Dataset Preview
The full dataset viewer is not available (click to read why). Only showing a preview of the rows.
The dataset generation failed
Error code: DatasetGenerationError
Exception: ArrowInvalid
Message: Failed to parse string: ' what kind of picture should one include? No two oak trees will look the same (though they will look similar)' as a scalar of type int64
Traceback: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1870, in _prepare_split_single
writer.write_table(table)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/arrow_writer.py", line 622, in write_table
pa_table = table_cast(pa_table, self._schema)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/table.py", line 2292, in table_cast
return cast_table_to_schema(table, schema)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/table.py", line 2245, in cast_table_to_schema
arrays = [
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/table.py", line 2246, in <listcomp>
cast_array_to_feature(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/table.py", line 1795, in wrapper
return pa.chunked_array([func(chunk, *args, **kwargs) for chunk in array.chunks])
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/table.py", line 1795, in <listcomp>
return pa.chunked_array([func(chunk, *args, **kwargs) for chunk in array.chunks])
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/table.py", line 2102, in cast_array_to_feature
return array_cast(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/table.py", line 1797, in wrapper
return func(array, *args, **kwargs)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/table.py", line 1949, in array_cast
return array.cast(pa_type)
File "pyarrow/array.pxi", line 996, in pyarrow.lib.Array.cast
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pyarrow/compute.py", line 404, in cast
return call_function("cast", [arr], options, memory_pool)
File "pyarrow/_compute.pyx", line 590, in pyarrow._compute.call_function
File "pyarrow/_compute.pyx", line 385, in pyarrow._compute.Function.call
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 154, in pyarrow.lib.pyarrow_internal_check_status
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 91, in pyarrow.lib.check_status
pyarrow.lib.ArrowInvalid: Failed to parse string: ' what kind of picture should one include? No two oak trees will look the same (though they will look similar)' as a scalar of type int64
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1417, in compute_config_parquet_and_info_response
parquet_operations = convert_to_parquet(builder)
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1049, in convert_to_parquet
builder.download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 924, in download_and_prepare
self._download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1000, in _download_and_prepare
self._prepare_split(split_generator, **prepare_split_kwargs)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1741, in _prepare_split
for job_id, done, content in self._prepare_split_single(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1897, in _prepare_split_single
raise DatasetGenerationError("An error occurred while generating the dataset") from e
datasets.exceptions.DatasetGenerationError: An error occurred while generating the datasetNeed help to make the dataset viewer work? Make sure to review how to configure the dataset viewer, and open a discussion for direct support.
title string | content string | post_score int64 | top_comment string | comment_score int64 | Unnamed: 5 null | Unnamed: 6 null | Unnamed: 7 null | Unnamed: 8 null | Unnamed: 9 null | Unnamed: 10 null | Unnamed: 11 null |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Historical accuracy of McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" | I recently read Cormac McCarthy's *Blood Meridian*, and I'm interested in opinions regarding the historical accuracy of the novel's depiction of the Glanton gang and general circumstances of mid-19th century life.
I understand McCarthy based the novel largely on Samuel Chamberlain's *My Confession: The Recollections o... | 58 | http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fgl02
According to the Texas Historical Association, Glanton and his gang did contract with authorities in Chihuahua to hunt Indians, and Glanton did kill Mexicans for extra scalps. He also eventually seized the ferry crossing and was attacked by the Yuma Indians.
... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Is it possible that the purported mass suicide atop Masada was just a product of Josephus' writing? Could something else have gone down up there? | I.e., Jew/Roman scribe Josephus decides it might be prouder for his (former?) people to go out in suicide, rather than describing the rapes and slaughters that actually occurred. Or that the Romans/history would rather think the Jews broke their own rule, and even the mighty Sicarii assassins were afraid to take on the... | 99 | According to Kenneth Atkinson, there is no "archaeological evidence that Masada's defenders committed mass suicide."
Zuleika Rodgers, ed. (2007). Making History: Josephus And Historical Method. BRILL. p. 397.
[Serious doubt](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/22/AR2007062201113.html) has bee... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How many europeans (soldiers and civilians) actually spoke English in WWII? | In films, it's pretty common to see at least someone who speaks decent English when american troops arrive at a certain place. Is that accurate? Was it easy to find someone who spoke the language in Europe at that time? | 108 | Forgive my intrusion, but could you cite your sources? Even though by the Second World War the English language had gained substantial influence in Europe, French was still the main language of communication and diplomacy. French had yet to be replaced as *the* lingua franca of Europe. | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
When a town was looted in ancient times, how agressive were looting soldiers to eachother? | In ancient times, the looting of enemy towns by victorious armies was quite common. When the soldiers enter the town and begin their looting, how do they behave to eachother? I mean, would they attack their fellow soldiers to snatch the loot from them? I could imagine that happening out of greed. So how agressive were ... | 52 | In late medieval English armies (from around 1370 onwards) the division of spoils was part of the contract of service men signed with their captains/the royal household. The king would get 1/3 of the personal loot of every captain. 1/3 of 1/3 of each soldier's spoils also went to the king if the value of their spoils w... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Can you help my students think outside of the box for their History Day projects? | I currently teach World History in an Alternative Learning Environment at the high school level. Some of my students are competing in the 2014 History Day competition. Their projects have moved on to the State level, and they are in the process of fine-tuning them. One issue facing them, however, is research fatigue. T... | 53 | When I was an undergrad, one of my art history/classics/archaeology profs told our class that papers about a particular sculpture didn't interest him. He wanted to know about the toenails on a statue, he said.
He wanted to know something unique and insightful. He wanted us to drill down to something extremely specif... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
In the context of historical and historians' usage of the label "empire", is it useful to see U.S., Chinese, or Russian empires existing in the world today? | I know this is complex question, with many answers depending partly on the definition of 'empire' one uses. What I'm really interested in figuring out is what the contours of a debate like this would be -- partly because I'm interested in asking students studying the history of modern empires this question in the last... | 55 | Thank you for all of the comments. Would it help if I told you the definition of empire we are working with in the class? (You can critique the definition, with pleasure, but we needed something with which to work...)
