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{ "a_id": [ "dzelxzs" ], "score": [ 17 ], "text": [ "You may be interested in u/yodatsracist's recent 4-part answer to [I saw an article today claiming that the \"missionary\" position derives its name from Native Americans/Africans who saw missionaries having sex. How true is this?](_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/857tu7/i_saw_an_article_today_claiming_that_the/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dorv2o1" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "We've allowed this post, but you're unlikely to get a thorough answer. Questions like \"were life conditions good?\" and \"were people happy?\" are not really answerable: some people had a high standard of living and some did not; some people were happy most of the time and some were desperately unhappy, with every nuance in between. People in good circumstances had personal setbacks that made them unhappy, and people in desperate circumstances had times of joy.\n\nI would recommend that you pose your more concrete questions to the sub separately:\n\n*What sort of art was being produced in England around 1910? What decorative arts movements were relevant?*\n\n*How was garbage and sewage collected in early twentieth century England?*\n\n*How common was electricity in England in 1910? When did \"ordinary people\" start to have access to it?*\n\nFor the overall view of the period, I think you will find *Edwardian England: A Guide to Everyday Life, 1900-1914*, by Evangeline Holland, useful. It seems to be a well-researched guide to politics and popular culture, and may help you get more specific questions to ask. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "eog0s4y", "eog1ybh" ], "score": [ 4, 7 ], "text": [ "One piece of the puzzle was ammunition design. Until the introduction of bullets like the Minie Ball, loading a rifled musket was a difficult, time-consuming endeavor. With the round ball that was standard for ammunition at the time, the ball was close to the same size as the bore, with wadding used to provide a tighter seal and help hold the ball in the gun until fired. Unfortunately, for rifling to work, it needs a tighter fit between bore and ball to allow for the rifling to engage the ball effectively. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nModern rifling gives some idea of how tight you need the seal to be for the best effect. American 30-06 M2 Ball of WW1 vintage had bullets 0.3086 inches in diameter. Standard bores, however, were .300 inches in diameter, while the rifling grooves were about 0.005 inches deep. The result is that the bullet ends up being formed to the rifling, and on fired bullets the imprint of the rifling is generally very clear on the bullet.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nGoing back to muzzle-loaders, the problem becomes pretty apparent. Rifled muskets pre-Minie Ball didn't have as tight a fit to the bore as modern rifles, but they still used a significantly tighter fit than a standard smoothbore and thus became significantly more difficult to load. That translated to slower rates of fire and ultimately resulted in something that was found to be unsatisfactory for standard line infantry.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThat's where the Minie Ball comes in. The Minie Ball and systems like it made muzzle-loading rifles practical by being small enough to fit down the bore easily like on a smoothbore and expanding upon firing to engage the rifling. For the Minie Ball, this was accomplished by a cavity in the back of the bullet that would be forced outwards by the pressure of the expanding gases. Though not perfect by modern standards, it finally provided armies with a bullet that could be loaded as easily as an old smoothbore musket but work well with rifling. These new types of ammunition also afforded some other beneficial side effects, including higher velocities (thanks to a better gas seal) and longer effective ranges thanks to not only the use of rifling, but their more aerodynamic shape. These types of ammunition were developed in the 1830s and 1840s, and relatively soon afterwards is when we see armies all over the world adopting rifled muskets like the Pattern 1853 Enfield and Springfield Model 1855.", "Rifles achieved their increased accuracy by taking a small lead ball (the bullet) and wrapping it in a wad of cloth (usually felt). The felt wad would then grip the spiral grooves of the bore which would in turn \"spin\" the bullet as it traveled down the barrel, this spin stabilized the ball as it traveled through the air toward its target leading to an increase in accuracy. The increased accuracy of the rifle was an obvious advantage, but not without its consequences. These rifles were more costly to produce and a smaller number could be made owing to the need for specially trained gunsmiths to manufacturer them; tens of thousands of the famous Pennsylvania (Kentucky) long rifle were made, but in that same time millions of the standard \"Brown Bess\" musket were produced. Second, for a rifle to be effectively employed required specialized training and experience in handling and using the rifle, this was not a weapon for the common infantry man. The rifle was the weapon of choice for hunters, sharpshooters, and Jägers. The rifle holds a special place in the American psyche because it was the weapon for the individual, not the closed ranks of most military formations. There is also the issue of the rifles battlefield performance, trained rifleman could get off roughly two shots (optimistically) in the time it took a man armed with a musket to fire three shots. In close range fighting between lines of infantry volume of fire is more important than individual accuracy. A rifleman would spend considerable time just trying to back the tightly wrapped lead ball into the barrel of his rifle, often times relying on a small mallet to drive it in. Rifles also commonly lacked a bayonet plug on the end of the barrel which would be used to affix...a bayonet. In hand to hand fighting or in repelling cavalry the advantages afforded by the reach of a bayonet and its use by closed formation of infantry was considerable. And over time after repeated firing in battle gunpowder residue would build up in the barrel reducing the accuracy of the rifle until it was cleaned, not something you want to do in the middle of a firefight.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nRifles were not exclusive to the American continent, the Austrians had introduced the Girandoni air rifle in 1780, the Germans had their famous Jäger light infantry, and the British had introduced the Baker rifle in 1800. The Girandoni air rifle was expensive and somewhat difficult to use while the Baker rifle solved many of the problems associated with muzzle loading rifles, it was still only produced in small number owing and used by specially trained soldiers. What was needed was a weapon that could be manufactured cheaply and in great numbers and was easy enough to use that even a common infantry man could do it. Something that often goes overlooked is the issue of battlefield command and control. You'll notice that previously rifles were almost exclusively used by specialist military units (riflemen, sharpshooters, light infantry, etc.) Men were selected for these units because of their technical skills, physical stamina, and self reliance. Light infantry ere expected to operate in rough terrain over great distances away from the main body of the army. But when battle was joined between two armies it would take thousands of officers and non-commissioned officers to effectively maneuver tens or hundreds of thousands of men in tight formations, (individualists need not apply). The battlefield was a chaotic and smokey arena, its why soldiers wore such brightly colored and distinct uniforms. It was hard enough to see what you were firing it or who was firing at you, and near impossible to even see individual targets. The infantry regiment was simplest and easiest method of commanding a few hundred men to move together and ideally all fire at the same target at the same time. Their volume and weight of fire as a massed formation was what gave the infantry their killing punch.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nHowever, the landscape of infantry combat changed dramatically in 1847, the year French officers Claude-Étienne Minié and Henri-Gustave Delvigne introduced their conical-cylindrical bullet with a hollow base, hence known as the \"Minié ball\". Compared to earlier rifle technology the Minié ball was revolutionary for both its ease of use and economics. The Minié ball would be loaded into the muzzle of a rifle base first (pointy end up) and when fired the rapidly expanding and super heated gasses of the powder charge would fill and expand the base of the Minié ball allowing it to then grip the grooves the rifling. Minié balls were easy and cheap to manufacture in tremendous numbers, they were simply cast lead. The industrial revolution increasingly made the manufacturing of rifles cheap and easy, and even muskets were converted into rifles by milling grooves into their barrels. The Minié ball was also easy to use for even the common infantry soldier, it could be loaded into the muzzle of his rifle and rammed down the barrel in much the same way a musket would be loaded." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d1o9ysp", "d1offbk", "d1oofas", "d1owf0s" ], "score": [ 116, 55, 51, 350 ], "text": [ "To ask a follow up question if I may - why was he constitutionally allowed to run for a third term and then a fourth? \nEDIT: Thanks for the replies - question answered.", "Follow up question - How much did WWII play in the decision to run, if any?", "Follow-up question: What was the political sentiment when the amendment was first introduced? How did Congress know that there was political will to pass it when America has just re-elected FDR?", "Roosevelt’s decision to run for a third term was heavily influenced by the foreign affairs of the time re: Germany and the struggle of the British to defend and fight back. The national sentiment towards isolationism, especially among politicians, ultimately convinced Roosevelt to seek a third term. He viewed this less as a political coup and more as a necessity to prepare the nation for war. \n\nIf anything, the Democratic Party was happy he chose to run due to Wilkie’s popularity (the Republican nominee) at the time.\n“When the delegates to the DNC convened in Chicago on July 15, 1940, there was no serious doubt he (Roosevelt) would accept the renomination.” \n\nThat’s not to say the the whole of the Democratic party rallied right away around Roosevelt. Roosevelt did not attend the convention and preferred to have his associates Perkins, Hopkins, and Ickes take care of things in Chicago. Roosevelt did not want to come out right away and declare that he wanted to nomination, so he literally played a game of telephone with Kentucky Senator Barkley, an old-timer who had a penchant for delivering emotional keynote addresses that brought the people to a frenzy. He too gave a keynote in 1940 ending with a personal note from Roosevelt: “The President has never had, and has not today, any desire or purpose to continue in the office of President, to be a candidate for that office, or to be nominated by the convention for that office. He wishes in earnestness and sincerity to make it clear that all of the delegates in this convention are free to vote for any candidate.”\n\nI’ll quote directly from FDR here: “The vast crowd in Chicago Stadium was speechless for a moment. What did Roosevelt mean? The statement said neither yes nor no. Five, ten, fifteen seconds, and then bedlam broke loose. From loudspeakers all over convention hall a powerful voice boomed out “WE WANT ROOSEVELT. WE WANT ROOSEVELT,” over and over. \n\nRoosevelt did not really want to run for a fourth term unless the war was still going on - as he was in terrible health. That being said he made his intentions clear early on this time around: “he put his cards on the table early. In a message to party chairman Robert E. Hannegan well over a week before the delegates would assemble, the president said that although he did not wish to run, his duty compelled him to do so. ‘Reluctantly, but as a good soldier, I will accept and serve in this office, if I am ordered to do so by the Commander In Chief of us all - the sovereign people of the United States.” \n\nHe won renomination on the first ballot.\n\nAll info taken from Jean Edward Smith’s fantastic “[FDR](_URL_0_)” \n" ] }

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[ [], [], [], [ "https://www.worldcat.org/title/fdr/oclc/71350593&referer=brief_results" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cj8cfcf" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "No. The Union Jack has only ever had a red cross (from the flag of England) and a blue background (from the flag of Scotland). Whoever coloured this image made an error. And whoever drew it too, for that matter. The British flag being lowered seems to be an illustration of the *current* Union Jack, which was adopted in 1801 after the Union with Ireland. In 1783 it would have looked [like this](_URL_0_)." ] }

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[ "http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk250/josmndsn/evacuationofnewyorkbythebritish.jpg", "http://home.roadrunner.com/~montghistory/VanArsdale112008.pdf" ]

[ [ "http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/g/gb-1606.gif" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cpmavxy" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "[Here's a previous thread](_URL_0_) with a response by /u/zuzahin that goes in-depth into Arnold's story and motivations." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1u8mvr/what_is_the_truth_regarding_benedict_arnold_why/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "coaihzn", "coaiv8v", "coal148" ], "score": [ 6, 7, 53 ], "text": [ "hi! you may be interested in these posts\n\n* [how commonly known would the story of the Iliad, have been in the second century BC classical world?](_URL_3_)\n\n* [How well known would the stories in the Odyssey have been to the average Greek citizen at the highest point of its popularity?](_URL_2_)\n\n* [How influential were Homer's works The Iliad and The Odyssey throughout history and how would the world be different if those stories never existed?](_URL_1_)\n\n* [Are the Iliad/Odyssey and the Epic of Gilgamesh famous for still existing or were they the best of their age?](_URL_4_)\n\nof possible tangential interest\n\n* [Did the ancient Greeks view Homer's Iliad and Odyssey as fact? How historical are these two works?](_URL_0_)\n\n* [Were stories such as The Iliad and The Odyssey considered religious \"text\" in ancient Greece?](_URL_5_)", "For these works to have survived for so long, it must be assumed that they were popular, but in a different sense than you might think. To understand their popularity we have to note two things: First that it is accepted that these works were originally told orally, and were later written down into more or less the form we have today. Second is that for the works to survive to today they must have been written down several times in several places. \n\nThe First Part: This is called Oral-formulaic Composition and was first noted by Milman Parry and Albert Lord in what would later be called the Parry-Lord Theory. This theory essentially stated that epics were NOT originally written down, but instead passed down through oral tradition, particularly through bards. These bards remembered the key plot points of the stories (e.g. Achilles killing hector, or Patroclus' aristeia), and then filled in the rest of the details as they sang. If you read certain translations of the works, you will notice how they could do this. Things like \"swift-footed Achilles\" or \"Enduring Odysseus\" are repeated often and are examples of how the bards might sing the song while maintaining meter and reminding the audience of what the characters were like. This is just an example of the legacy of the oral tradition remaining in Homer's work.\n\nTypically the bard would sing these songs over the course of a few days. You will notice the Iliad is 24 books long, with climactic moments in the 8th and 16th book (The Trojans pushing back, and the death of Patroclus) which would suggest the story was told over three days, so that people would be excited to return the next day, making the bard more money.\n\nNow *what does this mean?* There were likely many tales sung by bards before writing even existed. For these two tales to be chosen to be written down is significant in itself. Ancient writing took a long, they didn't have the printing press or any other machine to mass produce these works, so they must have been important for anyone to even bother writing them down. On top of this, the fact that they survived until today (or the Renaissance to be exact) is even more significant. \n\nIn short, a huge amount of the written works of the world were lost from the time these stories were first written (~760 B.C.) until today. So for us to have essentially complete editions of these works, on top of the fact that they wrote them down at all, is incredibly significant, and would indicate their popularity to the Greeks and the scholars who followed them (of every age). \n\nThis is my first post here, and a lot of this comes from my own knowledge through classes, I included a few sources but if you would like more let me know. \n\nEdits for grammar.\n\n-------\nSources:\nA summary of the original work: Parry, Adam (editor) (1971), The making of Homeric verse. The collected papers of Milman Parry, Oxford: Clarendon Press\n\nA more recent analysis of the Oral Tradition:\n_URL_0_\n\nAlso a former professor of mine was the son of Albert Lord, I took two classes from him, one on epics, and one on Tolkien.\n", "The Homeric poems seem to have been composed in the early-to-mid-7th century BCE, ca. 670-650 in the case of the *Iliad*, but though the stories of the Trojan War and of Odysseus' return were popular throughout the Greek and Etruscan worlds from a very early date, the poems themselves seem to have had only limited dissemination for the first 100-150 years of their existence. From about 550-520 BCE onwards, they experienced a meteoric rise in popularity, and they have never lost that popularity since.\n\nWe first hear of Homer in a historical context in Sikyon, ca. 570 BCE, when the local king allegedly banned performances of Homer because his poetry praised his rivals the Argives. However, that story only makes sense if we understand it as talking about the lost *Thebaid*, not the two epics that have actually survived. An even more doubtful reference tells us that the 7th century BCE poet Kallinos attributed the *Thebaid* to Homer. These stories are the only references to Homer or to Homeric poetry that we can be confident of prior to 550 BCE: we have no evidence of anyone knowing the *Iliad* and *Odyssey* at all.^1\n\nAfter 550, everything changes. Previously, vase-paintings of Trojan War scenes used material from throughout the legend of the war; after 550 there is a sudden, very sharp increase in popularity of scenes relating to the *Iliad*, and by the early 400s it's possible to see direct influence from the *Iliad* in the pictorial tradition. Stesichoros, Herakleitos, the *Hymn to Apollo*, and Simonides making explicit references to Homer or \"the man from Chios\". Theagenes of Rhegion writes the first piece of scholarship on Homer, giving an allegorical interpretation of the gods. A fairly compelling argument has been made that the *Iliad* was first popularised at the Panathenaia of 523/522 BCE; the argument is conjectural in parts, but we do have good evidence that Homer wasn't performed in Syracuse until 504, so it's certainly not implausible. And finally, any kind of fixation of the Homeric epics in writing relies on writing having a particular cultural function, and Jesper Svenbro has shown from epigraphic evidence that it was only ca. 540 that written texts began to acquire the function of *reproducing* an utterance, as opposed to *being* an utterance (that is: earlier inscriptions refer to the inscribed object as \"I\", or address the reader as \"you\"; writing was supposed to be an utterance that made sense at the moment of reading, not an archive of an old utterance).\n\nWhat seems to have happened is that up to this point, the *Iliad* and *Odyssey* were transmitted orally in a poetic tradition on Chios, as the heritage of a group of poets there who were called (or who called themselves) the *Homeridai*, \"sons of Homer\". This appears to be why Simonides and the *Hymn to Apollo* treat \"Homer\" as Chian. The name \"Homer\" itself was a marker of a poetic heritage; whether or not a real man of that name had ever existed, that was the meaning it had for people of the 6th century BCE -- a label for a body of poetry linked by the affiliation of the poets who created it: the *Iliad* and *Odyssey*, but also the *Thebaid*, the *Epigonoi*, the *Hymn to Apollo*, the *Margites*, and other pieces. Similar heritage labels emerged elsewhere, under the names of \"Orpheus\", \"Mousaios\", \"Hesiod\", and possibly others (I suspect Sappho and Solon should also be regarded more as heritage labels than as historical individuals, even if those individuals actually existed).\n\nAfter 550-520, the *Iliad* and *Odyssey* were both treated as classics, memorised by the elite, recited at aristocratic parties, performed in major civic competitions, imitated and excerpted by other poets, quoted by philosophers, and studied by scholars. From 520 BCE up to the present, their status as the preeminent classics of Greek literature has been unchallenged. In western Europe they were much less read in the period ca. 300 CE-1500 CE, but before and after that date-range they have also reigned there as the key foundational works of Western literature.\n\n---\n\n**Note** \n^(1)There are several other pre-550 BCE references that have been *interpreted as* references to Homer, or as quotations, but since the nature of Homeric poetry and the mythical content of the poems is in every way traditional, it is more parsimonious to interpret these as cognate with Iliadic/Odyssean material, rather than derived from Iliadic/Odyssean material. These references are: (1) \"Nestor's cup\", ca. 730 BCE; (2) Tyrtaios fr. 10.21-30 West; (3) Alkman fr. 80 Page; (4) Mimnermos fr. 2.1-4, fr. 14.1-3; (5) Mousaios fr. 5 D-K; (6) Alkaios fr. 44 and fr. 395; (7) the Hesiodic *Shield* as a supposed imitation of *Iliad* 18; (8) knowledge of the *Iliad* attributed to Solon (Plutarch *Solon* 10, Strabo 9.1.10)." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1kldhj/did_the_ancient_greeks_view_homers_iliad_and/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1izjt7/how_influential_were_homers_works_the_iliad_and/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2exov4/how_well_known_would_the_stories_in_the_odyssey/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12nwt4/how_commonly_known_would_the_story_of_the_iliad/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/xsa8l/are_the_iliadodyssey_and_the_epic_of_gilgamesh/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24ed54/were_stories_such_as_the_iliad_and_the_odyssey/" ], [ "http://www.yale.edu/heyzeus/spring2004/zeus_sarah_price.pdf" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6n9de7", "c6n9k40", "c6na18e", "c6na81n" ], "score": [ 3, 8, 3, 6 ], "text": [ "That sort of thing is difficult to measure.\n\nChivalry may have more of a literary basis. The chivalric code appears in stories like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or in El Cid, but in actual battle field scenarios, finding evidence of chivalry can prove more difficult. The simple fact is that in medieval warfare, peasants and noncombatants were almost always caught up in the fighting. In sieges, if peasants weren't kept out to begin with, they could expect no quarter. Women would be raped and murdered. In warfare, peasants could be expected to be robbed of their livestock or wealth (such as it was). Nobles somehow captured in battle could potentially be imprisoned and ransomed, sometimes.\n\nAnd we're talking Christians against Christians at this point. The situation gets even more dire when one considers Christian interaction with Jews, Muslims, or pagans.\n\nChivalry could also motivate toward violence. Chivalric competition among French knights leading up to the Battle of Agincourt propelled them to outdo one another in the field, to commit even more lunatic acts (being a blind man and riding into battle, for instance) in the name of courage and, yes, chivalry.\n\nWas chivalry initially intended to prevent violence, somehow? No, probably not. And if it was, it didn't do a very good job of it.\n\nHope this helped.", "A partial answer: a part of the idea of 'chivalry' in western Europe came from the [Peace and Truce of God](_URL_0_) a movement traced to the tenth century that resulted in quite a few proclamations by both religious and secular leaders. It was an attempt to govern internal violence, setting aside days of the year on which war could not be fought and people against which violence could not be committed. ", "Much of the chivalric code, isn't particularly chivalrous in the modern sense. For example, while the lady of your liege lord was to be treated with deference and respect, the lady of an enemy lord could expect to be raped and murdered if captured.\n\nThe code legitimised much of the violence of the warrior class rather than constraining it.", "See my response to BarbarianKing for some critiques of his answer.\n\n It is fundamentally important to remember how complicated a) people and b) social systems can be. The Middle Ages is not a neat or a clean period (frankly none is). \n\nChivalry is, at its heart, a system of conduct meant to regulate interactions between the elites. It simultaneously glorifies the martial aspects which are fundamental to the aristocrats of the period and sets limits and strictures on them.\n\nWhere things get tricky is that there is no *set* rule-book, no system of formal arbitration and, frankly, no consensus. This is not a system that a person or a group of people set down logically. It is an organic system that evolves over time, responding to and shaping the ways in which people think and act. \n \nWhat we can see, however, is that the 10th and 11th centuries are a period where violence is largely unregulated in Europe, and there is *intense* anxiety about it. Whether the actual levels of violence are higher is a debate that is still raging among medievalists. But either way *feelings* about violence (as expressed in charters, sermons, literature, history etc.) all indicate how worrisome it was.\n\nWe see, as the 11th century moves on and the 12th begins the development of a whole series of social constructs and systems which in many different ways work to allay that anxiety, either practically or mentally. Both the crusades and chivalry function as release valves and channels for aristocratic violence.\n\nalfonsoelsabio mentioned the Peace and Truce of God below (which I've also mentioned elsewhere). This is another, earlier, example of attempts to regulate and channel violence. So too are attempts to end feud and curb private justice which are so prevalent in the judicial and governmental reforms of monarchies n the High Middle Ages.\n\nBut what you have to remember is that none of these actions are being undertaken with a clear, conscious rational. They are responses to societal pressures and concerns. No one is sitting in a board room saying 'there is too much violence, how can we mitigate it?'.\n\nFinally I should make it clear that there is literally nothing weird or contradictory about a system or a culture that simultaneously extols violence and peace. We live in one now. We market video games that let you play the soldier while simultaneously suspending children for playing with pretend guns in the school yard. Societies are not neat nor are they one tone.\n\n" ] }

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

{ "a_id": [ "dhmbs6g" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Politics, plain and simple.\n\nUntil the end of his life Sen. Edward Kennedy said his greatest regret during his political career was turning down President Nixon's deal on healthcare.\n\n[This column] (_URL_1_) from 2009 and [this one] (_URL_0_) from 2012 do a good job explaining the plan and the dynamics of the 1970s that caused it to fail.\n\nThe plan was not true universal healthcare, but it would have been a step towards universal coverage and possibly single payer.\n\nWhat failure to make a deal came down to was interest groups lobbying Congress and throwing their electoral weight around. Once elections were on the line, elected officials chose not to risk those groups support next election.\n\nI think those two columns only touch on, but do not really emphasize Ted Kennedy's prominence during these years. JFK was assassinated in 1963 and RFK in 1968, Ted Kennedy was the heir to the Kennedy political dynasty and heir to the party's Presidential nomination. Despite not being his party's official Senate leader, as the favorite for the nomination in 1972 he was in many ways the de facto party leader.\n\nIf Ted Kennedy agreed to a deal he would have brought with him Democratic votes in the House and Senate. Once Kennedy turned down the deal due to lack of union support there was nobody in a position to pickup negotiations. Unions made up a significant portion of Democratic voters and donors and no Democrat around 1970 would want to put that at risk, especially after it caused Kennedy to step away from the deal." ] }

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[ [ "http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/06/22/stockman/bvg57mguQxOVpZMmB1Mg2N/story.html", "http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082703919.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "da2920r", "da2ceih" ], "score": [ 12, 4 ], "text": [ "I would suggest finding a period Sears Roebuck catalogue. Sears Roebuck was the Amazon of its day, and sold everything from clothing to medicines to firearms by mail-order.", "This is something that should be simple but incredibly difficult. Store records and sales logs are one of the more common preserved records in local historical society archives. Long-operating stores usually kept records of what they bought or sold, but afaik, there's no central database of these. You'd have to do a lot of footwork to dig through primary sources and construct a database. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cnt942l" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "These are some interesting but commonly found banknotes.\n\nFrom top to bottom, left to right:\n\n10 000 German Mark, 1920's Weimar Republic/Germany.\n\n1 Pound - Japanese Occupation Currency for Oceania.\n\n10 Pesos - Japanese Occupation Currency for the Philippines.\n\n5 Pesos - Japanese Occupation Currency for the Philippines.\n\n1/2 Schilling - Japanese Occupation Currency for Oceania.\n\n5 French Francs - Wartime issue.\n\n1 Peso - Japanese Occupation Currency for the Philippines.\n\n10 Francs - Allied Military Currency.\n\n2 Francs - Allied Military Currency." ] }

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[ "http://imgur.com/gallery/7RK1z/new" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "cqc5318" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "The Soviets implemented a \"scorched earth\" policy designed to deprive the occupying Germans of anything and everything they might use to sustain themselves. This included burning down all usable buildings and their contents, killing any livestock that could not be brought east, poisoning wells and food, destroying machinery, burning oil fields and crops, ect. From what I understand although the Germans were not properly clothed for winter, once this problem became strikingly apparent this was attempted to be remedied by salvaging Russian clothes like you said, military issued winter wear, but also through clothing drives back home, where German families would send winter clothes and blankets to those deployed. However and getting back to \"scorched earth\", no matter how many pairs of socks or coats you have you need more then that to survive a long Russian winter of living, traveling, and fighting outside. You need shelter, downtime to rest (sweating can kill you), warm food, dry clothes to change into (harder to salvage), oils to keep your weapons and machines from seizing up in the cold (as well as spare parts), and most importantly fuel. This last bit was most scarce, with Panzer divisions and units of mechanized infantry running out of fuel throughout the campaign, and a reason why it was imperative for the Germans to strike south and capture the Baku oilfields in the Caucuses. This obviously did not happen, as the advance was stopped at Stalingrad.\n\nWhile it might have been theoretically possible to supply the troops with all these necessities, the Germans treated occupied populations as sub-humans. This deprived them of potential assistance (Soviet occupied people like the Ukrainians initially welcomed the Germans as liberators, but soon turned against them for obvious reasons) and created (along with the rapid German advance that left behind many Red Army units) partisan resistance that harried the rear and made supply, rest, and downtime from the front, very difficult. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "etlkols", "etlpcd2" ], "score": [ 111, 21 ], "text": [ "In Thomas Jefferson's letter to Lafayette in 1791, he wrote about the American, French, and Haitian revolutions. He praised the French for \"exterminating the monster aristocracy, & pulling out the teeth & fangs of it’s associate monarchy.\" However it is clear that he does not see the plight of the Haitians in the same light:\n\n > what are you doing for your colonies? they will be lost if\nnot more effectually succoured. indeed no future efforts you can make will ever be able to reduce the blacks. all that can be done in my opinion will be to compound with them as has been done formerly in Jamaica. we have been less zealous in aiding them, lest your government should feel their restoration, and their connection with you, as you do yourselves.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)\n\nHere Jefferson speaks of the need for the French to placate and control the Haitians. He alludes to the peace treaties of the Jamaican First Maroon War, where the British offered a level of self governance to the rebelling slaves.\n\nAs president, Jefferson attempted to economically isolate the new, black-led Haitian government. This was in part an attempt to discourage similar rebellions in the American South, and calm the fears of slave-owners. (Jefferson and the Nonrecognition of Haiti, Matthewson)", "I'm not a specialist in either American history, or Haitian History, but I've read [this](_URL_0_) book on the subject, called *Le Spectre de la Révolution Noire: L'impact de la Révolution Haitiene dans le monde atlantique* by Alejandro Gomez. The focus of this book is to address the répercussions of the Haitian revolution in the Caribbean; mainly in southern United States, Cuba, Venezuela and Jamaica. These repercussions varies from the initials notices of the revolution, to the creation of a significance on the revolution, to the usage of the revolution on political debate.\n\nWell, firstly, what are the main ideas, in the class that Jefferson belongs, about the revolution that I can give to guide you? Those are 3: The fear of revolutionary ideas (Jacobins); Racism ; and combining the two, the fear of the black Jacobins to bring violence to the beloved colonies. On the last subject, there was fear of uprising of black slaves on American colonies even before the haitian revolution, the revolution only made it worse.\n\nNow, to your question, the author uses some Thomas Jefferson letters as documents for his book on the southern United States, and that is what I can answer. He mainly saw it as a consequence to the most radical ideas of the French revolution, and said ideas would come like wind to America. Also, he hoped that it's passage on the USA wouldn't be violent. Because that's his view on the Haitian revolution, **violence**. He thought that the revolution had a bad interpretation on the rights of men, in a violent way.\n\nHe also thought that blacks and whites couldn't live together due to the prejudices of the whites and the \"grudge\" of the blacks, one would like the other. That's why he had the idea of sending away black people to Africa, they couldn't be in America. A utopia of the white nation. Then, Haiti could be an option to send black people away.\n\nIn another document, in 179, it is also noted that he feared that Haiti would become a land of pirates, an \"American Alger\".\n\nSince the book isn't about Jefferson, I can only give some very general lines on what he thought, based on the thesis and arguments of the author, that I also presented very generally. I hope I could grive you some guidelines to your question, if it's not clear I can try to give a more detailed response *on the subjects of book.* \n\nEdit to provide the link." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/T-08063.pdf" ], [ "https://books.openedition.org/pur/43694" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cpvdily" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Short version: because traditional characters, while they make more sense while learning them, are a pain in the ass to write and look very intimidating. The stated benefit was that more people would become literate, which happened (for various reasons)\n\nLonger version deals with Mao's apparent desire to replicate the First Emperor, revolutionary doctrine saying out with the old, and just general \"uplifting the workers\" themes in Communism. The benefits of switching to simplified can be seen by comparing the character 认, \"to know\" with its traditional counterpart, which I can't write on mobile." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c9mrql1", "c9nfti9" ], "score": [ 5, 2 ], "text": [ "Not a professional historian, but I have read much on this on my own. Really the question here is fundamentally about the purpose of representational art.\n\nIn many cultures, paintings were not meant to be interpreted at face value, but rather as symbols. Anatomy is rather irrelevant when a culture simply uses painting as a tool to narrate a story or glorify a particular religion.\n\nI'll give one example. It's pretty clear the ancient Egyptians were perfectly capable of creating naturalistic depictions of human beings, just look at this [bust of Nefertiti](_URL_0_). But the relief sculptures/paintings that come to mind when one thinks of \"Ancient Egyptian art\" have nothing to do with naturalism and everything to do with symbolism. There is a complex language of artistic rules there that speaks to their mythological narratives, which requires a basic understanding of their culture to interpret. European romanesque and gothic painting can be explained in a similar way. Outside of the western historical tradition, just look up Mughal or Edo-period Japanese paintings for further examples of stylistic symbolism over naturalism.\n\n(Of course, the Renaissance artists, Mannerists, Neo-Classicists etc were heavy on symbolism as well, symbolism and naturalism aren't mutually exclusive.)\n\nSo it's not so much a question of whether certain cultures *could* create art with naturalistic anatomy or not, but rather the question is what purpose did painting serve in different cultures, and why?", "*I'm not an art historian.*\n\nSomething that bothers me about these answers is that the development of sculpture is independent of the development of painting. There's no reason to think the Greeks or Romans could paint realistically just because they could sculpt realistically. To claim painting would have been realistic if it wasn't so symbolic is a bit pat. Techniques for realistic painting took centuries to develop. \n\n* There's no reason to think Fra Angelico would not have liked to paint in a more realistic style, and some evidence that he did. For example, his San Marco Annunciation of 1450 features improved perspective over his more famous Cortona Annunciation of 1433. The San Marco Annunciation indeed features less symbolic elements, but I find it hard to take that as an *explanation* for the improvement in perspective.\n\n* The Miraflores Altarpiece c 1435 of Van der Weyden looks like a 3D version of a perspective-less painting of the Middle ages. The figures feel planted upon the same dioramic stage, yet shadow rounds their features, and architectural perspective gives realistic depth to the background.\n\n* The Flagellation c. 1450-1460 of della Francesca features more depth of figures, with a group appearing larger and closer to the viewer, and another smaller group appearing further away. But the perspectival powers of della Francesca is not that of Van der Weyden, and the columns feel all wrong. \n\n* Botticelli's The Birth of Venus c. 1485 is clearly cartoonish, even though it attempts to represent realistic figures. And this is true of everything he painted. Was it a choice? I don't think so. There is no variation in this fundamental fact. See Titan's painting of the same for contrast.\n\n* Bosch managed to paint somewhat realistic figures. See his The Crowning of Thorns c. 1490-1510. Yet his Christ Carrying the Cross c. 1510-1516 features grotesque figures. This must be explained by his obsession with grotesques and not his ability. Yet scenes featuring numerous bodies do always feel simplistic and flat. And this may be due to his inability to overcome past representations. I'm not aware of any full figure realism in Bosch.\n\n* Compare to Bronzino's Venus Disarming Cupid c. 1545 which clearly shows mastery of shadows to produce three dimensional human figures. All of his work leads up to this or features it. I see no regression to flat figures for the sake of symbolic expression.\n\nNone of this proves anything, but \n\n1. if you look at the style of each individual painter, you'll notice they do not vary their work especially depending on how symbolic it is. Instead, you get the distinct feeling that all of these artists are trying as best they can to present realistic figures, with the possible exception of Bosch. \n\n2. there is a definite feeling of advancement over time from flat perspective-less representations to full figuration featuring control over perspective. \n\nSo it is quite possible, especially if the extant Ancient paintings are crude, that painting never attained to the level of sculpture in its realism or anatomical correctness, perhaps for lack of proper materials, or lack of sustained cultural or institutional interest in painting. Realism in painting isn't something that just falls off the brush.\n\nEdit: There is one reason to think the Ancients could draw anatomically: anatomically correct sculpture followed anatomically correct painting during the Renaissance. It suggests the ability to see figure in sculpture is somehow related to the ability to see it in painting. However, in a culture that began with monumental sculpture and gradually humanized it, painting might still be a superfluous addition, rather than a point of origin. But the reliefs of the Elgan Marbles suggest a graphic intention. Flatness there is nearing that of paper... I still think it's quite plausible ancient painting was just not an important craft. There was, to my knowledge, never a period of realistic portraiture on Greek pottery. Byzantine portraiture (and icons) are well known for being cartoonish and not realistic. Shall we explain its anatomical simplicity by way of style or regression or simply the absence of sufficient art? I choose the latter.\n\nEdit: \n\n > Is this why painting such as the Mona Lisa are so profound?\n\nThe Mona Lisa apparently only became world famous once it was stolen in the early 20th century." ] }

