their world view and beliefs or \"knowledge\" influences their life and decision making does not mean I need to reject the notion of objective reality.\n\nGender theory has become very important for analysis as well. Joan Scott's article from 1986 sort of launched that. Even though a lot of work has been done since then, it still serves as a great introduction to the concept. It's available here: _URL_0_\n\nWilliam Sewell has made a somewhat similar point in his 2005 book *Logics of History* in which he discussions social and cultural history both at length. He thinks that both social and cultural history have offered important breakthroughs but that dedicating yourself to only one or the other can be a bit too limiting. \n\nI just remembered I answered a similar question to this a while back and dug up my answer. It is similar, but I included a list of relevant works by category in that one. If you want to see that, you can read it here: _URL_1_" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://facultypages.morris.umn.edu/~deanej/UMM%20Home%20Page/2001/Readings/Gender/Scott_Useful%20Category.pdf", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1pa59n/historians_of_all_fields_what_are_some_of_the/cd0m4fw" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dmag66i" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "One thing to keep in mind is that administrative boundaries work differently in China than in the United States. Municipal administrative units usually include most of the suburbs of a city, and some of the outlying rural areas as well. The most extreme example of this is Chongqing which is the size of South Carolina in order to put the Three Gorges Dam into the Chongqing urban area. However, even other Chinese municipal areas are much larger than their American counterparts.\n\nIn fact, the Chinese government is actively trying to keep it's cities small. Engels had strong views about vast urban agglomeration, and much of Chinese policies, from it's investments in intercity high speed rail, and the operation of the household registration system is designed to keep cities from getting too big. The success in this is mixed at best. " ] }

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[ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_China_by_population_and_built-up_area" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "c65njtg", "c65nvkj", "c65p1ks", "c65pku7", "c65t668" ], "score": [ 8, 3, 3, 6, 2 ], "text": [ "Purely anecdotal\n\nSpeaking to Australian Vietnam vets, many were denied admission to their local RSL's, many were told Vietnam 'wasn't a real war' by WW2 vets, and that the strongest condemnation they received was from veterans. I wish I had a source other than anecdote; these were guys from RSL's who came to talk to my class, so I'm inclined to believe them. ", "I think your question might be a little too broad, veterans made up a pretty diverse cross section of society so its likely their views would reflect and change with society as a whole.\n\nIf anything, I'd imagine that American WWII veterans would follow the same trend as the American public during the Vietnam war. Namely, initial support followed by a growing recognition that the war was unwinnable. From the American perspective as well, domestic politics became intertwined with foreign affairs and being anti-Vietnam, at least initially, was associated with hippies, communism, and cowardice. \n\nThis is the extent of my knowledge on the topic but if you'd like to learn more about American attitudes towards Vietnam I'd recommend checking out *Nixonland* by Rick Perlstein.", "My Grandfather fought in the Pacific and thought that the Vietnam war was incredibly important. Meanwhile, his sons dodged the draft by staying in college, and argued to him that the Soviet Union would collapse without US intervention.", "This is purely anecdotal, but my grandfather came out of WWII with strong pacifist views. When my uncle was graduating high school and eligible for the draft, there was some talk of sending him to college in Canada. That didn't become necessary, because US troops pulled out of South Vietnam around that time. \nSo, according to my mom and my uncle, he didn't believe in the Vietnam war or think it had a good purpose.", "I don't have a good answer, but my grandfather was in the Army (he was a paratrooper) during WWII. He enlisted in the air force during the Korean War, though he never went overseas during that time. He did meet my grandma during that time. I would imagine he wouldn't have re-enlisted if he didn't support it to some degree, but what do I know?\n\nI'd ask him about this question, but I never got to meet him since he died when my dad was about twenty. It's really unfortunate because he never really told anyone much about his experiences, like a lot of veterans of that period. We found out bits and pieces from guys he was in the army with, which was interesting, but most have passed away at this point." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d678igy", "d678vxi" ], "score": [ 12, 5 ], "text": [ "Couple of reasons, since the invasion of the USSR in 1941 German treatment of Soviet prisoners had been horrendous, kept in wire enclosures until they starved, succumbed to disease, or were simply summarily executed (among the first victims gassed at Auschwitz were Russian PoWs). With no quarter given on the Eastern Front it could hardly be asked. Wehrmacht soldiers rightly feared Russian vengeance, after what had been done in the occupied territories of the USSR, and knew that capture would mean heading for forced labor in Siberian gulags, if they were not shot out of hand. Many, if they survived, weren't released until the '50s.\n\nTreatment of PoWs from the western allies was - comparatively speaking - much better, as was their treatment of German PoWs, although there were incidents of brutality on both sides they nominally adhered to the Geneva Conventions on treatment of PoWs (to which the USSR was not a signatory). A commander of the [352nd Volksgrenadier](_URL_0_) wrote to the families of six men MIA, *\"The Americans opposite us have been fighting fairly, they have treated German prisoners well and fed them. If your husband is a PoW, you will probably receive news of him through the Red Cross.\"* It got him in trouble with the party for suggesting that captivity was a tolerable state.\nCompare this to the Eastern Front, where the wretched prisoners taken by the Red Army were known as *Stalinpferd*, a Stalin horse.", "The western Allies treated the surrendering forces MUCH better than the Soviets did. Surrendering to the Soviet forces meant years spent in Siberian prison camps and many German soldiers died before they got back to Germany 5-10 years later. They knew the Americans and British would put them in a decent camp, treat them well (remember many German prisoners had more privileges than African American soldiers) and the vast majority were released within weeks or months of the war being completed. Americans especially had a tendency to view Germans as the most \"American like\" of the enemies they faced during the war. So basically, better treatment, shorter time in \"prison\", and a less likely chance of dying." ] }

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[ [ "https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YA7TAi2Y9DYC&pg=PA192&lpg=PA192&dq=german+soldier+captivity+tolerable&source=bl&ots=do0-T470FU&sig=VVRmzHlqTEIcSrsIbSB-K5-4jPI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQ_a7PgK7OAhUlC8AKHRaGCNoQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=german%20soldier%20captivity%20tolerable&f=false" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "clqx0uj" ], "score": [ 40 ], "text": [ "You seem to be asking 2 different questions. 1.) \"Why were Islam and Christianity unsuccessful in getting converts in India\" and 2.) \"Why wasn't Hinduism completely eradicated by a monotheistic religion.\" These are two different things, and let me first say that Historians can't exactly explain why something *didn't* happen. That's not within our capacity, but I'll gladly share some relevant insight with you. \n\nFor one thing, your first question is based on a bad premise. Islam and Christianity were both successful in penetrating India. As of today, roughy 1/3 of the global Muslim population either lives in the Indian Subcontinent or is of that heritage. Indian subcontinent because, as Im sure you are probably aware, prior to the British Raj there was no cohesive Indian nation. Just a sub-continent of various independent polities. While they most likely had a cultural understanding of being a part of the Hindustani fabric, they were all in practice nations independent of each other. Even when united under one of several Empires such as the Maurya of Mughal, these nations would not have seen each other as the same people. Prior to the advent of Islam or Christianity, these would all have also fallen under a Dharmic tradition- either Hinduism or Buddhism. Anyways, fast forward a couple thousand years, and the modern States of Pakistan and Bangladesh (which emerged from 2 of India's most prominent states) exist at all because of how deeply Islam penetrated India. And even with that being the case, the Indian Republic is still most likely home to the 2nd largest Muslim population in the world. I can't see how Islam failed to penetrate India with these things being the case. As far as Christianity, while it is less prevalent in India, so too is the amount of time that India was under rule by Christians significantly less than the time India was under the rule of Muslims. Even then, [there are states in East India today that are more Christian per capita than the American South](_URL_0_), with Christianity being the 3rd largest religion in the Indian Republic. So, again, i would stop short of calling that 'unsuccessful'. \n\nBut this is a good point to pivot to your next question. Why didn't Hinduism get eradicated completely? Truthfully, I cant answer this question. Dont know that anyone can. But for one thing, look at how despite being home to so many Muslims (almost half the Arab World even), the Muslim population of the Indian Republic is only 14% of the overall population. INDIA IS HUGEEEEEEE. Both geographically and demographically, and naturally this has had an effect on how thoroughly these lands have been proselytized. In fact, there is only one macro-region with a comparable population, China, and that region mind you hasn't totally adopted monotheism either. \n\nAnother point of consideration though, is that Hinduism was in a sense created by the British. What I mean by this is, prior to the Raj, there was no centralized or universal 'Hindu' religion/identity. There still isn't. Rather, there were hundreds of Dhramic traditions that were indigenous to the sub-continent, traditions that would vary wildly from region to region. The British took all of these and compartmentalized them under a catch-all term: Hinduism. Prior to this, there really was not a universal Hindu identity or sense of nationhood, going back to the earlier commentary on how the Indian states saw each-other as different nations and peoples. If there was, a tiny Muslim minority would not have been able to rule the 'Hindu' super-majority for so long, no way. Rather, the Islamic rule of India as well as the spread of Islam in India happened at a state by state basis. No one went in looking at the whole of India as one nation or land to conquer/convert but rather a region of a bunch of disjointed nations (and rightfully so). Contrast this for example with the Ottoman incursions into Europe, which was rebuffed with a united Christian front. It was understood that that was a Muslim vs Christian ideological alongside the physical conflict. This was not always the case in India. \n\nFor this reason, there wasn't a campaign or push to conquer/convert India all at once. That would have been akin to the notion of trying to conquer/convert \"Asia\" or \"Africa\" in one breath, simply unheard of. So as a result of this, we can see that Islam spread more or less in an unorganized manner from state to state, 'nation to nation'. SO my point is, if you look at it in terms of \"the spread of Islam in Bengal/Punjab/Sindh/Hyderabad/Tamil/Kerala\" as opposed to \"the spread of Islam in India at large\", you have a better framework of understanding how the Muslim conquerers themselves saw it. And in this regard, some nations/regions/states were fully engulfed by Islam. Its all about perspective. \n\nIm sorry if that doesn't fully answer your question, but I don't think there is any single answer to why Hindusim wasn't completely eradicated in India. But in summary, Im sure the incredible size and scale of Hindustani civilization was a factor. But alongside the point about perspective, keep in mind that both Islam and Christianity in fact did successfully penetrate India, at least to some extent. \n\nSources:\n\nInscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India\nCynthia Talbot\nComparative Studies in Society and History\nVol. 37, No. 4 (Oct., 1995), pp. 692-722\nCambridge University Press\n\n[Read Here](_URL_2_)\n\n\n\nWho Invented Hinduism?\nDavid N. Lorenzen\nComparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Oct., 1999), pp. 630-659\nCambridge University Press \n\n[Read here](_URL_1_)\n\nPennington, Brian. The Invention of Hinduism: Britons, Indians, and Construction of Religion in Colonial Bengal. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.\n\nKing, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Post-Colonial Theory, India and \"The Mystic East\" New York: Routledge, 1999. Print." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_India", "http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/179424?uid=3739616&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104941828177", "http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/179206?uid=3739616&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104941828177" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ean8fa7" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "When Germany was defeated in the First World War (in 1918) it caused a period of chaos which would eventually lead to Hitler. The defeat created a revolutionary situation and forced the Kaiser out of power. A new and very unstable democracy was created- the Weimar Republic. Germany's economy and society had been devastated by the war and this was greatly exacerbated by the peace treaty which it was forced to sign by the victorious allied powers (called the Versailles Treaty). Versailles forced Germany to pay huge reparations to the allied powers and also to give up quite a bit of territory and to limit its army. The treaty was economically damaging and politically humiliating and created huge resentment within Germany. At one point, when Germany could not afford to pay reparations, France even occupied part of the country. The currency totally collapsed and people literally had to take wheelbarrows of money to the shop to buy bread. So the new Weimar republic was always very unstable. There were 3 attempted communist revolutions from 1918-1923 and 2 attempted coups by the far right (one of them led by Hitler). \n\nIn the mid 20s the Weimar republic was able to stablize itself, and this created what is called the \"golden age\" of Weimar Germany (which only lasted a few years). It achieved stability by taking huge loans from the US which it could then use to pay the reparations. But in 1929 the Wall Street Crash happened, and this economic strategy was shattered forcing Germany into an even more terrible economic collapse than after WW1. Germany was the country most affected by the Great Depression. Unemployment was around 25% and the entire economy was collapsing. This situation caused a rise in popularity for both the far left (represented mainly by the Communist Party) and the far right (represented mainly by the Nazi party) which both proposed revolutionary solutions to the situation. \n\nThe Nazis were an extreme nationalist, facist party which had grown from being a really tiny party (of about 40 members when Hitler first joined) to a huge political force. In Hitler they had a very charismatic leader and adopted new methods of campaigning and propaganda. They argued for massive government intervention in the economy and promised that they would end unemployment by actively creating work (as Roosevelt would later do in the US). They also appealed to national sentiment. They condemned the Versailles treaty and argued that it was illegitimate and that they would entirely reject it. They openly argued that they wanted to expand Germany, win back the territory taken from it by the treaty and win more space (Lebensraum) in the east which would help build the German economy further. The Germans had only lost the first war, they claimed, because they had been betrayed by Jews and Communists who had undermined the country from within and were still doing so now. These arguments gained mass appeal and the Nazis did very well in elections. In the 1930 election the Nazis rose from about 3% to around 19% of the vote becoming the second party. The Communist Party also did well and got about 13%, they were the third party. \n\nSo as a result the traditional ruling parties of Germany lost their majority and were forced into increasingly unstable coalition governments which kept collapsing due to internal differences. None of these governments could find any solution to the economic crisis. Now the way the Weimar political system worked, there was a parliamentary system and the government was headed by a Chancellor (like a prime minister). But there was also a president who was meant to be mostly ceremonial but had powers which could be used in an emergency. The president at this time was a man called Hindenburg, a very old man, a conservative who was popular because he had been the head of the German army in WW1 and was seen as a war hero. Hindenburg now used his authority and appointed chancellors from the traditional parties to head minority governments and gave them emergency powers so they could rule by decree even though they did not have a majority in parliament. \n\nThis still did not stop the crisis however and the Nazi party was becoming more and more popular. In May 1932 Hindenburg appointed a conservative Franz Von Pappen to be chancellor who had almost no support in parliament (he did not even have a party) and resigned after only three days prompting new elections. Then in the July 1932 election The Nazis became the largest party almost doubling their support and winning around 38% of the vote. There was another election because parliament was so split in November 32 and the Nazis again became the largest party (although they lost around 4% mainly to the Communists). At this point the Left Wing were still stronger than the Nazis but they were split into two parties who could not collaborate- The Social Democratic Party and The Communist Party. The Nazis were openly committed to building a fascist dictatorship but it now became difficult to imagine any conservative government without their participation. Now Franz Von Pappen developed a plan and tried to convince Hindenburg. He believed that they could appoint Hitler as chancellor, use him to crush the left wing, but control him. He thought that if they gave Hitler some power, the conservatives could make him moderate his demands and bring him under their control. He seriously underestimated Hitler in part because he was an educated, upper class natural leader whereas he saw Hitler as an uneducated impostor. At first, he could not persuade Hindenburg who personally hated Hitler and did not trust him to bring him into the government. But by January 1933 Von Pappen persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler chancellor. This was partly motivated by personal motives and Von Pappen's desire for revenge against his former friends who he thought had destroyed his government. \n\nSo Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933. At first it was part of a coalition government and the majority were conservatives like Von Pappen (who became Vice Chancellor). But Hitler and the Nazis quickly marginalized them, gaining control of the key institutions (like the police) and pushing through repressive legislation allowing people to arrested without charge. Then in February 1933, only a month after Hitler had been named chancellor, an event happened which helped him greatly in building his dictatorship. A communist militant set fire to the German Parliament. Hitler argued that this was intended as the signal for a Communist revolution and used the public outcry to blame the Communist Party in general (in reality the Communist Party had nothing to do with the fire). He persuaded Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree criminalizing the Communist Party. This allowed the Nazis to destroy their one major competitor (the communists were the third party) and to become, overnight a majority in the German parliament. In March Hitler passed the Enabling Act which granted him emergency powers allowing him to rule by decree, essentially as a dictator. By this point Hitler's power was complete. He used the conservatives to destroy the Left Wing- criminalising the socialists, communists and trade unions. But once the left wing was destroyed there was no opposition and the conservatives themselves could do nothing to stop him. \n\nThe last independent source of power in Germany was Hindenburg but in 1934 he died. Hitler then abolished the role of president and appointed himself Reichsfuhrer, which combined the role of Chancellor and President. He now ruled basically unopposed and was free to build the Nazi dictatorship. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d0w7xrg", "d0x20dd" ], "score": [ 18, 3 ], "text": [ "Anytime there has been something of that description, Britain was always the motivator. \n\nIn Canada's position there are a few things discouraging it from picking a fight with its neighbor. \n\n1.) Canada has always had a population dearth relative to the United States. Less people means less resources for industry, research, and, most importantly, the military. It has been perennially outnumbered. \n\n2.) It does not control trade routes that are critical to US trade. With the exception of the Great Lakes, Canada has never had the geographic advantage to just sever a trade line. \n\n2b.) Canada is a modern military, but like many other nations, does not have the Navy to match the US Navy. If they are going to project power over a coastline, you have to be able to go toe-to-toe with the people you are trying to restrict. \n\n3.) The Canadian border, de-militarized as it is, is near impossible to hold without giving you plans. Either side of the border would have to deploy an unreasonable number of units along that border. \n\n4.) The US and Canada share a very similar heritage. A product of British colonialism, a \"frontier legacy\", and a people who know each others culture well enough on friendly terms. For instance, the NHL has teams from both sides of the border. Our cultures are inter-twined enough that making the other seem like a true enemy would take a lot of propaganda work. \n\nThose are all I can think of off the top of my head. ", "King Walnut has covered most of it in his post, but I'd like to add a little:\n\nThere was a war, the war of 1812(-16). The Americans were angry with several British policies, such as arming Native Americans and press-ganging suspected British-born Americans into the Navy to fight Napoleon. The reason Britain was arming Native Americans was that they were worried that western expansion of the USA would lead it to become powerful enough to be a threat to Britain, perhaps conquering Canada. \n\nSo, President Madison and his advisors decided to invade Canada, while Britain was engaged in the Napoleonic War and so unable to muster its full forces to defend Canada.\n\nHowever, the war didn't go as well as expected. While the Americans did occupy a fair bit of territory, the war wasn't very popular at home, particularly in the north-east industrial areas, the areas most needed to support the nearby war. \nIn addition, the British allied with a federation of allied native American tribes, led by the famous Tecumseh.\n\nIn 1815, the Napoleonic War ended. This meant Britain was, in theory, able to turn its full attention to America, and some Americans feared they could be reconquered. On the other hand, after a long, brutal and expensive war, the British frankly didn't have the appetite for another war in America (especially as their previous war in America hadn't gone that well).\n\nSo, the two countries signed an armistice. They promised to respect each other's borders, and not to sponsor forces opposed to each other (such as Native Americans). \nSo, both sides got what they wanted: America no longer had Britain trying to stymy it's westward expansion, Britain felt security that its Canadian territories wouldn't be invaded by America.\n\nAfter this, it was in neither Britain nor America's interests to fight a war. Trade was much more profitable. Now, resources could be seized by force... but why should either side want to attack a powerful, industrial country, one with legal standing in the world community, and a similar culture and religion? Why do that, when there was also this land to the west full of untapped resources, guarded by non-industrialised, low-population forces with essentially no international legal standing? For America, their military was too busy taking the West to want to invade icy Canada. For Britain, there was western Canada, but more importantly India and Africa to conquer (and the local Canadian forces lacked the population to attack America by themselves).\nBy the time Canada became fully independent, we get to the era of the World Wars, where America and Britain ended up as allies. This was then followed by membership of NATO. In the modern era, cultural, trade and political ties are just too extensive for armed conflict, nor, as KingWalnut covered, is there any particular motivations to wage such a conflict." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "daf7zu8" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "This is a broad questions, and as a result there's a lack of definitive statistics, but there seems to be a fair degree of consensus that for the most part European (and by extension early American) sailors were comparatively poor swimmers. For much of the period at least into the 19th century, moreover, a clear distinction was drawn between \"bathing\" (which essentially meant going into water where it was possible to stand, if need be, and which was relatively popular) and \"swimming\" (meaning in open water where it was not possible to stand, which was not.)\n\nSeveral authorities have attempted estimates of the proportion of sailors who could swim. Overall, it seems to be agreed that as late as 1900 a high proportion of sailors – significantly more than half – were not able to swim.\n\n* Nicholas Orme, in his *Early British Swimming, 55 BC to AD 1719*, comments that early swimming in Britain was confined largely to ponds and rivers, and almost never done in the sea; the practice also \"virtually excluded the whole female sex\" (p.107). He also usefully discusses the relatively late development of \"scientific\" swimming and efforts to maximise efficiency in the water, noting that up to the 17th century at least side-stroke was considered the fastest stroke available, modern strokes had not been invented, and swimmers in general were \"weak in the efficiency and speed of their basic propulsive strokes.\"\n \n* It's estimated that only about one in seven Dutch sailors in the first half of the 17th century could swim (Mike Dash, *Batavia's Graveyard* p.110)\n\n* Little, in *The Buccaneer's Realm*, notes that, in the Caribbean, swimming was a common ability among the indigenous peoples of the West Indies and adds that \"many whites ... swam and dived, and the notion that European sailors could not swim was false. Nonetheless, one captain observed 'how deficient our common seamen in general are.' Europeans who fell overboard generally drowned, even if they landed uninjured in the water.... Perhaps only one in four to one in six common sailors could swim.\"\n\n* Compton, in *Why Sailors Can't Swim* p.18, notes that a contemporary newspaper estimated in 1910 that 40% of US Navy sailors could not swim.\n\nAs to the reasons why this was so, they probably combine culture and geography. It seems it was at least in part because the skill was not regarded as a natural one for \"civilised\" white men to possess, and that status (and fear of ridicule) was a factor here. In *Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero,* Charles Sprawson comments on the disinclination of British colonists in India to swim, despite the hot weather - \"It was as though the English had taken to heart George Borrow's precept that a 'gentleman' should avoid swimming, 'for to swim you must be naked, and how would many a genteel person look without his clothes.'\" Similarly Blackmore, in his *Manifest Perdition: Shipwreck Narrative and the Disruption of Empire*, pp.91-2, argues that \"the human form in water... foregrounds the civilized/barbaric binarism... because natatorial ability is, in expansionist thinking, a 'barbaric' skill\" - one that was beneath European sailors and which they expected other people to perform for them. Blackmore cites the Dutch navigator Jan van Linschoten's *Itinerary* (late C16th), which stresses how useful Arab men \"infected\" with Islam could be in this context. Where European gentlemen swam, it was generally in private and where they were not likely to be seen by either women or by their social inferiors.\n\nWhile Sprawson also explores lots of other odd cultural tangents, noting that Rupert Brooke swam as a celebration of youth, Goethe as a declaration of freedom and beauty, and Baron Corvo as an expression of his homosexuality, it's also rather noticeable that there's almost no evidence in western sources for people learning to swim as a precaution or because it was seen as a useful skill until some way into the nineteenth century.\n\nThat said, I would guess that opportunity and conditions played at least as much a part in determining who could and who could not swim. One obvious factor is that facilities and conditions for teaching swimming safely were lacking. No swimming pools, and cold and uninviting local waters, probably help to explain why Europeans were less likely to be able to swim than the locals on Caribbean islands (and Darcy, in his *The People of the Sea*, p.31, a book about Oceania, similarly notes that the ability to swim was commonplace among Fijians, even those who lived well inland). Bruseth and Turner, in *From a Watery Grave*, p.116, attribute the deficiency to the fact that \"swimming was not the recreational sport that it is today.\"" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "eqdoke2" ], "score": [ 14 ], "text": [ "Governance before the civil war is tricky. The easy answer, of course, is that the Spanish government (whether the left or right was in power) was still in place prior to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, so areas with significant anarchist (or other leftist) presence were being governed by the government. It's not like a village could get away with declaring itself to be an anarchist commune, expropriate the local landlords and stop paying taxes - the Civil Guards existed basically to stop this happening, and were fairly brutal and efficient at stamping this kind of thing out. This does however gloss over the extent to which the Spanish state could often be rather absent in rural areas in the early twentieth century. Indeed, one convincing argument I've seen made about why Spanish anarchism became so strong was that they were the only ones actually making an effort in rural Spain aside from the Catholic Church - they set up local organisations, libraries and education facilities long before the government made any serious effort to provide these kind of services. So, in this sense, 'governance' is a bit of a mixed bag - the government could exert control, but weren't performing many of the 'normal' functions of governance in many of the areas that the anarchists were particularly strong. Particularly in pre-Republican Spain, this was a key driver of anti-clerical feeling - for all intents and purposes, the Church was the only institution of the Spanish state that was actually present across much of rural Spain. This meant that Church institutions and representatives were inevitably politicised, and seen as legitimate targets for political violence in a way that was just about unknown across much of the rest of Europe.\n\nThis picture obviously changes after the outbreak of the civil war, and the launch of what is often called the 'Spanish Revolution' in response. This revolution is quite distinctive, as participants were not that concerned with the big institutions of government like parliament, which generally continued to exist as before (albeit without much influence over events in the early weeks and months), but concentrated on seizing local land and means of production, as well as more functional aspects of government like barracks, armouries and telephone exchanges, particularly in Barcelona. This reflected, of course, the ideological preferences of the revolutionaries. But an inevitable result is that it's very hard to speak of a singular experience of the Spanish Revolution, as the methods and aims of different groups varied so widely.\n\nSo, even looking at somewhere like Catalonia where this revolutionary process went the furthest in collectivising land and factories, it wasn't like parts of Spain became homogenously anarchist. Some locales, for instance, might have both a socialist and an anarchist collective farm. Even among these collectives, there was a great deal of variance in scale (one collective might have 5,000 inhabitants, another 50) and context (different crops, locations, climate, rules etc). Broadly speaking, collectives were established by local trade unionists (UGT, CNT or both), and delegates were appointed to manage various aspects of the new enterprise, from different types of production (crops, cattle etc) to administration, and the delegates together formed a general council, often responsible in turn to a general assembly of the collective's workers (not, I suspect, including the women), which were sometimes regularly consituted and played a guiding role, and sometimes were irregular gatherings with less of a day to day role. Joining collectives was nominally voluntary for smallholding farmers (and many did indeed choose to do so), but there may have been some coercion involved, and restrictions placed upon those who remained independent, such as not allowing them to employ anyone. How far these collectives remained true to their basic democratic principles, or became small fiefdoms of local dictators, is a more difficult question that is inevitably tainted by wider ideological debates. Individual collectives were also, naturally, variably successful, with some seeing defections, others the participation of self-interested individuals who sought to profit from accumulating goods and produce. Similarly, whether or not production increased as a result of collectivisation tended to rest on local contexts and factors, as well as the wider pressures of the war on the agricultural sector. While I have less direct information about law enforcement as per your question, I suspect it reflects this picture as well - rules and laws would likely have been established and enforced differently, depending on how collectivisation proceeded locally.\n\nThe militias themselves were also a bit of a mixed bag. While they did well against often disorganised and confused opponents in the mainly urban battles of the early civil war, the transition to more traditional warfare exposed their lack of training, equipment and organisation, leading to heavy losses and eventually the regularisation of the militias into more traditional military units. In theory at least, the anarchist militias were supposed to be democratic entities. The Durruti Column, one of the earliest anarchist militias formed in Catalonia, was described by one historian as being:\n\n > organised on an anarchist basis, with ten men forming a group, ten groups a *centuria*, all electing their leaders, and five groups an *agrupación*. The leaders of these bodies formed the war committee of the column, which had to approve the decisions of the Technical Military Council, consisting of the few officers who accompanied the militia.\n\nThough the basic formula varied, the election of delegates in this manner appears to have been common. Democracy went beyond the election of leaders. Some anarchist militias refused to participate in what was seen as pointless militarism, such as drilling or being confined to barracks at night. Military orders, particularly in the early months, were often written more as persuasive arguments and justifications than as direct commands, in the knowledge that the latter might be refused on principle. Yet as with collectivisation, there was little conformity or regularity at play here, and some anarchist columns were doubtless little better than bandits. This meant that depending on who the local militia were, the standards of justice you might expect would vary considerably - and if your crime was a political one, even the most principled would not hesitate to use violence.\n\nYour last question about the conflict with communism is a whole other can of worms, which I'll continue below!" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c4tiemk", "c4tjl5m" ], "score": [ 6, 3 ], "text": [ "Well, to start, Hitler was chancellor of Germany in 1933: he was running the show in 1933. You want to talk to him in the 1920s, it seems, so:\n\nDo some research on the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 - that's his first grab for power, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. And while serving his ridiculously lenient jail sentence, he wrote Mein Kampf. I might ask him about the up-and-coming Nazi Party - what he plans to do with it. Ask him about the end of World War I and how he feels about Weimar - he had very strong feelings about these. Ask him about race and struggle - those were the cornerstones of Nazi ideology. ", "There seems to be a bit of a spread on this (anywhere from 1920 onward), so I'll provide two possibilities:\n\n**If in the 1920s:** What is Hitler's opinion of [Houston Chamberlain](_URL_0_), a famous English scholar who defected to the Kaiser's Germany during the First World War and subsequently penned numerous works of anti-British propaganda (as married Wagner's daughter, for what it's worth). He's also famous for having devised certain theories about the basically Germanic origin of all that was good in European art and culture over the last several centuries -- given Hitler's interests, I'd imagine he'd have much to say about this, one way or another.\n\n**If in the 1930s:** Ask him what he thinks of [Oswald Mosley](_URL_1_) and his attempts to bring Fascism into the mainstream in England. Hitler will know exactly whom you're talking about, have no fear - the British Union of Fascists exploded onto the scene in 1932, and by 1936 the two men would be on such familiar terms that Hitler was happy to attend Mosley's wedding. " ] }