"Empire is an agglomeration of multiple polities and diverse populations bound together in an uneven... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
On old maps, why is the Red Sea colored Red while other bodies (incl. the Black Sea) remain colorless? | Here are two maps I'm referencing:
[Pierre Desceliers' planisphere. Arques, 1550](http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/mapsviews/desceliers/large17690.html)
[Battista Agnese 1564](http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/unvbrit/m/001add000025442u00004000.html) | 87 | [Jo Mano actually wrote a paper on coloring that she gave at the Association for American Geographers mid-Atlantic meeting last year.](http://www.msaag.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/3_Mano.pdf) See pp. 24-25. In short, it's connected to older conventions that refer to the Biblical naming of the sea as red, and so it'... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why were there so many cults between the 1960s and the 1980s? | I'm really curious if anyone has an answer as to why there seemed to be so many large cults between 1960s and the 1980s.
Is it media sensationalizing a more common event or were there factually more large-congregation cults in those years than in the past and in more recent decades? When I think of cults I think of v... | 56 | Not a historian, and let the downvotes commence (and I gladly defer to real historians), but I felt like examining the assumptions of the question. Let's look at your examples:
* [Manson family](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson): 1960s
* [Jonestown](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown): 1970s
* [Waco Br... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Any Thai Historians here? Can you help with a family puzzle? | My grandmother was half Thai. She has stories of growing up in Bangkok in the 30's...being tied to her chair to finish her food, her feet were bound, etc...
As some of you may be aware, there were a number of coups d'etats during the 30's, and my grandmother was caught up in one. She was five or so years old and was u... | 70 | Contact the good folks at /r/Genealogy, they are better at this sort of thing than we are. First, start by researching the British end of your Great-grandmother's story. Those records are more likely to be online, while any relevant records in Thailand are probably mildewing away in a forgotten archive, if past rumor... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why did the Greeks consider Macedon "semi-barbaric" and Epirus as more barbaric than Macedon? | Just to clarify, these were terms I've heard on podcasts, probably either Hardcore History or The Ancient World.
Also, did the Macedonians speak Greek or something closely related? Because another podcast, The History of English, claims they didn't, and that would account for their "barbarian" status. If that's the ca... | 51 | The answers here are either incomplete or improperly informed, so I'll help you out on this one. Quite contrary to what /u/rstone2288 claims, the Macedonians were not considered barbarians because of their subjugation by the Achaemenids. First of all, the Macedonian state was a client-state of Persia, not a satrapy, fo... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why was there Macedonian resentment towards "the successors"? | The successors to my knowledge were 30,000 Iranian boys who were basically kidnapped and placed into the Macedonian army as part of Alexander's Fusion Policy. Why did the Macedonian's in the army feel resentment towards them? Were they being directly replaced? Did they see this as disrespectful? Thanks for any help x | 53 | While I will leave the details to someone better suited I can refer you to an explanation given by J. R. Hamilton in the introduction of Selincourts translation of Arian the campaigns of Alexander.
While the exact belief and intentions of Alexander can never be known it is recorded that in his prayer at Opis he wishe... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How was Otto Von Bismarck viewed in East and West Germany? | null | 58 | In the one narrative he was seen as a wise statesman whose death paved the way to WW1 and on the other one he was regarded as the architect of a *Prussian* Germany responsible for national socialism. During the 100th anniversary of Germany there was a dispute in the GDR, between [Neues Deutschland](http://en.wikipedia.... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What exactly caused the Bengal famine of 1943 and how much is Churchill to blame for it ? | The topic of Churchill's famine "secret war" comes up quite often on Reddit, but I've never found a satisfactory answer that didn't seem biased in some way.
The wikipedia article on the 1943 famine: [link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943) - the article is marked as disputed.
There appear to be a lo... | 67 | The famine is very much real. The estimation of the number of victims range from about 1 to 4 million.
The famine was the result of an unlikely set of circumstances. Bengal was not self-sufficient in food. A lot was imported for the artisans and craftsmen making their living there. One of the primary breadbaskets of B... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Where did the practice of thanking people come from? Is there a rough equivalent to "thank you" and "you're welcome" in most languages or are there other practices? In periods with a more formalized class structure, would one in an elevated social class have thanked someone in a lower class? | null | 58 | You're in the right place for the first and last question. The middle one might be best suited for /r/linguistics though! | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How common were bounty hunters in the American West? | Were they successful? Were there many? What did they have in common with each other, if anything? Any information about bounty hunters is welcome. | 129 | hi! there's lots of room for someone to answer your specific questions, but as for "any information about bounty hunters", here are previous posts on that & related topics:
* [How often were "Wanted Dead or Alive" criminals returned alive, and how did Dead or Alive bounties actually work?](http://www.reddit.com/r/... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How does the level of political polarization in the U.S. today compare to the years just prior to the Civil War? | null | 88 | This is probably more of a question for /r/Ask_Politics, but I can give you a basic reason why this is so difficult for anyone to answer.
The attempt to compare political polarization to pre-Civil War polarization is very, very difficult not only because of the shifting parties, but because of the alterations in cultu... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Are there better job opportunities for historians depending on which history they study? Which fields have more demand? | As in are you better off studying Asian history rather than American history, for example? | 53 | I can't grab a link right now, but the American Historical Association publishes a report once in a while evaluating the field. Their last was in 2013 and it showed that you do have slightly better odds with an Asian History focus, but if I remember correctly you still have less than a 50% of finding work in academia.... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How violent/peaceful was the transition of the Holy Land from predominantly Christian in the early centuries after the fall of Rome to predominantly Muslim by the middle ages? In what ways did Eastern Christian civilization influence the Islamic states that succeeded it? | null | 84 | Hi, I specialize in the Byzantines but I have read quite a bit on the Arab conquest of the Middle East.
The transition was at first, a social revolution, not so much of a religious one.
In fact, when the Muslims came, the Holy Land and the Middle East contained a plethora of Christian denominations, with the state O... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why weren't the Persians able to use archers and mounted archers to defeat the Greek and Macedonian hoplites? | null | 57 | While you wait for answers specific to Persians fighting Phalanxes, you might want to check out [this thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/tq8ka/how_effective_was_the_horse_archer_back_in/) about horse archers' strengths and weaknesses in ancient warfare (if you haven't already). | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How "connected" was northern Europe to the Byzantine empire in the 1000's? | I was reading about the varangian guard and it was said that some swedish laws prohibited the inheritance of land if someone was in "greece" (their word for the byzantines). When reading about the varangians, it seems that the world was pretty connected back then. I mean if Swedes had information about available jobs ... | 50 | First, about the Varangian Guards: It wasn't uncommon for non-Byzantines to be a part of the Varangian Guard. In fact, they were originally from Sweden or Nordic countries. ([source 1](http://books.google.com/books?id=rKj8_W9wL7kC&pg=PA12&dq=The+Varangian+Guard+988-1453#v=onepage&q=%22originally%20recruited... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
At what point do the dates of key historical events become ambiguous? What factors contributed to more precision in dating historical events? Were laymen aware of "the date" 2000/1500/1000/500 years ago? Thanks. | null | 78 | I would expect your final question is quite dependent on 'where.' Middle class Roman citizen? Likely. Anishinaabe transhumant hunter? Unlikely.