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[ "http://www.art-prints-on-demand.com/kunst/anonymous/statue_hercules_hi.jpg", "http://www.theoi.com/image/K9.6Ares.jpg", "http://i.imgur.com/DQCOvBx.jpg", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Follower_of_Jheronimus_Bosch_Christ_in_Limbo.jpg" ]

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

{ "a_id": [ "c6iuopn" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Money, prestige, and the struggle for dominance over rival nations. The usual suspects.\n\nIt started with Portuguese attempts to corner the spice trade to and from the East Indies by getting ships around Africa (to circumvent the Ottoman control of the ancient overland routes), which was made more complicated by the fact that their instruments didn't work well as one approached the equator. In any event, since one voyage could at times result in a profit of 400% or more, this dangerous effort was more than worthwhile.\n\nAlso, it wasn't just Europeans. China sent out large fleets to explore Asia and East Africa as well. This stopped when a later emperor decided to end the expeditions. As a unified state, they could do that. If a European king chose to end such efforts, all that would mean is that one of the neighbours would eventually take up the challenge instead. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c4etkgw", "c4eu71n", "c4euhn8", "c4eurew", "c4euzn2", "c4ew1ua", "c4ewqib", "c4exsya", "c4f0k3e", "c4f12l7", "c4f2vcz", "c4fq1l6" ], "score": [ 2, 21, 4, 4, 20, 10, 6, 5, 7, 3, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "I guess pompeii might be one, but did that really alter the course of history by a large degree?", "The [Lisbon earthquake](_URL_0_) of 1755 had a profound effect on enlightenment philosophy. All the churches were destroyed and a huge number of people killed on All Saints Day. This led an entire generation of influential philosophers, including Voltaire and Kant, to question the existence or benevolence of God.", "Well, there's the [Year Without a Summer](_URL_0_) which was the result of a volcanic eruption which had worldwide effects.", "If you don't want the Black Death (aka the Plague, you shouldn't mix and match the names here), or [other pandemics](_URL_1_) (see also [this](_URL_0_), I've got a related thing:\n\n[The Little Ice Age](_URL_10_) after the [Medieval Warm Period](_URL_7_). Fascinating bit about researching by using paintings of winter scenes as sources for this [here](_URL_6_). In this context, there's also the [Great Famine](_URL_2_).\n\nAnd while we're on the topic of famines, there's of course the [Great Irish Famine](_URL_4_), that more or less kick-started Irish emigration to the US.\n\nThe wiki also has a [List of natural disasters](_URL_8_) throughout history.\n\n\nEdit: I almost forgot: There's also the original [Kamikaze](_URL_9_), a storm that prevented the Mongols from conquering Japan - **twice**!\n\nSecond Edit/Addendum: The Famines especially, were significant in an intellectual way: They were, among others, the inspiration for [Malthus](_URL_3_), who in turn influenced Darwin and, subsequently [Social Darwinism](_URL_5_), and, subsequently, the Nazis, and on and on and on....\n", "Strictly speaking, this isn't an historical natural disaster - it's a *pre*historic event. But, it was definitely one of the most significant natural disasters in human existence.\n\nThe Toba volcano super-eruption about 71,000 years ago [\"plunged the planet into a 6-to-10-year volcanic winter and possibly an additional 1,000-year cooling episode.\"](_URL_0_)\n\n\n\n > [Mount Toba's eruption](_URL_1_) is marked by a 6 year period during which the largest amount of volcanic sulphur was deposited in the past 110,000 years. This dramatic event was followed by 1000 years of the lowest ice core oxygen isotope ratios of the last glacial period. In other words, for 1000 years immediately following the eruption, the earth witnessed temperatures colder than during the Last Glacial Maximum at 18-21,000 years ago.\n\nIt is believed that the ancestral population of Homo Sapiens reduced to less than 10,000 people during this period. And, because this event occurred just after a mass exodus of Homo Sapiens from Africa, there were pockets of small populations left surviving in a few places across Eurasia.\n\nIt's likely that these small isolated populations became the various races we see today.\n\nSo, the Toba eruption may have *caused* humans to differentiate into different races. That's significant.\n", "The Mongols attempted to invade Japan in 1274 and 1281. Both times, their fleets heavily outnumbered the Japanese fleets, and both times the Mongols were repelled by typhoons.", "I immediately thought of the [Laki Eruption of 1783](_URL_0_). This volcanic eruption in Iceland disrupted weather patterns throughout Europe which led to numerous crop failures. These crop failures led to food shortages which in turn put great stress on the lower classes of French society. The stress of food shortages as well as the disruption to trade (in some areas ships were stuck in their ports due to the volcanic haze) set the stage for the French Revolution. \n\nThe eruption may not have been a necessary or sufficient cause of the Revolution, so it may not qualify for the question, but it was definitely a contributing factor.", "I'm surprised the [Santorini eruption](_URL_0_) wasn't mentioned yet. The extent to which it was destructive, and the effects of the preceding earthquakes and ensuing tsunami, are all contested, but it seems to have been a major catalyst in the downfall of the Minoan civilization, and might have served as a basis in part for Plato's Atlantis.", "I'm surprised someone hasn't mentioned the [desertification of the Sahara](_URL_0_), which wikipedia dates to reaching its modern extent at 3400 BC. Given the extensive records of people living at least partially sedantary lives there quite comfortably beforehand, it must have displaced quite a lot of people.\n\nLikewise, it has been suggested that the climate becoming more hostile contributed to the change between the circa 300bc-300AD Arabia that seems to have been very prosperous and its more arid state today. This seems to have been most noticeable in the south, as modern Yemen was referred to as 'Arabia Felix', 'lucky' Arabia or 'happy' Arabia, supposedly due to its immensely wealthy cities.\n\nI also had it suggested in a BBC documentary that the growth in aridness of the climate of Somalia and Ethiopia contributed to the collapse and dispersal of the groups that had been part of the Kingdom of Aksum. But that documentary was a while ago and I haven't seen many references to it since.\n\nMy overall point is that it's clear that the changing climate of the earth has had a massive impact on development, habitable areas, and population sustainability.", "It is widely assumed that a tornado actually drove the British from Washington, DC during the War of 1812.", "Well there has been a theory floated around that the [Hekla 3 Eruption](_URL_0_) threw enough soot and dust into the air that the resulting change in temperature lead to several years of famine in Europe and the Middle East. These famines directly lead to the collapse of the bronze age civilizations, essentially reseting Western Civilization.", "\"On September 29, 1717, an estimated 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit Antigua Guatemala, and destroyed over 3,000 buildings. Much of the city's architecture was ruined. The damage the earthquake did to the city made authorities consider moving the capital to another city.\"\nTaken from _URL_0_\n\n\nBasically a big earthquake caused Spanish officials to change the capital city from Antigua to what is now Guatemala City." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon_earthquake" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pandemics", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315%E2%80%931317", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthus", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Irish_Famine", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_darwinism#Theories_and_origins", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Ice_Age#Depictions_of_winter_in_European_painting", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze_%28typhoon%29", "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory", "http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/stanley_ambrose.php" ], [], [ "http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/15/iceland-volcano-weather-french-revolution" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_eruption#Minoan_civilization" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara#History" ], [], [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hekla_3_eruption" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua_Guatemala#History" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "djs03p2" ], "score": [ 18 ], "text": [ "A bake oven is a very big pile of masonry. Get all that thermal mass up to temperature, and it will fluctuate fairly little, and occasional stoking with a little wood can keep it hot. This is why baking was commonly done either by bakers, all day/night long, or by housewives one day a week: once the oven was hot, you wanted to make full use of it. The alternative for housewives was a Dutch oven, a deep covered cast-iron pot that could have coals placed on the lid, that could be used in the fireplace. But it couldn't do loaves of bread and pies as well as a bake oven.\n\nFor how to judge the oven temperature, here's what Lydia M Child said, in her *The American Frugal Housewife* :\n\n > Heating ovens must be regulated by experience and observation. There is a difference in wood in giving out heat; there is a great difference in the construction of ovens; and when an oven is extremely cold, either on account of the weather, or want of use, it must be heated more. Economical people heat ovens with pine wood, fagots, brush, and such light stuff. If you have none but hard wood, you must remember that it makes very hot coals, and therefore less of it will answer. A smart fire for an hour and a half is a general rule for common sized family ovens, provided brown bread and beans are to be baked. An hour is long enough to heat an oven for flour bread. Pies bear about as much heat as flour bread: pumpkin pies will bear more. If you are afraid your oven is too hot, throw in a little flour, and shut it up for a minute. If it scorches black immediately, the heat is too furious; if it merely browns, it is right. Some people wet an old broom two or three times, and turn it round near the top of die oven till it dries; this prevents pies and cake from scorching on the top. When you go into a new house, heat your oven two or three times, to get it seasoned, before you use it. After the wood is burned, rake the coals over the bottom of the oven, and let them lie a few minutes." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cyqmvjl" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "This topic, depending on the battle, can be hotly debated among historians. Occasionally archeological evidence can shed light on the battles, but often historians must defer to the written record. That said, most historians won't take the figues exactly at face value. If the army in question is Egyptian, there may be less available. The point I am trying to make is that the written record should not be completely thrown out just because numbers are inflated, nor typically is it. There are certainly historians who do that, however for the most part the written record is trusted until there is something that brings it into question. \n\nWith Caesar, often times there are so many sources showing both sides that historians can typically discern a fairly reliable timeline. With figures, it is best not to throw out evidence simply because there may be bias. Every historian is biased in some way and that is not necessarily a bad thing. It can potentially provide a balanced account, if paired with others. Unfortunately, if (such as in the case of Zozimus) that is the only account of that battle, it can't be thrown out simply because the facts may be skewed due to bias. If a source is to be doubted, there needs to be more than that. If there were, say, archeological evidence, or other written evidence showing that this could be reasonably questioned, then it could be doubted. \nTL;DR The rule of thumb for most historians is \"innocent until proven guilty\".\n\nPurely historically speaking, I think it is entirely likely that Zozimus had the numbers correct. The ancient mediterranean world was quite populous. Rome had at this time a population of 1,000,000. Alexandria had a population of 500,000 (both roughly speaking). Palmyra was a major trade hub and It absolutely could have afforded an army of that size. Armies of this size were not that uncommon, either. For much of Rome's history the entirety of the army consisted of about 300,000 legionaries. By the late empire (when Zozimus is writing), it is believed to have tripled. This meant that the Romans could absolutely have brought massive amounts of man power to bear, and since Palmyra was actually able to defeat Rome once, it had to have a sizeable army. For more info on the Roman army at this time, check out Arther Ferrill's book \"The Fall of the Roman Empire: The Military Explanation\". \nHope this helps!\n\nEdit: I have removed some information which Iphikrates indicated was actually false. " ] }

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[ "http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/zosimus01_book1.htm" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "epwjgg2", "epwjobc" ], "score": [ 21, 10 ], "text": [ "No. This is a post-Cold War myth, written largely by people who would like to make SDI not appear to be the boondoggle it was, or to make it look like something that had a positive effect on diplomacy, rather than the more easily-documentable negative effect. Pavel Podvig has [written at length about this here](_URL_1_) and [here](_URL_0_).\n\nAside from being asserted without evidence, I would just note that the fall of the USSR was clearly caused by many factors, most of them internal: Gorbachev's attempts at opening up the system very clearly and directly led to its instability and failure. While the Soviet overexpenditure on arms (in general) no doubt did not help its overall economy, the idea that its collapse can be traced to that, much less to a specific US program which the Soviets did not in fact respond to, is facile.", "I'll shamelessly plug an [answer](_URL_0_) to this very question that I wrote, but basically....what u/restricteddata said." ] }

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[ [ "https://thebulletin.org/2013/04/shooting-down-the-star-wars-myth/", "http://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/2017/01/did_star_wars_help_end_the_col.html" ], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8cnm73/did_reagans_star_wars_project_really_contribute/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cmsg9qa", "cmtl776" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Stephen Batchelor, a former monk in both the Tibetan and Zen traditions, wrote [Buddhism Without Beliefs](_URL_1_), an explicit attempt to separate the baby from the cultural bathwater in Buddhism. It's been ages since I read it, but if memory serves I believe Batchelor argues that Buddhism is a matter of practice and inquiry, not belief. \n\nThe history of Buddhist art tells you a lot about cultural accretion. Found [this](_URL_0_) from the Met. \"In the earliest Buddhist art of India, the Buddha was not represented in human form. His presence was indicated instead by a sign, such as a pair of footprints, an empty seat, or an empty space beneath a parasol.\" Compare that to florid Tibetan iconography.\n\nWhat's great about Buddhism is that it adapts so well to cultures it merges with, from spiritually athletic Zen to belief-based pure land to compassion-based Mahayana to insanely ritualistic Vajrayana. There are all these \"skillful means\" based on the varying needs of sentient beings. Why would you want to limit yourself to what the historical Buddha and his contemporaries did or believed?\n\nEdit: You might be interested in the way Tibetan Buddhists conceptualize the various vehicles or \"yanas\" of Buddhism, from renunciation - the original vehicle - to great compassion to radical acceptance. There are scholarly explanations, but Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche wrote an excellent one that compares them to ways of being in a cinema. [Here](_URL_2_)", "Hi there! This is a little outside my area of expertise and I'm sure some people will come in and much of this information was unfortunately taught to me by some professors at college in Bhutan, but I'll try to provide some sources where I can. And if someone has more sources for information I can't fully verify or can elaborate or correct me, please do. \n\nFirst off, you're right to be overly specific in calling the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) \"a follower of the ancient Vedic religion\" as opposed to saying, \"The Buddha was a Hindu.\" Hinduism is a modern construct associating the native Indian religious complex with a sort of national identity (a reaction against Islam being associated with Pakistani national identity). The religion, I was told by a Bengali sociologist, is properly called \"Brahmanism\" because as Christianity derives its authority from the Bible, and Islam from the Qur'an, the followers of native Indian religions used to derive their authority from Brahmins, or the priestly Varna (caste). \n\nAll Dharmic religions (Buddhism, Jainism, and Brahmanism) have the concept of enlightenment in the spiritual sense. So enlightenment isn't a new thing that Buddhism came up with, what IS different is that the Buddha taught that enlightenment was not contingent upon Varna. Before that, except for a few ascetics in the woods, it was commonly believed that only Brahmins could be enlightened, and that the other Varnas (Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra) and outcastes would never be enlightened. Slaves (Shudra) would have to be reborn as a Brahmin if they ever wanted to get enlightened. \n\nContrary to popular opinion, the Buddha did not do away with Varna. He was human and a product of his times. While caste isn't SUPPOSED to matter in the Sangha, the Sangha still tended to run in an aristocratic fashion with monks possessing distinguished ancestry being at the top, while monks without at the bottom (with exceptions, of course). \n\nA good place to start with the history of Buddhism is Andrew Skilton's \"A Concise History of Buddhism.\" It's mostly a history of the texts with their context in mind but it does go over India before the Buddha. \n\nYour question's a little vague though. It's kind of like asking how did the world of Jesus influence Christianity? Well, a lot of ways, of course. If you're a little more specific, I can start pointing you in more precise directions. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/budd/hd_budd.htm", "http://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Without-Beliefs-Contemporary-Awakening/dp/1573226564", "http://vajratool.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/life-as-cinema-by-dzongsar-khyentse-rinpoche/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cchpke6", "cchs0ao" ], "score": [ 34, 12 ], "text": [ "They were insured against loss. The precise details likely varied from ship to ship. I'm not sure where you would find the precise details of the amount any given vessel was insured for off hand. Lloyds and the American Bureau of Shipping did issue annual registers of insured vessels though. You won't find most of that information online though. Mystic Seaport has digitized many records from the 19th century but that doesn't really help you much. \n\nIf you are willing to do some hard copy searching the Mariners Museum in Newport News has a full run of both registers. Here's a link to their catalog for the years in question.\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)", "The norwegian merhant fleet was organized by the government in exile, and basically turned into one massive organization. I reccomend reading the wikipedia article on Nortraship. \n\nAfter the war, there was a reconstruction payment by the norwegian government of 4 billion NOK, of which 1.5 billion went to a Nortraship repayment for sunk ships according to [this](_URL_0_) source (in norwegian). They would however have to argue whether the sinking was the result of wartime activities, or a normal naval accident. If it was a wartime incident then it was eligible for reconstruction money, and if not it was up to the insurance agency.\n\n_URL_1_" ] }

