I mean, really, it's nobody's business but the Turks though

The second amendment says:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It's my understanding that the primary, original purpose of this amendment was to ensure that the federal government would not infringe upon the rights of the individual states to maintain and arm their own respective state militias. It is also my understanding that the second amendment does not directly address private gun ownership by individual citizens; the second amendment pertains to private gun ownership only implicitly to the extent that militiamen were traditionally and legally expected to be armed via their own private purchases of firearms. As has been asserted in Supreme Court opinions such as those of Nunn v Georgia and US v Miller, the right of private gun ownership served the ultimate purpose of being conducive to the raising and maintaining of a well-regulated militia.

However, the Militia Act of 1903 essentially dissolved the institution of the civilian militia which had existed from the beginnings of American history. The Act formally established the National Guard as the official substitute of the civilian militia, permanently relieving ordinary civilians of the militia conscription and militia duty long-established by the Militia Act of 1792. The Militia Act of 1903 thus appeared to have essentially orphaned the second amendment. The second amendment was now a statute about the civilian militia in a world without the civilian militia.

However, despite this "orphaned" status, the second amendment still exists and thrives. It has never been altered, repealed, or amended. Interestingly, in the US v Miller Supreme Court ruling, which took place in 1939 -- well after the Militia Act of 1903 -- Justice McReynolds upheld the original purpose of the second amendment when he defended the National Firearms Act:

The Court cannot take judicial notice that a shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches long has today any reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, and therefore cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees to the citizen the right to keep and bear such a weapon.

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense.

I find it strange that the judges in US v Miller would come to this ruling, which pertains to the militia, when the militia was no longer in existence. It was almost as if the judges were in denial or delusional, interpreting the law based on a dead institution.

My question is essentially this: Why was the second amendment -- whose purpose revolved around the civilian militia system -- never adjusted in any way after the Militia Act of 1903? Why was it never altered, repealed, or amended in light of the reality of a militia-less world which undermined the fundamental purpose of the second amendment?

I browse /r/VintageMenus a lot, and while it’s probably not possible to be as precise as with the world map there are certainly some giveaways (terrapin means probably before the 1920s, restaurants stopped listing celery as an appetizer around 1970, deviled kidneys for breakfast are an early 20th century thing, etc). I think it would be interesting to make a guide for guessing the approximate year a menu is from based on the foods on offer and their descriptions and prices. Would that be at all practical?

Hopefully this question isn't too broad. To try being more specific, I've always been puzzled about why it is that metallurgy in precontact Americas did not develop to a similar degree or ubiquity as it did in Eurasian bronze and later iron age civilizations. As I understand it, though bronze and copper tools were produced in many societies in the Americas, they are believed to have been more of a status device based on the level of ornamentation and the burials they have been found in.

I understand not every civilization or peoples develop technology at similar rates, but I struggle to understand why it is that other civilizations independently developed a metallurgic revolution that led to the abandonment of stone tools in their entirety and eventually progressed to using iron while those in the Americas never entered such a period that even copper tools replaced their most common implements.

I'm currently listening to a History of Medicine series which begins at Hippocrates and moves then on to Galen. In a throwaway line, the author mentions that the Egyptians had been trephinating people for thousands of years prior.

That got me to thinking that I'm definitely going to miss out on a lot of the history of medicine if the timeline goes Hippocrates-Galen-Science!

Does anyone have any suggestions for the history of medicine outside of the two heavyweights?

Hello, my name is Andy and I run the Deep Share podcast. I'm seeking a historian or multiple to help discredit or credit a supposedly ancient Finnish story which, if true, would make a lot of problems for established history across the world.

There are many controversial aspects to this Finnish tale, but the one I'm particularly interested in getting to the bottom of is a claim about the Catholic Church that seems to go against "accepted" historical lines.

The story is called the Bock Saga. The claim, to make it short, is that a group of people called the Aser were residing in Helsinki up until 1050 AD when they were slaughtered.

From Carl Borgen's book, The Bock Saga: An Introduction, quote:

"In AD 1050, a papal army surrounded the place known as Uudenmaa (helsinki) and the remaining Aser people were slaughtered. All things associated with Heathen times were removed or destroyed. Two family lines escaped the slaughter: The Bockström (Bock) and the Raström (Ra) families."

