I saw a post in r/isitbullshit mentioning a seat with holes, an inspection procedure in front of the Cardinals, and a Latin saying said when the Pope's genitals are confirmed ("he has two and they dangle nicely").

If so, as a follow-up, would a Catholic man who lost his testicles to cancer or a man who was born with only one testicle still be allowed to be Pope, if he were duly elected by the college of Cardinals?

They can any type of from a soldiers personal memoir to an in depth overview of a particular battle. The only thing I'm not interested in reading would be a book that gives a broad overview of the war in it's entirety.

As an example, here are some books I recently finished reading that were all incredible to read.

Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor (absolutely, positively great read. Could not put it down.)

The Pianist by Wladysaw Szpilman

With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge

The Ghost Mountain Boys by James Campbell.

Thank you all for any suggestions.

I realize that Italy was an ally of Britain during the First World War so it’s also ironic that it would be Mussolini to declare war on Britain two decades later.

I'm just curious really, maybe something near the end of the war, when the Luftwaffe was pretty much not a threat anymore? Thanks!

Hi,

A friend of mine found an unknown bullet. He's curious about it's origin or manufacturer.

I have a picture of it.

Is there any chance how to find its origin etc. Where do I ask if this sub isn't supposed to answer my question? Thx for help.

today i founds out that the english word 'elf' and the german word 'alb' are cognate; also, that 'alb' is the modern germanic spelling of 'alp'. so that got me wondering if there was some connection to mountain range of the same name that divides parts of northern europe from the mediterranean region. when looking into that, all i could find was that 'alps' is the latin name for the mountain range, so that proved to be a bit of a dead-end. however, since latin and german are both members of the indo-european language family, perhaps there was some older connection.

perhaps this would be a question better suited to linguists or something, but i'd think that there is such a thing as a 'language historian' and i think general historians might know of any folklore from ancient indo-european cultures of creatures coming from (or escaping to) mountainous areas to infiltrate people's dreams or otherwise disturb them during sleep (albtraum is the german equivalent to nightmare, literally translates to 'elf dream').

thanks in advance for any prospective answers!

What was described in the book was a little frightening as I don't see why it couldn't still be happening 100+ years later. But this book is fiction, so I wonder how accurate it is? On the other hand it seems like this sort of thing would be hidden from history, as it would be done in secret as much as possible.

Were there any reliable accounts of systems of election fraud in US history?

[deleted]

My grandmother was a housewife in the UK during WWII. She told me that it was always a struggle to obtain good quality meat. The beef which was available was made up from the nastiest parts of the cow. So, what happened to the good cuts? The cows still had fillet and sirloin ‘bits’, so where did they end up?

If I was, say, a peasant in a rural part of the Holy Roman Empire, at which point in time would the news of the discovery of the Americas reach me? What if I was a Turk living in Constantinople? And to go further, what if I lived outside of Europe e.g. Persia/Egypt?

I'm using extractive loosely in the sense of Acemoglu-Robinson, e.g. using political/religious/social institutions to give wealth from the many to the few.

I've been doing some light reading about the Reformation and Thirty Years War, and it was really striking to me how extractive the political/religious institutions were. But given the technology levels at the time, it also seems like the only way a large scale political body could function is by being highly extractive. A hypothetical king or emperor needs to be willing to participate in large scale brutality to be able to force compliance with rules, even though they should avoid it whenever possible.

Does this hold true in other historical civilizations? How extractive were the Aztecs, the Chinese, the Mughals, the Japanese, the Maya, the Mongols, the Inca?

I have read that individuals involved in judicial duels would sometimes wear charms in order to bolster their chances of winning, though this practice was often illegal. Assuming this is all correct, what forms would such charms take? Crucifixes on necklaces? Something else?

Or were the films received as mostly apolitical?

One of the things that puzzles me is that modern day left leaning americans are without exceptions extreme pro-LGBT but nothing such I have ever heard about communist countries in the last century. How come ?

Were there filibusters or any congressional theatre to try and stop the nomination of Bobby Kennedy to be the nation’s top prosecutor?

The document was an advertisement for Liberty Bonds during World War One that stated "Buy Liberty Bonds because if the Kaiser wins the war Good Night Shirt".

I have not been able to locate the phrase's origin or precise meaning. Does anyone know?