Datasets:

Pavithree

/

askHistorians_18762_28144

like 0

{ "a_id": [ "dgwovip" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "There are an interesting set of assumptions in this question (I assume you mean by \"other\" that you mean \"other than the USA\"). \n\nFirst, literally no countries have ever been able to develop nuclear weapons completely indigenously. The Manhattan Project, for example, required aid from the British, Canada, and uranium ore supplies from the Belgium Congo. The Soviets used German and Austrian scientific labor, as well as information from spies in the United States, to supplement their own efforts. The UK worked with the USA (as noted). The French also had a minor role in the Manhattan Project (working at parts of the British team in Canada). China received aid from the USSR, India received material aid from the French and Canada, Pakistan received aid from China and information illicitly gotten from the Dutch. North Korea received assistance from Pakistan. Israel had help from the French, the South Africans from Israel. \n\nSo the binary, \"developed independently\" vs \"stolen\" is not super adequate. Separately, \"stolen\" is not how I would describe any of these programs. For some, espionage played a role (the USSR and Pakistan, notably). Even in that case, I wouldn't call it a \"stolen\" bomb — I would say that espionage played a part (as it does with many things, by many nations). Making a nuclear weapon is not as simple as someone writing down an equation and then you have it; it still takes a monumental research and production effort. (The Soviet atomic program required the labor from as many people as the Manhattan Project, and was not a simple carbon copy of it.) Also, much of the \"assistance\" was not of the espionage sort anyway — states have helped other states proliferate, and in some cases (like Pakistan and North Korea) it's not clear where the state ends and private entrepreneurs begin. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d2km8z0" ], "score": [ 21 ], "text": [ "Seeing all of these comments got nuked, here is a previous thread similar to this: _URL_0_" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1qjqx3/have_bicycles_ever_been_used_in_combat/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cw3xvvd" ], "score": [ 15 ], "text": [ "They are thought to have come from the Khazar Khaganate, or simply Khazaria, which was a somewhat multicultural/multi-religious empire of various semi-nomadic Turkic peoples. Specifically, they came from a part of that state called Levedia (located in the Pontic-Caspian steppe). Between their time in Levedia which they are thought to have left in the mid-800's, possibly around 850, and the conquest of the Carpathian Basin, they spent approximately a half a century in a land they called Etelköz. Etelköz was in the area between the 3 rivers: Dniester, Prut & Siret. \n\nThe conquest of the Carpathian Basin began toward the end of the 9th century (895-900) and was led by Álmos, the father of the famous King Árpád, and the patriarch of the entire family that would go on to rule Hungary for centuries. They left Levedia with 7 Magyar tribes, and were joined by 3 rebel Khazar tribes, known as Kabars. Álmos died as an old man during the journey from Etelköz to what was known during the Roman Empire as Pannonia. Therefore, his son, Árpád would become known as \"the founder of the country\" although his father led the Magyars out of the old country.\n\nVery little is known about this group of people prior to Álmos and their journey away from Levedia. They were illiterate, and their first mention is in the 830's in the Annals of St. Bertin. They thought of themselves as descendants of the Huns, even at that time, but obviously, the Huns had seized to exist by the end of the 4th century, so little is known about the time period between the 5th and 8th centuries, and if there really are as strong ties to the Huns as the Magyars' legends purport. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6qkm6s", "c6qmccy", "c6qodxt", "c6qpird", "c6qsefw", "c6qujfe", "c6r2bdq" ], "score": [ 102, 14, 50, 11, 2, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "In short, that's true. That's a book long discussion (I'd recommend [A world of their own making](_URL_0_) as a start), and encompasses a myriad number of social concepts that would need defining as they no longer mean the same things as they do today.\n\nMedieval culture had no problem offloading children to other people, often to monasteries (to guarantee spiritual and material benefit for the child), but children often spent time in other people's households for years at a time, where they worked for other people. \n\nEarly modern parents began to spend more time on their children, mostly in terms of education - this is a primarily Protestant perspective, and they are probably the first group of people to conceive of childhood as a developmental phase, rather than the mediaeval concept of a miniature person.\n\n", "I think it depended upon wealth and class. Poor people in the world are still often required to work or scrounge or steal for food and shelter from a very early age. It's just that in affluent countries, most children are no longer that poor. However, children of the rich may be raised by proxy, rather than directly by their parents. Therefore, they may still have a distant relationship with their parents.\n\nIn pre-Communist China, society placed a premium on education in the classics for hundreds of years, so those who could afford it spent their childhood preparing for government exams. Affluent members of the Roman Empire were quite well educated. And young princes like Alexander of Macedonia have been tutored by the best, such as Aristotle. They may not have been coddled by modern standards, but they weren't put to work in the fields, either.", "In my European history classes, an interesting thing I learnt was how reduced child mortality was a big factor in parents getting more attached to their kids as well. Before rapid advances in medicinal science, hygiene, and times of plague, with high child mortality, many parents remained emotionally unattached to young kids for a purpose - to not be saddened so much if the inevitable, that is death of an infant - happens. ", "You should check out Dan Carlin's Hardcore History on the history of childhood, \"Suffer the Children\".\n\n_URL_0_\n", "I don't have an answer but I did read this book a while ago about the history of conceptions of childhood and it was really interesting. _URL_0_", "At uni we were taught that during the Middle Ages childhood was considered to be quite short. A number of religious figures thought it lasted until the age of 7 I believe. They thought after that age you could go to hell and thus were thought of being responsible. \n\nApparently there were instances where 7 year olds were executed for crimes. At about age 7, depending on your circumstances, you might have been sent off to apprentice somewhere, become a squire, etc. Either way you would hit puberty in what we consider the early teens and you'd be married, etc ", "Amateur here (please don't hurt my karma...) but I've heard two opposing arguments, that parents weren't attached at all to their children and the very concept of childhood beyond, say, 7 or 8, is a modern phenomenon. (*The Disappearance of Childhood*(1982) by Neil Postman is all I've seen arguing this) More recent books that have brought up the subject mention there are a lot of \"obituaries\" from our past that record parents' grief when their children were killed. I'm afraid I don't have time to find the specific book until this afternoon, but if anyone wants, I can try and find a few quotes." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Their-Own-Making-Ritual/dp/0674961889/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351008145&sr=8-1" ], [], [], [ "http://dancarlin.com/dccart/index.php?main_page=product_music_info&cPath=1&products_id=179" ], [ "http://www.amazon.com/Doing-Right-Children-Reflections-Obligations/dp/1557787980" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cdguwdb" ], "score": [ 12 ], "text": [ "It is not so much that they come in pairs but that they grow into each other. \n\nWith most of those you named they not only grew together but one over took the others. The exceptions are 3,4, and the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex where the different members became legitimate major cities prior to merging together. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cw8fo63", "cwb5do4" ], "score": [ 227, 2 ], "text": [ "Long hair was a mark of female beauty, even femininity itself.\n\nYou see this play out *very* clearly in religious sources, of all places. In early medieval hagiography (stories of saints' lives), it's a common topos for parents to arrange a marriage for their daughter, who wishes to devote her life to God and remain a virgin. The future saint will take increasingly drastic measures to make herself ugly, including shearing off her hair.\n\nThe association between long hair and beauty also made it a *moral* issue: a symbol of vanity and worldliness. Most famously, when Clare of Assisi desired to follow Francis into a life of consecrated poverty, her hagiography makes a *big* deal not only that she chopped off her hair, but that Francis was the one who did it. (Second scene from the top on the left in [this 13th century altarpiece.](_URL_0_)) It was heavily symbolic of throwing off the burdens of beauty and worldly goods. Strikingly, in Clare's case it is distinctly *not* just a hagiographical topos. When she wrote the Rule (guidelines of life) for her Second Order Franciscans, she explicitly required women becoming novices in her order to have their hair \"cut off all around her head\" at the same time she trades worldly clothes for monastic habit.", "In \"Goodman of Paris\", women were told to 'have a care that your hair, wimple, kerchief, and hood, and all the rest of your attire be well arranged and decently ordered, that none that see you can laugh or mock at you\" (Gies,1978, p 191) without hair escaping. So wealthy women would be able to do this, as they had servants helping them dress, a variety of head coverings, and weren't involved in physical labor where hair could become disheveled. Not that all women had long hair, but I think what they wore on their heads was more a status symbol than the actual hair. Margherita Datini, an Italian merchants wife, had her clothing inventoried, and had many headdresses of various styles and could wear them with different caps in different colors and fabrics. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://i.imgur.com/geoILek.png" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "f2083hg" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "I can only go by your summary by Innes-Robbins' arguments since I do not have access to his book right now, but I wouldn't claim that Portuguese strategy was in any way remarkably flawed for its time. In fact, one could argue that it was following a pattern that we see in specifically European counterinsurgency in Africa during the 1950s through the 1970s: Conscripts drawn from the metropole with low morale, often stuck in static and passive duties, while elite formations such as paratroopers were tasked with functioning as offensive formations. \n\nMore specifically, Ian F.W. Beckett emphasizes that Portuguese technique was drawn from French and British concepts in Algeria, Indochina, Kenya, and Malaya. Portuguese theoretical works on counterinsurgency drew heavily on past writings in British and French, as well as being influenced by concepts like the French *guerre révolutionaire*. This is perhaps most visible in the Portugese armed forces official COIN manual, *O Exército na Guerra Subversiva* (1963). When deploying forces in the fields, therefore, they had theoretically the both of best worlds. \n\nYet, as many historians dealing with COIN would argue today, this is never enough. There is no 'one-size fits all' model that will guarantee victory. In fact, modern COIN scholarship has moved away from notions of 'ways of war' as being the key to understanding success or failure in COIN conflicts. Local factors are always paramount in deciding how matters will progress. The saying that \"no plan survives first contact with the enemy\" is very relevant when considering conflicts involving asymmetric warfare.\n\nTake, for example, the fact that Portugal was involved in *three* conflicts that all overlapped in three different geographical regions on the same continent. The intense need for a build-up of troops practically required giving up the initiative to the insurgents. The platoon-size sweeps that you mention were a reality, and incredibly ineffective. For regular units, the battalion became the basic unit. There was a heavy focus on military over civic matters, the latter being the most important factor to consider when dealing with insurgents. Even when there was a focus on so-called 'hearts and minds' campaigns, they were either underfunded, disastrously carried out (the resettlement strategy, the *aldeamentos* in Mozambique, comes into mind), or were negatively impacted by the Portuguese military strategy. Even if the conscripted Portuguese forces were divided into squad/sections, trained to some degree of efficiency, and dropped in the bush, it would have meant little if they didn't work within a larger military-civic framework. France's experience in Algeria is perhaps the best example of this.\n\nThere are a great many factors that come into play when discussing flawed COIN strategies. I have only scratched the surface when it comes to the Portuguese experience in their African colonies, but it is important not to buy into the idea that the Portuguese COIN efforts were successful, as some older authors would argue, since this usually argues along a 'stabbed-in-the-back' myth that is popular in failed COIN campaigns as well as completely overlook the fact that the civic aspect of the conflict is as important, if not more, than the military aspect. But Portugal was not alone in this. Both France and Great Britain failed in their COIN campaigns in Africa, showing that their theoretical frameworks couldn't guarantee victory even for themselves." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dzzot2q" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "Not a history answer. Did the source say 40 to 70 gr? That could be grains, not grams, and is the equivalent of 2.5 to 4.5 g, which makes a lot more sense." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dy891r2" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ " I'll post below an answer I wrote previously regarding the short-lived period of elected commanders and elimination of rank that occurred during the Russian Revolution/Civil War period, which addresses this in some regards. I've also expended slightly to go beyond the narrow focus of the original answer which ended in 1921, when elections finally ceased, but the issue of officers ranks remained murky.\n\nFirst, it should be pointed out from the get-go that when discussing an army \"without ranks\", it is better understood as an army which eliminated the social privilege conferred by rank, and that there still existed soldiers who held commands, within a hierarchy, and in *military* matters gave orders and could expect them to be obeyed. Although, as Reese terms it, they could be thought of as \"positions with titles', they served a very obviously similar role to ranks.\n\nThe electoral period in the army was a very brief one, and quite a failure all things considered. The sentiments started before the Bolsheviks took power, and although they had endorsed it, they quickly suppressed it upon their control of the reins. The short history of it I will summarize here.\n\nDemocratization of the military began very soon after the outbreak of Revolution. In March, 1917, the Petrograd Soviet (although keep in mind this is still nominally the Russian Army, not the Red Army) issued a so called \"Soldiers Bill of Rights\", which among other things, formally recognized the soldiers' committees and significantly curtailed the power of officers, including doing away with many forms of punishment and curtailing the types of treatment common in the Tsarist military. The order continued to give lip service to the existing military hierarchy, but removed most of the means by which it was maintained and respected.\n\nAt this point in time, the medley of parties at the time however meant that just what the order meant was unclear. The Bolsheviks wanted to take the order to the extreme and essentially demolish the existing military structure - Trotsky would remark it was \"the single worthy document of the February revolution\" - but they were not exactly in the driver's seat yet, so that wasn't a given, as no other party echoed their position. In addition, the Order only was in effect in Petrograd, where officer elections were already being held, but it was not included in Order #1. Order #2 was issued soon after and attempted to better define the limits of the committees counter to the Bolshevik position as well as stress it only applied to Petrograd, and Order #3 followed banning further elections of officers, but neither order seems to have been particularly effective, as elections continued, and the first Order continued to be followed beyond Petrograd.\n\nFurther direction from the All-Russian Conference in April attempted to offer some compromises on elections. Those already held were valid, and while moving forward election of commanders was not allowed, units could reject an appointed commander if they had sufficient reason. Things were by no means stable, given competing interests of the High Command and the various parties, but that would be the general lay out until the Bolsheviks made their move that fall. Following this, their earlier extreme position was now put into effect. In December, 1917, rank was done away with, and up to regimental level, commanders were elected. Soldiers congress' elected those for higher level, while specialist positions were appointed by specific positions as appropriate. In practice of course this obviously means that there were still commanders, just that it offered no privilege beyond command in battle. They were in theory to be considered social equals of the men, possess no insignia to mark their position, and so on.\n\nIn spite of this, some 8,000 former officers continued to serve in the face of distrust and sometimes outright hostility. These former officers were often the ones appointed to the military specialist positions to best utilize their skills without the \"officership\" attached, but it wasn't exactly the same, and of course did nothing to breach the glaring juxtaposition of these former officers in the new Workers' and Peasants' Army. In any case election was, obviously, a short-lived process. The Red Army had its real baptism by fire in February when they received a serious drubbing at the hands of the Germans at Narva, leading in short order to the humiliation of the Brest-Litovsk treaty. It was realized that perhaps a former Corporal as Divisional Chief of Staff, or a previous Ensign leading an entire Corps wasn't going to win battles. In the wake, a series of decrees beginning in March walked it back as:\n\n > Owing to the absence of military specialists among the workers and peasants, the principle of electivity to positions of command must be balanced, for reasons beyond our control and on a temporary basis, by that of recommendation and confirmation by the leading organs of Soviet power.\n\nIn less guarded terms, the Bolsheviks realized that popular commanders weren't always good commanders - Erikson sums it up well that \"*Elections to the command posts took on the aspects of farce, primitive revenges and low cunning*\" - and they needed to bring back the professionals, including old Tsarists, who were now actively recruited, although many units continued to select officers at least for another year despite the ban, and it would reoccur even later in sporadic mutinies. Elected commanders who had proven themselves were left, in place, but it was no longer in the soldiers' hands. As evidenced there, the move wasn't a popular one, but it was, in Trotsky's mind, a necessary one. It has been popular with the soldiers, one of the first things that came about with the revolution, but military expediency was simply more important.\n\nAlthough elections were firmly eliminated, the Red Army would continue its uneasy relationship with the idea of officers ranks for over a decade more after the Civil War concluded. Technically speaking, an officer held no rank. He had a specific position given to him, and a title that accompanied that position. That is to say, in an almost tautological manner, a regiment was commanded by a \"Regimental Commander\", or a Brigade by a \"Brigade Commander\". Your command was your title and your *de facto* rank. By the mid-30s, it was finally realized that this system was untenable. Although there was *some* social distinction between the professional officer ranks and the draftee rank-and-file, certainly the impact of the goal of social leveling back in the late '10s could be felt, and in 1935 changes started to be implemented, although phased over several years. The simple fact was that being an officer *wasn't appealing* and in order to recruit from a pool of quality candidates, enticements needed to be made. By the time the Red Army found itself at war with Germany, not only had a more normal system of rank been implemented, but efforts to raise the social standing of the officer corps had also been pushed through, such as improved pay and more appealing uniforms.\n\nSo in short, of the two grand experiments of the early Red Army, the first, election of officers, crashed and burned within a few years. The second, the elimination of rank, held on longer, although not in a way that should give the impression of true social equality, let alone elimination of military hierarchy. Workarounds were put in place almost immediately with the idea of 'specialists' and while an officer might not have held rank independent of his command, he was still vested with authority within the structure of the Red Army.\n\n* The Bolsheviks and the Red Army, 1918-1922 by Francesco Benvenuti\n* Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship: The Red Army and the Soviet Socialist State, 1917-1930 by Mark Von Hagen\n* The Soviet Military Experience by Roger R. Reese\n* The Soviet High Command by John Erickson" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cylma0e" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "First, the period from the end of WWII until the outset of the Korean War was one of drastic military spending cuts in the US. The US Military was cut something like 90% from 1945 to 1946. By 1950, the US military was a shell of its WWII glory. The thinking of the time was that the US had a monopoly (until 1949) or numerical superiority on nuclear weapons, so a massive standing army wasn't necessary.\n\nSecond, MacArthur didn't care about Korea. He was ensconced in his office in the Daiichi building in Tokyo, busy building his legacy as the conquerer and rebuilder of Japan. When supplies were sent to East Asia, he took the best for his forces in Japan and sent the scraps out to Korea. The best weapons, the best officers, everything stayed in Japan.\n\nThird, the Korean People's Army (KPA) was filled with veterans - Koreans who fought for the People's Liberation Army against the Kumingtang during the Chinese Civil War. Kim Il-sung requested that Mao send the Korean veterans back to him, which Mao did.\n\nSo on June 25, the North attacked the South with a force that was superior in every way - numbers, supplies, talent, motivation. The South Korean forces were armed with leftover Japanese weapons, many of them pressed into service against their wishes, many of whom didn't care about the politics of the day and/or were sympathetic to the Northern/Chinese communist ideals. Most of them broke and ran, leaving weapons and uniforms behind, trying to just get home and out of the way of the KPA.\n\nThe timeline goes like this:\n\n* June 25 - the KPA crosses the 38th heading south.\n* June 28 - within 3 days, Seoul has fallen. The North is delayed in Seoul by the demolition of bridges crossing the Han River. While not being a deep river, it is wide and it's tidal flow is one of the greatest in the world.\n* July 2 - Suwon falls. The provincial capital 30 miles south of Seoul, MacArthur had visited there only 3 days prior. This was also the beginning of American contact. Task Force Smith was sent up to stage a delaying action against the North Koreans.\n* July 5 - Task Force Smith makes contact with the North Koreans south of Suwon at Osan. The KPA T-34 tanks are superior to everything that TFS has. 105 mm mortars, recoilless rifles, 2.34 inch bazookas, nothing can stop the KPA armored column. Task Force Smith is destroyed. Wounded and captured are later recovered, many with hands bound, executed.\n* July 14 - The battle of Taejon (Daejeon) begins. The city falls by the 21st, division commander Major General William Dean is captured and held in Pyongyang until the end of the war. He is awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle.\n* July 20/21 - Daejeon falls. 922 soldiers dead, 228 wounded, 2,400 missing. However, the goal of Daejeon was to delay the KPA while the Pusan Perimeter was established. The 24th infantry division retreats to Daegu, inside the perimeter.\n* August 4 - September 18 - Battle of the Pusan Perimeter. The final push of nearly 100,000 KPA soldiers is stopped by a UN force of 140,000 soldiers. Despite two massive pushes, the KPA supply lines are stretched too thin, American/UN supplies and weapons arrive, and the Inchon landing breaks the rear echelons of the KPA. They are forced to retreat.\n\nWithin 6 weeks, the KPA had taken over all of the Korean peninsula outside of the Pusan Perimeter. The fear that UN soldiers would literally be driven back into the sea was a legitimate one. The US was woefully unprepared for anything that the North could have thrown at them.\n\n**At this point, China has had nothing to do with the war other than sending ethnic Koreans home to fight and gearing up for their eventual entry.**\n\nThe second part of the war was the complete opposite of the first. The KPA was retreating so quickly that the UN forces could barely keep up.\n\n* September 15-19 - Landing and Battle of Inchon\n* September 22-25 - Second Battle of Seoul\n* September 27 - US Eighth Army (Pusan) makes contact with X Corps (Inchon)\n* **October 9 - UN Forces cross the 38th parallel**\n* October 19 - Pyongyang falls\n\n**Crossing the 38th parallel was the point of no return.** The Chinese had said that if US/UN forces entered North Korea, they would enter the war. MacArthur ignored these warnings. Six days after Pyongyang fell, ROK troops were attacked and destroyed by PLA forces north of Pyongyang. UN forces advanced north and made contact by the beginning of November and they were then in full retreat by the end of November, losing Pyongyang and then Seoul (for a second time) on January 7th.\n\nWhat made the Chinese force superior were the numbers, supplies, and tactics. US forces were about 325,000 at peak while PLA forces were around 1.35 million at peak. UN forces in North Korea overstretched supply lines and were outfitted with summer gear. Manchuria, in winter, in summer gear = terrible idea. Finally, US forces were used to driving around in jeeps, tanks, and trucks - they were stuck to the roads. The Chinese walked. In a country that is pure mountains, the Chinese were able to set up ambushes along roads, hide in the woods, and travel across terrain that US forces wouldn't even think of crossing. The Chinese were able to use this and push the UN forces south again. However, once the UN forces were properly supplied, the soldiers were in-country, the UN forces were able to stabilize the front around the 38th parallel and negotiations for peace began.\n\nTLDR; the Chinese had nothing to do with pushing US forces to Pusan, that was all KPA. Once the Chinese entered the war, they used superior numbers, superior tactics, and better supplies to push UN forces back. Once US/UN forces were able to get a steady supply line and a decent sized force, their technological superiority gave them the edge they needed to hold the line at the 38th.\n\nFor more information, I highly recommend The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam and Scorched Earth, Black Snow: Britain and Australia in the Korean War, 1950 by Andrew Salmon. \n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cp6x1q9" ], "score": [ 19 ], "text": [ "*Het Wilhelmus* originated early in the Eighty Years' War. One of the better known features of the song is that the first letters of each stanza spell the (original) name of Prince William of Orange: 'Willem van Nassov\". Less well-known is the fact that the song has a lot more structure to it.\n\nThe song is essentially a piece of propaganda. It is written from the perspective of William of Orange. The song explains how he came to be the leader of the revolt against the Spanish king and it shows the pious nature of William. More on that later, but let's get to the structure first. \n\n\n**Structure**\n\nThe fifteen stanza's of the song are mirrored around the central, eighth, stanza.\n\nThe eighth stanza is arguably the most important one. It compares William to the biblical David: just as David had to flee from the tyrant Saul, so too had William to flee from king Philip II. But, the stanza reminds us, David was rewarded by God (and thus so will William and his followers).\n\nThe seventh and the ninth stanza concern the future death of William. In the seventh stanza, God is asked to protect William against assailants. In the ninth stanza, God is asked to give William an honourable death.\n\nThe sixth and tenth stanza concern the Spanish tyranny. In the sixth stanza, William trusts that God will allow him to stay brave and defeat the tyranny. In the tenth stanza, William laments impoverishment and molestation of the Netherlands.\n\nThe fifth and eleventh stanza concern William's bravery. The fifth stanza describes William's heritage and his heroism. The eleventh stanza says how William and his brave horsemen did battle.\n\nThe fourth and twelfth stanza are about fate. The fourth stanza mentions William's brother Count Adolf, who died in battle. The twelfth stanza says William would have prevented or ended the turbulent period of the revolt if God had willed it (but He didn't).\n\nThe third and thirteenth stanza concern piousness. In the third stanza William asks his subjects to live devoutly and pray to God. In the thirteenth stanza William says he has prayed to God to proclaim his innocence.\n\nThe second and fourteenth stanza concern trust in God. In the second stanza William says he trusts that God will reinstate him in government. In the fourteenth stanza the people are asked to put their trust in their Shepherd.\n\nThe first and fifteenth stanza concern loyalty. In the first stanza William states he has always been loyal to the King of Spain. In the fifteenth stanza he states that he has had to obey \"God the Lord, the highest Majesty\" in justice.\n\n**Some context, and an answer**\n\nThis song about tyrants and piousness should be seen in the context of the time. Kings had (more or less) supreme power and this power was derived from God. Kings ruled over their subjects 'by the grace of God'. With this power also came the obligation to take care of their subjects. What is argued in *Het Wilhelmus* is essentially that Philip II failed his duties as king. Instead of ruling over his people and taking care of them, he became a tyrant. \n\nNormally loyalty to the king meant loyalty to God, since the king ruled by the grace of God. However if the king is failing his duties, loyalty to him is no longer necessary. A tyrant clearly cannot have God on his side. So the right thing to do is to switch loyalty directly to God. God is the supreme Majesty and denouncing the king is allowed as long as the king acts unjustly and as long as you stay loyal to the supreme Majesty and justice.\n\nSo to answer your question: William says he's always been loyal to the Spanish king in the first stanza to establish that he didn't start this. Everything was fine: he was loyal to the king, the king ruled by the grace of God. Then however the king went and did all these bad things, forcing William to side with God against the king. Since nowadays only the first (or the first and sixth) stanza are sung, it is not clear that the first stanza sets the stage for the rest of the song. The second to fourteenth stanza all show the misdeeds of Philip II and the Spaniards and the piousness of William of Orange and his followers. Then finally, in the fifteenth stanza, it is made clear that there is higher loyalty than the loyalty to the King: loyalty to God." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7e0vjs" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "I'm going to assume your referring to C-Force (the two Canadian regiments sent to Hong Kong, the Winnipeg Grenadiers, and the Royal Rifles of Canada), as opposed to just Canadians that just generally lived in Hong Kong. If it was actually the latter, you can pretty much disregard this answer.\n\na) Prior to the Battle of Hong Kong, both regiments were largely training in Canada or on garrison duty in the British North American colonies (Jamaica and Newfoundland). These two regiments were sent against the suggestion of the Director of Training, as these two regiments were seen as insufficiently trained (the reasoning being that they did not want to draw upon the Canadian Corp which was either in the U.K., or to be U.K.-bound). \n\nThe trip to Hong Kong was not pleasant for these soldiers, as the Awatea (the ship responsible for bringing the Canadians to Hong Kong) was overcrowded. In an effort to keep secrecy of their deployment, the Canadians were also not allowed to disembark when the ship stopped at Honolulu (this would be pointless though, as a Japanese ship in the next wharf messaged Tokyo about the random Canadian presence in Honolulu). \n\nThe Canadians held a mixed opinion of Hong Kong. On one hand they found it rather smelly, and Canadians were rather unaccustomed to their equivalent of toilets there (if you ever had to use a toilet in China, you may know what I'm referring to). Perhaps the worst part of their stay there though (well, prior to the battle) was having to deal were the Chinese refugees flooding Hong – or rather the result of it. Many of these refugees had to live on the streets, and many didn’t have means to sustain themselves. The trucks assigned to pick up the dead refugees found on the street usually passed by the Canadian camp. \n\nOn the flip side however, the Canadians there usually marvelled at the Hong Kong nightlife (keep in mind, most of the Canadians serving there were from relatively smaller cities and towns of Manitoba for the Winnipeg Grenadiers, and strangely enough, Midland, Ontario for the traditionally Quebec-based Royal Rifles). Keeping in mind that this is a British colony, there were still some recreational activities which Canadians were accustomed to (such as the presence of a YMCA, which the Canadian soldiers have been noted to use). The amount of pay Canadian soldiers were paid was also relatively high for the cost of living in Hong Kong at the time, so the Canadian soldier's tour in Hong Kong was definitely not hampered by finances. When on duty however, the Canadians typically just trained or performed some form of fatigue duty (mainly placing defences such as barbed wire). \n\nb) It would be very hard to summarize the daily life of a soldier during the entirety of the battle, as the battle was fought over a time period of several weeks (in fact the battle is sometimes observed as a series of battles). I can tell you though that the Canadians were ordered to their positions as early as December 6th, with the \"warnings of impending war\". \n\nThe first real taste of the battle the Canadians had would be during an air raid by the Japanese, where Japanese planes raided Kai Tak airport, where the regiment was located. The attacks were timed during the Canadian's morning parade, and would have wiped out a huge portion of C-Force had it not been for quick thinking. The raid however did wipe out most of the Royal Air Force planes. An air raid elsewhere on the same day would result in the first Canadian casualties. C-Force would be deployed to the mainland on 11 December (becoming the first Canadian unit to engage in World War II) in order to reinforce the Gin Line (the line was referred to something along the lines of alcohol, can't remember). They would fall back to the Hong Kong Island on the same day however, when the general order to fall back to the island was issued.\n\nThe invasion of the actual island commenced a week later, and from here, the Canadians were either in combat, or on the move to fortify new defensive lines established. The last of these engagements would be on Christmas morning, several hours before the formal surrender of the colony, when the Royal Rifles were ordered to counterattack at Stanley Village. This costly counterattack, while successful, would be for nougat as they were forced to fall back to Fort Stanley in the following few hours. British officers would later inform the CO of the Royal Rifles that the colony had capitulated, but he wouldn't surrender until he received the orders in writing (which was received a day after the formal surrender by the Governor).\n\nIn terms of what Canadian soldiers are thinking, I would imagine rather grim thoughts. The unit commanders throughout Hong Kong (not just Canadians) made critical remarks on the state of the colony's defence during the early phases of the battle. The retreat to Hong Kong Island only perpetuated these fears. With no hope of reinforcements from the Empire, the U.S. Navy in a state of disarray (keep in mind, Pearl Harbor just happened), and with Chiang-Kai Shek in no position to send soldiers or aid, I would imagine that the mindset of the Canadians was becoming increasingly more depressing.\n\nc) Unfortunately I can't contribute much to this, but the soldiers were generally put in rather poor POW camps, with a number of Canadian deaths attributed to poor care and malnutrition. Life in these camps largely consisted of manually labour (unpaid obviously...). I believe they were placed in Stanley in Hong Kong, though Canadians (all, or individuals) may have been brought to camps back to Japan during the duration of the war (however, I cannot confirm as fact).\n\nd) I'd assume resume daily life? Continued post-secondary education for free (Canada had an equivalent to the GI Bill in the states in terms of post-secondary education). Unfortunately I can't really tell you much about the lives that these soldiers had post-World War II.\n\nThere are actually a number of books that specifically deal with the Battle of Hong Kong and Canada's involvement in it. Nathan Greenfield actually published two books which deal with the battle itself and the subsequent years for the Canadians which were in Hong Kong." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dvq277b" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "Perhaps someone with more knowledge will provide additional details, but in the meantime let me point you to this excellent summary by /u/Labrydian : _URL_0_" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/30hmfr/how_did_ibadi_oman_survive_under_the_caliphate/cptc3vd/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "djm2epp" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The tabulated data I have is for 1970-1971, when the US was still in the process of withdrawing from Vietnam, but an ARPA report [1] on the balance of conventional strength between NATO and the Warsaw Pact includes military budgets for all the member countries. The Soviet military budget was about 40 billion USD, or about 8.1% of GNP, while US military spending was almost 80 billion USD, also about 8.1% of GNP.\n\nInterestingly, Soviet defense spending seems to have been much more efficient than American. Based on US Army firepower measures, a Soviet division had at least two thirds the firepower of an American division, despite the overall division slice (number of soldiers in the army divided by number of divisions) being about a third as big. Assuming the 161 divisions in the Soviet ground forces are maintained (on average) at half strength during peace, this would mean they were supporting the equivalent of at least 53 US divisions' worth of firepower; with twice the overall military budget, the US had about nineteen divisions. Now, this isn't the only way to measure military effectiveness, but it's certainly an interesting comparison to make.\n\n[1] *Nato Military Policy: Obtaining Conventional Comparability with the Warsaw Pact,* by Steven L. Canby." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d2ak1p0" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I've been thinking about this and I have a few comments to make about it. I will first preface this with a comment that I am not focused on the House of Habsburg, the Holy Roman Empire, the Austrian, or Austro-Hungarian Empires, but as a French focus there is constant interaction with the two.\n\nThe Habsburgs are for lack of a better word, hasbeens. Due to the shifting of power in Europe away from the Habsburgs in the 15th and 16th centuries to France and Britain, the excessive destruction and pain of the 30 Years War, and a slow irrelevancy in European affairs from the lost of major holdings (Spain in the War of Spanish Succession and Silesia in the War of the Austrian Succession), the Habsburgs are effectively pushed out of importance. By the 19th century, they become a second rate power, losing importance to Prussia/Germany and Russia.\n\nAfter the loss of importance, there's another issue, and that's of multiculturalism. This isn't to say that it is bad, but due to the composition of the Habsburg realms, there is no such thing as a standard citizen. Under Habsburg rule in the years before WW1, the Austro Hungarian Empire claimed Austrian-Germans, Czechs, Slovaks, Polish, Hungarians, the odd Italian, Croats, Bosnians, and more other ethnic groups that I cannot think of right now. There is no proper unity like that in Germany, France, Italy, Britain, or Spain, with Britain the only of those that didn't have any land once in Habsburg. With a multiethnic empire that balkanized after the Great War, you no longer had a single Austro-Hungarian nation but a multitude of nations that claimed independence. Now you have multiple nations of a variety of ethnic and linguistic claims. Combine that with an American culture (as I cannot speak about British culture but I will agree that the Austro-Hungarian Empire is rather under represented in Anglophone history) that has a near obsession of saying \"my ancestors are X\", you develop something where the smaller ethnic identity is more important than the larger hodgepodge of ethnic groups under a single empire.\n\nI would like to point to victory, and the lack thereof. Pop culture and pop history loves warfare, but battles with famous characters that led troops to victory against all odds, more so when gunpowder becomes introduced. Within the time period I focus in, I can only name Wallenstein, Archduke Charles, and Swharzenburg as major commanders. Britain, Germany, France, and Russia have more games commanders than the Habsburgs had titles. So perhaps a major point of the lack of Habsburg representation is that, they just aren't interesting as a popular historical subject. We like victory, we like drama and passion, we wouldn't want to talk about a \"nation\" that defeated itself in a battle.\n\nFinally, there's the matter of what you asked. You ask about the Habsburgs, a family long famous for marrying well. That's effectively the problem, they are a family that married well. Sure they had importance in politics and diplomacy but they were a family that married well and held titles that are easily separated from their lands. With the exception of the Archduchy of Austria, the Habsburgs lose anything that is connected to them. They aren't tied to a nationalist narrative or see a nation enter the Modern era. They see a multiethnic empire fall apart into a multitude of countries.\n\nNone of this is bad, history simply played itself that the Habsburgs found themselves irrelevant." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dhqak4y" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "If you'll permit me to drop a couple links, this is [Hardee's Rifle and Infantry Tactics](_URL_0_), the most common Confederate drill manual, and this is [Casey's Infantry Tactics](_URL_1_), its Union counterpart. These manuals cover infantry drill in detail from the individual to the battalion/regimental levels: everything from how to form the battalion for line of battle to how Private Snuffy is supposed to present arms. Manuals like these were incredibly important because the average Civil War volunteer officer received no formal training. Unless he was lucky enough to be a military academy graduate, he had the responsibility of first educating himself in tactics and drill, and then teaching his men. The performance of the company or regiment (brigadiers were appointed, not elected, and usually had more advanced experience) depended on how well drilled they were. This meant that, when it came officer electing time, you really wanted to vote for somebody who was literate and accustomed to responsibility. And if you look at the composition of these armies, that point is born out. Glatthaar's *General's Lee's Army* included significant statistical data on the Army of Northern Virginia. Among other things, it reveals that officers were both significantly better educated and considerably wealthier than the rank-and-file (education being heavily correlated with wealth in the pre-war South)." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.drillnet.net/1862/1862.htm", "http://64thill.org/drillmanuals/caseys_infantrytactics/volume1/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cnc37jm", "cnc3yhk", "cnc5vrc", "cnc66x1", "cncatlq" ], "score": [ 159, 112, 38, 27, 18 ], "text": [ "[Celebreth covered ancient Roman counterculture in this comment from a while back](_URL_0_)", "I'd say the Greek Cynics would constitute a counter culture by our definition today. Of course everyone knows the stories of Diogenes but he belonged to a wider school of philosophy countering mainstream Greek society in the 5th century Bce. Their name literally meant dog and this is partly because of these attitudes, as one of their numbers said: \n\n*\"There are four reasons why the Cynics are so named. First because of the indifference of their way of life, for they make a cult of indifference and, like dogs, eat and make love in public, go barefoot, and sleep in tubs and at crossroads. The second reason is that the dog is a shameless animal, and they make a cult of shamelessness, not as being beneath modesty, but as superior to it. The third reason is that the dog is a good guard, and they guard the tenets of their philosophy. The fourth reason is that the dog is a discriminating animal which can distinguish between its friends and enemies. So do they recognize as friends those who are suited to philosophy, and receive them kindly, while those unfitted they drive away, like dogs, by barking at them\"*\n\nDiogenes was of course the iconic counter cultural figure, masturbating in public, living homeless in a barrel, eating raw meat, rejecting burial customs, insulting ~~Socrates~~ Plato and Alexander the Great (it's hard to distinguish legend and truth with all these ancient figures) though other cynics like Crates and Antisthenes similarly lived lives of poverty and their attitude likely influenced other counter cultural groups in antiquity (early Christian monastic communities would probably be another good example of counter culture though much later)\n\nSource: Frederick Copleston's History of Philosophy Vol. I", "Two movements I find interesting is the agrarian socialist movement named the Diggers. They desired to be able to farm on common lands in England in the mid 1600's. They also are claimed to have advocated for a more democratic form of government and for perform socially conscious acts, such as providing free food to the poor. Some of the modern hippie movement drew inspiration from the and established a modern digger movement in San Francisco during the sixties. \nAnother movement to check out is the Luddite movement in England in the late 1700's in England. It was a reaction to modern \" for the time\" industrial equipment being built. Essentially the workers were afraid that the new equipment would displace them from their job. ", "This comment may be insufficiently sourced, i won't argue if it gets deleted, but i wholly recommend reading [R.U. Sirius' Counter-culture through the ages](_URL_0_) on this subject.\n\nTheir thesis is that the Jewish people at the time of Abraham is the earliest documented counterculture. Some kind of pastoral peaceful revolt fighting the oppression of bureaucratic and militarized Babylon.", "Not one of the earliest examples, but one you hopefully find interesting: Many people associate Hitler's Third Reich with widespread militarism and nationalistic fervor. Membership in the Hitler Youth (or female Bund Deutsche Maedel) was compulsory for youth, and with its strong partnership with the SS served as both party indoctrination and training that funneled boys into military service. But there were two fascinating counterculture movements among Nazi teenagers who rejected the Nazi party.\n\nFirst were teen gangs who openly antagonized the Hitler Youth and Nazi Party. Names and gang insignia varied regionally, with the \"Edelweiss Pirates\" becoming the most prominent. Most sprang from a mockery of the Hitler Youth, sporting their own matching uniforms of traditional German lederhosen, American-style broad hats and garish checkered shirts, or matching pins and rings. Estimates vary wildly, but conservatively 5% of German youth were affiliated with these \"*halbstarke*\" (literally \"half strengths\" or half-grown as the authorities called them) rebels. Early gangs merely sought to enjoy Hitler Youth-style camping and activities without the party politics and propaganda, and enjoyed skirting travel restrictions and creating anti Hitler Youth song parodies and graffiti. These activities escalated into open defiance, stealing Nazi supplies, aiding French POWs, beating up Hitler Youth members, looting, and open violence against the regime. It is important here to note that the Pirates themselves reject the label of a resistance movement, and saw themselves as rebellious teenagers. The Gestapo responded harshly to their actions with prison time, fines, youth work camps, and concentration camps. In one instance twelve young Pirates were hanged.\n\nA second movement, the non-violent \"Swing Youth\" were generally more upper class, and their resistance to the Reich centered on a love of American jazz music and a good time. Like the Pirates they rejected the Hitler Youth, instead preferring to wear their hair long and adopting British and American fashions. They hosted wild parties in backrooms and basements, and accounts read like a precursor to musically-inspired countercultures of the 60s. With both the Swing Youth and Edelweiss Pirates sexual liberation and casual sex was encouraged, and the groups' coed nature was actually one of their more threatening aspects to the Reich.\n\nA few sources: \n\nBiddiscombe, Perry. \"'The Enemy of Our Enemy: A View of the Edelweiss Piraten from the British and American Archives.\" Journal of Contemporary History. 30.1 (1995)\n\nBleuel, Hans Peter. \"Sex and Society in Nazi Germany.\" Trans. J. Maxwell Brownjohn. New York: Bantam Books, 1974.\n\nKersten, Joachim. \"German Youth Subcultures: History, Typology, and Gender-Orientations.\" Gangs and \n\nYouth Subcultures. Ed. Kaylee Hazelhurst and Ed. Cameron Hazelhurst. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1998. 67-93.\n\nMeyer, Walter. Interview by Katie Davis. 02 Aug 1996. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Film. < _URL_0_;.\n\n(Hans and Sophie Scholl's White Rose student movement is also worth a look, though I think it's best to classify them as merely a notable antiwar movement rather than a unique counterculture)." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gvsiy/what_is_the_oldest_counterculture_movement_we/caoct2h" ], [], [], [ "http://www.amazon.com/Counterculture-Through-Ages-Abraham-House/dp/0812974751" ], [ "http://collections.ushmm.org/artifact/image/h00/00/h0000120.pdf&gt" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "di8i6jn" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "A few factors were at play, both at the time of the gunfight, and several decades later. To start, though, let’s look at when the gunfight at the OK Corral took place, and what was going on in the U.S. at that time. When the incident took place in late-October of 1881, it was a sensation for several reasons. First, locally, the conflict was the culmination of a long-running feud between two factions: the Earps and the Clanton-McLaurys. Tensions had been building between the two sides for some time, and when it finally erupted, many saw it as the somewhat logical conclusion of a feud that many thought was going to end in bloodshed one way or another. Newspaper reports immediately after (and the subsequent trial) made extensive use of primary reports outlining the ongoing dispute between the two sides, and how threats from each party had only grown and become increasingly violent. The fact that it led to a violent confrontation didn’t seem to surprise many people. What did surprise people was how formal the whole thing was! Most of the violence of Tombstone and other rough towns like Abilene or Dodge City involved extremely short, sudden outbursts of gunfire, often via ambush. The O.K. Corral incident involved a long walk through town to the site of the conflict (so everyone knew SOMETHING was about to pop off), verbal sparring, and then a full-throttle gun battle that actually lasted more than a couple of seconds. All of this was extremely rare for gunfights, and made for a very dramatic scene. \n\nThe conflict also represented an ongoing conflict within the country between established, civilized factions (the Earps, banks, railroads) and the free-wheeling Manifest Destiny spirit of many western inhabitants. The incident became emblematic of a larger issue at play, one that was exacerbated by identifications people made between the establishment (pro-Union) side, and the anti-establishment (pro-Confederacy sympathies). \n\nNow, this in and of itself wouldn’t have necessarily immortalized the incident, but the fact that the gunfight at the O.K. Corral fit into many of these dramatic conventions, and the fact that Dime Novels, the cheap pulp literature of the day, played up just these kinds of conventions, put the whole thing into a special category. Dime novels were exaggerated, heavily-fictionalized literary accounts of life in the “wild west,” and many of them featured set-piece gun battles somewhat similar to the O.K. gunfight. It would be like if a major terrorist attack in 2017 was actually thwarted by a team of crime fighters in superhero outfits. It was the marriage of popular fiction and reality, and people ate it up. \n\nStill, even with all that, after a few years, it had kind of faded out of popular memory, and outside of southern Arizona, there weren’t that many people talking about it. The reason why people know about it today is because Wyatt Earp lived to be 80 years old, and in the last few years of his life, while living in Los Angeles, he became friends with several people in the burgeoning film industry, and gave several interviews with a writer named Stuart Lake. Lake eventually wrote a book about Earp and his exploits, which was heavily influenced by Earp’s wife, who wanted nothing more than to present her husband as a white-knight hero of the old west. The iconic, seemingly-outlandish (Dime Novel-esque) nature of the incident at the O.K. Corral combined with a resurgence of interest in westerns within the new movie medium all came together at the perfect moment to catapult the gunfight at the O.K. Corral into legend. For most audiences, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral was brand new, and exciting (as mentioned before, by the 1930s, most people had forgotten about it), so it really took off. When the incident was colored in with details from the rest of Earp’s life (Dodge City, the vendetta ride), a legend was sort of re-born. \n\n[Sources: Richard Slotkin, ‘Gunfighter Nation’; Michael Denning, ‘Mechanic Accents’] \n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cqielhj" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "In the early middle ages, law worked very differently than in modern society. We live all of our lives, today, under the law - if someone is murdered, we don't have a choice about what will happen: the police will step in and begin to investigate and bring the full weight of the law to bear on the case. In the early middle ages, however, the law didn't come to you - you had to go to the local authority and bring up your grievance and ask for a legal solution. It's much more like a modern civil suit - you had to take a criminal to court to get the law involved.\n\nAnd the law was not the only normal, accepted mechanism for resolving disputes and seeking justice. Blood feuds and revenge killings were an allowed alternative for most of the early middle ages; some kings tried to regulate feuds (Alfred of Wessex, England, passed a law that tried to require disputants to attempt to settle disputes in court before they were allowed to raid each other's houses), but feuds remained an alternative and acceptable solution for resolving disputes through most of this period (and feuds, like laws, had certain norms and procedures disputants were expected to follow - it was an alternative justice system, not a breakdown of the justice system or lack of justice).\n\nYou periodically see kings try to force everyone to resolve disputes in the royally sanctioned law courts (for example, the seventh century Visigothic kings in Spain try to make it illegal to settle cases privately), but it took a long time for kings to get powerful enough to eliminate alternative justice systems. Some early medieval kings actually required subjects to try to sort our their problems locally and stay *out* of the justice system, presumably because they had too many cases and too few judges (this is one of the 10th c. english kings - Aethelstan, perhaps?). Eventually, most of these private forms of dispute resolution (like feuding) were suppressed by stronger kings exercising more effective and centralized authority, but some non-royal justice systems like Church law remained influential alternatives to royal justice for a long time.\n\nA good introduction to this in England is *Paul Hyams, Rancor & Reconciliation in Medieval England*." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c8jky9x" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Along the Sudanic and Sahelian bands south of the Sahara a great deal was going on, especially after the Arabian Camel and slightly elevated rainfall made long-distance desert transit possible after ~300-500 (thanks, Romans!). Before that, trade and transit tended to be a many-hands sort of affair, whereby certain goods might end up in Meroe and other Nilotic states or (rarely) actually cross the desert. We know the Nok Culture existed and clearly had a thriving network of trade and presumably a significant food surplus, and the lake regions of East Africa were especially vibrant (see Chris Ehret's *An African Classical Age*). So east-west contact tended to be shorter-range and integrative; you rarely got the long legs of the Nile or Sahara (or Red Sea) trades. \n\nUnfortunately when you start talking about Egypt and Africa more broadly, you enter into a minefield of charged and politicized (often Afrocentric) history writing. But honestly I am not aware of significant direct Egyptian influence particularly far west or east of the Nile Valley before the modern era. The Dogon are often claimed to have keen Egyptian affinities, but I've never seen anything conclusive about it. Egyptians (really sort of an Egypto-Nubian complex--it's hard to describe) did transmit significant portions of practice southward but still along the Nile; I'm not aware of any recorded extension beyond Meroe because, well, the mythology and cultural/social signs wouldn't work (many depended on the Nile) and the environment is not very healthy if you weren't born there. Besides, people happily came north to trade, so why bother? From a very early era, Egypt oriented itself at least as much to SW and S Asia as it did to areas further up the Nile.\n\nIf anyone would point to vibrant and direct connections, it would be Ehret; he goes back to about 1000BC in that book, but his *Civilizations of Africa to 1800* is actually pretty enlightening on the nature of social segmentation and interaction in the period before Rome." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "chhjkt1" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The telegraph was invented because the railroads needed a way to communicate about deviation from schedule. \n\nAs an aside a then current engineering problem around 1900 was how to synchronize clocks that were far apart. Various solutions and protocols were proposed. Einstein was aware of that effort and it was one of the things that set him off thinking about time and how it related to movement.\n\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7y9693", "c7y9num" ], "score": [ 4, 9 ], "text": [ "If I remember correctly rudimentary literacy is believed to have been common among the business class of citizens within Mayan cities because it was useful in, well, conducting business. Written language allowed merchants to conduct transactions and keep records. The clergy would also have been literate as is evidenced by temple inscriptions.\n\nWhether the lower rungs of society were literate is hard to determine because of the lack evidence. A safe bet would be that the poor could not read as this is the trend in many civilizations developing a written language.\n\nSources: *1491* by Charles C Man, *Guns, Germs, and Steel* Jared Diamond", "For your first question, it does appear that this happened because it's depicted in [a mural](_URL_0_) (The scribes are in the bottom left.) How common this was is unknown, but we only find depictions of it in the classic period.\n\nFor your second question, writing is generally considered specialized knowledge. Meaning only scribes or trained nobility could read. The evidence for this comes from the cultures visible at the time of the Spanish conquest, but the evidence is overwhelming from that age. (not just Maya but Aztecs, Mixtecs, and others restricted it only to specialists. [This page gives a great introduction into the variety of Mesoamerican scripts.](_URL_2_)). \n\nHowever, that said, writing was so prolific among the ancient Maya that it seems plausible to me to argue that commoners would have had some knowledge of the more common symbols (like numbers). But what you have to understand is that Mesoamericans did not see writing the way we do. For them, writing was just as much a visual art as a verbal one, and the Maya didn't actually have separate words for writing and painting. It was imbued with religious significance; the glyphs were seen almost as living things. A scribe might change a glyph's appearance to be more visually pleasing. Which means a young scribe would have had to learn dozens of different ways to write the same symbol. Being able to do this was considered an art, and not just anyone had the skills to do it. \n\nIf you're interested in learning more, the website I linked earlier is great as is [this one](_URL_1_) (which actually has free textbooks on Maya and Zapotec hieroglyphics.) And if you haven't seen it, Cracking the Maya code is available on netflix and is absolutely worth a watch." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "http://i45.tinypic.com/34snebn.gif", "http://www.famsi.org", "http://ancientscripts.com/ma_ws.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c8qocoo", "c8qqlks" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "With regards to adding tonic to gin, it's actually the other way around - gin was added to tonic to make it taste better.\n\nBritish officers added gin (among other things) to the tonic they took to prevent malaria while in India.", "I would argue that a basic type of alcohol is not in and of itself classy or unclassy, but diffefrent kinds, subsets, brands, usages, or cocktails are so, and then the classier types get exported and more recognition.\n\nConsider the rum handed out to British sailors vs. Bacardi. \n\nWine producing regions always had crappy wine for the lowest classes and classy wine, of course the later gets exported more and gets more recognition. People living in such regions do not consider wine automatically classy. We have a term in Hungary \"kocsisbor\" - \"carriage drivers wine\".\n\nOn the other hand whiskey is considered classy in Hungary, because it is all imported so of course only the good ones are imported. While I would be that the traditional whiskey producing regions there were cheap, crappy kinds for the lowest classes.\n\nThe underclass gin was certainly not like Bombay Gin." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "edyd0ph" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "This isn't my primary area of focus, but one relavent thing to keep in mind is that the second Red Scare was close on the heels of the Great Depression. Durring the Great Depression it was quite common for people, especially wealthier or more educated people, to be at least interested in learning more about Communism as the common perception at the time was that the USSR was not suffering from the Depression as most of the rest of the world was. Therefore, if one was looking to put another in a bad light in the US at the time, it was fairly easy to show that a person had attended a meeting of their local Communist party or had bought a copy of the Communist Manifesto. While this seldom if ever meant that the person was actually interested in communism, it was an easy target for those looking to slander. Hopefully someone with more knowlege of the subject can ellaborate." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6fnnt6" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "A Similar question was asked [here](_URL_0_), you might find some answers there.\n\nBeyond that, I have yet to see his books mentioned in this subreddit without negative comments about the man's skills." ] }

