Bayonets in the 1700s

From what I have understood, bayonets were used very little in the 1700s and early 1800s. If bayonet charges happened, the other side would either fire a volley in an attempt to stop the charge, or simply retreat/rout.

Is this true, or did bayonet to bayonet fights ever happen, and if they did were they common?

1 Answers 2019-01-21

Was Native American life truly “pure” and respect-filled?

1 Answers 2019-01-21

Did the creation and existence of the Roman praetorian guard somehow affect the rest of the Roman military?

1 Answers 2019-01-21

In Ted Kaczynski's Una bomber manifesto he mentions transexuality as fairly common in some American Indian tribes. Is there any source to this claim?

It is under paragraph 45 he mentions it.

'' It is true that not all was sweetness and light in primitive societies. Abuse of women was common among Australian aborigines, transexuality was fairly common among some of the American Indian tribes...''

this is the first time I've come across a claim like this one. Does anyone have a source for such a claim?

1 Answers 2019-01-21

At what point were Shakespeare's works taught in literary courses?

How soon after his death did schools(primary, secondary, etc.) start studying his works? Was it immediately known that his works were important enough to be taught or did it take some time to make it's way into teachings?

1 Answers 2019-01-21

Why were empires so large in the antiquity? How come large empires didn't re-emerge until (with a few exceptions) the Age of Discovery?

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1 Answers 2019-01-21

Why does Mexico have such good foreign relations across history?

I might be biased, and if so I'm trying to dispel that, but it seems to be that Mexico historically has had very good foreign relations and if that's true I would like to know why.

The best known example I think is Mexicoplatz in Austria, but then the Mexican Embassy in Tokyo is one of the most valuable buildings in the city, and people have complained that it should be given to someone else but the Japanese government has refused, apparently because of how much they appreciate the Mexican government.

It also seems that Mexico has been a safe heaven for all kinds of political refugees and still not harmed their relationship with the countries they were running from (or their enemies), like Che Guevara, the las Iranian Shah, Trotsky, among others. And why did all these people chose Mexico of all places?.

And finally there's the fact that Mexico has the most Trade Agreements in the world, how did that even happen?, and why?, that must have been decades in the making, it must be the result of work done at least since the Revolution... but why did not other nation with larger economies and more influence, like the US or Japan, surpass Mexico on this area?

2 Answers 2019-01-21

Did the construction of Confederate monuments significantly increase during periods of debate over civil rights?

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a rather famous graph showing the number of Confederate monuments constructed over time in the U.S.

The accompanying article draws attention to two spikes in the building of Confederate monuments, once during the turn of the century (corresponding to the rise of Jim Crow laws) and once in the 1950-60s (corresponding to the Civil Rights movement), to prove a point that Confederate monuments are not about honoring the dead, but rather an attempt to maintain control on the living.

I'm 100% sympathetic to the SPLC, but I want to know if they got their history right.

Do scholars link the bursts in Confederate monument construction to periods of increased racial animus? Or is racial animus simply the default state for U.S. history, and spikes correspond to something else (aging veteran population, centennial celebrations, etc.)? Did the rhetoric of those groups, and their public/private explanations, point to Confederate monuments as a way to assert control over a changing world? Were those monuments interpreted by Civil Rights groups at the time as a symbol of aggression, and another front in the fight for equality?

2 Answers 2019-01-21

The Spanish Civil War

I‘m just doing some research on the spanish civil war and i would like to find some sources showing the affects of the war and in general how it was under the fascists/republicans and anarchist side. Would be lovely if i get some detailed info on the CNT-FAI too.

1 Answers 2019-01-21

Why is most historical clothing so complicated?

I have been watching a few different videos from historians on older clothing styles.
Even for clothing meant for warmer weather, it seemed to have a lot of layers, and i will see outfits that will use buttons, lacing and other simple fastening combined with a lot of complicated ways to tie and otherwise fasten the clothing.
a lot of it would take a while to put one, and some was really difficult to put on yourself, even for poorer people.

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why is this?

4 Answers 2019-01-21

A book I read says that Lenin was disappointed in revolutionary (as opposed to evolutionary) communism as early as 1920s - is there proof of that?