The precision of dates is heavily limited to the precision of their first recording. A Spanish navigator five hundred years ago is accessing a standardized calendar (the Julia... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Is there any evidence to democracy in ancient civilizations before the Athenian City state of Ancient Greece? | Edit: The title shoud probably read: "Is there any evidence of democracy in ancient civilizations before the Athenian city state of Ancient Greece?"
Sorry about that, mobile fucked it up. | 62 | It depends on what you want to consider a democracy.
Even before the Greek cities the most basic form of government for a village was a council led by the elders where the community can discuss the developments of its politics, at least for the rightful political subjects recognized by that community.
This is anyway no... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How were disabled veterans treated in Medieval society? | If they lost a leg or an arm, what would happen to them? Assuming they survived the injury, what would they do when they returned home? Would they get money from the king honoring their service? Or were they left to fend for themselves? What jobs could they do? | 51 | I think you are (perhaps intentionally) conflating modern military service and concepts of veterancy with historical ones. If you are serious in attempting to understand contemporary treatment of 'disability' then you might be interested in the [story of John the Blind, king of Bohemia](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHisto... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How did different soldiers fight side by side in the Crusades while their home nations fought one another? | So, I'm seeing this from the point of view as a Welshman. It's well known that the English and French fought each other for centuries, so how did English and French soldiers not kill each other while fighting side by side in the Crusades? That's not to mention the other countries at ends in the Middle East. | 64 | Well, the rivalry or enmity between England and France really started during the Hundred Years war, the continuation of that conflict for such a long time made many Englishmen (to use a broad term) dislike Frenchmen (again, broad term, as the Burgundians and Gascons were allied with England for a long time and didn't n... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How did mainland China come to be occupied predominately by Han people? | null | 57 | hi! additional input is welcome, but FYI, you may be interested in a few similar posts
* [How did China come to be 90% Han Chinese?](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1c16vn/how_did_china_come_to_be_90_han_chinese/)
* [Why is such a high proportion of China Han? How has ethnicity developed in China over ... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
When/Why did citizenship become a "thing"? | Wikipedia defines citizenship as the status of a person recognised under the custom or law of a state that bestows on that person (called a citizen) the rights and the duties of citizenship.
* When exactly did citizenship become something of meaning? What were the reasons behind it?
* When citizenship first became ... | 70 | Citizenship first came about in the ancient Greek polis. Prior to the Greek invention of citizenship people were bound to their family groups as their strongest tie and they didn't really have a firm bond to their place of living. Greek citizenship changed that by establishing an official bond to their city-state. T... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why are haunted housed historically depicted as Victorian-style in pop culture? | That is, what is the origin of the "classic" haunted house with Victorian architecture? Does it stem from early film or a real life attraction? I frequently see the same style haunted house in cartoons, decorations, advertisements, etc. and wonder why there is such a consistency.
Edit: Response from /u/Crabrubber led... | 70 | The classic Hollywood haunted house from horror movies is French Second Empire style and not the later Victorian/Queen Anne style. The archetypal houses in "Psycho" and "The Addams Family" have clear Second Empire details like a square central tower and mansard roofs.
As to why this became the archetypal "horror" sty... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Is there any factual basis to the 'palm to palm' medieval dance style we see in modern movies and TV? | The dance style I'm referring to is the one where each partner presses one palm to the others' and they move in circles while maintaining eye contact (and exchanging flirtatious banter). Is this just a trope or does it have a historical basis? | 62 | Factual basis yes. Absolute proof no. We start to have a very good idea of how people danced and dance's from about 1500 on. The documentation from the medieval period is mostly based around court dances, so it's hard to say how the common people danced, but we can trace the steps of the nobility much better then on... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How dangerous were herbal aboritificients in Western Europe and Central Europe in the high middle ages? | null | 52 | If you mean dangerous in terms of "effective", then there is decent evidence of widespread knowledge amongst certain groups (midwives and difficult-to-document "wise women", prostitutes) in the later Middle Ages (so, let's say after about 1300) of how to procure a fairly late-term abortion through the use of drugs. I d... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Fresno, California is almost always at or near the top of "worst American cities" lists for some attribute. What are the factors in Fresno's history that led to the city's excellence in being so awful? | The title is the queston. Fresno is always at or near the bottom of "best cities for ...." lists, if not the top of "worst cities for ..." lists. Fresno seems to excel at unflattering statistics, but why did it become that way? | 76 | As a followup question: I live in Modesto, which is nearly always at the bottom of these sorts of list as well, and I'm also curious as to what sort of factors caused these Central Valley cities, which have a surprisingly large population collectively, to consistently be placed on these lists. | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What sort of organized crime was there in the US southeast during the early/mid twentieth century? | Aside from the KKK and other paramilitary organizations, of course (although if they acted as crime syndicates I would be very curious!).
I saw [this map](http://i.imgur.com/1SOtxWu.png) from 1967, and I was struck by how the crime syndicates are pretty much all centered in California, the Great Lakes, and the northea... | 50 | I just happen to be researching prohibition. Organized crime tended to be organized in large cities, and there weren't very many large cities in the south in the early parts of the 20th century. Those that were large and in the south tended to be ports.
