Here's the scenario: Someone falls and drowns in a well dug into an aquifer, would this one corpse poison the water supply dangerously? How long would the water be dangerous for? Would they have methods for undoing it? (Early, mid, and late medieval periods) Or would they actually send someone in there to recover the body and prevent it poisoning the water? (assuming they knew what happened)

Hi all,

It seems like the Greco-Roman World produced many thinkers, artists, military strategists, leaders, etc. who have been incredibly influential throughout time, but I'm sad to say I know very little about them and their world. I have a STEM background, so I don't have a great deal of academic exposure to history, and am looking to learn more, particularly about Classical Antiquity. Any book recommendations you all have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

P.s. I apologize if this is against the rules; from what I saw, a question like this seemed okay.

Hi All, thanks in advance for any light you might be able to shed on this subject.

I'm wondering why the focus of the U-boat wolfpacks was always on sinking freighters, & never focused on attacking the destroyers that escorted the convoys. My thought is, once the torpedo attacks begin, the destroyers are going to be coming after the sub(s) anyway, so why not try to bag a destroyer (or two, if possible) with the first salvo??

In the short term, if you're successful, you're now dealing with (say) three destroyer escorts instead of four. Over time, it would seem that doing that would make it increasingly difficult for the Allies to find escorts for the convoys, which would accomplish the strategic goal of strangling England. (Or force fewer destroyers to escort a larger number of freighters.)

(I know that the overall goal was to try to "choke England out of the war" {so to speak}, but it seems to me that there was just too much shipping tonnage available for the Germans to have a realistic chance at sinking enough freighters. Am I mistaken in this?)

It's not like it couldn't be done, in the Pacific Cmdr. Samuel Dealey (who commanded the USS Harder) sank four Japanese destroyers in separate attacks in the vicinity of Woleai and Tawi Tawi in 1944.

(Edited this post to remove a related "what-if" question.)

Thanks again.

I'm no Holocaust denier, and I do believe that it's an abhorrent position to hold on the Holocaust but do any of you know the answer to this question? If there were 15,315,350 jews in 1933 and 6,000, 000 died during the war, how did they get back to 15,753,768 so quick in 1948?

Ethiopia is often hailed as one of few countries in Africa to escape European colonization (excepting a brief period of Italian occupation). I imagine there are numerous reasons for why Ethiopia was able to resist getting caught up in the scramble for Africa.

However, I am curious to what extent (if any) the high elevation of the capital city Addis prevented the capitulation of the country as a whole.

Grateful for any insight! Thank you, historians!

The popular founding story of the USA says the "founding fathers" set up a republic/representative democracy rather than a direct democracy because direct democracy allows the majority to oppress the minority. Therefore you need anti-democratic elements to counter-balance majoritarian power.

Were there historical stories of majoritarian oppression under direct democracies that these guys would have been drawing on? Where did the idea come from and what was it based on?

I've only seen Plato-Aristotle theorizing on the oppressive nature of democracy, and historical events where democracy was overcome by oligarchy, but I'm not aware of any stories of oppressive direct democracies running rampant.

Welcome to Tuesday Trivia!

If you are:

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this thread is for you ALL!

Come share the cool stuff you love about the past! Please don’t just write a phrase or a sentence—explain the thing, get us interested in it! Include sources especially if you think other people might be interested in them.

AskHistorians requires that answers be supported by published research. We do not allow posts based on personal or relatives' anecdotes. All other rules also apply—no bigotry, current events, and so forth.

For this round, let’s look at: Sports! (Or "sport," my good historian, you old chap...No, I cannot get over this preference among historians, sorry.) What sports have humans played throughout history? Who are our great Inca athletes; what did medieval nuns do for recreation? Come share!

Next time: FIRE

I am currently writing a semi-scientific paper for school on the october revolution and I am still really confused on how two governments can govern one country together.

We know that during WWII women were conscripted into the Red Army. I have a few questions regarding that practice. How did the government and administration frame and legitimise the conscription of women? How was the conscription put into practice and how did the people react? Was there some kind of (public) debate about it? Bonus question: What do we know about the impact of women having served on the front lines on gender roles and women's agency in post-war Soviet society?

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I'm currently trying to get through World History and need some good books about Economic, Social and Political life in Germany, France, Russia and Britain in between World War 1 and 2. One book addressing each of those situations in the 4 countries mentioned would be appreciated if you have any suggestions.

So far I have Oswald Spengler's 'Decline of the West' but still need something more substantial to fill in the gaps until I get to the 1930's where I take on Richard J Evan's Nazi Trilogy and Antony Beevor's WW2.

I mean they conquered the very fertile Gaul and Britain, so how come a very hot and dry climate was subject to better crop yields? I understand why Egypt was, with the Nile and all, but why was the rest of North Africa a food basket?

The comments he made are filled with a lot of the stuff I'd expect - the Jews run the media, many Jews are actually satanists, and Hitler "went about it wrong":

Hitler of course… they had a stranglehold on Germany. On the banking of Germany, on everything in Germany. And the media. They had the whole thing, you see. But he went about it wrong…

As revolting as the comments are, I wasn't particularly surprised to find out about them. Rather, if anything, I was almost surprised to not find more records of Graham making antisemitic comments - though not necessarily of this severity, of course. All I've found is that there existed "persistent rumors" and that in 1994, one of Nixon's aides' diaries was released, which mentioned Graham talking about "Satanic Jews". Most of the shock about his comments seems to be about the fact that Graham was a noted supporter of Israel and friends with many Jews, but neither of these are anything like mutually exclusive with vehement antisemitism.

Are there other records of Graham's antisemitic views? Were such views prevalent among Southern Baptists of his generation?

Reading up about Rome for an upcoming visit, I came across the Jewish Ghetto, built in 1555. I was astonished to read about the severe and extraordinary restrictions placed on the Roman Jews. I understood already that Jews were usually banned from owning property in Christian states, and other restrictions of that nature. But Rome's restrictions seemed unusually harsh, even for the usual anti-semitic standards of the day.

The ghetto itself was built on the worst land, horribly overcrowded and regularly flooded, and when Jews left, they had to wear a yellow cloth, the same colour as prostitutes. The usual restrictions on what they were allowed to do for work applied. But in addition, the Jews had to attend compulsory Catholic sermons on their Sabbath, they had to pay a yearly tax to live there, and every year had to swear fealty to the Pope and their chief rabbi had to be ritually kicked up the arse every year as part of that. During the Christian feast days they were ritually humiliated, by being made to compete in races where they were stripped naked and ridden around like horses with a rope round their neck.

With these excessive and appalling conditions, I wondered why the Jewish Community didn't just abandon the city altogether, and live somewhere else, where restrictions weren't quite so harsh. Astonishingly, rather than doing this, the Jewish community actually increased over the centuries until the ghetto was finally abolished in the 19th century.

I get that there wasn't anywhere the Jews could go in Christendom that would have been without any restrictions and dangers. But with Rome being so unusually hostile, humiliating, and spirit-crushing, what was the reason for a continuing Jewish presence there?

Why was The Battle of Beersheba forgotten but instead 'replaced' with the tragedy at Gallipoli,

Siculo-norman knights of the mid-12th century are often depicted with a distinctive enclosed helm. To my understanding the enclosed helm developed near the beginning of the 13th century. Are these depictions artistic liberty or did the italo-normans develop this style of helmet earlier than western europe?

Let's say I am a young English man joining the British Army to fight in WW1, signing up in Liverpool in 1914 What do I know about the conflict before I go, and what will I be told by commanding officers and recruiters before I leave to fight?