Today, let's celebrate the backup singers and background dancers of history!

Next time: We return to the ever-popular theme You Give Love A Bad Name

I recently read Anthony Beever's Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942–1943 and was shocked at the level of incompetence on both sides.

Was there a similar level of incompetence in the Pacific Theater? Were the Japanese and/or Allied leadership as oblivious of the realities their soldiers faced as the German/Soviet leadership was on the Eastern Front?

Once the tide turned against the Japanese, was the Japanese leadership at the highest level as far into a fantasy world level of denial as Hitler and his staff were?

Historically, many societies had men with long hair. Hair was seen as being masculine and having long hair was no exception for example amongst the Celts, Arabs, Mongols... Today in many traditional cultures men having long hair is a taboo and is seen as a feminine trait. When and why did this occur?

PS- There is a typo in the title, it should read "taboo for men"

Why weren't the dutch invited to the unification process? If they were, why did they decline? On a sidenote, I read somewhere that Austria didn't want to follow through with the unification because they would have to give up their non German lands, but if that's the case, why did the Prussians not have to give up Silesia and eastern Prussia, which from what I understand weren't and aren't German?

(2nd try)

In older depictions of history (Medieval, Renaissance, and hell even some 1800s Western) you see people wearing boots all the time. And because they were usually made of harder material, I'm going to assume that they lasted longer as well and were more durable. Why and when did people start replacing boots with shoes? Thanks guys.

A little bit of background info. My dad was born in 1945 and lived through all of this. However, he never fought in the war as he received some kind of waiver that allowed him to avoid the draft. He feels strongly that this war was just and that we definitely could have won.

We just began watching the Ken Burns Vietnam War documentary and in the discussion we were having after watching the first episode he hit me with the statement in the title. We were discussing how it was left leaning democrat presidents that first got us into the war and then I pointed out that it was the right leaning people who perpetuated and strongly supported the war even after it became clear that there could be no victory. He then angrily told me that there was no right wing at that point in our history. Is he correct?

Another bonus question that I would like to see answered: My dad claims that after the Tet Offensive was repulsed America was on the verge of winning the war but it was Walter Cronkite and the media that convinced the country that it was futile. Is that true? Having watched the Ken Burns documentary before, I know that it is portrayed as essentially a hopeless war right from the very beginning. My dad argues that Ken Burns is extremely biased on this subject, though.

Why was the French army of World war 2 so easily defeated by Germany, in comparison to World War 1 where they are essentially walked over. Was this due primarily to blitzkrieg or kesselschlacht tactics?

From what I have read the Germans surprised the French and passed the Ardennes, crossed the Meuse and began to encircle Allied forces. After the evacuation at Dunkirk, eventually General Petain, General Weygand, and the French government surrendered. What surprised me was how quickly the French surrendered. The soviets were loosing millions of troops and hundreds of square kilometer of territory, the Scandinavians and dutch didn't have a large enough army to resist the Germans, the English risked having their supplies cut off; their surrender would've made sense. In contrast, the French didn't suffer enough casualties and losses in territory and resources to support the decision to surrender in '40

So my question is what factors led to the French surrendering so early into the war? Was the situation hopeless for them and they wanted to prevent civilian casualties? Or does the blame lie with the French commanders as its often perceived.

Lt. Col Kilgore was really the highlight of that overly long movie. I just wondering how historically accurate was his outfit.

There seems to be noticeable differences in the way that eastern and western philosophies present themselves, although they can be hard to put into words. I'm wondering why those philosophies found in Ancient Greece, or Renaissance France, or Germany are so different from those found in China, Tibet, and India.

Other than defeating Nazi Germany, did the US make any deals or trades? I'm particularly interested in the case of Britain

I'm new here and have no clue what I'm doing. I've located a few subreddits that pertain to my interests so I at least have a familiar area to go to, so that's good. My question is, is there an "official" subreddit regarding the Korean War the way there is for World War I and World War II? I've done some searching and have found some subreddits for the war, but none look like their "official" or active.

Thanks.