1 Answers 2017-10-29
Obviously it would vary wildly by the convent but I recently started reading a book about Marie Antoinette and the Diamond Necklace Affair and one of the players in it was an impoverished noble woman who spent portions of her youth parked in a convent. It got me thinking and made me wonder what life was like in a convent for girls who's families left them there for a time but were not expecting to take vows. I'll take whatever anyone knows but I'm mostly interested in the Enlightenment era.
1 Answers 2017-10-29
1 Answers 2017-10-29
I'm in a bit of a heated debate at the moment with a gentleman who asserts, thus far without providing any proof whatsoever, that the anecdote of Taffy 3 Avengers and Wildcats at the Battle off Samar taking off primarily armed with what was at hand--anti-ground high explosive bombs and depth charges--is a "myth".
He alleges that:
Firstly, and frankly this is a tired old myth that need to start dying. The first waves were armed as such because it was what was at hand. Follow on waves were armed for anti-ship operations. Or am I mistakenly thinking 3 heavy cruisers were sunk primarily by air attack?
Secondly, why are we forced to assume a naval task force carrying out a very different type of operation wouldn't be armed for anti-ship operations from the get go?
And Taffy 3's inability to conduct recovery and rearmament operations somehow means they carried zero anti-ship weapons in their stores? If Taffy 2 had them, then so did Taffy 3.
The implication is that aircraft from Taffy 3 were certainly re-armed with anti-ship ordnance later in the day, and that they may possibly have flown from the decks of their CVE's with anti-ship armament in the first place that morning.
I've never read anything to this effect. I've always heard that the aircraft of Taffy 3 attacked the Combined Fleet predominantly with light bombs, machine guns, and even depth charges.
My question is twofold:
Were aircraft from Taffy 3 armed with anti-ship weapons when they were first sent into the air from their escort carriers' decks at the opening of the battle?
Were aircraft from Taffy 3 at any point re-armed with anti-ship weapons at either Tacloban or aboard Taffy 2? (It's my impression that aircraft from Taffy 3 were redirected to land and not re-armed aboard Taffy 2, but I am not certain).
I am aware that aircraft from Taffy 2 arriving later in the battle were indeed properly equipped to face capital ships, with torpedo-armed Avengers credited with sinking Chikuma. That's not my question--I'm wondering about the aircraft of Taffy 3.
A specific question, but hopefully that should make it a simple matter to resolve. Thanks!
2 Answers 2017-10-29
Had a friend claim that the Soviet embassy was overrun in the Iranian revolution, and the Iranian government took hostages. The Soviet government responded by capturing the hostage takers' families and sending body parts to the Iranian government, and got their people quickly released. This smells like apocrypha, but did some version of this happen or have the Russian/Soviet government ever done anything similar in other cases?
2 Answers 2017-10-29
It's fairly common to see picture of women in the vietcong, but almost all of these pics are staged propaganda pictures. So my questions are, how common were female member of the vietcong, and how common were female "grunts" who would go out on attacks or ambushes, not just lay traps and dig tunnels. Thanks.
1 Answers 2017-10-29
From The German Ideology:
The third form of ownership is feudal or estate property. If antiquity started out from the town and its little territory, the Middle Ages started out from the country. This different starting-point was determined by the sparseness of the population at that time, which was scattered over a large area and which received no large increase from the conquerors. In contrast to Greece and Rome, feudal development at the outset, therefore, extends over a much wider territory, prepared by the Roman conquests and the spread of agriculture at first associated with it. The last centuries of the declining Roman Empire and its conquest by the barbarians destroyed a number of productive forces; agriculture had declined, industry had decayed for want of a market, trade had died out or been violently suspended, the rural and urban population had decreased. From these conditions and the mode of organisation of the conquest determined by them, feudal property developed under the influence of the Germanic military constitution. Like tribal and communal ownership, it is based again on a community; but the directly producing class standing over against it is not, as in the case of the ancient community, the slaves, but the enserfed small peasantry. As soon as feudalism is fully developed, there also arises antagonism to the towns. The hierarchical structure of land ownership, and the armed bodies of retainers associated with it, gave the nobility power over the serfs. This feudal organisation was, just as much as the ancient communal ownership, an association against a subjected producing class; but the form of association and the relation to the direct producers were different because of the different conditions of production.
This feudal system of land ownership had its counterpart in the towns in the shape of corporative property, the feudal organisation of trades. Here property consisted chiefly in the labour of each individual person. The necessity for association against the organised robber-nobility, the need for communal covered markets in an age when the industrialist was at the same time a merchant, the growing competition of the escaped serfs swarming into the rising towns, the feudal structure of the whole country: these combined to bring about the guilds. The gradually accumulated small capital of individual craftsmen and their stable numbers, as against the growing population, evolved the relation of journeyman and apprentice, which brought into being in the towns a hierarchy similar to that in the country.
Thus the chief form of property during the feudal epoch consisted on the one hand of landed property with serf labour chained to it, and on the other of the labour of the individual with small capital commanding the labour of journeymen. The organisation of both was determined by the restricted conditions of production–the small-scale and primitive cultivation of the land, and the craft type of industry. There was little division of labour in the heyday of feudalism. Each country bore in itself the antithesis of town and country; the division into estates was certainly strongly marked; but apart from the differentiation of princes, nobility, clergy and peasants in the country, and masters, journeymen, apprentices and soon also the rabble of casual labourers in the towns, no division of importance took place. In agriculture it was rendered difficult by the strip-system, beside which the cottage industry of the peasants themselves emerged. In industry there was no division of labour at all in the individual trades themselves, and very little between them. The separation of industry and commerce was found already in existence in older towns; in the newer it only developed later, when the towns entered into mutual relations.