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[ [ "http://library.marinersmuseum.org/default.asp?IDCFile=DETAILSL.IDC,SPECIFIC=663,NEXTRECORDS=51,PREVRECORDS=0,DATABASE=55005065,LISTIDC=PAGEL.IDC,RECORDMAX=50,RECNO=3,WORDS=Lloyd%27s+register" ], [ "http://snl.no/krigsskade", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortraship" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "duzwz88" ], "score": [ 16 ], "text": [ "Coox and Naisawald's 1954 study *Survey of Allied Tank Casualties in World War II* gives several statistics that attempt to determine this.\n\n > A study of 800 U.S., British, and Canadian tank casualties in Western Europe, the Mediterranean Theater, and North Africa disclosed that the average range at which tanks were immobilized by gunfire was under 800 yards. A sample of 100 tank casualties in North Africa showed an average range of 900 yards; 60 tank casualties in Sicily and Italy--350 yards; 650 tank casualties in Western Europe--over 800 yards. These figures are explicable by the fact that in the western desert of North Africa, where the terrain favored ranges to the limits of visibility, tank fighting often resembled naval battles which boiled down to \"slug fests\" where light vessels (=light tanks and armored cars) were involved. A figure of 900 yards represents the averaging out of engagements at 1500 to 2000 yards as well as those at hub-to-hub range, e.g., Knightsbridge; Rommel's brilliant tank traps allowed his antitank guns to effect kills at short range. Martel has explained the reasons for the Germans' electing to fight armor at longer ranges in the desert as follows:\n\n > > The German armored forces often attacked British unarmored troops if they found them insufficiently protected by artillery and antitank guns, but they always avoided closing with our tanks in a running fight. When meeting British tanks in strength they preferred to take up a position which was well protected by artillery fire and with antitank guns on the flanks, and used the superior gunfire from stationary tanks to shoot at the British tanks at long range.\n\n > It should be stressed that the data on range are almost always derived from \"subjective\" estimates given in after-action reports or \"third-hand\" summaries. The only exception is a portion of the British ETO sample, wherein operations research teams from the 21st Army Group actually examined tanks immobilized after the Rhine crossing. The over-all average of 800 yards range is also probably higher than the actual figure, if it were known, for a much larger sample, inasmuch as a further 75 tank casualties to gunfire were listed only as \"close,\" \"fairly close,\" \"point-blank,\" \"various,\" etc.\n\n**TABLE VIII**\n\n**AVERAGE RANGES AT WHICH TANKS WERE IMMOBILIZED**\n\n**(Sampling)** [gunfire only]\n\nCategory|Sample|Range (yds)\n:--|:--|:--\nUS: ETO-First Army|330|796.4\nETO-Third, Seventh, Ninth Armies|119|713.7\nITALY|3|758.9\nUS: Total|452|774.4\nUK: ETO|190|886.3\nITALY|51|348.1\nSICILY|6|300.0\nAFRICA|96|890.1\nUK: Total|343|797.1\nCANADA: ETO|5|432.0\nETO: US, UK, CANADA|644|804.8\nAll Theaters: US, UK, CANADA|800|782.0\n\nHardison's *Data on World War II Tank Engagements: Involving the U.S. Third and Fourth Armored Divisions* also gives a figure that is about 800 to 900 yards on average.\n\n**TABLE V**\n\n**SUMMARY OF RANGES AT WHICH ALLIED AND ENEMY TANKS WERE DESTROYED IN VARIOUS AREAS OF NORTHWEST EUROPE**\n\nArea|Number of Allied Casualties|Average Allied Casualty Range in Yards|Number of Enemy Casualties|Average Enemy Casualty Range in Yards\n:--|:--|:--|:--|:--\nVicinity Stolberg|26|476||\nRoer to Rhine|37|959|6|733\nBelgian Bulge|60|1000|9|833\nVicinity Arracourt|20|1260|74|936\nSarre|37|1116|35|831\nRelief of Bastogne|19|731|16|915\nTotals|199|946|140|893\n\n > It was shown in the referenced report that the distribution of combat ranges is approximately represented by a Pearson III distribution function of the form:\n\n > F(R) = e^-X (X + 1)\n\n > X = 2R sqrt R\n\n > R = range, Rbar = average range,\n\n > F(R) = fraction of ranges greater than R." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dwdqc43" ], "score": [ 14 ], "text": [ "I wouldn't say it is propaganda (that's a strong word!), but these entities, common in many people's folklore, have no basis in fact. You can ask /r/Askanthropology about things like the \"giganthropus\" fossil evidence, but whatever that represents, it is hardly evidence of giants, and it would be an incredulous stretch to conclude that there was some sort of primal memory of gigantic hominids many of hundreds of thousands of years ago - if they ever existed at all!\n\nGiants are one of that species of supernatural beings that existed in a remote past: people talked about encountering ghosts, fairies, the devil, or any number of others things, but they never told of having encountered a giant. Stories about giants were always about other people living in the past having dealing with them. It seems that it was easy for people to imagine there was once a race of titans to explain enormous, seemingly unnatural things in the landscape. The name of the Giant’s Causeway preserves the idea that one of these entities built a path to walk from Ireland to Scotland. Wade’s Causeway, is another reference to a giant, in this case to explain a Roman road in Yorkshire. The etiological role of giants was paramount, but the explanation of the landscape, megaliths, or extraordinary things in general could merge with stories about other supernatural beings. For example, the Devil’s Dyke in Cambridgeshire is an example of tradition holding that Satan affected the landscape in a way normally reserved for giants. I wouldn't want to go so far as to say it was a process of 1. fantastic landscape element; 2. fantastic and necessarily large entity needs to be responsible; therefore, giants must have existed. That said, this sort of process serves as an underpinning to reinforce belief." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c8uzswm", "c8v0b31", "c8v0g4s", "c8v4nsr" ], "score": [ 13, 88, 34, 16 ], "text": [ "The Nazis didn't seem to have a problem with the Chinese, they had provided extensive military support to the KMT in the 20s and 30s. They even had their own man in China in [Wang Jingwei.](_URL_0_)", "The Japanese actually have a unique history of opinion towards the Jews. While fighting the Russians in (iirc) the Russo-Japanese War at the turn of the century, they stumbled across a book called *The Protocols of the Elders of Zion*. This anti-semitic literature was filled with the usual: the Jews control everything, massive conspiracy, lesser-men, and the like. Well the Japanese high command thought, why would anyone want to go against a small semi-integrated religious group that had miraculously managed to survive for two millennia despite prosecution, and who somehow managed to control everything, and had a large portion of European wealth in their hands? \n\nFast forward to the Second World War. The Japanese harboured several thousand Jews in Japan from the Germans, and despite being allies, they refused time and time again to hand them over to Hitler. They actually started building a facility to house 600 000 Jews escaping the Nazis. They thought that hey, if these guys control everything, might as well get on their good side. \n\nDon't know anything about the Nazi opinion on the Chinese, though.", "There was [extensive Sino-German cooperation before the Second World War](_URL_1_. [Chiang Kai-Shek's adopted son](_URL_0_) even served in the Wehrmacht before being withdrawn to China.\n\nHowever, once Japan began their invasion of China, the shift in German foreign policy favored Japan since they were more able to resist communism than China. Since the Germans were trading significantly in raw materials with China, this hindered the German economy considerably for lack of rubber. \n\nAs far as ethnic opinions go, the Germans were rather hypocritical in even calling the Japanese ['honorary Aryan'](_URL_2_). The political reality was that the Germans needed raw materials and the Chinese were able to trade them until the strategic situation shifted to a need for allies against the Soviet Union and United Kingdom.", "Forgive me for being brief, but it was the German ambassador who first documented, and tried to stop, the rape of Nanking. " ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Jingwei" ], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Wei-kuo", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-German_cooperation_(1911-1941)", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_Aryan" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6ywso1" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "[Phage Therapy](_URL_1_) is the what immediately springs to mind. While not technically \"invented\" in the USSR (British and French scientists independently discovered bacteriophagic viruses in early 20th century and), the Soviet Union was where the technique was refined, expanded, and put into broad use. Georgia, in particular, is and was the center for all this, and Georgia is currently the only country where phage therapy is a standard of care treatment. This can be attributed to the microbiologist George Eliava who brought the technique over from his work at the Pasteur Institute, and physicians like Alexander Tsulukidze and Charles Mikeladze in Tblisi who ran some important early clinical trials showing phage therapy to be safe and effective. \n\nThere were Western scientists, particularly in France, working on phage therapy in the early 20th century as well. With the advent of sulfa drugs in the late 1930s, and then with the antibiotic revolution kicked off by penicillin in the 1940s, phage therapy was mostly abandoned in the West. The Soviets, on the other hand, found their access to Western-made antibiotics cut off at the end of WWII, and then had delays in regaining access, spotty supply chains & distribution, and problems starting their own domestic production. Homegrown phages helped fill in this \"antibiotic gap\" (along with some very shady propaganda about herbal treatments).\n\nIt wasn't until the past couple of decades -- spurred by concerns over drug resistant pathogens -- that Western physicians and scientists starting giving phage therapy a second look. The appropriately named [George Eliava Institute](_URL_3_) and the [Phage Therapy Center](_URL_2_) in Tblisi are still key centers for research and treatment using phages.\n\nIf you want to know more here are a couple papers on the subject (both open-source, I think):\n\n- [Phage Treatment of Human Infections](_URL_4_)\n- [Bacteriophage Therapy](_URL_5_)\n\nThere is also a pretty good book on the subject written for a popular audience, Kuchment's [The Forgotten Cure: The Past and Future of Phage Therapy](_URL_0_)." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Cure-Future-Phage-Therapy/dp/1461402506", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy", "http://www.phagetherapycenter.com/pii/PatientServlet?command=static_home", "http://www.eliava-institute.org/", "http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/bacteriophage/AbedonBP1-2.pdf", "http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC90351/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6epz8u", "c6eqqnz", "c6er9ys", "c6eu4v0", "c6eu9qh", "c6eupnt", "c6ewgps", "c6f0o6a" ], "score": [ 25, 11, 3, 6, 23, 3, 7, 3 ], "text": [ "During the Middle Ages, religion played a hugely important role in life, since the Church was one of the few institutions that spread across the variety of feudal boundaries in Europe. As Europe transitioned out of feudalism and towards states (lead by monarchs), the Church in Rome lost power, but religion remained a tool for leaders to use. Indeed, the transition out of feudalism and into the modern era saw the very bloody wars between Catholic and Protestant monarchs and lords. However, by the 18th and 19th centuries, states had moved on to other ways of motivating their people, such as nationalism and ethnic identity. Religion became less political - we don't analyze the Seven Years War, Napoleonic Wars, etc with the same religious focus as the 30 Year's War, for example, but it still played a huge rule in everyday life. In the late 19th 20th century, science began to present an alternative to religion, and as education spread, religious superstitions became less important. Several people also claim that the World Wars disillusioned people from God, but I think that Europe would have become less religious with or without them. It is worth noting that \"Europe\" is a very broad term, and certain parts of Europe had very different societies from others. Religion plaid a huge political role in Ireland through the 20th century, for example, or the former Yugoslavia, or various other (mostly Eastern) European states.", "I can give you an interesting answer to why- Neil Ferguson's \"Civilization\" covers this topic in a little bit of detail. A book well worth a read. He concludes the reason Europe began to move away from religion is the state monopoly European countries have over religions compared to other nations such as America. Essentially, Americans have a \"free market\" of religions. If you don't like the branch of Christianity you were born into you just go out and find one that is more suited to your beliefs. While in Europe those sick and tired of their religions have little alternative but to atheist. Naturally, over time, this leads to a social acceptance of atheism and a more godless society.\n\nTL;DR- Europe's \"State Religions\" are unable to keep up with the growing and changing ideas of its nations' peoples. Americas \"Freedom of Religion\" ideology has the opposite effect", "Look at the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake. The morning of one of the most important religious holidays of the year when good catholics have lit their candles and are all at mass, packed into the city's wonderful cathedrals.\n\nThen suddenly a 9.0 earthquake slams into the region and lasts for almost 6 minutes. Thousands are dead in seconds as stone cahtedrals crumble and crush their packed audiences. Huge 5m wide fissures open up all across the city. Buildings cave inwards as entire districts are devastated. The dazed survivors climb out of the rubble and head for the one open place in town where they think they can be safe - the docks at the waterfront. Yet all the water has mysteriously vanished. After 40 minutes a massive tsunami crashes into the area sweeping away thousands and even entire buildings. The water travels deep into the city center. Then the fires start. Everywhere with candles set for the holy day now has caught fire and the tsunami didnt even help put some out. The fires rage for 6 days.\n\nWhen it is over 30,000 - 40,000 are dead. A third of the city's population gone. Oh and the jewish/moorish quarter / red light district? Relatively untouched by comparison, with a different geologic base, hill to block the wave, and no overload of candles.\n\nSo why would God do this? Why would he punish his devout on such a holy day when all were praising him, and why were the heathens relatively unscathed? Why was almost every single church in the city destroyed while the wicked prospered? This questioning had immense influences on the thinkers of the time including Voltaire as such a overwhelming calamity argued against the notion that a just and kind God closely watched over the world.\n\nThe long term result is a slow shift towards secularism.", "As an historian-of-philosophy (or, alternatively, a philosopher-of-history), I would venture to say that it occurred in the wake of Newton, Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham, Mill and Darwin in England; in the wake of Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, and Nietzsche in Germany; after Rousseau in France; the era of Romanticism in the arts; the ever-accumulating discoveries in the sciences over the centuries; the rise of political economy (Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Marx, and after) and the industrial revolution which shifted people's focus more to worldly/material goods or wealth; the American experiment demonstrating the advantages of church/state separation; modern humanistic psychology which played a significant role from early- to mid-20th-century onward, for much the same reason that political economy and the industrial revolution did earlier on. In any case, when philosophers of the caliber of Hume and Kant (and later, with greater finality, Marx and Nietzsche - and Freud [see: [\"Hermeneutics of Suspicion\"](_URL_0_)]) gave up on the idea of proving God's existence, many of the other intellectuals more or less followed suit, and the people had fewer intellectuals to turn to who would justify belief in God. There are all sorts of factors that affect history, but philosophy is the most powerful long-term (IMHO ;-).\n\nEDIT: Another respondent mentioned the Reformation; there's also the Renaissance. What led to the Renaissance? I'd recommend a book titled *Aristotle's Children* for an overview of the intellectual shift that occurred in the wake of Maimonides, Averroes, and Aquinas reintroducing Aristotle's works to the West. I don't know how big a role the Reformation itself played seeing as in the wake of that you had staunch theists in Luther and Calvin, and in the philosophical world you still had the Continental Rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza [a complicated case], and - quite significantly - Leibniz, a genius polymath) advancing arguments for God's existence. It's Kant's dismantling of the traditional arguments for God (Leibnizian-ontological or Thomistic-cosmological) that was the biggest game-changer of any. Hume had his radically-empiricist skepticism but he didn't do the dismantling Kant did and offered only skepticism in theism's place. Kant is the most influential philosopher of the modern era because of this (and still retained the idea of God via his practical/moral philosophy [see \"Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone\"]); subsequent philosophy has been influenced by Kant more than anyone (Hegel was a prominent theist but his philosophy is, shall we say, rather difficult to digest), though Aristotle - who had fallen into disfavor for some time when the Church transformed his thought into official Church dogmas - has recently been making a comeback, with Plato rounding out the Big Three. In Platonism - but not Aristotelianism or Kantianism - you'll find the basic philosophical grounds for theism (primarily the ontological argument, seeing as the Thomistic cosmological arguments have lost a lot of currency whereas Plantinga and contemporary panentheists (probably the most philosophically-sophisticated theists around today) seem to put more stock in the ontological argument(s)). HTH. :-)\n", "I would make the case that, regardless of what happened more recently, Europe *began* its shift away from religion on 31st October, 1517, the day Martin Luther nailed his '[Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences](_URL_0_)' to the door of the church in Wittenberg.\n\nAs well as triggering the Reformation, this also showed that reformation *could* be triggered. Not only did it question the church, it showed that churches *could* be questioned. I would say that this moment led, almost inevitably, to a secular future. There were a lot more steps along the way, and Europe by no means became less religious overnight, but I'm not sure that those later steps could have happened without Martin Luther's first declaration that the Church as it was then was corrupt.\n", "Something I havnt seen mentioned yet is the influence of revolutionary ideas. The French and Russian revolutions both had anti-religious elements aswell as in the Spanish Civil war. ", "I wouldn't necessarily say that Europe as a whole has moved much away from religion. There are many countries that religion plays a huge role in every day life, the difference is that religion today plays **no** role in politics, as it does in America.\n\nEuropean wars of religion have been some of the bloodiest conflicts in history, we see 7 Crusades to Jerusalem, as well as the 30 years war and countless other wars between Protestantism and Catholicism in the 17th Century. Religion was used as a tool by many European leaders, for the absolute monarchs in Spain and France their kingship was divine, it was sacred and came from God Himself. The Pope had a massive influence over 2 of the greatest nations at the time, Spain and France as it was almost solely Catholic. However we see a big decline in the power of the Pope as we move into the late 18th and 19th Century, and religion as a whole in politics. This is due to the ongoing revolutions across Europe at this time. Those who revolted saw the way religion was used by their leaders to control them, so whilst they were still theists they separated (truly) Church and State. This was also linked to the advancement of Science in the 19th Century where we finally start seeing explanations by Science, an alternative source to the Bible.\n\nThat being said we don't especially see Athiesm today in most of Europe, but instead we see religion as something that doesn't and shouldn't affect the views of the nation. Smaller nations like Romania, Lithuania and Latvia are all still highly religious, as are more major nations, the Republic of Ireland being a good example, as is Spain. \n\nI wouldn't especially say that Europe as a whole has moved away from religion, the only place this being especially true is in the UK, but the shift away from religion interfering with politics has been moving away for centuries, in England's civil war of 1645 one of the major reasons was how Charles' II was moving religion back into the political sphere after Henry VIII removed it, this was as far back as 1530s.", "Europe as a whole is way to complex to get into. That's not even true in many cases (Poland, Austria)\n\nSo I'll just speak to Czech Republic, the most Atheist country in the world, as an example.\n\nThe people were protestant (since catholics represented the Holy Roman Empire) and Jan Hus was a major reformer who died in 1415, which was followed by the Hussite wars.\n\nThey were crushed by catholics. But the Czechs had tasted independence in that time. So they started another rebellion 200 years later in 1618. The crushing defeat by Austrian Catholics 2 years later meant the end of Czech independence for 300 years. Plus the brutal execution of the Protestant nobles lead to the 30 Years War, one of the all time most brutal European wars ever. Which was over Religion.\n\nWhen the Czechs finally did get their independence after WWI (those 300 years later) they dragged the Maria Pillar in Old-Town Square through the streets and across the bridge. Catholicism =Austrian oppression to them and they had had enough of all of them. Then 30 years later came Communists who were strongly anti-religion.\n\nWhile this anti-religion didn't take in other communist countries like Poland or the Russian country side, the idea was ripe in Bohemia (less in Moravia and Slovakia). That was pretty much the end of Religion in CZ. After the revolution not many went back.\n\nPeople who find religion now lean toward Hari Krishna (and the Mormons are coming) and other previously completely foreign religions. Moravia has had a sort of Protestant revival, but Bohemia remains Atheist. The most Atheist place on the planet.\n\nTo tie it into other European places, the Czechs can directly tie a lot of their misery to Religious tention. I think other countries that can say the same would be less religious. Countries with more religious freedom (like the US) or who were more in synch with the Church to start with (Poland, Italy, Spain) don't see the same problems with it." ] }

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[ [], [], [], [ "https://www.google.com/search?q=Hermeneutics+of+Suspicion" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ninety-Five_Theses#Initial_dissemination" ], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d01v49t" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ " > annexed by the Netherlands because of its political ties?\n\nActually, Luxembourg has been absorbed into other countries through history, and the current Luxembourg is nowhere near as large as the historical Duchy of Luxembourg. See [this map](_URL_0_). \n\nIt came into the possession of Philip the Good of Burgundy, along with other Low Countries states. They all came under Habsburg rule as the Burgundian line became extinct, and under Charles V was united in inheritance. When the northern provinces rebelled under Philip II, Luxembourg remained part of the Southern Netherlands. \n\nHowever, as France and Spain continued their war after 1648, France gained the southern parts of Luxembourg. \n\nThe entire Low Countries were annexed by the revolutionary French, until it was restored in 1815, minus eastern parts annexed by Prussia. Then it was forced to be part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands until the Belgian revolt of 1830, which settlement in 1839 once again split off parts of it into Belgium. \n\nSo, you need to better define what \"survive\" means. " ] }

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[ [ "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/LuxembourgPartitionsMap_english.png" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "celcama", "celg4fq", "celnb61" ], "score": [ 2, 21, 3 ], "text": [ "It feels silly to say that the reason the Commume is more idealized is because it's Communistic. While I cannoy speak much on the Paris Commune, something I aim to fix someday, I would argue that the reason is due to the types of governments that were set up.\n\nThe French Revolution and the First Republic were fueled by Rousseau and his Enlightenment philosophy. While Rousseau could be argued as a proto-Communism, all French Revolutions set up Republican governments. So, it is more if a governmental reason, at least how I see it.", "The Paris Commune was one of the first explicitly communist political actions. The 1848 revolutions happened before Marx had written the bulk of his work (and indeed, they both informed his writing). The French Revolution, much like the American revolution, is usually termed by communist academics as a 'bourgeois revolution,' a necessary stage in the historical development of capitalism, but not the proletarian revolution that communists support.\n\nA bourgeois revolution means that it was essentially an anti-aristocratic revolution, but not an anti-class revolution. After the American and French revolutions, there were still rich and poor in America and France, but there were no longer nobles and arbitrary status determined by lineage. However, the Paris Commune, on the other hand, was an exercise in true egalitarianism. \n\nNot sure what that other guy is talking about with Marx saying that the Commune \"needed\" a revolutionary terror; the Communards did kill quite a few members of the French military when they came to recapture the city, but the whole reason that the Paris Commune came to exist in the first place was because all of the people who would've been the target of a revolutionary terror had left the city in fear. Most members of the government, and anyone who had the money or influence to get out did. So really the Commune was created in a power vacuum, and there wouldn't have been anyone to commit a revolutionary terror against. The Communards were interested in other French cities joining them, but with communications at the time, and the commune being surrounded on one side by the Prussian Army, and the other side by the French Army, there wasn't really a good way to get any messages out, and anyway the situation that existed in Paris was pretty unique. Imagine if the city government in your town just left tomorrow. The Commune was less an ideologically-motivated movement and more a natural reaction by the people of Paris, who suddenly needed to organize things on their own.\n\nSo in a nutshell, that's why communists are into the Paris commune. It was a better example of functioning communism, though obviously in a much smaller timeframe, than the Soviet Union or whatever. They practiced proper worker democracy, had free education, and other things that communists like. It really is a very interesting and unique period of time in history, I recommend anyone read more about it.", "One important point is that the Paris Commune was not leaded by communist, it was a regional insurection which led to a form of government idealized by the communist (the elected counsil was politically extremelly divers, lacking only the monarchists: from followers of Proudhom (anarchists) to jacobins (hawkish right wing) and radicaux (radically opposed to monarchism)), and produces socially advanced rules. \nBut the main point of /u/rude_communist is what explain the communist fascination with the Commune : the French revolution was a bourgeois one, while the Commune was a proletarian one. Marx had France and Germany in mind (industrialized and educated countries) when he built his theory." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ek7la2x" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Here's the lyrics for the Anthem of the SSSR that were used from from 44-56 - the first stanza is the relevant one:\n\n > Союз нерушимый республик свободных\nСплотила навеки Великая Русь.\nДа здравствует созданный волей народов\nЕдиный, могучий Советский Союз!\n\nRoughly this translates as follows (correct me if I'm wrong):\n\n > The undestroyed union, republic of the free,\n > united forever, the great Rus.\n > May we all greet the creation of the will of the people, \n > the united, the powerful, the soviet union!\n\nThe trick here is that Rus does not necessarily refer to Russia alone, but can also refer to the whole empire, or to the descendants of the Kievan Rus.\n\nThere are a few *possible* reasons why this is worded this way, and the only two that I know of go back to two events: first, the events and thoughts surrounding the initial formation of the Soviet Union, and the events going on at the time the anthem was composed and adopted.\n\nRegarding the beginning of the union, there was debate at the time of the creation of the soviet union regarding whether it was to be a worldwide revolution, or if it was to begin in one spot and the spread. The outcome was that the Communist movement considered the success of the USSR and its beginnings in Russia/Ukraine to be significant, leading to the possible inclusion of Rus in the anthem. \n\nThe second reason is that the anthem was adopted in 1943, towards the high point of the great patriotic war. This was a time during which the Soviet state adopted a lot of openly nationalistic policies and trappings in order to motivate citizens to whatever useful common identity might work to get them to fight for the fatherland, the idea of communism, or anything. This was a time of serious rapprochement with the Orthodox church, and we see lots of famous posters of \"Mother Russia\" (and massive statues built after the war), and keep in mind that in the 20s, mother Russia posters had been generally propoganda for the White Russians (meaning anti-communists, not Belorus).\n\nThe end result of this is that there were some \"communist\" reasons to lift up Russia as the mother of communism worldwide (at least of successful communism) and around the time the anthem was written, the traditional communist suppression of nationalism was dying away in the face of a need to motivate citizens to fight and contribute to the war effort." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cibbrwt", "cibcnt3" ], "score": [ 22, 12 ], "text": [ "Disease was certainly a problem, especially for Native Americans who didn't have the same heritable immunities as people of European descent. But the violence of the American West has been dramatized quite a lot. \n\nYou're statistically more likely to be shot Chicago today than you were to get shot in a place like Abeline. \n\nNow, there were certainly incidents of violence. In the [Coffeyville raid](_URL_0_), for example, the Dalton Gang attempted to rob two Kansas banks but were cut down by armed citizens. Many people, especially ranchers and property owners, kept guns, although six-shooters were rarer than you might think. Shotguns ard rifles were more accurate and more practical for hunting and self-defense. Or the [Lincoln County War](_URL_1_), the basis for the (heavily dramatized) film *Young Guns* and one of several grazing disputes that turned violent during the period.\n\nBut all the same dime novelists and cowboy films have made the \"Wild\" West to be a good deal more violent than it really was. Shootouts make for good drama, but they were something of a rarity. ", "Like others have said, disease was common, as was drought, and also failed homesteading.\n\nHowever, when you think about duels, cowboys, and saloon doors, that's all a fiction. Cowboys were more like what we now think of as ranchers.\n\nThe misconceptions come from western fiction of the time. Pulp novels that romanticized the west were sold to people in the more populated east, which was escapism from the urban population crisis' of the industrial revolution. They were pretty formulaic with very common themes, which evolved into our conceptions of the west. The genre really took off at the turn of the century, when the west was becoming less of a frontier, and people were nostalgic. That's when you see the popularity of \"Wild West Shows\" skyrocket, which also strengthened these misconceptions.\n\nSource: \"History of the West Through Film,\" taken at the UofO in 2005 (I think) taught by Professor Ostler." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Gang#Coffeyville_bank_robbery", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_County_War" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dhjv8h6", "dhko9bf" ], "score": [ 4, 2 ], "text": [ "There's a great book about this topic called \"America's Geisha Ally: Reimagining the Japense Enemy\" by Naoko Shibusawa. It goes into great detail about the United States government entering into the \"reverse course\" following WWII. What this basically means is that during and directly after the war, the general consensus of the government and populace of the United States was that Japan was going to pay dearly for its aggressive war. However, because of the looming threat of communism in the far east, and the capitalist framework that Japan had in place (infrastructure, skilled and disciplined workforce, industry, etc.) these plans were scrapped in favor of a program that would promote Japanese economic strength and stability. The United States went through great lengths to basically 'retrain' its populace from seeing the Japanese as a hated natural enemy to seeing them as effeminate and weak and in need of pity. Great book if you get a chance to check it out!", " > How quickly did prejudice towards Japanese-Americans by the general American population end after WW2?\n\nAny academic who studies race and racism in the US will tell you that prejudice and discrimination has not ended against Japanese people in the US. It may not be as widespread as it was decades earlier, but many US citizens hold stereotypes about the Japanese. Some of this discrimination is related to WW2. Prejudice and stereotypes are passed down in families and across generations. Some discrimination is related to portrayal of Asians and Japanese in the US media. \n\nJapanese in the US today often face discrimination, just as other non-white people do. The degree of this varies across US states, cities and rural locations. There is less discrimination in places that are more diverse, such as parts of California. Strong anti-Japanese feelings are also more common in older people in the US. It is also true that anti-Japanese discrimination has decreased in the last two decades. \n\nMost experts would not say discrimination against Japanese in the US has ended, but may agree that attitudes towards Japanese people have changed over time (and become less negative). Note that the perspectives on historical and contemporary racism in the US vary greatly between these three groups: academic experts on race relations; whites; and non-whites that experience discrimination (including Japanese Americans and immigrants). \n\nFrom [Racial Microaggressions and the Asian American, 2007, Columbia University](_URL_1_) \n\nThe next three quotes are from this source: \n\n > Despite the belief that Asian Americans have somehow “made\nit” in our society and are “immune” to racism, widespread prejudice\nand discrimination continue to take a toll on their standard of\nliving, self-esteem, and psychological well being (Wong & Halgin,\n2006). Indeed, the study of Asians in America is the study of\nwidespread prejudice and discrimination leveled at this group. \n\nEvidence of prejudice and discrimination today: \n\n > most of the racial microagressions that occurred came\nfrom peers, neighbors, friends or authority figures. It disturbed\nthem that personal or respected acquaintances could make such\ninsensitive or hurtful remarks. What bothered them most, however,\nwas their occasional tendency to “make excuses” for friends by\nrationalizing away their biases and by denying their own racial\nreality. \n \nMany whites and non-whites in the US are in denial and dismiss the idea that discrimination exists and is widespread in the US. Many non-whites have a different view based on their personal experiences of discrimination. \n\n\n > it is important for social scientists and the general public to possess a realistic picture of Asian Americans and to understand the many overt and covert manifestations of racism directed at them. \n\nGiven all of this, including the existence of frequent, subtle discrimination today against Japanese Americans, it is still true that the view of Japanese by the general public is very different today than in the decades after WW2. Discrimination and prejudice in the US changes and evolves over time. \n\nBased on your example of Norman Mineta, your question may really be: \nWhen did the strongest forms of overt racism and prejudice against Japanese and Japanese Americans end in the US? You note this Japanese American Congressman as evidence that this prejudice has ended. \n\nAdditional Source: \n \n[*Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience*](_URL_0_), Angelo N Ancheta, Rutgers University Press, 2006. \n > racial discrimination, both subtle and overt, persists in many sectors of American life, and Asian Americans still suffer from treatment both as \"perpetual foreigners\" and as a \"model minority\" group. \n\nFor anyone who wants to learn more about race relations in the US (from an academic perspective) I highly recommend taking a college course on racism, or using a syllabus from such a course as a guide to reading materials that serve as an introduction to the subject. \n" ] }

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[ [], [ "https://books.google.com/books/about/Race_Rights_and_the_Asian_American_Exper.html?id=Uc_q6upNmugC", "http://www.oregoncampuscompact.org/uploads/1/3/0/4/13042698/racial_microaggressions_and_aa_experience.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cq4fasf", "cq4febf" ], "score": [ 186, 19 ], "text": [ "It wasn't just one single law but rather a series of laws. The first was the Page Act of 1875 that primarily targeted Asians, particularly Chinese people, that were immigrating to the western United States to work menial jobs like railroads. Just like we see in the debates today about Hispanic people coming to the United States to work mostly low-wage jobs, there were concerns about taking jobs away from white Americans, as well as diseases, immorality, and integration of the Chinese into American culture.\n\nAnother major law was the Immigration Act of 1924, which severely limited the number of people that could come from any one country to 2% of the number of people from that country that had already immigrated. This was similar to the Page Act in that it was designed to preserve a certain ethnic makeup of the country. But these laws continue to change over time and even now we see debates about how to \"fix\" them. The shift from almost entirely open borders to what we have now was very slow and incremental.", "One of the early laws was the[ Page Act of 1875](_URL_0_) (PDF). It imposed restrictions on Asian immigration to the US,, and further stated that:\n\n > [I]t shall be unlawful for aliens of the following classes to immigrate into the United States, namely, persons who are undergoing a sentence for conviction in their own country of felonious crimes other than political or growing out of or the result of such political offenses, or whose sentence has been remitted on condition of their emigration, and women \"imported for the purposes of prostitution.\" **Every vessel arriving in the United States may be inspected under the direction of the collector at the port at which it arrives, if he shall have reason to believe that any such obnoxious persons are on board**" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://library.uwb.edu/guides/usimmigration/18%20stat%20477.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dkcm6l9" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "In Northern Europe, people would refer to the direction of the sun - indicating a direction was either \"sunwise\" or \"against the sun\": In the north, if one faces south to watch the path the sun takes, it moves in an arc that moves from the left to the right - \"sunwise\" or in today's term \"clockwise.\" Clocks moved in the direction of the sun because that was the preferred, \"safe\" direction. Moving against the sun - today's counterclockwise\" - was regarded as going again the natural order of things. It was potentially dangerous in magical terms to do things - stirring food or walking around a church - in a direction that was \"against the sun.\"" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ccfktxe" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "There was a recession in 1945. GDP fell by 12.7% in that recession. By comparison, the recession of 2007 lowered GDP by 4.3%.\n\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cgvd7u7", "cgvdexn" ], "score": [ 3, 15 ], "text": [ "Edited to remove typos.\n\nYour question is far too broad for anyone to answer (at least to the standard expected). I'm sorry. To explain: 1) the death of major figures is not always clear cut. 2) this means a respondant requires exhaustive contextual knowledge of a thousand years of history across medieval Europe (to assume you are just considering that region). \n\nOur major sources at this level are chronicles - and these writers may be writing.some time after the events they describe. This might mean they have been influenced (or consciously decided to perpetuate) by rumours surrounding a monarch's death.", "Most medieval kings died of old age, illness, or some other \"natural cause.\" If a king died from something more nefarious, it usually stands out in the historical record. Take the English monarchs, of which there have been about 50 if we count liberally between Alfred the Great and Charles I (by liberally I mean including people like Lady Jane Grey and Matilda). \n\nThree were killed in battle or by wounds sustained in battle (Harold Godwinson, Richard the Lion Heart, and Richard III)\n\nOne king (Edmund I) died in a brawl that he probably started.\n\nThree were definitely murdered (Edward the Martyr, Edward II, and Richard II).\n\nTwo were probably murdered (William Rufus and Henry VI [who was already deposed])\n\nAnd two were beheaded (Lady Jane Grey and Charles I).\n\nSo, that's 11 deaths total that weren't natural causes, out of 50 people, and two of those are only suspicious deaths, not confirmed assassinations." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c8r2h95" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I think you have elevated the mandate to a height that it doesn't deserve. Innovations in China did not depend at all on unification. Some examples: \nThe great advances in military tactics, poetry, and paper all occurred in the six dynasties period, that which lies between the Han and sui/tang. The next great innovation was the printing press, which saw it's first major use in the five dynasties/ten kingdoms period between the tang and song. There is no great correlation between unification and innovation. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dlzsfb8" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "For the most part there was very little armor included in fighter aircraft of WWII. The Japanese Ki-43-II only had a single 13mm steel plate behind the pilot. Even planes renowned for their ruggedness such as the P-47 had only minor armor. The P-47D had a 10mm plate behind the pilot and a small plate in front of the pilot under the canopy. For fighters, armor played only a small role in the durability of the plane. Fighters had to be light and manoeuvrable in order to effectively fit their role. The Bf-109 came with an additional armor plate behind the headrest, but this was often removed by pilots who considered increased visibility to be more valuable. \n\nThe only other protection resembling armor on fighters would be strengthened glass which could withstand a few hits from low calibre rounds. This would only be found right in front of the pilot, with few exceptions. The skin on the wings and fuselage were not thickened because the disadvantage of the extra mass far outweighed any small increase that may have been gained in this manner.\n\nIf you would like to know more about planes with heavier armor we would need to look at ground attackers such as the legendary IL-2 and the Hs.129. A modern example of such a plane would be the A-10 Warthog currently in service with the US military.\nI would suggest you watch [this](_URL_0_) video by youtuber Bismark for a good overview of this topic." ] }

