Watching all of the problems Russia is having keeping its troops well-equipped and well-fed in Ukraine, a neighboring country, has me wondering whether the same thing happened 40 years ago when the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Did it? Are the Russians just bad at logistics?

I'm reading War Is A Racket. He seems to be just a guy who didn't want more boys dying for corporate profits. Was he ever affiliated with a Leftist political movement, a labor union, anything?

If not, what would you call him?

This is two questions and I hope my title is clear enough to communicate that. Even though the US didn't become a "superpower" until afterwards, by WW2 it seems like it had become known to the other great powers that the US and its industry were in a league above the other powers like the UK and Japan. A lot of things I've read say that the axis powers could never hope to beat the US, not to mention Yamamoto's famous "sleeping giant" quote. I've even read in some places that the US had hit that point by WW1, though I'm not sure how true that is.

The primary thing I'd like to know is at what point the US economy/industry became the "sleeping giant," Yamamoto referred to, as opposed to just another great power like France or Japan.

The second question isn't as important, since I think I already know, but when did the other great powers have a similar realization. Was there a time before WW2 that the UK realized they had been eclipsed?

What was the currency used in berlin during the cold war ? Was it the deustche mark or the ostmark ? I know that in 1948, the municipal coucil in berlin refused the citywide use of the ostmark but I can’t find what happened next on the internet ? Thanks !

I've been thinking a bit about Victorian England, a time and place of huge contradictions. On the one hand, England was arguable the strongest imperial power in human history, using its global reach to accumulate resources from around the world for cheap. But on the other hand, the standard of living of much of the populace within England was terrible, to the point that Marxist theory of class conflict grew out of observation of class conflict within England, and the era's most famous writer, Charles Dickens, became known for his observations of poverty and agony within Britain's lower classes.

Thinking about this more, it strikes me as a somewhat common occurrence. Not long before the era of Victorian England, the House of Bourbon controlled one of the most far-reaching and richest empires in world history — and the standard of living of the everyday citizenry was so bad that it led to a revolution that killed the King and his family and continues to influence revolutionary movements to this day. How was France so rich but so incapable of providing to its domestic citizenry?

There are shades of this in the modern United States. While the American empire does not technically exist in the way the British or French ones did, the system of alliances and global capitalism that the US enforces globally provides for cheap imports and other financial advantages at a scale nearly unparalleled in human history. While the US standard of living is for the most part quite high, it doesn't seem to reach the heights one would expect based on this economic dominance. Public goods such as healthcare and education remain unaffordable for many Americans, and the country's poverty rate, life expectancy, and homeless population are worse off than many peer countries that do not have the same dominance over global economics.

Is this something that historians have looked at closely? Is it possible that inequality is part of what allows for this hegemonic economic positioning, since it allows for easier exploitation of foreign countries? Am I making up a trend where one doesn't exist? Why can't rich countries provide for their own citizens?

I understand that a great sword was typically wielded with 2 hands, but could it be used effectively with only one hand, or one hand and a shield even? If not are there any swords of similar length that could be used with one hand/ one hand and shield?

The long time story of the Anglo-Saxon peoples are that they hailed from the angles and Saxon tribes of modern day northern Germany. However, I do know that this is being debated and the extent of the migration being questioned. Would Alfred the Great's ancestry have been entirely Germanic or would he also have some Celtic origins?

A bit of a niche question, to be sure, but how did people think about water evaporation? Leaving water out on a hot, sunny day will noticeably reduce it, as will boiling it for a while. How was this property of water explained?

Was it just understood that when water gets hot enough, it turns into a steam-like substance (and left at that), or was this property of water worked into greater pre-scientific epistemological systems?

Was it ever considered as a serious proposal? Would it really have led to millions of Germans starving?

I was reading up on Charlemagne, and was surprised to see Offa's name come up so frequently. Charlemagne seems to have quite a strong connection with him, which struck me as slightly strange given the seemingly apparent (to my mind at least) power difference between the two.

Did Offa provide a strong alliance for Charlemagne? Trade?

In the UK and Ireland, as far as I can tell, county names either start with "county" (e.g. County Down), end with "shire" (e.g. Shropshire), or have a name that includes no recognizable morpheme meaning "county" (e.g. Essex). In the US, on the other hand, counties tend to have the name "county" at the end (e.g. Orange County). ETA: This is even true when the US county in question is named after a British or Irish county, e.g. Essex County in New Jersey.

How did this discrepancy come about?

Looking at the Wehrmacht divisions fighting from Normandy to Germany, most of the divisions were second rate, created from the husks of already destroyed divisions on the eastern front. Maybe some officers would have been veterans, but enlisted seems to be a bunch of relocated Luftwaffe/Kriegsmarine sailors or 17-18 year olds. By the Battle of the Bulge, the Wehrmacht was mostly a bunch of these Volksgrenadiers with like 2 weeks of training. Am I misreading things or were German forces on the Western front post 1944, their worst units?

I've been doing a lot of research on Ancient Mesopotamia, and I found the little tidbit about polyandry. I've been super curious about it, but I haven't been able to find anything else about it

I once read somewhere that a woman was considered subservient to even her adult sons in ancient China, but I've recently been watching some youtube videos on Chinese history by an actual Chinese man, an several of them involve the Dowager Empress vetoing the decrees of the Emperor, her adult son. So what gives? Was I misinformed? Or do these represent aspects of Chinese culture at different periods in time?

This is random, but I just think it would appear odd that he married three C/Katherines and two Annes. Obviously these were very common names, but I just think one of his contemporaries might have commented on it.

I asse guns made life too expendable.

I understand that Ukraine used to simply be called Ukraine, without the article. But I remember it being "the Ukraine" when I was a kid. (I was a kid in the 1980s). The recent conflict made me realize that I don't even remember when or why we all made the switch and dropped the article...we just did.

I get that this is a highly charged current event, but...there's got to be some history there, right? How did Ukraine's name change? What was the historical context behind the new designation?

I posted this question earlier only to have it removed for being more of a political question than a historical one. At u/mimicofmodes' suggestion, here it is again, rephrased. Hopefully it is better suited to this sub now. If not, please let me know so I can try again...?

Why did they found a nominally independent state that they intended to exploit for raw materials and settle with Japanese people anyway? Why not simply incorporate it into the empire directly?