I hope this is within the scope of the sub. I'm doing a research project about children's films but I can't find anything from the time period between the birth of cinematography and the 30's. Not in America nor in Europe.

I wonder if there is none, didn't production companies consider that children were relevant as potential public?

Thank you.

Specifically, what's with the human-like contour in Lapland ("head and two arms")? Was that intended?

I read 3 books from Hannah Arendt and I trust her historic analysis because it correlates with what I read from thinkers pre-cold war, such as Otto Rank for example. And because she presents a lot of sources in the "Origins of Totalitarianism".

But many people say we can not trust her historical analysis because she was a revisionist financed by the CIA during the cold war. And to confirm it people suggest the reading of "Who Paid the Papers'' by Frances Stonor Saunders and some works from Losurdo. But by reading the reviews I found many people pointing at historical lacunes and foolish information errors in "Who Paid the Papers", convincing me it is not a reliable source. And Losurdo is known for being a blind passionate supporter of Stalin, so he seems not the right person to look for confirmation about Hannah Arendt historical Analysis fallacies or cold war propaganda.

Apart from that, I have read a couple of books from David Harvey but the few times he mentions Hannah Arendt historical analysis he agrees with her.

So, how much can we trust Hannah Arendt Historical Analysis?

I just jumped down the rabbit hole of HMS Centurion, a WW1 King George V class battleship which went on to serve as a target ship and then a WW2 blockship in Tripoli. The mystery I'm having though is that I can't seem to find out the fate of her after her sinking.

Being a blockship, this means she should've been in shallow waters, but I cannot find an image of her wreck, nor see it on google earth. All the sources I can find say that she was "sunk as a blockship" and then the papertrail ends there. What happened to her? Was she scrapped?

edit: I meant Normandy, she was a blockship off Normandy.

To the best of my knowledge, Puyi was promised a restoration of his Chinese empire by the Japanese. When they put him in power as a puppet it happened to be in Manchuria. Seeing as the Japanese had this land because of previous conflicts, I can see how this would just be a coincidence. Even if it is, did the Japanese government have any symbolic purpose behind this decision?

Hi all,

Something that's been puzzling me for a while - nearly every history book I had as a kid (including at least three right next to me) claim Egbert/Ecghbert of Wessex was the first King of England. He became king in 827 after defeating the Northumbrians at Dore. His kingdom didn't last, as it split into separate kingdoms again and some of these were taken over by the Danes, but Egbert's successors gradually got it back. These books mention Aethelstan only as a relatively minor king, the grandson of Alfred the Great (who started the process of English reunification), who finished his grandfather's job of reuniting Egbert's lands in 937.

The thing is, almost every account I can find on the internet - and in more recent history books, for that matter - mentions Egbert as a relatively minor king of Wessex, who is never referred to as "the first King of England" - at best a bretwalda who received the submission of the other kings, and not the first one at that. Aethelstan is now universally acknowledged as England's first king, and the formation of his kingdom is described as a first-time unification, not a reunification.

Why is it that older books refer to Egbert as the first King of England, but newer books and the Internet all agree it was Aethelstan? Did Egbert ever rule over all of England? And if not, why do almost all older history books describe him that way?

I am reading this through for the first time. On the one hand, I know this book is generally well respected. On the other hand, it seems to me Chomsky is not citing his sources for his most controversial claims(at least what would sound controversial to one who isnt super familiar with the history of the war).

Should I take most of what Chomsky has to say at face value as decent history? Or is there a better attitude to take?

So the Normans invaded England in 1066 and established a new ruling class, and it was even common for Norman nobles to have possessions on either side of the English Channel. They were supposed to be loyal to the French King, what happened in those 300 years?

Obviously colonies like the British Raj and French Africa provided a wealth of resources and labor. But in the case of the vast majority, I’m very confused as to why any nation would waste its money and military upholding them. Take the Philippines, for example. Did it serve the US any purpose other than as a place for military bases and a source of “prestige?”

