For example:

One of my main interests is aerospace history and my favorite airplane is the Mitsubishi A6M (Zero). It was a brilliant design, stretching the limits of Imperial Japan's industrial capacity and maintaining air superiority in the Pacific until poor personnel management on the IJN's part started compromising operations and only being consistently bested, when the US deployed counterparts of twice the horsepower, twice the weight (due to limitations in material availability and engine power, the A6M lacked self-sealing fuel tanks, armor, and had a low "never exceed speed," i.e., the top speed attainable in a dive, without risking structural failure, dives being a major part of dogfighting), and roughly six times the firepower, to the extent it can be quantified. (And radar, which Imperial Japan never quite grasped the capabilities of, to the best of my knowledge, though that's something I need to read more about.)

But my main source on the design of the A6M is a memoir written by Chief Designer Horikoshi Jiro (family name first), which just so happens to have been translated into English. ("Eagles of Mitsubishi" - great read; out of print, unfortunately.) I'd probably still be impressed by the A6M, if I hadn't read that book, but I'm not sure it'd be my favorite design. And what if a different engineer had written a memoir about their airplanes?

Point me to where this can go if its in the wrong place.

I've been thinking about how humans seem to know so much about the world and how we have gotten to the point we have and I am curious if there is a list anywhere or if there is a source that explains(or how I may try to replicate myself) the science experiments from the past.

I'm thinking of any field, optics, motion, light, etc.

I'd love to do some of these experiments with my kids but haven't found a good source on how they went about actually doing them.

Thank you.

I've just been rejected for a pair of PhD opportunities I applied for, and when I have suggested topics to Universities, specific historians or research councils i've always been told "nice idea but it needs to be funded"

Beginning to lose hope! I'm in the UK and specialise currently in modern history and Wales.

What did various socialist philosophers of the time (Marx, Engels, Bakunin, Kropotkin, ECT) think about the rise and fall of the Paris Commune (was it good? Why it failed? ECT). Just wondering.

Hi everyone, I'm starting a research about the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so I'm looking for sources which deal with this subject, they could be not just books but also podcast, movies and so on.

I would like to have a full view about it so even if you feel to suggest things that are partly fiction that would be still good to me. Personally I'm particulary interested about to learning more about how life was before and after the bombs in those city so if there are direct testimonies somewhere that would be awesome. But as I said the social side of it is not my only interest so you can share whatever you think it will helps better to understand the facts from different points of view.

Thank you.

My level of understanding is this: before Marian reforms Rome relied on levies and had no professional army. After Marian reforms they had professional army with paid soldiers.

However, if the barbarians were a treat and the professional army was not enough, why they did not levy more men from the province of Gaul to stop the invaders? Wouldn't people be willing to be in the army to protect their villages and hometowns? Or was the ruling class to hesistant to do it since it would be like admitting inability to "do their job" and protect the borders?

Hello,

One side of one of my grandmother's family emigrated to the US from Romania in the late 1800s/early 1900s. My grandmother always claimed that some of them were descended from Spanish Jews who fled the Inquisition in the late 1400s/early 1500s, but some of my family never really listened to her. They were from a little north of Bucharest (Ploiesti) and also around Focsani. As I understand it, there actually were Sephardic Jews living in these areas for a time. Learning this made me completely re-consider the fact that should might be correct.

I showed some pictures of this side of my family to my friends from Portugal, Spain, Mexico, etc and they have said they look completely and utterly Spanish and Portuguese. I also often get "mistaken" for Spanish, Mexican, etc (as well as other things like Palestinian, Lebanese, Moroccan, etc) even though I am supposedly Ashkenazi Jewish. We also have a picture of who would be my 4th great grandmother from this line and her name is the Yiddish form of the name Esperanza. I'm not sure if that is a sign or not.

I'm curious if anyone knows the history of Sephardic Jews in these areas I listed above as well as some resources on how to possibly see if it relates to my family as my grandmother claimed.

Thanks!

Hi guys! I’m writing a research paper about Druids, and I am so fascinated by the mystery surrounding so much of them. I’ve read many pieces saying that female druids were important, but I’m having trouble locating sources. Could anyone help?

I vaguely understand what the term means, but 'revisionist' is also a term attributed to historians who oppose the 'traditionalist' view that the Cold War was the USSR's fault (at least I think so, might be wrong). So are these two words being used in the same way here? Because that would not make a lot of sense.

I'm finding out more about eastern Europe at the moment and found myself interested in this question since it seems at the first glance to me that Kaliningrad didn't have much of a Russian background and the exclave situation seems to me not that super attractive.

The easier access to the Baltic Sea and being away from Germany only about some 500+km seems to be for sure a reason but I would appreciate some more in-depth information on this.

Looking forward to all your answers! :)

The final sentence of the Gettysburg address seems to contemplate an existential threat to the existence of the United States of America:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

So, my reading of this is that the government Lincoln refers to here is the US of A, of course.

So suppose that the CSA defeats the USA in the civil war-- or at least fights to a peace. That would leave the CSA existing as a country, with its constitution largely a copy of the United States Constitution, except that it institutionalizes slavery.

So the CSA, as a representative democracy, is arguably a government "of, by, and for the people" insomuch as the United States was originally founded as one, only enfranchising free white males as voters. Neither countries are monarchies, for example.

Is Lincoln saying that the CSA, by instituting slavery, cannot be a democracy? How could the United States be considered to be such a government, with its three-fifths compromise, and free- and slaveholding-states compromise?

Thinking about it, this song seems so wildly cheeky and/or weird. It’s overtly in support of the UK’s Cold War enemy and (sort of?) in the style of The Beach Boys (the chorus harmonies).

What was the reaction in the U.K., USA, and among The Beach Boys to this song when the White Album came out?

Edit: typo and thanks for the gold!

You’d imagine there’d be other motivating economic factors. I’ve always wondered

A If there were not such bathrooms, where did people do their business?

I wonder in future when we are all dead after a "Pandemic" and a new Civilization of Homo Sapiens evolve (Like us vs the Egyptians, or Indus Valley People, or Mayans ), and they crack our English Code and learn about our History from our books , how are they going to distinguish from what are authentic Scientific Writings , or what are just pure plain fiction , like Harry Potter Series ? There is nowhere written in Harry Potter that its a work of fiction. Future people may interpret there existed Magicians and Witches, without any way of verifying otherwise.

On the Reddit with all the Communism jokes and usage of terms like Comrades, is it possible future people while reading Soviet history, are going to get these communism jokes are sarcastic or they are going to interpret it as a hidden organisation like the Hydra in Captain America : Winter Soldier