Average men in pictures from the 19th and early 20th centuries are usually seen wearing what would be considered today as formal dress (suits and blazers) even in their everyday lives. This seems most striking in photographs of men standing in line at soup kitchens during the depression wearing full 3 piece suits and hats.

In the 21st century, even lower end suits can be significantly more expensive than the clothes that most average people wear on a daily basis. And nicer suits can cost as much as an average person's monthly rent. Or more, if they're custom fit and properly tailored. The result being that most men who are not required to wear a suit to work will only own one or two reserved for special occasions.

In the past, were suits comparatively more affordable? So that an average person could afford to have a variety of suits and not appear to constantly wear the same outfit. Or were average people simply expected to invest a significantly larger portion of their income into a smaller but more formal collection of clothing to conform to traditional fashion?

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I am writing a research paper on the topic, but I'm lacking information and good sources. I have discovered basic themes like monogamy, centralisation of power into a nation, equality in the afterlife, and a new European unity. But I would like to go further in depth, and also discover better topics to talk about. Any help, advice to writing the paper, and recommendations of good sources is very appreciated.

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Title. It seems as though any time I see any examples of Japanese armor/illustrations of Japanese armor, there are numerous unprotected gaps that could be exploited in combat. This seems strange to me, considering in Europe they seemed to make a point of covering any possible gap with mail or some other form of protection.

Why was this the case? The Japanese did have mail, so why not cover themselves more fully rather than leaving many sections unprotected?

This will probably be a stupid question but I couldn't find any good info on the internet.

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So, for a school project, I have to know if civilian casualties and the destruction of villages were crimes around the time of 1900. I'm pretty sure they were crimes, but I really need to know for sure.

Can someone help me with this?

Historian Garry Wills has suggested that Adams would have won the Election of 1800 if the 3/5ths Compromise didn’t exist. I’m assuming that’s true.

Assuming that is true, I’m assuming it’s also true that Jefferson would have still won the popular vote? If so, would most of the southern that won the presidency have then won the pop vote but lost the electoral college?

Questions: Is Wills correct? Would TJ have still won the PV and lose the WV? Would then Madison, Monroe, Jackson, then have also won the PV and lose the EV?

Does a chart exist of the Electoral Votes by states comparing the numbers with and without the slave population?

In Jane Austen's novels, the financial standing of various characters are often stated in terms of a yearly income (for instance, Mr. Darcy's 10,000 pounds a year in Pride and Prejudice). Do these numbers simply reflect the total rent paid by the tenant farmers on the gentleman's estate, or would they draw on other sources as well?

Additionally, how is this rent collected and stored? Do the farmers pay in physical currency, or in crops? Would the gentleman store most of his income in a bank? If he does, how is the money accessed--for instance, when the women of the house go to the shops, or when the servants buy food? Did banks have branches outside of London and other major cities back then?

Whilst both Wales and Cornwall were integrated into the Kingdom of England, Wales somehow managed to retain its identity as being "not English" - that is, it was owned by England, but was not England itself. This is part of why Wales is now a separate country in the United Kingdom, and has its own government.

Cornwall, on the other hand, whilst also being Celtic in culture (Cornish and Welsh are similar languages, and their culture was, as far as I know, quite similar) is now simply a county in England, and is not really seen as a separate entity.

When did this happen, and why?

And I'm not talking about people getting backstabbed in paintings, but in general people getting killed with swords, axes, arrows, etc and having a careless face.

Sorry for the title, but I have so many questions.

In Herodotus: Histories, there is a passage about Babylonian customs, and here is the relevant part:

The foulest Babylonian custom is that which compels every woman of the land to sit in the temple of Aphrodite and have intercourse with some stranger once in her life. Many women who are rich and proud and disdain to mingle with the rest, drive to the temple in covered carriages drawn by teams, and stand there with a great retinue of attendants. But most sit down in the sacred plot of Aphrodite, with crowns of cord on their heads; there is a great multitude of women coming and going; passages marked by line run every way through the crowd, by which the men pass and make their choice. Once a woman has taken her place there, she does not go away to her home before some stranger has cast money into her lap, and had intercourse with her outside the temple; but while he casts the money, he must say, “I invite you in the name of Mylitta” (that is the Assyrian name for Aphrodite). It does not matter what sum the money is; the woman will never refuse, for that would be a sin, the money being by this act made sacred. So she follows the first man who casts it and rejects no one.

I do not know whether this custom was real or not -since there is a lot of dubious stuff written in his book- so that would be my first question, whether we know or think that this specific custom has existed or not.

My second question would be on the mental state of these women. Is there any documentation, whether directly from women, their entourage, or foreigners like Herodotus himself, talking about how these women felt? Whether they felt that they were raped, or whether they thought it totally normal and natural to have intercourse with total strangers once in their lifetime because it was part of their custom?

When I read above passage, I immediately thought that, if it were real, the women must have felt awful to have sex with total strangers. However, different cultures have different views on different things, so I wondered if anyone had more information about this particular subject.

If you know of any kind of similar rituals in any other civilization throughout any part of the history with more in-depth information about the women, feel free to share.

Thank you.

PS: Although I originally read the physical book, you can find this passage online on several sites, as it is public domain. I don't know whether linking is allowed or not so I will just leave this note for anyone who would want or need to read the full text on Babylonian customs.

I've been writing a shorter thesis on Swedish missionaries in China around the late 1800s. While writing a part about the missionaries accounts of footbinding, I realized I didn't know whether or not the empress herself had her feet bound? Some of the books I've used mentions that manchu-women usually didn't do it, and Cixi herself apparently tried to ban it for a while, but I can't find anything about it direcly in any of the litterature I got while writing.

So my question is, was empress dowager Cixi feet bound? Did she follow the han tradition or the manchu tradition?

I'm reading that the Luftwaffe lost a staggering amount of Ju-52s transport aircraft during the Invasion of France and the Low Countries; numbers suggest around 50 to 75% of the total force were lost. That seems staggering when I can only assume that the Germans had the element of surprise and (I assume) better fighter cover. By comparison, as far as I can tell, the number of C-47s lost during D-Day were a fraction of the numbers lost 4 years prior.

Were the losses due to inadequacies around the aircraft themselves? Or perhaps poor tactics on the part of the Luftwaffe? Or was it simply the defenders were stronger than expected?

Thanks

I know the Great Library also acted as a school but I didn’t know if that was representative of the whole city being educated or not.

In a large number of viking burials there have been found multiple instances of deliberately bent swords (also some found in rivers and other places iirc). I hear two theories get tossed around about why this was done.

One, they bent the swords as a way to retire the weapon and / or to deter grave robbers from taking them. Two, enemies of a deceased viking would bend his sword to render it useless in the afterlife.

I don't remember where I heard the second theory, but that was the one kicking around in my head before I decided to do a bit of research. Google really wasn't very helpful but I found a couple small instances of the first theory being kicked around, mainly in regards to Celtic tribes also doing this, but more likely as a way to retire a weapon in their case.

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Just wondering if anyone has any more definitive sources or answers as to why they did this.

All the videos I see of armour recreations start with modern premade sheet metal. How was this sheet matal made in the past?