For example, in 1920, New Orleans came in 17th place overall in ... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What was Cuba's interest in Angola? | Was it truly ideological? Was Cuba trying to establish itself as some kind of world power in its own right? Was it some material interest? I guess the question also applies to Cuba's activities in the Congo. | 51 | Hi there. I wrote [an answer to a similar question](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2apdr1/how_did_relatively_weak_regional_countries_like/cixs7qm?context=3) a little while ago that you might enjoy taking a look at. True ideological/internationalist explanations are popular in the current literature, as ... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What are the earliest descriptions we have of the aurora borealis (Northern Lights)? | And what causes did they ascribe to them? | 50 | hi! there's *lots* of room for more input on this question, but here are a few previous threads to get you started
[What did people think the northern lights were before science explained it?](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1heigj/what_did_people_think_the_northern_lights_were/)
[What did ancient soci... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What major differences were there between The USSR communism and Chinese communism? | Also, how did these differences affect the paths these countries took? | 52 | (Excuse my English, not my first language)Until Stalin's death in 1953, USSR's ideology was Marxism-Leninism, an authoritarian form of communism based on Lenin's theories. Russia being an agricultural society, they focused on industrialization, especially in heavy industries (necessary according to Marx to achieve soci... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
The comic *Lucky Luke* is based on an Italian American sheriff by the name of Luciano Locarno. Can anyone tell me about the real-life man? | While reading about depictions of the American West, I stumbled upon a popular comic series entitled *Lucky Luke.* As the question suggests, Lucky Luke was based upon an Italian American sheriff by the name of Luciano Locarno, who "lived between 1860 and 1940." I've had difficulty finding any information about the hist... | 68 | I have to say I suspect this person is fictional, since the name sounds awfully like a blend of the American mobster's name [Lucky Luciano](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Luciano) and the (Italian-speaking) Swiss city [Locarno](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locarno). | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Were there any British monarchs who could speak a native British language such as Welsh, Scottish, or Cornish? | I just read that Henry VII's background was Welsh and his father was named Edmwnd Tudur and his father was named Owain Tudur, both very Welsh sounding named. Did Henry speak Welsh? Were any other British monarchs able to speak a local language? | 67 | Might I add a question?
How long after the Norman invasion before the monarchs even spoke English? | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why is the song, "Entrance of the Gladiators" so commonly associated with the circus? | null | 72 | This genre of march was known as a "screamer." Screamers were lively marches (typically at a much faster tempo than would be practical for actual marching, around 130-150 beats per minute) which would get the crowd excited for the spectacle. Frederick Fennell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble put together a recording of ... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How long did it take to build ships such as the ones Columbus and the Spanish Conquistador's sailed? | I can't find anything reliable on Google for the time it took to build ships such as the ones I mentioned in the title.
Modern day construction of ships often takes place under a covered space, which obviously helps with decreasing weather delays. Did weather set back shipbuilders in the 1400s and 1500s or did they wo... | 85 | Yeah, just send a PM asking politely and giving the URL of this thread. Also consider asking /u/vampire_seraphin, who does underwater archeology, they might have something to contribute.
Realize that the ships of the Venetian Arsenal were being assembled out of pre-fabricated standardized parts, which was pretty unus... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
I'm currently reading War and Peace and I have a question. | I'm up to the part where Emperor Napoleon and Tsar Alexander make peace at Tilsit. With Alexander's permission, Napoleon gives one of the soldiers in the Russian regiment a Legion of Honour decoration. It is later remarked by another that this soldier would then be receiving a pension from the French government as a re... | 60 | Yes, the recipient of the Legion d'Honneur did get a pension - and it was transferred to his widow when he died. If the Award was awarded posthumously, the widow got the medal and the pension.
Legion d'Honneur widows were a powerful political force in the post-Napoleonic society, as it was hard to counter any protest ... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why was it that Germany produced so many scientific innovators around the turn of the 20th century? | 14 of the first 31 Nobel prizes in chemistry went to Germans, lets not forget the likes of Plank, Schrodinger and Einstein. What were the conditions that contributed to this? | 68 | I'd suggest a look at their education in the 19th c.
http://dataspace.princeton.edu/jspui/bitstream/88435/dsp0144558d332/3/The%20Unrecognized%20Mechanism.pdf
Pages 3 and 4.
"Despite the fact that Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and Baden did not form a
unified political entity until 1871, they followed parallel paths in th... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
When was the last time that global population was less than the previous year? | null | 64 | I'd argue for 1919 or 1920: the flu pandemic is estimated to have killed 50-100 million people (Wikipedia), mostly in late 1918, whereas UN estimates give an average rise in world population of about 10 million a year at this point (1750 million in 1910, 1860 million in 1911)[source, table 1](http://www.un.org/esa/popu... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Is there any evidence to back up the CIA's assertion that "the Soviet space shuttle" Buran was a rejected NASA design fed to the Soviet space program as counterintelligence? | A few years ago I came across this article on the CIA's website
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/96unclass/farewell.htm
It is a fascinating read about the Soviets interest in stealing western tech, and how US intelligence sabotaged them by giving the... | 56 | It's hard to pin down the veracity of the specific claim about the Buran programme, but it's true that in the 1980s Western intelligence services seriously compromised the Soviets' ability to collect scientific, technological and industrial (collectively known as S&T) intelligence in the 1980s.
In 1980, the French... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Given the finds at Gobekli Tepe etc, how advanced do you think civilisation of those times was? What kind of amenities / tools would a typical person have at their disposal? Also, do you think there could be even older equally or more "advanced" finds waiting to be dug up? | null | 61 | You'd probably want to direct this sort of question to /r/askanthropology since this Gobekli Tepe is based in prehistory, and is the concern of archaeologists rather than historians. Purely as a point of academia.
And I'd expect vague, non-conclusive answers because we don't really know. | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How did the process of POW release work at the end of WW2? for all sides. Thanks | null | 98 | Also I would be interested as to whether there were any last minute massacres of prisoners by commanders bitter at their country's defeat? | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What are some good books to read on the Stasi, the KGB, and any other major secret police organizations? | I'm absolutely fascinated by cold war history, and I want to read as much as I can about these secret police entities. | 63 | I recently read Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum. Its a Pullitzer prize winner, and a really great read. Though its mostly about the Gulag culture... but its got a lot of history in it as well. Brilliantly written and seriously unputdownable.
Edit: [Goodreads link](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/224379.Gulag_) | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why did Henry V succeed in Conquering Normandy while his Great-Grandfather Edward III was unable to? | Like Henry V in 1415, Edward landed in Normandy in 1346 with the intent to conquer. However, although Jonathan Sumption explains that Edward soon abandoned the idea. Although he went on the take many important Norman towns, such as Caen -- and ultimately win a great victory at Crécy and take Calais, he was unable able ... | 83 | I'll let someone else comment on the French side of things. Perhaps changes in siegecraft were important as well.