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[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Stewart_Chamberlain", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Mosley" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cu63bqt" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "~~I'm not sure which \"other people\" you are referring to.~~ The Romans thought that Latin was a dialect of Greek. Modern linguists believe that they are both part of the Indo-European language family and therefore have a common linguistic ancestor. [This article](_URL_0_) will probably interest you" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.jstor.org/stable/30038039?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dtj8k9y" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Hi! You might enjoy the answer I gave to this question [here](_URL_0_). My view is that we need to be thinking about these numbers less in terms of \"true or false\" and more in terms of \"plausible or implausible in a world without written records\". In the context of his own work, Herodotos made a lot of effort to justify his numbers, which he probably couldn't have lowered without losing credibility in the eyes of his audience." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7lkmwo/did_ancient_people_knew_their_quoted_numbers_of/drn48gt/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dp6746s" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Hew Strachan tackles Africa in his \"The First World War,\" volume 1. I believe you can buy those sections as one unit on Amazon. He'd be a good place to start. I suggest mining the references and going from there. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cnlpeh7" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "In areas where natural copper could be found the nuggets were cold worked by natives into a variety of tools including arrowheads. One of these areas was located around the Great Lakes and is called the Old Copper Complex. Copper arrowheads and other tools were also used in Alaska and the Yukon. \n\nThe use of copper was completely dependent on the availability of naturally occurring copper that did not need to be smelted. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "culd20n" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "hi! always room for more info on this, but you can get started on this earlier post\n\n* [Why are trophies often cups?](_URL_0_) - featuring responses from /u/TheJucheisLoose and /u/ConventionalAlias\n\nif you have follow-up questions on this locked post, ask them here & page the relevant user by including their username" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1nrnji/why_are_trophies_often_cups/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ci3fa0p", "ci3fale", "ci3l2xg", "ci4jn5n" ], "score": [ 203, 78, 67, 2 ], "text": [ "If this question isn't relevant, feel free to remove mods.\n\nGiven the nicknames M3 Lee, M3 Stuart, M3 Grant, and M4 Sherman, why were Union and Confederate general names given to tanks, or any modern weapons for that matter?", "Follow-up question: Was it common knowledge among Americans that the M4 medium tank was nicknamed the Sherman by the British?", "It was never commonly called the Sherman by American forces during the war, it wasn't until after the war that the name was adopted by the Americans. To the Americans the Sherman was the M4 or M4 Medium for much of the war.\n\nIt was the British who gave the Sherman that name^1 and used it in official documents, so for the British an M4A1 was a Sherman II while an M4A4 was a Sherman V. \n\nThe Americans in general did not name their tanks until late in the war. Names like ~~Wolverine for the M10~~ and Priest for the M7 were all inventions of the British and in the case of the ~~M10 it was not a popular name~~. If I recall correctly the M24 Chaffee was the first American tank to officially have a name attached to it by the Americans.\n\n^1 Steven Zaloga - Armored Thunderbolt, pg. 34\n\nEdit: According to [this](_URL_0_) post by solipsistnation the name Wolverine for the M10 was a post war invention, I was always under the impression that it was a name invented by the British but it was one that never stuck. I have edited my post to reflect that.", "/u/TheHIV123's answer is correct from my research but many Southerners still hold a lot of resentment towards Union Generals and Military Governors. Some southerners still dislike Sherman, for his march to the sea and destroying Atlanta, and Benjamin Butler, Political Governor of New Orleans and Union General, calling him Beast Butler because of declaration of slaves as contrabands of war during the Civil War. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cq36ymf" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "Maya records do give us a good look at the nature of (and possible motivations for) a variety of military endeavors. Let's take a look at a few.\n\n* Palenque and Calakmul were two of the many pairs of constantly competing city states, located just south of the Tabasco region in southern Mexico. Sometime around 608 AD, Palenque, led by Ajen Yol Mat, began expanding it's control to the northeast, towards the direction of Calakmul. Calakmul's rulers, who styled themselves \"snake lords,\" did not take very kindly to this. The Lord Scroll Serpent retaliated in 610 AD and for months sacked (the Mayan verb is literally \"axed\") cities on his route to Palenque itself. In these battles, Ajen Yol Mat and and brother/second in command Janab' Pakal the Elder were killed, and Palenque would be in its darkest days.\n\n* During this troublesome period, in 603, a fellow named K'inich Janaab' Pakal 1 (\"Sacred Flower Shield the First\") was born. The aforementioned deaths of so many royals left him as the next best candidate for succession, even if it was a matrilineal claim. His mother, Ix Sak K'uk', effectively ruled from 615 until the young king was capable. K'nicich Janaab' Pakal 1 would become Palenque's greatest ruler, reigning 68 years, constructing its most impressive monuments, and, of course, executing successful military campaigns. Around 650, Janaab' Pakal began reasserting Palenque's northern and eastern frontiers. Yet again, Calakmul got cranky and marched towards Palenque, \"axing\" it once more in 654. But it was not the same degree of blow as before, and Palenque quickly retaliated, capturing Calakmul's allied city Pomona, sacrificing its leaders, and installing member\ns of Palenque's own dynasty on the throne.\n\n* Yaxchilan, to the southwest of Palenque, was one of the first sites to have a mostly complete timeline of rulers established. One anomaly, though, sticks out. One ruler, Shield Jaguar 1, died on December 1, 741. The next ruler would not be seated on the throne until May 3, 752. This man called himself Bird-Jaguar IV, was the sun of a \"Lady Eveningstar,\" and, curiously, appears nowhere in the records until his accession. Even curioser: we know that Lady Eveiningstar was from Calakmul and a secondary wife of Shield Jaguar 1, most likely a political marriage. But Shield Jaguar's Queen consort, Lady Xoc, was an incredibly popular and powerful woman; why should her son not rule? Well, if we look at Bird Jaguar IV's activities, it's clear that he was purveying an enormous amount of propaganda: inserting himself into historical scenes, showing him and his mother alongside important individuals doing rituals, and comminsioning images of him capturing all varieties of enemies. Bird Jaguar IV's name is also frequently followed by numerous titles: \"Captor of Lord Jeweled Skull,\" \"He of 20 Captives,\" and \"Captor of Aj Uk.\" (A rather common tradition) He uses these titles from the very beginning of his reign, before he could have led many military campaigns. And over at Piedras Negras, a rival of Yaxchilan, we find an inscription showing a captured noble from between 741 and 752, a noble many consider to be the missing son of Lady Xoc. Put this together, and we have a picture of a Classic Maya *Game of Thrones*: queens, brothers, and some opportunist neighbors vying for succession after the death of a highly successful king.\n\nAs you can see, military efforts in the Classic Maya lowlands were often quite political. Kingdoms were competing over land and influence over surrounding, smaller towns. Nobles were competing for thrones when succession was unsure. And in each situation, the victors were taking important figures captive and sacrificing them, and then gracing themselves with titles of \"Captor.\"" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cep7ca7", "cep7z7q" ], "score": [ 13, 64 ], "text": [ "In pure numbers the Army of South Vietnam was of a similar size to that of the North. However the tactical position they were faced with in 73 could not have been more dissimilar. The North had good control of it's territory, an experienced army with a stable command structure, and a large groundswell of support in the regions it was moving into. The South lacked all of those. The distinction between North Vietnam and South Vietnam hides the fact that it was not two states at war, but a civil war, with civilians having mixed loyalties on both sides of the border*.\n\nWhile by 1973 it is true that a large number of the communist aligned troops operating in South Vietnam were North Vietnamese the first decade of the conflict was characterised by South Vietnamese fighters on both sides engaging in irregular conflict in the areas south of the Cambodia-Laos border, and a somewhat more conventional war in the North-South border regions. \n\nThe result of this continuous engagement in South Vietnam resulted in a far greater number of casualties of in South Vietnam (both sides of the conflict) than in the North, leading to an Army that was accepting a far wider range of recruits (including actively courting non-Viet Cong aligned militia/warlords). This ongoing guerilla conflict also meant that by the time the Americans withdrew there were significant portions of South Vietnam that were not under direct control of the Government in Saigon.\n\n*The 63 coup saw the end of any significant support for the Saigon Government in North Vietnam, but even before that the social strata each group drew their support from as well as the rhetoric by which they constructed their legitimacy meant that loyalists in the North were more likely to migrate/flee than leftists in the South. ", "[I've answered this previously in this thread.](_URL_0_)\n\nThe period we're going to speak about is completely focused on conventional warfare, as opposed to the asymmetrical warfare in which the Vietnam War (the American portion of it) had largely been fought. With the exception of two major occasions, the Tét offensive in 1968 and the Nguyen Hue (Easter) Offensive in 1972, the People's Army of (North) Vietnam and the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam (henceforth abridged as PAVN and ARVN) had never truly faced of against each other in a conventional battle. In fact, one of the main reasons for the ARVN's failure in conducting proper counterinsurgency is that it had been trained since 1955 to repel an expected invasion from the North. When the time came for the PAVN to face off against ARVN in the Easter Offensive of 1972, the PAVN suffered several losses and was ultimately beaten back by the ARVN with help from American fire support. The PAVN had yet to perfect combined arms tactics and suffered greatly because of it. The ordinary ARVN soldier, who is usually the scorn of popular history on the Vietnam War, labelled as nothing but incompetent and coward soldiers, showed remarkable courage and fighting ability in fighting the Tét offensive (alongside American troops) and the Easter Offensive (practically on their own with American advisors or special forces). \n\nSo if the ARVN had managed to fight off the PAVN in 1972, what went so disastrously wrong in 1975? \n\nThere are several reasons for this. \n\nThe Americans had left Vietnam two years previously and while all equipment and machinery had been left behind for the South Vietnamese to use, they were practically useless without ammunition or spare parts - items which the US were not prepared to supply. While President Gerald Ford tried to gain support in Congress to increase the money given to South Vietnam, the ARVN found itself in an ammunition shortage. Since the US were not prepared to help South Vietnam with fire support like in the previous two conventional encounters, it would be an increasingly difficult task to stem the tide of North Vietnamese crossing the DMZ. The PAVN was also superior in numbers, having increased in size and improved itself during late 1973, but which had been constantly developing since 1968. PAVN had several veteran units, and plenty of soldiers in the PAVN had combat experience and were of rather high quality. Unlike the 1972 offensive, combined tactics training had been carried out and improvement on collaboration had been achieved. Combine this with competent generals and commanders in the field as well as sound and proper preparation for the offensive (in particular when it came to logistics and transportation) as well as the successful use of deception tactics to disguise that Ban Me Thuot was the target of the initial 1975 offensive.\n\nThe ARVN by this time was unfortunately still plagued with the corruption of senior officers and with widespread lack of proper training. However, when put to the test, the average ARVN soldier could stand his ground. To say that the North crushed the South instantly is perhaps too much of an exaggeration. ARVN stood its ground on plenty of battlefields, right up to the end at Xuan Loc. However, we have to consider the human factor in this and many soldiers feared for possible reprisals. Considering the importance of family in Vietnamese culture, it was only natural for men to desert to seek up their family amongst the refugees, but there are also plenty of ARVN soldiers who used the thought of protecting their families as their prime motivations in fighting. \n\nIn the end, it was simply too much for an already weakened ARVN. Without fire support, without the necessary equipment, spare parts or ammunition and with the enemy close to their families, it became too much for them to bear. After the fall of Ban Me Thuot President Thieu decided to evacuate the Central Highlands and effectively cut South Vietnam in two. The final collapse came soon thereafter.\n\nTo read more on this and the 1975 offensive, I'd recommend Gorge J. Veith's *Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam 1974-75*." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ltek4/why_was_the_north_vietnamese_military_so_superior/cc2kk10" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "fch417y" ], "score": [ 42 ], "text": [ "I don't think that the premise of this question (that Japan and South Korea have avoided corruption, unlike the rest of East Asia) really holds up. If you look at the Economist's [Democracy Index](_URL_0_), and Transparency International's [Corruption Perceptions Index](_URL_1_), you'll find that things are a little more complicated in that region.\n\nYou're right that South Korea and Japan are at the top of the DI in Asia. But Taiwan is up there with them, and other East and Southeast Asian countries, such as Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and Hong Kong are in the \"flawed democracy\" category as well (albeit at the lower end).\n\nOn the CPI, Singapore leads in East and Southeast Asia by a large margin, and is tied for the 3rd least-corrupt country in the world. Japan sits at number three in East/Southeast Asia, just behind Hong Kong. Taiwan is next, then South Korea, whose score of 57 puts it in the \"middling\" range, close to countries such as Rwanda and Costa Rica.\n\nTo address the question itself: When talking about the economies of these countries in the 20th century, economists like to refer to the \"Japanese Economic Miracle\" and the \"Miracle of the Four Asian Tigers\" (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong), essentially asking \"How did these five impoverished countries, ravaged by World War II, create their highly-developed economies within a generation?\" \\*\n\nLikely factors include: a high degree of state intervention in the economy, an emphasis on export-oriented policies, low taxes for foreign corporations, and early investment in infrastructure, technological innovation, and universal primary education. At the time, there were few limits to state power in any of these countries, so economic directives from the top could be implemented quickly and effectively. Some writers and politicians include a \"cultural\" factor into the mix, claiming that there is a certain set of \"Asian values\" such as hard work, stability, collective success, and respect toward authority. This same set of values was used to explain why these countries retained their authoritarian governments—until, of course, they didn't.\n\nSouth Korea and Taiwan both experienced peaceful democratic revolutions in the 1980s, a development that many political scientists attribute to their newly-educated, aspirational, and globally-aware young populations who wanted a greater say in their futures (both revolutions were initiated by student groups). And in 1993, Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, which had ruled the country since the end of the American occupation, lost their parliamentary majority for the first time and peacefully ceded power to the opposition, a huge milestone in solidifying democratic institutions in any country. Hong Kong and Singapore made democratic and transparency reforms during this period but never transitioned into fully democratic states.\n\nAnswering why a country did become a democratic state is a lot easier than speculating on why one didn't, so I'm not going to touch on the remainder of East and Southeast Asia. Suffice to say there's a whole lot of variation across the continent, and each country has its unique set of advantages and challenges.\n\n\\* Scholars are finally beginning to reconsider using the term \"miracle\" when discussing these developments. Using the term \"miracle\" implies that the success of these countries could have only come from sheer luck or an act of God, which feels pretty condescending." ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#/media/File:Democracy_Index_2018.png", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "chqrfr9", "chqs5qe", "chqt2ih", "chqw83j", "chrcn4d" ], "score": [ 70, 18, 20, 14, 5 ], "text": [ "In the case of Rome, they would just build a new, larger wall around the city. It is important to note that city walls were huge undertakings that were extremely costly, so usually walls were only built when it was believed that the cost of not building a wall would exceed the cost of building one. By the time gunpowder was popular, city walls had generally ceased to be effective enough to merit the investment in their construction.", "Many times they'd just be built around and/or knocked down.\n\nSiena still has its walls up and fully intact due to post bubonic plague demographics, where the city didn't regain its pre-plague population level until the 1800s\n\nHere's a picture of a fully modern city still surrounded by walls, and they still close the gates every night \n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_", "As a piggyback question: in the novel A Clash of Kings, by George R. R. Martin, a character orders sprawl around the wall to be burned down, so enemy soldiers can't climb it and get over the wall.\n\nWas this ever a concern during a siege? Were walls ever climbed by enemy armies?", "For one thing, sprawl didn't exist in the way it does today. True sprawl, like we see today in America, wasn't possible without motorized transport. \n\nHowever, when the city started to expand beyond historic walls, in some cases it just became a matter of money. In medieval Dublin, living within the wall came with certain taxes. In return, those people obviously got the protection of the city defenses. Those who didn't want or couldn't afford the tax had to risk living outside the wall, and the city didn't have to responsibility to give them much protection. The fixation line of the wall still exists in Dublin between the area around St. Patrick's cathedral and the Liberties neighborhood across the street. ", "In the Netherlands, the growth of cities was severely restricted by their walls. (For a typical example of how those walls looked, see the [city of Brielle](_URL_4_). The suburb to the south is twentiest-century.)\n\nThe problem with suburbs and urban sprawl is not so much that they are undefended, but rather that they stand in the way of your cannons, making any construction directly outside the city walls impossible. Thus, you have to build the walls first, as in the case of [Amsterdam](_URL_3_) mentioned above.\n\nMost cities in the Netherlands kept their walls into the second half of the nineteenth century[1]; by that time, most Dutch cities were very, *very* crowded.\n\nLook at the city of Utrecht, which took down its walls very early, in 1830: compare [this map of 1865](_URL_2_) with [this one of 1649](_URL_5_). In 1865, the city is still not much larger than in 1649, while having almost twice the inhabitants[2].\n\nA very nice book on overpopulation in Dutch cities in the nineteenth century is [Koninkrijk vol sloppen](_URL_0_), but it is in Dutch.\n\n[1] The [fortress law of 1874](_URL_6_) listed a large number of cities that were finally allowed to demolish their walls and was the end of the paradigm of defensible cities (with [one exception](_URL_1_)). Most walls were turned into much-needed public parks, so that the form of the old fortifications can often still be recognised today.\n\n[2] According to [this table on wikipedia](_URL_7_)." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://sienaitaly.ca/attractions/sienacitywalls.html", "http://www.kingtrips.net/italy/graphics/italy/map-siena-02-1600x1850.jpg", "http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/1ca03d/" ], [], [], [ "http://uitgeverijprometheus.nl/index.php?option=com_pac&view=boek_detail&isbn=9789035135970", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stelling_van_Amsterdam", "http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Utrecht1865.png", "http://youtu.be/IvsHvfs3G1M", "http://goo.gl/maps/kFGKP", "http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Traiectum_-_Wttecht_-_Utrecht_(Atlas_van_Loon\\).jpg", "http://www.forten.info/wetten/vestingwet.htm", "http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utrecht_(stad\\)#Bevolkingsontwikkeling" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "clkof8g" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Here is a [haAretz article on what's controversial with her writings on Eichmann](_URL_1_). [That controversy was made into a film](_URL_0_).\n\nFor her writings on Totalitarianism she had no access to Russian language sources. She relies on the sayings out of date with what she is using them for not sourced and taken, as google reveals, from news papers, from Trotskist pamphlets etc.\n\nIn her «Reflections on Little Rock» she voiced opposition towards Black Suffrage in US America.\n\nHer support for Heidegger was controversial because Heidegger would refuse to show remorse for what he had done in the Nazi regime." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1674773/", "http://www.haaretz.com/where-hannah-arendt-went-wrong-1.264075" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7i0hb8" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "Is this related to your [High School English Assignment](_URL_0_) or a separate homework?" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/HomeworkHelp/comments/14y2g9/high_school_english_can_anyone_help_me_find/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "czyv8xx" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "The leader was the person who most obviously had the qualities of leadership (I'll explain more at the end). Those qualities included:\n\n\n*Good lineage. Was your father or father's father a great leader and an honorable person who paid their debts and was honest with their business? Did they come from a hospitable family that takes in travelers? Were they distinguished? Also there is a reason there is so much politics around the idea of marriage. Marriage during this period was a way of unifying families to create a stronger grouping, bring peace between the two, or a way for families to become a part of a dynasty. Since heterosexual unions came with the assumption of children, those children became the heirs to family lines that also tie to land rights. As such rulers were the ones that typically owned land or had legal precedence to land ownership (i.e. their land was taken from them and they have a \"birth right\" to fight for it back like King Harald Hadrada).\n\n\n*Personal strength, bravery, honesty and masculinity which are all tied to personal honor. If you were not the strongest or bravest then why would I follow you into battle? Leaders including Kings were at the front lines leading the attack and showing an example to their men. Also since warband leaders were responsible for distributing the booty, if you are dishonest, how do I know I won't get my fair share? And of course masculinity which ties to strength and bravery but also ties to living in your role as a man. For instance, magic was believed to be the realm of women and while there were some men that practiced it they did so at the risk of being labeled ergi which means lacking in respectable masculine values. This could lead to your wife being allowed to divorce you as well as adversly effecting your reputation for future business opportunities. As such any remarks about ones manliness was taken seriously as it to the point of challenging them to a holmgang (a one-on-one duel) or straight up killing the person (you would be legally protected because if you didn't kill or challenge the person you were weak and thus embody the label of ergi) As such a person who was unquestionably manly and honest (which also tied to Norse masculine values) were usually candidates for leadership.\n\n\n*Good hamingja (luck). Is there a sense of luck around the person or things have happened to them that shows that they have a bright future and their fate is aligned for greatness? There was a belief that luck was an entity that followed and favored certain people and it only made sense that you followed a lucky person so that they could reap from the trickle-down of luck and other wealth from that person. This is something that is hard to objectively describe but the Norse were all about talking about people's hamingja. For instance Leif Eriksson is also known as Leif the Lucky since he saved a handful of men from a ship wreck that led to news of lands further West (Vinland). Luck can also leave you and with that your support for leadership can leave you too.\n\n\nNow saying the choice is obvious is very subjective to the social dynamics that went on during the time. To say a leader was always chosen a certain way is not the case because during this era in Norway, kings were killing each other left and right to claim the right to rule. What we can take out of this is that the connection between the leader and pertinent landed freemen (not all freemen had the same rights) was decided based on more personal ties (reciprocity of material and service) to that potential leader and if their peers believed the same thing too. You could become a local leader without the \"royal/jarl\" background and still aspire for greatness and those men were called Hersirs. Hersirs would lead a hundred (a unit of land area that is a county division) show their ability for leadership through their actions in battle which could lead to a Jarl or King bringing them into their Hird(I believe this term is primarily tied to the King of Norway) or personal retinue which can lead to more favors (jarls were replaced and replaced with loyal men), the ability to marry into the family and as such the ability to expand their powers further into the future themselves or through their kin.\n\n\nThe best example I have that you may be able to relate to is Aragorn in Lord of the Rings. He shows the virtues of bravery, strength and honesty that is tested in times of peril and which is known by many others around him which leads to stories that build up his reputation. He also comes from a distinguished line and royal ties that add to his credibility of being a ruler. By the end of the movie he is one of the big heroes that is instrumental in stopping Sauron from taking over mankind in Middle-Earth (no one can see or know about Frodo's ring mission as it's nature requires secrecy and thus none of the glory) that it was \"rightfully\" acknowledged and even pressured upon him that he was the best candidate for king Arnor and Gondor. What I mean: there wasn't an election but an organic \"vote\" and understanding based on the qualities of the person, that is pretty much how warband leaders were typically chosen." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "crjetmd" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Some professional signers of the baroque period and later had sweet merch, although I don't believe any of them profited from it directly through royalties or such, only indirectly through spreading their celebrity. It was a bit of a \"thing\" to have little enamel miniatures of your favorite singer and you could put them on your dress as a pin, on a chain as a necklace, or on the tops of your shoes (like decorative buckles). Luigi Marchesi and Farinelli are the only ones I know off the top of my head who got fangirls enough to merit shoe-toppers. [Here is an example of one of those enamel miniatures for Farinelli.](_URL_0_) There were also plaster busts of signers that were popular to collect, [here is one of an unknown man](_URL_1_), they were very fragile and very few survived, I don't know of any for opera singers that survived to today, but we have mentions of women collecting them for their favorite signers in satires and newspapers. There were also some direct musical appeals to celebrity from music publishers, like publishing \"Favorite Songs of Sig. Farinelli\" using singer's names and their famous arias, not sure if that would count. \n\nBut for who first deliberately cultivated such non-musical branding opportunities for their own direct commercial gain like \"Pickles Nickels,\" not sure, but there's not really an equivalent in the 17th-19th centuries. The idea of \"personality rights\" wasn't really there yet. Some vague movement towards moral rights of artistry (like the right not to have your music ripped off and published at someone else's gain) but even that was very sketchy, and depended on where you were working in Europe. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.fitzwilliamprints.com/image/803818/", "http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/sculptures-statues-figures/an-english-plaster-bust-of-a-gentleman-5896195-details.aspx" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "costspp" ], "score": [ 23 ], "text": [ "Selim I \"the Grim,\" over the course of his brief reign 1512-1520, secured Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, the three Islamic holy cities, and utterly demolished the Mamelukes of Egypt, who had been seen as the holders/protectors of the Holy Cities. Selim's conquests totally changed the character of the Ottoman holdings, which had previously been majority Christian and heavily European, into a truly Eastern Mediterranean empire with large Muslim populations in Syria and Egypt added. With the collapse of the Mamelukes, the possession of the holy cities, and the rivalry with the Shi'ite Safavids, proclaiming the Ottoman sultan the successor to the caliph tradition and the commander of the faithful etc. was just the natural next step.\n\nIn short, Selim became the first Ottoman caliph in 1517 after his dramatic conquest of all the Mameluke holdings (Egypt, the Levant, and the Hedjaz)." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e8l28ex" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Firstly, one only has to look at a map of the positions of the soviet civil war/pre 1939. Petrograd was mere miles away from first the German occupied areas of Russia signed away by the bolsheviks, and then also threatened by the breakaway Baltic republics and Finland. Moscow, being in the centre of Bolshevik Russia was a much more defensible position \n\nSecondly, Moscow and st Petersburg have had a sort of duelling cultural meaning in Russian culture. St Petersburg was the city of the tsars and represented, essentially, westernism. Moscow was the cultural heartland of Russia. In picking Moscow, the Bolshevik in part rejected the capitalist west to build a new society out of true Russia " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d1n6sg3" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Do you mean historical linguistics or knowing the languages? Historical linguistics is the study of how languages change over time, it's what's used to reconstruct things like Proto-Indo-European. It's not the same as knowing the languages, a historical linguist doesn't necessarily actually know the language that he's working on, although for obvious reasons it helps. It's also generally not all that helpful for history, although it can be useful for learning the languages (I don't personally think you can learn Greek without some basic idea of how the Greek language changed from prehistory to Attic, because otherwise you have to memorize the paradigms of literally every verb you encounter like a psycho). Knowing the languages, though, is of great use. I would argue that it's nearly impossible to study ancient history and classics without knowing Greek and Latin (although there are a *very* few number of scholars who actually don't). In more contemporary fields maybe it's not as important, I don't know--as a classicist I deal more or less exclusively with the texts themselves, so I would be forced to work from translation, which is very unsatisfactory for any detail or nuance and is not always possible, as some texts have never been translated. What's important in any historical field is being able to read the sources, whether that's direct material or scholarly material" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d7z9ar4" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "What springs to mind when reading this is Ivan Pavlov and his theory of classical conditioning (for which he used dogs to illustrate this) among other learning theories.\n\n**Now who was Ivan Pavlov?**\n\nIvan Pavlov was a Russian Behaviourist who in 1927 conducted an experiment which would (alongside *operant conditioning* essentially learning by trial and error) form a theory (\"Classical/Pavlovian Conditionding\" essentially learning by association) and mold part of our understanding on how we learn.\n\n**What did this study entail?**\n\n* Aim/Hypothesis: To demonstrate what animals learn by association.\n\n* Method/Procedure: Pavlov placed food in front of dogs, when the food was being brought to the dogs they began salivating. Pavlov would ring a bell every time the dogs ate the food. \n\nEven when there was no food given after the bell was rang, the dogs still salivated. They had *learnt* to salivate. Ordinarily when the dogs were given food they would salivate, Pavlov called this an *unconditioned response* to an *unconditioned stimulus* (food) as this happened naturally without experimentation.\n\nAfter a few rings of the bell, the dog began to associate that sound with food, Pavlov called this a *conditioned response* as it had been learnt (and an association attached) over time. Thus the food now was a *conditioned stimulus*.\n\nThere is more to Pavlov's study (e.g. to do with how long the learning would last and the specific parameters needed or not needed to evoke the response) however that delves more into science than history (But I'm still willing to explain that if you wish).\n\nHowever the \"ludovico technique\" involves inducing fear to emit a negative response so they feel adverse to doing that again. When thinking of that it makes me think of two other things:\n\n* Watson & Rayner's \"Little Albert\" experiment.\n* Aversion therapy & Phobias \n\n**Watson, Rayner and Little Albert**\n\n* Aim/Hypothesis: In 1920, Psychologist John B. Watson and his graduate student Rosaline Rayner already knew from studies in classical conditioning that fear to certain noises (e.g. a loud bang) was an *unconditioned response* in humans. What they wanted to find out was whether you could *condition* someone to fear a specific thing (e.g. furry toys or animals)\n\n* Method/Procedure: Watson & Rayner tested their hypothesis by attempting to scare an 11 month old orphan known as \"Little Albert\". They presented Albert with a series of items (white rats, rabbits, dogs, furry & non-furry masks, a santa clause mask, cotton wool and burning paper), Albert showed no fear when he saw the items. \n\nAlbert was given the white rat which he happily played with. Upon playing with the rat, Watson & Rayner struck a metal bar frightening Albert. Watson & Rayner repeated this several times, upon the 7th time Albert was shown only the rat without the noise. Now Albert became increasingly distressed and began to cry. \n\nW & R had turned a *neutral stimulus* (the rat) into a *conditioned stimulus* whilst also changing an *unconditioned response* (original fear of the loud bar) into a *conditioned* one (emotional fear). In later experiments W & R would *generalise* (this is one of the features Pavlov discovered) Albert's responses by showing him similar but different stimuli. \n\n**What can we do to remove these *conditioned* responses (e.g. phobias)?** \n\nWell W & R did try to *desensitize* Albert's conditioned responses but there wasn't time to do this. If one wanted treatment for their phobias, there are two main options:\n\n* Flooding\n* Systematic Desensitization\n\nFlooding essentially does exactly what you'd think it floods the person (all at once) with stimuli that they fear in an attempt to shock them out of it. E.g. If you're scared of spiders they'd get you to be in a room full of spiders.\n\nSystematic Desensitization is a little more thought out and methodical. In SD the person is gradually exposed to their fear (e.g. entering a state of relaxation, touching a picture of a spider, watching a video of a spider, touching a real spider, holding a real spider).\n\n**Aversion Therapy**\n\nThis is similar to classical conditioning and works by getting the person to experience an extremely negative reaction when viewing unwanted stimuli. E.g. an alcoholic would be given an emetic (a drug to make them vomit), they would then be given alcohol and an emetic which would also cause vomiting but condition the person to associate alcohol with being sick. \n\nAversion therapy was the main form of therapy when people tried to convert people from homosexuality to heterosexuality. \n\nHopefully this helped :) You can view how Pavlov went about his experiment [here](_URL_1_) and view the footage from the Little Albert experiment [here](_URL_0_) \n\n**Sources & Further Reading**\n\n* Pavlov. I. P. (1927): \"Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex\"\n\n* Asratyan. E. A (1953): \"I. P. Pavlov: His Life and Work\" \n\n* Watson. B. J & Rayner. R (1920): \"Conditioned emotional reactions\"\n\n* Boswell. K et al (2009): \"AQA GCSE Psychology\"\n\n* Billingham. M et al (2008): \"AQA Psychology B AS: Student's Book\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n" ] }

