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{ "a_id": [ "ck43v3n" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "First of all thanks for your question. To help your understanding of the Congo Free State develop a bit, there are a few answers I have written previously that address some of the [common misconceptions ](_URL_2_) and the [history and manner of rule of the territory]( _URL_3_). To reiterate what /u/holytriplem has said, it was not the Belgians who were viewed as the perpetrators of the genocide in the Congo, but Leopold and his company who were rightly blamed.\n\nTo address your original question then, it is also crucial to understand that there were varying schools of thought by 1914 on the colonial efforts of the European imperial powers. You are absolutely right in saying that it was a British led condemnation that saw Leopold lose his private colony, but generalising about the average British person's attitude is incredibly difficult as it was not the official British policy to condemn Leopold's owning of territory. From the late 1890s through the first decade of the 20th century, support for the British empire was high, especially during and after the Boer Wars around the turn of the century. Events such as the Siege/Relief of Mafeking were highly popularised, and jingoistic sentiments were engaged and developed through the advent of what could be called 'modern war reporting' (i.e. news from the battlefields arrived hours or days rather than weeks after the event). The British were proud of their empire (good write up [here]( _URL_0_) about the period - non-academic article though so use with caution.) In terms of the actual outbreak of war, the Belgian Congo played little part in determining British response. \n\nCecil Rhodes had only recently and very violently put down a native uprising in his company's private territory (Southern Rhodesia) and the British had been reluctant to condemn the actions there, but there was a wideheld belief that the British empire was different and 'better' than those of other European powers. The Germans were seen as heavy handed and violent, the French much too close to their colonial subjects, and the Italians as examples of abject failure in running an empire, but most British believed their empire treated all of its subjects fairly, providing them with civilisation and religion and infrastructure and all the other things that Africans 'needed'. Towards the end of the 19th century though a very small, very vocal minority of the British public began putting forward an explicitly anti-colonial agenda and sought to cast Leopold as the rogue of the Congo Atrocities, acting as a despotic megalomaniac would when given absolute power. A report by a British consul, Roger Casement, brought to light in the English speaking world the scale of the suffering in the Congo and others furthered the humanitarian effort and it was this instead upon which the British fell with their full support - they condemned not the holding of the territory by Leopold but his actions towards the peoples within it for being barbaric and unbecoming of a civilised power.\n\nPerhaps the most notable example is Joseph Conrad's fantastic novel, *The Heart of Darkness*. There is a rather decent article available [here]( _URL_1_) which explains the British attitude towards the Congo and the resentment that was directed more so at Leopold, himself an explicit advocate of economic racism against colonial subjects, than at the Belgians as a nationality. This vocal anti-colonial minority campaigned hard and publicly to highlight Casement's report and the testimonies of missionaries working in the EIC as to the scale of the mistreatments and deaths, and spur others to act, specifically the Belgians themselves.\n\nGuy Vanthemsche in his great book *Belgium and the Congo, 1885-1980*, states that:\n\n > Between 1885 and 1900, the Congolese issue flared up at key moments. But at the beginning of the new century, the atmosphere changed as the international campaign against Leopold II increased. This had repercussions in Belgium. Some factions of the Belgian press and, increasingly, public opionion were strongly opposed to the Congo Free State policy. Parliamentarians protested against inhumane practices in Leopold's African state and the Congo became a divisive issue in Belgian domestic politics. (p.41)\n\nIt was only in 1906 after the threat of an international conference on the Congo issue that Leopold conceded to allow the Belgian state to annex the colony. The Belgians, although perhaps not as supportive of their colonialism as the British were of their empire, nevertheless held regular exhibitions of Belgian colonialism in the Congo from 1898 to the 1930s. The actions of Leopold were seen by both themselves and the wider world as a different time and the Belgian Colonial Office and Ministry of the Colonies fought hard to portray an extreme contrast of the 'before' and 'after' of Leopold's rule and the annexation of the EIC. Unlike in France or Britain, there was almost no migration from the EIC to Belgium during Leopold's rule and subsequently, Belgian colonialism retained some distance from the general public, that impacted on the public opinion and the way it was shaped by international condemnation. Leopold was very aware of international public opinion and the effect it had on domestic politics in Belgium, going so far as to pay a lawyer to lobby the US Congress with regards to the Congo issue, a plan which spectacularly backfired in December 1906 when the dealings were made public and the US and Britain very quickly pledged complete support in removing the EIC from Leopold's control (see Martin Ewans in *European Atrocity, African Catastrophe* p.227)\n\n The British in 1908 demanded the abolition of forced labour in the colony and to safeguard the rights and freedoms of the Congolese peoples, a policy supported by the Americans. The British public opinion on this is difficult to ascertain - newspapers were generally in favour of the abolition but it was made repeatedly clear that the problem lay not with the Belgians who were willing to do everything possible to guarantee the future of the people in the EIC, but with Leopold. Leopold's successor, Albert I, made public declarations of intent as to a better future for the Congo (and unlike Leopold actually visited the colony). If newspapers can be seen as a hazy reflection of the opinion of the public they write for, then the atrocities in the Congo were widely condemned. \n\nUnfortunately, making more accurate statements about the public attitude is nigh on impossible and I don't know enough about WWI itself to pass judgement on British attitudes towards Belgium during the outbreak of war, so maybe somebody else could fill in the gaps. I hope this long-winded, rambling answer helps you a little. Obviously, my knowledge is primarily African orientated with the metropoles themselves playing out in the background, but if you have any more questions fire away and I will do my best. The books I referenced are absolutely great reads and probably available on google books for free - have a gander and a read if you want.\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/781/propaganda-public-opinion-and-the-second-south-african-boer-war", "http://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/African%20Journals/pdfs/PULA/pula012001/pula012001005.pdf", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/28cph1/was_cecil_rhodes_really_responsible_for_more/cia009i", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ba2ah/i_have_read_that_the_colonization_of_zimbabwe/cj3azuc" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dvm4tbi" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I've been hesitating to answer this because I can't think of any source that says in so many words \"of course, a lord couldn't simply take land away from someone\". Then I realized that there's no canon law that says \"the Pope cannot sacrifice unbaptized boys on the altar during Easter Mass\", either.\n\nI've just re-read Magna Carta, the original version sealed by John ... well, the English translation thereof. After the first clause, the one about the church, the next 7 are all about preserving inheritances, of the normal heir and of the widow. Showing so much care about inheritance shows how much more important possession is.\n\nAnd indeed possession of land is later protected. Clause 39 (in Warren's numbering) is \"No freeman shall be ... disseised [lose land] ... or in any way destroyed ... except by the lawful judgement of his peers and by the law of the land.\" Clause 43 says that if a fief is escheated to the crown, their tenants shall hold by their old conditions. Clause 51 deals with any who have be dispossessed. So too with clauses 56 and 57 for Welshmen.\n\nLand was critically important -- consider that it's now called \"*real* estate\" or \"real property\". Some was supposed to lose land only through laborious proceedings of right (or self-help by taking back rightful land by force of arms, but that was later curbed and suppressed).\n\nEven attempts by the king to constrain privileges, like later proceedings of *quo warranto* (or more unsystematic ones under Henry II) to make men justify their franchises and privileges, or enforcing forest law on royal lands, stirred up a lot of unrest.\n\nWhat the king granted was whatever was in his hands. The title was, either by reviving an old title or by creating a new one. At least in Anglo-Norman times, an earl got the title of a shire, could sit in the shire court with the sheriff and the bishop, and got the third penny of justice, one-third of all fines assessed in the shire. Other things would often enough be given with it -- castles, manors, mills, parks, whatever that the king already held, privileges and franchises that were governed by and conceded by the king.\n\nHow did the king get titles and lands to grant? Maybe no king had given it before -- I think William the Conqueror kept about a third of England in his hands. Or a lord could die without an heir, in which case, his lands and titles were \"escheated\" to his lord, which often was the king. A lord could be \"attainted\", deprived of lands and titles, due to treason (meaning he lost the rebellion; as later famously observed, if he won, it wasn't treason) or other major felony.\n\nA fief in the king's hands usually had tenants, whether serfs, freemen, sergeants, knights, and/or lords. If the fief were being regranted, they would likely be granted with them.\n\nI don't have examples of grants by charter or letters patent to hand to point to. Generally, a charter at least was very detailed in listing exactly what the donor was giving to the recipient, just to avoid later questions about who had the privilege of the fair of Saint Frithfrith, or the mill on the River Plunk and the right to force the locals to use it, or the court of the hundred of Doddering Sloughleigh.\n\nThere were edge cases. There might be a charter of confirmation. A lord might die without a male heir but with a daughter: the title and possessions might be confirmed to the daughter's husband.\n\nCertainly no later than the restoration of Charles II and the act removing all jurisdiction from noble titles, noble titles were completely honorary; any lands or other possessions would be given separately. I don't know when the transition happened.\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d01wxun" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I'll preface by saying this is not an area I am well studied in, so I hope someone with more knowledge on the subject will correct me if I'm wrong on something. Anyway:\n\nWhile the two peoples you speak of, the Huns and Mongols, most certainly did not speak the same language, and in all probability did not have the same exact cultural traditions as eachother, they probably lived in much the same way. The nomadic horse archer lifestyle is incredibly old. Like, seriously old. The Roman Empire was not the first to experience raids by nomadic horse peoples, nor was Attila the only one to lead his people into settled lands. The Assyrians of Mesopotamia, who had their heyday thousands of years before the Romans even enter the scene, famously fought with similar nomadic horsepeople called scithians if memory serves, who were very similar to Atilla's huns.\n\nEurope actually experienced a second invasion in the 9th and 10th century (a long time after Atilla and roughly three hundred years before Genghis Khan) from nomadic steppe people called the Magyars, and these were indeed very similar to the other two groups. It is also worth remembering that any civilization living close to the eurasian steppe probably dealt with smaller groups of nomadic peoples much more frequently; the large-scale invasions of powerful leaders like Attila and Genghis Khan are merely the more famous ones. The Chinese dynasties spent much of their time and effort trying to keep the steppe tribes from unifying in order to prevent exactly what Genghis Khan did.\n\nIn short, throughout all of recorded history up to the modern period, nomadic horseriders have populated the steppe and been a smaller or larger nuisqnce to the settled societies that they happened to border. This lifestyle was pretty much the most effective way to survive on the steppe, and up until modern firearms, mounted archers were supremely deadly on the battlefield (outside of battle, the bow and horse combination was primarily used for hunting in order to survive, but it turned out to be pretty effective at hunting people as well as beasts). As a result, there was not much reason to change that way of life all that much over the ages. Because it worked perfectly fine as it had for thousands of years.\n\nIn conclusion: While the Huns and Mongols are nearly a thousand years apart and were *by no means the same people*, how they lived would indeed have been very similar if not almost the same." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ez4un6b", "ez7xq2j" ], "score": [ 2, 9 ], "text": [ "Whilst you await a more specific answer the [faq](_URL_0_) may help", "How did the Allies win WW1?\nSo this is a pretty big ask as there’s a lot of moving parts in the Allied war effort but I think I can break it down into three (because historians love threes) broad areas. We’ll call them Blood, Steel and Brains.\n\n**Blood** – Is more or less the numbers argument. From the outset the Central Powers were outnumbered by the Allies due to the immense population of Russia and the British Empire. Once the US joined the war the numbers went even further into the Allies favour. This enormous pool of manpower dwarfed that of the Central Powers and meant that unless a decisive victory was won quickly on the battlefield the Allies would most likely win a long war.\n\n**Steel** – By this I’m really talking about the Allied industrial and economic power. Again due to large empires and then the entry of the US, the Allies were able to draw on vast reserves of resources and industrial capacity to fight the war. Especially by the vital year of 1918, with the naval blockade biting Germany, the Allies were at their highest level of output. Ammunition, guns, tanks, food and all the other supplies needed to fight were being turned out at a greater rate than the Germans could compete with. When German troops captured British and French positions in the Spring of 1918 they were dismayed to see how well the Allied troops were eating and when compared to themselves.\n\n**Brains** – And by brains, I mean all of the technical, tactical, doctrinal and strategic advances made by the Allied armies in four years of fighting. While we may think of WW1 as only trench warfare, the reality is that the fighting went through a transformation during the war, and it wasn’t only the Germans who picked up new ideas. The Allies were able to outfight the German armies on the battlefield.\n\nBlood and steel I’ll combine for brevity and cause I think numbers are a little boring. Based on populations alone it’s quite easy to see that the Allies had a huge advantage over the Central Powers. Taken all together the Allies had a total population base of ~700 million against the Central Powers ~200 million. Now a state’s ability to actually raise armed forces from these populations varies a lot, but the main players in the Allies are still able to raise enough troops to outnumber the Central Powers. Along with manpower the empires of France and Britain provided enormous reserves of vital war resources like coal, oil, steel, rubber, lead as well as vital foodstuffs. Also available to the Allies was the immense industrial base of Britain and America. Britain was in 1914 still the workshop of the world, but the US and Canada were also rising industrial powers. Although it took some time to convert civilian industry to war footing the end state was a mammoth military industry that powered not just the British War effort but also considerably aided that of France, Russia and the US. \n\nGerman industry simply couldn’t keep pace with the spiralling cost of fighting the war. Ever more ammunition was needed for the guns and the siege like nature of the fighting meant that it was extremely costly in terms of materiel. Historian Meleah Hampton has noted how in 1918 as the Allies were turning increasingly to a materiel centred approach to fighting the Germans had to rely on a more human centred approach as their supply situation became precarious.\n\nBrains is, I think, the most important area, but I’m probably biased. As they fought the war the Allies underwent what has previously been called the “learning curve” but is now more accurately called the “learning process”.\nThe ideas of how war would be fought leading up to 1914 turned out in many ways to be faulty, but these problems were compounded by a variety of novel problems that hadn’t been previously considered. Issues like deep belts of barbed wire, complex trench networks extending miles back, the inability to neutralise enemy artillery, gas, tanks, light mortars and a score of other things made the problem of fighting, on the Western Front at least, a very difficult challenge. And often every solution raised new, different problems to be solved. \n\nOver several years of fighting the Allied armies tackled these problems, tried solutions, discarded failed options and eventually came up with a winning concept. It was realised that the war was attiritonal and that an outcome from a decisive battle was unlikely. While the Germans could, and did, pull back to high ground and fight a defensive war in the West, coming up with ingenious methods of defence in depth, the Allies were forced to fight offensively. The Germans were occupying French and Belgian territory and had to be removed. This meant offensive operations. And in 1915, 1916 and 1917 the Allies repeatedly launched offensives to dislodge or destroy German troops. Strategically they usually failed, but there were often many operational or tactical successes. And even the failures were useful if lessons could be gleaned from them. And although the progress was uneven, the Allies did move forward, both literally and metaphorically. \n\nBut I think the thing that really did it for the Allies was Foch being appointed Supreme Commander on the Western Front. It was at this point when the Allies were able to come up with a strategic and operational concept that would bring them victory. After the failures of the German Spring and Summer offensives it was the Allies turn to strike. Starting with the French at Soissons and then switching to the British at Amiens they were able to launch consecutive, rapid (for the time), successful limited offensives against German positions. \n\nMaking use of secrecy to keep the Germans off balance about where they were going to strike and then using devastating artillery barrages and often supported by tanks the French and British were able to break into German vital positions, taking trenches, men and guns and forcing neighbouring positions to fall back. The Allies then advanced again until German reserves were rushed in and resistance stiffened and they shut their offensive down. As soon as one offensive stopped another army would start up again, pushing the Germans off balance and forcing them to rush reserves to the newly threatened part of the line. These hammer blows pushed the Germans back in what is known as the Hundred Days Offensive, which ended with the Armistice on 11 November. \n\nThere’s more detail and a lot of other things going on all the war through this, but I think it’s really those three areas that determine the outcome of the war." