I collect Zippo’s and was given a presumably racist Blue Bird lighter by an older woman. The back has a confederate flag, and the front has a Confederate Soldier holding a flag saying “Forget Hell”

For example, I'm writing a paper on Stalin, and one of the claims is that Stalin managed to rise to power because of the ineptness of other leaders. Would this be considered a structuralist or an intentionalist argument?

So basically, my paper is on how Stalin rose to power, and has three arguments.

1.) Structuralist argument -basically the USSR was corrupt AF and Stalin's(or another dictator's) rise to power was inevitable

2.) Intentionalist argument - basically Stalin was smart AF and outfoxed everybody.

3.) The aforementioned argument that Trotsky was arrogant AF and basically Stalin was lucky.

Does this sound about right?

I tried to find primary sources that describe what goods and foods would a European find in Istanbul in the 16th century, but descriptions of the city are more focused on the old churches and new mosques than on the marketplaces. I am a teacher and want to help my students imagine the atmosphere of smells, flavours, and movements of the everyday life in one of the largest trading centres of the period. If you could recommend primary sources (I can sort of manage with sources in English, French, Italian, Latin, Spanish or Portuguese -sadly, I can't read Turkish-) I would be really grateful.

I know that they are not directly descended from him, since he had no children. And I also know that Belgium as a whole hasn't been great about reckoning with its past in the Congo. But since the Congo was technically Leopold's own pet project for a while, not under the administration of the country, how much of a reckoning has the Royal Family gone through, publicly and privately? I assume that any republicans/anti-monarchists in Belgium would use this as Exhibit A in their case against having royalty in the first place.

I’m also curious as to his motivations for starting the institute, how it was run, any specific people we know who lived/were treated their, etc.

Also, how did the Nazis find out about him? Did they always have plans to burn his institute and books? Where is his research today? Is it digitized anywhere? How religious was he? Did he speak Yiddish or Hebrew?

I understand record keeping was second to none.. but surely there would be many complications ?

I'm especially talking about late in the war, when there were tons of crack German troops in Italy.

I'm just wondering

The Dutch Republic was a very small country, and lacking in forestry resources (as far as I know).

Yet during the late 16th and early 17th centuries-- while still fighting for independence from Hapsburg Spain-- the United Provinces were able to build up a large and powerful navy, carve out a significant colonial empire, and successfully defend their shipping lanes around the globe. By the middle of the 17th century, the Dutch fleet was the largest in the world.

I assume this required heavy imports of naval supplies, especially timber. Where did those materials come from, primarily? Did rival countries like Spain, France, England, and Austria attempt to block such strategic imports through embargoes, blockades, and/or mercantilist trade policies? If so, why did their efforts fail?

Hey reddit! I’m doing some family research and am looking for drawings of a German castle that once belonged to my family but has since been destroyed. Here is what I know about it!

The castle was given to Maximillian Steiner by Ludwig of Bavaria in 1311, the castle was originally won in a battle against Günther, the bishop of Würzburg. The name changed from Günthersburg to Steindorf. Maximillian died in the battle against Fredrick of Austria at Mühldorf in 1312 and his wife died shortly after. Once the castle was run by Maximillians grandson, Ludwig gave the family name of Steindorf to (another) castle Bassenheim. When there were no male heirs the original Steindorf castle was then sold to Lord Von Kitzbüchel and later in the religious wars destroyed.

The Steiner and castle coat of arms is a red bear on a silver field if that helps any!

I’d love to have some type of image of this castle or any information anyone can find so that I can paint something for my grandmothers birthday as she loves our family history.

edit: formatting and elaboration

An odd question, I work at a school that is predominantly Greek. We’re currently up to the Ottoman Empire and have just covered the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

A student then asked me if we were going to cover the “400 years of slavery under Ottoman rule”. I gave a muddled answer, as honestly whilst imperialism is never fun for the oppressed, I was under the impression that it wasn’t the worst experience. They got to keep their religion and a lot of rights when compared to say Muslims and Jews in other parts of Europe or the experience of Indigenous people globally.

So simple question: did the experience of Greeks under Ottoman rule warrant the term “400 years of slavery”?

A while back, I was told that an old Persian interpretation of the textile pattern was that it represented “the universe moving around you.” Essentially, the point of what I heard was that it celebrated individualism and self-identity.

Is this true? Is this another pattern? Does this conflict with the “tree of life” interpretation of the pattern?

Apartments, villas, etc.? Not ruins, but restored/repurposed.

The old ironclads of the Union and Confederacy had slopes, and seeing how in WW2, the T34 had quite an effective sloping armor, I was wondering what were the fundamental issues (be they scientific or not) that dissuaded modern navies from having them post 1860s.

I understand the vilification of NAZI Germany during and after WWII.

But why was Germany vilified and treated as the evil perpetrator at the end of WWI - especially considering that the initial antagonists were Austria and Serbia (although Germany did push Austria to be more belligerent than they may have otherwise been)?

WWI didn't exhibit the tremendous cruelty and inhumanity of WWII (even with the chlorine gas attacks).

Why wasn't WWI treated as just yet another costly and stupid war caused by jingoism and adventurism and why wasn't Germany treated as the guys who just happened to be on losing side in that war?

Related question: why wasn't Austria treated as harshly as Germany (I realize the Austro-Hungarian empire was dismantled but the Austrian remnant wasn't vilified the way Germany was)?

So I am 13 years old and am trying to head-start my plan to become a historian So one of the main topics I'm researching is the American Civil War I've mostly been using the Shelby Foote books and some others, along with the official records My question is, is there any good online site for good Civil War information?

For instance, if I was an American businessman planning a trip to Italy would I have to physically bring all of the money I wanted to spend with me? Additionally, what measures were put in place to avoid fraud?

I have been obsessed with these temples for the past year and just want to know of the society that built them. They must have been at least somewhat advanced to be able to build such grand structures.
But then again, there has never been any remains of cities found, so they must have been just a simple agricultural civilization with the capability of building grand temples to worship their "fat lady" statues.

Any one familiar in this field, know much about the people of this ancient period?

Not exactly sure if this is the right spot to ask but figured it was worth a shot.

Aside from “saloon girls” and prostitutes, would women go to the saloon with their husband or casually drink at a saloon?