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[ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludovico_technique" ]

[ [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBfnXACsOI", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqumfpxuzI" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d3obe83", "d3p3n5g" ], "score": [ 7, 2 ], "text": [ "I have read many different takes on this question. A decent if incomplete explanation is that these forces were (a) demoralized and (b) split against each other.\n\n(B) is the less complex explanation, so I'll briefly address this. To the KPD, the SPD was a \"fascist\" political party that had ruined the promise of the 1918 revolution. In 1932, the KPD joined the Nazis in a transit strike in Berlin. In other words, the KPD had no interest in maintaining democratic institutions. We can assume, also, that the Reichswehr would have moved with alacrity against any uprising on the part of the KPD or associated militias.\n\n(a) Requires us to backtrack to the events of summer 1932. Franz von Papen is Chancellor. Eager to break the power of the SPD, he deposes the SPD government of Prussia by force. The Prussian state government was the last bastion of SPD power. Prussian Premier Otto Braun and Minister of the Interior Carl Severing, whose powers extended over Prussia's large and well-armed police force, would have been the ones in a position of sufficient authority to call a strike together. But contrast their position to that of Friedrich Ebert and Gustav Noske when these men called their strike in 1920. They were, respectively, President and Minister of Defense. They spoke with the authority of the nation in some sense, while those launching the coup were of the widely hated and discredited forces of monarchy and militarism. And while much of the military was on the fence in 1920, Reichswehr leader von Seect was, for instance, unwilling to take a positive move before an outcome was decided. In 1932, on the other hand, the Reichswehr stood with Minister of Defense Kurt von Schleicher. An outright strike could well have precipitated a violent reaction from the national government, and may indeed have reinforced their narrative of Communist/Socialist troublemaking requiring more authoritarian government. In sum - Unlike in 1920, Braun and Severing, and by extension the SPD, were in the position of illegitimacy. As Erich Eyck writes, \"large numbers of Germans, many of them quite influential, were jubilant at the prospect of getting rid of the Socialists and, if possible, of the unions as well.\" Finally, if the SPD had poor prospects of launching such a strike in 1932 their prospects were even more grim in 1933, after months of electoral drubbing and the loss of almost every position of power they had once held.\n\nYet, if they had truly believed in the Republic, wasn't it worth a last ditch effort? Probably not. It is doubtful that the mass of workers could have been called to an effective strike. Not only had many millions of them defected to the KPD and NSDAP, but the unemployment rate would have made such a tactic ineffective. Eych observes: \"For how could the trade unions call the workers from their posts when they knew that millions of unemployed were waiting the moment when these places might become vacant?\"\n\nA final point. I wrote [here] (_URL_0_) several weeks ago that Schleicher reached several labor union ministers and persuaded them that they would be granted positions of power in the new order, thus keeping them from launching a coup. I have to admit, I may have been seduced by good story-telling. While it's plausible, I haven't seen the evidence for it. \n\nCited:\n\nErich Eych, *History of the Weimar Republic, Vol. II*\nJohn Wheeler-Bennett, *Nemesis of Power*", "The Comintern followed a policy of forcing splits inside socialist parties up until 1934. Parties would split into socialists (trying to work in the parlamentary system) and communists (following a revolutionary way to power). Nazi rule was expected to be short and cause an uproar that would allow communists to come to power. In this context, the KPD didn't put up any resistance as the NSDAP was climbing to power, even assisting them in certain situations. As the NSDAP managed to hold on to power and crack down on the opposition a lot more effective than was expected the Comintern changed its policy and in 1934 started propagating the idea of \"popular fronts\" in the countries not yet under fascist rule. For instance, the Blum Popular front government in France, a wide coalition of parties intended to oppose the spread of fascism. To achieve this, the Comintern and the communist parties eased up on the whole \"revolutionary\" rhetoric. " ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4gqtjr/what_was_the_significance_of_the_new_political/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cvz6vcb", "cvzbchu", "cvzfiyg" ], "score": [ 12, 6, 10 ], "text": [ "First off, Saint Paul never knew Jesus. This is a very common misconception. He was not one of the original 12 apostles. He was a Jewish/Roman military man of the Roman Empire who at first persecuted Christians, then later converted, became a missionary and became arguably the key founder of Christianity. He was from Tarsus, Cilicia. He lived from 5-67 a.d.\n\nAnyway, I'll try to answer the question as best I can, I'm no expert. \n\nThe Roman's postal system was incredibly sophisticated and advanced for the time period. It was very simple for one to send a letter almost anywhere in the empire as long as it had an address. Paul's letters were often addressed to cities he or other missionaries had started Christian followings in. Often they were written to answer theological questions that arose in these congregations from a lack of a central or canon Christian law. The beginning of Christianity saw much debate and disagreement with different interpretations of the different gospels and the reality/divinity of Jesus. The letters would often be sent from Paul to the known Christian leaders of specific towns. These letters were to be read aloud to the following of Christians during their time of worship and congregation together. During the infancy of the Church it was common for letters to be sent out, there were always questions that needed to be clarified by one who they believed had an authority on the matter.", "You already received a comment about the postal system so I wanted to point out that he actually states in a few of the letters who was delivering them. I just got to work and can't put a lot of time into this, but the two examples I was able to quickly find are Phoebe who was sent to Rome (Romans 16:1) and Timothy in Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 3:2). \n\nPaul states that these two were sent as leaders of the church to help that particular congregation. It is possible that they followed the letters or preceded them, but the general consensus in my studies was they brought the letters themselves (they were going anyways) and would read and instruct through them to make sure the message was understood. ", "So I'm going to begin with one caveat. What I know about is the 4th century letter networks primarily amongst bishops, not the high imperial postal system of the 1st-2nd century of Paul's world. So bear that in mind.\n\nLetters outside of official government communication were not delivered by the imperial post (i.e. post office), they were delivered individually, by slaves, friends, or trusted individuals who would be chancing by the recipients location at personal cost to the sender or the messenger. \n\nI don't precisely know what the mediums were, but I presume a wax tabula or a scroll. Tabulas tended to more durable, but considering the length of some of these letters, I can't imagine papyrus scrolls not being used for communique.\n\nThere was a low expectation of privacy amongst late antique letters (doubly so outside of secret government communication) and many were written with the intent for them to be published. \n\nThis is \"non-presumption of privacy\" is an important thing to consider, as this is why late antique letters don't read like modern ones. Modern letters are considered intensely personal, not meant for dissemination, and usually a chronicle of autobiography or recent history. Ancient letters straddle what would be considered many modern genres. They could be philosophical treatises, essays, political commentary, panegyric-like praises, educational recommendations, in addition to autobiography and history. They were intended to be \"instructive\" as well as \"informative.\" This is why, regardless of whether an author cared for a letter to be saved, letters would be recirculated and sometimes published. At the very least, most letters (at least those that were saved) were not intended to be fully private.\n\nTo whom were the letters sent? To whomever they wanted. There are plenty of records of soldiers on the frontiers sending letters back to their family at home. However keep in mind, that outside the military, the only people who had the need to send a letter, were usually people who had the means or could afford to not be forced to live as part of the agrarian 80% of the roman world, tied to their lands by basic necessity or law, i.e. merchants, bishops, officials, senators, etc.\n\nWhen letters were received, they could be read alone or in a large group, but often the letter bearer was thought of as a stand-in for the person delivering the letter, so he would sometimes be invited in as a guest and quizzed about whatever details and circumstances regarding the letter and the letter sender. This would naturally result in the letter being re-read to the close ones of the recipient as well.\n\nOff the top of my head, I don't have a late antique example of multiple copies being made, but considering the known unreliability of letter transportation, for important communication this must've been so. I know as an example from way later, from the 16th century, Matteo Ricci would send multiple copies of his letters from China back to Rome via dual ships traveling in different directions. One east via the Americas, one west via the Indian ocean. In the Late Antique world, it was considered the responsibility of the letter sender to maintain regular contact, which was frequently revealed in the introductory rhetoric of most letters, lamenting delays or praising prompt replies, so if multiple letters weren't sent, I presume a summary would be attached in the next one if one was lost.\n\nSome sources I'm pulling from:\n\n* Ebbeler, Jennifer. “Tradition, Innovation, and Epistolary Mores.” In A Companion to Late Antiquity, edited by Philip Rousseau and Jutta Raithel, 270–84. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Chichester, U.K. ; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.\n\n* Gibson, Roy K. “On the Nature of Ancient Letter Collections.” Journal of Roman Studies 102 (November 2012): 56–78. doi:10.1017/S0075435812000019.\n\n* Sotinel, Claire. “How Were Bishops Informed? Information Transmission across the Adriatic Sea in Late Antiquity.” In Travel, Communication and Geography in Late Antiquity: Sacred and Profane, edited by Linda Ellis and Frank L. Kidner. Aldershot, Hants, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate Pub Ltd, 2004.\n\n* Walsh, P. G. 35. Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola, Vol. 1. Westminster, Md.: Paulist Press, 1966.\n" ] }

