I'm mainly curious because my father in law is a retired marine and takes to therapy every once and a while; I'm aiming for an answer towards soldiers returning from war or service. Did they have a safe space to vent and unload all the PTSD?

I just heard the story of John Graves Simcoe conducting war crimes (The burning of townspeople locked in a church) during the American revolutionary war. As a Canadian, I only learned about his time as the Governor General in Canada. He is highly respected for much. Was he truly a monster or is this historical muckraking?

Sushi 🍱 is one of the most popular Japanese dishes.

While having a delicious (not so traditionally Japanese) California roll, I asked myself if the Japanese where able to eat Sushi during World War II.

It’s a really easy dish. The main ingredients are rice and fish. How could the Japanese get the fish? Seems really dangerous for a fisherman to sail out with the US fleet nearby.

Did they still fish or did they used other ingredients to replace the fish?

I've always heard that Jackson did this out of hatred of the Indians. However, I learned Jackson also had an adopted Indian son and I saw someone claiming that Jackson was simply removing Indians as a way to protect them from a rebelling Georgia. What is the actual context here? I remember long ago in my history classes, we learned that there was this overarching theme in early 1800's America about wanting Indians to live a "better and more civilized" life. Was it just a continuation of that, or was this something different? When I try to read stuff about it online, I get mixed messages about it, like how some claim Jackson thought he was being merciful and generous with natives, and others claim he saw the Trail of Tears as a necessary evil to help white men.

Even if he views the situation as an overall good thing though, did he at all change his mind about the situation as the Trail of Tears persisted, or did that go exactly as he expected? Did his son ever comment on it or mention "Hey dad I think this whole mass movement of Indians might be a little messed up"?

I'm hoping this doesn't come off as one of those "just asking questions" posts. I'm genuinely wanting to know more about the situation since I never heard about his adopted son or Georgia rebelling.

I'm an American Born Chinese with parents from Hong Kong, and that just got me wondering about Chinese immigration. We speak Cantonese and it feels that the Canto speakers were the ones to move abroad first? Even in Southeast Asia, it seems the Chinese are Canto speakers. Is there any truth to this? Just trying to learn more about my history, please and thank you in advance.

I frequently struggle with picking out my next book. I can browse book stores for hours but I'm always hesitant to buy something for one of many of the following reasons:

I don't know if the book is outdated. I don't know the historiography well enough to know if I'm buying something that has contributed to the field or if I'm buying something from a writer rather than a historian. Most simply, I don't know if I'll learn anything that makes up for my time investment. I struggle mostly with #2. I can be interested in a topic, but I don't want to pick out something written by a Tom Holland or Graham Hancock type. What's the best way to become acquainted with the historiography of a subject? I can google and google but I can't help but feel as if there is a whole academic community that I'm not privy to. How did people even do this before the internet?

I’ve always had a fascination with the Black Death, but the problem is, it seems all we know about the pestilence is from mostly European sources. There has to be more to the pandemic than that, though. Which is why I’ve been wondering, what was the effect of the Black Death on the Muslim world? Did they take a similar tole on them? And how did they handle the disease? I would assume a little bit differently compared to their European counterparts, given their reputation for more advanced medical knowledge for a medieval society, but it’s possible I’m wrong.

According to Article IV, Section 3: “New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.”

In school and in history books / documentaries, they always tell the same story of France building the massive defensive shield all along their border with Germany and how the Germans simply went around it. Did the same thing essentially happen when the allies pushed the Germans out? Or, did the Germans make use of those defenses to try an keep the allies from pushing into Germany over their shared border with France?

Thanks.

For those of you who don't know, Spanish's surnaming customs are unique. Names here go:

[Given name(s)] [Father's paternal surname] [Mother's paternal surname]

For example, Rafael Nadal's parents were Ana María Parera Femenías and Sebastián Nadal Homar, so he became Rafael Nadal Parera.

You always give your first surname (i.e., your father's surname) to your kid.

How did this custom, which appears to be unique to the Spanish language, develop?

I know that what we today call occupational hazards afflicted people in the past who mined, baked, and performed other tasks that involve incidentally inhaling small particles. But TIL that there’s a specific name for inhaling cotton fibers (byssinosis), and wondered whether these problems afflicted weavers in, say, ancient coastal Peru or those who worked with linen and wool in preindustrial Europe.

Welcome to Tuesday Trivia!

If you are:

• a long-time reader, lurker, or inquirer who has always felt too nervous to contribute an answer
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• one of our amazing flairs

this thread is for you ALL!

Come share the cool stuff you love about the past!

We do not allow posts based on personal or relatives' anecdotes. Brief and short answers are allowed but MUST be properly sourced to respectable literature. All other rules also apply—no bigotry, current events, and so forth.

For this round, let’s look at: Diplomacy! This week is about saving the world with words! Diplomacy! Are you just bursting to tell the community about that time an intrepid interpreter saved peace talks from disaster by using the perfect word at the perfect time? Or that time someone knew just the gift to give that would save lives and build relationships? Be as diplomatic - or as discourteous and unmannerly - as you'd like in this week's trivia thread!

I’ve been watching some documentaries on Netflix about Romans, Ottomans and Samurai and I now have an unscratchable itch to learn more about world history. What I’d like to do is get a brief history of what was going on across the continents throughout human history to help me decide what areas I’d like to dive into in more detail.

I’m looking for some suggestions of how best to do that. Be it books, documentaries or blogs/podcasts I’m really keen to get a top level view of it all. Any ideas?

In 'I, Claudius', Livia on her deathbed is terrified of going to "Hell" as punishment for all the awful things she'd done. This always seemed like a very Christian concern to me. Would Romans actually fear eternal punishment for bad deeds?

Your average citizens when war broke out, was it an even split between the two sides or was it swayed one way or another? Or maybe it was a lot more nuanced