Now, the Bock Saga goes on to dismantle a whole lot of established history, and it's fine if it turns out to simply be a story, but there are many aspects to the story that are very hard to discredit. These "Bockists" show and tell about a "root" language with 29 symbols to represent 29 sounds which make this root language. This language is known in the Finnish language as Alfarnas Bette. According to the Bockists, this means "The rhyme of the Alfather". They also claim that the way in which this language is structured, and due to it's mainly oral tradition, pronunciation of sounds and words can only be spoken one particular way for the story to be true, otherwise it falls apart and if you know the root language, you will see the obvious falsehood.

I have interviewed a number of these individuals, all in their late 70s now. They're getting old, and there are only so many of them, and they all live out in Scandinavia. The western world in general does not know this Bock Saga far and wide.

The language is the most fascinating aspect about this story but I think to have serious historians even consider any of it, we would have to account for this very ambiguous tale about 1050 AD - which traditional history books would scoff at. I believe the domination over the Finnish people by the Catholic Church is said to have happened much later in a very different way.

Thank you for your time.

I can’t exactly put my fingers on this question. I’m just puzzled by how in the 19th century, for example, European egyptologists “discovered” all sorts of ancient remains and artefacts that had actually been lying there all along. People were partially aware of them but they did not seem to have the same attitude of Europeans. So what does this attitude consist of? Where does it stem from?

Another example is the colosseum, whose stones have been used for centuries as building material. The arena itself was inhabited by different people. So why has the colosseum been considered for centuries as nothing more special than any other abandoned monument? What changed then?

I was watching the movie the Grand Budapest Hotel, and during a scene on a train one of the main characters insulted someone by calling them a fascist. This felt anachronistic to me and a modern application of the term, although I have no actual knowledge to back up that vague feeling.

So, tldr, was the word “fascist/fascism” always as pejorative as it is now or did it gain its negative connotations over time?

So I am a historical illiterate and I want to know about history just for the sake of knowledge, but don't know where to even start. Like I seriously know nothing important about history. I don't really know if I should read a book that compiles world history, or different books focused on specific places and time periods. I want books or any type of sources that are basic but that are still rich in content for a general audience I guess. So if there are must-reads that anyone can recommend or if there is a list made by the sub for absolute beginners in history, I would appreciate that a lot. Thanks.

If not what is the closest country to this? Even if a country planned to conquer these part or all of these it would be helpful. Thanks

I know that Swastika was a Hindi symbol before being used by the Nazis. But, it seems like a bit of leap between semi-obscure religious symbol and a white supremacy symbol.

Was the intent to form China into separate administrations so that it remained divided? Was Puyi considered to be even less popular than Wang Jingwei? Or, was there some other reason?

It feels like a commonly known thing that that's how pirates talk(ed). Where did we get this association?

For most of the war, the allied powers kept mass producing smaller medium tanks like the Sherman and T-34. It wasn't until the end of the war when they started building heavier tanks like the Pershing, IS-2, and Centurion. Why did Germany not take note of this? I understand that nations like Italy and and Japan just didn't have the infrastructure to build heavier tanks; or many tanks at all, but Germany somewhat did. Like they could build huge monsters like the Tiger 1 and 2. They built a few Jagdtigers and Jagdpanthers. Heck, they even built 2 Maus's! Why would they not focus on building lighter, more practical vehicles like the Panzer 4, the Panther, and Stug assault guns? Like did they not notice that the allies weren't building anything heavy?

The land of Israel is always referred to as a land of 'milk and honey' which suggests fertility, but more specifically, fertile for animal husbandry. I know that the Jewish patriarchs were shepherds, and in Egypt, according to the bible, prior to enslavement, were designated as essentially ranchers. When did the Jews begin to significantly practice farming and did it have a negative/positive effect on the environment?
Did it lead to deforestation? The galil is regarded as heavily forested in the bible, which is not the case today, and Im aware that Mark Twain in his travel diary regarded the land as barren (obviously a very large time scale)

So, when did they start? In what areas? And what were the effects/how immediate were they?

I hear all the time about the Reagan administration putting crack into black communities, then making crack have a higher mandatory minimum than cocaine, a more white used drug, and this system is all to imprison black people.

I know why Nixon started the drug war, and I know Nixon and Reagan's attitudes on race, but what is our proof and sources we can cite to make the "crack in black communities" claim?