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/wwi" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e0gs6zb" ], "score": [ 15 ], "text": [ "Not to discourage another answer, but this question seems to be answered somewhat here:\n\n_URL_0_" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views#wiki_historians.27_views_of_edward_gibbon.27s_.22decline_and_fall_of_the_roman_empire.22" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ce1mqvs" ], "score": [ 37 ], "text": [ "I talk about this extensively at the below link, although feel free to ask any more questions.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIn a bulletted nutshell:\n\n1. Latin never achieved an overwhelming penetration into the countryside. This is probably due to the military nature of the british economy, so that it had less country/town interaction than say Gaul which had a more diversified economy, were Latin did achieve a significant penetration.\n\n2. The socio-economic collapse in southern central England after Roman withdrawal was almost total, as well as quick, in the sense that it occurred within living memory. Because the socio-economic structures of the former Roman state and the middle/upper class had collapsed, all that was left was the peasant class, who having never spoken latin significantly, continued to use Brythonic/Welsh in their daily lives.\n\n3. When the Anglo-Saxons arrived, they brought with them trade links to the continent and a more significant material culture, so that the Romano-British assimilated toward this new culture, rather than the reverse, because there was simply no Latin culture left for the Anglo-Saxons to absorb due to societal collapse.\n\n4. The areas that maintained Romano-British culture were thus those that were simultaneously least Romanized and farthest away from Anglo-Saxon settlement (Wales/Cornwall), because they had their own tribal structures and material culture from which to rebuild after the departure of the Romans. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1kqlm6/why_did_britannia_fail_to_latinise/cbry81i" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dtmadwg" ], "score": [ 19 ], "text": [ "The \"improvised synthesis of methamphetamine\" first crops up in the US during the 60s and 70s though it's history is older.\n\nMeth in that period was prevalent in the west coast of the US and mostly the purview of outlaw biker gangs who were linked to other aspects of the drug trade. They used the \"California Cook\" or P2P method. These were the first \"clan labs\" associated with meth production in the US and they were very dangerous. The production quality of the P2P method is also pretty inefficient and the resulting meth is usually of lower grade than other methods.\n\nIn the 80s and 90s, the \"Nazi Cold Cook\" method took off, and it used anhydrous ammonia and ephedrine, mainly acquired through theft of farm supplies and large scale purchases of over the counter ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.\n\nThat became the predominant \"clan lab\" in the US, into the early 2000s. It started to lose popularity as the DEA and states tightened the sale of ephedrine/Sudofed and fertilizer suppliers and users made it harder to steal or acquire anhydrous ammonia. The early 2000s also saw a major shift in meth supplies from internal to the US to Mexico as \"home cookers\" ceased to be the main source for meth in the black drugs market. It was more efficient and cheaper to smuggle industrial scale produced meth across the border. In a way, the enforcement activities that successfully reduced the number of clan labs in the US, led to a \"professionalization\" and \"commoditization\" of the meth market.\n\nThe alternate form of production is the \"red P\" method you refer to (of which there are two primary variations). This has been around for a while and popped up in clan labs from time to time but was not as popular as the Cold Cook among home brewets. It is the primary production method used in Mexican labs, however. \n\nSource: Long ago, in a land far away, I attended an abbreviated version of the DEA Clan Lab course and worked with a number of meth task forces, but since that might be seen as \"anecdotal\" by the ever vigilant Moderators, I recommend you see this DOJ publication for a start: _URL_0_\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs13/13853/product.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cwq36vk" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Those are ceremonial yes(and worn by the emperor at that). That said, the region is by no means uniformly hot and dry and climate depends much on elevation, geography, etc. So certainly there would be times when dressing warmly would be advisable." ] }

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[ "http://www.anheuser-busch.com/s/uploads/Dillon_AMToure.jpg", "http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/bios6/suleim01.jpg", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menelik_II#/media/File:Emperor_Menelik_II.png" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "cg48wpo", "cg4ab6a", "cg4d6af", "cg4ezot", "cg4mxm2", "cg4pfkg" ], "score": [ 38, 4, 3, 3, 8, 2 ], "text": [ "It is currently moving in he direction of a more federal system like the US. \n\nThe big reasons are\n\n\n- greater migration between Wales and England than between England and Scotland (just by virtue of geography), \n\n\n- greater political nationalism in Scotland (rather than Wales' more cultural nationalism), \n\n\n-the fact that Wales has for around 500 years been legally part of England.\n\n\n\nHere is the history:\n\nWales has legally been part of the Kingdom of England since the 1534 Act of Union. (I think it is legally separate since in 1997 it got its own govt. etc)\nThis Act of Union was not really a union of equal partners. It was an annexation.\n\n\nIn 1603, the King of Scotland also became the King of England. This is called a union of crowns. Both kingdoms remained separate, the same person, King James simply ruled both, as James VI of Scotland and as James I of England.\n\nJames tried to roll the two kingdoms into one, but this was resisted on both sides. So for 100 years, the two kingdoms remained separate, each with their own constitutions and Parliaments. \n\nBy 1700, both sides were more used to one another and wanted Union -England liked not having to worry about an enemy to the north, and wanted to make sure that no European rival would take the throne of Scotland. The Scots grew to like and depend upon England's more sophisticated economy and financial institutions. Both sides hated and feared Catholicism.\n\nSo in 1707, there was an Act of Union, but it was a union of equals: the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England ceased to exist, and were replaced by the United Kingdom of Great Britain. \n\nScotland retained a number of powers in this new union, most notably retaining their own legal system, Scots Law. This is a crucial part of why Scotland and England/Wales are different .\n\nIn the 18th century, the nation building project proceeded apace - there was a Scottish Enlightenment, with notable philosophers like Hume, but interestingly, all of these guys were embarrassed of being Scottish, and styled themselves as 'British' at a time when England was very focused on 'Englishness'. \n\nIn the late 19c., Scottish nationalism started to emerge. I'm not an expert on this, but I understand that it largely started as a bit of a joke, e.g. the whole Tartan thing was reinvented to try to impress a visiting Queen Victoria.\n\nThrough the 19c., Wales was populated by a lot of English migrants to the valleys. I don't think this happened on the same scale in Scotland, where migrants were mostly Scots or Irish. \n\nThe decline of the Empire in the early 20c. IMO really put a strain on Scotland's place in the union - for 300 years it was one of the few shared institutions Scots really had a big part in - Scots were frequently the shock troops of Empire, whether in the military or as settlers (see for example Appalachia and the Southern US). \n\nBy the late 20c. Welsh nationalism had emerged as a way to ensure the survival of the language and culture. But it never became a strong political nationalism because of how much inter-migration there had been between Wales and England. Scotland, because of it's location, never had the same mass migration to and from England (the borderlands of Northern England are fairly empty)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Further, why do the Scots speak English, having a historically tenuous relationship with England, and the Welsh speak... well, Welsh?", "This is interesting. Just a few quick questions.How did the Norman Conquest of England affect the Welsh ? \n\nThe Tudors were Welsh too. ", " > What would be the closest American concept to think of the various British nations, are they treated like American states or more like the various member nations of the EU? \n\n While a lot of people like to see the European Union as some sort of emerging supranational federation, by definition it's more akin to a confederation then anything. The difference being that while a federation is a political union of self-governing states, a confederation is a union of sovereign states that seek a common front on principles (the European Union being a historically economic one). \n\nThe closest (nation-wide) political concept that Americans share with the British devolved Parliament system is the current federal system that the United States (a form of governance also found in a number of other countries including Canada, Germany, and Russia). I point out nation-wide as there is an actual closer American comparison but ill get to it later. \n\nAs you may have noted federation is pretty much a union of partially self-governing states. While the British nations have self-governance and a degree of autonomy akin to a federal system, it isn't a true federal system as these self-governing rights are not entrenched in any form of constitution (and thus those rights are not guaranteed). The local parliaments of Scotland and Wales were parliaments granted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and can be revoked at any time by that same Parliament. So what place In United States actually operates in a nearly identical manner? The District of Columbia. \n\nLike the British devolved Parliament system, The District of Columbia has a form of devolved governance granted by the Congress. This can also be taken away by Congress noting the fact that the District has no reserve constitutional powers. ", "I think some of the responses here are slightly inaccurate and as both a British person (with some natural knowledge of this) and someone who has studied the Act of Union I thought I would add my own version.\n\nWales was annexed by England in the 1270s and 1280s, although it was not officially incorporated as part of England until the 1500s. In short though, whilst not officially part of the Kingdom of England, in all practical respects it has been for the last 700 years or so. This meant for many of the most important periods of institution building, the two countries were united. The common law system developed in both countries. The elites of England were largely transplanted into Wales (even if the populace remained quite distinct, successfully maintaining their own language etc. better than the Scots). When the English reformation rolled around, Wales was part of that process. Even when Wales later developed its own religious identity of non-conformism in the 18th Century it still built upon this Anglican tradition focusing on Methodism (a movement with its roots within the Church of England) rather than other forms of Protestantism. Even today, the Welsh Assembly has FAR fewer powers than the Scottish Parliament.\n\nIn contrast, Scotland remained separate for far longer. They were entirely separate until 1603 when James I/VI became King of England. Up to this period a large number of the distinct institutions of Scotland had developed. In particular Scotland had developed a civil law legal system, its own Presbyterian Church and its own educational system and institutions in the form of Universities such as St. Andrews. In the 17th Century there were some fitful starts at integration. Notably both Charles I, and Parliament in the Civil Wars attempted to ally with the Scots. Scotland was integrated as one polity (with representation in the Westminster Parliament) during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell right up until the restoration of the Monarchy. \n\nWhen the Act of Union was formed it was in the context of the Glorious Revolution and fears that James II and France might try and use division between the nations to aid an invasion. Scotland had also seen its economic position worsen, and in particular a disastrous attempt to set up a colony around modern day Panama had backfired. However, it was clearly a voluntary union (unlike the one with Wales) and thus Scotland kept many of its independent institutions: its own Church, its own legal system, its own educational system. \n\nAs well as this I would contend that Scottish nationalism benefited from the 18th and 19th Century ideas of the 'noble savage' and romanticism. Most Scottish people lived in the lowlands and came from Anglo-Saxon roots, and all the ideas we now associate with 'Scotland' were in fact entirely Highland and Gaelic. Historically most Scots would have rejected the facets of clan society as barbaric. However, the Gaels, like the native Americans, were viewed as noble savages even whilst their genuine culture and society was wiped out in the 18th Century. This period also interestingly saw the development of tartan and kilts (an excellent overview of this can be found in 'Invented Tradition' by Eric Hobsbawm). It also saw the development of a mythology around it with books such as James McPherson's 'Works of Ossian'. This new form of Scottish identity was further expanded in the 19th Century until everyone basically forgot how recent and artificial it was. Even today, Scottish nationalism is far more strongly felt than Welsh nationalism. The Scottish Parliament has more powers and in a lot of ways Scotland remains far more distinct.\n\nTLDR: Wales was integrated earlier and did not retain as much of a distinct identity. Scotland had a much longer time to develop its own institutions, and maintained them better, as well as benefiting from romanticism and other fetishisations of highland culture and thus has maintained a much stronger nationalism and a more distinct polity.", "As to soccer leagues, [Berwick Rangers](_URL_0_), a club in an English town, play in the Scottish League, for reasons of simple geography. They are farther north than several Scottish teams they play against and only just south of Glasgow Rangers and Celtic." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e3h1k6f", "e3h2x94" ], "score": [ 2, 6 ], "text": [ "Just for clarification, you mean why the variety of ship's boats, yard lighters, and other small craft like the Captain's Gig, Whaleboats, and other small motor launches and support ships? Vs the actual ships like the frigates, corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, carriers, and battleships which did come in a score of varieties all their own. ", "There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, different types of ship are capable of doing different things. A battleship makes a very poor landing ship, but you'd never want to have a Landing Ship Tank (LST) fighting in a naval battle. The same holds true even within a general classification of ship. An aircraft carrier is any ship with the primary role of carrying aircraft, and as such includes the large fleet carriers of the *Essex* or *Yorktown* classes, and the *Bogue* class escort carriers. A large carrier like an *Essex* is too expensive and slow to build to build in large numbers; as such, to fulfil the convoy escort role, the USN needed to build a smaller class of carrier, the *Bogue*s. \n\nThe other main reason comes down to how ships are designed and constructed. A rifle, tank or artillery piece might be built in a few days to a few weeks, in a factory building hundreds, thousands, millions of the same model. Those pieces of equipment would only be expected to last for a few years before being replaced. A ship took months to years to produce. Shipyards typically built only a few ships at any one time, with only a few ships in a class, and they would be expected to last for years before replacement. This last factor accounts for some of the variety in ship classes - the oldest major warship in the USN during the war had been laid down in 1910. Military equipment was built in an assembly line fashion, ships were built in a more bespoke way. All this meant that design priorities were different. With military equipment, maximising the volume was important; this meant that it was harder to integrate the lessons of combat experience, as this would require the assembly line to be retooled. With ships, which were not built in such volume, lessons of combat or new design concepts could be integrated, and new classes constructed. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d0ctt84", "d0cyc2k" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Several species of animals were known to have gone extinct during the Roman period - the subspecies of elephant that the Carthaginians used for instance was hunted into extinction. Tragically, this wasn't because of spite or food - instead the elephants were usually captured to be paraded in the arena in peaceful exhibitions that proved enormously popular among the Romans who considered the elephants to be noble and intelligent beasts. The one notable incident of using elephants in an arena battle resulted in a near-riot from the crowd who were outraged that elephants were being killed. Unfortunately, the Romans never quite figured out how to make permanent exhibits like zoos which is why they kept taking North African elephants off the wild until no more were left.\n\nSome forms of bird were also hunted into extinction due to demand for them as a luxury food. \n\nBoth of these cases can be found in Baldson's old but still surprisingly readable _Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome_.\n\nThat said, the modern concept of extinction / endangered species is a distinctly modern concept that arose out of the environmental conservation movement; and certainly the Romans weren't wiping out species as quickly as we are losing them now.", "Hi! you may be interested in a few previous threads\n\n* [are there any documented conversations about preserving and protecting endangered species before 1700 A.D.](_URL_5_) - /u/restricteddata discusses the formation of the concept of extinction - late 18th c\n\n* [are certain varieties of fruits or vegetables that where once quite popular now extinct?](_URL_6_) - /u/zither13 describes a plant extinction ca 300-100BC\n\n* [What was the first animal recorded to go extinct?](_URL_0_) - /u/masiakasaurus provides a survey of early records of extinctions. The following posts look at some of these events.\n\n * [When the last aurochs died in 1627, were people aware that the species was extinct?](_URL_2_) - /u/restricteddata on aurochs \n\n * [When the Steller's sea cow was discovered in 1741, it was hunted to extinction by sailors just 30 years after its discovery. Why didn't this happen to Manatees or Dugongs?](_URL_1_) - not really focussed on the extinction event, but a thread on Stellers sea cow out of interest\n\n * [Why is the extinction of the dodo so famous?](_URL_4_) - /u/restricteddata on the dodo\n\n * [Was the American public aware the passenger pigeon was being hunted to extinction?](_URL_3_) - /u/kieslowskifan on the passenger pigeon\n" ] }