[]

[ "http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/1421-the-year-china-discovered-america/" ]

[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/wq7tr/is_gavin_menzies_assertions_in_his_books_1421_and/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cnc0e64" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "It was suggested I post here. I have to say it's pretty outside of my location and timeframe. Most of my reading is centered around Buddhism and what I know about India that's not political in nature is mostly centered around Buddhism. Even the concepts I know of Hinduism are usually through a Buddhist lens. \n\nWhat I do know about the development I also can't provide a source. I studied at the Royal Thimphu College and once sat down with a Bengali professor who explained her own dissertation to me about the development of the Varna system in India, which ended up being a primer on \"Brahmanism.\" (Which then led to a long discussion on the inaccuracy of the term \"Hinduism\" which was developed post-independence as a response to the development of Pakistan for Muslims, India for Hindus. When I presented the irony that \"India\" and \"Hindu\" both stem from the \"Indus River\" which is currently in Pakistan, Runa, aforementioned professor, winked at me and said \"Exactly. Hindus are political, Brahmanists are religious.\" The logic being that Brahmanists derive religious authority from the Brahmin Varna, just as Christians derive religious authority from Christ, and Muslims from submission to God.) \n\nAnyway, I'll just point out some of the books that have helped me in understanding this complex religion and maybe you can go on with your search from there. \n\nOriginally I was interested in Wendy Doniger's [*The Hindus: An Alternative History*](_URL_1_) but found out it was full of selective information and skewed perspectives. I was more interested in a general history of India and fell upon John Keay's [*India: A History*](_URL_2_) which he describes as \"A historiography of India as well as a history.\" And he does go over developments of Brahmanism threaded with the rise and fall of conquerors through the region. \n\nMy introduction to Brahmanism (though he DOES refer to it as Hinduism) was Huston Smith's [*The World's Religions*](_URL_0_) which doesn't go over the history as much of any of the religions, but is a nice starting point, especially when comparing say Buddhism with Brahmanism, which most people regularly do. It's also a good outliner for the different Brahmanist traditions (or at least the major trends in Brahmanism). \n\nFinally, probably the most accurate to your original question though it has a broader focus and a point to make, Karen Armstrong's [*The Great Transformation](_URL_3_) remains one of my favorite books on the Axial Age in which she covers the religious shifts that occurred more or less simultaneously in Greece, the Levant, India, and China. Of interest to you would be the Vedic response to the growth of Buddhism and Jainism, the development of the Mahabharata, and the changing understandings of the Vedas and Upanishads. It's a pretty great book, and Karen Armstrong can of course lead you further down the path of Indian religious history. \n\nHope that helps at all. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://smile.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Plus-Huston-Smith/dp/0061660183/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1420188518&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=huston+smith", "http://smile.amazon.com/Hindus-Alternative-History-Wendy-Doniger/dp/014311669X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1420187583&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=hindu+history", "http://smile.amazon.com/India-History-Revised-John-Keay/dp/0802145582/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1420188226&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=john+keay+india", "http://smile.amazon.com/Great-Transformation-Beginning-Religious-Traditions/dp/0385721242/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1420188226&amp;sr=8-13&amp;keywords=john+keay+india" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "clxwx32", "clxwxaa", "cly24g9", "cly41of", "clyi10o" ], "score": [ 165, 300, 779, 245, 4 ], "text": [ "Maybe a better question would be: why is the South still feeling the effects of the Second Great Awakening while the North has seems to move away from it?", "hi! fyi, you can get started on this recent post\n\n[How did the Bible Belt become the Bible Belt?](_URL_0_)", "This topic is generating a high number of very poor quality responses that do nothing except repeat often offensive stereotypes about residents of the Southern United States. If you can not answer the question to the standards expected here, please refrain from responding.", "The South wasn't always the \"most religious\" part of the United States. At first, there was nothing like our modern legal concept of freedom of religion anywhere in the original colonies; North and South alike persecuted minority religions and sometimes failed to tolerate fellow Protestant Christians outside their own state church denominations. There were some exceptions, like the former Dutch colony of New York and the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania, where religious minorities were afforded more protection--but only by comparison. \n\nEven after the Revolution, the Bill of Rights initially applied only to the federal government. At the state level, late-18th-century Virginia and Kentucky, where \"blasphemy\" was decriminalized, arguably enjoyed more religious freedom than New England. However, by the mid-19th century, immigration patterns had produced a contiguous bloc of Protestants in the Southern states (except for Louisiana, about which more in a minute), while the North had become roughly one-quarter Catholic. The legal battles slowly won by Catholics, Jews, and Quakers during this period began to give religious plurality a toehold in the North.\n\nIn the South, however, Confederate ideology had begun to take root starting in the 1830s. The Confederates believed that democracy was a failed experiment, and should be replaced by a hereditary aristocracy in the mold of 18th-century Britain (that is, before the Napoleonic Wars and mass conscription required the grudging extension of voting rights to commoners). Critically, to make the idea of a permanent \"Norman\" aristocracy appealing to white Southern elites who were, just like in the North, not wholly British but a mix of European ethnicities, the Confederates began to promote the idea of a single Southern \"white race\"--defined by skin color and Protestant religion rather than national origin or a specific religious denomination. \n\nThe Confederate South began to separate into two halves, roughly equal in population: the peripheral areas that interfaced with the capitalist North and Europe via rivers, ports, and border towns, and the closed, fortified feudal domains of the interior. There, a lord's serfs were expected to adopt his religion, and his slaves were forced to do so. This meant that there was literally no place for non-Protestants to exist socially in the interior--only in the border zones, where outsiders were depended upon to facilitate trade. Catholic Louisiana, which had become a state in 1812, was the exception that proves the rule--the biggest border zone of all. The South as a whole supplied 75% of the world's cotton in the mid-19th century, and most of that left from the port of New Orleans.\n\nNationwide legal religious freedom was only finally established in the aftermath of the Civil War, via the 14th Amendment in 1868. This was perceived by the defeated Confederate lords as a direct assault on their political power, and they were correct in their assessment. By creating universal citizenship and obligating the states to protect the rights of all American citizens, author John Bingham was very intentionally eliminating the legal basis of a feudal aristocracy. The resentments this created in the interior zones of the former Confederacy linger to this day.\n\n\n\nSources: _River of Dark Dreams_, Walter Johnson; _Slavery as a Cause of the Civil War_, ed. Edwin Rozwenc; _Normans and Saxons_, Ritchie Devon Watson Jr.; _Please Don't Wish Me a Merry Christmas_, Stephen Feldman; I grew up in West Virginia.", "There are a ton of great reasons for this outside of cultural evolution. The base protestant influences in the different regions show a lot more why the south ended up more culturally religious. There are very conservative religious blocks on the west coast (and a fair amount in the midwest as well). \n\nHere is a [MAP](_URL_0_) for reference. This is the current picture of denomination breakdown in the US but is a pretty good picture of historical influence as well. \n\n\nThe southern baptist convention is one of the major religious influencers historically in the south. They tend to be heavily conservative and involved in politics. There is a cultural aspect to their historical theology. To sum up it would be something like Our job on earth is to bring about a more righteous world through our actions, speech, and politics in the name of God. Evangelicalism took hold very strongly in this denomination. \n\nThe west coast is tricky. It is a hotbed of conservatism and evangelicalism. BUT there are huge population centers that curb a fair amount of that. And the very far coast (actually land touching water) has had some strong movements that are anti-evangelical. From the early hippy movement, to the gay rights movement. But interior west Coast is very conservative. And there are some current very large conservative evangelical churches on the west coast. Showing that the area is still highly religious. \n\nThe NE has more of a liberal denominational influence that tends to be less culturally religious. BUT the area is still highly religious just not the conservative evangelical style that we see so much of.\n\n " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2dx803/how_did_the_bible_belt_become_the_bible_belt/" ], [], [], [ "http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/blackwhiteandgray/files/2012/10/0012.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cwddr52" ], "score": [ 17 ], "text": [ "I'd challenge both claims that he was considered the best emperor and that he began Rome's decline.\n\nFirstly, throughout most of antiquity Trajan was considered to be the most popular emporer. He was supported by the people, the senate and the military throughout his reign. He expanded the empire, defeated the Dacians and ended the Jewish revolt. He was so popular that a Roman pope claimed that God resurrected Trajan and allowed the Pope to baptise him in order to admit him to heaven, since the idea of such a popular pagan emperor residing in hell was so controversial.\n\nFurthermore labeling Augustus as the start of Rome's decline is to vague to answer. What aspect of Rome's decline are you referring to: economic, military, social and moral or rather the decline of the Roman Republic. Economically and militarily, Augustus began vast improvements in both; expanding the empire, consolidating the provinces, reducing slave labour to provide work for Romans. The decline on the roman military began after Hadrian's policy of ending expansion of the empire. Economic decline is harder to pin down, one might argue it began with Nero's devaluation of the currency or perhaps later during the economic crisis faced by Diocletian. Augustus also oversaw the cultural peak of Rome, patronising some of the greatest poets of the period, notably Virgil and Horace. I won't comment on the moral state of Augustus' rome because it's to ambiguous.\n\nAs for his role in the end of the Republic, he did enact the final killing blow by beginning the imperial period. However that decline began a century before with Gracchi brothers reforms and later the 1st triumvirate. The Republic was falling already, by the time Augustus was born.\n\nIn summary, Augustus was neither a source of Rome's decline, nor was he regarded as the greatest emperor (at least not after Trajan's reign).\n\nApologies for lack of sourcing. On my mobile. Will fix when at my PC if there's interest." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cpp6br3" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Roald Dahl did an autobiography going into detail on his childhood in those types of schools. Early versions of the text can be seen in 1970's copies of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. An advance preview of his bio, it contained more brutality than the final version of his autobiography did, I'm guessing early readers recoiled from the blood soaked dressing gowns and sadistic toast rituals of his schooldays. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c5w1onf", "c5w39y4" ], "score": [ 5, 6 ], "text": [ "It really boils down to the poverty aspect of the country. Last year in university, I took a course called Modern India, and my prof was actually from somewhere in Gujarat.\nEDIT: I meant to add that he told us so many personal stories he had living there, because he was of a lower class (we all guessed anyways, he was darker skinned and was embarrassed to talk about it) and some were awful.\n\nThe wealthy have enough money to run their companies, and enterprises, without even having to step foot into the sketchy marketplaces, the back alleys, to mingle with the 'common'.\nYou also have to take into account that the caste system still affects people on a daily basis even though by law it's illegal to enforce rules based on if you are a pariah or untouchable. So people live in waste, and are forced to obey everyone else, and work the most horrific jobs because of their bloodline.\n\nAnd there are literal cities of garbage, piled up because of the HUGE population throwing away electronics and waste. The poorest of the poor, the ones who can't afford a farm, or aren't worthy enough to have a status in the villages because of who they are, rifle through it every single day. You have people running around the cities because there's more of a chance someone, tourists or store owners, will offer food or money.\n\nFurthermore, what you want to remember is that approx. 70% of the population lives in rural India, in small villages, in many different climates and zone, untouched by other civilizations even. Farming is a giant industry in that country, and someone on the outside perspective may not know this simply because you don't think much about it. But nitrogenous wastes, bio-wastes, are starting to ruin the lands because of the demand for rice or textiles.\n\nSo, in short: I think it's been a slow-growing problem for years, and the British colonialism didn't do anything to help it, or care about it because they saw their stay as only temporary (and I mean the people living in India), or were wealthy enough to have many servants to do their work. Maybe they elevated the waste problem a *bit*, by introducing different foods or technologies, but you don't see many immigrants into India as much as you see Indians emigrating to Britain, so it's not like they elevated the population.\nEDIT: We could talk all day about the positive and negative effects of Britain in India, but truthfully, since the doctors, philantrhopists, and politicians were not below the poverty line, we can't possibly know how much of an impact they had on pollution unless we did a huge search for documents on their effects of the environment.\n\nIt's mainly the religiosity of the whole place that keeps the people under the sun from the richest in the land. I'm not blaming Hinduism for the waste problems, but the perpetuated 'roles' in society from that view of life has managed to create an obscured social ladder that is *extremely* hard to get out of. Even if Gandhi had a massive effect on the spirit of the nation, for peace, that was more an issue between countries, Pakistan & India, and not caste. Gandhi still valued the caste system, as he was very spiritual himself.\n\nAnyways, this is what I know from my studies,\nI hope that helped a bit.", "I don't have much to contribute except to point out that it's obvious India has, for whatever reason, missed out on the 'hygenification' (if that is a word) that most nations, certainly all developed ones, went through at some point. All societies used to live like that; there was no organised waste disposal, and waste would be discarded wherever possible. There was little enforcement of restriction on the disposal of waste. Rivers served as mass sewers. I don't think there was any society that didn't begin like this.\n\nHowever, in most, population growth meant that sewers became increasingly necessary. London gained a modern, organised sewerage system in the 1850s. It's really quite a recent development, and before the 19th Century, the 'common folk' would have almost universally used contaminated water sources, thrown their rubbish and excrement in the nearest street or river, and also would have stunk. The situation in India is not unique; it's not an Indian thing. It's just that they haven't gone through the process of building sewers, organising regular waste disposal, taking showers every day etc. I think the main factor is probably abject poverty." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ceatphy", "ceav73x" ], "score": [ 11, 4 ], "text": [ "A-H's disintegration was from a combination of external and internal pressure. Nationalist uprisings which couldn't be repressed because neither the government nor the army had the will or capability, coupled with Karl Franz Joseph's preferring to withdraw from affairs of state rather than engage in a civil war right after WWI.\n\nThe armed forces were in no shape to hold the A-H empire together by force, and peaceful means could not possibly hold back nationalist insurgent groups radicalised by WWI. Compare this with the state of affairs in 1914, when the Young Bosnia movement (Princip & Co.) were very much a minority. Franz Joseph had instigated two years of stern political repression, but Karl relaxed these controls, allowing more political freedom. Thanks to WWI, Germanic Austria was aligning more and more with Berlin, which was not a rallying point for a great deal of A-H. Although the Austrian Germans were the largest single component (12 million people in 1910), there were many other ethnic groups, such as the Magyars (10.1 million), Czechs (6.6 million), Poles (5 million), Ruthenians (4 million), Croats (3.2 million), Romanians (2.9 million), Serbs (2 million) which were ready to fragment away, to varying degrees.\n\nBy January 1918, Czech and Slav leaders within the monarchy supported independence, and economic problems and social protest only accelerated the process. The Allies encouraged it, calling not just for autonomy for the separate nationalities within an empire, but independence.\n\nAfter the Armistice, attempts at liberalization had little success, because the damage was done. Karl was quite prepared to form a federal state in Austria, but the Magyars rejected any move towards democracy, and Woodrow Wilson withdrew his [tenth point](_URL_0_), saying it was up to each nationality to decide their fate; a wink towards revolution.\n\nA-H arguably could have survived the Poles breaking off, which they basically decided to do by the 10th of October, and had taken over the administration of Polish-inhabited areas of Austria by the end of the month. It could not and did not survive a Czech seccession. Their revolution was quick, orderly, and bloodless, with non-Czech troops evacuated and local Habsburg officials unresisting. Slovenia was a similar case, and proclaimed independence on the 1st of November.\n\nPower passed from A-H to the leadership of the nationalist parties, with plenty of demonstrations but little violence or disorder. The Allies did not partition A-H, they merely egged on the nationalist movements within it. Even by the time of the ceasefires in the Balkans and Italy, the Allies were then dealing with separate countries. ", "You are looking at this all wrong, Austria-Hungary didn't really break up because the Allies wanted to \"hurt\" Austria (well they did but that's not the main point here). Austria-Hungary broke up more from internal factors that were sped up by the war. Let's start by pointing out a key difference between Austria-Hungary and Germany. Austria-Hungary was a group of Austrians (who were a German nationality) and Hungarians (who were of Magyar nationality) governing many different peoples like the Czech, Croats, Romanians, Serbs, etc., whereas Germany was Germans governing mostly Germans. After the war, the American President, Woodrow Wilson, declared he wanted nationalities to have their own country, so since Austria-Hungary was made up of so many different nationalities, after each (more or less for the time) got it's own country. All that was left was Austria and Hungary, and since the Monarchy keeping those two countries together no longer existed after the war, they too because independent countries. You state that Austria became a small country around 80,000 km2 but you also don't include Hungary, as it was an equal partner in Austria-Hungary (hence the name). This is a very simplified version of what happened as there were many more factors involved but this gives you an idea of way German was so big and Austria was so small after the war." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Points#Fourteen_Points" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dpwwgq5", "dpx1wod" ], "score": [ 24, 13 ], "text": [ "Well, this question honestly begs a very complex answer.\n\nOf course, the legacy of Rome was probably stronger in Italy moreso than anywhere else. Each city saw itself differently in relation to Rome and this view changed over time. Florence, for example, saw itself as a daughter of Rome. The original settlement is very likely of Roman origin, but various chronicles played this history up and expanded on it. Genoa, likewise, developed a complex origin story based on Roman foundations. Jacopo da Varagine's history of the city begins with the city being founded by Janus, the first king of Italy (mythical, I'm not sure of the source of this myth) and its enlargement by a second Janus from Troy, placing Genoa not only within a Roman narrative, but almost contemporary with the great city. Venice had a different conception of its \"Romanness.\" For hundreds of years, even into the end of the 12th century (I believe until they sacked the place) they asked the Emperor of Rome in Constantinople for the right to rule. This is a completely different conceptualization of the Roman tradition.\n\nThis connection to Rome was embellished during the Renaissance when Roman culture and traditions were very much in vogue (referring to the Pope as the Pontifex Maximus is actually a Renaissance conceit, for example). \n\nAll this begs the question, how much did your everyday medieval Italian care about this connection? My answer is probably not much. Medieval Italians developed intense, local identities that intertwined not only the Roman past, but especially ecclesiastical history. The best book on how medieval Italian cities constructed identities, for my money, is Augustine Thompson's *Cities of God* and there's not a lot of Rome (outside of a Christian sense) in that book.", "That's a difficult question, not in the least because Italian urban identities and post-Roman ideas of identity are separated by a few hundred years. \n\nPrior to the Italian Wars of the sixteenth century, we don't get many broad exonyms and endonyms in Italy. In the enormous window of time between the seventh and fourteenth century, Northern Italians are sometimes lumped together as \"Lombards\" by foreigners. But you also get a fair number of gray zones where the term stops getting applied as early as the eleventh century, especially in large border regions like Piedmont and the Friuli. Likewise, areas with strong local identities, like Rome and Venice, seldom receive the \"Lombard\" exonym (in the case of Rome, they were *never* lumped with the Lombards). The South is another world altogether: documents, notably Venetian laws regulating trade, by and large grant exonyms only to specific ports. When they do need to generalize, the Venetians normally use the demonym of the southern monarchy's court: this leads them to calls southerners \"*Beneventini*\" until the eleventh century, subsequently switching to \"*Siciliani*.\" However, these terms are very rare, almost ad-hoc, and the people living in the Southern Italian mainland would certainly not take kindly to being lumped with Sicilians. In fact, starting from the ninth and tenth centuries, by and large local identities were the strongest kinds of identity all over Italy. The ties between these local identities and the Roman heritage are complex. \n\nFirst, consider the most recent meaning of \"Roman\" for Medieval Italians: Between the end of Justinian's reconquest in the sixth century and the Carolingian conquest in the ninth century, Italians tended to identify themselves as either \"Lombard\" or \"Roman;\" but the word \"Roman\" oscillated between very limited meanings, denoting either the shrinking military outposts of the Byzantine Empire and actual residents of the city of Rome. As early as the seventh century, the both the Lombard Kingdom and the Byzantine Empire begin using the words \"Lombard\" and \"Italian\" interchangeably, while the \"Romans\" are the people on the Byzantine outposts in Rome and Ravenna with whom the Italo-Lombards are locked in systemic conflict. In short, according to seventh and eight century Italians, Romans were \"the other.\" If in the late sixth century King Agilulf and queen Teodolinda had advisors named Paolo, Pietro, Stabliciano, Secondo, Aureo, Pompeo, by the next generation King Arioald's advisors were named Adruvald, Rodoald, and Ilbichis; all native speakers of the Latin Vulgate, no less. Clearly, the Lombard and Roman segments of society had fused. The product of this fusion? Italy. \n\nGiven all that, it's understandable how following Charlemagne's conquest he crowns himself \"King of Italy;\" and the title \"Holy Roman Empire\" would only be contrived two centuries later. Although it's certainly fair to say that in the following centuries, Medieval Italians certainly were aware of Roman history and must have felt some of it as their own: Dante fills his Divine Comedy with heroes of antiquity, after all. But it is extremely telling that when his protagonist meets the Roman poet Virgil, his guide in the *Inferno*, his introduction reads \"My parents were Lombards, Mantuans by homeland both.\" \n\nDante has Virgil, possibly the \"most Roman\" writer ever, introduce himself as a Lombard. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "clzkeo8", "cm0419e" ], "score": [ 28, 5 ], "text": [ "hi! assuming that your core question is about property, here are a few posts that can get you started:\n\n* [How accurate is the popular US perception that Native Americans lost their land \"because they didn't understand the concept of ownership?\"](_URL_3_)\n\n* [How did Native Americans (or other tribes for that matter) avoid 'Tragedy of the Commons' problems?](_URL_1_)\n\n* [Why do many Native-American cultures not have any concept of land ownership?](_URL_0_)\n\n* [How did Native Americans view land ownership?](_URL_2_)\n\nedit: this one may be of interest too\n\n* [What have been the legal arguments in the United States as to why Native Americans should not have their land back?](_URL_4_)", "Check out William Cronon's \"Changes in the Land,\" or even just the Wikipedia entry for the book. Cronon examines the different conceptions of land use held by English and Indians during the early colonial period and argues that those differing conceptions did indeed lead to the Indians being taken advantage of by European colonists. Fascinating stuff, and treated with nuance from the perspective of ecology rather than the more narrow angle of \"property.\"" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/27i79m/why_do_many_nativeamerican_cultures_not_have_any/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1guyfn/how_did_native_americans_or_other_tribes_for_that/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1eya7m/how_did_native_americans_view_land_ownership/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1g8v2t/how_accurate_is_the_popular_us_perception_that/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1j7gtf/what_have_been_the_legal_arguments_in_the_united/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "f2b5kqu" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "I can't speak to your question about continental India, but the American Indian populations of the Americas were subject to genocide(s) This topic is often controversial and can lead to inaccurate information. This message is not intended to provide you with all of the answers, but simply to address some of the basic facts, as well as genocide denialism in this regard, and provide a short list of introductory reading. Because this topic covers a large area of study, actions of the United States will be highlighted. There is always more that can be said, but we hope this is a good starting point for you.\n\n##What is Genocide?\n\nSince the conceptualization of the act of genocide, scholars have developed a variety of frameworks to evaluate instances that may be considered genocide. One of the more common frameworks is the definition and criteria implemented by the United Nations. The term \"genocide,\" as coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1943, [was defined by the U.N. in 1948](_URL_6_). The use of this term was further elaborated by [the genocide convention.](_URL_9_)\n\nArticle II describes two elements of the crime of genocide:\n\n1. The mental element, meaning the \"intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such\", and\n2. The physical element which includes five acts described in sections a, b, c, d and e. A crime must include both elements to be called \"genocide.\"\n\nArticle II: In the present convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:\n\n* (a) Killing members of the group;\n* (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;\n* (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;\n* (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;\n* (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.\n\n##American Indian Genocides – Did they happen?\n\nSince the arrival of Europeans to the Americas, typically signaled with the appearance of Columbus in 1492, Indigenous Peoples have experienced systematic oppression and extermination at the hands of colonial powers. These colonizing governments either organized or sponsored acts of genocide perpetrated by settlers, targeting Indigenous settlements for complete destruction; eliminating sources of food and access to life-sustaining resources; instituting child separation policies; and forcefully relocating Indigenous populations to often times inhospitable tracts of land, now known as “reservations.” All of these acts constitute what scholars now recognize as genocide. The horrendous acts that occurred in the Americas was even an example proposed by Lemkin himself, where it is noted from his writings:\n\n > [Lemkin applied the term to a wide range of cases including many involving European colonial projects in Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and the Americas. A recent investigation of an unfinished manuscript for a global history of genocide Lemkin was writing in the late 1940s and early 1950s reveals an expansive view of what Lemkin termed a “Spanish colonial genocide.” He never began work on a projected chapter on “The Indians of North America,” though his notes indicate that he was researching Indian removal, treaties, the California gold rush, and the Plains wars.](_URL_2_)\n\nThese actions took place over the entirety of the Americas, exacerbating the rapid depopulation of Indigenous Nations and communities. Exact figures of the population decline are inconclusive, giving us only estimates at best, with Pre-Columbian population numbers ranging anywhere from as low as 8 million to as high as ~100 million inhabitants across North, Central, and South America. What we do know is that in the United States, records indicate the American Indian population had dropped to approximately 250,000 by 1900. Despite any debate about population statistics, the historical records and narratives conclude that, at least according to the U.N. definition, genocide was committed.\n\n##Mental Element: Establishing Intent\n\nIn order for genocide to be committed, there must be reasonable evidence to establish an intent to commit what constitutes genocide. Through both word and action, we can see that colonial powers, such as the United States, did intend at times to exterminate American Indian populations, often with public support. Government officials, journalists, scholars, and public figures echoed societal sentiments regarding their desire to destroy Indians, either in reference to specific groups or the whole race.\n\n > ”This unfortunate race, whom we had been taking so much pains to save and to civilize, have by their unexpected desertion and ferocious barbarities justified extermination and now await our decision on their fate.”\n\n[--Thomas Jefferson, 1813]( _URL_7_)\n\n > \"That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected.\"\n\n[--California Governor Peter Burnett, 1851](_URL_16_)\n\n > \". . .these Indians will in the end be exterminated. They must soon be crushed - they will be exterminated before the onward march of the white man.\"\n\n[--U.S. Senator John Weller, 1852, page 17, citation 92](_URL_15_)\n\n##Physical Element: Acting with Purpose\n\n**U.S. Army Policy of Killing Buffalo (Criterion C)**\n\n[In this post,](_URL_3_) it is explained how it was the intention and policy of the U.S. Army to kill the buffalo of America off in an attempt to subdue, and even exterminate, the Plains Indians.\n\n**Sterilization (Criterion D)**\n\nThe Indian Health Service (IHS) is a federally run service for American Indians and Alaska Natives. It is responsible for providing proper health care for American Indians as established via the treaties and trust relationship between tribes and the U.S. Government. However, on November 6, 1976, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released the results of an investigation that concluded that [between 1973 and 1976, IHS performed 3,406 sterilizations on Native American women.](_URL_4_) Per capita, this figure would be equivalent to sterilizing 452,000 non-Native American women. Many of these sterilizations were conducted without the consent of the women being sterilized or under coercion.\n\n**Boarding Schools (Criterion E)**\n\nThe systematic removal of Indian children from their parents and placement into boarding schools was a policy implemented by the United States meant to [force American Indian children to assimilate into American culture,]( _URL_12_) thus “[killing] the Indian, [and saving] the man.” These schools were operated by various entities, including the federal government and church/missionary organizations. While constituting cultural genocide as well, American Indian children were beaten, neglected, and barred from practicing their cultures. Some children even died at these schools.\n\n##But What About the Diseases?\n\nIn the United States, a subtle state of denial exists regarding portions of this country's history. One of the biggest issues concerning the colonization of the Americas is whether or not this genocide was committed by the incoming colonists. And while the finer points of this subject are still being discussed, few academics would deny that acts of genocide were committed. However, there are those who vehemently attempt to refute conclusions made by experts and assert that no genocide occurred. These [“methods of denialism”](_URL_0_) are important to recognize to avoid being manipulated by those who would see the historical narratives change for the worse.\n\nOne of the primary methods of denial is the over severity of diseases introduced into the Americas after the arrival of the colonizers, effectively turning these diseases into ethopoeic scapegoats responsible for the deaths of Indigenous Peoples. While it is true that disease was a huge component of the depopulation of the Americas, often resulting in up to a 95% mortality rate for many communities and meaning *some* communities endured more deaths from disease, these effects were greatly exacerbated by actions of colonization.\n\n##Further Reading\n\nThough there is much information about this topic, this introductory list of books and resources provide ample evidence to attest the information presented here:\n\n* [*Beyond Germs: Native Depopulation in North America* edited by Catherine Cameron, Paul Kelton, and Alan Swedlund](_URL_1_)\n* [*American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492* by Russell Thornton](_URL_13_)\n* [*Murder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846-1873* by Brendan Lindsay](_URL_5_)\n* [*Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur* by Ben Kiernan](_URL_8_)\n* [*American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World* by David Stannard](_URL_10_)\n* [*Myths of Conquest*](_URL_14_) by /u/anthropology_nerd\n* [AskHistorians FAQ](_URL_11_)" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://redd.it/6kywre", "https://books.google.com/books/about/Beyond_Germs.html?id=yUw-rgEACAAJ", "https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-3", "https://redd.it/4j42ag", "https://cbhd.org/content/forced-sterilization-native-americans-late-twentieth-century-physician-cooperation-national-", "https://books.google.com/books/about/Murder_State.html?id=TfiD-E7VBKYC", "https://redd.it/6mg3j3", "https://www.loc.gov/resource/mtj1.047_0147_0150/?sp=3", "https://books.google.com/books/about/Blood_and_Soil.html?id=XR91bs70jukC", "https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%2078/volume-78-I-1021-English.pdf", "https://books.google.com/books/about/American_Holocaust.html?id=RzFsODcGjfcC", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/nativeamerican#wiki_european_contact_and_conquest", "https://redd.it/8zgozt", "https://books.google.com/books/about/American_Indian_Holocaust_and_Survival.html?id=9iQYSQ9y60MC", "https://redd.it/2vf565", "http://digitalcommons.law.utulsa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2654&amp;context=tlr", "http://governors.library.ca.gov/addresses/s_01-Burnett2.