However, one key improvement for the Campaigns of Henry V compared to Edward was a comparatively more realistic strategic and logistical sense. Edward tended to base his campaigns out of Gascony, and loo... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
On Downton Abbey, they have Estate Firemen in the 1930s. How realistic would this be? Would they really have firemen? | null | 53 | You are referencing a particular event that is set in 1924, not the 1930s. | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What was Russian exploration and colonization of Siberia like? | I would love to see some books on this too. Also, a bonus question: Do the Russians have a "Lewis & Clark" admiration for explorers who went through Siberia? | 95 | Check out 'East of the Sun'. It is a history of Russian conquest of Siberia from the middle ages to Soviet times.
http://www.amazon.com/East-Sun-Conquest-History-Siberia/dp/1880100851 | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How was Judaism introduced to the Khazars, how did it change once it was introduced, and what were the lasting effects? | If possible, I'm most interested in what kind of syncretic religion/culture emerged from Tengriism/Judaism touching and what the lasting effects were. That said, I'll happily consume any favorite facts or illuminating chunks of information about the Khazars in general. | 104 | This is a big and interesting topic that hasn't necessarily been explored on /r/AskHistorians in the detail that it deserves. While you are waiting for answers you might be interested in reading some previous threads on similar topics for the background info:
* [**Who were the Khazars and where do they fit into Europe... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How valuable were books in the early Roman Empire? | Were books a common thing or something rare and treasured? Were they available to the common man or something reserved for the elite? | 70 | Books were taken down by hand, whether they were in the form of a 'book' or a scroll, and thus immensely expensive. The primary reason libraries existed was because copying was such a difficult process, and thus scholars needed a place where they could have access to these works.
The other thing to consider is that t... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why did the ancient Mesopotamians use chariots in lieu of cavalry for so long? Why did this change? | I've read that nomad warriors raided Mesopotamian lands on horseback while the Mesopotamians themselves still used chariots. Why did they use chariots so exclusively for so long? | 78 | hi! I collected these links on the use/decline of chariots in warfare for another post the other day; they may be of interest to you. The tl;dr is that the horses at that place/time were too small - do take a look at some of the images in the posts.
use in warfare
* [How were chariots used in Bronze Age warfare?](htt... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How big of a problem was alcohol abuse/alcoholism in the Red Army during WW2? | null | 50 | The atrocious conduct of the Red Army following their conquest of Eastern Europe and East Germany was largely influenced by their blatant abuse of alcohol. In fact the NKVD allegedly reported back to Moscow complaining that 'mass poisoning from captured alcohol is taking place in occupied Germany' as it was seriously l... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
During segregation in the U.S., with facilities divided between whites and blacks, which ones did asians use? | Also, same question for middle-easterners and hispanics. And for that matter, what about mixed race people? | 63 | You might want to look at these previously answered questions
[What was it like to be Asian/Latino in the segregated south? Did the segregationist laws still apply to you?](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1e38qd/what_was_it_like_to_be_asianlatino_in_the/)
[How were other minorities treated during Ameri... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Did the ancient Greeks, Persians, Indians, Scythians, Germanics etc. ever realize or indicate that their languages were related? Was there even a slight bit of thought given to this idea? | Explaining a bit more, one reference that comes to my mind is that of the Japhetic race in the Bible.
If there's something in the Bible which is more of a Near East product of non-IE culture, surely there must be something in the larger IE tradition. | 82 | I think OPs question was, did at any point the above peoples realize their languages belonged to the larger Indo-European language family? | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How did the Chinese CP react to the end of the cold war? | How did the Chinese Communist party react to the end of the cold war? What kind of debates were going on within the party? Where there any policy adjustments that can be traced to this event ?
| 77 | First of all, it should be noted that Chinese economic reform started out way before the Cold war ended, they began in the early 1980s and have already bore fruit by the time the Cold war ended.
Second of all, this is a pretty difficult question to answer because above all, the end of the cold war was overshadows by T... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How did the Romans view Zoroastrianism? | null | 58 | > this question doubles as an illegal (shh) placeholder point as I gather sources
Caught! And removed. | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
[Meta] Is there any way to have posts tagged based on era, and / or automatically show the number of flaired user responses to a post in its title? | * I often find myself coming here to look at specific "eras" - I know these are difficult to define but I would really love a way to filter posts by "ancient" or "modern".
* I often see posts with 2-5 comments, but have no idea whether it's "worth" clicking into (e.g. whether the comments are helpful and sourced). I ... | 69 | I love this idea. I'm just a lurker here mostly, but I'm a huge fan of this sub. It ends up with me on wiki a lot. | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why do so much creatures from Greek mythology appear in Dante's Comedy and many Christian texts and stories from the time? | null | 75 | You might want to ask in /r/literature/ or /r/AskLiteraryStudies
Dante was well read in Classic mythology. When writing his Divine Comedy he combined Christian teachings with his love for Classic stories. I can think of two reasons for this:
1) The Bible tells very little of what hell is actually like. If you [wrote ... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
CIA Capabilities in the 1950-60s | Hey Guys, I'm thinking of doing a comparative study of CIA operations in Tibet and Laos for my dissertation. I was going to use this to reflect on CIA capabilities in the world as part of it and was wondering if you have any recommended reading to look at for its capabilities as I've mainly looked at literature focusin... | 53 | Are you willing to travel to Washington DC? | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What was an average day like for hitler? | I am most interested in the time of WW2 on, but even before that, who did he meet with? What reasons did he have to travel? How much did he personally make decisions on? | 56 | Albert Speer had this to say about Hitler's typical work day in his Memoir "Inside The Third Reich" :
"I myself threw all my strength into my work and was baffled at
first by the way Hitler squandered his working time. I could understand that he might wish his day to trail off in boredom and pastimes; but to my notion ... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Travelling with the lucky few Canadian Vets we have left to the Battlefields of the Netherlands - any reading material about the Canadian involvement in the Second World War, specifically the Liberation across the Netherlands? | Yes, my title is correct. I work on a team of experts who work along the Battlefields of Europe, Great Britain, & South East Asia. My team is sending me as the primary guide to lead our Canadian Vets (at least, what's left of them) overseas for the 70th Anniversary since the Liberation of Holland. In my prep leadin... | 73 | The official history of the Canadian campaign in Northwest Europe is available online as a pdf, it'd probably be handy to have on your phone for reference:
http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/his/oh-ho/detail-eng.asp?BfBookLang=1&BfId=29
The Netherlands parts start in Chapter 13. It's very detailed, lots of ... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why did the Romanians switch from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet? | null | 65 | **Short version:** it was done to emphasize the fact that romanians are of latin heritage, and not slavic. As scholars started to investigate the history and language, they realized the three countries - Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania - have a roman legacy and this had to reflect in the alphabet as well.
