I was looking into the War of 1812 and found this claim was put forward while attempting to re-negotiate the Jay Treaty. Any help would be useful!

Was the american civil war really not over the slavery? What were the main reasons behind the opposing sides? I find myself in a very difficult position in which I cannot trust either side.

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We almost see the US assistance in europe as the nail in the coffin for the axis but, was this a choice or an moral obligation since Japan were their allies?

I’m mostly concerned about the socialist part, as that’s the thing most people will use to try to align the left with nazis.

It seems logical that the Allies would try large scale naval landings in northwestern Germany to avoid the defensive lines of the Western Front, but no such landings ever occurred. Was this due to a fear of naval landings going poorly like Gallipoli?

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I am approaching my senior year of high school. I am passionate about history and it has always been the only subject that never gets old to me and never will. I deeply enjoy learning about it. I would absolutely love to major in history but I was wondering what the career path options are after graduating. Are there ever many internship-like opportunities available for history majors still in college, and if so, what are some examples?

I've often seen people blame the "Puritan roots" of the U.S. as the reason for a lot of the more conservative views that are predominant today. Probably the most common is the more conservative views on sex, especially how protective the U.S. is of letting teens be exposed to sexually explicit content or even non-sexual nudity. But I've also seen to attributed to other things, such as simply the lower rate of people who identify as atheist compared to many European countries.

I've always been skeptical of this explanation, though, so I wanted to see what everyone here thought. As I understand it, Puritanism wasn't a movement about purity in terms of abstaining from sex, alcohol, etc., it was about "purifying" the Anglican church of many of the practices they kept from Catholicism that didn't have any Biblical basis. Although it seems that a lot of the Puritan communities that emigrated to the U.S. were quite socially conservative nonetheless, so maybe there is some truth to it.

Hello AskHistorians,

I’ve been binging a few WWII shows and movies lately, and the films focus mostly on the American men overseas. While I do not want to detract from the sacrifices made by soldiers and families in WWII, this focus has me wondering about the men who were not draft-eligible? What was life like for them?

What part did men who were too sick, too small (a la Captain America), too old, etc. play in the war? Did they work in factories along with the women of the time? Did they sell war bond? Did they spiral into depression?

Also, what was the typical opinion of those who were not draft eligible? Did society look down on them? Was there a long-lasting self-hatred for not being able to ‘help out?’

I understand every experience is subjective, but I was wondering if there were any over-arching patterns for these men.

Thank you!

PS: I’m on mobile so please excuse any formatting errors

As a history student, I often must refer to the historical significance of slavery in pre-colonial and colonial America, Africa, Europe, and Islamic nations. When discussing the historical relationship between slaves and their "masters", I often feel helpless with the terms I am forced to use. Master or owner are the most common terms, but I must admit that they have a significant "ick" factor. I realize that history is full of "ick", but as modern historians, it is not our duty to contextualize history for current and future generations? What sort of legacy do we leave by continuing to use outdated terms such as owner or master?

I remember reading this somewhere and found it generally interesting and wanted to know if there is any credibility to it.

Believers of Judaism are Jews. Believers are Christianity are Christians. Why are believers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints called Mormons?

I have recently become quite interested in Chinese history in particular how their history affects their view of the world today and their resulting foreign policies.

One issue that tends be brought up is the century of humiliation referring to the period of foreign intervention and colonialism in china that lasted from the 1830's to 1940s. However much of what I have read comes from western scholars and commentators and I fear I may have a somewhat distorted perspective. Thus I wanted to ask:

1. How has the century of humiliation been interpreted by historians both within and outside of China?
2. How much has Chinese interpretations and memories determined their policies towards the rest of the world. Namely did it figure into Mao's revolutionary thinking and foreign policy. And when Deng and other Chinese political leaders decided to re-engage with the West how was this affected by memories and interpretations of the period?

Was record keeping of suicide sometimes purposely inaccurate to hide deaths by other means? How was suicide viewed by regular German cutizens, and how did they react when it was found out Hitler and other Nazis killed themselves? Did people in concentration camps commit suicide, and how? What group persecuted by the Nazis commited suicide most often, and which group commited suicide least often?

I know that Nazi Germany was severely lacking in oil reserves, which is a major reason for the invasion of the USSR. There's a lot of coal in Germany; why not make their Panzers run on electricity generated via coal power? The Battle of the Bulge and Kursk would have gone much better for the Germans if their tanks weren't worried about running out of gas.

I have been reading several (relatively academic) books on the history and mythology of the Ancient World and of the Classical Period, and I noticed that the writers sometimes reference other modern writers who reference an older text. For example, a 2001 book, when discussing point X, references a 1997 book making point X, which, in turn, turns out to be a reference to a 1968 book discussing the same point X. Why does the writer of the most recent book simply not make a reference to the original text instead? What is the reasoning behind this?

The same goes for older sources: why does writer A writing in the 2010s say that writer B from the 1980s mentions a certain anecdote related in a 1st-century book instead of just saying that the ancient writer wrote about this?