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{ "a_id": [ "eeanojo" ], "score": [ 225 ], "text": [ "Some Australian units were issued with M1 steel helmets, both US and Australian made during the Vietnam war. Units known as ‘Mini Teams’, which were a type of small counter mine unit, were issued with M1 steel helmets and US Flak jackets. Mostly the Australian Infantry wore the British Pattern Bush Hat or’ Giggle-Hat’, later replaced by the Australian made type. This was part of the military uniform of the Australian Army and was to be worn at all times on operations and was not to be altered. The Australians wore the Giggle Hat as it was light, kept the sun and heat off in the humid conditions, and made for a ‘soldierly appearance’. The weight and bulk of the M1 Steel helmet limited its value to Australian soldiers on operations due to the nature of the Australian way of conducting war. The US style was considered loud, noisy and reliant on tactical mobility and fire support. In contrast the Australian method was to disperse over a wider area and patrol silently and cautiously. The Americans were conducting a conventional ‘big war’ and the Australians were conducting counter-insurgency, patrol war. The Australian army was not reliant on the same tactical mobility used by the Americans, and reducing the ‘soldiers load’ was a priority. Extra weight reduced the soldier’s mobility, energy and reaction time. The Australian report ‘Infantry Battle Lesson from Vietnam’ notes: “Carrying a heavy load used energy that should have been available for fighting.” This is an effect of the type of ‘patrol war’ the Australians were engaged in. The steel helmet in this case, had more drawbacks than positives. It offered protection only from shell splinters and blast waves, but added considerable weight, bulk and heat, reducing the solders combat effectiveness in the particular type of war the Australians were undertaking. \nThe Australians had considerable experience in counter insurgency and jungle combat in Malaya and Borneo in the 1950’s, and developed tactics based on two basic infantry principals, patrol and ambush. Working with the Americans, who at the time were using large scale airborne assaults, the previous learnings were going unused. Frustrated with this, the Australians sought independence from the US operations and took over the Tactical Area of Operational Responsibility in Phouc Tuy province in 1966. Here the Australian tactics and experience were more successful. Other units and forces that also did not consistently wear helmets these included: The NVA, The VC, the SASR, LRRP, SEAL teams and MACV SOG. These are all units where reducing the soldiers load was critical, due to the nature of their operational approach. As a result, some Australian units would wear a coloured tape in their bush hats, to differentiate them from enemy units. \nYou can read a previous answer of mine [here](_URL_0_) about why the NVA did not widely adopt a steel helmet during the war. \n\nSources:\n \nAustralian Army Training Information Bulletin Number 69, Infantry\nBattalion Lessons from Vietnam, 1965-71 (pub. 1988).\n\n\nVietnam Anzacs by Kevin Lyles. \n\n\nHistorical Documentation of the Infantry Helmet Research and Development by Charles Houff and Joseph Delaney. \n" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a95p4l/why_did_the_nva_use_pith_helmets_during_the/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ciw0yq2" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I am removing this question as it is in violation of [our 20-year rule](_URL_0_)." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_no_current_events" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cpknvco" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "You may be interested in this past question: [Did real medieval cities have guards like in video games and fantasy fiction?](_URL_0_)\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1m8cvl/did_real_medieval_cities_have_guards_like_in/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6s1i5o", "c6s4eko" ], "score": [ 6, 2 ], "text": [ "turnout is always affected by weather - i.e. bad weather means only the determined vote", "Harrison gave his inauguration speech in the rain, got sick, and died in a few weeks. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dwc5oyz" ], "score": [ 64 ], "text": [ "Okay, so there are a couple of things going on here; I'll try my best to answer them all. \n\nFirst of all, there is no such thing as an \"original\" version of a fairy tale, unless it's a literary fairy tale with definite origins (such as Hans Christian Andersen's tales, which were written by him). There are only popular versions of tales; every variant of a tale is just as valid as any other. The French Cinderella written by Perrault and the German Cinderella (or 'Aschenputtel') written by the Brothers Grimm are very similar but have distinct differences; this doesn't make either of them \"more valid\" or \"more original\" than the other, as fairy tales and folklore have a very complex and complicated relationship with history and the historical record. We can talk about \"earlier versions\" and \"later versions\", but any and all recorded versions of a tale are equally as valid, \"original,\" and useful for the purposes of talking about fairy tales. Funnily enough, this includes the Disney versions of tales as well; Walt Disney and the Disney company are simply continuing the long and glorious tradition of changing aspects of a tale to fit the intended audience. \n\nSecond of all, many of the Disney movies in question are not actually adaptations of the Brothers Grimm version of the tales. Cinderella, for example, is based on the Perrault version rather than the Grimm's version, which is why there is a fairy godmother instead of the spirit of Cinderella's mother, a pumpkin carriage, and the stepsisters don't chop their heels off or get their eyes pecked out. Put very simply, it's because the Disney version wasn't adapting the Grimms tale. There was nothing to sanitize or change in that instance because they used a variant of a tale (the much more popular one, to be fair) that simply didn't need to be sanitized. They also leave a *ton* of so-called \"dark\" material in: Frollo in Hunchback of Notre Dame, for example, or the Evil Queen in Snow White. That's because traditionally Disney bills its animated movies as \"family\" movies rather than \"kids\" movies; there's something in the movies for every age group to enjoy.\n\nSimilarly with tales like \"Sleeping Beauty,\" Basile’s \"Sun, Moon, and Talia\" bears little resemblance to Perrault’s \"Sleeping Beauty\" (which is what the Disney movie was based on) and even lesser resemblance to the Grimms' story \"Little Briar Rose\" besides a girl whose apparent death is caused by a spinning wheel. The rape of the maiden has not occurred in the Sleeping Beauty narrative since the early 1600s, excluding some other Italian versions (all of which stick very closely to Basile’s tale). This is like people trying to say that Red Riding Hood’s cape represents her virginity; they're simply reading way too much into it (Perrault invented the red cape, by the way. The girl didn’t have a red hood before then). Trying to say that Disney’s version is based on a rape story ignores that Disney adapted the Perrault tale, not the Basile tale, which are two completely separate stories with similar themes and events.\n\nFor tales that *are* changed in the adaptation from tale to Disney film (such as The Snow Queen/Frozen, Rapunzel/Tangled, or The Little Mermaid), it is usually for two reasons: first, practical plot purposes. In the case of Frozen, for example, Disney had literally been trying to make an adaptation of \"The Snow Queen\" since **the 40s**. They had spent nearly 70 years working on it on-and-off and never really getting anywhere with it. It wasn't until they changed the Snow Queen figure to be the sister of the \"Gerda\" figure that things slid into place for the writers' room. The second reason is, indeed, to sanitize the storyline to make it palatable for American parents taking their young children to the movies (Rapunzel/Tangled) or change a story's sad ending to a happy one (The Little Mermaid); in neither case does this undermine the function the stories were accomplishing, because the purpose and meaning of fairy tales is fluid. \n\nThe purpose or \"point\" of a tale varies from culture to culture depending on what aspects of the tale the tellers choose to emphasize. Red Riding Hood and the Grandmother simply die in Perrault's version, while they ultimately survive in the Grimms' version of the tale; Perrault emphasizes the gullibility and stranger danger aspects of the tale (Perrault chooses to interpret the tale with the explicitly stated moral of \"little girls should be wary of men,\" noting that \"There are also those [wolves] who are charming, quiet, polite, unassuming, complacent, and sweet, who pursue young women at home and in the streets. And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous ones of all\") while the Brothers Grimm version emphasizes the loss of childhood and passage into adulthood. There’s a lot of versions where the girl dies and a lot of them where she lives; it kind of depends on where the stories are from and what point the society it came from is trying to impart to people. The purpose and meaning of a particular tale varies depending on the author/teller/collector, what they're trying to achieve with the tale, and who their audience is. Perrault was writing for the French aristocracy; the Brothers Grimm were (supposedly) attempting to collect the folklore of the peasantry for scholastic purposes.\n\nThe Disney movies are simply telling the same basic story with a slightly different point; it makes no real difference whether the point the Disney movies make is the same one the tales they adapt make as long as the basics are preserved (Cinderella is ultimately about surviving abuse at the hands of her family and thriving in spite of it, the wish-fulfillment story of a million abuse survivors; as long as the story preserves that basic point, the details are irrelevant). This is indicative of the very nature of fairy tales (ie, that they are never told the same way twice). As I stated before, every version of a tale (whether written or oral) is as legitimate as the other, regardless of embellishment or changes of the text. There is no “true tale\" or \"true meaning\" of a fairy tale because there are so many different versions, even within a confined area. This actually leads to an interesting sidenote: the Brothers Grimm versions of the tales are themselves sanitized. There were seven editions of the Brothers Grimm tales published in Wilhelm's lifetime and each one contained greater revisions than the last." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "de9zkta" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "The Egyptians did remove the brain. The difference between the brain and the other major organs is that the brain was not preserved in a canopic jar as the liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines were. Instead the brain was liquefied via a crook and allowed to drain out through the nasal socket. This is due to the fact that the Egyptians believed that the heart was the seat of thinking and knowledge, not the brain. I would imagine that the difficulty in removing the brain intact could have influenced the opinion of the organ, but that veers into speculation. Either way, by the time the mummification process was well established, the brain was seen as superfluous.\n\nIf you want to do more reading on the subject of mummies and mummification, I highly recommend Dr. Bob Brier's book, [Egyptian Mummies: Unraveling the Secrets of an Ancient Art](_URL_0_), which not only gives an interesting historical account of the study of mummies, but also tells the story of Dr. Brier himself conducting a mummification based on what we know about the process. He makes some mistakes (usually because he didn't follow the instructions exactly), but the learning value even in mistakes is very much worthwhile." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.worldcat.org/title/egyptian-mummies-unraveling-the-secrets-of-an-ancient-art/oclc/46334148&referer=brief_results" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d0zzi0e" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "The last time that happened was when Estes Kefauver won 13 of the 16 Democratic party primaries in 1952. 32 states, including the large states of Michigan and New York, did not hold primaries in 1952. The delegates for the national party convention in those states were chosen by State Democratic party conventions, before the national Democratic party convention. \n Estes Kefauver made a name for himself in the early 1950s, by chairing the Senate Committee on graft and corruption. He also investigated Mafia influence in the politics of big cities in the United States. These investigations hit to close to home for the power brokers in the Democratic party. They flat out refused to support Estes Kefauver and chose to support Adlai Stevenson, who was also backed by Harry Truman. Alben Barkley was Truman's vice-president, but he was 74 years old in 1952 and did not choose to run for the Democratic party nomination. \nSource: \"Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy\" by Porter McKeever (1989)" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cbbxga6" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "What you're thinking of is Republicanism. The monarchy is very secure right now, mainly because the Windsors' power is mainly ceremonial. Since the French Revolution, the royal family hasn't been in serious danger of being overthrown as the Bourbons were.\n\nHowever the 17th century saw a short-lived Republic under Oliver Cromwell. Read up on the English Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ccji4pp", "ccjis3k", "ccjmnnu" ], "score": [ 104, 23, 2 ], "text": [ "Because in the latter days of colonialism it was about opening markets, about selling their goods, not just natural resources. \n\nDeveloped nations were the only ones with factories belching out cheap products, they wanted people to sell it to. \n\nAnd even back then Japan would be able to produce some kind of trade surplus, even if only in food. They had also been trading with the Dutch and Portuguese for quite a while and so weren't totally backwards. ", "One of the more practical reasons is that there was a need for some sort of supply/repair point between the United States and China as well as more friendly ports in case of shipwreck. After the [Treaty of Nanking/Nanjing (1842)](_URL_1_), British trade with China increased dramatically and the Americans had a treaty in 1844 with China for trade. This meant lots of commerce ships going back and forth as well as whaling activities and the like. This was the purpose of the first real, formal treaty between the US and Japan, the Convention of Kanagawa, which achieved those goals (allowing certain Japanese ports to open for supply of whaling ships as well as amnesty to shipwrecked sailors) and was signed by Perry himself.\n\n\nAs for the latter, more expansive trade treaties put forward by Townsend Harris in the late 1850s, you have to put the United States and its industrial developmental into context. While the U.S. had yet to have the \"second\" industrial revolution that occurred after the Civil War, there were still the beginnings of socio-economic shifts and production changes mostly with regards to textiles. The UK really pioneered the industry with the [Spinning Jenny](_URL_0_), [Spinning Mule](_URL_2_), and most importantly the \"power loom\";they were able to manufacture textiles much more efficiently and cheaper than traditional artisanal methods. Eventually, the UK knowledge and technology found its way into the US (some, thanks to the help of [Slater](_URL_3_)) and mill systems throughout the US grew. Unfortunately, there were quite a few trade battles with the UK, since for a long time UK prices were still cheaper than domestic US prices. So, the U.S. was seeking any trade partner it could to get products into the markets and encourage growth.", "The age of steam powered ships was just beginning and the United States had to cross the pacific ocean to trade with Asia. The US wanted to beat the Russians and other European powers in getting a trade agreement with Japan. The Dutch had gotten permission to trade a number of years earlier but they couldn't set foot in Japan, just on a small island off the coast. The main reason though for getting this trade agreement was not mainly for resources from Japan but as a coaling facility for US steamships who would replenish their supplies there along the trade route. Without this coaling facility it would take considerably longer to cross once the steamships ran out of coal and were forced to hoist sails. \n" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Spinning_Jenny_improved_203_Marsden.png", "http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/20276/pages/3597/page.pdf", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Baines_1835-Mule_Jenny.png", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7uvr6y", "c7uwxno" ], "score": [ 4, 3 ], "text": [ "I'll defer to someone with a greater knowledge of Roman Naval activities than I, but from what little I do know I am aware that a crude system of code was in place, and flashed from ship to ship using reflective pieces of metal. Flags (perhaps like semaphore) could also have been a highly plausible way. \n\nOften the military command would be stationed on land or a ship outside of the battle and would be relayed orders by these mirror codes, and then models would be moved on a board to simulate the battle lines. How effectively this could've been conveyed is unknown to me, however.", "This is actually a really interesting question that I'd like to see a real answer for. That said, I do know that on land generals gave orders with flags and horns, and as you know from the podcast talking about the corvus [_URL_0_ properly linking is breaking the link], Romans always wanted to turn naval battles into land battles on the sea, I would *assume* that they implemented those techniques as well. \n\n" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_(boarding_device)" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "do4n2rt" ], "score": [ 15 ], "text": [ "The act of unauthorized fleeing over the border- *Republikflucht*- was a crime under GDR law. This meant that there was a serious investigation into the perpetrator and his social connections whether it was successful or not. This put the families of those who fled under the lens of state security and other organs of the dictatorship. But this experience could be somewhat variable depending on circumstances and the wider geopolitical context. \n\nThe SED tacked to a more punitive approach towards *Republikflucht* in the late 1940s and 1950s. Individuals who fled could find their property in the GDR confiscated and their remaining families forcibly relocated into a different part of the country. This punitive approach remained a weapon in the state's arsenal against *Republikflucht*, but the 1953 revolt marked a more pragmatic shift in the state's approach to this problem. Families were definitely investigated in the aftermath of an escape attempt and those who aided could be prosecuted. Moreover, a family *Republikflucht* also meant a black mark for family members' careers and future prospects. But the SED authorities also recognized that making martyrs out of these families could be counterproductive for the larger cause of staunching *Republikflucht*. Existing family networks were a substantial \"pull\" factor for those East Germans who fled and wished to return. Although this was a small percentage of the total number who fled, returnees were valuable propaganda capital for the dictatorship. One of the subthemes of DEFA films and some popular literature was the idea that naive East Germans were lured by the West's promises of glitz and glamor only to return to their respectable lives in the GDR once they realized the FRG's prosperity was not all it was cracked up to be. The SED also did not blanch from exploiting the image of families torn apart by the selfish actions of individual members deciding to flee to the West. Public denunciations of family members was not unheard of and the state actively encouraged such activities and gave them a public platform.\n\nOf course, the actual state of the family in question was a very low priority for the SED and the needs of the state trumped those of the family. This was clear in how it treated those families who were killed trying to cross the Wall or inner German border. The SED obviously did not want to publicize that it had shot its own citizens, so the deaths were a secret. The corpses were under state authority and the state performed the autopsy. Family members were not allowed to see the body and only learned of the fate of their relation in fits and drabs. The corpses were then typically cremated and the families received their ashes with the instructions that the burial of the remains would only take place with only a small circle of relations. The MfS would naturally monitor such occasions as part of normal routine to determine potential subversives within such groups. Even though the Border Police and MfS maintained exhaustive investigations of crossing attempts, the official death certificates for those killed tended to be brief and obfuscate the details and often placed the onus for the death on the escapee. \n\nAs the above indicates, the experience of those killed attempting *Republikflucht* was seldom pleasant. At best, the state would use them as propaganda tool for how the West was tearing families apart. A family history of *Republikflucht* was also a red flag for the extensive security apparatus and either provided a barrier to further career advancement or a means to compromise these people into becoming IMs (the MfS's unofficial collaborators) with the threat of further punishment. Even in cases where the family in question were allowed to live out the rest of their lives after an escape attempt there seldom was a return to normalcy. \n\n*Sources*\n\nDennis, Mike. *Stasi: Myth and Reality*. London: Routledge, 2016. \n\nHertle, Hans-Hermann, and Maria Nooke. *The Victims at the Berlin Wall 1961-1989: A Biographical Handbook*. Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2011. \n\nMajor, Patrick. *Behind the Berlin Wall: East Germany and the Frontiers of Power*. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cq9ibgi", "cq9ix6c" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Ruthenia was ethnically Ukrainian. Ukraine was at the time a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, so they were joined. This was the same justification used for annexing large swaths of eastern pre-War Poland to the Belarusian and Ukrainian SSRs, as those areas were largely ethnically Ukrainian and Belarusian ", "The overarching justification was that Stalin and much of the Soviet leadership had come to the conclusion that the basis of the postwar order in Eastern Europe would be territorial-based ethnic homogeneity. This meant that a large scale population transfers, often by force, especially the remaining *Volksdeutsche* populations, in areas that the Soviets deemed vital for future national security. The underlying strategic rationale was that such homogenous populations would result in stable polities that would be reliable satellite states. The strong anti-German sentiment also reenforced this belief as Soviet held two mutually compatible views. First, the entire ethnic German population was directly complicit in the Third Reich's genocidal war against the Soviet population and thus deserved punishment. Second, pushing *Volksdeutsche* population westwards would eliminate any fascist revanchist movement. Now neither of these suppositions had too much of a basis in reality, but they were operative in the minds of Soviet policymakers.\n \nOf course, this restructuring of borders and populations would be done in a fashion that benefited Soviet power and the USSR. In the case of Carpathian Ruthenia, the Soviets' public stance was that the Rusyns were an ethnic subgroup of Ukrainians that were now being reunited with their own national state, the Ukrainian SSR. Now whether or not Rusyns are Ukrainian is a highly thorny issue predicated upon a complicated reading of linguistics and culture, but the Soviet position did not really take a very nuanced approach in their definitions of ethnicity and often projected an ethnic homogeneity onto regions that was often quite fictitious. Borderland regions are often characterized by a very plastic form of identity that does not lend itself well to the concrete definition that the Soviets applied to nationalities. This disjuncture between reality and ideology led the Soviet state to a series of harsh measures to Ukrainize the Rusyns. There was an attempt to replace the Ruthenian with Ukrainian language in the schools and the state forcibly incorporated the Ruthenian church into the Russian Orthodox church. \n\n*Sources*\n\nSnyder, Timothy. *The Reconstruction of Nations Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999*. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.\n\nWolff, Larry. *The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture*. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2010. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c3n47v2", "c3n5net", "c3n9xt1" ], "score": [ 8, 5, 11 ], "text": [ "I would also say the Crusades had a bit to do with it. Though, I am told the main issue was 'closing the doors of itjihad'. Itjihad (from the root JHD, meaning 'to strive') was a way of using reason when attempting to interpret the Hadith and Qu'ran. Since the doors are closed, they no longer attempt to interpret such writings with the Modern Age in mind, but just accept what has been decided in the past and go with that.\n\n\nCorrect me if I'm wrong, is just what I read long ago.", "I agree with Megazambam, that you have to define your question better. But i might have an answer on two aspects of the decline of the Islamic golden age. \n\nI do not really know alot about this topic, or what specifically happend in the Islamic world, but i might be able to explain about it. The Islamic golden age was for a large part based on knowlegde from the antiquity, and from their own research and thinking. You have to realise that in this proces of writing, inventing and researching, authors of days long gone by get a form of authority. To attack the ideas these authors presented, is a form of heresy. I think that this happend in the Islamic world, but it also happend in christian Europe for a long time. You can say that for some part the Islamic golden age ended because of a stiff form of conservatism.\n\nAlso, the European world expanded in the 11th and 12 centry. Many inventions made population growth, the rise of cities and the reforming of church and state possible. This expansion was based on a new economy where trade and population growth grew. Because of this new economy and population growth the European world simply managed to catch up with the Islamic world, and continued their advancement, where progress in the Islamic world stopped.\n\nIts not really a ver good explanation, but I hope it helps.", "CogitoNM has a point when they mention the shift in philosophy from Itjihad and broader research and cultural approaches to a more conservative approach based on historical precedent and relative religious conservatism, but they left out the reasons for this shift.\n\nIt is my understanding that the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols (but not Ghengis Khan), under Huleglu Khan (grandson of Ghengis) played a significant role. Mongol attacks throughout the region played a role, but it is the destruction of Baghdad, a major cultural, economic and political center, was incredibly influential. Firstly, many scholars and other intellectual leaders included to promote a pro-Itjihad viewpoint were killed. Their precious libraries, some of the best in the world and themselves a major inspiration for scholarship and scientific research, were destroyed. Survivors reported that the river Tigris ran red from the blood of the scientists and scholars and black from the ink of their texts thrown in with the bodies.\n\nAlmost everyone else was killed too. Estimates of people killed by the Mongols in Baghdad [range from 90,000 to more than one million](_URL_0_). These were people who drove the city's cultural, economic, agricultural and social power. \n\nNor did Baghdad's leader escape. He was most likely rolled in a carpet and then trampled to death by Mongol horses (the carpet was to catch the blood - Mongolians has religious and superstitious beliefs about blood touching the earth, especially royal blood. There are several accounts of loyal followers drinking the blood of various khans and other leaders to prevent their blood touching the ground). His death marked the end of the [Abbasid Caliphate](_URL_1_), the third Islamic caliphate and a major empire which oversaw and supported much of the Muslim golden age. When it ended, that support and protection ended too.\n\nAs if the simple losses caused by the fall of Baghdad and the Caliphate (and ensuing famine after the Mongol forces killed the farmers and destroyed the agricultural infrastructure) were not enough, such destruction of such a prominent and powerful empire, one which claimed to be [Allah's favored government of the Sunni community and successor to the prophet's Mohammad's leadership leadership](_URL_3_), gave rise to questions among the survivors and observers as to how such a disaster could have happened. If the Abbasid's were truly God's chosen state and Mohammad's successor on earth, if its people had Allah's support and approval, Allah would never have allowed the barbarian Mongols to come in and do such terrible things to them. So, the logic went, they must have been doing something wrong. The same line of thinking went on throughout the Moslem world. \n\nOne cannot underestimate the terror that people felt when they thought of the Mongols, and they were looking for any type of explanation and protection. As the shining star of the region, the sack of Baghdad had a particularly strong impact, but it was not the only city to suffer. For example, the [Central Asian city of Merv](_URL_2_) was a major urban center with more than a million inhabitants, and the people in that region feared equally badly. \n\nAt this time a significant change in the Weltanschauung of many people in the region started to appear. Specifically, a shift towards religious conservatism and a rejection of exploring the world and pushing boundaries as a way of going back to a way of life that Allah could approve of and therefore would protect its adherents from further horrors from the Mongols or others. This new idea, taqleed (imitation), replaced itjihad. The Crusades (religiously-justified invasions by people who were very different indeed) appear to have reenforced this rejection of the new and emphasis on preexisting norms as well. \n\nTL;DR: Mongol invaders killed many scientists and philosophers, destroyed their research, destroyed infrastructure and urban centers, and killed regional leaders, all of which had an immediate effect on the region's activity. Terror and shock caused by these destructions also encouraged a shift in general outlook from one valuing progress and innovation to one focused on adhering to strict religious and traditional requirements, a change driven by the conclusion that Allah did not approve of the previous Weltanschauung, as evidenced by His permitting the Mongols to wreck such destruction on Muslims. The Crusades also encouraged a rejection of new ideas and approaches." ] }

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[ [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merv", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cprm2i3" ], "score": [ 52 ], "text": [ "The answer is actually in the article you linked to.\n\n > Contemporaries would have called him Yeshua Bar Yehosef or Yeshua Nasraya. (That's \"Jesus, son of Joseph\" or \"Jesus of Nazareth.\") Galileans distinguished themselves from others with the same first name by adding either \"son of\" and their father's name, or their birthplace. < \n\n" ] }

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[ "http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2008/12/happy_birthday_dear_yeshua_happy_birthday_to_you.html" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "e07lhuc" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "Yes, they bring. \n\nFirst of all, I would like to apologize for my English, I'm a Brazilian historian still improving my English knowledge, so my write will not be too much academic.\n\nPortuguese historian Filipa Ribeira da Silva wrote a great article about this specific subject. Unfortunately it is in Portuguese, but you can access it [here](_URL_0_)\n\nRibeiro points that, arround 1520, something between 15% and 20% of Lisbon population and 10% of Valencia and Sevilla population was made by african people. In that sense, enslaved traffic for Europe is even older than to Brazil, where enslaveds start to came in huge amount in the late XVI. \n\nFunction of enslaved varied. They could work in rural areas, in private houses or in public and commerce functions. Ribeiro points that immigration of Portuguese and Spanish to Americas, considerable amount of people working in navigation, expulsion of Jews, Cristãos Novos and Muslims and the beginning of Inquisition policies created a demand of manpower, partially supplied by enslaved. One concrete example is the number of Africans and Indians arriving in Lisbon after 1755 earthquake, to work in city reconstruction.\n\n\nAccording [Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database](_URL_1_) 4.515 enslaved arrived in Portugal along XVIII. In 1763, the year that slavery was abolished in Portugal, Ribeiro estimate that arround 15.000 enslaved came to Portugal since the beggining of traffic, in late XV.\n\nNot all of then was Africans, origin tend to vary according as Portuguese Empire expanded. Using records of enslaved arrives in Portugal between 1756-1763, Ribeiro could draw a small profile. In that period, 67% of enslaved was male, 64% adult and 48% was defined as \"Indian Blacks\", most of than came from Goa. About 28% of this amount came from Brazil and 24% of Africa. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.periodicos.ufpb.br/index.php/srh/article/view/19809/10944", "http://www.slavevoyages.org/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cef9u4i", "cefnnwu" ], "score": [ 23, 21 ], "text": [ " Early sales for mass market cars were done through dealerships, but not like you think. The dealer with a glass showroom, parking lot full of new cars for sale and parts and service departments did not exist. Dealers were generally people who owned an existing store, usually a hardware or feed store, something like that where they had experience handling big ticket items. The cars were delivered in a crate and still required assembly. Some early dealers realized that by hiring a mechanic to put the car together they could get more sales and charge more, and the development towards the modern dealership concept started. \n\n Higher end cars were generally sold to or through a coachwork. The manufacturer provided the frame and drivetrain, the coachwork built the body and interior on custom order for a wealthy client. Many high end cars you see from the 1920's or older were made this way, and the manufacturers often contracted directly with the coachworks to build these custom bodies. Eventually the need to maintain consistent quality control, and to control their own brand led car manufacturers to internalize coach building, by WW2 the era of factory customs was largely over, although it has kept alive in several forms since then. \n\n", "This is a great question! There were actually a number of ways that companies sold their automobiles. I'll take you through a number of them. \n\n1. The earliest automobiles were sold out of the factories they were built in, a trend that continued up until the mid 19-teens. Companies were low-volume manufacturers; The Winton Motor Carriage Company was the largest in the U.S. in 1900 with over 100 autos sold. Alexander Winton refused to have a car made until he had an order from a customer. Companies would often have one of the company mechanics deliver the car to the customer if the customer was nearby; a man, Brenton Dixon, in my hometown outside Boston, whose memoirs I indexed for the local historical society, purchased a Corbin automobile in 1906 directly from the factory (the auto was later given to the town and converted into its first motorized fire engine, and is now in the hands of a good friend of mine). The Corbin was a business venture of the still-extant American Hardware Corporation of New Britain, Connecticut; the car was delivered by the head mechanic at Corbin, who showed the customer how to operate the car. If it was too far to be driven, autos purchased from the factory would be shipped by rail. Customers interested in purchasing an automobile would look in magazines like *The Horseless Age* or *MoToR,* which would be chock full of ads, and published the results of races and endurance tests and new innovations in the industry. Advertisements would invariably include instructions to \"Request a Demonstration\" or \"Write for a free illustrated catalogue.\" These would be delivered straight from the factory. \n\n2. Mail-order automobiles were also quite common for a time. The [Metz](_URL_2_) automobile was sold in 14 packages at $25 each - 14 packages made a complete car. They were delivered by mail, and could be completed by the customer or a local mechanic, or an entire, prebuilt car could be purchased from the factory for $600. Sears, Roebuck & Co. also offered an automobile in their famous mail-order catalog from 1908 until 1912: a two-cylinder [high-wheel buggy](_URL_1_). \n\n3. Dealerships emerged early; the first dealership was opened in 1899, in Reading, PA. It sold Winton Automobiles. Auto dealerships weren't always tied to one marque, however, and many had businesses on the side (or the dealership was the side business). Dealerships really took off with Ford; one of the reasons the Model T was such a huge success was because it was sold through the national dealer network established to sell the N, R, and S model Fords. \n\nAs for the second part: \n > Were there lessons for 1st time drivers? \n\nSometimes. The head mechanic who delivered the Corbin to Brenton Dixon's father also showed him how to drive it. If the car was delivered by mail, like the Metz, it also invariably included instructions on operation. For popular cars like the Ford T, there were reference books like Victor Page's *The Model T Ford Car* that included a complete reference for how to operate the car. The novelty and relative impracticality of the early automobile meant that many of the automobile's early purchasers were people who were already mechanically inclined, and interested in it as a curiosity, so they were quite capable of self-teaching themselves; there was also far less traffic on the roads, so it wasn't dangerous to teach yourself on public roads. One of the major barriers to the establishment of things like driving schools was the complete lack of standardization in regards to controls. The modern clutch-brake-gas pedal layout wasn't introduced until 1916; the Model T, for example, had the throttle lever on the steering column, a clutch/gear selector pedal, a reverse gear pedal, and a brake pedal; the more conventionally-laid out [Packard](_URL_0_) nevertheless had the gas pedal in the middle, with the brake on the right and the clutch to the left. \n\nHope this helps! \n\nEdit: totally forgot my sources. In no particular order: \n\n1. Sears, Stephen W. *The American Heritage History of the Automobile in America.* New York: American Heritage Pub., 1977. Print. \n\n2. Kimes, Beverly Rae. *Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1805-1942.* Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1996. Print. \n\n3. Dickson, Brenton H. *Random Recollections.* Weston, MA: Nobb Hill, 1977. Print. \n\n4. Clymer, Floyd. *Treasury of Early American Automobiles.* N.p.: Bonanza, 1950. Print.\n" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.bid123sold.com/Portals/0/Packard/1910%20Packard%20Model%2018%202404.JPG", "http://members.chello.nl/j.baartse/carpics/sears.jpg", "http://metzauto.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/1913-metz-model-22-roadster1.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cmut1i7" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "A spring line is a line run from amidships to the part of the anchor chain near the waterline, or to the pier near one or both ends of the boat or ship. \n\nBasically, if a ship is riding at a single anchor at the bow (front), the ship will swing with the wind so that she faces the wind head on. If the direction of the wind is from, or worse! TO, the enemy, only the chase guns can be brought to bear (point) at them. In this case, running a spring line to a cleat (tie-down-point) amidships (about halfway along the front to back axis) allows that spring line to be hauled in order to swing the stern around towards the anchor and show the broadside to the enemy. An enterprising captain with sufficient room to swing may put a spring line on either side and by alternating which is pulled, can present alternating broadsides. \n\nI'll see if I can find a useful diagram.\n\nEdit: here you go.\n_URL_0_\n\nNow picture the enemy is in front of the boat in the figure, and you'll see why the ability to turn the vessel could be advantageous." ] }

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[ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Nile#Battle" ]

[ [ "http://www.tor.cc/articles/rode.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6mpz7s" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I can't speak for the English, but in Germany it is lucky to meet one on New Year's, so a tradition has arisen that you give someone a little chimney sweep (a statue or he's made of marzipan) around that time - to wish them well into the New Year. I think chimney sweeps are considered lucky in other European countries like Austria, Croatia and Hungary. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "em6o5xq" ], "score": [ 30 ], "text": [ "I can only provide an answer here to the \"furthest\" part of the question, but I hope it acts a good starting point to build upon. As far as I am aware, there are no 'journal'-like accounts of travelling the Nile, only snippets and secondary descriptions of them.\n\nThe farthest plausible Roman expeditions towards the source of the Nile occurred under Nero, from 62 CE to 67 CE, though here are no surviving first hand accounts of the supposedly farthest expeditions.\n\nThe written accounts of how far any official expedition actually went down the Nile claims that a series of expeditions organised by Nero went as far south as Meroe and beyond (Plin. NH, 6.35), from Seneca we learn of an earlier expedition that implies the expeditionary force travelled further south into modern Sudan (Sen. QN. 6.8) to somewhere believed to be around the city of Sudd (Kirwan, 1957), though there is a large amount of speculation about this. Of these accounts, only Seneca paraphrases the tales of the expeditionary group, from whom he claims to have heard from two of the officers of the group. What Seneca has quoted (See sources), we can presume to be true about the issues of the Roman expedition south of the Sahara, but also highlights the issue that the \"natives\" were probably Kushite, on account of them being lost - it certainly does not give the impression of the Roman expedition interacting with 'locals'. Pliny's account doesn't tackle anything south of Meroe and he highlights the topographical issue of the Sahara - that it is barren. Implicitly, what the expedition concluded from their expedition was 'it's sandy, and dry, and still sandy. There is nothing of value here' and nothing more came of it - Ethiopia was not considered a worthwhile venture as they would have to deal with the long stretches of desert before reaching the foreign and difficult to navigate terrain of Ethiopia.\n\nSupposedly, ~~the~~ Caesar wanted to sail as far south as he could towards where Suetonius identified as Ethiopia, though this was cut significantly shorter by the army (Suet. Lul. 52.1), and Appian claims they traversed the Nile with 400 warships (App. B.Civ. 2.90). These are very tenuous and vague mentions of the Nile cruise, yet they are the earliest two mentions of the voyage - both written 150 years after the fact. If we were to believe both to be true, the task would be physically impossible due to the cataracts south of Meroe. \n\nPliny is probably our best source for ideas around the Nile, as he covers a lot in regards to wildlife and general geography, however, his account is not a journal of travelling from the delta to anywhere inland. \n\n\nSources:\n\nPrimary:\n\nAppian, *The Civil Wars.* Translation can be found [here](_URL_0_)\n\nPliny the Elder, *Natural History*. Translation can be found [here](_URL_1_).\n\nSeneca the Younger, *Natural Questions.* Cant find a full translation online (free), but here is the relevant excerpt: Book 6, 8.4\n\n“After many days,” so they said, “we came to huge swamps, the way out of which neither the natives knew nor could anyone hope to know; the vegetation was so entangled in water and the water impassable on foot or by boat, because the muddy overgrown marsh does not support anything except a small boat large enough for only one man. There,” he said, “we saw two rocks from which a great quantity of river-water fell.”\n\nBut whether that is the source of the Nile or only an addition to it, whether it is born there or merely returns to the surface from an earlier passage underground—do you not think that, whatever the reason, the water ascends from a great lake under the earth? For it must be that the earth has moisture scattered in many places and collected in the depths so as to be able to disgorge it with such violence.\n\nSuetonius, *Twelve Caesars*. Translation can be found [here](_URL_2_)\n\n\nSecondary:\n\nKirwan, L. P. (1957), 'Rome Beyond the Southern Egyptian Fronteir' in *The Geographical Journal,* vol. 123 (1), pp. 13-19" ] }