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[ [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1osx3k/what_was_the_first_animal_recorded_to_go_extinct/ccvo6ut", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/42rh2d/when_the_stellers_sea_cow_was_discovered_in_1741/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1u4abe/when_the_last_aurochs_died_in_1627_were_people/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3oiq5p/was_the_american_public_aware_the_passenger/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2i6yyk/why_is_the_extinction_of_the_dodo_so_famous/cl0803g", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2m8wfa/are_there_any_documented_conversations_about/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3c2esv/are_certain_varieties_of_fruits_or_vegetables/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cgbhmu5", "cek5f8o", "cek6ecn", "cek6s1r", "cek798b", "cek7nk0", "cek8268", "cek826e", "cek8a34", "cek8efq", "cek8nbn", "cek8q7e", "cek8qzw", "cek8rs4", "cek8tmf", "cek8y3x", "cek90v0", "cek93ii", "cek93pt", "cek9epb", "cek9mo9", "cek9pyw", "cek9sml", "ceka3sb", "ceka87q", "cekabqc", "cekaf5k", "cekakpv", "cekbf27", "cekbskr", "cekbtmy", "cekc0ix", "cekc2f7", "cekc7uu", "cekceco", "cekcuaw", "cekd727", "cekdp46", "ceke4ij", "ceke8mr", "cekfp01", "cekfptx", "cekfy87", "cekh5gg", "cekh6aa", "cekhg97", "cekkeho", "ceknl34", "cekqnje", "cekrhhj", "cekrw0a", "cekuje8", "cf0l38m" ], "score": [ 2, 62, 10, 23, 51, 17, 13, 11, 10, 12, 2, 7, 26, 10, 3, 2, 5, 2, 5, 3, 5, 10, 3, 25, 3, 12, 3, 8, 3, 5, 3, 2, 6, 5, 7, 2, 5, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Some of my favorite history museums, \nEli Whitney Museum, _URL_3_\nYuma Territorial Prison, _URL_2_\nCentro Cultual Espana _URL_4_\nHiroshima Memorial Peace Museum, _URL_0_\nMuseum of Tolerance (Mexico City), _URL_1_\n\nHistory is fluid, all of the above museums acknowledge that our interpretation of history is constantly changing. With an understanding the fluid nature of history, you can make history come alive for visitors, allowing visitors to make the content their own.", "One of my favorite museums is the Ulster Museum in Belfast: part history museum, part natural history museum, tiny bit art museum, all in one building and entirely free. It's probably not the best museum in Europe, as much as I love it, but I bring it up because the basement of the Ulster Museum is devoted to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. There aren't any artifacts in this exhibit, a purposeful choice. At first I was skeptical - museums are supposed to have artifacts, right? \n\nBut you walk through it, reading this plain gray text printed on these plain white walls; a few black-and-white photographs are printed on the walls, blown up. If you've been going through the exhibits in order, you've seen the foundation for the Troubles being laid, decade by decade, and then you get to this part and you see its conclusion, the riots and bombings and IRA splinter groups laid in front of you one by one. And I think the plain text, the plainness of the white walls and the simplicity of the exhibit, gives the viewer a chance to consider the events anew, to take everything in. And then at the end there's some paper and pencils and you can write your thoughts. It's this quiet, introspective space, encouraging you to take a moment or two and reflect on the enormity of this very *loud* history. Not just in the museum, but in Belfast itself. \n\nSo there are no artifacts, yet it's an incredibly powerful, thoughtful space. It's in Belfast, the heart of the Troubles (well, not to exclude Derry), it understands its place, and it isn't arguing for anything more. It doesn't need artifacts. I think shoving things in there would only distract you from the introspection that the exhibit is going for. What artifacts it needs are elsewhere in the museum, part and parcel of the long and complicated history that led to the Troubles, the confluences of people and events and ideas that made them happen. \n\nI think an exhibit that knows what it wants to say, and knows how to say it, is a successful one: one that makes its viewers think, consider something anew, see something in a different way than before. And for that reason, I think the Ulster Museum will always be one of my favorites (that, and Belfast is one of my favorite cities).\n\nAlso, if I could design any exhibit or any museum I wanted, it would be a women's history museum. I don't know what I would put in it, but it would have more than dresses and shoes. ", "Oregon Historical Society, gotten a lot out of a little. Current exhibit is based on American history and it's stunning. \n\nEdit; Sorry just ran through the question quickly. U/tumble-weeds has a good answer, its a combination of original pieces and displays from George Washington and Jefferson to Jack Ruby and John F. Kennedy that gives a snapshot of the moment in time. \n\nStunning artifacts because it has Jack Ruby's wallet and its contents, which included his liquor license for his club, and the camera that has the famous film of Oswald being shot. And well displayed collection. So both stunning ", "My favourite thing I visited the first time I went to Paris as an adult and could choose my own schedule (yay) was the War Museum 'Musée de l'Armé' everyone raves about the Louvre, which of course is a must, but parts of it feel very stuffy and one hardly gets to see some of the works because of the vast crowds. By contrast the War Museum was bursting at the seems with interesting artefacts, with a lot of effort put in to contextualising them and making the experience coherent, yet it was quiet enough that one got to spend time properly appreciating each section. \n\nIn London there is the Wellcome Collection, which focuses primarily on the history of medical science, so a great place to take any kids or big kids who want to be entertained by gore. As well as their amazing permanent collections they also have regular talks and lectures, reach out programmes and art exhibitions. Last time I visited we found there was an exhibition of 'outsider art' which was very good indeed and a series of activities on the olfactory system, which meant I got a chance to smell some chloroform, which it turns out is *really* fun so long as you don't over do it! \n\nWhen I visited Switzerland as a child we visited an art gallery which featured the works of very dangerous criminals, still lives by serial killers and the like, and a museum that had a lot of comic taxidermy, frogs riding squirrels to battle and the like. I can't recall the name of either but they're both somewhere near lake Geneva IIRC. These aren't strictly historical, but they are a good way to get reluctant people interested in the idea of visiting Museums because they focus on the unusual and morbid. Following the 'horrible histories' model of using gross, creepy and scary stuff to entice.. \n\nIn Milan, Italy the Museums around Sforza Castle are a must, their highlight is their original Leonardo Da Vinci Manuscripts. They are cosy enough that one can have a good natter with a knowledgeable member of Staff about an object. \n\nIn Rome the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna is a must. Again not strictly historical in focus, but full of art and pop culture history. Not just because it's quite good, but because it's set in the Borghese gardens which are absolutely paradisical and which you can spend days exploring, there's a Zoo, Villas preserved as though the occupants of centuries past were still living there and beautiful scenery for miles around. The high parts will provide you some of the best views of Rome. \n\n ", "If you're into military stuff, nothing beats the Imperial War Museum in London. Of course, if you make it to London, the British Museum is amazing.", "I'm not a historian but have travelled a good amount and for me the Victoria and Albert in London takes the cake. Place is amazing.", "I'd argue the Deutches Museum in Munich is fantastic although it's focus is technical, it's often about the history of technology as much as the technology. \n\nSo stuff like an exhibit on the history of mining methods, from fire based methods of pre-history, to the evolution of what we know as a mine. They have a wonderful series of large exhibits such as a full scale fishing boat from the sail era, to experimental Nazi rocket planes. ", "There's a Bronze Age site near Peterborough in the UK called Flag Fen that I always recommend to people as one of the best archaeological sites I've ever visited. I think it's well known in British archaeological circles; I found out about it when I did an A-Level in archaeology at school but I don't think the majority of the general public know about it and I really think they should. English Heritage describes it as 'unique for its scale, completeness, longevity and complexity'.\n\nThe site is made up of a few areas, there's a reconstructed bronze age village, a visitor centre with helpful volunteers, and a walking tour if I remember, but the real jewel in the crown is the 'ritual causeway'. Basically, the ground level in this part of England used to be a lot lower than it is now and the land would often become submerged under water for long periods of time. It's believed that a bridge was constructed to link higher parts of the land together when this happened, leaving an island in the middle which was supposedly used for religious ceremonies. They've found a large amount of artefacts in the area suggesting that people travelled there to leave offerings, but it may have also been used for practical purposes.\n\nFrom their website: 'Visit the only place in the UK where original Bronze Age remains can be seen in situ, the incredibly preserved timbers of a monumental engineering achievement.\nExcavations on the site revealed details of a wooden platform and post alignment that stretch for nearly a kilometre across the fen. These were built up between 1350 and 950BC and are of great national and international significance. Due to the waterlogged nature of the fens, this unique monument has been remarkably preserved.\nIt is believed that the post alignment consists of 60,000 vertical timber and 250,000 horizontal pieces of wood, spanning the wet and marshy fen to meet a droveway on dry ground at each end. All the pieces of wood had been worked and shaped with tools.'\n\nI must say that personally I found it more interesting and impressive than Stonehenge. Obviously Stonehenge is older and more visible but the scale of Flag Fen and the fact that I'd never heard of it before was what impressed me. There is a building where a small part of the bridge has been excavated for viewing which is kept wet to preserve it, but I'm just fascinated by the fact that the rest of it is still underground and that there's still speculation about the purpose of the bridge.\n\nPeterborough is only an hour or so north of London on the train and is a great historic cathedral city in itself, so it's certainly worth a visit. When I spoke to a volunteer at the centre he expressed concern at the limited funding they receive, and there are also concerns about the land drying out due to the growth of the city - I think it would be great if more people knew about it. Places like the British Museum and the Louvre are of course outstanding in their international breadth but Flag Fen is a real piece of English local history and that's what makes it special to me. \n\nEnglish Heritage has the best page with a history, details of its excavation and listing, sources, and a map: _URL_2_\n\nTheir website, with recommendations for further reading on the history page: _URL_1_\n\nThe wikipedia page is also informative and has a picture of the exposed bridge in the preservation hall: _URL_0_\n ", "The Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL is awesome. They recently revamped it and it is incredible. The whole complex is basically a walk-through Lincoln's life, starting from his cabin in Indiana, to his assassination. You literally walk-through his life in amazing exhibits. \n\nAlso not far away is his law office while in Springfield, his family home in Springfield, and his tomb. All of these are also great. Walking through his home is really something. \n\nThen, on top of this, less than 10-20 minutes away is New Salem, IL (where Lincoln lived in his 20s). They've structured this to be like it was when Lincoln lived there, so you can see that part of his life. \n\nThe whole place is a must see for anyone interested in Lincoln or American history. I would be surprised to find anyone interested in history at all to not be fascinated by this place.", "The best I've been to was the Museum of London. It is dedicated to the city itself and takes you on a chronological journey from paleolithic times to modern. What makes is rather special is that it shows you stuff found in the city. So it does not have the \"best\" Roman statue, it has Roman villa and camp things actually found in the city. And you can look out a window at the Roman wall of the city. Sort of the right size focus to make it really work.", "I've been at the 1st WW museum in Ypres,Belgium twice when I was in my mid teens.\nAlso visited the cemetaries around the area.\nI remember it all left a huge impression on me.\n\nI also went to the open air museum in Arnhem , Netherlands.\nIt has a lot of WW2 vehicles which is really cool, also planes etc.\nDon't think I learned alot there but I was young back the so I really enjoyed seeing the vehicles but I remember their jewish segment really was graphic, informative and once again impressive, especially on a 12 year old.", "I have two:\n\nFirst is definitely the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It's not well labeled, and when it is labeled, it's rarely in English, but it has some of the most amazing treasures from Egypt and the Arabic world from prehistory to the middle ages (mostly Pharaonic Egypt, of course), all well presented.\n\nSecond is probably the Louvre. Of course, it's primarily an art museum, but they have huge Egyptian, Babylonia, Greek and Roman sections. It does kind of make you sad that a lot of it was stolen by Napoleon.", "The American History Museum (Smithsonian) in Washington DC is incredible. They just spent several years remodeling it and it is chockerbock full of really interesting historical items (the piece of gold that started the gold rush, Lincoln's hat, etc).\n\nThe museum is really accessible to people of all ages and there are lots of plaques to read if you want more detail on items. While I was there, they also had lots of staff around to answer questions. ", "The Henry Ford strikes me as a place that fits this list. I feel divided often when I leave because Greenfield Village is such a testament to Henry Ford's hubris. But the concentration of historic landmarks related to Ford, Edison and the Wrights and then the other various buildings he relocated to Dearborn, MI (Greenfield Village) is unrivaled as far as I know. The museum's collection of historic vehicles isn't just Mustangs and Lincolns. The Rosa Parks bus, the Kennedy limo, and so many more pieces of their collection are well presented and add dimension to what could just be a car museum.", "I used to work with the Heard Museum in Phoenix. If you're into Native American history, it's the best in the world.\n\nOf course museums like the Smithsonian, the British Museum, Les Invalides, etc. are sort of must-sees if you like history, but I've always felt like I learned the most about an area by going to a local historical society museum. They're everywhere, so whenever you go on vacation, just look up when the local society is open and go check it out. Here in Fresno, for example, there's a historical society for the High Sierras. They operate a working steam mule for cutting logs, and have a old train caboose they've been restoring that, hey, you can show up and volunteer on!\n\n The Clovis Historical Society here has parts of the log flume that would carry timber from the Sierras down to the Fresno area. The flume that ran from Hume Lake to Sanger [was the longest in the world](_URL_1_) at the time. It not only carried timber and water down, but people of questionable sanity could actually pay money to ride it. Imagine [Splash Mountain](_URL_0_) but 73 miles long.\n\nThe San Francisco Maritime Museum and San Diego Maritime Museum are both great places to visit if you like wooden ships and the Age of Sail. They each have one of the only remaining old ferries from the Bay Area, and lots of other neat ships, too. The Star of India, the Surprise (the ship used in Master and Commander - fully functional, which volunteers take out once a month or so - learn to work the ropes!), an old Soviet submarine, an Alaskan Timber Ferry, the first boat sailed across the Pacific solo, and so forth. Neat stuff.\n\nIn South Carolina, I spent some time with the Sumter Historical Society folks. Got to see a bunch of historic buildings, including a rammed earth manor that has been inhabited by the same family for centuries, the house of the wealthiest black slaveowner prior to the Civil War, got to crawl through the raised floorspaces with a historian specializing in architecture, and so forth.\n\nSo yeah. Local history museums. There's so much much more to our past than what can fit into a textbook.", "The Israel Museum is good mostly because of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient manuscripts. The stuff there can really blow you away--they've got artifacts from pretty much all of Jewish history.\n\nBut there's something a little less museum-y that I think is really cool. During the 1948 War of Independence, one of the major battlegrounds was the road to Jerusalem. The Jews in the city were essentially besieged for much of the war, and a tremendous amount of Israeli manpower was spent trying to resupply them, including battles to secure roads, convoys through hostile territory, and building new roads.\n\nAnyway, when the war was over and actual road infastructure built, rusted out trucks from the war were left in the median of the highway to Jerusalem. It's not really a museum, but a really interesting way of presenting artifacts from the not-so-distant past.", "One more to add: The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology. It's Philly's hidden gem. It has huge collections from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Asia, and America, covering all sorts of time periods. The building itself is pretty amazing, too. ", "Well, there's no definitive list of \"good history museums\" so I'll just talk about a few of my personal favorites (so there'll be a bit of an emphasis on my interests). \nThe British Museum is fantastic because it covers so much of history. Naturally an empire so large the sun never set would be able to acquire a large variety of items from all over the globe. They have artifacts from the neolithic age all the way to the modern age. (I don't think they have any paleolithic, but I may be wrong) \nThe Metropolitan Museum of Art has a beautiful collection. The art is some of the best preserved I've seen at a museum. They have this one statue in particular that I can just stare at for hours. It's this amazingly done kouros from Greek's archaic period and wow. It's so great. There's another statue in there from the Sumerian city of Lagash during a period when most of Sumeria had been conquered by the Akkadians and it's also just spectacular. In perfect shape.\nThe Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC is a museum with a different feeling than the others. It's centered around 1 event (no surprise there) and it really gives you a full educational run through of the atrocities of the Holocaust. \nThe Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is, like the Holocaust Museum, centered around 1 event. There are replicas of the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima and artifacts surviving the explosion. There is a central goal of the museum, to get people to think about the horrors of war and the ideals of peace. Which, honestly, is a pretty good slant to have if you're going to have a central theme for a museum. \n I've heard fantastic things about the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, unfortunately I've never had the opportunity to go there. \n \n\nAlso, there was a museum I used to go to all the time when I was a kid in Belgium that had a bunch of military equipment from Belgium's history, so a lot of medieval stuff through 1800s weaponry up through WW1 and WW2. I haven't been back in over a decade, does anyone know what that museum is named? ", "The biggest impact a history museum has had on me was visiting Yūshūkan, next to the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo. While I don't believe this to be a greatly constructed museum, the content itself was astonishing, due to the explicitly anti-Western approach it takes to reporting on global events and the avenue it gave to me in understanding the mindset of Imperial Japan. I believe this to have been the first time I saw in a real way a different perspective to mine regarding the events of history, and true exposure of the impact misinformation can provide. The only downside to this trip (it was part of a longer trip exploring the whole of Japan) was that for some stupid reason I did not bother visiting Hiroshima, which would've made a fascinating juxtaposition.", "Imperial War Museum in London. I was only 12 years when I went there but it blew my mind! Its also a large part of the reason why I want to be a historian. ", "The rugby meseum in New Zealand in Manuatu.