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[ "http://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3odeqo/did_early_christians_believe_that_the_roman_gods/cvwfqjo" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "cjxtlxd" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "It wasn't necessarily \"Mao\" that was responsible for these actions. If anything, Zhou Enlai played a bigger part, having been China's foreign minister up until the 1960s.\n\nBefore we get to the Chola incident and the 1963 Sino-Pakistan agreement, you should understand that the Chola incident was a result of the Sino-Indian War of 1962. This was due to a border conflict between China and India. India was concerned about seeming weak due to territorial conflicts with Pakistan, while China was concerned that India was allying with the Soviets to surround China, as well as subverting Chinese rule in recently annexed Tibet. Indian Prime Minister Nehru instituted the Forward Policy, which authorized Indian troops to move into disputed regions held by Chinese troops. As they moved deeper into these regions, they came into conflict with PRC troops, eventually resulting in several firefights. The Chinese were incensed as they believed this was part of a plan to destabilize Tibet, so they elected to attack India to punish them. The resulting treaty resulted in a peace that more or less demarcates the current borders, although there were still border disputes for years after the war. As a result of this incident, China courted Pakistan as an ally against India, to help offset the Soviet Union's courting of India.\n\nOn a similar note, the Sino-Soviet split had already been in motion for a long time. China had significant territorial claims on Russia, who had signed one of the \"unequal treaties\" in the 1800s to claim Outer Manchuria, or Primorye, as well as the annexation of the area known as Tannu Tava in the West, as well as border incidents in Mongolia and Xinjiang. As a result, to satisfy Chinese revanchism, China attempted to negotiate with the Soviet Union to \"revise\" these treaties which the Soviet Union found to be unacceptable. As a result, Chinese troops attacked Russian forces in a series of border skirmishes over the island and various other territories.\n\nSources: \n\nMaxwell, India's China War\n\nLuthi, the Sino-Soviet Split" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e9xse5e" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I'm so happy you asked this. I've been reading a book called Spain: [The Root and the Flower by John A. Crow](_URL_0_) that has been extremely interesting to me. I've really learned a lot and I'd highly suggest his work. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nIn short, Iberia was fundamentally different from the rest of Europe because, during the time of the artistic and intellectual renaissance in Italy, Flanders, and the rest of Europe, the kingdom of Castille (the closest thing to \"Spain\" there was back then) was still busily reconquering the Iberian peninsula from the \"Moorish invaders.\" I put that in quotes because by the time Spain reconquered Moorish cities like Seville, Granada, and Cadiz, the moors had been there for 600+ years, and had seriously better art, science, and math than the Spanish, who had spent the majority of the years 700-1400 in a constant state of conflict against the Moors. (okay- under some rulers, Moors, Jews, and Christians lived harmoniously, but for the most part of Spanish history, rulers used religion to unify the country and if you weren't Christian, you were taxed, tortured, and kicked out of the country once the Spanish Inquisition started.) \n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe \"re-birth\" Spain experienced wasn't a rebirth of art and culture like that of Italy, but rather, a re-harnessing of the conquistador spirit that suddenly had no more Spanish land to conquer. In 1492, Isabelle of Castille banned the Jews and Moors thus unifying Spain under the Catholic cross. Simultaneously, Christopher Columbus \"discovered\" America, a land full of gold and natives to convert. The decision to invade for Spain was an obvious one. The Royals were most concerned with spreading their influence and increasing their wealth than creating art and re-discovering the human experience. They weren't exactly a country of romantics. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nHowever, I want to point out to you that during the golden age of Spain, (which will be defined by different times depending on who you ask, for these purposes, we'll say 1492-1650) there were several of the worlds first, and most significant dramatic written stories. I'm sure you've heard of Don Quijote by Miguel Cervantes, published in 1615 (often called the first novel), but that story was actually preceded by an even older written story called \"La Celestina\" was written in dramatic dialogue, however, never was intended to be performed or told, but rather, read. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nAlso, you should check out El Greco and Diego Velazquez for paintings, they were both amazing artists who worked in the Spanish Courts. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nSource: Spain: [The Root and the Flower: An Interpretation of Spain and the Spanish People Third Edition](_URL_0_) by John A. Crow" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.amazon.com/Spain-Flower-Interpretation-Spanish-People/dp/0520244966" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cxpfprh" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Sorry for the long delay in getting to this, unfortunately it has been a hectic week. The British were definitely involved in the Latin American revolutions to a greater or lesser extent. It is worth noting that the British were fighting Napoleon during the early 19th century and had a giant army all ready to go and get involved in the Western hemisphere. Not only that, but following the American Revolution, the British adopted a trade policy that allowed them to trade with countries that they would not formally recognize. Furthermore, many of the leaders of the Revolutions were anglophiles who actively sought British aid and support. Simon Bolivar, of obvious fame, wanted the British to get involved and even suggested placing the newly free countries under the British wing, though not their direct control. Though it wasn't a revolution, the British pressure on King Joao was the direct cause of his declaring Brazil a sovereign kingdom, equal to Portugal and any other country, for that matter.\n\nSo that's the prelude, on the ground, The British Legion, which consisted of 800 soldiers on five ships, were sent to aid Bolivar in his revolution, those these were not official troops. Meaning that the government was not willing to officially endorse the Revolution, but were willing to help out of they could. Not all of those troops made it to Venezuela, and they were not particularly helpful, but they were sent.\n\nAfter the Revolutions, the British were very big on nation building, sending tons of ships to trade with the new nations. especially British manufactured goods for the various export goods of Latin America. Whether or not this was a good thing has been a huge debate in Latin American history, since some, building on extraction theory, have said that is simply changed them from a de jure colony to a de facto colony, but nevertheless, they were welcomed at the time. For a while the British was the largest shipping country in the western hemisphere, outdoing even the United States. \n\nSources: John Chasteen, *Americanos*, Leon Fink, *Sweatshops at Sea*" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cbo2547", "cbo6exw" ], "score": [ 6, 14 ], "text": [ "There was one brief period of time during WWI when an army executing its deserters was common. This was June 1917, when the French army was hit with widespread mutinies, in the wake of the failed Niville offensive of May, 1917. General Petan replaced Niville as the comander of the French army and instituted the following reforms. He curtailed the supply of wine to the french soldiers, improved their leave policy, promised no more futile frontal attacks, and prohibited pacifist and Bolsehvik literature from being distributed at the front. The French army admits to passing out 412 death sentances and claims 356 were commuted. The actual number of soldiers executed by the French army in June of 1917 is a matter of speculation, but the official French numbers are much to low. There were 170 major acts of mutiny and some of their ringleaders were shot without a trail. Petain was looking to weed out the soldiers that went to Paris on Leave and went back to the front with a bale of Bolshevik or Pacifist propaganda. The ringleaders the French shot were not just simple deserters. They were trying to get their entire regiment to join them in \"voting for peace with their legs\" to use the Bolshevik phrase that was popular in 1917. Source: D J Goodspeed \"The German Wars\" p 235", "This is actually a very complex question for reasons that I’ll try to outline. Please note that I will be using “shell shock” and PTSD interchangeably and will approach the question largely from the British perspective.\n\nEarly in the war, physicians began to handle cases of psychological breakdown, paralysis, and disturbing, uncontrolled physical behavior among men who had been in combat. C.S. Myers was one of the first to coin the term “shell shock,” as doctors assumed that artillery fire and the like had had caused concussion-like damage and possibly physical legions somewhere in the brain. Other doctors saw the same thing, but Myers discovered that many men experiencing these symptoms hadn't been near artillery bombardments and so he tried to withdraw the term, but it stuck. The condition was called “soldier’s heart” in the American Civil War and “combat fatigue” in the Second World War, and now we call it PTSD. It’s not until 1980 that PTSD gets into the medical handbook as a legitimate syndrome, which means that doctors can treat it and that those who suffer from it can receive a pension.\n\n* **Why was it so difficult to pin down a definition for “shell shock?”** \n\nThe medical profession of the time was conservative and relatively endogenous. Many of them thought that shell shock was a license for cowardice or a renunciation of “manliness,” which made it partly a problem of gender. It’s important to understand that although we usually think of PTSD as a psychological disability, it often manifests itself in physical ways. At the time, the conversion of mental symptoms to physical ones was called hysteria – a term reserved for women. This meant that men suffering from “hysteria” were transgressing Victorian gender norms, and we can see the stigma of this diagnosis clash with social conventions – only enlisted men were diagnosed with hysteria, while officers were diagnosed with “nervous breakdown.” The difference in diagnosis was paralleled by differences in treatment – treatment for enlisted men was largely punitive and coercive, while treatment for officers was based more on persuasion, sometimes through psychotherapy. Lest you think officers were in a better position, remember that the casualty rate for them was almost double that of enlisted men.\n\nDiagnosis and treatment were further complicated by the difficulty in identifying who legitimately had a problem and who was just trying to get away from the front. For some physicians, the solution was to make treatments more painful than returning to the front. For example, electric shock therapy could be used on mutes to try and stimulate the tongue so that they would make noise. In Austria, future Nobel Prize winner Julius Wagner Jauregg was accused of torturing his patients because he used electroconvulsive shock treatment to discourage malingering. In general, the war tore up the Hippocratic Oath because doctors became servants of armies that needed men to return to the front as soon as possible. Thus, the principal aim of doctors was to heal the injured enough to send them back to the front. This meant that if a soldier had a physical wound in addition to psychological symptoms, doctors would often treat the wound and then send the soldier back. Treatments were thus largely coercive in nature – there’s a famous French story in which an army doctor told a soldier “Yes, you are going to get this.” The enlisted man responded, “No, I’m not.” “Yes you are, I’m your officer, I gave you an order.” The exchange continued back and forth until the doctor moved to put the electrodes on his forehead and the enlisted man knocked him out. The soldier was then court-martialed, found guilty, fined one franc, and dismissed from the army without a war pension. This is the sort of thing that contributed to desertion, especially from men who felt they had no way out.\n\nAs you can see, there were numerous problems with the medical profession’s approach to the symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of shell shock. Consequently, we really don’t know how many suffered from it. The British Army recorded 80,000 cases, but this likely underestimates the actual number. Regardless, we can be sure that a significant number of those that went through artillery barrages and trench warfare experienced something like it at some point. While the number is significant, it’s important to remember that a minority of soldiers suffered shell shock, and consequently it does fit into the spectrum of individual refusal. \n\n* **What about executions?**\n\nIn the late 90s there was a movement in England to apologize to those that refused to continue fighting in the war. There were 306 men that had been shot for cowardice or desertion and although the British government refused to make a formal apology, one of Tony Blair’s last acts as prime minister was to posthumously pardon them. The problem here should be obvious – it’s unclear how many were shell shocked and convicted of cowardice or desertion when they really were insane. There’s serious doubt as to how many men actually thought it through and decided that they couldn't fight anymore and were going to leave. \n\nIn the French case there was a terrible period at the beginning of the war when there were many summary executions. It’s a perfect example of what happened when officials and the professional army feared the effects that desertion might have on the rest of the men that had been mobilized at the start of the war. The French CiC, Joffre, felt that if offensives didn't proceed because people were “allowed to act as cowards,” the rest of the mobilized army, made up of millions of reservists, would be contaminated. The upshot was the summary executions of numerous soldiers. The French parliament set up a special tribunal in 1932 to reexamine many of the cases, and a number of those who had been executed were subsequently pardoned, some on grounds that they had originally been denied the right of appeal despite being citizens. There is an important distinction to make here – French soldiers had the vote and could appeal to their representatives for better legal treatment, while millions of British soldiers could not since they were subjects of the crown. By the end of the war, every capital sentence required the approval of the French president.\n\n* **Why do we think PTSD began with “shell shock?\"**\n\nWorld War I was the first to really introduce mental illness to mass society. The notion of traumatic memory that was brought back home and reappeared in literature helped normalize mental illness in the absence of consensus by the medical profession as to what it was. Although PTSD existed long before the First World War, the circumstances of the war pushed hundreds of thousands of men beyond the limits of human endurance. They faced weapons that denied any chance for heroism or courage or even military skill because the artillery weapons that caused 60 percent of all casualties were miles away from the battlefield. The enthusiastic men that signed up in 1914 were loyal, patriotic, and genuinely believed that they were fighting to defend their homeland. While they consented to national defense, it’s not clear that they consented to fight an industrialized assembly-line murderous war that emerged after 1914. Unlike previous wars, there was no beginning, middle, and end. Trench warfare was seen as a prelude to a breakout, but those breakouts never really occurred. Many men withdrew from the reality of the war into their own minds, and in this sense shell shock can be seen as a mutiny against the war. PTSD has numerous symptoms, but among them is the sense that the war the soldier lived had escaped from human control. This is why many PTSD sufferers are constantly reliving the trauma – the horror of combat never goes away and time has no hold over it. There’s a wonderful autobiography by Robert Graves called Good-Bye to All That; it’s one of the most famous World War I memoirs. Of course, the great irony is that he can’t say good-bye to all that - his life is constantly affected by his war experience, even 10 years after the war ended. There are so many great World War I memoirs, but I’d highly recommend the following:\n\n***The Secret Battle* by A.P. Herbert**\n \n***The Case of Sergeant Grischa* by Arnold Zweig**\n\nBoth deal with executions and the perversion of military justice during the war. I believe the Secret Battle is available online for free. You can knock it out in an afternoon. There are some other books I’d recommend that deal with shell shock but I’m not at home at the moment and need to find them. I would recommend ***The Legacy of the Great War*** and ***Remembering War***. Both are by Jay Winter, who specializes in historical memory and World War I. This is definitely the longest post I’ve ever written, but I’ll leave you with one final note: I was lucky enough to study under Jay Winter back in 2011, and he told me that when he was teaching at Cambridge in the late 70s and early 80s, he travelled to Warwick hospital to study some of the records of patients that had been institutionalized there during the war for shell shock. When he went there, he discovered that there were still several men that had been kept in the asylum without treatment since the Great War. Once enthusiastic young men, psychologically crippled by the war, had spent the next 70 years constantly reliving their trauma, locked away from a society that didn't understand what was wrong with them. I can’t think of a more horrible fate." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "fmic65u", "fmic6n1" ], "score": [ 11, 4 ], "text": [ "What Ifs are *really* popular questions sometimes, but the thing is, with a little work most 'what if' questions can actually be turned into really good, really interesting questions that match the rules. It's all about the angle and perspective you have when asking the question. If you never need a bit of help phrasing things, let us know!", "What is the difference between /r/HistoricalWhatIf and /r/HistoryWhatIf?" ] }

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[ "https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoricalWhatIf", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians", "https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryWhatIf" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "cfu8w9w", "cfufp11", "cfuhsyp" ], "score": [ 17, 6, 18 ], "text": [ "You could try r/Anthropology, or r/CulturalAnthro with is question too; This is a topic that they might be able to shed a different light on than historians on this sub(not downplaying their knowledge or expertise, but just offering a different light on the subject). \n\nI'm not an expert on Native American history by any means as I am trained as an Anthropologist, but what you have described, and the co-opting of imagery and creation of a mythos in this situation is partly due to the idea of a \"free\", and \"natural\" society, one which was idolized, yet paradoxically, was also being controlled and oppressed. This is a condensed answer, but it gives a broad stroke answer to the question. Like I said I'm not an expert, but I would recommend reading either Vine Deloria or Philip Deloria(his book, \"Playing Indian\" refers to the kind of cultural romanticism and co-opting which has become associated with many Native American cultures and practices); they are both Native American scholars and very respected in their work. I know this doesn't really answer your question, but I hope that maybe it helps point you in a direction that might be helpful. \n\nTo the mods: this is my first time commenting on a post in this sub and I'm aware that the rules are enforced; if something I have posted is not in keeping with these rules I will revise the post so that it does.", "I don't know if it's the same period you're thinking of, but I know that during World Wars 1 and 2 the US armed forces liked to use imagery of \"Red Indians\". I have always assumed - but am willing to be corrected by those who know better - that a \"fierce warrior\" image is being invoked. For example:\n\n*The Lafayette Squadron, an American Volunteer unit in the French Air Force during World War 1, used a \"Sioux Chief\" as its [squadron motif](_URL_1_).\n\n*US Paratroopers during World War 2 would habitually shave their heads into \"Mohawk\" cuts before a combat drop and would often also apply \"war paint\" - see [this picture](_URL_0_).\n\n", "**Tl;dr** It does seem counter-intuitive to honor Native Americans on coins while denying their humanity and the right to their own language, religion, culture and customs, but this simply didn't slow America down. Phil Deloria does a great job of showing how the *idea* of Native Americans has pretty much always been divorced from the realities of Native American life or U.S.-Indian policy. Indeed, as he puts it when writing of the early 19th century organization [The Improved Order of Red Men](_URL_0_), \"They desired Indianness, not Indians.\" (The Wiki here notes that membership was restricted to whites until the 1970s.) It's the same type of appropriation of cultural motifs and generic imagery that /u/Brickie78 is referring to and still exists today in the form of many professional, collegiate, and high school athletic mascots.\n\nAs /u/ggarcimer15 suggests, read Vine Deloria (his most famous work being *Custer Died for Your Sins*) and his son Phil's *Playing Indian*. Phil especially goes into how Native Americans were a convenient \"other\" for Euro-Americans. They were variously portrayed as savage; noble; epitomes of freedom; enemies of the United States; threats to Christian civilization; or the last vestiges of a pre-modern society, tragically fading away under the superior technology and lifestyle of white Americans. \n\nSo how did Indian head coins come about? In the abstract, especially in the early days of the United States, Native Americans were symbols of freedom and liberty - think of early [personifications of Colombia](_URL_3_) or the U.S. Capitol's [Statue of Freedom](_URL_2_), with their vaguely Native American headdresses and attire, or more explicitly, the Boston Tea Party disguising themselves as Native Americans because of their popular association with freedom. As a perception that predates America, it was influential enough to survive the demonization of Native Americans during the 19th century \"Indian Wars,\" and afterwards the idea of Indians as paragons of virility and ruggedness (compared to the effete, urbanized late 19th century American) came back in full force - this time frame also saw the rise of organizations like the [Camp Fire Girls](_URL_1_) and the Boy Scouts, which co-founder Ernest Thompson Seton explicitly linked to Native Americans: \"Indian teachings in the fields of art, handicraft, woodcraft, agriculture, social life, health, and joy need no argument beyond presentation; they speak for themselves. The Red Man is the apostle of outdoor life, his example and precept are what young America needs today above any other teaching of which I have knowledge.\" Putting \"his\" face (the designer of the \"Buffalo nickel\" claimed not to have drawn a portrait, but a \"type\") on coinage was another way of using the image of Native Americans to reinforce the idea of American uniqueness and freedom, just like the \"Mohawks\" in Boston Harbor.\n\nAlso see Jared Farmer's *On Zion's Mount* for more on the late 19th/early 20th century obsession with the declining virility of the American male and how embracing certain aspects of Native American lifestyle (albeit a heavily idealized lifestyle) was seen as a remedy." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.warhistoryonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/202169470742892426_kOfMmI7R_c.jpg", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/LAFAYETTE_ESCADRILLE_banner.jpg/800px-LAFAYETTE_ESCADRILLE_banner.jpg" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improved_Order_of_Red_Men", "http://www.historybyzim.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Camp-Fire-Girls-1918.jpg", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Freedom_1.jpg", "http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ms1h2YTMbmY/ThFZk2VIPSI/AAAAAAAAqWA/OLKNaJiTBpY/s1600/Adrien%2BCollaert%2BII%2BPersonification%2Bof%2BAmerica%2B1765-1775.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c8qsl90", "c8qwo3d" ], "score": [ 15, 11 ], "text": [ "This isn't perhaps the cutting techniques you're looking for, but stale bread often used to be cut into a square shape and used as a plate, in what was called a 'trencher'. A 'good trencherman' would be one who ate a lot of food. These bits of bread would be given out as alms after a nobleman's meal if those eating didn't want them. ", "Quite often by \"breaking\" or simply tearing and sharing. In the Bible, the phrase \"break(ing) bread\" occurs dozens of times. It is of course an ancient phrase meaning \"to eat together.\" In many uses in the New Testament, it came to mean taking communion and/or fellowship.\n\nBread has always been a staple in human diet and has been found on every continent man has inhabited, all made from local ingredients. Modern table breads are distinctly soft, while older style or more \"rustic\" breads have a tough crusty exterior, and to seperate it you would literally have to \"break bread\" (if you have ever gotten your hands on a loaf of good French Bread or a Baguette, you know you break or tear the bread). " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c8ed6zj", "c8eer59", "c8egdb0", "c8ei3ad", "c8el0e3", "c8el9gb", "c8eli0r", "c8emw2u", "c8ep1vw" ], "score": [ 19, 46, 25, 8, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3 ], "text": [ "Penicillin wasn't discovered until 1928 and arguably didn't save a life until 1942 and wasn't ready for mass production until 1945. I'll leave it to the readers to imagine a life in which minor injuries and small sniffles proved fatal without effective antibiotics. \n \nA large part of the driving force behind the sheer scale of WWI was the [Haber process](_URL_0_) of 1909. Prior to the industrialisation of this process nations were limited in how fast they could blow people up by the rate at which they could scrape bird shit off of small islands far far away. Making explosives from the very air around us helped speed up the killing no end. \n \nThe \"trench warfare\" of WWI wasn't confined to surface trenches but continued on down through the clay into tunnels and bunkers six or seven stories underground. Sappers from both sides were probing and counter probing to extend tunnels under the other's lines and lay massive amounts of explosives prior to surface movements. ", "The toll that it took on the British aristocracy in terms of casualties and the impact that had on the loosening of the class system in subsequent decades. In terms of proportion of aristocratic males killed it was a greater rate than the English Civil war of the 17th c. This changed the social fabric in unexpected ways, it ended dynasties, caused many women to have to marry 'below' them, eradicated many of the serving jobs, brought much land out of private ownership. \n\nIt was WWI that gutted the landed gentry that had existed since time immemorial, they had been in decline for centuries but WWI was a blow from which they would never recover, there are a few remnants today but nothing the like the pre-war generation. ", "The displacement of millions of refugees throughout Europe. In modern day memory, we have an image of static warfare, men living in trenches for years and making little movement, yet civilian displacement was unprecedented.\n\n10+ million Russian refugees flee into the interior.\nSerbian refugees, french refugees, Polish, Armenians- you name it.\n\nAlso, Britain sees an the biggest influx of refugees it has ever seen (apart from the Irish Potato Famine). Belgian refugees total 250,000-300,000 and become a familiar presence in the war-time economy. So much so, the British government creates miniature Belgian cities within the country and gives entire control of them to the Belgian government (See Birtley).\n\nEdit: If you have any questions, just reply. This stuff is interesting (to me, at least)!", "I am going to list some of my unanswered questions about the First World War... Some of these may be answered in books I haven't read yet though.\n\nWhat happened to German POWs? Were they treated well? Did the Allies follow Geneva Conventions? If not, was it out of malicious intent or bureaucratic necessity?\n\nHow do we explain the weakness of peace movements in the belligerent nations in 1914? Is it just a matter of war nationalism overpowering the long intellectual history of opposition to war? How important was the Belgian cause in influencing support for the war among the Allied countries? Was it more important than nationalism? \n\nIs French Canada the only place that can demonstrate serious and vocal opposition to the war (at least, among the belligerent nations) in September 1914? Why is French Canada different from the rest of the belligerent nations? (my work is answering these questions)\n\nHow do we measure military success and failure in the First World War? Casualties inflicted/received? Land taken? Expended material vs land taken vs men lost? \n\nWhat are the exact cost of offensives hour by hour in terms of casualties? How many soldiers were lost for gaining a kilometre of land in 1914 vs 1916 vs 1918? What role did the terrain play in influencing the success or failure of operations? No role? Was there areas of the front which operations were more successful or less successful? Why? (though again, how do we measure success)\n\nDid armies gain effectiveness and perform better (if we could agree on how to measure performance) over the course of the war? Was there a learning curve? Or, was the war simply a matter of attrition/disease/material advantage? Does that negate the influence of leadership (good and bad) in the armed forces of the belligerent countries?\n\nHow did Catholics at war deal with the papal opposition to the conflict? What were the different reactions among different Catholics in different nations? (Belgium vs France vs German vs Australian vs English vs Irish vs Irish Canadian vs French Canadian - just to name a few off the top of my head) What consequence, if any, did this religious difference cause among individual Catholics? Within the Vatican?\n\nHow do we explain the different memories of the war? Britain has focused on the \"Lost Generation\" and the tragedy of the war whereas Canada remembers the war as the beginning of its national independence even as French Canadians see it as the beginning of their long path away from Confederation. How do you write about these national/societal narratives without diminishing the many many experiences of the war that do not align with them? Can the memory of the war ever align with the history of the war? \n\nI could probably keep posing these questions for hours... I find the scholarship is really weak/narrow. Don't even get me started on Canadian-specific literature and questions. \n\n", "[NMW wrote a great post](_URL_0_) that basically gets at how the general perception of the soldier's view of WWI comes from a small group of highly educated, upper class poets.", "WWI (or The Great War and other names used back then) had an interesting line of events leading up to it, and they played out so that virtually every country in Europe and a *massive* majority of the national populations welcomed the war from day 1. Millions of people volunteered and it was an extremely popular war in the beginning. We might find that rather odd in this day and age because we're used to the aggressor/victim role used almost exclusively in the media today, but back then the sentiments were very different: Old scores were to be settled, the national pride was at stake and everyone expect a short, victorious campaign. Needless to say, that wasn't going to happen.", "I'd argue that one thing that people don't understand is why trench warfare developed and why it continued after it developed. There seems to be a popular viewpoint of WWI military leaders that paints them as being callous and cruel towards the lives of their men because they had them charging across the landscape at entrenched fortifications, without understanding the realities of the situation. \n\nAnother thing that's a common perception is that trench warfare was invented in WWI. At best this is partially true--the realities on the ground meant that WWI developed the concept of trench warfare beyond anything that had happened previously. However there were some precursors to trench warfare in the American Civil war, particularly the siege of Petersburg. [This](_URL_0_) is an example of trenchworks during the siege of Petersburg and they're quite complex.", "How much of a global pacifist movement resulted from the war. Check out the [Kellog-Briand Pact](_URL_0_). People back then were really serious about achieving global peace and went so far as to \"outlaw\" war. Unfortunately, the pacifists just weren't the ones in power.", "1) It was probably the first war to occur between a group of highly industrialized AND bureaucratized countries. The latter point was key in maintaining the war despite the hideous casualties and large forces required. The British, for example, developed a book before the war that detailed everyone's role (right down to how to deal with the influx of marriage licenses!) in a major war with a continental power. Lyn MacDonald covers this in \"1914.\"\n\n2) Defensive artillery, not machine guns or barbed wire, probably had the biggest impact on beginning and perpetuating the stalemate. There tends to be a correlation between effective counter battery measures (i.e. using artillery to destroy enemy artillery) and successful offensives." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process" ], [], [], [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12zp30/what_work_has_done_the_most_damage_to_your_field/c6zjwba" ], [], [ "http://padresteve.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/civil-war-earthworks-petersburg.jpg" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellog-Briand_Pact" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "fijn0u4" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "More input is always welcome; in the meantime, this exact question came up last month, and you may be interested in what u/WovenCoverlet and u/sunagainstgold [had to say on the topic](_URL_0_)." ] }

