Outside of the obvious hard to conquer due to being mountainious, how did both countries avoid getting involved in WW2. Both countries are german speaking or have segnificant german speaking populations, so knowing Nazi idiolgy I would assume Hitler would have considered them natural german land. Hitler also didnt seem to care about nutrality, for example he invaded Luxemburg. So how did both countries manage to stay out of the war?

So the image of an oblivious physician masturbating a woman and not knowing anything sexual was going on has been debunked. But that leaves a lot of questions that I still have, especially about what vibrators were doing. Were there women's whisper networks like for abortifacients? I'm curious, but trying to look around even in scholarly databases all roads still lead to Maines. (And just using Google is... not helpful when trying to research the history of vibrators.)

I’m reading Pet Semetary at the moment and was curious as to when the superstition around Native American burial grounds became a thing? How far back does it go? Was Pet Semetary instrumental in thrusting it into popular culture and American folk lore?

I would have thought that childhood in 17th and 18th century North America would have included the occasional dip in ponds and rivers and that swimming would have been more commonplace even back then.

Recently I've read quite a lot about the mongol empire and almost all texts mention the size of the empire at its peak, stretching from korea to vienna (or other places in central/eastern europe). I know that they didn't stay for long in europe and eventually retreated, but I'd like to ask how much mongol culture remained and/or wether any artifacts have been found. cheers

I’m very interested in Norwegian language history, and the Reformation is commonly thought of as a watershed moment for written Norwegian, since it marks the end of the linguistic epoch conventionally known as Middle Norwegian and heralds the arrival of Danish as the official written language in Norway.

But lately I’ve been wondering to what extent that shift was actually noticeable among the literate population of Norway, since in all the reading I’ve done on this subject I’ve never once come across contemporary comments on the shift.

During the Reformation in Scotland, for instance, we see that the replacement of Catholic liturgical texts written in Scots by Protestant ones written in English was explicitly criticised by at least some members of the Scottish clergy. So what of the situation in Norway? Was the difference between written 16th century Danish and Norwegian so minuscule as to be imperceptible to the general public? Was the so-called infiltration of written Danish so gradual and sporadic that everyone simply failed to notice? Were there other political and/or cultural reasons at play? Or have I simply not been looking at the right sources?

I recently watched Master & Commander and during their chase of the enemy they disguise themselves as a whaler. Was it common to do this, and was it seen as fair practice, particularly in this period of "gentlemenly" war.

Were there any major differences between the nobility in Outremer and in Europe due to different cultural influences?

... the same way they did and continue to do throughout the later 20th century to today?

I'm writing a novel about ancient Greeks settling in Italy Sicily and Libya. How would they call these areas? The novel also involves them going to Delphi to ask for advice about settling there. How would a city go about asking for such a divination? And would a typical divination of such nature be delivered?

That is, did a disciple of Jesus found the organization that would later develop to the Roman Catholic Church?

Let me be very clear here, I mean an African-American, and I mean before the war. There’s very little info on how tourism in Nazi Germany was (and for good reason), so I’m actually quite curious. I presume it’d be extremely racist, but I struggle to find any first-hand accounts.

According to the Anabasis (at least in the edition I'm reading), Cyrus the Younger had two concubines*. One of them, a Phocaean, was taken by Artaxerxes II at Cunaxa and appears in a few other histories e.g. Plutarch. The other, a Milesian, is noted as escaping in quite daring fashion from Artaxerxes' forces and rendezvousing with the Greek rearguard defending the Cyrean baggage train.

But after that, she seems to disappear from the Anabasis. Do we know what happened to her? Did she accompany the Ten Thousand on the long march home, or break off and run elsewhere? For that matter; do we know her name? My guess is probably a resounding "no" to all of those questions - but I thought that if anyone would know, it would be this sub!

As an adjacent question: do we have a sense of what it might have been like to be a royal concubine at this time?

*Not sure if that's two chief concubines or if it was actually just two women.

I recently been reading up on the Rwandan Genocide and I’ve read about the “Double Genocide” theory which posits that there were two genocides in Rwanda in 1994, one against the Tutsis and one against Hutus.

Normally I’ll dismiss these types of theories because “Double Genocide” is very common refrain for genocide deniers but there seems to be some scholarly weight behind it with scholars Christian Davenport and Allan Stam who apparently worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda supporting it(even stating the number of deaths between the two genocides were equal) and “In Praise of Blood” by Judi Rever also supporting the theory.

I’m not really sure what to think because on one hand, the RPF is known to have committed countless atrocities during the time period and most people don’t deny that, but it seems convenient for the worldview of Rwandan Génocidaires for there to be two genocides of equal weight.

So with that being said, what’s the scholarly consensus on this theory and RPF atrocities against civilians, esp Hutu civilians?

I am having a discussion with someone who claims they had a mediocre military that lost more than it won, even at its peak. This seems unlikely to me and is inconsistent with the Wikipedia article on Sparta.

Is there a consensus among historians on whether Sparta’s military was especially good, at its peak?

First of all, I’m sorry if this makes me sound ignorant or naive.

How many of you out there believe historical literature to be true?

I find it hard to believe that historical and political text no matter how old has been falsified to some extent… and this makes it hard for me to believe in any of it. Like any time I am to do any type of historical research I take it with a grain of salt… knowing, that to some extent this text is falsified.

When I’m doing research or reading how can I look back and allow myself to believe ? Or be less skeptical?

Edit 1: grammar 🤓