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dpwr6u9", "dpwscfk", "dpwxvvp" ], "score": [ 29, 20, 16 ], "text": [ "From the Japanese side of things... \n\nJapanese plans for combat in the Dutch East Indies Operation classified enemy naval threat potential in their September 1941 report to the Emperor as follows: \n\nUS Asiatic Fleet: 4 Carriers, 2 Cruisers, 14 Destroyers, 17 Submarines \nUS Pacific Fleet: 7 Carriers, 7 Battleships, 18 Cruisers, 46 Destroyers, 28 Submarines \nDutch East Indies: 5 Cruisers, 8 Destroyers, 19 Submarines \nBritish China and East Indies Fleets: 2 Carriers, 2 Battleships, 27 Cruisers, 15-16 Destroyers, and 1 Submarine \n\nIt should be noted that the count of aircraft carriers includes things like seaplane tenders such as USS Langley, so this analysis somewhat overstated the threat. \n\nThis analysis was fairly accurate with regards to the US Asiatic Fleet, although it understated the US Submarine threat somewhat. \n\nJapanese anticipated countermeasures were to launch strikes on Davao and the Cavite Navy Yard in order to knock out as much of the Asiatic Fleet as possible. However as the main carrier strike force (The First Air Fleet) was planned for the Pearl Harbor attack, these attacks were made primarily by aircraft from Taiwan as well as some naval aviation (Davao was struck by aircraft from the light aircraft carrier Ryuujo). However these attacks did relatively light damage. Only one ship was in Davao at the time and it was able to escape. The raid on Cavite Naval Yard did manage to destroy a good amount of the US submarine torpedoes in storage, as well as sinking the submarine Sealion, but for the most part the Asiatic Fleet at this time was relatively intact. However the fact that they had lost many of their torpedoes combined with poor commander ability (on top of the fact that the contemporary US torpedoes had a high dud rate) resulted in ineffectual US submarine operations in the early stages of the war. \n\nThe air raids did show however that the operating bases of the US Asiatic Fleet were vulnerable to air raids that were thought to be out of operating range. In fact they were, most of the aircraft had only gotten to this point by stripping them bare and equipping them with auxiliary fuel tanks in order to extend their range. As a result the Asiatic Fleet withdrew towards Australia, aside from some of the surface ships which redeployed to the Dutch East Indies to join an Anglo-Dutch force that would later participate in the Battle of the Java Sea. During this withdrawal many ships came under Japanese attack and some were sunk or forced to be scuttled by damage. \n\nThe combined force of British, Dutch, and American ships (or ABDA, American-British-Dutch-Australia) was quite a strong surface component, but it suffered several major issues. The Dutch commander was relatively new to the position as the previous commander (who spoke English fluently and worked closely with the Royal Navy) had been killed in a plane crash shortly before the war. The Americans for their part were not as integrated as the British and Dutch were, either, and as such this large force of 5 cruisers and 9 destroyers suffered from serious coordination issues that would prove to be their downfall. \n\nThe Japanese had been keeping track of the operations of the ABDA fleet for some time, as this \"strong surface group\" was inhibiting the invasion of their primary objective of Java. Army aircraft had more or less destroyed the Allied air presence in the area (though the Dutch fought back quite hard) and so the Japanese were able to keep note that there were a good amount of cruisers and destroyers in Batavia's port. However the Japanese were also on a very tight invasion timetable and so their invasion convoy and escorts frittered around back and forth until the decision was made to draw the Allied fleet into battle using the convoy essentially as bait. This almost led to disaster as the heavy cruisers that constituted most of the Japanese surface firepower were separated from the convoy and nearly were out of range to participate in the battle. However Allied vacilation, presumably due to either poor coordination or fear of naval air strikes caused them to delay their advance and allowed the Japanese to consolidate their forces. \n\nWhile Japanese ships suffered from worse gunnery than Allied ships, they were equipped with the Long Lance torpedo. Japanese plans were to dash close to the Allied ships and release a torpedo volley to minimize the Allied gunfire advantage. In reality, the Japanese torpedoes were extremely inaccurate, scoring one hit from a volley of over 90 torpedoes. However the significant Japanese resistance, combined with the presence of mines (which also claimed a British destroyer), allowed the escort fleet to protect the convoy from attack, until the heavier ships arrived and in an long engagement managed to sink two Dutch light cruisers. \n\nHowever most of the remaining Allied ships, including most of the American ships, had managed to escape. However with the fleet in disorder it was unable to offer much effective resistance. Two cruisers, the USS Houston and HMS Perth, ran into a surprised Japanese convoy in the process of unloading, but failed to deal significant damage, most Japanese losses probably being caused by panicked destroyers firing torpedoes. A good amount of other ships, such as the USS Pope and USS Langley, were sunk by air attack ~~in their escape to Australia~~. 4 destroyers did manage to make it back, but for all intents and purposes the Allied naval force in the Dutch East Indies had been destroyed. \n\nSources: \n\nThe Invasion of the Dutch East Indies, National Defense College of Japan \n\nJapanese Destroyer Captain, Tameichi Hara", "Many of the surface ships of the US Asiatic Fleet were destroyed by superior Japanese air and sea power in a series of battles in the Dutch East Indies (DEI, now Indonesia), along with British, Dutch and Australian ships in the region. The Asiatic Fleet became a significant part of the multinational ABDACom (American, British, Dutch, Australian Command), which was tasked with defending the 'Malay Barrier', a notional defence line running down the Malay peninsula, and through Sumatra and Java to Australia.\n\nThe Asiatic Fleet's commander was Admiral Thomas Hart. Hart's main surface combat power was embodied by its two cruisers, the heavy cruiser *Houston* and light cruiser *Marblehead*. They were supported by thirteen old *Clemson* class destroyers. It also had a significant non-combatant force, with four seaplane tenders (including the *Langley*, converted to a seaplane tender from the USN's first carrier), six minesweepers, two oilers and a destroyer tender. It also had five gunboats and a number of PT boats for protecting the Philippine coast. The Asiatic Fleet also had 29 submarines and three submarine tenders, though few of these were lost. \n\nAt the start of the war, much of the Asiatic Fleet had been dispersed to bases around the Philippines and DEI. Hart wished to protect his links to British and Dutch forces in the area, in the event of a surprise attack. With the declaration of war and Japanese invasion of the Philippines, Hart's force withdrew to link up with British and Dutch naval forces. The forces that would become ABDA faced little challenge in December 1941 and early January 1942 - the Japanese were invading the northern coast of Borneo, outside their defensive perimeter. With this conquest complete, the IJN began operations against the eastern coast of the island, capturing the airfield and oil field at Tarakan on the 11th January 1942. ABDA was formed shortly afterwards, though discussions had been ongoing since the start of the war. Allowing the Japanese to capture any bases closer to Java than Tarakan would allow them to base aircraft within range of Java, effectively neutralising ABDA's fleet. To this end, four American destroyers were dispatched to intervene in the Japanese invasion of Balikpapan on the 24th January. The destroyers, aided by Japanese confusion over a possible submarine attack, engaged the transports, sinking four and a patrol boat. However, they failed to prevent the Japanese from landing troops. This limited success encouraged further action. \n\nOn the 1st of February, air reconnaissance of Balikpapan Harbour indicated that the Japanese were gathering ships and troops for a further invasion. In this case, the target was the town of Makassar on the island of Celebes. ABDA, under the command of the Dutch admiral Karel Doorman, sortied in strength to engage this force. Four cruisers (two Dutch and the two American cruisers) and seven destroyers sailed on the 3rd February, hoping to carry out a night attack on the invasion force. This required them to transit in daytime, a risk when travelling through waters covered by Japanese aircraft. On the 3rd, the fleet was sighted by Japanese aircraft, but not attacked. The next day, they were attacked by Japanese bombers. *Marblehead* took two hits and one near miss, heavily damaging her. *Houston* took one hit, knocking out her after Y turret. The Allied fleet withdrew to cover the damaged ships, which returned to Java for repairs. Neither ship would be fully repairable on the island - *Marblehead* was withdrawn to the US through the Indian Ocean, while *Houston* remained in service, albeit with only six of her nine guns active.\n\nThe next battle came on the night of the 19th-20th February, following Japanese landings on Bali. The invasion convoy had been attacked by Allied aircraft, with a single transport damaged; as a result, it began to withdraw back to the north. ABDA had been caught unawares by the landings, so the naval attack was more piecemeal. Two separate groups attacked the invasion force in the Bandung Strait. The first, with the Dutch cruisers *De Ruyter* and *Java*, two American destroyers and one Dutch destroyer, did little damage. The Allied ships had little experience or training in night-fighting, while the Japanese had carried out much more training in in pre-war. The Japanese used this experience to score a torpedo hit on the Dutch destroyer *Piet Hein*, sinking her. The next force to engage had the Dutch cruiser *Tromp* and four USN destroyers. They did slightly more damage, damaging three destroyers, but Japanese gunfire heavily damaged *Tromp* and the destroyer *Stewart*.\n\nWhile this is mostly focused on the battles taking place during early 1942, there were also a number of Japanese attacks against Allied shipping routes during this period. On the 19th February, four Japanese carriers carried out a massive bombing raid on the Australian port of Darwin. The destroyer *Peary*, part of the Asiatic Fleet, was sunk during this attack. On the 27th February, *Langley* was part of a convoy shipping P-40 fighters to Java. This came under attack by Japanese bombers, with *Langley* taking multiple hits and ultimately sinking. The oiler *Pecos*, also part of this convoy, would be sunk by aircraft from the carrier *Soryu* on the 1st March. \n\nAt the same time as *Langley* was sinking, the climactic battle for ABDA was taking place. The Japanese had been gathering forces to land on Java, with its major naval bases. Losing the island would spell the end for the Allied defence of the Malay barrier. ABDA gathered its strength, and, on the 27th, attempted to strike against Japanese invasion convoys in the Java Sea. ABDA had two heavy cruisers (*Houston* and the British *Exeter*), three light cruisers (*De Ruyter*, *Java* and the Australian *Perth*), and nine destroyers (three British, four American and two Dutch). The battle was a confused whirl of attacks by the ABDA forces, hoping to break through the Japanese escorts to the invasion convoys. During the first engagement, *Exeter* took a shell hit to one of her boiler rooms, crippling her, while no damage was done to the Japanese fleet. The Japanese followed this up with a massive torpedo attack, sinking the Dutch destroyer *Kortenaer*. In an attempt to cover *Exeter*'s retreat, the British destroyer *Electra* engaged a Japanese light cruiser and destroyer, successfully buying time and damaging the destroyer, but at the cost of the ship herself. The four American destroyers laid a smokescreen and made a torpedo attack to cover the withdrawal of the rest of the fleet. This had little effect, as did Japanese fire on them. Following this, the destroyers withdrew to the port of Surabaya. At 9:25 pm, the British destroyer *Jupiter* was sunk by a mine, while *Encounter* was dispatched to rescue survivors. Shortly afterwards, the remainder of the ABDA force, now just four cruisers, reengaged the Japanese force in a night engagement. The two Dutch cruisers were sunk by torpedo hits, while *Perth* and *Houston* survived to withdraw. In the next few days, there were two more battles as the remaining Allied ships attempted to flee from Java following the Japanese invasion. *Perth* and *Houston* were sunk in a night action in the Sunda Strait on the 1st March (in which two Japanese ships were sunk by friendly fire). *Exeter* and *Encounter* were sunk by Japanese surface ships in the Java Sea in the morning of the 1st March, while the American destroyer *Pope*, accompanying them, escaped but was sunk by aircraft a few hours later. The destroyers *Pillsbury* and *Edsall*, and the gunboat *Asheville* encountered a strong Japanese surface force in the Java Sea at about the same time, with all three being sunk. *Stewart* was scuttled on Java, as she had not been sufficiently repaired from the damage she had sustained in the Bandung Strait. She would later be salvaged by the Japanese, and operated as a patrol boat, PB-102\n\nSome of the Asiatic Fleet ships had remained in the Philippines to support the Army's operations or submarine operations there. Many of these ships were scuttled or sunk by Japanese aircraft during the final stages of the battles in the Philippines. While none of them really represented a significant part of Asiatic Fleet's combat strength, they were numerous. Six PT boats, four minesweepers, three gunboats, a tug and the submarine tender *Canopus* were lost in the Philippines. ", "As you've gotten by and large a great rundown of the actual events I wanted to just spend a bit of time laying out the context. And how while not as successful as hoped, the Asiatic Fleet actually did what it was expected to do, sell itself as dearly as possible and serve as a speed bump to slow Japanese advances. \n\nBy 1941 USN war plans envisioned no speedy relief for forward positions like Wake, Guam, or the Philippines. The fleet would need months to mobilize, induct reservists, bring all available ships up to strength, and concentrate into a useful force. Until that happened, maybe as long as 6 months, the main body was not expected to go much past Hawaii or certainly beyond the date line. Only initially limited actions such as a raid on the Mandate islands were pictured. In order to shake off the rust, test the fleet, keep morale up, and prick Japan. But the requisite fleet train and amphibious capabilities couldn't be conjured overnight.\n\nAnd while earlier versions of War Plan ORANGE had envisioned a faster relief, early establishment of a forward anchorage in the Philippines and fighting the war from there forward, such ideas were accepted as unworkable by 1941. As by then Pacific strategy also had to fit into the global 'Germany First' context. And while some versions of the plan suggested a Flying Column of faster ships including a carrier perhaps, could be sent to the area by way of Australia this too was given up on despite encouragement by the British on this front.\n\nSo the idea, despite different understandings across branches, was that the island bases should be fortified to defend themselves as long as possible now that war appeared imminent and arms build ups in full force. They might survive until relief or evacuation as the fighting evolved, or at least buy more time.\n\nWhile this is reflected in the assets allocated to the Asiatic Fleet. A few divisions of old flush deck destroyers of WW1 vintage. While the Clemson class gave reliable service in many roles they were simply outgunned by more modern designs. But the USN had over 120 of them still and could afford to trade them to Britain, or use for backwater posts and guard ships along with numerous conversions. Similar story with the multiple older submarines present. Same story with the fleet train, older tenders, slower replenishment ships, and converted craft like the mentioned Langley. While older designs were in service everywhere, more important bases and formations we're seeing newer and more efficient classes enter service as part of the build up.\n\nWhile the teeth if the force, or at least what they had, was in the handful of cruisers. And even here it isn't much, the fleet regularly rotating out one or two of the early generation Treaty compliant Heavy Cruises which were fine but not all together happy compromise designs as the main surface assets and flagship. A cruiser would be refit in California, come out to the Far East, cruise around showing the flag for maybe 2 years then be relieved by the next one. While the Houston's partner in the light cruiser Marblehead was an even older Omaha class from the 20s. The first US attempt at a modern cruiser, they were cramped, inefficient, over stressed design with a poor gun layout to boot. By 1941 they were used for backwaters, secondary tasks, or leading destroyer formations to host the additional staff, but were very much a step or more behind their newer cousins.\n\nThe USN didn't expect much of the force besides slowing down the IJN some, hopefully in conjunction with allies, maybe for so long relief might arrive or the war would end. But it was there mostly to show the flag and presence while supporting local security in peacetime, and was outfitted accordingly." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6os368", "c6osfnp", "c6osw53", "c6ot0bg", "c6ot0fw", "c6ot0ru", "c6otd62", "c6otdfx", "c6otk39", "c6ou09c", "c6ou0kp", "c6oub0z", "c6oumy6", "c6p0faj", "c6p0fwf", "c6p0vj7" ], "score": [ 39, 16, 36, 272, 4, 15, 2, 11, 172, 6, 4, 16, 3, 3, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "They were used very early on the in first world war by the French Army, so I've heard.", "If I recall correctly, Russia was still using them in 1905 during the Russo-Japanese war.", "yea i recall hearing of the french doing it at the very beginning of WW1 in bright blue uniforms. then they found out the germans had machine guns and it didnt go so well", "I know this isn't precisely what you meant, but riot police regularly use line infantry tactics, including everyone's favorite, the charge.", "I'm not sure what would be the last war exactly, but it was still considered effective until the machine gun became prominent. ", "This isn't infantry, but I read once of an incident near the end of World War II where an American tank commander, for shits and giggles, lined up his tanks against the Germans and ordered an old-style charge.", "This probably isn't entirely true, but I remember my high school history teacher saying that Pickett's Charge was the last large scale infantry assault in which the soldier's actually stood in ranks. ", "The line is a basic infantry tactic which is sometimes still relevant. With intra-team radios, long range fires from light weaponry and blue force trackers, the individuals in the line might nowadays even be out of visual and shouting range - but the best way to screen the widest front possible for a given force is still a line.", "The British Army launched an old-style bayonet charge against Argentinian forces in the Falklands, [and again in Iraq in 2004](_URL_0_).\n\n\"Human wave\" attacks were used extensively during the Iran-Iraq War. Iran's army had masses of ill-trained conscripts, led by inexperienced NCOs with poor lines of communication to strategic leaders motivated by nationalist and religious fervor. Ideal situation for this tactic's use. \n\nFrom a [New Yorker article](_URL_1_):\n\n\"During the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, fervent Basijis volunteered to serve on the front lines. For a time, very young Basijis were encouraged to offer themselves for martyrdom by clearing minefields with their bodies in what became known as “human waves”—literally walking to their deaths en masse so that more experienced soldiers could advance against the enemy. An Iranian friend of mine who is a war veteran described the Basiji boy martyrs as having played a tragic but significant role in the war, by providing Iran with a “flesh wall” against Saddam Hussein’s vastly superior Western-supplied military technology.\n\nI believe they also figured in the recent Ethiopia-Eritrea War, but I'm much less sure of that.", "Do you mean line infantry as far as *in formation*, as in the revolutionary war walking in line towards another group of guys walking in a line? Because today the infantry tactics are in a nutshell: walk around until you take contact, *get on line* facing said contact, achieve fire superiority and fix the enemy then either call in indirect or flank. You're still in a line but the line is irregular, forming to the terrain. ", "Not EXACTLY what you're looking for, but the Anglo-Boer War showed how future wars should have been fought. The defensive had a very strong advantage and both sides had figured out how to fight the new style of warfare, with trenches and machine gun emplacements and everything. But for some reason, the British generals as a whole didn't learn from this experience and tried to fight an offensive war of maneuver in WWI for the first few months.\n\nI have a tenuous grasp on this period of history, part of what I said might be wrong.", "If you want to get all technical the last time a battle had a complete battle line of inantry on both apposing sides flank to flank was the [Battle of Pea Ridge](_URL_0_) Arkansas 1862, it was actually the only battle in the entire US civil war that deployed a complete battle line on both sides. I visited the battle site a few weeks ago, it's the most well preserved Civil war site in the USA, well worth the vist.", "Sega is listening to these comments. New York: Total Riot", "Although line tactics have been used many times since, they probably started going obsolete around 1870 at the Battle of Sedan. This was the first major battle in which barrel loading guns were replaced with breach loading rifles, which meant troops could reload their weapons while hiding behind cover.", "A British soldier recently got a medal for instructing his men to perform a bayonet charge against Taliban insurgents.", "The American Civil War brought the reality of line formations and rifles home in the U.S., and even before the end of the conflict, troops began fortifying positions in a way that was more like the trench warfare of WW1 than the Napoleonic tactics that dominated the start of the conflict.\n\nIn Europe, line infantry tactics continued to be used throughout the 19th century, right up to the Greco-Turkish war in 1897." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0bd_1249524865", "http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2009/06/jon-lee-anderson-understanding-the-basij.html#ixzz29kxEMxnc" ], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pea_Ridge" ], [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cvc8qsg" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Hungary was occupied by German forces in March 1944 after trying to arrange an armistice with the Allies, which was more than a year before the end of the war. So, if your grandfather had been captured during that occupation, he could definitely have been a prisoner for six months or even longer.\n\nDo you know where he was captured?" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d97o081" ], "score": [ 14 ], "text": [ "So, it's a good question and it's a little complicated but not too much.\n\nFirstly, there are small indications that Christians in the New Testament period (the mid to late 1st century AD), met on the 'first day of the week'. This can be seen in Acts 20:7 and 1 Cor 16:2, for instance. This reflected the belief that Jesus rose from the dead on the first day, i.e. Sunday (because Saturday is the Sabbath and it's the 7th day). You see this day referred to in Revelation 1:10 as 'the Lord's Day', which became a common designation for it.\n\nChristians appear to have met regularly on the Sunday then, from early on. In Jerusalem, there's some debate about whether Jewish-background believers continued to observe temple gatherings and practices or not, but if they did, then meeting separately on the Sunday as messianic followers would also make sense.\n\nEarly 2nd century, you have Pliny the Younger's Letter to Trajan (*Epistulae* X.96), he makes mention that Christians gather on a certain day of the week, before dawn, to worship. There's no reason to think this isn't Sunday. Justin Martyr, in his First Apology, ch 67, makes clear that Christians gather on a Sunday.\n\nSo Sunday *worship* begins early. But it's (a) not a day of rest, because most of these believers would need to work, and especially those who are slaves have no liberty about when to observe a Sabbath, and (b) the early church didn't develop a theology that equated Sunday as the 'new Sabbath' and a day of rest.\n\nSunday did become a day of rest though, in 321. Constantine legislated that it would be a day of rest through an edict, recorded in Codex Justinianus 3, 12, 3. Here it is in the freely available Schaff translation:\n\n > On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for grain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost\n\nThis started the general shift towards Sunday as the day of rest for Christians, but I can't answer definitively when this became associated with a theologising of Sunday as 'the Sabbath', or reinterpreting the Old Testament Sabbath in light of Sunday as rest day. I presume it is a medieval development, and it's clearly the case in Thomas Aquinas. But medieval theology is not my specialty.\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dc166zh", "dc1876y" ], "score": [ 36, 8 ], "text": [ " > Why is that? \n\nThe Sahara.\n\nWithout long-range navigation maintaining an empire across the sahara would be forbiddingly difficult, without even considering the difficulty of conquest: you'd have to bring an army through ~2000km of desert, with few resources you didn't bring with you (none if you couldn't get the saharan nomads on your side) and on the other side you'd reach settled lands unlikely to appreciate your incursion.\n\nIt was much simpler and cheaper to control and protect the trade routes between sub-saharan africa and the mediterranean, doing that was part and parcel of Phoenician and Carthaginian rise, Rome did that afterwards (mostly through Legio III Augusta).", "As well as the desert, one of the barriers to expansion by invaders into sub-Saharan was disease. There is a theory (and I can't for the life of me find a link to it online, and would be eternally grateful to someone who could provide it) that sleeping sickness acted as a barrier to the Muslim conquests extending beyond the Sahel, due to the fact it killed off their horses. \n\nEdit: Apparently it can be found in Eliza Griswold's *The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam*" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eputa3a" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Hi there! Unfortunately, we do not allow example seeking questions in this subreddit. If you have a specific question about the history of a nation or geographical region, feel free to submit a new question." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ei78dmu" ], "score": [ 18 ], "text": [ "The Dutch didn't monopolize global trade. The biggest part of the wealth was coming from the Baltic Sea trade. Which was lucerative but reasonably close to the Dutch Republic. As such it doesn't really speak to the imagination as much as the voyages to the East Indies do. \n\nNow to answer your question of how the Dutch got into the position to dominate the trade from the Baltics and Indonesia. It was a set of lucky circumstances and clever financial systems that got them there.\n\nDuring the Eighty Years war the united low countries saw themselves in conflict with both present day Spain and Portugal. Portugal at the time had a monopoly on the trade in the East Indies. This was a very profitable endevour and competing for that trade would both increase the wealth of the Low countries as well as hurt the enemies ability to wage war due to lost revenue. The problem was nobody besides the Portuguese really knew how to get there. \n\nThis changed when Jan Huygen van Lindschoten published his book *Itinerario* which thorougly explained the voyage. In Dutch secondary schools we teach he \"stole the maps\" to the West indies. Maps at the time were more like books explaining the voyage in great detail. \"Embark there and retrieve fresh water. Watch out for the coral reefs there and there\" Make sure to hunt seals when you arrive at .... etc\" Now it was finally possible to contest the West Indies and their riches. The Spice Wars began which is really just a part of the Eighty Years War in my mind. \n\nDuring the Spice Wars the Dutch were largely succesful in driving back the Portuguese from the East Indies. Please note that this isn't the era of total colonial domination yet. The wars were fought for a few fortified positions in Dutch: *factorijen*. From which the spices were collected and guarded for the next arrival of ships to take them back to Europe. \n\nA big part of the succes of the Dutch Republic lies somewhere else however. The Republic enjoyed a population with a large amount of capital waiting to be spend. Partly because of the blockade of the Schelde river. Bruges (edit: This should've been antwerp. Bruge was already on the decline at that point). was one of the most important trade cities in medieval times. Actually Flanders as a whole was a very rich region in medieval times. This region was however, entirely dependent on the Schelde river to export their textile goods. When the river was blockaded by Dutch forces many rich, experienced craftsman and merchants were incentivized to set up shop in cities in the Dutch Republic. This proved to be an important economic boon for the Republic. Another part of the exodus of present day Belgians to the Dutch Republic was because of the relative religious freedom in the Dutch Republic. \n\nThis however didn't just hold true for Belgians. The Holy Roman Empire was being torn apart by the Thirty Years War. French Hugenots were hunted down in France when the Edict of Nantes was repealed and England was tormented by religious wars. Many religious minorities fled to the safety of the Dutch Republic providing additional manpower and wealth. Often these refugees were rich, skilled people. \n\nNow these were all factors for the succes of the Republic. Another big part, perhaps event he biggest part, of their succes in trade lies in this: naval wars aren't won through superior manpower. They are won through superior finances. And we just learned why the Dutch Republic was so rich in the first place. \n\nFarmers in the Dutch Republic had the luxury of mainly growing cash crops. The Baltic Sea trade provided the Dutch republic with more grain than they had mouths to feed. This trade in grain and other bulk goods from Eastern Europe through the Baltic Sea was actually so important it was called the *moedernegotie*. In English it would translate in to something to the lines of Mother of all trades. \n\nSucces in the Baltic Sea trade relied on the Fluitschip. You see each ship navigating to and out of the Baltic sea must pass the Kattegat. It was there that the Danish king levied tolls on each passing ship. The price of the toll was calculated on the size of the deck of the ship. Fluitschepen (fluteships) had a small deck but very large storage capacity beneath. This enabled Dutch merchants to haul vast amounts of resources for relatively low tolls. The production process of these ships was also very efficient and almost industrial through the use of mechanized labour in the form of windmills. \n\nAs said before naval battles rely mainly on money. Outfitting ships is very costly. In order to spread the risks of a failed trade expedition the Dutch Republic set up Compagniën (this is were the English word company comes from). You could pitch in a small amount of money to outfit a ship. The ship would make its voyage and, if succesful, you would receive your part of the profits based on the amount of money you pitched in. From there it is only a small step to a stock exchange as you are basically buying stocks from a ship and receiving dividend when the ship is back in port. \n\nNow due to all these factors the Dutch provinces became their own biggest rivals in the overseas trade. As rich cities all had their own Compagnie. They were hauling so much spices that prices began to plummet. In order to keep prices artificially (edit2: ~~low~~ high) the Dutch Republic created the VoC. Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Literally translated: United East indies Company). Which had a monopoly on all voyages to the East Indies. Less voyages means less spices means higher prices and more profits. The VoC was practically a state within a state. They were allowed to declare their own wars in East Asia. Set up their own governers, laws, make trade deals with local rulers etc. Quickly the VoC became very powerful. \n\nThe West Indian Company (WiC) was founded with the same aims for the West Indies. They didn't have nearly as much succes as their eastern counterpart. The aims of the WiC were mainly to disrupt the flow of goods from the Spanish colonies to the Spanish mainland. They also were a player in the slavetrade, but a rather small player compared to the Spanish and Portuguese. As such I will not go into great detail. \n\nThe decline started when and this is going to sound rather crude, other nations got their shit together. The French and mainly the English were, with their much larger populations, always predisposed to take the crown of the Dutch Republic. It was a series of fortunate events that led to their Golden Age. But once the religious turmoil died down in Europe and French and English got a sense of the money that was being made by the Dutch trade practises, it was a matter of time before they copied what made the Dutch succesful and won through economies of scale. \n\nThis has become quite a rambling and while I am absolutely sure that all of this is factually correct I might have made some errors in the chronology. So I hope this is an acceptible answer and if someone more knowledgable than me can expand that'd be great. \n\n\n\n\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7714tm", "c7746ml" ], "score": [ 3, 8 ], "text": [ "I can field an answer on this one but it will have to wait until I get back home - at the moment lawyer stuff is taking precedence over reddit :(\n\nSend me a message if you have not received a response by 8 pm ET.", "There are many overlapping policy objectives behind antitrust legislation, but there are certain maxims you should keep in mind that will help answer your question:\n\n* Antitrust laws are designed to prevent harms to *competition,* not harms to *competitors.*\n\n* Antitrust laws are designed to punish *exploitative conduct* that results in violative market structures (essentially any kind of \"-opoly\" that has effective market power) - but becoming a dominant market power simply because of a superior product, better business acumen, or dumb luck, is not itself illegal. It is more about *how* you get the power, and how you use the power once you have it, than it is about merely *that* you have the power.\n\n* Business arrangements that are merely harmful to consumers are not necessarily violations of antitrust doctrines.\n\nSo, lets start with Standard Oil. The money line you want from this case (Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, 221 US 1, 31 S.Ct. 502, 55 L.Ed. 619) is:\n\"Because the unification of power and control over petroleum and\nits products which was the inevitable result of the combining in the New\nJersey corporation by the increase of its stock and the transfer to it of the stocks of so many other corporations, aggregating so vast a capital, gives rise, in and of itself, in the absence of countervailing circumstances, to say the least, to the prima facie presumption of intent and purpose to maintain the dominancy over the oil industry not as a result of normal methods of industrial development, but by new means of combination which were resorted to in order that greater power might be added than would otherwise have arisen had normal methods been followed, the whole with the purpose of excluding others from the trade and thus centralizing in the combination a perpetual control of the movements of petroleum and its products in the channels of interstate commerce.\" (at 9)\n\nSo the court was not particularly bothered by the fact that Standard Oil was good at what it did or that it had succeeded wildly in dominating the petroleum industry. What bothered them was that because of their unique market position, they were able to engage in *irregular industry practices* that parlayed the sheer size of Standard Oil into unfair market multipliers on the value of the stock it was throwing around. And more importantly, that the purpose of so doing had *nothing* to do with doing good business and doing what oil companies to do, it was strictly about *excluding potential newcomers to the market.* They weren't just harming *competitors,* they were harming *competition.*\n\nAT & T is another great example you mention. United States v. AT & T 552 F.Supp. 131 (DDC 1982) involved a similar principle that also worked against Delta Airlines in a landmark case in the 1980s (I'll cite to the case if you need it). In the AT & T case, again the problem was *not* AT & T's mere size, it was the way it was using it. AT & T was large enough that it could meaningfully measure different profit margins in different regions of the country among its various subsidiaries, for example its Western Electric profits were quite high, but it was facing growing competition for generalized network access. So, rather than compete at fair market value for generalized network access, it took the profits from Western Electric and used them to subsidize generalized network access to offer it at basically below fair market value. Delta Airlines was doing a similar thing: it was able to sell airline tickets *at a loss* at one of its major midwestern transit hubs because it could make up the losses it incurred from the lower prices from its other major hubs and in the mean time sell tickets so cheaply that they'd ruin smaller competitors around the \"subsidized\" hub. The problem wasn't that competitors were hurt, it was that *competition* was hurt: nobody could possibly compete with AT & T or Delta because they were able to parlay their gargantuan global economies into localized distortions of markets that would keep smaller competitors from ever being direct threats.\n\nThe Microsoft case was pretty different. It was a matter of \"tying,\" which is when the provider of a service or good requires the purchaser to also buy or use another product in order to get the original good. This is usually legal, if done properly, and the legal analysis of when tying is improper is pretty complicated (again, please just let me know if you want the details on this point, I'm just not going to clutter up the comments section with quotes from the federal antitrust practice guide), but long story short, Microsoft wasn't being punished for being a certain size, it was punished because it was unfairly using its size to push out competitors relating to GUIs.\n\nLike Microsoft, Standard Oil, and AT & T, Ford was good at what he did. He made a good product at prices people liked. But he did it above the board. Ford's business achieved what it did because of business acumen, an uncrowded (at the time) market, good use of opportunities, he had the good fortune of getting into the industry when major technological and industrial changes made his particular business a lot easier and cheaper... but he did it fair and square. He was lucky, smart, and born at the right time. He didn't do anything *wrong,* he just did lots of things *well* and some things with good luck.\n\nHope that helps.\n\nEDIT: Spelling." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c4uacxa", "c4ub4vo", "c4uei7t" ], "score": [ 2, 7, 3 ], "text": [ "It's a Soviet \"Side Hat\". The large crest in the middle denotes armored troops (obviously).\n\nThe Square one with 1945-???? is probably a \"Great Patriotic War\" anniversary pin.\n\nThe Round one with the Red Star is a \"Cockade\", that I believe was meant for Flat Caps (think police hat), for a commissioned officer.\n\nThe octagonal is an \"Industry Pin\" celebrating an area of Soviet Industry at the \"All-Soviet Exposition\".\n\n", "On the first picture, top left corner says \"Pyatigorsk\" this is a [town in south-west Russia](_URL_1_), below that is a pin for the [Baikal-Amur Mainline](_URL_0_), a rail line running across Russia. To the right of that pin is one for a Театр Кукол (Puppet Theater), to the right of that one says \"54th Festival of the North Murmansk 1988\" these are a sort of mini winter Olympics held each year in Murmansk. Above that the pin says \"Pobyeda\" which means Victory. The final badge with writing is a pin for \"Work Without Crashing II\" apparently given to drivers who made it over 300,000 kilometers without having an accident. \n\nOn the other side, this picture is too blurry to make out anything except for the large middle patch that says \"Russian Armed Forces\", and the one to the right of that which says [Kizhi](_URL_2_) an island town famous for its church.", "This looks a lot like the souvenir hats they sell over there. They basically take a surplus hat, throw whatever pins and patches they have around, then sell it for a few hundred rubles. If you want I can send a picture of mine for comparison." ] }

