Ok so if Santa Claus has more of a German backstory, around Christmas time it would be freezing cold right? so wouldnt a bit of coal in a stocking actually help someone stay warm if they used it for a fire?

In history, are stockings just for children? Where does the whole idea of stockings and coal for bad kids come from?

So Artemsia Gentileschi was raped at 17. When she brought it to trial tortured in court (which is a whole other topic), but why did the trial not bring her rapist to justice? I don’t understand what happened there?

I have no idea where to even look after googling everything that came to my mind. Is there a historical database that's accessible for me to scour through? Thanks in advance!

Hello all. I tried looking at the book list in the sidebar, but when I selected Russia, nothing showed up. I am not sure if this is the right place to ask, but here goes. Does anyone have any good book recommendations on this topic. Recently, I have started studying the Russian revolution in depth and I am looking for a book that documents old bolsheviks without just centering on Trotsky and Lenin. People I am interested in are Sverdlov, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, etc. The important Bolshevik players that often get overlooked. Thanks in advance.

There is historical evidence of a conflict between Mycenaeans and Wilusa sometime during the Bronze Age Collapse and there is evidence that an Anatolian city on the coast was raised during this period.

Given evidence that something happened in this region at this time, what are some plausible reasons why the Mycenaeans would cross the sea to attack a city so far away since the Helen story is almost certainly a fiction.

Was it related to wider pressures causes by the Collapse? I.e. lack of reasources leading to fighting over what little there was?

I guess this is more asking for resources and scholars to read/watch than it is a specific question, but AskReddit said my question may be better suited for this subreddit than theirs.

Long story short, I'm a writer, and I've decided one of my characters is going to be Native American, but that I'm going to create a fictional tribe as to avoid any misappropriation or misrepresentation of living cultures' customs and beliefs, and allow for more freedom in adapting their beliefs to fit the world they're in.

But, even if the tribe I'm making is fake, I need to do my research. I want to do this properly, and make this tribe as believable and respectful of existing tribes as possible, but I have no clue where to even begin. I don't have any indigenous friends or friends of friends, and I don't know a single reputable source for information on any individual tribe, let alone multiple, since what I create will likely be an amalgamation of many influences. Perhaps even branching off of preexisting tribes in some way in the distant past.

So, where are some good places to start my research? If there are any educational videos on these topics, those would be of interest as well. Tribes specifically native to Montana would be ideal, since that is where this character will be coming from.

This is a trope in TV, movies, and romance novels. Lord and Lady so-and-so are caught kissing in the garden by a town gossip, and the only honorable thing for a gentleman to do is to marry the woman to preserve her reputation. If he does not do so he’s a dishonourable rake and the lady’s reputation and that of her family is destroyed.

Would there really have been this kind of pressure? Are there any recorded cases of this happening?

I read today that 6 of the 9 Justics are Catholic. I know some of them were appointed within the last 20 years. Was it so Catholic in 2002 and before, and if so what led to that?

My specific question, on the off chance such a person exists and follows this forum, is how operating systems were able to accommodate so many diverse hardware configurations among early computers, specifically Apple II and classic Macintosh platforms, where there existed a host of “upgrade cards” that added memory, graphics, and even processor upgrades through expansion bus products. I understand the basic principle of “device driver” software components, but it’s just boggling my mind how it was possible for software to run with acceptable and even sometimes impressive performance with things like coprocessors and expansion boards before the invention of modern “threading” tech - or was that concept actually in place all along and just not discussed in the same terms?

I feel like this may be more of a “tech” question than a classic “history” question in the spirit of this subreddit, though, so I would be happy if someone could just point me to the right place to ask this question.

There are accounts of the first black samuri and the reaction the Japanese had to their first meeting with a black man, and they seem to accept him fairly easily (if I understand the Wikipedia page on the first black samuri correctly). What would have been the views of European to a black person in their home lands? More specifically the Vikings.

I was listening to a podcast and the guy was discussing how going out to mow a lawn was "peak boomerism". When did this fascination over laws happen and how did it come about?

The English version of the text was translated by Benjamin Jowett in the late 1800s, but what was his source? Was it some original manuscript preserved from ancient Greece? Or if his source was a passed down text written in another language, how do we know this text is an original work of Plato?