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[ [ "http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Appian/Civil_Wars/2*.html", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+6.35&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137", "http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Julius*.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cf7jt30" ], "score": [ 33 ], "text": [ "Some would say they got to this position by the various popular movements in the early 20th century, you had a movement against alocholism and for better working conditions. Its a bottom-up approach, when the common people organize and try to do something good for their society. \n\nThese movements didnt spring up over night, it took decades from the first Socialist agitators to spread their understanding of society. This was people like Hans Albin just taking a stance at public squares in many cities and takling about socialism and equality, organizing reading groups and forming the first labor unions - where workers learned to read.\n\nThere were clashes with the elite, even killing of workers by army in 1937 in Sweden, but the elite realized they were poking at fire - considering the USSR wasnt far away, and attempting to curb the popular movements for a better life at the cost of big business carried a risk of even worse, revolution and communism. So a deal was made - big business/elites and the representatives of the labor movement, which came to be the swedish model, a mixed economy picking the fruits after ww2 - for the various devastated countries needed both raw materials and Swedens manufacture.\n\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cg9iqfw" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "In December 1775, there was a major shortage of gunpowder in the continental army. To combat this, the continental army freely spread the \"recipe\" to create gunpowder among their supporters and began to encourage domestic manufacture, which largely didn't exist before the war. Between 1775 and 1777, they were able to produce 100,000 pounds of gunpowder domestically. France began supplying the colonial army with gun powder near the end of 1776 and continued to do so throughout the remainder of the war. France was able to supply the colonists with 1,000,000 pounds in this amount of time.\n\n\nI drew my information from the following article. It's a description manuscripts that gave instructions on how to produce gun powder during the revolutionary war.\n\n[Gunpowder manufacturing during the American Revolution](_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.universityarchives.com/Find-an-Item/Results-List/Item-Detail.aspx?ItemID=54674" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ck9xomn" ], "score": [ 19 ], "text": [ "First, the interstate system was not constructed by the federal government, but by the individual states, using 90 percent federal funding. A great deal of the needed land was in fact taken through eminent domain proceedings. This was less common in western states, because so much land in unpopulated areas is owned by the federal government.\n\nEminent domain \"takings\" for public improvements such as highways is a centuries-old practice, recognized in the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. Procedures vary somewhat from state to state, but in general, if the landowner is not satisfied with the price being offered for the property, he can ask for a judicial proceeding, at which evidence from appraisers will be offered to determine the property's \"fair market value.\" \n\nIncidentally, many states also give eminent domain authority to private companies providing a public service, including electric and gas utilities, railroads, and pipeline companies." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ekkuxd0" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Arguably Hernan Cortes' *Caravel* \\-- true it didn't win great battles, and Cortes seems to have burned it on the beach, but this is the vessel that delivered Mexico to the Spanish. Similarly, Pizarro's ship, whose name I can't find in my sources. Christopher Columbus might merit a mention, but insofar as claiming land for Spain that stayed Spanish, Cortes and Pizarro did better . . . one might also count Magellan's flagship, the *Trinidad.* Magellan didn't complete the conquest of the Philippines, but in terms of setting the stage for Spain as a global maritime empire, he does well.\n\nIn terms of naval battles, Spain's greatest naval victory was at Lepanto, 1571. Don John's flagship there was a galley called the *La* *Real* (at the time, all Spanish flagships bore that name, it just means \"The Royal\")*,* which would be a contender. A replica exists in Barcelona's maritime museum.\n\nSpain also would have any number of ships that served the empire by successfully hauling gold from the Western hemisphere back to Seville. We don't think of gold transports with same grandeur as, say, Nelson's *Victory* \\- but that's what made the Empire run. So you might say that \"the most successful Spanish warship\" was an entire fleet, the *flota de Indias,* sometimes known in English as \"the plate fleets\" which despite the enthusiastic attempts by privateers and pirates, generally delivered the huge mass of treasure back to Spain safely." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "djszz0s" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "Modern estimates put deaths from starvation during the Great Famine at over one million, and it would certainly be remarkable if none of those caught up in such desperate circumstances had resorted to cannibalism as a result – yet records of proven incidences dating to the period 1846-52 are remarkably rare. It remains a matter of controversy as to whether this is because such cases really were few and far between, or whether more numerous instances were \"covered up\", either by participants who feared legal redress, or by the British authorities. But it's certainly worth noting that, in the handful of cases we know about, there is no suggestion that incidences of cannibalism extended to murder; rather, flesh taken from the dead was consumed.\n\nEvidence for cannibalism in this period was discussed by the economist Cormac Ó Gráda of University College Dublin during a conference in 2012 and in his book *Eating People Is Wrong*. He noted the following documented incidents, which I paraphrase:\n\n > John Connolly, a Connemara man, was brought before a court on charges of sheep-stealing. It emerged from the evidence given at his trial that four of his children had died of starvation, and that, shortly before her own death, his wife had been forced by extreme hunger to eat part of the leg of their dead son. The boy's body was exhumed and it was confirmed that part of the flesh of the leg was missing. Ó Gráda notes that \"the court wept\" and that Connolly was \"instantly discharged\" as a result. The original source for this story was the *Galway Vindicator* of 1 April 1848.\n\nand\n\n > In [*The Times* of 23 May 1849](_URL_0_), it was reported that a man - named in later sources as Patrick Diamond – living near Clifden, in Connemara, one of the districts hardest-hit by the famine, had \"extracted the heart and liver... [of] a shipwrecked human body... cast on shore\" and used it these to feed his family - an incident that apparently took place in November 1848. The evidence in this case is dubious. It was reported by a local protestant clergyman, the Rev. James Anderson of Ballinrobe, who wrote direct to the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, to report it. Pressed for further details, Anderson said he had heard of the incident from a Mr Scrope, the vice-guardian of the Clifden Union, who stated it had been \"proved before Mr Briscoe,... who had been designated vice guardian here, but a short time since.\" Russell raised the case in the House of Commons in June 1849, but sought to downplay it, claiming that \"when [the man] found the body, he did not appear to know that it was a human body, and he proceeded to cut out a part of it, and was about to eat it, when some of the neighbours remarked that it was the trunk of a human being. He said he was not aware of that, and it does not appear that he ate any portion of the flesh, whatever his original intention might have been.” He added - as if to underline that the state of Ireland was not that desperate – that Diamond was not starving, but was a well-fed labourer \"of singularly voracious appetite - not at all suffering from distress himself.\" This last detail was widely doubted when the story was picked up by the Irish press, and indeed it was later reported that Diamond was admitted to the local workhouse in an emaciated state.\n\nIt seems likely that more research would turn up additional evidence. Christine Kenealy, one of the most prolific modern authorities on the famine, notes that \"there has been a reluctance, both at the popular and academic level, to engage with the more unpleasant side of the Famine – corruption, hoarding, suicide, prostitution, theft (from those equally poor) and cannibalism – incidents which took place in Ireland as they have done in all famines. The stigma attached means that they are under-recorded and so are particularly tragic when recorded in official records. Yet famine was obscene and acute hunger could lead to desperate measures.\"\n\nIt's worth adding, in conclusion, that there is also some evidence – which can certainly not be taken entirely at face value – of cannibalism occurring in Ireland in earlier periods. \n\nFirst, Giraldus Cambrensis, in his *The Conquest of ireland*, reports that when Dermot, Prince of Leinster, was presented with the head of one of his enemies, he \"tore the nostrils and lips with his teeth in a most savage and inhuman manner\".\n\nTHen again, Book 6 of Edmund Spenser's *The Faerie Queene* famously contains some verses on cannibalism, and the poet – who lived most of his life as a planter in Ireland – seems to have based these on some material he incorporated into his *A View of the Present State of Ireland* (1596) dating to a period of disorder in Munster during the Geraldine rebellion there of 1579-83:\n\n > \"Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands for their legs could not bear them, they looked like anatomies of death, they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves, they did eat dead carrion, happy where they could find them, yea and one another soon after, in so much as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out their graves.\"\n\nFinally, as is fairly well known, Jonathan Swift's satirical *A Modest Proposal* (1728) recommended reducing the burgeoning population of Ireland by raising newborn children for a year and then selling them on to landlords to be used as food for the Anglo-Protestant ruling classes." ] }

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[ [ "http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/sadlier/irish/May23.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cchxhy4" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Asking the maximum prevalence of something like psychedelic use throughout history is problematic, to say the least. Do you explicitly mean recreation use? Because that has any number of problems in assessing past use. Do you mean ritual use? If then, do you mean frequency of ritual use? Again, this has problems with assessing usage. If all the people of a group partook of small amounts of a hallucinogen at yearly ritual, does this outweigh a small number of people taking large amounts of hallucinogens at periodic rituals over the year? There's some problems with your question, in other words. \n\nRegardless, psychotropic use in Mesoamerica is well documented and many psychoactive substances are indigenous to the region. I encourage you to consult our FAQ section titled \"[Party Like its 1491](_URL_1_)\" for past answers. In addition to [the quote in this answer](_URL_0_), I'll add another instance of Duran recording ritual psychedelic usage by elites. In this case he is referring to the earlier \"*Historia*\" which he drew from (typically called *Chronica X*):\n\n > I have noticed one thing in all this history: no mention is made of their drinking wine of any type, nor of drunkeness. Only wild mushrooms *[These would be of the psilocybe genus]* are spoken of and they were eaten raw. The *Historia* says that people became excited, filled with pleasure, and lost their sense to some extent.\n\nThis is simply one of the numerous instances of Mesomaerican ceremonies incorporating psychedelic mushrooms. While Aztec society, in particular, had strict rules against public intoxication, consumption of these pyschotropics was sanctioned on occasion. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1dhvtk/what_types_of_pleasure_drugs_were_used_in_the/c9qsfln", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/nativeamerican#wiki_party_like_it.27s_1491" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cg86onv", "cg877df" ], "score": [ 35, 15 ], "text": [ "I can only answer the portion of your question regarding Vatican City.\n\n**Why did the Vatican City form?**\n\nThe Lateran Concordat (or Lateran Accords, as it is also called) was signed in 1929 between the newly created Vatican City and the Italian state. [Here is the Text of the treaty in English](_URL_0_). The ongoing process of Italian unification in the 19th century had a number of obstacles, with the existence of the Papal States being perhaps the trickiest. As the process went on, conflict between those seeking Italian unification and the papacy grew into warfare. The papacy lost most of its holdings in 1860-61, and by 1870 it held only Rome. Even this was only possible because there were French troops that guaranteed the papacy’s control over the city. The French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war removed those troops, and the papacy then controlled only the area around St. Peter’s Cathedral.\n\nThus began what came to be called the “Roman question.” The new Italian state wanted Rome for its capital, but the papacy was still a factor. Due to the pontiff’s role as head of the Catholic Church—which most Italians were a member of and many felt a good deal of loyalty towards—the new state couldn’t merely shove the papacy aside as it would a secular ruler. There were multiple attempts at a negotiated settlement, but none were successful until 1929. So, for nearly sixty years, the papacy considered itself a “prisoner” in the Vatican.\n\nThe Lateran Concordat changed all of that. A Concordat is a bilateral treaty between the papacy and another state. This is one of the most important Concordats in the history of the Catholic Church, as it had a number of important results—both planned and unplanned. The key section for your question is Article 3, which states in part\n\n > Italy recognizes the full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction of the Holy See over the Vatican as at present constituted, together with all its appurtenances and endowments, thus creating the Vatican City, for the special purposes and under the conditions hereinafter referred to.\n\n > The boundaries of the said City are set forth in the map called Annex I of the present Treaty, of which it is forms an integral part.\n\nThe treaty also demands that the Vatican observe strict neutrality in foreign affairs in Article 24.\n\n**Why does Vatican City continue to exist? Is there a benefit?**\n\nNeither the Italian state nor the Vatican has undertaken an effort to substantially alter the treaty to date. It is still in force with minor changes. For its part, the Italian state has expressed no desire to incorporate the Vatican into its territory. It gets the benefit of hosting the head of a major world religion, which is a boon to diplomacy and tourism. The Vatican gets the benefits of Italian infrastructure without having to maintain it, and the papacy has found new ways to exert itself on the world stage within the confines of the treaty. For instance, the treaty makes no mention of who will appoint bishops in Italy. The Italian state had no desire to deal with that issue when the treaty was signed—ceding that role to the papacy. This became the standard around the world in the years after the treaty, and now the papacy itself directly appoints bishops to their posts. This is a power that most of the popes in the Church’s history wouldn’t have dreamt of having. The Vatican has also found an ability to exercise its diplomatic abilities, both in bilateral negotiations and in the UN. So, both the Italian state and the Vatican benefit from the arrangement, and both have come to basically not question its existence.\n\n—————\n\nAs always, followup questions by OP and others are encouraged!", "While Liechtenstein is very small, it's not a city state." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/treaty.htm" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ewpwhtr" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "Part 1: \"I'm asking instead whether this difference in patterns reflects some difference in how the Spanish and Portuguese wanted to organize their empire and societies, or if I'm just seeing patterns where there aren't any.\"\n\nWell, there is an easy answer and a hard answer to this question. The easy answer is yes, there are differing patterns in the colonial policy of Spain and Portugal, since there are separate institutions governing the operation and maintenance of the overtly Spanish and overtly Portuguese colonies. The Spanish colonies were governed by the Council of the Indies, while the Portuguese colonies were governed by the Council of Portugal. These councils would have to work with the different economic structures of their home countries, with the Council of Portugal only having to support the needs of the home coountry of Portugal, while the Council of the Indies having to support the various Habsburg needs in the Holy Roman Empire.\n\nNow, to continue, we have to go to the hard answer. To contextualize the hard answer, most of the colonial expansion of Portugal during the 15th and 16th century was centered around the *Feitoria*, or a defend port-city that is also a trading post as described by you, previously, compared to Spain which made expansive Viceroyalties. Now, there is an explanation to this beyond the usual Guns, Germs, and Steel explanations, and it has something to do with the sizes of the home state.\n\nPortugal, no doubt, was and still is inherently smaller compared to Spain land-wise and more crucially, population-wise. It had a lower population, which meant it had a lower amount of people that is able to actually colonize faraway lands. This lack of \"disposable\" population may have led to the idea of a centralized location of riches that can be defended with an economical forces of around 100+ people with perhaps a dozen Portuguese nationals, though this idea is an idea I only say basing from the population records of the Kingdoms from the 15th and the 16th century, when the colonial expansions of both empires were widespread.\n\nA more convincing argument I can posit is the colonial goals of each respective country. Portugal, from an analysis of their sponsored voyages, is purely concerned to make money off their colonial ventures. Spain, meanwhile, had a mentality of \"civilize the barbarians\" on the New World by converting (mostly forcibly) the local populations affecting their colonial goals. This ideal of Spain is of course, more expansion-focused compared to the Portuguese one; why bother making centers of governance in faraway, inland locations with churches and Inquisitions, if not to make the process of making everyone Christian easier?\n\nLet's look at a case in point, albeit this one is not in the new world entirely; the Spanish Colony of the Philippines, vis-a-vis the Portuguese Colony of Brazil. With the prevalence of port cities and concentrated settlements where the riches of the New world was concentrated and sent to Portugal, Brazil is purely a money-making venture, I would agree. However, looking at the way the Spanish colonized the Philippines, one may see that it is far from just a money-making venture. There was no need to encourage to convert Rajah Humabon, a local chief, to Christianity if your only goal was to make money, after all. There was no need to send hundred of *Insulares* to make schools, churches and even Universities (The University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines was established in 1611) if you only wanted to make sugar, potatoes and other agricultural stuff to sell back in Europe. If purely for money's sake, then there was no need to create multiple settlements in the archipelagos (like Cebu, Negros, Pangasinan, etc.) if you can just make a super-settlement in Manila (like *Intramuros* writ large) and/or Cavite, which had prime natural harbors.\n\nIn conclusion, the Spanish had a messianic goal of converting the natives wrapped in their colonial ventures which would have affected the rate of their colonies' expansion.\n\nPlease stand by for Parts II and III, I'm just going to ~~work~~ school I guess lmao" ] }

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[ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\\_of\\_capital\\_cities\\_by\\_elevation", "https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/cl1cm4/diachronic_spanish_empire_map_understood_as_the/", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_cities_by_elevation", "https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/cl1cm4/diachronic\\_spanish\\_empire\\_map\\_understood\\_as\\_the/" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "c84108s" ], "score": [ 14 ], "text": [ "All of it except the names.\n\nThat's a little flip of me, but really, there's so much wrong with that show that it's silly to list the inaccuracies. Spartacus, Batiatus, Crassus, etc, seem to have been real people doing things rather similar to what they do in the show. Other than that, it's all fantasy.\n\nIt's a hell of a fantasy though! I love that show." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cagx2ht" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "This answers your question only obliquely, but there is an open question if any weapon could have led to a truly decisive advantage. The question regards logistics--could you get enough supplies to the front to do anything with this hypothetical victory. A report on the Somme offensive stated:\n\n\"Experience showed that neither standard-gauge railways nor metalled roads could be extended across the shell-pitted area quickly enough to keep pace with the advance. A very costly offensive might gain a mile or two but the time required to reconstrict communications across the ground won gave the enemy time to recover and to reorganize his defenses so that the whole process of preparing for and launching another costly attack had to be gone through again.\" (Christian Wolmar, \"Engines of War\" pg 179)\n\nBasically, the distance an army could operate beyond the railhead that supplied it was fixed. It had to be situated far enough behind the front so as to not be subjected to constant bombardment and observation. Then smaller railroads and other transport brought the supplies to the front--includling trucks, draft animals with wagons, and people carrying the supplies directly. To have these logistics work in the newly-secured territory, the entire operatiion had to be moved forward into the area that was previous front line. With the ground crossed by trenches, snarled by barbed wire, churned by artillery, and likely within range of enemy artillery, the effort to make a logistical system function in a short amount of time was difficult if not impossible.\n\nWolmar argues that the state of transport meant that the advantage laid so heavily with the defensive that any offensive--gas or otherwise--would have been at bext extremely difficult to exploit and at worst impossible." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cri1m8t" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "You're probably going to be better off asking this on /r/Anthropology, honestly. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d1bzx3z" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Modified from [an earlier answer](_URL_0_) \n\nThere is an important step missing in this formulation: the Consulate. Far from a break with prior Revolutionary politics, this limited dictatorship was an evolved out the political culture of the post-Terror France. As the extreme period of the Revolution passed, many of the surviving politicians began to speak ill of too much democratic rule and freedoms. The attitude of various Revolutionaries towards executive power was always very unclear, but there was throughout the Revolution voices that called for strong central order. The experience of the Terror made many within the Directory leery of pure democracy (Cabanis said democracy was \"odious to all sensible and right-thinking men\" and \"kept all citizens in a constant state of agitation and anxiety\") and to seek an ordered solution to political power. Although subsequent Napoleonic propaganda would emphasize him as the natural and inevitable choice for the Brumaire coup, there were several other French generals that various factions courted for a coup. Emmanel Sieyès, one of the key plotters in Brumaire, would famously quip, \"I need a sword,\" in other words, a man who could command the loyalty of one of the few powerful institutions that possessed a great deal of popular legitimacy within the Republic, the army. Bernadotte, a general and Minister of War, was the favorite of the Neo-Jacobin factions that wanted to reestablish the Revolution's leveling tendencies. Jean-Baptiste Jourdan toyed around with many different factions, but never made a firm commitment. Lazare Hoche, who enjoyed almost as much fame as Napoleon had unfortunately died of tuberculosis before Sieyès's initial soundings towards him could bear fruit. Jean Moreau, the youngest general in the army, refused to compromise himself with politics despite entreaties to do so. \n\nThe path to the empire from the Consulate was a very gradual process between 1799-1804 which meant that Napoleon possessed a degree of flexibility when it came to his self-coronation. There were two trends at work in France at this time which help explain why this transition was relatively smooth. Firstly, Napoleon greatly benefited from and actively encouraged a depoliticization of the French government that had begun under the Directory. The Consulate's emphasis upon the power of executive authority greatly helped in this manner as it became much more difficult for the Tribunate or the Senate to form an alternate power bloc against the First Consul. Napoleonic censorship also denuded the republicans remaining within the French government of any organs which to voice opposition. The Consulate did witness some friction between Napoleon and the other branches of government. For example, Napoleon's partisans within the government had to work quite hard to get the various organs of state to pass much-vaunted Légion d'honneur, which the remaining republicans in government saw as an affront to the history of the Revolution. \n\nNapoleon responded to opposition with a measure of tact that mixed with an iron determination to get his way. Napoleon rewarded his loyal servitors with new titles and estates. He also though expected these servitors to exhibit a degree of competence and was a very stern taskmaster for the running of the French state. Napoleon also acted quite differently than other French executives towards opposition. Lazare Carnot, one of the unimpeachable heroes of the Revolution, exemplifies how Napoleon defanged his opponents. Carnot was one of the stalwart foes of Napoleon's accumulation of power. When he voted against the making Napoleon consul for life in the Tribunate, he had it put into the official record that by voting no, he had written his own condemnation. In prior regimes, this would have been a death sentence or exile, but Napoleon allowed him to retire and function as a private individual in the empire. LeBrun, the third consul and the most republican of the trio, similarly was also allowed to play a less active role in French politics, while still receiving titles and rewards. The other consul, Cambacérès, became Napoleon's right-hand man within the imperial state and also was a beneficiary of Napoleon's largess. In short, the French government became both pliant and reasonably competent by the time of Napoleon's coronation. \n\nThe second trend at work in France at this time was the image of Napoleon himself. Napoleon enjoyed an unprecedented degree of popularity during the Consulate. The period of 1800-04 was a time when Napoleon scored a number of diplomatic coups that greatly added to his prestige. Even though it was short-lived and fundamentally unworkable, the peace with Britain was an accomplishment that no prior Revolutionary government had accomplished. The Concordat with the papacy also seemed to be ushering in a period of domestic peace within France. This is why the 1802 plebiscite for a life-consulship received a broad base of support, even if the Napoleonic state had its thumb on the scales. The public image of Napoleon also underwent a profound transformation at this time. Napoleonic artists tended to less depict him as a republican general and much more as a regal figure who employed the gestures and symbolism of monarchy. As with the government, Napoleon rewarded loyalty to the increasingly personalist regime amongst the public while side-lining any opposition. Fetes, public festivals and new forms of imperial nobility had a strong element of a cult of personality about them, but they also were enjoyable distractions. \n\nThe question as to how deep this support for Napoleon ran both in the government and the public though is an open one. While Napoleon was a popular figure, the *expressions* of popular support such as petitions to name him a hereditary emperor were definitely manufactured. For instance, there was a clear connection between the army's leadership drafting these petitions for the ranks to sign. The empire's fetes surrounding the coronation were large, but a number of observers noted they were not particularly boisterous. There was also a great deal of apprehension about the hereditary nature of the empire within governmental debates. The issue of succession was far from clear in case Napoleon died or was otherwise incapacitated. Although Napoleon's nominal heir was the son of his brother Louis and step-daughter Hortense, the succession issue was something quite vexing to the French government. Underlying this anxiety is a fear that the entire imperial edifice rested upon the shoulders of one man, Napoleon.\n\nHerein lies the double-edged nature of Napoleon's path to power. He constantly portrayed himself as an extraordinary individual who operated outside the limitations of normal human beings. During his imperial coronation, Napoleon did not have the pope crown him, but instead he crowned himself in the presence of the Pontiff, a move that signified he was the active party in the coronation. The justifications used for the transition from a consulship to a hereditary emperor explicitly stressed this. But this type of rationalization ensured that it was much harder for anyone to follow him. So in the end Napoleon, much more than Louis XIV, encapsulated the dictum \"I am the state,\" which ensured that Napoleonic empire was hostage to its emperor's personal fate.\n\n*Sources* \n\nBergeron, Louis. *France under Napoleon*. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981. \n\nDwyer, Philip G. *Citizen Emperor Napoleon in Power*. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 2013. \n\nWoloch, Isser. *Napoleon and His Collaborators: The Making of a Dictatorship*. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. " ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2xg3d2/how_did_napoleon_convince_the_other_consuls_to/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eyndw0d" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "The main under-armour clothing was a specialised arming jacket. These were usually made of multiple layers of cloth, and could include a layer of padding (cotton or silk wadding) - similar construction was used for European arming jackets (e.g., arming doublets). Some examples:\n\n* _URL_9_\n\n* _URL_8_\n\n* _URL_3_ (see image 13)\n\n* _URL_10_\n\nPants were also worn. These were short, reaching to about knee level. Examples:\n\n* _URL_2_\n\n* _URL_4_\n\nIn addition, multilayered and/or padded short vests or shoulder pieces were worn, called *manchira*. These often included integral metal armour, to protect the neck and parts of the torso that would be otherwise exposed by gaps in the armpits and the tops of the shoulders. The armour could be mail, or small places sewn into the layers of cloth (like a Medieval European jack).\n\n* A vest type: _URL_11_ (with an armoured neck)\n\n* Shoulder pad type: front: _URL_12_ and back: _URL_1_\n\n* Shoulder pad with wrap-around pieces to cover the armpits: _URL_6_\n\nArm armour was usually multilayer textile sleeves with integral metal armour, usually mail and/or plates covering the outer part of the arm, often extending to cover the back of the hands. These didn't need any further arming clothes under them (note that the arming jackets had sleeves).\n\nVarious supplementary armour could be worn besides or in addition to the manchira. For example,\n\n* armpit protectors: _URL_7_\n\n* armoured pants: _URL_0_\n\nFinally, a nice animation by the V & A Museum showing the process of putting on armour, including the arming jacket and pants:\n\n* _URL_5_" ] }

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[ [ "https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0b/cf/92/0bcf92c2a7775210a7b1fb719990f5f5.jpg", "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kikko_manchira_5.JPG", "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samurai_kobakama.JPG", "https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2009/art-of-the-samurai/photo-gallery", "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antique_Japanese_(samurai)_hakama.jpg", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOIQXW5ZMaU", "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manju_no_wa_7.JPG", "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kikko_wakibiki_1.JPG", "https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1b/57/06/1b5706511434cddf4d7ff47024554e8b.jpg", "https://winterjapaneseart.com/archives/galleries/83", "https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cc/21/be/cc21be9a28f07531b68b03291869668c.jpg", "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/22133", "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kikko_manchira.JPG" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7pmdts" ], "score": [ 12 ], "text": [ "Good armour was totally clutch. Until firearms made armour economically obsolete (i.e. it cost less to outfit and train a unit of musketmen that could counter the heavily armoured knight on a strategic level, cost-for-cost), a trained aristocratic warrior in plate armour was a dominant force in warefare. Even earlier chainmails and such were solid protection that kept wearers safe.\n\nJust to put aside all arguments and reconstructions where bows or miscellaneous weapons are tested against various armours in controlled conditions, just think about it this way: you acknowledge that armour was extremely expensive. It was a huge pain in the ass to make. If it wasn't *extremely* effective, why would 3000 years of military strategists decide that it was a good investment? Were they idiots?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ceebw6e" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "It'll vary a bit from statue to statue. In the case of the specific one you mention, (a) there are several copies of the statue, which points to a single archetype (and it often happens that the archetype in such cases is Greek); (b) we're told by textual sources that so-and-so sculpted such-and-such. Specifically, Pliny *NH* 36.25 and Pausanias 1.43.6 tell us that the sculptor Skopas made multiple copies of his famous statue \"Pothos\" (\"Desire\") for different places, with different props, including a concert lyre (thus making the statue as a whole an Apollo). The numerous Roman copies match up quite well.\n\nWe have quite a lot of textual descriptions of the more famous artworks, in sources like Pausanias' *Guide to Greece* and Philostratos' *Imagines* (\"Paintings\"); even so, because most statuary has been lost, this approach will only work for really popular pieces for which lots of copies survive. (These works were read by various Renaissance figures as well, with the result that a few Renaissance pieces are attempts to recreate these works, including some lost artworks.)" ] }

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

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{ "a_id": [ "dcb2hak", "dcb5lmt" ], "score": [ 3, 4 ], "text": [ "This was an event I had read about in passing and tried to discover any factual basis for it. Unfortunately, all I could find were circular references which all referred to each other.\n\nHowever, tellingly there were two movies released which incorporated elements of the news report. One was The Blockhouse and the other was Nasser Asphalt or Wet Asphalt, a thriller produced in West Germany. \n\nThe Blockhouse is more about what happens when people are confined. However, the entire plot of Nasser Asphalt is that the story of the entombed soldiers is an invention of a journalist desperate for a story.\n\nIt was released in 1958, just seven years after the purported event. It would seem a mite insensitive for a German director to use something as traumatic as a 6 year imprisonment of German soldiers as a plot point if that story were genuine. ", "According to this [article](_URL_1_) by Spiegel from 1958 it seems to have been a hoax. \n\n > As the Polish authorities did not comment on the reports, the press office of the Warsaw Ministry of the Interior commented: \"The case is not known to us at all\"\n\nThis [NYT article](_URL_0_) claims the soldier died 5 days after the first reports from scurvy. I am not a doctor by any means, but surviving on a vitamin C deficient diet for 6 years and then dying of it not even a week after being rescued sounds a bit odd to me. \n\nIt might be true, it might be not. There are many parts of the story that sound a wee bit too fantastic to me to be true, but without any further sources it's hard to come to a satisfying conclusion." ] }

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[ "https://i.reddituploads.com/0c0c423bfd4c4d7ea61870b8bd5d63bc?fit=max&amp;h=1536&amp;w=1536&amp;s=08c2bf9d57c3d641b0ca70bea0219ded" ]

[ [], [ "http://www.nytimes.com/1951/06/24/archives/entombed-german-dies-soldier-who-survived-6-years-underground-is.html", "https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&amp;tl=en&amp;js=y&amp;prev=_t&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fspiegel%2Fprint%2Fd-41760577.html&amp;edit-text=&amp;act=url" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c5tyw77", "c5u3h05" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "'The historical Greeks considered the practice of adult and child sacrifice barbarous.[26] However, exposure of newborns was widely practiced in ancient Greece. In Greece the decision to expose a child was typically the father's, although in Sparta the decision was made by a group of elders.[27]' \n\n_URL_0_\n\nCtrl-F 'Sparta'", "Infanticide was tolerated by Greeks and Romans as a necessary evil. \"Damn shame that baby's weak.\" \n\nAnd exposure meant you never actually saw the baby die. You could tell yourself some shepherd would pick him up before it was too late. Sort of like the blank one guy on the firing squad gets. \n\nInterestingly, the Greeks and Romans looked down on the Carthaginians for their child sacrifice. It was seen as glorying and reveling in something necessary but awful and disgusting. Like the reaction you'd get if you drove around with a bumper sticker that said \"I GOT AN ABORTION AND IT WAS AWESOME.\" " ] }

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

{ "a_id": [ "czn1siq" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "We should distinguish between the peer review process as it exists today (in which academic publishers require a review — sometimes anonymous, sometimes not — of a work before it is accepted for publication) and between the general task of other scientists arguing with one another and checking their work. The latter goes back to any meaningful definition of \"science,\" because the entire point is that you are engaging with theories, observations, evidence, arguments, etc. of other people.\n\nTo illustrate the difference, Darwin's _Origin of Species_ was not peer-reviewed before publication — it was simply published. However his work is full of engagement with the work of other scientists, and his work was scrutinized, criticized, attacked, etc. by other investigators. He was participating at a time when there were many interested \"peers\" who were reading and critiquing his writing — but this is not peer review.\n\nAn early instance of academic peer review, or something like it, can be found in Henry Oldenburg's _Philosophical Transactions_ in the 17th century. Oldenburg would regularly refer manuscripts to other experts to decide their quality. However peer review did not become a standard practice of journals until the late 19th century, when science itself began to truly \"professionalize\" and look more or less the way it does today. But a journal as prestigious as _Nature_ routinely avoided peer review though the 1960s. (Watson and Crick's famous 1953 paper describing the structure of DNA was, for example, not peer-reviewed. A later editor of _Nature_ suggested it would not have been accepted if it had — the evidence it offered up was pretty slim for their claims, and it was Rosalind Franklin's evidence anyway.) So it can be hard to generalize.\n\nWhile popularly most people think peer review is what makes science good, there are many scientists (and social scientists who study scientists) who have pointed out its many, many deficiencies. \n\nMy information above about the history of peer review comes from my friend Melinda Baldwin's recent book, _Making \"Nature\": The History of a Scientific Journal_ (University of Chicago Press, 2015).\n\nIf you are asking in general, when did people start making arguments about the natural world in a systematic way... this is a very controversial question. The typical answer is \"the Scientific Revolution\" (e.g. the 15th-18th centuries) but many historians of science do not really believe there was any distinct Scientific Revolution during this time, and if your bar is just people disagreeing with each other, you can find that much earlier than that. The _institutions_ of what we today call \"science\" started in the 17th century or so, but did not really become complete (to whatever degree they are currently \"complete\") until the late 19th century. By the late 19th century, you can imagine someone saying, \"ah, I'll be a scientist!\" (the word came into use then) and people would have a good idea of what that meant, both in terms of what they were planning to become and the path that would lead to that career." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "daga80a", "dagfjek" ], "score": [ 29, 3 ], "text": [ "I think the premise of your question is a bit flawed for a couple of reasons:\n\n* The KMT's military and the PVA that invaded North Korea were completely different beasts. The KMT army was a mechanised military that was organised along Soviet lines, whereas the PLA and PVA were mostly light infantry. The KMT army had more in common with the NVA than the PLA. \n\n* It's debatable as to whether the PVA was really an effective fighting force. Chinese logistics failed miserably in the face of Allied bombing campaigns. Huge numbers of Chinese troops (either 5 or 6 figures depending on who you ask) died of starvation or exposure during the war, which is quite an achievement when you consider that Korea's climate isn't all that dissimilar to Beijing's or Qingdao's, and is actually milder than Shenyang's or Harbin's. Although they did essentially win back North Korea, they did so at horrendous human cost, with their battle dead outnumbering the coalition's by between 3 and 10 to 1 (again, depending on who you ask)", "I talk about this a bit [here](_URL_0_)." ] }

