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{ "a_id": [ "cm69ovx", "cm6bgpt" ], "score": [ 10, 3 ], "text": [ "Keep up with the big journals, and go to some of the big conferences. You'll stay up-to-date with the most recent research, and get to keep interacting with people who hold a similar academic interest. \n\nOnce you have your JD, there's always the option of (potentially) writing academically on classical law on the side. Additionally, if you have the option for electives, take some on ancient law if they're available to you.\n\nHope this helps a little. Happy reading!", "A few years ago in Seattle there was an unaccredited language academy that taught Latin and Greek for only a couple of hundred a course, instead of the $4gs the UW charged. It was really more like a book club than anything else. I don't know if it's still operating. You might look for something like that. And do try to get on the mailing list of your local Classics department. Talks are usually open to anyone who wants to attend. Another option: there is a local pastor in my town who occasionally sits in on ancient Christianity classes with one of my professors. Not all professors will be cool with that, but it can't hurt to ask if something runs that you're interested in." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c9kwoqm", "c9kz8ij" ], "score": [ 5, 9 ], "text": [ "I don't know if you mean strictly science, but after encountering civilization that payed much attention to every-day life comfort and hygiene, westerners began equipping their homes with furniture. ", "In my understanding that old idea of information transmitted through the Christian East has been rather debunked. Most of the things that the Islamic World transmitted to the West came through Spain, not Syria and Palestine. The eastern contacts were more important for economic reasons, moving goods into the Mediterranean that originated in the Far and Middle Easts. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "evdzbzt" ], "score": [ 15 ], "text": [ "Who says that they didn't? Robin Fleming argues in *Britain After Rome* that the idea of the Anglo-Saxons as a purely Germanic culture is misguided and not supported by the evidence that we have available through archaeology. She points to the blend of clothing and jewelry styles that emerged following \"Anglo-Saxon\" migration to Britain as evidence that these two cultures were assimilating into something difference from either that came before. She views this process as more or less a peaceful one. While they was some endemic violence inherent to the time period, she does not see evidence for the mass violence that is often assumed to have accompanied the Germanic migration into Britain.\n\nHowever Peter Heather offers another explanation that is worth mentioning. He posits that due to the fragmented and small scale nature of migration into Britain, combined with a fluid cultural identity for the native British there was little reason for the native British to hang onto their culture in certain parts of Britain so the population assimilated into the new Germanic one.\n\nAlso worth bearing in mind is that the label of \"Anglo-Saxon\" as applied to the migrators themselves is misleading. While many of the Germanic people who came to England did come from Jutland or Saxony, others came from Norway, Frisia, Ireland (not even Germanic people!), and Sweden. Also that the process of assimilation was not as smooth in some of these places as you might imagine. For example, Frankish Law (or Salic Law) maintained legal distinctions between Franks and Romans for centuries following Frankish control over northern Gaul. Even though the populations \"assimilated\" in the end, we should not imagine that this process was quick, easy, or assumed." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c7jjrrz", "c7jlin8", "c7jnf4p", "c7jnkrw", "c7jq31d", "c7jqy37", "c7jru7f" ], "score": [ 38, 83, 37, 8, 10, 13, 2 ], "text": [ "Eckstein in *Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome* argued that Rome was no more militaristic than any other Mediterranean state. He was bucking the traditional claim that Rome was super-militaristic, but I think he's convincing.", "So there's this incident where Claudius is headed to what is now England in a ship. He gets spotted by a Carthaginian ship, and it's one group of rowers against the other. Claudius argues the reason his rowers won (and escaped) was that they were free men, while the Carthaginian rowers were slaves. But that was much later, and we're talking a very different Carthage than the one during the Punic wars.\n\nNot only that, to believe the argument, you have to trust the ancient sources, and the modern one (Graves, in this case). For your basic question, \"Was Rome really militaristic,\" the answer can only be yes. Was Carthage a democracy? that's a modern question, which may not actually be relevant in ancient terms.\n\nThey *did* have election of kings, but we would describe it as an oligarchy. Look up \"Tribunal of 104\" if you're interested. Your average Carthaginian citizen was more interested in trade than fighting, so they depended heavily on mercenaries from subjugated provinces for their military. The struggles for power would have been familiar to any Roman: political murders, bought offices, intrigue and deceit. Both systems thought of themselves as republics.\n\nOne other problem: most of the writers we base our view on were actually foreigners, in many cases hostile foreigners. It's difficult, under such circumstances, to make real assertions. But some basic things are clear: Rome had a plunder economy, while Carthage was based slightly more on trade. Land power vs. sea power. Citizen military vs. mercenaries. All those are oversimplifications, but have some truth to them. The modern concept of freedom can't be said to apply.\n\nI haven't researched the \"rage on the TW forums,\" but if they're pro-Rome, they're probably misreading. Arguing that the Romans were a positive influence is another modern simplification. They made life suck for any non-Roman area (such is the nature of a plunder economy), and for the majority of Romans themselves. Their whole system was based on the idea that \"We're going to kick your ass and take all your stuff.\"", "I suspect the CA guys were being intentionally provocative to counteract the widespread perception of Carthaginians as sinister, debauched baby murderers. ", "In a related question, do was have any of the Punic language around? I know Hebrew and can sometimes figure out inscriptions of other Canaanite languages when they're transcribed into Hebrew letters, and I'm curious.", "From my understanding, the Carthaginians lived under a mercantile timocracy (not a democracy). The Roman Republic, although not as democratic as some of the governments of Greece, gave each property owning free male a stake in government and involvement in war. This resulted in what Victor Davis Hanson has called \"civic militarism,\" essentially explaining how the Romans were able to fill their ranks after losing between 50 and 75 thousand men at Cannae. Hanson contrasts the Roman \"citizen soldier\" with the Carthaginian mercenary. To say that Rome was \"militaristic\" at the time of Punic Wars is not a very precise or enlightening statement. It was more nuanced than simple \"militarism.\"", "If you're interested in Carthage, you might be interested in [this previous AMA about Carthage](_URL_0_).\n\nAs for Rome... it was also democratic. Possibly more so than Carthage. Theoretically, every Roman citizen could vote for the magistrates every year (even if not all tribes actually got to vote in any given year). Romans were extremely free. They lived in a much less regulated society than most modern \"free\" democracies. \n\nAnd, in terms of militarism... At the time of the war with Carthage, service in the Roman military was entirely voluntary but expected (if that makes sense). While there was no law *requiring* men to join the army, there was an expectation that all men who owned property (and therefore had something to defend) would join any military attempt to defend that property. Also, men in the army of that period were not paid (this came later), and were expected to provide their own weapons and equipment. The Roman military at this time was considered purely defensive, and was an honourable duty required of the propertied classes. However, the instant that any threat was removed, the army disbanded, and the soldiers went back to their normal lives as senators or merchants or farmers.\n\nSo, it looks like the Creative Assembly developers have over-simplified these two cultures to the point of inaccuracy.\n", "If you're looking for a fairly comprehensive book on the subject I would recommend \"Carthage Must Be Destroyed\" by Richard Miles" ] }

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[ [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/111l4s/saturday_ama_carthage_and_its_phoenician_origins/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cszkfpd" ], "score": [ 10 ], "text": [ "Initially, America very much wanted it for strategic reasons. The GIUK Gap was hugely important. Specifically, it was important to the Soviet Union's submarine fleet.\n\nIf you look at the terms of the [Montreux Convention](_URL_2_), it was impossible to \"sneak\" a submarine through Turkish waters. If you look at a map of the Baltic Sea, or more specifically the [waters around Denmark](_URL_0_), it's similarly unlikely that you could ever sneak a submarine past even a semi-aware detection network. Denmark, of course, was one of the founding dozen of NATO.\n\nThis means that if the Soviets actually want to conduct any submarine operations with any degree of stealth, they need to be based out of Murmansk in the White Sea or somewhere in East Asia (Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk on Kamchatka, Magadan, or Sovetskaya Gavan. Realistically, if the Soviets wanted to have their submarines remain undetected, they really could only use those five ports. And if you wanted to operate in the Atlantic, you weren't going to put your HQ on the northwestern coast of the Pacific. You were going to put it in Murmansk.\n\nThis, effectively, meant that any ships the Soviets sent to the Atlantic had to pass through the GIUK Gap. And it would be relatively easy to detect (and subsequently track or shadow) them if you had assets in the area beforehand. And it's kind of hard to be all sneaky and such when the USN is dropping [practice depth charges on you](_URL_4_). They couldn't do any meaningful damage, of course, but it's an implicit threat: the USN was basically saying, \"we could sink you at any time.\" \n\nAs for the overall economic value of Greenland: that's up in the air. We [already see](_URL_1_) Greenland being exploited for hydrocarbons. The USGS released a review of hydrocarbons in the region [here](_URL_3_). I believe they described it as \"a genuinely stupid amount of dead dead plants buried in the sea floor.\" (Okay, that wasn't their exact phrasing.) (._.)\n\nTheoretically, yes, Greenland would've paid for itself. Eventually. If the estimates actually pan out. " ] }

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[ [ "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Belte_inter.png", "http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Reports/2014/09/24-greenland-energy-mineral-resources-boersma-foley/greenland-hydrocarbon-map-page-size.jpg?la=en", "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention", "http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1750", "http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB75/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ctvmm7e" ], "score": [ 16 ], "text": [ "It's normal for a cruiser to operate alone without destroyer escort in some circumstances. A heavy cruiser is an important asset, but it's not a capital ship that will shift the balance of naval power if lost. Destroyers were always in high demand for various roles in world war two and there were usually not enough to go around. A cruiser task force going in to action might normally include some destroyers, but not each individual cruiser on a non-combat mission.\n\nAnti-submarine weaponry in World War Two was generally only effective *after* the submarine was detected. An escorting destroyer would not have been able to detect the submarine and prevent the Indianapolis's loss, (high speed reduces the ability of surface ships to detect submarines) although it may have meant a ship was present to rescue survivors or counterattack the submarine. A heavy cruiser is much faster than a submarine (surfaced or submerged) and a fast speed and zig-zag pattern course (which the Indianapolis should have been following but wasn't) will generally provide as much protection as possible against the submarine's first salvo of torpedoes.\n\nThe main reason to avoid including destroyers as escorts to a heavy cruiser is range. Destroyers have a much shorter operating range than cruisers, especially at high speeds, and the voyage from Honolulu to the Marianas would be too close for safety to the maximum operating range of a WWII destroyer. Destroyers accompanying major task forces have to periodically refuel from supply ships or larger warships, which is time consuming and creates a moment of vulnerability.\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dc0sgnr" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "The US was never really under any illusions that the nationalists would somehow turn things around in the Civil War after they retreated to Taiwan. Even before the end of WW2 there had been multiple American observers and experts in China who had reported the Communists enjoyed much broader popularity than the Nationalists, and by 1949 the GMD was very obviously overwhelmed.\n\nBefore the Chinese entered the Korean War, the US was expecting an invasion by the mainland to finish things off, and the US government had diplomatically indicated that they weren't going to do anything about it. Only when the Chinese entered the Korean War did the US send the 7th Fleet to the Strait of China to prevent the invasion. They also began to provide the Taiwanese military with equipment and weapons.\n\nAfter the war the US certainly hoped that the CCP would crumble, but their support of Taiwan was based on denying the CCP territory, and especially on keeping China's UN security council vote out of the hands of the Communists. There was no real belief that Taiwan could attack the CCP." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cx05k5j" ], "score": [ 31 ], "text": [ "The Roman Senate continued to meet throughout the first part of the sixth century, and even enjoyed a renaissance of sorts under the barbaric rulers beginning with Odoacer and especially under Theodoric the Great. The Gothic Wars, though, devastated Italy in the mid-sixth century, and Rome was no exception. In 536, it was recaptured by the Eastern Romans; a siege began shortly thereafter in March 537 and lasted for a year; sacked in 546 by Totila (during the siege of which, a famine haunted the city); captured again in 550 by Totila; and finally captured for good by the Eastern Roman General Narses in 552. \n\nNonetheless, the Roman Senate did survive all these events, albeit in diminished form. We know that they continued to meet in some fashion because they pleaded Emperor Tiberius II Constantine for help against the Lombards in 578, sending an envoy to Constantinople with 3,000 pounds of gold. (The Emperor returned the gold, saying there were no troops to spare and instead advised the Senate to spend it on using it to secure support from Lombard and Frankish rulers)\n\nBut by 593, Pope Gregory I wrote the following in his Homilies on Ezekial (essentially a reflection on the dire state of the world):\n\n > Where is the senate? Where are the people? The senate is vanished, the people have perished... Rome is empty and yet Rome is burning.\n\nBy 593, Rome of course was not empty, and was probably a city of some 30,000 - 50,000, making it still one of the largest cities in Europe at the time even though it was a shadow of its former self. So what he said should not be taken literally, but it's indicative of the decline of the Roman Senate.\n\nThe last time the Senate is mentioned though is in 603 in the Gregorian Register, in which it is noted as having acclaimed new statues of Emperor Phocas and Empress Leontia. But, it's referenced in the register as, \"by the whole clergy and the senate.\" Moreover, the Pope ordered the statues to be moved to the chapel of the Imperial Palace on the Palatine. So it seems clear that in whatever form the Senate existed by 603, it was clearly no longer a significant body. After that time, there's no more references to the Senate, and we know that in 630, its meeting place (the Julia Curia) was converted to a church.\n\nI think it's worth quickly noting though that the Eastern Roman Senate continued to meet in Constantinople for hundreds of years afterward. It was mostly a ceremonial body during this time, although it did have some influence (in 1197, they exempted Constantinople, and thus themselves, from a special tax that the Emperor had specifically convened them to approve). \n\nAs for the last person to hold the position, I have no idea. Boethius is probably the last well-known Roman Senator (don't take my word for that), but the Senate continued to function for decades after his death in 524. The last consul was Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius in 541. After him, the title was added to the Imperial title until Emperor Leo VI got rid of it altogether in the late 9th century. \n\nSome sources:\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_" ] }

