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As we know that the Belgians colonized the Congo and both French and Dutch were spoken in Belgium so why wasn't Dutch the main language of administration? Were the majority of Colonizers from Wallonia?

IIRC my professor even said that this purchase was almost as important as the slavery debate in the senate. He basically went on about how the purchase was important to the South’s dream of building a southern transcontinental railroad and that the gold from California that would run through this southern route would tip the scales in their favor. I’ve been debating with a few friends recently who are passionate on the topic and would like to be more informed. Sources would be great as well. Thanks.

This topic is very popular in entertainment and is commonly talked about when discussing history. I know close to nothing about it.

So, the French and Brits want to break the stalemate on the eastern front during ww1. Couldn't they have sent a naval invasion force through the Baltic sea and set up a new front in northern Germany?

Furthermore, could the Entente not have remained on the defensive for pretty much the whole war, and just wait for Germany to sap all of it's resources, what with Britain blockading them by sea?

Cheers!

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I'm aware that the Chinese were aware of the existense of the roman empire during its height and that the Abbasid caliphs had to fight the Tang dynasty in the battle of Talas, but we don't generally hear much of the general relationship between the two sides of the world.

Did the average scholar or noble in Europe or the Middle East was aware of the Chinese empire's existense and vice-versa?

In China, there are the most common last names like 王 (Wang), 李 (Li), 张 (Zhang) and Korea has common last names like 김 (Kim), 이 (Lee), 박 (Park).

I was wondering, why do Japanese people not have common last names that a huge number of people have?

I’m not sure about this information but I’ve also heard that China and Korea have about 10,000 - 20,000 last names, but Japan has like 300,000.

Does anyone know about this ?? Thank you.

I suppose the first question should really be, "What truth is there to this?"

On a related note, I've read that in Victorian England street vendors would cut coffee with ground acorn and carrot. Did England have better access to coffee that they could adulterate rather than substitute?

I’m a high school student writing a historic monologue about Queen Amina and I was wondering if any of you guys have any useful information about her life or the time period.

I'm almost finished reading Ellen Meiksins Wood's "The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View". Her arguments were convincing (to me) that the development of capitalism occurred in agrarian England as opposed to elsewhere in Europe and urban areas. But, not being a scholar in that area, I imagine it would be easy to convince me. She criticizes other competing theories, but I am curious about responses to her work and the prevailing views of historians currently.

St. Jerome notes that rabbis required that men be 30 before they studied the book of Ezekiel. I’m wary of outsider descriptions of religious practice. Is there any evidence that this was or was not the case? Thanks!

Recently, I read the book "Persian Women and their Ways" by the missionary Clara Colliver Rice, which details some of her insights and experiences during her time in Iran in the early 20th century.

Barring her obvious prejudices in favor of Christianity and Western European culture, she does accurately depict the harsh realities of being a woman under Islamic rule where women could not leave the house without the permission of her male guardian; how women -- at most -- received only reciprocal rights concerning divorce; how women were overlooked in education and learning; how polygamy and child marriage made women at times little more than chattel; and especially how women are completely barred from the public sphere on the account that a great many authentic Islamic traditions declare women to be lacking in intelligence, rational faculty and that they are the primary inhabitants of hell, etc.

However, the author claims that although Islamic reforms were beneficial to Arabian women, when Islamic rule was established in Persia, it was in fact a regression for the status of women, who previously enjoyed far more just social position.

Is there any literature on these topics?: the status of women in Zoroastrianism and Sassanid Persia; the status of women in Byzantium and her near-eastern territories; the status of women under Coptic Christianity pre-Islamic conquest. Especially helpful would be how women of all classes were treated, not just the wealthiest.

Thank you.

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It seems like most songs from at least the last hundred or so years are about 2-3 minutes long. What about further back, or in ancient cultures? Does it vary in different societies or through different time periods? Is there any historical significance to the average length of a song?

Okay, so pan-arabism, as an ideology, is basically dead by now, even though the arabs are not united. Meanwhile, the Germans are mostly united and the Italians are completely united. Anyway, I was wondering, why did pan-arabism fail where italian nationalism and pan-germanism succeeded?

I read somewhere that the only reason pan-germanism made it anywhere was because of the existence of the French as an enemy of the german people scaring the minor german states into getting in line behind Prussia, but why couldn't Israel serve that purpose for the arabs? After all, Israel has a large arab population, similar to Alsace-Lorraine in France, with its large german population. Did the fact that Israel physically divided the Arab Republic have an effect?