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[ [ "https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/elf22p/grover_cleveland_was_acting_president_and_49/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ddnd35k" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "As a follow-up, would the handling of foreign spies for the USSR generally be the responsibility of GRU, KGB, or a different agency? Or all three? " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e1ysxx6" ], "score": [ 72 ], "text": [ "I think, from my understanding, you are asking about concepts of aboriginal knowledge- this is \" including traditional teachings, empirical observation, and revelation\" (1). I caution that I have only an amateur background in the histories, but hope to answer the concept of your question.\n\nOf the concepts mentioned the most relevant, I believe, is that of *traditional knowledge* as it is the preservation of understanding handed down, \"more or less intact... And it memorizes battles, boundaries, and treaties and attitudes... Toward neighboring nations\" (1).\n\nSo where is such contact recorded? First, there is the acknowledging that such information, while flawed, is of value. This is illustrated with the oral preservation of accounts of the Franklin Expedition: \n > > The key methodological shift in Franklin expedition scholarship in recent years came with David Woodman’s Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony (1991). Woodman went back to Hall’s notes and journals from the 1860s to challenge the traditional account of the disaster and carefully piece together a narrative based on the oral testimony of Inuit. Woodman also emphasized the location of relics, bodies, and other artifacts to paint a picture of multiple abandonments of the ships and multiple groups moving in different directions, some of which returned to the Erebus and piloted it south to where it sank in the Utjulik region. This narrative would account for stories of separate groups of white men encountered by Inuit far from the Great Fish River and stories of survivors still interacting with Inuit well into the 1850s. > > ... Potter believes Inuit testimony about the expedition to be “the single most important body of evidence we have” (2).\n\nIn addition, the accuracy and usefulness of Aboriginal Songlines are also respected and well as the impact of \"continual cartographic encounters, exchanges, and translations between American Indians and Euro-Americans\"(3, 4). \n\nThis leads to... Is there evidence within traditional knowledge respecting the existence of external cultures? First, I looked to see if the Native American of the North American Content were aware of the Southern Content or vice versa - but it is important to remember the scope and newness of current geographic boundaries. For this section \"pre-contact\" is to define the physical presence of sustained non-Native populations. \n\nAccording to an *Historical Survey of First Nation Market Culture* there evidence to suggest a working from of communication across Continents for there to be the usage of non-local materials. Two notable examples are that of trade between two divisions of Mayans of the\n\n > > Northern Lowlands and the Highlands was well established via water routes on the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of Honduras as well as various inland routes. The Northern Lowlands Maya imported corn, fruit, cacao, various manufactured goods, flint, game, cotton, cloth, obsidian, metates, and manos. The Highland Maya imported honey, salt, ceramics, various tools, salted fish, marine shells, dye, incense, jade, and rubber.\n\n\nAdditionally the use of a soft stone (pipestone) found in the current Minnesota region as was important to the creation of objects for religious reasons was found as far as South Dakota, Ohio, and Kansas. After contact and with it the introduction of the horse, the material was found as far as Arizona and Kentucky (5).\n\nAll this contact is important as it allows for the development and subsequent preservation of intricate trade agreements. An example of this is that found in the pre-contact legislation of the Great Law of the Iroquois (now commonly referred to as Haudenosaunee). The Iroquois Confederacy had such an extensive documented sytem that it is still very much under legislative analysis. As noted in the brillant thesis *INTERNATIONAL LAW/THE GREAT LAW OF PEACE* by Beverley Jacobs, \"European diffusionism will be defined through an elaboration of brief historical accounts and an analysis of law that has affected O:gweho:we. Eurocentric values, ideals, language, laws and institutions are an integral part of diffusionism, which has tried to replace O:gweho:we history, language, religion, laws and philosophy.\"(6).\n\nNow that we have determined that there was contact, trade, and therefore knowledge across sections of the American Continents, and the risk that there is and will continue to be effects of non-Native interpretations of traditional knowledge, I attempted to source information about ex-Continental knowledge, firstly with that of the natives of Hawai'i. It might almost be cheating, in a sense, as the oral traditions of Hawai'i and New Zealand are quite well preserved compare to other Nations, and were treated with an unusual level of respect and importance to historical research. \n\n\n > > Some of the data provided by recent stratigraphic excavations in Poly- nesia is pertinent to this problem, however, for it allows some very sound inferences as to certain aspects of Polynesian voyaging. For example, as a result of intensive excavations for the last ten years, Emory believes that the Hawaiian archipelago was settled by a planned, well-equipped expedition of some size (Emory 1959). Pigs and dogs are found in the earliest sites so far discovered there, and it is believed that the domesticated plants must have also been present to support the population. > > In the Marquesas, excavations at site NHaal, the oldest known site in that archipelago to date, (ca 120 B.C.) yielded evidence that pigs and dogs accompanied the settlers. Furthermore, the presence of coconut grating tools and knives of a type generally used for peeling breadfruit and starchy root crops demonstrate that the main Polynesian staples also arrived with the settlers (7).\n\nThe trade and communication within the Polynesian region is not just known but documented (8, 9, 10). Referencing non-Polynesian sources was difficult so I plan on providing more later in the day if that is alright. \n\n--added--- \nWhile I did not want to deviate from your question, which was strictly about the North American continent, as I was limited to the papers I currently have access to. I have copied a section of a paper to illustrate part of the difficulties of studies into indigenous knowledge: \n\nAn important task of an \"Indigenous paradigm\" would be to challenge these notions according to which the world is divided along lines of Western \"high culture\" and non-Western ''folkloric'' traditions. Although many contemporary practices of poststructuralism, feminism, postmodern and postcolonial theories have undermined and rejected these assumptions, unfortunately they still guide much of people's everyday thinking and actions. Unlike many Western scholars who can ignore this since it is not as common an academic approach as it used to be, we as Indigenous peoples cannot remain indifferent, since it affects us directly in various ways through dismissive and biased attitudes on our selfhood, our culture and its products (11).\n\nAs my studies are in the field of criminology and legal development, I can say that indigenous people the world over are inheritances to some of the most historic and under studied legal systems on the planet with unique concepts of civil and criminal law. Further, the usage and impact of these legislative systems upon the cultures - and the impact this had on colonialism - is, I think, too often ignored. \n--added--\n\nTo be honest I am hesitant to touch the aspect of mythological tales - it is in no way my forte. In addition, sorry for the formatting and writing style, this was done in my phone on the train. Finally, I'm going to do my best to find more Indigenous sources as I felt there could be more I wasn't able to access on my mobile. \n\n\n(1) Indigenous Knowledges in Global Contexts: Multiple Readings of Our World edited by Budd L. Hall, George Jerry Sefa Dei, Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg\n\n(2) Finding Franklin: The Untold Story of a 165-Year Search by Russell A. Potter (review) Shane McCorristine\n\n(3) Songlines and navigation in Wardaman and other Australian Aboriginal cultures by RP Norris, BY Harney\n\n(4) Theorizing indigital geographic information networks by Mark Palmer\n\n\n(5) First Nations Trade, Specialization, and Market Institutions: A Historical Survey of First Nation Market Culture by Andre Le Dressay\n\n(6) INTERNATIONAL LAW/THE GREAT LAW OF PEACEA Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for a Masters Degreein the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan By Beverley Jacobs\n\n(7) Histmical Traditions and Archeology in Polynesia by Robert C. Suggs\n\n(8)Oral Tradition as History By Jan M. Vansina\n\n(9) Myth, Experiment, and the Reinvention of Polynesian Voyaging by Ben Finney\n\n(10) Polynesian settlement and palaeotsunamis by James Goff, Bruce G McFadgen,Catherine Chagué-Goff etc\n\n(11) TOWARDS AN \"INDIGENOUS PARADIGM\" FROM A SAMI PERSPECTIVE by Rauna Kuokkanen\n\n--added--\n\nAdditional Sources:\n\nTsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia (2014)\n\nHarry Daniels, et al v Her Majesty the Queen as represented by The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, et al (2016)\n\n\n\n\nEdits: Spellings, additional context, more sources." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cymm7w4", "cymwba9" ], "score": [ 2, 4 ], "text": [ "Hi, just a note that this sub isn't always the deepest in sports historians, so if you don't get answers here - or even if you do - consider x-posting this to /r/realmadrid, /r/soccer, or /r/football", "Sid Lowe's book 'fear and loathing in la liga' goes into great detail on this. Essentially people on both sides will claim lots and nothing.\n\nAn important point to note is that real madrid were one of the best teams in the country directly before the civil war and were gutted by the civil war. Real madrid's president was a key part of the republican government and so was exiled upon franco winning the civil war and the vast majority of real's trophy winning team broke up and either left spain or went to other clubs. In particular, their star player Zamora ended up in a prisoner of war camp and was appointed manager of atletico madrid after the war finished, where he won them their first league title despite the fact that atletico had been relegated prior to the civil war and therefore probably shouldn't have been allowed to play in la liga that year. \n\nSo as result, the first 15 years of franco's reign were real's worst ever as a club (they won no league titles and only two cups), because while Atletico had the reputation as the establishment's choice and barcelona were assembling their firstly truly great team, Real were doing very little at all.\n\nThe tipping point, though it wasn't obvious at the time, was a copa del rey semi final with Barcelona. Barcelona won the first leg 3-0 thanks, in part, to a great support from their fans resulting in the ref being a bit of a homer. Real made a big deal in the papers about this and encouraged their own fans to do the same in the return leg and they won 11-1. Barcelona players have claimed they were basically told before the game by officials not to try and win that game and were threatened into losing.\n\nNow during the civil war, barcelona and madrid were the two main centres of opposition to franco. It was only when first barcelona and then madrid finally fell that the war was won. Franco was advised to not base his capital in madrid after the war but in a loyalist city instead and he choose to move there precisely to conquer his enemy, to make madrid his. Both Real and barca had funded the republican side in the civil war but after the war you started seeing franco's narrative taking from, in which the catalans did that because they were traitors but the madridstas did it because they were victims of the republicans looting their club. But Franco's dream was a united castilian spain, run from the biggest castilian city. He didn't want madrid and barcelona united against him but he also didn't want them fighting among each other. He wanted the catalans and the basques to forget they were catalans and basques and become spanish, which is why he even changed the name of barcelona fc. \n\nAnd so this squabbling between a catalan club and a castilian club really didn't suit him especially when both clubs were calling upon their fans and thus the spector of regionalism. So he acted by deploring spanish clubs hating each other when they should be united, had the madrid journalist who'd told real fans to make their stadium a cauldron of noise blacklisted and asked for the resignation of the president of both barcelona and real madrid.\n\nThe first thing the new presidents did were give a speach in which they talked about a new era of friendship and peace between the two clubs. And both of the new men had served in franco's army during the civil war so this was him taking control of the football clubs. Barca's new man was Colonel Josep Vendrell and real's was their ex player and decorated war veteran Santiago Bernabéu.\n\nBernabeu's first major act was to build the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium with money raised by local businesses so that real could have the attendences they needed to afford the best players. He then used that money to buy a bunch of players, threw his support behind the new european cup and turned real into the biggest club in the world. He pretty much did that single handedly and he was only in charge of the club because franco had exiled the president who was there in 1939 for treason and then asked his replacement to stand down for beating barcelona 11-1. So in that respect, 100% of their success was because of Franco.\n\nAlso Bernabeu, like Vendrell, was trusted by the regime, which probably helped him a lot in terms of being able to fight his corner. Sid Lowe uses the fact that bernabeu banned a major francosist figure from the ground as proof that bernabeu had connections, that an outsider would never be able to do that but someone within the regime could without fear.\n\nAnd once Real became successful, Franco used them as much as possible. Real being the best club in the world was fantastic pr for Franco. They were essentially his diplomats in an era where he was trying to build bridges with the west, they were a great source of prestige, and even within spain, it suited propoganda that the best team were castillian and from madrid and not catalan or basque. But again, barcelona were also used for propaganda, the great hungarian footballer Kubala who played for barca starred in a francosist propoganda film depicting his flight from communist hungary to the better land of fascist spain.\n\nSo in the 1950s you had spanish embasseys welcoming the real madrid team when they were playing away in austria or germany say and giving them dossiers of the opposing team before asking them to do a photoshoot or visit an ambassador. The regime wanted Real to remain dominant because it made the regime look good.\n\nA francoist minister said at the time that di stefano's goals, bull fighting and opera singers were there three best weapons in the fight for the hearts of the west.\n\nBarcelona fans argue that as a result Real got the benefit of the doubt in referee decisions and transfer desputes (in particular that di stefano ended up at real rather than barca) because everyone wanted Real do do well.\n\nThere's not much in the way of actual proof of that, though. My own opinion is that it's probably true to an extent.\n\nI do think that if bernabeu had gone to valencia or atletico or seville and made them the best club in europe instead, Franco wouldn't have intervened to help Real at all anymore than he did in the first 15 years of his reign." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cw0y5d6" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "The first German language cookbook was written by a woman named Sabina Welserin in 1553 (you can read it [here](_URL_0_)). Not much is known about her life but she mentioned in one recipe that the cook for Count of Leuchtenberg instructed her to cook fish a certain way hinting she is a professional cook of some kind. From the recipes she wrote (many recipes ask for large quantities of spices and sugar and some recipes were clearly for fancy banquets) it suggests she cooks for a very wealthy (if not downright aristocrat) household. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dbsr8be" ], "score": [ 69 ], "text": [ "Suicidal tendencies were a sufficient problem in the SS that Himmler made a point of saying that funerals shouldn't be given for officers who committed it for \"trivial\" reasons. Between July and September of 1942, 30 members of the SS committed it. One particular case was a SS Brigadier named Fritsch who killed himself in 1944 because he cheated on his wife and felt guilty. Himmler ordered the SS insignia removed from his headstone. \n\nSource: Suicide in Nazi Germany\nBy Christian Goeschel\n_URL_0_\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "https://books.google.com/books?id=oysUDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA61&dq=SS+Officers+depression+suicide&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNkPTNppzRAhUH3IMKHdrjAR0Q6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=SS%20Officers%20depression%20suicide&f=false" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d0bi09w" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Caesar: Life of a Colossus\nAdrian Goldsworthy\n\nFantastic well researched life of quite possibly the worlds most interesting man that is a great approachable read.\n\nAmerican Ceasar\nWilliam Manchester\nSometimes a bit heavy but riveting all the same. Makes this complicated controversial man understandable and appreciable on his merits." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cec781k" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "I can't speak to the specifics of Aztec battles, but the huge diversity of pre-Columbian nations over thousands of years and across two continents gave rise to a variety of methods of treating fallen combatants. There will be as many answers to this question as there are distinct cultural traditions and skeletal remains with evidence of interpersonal violence.\n\nFor example, the Crow Creek Massacre is one of the largest pre-Columbian skeletal assemblages attributed to a violent encounter in North America. Sometime around 900 CE the ancestors of the Mandans built several earthen structures in the south central portion of modern-day South Dakota. Eventually the Caddoan-speaking ancestors of the Arikaras replaced the Mandans (no indication the replacement was by force) and increased the settlement to a decent-sized community of roughly fifty-five earthen lodges. \n\nFor unknown reasons, in roughly 1325 CE, at least 486 individuals at Crow Creek were violently killed. Evidence of the massacre was discovered in 1978 when skeletal remains eroded out of a fortification ditch. Analysis of the remains indicated extreme violence during the attack. I will spare the gory details, the destruction was quite complete, and trophies appear to have been taken by the attackers. The state of the remains indicates they were exposed for a period of time and subject to the typical animal scavenging expected on the Northern Plains. Some time later the remains were gathered together, placed in a communal burial, and covered with a thin layer of clay from the nearby river. We don't know if survivors of the attack, their kin, or someone altogether different were responsible for cleaning up the battlefield.\n\nFor all the brutality of the treatment of the victims at the Crow Creek Massacre, biological archaeologists can illustrate the care taken with the burial preparations for victims of interpersonal violence across the Americas. As in our modern culture, treatment of the dead varied according to immediate circumstances and local traditions." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "du6qwg5" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "There are certainly gunners credited with five or more kills. Albert E. Conder's *The Men Behind The Guns: The History of Enlisted Aerial Gunnery 1917 - 1991* has a section, \"Some of the Aces\"; Conder says \"The thousands of enemy fighters downed by Gunners were counted as a \"team\" effort, rather than crediting individual gunners. The AAF claimed that record keeping was to [sic] difficult.\" He nevertheless goes on to list a number of \"aces\", including S/Sgt Donald Crossley with 11 kills, S/Sgt Michael Arooth with nine, S/Sgt Benjamin Warmer with nine (seven in one mission) and several others including S/Sgt John Quinlan, tail gunner of the Memphis Belle who later flew on B-29s, credited with five German and three Japanese fighters.\n\nAir-to-air victories are enormously difficult to verify, though, even at the best of times with a small number of combatants and gun camera footage; with large formations of bombers, each with multiple gunners, the number of aircraft claimed downed by gunners was invariably higher than the number of actual losses suffered. Conder gives the total claims of Eighth Air Force Bombers as 6,259 destroyed, 1,836 probables, 3,210 damaged; those figures are likely out by a factor of eight or nine (see [a previous question] (_URL_3_) for further details). I'm not sure where Conder gets his individual figures from, but they're difficult to corroborate; [The Unknown Aces of the Eighth] (_URL_1_), for example, credits Arooth with \"at least 17 enemy planes\". \n\nIn the RAF [Wallace McIntosh] (_URL_2_) had the most claims as a bomber gunner (eight and one probable, though again it's hard to verify), [Peter Engbrecht] (_URL_4_) of the RCAF claimed five and a half. The highest claiming RAF gunners were those in Defiant turret fighters, particularly those of 264 Squadron; Ted Thorn (pilot) and Fred Barker (gunner) had the highest total, 12. Once again, though, the \"confirmed\" kills of 264 Squadron are likely too high, not tallying with German losses (for more details on the Defiant, see [another previous question] (_URL_0_)).\n\nI haven't got any details of World War I gunners; *Above the War Fronts: The British Two-Seater Bomber Pilot and Observer Aces, the British Two-Seater Fighter Observer Aces, and the Belgian, Italian, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Fighter Aces 1914-1918* by Norman Franks may be of some help." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7t2j3j/how_effective_were_aft_cockpit_gun_turrets_in_ww2/", "http://www.mightyeighth.org/blog-post-4/", "http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/6726347.stm", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7sjan2/b17_gunners/", "http://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/engbrechtgillanders.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cb4q02d" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "First off, it's important to remember that the KGB didn't exist until the 1950s. The Cheka, OGPU and NKVD all came before. After NKVD director Lavrenty Beria fell in 1953, intelligence gathering was done by more than one agency, though KGB certainty had the most influence. \n\nThe answer to your question varies greatly with the time period being examined. Having the approval of the NKVD was far more important in the Stalin era than being on the KGBs good side during Gorbachev's reign. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cdf12ad" ], "score": [ 24 ], "text": [ "On the Balkans, the Croatians and Heeresgruppe F were retreating under the combined pressure of Titos (by now regular) army, the Soviets and elements of the Bulgarian army. They were mostly attempting to make contact with the British in western Austria to surrender to them in a vain hope to not be turned over to Tito or the Soviets.\n\nThe Soviets were pushing westwards from Slovakia into Bohemia and were clearing Hungary of German troops after Budapest finally fell. Towards the end of the Battle of Berlin they were at the outskirts of Vienna.\n\nIn Germany, the Soviets had reached the agreed demarcation line, and were fighting the German 12. and 9. Armee, which had fought their way to unite and then through multiple Soviet attacks and defence line to cross the river together with thousands of civilians to surrender to the Americans.\n\nThe Soviets were also advancing in Pommerania along the coast of the Baltic sea and keeping check on a small German force on the Hel peninsula (outside Gdansk) and a much larger one in Courland (what remained of Heeresgruppe Nord)." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ckld4cu" ], "score": [ 52 ], "text": [ "Obligatory \"medieval Europe can mean a lot of different times and a lot of different places.\" You should probably make your question a little more specific." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cr5nwgm", "cr5ooec" ], "score": [ 8, 5 ], "text": [ "Seutonius passes over it quickly in his *Life of Nero*:\n > But he compelled four hundred senators and six hundred Roman knights, some of whom were well to do and of unblemished reputation, to fight in the arena. Even those who fought with the wild beasts and performed the various services in the arena were of the same orders. **He also exhibited a naval battle in salt water with sea monsters swimming about in it;** besides pyrrhic dances by some Greek youths, handing each of them certificates of Roman citizenship at the close of his performance. \n\nThere are a few accounts of it happening in addition to Seutonius', but the logistics and specifics are debated and not precisely known.", "fyi there are a few comments on flooding arenas for naval battle reenactments in these threads\n\n* [Were naval battles staged in the Coliseum?](_URL_3_)\n\n* [How were the Ancient Romans able to flood and drain the Coliseum multiple times, without major structural damage?](_URL_2_)\n\njust mentions\n\n* [How much would the Roman Colosseum cost if it were to be built today?](_URL_0_)\n\n* [Was there a age limit to watch the games in the Colosseum in rome?](_URL_1_)" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1jchu2/how_much_would_the_roman_colosseum_cost_if_it/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1n489s/was_there_a_age_limit_to_watch_the_games_in_the/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2o4zew/how_were_the_ancient_romans_able_to_flood_and/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gx6qg/were_naval_battles_staged_in_the_coliseum/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "chznzm7" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "It's a frequent occurrence known as counter-battery fire. It's one of the more basic artillery strategies there is, employed as far back as there's been artillery. I suggest picking up John Norris' *Artillery: A History*. It's a good introductory primer to the history of big guns." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ccookjz" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "The primary motivation for the section was unquestionably to confirm that the U.S. would neither assume nor even recognize the validity of Confederate debt. \n\nThis part of the amendment was not heavily contested, so there is a relative lack of contemporary statements explaining its meaning, but here is Senator Howard giving an adequate explanation of Amend. XIV, Sec. 4:\n\n > I take it for granted that no member of this body would oppose the adoption of this section of the amendment. I do not believe the people of the United States will object to declaring that the whole of the rebel debt shall be eternally repudiated and extinguished — a debt contracted in the prosecution of the most wicked war with which the earth was ever cursed, against a Government that was never felt by them except in the benefits it conferred. Such a debt can never be assumed or paid by the loyal people of the United States, and if suffered to remain in *quasi* existence it can only be left in that condition as a subject of political squabbling and party wrangling.\n\n > The assumption of the rebel debt would be the last and final signal for the destruction of the nation known as the United States of America. Whatever party may succeed in so wicked a scheme, by whatever name it may be called and under whatever false guises or pretenses it may operate, if it succeed in assuming this indebtedness, puts an end first to the credit of the Government, and then, as an unavoidable consequence, to the Government itself. I do not propose to spend time upon this branch of the subject. I simply refer to it as a necessity of such magnitude as in my judgment to demand our action and the action of the States of the Union without delay. It is necessary to act, to extinguish this debt, to put it beyond the pale of party controversy, to put it out of sight, and to bury it so deep that it can never again be raised to life in such manner as to become a theme of party discussion. The amount of that debt is probably not less than five billion dollars. We do not know its exact amount, and I am not sure that it is possible ever to ascertain it; but if there should ever be a fair prospect of its assumption by the United States or by the States it is perfectly certain that the evidences of it would multiply thicker than the leaves in Vallombrosa. Those evidences are a great curiosity in the history of commercial affairs.\n\n[Cong. Globe, Sen., 39th Cong. 1st Sess. 2768 (1866)](_URL_1_)\n\nAnd here is what the Supreme Court had to say about Amend. XIV, Sec. 4 in the Gold Clause Cases:\n\n > While this provision was undoubtedly inspired by the desire to put beyond question the obligations of the Government issued during the Civil War, its language indicates a broader connotation. We regard it as confirmatory of a fundamental principle, which applies as well to the government bonds in question, and to others duly authorized by the Congress, as to those issued before the Amendment was adopted.\n\n[*Perry v. United States*, 294 U.S. 330, 354 (1935)](_URL_0_).\n\nIndeed, the divided Court in that case appears to be unanimous in holding that the Fourteenth Amendment's injunction on questioning \"[t]he validity of the public debt\" is merely declaratory or confirmatory of a principle already part of the U.S. Constitution prior to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. And the Justices have the right of it.\n\nSection 4 is a great example of a literary technique the Constitution often employs, which I like to jokingly refer to as \"the passive-aggressive tense.\" The device operates when there are two interacting legal principles, one of which is uncontroversial, and the other of which is either a contested principle and/or a proposed innovation. Instead of stating the *innovation*, the Constitution will reiterate the *uncontested* principle, applied in such a way that it necessarily implies the innovation, while unstated, is now a part of the law.\n\nFor instance, the Eleventh Amendment, says that the sections of the Constitution setting out the subject-matter jurisdiction of the judiciary \"shall not be construed to\" abrogate a State's sovereign immunity. The thing is, everyone already knew that giving jurisdiction over a party doesn't necessarily abrogate immunity; the real debate was whether the States had immunity in the first place. By stating the point about jurisdiction not abrogating immunity, the amendment implies that immunity exists, but it doesn't actually state the principle which grants it.\n\nSimilarly, the Fifteenth Amendment states that the \"right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged ... on account of race....\" Well, the thing is, the Constitution already prohibited discrimination based on race when it came to rights of the citizen. The contested question was whether voting was even a right of the citizen in the first place, such that a racially-restrictive voting law denied someone the right based on race. By stating the point about discrimination, the amendment implies that voting *is* a right, and that denying it based on race *is* racial discrimination against that right. But, again, it doesn't actually state the operative principle, leaving us to sort out if there any other implications of the principle implicitly being affirmed.\n\nSection 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment is doing a similar thing. The uncontroversial principle at the time was that the grant of power to Congress \"[t]o borrow Money on the credit of the United States,\" Art. 1, Sec. 8, cl. 2, implied that money properly borrowed became an obligation that continued until repaid, and that the obligation could not be cancelled by a subsequent law. (Note that actually *paying* the debt is another matter, which I will explain below.) The controversial matter was how this should apply to the Confederacy:\n\nIf the Confederacy were thought of as an independent nation which had been defeated and annexed by the U.S., then the U.S. was the successor state to the Confederacy under international law, and therefore ought to assume its debts. Likewise if the State governments of the Confederacy were legitimate, then the Reconstruction governments were their successors and still owed their debts. But if the Confederacy was thought of as invalid from the start, then there was never a legitimate government there, and the U.S. was not in any sense a successor to the Confederacy or its debts.\n\nThis latter interpretation is the one that the Reconstruction-era government consistently takes. And it is this interpretation that Section 4 aims to enforce in the context of sovereign debt. The amendment does not say that \"the public debt ... shall not be questioned\" because that principle needs stating. It says that the debt shall not be questioned because the correct *application* of that principle needs stating. The amendment gives an authoritative gloss to the principle by asserting that it does not mean that the U.S. has (or even could have) an obligation to pay the Confederate debts.\n\nNow, I should add as an afterthought that affirming the validity of debt is different from actually paying it. An analogy to the States illustrates the difference:\n\nThe Constitution also provides that the States cannot invalidate contracts by power of law. (\"No State shall ... pass... [a] Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts....\" Art, 1, Sec. 10). And this extends to a prohibition on invalidating its debts. Nevertheless, States have permanently defaulted on debts on numerous occasions. The States do this not by questioning the validity of the debt, but by acknowledging the wrong and providing no remedy for it. The States simply deny anyone access to their courts to collect on the debt, and rely on their immunity from suit in federal courts. That leaves only the very rare case where it is possible to sue a State in *another* State's court, and to then seize assets of the first state found within the second state.\n\nCurrently the U.S. government grants its permission to be sued on its debts (waiving its sovereign immunity), but conceivably it too could withdraw this permission to be sued on its debts, never questioning the *validity* of its debts while still failing to actually *pay* them. The proposition has never been tested in court, and is the subject of current (if infrequent) debate." ] }