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[ [ "https://books.google.com/books?id=vQFBAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false", "https://books.google.com/books?id=Qf8mrHjfZRoC&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=senate+3000+gold+pounds+578&source=bl&ots=1e4_Wi7nGu&sig=m3FvwFmHbMZnGmlfpBKtpaHdpIY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBGoVChMI88e4_MmQyQIVwZseCh2G7gs6#v=onepage&q=senate%203000%20gold%20pounds%20578&f=false", "https://books.google.com/books?id=Zod9AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=pope+gregory+593+roman+senate&source=bl&ots=rlrMg2wjuQ&sig=jHHuIvz6KpJhmGTJm9k5jRwC2CE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDEQ6AEwA2oVChMI182EzcqQyQIVgpoeCh0nZQxa#v=onepage&q=pope%20gregory%20593%20roman%20senate&f=false" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dcsgxxh" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "During WWII the United States Navy used the Mark 14 torpedo. The torpedo had a speed of 46 knots. Now it is unclear what class of Soviet submarine was being used but I can assure you that it would have been hopelessly outmatched in terms of submerged speed. From what I found the submerged top speed of most submarines of that era top out at around 10-14 knots. And actually that torpedo would be able to catch the fastest submarine in the world, the Soviet K-222 which had a top speed of 44.7 knots and was commissioned in 1969." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cb99796" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Dur Sharrukin was a brand new capital city built by Sargon II from 716 BC to 706 BC. The outer walls measured 1.76 km x 1.635 km, had 157 towers and seven gates. There was a large barracks, built in the south west quarter of the city. The palace and three important temples were built on a terrace on the northern edge of the city. There was a small working class residential district near the cerimonial core of the city. However, more than eighty percent of the land inside the city wall remained undeveloped. Sargon II soon died, and the Assyrian court, which had just recently moved into Dur Sharrukin, moved to another capital city. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ci4cbva", "ci4oucl" ], "score": [ 3, 8 ], "text": [ "I've read a decent amount lately about how the UK/Dominion troops and populations didn't take too well to the American forces' practice of segregation.\n\nI am curious as to how this was reconciled with the fact that the UK maintained a far flung empire at the time that was not necessarily progressive in its treatment of the native populations of its colonies and dependencies (though, from what I understand, relatively more progressive than other European powers who had overseas territories).\n\nI'm also assuming that there had to be a decent amount of colonial troops stationed in the UK before D-Day, though I could be overestimating their presence.\n\nThis isn't meant try to force some sort of moral equivalency, just an honest inquiry.", "Quite a few from the West Indies served as aircrew\n\n_URL_0_\n\n\nIt should be noted, that these aircrew didnt serve in segregated squadrons and they would often be the only non-white person in their crew, let alone the squadron. For example:\n\n_URL_2_\n\nOtherwise it should be noted that many colonial troops like the Indian Army, Kings African Rifles and Gurkhas had been in existance for an extended period of time and had developed their own set of loyalties and traditions. In this sense, their attitiude towards white troops (and vice versa) would have been no different to business as usual.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nActually the only major full scale mutiny by colonial troops was the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and even then substantial numbers of colonial troops remained loyal (mainly Sikhs)" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.caribbeanaircrew-ww2.com/", "http://www.kingsafricanriflesassociation.co.uk/the-history-of-the-kar/", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulric_Cross" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cic5lht" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I believe the German National Anthem was during the Nazi era. \n\nThe Soviet anthem had the words replaced, but kept the rather stirring melody.\n\nS. Africa replaced \"Die Stem van Suid-Afrika\", but kept a verse of it in the new anthem.\n\nCanada stopped using God Save the Queen.\n\nCzechoslovakia's anthem was split (like everything else) right down the middle, but this is a weak example as it was originally two songs that were fused together (like everything else). " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dkhof7t", "dkhr9w6" ], "score": [ 653, 357 ], "text": [ "You said during, so I'll try to keep the focus as contemporary as possible to the siege. Nevertheless, I only found one opinion poll taken from before the lethal ending to the Waco Siege and that only polled Waco residents, a small and obviously not-representative sample of the US population. Further, in [this series of polls](_URL_0_), it's interesting to see how radically public opinion shifted against the government as the nineties progressed.\n\nTo clarify the \"large segment\" who supported David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, I found three opinion polls taken from April 1993. \n\n70% of people polled supported the government's actions at Waco, versus 27% who opposed it according to [the ABC Poll from 1993](_URL_0_). \n\n[A poll from the New York Times](_URL_3_) found 8 out of 10 Americans believed David Koresh was responsible for the deaths at Waco.\n\nAnd finally, a poll taken from the [Waco Tribune Herald (footnote 5)](_URL_1_) has only fifty percent of locals supporting government action against the Branch Davidians, though 82% supported the government's ending of the siege.\n\nAs detailed in both the CBS poll and Gore Vidal's *Decline and Fall of the American Empire* those who opposed the actions of the FBI and ATF were largely hostile to what they perceived as government overreach. They saw the Branch Davidians as harmless, \"minding their own business,\" and not doing anything that should provoke the violent repression meted out by the federal besiegers. The fact that it was families pitted against heavily armed troopers with armored personnel carriers and tanks made for pretty poor optics regardless of whose side one took. \n\nThe first, ostensible reason given by the Clinton Administration for infiltrating the BD Compound was to seize illegally held arms, a stick in the eye for Americans who hold the Second Amendment dear. When the agents assigned to this mission were repulsed and the situation began to heat up, George Stephanopoulos, the White House Communications Director changed the narrative to one of trying to save the children sequestered with their families. Against this claim, Pastor Robert McCurry points out that [this was an illegitimate use of federal force](_URL_2_) given that child protection falls under state jurisdiction. McCurry, well attuned to the limits of legitimate force, rails against what he sees as a monstrous attack by the government against its people. \n\nRemember, this is less than a year after the \"[Ruby Ridge Massacre](_URL_4_)\" during which a shootout between government agents and a family fleeing the law left a US Marshal, a mother, and a son killed. That event garnered quite a bit of sympathy for the family caught in the crossfire and among certain people, predisposed them against the kind of government \"repression\" that occurred at Waco. Both Ruby Ridge and Waco were precipitated by Firearms charges and involvement by the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms). Given the Second Amendment and the mythology of private gun ownership enabling the American Revolution and protecting \"Liberty,\" the federal government's perceived use of violence to monopolize its control of domestic firearms in these two instances rattled certain segments of the population. \n\n", "I will attempt to explain a similar situation in a broad sense, that may illuminate why puzzling public support occurs; there are a LOT of specifics to the Waco standoff that I'm obviously not addressing; I'm just showing a related example and what was learned from it. Mods; if I'm going off the rails I will not be offended if you delete my comments.\n\nMy area of study is left-wing European terrorism of the 1970s era. The dominant group active in Europe of this time was the Red Army Faction; commonly called \"The Baader-Meinhof Group.\"\n\nTheir stated goal was to be the vanguard of a violent revolution, dedicated to retaking the German state on behalf of the people, and ushering in an era of pure socialism. Early in the history of the group they were associated with violence; the serious injury of an elderly library shot when co-leader Andreas Baader was broken out of police custody, weapons training in a Palestinian camp, shootouts with police offers.\n\nAnd while this was going on, the group was pilloried, along with most leftists, by the conservative Springer Press. Founded by ~~Lord~~ Axel Springer, the Springer Press newspapers were, far and away, the most dominant news outlets in the country, surpassing 50% newspaper readership on Sunday alone. In many ways they were the 1970s German equivalent of the Rupert Murdoch's media empire, only with a much, much larger reach.\n\nSo in June of 1971 the [Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach](_URL_1_), a very well respected market research and public opinion organization, asked Germans their thoughts on the Baader-Meinhof Group.\n\nRemember, this is a group that has injured people with guns, engaged in shootouts with German police, and spoke openly of their coming violent Revolutionary War in West Germany.\n\nThe results were remarkable. 20 percent of Germans under 30 expressed \"a certain sympathy with the group,\" and one in ten young Germans said they'd be willing to shelter a group member for the night. If you tally up all the results, 14 percent of Germans said they'd either be willing to shelter a group member or would be willing to consider it. Essentially 8 million people out of a population of 60 million were either willing to materially support a violent group with the stated goal of revolution, or were willing to consider it.\n\nNow one year later, after the group began their \"war\" in earnest, killing four US soldiers, and maiming several dozen civilians, police officers, and other soldiers over a one month period, that public support essentially ceased to exist (the entire leadership was caught over the next few weeks and imprisoned).\n\nSo what was the deal? How could so many people support this group that was so clearly embraced deadly violence? Were people truly supportive of violent revolution?\n\nMy research shows that no, people weren't necessarily supportive of violent revolution in practice. But many Germans had an extremely strong belief in Socialism. The upheavals in university campuses during the 1960s across the globe were especially notable in Germany. Students were extremely well-versed in Marxist theory. The dominant left-leaning party, the SPD, had socialist revolution a part of their party platform well into the 1950s. My point is that you had a significant part of the population where the nebulous notion of \"revolution\" was a vague end goal. So when this group comes along saying \"we will be the vanguard of this revolution,\" it was easy to express a certain support of their work, despite their occasional violence. Because this portion of the population had been primed to support the vague goal of Revolution, when asked about this group that was taking baby steps trying to fight for that revolution in the real world, it would have perhaps been more a surprise had they NOT expressed support.\n\nSo my takeaway, and how I relate this to the Waco situation (though again, this is NOT my area of study), is that at the time of the Waco standoff, it essentially was a completely unknown situation to the general public prior to the initial deadly shootings that killed several ATF agents and several Branch Davidians. Much like in Germany there was a sizable portion of the US population predisposed to opposition to the US government, the ATF, the FBI, and other agencies; particularly in light of the tragic events at Ruby Ridge the year earlier. So on the news comes word of a standoff, between a group of people, several now dead, who claim they just want to be left alone, and government agents telling stories of meth labs (later shown to be false), unlawful weapons, and stories of child sexual abuse... the people inclined to support the Davidians were just as inclined to discount any information provided by the government.\n\nAnother interesting thing happened in Germany; after the bombing campaign of May 1972--their public support completely ceased. BUT... in the coming years many of their original supporters \"returned to the fold\" to an extent. They wouldn't publicly support violence or bombings, but their support morphed into an opposition to how the government was treated the imprisoned terrorists (and the government DID treat many of the terrorists truly terribly).\n\nHow I relate this Waco is this: during the siege it was likely VERY easy to discount anything the government was saying, if you were so inclined to disbelieve them. But certainly at some point even the most hardened of these folks likely accepted that Koresh was leading a group where he and others had engaged in sexual abuse of children. But because the government had managed to kill so many of the Davidians, and because the siege was handled so poorly, it trumped any concerns they had about sexual abuse. It's not that they were dismissive of it (though likely many did feel the accusations were made up); it's just that everything else felt so much more important to them.\n\nI talked about this a bit more here: _URL_0_\n\nFurther Reading:\n\nAust, Stefan. \"The Baader-Meinhof Complex\" 1988, updated 2007\n\nEDIT: Downgraded Axel Springer from Nobleman status; thanks u/LBo87 !" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-govt-covered-up-waco/", "http://www.stateofformation.org/2012/06/“not-the-jesus-i-love-waco-residents-perception-of-the-branch-davidian-conflict-by-janet-jensen", "http://www.islandone.org/Politics/Waco.McCurry.html", "http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/22/us/death-in-waco-washington-memo-a-strategy-of-openness-aims-to-avert-backlash.html?mcubz=2", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge?oldformat=true" ], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/21ka7d/the_baadermeinhof_gang_what_wasis_german_public/", "http://www.ifd-allensbach.de/service/english/summary.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cekf7b5", "ceknmxl" ], "score": [ 8, 5 ], "text": [ "The general reason for these odd numbers is that they are conversions from before the metric system. 37mm is about 1.5 inches, 76mm is about 3 inches, 88mm is about 3.5 inches, 152mm is about 6 inches. Early tank and anti-tank guns are particularly prone because many were adopted from naval guns like the [US WWII 76mm] (_URL_0_). However, every country has a different specific reason for specific weapons keeping the old non-metric calibers, and I don't know enough to explain why the Soviets or Germans, for example, kept the odd calibers.", "I'm unclear about the question. Of the two examples you give, two of them *are* even numbers. Only 37 is odd. And the examples you give of *even* numbers include one odd number...\n\nAs near as I can tell, what you mean by \"odd\" is number that are strange, and not rounded off to the nearest five or ten? Is that correct?" ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-inch_Gun_M1918" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c9cmvgd", "c9jxfwo" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "I'll yield to better historians, but my understanding was that it had more to do with trade and politics than natural spiritual inclinations. By the time it happened, Scandinavia had been increasingly in contact with Christian Europe and needed commercial contacts. The era of plunder and conquest was ending as more of the Christian kingdoms became better defended from attack. It became more politically expedient to join them than beat them. \n\nIt's not as if this has no precedent in history. Christianity and Islam were sprung from pagan converts. ", "Many very powerful kingdoms in Europe was Christian. The Scandinavians especially the magnates probably saw with envy on the Frankish kingdoms and Constantinople. I don't think they saw the good of Constantinople as \"weak\". \nIf you are polytheist it is usually easier to add one more god than it is for a monotheist. Maybe they saw it as they allied them self with yet another powerful god when they became Christians. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e3fedqk" ], "score": [ 38 ], "text": [ "I suspect everyone who watches this will see different things. I'll defer to experts on Columbus regarding the content in the first 2/3 but can point to some red flags in the last third related to how he talks about the people indigenous to North America that make me deeply suspicious of his work. When assessing the accuracy of someone's historical claims, it's helpful to start with how they frame issues. \n\nHow he talks about \"genocide\" is an indicator that his work may be not accurate or trustworthy. His suggestion that it's a simple linguistic issue regarding intent, and not a complicated matter that speaks to power, colonization, and patterns, ignores volumes of writing, especially by Indigenous authors and historians. [Parenthetical note that Zimmerman wasn't found \"innocent.\" The jury returned not guilty verdicts on all counts.] [This](_URL_0_) explores the different arguments about the use of the word and despite 6 minutes of earnest talking-into-the-camera by what appears to be a Columbus truther, cannot be simplified it into a yes/no question. That said, the creator of the term \"genocide\" cited European interactions with North American Indigenous people as an example of the term. From the piece linked above: \n\n > Lemkin applied the term to a wide range of cases including many involving European colonial projects in Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and the Americas. A recent investigation of an unfinished manuscript for a global history of genocide Lemkin was writing in the late 1940s and early 1950s reveals an expansive view of what Lemkin termed a “Spanish colonial genocide.” He never began work on a projected chapter on “The Indians of North America,” though his notes indicate that he was researching Indian removal, treaties, the California gold rush, and the Plains wars.\n\nThe second red flag is how he presents the words and images of Native Americans. Saying it's \"weird\" to hate on Columbus immediately after showing images of Native Americans expressing their opinions about the man is troublesome. More to the point, I feel confident in concluding he did little or no research on the history of renaming the holiday, or if he did, elected to ignore what he found in order to advance his central claim. Given he establishes his ancestors didn't immigrant to America until the 20th century, he's clearly not speaking as an Indigenous person. (Which isn't required for writing about Native American history, but double-checking and researching statements when writing about historically marginalized groups is basic decency and good scholarship. And his statements wouldn't be less troublesome were he Indigenous, but a native identity would shed a different light on how he uses Native Americans' words.) Had he researched the movement, he would have easily discovered the efforts to rename the holiday came from Indigenous people and that they explicitly picked the date as a way to draw attention to their [actions](_URL_1_). He also would have discovered there is an [International Day of the World’s Indigenous People](_URL_2_) on August 9th. In effect, the Indigenous activists working to rename the date are using Columbus as a proxy for the colonization of their ancestral lands by Europeans. None of the other \"worse\" men that he mentioned have a day that's recognized as a federal holiday.\n\nFinally, Columbus didn't \"discover\" America. Every time he repeats that, even when saying it's untrue, he's undercutting any historical bona fides he may have earned earlier in the video. And no. We don't need to talk about how \"primitive or not primitive\" Native Americans were.\n\nNote: I just watched about ten minutes of the video he cites as his source for \"Native American Genocide\" which contains not only terrible history practices but straight up racism. Which doesn't bode well for the rest of the history in his video." ] }

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[ "https://youtu.be/ZEw8c6TmzGg" ]

[ [ "http://americanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-3", "http://articles.latimes.com/1992-10-12/news/mn-160_1_columbus-day-parade", "http://www.un.org/en/events/indigenousday/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cx0r06x", "cx0w32g" ], "score": [ 20, 8 ], "text": [ "This depends on your definition of 'refugees'.\n\nIn 1951, a convention was held in Geneva to give an official definition to the term, and from henceforth it was possible to declare whether a person was a refugee or not. [source: [UNHCR official site](_URL_0_) ]\n\nHowever, before that there were already large population movements caused by war, famine and other forms of destruction which would cause the peoples' homeland to be inhospitable to them.\n\nIn China, one of the earliest records of such a wide scale immigration would be during the spring autumn period, when the Yue 越 king Gou Jian 勾践 destroyed the Wu 吴 kingdom. Due to the demeaning treatment that he had suffered under the Wu king previously, Gou Jian was determined to eliminate Wu utterly. Therefore the Wu people were forced to cross the sea to the Eastern islands, which is now modern day Japan. Future contact between the Han dynasty and the Japanese islands state that the Wa 倭 people claimed direct descent from king Taibo 泰伯 of Wu, and often spoke with a Wu accent and adhered to Wu customs, further supporting the theory of them being former refugees of the Chinese Wu. [source: *the Book of Han* 汉书, *Discourse on Balance* 论衡]", "Although the term refug*ee* isn't used, there are a number of places where peoples 'seeking cities / lands of refuge' are referenced in the Bible - whether that has merit as a historically accurate source or not, it is still a historic text in terms of age, and definitely alludes to the concept of refugees.\n\nHere is one example (to fit more in with the common modern concept of refugee, I have selected an example of *mass* movement of peoples due to war / civil instability):\n\n > Exodus 12:37-39\n > \"Now the sons of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, aside from children. A mixed multitude also went up with them, along with flocks and herds, a very large number of livestock. They baked the dough which they had brought out of Egypt into cakes of unleavened bread. For it had not become leavened, since they were driven out of Egypt and could not delay, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.\"\n\nI think this qualifies, since your question is phrased to the *concept* of refugee, and not 'the first historically bulletproof accounts of actual refugee events'. :)" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49da0e466.html" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "co9p7xv" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Well, the idea that the Confederacy could ever have successfully captured Washington by storm or siege is utterly unrealistic. By 1862 Washington was likely one of the most heavily defended cities in the world, by 1864 it was the most heavily fortified city in the world. Any attempt to take it by storm would have resulted in wholesale slaughter akin to Grant's Cold Harbor battle, but in reverse, and likely much more one sided. Besieging it would have been impossible since it can be resupplied by sea if absolutely necessary and the Confederates have no way of stopping such an avenue of resupply even assuming they could encircle the city.\n\nBut I digress, your main point is about the idea of foreign intervention and assuming a hypothetical southern victory on northern soil. This would greatly depend on what year your talking. If 1862, it's possible, France did want to intervene on the side of the Confederates and intimated as much to the diplomats Davis sent. However, they were unwilling to act without a British declaration of war, and it is difficult to gauge how likely such an intervention ever was. Had they won Antietam, it is possible, but following that defeat they never had a realistic chance of achieving foreign support until victory for the Confederacy was certain and by that point what need would they have for such support. \n\nYou might be wondering why I don't include Gettysburg or anything following 1862 in my belief and that's rather simple. Had the Confederacy won at Gettysburg consider the situation on July 4, yes you've just won a \"victory\", but you've also lost 25,000 men, you're still outnumbered, and you can't possibly assail northern cities. To the north you're blocked by a river and the difficulties of crossing such a river. To the south you have only Washington and if you couldn't besiege it when you had 75,000 men you certainly can't now. You've lost a 1/3 of your army and remain deep in enemy territory, now what. Wait, hope the Union after 2 1/2 years just gives in, cause Lincoln wouldn't have and he was still president no matter public opinion. Oh, and about that, you're victory is about to be tempered by the fact that on the same day you won Vicksburg and some 35,000 Confederates just surrendered and the South out in the West is in full retreat. So the situation from your perspective, or even Union newspapers, hysterical at the loss and the mystique of Lee may not change. But in the eyes of the world you won a major battle and then lost a major battle and in doing so lost 60,000 men that you could not afford to lose. The public opinion in England was never high, why would it change now that you just went 1-1 in major battles, from their perspective all you did was just offset by what Grant just did and from a purely strategical sense to the military minds of England, Grant's victory was far more significant. Everyone in the South knew it too and Lee's loss, far from being the injury was merely the salt in the wound. It's also uncertain whether immediate intervention by the British or French would have caused an immediate peace settlement. It takes time to mobilize your forces and get ready for a war, the U.S. even after a loss at Gettysburg would have had a 6 month window before having to worry about British or French troops. In that time the South's fortunes out west got worse not better. Ultimately even as early as 62 such an idea was relatively unlikely, by 63 it was far fetched, and by 64 it was bordering on delusional." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "da1auqv", "da1lgb3" ], "score": [ 8, 3 ], "text": [ "Yes, it was possible. The prototypical example would be Andrew Jackson, the son of recent Irish immigrants (his older siblings were actually born in Ireland - that's how recent his parents had immigrated before his birth). Jackson rose to the rank of Major General in the Army and, of course, eventually reached the highest office in the land in 1828 (inaugurated 1829). ", "It was certainly possible... Take a look at the lists of graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Though many of the cadets were of course from the upper classes, they included among their ranks many from less well-to-do backgrounds, including that of Henry Ossian Flipper, who was the first black to graduate from the Academy and be commissioned-- he was born a slave.\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cxmzwjy" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "\"Kilroy was here\" is the only thing I can remember. Basically, during ww2 American soldiers would leave these marks on beaches they stormed, places they visited, etc." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c5tqze6", "c5ts7qp", "c5tullq", "c5tyjxr", "c5tzyp1" ], "score": [ 14, 2, 16, 3, 10 ], "text": [ "The little country is Tuva.\n_URL_0_", "I read somewhere that Germany gave them an Enigma machine.", "For the most part, they didn't. Top axis and allied leaders met and hammered out agreements at conferences. The Axis leaders often didn't even tell each other which countries they were going to invade, much less had joint strategy sessions.", "There were plans to fly long-range versions of the Junkers JU290 to Japan. By starting in northern Finland the Junkers would just be able to reach Japanese occupied China without re-fueling.\n\nThere are some secondary sources that claim these flights did take place, both to carry messages and VIP passengers. Certainly not enough evidence to be conclusive.", "- Shortwave radio. The Japanese embassy in Berlin had a \"Purple\" cipher machine, believed to be unbreakable throughout the war (this is the code that was broken by American cryptanalists helping the US prepare for the Battle of Midway). Even the Germans knew that it was probably exploited as early as 1940. They also used a cipher called \"RED\", also broken by WWII. The Japanese military (army and navy - the Navy had its own code named JN-25) did not trust the foreign office all that much and subsequently didn't tell them a lot. The Japanese also used an Enigma machine model 'T' ('Tirpitz'), as well as Enigma-C (commercial) variants. I am not sure whether these were broken. There was also a rarely used Enigma variant called \"GREEN\". The Germans used various Enigma models, as well as a cipher called \"Floradora\" (broken 1941-1942). I am not sure whether they used any Lorenz machines.\n- VLF (also frequently used to communicate with submarines at sea). [Here is an example of a Japanese transmitter](_URL_6_) that is still standing. I am unsure whether that was still used during the war.\n- Long-range cargo submarines, both Japanese and German. The Japanese [I-8](_URL_3_) and [I-52](_URL_5_), and German [U=234](_URL_4_) and [U-864](_URL_0_) were examples of these; of this list, only I-8 was successful (the wikipedia page lists others). There were several others, for example the Italian [Commandante Capellini](_URL_1_). In Japan, these missions were known as \"Yanagi\" (Willow). \n- Diplomatic staff already on location. For example, a major economic cooperation agreement was signed in 1943, fixing things like the Yen-Reichsmark exchange rate. Due to the difficulty in transporting large, bulky supplies (like steel, which the Germans were loth to part with anyway), transports were limited mainly to high-tech components, technical plans, and rare materials. [Wikipedia also mentions rising deception](_URL_2_) as each participants' war fortunes ebbed. These staff obviously had to communicate with their home country (see the other points in this list), but had a fair amount of leeway in terms of procedure and negotiations.\n- Land lines over neutral countries. Remember that Japan and the USSR only went to war in late 1945. As such, the Japanese had access to the same infrastructure used to communicate with their Moscow embassy. From there, via Turkey (the Soviet-Turkish border was never taken by the Germans, and the Soviets continued to communicate via Turkey.)\n" ] }

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[ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WWII.png" ]

[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuva" ], [], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-864", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_submarine_Comandante_Cappellini", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany%E2%80%93Japan_relations#Japan_enters_World_War_II", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_submarine_I-8", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-234", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_submarine_I-52_%281943%29", "http://yosami-radio-ts.sakura.ne.jp/english/contents/memory_yosami.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dryfezc" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "It certainly did. I recently finished my masters on these lovely individuals and while I do not have all the sources handy with me, hopefully, someone else here will. \n\nTo give you a brief, non-cited explanation, there were several places that the loot from Viking raids/expeditions had a serious effect. Towns like Dublin were completely established by Viking raiders and therefore would have been affected greatly by the influx of coinage. In addition to that, those Vikings that served in the Varangian Guard and returned to Iceland often did so as rich men. I believe there is a man named Bolli Bollason (or something similar), who serves for a time in the Varangian guard, then returns and is so wealthy he is known as Bolli the Grand. \n\nAs far as the division of loot goes that is a much harder and less studied question. There are no primary sources that give us a percentage break-down of what a raiding band would receive. Often, all we have is that the entire force was paid x pounds of silver and other such goods. In order to really find out something about how much the average Viking warrior took home would require examining graves. Even then though, it would only be a rough estimate of how much a raider could obtain over time and not be an accurate reflection of how much a particular raid earned them. \n\nI can promise you though, it is *very* unlikely that only one man received the loot, and even if he did, he soon split it up amongst his men or else paid the price. Gift giving was extremely important and played a massive role in keeping together raiding parties. \n\ntldr: very much yes. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cpa2rln" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "While both regimes shared very similar outlooks (Corporatist, authoritarian, conservative, anti-communist states) both had significantly different reputations after the 2nd world war. Salazar was an incredibly well regarded statesman, who had a great dislike for Hitler and who stayed neutral during the war due to a strategic issue (Anglo-Portugese alliance stayed intact as a strategic issue, as Portugal was poorly defended and the British did not need more reason to draw the Spanish into the war.) Franco had presided over an incredibly bloody civil war and had only stayed neutral in the 2nd world war because the Germans thought his conditions for Spanish military help were unfeasible (Rumor is Hitler once stated he'd rather have teeth pulled than continue to deal with Franco). \n\nFour years after the end of the 2nd world war, when the North Atlantic treaty was signed, few people had forgotten had close Spain was to becoming a full-fledged member of the Axis.\n\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cc4553c" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "Well until someone with perhaps more verifiable sources can comment, I can take a shot at this based on my experiences interviewing villagers in Southwest China and urbanites in Taiwan. In addition, I will try to tie this in with what I learned from both Chinese/Taiwanese professors, and while in the United States undertaking an undergrad in East Asian studies.\n\nThe answer to your question largely depends on what exactly you meant by \"re-taking\" the mainland? Do you mean could the ROC march back into Beijing by sheer military force? Or do you mean could the Guomingdang effectively reinstate their authority on the mainland population?\n\nIf you looked into historical sources on the Yuan and Qing dynasties, you will understand the difficulty in asking the latter. In practically any case where a foreign entity attempted to rule over the Chinese populace, they ultimately it difficult to impose their culture and ideologies on the public, and often ended up becoming absorbed by the Chinese civilization, whom it appeared was greater than the sum of all its borders.\n\nNow obviously Chiang Kai-Shek and the KMT/GMD (depending on what spelling you prefer) were not \"foreigners\", but the fact of the matter was that by the time the Japanese were retreating after World War 2 and the Chinese Civil War was reigniting, the Communist Party has already amassed a huge base of support among the massive agrarian population, which was crucial in gaining ground against the KMT, who were seen as corrupt an apathetic to the plights of those in the countryside.\n\n\nWhat I got out of my time in the countryside of Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces, China, was that even today, the love and adoration for Mao Ze Dong is permeable and strong. To a lot of people, especially the older ones that I spoke to, Mao and the CCP were seen as \"knights in shining armors\", who instituted land reform, agricultural practices, medical care, etc. I of course also spoke to individuals who had lost loved ones during the famine of the Great Leap Forward, and those who had been imprisoned for 18+ years during the Cultural Revolution, who obviously did not share such admiration, but there was still a significant amount of people even today who proudly display pictures of Mao in their homes with no hint of being coerced into doing so (the police are largely non present here).\n\nThe point is, even today there are many who express nostalgia for the \"iron rice bowl\" era and still do hold on to their red books. Even after I spoke to these people, it is still impossible to imagine the fervor some of them held when Mao rolled into Beijing.\n\n\nSo what does this mean for Chiang Kai-Shek? Well, even if he managed to re-invade the mainland, with or without US support, he would find himself facing an extremely hostile and recently empowered population residing in a country spanning the entire length of the continental United States. Even if he and his armed forces were able to successfully defeat the Communists, he would then have to face the greater battle of rebuilding the Republic of China in a country who historically has been notoriously resistant to subjugation.\n\n\nIf you are asking simply in regards to the military capabilities of the ROC, then I'll let someone else much more knowledgeable discuss that; however, from my studies and experience, Chiang Kai-Shek and the KMT would have had an extremely difficult time reinstating the ROC to its original borders. Even during times of crises like the Great Leap Forward, the geopolitical impact of the ROC attempting to invade the mainland and risk another civil war during the broader context of the Cold War would have like made the idea not too palatable to anyone. \n\n\nAgain, sorry about not specific sources. This is focusing primarily on first-hand sources conducted through private interviews rather than vetted historical sources.\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c4joltv", "c4jr72j" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "It's probably the best book to start with. If you tell us more specifically, what you are looking for, we may be able to give you better recommendations. For general world history, *A World History* by Clive Ponting is quite good too. It focuses more on the \"East\", while Roberts' focus is the \"West\".", "You can also read A History of the Modern World by Palmer, Colton and Kramer!" ] }

