Considering Vienna fell under Soviet jurisdiction and administration, why did Stalin not try and integrate them into the eastern bloc?

Hi I have been looking at family history and found some new things about a great uncle who died in 43 after the fall of Singapore. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what happened to the prisoners of war on their way to Burma and what they did in Burma. In particular the royal engineers but I realise that may be a long shot. Thanks lads.

Schools in the late 19th century US are often depicted as being single room with one teacher for everybody. Was this the case and, if so, how did they teach things to the different age groups? Would first graders be working on different things while eighth grade material was being taught?

Israel experienced a lot of violent conflicts in its history. Did those conflicts also lead to a significant number of jewish citizens leaving the country and emigrating to the US because they thought it would be safer?

Also, did the opposite exist? Did those conflicts lead to an increased number of jewish people immigrating to Israel to help stabilize the country?

When a torpedo misses a target, what exactly happens to them? I assume they run out of fuel and sink to the bottom. Do they explode when the impact the bottom? Do they float? Can they be reused? Do they just become deadly time capsules that occasionally wash up on shore to continue their mission of killing people? Do fishing boats pull them up every so often?

Ill ask bout the US specifically. It seems like the legislators have huge trouble understanding what it is exactly they are trying to regulate and the problems they are addressing that come from these technologies because they don't understand how they worked. Was it that the make up of the legislative body quite older and therefore unaware of new technologies or were there more younger legislators? Or were they just more in tune with the needs because there wasn't such an abundance of different technologies or the technologies weren't as complex and different to understand?

I recently watched a documentary that said that millions of dispensed for use at all levels of the wehrmacht and luftwaffe. How credible is this? Was the average soldier on the front taking these regularly or were they mainly used medicinally or was it only a minority of soldiers?

Where India, Tibet, Mongolia, Southeast Asia, and Korea adapted western Abjads and Alphabets into Abugida Alphasylaberies, two very big exceptions to that are evident, China and Japan. Japan does have two alphabetical systems granted but the whole of standard Japanese writing is still incomprehensible to someone who can't read the Chinese characters Japan borrowed.

So I the question is, why? Chinese and Tibetan are part of the same language family, what stopped China from adopting or adapting the Tibetan writing system (yes I understand that by this logic I could very well ask why English doesn't just use Cyrilic or one of the Brahmic scripts), or just coming up with a simplified writing system all their own, and what stopped Japan from switching to using either of its alphabetical writing systems in exclusivity?

Was there a specific place where coins were minted? Was it heavily guarded? How were coins distributed? Or did it not matter without a true state currency?

e.g. "The atomic leveling of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was designed to terrify into submission Stalin, who Truman and his advisers saw as the sequel to Hitler."

Hello! Been looking for some books on modern Finnish history as a gift for a friend, and so far my search has turned up...well, a lot of books whose quality I cannot determine. AskHistorians has never let me down on this front before so I wanted to know if anybody has suggestions on texts covering Finland's history at and/or since independence. If something narrower than that time period is required, I think a book on the Cold War era would just about do it. Political-history is fine.

My grandfather and great uncle were in WW2, and I'm so curious if there are any reports or schedules available of what they did and where they've been. All I could ever find was their name and being registered to a country for the war. That's it. I'm assuming it may require paying for some info?

My grandfather took home a bride from the last country he visited, so this is the most interesting part (and understandably scary for my grandmother!).

I mean, judging from what I have read on this subject, the economy they operated begins with moderate socialist interference and ends up full scale authoritarian socialism by the fall of the regime. The state was the economy and operated all the major industries by fixing market conditions or outright seizing businesses. There was no corporatist/statist economy like all of the other fascist regimes, and the economic structure had more in common with Soviet Russia than it did with fascist Italy.

Furthermore, the party itself claimed to be the National Socialist German Workers party (sometimes called just "the workers" party internally, or "the Reich"). Which is essentially the group, themselves, calling out their ideals.

This is also not to mention the fact that Stalin and Hitler were very staunch allies, sharing political views, transferring war supplies, and trading information right up until operation Barbarossa when Hitler attacked Russia. Even then, Stalin could not believe he was being betrayed due to the nature of the closeness of their relationship prior to those events.

Meanwhile, Mussolini was an association of convenience, and Italy needed Germany more than Germany needed Italy.

However, many sources claim the regime was fascist, in spite of there being numerous ideals, structures, policies, and laws that point to this categorization as not being the case.

Can anyone give me a legitimate answer as to why?

So, I really like r/HistoryMemes even if I don't always understand its references, and was wondering whether I'm actually learning some history via internet diffusion, or just misinforming myself.

Obviously I take everything with a bit of salt, but not knowing much of world history, I can't discern mistakes from truths.

I'm having a hard time envisioning what trade and commerce looked like in the Bronze Age before the invention of money. I'm particularly interested in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia but also the cultures of Central and South America (I understand those were from a completely different time period).

I keep reading about how Bronze Age civilisations traded far and wide from Cornwall to the Indus Valley before the invention of money. But it's often mentioned that there was no such thing as a barter economy before the invention of money.

What facilitated commerce and trade? Why would people in Cornwall dig up tin and give it to traders unless they received something in exchange? Does that not involve bartering?

How did the economy in a Sumerian or Minoan city function? Were artisans and scribes paid? Or was everything a planned economy centralised through the aristocracy? (The so called palace economies) Were people in cities able to pay for things or trade for things? Or were they just provided for because they had a particular job or status?

I guess for me there's a blank space in my understanding. I read about trade routes and Sumerian accountants and taxes and levies, markets and trading ports but all of this happened without money or bartering for goods.

Hope someone can shed light on this topic.

In Patricia Seed's "American Pentimento" she says that

Throughout the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand today, native communities’ rights to wealth are governed by a host of modern regulations that seem to have deleted traces of the earlier colonial rules. But underneath more recently imposed standards, traces of earlier ones can often be seen.

I have studied this process for Spanish America and know a bit about it for the US, but am less familiar with Australia. I do know that there have been major debates between Australian historians on colonial & aboriginal history since the 60s, and would assume that they affected views of these questions.
Essentially I'm asking about colonial British treatment of aboriginal rights (lands, culture etc.) and on their continuing influence. Since I'm asking about a huge time span I'd be very interested in any specific region or period too.