over in the sub r/interestingasfuck there is currently a thread about an old map made in Japan in 1932 that uses cartoons and text to describe the other countries of the world as they currently looked.

For instance in Germany we can see Hitler grappling with Hindeburg and in India the british are having problems with a giant Gandhi.

For France we see the image of a seemingly troubled man (who resembles Pierre Laval, the prime minister of france 1931-32) taking a footbath in what appears to be a tub of gold goins.

The caption supposedly reads "France, suffering from having to much money"

So why did France have so much money in the interwar years and what happened with it that made a cartoonist all the way over in Japan to use that to focus on when making a satirical map describing the countries of the world?

How much differently was religion perceived so that they were able to justify worshipping beings which are so utterly reprehensible in behavior?

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Hi /r/AskHistorians, I'm an undergraduate student taking a class called History of Fascism, studying the causes and effects of Fascism in Germany and Italy. For the class I have to write a research paper on a topic relating to Fascism and would love some suggestions from an expert of the field. I have read Mussolini's autobiography "My Rise and Fall" and Alan Bullock's "A Study in Tyranny" for class. I can use these as sources but not the primary source of my research. Since Italian history is less commonly known (since the Nazi's and the Holocaust is so infamous) I would prefer to do a topic on Italy.

Thanks in advance to anyone who contributes to this post.

I'm visiting the UK from the states and I've seen castles and castle ruins in Wales as well as Roman ruins in England. Are these ruins restored with new bricks and plaster? Or am I looking at 2000 year old rocks? What about the walls to divide pastures? How old are these? Thanks!

I am having trouble finding information on Mstislav Mstislavich the bold and his thoughts on Genghis Khan. How should I find a primary source for this.

Why not just give it to the Lithuanian SSR, Rather than have it directly controlled by Moscow and geographically isolated from the rest of that Soviet republic?

Surely people knew what bread and wine tasted like to not truly believe that they were consuming part of his body and blood. I understand that religion was a massive part of people's lives at the time, but I find it somewhat hard to believe that everyone would just accept that bread was the body of Christ. And surely it was a slightly cannibalistic practice, which must have triggered some sort of moral debate.

The recent film "Victoria and Abdul" has a few scenes where Queen Victoria and her household meet Indian Muslim women who are completely veiled (I guess it would be a burqa if that can be properly applied to the Indian version). Victoria (played by Judi Dench) remarks in the film that she finds it "rather dignified". Other British female characters go between finding it exotic and strange to confusingly approving of it.

Do we know what actual contemporary Victorians really thought about purdah and Islamic veiling? I recall Orlando Figes mentioning that British Victorian Protestants thought Islam "more Protestant" and therefore more acceptable than Catholic or Orthodox Christianity, and I can see certain aspects of purdah appealing to Victorian morality. On the other hand, racism and belief in an objectively superior Western civilization was very prevalent at the time. Furthermore, my understanding is that veiling by non-elite Muslim women would actually have been much, much rarer in the 19th century than today.

The only sources I can find are either less than reliable or at best Wikipedia which still links to a documentary that for all I know could be typical Ancient Aliens drivel. Did this actually happen? If so, what did their model of earth look like, who advocated for it, and how accepted was it among their scientists and leaders?

Basically, I'm wondering what exactly made it so that Cleopatra was able to become the ruler?

It should not be surprising that in our age of artificial realities (starting from movies to video games to VR) people are contemplating the possibility that the "real" world is also an illusion, or a simulation akin to the "Matrix". But have any of the ancient philosophers seriously contemplated this idea. If so, who were they, how well accepted/developed these ideas got, and what were the precursors to these ideas coming forth? (to the later point, the obvious answer would be dreams, but perhaps there was something else?) I'm aware that some religions posit that the universe is a just a dream of a deity (Hinduism?) but for a long time these views would be localized to the culture practicing such religion, and I'd be curious to see if any philosophers outside of such cultures developed this idea.

I was recently watching an old BBC program called fall of the eagles in which it portrayed Wilhelm the first as being very reluctant to accept role as Emperor of Germany. Is this accurate and if so why was this?

Just a random thought I got recently.Like the massive migrations that happened because of the collapse, like were there people in China or close to China who migrated towards west? And was it in such big numbers that Chinese people were theorising on what is happening somewhere west?

Also I'm quite sure that silk got to Rome, would that have effected directly to the economy of China?

I remember reading somewhere that the British in the American Revolution looked favorably on reports of rapes, particularly in New York, as it implied that their soldiers were recovering from the voyage to the Americas. Is there any truth to this and, if so, how widespread was the practice?

I'm not referring to a specific building material which may not have been available to the ancients, but more to structures using a more modern construction process or technique to allow a larger, more complex building.

Follow up questions: why would they have found difficulty in building it?

Edit: I'm referring to the FIRST structure built after the fall of the empire, apologies.

How do I find out? Do I receive a letter, or are numbers printed in the newspaper or announced on the radio? Or do the police just show up at my house one day and ship me into a truck?

Do I have to pack up my things and leave town within a few days, or is a date set six months from now so I can have my tearful goodbyes to my family?

Yes, I just watched Master & Commander. Some of the things they did felt realistic, other things (like sharpening swords) seem out of place.