I just figure that given the long travel times for global voyages in the age of sail, it would be difficult for a financier in London or Amsterdam who insured a merchant ship to ever truly verify what happened to ships that were reported lost. Wouldn't it be easy to claim a ship was "lost at sea" in the Straits of Malacca when instead it was just hiding out in some port in the east indies?

Please delete if not appropriate.

Was it possible/common for high carbon steels produced in say, the 1700's, to be comparable to Rockwell Hardness numbers achievable today?

If not, is that due to lack of alloying materials? Lack of specific knowledge of heat treatment for more exotic alloys to achieve their maximum hardness? Or maybe inability to remove impurities, impacting the final quality?

Where I'm going with this is: was it theoretically possible to build skyscrapers, cranes, and other such constructions requiring high-tensile, high-strength, super-duper steels hundreds of years ago, if such hard/strong steels were known? If not, why not?

Thanks in advance! Really appreciate your efforts!

Edit: Maybe strong would be a more accurate query than hard...

I checked the booklist! (All I saw was a book that sounded interesting about the life of peasants in 16th century France, and then a long list of Revolutionary and Napoleonic era books.)

I’ve recently fallen absolutely in love with Dumas’s d’Artagnan romances; so much so that I’ve been inspired to learn all I can about the era he covers (1625 - 1673) so that I will have a better grasp when I read them again (knowing already that he takes quite a few liberties, even when it comes to what wars were being fought at the time).

I’m looking for the best books that cover the era, though of course anything that sets the stage for the time would be absolutely welcome.

I’m afraid I can’t narrow it down any further, as I really would love to learn more about all aspects of the time and place: social, political, military… all would be enthusiastically welcome.

I do not speak French, so I’m afraid primary sources won’t help me much, I’ll have to stick to English.

Thanks very much for your help.

Full quote:

"We only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down"

I'm trying to understand if this was something Hitler "just believed", because it fit the nazi world view, or if others underestimated the USSR as well.

Looking for any reliable books about Norse gods and Norse mythology. The history in general.

I've read few articles about US and Soviet Union competing about North Pole. North Pole race like the space race. Soviet Union had a base established 1961 called Novolazarevskaya. The most famous thing that happened there is when Leonid Rogozov doctor had to perform a self surgery to remove his appendix. But I'm just curious what were scientists doing there in the first place? Why was the race to the north pole so important?

Did any British Monarch ever claim to be an emperor?

As the title said, after the Western Roman Empire fall, how long did their coins remain in circulation? When did they become rare or collectible?

The question comes from a discussion about Hamilton on this sub. It made me wonder what the definition of this term is and if it is actually useful when thinking about the past before the invention of the ideology.

The first Gilgamesh fragments were discovered in the 1850's. Did locals in the region have any cultural memory of this tale or was it completely gone to the sands of time once Islam took over?

It seems like a totally different skill set, what happened to all the sailers who were experts at climbing tall masts of ships when there were no longer any masts?

The power of Hollywood seems like a tempting answer, but America also had a music industry that was often dominated by British acts during the 60s, 70s and 80s. Less so after those decades.

So many groups from those decades , of diverse genres , became famous and influential all over the world and are still popular today. The Beatles and some other bands for instance were called the 'British invasion.'

Apart from James Bond and Charlie Chaplain I doubt that many people outside the UK, or probably even in the UK, could name many British films from before 1990. If we look at post 1990 then many people might only be able to think of Trainspotting and maybe one or two Romantic comedies.

Why was the British film industry so ineffective, when even much smaller countries from those same eras produced more films that are still remembered or revered today? Surely most countries post WWII and probably before understood the power of film. Beatles mania would have highlighted how profitable soft power could be.

Why did Britain completely drop the ball on this ? I know some people will chime in with some obscure directors or films that they know. But I'm not asking for that. I'm talking about a global impact on par with British music during those Periods?

When I read about the Mongol Invasion in English sources, it's interesting how cruel they are portrayed - I see expressions such as "mountains of skulls", "catapulting bubonic plagued corpses", "give them three days, and kill every single human beings in the city"

However, as a Korean person, I don't remember seeing such sentiments in Korean history books and textbooks. Mongols are almost described as one of many Northern nomadic people that invaded the Korean peninsula - just the most powerful and successful one that made Korea (Goryeo) their vassal state.

• However, Korea (Goryeo) actually resisted Mongol fiercely for about 20 years. So Mongol had every reason to cruelly devastate Korea, using all the terrifying tactics.

​

Meanwhile, Koreans remember the Japanese invasion in 1592 with a lot more vivid and gory details. The way Western historians describe Mongols reminds me of the way the Korean public remembers the Japan invasion.

​

I wonder if this is some bias on the Korean side, or if Mongols used different strategies in Korea (and China) than in West Asia and Eastern Europe.

Were Mongols somehow less cruel in their Chinese and Korean campaigns?

("The Expanse" is a science-fiction tv show which plays with the idea of things that are well, expansive and hard to comprehend. No spoilers please.)

Full quote from the show:

"When the European tall-ships first arrived on the American continent, the natives couldn't see them. The sight was so completely outside of their experience, they just couldn't compute. So they didn't see."

I'm 90% confident that this was pulled out of some writer's arse to lend gravity to one of the characters' speeches, but still 10% curious if there might be any attested truth/record or justification behind the quote. It's an interesting idea.

I'm sure that Native Americans knew about boats. Perhaps they would have been shocked/amazed by the sudden arrival of a lot of very HUGE boats. Would any of these impressions have made their way into records that we have access to?

Is there any evidence that they "didn't see" the ships, or is this just a lot of colonialist fantasising/speculation?

Thanks!

(note to mods: reposted with slightly different title to get past AutoMod's claims that this "does not appear to be a question")

(Further edit addressed to anyone who might be reading: The Expanse is fucking awesome and if you like sci-fi at all —Star Trek, Doctor Who, The 100, whatever— then you should definitely give it a go)

I've often seen posters on this sub, as well as on badhistory, mention offhand that feudalism didn't really exist, or at least that its existence is debated by modern historians. What is generally meant by this? Is it just an emphatic way of saying that "feudal" relationships were more complex and varied than some single system? Let's say I broadly define feudalism to be a system in which one landholding noble offers protection to many other nobles, in exchange for some kind of tribute or service. How well does that model fit medieval Europe? Feel free to limit the scope of your answer, if necessary.

As you know gladiators were slaves, and slaves were costly to the owners. So I thought that maybe the fights were scripted to please the crowds. Moreover if you think about it the helmets and gears are technically costumes but also protective to avoid any accidents. Any historians that might have an idea on the topic?

I recall reading (possibly here) a story of a man who would hire actors to film fake coronations (or similar ceremonies) and then have them shown in theatres. This would have been in the early days of film, and would have been a recreation of a contemporary event (so, not a historical re-enactment).

Similar to art forgery, is there some kind of tradition of creating high quality film fakes? For political or monetary purposes I suppose.