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[ [ "https://youtu.be/-v5aMayFrRE" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dc7bvem" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "The Republic did have the legal power to ban both of these organizations as early as 1922. The *Republikschutzgesetz* (Law for the Protection of the Republic) gave both the *Land* and central governments broad authority to suppress organizations deemed a threat to the Republic. These laws allowed for the temporary bans of media that encourage violence. Under the rubric of \"endangering public safety,\" the *Republikschutzgesetz* outlawed the organizations from owning unauthorized weapons, the creation and brandishing of a weapons arsenal, and criminalized the failure to report on the existence of weapons arsenal. But gun control and regulation was not the primary focus of the *Republikschutzgesetz* but rather to restrict the operations of various anti-republican groups and provide grounds for their prosecution. The *Republikschutzgesetz*'s provisions on firearms were predicated upon a pre-existing January 1919 Reichstag legislation which banned the private ownership of firearms to meet provisions of the Versailles Treaty which called for a wide-ranging German disarmament, including non-state affiliated militias. \n\nThe Law had a five-year life, but was extended in both 1927 and 1929. Inn the latter year, the Republic used the *Republikschutzgesetz* to ban the KPD's paramilitary wing, the *Roter Frontkämpferbund* (RFB). The ban was relatively ineffective; Berlin police reported that the RFB still collected dues and many RFB members simply did not wear their uniforms and insignia, but still hewed to their paramilitary organization. The ban restricted membership and new recruitment, but did not kill the organization. \n\nNonetheless, the ban of the RFB did send a clear signal as to the authorities' thoughts on Communist paramilitaries. But neither the NSDAP's SA or SS were banned in 1929, despite evidence of considerable violence by the NSDAP groups. Nor did the ban the *Stahlhelm* paramilitary of the right-wing DNVP or the socialist *Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold* of the SDP. These paramilitaries continued to function in the chaos years of the Depression and their street brawls contributed to a larger sense of the Republic's terminal decline. \n\nThe nominal reason for not banning these organizations was that a group like the SA was only open to NSDAP members. Therefore, applying the *Republikschutzgesetz* to the SA or SS was not banning a paramilitary organization, but suppressing an internal part of a political party, which the Constitution forbid. But this type of rationale could have also applied to the RFB. The continued survival of both the *Stahlhelm* and the RSRG point to favortism on the part of the state towards those in power, but this still does not explain the reluctance to apply the law to the NSDAP, who were self-described political outsiders. There were repeated calls between 1930 and 1931 to ban the NSDAP's paramilitary wing, but the state and *Land* governments dragged their feet until April 1932 and the Brüning government banned the SA and SS. \n\nBut by this time, the SA, and to a lesser extent, the SS, had a large enough following to make the ban toothless. SA men simply wore insignia on the inside of their lapels or marched in plain white shirts. Various *Land* laws against uniforms were evaded through such measures. Moreover, both the SA and SS tended to frame their flaunting of the ban or *ersatz* uniforms as an issue of free speech protected by the constitution. The fall of the Brüning led to a reversal of the NSDAP ban by von Papen the following June.\n\nThis reluctance and von Papen's reversal showcases one of the fundamental problems of the *Republikschutzgesetz*: although the law itself was politically neutral, its application was not. Von Papen and his entourage certainly thought they could use the NSDAP for its own ends, but the reluctance to use the law against right-wing groups ran deeper than the immediate political milieu of 1932. The Weimar justice system, ranging from police to judges, was \"blind in the right eye,\" meaning that right-wing radicals received far less attention for their activities than those on the left. Hitler and his fellow defendants' slap on the wrist for the Beer Hall Putsch was only one example of a justice system that was quite lenient for right-wing radicalism. In all the debates over applying the law to the NSDAP, few in the central government considered reversing the RFB ban. The various Weimar police departments investigated the KPD's groups with far more alacrity than equivalent right-wing opponents of the Republic. \n\nThis selective legal astigmatism did not prevent Hitler from making political hay from the few times the NSDAP felt state repression. Both in his run-up to power and after Hitler's appointment as Chancellor, the NSDAP would use these few examples of the *Republikschutzgesetz* as evidence that the NSDAP had triumphed against a hostile establishment that had stacked the odds against them. The Republic's use of political suppression became an opportunity for the NSDAP to cast democratic opponents of the Nazi seizure of power as hypocrites. When the Centre Württemberg State President, Eugen Bolz critiqued the NSDAP's antidemocratic moves in February 1933, Hitler responded in a speech attacking both Bolz and presenting his Chancellorship as a true defense of freedom:\n\n > Those who made no mention of our freedom for fourteen years have no right to talk about it today. As Chancellor I need only use one law for the protection of the national state, just as they made a law for the protection of the Republic back then, and then they would realize that not everything they called freedom was worthy of the name. \n\nBolz ended up forced out of office, spent a few weeks inside a concentration camp, and then in the political wilderness of the 1930s under Gestapo surveillance. \n\nIt is possible that Hitler and other NSDAP leaders may have believed that the main ire *Republikschutzgesetz* was directed at them. The NSDAP soon enacted their own version of *Republikschutzgesetz* in February 1933 as part of the Reichstag Fire Decrees, and Goebbels's diary entries from this period show a certain glee at meeting out vengeance and bans against their political enemies of the 1929-33 period. But the NSDAP's public rhetoric about the *Republikschutzgesetz* was half-right. The application of the law did stack the deck, but in *favor* of the NSDAP and their fellow-travelers on the right. They saw not only their ideological rivals on the left suppressed by the law, but could benefit from knowing how the RFB evaded it when the *Republikschutzgesetz* belatedly came for them. \n\n*Sources*\n\nEvans, Richard J. *The Coming of the Third Reich*. New York: Penguin Press, 2004. \n\nFulda, Bernhard. *Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic*. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. \n\nSwett, Pamela E. *Neighbors and Enemies: The Culture of Radicalism in Berlin, 1929-1933*. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dv1uprf", "dv4076c" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "You might be best served by posting this in r/guns. ", "As with today, the [field manuals](_URL_1_) outline the expected care for issued rifles and equipment. \n\nAs an example: \nFM 23-6 covers the M1917 .30 Enfield \nFM 23-7 covers the M1 \nFM 23-35 covers pistols \nFM 23-15 the BAR \n\nThe [technical manuals](_URL_0_) covered what what ordnance teams would look at to service guns that needed maintenance. \n\n[TM 9-1270](_URL_2_) covers rifles \nTM 9-1295 covers pistols\n\n\n" ] }

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[ [], [ "https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/TM/index.html", "http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/FM/", "https://archive.org/details/1944TM9-1270" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "doypskg", "doz73fe" ], "score": [ 19, 120 ], "text": [ "Follow-up: when did this theory rise to prominence? Is it just with the film JFK? Or had it been in the public consciousness for a while?", "The magic bullet theory is, indeed, the claim that the trajectory of the bullet was impossible, requiring several turns in mid air, and thus that there was a second gunman. \n\nIn reality the magic bullet theory is based on some false premises, and itself ignores some of the critical evidence. As in, if the magic bullet was fired by a second gunman we are short one bullet hole in the car...\n\nNote, the 'magic bullet' was the 2nd (of 3) Oswald fired. The 1st missed cleanly. The 3rd was the head shot that killed Kennedy.\n\nAlso, given the range and circumstances, this did not require nor did Oswald demonstrate unusual marksmanship.\n\nSome issues-\n\nKennedy was shot from behind, why did his head jerk *backwards*. This is a subtle effect of physics. Penn and Teller (among others) recreated it exactly with a melon. Not an issue.\n\nBullet trajectory- The Magic Bullet Theory assumes several things there were not, in fact, correct. \n\nThe car they were in was not a normal model. It was specifically modified for parades, to show off the important passenger. \n\nAs a consequence-\n\nA) Kennedy and Connolly were not aligned front to back. Connolly was closer to the center.\n\nB) Kennedy and Connolly were not at the same height. Kennedy's seat was higher, so the crowds could get a better look.\n\nC) Kennedy was not sitting upright at the time. He had leaned forward to talk to Connolly ('was that a gunshot?')\n\nD) Connolly was not facing forward at the time, he had twisted around to listen to Kennedy.\n\nAs a consequence of all of this, there was, indeed a straight line through Kennedy and Connolly, and thus no need for turns in mid air and no actual 'magic bullet'.\n\nWhy was the bullet not deformed? Until it ended up in Connolly's wrist, it passed entirely through soft tissue. And the bullet was, in fact, deformed. \n\nKennedy's as the most investigated murder in world history. And the committee doing the investigation was *extremely* thorough. There was no conspiracy, no second gunman. There was just a lone man with an opportunity." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cyn6cg8" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "Oddly enough, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were considered the model Christian minority prior to the emergence of the Armenian Question in the late 19th century. They even earned the epithet of *millet-i sadıka*, \"the loyal millet\", millet here is an ottoman term used to denote an ethnic and religious community. The reason for this, as the title implies, was the perceived loyalty of Armenians compared to the other Christian minorities.\n\nIn the European part of the ottoman empire, rising wave of nationalism was felt relatively shortly after the French Revolution, with the first Serbian uprising happening in 1804, and Greeks were the first amongst Empire's Christian subjects to have their own independent state in 1832. Although the Greek kingdom was restricted to Peloponnese for most of the 19th century, it opened a Pandora's box which the ottomans never managed to shut down. \n\nFor Armenians however, things progressed far more slowly. \"The Eastern Question\" didn't become a widely spoken issue until it was mentioned in the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. Even this was the result of external powers' pressure upon the ottoman government to improve the situation of the Christian subjects in the eastern provinces, and not an Armenian rebellion. An Armenian bishop at the time even states that this is the first time in which the Armenians make a political, rather than merely religious, appearance. Reasons for relatively late development of this national identity is complex, but i think it is fair to state that Armenians, living at the eastern provinces, were somewhat isolated from the events happening at the Balkans at the turn of the 19th century.\n\nSource;\nMasayuki Ueno (2013). “FOR THE FATHERLAND AND THE STATE”: ARMENIANS NEGOTIATE THE TANZIMAT REFORMS. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cr9gfja" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "After the death of Hitler the new Reichspraesident Doentiz, actively moved soldiers from the Eastern Front to the Western Front so that they could surrender to the Western Allies. However, civilians were largely left to fend for themselves. Doentiz kept the war going with holding actions to allow as many soldiers to flee as possible and thus civilians kept dying as the Soviets bombarded cities, towns, etc.\n\nA book on this very topic is \"The End\" by Ian Kershaw which is about the final days of the Third Reich." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d0us9a9", "d0vb32u" ], "score": [ 4, 2 ], "text": [ "Persian as in the culture? If so it was huge, not only was it the court language and culture, it was also the language of the arts and sciences, thanks in part to a massive influx of Persian immigrants (brain drain?) that migrated there 1500s.\n\n\n\n\nIf you meant Persian, as in the Safavids, then that was also considerable, or even huge if you were to define some of the acts the Deccan Sultanates (the Shia ones, such as Golconda) as acts of subservience. Salma Ahmed Farooqui (Comprehensive History of Medieval India) writes that the Qutb Shahi dynasty of Golconda, themselves descendants of the Qara Qoyunlu, would read aloud the names of the Safavids Sahs in their call to prayer, which is an act of subservience, one you'd to for the Caliph.\n\n", "Now others have covered the cultural impact; indeed the Bahmanid Sultanate derived its ancestry from the mythical Persian king Bahman. \n\nHowever, the political impact cannot be understated. When the Bahmani split into the four Shia states of Berar, Ahmednagar, Bijapur and Golconda, and after the Mughals rolled in, it was important to maintain ties with Iran simply because the Mughals laid claim to all India. When they diplomatically engaged with anyone (other than the Persians or Ottomans and to a lesser extent the Chinese) the Mughals treated them as feudatories, with tribute and duty in order. \n\nThe four sultanates would play ball, but also maintained the supremacy of Persia as a way to keep their practical independence, a policy that would eventually fail after Aurangzeb invades the South.\n\nSource: Writing the Mughal World, Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Muzaffar Alam" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cr8ciwr" ], "score": [ 25 ], "text": [ "History enthusiast here.\n\nOther cities as in other Roman cities?\n\nTo answer your question, considering that the aqueducts were fed by springs quite far away from Rome itself, the possibility of a waterborne illness is quite unlikely. To entertain the possibility would call for some infected body (human, fish, vegetable) to take a dip in an aqueduct (or the spring itself). However, if the source was a stagnant body of water (unlikely as the master planners knew the relation between stagnant water and waterborne diseases), then bid farewell to a large chunk of Rome's population.\n\nTo your other question, yes, the aqueduct was vastly superior (in terms of safety) compared to drawing water from a well, spring, or river, as those sources could become easily contaminated over a short period of time.\n\nSources: _URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.romanaqueducts.info/picturedictionary/pd_onderwerpen/hygieneandhealth.htm", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_aqueduct" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cn7fy77", "cn7goi8", "cn7gowe", "cn7irwy", "cn7kw0m", "cn7ltjh", "cn7tv6u", "cn85qhx", "cna0wix" ], "score": [ 70, 1395, 24, 489, 399, 69, 6, 7, 2 ], "text": [ "I'm curious about whether this is a trend that occurs in other countries or past cultures as well. Could it be a result of the Internet and other increased forms of communication? Maybe accessibility breeds familiarity. \n\nPlease don't delete or ban if I'm breaking rules here. ", "It's more like 150 years, but weddings have gotten much more formal and formalized in that timeframe. Of course, plenty of people have informal/courthouse/Vegas weddings, but the idea of a wedding has changed from a small gathering of family and close friends in the home of the bride's or groom's parents to a large, fancy, ceremonial affair. \n\nIn 1840, Queen Victoria of Great Britain married Prince Albert. The bride wore a white satin dress, which immediately set the standard for brides-to-be who could afford white material and had the means to keep it clean. Prior to that (and for many years following for most women), women were typically married in their \"best\" dress, which was often made of a dark material so it could double as a funeral dress for those occasions. The rise of a (White) middle class in the United States meant that more women could aspire to the trappings of wealth, such as a big fancy white dress, catered dinner, a confectioner-made (rather than homemade) cake, engraved invitations, and such. Professions arose or adapted to meet these needs - florists, caterers, etc. Much of the modern wedding industry is based on this desire to imitate the formality and wealth the rich and aristocratic displayed on a daily (or at least frequent) basis -- allowing the bride and groom to be \"rich for a day.\" (As someone who studies the history of media and technology, I have to point out here the influence of the invention of photography and the spread of newspapers, whose \"society pages\" helped circulate images of wealth widely.)\n\nIf you are interested in reading more, Carol Wallace's *All Dressed in White: The Irresistible Rise of the American Wedding* (Penguin, 2004) is a pop history of weddings in the U.S.", "Also, if I could ask a related question, are there examples of American culture becoming more formal at times? For example, I am dimly aware of soldiers during the Civil War espousing an old-school chivalry in letters, and of the \"Victorian\" era in general being formal and dour; but I don't know enough to assess either if these are correct understandings or to compare them with prior time periods. ", "Resumes have become an institution in the last 75 or so years. It used to be you carried a note from a Lord or trade guild and that was about it. These days people agonize over small details because these trivial things seem to mater. You will not find a lot of historical examples of resumes since they were almost unheard of.\n\n_URL_0_\n", "There is an interesting set of arguments about this from a sociological standpoint, one of which I am familiar with is by Samus Khan in *Privilege* (/u/yodatsracist can chime in to clarify and correct me). Basically, going back to Bourdieu what we call using the shorthand term \"formal\" is really a set of behavioral norms, or to put it another way, embodied class knowledge. The way you behave is the way you communicate your social position in a largely unconscious process: using the right fork, properly tying a bow tie, using a pocket square all communicate one aspect of social position; being able to fix a car or crush a beer can on your forehead communicates a different one. If these seem stereotypical, well, that is because they are: stereotypes are how we \"read\" the information communicated by behavioral norms. The argument is a lot more complicated than that, but that should be a serviceable overview.\n\nThe stuffy formalism of the nineteenth and early twentieth century is essentially a result of the class position of the social elite. Unlike the earlier hereditary nobility, the capitalist elite was undergirt by a meritocratic ideology, so they justified their position by essentially saying they earned it or at least actively contributed to it, rather than the earlier elite who viewed it as an essential aspect of their very being. John Blackwell, factory owner, needed to constantly reinforce his status position in a way that Guy de la Mantoyet, Baronet of Lancashire did not. So the demands of a young, somewhat mobile elite required a far more regulated set of behavioral norms than a hereditary one. If you compare George Washington's etiquette book with later Victorian ones, for example, it is far more concerned with having correct class knowledge (who is who, how to act to who) than with the sort of obsessive physical purity of the latter. Now this arguments gets a *lot* more complicated, but again, this should be serviceable.\n\nNow the interesting thing that has happened in the last fifty odd years is that the earlier ideology has been replaced by a more radically egalitarian one (even as social mobility has actually decreased--ideology need not be reality!). For a whole variety of reasons, including the decline of wealth based on \"pure\" capitalism in favor of high status wage labor, the sort of obsessive behavior regulation has become untenable unstable. What replaced it is a sort of cultural omnivorousness: if an elite in 1900 was able to deeply appreciate opera and knew how to formally dine like second nature, the elite of 2000 could listen to classical, jazz, *and* hip hop, and could dine formally and use chopsticks at a hole in the wall noodle joint. Instead of communicating status by deep behavioral embodiment of a set of norms, they are able to freely \"code switch\" depending on the situation.\n\nSo in a way, American culture didn't actually become less formal if by formal we mean status embodiment, Just that the needs of high status and thus the norms of embodiment have changed.", "Followup: Also, how formal was the past in reality, and how much of our perception is simply romanticization in modern media that may not reflect reality? ", "Could this question be extended over Western culture as a whole? In fact, are there any cultures that have not become less formal over the last century?", "I would say the process of getting a job has become dramatically more formalized. When I was very young it was already becoming rare but you would still once in a while be able to pick up a job on the spot by talking to someone in charge. It has been more than 10 years since anyone I know in person has been able to land any kind of work without having to submit resume's and formally interview for even the most bullshit of little jobs.", "Adoption has become a more formal process. Orphaned children used to ride on trains, getting off at each station where farmers would look them over. If a child looked like they could be helpful in the home or on a farm, it was \"adopted\". Now, because of international adoptions, agencies are needed to guide adoptive parents through the adoption process. Also, a majority of US adoptions are now infants and toddlers. This has led to a more formal and more administrative process. " ] }