Among serious history books this work has some of the best prose I’ve ever read, it’s exciting and engaging in the way that [good] pop-history is, without sacrificing detail, context or academic rigor, but I wonder if his thesis wasn’t an hyperbolic overreaction — for instance, he was writing a few years after WWII and said that there was never greater crime against humanity in history than the Fourth Crusade — to the idea that the crusades were a noble and righteous quest to liberate the Holy Land from the Saracens. Was that still a popular or common idea in academic history at the time (early 1950s) he was writing?

So my History teacher told me that Adolf Hitler didn't give any direct commands during the Holocaust, much rather his followers planned, organized, and executed the Holocaust and that they did so because of Hitler's ideology rather than his command. He stated that there is not a single document that suggests that Hitler commanded the Holocaust. Is this true? Because I am very skeptical of this.

Hello!

In an answer to a recent question, a commenter talked about the difference in diet between northern and southern China during the imperial period (I don't remember the specific period, sorry) and how people in northern China, who ate mostly wheat and millet, had stereotypes about the “rice-eating barbarians” to the south.

Sadly, the comment has since been deleted so I can’t ping the commenter directly, but could anyone expand on this or point me to some literature on the matter?

It sounds very interesting but google has been no help.

Thank you

Hey there, I’m sorry if the title is kind of stupid. I’m tired, but the basis of the question is that I’m currently working on a novel (fantasy fiction) and trying to figure out some ideas. It’s a bit hard to explain, but I’m trying to navigate time periods here. One of the characters is a girl from around the late Archaic Greek Historic Period. I wanted the other character to be from a different region, currently with the thought of them being from Wales around that period if possible (not sure what the proper way to refer to it is, I’ve seen Cambria and Cymry,.) So, here is my problem, did these two groups exist at the same time period? I don’t need them to have interacted in actual history, since the story plot has the capability of mostly explaining that, but I just need a confirmation of existence around the same time period. I have tried to Google, but I have a habit of getting confused on overlapping the BC/AD time periods, especially now that a lot of sources are moving to BCE/CE.

I mean theoretically since I’m working with fantasy fiction, I could just throw some magical explanation for it, but I’d feel a lot safer if I could work from at least that much of a historic angle and I’d like to see if I can avoid the risk of it reading like total BS without a giant problem explanation on my part.

If they didn’t, what are some other good options? Also, if they did, then what is the best way to refer to Wales at this time? And, does anyone have any good resources for Welsh culture at the time? I have a lot on my own, but I’d like to expand my resources if possible.

I have had my hair long ever since I was 16 and since then I have been given all sorts of insults and jokes about how I "look like a girl" or that "real men have short hair".

Fortunately, this thinking is slowly dying out but I couldn't help but to notice that back in the nineteenth century many successful men had their hair long. So I figured, when did we create this stereotype and how?

From the colonial era onwards, the Crusades have been regarded by Arab nationalists and Islamists as an early example of the same kind of 'Western aggression' as that which had resulted in Anglo-French imperialism in the Middle East. In many cases, European myths about the Crusades (such as that of the uniquely noble and heroic Saladin) were recycled for such narratives. I want to know what the perceptions of the Crusades were before this. Would our hypothetical educated Arab from c. 1600 have regarded Saladin as the main hero of his side? Would he have recognised the Crusades as an example of the dangers the 'West' posed to his people?

Aside from colonies which obviously will have a different culture by virtue of being a colony, and they're also newer compared to their host countries, were there small regions that functioned as particular areas of a certain culture? Both the Roman Empire and the Egyptian dynasties lasted for a really long time so surely something arose.

Unless the education regarding other parts of the country/empire wasn't very good for the average commoner?

I ask this because when we learn about these ancient empires, it tends to be pretty homogenized. Granted, there may not be a lot of literature on this to prove otherwise but humans are the same throughout history so maybe this happened? "Ah, he's from the South Kingdom." or something. (Another issue could be that the education systems only have so much time to teach.)

As far as I can tell, the Soviet Union had no real need for aircraft carriers. Its trade was mainly conducted on the Eurasian and African continents, and so had no major oceanic trade or military resupply routes to protect, or at the very least could have been conducted entirely over land in the case of war. So, this begs the question: why build aircraft carriers at all?