Not only what were the reasons for its collapse, but was it sudden or a gradual process? It seems like there's just a timeline where in '91 the USSR just ends with no clear explanation as to why one of the most powerful nations in the world would just stop. I do know a bit about the attempted KGB coup during the collapse, but that's about it.

Thank you.

Surprisingly, I haven't been able to get any reliable numbers on this point. Of the ~5.9 million Jews that were murdered in the Holocaust, how many died from conditions in concentration camps and ghettos (starvation, disease, being worked to death, etc.) and how many died from mass murder (e.g. the Einsatzgruppen, gas chambers, etc) ?

I found numbers for the Einsatzgruppen (apparently it was ~1.3-1.5 million Jews, depending on which source you look at), but once you get to the camps nobody seems to have concrete numbers. Is this an answerable question? I would have thought you could get a rough estimate by comparing death statistics from labour camps (e.g. Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen) with death statistics from death camps (e.g. Treblinka, Belzec). Although, Auschwitz complicates things, since it was both.

Does anyone know if there are statistics on this?

I know this question is kind of vague but we all heard the story about how King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church so he could have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled.

I got to thinking: personal ambitions and a preference for a male heir aside, was this really a good idea? Was making the English church independent from Rome and antagonizing Catholic kingdoms like Spain a smart move for English interests as a whole?

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I've wondered for a while how did Allied leaders (say top politicians, senior military leaders) travel to different places during WWII when there was a constant threat of U-Boats, the Luftwaffe or the Japanese Navy. Did they go on fast moving naval ships or submarines? Or heavily escorted aircraft? (or maybe lone wolf aircraft to minimize detection risk)

The routes I'm wondering about are:

• UK to North America- aircraft or ships?

• UK/North America to the Soviet Union. Currently reading a book on the Battle of the Atlantic and it mentions meetings in Moscow between British/American commanders and diplomats and their Soviet counterparts. How would such a journey have been made?

• UK to the middle East (Egypt for example). Surely running the gauntlet of the Mediterranean was too risky? Did they really go all the way around the horn of Africa? How did Churchill and Roosevelt get to the Tehran conference?

• I'm guessing US to Australia was relatively safe compared to some of the other journeys that were required?

I just wanted to ask for any interesting information on race relations in Latin America. I have heard supposedly race has been much less of a factor in Latin American society, than say compared to the heavily segregated society of the USA throughout its history. The amount of mixed race people within Latin America supposedly made race laws ridiculous, and thus race was less institutionalised and less important. However, at the same time I know Brazil ended slavery at an incredibly late time, which perhaps contradicts this? Would there be a difference between Brazil being Portuguese and the other previously Spanish domains surrounding her in regards to race relations? Therefore, are the rumours I have read about race being non important in Latin America true? And if not, to what extent? And if it is true, how did it historically occur? Thank you.

Rising Storm 2: Vietnam announced that they are adding ANZAC forces into the game, which made ne realize I know absolutely next to nothing on Vietnam outside of a basic understanding of US involvement.

So what did the ANZACs contribute? Why did they decide to contribute towards the war? What battles/operations were they engaged? What about forces of other nations?

Hello!

I'm working on a project to recreate certain areas of the world for a historical videogame I'm working on my own. How can I get I touch with historians specifically expert in certain areas without having to post each question here? Maybe a discord channel?

I also tried contacting some history museums in those countries but no reply yet.

Maybe could have saved this question for the 17th for brownie points. A morning Google search isn't yielding any answers I'm looking for.

Time to weigh in on what you loved best this past month! Vote for what you think deserves the prize. Submit ones you liked but don't see here (yet).

Was the failure of Romans to romanize the Berber Pooulations of former North African provinces the reason why they're Arabized today ?

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I've just always been curious about this time period - the lifetime of Anne of Kiev - and want to put the entire world into context.

So, I'm looking for the very best books that cover this period, especially any primary sources and the most up to date modern sources, though I expect a lot will be chapters in books that cover a geographical locale. Africa, the Americas, Japan, everywhere really: who were the prominent people/kindoms/societies of the time in those areas, how many of them might have met or learned of their contemporaries in far away lands?