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[ [], [], [], [ "http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/skills-of-da-vinci.html?m=1" ], [], [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "czmfv40" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "As for your first question, it depends on the era you're talking about. Prior to the Thirty Years War, most states did not have a standing army, but rather formed/hired an army as needed. However, this was not particularly unique within the HRE, given that standing armies were very expensive, and most states did not have a standing army. As standing professional armies became more common in the post-Westphalian period, many of the states did maintain standing forces. \n\nIn terms of more general autonomy, the various states of the HRE did have a degree of say in how/where troops were deployed. The *Reichstag*--the Imperial Diet--which consisted of the electors, princes, and free cities, could vote to raise troops or money for the defence of the Empire in general, and the Emperor could request such a vote for defence against a particular threat, such as the Ottomans advancing against the Empire's southern frontier, or the French in the west. Of course, there was a difference between the *Reichstag* voting for money/troops to be sent to the Emperor, and that money and troops actually materialising. \n\nThe Empire was subdivided into several 'Circles', which were regional gatherings of princes in certain regions of the Empire. The Circle was essentially an attempt to localise defence amongst the princes. Each Circle had its own Diet for deliberation amongst the princes that were apart of the Circle, and were meant to allow them to co-ordinate their responses to threats and collection of taxes voted for by the *Reichstag*. In times of *Reichskrieg*, the Circles were responsible for raising and supporting a set number of forces in order to form a combined Army of the Empire, independent and seperate from the army of the Emperor. \n\nAs for your second question, it's important to note that from ~1500 on, the Empire was under the rule of the Perpetual Public Peace, which obligated the princes of the Empire to settle their disputes through the Imperial legal system, rather than through force of arms. While the Thirty Years War serves as an obvious counter-example, the Public Peace was generally respected, and escalation to force of arms within the Empire relatively rare until the complete breakdown of the Thirty Years War. It does depend on how you define 'regularly', of course, as the post-Thirty Years War period through the whole of the 18th century had many wars, but whether or not this counts as 'regularly' fighting battles is up for debate. It is worth noting that in many of the major wars throughout the period, there was fighting in and amongst the princes of the Empire (See War of the Spanish Succession, War of the Austrian Succession), but in the Nine Years War and Great Turkish War, the Empire presented a relatively united front. The princes of the Empire did indeed fight against each other and foreign powers, but whether you can characterise that as 'regular' infighting or fighting against external powers is going to depend on what you want to focus on. \n\nHopefully this answers your question, and feel free to ask any followups! " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "eaz5n8i" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I answered a question similar to this [here](_URL_0_), but I'll repost it below." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9w3j5o/during_the_draft_in_america_how_did_they_choose/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dj1wn8e" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Hi, this question would be worth x-posting to our sister sub, r/AskAnthropology: while there are some specialists in pre-history here, there is a greater focus on early time periods over there." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c679mzj", "c67a1s4", "c67jyv6" ], "score": [ 6, 8, 2 ], "text": [ "To paraphrase:\n\nA man walks over to a slave trader\n\"It's this slave you sold me yesterday. He's died\"\nthe slave trader says\n\"That's odd, he never did that when he was with me\"\n\nThis is an Ancient Greek joke found etched on a stone tablet. \n\n", "Apparently a joke dating back to 1900 BCE was found in Sumeria: \"Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap.\" This Egyptian joke dates back to 1600 BCE: \"How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish\" ([Reuters](_URL_0_))", "I suggest you pick up a copy of the Táin Bó Cúailnge - early Irish literature. 1 century AD. It has some jokes/humour that should make you laugh." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/07/31/us-joke-odd-idUSKUA14785120080731" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cfvwhyp", "cfvwj7r" ], "score": [ 7, 3 ], "text": [ "Depends on how committed you are, but Shelby Foote's *The Civil War: A Narrative* is pretty much the gold standard in Civil War history. It's a three volume work, very long and thorough. ", "If you haven't already, you might consider watching Ken Burns' *Civil War* documentary series. It is available on Netflix, if that's an option for you." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e2o3kpt" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "Local law was very much allowed in the Roman Empire, as a holdover from Republican days, whether the matter was civil or generally criminal. Governors of provinces generally allowed local courts to handle legal matters, only stepping in when cases were referred to them; at this point, generally the local law would apply to provincials, while Roman law declared by the urban praetor applied to Roman citizens living there (John Richardson's summary article on Roman law in the provinces from the *Cambridge Companion to Roman Law* is a relatively readable summary for an academic text). As Richardson states, local law was eroded as the Empire continued.\n\nHowever, the issue becomes thornier because you're specifically asking about criminal sentencing to death. This power - known as the *ius gladii* - was one reserved for the provincial governor (although this was not widespread in the first years of the Empire, instead remaining with the Emperor himself). However, this is not a totally clear-cut situation, as can be seen in a well known example - the sentencing of Jesus Christ.\n\nJohn 18 states that the Sanhedrin - the Jewish court - go to Pontius Pilate and tell him that they do not have the power to sentence him to death despite him breaking a law that demands it (Leviticus 24 states that blasphemy is a capital offence, punishable by stoning to death). So far, so consistent. However, Pilate tells them to \"take him (yourselves) and crucify him\" and the Jewish historian Josephus recounts other instances of the Sanhedrin issuing and carrying out death sentences at the time. Smallwood's *The Jews Under Roman Rule* hypothesises that an exemption may have been made allowing the Sanhedrin the power of execution in matters of religion, but offers no proof of this, only the examples given above." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ccmagxr", "ccmbf7x", "ccmcki0" ], "score": [ 5, 5, 2 ], "text": [ "The first known use of the proper name \"World War\" (as opposed to \"Great War\" or \"European War\") was in 1919, if the *OED* is to be believed. It was used as a general descriptor (\"a world-war\" or the German *Weltkrieg*) for the conflict as early as 1914 so the idea existed well before US entry. So it might--it involved Canada and Japan at the outset, after all--but as with all counterfactuals, we can't say with certainty. The other choice, the Great War, persisted for a longer time especially in Europe, so the US may have been a crucial driver for its general adoption. But usage varied and turned heavily on political perceptions and motivations, so just as we can't say what a Second World War would have looked like without US involvement in 1917-1918, we also can't say what the contours of its naming would have been. But it was *possible*.\n\nFor a discussion of the naming issue in historical context, see David Reynolds, [\"The Origins of the Two 'World Wars': Historical Discourse and International Politics,\" *Journal of Contemporary History* 38, no. 1 (2003): 29-44.](_URL_0_) ", "The classification 'World War' is a technical term that doesn't precisely have an answer. It's simplest, and most commonly accepted definition is a 'War spanning multiple countries and continents, and multiple theatres of war'. \n\nWorld War I featured -\n\n| Allies | Central Powers | Others |\n|:------------------:|:-----------------------------------------:|:------------:|\n| British Empire |Austro-Hungarian Empire (Austria, Hungary, Few Balkan states, Bosnia, Hertzegovnia, Serbia, Part of Montenegro, others) | Albania\n| Belgium (Including Colonial forces) |Bulgaria | Andorra\n|Australia |German Empire| Armenia (1918)\n|BE's Colonies| Ottoman Empire |Bolivia (1917 onwards)\n|Canada||Brazil (1917 Onwards)\n|India||China (1917 Onwards)\n|New Zealand||Costa Rica (1918)\n|Newfoundland||Cuba (1917 Onwards)\n|South Africa|| Czechoslovakia\n|France|| Ecuador (1917 Onwards)\n|Kingdom of Greece (May 1917 onwards)||Guatemala (1918)\n|Kingdom of Italy (1915 onwards)|| Liberia (1917 Onwards)\n|Empire of Japan|| Haiti (1918)\n|Kingdom of Montenegro||Honduras (1918)\n|Portugal (1916 Onwards)||Nicaguara (1918)\n|Kingdom of Romania (1916-1918)||Panama (1917 Onwards)\n|Russian Empire (1914-1917)||Peru (1917 Onwards)\n|Kingdom of Serbia|| San Marino (1915 Onwards)\n|United States of America (1917 Onwards)||Siam (1917 Onwards)\n|||Uruguay (1917 Onwards)\n\n\n-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nI suppose with WW1 you can split it into 4 key theatres.\n\n**Western Front**\n\n| Entente | Central Powers |\n|:----------:|:----------:|\n|UKE + Colonies | German Empire|\n|France + Colonies | Austria-Hungary|\n|Italy\n|Belgium\n|USA\n|Portugal\n|Russia\n\n**Eastern Front**\n\n| Entente | Central Powers |\n|:----------:|:----------:|\n|Russian Empire (1914-1917) | German Empire\n|Russian Provisional Government (1917) | Austria-Hungary\n|Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1918) | Bulgaria (1916-1917)\n|Romania (1916-1917) | Ottoman Empire (1916-1917)\n\n**Itallian Front**\n\n| Entente | Central Powers |\n|:----------:|:----------:|\n|Italy|Austria-Hungary\n|British Empire|German Empire\n|France\n|Czechoslovak Legions\n|USA\n\n**Galipolli (Not entirely sure if this is a 'front' or a 'Campaign', but it's worth a mention)**\n\n| Entente | Central Powers |\n|:----------:|:----------:|\n|British Empire|Ottoman Empire (With help, GE & AH)\n|France|\n\n\nBasically, Yeah. It was one HELL of a global conflict across Europe and Asia, regardless of US intervention it's a gigantic scale.", "Yes.\n\nMen from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and even French African territories fought. I think there were also those from South Africa for the Crown, too.\nThere was also fighting in Turkey and if you've seen *Lawrence of Arabia* you'd know all about the Arabia at the time." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.jstor.org/stable/3180695" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "coqelt1" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "This isn't my area of expertise, so someone else might be able to provide a better answer or more references, but as I understand it there are two issues here, one to do with the particular circumstances of William's 'invasion,' and one to do with British conceptions of our own 'history'.\n\nThe simple/traditional answer - ie. the argument that allows one to maintain that England has never been invaded, is that William and Mary were 'invited' to depose the Catholic James II/VII by a group of English peers on behalf of a population which was 'dissatisfied with the present conduct of the government in relation to their religion, liberties and properties.' On this basis, the Dutch army can be seen as only part of what was mainly a civil conflict, and thus it doesn't really 'count' as an invasion.\n\nHowever, to an extent you have already answered the question yourself - the idea that England has never been successfully invaded is a brag, and isn't actually based in much fact; there are plenty of further examples of successful foreign invasions of England, unless one uses an extremely strict definition of invasion. Throughout the middle ages, for example, numerous Scottish armies successfully fought campaigns in England with control over border regions changing hands repeatedly until around 1482, when the English last conquered Berwick-upon-Tweed. Even if we insist on an invasion requiring a change of government, there are further obvious examples. The future Henry IV, for example, took the throne from his cousin Richard II after being exiled to France and making an alliance with the Duke of Orléans, who controlled the French court. Similarly, Henry Tudor had barely even visited England before he left France with a fleet of English exiles and French and Scottish soldiers to take the throne and end the wars of the roses. \n\nThe Tudor example in particular once led my venerable old medieval history tutor to use some less than elegant words to describe the 'little Englanders who maintain that our fair isle has never been sullied by foreign boots'. At the time, I mostly found this amusing because lol teachers swearing, but actually the fact that this myth has developed is interesting in itself. Alas, I have no idea where it came from, so would be interested to hear if anyone else knows.\n\n*Sources*\n\nThe 1688 letter of invasion to William of Orange is in Browning, *English Historical Documents, 1660-1714*\n\n*Oxford Dictionary of National Biography* entries on Henry IV and Henry VII are very good for basic info on their rise to the throne\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ck2mili" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "It's hard to say when the first ironclad warship was proposed, as many people came up with the idea of putting iron plating on warships at many different times. For example, the \"atakebune\" warships of the 16th century Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga allegedly had some form of iron plating on their superstructure. During the early 19th century different people talked about the idea of iron-plated warships, but there was little impetus put into their creation until the Crimean War showed the strength of a type of naval artillery called the Paixhans gun.\n\nDeveloped by French artillery officer Henri-Joseph Paixhans, the Paixhans gun was the first naval cannon to utilize explosive shells. Shells had been used by land artillery for quite some time, but due to the inherently dangerous nature of shells (they are essentially bombs, after all), they had been limited to use in howitzers and mortars. Howitzers and mortars are designed to lob their shots or shells at a high trajectory, and don't need to fire at as high of a velocity as the sort of low-trajectory cannons that were used in ships at the time. Using shells in high velocity cannons was rather risky. Paixhans was able to develop a new fuse mechanism and cannon that made it safe to use explosive shells on naval ships.\n\nThe Paixhans gun was developed in the 1820s and installed on French ships by the 30s, but its first use against enemy ships occurred during the Crimean War. At the naval Battle of Sinop during November 1853, which was the engagement that properly started the war, Russian ships with Paixhans were able to destroy their Ottoman counterparts with ease. Sinop made it clear that wood vessels had no real way to counter these shells, which would lodge themselves in their targets before exploding.\n\nFrance and Britain declared war on Russia after the Battle of Sinop. The French Emperor Napoleon III, who did not want to risk seeing his ships go the way of those Ottoman ships when attacking Russian coastal fortifications (witch also had Paixhans), ordered the construction of armoured floating batteries, assigning the task to the inspector general of naval construction Garnier, a naval engineer named Guieysse, and Commander Favé, an artillery officer. A floating battery is a vessel with very limited mobility (they might be able to move at a few knots in calm seas and were often towed by other ships) but heavy armament. Floating batteries had been used before, but Napoleon III specified that these were to be designed to be able to deal with enemy shell-fire. He proposed that they use chests full of shot (the solid round projectiles fired out of muskets or cannons), but experiments conducted proved that iron plates backed by wood to be superior to cases of shot when dealing with both shells and shot. The French shared their plans with the British admiralty, and in 1855 the ironclad coastal batteries *Lave*, *Tonnante*, and *Dévastation* helped destroy Russian forts at the Battle of Kinburn with minimal causalities. Britain's ironclad batteries arrived too late to see any action.\n\nDuring the 1850s the French sought to build up their navy with the construction of many steamships of all classes, but due to improvements in naval guns and the lessons of the Crimean War, the naval commission tasked with this naval construction decided to halt work on wooden ships-of-the-line and instead try to design ironclad seagoing warships (a process that would require lots and lots of men and experimentation). This culminated in the *Glorie*, designed by the naval architect Henri Dupuy de Lôme and his staff.\n\nRather than crediting one individual, I'd say that the main driving force behind the ironclad was the French Navy as a whole. Given his heavy involvement in the process, though, I suppose one could say that Emperor Napoleon III deserves a fair bit of the credit.\n\nI can't say that I know much about the history of ironclads in the Royal Navy or other navies besides that of the French. If someone does, feel free to elaborate.\n\nSource:\n\n[Baxster, James P. *The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship.* Naval Institute Press, 1933.](_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [ "http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Introduction_of_the_Ironclad_Warship.html?id=rR95Mi7vVHoC" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d5dh2fx" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "At the time, there was not enough LVTs for use in both the European and Pacific theaters. The initial stages of Operation Forager (the invasion of the Mariana and Palau islands) underwent preparation and execution at about the same time as D-Day, and few of the vehicles could be spared. Redeployment and retraining of amphibian tractor and amphibian tank battalions from the Pacific to European Theaters would have been another issue; drawing these units away could reduce the potential of troops in the Pacific to conduct landings. If LVTs were used on D-Day, it is presumed that only Army units would have been involved. In the first half of 1944, only a single Army amphibian tank battalion existed, the 708th. Activation and training of new units would also take time, up to a year.\n\nThe vast majority of LVT types were not armored at all, having only a thin steel hull.\n\nVersion|Armor|Notes\n:--|:--|:--\nLVT-1|None (9 mm plates added to some vehicles' cabs before Tarawa)|No rear ramp: capacity 18 passengers\nLVT-2|None|No rear ramp; capacity 24 passengers\nLVT(A)-2|6.5 mm on hull, 12.7 mm on cab|Armored version of the LVT-2; no rear ramp; capacity 24 passengers\nLVT(A)-3|Presumably 6.5 mm on hull, 12.7 mm on cab|Proposed armored version of the LVT-4; not produced\nLVT-4|None|Rear ramp; capacity 30 passengers\nLVT(A)-1|6.5 mm on hull, 12.7 mm on cab, turret with armor characteristics of M3A1 light tank|Crew: 6\nLVT(A)-4|6.5 mm on hull, 12.7 mm on cab, turret with armor characteristic of M8 Howitzer Motor Carriage|Crew: 6\n\nAnother consideration is their personnel capacity; early LVTs (LVT-1, LVT-2, LVT(A)-2) could carry only 18 to 24 troops, and they had to jump over the side owing to the fact that there was no rear ramp, slowing their exit from the vehicle. Using these vehicles would have forced a reorganization of the agreed-upon assault infantry battalion structure (6 assault boats per rifle company and 5 support boats for the heavy weapons company, plus a command boat, each of 30 men) More waves of smaller-capacity vehicles slows the execution of the landing \n\nThe LVT-4, capable of carrying 30 men and having a rear ramp, only began production in December 1943. It is doubtful that the logistical priority for the new vehicle would have been given to the European Theater, as LVT-type vehicles were needed and had proved themselves for the frequent invasions of Japanese-held islands in the Pacific Theater.\n\nThe following is purely conjecture, since we do not have any idea how the LVT would have performed in the choppy, currented seas of Normandy. Landings in the Pacific were undertaken only in calm(er) conditions, in which the LVT performed fine. The LVT had quite low freeboard, in comparison to the LCVP and LCM, which were purely boats.\n\nIn combat, the LVT probably would have struggled against heavy German antitank and artillery fire. They probably would have performed a role similar to the LCVP or LCM, dropping off troops at the water's edge and retreating to pick up more. Transport versions of the LVT used this tactic in the Pacific, and generally did not advance beyond the beach, except to move cargo or retrieve wounded when combat had already moved inland. Advancing up the beach with a full load of troops in the rear compartment would have been suicidal; there was no overhead protection, and the installation of an armored roof was only theoretically possible on the (new) LVT-4. In places, they also would have been unable to progress beyond the \"shingle\", a slope of small slippery stones some distance up the beach, that was impossible for tracked vehicles to climb.\n\nSources:\n\n*Amtracs: US Amphibious Assault Vehicles*, by Steven J. Zaloga\n\n[LVT(A)-1](_URL_1_)\n\n[LVT(A)-4](_URL_0_)\n\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://afvdb.50megs.com/usa/lvta4.html", "http://afvdb.50megs.com/usa/lvta1.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cvslo6z" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "There is a great previous answer here that should answer your question:\n[How Carolean army was set up and what made it work](_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/33bx3d/how_come_the_armies_of_karl_xii_was_able_to_win/cqjik77" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e1wrnyx" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "[1/2]\n\nUnlike the so-called \"Age of Exploration,\" this period doesn’t have a codified name, in part because I don’t think that it has as large a place in our popular narrative of \"history of Western civilization\" the way that earlier explorers like Columbus, Magellan, and others do. However, that doesn’t make that we can’t talk about it. My answer here is going to focus on Britain and the British Empire specifically, both because that’s where my area of expertise lies and because they were all over the globe and had an intense interest in exploration and the \"adventures\" of these explorers and the knowledge they gained permeated British popular culture. However, the British weren’t alone in this endeavor, and French, Americans, and other nationalities took part. This topic is just too broad for me to go into detail in all times and in all places, so I’m going to try and zero in on a few specific examples that I think are illuminating and also talk some about the popular culture aspect. \n\nAs you hinted at when you said that India was at the height of colonial rule, all of this exploration was a facet of imperialism. While the British and other Europeans set out to conquer the globe, they wanted information about the places they were colonizing—clear definition of borders, knowledge of the local geography, and a catalogue of potentially-exploitable resources.\n\nHowever, this white European incursion (particularly into the African interior) wasn’t just driven by practical considerations that would assist the running of empires. The Victorians in particular had a huge appetite for knowledge and a desire to describe and classify the world. \n\nI’m going to pause here with a disclaimer because this answer is going to be discussing \"knowledge\" and \"science\" a lot, and I want to be clear that I’m talking about white European knowledge and ways of knowing. Obviously, the indigenous people who lived in the places being systematically explored for the first time by white Europeans knew their own landscapes and environments, and European exploration pretty much always relied on local guides and porters. \n\nThat said, this drive to increase European knowledge was an outgrowth of what the Victorians believed to be a rational, scientific mindset that would add to the huge knowledge-base of British civilization. I’m going to quote a passage from Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella *Heart of Darkness*, both because it’s exactly the time period you’re asking about and because I think it’s instructive: \n\n > Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, 'When I grow up I will go there.' The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven't been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour's off. Other places were scattered about the hemispheres. I have been in some of them, and... well, we won't talk about that. But there was one yet—the biggest, the most blank, so to speak—that I had a hankering after.\n\nThe speaker, Marlow, then goes on to describe the Congo River and eventually goes there, where most of the book is set. We can see in this passage that as a young boy, Marlow wanted to fill in all the blank spaces on the map. Marlow is, of course, a fictional character created by Conrad, but Marlow wasn’t a weird child but rather emblematic of his culture in nineteenth century British—part of the British imperial project was indeed filling in the maps (preferably with red or pink, the color used to denote British imperial holdings). This is all to say that geography, scientific knowledge, and empire are all enmeshed with each other such that you can’t really untangle them. Added onto this was an ideology of \"civilization,\" in which imperialists also believed they were spreading their superior civilization by making contact with indigenous peoples (and in some cases converting them to Christianity). \n\nThe case of Dr. David Livingstone seems instructive here. The phrase \"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?\" is still famous, but most people don’t know why. Livingstone was a Scottish doctor and Congregationalist missionary who spent extensive time in Africa. Livingstone represents the complicated admixture of imperialism, humanitarianism, and science that often underpinned these explorations. Livingstone began his career as a missionary intending to convert Africans to Christianity and eventually led scientific expeditions mapping the African interior. He was the first known European to see Victoria Falls and did much work mapping the Zambezi River (through much of what is today Zambia) with the backing of the British government. \n\nThese expeditions made Livingstone a hero in the eyes of the British public. He represented, to them, the best of Victorian society, a missionary with a sharp scientific mind making discoveries for the good of the nation. Livingstone used his fame to oppose the Arab slave trade in East Africa. \n\nIn 1866, Livingstone returned to Africa with the intention of locating the source of the Nile River. Keeping in mind that this was before technology like satellites and GPS that aid in mapping and that much of the interior of the African continent was still unknown to Europeans, this was a topic of debate amongst explorers and geographers. The source of the Nile had been identified by John Hanning Speke and Richard Francis Burton (other explorers who both could be subjects of their own posts entirely) as Lake Victoria, but Livingstone disagreed and set out to prove them wrong. (Speke and Burton were more or less correct, by the way, but even a quick perusal of the Wikipedia page on the source of the Nile will give you an idea of why there was so much confusion; several other rivers feed into Lake Victoria itself.) Livingstone was soon in the African interior without contact with the British, and as the years wore on without his return, the public began to worry about him. \n\nEnter Henry Morton Stanley, a Welsh-American whom the *New York Herald* paid to look for Livingstone while sending dispatches about his journey. Stanley's dispatches were a sensation in the press, and he eventually found Livingstone in the town of Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika, hence \"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?\" (Since Livingstone was the only white guy around, it wasn’t hard to figure out who he was.) Livingstone chose to stay in Africa, continuing to search for the source of the Nile, and eventually died there. Stanley returned to tell his story and became an explorer in his own right, though his reputation is considerably darker than Livingstone's, despite some attempts to rehabilitate him by biographers such as Tim Jeal. When you help King Leopold of Belgium establish the Belgian Congo, one of the most brutal of imperial regimes, history doesn’t look kindly on you. He also had something of a reputation for personal cruelty to his African workers, which doesn’t help. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dr8xtxu", "dr93n6k" ], "score": [ 7, 17 ], "text": [ "No, that is not true. In the \"Weisung Nr. 17 für die Führung des Luft- und Seekrieges gegen England\" ^[1] from August 2, 1940 Hitler already ordered the Luftwaffe to prioritise the carpet bombing of cities over air-to-air combat and specificially included \"Terrorangriffe\" against civilians. Germany had also used similar tactics in Poland, in the very first months of the war.\n\nThe british strategic bombing campaign that included \"morale bombing\", i.e. deliberately bombing cities to damage the morale of the German population started in 1942, after the so-called \"dehousing paper\", written by Frederick Lindemann, was sent to Churchill on March 31 and then discussed and ultimately ratified by the parliament.\n\nThe idea that Germany was only reacting to british morale bombing is a myth spread by Hitler himself on numerous occasions. A famous example is the accidental bombing of Freiburg in May 1940 by German bombers that Hitler used as \"proof\" of \"terrorist\" attacks started by Churchill^[3].\n\n\n[1] Walther Hubatsch: Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegführung 1939–1945\n\n[2] Norman Longmate: The Bombers. The RAF offensive against Germany 1939-1945\n\n[3] Freiburger Zeitung, December 11, 1940 (_URL_0_)", "The first year of the war saw what Richard Overy puts rather well as \"the slow erosion of any relative moral constraints that might have acted to limit the damage to civilian targets\" (*The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945*, very well worth picking up on both Allied and German bombing offensives and the military and civil defence responses).\n\nIn September 1939 there was great caution in the use of British bombers. Leo Amery, an early proponent of bombing Germany, recorded in his diary that: \"... our Air Force are still not allowed to bomb Essen or even set fire to German forests. In the coffee room I tackled Kinglsey Wood [Secretary of State for Air] on this. He was very stuffy and evidently has been responsible for all this\". A later, possibly apocryphal, account has Wood responding to the question of why the Black Forest wasn't being bombed with \"Are you aware that it is private property?\" Bomber Command was restricted to German naval targets, but still not even permitted to bomb ships in dock for fear of missing and hitting civilians.\n\nMay 1940 saw Chamberlain, who had always opposed bombing urban targets, replaced with Churchill, historically a supporter of independent strategic bombing; Churchill's deputy Clement Attlee was also strongly in favour of raids on Germany. On 15th May the Cabinet approved strategic bombing of German targets where civilians *might* be casualties as long as the objective was military.\n\nThe early employment of the Luftwaffe was fundamentally operational, against targets in connection with land forces, but there were heavy civilian casualties in Warsaw and Rotterdam in 1939 and 1940, both bombed while under siege. There is debate over whether civilians were intentionally targeted to affect morale, or if civilian casualties were an inadvertent but inevitable result of the inaccuracy of bombing at the time (see, for example, Bas von Benda-Beckmann's *A German Catastrophe? German historians and the Allied bombings, 1945-2010* that includes accounts of historians arguing the legality of Luftwaffe operations compared to the RAF). Likewise the Blitz of 1940-41 against London and other industrial cities was primarily aimed at military and economic targets, but with large volumes of incendiary bombs and proximity of workers housing to docks and factories heavy civilian casualties were again inevitable, easily perceived as the objective of the attacks.\n\nBomber Command, meanwhile, had much greater problems with accuracy; never mind distinguishing between factories and nearby housing, with much longer ranges to cover and fewer navigational aids just getting within five miles of a target was a rarity (a famous report of 1941 found that, over Germany, three out of four bombers failed to find their targets; on moonless or hazy nights fourteen out of fifteen). Although, in theory, they were aiming at military and industrial targets, from the German perspective they were indeed indiscriminate attacks on \"residential quarters and farms and villages\" (or more often open countryside); the first attack on Berlin on the night of 25th/26th August destroyed a wooden summer house in a suburban garden and slightly injured two people, more bombs fell in surrounding farms leading Berliners to joke \"Now they are trying to starve us out.\"\n\nBoth sides framed their own efforts as precision attacks on purely military targets and enemy action as indiscriminate terror bombing of civilians, backed up by historical precedent (in Britain the long-range bomber and Zeppelin attacks of the First World War, the actions of the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War, and Warsaw and Rotterdam; in Germany the naval blockade of the First World War and seemingly random bomber attacks). Bomber Command steadily widened the definition of military and military-economic targets; in September 1940 they suspended the policy of returning to base or jettisoning bombs if a primary target could not be hit in favour of bombing any target of opportunity, finally in October with the Blitz in full swing Bomber Command were authorised to attack, in addition to military-industrial targets, \"enemy morale\" through \"heavy material destruction in large towns\", though they were scarcely in a position to undertake such an effort until 1942 as they learned from Luftwaffe attacks and started to use heavy concentrations of aircraft, large high explosive bombs and substantial quantities of incendiaries. German efforts against Britain almost completely tailed off after the Blitz, later attacks were more efforts at retaliation for the ever-heavier Allied attacks (tip-and-run fighter-bomber attacks on the south coast, the 'Baedeker Blitz' of 1942, V-weapons from 1944). \n\nMarch 1941 saw Bomber Command diverted to focus on naval targets, with the Battle of the Atlantic at a crucial period, until July when they were were allowed to return to what they saw as their main task, attacking the German transportation system and the morale of the civil population. *The Bomber Command War Diaries* has the target of the 14th/15th Hanover mission as \"a rubber factory and the city centre\". The 30th/31st mission to Cologne was in bad weather, thunderstorms and icing were encountered, Cologne was \"believed hit\"; German records show 6 buildings were damaged, no casualties.\n\nIt's a little lightweight (and entirely neglects other aircraft in favour of the Lancaster) but the BBC did a documentary a few years back, *[Bomber Boys] (_URL_0_)*, with the McGregor brothers where (as I recall) Ewan acted as a navigator, if that might be of interest, it might be available on YouTube.\n" ] }

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[ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7fukzv/great_escape_from_stalag_iiie/dqelb1s/" ]

[ [ "https://fz.ub.uni-freiburg.de/show/fz.cgi?cmd=showpic&ausgabe=03&day=11&year=1940&month=12&project=3&anzahl=12" ], [ "http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01byv2g" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cysrgod" ], "score": [ 18 ], "text": [ "Ho Chi Minh is a difficult figure to analyze because he deliberately cultivated at least two different personalities. The first was of the kindly, elder nationalist and father to the nation. But he also was a committed communist internationalist. He was both. Not one or the either. But, this is precisely why the Indochinese Communist Party chose him as their leader. Men like [Tran Phu](_URL_2_) and [Truong Chinh](_URL_0_), (‘Long March') were committed internationalists that would alienate potential non-communist allies.\n\nThe debate about Ho Chi Minh is tied up in the politics of the war. In the late 1960s-70s scholars opposed to the Vietnam War, consciously and subconsciously, used their scholarship on Vietnam as a means to oppose American policies in Indochina. Following the orientalist work of a French scholar Paul Mus, Frances Fitzgerald wrote *Fire in the Lake*. This became the ‘Orthodox' view of the war. Ho Chi Minh represented the only authentic nationalism in Vietnam, combining nationalism with Confucian values. He and other Vietnamese had adopted communism only as a means to liberate their country. But they were *not really* communists. All Vietnamese understood this, and therefore the artificial South Vietnamese regime and US were fighting against the course of history. At the same time, there were writers like Douglas Pike producing much more critical studies of Vietnamese communism that supported US policies. More recently, a ‘Revisionist’ group of writers, most well known in Mark Moyar’s *Triumph Forsaken*, that argues that Washington had it right all along. Their policies in Vietnam were wrong, only in that they gave up too soon. Ho was just a brutal autocrat.\n\nBoth views are inadequate. Frances Fitzgerald and the Orthodox view is orientalist and simplistic. It’s rather insulting to Ho and other Vietnamese. They were intelligent, rational, and believed in socialist modernity -- to say they chose communism because it was their only choice is false and insulting. And the Revisionist view of Ho as communist Asian despot is just as simplistic and problematic.\n\nBefore I get to Ho’s actions, I want to note that during the period you reference in your question, the American period of Vietnam’s civil war from ~1965-1972, Ho Chi Minh was only a figurehead. He held no real power. It was a man from southern Vietnam named Le Duan who held control. Le Duan was transparently aggressive both in escalating the Vietnam war, and domestically against opponents in the communist Vietnamese Workers Party that opposed his war in South Vietnam. Ho at this time was limited to making public trips to visit allies like Mao, Kim Il-Sung, etc, serving as the regime’s kind public face, and little else. But he chose to continue on as the figure head.\n\nHowever, Ho was never all powerful, not even in the 1940s. He faced strong domestic pressure from the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) members who wanted a more communist regime from the start. Ho’s ambassador to France, Tran Ngoc Danh, even defected to the Soviet bloc and wrote scathing reports to the USSR citing Ho’s lack of commitment to communism. There were factions inside Vietnam opposed to Ho’s attempts to form a united front that could attract non-communists as well.\n\nThis would soon change after 1949. But first, I want to note that the Viet Minh front group, run by the ICP, was indeed brutal towards its opponents. From the moment the Vietnamese civil war began in 1945, before the French returned, the ICP was killing Vietnamese rivals (and some of their rivals were killing ICP and Viet Minh). Many were executed in the first weeks, and fighting between the Viet Minh and rival religious and political groups persisted. Ho was complicit in this, but certainly was not deeply involved, and in some cases would have opposed it. Local ICP leaders were often running their own show. While Ho was in Paris negotiating in 1946, Vo Nguyen Giap attacked the armed forces of non-communist revolutionary groups (with the complicity of the French army). After that point, there was no real opposition to the ICP within the revolutionary Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) government.\n\nThe other main charge against Ho comes from the bloody land reform that took place in 1953-54. After 1949, China began supplying the DRV with weapons and advisors. Not long after China and the USSR formally recognized Ho’s government. No longer needing the support of the non-communists in the countryside, the ICP came back into the open as the Vietnam Workers Party (VWP) and began instituting communist policies. Much control was ceded to the Chinese ‘experts', who guided the VWP’s policies and held ultimate control. But the VWP was also an enthusiastic participant, eager to embark on its path to modernization.\n\nThe land reform was a vicious affair. Based on the Chinese land reform model, a set percentage of the Vietnamese population was determined to be exploitative landowners. Cadres went into the countryside and met this quota. They incited the population to denounce landowners, coached their opinions. After this a [staged trial](_URL_1_\n ) took place under portraits of Stalin, Mao, and Ho. The cadres then carried out a death sentence on behalf of the people. The method varied, sometimes employing a sword or gun, in some cases people were burned alive. Even revolutionary figures who had owned land were targeted. A woman named Nguyen Thi Nam was one of the first executions — the intended message that even if you supported the revolution, it would not absolve your class crimes. The toll of this is unknown. Based on research in Vietnamese archives, it’s likely at least 20,000 were killed. It could be higher toward 50,000. We won’t know unless the current regime falls and we have access to all the records.\n\nWhere is Ho in all of this? Well we know very little about decision-making in the government. For ‘Orthodox' writers favorable to Ho in their critiques of US policy, the tendency is to downplay these abuses, eliminate their ideological character, and and say that Ho was powerless at this time. I should note that these are often Americanists who do not know much about Vietnam and haven’t researched there. Perhaps representative, in his Pulitzer winning book *Embers of War*, Fredrik Logevall writes that land reform was to end food shortages, and Ho was powerless, overtaken by extreme elements (no mention of the Chinese advisors), and opposed Nguyen Thi Nam’s execution. Yet another historian Alex-Thai Vo, has shown that Ho Chi Minh published a vicious denunciation of Nguyen Thi Nam that approved of her execution. He may have even attended the trial. \n\nDid Ho full-hearted approve of this, or was he simply falling in line? Much like the assassinations of non-communist rivals, perhaps he was not enthusiastic about these things. But nevertheless he participated and lent his support. The same can be said of the DRV/North Vietnam’s suppression of academic freedom. In an infamous incident called the Nhan Van Giai Pham affair, the regime arrested or ostracized some of the country’s most prominent writers and intellectuals because they had called for freedom of expression or mild reforms in 1955-56.\n\nWas the DRV an oppressive police state? Yes. It remained so after the war, though much less so than the 1940s-80s. Was American involvement driven by that rationale? No. It had much more to do with geopolitics. And while the government of South Vietnam was a freer society than its northern counterpart, it still committed its fair share of abuses and arrested opponents for nothing more than speaking against it. That however did not dissuade the US from supporting South Vietnam." ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C6%B0%E1%BB%9Dng_Chinh", "http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TTKl6xBDvLg/UJLUgNYHAII/AAAAAAAAC0I/vFsYw0bilvg/s1600/ruong+dat+013.jpg", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%E1%BA%A7n_Ph%C3%BA" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "esknoxp" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Short answer: Buddhism was indigenized in Japan by the 1900s, with a history extending back *centuries* and so was only a \"foreign\" religion by a technicality, but not in any practical term. That said, Buddhism in Japanese society had a very *very* high place, oftentimes intertwined with government, politics, and daily ritual. Korean Buddhism, since 1392, by design, was removed from society, and was a political pawn (emphasis on the *pawn* part). When Korea was annexed into the Japanese Empire in 1910, Japanese Buddhism was rich, diverse, and influential. Korean Buddhism was poor, decrepit, and seen as a corrupt and ultimately traitorous organization. Buddhism became more or less discredited in Korean society, and was seen as a backwards and ultra-traditionalist perspective that bore little relation to the modern Capitalist economy, of which Christianity seemed to be a part. In Japan, where Christianity did not accompany the modernity of the Meiji Resoration, it was proved that a nation could be developed, modern, and capitalist without mass conversion to Christianity. \n\nLong answer: There was a similar question asked a few months ago which you can read my answer to [here](_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ajfgjd/how_come_japan_was_able_to_achieve_high/eexhiq5/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d6y647p", "d6y8u9p" ], "score": [ 100, 13 ], "text": [ "The gulag was a massive system over a large period of time, so it's difficult to talk about it just as one thing. In fact, it was incredibly variable - that might have been its most defining feature in the end. So let's look at one particularly instructive moment - the 1945 amnesty. There is an absolutely fantastic article on this topic that I will mention at the outset, from which much of the following comes. I'll just throw the citation up here at the beginning so people can go find it if they want:\n\nGolfo Alexopoulos. \"Amnesty 1945: The Revolving Door of Stalin's Gulag.\" *Slavic Review* Vol. 64, No. 2. (Summer 2005), 274-306.\n\nIndeed, the very premise of Alexopoulos article is as follows:\n\n > Stalin's labor camps and colonies formed a dynamic , variable, and unstable system in which a majority of prisoners came and went, and the 1945 amnesty reveals the movement and tension of this revolving door. (275)\n\nSo it is not that the 1945 amnesty was typical, but rather than it was such a massive moment when it came to people departing the Gulag that it reveals that variation and dynamism. \n\nSo, in 1945 you about one million gulag prisoners either released or having their sentences reduced more or less all at once. It was a very controlled and measured process.\n\n\nAlexopoulos explains: \n\n > No only did they *[Officials in the labor camps -TMH]* manage the issuance of passports, provide transportation from the camp or colony to the prisoner's new location, and issue (or not) material goods and food for the journey, but more importantly, Gulag authorities decided the destination of each ex-prisoner. According to the Gulag leadership, the issue of where to settle amnestied prisoners 'had to be approached with care' in order to provide maximum assurance that the former inmates would 'return to an honest life.' (292)\n\nOne specific treatment an inmate received was largely dependent on who they were, what the crime had been, and what the leadership thought was their best chance at avoiding the person returning to a criminal life. Leaving aside for the moment the \"true\" criminality of various things - the Gulag did, after all, hold many political prisoners - there were still many different kinds of people who had to be integrated back into Soviet society. Destinations could include ones family or place or origins in the best case scenario, or communities designed explicitly for the rehabilitation of prisoners that were nonetheless distinct from the Gulag system and where they might be working in heavy industry. Others faced exile that meant they weren't imprisoned, but were neither free to return to many parts of the Soviet Union that were likely more desirable. (293-294) Keep in mind that the freedom of movement throughout the Soviet Union was in many cases highly restricted, so simply being out of the Gulag didn't mean you could go just anywhere even after you arrived at your destination. In some extreme scenarios, prisoners were technically released from their prison term and marked in the system as having served their time, but were nonetheless required by law to continue working the same job they had worked in the labor camp as 'civilian laborers'. \n\nAssuming the best case scenario, you still had to integrate yourself back into the society and economy with a criminal record, which was no easy task. Alexopoulous cites 100s of documents he found in GARF (the largest archive in Russia), of former prisoners appealing to be given a clean record after release to help them integrate back into the economy more easily. Remember that when the economy is state run, that criminal record is going to follow you literally everywhere and a lot of jobs simply won't be available to you.\n\nAlthough the amnesty in 1945 provides us with a major data point, for lack of a better term it actually quite a bit to expose the extent to which the system was incredibly variable. The Gulag wasn't just a place you got thrown in and rotted, although that did happen. People were constantly entering and leaving the system. Still, the experience could be arbitrary. Sentences were extended without warning. The conditions were terrible, and even if and when you did get out, your life wasn't necessarily just going to go back to normal. The high turnover in the Gulag also exposes another feature though - that it permeated Soviet society. With so many people coming and going, many ordinary Soviet people would have had contact with people who had some experience of the Gulag, which meant that it was a very present system in the minds of Soviet people. It wasn't some far away place, but paradoxically close to home despite the often remote locations of the camps. This kind of thinking, thanks in large part to Alexopoulos' article is becoming more the norm in studies of the Gulag. \n\n\n\n\n", "If I want to learn more about the Gulag system would the \"Gulag Archipelago\" be a reliable and accurate source? Sorry for off topic.^^^modshavemercy" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "czou772" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "A reply to /u/teaandabook \n\nI'm not sure the context of your question. Are you aware of the religious wars in France and Germany, also known as the Thirty Years' War, that saw widespread destruction and violence by all sides of the conflict? Or the Dutch rebellion, known as the Eighty Years' War?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cscw8vg", "csd3cme", "csd46dz", "csd4smh", "csd5nlb", "csfmi1i" ], "score": [ 68, 3, 9, 8, 53, 4 ], "text": [ "I can't answer your question because I don't know enough about the time period, but I did want to address your use of names as evidence. Charlemagne was actually called \"Carolus Magnus,\" it was just 'french-ified' to Charlemagne. Germans call him Karl. In the same manner, Louis is called Ludwig by Germans. It isn't really fair to say that they have French names given that they also have German names. ", "hi! on Charlemagne and the Franks v French, you might get something out of this section of the FAQ\n\n* [Frankish and French](_URL_0_)\n\nif you have followup questions on locked posts, ask them here & include the user's username so they'll get autonotified", "Well, some never made the switch - there's still a community of Franconian speakers in Lorraine ;). The French territory has always been majority Romance-speaking, even under the Franks, who only made up about 5% of the population of the Carolingian Empire. The commoners spoke one of the Romance-based 700 languages spoken in France. Frankish was still spoken by kings and the aristocracy into the 10th century, and Hugues Capet was the first king who only spoke a Romance dialect. The use of the dialect gradually spread among the aristocracy and became dominant among the ruling class by the 13th century and later evolved into French. (Interestingly enough, the lower classes continued speaking other dialects and only about 1 in 10 French people even spoke or understood French until the late 18th century).\n\nAnd as others have commented, (mostly retroactive) adaptation of the names of important historical figures is really common and not an indicator of national identity - Hugues Capet is known as Hugh Capet in English and Hugo Capetius in Latin, for example.\n\nReferences: _URL_0_", "Dear fellow CKII player,\n\nHis name wasn't Clovis: his name was better rendered as Chlodovech or, even more precisely, as *Hlōdowig, as /u/dsmid says. Clovis' wife was not named Clotilde: her name was something more like Chrotechildis. You're forgetting that some historical figures are so ancient that their names have undergone latinisation, anglicisation, francisation, germanisation, etc, over the centuries or millenia. That Chlothar fellow you mention? I often see his name written as Clotaire or even Lothar. The name used in a particular text by a particular author in a particular century is insufficient to determine the extent to which the individual himself/herself was either 'Frankish' or 'French'. See [this online resource](_URL_0_) for a slightly more accurate and consistent list of Merovingian names with a handful of alternates.\n\nAs for the extent to which the Franks were French, what you're really asking is \"when did vulgar Latin in Gaul transition into Old French?\". So, naturally, some of the Franks will be quite Germanic, some quite Roman, and some quite French, all depending on the century we're talking about. The earliest written example of Old French to survive to the present day dates to 842 with the Oaths of Strasbourg of Charles the Bald. But the process that began this transition began as early as the 3rd Century. That's all I'll say about it, though.", "Info provided in the link that /u/Searocksandtrees shared is very helpful here. I'll add some info too, with the bonus questions in mind, since I have knowledge of the Visigoths as well (I am less knowledgeable about the situation in Italy so I'll leave that to someone else)...\n\nThe semantics of the word \"Franks\" is important to answering your question, just as the semantics of the word \"Visigoths\" is important to answering your bonus question. The Franks were, at least at first, a Germanic tribe residing just east of the Rhine (as described [here](_URL_2_) at Encyclopedia Brittanica). In the twilight years of the Western Roman Empire, they were one of many tribes, Germanic and otherwise, to participate in the Great Migrations of the period—huge contingents of Frankish people headed West into what was Roman Gaul, and settled there. At the time, those Frankish people spoke a Germanic language (Frankish). They ultimately displaced the leadership structure in the former Roman province of Gaul and Frankish nobles installed themselves as the ruling elite, with some semblance of Latin blessing due to the fact that the Frankish king Clovis converted to Christianity.\n\nMeanwhile, at (very) roughly the same time, Germanic peoples were settling in the Iberian Peninsula and doing basically the same thing, displacing the Roman power structure. The two dominant powers in the Iberian Peninsula at the time were the [Suebi](_URL_0_) and the [Visigoths](_URL_3_) (who had themselves essentially been driven Westward by the expansionist Franks). The Visigoths swallowed up the Suebi before long and established the Visigothic Kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula. The Visigoth elite spoke Gothic, a Germanic language, and brought Germanic culture into the Iberian Peninsula with them.\n\nBy 600, what we now call France was part of the \"Kingdom of the Franks.\" What we now call Spain and Portugal was part of the \"Kingdom of the Visigoths.\" Here's where semantics come into play. The Kingdom of the Franks (aka Francia), despite being named for the ruling elite, was not just a kingdom of the Frankish ethnic group. Although Clovis and his relatives had taken control of the power structure in the former Roman province of Gaul, they didn't get rid of the people who lived there already, a population of Gallo-Romans who spoke a local form of [Vulgar Latin](_URL_1_), inflected with the Gallic influences of the previous Celtic power structure. The same thing was true in Iberia—the \"Kingdom of the Visigoths,\" though named for the Gothic people in the leadership positions, was made up of Ibero-Romans, who spoke a local form of Vulgar Latin, inflected with the Celtiberian influences of the area.\n\nOver time, most of the Franks and basically the entirety of the Visigoths adopted the local languages and many parts of the local culture, though they maintained many parts of their own cultures as well. In both instances, the legal codes of the respective kingdoms were Germanic in origin (since the ruling elites were themselves Germanic in origin). In terms of language, though, the Germanic influence faded rather quickly—for instance, by the 700s, very few people in the Iberian Peninsula spoke the Germanic Gothic language. The switch was not instantaneous; it was a gradual cultural shift where the initial \"Franks\" and the initial \"Visigoths\" would have seemed very Germanic in language and customs, with their descendants becoming more and more assimilated with the local cultures. In the year 450, the Frankish elite would have spoken an entirely different language from what we now know as French. By the year 900, the ruling elite in the area was speaking the predecessor to modern French. Clovis, whom you mention, was very much a Germanic Frank nobleman. His descendant Charles the Bald would have been culturally much closer to the kings of medieval France (and the modern \"French\") than Clovis ever was.\n\nSo if you are talking about the ethnic group \"the Franks,\" they were very much a Germanic tribe at first, who ultimately assimilated with the already existing Gallo-Roman culture in the area they settled. But if you are talking about the Kingdom of the Franks, it was always a multiethnic society where Germanic Franks held leadership positions over a largely Gallo-Roman populace. So if you were to say \"the Franks fought in the Battle of Tours,\" you would probably be referring to a multiethnic group of soldiers representing the Frankish kingdom. The cultures of this multiethnic nation state would all coalesce to become the \"French\" culture you think of today (in that sense, the \"Franks,\" the Kingdom of the Franks, was the basis for \"French\" culture). On the other hand, the powerful Germanic Franks (the ethnic group) were just one of the ethnic groups in the pot, who became increasingly assimilated with the local culture over time.\n\nThe story was much the same in the Iberian Peninsula in terms of the melting pot of cultures, except that the another major ethno-linguistic group arrived in Spain (the Arab/Berber \"Moors\" of the Umayyad Caliphate) in the 700s and almost completely displaced the Visigoths, except for a small pocket that remained independent of Muslim rule in Northern Spain. That pocket would grow over time and eventually form multiple kingdoms that would expand, mostly southward and westward. Most of those kingdoms would unify under the Crown of Castile, and the Vulgar Latin spoken there would eventually grow into Castilian (Spanish). One of those successor states would stay independent of Castilian hegemony and grow into the Kingdom of Portugal, where the Vulgar Latin evolved into modern Portuguese. \n\nAs a note, the Catalan language grow out of the Vulgar Latin in a different pocket of non-Muslim areas in the Eastern Iberian Peninsula. That area was essentially dominated by Frankish-ruled or Frankish-allied marcher states in the foothills of the Pyrenees that would ultimately gain more and more independence, expand southward, and then unify under the Crown of Aragon, a preeminent power in the Western Mediterranean that would eventually link with the Crown of Castile via the marriage of King Ferdinand (of Aragon) and Queen Isabella (of Castile) to form what we now call Spain. That Frankish influence in the origins of the Crown of Aragon is a big part of why the Catalan language sounds a lot like a mixing bowl of Spanish and French.\n\nAs another note, I said \"most\" of the Franks assimilated with Romano-Gallic culture because the Frankish culture/language remained strong in the northern reaches of the Frankish Empire in the modern day Low Countries, which were variously more or less independent from the centralized authority of the kingdom of France as the Middle Ages progressed, and ultimately the language spoken there would grow into modern Dutch.", "I've done quite a bit of work reconstructing Germanic names from the earlier parts of those periods, so hopefully I can offer some insight. Clovis is a great name for giving us some idea of when Frankish gave way to Old French among Frankish nobility, and I'm been collecting Gothic names well past the fall of the Visigothic Kingdom.\n\n\nClovis and Louis are the same name. In early Frankish, the name would have looked something like *Hlodo-vech or *Hlodo-wech or *Hlodo-wig. The first element is related to our word 'loud', in this case meaning 'famous' or 'well-known'. The second element is usually taken to mean 'warrior' or 'man'.\n\n\nMost of our documents regarding the various Clovises are in Latin, and tend to render the initial H as Ch, and attach the Latin nominative -us ending. So we get Chlodovechus.\n\n\nOur first document in Old French is from 842, the Oaths of Strasbourg. We see the name rendered in Latin as Lodhuvicus and Lodhuwicus, and in Old French as Lodhuuigs. The -s ending is dropped in the oblique case, so we also have 'contra Lodhuuuig'.\n\n\nI'm not sure when we would start seeing the form Clovis, but it seems that the -s remained from the Old French nominative, while the aspirated -ch- or -g- was dropped. Even later, the initial Ch- is dropped, and we get Louis. \n\n\nCharlemagne would have likely pronounced his own name as Karl, as he spoke a very late dialect of Frankish, and also Latin. In Latin, he would have added the inflectional endings, giving us Carolus in the nominative. Though he was alive before we have records of Old French, we know that the Gallo-Roman population would not have pronounced Charles as we do today, in either English or French. Old French 'ch' was pronounced like more like English's 'cheer' than 'sheer'. The word final 's' would have been pronounced. I don't know when the word initial 'c' would have become 'ch', but it would have happened sometime in the Old French period, either before or after Charlemagne's time. But we can look at the Strasbourg Oaths- and we see Karolus in Latin and Carlus and Karlus in Old French. So I doubt anyone was saying anything other than a straight up voiceless velar stop (k) during his lifetime, except perhaps in some more progressive dialect.\n\n\nI generally think of Charlemagne as the last of the Frankish Franks and the beginning of the French, but that's just me. Charlemagne's children would have been educated in Latin and we have little evidence of Frankish in use in France. I don't think his successors would have used it as much as Latin, and their successors would have used even less (except for the rulers of Eastern Frankia). Frankish names are still recognizably Germanic in origin, but become more and more disguised as they're rendered in Medieval Latin and Old French orthography. Of course, Franks in German speaking areas would have continued to use Frankish, and their dialects would have merged with what we think of as German. Old Dutch is also called Old Low Franconian, and its some of the most substantial records of Frankish that we have.\n\n\nOk, the Visigoths. Members of the Gothic-L list on Yahoo have debated the language of the Visigoths ad infinitum, and they failed to come to a conclusion about how long the Visigoths spoke Gothic, or maintained an ethnic identity separate from the Roman population of Hispania/Western France. If you're interested in this in more depth, check out the 'Goths and Romans' chapter of Hillgarth's The Visigoths in History and Legend. \n\n\nPeter Heather sees the Visigothic kingdom as becoming somewhat ethnically integrated by about 700. We see less and less Roman names and more and more Gothic ones, suggesting that the Hispano-Roman population was taking Gothic names. At the time of the initial settlement, most Visigoths would have been born in or lived most of their lives within the borders of the Roman Empire, so it's likely that they had a decent command of Latin. Gothic would have been in use in the Arian church, so the most significant differences between Goths and Hispano-Romans would have been names and religion. With Hispano-Romans taking Gothic names, only religion would remain. After Reccared abandoned Arianism in 587 and crushed any Arian rebels, the distinction between goth and roman became even thinner, and mostly legal, with the Visigothic laws treating each people as separate classes. We might want to think of goth as meaning 'noble' and roman as meaning 'peasant' in the later Visigothic period.\n\n\nTowards the end of the Visigothic period, Franks begin intermarrying with Visigothic nobility and sometimes it's difficult to tell Gothic names from Frankish ones, especially near the borders. We still see Gothic names in use among the nobility, especially in the Kingdom of the Asturias and Leon, but there are fewer Gothic names on the dynastic lists. Like later Frankish names, they're getting corrupted quite a bit by the 800s or so. The name Fruela or Froila is easily reconstructed as Fraujila. Alfonso would have been something like *Alafuns in Gothic. The queen Adosinda would have been *Audaswintha. Fernando and Ferdinand are variants of *Frithunanths. Those stand out to me, but others leave me scratching my head. Favila looks Gothic, but I have no idea what the first element is. Leonese monarchs start getting names that look weird to me. By weird, I mean not Gothic. \n\n\nI'm less familiar with the Lombards, but you would have seen a similar process of integration, where the Lombards formed an elite that governed the Latin speaking population of the regions where they settled. Over time, as a minority, the adopted the language of the majority they were ruling and the ethnic distinctions faded away. As nobility, their naming conventions stuck, even after their language died out. So we see plenty of Germanic names in use among Italian speakers. Though some regions in northern Italy still speaks dialects of German, and Lombard settlers in those regions probably never lost their Longobardic. Instead, it just converged with what we think of as German, becoming yet another dialect in the German sprachbund, but happening to be within the borders of what is currently Italy. " ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/language#wiki_frankish_and_french" ], [ "https://slmc.uottawa.ca/?q=french_history" ], [ "http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/MEROVINGIANS.htm" ], [ "http://www.britannica.com/topic/Suebi", "http://www.britannica.com/topic/Vulgar-Latin", "http://www.britannica.com/topic/Frank-people", "http://www.britannica.com/topic/Visigoth" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cm2chf8" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Greece was under Ottoman control and revolted in the 1830s while Cyprus was under British control and gained independence from them in the 1960s. Cyprus maintained its independence but there were those that wanted it to be apart of Greece, both in Athens and on the island. A Greek sponsored coup in 1974 ousting President Makarios III led to Turkey invading and controlling a third of the island. Now the island is divided between Turkish and Greek halves.\n\nDoes that help?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c9v0hmf", "c9v0k8c", "c9v0llo", "c9vek4b" ], "score": [ 40, 22, 5, 3 ], "text": [ "The real question, in my eyes, is \"Why did the Romans like purple so much?\"\n\nJust ctrl+F this article for \"purple\"\n_URL_0_\n\nPurple had a \"regal\" [sic] context to it even in times of the republic. The Byzantines piggybacked on that to some degree. Everyone likes to relive the \"former glory\" of Rome, such as the Axis of WWII adopting the Roman military salute and the \"Third Reich\" moniker.\n\nWhy? Because it was expensive. Purple is darker than other colors, and looks cheap if it is not dark. As such, it's tough to make a good puple dye. Because of that, it was rare. Like gold, purple dye is valued because of its rarity. Because it was valued, it was used as a status symbol.\n\nEdit: See also- this article on expensive purple dye.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n\"The production of Tyrian purple was tightly controlled in Byzantium and was subsidized by the imperial court, which restricted its use for the colouring of imperial silks,[2] so that a child born to a reigning emperor was porphyrogenitos, \"born in the purple\", although this term may also refer to the fact that the imperial birthing apartment was walled in the purple-red rock known as porphyry.\"\n", "Purple, specifically Tyrian purple, was considered the color of nobles and kings long before the Byzantines, probably because it was very expensive and hard to manufacture. Since the Byzantine empire was claiming to the continuation of the Roman empire, they used the same color scheme as well.", "Purple was a very expensive dye to get a hold of. Roman senators worsee a purple stripe on their togas as a symbol of being rich and powerful. When Rome got an emperor, he wore purple. \"The purple\" became a phrase referring to something imperial. During the dominate period after the crisis of the 3rd century, the power of the emperor became more absolute than it had been before. In the eastern empire which survived the fall of the west, the emperor was an absolute monarch, with power even over the Eastern Orthodox Church (Caesaropapism). So, purple eventually came to symbolize the Roman empire in the medieval period, which we now call the Byzantine empire.", "One thing no-one has mentioned is that Byzantine Emperors were not just selected on the basis of royal blood; a true Byzantine Emperor had to have been \"born in the purple\" - this was a special bedroom in the Imperial Palace at Constantinople that was reserved specifically for the occasion of a royal birth. And, of course, it was covered in purple drapery. " ] }