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[ "http://www.amazon.ca/The-New-Penguin-History-World/dp/0141030429/ref=cm_wl_create-landing" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "cz80rqn" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "They weren't that expensive because they were home grown. Anyone could put in a patch of flax among the other crops. Women could pull it (one does not cut it and shorten the fibres), though men could help. After that it was a woman's job to rett the flax in the stream to rot off the outer coating and pith. Then the fibres were hackled or combed out to remove the bits not wanted. Repeated hackling produced short fibres broken off, called tow. Tow was used like cotton balls or waste paper for wiping up or stopping wounds. Everyone used tow, because every woman spun linen. Once the flax had been bleached on the grass, it was put up in stricks, which were a bundle to be arranged on the distaff to draw down smoothly into thread.\n\nTaxes were often paid in thread. Single women contributed to a household by extra spinning, so the traditional term for them was \"spinster.\" Extra thread could be sold for cash.\n\nWomen rarely wove at home. That was a job for the weaver's guild, who might trade finished cloth for thread. It was a sign of wealth to have one of the gigantic timber-built looms when they only wove a narrow tabby linen for underclothes (body linen).\n\nWool was a little more specialist. A fine lady would spin flax, but only a peasant would spin greasy wool. I'll bet her hands loved the lanolin. Fleeces were sheared from sheep and lambs before spring so they were spared the summer heat. Qualities of wool were separated out of the different parts of the fleece. These would be carded until the fibres all ran straight and the tangles were out. Then the carding combs would be cleared a clever way to roll the wool into a roving. Wool can be spun without a distaff. Wool can be combed before carding to produce worsted. Again, wool thread was a valued commodity and one of the few ways to get cash.\n\nBut all of these were produced by the peasant class. They still stretched the life of everything, including cutting down clothes so the unworn parts clothed the children." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c9t8mph", "c9t8zyu" ], "score": [ 3, 3 ], "text": [ "I think a lot of it depends on the level of scholarship.\n\nI know that many scholars use the New Revised Standard Edition when a simple verse quotation is required. It was created in 1989 to be good for devotional use as well as scholarly use.\n\nLearning the biblical languages and using ancient copies is done, but this is at a fairly advanced level of historical inquiry or textual criticism.", "I translate myself, footnoting possible alternate readings. Mostly because I like doing that, and because I can and it makes me look smart. But more importantly, when there's important divergence in understanding or something important with the wording, it's much easier to discuss if you're translating it yourself. You can see through a lot of BS that way.\n\nGenerally, the best Christian scholarly translation is the NSRV, and the best Jewish one is the nJPS. When writing about Jewish stuff, nJPS is usually the standard in academic contexts. But for any discussion of how the bible was seen historically in religious contexts, academic sources don't have much choice but to discuss the Hebrew (or Aramaic, if you're in one of those small sections)." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cibi47a" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The romans created it.\nVeto means \"I forbade\" in latin and the right of veto was the privilege of the tribunes of the plebs. When one of them stood up to say \"Veto\" it blocked the decision.\nIronically what was originally a tool to protect the plebeian against patrician abuses of the beginnings of the republic became at the end of it one of the base of the imperial power as Augustus received power over the \"imperial provinces\" and the tibunita potestas, the power of the tribune (of the plebs) enabling him, the patrician to veto any law he would not like." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cyxv2jw", "cyy5z6m", "cyyf96t" ], "score": [ 3, 5, 3 ], "text": [ "Not an answer, but a follow-up question ; How and why did the Ottoman empire dissolute and disappear?", "This depends on a case-by-case basis. I am unfortunately unable to give you a fully-fledged answer in general, but would be happy to explain what happened in the Netherlands during the War and the immediate post-war period with (predominantly Belgian) refugees, if you are interested. I could also be of some help in illuminating the emergence of the closed-border and passport systems in the immediate pre-war era, again if you are interested in the context. ", "I would be really interested in that SickHobbit, if you have time. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d5beosj" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "This is an interesting one. \n\nThe Order Police and the Krippo generally continued as normal, as did most of the judiciary.\n\n\nThe Gestapo was brought in front of the Nuremberg trails where it was decided the it was a criminal organisation and that all officers and administrators were collectively responsible. However, it didn't apply to those who left before 1st September 1939, thus ruling it was only after this date that it became a criminal organisation and this ruled out any officer facing punishment for their actions before then.\n\nVery few rank and file officers were brought to trial and most of those that did served less than three years detention. The Law for the Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism (5th March 1946) allowed individuals, including Gestapo officers, the chance of exoneration by producing evidence and witnesses. Most of the West Germans who applied were exonerated (issued a 'Persil Certificate' - a pun on the washing powder that offered whiter-than-white results) due to those overseeing the process being over worked and under staffed. \n\nIn the East, the Russians were just as 'thorougher' in investigating the past of those involved in the Nazi regime, however, this meant detention. \n\n\nTheir are a number of things we must understand. Firstly, rank and file Gestapo officers were forcibly transferred from the police detective branch and very very few were members of the Nazi party before 1937. It was the senior managers that were ardent career Nazis with no police experience. Secondly, by the 1950s there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm among the West German political establishment to bring Nazis to judgement. Thirdly, the people who the Gestapo targeted were dead by the end of the war and unable to provide witness to the prosecution. Finally, by the late 1940s, the western allies were more concerned with the Soviet Union than the Nazis. Routing out every Nazi, be them part of the civil service or civilians was not only time consuming but removing the low level civil service would make reconstruction and governance more difficult. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dyx27nr", "dyx8k7o" ], "score": [ 113, 45 ], "text": [ "This is primarily trying to answer another question, but it touches on the question you’re curious about:\n\n * [Why didn't the Turkish Republic change its flag?](_URL_0_)\n\nI’m afraid, though, that I come at this as someone who’s interested in the Early Turkish Republican era/the Late (19th century) Ottoman Empire, so I don’t know much more about this early/middle Ottoman question than I listed in that answer. (Edit: this particularly doesn’t cover at all when the star and crescent became a *global* symbol—it obviously appears on flags outside the former Ottoman Empire and outside the context of Pan-Turkism on, for instance, the flags of Pakistan, Malaysia, and Mauritania.)\n\n/u/Chamboz and /u/CptBuck might have more to add. ", "I did a search of\n\n!g site:_URL_0_\n\nand found:\n\n1. [https://www._URL_0_/comments/5rm5ap/why\\_did\\_the\\_crescent\\_and\\_star\\_become\\_symbol\\_of/](https://www._URL_0_/comments/5rm5ap/why_did_the_crescent_and_star_become_symbol_of/)\n2. [https://www._URL_0_/comments/24d72l/why\\_is\\_the\\_star\\_and\\_crescent\\_considered\\_the/](https://www._URL_0_/comments/24d72l/why_is_the_star_and_crescent_considered_the/)\n\nHope that gives a couple good answers!" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2wjumh/why_didnt_the_turkish_republic_change_its_flag/corsvi9/" ], [ "reddit.com/r/AskHistorians", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24d72l/why\\_is\\_the\\_star\\_and\\_crescent\\_considered\\_the/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24d72l/why_is_the_star_and_crescent_considered_the/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5rm5ap/why_did_the_crescent_and_star_become_symbol_of/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5rm5ap/why\\_did\\_the\\_crescent\\_and\\_star\\_become\\_symbol\\_of/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cbrl3h8", "cbrlzgx", "cbrr4g7", "cbru6i8", "cbrxma6" ], "score": [ 7, 111, 6, 3, 5 ], "text": [ "Actually early in China's history it had a larger Islamic population. Several revolutions happened centered around its Islamic population. Infact the famous explore Zheng He, was actually Muslim (it was one of the reasons he was selected actually to ease relations with Arabian leaders, meeting a member of your own religion always makes thing easier).\n\nThat being said Islam in China has historically gotten the short end of the stick. While most Chinese dynasties had little problem with Muslims, who often ended up getting very wealthy off of trade. The mongols harshly apposed several Islamic practices (namely a few festivals and meat perpetration).\n\nThe real 'modern' decline of Islam in china occurred around the rise of Communism. The Red Guard would burn and deface mosques, as well as burn copies of the Quran. Muslims were painted as holding \"Anti-socialist\" views, as well as \"clinging to old superstitions.\" This was true for most religions, not just Islam.\n\nCurrently Islam is on the rise in China, and accounts for about 1-2% of its total population.", "China does have a thriving Muslim population, though they are in several different groups.\n\nPerhaps the most notable are the 维吾尔族 Uyghurs (pronounced like \"Wee-ger\") in the 新疆维吾尔族自治区, or the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (a region some Uyghurs often refer to as Eastern Turkestan). In this region, the largest province in China, Uyghurs are the majority population, accounting for ABOUT fifty percent of the province's ~22 million people. They are a Turkic people, and are often characterized by their devotion to Islam. In general they bare little resemblance to East Asian peoples. Peter Hessler, an American travel writer, said that when he visited China in the 90's many Han Chinese 汉族 (the dominant ethnic group in China that we simply refer to as \"Chinese,\" though incorrectly) assumed he was Uyghyr upon first meeting him. Many Muslims of the Kazakh minority 哈萨克族 are also to be found in Xinjiang. \n\nAnother notable groups of Muslims in China are the Hui (pronounced like \"Hway\") people 回族. The Hui have been present in China since the Tang Dynasty, and are widespread. Major population centers include Gansu 甘肃, Yunnan 云南, Xinjiang 新疆, and other Western provinces. Though ethnically distinct, a westerner might look at a Hui person and think they look very \"Chinese\" as opposed to the Uyghurs who certainly do not. Famous Hui Muslims include the famous explorer from the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He 郑和.\n\nEdit: Just an anecdote. I live in Beijing, and I'm surrounded by Hui Muslims. Where I live, Chongwenmen 崇文门 in Dongcheng District 东城区, they are an everyday sight. There is a beautiful Hui Mosque here, and even a Hui Primary school.\n\nEdit 2: Some numbers. China is home to over 8 million Ughurs, 10 millions Hui Muslims, 1.5 million Kazakhs, and a variety of other Muslim peoples such as Tajiks, Uzbecks, Kyrgyz, etc.", "As /u/kevink123 mentions, there are in fact quite a few Muslims living in China, but I would add that there are perhaps *fewer* than there would be if it hadn't been for Genghis Khan.\n\nIn a nutshell, during the height of Muslim power in Central Asia, the Mongols rolled through, razed many cities, and slaughtered millions of Muslims.\n\nThere's also a geographical factor. It would be easier for Islam and Islamic populations to spread along the sea trade routes of the Indian ocean than it would be for them to spread through Central Asia and Western China (despite the Silk Road).\n\nIt's also worth mentioning that the autonomous region of XinJiang (China's largest province) now has a population that is roughly 50-50 in terms of Muslims versus non-Muslims, but prior to Communist rule, the region was almost entirely Muslim.\n\nThe [Great Mosque of Xian](_URL_0_) is worth a mention here because it's the oldest existing mosque in China (742 C.E.) and it's notable for being in central, rather than western, China. It's also intersesting from an architectural perspective as it incorporates Buddhist and Daoist elements of design, but without all the iconography that would come with it.\n\nAnother interesting thing that the Xian mosque illustrates is the traditional tolerance towards Muslims in China. There are Daoist, Buddhist, and (former) Confucian temples all within two blocks. Religious pluralism in old China is really quite astounding by European standards. Prior to the 20th century, there is not a single recorded case of serious religious conflict with Muslims in China.", "Along with what kevink mentioned, I want to note that Islam spread rapidly during the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate (moving the capital from Damascus to Baghdad), as trade grew exponentially in the Indian Ocean. Eventually dominating the whole trade in the ocean, their influence of Islam became extremely prevalent in the coastal areas of trade (Southeast Asia, East Africa, India). ", "I'd like to piggyback onto this. When and how did these migrations take place, and what were the Chinese rulers' views towards Muslims?" ] }

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[ [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mosque_of_Xi%27an" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cpagxql", "cpapdld", "cpaqb9x" ], "score": [ 421, 206, 52 ], "text": [ "We've had to remove a number of posts with people sharing what they like on their pizza instead of pepperoni and/or challenging the OP's assumption. Please, if you want to discuss your favorite pizza, that is for another subreddit.\n\nAs for the fact that Pepperoni is the default topic, \"default\" is up for debate, I agree, but I think we can all agree that \"most popular\" is not a very contentious observation, and supported by [polling on the matter.](_URL_0_) So I would ask that further discussion be focused on pepperoni's popularity in the American pizza business, and not on what *you* like on your pie. Thank you!", "(Had to look at my physical books). According to *The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink* and January 1985 issue of Gourmet Magazine, pepperoni is an Americanized version of Italian salami. In the early 1900's Italian immigrants brought salami to the US, but traditional salami is a seasonal product that required carefully controlled climate and other conditions and it was difficult to replicate the same process in an urban environment that the immigrants had settled in. Armour meat company developed the technology to control climate and automated the process so they could be produced year round. The first reference to pepperoni in print is from 1919. The American pepperoni uses lactic acid culture and greatly reduced curing time. As a result it became the most available Italian-style cured meat in the US (particularly when pizza became popular in the US in the 50's) before more authentic Italian-style cured meat appeared. In addition due to its shortened curing time the flavor can be improved by heating prior to consuming (usually salami is eaten cold). ", "Hopefully I do this correctly, I'm a long-time reader but don't often post. I wrote an essay about immigration and the influx of influx of food culture a few years ago in my M.A. program. I'll provide some excerpts and some commentary seeing that there are no useful threads posted yet:\n\nMany will argue that interest in southern/eastern European food did not begin until after our soldiers returned from WWII. There are some arguments, however, that the assimilation of ethnic foods began much earlier. A book entitled, The Grocer's Encyclopedia, published in New York in 1911 provides, a detailed look at the demand for products during the time period. It was essentially publish as a guide for large, commercial markets to understand the differences between different ethnicities and their food. The volume, in addition to containing Jewish Dietary Laws contains list of more than 500 of the most popular food words and concepts translated into German, French, Swedish, and Italian. \n\nAround this time there are also a few other cookbooks that begin to get translated into English for the first time. One volume of particular interest was a compilation entitled With A Saucepan Over The Sea; Quaint And Delicious Recipes From The Kitchens Of Foreign Countries. This volume provided signature recipes from almost every country in Europe and even singled out different ethnic groups by providing Jewish recipes from both Poland and Germany. This demonstrates both the diversity of ethnic groups and also the interest in redefining American food culture with an international palette.\n\nThe increase in the availability of ethnic street food provides some additional evidence that eastern/southern European food was becoming more popular. During the \"gilded\" and \"progressive\" era a large percentage of immigrants were engaged in street vending. New York City during the time period actually made special laws to allow street vending to occur. With the large amount of eastern/southern Europeans engaged in the food market, they had a large impact in the types of food available on the street for regular consumption. (Bhat, R.V. (Editor). Street Foods (Vol. 86, Wrund). Basel, Switzerland: Karger Publishers, 2000. p 27.)\n\nThat being said, pepperoni pizza is an excellent example of a sociological theory referred to as (I believe) the diffusion and reformulation of culture. Just like McDonalds in India has more vegetarian options as they have reformulated the diffusion of fast food culture to meld with their own. Pizza was reformulated to meld with existing American culture. \"Americanization\" was already taking place during this time for immigrants. This americanization movement also extended to food and diet. \"As the waves of immigrants from Europe and elsewhere poured into the great cities of America at the end of the 19th century, earnest American social workers, medical personal, home economists, educators and others became increasingly concerned with the newcomers' diets and health. Numerous studies were undertaken to learn about the immigrant's foodways, mostly in an attempt to change them.\" (Feeding America Project,Michigan State University, Anne-Marie Rachman, Digital & Multimedia Center, Michigan State University Libraries). Immigrants were actively encourage to change their dietary habits to \"healthier,\" American options. \n\nI would assume that pepperoni was one viable option for the reformulation of pizza culture to the U.S. Dried meats were utilized in both the U.S. and Europe. Pepperoni has a relatively long shelf-life and can be used on pizza in the winter when other toppings may not have been available. \n\nI went off subject for a little bit but that's the best answer that I can come up with. In simple terms, pepperoni was a culturally acceptable topping where American's could eat it and feel like they're exploring \"foreign\" food without getting too far off the beaten path. \n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-popular-pizza-toppings-chart-2013-10" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e0uakya" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "There are basically two answers. One is that, at least according to the Hadith, the call to prayer already existed and would have been called out for the dawn prayer. The second answer is that pre-modern sleep practices were very different than our modern concept of one, approximately eight hour long period of uninterrupted sleep. Pre-moderns, including Muhammad, would more frequently have had a \"first sleep\", followed by a period of awakeness, followed by a \"second sleep.\" This is also referenced in the hadith: _URL_0_\n\nSeparately, in lieu of alarm clocks, there were plenty of animals that make noise at dawn: _URL_1_" ] }

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[ [ "https://sunnah.com/urn/1271150", "http://sunnah.com/bukhari/19/13" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cqz3wwo" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The main uncertainty about Spartacus is his ethnicity. He is called a Thracian, but Thracian is both an ethnicity and a style of combat in gladiatorial games. Gladiators were organised by their combat style, and by that point in Roman history gladiators were no longer limited to just their cultural combat style, especially if the slave was not one of the traditional enemies of Rome. So while it is possible that Spartacus was from Thrace, it is equally possible that he was from pretty much anywhere else, and simply trained in Thracian-style combat as a gladiator." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cgs5kz1" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "you cannot assign a causal relationship without direct experimental manipulation. History is a correlative study." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dru136u", "drubf5x", "drugxto", "drv1n3j" ], "score": [ 55, 14, 72, 11 ], "text": [ "Follow up: how reliable would pre-1993 numbers be? Would the Soviet Union fudge its statistics on a subject like this?", "Broader question: what level of confidence do historians have in Soviet statistics? Is there a reason we might just think that the previous numbers were somehow deflated to look more favorable when presenting to leadership?", "There was a [massive famine](_URL_1_). When Boris Yeltsin liberalized the economy in 1992, speculators came in and basically broke the Russian wholesale markets, causing massive price spikes. Inflation rose 2,500% in 1992. \n\nPreviously, the USSR had price controls for most foods, meat, dairy, wheat, etc. After prices were liberalized, the Russian diet shifted tremendously. People were unable to get, or afford, meat and diary products especially and only low-nutritive-value foods were widely available, i.e. potatoes and bread. \n\nAn additional issue wasn't just that food was too expensive, but that low quality substitutes came onto the market. Dangerous, toxic food substitutes. Poisoning and food-bourne illnesses were common. And mind you, this wasn't the healthiest population to begin with, as the old Soviet food systems weren't exactly renown for being particularly nutritious. \n\nAdd to all of this the end of subsidies to the Soviet health-care system and the end result is a huge swell in fatalities that continued on until the IMF helped Russia get on its economic feet in 1995, resulting in life expectancy rising agin in 1996. \n\n\nEdit: [Here's an interesting Rand Corp. paper on Russian mortality trends](_URL_0_). Interestingly, they pin a large number of deaths on excess alcohol consumption following the collapse of the Soviet empire. Wow.", "I'll try and answer the best that I can, but it was a lot of reasons.\n\nCrime rapidly increases from 1991-1994.\n\nDue to the centralized collapse of the regime in the former USSR the Russian Mafia or small cliches called 'bandity' took over cities and towns all over Russia. The murder rates from 1993-1994 are one of the highest points of Russian crime rates in the Russian Federation. The police forces were either corrupted, understaffed, or ill-equipped or all above to deal with the large increase of gangs and mob rule over the major cities especially St. Petersburg which brings us to..\n\n\nThe Russian Drugs Crisis.\n\nCocaine, Opium, Cannabis, Heroin, and whatever there's a market for there's a demand for it and there was a huge demand for drugs. The borders collapsed, everyone can either leave the country very cheaply or simply walk out.. or come in easily. Drug trade exploded during this period because of the collapse of Border Guards and the reformation period of the military/police during this period means that it was impossible to secure or stop drugs from coming in from South America, Eurasia, etc, etc.\n\n\n\nThe older generation suffered the most.\n\nThe massive amount of smoking and drinking among the older population due to large stress of the collapse of the country from 1990-1994.\n\nThe older generation and those who didn't want to risk jail or death? Tobacco and alcohol use exploded after the collapse of the Soviet government meaning that once again more people died from car accidents, accidents, alcohol poisoning, cancer, etc, etc.\n\n\n\nHealthcare System utterly collapsed.\n\nHeart disease, heart attacks, strokes, and all kind of cardiovascular diseases killed off the middle to older generations of Russians in large amounts. Due to the stress, depression, sickness like the flu, and the unhealthy eating or lack of proper diet due to the collapsed of common good and services during this turmoil period and the medical services were just unable to give basic care to the older generations.\n\n\n\nFrozen conflicts\n\nRegions around Russia or where Russia is involved with such as the Chechen War for example saw a huge decrease in life expectancy because it was a war zone and the surrounding regions were suffering from large refugee, bandits, mob rule, corrupted arm forces on many sides. The list goes on and on.\n\nSources: _URL_0_\n\nJonathan Daniel Weiler (2004) - Human Rights in Russia: A Darker Side of Reform. Lynne Rienner Publishers. p. 36. ISBN 1-58826-279-0.\n\nAbraham Bob Hoogenboom (1997). Policing the Future. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 121. ISBN 90-411-0416-X.\n\nCrime in the Soviet Era Federal Research Division, Library of Congress\n\n\n" ] }