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[ [ "http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3388791031923623137", "http://memory.loc.gov/ll/llcg/072/0800/08502768.tif" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "clq5py6", "clqjc8k" ], "score": [ 19, 4 ], "text": [ "Remember that the French controlled Louisiana (a territory that does not match the boundaries of the State of Louisiana) until well after the American Revolution. We bought it during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. \n\nEach area has its own history of turning from non-English controlled areas to either English or American control. \n\nIt is also a little misleading to say that the US became a British Colony. The US was an amalgamation of pre-existing colonies that had already revolted from colonial control and gone through one failed attempt at a common government by the time the Constitution finally knitted them together. \n\nBy the time the US was created, each of those colonies had already become sovereign states (little s to denote the fact that they were essentially countries) which agreed to give up a portion of their sovereignty in order to become the United States.", "Essentially, the other colonial powers on the Eastern Seaboard either gave up and went home (in the case of Sweden) or had their colonies taken by force in wars against England (French Canada and the Dutch in New Amsterdam). Eventually the British had occupied everything from Canada down to Georgia, which was created as a buffer with Spanish-owned Florida." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dj44dba" ], "score": [ 66 ], "text": [ "Juneteenth does not commemorate the actual emancipation of slaves; that happened in January 1863 for the states in rebellion, and with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in Dec. 1865.\n\nJuneteenth celebrates when news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached Texas in June 1865. Initially a celebration only among Negroes in Texas, the commemoration first spread to a couple of adjacent states, and in the 20th century traveled with African-Americans from Texas as they migrated to industrial cities elsewhere. In particular, it seems to have taken hold among those who moved to the Bay Area during World War II to work in shipyards and defense industries. It seems likely that its enduring popularity owes something to the summer date, suitable for large outdoor gatherings and celebrations. Only in the last 25 years has the celebration become known nationwide.\n\n[The *Handbook of Texas* has a good summary.](_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/lkj01" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e97dvp1" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "I think the best explanation in this case is the simplest one: the term “5 Good Emperors” refers specifically to the chronological succession of five emperors (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonius Pius, and Marcus Aurelius) who were lauded for their expansion of the empire and the relative stability of their reigns. It’s not simply a list of “the five best Emperors of Rome — number 4 will shock you!” it’s a non-dynastic succession of notable emperors. Augustus is widely regarded as a successful and comparable emperor, but he wasn’t part of the succession that involved the aforementioned 5, he reigned much earlier and as part of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cuoo7ik" ], "score": [ 32 ], "text": [ "Mainly because of his dialogue the *Symposium*, which is effectively a prose drama showing several people making speeches about the nature of love/desire. All of the speakers are in agreement that physical desire is the \"lowest\" kind of love, and as the drama progresses there's a kind of escalation of what \"higher\" kinds of love look like. One speaker casts \"higher\" love as a relationship between minds, not bodies; another casts love as a cosmic force, representing all forms of attraction; another casts love as the desire for wholeness; Socrates (the hero) casts different kinds of love on an ascending scale that reaches up, at its most philosophical \"heights\", to the meditation on and contemplation of abstractions that are usually known as [Platonic forms](_URL_0_).\n\nThe term \"Platonic love\" was coined by Ben Jonson in his 1631 play *The New Inn*. Act III scene 2 is essentially a discourse on love, and explicitly summarizes a number of passages in Plato's *Symposium*. At lines 73-6 the character Lovel starts off by defining love as follows:\n\n > For, what else \nis *Love*, but the most noble, pure affection \nof what is truly beautiful, and faire? \nDesire of union with the thing beloved?\n\nThis is essentially a paraphrase of an opening section in Socrates' speech. A few lines after that, Beaufort paraphrases Aristophanes' speech in the *Symposium*, and Lovel makes the attribution explicit (\"It is a fable of *Plato's*, in his Banquet, / and utter'd, there, by *Aristophanes*\"). Lovel goes on to cite ideas from other speeches in the *Symposium*:\n\n > **Beaufort.** I relish not these philosophicall feasts; \ngive me a banquet o' sense, like that of Ovid... \n\n > **Lovel.** They are the earthly, lower forme of lovers, \nare only taken with what strikes the senses!\n\nAnd so on, until we get to Lovel coining the phrase at line 278, with the twist of simultaneously demanding a kiss as a fee for his time:\n\n > **Lovel.** Most *Socratick* Lady! \nOr, if you will *Ironick*! gi'you joy \no'you *Platonick* love here, Mr *Lovel*. \nBut pay him his first kisse, yet, i'the Court, \nwhich is a debt, and due: for the houre's run.\n\nPlato's/Jonson's philosophization of love, and Jonson's emphasis on the non-sexual nature of \"Platonic\" love (a view that Plato did not share!), provided a useful way for people to rationalize homosocial relationships and categorize them as non-sexual. A lot of western homosocial culture depends on the existence of that non-sexual category. Platonic love as sexual did get somewhat rehabilitated, largely thanks to the invention of homosexuality and elevation of \"Greek love\" in the 19th century, but Jonson's phrase has stayed with us." ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Forms" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cx9afim" ], "score": [ 86 ], "text": [ "There was a plan to liberate them as early as 1943, called Operation Constellation. Drawn up by Lord Louis Mountbatten, based on aerial reconnaissance.\n\nThe problem was that, as it stood, the Channel Islands weren't actually much of a strategic advantage. Obviously if the Luftwaffe were to establish a bombing base there, that would change, but until 1945 the Germans hadn't made much of an advantage of the occupied islands. Really, the only purpose they had served for the Germans, was as a slight bloodied nose for the British.\n\nMountbatten observed that while the islands could be retaken by force, they were also heavily fortified, and it would require a fairly large landing force to retake these strategically unimportant islands.\n\nThe other consideration was the civilian population. They hadn't fared too badly under the Germans, there were no reports of abuses or reprisals, but attempting an invasion might put their lives at risk. Certainly their lives would be at risk if a battle broke out.*Mountbatten also noted that either aerial or naval bombardment would be necessary in order to break the islands defences, again at a potentially high civilian loss. \n\nMountbatten's plan was eventually rejected on the grounds that the cost would likely be far too high, and that the sensible option was to have them peacefully returned as part of Germany's unconditional surrender.\n\nI'm afraid the only source I have for this is Lord Louis Mountbatten's biography, *\"The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten\"*, John Terraine, 1968.\n\nThere is also a wikipedia entry for Operation Constellation, and most of it seems to back up what I've read in Mountbattens biography, for what it's worth:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n*Edit" ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Constellation" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "czs5y2z", "czsj1kf", "czvz8do" ], "score": [ 3, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "All sources - every bit of evidence about the past - requires source criticism to evaluate what flaws have insinuated themselves into the weave of information presented. The difference between a written primary source and recorded oral testimony that is not first hand can be summed up with the following:\n\nHistorians continually find that primary source documents about the past have flaws that need to be identified and isolated from the telling of an accurate history and perception of the past.\n\nHistorians (and folklorists) are often surprised to find that a historical legend includes information that is accurate and can be relied upon in the telling of history and perception of the past.\n\nIn other words, historical legends are sometimes surprisingly accurate and primary sources are sometimes surprisingly inaccurate. Well, OK, maybe we're actually not that surprised about either, but there is a core assumption that primary sources depict the past (but we find they are flawed) and that historical legends are inaccurate and inflated beyond use (but we sometimes find they are useful).\n\nOf course folklorists don't often look to historical legends to understand the period described. Rather, they look at a historical legend to understand the people who told it - it is a different use of the source. But that aside, there has been ample analysis of historical legends and their surprising value in capturing the nature of past events.\n\nOf particular use here is a collection of essays edited by Reimund Kvideland and Henning K. Sehmsdorf: Nordic Folklore (1989). This includes essays by Lauri Honko, who is one of the great modern theoreticians when it comes to the nature of legend. A particularly good essay for your question is a chapter by Brynjulf Alver, \"Historical Legends and Historical Truth.\"\n\nThe bottom line is that oral tradition can be a surprising conveyor of accurate information about the past. As I began - all sources require source criticism. It is simply important to understand that written primary documents require a certain type of analysis while oral tradition requires another species of analysis. The filter for oral tradition must be more intense if it is to be used to understand an historical event, and without the anchor of written documents, it is difficult to use oral tradition, alone, to peer into a remote past.", "/r/IndianCountry founder, mod, and Virginia Indian reporting in. The Custalow family at Mattaponi circulated and promoted a series of \"sacred oral traditions\" concerning this *exact* subject matter. A recent publication from NMAI afforded them too much credibility; one of many problems with that publication.\n\n[Disclosure: I am related to the author, the families, and the subject matter, so please pardon my brevity and generalities. And **kindly** don't mention me, rather, verify for yourself.]\n\nThe same is true for the supplemental oral histories promoted by the Tayac faction (the Piscataway Indian Nation), if you are also going to be teaching about entities contemporary to the Powhatan Paramountcy in the early colonial period.\n\nI'll defer to /u/itsallfolklore and /u/Reedstilt on the latest developments in academia, however I would recommend [Powhatan Foreign Relations](_URL_0_) if you're interested in the political landscape, in particular. Other works by Dr. Helen Rountree also provide generous footnotes (where her works *truly* live) for further inquiry. \n\nI'd also like to hear other recommendations to keep current, anyone would oblige.", "You have received a message from on high! By which I mean someone on twitter had a suggested resource for you. [Check it out here!](_URL_0_) " ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.amazon.com/Powhatan-Foreign-Relations-1500-1722-Rountree/dp/0813914094" ], [ "https://twitter.com/julian_thompson/status/697607494307332096" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "erosw8y" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "The officers were the ones leading the development of the Vietnam era gun trucks. Company, Battalion, and Group (Brigade equivalent) level transportation officers in Vietnam were heavily involved in these field modifications, and they also were the ones creating the doctrine to allow their units to use these gun trucks as effectively as possible. Not only that, many of them recorded their experiences to share and preserve the lessons learned and at least one Captain went through the effort to have a gun truck sent to the US Army Transportation Corps Museum to serve as an example for future generations. So this wasn't a dirty little secret the soldiers tried to keep to themselves, it was leadership pushing this as a reaction to the conditions in Vietnam (along with other tactics to protect convoys).\n\nNow when they say \"authorized\", they're referring to what's listed on the official Army \"TO & E\" (Table of Organization and Equipment) for that type of unit.\n\nA TO & E is a document that lays out the organization and weapons/vehicles/equipment for a given type of unit according to Army doctrine. Everything from how many soldiers they're supposed to have and how the unit is organized, to what type of weapons each individual soldier is assigned, to the types and numbers of vehicles used, what (if any) weapons are assigned to those vehicles, and so on. If something isn't on the TO & E, the Army isn't going to issue it to your unit, hence the backdoor deals to get added weapons in Vietnam. \n\nWhile the Army didn't adopt the idea of the gun truck at a higher level (it was never added to the TO & E and mostly forgotten after Vietnam), I'm not aware of anyone getting in trouble for any of these field modifications in Vietnam. While it was not necessarily viewed by everyone as the ideal long term solution to convoy security, it was also not viewed as a problem that needed to be stamped out.\n\nRichard Killblane, a historian for the US Army Transportation Corps (featured in the Smithsonian video you referenced) has written two papers on the history of US Army convoy security.\n\n[Circle the Wagons: The History of US Army Convoy Security](_URL_0_)\n\n[Convoy Ambush Case Studies](_URL_1_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://transportation.army.mil/history/publications/circle-the-wagons.pdf", "http://www.vietnam-guntrucks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2227ConvoyAmbushVol1Proof141.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cie3rz6" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "\"Sherman, along with Federal forces in Hilton Head, could have prevented Hardee's escape. Sherman was aware that the Confederates were building a pontoon bridge to South Carolina, yet upon his departure for Hilton Head Island on December 19, he left orders for his army not to attack the Savannah works until he had returned. Sherman's subordinates clearly observed the Confederate evacuation on December 20 yet did nothing to interfere with it. Sherman's victory in Savannah was won through default, not brilliant tactical maneuver.\"\n\nsource: [National Park Service](_URL_0_)\n\nThe article also argues that he was somewhat nervous about his army being divided by a river, which may have stopped him from attacking earlier. \n\nI have not heard of the theory you mention. Where might I find a discussion of it? There is no conceivable reason for Sherman to allow Hardee's men to escape. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/civil_war_series/12/sec5.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d7y44zv" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "That's a very hard question to answer and honestly - I am\nNot quite sure if I am qualified for it. Especially not for the imperial tombs in china. \n\nWhat I can answer is what happens if things get done too fast, without a clear preservation plan and without a clear idea of what you want to achieve.\n\nI am from Vienna and I studied art history there - and my dad was an archeologist at the Vienna city museum. \n\nDuring his job he oversaw the excavation of Michaeler Platz (Michaeler square) if you have ever been in Vienna you can't really miss it since it's right in front of the Hofburg.\n\nThis is what it looks like : _URL_0_\n\nSo the square has quite an interesting history , with buildings from roman times , the Middle Ages and the old imperial theater being located there - and when a new subway line was built they excavated part of the square in the course of the construction.\n\nThey found some frescos on the medical buildings - the city wanted to have them displayed in Situ - my dad wanted to cover it up completely or at least transfer the Freskos to a safe spot. \n\nPolitically the city won - and the result is that the frescos are basically gone and the ruins are falling more and more into ruin every year since they are exposed to the weather year round. \n\nAnd the can't really cover it up and keep it visible since this would destroy the sight of the Hofburg from\nThe Kohlmarkt which is a famous view of the Hofburg itself. \n\nSo basically even on a very small excavation, in a very rich city, preservation was not done as it should have been done and the buildings are falling apart more and more.\n\nAnd I think that this is one of the lessons the Chinese learned from a lot of similar projects in Europe - that you need a perfect plan, a perfect idea of what to do and goals and to have the means (both in money and technology) to achieve those goals.\n\nAnd as long as they are not 100% sure that they can conserve whatever they find in the tomb they won't dig it up - the risk is basically to high for them. \n\n\n\n" ] }

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[ "http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/articles.php?searchterm=008_qianling.inc&issue=008" ]

[ [ "http://www.hollein.com/var/ezwebin_site/storage/images/projekte/michaelerplatz-archaeologiefeld/350_michaelerplatz_02.jpg/5436-1-ger-DE/350_MICHAELERPLATZ_02.jpg_projectimage.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cpwhidy", "cpwjj0p", "cpwjysz" ], "score": [ 2, 2, 5 ], "text": [ "**Commenters:** Please keep in mind that top-level answers at /r/AskHistorians should be informative and comprehensive. Answers will be removed if they are only a single sentence long.", "The Netherlands was a republic from 1581 to 1795. However, it's not exactly what we think of when we think of a modern republic. [Federalist #20](_URL_0_) covers Madison's thoughts on it's structure.", "The Swiss Confederacy was a federation of states, named \"cantons\"; it was formed over time, starting in the middle ages, as different communities in the Alps developed a series of alliances.\n\nIt was a part of the Holy Roman Empire but it fought against the Habsburgs and did gain independence. That was formally recognized as an independent state by the europeans powers in 1648 at the Peace of Westphalia.\n\nIn Italy, the republics of Venice and of Genua were born as city states, mainly concerned with sea trade within the Mediterranean Sea.\n\nLater, after the discovery of America and of the route to India around Africa, the Mediterranean become a bit of a backwater, and both cities expanded over land. Venice in particular did gain vast territories, expanding to the west nearly to Milan and controlling the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea (Dalmatia).\n\nThe were some other small republics in Italy, that based on the city state of Lucca and the tiny city state of San Marino (which is still existing today !). Also there were some city states that were nominally members of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany, but that in practice were mostly autonomous.\n\nKeep in mind that those republics could all be defined as oligarchies: the power was concentrated in the hands of the members of a very small number of wealthy families, mostly very successful trading houses. Membership in the ruling councils was mainly by co-optation by the existing members, only extended to members of the families.\n\nSo nothing like the suffrage that was established in the United States, that was certainly not universal at the start but that was mush more effective and direct.\n\nAlso, many of those entities were destroyed by the revolutionary and napoleonic wars and the by the Congress of Vienna, with the exception of the Swiss confederacy. Venice was given to Austria, Lucca to the Duchy of Parma, Genua to the Kingdom of Savoy and Sardinia." ] }

