I ask this question periodically and have yet to get a detailed answer here; I've been directed to other subreddits and still no real satisfaction. In light of this week's theme, I figured I should take another shot at it.

EDIT: I'm being asked what passage I refer to; in the Matthew Gospel, chapter 25, Jesus describes the separation of the sheep and the goats, and the sheep are virtuous because they clothed him, attended to him when he was sick, and either "came to him" or "visited him" when he was imprisoned, depending on what translation one reads.

To clarify further: I understand there may be linguistic/etymology-focused answers to be had as to what that term means. But I'm seeing a fairly broad consensus for how that term is translated, and in any event, I'm less interested in the etymology than I am attempting to ask a purely historical question. Do we know what prisons/imprisonment looked like at that approximate time and place, and if so, what might be involved in visiting someone in that circumstance? Personally, I know a lot about what it means to visit someone in prison today, but have no idea what it might have entailed at the time this passage was written; hence my curiosity. I'd be happy to hear answers focused on either the life and times attributed to a historical Jesus, or the time and area around which suspected writing of the passage would have occurred. Either perspective would be more than I've read anywhere else.

EDIT 2: thanks to the Redditor who caught my etymology/entomology error. It's Monday... that's my only excuse

Hi there,
I don't think it's speculation to say that Apache by Sugarhill Gang is a very well-known track (at least in the United States). I've heard it played at weddings, bowling alleys, and occasionally on the radio. But upon doing some research, it doesn't seem to have been a hit in the US at the time of its release.

How did the song rise to such high prominence?

In the US, there's a big argument as to whether the Second Amendment applies to private individuals or organized militias. In the Revolutionary War, what was the case? Did all of the soldiers bring muskets that they personally owned from home, or did a larger institutions like the Continental Congress or local militias acquire guns for everyone?

Full passage and quote from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847), in which Jane and Rochester converse:

"It is a long way," I again said.

"It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland, I shall never see you again, Jane: that's morally certain. I never go over to Ireland, not having myself much of a fancy for the country. We have been good friends, Jane; have we not?"

"Yes, sir."

"And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend the little time that remains to them close to each other. Come! we'll talk over the voyage and the parting quietly half-an-hour or so, while the stars enter into their shining life up in heaven yonder: here is the chestnut tree: here is the bench at its old roots. Come, we will sit there in peace to-night, though we should never more be destined to sit there together." He seated me and himself.

"It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my little friend on such weary travels: but if I can't do better, how is it to be helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?"

I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still.

"Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you--especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,--you'd forget me."

"That I NEVER should, sir: you know--" Impossible to proceed.

"Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen!"

Edward Rochester and Jane Eyre are also shown to have a supernatural connection throughout Jane Eyre; and, true to the Chinese legend, the two end up in love and married by the end. Was it possible that Charlotte Brontë knew about the Chinese legend, or are the similarities pure coincidence?

I've heard this many times, usually pretty serious sources(Frontline,BBC, etc) and have heard this repeatedly well before this yr.

Non-native English speaker here.

The question is in regards to the US history, from the time of the Thirteen Colonies till the abolition of slavery.

• If someone was enslaved and brought to the US from Africa, was it possible for some other African (like family, friends etc) to request US courts to release the person?

• Or would they have been themselves enslaved as well?

• Would any Black person from the African continent be immediately enslaved if they land in the US?

Reading about Napoleon's campaigns, it seems to me that he had totally defeated Prussia and Austria and even occupied or marched through their capitals several times. Yet he contended himself with creating a Polish client state and annexing some territories here and there to his empire directly. Why did he not set up his brother or one of his generals on the throne of Prussia or Austria, for example? Or totally incorporate their territories to his empire á la Holland / Italy / Switzerland? he seems to have only done that in Spain, and failed miserably, despite Spain having been less of a thorn on his side than Austria

I'm an incoming undergraduate at a Russell Group university, majoring in History. I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I found it very difficult to dive into historiography. I've read E.H.Carr here and there; I tried to read Evans' In Defence of History but I found it difficult to tackle - the sheer amount of concepts and terms I found too difficult to comprehend. It all seems so complicated!

Could I have advice on any good entry level books to ease myself into it? I have to admit I have no idea about post-modernism, Marxist, Whiggish and all sorts of historiographical movements.