There is a book (not translated in English) called "Memoirs of Stalin's private secretary". The author's name is Boris Bazhanov - he was a secretary of the Politburo, and a personal secretary to Stalin, from the beginning of 1920s to 1928, after which he defected to Persia, and then to France.

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I've gotten to read his book as part of a larger effort to find historic evidence for and against social reform not happening organically, but being enacted and stimulated by governments "from up top". There's a passage in the book that seems to be exactly what I want (text below is my translation from Russian) - allegedly, this is what Lenin's personal secretaries told Bazhanov when he asked them if Lenin actually believed in the New Economic Policy.

"Lenin told them: Of course we did fail. We wanted for a new communist society to appear magically by itself, while it turned out to be a question of decades and generations. So that the Party does not lose its soul, its faith and willingness to fight we must behave as if this return to market economics, to capitalism, is some kind of temporary fallback. But we ourselves must see that our attempt has failed, that people's psychology, that age-old skills of life that they have accumulated cannot be broken in a snap. We could try and force the people into our new society by starting a war, but it's not certain if we'd even retain power in such a meat grinder."

As I've said, this seems to be exactly what I want - evidence of Lenin himself admitting that enforcing social reform did not work out. But Bazhanov's book is full of episodes where he portrays himself as the only sane and moral man in the whole of Politburo, details Stalin as some inhuman power-hungry monstrosity (expectedly - Stalin did order him killed once he defected), and reads a bit fiction-like at times. I'm not willing to take his information without a good pinch of salt.

That is what constitutes my question. Are there other sources that confirm he did in fact hold the view that the quote says he did?

1 Answers 2019-01-21

"Reading companions" for studying primary sources for Alexander's conquests?

As I noted yesterday in another thread, Alexander's invasion is an aspect of Iranian history I need to study with greater care. I am not especially confident in reading most kinds of Classical or Hellenic primary sources unless I am very familiar with what is being described, however, so I definitely need some kind of secondary source to back me up.

I'm welcoming any types of suggestions - biographies, glossed source corpuses, anthologies, etc. I'm less interested in the "Great Man" aspect and more interested in trying to tease out contextual details to understand Alexander's success. A critical or minimalist approach to source material is preferred.

Thanks!

1 Answers 2019-01-21

Arabic communist propoganda

Ok, so my grandmother's brother pasted away recently and in his house we found one of chairman mao's red book which he smuggled out of china during his day as a sailor. But everything is written in what seems like arabic, why would they even bother to print it in anything other than chinese?

1 Answers 2019-01-21

The westindian rivers, and denmark in the slave trade

Can anyone pls link me to some articles, i need it for a school project i want to makey momma proud

1 Answers 2019-01-21

With numerous food delivery services becoming popular rather recently, why was pizza the stand alone fast food with industry standard delivery services throughout the past few decades?

2 Answers 2019-01-21

Was Alexander the Great more than a conqueror?

As I do research for a history assignment I continue to find articles and essays that pose Alexander as just a conqueror during his 12 year reign as he stretched his empire to the east. Are there any sources out there that touch up on other aspects of Alexander as a leader? Politics? Management of the kingdoms he conquered?

1 Answers 2019-01-21

Could the Austrian Empire have been saved by good rule? Or was its downfall inevitable in an era of nationalism?

Hello there, people of Reddit.

I've been reading a lot about the history of Austria-Hungary, out of personal interest. As far as I have understood, the consensus is that by the time the Ausgleich was signed, the Dual Monarchy was dysfunctional Byzantine mess and a ticking time bomb. Old Franz's reactionary rule, coupled with Italian and Serbian nationalism and Hungarian opposition, meant that the "state" of Austria-Hungary was not a state in any form, but a poorly integrated and unfriendly personal union where both polities were pulling against each other and ripping themselves apart internally.

My question to this community, in better terms is: could a more competent Emperor and cabinet have prevented the sorry state of affairs in which AH saw itself by the time WWI kicked off? It's not quite a "what if" scenario I'm asking; more like "was it an inevitable consequence of historical context that the Habsburg Monarchy was dysfunctional and doomed by the beginning of the 20th century, or was it a set of bad circumstances that may have been averted but were instead catalyzed by poor governance?". Also implied is the question "am I totally incorrect here and things were actually not that bad, and my sources might have been overselling the internal conflicts and generally bad footing in which the Monarchy saw itself".