[]

[ "http://imgur.com/a/Mrbsf" ]

[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal-Amur_Mainline", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyatigorsk", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizhi" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c4nlw48", "c4noqei" ], "score": [ 72, 3 ], "text": [ " > What prevented them from achieving victory? What caused the trench war and was there any way for them to stop it from happening?\n\nThese are questions that have been addressed a number of times here before. Here are some links to check out:\n\n- [On infantry tactics in trench warfare](_URL_3_)\n- [On communication limitations in infantry combat during this period](_URL_0_)\n- [On shell-shock and other WWI infantry matters](_URL_2_)\n- [Loads of stuff on WWI warfare](_URL_1_)\n\nAs to your broader question:\n\nThe Central Powers were within a hairsbreadth of \"winning\" on a number of occasions, and there was nothing especially arcane that prevented them from doing so. Here are three that are especially worthy of note.\n\n- During Germany's initial invasion of Belgium and France in 1914, the successful execution of the Schlieffen-Moltke Plan would very likely have produced the victory it was designed to secure. This plan - first divised by the tactician Count Alfred von Schlieffen and later modified by Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke (the younger) - would have seen the swift conquest of France through the deployment of token forces to halt the expected French resistance at Alsace-Lorraine, with the bulk of the German army entering France from the north through Belgium before swinging down the coast and encircling Paris before anything much in the way of effective resistance could be mounted. The plan fell apart due to a number of factors, such as the unexpectedly spirited resistance of the French at the Marne, the swift deployment of the British Expeditionary Force, and Von Moltke's decision to place less emphasis on the apparently crucial right flank in a bid to maintain security on the left. The plan was a daring stroke, but it seems to have underestimated everything involved that was not purely tactical. In any event, it didn't work; the advance was checked at the Marne, we got the great \"race to the sea,\" and the lines were subsequently established.\n\n- This being the case, the next best possibility for a Central Powers victory would be a breakthrough of some kind, and a great deal of effort was expended on making the French citadel of Verdun the point of that breakthrough. In spite of the seeming imprudence of focusing one's attack upon a fortress more or less designed to withstand it, the way the line had shaken out in 1914 had left Verdun occupying a highly unenviable salient (a piece of land jutting out through the otherwise straight line: ---^---). More to the point, it blocked access to several important railway lines that could take the German army right into France's interior at amazing speed. The efforts expended were astounding - the Battle of Verdun lasted for most of 1916 and into 1917, and saw some 700,000 men killed across all sides. It was marked by a series of agonizing attacks and counter-attacks, with both French and Germans so heavily committed to the place that giving in was simply not an option. It went on for so long and with such mixed success that the generals on *both* sides were replaced - the French Petain by the disastrous Nivelle, and the German Falkenhayn by von Hindenburg. Still, the advance was checked; Verdun never fell. \n\n- Paul von Hindenburg's second-in-command, Erich Ludendorff, learned many important lessons from his time at Verdun. The late offensive that bears his name (in March and April of 1918) brought Germany as close to victory as she would ever come. A number of factors contributed to the time chosen for the attack: it had to be accomplished before the French and English could be substantially reinforced by the still-arriving Americans, and practical use had to be made of the dozens of German divisions that had been freed up by the closing of the Eastern Front. The plans were plenty nuanced, as these things will be, but on a practical level the Ludendorff Offensive could be described as \"throwing every goddamn thing they had at everywhere as hard as they could,\" and the success that was nearly achieved is notable. The lighting-quick and heavily sustained attacks in March saw French and British forces sent into effective rout all along the line, with more territory changing hands over a couple of weeks than at any other time since 1914. Some of the most daring and desperate moments of the war happened during this period, and it makes for some exhilarating reading. In any event, this offensive also failed, as you might imagine. There were a number of factors. First, it seems not to have been planned with any great anticipation of widespread success, and the troops involved simply did not have the lines of communication or supplies to keep the thing up for very long. There are absolutely delightful stories of entire German battallions pushing so far ahead into hitherto untouched France that their commanders lost track of them and presumed them lost, never to be seen again. Communications were only resumed when individual soldiers began to wander back towards the German lines, drunk as lords and weighed down by paintings, silverware and whatnot. Worse even than this, though, is that the numerous breakthroughs achieved were not meaningfully followed up by the deployment of mobile forces to exploit them. *This* would have been the moment for cavalry, and on a massive scale - but the moment passed.\n\nAnyway, this was followed by the Hundred Days' Offensive, which saw the Allies turn the tide and bring the war to its dissatisfying conclusion in November. It might well have gone another way, though.", "The Germans were at the height of their power in the beginning months of 1918 - however threw it all away on wasteful offensives which bled them dry by the summer of that year. By the end of summer it was all over when fresh reinforcements from America and Canada were pouring in. \n\nI did a paper on the food crisis in Germany at the time, and there was no shortage of food. The trouble was shipping it to places it needed to be - which left hundreds of thousands of people starving. \n\nBoth sides were equally guilty of silly charges and tactics which got many people killed - in the end Germany could afford the losses the least. \n\nedit. So, did they ever have a chance? I suppose - had they not threw everything away in those failed advances in 1918 then they could have bled the others out and they would have had a better chance. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/t466y/communicating_during_battle_throughout_history/c4jf7hy", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/s35fh/i_know_nothing_about_wwi_warfare/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/s6zr7/shell_shock_in_ww1/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/t77wz/we_have_all_heard_of_the_mass_infantary_charges/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cmfr78r", "cmfrtss", "cmfvhlr" ], "score": [ 9, 69, 8 ], "text": [ "Were the Romans using the gladius when they conquered the Greek city state? I thought it came along later, after they got involved in Spain.", "Initially, you're right; like anyone else who tried to take on a phalanx head on, the Romans under Titus Flamininus were initially repulsed at Cynoscephalae (198 BCE). The attack was so silly, trying to go uphill straight at Philip V's right, that some historians have speculated that it might have been a feint. In any case, Philip's soldiers pursued the Roman left's retreat onto broken, hilly terrain. This opened up a gap between Philip's right and center, which Flamininus exploited with elephants he'd acquired from Antiochus III. The Romans exploited the gap to maneuver freely around the Macedonians and encircle them. The phalanx, naturally, is incredibly difficult to \"turn\", takes time to establish, and is terrible at adjusting to things like broken terrain or sudden changes in battle. If the enemy takes it on, like Darius III, it's amazing. If an enemy can get advantage with skirmishers, or the legionary pila, or flank the phalanx, it's finished if its cavalry are neutralized.\n\nLucius Aemilius Paulus had similar initial trouble at the Battle of Pydna, in 168 BCE, against Philip's son Perseus. His men tried cutting off the heads of the Macedonian pikes but got pushed back and were really getting whipped. Someone even threw an eagle into the Macedonian line to inspire the men to attack and get it back, which failed. Once again, the Romans retreated to uneven ground as they were pushed back. Once again, the phalanx lost its cohesion, which Paullus saw. He ordered the legionaries to attack the gaps, and they got in close since the phalanx was disorganized. In close quarters combat, the Roman gladius was longer than the Macedonian short swords, Roman armor was superior, and the Romans certainly practiced the stabbing motion of the gladius more than the phalangites. Perseus realized things were falling apart and fled with his cavalry before even engaging with the Romans. This was the end of Macedon, and Alexander's empire (save for the Ptolemies).\n\nProbably the worst thing that ever happened to Macedon was, ironically, its ally Hannibal. Philip V allied with Carthage during Hannibal's Italian campaign, only to see him eventually lose and leave Philip V alone vs. Rome. Furthermore, although the legion had adopted the manipular \"phalanx with joints,\" Roman tactics still centered around a massive central push to break the middle of the enemy army, protected by Socii allies and cavalry on the flanks. Hannibal diverted the cavalry and surrounded the legion at Cannae, leading Africanus, Fabius Cunctator, Flamininus and others to reform the system and rework tactics to avoid another Cannae. The old system would have played directly into Macedonian hands.\n\nBeyond that, the Romans were good at playing off the Aetolian and Achaean leagues and using \"divide and conquer\" politics to conquer Greece, although the various Greek states assisted with their tendencies toward internecine rivalries.\n\nFlamininus has a section in:\nPlutarch. *Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans,* edited by Arthur Hugh Clough. New York: Benediction Classics, 2010.\n\nAlso good reading at: Hammond, N.G.L. \"The Campaign and Battle of Cynoscephalae.\" *Journal of Hellenic Studies* 108, 1998.\n\nMontagu, John Drogo. *Greek and Roman Warfare: Battles, Tactics, and Trickery.* London: Greenhill Books, 2006.", "A side question if it is allowed. \n\nWhat would have been the affect of the pila on the Phalanx? If the pila was thrown head on with no melee action? \n\nWould it have been effective at taking about the shields of the hoplites? Would it have mattered once things did reach a melee?" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "clf59b4", "clfizhm" ], "score": [ 78, 5 ], "text": [ "Abraham Lincoln explained his reasoning on this point at length in his [first inaugural address](_URL_0_). To quote some of the central points of his argument:\n\n > I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination...\n\n > ...Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?...\n\n > ...Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.\n\nThis remained the official view of Lincoln's administration throughout the war. Slavery was abolished, in the words of the Emancipation Proclamation, \"as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion.\" The public did move beyond this position to view the war as being ultimately to end slavery (as framed in [Bancroft's 1866 memorial address before Congress](_URL_1_)), but that was never officially recognized by the government and did not take place until well into the war.", "I believe it's Adam Goodheart who argues in *1861: A Social History Of The Civil War,* that we should remember how fresh and unproven the American experiment in self-government was. If the Southern states were allowed to leave the Union, what would stop New York or Massachusetts from leaving a few years hence over some perceived slight or economic imbalance? The idea of *Union* was not as remote and abstract an idea to fight for in the 1860s as it seems to us today, after a century of thinking of the US as a single nation tightly bound together economically.\n\nWe know how the experiment turned out—with a strong continental nation—but at the time there was no such certainty. If states could secede, they might be at danger of being absorbed by European powers, possibly eventually bringing the endless wars of Europe to North America." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html", "http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26750/26750-h.htm" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ci7so2f" ], "score": [ 14 ], "text": [ "It would have likely been Chinese. \n\nThe time period implies that the people of high society would still consider mastery of Chinese to be a sign of an educated person, an elite. \n\nMeanwhile, contact with Europeans was heavily restricted and even then, mostly to traders and officials that would directly interact with those traders. So the number of people who knew Dutch or Portuguese well would have been few indeed. \n\nOther exposure to foriegners would have probably been with Christian missionaries, few and far in between because of persecutions and further restrictions on movement and who they could meet. \n\nBut even assuming they met with the common people at all, the missionaries would likely use Japanese instead of trying to teach or find people that knew their European language. They would be trying to find converts and being able to understand Japanese culture and language would help to endear them to the locals. \n\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ccgkflx" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "They didn't.\n\nThe Romans used numerals, I II III IV V VI etc \n\nThe Greeks had their own numberals too, also based on letters from their alphabet.\n\nThe dominance of Arabic numerals (1, 10, 100 rather than the roman I, X, C) was because they were much easier to handle large numbers with.\n\nArabic numerals became used throughout Europe, and when Europe spread its culture all over the world after the Enlightenment, Arabic numerals were too." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cpr8s09" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ " > What am i missing here?\n\nThe main thing you're missing here is that while the southern lowland Maya city-states went into decline prior to 1000 CE, Maya city-states in the highlands and in the northern lowlands kept on going strong. From about 987 until the mid-1400s, the League of Mayapan dominated most of the Yucatan. Originally formed by an alliance of Chichen Itza, Uxmal and Mayapan, by around 1200 Mayapan emerged ended up monopolizing power in the league. After 1461, the league dissolved into [more than a dozen](_URL_3_) smaller, independent kingdoms, which brings us up to the time period that Apocalypto is depicting.\n\nAs for how successfully it depicts that time period, I'll turn your attention to a three-part review ([Part I](_URL_1_), [Part II](_URL_2_), [Part III](_URL_0_)) by a former AskHistorians / BadHistory regular who must, unfortunately, remain nameless." ] }

