I’m an African-American that is currently living in Argentina. I never realized this until recently. In the time period between the 1950’s through the 1970’s most of the African wars for independence were fought, uprisings and riots were breaking out across the US, the UK and the anglophone Caribbean and in the francophone Caribbean and Africa people were writing about negritude.

I understand that the European caste system was different from American segregation. But why did this revolutionary attitude take hold in Angola and Mozambique but not Brazil? What set francophone Latin America apart from the Spanish/Portuguese speaking countries?

There were numerous socialist revolutions popping up across Latin America at the time, why was there no separate movement for black Spanish/Portuguese speaking Latinos?

Edit: I should add that I asked this question on r/asklatinamerica before, it looks like I got one response from somebody that was shadowbanned. Both gave an answer that I know to be false and that is “black people were just as poor and treated just as poorly as everybody else”.

I know that this is false, unless the “everybody else” only includes the native groups. Until around 1950, Cosa Rica has Jim Crowe style segregation laws that only allowed Afro-Costa Ricans to live in the Provence of Limón. Afro-Brazilians earn less money than white Brazilians (my wife is Brazilian so I know more about Brazilian race relations than I do about other countries in Latin America). I visited Cartagena Colombia with my wife. We went to a beach on the island of Barú and I was shocked to see that I was the only black person that was actually there on vacation. I could go on but you get the point that I’m trying to make.

Many people often give a lot of credit to the Roman Empire on how effective it was in terms of military prowess, politics (even though it was pretty shady and corrupt many times especially during the Roman Republic era), engineering, military strategy and so on.

But this is mostly evident during the late Roman Republic era and the early-to-mid era of the Roman Empire as the there were a few instabilities in the Roman Empire that eventually made it more suspectible to entire collapse around 476CE - from less than capable leaders like Commodus, Nero and Caligula, and lots of dispute because of the massive lands that made it hard to govern by only one person until Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into 2 and later into the Tetrarchy (which also involved some internal conflict between who ruled what who was meant to be an Augustus and who was meant to be a Caesar)

The Classical Roman Empire only managed to survive for at least 400 years and at least 200 years since the Empire was divided into the East and the West, while the Eastern half of the Roman Empire managed to survive for at least a 1000 more years

(Note - Longetivity does not necessary mean that the civilisation had lots of prowess and influence. The Byzantine Empire surely managed to prosper but until the Fourth Crusade (even reading about makles me angry that such a tragedy happened because some angry people wanted to attack someone, let alone their own allies) and when the Byzantine Empire lost almost almost all of its lands in Anatolia to the Ottamans, the Byzantine Empire was much weaker than it once was)

So ironically, while the Byzantine Empire was literally surrounded by enemies, from the Arabs and the Muslims, to the Persians, the saracens and even the Normans and the Rus (until they are became their allies and the elite bodyguards of the Emperor), it was paradoxically one of the most advanced, economically robust and thriving empire with lots of trades between Europe and Asia, massive architectural achievements like the Hogia Sophia and the Theodosian Walls and so many others (which is still very odd on how the Byzantine Empire does not get that much attention on Medieval History).

(and ironically, the Byzantine Empire still gets very little attention in general population or at least in pop culture, in comparison to the classical Roman Empire)

So how did the Byzantine Empire still manage to survive despite that it was surrounded by lots of enemies and factors that would have lost its influence entirely? What was its governing structure compared to that of the Western Roman Empire? How was it governed to keep the peace among the people of different ethnic groups and different religions? How was the military trained

I was reading the french wikipedia article regarding the historicity of the city of Mecca, and stumble upon this thesis, and I was wondering what was the actual academic POV about it.

Thanks !

It seems odd that the Nazis targeted Jews, a group that essentially look exactly like Europeans, over say Africans, Muslims or Asians. Was it the religious aspect as well? Even then, African, Muslim and Asian religions were even further from Christianity than Judaism.

There was a few days in between Little Boy and Fat Man

How did the Japanese govt react? Internally and Externally

I was listening to the "How it Began" podcast and the person asserted that before coffee was introduced to Europe in the 1500s, because of the inability of urban centers to separate their water supplies from their effluent, the best way to ensure that one was drinking a safe drink was to drink something alcoholic. Makes sense. As a result, the podcast noted, most people spend their waking lives buzzed or drunk. He cites some tavern orders that note that some people ordered 7 liters of wine per person per day, for instance, and notes that there is art from the period showing children with very large takards for breakfast.

It was an interesting podcast and he said that the introduction of coffee to urban areas allowed people to not only drink something safe that would not make them drunk, but would in fact sharpen their wits as we all know coffee is a stimulant.

However, making coffee involves boiling, so did people of the period not simply realize that they could boil water and let it cool and they would have a safe drink?

I've had the pleasure of reading Gombrich - The Story of Art; Illustrated, McPherson - Battle Cry of Freedom; Illustrated, and I'm about half way through Davies - Europe: A History. What am I missing?

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After reading some books and articles on Italy during the Inter-war period it seems like Mussolini didn’t initially like Hitler. He thought of them as barbarians and the Germans thought they were a step up from Slavs. After his friend and the leader of Austria, Engelbert Dollfuss was killed by Austrian Nazis, and his buffer state being absorbed into growing German Reich why did Italy later change their stance on Germany?

Mussolini doesn’t seem like the guy to let go of a grudge and threat of a rising power north of him, shouldn’t this convince him to ally with other powers in Europe? Was it just because how much Germany was gaining and they thought they could get a piece? Or were they intimidated by them? Or did Hitler convince Mussolini to be allies?

So, in school I was taught that spiral staircases in castles are pretty much always anticlockwise so that soldiers could easily run up the stairs easily wielding their sword in there right hand since most people are right-handed.

I have thought about this again recently and disagree. Surely the people running up these staircases wielding swords would be attackers of the castle and thus this would aid the attacker? Possibly it's to carry a bow up the stairs to fire down on the enemy?

Just a thought

Did people in the past actually categorize types of infantry as heavy or light and same with cavalry?

More precisely I was wondering if he might was the only person in the Soviet state, who could talk to Stalin as equals. Considering the high respect he hold within the army and the Russian population I have hard time believing that Stalin could have purged him.

I was just doing a little research about the Nuremberg trials when it dawned on me that I don't have a clue about what happened to the "war criminals" after The Great War. I had heard that WW2 was the first time that a tribunal was held to hold individuals responsible for atrocities committed during wartime, so I assume that a similar tribunal was not conducted during WW1. That being said, after WW1, just like after WW2, tensions were probably high and retribution was most likely demanded from the Allies. My questions is this, what kind of retribution was dealt out to the members of the Axis Powers after WW1?

It should be noted that I am not interested in the economic and military sanctions imposed against the countries themselves, but more specifically the criminal penalties doled out to the military and government officials.

Thanks.

So, i am in Rome and i saw the temple of antoninus and faustina. I read about the story of the high door and how the ground level used to be higher. Still, there is a doubt on my mind. If the ground was so above how come the base of the columns of the temple are on the lower (and more recent) level? Any roman or historian that canal answer me?