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[ "https://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF124/cf124.chap4.html", "https://gfycat.com/EmbarrassedFavorableCamel" ]

[ [], [], [ "https://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF124/cf124.chap4.html", "https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/how-russia-starves-famine-1992" ], [ "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9508159" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "doj7uwc" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "About a year ago i answered a [similar question](_URL_0_)." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4soti4/how_did_the_kim_family_obtain_power_in_north/d5bj5b2/?utm_content=permalink&utm_medium=front&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=AskHistorians" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cvg39wf", "cvg48ga" ], "score": [ 5, 3 ], "text": [ "No, not really.\n\nIn western Europe, high heels date back to the 17th century for both men and women, and were worn by fashionable men and women into the 18th century. There is no clear origin, only speculation and apocryphal stories (so in that sense, there *is* a connection between foot-binding and high heels), such as the idea that various rulers invented or popularized them in order to be taller than their subjects. Louis XIV and Catherine de' Medici both come in for this - Catherine de' Medici is also falsely but commonly stated to have forced her court ladies to tightlace to a 13\" waist, so there is possibly some correlation between the stories, a long-running reputation for fetishism in dress? A more likely origin is that the heel was brought from Persia and found to be helpful on riding boots, to better hold the stirrup, and then was applied to more and more non-riding footwear.\n\nIn Venice and Spain, during the 16th century, there was a woman's shoe called the *chopine* that comes closer to bound feet in ideology. These are sometimes considered proto-high-heels, but I think this is because of an assumed ideological similarity - they're actually tall platforms. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has [a nice little page on them](_URL_2_). We used to think they were associated with prostitutes, and therefore about sexuality mixed with helplessness (that assumed similarity I mentioned), but we now know that they were worn by noblewomen as well. [Here's another good resource.](_URL_0_)\n\nThe thing to remember is that \"high heel\" before the 1930s or 1940s really does not mean what we think of when it comes to high heels. An inch or two at most is generally what was worn. Not anywhere near as incapacitating as modern stilettos, let alone foot-binding. \n\nA curator at the Bata Shoe Museum recentlyish wrote a book, *Heights of Fashion: A History of the Elevated Shoe*, that might be interesting to you. She attributes men's abandonment of high heels over the early 18th century to Enlightenment ideas about men being more rational than women, and men's clothing becoming more sober and \"unfeminine\" is a narrative that plays out over the course of the century. Still, [men's heels were still kind of clinging on in the 1780s](_URL_1_).", "There a few previous questions of similar nature with good discussions on how the heeled shoe came to be created:\n\n[Heeled Shoes](_URL_0_) and [When was the High Heeled Shoe invented?](_URL_1_).\n\nWhile the heeled shoe today is associated with women and with foot pain, it was not originally the case. Both men and women were wearing heels at certain times, men's use falling out during the 18th century. Women's fashionable heel heights have gone up and down in the decades since. Various heel heights and styles have always been available as well, not restricting the woman to only one extreme. In the 1770s you can find mentions of French, English, Italian, Low, and Common heels in advertisements. Just like today in our shops you'll find flats, wedges, stilettos, kittens, Italian, and many more. Women today certainly do wear higher heels due to the perceived notion that it is more attractive (longer legs, re-alignment of the spine that moves the hips back, etc) and likely that plays a part in many other time periods as well, but that was not why they were created." ] }

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[ [ "http://aands.org/raisedheels/Heeldoc/written.php#chopines", "https://www.pinterest.com/pin/228065168599541705/", "http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/chop/hd_chop.htm" ], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1z3f2y/heeled_shoes/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1komud/historians_of_footwear_when_was_the_high_heel/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cbj6eis", "cbjaov6", "cbjct2v" ], "score": [ 40, 16, 11 ], "text": [ "This is a very interesting question that I would like answered (as well as the spam deleted). Did the slave economy more or less function in a stable pattern of growth fueled by conquests until the decline brought about stagnation? Or were there boom and bust cycles as in the capitalist system? Any experts care to weigh in?", "It is quite difficult to tell. The modern boom-and-bust cycle is based on a liquidity of economic assets and market integration that were simply impossible in a premodern world. The Roman economy was remarkably well integrated for a premodern economy, but if Ephesus sneezed Autun would not catch a cold.\n\nIt is possible to see localized, for lack of a better term, periods of differential economic performance, such as Pompeii, which boomed during the Augustan period and declined in the late Julio-Claudian. But as DeSoulis noted, this was not a matter of boom and bust so much because the timeframe is far too long. There would also be years of bountiful harvest and years of famine, which would have potentially had a similar effect as boom and bust cycles on the individual, but again isn't quite what you mean.\n\nThe caveat of course is that we don't have the evidence to make such granular analysis--as a comparison, someone doing archaeology on nineteenth century America in a thousand years would see continuous economic development and not the busts. But current economic understanding would argue against.", "**IMPORTANT NOTE: the Roman economy is a very difficult subject to truly understand, since we lack a lot of evidence for economic conditions in ancient times. The period I discuss here is particularly bad, since there are almost no contemporary sources from the crisis of the 3rd century. We're still discovering new emperors about whom we had no prior evidence because one of their coins turns up on a dig. Keep that in mind throughout this post.**\n\nI don't know about boom and bust cycles in the modern sense of the term, but there were certainly major economic crises, usually relating to currency. (Remember, Rome lacked fiat currency; all currency depended, in theory, on the value of gold)\n\nFrom the time of the Republic through the 2nd century, Rome experienced tremendous economic prosperity. The economy was largely based on agriculture, which was a successful industry, especially given the new agricultural land gained in conquest and the influx of foreign slaves from the newly conquered peoples. When Rome began to conquer the areas along the Eastern Mediterranean, this brought in so much wealth that many authors began to criticize the decadence of their age. (cf. Propertius and Tibullus, for a few examples) There were some issues with smaller landowners being dispossessed by larger farms, called *latifundia*, but this was really the only main economic issue, and didn't cause a depression.\n\nOne of the best examples of a \"bust\" is the Crisis of the Third Century, which was a major political, military, and economic crisis that lasted for decades. At this time, there was tremendous instability, with each emperor lasting for only ~2 years or so (IIRC, the average reign of an emperor from the assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 to the accession of Diocletian in 284 was 1.5 years). The vast majority of emperors were killed; only 2 or 3 died natural deaths. Alongside this political crisis, the economy sank into a depression. Trade slowed down, and there was hyperinflation of the currency (often, this happened by stating that a coin had a certain value, while debasing its actual value by adding in lesser metals). It should be noted that debasing the currency started long before the Crisis of the Third Century; it just reached its lowest point then.\n\nBy the time Diocletian became emperor, the currency was so debased that it was practically worthless. Diocletian came in with his Edict on Maximum Prices (301) to combat inflation. This set maximum prices on a long list of goods and services to prevent inflation. It also declared the value of certain coins, and set them at a certain rate against the value of gold. Resisting the Edict was, in theory, punishable by death; however, it was still ineffective, and many people sold goods at higher prices. In addition, the number of new coins Diocletian minted contributed to inflation even more.\n\nUltimately, Rome only got out of this crisis during the reign of Constantine, who established the gold solidus as the primary currency. One of the main reasons he was able to achieve this was because of his confiscation of the treasures of pagan temples.\n\nAfter the reign of Constantine, the economy may have stabilized for the rest of the 4th century. However, this is currently a point of dispute. The traditional narrative holds that the decline of the 3rd century continued throughout the 4th; newer archaeological evidence suggests that rural areas were very successful economically, and certain provinces, like North Africa, flourished, while there may have been decline in other areas.\n\nLater on, in the 5th century, prior to the fall of the Western Empire, there was another economic crisis, this time not related to currency, but to invading barbarians. The invasions of the Goths et al. in the early 5th century lead to a decline in agricultural output, which lead to a decreased tax base, and then a smaller military, which was less able to defend against future invaders. It became a vicious cycle like this until Rome fell.\n\nSource: A class I took on Late Antiquity, and Bryan Ward-Perkins' *The Fall of Rome: and The End of Civilization,* among others." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cfg9pfq" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "It's worth noting that most of the major Allied technologies we associate with the European war were secret (e.g. the code-breaking computers) or subtle. The most important two were probably radar and the proximity fuze. Neither of them have a \"Wunderwaffen\" quality to them. The Germans had their own proximity fuzes (though they didn't deploy them as heavily), they had their own radar (though they didn't develop them as well or integrate them as successfully into their total defensive and offensive plans). The Allies also used napalm to deadly effect — again, not much of a wonder weapon, just a good improvement on existing techniques (incendiary bombs). I am wracking my brain for a good Allied technology that mattered during World War II that would have actually been a significant propaganda tool, or made a big morale splash, and just not coming up with any. The German technologies were superficially impressive but ended up being not very effective militarily in the forms developable for the war. The Nazis led the \"super technology propaganda\" war during the war itself even though the Allied technologies, while superficially more banal, were much, much more useful for winning the actual war.\n\nThe atomic bomb, of course, would qualify as a wonder weapon but, of course, it was not developed in time for use during the European campaign. The physicists who were working on fission work for the Germans were justifiably shocked that the Americans had managed to pull that one off, when they heard about it after Hiroshima." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e164vvk" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "It's important to note that, at this time, the lands they lost with the exception of Saudi Arabia were all British and French colonies who were at the height of their power. Taking back Iraq or Syria or Palestine didn't mean going to war with some two-bit monarch or collapsing empire, it meant taking them from some of the strongest militaries in the world. Additionally, the ideals of the Arab Revolt were probably still very strong in many of these territories, and the Turks would have likely faced an unending insurgency if they tried to retake any of the old Ottoman territories." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d48tdam" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ "Soldiers in the Hundred Years War did not receive rations as such. Commanders were supposed to provide food for their men (whether by taking it with them or by foraging/pillaging for it), but there was no system comparable to the Royal Navy's daily allotments of particular foods. Food might be provided by royal purveyance (where food was gathered by order of the king), but this proved to be politically unpopular and was largely replaced by contracted merchants providing supplies to military forces and garrisons like at Calais. What form did these supplies take? Primarily, various forms of grains: wheat, oat, barley, and malt are mentioned frequently. Beans and peas were also common for English military rations, though not to the same extent as the grains. For meat, pork and beef (presumably salted) were the usual military supplies. When soldiers were in the field, they would also forage for whatever they could find in the area. If they camped near a lake, they might fish. If they came upon a village, they would take bread. If they were passing by vineyards, the soldiers would drink as much as they could get their hands on, much to the irritation of their commanders. Although sometimes commanders attempted to limit the violence and destruction caused by their soldiers for political reasons, they had a limited ability to actually enforce discipline. Civilians caught in the path of medieval armies had very few options for protecting themselves or their livelihoods. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c8kl3v5", "c8kqb4o" ], "score": [ 22, 3 ], "text": [ "You needed a strong, fast warhorse to use a lance. So that was a prestigious weapon of the nobility. Long swords used a lot of metal and would have been expensive. Spears and clubs were the most simple weapons to construct and would have been available to the common foot soldier. The clergy (yeah, they fought in those days) frequently used maces because of a religious stigma against killing with a sword. I guess it was OK to bludgeon someone to death.", "That's an interesting question, it's also a difficult question to answer. \n\nThe middle ages is basically 1,000 years long and is a massive geographical location with a lot of different cultures. As you head towards the end of the medieval period, who could run around with weapons became more restricted - but even then it is largely local customs. Do you have a more specific question? \n\nHowever, there are bits of awesomeness floating around: \n\n > Writ of King Edward I. to the Mayor and Sheriffs of London enjoining them to punish all bakers, brewers, and other misdoers walking the City by night with swords and bucklers and assaulting those they met; and further commanding that all corn sent to mills to be ground within the City should be delivered by weight to the miller, who was to return the same weight in flour. Dated Westminster, 28 Nov., 10 Edward I. [A.D. 1281].\n\nNote: Corn in medieval Europe often means \"The predominant crop of a region\". \n\nEDIT: Broadly speaking, weapons and armour were defined by your ability to afford them. If you could afford to armed and armoured as a knight, you'd be obliged to be able to fight amongst them (not be one). That being said, affording the arms, armour, and training of a knight is fantastically expensive - more the vast majority of people in the majority of the medieval period could realistically afford. \n\nEDIT2: Also, just because you have a weapon doesn't mean that you can fight with it. Fighting with (say) a Longsword on a battlefield without heavy armour is a death sentence. If you didn't own armour, you'd want to be a spearman or an archer. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c7iryyg", "c7it16z", "c7it8wr", "c7iugoi", "c7iy6vh", "c7j3ke7" ], "score": [ 143, 16, 10, 11, 10, 3 ], "text": [ "I think you'll get a better answer from /r/linguistics, frankly, but the short answer is that it comes from the Italic branch of a (reconstructed) language called Proto-Indo-European. There's a \"family tree\" [here](_URL_0_).", "There's a fascinating podcast called \"History of English\" that goes into this in detail. The first episode is an overview of English from ancient times till now, the next several go over the Indo-European language (the root of both English and Latin, as well as many other languages), including explanations of how linguists have learned about that language.", "First of all, the Romance languages are descended from Vulgar Latin, a sort of Latin with a slightly different vocabulary and different grammar used in common speech.\n\nAnyway, as others said it's from the Italic branch of the larger Indo-European language family. [Here's a family tree](_URL_1_). Using linguistic tools and some guesswork linguists can reconstruct a hypothetical proto-Italic language, which would've split into the Italic languages and would've emerged from part of the also reconstructed proto-Indo-European language. But not much is known with certainty in this area. Latin also gets quite a bit of vocabulary from Greek, but it isn't descended from it, though it is related.\n\nIn terms of the word \"honor\", not every root can be traced reliably to proto-Indo-European stems, though many can. [This](_URL_0_) says that beyond Latin, the ultimate origin of \"honor\" is unknown.", "I too find this subject very interesting. There is a theory that the Italic and Celtic languages share a common root language (besides proto-Indo-European, of course) _URL_0_\n\nI also recommend The Horse, the Wheel, and Language for a discussion of the common roots of all Indo-European languages. \n\n_URL_1_", "You need to read the introduction (pp. 1-16) to Fortson's [*Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction*](_URL_0_). Do it. Do it now!\n\nIt's the nicest explanation of how Indo-European linguistics works I've ever seen. Amazing scholarly writing, if I may say so.\n\n(edit to change the link to go directly to the intro)", "Italic languages, which used to be a relatively closely related branch of languages inhabiting the Italian peninsula contemporaneously with the Etruscan languages (a non-Indo-European language). These were consumed by Latin when the Romans conquered the peninsula _URL_1_ \n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThat map doesn't necessarily cover what is and isn't Indo-European, but Etruscan and Raetic are thought to have been language isolates and not related to IE. And as a note, Greek is obviously not Italic. The Greeks were a seafaring people for a lengthy period of time, colonizing everywhere from the North of Africa, Eastern Spain, Sicily and southern Italy all the way north to the northern coasts of the Black Sea.\n\nIf you wish to go further back you verge on the theoretical. It's believed that the Italic languages made their incursion into central and southern Europe with the Celtic languages as one common language or closely related group of dialects, Italo-Celtic. \n\n_URL_3_\n\nI'd come to this as a caveat, though, as this is not an all accepted model for the languages before Italic. It's certainly plausible though. " ] }

