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So the wood Americans used to build their frigates was somehow stronger than could be found in the rest of the world? And cannonballs just bounced off them? How big of an advantage did the Americans actually have because of their stronger hulls?

I would also take normal books but I would really prefer audiobooks.

I am a university student writing a paper on the Great Peace of Montreal. I am not a History major, and the whole process has been all very new to me. I've been using the Canadian Encyclopedia a lot, because I thought that it must be a legitimate source, but other than the official sounding name, I have no idea if it is. SO basically I was wondering:

- Is the Canadian Encyclopedia considered a quality source, and why/why not?

- How should a complete rookie go about evaluating the quality of sources (especially secondary sources)?

Thanks!

Is Churchill's book about WWII any good? I can't recall having it seen quoted anywhere which seems odd since I'd expect him to give a lot of important details.

I've seen some people doubting whether he actually existed. What do we know in terms of whether he was a real person, or just a story told afterwards.

According to Wikipedia, Transylvanian Celtic religion may have influenced the practices of druids in other Celtic regions. But I'm not sure if these Transylvanian priests were quite the same thing as druids.

I've recently been looking into movies, literature, music and art from the 50s-70s. During this period it seems that pin-up girl stickers, decals, posters, etc have rose to prominence within American culture; seemingly associated with WWII and G.I.s, for a reason unbeknownst to me. What's up? Why were they ubiquitous during that era?

So maybe a bit of a specific question, but I'm currently "researching" if you can call it that the thoughts of Caesar on Britain but not had much look so far, so I thought what better place to ask than r/AskHistorians. Direct quotes would also be brilliant if possible.

Just in case anybody is curious as to the reason for this question, this is an idea for a tattoo sleeve eventually and this is the first piece of the puzzle. The sleeve will show the history on England/Britain starting with pre Roman Britain and ending most likely with ww2.

I've been reading a lot of Orderic Vitalis's "Ecclesiastical History" lately, and he suggests that whilst Danish kings and nobles may have been Christians from the time of Harald Bluetooth in the mid-10th century, Christianisation didn't properly get underway until the reign of King Cnut IV (reigned 1075 - 1086). For example, he claims that the Danish armies that invaded England under Sweyn Forkbeard and his son Cnut from 991 - 1016 and under Sweyn II in aid of the Yorkshire rebels against William the Conqueror in 1069 were mostly pagan, and that English Christianity went into almost terminal decline during the period of Danish rule over all England (1016 - 1042). Obviously Orderic has his problems as a source - firstly, he wants to give as favourable a portrayal of the Anglo-Saxons as possible and secondly, as a cultured half-Englishman half-Norman living in Northern France, one of the great epicentres of 11th and 12th century cultural and intellectual dynamism and religious reform along, it would have been easy for him to look at Denmark as a peripheral barely civilised backwater. Still, I've heard that Christianisation took a long time in many places (i.e. pagan burial rituals continuing to be practiced in rural Lithuania centuries after the conversion of Grand Duke Jogaila in 1386) and some historians and sociologists have argued that Northern Europe was not truly Christianised until the Reformation (Jean Delumeau) or indeed never at all (Rodney Stark).

Now we have all kinds of comedians stand up on shows or movies etc. and it’s a very common thing we always have jokes with memes and stuff so in Medieval and ancient what forms of comedy did they have and how common was it.

I've been reading Bradley's Mists of Avalon lately and sometimes I wonder how much of what's discussed about the Celtic/Druid religion is reliable at all. As far as I've known, most of what we have on the old religion was based on Roman sources. Did the neopagan/Wicca movement gain access to new sources or is it mostly made up out of whole cloth.

And was no one having sensible, reasonable fun like that prior or something? Why did it have to be all formally codified into a named school of thought like that?

I know that this is fodder for all kinds of conspiracy-theory BS, and to be crystal clear, I want none of that here. I don't believe, nor would I particularly buy, into claims about some global cabal of Masons controlling the strings of government. But, some of the founding fathers were most certainly Masons, and as I understand, Masonic Lodges definitely did have connections with Federalist political groups in the period, so I'm interested in what the relationship was there, and how Masonry was actually related to American politics at the time.

Bows and arrows are able to kill from the distance too, but during the wars in history they were used simultaneously with swords, while firearms eventually replaced sword as a main direct combat tool- why?

There was this book written by Stephen Turnbull which said that some archeological findings in Japan showed that out of 105 graves (possibly head graves), 35 were women and he then concluded that 1/3 of all Samurai were actually women.

Surprisingly he did not issue a source for this. However battlefield graves do not necessary imply they were warriors, they could’ve been prisoners who were killed in battle for example. Many were known to kill tens of thousands of prisoners. They were also head graves (apparently) they found.

There seems to be a stark contradiction—Stephen Turnbull also says that the written records indicate Samurai were overwhelmingly male, but he uses this archeological finding to deduce that 1/3 of Samurai were female. What do you think about this contradiction?

(2) was Japan during the Samurai male dominated?

This is quite a divergence from what I had learned about the Samurai. I seemed to have learned about female oppression by the Samurai and Japanese males during this time as this time was very regressive for women, however Stephen Turnbull paints a different picture. What do you think?

His book is called “Samurai Women 1184-1877”. The archeological reference was in the introduction.

EDIT: Also note there were many negative reviews on this book online criticizing his logic about the head graves and assuming they were all warriors etc etc.

Markers, for the most part, serve to identify the border, but in the case of thick forests and vast swathes of barren land, how did people know they were now in foreign territory without any visible demarcations, flags or even natives to ask (still in the said thick forest, for example)? How could I prove I didn't cross into their dominion if someone accosts me?

I know we have some writings by Roman emperors, such as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. What was his view of the Gods for example?

I'm talking specifically about historical investigations. Last Wednesday in class at the University we were talking about colonialism in the XIX - XX centuries, and it came down to discuss the differents genocides in that period of time. Suddenly, a classmate started talking about the fact that you CAN'T investigate nor speak against the holocaust because they would send you to jail. And yes, he is a negationst. Anyways, is it true that historians can't investigate about the Holocaust?

Edit: it's denial not negationst.

I'm curious about the intersectionality of gender and racial bias on this score - did the movement for women's suffrage include people of color? Were they marginalized or excluded? When the 19th amendment was passed, did it effectively enable all women of whatever race to vote, or were women of color still excluded?