[ "http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472043/" ]

[]

[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1m6ltk/badhistory_movie_review_apocalypto_part_3_saving/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1liqdq/badhistory_movie_review_apocalypto_part_1_happy/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1lqpll/badhistory_movie_review_apocalypto_part_2_big/", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Cacicazgos_mayas_-_es.svg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cm3djtx", "cm3dlxg", "cm3drp1", "cm3engv" ], "score": [ 84, 25, 531, 68 ], "text": [ "I'll start with the comparison between the two wars first. Soviet's war in Afghanistan followed America's strategy in Vietnam as they both maintained control over the major cities for the most part beside occasional insurgent attacks which were on a small scale in the cities. Out side the cities, Soviet's had limited control stretching along the roads leading outside the cities. Along these roads they would set up outposts overlooking them to protect the troops and supplies convoys that would run between cities and outposts. It is at these convoys and outposts that the Mujahideen would strike from nearby villages similar to the attacks Vietcong would commit against U.S. troops. Both were following one of the main guerilla war tenants of attacking remote or vulnerable positions that had little support giving them time to attack and escape. Now in case of large scale battles the Mujahideen had several mountain and valley strongholds including Tora Bora, Zhawar Kili, and the Panjshir Valley. For example Soviet forces committed thousands of troops for large scale assaults on the Panjshir valley twice a year but each time they would be repulsed. \n\nOn two your second question \"Airmobile\" operations, in a way they were also very similar to Vietnam as the Soviets would use them to deploy troops, resupply outposts, conduct search and destroy missions, and when they could be spared, fly cover for convoys. The exact same things Americans used their helicopters for in Vietnam. \nAnd since you also asked about an average experience it would include, riding with convoys as protection to resupply outposts, building up outposts and holding them for months at a time, patrolling villages, and large-scale positions on major strongholds.\n\nSources used: The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan\n\nThe Other Side Of The Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War\n\nAfghanistan: A Military History From Alexander The Great To the War Against The Taliban", "Adding on to this question I'm curious about how the Soviets handled PTSD issues during this time and how it was similar or different from U.S. procedures.", "The Soviet Union relied heavily on conscription for its forces in Afghanistan. The average infantryman would have been drafted for a two year term. Although the very initial training would be done in the USSR, and soldiers designated for specialist positions or 'elite' units, such as the paratroopers, would have additional training for their role there as well, regular infantryman would be delivered to Afghanistan without combat training, which would be handled by their unit when they arrived in safe areas. Training would be for 6-months, after which they entered combat, although in practice this might be reduced to three. This was not very efficient, meaning that effective strength of a regiment was, at a given time, usually just a strong battalion. \n\nAll tours (including the training) were for two years, whether officer or enlisted. An average soldier would spent 1/3 of that time directly in combat. Roles varied depending on where you were, but some soldiers might spend their whole 18 month tour of combat in an isolated post, with only a dozen men by them. Even if they saw little combat, this was of course incredibly disheartening and soul-sucking. What is interesting, is that especially in the case of those outposts, the Soviet soldiers would come to a tacit, \"live and let live\" understanding with the locals, and just try not to get involved in any fighting.\n\nPerhaps needless to say, the soldiers would be, almost to a man, entirely ignorant of the political situation that had led to their country's involvement, and when the reality of their harsh situation quickly set in, it was disheartening. Generally speaking, morale was pretty poor. Discipline was harsh - as it was in any Soviet unit. Drug use was reportedly rampant. The population was *very* unwelcoming, which sucks when the purpose for your being in country is said to be to help those same people. The Soviets made no real attempt to occupy the countryside, preferring to just hold the cities and send operations out into the wild to use overwhelming firepower. The open use of depopulation and destruction of crops and agricultural of course did nothing to endear the locals. Soviet propaganda did little to counter the general unpopularity of the regime, let alone make up for the well publicized massacres of civilians that happened from time to time.\n\nBack at home, the situation faced by the troops was not at all known. The struggle was publicized back in the USSR in only the vaguest terms, speaking little of actual combat, and mostly just showing Soviet troops doing charitable work and helping build the country into a proper socialist state. The dead were brought home in secret, with zero fanfare, and buried in graves which made no mention even of their military service. The message his family would receive was even vague as well, simply noting the soldier \"perished while fulfilling his international duty in Afghanistan.\" A soldier returning home from his service would receive little support for the PTSD he most likely would have.\n\nThe Soviets also got very poor support from the Afghan troops loyal to the government, in no small part to the lack of support that the Soviets gave them. While making up the bulk of numerical forces fighting the Mujahideen, the Soviets didn't see them as reliable, so never provided them with the best equipment or training, and often wouldn't brief Afghan commanders of operations in advance to prevent details from leaking. The Airborne was one of the few units seen as reliable, but obviously only a small portion of their forces.\n\nI've mostly spoken about the experience of the Soviet soldier here, rather than how he functioned tactically. Gotta run for right now, but I'll try to expand into that later.\n\n**Sources**\n\nRussia's War in Afghanistan by David Isby (publishing in 1986)\n\nThe Soviet–Afghan War 1979–89 by Gregory Fremont-Barnes", "Not a historian, but I grew up in Soviet Ukraine, served in IDF, and I binge-read everything I could find in Russian about Afghan war. There is plenty of books in Russian on _URL_0_.\n\nFirst, the structure of Soviet Army was very different. Every unit had two officers: a commanding officer and a political officer - Komissar. The Komissar would report to the party, not to the command, and they had control over who got promoted, and even over operational decisions.\n\nThen, the politics ruled a big part of their life. There was \"the show\" - activities to please the party: Marxism lessons, parades, readings of the newspapers.\n\nThe structure of the service was as follows: officers came from military schools, they would study for 2 years (I think), then sent to units to command. This was an assignment for life, it was very hard to get out clear - without getting in trouble.\n\nUnlisted were drafted for 2 years. Basic training was a couple of weeks in the country, then they were sent out to their units in Afghanistan with minimal training.\n\nThe culture of hazing and hierarchy was pretty insane. Your first 6 months you were a slave. Next year you were starting to learn things and actually do something. Your last 6 months you were not expected to do anything useful, and you were free to torture the green guys. And by torture I mean from making them do your laundry and guard duty to sexual assault.\n\nThe actual military doctrine was built at first on their experience in WWII. You arrange soldiers in a \"chain\" - a thin line, spread some armor in between, and you advance pretty much in the open. Obviously the results were disastrous. Then they had the armored carriers - BTR's. The doctrine tought them to pile in, use machine guns in the advance, then to dismount when they are on the target to secure the target. In reality those things turned out to be deathtraps, because once you close the hatches - if anything explodes on the armor (even a grenade) - everyone inside gets a nice concussion with blood pouring out of their ears. So they preferred to ride \"on armor\" - sit outside risking being picked out by snipers.\n\nThen there are the other parts of Soviet culture that got magnified in the army: alcoholism and corruption. Soldiers smuggle as much alcohol as possible, and they drink until there is no more left. Soldiers would steal anything they can to sell to locals, including weapons and ammo. With the money they would buy alcohol, drugs, food, and any cheap western-made stuff to take home.\n\nDrugs: similar to Vietnam, but with a much better supply and quality of marijuana and opium.\n\nSpecifically to your questions: there were big campaigns with a lot of air support, local friendly tribes, armor. Most of them did not achieve any significant results against guerilla, except for big civilian casualties.\n\nThere were airmobile operations, but nowhere on the scale of Americans in Vietnam. Just small support for big armor movements. Most campaigns were in huge armor columns.\n\nFor non-Russian speakers - this movie might help understand it:\n\n_URL_1_." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [ "Lib.ru", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_9th_Company" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dlvvh2f" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Simply put, no. \n\nThe height of the pirating world as we know it to be existed about 300 years ago whereas the idea of tattooing wasn't popularized in Europe until about 250 years ago. The introduction of tattoos to pirates is thought to have come about when Captain Cook visited New Zealand where the native Maori tribes showed him their methods for the art. \n\nSo therefore, by the time Captain Hook and his band of misfits got to Never Land during the height of pirating, tattoos weren't around for European pirates. \n\nHope this helps!\n\nSource: _URL_0_\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://thepirateempire.blogspot.com/2014/10/pirates-and-tattoos.html?m=1" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "en4ibu1" ], "score": [ 15 ], "text": [ "You're lucky in that I just read a couple books that specifically get into this topic, and have the information fresh in my mind. I'll note that I'm far more comfortable answering the hockey side of things, but will provide an explanation for both hockey and football/soccer.\n\nFirst, I'll get into the background of how both sports came to prominence in the Soviet Union, as that is an important factor. I’ll also note that football and hockey were by far the most popular spectator sports in the Soviet Union, with football the clear favourite and hockey a comfortable number two, in terms of attendance. For what it’s worth, basketball was a distant third.\n\nWhile football had been played in Russia since the late 19th century (introduced by groups of English living in the country), it was never formally organised into a national league until 1936. This was partly because of the chaos caused by the First World War and subsequent turmoil in the region, but also because the Bolsheviks were somewhat ambivalent towards sport, seeing it as a rather bourgeois event. This is somewhat true, as sports at the turn of the century was heavily dominated by the wealthy, who had both the means to participate and the leisure time away from work to take part. This is why the Soviet Union didn’t enter the Olympics until after the Second World War, as they felt it promoted this class division, being an amateur-only event (again, fairly accurate, as the Olympics were aimed towards those who could afford to play sports for no financial gain).\n\nHockey was introduced a little later. While so-called “Russian hockey” (more commonly known as bandy) had been played since the turn of the century, “Canadian hockey” was slow to be introduced into Russia, though it was known by the 1930s, and in his book *Serious Fun: A History of Spectator Sports in the USSR* suggests that had the Nazis not invaded in 1941 a hockey league would have been started then; it was instead delayed until 1946, after the war.\n\nThat all said, why were so few teams dominant in these sports? For football, there were two main teams throughout the Soviet era: Spartak and Dinamo, both based in Moscow. There were later teams that rose to prominence as well, including Dinamo Tbilisi, Dinamo Kiev, and some others that rose and fell, but Spartak and D. Moscow were the clear top teams for the majority of the Soviet era.\n\nAt this point I’ll note the way Soviet sports were organised: unlike North America, which has teams owned by rich individuals or small groups, or Europe which has a mix of that or supporter-backed clubs, the Soviet teams were backed by various government groups: so CSKA was backed by the Ministry of Defence (CSKA is a Russian abbreviation for “Central Sports Club of the Army); likewise teams would be backed by various trade unions (Lokomotiv would be teams run by the train workers), factories (Metallurg Magnitogorsk in hockey is an example), or other government departments. Dinamo was no exception, and was backed by Ministry of the Interior as part of its NKVD/KGB section, so the secret police ran the club. Spartak was an exception: it was originally made by a collection of football players, and in order to keep itself alive took on de jure sponsorship of a food-packers union, but was always independent from the government. This proved to be important.\n\nAs the sole non-state backed team, Spartak enjoyed immense popularity. In Edelman’s other book on Soviet sports, *Spartak Moscow: A History of the People's Team in the Workers' State* he suggests up to 50% of Moscow football fans supported Spartak, and they consistently had some of the highest attendance in the Soviet Union. This meant they were able to finance proper training, and were able to attract players to join their club, keeping them in a dominant position throughout the Soviet era. By contrast, Dinamo Moscow used its connections as a NKVD/KGB club to import (or even threaten) top players to join their side. This was even more prominent during the time Lavrenty Beria was alive: a major football fan and head of the NKVD, he ensured that Dinamo was a major club, and at one point even had the leadership of Spartak (the Starostin brothers) sent to the Gulag on trumped-up charges. After Beria’s death in 1953 Dinamo maintained its prestige, and the fact it was backed by the secret police meant the local clubs in Kiev and Tbilisi also used their connections in their respective republics to source the best players and rise to prominence. However Spartak continued to use its massive support to remain relevant, and thus Soviet football was largely a two-team affair for most of its time.\n\nNow onto hockey. As noted it was not organised until 1946, and much like football had clubs backed by various government agencies. The first real strong team was VVS Moscow, a team backed by the Air Force and actually run by Vasily Stalin, the son of Joseph. This team dominated Soviet hockey in the early years, until a 1950 plane crash wiped out most of the club (for those who’ve seen *The Death of Stalin*, this is referenced). It was soon replaced as the top club by CSKA, the army-backed team, and coached by the so-called father of Soviet hockey, Anatoli Tarasov.\n\nCSKA used the fact that it was an army club to its advantage, and was often able to recruit star players for military service, commissioning them as officers but instead having them play hockey. However this did not mean that every star player ever joined CSKA, and a few even refused such an offer, but enough of them did that CSKA won 32 league championships in the 46 years the Soviet league existed, including a stretch of 13 in a row from 1977 to 1989 (for reference the other champions were VVS, the air force team; Dinamo, the KGB team; Krylya Sovtov, an aviation-backed team; and Spartak).\n\nHockey was also different from football in one key way: while football was played by every region and republic (and indeed at one point every union republic had a team in the top flight of Soviet football), hockey was far more limited, due to its requirement of needing ice to play on. Indoor arenas were slow to develop, and the early years of Soviet hockey were played exclusively outdoors on natural ice, so warmer regions never took up the sport, and it was instead focused on the Slavic regions, and the Baltics (who took up hockey during the interwar era while independent states). Thus there was a far more limited region to play, and this never really changed.\n\n\nNow, for some reading on the topic:\n\n* James Riordan, * Sport in Soviet Society: Development of Sport and Physical Education in Russia and the USSR* (1977). The foundational text on Soviet sport, Riordan is the acknowledged leader on the topic, and while a dated book is a great background to how Soviet sports developed and what role they played in the USSR.\n\n* Robert Edelman, * Serious Fun: A History of Spectator Sports in the USSR* (1993). This is an overall look at spectator sports in the USSR, with a focus on football, and hockey to a lesser extent. It is great, though note that Edelman did not have access to archival material while writing it, so it is somewhat limited in that regard.\n\n* Robert Edelman, *Spartak Moscow: A History of the People's Team in the Workers' State* (2012). Edelman’s second book on Soviet sport, it focuses on Spartak Moscow’s football side. This complements the above by using Spartak as a case study of a Soviet sports club, and does rely on archival material.\n\n* Lawrence Martin, * The Red Machine: The Soviet Quest to Dominate Canada's Game* (1990). A Canadian journalist, Martin has written the only comprehensive book on Soviet hockey, which while excellent is not an academic work by any means, though still very accurate. Anyone who wants to understand the topic should read it." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ccsj1p9" ], "score": [ 30 ], "text": [ "\n > Historians rely heavily on documents like the ones stored away in the Vatican archives to get an accurate view of the past, so why would the Vatican restrict access to so much of their records? Is this common among other important historical institutions? Or is it simply the Vatican wanting to keep its secrets?\n\nAre you talking about the Vatican Secret Archives? They are open to qualified scholars from accredited research institutions, and free (as in beer) access to all documents up to Pope Pius XI, alongside access to Second Vatican Council and World War II prisoner of war documents, has been granted. You must have a university diploma or degree, and a letter of introduction from a tenured professor of history or the sciences. You may request digital reproduction of some documents by application.\n\nConsidering the antiquity of some of the documents, that's pretty open. The \"Secret\" in the archives name refers to its \"separated\" or \"private\" nature in Latin, perfect passive participle of secerno.\n\nEdit: never mind, prism got it" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "catgurb" ], "score": [ 10 ], "text": [ "At least among Bolshevik women he interacted with, Stalin was considered fairly \"handsome\" in his early years, he was a pretty young revolutionary compared to the old dry intellectuals that dominated the Bolsheviks and had an appeal to many Russians that can only be translated as a rough swashbuckler/something as a Captain Jack Sparrow. This appeal was often connected to Koba, a fictional dashing Georgian bandit-hero and someone Stalin liked to be associated with (even making it a pseudonym of his).\n\nAt the same time however, Stalin was pox-marked and had a deformed hand, and these worked against him and things that made him very uncomfortable. You didn't dare mention either around him.\n\nIt's very difficult to get real mainstream opinion of these kinds of things in the USSR. The Soviets encouraged very much a sexually prudish society save for a fringe sect that connected Marxism to sexual liberation, led by individuals like Alexandra Kollontai. Moreover, legitimate mainstream opinions of Stalin in general are hard to come by due to the nature of his rule." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "db1w96a" ], "score": [ 22 ], "text": [ "I think what's notable is that in the 18th century, when people thought about homogeneous culture, it wasn't just in terms of race, but religion and language. These were kinds of heterogeneity that had divided Europe but that the \"American experiment\" gave little heed to (though religious conflict, especially between Catholics and Protestants, would be a continual source of conflict in many cities in the 19th century). But that should be kept in the background as we think of all \"homogeneity\" that Taylor is writing about--they were well aware that they were heterogenous but that they had been United by something else. Out of many, one and all that. [Nonconformists](_URL_3_) in England, that is everyone who wasn't part of the Church of England or the Church of Scotland, including Baptists, Quakers, Methodists, Puritans, etc., didn't gain full rights in the United Kingdom until 1828--two generations after American independence. Catholics didn't gain full rights until later still (though the most onerous restrictions were lifted in 1829). \n\nBut based on the religious diversity, it's clear that all those quotes about homogeneity don't mean quite what Taylor supposes they do. \n\nThe most founders did certainly assumed slavery was a part of the Republic, but two things are notable 1) most seemed to think slavery would eventually fade away 2) their opinions on free blacks varied widely. In many northern states, free blacks had the franchise same as whites (provided they met other restrictions of the state). Now, many whites and free blacks certainly did believe in \"[colonization](_URL_1_)\", as the \"back to Africa\" movement was called, but it's unclear to me what proportion of the American population it was. Considering how little was done for it in light of the growing freeman population in the early Republic, I get the sense that for many it was more an abstract pipe dream than a policy they expected to bring about shortly. \n\nQuakers, for instance, thought that blacks were racial equally. See the [testimony of equality](_URL_2_). There were notable free blacks in the early republic, such as [Benjamin Banneker](_URL_0_), who not coincidentally was educated in part through the Quakers. While I think the Quakers would be the most radical, I don't think they were completely alone on that side of the spectrum. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Banneker", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Colonization_Society", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony_of_equality", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonconformist" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cubudxg", "cuc2aj7", "cuc8prb" ], "score": [ 248, 3, 13 ], "text": [ "This is a fantastic question! I'd never heard that before. As an add-on, what was the wrestling attire back then? ", "What sources do we have on his wrestling? Any eyewitness accounts? ", "Follow up question: Was his record really 300-1 (as I've heard before). Haven't seen anyone mention this pretty remarkable statistic if true. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eaiu6kc" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Does Keegan say in his footnotes/endnotes which book/chapter of Caesar's Gallic War he's referring to? I can't answer this one, but it'll save whoever does some time in looking up the original source quote. (I suspect a translation issue.)" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "de24gq6", "de2v80q" ], "score": [ 254, 11 ], "text": [ "What makes the Marine Corps 'special' is a bit of a complex term - and in a lot of ways, it's more tied to a sociological study as many factors from effective advertisement to the Marine Corps differentiating themselves from other branches in various ways that all add up to why people may consider the USMC 'special.'\n\nHistorically speaking, the Marines - who trace their heritage officially back to November 10th, 1775 when the [Second Continental Congress](_URL_3_) - were designed to operate as naval infantry.\n\nThough small, [with the Marines opening 1800](_URL_0_) with just 368 Marines, they were an asset to the fledgling country: as professional soldiers onboard naval warships, they were given tasks that the army simply wasn't around for or capable of.\n\nFor instance, in the Barbary Wars, the Marines successfully stormed the city of Derna in Tripolitana (modern day Libya). From the link above:\n\n > Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon and his Marines marched across 600 miles of the Libyan Desert to successfully storm the fortified Tripolitan city of Derna and rescue the kidnapped crew of the USS Philadelphia. The Marines' victory helped Prince Hamet Bey reclaim his rightful throne as ruler of Tripoli. In gratitude, he presented his Mameluke sword to Lt O'Bannon.\n\n > This famous sword became part of the officer uniform in 1825, and remains the oldest ceremonial weapon in use by United States forces today.\n\n > The Battle of Derna was the Marines' first land battle on foreign soil and is notably recalled in the first verse of the Marines' Hymn: \"From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea.\"\n\nYou'll note that a lot of emphasis is put on the history and lore of the Marines from other Marines - a big differentiating mark from other branches. The mameluke sword, the Marine Corps Hymn, and so on are all traced back to various events in Marine Corps history.\n\nIt's also worth noting that the Marine Corps has always been the smallest of the branches (minus the Coast Guard). For instance, [in 1945](_URL_1_), at the end of WW2, the Army had 8.3 million men in uniform, the Navy had 3.4 million... while the Marines had 475,000.\n\nDespite those small numbers, the Marines had fought many fierce battles in the Pacific which bolstered their reputation. Not to mention, in the Pacific, the Marines were involved in major offensive operations against the Japanese before the Army got involved in major operations in Europe. And when the war in Europe was drawing to a close, one of - if not the most iconic image of the war - was of the Marines with *Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima.* \n\nIt's worth noting too that, in the post WW2 the Marines are the only branch that operate on air and land and sea in a combined force operations (minus the Marines operating from Navy ships.. hence the armed forces joke that Marines stands for \"My Ass Rides in Navy Equipment, Sir\") - something that differentiates the other branches. Sure, the Army has helicopters too - but it doesn't have the fixed wing strike aircraft that the Marines do.\n\nYou may argue that them having higher PT standards today, their officers going through far more training than other branches (e.g., all officers are required to attend the 6 month course known as [The Basic School](_URL_2_)), longer boot camp than others, etc. all contribute to this differentiation as well today.\n\nAs I said, all of this is hard to quantify into what makes the USMC considered 'special' but as I've mentioned above, the image of 'elite' combined with a history of small numbers engaged in fierce battles combined with unique traits that differentiate it from the other branches are all factors.", "Part of the modern reputation of the USMC owes a great deal to The Battle of Belleau Wood.\n\n\nThe American Expeditionary Forces under Gen. John J Pershing arrived in Europe in 1917. Pershing's censorship policy required that no specific unit be identified in reporting and Army censors were adept at their job. The result for readers back home was a near complete lack of detail about the progress of our boys over there (_URL_0_).\n\nEnter Floyd Gibbons, a well known war correspondent in WWI the way Ernie Pyle would be later in WW2. \n\nAs American forces (Army and Marine) engaged the Germans in Belleau Wood, Gibbons advanced to the front and was seriously wounded. His dispatches were sent to the rear along with word that he had been killed by German machine gun fire. Although this turned out to be exaggerated (he lost an eye, sustained a skull fracture, and was shot in the shoulder and arm) by the time his articles reached the censors they allowed them to go through, reportedly as a mark of respect for the supposedly departed correspondent. For three days dispatches flowed from the front, detailing the exploits of the Marines before censorship was reapplied.\n\nBy that time, Gibbons' uncensored dispatches were on the way home and went to print with the details of the Marine units in action. Doing so put a name and face on the American war effort and placed the Marines front and center.\n\n_URL_2_ , condensing the 1953 biography \"Floyd Gibbons - Your Headline Hunter,\" (_URL_1_).\n\n(Sidenote: After the war's end, Pershing commissioned a statue from a French sculptor who used a Marine as his model. When the statue was presented, Pershing refused to purchase it since the Marine emblem had been included on the helmet. Marine General Smedley Butler organized a fundraiser and purchased the piece, which still stands outside the Marine Headquarters building in Quantico, Virginia.)" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.marines.com/history-heritage/timeline/-/timeline/decade", "http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/ww2-by-the-numbers/us-military.html", "http://www.marines.com/becoming-a-marine/basic-school/curriculum", "http://time.com/4104708/marine-corps-history/" ], [ "https://youtu.be/B6hRDS3LvQQ", "https://www.amazon.com/Floyd-Gibbons-Your-Headline-Hunter/dp/1258173182", "http://www.worldwar1.com/sffgbw.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "caplixi", "caplt3z", "capq65g", "caprkz9", "capsq80" ], "score": [ 233, 70, 5, 17, 84 ], "text": [ "Yugoslavia aplauded it. Tito got a rock from the moon and Belgrade a parade with the crew.", "I'd also be interested in how news of the moon landing was disseminated in the USSR and China, if anyone knows.", "I'd like to know what people in North Vietnam thought about it.", "The answers have been good but I feel like addressing what I take as you hinting that it was a great surprise when the Moon landing happened. We might look back in history and all agree that it was a major feat for humankind, but back then, everyone already had a sense of it only being a matter of time for this event to take place. Sputnik happened already in 1957 and both sides publicly declared that they were throwing an immense amount of money and resources at reaching the big goal and were *reasonably* open about their achievements, progress and even setbacks. Over the span of those 12 years, Gargarin happened, Tereshkova happened, and while Soviet progress was slow yet steady, the Americans from a near hopeless and miserable start caught up and in 1968-69 the world media speculated heavily in which of the two would get there first, and most estimated correctly that it would happen before the decade was over. Hence it didn't exactly come as a huge surprise to anyone that it eventually took place (bar some accounts from NASA personnel given later on, who allegedly were so uncertain about the upcoming mission that they estimated the chance of a catastrophic failure to higher than 50-50).", "I can tell you from personal experience that in Spain it was a huge deal. Franco's Spain in 1969 had a population of 33 million and just 1 TV channel. The whole thing was broadcasted live and commented by one of the most famous Spanish journalists of the time. \n\nPeople in the whole country both from little towns and big cities were stuck to the TV for hours, in total awe because 1) Somebody was walking on the moon and 2) they were able to see it LIVE on their TVs (my father recalls being more amazed by the 2nd fact than by the 1st).\n\nNext day it was front page in all newspapers (_URL_0_). All Spaniards that are old enough to remember (including my 94yo grandma) say it was one of the most amazing moments of their life.\n\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [], [ "http://de10.com.mx/img/promos/vanguardia.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dqrh4bd" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "Johns's novel is somewhat accurate in this regard about parachutes. The RFC's leadership tended to look askance at them for powered aircraft and one of the official rationales was that a pilot might abandon his machine rather than trying to nurse it back home. But this was only *one* rationale and the British did issue the Calthrop \"Guardian Angel\" parachute to its balloonists- see this [article form 1920](_URL_3_) for a description in how it worked. The resistance against the issue of parachutes for aircraft had multiple sources and was not just from RFC generals not wanting to encourage cowardice among their pilots. \n\nIn addition to the \"will to fight\" rationale, the resistance to parachutes stemmed from an unexpected source: the pilots themselves. Early parachutes were bulky and often the cockpits of WWI planes could not easily fit he existing parachute pack and the pilot. The Germans' tended to place the pack at the side of the fuselage, which was a drag penalty. Some pilots also believed the weight penalty exceeded the value of escape, a factor that should not be discounted given the relatively low power of WWI engines and constant development of aircraft made pilots leery of sacrificing performance. \n\nThere was also the issue of making a successful egress from a damaged aircraft. As the linked *Popular Mechanics* piece shows, even partisans of the parachute were worried that the chute could be fouled in the mass of wires, stringers, and wings that characterized aircraft of this era. Manual parachuting out of an aircraft was no easy task even during the Second World War when parachutes were lighter and better designed. There were dedicated procedures for bailouts such as this [training film](_URL_4_) for the P-38. \n\nFinally, it should be remembered that the most effective parachutes for most of the war relied upon the weight of the body to extend the parachute canopy, which was tethered to the gondola. Such a system was not applicable for heavier than air machines. This [photo](_URL_0_) of a German harness shows some of the problems of being tethered to a moving aircraft; if the plane was in a spin or other form of motion, the tether might act like a line keeping the pilot or aircrew in the craft or through them violently around. The [official bailout procedure](_URL_2_) from the inventor Otto Heinecke was one that required a number of steps difficult to do in an emergency. The Calthrop harness was one solution to this problem, but the RFC/RAF adapted an American model, the Irvin, in the early 1920s-see [this brief article](_URL_1_) from 1920. These parachutes were much more suitable to both aircraft cockpits and quick egresses. Their quick-release mechanisms allowed the canopy to be extended by the pilot's own arm and in freefall. Even here, parachute development was not static but continued through the 1920s and 30s as did procedures for bailouts. \n\nThis is not to say that all pilots categorically rejected parachutes during the First World War. Many did indeed request them. The Germans' relatively late adaptation of the parachute was more a reflection of the Luftstreitkräfte trying to preserve its pilots in the face of Allied material superiority than a more progressive attitude towards its pilots' courage. The RAF's adaptation of the parachute in the 1920s likely had something of a similar rationale in that trained pilots were a scarcer commodity in peacetime. However, there was a push against parachutes that did not originate solely from the behind the lines. A number of RFC pilots were skeptical of the utility of parachutes in aircraft and the bulky early and mid-war designs reinforced these fears. \n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.welt.de/img/geschichte/mobile152847308/5731623207-ci23x11-w780/Dt-LuftwaffeFlieger-mit-FallschirmFoto-German-Air-Force-Pilot-WWII-Photo.jpg", "https://books.google.com/books?id=CNtLAAAAYAAJ&amp;pg=PA323&amp;dq=irvin+parachute&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjA3anDi_HXAhWMNd8KHb0yCHkQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false", "http://works-words.com/NSM-WIKI/WP/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Military-pilots-issued-parachutes-only-in-Germany.jpg", "https://books.google.com/books?id=CSoDAAAAMBAJ&amp;pg=PT20&amp;dq=calthrop+guardian+angel+parachute&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwi54bPehvHXAhXEQd8KHRkZAM0Q6AEILDAB#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7jTdzfPUGA" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cmlbhys" ], "score": [ 10 ], "text": [ "There were a large number of personal letters, written on thin wooden tablets, by women found in the Roman fort at Vindolanda, near Hadrian's Wall. _URL_2_ _URL_0_ _URL_4_ _URL_1_ _URL_3_" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ptop/plain/A29849106", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindolanda_tablets", "http://www.vindolanda.com/roman-vindolanda/writing-tablets", "https://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/britain/our_top_ten_british_treasures/the_vindolanda_tablets.aspx" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cg6muf1", "cg6rz12" ], "score": [ 12, 3 ], "text": [ "France had lost most of its overseas empire at the time of Napoleon because Napoleon had wanted to pursue a much more concentrated effort on Europe. Napoleon had seen the French loses in the French and Indian War (7 years war for Non-American/Canadians) and how most of French Canada and to an extent Spanish Florida were surrendered to the British. This resulted in him selling off Louisiana at a bargain price to the USA, also the Haitian Revolution was the nail in the coffin showing that France really didn't have anything left of consequence in the Americas, freeing up his focus for fighting in Europe.\n\nSpain (and also Portugal, but since you didn't ask about it I'll save it for another time) had most of its empire in the Americas crumble as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, more specifically the Iberian Campaign. As you recall the Spanish lost Florida to the British, however they won it back during the American Revolution in exchange for the Spanish handing over the Bahamas. After that and the secret deals with Louisiana (which resulted in it switching hands between France and Spain until the French decided to official sell it to the US) not much had changed. Then when the French invaded in 1808 the Spanish didn't have any power to effectively police their territories in the Americas. So numerous provincial regions began seeing this as the opportunity to declare independence like the US did. You can see this with a lot of independence wars having the same general time frame of beginning-end Mexican War of Independence: 1810-1821; Bolivian War of Independence: 1809-1825; Argentine War of Independence: 1809-1818; Peruvian War of Independence: 1811-1824. Most of these were led by either Simon Bolivar or Jose de San Martin who were very good leaders and the fact that the Spanish throne had a serious continuity crisis and this resulted in turmoil culminating in a 3 year civil war.\n\nYou are partly correct in the British Navy did indeed help catalyze the events that would lead up to their independence but the thing that allowed it to occur wholesale was that the long-term instability caused Napoleon removing the Spanish crown and legitimizing it leading to a series of crisis preventing them from policing such a huge area.\n\nAs for the territories lost well, it depends on where you start. If you consider the period of the American Revolution and how it basically doomed France to its own Revolution, then I would have to say [New France](_URL_1_) & Haiti, if not then I would say just [Louisiana](_URL_2_). For Spain it was the totality of their continental empire in the Americas with the last part (Florida) being lost in the Seminole Wars against the US. \n\nNothing was returned to the French or Spanish after the restoration of their respective monarchies because the Concert of Europe (Russia, Prussia, Austria, the UK being the great powers), only the UK had vested interests in the Atlantic trade and was comfortable with the Spanish tariffs against their goods being gone for good with their colonies independence & the fact that the French lands went to them made it all the sweeter. This idea is part of the reason why the British wished to support the US's [Monroe Doctrine](_URL_0_). However the Spanish did try, and, fail to reign them back into line. \n\nA more interesting story would be the fate of Brazil & Portugal though.", "I would argue that the Napoleonic wars were a big factor into jump starting the trend for the independence wars in Latin America. Napoleon deposed the Spanish king, Ferdinand VII, and replaced him with his brother, Joseph. Not a lot of Spanish or Spanish colonists were happy about this, as this completely undermined the hegemony and legitimacy of the Spanish authority. Naturally, there were resistance movements by the royalists, clinging to their loyalty to Ferdidand. The Spanish congregated in *Juntas*, sort of like committees. Now, here is where things start to piss more people off. These Spanish juntas were represented mainly by solely Iberians, and only represented the *creoles*, the American-born Spanish, by default. Sounds kind of familiar doesn't it? The creoles claimed that they were just as loyal to the \"true king\" as the Iberians were, and wanted equality to Spain, not subservience. So they pretty much said \"We'll make out own juntas ~~with blackjack and hookers~~ in our own country\" invoking popular sovereignty.\n\nSee, the creoles and the *peninsulares*, Iberian-born Spanish, had had a rivalry for decades. The creoles were upset that the peninsulares kept getting all the higher offices whilst they were stuck with the leftover positions(though, to be honest, they still had a lot of power over the populace). Creoles saw this time without a Spanish king as a sort of opportunity to gain power. Mexico had Father Hidalgo, a creole priest, and Father Morelos, a mestizo priest, stirring up the seeds of independence under the banner of nativism. The government put these two down in succession, but it only took that movement to set everything into motion.\n\nYou could also argue that the Napoleonic Wars brought the ideals of liberalism to Spanish America. Napoleon thought of himself as a liberator, spreading the ideas of the French Revolution. Simon Bolivar was very well versed in Enlightenment thought as were many fighters of the independence. So by the 1830s, revolutions cropped up all over Spanish America, and Spain lost its colonies.\n\nKind of a quick and dirty. You can check out \"Born in Blood & Fire\" by John Chasteen.\n\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_France", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_%28New_France%29" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "esgx9qs" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "First of all the standard disclaimer of \"medieval\" being a term of vast scope and fuzzy definitions. It encompasses a long period of time that saw rapid development and changes in society, it also includes several different cultures who may or may not have had different customs. If you specify a more narrow time fram and location you will probably get much more detailed answers.\n\n**Knights and surrendering.**\n\nThat said, surrendering, in very general terms, would usually mean simply mean putting down your weapons in one way or another. Failing that, some other clear gesture that signifies your are done fighting would probably work as well, whatever you think your opponent would clearly understand as a surrender. Either because you are unable to continue the fight or because you make a choice not to. However, how attractive a prospect surrendering was depends very much on where and who you are. If you are a \"medieval\" knight, surrendering is not that horrible a prospect. You are reasonably likely to be treated fairly well and eventually ransomed. A rather famous example is Bertrand du Guesclin who surrendered at the Battle of Auray after Charles de Blois had been killed. He put up a valiant token resistance, then broke his sword to signify his surrender. He was eventually ransomed by Charles V for a tidy sum of 100.000 francs. Now, du Guesclin is of course an extreme example but in very broad terms still a good illustration of surrender on the battlefield for a knight. Even during the most vicious parts of wars, knights were geneally spared because they were simply more valuable alive.\n\n**Commoners, captivity and crusades.**\n\nWhat about if you're not a knight though? Again, it depends on where you are and who you are. In very *very* broad terms, surrender as a commoner is a much less appealing prospect. Odds are you will either be killed or enslaved. The English killed the French prisoners at Agincourt for example, partly in retaliation for the French attack on the baggage train/camp which killed a lot of civilians, partly because the situation was still unfolding and they were worried the French might break through and free the prisoners. If you're not killed it is more than likely you will be enslaved. Still slavery with all its horrors is still generally preferable to death. Still, given these two options most commoners would probably have prefered flight to surrender if they had a chance.\n\nMuslim and Christian alike engaged in ransoming of valuable captives. Non-valuable captives were generally killed or enslaved depending on the situation, in other situations such as the Cathar crusade or the Northern crusade your prospect might be significantly darker. Forced conversion in the best case, extermination of captives and civilians alike on the other end of that narrow spectrum.\n\nEDIT: If possible I would like to summon /u/Rittermeister to this thread who can probably provide more nuance if you specify a time and place. \nEDIT 2: I also urge you to check out the posts by /u/TheGreenReaper7 [here](_URL_0_) and [here](_URL_1_)." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2aknrj/how_did_one_go_about_kidnapping_a_medieval_knight/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24z6jv/how_did_knights_treat_commoners/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eld1svg" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "We would probably not know much more about anything, since few if any unique documents were lost. /u/xenophontheathenian explains this [here](_URL_0_)." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5t6op5/facts_about_the_library_of_alexandria/ddkr2h6/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ceawypu" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "The Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth was an incredibly important country, around the same size as france. It was a powerful and vibrant state which at one point occupied the Russian capital Moscow (from 1610 - 1612). Its cavalry was feared and respected and it was a bastion of toleration in the Christian world. Things however changed in the mid 17th century, when the fiercely orthodox cossacks revolted and joined the Russian Empire, giving the Russians vast swathes of the Ukraine. The Kingdom of Sweden decided to conducted a major invasion, which Russia and Prussia later joined in on, and though the invaders were repelled, the country lost 40% of its population and thus its status as a world power. This period would become known as the Deluge (1655 - 1660). \n\nDespite this the commonwealth still did a lot, and its King Jan III Sobieski would lead Austro-Polish forces to victory against the Ottoman Turks at the battle of Vienna, ending Ottoman Expansion into Europe. However, the growing weakness of Poland-Lithuania meant that outside states (Russia) slowly began gaining influence in its internal politics. In 1715 (outside your time period) the Tsar of Russia Piotr the Great virtually dictated terms to the Polish Sejm (Parliament) which severly restricted the size of its army and the powers of its elected Kings. He also began meddling in elections to produce Kings supportive of Russia. Russia went so far as to declare war to ensure its candidate became King (the war of Polish Succession 1733 - 1738). In 1768, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth was formally made a protectorate (vassal) of Russia. In 1772 Russia chose to deal with Poland completely however, and along with Prussia and Austria cut the commonealth up over a period of 20 years and they divided the spoils between them. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "czevf0b", "czfhcba" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "There was in fact a gradual shift in US public opinion away from isolationism prior to 1917. The central issue was Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare policy, which often indiscriminately destroyed both British and neutral shipping that resulted in the death of American citizens; demonstrated most prominently by the sinking of the _Lusitania_. While Germany - rightly - noted that this was simply in response to British blockade, Germany failed to realize that there was a gulf of difference between the German and British methods. For the Americans, their quarrel with the British blockade was merely a question of commerce. By contrast their quarrel with the Germans was a matter of life-and-death for American citizens traveling on ships plying the North Atlantic.