**Deta... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
When morse code was in use, was English used as a common language as it is at sea these days? Or would countries broadcast in their own language? | I'm sure that government/military vessels would use their own language but I'm not so sure about merchant/passenger ships? What with mayday being the accepted spelling of m'aidez etc. | 62 | Japan used [the Wabun code](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabun_code), a variant of morse where each combination of dots and dashes equals not a letter, but a *kana*. This was used by both military and domestic vessels... of course for military use a sent message may have been in code... the infamous "Climb Mount Niita... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
We all know how the Versailles treaty was viewed by the German people, how was it viewed outside of Germany? | Was there any criticism from the allied side regarding how harsh the treaty was? | 55 | Will provide sources when I get back home.
In China, the Treaty was viewed negatively and sparked the May Fourth movement, which some sees as the birth of Chinese Nationalism. The focus was however more on issues specific to China. The major one being the Shandong problem.
Pre-WWI, Germany owned concessions in the Sh... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
When and why did the English ruling class start using the ethnonym "English" to describe themselves? | Considering they were mostly Normans? | 131 | That's when the transition in self-identity *began*, but the Anglicisation of the ruling classes of England was a gradual process, which started in earnest a couple hundred years later, in 1453:
It *necessarily* began as you mentioned, with King John '*Lackand*' becoming the first '*Angevin*' (which means '*from Anjo... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What was the importance of Cheese in ww2? | http://www.davidrumsey.com/rumsey/Size4/D5005/8563000.jpg
If you look at this map from 1942 it shows one of the primary resources of New zealand was actually Cheese, Im curious, how important was Cheese to the war compared to other food like corn, beef and bread?
What were its uses? is there something inherently spec... | 51 | the map just details the natural and industrial resources produced in NZ during WWII. It also shows e.g. sheep and timber. There is nothing about cheese being important. NZ was, and is still is, a big producer of dairy goods. I'm not even sure if this is a serious question, but cheese and dairy products are generally n... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Where did the term "Abyssinia" come from? Is it older than the name "Ethiopia" or did it appear after? What did the Medieval Arab and European worlds call those lands? | I was reading the Wikipedia page of the [Ethiopian Empire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Empire), and I noticed that the term "Abyssinia" appears only once, and I'd like to know where that term came from. | 75 | I am by no means an expert and so this answer may be frowned upon, but based on my, admittedly light, reading on the subject over the last hour or so, Abyssinia is generally accepted as an evolution of the Arabic (though from what I've read, it may also have developed from one of the South Arabian languages) Habashah (... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why were Africa and the Americas able to be colonized so easily? Why did they never form the sort of outward focused empires that Europe and Asia did? | null | 52 | So, the Aztecs did not "capitulate without a fight." The [Fall of Tenochtitlan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Tenochtitlan), which was a bloody battle by all accounts, was *after* the smallpox epidemic.
Also, you seem to be claiming that the smallpox spread faster than the Europeans or Africans (which is true).... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Do we know what the Vikings called the island of Britain? | null | 66 | Are you looking for the name used before the invasions or after, or just the "viking" word. In ancient Icelandic it was called Bretland but disclaimer: I'm not certain if that is the proper word the Vikings themselves used so wait for an expert to post on that.
After the Vikings established colonies the part of Eng... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What happened to the Romani people that were liberated from concentration camps? Did they have anywhere to go? | Did what happened to the Romani during the Holocaust/Porajmos contribute in any way to their current, marginal status? | 93 | Because this is old, [way back in the day](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ao282/wednesday_ama_holocaust_panel/c8z7py6) I asked about the Porajmos in an AMA and the answers stuck with me. Hopefully it can help. | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Was the Peach Hostage Crisis a Koopa response to Mushroom aggression? | King Bowser's kidnapping of Princess Toadstool is usually treated as a flagrant breach of international law, yet evidence points to the Koopa minority in the Mushroom Kingdom being regularly discriminated against and subject to mistreatment at the hand of the plumber population. Was Koopa intervention justified in such... | 60 | There's colossal amounts of evidence; examination of item blocks in the Mushroom Kingdom revealed hollowed out Koopa shells which were used variously as ornaments, skateboards and weaponry. What's more, footage captured by Lakitu clearly shows non-violent Koopas being bludgeoned to death for their shells whilst they at... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Did Yeltsin actually offer to sell Siberia? | I recently found some articles [this one](http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-19/opinion/op-4526_1_mount-rushmore) that bring up the idea of the U.S purchasing Siberia. Was this an actual offer? And if so, how serious was this offer? | 52 | This very article has come up on r/history before and /u/International_KB had an [excellent dissection of this example of post-Cold War triumphalism](https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/2uepx0/did_the_us_really_had_the_chance_to_buy_siberia/co8o5xk) | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
AMA - African Diaspora in the Caribbean with a Focus on Haitian & Vodou History | Hi Y'all!
I'm ABD in my PhD in cultural anthropology where I'm working with Haitian Vodou practitioners in Haiti and the diaspora. As part of my comprehensive exams and dissertation research I've read up quite a lot on the African diaspora in the Caribbean obviously with a focus on Haiti and religious practices. I'm ... | 104 | Vodou is, at least as far as I know, generally said to be a syncretic tradition of Christian and West African spirituality. But given how brutally controlled the lives of slaves in Haiti were, how did these practices survive during the plantation period? The stereotype at least is that the practice of Vodou is done by ... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
My Grandpa was one of the first on Iwo Jima laying communication lines for marines, can someone further tell me what his experience would have been like? | He never talked about the war. He passed away 8 years ago and yesterday my grandma gave me his Marine Pin and is going to give me a vile of sand/ash he collected while there. All I know he was one of the first to get on the island because he had to lay communication lines. What would his experience be like? Would he re... | 80 | Iwo Jima was a island in the pacific that was important because it was large enough to have an airfield. Airfields allowed the United States to create bases, and push closer to Japan. As both Japan and the US knew this, the island was well defended, and became a long and bloody endeavor.
