After you became a samurai, what happens next? Did they truly value respect and honor above all else? What was a day in the life of a samurai?

I have studied a decent amount of ancient history but am certainly not an academic historian. I don't consider myself an apologist for Israel and I am not particularly religious. That being said, my understanding is that it is pretty well accepted that there was an ancient kingdom called "Israel" even if it only existed briefly or also had other names. I have recently been chided here on reddit by multiple people who insist that there was never any nation with the name Israel before 1948. I understand that reddit is not the place to seek authoritative answers, but I thought this sub might be able to at least clarify. So,

was there ever a nation, country, state, kingdom or other form of multi-city government that used the name "Israel" at least in part before 1948?

Please note that, while I am happy to get more context, I am really looking for an explicit and direct answer referring to the name only. I'm not asking about the predominant religion, origin of the people, specific rulers, or anything else. I just want to know if that name was ever used.

The Tower of Babel tells the tale of people working to create something that rivals the might of god, before being cut down for their hubris and ending up more divided than ever, no longer being able to even communicate.

I believe that the story of the Tower of Babel is a mythic retelling of the fall of an ancient middle-eastern empire. Probably the Babylonian, Akkadian, Sumerian or Mesopotamian Empire. The Empire is, to an ancient tribe, clan or city-state, an impossibly powerful force. The Babylonian empire in particular rose from near nothing to a power dominating most of the Fertile Crescent under the rule of Hammurabi, and then fell under a series of weak rulers. This “Empire of Babel” would rise and fall in similar fashion, or possible fall due to a natural disaster, a so called act of god. After falling the empire is split into several different groups based of language, ethnicity and so on, along with parts being conquered by neighboring empires.

Is this hypothetically possible or am I just drawing false parallels?

Everywhere I look online, someone is expounding their theory on where Yahweh came from as though it is a widely accepted fact. Some of these theories are actually well founded and are probably taken seriously by the academic community. Others aren't, but it's really hard to tell which ones to pay attention to and which ones to ignore when you're studying this topic for the first time.

He has a reputation for being "The Good German of Nanking" but what exactly did he do and how effective were his efforts?

I'm currently studying the similiarities and differences between the role of terror/social engineering and xenophobia , in both Idealogy and execution in the USSR (under Stalin ) and Nazi Germany for a school project ( this the IBDP history IA if anyone's familiar with it).

One part of this project involves me analyzing two key sources(secondary or primary) on my topic . One of the sources that I picked up was the "Origins of totallitarianism" by Hannah Arendt and I was wondering if there was a paper that was similiar in significance but arguing against/ taking a different line of thinking on comparing Stalinism and Nazism. I don't know how exactly do primary sources factor into a debate like this but if there are any famous ones that are often sites in these discussions I'd like to know about them as well!

I was watching a documentary of WW2 and the episode was about Germany's invasion into Russia. They encircled large groups of Soviet Soldiers with numbers up to 100,000 being taken prisoner.

Why did so many of them surrender even though their numbers still make a sizeable force?

Also, when i was watching about Germany pushed back and Russia was taking German prisoners in large amounts, Why didn't they fight till the death like Hitler ordered them to?

Specifically, did this big cash transfer cause inflation (or not)? Was the capital infusion partly responsible for the increasing wealth of the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers? What was the public opinion and media opinions of the time? What percentage of homes were multi-generational at its introduction, and did this stable income have positive effects there, including societal civility and peace? Was funding it from the Capital Class instead of workers considered? So many questions! I love r/askhistorians and appreciate in advance the wonderful responses!

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When reading biographies of famous individuals, but especially famous writers (like Alexander Hamilton), I noticed that not only do the biographers often have a wealth of letters to draw from as primary sources, but often they write that "so-and-so" had written a letter to a specific correspondent, and the letter's contents appear to have been known to other people besides the writer and the recipient.

Did letter writers copy and keep the letters they sent? Do historians gather the letters from their various recipient destinations (which much take a long time)? Were letters ever copied or circulated among contemporaries, and if so, how common or acceptable was that?

Apologies if this is too many questions. It's a topic I've wondered about for some time.

I know the term college and university may not be appropriate to describe the education system in Tokugawa Japan, but I'm wondering what their educational system (especially higher academia) was like before the Westerners introduced our own concepts.