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[ [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3d730k/in_the_second_sinojapanese_war1930s1940s_the/ct2x8tj/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "co3csd5" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "You might try following along at /r/100yearsago. I post on there daily and try to include non-war related things." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "fgt236d" ], "score": [ 40 ], "text": [ "You can think of wingdings as the predecessor to emoji. It was introduced by Microsoft in Windows 3.1 as a way to be able to include symbols in their word processor. Most of them are commonly understood symbols gleaned from icons they licensed.\n\nThis gave you a scalable way to include a stop sign in a project without having to generate a picture yourself and copy it in. It stuck around because it is much easier for a word processor to properly display and print a resized font character than clip art or putting a JPEG in.\n\nWhile wingdings weren't a standard part of the Unicode standard at their release, they became part of the standard in 2014(needs verification) and will be with us now until they decide we don't want it anymore." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "do0f0ie", "do0x9aq", "do20i6w", "docltag" ], "score": [ 7, 6, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Do you think you will get your podcast on Spotify in the near future?", "I made a post but might as well ask here as well. Why was Templar Cyprus an immediate failure when the Templars were excellent administrators over vast holdings?\n\nAnd did the Templars attempt to create a Monastic State similar to the Teutonic Ordenstaat?", "Where could I find more information on the leper knights mentioned in the episode. This includes information on lepers not being as socially ostracized as previously believed. \n\n\nThe whole idea really caught my imagination deeply and I want to learn as much as I can about it.\n\n\nI am not a historian, but I'm willing to try my hand at academic papers if that's all that's available, although I would prefer any books you can recommend.\n\n\nThank you, fantastic episode.", "Hi, /u/Rhodis\n\nIn this amazing and ifnormative podcast you mentioned the transformation of Templar's in Portugal into order of Christ (i think somewhere around 45 minute mark) and say something a long the line that there probably wasn't that much transfer of members, but only lands.\n\n\nHowever, it seems lately the consensus is that the members had mostly transferred too.\n\n\n\nIn \"*The New Frontier: The Role of the Knights Templar in the Establishment of Portugal as an\nIndependent Kingdom*\" by José Valente ([jstor link](_URL_0_)) there is a relevant paragraph on page 64:\n\n > The main question regarding the establishment of the order deals with the degree to which the Templars survived in Portugal. Portuguese historians have traditionally seen a continuity between the two orders, the whole affair a well cherished tribute to Portuguese craftiness and the ability to chart its own course independently of the rest of Europe. **But even without the misplaced patriotism with which Dinis' actions have often been appraised, evidence does seem to indcate a deep overlapping between the two orders.** The transition was almost seamless. All Templar possessions were transferred to the Order of Christ. As for the Templars themselves, there were never any arrests in Portugal. In the Chronicle of King Dinis the author says that \"history does not tell of any brothers [of the Templars] being killed, but instead, **as we found written, many of them joined the Order of Christ**.\" The last master of the Templars, D. Vasco Fernandes, ended his days as commander of Montalvão, on the eastern border, a fate vastly different from that of Jacques de Molay, last general master of the Templars, who was burned at the stake in France. Vasco Fernandes was, to my knowledge, the only Templar master in Europe to continue his duties as a member of a military order after the demise of the Templars. As a last link to the old order, and as a sign that any such link was completely void of prejudice, the old Templar master and his brothers started to add to their signatures Quondam miles Templi, \"at one time knight of the Templars.\"\n\n\n\n\n" ] }

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[ "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJudPwztZyg2BQjhetw_bww", "https://www.patreon.com/askhistorians", "http://askhistorians.libsyn.com", "https://play.google.com/music/podcasts/portal#p:id=playpodcast/series&amp;a=100831514", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/72dgww/askhistorians_podcast_95_the_revolution_before/", "http://askhistorians.libsyn.com/rss", "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-askhistorians-podcast/id812302476?mt=2&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;ign-mpt=uo%3D8", "https://soundcloud.com/user679855208", "http://askhistorians.libsyn.com/askhistorians-podcast-097-european-military-orders-and-their-history", "http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/tas-stacey/the-askhistorians-podcast" ]

[ [], [], [], [ "http://www.jstor.org/stable/41166860?Search=yes&amp;resultItemClick=true&amp;searchText=The&amp;searchText=New&amp;searchText=Frontier:&amp;searchText=The&amp;searchText=Role&amp;searchText=of&amp;searchText=the&amp;searchText=Knights&amp;searchText=Templar&amp;searchText=in&amp;searchText=the&amp;searchText=Establishment&amp;searchText=of&amp;searchText=Portugal&amp;searchText=as&amp;searchText=an&amp;searchText=Independent&amp;searchText=Kingdom&amp;searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DThe%2BNew%2BFrontier%253A%2BThe%2BRole%2Bof%2Bthe%2BKnights%2BTemplar%2Bin%2Bthe%2BEstablishment%2Bof%2BPortugal%2Bas%2Ban%2BIndependent%2BKingdom&amp;refreqid=search%3Acb5683b6983227efb964b8a934fc5d78&amp;seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "fcu8xuz", "fcu9l1w", "fcud0xh", "fcufppt", "fcumovm", "fcvnyij", "fcwaxeh", "fdcsehv" ], "score": [ 174, 71, 37, 82, 52, 33, 3, 6 ], "text": [ "Elizabeth’s most secret agent\n\nIf one wishes to grasp the dark and immeasurably complicated world of the Elizabethan era it often helps to find one person and use them as a fixed point by which one can navigate through the umbral mirk. \n\nFor me, there is no better North Star to use than Thomas Phillipes; the man who Charles Nicholl’s describes as ‘’the commissioner, the aparatchik, the interrogator, the secret policeman par excellence” (Nicholl p411). \n\nHis story illustrates, perfectly, how politics changed in the era, and how a man could rise and fall several times within a life. At one point he was arguably one of the most important agents of Queen Elizabeth I; later he was a penniless and broken soul rotting in jail. This unremarkable looking man was to be involved in the deaths of monarchs and famed playwrights; in forgery and fraud; he was both a crucial member of the English intelligence services under Elizabeth and a victim of the same service under James. \n\n\n**Description and Early Life**\n\nOur only description of him comes from a woman whose life he helped terminate- Mary, Queen of Scots. She describes him as ‘slender in every way, dark yellow hair on his head, and clear yellow beard’. His face was ‘eaten’ by small pox scars and he was myopic; he wore glasses.\n\nHe was born around 1556 in London; his father was one William Philips, a cloth merchant and minor functionary at the Customs House. Thomas grew up smart. Very smart. He quickly excelled at academia and we know he matriculates from Trinity College, Cambridge, with a Masters in 1577, aged only 19. \n\nHe was a highly skilled mathematician (one could say brilliant) but he was also an expert linguist; we know he could speak French, German, Latin, Spanish and Italian. His handwriting is neat, small, precise; he writes in italic; his words for such a skilled linguist are mostly parsimonious. This was an organised mind; ferocious and single focused. \n\nAt some point during his studies he comes to the attention of none other than Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queens private Secretary (Walsingham refers to a ‘young Philips’ in his staff suggesting he had caught the eye of the spymaster possibly while still at Cambridge) . But soon after graduating he completes his first job abroad for his master- he travels to Paris and joins the staff of English Ambassador, Sir Amias Paulet. \n\nFor two years he is employed by Paulet and begins to carve a niche out for himself. Very quickly Thomas Phillipes (his preferred spelling of his surname) became established as England’s first cryptoanalyst. He possessed the mathematical skills required to be a cryptographer, (and there were plenty of them around) but this coupled with his linguistic talents made him a unique figure.\n\nIf you wanted someone to break a code? You went to young Thomas. This was to be the story of his life. \n\nHe returned to England in 1579, and as often happens in his tale, he disappears into the shadows for a few years. We do not know what exactly he does in this period but we have some tantalising glimpses. He was in the same social circle as Peter Bales, the English writing master and creator of many of the ciphers used by Walsingham for correspondence with his agents. It would be remarkable to me to think that he didn’t use these few years to study under or with Bales, improving his skill. \n\nCrucially his service in France was an important stepping stone; France was the testing ground for a host of English spies and agents; it was a place one ‘cut ones teeth’ in the dark arts of counter intelligence. Working for the ambassador had educated Thomas in the diplomatic world. It was now time for him to enter the world of espionage. \n\nIn 1582/83 Thomas was back in France, now on a much more clandestine mission; as far as we can tell he travelled under an alias to spend several months staying in or near the main post road between Lyons and Paris. This was the route used by Priests travelling from the English College in Rome and William Allen’s seminary in Rheims, to the French coast, and it is most probable that Thomas was sent there to intercept and decipher correspondence between these hotbeds of Catholic agitation in Europe and their supporters in England. \n\nWe know that even at such an early stage in his career Thomas’ code-breaking skills were well established; Walsingham used him as a code-breaker of last resort. Despite being undercover and even with the inherent risks of having mail intercepted, Walsingham is forced to write to Thomas in France to ask him to help decipher a particularly difficult coded letter. \n\nIn a moment that reveals much about his character, the young man replied that he deciphered the code as he travelled slowly back to Paris. It had been hard work. Not because the code itself was complicated; no, rather the message was written in Latin and the original writers mastery of the language was so dire it had led to many false readings. \n\nHe was in many ways a bit of an intellectual snob. \n\nHe returned to England having proven himself in ‘field work’. He was no longer just an academic type. He had graduated. His intelligence was a great asset; he was trusted and he was promoted. \n\nBy 1586, now 28, he was at the right hand of Sir Francis Walsingham. He was one of a small cabal of men (including William Waad who Walsingham employed for ‘heavy’ work) who helped Elizabeth’s principle secretary run a massive clandestine network of spies, informants and double agents. He was right in the heart of darkness itself. Brilliant, driven and dogged. \n\n**The Walsingham Years 1586-1590**\n\n\nThe next four years turned out to be crucial in the history of England. Thomas Phillipes now found himself working with Walsingham on the biggest counter-Intelligence operation ever carried out during the era: the campaign to discover if Mary, Queen of Scots, was conspiring against Elizabeth. \n\nWithout getting into the staggering detail of what was to become known as the Babington plot (and when you do, you get to see just how much work he had to do) Thomas was crucial to the entire thing. He was Walsingham’s sounding board; his precise ‘muse’. He was the man Walsingham could bounce ideas off; who he worked closely with, inch by inch, as they infiltrated the network of agents and messengers for the Scottish Queen. \n\nHe wasn’t alone of course; he was involved in ‘turning’ her courier Gilbert Gifford to the crowns side; he began working with Robert Poley (who became a veteran of the English secret services); he employed men like the low level criminal Ingram Frazier to follow Babington around London; and he worked alongside old friends, such as William Waad and Sir Amias Paulet (his old boss, now designated Mary’s jailer). These men, plus others, were members of a dedicated group who broke open Mary’s information network. \n\nPhillipes was key to it all. It was mostly he who arranged so that every letter she sent was intercepted, deciphered and then sent on. Driven by what he called (in a very modern idiom) the ‘security of the state’ Thomas not only sat and deciphered complex coded letters but was travelling up and down the country; establishing agents; keeping turncoats happy; devising strategies alongside Walsingham. \n\nHe was brilliant and ruthless in his pursuit. \n\nHis influence was truly seen in the infamous ‘doctored letter’. Simply, Walsingham and Thomas had a letter, in code, written out by Mary’s secretary, to Babington; a reply to his informing her of the plot to kill the queen with five other conspirators. \n\nWalsingham and Thomas deciphered it and decided to add a small section. They wanted Babington to name his fellow conspirators. To do this would require Thomas to not only copy out the original coded letter in the style of the original (a prestigious act of forgery in its own right) but also add a new section that sounded consistent with Mary’s tone; it had to ask the conspiracy to reveal itself but not be obvious in doing so. \n\nFrom the rough notes that exist we can see Walsingham and Phillipes laboured long over it; throwing out sentences and words that didn’t seem right. Two brilliant men labouring over what would become the biggest and best sting operation of the era. \n\nThe results were a success, the plot was exposed and by the following September Thomas Phillipes was a crucial element in the preparation for Walsingham and Lord Burghley of ‘proofs’ of Mary’s guilt. As the great men of state moved to ambush the Scottish Queen, Thomas was preparing documents, compiling and summarising the evidence and serving quietly in the background. \n\nWith her execution he had served his master’s well. Despite Elizabeth’s fury at her death, Thomas was recognised for his service to the Queen. He received an annual pension of 100 marks. \n\nIn the aftermath, with the Armada and the Cold War becoming a hot war, Thomas was engaged fully; running agents for Walsingham and breaking codes full time. \n\nAnd then Walsingham died.", " Like the story about the Count of Tendilla, this one is not very well known, but I think it is worth telling. If you were to be asked who was the first black university professor, and when did he start teaching, what would you say? Maybe someone from the early XX century in America or France? Well, it was much earlier. The first black professor was Juan Latino, professor of Latin language and grammar at the University of Granada, in the mid-XVI century. \n\nJuan Latino was born Juan de Sessa, a slave to the Count of Cabra and his wife the Duchess of Sessa, although some say he was the bastard son of the Count of Cabra and a black slave. Juan was a man of very vivid intellect, and a close friend to the dukes' son Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba y Fernández de Córdoba. When Gonzalo was studying at the University of Granada, Juan, being a slave, could not attend the lessons, but listened from outside and learnt as much as he could with his friend Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. \n\nSo much did he learn, that he ended up taking the graduation exam and passed it, being praised as a great latinist. He graduated as bachelor of philosophy on the 2nd of February 1546, as it is evident from the graduation document present in the archive of the University of Granada, signed by Master of Arts Benedicto del Peso. He obtained his graduate degree (licenciado) in 1557, and of master of Latin the next year. \n\nThe Bishop of Granada don Pedro Guerrero could not fail to notice this man. When the position of professor of Latin language and grammar was available that year, Juan Latino was the strongest candidate for the job, and the jury composed by Pedro Guerrero, the count of Tendilla (a great latinist and son of the count of Tendilla I wrote about last time), and Pedro de Deza. He passed, and became the first black university professor. \n\nHis presence is continuous in the records of the University of Granada, attending the University's Senate meetings in his position as professor. So much was Juan Latino's fame that he was responsible of giving the inaugural adress in 1565, an extremely high honour that clearly states Latino's fame. \n\nWhile he was professor of Latin, he had an affair with one of his students, Ana de Carleval, daughter of one Granada's knights 24 (councilmen), and married her. They lived happily and had four children, not having any known problems regarding their race. Juan was a highly regarded scholar in his lifetime, and for many years after that, having been lauded by Cervantes and many other authors. He died at 78 years old in Granada. \n\nSources: \n\nWright, E. R (2016), *The epic of Juan Latino: Dilemmas of race and Religion in Renaissance Spain.* Toronto: University Press \n\nGonzález Garbín, A (1886), Glorias de la Universidad de Granada: el negro Juan Latino, in *Boletín del Centro Artístico de Granada* \n\nSánchez Marín, J.A. and Muñoz Martín M.N (2009), \"El Maestro Juan Latino en la Granada renacentista. Su ciudad, su vida, sus protectores\", in *Florentia Iliberritana: Revista de Estudios de Antigüedad Clásica*", "1492 is often seen as one supposedly \"glorious beginning\" of the (early) modern period in Europe. But from the start Columbus' American voyages also show some of the Spanish Crown's main overseas interests: finding precious metals and indigenous people to serve as work forces.\n\nIncluding, you know, slavery.\n\n\n\n**I have read that Columbus brought back 10 to 25 natives from his first voyage to the Americas. Seven or eight are said to have made it to Spain alive. Do we have any idea what happened to these seven or eight survivors?**\n\n(adapted from an earlier answer)\n\nWhen Columbus sailed through the Bahamas he took aboard seven Taínos. They would be brought to Spain with him, with the intention of teaching them Castilian and Christianity in order to aid with the conversion when they returned. These seven and a few others were then brought to the Castilian court in 1493, with the additional goal of serving as evidence of Columbus \"discoveries\". \n\nFor Anthony Pagden they should also show the Catholic Monarchs that although the Caribbean proved poor in spices and gold, they might still be rich in \"human merchandise\", meaning slaves and work forces - Queen Isabella's attempts at breaking the Portuguese monopoly over the Atlantic slave trade had not worked out. But he also \"brought them back as specimens, so that Their Majesties might see what people these Indies had in them\", so as proof of his voyages. \n\nOne of the first chroniclers of the Indies, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo is our main source for Columbus' arrival in Barcelona. There the native Americans where baptized. Their leader was baptized as don Fernando de Aragón, who was a relative of the important *cacique* or native leader Guacanagari (who had first welcomed Columbus on Hispaniola). Another, baptized after Columbus as Diego Colon, became an important interpreter for Columbus. \n\n\nOviedo then tells us in his Historia de las Indias\n\n > And another one they called don Juan de Castilla, and others they gave other names still, following their wishes [sic], or their patrons allowed to be given to them, in accordance with the Catholic Church. ... the prince [don Juan] wanted this [don Juan de Castilla] with him, and wanted him to stay in his royal house so that he would be well treated as if he was the son of an important gentleman [or knight] whom he loved very much. \n\n > ... and I [Oviedo] saw this indio who spoke already well Castilian, and after two years he died. *All the other indios returned to this island in the second voyage of the Admiral [Columbus]*.\n[my transl.]\n\n*So of the circa 7 Taínos all were brought back to the Caribbean to aid with conversion, except for one who stayed with prince don Juan until his death two years later.* \n\nFor Columbus there were no problems with taking these indigenous people captive, since at that point, they could still be seen in Europe as \"barbarians\" according to Aristotelian ideas - without having converted to Christianity they could be described as inferior, pagan and \"less than human\", and according to Columbus were \"fit to be ordered about and made to work\". \n\nThe Spanish monarchs were thus very early traffickers in native slaves. While the Spanish Crown at this point started issuing decrees to protect the natives and to convert them, at first such commands were mostly ignored by Columbus and other Spaniards in the Caribbean. \n\nInterestingly, Bartolomé de las Casas saw these Taínos in Seville as a young man. He would serve under Columbus and later become a strong advocate for the Americas' native population, which directly led to the Leyes Nuevas of 1542 officially ending native slavery (although it continued unofficially, on which more below). \n\nThese Taínos brought as slaves to Castille were a mere \"footnote\" for Columbus as proof for his own explorations - he loses interest when they are declared not to be slaves. But I think it's important to note for context that they were far from alone in their fate.\n\n **First** off: More slave shipments followed, including one of circa 600 Carribbean natives, and one of circa 500 Taínos in 1500 to Spain. Many of them died partly due to disease, but also probably since they were completely uprooted from their environments.\n\nIn 1508 a census listed that only 60.000 native people were left in Hispaniola (modern day Dom-Rep and Haiti) - there are estimates of ~~ca. 3 million~~ several hundred thousand Tainos in the Caribbean before contact. Las Casas stated that by 1542 (the time of the Leyes nuevas) there were only about 200 Taínos left in Hispaniola, a similar fate shared by other native groups in the Caribbean. Charles C. Mann in 1493 notes that although no Taínos have survived today, according to modern research their DNA is possibly carried on by Dominicans of African or European descent today.\n\n\n\n**Second** I'll briefly note that native slavery did not end abruptly with the Leyes Nuevas, and that this was a practice spanning the Spanish Americas, Caribbean, Portugal and Spain. Nancy van Deusen has written a great book (\"Global Indios\") on this, where she describes distinct phases: \n\nFirst between 1500-1542 \"the enslavement of hundreds of thousands of people from America and elsewhere\" (including Africa) due to the \"open-ended exceptions of just war and ransom\". Just war had served as a justification for war against Muslims in medieval Iberia and continued to be used for conquest campaigns in the Americas. \n\nA second phase begins with the Leyes Nuevas of 1542 under Charles and heavily influenced by Bartolomé de las Casas. These already mentioned laws stated that native Americans were human, vassals of the Spanish Crown and free - effectively prohibiting enslavement of native people for just war or ransom. \n\nHowever, the New Laws included important loopholes which led to enslavement of native people continuing circa until the late 16th/early 17th century, albeit in much smaller numbers (numbering rather in the thousands regarding Castile). This meant that native people from Spanish America were still being brought to Spain at that time, often via Portugal. They would then use legal mechanisms open to them to argue for freedom, often successfully.\n\nAt the same time, Spanish America's population throughout the colonial era continued to be majorly indigenous. At least in the colonial centres this meant various forms of indigenous labor, including forced labor. From the very beginning too, Africans were forcibly brought to the Americas.\n\n The end of native slavery then for the Spanish coincided with a massive increase of - clearly still very much allowed - African slavery, with various forms of unfree labor enabling and forming the backbone of the colonial economy. \n\n- [I talk some more about native people in Spain in this older post](_URL_0_)\n\n- [plus here on African slavery in colonial Latin America](_URL_1_)\n\nEdit: a number", "It escapes the notice of most - bar the few that explore the details of Portuguese Asiatic trade - that in fact there was one particular commodity that at least for the first few decades (1500-1530) was in *enormous* demand in Asia, which the Europeans could supply and that wasn't silver and gold coin. Although it's not far off, as the commodity in question is ***copper***, another valuable metal, possibly even categorized as precious I wouldn't really know. Sadly, analysis of the copper trade gets at best only a side mention in the descriptions of the Portuguese spice trade with Asia - as true in modern academic works as it indeed was even back then by the contemporaries - which leaves us with lots of missing details and unanswered questions. But there is enough to start painting a picture that might shed some light on the issue, so let's dive in. \n\nReading Portuguese primary sources you can immediately grasp the importance of copper: be it in the descriptions of the Asiatic lands where it was frequently highlighted that copper was in great demand; or in reading the cargo and trade accounts of the early armadas where it is obvious that copper was by far the largest percentage of outgoing cargo. In fact, K.S. Mathew in his work \"Maritime Trade of the Malabar Coast and the Portuguese in the Sixteenth Century\" argues that looking into the accounts of the Portuguese factors in India for the first few decades; gold and silver coins imports were only 1/4th of total value imported, while commodities - chief of which was copper by far - made astounding 3/4ths of total value. \n\nTo single out the importance of copper in a single quote it's best to use a letter from Afonso de Albuquerque from circa 1512 where he says that emissaries from Cambay (Gujurati sultanate) asked for Portuguese to deliver **40,000 quintals of copper** (presumably annually), for the price of 18 xerafims per quintal. Now, I would be pretty surprised if these numbers meant anything to you so let's put them into context. Quintal was Portuguese unit of weight that corresponded to a value of either 51-52 or 58-59 kilograms (depending on if the new or old quintal was meant), so we can calculate that it means Gujaratis asked to import over 2000 tons of copper. Again, this absolute number is meaning without context, so let's compare with the European imports: Portuguese estimated the size of European **pepper market at 25,000 - 30,000 quintals** annually and aimed to import around that amount of spice (and frequently managed only less). In other words, Gujurati alone wanted to import more copper than Portuguese planned to import spice for entire Europe! Vast demand indeed. \n\nMore interesting is the analysis of the price. Eighteen xerafims comes to around **13.5 cruzado** per quintal, as is supported by other sources that list the price of copper in India around that period ranging from the lowest at 12 cruzado to as high 18, and even 20 cruzados - the average being around 14 cruzados. The value in cruzados probably doesn't mean much to you as well, but it helps us to compare the price in Europe. Namely, Portuguese were buying copper in Antwerpen by the **price of only 4.5 cruzado per quintal**. That's **3x** the difference in price between Europe and India! An enormous profit, albeit when contrasted again to pepper it might seem less impressive: since 1506 Portuguese struck a deal to buy pepper for around 3 cruzados a quintal, while at the same time they fixed the sales price in Lisbon at least 22 cruzados a quintal, a whooping **7x** increase. All in all, if Portuguese bought copper in Europe, sold it in India and with earnings bought pepper and then sold it back in Europe they multiply their profits and could get over **20 times** as much as the initial investment! \n\nOh, and believe it the Portuguese were very eager to jump on this opportunity and immediately set about to use copper as the main medium of exchange, both in Europe and India, although they hadn't really succeeded at either end. In India it seems pepper producers insisted that they are paid in gold coins and refused and another way of compensation by barter, refusing both Indian goods let alone European ones. The best Portuguese could do was get a deal with King of Cochin to pay him 3/4th of the price of 3 cruzados in gold, and the final one-fourth in copper. Deals were also attempted to be made with families like Welsers and Fuggers which controlled Central European copper (and silver) mining operations, but again negotiations and deals frequently fell through (and some involved bankrupted) as the sides couldn't reach agreement on details like price, quantities and particularly the Portuguese insistence the copper is paid for by pepper from the next year arrival which understandably didn't sit well with the suppliers who preferred to be paid in cash and naturally immediately on delivery. Still, some kind of deals were made, as numbers show the Portuguese were exporting on average 4,000 quintals of copper in the first decade, and around 6,000 quintals in the second decade (although the examples listed don't show any year's imports going above 6,000, so this might be the maximum). \n\nThis is where the story begins to be both interesting and harder to explain. 6,000 quintals are far cry from 40,000 quintals we mentioned above. And we know also the Portuguese ships had the capacity to carry more than this, so why the comparably small amount? The first thought is that the original number estimated is too high, which might be true, but again Portuguese factors continued asking for more copper to be sent. It seems rather more likely that Portuguese had trouble securing more than this amount of copper in Europe without the price increase, or were afraid of the price of copper dropping in India, and settled for the amount that was just enough to secure their 25,000 quintals of pepper (for which 6000 quintals of copper was enough). Admittedly this is all more speculative, and it gets worse from here. \n\nI don't have any numbers for the rest of the sixteenth century and it seems by the 1580s, copper was mostly dropped as an import item. Why is that is unknown to me? I suspect the changes in prices of copper upwards in Europe and downward in India may be responsible, but other then some data that copper/pepper price ratio in India dropped from 4:1 to 2.5:1, I am having trouble finding comprehensive price trends for both areas. I continue my readings on the topic but felt that this so far could fit here. I hope it was interesting, although I suspect import numbers aren't the top of \"fun\" things to read about. For me, the interesting thing about the copper market is the possibility of the relative scarcity of copper in India, and the high prices might have been a reason behind the comparatively worse artillery Indians had at the time of arrival of Portuguese. I mean, if copper is literally worth a fortune, you don't go around poring a couple of tons of it for a good cannon, do you?", "**Possessed by the Dead in the Holy Land**\n\nIn the second half of the 16th century, a small town in the mountains of the Holy Land suffered through an epidemic of spirit possession.\n\nFollowing the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian peninsula in 1492, the Sephardi Jewish population spread across the mediterranean, with a fairly large number settling in the Holy Land. They brought with them not only an enthusiasm for kabbalistic mysticism, but also a positive orientation towards death (that it was all around us and a part of everyday life) that differed from the ideas of the Ashkenazim of central and eastern Europe, where it was thought of as a domain of terror and dread. \n\nFurthermore, the town of Tzfat (also called Safed) was itself peculiar when it came to death. R. Moshe Alsheikh wrote in 1591 that Tzfat was a city \n > which has forever been a city of interred dead, to which people from throughout the lands of exile came to die. A holy place, a city of our God from the day of its founding, they come to die there and be buried. \n\nJ.H. Chajes, whose book *Between Worlds* is the major source of this information, writes that Tzfat \n > is a city that lives with its dead, its stone domiciles and synagogues poised on sloping hills that are home to 20,000 dead, whose graves begin only a few steps beyond the homes of the living.\n\nThe graveyard is always within view.\n\nDuring the second half of the 16th century, some of the greatest kabbalists in history were living in Tzfat, among them Isaac Luria (the founder of Lurianic Kabbalah, the system through which modern mystical study continues to be framed) and his student, Chaim Vital. Vital wrote about all of their adventurings as they were happening, and these writings continue to be available to us. They describe the system of kabbalistic study that Luria founded, but they also describe a number of case studies related to dybbuk possession, a concept that originated with them.\n\nA dybbuk, according to this school of thought, was the disembodied, wandering soul of a dead Jew that would possess the body of a living Jew. In most or all cases, the disembodied soul had committed some sort of heinous heretical or blasphemous act, like adultery with a gentile, or using one’s standing as a student/teacher of Torah for nefarious means. The soul would be forced to wander as punishment, and the unbearable pain and loneliness would lead them to find a similarly (though less) sinful host that they could possess in order to find a rabbi and achieve some sort of cosmic rectification.\n\nTo illustrate the concept, I’ll briefly tell the story of “The Spirit in the Widow in Tzfat” (written by Vital, found in Chajes’ book):\n\nA spirit entered a widow and “made her suffer great and enormous suffering.” The townsfolk came to watch her and she began to divine things about them, telling each one the deepest, darkest secrets of the other. Her relatives went to Rav Isaac Luria for help, and he sent his student, Chaim Vital, along with some appropriate incantations (*kavvanot*). \n\nWhen Vital approaches the dybbuk-possessed widow, she looks away from him. When he asked why, the spirit tells him that “I am unable to gaze upon your face, for the wicked are unable to gaze upon the face of the *Shekhina* (presence of God)!” Remember that Vital is writing this scene about himself, so this is an opportunity to let everyone know how great he is despite his status as a student–a running theme in his writing.\n\nVital then asks what the dybbuk’s sin was that led him here. The spirit tells him that he “sinned” with a married woman and fathered bastards. As punishment, his soul has been wandering the land for 25 years with three angels of destruction following him and beating him relentlessly along the way. His punishment will last as long as his bastard children live. In fact, his sin was *so awful* that he made his way to Gehinnom (the place where souls go to be bleached for a year before they can enter paradise–sort of like purgatory), but the million souls of evildoers and murderers came out of its gates and told him there’s no room for his degree of sinfulness there.\n\nThe spirit then wandered all the way to around India, but saw that the Jews there have “defiled themselves” by marrying gentiles, so he didn’t want to make his situation worse and left. He made his way back to Gaza, where he tried to possess a pregnant doe. It was tremendously painful because his soul didn’t fit in the doe’s body (“for one walks upright and the other bent”) and he didn’t like the kind of food the doe eats. The doe didn’t have space for the souls of both the dybbuk and its unborn fetus, so its belly split and she died. He then made his way to a town where Jews and Ishmaelites (Muslims) lived side-by-side, and possessed a Kohen (a Jew from the Priestly class). The Kohen went to a Muslim cleric who exorcized him.\n\nFinally, the dybbuk made his way to Tzfat, where he spent the night in this widow’s house. When Chaim Vital asks the spirit why he was given permission to enter this woman, and he explains that the woman was trying to light a fire in her house and had trouble, and subsequently lost her cool. Vital intimates that that’s not much of a reason to receive that kind of permission, so the dybbuk reveals the true reason:\n\n > Know, my master the sage, that this woman’s inside is not like her outside, for she does not believe in the miracles that the Holy One, blessed be He, did for Israel, and in particular in the Exodus from Egypt. Every Passover night, when all of Israel is rejoicing and good hearted, saying the great Hallel and telling of the Exodus from Egypt, it is vanity in her eyes, a mockery and a farce. And she thinks in her heart that there was never a miracle such as this.\n\nEssentially, she questioned the teachings of her religion. Vital confronts her about it, she apologizes, and he decrees a ban on the spirit to leave the body of the widow through her little toe on her left foot, which will subsequently be destroyed and useless.\n\nThe following nights, the spirit continued to attempt to enter the doorways and windows of the widow’s house, so her family brought Vital back to check her mezuzahs. One of the doorways didn’t have a mezuzah, so Luria commanded that a proper kosher one be installed, and the spirit did not return.\n\nSO, where does this story leave us? Beyond being a fun story about death and spirit possession, there are a number of things we can learn about Jewish life and practice in this region at this specific moment in time:\n\n-About concepts of the soul, we can see that souls are understood to have some degree of physicality. The spirit can be beaten and experience pain, while its possession of a living body must be a proper physical fit, as we saw in the way his soul didn’t fit in the body of the pregnant doe. We can also see that there’s an idea of a body only being able to hold a certain number of souls, as the doe couldn’t hold both the dybbuk and her fetus.\n\n-On the always-important topic of how Jews interact with and conceptualize their neighbours, we can see that Muslim magic is thought of as similarly effective, though lesser than Jewish magic. \n\n-Concerning gender dynamics, we’d have to look at more stories, but the general theme is that male spirits possess (penetrate) female hosts. Occasionally males enter males, and almost never do female spirits enter male hosts.\n\n-Most importantly, concerning the central question of proper practice, or how to live Jewishly, this story is a treasure trove. It offers us a sort of spectrum of Jewishness, from the most awful Jew to the greatest Jew. On the horrible end of the spectrum is the dybbuk, who is so terrible that he is forced to wander. The very bad but not horrible Jew is the widow who questions her faith and in the process opens herself up to possession. Closer to the middle are the townsfolk who stand around watching the spectacle, and whose darkest secrets are revealed. Moving towards the good are the family members who seek help and the local rabbis. Near the great end of the spectrum are Isaac Luria and Chaim Vital, who devote their lives to these issues and desire to achieve greatness. There’s an end to the spectrum that didn’t come up in this story, the exceptionally great, hall-of-fame Jews known as the Sages (that’s a story for another day, but very briefly, Luria had a practice of clinging his soul to those of the wisest rabbis from Jewish history in order to learn from them). \n\nIn a sense, this story serves as a handbook for how to be a good Jew (and how to avoid being a bad Jew). It also speaks to a certain anxiety, given the massive influx of Jews from a number of different communities at this time, of what constitutes proper practice. If *improper* practice can lead to this kind of horror, then it would be essential to suss out what should and would be considered *proper*.\n\n\nChajes, Jeffrey Howard. *Spirit Possession and the Construction of Early Modern Jewish Religiosity*. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI, 2000.\n\nChajes, Jeffrey Howard. *Between Worlds - Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism*. University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.", "You've heard that Elisabeth Báthory (1560-1614 C.E.) was a seductively beautiful bisexual siren, a butcher, a vampire, a cannibal, a demon. She is history's first documented female serial murderer, and she's also the most prolific serial killer of all time (of any gender). \n\nIf you know one thing about Báthory, it's that she tortured 650 virgin girls to death and bathed in their blood to preserve her eternal youth.\n\nIf you know a second thing about Báthory, it's that modern \"scholars\" allege that the crown subjected her to a \"show trial\" -- a corrupt, misogynist monarch's cash- and land-grab -- that deprived an innocent woman of her life, liberty, and property.\n\nEverything you know is wrong.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**OUTLINE:**\n\n1. A very brief biography of Elisabeth Báthory\n2. How many girls did Báthory kill?\n3. How did she kill them?\n4. Did she bathe in the blood of virgins?\n5. Did the crown try and convict Báthory for her crimes? Did the crown conspire to imprison her unjustly? Was Elisabeth innocent?\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**PART I: A BASIC BIOGRAPHY OF ELISABETH BÁTHORY**\n\nElisabeth was born in 1560 at the Báthory palace at Ecsed, a Hungarian city on the border of Royal Hungary and the Principality of Transylvania. In 1570 (when Elisabeth was 10), one of the patriarchs of the Báthory family ascended to the Princedom of Transylvania, and her family ruled the principality for the vast majority of her life. In an era when a noble family was wealthy if they owned a single castle, the Báthory family owned dozens of castles, thousands of acres of land, and tens of thousands of enslaved serfs. Elisabeth Báthory was the Jackie Kennedy, or perhaps the Princess Diana, of her era.\n\nIn 1571, Elisabeth's parents betrothed her to Hungary's most eligible (and wealthy) bachelor: Francis Nadasdy. Elisabeth left her home at age 11 and moved to the heart of Royal Hungary to her future husband's estates. Elisabeth and Francis married in 1575, when Elisabeth was 14, at an astronomically lavish wedding with 4,500 guests.\n\nElisabeth and Francis had 5 children, 3 of whom survived to adulthood. Anna Nadasdy was born in 1585, two infants were born and died between '85 and '96, Kate Nadasdy was born in 1594, and Paul Nadasdy was born 1598. Francis Nadasdy died in 1604 after a long and glorious military career massacring Turks. He is still a Hungarian national hero to this day.\n\nIt's unclear when Elisabeth Báthory started butchering local adolescent girls. There is no evidence that she murdered anyone before 1590 (age 30). By 1602 (age 42), however, her atrocities were so well known that her local Lutheran pastor publicly threatened to excommunicate Báthory and her accomplices from her home church.\n\nBefore 1609, Báthory's targets consisted exclusively of peasant girls. In 1609, however, Báthory opened a *gynaeceum*, a finishing school for young women of noble birth, at her estate at Csejthe (\"CHY-tuh\" or \"CHEH-tuh\") in Royal Hungary. Within a couple of weeks of admitting young women to her school, they were all dead. While peasants had no legal rights in 17th-century Hungary, nobles had all kinds of legal rights under the law, including rights to life, liberty, property, due process of law, and trial by a jury of one's peers. Although no one gave a fig about Báthory murdering hundreds of peasants, as soon as she killed a couple noblewomen, the crown ordered two separate investigations into her alleged crimes.\n\nIn 1609-10 (when Báthory was 49), the King of Hungary, Matthias II von Habsburg, personally and publicly demanded an investigation and trial. Hungary's royal palatine (chief law enforcement officer, chief administrator, and personal representative of the king) interviewed some 200 witnesses, all of whom testified to various accusations of torture, brutality, and murder by the hundreds.\n\nInterestingly, Báthory hosted the king of Hungary himself at her home on Christmas Eve 1610, just 6 days before the palatine arrested her and 4 accomplices on Dec. 30. Even more interestingly, representatives of all 3 of Elisabeth's children arrived with the palatine and witnessed her arrest and imprisonment. (The representatives were Nicholas Zrinyi, husband of Anna Nadasdy; George Drugeth de Hommona, husband of Kate Nadasdy; and Imre Megyeri, legal guardian of 12 year-old Paul Nadasdy during his minority.) Báthory's children knew of and consented to her arrest in advance!\n\nFour Báthory accomplices (all staff and servants at her estate) were questioned, tried, convicted, sentenced to death, tortured, and executed between Jan. 2 and Jan. 7, 1611, within 8 days (!!) of their initial arrest. (Poetically, today, Jan. 2, 2020, is exactly the 409th anniversary of the trials against the 4 accomplices.)\n\nAlthough Báthory's accomplices were immediately tried, convicted, tortured, and executed, the state never tried or convicted Elisabeth Báthory of any crime. Despite the mountains of evidence that Báthory was guilty of torture and multiple murder, there was no trial. And yet despite the lack of a trial, the palatine imprisoned Elisabeth for life in her manor at Csejthe. Báthory died 4 years later in 1614 (age 54), having never left Csejthe since the night of her arrest.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**PART II: HOW MANY GIRLS DID BÁTHORY KILL?**\n\nThe estimates range from 30 to 650.\n\nAlthough you're most likely to hear that she killed \"650 girls,\" \"over 600 girls,\" or \"nearly 700 girls,\" this estimate is certainly false. The real number is somewhere between 30 and 300.\n\nOnly one witness, a peasant named Susannah, testified that she heard rumours that Báthory killed 650 girls. Susannah testified that another servant, Jakob Szilvassy, had seen the Countess' registry, list, or diary that recorded all the murders, and then told Susannah about it. When authorities called Szilvassy to testify, however, he never mentioned the diary, nor is there any other evidence the diary existed. No witness other than Susannah testified to 650 victims -- in fact, the second-highest estimate was less than half that. To say this testimony is extremely unpersuasive is an understatement.\n\nIn contrast to Susannah, Báthory's 4 accomplices testified that they killed between 30 and 50 girls with the Countess. On one hand, these numbers are more likely to be accurate than other estimates since the accomplices were literally there. On the other hand, the accomplices had an incentive to minimize the number of victims in an attempt to minimize punishment, and therefore these numbers could be lower than the true count.\n\nRelatedly, the castellan of Elisabeth's home castle at Sárvár testified that 175 girls \"had died.\" He specifically stated that he did not know how they died because he was not permitted inside the Countess' house. There are two reasons to question his is testimony. Firstly, is it believable that the head servant, the overseer of her estate, was not permitted in the house? This doesn't make that much sense, unless the castellan intended to say that he was not allowed into the Countess' private rooms. Secondly, the castellan may have been biased because he had either a nominally or actually close relationship with Báthory: he named his daughters Elisabeth, Anna, and Katherine after the Lady and her own daughters. As with the accomplices, we must ask: does this potential bias mean his estimate is likely too low?\n\nAnother Sárvár castellan testified that he heard rumours that between 200 - 300 victims died from torture at Sárvár.\n\nSimilarly, when the palatine and the king corresponded in official court documents about the inquests, the palatine stated that he arrested Elisabeth \"for the murder of up to 300 maidens\". Even though the palatine, as the top law enforcement official, had an incentive to charge Báthory with the most serious crimes he could, he didn't find any reasonable suspicion to support the 650 estimate.\n\n**TL;DR:** Báthory and her accomplices likely killed somewhere between 30 and 300 young girls, but we'll never know the exact count. Although sensationalists love to report that the Countess kept a diary listing 650 victims, no reasonable person could believe that after full consideration of the evidence.\n\nEven if the real number is \"only\" 30 victims, Báthory still numbers among the most prolific serial killers of all time, and is certainly the most prolific female serial killer.", "Is there a podcast for this stuff?", "Well, in the spirit of this series to expand beyond purely Europe, I thought I would do something a little different. We see a lot of shallow Western history monarchal biopics with chalk White casts. So, I'm going to do London's immigrant community, which includes non-White people.\n\nFirstly, there were the most familiar people; merchants from France, Savoy, Navarre, Germans from the Holy Roman Empire, Italians. Although it is true there was much less diversity in the Medieval Period than something like modern day America or Brazil, travellers and even settlers from other countries had existed for much of it. Hanseatic League traders were majors rivals to local cloth industry merchants in Late Medieval London (\"London in the Later Middle Ages: Government and People, 1200-1500\" by Caroline Barron, review by Barbara Hanawalt, 2004). An interesting example of integration is the judge and official Julius Caesar who was born of Italian immigrants, and what a classic name to capture that heritage! There were even tanned-skinned Italians, like the Bassini brothers ;who worked in Elizabeth I's musicians company. Despite being Europeans, they were even treated with a certain amount of racism in at least one incident for being quite tan (Chapter I, \"Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years\", John Guy (2016). The Bassini brothers were part of a larger community of *converso* Jews (supposedly converted, often still covertly practising), in the later part of the 16th century Jews from Iberia, Spain and Portugal, fled the Spanish Inquisition and a number ended up in London. Roderigo Lopes was a Portuguese *converso* who became Elizabeth's chief physician before he was accused, it seems falsely, of treason and executed. Dutch immigrants also fled the Netherlands because of their war with Spain, and like many of the other immigrant peoples there involved in successful industries like trade and medicine led to tensions. Irish, Welsh, and Scottish people were also familiar in southern England for a long time. \"Nomads Under the Westway: Irish Travellers, Gypsies and Other Traders in West London\" by Christopher Griffin discussed Irish immigrants in England in detail, although it is primarily about later centuries.\n\nDespite their lack of depiction, during the Medieval Period African people were not unknown in Western Europe, in particular from Morocco and Ethiopia- there was a fabulous comment about Ethopia in the \"Discovery of Europe\" floating feature last. In the second half of the 16th century with the war with the Iberian Hapsburg monarchy, an increasing number of Portugese slaves from North and West Africa were taken as booty by English pirates and privateers. These people were technically freed when captured, as by the law at the time there were no slaves on English soil. But a lot of them were indebted to and dependent on those that freed them, how can they leave, so they functioned a bit like sharecroppers. At least some Black people in London, especially second-generations who sometimes had White English mothers or fathers, appear to have operated on a free basis, but many of the new intake were still basically slaves. The primary places we see Black people are as performers or house servants. The earliest evidence we have of them is in images of trumpeters in public venues or processions. Near the end of the century and as we turn over the *fin de siecle* there is an increasing presence of the house servants as grooms, pages, cooks and laundrywomen. Some of London's Black people appear to have done relatively well for themselves or at least been reasonably treated, but some Black people were probably underpaid compared to White counterparts in similar jobs and there was a lot of potential for abuse.\n\nThese articles include a number of interesting personal examples, and are a good starting point for the unfamiliar if you don't want to read a whole journal article:\n\n[_URL_1_](_URL_1_)\n\nby Prof Michael Wood.\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nreview of \"Black Tudors\" by Miranda Kaufmann.\n\nIt's important to consider the state of racism at this time. With no set narrative the way there is under slavery, it was instead rawer and more varied, ranging from apathy, \"noble savage\" ideas, exoticised curiosity to visceral physical negativity. Tamara E. Lewis describes some of the more visceral reactions in \"'Like Devils out of Hell': Reassessing the African Presence in Early Modern England\" (2016). Alden T. Vaughan and Virginia Mason Vaughan in \"Before Othello: Elizabethan Representations of Sub-Saharan Africans\" (1997) describe some of the more nuanced aspects; the way travellers accounts sometimes differentiate between different African peoples, and the way representation could be less heartless and dehumanising. Overall, this a fascinating part of the community that deserves more representation for their distinct and interesting situation.\n\nThere were other non-White peoples as well. In the first news article link it mentions a Persian, Indians and a Bengali living in the same parish as Black people and French and Dutch immigrants (that parish sounds strikingly diverse compared to the usually homogenous depictions doesn't it?) The situation of Islam was interesting because while Protestants did not see them as equal, theoretically they were intolerable heretics, but their shared interests vis a vis Catholics could lead to occasionally a small amount of solidarity. This is most pronounced in trade, diplomacy and attempts at military coordination: which gave a degree of more positive exposure to some of the merchant and courtier class. Nabil Matar in \"Britons and Muslims in the early modern period: from prejudice to (a theory of) toleration\" even describes how a number of English people went to live in islamic lands around the turn of the century. Christopher Griffin mentions that the first significant population of Romani (Gypsy) people in England arrived in 16th century.\n\nIt is interesting that is the first, European and most White minority group that actually attracted the most active and dangerous displays of xenophobia. Foreign, or foreign-descended, European merchants were the targets of both the Evil May Day riot in Henry VIII's time and the riots of 1593 and 1595 in Elizabeth's time, and in Elizabeth's time it was second-generation Dutch Protestant, who were neither especially different or threatening. Money turns out to be biggest factor in making xenophobia into action, as an uncomfortably familiar \"they terk er jebs\" type of narrative was the key incentive here; not targeting the very vulnerable but the more successful out of envy. Also in an odd subversion of the power dynamic we see in the Altantic Slave Trade, it was the Crown that was most sympathetic to these continental traders, indeed also to the Black people who were often employed by courtiers. \"Diversity and Difference in Early Modern London\" by Jacob Selwood (2010) deals significantly with this dynamic.\n\nSo to conclude, London in the Long Sixteenth Century between Henry VII and James I was a significantly more diverse place than the way it is often depicted: with barely any diversity. And those who did belong to minority groups dealt with quite complex situations, with both difficulty and prejudice, but also occasionally reward." ] }