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[ "http://www.whitsend.org/en/ImaginationStation/Books/AttackAtTheArena/~/media/Images/ImaginationStation/InfoImages-Attack/empire.ashx?w=563&h=406&as=1", "https://lh3.ggpht.com/-PqrtXbIVx7w/UK-yv-yKVDI/AAAAAAAABes/GtpJ7qNrWyc/s1600/cv-0.53.png", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Justinian555AD.png" ]

[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toga", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple" ], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6f9wek", "c6fazgd" ], "score": [ 10, 3 ], "text": [ "None were alive. By greatly stretching the definition of founding father, you can get to 1848 with JQA. But Generally Madison, Marshall and one other guy who can't recall at the moment are considered the last living founders, and they died well before the start of the war.\n\nEdit: Of course Madison was alive to see the Nullification Crisis, and the rise of sectionalism he spoke on both of these points multiple times. Judging by comments I am nearly 100% sure he would have looked at the Civil War with abject horror. ", "The Founding generation, not just the father's, were almost if not completely gone by the time of the Civil War. In fact, some historians have argued (correctly, I believe) that the Civil War was largely a product of the subsequent generation attempting to protect the legacy of the Revolution in the way they thought best. With no one around anymore to say how it actually was, the next generation was forced to begin interpreting the Constitution and the intentions of the Founders. Much of Northern and Southern sectionalism stems from different interpretations of the American mentality and how the Constitution related to it.\n\nIf anyone has access online to journals through JSTOR or similar, feel free to check out Michael Morrison. “American Reaction to European Revolutions, 1848–1852: Sectionalism, Memory, and the Revolutionary Heritage,” *Civil War History* Vol. 49, Issue 2 (June 2003), as it's a great article on the subject." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "f9l3iyb" ], "score": [ 58 ], "text": [ "It was quite far away, for a multitude of reasons. There are many different factors, but this is a very broad summary of why the Soviet Union was never “real” communism.\n\nFirst off, the communism Marx intended for was mainly for advanced industrialized western European countries such as England, France, Germany. This is because the more advanced and industrialized the country, the more distinct class distinction was, with more worker manipulation taking place by the owners of the means of production. This is because with industrialization, the need for a lot of workers decreases, so there was more and more competition for the jobs remaining. This leads to worsening conditions and wages because the workers fighting for jobs left are willing to work for cheaper and longer because they’ll do anything really just to have a job. Marx thought that as this progressed, the workers, or the proletariat, could reach a class consciousness of what was going on and could take the means of production from the bourgeoisie (ruling class) in a revolution. Marx thought that the conditions of the workers in relation to the owners would be so bad that they would reach class consciousness inevitably, and all it would take is for someone like Marx himself to point out the worker manipulation taking place. \n\nWhat Marx envisioned happening was that once the workers took the means of production, there would be a TEMPORARY socialist government which helped the transition to a communist society. Engels created the term “withering of the state”, which was Marx’s idea of socialism in which the temporary socialist government would slowly wither away as the workers would eventually be able to self govern without the need for a state, which would lead to a communist society. Essentially, a communist society would have 0 government or state, with the people collectively owning the means of production to produce the needs of the society. Each person would contribute what they can in terms of work and skills, but ultimately be free to hunt, fish, write, partake in the arts, as they please, without anyone in particular owning any private property, because private property is what leads to state formation, capitalistic society, manipulation of workers, etc. To get rid of private property, there has to be means of production available where any need by the people such as food and shelter can be met collectively.\n\nBut, eastern Europe and its regimes were nowhere close to being an advanced industrialized society, and class divisions were nowhere nearly as prominent. The means of production were quite weak due to the lack of industrialization. Most of the USSR (Tsarist Russia before) was essentially peasants, with a very small ruling class, but not to the degree as western Europe. So, Lenin, inspired by Marx, decided that an elite revolutionary class must bring revolution to the region despite the lack of industrialization, along with class consciousness not being reached by the working class, because the working class itself was not as clear as it was in more advanced countries. His justification for speeding up the process and bringing revolution to a place in Marx’s eyes not ready was because he believed there was no time to wait for industrialization, and that basically it would take too long. Many argue his primary motivation was mainly egotistical, and his opportunistic attitude altered what Marx was after. So, when the bolsheviks took over and the previous Tsar left, the ideally socialist transitionary government took power, but because of unclear class divisions, there was a lot of different groups aiming for power. Along with that, World war 1 was going on at the time with Russia fighting both other countries and internal fighting between the previous regime and the many different factions within Tsarist Russia, such as the Bolsheviks, which essentially destroyed the countries economy. When the Bolshevicks and Lenin took power, the country was in such shambles that it was very evident they weren’t even close to being able to self govern because of the lack of means of production of food, etc. Once Lenin died, Stalin took over the party, and the civil unrest of starvation and poor living conditions led to both the strengthening of Stalin’s regime, along with the millions of deaths as a result of the totalitarianism and need to maintain power. \n\nSo, to sum up your question, the brutal dictatorship that arose in the Soviet Union was completely different then Marx’s communism because in Marx’s vision a communist society had no government. The socialism described by Marx and Engles was meant to be very temporary and help ease the transition post revolution to a self governing society, but in the soviet union that transition phase never withered away and the political party in power stayed in power. Essentially, the USSR never reached communism, and no country ever has reached communism. Every country gets stuck when opportunistic people or political parties take power post revolution and never leave. Yet, many modern day marxists say that because the Soviet Union, or any “communist” country was not and hasn’t yet reached the “end stage” capitalism, had very little clear cut class divisions, and essentially no wide spread working population had real class consciousness about their manipulation by the ruling class, that it may still be possible for a communist society to form. They claim that as capitalism continues to advance in today’s society, with the wealth gap between the owners of the means of production and the working class continuing to rise, wages continually lowering, and competition within the working class rising to the tipping point that a revolution of the working class will be inevitable, as Marx predicted. But, a counter argument to modern day Marxism would be that capitalism always seems to find a way to adapt, and things like union formation, universal basic income, are all adaptations to keep workers from reaching any form of unified class consciousness. A good argument regarding modern day marxism could be whether or not this adaptation has an end point. And of course, one can easily play the human nature card if they wanted to, as a strong argument can be made that humans may very well be incapable of such an endeavor even in proper conditions, because we simply are too dangerous to self govern. Many argue power to be extremely easily corrupt-able, so any attempt at communism will fall short due to the difficulty of the transition state ever actually withering away as Marx and Engels had idealized." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ca4ei5r", "ca4expx" ], "score": [ 6, 28 ], "text": [ "The term 'Arab Spring' in itself is a call back to the 1848 Springtime of Nations, when a wave of revolutions beginning in France spread across all of Europe. Unfortunately I can't give you any information beyond that and so this is quite a poor answer, but if you're interested you should look into 1848.", "Yes. One of the best examples of such a thing was the [European Revolutions of 1848](_URL_1_). This was a period of numerous revolutions which sprouted from nationalistic sentiment and agitation.\n\nIt largely spawned from the rapidly changing nature of society in the 1800s. Industrialisation was changing the role of the working class from n agrarian to manufacturing society, particularly in western European cities. This resulted in greater social collections of people within manufacturing districts. Technological advances that happened along side this promoted a popular press amongst the working masses, and allowed them to become increasingly politically aware. As Benedict Anderson (briefly) mentions in his work 'Imagined Communities', this happened at a time when socialist and nationalist goals were becoming far more prevalent, and being exchanged amongst the masses.\n\nIt has been argued (though contentiously, I might add) the feelings of the developing middle class largely fell in line with these nationalist goals that were being thrown around. I would argue that it was less that their interests were the same, and more that both working and middle classes were anti-aristocracy, especially after the experiences of [Enlightened Absolutism](_URL_0_) in the 1700s, and of course the overthrow of monarchical authority during the French Revolution. \n\nThe spark was provided in Italy, with a small scale revolt in Sicily. The real wave of revolutionary fervour was started by the 1848 French Revolution, with numerous other western nations riding the wave of revolutionary fervour, much as like happened with the Northern African and Arab countries in 2011. Revolution reached as far as Western Ukraine, and arguably reached a global scale in South America, though I again see this as a tenuous link to draw. Even the peace in Britain during this period was broken (albeit peacefully) by Chartist agitation, which resulted in mass rallies calling for the repeal of the Corn Laws, which effectively prohibited foreign trade of corn. Its original intention 30 years earlier was to help struggling farmers in a time of high wages and prices, but in a rapidly expanding and increasingly commercialised world, this became ineffective." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_absolutism", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d6jt7hh" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The \"active\" part of the Nagasaki bomb was an immensely heavy egg-shaped collection of high explosives, uranium metal, a plutonium core, and a lot of complicated electronics. The casing was developed to hold all that together and keep it from rolling violently (which could damage the electronics) and more or less have predictable aerodynamic properties (it was not ideal, but it worked). \n\nIf you could see it in an X-ray it [would look like this](_URL_0_) — a very snug fit. (This is taken from a declassified manual regarding the electronics system maintenance of these kinds of bombs.) [This visualization](_URL_1_) gives you an indication of the different parts on display there.\n\nIt is entirely functional — there is not really any \"aesthetics\" or \"symbolism\" to it, just aerodynamics." ] }

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[ [ "https://twitter.com/wellerstein/status/575051061020463106", "http://unmakingthebomb.com/visible-bomb/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "deee2i6" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "No they never met face to face. Though they faced each across the battlefield at Waterloo Napoleon fled for Paris after his defeat and eventually surrendered to the British at Rochefort. At no time despite his captivity in British custody did he and Wellington ever meet face to face." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ch3m801" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "It depends how close to hoplite army you want to be \n\nThe [Hoplite period](_URL_3_) of Greece ended shortly after the end of the Peloponnesian War, between 400 and 350, when there was an increased reliance on mercenaries, a less hierarchical formation, and less formality in conflict (i.e., more sacking of cities, and noncombatant involvement, less ransom and mercy). \n\nSkip forward to 191 BCE, when the Achaean League incorporates Sparta and Messene, covering the whole region of Achaea (generally the lower half of Greece as we know it today). In Second and First centuries the Achaean army was primarily mercenary light infantry and cavalry. The portion of the army that was conscripted from the citizens of each of the cities mainly consisted of light infantry, which may have been partly javelin or spear throwers, and cavalry. There were also conscripts of heavy infantry called hoplites, but were a small portion of the army and were similar to the Classical hoplites in name only. \n\nSecond century Rome is in the middle republic. Around 160 Polybius wrote Histories, part of which details the middle republican [army.](_URL_1_) \n\n > The second rank, the Hastati, are ordered to have the\ncomplete panoply. This to a Roman means, first, a large shield (scutum), the surface of which is curved outwards, its breadth two and a half feet, its length four feet,—though there is also an extra sized shield in which these measures are increased by a palm's breadth. It consists of two layers of wood fastened together with bull's-hide glue; the outer surface of which is first covered with canvas, then with calf's skin, on the upper and lower edges it is bound with iron to resist the downward strokes of the sword, and the wear of resting upon the ground. Upon it also is fixed an iron boss (umbo), to resist the more formidable blows of stones and pikes, and of heavy missiles generally. With the shield they also carry a sword (gladius） hanging down by their right thigh, which is called a Spanish sword. It has an excellent point, and can deal a formidable blow with either edge, because its blade is stout and unbending. In addition to these they have two pila, a brass helmet, and greaves (ocreae). Some of the pila are thick, some fine. Of the thicker, some are round with the diameter of a palm's length, others are a palm square. The fine pila are like moderate sized hunting spears, and they are carried along with the former sort. The wooden haft of them all is about three cubits long; and the iron head fixed to each half is barbed, and of the same length as the haft. They take extraordinary pains to attach the head to the haft firmly; they make the fastening of the one to the other so secure for use by binding it half way up the wood, and riveting it with a series of clasps, that the iron breaks sooner than this fastening comes loose, although its thickness at the socket and where it is fastened to the wood is a finger and a half's breadth. Besides these each man is decorated with a plume of feathers, with three purple or black feathers standing upright, about a cubit long. The effect of these being placed on the helmet, combined with the rest of the armour, is to give the man the appearance of being twice his real height, and to give him a noble aspect calculated to strike terror into the enemy. The common soldiers also receive a brass plate, a span square, which they put upon their breast and call a breastpiece (pectorale), and so complete their panoply. Those who are rated above a hundred thousand asses, instead of these breastpieces wear, with the rest of their armour, coats of mail (loricae). The Principes and Triarii are armed in the same way as the Hastati, except that instead of pila they carry long spears (hastae).\n\nRome took Corinth, the last holdout polis of the Achaeans, in 146, effectively taking Greece until Mithridates and the [Mithridatic Wars.](_URL_4_)\n\nPolybius wrote a lot about middle republican armies, and Livy wrote about the Mithridatic Wars in Ad Urbe Condita starting around Book [70.](_URL_0_)\n\nOther sources\n\n[Timeline of Greece and Rome for references](_URL_6_)\n\n[A nice paper on the Achaean League and its politics](_URL_7_)\n\n[Military history of Middle to Late Republican Rome](_URL_5_)\n\n[More on the Achaean League](_URL_2_)\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0150%3Abook%3D70", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0543,001:6:19", "http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/gazetteer/topics/history/Achaean_League/Britannica_1911*.html", "http://courses.temple.edu/pericles/ober.htm", "http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/mithradates1.asp", "http://www.usna.edu/Users/history/abels/hh205/fall%20of%20the%20republic.htm", "http://people.umass.edu/dfleming/english704-timeline.html", "http://content.lib.utah.edu/utils/getfile/collection/etd3/id/1920/filename/1917.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ccekfpp" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Supporters of the [mythical Jesus theory](_URL_0_) point out that we don't know of any non-biblical corroboration of his existence. We have a mention in currently known transcriptions of Flavius Josephus' history book, but there are very good reasons to think that those were added much later by a copist. \n\nKeep in mind that most ancient texts have only survived through milleniums in a very limited number of copies, and even then, mostly as fragments, palimpsests, or quotations. In this case, it looks like all the modern copies are descendants of a single copy made by a monk in one monastery. Imagine that monk, a fervent believer, ... how could a text of that era not mention our Lord, Jesus Christ! Surely, it must have been a mistake ... well you get the idea. \n\n" ] }

