How did Sigmund Freud fuel his cocaine addiction?

I'm aware that the stuff was plentiful back in the day, but how exactly did people get their hands on it, especially in Europe (how did Freud have so much)? And did people really not know it could mess you up badly?

1 Answers 2019-07-05

Okay Nazi experts,

I am writing a story and a very minor side character is going to be a German Captain, and I need to know about their uniforms. There were some German soldiers that must NOT have been Anti Semitic. There must have been some German soldiers who disagreed with Hitler and the Nazi party, but enlisted out of fear. I’m guessing there were also plenty of men in the German army who had already been in the military before Hitler came to power, and they didn’t want to quit, despite Hitler’s rise to power.

So if a person in the German army was not anti semantic, but was also in the officer rank of a Captain, would he be wearing a swastika? Was a swastika a universal symbol in German insignia, or was it only for the SS? Was all of the German military considered the SS? Who were the people that wore the red bands with the swastika’s on their arms? Lots of questions, I know. Thanks for any help!

1 Answers 2019-07-05

My grandfather was awarded the bronze star 20 years after serving in World War 2 in the European theater. Was curious as to why it was awarded so long after the fact.

1 Answers 2019-07-05

Are there cases of normal foot soldiers making it all the way to the rank of a general during the span of WW1 and WW2? If so, how did they fix the problem of not having any strategic knowledge and there being no time to learn it all at a military academy due to the war?

1 Answers 2019-07-05

Was flak from WWII antiaircraft fire dangerous to people on the ground?

1 Answers 2019-07-05

How and when did humans discover the existence of the North Star, and how important was it to navigation at the time? Was it found independently among separate cultures?

1 Answers 2019-07-05

Looking for book recommendations on the history of ancient Southeast Asia, specifically from the Neolithic Era to the time right before European contact and colonialism.

Hello! I’m looking for any recommendations for books that explore the history, culture, religion and art of mainland and maritime Southeast Asia before the arrival of Europeans in the region. While there are quite a few books on Southeast Asian history out there (although it does seem like there are significantly fewer scholars and scholarship being done on SEA history in comparison to East Asian history), most of the ones I’ve come across tend to focus on the impact that European colonialism had on these societies rather than how they developed, functioned and existed on their own. Any books that cover the the following places from the Neolithic Revolution to about 1600 C.E. - the Siamese kingdoms of Sukhothai and Ayuttaya, Lao kingdoms such as Lan Xang and Lan Na, Angkor and other Cambodian successor states, Champa, Dai Viet, Burmese kingdoms such as Pegu and Arakan, the Shan State, the Mon kingdom of Hariphunchai, into the Himalayas like Ahom, Chutiya and Kachari, to the Malay and Indonesian states such as the Srivijaya and Majapahit Empires, etcetera.

Also, I’d really appreciate any recommendations for ethnographies about the tribal groups that are found all over the highlands of mainland Southeast Asia such as the Mon, Hmong, Karen, Miao, and so on. Thank you!

1 Answers 2019-07-05

How committed was the US to the defence of its WWII ally Australia had Japanese forces succeeded in launching a land invasion of the continent?

1 Answers 2019-07-05

Was there ever a Prussian consulate in Siam? And could I have sent a letter there by Autogyro?

It sounds like a pretty simple (if not obscure) question. The problem is, this is pulled from a Simpsons quote, and googling anything remotely related to this question, only pulls you back to the quote.

Anyways, was there ever a time in history when this quote may have made sense? What is an autogyro, and was it ever used to deliver mail?

1 Answers 2019-07-05

In the new Netflix series “The Last Czars” there are a number of black, sub-Saharan guards in the Romanovs’ palace. Is such casting historically accurate and if so, how would they have ended up in such prestigious roles?

3 Answers 2019-07-04

Is it true the artist George Stubbs could single handedly carry dead horses up flights of stairs to his studio?

George W. Stubbs has a legacy of anatomical horse studies, as a result of dissecting a number of dead horses in his studios, in order to paint them with previously unseen realism. Is it true he was so strong he could carry a horse corpse up these flights of stairs?

1 Answers 2019-07-04

The terminology of sexual violence in late medieval and early modern Europe

This question emerged from my reading on early modern sexuality and law. I'm wondering how the concept of rape was understood by Europeans of this time period (c. 1300-1600). Nowadays we have a definition of the term tied very closely to the concept of consent. But as far as I understand it this wasn't the case in Europe during the period in question. For example, I've read that spousal rape was not recognized as such, and that prostitutes in some cities could not legally be raped, as they were regarded as belonging to the community. Clearly, consent was not necessarily the main factor that went into determining what was and wasn't rape. So how was rape actually defined? What language was used to refer to it (presumably this varies by region)? Was the concept contingent upon the law - i.e. in the case of the above-mentioned prostitutes, would acts of violence against them be thought of as "legal rape" or would they, because they were legal, not be defined as rape at all? What, if anything, was "consent" understood to be?

In effect, I want to try to get an understanding of how the men and women of this period defined and made use of these concepts.

1 Answers 2019-07-04

What definitive proof exists for the use of psychedelics, such as ayahuasca or peyote, in traditional societies?

And I don't mean a painting of a mushroom or a cactus or something, I mean definitive proof of ingestion of the drug.

1 Answers 2019-07-04

Were there people before Jesus who claimed to also be the Jewish messiah?