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[ [], [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7o6iam/mestizos_living_in_spain_in_the_1700s/ds8k9ku/?context=3", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/behgik/why_did_african_slavery_and_plantation/el65uci/" ], [], [], [], [], [ "https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/hundreds-africans-tudor-england-none-slaves-black-tudors-miranda/", "https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18903391" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6fgu0e", "c6fj76x" ], "score": [ 4, 3 ], "text": [ "My specialty is 19th century continental Europe, so I really don't have much to contribute to this conversation, but out of curiosity, could you link the work that you are referring to?", "My specialty is Jewish history. Across the board literacy is incredibly highly rated. People will know that the Bar Mitzvah, the Jewish ceremony for becoming a man requires reading of the Torah. \n\nStudy of the Torah was so intensive across Jewish societies that it wrote down the oral law, which interpreted the Torah, added the Gemara (both a Palestinian and Babylonian version), which was commentary interpretin the Mishnah (both creating the Talmud) and the major Jewish theological work of the Renaissance was Maimonides' guide to interpreting the Talmud." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cblu64d", "cblwcw1", "cbm4zlr" ], "score": [ 3, 21, 5 ], "text": [ "On a related note, how much effort was devoted to the finding a fountain of youth?", "I don't know about other areas of the New World, but the search for Seven Cities of Gold was one of the motivations for Coronado's expedition.\n\nIn 1528 an expedition lead by Panfilo de Narvaez landed in Florida as one of the first attempts to colonize the area. From the start, everything went wrong. General ineptitude, shipwrecks, disease, and attacks by Native American tribes decimated the crew. Several survivors, the most famous of whom was Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, managed to make their way back to Mexico overland. When they returned to New Spain they carried with them stories of Seven Cities of Gold, also called Cibola, somewhere to the north of where they traveled in Texas.\n\nAfter all the riches found in Mexico and Peru it wasn't too difficult to think further wealth could be found somewhere in the interior of North America. In 1540 Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, governor of a province in northwestern Mexico, set out to find Cibola, and took one of the survivors of the Narvaez expedition with him as a guide. Coronado marched through Zuni and Pueblo lands but found nothing resembling the fabled cities of gold. \n\nSome of the Pueblos, likely in an effort to be rid of the intruders and lure the Spanish to their deaths on the high plains, told them about the grand city of Quivira to the east. Coronado and his followers wandered across the plains through the Texas panhandle, Oklahoma, and into Kansas. Eventually, the Spanish discovered the deceit, killed the guide they hired in the Pueblos (who they called the Turk), and returned back to Mexico. The expedition bankrupted Coronado, he faced charges of war crimes for actions during the expedition, and died in 1554.", "Officially, very little was spent searching for the multiple versions of El Dorado. Unofficially, a considerable amount of available resources and time was spent by Europeans. I say Europeans, because the Spanish were not the only ones in the Americas during the period El Dorado is usually studied. In the 16th century, while the Spanish were the majority, there were always other ethnicities such as Germans, Italians, Irish, English, Eastern Europeans, and others. All of these groups helped discover and conquer the Americas. \n\nAs r/EdOharris has pointed out, many of the later chroniclers added the search for El Dorado in their histories as a way of explaining what was happening on a broad scale. The conquest period has a good deal of aimless wandering by the Europeans. Some got lucky (Cortes, the Pizarro brothers, Jimenez de Quesada) and others suffered greatly (De Soto, Coronado, Alfinger, De Luna, and the vast majority of 16th century entrada leaders). What were they looking for when they spend a year or more wandering the coast? El Dorado was the easiest explanation. \n\nThe area that has generally been the center of El Dorado activity is New Granada (Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela). In his book **The Conquerors of the New Kingdom of Granada** Jose Ignacio Avellaneda discusses the El Dorado legend in relation to the later chroniclers. While Oviedo and others suggested that El Dorado was the intended goal of Belalcazar, Quesada, and Federman as opposed to Bogota where they all ended their expeditions, Avellaneda suggests that only after the three men reached Bogota did they hear more convincing arguments for the existence of Meta or El Dorado. Before that time, Belalcazar and Federman were simply looking for a connection between the Caribbean and the Pacific and Quesada was looking for an overland route to Peru from Caribbean coast. Only after the three men founded Bogota, did official accounts suggest the existence of and search for El Dorado (Quesada's brother and lieutenant devoted himself to the search, for example). \n\nOne of the truly official searches happened in the 1540s, when two German speaking agents of the Welser Banking house, Philip von Hutten and Bartholomeus Welser tried to find it in the Venezuelan interior. The former Bishop of Venezuela, Rodrigo de Bastidas, realized that the colony in Venezuela was so financially depressed that only the discovery of El Dorado or some Nahua/Inca civilization would save it from collapse. He suggested to Hutten that El Dorado would more than makeup for the financial problems of Venezuela. Naturally, they did not find anything. There is a published set of letters from Hutten and Welser about their experience. When the two men led their expedition back to the coast, a Spanish usurper had them executed to consolidate his power. \n\nThe El Dorado issue comes up once in while in the late 16th century, but by the middle of the 1500s it is not really present in the official documents. Only Oviedo, Aguado, and a few others mention it as a reason for all the reckless wandering and high entrada death rates. So, to answer your question, not as much money was spent officially as the chroniclers suggest, but for a brief period there was a surge in investment for entradas to find it. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c9yoe6c", "c9yqwc3" ], "score": [ 5, 3 ], "text": [ "There are [examples](_URL_0_) of people tattooing themselves with their Social Security number when the system was first instituted.", "Herodotus states that Histaeus tattooed his instructions for Aristagoras before the Ionian Revolt in 499BC, on the shaved head of a slave and then allowed the hair to grow back hiding the message. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d01cms7" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the inadvertent contamination of the Marshallese with fallout, and accidents like Three Mile Island all present what scientists call \"experiments of opportunity.\" They were not planned experiments, per se, but they did result in opportunities to study a lot of scientifically-interesting phenomena that is otherwise difficult to do (since experimenting with radiation on large populations is unethical).\n\nBasically all of our epidemiological information on the effects of radiation on human beings comes from a handful of these kinds of sources (another was data on uranium miners exposed to radon gas in the American southwest). \n\nThere were other scientific discoveries in the wake of things like mushroom clouds. The element Einsteinium was first discovered as a byproduct of thermonuclear blasts. \n\nIf you are asking, was anything discovered that totally changed our view of the universe? Not really. But most of science does not do that — it advances very incrementally.\n\nIf you wanted to make a somewhat more extended argument, you could look at all of the science that was funded as a result of the nuclear complex. We know a lot about coral atolls because we tested nuclear weapons on them, and the Atomic Energy Commission wanted to know how the weapons affected the ecosystem. We know a lot about the ocean floor and other aspects of oceanography because it is relevant to submarine warfare. We know how to get the Moon in part because because we developed long-range rockets for delivering H-bombs. The Human Genome Project was initiated by the Department of Energy as part of a long-standing funding of genetics research that comes out of the initial question of the impact of radiation on populations. And so on. Is that a \"silver lining\" or just the flip-side of dual-use research and the military-industrial complex? " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "efg9qgi" ], "score": [ 14 ], "text": [ "AFAIK absolutely not, though I'm not specialized in the latest period of ASE. \nSorry, but most (I afraid all) of your premises mentioned in OP have at least some problems, in light of recent historiography: \n\n* Archbishop Stigand's position: His irregular succession (rather multiple ecclesiastical office holding) was certainly controversial even before the conquest, but he at least sought and succeeded in getting palium in 1058 from the Pope Benedict X in Rome, who was later removed from legitimate apostolic succession of the popes as one of 'anti-Popes' (Huscroft 2005: 48). If he had made a clear break with Rome and allied with Constantinople (extremely unlikely), then why he would have sought pallium from Roman Pontiff? His weak position in the last year in ASE mainly came from this annulled legitimacy of the granted pallium, probably not the explicit excommunication of a series of successor Popes that I cannot find any positive evidence. It is worth noting that even William the Conqueror seemed to accept him in the first years after the Conquest (Loyn 2000: 60f). His deposition happened first after the visit of papal legates as well as after the Great Campaigns (1068-70) in 1070. \n* Norman Conquest as a kind of the crusade: It is true that some crusade researchers counts the alleged grant of the papal banner to William as one of 'proto-crusades' (Cf. Robinson 1990: 323-25), but none of such known proto-crusades aimed at the fellow Christians, even if excommunicated, in the 11th century. Crusades against the Christians were phenomena that in principle belonged to the pontificate of Pope Innocent III and later. While not put into action, Pope Gregory VII once also planned to help Byzantine Empire, i.e. allegedly excommunicated Christians (Ibid., 325) \n* *Basileus* title of Wessex kings since King Æthelstan: Latest research dismisses possibility of real political implication: 'We should not, however, assume that any particular political idea lay behind each use of a word like *imperator* or *basileus*' (Molyneaux 2011: 63). It should be also pointed out that Byzantine emperor would have not recognize another, western *basileus* in his 'political commonwealth' (the term itself is borrowed from Obolensky's famous work). \n* English emigrants in Constantinople, such as the Varangians: Greek sources illustarates the presence of the Englishmen among the guards first in ca. 1080, and Orderic Vitalis also notes the migration of the ex-revolting Englishmen from British Isles AFTER the conquest (Orderic Vitalis, ii-32, according to Blöndal & Benedikz 1978: 141-147). Another later tradition cited by Benedikz also supports the movement of the English during the 1070s. In short, it was not so likely that many of them had been already settled in Constantinople in 1066. \n\n & nbsp; \n\nReferences: \n\n* Blöndal, Sigfús & Benedikt S. Benediktz. *The Varangians of Byzantium*. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1978.\n* Huscroft, Richard. *Ruling England, 1042-1217*. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2005: Notes that citations from this book in Stigand's wikipedia are very dubious in some cases (cited as validation that this book in fact doesn't state).\n* Loyn, Henry. *The English Church 940-1154*. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2000.\n* [Molyneaux, George. 'Why were some Tenth-Century English Kings Presented as Rulers of Britain?' *TRHS*, 6th ser. 21 (2011): 59-91.](_URL_0_) \n* Robinson, Ian S. *The Papacy 1073-1198: Continuity and Innovation*. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990. \n\n[Edited]: fixes typo as well as correct italicalization of the works cited. " ] }

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[ [ "https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/transactions-of-the-royal-historical-society/article/why-were-some-tenthcentury-english-kings-presented-as-rulers-of-britain/87FE6DAC8D8BD4228A1E784A89DC1B37" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dqt9tqt" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Jerusalem holds significance in Islam for many of the same reasons that Christianity and Judaism hold it as significant, mainly to the city and area's connection to the key figures of the Abrahamic religions such as David, Solomon, and the prophet Elijah.\n\nWhat is exclusive to Islam, however, is a passage in the Quran known as the Al-Isra’ wal-Mi‘raj (Arabic: الإِسـراء والـمِـعـراج‎, \"The Night-Journey and the Ascension\"), telling of the Prophet Muhammad travelling to a location known as \"the Furthest Mosque\" in 620 and was ascended into Heaven, and the claim was made from there that the Dome of the Rock is what the Furthest Mosque was referring to. As to when that claim was made is unsure to people.\n\nOutside of the Quran, however, there are no accounts of the Prophet Muhammad ever making it to Jerusalem, which was still in Byzantine possession by the time of the account written in the Quran, so whether it this journey actually happened is a matter of debate.\n\nbut if you want to read further into the city's importance in Islam, Dr. Mustafa Abu Sway wrote a pretty insightful essay delving deeper into the subject. [check it out here](_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20110728001911/http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Abusway_0.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ct3no1t", "ct3rdh1" ], "score": [ 11, 8 ], "text": [ "I leave Harald Hardrada to someone else, but as for William ...\n\n**TLDR:** Edward the Confessor is thought (it's under dispute by some historians as the only contemporary source we have is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) to have promised William the throne of England. \n\nEdward the Confessor (who was at least part Norman) was childless, but knowing that he needed to name a successor, he (allegedly) named his cousin, William of Normandy to be his heir. His choice of William was something of a powerplay against the Godwin family.\n\nHarold Godwinson (of the Godwin family, and future Battle of Hastings key player) was the \npowerful Earl of Wessex, but a royal pain in the ass to Edward. In 1064, Edward sends Harold over to Normandy to offer William the succession. Whether legitimately, or by trickery (again, sources differ depending on whether they're Norman or English), Harold swore allegiance to William during this interaction. Ironically, Edward had absolutely no right to be offering the throne to anyone as the job of choosing the next king was the job of the Witan (kind of like a cabinet of ministers, wise men, etc. ... check out the [Wikipedia article](_URL_1_) for a really brief overview). Edward was just ticked that Harold (of the aforementioned hated family) was heavily favoured by the Witan... and he was ultimately the Witan's pick.\n\nFrom the article \"Aelred of Rievaulx's Life of St. Edward the Confessor: A Medieval Ideal of Kingship\" by John E. Lawyer published in *Fides et historia* v.31, no.1 (1999)\n\n > Harold Godwinson's successful claim to the throne was neither unexpected nor unprecedented, even if he was not of Alfred [the Great]'s line. He was popular and capable; more to the point he was English, and no one else offered comparable prospects for the unity and safety of the realm. Later English sources claimed that Edward bequeathed the kingdom to Harold on his deathbed, in contrast to the official Norman sources which held to the earlier promise of Duke William. As often the case, the political mythology is more important than the face; the claim, whether false or true, underlines Harold's perceived suitability to rule.\n\n*Aside: I know that isn't the most recent article, but it does nicely go through Edward the Confessor's reign and all the political machinations (WAY more going on than just what I've mentioned, especially with Scotland and some of how the Vikings all play into this) that eventually lead to the Battle of Hastings in 1066 along with the whos, the whys, and the wheres.*\n\nSo the question then becomes who had the best claim to the throne, William (anointed by Edward) or Harold (chosen by the Witan)? Honestly, they had about equal claim. William was related by blood and by Norman standards of the time (remember, Edward was part Norman), the King could choose his successor. Harold was properly elected. He had the backing of the people. The only reason William eventually got to sit on that throne (you know, for the, like, five minutes he was in England before heading back to Normandy for the rest of his life) was because Harold died during the battle. \n\nIn case you haven't, check out the [Bayeux Tapestry](_URL_0_), too.\n\nEdit: Spelling", "Ok, I'll take a crack at Hardrada, honestly it's rather simple as to why he had a claim, so I don't need to go too in depth. Prior to England being ruled by Edward the Confessor, England was ruled by Scandinavian Kings, one of which, King Cnute (who reigned from 1016 - 1032, was related to Harlald Hardrada. \n\nBecause of this, Harald took the opportunity to \"reclaim\" the land for a Scandinavian king.\n\n[This](_URL_0_) diagram may help.\n\nAlso, a fourth claimant existed, which you may already know about, as you only specified the two \"foreigners\", but for those that may not he was Edgar the Ætheling, the closest living relative of Edward the Confessor. He was proclaimed king after Harolds defeat at Hastings, but was never crowned. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk/", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witenagemot" ], [ "http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/homework/bt/images/tree.gif" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cm27vuy" ], "score": [ 22 ], "text": [ "Most individual libraries (like Aristotle's library) and those belonging to philosophic schools, remained private property (if you'd like to read up on Aristotle's library, see Strabo 13.1.52 and Plut. *Sull.* 26.1-2). Institutional libraries began with the Hellenistic monarchies, though the 'public' library of Pisistratus (Gell. NZ 7.17) is no doubt myth. The first Ptolemies collected ambitiously and systematically. The Alexandrian Library became legendary for this, and Callimachus' *Pinakes* made its contents accessible. \n\nIn short: it appears anyone could use the libraries that were publicly endorsed, though many libraries remained private. Indeed private libraries remained fashionable throughout antiquity (see Petron. *Sat.*, 48 -- when Trimalchio boasts about having a private library. I would also look at Seneca the Younger and Lucian who satirise books that are only for show and public use -- Sen. *Dial.* 9.9.4-7; Lucian, *Ind.*). \n\nSource: Oxford Classical Dictionary." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "f6jy3uj" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "The scope of this question surpasses my ability to answer in a a Reddit thread, as chess has evolved over 1500 years in dozens of locations. I've answered some snippets of these questions over the years, and will link to them instead.\n\n[Here](_URL_1_) I answer how castling and en passant developed.\n\n[Here](_URL_2_) I write about how rules became standardized over time.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) I write about how chess strategy has changed over time.\n\nIf you have specific questions regarding a certain rule, time period, etc., feel free to post it and I'll try to answer!" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/862w6m/how_much_has_the_strategy_of_chess_evolved_over/dw2cghw/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dcna3o/how_did_chess_rules_like_en_passant_and_castling/f2a9so9/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ar4xbt/chess_is_famous_for_its_incredible_spread_across/eglpuh5/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7jaauw", "c7jb2yi" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "China had paper currency before Europe, but also gave up on the idea before Europe adopted it. Marco Polo was very impressed with paper currency in China, and by then (13 century) it had already been in use for a couple of hundred years, having been first introduced on a widespread basis by the Song Dynasty. However, eventually the Ming Dynasty gave up on paper currency in about 1450, after they had been issued irresponsibly for many years.", "This is actually a really tricky question, because there is a bot of a vague line between promissory note and paper currency--not the least because all paper currency is technically a promissory note, especially before the end of the gold standard.\n\nPaper currency truly developed out of the Tang Dynasty \"flying cash\", or promissory notes granted to merchants by the government--although its antecedents go back earlier. The increase in interregional trade made this a necessity, especially because Chin at the time used copper coinage. These notes would be traded among merchants, although they were not true currency, more a system of exchangeable debt (there is that vague line again). True paper money developed in the Song Dynasty, and was widely in use, although the extent to which it replaced metal currency fluctuated.\n\nIt is possible that Europe got the idea of paper currency from China--paper currency did not truly start in Europe until long after missionary and mercantile contact connected the two--but my suspicion is that its origin is more or less the same as the Chinese, and was driven by that economic theorum whose name I can't remember about how weaker currency tend to win out over stronger currencies in a competitive market because people will have a greater tendency to use the weaker one and save the stronger one." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cq0mdzd" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The short answer is an unequivocal \"yes\". Segregation as legal policy is horribly expensive for any society, regardless of reason but particularly when it is conducted for totally arbitrary ones (which \"race\" most certainly is). It's terribly inefficient, the costs are quite literally immeasurable, and the \"gains\" made by such policies are almost entirely a hindrance to society as a whole.\n\nThe [\"best\" argument](_URL_0_) (quotes are for emphasis that such \"best\" usages are still an overall net loss for the society that uses them) I've read for such policies having ANY benefits is when a group of people, driven into an \"us or them\" mentality, can be temporarily galvanized into otherwise impossible achievements. The \"gains\" are always temporary, usually immoral, typically criminal, and occasionally genocidal. \n\nAs previously stated, the costs of such policy are almost impossible to calculate, as it is a policy that specifically deals in preventing possibilities. Determining the costs of actively denying some 15% of a country's population their full potential is an equation that is certainly not efficient, and is immeasurably expensive. \n\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Army-Soldiers-Oxford-Paperbacks/dp/0195079035/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1428113714&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=hitler%27s+army+soldiers+nazis+and+war+in+the+third+reich" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e8tki7l", "e8t9s7c" ], "score": [ 10, 37 ], "text": [ "You could also try this question at r/askanthropology\n", "I suspect you will get a better answer if you more carefully define ”early humans’\n\nThe species vastly pre-dates the historical era and if you are interested in the play behavior of several hundred thousand years ago historians probably aren't the experts to ask.\n\nA better question for this forum might be ’what is the earliest record of gaming known to exist?’" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cd3tjnb" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "[Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony, the First Decade, 1607-1617](_URL_0_) is an anthology of such writings.Google Books doesn't offer a preview, but Amazon does. You can use its table of contents and sources to search for specific documents that might interest you, if getting the book isn't an option." ] }

