After listening to the excellent Askhistorians podcast episode 50 with u/ProfRhodes and reading some other material, I was wondering whether, given the Berlin Conference was in essence the green light to colonial ambitions in Africa, would any African leaders, and in particular Lobengula, have had any knowledge of the Berlin Conference and its outcome? If so, would it have given them cause to have reservations when signing agreements such as the Rudd Concession in opening the front door to colonialisation? When Lobengula subsequently attempted to rescind the Rudd Concession, was there any real effect from petitioning Queen Victoria, and would she have been in any way likely to go against Cecil Rhodes and the South Africa Company and support Lobengula in maintaining an independent Ndebele state?

Apologies if it is too many questions, but I have a slightly separate one related directly to the podcast, on the 1896/7 uprisings. u/ProfRhodes mentioned that Cape Coloureds were used to put down parts of the Ndebele and Shona rebellions. Was there any evidence of the Cape regiments in any way supporting a fellow African peoples rebellion against colonisation?

Thanks for your time and Knowledge! Sean

I heard on the radio that sometime maybe during or long before the Middle Ages, Italy was invaded by the Middle East, then there was a death toll of 3,500, and Italy had to toughened up afterwards.

I’m only going by poor memory of something I heard on the AM radio.

It seems to me somewhat as though Alexander diverted significantly from a path into Southwest Asia into Northeast Africa, and as far as I can tell he wasn't provoked by the Egyptians into war or anything; he chose to attack them.

And while Augustus conquered Egypt as a part of defeating his rival Marcus Antonius and becoming emperor, he then declared it a part of his personal territory, not Rome's.

Both of these suggest to me an intent to conquer Egypt, which I would assume is to acquire the resources contained in the land.

But what resources are these? I've tried looking online, but all I find are the resources of modern Egypt, such as oil and gas (largely undiscovered and useless to the ancient world), or else basic claims about Ancient Egypt's resources being the fertile Nile and copper.

So apparently (according to this Netflix documentary anyway) Before Hitler even ran Germany his private army had over three million men. That can't be fucking cheap. Shortly later he's building massive infrastructure overhauls all while Germany is supposedly dirt poor.

I know during the war a lot of Nazi expansion was funded through conquest and the spoils, but it's the initial boom that confuses me, how did he pay for all that?

In the game, the Chosokabe Clan have improved archers, the Mori have improved ships, etc. The only one that seems accurate is the Takeda Clan having improved cavalry, as Takeda Shingen's cavalry was renowned.

Besides Takeda Cavalry, however, is there any evidence that one Clan was regarded as having the best archers, ships, katana samurai, etc.?

Why is Orthodox Christianity not as widespread as Catholicism or Protestantism?

I am watching Band of Brothers and it's got me thinking when Americans did operation with forces that used bolt actions (Lee Enfields for example) what were their opinions on the garand? Jealousy? Upset that their country didnt get better rifles?

(I'm not American btw)

I am writing a paper about the crimes for bootlegging during the Prohibition and I’m having trouble finding a source where it says the charges for bootlegging?

It seems that they have all the knowledge, resources, and motivation necessary to have invented it centuries earlier.

I’m also curious as to how historians (in general, not just the US) began collecting the memories and testimonies of survivors, once it was acceptable to talk about it. How did historians get documents and photos? Were there organizations set up to handle the flow of documents? Who translated them from German? Did the huge influx of information influence the presumed casual and institutional anti-Semstica present in academia?

For example, I've been listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History and I've found that I really like that sort of in depth style. Any similar sorts of podcasts out there would be great.

I can't seem to find a lot of info on the internet regarding Germany and Mexico's relationship during the war. The Wikipedia article for the Zimmerman Telegram mentions Franz von Rintelen oversaw funding of $12 million to Victoriano Huerta in 1915 to start a war, but doesn't go into any detail at all.

So I wanted to know just how much effort did Germany put into starting a war between the US and Mexico prior to the Zimmerman Telegram? Also, did the Kaiser and the German commanders like Ludendorff or Hindenburg know about the telegram? And if so did they approve of it or the general idea of starting a second Mexican-American War?

And would you show it to college students if you were teaching a class on the Vietnam War?

Okay, so in my college library I found an old book titled “Russia from the Varangians to the Bolsheviks” by R. Beazley, N. Forbes and G.A. Birkett and I think the book is from around 1917-1923. This is because it has a signature in it which is dated at February 1923 so had to be printed some time before then. I was wondering if anyone had any information on this book? I would post a picture, but I’m incapable with technology. Thanks in advance

Religion was central to social life in the times before modern science (for example, in the Middle Ages) because people had no other way to explain natural pheomena. Common/poor people believed in religion due to a lack of education, they were probably at the mercy of being exposed to only information the rich and powerful decided to give them, and they might have looked to religion for hope for a better future.

On the other hand, there were the top Catholic/Christian church officials. They were rich, more educated about the world, and were the ones creating the rules to rule over the commoners/poor. Did they actually believe in God, as well, or did they just see their positions of power as a way to easily manipulate the masses? Being the ones pulling the strings, I don't know if it was an, "I know the way the world works once the curtain is pulled, and I know there is no God" type of situation, if that makes sense.

So I was under the impression that the Soviet Union did their own ethnic cleansing similar to the Nazis (if I’m wrong then please correct me) so my question is, did Soviets liberated people that were on camps (I mean when there were the first army to arrive to it) or just were like “well, we already have this infrastructure, we might just use it”. Thanks.