I realize this question isn’t about an obscure topic from 200+ years ago, but it’s history and I’m curious.

I’m not very familiar with the One Child Policy besides what I’ve heard in pop culture references. In the US it’s common to have children in a second marriage if the couple is still young and want children, even if one of the individuals has a kid from the previous marriage. How would this have worked out in China during their One Child Policy? Would they be allowed to have another child since it would be one child for the other individual?

This subject has been the source of much contention whenever Christian and Nazis are brought into the same sentence. Some people vehemently believe the Nazis do not qualify as Christians, but is there a consensus among historians for this? I understand that the Nazis actions may not reflect other’s interpretation of the religion and am not insinuating Christianity was the Nazis’ motivation but does that make them not Christian somehow? Wherever you look in history you can find governments or cultures ignoring aspects of Christian teachings yet are considered Christians so why are the Nazis the exception?

This idea of Greenland being isolated for centuries while it was still widely believed in Denmark that Norse people lived there is one that I always found puzzling.

How did losing some 17 million people affect the culture and way of life in post WW2 Soviet Union?

Seeing the atrocities Imperial Japan commited during WW2, many of which seem at the very least partially incited by racism (the massacre of Nanjing, Unit 731, the banning of Korean names and religion) its difficult to think that the Japanese Empire ever trully envisioned an "Asia for the asians" as a response to colonialism.

Was this ever the case and was the ideal was just later usurped by the predonminant military authorities, or was it always an excuse for military expansion and imperialism much like the Monroe Doctrine on the other side of the pond?

If they did, I've never heard of it. Why did European diseases almost completely wipe out the natives they met, while the Europeans (who typically lived much less healthy lives) didn't see anything comparable?

Was there a Frankish diaspora prior to the Crusades, or was he just a skilled linguist?

Columbus was trying to reach Asia but thought the Earth was smaller than it is so he travelled west hoping to reach Asia with the enough supplies he had. Luckily (for him only, of course) the amount of supplies he had was just the amount of resources he needed to reach America. However he thought that he was in Asia (that's why he called the Natives 'Indians' because that's what Europeans used to call Asians). So when did the colonialists know that they were in America not Asia?

How would pilots stranded in the air be rescued, if at all? Could they try to make a water landing? Bail out near allied ships? Were they just screwed?

I believe the historians use the sources that described his illness, like William of Tyre who watched it as a witness, but it was so long and the medicine has changed so much. So, could it be another illness?

I'd lie to start by saying I know very little about 20th century historu as I'm usually more interested in the Middle Ages so if I make a mistake it's not intentional.

From what I've read it appears that for the time period Hitler held a fairly liberal position on homosexuality which allowed Rohm to rise high within the party. He even appeared to stand by him when he was attacked for having an openly homosexual friend. As for as I'm aware there was also other openly homosexual men within the SA.

Yet after the Nazi's came to power they tried to 'cure' homosexuals and those who couldn't be cured were sent to the camps. Was it the increasing influence of Himmler and the SS which forced Hitler to persecute homosexuals, the focus on perfect family structure or did his own views change?

I am not asking about the British colonies but Britain itself. And how big was black population after that. Thanks

I got into the gist of the Mongol invasions of Japan, where I stumbled upon a piece (lacking citation) on Wikipedia saying:

The invasions exposed the Japanese to an alien fighting style which, lacking the single combat that characterized traditional samurai combat, they saw as inferior. The Mongol method of advances and withdrawals based on signal sounds from bells, drums and war cries was also unknown in Japan at that time, as was the technique of shooting arrows en masse into the air rather than long-ranged one-on-one combat.

(emphasis mine)

Is this true - especially the use of "arrow rain" so to speak - and if so, how did the Japanese fight in unity before discovering these basic methods? How is it possible that they could be so far disconnected from the (then) contemporary standard of war and formations?

Is there any ground to the idea that the Japanese were still fundamentally cut off from the rest of the world and so were lacking in warfare?