I have been studying history for a while now, but this is a returning thing I don't understand. Most of the middle ages went by with worldly monarchs trying to get away from the power of the church. Then, along comes Luther, starts a whole movement aiming to do just that... And then there are wars about reformation, with the monarchs supporting catholicism! What even??

Like, for everyday avarage Joes, Jahns, and Johanns, I understand, to them religion actually mattered, they were very spiritual people. But anyone with a glimmer of political power, basically just scraped off the 'Don't'-s from the ten commandements and then used the result as a daily to do list!! Faith and religion meant jackshit to them, based on their actions, it was just a matter of "To whom do my peasents and I pay that 1/10th tax?"! Their religiousness was as fake as the foken Donatio Constantini!

Why then, did they not ravenously jump on the opportunity like a fat kid on a birthday cake, to cede from their ancient nemesis? Why didn't all the rulers just say: "Oh boy, it's Henry the 8th time! I'll make my own Franklican/Germanican/Whatever" church and get filthy rich from all the religious taxes!" many people already hated the catholic church, Even from those who actually DID give a fuck about spirituality!

Sure, there would have been internal struggles, most likely to the same degree as they were in "our timeline", so to speak. But why would the politically powerful chose to fight FOR the church that has been nothing but a thorn in their side for hundreds of years? It doesn't make a lick of sense.

What am I missing?

Does his heir inherit the same harem? Does he have to make his own harem?

If I understood correctly historically there had been a continuity of at least one theocratic Caliphate in the Muslim world. The Umayyads replaced the Rashiduns, the Abbasids replaced the Umayyads and the Ottomans claimed supreme religious authority from the Abbasid Caliph when Egypt was conquered in 1517. But when Turkey abolished the Caliphate, why was there no replacement? Why didn't say Saudi Arabia,which controlled the Holy Cities after the Ottomans vanished, or any other major Islamic powers, set up a successor Caliphate?

Let's say it's the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean. A warship of some great nation found a smaller pirate vessel on the high seas, attacked and captured it. On board, there are some pirates left alive and a rich haul from their robbery. Would the winner try to find out who these goods belonged to, to return them to the rightful owner? If the winner was, say, British, and the owner was Spanish, and both nations were hostile to each other at the moment, would the winner just take the loot? Did the captain have an obligation to give it all to the Crown?

I'm working on a research paper and need some older films. I have already watched The Great Dictator and it's obviously fantastic. I wouldn't mind more comedy, but I'm mostly hoping for serious films that highlight the brutality of Nazism. Hopefully in it Hitler would be portrayed in some way.

Thanks in advance!

My background is political science, not history, but I figured you guys would be the people to go to. I'm looking to write a work that argues that our current social and political trends qualify the last several years as our generation's own hippie era. If I'm going to write it, I should have a scholarly understanding of it. Any ideas?

it almost feels like the middle ages should be before greek and roman times because they seem more advanced

i have this picture of the middle ages of everyone being way less intelligent and culture being rudimentary

what caused the perceived loss of knowledge?

i know it sounds like a dumb question but thank you

Just got into a little spat with my inlaws regarding whether or not there were Irish slave owners. When looking through Google, the furthest I reached was the brief mentioning of Irish slave owners in the Caribbean, and specifically the existence of slavery in Ireland. With that info not to their satisfaction, I dont see much for their existence in the USA, and am pretty curious myself. Does anyone have any information and/or links?

As an Australian-born and educated child of migrants, we learn at school about the explicitly racist history of the country’s demographic and immigration policies, the formal “White Australia” policy and social consensus, and then its steady unwinding in the post-war years up until Whitlam abolished it in 1973.

I’m curious as to what drove this shift on a social level, though. How did social views move from Billy Hughes in 1919 saying that 95% of Australians support a White Australia, to a growing social embrace of Australia as having an identity as a “country of migrants”? Was this something driven from the top-down (politicians, thought leaders, etc), bottom-up (the Anglo populace becoming more comfortable with, say, having brown neighbours and Chinese takeaway shops, etc), or some other source (economic policies requiring a larger workforce, international condemnation/criticism, a reinterpretation of the “populate or perish” mantra, etc)?

In all 3 instances I know of when battlecrusiers crossed swords with battleships, the crusiers were the losers (Jutland English, Jutland German "deathride", Hood v. Bismarck). Did they ever win these engagements?

I'm writing a fantasy book in a medieval-ish era, and my characters are on a ship. What would that be like? Where would they sleep or eat? How fast is travel?

Hello. I'm looking for well-regarded academic journals that focus primarily on philosophy of history, historical methods, and technique for doing history, preferably in ancient history. Do such journals exist, and are there any that you would recommend?

Thanks.

I suppose I’m also curious if this applies to languages that are influenced by each other vs wholly separate languages.

For example, the languages (and writings) of French and English grew and developed next to each other (afaik, i assume this because the countries are close.)

English and Cantonese on the other hand had no long lasting contact for centuries (again, afaik, if my example languages are had been in contact I’m unaware.)

I found something online that says it initially came in vogue because of people wanting to cover up hair loss due to syphilis and persisted for various hygienic reasons but this source is hardly definitive or authoratative.

The Crimean War is said to be the first war to be reported on by the press contemporarily. Did reports about the progress of the war in the press influence the decision made by the politicians and/military officers in light of public oppinion shaped by the press, specifically in the United Kingdom? Was the press censored to portray British forces and/or their allies in a better light? And what did important politicians or military leaders, like the Prime Minister, Queen Victoria or Prince Albert, think of this development of "war journalism"?

When you read a lot about your expert topic you are likely to have read so much about the subject that you will find it easy to connect the dots. However, often when I read books on parts of history I am less familiar with, I find it hard to remember things after a while, even though my memory is surely not bad. I would be interested in how you manage taking/organizing your notes on what you read (assuming you do take notes). Do you write annotations right into the book? Do you write short notes on pieces of paper and store them in the book? Or do you write summaries later on on the computer? Do you use a personal wiki software or something like that?

In “The Doomsday Book” by Connie Willis, it is implied that after the Black Death some surviving servants stole the identities of their dead masters/mistresses and that this is known to have been relatively widespread. Is there any historical evidence for such a thing?