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[ [ "http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/language.html" ], [], [ "http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=honor&allowed_in_frame=0", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Italic_languages_tree.svg" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Celtic", "http://www.amazon.com/The-Horse-Wheel-Language-Bronze-Age/dp/069114818X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355884816&sr=8-1&keywords=the+horse%2C+the+wheel%2C+and+language" ], [ "http://books.google.ca/books?id=bSxHgej4tKMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false" ], [ "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Iron_Age_Italy.svg", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_conquest_of_Italy", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italic_languages", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Celtic" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dlijsdb" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Hi, history is more interdisciplinary than the question seems to imply - but it's also a big question. \n\nCultural history may involve study of fictional literature; for example, a student could examine how Shakespeare's portrayal of the Plantagenets in his history plays related to propaganda reinforcing Tudor / Elizabethan legitimacy. There, literature is a central part of historical study. \n\nIn other instances, it may be a way of locating supplementary details not recorded or with minor coverage elsewhere, particularly in the area of social history, customs and everyday life. It is certainly more useful for older history, particularly medieval and early modern, where there is not such a glut of evidence as there is in, for example, the second half of the twentieth century, but in most cases it isn't a binary either/or. And it must always be borne in mind that literature is fictional or mythical, and that there may not be ways to check whether a social habit, for example, was widespread, or fictional. A historian might cite an example from a well-known novel to liven up a book, if it is a good and relevant example. \n\nBut it would not be good practice at all to cite, say, a historical novel about the Second World War when writing a factually-based assessment of military planning: there are countless better secondary sources, never mind primary ones, and there may be artistic licence used. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c594ycy", "c59a7rb" ], "score": [ 16, 6 ], "text": [ "Why specifically these borders and not somewhere else is a question that's beyond me, but Portugal, immediately after its Reconquista, was a County and vassal to the Kingdom of Galicia and later Leon. Afonso I of Portugal became independent mostly with papal support due to his role in driving out the Moors in present day Portugal. Since then borders have shifted and wasn't finalized for a few more hundred years.\n\nThe language thing is more clear - Portuguese used to be a lot more like Galician, but in the past thousand years or so they've become more and more different, with Castillan taking hold of the rest of Spain and slowly relegating other Iberian languages like Leonese, Aragonese, Basque, Catalan, and Asturian to secondary status. These languages all have similarities and were a varying degree of difference between Portuguese and Castillan.", "Borders in Europe will always look \"illogical\" because there's usually about a 1000 years of history behind them.\n\n > Also, on a related note, why do the two countries speak different languages? I would have thought with a border so porous the people would speak the same language or at most different dialects. Comparing Iberia to France or German speaking areas this seems a little odd.\n\nStandard languages are a product of the modern nation-states. In 17th century, villages on the both sides the Spanish-Portugal border would probably speak a very similar dialect. However, in 19th/20th century public education system, press, military service etc. would make them learn 'proper', literary Portuguese/Castillian. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d2mrvxc" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "They are the same dynasty ruled by the same family. The reason why there is the Western Han and the Eastern Han is because in between the two, a man named Wang Mang usurped power from the Western Han emperor and established the Xin Dynasty. After he was defeated and overthrown, the Han dynasty was reestablished in Luoyang (in the east), rather than in the old capital Chang'an (in the west), hence the name \"Eastern Han\". In some texts you might come across Former Han and Latter Han, which is the same as Western Han and Eastern Han." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ca9xap3" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I can tell you the OED's first use of this definition of the word \"wink\" if that's useful at all.\n\n1541 Thomas Elyot's *Image of Gouernance* (Governance)\n\n\"Of a mayster sturdy and fierce, a lyttell wynke to his seruant is a fearefull commaundement.\"" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c7v15wm", "c7v2u03", "c7v5uv8" ], "score": [ 4, 8, 8 ], "text": [ "You're referring to American films? Or is that incorrect? If so, I apologize. \n\nTo answer the question to the best of my ability, most Italian-Americans realized by 1939 that Benito Mussolini wasn't a champion of the people of Italy. But, more and more, he appeared to be a cancerous tyrant who wanted to create a \"New Roman Empire\" (and therefore subjugate/enslave millions of people). \n\nSo, the very biased films produced in America weren't all that offensive to them. The majority of Italian-Americans despised the man by the time WWII started. ", "Can we broaden this to include Asian Americans?", "Anti-Italian racism had existed strongly in the US during the years of large-scale Italian immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The prevailing American view of Italians during the early 20th century was that Italians were inferior (some thought permanently racially inferior, others thought mostly culturally inferior), low class foreigners whose lack of education and Catholic religion made them unfit for American citizenship. During the WWII era, Americans did not develop a racism towards Italian-Americans that had not existed before.\n\nWWII propaganda primarily demonized the Japanese, then the Nazis, and only occasionally the Italians. In addition, WWII propaganda more often portrayed Italians as incompetent cowards than as inhuman villains like the Japanese and Nazis. \n(Source: Peter Schrag's \"Not Fit for Our Society\")\n\nAlso, I will point out that unlike the US's interment of all west coast Japanese Americans based on race alone, the wartime treatment of Italian and German Americans was based on individual selection and investigation.\n\nFor example, immediately following Pearl Harbor, the US Justice Department arrested 1,393 German nationals, 264 Italian nationals, and 2,192 Japanese under the authority of the Alien Enemy Act and Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066. These people had been under surveillance by the FBI as potentially dangerous, and were sent to regional detention facilities where individual loyalty hearings were conducted. The Justice Department released most of the Germans and Italians, but the Japanese (who comprised most of the business, social, cultural and political leadership of Japanese American communities) either remained in detention camps or were \"paroled\" to Japanese internment camps.\n(Source: Mai Ngai's \"Impossible Subjects\")\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cwoir0x" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "I can't speak to the historical aspect but from an industrial aspect brass is pretty inexpensive and is usually cast in a mold. Forged steel would be much more labor intensive. Cast iron would be subject to rusting. Brass is a good tradeoff of strength, cost, and corrosion resistance." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "csh5xan" ], "score": [ 15 ], "text": [ "Were torches used as often as we see in movies?\n\nNo. Movies generally seem to show torches as the most common light source for medieval people, when in fact rushlights (reeds soaked in animal fat), tallow candles and simple oil lamps seem to have been much more common.\n\nWhat were torches made of?\n\nUsually a wooden handle (possibly with some metal fittings), some kind of fibre to act as a wick and oil or fat to serve as fuel (apparently some of them used other forms of fuel, like sulphur and pitch, which seems even less practical). The fibre is soaked in the fuel and either wrapped around the handle or stuffed inside, depending on the design.\n\nHow functional were they?\n\nBased on modern reconstructions, not very. They are heavier and more difficult to carry than other forms of lighting, they can't be conveniently put down on a flat surface as most alternatives can and the light they produce is very flickery and difficult to see by. The only benefit seems to be that they are fairly easy to make and less prone to being blown out than a rushlight, which is the other simple-to-manufacture medieval light source." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cmdszy2" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ " > the Pueblo Indians had urban centers, but I'm not sure what happened to them\n\nMany are alive and well. Consider Acoma Pueblo and Taos Pueblo, both of which were founded around 1000 years ago and both currently home to between 4500 and 5000 people. Others didn't survive, such as Hawikuh - an old Zuni pueblo that was the first to encounter Coronado's *entrada*. It was one of the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola, which the Spanish believed to have reserves of gold to rival the Aztecs and the Inca (but were sorely disappointed when they actually arrived). The Spanish held it for a time, but eventually abandoned and has now become a ruin. Even at its peak, however, its population estimates are considerably lower that modern Acoma and Taos. But the Southwest isn't my area of expertise so I'll leave a more detailed discussion of that area to others.\n\nInstead, let's turn our attention east.\n\nWhile Coronado was marching through the Southwest, de Soto was [snaking his way through the Southeast](_URL_1_). Along the way, he encountered several prominent Mississippian polities. Among them were the Apalachee, which I'll get to in a moment, and Coosa. \n\n##**COOSA**\n\nTo discuss Coosa, I'm going to introduce you to two Muscogee terms (anglicized a bit for ease of reading): italwa (*etvlwv*) and talofa (*tvlofv*). An italwa is major political center and all its subsidiary elements (by extension, it also refers to a nation and its people). A talofa is town or city in the physical sense - its buildings and its boundaries. Coosa was both. \n\nAs an italwa, it was perhaps the most extensive in what's now the US at the time of European contact. It stretched some 400 miles long. If you refer back to the map, it bordered the Chiscas to the northeast, and its southwestern limit was Talisi (which the neighboring Atahachi italwa was trying to bring into its own sphere of influence as de Soto came through). It was a large and populous nation, with many large towns surrounded by extensive fields of maize and beans, stream-side vineyards, and plum orchards. It was the heir, and probably a direct continuation of, the older Etowah italwa (which is rather redundant actually, since the name \"Etowah\" is derived from *etvlwv* as well), which had been based nearby. I marked their locations on [GoogleMaps](_URL_2_) for you. The location of the Etowah talofa is clearly labeled, with the Coosa talofa is now submerged by a reservoir. \n\nSince I haven't been able to find a decent reconstruction of Coosa, I thought I'd show [this reconstruction](_URL_0_) of its predecessor. The reconstruction of the Etowah talofa gives you an idea, in general, of what Coosa talofa would have looked like when de Soto arrived, but the specifics would have been different of course. In particular, the Etowah reconstruction is much more sparsely populated than Coosa was (and likely more sparsely populated than Etowah actually was too). The population estimates for the Coosa talofa at the time of de Soto range from 2500 to 5000, with the population for the whole italwa at 50,000+. Like Etowah, Coosa had a plaza surrounded by three igan halwa (*ekunhvlwv*), or \"mounds\" if you want the more familiar term. It had at least two distinct districts. One for the common people, and another for the elites. The elite district was built later, at the same time the Etowah talofa was abandoned, which is why it appears that Coosa is the direct continuation of the Etowah italwa - it just moved its capital. Unlike Etowah, Coosa did not have elaborate defensive structures like the palisade walls or moat. When the italwa's capital moved, its leadership must have felt secure in their hegemony over the region and deemed such defenses unnecessary (this was not true for the up-and-coming Atahachi italwa to the southeast, where most of the talofa had defensive fortifications).\n\nThe micco (*mekko*, or \"chief\") of Coosa when de Soto arrived was described as an erudite and cultured man in his mid-20s. He had an air of sophistication about him that reminded the Spanish of the nobility of Europe. Despite his cooperation with the Spanish, he and many of the other high-ranking members of Coosa society were taken captive. This caused a panic in the talofa, as well as the neighboring talofa. The people fled, but the Spanish pursued and captured many of them. The micco negotiated the release of most of his people, but he, his sister, and a few of the prominent members of Coosa society remained captives and were forced to escort de Soto and his men through the remainder of the Coosa italwa. Once they reached Talisi, the micco and most of the other nobles were freed, but de Soto kept the micco's sister. Her fate is unknown, though she either escaped or, more likely, died at the Battle of Mabila that happened shortly thereafter.\n\nAfter de Soto, about a century goes by before there's additional European contact with Coosa. By this time, its power had waned considerably. It was no longer a great italwa stretching along the southern Appalachians. Instead, it had allied three other italwas in the area to form the Mother Towns of the Creek Confederacy." ] }

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[ [ "http://i.imgur.com/LI2TFZN.jpg", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/DeSoto_Map_HRoe_2008.jpg", "https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Etowah+Indian+Mounds+Historic+Site,+813+Indian+Mound+Rd+SE,+Cartersville,+GA+30120/'34.59958,-84.68021'/@34.3675481,-85.094075,10z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m11!4m10!1m5!1m1!1s0x88f54f2d28d88a67:0x9dc78925cffab5f2!2m2!1d-84.807061!2d34.128009!1m3!2m2!1d-84.68021!2d34.59958" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cc1xaqg", "cc24bxa" ], "score": [ 15, 2 ], "text": [ "In large part, the Carthaginian armies during the first Punic War were largely composed of mercenary troops from a variety of different areas under the control of Carthage (think North Africa, Spain and southern Gaul). \n\nDuring this period, the command was generally along the lines of the Romans - upper class members who could afford the armour and weapons with ~~the King~~ senior general (Roman = consul) in overall command. ~~This changed in the 2nd and subsequent wars when a more professional command structure was instituted (ala Hannibal)~~\n\nIn the 2nd Punic War, the makeup of the forces lent more heavily on a formal African contingent made up primarily of heavy infantry spearman - think Greek Phalanx based and you won't be too far off the mark - with Phoenician/Spanish swordsman and then irregulars based around Gaulish troops.\n\nCavalry were where the Carthaginians had it over the Romans as their javelin equipped Nubians were considered the best in the world at the time.\n\nThe general tactics were for the Numidians to ride up to the Roman lines and conduct fast skirmishes to break up the Roman ranks. These were then followed up by the heavy cavalry (mainly Libyan/Phoenician) who drove into the Roman infantry. Into this hole was then marched the heavy spear equipped infantry supported by sword wielding heavy infantry and the lesser equipped lighter Gaulish irregulars.\n\nElephants also formed a basis for \"shock troops\" and would generally be used on the flanks and/or on the front with infantry in support.\n\nThere is a good book on Scribd that goes into much more detail on the make up of forces during the Punic Wars. You can find it [here](_URL_0_).", "Follow up question on this topic: I read in [I think it was] \"Carthage Must be Destroyed\" that the elephants Hannibal used were a now extinct breed of Moroccan elephant, which was actually quite small (size of a camel). \n\nI had never heard of this and still skeptical. Does anyone know whether this is true or that if it was indeed the huge African elephants?" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.scribd.com/doc/29391428/Armies-of-the-Macedonian-and-Punic-Wars-359-BC-to-146-BC" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ct0vijr" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ "Not sure if this would be considered devout. Josef Tizo was a Catholic priest and also one of the leaders of the Slovaks Peoples Party a Clerical-Fascist party that was installed in power during WW2. It was also founded by another Catholic priest Andrej Hlinka, for which their paramilitary, the Hlinka Guard was named.\n\nThe party ruled from 1939-1945, pretty much the duration of the war. And its record is not pretty. The party not only acquiesced to every single Nazi request, but participated enthusiastically. This included the \"Final Solution\", the party actively used the state to find and deport Slovakia's Jews to the Polish death and concentration camps in 1942. This was on top of variations of the Nuremburg Laws (The Jewish Code as known locally) that had been enacted in 1941. \n\nThe leadership of the Catholic church was supportive initially, an apostolic blessing from Pope Pius XII was given to President Tiso after his ascension. They were not so pleased as the antisemitic nature of the clerical-fascist regime took hold. In general, Tiso was supported by large numbers of ordinary Catholic priests and deplored by the bishops and the Vatican itself. Though there are lots of exceptions, such as Bishop Jan Vojtaššák, who thoroughly supported Tiso and the persecution of the Jews.\n\nWhile opposed by the Church, the Vatican made no effort to excommunicate or restrict Tiso (or his prime minister, also a Catholic priest). \n\nAfter the war, Tiso would be tracked down and arrested by the American occupying forces and handed over to a judicial tribunal in Czechoslovakia the Americans had organized. This was prior to the takeover by the Communists. Tiso was condemned to death and executed in 1947 for his crimes against Slovakia's citizens, including Jews. \n\nIn 1995, the Catholic Church did a good job of offending Jews when Pope John Paul II proposed beautifying previously mentioned Tiso supporter Bishop Jan Vojtaššák for his opposition to the Communist state. Despite that Jan Vojtaššák had not found a persecution of Jews he could not support.\n\nSome Sources:\nDr. Pavol Mest’an, Slovak historian, director of Museum of Jewish Culture of Bratislava\n\nThe Vatican, the Catholic Church, the Catholics and the Persecution of the Jews during World War II: The Case of Slovakia in Jews and non-Jews in Eastern Europe by Yeshajahu Jelinek, University of Minnesota, 1974 (at the time, he jumped back to Israel's Hebrew University after his stint in Minnesota)\n\nThere is another book specifically on Slovakian Jews was contributed to by Yeshajahu Jelinek, The Tragedy of the Jews of Slovakia: 1938-1945 Slovakia and the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, published in 2002 I have yet to read. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "difpl3a" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "Hi, not discouraging responses here, but fyi there was a fairly lengthy thread on this topic last week that would be worth catching up on - see here\n\n* [In ancient times I've heard that historical figures \"built cities\" like Alexander did at Bucephala in honor of his horse. How did a ruler in Greco times go about establishing a city? What did that at a minimum constitute?](_URL_3_) featuring /u/ikahjalmr\n\nAlso\n\n* [Who populated the cities founded by Alexander the Great?](_URL_1_) featuring /u/Daeres \n\n* [How did Alexander the great build alexandria?](_URL_0_) featuring /u/Docimus\n\nOf possible tangential interest\n\n* [How were cities founded by traveling armies in antiquity?](_URL_2_)\n\n* [There's a legend that Hercules himself founded my city (Cádiz, Spain) 3000 years ago. Can anyone direct me to that legend or tell me something about it?](_URL_4_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4665k4/how_did_alexander_the_great_build_alexandria/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1i7aqp/who_populated_the_cities_founded_by_alexander_the/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3bzn9c/how_were_cities_founded_by_traveling_armies_in/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6dfnei/in_ancient_times_ive_heard_that_historical/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3a47qs/theres_a_legend_that_hercules_himself_founded_my/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cannje5" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "According to [this website](_URL_0_) \"There is no mention of the Egyptians in the Sumerian archives, or vice-versa, and there is no direct evidence that they had a noticeable influence on one another, except for their propensity to build giant pyramids and ziggurats. Although on a modern map they appear to be quite close, they seemed to have been completely unaware of each other’s existence. Back then, the world was a much larger place.\"" ] }

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[ [ "http://sumerianshakespeare.com/21101.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cbn8uuu" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Can you winnow this question down more, whether geographically, temporally or both? It's quite broad, considering that taxation was introduced, disappeared, and reintroduced at varying times as well as varying regions throughout history.\n\nAre you talking about taxation in antiquity? Late medieval European feudal taxation? Or specifically state taxation of the early modern period? Taxation in coin, or taxation in kind? \n\nPlease be more specific. \n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dnvrfvw" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The only real evidence I can find of any internal attempts to change borders prior to the late 80s/ early 90s was the Nazi and Fascist Italy attempting to \"persuade\" Croatia to become independent, to push for more autonomy so to speak. \nWhen Yugoslavia as a whole was invaded by Axis powers in 1941, Croatia was given independence from Yugoslavia by the Nazis, who then encouraged the Croatians to participate in the killing of Serbs within its borders (these killings seem to be more motivated by religious rivalries as opposed to nationalist or ethnic motives). \nIt was throughout this war that the Chetniks (Royalists determined to see the re-establishment of a monarchy) and the Partisans (communists) fought for control of Yugoslavia from the Axis powers (led by Nazi Germany). During this war, Josip Broz Tito distinguished himself when he led the Partisans to victory over both the Axis powers and the Chetniks. He had a dedicated following, dedicated enough that when the war came to an end, it was decided that the exiled monarch (King Peter II, the last King of Yugoslavia) would stay in exile. \nTito also received aid from the Soviets during this war, and the Soviets also helped him set up the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945. I'm harping on about Tito here because of the defining role he played in keeping Yugoslavia together during his reign as President. \nTito modeled his secret police on the Soviet KGB, they acted in a manner similar to the KGB, often extrajudicially and almost always omnipresent. Tito used his secret police to crack down on any feelings of nationalism, purging any and all growth of nationalism. The suppression of nationalistic feelings and an odd mix of deference and repression is what held Yugoslavia together during Tito's reign.\nTito allowed all ethnic groups to speak their own language. Eg; Croatians could speak Croatian and Serbians could speak Serbian and so on. However, in relation to Albanians, Tito took an incredibly harsh stance, arresting and imprisoning many Albanians for expressing their ethnic identity. According to Matas, almost half of the political prisoners in Yugoslavia were Albanians. This is significant because Matas also asserts that Yugoslavia had more political prisoners outside the USSR than the rest of Europe combined.\n\nI may have gone on a bit long about the role of Tito but that's because he was instrumental in keeping Yugoslavia together. When he died in 1980, the Presidency became decentralised and the country was held together by the ideological force of Communism. It was when communism collapsed in 1989 (with the Fall of the Berlin Wall etc.) that Yugoslavia lost its unifying factor and ethnic tensions began to rise.\n\nEdit: In my studies on this, I haven't found any evidence of attempts to change internal borders during Tito's rule\n\nResources:\nMatas, David (1994). No More: The Battle Against Human Rights Violations. ISBN 1-55002-221-0.\nFinlan, Alastair (2004). The Collapse of Yugoslavia 1991–1999. New York, USA: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4728-1027-4.\nCorbel, Josef (1951). Tito's Communism. Denver, Colorado: The University of Denver Press." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ddsgecc" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Why are you equating size of settlement with presence of surviving written literature? The two are in no way correlated. We have a plethora of sources from democratic Athens, including tragedy, comedy, history, and philosophy, and that city was absolutely tiny compared to Rome as far as population. We have only scraps from her contemporary equals in population--Corinth, Miletus, Syracuse, for instance.\n\nMeanwhile, Carthage was one of the biggest cities in the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period and barely a word of written literature survives from there. Throw in Gadir (Cadiz) as well. Or Tyre, or Sidon. The list of what survives today has more to do with subject matter, tastes, and the accident of preservation.\n\nThere were plenty of texts being written in the early Roman period. Livy drew upon the now-lost works of Quintius Fabius Pictor (3rd century) and Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi. Ennius and Naevius both wrote epic poems on Roman subjects, only fragments of which survive. Plautus and Terrence are well-preserved examples of early Roman comedy, but they were just two of many poets who were producing for the stage at the time." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "deldcox" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "Not only were Nazi war criminals released relatively early into their sentences, but also Japanese war criminals. This largely took place in the mid-1950's, not only by the United States, but the majority of the Western Allies, who realised that there was limited political value in holding war criminals, who were seen as a relic of the immediate post-war disgust by the Allies of atrocities committed by the Axis forces.\n\nWhile there continued to be a desire to punish those who had committed such atrocities, it was also countered by a perceived need to move on from the war, and engage in the Cold War. \n\nEspecially in regards to Japanese war criminals, it was felt that releasing them would strengthen ties to Japan, and limit the perception of a punitive occupation. While I don't have similar sources for Nazi war criminals, it seems likely that the Western Allies held similar conceptions in relation to West Germany, which was the centre point of the Cold War at the time. \n\nAnother aspect was that the Soviets still had a large number of German POWs at the time. By releasing war criminals early, the Western Allies were able to claim that they had legitimate claims to representing freedom and international cooperation. The influence of international religious and pacifist organisations also influenced diplomats and politicians, as well as the general public, with a growing campaign for clemency. \n\nSources:\n\nWilson S., Cribb R., Trefalt B., and Aszkielowicz D., \"Japanese War Criminals and the Politics of Justice, 1945-1958\" 2017.\n" ] }

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[ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nazi_war_criminals_released_early_from_prison", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarete_Rabe", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Fischer_\\(medical_doctor\\)" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "c6svpy2", "c6swutu", "c6swyik", "c6t0vzj", "c6t4mn1" ], "score": [ 2, 7, 12, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Goodness, where to begin...\n\nIn 1770s-1780s Canada, though not competitive, people loved \"carioling,\" a form of sled dragged by horses. Ice skating was also very popular, though hockey wouldn't be invented for another century.\n\nIn the Thirteen Colonies, there were many sports played. One of the most popular was [rounders](_URL_2_), a predecessor of baseball. Trap-ball, or [bat and trap](_URL_1_), was also a popular game, where the batter would smack the trap, popping the ball into the air, and then whack the ball toward the opposite team, who tried to catch it.\n\nBritish soldiers during the Revolution played an early form of croquet, but cards and [teetotum](_URL_0_) gambling appears to have been more popular.", "Cricket. In the army twentieth century, everyone in the West Indies played cricket. For men, there were vast numbers of teams ranging from highly competitive clubs to social groups based around villages or farms. Even women could play - Learie Constantine rated his own sister as a good club-level wicketkeeper.\n\nGames were played whenever possible, though usually on weekends. In major grounds, like the maidan in Kolkata or the Queen's Park Savannah in Port of Spain, as many as seven or eight games could be played simultaneously. Even small villages would turn out a competitive XI.\n\nEven children started young. Garry Sobers, the greatest cricketer ever, honed his accuracy as a child when factory workers would put a penny on a stump and challenge him to hit it with a ball. Kids who were too poor to buy bats and balls would play with unfold fruit and sticks. \n\nI'm not sure if there's ever been a period or place in which a single game so utterly dominated cultural and social life. The anthropologist Orlando Patterson even suggested that West Indians hate cricket, with its symbols of white authority and British rule, yet compete so fiercely as it was one of the only areas in which they could challenge the colonial masters on a level playing field (no pun intended!).\n\nUnsurprisingly, one of the most influential books in the Carribean is *Beyond a Boundary*, by CLR James - perhaps the only instance of Marxist sportswriting in existence...", "Related:\n\n[What were the most popular sports in your fields (pun totally intended)? Is the game still around? How has it changed? Why did it die?] (_URL_3_)\n\n[What were and where were the earliest known sports and tests of skill?] (_URL_2_)\n\n[Over the last few centuries, how did organized sports grow from a pastime, to the crazy multi-billion dollar industry that it is today?] (_URL_1_)\n\n[Why isn't Soccer the most popular sport in the former 'white' dominions of the British Empire?] (_URL_0_)", "As Ken Burns describes it, everyone (lots of Americans) played baseball in the 20s. Indeed, even the Klan played baseball. They played Negro League minor league teams or other barnstorming, racialized teams, like the Hebrew All-Stars. They may have even had their own league in the 1950s. They may have had a league in the 1920s, which seems very likely considering the ambiance, but I have not found much that suggests that they did. ", "Currently writing my senior thesis on how modern football developed in England through the country's political transformation from 1860-1906. Interesting to see how football would edge out cricket and rugby to become the dominant spectator sport among the working and middle classes." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/VirtualExhibits/Brueghel/teetotum.html", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_and_trap", "http://www.mastersgames.com/rules/rounders-rules.htm" ], [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/yzglf/why_isnt_soccer_the_most_popular_sport_in_the/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/wy8j8/over_the_last_few_centuries_how_did_organized/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/qo5k7/what_were_and_where_were_the_earliest_known/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11btfw/what_were_the_most_popular_sports_in_your_fields/" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cryrwuh" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Could you elaborate a bit?\n\n* What's the paper for?\n* Where have you searched for sources?\n* What have you found so far?\n* What do you know already? (You do know *something*.)\n\nAnything else you may think is relevant. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "deu5jgt", "deu8pl9" ], "score": [ 44, 26 ], "text": [ "Follow up question: what was the British people's opinion of this rule by the East Indian company? Did they have any anxieties about a company having so much power or was it mostly just accepted?", "Follow up question: what was the construction that the Indian population held regarding the Company? Did they understand that it was not the British Government, or make no difference between government and corporation?\n\ne: phone typos" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "chkfipw" ], "score": [ 12 ], "text": [ "Unfortunately I can't give you a very full answer at the moment as I am away from my computer for today, but I can write something more detailed tomorrow. Until then, I would recommend this website: _URL_0_\n\nAlong the side you can see there is a section dedicated to costume. It does not deal with North Africa but many of the same issues apply. One of the major problems is that we have only very scattered information on what \"the man on the street\" wore, as clothing does not preserve, and so we are dependent on portraits. As is the case today, clothing in a portrait does not necessarily reflect everyday ware." ] }