Shorter working days seemed to have been a consistent trade union, labor, and socialist demand in the 19th and early 20th century, from 12 hours, to 10 hours, to 8 hours. I've seen old timey posters and propaganda arguing for 6 hours and even 4 hours — what happened to these? With our high efficiency in technology and output to the point of more and more jobs being automated, it seems shorter work hours should have been possible decades ago. Why did the struggle for shorter stop at 8 hours and when did the idea for 6 and 4 hour work day fade from the realm of possibility?

Whatever happened to the maximization of leisure and freedom from work?

I just finished a book called "Guns of the South," by Harry Turtledove, and in this book, Robert E Lee is the main POV character. Its an alternate history about the Confederacy winning the war, and it portrayed Lee in a very positive light. In the book, Lee was kind to his slaves, and wasn't a fan of the institution of slavery from the start, but became even more disenfranchised as the book progressed. Obviously this is fiction, but the first quarter of the book seemed to be well researched, and was true to the historical fact. As for Lee's personality, it got me wondering if he was actually like this, so I did some googling. I found quite a few differing opinions, and didn't get much of a definitive answer. Growing up in Texas, I've heard stories about Robert E Lee my entire life. How he was a military genius, how he opposed slavery but joined the Confederacy to stay loyal to his native Virginia, how he was a kind man that even Union soldiers admired. I always took it for granted as a child that Lee was a great man, but as I got older, I became more aware of the unusual romanticism that southern states feel about the Confederacy, and how many of the Confederate politicians and generals would be considered monsters by today's standard, and weren't very well liked in their time either. My question is, has history been too kind to Robert E Lee?

What was the prevailing view of corporations, their charter and limit on their power at the time of founding of the United States? I am asking in context of the recent Citizen United ruling by the SCOTUS.

If so, was this ordered by General Washington after Congress had advised against it?

Clarence W. Barron, considered the "founder of modern journalism", and after which the Barron's investor magazine is named, wrote the following (emphasis mine):^1

Aboard S.S. Aquitania, Friday Evening, February 1, 1919.

Spent the evening with the Dohenys in their suite. Mr. Doheny said: If you believe in democracy you cannot believe in Socialism. Socialism is the poison that destroys democracy. Democracy means opportunity for all. Socialism holds out the hope that a man can quit work and be better off. Bolshevism is the true fruit of socialism and if you will read the interesting testimony before the Senate Committee about the middle of January that showed up all these pacifists and peace-makers as German sympathizers, Socialists, and Bolsheviks, you will see that a majority of the college professors in the United States are teaching socialism and Bolshevism and that fifty-two college professors were on so-called peace committees in 1914. President Eliot of Harvard is teaching Bolshevism. The worst Bolshevists in the United States are not only college professors, of whom President Wilson is one, but capitalists and the wives of capitalists and neither seem to know what they are talking about. William Boyce Thompson is teaching Bolshevism and he may yet convert Lamont of J.P. Morgan & Company. Vanderlip is a Bolshevist, so is Charles R. Crane. Many women are joining the movement and neither they, nor their husbands, know what it is, or what it leads to. Henry Ford is another and so are most of those one hundred historians Wilson took abroad with him in the foolish idea that history can teach youth proper demarcations of races, peoples, and nations geographically.

Ford also built a plant in Gorki, USSR. Yet, Ford's portrait hung in Hitler's office, he received the highest medal, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, and he printed 500,000 copies of the forged document "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". Ford was later found to be using slave labour from the Auschwitz concentration camp as well. Why did Ford materially support the USSR if he believed the country was controlled by jews, and he was an open anti-semite? Even if you believe personal and monetary gain was the motive, it does not make sense, because Barron apparently had reason to believe Ford was a Bolshevist ideologue.

1. Arthur Pound and Samuel Taylor Moore, They Told Barron (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1930), pp. 13-14.

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Knowing what little I do about the women's suffrage movement, both in the US and abroad, I'm shocked that giving women the vote faced such strong, often violent opposition in the UK. How did men, many of who probably identified as proud supporters of the monarchy, justify their misogyny in light of the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and Victoria? Surely if women can be afforded the most powerful role in the nation, they can be trusted to be equal participants in the democratic process.

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