I mean, it gets brought up a lot by my friends (on the topic of the 2nd Amendment) , that making laws against magazines is insane because you can make one in your shed with limited experience, tools, and instruction

In the movie Hidden Figures about the career of Katherine G. Johnson, there is a scene where her white manager tears down a black only sign over a bathroom. I'm always wondered about that scene since I've heard that FDR in the 1940s issued a executive order that prohibited federal buildings to be segregated and was irate when he learned that the Pentagon had been built with enough bathrooms to allow for segregation between white and black employees.

How come NASA, a federal agency, who had to construct much of its own infrastructure from the ground up, including office buildings , could have segregated buildings two decades later? Did NASA ignore federal law?

Was the soon fall of the Byzantine Empire inevitable considering it’s state despite the Ottoman invasion of Constantinople?

Also is there any count of how many men he had at the end of his campaign because I know he started 5000 men + arab / slavic mercenaries.

I have read that there was a highly psychologically charged atmosphere between the leadership and troops in anticipation of victory following the hypothetical completion of the Schlieffen Plan in 1914 (even though they came close to Paris, now we know better that the Plan might not have worked at all because complex European alliances had created the basis for long-term war) . What do we know of Paris and France's fate as planned by Germany after the planned conquest or Paris in 1914?

More specifically, do we have any historical evidence or information of the planning by the German Army-State and their leaders following the expected conquest of Paris that never came?

I’ve heard of Jewish Socialist/Communist movements that were anti-Zionist but was there any zionists who wanted to make Germany a Jewish state instead of turning Palestine into Israel? I feel like there’s obvious links to calls for reparations and self determination from black people in the US today and I can’t help but wonder if this didn’t also happen with Jewish people living in Europe.

Big History refers to the historical studies starting from the beginning of time, throughout the eons and to the present day. It is very interesting and important to ponder and study as it gives the perspective of long human trends and ideas (macro-history) and how these fit within larger time frames themselves (deep history).

We still see it in medical terminology, like siniso-dexter and such, yet it apparently started to mean bad or evil long, long ago even before the classic Latin era (so says Mrs Takeoffdpantsnjaket). Why? How? Explain please.

Since the US grabbed ahold of South Korea and Japan after WW2, both of these nations have become extremely rich, among the richest in the world. But South America and Central America remain among the poorest regions in the world today.

The US greatly influenced all of these nations/regions before and after WW2, but some turned out way better than others.

What is the reason behind this? I would think the US-backed nations of South America would have better economies than Japan and South Korea due to the greater amount of natural resources available. But they don’t. Why?

Was Custer ever a target of Lost Cause historians like Grant was?

I'd previously thought Custer was regarded as a buffoon and was surprised to learn about his actions in the Civil War. Wikipedia says he was well regarded at the time of his death too.

I know that Grant's generalship was a target of the Lost Cause. Did they target other Union generals?

I've heard before that because of English Warbow's greater range and rate of fire than that of the smoothbore musket, Benjamin Franklin created a corp of Longbowmen to serve in the Continental Army. However, it didn't gain traction because it takes several years to train a longbowman to be able to pull a heavy Warbow effectively/continuously.

Are they accurate views on Justinian, Theodora, and Belisarius, or do historians see Procopius’s secret history as mere slander?

In Oliver Stone's documentary The Untold History of the United States, he makes the case that the dropping of the atomic bombs was to primarily demonstrate their capabilities to Russia in order to show military superiority, and that Japan at that time was preoccupied with its conflict with Russia and was prepared to surrender prior to the dropping of the atomic bombs. How reasonable is this conclusion and are there any compelling counterarguments?

As far as I'm aware, it's only people outside of historical circles, but people talk about people like David Irving as if he is a revisionist historian

My question is basically about tourism and when and how did it develop because honestly it seems like such a modern thing to me. Did it even exist before let's say the 17th-18th century? Were people generally as interested about history as we are today and did they know enough about their ancestors and what their lives were like? Or overall did anything similar occur back then?

I know that the Civil War happened because of slavery, but the tariff thing is always brought up by people. I’ve especially seen it brought up more and more recently which is why I need the wonderful people here to help me. I was hoping someone could debunk it for me so I could be better prepared in the future to deal with it.

Semi automatic and fully automatic rifles have a great advantage over bolt action rifles in that they are a force multiplier - you can get more bullets downrange in the same amount of time which means you need fewer soldiers for covering fire actions, are more likely to hit a moving target and can engage multiple targets without having to remove the weapon from your shoulder.

However, the all the major powers, with the exception of the USA, went into WW2 with a bolt action rifle as their standard weapon, and the USA only adopted the M1 Garand in 1936. (The British had the Lee-Enfield, the Germans had the Karabiner 98K, the Soviets had the Mosin-Nagant and the Japanese had the Type 99.)

The French had developed and deployed several Automatic and semi-automatic rifles during and after WW1, yet they still chose to go with the bolt action MAS-36 in the lead up to WW2. The British army continued to use the Lee-Enfield right up until the mid 1950s!

So my question is: Why did none of the major powers, except for the USA, adopt semi automatic or fully automatic rifles as their standard military firearm?

Was it purely a matter of cost, or were there other factors at play such as tooling, supply, generals who didn't like change, etc?

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Bonus question: Why didn't the US army adopt a lever action rile prior to WW1?