I had always heard that before current medical technology, people mostly agreed that a baby wasn't "alive" until the quickening, or when a pregnant woman could feel it moving around in the womb. But today I came across an article in the New York Times archives from 1876, and it reports that they have settled the question about when life begins: "When does a child become a human being? is a question which has not in this State been settled in law until the present week"

The article is about a doctor charged with manslaughter because a baby died right after it was born, but the doctor was acquitted because the cord was wrapped around the neck and they decided that "not to have breathed is not to have lived” and so no one could be charged with manslaughter because that baby was never alive. If taking a breath was the standard for "the beginning of life" as they put it in the article, and they felt they had "settled" the question legally, when did that concept change? Today's debate about when a fetus should be allowed "personhood rights" usually seems to focus on the detection of a heartbeat, or viability outside the womb.

I am a graduate history student, about to start my postgraduate degree and I was wondering if anyone had any practical advice on photographing primary source materials found in archives? I have absolutely zero knowledge of cameras, lenses, etc. but I know that some professional historians find that it's easier to get a digital copy of all of their documents so they can look over them in more detail at a later date.

So, does anyone know what kind of camera would be best for this? What lenses? Any other equipment that makes photographing documents easier/more efficient? Any good techniques? Basically looking for any information that I probably should know before I head into an archive and take 1,000 photos. Thanks!

Do we have any insight into how they would have calculated the length of the days?

Did posted signs (ex. Speed limits, names of cities or towns, shop signs, street/road signs) exist in the medieval ages? If so, would commoners be able to read them?

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There seems to be scant information regarding what the inside of a Greek temple would have looked like in its heyday. Is there any scholarly consensus as to what these marbleous buildings would have looked like on this inside?

Are there any historical sources / academic works which adequately describe the interior of these buildings when they were first built?

For instance Pergamon, the king for some reason in his will handed over his Kingdom to Rome? Did the Romans force him to or what did the Romans do that made this occur?

I know the Brits ate hartac, what about the Dutch, the Vikings, the Venetians, the Arabs, etc?

This is a topic I'm interested in, the history of cannabis being used as drug though out history I feel that it has always been popular but there not much information about it I have always been interested in the topic if anyone has any other information about the uses of cannabis in History I'd be very interested. I hope that I may find answers and that others may find this interesting.

Does anyone know of any impactful literature during this time in the Soviet Union, and how widespread the consumption of such literature would be? What did the novels impress upon the culture? Sorry if this is the wrong thread.

We hear about Hurricanes, Tornadoes and Earthquakes all over the new world. How did the settlers deal with them and were there any instances of an almost total wipeout?

A little background first: it turns out that Germany and the SU had different railway gauges (spacing between the insides of the two metal parallel tracks/bars?).

Considering the fact that it presented yet another infrastructural problem to the German Reich, and the fact that this info would likely be well known, how did they work around the problem?