For example, the USS Wasp and USS Lexington were both scuttled, both historic and well loved ships. The Japanese scuttled plenty of theirs as well. Why? Surely either side would have no way of fixing and then using these ships?

Hi -- I didn't see any books recommended on the book list regarding the Old Assyrian Empire. I'm trying to get away from documentaries, as the format seems less than rigorous (if only evidenced by what's available on YouTube).

Does anyone have any recommendations for a neophyte? I couldn't tell you five things about the Assyrian Empire, but its influence on modern political assumptions seems significant.

EDIT: Anything on Early Mesopotamia really applies.

I've noticed that in movies like Indiana Jones and games like Uncharted the Nazis seemed to look for important historical or mythological artifacts. Is there any type of truth to the matter or was it all made up to serve the plot?

I understand that the term 'total war' was coined in recent times but could this apply to the Crusades? The Siege of Jerusalem and of Antioch were both savage and brutal.

I was also wondering if the fact that there was a sense of diplomacy and continous trade throughout this crusading era would disregard this idea of 'total war'.

Hey after playing Assassin's creed odyssey I was curious about Greek history. Can I get a brief history on Battle of Thermopylae. SOME Source like video movie might be great (Already saw the 300)

It seems like such a simple idea to mount a few machine guns or heavy caliber cannons onto a heavy bomber and rain suppressing fire onto enemy positions, so why did fixed-wing gunships only enter service after World War II?

I can understand that aircraft were a pretty experimental concept in World War I and limited almost exclusively to reconnaissance, and in World War II air superiority was hard-fought and never as easily held as superiority in Korea or Vietnam. Was it simply a question of risk and reward, where the cost of heavy aircraft simply wasn't worth wasting for inaccurate suppressing fire?

Title. See memes about it a lot and can’t seem to find an answer online

I am vastly interested in the subject, yet there is no mention of it in the book list, and I can't seem to find many books on it otherwise, much less their reliability and general readability.

I’m most likely 100% naive and wrong in this, but it seems like neutral countries just ‘decided’ to be neutral and got a free pass? Please educate me on this. Thanks.

today's college students get tacos, or pizza, or nachos after a night out on the town. what would their medieval counterparts eat?

What class were they usually, poor ? Middle ? Not quite rich ?

How much kit would they have had to provide for themselves ?

How high could a plebian climb in the ranks ?

How likely were they to survive to retirement ?

My first instinct would, of course, be cynicism: to say that the Warsaw Pact states regarding internal revolutions as bourgeois-funded coup attempts was nothing more than geopolitics, a rationale for the Soviet Union to use force to maintain its sphere of influence despite legitimate grievances being a significant cause behind the upheaval. But that elides the perspectives of people who grew up in the region and lived as earnest communists, and it's that perspective I want to understand. Among the politicians--including the highest-placed politicians--was the stated belief that these revolutions were bourgeois in nature truly believed? Was such a class-based understanding of society accepted to that degree among the political elite--would they have really believed it came down solely (or almost solely) to class, or at least that the West really did fund the revolutionaries as part of a coup attempt? Or did these politicians have a cynicism about their own system that led them, perhaps, to privately acknowledge that the revolutions were based on legitimate concerns, but to frame them as bourgeois out of ideological and geopolitical necessity?

Everybody talks about how Hitler gain power, but I'd wonder how or why didn't anybody really try to do something.

(In other words, what was everybody thinking/distracted with during that situation)

How distinct was the difference in fashion between e.g. England and Germany (higher middle class) in 1910-1914?

Or in general: Had fashion in central Europe in that time huge country specific differences?

Much has been said about the Norsemen being master sailors and shipbuilders, and their shallow draft apparently played a big part in their ability to make quick landings, launch a raid, then depart before a resistance could be mounted. But what kind of vessels were their contemporaries using, and how did they compare in naval fights?

Happy 100th anniversary of the American Prohibition!

I've a variety of scholarly work on the Anti-Saloon League's activities that went beyond lobbying government to ban booze - this included initiatives that were anti-union, anti-immigrant, and, some historians argue, in collaboration with the Ku Klux Klan. Its membership tended to reflect those sentiments.

How did this compare with the membership of the Women's Christian Temperance Union? Frances Willard, the founder of the WCTU, had a much more "do everything" attitude, which revolved around banning alcohol (and other stimulants), but also included women's suffrage and aspects of social reform and education to empower women (within the domestic sphere). "Americanization" was also a key component of their outreach to immigrants, especially when it came to consumption of alcohol.

This leads to my question: what was the WCTU's attitude toward including non-white, foreign born, Catholic, Jewish or poor women as active participants within the organization? Did any play a prominent or leadership role? If not, what role were they expected to play within the WCTU's structures? As influencers on the men in their families? Activists on the street? Something else?

So apparently Germany was trying in bad faith to negotiate with Poland for the Danzig corridor. Were the poles willing to actually give up territory or negotiate in good faith with Germany? Or were they bolstered by the French and British guarantees on their territorial integrity and sovereignty?

Thanks!