Reading up on the Doolittle Raid, one of the bombers landed in Vladivostok and its crew were interned for a year before being "allowed" to escape with the help of the NKVD. I also saw that other airmen who landed or bailed out over the USSR were also interned (and their planes confiscated and reverse engineered in the case of the B-29) along with other Western Allied POW's held captive in German camps that were liberated by the Soviets. Why did the Soviets do this instead of handing them back to the Western Allies at the earliest opportunity? In what conditions were they held in? Did the Western Allies make any maneuvers to get their men and equipment back?

I know the Germans invaded Poland under the excuse that the Polish supposedly attacked German Radio Station (or something like that) which was faked obviously. But my question is did they search for (fake) reasons to invade the other countries like Denmark or Yugoslavia or did they just not bother at this point ?

Are there records of the names/services of such ships? Is lack of documentation because of their lack of exploration during the Age of Discovery? Persia, China and the Ottomans had navies during this period but they don't have the same level of celebration or fame as named British and American ships.

Hey all, first post here so if I've made any mistakes let me know, especially if this breaks the 'Example Seeking' rule.

I'm looking for what advances in technology were required to get from early cannons found in China to hand held standardized guns classic to 'Old Western' style America. I know generally that rifling, the creation of factories and being able to produce gunpowder would of been key features but beyond that I'm looking for any specific scientific or engineering breakthroughs that would have enabled this change in technology.

I posted this on r/latterdaysaints and someone suggested it was long enough ago that I should post it here.

I was thinking about what would have happened next if Joseph Smith (the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints aka the Mormon church) was not killed in Carthage Jail. I'm curious what other people think. If there's a book by a historian on this I'd be interesting in reading it, although I'm not aware of any.

How serious were the charges?

How likely would he have been convicted? How would your answer change if he got a change in venue?

What would have been his sentence if convicted?

What would have happened to him if he wasn't convicted?

To quote a book I'm reading "though they (the Confederate States of America) had been given more than a month's warning by Sherman's passage through Georgia, neither civilian nor military authorities had made serious attempts to prepare for Sherman's coming into South Carolina".

That, coupled with the lack of a pitched battle during the March to the Sea itself, makes me wonder why the Confederate leadership never tried to stop the Union Army?

Given the numbers they were up against, I'm inclined to think they were simply incapable of doing anything worthwhile to such a force at that point in the war. But, if that was the case, it then seems odd that they continued to fight on (or not as the case may be) and allow themselves to be pillaged so viciously.

Further, just how common were such sanatorium stays? Is literature over-representative of them, or were they indeed common -- and for what class of persons were they common, or even an option?

I'm currently looking to educate myself more on the great wars, but i cant find a good book to start off with, best i can find is ''Bloodlands: Europe between Htiler and Stalin'' by Timothy Snyder

As I understand it, the Anglo-Saxons practiced a system of partible inheritance, with every son getting a share of the property. How did this work as property got smaller? I figure at some point, a noble or lordly family would reach the point where the theirs wouldn't have enough property to keep up their lifestyle; peasant families would reach a point where no child has the land they need for bare subsistence. Would the nobles be constantly buying out increasingly fragmented peasant properties to keep up their status?

In the bronze age Near East we see successive dynasties from different cities and peoples with gaps or intermediate periods between their early-middle-late periods. Does it make sense to look at some of these as one long culture/state that goes through stages of centralization and decentralization with different administrative centres at different times?

I'm thinking of situations like the Sumer to Babylon transition where each group is treated separately where in Egypt we count most of the dynasties in Old-Middle-New Egypt even when they're foreign or based on a different part of the Nile.

Sorry if this question makes no sense.

Today we have all sorts of pills and sanitary napkins, tampons to handle "that time of the month". But how did Roman women deal with that situation? I guess they had no choice than continue with their everyday life regardless of any discomfort they might have felt. Do we know anything about this? Also I've read that before the 19th Century, doctors didn’t realise periods were even linked to ovulation. So what was their explanation half of the population loses blood every month? thank you

Do we have recorded instances of people escaping from capitalist countries into communist ones?

Not sure if this is the right subreddit to ask this is but I've always been curious if there's a historical reason for the change. A lot of Italian cities like Fiorenze, Roma, Milano, Napoli etc change their name in English. In Spain I can only think of one: Sevilla. In France I can't think of any. They are all similar Latin languages so why the change only for Italy?