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[ [ "http://books.google.com/books?id=Xl_RAAAACAAJ" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cimwhin" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "Allow me to say that this is an extremely complex question as we're talking about a 20-30 year period with inconsistent policies and, you know, WWII in the middle of it. That being said, let's see what we can do.\n\nTo start with, the Chinese Civil War I presume you're talking about is the Kuomintang (KMT) - Chinese Communist (CPC) conflict that started in the late 1920s and (mostly) ended with the flight of the KMT to Taiwan in 1949.\n\nThe USSR was diplomatically isolated after the Russian Civil War. As such, it sought to spread its influence to attain allies for itself. A logical one was China, as it was susceptible to foreign influence and bordered the USSR's Far East region. When Sun Yat-Sen came to the USSR to ask for support, the USSR supported both the KMT and the CPC.\n\nPolitical policies of the KMT can best be summed up as state capitalism with socialist tendencies. It was definitively left of the mainstream, although not as left as the Communists. As such, they were both in line with the USSR's political philosophy and thus were potential allies. Comintern officials moved in to both recruit for the communist cause and to provide support to the KMT and CPC, who were attempting to crush rogue warlords.\n\nChiang Kai-Shek took power over the KMT after the death of Sun Yat-Sen. Chiang was educated in Japan, and to an extent was very pro-China and anti-Western. As far as he was concerned, China should be for the Chinese. He resented the West for trying to maintain influence in China (through concessions and control of the railroads) and was just as suspicious of the Soviets meddling in China. As a result, relations between the KMT and the USSR grew frosty, causing the USSR to back the CPC.\n\nEventually, feuding between the CPC and KMT broke out into alright war. Several communist forces under varying CPC members led armies that attempted to establish complete socialist rule by confiscating land and distributing it to the peasantry. However, the KMT forces were much larger, and in a series of campaigns, the CPC forces were decisively defeated, forcing them to retreat to Shaanxi province in what became known as the Long March.\n\nAround this time a few things happened: firstly, the Mukden incident, where Japanese officers unilaterally invaded Manchuria: secondly, the Great Depression, and thirdly, the rise of Germany under Hitler.\n\nGermany had been stripped of all its colonies and significant amounts of territory after WWI. As such, it needed to gain access to markets to buy raw materials in order to build up an army. As Germany had lost its concessions in China after WWI, China, and specifically the KMT, did not have any ill will against Germany. The two countries started collaborating in the early 1930s, creating an industrial and military modernization plan that would have put China on par with Japan by 1940. In return, the KMT, as the dominant power of China, supplied China's massive amount of raw materials to German industries hungry for supplies. This trade relationship was very beneficial for China (and the KMT as the ruling party), causing them to be in a good position to likely wipe out the Communists within a matter of a few more years in 1936.\n\nUnfortunately for the KMT, several KMT generals disagreed with the war with the Communists. They wanted China to focus primarily on fighting the Japanese instead. Zhang Xueliang, the former warlord of Manchuria, kidnapped Chiang Kai-Shek in the Xian incident and forced him to agree to come to peace with the Communists. The Soviets, fearful that a dead Chiang Kai-Shek would cause China to splinter, allowing Japan to move in, applied pressure on the Communists to agree. This in turn would spawn the seeds of dissent that would lead to the Sino-Soviet split in the 1950s. At that point, the Chinese Civil War \"officially\" took a break. And none too soon, because the Marco Polo Bridge incident occurred.\n\nDespite Chiang Kai-Shek's policy of diplomacy with Japan, as well as the Japanese civil government's attempt to deescalate the situation, the two countries went to war, as Japanese militants decided to ignore their government and attack, and Chinese troops decided to attempt to kick the Japanese out of Shanghai. During the war, Germany, who had been a strong backer of the KMT, was forced to choose between China and Japan. In the end, Germany chose Japan, as Hitler perceived Japan, having an already industrialized country and built-up military, would be a better ally in the immediate struggle against the USSR, than China, which was still fragmented and mostly agrarian. Thus, German assistance to the KMT halted at this time, as orders were frozen and advisers were withdrawn back to Germany. Yet there was still strong German influence-80,000 German-trained troops, the creme of the KMT, were thrown into a bloody battle at Shanghai, significantly delaying the Japanese advance and perhaps indirectly leading to the Rape of Nanking. Chinese soldiers wore primarily German helmets and many soldiers used the Chiang Kai-Shek rifle, a Chinese version of the German Gewehr 98k. Indeed, without German assistance, China would have had a much harder time in the war.\n\nThat isn't to say the Soviets didn't help either. Worried about a Japanese takeover of China, the Soviets, under Operation Zet, provided aerial volunteers and aircraft to the KMT, as well as supporting the CPC's efforts. The CPC, no longer under major pressure by the KMT, was able to recruit extensively and build up its support among the local populace.\n\nAlso around this time, the US took an interest into supporting China against Japan, who the US believed to be a competitor for Pacific hegemony. The \"Flying Tigers\" volunteer air corps was eventually sent to China, as well as logistical and command support in the form of Lend-Lease and General Stilwell.\n\nGeneral Stilwell was a very controversial figure. While he was a competent commander of infantry, he clashed often with Chiang as Chiang was wary of having an American command his troops, while Stilwell wanted complete command. He often referred to Chiang as \"Peanut\" and was just one of several Americans who saw the KMT administration as corrupt and reactionary, as opposed to the communists, whom seemed generally more interested in fighting the Japanese. While in fact the Communists participated in a mere 2 out of 22 major battles, the growing perception in the US was that the KMT was bad for China.\n\nAfter the war ended, several things happened. First, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria captured many Japanese troops and their equipment. The withdrawal of Japanese and Soviet troops created a power vacuum that the CPC was quick to fill. They also benefited from the substantial captured Japanese equipment. Soon enough, they had a firm power base in North China.\n\nMeanwhile, the US was interested in forcing a mediated peace between the two in order to stabilize China. However, Chiang was not interested in this and set out to crush the Communists before they became too strong to dislodge. Partly due to the resumption of conflict, and partly due to US suspicions of the KMT, Truman ordered an arms embargo against the KMT, which drastically crippled the KMT's war effort. China's industries were badly damaged by the war, and the troops and civilians were tired and upset with Chiang's administration (including an extremely controversial decision to intentionally flood the Yellow River basin). Without supplies, morale, and equipment, the KMT forces were defeated by newly well-equipped, highly motivated, and Soviet backed CPC troops. At that point, it was the beginning of the end for the KMT in China. By 1949, the KMT was forced to flee to Taiwan and the CPC was preparing to assault this last stronghold (although they were decisively defeated at Quemoy, delaying any amphibious invasion for some time). \n\nThen, the Korean War happened. Because of Soviet support into North Korea, the US was forced to intervene to defend the South Koreans. In doing so, they enlisted Chiang's support (as he was anti-communist) and moved the 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait, protecting Taiwan from CPC attack. Thus, the Chinese Civil War came to an end.\n\nSources: \n\nChiang Kai-Shek, Soviet Russia in China\n\nTaylor, The Generalissimo\n\nHarmsen, Shanghai 1937" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cgj4cup", "cgj4tdy", "cgjr6yd" ], "score": [ 22, 35, 5 ], "text": [ "It was a valid threat. The Ticonderoga class cruisers and the AEGIS radar system were developed to counter that threat. \nSoviet doctrine envisioned countering the carriers with submarines such as the Charlie and Oscar class and using long range supersonic bombers like the Tu-22 Backfire. \n\nBoth doctrines (defense and offense) were never tested in anger. \n\n_URL_0_", "the generally accepted answer to your question is that the outcome of a pure USN - Soviet general fleet action would have depended highly on the location of where the clash took place. if we imagine a crazed extremist Soviet admiral in 1989 assembling the four Kirovs north of Iceland together with associated support ships and sending them charging toward the US Eastern Seaboard, most military analysts agree the twenty US 688s in the Atlantic Fleet would have almost definitely claimed one or even two; the Royal Navy could possibly claim one; and then you can imagine the USAF volleying AGM-86 ALCM to heavily damage a third. end outcome: one or at most one plus one heavily damaged Kirov amidst an escort of burning and heavily damaged destroyers arrives off Newfoundland to be quickly sent to the bottom of the ocean.\n\nnow reverse the scenario: the US suddenly decides to fight the Soviet Navy in one of its home waters. despite superior submarine designs, US undersea forces have to continually move to keep ahead of the surface fleet, whereas the 50 Soviet Kilo's can remain silent and motionless. The US Navy begins losing capital ships to these, as well as minefields, Tu-95 Bears, even the occasional lucky Osa fast missile craft. finally, limping into the Baltic or Black Sea, the three remaining US aircraft carriers finally manage to close with the Kirovs, who in a textbook \"overwhelming\" or \"overloading\" of missiles complete with Soviet Air Force Badgers easily overwhelm the CIWS air defense of the US strike force.\n\nin other words, the *location* of your proposed fleet action would highly determine its outcome\n\n**tldr; the USN is generally considered to have held the Atlantic during the Cold War, while the Soviet Navy controlled its home waters.**", "Anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) have proven to be a serious threat since their first use in the '60s. [According to this Naval Postgraduate School dissertation analyzing ASCM engagements through 1994](_URL_0_), defended ships took a hit in 25% of engagements and defendable--but unprepared--ships were hit over 60% of the time. One to two missile hits were usually enough to take a ship out of action if not sink it entirely. Of note, given the discussion about CIWS, Phoenix and other defense measures--\"softkill\" countermeasures like decoys and maneuvering proved to be generally more effective than \"hardkill\" measures designed to destroy the incoming missiles. The study acknowledges a data gap for more modern defenses, however, and \"softkill\" can still leave an active missile in the air--as happened with the sinking of the Atlantic Conveyor during the Falklands War. \n\nThe study is not a straight apples-to-apples comparison to your question. Most historical cases were in littoral waters, where time and space are working against the defender. On the other hand, they also usually involved only a small number of missiles.\n\nThe Falklands War is really the only good case study of ASCM use against a carrier battle group at sea in blue waters. Here, the ASCM still looks like a serious threat. The Argentinians had only a handful of Exocets but still managed to sink HMS Sheffield and the Atlantic Conveyor while damaging HMS Glamorgan. The British fleet commander, Sandy Woodward, spends a large chunk of his memoirs discussing the Exocet threat, which he believed could have defeated the British if they had hit one of the two British carriers. \n\n[A 1983 US Navy study of the war](_URL_1_) identified some significant shortfalls in the British fleet that would not have been shared by the USN in a Soviet conflict--the lack of airborne early warning, the lack of effective point defenses, and the RN's smaller and less survivable ships were a few key issues. On the other hand, Soviet forces would have been a much more capable threat than the Argentinians." ] }

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[ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirov-class_battlecruiser", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-700_Granit" ]

[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Combat_System" ], [], [ "http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/b192139.pdf", "http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA133333" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ctwdw35" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Egypt was a client state of Pompey's. During his proconsulship of Syria Gabinius, one of Pompey's most important partisans who had sat as consul with Caesar's partisan and father-in-law Piso, was sent by Pompey illegally into Egypt to restore Ptolemy XII to the throne. Gabinius was prosecuted for leaving his province and fighting an illegal war, but Pompey bribed his way to an acquittal. The client status was maintained under Ptolemy XIII and his co-regent Cleopatra--Ptolemy and Cleopatra sent a contingent of the Gabiniani, troops that Gabinius had left behind on garrison duty, to Pharsalus, and Appian reports a force of sixty ships were provided by the two as well. There was every reason to believe that Ptolemy, despite fighting a civil war with Cleopatra at the time, would continue to support Pompey, who almost certainly did not plan to stay for long. Egypt was vastly wealthier than even Syria, and--now this is important--Pompey couldn't have stopped in Syria in any case. Caesar says that Pompey intended to take refuge in Syria, but when he was at Cyprus he received word that Antioch had taken up arms and threatened to kill any Pompeian who tried to flee to the city--Caesar reports that the same thing happened to Lentulus, who was refused access to Rhodes or the harbor when he tried to flee there. Caesar says that at this point Pompey scrapped his plan to go to Syria and fled to Egypt instead. Appian reports that Pompey attempted to flee to Parthia, but was warned against it on the grounds that Crassus' Parthian expedition hadn't exactly endeared the king towards the Romans, so he went to Egypt instead, where the king was still a child and where Pompey was still patron. One wonders whether Syria would've been a reasonable refuge anyway, since Appian reports that Cleopatra was mustering her troops there in preparation for an assault on Alexandria." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c4fyz5q" ], "score": [ 10 ], "text": [ "[Link](_URL_0_)\n\nFranklin's Letter to His Daughter (excerpt)\n\n\"For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.\n\n\"With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country...\n\n\"I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America... He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.\"\n\nComparison prompted by a poorly drawn eagle, resembling a turkey, on the societies insignia." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.greatseal.com/symbols/turkey.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d7ucbt2" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Latin superseded Greek in the West through a \"clientele change\", so to speak. The knowledge of Greek itself began to die out among the Westerners after the fall, contributing to some of the challenges that would lead to the Great Schism. \n\nGreek was the common language of the eastern half of the Roman Empire whereas Latin was the common language in the western half. As Christianity began to emerge in the eastern provinces, it enjoyed a large Greek speaking community that progressively moved more and more to the West. Due to a strong vernacular difference in this half of the empire, Latin began to take prominence over Greek, at which point the Western Church made the shift from Greek to Latin in regards to the liturgy. When exactly did this shift occur? It's rather difficult to pinpoint an exact date, though there was a transition period from the 3rd Century where we see some of the last written manuscripts of parts of the liturgy in Greek to a completion phase around the 4th or 5th Century where the Mass was completely Latinized. Pope Gregory I would edit the Liturgy one more time around the onset of the 7th Century and the Roman Mass would remain virtually untouched for over the next thousand years. As Latin was the vernacular, the usage of Greek began to die out in the west, *especially* after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Many of the Western clergy were also simply not educated in Greek, a prominent example being that of Augustine of Hippo.\n\n\nAnother thing to bear in mind is that making Latin the official language was just as much a practical decision as it was done for traditional reasons. Latin, as a dead language, is stable and many of the words have meanings and understandings that predate our modern connotations. Latin provides an unbiased language through which all members of the Church could understand something and this allowed a more, open intellectual exchange, even if the writers had different native languages. Some important examples of this would be like Martin Luther and his exchanges with John Fisher and Erasmus or Petrarch writing to Cicero. \n\nMost of my information comes from the various books, articles and pages I've read about the liturgy. I don't have many scholarly books to quote from, but I can list some of the sources that come from the Catholic Church and articles. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cf6bpim", "cf6cii6", "cf6dgim" ], "score": [ 2, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Hello there.\nI had a similar project to do for university and my lecturer told me that county libraries and record offices were always a good place to start. \nAt my local library those documents are stored in a downstairs area. And they also have maps and loads of local history texts. \nI think it's a good place to start.", "Hi.\n \nLocal, specific history like this can be hard to track down sometimes, but if you have access to the public archives or records in your area - usually held in the local library or perhaps town hall - you can find out a lot there. In particular, there will be bills of sale, taxation records, land grants that can help you piece together the history of the house. \n \nFrom the bills of sale you should be able to find the family name of earlier or even original occupants. Then you can expand that information into constructing a picture of the lives of people who lived there. For information on the occupants again, try town records. If that fails, scour the birth/death registers of your local parish. Barring a fire or something, they should have invaluable information on the people themselves - names, age, perhaps even occupation.\n \nBut like I said, start with your local public archives or town library. As they said in V for Vendetta, \"The same is true of every country: their most reliable records are tax records.\"", "Does Ireland have the concept of Land Title or title insurance? Throughout most of America we do and a title searcher would be able to provide a good jumping off point with a chain of custody back to the land patent.\n\nContact a title insurance company! Or go to your local Register of Deeds and ask them for help (your mileage may vary, they may refer you to a title insurance company).\n\nIn my part of WI title searchers double check 60 years worth of deeds for the specific properties their companies are going to insure, but could go all the way back to the Land Patent (where the government granted the land). This will give you lots of names of the owners, and a good jumping off point in terms of names of families who owned the land, etc. If you can find an abstract for the property, it will save a lot of work and give you the whole property history back to the land patent.\n\nAll it would take is a property address to find the tax bill, from there it should have the property description listed (Lot 3 of x subdivision, a metes and bounds description, etc.) and from there you could track all the deeds back on the property. A chain of custody can certainly be insightful, as it may show if the land was inherited (was it divided up among 6 children?), approximate death dates, divorces, etc." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cdyqsjo", "cdyrqpv", "cdyt67x", "cdyva9y", "cdyy00i" ], "score": [ 119, 4, 30, 358, 2 ], "text": [ "[This](_URL_0_) is the only thing I could think of. It was an Iroquois legend and there are multiple explanations (including some people thinking it is related to L'Anse aux Meadows) though nothing is known for certain. It would be interesting if someone on here with more knowledge about Iroquois culture had more information on the subject but I'm not sure how well known it is.", "If there had been much contact, wouldn't this have set off some of the nasty disease exchanges that killed so many in later years?", "Well you also have too keep in mind that the native group the Beothuk which was the common aboriginal group in Newfoundland (where L'Anse aux Meadows is found) is extinct so the one group which is probably the aboriginal group the Vikings encountered are extinct.", "I made this post a while ago, but this question could definitely benefit from it, so I'll repeat it here as well. These stories come from Greenland. Unfortunately, the Beothuk of Newfoundland, whose ancestors also likely had notable contact with the Norse were very isolationist during the colonial era and we don't know much of their oral traditions before they were assimilated into other societies.\n\nThat introduction out of the way: back to your regularly scheduled answer:\n\nThe Kalaallit (the Inuit people native to southwestern Greenland) retain several stories about the earliest Kavdlunait (Europeans; this is also the old spelling the the source uses; I think the more modern spelling is Qavdlunait, but I'll stick with the old one for now because I'm more certain of it) to reach Greenland. You can read some of them [here](_URL_2_), but to summarize those:\n\n* UNGORTOK, THE CHIEF OF KAKORTOK\n\nUngortok is the chief of a Kavdlunak village, who gives a Kalaaleq man permission to kill a Kavdlunak man in an impromptu spear-throwing contest. A year later, the Kalaaleq man returns and kills another Kavdlunak without Ungortok's permission which sparks a retaliatory strike on the Kalaallit. During this attack, only a Kalaaleq boy named Kaisape survives. He spends some time training and plotting his revenge on Ungortok. When the time comes to strike, Kaisape traps the Kavdlunait in their homes and burns their village. Ungortok manages to survive, and Kaisape hounds him from one settlement to the next until he can finally deliver the killing blow.\n\n* THE FIRST MEETING OF THE KALADLIT (old spelling of Kalaallit) WITH THE ANCIENT KAVDLUNAIT IN GREENLAND.\n\nSome Kalaallit out on a summer hunting trip to a sparsely populated portion of southern Greenland came upon a house. Excepting to find other Kalaallit living there, they were startled to find unusual new foreigners--the Kavdlunait. The new-comers treated them well, but the hunters didn't trust them yet and retreated to their boats. Traveling on they encountered other Kavdlunak settlements, all of which they reported back to the Kalaallit further north at the conclusion of their hunt. By the end of the summer, the Kalaallit and Kavdlunait were mingling well and some of the Kavdlunait even began to learn Kalaallisut--the local language. A Kalaaleq man and a Kavdlunak man became quite good friends, and constantly challenged each other to contests and games, which kept their people amused. The Kavdlunak bets his life on an archer contest, despite his friend's protests, and kills himself after losing.\n\n* THE ANCIENT KAVDLUNAIT'S RUIN NEAR ARSUT\n\nWhile out seal-hunting a Kalaaleq overhears some Kavdlunait laughing and joking in their home. The Kalaaleq decides to go visit them, but they all quiet when he knocked on their tent. Having a bit of fun with them, he rattles the tent until they are scared to silence, after which he looks inside and sees that they're all \"dead with fear.\" In another episode, a group of Kavdlunait flee from some Kalaallit that had ambushed them. The Kavdlunait fell through thin ice and drowned. Their remains could be seen on the shallow sea floor for some time.\n\n* ENCOUNTER OF KALADLIT WITH THE ANCIENT KAVDLUNAIT ON THE ICE\n\nThe Kavdlunait attack a Kalaaleq settlement in autumn, just after the coastal waters around Greenland began to freeze. Some of the Kalaallit escape, including most of one Kalaaleq man's family. His mother, however, was badly wounded in the fighting and could not escape. He watched the Kavdlunait drag her off across the ice. Plotting his revenge, he tells two Kalaaleq girls to run across the ice and if the Kavdlunait get close that they should dive into the water. The girls, though scared, do as their told and the Kavdlunait take the bait. The man waits until all the Kavdlunait are on the ice and attacks them. The Kavdlunait aren't well-equipped or well-trained to fight on the ice, and the Kalaaleq has the advantage. He kills them all before the girls come to harm.\n\n* BONUS ROUND: [PISAGSAK AND THE KIVIGTOK](_URL_0_)\n\nThe editor of the original collection places this story in a separate section because it came from only one source, unlike the others. \n\nPisagsak, a Kalaaleq, goes kayaking to try out his new javelin. He soon finds himself lost and a long way from home. Luckily, he comes across an old kivigtok (basically, a hermit), who takes him in and feeds him. The kivigtok eventually takes him a spot where Kavdlunak women gather water. They abduct two of them (both of whom seem to transition quickly to Kalaaleq life and remain with Pisagsak and the kivigtok even after they're able to return to their people), and eventually some Kavdlunait come by boat to attack them. But the old kivigtok is too clever for them. The only way from the sea to their camp up a ladder tied to a cliff-face. As the Kavdlunait scale the ladder, the kivigtok cuts it free and sends them crashing back into the ocean. After one of the Kavdlunak women dies from illness, Pisagsak decides to leave the kivigtok and go looking for home. Before he goes, the kivigtok asks one last favor: that Pisagsak go to the Kavdlunait and warn them not to attack the kivigtok again. Pisagsak does as the old man requests.\n\n**EDIT**\n\n* MULTIMEDIA ROUND\n\nYou may also be interested in [Inuit Odyssey](_URL_1_), a documentary about the Thule culture - the ancestral Inuit - and their migration eastward across the Canadian Arctic, including a portion discussing some of the archaeological evidence for their encounters with the Norse in Greenland.", "This is a myth explaining the existence of and place of origin for the \"white people\" \"red people\", which is sourced from before interaction between Native Americans and Europeans.\n\n _URL_0_" ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Saguenay" ], [], [], [ "http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/inu/tte/tte2-055.htm", "http://www.hulu.com/watch/181088", "http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/inu/tte/tte2-054.htm" ], [ "http://www.ilhawaii.net/~stony/lore60.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d81yhn7" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "There are a number of factors at play. \n\n1) Latin America is very constricted geologically. Mexico down through Chile is a very very small geographic area on the slopes of the American Cordillera. The US (and Northern Mexico) has significantly more open space, which mean it is correspondingly more difficult to predict how pre-clovis people might have moved across the landscape and perform educated searches.\n\n2) Standard shovel test procedure **cannot identify** pre-clovis sites. It doesn't dig deep enough. Pre-clovis sites are discovered accidentally during other activities.\n\n3) The population density of pre-clovis people is miniscule. Even people that have been historically documented often don't appear in the archaeological record, simply because we can't identify whatever traces they may have left. For illiterate people with no known rock art and possibly one lithics technology in North America (the miller complex), we don't have the information to identify any pre-clovis artifacts we find out of context. By comparison a lithics expert could easily identify a clovis point, even if it was sitting on a shelf in your garage. \n\n4) Much of the Northern regions were entirely covered by glaciers *that have since receded*. There can be no Ötzi situation, because the ice that could have preserved anything is long gone.\n\n5) This is all assuming most pre-clovis peoples migrated overland. There are some very good arguments to be made for the coastal migration hypothesis, and we would not expect coastal people to leave large archaeological traces. Most of what we could expect might have been confused by activities of later coastal people (e.g. shell middens) or undiscovered because of how small the population was.\n\nThese aren't the only reasons we might not have found pre-clovis sites in North America, but they're some of the large ones. In general, we simply don't know what we're looking for and the vast majority of modern archaeology has no ability to detect and identify it. " ] }