\n\nSmaller but lots of condensed information instead of longer with lots if big words.\n\nPractical things for kids", "I really like the World War 2 museum in New Orleans, although lately I've been bothered by some of their \"interactive\" new exhibits. There's nothing wrong with wanting to capture the feeling of being in a different place and time, but the last time I was there I went to FINAL MISSION: THE USS TANG EXPERIENCE, and I was thrown off by how Disney it all was.\n\nYou line up in a queue outside the building and are led into a segment of a mock-up submarine with a bunch of stations that represent different functions of the ship, and everyone lines up in front of a console. (I was a radar operator!) The \"experience\" starts and it's more or less a ride- the chamber fills with smoke and shakes, you do basically a minigame version of the job your console represents while the submarine \"sinks\" around you. The whole ride lasts about ten minutes. \n\nAnd this is all based on a true story. I don't understand the thought process behind developing this kind of historical exhibit- what kind of emotions are meant to be evoked by this, and does the format lend itself to impacting those emotions?", "I've been to many of the museums mentioned thus far (I mention that just for context because my \"vote\" is not one limited by geography), and I was blown away by a recent visit to a history museum...the [Minnesota History Center](_URL_0_).\n\nI am 38 and thoroughly enjoyed it, and have thought back to my experience in several of the vastly different exhibits numerous times in the months since my visit, but what I think speaks more to the excellence of the museum is that my 9yo and 5yo kids enjoyed it as much as I did.\n\nThere were numerous exhibits that put the visitor inside an experience in a vivid (multi-media, multi-sensory) way, like the WWII bomber that visitors enter & \"ride\" to Normandy (with seats rattling beneath you, the smoke of the bombs visible through the windows), listening to (real) audio of men who were part of that battle talking about how & why they enlisted & what they thought as they flew toward battle.\n\nThere was also a house to explore that showed how life had changed for the families that lived there through various waves of immigration to the US--and visitors got to touch/open/explore just about everything--the drawers in the Victorian parlor, the lunch boxes sent with the factory workers, etc. (again, with numerous opportunities to hear actual people from various periods talk about their experiences).\n\nAnd an \"iron mine\" we donned hard hats to enter before loading explosives into bore holes & detonating. And a malt shop where we served sodas. And a munitions factory line where we could assemble weaponry and compare our times. And areas with employees on hand who helped us make sense of the tools we could pick up and experiment with to understand how the local people used them to gather & prepare wild rice.\n\nHonestly--I could go on and on. Any ONE of the exhibits would have been world-class (and not all because of interactive elements), but there were seriously more than a dozen that were simply amazing. So if you're ever in Minneapolis/St. Paul...", "The best put-together museum I've ever visited was Washington D.C.'s Holocaust Museum. The walkthrough is organized to take you through the entire ordeal--starting with the rise of ending of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi Party, moves through the increasingly strict restrictions passed by the Nazis, including artifacts from each. The place is packed with artifacts and it's organized *so* well. Some of the stuff they have there is truly horrifying--they have one room that just has piles and piles of probably thousands of shoes, all stolen from Jews entering camps. Be warned, there's some pretty powerful videos of medical experiments and stuff, but those are all behind child-protection walls so they're easier to avoid.\n\nI'm just sad the Propaganda exhibit is gone now. I'm sure whatever they replaced it with is just as great.", "Both Te Papa in Wellington and the Auckland Museums are great if you wish to learn about New Zealand history. Te Papa is very touristy but they only ask for a donation, whereas the Auckland Museum however costs twenty five dollars (20USD) or if you are a NZ resident it is free although I think the want donations.", "Id like to add the German History museum in Berlin. It stars with Rome and goes to the fall of the Berlin wall. I took me four visits to make it to the end.\n\nBut i cant think if anything that beats the British Museum.", "My personal favorite thus far is the Midway Musuem in San Diego. It's an old Musuem on an aircraft carrier. It's huge and I have not finished it but such a jaw dropping experience to see an aircraft carrier in person. Tons of planes on top, a lot of great veteren volunteers who served on the ship when it was cruising the world so it's such a personal experience for them to tell you how it runs and some of it's missions. A must see if you're in San Diego", "I went to the museum at the bank of England during a London visit a few years ago. I went there totally by chance, but I liked it very much.\n\nVery small museum about the history of banking in general and of course the Bank itself. I liked it.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nAnother, actually fairly sizable museum which is perhaps not that known is the Emigration Museum in Hamburg. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt covers the european emigration to the US from Hamburg. A very large number of europeans went to the USA on HAPAG-LLoyds steamers out of Hamburg during the 1800s and it tells their story along with a fair bit about the shipping companies that made it possible.\n\nThe museum is housed in a rebuilt emigrant \"hostel\" where people used to wait for the ship to America.", "Bletchley Park / The National Museum of Computing (UK) for me.\n\nDays of interesting content (different to what youd see anywhere else) and a veritable army of volunteers in both who are super friendly and eager to tell you about anything and everything. ", "I love the Pitt Rivers in Oxford. It's a depressing testament to the British Imperial ability to loot the living daylights out of the rest of the world... but it's still fantastic. The shrunken heads are amazing. ", "For someone interested in the Eastern Front of WW2, the [German-Russian Museum](_URL_0_) in Berlin was amazing. They even have T34 tanks and Katyusha rockets in the garden. They also have the room where the surrender of Nazi Germany to the USSR was signed. ", "The Montreal Art Museum is by far the most fun I've ever had in a museum. They have such a great selection of art from ancient cultures, whether it be Greek busts or sarcophagi or Sumerian effigy statues.", "Museum of the Confederacy, downtown Richmond VA. It shows how much inventive skill was on the rebel side, something us lifelong Yankees never hear about.\n\nHampton Roads was the Silicon Valley of the Civil War. The development of practical submarine warfare, the discovery and mapping of ocean currents...and that if the Civil War had been more naval, the Union would have had a much harder time.", "The series of Smithsonian Museums in Washington D.C. has a collection that has got to be one of the (if not the) largest collections of all things history. Not to mention the beauty of the museums themselves. [The Air and Space Museum](_URL_0_) there has been a personally favorite since I saw it for the first time at 10 years old. ", "The [Sir John Soane Museum](_URL_1_) in London is one of the best small museums I've ever been to. Though it's been renovated (electric lights and modern plumbing) and restored over the years, it's basically the same as it was in 1837 when Soane died. Another favorite of mine is the [Museum of London](_URL_0_), which confines itself to the history of the city and its environs. Neither of these are what I call photograph-on-the-wall-with-text museums; they both are predominantly artifacts. ", "I really enjoy the Hong Kong History Museum, and always recommend it to guests. \n\nIt is broadly chronological, from geological past through to the 1997 handover to China. Several big, 1:1 dioramas of old Hong Kong life, that have mostly disappeared, and some good info on the expansion, trade and opium wars that made Hong Kong what it is today. Coupled with the Maritime Museum across the harbour, it is a solid day's worth of historical activity.\n\nIt is also free on Tuesdays and 10HKD the rest of the time. And does some great special exhibits - currently has one on photographs of Hong Kong through time, including the Japanese invasion and other interesting periods.", "If anyone's ever in Iceland, the National Museum of Iceland (Þjóðminjasafn Íslands) is an incredible look into Icelandic, Viking, and Saga history. The main exhibition is staged chronologically, from the settlement of Iceland around the 9th century through the present day. There are thousands of artifacts and it's very comprehensive. It is super dense, so be prepared, but very thorough. \n\nMy other recommendation would be The Settlement Exhibition, Reykjavík 871±2 (Minjasafn Reykjavíkur) in central Reykjavík. It's a great example of using multimedia technology in a history exhibit. It's underground, at the site of a viking longhouse, and encircling the whole room is a digital rendering of what Reykjavík might have looked like around 870 (confusing, so [here's](_URL_0_) a photo--viking longhouse is not pictured). The multimedia work is beautiful and really brings the site to life. There are also places to explore digital 3D models of the longhouse, virtual tours, etc. \n\nBoth of these museums are relatively small (Settlement much more so) and I think they're doing amazing things! The Settlement Exhibition is part of a city program that runs three museums, this one, Árbæjarsafn (an open air museum where you can experience Iceland though the ages-- like a living history park, also great), and the Reykjavík Museum of Photography, which I highly recommend but mostly has contemporary work on display (though you can ask and they will gladly show you any of their 6 million historical photographs of Iceland). \n\nSo if I could curate a history museum or exhibition, I would probably focus on the history of photography. Maybe I'd like to curate something that focused on bringing together art and history exhibits, which I think a photography museum could do very well. \n\nGreat question, and I love the responses as well :)", "The best war museum I've ever been to was the War Museum in Budapest. It cost myself and my friends about €1.40 and we were in there for nearly 4 and half hours. It is staggeringly big (and there was a considerable amount of it closed off for refurbishment). It really paints an extraordinarily rich tapestry of Hungary's turbulent past. Also of note in the city are the disturbing artillery pieces on top of Buda aiming down on Pest placed there after the uprising in the 50's. ", "Pittsburgh's Heinz Regional History Center is very good--whether on not you're from Pittsburgh.", "The most immersive museum I've ever been to by far is Alcatraz. Ok, it's not a resource for serious academia, but the narration provided by the former inmates and guards really makes the place come alive and it's really well done.\n\nAs for others, Cambridge has a plethora of small, university owned museums with bizarre opening hours. My favourites include:\n\nThe Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology _URL_3_\n\nand near enough opposite, with a huge whale skeleton suspended above it is The Museum of Zoology, currently closed for refurb until 2016.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBoth have an astounding array of exhibits and if you're lucky you can get shown backstage.\n\nAnother astounding place is the Jagellion University Museum on Cracow, where you can see Copernicus' original astronomical instruments.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_2_", "I stopped by Auckland's [Maritime Museum](_URL_0_) because it was all that was open on a Sunday morning. I came away thoroughly pleased with experience. The collection focuses on the technology and simple history of shipbuilding and usage from Polynesian explorers to Americas Cup racing. It's presented by historical era in a way that shows how New Zealand's culture continues to be impacted it's relationship with the sea.\n\nThe Chicago Field Museum picked up sponsorship of [the brain scoop](_URL_1_) in addition to it's own YouTube presence. It's got my vote for best outreach program.\n\nI have a fascination with historical figures whose actions or attitudes don't fit within their cultural boundaries but who ultimately alter the course of their culture - people like Ataturk, Genghis Khan, and Crazy Horse. I have no idea how I could present that in a way that made sense to a museum goer but that would be my museum.", "One that had a lasting effect on me is the Vasa Museet in Stockholm.\n\nThe Vasa was a 64-gun Swedish warship which sunk on her maiden voyage in 1628 (in itself a great tale of bureaucracy gone wrong), and was almost perfectly preserved in the local lagoon, before being salvaged in 1961 and painstakingly conserved. The museum was built in the 80s specifically to house it.\n\nAside from the incredibly intact nature of the ship (which is monstrously huge), and the very sensitive way they've done repairs (additions are in a lighter wood to make it clear what is original), the main reason this museum resonates is because of all the surrounding exhibits.\n\nThey reconstruct the era perfectly - the social context, the political and military state of the time, and the engineering from forest to ship that went into the creation of this thing. What was brought across spectacularly well was the horrific nature of the seafarer's life during such a time of conflict.\n\nI think that it is very interesting to see a museum so centred around one singular object with a very short life, and as such has the freedom to explore one very specific moment in time to an immense level of detail, as well as the meta-history of how the conservation was carried out and where the records and details of the period come from.\n\nHighly recommended.", "I haven't had the chance yet to experience any museums outside the US, but my favorite is the Civil Rights Museum in downtown Birmingham, Alabama.\n\nI think the Civil Rights Era of US History is a tough nut to crack for a museum as there are very different threads going in all directions and it's not entirely MLK did this and then MLK did that (although that's a huge thread). This one instead focuses on what they know best which is Birmingham. The opening piece is you sit down and watch a brief video that kind of sets things up for you with recorder first hand narrative and then the screen lifts and the theater you were sitting in now opens up into the museum with just two water fountains in front of you. One says \"Whites Only\" and looks like something you'd see in a nice public park. The other says \"Coloreds Only\" and looks like a plain iron pipe sticking out of the ground with a spicket on the end as if it belonged on a farm instead of a park. And then it dawns on you. That second fountain was designed, built, and intended to be used by animals not people. And then the second bomb drops on you...they thought they were sub-human.\n\nThe rest of the museum is great and nothing is ever thrown right in your face but you get a feeling of tension everywhere at the exhibits. When you see one of the buses that stopped in Mississippi (I think) and it's covered in dents, burn marks, etc. you get a small inkling of uneasiness that the riders probably felt when they pulled into the bus station and were surrounded by an angry mob of whites.\n\nI can't recall all of the other exhibits but one of the last pieces has always stuck with me. It's a video from the time of an elderly white woman saying something along the lines of \"When I was a little girl they laughed and sang songs in the street and were happy and now they're just angry and sad all the time.\" It's comical to a degree but very eye-opening after you've gone through the entire museum.\n\nYou can also take a walking audio tour outside and see all of the churches that were attacked, bombed, or served a strategic meeting points. \n\nAll-in-all you see how the \"Magic City\" earned the distinction of \"Tragic City\" and turned from Birmingham to \"Bombingham.\"", "The [Watson-Curtze Mansion](_URL_0_) was the one field trip I used to look forward to in grade school. It is a late 1800's mansion left to the City of Erie in the early 1940's to use as a museum. I used to love going because of the [planetarium](_URL_1_), but the older I get the more I appreciate the architecture, and the history of the area where the house is located. \n\nEdit* This is not the \"biggest or Best\", it's just a small museum in my home town, I noticed almost all national museum's listed and decided to list something more modest.", "The British Museum is the best museum I've been to, it's got such a brilliant and varied collection - the Elgin Marbles, Rosetta Stone, the frieze from the temple of Apollo at Bassae, bits of the Erectheum, the Younger Memnon, Benin Bronzes, an Easter Island head, the Cyrus Cylinder, Ginger the Mummy... \n\nIn terms of small museums, the Civic Museum in Como, Italy, is great as well. Only about seven euros to get in, and it covers the history of the town from prehistory to WW2. There's even some Greek vases there and Egyptian mummies. ", "As far as the best building for a history museum, the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC is beautifully designed. The building is designed with elements from Southwestern cultures and the landscaping is designed with elements that are important to various Native American cultures.\n\nIf you visit, I'd also recommend the cafe inside the museum. The food there is from several different regions in the Americas and the menu changes seasonally.", "How has no one said the National Archaeological Museum in Athens!?\n\nGranted, it says archaeology and not history, but we aren't talking about paleolithic artifacts here. If you're at all interested in Greece from oral history to the medieval, you owe it yourself to see it when in Athens.", "Has anyone been to the National Palace Museum in Taiwan? I heard it is full of all the best treasures that the Forbidden City had and is better than anything in all of China.", "The Newseum in Washington D.C. is really quite great.\n\nIncludes a permanent exhibit that features \"5 centuries of news history\", the most comprehensive collection of Pulitzer Prize Photography, and a lot of other great exhibits. ", "As a New Yorker there are a few here I could recommend. Obviously there's the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural History. The MET has an amazing collection of artifacts from really any part of the world/any time in history and I'm sure is matched by few, if any, in scope and scale in the Western Hemispshere. The Natural History Museum is also really interesting and well done.\n\nTwo a little bit more niche ones. The Museum of the History of the City of New York is a large, in depth history city from when Manhattan was all forest through 9/11. Then there's the museum at Ellis Island. I think this is a mustsee for any American but is also great for non-Americans. It has great history, full examination rooms, artifacts and the log books but can also be very personal too because it gets you thinking about American identity and could possibly even be part of your family's history. ", "The Jewish Museum in Berlin is very good. I think it's best visited on your own and ideally when there are not too many people there, and when you have a lot of time. It has both sections that really \"get\" to you, that convey a small part of the horror of the holocaust, and also portrays the history of Jews in Germany from the early beginnings to a few decades ago. It has both informative texts, pictures, and artifacts, and hands-on stations that make you engage with the material. I think it's a very good museum for all age groups. ", "I have two favorites, both in Philadelphia. The [Philadelphia Museum of Art](_URL_2_) has some really great collections. I'm most partial to their architectural installations- the [13th century French cloister,](_URL_2_collections/permanent/42060.html?mulR=1995941678|1) the [12th century portal from the Abbey Church of Saint-Laurent](_URL_2_collections/permanent/42059.html?mulR=521555310|75), their [gorgeous](_URL_1_) [period](_URL_2_collections/permanent/42223.html?mulR=108783189|71) [rooms](_URL_2_collections/permanent/45852.html?mulR=195301128|1). It's famous for the Rocky steps but there are some great galleries inside.