Was it just gigantic highly pressurized oxygen tanks? The ones they have on commercial airlines now don't last that long, even for the pilots. Did they have some kind of oxygen generating thing that was far more dense?

For instance, the Saxon chronicles that were named as such. Why not call themselves Angles or their land Saexland (as amusing as that would sound today)?

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I've been reading a few books like The Unwomanly Face of War and when rank is listed, no-one seems to be a private or anything. Every bread-baker, clothes-washer, sniper or etc were at minimum corporals it seems by the end of the war. And in the book, it doesn't seem to serve a purpose organizationally - A sergeant seems to do the same things that a private would.

We often hear about how the plague affected Poland less because of the sparse population density and the quarantining measures of Casimir the Great.
With Milan I have heard (though I could be wrong, please correct me if I am) it was in part because of programs to provide some kind of hygene to the poor, because of a good hygene in the rest of the population, the relative richness of the city, because of locking the sick in their house with their family and quarantining the city.

My question is why did a big part of Flanders (Bruges and surroundings) not get hit by the plague(or at least got affected to a far lesser degree), what preventive measures did they take, how did they do it as a trade city surrounded by a huge war and a sick empire, who ordered them to do so?
I knew they were rich, but I am interested in the juicy details.

As an additional questions why did other rich cities get affected (Venice, Florence, Rome etc...)

Thanks in advance for the answers. :)

(Sorry for any mistakes in my english, I am not native english and have dyslexia)

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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.

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For this round, let’s look at: Fakes, Fraud, and Forgery!

Next time: Apocalypse Then

With so much of the land given over to sugar cultivation, did they import food? What kind, and from where?

Is there any insight or analysis into this? The British had nuclear weapons yet no deterrence effect was caused.

Did MAD theories change following this? Did the nature of deterrence get downgraded in military thinking?

THanks

According to my estimate Jews made up perhaps 1-2% of the population of Iran during the reign of Reza Khan/Shah. I have heard mixed reports on this - on the one hand Reza Shah was a radical secularist and modernist, and it seems like the Jewish population featured in his propaganda styling himself after the traditional narratives surrounding Cyrus. On the other hand he was a committed nationalist and an incredibly ruthless strongman ruler who developed an admiration of and relationship with Nazi Germany. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has studied this aspect of 20th century Iran!

Was there a king? Emperor? Or anything else? What where common titles etc? Was there an aristrocracy?

In E. E. Evans-Pritchards the Nuer he mentions maize being one of four crops (along with millet, beans, and tobacco) that is cultivated by the Nuer in South Sudan.

It is my understanding that Maize originated in the Americas. So when was it introduced to the Sudan? And how did it become a staple of the Nuer?

I'm looking for literature on the Kristiania Bohemians and the turn of the century Oslo/Kristiania intellectual community in general. Scandinavian and English language litteraturen is welcome.

Basically what title says. To my understanding Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier during a seige, although they were given explicit instructions that Archimedes not be harmed. While recounts of the event seem to vary, none of them suggest that Archimedes was doing anything to give a true defense for this soldier slaying one of the best polymaths the time had (was only carrying some math tools with him, or sitting at a desk, etc). So, considering that the Roman soldier violated his orders and killed someone that the Romans probably saw as great value...what happened to that soldier? Do we even know? In my brief search I never saw the soldier mentioned by name, which makes me question if we (or even, if they) know exactly who killed him.

Thanks!

As it says in the title, I cannot find a good explanation for why Trotsky was exiled and not immediately killed. I know that Stalin did not have the complete control he would have years later and the purges had not begun, but it still seems a little weird that he was exiled to outside of the USSR, when not long thereafter all potential threats to the regime would be retired, murdered, or sent into exile from which there was no return? Was it because it was feared there was no way to keep him safely under lock and key in the USSR and Stalin could not yet kill him? And if the latter, why was Stalin able to assassinate Trotsky, or what changed his mind?

After the reign of Ashoka it seems Hinduism continued strongly and would supplant both Buddhism and Jainism, why? Why did Hinduism remain dominant in India and why didn’t subsequently rulers adopt Buddhism also?

The clearest example of this that comes to mind is the usage of the Bible for swearing an oath on during the inauguration. This is presumably done for someone of Christian faith. I know Kennedy became the first even catholic president, but that’s still the same religion using the same religious document, so that doesn’t really count. What got me thinking was what if we ever got a Jewish, Muslim, atheistic, Hindi, or other religious president that had to be sworn in. Would they still have to swear an oath on the Bible or could they use their native religious documents/none at all? The oath itself is also a reference to Christianity, so would the oath remain the same or would it be changed? Has there ever been historical precedent for something like this on the federal level? There are probably also other aspects of government left over from the beginning of the US that probably assume the person is going to be white, male and Christian, the presidential oath is just the first example that came to mind. But knowledge on this specific example or any other similar example would be very appreciated!

I've finally gotten around to watching The Sopranos, which has been excellent (just started s5). It has me wondering, though, about how New York and New Jersey mafia organizations made money in the 70s and 80s. The Sopranos dances around it for its time period, but never gets much into the way of detail. So, I'm wondering how the mafia made money in the decades before and how they avoided the law.