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[ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_of_the_Americas", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_Americas_by_year_of_foundation" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "c5asjsp", "c5aszox", "c5at0fz", "c5at0kl", "c5atk9g", "c5awyqz", "c5b0o5x" ], "score": [ 12, 3, 4, 2, 3, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Well there were the Navajo code talkers in the Pacific Theater. I'm not sure what was used in Europe.", "Bit of wikipediaing and i found his [Typex](_URL_0_) ", "You might find [this](_URL_0_) interesting also ", "Yes, germany at several points managed to atleast crack the naval codes and get an advantage in the battle for the atlantic", "I seem to remember that the Japanese knew we'd broken theirs but it was too humiliating to admit such failure to their emperor.", "The [SIGSALY](_URL_0_) was an interesting extension of the one-time-code pad to voice communication- a pair of records was distributed, one to each end, and used to encrypt/decrypt voice communications. Unless the records were somehow copied, there was no way of decrypting it. Thus it was never broken during the war. (The germans never even realized what the noise was)", "Just don't forget the Poles. Please. Everyone forgets their contribution, which I think is a shame." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typex" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cryptography#World_War_II_cryptography" ], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGSALY" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "deegyvm", "deehnbg", "def2jkt" ], "score": [ 72, 7, 2 ], "text": [ "Depends on what you mean by \"Intervened.\"\n\nIf you look at places like Western Europe, I would argue that reconstruction has been just as successful in those places as they were in Japan or Korea. \n\nIf you mean \"Intervened\" as a nice way of saying \"fought against\", well, it's simple: Japan and Korea were able to take advantage of the unique opportunities they had. \n\nAfter Japan ended its isolationist period, it industrialized and modernized at an almost unbelievable rate. The Perry expedition to Japan landed in Edo bay in 1853. Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905. That means in only 50 years, it became a great world power in its own right. Sure, in WWII, Japan couldn't hope to compete against U.S. industrially or militarily, but the Empire was still very much a force to be reckoned with. Japan was very industrialized, had a modern, efficient, education system, and had a functioning government based on meritocracy. Although the war was devastating for Japan, the strong foundations for a prosperous nation was very much present. Coupled with an almost completely homogenous population, it was a country that still held massive potential for success.\n\nBut potential means nothing if there's nowhere for that potential to go. Fortunately, the U.S. got itself into another conflict just over the pond: Korea. The U.S. occupying forces needed resources and a skilled workforce as close to the action in Korea as possible. As a recently subdued country that was right next door, Japan served as the perfect base of operations for a war in Korea. So when the U.S. spent money in Japan as both a part of the Marshall Plan and for the acquisition of necessary war material, it helped boost the local economy and ease Japan out of post-war ruin. Furthermore, since Japan became a de facto \"protectorate\" of the U.S. after the war, by close ties to the U.S., it enjoyed top-flight access in exports to the global market through its link to the U.S.\n\nKorea is very similar. Obviously, it has to whether another decade of instability and war unlike Japan, but in the grand scheme of things, it was still very similar. Korea, although obviously not as developed as Japan proper, was still a part of the Empire before its dismantling, and therefore, had been developed by the Japanese occupation in terms of infrastructure and government structure. So everything that has been said about Japan pretty much applies here. Japanese and Korean companies also had close connections due to the fact that they were once under the same government, and therefore, Korea also enjoyed access to the global market both directly through the U.S. and through its connection to Japan. \n\nSo with both Korea and Japan being relatively stable (although, as my family will tell you, Korea did enjoy its fair share of coups and counter-coups), they would have inevitable slowly climbed out of their ruined states and ended up as decently developed nations. However, the electronics revolution changed all that. Because Japan and Korea had a very good, educated populace, they were able to seize the Electronics market in their bids for Export-Oriented Industrialization and make a fortune in the newly emerging computer sector. Furthermore, both countries were able to embrace very rigid quality control methods while this was happening, meaning that East Asian products were sought after by international consumers as higher quality, and more often than not, more affordable alternatives to their \"western\" manufactured counterparts. This obviously means that Japanese and Koreans goods were in high demand, and both countries experienced a massive economic surge, that thanks to the aforementioned stable, responsive governments, they were able to use to further develop the countries. \n\nThis is, very obviously, different from let's say, the middle east. The middle east was ruled for a very long period of time by the Ottoman Empire, which failed to embrace industrialization, which meant that these regions were economically underdeveloped. Furthermore, without the presence of a strong, centralized education during the interwar era, they could not go the route of East Asia in industrialization. This, punctuated by a series of very bloody conflicts resulting from a very diverse population, meant that the region faced, and still faces, many more challenges if it wishes to reach the level of prosperity enjoyed by Japan and Korea. \n\nIn Latin America, the challenge comes from the fact that the region has a very long history of corruption and mismanagement that hinders the region's true potential. This, along with exploitation by U.S. and European companies in the 19th century, means that it was very difficult for them to pursue solutions that could have potentially brought them out of poverty.\n\nIn short, Korea and Japan had several key assets that allowed it to prosper post WWII, while the other regions that America intervened in did not. \n\n**Edit: Grammar fixes", "I am just an undergrad Year 2 History student, so take my answer with a pinch of salt since I believe I lack the Academic prowess of other members of this forum. Also, apologies for the lack of sources, I'll endeavour to find some but most of this information comes from compressed notes and readings provided for my institution and prof, which I am unaware has an exact text or online form which I can link or cite here. Nevertheless I believe they are accurate, but due to this I shall refrain from giving specific figures out of fear of inaccuracies.\n\nTo expand a bit on your question prior to answering it. America primarily \"intervened\" in Western Europe and the Far East to aid in the reconstruction. I assume what you mean by intervention is the provision of economic aid and some an extent an American Presence in the country. And I would assume that this falls under more of economic history given how it focuses on reconstruction.\n\nI am unsure of what comparison your making in particular, since both Western Europe as well as ROK and Japan both had wildly successful postwar economic booms thanks to the US. The Marshall Plan in the Europe helped economies there boom through what was essential large grants of money to the Western European countries. No where else was the US as heavily involved as reconstruction other then these two regions. Hence if the comparison is to countries in other areas the simple answer is that the US did not focus anywhere near as much effort there, hence less spectacular results.\n\nHonestly, the success of both Western Europe's Economic reconstruction and Japan's had similar causes. As for the ROK it is slightly more complex due to the Korean War but in general it has the same few characteristic.\n\nFirstly, it is the presence of US Aid. For Western Europe that was the Marshall Plan. For Japan it was the treaty of San Francisco that struck off the war reparations Japan needed to pay as well as investment from US firms into Japan through the 1950s and 1960s. Large Japanese cooperations know as Zaibatsus were allowed to reform despite being broken up by the occupation government as they were seen as being instruments for the Japanese War machine they were trying to dismantle. This helped to jump start their economy despite the war leaving it in ruins. Similarly, the ROK benefitted from this after the Korean War as there was a large influx of US aid and investment.\n\nNext is the presence of US troops. Western European countries eventually benefitted from NATO and West Germany in particular hosted US forward based forces. This does help on the micro level of them spending money but in the big picture it means defence spending can be reduced given the strong US presence. The same can be said for Japan which wasn't allowed to have an armed forces for quite some time and relied on the US to defend them. This basically meant that during the Cold War where defence spending was going through the roof Japan didn't have to spend a single cent on it allowing them to use that money for the economy helping with their growth. Similarly South Korea also has US forward garrisons helping to alleviate some of their defense spending, although this did not have a very big impact given their leeve en masse policy.\n\nThat point may sound counter intuitive to thinking we are familiar with, but all the realpolitik aside, that was the political climate of the world at that time. They had just existed a World War, no country wanted to continue military spending (besides the USA and USSR due to political considerations) and they were seeking a climate of stability where they had dependable allies. So while it does seem ill-advised to reduce military spending and rely on forces of another country to defend you in the event of an attack that was the thinking at the time. And the US wanted to make it self known as a reliable ally in the context of the Cold War where more allies mean more prestige for them and less for the Soviets. Of course this only really persisted from the late 40s to the 1950s. Once the cold war escalated and even during detente spending was back up for a majority of countries. However this brief period immediately after WWII of reduced military spending helped towards their successful reconstruction.\n\nLastly, I would also like to add that the US is not entirely responsible for reconstruction being a success. Local governments in both the Far East and Western Europe played large roles. The Europeans developed the European Economic Community and adopted their own mixed economy plans. The Japanese had a large climate of political stability due to the \"Iron Triangle\" and geared themselves to becoming a heavily export focused economy. South Korea also similarly adopted a mixed economy and gear themselves to be export focused. This all contributed to their successful reconstruction. It's difficult to say which was more important since US aid was essential, but it was also the aid being used effectively by the recipient countries that created the economic miracles after the war. \n\nIf your interested, I recommend further reading on the Japanese Economic Miracle for a more detailed explanation. If your interested in the general reconstruction after WWII you could also read up on the Marshall Plan and the Bretton Woods System which created the environment for the Golden Age of Captilaism, a title that has been assigned to the early post war era due to high sustained economic growth.\n\n", "This is a great question, and it's something I have studied quite a bit. Japan and Germany are usually looked at as some of America's most successful foreign interventions, contrasting directly with other efforts such as the Iraq situation. \n\nOne thing to keep in mind, though, is that your comparison is a bit overly broad. Japan and Korea are VERY different situations. Japan was a country we defeated in war, a country that had an unconditional surrender, and a country that we \"rebuilt\" after the damage we helped cause. Korea we never conquered, their government never surrendered to us, and we did not have to rebuild the country from a ground level. They are not really fair to compare because they are not at all similar situations. \n\nJapan is similar to situations like Germany and Iraq--countries we have gone to war with, defeated the existing government, and had to rebuild up from the ground because all economic, industrial, and social systems are broken. America has largely NOT engaged in this kind of situation, though it has a decent track record when it has, its sole failure being Iraq. \n\nIraq failed for a few reasons, but mostly because the occupying forces failed to create a more stable economy and social structure, instead making it worse. By disbanding the military and ending employment for anyone connected to the state run Ba'ath party, the US forces managed to make a bad situation worse and remove the few jobs still available. Coupled with an insufficient military presence and a failure to focus on getting economic and social structures running before spreading democracy, a promising opportunity turned into and insurgency.\n\nIn Japan and Germany, this policy was very different. Only the highest level Nazis were disbarred, with all the low-level party officials (such as school teachers and basic beauracrats) still keeping their jobs. The focus was on getting food on tables and jobs in the economy, not in spreading American freedom. And the manpower was there to make sure it happened decades into the rebuild. It worked much better. \n\nAs for Korea, that doesn't really have a parallel. They were somewhere between and alliance and an intervention. We didn't really replace the government of choice with someone we wanted instead as we did in the Americas. We just propped up a rebel faction that already had a strong base of popular support and a weak opponent. But it also wasn't exactly a full alliance with a real government as the South Korean rebels weren't really established yet and didn't have much military power without us providing the muscle. \n\nThe real reason for success in South Korea came from the weakness of the opponent. We never lost the hearts and minds like we did in Vietnam because our guy in Korea had actual popular support unlike our guy in Vietnam. Coupling that with the North Koreans having a largely ineffective regime, it's not hard to see why US intervention worked there. This is very different from Latin American interventions where we just picked a \"strongman\" and made him the new government whether he had support or not. \n\nSome great books to explore this topic further are Inside the Emerald City by Ray Chandrasekaran and The Warrior and the Priest by John Cooper. The first is a comparison of the Iraq occupation to Germany and Japan from the perspective of a journalist living in occupied Iraq. The second is a contrast of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and their different approaches to nation building. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e5tp8vo", "e5ujwmv" ], "score": [ 27, 118 ], "text": [ "It is against our subreddit rules to respond to questions with personal anecdotes. The mod team has deleted a number of anecdotal responses to this question already. For more info on this rule, please consult this [Rules Roundtable](_URL_0_).", "Commemoration of Pearl Harbor in 1958 was not forgotten, although having fallen on a Sunday that year while commemorations happened, they would have not impacted the school day. Reading up on how the day was observed though, it is fairly interesting to see the differences and similarities, since while they did happen, they were quite muted in comparison with more modern 9/11 commemorations. In the New York Times, it was noted that State buildings in New York would fly at half-mast for the morning, to symbolize the tragedy of the attack, and be raised to full-staff at noon, \"symbolizing final victory\". It having fallen on a Sunday, many religious services were centered on remembrance that day, but as far as civic ceremonies went, they were decidedly smaller than we see with 9/11, and less publicized.\n\nIn Pearl Harbor itself, a small memorial service was planned. Some family members were in attendance, but it was a fairly subdued affair. The USS Arizona Memorial now there was not yet built (coincidentally, it was authorized by Congress that year though), and the ceremony was held on a small, purpose built wooden platform. Three prayers by Naval chaplains were the only speeches given at the remembrance held on a platform before the wreck of the USS Arizona, which had no oration, and was followed with the placing of a dozen flower arrangements placed at the flag staff of the ship. Music was played by a band on Ford Island nearby while the flag was then raised. Although not part of the ceremony itself, the USS Bennington passed by the wreck that day as well in tribute, with the sailors and airmen spelling out \"ARIZONA\" on the ship's flight deck.\n\nNear Washington, DC, a memorial was held at Arlington National Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, led by Leo Hoegh, the head of the Office of Defense and Civilian Mobilization, although in a theme which we will return to, his remarks were quite expected:\n\n > The greatest tribute we can pay those who have fallen in the defense of our country and in particular those who fell on this day in 1941 is the solemn pledge that never again will we be caught unprepared by a surprise attack.\n\nIn New York City, and others communities as well, the biggest city-wide gesture was a three minute blast of the air-raid siren, timed in New York at least for 2 pm, or roughly when the city had heard that the attacks were happening in 1941. \"A three-minute rising and falling sound\" was played - the signal to seek shelter - to then be followed by a steady sound for three minutes at 2:10, the signal to receive instructions via radio. The public wasn't required to actually go to shelters, and traffic was not even stopped. Although there was no school that day, as that is something specific you are interested in, I would also note here that in later years, \"Take Cover\" drills were not required to happen, but in years where school was in session, the students would in some cases participate and use the sirens as a signal to 'duck and cover'. An article from 1960 also notes that this *wasn't* entirely popular though, and that \"'Students for the Abolition of Civil Defense Drills' took part in the drill, but worse armbands as a sign of protest\" at the Evander Childs High School in the Bronx.\n\nThis helps to illustrate the context in which remembrance of Pearl Harbor was understood in that time, a period of rising fears the existential threat of nuclear war as the Cold War dominated the stage. The US had had a clear lead in is nuclear arsenal originally, but fears that the Soviets were closing in were rampant, and of course while actual numbers were not as high, public perception of the so-called \"Missile Gap\" was first starting up at that point, and whether true or not (it wasn't), it did help lend itself to renewed emphasis on the need for public awareness of how to prepare for and react to Armageddon.\n\nThe US Air Force's Continental Air Command held an exercise at Mitchel AFB on the presumption of a detonation of a nuke on Wall Street, and the Air Defense Command displayed five missiles in Washington Square Park for the day. In fact, 1958 is actually particularly notable as it was the first celebration of \"National Civil Defense Day\" which was pegged to Dec. 7th, and Director Leo Hoegh's remarks on the inaugural commemoration remembered Pearl Harbor as something that \"will stand out through our history as a tragic reminder of the tremendous consequences of unpreparedness\". For a commemoration aired on television that day, Maj. Gen. Robert Berry - Air Defense Command regional Commander for the area including Pearl Harbor - discussed how prepared the US was to meet a Soviet attack and that \"I think that this is one of the few times in history when the defense is superior to the offense\". In a similar radio interview, the Sec. Navy, Thomas Gates also stressed how strong the US military was, and that it would be impossible now to conduct a similarly crippling attack.\n\nVeterans organizations, especially American Veterans of World War II and Korea which routinely organized memorial exercises on Pearl Harbor Day also made sure to harp on this message in how they observed the day. The groups commander, Dr. Winston E. Burdine noted that:\n\n > Once again, Dec. 7 falls on Sunday, as it did on that fateful date in 1941. The world situation still is extremely tense and, in this age of missiles and rockets, surprise attack could spell devastation. [...] It is our hope that observance of Pearl Harbor Day will serve to make the public aware of the significance of Pearl Harbor and the importance of defense mobilization.\n\nHe went on to note additionally that AMVETS would provide free civil defense material to any persons who wrote their DC HQ requesting them. Even the religious observances mentioned made civil defense an important focus of their sermons, such as noted by Rabbi Dr. Norman Salit, who noted that \"It is high time for the American people to become mature in the presence of this dread peril and make civil defense more than an empty phrase\".\n\nThe New York Times itself devoted a short item in the editorial section to the phrase \"Remember Pearl Harbor\", tying it into the nuclear test ban conferences then being held at Geneva, where it was being felt that the Soviets were blocking progress, which I will excerpt:\n\n > We can, however, remember Pearl Harbor in quite a different sense. The mistake of the Japanese militarists that prompted the attack was the misinterpration of the free discussion and the obvious differences of opinion in this country that preceded it. It was assumed that one great and mischievous blow would reveal deep fissions in our body politic and that we would be confused, irresolute and divided. No greater mistake could have been made. Pearl Harbor was the huge galvanic shock that made us one people in one cause, determined and invincible. [...]\n\n > Let us hope that we will never again be confronted with a similar crisis. But let us also be aware that there are other great challenges to our strength and resolution that will be put before us. These can be the challenges of peace, of progress, of intelligence and of humanity. On this ground there are greater battles to be fought than any Pearl Harbor. Let us remember that we can fight them in united courage.\n\nOther papers ran similar features, such as the L.A. Times, which reminded its readers \"*At that time Japanese militarists were threatening Thailand; today the Soviets are threatening us and the free world in Berlin and are addressing us with ultimatums\".*\n\nSo the basic take away that one should have is that while \"Remember Pearl Harbor\" was a phrase that was followed, it was, in that period, not one remembered with too much somber reflection, but rather as an exhortation against complaisance. Civil, military, and private interests all used it as a rallying cry for preparedness, and that the costs were much, much higher this time. As Guy Oakes notes on the mood of the time:\n\n > In December 1941, the United States had risked defeat in the Pacific by failing to prepare for war. In the Cold War, the stakes were immeasurably higher the margins of error narrowed to the vanishing point. By failing to prepare for nuclear war, the United States risked much more than a military defeat: It stood to loose everything.\n\nAs such, commemoration was mostly a mix between extolling America's strength to survive such an attack, but nevertheless the vigilance to be ready and prepared for if it happened anyways. Just about the only memorial which I can find mention of that didn't include this focused theme of national readiness, in fact, was that held at Pearl Harbor itself, the prayers offered being more in line with that of Capt. Roland Faulk, who spoke of the holy ground (holy waters?) where the fallen sailors now were entombed, *\"[made holy] by the sacrifice and death of a gallant company who, standing to their duty in the time of danger, stood firm to the end.\"* Not to say other similar ones didn't happen, but they didn't make headlines. Nor is any of that is of course to say those sentiments were included, or even central, in other commemorations, but it is clear enough that talk of their sacrifice was generally transitioned to how not to let it have gone in vain." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/40mle4/rules_roundtable_3_explaining_the_no_personal/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eq27apx", "eq2b1s6" ], "score": [ 3, 3 ], "text": [ " > I see a lot of conflicting information regarding undertunic/cote length. According to The Medieval Tailor Assistant, nobility would wear their cotes/undershirts to their ankles, but I don’t see how someone could fight with your clothes all the way down to your ankles. Plus, all the effigies and manuscripts I could find show the heraldic surcoat by the knees with no sign of clothing underneath. I’m leaning towards buying a woolen replica of the Bocksten tunic, but that reproduction only goes mid calf.\n\nWhen in doubt, go with the evidence. In this case, while there is [some evidence](_URL_1_) to suggest cotes that extend beyond the knees being worn by high ranking men in battle, military dress is different to civilian dress.\n\n > I struggled to find a historically accurate type of headwear besides a coif worn by men mid 13th century. Looking at the Maciejowski Bible, none of the nobility/knights are wearing any kind of hats, only serfs and one Jew. Researching headgear fashion in this time period revealed tons of documentation on women’s hats but nothing for men. I know about the bycocket, but I haven’t found any evidence of it existing mid 13th century.\n\nUnquilted coifs were [the](_URL_0_) [fashion](_URL_2_) in the period you're looking at. The men are mostly shown bareheaded because, apart from letting you see their lovely flowing locks, headwear wasn't mandatory for fashionable men yet.\n\n > Do I HAVE to wear a secret helmet? Going off of my last question, I’m going to look like a bobblehead with how fat my head is, and I’ve read that in this time period, knights who wore greathelms forwent secret helmets. It also cuts down on costs for me….\n\nNope! Secrets weren't so much secret as worn with a coif over the top as opposed to under them. I'm sure that some wore them under larger helmets but it was by no means mandatory.\n\n > Another point of contention: integrated vs separated maille coifs. I know that rectangular shaped coifs became a thing mid 13th century, but I’ve seen some insist that separate coifs were more common than integrated, as coifs were tucked under surcoats for aesthetic reasons. However, looking at the Maciejowski Bible, there’s knights with no surcoat and no sign of a separate coif in the entire collection.\n\nWhen in doubt, follow the evidence. Integral hoods are fine (and so are separate ones!).\n\nI'm afraid I can't really help with questions 3 and 6, so a reenactment subreddit is your best bet.\n\nIn all honesty, you've done a very good job researching all of this, and I applaud your decision to abandon the stereotypical aketon in favour of just a cote (which the visual evidence overwhelmingly supports). I would, however, recommend that your cote be lined since, if you look closely at the Morgan Bible and other sources from the period where the inside of the cote under the armour is shown, they're all lined. I'd recommend having fairly heavy wool fabric on the outside and lighter wool or linen on the inside. That may end up being a custom job, though, so it's up to you. Just a thick woollen cote should do the trick.\n\nI should also note that a kettle helmet would be entirely in keeping with a mid-13th century knight (especially in Scandinavia), and that plenty of knights in the Morgan Bible aren't wearing full helmets, but iron caps over/under mail coifs.", "I can't answer all of your questions, unfortunately, but I can point you to some information that might help.\n\nThe Danish army that sacked Gotland and won at Mästerby and Visby 1361 did include at least some mercenary knights Bavo or Schelto (both are candiates as their fates are unknown) Roorda died at the battle of Visby and was tossed into the mass graves along with the ~1 800 peasant milita and the Danes and other mercenaries that died in the battle, with his armour still on.\n\nHe wore a coat of plates that were in design very similar to what the Gotlander peasants wore - however, the studs fixing the plates to the inside of the leather (or maybe in his case, velvet or other finer material) were elaborate brass or bronze \"buttons\" in the shape of the heraldic symbols of the Roorda family.\n\n[Image of the armour at the Swedish museum of history](_URL_0_). \n\nIt is possible that the knight did not wear a tabard over his armour as such elaborate buttons/rivets would be wasted if they were covered.\n\nAlso, ss you can see, he also wore a cervelliere - probably beneath a great helm. While coifs are common in the mass graves of Visby, helmets are not, and it is speculated that when burying the dead, the locals or the Danish army (it is not clear who did the burial) were in a rush since the bodies were rotting quickly in the hot summer sun and only took armour and weapons that could be quickly and easily removed - such as helmets, but not coifs or coat of plates. We know the weather was hot, warm and dry since the bogs that normally would protect the positions at Mästerby was crossable by the Danish army and it was noted that it was due to the hot and dry summer. At least one Danish casualty was buried with a pouch full of both Danish and Swedish silver coins, the Danish part probably from when he signed up and the Swedish part from the looting of Öland that the Danish host spend some time on before continuing to Gotland.\n\nThe Roorda knight seem to not have been wearing a coif - perhaps he wore padded cloth [such as this](_URL_1_) instead.\n\nYou can read more on the armour found in the Visby mass graves in Bengt Thordemann's writings. At least one of them are available in English under the title \"Armour from the Battle of Wisby, 1361\"." ] }

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[ [ "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Symphonia_Cantigas_Sta_Mar%C3%ADa_160.jpg", "http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4454/8413/", "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Falconry_Book_of_Frederick_II_1240s_detail_falconers.jpg" ], [ "https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ac/cb/2b/accb2b8ff8859c83480a3f14439a0808.jpg", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Tournament_helmet_padding_cropped.png" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "fmb4ft8", "fmedk99" ], "score": [ 18, 9 ], "text": [ "\\*The title says \"Why did Japan ban the consumption of meat, but not Korea or Japan?\"\n\nIt should say \"Why did Japan ban the consumption of meat, but not Korea or ***China***?\"", "The bans on meat eating (or perhaps more accurately, the restrictions on meat eating, especially beef) were for two main reasons: (a) to protect cattle for use for traction, and horses for riding, and (b) to avoid killing animals, to act according to Buddhist principles. At least, these were the reasons stated by the lawmakers.\n\nThe laws were not absolute. There was generally a loophole that meat consumption, including beef-eating, was allowed for medicinal purposes. Total bans were rare, and did not always cover wild game (and not all wild game when some was protected), and did not always cover all domestic animals.\n\nHowever, even when meat-eating was allowed, there were social taboos against eating meat, especially beef. This at least reduced ostentatious meat-eating.\n\nFor a past answer on restrictions on meat-eating and beef-eating in Japan, see _URL_0_\n\nThere were similar bans/restrictions on meat-eating and beef-eating in Korea, for the same reasons as in Japan: to preserve cattle for traction, and Buddhist non-killing. The bans in Korea and Japan appear to have started at about the same time, during the 6th century AD; Buddhism arrived in Japan shortly after it arrived in Korea. As in Japan, game was often not protected, and the meat of domestic animals, including beef, could be eaten for medicinal purposes. While beef could be - and was - eaten, whether as medicine or otherwise, there were social taboos which reduced consumption.\n\nAfter the Mongol invasions of Korea, and the submission of Korea to Mongol rule, beef-eating enjoyed a renaissance, and became more acceptable as an upper class food, due to Mongol preferences for beef, mutton, and horse over pork (due to the lack of pig herding on the steppe). However, this had little impact on the food of the majority. Most Koreans ate very little meat, with many farmers eating meat (not including seafood) on only a few occasions during the year (and the meat that was eaten was often considered to be a fortifying medicinal food).\n\nUp to about 150 years ago, Korean and Japanese food were very similar. A typical meal in either country consisted of grain, soup, and some side dishes. The grain was rarely all rice, let alone white rice - much more common was rice mixed with barley or millet, or even a mix of grains without rice. The soup and side dishes would rarely have meat, even for reasonably well-off people, and extremely rarely for poor farmers. I discussed Japanese food in _URL_1_ and Korean food at the time was very similar. Modern Korean meat eating only has weak traditional roots. It does owe something to beef-eating in royal cuisine, which as already noted, was partly due to Mongol influence. However, Japanese cuisine meatified long before Korean cuisine, and the colonial period, when Japan ruled Korea, helped drive Korean cuisine towards meat-eating.\n\nPoverty minimised meat-eating in Korea, even when the social taboos against meat-eating were largely gone. At late as 1970, when the Korean economy was recovering from the war, Korean meat consumption was only 5kg per person per year, and was significantly lower just 10 years earlier. Today, Korean meat consumption is about 70kg per person per year, similar to that of Japan.\n\nJapan cuisine did absorb foreign meat-dish recipes. The West was a major source, with Western meat dishes such as hamburger (*hambāgu* in Japanese, and consisting of a patty served with rice rather than in a bun), curry (adopted from the British), and breaded pork cutlets (*tonkatsu*) being popular both in home-cooking and eating out." ] }

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[ "https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/japan-meat-ban" ]

[ [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/asz87q/no_beef_eating_in_japan/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/81d8gf/what_was_japanese_cuisine_like_during_sengoku/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eb2pdv7" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "There actually isn't any such thing as a year 0 -- the BC/AD calendar goes from 1-1. But that said, you may be interested in [this section of our FAQ](_URL_0_), particularly this answer: \n\n[How confident are we that the year is actually and exactly 2016? Is it possible that at some point in the last 2000 years there were any significant timekeeping mistakes?](_URL_1_) by u/sunagainstgold " ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/language#wiki_calendars", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5izv93/how_confident_are_we_that_the_year_is_actually/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cdjrbjw", "cdjvcii", "cdk3eyg", "cdk4lrz", "cdk9of7" ], "score": [ 557, 130, 88, 9, 2 ], "text": [ "The Gun Control Act of 1968 was rooted in reactions to the Kennedy assassination. I'm hard pressed to find a non biased interpretation of events, and my own (pro gun) bias may restrict my ability to impartiality discuss it. \n\nEssentially, GCA 1968 did away with mail order gun sales, cut off importation of military surplus arms, and imposed a complicated system to determine if a handgun could be imported. I believe the last two were as much a gimme to domestic manufacturers as much an effort to control the flow of guns. \n\nEDIT: forgot words. ", "Oswald used an italian model bolt action rifle in shooting JFK. Out of all types of guns, a bolt action rifle is going to be the last one to get outlawed. \n\nMalcolm X was initially shot with a shotgun, the second least likely gun to be taken away. \n\nBobby was killed with a 22 revolver, the least threatening of all handguns. \n\nMLK was killed with a deer rifle. \n\nSo, while the assassination sparked some debate it mainly shaped gun control by getting Johnson in office. Other than Ray, who would be barred from gun ownership as a felon no legislation would have stopped those deaths. \n\nWhilst there was debate, there was no real change until 1968. Most likely due to the fact that the only way of stopping the shooting would have been drastic legislation that would probably take away nearly all guns in the U.S.", "Ladies and gentlemen - this thread has become a comment graveyard. The mods would like to gently remind you that off-topic conversations are not allowed on AskHistorians. Other venues - not here! - are available for political commentary, for technical discussions (not related to policy), for speculation, and for black humour. ", "Here is some of Robert Kennedy's testimony on proposed gun control legislation, that eventually became GCA68 [from NBC ]( _URL_0_)", "I have a follow up question. It seems news items like this today are merely the next political talking point. Was that the case with JFK, etc?" ] }