Thank you kindly.

1 Answers 2019-01-21

Did real pirates actually say Yarr, Argh Matey and the like?

Where did the whole Pirate 'Yarr' thing come from? And did pirates actually have that gruff accent? Most 'realistic' portrayals have pirates sound like british or spanish people with no outlandish accent.

2 Answers 2019-01-21

In Sinclair's The Jungle he describes horrible conditions at meat packing plants in Chicago including such horrific things as workers falling into machinery and being ground up with the meat. Granted his book is a work of fiction, but how widespread where these horrific conditions at the time?

Granted I know that The Jungle was a widely popular book when it was published and it is often credited with creating the public outcry that lead to the establishment of the FDA in America, but I am just wondering how much historical evidence there is for the conditions he describes. I guess was it really a common occurrence for workers to be killed on the job and simply mixed in with the food?

1 Answers 2019-01-21

Tank design - where they intentionally shaped differently?

Something I had never considered before, even though I've always been a tank lover - I know countries 'borrowed' design elements from other countries, for example the Germans used a number of design features from the T34 in their Panther - but did countries intentionally design their tanks to look distinctively different from other countries, even if they knew the other countries design was better so as to ensure the silhouette could be differentiated?

This same question could also be asked in regards to aircraft, ships, and to an extent infantry uniforms.

1 Answers 2019-01-21

Why did a Japanese WWII Captain commit suicide when he saw Doolittle’s aircraft carriers?

The nonfiction book, “The Aviators,” by Winston Groom, recounts the story of the day of the U.S. bomber raid in Tokyo, led by Doolittle. The US carriers were spotted by a Japanese vessel. A survivor later said:

‘A Japanese survivor who was fished out of the water told of how he had spotted the American task force and ran to his captain’s quarters to report “two beautiful Japanese carriers” passing by. The captain went topside and after taking a look said to the seaman, “Yes, they are beautiful, but they are not ours.” Then, according to the sailor, after ordering the radioman to signal the warning, the captain “returned to his cabin and shot himself in the head.”

My question is, why did the captain kill himself?

1 Answers 2019-01-21

Were the Irish and Scots mercenaries the most ferocious soldiers of The Thirty Years' War that raged in Central Europe?

Hi, I'm new to this site, and I have this question that has fascinated me for years. For via various sources I've often gleaned that both the Irish and Scots mercenaries serving within the Swedish and other ranks during The Thirty Years' War were the most ferocious and feared fighting men ON THE BATTLEFIELD, the baddest badasses in that most badass respect. How true is that??
For I know that the Croatian soldiers acquired this fearsome and bloodthirsty reputation, YET were at times beaten back viciously and resolutely by Irish and Scottish swords and pikes, and that trained Scottish warriors made the finest, fiercest and most feral missile/hand to hand shock troops throughout much of that horrific conflict. True??
Thank You Very Much!

1 Answers 2019-01-21

What type of defensive structures (walls, enclosures, forts, etc) did Native Americans build?

Not to soapbox or be political or anything, but a disconnect came to me while listening to a Native American eloquently talk about how they didn't build walls, that their land was open, etc., to oppose the Trump wall. I understood it to be poetic or perhaps specific to his tribe because it gave me a flash back to the move Black Robe, where the main characters are taken to an Native American (Iroquois fortress per wiki) that was enclosed by huge walls made of wood complete with watchtowers and gates IIRC.

I started thinking, maybe that was just for the movie or plains Indians didn't have them or some tribes did, or they started building more complex fortifications after settlers introduced nails or something. It seemed interesting but I couldn't find much after a light Google search.

1 Answers 2019-01-21

Photography in the concentration camps?

I've recently seen some of the photos of the victims in the concentration camps. I assume the Nazi guards took these photos? And was there a specific purpose for these photos to be taken?

1 Answers 2019-01-21

Native American granaries?

Is there any evidence of North American natives having granaries? I know that most non-nomadic Asia and European civilizations had some system of stockpiling surplus grain but I have never heard of North American natives having such systems.

1 Answers 2019-01-21

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