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[ [ "http://www2.rgzm.de/transformation/home/FramesUK.cfm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cg1lqok", "cg1npxf" ], "score": [ 39, 6 ], "text": [ "I believe this was answered in another thread, so to make a long story short, the [Red Cross did most of the leg work of delivering mail to prisoners of war](_URL_1_), at least in the European theater. Mail would be routed through a neutral country such as [Portugal, Switzerland or Sweden] (_URL_0_), then sent on to the POW camps, typically by rail. As the Red Cross was considered an illegitimate target by all belligerents, RC shipments were considered to be out of bounds for targeting. However, due to the fact on the ground that most shipment lines were used for military purposes as a priority, RC shipments could and would occasionally be destroyed. \n\nThis model was attempted in the Pacific, however, the Japanese had not signed on to the different Conventions regarding treatment of Prisoners of War, and it was much more difficult for the RC to get supplies or correspondence to them. ", "Previously discussed here: _URL_0_" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.med-dept.com/powFood.php", "http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/red_cross_and_world_war_two.htm" ], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1pg80z/how_was_correspondence_handled_between_axis_and/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cf3iptj", "cf3ji3j", "cf3k75a" ], "score": [ 100, 43, 36 ], "text": [ "**EDIT: /u/extesser is right, it's mostly dominated by heat conduction and not a temperature gradient. I'll leave the post untouched for the history books, since it sparked some interesting replies!**\n_________________________________________________________\n\nI can only speak for the Vikings in Norway. Temperature is one reason for why it emerges. Cold air sinks, hot air rises. \n\nIf you're a Viking living in a longhouse(ref: _URL_0_ ), sleeping on the floor might just kill you. Get up on a bench, and you're much better off. \n\nIdeally you'd want to stay up against the roof if you wanted to stay as warm as possible - but smoke from the firepits collect there so the practical middleground would be benches or elaborate furniture with legs. \n\nI can't speak about what they do in the tropics, but I know from personal experience that bugs alone make elevated beds an attractive solution.", "I can speak for Middle Ages Nobility; Beds were raised about a foot off the ground to deter mice from nesting under them. If a bed was too low to the ground, the small crack could attract mice, rats and other creatures for use as a nesting spot.", "i can only speak for Bedouin culture, but sleeping on mats, rugs, and furs is common until today, necessitated by the fact that they live a nomadic lifestyle, so rolling up your bed and throwing it on the back of your pack-animal is infinitely more convenient and practical than, say, disassembling and lugging around a four-post bed. Also, the air is slightly cooler on the ground, and that's where the drafts are felt." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/longhouse.htm" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c9jekbc", "c9jl41x" ], "score": [ 7, 2 ], "text": [ "The hand over one's heart is a civilian salute. It is for use by civilians (people who are not in a nation's armed forces) at moments that would be appropriate for a military salute.\n\nSome countries (the US, Italy, etc.) use the hand over the heart as a civilian salute, some (Latin American countries for example) have different civilian salutes - like the hand across the chest with the palm facing down - while others (UK, Canada) have no official civilian salute.\n\nIn the US, prior to 1942, the Bellamy Salute (similar to the Roman/Nazi salute) was the official civilian salute.", "The civilian pledge of allegiance used to be accompanied by the 'Bellamy salute' which was based on the 'Roman salute' (NB - there's no hard evidence of this ever having been used in this way in Ancient Rome, but it was part of popular historical myth, much like the thumbs up/thumbs down gestures) This Bellamy suit involves pointing a fully stretched out arm, with the palm facing downwards and the finger touching, toward a flag or other symbol. In 1942 congress chose to make the Bellamy pledge the official national pledge, however some recognised how uncomfortably close the gesture was to the Nazi salute and the hand on heart alternative arose. This is often attributed directly to Roosevelt but again there's scant hard evidence of this. It was also referred to as 'The Lincoln Salute' and attributed to the saluting style of Abe, but again, this seems to be popular mythology rather than solid historical fact. \n\nThere were a few possible non-American sources, the Albanian military salute is the same and dates from the 1920/30s and the gesture is found in traditional greetings in some Arab societies. \n\nThe next major change came in 1953/4 when Senator Homer Ferguson sponsored a successful bill to add the words 'under God' to the Pledge.Something Bellamy's granddaughter said he would have opposed. \nNote that the flag code states that for civilians the hand 'should' go on the heart, the use of 'should' rather than 'shall' means that it is not compulsory and no legal sanctions may be applied for not performing this gesture. \n\n\n\nThis blog entry has photos from the Library of Congress of Children performing the old Bellamy style salute as late as 1942. \n_URL_0_ " ] }

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[ [], [ "http://forgottenhistoryblog.com/the-official-american-flag-salute-used-to-be-a-hitler-salute/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e6wrewl" ], "score": [ 27 ], "text": [ "The name \"Weimar Republic\" was not really used much during the existence of the Republic. The Republic used \"Deutsches Reich\" as the official name, and \"Republik\" in various compounds, but Weimar was an informal title at best. Some Anglophone publications used Weimar Republic yet this was typically a minor naming convention. The actual town of Weimar had a rather strained relationship with the Republic. It was the site of the Republic's constitutional convention, chosen mostly because it was away from the chaos of Berlin, and the was the center for Gropius's Bauhaus movement. Yet the largely conservative Weimar population had little love for the Republic and many locals resented the Bauhaus for bringing in foreigners and Jews into Goethe's birthplace. Hitler and the NSDAP though were the ones who popularized the name Weimar Republic, and he and other NSDAP propagandists used it as a slur. The name stuck after 1933 and filtered into opponents of the regime as well as outside of Germany. This [google Ngram](_URL_1_) for English shows the post-1930 pickup, as does this [Ngram](_URL_0_) for \"Weimarer Republik.\" As both Ngrams indicate, the Weimar Republic clearly became the \"Weimar Republic\" after 1945. \n\nThe fact that historians and other writers use Weimar Republic when the actual government in question did not is not terribly unusual. There are other examples of Anglophone names that are anachronistic or inaccurate. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is one, as is the Byzantine Empire. One notable example that sometimes strikes pedants is the use of Tsar after Peter I. Peter I accepted the title All-Russian Imperator in 1721 and it became the first title used by subsequent Romanovs. This was part of Peter I's efforts at building up his prestige and self-styling as a modern European monarch who had no peers. The tsar title implied he was still Muscovite, but imperator is a more ambitious. Subsequent Romanovs would use the imperial title as their main title, and tsar became relegated to various monarchical appendages that signified areas over which the tsar had suzerainty, such as the Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Siberia, etc. The title Tsar also entered into the vernacular as a shorthand for the Russian ruler in the non-Russian world, but subsequent emperors after Peter I sometimes preferred Tsar over Emperor, such as the archconservative Alexander III." ] }

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[ [ "https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Weimarer+Republik&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=20&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CWeimarer%20Republik%3B%2Cc0", "https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Weimar+Republic&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CWeimar%20Republic%3B%2Cc0" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "crhn68k" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "I think most influential is pretty subjective and the range of purges meant pretty much everyone who -was- overly influential and famous got purged. And the remainder of the Communist party in the aftermath of Stalin's purges was absolutely subordinated to him (with the possible exception of Beria)\n\nThe closest I can think of would be someone like Anastas Mikoyan. If you look at Soviet Politburo membership list basically everyone on it from 1917-mid 1930s who wasn't firmly on Stalin's side all the way through got shot." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c555sgm", "c556bnf", "c556t7i", "c557a50", "c557dei", "c5580i0", "c559b6v", "c559fa2", "c55al0u" ], "score": [ 32, 12, 4, 4, 15, 6, 7, 12, 4 ], "text": [ "It is hardly just France, The Belgian Congo and Portuguese Angola are hardly examples of successful states. For every successful colonial state you can point towards another that has been unsuccessful. ", "Vietnam is doing pretty well. Probably would have been doing better if it wasn't for that whole business with the Americans. French Arab Africa isn't doing too poorly, could be doing better, but could certainly be doing better.\n\nProblem is that most of France's colonies were in Western Africa, which regardless of whose colony they are, they are doing pretty terribly.\n\nSome Colonies also saw more development/ settlement than others, the ones that were more settled and developed are doing better than the ones that were just exploited to its fullest extent possible. In this category I would also put the colonies that were already more settled and civilized when they Europeans came like in India and Asia.", "Cote d'Ivoire was doing pretty good for a while.", "Canada's pretty sweet. ", "On Africa:\n\nThere are no simple answers to this type of question; there are only complex, contentious, and often outright speculative ones. \n\nFirst, don't think the French were particularly inept or that their empire was uniquely pernicious. That isn't a case you can make with intellectual honesty. You may hear \"Anglophone\" countries are doing \"better\" than \"Francophone\" countries, though to my mind that's a bit like saying the Milky Way is doing \"better\" than Andromeda: it makes no sense.\n\nIn actuality, there are myriad reasons why things are the way they are. The CFA (currency in the region), resource availability, ethnic strife, and population demographics all play a part. Geography is more important than former colonial overlords.\n\nNow, some would argue that France's continued close ties to its former African colonies - its meddling, if you will - have worked against African business and governance, but again, this is a very contentious idea.\n\nEdit: I wrote this response on my phone in the middle of the night, so I just went back through and corrected a couple of things.\n\n\n\n", "It may be because the French, when creating colonies, were not aiming to create a separate identity, but rather to almost literally transplant feudal/pre-Revolution France into the colonies. This included their culture, language, and most importantly, their caste system. The church on top, followed by government, followed by the wealthy landowners, followed by peasants. This was both inflexible and archaic, and was doubtlessly an economic and social issue for the colonies. Furthermore the embedding of the French culture created very pro-France atmosphere, so there was no real desire or need for the colonies to grow or become self-sufficient ( For example, the U.S managed to develop an identity separate from that of Britain in only a few decades, whereas many people in present-day Quebec still consider themselves French. Furthermore, they only received independence from France at the barrel of English guns) \n\nAnother possible factor may be that the Catholic Church forbade giving firearms to people who were not white. This caused some serious issues because the French could not supply sympathetic natives with firearms to support them (The demise of Huronia is a good example). This likely did not work in the favour of France when fighting or even forming allies with the natives, harming the colonies as a whole.", "England went pretty well.\n\n(this is a joke)", "I'm not buying into the premise, tbh. \n\nFor example, take the 10 countries with lowest GDP/capita:\n\n1. Congo, formerly Belgian.\n2. Liberia, no colonial past.\n3. Zimbabwe, formerly British.\n4. Burundi, formerly Belgian.\n5. Eritrea, formerly Italian.\n6. CAR, formerly French.\n7. Niger, formerly French.\n8. Sierra Leone, formerly British.\n9. Malawi, formerly British.\n10. Togo, formerly German and French.\n\nThat's not a particularly French-dominated list. More of a list of random places in Africa, where the French happened to have a lot of colonies.", "I will only talk about France's colonies here, but let me answer your question in separate steps. \n\nFirst, let's examine the French Colonial Empire. Here are the regions ruled over by the French: Maghreb, Sahara, much of West Africa, 70% of the continental US, Madagascar, French Guyana, Vietnam, half of India, French polynesia, Nouvelle Caledonie, Syria, Quebec, and many other small islands.\n\nI absolutely disagree with your statement that \"the former French colonies are significantly more screwed up than the other former colonies of major European powers\". I don't really know how you can say that England's colonies are \"much better off\". Regarding the bulk of the French colonial Empire (Africa), I think the problems there are caused by factors on the ground (that European powers may certainly have had a role in implanting), but I can't see a harmful thing that was unique to France. Regarding what people have said might have been the \"French Ideology\" in colonies, I think you'd have to be much more specific on the time period. Yes, the French wanted to implant their ideology and way of life in their colonies, but they realized later that it wasn't going to work. As a result, they turned to a more \"productive\" relationship with their colonies, especially in the 20th century. Algeria was a special case, because it wasn't considered a colony but a region of France itself. \n\nThere is nothing harmful that the French have done to their colonies that the other powers didn't do. In areas where the French influence has been significant, it's fair to say France has kept a serious relationship with those regions, and are willing to help them to a certain extent. I want to come back to Africa to end this, because it's the most prominent francophone region. While french colonization has had terrible effects on the local population (but they are *not* solely found in French colonies), you have to recognize what the French government brought to those countries. They educated the populations, eradicated deadly diseases, set up a sizable Health-care infrastructure, and built roads, railroads, etc...\nAll of this while *the African colonies are estimated not to have brought any money for France itself*. While they supplied manpower and raw resources, they have not directly made France richer (just wanted to point that out). \n\nSo, to come back to your question, it's unfair and wrong to say the French \"damaged\" their colonies. They took care of them, and were is some regards fairer than other powers (Belgium in the Congo). I think the main problems that stemmed from colonization was the rather dysfunctional system of government the countries inherited (corruption, etc...) and the fact that the borders of countries today do not follow ethnic patterns. Algeria is a category appart, and it is the only region where it is fair to say the French have had a big negative influence (largely due to the War). Other than that, **you cannot say that the French have screwed up their colonies**." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cpupwlx" ], "score": [ 16 ], "text": [ "There were limitations placed upon both the size, deployment, and structures of the Italian military in the [1947 Peace Treaty- Warning PDF](_URL_1_). Part IV of the Treaty demanded that Italy defortify its frontiers with France and Yugoslavia and deploy no weapons that could reach into these areas. Italian islands like Pantellaria had to be completely demilitarized. Both the Italian Air Force and the Army were limited to two hundred planes and tanks. Furthermore, the Army was limited to 250,000 men and the Navy could not acquire new ships until after 1950 and then could not build heavy units like battleships or aircraft carriers. The Allies also forbid Italy from developing either nuclear or guided missile technology. \n\nItaly's joining of NATO two years later and the formation of the European Defense Community (EDC) in 1950 rendered many of these provisions and limitations moot. Although the EDC foundered amongst much wrangling and apprehension, the initial treaty allowed Italy to release itself from the military provisions of the 1947 Treaty. Since Italian rearmament took place under the auspices of these two institutions, there was little opposition among Western European and American governments over this development. The Italians allowed for the US deployment of IRBMs and the Italian Navy launched two large guided-missile cruisers and flirted with an abortive plan to deploy Polaris missiles on its ships. \n\nThe rearmament and incorporation of Italian troops into the defense structures of Western Europe were congruent with the wider trend of rearming former Axis powers. In both the cases of Japan and West Germany, the embryo of a postwar military emerged in the form of police forces that maintained domestic order and patrolled the borders. These polices forces often had a strong paramilitary character and were staffed by veterans from the war. Treaties with the US and Western forces in the 1950s allowed for these policing institutions to be expanded into proper military formations, albeit often with explicit provisions that they would be both subordinate to civilian control and be incorporated into defense organizations which were dominated by US military leaders for most of the Cold War. In the case of Japan, its armed forces, called the Self-Defense Forces, developed very strong defensive capabilities but lacked many offensive weapons that would allow it to project this military power outside of the home islands or immediate environs without major US assistance. The Japanese constitution explicitly outlawed war and renounced offensive weapons which resulted in stretching the terminology for military equipment (just recently, the Maritime Self-Defense Forces just launched a [\"destroyer\"](_URL_0_) which really looks like an aircraft carrier). These often self-imposed restrictions caused a degree of friction with the US in the latter half of the Cold War. Kissinger, for example, resented how the Japanese would never really step away from their defensive orientation and help the over-stretched US forces during the tail-end of the Vietnam War and its aftermath. This criticism avowed civilian control over the Japanese and German armed forces have often created the mistaken impression that neither Japan nor the FRG possessed a military worth much value. In fact, both forces were highly advanced, relatively large, and well-trained and their existence (and staffing by officers from the Second World War) was a consistent source of criticism within Soviet propaganda during the Cold War. \n\n*Sources*\n\nDi Nolfo, Ennio. *Power in Europe? II: Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, and the Origins of the EEC, 1952-1957*. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1992. \n\nHattendorf, John B. *Naval Policy and Strategy in the Mediterranean: Past, Present, and Future*. London: Frank Cass, 2000. " ] }