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[ [], [ "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers/No._20" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cymvt6l" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "So far as we can tell, his name was Attila. As you've guessed, Huns did not use surnames or family names, and only a non-Hun would call him \"the Hun.\"\n\nInteresting trivia: *Attila* does not seem to be a Hunnish name but Gothic, like *Totila*. The Huns were not one tribe but a confederation of tribes including the Goths who did not flee them and the Sarmatian Alans. These tribes tended to adopt Hunnish culture, like cranial deformation and facial cicatrization. But it means that depictions of Attila as a Mongol might be quite a ways off: Goths were Germanic tribes, as in Ostrogoth and Visigoth (tribes that did flee the Huns).\n\nIngraham, *People's Names*." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cjcm455" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "I was a history and international relations major as an undergrad, and here is where the two disciplines meet. The term \"Great Power\" comes from the Realist tradition in international relations. Without going too far down the rabbit hole of explaining what Realists believe, they essentially view international politics as a struggle for survival between nation-states and they see power rather than ideology as the key variable that leads nations into conflict (ideology may be an important reason why a war is worth fighting for the common man, but the conflicts are ultimately driven by competition for security between nations rather than conflicts over ideology.) \n\nRealists like John Mearsheimer would define great powers generally as those which have a significant military capability (including latent capability) and an influence on affairs that extends beyond it's immediate region. Great powers can also extend their territorial influence beyond their defined borders in the absence of another power stopping them from doing so. There's not really a hard-and-fast way to differentiate great powers from lesser powers, but a nation that stands a realistic chance of defeating another great power in a war is generally going to be considered a great power. \n\nThe term was much more relevant in the absence of *superpowers*, which are essentially magnified great powers capable of projecting power over vast regions of the globe. *Great Powers* are much more important when there are powerful states with great military capabilities with no clear hegemon dominating a region. Historically, Western Europe has often been characterized by competition among Great Powers including Russia, England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Spain. Certain of these countries have dropped off the list of Great Powers at different points as their ability to influence affairs beyond their boarders lessened and their military capabilities became weakened. Now, some people would characterize Germany, Japan, the UK, France, and Russia as Great Powers (although these are all arguable) but most IR Realists would say that the United States is the sole Superpower in the world, rendering Great Power status fairly useless. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "f4l76jb", "f4op1y4" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Well, there's the modern pederasty movement. By pederasty I mean movements defending adult - adolescent sexual relationships, especially of the homosexual kind. It arose during the 60s and 70s, along with other parts of the sexual revolution and civil rights movement. NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association) was founded in 1978 and describes itself as a political, educational and civil rights association whose goal is to end \"the extreme oppression of men and boys in mutually consensual relationships\". So they (the few members) describe themselves as being part of civil rights, but I don't know how much other civil rights would agree with that (I think not much, at least from what the statements I've read of gay civil rights associations, that try to dissociate their image as much as possible from them).", "You might argue that the welfare rights movement of the 1960's-70's (which tried to expand to more of a poor people's movement but never quite made it) is an example of a failed social movement. They did get some changes in terms of reducing racism in determining benefit eligibility, but by 1980 Reagan's anti-government rhetoric and the (false) image of the welfare queen became firmly lodged in people's minds. After that we entered into a long period of cutting and reducing social spending of all kinds and reducing taxes. Still today it is hard to argue for government support of almost any social program in the US." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "etjyeu3" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Depending on the specific cutoff date you've got, I'd argue that smokeless gunpowder in 1886 is the single most important breakthrough. Smokeless powder paved the way for firearms as we know them today. Smokeless powder burns slightly differently than black powder (rapid burn rather than low explosive) and is significantly cleaner on firing. Although the immediate effect is apparent in the name - less smoke means it's easier to see on the battlefield - the more significant benefit was the significantly cleaner result of firing, meaning guns no longer had to be designed around regular cleaning after fewer than a hundred rounds. This in turn allowed bores and bullets to decrease in size (as the utility of large bores with respect to getting more shots between having to clean was gone) while velocities went up, allowing for flatter-shooting, longer-ranged weapons. Smokeless powder also proved far more conducive to autoloading systems thanks to higher pressures and cleaner burns, which made machineguns a truly viable weapon on the battlefield.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nPrior to that, percussion caps and brass drawing were very important steps. Percussion caps at first allowed for a quicker and more convenient way to prime a gun compared to a flint lock, but they ultimately provided the foundation for the primers in every modern cartridge. Meanwhile, brass drawing provided an effective and consistent means to contain cartridges that could be mass-produced. Unlike paper cartridges, they left no residue in the chamber after firing, and unlike rolled brass cartridges, they were sturdier and easier to produce." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ea81nqu" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Hi there - unfortunately we have had to remove your question, because [/r/AskHistorians isn't here to do your homework for you](_URL_0_). However, our rules DO permit people to ask for help with their homework, so long as they are seeking clarification or resources, rather than the answer itself. \n\nIf you have indeed asked a homework question, you should consider resubmitting a question more focused on finding resources and seeking clarification on confusing issues: tell us what you've researched so far, what resources you've consulted, and what you've learned, and we are more likely to approve your question. Please see this [Rules Roundtable](_URL_1_) thread for more information on what makes for the kind of homework question we'd approve. Additionally, if you're not sure where to start in terms of finding and understanding sources in general, we have a six-part series, \"[Finding and Understanding Sources](_URL_2_)\", which has a wealth of information that may be useful for finding and understanding information for your essay. Finally, other subreddits are likely to be more suitable for help with homework - try looking for help at /r/HomeworkHelp. \n\nAlternatively, if you are not a student and are not doing homework, we have removed your question because it resembled a homework question. It may resemble a common essay question from a prominent history syllabus or may be worded in a broad, open-ended way that feels like the kind of essay question that a professor would set. Professors often word essay questions in order to provide the student with a platform to show how much they understand a topic, and these questions are typically broader and more interested in interpretations and delineating between historical theories than the average /r/AskHistorians question. If your non-homework question was incorrectly removed for this reason, we will be happy to approve your question if you **wait for 7 days** and then ask a less open-ended question on the same topic." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_homework", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4cb022/rules_roundtable_8_the_raskhistorians_homework/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/theory#wiki_monday_methods.3A_finding_and_understanding_sources" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "etdvpln" ], "score": [ 46 ], "text": [ "To answer this, I'm going to first start with an example and work through why the historical account is contested. One of the most infamous cases of this is probably Caligula, the \"depraved\" Roman Emperor. In pop culture (e.g. things like the series *I, Claudius*) he's portrayed as a truly despicable human being. He murdered people for no reason, openly slept with married women, wasted money, claimed he was divine, and slept with his sisters (he eats his sister's fetus in *I, Claudius*...there are no historical accounts of that happening).\n\nThese stories are from a variety of stories. The main two who were contemporaries of Caligula were Philo of Alexandria (in his work *Flaccus* where he discusses Caligula's treatment of Jews...Caligula claimed to be a god and they refused to worship him) and Seneca the Younger (whose analysis of anger in *De Ira* is considered a thinly-veiled critique of Caligula...though he does not mention Caligula by name). They paint the picture of someone unstable and crazy (considering himself a god and punishing the Jews for not worshiping him) and unstable and full of rage (challenging the gods to fight and lashing out at all those around him).\n\nThe other two sources, and all of the \"juicy\" stuff that people remember come from Suetonius (in his work *De Vita Caesarum* - The Twelve Caesars) and Cassius Dio (in *Historia Romana*). These are where the accusations of incest, wasteful spending, and the desire to appoint his horse a consul of Rome. The important thing to note here is that Suetonius was born almost 30 years after Caligula died and Cassius Dio was born over *100* years after Caligula's death.\n\nSo, that leads us to our first clue: the truly \"juicy\" stories don't come from his contemporaries but from people who were born decades after Caligula's death. Suetonius' work is, essentially, a massive piece of hearsay. Interesting for sure, but ultimately problematic when compared with previous writings on Caligula. It's possible they had access to sources that have since been lost but this isn't the only reason to be skeptical.\n\nThe other major reason that these stories are suspect is that Caligula was...not well liked by some powerful people. The Senate in particular hated him. In the end, he was assassinated by members of his own Praetorian guard. These same people would have a vested interest in painting Caligula in the worst possible light and spread scandalous stories about him to make the assassination seem more \"justified\".\n\nSo, to sum up, there are a number of things historians look for. Consistency in accounts are particularly important. It's likely that Caligula did have a temper as both Philo and Seneca mention it. It's not likely that all of the salacious details from after his death are accurate. Contemporary accounts are also incredibly important as it's less likely the stories will be distorted over time (e.g. perhaps Caligula was not serious in his threat to make his horse a consul, it was a way to call his opponents in Rome incompetent, but that's not how it was told to Suetonius). Looking at the motivation of those writing/relaying the history is also quite important as a highly biased source is not as trustworthy.\n\nedit: noticed a couple typos\n\nedit2: I should also note, history is not as...clean as most schools before higher education tend to show. In many cases there is no one \"truth\", even for more recent events than Ancient Rome. This is where lively debate comes into play. Historians will get into - sometimes quite heated - debates about what truly happened as you will frequently have sources that either contradict each other or make outlandish claims. Historians try to create a plausible hypothesis for events based on their evidence and present their findings to the academic community." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cal9xuw", "calb0nu", "calbwma", "calf1n4", "calgiln" ], "score": [ 269, 236, 13, 7, 5 ], "text": [ "They did, to an extent. The Germans had quite a bit of cross-channel artillery at Calais, which they used to fire on Kent for years. Economically though, it probably wasn't all that useful. The German guns and their barrels and ammunition probably cost more than the damage they did to anything on land. The firing rate of the German guns was often less than one round per hour, and obviously they didn't have any spotters to help them zero in on targets.\n\nOn the other hand, the cross-channel guns were highly useful for attacking British shipping passing through the straits of Dover. The Germans had radar there, and anything passing through the straits could expect to be fired upon.", "They could [and did](_URL_0_). Dover and surrounding towns, as well as Dover Strait and shipping lanes through the Channel were under continuous bombardment from 1940-44. The British installed their own guns along the coast to counter the German shellfire...the first two were nicknamed Winnie and Pooh. \n\n > This gunnery duel, along with heavy German shelling and bombing of Dover strait and the Dover area, led to this stretch of the Channel being nicknamed Hellfire Corner and led to 3,059 alerts, 216 civilian deaths, and damage to 10,056 premises in the Dover area and much damage to shipping. Much British shipping, perforce, had to pass through the bottleneck of Dover strait to transport essential supplies, particularly coal. \n\nSo coastal artillery did quite a bit of damage, though it wasn't nearly as effective as the Blitz (which killed tens of thousands) in terms of terrorizing the civilian population. It was a far bigger threat to shipping, particularly since counterbattery fire only managed to silence the majority of the coastal batteries by 1944. \n\nThe reasons why it wasn't effective as a tool for bombarding British cities & military installations have to do with the cost and complexity of extreme-range artillery.\n\nAfter the sheer cost of huge coastal guns, [Fire control](_URL_2_) was probably the biggest impediment to long-range cross-channel artillery. Launching a ballistic shell and hitting a target 40 miles away is far more complex than simply punching in a map coordinate & elevation. Even if the target is stationary, like, say, the Port of Dover, the shell might have to traverse one or more weather systems, wind patterns, even temperature gradients, any one of which could alter the trajectory of the shell. Time-of-flight for a shell traveling 40 miles is in the neighborhood of 160 seconds, which means that even more exotic factors have to be included (Coriolis effect, muzzle wear in the artillery piece, etc.). Naval artillery is firing from a moving platform, and so the ship's direction, speed and roll also has to be accounted for. Coastal & naval guns used mechanical computers [to calculate firing solutions based on all of this information](_URL_1_). \n\nHitting a moving target, like a ship or train, requires even more calculations and a spotter for target acquisition. Since you're basically aiming at where the target's going to be 60 seconds or more in the future, you need a radar signature (I don't know if they used radar targetting in WWII), or better yet a trained artillery spotter team for target acquisition, and to send back speed & direction information. This was dangerous work for aircraft, and extremely dangerous for agents working behind enemy lines on both sides of the channel. \n\nArtillery spotting had to be one of the most dangerous jobs in the war. Think about it: you're either a French citizen working with the Resistance, or you're a British citizen working with the Wehrmacht. In order to relay target information, you're probably using a portable teletype machine, and using cryptographic code to transmit details that are probably going to get some of your neighbors killed along with soldiers, police, etc. The Gestapo is listening in, so you have to hope they aren't close enough to triangulate your signal. You have to hope the Germans haven't been able to break the code Whitehall gave you. Then hope if you get captured that you'll be able to hold out under torture long enough for the people you're going to implicate to make plans to be elsewhere.", "On a tangentially related note to OP's question:\n\nDid Germany ever plan a D-day style invasion of Southern England?", "Besides the already mentioned - there were also plans to attack London with artillery ([see V3 cannon](_URL_0_)), however that never happened due to problems with the development of those guns. And by the time they more or less ready it was already too late. \n\nThough in 1944 two smaller versions were used on the western front to attack Luxembourg which alreaddy had been liberated... with not so great results. ", "Mainly the fact that the Germans bombarded targets in England with concentrated bombing attacks and once the English fought off the Blitz and formed their defenses, those attacks stopped and couldnt be made effectively with artillery.\n\nAlso that artillery at that range is beyond the visual guidance of the gunners and it requires forward observers in place to guide the fire, not being able to cross the channel and have observers in place on the ground in England would have made artillery useless, just would have been pounding random coastline and countryside. Considering that at even its narrowest point at the Pa De Calais the channel is 19 miles wide and just to far and limiting for effective bombardment of any viable targets.\n\nThe fact that the allies would have to counter that fire with their own counterbattery fire, bombing attacks and naval gun fire from the channel, it simply would have been pointless and impossible to attack England with artillery in any effective manner." ] }

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[ [], [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-Channel_guns_in_the_Second_World_War", "http://nigelef.tripod.com/fc_ballistics.htm", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-control_system" ], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-3_cannon" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cc46idj", "cc46iwo", "cc46ql9" ], "score": [ 38, 26, 11 ], "text": [ "This seems too obvious, but wouldn't it be because the United States only joined the war in 1917?", "The US didn't enter WW1 until 1917.", "Does the related WW2 memorial only list from 1941-45? Curious if this an inconsistency." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cdt9l39" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Soldiers of Waffen SS when captured by frontline troops were shot on spot. If they got lucky and were captured by 'trophy company' or by MPs, they will be put in POW camps. Many survived - there's a book in preparation (in russian) with recent interviews of former POWs, many from Waffen SS. So, despite all supposed horrors of russian POW camps many are still alive. \n\nIn general, advancing russian soldiers didn't have much time to interact with local civilians. They were in hurry to end the war. In 2-3 days at most - all populated places were controlled by military police (*военная комендатура* - at a time), which was supported also by NKVD troops. There were strict orders from all Front Commanders in Germany proper to minimize interactions with local populace which stated that anybody found harming german civilians will be punished - up to death penalty for serious crimes. \n\nNow, I'm not saying there were no instances of civilian abuse at hands of soviet soldiers, and I would say that amount of abuse was unexpectedly high for Stavka - that's why there was a special orders, specifically spelling out punishments and conduct guidelines. \n\nMany incidents have happened in small window of lawlessness - when frontline troops moved away, but MP didn't moved in yet. And perpetrated by support troops, which did not have strong chain of command, while their senior CO being far away.\n\nHere's one visual example of purported abuse I've came across recently (it doesn't involve murder or rape):\n\n* Ever seen the photo of bike which is [pulled from hands of a woman by a russian soldier](_URL_5_)? Seems very clear what is going on here - a marauding soldier is taking away property of civilians.\n\n* Now let's see the same photo, [published on The Life magazine cover](_URL_0_). Note the lines below photo: *A Russian soldier involved in a misunderstanding with a German woman in Berlin, over a bicycle he wished to buy from her.* Now it seems not as clear-cut as before.\n\n* But here's [the original from the archive](_URL_1_). One more sentence added to the description: *After giving her money for the bike, the soldier assumes the deal has been struck. However the woman doesn't seem convinced.* Wow - now scene goes from dramatic to comic. Note also how image was cropped more and more.\n\nMoving on to the favorite source about Soviet Army brutality - Beevor's book *\"Battle of Berlin\"*:\n\n* anonymous account from a cog of Goebbels machine (talking about *\"A Woman in Berlin\"*) cannot be taken at face value without scrutiny. Sadly, Beevor did not scrutinize it properly. He just say \"oh, she was OK, it's all must be true\" - without any verification of details.\n\n* another reason why I cannot seriously consider Beevor to be accurate: he never mentioned a practice of *sex for food* and never takes it into account in his calculations. Which is really strange, since it mentioned quite often in memoirs of russian soldiers.\n\nHere's detailed criticism of Beevor - [What is the basis of Russian criticism of Antony Beevor's work?](_URL_3_)\n\n**Sources** \n\n1. [Nikolai Litvin - 800 Days on the Eastern Front: A Russian Soldier Remembers World War II](_URL_6_) . That's memoirs of a driver from support troops. Boring - you won't find glorious battles, but if you want to know day-to-day routine of soldiers - read it.\n\n2. [From Stalingrad to Pillau: A Red Army Artillery Officer Remembers the Great Patriotic War](_URL_4_). Memoirs of jewish gun commander. Frontline troops. Very critical at times and does not hesitate to poke at observed issues.\n\n3. [Sex for food - memoirs of Prussian women](_URL_2_). Unflattering and rather biased against soviet soldiers, but at least with some verifiable facts.\n\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/_lord_/674963/159803/159803_original.jpg", "http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/HU036516/russian-soldier-tries-to-buy-bicycle-from", "http://books.google.com/books?id=cSFri4ZpQK8C&pg=PA136&lpg=PA136&dq=sex+for+food+russian+soldier+memoir&source=bl&ots=r4bp8YNeyr&sig=0Gv6opYFjilZrBmy3qS76tetxcM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nwmfUqrtLqrHigLT-YGoBw&ved=0CHgQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=sex&f=false", "http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/5901/what-is-the-basis-of-russian-criticism-of-antony-beevors-work", "http://www.amazon.com/From-Stalingrad-Pillau-Artillery-Remembers/dp/0700615660/ref=pd_sim_b_5", "http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/_lord_/674963/159551/159551_original.jpg", "http://www.amazon.com/800-Days-Eastern-Front-Remembers/dp/0700615172" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "co1ekfa" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "hell yeah dude, it was pretty much all bohemians! ... with a bunch of germans thrown in\n\non a more serious note, these threads are probably what you are looking for: \n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ws8yo/why_do_we_describe_artsy_type_communities_as/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1vfbsg/why_are_hippies_beatniks_and_other_freethinking/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cisygew", "citgd46" ], "score": [ 13, 3 ], "text": [ "I assume you're asking was there a flag that didn't have stars representing the Confederate States? In that case, no, not officially. Even when West Virginia broke away from Virginia, the official flag gained a [35th star](_URL_1_) (which still included Virginia and all the other rebelling states). In the view of the US, you can't actually secede from the Union (there was a [Supreme Court Case](_URL_0_) affirming this). They viewed the Confederacy as a group of rebelling states rather than an actual nation. Creating a flag without those states could be seen as official acknowledgment that they were in fact their own country, which as you said, would be a little counter-intuitive on their part.", "There were unofficial flags made called \"[exclusionary flags](_URL_3_)\" that only had stars for the states that were still in the Union. Generally the number was in the mid-to-low 20s. This was carried over from an [earlier abolitionist practice of making flags which only had stars for free states](_URL_0_). The same technique was later used by [suffragists](_URL_2_) and [proponents of marriage equality](_URL_1_).\n\nOfficially there was no distinct flag for the North, and the government discouraged people from removing stars for the reasons captmonkey has said." ] }

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[ "http://www.loeser.us/flags/civil.html" ]

[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/US_flag_35_stars.svg" ], [ "http://www.flagcollection.com/tour.php?CollectionTour_Code=tourpage05_exclusionary&CollectionTour_Name=United%20States%20Exclusionary%20Flags#leaf", "http://makeitequal.org/", "http://blog.americanhistory.si.edu/.a/6a00e553a80e10883401a73dd24ad4970d-500wi", "http://antiquescouncil.com/antiques/index.php?page=out&id=487" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cwmrhi3", "cwn304b", "cwn4rt8" ], "score": [ 11, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "I think it depends largely on what perspective you are viewing this from, and I would love to hear a comment from a European medievalist on how this was viewed at the time in France or Europe, but I think the line you quoted is broadly in line with the thinking of historians of the Arab conquests.\n\nThat's largely because the broad conclusion is that the Islamic empire was incapable of expanding very far beyond its borders in 732 and that had the Arabs won at Tours it would not actually have changed the situation very much.\n\nThat sounds like a counterfactual but it has some good supporting evidence, namely: \n\n1. In 750 the Ummayad dynasty was replaced as rulers of the Arab/Islamic empire in the Abbasid revolution. The internal violence of this revolution, within a matter of decades, led to some significant fracturing of the empire, especially at the periphery in North Africa and in Islamic Spain. The survivors of the Ummayad dynasty escaped the slaughter of the Abbasid Caliph al-Saffah and established their rule in an independent Islamic Spain, which would have been the logical jumping off point for any renewed expansion into Europe. In fact they proved incapable of doing so and as a peripheral kingdom of Islamdom they could not muster the kind of forces that were available to the Abbasids. And if the Abbasids wanted to expand in that direction (which they did not) they could only have done so by going through the Ummayads, not to mention the other independent dynasties that would pop up in North Africa. \n\n2. Contrast the loss at Tours in 732 to the *victory* at Talas in 751. Despite crushing the Chinese army of the Song dynasty, the result of the battle was not massive civilizational change or Islamicization of China, rather it was the consolidation of Arab/Islamic control over their central Asian territories.\n3. Given the above, and the eventual reconquista of Spain, it strains credulity that an Islamic conquest of France, let alone all of Western Europe, was ever possible. \n\nI think the conclusion is that that Tours was important as a high water mark, but a high water mark *that was going to turn back somewhere or other*. If the Arabs had won at Tours, it's difficult to imagine them continuing their victories for much longer, and nearly impossible to imagine that they would somehow have wiped out European civilization or something (not that the Europeans were very civilized at this point, but that's a separate issue!)", "Adding onto this, would you say that the sieges of Constantinople in 674 (although I've read claims that there was no siege in 674...) and later the 2nd siege in 717 was a bigger battle in terms of containing Islamic conquests? Since if Constantinople fell the Islamic armies would have definitely crossed the Bosphorus", "Had Martel lost, the important question is whether the Umayyads could have continued pressure into France. This becomes more likely if Martel had died in battle.\n\nHad Martel died at Tours, that would leave Carloman and Pepin leading the Franks at around 20-26 and 18, rather than 15 years later when Martel actually died. \n\nIf Pepin doesn't keep power as Mayor of the Palace and Carloman doesn't retire to a monastery early, it's possible Charlemagne never rules. **That** completely changes the long term power balance in the area." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cypnco5" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "I can't speak for Roman society generally, but I am familiar with one specific case of sex-selective infanticide from Tel Ashkelon, Israel. We excavated a Roman/Byzantine bathhouse in Grid 38, (you can read the publication report for free at _URL_2_, just download the massive PDF of volume 1 and you can find some descriptions of the \"baby drain\" on page 295, and the publication of the DNA analysis on page 537), and found literally hundreds of infant skeletons in a drain underneath the bathhouse. Why were hundreds of dead babies thrown into the drain of a bathhouse? Why were they nearly all male? (Answer, it may have also been an illegal brothel). I have sat on this drain to do paperwork many times, and am excellent friend with the person who oversaw the excavation of the infant remains. Part of the drain is actually still there, it being made of Roman concrete and all. [This](_URL_1_) is a picture of the drain as it was excavated. [This](_URL_0_) is a picture of it basically as it is today, taken by one of my colleagues. The drain is the concrete thing that all the people are standing on, they are standing on the same thing the guy is standing on in the other picture." ] }