Communication lines are doubl... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Where was Haile Selassie of Ethiopia during WWII? | I understand he was exiled during the invasion of Italy into Ethiopia. I also had heard he had traveled to the Caribbean, and quite possibly Jamaica during this time.
A Jamaican acquaintance had very firmly stated that Haile Selassie's first visit to Jamaica was in 1966, years after WWII had ended.
I've tried resea... | 65 | Here's a BBC biography of him which confirms the basic outline from wiki.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zqqx6sg
Incidentally I knew he stayed in Bath because he had some involvement with my Grandma's family there (i'm not sure of the exact nature, something about attending Church services with them IIRC) and she remem... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How did Alexander the Great's phalangites fare against missiles compared to hoplites of the same period? | In terms of armour, equipment and tactics, how did a phalangite protect themselves from missiles and how does a hoplite compare? As far as I know they had a small shield strapped to them and their sarrissas in the air provided a screen to block arrows.
How does this hold up against say, slingers or javelin armed men? ... | 58 | One of the Macedonian military innovations was making the successful trade-off between the *personal* safety of the individual Hoplite and the *tactical* safety of the entire phalanx - at least in the face of missile troops.
Macedonian Hoplites were more lightly armoured than their Greek counterparts -making them mo... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How do we know we are pronouncing Ancient Egyptian names and places correctly? | The only reason we can even read Egyptian Hieroglyphs is due to the Rosetta Stone with translated it into Ancient Greek. But what about more personal words like names and places. How do we know the glyph of a sun shining on a winged beetle equates to Khufu and thats its even pronounced like that? | 59 | Strangely, a similar question came in the other day; I rounded up a bunch of posts that could be helpful. If you have follow-up questions, include the relevant user's username in the comment - most of us have notifications turned on
* [Exactly how are we capable of reading Ancient Egyptian?](http://www.reddit.com/r/A... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How did infantry on the Eastern Front evolve over the course of WWII? | null | 69 | I can't talk much abut red army or wermacht infantry but I know a bit abut Romanian Infantry, Romanian armed forces being the the largest force on the front after USSR and Germany.
Romanian infantry tactics and equipment are probably the ones that changed the most and quickest on the eastern front.
At the beginning ... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How shiny was the knight's armour? | First, I know knights were not the only people to wear armour, but how clean was armour kept when on campaign? Did soldiers try to keep it shiny? Could you see your face in it or have the sun reflect off it to blind opponents? I recall reading of a charge of knights blinding foes with the sun glinting on visors, but I ... | 78 | was that on the inside for comfort or was that on the outside for looking fabulous? | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Was Sumerian hyperurbanism "real" or just a result of research interests? | I understand that during the Early Dynastic period there was the phenomenon of "hyperurbanism" in which, due to the usual cocktail of reasons, rural settlements were abandoned in favor of the rapidly swelling urban areas. I heard one time a jaw dropping 50% urbanization rate, which flies in the face of much of my exper... | 79 | It is 'real' in the sense that there is extensive data from archaeological surveys that study the settlement development over a longer time - in terms of settlement distribution, but also in terms of settlement size.
Adams 'Heartland of Cities' has the data and the visualisations and is a very interesting read!
The de... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Theres an old Turkish wives tale of a Turkish officer carrying a wounded Anzac back to his trench during the Battle of Gallipoli, is there any credibility to this story? | Theres an old wives tail of a Turkish officer carrying a wounded Australian. The story goes that after hearing the wounded Australian scream for many hours (who was laying in no mans land), the officer had enough, raised a white flag picked up the man and carried him back to his trench. They even built a statue of it (... | 183 | What's the name given on the plaque? | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How did Spartas Dual Monarchy Work? | I'm intrigued as to what the relationship was between the two kings of Sparta throughout history, did they work together or were they in conflict? How did such a system arise and how was it maintained? | 74 | It's not 100% clear. The city of Sparta predates recorded history. According to Herodotus, a lawgiver named Lycurgus just sort of declared the way things should work. My best understanding is that most modern historians don't think Lycurgus was a literally real person, or if he did exist, that he did everything attr... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What where taxicabs like in the Soviet Union? | And how did someone become a driver? Were these people also informants who had to 'keep an eye' on customers or report suspicious activities? As a cabbie myself I'm just curious to learn more about my Soviet counterparts... | 154 | Adam Curtis' documentary Pandora's Box has an interview with a Soviet cab driver. It seems that the number of miles a taxi drove in a month was set by the central planning apparatus. The driver interviewed goes on to say that people would tamper with the meters as a way of getting around the five year plan. | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What do we know about the people who lived in Europe before the Indo-Europeans? | Also, is it possible that the Basque people and those who spoke the Tyresnian languages lived in europe before the Indo-Europeans? | 73 | I'm not an expert by any means, but I'm *fascinated* by "Old Europe." Just by the way you worded you're question, I'm assuming you're familiar with the "Kurgan hypothesis."
Anyway, we don't know much, and everything we know comes from archeological evidence, and more controversially, oral-folk traditions. There are a... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Is there any clue as to native americans making significant use of riding on an animals back before the arrival of the europeans and their horses? | null | 53 | Llamas and alpacas are the only domesticated draft-type (and I'm using that loosely) animals native to the Americas (wild horses having been hunted to extinction some 12,000 years ago), and so far as I'm aware, there is no evidence of their having ever been introduced to North America. These are both fairly small anima... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Modern American pundits and politicians love to talk about the economic/industrial rise of China (and Japan before it). Did British political discourse do the same vis a vis America and Germany? | And how did it affect British political life once Germany and America actually did eclipse it? Related question: when exactly *did* America's economy definitively eclipse Britain's? | 87 | That isn't true at all.
The US GDP actually surpassed Britain's during the 1890s, a fact which caused many some concern during that period. Many British were so dismissive of the 'Colonials' however that this wasn't taken seriously. Germany's economic power had been viewed as a threat for a while, and when the countr... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How did speakers of Cockney Rhyming Slang propagate an agreed set of word substitutions? | null | 74 | I think you're thinking about this all wrong. it's not like the Cockney poor would meet in a semi-regular basis and agree on this stuff.
it would advance like any other word. someone starts using it, and someone else likes that word, and starts using it too, and so on and so forth until it's fairly ubiquitous.
tl/dr... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Are there any "joke" paintings from before the late modern period? Or art that was meant to be a parody or satire of the style it's in? | I know today, you can find a lot of joke versions of famous paintings, or medieval-style parodies or satires of the art style or the era itself. Do we have any surviving art of that kind from earlier eras?
