I was googling for images of the original letters, but couldn't find anything at all. Are they stored in the Vatican? Or destroyed?

In Marx's Capital, when describing the amount of food the average person is able to eat, he uses not calories but "grains of nitrogen" and "grains of carbon."

During the cotton famine of 1862, Dr. Smith was charged by the Privy Council with an inquiry into the conditions of nourishment of the distressed operatives in Lancashire and Cheshire. His observations during many preceding years had led him to the conclusion that “to avert starvation diseases,” the daily food of an average woman ought to contain at least 3,900 grains of carbon with 180 grains of nitrogen; the daily food of an average man, at least 4,300 grains of carbon with 200 grains of nitrogen; for women, about the same quantity of nutritive elements as are contained in 2 lbs. of good wheaten bread, for men 1/9 more; for the weekly average of adult men and women, at least 28,600 grains of carbon and 1,330 grains of nitrogen.

-Capital, Vol 1, Chapter 25, Section 5

I assume this is because nutritional science has come a long way since 1867, but what exactly do those terms refer to? It seems to be some measurement of wheat based on context but I'm not sure how.

Southerners, especially those from Appalachia, are often portrayed in media as using numerous extravagant similes, such as "meaner than a striped snake" or (taking this from an actual comedic piece) "thinner than a possum with lockjaw." These similes are often greatly exaggerated for comedic effect and usually deal in some way with the rural Appalachian landscape or lifestyle. In most cases, these are inserted into dialogue to suggest that a character is uneducated or unrefined.

Where did this linguistic portrayal originate? Does it have any roots in Scottish Appalachian culture, or is it a largely North American development?

Of the 45 presidents in the history of the United States, only 4 have been successfully assassinated (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy).

How have so many Presidents not been assassinated?

Follow-up questions: Does the Secret Service have anything to do with this? If Wikipedia is correct, the number of unsuccessful assassination attempts has dramatically increased over the years. Is this a result of greater political conflict, a bias made by more extensive record keeping, or something else?

What do Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones have in common?

[Twenty Hours Later...]

OK, yes, I agree, but I'm specifically thinking about counter-battery positions located on medieval-era castle towers/walls. This is a fantasy convention i have seen and read in many places, but oddly I have never found a real-world reference for, written or otherwise. I also can't seem to find anything to say it never happened.

Obviously it's more dramatic to show the defenders working from the walls to beat back a siege rather than firing from inside the city/fortress over them, but is there any historical basis for this idea? I am specifically thinking of the European defensive structures, but relevant information from any nation or time period would be welcome!

Hello, I'm wondering if any have any recommendations for non-Eurocentric accounts of the crusades in English?

I noticed that the authors of the Dec. of Ind. said things about “laws of nature” and “god’s laws” , but I was wondering how that would even relate to modern day society.

Besides “thou shalt not kill” and the generic “do unto others” spiel, what else could be thrown under the umbrella of both nature’s and god’s laws? I’m stumped.

What’s also interesting is that the drafting process of the Constitution is often overlooked. What do you guys think was difficult for the framers during that time? How did they wrestle with the questions in drafting the constitution?

I am aware that Eric Flint's books are, of course, alternate histories, but particularly the earlier books in his various alternate history works have a number of historical details that have interested me. For instance, the discovery in the first Belisarius book that stirrups, in the modern understanding, were not used on Byzantine cavalry was such a cool moment that my whole family now uses "stirrups!" as an exclamation when we realize something that seems blindingly obvious in retrospect.

So, leaving aside the clearly science fiction elements, does anyone know if the depiction of the Eastern Roman Empire and Indian Subcontinent in particular are reasonably accurate? I have some suspicions, given how the caste system in India seems to be using a classification that dated to much later, but things like the descriptions of different types of marriages in Persia, and the class system in Thrace, always fascinated me, and I'm trying to gauge whether to take it all with a grain of salt, or a whole barrel of it.

Been watching and reading a lot on roman battles, specifically after the Marian Reforms. I'm a little confused, because I'm getting different info from multiple sources.

