What was the area now known as Israel/Palestine previously known as? Who was it home to?

I’m aware the area was under Ottoman rule for a long period but what about before then?

2 Answers 2018-06-15

The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau: Battlecruisers or Battleships?

1 Answers 2018-06-15

Why were the German battlecruisers of WW1 called battlecruisers when their armor, speed and armament were nearly battleship level?

For example: The Derffinger had a 300mm belt, the Kaiser a 350mm one. The Derffinger had 305mm guns, the Kaiser too. The Derffinger had 26.5 knots speed and the Kaiser slightly slower at 23.5. So why is the Derffinger called a battlecruiser then? I know that Kaiser Wilhelm II said that he wants his battlecruisers to have more armor than their British counterparts so that they can fight in the line of battle and counter Germanys numerical inferiority. And it worked great. But really, that meant that what makes a battlecruiser a battlecruiser, high speed and firepower but low armor, was not done. Rather they were nearly similar in stats to the dreadnoughts. So why were they considered battlecruisers?

2 Answers 2018-06-15

When were bolt action rifles fully incorporated into the US military’s arsenal?

I know they did have a gun that was called the Greene Rifle that was technically bolt action and was barely a rifle. I was wondering when real bolt actions were added to the US and fully phased out muskets and rifled muskets.

1 Answers 2018-06-15

What language did ancient Egyptians speak?

1 Answers 2018-06-15

How did Russia manage to dominate Northern and Central Asia?

Why would the Tsars invest so many resources into expanding east, and why didn’t powers like China or Persia try and control these areas?

1 Answers 2018-06-15

When did the first examples of opposition to slavery come about?

I think the question may be poorly phrased but I'm not sure how to phrase it so I'll elaborate a little bit.

I would like to know when did opposition to slavery begin not just in mainstream political discourse but in general, so for example were there philosophers in ancient Greece, Rome or Egypt who opposed it? Was abolition of slavery not even suggested till the 17th century? Has the treatment and emancipation of slaves always been an ongoing conversation or were they just considered property and nothing else since civilisation began up until a few centuries ago?

1 Answers 2018-06-15

Why does the Albanian language have no ties to Greek Arabic Latin.

Edit I want to thank everyone for the replies. Although I feel a bit more confused since we aren’t all agreeing here.

What I did learn was that the Albanian language did have some influence by Greece and Latin. Also I learned the Ottoman Empire didn’t use Arabic as a language and so Albanians do have Turkish influence but not Arabic.

As for the question, we all seem to agree that the language is somewhat a mystery and apparently the real origin is unknown. Some say it has to do with isolation in the mountains and some say it has to do with ties to Illyrians. Well its pretty nice to learn somethings and I wish one day we can uncover the truth one day. Sorry I have very bad grammar. Have a nice weekend.

2 Answers 2018-06-15

Why did it take so long for humans to develop iron after they did bronze? Why did some civilizations seemingly skip straight to iron?

From the little I know, iron is easily available but somewhat brittle on its own... But when heated and hammered becomes hard. Did this really take thousands of years to figure out, or is my understanding flawed?

1 Answers 2018-06-15

Soviet tanks produced during the WW2 were still in service for decades after the war in the Soviet Union and its satellite states. But what happened with German tanks produced/used in the war and why were they not used by other countries after the war?

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1 Answers 2018-06-15

What would be the earliest year I would be able to have a conversation in English with someone from the past?

My question is at approximately what point in time did the English language evolve to a form that the advantage person today would be able to have a basic conversation with a common person from that time

2 Answers 2018-06-15

Punk is a style of music that also incorporates a socio-political ethos, and it emerged on both sides of the Atlantic around the same time; were both groups responding to the same things in the larger culture? What provoked them? How analogous were 1970s New York City and London?

3 Answers 2018-06-15

During the Peloponnesian war, why didn't Athens attack Sparta directly?

Sparta sacked the Attic every year but couldn't take Athens because, at least during the first period, the city was too heavily defended.

What I don't understand is why, after Pericles death and after Athens successfully invaded part of the Peloponnese (Pylos), warmongers/fame-mongers like Cleon and Alcibiades didn't suggest to attack the heart of Lacedaemon directly instead of this risky Sicilian expedition? Why not sent their 20.000-40.000 soldiers there?

I mean, Sparta was 200km away, didn't even have walls and was surrounded by a slave population (the Helots) that could have been incited to rebel. Syracuse was like 1000km away and was heavily fortified!

Was it because they only saw this war as "indirect", ie : we'll only attack some cities there and there until our "real" enemy surrender or something ?

1 Answers 2018-06-15

Why was Japan harsher on Korea than its other territories?

Based on what I've read, it seems that the Greater Japanese Empire treated Korea more badly than the other territories they occupied. They even attempted cultural genocide against Korea by trying to make Korean an extinct language. Now, I know there's at least a little chance that this might not be completely true. But if it is, then why? Were there strategic and/or political reasons for Japan to go so far on them or did they just hate the Koreans very much?

2 Answers 2018-06-15

Is the portrayal of Victorian London paralyzed in fear of the Jack the Ripper killings accurate or a product of people revisiting the killings after the fact?

1 Answers 2018-06-15

Did Climate Change Lead to the Han Dynasty?

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1 Answers 2018-06-15

Is their evidence for PTSD outside of a military context in ancient and medieval times?