I got this idea from browsing /r/trippinthroughtime. A lot of the faces and situations in these old works of art ... | 60 | Hi! I'm only an art history student but when I read your question, the first thing I thought of was this http://imgur.com/LxMfB67 drawing by daumier, called "this year, venuses again...always venuses!" From 1864.
It's criticizing a popular trend in art salons at the time, where many of the submissions to the shows wer... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How much of Aztec history was lost in the Spanish conquest? | Was the language and traditional ways of learning suppressed? Did the catholic church take an active role in suppressing native beliefs and ways of life? I know that many of our sources on the Aztecs are spanish codices, that would seem to indicate that there are few native accounts to draw on. What's the story here? ... | 89 | To get you quickly started, the overwhelming majority of Aztec codices did not survive the Spanish (or rival Aztec Emperors out to do some history re-writing) and were burned as a way of erasing their culture. So the answer to your "how much?" is "as far as we know, nearly all of it" until we make a chance discovery so... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What was the primary use of olive oil in classical Greece and Rome? | Other than cooking I've heard that they used it to bathe, but what other uses did it have? What was the main use of it back then? | 50 | * Athletics (a similar use as at the baths)
* Perfume (usually mixed with exotic spices and put in one's hair)
* Cosmetics
* Religious ceremonies and funerary rites
* Various medicinal uses
When consumed, it wasn't so much used for 'cooking' as it was added raw to other dishes
The following poem (Mart. *Ep.* 3.12) jo... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What language did Alexander the Great use to speak to the Oracle at Siwa? | Alexander the Great spoke to an Oracle at Siwa, who proclaimed him a son of Zeus and thus giving him right to be a Pharaoh.
Did the Oracle speak Greek, or did Alexander speak Egyptian? | 79 | First, I don't think we can say for certain that the priest told Alexander that we was the son of Zeus, or that Alexander himself fully embraced such a claim. But in any event, [Plutarch's account](http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/alexandr.html) states:
>But Alexander, in a letter to his mother, tells her there wer... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How did the United States of America arrive at their valuation of Greenland in 1946? Could the area have been worth the cost of purchase in terms of economic output, or was the value purely strategic? | null | 113 | Initially, America very much wanted it for strategic reasons. The GIUK Gap was hugely important. Specifically, it was important to the Soviet Union's submarine fleet.
If you look at the terms of the [Montreux Convention](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention), it was impossible to "sneak" a submarine thro... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What was the alcohol business like before prohibition? | Were there laws against public drunkenness or underage drinking? Could you go to the corner store and buy a bottle of Old Crow? Was the sale and consumption regulated? Thanks in advance for any answers. I'm sitting here doing shots while browsing this sub, and this question popped into my head. | 87 | Pre-prohibition is a long time frame, especially if we're talking about American history. I can only speak to beer in the specific pre-Prohibition days, but...
Beer gardens were extremely popular in the late 19th century and would be identified with the upper crust, while saloons would be identified with the "...era's... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Does modern scholarship consider the Israeli victory in the Six Day War a product of Israeli tactical genius or Egyptian/Syrian/Jordanian incompetence? | null | 71 | Our own resident expert on the history of the Arab-Israeli conflicts, /u/tayaravakin has written [about this very topic](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2oov4y/why_were_losses_in_the_conflicts_between_the_arab/cmp9gke).
For more detail than you may want, see his [truly massive rundown on the events le... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What was the first nation-state in the modern sense of the word? | null | 84 | This question is exceptionally problematic--not because of the nature of the question at all, but because of the nature of the word "state"/"nation state"/etc. among various anthropological circles.
The first solid study of the development of the state is Elman Service's *Origins of the State and Civilization*. Publi... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Did members of the Varangian Guard convert to Christianity or did they retain Norse paganism while in service? | Basically, I am curious about the relationship between religions in 10th century Byzantium specifically as it pertains to the Scandinavian members of the guard.
Bonus question: are there any members of the guard that went on to become close friends of the emperor? I would be curious for any stories of specific guards... | 83 | Hi,
I believe that ostensibly the Norse members of the Guard did convert, as most of Scandinavia was being forcibly converted by the likes of Olaf Trygvason and Olaf the Saint around this time quite a few may have already adopted Christianity as their main religion. Having said that, I think (and this is only from my ... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How old is the concept of prison uniforms? What was the primary intention behind them? Deterrent for escape? Public shaming? Is there evidence this worked? | null | 139 | We ask that answers in this subreddit be in-depth and comprehensive, and highly suggest that comments include citations for the information. In the future, please take the time to better familiarize yourself with [the rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_write_an_in-depth_answer), and take these... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
What were the primary differences between Soviet combat aircraft designs and US combat aircraft designs during the cold war? what "Doctrines" did those designs build towards? | null | 90 | /u/restricteddata ably covered a goodly portion of this question in his answers to [Why did the United States develop so many different fighter aircraft during the early Cold War?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/21b5yn/why_did_the_united_states_develop_so_many/) and [How did post-WWII Soviet fighter ai... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
Why did Greece decide to rebel from the Ottoman Empire after being a part of it for almost 400 years? | What changed about the Greek-Turkish relationship that inspired Greece to rebel after being a part of the empire for so long? | 59 | The Greeks had rebelled prior to this, it just happened to be the first successful uprising. They were usually in sync with Italian (well, venetian) wars waged against the ottomans, with the exception of the orlov revolt during the russo-turkish wars of the late 18th century.
The fundamental differences were the scale... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
How widespread was the modern style of dog ownership/culture historically? | How long ago do we know that people kept dogs like they were a member of the family and gave them affection/walks and taught them trick? Since there are many different dog breeds all across the world did various cultures treat dog ownership differently? | 50 | Dogs were domesticated at
[some point in prehistory](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dog-domestication-much-older-than-previously-known/); you might have better luck asking an archeologist or anthropologists than a historian for the current debate on this. Dogs have been seen as 'a member of the family' for ... | 10 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
End of preview.
From the r/AskHistorians subreddit
Generated and filtered by https://github.com/nguyentd01/subreddit-data-downloader
- Downloads last month
- 5