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[ [], [], [], [ "http://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=1112" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c3izggd" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The SOE could be considered a major contributor to the outcome of the Resistance in France, though I'm not sure how far you could say to the outcome of the war itself. The organization was responsible for providing the French Resistance with weaponry to fuel their fight against the Nazis. For example, runs dropping in SOE agents often also came with the parts to build Sten sub-machine guns. \n\nThe SOE also went beyond France in their efforts to destabilize the Nazi war machine. For example, some SOE agents were dropped into the Balkans area of Europe to help rebellions there succeed. If they had desirable skills, then someone could enter the group with enough ease. \n\nUnderground movements during World War II were definitely a significant part of the war. While they might not have been into outright fighting against the Nazis the knowledge of groups that could attack at any time and disappear again likely worried the Nazis in case some of their main supply lines were disrupted (for example, if a bridge a key supply train was to come over suddenly detonated).\n\nI imagine you could use the BBC's contribution to the SOE as well, since a broadcasting corporation as famous being used as a communications medium could be seen as either suicidal or genius. In many ways, it might even be both, since it was hiding in plain sight. The work of the SOE led to such creations as the [Welrod](_URL_1_). While largely obscure and minor in its significance, it does show the innovations that were created as a result of the needs of the SOE. \n\nThe SOE also helped disrupt the Nazis during the D-Day attacks of 1944, with operations such as [Jedburgh](_URL_2_). Depending on who you ask as well, the SOE established tactics that are relevant still in the modern world, and these are tactics which some terrorist groups still seek to emulate. \n\nIf you need only one significant member of the Special Operations Executive, then [William Grover-Williams](_URL_0_) might be the person to go for. He was the base for the protagonist in the game *The Saboteur*. While games aren't really excellent media for writing about a real-world organization, the fact he was based upon Grover-Williams might help to show some of the points about the SOE.\n\nI'm not a professional historian or anything of that nature, but I do think you could use the SOE's actions in World War II as the subject for your paper. There is a wealth of information about the SOE, and some of it is even from those who served in it (Dorothy Baden-Powell, for example, wrote about her experiences). If any of the professional historians drop in, I definitely would take their views over my own, to be quite honest." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Grover-Williams", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welrod", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jedburgh" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cd1dck2", "cd1jl5w", "cd1lkhr" ], "score": [ 4, 4, 3 ], "text": [ "There was a fairly big debate on this sub when The Oatmeal created a webcomic about Columbus. You may have already seen this.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAs discussed, The Oatmeal draws heavily on Howard Zinn's *A People's History of the United States*. He is very much in the Columbus as villain camp. Other historians criticize his lack of objectivity and also object that he criticizes a 15th century man in 21st century terms. I unfortunately don't have a lot for the \"in-context\" Columbus. 1492 is probably a more objective take on Columbus.\n\nedit: This is probably only a small part of your question - views on Columbus in the present day. Hopefully more qualified users can help with views on Columbus in different periods.", "It might be more useful to think about this within a broader perspective, not limiting yourself to the person of Columbus but rather looking at early Spanish colonialism itself. One reason for this is that Columbus didn't really understand what was going on for most of his voyages, so while it's possible to say that Columbus was approaching these trips in *very problematic* and morally reprehensible ways, it's also true that what *actually* happened and what he thought was happening were different (even though his actions would be morally reprehensible either way). \n\nTo get a better understanding of the conquest, some useful, if flawed, books include Todorov's *The Conquest of America* and Stephen Greenblatt's *Marvelous Possessions*. Todorov's historical narrative is noticeably flawed, but his attempts at understanding how Columbus approached the new territories, his biggest concerns and claims, etc., are somewhat useful in reading against the grain of Columbus's and other early explorers' texts. Greenblatt's work looks specifically at how wonder was used to mediate the experience between what was witnessed, what was thought to have been witnessed, and the attempt to fit that experience into a broader Christian worldview for a Christian European audience (and, obviously, how to use that to gain economic advantage). \n\nThese books don't explain the history too well, but I'd be wary of any book that proposed to tell the \"true story of Columbus's encounter.\" The only sources we have of the original encounters are Spanish sources, so we don't know *what happened*. Frustratingly enough, we can only attempt to understand how the real experience was different from those narratives (which can be done by looking at subsequent interactions between natives and Europeans, material cultures that show how the early years of conquest came to be, etc). \n\nHaving said that, I'll follow up on the top post in the post /u/dmar2 linked to, [which you can see here](_URL_0_). \n\nWhile it's true that pinning the **African slave trade** on Columbus is far-fetched, Columbus was **very instrumental** in conceptualizing certain Caribbean Indians as \"savage\" enough to justify their enslavement. Columbus was directly implicated in the introduction of a European slave culture in the New World (it wasn't just his underlings and people who came later). Hell, I'd go as far as saying he was one of the people who was directly responsible for this. For more on this, see Peter Hulme's [Colonial Encounters](_URL_1_), among other sources. \n\nEDIT: Forgot a tl;dr. So here it is. **TL;DR**: It's more useful to learn about Columbus's experiences to understand how he approached the conquest than it is to read a book that tries to lay out a clear argument of whether he's a hero or a villain. I'm far more inclined to say his thoughts and actions had terribly destructive, negative effects on the world, and that honoring or celebrating him is a travesty of the modern West's inability to reflect on many of the skeletons in its closet, but I encourage you to read more.", "If you just study Columbus, and histories of Columbus and the Spanish conquests in the New World, you might be able to come to some thoughts about whether Columbus was a \"hero or a villain\" in terms of our current morality and present day definitions of \"hero\" or \"villain\". \n\nYou won't learn much about how Columbus or his contemporaries thought about the \"heroism\" or \"villainies\" of the Spanish conquests in America.\n\nTo understand that you would need to look at attitudes towards conquest and slavery in the world in Columbus' time.\n\nWhat were the attitudes of the peoples of North America towards conquest and slavery? Did the Aztecs, Incas, Arawaks, Caribs, and others that Columbus and the Spanish encountered, conquer? Did they practice slavery? Did they have moral opinions on these activities?\n\nHow about other cultures around the world. The Ottoman Turks were busy conquering in Europe at this time and enslaving both Europeans and Africans. What were opinions of Ottoman thinkers or leaders on the morality of conquest and slavery? Who did Ottoman culture and legend portray as \"heroes\" or \"villains\"?\n\nThe Mongols were beginning to lose control of some of their conquests at the time of Columbus. As people who had very recently been in the conquest and slavery business, but were now retrenching rather than expanding, how did they look on the morality of conquest and slavery?\n\nFinally, the Spanish, and other Western Europeans, (especially the Catholic Church, which had important moral influence in Spain, and which would soon after Columbus begin to debate the morality of slavery in particular, as applied to the Indians of the New World). How did they look at conquest and slavery and the morality of these activities?\n\nTo try to decide if historical characters were heroes or villains according to some of our current attitudes is not very useful. \"Caesar was evil because We think that Republics are morally better than Empires, and Caesar helped move Rome from a Republic towards an Empire.\" This is not useful history. Who the heck cares? What is useful is to try to understand what was going on when Caesar was alive and operating. What did he think he was doing? What did Brutus think? How did Romans perceive the morality of Caesar's actions.\n\nWhether we think Caesar or Columbus were heroes or villains only says something about us. It does not add at all to our understanding of Caesar or Columbus, what they thought? why they acted the way they did? What their societies and contemporaries thought about them? Whether their actions caused them or their societies to think differently? " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1o3uek/the_oatmeal_just_released_this_post_about/" ], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1o3uek/the_oatmeal_just_released_this_post_about/ccoo9vc", "http://books.google.com/books/about/Colonial_encounters.html?id=GjkYAAAAYAAJ" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cxbb8zd", "cxbbvf7", "cxbchn6", "cxbi4sr", "cxbka4s", "cxbkqgd" ], "score": [ 73, 124, 6, 3, 2, 44 ], "text": [ "If I can ask a follow-up, how is sexual activity in historical societies assessed? I assume relying on primary written sources such as diaries and histories provides poor data, but what else is there?", "Any sources for this being true in medieval Christian Europe?", "Did major events such as war or crop failures increase or decrease this -- as in, if there's any way of knowing, was it used to deal with stress, celebrate, neither or both?", "This is a very interesting question I'd like to see answered. However, could someone explain who the Umayyads are?", "One factor to keep in mind here is that marriage was rather late (i.e., early-to-mid-20s on average, at least among commoners) in much of Europe. John Hajnal's original work concerned the divide, primarily, between eastern and western Europe, not the Arab world. That said, so far I haven't found anything about the Arab world in this period as a region of late nuptiality.\n\nIf the gap between puberty and marriage was smaller in the Umayyad Caliphate than in, say, the Plantagenet England, there might have simply been less time for premarital sex.\n\nThis doesn't really answer the question of how widespread premarital sexual activity was either in medieval Christian Europe or in the Umayyad Caliphate, but it is a factor that could be considered.", "The tradition of Islamic law developed in the Middle Ages permits--in fact, encourages--sex in two cases: marriage between a man and a woman, and between a man and his female slave. Quite a few restrictions develop around the latter case, including protections that immediately accrue to the concubine (especially if she bears her owner's child) and the fact that the slave must be *his*; he cannot legally make a concubine out of his wife's slave.\n\nSo much for prescription. What about practice?\n\nWith respect to the initial Umayyad caliphate, as based out of Damascus in the 7th-8th centuries, there are two key things to keep in mind. First of all, at this stage, it's hard to talk about \"Islamic law.\" Things are still very much in flux. Norman Roth, in fact, has argued that Islamic ideas of proper sexuality didn't really coalesce until the *ninth* century. \n\nSecond, while Arab/Muslim-led armies conquered a lot of territory fairly quickly, actual *conversion to Islam* was a much slower process. Especially in rural areas. For a variety of reasons, many of the medieval caliphates did not place a premium on proselytizing conquered peoples. (Isn't being able to levy extra taxes nice?)\n\nSo under the Damascus Umayyads very early on, you have nebulous ideas of restrictions on sexuality beginning to take shape among a small conquering middle/upper/military class, and a population maybe absorbing some ideas of Islam but probably still adhering to their prior practices. Whatever the existence of prostitution or affairs or sex with slaves or teenager rolling in cedar leaves, it's tough to say it would be regulated *by Islamic law*.\n\nBut despite the fall of the Umayyads in the east, the dynasty persisted in the west: the Caliphate of Cordoba, that is to say, medieval al-Andalus or modern-day Spain. And here things get interesting.\n\nWhile there are beautiful romances that place their characters into adulterous love (a la the western Arthurian tradition) coming out of Persia, the vast majority of medieval Arabic sexual or erotic love poetry comes out of the courts of al-Andalus. Here I am talking about the Umayyads, and also the individual \"taifa\" kingdoms set up after the Umayyads' fall in the west as well. Sex was certainly \"in the air\" there, at least among poets. (Paralleling/intertwined with, to no surprise, the development of the romance tradition in Christian Europe).\n\nBut Layla and Majnun of the romance tradition die apart, their love unfulfilled; poetry is just words. Were the Muslims of al-Andalus having sex outside marriage and licit concubinage?\n\nWe can look at court cases, decrees and laws (with some skepticism--for the Middle Ages in particular, it's not always the case that \"the existence of a law against it means someone did it\"), and medieval Islamic legal scholarship to get some idea here. Thanks to the nature of the Arabic sources, most of our evidence concerns prostitution. The other important disclaimer is that the sources still pertain mainly to urban areas, and mostly to the upper classes.\n\nAt the level of general city life, we know there was the usual amount of street or brothel-level prostitution. Women, but also \"boys.\" Weddings in particular were hot markets for prostitutes. There was a close connection between the singing and dancing female entertainers (so-called \"singing girls\") and prostitution, in rhetoric and apparently in practice as well.\n\nAs to concubinage. It is expressly forbidden in Islamic law for a man to pimp out his own female slaves as prostitutes. But that definitely happened, especially among the lower nobility or merchant class when they got a little low on cash.\n\nOutside of prostitution, there are some surviving court records from inheritance lawsuits that provide concrete evidence of specifically *premarital* sex (as opposed to simply nonmarital). Children born prior to the marriage are illegitimate and do not inherit property; children born within the proper context can and do.\n\nAdditionally, authorities did take steps to set up segregation of sexes, with the need to keep women separate escalating as you moved up the social scale. (We can see lower class women appear in court cases more often than upper women, for instance. Under medieval Islamic law, unlike the Christian ideas that were developing in the later Middle Ages, women were full legal persons with rights such as self-presentation in court, not under male guardianship.) And everyday Muslims took their steps--sometimes literally--to get around them. Everyone today loves to talk about veils, but here's my favorite, from a 10th century *hisba* treatise (written as a Q & A with an Iberian/North African scholar):\n\n > Yahya was asked about a kind of sandal or flip-flop. Are shoemakers forbidden to make them? Because women look for these mules on purpose, with the intention of wearing them when going through the markets. And it so happens that, if a man is absent-minded, when he hears these chirping sandals he raises his head.\n\nThe point is not that sandals are sex, of course. Rather, people found a way to get around the religious laws and attempts to enforce them. Other *hisba* treatises number out the *locations in cities* where people were known to meet for sex: certain markets, river banks, orchards, cemeteries. \n\nAnd, in another wonderful moment of history, the 10th century Cordoban jurist Muhammad bin Ishaq ibn al-Salim ruled only that the authorities would 'keep under supervision' a particular *mosque* known as a refuge for certain men and 'women of dubious morals'.\n\nSo overall, yes, people were having sex outside of marriage and legal concubinage in the medieval Islamic world." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "czuym9d" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "Not a complete answer but an interesting one. A small part of Manhattan (on the East River) is actually made up of literal English soil and houses that transport ships brought back from Bristol. They needed some ballast to stabilize the ships so they loaded them with rubble. The area where this was dumped is now called Bristol Basin. _URL_0_ this provides a link to the plaque commemorating this. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bristol-basin" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cdvefn9" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I wish I had more time to write just now since the [Glorious Revolution of 1688](_URL_0_) is very widely misrepresented and misremembered. One of the most common errors, which was included in my AP Euro textbook a few years ago, is the mistaken belief that William was *invited* by Parliament. William invaded with a fleet twice the size of the Spanish armada-- the only invitation came from a conspiracy of noble families called the immortal seven.\n\nIn fact in 1688 there was no sitting Parliament. The last Parliament to sit, the \"Loyal Parliament\" had been dissolved. The Revolution was in large part prompted by fears that James II was about to call a new Parliament that would be packed with new supporters (dissenters) and would confirm the repeal of the Test Acts.\n\nThe library's closing so I have to leave, I hope I'll have a chance to come expand later, but very briefly: 1688 was not an inevitable constitutional development and it wasn't accepted with nearly as much quiescence as is usually suggested.\n\nMy top reading suggestion for the topic is the recent work done by [Steve Pincus](_URL_1_)." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution", "http://www.worldcat.org/title/1688-the-first-modern-revolution/oclc/301706128&amp;referer=brief_results" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "doidwfj" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "Since you're asking about _historicity_ I will be dealing with the canonical Gospels here as they're closer in time to the event and leave the \"Gospel of Judas\" out.\n\nJudas is a difficult character to work out, especially from a modern moral point of view. He betrayed his master, which was an abhorrent crime. But in doing so, he apparently saved humanity. For the theological and moral implications of this, I'll just quote Bob Dylan - \"I can't think for ya, y'have to decide//Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side\".\n\nOften, however, in source criticism, such narrative discrepancies are taken to suggest there may be more to the story. So let's see what happens...\nMark 14 begins with the Sanhendrin plotting to kill Jesus, and they agree that they do not want to arrest him among the crowds 'lest there be an uproar'. Judas approaches them, agrees to betray Jesus and is promised money. We're told that Judas then \"looked for a convenient way to betray Jesus\". Eventually, Jesus and the twelve retire to have the last supper, and go out to the Garden of Gethesmane. Judas shows up with \"a multitude with swords and clubs [that] came from the scribes and the elders\", and delivers his Judas kiss to identify Jesus. Jesus is arrested, and the high priest asks him if he is the Christ. Jesus says that he is, and he is accused of blasphemy.\n\nEventually we move on to Mark 15, where we have perhaps the most interesting scene: Jesus faces Pontius Pilate, who asks if Jesus is the _king of the Jews_. Jesus replies \"So you say yourself\".\n\nWait, what?! Jesus never calls himself the King of the Jews... right? And instead of replying \"I am,\" and prophesying as with the Sanhendrim, he plays ill-advised word games with Pilate.\n\nWell... let's turn to the gospel of Matthew, 19:28:\n\n > Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth: In the age when all things are renewed, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. \n\nIf Jesus is their Master, and they are judges of the twelve tribes, what would he be if not King of the Jews? The passage is also found in Luke, and there are oblique allusions to royal status of the disciples in e.g. Mark 10:35-42. And... one of the people Jesus says this to is, well, Judas Iscariot himself. How can we make sense of that?\n\nIf Jesus said this, it may explain one oddity in Judas' betrayal - how hard would it be for the Sanhendrin (Mark is very careful to emphasize this, it's the men of the Sanhendrin!!) to just follow Jesus and arrest him at a convenient time? What if Judas' betrayal was not that, but instead informing Roman authorities that Jesus intended to subvert them, make himself king, and his disciples judges? Suddenly Pilate's accusation makes sense, and we have to wonder if the contrived Mark 14 is merely part of the long tradition of blaming the Jews. Crucifixion was, after all, a very Roman punishment. And it would make sense if the quote was indeed real. What reason could an author see to invent it? It makes no sense in terms of narrative consistency.\n\nThis is, in the end, just one possible interpretation and way of making sense of Judas. There are others. I draw this, apart from the NT itself, mostly from the works of Bart Ehrman; _How Jesus Became God_ should cover it." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cefgisr" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "As a followup question, were non military manufacturers converted to military manufacturers in Europe in a similar fashion to the way they were in the USA? Examples including Singer Sewing Machine making pistols, Rock Ola Juke Box making M1 Carbines, International harvester Garands, and Cadillac Sherman Tanks." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cicgqyr", "cich7eg", "cichebp", "cichl7c", "cichvm8", "cichzeb", "cici0qv", "cicif08", "ciciwoc", "ciciyoc", "ciciz6m", "cick28l", "cick6ln", "cick9q3", "cicl2f6", "cicl38j", "cicl753", "cicl7by", "ciclegv", "cicloy6", "ciclwl6", "cicm56n", "cicmagk", "cicmmxv", "cicmt4c", "cicmtm0", "cicn7vj", "cicota8", "cicov0l", "cicoyg3", "cicpgl6", "cicpr8a", "cicpv7n", "cicq0kg", "cicr04d", "cicrhn2", "cictyb7", "cicu2up", "cicuqsl", "cicuvuu", "cicvey3", "cicvfnr", "cicvjye", "cicxwn3", "cicysv3", "cid2ko1" ], "score": [ 39, 100, 7, 14, 13, 15, 191, 25, 13, 10, 10, 2, 7, 9, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 4, 6, 4, 3, 9, 3, 6, 3, 5, 2, 2, 3, 6, 5, 8, 2, 5, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 6, 2 ], "text": [ "Hello!\n\nI was wondering if you could comment on how widespread literacy would have been in this era, and what languages would have been used for communication.", "Oh I've got another one for you!\n\nI'm aware Zoroastrianism was a very widespread religion in the region, though primarily in Iran. However, part of the mythos of Mohammed is that he destroyed all of the gods and statuettes in Mecca Were these widespread religions if they could be called that, or were these faiths more animistic (as loaded a term as that is)?", "Did the land of Dilmun hold any special significance for the Sumerians? Also, are there any theories as to what caused the Dilmun civilization to fall? ", "Hi /u/Daeres! Do you know what's the earliest reference to Arabs in external/textual sources? You mentioned that our knowledge stretches back to the Middle Bronze Age, and that made me curious. :)", "What is known about the pre-Islamic God \"Allah\"? Would he have been one of the idols in the Kaaba?", "Do you know anything about the music in this time period? Was it purely religious, or was it wider than with folk songs and other such things?", "What was Mohammed's religion prior to the founding of Islam? If that's perhaps overly controversial or unclear, what was likely the religion of his parents? I had previously assumed it to be something Abrahamic, and thus Islam being an expansion upon that, but the little investigation I have done suggests it was something else. If it was not something Abrahamic, how did Islam become so close to other Abrahamic religions?", "I've often read that the Ghassanids and Lakhmids were \"client kingdoms\" of the Byzantines/Sassanids (respectively) and primarily served to prevent raids into the larger empires by Arabs from further south. Is that an accurate assessment of their relations? If so, was either kingdom actually effective at doing so? ", "During the Islamic Period, Arab maritime trade networks famously stretched from Southeast Asia to down along the East African coast. To what extent was this mercantile activity already present in pre-Islamic Arabia? Were Arab merchants interacting regularly with the Horn of Africa, India, and beyond, or was trade focused more internally, or towards the Byzantines?", "I know that \"the Evil eye\" is pretty prominent in the Islamic world and indeed has reference in Islamic doctrine, but is there any equivalent or previous version of this in the Pre-Islamic Middle East? Were there the same kinds of talismans and beliefs associated with this idea?", "I have a couple of very generic questions, mainly about the living conditions of pre-Islamic Arabia,.\n\n1. Exactly where are we speaking of? It seems like the \"borders\" of the cultural and ethnic identity that we're talking about would change drastically with the emergence of Islam. \n\n2. What were conditions like? Health? Violence? Intellectualism? Where did these fit pre-Islamic Arabia? \n\n3. Who had political and religious authority? \n\n4. What was the biggest single change Islam caused in Arabia? \n\n\nEDIT: Spelling, sorry...", "What was the relation of Arabs to other Semitic groups at the time like the Akkadians, Arameans, Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Jews? What about Egyptians and lybians? Did they share similar religious/cultural beliefs? How is it that they managed to spread their language, culture, religion and even ethnic identity to these markedly different people? Did the Arabs create a lingua Franca as well as a common \"united Semitic identity\" so to speak?", "So you kind of hinted at this when you said\n\n > The history of people identified as Arabs or who spoke an Arabic language outside of what we'd call Arabia and before Islam.\n\nbut who were the people who fell into the group \"Arab\" and how was that group defined? Is this an imposed ethnonym or was there really an underlying cultural unity? Did this definition change over time, and if so, how?", "Great topic, I have three questions:\n\n1. I often read about the complex relationship between Rome and the Arabian Peninsula, but less often about Persia, which seems more directly relevant. How did the Persians attempt to assert control over the region?\n\n2. I have been hearing about the stunning recent finds of settlements associated with Bronze Age pearl fields along the Persian Gulf. What was the political situation of the area?\n\n3. This is a bit of a long shot, but have you bumped into anything on the history of the dhow?", "I read Philip K. Hitti's \"History of Arabs\" and I loved it. Could you recommend me some book that talks about pre-Islamic customs that had a major impact on the modern Arab culture and the way that societies in the Arab countries (especially the Gulf ones) function today?", "What kinds of political theory and philosophy were used/discussed in this era?", "Regarding the empty quarter, is there any detailed findings on the issue of alleged trade routes and settlements in the region which might have come out as of late?\n\nAs a follow-up, I would be curious to learn what impact the spread of various Eastern Orthodox denominations of Christianity such as Nestorianism and Miathysitism - both of which I am lead to understand had some considerable expansion in that region of the world - had upon the culture and writing in the years of late antiquity.", "While Rome never formally ruled in Arabia, I was wondering what sort of political and economic power Rome had over the region.", "How far can we make generalisations in religious and cultural terms for PIA? I'm interested particularly in how far we need to distinguish the kingdom in the south east (whose name has escaped me) and the region which the Romans and Persians identified as 'Arabia Felix' in comparison to the communities of the north west and the Bedouin lifestyle.", "How big of an archaeological loss was the destruction of the inside of the Kaaba along with the spread of Islam? Additionally, Is there an idea of how much of the history of pre-Islamic religion in Arabia has been destroyed?", "How do you find the claims of illiteracy of Mohammad. Is it possible that a caravan merchant could be illiterate? \nAlso I read that there used to be poetry contests in Mecca where the poets would hang their poems on the Kaaba wall so everyone could read them. \nIn a society where there are poetry contests, how likely is it that literacy was rare as islamic sources say it was - can this be a deliberate contrast created by islamic scholars to bad mouth pre-islamic arabia? ", "I'm going to hit you up for a brief bibliography. Specifically, what works in English can you recommend for a good general grounding and then more focused discussions of life, society, and religion? Additionally, a brief note on *why* you like the work would be awesome.\n\n(I'm asking mostly because I'm interested in the topic, but I can't come up with a specific question. :) )", "I took a class in the fall on the History of Christianity, and we had a brief set of classes centered around the rise of Islam. We spent some time studying pre-Islamic Arabia, and one of the things that stood out to me was the \"raid\" culture of the peninsula, where groups would descend upon their neighbors for plunder. How did this \"raiding\" culture develop? More specifically, what are the origins of the culture as well as the reasons for it developing?", "What are the primary sources historians use to study pre-Islamic Arabs?", "Thanks for doing this!\n\nWe often hear about the plight of women before the arrival of Muhammad, mostly by Muslims. Can you explain why Khadija was able to garner such influence when the status of women was so low (as we are told)? Was she an exception or were there many women in positions of power and influence?", "This is a fascinating topic. \n\nOnce I read that there has been a consistent movement of population of the people of Arabia to the Near East even before the advent of Islam. The pattern, according to the book, is as follows: the semi-nomadic Arab tribes - who in winter lived by sheep-rearing in the desert, far from the settled Near East - in summer would come to the settled areas in the Near East. There, the semi-nomads would put the settled folk under tribute, acquire grazing-rights in return for protection, or even become proprietors of land. Some of the nomads would then continue living in a settled form of life (and mix with the Near Eastern folks), while some others would leave and return to the desert. This pattern repeats continuously until the Muslim conquest become the major drive for the Arabs to go out from the desert.\n\nI have a few questions in my mind:\n\n* Is there any truth to that claim?\n* If that claim is not accurate, what kind of relationship/interaction that the Arabs and Near Eastern folks actually had prior to Islam? What kind of \"influence\" that they had on each other?\n* In Islamic literature, Waraqah ibn Naufal is usually revered as the first Christian to acknowledge the prophethood of Muhammad. How widespread was Christianity in Arabia, and in what form (was it Nestorian? Monophysite?)? I'm especially curious about Late Antiquity.\n\nThank you so much for your time!", "One question about poetry in the Peninsula. Growing up, we're taught about how important poetry and poets were to pre-Islamic Arabian society, one of my Arabic teachers mentioned that war between tribes could start in the case of a particular poem insulting a tribe and that poets were the diplomats between tribes. How accurate is the view of the importance of poetry in pre-Islamic Arabia? ", "Any theories as to why the Quraysh, the Hashemite Arabs specifically (including presumably, Muhammad himself since he was a Hashemite) have the same Y chromosomal haplogroup (paternal lineage) as the Cohen Jewish modal haplotype (which the Jews trace to Aaron)? It's J1c3d in case you didn't know and at this point it's been documented in peer reviewed scientific studies, open genealogy projects utilizing personal genomics testing services with thousands of members on both the Arab and Jewish sides, and covered a little in popular media events by National Geographic.\n\nBecause the haplotypes are so similar, the overlap could have happened even in recent times (around the time of the origin of Islam) though because of history we know the Quraysh were around for a certain period of time at the bare minimum (let's say 2000ybp at least). So when and where do you think the Quraysh tribe formed? When and where do you think the Cohen Jews and Quraysh (Adnani?) Arabs split off the same paternal line? Do you think this happened before the origin of the religion of Judaism itself? If not, does this not constitute a possible avenue for the introduction of monotheism or certain ideas (re: \"Allah\", Abraham, etc) into what eventually became Arab culture?\n\nEdit: It's disappointing that this question wasn't answered. Genetics might be the most concrete evidence of pre-Islamic Semitic history we'll ever have.", "Would you mind suggesting good books to read on the topic?\nThe only ones I've read that partially deal with it are Reza Aslan's \"No God but God\" and Hazleton's \"The First Muslim\"\n\nThanks! And fascinating topic!", "How much of pre-Islamic Arabia continues into popular culture today? Are there still people who follow other pre-Islamic religions and traditions in the Near-East (apart from the well-known ones).", "If I could read one book you recommend me on this subject, what would it be? ", "Often in the Islamic religion we hear that the time before Mohammad was a time of sin and ignorance. In fact, it is called the Era of Ignorance. This encompasses the notion that not only were the people pagan, but also that they were largely uneducated, participated in female infanticide, discrimination of the poor, and so on. Specifically to The Arabian Peninsula, what evidence is there for or against this claim?", "Can you elaborate a little about the practice of waad (The crime of burying newborn daughters alive in Idolatry Arabia).", "What was this area's views on animals that are now considered unclean in Abrahamic religions? Pigs, dogs, shell fish (though that might just be a Jewish thing), etc.", "This might be a naive question, but I've heard the origins of Mithraism are traced to pre-Islam Arabia with ties to Zoroastrianism an maybe some other places? I would love any history about Mithraism's origins, or sources. If this is off the mark, you can disregard. ", "Were women required to dress in the Islamic way (covering up their whole bodies) in pre-Arabia? I'm guessing that is why Muslims still do, even though the clothing industry has come a long way in protecting people's skin from the weather since those times.", "Awesome AMA! Thank you for doing this.\n\n* How much do we know about the earliest human migrations into the area we recognize today as the Arabian Peninsula?\n\n* I'm not sure how involved you are in archeology, but how cooperative is the Saudi government with archeological expeditions digging into pre-Islamic sites?", "What was the status of women in the Arabian peninsula like before Islam? \n\nWas female genital mutilation practised before Islam in the Arabian peninsula? ", "1) Do we have any historical evidence as to when was Kaaba constructed? As Per Islamic Legends it was initially constructed by Adam, and then Abraham reconstructed it. So, what is the oldest historical record of a presence of a house in the Pre-Islamic tradition?\n\n2) From which region the majority of Pre-Islamic Arabic poets came from?\n\n3) Any book recommendation to Study Pre-Islamic Poetry\n\n4) Some people claim that Muhammad never existed (Robert spencer for example) do historians take this claim seriously?\n\n", "How can you tell if the artefacts found contains information that are true and not just propaganda or people patting themselves on the back? ", "I'm currently very interested in the mediterranean during the late bronze age (1500-1300BCE) so my questions relate to then:\n\n* Were the Thamud the same people that would later become known as Arabs, or did they migrate from elsewhere?\n\n* Have scholars figured out how to translate the [thalmudic inscriptions](_URL_1_) that are found on stones throughout the Arabian Peninsula?\n\n* What sort of interactions did the Thalmud have with other civilizations of the time (Mitanni, Hittite, Egyptian, Babylonian,) and how did they compare to these empires?\n\n* Are we aware of any other civilizations on the Arabian peninsula at this time?\n\n* Before Allah, what gods were worshipped? It seems like the other civilizations of the time adopted every new god they learned about into their pantheon. Was it the same for the tribes throughout the peninsula?\n\n* I've heard some discussion that climate change may have turned many lush areas around the mediterranean into desert (both in the myth of the city of the pillars and what the findings at [Göbekli Tepe](_URL_0_) seem to indicate) Was the climate of the Arabian peninsula different at that time or was it as arid as it appears today?\n\nThanks, it's been challenging to find information about this online.", "How come the Romans or Greeks under Alexander never invaded Arabia? ", "I have an obscure question. \n\nI remember in a Byzantine class I took in college we either read in a source or were told by the professor this amusing note illustrating the fickleness of some Arab tribes concerning religion prior to Islam. As it went, a particular tribe had decided to construct a god made out of dates, which they prayed to. When the god failed to deliver on their requests, they decided to eat it.\n\nDo you happen to know the source of that story? Seems likely to be a Roman/Byzantine account.\n\nI'm just curious and want to shore up the memory.", "I read in *In the Shadow of the Sword* by Tom Holland that Mecca was not the major trading hub in the pre-Islamic era that it is referred to as in the Koran. While I appreciate that Holland's section on the Arab Empire is often controversial for controversy's sake (and reading around the book has helped enormously), this particular claim has stuck with me. Holland indicates two reasons for Mecca not being the major hub that it is indicated as being in the Koran:\n1. Mecca is in the middle of the desert and lies on no major waterways, seas or roads, unlike every other major trading city of the classical period.\n2. It is rarely referred to as such in outside (non-Arab) sources.\n3. There were no cities in South Arabia during the classical period to justify a large over-land trade route.\n4. Traveling overland through the Arabian Desert is unnecessary when it is considered that a trader could simply cross over at Sinai and then sail down the Red Sea.\n\nCould you tell me if there is any truth in these claims? I am happy to be disproved if that is the case.", "Having extensively studied ME history as an undergrad, the thing that keeps popping up is this: There is little in the way of primary sources from the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period *other than the Qur'an*. Why is this? Arabs could certainly write, and the Qur'an itself was written down in a period not terribly long after the life of Mohammed. Even with the lack of diacritics, it seems there should be more writing to survive from the period. However, in any discussion of pre- and early Islamic history, you almost always end up hitting a brick wall of \"our only record is from the Qur'an.", "Is Egypt today populated by the same ethnic group as who built the pyramids? Or when Arab Muslims moved into the area did they pretty much wipe out and replace the local population? (kinda like early America). Or maybe the significant population shift happened when the Greeks or the Romans conquered Egypt? " ] }

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[ [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thamudic_language" ], [], [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ccldfg2", "ccll9qk" ], "score": [ 22, 7 ], "text": [ "I guess it depends on who 'we' are. The [Smithsonian magazine](_URL_0_) and [Harvard magazine](_URL_2_) both give a good simple history of the historiography of colorful Greek statues. Basically, there were written descriptions of statues being colorful (the example in the Smithsonian article cites a line from Euripides' play *Helen of Troy*). There are also [statues that still have their original paint intact](_URL_3_) but it is very muted. Greek frescoes and paintings also depict architecture as colorful (there is a specific piece I'm thinking of that I can't find. [Here is a Roman example](_URL_1_)).\n\nThe art, antiquities, and anthropology world has been aware that most, if not all Greek statues were painted for hundreds of years, but most of what the average person knows about Greek statues comes from what was known, celebrated, and imitated by Renaissance artists. Most of the still-painted statues known today were excavated well after the Renaissance, and even when a colorful statue was found it was largely dismissed as an oddity. Basically up until the work with UV light was done on ancient statues it was known that there were many statues that were originally colored, but the extent of the practice wasn't fully understood. ", "Just picking up on [/u/jerisad](_URL_4_)'s excellent post. We are and have been very much aware that Greek statues were painted, at least since the second half of the 19th Century and certainly throughout the 20th. In fact, once the textual material was closely examined by Victorian German scholars it was found that there are quite a lot of references to the painting on statues and temples. For example, we understand the technical language that describes the methods of coloration by encaustic (the method usually used in the ancient world to paint statuary, which utilized hot wax and essentially burned the color into the marble). We also have a very detailed description of the method by which Nicias, apparently one of the great encaustic painters of the period, colored Praxiletes' *Aphrodite of Cnidus* (it included several layers of encaustic, as well as a polishing with beeswax). \n\nWhat's odd is that the same Victorian German scholars who uncovered this evidence (as well as unearthed a fair amount of statuary that preserved trace amounts of pigment, although not as much as the famous Athenian [korai](_URL_1_) that jerisad references) then proceeded to ignore it or in some places actually hide it. The idea that Greek statuary was always plain white was something mostly out of the Renaissance, which was dealing with Roman copies of the originals, often somewhat modified to suit a different audience. The Victorian scholars often modified or ignored evidence to try and fit it in with ideas that they had already conceived, especially when it would make Germany itself seem more cultured by drawing parallels with the ancient world (see the examples of the German manipulation of the evidence for Dionysiac revels in Athenian dramatic practice or their warping of the Athenian and Spartan constitutions, intended to support their anti-democratic views). So they had this preconceived idea that Greek statuary had to look a certain way because these people were Greeks, and Greeks were the most civilized people in the history of the world, and therefore they must have adhered to these ideas of civilization (reading over German scholarship from this period on the classics gives me a headache sometimes, because they constructed this very artificial idea of Greece which was very rigid and cemented and resembled Victorian Germany much more than any actual Greek society). In fact, it had already been shown that Greek statuary was far more complicated and less rigid than the Renaissance masters had believed. The first large-scale collection of Greek statuary to appear in the West was the Elgin Marbles, which appeared in the British Museum in 1816. They blew people's minds because rather than the statues seeming [emotionless and rigid and highly stylized](_URL_5_) like many of the Roman copies that had survived in Italy, they were [integrated into the environment](_URL_2_), full of life, [full of emotion and breath](_URL_0_), as well as often being [eerily ritual or supernatural](_URL_3_) (this last picture is the head of the Horse of Selene, which has ritual overtones behind it and was unlike any equestrian sculpture Western scholars had ever seen). \n\nSo the short version I suppose is that we've been gradually becoming more aware of it, although only recently (in the 20th Century) have we realized the sheer scale of Greek colorization of statuary. There have been a lot of setbacks and misinterpretations, but on the whole the story is one of progress." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/true-colors.html", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_fresco_from_Boscoreale,_43-30_BCE,_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art.jpg", "http://harvardmagazine.com/2007/11/dazzlers-html", "http://farm1.staticflickr.com/28/63058399_bb4f15ee2c_z.jpg" ], [ "http://bloomsburybytes.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/elgin-marbles66.jpg", "http://farm1.staticflickr.com/28/63058399_bb4f15ee2c_z.jpg", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Dionysos_pediment_Parthenon_BM.jpg", "http://c300221.r21.cf1.rackcdn.com/elgin-marbles-head-of-horse-of-selene-1371038308_b.jpg", "http://www.reddit.com/user/jerisad", "http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_25.78.56.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "consor1", "conyw20" ], "score": [ 6, 2 ], "text": [ "Heavy infantry *originated* in the Middle East, with the Sumerian and Assyrian infantry. The idea that Persian armies were untrained, undisciplined, poorly-equipped levy hordes with cavalry (which the internet likes to think must all be horse-archers, which is nonsense--Xenophon and Arrian describe enormous formations of heavily-armored cavalry with praise) doing the work is pure nonsense, and no self-respecting classicist would suggest such a thing (although people like Hanson apparently would despite knowing better than to do so). The core of the Persian army was its heavy infantry corps, spearheaded by the Persian and Median troops. Herodotus and Arrian both refer to large elite contingents--Herodotus speaks of the Immortals and Arrian mentions the royal guard, which many scholars consider to be the same thing. In both cases the formations are enormous--Herodotus numbers the Immortals alone at ten thousand, a full army right there, with numerous contingents from outside Media and Persia, and Arrian lists the royal guard as composing almost the entirety of the native Persian infantry that engaged Alexander throughout his campaign (so that would exclude the Greek mercenaries, which were not Persian, and the Asiatic levies, which did not see combat--the only other important native Persian infantry to see battle were the Cardaces, who were not normal troops but an experiment). The only important levied infantry (apart from much of Xerxes' enormous army, which must have relied on a lot of levies, though few probably saw combat) that appears in any of our sources is the Asiatic levies at Gaugamela--and these were brought by Darius' barons, not Darius. Darius didn't want the Asiatic levies there and he stuffed them in the rear, where they did nothing except run away. Herodotus says that the native Persian troops under Xerxes, who made the majority of his combat infantry, were armed with swords, spears, and bows, carried wicker shields (about as effective as the leather shields the Romans had) and wore scaled armor--though no helmets, wearing instead the tiara, the traditional headdress of the Persians. Xenophon goes to great lengths to describe in detail the equipment of the various Persian contingents at Cunaxa, noting with praise their good armor and weapons, as well as repeatedly praising the discipline of the Persians, particularly their cavalry (Xenophon also expresses surprise at the Persian custom of going into battle with no helmet, though this might be because Cyrus didn't wear a helmet and took a javelin to the face). \n\nEDIT: Oh, I forgot, a lot of satraps had their own \"Immortals,\" satrapial contingents of essentially professional heavy infantry, although we don't know too much about them", "Yes it is a misconception as Xenophon said, Heavy infantry originated in the Middle East, and what do you know Muslim armies like the Turks and Arabs did employ heavy infantry, one example would be the Umayyad Empire which basically copy and pasted Persian style infantry with a helmet, face shown while wearing heavy scaled hauberk. They usually be in the front. Same thing during the Abbasid Era where Byzantine-Abbasid had clashes in the [frontier zone](_URL_1_). Abbasid Infantry would be wearing lamellar armour and mail armour, the style was actually not that far from the Byzantine.\n\nAlso there are more ethnic groups like Azerbeijanis, Turcomans, Kurds and Armenians.\n\nMy Source: Osprey Books\n\n[A good image](_URL_0_) MINUS the Creepy Mask and title. That is how heavy it can get during the medieval. " ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.mpfilmcraft.com/mpfilmcraft/Khwarazmian.html", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-%CA%BFAw%C4%81%E1%B9%A3im" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d2sy1l1", "d2sy30e" ], "score": [ 4, 8 ], "text": [ "I clicked to a random part of the video and it started talking about how the Illuminati picked Hitler, at which point I immediately quit the video to preserve my sanity.", "Considering that the video was uploaded by someone called \"Everything is a rich man's trick,\" I would recommend not wasting your time. To start, anyone making such sweeping historical claims (**and in their profile name**) is guaranteed to either be an amateur in history at best, or a conspiracy theorist at worst. WWI, 9/11 and JFK are all favourite areas of conspiracy theories, usually arguing that some plutocratic elite fomented historical events for profit. I can speak to the case of WWI and say that this is demonstrably false. Businessmen and capitalists were not represented in any of the leadership circles in Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Paris or London. Moreover, many wealthy businessmen such as Carnegie, Bloch, Nobel, and Ford had supported pacifist, anti-war initiatives before WWI, and in Ford's case during WWI. Bloch actually wrote a multivolume work called \"Is War Now Impossible,\" arguing in the affirmative, and his work was a driving force behind the Hague Conventions, the third of which was scheduled for 1914 and then 1915, but was interrupted by the war. [Richard Hamilton] (_URL_0_) has written on the subject, and I've posted his lecture on the subject.\n\nTL;DR: Ignore it" ] }

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[ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Qt6a-vaNM" ]

[ [], [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e_RfFzyris" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "corld9q" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "The biggest difference is that serfs are legally tied to the land. If you were a boyar and you bought an estate, the serfs came with it. You could not sell a serf to another estate. Serfs also had legal families, a privilege slaves were not entitled to.\n\nOne of the biggest differences was Emancipation. While much is made of Alexander II's 1862 Emancipation of the Serfs, the law expected serfs to compensate their former lords for their freedom...and if they couldn't pay they could be forced into up to 50 years of continued labor until they paid off their \"debt.\" The last of these obligations were cancelled in 1906, 44 years into the intended 50 years, so you could easily say that serfdom didn't truly disappear until the 20th century.\n\nSheila Fitzpatrick's The Russian Revolution discusses this delayed end to serfdom." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cqts50e" ], "score": [ 29 ], "text": [ "That's something of an exaggeration, I recently wrote a comment [here](_URL_0_) relating to it. Both war cries and the beating of weapons against armor are well-attested--Polybius even goes so far as to say that it's a *custom of the Roman people* to hit their shields with their swords, something that Greeks of his time no longer did.\n\nMore unsettling than a totally silent formation appears to have been a formation that raised a single great war cry--this is something that the Romans did well into the Principate, and Caesar thinks that allowing your troops to raise a big old war cry all at once is one of the great advantages of an attack, throwing your enemies off balance and inciting your troops to attack with more force. Xenophon relates that the Ten Thousand deployed in silence at Cunaxa while the Persian infantry shouted and clashed their weapons as they deployed, before letting out a single great shout that put the Persians to flight.\n\nBut not only is it well-attested that the Romans would customarily let out, at the very least, a single shout in unison at the beginning of an advance or before throwing their javelins (Caesar *frequently* mentions war cries being raised at this latter point), but this tactic is well-attested long before the Romans. The Greeks were doing this since the Persian Wars at least, and Greek armies appear to have deployed silently throughout most of the historical period, although they often marched forward to rhythmic war cries (the Athenian \"eleleu eleleu\" and Spartan \"a la la la\" being the two most famous)." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/346ivq/were_beserkers_actually_effective_in_battle_or/cqsl43l" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c4kss9b", "c4kvhvt" ], "score": [ 12, 5 ], "text": [ "Well it's norse per se, but rather germanic. The Norse, just like the other germanic tribes - including the Angle or Saxons, all had the same Days of the weeks named after the Germanic Gods.\n\nIt's the same in German, and here one wouldn't say we named our days after the norse god:\n\n*Tues*-day = *Die*ns-tag \n\n*Thurs*-day = *Donners*-tag\n\n*Fri*-day = *Frei*-tag\n\n\nSo if you see the names of the Weekdays as germanic, rather than norse, i think it makes more sense to you.", " > How or what were the cultural or historical reasons behind something as common as the days of the week having Norse origins, while in the rest of the English language, the roots are primarily Greek or Latin? \n\nThe English language is layered. At the core is Frisian, the language the Angles brought with them when they colonised Britain. This is an Old German language. Then the Danish came, bringing Old Norse with them. The Normans came, bringing Old French with them. And, in between all that, the Christian priests came, bringing Latin with them. Greek didn't come until much later, during the Renaissance when Greek and Latin were the main languages of science. \n\nEach of these influences added a new layer of vocabulary to the language. So, what we now call English is German + Norse + French + Latin + Greek + sundry other bits (including Arabic).\n\nSo, when you say \"the roots are primarily Greek or Latin\", that's not true. The roots of *modern constructed words that we know are constructed* (such as \"television\" or \"photograph\") come from Greek or Latin, but the basic words we use every day come from Germanic or French, with some Norse. For example, \"The cat sat on the mat.\" is 100% Old English (from Germanic).\n\n > Are there more Norse or Norwegian root words in the vernacular that I am unaware of?\n\n[Yep!](_URL_0_)\n" ] }

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[ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/t1j6t/is_the_day_thursday_really_named_after_thor/c4iss06" ]

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

{ "a_id": [ "chkigwu" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "In the early and late 1700's the Clauda Ring was considered an engagement ring in Irish culture, it also works as a friendship and promise ring, even today it's still used for that purpose " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ckm6d03" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "You may be interested in our FAQ section on [Native Americans and \\(European\\) Diseases](_URL_0_)." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/nativeamerican#wiki_native_americans_and_.28european.29_diseases" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c56z3cu" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to do. It sounds like you're just interested in reading some books over the summer. Are you in high school? I don't know why you need a strict \"stopping point\" if you're just reading for your own edification. Why are you writing essays if there's no one to grade them? I'll give you an essay topic: How revolutionary was the American Revolution? 15 pp. double-spaced, have it on my desk in two months.\n\nThe books you've chosen are fine. McCullough is OK but be aware that he's not actually a historian. He just writes books about history that are popular among the general public.\n\nOn (political?) philosophy, try Bernard Bailyn, *The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution* and Gordon S. Wood, *The Radicalism of the American Revolution*. *Alexander Hamilton* by Forrest McDonald is a very right-wing biography, but he does a good job of explaining Hamilton's economic philosophy. If you'd really like to study the economic differences of the Founding Fathers, you're much better off looking at the debates between Jefferson and Hamilton during the first term of the Washington Administration. Here's where the rubber meets the road and theory becomes policy.\n\nOn everyday life, try *Everyday Life in Early America* by David Freeman Hawke." ] }