\n\nWhat really tipped the scales moreover was the Zimmerman Telegram, wherein Germany promised to support Mexico if it went to war against the United States. This pretty much solidified support for the war.", "* [Why did America enter WWI?] (_URL_6_)\n* [US civilian opinion pre-1917] (_URL_5_)\n* [Why did Wilson's efforts at neutrality fail?] (_URL_4_)\n* [WWI and Democracy] (_URL_1_)\n* [Why didn't Germany just invade Luxembourg, instead of Belgium as well?] (_URL_2_)\n* [Wilson's Fourteen Points] (_URL_3_)\n* [Did Wilson get America involved in WWI so that he could have a role in the peace settlement?] (_URL_0_)\n\n^ these answers should be pertinent. \n\n/u/Zinegata pretty much hit the nail on the head so to speak, so I'll simply add on to what they've said. The submarines and the Zimmerman Telegram were an immediate threat to the United States, while the Belgian atrocities, the Lusitania sinking, the deportations of Belgian labourers, and the scorched earth retreat to the Hindenburg Line had all served to destroy German credibility in the eyes of the American public.\n\nMore so, the way the British conducted the Blockade was in great contrast to the Germans submarine efforts. The Blockade was clearly defined, based in the mouth of the Channel and between Scotland and Norway, with British ships carrying out Patrols and serving in recce lines. Above all, British methods detained ships and removed any contraband, but the ship owners were compensated and there were regular/semi-regular negotiations with neutral country's representatives. The Germans on the other hand, simply carved out a large swath of the Atlantic as a war zone, and sent out U-boats to sink anything they pleased. As Gordon Corrigan put it, *The British stopped the ships and searched for contraband; the Germans sank the ships and drowned their crews*." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3q8d09/did_wilson_involve_the_us_in_wwi_in_order_to/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3mpfkl/elon_musk_democracy_would_have_fallen_with_world/cvhhviv", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3p5rmh/why_didnt_germany_go_through_luxembourg_instead/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3pv6wc/if_things_went_differently_at_the_end_of_wwi/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/39zule/why_did_wilsons_plan_for_neutrality_during_wwi/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/32r579/us_civilian_opinion_pre1917/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2wc99z/why_did_america_enter_wwi/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dcsvlqa" ], "score": [ 35 ], "text": [ "Okay, so you have 2 questions, and this is my first answer on here so I hope it goes well: \n\n1. This really asks for speculation, so I don't think we can answer it. Additionally, it really creates a false dichotomy whereby a colonist could not want both in good faith. \nIn truth, colonists desire for representation came as an assertation of their rights as englishmen not to be taxed without consent. This was not a novel concept, this was an extant part of the British Constitution. \n\nFurther, not only were the colonists being taxed without representation, they were being taxed, as they saw it, unfairly. For example, with the Townshend acts, before the acts The British East India company had a monopoly on tea trade in Britain and they charged a certain tax on all tea, whether to the colonies or Britain itself. However they were losing a ton of money to smuggling. In order to compete with smuggling they lowered the taxes on British people, while keeping it on the colonists and then supplementing it with additional Townshend duties. Thus it would've been completely congruitous to both want to get rid of taxes like the Townshed duties and to want representation, independently of each other. \n\n2. This asks for speculation too, but I think your question is really whether or not representation was the only issue between the colonist and colonies. And the answer is no. Yes, taxation, quartering, and representation and the like were important, but there are numerous other issues that often get over looked. For example, many colonists were unsatisfied with, or were openly ignoring the British prohibition on settlement west of the Appalachians. The free access to open land was a huge part of colonial American society. (Yes, I know they were technically Indian lands.) \n\nAdditionally, going back further, you will recall the kerfluffle called the \"English Civil War.\" For a half century, Britain was embroiled in a civil war that demanded most of its focus, thus leaving the colonists to their own devices for the most part. This is called the \"salutary neglect\" of the American colonies and it allowed them to form their own governmental bodies, and basically take care of themselves. And while the British instability contributed to its existence, it was actually the official policy of Parliament.\n\n This period of British instability lasted for most of the late 17th and early 18th centuries due to various reasons (The Glorious Revolution, The Union, the War of Spanish succession etc) and the colonists suddenly wind up ruled by some Germans and with extremely high tensions with the French. The renewed tensions with the French spilled over to the colonies during the Seven Years War (that's the French and Indian Wars for us uncultured colonials) and suddenly the Colonists, who had been basically ignored in their politics for the better part of a century by the motherland we're expected to re-incorporate and to willingly fight for, and (then later help finance) the imperial tendencies of a country they realistically lacked commonality with. And without whom they had learned to survive.\n\nFinally, there was also an enlightenment going on in Europe where ideas like \"consent of the govern\" and other theories of government (separation of powers, republicanism, etc) were really being heavily theorized on. This gave a foundation to a lot of colonial governments.\n\nSo, there was already a strong strain of if not an actualized independence movement, a persistent independent sprit that permiated the colonies. The resistance to taxation and the breech of their rights as englishmen by its continuance was an area where that rebellious strain broke through and gained further ground until it ultimately prevailed, but it was there before for sure.\n \nBut no, we can't say if it would've fixed the issue or not, or if it would've only fixed for a period of time. But I think that's a satisfactory answer." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ditz477" ], "score": [ 31 ], "text": [ "I think you are meaning the *True History* by Lucian of Samasota? One part of that text, the only part anyone ever pays attention to today, is indeed a crazy, plant-adjective-using space war:\n\n > Our army numbered 100,000 (exclusive of camp-followers, engineers, infantry, and allies), the Horse-vultures amounting to 80,000, and the remaining 20,000 being mounted on Salad-wings. These latter are also enormous birds, fledged with various herbs, and with quill-feathers resembling lettuce leaves.\n\nAnd don't feel bad; it's supposed to seem crazy:\n\n > I now make the only true statement you are to expect--that I am a liar. This confession is, I consider, a full defence against all imputations. My subject is, then, what I have neither seen, experienced, nor been told, what neither exists nor could conceivably do so. I humbly solicit my readers' incredulity.\n\nThe prologue is actually really great--crafty Lucian leaves it ambiguous whether his invented voyage to made-up places and people is a satire of the literature that *copies* Homer's beloved *Odyssey*--or whether *Odyssey* is included in the targeted works that Lucian wants to reveal as ridiculous." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ca07y3r" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Miranda Spieler just released a book called [_Empire and Underworld: Captivity in French Guiana_](_URL_0_). The title is a bit misleading, as the majority of the book is about convicts in France in the early 19th century and the penal system. I'd check it out for further info." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://books.google.com/books?id=b5PwU1YukR0C&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=spieler+empire&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=SWGVUaOaKeXwyAHRnYCYDA&amp;ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e2zpdyx", "e2zqkgn", "e2zthgi", "e31sxot" ], "score": [ 123, 34, 9, 3 ], "text": [ "I think the reliability of Wikipedia varies a lot by topic, but if all you want is a \"casual overview\" of something then I usually find it pretty good. Most of the articles on pirates are \"tolerable I suppose\" with some minor errors, although I sometimes come across more glaring inaccuracies every now and then. *Just don't completely trust anything you read there until at least checking the sources.*\n\nI actually remember what first inspired me to start really researching pirates and buccaneers was reading a Wiki article about Henry Morgan and his sack of Panama in 1671, in which he led an army of 2,000 buccaneers across the Isthmus where they then fought and defeated the Spanish in a battle. That immediately struck me as so strange and fascinating and almost fake sounding, and I immediately felt I had to know more about it. I believe I then checked the sources and read three great books about the topic. These were *The Sack of Panama: Captain Morgan and the Battle for the Caribbean* by Peter Earle, *Empire of Blue Water* by Stephen Talty, and *The Buccaneers of America* published in 1678 by a French buccaneer named Alexandre Exquemelin who was actually present at the sack of Panama. Another current great interest of mine, the shipwreck and mutiny of the Dutch East India ship *Batavia* in 1629, was inspired by my first finding the Wiki article about it while randomly looking through a Wikipedia list of Australian shipwrecks. I then followed the listed sources to find Mike Dash's wonderful book *Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny* and later a translation of the original journals. \n\nI think the main point on this subreddit of not using Wikipedia as a source for answers is that often there are many small errors in Wiki articles and sometimes much larger errors and ommissions, and the answers here are supposed to be from people who have actually done enough of their own research on a topic that they can say with real certainty and authority that it's reliable, something you can never get by solely relying on Wikipedia for any claim. But for just a quick overview of a topic out of personal interest and with a desire to check sources and learn more from actual written sources? In my opinion it's generally pretty alright for that. ", "With history, unfortunately, (Or fortunately, depending on your outlook) there just isn't any replacing books. For my discipline, at least, the popular wisdom is often really out of line with the historical consensus, so that's made me pretty skeptical of Wikipedia. The thing that might be closest to what you're looking for is the Very Short Introduction series Oxford publishes. It's not at all limited to history, there are hundreds of them out there, they're quick, readable, written by serious scholars in their field, and, importantly, very cheap. (I've found them for $7-10 pretty easily, and you probably could find them for less if you dug around for deals) \n\nYou also generally can't go wrong with the Oxford and Cambridge companion series, or other similar books. (These are the most widespread, but I think other universities also publish these sort of things) They're a little pricier ($15-20 usually) and more scholarly, but are still generally pretty easy for a novice to pick up and read. The [AskHistorians Booklist](_URL_0_) will also frequently have intro books in specific subjects. \n\nFor my field, literature, the Norton Anthologies are pretty standard undergrad reading, they're generally composed of a lot of primary sources, so they may not necessarily be easy, but they're usually fairly well glossed and have useful reference materials. Norton's critical editions of famous works are also not bad, though at least for Shakespeare I usually prefer the Signet Classics editions, but this is all getting pretty far afield. Hope that was helpful, and keep in mind you can always come and ask here if you want book recommendations.", "Unironically, coming to this sub and searching for an answer is usually a good start.", "This depends a lot on what you mean by causal and what you found useful about Wikipedia. I know that I liked how there was so much knowledge in one place and pretty much everything had an article. I do not think you are going to find an easy replacement for that. Similarly, I found that Wikipedia articles were often pretty easy to read (although I have not checked their lexile level), while other sources might be harder. My thought is that the main things that might help will be subject/field specific encyclopedias, reviews and podcasts, and some side publications as it were. I've ordered the categories roughly in how useful I think they'll be. \n\n\n#Summary\nI think the encyclopedias I mentioned will have the most info for you, but might not be casual enough. Since your issue with *EB* is that it is too sketch like, I'm putting them first though. The podcasts I think are really casual (I listen to them while exercising, in transit, and cooking) but depending on your tastes might not provide enough information or assume too much pre-existing knowledge. The reviews have a similar problem. The side publications might scratch that itch but might be a bit too focused on the profession. The miscellanea is there if you want to dig deeper. \n\n#Encyclopedias\nAn issue here will be that since they are not general encyclopedias, they might have gaps that you would want filled. But within their field they will probably be better than *Encyclopedia Britannica*. Most of the ones I know are for European History due to my own interests. \n\nFor online ones, I'd suggest [European History Online](_URL_2_), [*The International Encyclopedia of the First World War*](_URL_7_), and the United States Memorial Holocaust Museums' [Holocaust Encyclopedia](_URL_0_). \n\nThe first (EGO for its German name) comes with both English and German articles. I have somewhat mixed feelings about it, in that I think it's organized in a rather intuitive way (e.g. I'm pretty sure there is no article about, say, Germany but there is an article about \"The West\" as a category), but I think it can be a really interesting place to read about concepts and categories used in European History. The second is breathtakingly detailed, having an article dedicated to Ottoman Food Policy (and I think Food Policy for many of the countries involved), although as its name implies it only covers the First World War. It is a peer reviewed source (as was *EGO*) sponsored by the Free University of Berlin and the Bavarian State Library, which gives me hope it won't disappear anytime soon. I've actually practically used the third, to help understand what the Kielce Pogrom was, since I was reading references to it but none had any analysis. I will comment here that I find *EGO* the least fun/hardest to read. \n \nFor dead-tree encyclopedias, I've gotten a lot of use out of both the *Encyclopedia of European Social History* and the *New Dictionary of the History of Ideas*. The former deals primarily with social history (so, roughly, demography, working-class history, economic history, etc. and less on either the military side or political side), while the former is set up as a dictionary and has nice review essays on different key concepts. As someone trying to branch out into more Political Science, I found the article on Game Theory pretty helpful. \n\nThese are the five that I know, but there are certainly more. If you look around, you'll find some. \n\n#Book Reviews and Podcasts\n\nThese might vary, since I've found some book reviews do a good job of summarizing and analyzing the book while putting the work into broader context (which, I think, if you want to learn history will help you), but others focus primarily on critiquing it (which might be helpful to you, but might require more background knowledge on your part). With that said:\n\nH-Net, despite having a new and terrible interface, still publishes good reviews. You can find a list of all review (going back to 1994!) published on H-Net [here](_URL_8_). You can also use more advanced tools (key word searches, limiting to specific networks [read: subject fields], etc.) to search the reviews. Similarly, but having a much nicer interface, is the Institute for Historical Research's [*Reviews in History*](_URL_1_). These might help you get a sense of the arguments historians make and what books to buy/pirate. \n\nIf you like things more audio than written, Cambridge has a new podcast out called *[Interventions](_URL_6_)* which deals with intellectual history. Being not an intellectual historian, I cannot vouch for its quality. Similarly, *[The History of Philosophy without any Gaps](_URL_3_)* is a pretty good primer on history of philosophy with the entire thing being slowly transformed into a series of books. Finally, and my personal favorite, *[Ottoman History Podcast](_URL_5_)* has wonderful episodes that can range from discussion on the history of science to aroma in the Ottoman world. The hosts and guests are almost all either PhD candidates or working historians.\n\n#Side Publications\nHere I mean those publications published by academic organizations but which are not themselves academic journals. These might be less interesting since they are more about the profession than about history *per se* but sometimes they might help scratch that itch. *[History Workshop](_URL_4_)* is an academic journal, but also publishes free articles mostly on Marxian/Left-leaning British History. Another example would be *Perspectives* published by the American Historical Association (although in my experience that tends to be more teaching and meta commentary on the historical profession). Similarly, the Organization of American Historians publishes *Process* which has a mix of professional commentary on being a historian and articles analyzing events (e.g. their recent series of sports and drug use). \n\n#Miscellanea\nYou also might want to try some of those big introductory books. Despite strong political differences, I really enjoyed Tony Judt's *Postwar*, which is a history of Western and Eastern Europe after World War II. It's a big book, but you can read it slowly (that's what I did). Try intro college textbooks (your Western Civ, your World History, your American History, etc.). Those can be annoyingly dry, but can give you a lot of detail if that's what you're after. \n\nYou might also want to check out companion books. I'm going to try to finish either the Blackwell Companion to Europe between 1900-1945 or the Blackwell Companion to Europe since 1945 by the end of the summer. I think those though might be a little outside of casual though. (Honestly while I like anthologies, I do find the switch to different narrative voices and the lack of a continuous development of ideas rather um annoying and often just use them to scour citations for other works.)" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books" ], [], [ "https://www.ushmm.org/learn/holocaust-encyclopedia", "https://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/", "http://ieg-ego.eu/", "https://historyofphilosophy.net/", "http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/", "http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/", "https://soundcloud.com/theihpodcast", "encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net", "https://networks.h-net.org/browse/reviews" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "clueodh", "cluh8gx" ], "score": [ 2, 12 ], "text": [ "Because the Mongols and the Manchus were both very small % (something like 1-1.5%) of the Chinese population. What this means is that neither dynasties can hope to displace the native Han population and therefore had to adopt some system of governance to rule over them.\n\nThe Chinese system of legitimacy: the Mandate of Heaven, allowed a pretty wide breadth of people to rule China, as long as they obey and follow a set of governance and moral principle roughly corresponding to a philosophy known as Confucianism. \n\nKey parts of Confucian system of governance involved support for and allowing the Chinese intelligentsia to rise up in the governmental bureaucracy through an exam system based on the Confucian classics. This is actually quite advantageous since both the Yuan and the Qing needed them as a source of talent for governing the country. \n\nThis is also necessary since the Chinese intelligentsia comes from the landed gentry which de facto controlled the country on the local level. Not allowing them to rise up through the imperial bureaucracy through the exam system amounts to a breach of the social contract between them and whoever controls the central government. And you can't have this because a rebellious/angry gentry would end up making the country ungovernable for the dragon throne.\n\nSo basically it was necessary for the Yuan and the Qing to act like Confucian Emperors, find themselves a position within the Chinese dynastic system, and adopt elements of Chinese Confucian culture to govern and control China because that's what made their governments legitimate in the eyes of the literati gentry.\n\nIt should also be mentioned that Chinese culture far exceeded the Yuan and the Qing in terms of sophistication and level of development and thus it seems natural for them to assimilate into a more advanced society because it's far more appealing than nomadic/semi-nomadic life style after a generation or two. ", "I feel like the premise of this question needs to be somewhat qualified. The Yuan and Qing adopted elements of Chinese culture as a matter of outward expression to legitimize their rule among Han subjects, but only adopted more substantive elements of Chinese culture (institutions, writing systems, philosophical / religious customs) in bits and pieces.\n\nTensions between Manchus and Han Chinese simmered right up until the Republican period, when revolutionary Chinese leaders tried to frame China as an ethnically inclusive nation. The stereotypical queue hairstyle was a very visible Manchu imposition on the Han population. Government, especially at the top levels, was segregated to an extent, where Han Chinese were discriminated against, while people like Mongols were advantaged relative to Han. Parts of the empire were supposedly reserved as Manchu-only preserves to serve as a bastion of last resort in case of a successful Han rebellion. The banner armies eventually came to be staffed mostly with people of Han origin, but these soldiers were actually seen (by other Han) as being Manchu-sized Chinese rather than vice versa. The imperial government used the Manchu language, with its own script, right up to the 19th century.\n\nSo, sure, there is a great deal of sinicization going on but the extent to which it occurred I think is exaggerated in some circles." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eqj2k4s" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "This doesn’t specifically look at trends in cities, but *Nature’s Metropolis* by William Cronon is a fabulous read of a topic you are interested in. He looks at the development of Chicago in the 19th century through the lens of the environment. Specific to Chicago, but broadly applicable." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cpmtaja" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ "This entire line of thought seems to have begun with the American author; a combat historian who was employed by the US army: S.L.A. Marshall. He wrote a book called Men Against Fire, where Marshall claimed to have done a study to prove that 75% of the men in battle did not really even aim and fire, that most of the fighting was done by a minority. This was right after WW II and made him famous and influenced military thought. \n\nNow there is a certain logic to what he is saying. There are veterans of air warfare that tell you that some pilots would back off from the dog fight, and some sort of half engage the enemy but not really go full out, and a smaller number would actually go full out and engage in dog fights. Sort of the same thing if you've ever been in a street fight. Or if you watch ball players get into a fight in baseball. Right? THere's usually 2 or 3 guys going all crazy and trying to kill each other, there's usually a few more who are brave enough to try to keep them apart, and the rest of the guys are milling about, push and shoving not really willing to come to blows.\n\nSo yeah I can see what he was saying...\n\nhaving said that; SLA Marshall is a very questionable authority. Lots of soldiers had issues with his methods. Col. David Hackworth did a tour with Marshall in Vietnam and found him one to never let a good story get in the way of fact. Hackworth says Marshall was always getting the name and hometown of every soldier he came across because every time you mentioned someone by name, that would sell 50 more books. According to hackworth: Marshall was simply about gathering tons of information and churning that into another book and making more money. \n\nPersonally I think Marshall is overrated. However it should be pointed out that he has had influence in the modern US military because there is greater emphasis placed on how individuals react to the stress of combat to make sure they dont panic and keep firing their weapons. In WW II, these guys were trained to shoot and fight, but not really how to react to all that stress. \n\nWHether it's true or not, I think Marshall had some insight to the problems of modern warfare but hard to say whether this is really true. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ciiizjq" ], "score": [ 55 ], "text": [ "I wrote my thesis on the culpability of Mao close to 5 years ago so forgive me if I'm a bit rusty. \n\n1. Mao did think the Red Guard were out of control so in 1969 he declared the Cultural Revolution over, though I think it continued until his death. Speaking of his death I assume the reason the revolution continued even after the official declaration that it was over was because of Mao's failing health. He had Parkinson's at the end was pretty weak. He was rarely seen publicly at this time when before he was quite the man of the people.\n2. I don't believe there was ever a concrete plan. If I remember correctly there was a play that kinda set everything off. Madame Mao thought the play criticized her husband and denounced the Beijing mayor who was supporting the play. This spurred on the creation of the Group of Five which transitioned into the Cultural Revolution group. This group started a purge of quite a few top level officials including the mayor of Beijing. After this purge was when Mao and the Cultural Revolution group released a notification which was kind of the official start of the Revolution. So I guess everything went according to plan until the Red Guard went completely bonkers and started killing people. Though I guess thats what happens when you let an unruly mob do your work.\n3. Nope the revolution was all good until 1967ish.\n4. Well the Revolution's intent was to purge the moderates from the party. Khrushchev's secret speech went against everything that Mao built up so he was quite paranoid that the same moderate elements that were now running the USSR would infect his own party. Also you might not be too far off with the boredom question actually. While he probably wasn't bored he did give up a lot of responsibilities during the Great Leap Forward. He gave up the economic decisions and the day to day operations to focus more on Marxist-Leninist theory. So going with the constant revolution theory he started the Cultural Revolution. \n\nSo in the end your right in that there wasn't a plan from the start with goals to follow. Thats why you get what seems to be flip flopping (which he did quite often, a symptom of the Chinese need to save face). Also I don't believe that the goal was to ever regain power for himself, though like I said after 5 years of not touching anything Mao I could be rusty. He gave up the power willingly, I don't think he would be so quick to try and get it back. I think the main cause and goal of the whole thing was to just oust the moderates who he believed wanted to follow Khrushchev's lead. \n\nEdit: Sources\nPrimary Sources:\n\nMacfarquhar, Roderick, Timothy Cheek, and Eugene Wu. The Secret Speeches of Chairman \n\nMao. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.\n\nSecondary Sources:\n\nBernard, Thomas S. Season of High Adventure: Edgar Snow in China. Berkeley: University \n\nof California Press, 1996.\n\nChang, Jung and Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Random House, 2005.\n\nErlikman, Vadim. Poteri narodonaseleniia v XX veke. Spravochnik. Moscow: Russkaia \n\npanorama, 2004.\n\nGoodman, David. \"Mao and The Da Vinci Code: conspiracy, narrative and history.\" The \n\nPacific Review. 19, no. 3 (2006).\n\nJames, Clive. Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts. New York: \n\nW. W. Norton & Company, 2007.\n\nJisheng, Yang. Tombstone. Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 2008.\n\nJohnson, Paul. A History of the Jews. New York: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1988.\n\nMirsky, Jonathan. \"Message from Mao.\" New York Review, 1985.\n\nMontefiore, Simon. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. New York: Vintage Books, 2003.\n\nShort, Phillip. Mao: A Life. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999.\n\nSpence, Jonathan. Mao Zedong. New York: Viking, 1999.\n\nSpence Jonathan. The Search for Modern China. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, \n\n1991.\n\nZhisui, Li. The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao's Private Physician. \n\nNew York: Random House, 1994." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "di05b5h" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Unlike with the Watergate Seven, all of whom had been indicted and several of whom had already pleaded guilty, Nixon's pardon was preemptive -- Nixon never admitted guilt, and no criminal charges were ever brought against him. Partly as a result, there were allegations that there was a deal made wherein Nixon would resign in exchange for a pardon rather than fight impeachment all the way through the Senate vote, which would have been even more politically damaging for the GOP and an even bigger impediment to actual policymaking. In fact, Ford had to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on this question. (*See* Robert Gettlin & Len Colodny, *Silent Coup: The Removal of a President* 420 (1991); Gerald R. Ford, *A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford* 196-99 (1979).)." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cpx8664", "cpx8yjd" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "hi! just a heads up that this sub is inundated with April Fools content right now, so if your post gets lost in the shuffle and is left unanswered, do resubmit when normal service has been resumed in a couple of days.\n", "well the break up of the Soviet Union is what has indirectly lead to the current events. One of the major aspects is Sevastopol a city in the Crimea. This city was home to the Soviet Black Fleet which was a crucial part of their defence structure. This lead to many issues that caused conflict between Ukraine and Russia in the aftermath of the collapse the USSR. This seemed to be resolved in around 2010 with a treaty that gave Russia the lease to its Black Sea facilities for another 30 years or so. However with the Ukraine Government becoming more pro Western Russia felt that it's Black Sea fleet would be a sitting duck should war ever break out between Russia and the West. It all goes back to the idea of many Russians that Sevastapol and by extension all of Crimea are Russian not Ukrainian.\n\nSource The Last Empire" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cwjdv4s" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "The *Thesenanschlag* ~~or literally Attack of the Theses!~~ may or may not have happened. If it did, it wasn't a hugely symbolic thing--it would have been standard practice.\n\nOn October 31, 1517, Martin Luther sent a letter to Albrecht of Mainz, the archbishop in charge of the Church's indulgence campaign, and to the archbishop of Brandenburg, in whose diocese Wittenberg lay. The monk and university professor wanted to protest the Chuch's new campaign of selling indulgences. To the letter, Luther appended a list of 95 points against the Church's doctrine of indulgences, for the archbishops' consideration.\n\nCrucially, Luther referred to this list as \"meas disputationes\"--my *disputations*.\n\n > If it would please your most reverend Father, you can see my disputations, so that you might understand, how doubtful a thing is the *opinion* of indulgences, which those men preach as if it were certain.\n\nIn medieval universities, disputations (a type of formal debate) were a common exercise for teaching both the participants and the observing audience. By Luther's day, the bigger university disputations, especially involving more popular professors, could be quite public events--reflecting a growing interest in intellectual life (and knowledge of Latin) among urban Germans. The university itself used the doors of the town's churches as its bulletin board to announce upcoming debates. However, it was *also* not uncommon to inform the archbishop and city council directly of the major ones.\n\nNow, in his letter, Luther doesn't say anything about an actual disputation taking place, and 95 *Thesen* is kind of a lot for one debate. Still, the *pieces* are there.\n\nWe used to think the earliest source for the legend of Luther actually nailing a list of propositions to church doors was fellow reformer Philip Melanchthon writing in 1546. Melanchthon, crucial to the later course of the Reformation, wasn't even in Wittenberg until 1546.\n\nHowever, one Luther scholar more recently dug up a reference (in the critical edition of Luther's works, nonetheless) from one of Luther's closest and earliest assistants that *also* says\n\n > In 1517 on the eve of All Saints, [theses against indulgences] were placed on the doors of the churches of Wittenberg by Martin Luther\n\nThis note is from 1540--slightly earlier than Melanchthon. But it is crucial because the original source (before the critical edition) is a copy of the Bible that has notes from Rörer *and* from Luther himself. So Luther would probably have seen the comment. But human memory is fickle. Are people remembering an event, or remembering what they think of an event based on accumulated legend? Rorer's language, too (he calls the churches \"temples,\" which is an interesting choice that different scholars have interepreted different ways), certainly suggests he's viewing the situation from a 1540 perspective instead of a 1517 one.\n\nThe important thing to keep in mind is that Luther's goal was *reform*, not *Reformation*. He was a committed monk, priest, and professor in a Church that was creaking towards a lot of his own theological ideas. The entire history of the medieval Church had been one of reform movement after reform movement; there was [no reason to suspect in the beginning](_URL_0_) that this one would be any different.\n\n(Incidentally, Luther was initially content to keep the cult of the saints in some ways, but eventually both the implications of his theology and pressure from the public--basically all his major followers rejected it wholesale, although certainly devotion to the saints lingers around in popular Protestantism for awhile--changed his mind.)" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3m0bej/if_i_was_active_in_church_life_in_the_hre_around/cvazi8f" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dfxnakc" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Hi, not discouraging other answers, but fyi there was a related question which may provide an interesting starting point\n\n* [What model of piano would be found in an 1860's Old West saloon?](_URL_0_) featuring /u/erus" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/39u7bd/what_model_of_piano_would_be_found_in_an_1860s/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cgkhp5e" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "By what measure do you mean democracy failing in Europe in the interwar period?\n\nI don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of interwar European governments, but we can list off the governments I know were *non*democratic and then we can proceed from there.\n\nNon-democratic governments:\n\n* USSR\n* Germany after 1932\n* Spain (military dictatorship between 1923 and 1930, then the Second Spanish Republic until the Civil War)\n* Fascist Italy\n* Poland after 1926\n\nAnd then there's the distinctly democratic governments (though many were and are constitutional monarchies):\n\n* France\n* United Kingdom\n* Denmark\n* Sweden\n* Norway\n* Czechoslovakia\n* Poland before 1926\n* Germany before 1932\n\nDemocracy wasn't failing, though it was in quite a struggle. The proportion of democratic governments to nondemocratic governments was roughly equal." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d1yh33i", "d1yhtt9" ], "score": [ 5, 4 ], "text": [ "Athenian (and other Greek) galleys (a *trireme*, or later *quadrireme* and *quinquereme*) were commanded by a *Trierarch*. Generally, the *trierarch* was chosen, or volunteered, because he was wealthy enough to pay for the cost of fitting it out a ship and maintaining it for the current year. This was the civic duty of a wealthy Athenian, and a matter of pride, although sometimes grudgingly performed. If the *trierarch* wasn't able or willing to command ship, he could delegate that authority to his *kybernetes*, or second in command.\n\nLionel Casson, *Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World*", "At Athens (the only Greek state for which we have good information on this sort of thing) a ship was commanded by a trierarch (τριήραρχος, from τριήρης, trireme+ἀρχός, leader). Trierarchs were private citizens of particular wealth who, in typical Athenian fashion, were required to use their private funds to maintain a ship for the state. I say typical Athenian fashion because the Athenian state didn't really have taxes, except for emergency taxes on the very wealthiest (the εἰσφορά) and a relatively small tax on goods going through Piraeus (as well as a couple other cities during the Peloponnesian War). Most funding came in the form of tribute from the Athenian Empire, but a great deal of public works were funded through the liturgy (λειτουργία), the service of the wealthy on behalf of the state. Wealthy citizens subject to the liturgy were required to provide particular duties for the state out of their own pockets. These services included things like the raising and training of a chorus during the dramatic performances, providing banquets for one's tribe during festivals, etc. Military duties included the maintenance of a horse for war and, from 483 on, the maintenance of a trireme. At the very latest, if not before, the old system of using tribal leaders to command the fleet (the ναυκραρία) was abolished in 483, though probably it was done away with during the reorganization of the tribes after the expulsion of the tyrants.\n\nTrierarchs were required to equip and maintain their ships for the duration of a year. The state provided the ship and the crew, which was usually paid with state funds, but the trierarch was responsible for the costs of maintenance and had to command the crew. Trierarchy was expensive and trierarchs were often called up for several years in a row--in 411 a reform was introduced that provided for two trierarchs per ship to split the cost. In 357 the system was further reformed. Under this new law the *symmoriae* (συμμορίαι), taxation groups of the wealthiest citizens (100 groups total) which had been established in 378, were extended. The new law grouped the 1200 wealthiest citizens into 20, not 100, symmoriae and the cost of the trierarchy was divided evenly among the members of each symmoria. In 340 Demosthenes further reformed the trierarchy by scaling the cost of the trierarchy according to the assets of the individuals within each symmoria, so that while all 1200 were providing for the trierarchy through the liturgy the majority of the costs were falling on the very wealthiest two or three hundred. As it became harder and harder to find people with enough wealth for the liturgy in the 4th Century the liturgy in general came under fire, and under Demetrius of Phalerum the liturgy was abolished entirely. \n\nRoman naval commands worked completely differently, however. As with armies fleet commands were generally given to magistrates and promagistrates above praetorian rank, although sometimes we see extraordinary magistracies being created for the command of a fleet, often with other duties attached to it. However, like in the army, the use of prefects in the fleet was common beginning in the Republic. In the Principate the *praefectus classis* was established as a particular type of prefect. There were two *praefecti classis*, one commanding the praetorian fleet at Ravenna and the other commanding the (senior) praetorian fleet at Misenum, as well as a number of provincial prefects in command of the various provincial fleets. \n\nBut those are fleet commanders, and I only mention them because the way that the Romans dealt with military magistracies is totally different from the Athenians, who basically had their στρατηγοί and nothing else to command both armies and fleets. The Roman fleet's organization mirrored that of the army. All marines and crewmen of a Roman warship were considered *miles*, soldiers, although they were junior to their landlubber counterparts. Just like the army the entire crew of a warship, regardless of its size, was organized into a century and commanded by a centurion. A warship of decent size apparently would also have an *optio* on board, as well as a number of lesser *beneficiarii* and *immunes*--it's from these that I have to presume most of the crew other than the rowers came, but I'm not sure if we actually know that." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7vkvtg", "c7vnd0b" ], "score": [ 4, 10 ], "text": [ "Do you mean were they pushed across the steppes into Europe?\n\nThey came from Mongolia and gradually migrated west across the steppes. They weren't really pushed but they did push other tribes like the Goths and Vandals west into central Europe. ", " > If the Huns destroyed Rome's armies and held Rome hostage...\n\nThey didn't. Huns attacked the eastern part of the Empire while its best troops and generals (Aspar, for instance) were busy fighting Vandals and Persians. They managed to destroy some major cities and apparently defeat some armies that Theodosius II managed to assemble and send against them, but the only major battle they fought against the Empire was the one at Catalaunum and they lost.\n\nMy point is that the Huns were not nearly as invincible as 13th century Mongols to which modern people often compare them." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c92y8ia", "c931uls", "c9356l6" ], "score": [ 3, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "It is my understanding (might be wrong it's been awhile) that the Australian involvement in the Gallipoli campaign during WWI had a big influence over Australian and New Zealand national identity.\n\nEdit* [This](_URL_0_) is a good summation of the events and remembrance of the battle at Gallipoli \n", "Having a vocal 25% Irish minority readily shaped our political discourse. \n\n\nBefore 1890, Irish Catholics opposed Henry Parkes, the main liberal leader, and free trade, since both represented Protestant, English landholding and wealthy business interests. In the great strike of 1890 Cardinal Moran, the head of the church, was sympathetic toward unions, but Catholic newspapers were critical of labor throughout the decade. After 1900, Catholics joined the Labor Party because its stress on equality and social welfare appealed to people who were workers and small farmers. In the 1910 elections Labor gained in areas where the concentration of Catholics was above average, and the number of Catholics in Labor's parliamentary ranks rose.\n\n[source] Celia Hamilton, \"Irish-Catholics of New South Wales and the Labor Party, 1890-1910,\" Historical Studies: Australia & New Zealand 1958 8(31): 254-267\n", "There's the birth of a Labor party in Australia, which was captured in the [Waltzing Matilda](_URL_0_) ballad. \nBasically, labourers went on strike, and the farmers instead hired some other people to sheer the sheep, who the labourers called scabs, and the labourers on strike shot up a barn and burnt it, then got chased by the police and one either got shot or killed himself, we're not sure, but he was dead by the time the police caught up to them. \nThe issue was finally resolved at a pub, where the writer saw them handing drinks around as the end of hostilities. \nAnd that strengthened the unions, and led to the emergence of the Australian Labor party. \nEdit: changed they to the labourers.\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/ww1.asp" ], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltzing_Matilda#History" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cooknc1" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "I have this site saved from a Nazi Germany class I took four or five years ago. \n[Nazi Propaganda](_URL_0_)" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/ww2era.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dj6oalj" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Not to discourage other answers, but you might find [this section of the FAQ](_URL_0_) informative." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historically_accurate#wiki_..._is_.27game_of_thrones.27_.2F_a_song_of_ice_and_fire_.3F" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cuezdux", "cuf92ke" ], "score": [ 5, 6 ], "text": [ "Additional related question. Does the distance moved have any bearing on this? I recall something about different countries having different smithing methods. ", "I've answered these sorts of questions in the past on building trade guilds. The biggest problem here is that I'm drawing a blank on a good source for this particular answer. Let me try to sketch out a general answer and then hopefully I can locate a good source (sorry mods, I know this should really go the other way!). Note that I'm going to talk strictly about guilds for the building trades (which would include plasterers, carpenters, and masons).\n \nThe two key variables in the question are when, precisely, in medieval time we're talking about, and which guilds, specifically, we're talking about. The guilds grew, substantially, in influence, size, and organization as the centuries rolled forward, so it would be typical to find very loosely organized guilds early on, and pretty highly regimented guilds near the end of the period. Also, the guilds for carpenters and masons grew in size and organization much more quickly than plasterers and painters, e.g. One of the key reasons for this is that masons and carpenters served, on smaller and mid-sized projects, as the de facto structural engineers for the project--they designed the load-bearing beams and the structural attachments between those beams and the walls (or, in the case of full masonry walls, where the walls themselves were load-bearing, the attachment from the roof rafters to the walls). Because this implicated safety and stability, regulation of the trade became much more important than those trades and guilds that dealt more with architectural finishes (again, plastering and painting chief among them).\n \nSo, those caveats aside, what sort of mobility would you have? First, understand that you'd have no mobility unless/until you were the equivalent of a journeyman: you had completed your apprenticeship and were deemed capable, by your instructing master, of working on your own. Typically, upon graduation from your apprenticeship, you would receive a written letter from your instructing master, indicating that he had trained you and deemed you capable of doing the work. So, if you wanted to move to a different town, the typical process would be to move, find local members of the guild, and present yourself to them, by presenting the letter. What happens next could vary wildly based on time, place, and trade.\n \nYou may have moved to a town with no strong or organized guild. So, you show your letter to the local mason, he grunts, shrugs his shoulders and you both move on. If the locals feel particularly protectionist, they might bad-mouth the \"newcomer\" to the locals--meaning that the guild doesn't always welcome a newcomer with open arms. At the other end of the spectrum, you might move to a town that has a guild hall, where you go and meet the current master of the guild, and he formally accepts you, either based on your letter or by giving you a test (a difficult piece of work to perform to demonstrate you know what you're doing). Upon being accepted, you would be treated as a brother in the guild.