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[ [ "http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/japans-latest-destroyer-sure-looks-like-an-aircraft-car-1693949228", "http://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000004-0311.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7u5oyu", "c7u6vup" ], "score": [ 6, 26 ], "text": [ "From what I understand from previous posts and various books I have read, a soldier wounded in a Napoleonic line company would be pulled away from the line initially by sergeants or corporals and then taken back to the surgeon by drummer boys and military band member. Usually a soldier was pulled away during a battle even if only moderately wounded (arm or leg wounds etc), as to close ranks and/or maintain platoon fire discipline so he wasn't fighting to the death unless the whole company was. In close combat, you would be wounded then killed later or as air challenged said, placed in the victors infirmary (well, maybe during the mayhem following a siege attack or even in the surgeons office) but someone might want to clarify that as I am not that well versed in that. ", "John Keegan wrote a very enlightening analysis of what happened during battles. It's called *[The Face of Battle](_URL_0_)*. If you get the chance to read it, I highly recommend it. It gives a lot of insight into the factors that make up the actual battles, like fear, fatigue, terrain, weapons, formations, etc. He also makes a point of specifically talking about the dead and wounded.\n\nMy best understanding was his discussion of Agincourt, so I'll just briefly summarize that. In this battle the French suffered a lot more wounds, and basically all were left where they fell. For one, the battle wasn't incredibly long, and for two, the English couldn't afford to break ranks and the French were too cramped to break ranks, so the wounded had no where to go but forward or down. The wounded and dead just piled up. At least one English officer was either suffocated or had a heart attack after being buried in one of these piles. It was only after the most intense part of the fighting, when the French withdrew and were regrouping for another charge, that some of the English went out to look for loot or wounded men who might be worth ransom (a big caveat). The next day, the English killed the wounded they found still on the battlefield, and Keegan notes that they probably would have died from their wounds or shock anyway.\n\nAndrew Goble wrote an interesting article about wound medicine in medieval Japan called [\"War and Injury: The Emergence of Wound Medicine in Medieval Japan\"](_URL_1_), but unfortunately he didn't talk much about treatment during the battle itself. There is one screen painting, and I wish I could find it right now, that includes a warrior giving rudimentary first aid to a comrade during a battle, but it's an artist's depiction and I haven't seen any English language description of Japanese battles that included handling the wounded. [State of War](_URL_3_) talks a lot about wounds, but doesn't give any insight into this.... which is a bummer because this is the period when Japanese militaries started using formations and the shape of battles changed significantly. Prior to this, when it was more one-on-one, warriors could withdraw when wounded (see [Takezaki Suenaga's scrolls](_URL_2_) for instances of this happening) partly because, in my own analysis, there were no formations or direct hierarchy preventing them from doing so. The only thing stopping them from doing this for a light wound might be that they were rewarded based on performance and only compensated for injuries. That and retreating, in formation or not, exposes even armored combatants and is a good way to get killed.\n\n*Edit for formatting fail*" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.amazon.com/Face-Battle-Study-Agincourt-Waterloo/dp/0140048979", "http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mni/summary/v060/60.3goble.html", "http://www.amazon.com/Little-Need-Divine-Intervention-Invasions/dp/188544513X", "http://www.amazon.com/State-War-Fourteenth-Century-Michigan-Monograph/dp/1929280238" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d25hsox", "d25jpdi", "d25lrt5", "d25mike", "d25r9y3", "d25unav" ], "score": [ 7, 21, 28, 4, 4, 4 ], "text": [ "Everyone would do well in remembering that we require **in-depth** comments in this subreddit. Just throwing out a title of a movie and a short sentence or two is not enough. Explain what *why* it's accurate (sources please!), show examples and walk us through it.", "Unfortunately, you're not really going to get a satisfactory answer to your question, because - with very few exceptions - we don't really know how mass battles were fought. A lot of the source material we have on battles doesn't describe formations or troop density or tactical manoeuvres or anything like that with any granularity, so we can't accurately recreate them on film.\n\nThat said, though, there are some films depicting Greek and Roman battles that might be more accurate than others, but that's unfortunately far out of my specialization, so another user will have to pick it up.", "For a few reasons, you're probably *never* going to see it because (as /u/EyeStache pointed out) we don't know how they fought since none of the sources explicitly tell us (they assume the audience knew) but I feel modern audience has been so conditioned to view ancient/medieval battle in a certain way. No director will attempt to be 'realistic' as the audience would be confused, it would take a very skilled director with the pull to get it shot his way and willing to spend considerable screen time to 'get it right'. \n\n\nGoldsworthy has a model of ancient combat that stresses the psychological aspects of warfare. That suggests that combat was pretty terrifying (in an age without Geneva Conventions, antibiotics, painkillers) and few would be willing to just charge straight into an enemy formation bristling with sharp pointy objects. So one would try to fight in a formation - be it a rigid Greek phalanx, a slightly more flexible Roman cohort, or even a loose Gallic tribal force - to ensure your flanks are covered. Certain men in the unit, be they huscarls, centurions, generals, will be the main motivator for the unit. They're the guys who'll whip the men into action, who'll lead the assault, who'll be fighting to kill their opponent. Most soldiers will be more intent on fighting to survive, concentrating on protecting themselves rather than killing their opponent. After several minutes of fighting both sides would tire and pull back to rest and to psych themselves up for another round. Rinse and repeat until one side takes too many casualties or loses the will to continue fighting (or both) and then panic takes effect and the unit dissolves. Its a good model and one that can explain how battles can take several hours yet the victor only comes out with a handful of casualties (even treating casualty numbers with some grains of salt).\n\n\nLastly, the majority of the killing was done when one side broke and ran. They'd abandon anything to slow them down like weapons and shields which would leave them defenceless and vulnerable when struck from behind. But there's hardly anything 'heroic' in showing Mel Gibson cutting down fleeing English soldiers without mercy.", "The scene depicting Gaugamela in Oliver Stone's Alexander is pretty great in a fair degree of it's details - or at least in terms of the depiction of the account in Arrian, and of the Macedonian phalanx, and ancient warfare in general. There are several factual errors surrounding the battle and film itself, but if you were after a depiction on film of a massed ancient battle, there aren't many better.\n\nIn terms of why this is successful - details such as the terrifying but ineffectual scythed chariots match up to their description in Arrian, and pretty much every other time they are mentioned anywhere - they are frightening and terrifying constructs, but they rarely seem to have any effect on the overall outcome of a battle (as noted in Phillip Sabin's Lost Battles, among other places).\n\nHow accurate it actually is, is probably impossible to say, but it at least depicts the source material reasonably well, which is often about as good as you cab get with ancient warfare.\n\nThe battle scenes from Kubrick's Spartacus are an interesting counter-example. The Roman Quincunx formation is still a matter of debate (one I suspect is solved by massed battles looking rather more tentative and piecemeal than generally depicted on screen), but Kubrick's solution to the puzzle of a checkerboard army formation (i.e., \"wouldn't that leave massive holes?\") was to have them march into position in Quincunx, and then deploy into solid linesm which there is no evidence for.", "As others have pointed out, no battle can be truly realistic as we don't have sufficient information to say precisely how they were fought, but we do still have enough information to say with a high degree of certainty that, in Western warfare, the chaotic Hollywood style of massed armies mingling and fighting one on one battles didn't happen. Instead, sources emphasize the need for a densely packed formation that fought together.\n\nFor instance, when fighting the Colchians, Xenophon writes: \n\n > In the first instance, the Hellenes drew up opposite in line of battle, as though they were minded to assault the hill in that order; but afterwards the generals determined to hold a council of war, and consider how to make the fairest fight.\n\n > Accordingly Xenophon said: \"I am not for advancing in line, but advise to form companies by columns. To begin with, the line,\" he urged, \"would be scattered and thrown into disorder at once; for we shall find the mountain full of inequalities, it will be pathless here and easy to traverse there. The mere fact of first having formed in line, and then seeing the line thrown into disorder, must exercise a disheartening effect. Again, if we advance several deep, the enemy will none the less overlap us, and turn their superfluous numbers to account as best they like; while, if we march in shallow order, we may fully expect our line to be cut through and through by the thick rain of missiles and rush of men, and if this happen anywhere along the line, the whole line will equally suffer. \n\n(*Anabasis 4.8*)\n\nVerbruggen, in *The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages*, cites a large number of literary and poetic texts that point out the dense and tightly packed cavalry and infantry formations. He notes in particular that Raas of Gaver's advice at the Battle of Worringen that they thin their ranks in order to match the width of the enemy formation was considered by the chronicler Jan van Heelu to be a tourney tactic not suited to battle. Liebrecht, lord of Dormaal was of a similar opinion and is recorded as having said \n\n > Thick and tight! \n\n > Thick and tight! \n\n > Let every man press up stoutly to his \n\n > neighbor as close as he can. So we shall certainly win \n\n > glory today!\n\nIn contrast, the archbishop Siegfried's army advanced in a disorderly fashion, all his troops virtually in a single line. As a result, while the archbishop's army was able to outflank their enemies temporarily, they were unable to break the formations of the Brabant army and were ultimately defeated when a company of foot and horse (the peasants and knights of the Count of Berg and the civic levy from Cologne) arrived and took the archbishop in the flank.\n\nWith regards to the battles in *Braveheart*, they have only the vaguest connection to how the battles are recorded as being fought, and fall into the Hollywood melee trap. Stirling was a case of foot soldiers cutting off a portion of the English army from the bridge they were crossing, trapping them in a loop of the river and systematically killing them, while the main English force was largely without archers and was demoralised, leading to their retreat. Falkirk was a case of dense, circular infantry formations resisting a cavalry charge but ultimately being taken apart by archery and cavalry as a result of their tactical immobility.\n\nIn short, *Braveheart* doesn't even get the most basic aspects of the battles correct, let alone how they might have been fought.", "I'd suggest you check out the film waterloo. The movie used 15-16 thousand soldiers from the soviet unions army as extras in the battle scenes. It in a lot of ways a reenactment of the battle. They had engineers prepair the battle area by getting rid of hills, planting 5000 trees, and laying out miles of roads, planting rye, and wild flowers. They uses irrigation pipes to create the mud of the battle. The 16000 extras were drilled in 1815 battle formations and how to handle bayonets, sabres, and cannons. The troops would function as units, and orders were given to the officers by the director to try get authenticity. So well its still a film at the end of the day there was a considerable amount of care put in try to keep it authentic as possible" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cu60obq" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "Just 20 years earlier, the 'corpse of Poland' was supposed to be the road to global revolution. The defeat of the Soviet army at Warsaw in 1920 was a major setback to international socialism. Also the territories Poland took in that war, while historically a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, were populated largely by what we would call today Belarusians and Ukrainians. These groups were seen as part of a greater russian ethnicity, who were vulnerable to German atrocities due to the failure of the Polish government to protect them. This supposed intervention was the official reason cited by the soviets, though I would add that the sentiment of Poland as a historical enemy of international socialism helped as well. \n\nEdit: after rereading your question, I would like to note that the molotov-ribbentrop pact was secret, and no 'justification of it was necessary. Apologies, I initially read your question as asking about the justification for invasion, not the pact itself. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cqdx0cf" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "TL;DR: Very common, and in MANY cases, EXTREMELY effective!\n\nThere were resistance movements in Greece, Yugoslavia, France, China, Indochina, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the occupied territories in the Soviet Union, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Albania, the Philippines, Indonesia; those are the ones that come to mind at the moment!\n\nAll of those movements save perhaps Czechoslovakia, Norway and Denmark were engaged in full on guerrilla warfare, often full scale battles. The Norwegian resistance engaged in important acts of sabotage, and aided in attacks on the German heavy water plant in Norway, and in attacks on the German held Svalbard Archipelago, while the Czech resistance 'iced' Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's right hand man. \n\nThe Soviet, Yugoslav and Polish resistances amounted to small armies operating behind enemy lines, with the Yugoslav partisans especially engaging often in open warfare, while they and the soviet partisans took part openly in the liberation of their homelands. The Polish Home Army was incredibly sophisticated, taking part in the uprisings in Wilna (Vilnius) and Warsaw, while the French FFI & Maquis took part in engagements such as the brief uprising in the Vercors Massif. \n\nThe Filipino resistance forces aided the US in the liberation of the Philippines, along with the Alamo Scouts, Philippine Scouts, and US Army Rangers & Airborne. The Chinese communists under Mao made up a formidable force, although some of their exploits were embellished to say the least! Enver Hoxha's Albanian partisans, and the Greek resistance movements both took part in extensive actions against German and Italian occupation forces.\n\nI doubt I've done justice to the manifold, and incredibly brave, resistance movements that operated against the Axis, and often each other! If I've left any out, which I undoubtedly have, please, ANYONE, add more!!!" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c5efld3" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "The fashionable part was more for officers than the actual soldiers. Finding a good regiment or unit usually had to do with the location of their deployment, the favor of the commanding officer with the higher ups, the amount of action they saw, and sometimes where they had been mustered or who was in them. This was the case for most armies and navies of the time. An example would be a British nobleman who had recently purchased his lieutenancy trying to find a unit headed for India. He would want to go there because it would be a good place to gain experience against relatively under-equipped opponents, he would be able to make good connections with other officers and with executives in the various Trading Companies, the wars were generally very profitable so attracted the attention of the press and other officers , and a man could generally gather some manner of loot in the battles. A place where he wouldn't want to be deployed would be in a unit being sent to a Caribbean island where most of the soldiers died of various diseases and fevers from the climate. Since you had to buy your place and advancement in the armies of England in that time, the richer people were usually able to secure the best placements because of family connections. Another possibility for a British officer would be to try to find a position in a militia unit. These units got to look the best, parade around for the big cheeses and make good impressions on the lords and ladies without ever needing to leave their mustering grounds. This would change over time as militia units began to be deployed in wars overseas. \n\nThese are just examples for the British army but other armies were similar. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cac252l" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "/r/Genealogy might be useful for you?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cno9113" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "hi! it might be worth x-posting this question to /r/AskAnthropology or /r/AskSocialScience" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c9pydx2", "c9pnpvs", "c9prgyi" ], "score": [ 2, 10, 6 ], "text": [ "Another reason was that President Wilson refused to prepare the US Army for war (I believe he even refused to send observers to Europe). This was one of Teddy Roosevelt and the Republicans' main criticisms of Wilson at the time. While Wilson eventually agreed to an expansion of the navy (over a period of 10 years), he still left the army neglected. The size of the active US Army was about 100,000 (for a comparison, that was what Germany was *restricted to* after the war by the Treaty Of Versailles).\n\nOnly when war became imminent was the Army expanded. Because the suddenly enlarged US Army had to be so quickly drafted, trained, and some would say *rushed* into the field naturally the troops were not only inexperienced in combat, but the commanders weren't familiar with the advanced style of modern European warfare. This lead to frequent misuses of US forces and high casualty rates. \n\nShortly after the outbreak of WWII in Europe, George C. Marshall said *\"You know, I know, all of us know that the time factor is the vital consideration — and vital is the correct meaning of the term — of our national defense program; that we must never be caught in the same situation we found ourselves in 1917.\"*", "Not an expert on the topic, but here's my take, and anyone who knows more can correct me if I am mistake.\n\nFirst, the U.S. wasn't in the business of having a standing army up at all times at this point in history. Most soldiers were drafted in order to fight in specific cases. This makes sense considering how logistically difficult and how expensive it is to pay for an army (including the loss of labor).\n\nSecond, this is before the time of simple and cheap transport. War in Europe didn't necessarily mean the U.S. was going to be involved so there wasn't a reason to prepare for battle.\n\nFinally, the U.S. before WWI wasn't not as important, rich, or technologically advanced in relation to European nations at this point. In fact, if it hadn't been for the two world wars that practically destroyed Europe there is a good reason to suspect that the U.S. would have a similar role to China today (one in which it is economically growing, but is still politically on the outside). This part is speculation on my part, but the rise of the U.S. in my mind has to be inexorably linked to the fall of the European powers.\n\nSo to flesh out the answer, there are a lot of reasons why the U.S. was unprepared: logistics, politics, military structure, economics, and lack of need.\n\nHope that helps.", "I'm not sure how ill-trained and ill-equipped they were, but it's partially due to the fact that the US didn't spend the previous three years fighting an intense war. If the US had immediately joined the war in 1914, they probably wouldn't have looked *that* out of place. The other nations went into the war with outdated tactics and equipment too (maybe not outdated, but certainly not fit for that kind of warfare), but they then had three years to adapt and improve. You saw tactics evolve from simple charges to complex combined arms assaults. You saw equipment evolve - like how the brightly coloured uniforms quickly became a dull grey or green for every army. But also just having soldiers in the field and in combat raised the experience and the know-how of the soldiers and the officers. And these advances were *huge.* The US Army could count on communication between the Allied armies - it's not like they went in totally blind to the advances of the last few years - but it's not the same as actually fighting the war. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cckxyah" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "It would be useful to specify a location as well. Since you said \"medieval,\" I'm assuming you're looking for European answers, right?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cg5aao9" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Very unlikely is the consensus since Caeser is only around 15 years older then Brutus which would have made him very young to be fathering children. Caesars affair with Servilla most likely started around 77bce after the death of her first husband." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ci2b396" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "It's important to contemplate what else was happening during this time. A lot of the countries involved were fighting against old colonial powers and remnants of imperialism, we have the Suez crisis in Egypt, intensifying Cold War in the region, tensions between Soviet aligned forces, US-leanings and the non-aligned movement. The Palestinian cause is often portrayed as an Arab cause, and the conflict with Israel as the defining element of the 20th century, but in practice there has been little done by Palestine's neighbouring Arabs that can be traced to a support of Palestine (when not beneficial to their own countries)" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dme86sp" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Tiny correction: William III was stadholder of the Netherlands, not *just* Holland, and he installed *himself* with a bit of help from Parliament. Two years ago [Scott Sowerby held an AMA](_URL_0_) on England in the seventeenth century, including a lot of questions on the nature of the event you're describing, the so-called Glorious Revolution." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2pprje/thursday_ama_im_scott_sowerby_associate_professor/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "fkpf1ej" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Fellow 15th century reenactor here, here's my main advice: have a more specified goal.\n\nThe 15th century is a large time period with lots of changes. Not only that, but the definition of \"Halberdier\" will change depending on where you are. A halberd could be the traditional image of halberds we have in X place, but go to Y place and it could mean some complete other thing\n\nThat's how we did with my 15th century group. We said \"we want to do 15th century Pikemen\" and after two years we realised it was too difficult to have something coherent, so we narrowed it down to \"1470's Burgundian Pikemen\". Notice how we picked a precise place and time. From there we started exploring, studying, etc. We still have a lot to work on,but overall were getting better and better\n\nOnce you picked a more precise location and time, you can start researching sources from that precise setting and it maybe easier like that, since you probably will have less contradicting sources. Sources you can look for are Ordinances, manuscript miniatures and pretty much any contemporary source like written texts or surviving objects.\n\nHoping this helps" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d2srz44" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Keep in mind you're asking about a time period of 1-2,000 years.\n\nThe closest I can give you resides in the triumphal arches erected to celebrate victories. Whereas it's not a remembrance of the dead as we think about it, it is a remembrance to the victorious wars the Romans engaged in.\n\nOtherwise the closest would be Roman funerals of at least the late republic. Aristocratic Romans would keep life-like masks of their ancestors that achieved great deeds and on the death of a member of their family they would hold public funerals where actors would wear these masks and don clothing appropriate to the dead person. This in a sense brought the dead back to life to welcome their newly deceased family member to the ancestors. In practical senses, it was a reminder of the great deeds their family members in the past did and to remind the public of these events and the part their family had in them." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c9kydxl", "c9kywpa", "c9l2h4j", "c9l2qaq", "c9l2ydo" ], "score": [ 19, 15, 6, 4, 4 ], "text": [ "I have not heard a case of a soldier on land being killed by ordnance from WW1, but I have heard of cases in which sailors have died on ships that hit naval mines laid during WW1. \n\nI have a link saved somewhere since I used the source on a recent term paper. I'll find it and post it when I return home from work\n\nEdit: Added sailors", "The [Blücher](_URL_0_) was sunk by a torpedo made in 1900. Norway was neutral in WWI, so this example may not count.", "Marines at Wake island might have still been using ww1 equipment,", "On a similar note, I've heard that the RAF were severely underfunded between the wars. Did they or any other Air Force use WWI aircraft in a battlefield role during WWII?", "the [Browning Automatic Rifle](_URL_0_) was used by US soldiers in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cruiser_Bl%C3%BCcher" ], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1918_Browning_Automatic_Rifle" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cayci3k" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ " > Cuirassiers are of greater use than all other cavalry. This arm...needs to be well instructed. It is in the heavy cavalry that the science of the mounted man should be carried to the highest degree.\n\n-Napoleon\n\n\"Heavy Cavalry\" probably denotes multiple types and styles of units during this period. Heavy Calvary in this age (at the onset of the 1800's) fought simliarly as in the previous centuries in that they were still primarily relient on charges and functioned overall as [\"shock units\"](_URL_10_).\n\n[In Napoleon's army,](_URL_6_) it at one point might have consisted of a selection and assortment of the following regiments of [\"heavy cavalry\"](_URL_5_):\n\n* [x2 Horse Carabiniers](_URL_0_)\n* [x12-x15 Cuirassiers](_URL_2_)\n* [x15-x30 Dragoons](_URL_1_)\n\nWhen Napoleon first took control he had very few cavalry units that could compete with other nations such as Austria. At the time, there were not enough trained horsemen to fill his ranks. Upon centralizing his power and increasing the size of his *\"Grand Armee\"* he also knew the importance of increasing his selection and assortment of light and heavy cavalry regiments in which the following years after gaining control instituted several actions in order to bolster his calvary ranks.\n\n\nAt the initial onset of integrating a easier to manage horseback rifle/musket [carbines,](_URL_4_) and cavalry firearms in battle, these types of units eventually transformed from a heavy shock troop value to mobile and robust units capable of different platforms and fighting with the increased use of firearm technology. Thus, the training would have transitioned from this shock value to use more firearms and mounted tactics to incorporate the technology. Scouting, skirmishing, directly engaging, and chasing down enemies were all roles that the cavalry would continue to play which would require training of different sorts with the changing and different equipment as time progresses.\n\n[This](_URL_7_) PDF talking about Cuirassier swords and some tactics and methods may give a slight clue as to some of the training that would be needed to perform the duties. For instance the PDF states:\n\n > Figure 2 [17] :The sabre in action. This ink demonstrates the manner in which the sabre was wielded in the charge, and\nsecondly what became of the well dressed lines once the charge got under way. **The trooper therefore leaned well forward in\nthe saddle, right arm thrust out as far as it's would stretch with sabre continuing the plunge towards the enemy; in this\nillustration the trooper's elbows are bent to a rather marked degree whereas, in fact, they would be trained never to bend the\nsword arm lest the enemy's edged weapons slide off their sabre guard and amputate the elbow.**\n\nThese are types of methods and training requirements that more than likely would have applied to soldiers. Cuirssaiers relied on their sabers that had an edge, but most of the time it was the trauma and blow or a thrusting stab that caused the most damage. Correct sword play and sword handling would have been a very critical aspect of further training. Classically, cavalry troops were garnered from the upper class ranks. Owning horses were not cheap and having experience on one usually meant you were from a more privledged family. Learning how to handle a sword on both foot and horseback would have been an important training focus regardless of the experience level.\n\n[One of Napoleon's cavalry commanders notes in one](_URL_9_) of the opening battles of his offensive in 1813 (Lutzen):\n\n > In his report on the battle of Lutzen, for example, Marshal Ney praised the spirit and courage of his young horsemen but lamented that the attacks by the raw recruits were poorly coordinated and that they had the distrubing habit of falling off their horses during charges....Indeed, when Napoleon decided to seek an armistice in the summer of 1813, a move generally regarded as a major mistake, he stated that while he knew the risks, he needed time to train and equipe his cavalry properly...\n\nWe can see here some of the percieved failures and also deduce that training at the onset of the green Napoleonic cavalry was horseback skills and horse riding skills. Although there were more than likely veterans, because of the lack of horsemen when he started his military build up, there were recruits with little experience and bad skills in horseback. Training would have almost certaintly entailed basic horsemanship. Ensuring the soldiers knew how to care for their horses and ensure they were well fed and healthy during campaigns would have been another large aspect of the cavalry troops' training at first.\n\nBut, the difficult and more advanced training would have been formations and orientations as a group and a unit. [The future Duke of Wellington would say about cavalry training](_URL_3_):\n\n > The formation and discipline of a body of cavalry are very difficult and tedious, and require great experience and patience in the persons who attempt it...\n\nManeuvers and shifts and drill tactics would have encompassed much of the training life of a cavalryman during this day and age, as well as many other time periods. Learning maneuvers like [this](_URL_8_) would have been very difficult without lots of practice and training and repitition.\n\nOverall, the training for a cavalry man in the Napoleonic era would have been decided on a few factors such as country of origin and previous experience. Horseman ship and the ability to ride a horse was the first needed skill and the roles of a cavalry soldier were then added to those. More than likely, all soldiers would have been needed to exensively train on formations, drill and ceremony, and assault/defense tactics. This would have been done through reps and reps and reps of doing these tactics over and over again. Because cavalry played such a critical role in this era, these units were revered as important tactical units that were a necesity and mainstay of the armies during the 19th century.\n\nEdit: Sp\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carabiniers-%C3%A0-Cheval", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragoon#19th_century", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuirassier#18th_and_19th_century", "http://books.google.com/books?id=QcfPN0xQfoEC&pg=PT36&lpg=PT36&dq=napoleonic+cavalry+training&source=bl&ots=G675ipQOgD&sig=ZsARhMk2ewJlRaMC4ZqxwEpA_oc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mv3aUabDGcGyiQLcioDQCA&ved=0CEgQ6AEwAzgK", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbine#Early_history:_before_the_1900s", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Arm%C3%A9e#Heavy_cavalry", "http://www.napolun.com/mirror/web2.airmail.net/napoleon/cavalry_Napoleon.html", "http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oldswords.com%2Farticles%2FFrench%2520Cuirassier%2520swords%2520AN%2520IX%2520-%2520AN%2520XI.pdf&ei=2f_aUdCkPKGCiALYrIGgCQ&usg=AFQjCNGQ_PAymf7YVvPPC3uo4jfmaqQJmw&sig2=RK4_9ItF1p0xZkLF0cfcMQ", "http://i.imgur.com/MmfgD40.png", "http://books.google.com/books?id=Q39O0kpNg24C&pg=PA68&lpg=PA74&ots=pXs3TWmSQ0&dq=french+cavalry+fighting+techniques", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_troops" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "fgq6n8h" ], "score": [ 46 ], "text": [ "I'm assuming that you mean the French influence is strong in New Orleans as compared to other territories of French Louisiana added to the United States in the Louisiana purchase? Obviously, the French influence in New Orleans pales in comparison to that in Quebec. So taking the question as why is the French influence more obvious in New Orleans than in, say, St. Louis, I think the underlying answer is population. In 1810, New Orleans was a city of 17,000 inhabitants -- nearly all of them French speaking. As discussed below, Spanish Louisiana was really a continuation of French Louisiana and another 8,000 or so French speaking immigrants arrived in New Orleans in 1809. So, 1810 New Orleans was a large, well-established, Francophone city. The other cities of the Louisiana territory were not and so did not have the same cultural persistence.\n\nAs you note, New Orleans went through two colonial powers: France (to 1762) and essentially Spain -- though with the briefest return to France to the Louisiana purchase in 1803. You should, however, really think of this as a century of French influence -- not a half century each of divided French and Spanish influence.\n\nDuring the Spanish period after 1762, Spanish cultural influence on the Louisiana territory broadly was limited. The first Spanish governor arrived in New Orleans in 1766 and was driven from the city by a Francophile revolt in 1768. The Spanish suppressed the revolt (oddly enough the governor sent to do this, Alejandro O'Reilly was Irish by birth) and then installed Luis de Unzaga as governor. To prevent further difficulties, Unzaga decided to embrace the francophone Louisiana elite. Unzaga married a francophone Louisian Creole woman (Marie Elizabeth St. Maxent), allowed significant cultural and political autonomy, and allowed the francophone Creole elite to continue to dominate affairs. Spanish culture simply did not penetrate Louisiana.\n\nNew Orleans also received several waves of French-speaking immigration. After the Haitian revolution, a large number of French speaking refugees (including much of the colonial elite) fled to New Orleans beginning in the 1790s. A number of French monarchists also fled France for New Orleans during the French revolution. A number of other Francophones fled Haiti for Cuba. In 1809 many of these were expelled and fled to New Orleans. In 1809 alone, over 9,000 of these (almost exclusively French speaking) refugees arrived, roughly doubling the population of the city.\n\nThus, we get to the early 19th century with a large, well-developed and French influenced city, so the next question is why this didn't unravel over the next 200 years. Of course, it did to a considerable extent. Again, New Orleans is not Montreal -- it's a clearly American, English-speaking city. There was simply a large enough cultural force to have some persistence over time -- thus, the French street names, French cuisine, fondness for the -eaux suffix and so on.\n\nIn 1812, Louisiana (as a whole, I don't know of New Orleans statistics) was 75% French speaking. Thereafter, there was large scale English speaking immigration, and Louisiana (again as a whole) was 70% English speaking in 1860. The French culture was stronger in rural South Louisiana than in New Orleans. In 1852, the New Orleans *Knickberbocker* [declared](_URL_0_): \"The New-Orleans of 1852 is not the New-Orleans of twenty years ago. The innovations of the Anglo-Saxon race have been steadily undermining the manners and customs of the aborigines of the country ... The Creole influenced breathed its last breath ... New-Orleans is now an Anglo-Saxon city.\" The aftermath of the Civil War dealt the death blow to Louisiana French speakers -- the Reconstruction-era constitution mandated English language education. The French speaking newspapers in Louisiana largely closed in the second half of the 19th century." ] }