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[ "http://www.amazon.com/John-Adams-David-McCullough/dp/141657588X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1340916916&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=john+adams", "http://www.amazon.com/The-Adams-Jefferson-Letters-Correspondence-Jefferson/dp/0807842303/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1340917045&amp;sr=1-1-spell&amp;keywords=jefferson+corresponedance", "http://www.amazon.com/1776-ebook/dp/B000FCK5YE/ref=zg_bs_4871_7", "http://www.amazon.com/Origins-American-Revolution-John-Miller/dp/0804705933", "http://www.amazon.com/The-Debate-Constitution-Antifederalist-1787-February/dp/0940450429/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1340917181&amp;sr=1-1-catcorr&amp;keywords=debate+on+the+constitution" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "ca14ecx" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "For public reaction in the United States to the Cuban Revolution, up through the Bay of Pigs and beyond, I'd recommend *Where the Boys Are: Cuba, Cold War America, and the Making of a New Left*, by Van Gosse, if you can get your hands on it. Additionally, further reading on the Fair Play for Cuba Committee would help.\n\n*A History of the Cuban Revolution*, by Aviva Chomsky, covers varied responses from the United States and Cuba to the \"botched failure\" (from the U.S. perspective) or \"revolutionary victory\" (from the Cuban perspective). \n\nI would also keep in mind, when writing, that in this early period, the Cuban Revolution enjoyed a great deal of popularity with Cuban peasants and workers. The more you read, hopefully the more you will be able to inform whatever argument you are making." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c9grz8f", "c9gs3mg", "c9h03e7" ], "score": [ 329, 19, 4 ], "text": [ "Probably we're out of luck on the \"common man\" bit. The level of literacy among the masses is hotly debated, never mind whether they sent thank you notes.\n\nAmong the elite though, we have lots of evidence for private correspondence, and Cicero several times discusses how letters work. [For instance](_URL_4_):\n > As to the frequency of my letters you have no ground for your complaint. The fact is our good sister Pomponia never informed me of there being a courier ready to take a letter. Farthermore, I never chanced to know of anyone going to Epirus, and I was not till recently informed of your being at Athens.\n\nEdit: To those asking about professionalism of couriers, [Cicero seems doubtful](_URL_1_):\n > I get letters from you far too seldom considering that you can much more easily find people starting for Rome than I to Athens : considering, too, that you are more certain of my being at Rome than I of your being at Athens. For instance, it is owing to this uncertainty on my part that this very letter is somewhat short, because not being sure as to where you are, I don't choose my confidential talk to fall into strange hands. \n\n[And this](_URL_7_):\n > I have now received three letters from you—one by the hands of M. Cornelius, which you gave him, I think, at Three Taverns; a second which your host at Canusium delivered to me; a third dated, according to you, from on board your pinnace, when the cable was already slipped. They were all three, to use a phrase from the schools of rhetoric flavoured with the salt of learning, and illumined with the marks of affection. In these letters, indeed, I am urgently pressed by you to send answers, but what renders me rather dilatory in this respect is the difficulty of finding a trustworthy carrier. How few of these gentry are able to convey a letter rather weightier than usual without lightening it by skimming its contents! Besides, I do not always care to send whenever anyone is starting for Epirus: for I suppose that, having offered victims before your Amaltheia, you at once started for the siege of Sicyon. And yet I am not even certain when you start to visit Antonius or how much time you are devoting to Epirus. Accordingly, I don't venture to trust either Achaeans or Epirotes with a letter somewhat more outspoken than usual. Now some events have occurred since you left me worth my writing to you, but they must not be trusted to the risk of a letter being lost, opened, or intercepted.\n\nCouriers, even slaves,[ screwed up](_URL_5_):\n > When I had been eagerly expecting a letter from you as usual till evening, lo and behold a message that slaves have come from Rome. I summon them: I ask if they have any letters. \"No,\" say they. \"What do you say,\" said I, \"nothing from Pomponius?\" Frightened to death by my voice and look, they confessed that they had received one, and that it had been lost on the journey.\n\nLetters could be [delivered to the wrong address](_URL_2_):\n > What an abominable thing! No one gave you my letter written on the spot at Three Taverns in answer to your delightful letters! But the fact is that the packet into which I had put it arrived at my town house on the same day as I wrote it, and has been brought back to me to Formiae. Accordingly, I have directed the letter meant for you to be taken back again, to show you how pleased I was with yours.\n\nBut [he trusted some couriers](_URL_10_):\n > This Cossinius, to whom I intrust my letter, seems to me a very good fellow, steady, devoted to you, and exactly the sort of man which your letter to me had described.\n\nAnd when he was writing to Rome, he might trust [just about anyone](_URL_9_):\n > I write this letter at four o'clock in the afternoon of the Cerealia (12th April), immediately after reading yours, but I shall despatch it, I think, tomorrow, by anyone I may chance to meet on the road. \n\nOh, to hell with it. I'm bored. Here's some more[ Cicero on the mail](_URL_6_):\n > \"Being in my Tusculan villa\" (that's for your \"being in the Ceramicus\")—however, I being there, a courier sent by your sister arrived from Rome and delivered me a letter from you, announcing at the same time that the courier who was going to you started that very afternoon. The result is that, though I do send an answer, I am forced by the shortness of the time to write only these few words.\n\nCicero also had a sort of [book club by mail](_URL_0_):\n > I wish you would describe your Amaltheium to me, its decoration and its plan; and send me any poems or stories you may have about Amaltheia. I should like to make a copy of it at Arpinum. I will forward you something of what I have written. At present there is nothing finished.\n\n\n[And this (note, this \"boy\" was probably a slave. Haven't bothered to check the Latin):](_URL_8_)\n > On the 1st of June, as I was on my way to Antium, and eagerly getting out of the way of M. Metellus's gladiators, your boy met me, and delivered to me a letter from you and a history of my consulship written in Greek.\n\nAtticus had a [forward button](_URL_3_):\n > Your letter, in which you inclose copies of his letters, has made me realize that my brother Quintus's feelings have undergone many alternations, and that his opinions and judgments have varied widely from time to time.", "Private letters were most likely carried by slaves/servants. It's difficult to know more about this because not as much writing is passed down from the average man. There was, on the other hand, a system called the *cursus publicus* that consisted of a series of relay stations with horses to aid official messengers of the state. It was, however, restricted to the government. ", "St. Paul appears to have used personal couriers. Ephesians 6:21-22 reads:\n\n > Tychicus, the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you everything, so that you also may know how I am and what I am doing. I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage you.\n\nAnd then in 2 Timothy 4:9-13, he talks about how various people helping him with his ministry have gone to different places. One of those mentioned is that \"I sent Tychicus to Ephesus,\" and of course the others may have also been dispatched with letters.\n\nThe letter to Philemon says it's being delivered by Onesimus, and then Colossians 4 says \"Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. ... I am sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. He is coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here.\"\n\nSo at least those two guys were well-traveled." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0022%3Atext%3DA%3Abook%3D1%3Aletter%3D16", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0022%3Atext%3DA%3Abook%3D1%3Aletter%3D9", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0022%3Atext%3DA%3Abook%3D2%3Aletter%3D13", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0022%3Atext%3DA%3Abook%3D1%3Aletter%3D17", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0022%3Atext%3DA%3Abook%3D1%3Aletter%3D5", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0022%3Atext%3DA%3Abook%3D2%3Aletter%3D8", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0022%3Atext%3DA%3Abook%3D1%3Aletter%3D10", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0022%3Atext%3DA%3Abook%3D1%3Aletter%3D13", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0022%3Atext%3DA%3Abook%3D2%3Aletter%3D1", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0022%3Atext%3DA%3Abook%3D11%3Aletter%3D12", "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0022%3Atext%3DA%3Abook%3D1%3Aletter%3D19" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cfrd4z0", "cfrfscs", "cfri2wg", "cfriyin" ], "score": [ 23, 8, 8, 2 ], "text": [ "Wow. I say wow because I saw this question *as I was reading about this in a history book*. The book, by the way, is a textbook I have for my Antebellum (Pre-Civil War) America course. Called \"Becoming America\" by Henkin.\n\nAnyways, on August 22nd, 1831, Baptist preacher-slave Nat Turner (believing he saw signs in the skies) killed his master. He had planned this \"uprising\" from February reportedly, and he gathered 60 slaves or so and managed to kill 50+ white men, women, and children. Turner escaped, despite vigilante groups trying to track him down. It took them two months to find him, and he was eventually killed. Apparently, up until then, not a single white person had been killed **in Virginia** during the entire colonial era by a slave revolt, a period of 170 years.\n\nI haven't read enough to talk about more, but that's one tale at least that demonstrates that eventually, slaves did revolt. I can recall more, but I would hesitate to recount hazy details until I can check sources.\n\nEdit: Thanks to /u/Irishfafnir for pointing out that I'd misread the text and forgotten to include the \"in Virginia\" portion!", "I am not sure of the regard in which he is held, but Herbert Aptheker documented over 200 slave rebellions (American Negro Slave Revolts is the book). \n\nAdditionally, Daniel Rassmussen argues in American Uprising that an 1811 slave riot was really an organized rebellion. \n\nSo yes, there were definitely instances of slaves revolting in the antebellum South. The Nat Turner rebellion, mentioned above, is probably the most famous. I am unaware of any being successful. \n\nThe fear of rebellions was something on the mind of white Southerners, and they passed laws and developed systems to prevent them. The laws preventing teaching slaves to read were enacted in response to this as well as laws limiting slave assemblies. \n\nI'm sure that others can expand further, but as a very rough first pass there is a set of articles on Wikipedia covering North American slave revolts. \n\nEdit: I realized that there may be a successful revolt that I didn't think about - The Amistad. That's very limited though, and hardly a \"Spartacus\" moment, as it didn't spread. ", "While not in the United States, Toussaint L’Ouverture is frequently referred to as the \"black Spartacus.\" He organized and led a slave army which fought French control of Haiti in beginning in the early 1790s. \n\nAfter defeating the French and bringing abolition to the island, his army then faced British invaders in 1798, who were expecting to find a demoralized French force and instead found a highly organized **army of 55,000 slaves.** Keep in mind that George Washington never commanded more than 20,000 troops. \n\nHe defeated the British in a series of seven battles, forcing them from the island. Two years later, he faced a Spanish invasion, and again successfully repelled a major European power. In 1801, Haiti declared independence. \n\nIn 1804, Napoleon returned to power and sent a huge army to re-take the island. Toussaint sailed to a French consular ship to negotiate, but he was arrested instead. He died in a jail cell high in the French Alps. \n\nI would definitely check out [this well-sourced article which gives the details behind this amazing story](_URL_0_). ", "Denmark Vesey. He planned a rebellion to kill white people in Charleston, South Carolina. Unfortunately he was caught and executed before the plot could proceed. There's a statue of him in Charleston, and it's controversial to some white people living there. \n\n_URL_0_" ] }

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[ [], [], [ "http://kasamaproject.org/history/2779-11haiti-the-slave-army-of-toussaint-l-039-ouverture" ], [ "http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/626831/Denmark-Vesey" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cs5ryde" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "There was a large contingent of individuals in the North known as \"Copperheads,\" who genuinely opposed a violent reunification of the nation for various reasons. These tended to revolve around accusing the Lincoln administration of sacrificing civil liberties, accusing the government of waging an abolitionist war and/or criticizing military measures that resulted in high casualty rates. Pro-war citizens tended to bemoan these individuals as treasonous, with Federal, military and even civilian elements working towards silencing these anti-war protesters. The arresting of Ohio Representative Clement Vallandigham is a famous example, although there are other well documented examples, such as the arresting of the Maryland Legislature in 1861 and the trials of John Merryman. Issues surrounding the suspension of Habeas Corpus are also strongly associated with mitigating dissent and attempting to ensure a relatively smooth prosecution of the war. \n\nHistorians have tended to see the Copperheads, however, as naïve idealists who believed the nation could be reunited without war. So they tended to be Unionists, but demanded non-military solutions that were never viable and tended to ignore evidence to the contrary. If you are super interested, here are few book recommendations on these various topics:\n\nFor Copperheads in general, see Jennifer Webers, “Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North.” For issues concerning treason and civil liberties, Mark Neely’s “the Fate of Liberty,” and William Blair’s “With Malice Toward Some” are good places to start. On what motivated Northerners to go to war and vigorously oppose the Copperheads, I would recommend the following: Earl Hess, “Liberty, Virtue and Progress,” James McPherson, “For Cause and Comrade,” and Gary Gallagher “the Union War.” \n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "crjf7y6" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "you use the reference of the next author, although you can to search the version in english. E. J. HOBSBAWN, las revoluciones burguesas volumen I." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cda3z4x" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ "Hey there! You've fallen prey to an extremely common misconception of the term \"Life Expectancy.\" The term is used to denote the *average* lifespan of a person - however, that also includes infant mortality rates. So, for example, in Rome (2,000 years ago, you said :) ), a woman could have 13 children and only two or three would survive (An example of this would be the mother of Caius and Tiberius Gracchus). Those people might live to a ripe old age - we have references of people living well into their nineties - and if you lived past the age of 20, you were rather likely to make it to old age :) So, even though you might have a good number of older people (50-80, let's say), you *also* have tons of people who don't make it past the age of 2. If you average it all out, you come out with a lowish number due to the incredibly high rate of infant mortality. Does that make sense? :)\n\nAlright, now as to how the elderly 'looked!' The good news? We have statues :) [Here](_URL_0_) is a bust of Cato the Elder, a man who lived to be 85 years old, and was cantankerous to boot. The bust itself was made years after his death - and would have been made to commemorate the man when he was at his most famous - his furious diatribes against the city of Carthage on the Senate floor from ca. 156 BCE (~78ish years old) until he died in 149 BCE. The bust? Looks just like an 80 year old man would look today, and better than some.\n\nHope that's what you were looking for! :)" ] }

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[ [ "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Marco_Porcio_Caton_Major.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d0lv05z" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "That's a rather simplistic view. There was no typical \"French Revolutionary\", hence suggesting that the French Revolutionaries rejected religion is a gross generalisation. Some French Revolutionaries were simply atheists, some were humanists, some were protestants, some were catholics; indeed, some had been priests of the Catholic Church, like Le Bon. Robespierre's view, for example, was a form of deism. The Cult of the Supreme Being was, despite not being christian, still a form of religion, so religion wasn't universally abandoned, despite the de-Christianisation carried out by some fanatics. For more on this, try \"The Jacobin Republic\" by Bouloiseau." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d1awher" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "I want to talk first about Catelyn Stark and Cersei Lannister. In the show (GOT) and even more so in the books, we see an interesting relational calculus. On one hand, they are thrust into marriage for political reasons, for the benefit of their families. (As are Ned and Robert, for that matter--remember, Ned is forced to the altar when the original groom, his brother, is murdered). On the other, we see that both of them gain power and authority of their own out of the deal--authority, defined by the position into which they are thrust; power, defined by what they make of that role.\n\nThis offers us a useful way to think about the subordinate yet complicated place of women in Latin medieval society, particularly with respect to their intrafamilial roles. Most of my answer is going to focus on the elite classes--nobility, urban gentry--because that's where our sources lie. However, one noteworthy aspect that emerges from manorial and parish (church) court records from late medieval England, at least, is the attempt of parents to control the marital destinies of their children down to the poorest peasants, even where no or little property seems to be at stake. Daughters, after all, exercised enormous economic importance within the family--caring for younger siblings, rural peasant girls fishing, urban gentry daughters helping run the family workshop.\n\nThe classic, even stereotypical example of daughters deployed for the benefit of their families/countries is the marriage alliance. On the surface, this would be a better deal for the groom's family and the bride herself. It represented an outflow of money from her natal (birth) family to the marital one. Children of the marriage would generally be accounted part of the marital family. In urban Italy especially, where newly married couples generally resided in the home of the groom's father for years and even decades, this could have tragic consequences. The custom was for a middle/upper-class widow to return to her own father's house, *leaving behind her children.* (North of the Alps, widows were sometimes able to carve out success as a head of household instead).\n\nBut marriage alliances were not just about the husband, wife, and future children. In the moment, they opened up a line for diplomacy. Especially when we think of the landed estates and counties of HRE/England/France, women traveled to their new homes with an entourage. They sent letters back to their natal relatives with messengers and ambassadors. These connections provided *invaluable* opportunities for negotiation and diplomacy as well as espionage on the part of the birth family. \n\nOf course, much of the effectiveness of this role would depend on the woman herself. Kunigunde of Austria--princess of the Holy Roman Empire and eventual Duchess of Bavaria in the late 15th century--is a great example of how women *worked* to aid their families as both daughters and wives. The stereotypical role of the married medieval noblewoman is \"mediatrix\": interceding between petitioners and her lordly husband, ferrying their requests, pleading on their behalf. Adolescent Kunigunde was an active behind-the-scenes player in her father's court. Her biographer records numerous occasions where she played a pivotal role in either winning someone an audience with the emperor, or influencing her father's view on the subject.\n\nAs Bavarian duchess, however, she continued her allegiance to her natal family. When she thought her brother (then King of Romans but I think not yet emperor) and his wife had been fooled by a false holy woman, she endeavored to uncover the spiritual con artistry. At the same time, she was committed to her marital family, choosing to retire to a convent in Bavarian ducal patronage.\n\nPlacing daughters in designated convents was another family strategy--albeit one that could offer women one of the best chances to exercise personal ambition. The definitively *medieval* component of this geopolitical world was the growing entrenchment of the Church as an economic, political, social and cultural power. The Church collectively was the largest landowner of the Middle Ages, with individual abbots (even abbesses) and bishops acting as formal secular lords in addition to being spiritual leaders of their communities. The straight-up political advantages to placing a daughter or son in a prestigious house are readily apparent. We even know that lords manipulated the elections of abbots/abbesses and transferred children from one house to another for their political gain--even above the protests of the children or their current communities. Hildegard of Bingen, for example, fought bitterly to keep one of her closest friends residing at the Rupertsberg, but ultimately Richardis' family was too powerful for even the great 12C *magistra*.\n\nTo medieval people, placing a family member in a religious community--especially a prestigious one--also increased their *spiritual* power, that is, their bargaining position with respect to the ultimate heavenly authority. Forging ever-closer ties to a convent whose #1 job was praying for the souls of its patrons, they believed, would speed them to paradise after death and maybe even aid their fortunes in this life.\n\nBut connections with convents could likewise go both ways. First, the Church strove throughout the later Middle Ages to limit lay power. Monastic reform movements repeatedly sought to ban child oblation, the practice of nobles pledging their children to a particular community. They wanted people to come to monastic life only of their own free choice for their own spiritual benefit. Second, once in the Church, nuns, monks and non-ordered clerics often had a way of acting for their own benefit or Church benefit instead of their families. It's true that Hildegard was a master of controlling her public narrative and so could have smudged out any signs of acting on her family's behalf (to promote the view of herself as a prophet and saint)...but it's very difficult to see her actions aiding her natal family directly and *purposefully*. And of course, monastic life offered women the rare chance to exercise authority *from office*, not just behind the scenes.\n\nGrowing urbanization and the rise of humanism in the late Middle Ages gave rise to another way fathers, specifically, crafted their daughters to promote family and *civic* prestige. The Renaissance \"learned lady\" could become almost an intellectual patron saint of her city--until marriage, at which time she was expected to recuse herself from the republic of letters and ideas to be a proper cloistered wife. Fathers in Italy and Germany, especially, employed private tutors to teach a favored daughter the strands of humanism deemed acceptable for women--Latin, Greek, Scripture, but *never* the stuff of political engagement. Cassandra Fedele of Venice and Caritas Pirckheimer of Nuremberg gained international reputations as ladies of learning, helping forge a reputation for their *cities* as centers of culture and learning.\n\nA poignant example of this trend is the fate of Juliana Peutinger, *three year old* daughter of relentlessly ambitious Augsburg humanist and civic official Konrad Peutinger. Determined to make his family and city *shine* for the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor, Konrad and tutors spent the better part of a year beating (possibly literally) into Juliana's head a memorized Latin oration to recite. Peutinger himself succeeded: the text of little Juliana's oration (ghostwritten likely by him) continued to be printed even two decades later, perpetuating his family and city's imperial grandeur.\n\nFor her part, Juliana demanded from the emperor \"eyne hubsche Tocken\"--a pretty doll.\n\nOverall, we can definitely say that women played a crucial role in family, national, and civic strategy in the Middle Ages. But that role was really \"roles\": a complex negotiation between parents and daughters, husbands and wives, laity and Church; changing over time and geography and individual cases. Sometimes, sure, we can say that fathers \"used\" their daughters. But women had their own views, and could sometimes forge places and power for themselves by using and subverting the norms of a patriarchal society. They might do this for their own ends and/or the ends of their families--old and new." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ccioohn" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Well, modern English is influenced a good bit by Old Norse. The bynames and patronymics you talk about are, because of that influence, easily translated to English.\n\nFor example:\n\nEírikr bloðöx = Eric Bloodaxe\nEírikr rauði = Eric the Red\nIvarr beinlauss = Ivar the Boneless (though legless is a possibility, too)\nHrolfr ganga = Rolo the Granger (really, it should be Rolf the Walker, but still)\nEgill Skalla-Grímsson = Egil Skallagrimsson\n\netc." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cpu88of" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Perhaps you could clarify a bit? There was always private property in the sense of clothing, money, personal effects, etc -- even on the communal farms(kolkozes) during the Stalinist era. In both Russia and China, there were limits on private property that varied over time, but neither succeeded in eradicating it (or its counterpart, money) successfully. Now **what** property rights (to the extent that any rights were respected) a person had beyond mere possession of personal effects (i.e. a right to exchange or a right to save/hoard) varied over both time and space (within each country).\n\nEDIT: I should point out that at least the USSR formally abolished private property. But still, it existed. They unsuccessfully legislated a lot of things." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "eyb1krl", "eybcypn", "eyemek1" ], "score": [ 4, 20, 2 ], "text": [ "Hi there. Could you clarify what you mean by \"unethically?\" Was that a typo or did you mean to ask that in your question?", "I have never seen any source that suggested that the Soviet's industrialization during the two Five Year Plan period were \"unethical\" in any shape or form. The Soviet Union passed a law limiting work hours to Seven Hours a day, well ahead of both the United States and Britain at the time. The work place safety was no more egregious compared to other industrialized countries. Therefore it is hard to say or even suggest that the Soviet Union had an unethical industrialization in regards to the workers. The Soviet Union provided legally a shorter work week than the United States or Britain at the time, while industrializing at a breakneck pace.\n\nThe issue with the Industrialization of the Soviet Union during the first two Five Year Plans was not the industrialization or the working conditions within the factories that sprung up throughout the Soviet Union, it was the societal cost elsewhere in the Soviet Union that allowed such advances to occur so very quickly. In order to literally feed the workers within the new factories that were being built everyday throughout the first five year plan, it meant that agricultural production needed to be controlled, managed, and expanded. This led to death of millions during the 1932-1933 Famine, with the exact number being estimated at around 3.3 million according to Timothy Snyder. The famine can be tied directly to the Soviet Union's desire for quick industrialization, while not being the only reason for the famine. It caused massive movements of people in the Soviet Union. \n\nThe industrialization also did not lead to a marked improvement in the average Soviet citizen's life. The long term effects were not felt by those who were the ones working, instead it would take years for the fruits of their labor to be felt. The first Five Year Plan focused mainly on Heavy Industry which allowed, for example, more tractors which ultimately led to more food production by less people, yet it would take years for the effects to be felt. A shortage of consumer goods would also plague the Soviet Union during this period where shortages were common. The industrialization was good for the Soviet Union, but perhaps not good for the individual during that period. The long term benefits, however, cannot be understated either. The Heavy Industry drive did allow the Soviet Union to increase its focus on its military which led to an increase in tanks and weapons being built, which would allow it to protect itself against threats that were very real and would strike by the end of the decade. \n\nIndustrialization is messy. It upends the entire society and social order, which leads to fractures and dissent as people are forced from their normal roles and into new ones. Yet long working hours and lack of regulation was not a cause for concern when discussing the Soviet Union's two Five Year Plans. Instead, it was the brutal treatment on the countryside in order to fund and feed the industrialization at an arbitrary scale and speed that is the tragedy and one that is not easy to justify on any measure.", "Professor Stephen Kotkin answers this question in his series of biographies on Stalin. He is a geopolitical oriented professor that dispels many myths about Stalin and his contemporaries, I highly recommend his work.\n\nFirst, it is important to understand that WWI ravaged Czarist Russia's economy in food production/distribution, war production, and consumer goods production. The levels of the latter two would almost never be above half of pre-WWI production until after Lenin's death. Moreover, Czarist Russia has been considered largely inefficient as it engaged in a command economy without the necessary governmental apparatus to organize it. It is just important to know that the USSR started in dire straights.\n\nThere are three things that all effect each other in why the industrialization proceeded in such an \"unethical\" way. I say unethical in quotations because of millions of people died, with a majority in Russia experiencing malnutrition due to these three oversimplified reasons.\n\n1. Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky were all devout communists believing in a complete command economy.\n2. Real geopolitical pressure, combined with the above self-fulfilling Marxist worldview, created the immediate need for military production.\n3. The parallel peasant revolution that threatened the party.\n\nStephen Kotkin shows in his book that it would be a mistake to not consider any of the above three leaders as anything but devout Communists, and that is reflected in their economic policy. When the party first gained foothold in Moscow, it engaged in complete Socialism. They initially banned almost all private trade, using trade unions and government commissariats to attempt to restart factories under a quota system, while also using the military to requisition grain from the countryside. The grain requisitioning was constantly violent and threatened to cause peasant uprisings in a desperate civil war against the Whites.. Even after the war, it sparked a full blown peasant rebellion in Tambov. Huge underground markets formed for both the countryside and city, as city dwellers experienced extreme shortages. Eventually, Lenin conceded to establishing market based concessions called the New Economic Policy. The NEP allowed small private trade with peasants while establishing a tax for production and trade. The NEP alleviated many of the immediate problems, but was heavily criticized publicly by Trotsky, and privately by Stalin. Even Lenin felt forced into passing the concessions in order to save the party. Ultimately, the USSR started to rely on international trade of agricultural goods, which required diplomacy.\n\nA siege mentality was developed within the USSR along with the need to open up relations. Stalin had wanted trade and relations with the rest of the world after immediate world wide revolution had failed. Lenin's war in Poland had been lost, Germany had a failed Communist revolution, and the Chinese Communists had been massacred. The USSR on one hand treated other nations as imminent enemies, and attempted to foment revolutions across the globe. While on the other hand, they wanted to establish trade, credit, and legitimacy with these same countries. The USSR heavily relied on foreign imports of consumer and military goods, that were bought by exporting agricultural products and raw resources. They eventually found a reliable buyer that was also alienated from the rest of the world powers, Germany. Russia needed to import the machinery necessary to build and industrial base to produce war material it needed to protect itself.\n\nThe USSR and Stalin felt a constant anxiety of plots by Capitalist powers. That anxiety had some merit. Certainly Britain, France, and America would have preferred no Communism, but these countries were tired of war. However, they still sent forces to aide the Whites in the Russian Civil War, while not actually fully backing those forces. More anxiety was made during various embarrassments of the Red Army. Such as the ease in which the German army almost reached Moscow in WWI, signing a peace treaty at the last minute. Then the Russo-Polish war being a colossal disaster, ending in a Polish victory, despite Poland being a brand new country. Moreover, Japanese had basically occupied the far Eastern parts of Russia for an extremely long time. Finally, despite being on the Entente during WWI, the USSR was divided up and treated as if it had lost the war. Relations however, suffered far more from the self-fulfilling Marxist worldview.\n\nMost major set-backs of the party and Stalin's own personal power was attributed to some kind of Capitalist or Czarist plot. The Krondstat rebellion was viewed as Czarist supporters, despite being real aggrieved communists. Almost every single enemy of Stalin and Lenin, including socialists in the provisional government and party members, were seen as operating on behalf of Capitalist or Czarist powers. There was a real anxiety and paranoid that permeated every facet of the party, and also, was the mechanism in which Lenin and Stalin used to force the party into line. It was an integral part of the Communist government, and it was not conducive to international relations.\n\nCapitalist powers were thought of as only engaging in diplomacy because they were forced to or in their cynical desire for more markets, but that they would attempt to overthrow the party if possible. Therefore, the USSR only ever treated diplomacy cynically. The USSR would be funding and encouraging a strike in Britain, while also trying to engage in diplomacy to gain trade and credit. Britain would however crack their communications and discover it, leading to a break off in talks. What was worse was that the Capitalist powers expected the massive Czarist debt to be paid off, and would only trade or loan on promises to pay that debt off. Whereas the communists viewed that debt as invalid, due to it being the Czars debt and being based on capitalist practices.Difficulties like this limited the USSR's trading partner's. But there would be eventually one to trade with them, Germany, and especially, Hitler. That trade was however bought with agricultural products from a peasant population going through a continuing revolution.\n\nThe peasant revolution started as the Czar's power waned. As the peasants gained their independence, they started to confiscate land and form local governments and communities to govern themselves. The Red Army would be surprised when it traveled out to the country side as peasants fought with local landlords, seeing places turned into warzones. It was the army's job to go confront the peasants and force them to turn over their grain, however much the army needed. This practice quickly became hated, and skirmishes would break out with the Red Army, with peasant bands formed to defend their produce. Needless to say, none of this was good for crop production and distribution. However, the NEP was passed, and peasants could engage in private trade if they paid a tax. This solved many of the immediate problems, but Stalin would reckon with it in time.\n\nEssentially, Stalin viewed peasant independence as an eventual time bomb for the party. The independence would hurt the party as consumer goods became scarce due to the aforementioned restriction of trade by Britain. As consumer good became scarce, peasants felt encouraged to save their grain for a time in which their money could buy more. However, this action only limited the USSR's ability to purchase consumer goods overseas, because international trade was solely organized by the party. It also limited the machines needed to build up industry to be able to produce its own consumer goods. Giving in to more concessions was viewed as only encouraging the peasant behavior. Stalin then decided against almost everyone to move forward with enslaving 100 million people.\n\nStalin would set in collectivization to force the peasants into a command economy. First by eliminating the richest class of peasants called Kulaks in a massive scapegoat for the USSR's problems, and then using the new influence and terror to force farmers onto massive collective farms. The collectivization occurred during a famine, most of it caused by the elimination of the Kulaks, and the collectivization was initially inefficient due to the massive change and destruction of property by the peasants. He then exported grain to build the heavy industry needed to maintain a massive army, causing even more famine. What resulted was one of the worst man made famines ever, killing millions of people in one of the previously largest grain exporters in the world. As far as deeper causes of the inherent concentration of power, or other theories around the evils of Socialism, that is a different discussion.\n\n# Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 By Stephen Kotkin" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c8pmdeq", "c8pmv95", "c8pmvpe", "c8pn4ms", "c8pnh2e", "c8pnjoi", "c8pnkdc", "c8pp3wn", "c8ppb4b", "c8pprhf", "c8pqo2a", "c8prz0f", "c8ps685", "c8pswiq", "c8pu1wj", "c8pvssc", "c8pw5p2", "c8pztcs", "c8q3l6t" ], "score": [ 118, 17, 81, 228, 284, 15, 34, 88, 42, 42, 27, 11, 14, 11, 5, 9, 23, 9, 2 ], "text": [ "GW Bush was a recovering alcoholic.", "Ulysses S. Grant had various problems with alcohol, especially when he was a Union General in the Western Theatre.", "If you are interested in Alcohol and U.S. History you should take a look at \"The Alcoholic Republic\", a very good read. But to answer your question the easy answer is U.S. Grant, but so was Franklin Pierce and a bunch of other political heavyweights during that era. Stephen A. Douglas is thought to have died from his alcoholism. He was the man who famously debated Abraham Lincoln in a series of events in 1858 to defeat him for the Illinois Senate seat. He also ran for president in 1860 and got a lot of the northern/midwest Democratic Vote.", "You can't call either an alcoholic, but FDR and Truman both enjoyed their liquor. FDR was known to very much enjoy making cocktails for his guests, which some commented were rather strong (I believe I've heard a story about Roosevelt and Churchill bonding over enjoying extra-dry Martinis). Truman famously enjoyed his bourbon and had a small shot ech morning. He also partcipated in Sam Rayburn's \"Board of Education,\" which was basically an after-hours bourbon and cigar party held in the Speaker's Office.", "\"alcoholic\" has often entered popular slang as \"drinks a lot, I mean *a lot*\". That's not actually what an alcoholic is. Alcoholism is a disease where one is addicted to alcohol. (Obviously there is a lot of overlap). But are you actually asking what US Presidents drank *a lot* (popular definition of 'alcoholic'), or are you asking what US Presidents were addicted to alcohol?\n\n*Update*: I'd just like to say that alcoholism is a serious health disease, it's terrible, and can destory lives and massively harm families. I dislike when people trivialise it into simply \"drinks a lot\". No that's not what alcoholism is.", "I really can't say if he was an alcoholic or not, but Warren G. Harding definitely didn't shy away from the party scene. He was a big gambler too. George W Bush had battled alcoholism but gave up drinking long before the presidency. And while many of them did not attain the highest office in the land, many of our founding fathers were big drinkers as well. ", "I remember reading [an article](_URL_0_) that said that pre-Prohibition Americans drank 3 times more than modern Americans. James Madison (5'4'' 100 lbs) consumed a pint of whiskey each day. \n\nIt's hard to speculate if they were truly \"alcoholics\" but a modern candidate with similar drinking habits would almost certainly be looked at unfavorably. ", "[There have been transcripts released that suggest Nixon was drunk for ~~the~~ an entire ~~Six-Day~~ foreign war.](_URL_0_) Kissinger noted in a few of them that he basically had to run the country's foreign policy because Nixon was too drunk. \n\nedit: /u/mcgriff871 and /u/badhawk point out that I definitely have my war wrong; Nixon wasn't president during the Six-Day War. That explains why it was so hard to google on my part! [It was during the Yom Kippur War, and PBS has some quotes about it at this link.](_URL_1_)", "I'm surprised no one has mentioned Franklin Pierce. He's the only president I ever learned about in school to be a *true* alcoholic, as far as I remember. Before he was elected president, his wife and son completely opposed his involvement in politics. On the train ride to D.C., after being elected, the train crashed, killing his son. After that, his wife became secluded, rarely talking to anyone, including him, so he turned to alcohol. As far as I'm concerned, that's alcoholism.", "LBJ supposedly drank [two fifths of Cutty Sark](_URL_0_) a day. He also smoked 3 packs of Lucky Strikes a day, had multiple heart attacks, and died at 64.", "Only tangentially related to the question, but interesting nonetheless: George Washington built [the largest whiskey distillery in the U.S.](_URL_0_) after his two terms were up.", "Then Vice President Andrew Johnson was notoriously wasted at Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural. He also had been sick and it was \"medicinal whiskey\". \n\nDon't know if he was alcoholic, Nixon hitting the bottle might not be either.", "In the book Nixon and Kissinger, Robert Dallek points out that Kissinger's favorite term of endearment for Nixon was....My Little Drunk.\nOne example of several\n\nScowcroft (NSC) calls Kissinger as the British Prime Minister wants to talk to Nixon, (8:30 in the evening) Kissingers answers \n\"Can we tell them no? When I talked to the President he was loaded.\"(pg 524)", "During the meetings leading to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, it was rumored that Wilson was constantly drunk. All in all, during those meetings his actions led many leaders to question their involvement with the US. He was being openly racist and making obscene comments. Read the book 1919. It has some great info on Wilson. ", "I would like to know the same for British Prime Ministers.", "I'm not sure about US Presidents, but since Dan Carlin was just did an AMA I recall he did a show about this very issue - History under the Influence. I recall he mentioned after Hitler implemented operation Barbarossa, Stalin and his cronies got so freaked out they went on bender. They weren't seen for a week.", "No one's mentioned Kennedy yet but that whole family is full of alcoholics. According to [Edward Klein](_URL_0_) it definitely had an effect on his administration. There are anecdotes in that book about secret service agents being too hungover the day Kennedy was assassinated because JFK perpetuated this atmosphere of sex and booze for everyone around him.", "While he might not have been a US President, John A. Macdonald was the first Prime Minister of Canada and provides us with an interesting insight into how acceptable alcohol abuse was in 19th century politics. During a political debate in 1863, Macdonald vomited all over the place during his opponent's speech...and the crowd loved it. He claimed listening to his rival's speech made him ill, not drink haha. While I'm aware OP asked about American history I feel this reflects the general opinion on heavy drinking in the time period.", "It's not limited to just alcohol and presidents, but you might enjoy one of Dan Carlin's [Hardcore History](_URL_0_) episodes called \"History Under the Influence\" where Dan ruminated on the idea of substance abuse by major historical figures. It's a \"blitz edition\" (which means it's more of an informal brainstorming session) and it's probably worth mentioning that Dan is, in his own words, a \"little h\" historian (so feel free to take his theories with a grain of salt), but I thought it was a fascinating topic to consider." ] }

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[ [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1989146,00.html" ], [ "http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/05/kissinger-and-nixon-in-the-white-house/308778/", "http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-june07/nixon_05-21.html" ], [], [ "http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/transcript/lbj-transcript/" ], [ "http://www.mountvernon.org/visit-his-estate/plan-your-visit/distillery-amp-gristmill" ], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.amazon.com/The-Kennedy-Curse-Tragedy-Americas/dp/0312312938" ], [], [ "http://www.dancarlin.com/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d8ta6bt" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "From the 1600s onwards, Guinea was used as a geographic term for [the coast of west africa](_URL_1_). That terminology survives in the modern republics of Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Equatoreal Guinea.\n\nAccording to [the Online Etymology Dictionary](_URL_0_), the use of the term as an insult against Italians is most likely an allusion to their darker complexion as compared to Anglo-Americans. The insult was to over-emphasize the darker complexion, and imply West African ancestry as the cause." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Guinea&amp;allowed_in_frame=0", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Negroland_and_Guinea_with_the_European_Settlements,_1736.jpg" ] ]