I have a friend whose grandfather was a teacher who survived the Cultural Revolution. My friend says that their relative burned all their books and diaries and always laid low politically. I understand that my friend’s relative was in the Communist Party but I do know that wouldn’t save any teacher. However, this guy survived. How could’ve this been so? Any ideas? I have suspicions but I’m curious.

My question pertains to US Presidential Elections in the time frame of 1800s to early 1900s

Prior to the invention of photography and modern photographic ID such as Drivers License and US Passports -

how did "proof" to being able to vote in US Presidential Elections work in a detailed sense?

Easy example : there were a great many Europeans in America during this time, including many who owned land in America. By law, they would not be eligible to vote in US Elections.

But on Election Day : how was it determined who actually was legally allowed to vote and cast a ballot.

How common was it for some European who had been living in America for decades, spoke perfect English, owned land and a business to try and vote for a US President?

For some strange reason, in old literature like old newspapers and books and such, women were constantly talked about fainting quickly and often becoming hysterical when faced with shock.

Of course, this could likely just be misogynistic BS because this was the 1800s - but there could also be some truth in this. I was thinking that it might have something to do with their tight corsets preventing effective breathing which caused oxygen deprivation more quickly?

Of course, some clarification is appreciated.

Were most sword actually any good? And how common were Blacksmiths who could actually make weapons?

Hope this is a little more specific than the last post

The UK had a lot of ships and Tripp’s at this time why didn’t they just send extra to take out the revalotion

I have seen the claim repeated in a variety of sources, but never quite tracked down what exactly is meant by the statement, who were these "left-leaning" officials and what purposed did it serve, if it actually happened?

I think capitalism originated centuries ago when the state began forcing feudal land serfs into wage Labor. With the advent of the poorhouses in Western Europe, many serfs that found themselves into poverty were forced into horrible working conditions. Many rich aristocrats condemned poor people as if it’s their fault for being poor. I wonder if I am on the right track here. It seems that capitalism creates poverty and it’s origins lies with the state forcing the peasantry into working for this new system of economics.

I’ve always been told fleeing Byzantines bringing their texts to Italy after the fall of the empire is what kickstarted the renaissance, but I’ve always wondered, why Italy? Especially after the schism and bad blood that must have still existed from the fourth crusade, was it just a proximity thing?

I have been looking into the historical mostly mythological history of cicadas because of cicada 3301 and stumbled across tithonus and greek mytholigy can anyone tell me about how greek mythology mentions tithonus/cicadas especially the sibyline books I know it could be a bit of work but if you already know something about greek mythology I would be so grateful!!(sorry about spelling writing isnt realy my strong point but I tried my best)

Hello! I’m writing an article on the Ides of March and am looking for a source who is knowledgeable on the topic. My deadline to connect with an expert is today, but we have a couple of days to do the interview.

Hello, I've been trying to read more on social history recently and I've been wondering if any good books exist either as a series on world social history or books on the social history of the Arab Caliphates, Hindu (and Muslim South Asian empires, the dynasties of China, the Shogunates of Japan and/or Russia?

I keep seeing this 1883 letter from King Leopold to missionaries . Its telling the Christian mission of the Congo to tailor their message to the native peoples, to ensure they are subservient to the foreigners, essentially. Im only seeing it in afrocentric sources and not mainstream or eurocentric sources at all. Anyone know if the letter is real, its source, etc?

I was thinking of making some Roman-inspired music so I wanted to know what exact types of percussion their armies used for parades and marches if any at all.

I can't imagine they were trying to take over all of China, like trying to push all the way to what is the modern borders with Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Their conquests were very much of coastal areas around the south pacific. So if everything had gone perfectly for Japan and they got everything they wanted in regards to taking land from China, how far into the country would have have pushed?

So Indonesia and Malaysia use variants of Malay as their official language, but the Philippines uses English and Filipino/Tagalog. Why don't Filipinos speak Malay, if pre-colonial inhabitants of the Philippines spoke Old Malay? Was Old Malay's influence lesser, or did the Spanish interfere more in the Philippines than the Dutch and British did in Indonesia and Malaysia/

My first post here, so please let me know if there's anything I should do differently.

I'm preparing to host a tabletop RPG campaign, but I've always been annoyed at these games' Eurocentric perspective. I would love to diversify things a bit.

One of the big themes in this world is going to be large-scale warfare, which will likely include sieges and similar battles. In a European setting, this means castles.

We often assume that castles were a logical and necessary consequence of medieval warfare and that their design was completely rational given the architectural and military technology of the time. I'm wondering if this is accurate and whether it holds true across other semi-urbanized cultures (East Asia, the Middle East, maybe even the Roman Empire).

If there were structures that served similar purposes to castles, I would be very interested in differences in design. Why were they different? Did geographic or military factors lead to different design philosophies? Did these structures shape military and social life in the same way that castles did in Europe?

If there weren't castle-like structures, then why were they unnecessary? Were there other geographic or military factors that rendered them impractical? What did warfare look like without them?

If there are online resources that you would like to refer me to, I would be very interested. Thank you very much for your time!