Here's the full quotation. Allow me to translate.

History is like tsismis. It is filtered and dagdag na rin, so, hindi natin alam what is the real history. Andoon na iyong idea, pero may mga bias talaga. As long as we're here alive at may kanya-kanyang opinion, I respect everyone's opinion.

​

"History is like gossip. It is filtered and added, so we don't know what is the real history. There's the idea, but there are still people who are bias. As long as we're here alive and we have our own different opinions, I respect everyone's opinion."

In countries like Cambodia and Vietnam, there are no ready sources of ice in the winter. How did those countries get ice in the past? Did they just not use ice?

Samuel Hawley states in his book “The Imjin War” that the Japanese brought virtually no dedicated cavalry in their invasion of Joseon. I find this very surprising, though I could just be projecting a modern view of combined arms warfare on a preindustrial army. I’ve also seen it stated that the Japanese did bring some small cavalry contingents that were a minute part of their forces, mostly fighting as mounted infantry. I do know that the logistical burden of being horses across the Korean straight would be heavy, and that the the mountainous terrain of Korea like central Japan doesn’t lend itself well to cavalry maneuver. I also understand that the mounted samurai as battle winners had been pretty much replaced by musket armed ashigaru infantry backed up by more traditionally armed ashigaru and samurai infantry forces (bow, sword, and spear) decades before. I also understand that Japanese cavalry had performed poorly in the later stages of the Sengoku wars and compared to the musket and traditional armed infantry were much more expensive, harder/took much longer to train and were less effective. I also know that large Korean mounted archer formations from the northern border conflicts with Jurchen were heavily defeated by the Japanese in the initial battles of the invasion.

Had the Japanese abandoned cavalry tactics and formations so thoroughly by this time they left them out of their largest military operation up to that point? I had sorta equated the Japanese army at the time to the pike and shot formations of the west, though western armies still made use of cavalry. Did I just misunderstand Hawley or am I missing something fundamental about Japanese warfare in this period?

A very basic question, but: Why are we never taught about 16th-century American history/ why is it never talked about?

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Why is Giovanni da Verrazzano never mentioned as a great American explorer? Why are the Portuguese and Spanish never given credit for sailing both coasts of America, scaling the Appalachians, rafting the Mississippi, seeing the Grand Canyon, and going as far inland as Kansas? Why is nobody taught that the Spanish dining with Native Americans in St. Augustine was the first thanksgiving 56 years before the pilgrims? Why are Fort St. George and the English fort at Cuttyhunk never mentioned?

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I think you guys get my point...

Would there be something akin to a police force or would it be enforced in another way?

I'm reading Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, in which I found the following quote, in a footnote:

Gay (the poet), in that disastrous year, had a present from young Craggs of some South-Sea stock, and at once supposed himself to be master of twenty thousand pounds. His friends persuaded him to sell his share, but he dreamed of dignity and splendour, and could not bear to obstruct his own fortune. He was then importuned to sell as much as would purchase a hundred a year for life, "which", says Fenton, "will make you sure of a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton every day." This counsel was rejected; the profit and principal were lost, and Gay sunk under the calamity so low that his life became in danger. — Johnson's Lives of the Poets.

Nowadays, if you wanted to do that, you might invest in bonds or stocks that pay dividends. But how did it work back then? I know wealthy families would have lands that paid dividends essentially as a salary, but how would it work to purchase such a salary? Was it a financial instrument, or what?

I grew up in a Catholic country and some religious descriptions are told by our elders. One of those is the idea that Lucifer is described as: the most beautiful, the most powerful, the wisest angel that [God created](#usually it is followed by "that's why he was so jealous of humans, when God created us as imperfect beings, how could He love humans when He created angels?", but that is irrelevant for the question, even though it has more biblical evidence than the sentence in question), but this affirmative is not find in the Bible, so I was wondering where this idea comes from and where was it popularised?

I’m asking because I’m wondering if a throwaway line of dialogue in a series was anachronistic. I assumed it was unlikely anyone used the phrase until the popularization of credit

All the literature I've been consulting on this issue seems contradictory. Some sources say they were primarily centralized economies and others say that markets were already dominant institutions.

What's the consensus?

What about the other planets visible to the naked eye?How did medieval Europeans refer to our most familiar astronomical objects?