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[ [ "https://books.google.com/books?id=8IY4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA345&lpg=PA345&dq=%22the+creole+influence+breathed%22&source=bl&ots=M7-UTs6H58&sig=ACfU3U1hHMapWhgfMnN8qUCNueczmv0KSw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJj56-1r3nAhUolnIEHWpMB9gQ6AEwAXoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22the%20creole%20influence%20breathed%22&f=false" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dgpcg3l" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "There were two official types of roof mounted AA machineguns for Soviet WWII era vehicles: the 7.62 mm DT in a P-40 mount and the 12.7 mm DShK.\n\nThe [P-40 mount](_URL_3_) was developed before the war, in 1937, with an improved version built in 1938. This mount was installed on a wide variety of vehicles, including BT, T-26, T-28, T-35, and KV tanks. The A-20 also had it, but the production T-34 did not.\n\nBT and T-26 tanks with these mounts were also called \"AA tanks\" and were considered a special kind of tank, much like commander's tanks. According to the table of organization, every fifth light tank would have an AA machinegun (one per platoon). \n\nThe P-40 was phased out of production since it was made clear during the Spanish Civil War that the DT was not powerful enough to shoot down modern aircraft. Self propelled AA guns in larger calibers were given preference. Nevertheless, you see KV tanks with cast turrets and ZIS-5 guns (at least late 1941) with these mounts, plus DT machineguns installed in ad-hoc manner for AA on tanks that weren't supposed to have them at all, like T-34s. \n\nHowever, the idea of SPAAGs didn't work out despite many attempts, and the tankers still wanted mobile AA cover. The presence of a 12.7 mm machinegun on the M4A2 Sherman tanks delivered via Lend Lease was found to be a very desirable quality. The evaluation of the tank highlights that the presence of such a machinegun makes the tank superior in firepower to other domestic and foreign medium tanks.\n\nEven though that evaluation was written in 1942, the wheels of bureaucracy turned slowly, and an [AA gun mount](_URL_2_) for a domestic 12.7 mm machinegun was only approved in October of 1944. Even then, it was only installed on heavy tanks and SPGs. I've read arguments that the T-34-85 was too unstable a platform for DShKs, but there are many photos of Syrian T-34-85s with that exact machinegun, so its absence from medium tanks is a mystery to me.\n\n\n\nM.V. Kolomiets *T-26 Tyazhelaya Sud'ba Lyogkogo Tanka*\n\nA.G. Solyankin et al *Sovetskiye Lyogkiye Tanki 1920-1941*\n\nA.G. Solyankin et al *Sovetskiye Sredniye Tanki 1924-1941*\n\nP. Samsonov [*M4A2 Sherman Assessment*](_URL_0_)\n\nP. Samsonov [*AA MG*](_URL_1_)" ] }

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[ [ "http://tankarchives.blogspot.ca/2014/10/lend-lease-impressions-m4a2-sherman.html", "http://tankarchives.blogspot.ca/2015/12/aa-mg.html", "http://tankarchives.blogspot.ca/2016/04/aa-dshk-mount.html", "http://i.imgur.com/iQrFlzA.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dvo0579" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "This has always been a problem and fire was a common enemy. You don't even have to go back as far as the 1800's. You can read about [The 1973 Fire, National Personnel Records Center](_URL_0_) to get a basic idea of what kind of loss could occur and how they might go about reconstructing as much of that data as possible. Redundancy, indexing, backups, and disperate storage methods have always been important in data retention, still to this day.\n\nI'd love to read a 'Salt' like book about your very question and will be eagerly watching this thread." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.archives.gov/st-louis/military-personnel/fire-1973.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cvluo13" ], "score": [ 24 ], "text": [ "I think it's fair to say she wasn't significantly worse than her contemporaries, even her lauded successor, Elizabeth I; it was a period where religion and politics were deeply intertwined, and warfare was constant across Europe. It's worth nothing that she killed fewer people over the course of her reign (283 is the exact number, I think) than her father did in single years of his, and her nickname and that of her sister were actually reversed in Ireland; instead of Bloody Mary, Irish Catholics were cursing Bloody Bess. English troops caused massive destruction in putting down Irish revolts, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths by starvation, in addition to the actual fighting. \n\nPart of the reason we have the famous one-note perception of Mary is because her reign was ultimately quite short, so we only see the results of her immediate activities (suppressing Protestantism and losing Calais), rather than her long term policies (fiscal reform, naval expansion, and colonization), which bore fruit under Elizabeth. Her short reign was especially irksome with regards to Calais, since she was alive long enough to lose it upon entering war in support of her husband, Philip II, but not long enough to have a seat at the negotiating table at the end of the war, whereupon Spain and England passed out of personal union, and Philip had no problems letting the French keep Calais. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ckcsvcr" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "The Red Army was superior to the Kwantung Army in three main ways, all of which feed into each other. They had a superior doctrine, were superior technologically, and were superior numerically. The last two were both dictated by, and enabled the first.\n\nThe Red Army in the region, under Georgy Zhukov, used the ideas of Deep Battle formulated by Mikhail Tukhachevsky. While this had been discredited by Tukhachevsky's purge, Zhukov was willing to put it into practice in this case. This doctrine dictated broad-front attacks to open the enemy rear to strong combined-armed forces. These could then be used to destroy the enemy ability to fight, by occupying territory, or, as it was used in this case, by encircling the forward forces of the opposition. It would later be used successfully in WWII. In comparison, Japanese doctrine was static, with armour being used separately from infantry. Attacks were made using small groups of infiltrating infantry similar to the German stormtrooper groups of the later part of WWI. Defensively, the doctrine mandated a thin forward defence, where a defence-in-depth is the best way to deal with Deep Battle. \n\nThe Soviet doctrine relied on fast tanks, supported by motorised infantry. This resulted in production of the BT series of tanks, ancestors of the T-34. These tanks were fast, and well armed with a high-velocity 45mm gun. While they were lightly armoured, their guns had an effective range far higher than those used by the Japanese. Japanese tanks were much slower, with less effective guns. At the same time, they had the same low armour as their Soviet counterparts.The motorised infantry required large amounts of trucks, which allowed Zhukov to ship supplies forwards from his railheads with ease. The Japanese, who didn't have the same access to motorised transport, struggled with this. In the air, the contest was surprisingly even. The Zero and Ki-48 Oscar of WWII had not yet entered Japanese service. Instead, Ki-27 Nates took on I-16s. This was a more even contest than that with the tanks, but still in favour of the Soviets. The I-16 was more heavily armed, and armoured than its Japanese counterpart. The Ki-27 was more manoeuvrable, but the I-16 was faster in a dive. With the advantage of numbers and improved tactics, the Soviet Air Force was able to prevent the IJA from affecting the battle significantly.\n\nFinally, as was common for the Soviets, they had numerical superiority. They had 3 rifle divisions, 2 armoured divisions, 2 motor rifle divisions and 2 tank brigades. They also had the support of 2 Mongolian cavalry divisions. At the point of attack, the Japanese had a single division. In general in war, the side with more forces wins - there's a Patton quote to the effect of \"war being decided by the side who gets there first with the most\". \n\nThe second part of your question has two answers. The first is doctrinal.The Japanese doctrine of 1938 had a clear family resemblance to that of 1905. They had taken the wrong lessons from 1905 and from WWI. The Sino-Japanese War had done nothing to disprove this doctrine. As a result, their doctrine was heavily focussed on infantry combat supported by light artillery. This was fine in 1905 and 1914, and worked against poorly led Chinese infantry. This led to Japanese army procurement being focussed on weaponry that fitted this plan. In 1905, these were the most modern things on the market - bolt action rifles, machine guns, light field artillery. In 1938, the same types of weapons were being bought. Armour was experimental, and used low-velocity guns for infantry support. Heavier artillery pieces were neglected - some of the heaviest guns used by the IJA in 1938 had been bought to deal with the forts of Port Arthur in 1905. However, the rest of the world had moved on. Heavy artillery, tanks and trucks were the most important things an army could have, and Japan had only the most basic of these. \n\nEven had their doctrine been in favour of producing these, they would have run into trouble doing so. Japan didn't have the greatest heavy industry in 1938. When the country is only producing a limited amount of armour plate per year, and the navy wants most of it for building battleships, the army can't build tanks. There were not enough trained mechanics to support a large tank or motorised corps. Even the IJN's aircraft carriers only had just enough mechanics for their air groups - the most significant losses at Midway were in ground crew, not pilots. The Soviets had the heavy industry, and the technically skilled manpower to support the demands of modern war. Japan did not." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cuwym7t" ], "score": [ 34 ], "text": [ "In a draft, it's not like you get handed a uniform. It means you report for selection. People are turned down for all sorts of reasons, even in a draft. Poor vision, diabetes, epilepsy, heart problems, hearing problems, mental illness, being too short, or not strong enough to keep up. There are written tests, medical tests, physical fitness tests, and interviews to determine if you're a viable candidate for the military. Even though standards are usually lowered somewhat during a time of war, there are still standards to be met, and people who don't meet them will not be able to serve. \n\nKnowing that, there were a lot of people, particularly in Vietnam, who tried to avoid service by failing the tests. For example, the [Ishihara test for Colour Blindness](_URL_0_) includes a plate that can be seen by people of any colour blindness, and was used during the draft to find out who was lying to avoid military service. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.dfis.ubi.pt/~hgil/P.V.2/Ishihara/Ishihara.24.Plate.TEST.Book.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "de9svg4" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "When you say \"early pre-Christian pagan England\", are you referring to:\npre-Roman pagan southern Britain (ie BC);\nthe early Roman period in southern Britain (pre-Christian pagan, so maybe the 2nd century AD); \nor the early Anglo-Saxon period prior to Christianisation (so about 500-600AD)?\n\n(Also, I confess I don't at all know what you mean by Teryan)\n\nChecking Wikipedia, I see that the Mists of Avalon is a work of Arthurian fantasy, set during the time of the Saxon invasion. So, then, I'd have thought you'd really want to know how gender-egalitarian post-Roman Christian Britain was, not early pre-Christian pagan England.\n\nRemember that Arthur is a fictional story set in what is essentially a fictional time; very few Arthurian romances portray the period accurately, because the source material (the original Arthur stories) is itself extremely inaccurate (it's portraying a legendary, mythical time, not an accurate picture of late Romano-British culture). \n\nSo, at the time prior to the Saxon invasions, what later became known as England (it was the Anglo-Saxons who named it England), was inhabited by the Romano-Brits; a somewhat Christianised, thoroughly Romanised culture. As Christianisation had been recent, it's quite likely that there were still many pagans; however, they were not the \"Mother Goddess\"-type pagans of Mists of Avalon; they were Roman-style pagans, worshipping gods like Jupiter, Juno, Mercury, Venus, etc (though sometimes with British names; for example, Bath was a city where people worshipped the goddess Minerva/Sulis, using both a Roman and British name).\n\nThat doesn't directly answer your question about gender-egalitarianism. But I want to explain the background.\nArthur is set in a fictionalised, mythical golden age. Many modern works try to set him in a slightly more realistic time, before the Saxon invasions. What they often miss, however (as I think Mists of Avalon does, but then, it is just a work of fiction, it's not trying to be history), is that the pre-Saxon period was the post-Roman period, nearly half a millenia after the Romans had conquered Britain. In some medieval legends, Arthur is related to the Imperial family of Rome.\nSo, it's a mistake to think about gender equality or other cultural sociological phenomonen at this time as being about Brythonic culture, but rather, as being like Roman culture." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ehslnai" ], "score": [ 545 ], "text": [ "LIke many Colloquial things, the etemology of these names is tough to trace because their use is rarely documented very well. \n\nThe etemology of the word bubba has [reportedly](_URL_3_) traced to the german word \"Bube.\" (meaning boy), or a similar sounding Gullah Word [BuhBuh](_URL_0_) meaning brother. - See also [this article](_URL_1_) referencing different Gullah words for Brother, \"Buh\" \"Bruh,\" and other contractions of the term all meaning \"brother,\" and used as a familial term among African American Communities in the Antebellum south. \n\n > Animals in the tales refer to each other as 'brother' in the same manner that slaveholders referred to their chattel as 'family.' On one side, they are indeed 'brothers' and 'family,' for they belong to the same species. On the other hand, certain characteristics, such as race or class, circumvent true kinship. These lessons were not lost on the young. \n\nIt's notable that in many southern Baptist Communities \"Brother\" is still a fairly frequent term used to reference a man who's a member of the community. \"You should go see brother john.\" \n\nGiven the fairly limited German population in the South (Although a non-trivial population of German Catholics settled in the Mississippi Delta in the late 1800's and early 1900's, as well as significant german populations in Texas (per a comment) the Creole interpretation is more likely. And it's a fairly straightforward path as to how it would have gained more widespread use. \n\nAs to \"Skeeter\" - the root word is Mosquito. [Mirriam Webster](_URL_4_) lists the first known use of the word as referencing a mosquito to be 1839. It comes from earlier English origins describing something that is quick and darting (hence it also describing a small boat). Given the presence (or abundance I might say) of mosquitos in much of the South, it's not unusual that it might have some use as a nickname. \n\n\nCletus is trickier. Most sources seem to indicate the name is of greek origin. \" It actually had some popularity as a given name in the late 19th century. I'm unable to find any sources specifically identifying how it *specifically* became associated with rednecks that predate its use on the Simpsons for the Character [Cleetus Spuckler](_URL_2_) who is a stereotypical hillbilly character with his first appearance in 1994. Edit: a comment response did point out that the Dukes of Hazzard (airing 79-85) had a character named Cletus as one of the Sherrif's deputies.\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://gullahtours.com/gullah/gullah-words", "https://ir.library.louisville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2351&context=etd", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cletus_Spuckler", "https://books.google.com/books?id=L70EAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA272&dq=%22bubba%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=z72UVZ7-J9aqyASu3p74Dw&ved=0CFEQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q=%22bubba%22&f=false", "https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skeeter" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cmhtoqh" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I don't know about topography, but the way the game is styled is fairly accurate. Pripyat has been abandoned since the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster, so everything has been left for mother nature to control. But the ferris wheel is actually real and is still in Pripyat and some of the more famous building are also worked into the game \n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_" ] }

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[ "http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/All_Ghillied_Up", "http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/One_Shot,_One_Kill" ]

[ [ "http://unknownworld.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Town-Centre.jpg", "http://media.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/photos/images/2012/nov12/chernobyl_2012_sm/chernobyl_2012_03.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cx7fvoe" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "hi! Do consider x-posting this to /r/vexillology (the flag sub!)" ] }

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[ "https://sites.google.com/site/crawfordsgallery/Ghana-West-Africa-Ashanti-Regimental-Flag" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "cztzdyk" ], "score": [ 70 ], "text": [ "What is a world religion? Roman paganism had millions of adherents, reduced to nothing. Ditto for the so-called mystery religions (besides possibly Christianity) that sprung out of: the cult of Isis, Mithraism, etc. Egyptian religion similarly had millions of adherents and died away. Aztec religion. Name a pre-Christian or Muslim society that had millions of people and, for the most part, the religions they once practiced are gone (the other major proselytizing contemporary religion, Buddhism, was less likely to annihilate pre-contact customs, though did it as well, depending on how you quite deal with religious mixing). \n\nMore importantly, you have Zoroastrianism, which survived on to the present day only with likely only a few hundred thousand people. \n\nNow, this doesn't fully explain which religions survive and which die, but generally, even before the ~~Treaty of Westphalia~~ Peace of Augsburg which coined the term, *cuius regio eius religio*, that is, he who rules, his religion. The Roman Empire, generally, tolerated a wide variety of cults and religions so long as their adherents remained subservient to the Emperor and partook the imperial cult in addition to whatever other practices they subscribed to.\n\nChristianity was very different, and generally only allowed Judaism in its territory until after the Enlightenment. Islam similarly only allowed Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. \n\nWithout either official support or a special recognized legal status and a loyal, ethnicized community, most religions falter. Manichaneanism reached China, for example, but like the early [Christian](_URL_3_) and [Jewish](_URL_1_) communities of China, which essentially disappeared (there is a small remnant which claims descent from the Jewish community in Kaifeng, but the community seems to have been permanently disrupted in the 19th century). The indigenous [ethnic Chinese Muslim community](_URL_0_) thrived, its survival likely due in part to the fact that it didn't end up isolated like the Jews and Christians. Religious communities can survive surprisingly long periods of isolation and persecution (see, for example, the Japanese [Kirishitans](_URL_2_)), but not forever. The Kaifeng Jews (Jews, with their strict bans on intermarriage, strong international ties, distinct identity, written tradition, and dietary laws the prevented too much socialization across community lines, have tended to have faired better in diaspora and out of power than most groups) are a good example: even by the 16th century when Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci is in contact with them, they complain that their isolation has left them with a lack of learning. We have Manichean documents going at least into the 11th and 12th centuries. Not bad for a millennium out of power as a universalist religion (another difference from the Jews, whose claims of spiritual chosenness were not as harmed by their obvious small numbers). " ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hui_people", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng_Jews", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirishitan", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_East_in_China" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c9drqpb" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ " > Was it just the growth in supply of gold?\n\nThat was a big part of it. You had gold strikes in California, the Yukon, South Africa, Colorado, Australia, and so on, all increasing the money supply.\n\nAnother big part was the growth in the private creation of paper money by [commercial banks](_URL_0_), as well as by the circulation of bills of exchange (essentially checks that were endorsed from hand to hand, sometimes dozens of times, sometimes crossing oceans, so a little bit of \"real\" money created a lot of paper money). \n\nYou also had periodic crashes when, essentially, the money supply would run out; the decision to maintain a gold standard was by no means without casualties. \n\nSo the British (and most of the rest of the world) maintained the value of their currency in part simply because they decided to--they chose enduring brutal depressions on a regular basis rather than printing money when it was needed." ] }

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