\n\nMy other favorite is the [Rosenbach Library and Museum.](_URL_0_) It's small, with only three galleries (one of which is dedicated to [Maurice Sendak](_URL_0_learn/exhibitions/night-max-wore-his-wolf-suit), whose works are a major part of their collection), but the stuff they have in their collections are fantastic. Bram Stoker's notes for Dracula and the original manuscript for Ulysses, among others. And as for public outreach, they do [hands-on tours](_URL_0_handsontours) where you get to get up close and personal with the materials. I haven't done one yet, but I've heard great things about them. Apparently the Rosenbach brothers were big on having their collections accessible to the general public. They just became part of the Free Library of Philadelphia so hopefully they continue with that mission. \n\nSo. Come to Philly.\n\nEdit: I've focused on the literary aspects of the Rosenbach, but they do have actual artifacts in their [collections](_URL_0_learn/collections)- they just so happen to have some incredible literary materials too.\n\n", "Deserves a mention.\n\n**The Vasa Museum, Stockholm**\n\nThe Vasa is the only preserved seventeenth-century ship in the world, and a unique art treasure. More than 95 percent of the ship is original, and it is decorated with hundreds of carved sculptures.\n\nThe 69 meter-long warship Vasa sank on its maiden voyage in the middle of Stockholm in 1628, and was salvaged 333 years later in 1961. For nearly half a century the ship has been slowly, deliberately and painstakingly restored to a state approaching its original glory. The three masts on the roof outside the specially built museum show the height of the ship's original masts. \n\nToday the Vasa Museum is the most visited museum in Scandinavia, with over one million visitors a year. There are ten different exhibitions around the ship to tell about life on board the ship. The film about the Vasa is shown in 13 different languages. In addition there is a well-stocked shop and a pleasant restaurant. Tours of the museum take place every day. Free admission for children up to 18 years.\n\n_URL_1_\n_URL_0_" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/index_e2.html", "http://www.myt.org.mx/", "http://www.pr.state.az.us/parks/yute/index.html", "http://www.eliwhitney.org/", "http://www.ccemx.org/" ], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_Fen", "http://www.vivacity-peterborough.com/museums-and-heritage/flag-fen/", "http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1406460" ], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splash_Mountain", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hume_Lake#Formation_of_Hume_Lake" ], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.minnesotahistorycenter.org" ], [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.ballinstadt.net/BallinStadt_emigration_museum_Hamburg/Welcome.html", "http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/pages/museum/default.aspx" ], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-Russian_Museum" ], [], [], [ "http://airandspace.si.edu/" ], [ "http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/london-wall/", "http://www.soane.org/" ], [], [ "http://minjasafnreykjavikur.is/english/Portaldata/12/Resources/myndir/reykjavik871/syning-lr.jpg" ], [], [], [ "http://www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/", "http://www.uj.edu.pl/en_GB/uniwersytet/muzea/collegium-maius", "http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g274772-d276732-r147857501-Jagiellonian_University_Collegium_Maius-Krakow_Lesser_Poland_Province_Southern_Po.html", "http://maa.cam.ac.uk/maa/" ], [ "http://www.maritimemuseum.co.nz/", "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkyfHZ6bY2TjqbJhiH8Y2QQ" ], [], [], [ "http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Curtz", "http://www.eriecountyhistory.org/planetarium-history/" ], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.rosenbach.org/", "http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/42056.html?mulR=521555310|76", "http://www.philamuseum.org/", "http://www.rosenbach.org/learn/collections", "http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/42059.html?mulR=521555310|75", "http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/42060.html?mulR=1995941678|1", "http://www.rosenbach.org/handsontours", "http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/45852.html?mulR=195301128|1", "http://www.rosenbach.org/learn/exhibitions/night-max-wore-his-wolf-suit", "http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/42223.html?mulR=108783189|71" ], [ "http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/", "http://www.visitstockholm.com/en/To-Do/Attractions/the-vasa-museum/142" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e7wp3zo" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Depends on where you were. The proclamation only applied to slaves held by slaveholders in rebellion. So, there were a lot of people still enslaved in the border states (and even in states in rebellion if the slave holder pledged themselves to the Union.) So, it primarily served as an enticement for enslaved African Americans held by the Confederacy to embrace the Union and leave their owners' plantations when opportunity presented itself (like when the Union soldiers were nearby.)\n\nBut the larger institution of slavery wasn't eliminated until the war's end in 1865 with the passage of the 13th Amendment. (An amendment which Mississippi failed to ratify until 2013.) At that point, some changes were radical. Individuals left the plantations they'd lived on and sought to reunite with family and loved ones. Many, young and old, sought basic educations. Other changes were barely changes at all as barriers to freedom were implemented on black communities in the form of racial violence and \"black codes,\" many of which through sharecropping effectively bound freedmen to the lands they'd labored on before.\n\nSignificant improvements in black life did take place during Reconstruction, albeit for a limited time. But, as far as your question goes, I think that covers what I know of it..." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "duyrmt7" ], "score": [ 30 ], "text": [ "It would depend on the movie or period pieces you are referring to, some I have seen have had fairly decent armor and some have not.\n\nHowever looking at art from the time it appears that fighting without armor on your arms and legs was fairly common. And there are reasons for this.\n\n1) Armor is expensive. Now this is a gross generalization, but for large periods of Greek and Roman history the soldiers had to bring their own equipment to battle. If they only could afford a helmet and breastplate, then that's all they would have. \n\n2) You have to remember that both the Greeks and Romans were fighting with large shields. This by their very nature means one of their arms will always be protected. The other arm should always be held behind that shield waiting for their moment to strike. And even in that case there is some evidence that the Greeks and Romans (should the soldier in question be able to afford it) could have some armor on their exposed forearm. I do not know how ubiquitous this was though. \n\n3) Greaves (armor for their lower legs) was readily available, however again it was not as common as helmets and breastplates. Since those are the most important things to protect. Now, the reason why legs are not as heavily protected has to do with body mechanics, angles, and formation fighting. Truth be told, aiming for the legs is fairly difficult, especially with a big shield in the way. Your spear or sword starts at your shoulder, so to attack the enemy leg means the length of your weapon has to angle down over most of your opponents body, drastically decreasing your reach as opposed to your opponents reach. And unless you're careful opens you up to attack. It just isn't a priority. The exception seems to be cavalry, where having your legs protected in some way would have an obvious benefit should you ever engage in combat with someone standing next to you and your legs are exactly at their striking level.\n\n4) So leather armor is not entirely a modern notion, but was nowhere near common as people seem to want to believe. Frankly, padded cloths are just cheaper and just as useful. \n\n5) Pants just weren't as common a feature in the roman and greek world. It was seen as a barbaric style until fairly late in Roman history. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ckoc39z", "ckonn1e" ], "score": [ 83, 6 ], "text": [ "The Scottish border lies along the River Tweed, and has done so for a very, very long time. Officially, this became the border in 1237, and while there have been a few conflicts over where, exactly, it is, it's stayed roughly the same due.\n\nWales, on the other hand, is a bit more complicated. Its borders partly reflect Roman settlement, with Roman forts on the mountains in the west of England representing an early Welsh border. However, after the Romans left and the Welsh kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys came into power, the border shifted into something that is more recognisable today. Conflict between the Welsh kingdoms (Powys especially) and neighbouring English kingdoms (especially Mercia) led to the creation of Offa's Dyke, a big trench meant to provide protection from Welsh raids. This became the border in the late 8th century. While the modern border doesn't quite follow Offa's Dyke, it does follow more or less the same route. However, over the next several centuries the border between England and Wales fluctuated, with Welsh rulers sometimes taking land from the English and vice versa. The border was firmly established in 1535 with the Laws in Wales Act, which annexed Wales into England and established the border between them. This border was partly determined by tradition, but also by linguistic tendencies - places that mostly spoke Welsh became Wales, and places that mostly spoke English were England. There were a few exceptions and a few locations that would be ambiguous for some time afterwards - Welsh enclaves in England, for instance, would remain until the 19th century, and the status of Monmouthshire wouldn't be firmly determined until the 20th century - but largely, the border was set at that point.", "Sorry to add on to this, but what role would Hadrian's Wall have played in the modern/historical borders?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cutxspw", "cuv9i7g" ], "score": [ 3, 3 ], "text": [ "Although I can't speak to the organization of platoons in WWII, I can provide info for WWI. Prior to 1917, the platoon or 'half-company' was primarily seen as an administrative component for the Company, which was seen as the lowest unit of manoeuver on the battlefield. This changed following the experience of the Somme, with the role and organization of the platoon being re-formulated in training manual *SS 143 - The Training and Employment of Platoons*. The platoon was now organized with a minimum of 24 and maximum of 40 men, split into 4 sections with a 4 man headquarters company (1 officer, 3 other ranks). The Platoon now contained 'all the weapons with which the infantry soldier is armed - namely rifle and bayonet, Lewis Gun, rifle bomb and bomb.' Each section was based on one of these weapons systems, and lead by an NCO. There was a Rifle Section, Lewis Gun section, Rifle grenade and grenade section, with the rifle section often being trained to utilize both grenades if need be. British military historian Paddy Griffith referred to them as 'mini-armies', and they were often viewed as such at the time, with grenades and rifle grenades referred to as 'section howitzers'.\n\n* *World War I Trench Warfare (2): 1916-18* and *Trench* by Stephen Bull\n* *Tommy* by Richard Holmes\n* *Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army's Art of Attack, 1916-18* by Paddy Griffith", "WW2 had more variations in the platoons due to the greater variety of unit types namely paratroops, mechanized, Chindits, etc, as well as the standard infantry platoons. I highly recommend a site called Bayonet Strength for an easily understandable and well written explanation of how the various British (and other) Infantry Battalion were organized in WW2. These are broken down by type of Battalion including composition of squad, platoon and company and the changes enacted throughout the war. \n_URL_0_\n" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e929guz" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Not to discourage further discussion, but you may be interested in these previous related answers:\n\n* [Historically speaking, does it make sense for college level history courses, such as Western Civilization, to start in ancient Mesopotamia and end in early Europe?](_URL_0_) with u/b1uepenguin\n\n* [Steve King & the contributions of Western Civ](_URL_1_) with u/agentdcf and some great followup discussion." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/33nrg8/historically_speaking_does_it_make_sense_for/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4tln3x/steve_king_the_contributions_of_western_civ/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cbxfu0h" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "East Asian languages have a lot more homophones than European languages, so similar sounding names doesn't mean much. \n\nAnyway, in Chinese it's 胡志明 (Hu Zhi Ming in Mandarin, Wu Ji Ming in Cantonese). In Korean it would be Ho Ji Myeong. The first name (latter two syllables) literally means Ambition Light (or enlightenment). \n\nHe has used a couple of names before settling on Ho Chi Minh. His birth name is very traditional and old-fashioned, it literally means \"born to respect\". He has used Nguyễn Tất Thành (Nguyen Success, according to some Confucian tradition you change your name when you are older, this is his first change of name.) and Nguyễn Ái Quốc (Nguyen Patriotic. He lobbied for independence during the Treaty of Versailles, that's the name he used, I guess to convey his desire for national independence). When he was in China he used a more Chinese sounding Lý Thụy (Li Rui in Chinese. While there are people with the surname Nguyen in China (Ruan in Chinese), it's very distinctly Vietnamese). " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "chqst4y" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "This is a massive question. There are entire books that attempt to answer this question but still leave information out. I do not have the time right now to give you a good enough answer so I have X-Posted this to /r/IrishHistory. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e47eq3f" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Genetic evidence suggests three possible pre-Columbian journeys from the Americas to other parts of the world. The presence of haplogroup C1a in southern Siberia is possibly due to a back-migration across the Bering Strait ([Dulik et al 2012](_URL_2_)) but the time-depths involved here muddles the picture. Genetics studies of the Rapanui from Easter Island indicates Pre-Columbian admixture with Native Americans ([Moreno-Mayar et al 2014](_URL_1_)), likely as part of the brief Andean-Polynesian exchange mentioned in another post linked here. Haplogroup C1 has also been present in Iceland for at least 300 years, possibly going all the back to the days of the Vinland expeditions 1000 years ago ([Ebenesersdóttir et al 2010](_URL_0_). Of course, changes are in this case that the Native people who went to Iceland did not do so voluntarily. \n\nGetting into oral traditions, there are a few other examples. I talk about two of those in this post: [Did Native Americans have any folk stories / tales of pre-Columbian explorers?](_URL_3_) Keep in mind that it's challenging to separate legend from history here." ] }

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[ [ "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.21419", "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982214012202", "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276666/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3mqsr1/did_native_americans_have_any_folk_stories_tales/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "crzyfju", "cs01rss" ], "score": [ 6, 5 ], "text": [ "I can't speak to all of the memorials, but during the war some were destroyed in France and Belgium by the Germans during the war. The Mont St. Quentin memorial, depicting an Australian soldier bayonetting a German eagle was destroyed in 1940; the Vimy Ridge Memorial, by contrast, had a detachment of SS men to guard it during the war. The statue of Ferdinand Foch at Bouchavesnes was left in place, but the Germans destroyed much of the scenery around it, in an act of spite to the man that had, essentially, won WWI (the Germans still lost, again; Foch 2, Germans nil). ", "I do not know of evidence that points to widespread destruction of memorials. As has been mentioned, the Nazi army did destroy a memorial specifically depicting violence against a German eagle. I've also seen reports of WWI battlefield and trench markers being trampled by moving troops (however, those reports were indirect, the result of a student interviewing a Belgian man, and I'm somewhat hesitant to trust them at all). But that's about all I know of. Certainly many memorial sites were left untouched, and those that were damaged were often casualties of troop movements or bombings rather than specific targets of violence.\n\nWar memorials were, and are, often shared sites of mourning between nations -- even nations that were opposed in wartime. In the case of the Second World War, for example, the community of Coventry Cathedral's Cross of Nails was in contact with German religious figures even before the war ended, and the cross is visible in churches on both sides of the war, around the world. I am not well informed on the subject of memorial preservation and destruction specifically in wartime, but it would not surprise me to learn that memorials were avoided and protected by both sides. As has already been mentioned, I know that Hitler himself took personal interest in the preservation of a Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge. I'm not saying that was standard procedure, but I do know that so many Great War memorials were left untouched following the Second World War that it *was* standard procedure to save money on a new memorial by adding the names of fallen WWII soldiers to an existing WWI site." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cknob6d", "cknt8ek", "cknw1ze" ], "score": [ 41, 6, 3 ], "text": [ "Not by any means. It was mainly used by France to distract England in various wars those two were having in return for promises of assisting the Scots, the 'auld alliance'. Over many hundreds of years there were quite a few Scots who went fighting with or alongside the French and lots of diplomatic and cultural interaction. This connection started to die off after Tudor times, primarily because the Scots became staunchly Protestant and thus not well inclined to the French Papists. The merger of the thrones then started the divorce and the Union completed it. However there was still a not insignificant amount of cultural exchange from thereon. And of course there was French assistance (of sorts) during the '15 and '45 Jacobite rebellions.\n\nApart from that partnership there was no signs that Scotland was a 'major' power, however that is defined.", "Actually before the political union of 1707 there was the personal union of 1603.\n\nAfter the death of Elizabeth I of England the man next in line to the english throne was James ~~V~~ VI (thanks /u/Nairbex) of Scotland. He did ascend to the throne under the name of James I of England. By the way, he is the king that commissioned probably the most famous of the english translations of the Bible, the King James Bible.\n\nSo from 1603 to 1707 (with an interregnum in 1648-60, during the Cromwell regime) England and Scotland were governed by the same King or Queen, but were considered two different countries with different laws and governments. That said, the foreign policy of the two kingdoms, being decided by the same person, were obviously closely aligned.", "Many Scots served as mercenaries for European countries under agreements; practically the entire clan Mackay was in service for the Dutch Republic. Scotland might not have classified as a major power but it certainly possessed significance in certain key areas." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cae9g0m" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "* The front crawl was invented by the native north Americans and was seen by the Europeans as to produce to much splash. But ever since the 1844 swim race has become the standard swimming stroke.\n* The breaststroke is one of the oldest strokes dating back to the stone age where there are depictions on the walls, thought to have been invented by imitating the movement of frogs.\n* Butterfly is attributed to Australian Sydney Cavill who found a faster way of swimming then the front stroke. It used more muscles and the kick was based on that of the motion of a dolphin" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c53j96m", "c53jee6", "c53kpxn", "c53l4rx", "c53o8h2" ], "score": [ 10, 10, 3, 2, 10 ], "text": [ "Confucianism and Daoism.\n\nOf course that is if you consider them religions. \n\nSource- [God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World](_URL_0_)\n\nAlthough I disagree with one of the religions the above book chooses. ", "Daoism and a mixture of animism and ancestor worship. However, Buddhism was never able to supersede these and now they co-exist, with Buddhism taking distinctly Chinese characteristics and most people who believe in religion believe in a combination of the above.", "When China was first unified under the Qin Dynasty, the official 'religion' was Legalism. During this period practice of Confucianism and Taoism was banned. Though, these were more philosophies rather than religion, which emerged during the War States Period and the Spring and Autumn Period. Since the Emperor of the Zhuang Dynasties' power had diminished, the rulers of the States under the Zhuang declared themselves King over their own autonomy. This of course clashes with the rule that the Emperor was regarded as the Mandate of Heaven, so his appointment to throne was considered divine. So basically the birth of the philosophies debated with many issues in the States. Each State would usually adopt an official philosophy to run their kingdom.\n\nSo when the Qin dynasty finally fell to the Han dynasty (which was Taoist) it became the official religion.", "The 'shamanism', 'ancestor worship' and 'animism' that people here are talking about is [Chinese folk religion](_URL_0_). It's a fascinating subject.", "This is a really interesting topic.\n\nSo the problem right now is that you are looking at the issue through the lens of Western religious history, where Christianity really did replace the earlier religions so that only myths and superstitions remained. This did not happen in China. You should really consider the growth of Buddhism to be closer to the spread of a philosophical system. Chinese Buddhism is also profoundly different from Indian Buddhism, or Tibetan Buddhism.\n\nBefore the spread of Buddhism, there were two dominant philosophical traditions in China: Confucianism and Taoism. Because nothing in this world is perfect, Taoism also refers to traditional systems of mysticism and superstition that adopted the works of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, but they should not be considered actual practitioners of the philosophy. They considered the Chan tzu and the Dao de Jing to be mystical texts of arcane power, not profound meditations on life. Likewise, later Daoist philosophers like Wang Bi didn't spend their time looking for the elixir of immortality. When you read that x number of Chinese are \"Taoist\" it usually refers to the mystical system.\n\nThis *also* happened with Confucianism. A crucial tenet of Confucianism is that the moral character of a ruler and the health of the country are crucially linked. During the Han and probably earlier this got transformed into the idea that certain rituals could have a profound effect on the natural and supernatural world. Confucius was very specifically anti-superstition, but oh well.\n\nSo what you basically have are two philosophical systems that both have a system of superstition layered upon them. This is basically exactly what happened with Buddhism: A profound philosophical system accrued a layer of superstition.\n\nThe environment that Buddhism entered China was one of political turmoil and spiritual void, because the superstitious aspects of Confucianism had been pared back, and Taoism is far too radical to be a ruling ideology. The rise of Buddhism was accompanied by a period of decline for Confucianism, and it became the dominant ideology of the ruling court for a time during the Tang. But conflict with the court and the rise of Neo-Confucianism ended the era of Buddhist dominance, and it never regained its prominence. Buddhism's importance in Song and later China is greatly exaggerated and is the result of trying to define a dominant \"Eastern\" religious paradigm with which to contrast the \"Western\" paradigm of Christianity." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-One-World-Differences/dp/006157127X/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top" ], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_traditional_religion" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cv6y90q", "cv8046m" ], "score": [ 11, 2 ], "text": [ "Just some prior discussions to get you started:\n\n[12 Years a Slave: Was life for slaves really as bad as these movies depict](_URL_1_)\n\n[How accurate was 12 Years a Slave](_URL_0_)", "They absolutely were victimized as badly or worse than film depictions. Former fugitives were marked (i.e. burnt to mark them), intentionally crippled, or worse. One slave narrative (I think it might be Charles Ball's but not sure) describes a slave who is leased by a major slaveholder for years, they develop a great relationship and he is the star worker, and after years of working together he finally buys him. What's the first thing his 'friend' and new owner does? Beats him brutally because, \"All of my slaves have to understand that I am the master.\" Southern towns had 'public whipping posts,' where masters could send slaves to get punishments while not sullying their own hands with the brutality. Just read Frederick Douglass' narrative or \"The Half has never been told,\" to get a sense of this. It was a carefully calibrated torture system that made enslaved people more productive than any free labor force and that made dangerous slave professions like railroad building or mining where slave leasing corporations ratcheted down the violence but increased the danger of the workplace seem like excellent alternatives to the master you knew." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1r9orx/how_accurate_was_the_portrayal_of_slave_life_in/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ukppx/just_finished_watching_12_years_a_slave_was_life/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c5iyodj", "c5j0lew", "c5j3hrz", "c5j98hg" ], "score": [ 11, 8, 9, 2 ], "text": [ "The prerequisites are simple; No male heirs with a claim to the throne that's on par with or better than that of the woman, and the backing of a powerful group - clergy or portions of the army. \n \nAn earlier precedent in medieval England would be [Empress Matilda / Queen Maude](_URL_0_) (reigned 7 April 1141 – 1 November 1141) the daughter and heir of King Henry I of England. \n \nHer cousin Stephen of Blois also had a claim to fill the power vacuum that was created by a bit of a boating accident and their rivalry for the throne led to years of unrest and civil war in England that have been called The Anarchy. ", "Read up on Salic vs semi-Salic inheritance, as these two cases cover most of the monarchies in Medieval Europe.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBasically, Salic was \"man only\" inheritance, and semi-Salic was \"women can inherit if there's no close male relatives.\" ", "I think there's too-heavy an emphasis on the \"rules\" of inheritance, when in many or even most contentious cases, they just decided to [change](_URL_1_) or [ignore](_URL_0_) the rules at the last minute in order to raise whomever was favored by powerful interests to the monarchy.\n\nEven today, [politicians are hard at work changing the rules of Monarchical inheritance](_URL_2_) in order to reflect changing political realities (in this case, acknowledging women's equality by eliminating primogeniture).", "In Celtic England the greatest threat to the Romans was the [Iceni](_URL_1_) Tribe led by Queen Boudica. In Celtic culture women were far more equal to men though and it's not completely relevant to the question. \n\nThe first civil war in England, though, is more relevant. It's called The Anarchy and it started when King Henry I died. He had had a son but he had died in a shipwreck a few years before. He also had a daughter, [Matilda](_URL_0_), who had a legitimate claim to the throne and had been named heir. However Stephen of Blois (her cousin) claimed the thrown and so started twenty years of civil war and public disorder. But she was the first female ruler of the Kingdom of England even if it was only for a few months. \n\nIt wasn't until 1553 that there would be another queen of England. This time it was Lady Jane Grey, known as the Nine Days Queen (no explanation needed). She was deposed by her half sister-in-law, Mary I. The next monarch, her half sister, was also a Queen, Elizibeth I. \n\nIt's not that women weren't allowed the throne but more often than not royal families were big, so women would usually be the last resort because they don't continue carrying the name of their dynasty if they get married. Monarchs would usually have many children, this caused wars though. WW1 is a perfect example of that. Kaiser Wilhelm, Tsar Nicholas and King George were all cousins.\n\nTL;DR Women don't carry the family name so men were preferred." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Matilda" ], [ "http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_law" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_law#In_France", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_proposals_to_change_the_rules_of_royal_succession_in_the_Commonwealth_realms" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Matilda#Struggle_for_the_throne_of_England", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceni" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cfa7r46", "cfa8imx", "cfa9neh", "cfao5ba" ], "score": [ 14, 26, 18, 6 ], "text": [ "The first chapter of the book *Fiery Shapes: Celestial Portents and Astrology in Ireland and Wales 700–1700*, which focuses on the interpretation of astrological phenomena, may give you some ideas (though it does not tackle directly the problem, but rather tries to understand the making of the literary description of portents). Another possible lead (which I think was proposed to me in a tutorial a few years ago; it may ultimately come from Martin Heinzelmann) is that churchmen considered that it was important to record everything (even second or third-hand information) because “you never know,” and that each of these signs could become, in retrospect, an important eschatological key.", "It's fair to say that there are a number of ways one can interpret these sorts of accounts.\n\nThe first is to take them at face value and then try to find natural phenomena to explain what might be behind them.\n\nThe second is to take them at face value and find some extraordinary phenomena to explain them: having taken this approach, you can then make a 52 minute documentary of what you have concluded and it will be purchased by History Channel's Ancient Alien series.\n\nThe third choice is to accept the fact that people recount unusual phenomena, whether they existed in reality or not, and in the process of recounting them and having others carry the tales forward, the phenomena become more extraordinary in the telling.\n\nWe are constantly faced with unusual phenomena, and we interpret what we have encountered with the inventory of explanations at our disposal. A modern, scientifically-bent mind will seek natural explanations for unusual phenomena, but there are plenty in our midst who will see something strange and attribute it to the realm of the extraordinary if not the supernatural. \n\nI was just editing a passage from a book I am developing, which fits here: \"Strange and remarkable things exist in the world. Unusual events have always amazed people and beg for explanation. It is human to attempt to understand. As children of the Scientific Age, modern humanity smugly congratulates itself for not being superstitious, but less than might be expected separates the present from the past. Peculiar lights become aliens, even though technology fills the sky with all sorts of human-made hardware. Crop circles become proof of aliens, even though it may be easier to look at the bored farmer with just the right sense of humor to pull off such a prank. Seeking exotic explanations for the extraordinary is nothing new, and the sophisticated modern age has not extinguished the practice. In a pre-industrial setting, however, the inclination to see the actions of the supernatural was far greater.\"\n\nYou can handle your bizarre accounts in primary sources as you wish, but a folklorist will tell you that one need look no farther than in the soul of humanity to find an explanation. The unusual demands attention and its retelling yields elaboration. And where there is nothing at its core, the imagination of the folk creates the unusual and makes it even more remarkable. It is our nature. Which is, in fact, natural, and yet it presents a direct path to the supernatural.", "Hello! Things like this come up quite regularly in ancient literature as well, and while it is tempting to dismiss them as fantasy or ignore them altogether, we must remember that supernatural phenomena seemed real enough to most people. Of course, we might then try to rationalize these phenomena with natural explanations, but ultimately I find it more meaningful to simply acknowledge that people *believed* them to be true. \n\nThis is basically how Ramsay MacMullen addresses the issue in *Christianizing the Roman Empire, A.D. 100-400* (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984). He notes that *not* believing in miracles would have appeared utterly \"irrational\" to the average ancient, that \"people are capable of keeping nature and its law and ordinary life in one compartment of their minds and something quite different in another\" (\"Galen the true scientist, for example, who believed in centaurs and yet didn't\"), and that \"it gave pleasure both to relate to hear wonderful stories, because such is human nature...\" On his own approach, Ramsay states: \"...I report as faithfully as I can what people of that ancient time believed. On their beliefs they based their actions. Beliefs and actions together are realities. The historian who sticks to *those* sticks to his last.\" This seems pretty reasonable to me. :)", "So an important thing to consider is that many of the things that we'd consider \"weird\" wouldn't appear so to a medieval thinker. Imagine you're a relatively learned medieval thinker and you hear a report about the sighting of a unicorn. Well, you think, unicorns appear in the Bible, they're mentioned in encyclopedias, in bestiaries, in travel narratives, and in the writings of the Church Fathers, essentially all the meaningful authorities that a learned man would draw on to shape his picture of the natural world. So why wouldn't you believe such an account? Sure, you've never seen a unicorn, but you've never seen Jerusalem either, and you're pretty darn sure that it exists. \n\nLikewise an apparent miracle or wondrous event. *Every* reputable source assures you that these occur, and not only occur but occur regularly. Why on Earth would you doubt them? Yeah, you may not have ever seen a miracle yourself, but, then again, you've never seen a naval battle either.\n\n\n > I've tried looking for literature about weird stuff reported during the medieval period but couldn't find anything. \n\nI'm not quite sure what you're asking for here, can you be more specific? As a lover of all things medieval and many things weird, I might be able to help. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dvuncqe" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Oswald Spengler, a German philosopher who was very influential in the first half of the twentieth century, even predicted that Russia would be the number one superpower. He had a theory that the lifespan of a culture is about 1000 years and Europe lived through its heydays in 16th to 18th century. He saw North America as an extension of European culture, but acknowledged that Russia is a separate culture." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cwf1iux" ], "score": [ 20 ], "text": [ "Soviet tactics, command and control and doctrine changed a lot during the war.\n\nThe Soviets entered ww2 with an interesting mix of experience from ww1, the Russian Civil War, their own type of deep battle doctrine and a political reversal of much of this, which proved disastrous.\n\nThe Eastern Front was never as locked or entrenched as the Western Front had been in ww1. The massed attack was on several occassions more successful here - the Central Powers broke through at Gorlice-Tarnow 1915, the Russians almost broke the Austro-Hungarians at the Brusilov offensive 1916 and the Germans managed to break Russia with their Baltic offensive 1917.\n\nThe Russian Civil War had also seen armies operating mostly independently from each other with a for the time minimal logistics train. \n\nGenerally, the Soviets had experienced that the more strong-willed and politically coherent army would win but also that adding resources to a successful attack would produce excellent results.\n\nTactically, the Soviets focused on overwhelming firepower and force on the attack and tenacity, excellent entrenchment and camouflage on the defence. The Soviets had also developed their own version of the German *schwerpunkt* idea in their deep battle doctrine, in which armoured, mechanised and cavalry formations would be grouped together, force a breakthrough and then act independently by rushing through and going for the deep of the enemy territory.\n\nHowever, the 1937 and 1938 purges changed this. The idea of deep battle was lost, and armour was assigned to the infantry for support, although some dedicated mechanised and armoured formations reamined, as well as a large independent cavalry force. The purges also froze the initiative of the Red Army - NCOs and officers would not dare to do anything without orders for the risk of being accused of being a traitor. Tactical flexibility suffered heavily as a result.\n\nIn Spain, the Soviets more or less re-built the Spanish army 1937 along Soviet lines and tried to use zeal and discipline as replacements of tactical flexibility - while the Republicans had plenty of zeal, most soldiers came from the various militias and were unused to military discipline. The attempt to replace firepower and tactical flexibility with zeal and discipline spelled disaster during the Ebro offensive.\n\nThe Soviet system also proved devastatingly lousy during the Finnish Winter War. The lack of tactical flexibility, the lack of a short-range and long-range patrol doctrine in dense terrain (things the Finns excelled at) as well as operational and strategical planning failure in sending mechanised or motorised heavy formations into dense forests where they were road-bound and easy to cut up in *mottis* proved the failure of the Soviet system.\n\nHowever, the Soviets did learn a lot from Finland, lessons they would put to good use against the Germans on the Eastern Front once they had recovered from the initial shock.\n\n1941 the Red Army could in some circumstances be described as an armed mob without any real communications, leadership or even purpose. The shared leadership of formations between the commander and the political commissar, who was responsible for the loyalty and political zeal of the formation, also created problems - officers and commissars could argue back and forth on actions and officers might abstain from action that might be viewed as cowardice (a tactical retreat, for example) or going outside orders.\n\nThe 1945 Red Army was a completely different beast and one of the best armies in the world. What happened?