1. Was the term "cohort" used to describe maniple organization before the Marian Reforms?

2. So, correct me if I'm mistaken: 8 man squads form into 10 squad centuries, and 6 centuries formed a cohort (except 1st Cohort, which was 5 double-strength centuries), and 10 cohorts formed a Legion?

3. Once again, correct me if I'm wrong:

Triple Acies are 4 cohorts on the first line, 3 on the second and 3 on the third.

Double Acies were 6 on first, 4 on third.

4. Does the century form with all squad leaders (dec somethings) on the left, the side with the century? Or do the squad leaders have no formal posting?

5. How exactly did the auxiliary cavalry fight? Did they usually dismount and fight hand to hand? Did they use gladiuses (gladii?) on horseback, or spears? Did the carry pilum?

6. Did legionaries carry pilum strapped to their backs? They carried four, right?

USSR would have had a long time to experience more powerful one

A bit of an unwieldy title, I'm sorry.

I'd be curious to know if the historiography of the crusades has ever differed between the Protestant and Catholic cultural sphere. Did interpretations of the crusades to the holy land shifted after the Reformation? Did Protestants have a different interpretation of the Waldensian Crusade as Catholics? (And viceversa in the case of the Northern Crusades)

Any information you could share would be appreciated.

Just read Blackshirts and Reds; Rational Fascism and the Fall of Communism, and I found it to be really compelling. However, Parenti's narrative about the Soviet Union goes counter to many mainstream sources even today - people still talk about the "horrors of Stalinism" and the "millions killed in the gulags" but Parenti makes the argument that many of those horrors and deaths were caused by external forces; wars, famines, and the need to industrialize. I want to know if Parenti is respected in the historical field generally. Thanks!

And they werent very welcome here anyway, the town was a military barracks and had a famine workhouse

I'm creating a Kriegsspiel inspired board game in which players can fight fictional Napoleonic battles. I need to know how far a division could march in an hour.

It seems that there were prior movements and reformers who shared ideas similar to Luther who the Catholic Church were able to successfully suppress/persecute, yet most general history classes sort of... ignore them in favor of starting the Reformation with Martin Luther. It seems like many reformers had brought up the same issues Luther did with the selling of indulgences, for example. Is this oversimplification on modern teaching's part or was Luther unaware of prior reformers... or something in between? It seems unlikely that Luther would have been totally unaware of Hus and the Bohemian Reformation when those events were not far removed from Luther temporally or spatially.

And why did he succeed where others had failed? Was it simply a greater ability to get his word out because of the invention of the printing press (this seems to be the most common story when reading about Luther)? Or did Luther simply get greater support from political leaders than previous movements did?

I know the later wars of religion in Europe get complicated and are often more about power and control than religious doctrine (for example, the Catholic French crown financing the Protestant Swedish crown to fight the Catholic (and, perhaps more importantly, Hapsburg) German states during the Thirty Years' War). Were these same kinds of political machinations present in authorities taking up Luther's cause (ie they supported Luther because of the chance to get out from under the thumb of the Church more than a real religious zeal about Luther's teachings)?

Can the lack of teaching about those prior movements simply be chalked up to a lack of documents on them because of Catholic successful suppression and persecution? Do we just not know enough about the Waldensians, Lollardy, etc. to speak authoritatively on them because the Church did such a good job of driving them underground or extinct? I know there's been some debate about other heretical movements and what they actually believed versus what the Church says they believed.

Cars were basically boxes of different sizes in both street markets and racing. How did designers and engineers only start to utilize the positive effects of lower drag so late, when anyone who had sailed ships would have realized that sails wouldn't work if mounted vertically?

Furthermore, airplane wings predate Formula 1 front and rear wings by decades. Did nobody try what happens with an upside down wing?

As the title says - as far as I know (based on my shallow knowledge of Revolution) people that made the backbone of Assembly at first just wanted to reform government, to push taxation on nobility and clergy, to relieve the burden from the lower class, etc.

Then how did their ideas went from this to the execution of the king in just a couple years?