This theme is also touched on more superficially in the Communist Manifesto. I've seen repeated here that feudal relations as we tend to think of them (e.g. a definite structure of kings > lords > knights > serfs or what have you) didn't actually exist, but is this schema--that a definite mode of production discrete from our current one existed and no longer exists--historically plausible?
1 Answers 2017-10-29
I'm about to graduate and as most of my mates at university, I don't know what the heck I'm going to focus on. Lately I've developed an interest in programming and data science in particular and I've been wondering if there is a way to mix both data science and historical research together. They have in common the use of statistical data as a source. But during all semestres I've been studying, I haven't had any opportunity to research using statistical sources. The only time I did it was on a summer investigation on trade between Chile and Japan between 1934-1938 and boy, I was clueless about how to use all that data. The only guidance I was given was on historical context and bibliography, but nothing on statistical analysis.
Now, I remember reading some books that used or mentioned stadistical data to draw conclusions. Most were on economic history and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall Darton mentioning studies on medieval culture and concepts by using stadistical data derived from medieval literature. This was in his book titled "The Great Cat Massacre". But that's all.
I'm considering taking a course on social stadistics that the Sociology faculty is imparting in my university as I can't take any pure stadistic postgrade as they all require engineering or mathematical background. I can still learn the more technical side of data analysis by myself, but I'm unsure of how to apply it to historical studies. Any ideas?
Heres a TLDR round of questions:
Has stadistical data been used in recent Historical research? Where? How? Whom?
How is stadistics commonly used for research? Is there any advantage on using these kind of sources?
Has there been any discussion on methodology regarding the use of statistical sources?
What's your opinion on the possibility on combining data analysis and history? Is there any precedent for this?
Thanks in advance for any insight. I trully admire this community for the great effort you show when answering queries :)
1 Answers 2017-10-29
I'm in the middle of creating an essay/presentation on this topic, and I'm having trouble finding concrete, sourced info. I've read anecdotal information on Reddit, Quora, etc. about the leadership of King Casimir the Great and the lack of cat-killing playing a role, among other things. What I really need is some quality, sourced primary or secondary information about the topic. Any ancient Poland experts out there?
1 Answers 2017-10-29
We are having a discussion with a friend who is a History teacher and we are talking about the Vietnam War. Everyone in our group agrees that while it is called the Vietnam War, it was actually only a military conflict since it was never declared a war by Congress. He refuses to cede his position until we show him in academic material it being refered to as a conflict. Until then he holds that it was a full fledged war and not a conflict, that regardless of what Congress says, it is a war as long as 1 side says it is a war. Can anyone provide documentation or evidence to settle this dispute for us. Thanks
1 Answers 2017-10-28
I'm doing a report on the effect of this papal bull on the Jewish community during the plague and whether it was positive or things stayed the same. I have found it extremely hard to find sources so if anyone has any links to articles or books, they would be greatly appreciated.
1 Answers 2017-10-28
1 Answers 2017-10-28
In addition to Eva Braun, I've heard that both Hitler and Stalin had girlfriends or wives that ultimately committed suicide (not necessarily while with either of them).
Is there any veracity to that claim? If so, how many total?
1 Answers 2017-10-28
I looked at the books list but I'm afraid nothing struck me as fitting my needs. Basically, I'm trying to figure out how much food and water units would have had to carry with them, and how weather, local availability, and carrying capacity would have affected us before we had horse-drawn wagons and the like. How possible was it to live off the land in pre-industrial eras and still actively maintain a fighting force? How did travelers feed themselves on pilgrimages, and on trade routes?
Surely someone has done a fairly comprehensive study of it and put it into one source?
1 Answers 2017-10-28
I've started researching the history of it, and notice that places like France, Austria, and Prussia were very strong. But which was the most powerful in terms of military, economy, religion, and control? Where was the central seat of power?
2 Answers 2017-10-28
I am watching a documentary on Netflix titled "The Russian Revolution", and there's this line 18 minutes in where it's mentioned that:
"He had a maid of 12, whom he paid one ruble a month, and kept her in a sort of cage under the stairs."
This was in the context of the time he spent exiled in Siberia, and how it wasn't all that bad.
This is followed up with a chuckle about "So much for bolshevik egalitarianism".
Quote was said by a Prof. Donald Rayfield, author of "Stalin and his Hangmen".
Could anyone shed light on the issue?
1 Answers 2017-10-28
Before the 17th century Spain was the only one with a real presence in the region, and after the 18th Great Britain owned most of the Lesser Antilles and some of the Greater.
So I'm wondering what this region was like between those periods. Were there any nations who dominated the others when it came to naval power, trade, plantations, etc.? And were there any islands that were considered to be better or worse than others (better harbours, better farms, etc.)?
Bonus: I'm looking for books (or anything really) with good depictions of 18th century settlements in the Caribbean.
1 Answers 2017-10-28
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1 Answers 2017-10-28
I learnt that Winchester Model was very popular among american forces and was used in trench wars. And it was also known that Germany did raise voice against its usage
But the usage continued , it was only used a bit in Pacific theater but not many soldiers talked about using it.Why was it then not much used in world war 2?
1 Answers 2017-10-28
And is it the same everywhere in the world today?
1 Answers 2017-10-28
4 Answers 2017-10-28
I understand that the Egyptian empire declined, but there were still Egyptian people living there. At what point did they transition from hieroglyphics to written Arabic. Did this correspond with the time they converted to Islam? Also, why did that happen?
1 Answers 2017-10-28