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

{ "a_id": [ "cakl2dn" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Hamiltonanism was a political/economic belief in a Strong central government, encouragment of national industries and commercial economy and a distrust of the common man. The ideas of it still have no left us according to Michael Lind. It has been a persistent battle between Jeffersonian agriculturalists vs Hamiltonian commercialists. Its platform was carried by prominent politicans like Henry Clay in the 1830s and was somewhat carried out by the Presidency of John Quincy Adams. \n\n_URL_0_\nMichael Lind: *Land of Promise: An economic history of the United States*" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hamiltonianism" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cxyl68b", "cxymymw", "cxyn16l", "cxyz9wq" ], "score": [ 2, 8, 9, 4 ], "text": [ "An interesting read on this issue, mainly is about women's position in Islamic societies but gives quite a good idea about Persian (actually, Mesopotamian) influence over Islam and Islamic states: _URL_0_", "Persians dramatically outnumbered Arabs. They were vastly wealthier, had a tremendously larger cultural tradition, including literacy, and they were more urban and sophisticated. The Umayyads tried hard to keep the Arabs ruling the Near East segregated from local populations in order to maintain Arab cultural unity, but in the far-flung areas of Khorasan (what is today Uzbekistan) this proved impossible, and Arabs and Persians mingled a great deal. The Persians had more wealth and culture, so they tended to make the Arabs more Persian than the converse.\n\nA good example of this is when al-Mansour built Baghdad in the 760s. The city was arranged in such a way as to conform to Persian obsessions with astrology, and when Mansour was installed, he had it done in the manner of a Persian king.", "I'll speak mainly within the purview of Al-Tabari's texts and the Abbasid Dynasty as that is within my.area of familiarity. \n\nTo understand why the Persians had such an influence on the Abbasids we can start at the placement of the new capital of the Caliphate in Baghdad. Given its close proximity near the former Sassanid capital, this hints that at least geographically, the Abbasids had grown to rely on Persian bureaucracy and governance as a model. Furthermore, some theorize (though Al-Tabari highly suggests this) that the Abbasid connection to Persian rule was a way to cement legitimacy beyond the immediate area. Notably we see a large sponsorship of scientific and literary works from the Abbasids that were not written or translated to not only Arabic, but also Persian. Similar to the Byzantines at the time who continued the tradition of writing and producing literature in Greek, its possible that much of the Persian influence that the Abbasids borrowed from were products of a teleological justification.\n\nLiterary continuity commentaries aside, quite a lot of works that comes from the Abbasid Caliphate ended up being written in Persian and Arabic and the large projects translation of Greek and Roman philosophical works resulted in both Arabic and Persian transcriptions. Perhaps more pertinently, the political rise of the Abbasids depended on cooperation of the Persians against the Umayyads and though there was political friction afterwards, the prevalence of Persian political figures and people within the Abbasid Caliphate resulted in a much more inclusive rule.\n\nI'm fairly certain there are many aspects I've missed, so if anyone has any addons, feel free to add addendums.", "Let me start of with a bit of a generalization, and then I'll try my best to support it. The society of the Arabian Peninsula was one that was constituted of a a largely oral cultural tradition, governed with tribal affiliation rather than the bureaucracy and politics we are familiar with, and without the same sheer infrastructure that we see in the Byzantine, Sassanid, and Old Roman Empires. This means that when they powerful Arab armies took over lands outside the Arab peninsula, they began to borrow from them on a cultural level, and administrative level, and on an architectural/structural level. They would be quite impressed by the way that foreign emperors would live, the massive architecture of these different civilizations, and they would find a great deal of use in the bureaucratic structures that helped other empires govern their multiethnic domains (much like the Arabs were, as you can't structure your politics around tribal relations completely when there are people that don't fit into that tribal mosaic.). I am not much of an Art Historian, or one too well versed in Architecture, so I will focus on the administrative/political level (art and architecture is important, and I could talk about it, but I only know about it inasmuch as I can relate it to the political and administrative so I don't really want to start taking authority in that area.) \n\nSo the first work I'd like to introduce you to is \"The Administration of Abbasids Caliphate: A Fateful Change in the Muslim History\" by Mohammed Tahir, a great Pakistani academic, in *The Pakistan Journal of Commerce and Social Sciences*. In the beginning of his article, he actually conceptualizes the defeat of the Umayyads and the Rise of the Abbasids, as well as the change of capital from Damascus to Baghdad as a battle of influences. The Capital had already been moved from Medina to Damascus, because of the centralization, and in a sense to also remove the Capital from its semi-nomadic roots in the desert to the high culture of the Byzantine/Levantine cultural sphere, though they retained a largely Arab-Centric Society and leadership. He argues that much of the ways that the Caliphs would begin to present themselves and operate during the Umayyad Caliphate was influenced by the way the Byzantine emperor operated, and it greatly influenced the more political nature of the Caliph ul-Islam. This influence would be changed when the Abbasids would adopt a far more Persianised point of view. They would move the capital towards Baghdad, and create a sort of Second person capital, and a new more persian empire on the remains of the more Arab Kingdom that they had vanquished to the far ends of Al-Andalus. (Although to be fair the Capital was actually moved to Kufa, then to Baghdad, then it had a stint in Ar-Raqqah and Samarra for short periods in between being in Baghdad as well). The Abbasids used the discontent of the Arabic centric politics that didn't really work with the growing diversity of the empire, to take control of it -- much of this misbalance was owed to what was effectively the swallowing of Persia and in turn its people and their culture. \n\nIt is also important to consider linguistic politics here as well. The Persian language, unlike many others in the region, took on a really important role. The language adopted an arabic writing system, and there was actually a great deal of patronage for works in the Persian language -- entire bodies of work and poetry in the Persian language flourished and the language itself would interact a great deal with Arabic and help create Arabic vernaculars. Much of these details can be discussed in Hayrettin Yucesoy's work \"Language of Empire: Politics of Arabic and Persian in the Abbasid World.\", he is a professor of the Medieval Middle East at WUStL. \n\nThe Abbasids would employ Persian methods of administration and bureaucracy, and even had many persians occupy important positions in government, marking a movement away from the ethnic rulership of the Arabs over all others (actually one of the Reasons the Umayyad fell in the first place). They also would adopt, from the Sassanid emperor, the idea of a Caliph who ruled with the divine sanctioning of God, a concept that would forever mark the position. The court life of the Caliphate would look much like that of the Persians, and the Caliph would wear a black turban, carry a staff of the prophet, and have the Quran before him on his throne as every one of his attendants and officials would kiss his hand when greeting him. They borrowed their system of investiture from the Persians as well. \n\nThey would also institute the Wazirate, a Wazir being a sort of prime minister, someone invested with all the sovereign powers to help the Caliph rule. They were often Persian, and would help in this transformation of administration. In addition other offices, such as that of an Executioner, and a diplomatic corps. The position of Wazir would exist and die with the Abbasid caliphate. So to conclude, the Abbasid Caliphate was emerged in a way as a more persianised alternative to the Umayyads, and they would go onto use Persian administration and language (and also artistic culture that I hope someone will be able to discuss more than I could.) I hope that gives you some insight, and if you'd like to know more, feel free to ask! " ] }

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[ [ "http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/bitstream/10150/291738/1/azu_td_1353097_sip1_m.pdf" ], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7a0l7a", "c7a0tob", "c7a0vx1", "c7a1gey", "c7a2sx1", "c7a7dec", "c7aft2r" ], "score": [ 24, 7, 430, 32, 10, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Interesting question, and I don't know the answer, but I'd guess during the 700s-800s. That was when Japan imported Chinese culture wholesale, from the writing system to the architecture to Buddhism to entire sections of the language. (even today, Japanese use Chinese prononciation in some cases; for instance, the \"shin\" in \"Shinto\" is the same word as the \"kami\" in \"Kamikaze\"; in the latter case it's pronounced in native Japanese, in the former it's pronounced as the Chinese did [modern Chinese: \"shen\"]).\n\nAlso, Australia does call itself \"Down Under,\" which only makes sense from a non-Australian perspective.", "I was seriously just wondering about this a couple hours ago. The word \"Japan\" is also etymologically related to \"Nihon/Nippon\" as well as to the modern Mandarin name /ʐɿ.pən/. After all these years I'd only just today put that together, the connection to the English name I mean.\n\n/u/Tiako ought to show up and answer your question. That guy knows his shit.", "No, \"Ni-hon\" (日本, sun origin, or sun root) was not China's original name for Japan. In the early Chinese dynastic histories, the Japanese islands and the people there were reffered to as \"Wa\" (倭), which means \"land of the dwarves\" or \"land of the stunted rice plants\". How the name changed, so to speak, is somewhat confusing.\n\nThe following is a passage from the New Tang History:\n\"In the first year of Hsien-heng [670] an embassy came to the court from Japan to offer congratulations upon the conquest of Koguryo. About this time, the Japanese who had studied Chinese came to dislike the name Wa and changed it to Nippon. According to the words of the Japanese envoy himself, that name was chosen because the country was so close to where the sun rises. Some say... that Nippon was a small country which had been subjugated by the Wa, and that the latter took over its name. As this envoy was not truthful, doubt still remains.\"\n\nThis passage raises some questions - who were the Wa, then? And who are these people who suddenly conquered a territory from the Wa? Nevermind that we're looking through the distorted lens of the Tang dynastic histories, with its Sinocentric perspective.\n\nThere's another interesting exchange between China (more specifically, the Sui) and the Japanese court at Yamato. The Japanese sent a diplomatic message to the Sui which read, \"The Son of Heaven of the land where the sun rises sends this letter to the Son of Heaven of the land where the sun sets. [I] wish you well.\" Wang Zhenping argues that the Sui court accidentally accepted this message from Japan, inadvertently legitimizing Japan's claims of sovereignty and equality with the Sui emperor. This isn't covered in the Tang histories and seems relevant as well in the \"approval\" of Japan's new, less diminutive moniker.", "It reminds me of the meaning of \"Ukraine\", \"borderland\".", "While your question has already been answered pretty well, I just wanted to add one little piece of trivia that might be tangentially related. Japans' oldest religion involved them worshipping Amaterasu, who is both their sun god and the creator of the universe. So the sun already played a large role in their society (not that it doesn't in others), so I would imagine being \"the place where the sun rises\" has a sort of appeal for them.", "I wonder how common it is for a country to choose its name. After all, its inhabitants will call it \"The Country\" or, like Chinese, \"the country that is in the middle\" (I personally find it hilarious) but in a place like Europe, you can't have 20 countries called \"Center\"", "On a side note, I've always been curious why we call it \"Japan\" if the name of the country is actually \"Ni-hon\". In case anyone else was wondering, here is what [Wikipedia has to say about it.](_URL_0_)\n\n > The word \"Japan\" (or \"Japon\") is an exonym, and is used (in one form or another) by a large number of languages.\n\n > The English word for Japan came to the West from early trade routes. The early Mandarin Chinese or possibly Wu Chinese word for Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu. The modern Shanghainese (a dialect of the Wu Chinese language (呉語) or topolect) pronunciation of characters 日本 (Japan) is still Zeppen [zəʔpən]. The old Malay word for Japan, Jepang (modern spelling Jepun, although Indonesian has retained the older spelling), was borrowed from a Chinese language, and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Malacca in the 16th century. It is thought the Portuguese traders were the first to bring the word to Europe. It was first recorded in English in 1577 spelled Giapan. \n\n > Though Nippon or Nihon are still by far the most popular names for Japan from within the country, recently the foreign words Japan and even Jipangu (from Cipangu, see below) have been used in Japanese mostly for the purpose of foreign branding.\n\n > As mentioned above, the English word \"Japan\" has a circuitous derivation; but linguists believe it derives in part from the Portuguese recording of the early Mandarin Chinese or Wu Chinese word for Japan: Cipan (日本), which is rendered in pinyin as Rìběn, and literally translates to \"sun origin\". Guó is Chinese for \"realm\" or \"kingdom\", so it could alternatively be rendered as \"Japan-guó\".\nCipangu was first mentioned in Europe in the accounts of the travels of Marco Polo. It appears for the first time on a European map with the Fra Mauro map in 1457, although it appears much earlier on Chinese and Korean maps such as the Kangnido. Following the accounts of Marco Polo, Cipangu was thought to be fabulously rich in silver and gold, which in Medieval times was largely correct, owing to the volcanism of the islands and the possibility to access precious ores without resorting to (unavailable) deep-mining technologies.\n\n > The modern Shanghainese pronunciation of Japan is Zeppen [zəʔpən]. In modern Japanese, Cipangu is transliterated as ジパング which in turn can be transliterated into English as Jipangu, Zipangu, Jipang, or Zipang. Jipangu (ジパング) as an obfuscated name for Japan has recently come into vogue for Japanese films, anime, video games, etc.\n" ] }

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

{ "a_id": [ "ch7ldk7" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I don't know the specifics of this question and it was one that I would like to explore myself when I have a bit more free time. Both were brutal regimes and cooperated with each other (along with other nations of the Southern Cone) in Operation Condor, which was essentially a transnational repressive campaign against \"subversives.\" For more on Operation Condor, see John Dinges *[The Condor Years](_URL_1_).* One specific incident was the assassination of General Carlos Prats, who was a Chilean general who went into exile after the coup and was later killed in a car bombing in Argentina. Another interesting chapter was the Malvinas/Falklands War. Pinochet was a big supporter and admirer of Margaret Thatcher and allowed British planes to refuel in Chile, which didn't sit well with Argentina. I don't know of one specific book that explains this deeper, but it is mentioned (I believe) in Mary Helen Spooner's *[The General's Slow Retreat](_URL_0_),* which I highly recommend! I really enjoyed it, Spooner is a journalist and also has another book called *Soldiers in a Narrow Land.* The latter explains the Pinochet regime, while the former is what happened after Pinochet was out of power through Michele Bachelet's first presidency. I hope this helped! " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.amazon.com/The-Generals-Slow-Retreat-Pinochet/dp/0520266803/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399017684&sr=8-1&keywords=the+generals+slow+retreat", "http://www.amazon.com/The-Condor-Years-Terrorism-Continents/dp/1565849779/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399017435&sr=8-1&keywords=the+condor+years" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "f5p3t2j" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "For the general situation of post and parcels, from a [previous answer of mine](_URL_4_):\n\nFor signatories of the 1929 Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, [Article 77](_URL_6_) stated: \n\n\"At the commencement of hostilities, each of the belligerent Powers and the neutral Powers who have belligerents in their care, shall institute an official bureau to give information about the prisoners of war in their territory.\n\nEach of the belligerent Powers shall inform its Information Bureau as soon as possible of all captures of prisoners effected by its armed forces, furnishing them with all particulars of identity at its disposal to enable the families concerned to be quickly notified, and stating the official addresses to which families may write to the prisoners.\"\n\nThe official bureau was the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, who worked in conjunction with a Protecting Power (for British prisoners the United States, until their declaration of war when Switzerland became the Protecting Power), various national organisations (the American Red Cross, Australian Red Cross, British Red Cross Society and Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, etc.), and government bodies who held e.g. next-of-kin information. Families would typically be informed by the military that their relatives were missing, then prisoners of war once that information was confirmed; the Red Cross would also contact the family with information on how to send letters and parcels. A Red Cross card, often pre-printed, might also be sent by the prisoners themselves shortly after capture where available, to let their family know they were alive and safe; the Germans used a bogus form (initially labelled \"Red Cross\", later changed to not specifically name the Red Cross but marked \"Printed in Geneva\"), telling prisoners that if they completed it then it would greatly speed up the process of contacting their family. It asked for much more information than the standard name, rank and serial number (e.g. names of units, objectives, comrades etc.), and once word filtered back Allied personnel were warned not to complete it.\n\nSome idea of the scale of the undertaking can be seen in this [picture of records at the Central Prisoners of War Agency, Geneva](_URL_7_), from a University of Melbourne [blog post](_URL_3_) about their holding of Australian Red Cross cards relating to Missing, Wounded and Prisoner of War Enquiries.\n\nThere was no particular difference in sending packages to different branches of the services, but the circumstances were quite different between prisoners of Germany and those of Japan. There are some example online of family members who have published the various telegrams, letters etc. connected with a prisoner of war such as [Ken Fenton](_URL_2_), a Britsh airman held by Germany, and [Frank Larkin](_URL_5_), an Australian held by the Japanese. They both include Red Cross documents with guidance on how to send letters and parcels to prisoners. Guidance could also be found in Red Cross magazines that were published and sent to relatives of prisoners such as [\"Prisoners of War Bulletin\"](_URL_1_) in the US and \"The Prisoner of War\" in the UK, and the Great Britain Philatelic Society also has Post Office leaflets on communications with prisoners of war in [Europe](_URL_8_) and [Japan](_URL_0_). \n\n*****\n\nIn terms of Bader’s leg, the British were notified by radio. The radio station at North Foreland received a clear text message stating that Bader had lost his right leg and requested a new one, and granted permission for a leg to be dropped with the day and time to be communicated by radio. The RAF felt that such an arrangement would be used as a public relations opportunity by the Germans, though, so did not arrange safe passage, but rather dropped a replacement leg as part of Circus 81, a standard bombing operation. Andy Saunders’ *Bader’s Last Flight* has details of the operation, including a reproduction of the original telegram to Fighter Command HQ from North Foreland." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.gbps.org.uk/information/downloads/files/airmail-leaflets/POWs-in-Japan.pdf", "https://archive.org/details/PrisonersOfWarBullitin", "https://kenfentonswar.com/stalag-ixc/", "http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/archives/a-humane-and-intimate-administration-the-red-cross-world-war-two-wounded-missing-and-prisoner-of-war-cards/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9ggpge/how_did_pows_of_wwii_receive_packages/", "http://pow.larkin.net.au/documents/", "https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/9ac284404d38ed2bc1256311002afd89/8dfed95c1e653fdac12563cd00519226", "https://cpb-ap-se2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.unimelb.edu.au/dist/9/92/files/2017/05/Geneva-Bureau-2kuli6f.jpg", "http://www.gbps.org.uk/information/downloads/files/airmail-leaflets/POWs-in-Europe.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c9kqulx", "c9ksgzs", "c9ktdfs" ], "score": [ 2, 2, 3 ], "text": [ "It might be to do with awareness, education, intellectual development, available time/labour, but that is all speculative. There are of course some famous Modern (20th century) art that looked to reclaim some of the value of cave art, not only that the history of art was not a linear progression of time, but the drawings and marks weren't that simple. There are examples of religious iconography that were painted after the renaissance that ignore the mathematical principles of perspective, even though they would have been aware of it. Symbolism, as different to accurate, \"realistic\" representation has been seen by some as an attempt to represent non-explicit or more abstract stories and ideas.\n[edit:expansion]", "The hypothesis I recall from the intro Art History class I took freshman year of college, and that I think makes sense, has to do with the function of the art. When you look at art from the Enlightenment, Renaissance, and so on, you're seeing stuff that was created with the purpose of being regarded as art. Its function is form, style, technique, etc. By contrast, the hypothesis I learned in Art History was that prehistoric cave art was more for functional purposes. Animals are painted to show other members of the tribe where to aim the spears and arrows (prehistoric targets) and to illustrate which animals are good for hunting and which should be avoided. Humans might be painted for self-reflection, to identify members of the tribe or friendly tribes, or to represent gods. The accuracy of the drawing isn't as important as the message attached to it, so it's less-emphasized.", "We have. \"After [Chauvet](_URL_0_)\" said Picasso, \"all is decadence.\"" ] }

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[ [], [], [ "http://i.imgur.com/4rCm38I.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cdtreok" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "This question is better asked of /r/askanthropology since it is clearly pre-history. Emerging genetic [data](_URL_0_) indicates that there was some contact that involved the exchange of genetic information, but the nature (and relative enthusiasm) of that exchange is lost to a time before records. [Breaking news](_URL_1_) indicate that the exchange of genetic information between archaic species and our direct lineage goes back for some time. But you didn't get any of these insights here since this is restricted to historical periods. Go to /r/askanthropology." ] }

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[ [ "http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals", "http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/science/at-400000-years-oldest-human-dna-yet-found-raises-new-mysteries.html?ref=science&_r=0" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cr0tw4j", "cr1od8j" ], "score": [ 233, 3 ], "text": [ "Yes, and for a much longer period than just the Wars of the Roses (ie. mid-to-late fifteenth-century). The encastellation of Europe in the eleventh- and twelfth-centuries made violent marches through enemy territory, known as [the chevauchée](_URL_3_), a highly popular and essential military tactic. The purpose of this form of warfare was to damage your opponent's financial income and their reputation - since one of the features of good lordship was the ability to protect and nothing demonstrated bad lordship like hiding in a castle while your land was ravaged. The treatment of non-combatants is [a central topic to the study of chivalry](_URL_0_) (side-note: Gillingham has several fantastic papers available through _URL_1_, I highly recommend taking advantage of this and his other freely available articles), often romantacised by the idyllic imagination that noble warriors would spare those not explicitly involved in the combat, has been comprehensively demonstrated as untrue, [see this post for more information](_URL_2_). \n\nIn this Martin is accurate, but this does not mean, of course, that all knights were bloody sadistic torturers (ie. they were not all Mountains that Ride or the Bloody Mummers) but that such actions were a widely accepted part of warfare and only condemned within certain moral contexts or because they might contravene accepted norms or desired (quasi-idealised) standards but usually not explicit legal structures. \n\nHowever, even the standards of chivalric conduct have been noted as being thrown out the window during periods of civil conflict. As Philip de Commynes, writing about the Battle of Towton (1461), noted King Edward 'shouted to his men that they must spare the common soldiers and kill the lords, of which none or few escaped'. As demonstrated by the violence of the Anarchy of the mid twelfth-century; the Baronial Movements of the thirteenth-century; the deposing of Edward II in the fourteenth-century; and the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth-century, it is clear that chivalric conduct often did not withstand the force of civil strife (and these examples just restricting us to England and Normandy).\n\nTraditional non-combatants usually lacked even this thin veil of protection, and when the aim was to better yourself at the expense of your enemy (and doubly so when you knew you would be unlikely to keep hold of any territory you might ride through) it was a fairly vicious time to not have a set of walls to hide behind.", "You'll find an excellent first-hand source for this in the form of the Paston Letters. They're the surviving correspondence between members of some of the Norfolk gentry from 1422 to 1509. Although they deal with all sorts of issues (most notably how the lady Paston thinks her sons are all idiots. A fine woman indeed,) it makes references to warfare in the countryside and the devastation it could inflict.\n\nI recall one instance (I am paraphrasing here since I don't have a copy of the letters with me anymore, alas,) where a group of mounted soldiers apparently raided an estate, murdered everybody and set fire to the local church when a group of people sheltered inside." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.academia.edu/779331/The_treatment_of_the_defeated_c.950-c.1350_historiography_and_the_state_or_research", "Academia.edu", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24z6jv/how_did_knights_treat_commoners/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2t2tn8/did_medieval_knights_receive_much_training_in/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d67gzzx", "d67mbha", "d67pkl5" ], "score": [ 1744, 126, 36 ], "text": [ "**Occasionally, but typically under only specific circumstances.**\n\nIn the first centuries after the development of the cannon, stone shot was used in most cases. Stone is frangible; it tends to shatter upon impact, and even if a stone cannonball did not shatter, it was easily converted to peaceful use as building material. Both of these factors tended to work against the recovery and re-use of stone cannonballs. During [excavations at Edinburgh Castle between 1988 and 1991](_URL_1_) archaeologists discovered a handful of never-fired stone cannonballs and fragments from rounds that had clearly been used and shattered. \n\nThe use of iron shot began to take off in the 16th century and by the 17th century, they were almost ubiquitous. The issue here, as with stone, is that poor-quality iron (endemic in this period) is brittle and will shatter upon impact just as stone will. Given that cannon shot were designed to be destroyed, they were typically constructed of the cheapest iron possible, which increased the likelihood that they would fracture or deform.\n\nNow, allow me to divert you into the question of **why** and **when** solid shot would be recovered. Solid cannon shot, whether iron or stone, tends to be *extraordinarily* heavy for its size and is difficult to handle because of its shape. You have to have a *reason* to go through the effort of recovering a particular solid shot. It is much easier to get new shot from your logistical train than to go through the effort of recovering shot. Large-scale shot recovery only makes sense if your own supplies are limited.\n\nYou might need a block and tackle setup to lift the shot. You'll need wagons and horses to carry the shot away. All this is expensive in both time and labor, which means you typically see shot recovery take place only where large concentrations of artillery have fought in a confined area. The effort of mustering a shot-recovery detail is offset by the ability to collect large amounts of shot.\n\nRemember, too, that you have to cope with matching the shot's caliber ─ something not always easy if both sides in a battle aren't using compatible ammunition.\n\nSo to recap: In order for shot-recovery to be feasible, you need to have a shortage of ammunition that forces you to recover shot. You need to have the manpower to be able to recover the shot. You need to be fighting between approximately 1500 and 1870. You need to be at a place where large amounts of artillery were used in a confined area.\n\nThis checklist limits how often cannon shot was reused, but it did happen time and again. Stephen Bull, in his book *The Furie of the Ordnance* about artillery in the English civil wars, writes, \"It is likely that the largest number (of 17th century cannon shot) were picked up and reused, or scrapped, within a relatively short period of the time they were fired or lost. Shot are recorded as having been removed from many of the major battlefields, notably Marston Moor and Naesby, over a very long period of time.\"\n\nMark Thomson's book, *Wellington's Engineers* about military engineering during the Peninsular War, references an account from Alexander Dickson: \"the soldiers were offered a bounty for every roundshot they could recover for re-use and so as not to discourage them, even roundshot of calibres which were of no use were paid for.\"\n\nDuring the Crimean War, when vast amounts of artillery were leveled against the Russian defenders along the Black Sea, the practice of round shot recovery [was captured on camera](_URL_0_), with the cannonballs in the ditch having been rolled down a hill by soldiers seeking to collect them.\n\nFinally, during the American Civil War, the logistically-strapped Confederacy's quartermaster department [mined the Seven Days battlefields for almost a year afterward](_URL_2_), recovering supplies and spent cannon shot to be used in the war effort. At isolated places like Ship Island, in Texas, and elsewhere, Confederate artillerymen recovered Union-fired round shot in order to keep their guns fed. \n\nThe development of exploding shot and artillery shells brought an end to the era of recovering round shot. Even by the time of the American Civil War, round shot was on the way out of circulation.\n\n\n", "I am amazed I have something to contribute for this very specific question, but it was only for one specific circumstance. And I apologize because in order to get the exact quote I will need to interlibrary loan a diary /memoir that is held at Rice University that I took notes from some 20 years ago. And since these were handwritten notes -- long before I was digitizing things -- I don't know the woman's name from memory. Hopefully in describing this particular memoir -- because it's story was so unique -- perhaps one of my fellow colonialists will recognize the woman's name in question and I can find the original source again.\n\nAt Rice when I was doing research on southern beliefs I came across a rather remarkable journal / memoir of a woman who had been a refugee after the Revolutionary War. She and her husband were Tories, he was a doctor, and they would eventually after the war flee to Jamaica. (Again I hope this will trigger some memories in any of my colleagues to help me dredge up a name -- this woman's story was so fascinating that years later it stays with me.)\n\nAnyway, in discussing the events that led to their abandoning the British North American colonies, she described how she and her husband were present during a siege of a southern city. And again, I apologize, I do not recall which city, though it may have been Yorktown. \n\nWhat was remarkable in her narrative was something she mentioned in passing that -- and it struck me to this day -- an event I hadn't even thought about happening. She described how the streets were part sand in places and how they had been bombarded by the Patriots. And she described how young black children would run into the streets -- while bombardment was still happening -- to cover cannonballs that had landed but not broken into pieces with sand. She then described the children digging these up later and selling them back to soldiers on her side -- Tories.\n\nAs I had never run across a story even similar to this, even though it had nothing to do with the research I was doing, it struck me as so singular -- I hadn't even thought about the idea that someone would try to recovered shot solid cannonballs, much less the idea of children \"selling\" them -- it stuck in my memory. (I also wondered if how she reported the events were quite accurate, as her perception of what the children were doing -- or the fact that they were enterprising versus if they were somehow being coerced into doing so -- but obviously when you only have a single source you have no way to know that.)\n\nI always meant to go back and re-read this diary, so I have to thank you for your question for triggering this distant memory. And reading The Alaskan's excellent post, above (I am no expert with military pieces, I just happened to have read a firsthand account of the practice by a civilian bystander in my research along the way) it appears the account from the journal I had read matches the circumstances under which he noted that recovery might have occurred.\n\nI did a causal search of the Fondren Library holdings electronic catalog just now without success to try and see if I could identify the source. I will call them this week and see if they can help me trace it down. If any of my colleagues knows the source I am talking about please chime in, it was a pretty unique set of circumstances, so I would have a hard time believing we may not be able to identify the specific name and hopefully in a week or two I might get the source back in my possession so I can pull the original quote. (I will warn that some of the language in the original quote in reference to the children may contain language that would not be as appropriate to today's sensibilities, so if I get the source and reprint the quote I note in advance some language may be, well, colorful.)", "One particularly interesting example of cannonballs being repurposed was during the on-again, off-again Siege of Candia. The Ottomans wanted the city, the Venetians had the naval power necessary to keep the port open and thus prevent a proper siege, and the native Cretans were hostile to both sides (the Venetians tended to ruthlessly exploit them and the Ottomans were foreign invaders who wanted their island; neither was really a good option for the Cretans). The Ottomans were also plagued by truly abysmal morale: such a long-running affair required home leave and when home leave was granted exclusively to Janissaries in 1649-1650, against the advice of the commander (Deli Huseyn Pasha), the reaction from the regular Ottoman troops roughly mirrors that of the French mutinies in WWI -- they refused to fight, except on the defensive, and stubbornly resisted all attempts to convince them to fall back in line. At least until they finally got their leave. \n\nOver the course of the siege, the Ottomans and Venetians shot cannonballs at one another. Late in the siege, the Ottomans looked at this enormous pile of Venetian cannonballs they had been collecting and presumably said, \"wouldn't it be funny if we shot these things back at them?\" And so the Ottomans casted new cannon in the field (this wasn't *terribly* common in the 17th century but when you've got a 21-year siege you tend to get creative), loaded them with Venetian cannonballs, and shot the Venetians' own cannonballs back at them. \n\nIt's not a coincidence that the Ottomans casted three new cannon in 1668 for the approximately 30,000 Venetian cannonballs they had on hand and that the siege, which had by then dragged on for two decades, would end the next year. \n\nAs for why the they're explicitly mentioned as having \"collected\" this frankly ridiculous number of previously useless cannonballs fired from enemy guns, I can't even begin to guess. Rhoads Murphey, who generally offers all sorts of explanations for weird events like this, is regrettably silent on the issue (and the quote in Turkish he cites doesn't appear to offer much more information, though my Turkish is probably about as good as a three year old's). " ] }

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[ [ "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Valley_of_the_Shadow_of_Death.jpg", "http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/3121/", "http://www.alu.army.mil/alog/issues/SepOct01/MS604.htm" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cqpkdy9" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "hi.. you might get something out of these related posts\n\n* [Luke is short for Lucas. Why does the bible Luke only have the short form?](_URL_3_) - /u/vhcngh traces John, Jonathan, Luke, Mark and Matthew from English to Latin to Greek\n\n* [Which came first, the name 'John' or 'Johnathan' (or similar spellings?) Were the Johns of biblical times simply called John or were they less famously named Johnathan? If John came first, how did it evolve to become the short version of Johnathan?](_URL_1_) - various respondents provide the original Hebrew names for John, Jonathan, Adam, Matthew and Paul\n\n* [Was Jesus a common name when the biblical Jesus was alive?](_URL_0_) - lots of comments and links to other posts discussing the Hebrew name for Jesus\n\n* [Biblical names like John,Paul,Gabriel or Peter have different pronunciations in other languages like Juan (John ,Spanish) or Paolo ( Paul, Italian). How were these names pronounced during biblical times?](_URL_2_) - very scanty information here, but a few more names are given" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2wwxw6/was_jesus_a_common_name_when_the_biblical_jesus/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2z0jjh/which_came_first_the_name_john_or_johnathan_or/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2gw7a4/biblical_names_like_johnpaulgabriel_or_peter_have/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2v2r84/luke_is_short_for_lucas_why_does_the_bible_luke/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cqvvs2a", "cqvxj0a" ], "score": [ 3, 3 ], "text": [ "I can answer the follow-up question: They were imprisoned according to paragraph 213 of the GDR criminal code.", "First of all, I'm sorry if significant portions of this answer lack good, reliable English cites. I'll at least give English wikipedia links, for all the good they are, for some answers.\n\nEast Germans arriving in West Germany as refugees had one significant advantage over refugees from other nations. Since West Germany did not fully acknowledge East Germany, instead insisting on an [exclusive mandate](_URL_0_) for Germany as a whole, the refugees were considered German citizens, with all rights. So, for example, they couldn't just be sent back because they had a right of residence in West Germany. So, in a way, the West German official view was that the arrivers did not *get* the West German citizenship, because they already *had* them. It was just officially recognized when they arrived.\n\nHowever, here's where things get a bit more complicated and not as clear-cut. Especially in the early years before the border was closed off effectively, large numbers of East Germans relocated to West Germany. To channel those refugees, the West German legislature passed a law (the [Bundesnotaufnahmegesetz](_URL_1_), sorry German link only), which limited the right of abode for East Germans relocating to West Germany. In the following, several large central refugee camps were created. I would imagine, though I don't know for sure, that in those refugee camps, people were interviewed to (a) make sure that they actually were German, and not members of other nations, and to (b) to at least a rough prescreening for potential spies. This didn't always succeed. The maybe most famous example would be [Günter Guillaume](_URL_2_), who relocated to West Germany as a Stasi (the East German secret service) spy, and eventually managed to install himself as personal assistant to West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, leading to the [Guillaume Affair](_URL_3_) and Brandt's eventual resignation.\nIn any case, from those refugee camps, East German arrivers were eventually relocated to different areas of Germany. I assume that if they had family, they would be allowed to relocate there; otherwise, they would be distributed over the area of West Germany, so that no area had too many refugees to support. That support, at a bare minimum, would be the standard social security services available to every German in need. In addition, there seems to have been support from the Bundesausgleichsamt, which was created in 1952 especially with the goal of supporting the integration of German refugees arriving in West Germany. However, I cannot really tell you what amount of help they would receive from there; we're getting into a very specialized and obscure area here, and for a good answer would need an expert on that specific field of research, which I am not.\n\nAs to your final question, I can't say for sure, but I cannot imagine anybody being deported back to East Germany against their will. There were people who relocated from West to East Germany, and there were spy exchanges, but both of these were not deportations to East Germany against the will of those relocated." ] }