I know of the title messiah, but I’m referring to a Jesus like figure who claimed to be messiah that the Jews prophesied.

3 Answers 2019-07-04

Where or how can I find marriage records from 18th century England?

I'm trying to locate data on the average age of marriage at this time and place and while I see lots of sources claiming that records indicate that the average age of marriage was 22 for women and 26 for men, I would like to see the actual data myself.

Yet though I have been searching for a while, I cannot locate any first hand sources. Thankyou in advance for your assistance.

1 Answers 2019-07-04

I was told after World War Two that the Tennessee Valley Authority began building coal fired power plants after holders of coal interests subverted plans to build large self sustaining electric motors as sources of power generation. Can anyone point me toward potential source documents?

1 Answers 2019-07-04

Is it true that before the United States started developing out west, there were many relics and ruins of Indigenous civilization that was cleared out.

I saw a tweet that claimed the idea that Native American people did not have large scale civilization was not historically accurate and that there were actually ruins from their civilization all over the US before we developed their land. I’m curious as to its accuracy. Thank you!

1 Answers 2019-07-04

SWORDS VS SPEARS

If spears are often described as better than swords both in a duel and battle why were they used so often?

sources: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=afqhBODc_8U [video] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d86sT3cF1Eo [video]

1 Answers 2019-07-04

I am a proud member of the Soviet Union, and I have answered the call to defend the Mother Land against the Facists in WWII. What is the extent of my training, and what is my fate?

In Western Media we often see the average Soviet soldier as severely under trained, under supplied, and just generally not at all bright. So a couple of questions regarding such:

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  1. What is the extent of Soviet training? We usually see a truck full of fresh recruits unloaded about 300 feet or so from the front line where they undergo very brief training on the basics of using a rifle and that is it before they run straight to the battlefield. Was there no basic training? Was there no military organization into Companies, Squads, Fire Teams, ect.? Or was this a rare event that happened in desperation (such as the Siege of Stalingrad) and then has just been portrayed as being the norm throughout the entire war?
  2. Were Soviet troops really that under supplied? A somewhat famous quote from a popular video game goes something along the lines of: "One man gets bullets, the other man gets a rifle! When the man with the rifle dies, the man with the bullets picks up the rifle!" Did the Soviet Union really not have enough weapons to supply the army? I personally find that hard to believe considering there are literally millions of authentic Mosin Nagant rifles still in circulation today, some even unused. Furthermore if they really did not have enough weapons for the whole military did they honestly just send unarmed soldiers out to die instead of putting them to work in a logistics unit or something instead where they can still do something to benefit the army without needing a weapon?
  3. Now, onto the infamous suicide charge. We have all seen it, hundreds of men bravely charging across an open area towards a fortified position at the sound of a whistle blow, only to be cut down by machine gun fire with no survivors. Was this a legitimate Soviet tactic? Did commanders really throw hundreds of lives away with a single charge with no real plan in mind other than "Get over there and kill the enemy!"? Or again is this just a case of it happening maybe once or twice and it being turned into a stereotype and generalized as being a constant thing that happened throughout the war?

Thanks in advance for any answers!

1 Answers 2019-07-04

Podcast recommendations?

Hey all

Recently I've been blitzing through Peter Adamson's excellent podcast The History of Philosophy, in which he covers every major philosopher from the Pre-Socratics to (eventually) the modern day. Most figures are given a twenty-five minute episode wherein he lays out the basics, with bigger names like Plato and Aristotle getting a whole bunch of episodes apiece. It doesn't give a whole lot of depith, but it's perfect for my purposes of getting a vague outline of people I'd heard of but knew nothing about.

Are there any podcasts even remotely approaching this format for other areas of history? Just bitesize, brief chunks that give you the big points? Specifically I would LOVE to learn more about the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. I know a couple of chunks in detail, but next to nothing about the rest of the history. Having said that, I'd listen to something on just about any period that piqued my interest, so recommend away.

Any pointers would be awesome. Thanks team!

1 Answers 2019-07-04

What would Werner Heisenberg have known about the Holocaust during WWII?

I have come across a number of discussions of Heisenberg's role in the Nazi atomic bomb program and I was trying to think about his moral culpability. This is difficult because many (most?) of the atrocities we associate with Nazism were unknown to the bulk of Nazis at the time. (Correct me if I'm wrong) So would someone like Heisenberg have known he was contributing (albeit indirectly) to the atrocities we rightly condemn the Nazis for today?

1 Answers 2019-07-04

Was the Holy Roman Empire really a singular state? Or was it at best a loose league of states?

1 Answers 2019-07-04

Medieval armor in the show “Vikings”

Hello, so I just started watching “Vikings” and I had a question about the medieval armor. In the show Saxon soldiers were wearing chain mails or armor made from metal scales, but vikings were still cutting them like a hot knife through butter. Wouldn’t this armor stop an axe or a sword strike?

2 Answers 2019-07-04

How did Finnish soldiers feel fighting German troops in the Lapland War when just recently the Germans were helping them fight off the Soviet invasion?

1 Answers 2019-07-04

Books about automotive history

Hello.

I was wondering if anyone here has some recommendations regarding books on american automotive history. My university library is not well equipped with these sort of books, so i am asking is anyone here have some recommendations.

1 Answers 2019-07-04

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