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[ [ "http://imgur.com/tf1ptjr", "http://archive.archaeology.org/image.php?page=9703/newsbriefs/jpegs/ashkelon.jpeg", "http://digashkelon.com/current-projects/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d8nftyg", "d8nw5do" ], "score": [ 6, 2 ], "text": [ "This is not a historical development, as such. Though nor is it usage which may be explained with a hard and fast rule, as there is some dialectal variation with respect to it. \n \nWhat we are observing, essentially, is that English nouns require an article where they are countable, singular and concrete (“I found *a* quarter”, but not “I found quarter”) and do *not* require an article where they are abstract and uncountable (“the boy has spirit” is acceptable), or countable and plural (“the boy has legs” is acceptable). \n \nBut the prior category can give way to the latter in particular in cases where what is otherwise or previously a count noun is treated in an abstract fashion which construes it as uncountable. The extreme case of this is word such as “heaven” or “hell” which for conceptual reasons, cannot be enumerated in a given cultural context. One goes “to heaven” rather than “to the heaven”, as to qualify *which* heaven one is referring to, or how many, would be nonsensical (in a majority of English Christian contexts), making a countable use of the word impossible, and the interpretation of the word as uncountable the natural development. And indeed, in a less extreme case, when we say we go “to church”, we are implying our attending the uncountable abstraction of the church concept, rather than a specific edifice which is therefore countable. Though in this case, both approaches coexist, as they often do. Which nouns conventionally see this usage or these changes in countability is, however, as I say, subject to dialectal variation.", "Thanks to Google Ngrams, you can see this historical development for yourself. [Here](_URL_2_) for British usage. [Here](_URL_1_) for American. And [here](_URL_0_) for all books written in English worldwide.\n\nSaying \"going to hospital\" arose in British usage around 1850, becoming more popular between 1920 and 1960. It has declined since then. It never became a thing in the US. Why some British writers started using this in 1850 is a point for an historical linguist.\n\n > In other words, did Shakespeare ever write of 'going to the hospital?' Or did George Washington ever write that a soldier must 'go to hospital?'\n\nShakespeare never wrote \"the hospital\". Washington never wrote just \"hospital\"." ] }

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[ [], [ "https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=going+to+the+hospital%2Cgoing+to+hospital&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cgoing%20to%20the%20hospital%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cgoing%20to%20hospital%3B%2Cc0", "https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=going+to+the+hospital%2Cgoing+to+hospital&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=17&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cgoing%20to%20the%20hospital%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cgoing%20to%20hospital%3B%2Cc0", "https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=going+to+the+hospital%2Cgoing+to+hospital&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=18&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cgoing%20to%20the%20hospital%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cgoing%20to%20hospital%3B%2Cc0" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cxqbpgs", "cxqgipv" ], "score": [ 6, 3 ], "text": [ "TL:DR Yes, absolutely. At least in aristocratic memory.\n\nWho is Jeremy Corbin?\n\nFirst of all, the Gracchi were one step in a line of \"trouble-making\" tribunes. Lily Ross-Taylor wrote an important article \"The Forerunners of the Gracchi,\" in *JRS* 52 (1962) if you can get it. She challenged the traditional narrative that the Tribunes had been subverted by the Senate and shows there were basically always Tribunes who used the powers of the Tribune to subvert Senatorial control. So they weren't all that strange; and about a generation later you get M. Livius Drusus, who was REALLY radical (and perhaps a direct consequence of the Gracchi's activities, but more on that later).\n\nAll the sources report that Tiberius was concerned about the gr owing urban poor and the collection of land among a few very wealthy land holders. Rosenstein at OSU (*Rome at War* I think is the title of the book) has fairly recently (10 years ago?) challenged this narrative - his argument is that there was no dearth of small farmers; they just didn't want to enlist in the army anymore, but since the question is about the Gracchi's influence, let's stick to the narrative the Romans told themselves. The aristocrats were gathering up huge tracks of land owned by the state meant to be rented in amounts no larger than 500 jugera/citizen (don't ask me to translate that into acres- I am not up to math at the moment and I have no idea anyway). According to Plutarch, Ti.'s plan was to seize public land illegally held and redistribute that land to the urban poor. The poor would have land, the state would have soldiers, and everything would be great.\n\nThis required a survey though, to find out who held too much land and to redistribute it in the appropriate amounts to the right people. To this end Ti. passed a law to form a commission of three to conduct the survey etc. after some politicking, but the Senate refused to fund the commission. At this point Attalus, king of Pergamon, died and willed his state and fortune to Rome. Ti. proposed a law to use this money to fund the commission, and after more politicking, got himself lynched by a mob of angry senators. However, the land commission went ahead with a new commissioner.\n\nGaius, Ti.'s little brother, was a member of the land comcimission, and in adjudicating the redistribution of land managed accidentally to redistribute land that was not Roman public land, but both properly held private land and land belonging to the Allies (this is from Appian, *BC* 1). The Allies, not being Roman citizens, could not represent themselves in court, and got Scipio Aemilianus to represent them, But he died under mysterious circumstances in 129 BCE. Gaius also ended up getting himself assassinated for politicking shenanigans.\n\nThe land problem was left open for about 30 years after C.'s death. Rome's relationship with the Allies turned increasingly sour. in 91 the Tribune M. Livius Drusus tried to pass a law granting the Allies citizenship, and ended up stabbed to death on his front porch. The Allies snapped and fought a very nasty war against Rome which Rome very nearly lost, and only ended when Rome extended (or imposed - the question is still up for debate) the citizenship to (or on) the Allies. That war left Sulla in command of an army, as Consul elect, and directly set up his conflict with Marius for the Pontus command, which in turn led to Sulla's dictatorship and set the pattern for Roman politics until Augustus.\n\nSo, yeah, the Gracchi influenced Roman politics. They were not original in using their position to mess with the Senate, but they took it further and forced the Senate further than anyone else, and demonstrated the power the people had to oppose the Senate when organized properly. This proto-communist stuff I'm not so sure about; they didn't seem, to my eyes at least, to have an ideological commitment to social equality, but instead sought to address specific problems (lack of solders, urban poor) and, according to their enemies, use those that benefited from these reforms to further their own careers.\n\nThis is the story that all the surviving sources give us, from Cicero to Cassius Dio. Much of this has or is being questioned by modern scholars. [EDIT: a sentence dropped out before my coffee this morning: You don't have to believe the revisionists.] Not everyone believes Rosenstein, for instance. But as far as what Romans themselves thought, yes, the Gracchi did have significant influence on the course of Roman history.", "I'd add to what /u/LegalAction said that, on the subject of the Gracchi being \"the first socialists,\" the current balance of opinion is that such a claim is pretty ridiculous, the Gracchi were no such thing. There's a perception for some reason that politicians who appealed to popular support were necessarily in favor of popular reforms, and during the late Republic that's not necessarily true in the least. Gaius Gracchus, for example, actually limited the powers of the tribunate, by preventing tribunes from vetoing the assignment of consular provinces, a law that the OCD points out \"shows how far he was from being a 'democrat.'\" Tatum points out, which /u/LegalAction sort of mentioned when talking about Tiberius Gracchus' intended replenishment of the military classes, that the Gracchi's reforms were generally decidedly in favor of the status quo, particularly the maintenance of the property classes. In a speech preserved by Gellius (which, genuine or not, is still useful to our point here), Gaius Gracchus declares openly that nobody approaches the Roman people without the hope of getting something from them--in this very speech Gracchus hopes to raise the taxes on Roman citizens! And even the Romans didn't necessarily see the Gracchi as opposed to the aristocracy at all. Plutarch mentions that Gaius Gracchus' land reforms included a provision that the recipients pay rent to the public treasury, something not too different from the current state of affairs, whereas Livius' released them from lease payments entirely. Gaius Gracchus' planned colonies were to be settled by \"the most respectable of the citizens\" (τοὺς χαριεστάτους τῶν πολιτῶν), a term that brings Cicero's *boni* to mind--Plutarch places this in opposition to Livius' intention to found twelve colonies and settle them with the urban poor (τῶν ἀπόρων). " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "eps0l8s" ], "score": [ 17 ], "text": [ "Civil War memory is something I write a lot about, so I'd point you to [this older answer of mine](_URL_0_) which focuses more on the evolution of Confederate statuary than the Lost Cause itself, but I think does speak well to your question, although I'm of course happy to do my best with any follow-ups you may have." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ai9s2d/did_the_construction_of_confederate_monuments/eem9o53/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c61mevn" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Serbia's army had experience from the [Balkan Wars](_URL_0_), unlike the Austrians who were quite green. Austrian troops were better equipped, but had far less patriotism due to the fact that most of them weren't Austrian, but Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, etc. The Serbians also could match the Austrians in terms of numbers, since the bulk of Austria's army was engaged with Russia for most of the war. The land itself isn't exactly a bunch of flat open plains, and favored the defender. All-in-all, it isn't a surprise that Serbia performed how they did." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_Wars" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dujon0g" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ "For much of the time of the English Civil War(s) Europe was still involved in the Thirty Years War. And the concurrent Franco-Spanish War, which blurred with the Thirty Years War but lasted longer. For the Holy Roman Empire and Spain the Thirty Years War was a much more pressing threat against their power than an English squabble. For France the potential shifts in continental power was a much more important and interesting situation.The Thirty Years War was over around 1648 and Charles lost his head in 1649. And France and Spain continued to be at war until 1659. So, there wasn't a lot of money or interest in mounting another major invasion. \n\nCharles, who could be very competent in other areas, had also made a bit of a mess of foreign policy prior to the civil wars. He would, of course, blame this on not being funded by Parliament. But he made a poorly advised attempt at war with France while, at the same time, being at war with Spain. He did come to peace with both and had a fragile alliance with Spain. But he hadn't done much to endear himself to those powers. \n\nThe very nature of the wars was also not very well understood at the time or, honestly, still. As has already been discussed, it was not the overthrow of all vestiges of authority as the later stages of the French Revolution came to be (and remember much of Europe didn't intervene in France until it got to the stage or even later.) The tensions between royal authority and parliamentary authority were absolutely at stake. But there was also a strong religious component to the wars. With the royalists being associated with Laudianism and the parliamentarians being associated with puritanism. The reality was more complex but Europe wasn't itching to get involved in another religious war, at this point, either. \n\nAnd the English (or at least the nobility) seemed to have a nasty habit of rebelling against and killing their kings. It's funny to think of now with the UK being one of the few monarchies left. But Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI, and Richard III were all killed and that's not counting Edward V. Only Richard III in a proper battle. King John, Henry III and Edward II all faced serious rebellions by barons concerning their rights and privileges and the Parliamentary forces intentionally mimicked the stances of those fights. (I leave out the revolt against Richard II, War of the Roses and rebellions under the Tudors because in many ways those were about succession and/or the fitness of the ruler but the earlier conflicts were about limits of royal power and the \"traditional\" rights of the barons.) In some ways, this was framed as a very English conflict fighting over ancient grudges. And it was very intentionally presented this way by the Parliament even when they were going far beyond the traditional rights of the institution. It wasn't something obviously and markedly different the way the French Revolution became in its final stages. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we see it as something distinct from all of those conflicts. They didn't necessarily, at the time. \n\nAnd I know that is an absurd thing to claim because a king was not only killed but he wasn't replaced. Oliver Cromwell was not a king. Nor did he have any even plausible birth claim to the throne. That's a huge change from the past. And that can't be ignored. But from the outside little had really changed radically under Cromwell despite his title. Also Spain had been fighting protestant insurgents in the Netherlands for decades so the existence of powerful protestant uprisings wasn't a foreign concept. Despite wars between nations through out the century, Europe in the late 18th century was in many ways a more settled place than Europe in the mid-17th century. So, the occurrence of such an uprising was more of a shock to the system. \n\nAll that being said, it is not as though other kingdoms did *nothing*. France did take in Charles's family. Although France eventually allied with the Cromwell government, they did so because they needed allies against Spain in their continuing war. Spain made an alliance with Charles II and gave him some money for troops. The Battle of the Dunes had English royalists on the Spanish side and Cromwell's forces on the French side. (The French won.) Charles II was just never given enough money to invade England, which would have been a massive undertaking. Neither France nor Spain condoned killing a sovereign monarch. They were just consumed with each other and not in a position to do all that much about it. Other powers of Europe were devastated by war and not as close to England's orbit. \n\nLong story short, there were plenty of wars going on on the continent to distract the major powers of Europe. And, at the same time, the English Civil War was not as monumental a shift in power as the French Revolution eventually became. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d8mxo3r" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "You are entirely right that much internet information on weapons is fragmentary and contradictory. Part of this is because a lot of the information out there is by enthusiasts of different knowledge levels and there are a lot of old sources and bad scholarship mixed in with good sources and sound methods.\n\nBut part of this is because the entire history of weapons and armour is a vast topic and any summary will be fragmentary and contradictory by necessity. Weapons and armour do not exist in a vacuum - they are not simply better or worse than each other, but exist within a tactical, technological and economic context. Weapons do not necessarily fall out of favor because they are inferior - often it is because the manner of war changes. The form of weapons is not just dictated by how efficiently they are shaped for attacking - it is also dictated by how weapons are produced, and the technology available to produce them. We cannot understand weapons and armour without understanding how these factors shaped them. And this is hard, because it requires us to study military history, the history of technology, art history and social/economic history.\n\nAll of this is to say that the history of a few weapons or a specific type of armour in a single period is a complicated topic. The history of weapons and armour and the way they interacted throughout history is a massive topic, too big for a single scholar, since it requires too much background knowledge. This is really why historians specialize in general - acquiring in-depth knowledge of a period is itself a full time job - acquiring in-depth knowledge of thousands of years is not possible in a human lifetime. This is why my flair area covers one region and only 350 years.\n\nZeroing in on the period that I know about, the later Middle Ages in Western Europe, all the factors that I mention mean that the development of weapons and armour is more complex than better weapons driving the creation of better armour. Plate armour was partly, perhaps, a response to crossbows and other weapons, but it was also the product of an increasingly sophisticated steel making process in Medieval Europe - larger blooms from bloomeries could be turned into larger plates (allowing the forcing of large iron plates like breastplates), while waterwheels powered the bellows of the bloomeries and blast furnaces, the drip hammers that pounded the blooms into sheets, and the polishing wheels that polished the finished armour. Similarly the form of swords was dictated not just by their use in battle but also the state of metallurgy - the all-steel one-piece sword blades of the late middle ages could be formed into shapes that would not have been possible in the early Middle Ages. Similarly, we need to place armour and weapons in the context of how they were used - Italian knightly armour and weapons of the 15th century (armour that includes many overlapping and layered plates, a heavy lance, a lance rest mounted high on the breastplate) is well suited to heavy cavalry combat, but not well suited to fighting on foot. As soldiers change how they fight, their tools change to fit the task. Ultimately full plate armour wasn't simply rendered obsolete by stronger and stronger guns, but it stopped -making sense- on the late 16th century battlefield, for a number of reasons. I deal with this more in [this answer](_URL_0_). In general, the development of armour and weapons in the Middle Ages is not a two-sided arms race of more powerful weapons against stronger armour, but a multi-faceted story involving many causes.\n\nSo with that said there are some books to recommend that deal with the development of weapons and armour - heavier on the armour than the weapons.\n\n*The Knight and the Blast Furnace* by Alan Williams is a history of plate armour in medieval and early modern Europe, as told through its metallurgy. This book deals heavily with the technological developments that made plate armour possible, and looks at how it developed over time. Partially in response to different weapons (mostly firearms), partially as a result of changing industrial processes and economic/social forces. *The Sword and the Crucible* by the same author deals with swords. Currently I am reading it.\n\nTobias Capwell's *Armour of the English Knight 1400-1450* is a hyper-focused text (the first of two volumes covering only 15th century England) that shows just how the form of armour is developed to suit the purposes it is used for - the way that people fight.\n\nI should point out that all the books mentioned here are massive - folio-sized. Both The Sword and the Crucible and 'Armour of the English Knight' approach 400 pages or exceed it. The Knight and the Blast Furnace is 900 pages long. And there is still so much to be said about these topics.\n\n" ] }

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[ "http://www.thearma.org/essays.htm", "https://amzn.com/0486292886", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakeshott_typology" ]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4y2d1k/how_and_why_did_armies_move_from_using_iron_armor/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dj55j95", "dj55m7o" ], "score": [ 5, 38 ], "text": [ "Hi, you may be interested in some earlier threads on this question. See this answer by /u/Notamacropus, and follow the links for more\n\n* [Given that Siddhartha was likely very thin, when and why did depictions of the Buddha come to be fat?](_URL_0_)", "Similar to \"what race was Jesus,\" Buddha has different versions depending on what country you're in or what time period. Also, while there is one, original Buddha, there are also many other Buddhas, people who have achieved enlightenment and become immortalized in statue form.\n\nIn Japan, there are examples of monks who would starve themselves in a self-mummification ritual and then be built into a statue. I saw an example of this at the Tokyo National Museum and I *thought* I had taken a picture of it but I can't find it, so I think it's in the \"no photo\" gallery. I *believe* it was [this statue here](_URL_8_), but I can't be 100% sure. [Here is an image](_URL_15_) from Discover magazine of a similar statue that originated in China, [with a brief story](_URL_14_) on the history of such practices.\n\nI've got a few different photos of Japanese Buddhas to share. [This Buddha](_URL_18_) is from 8^th century Nara Japan. Nara was based in the southwest of Honshu and their Buddhas share many common traits with Korean and Chinese examples. [This multi-armed Buddha](_URL_9_) is from the 14^th century Nanbokucho period, also from the southwest region. You can compare these Buddhas to [this one from Seokguram, Gyeongju Korea](_URL_11_) and notice that they share a lot of similarities - the almond shaped eyes with a tiny slit, the fairly narrow nose (although the Nara Buddha has a bit wider and flatter nose), the same hair style (even on the Nanbochuko Buddha, the little heads above the main one share the hair). [This Korean statue](_URL_3_) from the 8th century Silla dynasty again shows similar features - almond eyes, hair, and a wide nose, ala Nara Buddha - and [this Buddha statue](_URL_0_) from the 14^th century Goryeo dynasty shows a more Chinese influence - rounded face, different hairstyle. It should be noted that the Silla kingdom was based in Gyeongju, a stones throw from the southeast coast of Korea. Also, the Silla and Paekche kingdoms fought with the Paekche losing and many of the Paekche upper-class fled to Japan. Furthermore, China, Japan, and Korea all traded across the southern Korean coast with Korea frequently acting as an intermediary, so it is no surprise that the Buddhas are similar. Goryeo, on the other hand, encompassed all of modern South Korea and most of North Korea and they based their capital in the Seoul region. They had more contact with the Chinese at that point. These last two statues I mentioned were both stolen from Tsushima Island Japan a few years ago by Korean patriots/art thieves/opportunists and brought back to Korea. It's been claimed that Japan plundered them and a court recently ruled that the standing Buddha must be returned to Japan since no one in Korea was claiming it, but a temple in Seosan claimed the seated Buddha. Earlier this year the court ruled that that statue would stay in Korea, but it's been going through the legal system with a hearing before the Supreme Court just this March.\n\n[Here is a photo of the Buddha at Bongeunsa Temple](_URL_7_) in Seoul. I know I've got photos of this one, I've been here dozens of times but I just can't seem to find any. [Here's a funny commercial regarding this statue and the origins of pizza.](_URL_13_) Anyway, note the large ears on this guy. [Here is a Buddha statue at Seoraksan National Park](_URL_10_) - again, note the giant ears. This one also has his eyes slightly open, at least more-so than any of the others I've shown have had. This particular Buddha was built in the 90's, [being finished in 1997](_URL_2_). [A statue at Beobjusa Temple](_URL_5_) in Chungcheongbuk-do South Korea is the tallest standing bronze Buddha in the world. Again, note his large ears. This statue was finished in 1989. [At Donghwasa temple in Daegu](_URL_17_), a 30 meter tall Buddha was finished in 1992 and his ears make Dumbo's look tiny. [At Mangbolsa temple in Gyeongsangbuk-do](_URL_19_), you can see two Buddhas with big ears. They also have [the Buddha I think you're talking about](_URL_1_).\n\nThis statue represents Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism. It was said that he exercised and starved himself in an effort to overcome the minds desires and that when he finally sat down beneath a tree to meditate, he was so emaciated that this was what he looked like. These statues are supposed to show the dangers of being too extreme and to show that transformation is possible.\n\nThere are a couple of different chubby or laughing buddhas. [Here is one from Jogye Temple](_URL_6_) in downtown Seoul. Then there's [Budai](_URL_12_) who was not actually a Buddha, but the incarnation of Maitreya, a future Buddha.\n\nSo to sum up, there are many different Buddhas - there is the original Buddha who founded the religion and then anyone else who has achieved enlightenment. Depending on the time and place, each Buddha can be depicted differently. While I made a point of noting that Korean Buddhas have large ears, it should be pointed out many other countries Buddhas have them too. However, Korean Buddhas tend to have all around large ears whereas other versions tend to only have elongated lobes. You can also see the similarities between Buddhas in regions that share a common Buddhist history, i.e. China, Korea, and Japan. So to answer your main question, you're seeing two different Buddhas from specific points in their histories. Budai is only one form of Maitreya - [he could look like this Chinese carved Budai](_URL_4_) or [like this Korean made Maitreya](_URL_16_)\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2v31nm/given_that_siddhartha_was_likely_very_thin_when/" ], [ "http://img.yonhapnews.co.kr/etc/inner/EN/2016/04/11/AEN20160411005000315_01_i.jpg", "https://i1.wp.com/koreantemples.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Picture-024.jpg", "http://www.buddha.co.kr/html/company53.htm", "https://www.buddhistdoor.net/upload/file/20150728/6992/3287fdeb8d0d4b0c986892c830824889_350__2.jpg", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitreya#/media/File:Maitreya_and_disciples_carving_in_Feilai_Feng_Caves.jpg", "https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0e/90/7d/0e907d5fe2e7135b45c7c646d3a04d93.jpg", "https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0d/17/cb/d0/laughing-buddha.jpg", "https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/09/5b/86/07/bongeunsa-temple.jpg", "https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/73/fb/10/73fb103b302f780850cb8752e8ff12a0.jpg", "http://imgur.com/hK3cS3i", "http://imgur.com/vY8NOZc", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seokguram#/media/File:Seokguram_Buddha.JPG", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/Budai.jpg/1200px-Budai.jpg", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiLA6Bk_ivs", "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2015/02/23/x-rays-buddhist-statue-mummified-monk/#.WUiw_cmx83g", "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2015/02/liuquan1.jpg", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitreya#/media/File:SeatedMaitreyaKoreaMuseeGuimet.jpg", "http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KHCY0PkUVK0/VjnbAQTF1UI/AAAAAAAAUO8/1knLKZY9bec/s1600/20151003%2B%25ED%258C%2594%25EA%25B3%25B5%25EC%2582%25B0%25EA%25B5%25AD%25ED%2599%2594%25EC%25B6%2595%25EC%25A0%259C%2B%25288%2529.JPG", "http://imgur.com/rSk6J0w", "https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/03/cc/aa/c0/yeongcheon-manbulsa-temple.jpg" ] ]