I’m looking for books about Central Asia in the 20th century. I’m especially interested in reading about the 1910s and 1920s and the late 1980s and 90s in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

So say I’m a officer in a average American infantry division in France 1944. How would I call in an artillery strike? What would the process be from the first radio call to the rounds landing?

I know that the native populations of African colonies were often treated poorly, through forced labor, assimilation, etc., but what was it like to be a European visiting (probably for business purposes)? I’m aware that there are some mansions in Kenya from this period, including one now used as a giraffe hotel, but beyond that I have had a very difficult time finding any sources. Were natives used as servants like in the American South? Was it seen as dangerous and scary, or interesting and adventurous? Did anyone ever vacation to Africa for pleasure rather than business? How common were towns built for European visitors/residents?

Thank you for your help in advance! I am genealogy obsessed and ever looking to understand the experience of my ancestors better. I used the interwebs and the googles to seek out a possible modern equivalent of this disease and have come up wanting.

What were the main factors/theses that people have come up with? I know that the Italians and Ethiopians signed a treaty that ceded a lot of land to Italy as a sort of settlement, but why would Italy settle when it seems as if colonialism was inevitable for Africans?

Basically I wanna know what was so different about Ethiopia that resulted in them not being colonized as opposed to it's neighbours and the rest of the continent.

In Victorian England (specifically 1840s), if a lord with estates and wealth died and he and his wife did not produce an heir, and he willed that she inherit his estates and wealth, should he die, would she have sole ownership? His only relative was his brother, who the widowed wife then married.

I know Tenzing Norgay was a Sherpa; I’m just wondering if Western history conveniently glossed over prior summits to get Edmund Hillary in the record books.

When it was in the Mediterranean fleet between the world wars, where was it's home port? Also, were families housed in Naval Housing at port like they are today or did they stay in England? I'm mostly interested in the living arrangements of Naval Offices.

I was reading about how America was sympathetic to China during the second Sino-Japanese war, especially after the Rape of Nanking, and was wondering if there was a similar boost in sympathy among the general public after the Nazis invaded the Soviets?

I was thinking about this the other day: although modern fantasy/RPG lore often have 'mad gods' ("mad" in the "insane" sense), I can't think of an ancient religion or mythology where a god is portrayed as being truly insane.

Given the idea that these belief systems are often created to make sense of the world, saying, "Well, actually it's just because this God is total nutso" seems like it would defeat the purpose.

Of course, I know that many mythologies have mischievous, capricious, and unpredictable beings or evil gods of chaos, but how many have gods that are considered to literally be crazy?

In Master and Commander: Far Side of the World the carpenter's mate creates a model of the enemy ship Acheron. The Captain of HMS Surprise is able to analyse the model and gain useful information about the ship saying:

"Bluff above the water and sharp below, gives the hull a finer entry and a long run as she goes aft. That's why she's so fast; heavier, but fast despite it. That's the future."

My question(s) then. What shape would the hull of the Surprise (or any other ship of the era) be? How would this differ from the model shown? Why weren't the English building such ships if the captain can see the benefits so obviously?

Hello,

I have recently read an interesting and highly entertaining book called Grey Wolf - The escape of Adolf Hitler. The premises is that Adolf Hitler survived the second world war and died in 1956 in Patagonia, Argentina. According to Simon Dunstan & Gerrard Williams (authors), multiple leading nazis survived the war and emigrated to Argentina, not in the least Bormann, Hitler's right hand man.

The book was highly informative and a great read, I would recommend it to anyone interested in WW II or in spoils of war in general - irrelevant of the bottom line of the book.

However, it did have me wondering, did he really die? So now I would like to research the topic a bit. I've always wanted to go to Argentina and Patagonia looks beautiful, so who knows maybe one day.

In the meantime, I thought about asking here. So my question:

What is the actual proof of Hitler dying in his bunker? Is it true that the Russians never "bought" the suicide? Did Argentina during (and after) Perón harbour nazis? Did Hitler maybe potentially survive? What sources or documents exist for and against the argument?

Thanks!

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EDIT for spelling & clarification

It seems like the popular narratives of WW2 emphasize the Pacific Theater as largely an operation spearheaded by the Imperial Japanese Navy.