\n\nThe losses in Finland, and especially in the first year of the Eastern Front shock the Soviets to the core and allowed them to start learning what they were good at - but especially what they were not good at.\n\nThe Soviets understood that they could not match the Germans in tactical flexibility and in the training and education of NCOs and lower officers (since they did not have the same stock of educated people to draw from and the extreme casualties they suffered required them to train new soldiers and their NCOs and lower officers quickly). So the Soviets developed that they called an operational doctrine. Specialised staffs of officers from the central command, STAVKA, was attached to sectors of the front where heavy fighting was expected. Heavy artillery, which had been attached to divisions and made them heavy and unwieldy (and hard to use since the divisions lacked the radio equipment and dedicated artillery staff as well as forward observers etc to use it well), was moved to special artillery formations under STAVKA control. Large armoured and mechanised formations were created and placed under STAVKA control as well.\n\nThese formations were attached to these staffs and used where it was deemed necessary. If an attack ran into heavy resistance and slowed down, resources was quickly shifted to a part of a front where the attack was more successful. Reinforcements, supplies and replacements were monitored closely by the dedicated staffs from STAVKA and used where they would be most effective.\n\nThe Soviets never had the same level of tactical independence as the Germans did with their *auftragstaktik* and knew they could not match the Germans in tactical skill, so they developed the operational doctrine to counter the Germans.\n\nAdding to this was *maskirovka* or large scale camouflage and deception. Hiding troops by radio silence, camouflaging large formations and especially creating the false impressions they were at another part of the front by laying phone lines, creating massive radio chatter, placing dummy tanks and artillery and have trucks run back and forth to create the impression of new roads and well-used supply lines, the Soviets concentrated overwhelming force and tricked the Germans into assigning their reserves elsewhere and then used operational flexibility to keep their enemies off their balance.\n\nThese two examples - operational doctrine and *maskirovka* is the reason for the still pervasive myth of the overwhelming avalance or human wave attack from the Soviets. For the first 20-30 years after ww2, western authors writing on the Eastern Front only had access to German officers and accounts, not Soviets. The Germans saw only a lack of tactical flexibility and the overwhelming superiority in firepower and numbers the Soviets deployed on the attack, and their conclusion was that they were drowned in men and materiel rather than being outfought. They never saw the refined planning and execution that went into *maskirovka* nor the detailed work and meticolous attention to detail that went into staff work for the operational battle.\n\nThe Soviets, learning from the Finns, also created the idea of constant small raids, patrols and infiltration for information gathering at a large scale - the Western Allies and the Germans had used patrol acticity to take prisoners and do recoinnasance on the Western Front in ww1, but the Finns taught the Soviets about long-range patrol activity, something which they used frequently and with good effect against the Germans.\n\nThe western allies developed their own version of *maskirovka* (notably by creating their false army that was to attack Calais on D-day), but the Soviets pioneered it, andit became standard tactics for all armies, although at a larger scale and more common among the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies during the Cold War.\n\nLong-range patrol activity is now also a very common concept in all armies - special forces usually take this duty nowadays, akin to how the British commandoes operated druring ww2." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cj89nod" ], "score": [ 17 ], "text": [ "This is a complicated question to answer. \n\nAt the outset, I must point out that Muslims and Hindus in India have been separate communities for centuries. The two communities do not mix, and ghettos exist in India even today.\n\nFor about 700 years before independence, the Indian sub-continent was ruled by a Muslim minority, whereas the majority of the population was Hindu. The ruling and intellectual elite were Muslims right from the time of the Delhi Sultanate to the last dregs of the Mughal empire. During the Revolt of 1857 too, the Muslim elite played a major role. However, after the defeat of the Revolt, the British dismantled this elite and summarily executed or exiled a large number of people who belonged to this class. These were the people who would have become leaders and representatives of the Muslim community in the years following 1857. The loss of such a large number of educated elite and potential representatives lead to a disproportionally small representation of the Muslim community in the freedom movement and in all interactions with the British. \n\nThe Muslim league was formed in 1906 as a body that would represent Muslim Landowners and Landed Gentry. This faction realised that the Congress Party that was dominated by the Hindus and held a socialist world view would not be sympathetic to their claims once the British left, especially since the Congress party claimed to represent the whole of the Indian people, even the Muslim community. The Muslim elite (or what was left of it) thus used religion to their advantage to gain a place for themselves in the ruling polity. The claim that the Muslim people were a separate demographic that could not live under Hindu rulers was put forth. Ultimately, this lead to the demand for Pakistan." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "csqotl9", "csrrtib" ], "score": [ 10, 2 ], "text": [ "Please note: this reply does not bring up the various issues associated with the description of \"most powerful man in the world\", and assumes a mostly military and economic standpoint. I'd also like to point out that the President isn't *truly* the most powerful man, as he requires the help of the rest of the government to wield the power of the U.S., especially of Congress, which issues tariffs (if I'm not mistaken) and declarations of war. \n\nI'm not particularly well-versed in early American history, but I feel that it's safe to discount most of the first century of American history- the British Empire was the real global power player at that point. However, there was never a violent usurpation of power between the two, it was a largely peaceful, gradual exchange ([this](_URL_0_) study supports that statement). With this in mind, one can look to World War I and World War II as the U.S. really arriving on the world stage militarily and economically- both wars devastated Europe economically and militarily, but the U.S. left them better off than Europe did, due to the lack of fighting on U.S. soil, when compared to Europe. After WWII, two superpowers emerged: the U.S. and the USSR. Throughout the Cold War, both sides saw large increases in nuclear stockpiles (look at the graph on [this](_URL_1_) page). Furthermore, both superpowers had similar military alliances in place, such as NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The complications of international relations at the time, as well as the various other economic, military, and social events during those times, make it relatively difficult to determine which nation was more \"powerful\". However, with the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the situation changed. I would, based on these facts, say that U.S. truly became the most powerful nation sometime around 1991 or 1992. ", "I've never tried to answer before, but here goes. I would say it started around the time of Teddy Roosevelt's Presidency. The US effectively bullied Colombia into letting America work on the Panama Canal, by fanning the flames of a revolt in modern Panama.\n\nAfter the Canal's completion, the Great White Fleet made it's voyage more or less around the world (I believe mostly Pacific though). That was a demonstration of the United States' new naval capabilities brought about by the two - ocean access via the Panama Canal. \n\nFast forward to Wilson's Presidency, the US distinguished itself in WWI as powerful though not the most powerful. Although, we came out of the war in better shape than most of involved Europe. However Wilson's failure to convince his own people of the importance of the League of Nations probably prevented him from taking a more central position in global affairs. \n\nBut finally, the end of WWII and the next decade to follow was the final bit of setup. The US ends the war victorious and as the USSR began aggressive expansion of communism the US takes the biggest military role (at least of the democratic side). That said, as the Korean War intensifies and Vietnam begins the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces has troops all over in a worldwide struggle against communism plus the atomic bomb. Also, the newfound US influence in Japan and West Germany gave added weight to the US's presence in Europe and Asia. \n\nTo conclude, it took around 40 years of build up which came to a head in the Cold War." ] }

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[ [ "http://m.cjip.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/1/83.full#xref-fn-5-1", "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e8jkxs9" ], "score": [ 32 ], "text": [ "While they don't each specifically address all of your questions I think you may find [these](_URL_0_) [three](_URL_2_) [answers](_URL_1_) by u/kieslowskifan and u/commiespaceinvader, and their sources to be helpful. " ] }

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[ [ "https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/95ubmf/why_was_bonn_chosen_to_be_the_capital_of_west/e3vnpe0/", "https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6uhzhz/why_did_west_germany_choose_the_city_of_bonn_as/dlt166t/", "https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/777o4y/on_20_june_1991_the_reunified_german_bundestag/dojnvmq/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "efvf94g" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "The Guntō (軍刀) was a Japanese sword that saw use by the IJA and IJN during the Meiji period. The sword began seeing greater use following the implementation of military conscription in 1872. The Meiji period took place during the first half of the Empire of Japan, and began in 1868 and ended in 1912. The Empire of Japan lasted from 1868 to 1947. During the Meiji period, Japanese culture and society distanced itself from its former isolated feudal system and began to westernize. Inspired by many western ideals and standards, Japan introduced reforms such as the Five Charter Oath. They also made practicing Christianity legal. Overall, the Japanese allowed themselves to be more influenced by Western ideology, and began identifying with it. \n\n\nAs a result of this, the swords developed during the Meiji period, more specifically the kyū guntō (旧軍刀), had Western influences. These influences led to sword styles resembling American and European swords of the same period. The kyū guntō swords, used from 1875-1934, had things such as the D-guard (wraparound hand guard) and chrome plated scabbards. They could also include more luxurious additions such as silverworking and jade, and it wasn’t limited to just this.\n\n\nIn the early 1930’s, nationalism began to strongly increase both within the military and even the general population. This led to the introduction of the shin guntō (新軍刀) for the military in 1935 to satisfy the wanting of stronger identification and pride in Japan and it’s culture. Nearly all of these swords were produced by the Toyokawa Naval Arsenal from 1935 to 1945. These swords, in order to identify with traditional Japanese roots, were modeled after the slung tachi. The slung tachi saw use during the Kamakura Period from 1185 to 1332. Additionally, the Kaiguntō (海軍刀), the Type 94, Type 95, and Type 98 swords were produced between 1934-1945. All of these swords shared the same idea as the shin guntō, to relate back to traditional Japanese swords. \n\n\nTL;DR- From 1868-1912 Japan began to westernize and adopted western culture and ideas. This led to use of the kyū guntō which was styled after American and European swords. But as nationalism increased within Japan, the shin guntō was implemented. This is due to wanting to relate back to Japanese culture and to more satisfy nationalism. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cr4ufey", "cr59xai", "cr5dbxj" ], "score": [ 5, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "I hope the question makes sense. I was just looking at a map of the US and noticed that the West Coast states seemed so much larger than East Coast states and it got me wondering.", "There may be several factors on a case by case basis, but one seems very important to your question. (Though I will gladly defer to someone with a specialty to this era if they chime in)\n\nStates formed after the invention of the railroad would have been much easier to govern across wipe open spaces. California and Texas are unusually large a populous because they were both independent nations when they entered the union.\n\nInterestingly, Texas had the option of splitting up into up to 5 new states, which would have been theoretically easier to govern, though by 1850 the railroad system of the U.S. was already connecting cities as far away as Boston and St. Louis making the challenge of governing large states, and by default our large nation much less challenging.", "One reason that the first states are so small is the original settlement of our nation. The original 13 states strongly mimic the original colonies. Given that this was found to be easier to govern for the time. Also, the Spanish colonies were to the south (TX, CA, NM and after the Treaty of Paris, LA, AR, OK, MO, KS, NE, IA, MN, ND, SD, WY, MO, CO, and ID), the Dutch colonies to the northeast (in CT, RI, MA, NH) and the French colonies (after 1800, LA, AR, OK, MO, KS, NE, IA, MN, ND, SD, WY, MO, CO, and ID). In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase took place and America bought this land from Napoleon. However, the purchase failed to define boundaries of individual territories. \n\nThere were several reasons why western states are larger than eastern states. One is that in the northeast, there are many more geographical boundaries (rivers, mountains). As irashandle mentioned, since there were very few settlers migrating west, mapping smaller territories would mean more government bodies. There, quite frankly, was not enough manpower to satisfy these demands. Another factor was water access. Since there are fewer water sources in the west, many states shared access to the same rivers and lakes. But also as irashandle mentions, when railroads were established, some state lines were redefined because of this. \n\nIn many of the western states, we still see geographical significance in their formation. Henry Gannett is known to be a geographical pioneer and in many of his papers, he describes the importance of each state's formation. I think the one that best describes the formation of each individual territory is [*Boundaries of the United States and of the Several States and Territories.*](_URL_0_) In this, we see that geographical markers still played a large role in the formation of all states, including the western states. \n\nEconomic sources also played a role. Utah was originally the state of Deseret (a Mormon territory) but when silver was discovered to the west, it was cut in half to form Nevada and when gold was discovered to the east, it was cut even further to form Colorado. California drew its own line, cutting into Nevada to keep all the gold that they could from the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Another instance is the Idaho Territory which was once much larger than it is now. Montana took a large plot of land west of the Continental Divide to acquire more goldmines. \n\nThe Carolina Territory was also once much larger. Originally, it stretched across the country from coast to coast. It is largely [assumed](_URL_3_) that the territory was split in 1710, the territory was split in two with North Carolina being governed by Edward Hyde. However, further [research](_URL_1_) shows that Hyde likely came into office in 1711 as he was in Virginia in 1710 and pops up in North Carolina in 1711. So I would say it occurred in 1711 or 1712. Many also argue that the split resulted from the Yamasee War of the early 1700's however, this war [most likely](_URL_2_) began in 1715. The last theory (the one I lean towards) is that since the two major ports [Charles Town(Charleston) and Albermarle Sound) were roughly 300 miles apart, the cultures were vastly different (the south was mostly wealthy English inhabitants and the north was mostly populated by Quakers along with harsh tobacco farmers) and the official split probably resulted because of this difference.\n\nI am more versed in early settlement (colonial), but this is what I have learned through personal research. Each territory/state has its own unique story and I'm sure there will be others who will have far more knowledge than I on the subject. In any case, I hope this helps. " ] }

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[ [], [], [ "https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=wkAWAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en", "http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/wayne/heritage/proprietors.txt", "http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Yamasee_War.html?id=E-IiOoGJHoYC", "http://books.google.com/books/about/Celebrating_Thomas_Chippendale_250_Years.html?id=hB4ywU7G9eAC" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c89zweb" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Though it's easy to assume that names for events are applied retrospectively by historians (which certainly does happen in certain circumstances), it's worth remembering that any event of significance tends to get referred to by contemporaries through a shortened reference. \n\nAs an example from my own area - if we consider the alleged plot against Charles II that emerged around the late 1670s (a supposed Catholic conspiracy to murder the king), by later 1678 it was being widely referred to as 'the Popish Plot'. You see it appearing in scribal newsletters; in the diaries of folks like Narcissus Luttrell and Roger Morrice. It's not a collective decision to name the event, but rather - a popular and rational method of instant recognition, no doubt spread through word of mouth, as much as anything." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "eg5wa7z" ], "score": [ 56 ], "text": [ "Very briefly:\n\n* Intermediate range missiles have very short flight times. This makes them ideal for \"decapitation\" attacks if they can be based near a capital: if your time to arrival is, say, 5 minutes, then your time to respond is measured as even less than that. Can you get your leadership to a safe place, much less send out a retaliatory order, in that amount of time? Maybe not, esp. if your leaders are old or sick or drunk (an issue with three of the Soviet leaders in succession: Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko). This threat made the USSR very uncomfortable, because the US was basing weapons in Western Europe that could potentially threaten Moscow with only a minute or two of warning time. This in turn made the USSR adopt potentially dangerous, \"hair-trigger\" and \"fail-deadly\" policies (like the infamous \"Dead Hand\" system, which allowed a nuclear response order to be more or less automatic) that were meant to allow them to guarantee retaliation in a crisis, and that could easily lead to misunderstanding and accidental nuclear war (see: the Stanislav Petrov incident). So they were perceive as particularly destabilizing by the Soviets, and the habit of the US to put IRBMs into NATO allies near Soviet borders had long incurred Soviet ire (see: the Jupiters that Eisenhower agreed to put in Turkey, which were part of the provocation that led the Soviets to try to put IRBMs in Cuba, to disastrous effect). The deployment of fast, highly-accurate Pershing IIs to Europe in 1983 in particular made the Soviets very uncomfortable. So this was a class of weapons the Soviets would be _very_ happy to not have to deal with, and the US had begun to appreciate how destabilizing and dangerous they might be.