\n \nTo your question, it certainly wouldn't be \"automatic,\" and only a fool would move and then just hang out a shingle and start doing work. You would need to seek out the local guild members and affirmatively seek their approval/acceptance. I would imagine, but can't remember reading specifically about, some guilds in some cities at some times might be very protectionist and would work hard to keep newcomers out.\n \nIf we fast-forward to today, we see all of these traditions carried forward in the current operations for building trade unions. If you are a member (to use an example) of a the electricians union in Toledo, what you actually are is a member of the Local (i.e., the local chapter of that union). If you move, you'll need to join the new Local in your new area. You'll do that by going to the union hall and presenting your training papers and certificates to the Local, so they can credential you into their Local. I.e., having been a union electrician in area X, you're absolutely not automatically a member of the union in area Y.\n \nLet me hunt down a good source or two.\n \nEDIT: SOURCE AHOY! Ogilvie, Sheilagh; Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000–1800 (2001) at (among other treatments) pp. 51-57. Ogilvie's work is a great one on medieval guilds in general, so it's not surprising that this is covered in some depth." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "css6wkk", "css6xiq", "cssewg5", "cssgij3" ], "score": [ 273, 16, 9, 4 ], "text": [ "It's really hard to prove a negative and I'm not a professional historian, but I did do some digging. From what I found, I don't think it's likely Churchill said that exact quote, but he may have expressed similar sentiments.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nThe only citation I could find for the quote was in [The Shakespearean International Yearbook](_URL_4_) Volume 8 (October 2008) in an essay titled *Henry V and the Anglo-Greek alliance in World War II* by [Tina Krontiris](_URL_2_). Both the book and the author of the article seem legitimate and are associated with real universities.\n\n\nIn the [essay](_URL_5_), Krontiris writes:\n\n\n > Winston Churchill had every reason to express his gratitude to the Greeks and to pat them on the back for their brave resistance. In his address to the English Parliament he had then stated \"We will not say hereafter that the Greeks fight like heroes, but heroes fight like Greeks!\" (page 34)\n\n\n\nShe provides, as a citation:\n\n\n > Winston Churchill, in a message he broadcast from the BBC after the news of a Greek victory over Mussolini's forces on the Greek-Albanian border. Churchill had made a similar statement in a speech he delivered to the British Parliament on 24 April 1941: \"the word heroism I am afraid does not render in the least those acts of self-sacrifice of the Greeks.\" (page 47)\n\n\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\nIt does seem somewhat questionable that Krontiris claimed the quote was from a parliamentary address in the text of the essay, but said it was from a BBC broadcast in the citation. But anyway, I then used the site [_URL_1_](_URL_0_) (which is a site that \"takes open data from the UK Parliament, and presents it in a way that’s easy to follow\") to search for speeches from April 24th 1941 mentioning Greece of Greeks. I found one speech by Churchill mentioning Greeks, but all it says is:\n\n\n\n > Members may rest assured that they will be given full information as soon as I am in a position to give it, but a serious responsibility rests upon His Majesty's Government not to take any course, or make any statement, which will prejudice the safety and success of the British, Australian, New Zealand and Greek soldiers who at this time are in close contact with the enemy.\n\n\n\nHowever, I decided to try a broader date range in case Krontiris messed up the dates and I searched for all speeches mentioning Greeks from March through May. I found [one speech by Churchill from April 9th](_URL_3_) that said something similar to the second second quote cited by Krontiris (emphasis mine):\n\n\n\n > And it no longer being worth while to keep up the farce of love for Greece, other powerful forces rolled forward into Greece, where they were at once **unflinchingly encountered and have already sustained more than one bloody repulse at the hands of that heroic Army**.\n\n\n\nThere are a few other places in that speech that speak well of Greece if you care to read through it.\n\n\n & nbsp;\n\n\nSo, that's as far as I was able to get. I hope it's a helpful answer, as incomplete as it is. Maybe someone more familiar with the British Parliament or old BBC broadcasts would be able to do a little more sleuthing, but short of contacting Krontiris and asking for her sources, I'm not sure how to dig any deeper.\n\n", "I cannot find, and do not know, a direct source for this quote. It is frequently mentioned in a number of otherwise well-researched books but, all the same, a concrete origin is elusive.\n\nThe Greek surrender in 1941 is an interesting point in the Second World War. The refusal of the Greek Epirus Army to surrender to the Italians, instead negotiating directly with the Germans, infuriated Mussolini. Hitler was respectful of the Greek fighting spirit, stating in the May 1941 Reichstag address that \"the Greek soldier particularly fought with the highest courage. He capitulated only when further resistance had become impossible and useless.\"\n\nWhilst it is an attractive thought that Churchill provided his own commentary on the Balkan Campaign, we must remain sceptical. There is a supposed [audio recording](_URL_0_) but there is no source, nor do I believe that it's actually Churchill's voice we're hearing.\n\nI'm sorry that this answer isn't more satisfying for you!", "Not Churchill, but I can attest to Hitler's admiration for the common Greek soldier's valor, as demonstrated in the 1940–1941 fighting. What follows are excerpts from Hitler's speech before the Reichstag on 4 May 1941, with the relevant passages in bold; I include substantial surrounding passages merely to provide additional context for the interested.\n\n > Greece, which least needed a like guarantee, was likewise ready to heed the English birdcall and to tie its fate to the financial patronage of its royal lord. **Even today, I believe that I owe it to historical truth to differentiate between the Greek people and their narrow, corrupt class of leaders.** Inspired by a king enslaved to England, it had its eye not on fulfilling the tasks of the Greek government, but on appropriating the goals of the British war policy. **I sincerely regretted this. For me, as a German whose education as a youth as well as in later life was imbued with a profound admiration for the civilization and art of the country from which the first light of human beauty and dignity emerged, it was very hard and bitter to watch this development without being able to do anything against it.** Through the documents of La Charité [reference to where a trainload of secret documents of the French General Staff was captured by the Germans in June 1940], we had gained insight into the activities of the forces which, sooner or later, were bound to bring terrible disaster upon the Greek state.\n\n > In late summer of last year, Mr. Churchill had managed to substantiate the Platonic guarantees to Greece in the heads of certain elements to such an extent that the result was a persistent series of violations of neutrality. Primarily, this concerned Italy. Thus, already in October of 1940, it was felt necessary to approach the Greek government with proposals and to demand guarantees of a nature suited to end this situation which had become unbearable for Italy. Given the influence of the British warmongers, this request was brusquely rejected, and the peace in the Balkans ended. The beginning of bad weather, snow, storms, and rain, in combination with **the truly valiant resistance of the Greek soldiers—I must do justice to history here**—left the government in Athens enough time to rethink its unfortunate decision and to search for a reasonable solution to the situation.\n\n > Germany, with the faint hope of somehow contributing to a clarification of the question, did not sever relations with Greece. However, it was my duty to point out to the world that Germany would not stand by and watch a reenactment of the Salonika idea of the World War without taking action. Regrettably, my warning that if the English tried to gain a foothold in Europe we were determined immediately to force them back out to sea was not taken seriously enough. And so we looked on all winter, as the English increasingly tried to establish bases for a new Salonika army. They began to lay out airports, attended to organization on the ground, convinced that this would allow the deployment to be conducted more speedily. Finally, there was the continuous transport of matériel, carrying equipment for an army, which—in the opinion and insight of Mr. Churchill—was to be brought to Greece within a few weeks. As mentioned earlier, my deputies, this did not remain hidden from us. We carefully watched these peculiar activities for many months, though with restraint.\n\n...\n\n > **I must stress here that all this was not directed against Greece.** The Duce himself never asked me to place at his disposal even one German division in a like case. He was convinced that, once the warm season began, the fight against Greece would end quickly and victoriously, in one way or another. I shared this opinion. The concentration of German troops was not a question of helping Italy against Greece. Instead, it was a preventive measure in view of the British attempt to sneak secretly into the Balkans, under cover of the fracas of the Italian-Greek war, in order to bring about a decision there, recalling the example of the Salonika army of the World War, and, above all, to draw other forces into the whirlpool of the war. Among other things, this hope rested on two states: Turkey and Yugoslavia. However, in the years since the seizure of power, I labored especially to bring about close cooperation with these two states, based on economic expedience.\n\n...\n\n > We realize how great a share our allies had in these successes. Especially the six-month-long struggle of Italy in Greece, under the most difficult circumstances and exacting sacrifices, not only tied down the main Greek force but also weakened it so considerably that its collapse became inevitable. The Hungarian army also rendered proof of its old glory. It occupied the Batshka and, along with its motorized units it marched forward across the Sava River. **To do justice to history, I am obliged to state that, of the enemies confronting us, the Greek soldier fought with death-defying valor. He surrendered only after further resistance had become impossible and senseless.**\n\n > However, I am now forced to speak about that adversary who occasioned this struggle and was the reason for it. **As a German and as a soldier, I hold it to be beneath me ever to disparage a valiant enemy.** It appears to me to be necessary, however, to protect the truth from the lies of a man who as a soldier is a miserable politician, and as a politician is likewise a miserable soldier. Mr. Churchill, who began this fight, is searching for something to say which, sooner or later, as in the case of Norway or Dunkirk, can be transformed by lies into a success. I find this dishonorable, but understandable with this man. If ever someone else, as a politician, suffered so many defeats and, as a soldier, witnessed so many catastrophes, he would not have remained in office six weeks, unless he possessed the one ability which distinguishes Mr. Churchill, namely, to lie with a pious face for as long as it takes to distort the truth to such an extent that the most terrible defeat is transformed into a glorious victory. Mr. Churchill can befog his countrymen with this, but he cannot eliminate the consequences of his defeats.\n\n...\n\n > In the course of operations against Yugoslavia, excluding soldiers of German ethnicity and Macedonians, who were for the most part released immediately, purely Serb prisoners captured were: 6,298 officers, 337,864\nmen. The figure for the Greek prisoners (8,000 officers, 210,000 men) cannot be compared with those or taken at face value because, as far as the Greek army of Macedonia and Epirus is concerned, they were surrounded and forced to surrender in the course of common German and Italian operations. **In view of the generally valiant behavior of the Greek soldiers, these prisoners were and are being released immediately.**\n\n...\n\n > **We feel sincere sympathy for the defeated, unfortunate people of Greece. It has become the victim of its king and of a small, blinded group of leaders.** However, **it has fought so valiantly that its enemies cannot deny it the proper respect.** Perhaps the Serb people will draw the only proper conclusion from this, its catastrophe: the officers of the putsch are a misfortune for the country. This time, those concerned will not so quickly forget the “noble” manner in which the state and its leaders, for whom they had the honor to sacrifice themselves, abandoned them, in accordance with the principle: never expect gratitude once you’ve served your purpose.\n\n > Rarely has greater cynicism been employed in honoring the sacrifice of little people than in this case. For, to drive nations as helpmates into a war and then to declare that one did not really believe in success from the start, that one only did this in order to force someone to fight who did not want to fight in this theater of war, must be the most disgraceful thing which world history has to offer. Only an age in which capitalist greed and political hypocrisy unite, as they do in the democracies today, is capable of regarding such a procedure as so little dishonorable that its responsible masterminds are able to boast of it publicly.\n", "When I have questions about Churchill quotations, I go to The Churchill Centre at _URL_1_. They have three pages mainly devoted to quotations (true, falsely attributed, and questions), under [Quotations](_URL_0_). I see nothing in those pages. I tried a search using Google syntax,\n\n > \"greeks fight\" site:_URL_2_\n\nbut there were no hits. I tried a broader query,\n\n > (greeks OR greece) \"heroes\" site:_URL_2_\n\nbut my computer is too slow for me to search each of the PDF files for Finest Hour that it throws up as hits.\n\nI've at least used their Contact page to dispatch a query.\n\n(I hope the moderators will allow this incomplete reply.)" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.theyworkforyou.com/search/?q=greek+1941-04-24..1941-04-24", "TheyWorkForYou.com", "http://www.enl.auth.gr/staff/krontiri.htm", "http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1941-04-09a.1587.1#g1587.3", "http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&amp;calcTitle=1&amp;isbn=9780754665724&amp;lang=cy-GB", "https://books.google.com/books?id=JQpV9mPDC4EC&amp;pg=PA34&amp;dq=%22heroes+but+heroes+fight+like+Greeks%22&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=EySYVa2POMu_sAWo4JugBw&amp;ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;q=%22heroes%20but%20heroes%20fight%20like%20Greeks%22&amp;f=false" ], [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzZPJqaVadY" ], [], [ "http://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotations", "http://www.winstonchurchill.org", "winstonchurchill.org" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c41zeku", "c41zkdx", "c41zl1i" ], "score": [ 18, 5, 10 ], "text": [ "He was hardly the \"ruler,\" although he was influential enough that it could be easy to see him that way.\n\nThe reforms of Cleisthenes in the year 509 introduced democracy and a reorganization of the Athenian assembly and tribal systems. This left much of the power in the boule, or council, which prepared matters to be debated and voted on in the ekklesia, or popular assembly, which every Athenian citizen had the right to vote at.\n\nThere was no formal leader in Athens at this point. There were a few Archons, remnants of the old oligarchic government, but their duties were mostly religious and ceremonial by this point. Pericles was one of ten elected strategoi, or generals. This position of strategos", "Even in a direct democracy, there are always men who appear as leaders. He was not the only leader of his time, but his ideas were popular enough for him to be immortalized and remembered as the \"ruler\" during the golden age of Athens.", "Thucydides, II.65:\n\n > \"Pericles indeed, by his rank, ability, and known integrity, was enabled to exercise an independent control over the multitude--in short, to lead them instead of being led by them; for as he never sought power by improper means, he was never compelled to flatter them, but, on the contrary, enjoyed so high an estimation that he could afford to anger them by contradiction. Whenever he saw them unseasonably and insolently elated, he would with a word reduce them to alarm; on the other hand, if they fell victims to a panic, he could at once restore them to confidence. In short, what was nominally a democracy became in his hands government by the first citizen. With his successors it was different. More on a level with one another, and each grasping at supremacy, they ended by committing even the conduct of state affairs to the whims of the multitude.\"" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d9oyscz" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "Hi! Looking forward to more answers here, but just FYI, there have been a couple of previous threads on this topic, so check out the answers there:\n\n* [How did the 'Gothic' go from referring to an ethnicity to a description of overtly nihilist teenagers?](_URL_0_) - featuring /u/x--BANKS--x\n\n* [Goths and The Goths](_URL_1_) - featuring /u/bitparity; also has a links to a few more\n\nThese posts have both been archived, so if you have follow-up questions for any of the users therein, just ask here and tag their username\n\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3o1r01/how_did_the_gothic_go_from_referring_to_an/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/256tzy/goths_and_the_goths/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dxk2cky" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I think you're underestimating the amount of death and destruction from American bombing in *both* Japan and Korea. While you're waiting for further answers about their post-war trajectories, you should check out [this precise answer about the fire-bombing of Tokyo in WWII](_URL_1_) from /u/DBHT14 and a link to furher information about bombing of Japanese cities from /u/restricteddata . The firebombing killed many more people than the atomic bombs and leveled many Japanese cities.\n\nThe U.S. didn't drop atomic bombs in Korea, true, but they carried out an absolutely stunning carpet bombing of North Korea. See [this thread](_URL_0_) with answers by /u/belisaurius , /u/iveymikey, and /u/dsk_oz . \n\n > (What I’m trying to hint here as well is that what the US did to Japan is probably worse than what they did to NK on a macro scale?)\n\nIt's difficult to calculate numbers in Korea, and both bombing campaigns caused lots of death and suffering, but no, North Korea definitely fared worse on the macro scale." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6fdj7d/is_this_article_entitled_why_do_north_koreans/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3m6uzl/why_wasnt_the_ww2_american_atomic_bombs_dropped/cvcliek/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dvusb1w" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I can help out a bit here! This is gonna be long so hold onto your hat.\n\nI’m writing my honours thesis on Innocent III and his involvement in England between 1205 and 1215.\n\nThis is a tricky question because it depends on a number of things. The three which come to mind are 1) who the pope was and what kind of pope they were, 2) where the excommunicated person was from, 3) when exactly in the Middle Ages & Early Reformation.\n\nSome pope’s don’t have rich histories, others, like Innocent III, Gregory VII, and Boniface VIII have plenty of talking points because they did so many things — some questionable or contentious🤓\n\n\nI’ll talk about Innocent III because he’s the pope I know best.\n\nGenerally speaking, common people weren’t excommunicated much, or rather, we don’t have a lot of records showing that specific common people were excommunicated. There were two main tools used by the papacy in order to get something out of secular people, excommunication and interdict. Interdict is less well known and in modern terms it’s like a general strike of the clergymen (the Church) within a geographic area.\n\nInnocent, for example, in 1207/1208 laid interdict over all of England because John would not accept Stephen Langton as the Archbishop of Canterbury. The purpose was to punish all of England such that the people (commoners and barons alike) would hate John and pressure him to submit to Innocent. In 1209 Innocent excommunicated John because the pressure of interdict wasn’t enough. Innocent had no intention of physical harm being brought to John, that wasn’t (and isn’t) the purpose of the Church. So that’s an example of excommunication being used as a leverage tactic. (Feel free to ask more about this if you like).\n\nThere are other examples from Innocent’s pontificate in which he spoke out against the Cathar heretics in Languedoc, southern France. The Cathars had noble supporters including Raymond of Toulouse. After a catholic priest was murdered, Raymond and his lands were placed under interdict and he was excommunicated (and later absolved and then excommunicated again) as well as the suspected murderer. Innocent didn’t call for Raymond to be killed. However, the crusaders did see him as a target. So the answer to your question is “no” but sorta kinda “yes.”\n\nSources:\n\nEdward Krehbiel, *the interdict: it’s operation: with especial attention to the time of pope Innocent iii, 1198-1216* \n\nCheney & Semple, *Selected Letters of Pope Innocent III*\n\nFeel free to ask about anything. I’ll be more helpful with the England stuff and interdict & excommunication in general than the Cathar Crusade." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dpxxi5d" ], "score": [ 111 ], "text": [ "I'd offer two (rather inter-related) contributing factors as to why the indigenous polities like the Marathas or the Sikhs failed in the face of the British:\n\n1) Political fragmentation \n\n2) Poor leadership on the battlefield. \n\n**Political Fragmentation**\n\nWhen the British faced off against the Marathas, they weren't facing a coherent state with a unified leadership, rather they were confronting an agglomeration of powerful and independent Sardars such as the Sindhias, Holkars and Bhonsles; these sardars were often at odds with each other as they were with the British thus the rather formidable Yeswant Rao Holkar sat by in 1803 as the Sindhias, Bhonsles and British fought hoping to exploit the weakened combatants; after the British were done with Sindhias and Bhonsles, they turned on Holkar and neutralized him as well. When the British confronted the Sikhs in 1845, the Sikh state was in shambles as it hadn't filled the power vacuum left by the death of the great Ranjit Singh. Ranjit Singh's formidable Khalsa (army) had degenerated into praetorianism and killed several of his successors, looted the country with impunity and threatened the royal court for pay raises. While power nominally rested with the Maharaja and wazir, the real power lay in the elected councils of the Khalsa (the panchayats). Meanwhile, feudatories such as Gulab Singh of Jammu were engaging in their own ambitious state building enterprises (such as invading Tibet) and were plotting with the British. In short, however powerful the armies were of the Sikhs or Marathas, they were wielded inefficiently due to political fragmentation. The British could form a coherent strategy while their opponents, with their manifold and confliciting interests, could not. \n\n**Poor Leadership** \n\nBoth the Marathas and Sikhs engaged the services of European mercenaries to modernize their forces in line with Europe. Mahadaji Sindhia, for instance, hired the services of Benoit de Boigne in 1784. de Boigne had formerly served with the Irish Brigade in the French army, then a Greek battalion in the Russian army and finally a native unit of the British East India Company; his career with the company was cut short due to an affair with an officer's wife and so he switched allegiances to the _URL_0_ Boigne organized the Sindhia's army along British lines and he hired a Scottish mercenary named George Sangster to oversee the Maratha gun foundries. In addition, European mercenaries (predominantly British or Anglo-Indian) also served as mid-level and junior officers in Sindhia's army and they did excellent work. The quality of the Sindhia army was, by the judgment of one rather obscure British officer called Arthur Wellesley, on par with the EIC's own troops and this is corroborated by accounts of other officers as well. Wellesley was particularly wary of the Maratha artillery which was patterned after the French. Unfortunately, mercenaries tended to be swayed by money and the EIC exploited this weakness wholeheartedly by buying off many of Sindhia's officers with positions and generous salaries. Daulatrao Sindhia (Mahadaji's nephew and successor) completed their work by ordering the remaining British officers to be sequestered or fired. The army that confronted Arthur Wellesley at the climactic battle of Assaye (1803) was one stripped of its most veteran officers and barely led (in fact, the commander of the Maratha army, Pohlman was not even present on the battlefield!) and yet the battle was a hard-fought 'near run thing'.\n\n It should be noted that only a small portion of the Maratha army was composed of this westernized infantry and artillery. A good portion of the army at Assaye and other battles were pindaris, light horsemen good for looting and interdicting supply lines but little else. They simply watched at Assaye as the Maratha infantry clashed with the EIC troops and fled upon Wellesley's triumph. So numbers don't mean much unless they are brought to bear in battle - spectators don't count!\n\nMuch like the Sindhias, Ranjit Singh also employed European mercenaries of various backgrounds, including EIC deserters and French veterans of the Napoleonic Wars. Ranjit Singh also took into account the desertion of Sindhia's mercenaries and attempted to counter this by creating an indigenous Sikh officer corps and fostering loyalty among his European mercenaries through marriage and oaths. Unfortunately, upon his death in 1839, the European mercenaries were removed by Sikh nobility and indigenous leadership proved lacking or treasonous. The Khalsa, as mentioned, had become a dangerous political force in Sikh politics and was actively threatening the royal family and court for higher pay. The Anglo-Sikh War was a welcome respite for the court as it would either distract or destroy the Khalsa. Military commanders tied to the royal court such as Tej Singh and Lal Singh were working at cross purposes with the Khalsa's regimental commanders and regularly communicating with the EIC with the intent of greatly curtailing the Khalsa (they can't threaten you if they all died in battle, right?) and furthering their own amibitions. This clash in motivations would prove devastating to the Sikh war effort. Perhaps the best demonstration of this is the Battle of Ferozeshah, where Tej and Lal Singh dithered and ordered a premature withdrawal, thereby preventing the destruction of the badly battered EIC army (and upon the conclusion of the Anglo-Sikh War, who should become Wazir and Commander-in-Chief respectively but Lal and Tej Singh?) Even the best equipped army is useless if the government leadership is actively conspiring with the enemy.\n\n\n\nSources: \n\n1) Singh, Bawa Satinder. *Raja Gulab Singh's Role in the First Anglo-Sikh War*. Modern Asian Studies, 5, 1971, pp. 35-59. \n\n2) Cooper, Randolf G.S. *Wellington and the Marathas in 1803*. The International History Review, 11, 1989, pp. 31-38 \n\n3) Roy, Kaushik *Military Synthesis in South Asia: Armies, Warfare and Indian Society, c. 1740-1849*, The Journal of Military History, 69, 2005, pp. 651-690 \n\n4) Barua, Pradeep *Military Developments in India, 1750-1850*. The Journal of Military History, 58, 1994, pp. 599-616 \n\n5) Cooper, Randolf G.S. *The Anglo-Maratha Campaigns and the Contest for India: The Struggle for Control of the South Asian Military Economy.* Cambridge University Press, 2003. \n\n6) Barua, Pradeep. *The State at War in South Asia.* University of Nebraska Press, 2005. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "Marathas.de" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cqjtj2n" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ " > I.e., jobs, 'law enforcement', 'education', juridical system etc. The state/country/kingdom didn't really intervene on how you run your community.\n\nThis is not true. There were many specialized functions performed by the state. Consider pre-industrial Qing China, which is a good example of a nation suffering from acute *under*taxation. National revenues as a percentage of GDP were estimated to be under 5%, but in practice it turned out that this was grossly inadequate to pay for everything the state needed to do and unofficial local taxes were collected to supplement the meager central budget. (Overall tax levels were still relatively low.) This of course led to a situation where corruption became nearly indistinguishable from normal bureaucratic function. The state found it necessary to create the legal fiction of the 'meltage fee' to officially endorse some extra level of local collection.\n\nThe state performed numerous functions. At the national level, it maintained the national army (about one million strong during the Qing), which was regularly engaged in long distance campaigns at high altitudes. It paid for upkeep of the Imperial household itself which maintained numerous residences in addition to the forbidden city. It paid for transportation infrastructure (canals mostly) that linked parts of the country. Notably the Grand Canal connected the Yellow river to the Yangtze and therefore connected the two main economic regions of China. It should be pointed out that parts of China during the Qing were *not* agriculturally self-sufficient, the maintenance of inter-regional transport links was of critical importance. Cheap transportation allowed regions to specialize, some areas producing food, some areas producing cash crops, some areas producing manufactured outputs. It paid for the administration of the exam system which served multiple functions in indoctrinating elites in the official ideology, identifying talent for high office, and allowing a path of upward social mobility (as even without office, examination degrees conferred real, material benefits).\n\nAt the local level there were also many specialized bureaucrats. The Qing dynasty official ideology promoted the resolution of local issues by local families, and policy endorsed it accordingly, at least in name. For example rural villages were organized by the baojia system where groups of farming households (in hierarchical groups of 10, 100, 1000) were supposed to select one among them to watch over the lot, with the position rotating on a regular basis. In practice the position of village headman became an unofficial governmental position staffed by bureaucrats who worked full time and collected unofficial taxes. The competence and honesty of the headman of course varied wildly from one jurisdiction to the next. In rural areas particularly the state needed to maintain irrigation works that were critically important to the land scarce economy.\n\nAt a higher level each county had a magistrate's office, headed by an officially appointed employee of the state. Each magistrate would be in charge of a county of anywhere from a hundred thousand to upwards of a million residents. The magistrate typically spent more than half of any working day resolving civil litigation, despite the fact that litigation was highly frowned upon. The office of a magistrate could employ hundreds of people for various tasks (including of course tax collection itself). Perhaps most crucially at the local level the government maintained the national granary system which was meant to provide relief in case of drought or other disaster. The granaries were meant to be stocked with enough grain to feed at least a regional population for several weeks. The depletion of granary stocks in the late 18th century was a contributing cause to 19th century crises.\n\nTLDR: a lot\n\nEDIT: Sorry slight correction, I oversimplified the granary system. They were meant for more than famine relief. Local magistrates were also in charge of reporting local prices to the national government, and the granary system was also meant to smooth out price fluctuations even when nobody was threatened by actual starvation. By buying low and selling high granaries sometimes turned a profit instead of always draining tax revenues.\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "caxt4ez", "caxt54f" ], "score": [ 3, 9 ], "text": [ "Well that is very dependant on the area, periode and culture of the region. Is there an area you especially want to hear about", "We're going to need an era, and preferably a location, for this one.\n\n\"Pre-modern\" is big chunk of history." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "fdon8d1" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ " The German Federal Statistics Office has [a wonderful animation](_URL_0_) about this.\n\nThe war created a huge demographic hole in Germany, with a huge number of \"missing men\" between the ages of \\~20 and \\~40 when the first postwar census was conducted in 1946. This, coupled, with a dip in the population around the age of 15 (due to lower birth rates during the Great Depression), and another, older dip correlating to lower birth rates and loss of lives during World War I, set the stage for German demographic patterns in the future.\n\nGermany's total population reached its 1939 levels by 1950, but this represented a Germany with an adult population clearly skewed towards women. (Indeed, after the war there was a great deal of concern about this in Germany; one poster in Berlin drew attention to the fact that there were 1800 women for every 1000 men in some neighborhoods). This, combined with the fact that so many men were in POW camps, injured, or otherwise unavailable for work, had a huge impact on the German labor force. In the immediate aftermath of the war, women became the symbol of efforts to dig out and rebuild. \"Women of the rubble\" remain a classic image of the immediate postwar period, with teams of women clearing rubble by hand from the streets of Germany's cities.\n\nThe two postwar German societies already emerging in the late 1940s viewed this situation very differently. In the West, women's contributions provided some of the justification for the protection of women's rights when the *Grundgesetzt* (Basic Law) was drawn up for the Federal Republic in 1949. However, their work was also seen as a hardship, as women contributing in a crisis; conservative West German society tended to see the ideal as a return to roles as wives and mothers once men were back on the job. In the East, by contrast, where the situation was if anything more dire, women's efforts were not viewed the same way; rather, women were equal and belonged in the workforce, even if they should *also* be wives and mothers.\n\nBirthrates increased for the first decade after the war, but that provided no immediate help. And (West) Germany needed the manpower (and they *did* think of it as *man*power), as rebuilding quickly set the stage for the economic miracle that saw the West German economy explode in the 1950s and 1960s. To meet the need for labor, the Federal Republic signed a series of agreements with other states to recruit workers to come live and work on a temporary basis in West Germany. The first of these *Gastarbeiter* (guest worker) agreements were signed with Italy (1955), Spain (1960), Greece (1960), and most famously Turkey (1961). Later agreements were also made with Morocco (1963), Portugal (1964), Tunisia (1965), and Yugoslavia (1968).\n\nDespite the influx of guest workers each year, with some 600,000 new workers arriving each year at the program's height in 1970, the shortage of labor remained a factor in the west, with unemployment below 1% throughout most of the 1960s and in 1970 and 1971. (The economy turned in the 1970s, leading to the end of guest worker agreements, though many, especially the large population of Turkish guest workers, remained in West Germany.)\n\nBeginning in 1963 the German Democratic Republic also had agreements in place to recruit labor from fellow socialist states (including Poland, Mozambique, and Cuba), though here the need was not so much a product of incredible economic growth--East Germany did not enjoy the same sort of economic miracle as West Germany, though by eastern bloc standards the East German economy incredibly successful--but rather to combat the drain on the East German labor force from years of movement from East to West prior to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and similar provisions along the inner-German border.\n\nAlthough the German population reached its pre-1939 levels by 1950, its growth would be hampered by the impact of World War II. Following the Great Depression, there was something of a baby boom in peacetime Nazi Germany, thanks in no small part to Nazi policies encouraging (Aryan) German women to have children (see, for instance, the Mothers Cross medal, subsidies for families, etc.) The large population of children born during these years (1933-1939 and even into 1940 and 1941) came of age in the second half of the 1950s, and thus we see birthrates rising from 1955 to a peak in 1964, with over 1.3 million Germans born that year, nearly matching the peak in 1940 (falling short by 30,000 births).\n\nHowever, after 1964 the birthrate began to drop again. At this point, the significantly smaller generation of Germans born during and immediately after the war were beginning to have families, and with less of them to have families, correspondingly fewer children were born. The economy of the 1970s only exacerbated this trend. Indeed, the number of births in 1945 and 1975 were nearly identical, with right around 750,000.\n\nFrom that point, the German birthrate did recover some, before going into a long slow decline after the 1980s. This is the result of not only an aging population in Germany, but cultural shifts re: family, the number of children families have, the availability and use of contraceptives, etc.\n\nIn addition to the link above, see:\n\n* Chin, Rita. *The Guest Worker Question in Postwar Germany*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.\n* Heineman, Elizabeth D. *What Difference Does a Husband Make?: Women and Marital Status in Nazi and Postwar Germany*. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.\n* Moeller, Robert G. *Protecting Motherhood: Women and the Family in the Politics of Postwar West Germany*. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.destatis.de/bevoelkerungspyramide/#!y=1950&amp;v=2" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ctxxk55" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "John Brown has always been a hero of mine, so I highly recommend *John Brown: Abolitionist* by David Reynolds, and *Midnight Rising* by Tony Horowitz. Obviously there is more to the abolitionist movement than Brown's quixotic episode in Harper's Ferry, but both these books do a good job of establishing the context." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7b7i64", "c7bcutf", "c7bjepx" ], "score": [ 7, 6, 17 ], "text": [ "Arabia circa 600s CE:\n\nWomen were of marrying age with the onset of menstruation. They generally had little choice in the matter, and were considered chattel. The idea of 'consent' was pretty laughable.\nHowever, there were exceptions. Khadija, the first wife of (the Prophet) Muhammad bin Abdullah, was wealthy in her own right, and *chose* to marry him, rather than being auctioned off or traded like a camel.", "Noble men in Western Europe usually wed for political reasons. They could be betrothed at a young age and grow up with their future wife in the same household. The usual age for marriage for noble women was 14-20, i.e. childbearing age. Since many women died during childbirth, the man was \"free\" to marry again and he usually picked a wife in the same agerange again.\n\nWomen from lower ranks of the society usually wed at a later stage, though. Their marriage wasn't predestined by political concern so much, so both partners had a bigger say in the choosing. But still, marriage remained a rational and not an emotional choice, so parents and children wouldn't have as much to disagree upon.", "From the middle ages to the Early Modern period, the Catholic church tended to leave the age of consent to the area in which it operated. The majority places put the age of consent at a minimum of 12 to the mid teens, and some 'barbarian' tribes had that in the early 20's.\n\nAround 1150, a jurist named Gratian put together what is known as the [Decretum Gratiani](_URL_3_), which laid down a [couple of rules for marriage](_URL_2_), namely that both parties to the marriage had to be able to consent verbally to what was going on. Previously the mere existence of your presence was enough, but Gratian forced the verbal aspect. So you could be betrothed at the earliest age of 7, but this was only part of the process, as you then have to be at the age of consent (aetus nubilis) which was 12 for girls and 14 for boys. To be 'properly' married meant consummation, and that was fixed at the age of puberty which coincidentally was about 12 for girls, 14 for boys. So to wit:\n\n1. Get arranged with some girl (minimum 7, but often much older)\n2. Consent to the marriage (12 for girls, 14 for boys)\n3. Disregard currency, acquire females (puberty) \n\nGratian was really interested in the 'consent' part of the process which is why you had to be old enough to understand what was happening to get married. The other question is I can hear you saying is 'Mr Flubb, what does puberty mean?' Good question little ones, gather round and I'll explain.\n\nPope Gregory IX decided that there were too many [decretals](_URL_0_) (pontifical letters) floating about and that they needed to be collated - so in the easiest historical date to remember **EVAH**, around 2000 decretals were published in 1234 in what was known as the *Decretales Gregorii IX* or as most people understand know it, *Liber extra*. This is where puberty is discussed in lots of excruciating detail. 14 letters from various popes discussed what puberty meant. Archbishop Isodore [said](_URL_2_) (you'll have to search for his name) that:\n > Pubescents are called from ``pubis,'' that is, they are named from the pudenda of the body when these places first bring forth soft hair.\nSome think puberty depends on age, that is, when a boy has completed fourteen years he is pubescent, even when he becomes pubescent very late. But he certainly is pubescent when he shows puberty from the appearance of his body and is able to procreate. Girls are pubescent who can bear during the years of puberty.\n\nSo there you have one of the many descriptions of what counts as puberty.\n\nCuriously, simply because you were able to have sex and procreate didn't necessarily mean that you should. Hilderburg of Bingen and Albertus Magnus stated that having children too early would result in weak offspring, so it was often suggested that while you could have children/sex, don't, as your 'seed' would be too weak.\n\nFor more mediaeval marriage mayhem, check out [Medieval Maidens: Young Women and Gender in England, c.1270-c.1540 by Kim M. Philips](_URL_1_) although there are a number of other books floating around." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decretal", "http://www.amazon.co.uk/Medieval-Maidens-England-1270-1540-Manchester/dp/071905964X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1354701401&amp;sr=1-3", "http://faculty.cua.edu/Pennington/Canon%20Law/marriagelaw.htm#CASE_THIRTY-ONE_", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decretum_Gratiani" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dknrfb2", "dkocdt9" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Well it was due to a multitude of reasons, primarily deriving from the failure of the T'ang dynasty to effectively suppress the An-Lushang's rebellion. His army was able to make the dynasty retreat from Xian which then appealed to the Uyghurs for help, who instead occupied the city and damaged it, refusing to leave until they were paid.\n\nBeset by economic problems, another rebellion, the Huang Chao finally ended the time period where Xian was the capital.\n\nThe T'ang court did not move to Beijing, but rather to Luoyang. Beijing was the capital in succeeding dynasties such as the Khitan-Laio, the Jin, Song and Yuan.\n\nThe movement of captials for succeeding Chinese dynasties were dependant on who was around them. For the Khitan Laio and Jin, Beijing was close to their original territory and was an effective controller of the area. Captials often did move to the south of China as stronger Steppe based dynasties or Manchuria based dynasties had come into power. \n\nSources:\n\n* *T'ang China: The Rise of the East in World History* by S.A.M. Adshead\n* *Soldiers of the Dragon: Chinese Armies 1500 BC - 1840 AD* by C.J. Peers\n* *Imperial Chinese Armies Volume 2: 590-1260 AD* by C.J. Peers\n* *The Cambridge History of Ancient China*\n* *Diplomacy and Trade in the Chinese World 598-1276* by Hans Bielenstein", "Adding to what /u/NomadicCircle said:\n\nIt was also moved away from the north to Lin'an in the 12th century. It was also previously in Beijing *prior* to the Tang period, in Chengdu and Chongqing in 1949, in Kaifeng a whole bunch, in Nanjing a whole bunch to include the 1930s, and many other places for other dynasties.\n\nBasically, before your move it had also been in Beijing plenty of times, and after your move it was away from Beijing plenty of times. The capital moved frequently. And man other less well known and well known kingdoms in the area also often changed their capitals. Korea is not different. Japan is no different.\n\n > Beijing 北京 - northern capital\n\n > Nanjing 南京 - southern capital\n\n > Tōkyō 東京 - eastern capital (Japan)\n\n > Xijing 西京 - western capital, a name that's been applied to a few places\n\n > Kyōto 京都 - capital city (Japan)\n\n > Zhongdu 中都 - central capital\n\n > Gyeonggi 京畿 - capital territory (Korea)\n\nSometimes capital cities in the Chinese tradition have pretty straightforward descriptive names. Not always, but often enough for people outside the area to have noticed a trend.\n\nCapitals change often. Names change often. Nanjing has also been called Jiankang, Yingtian and Jinling. Beijing has also been called Beiping, Yanjing, and, yup, even *Nanjing* during the Liao period.\n\nIt's less of a pattern than it looks today. It's mostly just a consequence of various shifts at various times in history, all relative to the situation at the time. Nanjing is far more north than other Southern capitals like Guangzhou.\n\nedit: typoe" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cn2q8b7" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "There is very little truth to them. Soldiers may put up with one or two mid-ranking officers who are incompetent or cowardly, but wouldn't if such attitudes were rampant amongst the officer class. That's true of soldiers from any era, including the \"age of gunpowder.\" \n\nIt's certainly true that society during the Early Modern period was very different from today's, and that led to behaviour which we might view as pompous or ridiculous in a modern light. At the battle of Fontenoy in 1745, for example, British and French regiments refused to fire at one another until the other had fired first. The account of that incident is by Voltaire, and may not be true, but at the very least it's indicative of the mannerisms of the times.\n\nIt should be stressed though that such \"foppish\" behaviour was an exception to the norm. The officers of standing European armies from the 17th century onwards were professionals, trained to lead their men in complex battlefield situations and schooled in how to maintain both discipline and morale. The swelling size and effectiveness of Early Modern armies meant that leaders as brave and bold as any throughout history were needed if they were to be effective. \n\nNor were all officers wealthy or aristocratic. Whilst the equipment and training all came at a high price, and thus ensured most officers were from the landed classes, there were plenty who also rose through the ranks from humble origins. In both the Dutch and French armies there are stories of pikemen rising to become Field Marshals. \n\nIn short, armies could not possibly have functioned as effectively against one another as they did if the cliched modern view of 17th - 19th century gentry was accurate. \n\nSources: Thomas M. Barker: Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy.\n\nJ. R. Hale: The Military Education of the officer class in Early Modern Europe.\n\nJ. Chagniot: The ethics and practice of war amongst French officers during the seventeenth century." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ci3xtlq" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Those are crossed cannons meaning he was an artilleryman. That's a quality photo to work with, however, and you should be able to track down something online. There are plenty of resources available related to the Civil War." ] }

