This week, tell us about how people in your era interacted with wild animals! Did they draw animal art on tomb walls? Trap them in menageries to display royal power? Hunt to extinction?

Talk about it here!

In short, since the title of the Articles of Confederation included the words "Perpetual Union", and the preamble of the Constitution includes "to form a more perfect Union", therefore it must mean (and in fact be inherently obvious) that individual member states shall not leave the union - even if the topic is not addressed in "meat" of either document.

Followon Q: If it was widely understood, why did all the states agree to that? It seems a stretch to go from the lower-case "u" united States of America (ok, we'll band together as it's the best way to fight the war and get International help) as implied in the Declaration of Independence to "The United States of America" in just a few years, what changed?

Earliest I can tell Texas v. White cements this as a Supeme Court ruling in 1869.

Why did ancient civilisations such as Egypt and Babylon not go on to craft empires comparable to that of Rome?

I understand that they created empires that were at the time huge, but none, in my eyes, got close to the achievements of Rome, and i find this surprising considering how technologically superior they were to their adversaries (such as Rome was to the Gauls)

So I know that Japan in part surrendered in ww2 because of the atom bomb.

But I also heard that the Russians were planning to join the pacific theater of war around the time of the bombs dropping because of Germany surrendering and that the Japanese were scared of the Russians more so than of Americans.

So my question I guess is if the Russians entering the conflict against Japan the bigger reason they actually surrendered than the atomic bombs?

It seems to be commonly said today that, while Columbus believed he had reached what we would think of as eastern Asia, his contemporaries soon realized that they were dealing with a new place, not known from previous journeys to the east. Do we know who first realized this (or at least, who first publicly proclaimed it)? Was it accepted immediately, or was there a continuing and competing belief that the New World was in some way connected to Asia?

I don't know if this is a problem with other languages with the Roman alphabet, but English just seems particularly screwy when it comes to pronouncing things, even as a native. What gives?

Hey there,

some while ago a friend told me that Hitler & co. used to take alot of drugs and also did experiments on soldiers. I did not find anything useful yet and now i discovered this subreddit.

Thanks in advance

The recently rescued Thai soccer team just entered monkhood for 9 days, the time they were alone before being discovered in the cave. They note they are doing this in memory of the Thai Navy seal who died during the rescue efforts, along with showing gratitude for all other rescue workers.

The idea of temporary monkhood seems rather foreign to me as a Westerner, and am wondering if there's any history of Christianity, or other Abrahamic religions, having temporary vows instead of life long terms (if vows is even the right term to use in the Thai setting).

Like, with the wierd constipation cures involving drinking mercury or eating heavy metals, why was it such a problem needing a solution? I assume it has something to do with diet?

I've been reading David Hinton's wonderful Classical Chinese Poetry anthology, and it's piqued my interest in Chinese poetry in its original artform. His introduction on the translation process has been illuminating but it's only a small sample. Are there books or online references that would be more comprehensive?

The recent article in Slate regarding the AskHistorians policy regarding Holocaust denial was interesting. One of the central thrusts seemed to be that outright denial of the Holocaust is certainly bad, but the more insidious form of 'just asking questions' with the intent to ferment doubt and uncertainty regarding the facts is equally bad or worse. So it is with some care that I ask this, and I offer (for whatever it may be worth) an assurance that my intentions are pure. I am in no way questioning what happened, or the numbers in any significant sense, but just trying to understand where a tranche of the data comes from.

I understand that much of the data regarding the number of people murdered during the Holocaust comes from the Reich's own (in)famously meticulous records from the extermination camps and concentration camps, and that these have been corroborated with pre-war residential and population data from Europe, as well as from surviving family accounts and records. This would seem a complex task, but at least a relatively straightforward one. But large numbers of people were killed, especially earlier in the war, by a combination of mobile SS groups (Einsatszgruppen) who murdered people in groups in an ad-hoc manner as the Reich forces advanced in what would be assumed to be a far less well-documented fashion. Equally, the regime employed native nationalist/xenophobic paramilitiaries to enact pogroms and mass murders in their stead in many areas across eastern Europe in the same period. I would assume that these groups did not keep particularly good records themselves, and in some cases these actions were occurring with a backdrop of a similarly extraordinary destruction of the state and population (I understand that Belarus lost a quarter of its total population and almost four-fifths of its settlements destroyed). It would nevertheless appear that historians have come to reasonably precise estimates of the numbers killed.

My question is therefore: how do historians arrive at the numbers murdered by the SS and their analogues in the east outside of the extermination camp system?

Talking specifically about people like David Irving and other Holocaust deniers, and propaganda machines from various countries spreading misinformation to citizens.

Is there some sort of "blacklist" of unreliable or lying historians?

Not asking about those who make mistakes or need correction about some misconception.

For example, you can find 1500s and 1600s maps that show "Italy" as a unified country long before it was united, with no hint of the Spanish presence. The borders of the Holy Roman Empire, not even the Habsburg lands, were not depicted. Ottoman Europe and Ottoman Asia were shown as separate countries and given Roman provincial names.

However, in the 1700s or 1800s, you start to see real borders and countries drawn on maps.

What was the context of this change/improvement of maps, and what was the philosophy involved?

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I don't have a specific historical time frame that I'm interested in but I'm just curious, did Kings keep a giant room filled with gold coins? Was it locked by key and how is access and inventory controlled? I also mean in time frames predating banking systems

Given that Queen Henrietta Maria was the sister of Louis XIII, did Charles I ever request French aid?

Does anyone have any suggestion for good credible sources for a paper I am writing on Soviet foreign policy during the interwar years?

Currently on holiday through Spain and Portugal and have seen some incredibly cool ancient structures from castles, old fortified village walls to houses. I’ve never really looked into the history of such things before, but now that I’ve dipped my feet in a bit, I’ve become fascinated and often found myself wondering who built these structures.

I’ve tried to find some information online, but maybe I’m googling for the wrong thing because all that comes up is touristy information about Moorish Castles and things like that. Just thought I’d hit you guys up for some help.

Thanks for indulging me!

What was the general attitude towards the theatre before Hollywood ever arose?