\n\n* From the US/NATO perspective, banning intermediate-range weapons would also put the Soviets at a disadvantage with regards to Western Europe, since the bulk of the Soviet rocket forces fell into this category an the Soviets removed far more systems than the US/NATO did. So it is sort of win-win: Soviets lost a clear decapitation threat, Western Europe lost a major existential threat. Ultimately the Soviets removed more systems, but got more strategic stability as a consequence. A true \"deal,\" one might say. This is not to say it was not controversial; the NATO powers in particular were not entirely thrilled with it.\n\n* Separately, intermediate forces can be \"use it or lose it\" weapons (they are going to be hit first in a conflict, both because of their range and because of their relative fragility compared to an ICBM), which also encourages early use. (And if you want to ask, \"how do you target mobile intermediate weapons?\" — the US approach was, \"nuke the entire forest they might be in,\" which leads to rather ghastly targeting consequences.)\n\n* The INF was never intended (and was not) to be the final arms control treaty. But it was one that could be readily negotiated by both sides as a short of good faith. Longer-range forces do not pose the same \"time-compression\" effects as intermediate range forces. Very short-range forces (e.g. tactical weapons) lack the decapitation potential, and the US/NATO was, at the time, heavily dependent on them for deterring a large conventional attack from the Warsaw Pact (in the post-Cold War, this threat dissipated, and US/NATO decommissioned most of its tactical weapons; today, Russia is heavily reliant on tactical weapons to oppose the conventional threat posed by the US, which is an interesting inversion). Submarine-based weapons _do_ have decapitation issues, but were so relied upon by both sides as guaranteed \"second-strike\" weapons that there was really no hope of negotiating them away. One could imagine negotiating away ICBMs (they are arguably unnecessary if you have SLBMs, and cause many strategic problems as they are \"use it or lose it\" weapons); it has been proposed many times but never implemented for various diplomatic and strategic reasons. \n\n* INF was one of several arms control treaties and should not be viewed in isolation. It represented a major step forward in being able to remove an entire class of weapons. Other treaties targeted specific numbers of warhead, like SALT and START. INF was not meant to resolve all possible nuclear issues (and some of the modern-day objections, like \"but it didn't include China,\" are kind of non-sequiturs — it was a bilateral treaty, these things exist). " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d0ocjlh" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "I am sorry to have to break this to your teacher and you, but most historian do not believe Adolf Hitler had a Jewish grandparent. To say so is utter nonsense and something he or she likely heard on the history channel. This was propaganda spread around due to his mother's out-of-wedlock child and naturally because nothing would be more hypocrital *if* it were true.\n\n* *Adolf Hitler: A Definitive Biography* John Toland\n* *Hitler: A Biography* Ian Kershaw" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dnygavy" ], "score": [ 14 ], "text": [ "An interesting question! It's true that no machinery of state coincided with the existence of a complicated legal system. In early medieval Ireland, kings had no recourse to police services, standing armies, established bureaucracies or forms of institutional taxation that we might associate with state societies. In contrast to a contemporary statesman who is legitimized and shored up by the innumerable apparatuses of the modern state, the Irish king drew his power and legitimacy from two sources: his ritualistic role as a sort of \"priest-king\" whose primary duty was to uphold the metaphysical well being of his kingdom and his personal power and influence, which was drawn from the same system of clientship and patronage I've described in your previous post.\n\nEarly Irish kingship was a pretty spiritual and cultish position that seems derived from pre-historic and obviously pre-Christian religious and political practices. Legal sources such as the Lebor na Cert and literary texts like the Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel depict a crucial element of kingship which betrays the office's religious origins; Irish kings were expected to abide by *buada* and *geassa* - taboos and prerogatives that kings were expected to uphold lest they break them and bring destruction and death upon themselves and their territories. These taboos depended on the title but could prevent them from allowing strife in their household, travelling clockwise around their fortress 3 times, maintaining fleets on a specific lake and so on. This is compounded by the legal expectation for a king to maintain a physically unblemished body (though there are no historical examples of kings being stripped of their office due to injury) and a cultural conception that the rule of a good king will usher in prosperity in crops, wild game, cattle and good weather, while the reign of a bad or wicked king will bring about illness, plague, unsuitable weather, poor harvests and death. \n\nRelated to this concept of a king as an embodiment of everything that's good with with kingdom is his legally ascribed role as judgement giver. Irish court procedure is basically unknown but we do know that kings were supposed to give righteous judgements in certain court cases, which actually one of the only \"state-like\" things that they were allowed to do. Kings who made bad judgements could bring about the same sorts of supernatural retribution. It's quite possible that in pre-historic times Irish kings were simply a symbolic and purely priestly figures whose sole duty was to uphold the metaphysical wellbeing of their territory. And I do mean THEIR territory literally - Irish kings are recorded to have symbolically married a female personification of their territory upon coronation at an obviously pre-Christian ritual that apparently featured animal sacrifice.\n\nSo this is where the second part of the equation comes into the mix: why exactly did kings stop becoming a purely ritualistic and ceremonial figure with no executive power (which is attested in legal texts but does not exactly correspond with the actions of kings in historical documents) to the warring regional warlords that we all know and love? It seems that this process began sometime around the fall of the Roman Empire as Irish lords enriched themselves by raiding the former province of Britain, and freed themselves from manual labour with the help of slave labour captured there. Then they were free to establish themselves and their households as mobile warrior-aristocrats who then hemmed in the lower classes into subservient client roles (which I've described in the other post) meant to sustain the aristocracy with food and labour. \n\nThis new aristocratic development of social relations became extended into the political sphere; kings were not merely just kings of their individual territory or *tuath* (sometimes poorly translated as \"tribe\"), but developed complicated patterns of overlordship between these individual territories. One king became lord and patron of a few of his neighbouring kings, but might then have been subdued by another more powerful king who we might identify as a provincial king (in reference to Ireland's 5 historic provinces). Such a king might have dozens of kings subservient to him as clients in a complicated web of personal relations. These relations were personal rather than institutional because a provincial king earned the subservience of less powerful regional kings through actual personal contracts, not because the king of so and so was legally subordinate to the provincial king of such and such (like how the Duke of Normandy was de jure subordinate to the King of France, I suppose).\n\nSo how did Irish kings rule despite existing in a more or less stateless society? Because they served a ritualistic and priestly role that had over time been overridden by a new kind of social, economic and political system: that of aristocratic clientship and patronage. Irish kings \"ruled\" despite not having a state because they drew upon their own personal relationships, which were really just and extension of the same kinds of relationships of power that existed on every level of society, and because the historical origin of their office enabled them to do so." ] }

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[ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/74exr8/how_did_the_early_medieval_irish_economy_work/dny1c8l/" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "cc5ah7o" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "This is a question that needs definition. What exactly do you mean by globalization? Is just movement of people, goods, and ideas? Is it important economic connections between all regions of the world? Is it thinking primarily in global rather than local terms? Until you define what you mean, the question is impossible to answer." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c6djfh8", "c6dk0zs", "c6dkzba", "c6dm80j", "c6dmtnr", "c6dq7jw" ], "score": [ 13, 4, 5, 4, 2, 6 ], "text": [ "This is a marvelous opportunity -- even for non-American redditors, who are absolutely welcome to enter -- and I encourage everyone here to get involved! I know I'll be sending in a question or two of my own...", "Is there a recommended character limit?", "So is the trivia over only campgaign history or can it be over general political history as well?", "Just sent the trivia list I used at a College Dems party. \n\nHere's a challenge I had at the end which I think you all might find amusing and, since it's not really a trivia question, should be able to be posted here: \n\nConnect F. Scott Fitzgerald to Joseph Stalin with five or fewer people. \n\nAnd...GO", "Ohhhh how fun!", "Thanks, /r/askhistorians! We're all really excited about this. We'll be doing the pub quizes live in [Denver](_URL_0_) and Danville the night of the debates, but we also will try to distribute it to any other groups that are hosting debate watching events (haven't figured out the logistics on that yet). We'll leave it to the wise and erudite /r/askhistorians mods to determine how to share the final quiz Q & As with the community after the events. \n\nIf any of you are in Denver or Danville, would love to buy you a beer. There's even the possibility some elected officials will be stopping by." ] }

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[ [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/Denver/comments/10h0y6/internet2012_presidential_pub_quiz_debate/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7zml1z" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Colonial America/the American Revolution has, at least in the Northeastern US, more museums than any other field of art or history. The academic quality of these museums will vary greatly, depending on a wide number of factors. One of these is the age of the staff - younger museum types, in my experience, tend to at least have some training in museum practice and public history theory. Old holdovers from the BiCi years or the bluehairs that run a great many historical societies... not so much. As such, a lot of historic house museums (where local historical societies are often based) can perpetuate a lot of the old myths that have been circulating around the field for years (such as \"sleep tight\" coming from the need to tighten the net mattresses rested on in most 18th century beds).\n\nIt my experience, most places could benefit from a closer relationship with the academy. I've seldom seen academics consulted on new exhibits or programs, and most places will maybe have a guest lecturer once or twice a year. It isn't a good idea to let academics completely run the show (they tend towards the stagnant and the verbose), but I did my thesis on ways to find a happy medium between the two." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c9bcryq" ], "score": [ 52 ], "text": [ "You have to understand the 3 primary missions of the Soviet Navy. It was not a global force of projection like the US Navy. Though some Soviet Admirals, such as Chernavin, wanted it to be but as the lowest-prioritized service of the Soviet Armed Forces, funding for such a project was unavailable.\n\nSo instead of a power-projecting fleet focused around Aircraft Carriers like the US, the Soviet Navy was primary a counter-acting force. Its three primary missions during the Cold War were:\n\n1.) Anti-Submarine Warfare. This was probably the central focus of the Soviet Navy. They operated numerous classes of large ASW-focused ships during the war, and their initial aircraft carriers (the Kiev and Moska classes) were based around ASW operations. The Soviets greatly feared (correctly so) US Navy Ballistic Missile Submarines (SSBN's), as these boats had the ability to nuke the USSR into oblivion and do so while remaining relatively invisible (at least in the later stages of the Cold War). ASW is at its most effective when other submarines are at the forefront, and the Soviets built large fleets of hunter-killers to track down and destroy American SSBN's, particularly in the Arctic.\n\n2.) Strategic missions. Like the US, the Soviets also had a large fleet of SSBN's as they recognized the strategic advantage (near total immunity from losing nuclear counter-strike capabilities in an enemy first-strike scenario). The Soviets constantly sought nuclear superiority over the US in land, air, and sea-based platforms. They finally achieved parity on land and at sea in the late 70's and even achieved superiority in these same areas by the mid-80's, so they built up very large numbers of missile submarines that greatly surpassed those operated by the US Navy (about a 2-1 advantage by 1991), though this number included older models (The Golf, Hotel, and Yankee classes) that weren't as effective as designs in American use during this time.\n\n3.) Anti-Carrier. The Soviet Navy operated a large fleet of medium-bombers (Tu-16's & Tu-22's, later Tu-22M's) intended to launch nuclear-tipped cruise missiles (such as the Kh-22) at US Navy Carrier Battlegroups in the event of war. This was viewed as the best way to destroy what would be a major threat off the USSR's coastlines. Now this is the only major mission that didn't require submarines, but it should also be noted that the Soviet Navy was also extremely focused on bomber aircraft and aerial-launched cruise missiles.\n\nSubmarines and anti-ship missiles were at the forefront of these three missions, which is why Soviet naval R & D tended to focus on these areas more then the US, and why Soviet designs in these areas were consistently high-quality.\n\nAnother role that became more prominent as the Cold War dragged on was intercepting American supply convoys that would have left the US for Europe during a war (Operation Reforger), and the Soviets felt that like the Germans in the Battle of the Atlantic, this kind of supply disruption operation would have best been served by submarines, though in the Soviets case, nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines oeprating large amounts of anti-ship missiles were the weapons of choice. However the Soviet Army planned to win a war in Western Europe before Operation Reforger could have been put into action on a large-scale, so the necessity of this submarine campaign counteracts Soviet military doctrine a bit.\n\nBesides this, the Soviets also had a looser mission of maintaining local superiority in their primary areas of operation (the Arctic, Baltic, Black, and Northern Pacific seas) and direct coastal defense overseen by fleets of swift missile boats and corvettes. However the submarine was the \"capital ship\" of the Soviet Navy, as it was most closely associated with their primary missions.\n\nI advise the Naval Institutes Guide to the Soviet Navy, 1991 edition. It provides good insight into Soviet naval missions, doctrine, control, equipment, and so on." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e92khtb" ], "score": [ 939 ], "text": [ "The major factor is going to be social class, of course. I have an [earlier answer](_URL_0_) that considers primarily the case of late medieval English peasants, if you're interested!\n\n\"Peasant\" is an incredibly expansive term, encompassing everything from beggar to a family with a solid stone house and some servants. If you'll allow for a generous definition of the high Middle Ages, the English Subsidy of 1332 (tax & c law) and records of its implementation can offer a pretty good look at the minimal standards. I'm fudging a little because 14th century is generally agreed upon as the late MA, but it's still pre-Black Death and juuuust barely pre-Hundred Years War, so.\n\nThe Subsidy of 1332 was a tax on material goods (not property) imposed in London. This is useful for considering peasants because medieval cities were population sinks; they maintained and grew via immigration, and in fact (as we will see), actively worked to recruit immigrant workers (including petty laborers/servants). A lot of the people being taxed, especially outside the established artisans, had started off life as rural.\n\nThe Subsidy allows households (presuming a married couple) a certain amount of items tax-free. They are:\n\n* One dress/outfit for the woman and one for the man\n* One shared bed\n* \"A ring and a chain of gold or silver\" (wedding gifts, maybe?)\n* \"A girdle of silk that they use every day\" (~~I presume undergarments~~ a belt, per /u/chocolatepot ~~below~~ in the earlier thread)\n* One shared drinking cup\n\nImmigrants coming into London, moreover, were allowed to bring in the amount of clothing that they could fit into a backpack without paying customs on it.\n\nThis is all nice and prescriptive. Actual records of tax collection and duty collection on immigrants, however, show that about 50% of Londoners failed to meet the *minimum standard* for taxation. \n\nSo the urban poor, many of whom had started as the rural poor, were definitely dependent on their current outfit holding together, and on charity in the case it didn't.\n\nAnd, in one of my favorite medieval history tidbits for reasons that I will explain, we know clothing could very well be charity in the Middle Ages. In addition to the healthy market in secondhand clothing (really, medieval thrift shopping!), rich people often used 'free' donations of clothing as an incentive for poor people to attend their funerals (that is, to get more prayers for their soul, in theory). The reason this is so awesome to me is the modern movie stereotype of the \"colorless Middle Ages\" where everything is [brown, gray, brown, gray, brown.](_URL_1_) Well, when we look at actual wills with funeral provisions, there are examples of people who say, \"And money to purchase solid, well-constructed garments for the poor in the funeral procession, as long as they are gray.\"\n\nI've talked about the lowest (but substantial) segments of society here. The 14th century *also* witnesses what some scholars have called the 'rise of fashion,' that is, the purposeful *transformation* of clothing into new and innovative shapes and decoration for social and/or artistic purposes. This is the period that sees the earliest \"sumptuary laws,\" that is, laws designed to regulate who can own *and wear* what based on their social status. Sometimes the reasons for this are related to trade and protectionism (can't have too many people buying fancy expensive imported fabric), but they are equally designed to be markers of social status. While a lot of early sumptuary laws in particular targeted different degrees of royalty/nobility, their invention and spread suggests that among the middle classes of society as well (which would include better-off peasants), wardrobes were increasing in size, variety, and social sensibility.\n\nMiddle- and upper-class women are often recorded as leaving dresses to their family and friends in their wills, in the late Middle Ages, but that is probably representative of someone's nicest dress instead of a wardrobe inventory." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5m6ypu/do_we_have_any_idea_how_many_changes_of_clothes/dc1rvfl/", "http://www.thehunchblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/d-cg-crowd-3.png" ] ]