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[ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CWajaOx4E" ]

[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_mandate#Germany_from_1949_to_1990", "http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesnotaufnahmegesetz", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Günter_Guillaume", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Affair" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ehk8q5q" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Well, between 1968 and 1988, East German athletes won a total of 409 Olympic medals at the Summer Games and 110 at the Winter Games. West Germany won 204 Summer Games medals and 39 Winter Games medals. Twice the medal count, when West Germany had four times the population. \n\nThe answer that springs immediately to mind for many is doping, and the East Germans absolutely relied heavily on a [systematic doping regime for its athletes](_URL_0_). This was just part of the regime's focus on sport as a cost-effective way to gain prestige and cement a separate East German identity. (The entangled questions of East German acceptance of nudism and how all of this descends from Nazi ideas of the physical ideal, I'll leave to a specialist.) Physical fitness was a large part of the curriculum in East Germany, which started with compulsory (and heavily ideological) preschool. Students were regularly assessed for athletic potential, and promising children were pulled out of school at an early age for rigorous training. (Another question I'll leave for a specialist is the parallel between this and the other various Communist sports programs, as well as how this model has evolved in modern-day Russia and China.) " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/the-state-sponsored-doping-program/52/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ckwuuij" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "This is a big question, I won't be able to do it justice, but here's a start. In short, yes, there are significant differences in religious life between England and the N. American colonies and these differences come into play during the Revolutionary War. To this day Queen Elizabeth II is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith whereas the United States famously affirms the First Amendment.\n\nThe main difference you need to appreciate is between the Church of England and dissenting Christians. If we go way back to Henry VIII's Reformation we can see that initially he didn't change theology from the Catholic beliefs, for instance in the 1530s transubstantiation is affirmed, but he replaced the primacy of the Pope with himself. Reformed theologies are spreading in England throughout the reign of Edward VI, then Mary's Catholic repression martyrs Protestants and confirms Protestant theology within Anglicanism. When Elizabeth becomes Queen she's confronted with the problem of reforming the Anglican church to fully establish its Protestant character, like Protestantism itself this is a matter of great controversy, and some conferences of scholars are called to produce what's known as the [\"Elizabethan settlement.\"](_URL_0_) The settlement makes some Protestant liturgical reforms but claims for Anglicanism a magisterial/state authority similar to Catholicism. The Act of Uniformity and Book of Common Prayer are legally mandated, there's no freedom of conscience for someone who is more radically Protestant than the C of E.\n\nAnd over the course of Elizabeth's reign the ranks of those radical Protestants are swelling! Called Puritans in England, these are people who refuse to attend the Anglican Church and who acknowledge no authority above the Scripture interpreted with aid of Grace. I've written some [big comments on Puritanism](_URL_1_) if you're interested.\n\nBetween 1600-1650 there is growing conflict between these dissenting Protestants and the Anglican Church, many emigrate to the New World in search of greater freedom to govern their religious affairs. It's important to note that these groups want to *govern*, they want not only freedom from persecution but the freedom to persecute! In the 1640s England has a Civil War between Parliament and King, Parliament being dominated completely by dissenters. Oliver Cromwell is himself a (relatively mild) religious independent.\n\nSo from the beginning of settlement the American colonies have significant religious diversity and this is one of the factors encouraging emigration. It varies regionally, but some areas are quite mixed, there's plenty of conflict. In 1689 there's even an anti-Catholic coup in Maryland. \n\nDissenters remain in Britain too, of course, but they are henceforth always a minority. \n\nAbout Congregationalism more specifically. Some radical Protestant theologies are associated, fairly or unfairly, with specific political ideas. Cromwell's revolution had a religious character, they killed a King, and there's a persistent tradition of anti-authoritarianism in some of these groups. Quakers would be the best example. \"Congregational\" refers to a mode of Church government different from the CoE and implictly Calvinist. Indeed the historic Congregational churches were strongly Calvinist. In 1776 a British person would connote Congregationalism with anti-Monarchical ideas/sentiment, since the Revolutionary War was framed by loyalists as being about loyalty to a legitimate King you can imagine why a Congregational church would attract abuse." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabethan_Religious_Settlement", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2c249i/what_are_puritans/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c9u1if5" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Art Deco was very popular at the time, and influenced buildings around the world. It was associated with luxury and progress, and was widely embraced by all levels of society, while [contemporary modernist and expressionist architecture were more intellectual/elitist.](_URL_0_)\n\nRebuilding a town on a large scale offers unique possibilities for architecture, as Napier shows. An earlier example is the town of [Ålesund](_URL_2_) in Norway, destroyed by [fire in 1905](_URL_1_), was completely rebuild in Art Nouveau/Jugendstil. The town has an unusually consistent architecture, most of the buildings having been built between 1904 and 1907. It's been argue that it was a boon for the town and it has become a tourist attraction." ] }

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[ "http://www.artdeconapier.com/", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1931_Hawke%27s_Bay_earthquake", "https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=napier+art+deco&client=firefox-a&hs=Afv&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=i4OIUYQ_ituKAoibgVg&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1024&bih=638", "https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=christchurch+rebuild&client=firefox-a&hs=ihv&sa=X&hl=en&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=KYSIUcmZH4GgiQL-yYHICA&ved=0CD8QsAQ&biw=1024&bih=638" ]

[ [ "http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3591841/Dark-side-of-Art-Deco.html", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85lesund_Fire", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85lesund" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6is27j" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "People certainly drank a lot, about three times as much as we do today and they tended to drink hard stuff while we mostly drink beer and wine( mid 19th century United States). I haven't seen the show, but it certainly sounds like an exaggeration. " ] }

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[ "http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/how-booze-built-america/videos" ]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "f6xw9bg" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "More can always be added, but /u/sowser wrote [this post](_URL_0_) in this sub about the Confederados who went to Brazil." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/36v1sr/had_some_slave_owners_in_the_last_months_of/crhci32" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d18qqgq" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "That's a good catch. I don't know offhand when it changed, but during the antebellum period a lot of political power was routed through the SC General Assembly. Eligible white male voters could vote for their state representatives, but the legislature would then choose the governor and other prominent state positions, US senators and representatives, and vote on the state's behalf for President.\n\nWhat's fascinating is how this reflects upon South Carolina's (though the South was indeed diverse, SC wasn't singular in its beliefs either) interpretations of American notions of liberty and republican government. They were adamant in their support of these ideas but were also forced to reconcile them with their wider cultural beliefs which espoused the existence of naturally elite men (and they were men) who were uniquely suited to lead the rest of society. These men distinguished themselves through social, personal, and economic independence as demonstrated through ownership of land and slaves as well as absolute control of their business (plantation) and family lives. They achieved economic independence via prosperous plantations and demonstrated leadership through the control of dependents (wives, children, slaves). Theoretically any white man could enter this class but SC's commitment to this ideal also meant that state government was highly insular and restrictive. A small elite group kept a firm grip on nearly all state government affairs.\n\nReadings:\n\nStephanie McCurry, *Masters of Small Worlds*\n\nDrew Faust, *James Henry Hammond and the Old South*" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cm5umly", "cm5x5d3" ], "score": [ 9, 17 ], "text": [ "Serious question: Did Comfort women really exist?", "To put it in a bit of perspective:\n\nIn ancient times, when armies went to war and conquered a city, poor discipline could lead to the army going on rampage and burning, looting, and raping their way through the conquered city. This was called a sack. While large-scale sacks mostly died out after the 1800s (for instance in the wake of the Sepoy Mutiny), it was still a major concern for the public images of many governments, not the least of which was the Japanese. The Japanese had already had their image tarnished in the First Sino-Japanese War, when Japanese troops massacred Chinese civilians after sieging Port Arthur.\n\nTo combat this, the administration had the \"bright\" idea of setting up government mandated prostitution for the troops. The idea was that by giving the troops a legal, government-controlled avenue to vent their sexual frustration, this would minimize their need to go around raping and killing innocent civilians. Meanwhile, the prostitutes would be able to earn money to pump back into the Japanese economy. Win-win, right?\n\nThe problem was that, as with most things run by the Japanese government at the time, the management of the comfort women program-not least due to the socially conservative views of the ruling government-was at an arms distance and more or less uncontrolled. A very small amount of actual volunteers for the program led to coercion, informal \"selling\" of daughters, and outright kidnapping and trafficking. In the conquered territories, Chinese and Korean women were often impressed into the service, or lied to, saying it was a factory that needed workers or the like. There were many more Chinese and Korean women serving as comfort women than Japanese women: this partly contributed to a Japanese comfort woman being more expensive than Chinese or Korean ones.\n\nAfter the war ended, in preparation for the American occupation, the Japanese government, fearful of American soldiers running around raping Japanese women (especially their blue-blood, aristocratic daughters), organized a similar institution, the Recreation and Amusement Association, this time recruiting primarily poorer Japanese women with the promise of food, money, and shelter, as well as with Yakuza intimidation tactics and the aforementioned lying and kidnapping. This association was shut down within the year, but it should be noted that after the association was shut down, the number of rapes under Allied occupation increased significantly." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cgnuwch" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Law- the Code of Hammurabi (1772 BCE) is the earliest I can think of that has had consistent sway on law ever since. Essentially the notion of reciprocal (if in this case draconian) justice. If not that, Lycurgus' (Aprox. 780 BCE) mixed constitution of Sparta is essentially the system of American politics today. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "f39ghrs", "f3b1miu" ], "score": [ 7, 5 ], "text": [ "Questions of popularity are not going to be easy to nail down (why did everyone suddenly get interested in zombies?) But it's not that actually doing big game hunting was popular ( it was, after all, rather hard for most Victorians to do it) as much as reading about it. That's rather obvious: reading about hunting large dangerous animals that can kill you can be thrilling, the difference between watching a bass fishing competition and seeing *Jaws*.\n\nAs to why some people ( yes, mostly men) in the 19th c. were shooting giant beautiful animals and putting their heads on their walls, it could be summarized best perhaps as an animal-rights activist might summarize it, as a crime: with motive, means, and opportunity.\n\nMotive: the stereotypical big game hunter in a pith helmet in Africa or India was English. [Sport hunting had long been a hobby of the landed classes in England](_URL_0_) .For one thing, they owned the gamelands. Unlike poachers on their lands, they didn't necessarily need to eat what they hunted ( though they did have staff to clean and skin or pluck them) so it was easy for them to get into trophy hunting. Also, hunting the wildlife to keep it away from the crops was thought useful.\n\nOpportunity: When England got an Empire, those upper-class sportsmen were able to simply begin doing the same sport hunting in the new dominions: they were in positions of power and could do so. Also, there was a good bit of game habitat,and the more primitive shorter-range weapons in the hands of the native populations had not reduced the numbers of large dangerous game. So, excitingly large numbers of lions, tigers, cape buffalo, gnus etc. could be found.\n\nMeans: though the English wouldn't be limited to spears and arrows, their own gunmakers in the 18th c. had produced rifles and shotguns for small game, birds, and deer. Bringing down rhinos, elephants and buffalo required much more powerful firearms, and by mid-century makers like Westley Richards and Gibbs were producing big game rifles that were at last satisfying the blood-lust of hunters like Sir Samuel Baker, firing belted lead balls weighing as much as two ounces on heavy loads of black powder. These would batter the hunter almost as much as they battered the animals, but as firearms modernized, range and effectiveness did as well. With less punishing rifles to shoot, by the turn of the century, there could be women in pith helmets as well as men, bringing down large animals that they could then pose with for photos.", "Although the stereotypical image of big game hunter is of an Englishman in Africa, with a train of native gun-bearers behind him, the willingness of hunters to travel far to find new places to hunt was not limited to the English, of course. [Friedrich Gerstäcker](_URL_0_) traveled to Arkansas territory in the 1840's to simply wander around and hunt- something that was much easier to do on the US frontier than in his native Germany. Americans- notably Teddy Roosevelt- would travel to Africa for big game hunting after 1900. And the thrill of felling large animals was by no means limited to Africa or India: even the historian Francis Parkman would describe killing large numbers of buffalo on his 1847 trip to Oregon, with no apparent reason other than they were simply there and could be shot at.\n\nThese two men were also writers, and it is notable how often big game hunters are known chiefly by what they wrote about themselves. Sir Samuel Baker, Richard Selous, Peter Capstick, J.A Hunter, W.D.M. Bell ....all wrote \"ripping yarns\". With the advances in transportation and firearms technology in the 19th c., in retrospect their success in traveling into new remote habitats and shooting large numbers of large animals seems to be somewhat inevitable and tragic, but it's not until rather late- after 1900- that the tone changes from triumphant, when Selous, Roosevelt and others would begin to express concern about conservation." ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_the_United_Kingdom#/media/File:Gainsborough-Andrews.jpg" ], [ "https://libraries.uark.edu/specialcollections/exhibits/displayexhibit.asp?ExhibitID=130" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6qmmej", "c6qp5vf" ], "score": [ 3, 8 ], "text": [ "_URL_0_\n\nSame goal as most sacrifcing culture. Ensure that the next harvest or the next year will arrive, that there will be a good yield or protection against desaster and desease.\n\nNeedless to say the Celts didnt have a centralized church so everything varied locally.\n\nIs it Rome 2 by any chance?", "Yes, some Iron Age inhabitants of modern France did sacrifice people. In Ribemont-sur-Ancre, we found a heap of bones, reconstructed as basically something that looks like a barbecue rack, or something like a fish-smoking construction (but with no burning or anything), with decapitated people in uniform with their weapons and shields. They also found a kind of 'building' made of human bones. Lots of them had cutmarks, indicating that these people were killed. But that's the only definite proof I know of; otherwise, there's Caesar's accounts of course, but I don't think they are very reliable because he would have wanted to depict his conquered people as more ferocious and barbaric. Other than that, there's widespread evidence for human sacrifice in Denmark, Britain and the Netherlands in the form of the bog bodies, most of them from the Iron Age. New C14 dates suggest most of them were killed around 160 BC, but I've yet to see the definite report on that. These were probably individual human sacrifices, but whether these people were 'Celtic' is debatable. Same for the large-scale human sacrifices of Denmark and Sweden, of which we also have an account from the Cimbric wars around 100 BC in southern France.\n\nAnimal sacrifice I really take for granted in Iron Age communities." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory/human_sacrifice_01.shtml" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "f9l7cp7" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "I'm afraid I can only touch on the Great Compromise a bit, but the 3/5 is in my wheelhouse.\n\nYour student's suggestion was the actual position of the less-enslaving states: enslaved people count zero for representation because they are in essentially no other ways treated like human beings. Counting them for purposes of allocating power, particularly power over white men, would have been illogical, absurd, and morally abhorrent to the white North. The argument was that if enslaved people ought to be counted, then so should livestock. It falls out this way because if representation is contingent on freeing enslaved people, then those people are no longer enslaved and don't count as such...at least as a matter of law. The oft-precarious status of free people of color did not much enter into it. \n\nThe large enslavers, of course, wanted it just the other way: they ought to be able to buy power by buying people. If that meant power flowed directly from enslaving, that was just how things ought to be...though most of them are shy about admitting this at the time. That one's worth and fitness for public office and public life derived almost entirely from one's property value -though also critically from being white and a man- was reasonably uncontroversial. They argued that women and children, and also poor white men, did not have the vote yet they were still to be used for representation. So why not enslaved people? \n\nSo far as the larger dichotomy goes between enslaving people and political power, the white South perceives the two as largely identical. They understand, at least in a nebulous way, that the less-enslaving states to their north have become increasingly hostile to enslaving people. Some of them have already enacted emancipation plans that will, over the course of decades, end slavery within their bounds. That wave of emancipationist feeling might even infect the Upper South (Maryland, Virginia, and company around the Chesapeake at this time) and that would place enslaving in a dangerous position. These fears are always very much overblown, but they're a significant engine of southern politics all through the antebellum. You can get ahead by arguing your opponent is soft on slavery and conjuring an external threat on slavery is the way you build a national coalition in the South among polities that otherwise often disagree. \n\nThus enslaving people needs extra protection, which the white South seeks ardently. This includes protection from democracy, though at the time such a concept isn't seen as inherently problematic since the founders are quite openly authoritarian oligarchs. The extra safety comes in many forms, some of which evolve over time, but the biggest are apportionment in the Senate -which was not *only* because of slavery, but people in the room at the time noted that the issue of small vs. large states rapidly dissolved in favor of division between enslaving and free-r states, with the enslaving very enthusiastic for the Senate as we know it- and the 3/5 ratio. With the sections at rough population parity, or even tilted a bit in the more enslaving states' favor since no one had a national census to work with when the decision was made, those extra representatives mean that the white, enslaving South has a veto on close House votes. The exact value of that is hard to assess -you'd actually have to reapportion the House every time around to know for sure and the method for doing that changed a few times- but it's very much the case that in the great sectional controversies to come that small margin is a factor. \n\nThe third proslavery provision of the Constitution is the one that enslavers were most keen to boast: the fugitive slave clause. In South Carolina's ratifying convention they made it very explicit: until and unless they had the Constitution, enslavers had no right to go into another state to recover a person who dared steal themselves. In essence, they compelled the North to recognize the status of Southern slavery even within Northern jurisdictions. Massachusetts or Pennsylvania might abolish slavery, but only so far as people enslaved in Massachusetts originally were concerned. Should an enslaved person from Virginia escape to either place, the Constitution granted their enslaver a new power to go and seize them back. Quite what that was going to mean was left unclear in Philadelphia, but when it came to legislation on the matter in 1793 -after a controversial rendition case- the white South were not at all ambiguous. They asked for essentially what became law in 1850: a complete legal obligation for men in free states to render aid in the recapture and rendition of enslaved people, practically on the enslaver's say-so. They had to settle for rather less during the Washington years, but still a far more substantive right than the literally nothing they'd had beforehand." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dvl603z", "dvlddn4" ], "score": [ 76, 18 ], "text": [ "There have been some studies that have shown that people who were exposed to the Russian flu pandemic of 1889-90 were the most likely to die if they contracted the Spanish flu. \n\nExaminations of the virus structure of the Russian flu and Spanish flu have shown that they had vast differences in the structure of their respective viruses. When individuals who had previously contracted the Russian flu contracted the Spanish flu, their immune response was simultaneously delayed and wrong. The individuals' immune systems started producing antibodies based on the Russian flu, but since the virus structure was so different, these antibodies had little to no effect on the Spanish flue. By the time the immune systems realized that the antibodies it was producing was not effective, it was too late. \n\nSource: [Age-specific mortality during the 1918 influenza pandemic: unravelling the mystery of high young adult mortality.](_URL_0_)", "A common theory related to the Spanish Flu and the generally younger people who succumbed to it is the idea of a \"cytokine storm\" which is to say that an overactive immune system could cause younger people to be more at risk than those with weaker immune systems. \n\nCytokines are small proteins that are used for intracelluar signalling, and in the case of immune response, they are released by immune cells to trigger inflammation. \n\nIn turn, inflammation is a signal to generate more immune cells to fight the issue at the site of the infection and throughout the body. The new immune cells thus release more cytokines and the process continues, but at some point, there is a regulation process which prevents the loop from spiraling out of control. \n\nNevertheless, while cytokines are critical to the immune response, they are also susceptible to becoming unregulated in certain circumstances and this disregulation can cause them to start doing damage. \n\nInflammation is helpful for fighting of disease, but it should be noted that some of the immune cells release toxins that are just as capable of killing normal cells as they are for killing invading cells. Maintaining the immune response for too long, and in too many organs can cause damage which might lead to organ failure and death.\n\nIt is unclear how this disregulation process would specifically work in the case of the flu, and there are other theories, such as the potential for those younger people to be in areas where birds infected with H1N1 were located. Obviously, the war would have concentrated younger people and also caused their movement over long distances to join the war. \n\nWe have had considerable advances that should blunt future influenza outbreaks. \n\nThere is significantly better observation and reporting of influenza outbreaks. \n\nThere are vaccination programs in place. They are not perfect, since you need to get vaccinated against specific strains, but it can be effective.\n\nMedical personnel are also much better trained in general prevention of the transmission of infectious agents. \n\nI'd say that simple reporting, communication, and good practices by professionals would be the most important methods for preventing a pandemic like the 1918 Spanish Flu (which probably started in the United States, BTW). There is some discussion of anti-viral drugs as well, but I don't think anyone is expecting to be counting on those.\n\nLink from NIH that talks about much of the above in somewhat more detail:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23940526" ], [ "https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/review-1918-pandemic-flu-studies-offers-more-questions-answers" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cf5finb" ], "score": [ 16 ], "text": [ "hi! there's always room for more info on this topic, but FYI, there have been several posts asking about non-European discovery/settlement of Australia. Catch up on previous responses here:\n\nChina\n\n[Why did the British/Europeans discover Australia and not the Chinese?](_URL_5_)\n\n[Why did the Chinese or Japanese apparently never try to colonize Australia or New Zealand? They're right there.](_URL_2_)\n\n[What were some reasons that China turned inwards and neglected maritime exploration after Admiral Zheng He and his missions.](_URL_8_)\n\n[Why were Zheng He's voyages considered wasteful?](_URL_10_)\n\n[How reliable are the accounts for the Chinese explorer, Zheng He.](_URL_12_)\n\nSE Asia\n\n[Are there any evidences for pre-European contact of the Australias?](_URL_0_)\n\n[To what extent did Asian know about the Island of Australia? Are there documents showing the pass of this knowledge to Europeans?](_URL_1_)\n\n[Why did no Asian cultures ever find Australia?](_URL_3_)\n\n[I just read about the Bugis people, the Vikings of Southeast Asia because they discovered Australia and New Guinea long before the European Age of Discovery. What other maritime cultures had a golden era of exploration in the Middle Ages?](_URL_7_)\n\nSouth Pacific\n\n[Why are the aboriginal peoples of Australia and New Zealand so different? Was there much interaction between the two prior to the arrival of Europeans?](_URL_9_)\n\n[Why did the Maori not conquer aboriginal Australia?](_URL_11_)\n\n[Why didn't the Polynesians colonize Australia?](_URL_4_)\n\n[Why did Polynesians stop expanding? Also, why did they never settle Australia?](_URL_6_)" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1aamc1/are_there_any_evidences_for_preeuropean_contact/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1md46t/to_what_extent_did_asian_know_about_the_island_of/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1jgqt4/why_did_the_chinese_or_japanese_apparently_never/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1na76z/why_did_no_asian_cultures_ever_find_australia/ccgynb6", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/186f4k/why_didnt_the_polynesians_colonize_australia/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1aq47o/why_did_the_britisheuropeans_discover_australia/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1quk12/why_did_polynesians_stop_expanding_also_why_did/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/19g88s/i_just_read_about_the_bugis_people_the_vikings_of/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1a2irc/what_were_some_reasons_that_china_turned_inwards/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1u6uty/why_are_the_aboriginal_peoples_of_australia_and/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ibdhy/why_were_zheng_hes_voyages_considered_wasteful/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1687hm/why_did_the_maori_not_conquer_aboriginal_australia/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15jt3a/how_reliable_are_the_accounts_for_the_chinese/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d41z5r8", "d41zedm", "d428ibn" ], "score": [ 39, 22, 29 ], "text": [ "The D-Day craft to which you are referring (the LCVP) was based heavily on the a boat designed by Andrew Higgins in the prewar years, ostensibly for \"oil workers\" but probably a smugglin' swamp boat during Prohibition. The Marine Corps was not happy with the contemporary Navy options for landing troops on beaches, and so Higgins' design was shoved into production. It underwent a few different versions, the last of which (the LCVP) had modifications based on the earlier Japanese [Daihatsu-class landing vehicle](_URL_0_). The ramp opens front so that troops and vehicles can (ideally) exit onto the shallow part of the beach while the propeller stays in deeper water, enabling the craft to back up and return to the big ships afterwards to pick up another load. If the ramp were to open to the rear, you've got troops and jeeps exiting into 8 feet of water. Yes, when one of these opened into the face of a German MG-42, it was bad, but for every one of those, there were 20 more landing (relatively) safely and unloading cargo and men efficiently.", "Well, they were designed to function in very shallow water (as aside from being flat-bottomed, ballast could be pumped out as it came into shore so the LCVP sat lighter in the water) so opening the front would cause negligible flooding. [This](_URL_0_) gives you a good idea of how they should function in an ideal situation - with the LCVP's bow-ramp opening above the water. This is aided, of course, by the fact that beaches are generally angling upward!\n\nThe bow-ramp is a good example of Higgins' masterfully economic design: the LCVP's hull was plywood with a steel plate for protection, but the ramp itself was all steel - tough enough to take a pounding from rough seas, hard-packed sand, pebbles or coral, and the love-taps of incoming fire. \n\nObviously conditions could be less than ideal (and there's accounts of the occasional ramp being opened prematurely, jack-knifing the LCVP and flooding it) - the water was choppy and craft were drenched with spray, but as with any modern boat the pumps voided the excess water. Primary sources recall men helping bail out their landing craft with their helmets when the pumps were pushed to capacity (buckets were also available).\n\n**Sources:** *US World War II Amphibious Tactics: Mediterranean & European Theaters* by Gordon L. Rottman and *D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II* by Stephen E. Ambrose", "You seem to be treating the single scene from \"Saving Private Ryan\" as evidence that this was how a large number of soldiers died during landings. The scene was put there primarily for effect and not to represent the typical fate of the landing squad. For landing craft to stop directly in front of the gun was just bad luck. \n\nThe idea was to place machine guns in such positions that they would have interlocking fire zones for *sweeping fire* at effective ranges. Sweeping fire was meant to stop the landing forces on the beach and pin them to the ground while they would receive mortar and artillery fire rather than getting killed outright because as deadly as machine guns can be they are not the greatest threat infantry faces in open spaces. That would be HE and fragmentation shells.\n\nThe idea behind an amphibious assault is also that you claim the beachhead by breaking out from the beach and establishing a defensive perimeter. When that happens the beachhead is being loaded up with supplies, vehicles and is the staging ground for further reinforcements, medical facilities etc. As long as you are stuck on the beach forming a beachhead is not possible and you are holding up the landing space for the next wave of troops and vehicles and later supplies. If the troops are kept on the beach then every next wave of landing troops is making the beach a better target for the artillery. \n\nIt is the difficulty in negotiating obstacles, advancing across the beach and the dunes/banks under machine gun and artillery fire rather than getting out of the boats that is the greatest challenge for the landing wave. The greatest threat for the landing force is either getting stuck on the beach and pounded or disembarking too far from the shore and getting hit while still in the water or drowning, losing weapons and supplies etc. Also you might appreciate how important that is when you take into account how difficult running on sand is, and how comparatively harder running in the water is. Then add to it the necessity of running out through an opening along with your platoon without tripping over, falling, losing anything and then sprinting through water, sand, dunes, barbed wire and whatnot towards the nearest cover.\n\nFrom the standpoint of the assault as an amphibious operation it is delivering the troops *as close to shore as possible* and getting back to the main transport ship for more troops *as quickly as possible* that is the main challenge. It is also not as easy as it seems when you have hundreds of ships maneuvering between obstacles.\nThe goal - again - is to get the troops as quickly as possible, brute-force the fortifications and establish a perimeter so that reinforcements, logistical base *on the shore* and preferably light artillery and tanks can get there before a counter attack arrives. For that purpose the bow ramp is actually the optimal solution because save for that rare instance where it opens directly in front of a machine gun nest it allows the LCVP to unload its troops quickly and along the shortest route and then be gone for more.\n\nAll those things considered together the Higgins boat was a great design which proved so successful that nobody really bothered to address the \"death trap\" of bow ramp." ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daihatsu-class_landing_craft" ], [ "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/LCVP_line_drawing.svg/2000px-LCVP_line_drawing.svg.png" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cgudhbz" ], "score": [ 175 ], "text": [ "During his presidency Coolidge supposedly would sleep around 11 hours a day. When writer Dorothy Parker was told in 1933 that Coolidge had died she replied, \"How can they tell?\" Source: The American Age: US Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad since 1750, Walter LaFeber" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cfnweza" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "You may be interested in [this section of the FAQ](_URL_1_).\n\nWith Zeitgeist specifically, the answer generally is that no, there's no truth to it. [This](_URL_0_) lists some of them. A few illustrative examples:\n\n1. Horus wasn't born of a virgin, as the movie states, but by Isis impregnating herself with Osiris' penis\n* Horus didn't die, and wasn't resurrected\n* Horus didn't have 12 disciples\n* The film connects Jesus being the 'son' with 'sun' gods, but those two words don't even sound similar in the relevant languages" ] }

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[ [ "http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/religion#wiki_did_jesus_exist.3F" ] ]