[]

[ "http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/1/5/3/6/4/4/5/webimg/519637058_tp.jpg", "http://imgur.com/vzpxvEi.jpg" ]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dsgrl0v", "dsh9c8l" ], "score": [ 1273, 75 ], "text": [ "/u/kookingpot has a nice view of the secondary and primary sources in this earlier answer:\n\n* [What evidence is there that Carthage sacrificed humans?](_URL_0_)\n\nThe practice of infant sacrifice is mentioned by numerous Roman anti-Carthage and Christian anti-pagan authors from antiquity. Thus, for a variety of reasons, people have often felt more comfortable denouncing the claims as propaganda. But archaeology is here to afflict the comfortable. Excavations at the major Carthaginian tophet--a sacred cemetery and ritual site--revealed an entire section dedicated to infant burials. But not just any infants: recent researchers have concluded that the vast majority of infants were healthy and around two months old when they died. For illness, accident, and stillbirth reasons, generalized high levels of infant mortality would be more likely to produce a higher proportion of infants who had died at a younger age (later premodern statistics back this up). Additionally, chronologically the burials themselves are clustered around a distinct moments in time rather than consistently spaced out. This suggests: (1) yes, the infants were probably sacrificed and buried at the sacred site, and (2) it wasn't necessarily a standard or regularly scheduled practice, but a last-ditch, utterly desperate attempt to make things right with the gods in times of calamity and cataclysm.\n\nAnd you might also be interested in the thread in this post, starring /u/QuickSpore:\n\n* [What was the religion of ancient Carthage?](_URL_1_)", "Others have already covered the salient physical evidence with regard to infant sacrifice, but I wanted to touch on something briefly on the propaganda part of your question.\n\nIt's worth noting, as mentioned by /u/yodatsracist, that human sacrifice wasn't particularly uncommon in the region, up to and including child sacrifice. While the Hebrews certainly took issue with the practice, the Romans were not so hard and fast. Despite repeated 'bans' of human sacrifice, in times of distress, the Romans seem to have resorted to it in an effort to placate the anger of the gods. \n\nPlutarch, Pliny, and Livy all describe human sacrifice by the Romans in times of crisis, like after Cannae and again during the war with the Cimbri and Teutones. In the related question of Gallic practices of human sacrifice, Adrian Goldsworthy cites the latter incident as potential support for the notion that Caesar isn't making it up when he describes it in his Commentaries. That is to say, while the Romans were squeamish regarding human sacrifice, they weren't so squeamish as to totally avoid it if the situation were bad enough.\n\nAnd in that light, accusations by the Romans of human sacrifice by the Gauls, Germans, Carthaginians, and so on might be better understood not as purely fictive inventions, and perhaps instead as commentary on each society's respective attitudes towards it.\n\nSources:\n\nGoldsworthy, Adrian, Caesar: *Life of a Colossus*\n\nLivy, *A History of Rome*\n\nPlutarch, *Life of Marcellus*\n\nPliny, *Natural History*\n\nEdit: just tidying up my language" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2yh4ny/what_evidence_is_there_that_carthage_sacrificed/cpa90q7/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5wxvwg/what_was_the_religion_of_ancient_carthage/dedy6ig/" ], [] ]