I saw a reference to PTSD in ancient times being a commonly asked question, but when I went to the FAQ it seemed to focus on soldiers pretty much completely. I am curious as to whether there is evidence of people developing PTSD in civilian life in what were undoubtedly hard times. Between major events like the sacking of cities, plagues, and famines, and the smaller, more common horrors and atrocities that make up human life, I would expect, assuming even the barest similarities in emotional functioning, that we'd hear about the psychological impact more than we do. Of course most of the people who suffered from these events would be lower class (or even slaves, such as after a city was sacked by ancient armies) and less likely to be the subject of documentation. Despite many references to the shock experienced at the time of these types of tragedies, I have not found really any accounts of individuals who suffered long-term emotional disturbances as a result of experiencing what are undoubtedly, by our standards, majorly traumatizing circumstances. While my knowledge of ancient/classical Mediterranean cultures is pretty in-depth and includes many primary sources, my studies of the medieval through early modern periods are confined mostly to secondary sources, and my knowledge of the literature, which might be more likely to provide the evidence I'm interested in, of either period is very shallow.

2 Answers 2018-06-15

Polish historians often say that "archives do not burn". What do you think about it?

This phrase "archives do not burn" as far as I know is a paraphrase of quote from Bulghakov's "Master and Margarita" - "Manuscripts do not burn".

I know historians often divide history (as pertaining to sources) in two periods before modernity where historians often have problems of not having enough sources and period of modernity (lets say after year 1500) where historians have problems because there is such an abundance of sources that they have to choose which documents to read.

During communism there was enormous production of documents (also in the western world everyone makes documents, for example nurse has to write statements after statements about patients). After end of communism elites that lost power tried to destroy evidence of their crimes by destroying documents. And this is when this phrase become popular.

I remember my religion teacher (Catholic nun) explaining to us that church will never lose evidence of our existence "When you are born (or baptized I can not recollect exactly) there is paper made for that occasion, if you move to another city only a copy is send" and then she proceeded to explain all the ways of spreading documentation so that there are so many copies that even if half the archives, in a country get burned, there are copies in other archives.

With communist archives, there also was this proliferation of copies plus, there were documents describing what is in other documents, documents about making particular documents, quotes from one document in the other one. So the philosophy behind this phrase of “fire resistant archives” is that unless world annihilates itself in a nuclear war “truth” is always somewhere there, just maybe not yet accessible.

And one more thing worth mentioning is that while officially documents of communist political police were burned, many people believe that as they were of value for many, before being burned they were turned into microforms and sent to Moscow.

Now as Russia is being accused of destroying KGB and Gulag files, I wonder if they are not simply hiding these documents, that are now digitized, and even if some documents are destroyed are not there copies and quotes from original that are simply forgotten in some basement of provincial archive.

So basically, my question is whether humankind is not in third part of history (as related to documents and archives). That is after 1945 there is no “truth” that can be hidden, it is just a matter of time and technology when it will be discovered.

And obviously this phrase does not pertain to the period between 1500 to 1945 where many archives were in fact destroyed. And for example information about XVI century Poland is partial as this country suffered so many wars, catastrophes and also production of documents was incomparably smaller that in the period after 1945 that while historians of that period have to struggle with abundance of sources, but unlike with communist period there are documents lost forever and that we do not even have information that they existed.

TLDR

Since 1945 there is such a proliferation of documents and so many copies of them are made and digitized, that phrase "archives do not burn" is in fact true, as there are copies of everything and no "truth" can be lost. What do you think?

1 Answers 2018-06-15

What do we know about the Roman genocide conducted by the Kingdom of Pontus; known as the Asiatic Vespers? This act of tyranny led to the deaths of roughly 100,000 Roman settlers in the province of Asia, but there is seemingly little information about it anywhere.

I think it's odd that such a major event in antiquity isn't really focused upon at all. How was this genocide conducted? What were the Pontic rulers attempting to accomplish? What legacy did it leave?

1 Answers 2018-06-15

Don’t read description if you are worried about racist words. Please.

ahem I’ll just ask it straight. In the case that anyone knows, where does n-word come from?

1 Answers 2018-06-15

Why did people choose the Tuscan dialect for the standard Italian language?

I know Dante’s Divine Comedy is famous and all, but what made people suddenly decide to use it to base Italian off of? Surely he wasn’t the only guy writing in his local dialect, right? Correct me if I’m wrong.

3 Answers 2018-06-15

Is there any consensus on who shot Tupac?

1 Answers 2018-06-15

Why do Australians speak without the rhotic R sound?

I mean, how come their accent didn’t develop like most of the American accents?

2 Answers 2018-06-15

How often did Napoleonic soldiers have to run during a battle?

Referring to the infantry specifically

In A popular game I play(Napoleon Total war) a lot of times you have to force your troops to literally run across the battlefield in order to secure a good position (Hill, farmhouse, etc) regardless if they are grenadiers, light infantry, or line infantry as marching your troops takes way longer in game than just making them run the whole time.. In some longer battles you'll be forced to do this many times over which got me thinking about how strange it must be to see these soldiers in an era of warfare where strict order and organised battlelines were so important, just running amok everywhere.

So we're soldiers of the Napoleonic wars ever expected to run extensively during a battle to perform maneuvers?

If so for how long and how fast were they expected to run?

1 Answers 2018-06-15

Did the civil war top generals ( Grant, Lee) ever participate in a face to face combat

I was wondering if these generals participate the battle field and actually faced the enemy at close range ( face to face ) .

1 Answers 2018-06-15

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