Welcome to Tuesday Trivia!

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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: “Some say the world will end in fire / some say in ice...” How did people in YOUR era think the world was going to end—or did they think it never would? Did some people in your era think they were living through “end times”?

Next time: Sportsnetball!

Compared to the other governments in exile hosted in London, it seems like Charles de Gaulle had quite a lot of influence on the Allies, and the Allies were extremely generous with France after the war. Why?

Witch Trials often brings the middle ages to mind, yet the Salem Witch Trials are always held up as the example. It is much easier to find information and reading on the American witch trials than on the numerous European ones that had many more victims and took place over the centuries.

What makes me Salem Witch trials more noteworthy and accessible than the German, Swedish and Scottish witch trials?

Edit: I've received a few hateful messages about me being American-centric and stupid for asking this question. I grew up in a European country and never learned much about the European witch trials at school. Please stop sending me these messages.

The ancient sources say Cambyses murdered him, but I've also read that some scholars think that story is too convenient for Darius. What do scholars think? Is there a wide range of views or do they tend to favor one version over the other?

I know that the vikings used runes but I’m not sure if the Celtic people used runes too? Just asking out of curiosity.

Documentaries don't really cover this war. It's interesting to me because very rarely do you see a war between two communist sides. The only other time I know of two communist sides fighting are China vs Russia in their border conflict in the 60s. Tried researching upon the Vietnamese-Cambodian war but I can't find a very detailed explanation on why it was justified.

All I know about the Library of Alexandria is that it was supposedly the greatest library of all time whose destruction by a knowledge-hating Christian mob literally erased all human knowledge, set humanity back to level 1 and started a regressive period (the Dark Ages) that lasted until the Industrial Revolution.

But how did it (or other great libraries of the time) actually function, especially compared to modern libraries? E.g.,

• Was it open for everyone or just nobles/scholars/citizens? Were there entrance or membership fees?
• Who owned and funded it? Where did it get all the books (scrolls, papyri) - were they purchased, donated, or was there some kind of law that required writers to send a copy?
• What services did it provide to visitors? Was it possible to check out a book? To make a copy? Was there at least a reading hall?
• How were the works organized? Were there librarians that located needed books for clients?
• Were there services that we might not expect from a library today?

I was reading the WWI file of the husband of a distant relative of mine. He was stationed in Montreal at the end of the war, and was part of the military police. In an incident, he approached a soldier who was drunk and disorderly. When he told the man to straighten up, the man refused and used "very bad language, and called me a conscript". At this point the M.P. tried to arrest the man, and they got in a fight, resulting in the M.P. getting kicked in the eye and being knocked out.

I just found it interesting that in his testimony of the incident, he specifically notes that the drunk soldier "called me a conscript". Was this really a low blow to conscripted soldiers?

While the manga itself is a historical fiction, it would be interesting to know if such interaction did happen and how it would affect respective parties afterwards.

Given the history around the British Isles, events such as the gift of Shetland, and the UK's various wars with Denmark, why has the UK never sought to integrate the Faroe Islands despite the many opportunities to do so?

There was the way in which Shetland was gifted to Scotland as a wedding gift/dowry/insurance and has been part of Scotland and therefore UK ever since, yet nothing similar happened to the Faroes, despite the very similar history between the two small island groups.

There have also been chances to demand the Faroes as a war prize such as the napoleonic wars where Britain was pitted against Denmark, with a peace treaty giving Norway to Sweden but allowing Denmark to keep the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland.

In modern times, the UK occupied Iceland and the Faroe Islands in WW2 after Denmark fell to Germany, but gave the Faroes back yet again, when it could have annexed the Faroes and not returned them. (Similarly with the US occupation of Greenland).

Since the Faroe Islands are almost a British Isle, Denmark and the UK having a maritime border dispute with them being that close, as well as sharing a cultural and genetic history with the British Isles, it just seems strange that there hasn't even been an attempt to bring them into the UK, for mutual benefit

So I really haven’t read up on it besides forums and posts online. But what are the sources to the tale that Ieyasu’s was able to scare off Shingen with only 5 men at Hamamatsu Castle and how reliable are they? Now I know that some Castles in history were able to fend off attackers with close to similar odds such as Corfe Castle but it just seems a bit of hyperbole, especially given the geography and architecture of the Hamamatsu. If this is made up or exaggerated than what is more likely story?

In English and some other languages, the word "crusade" has been used occasionally, especially in the past, to mean "any concerted effort" by a group, with only a vague reference to the actual Crusades and not necessarily religious connotation.

Did the Soviets ever refer to "crusades" in that way, like "crusade for the workers" or "crusade for the revolution", or would it be out of character?

So I was watching Band of Brothers when I started to wonder, when did we start dropping vehicles out of planes? Now a days you see videos and pictures of trucks, hummers, and maybe tanks strapped up in planes for deployment, but when did that start? In WWII we barely had parachutes figured out so obviously after I'm sure. Any pointers would make my roommate and I very happy. Thanks!

Just saw hidden figures and stranger things 3, and both Katherine’s children and the main cast of stranger things called them “Russians” instead of soviets. Originally, I thought that it was simplified for a modern audience, but then I remembered that Russia still existed as one of the states within the Soviet Union, and had a huge presence before the country was turned communist. So what did civilians (particularly in the US) refer to the Soviet Union as? Was it just more of a title for the country as a whole? Was “Russians” more of a nickname like “Yanks” in the civil war? Or is it just Hollywood simplifying it for the modern audience more familiar with modern-day Russia?

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I have been looking at civil war era photos and it seemed like most soldiers were facial hair of some type. I know standards for military personnel is for clean shaved currently but have no idea when it changed or for what reason.

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To be specific, I’d like to hear a bit more than just “Cao Cao wrote poetry”, since writing poetry had a different cultural meaning in China at the time than it has in the west today. Playing Go or writing calligraphy, although they might not seem masculine to modern eyes, could also have been seen to express fortitude, ruthlessness, toughness, etc. Instead, were the emotional, psychological, and behavioral ideals that were held around this time in China similar to what the song describes?

Hello everyone, for a while now, I have been trying to look for some historical documents, or photograph, or vintage film that I cant properly find without taking a while to finally find what I am looking for. I used to use google but then I started using DuckDuckGo because google just gives you advertisements and just some article that does not really help with what I am finding. While DuckDuckGo is easier to use and sometimes finds what I am looking for faster, I am still wondering if there is some type of search engine(s) that Historians use to easily find primary or really good secondary sources, because typically when I am reading a book about WWII or watch a historical video on YouTube, they have a lot of Primary sources like letters, photos, etc. And when I try and find such things, it takes me a while to actually find it. So I ask, is there some kind of secret search Engine that Historians use? Or is it that most people are having as much of a difficult time as me.

Thanks, Splat