Welcome to Tuesday Trivia!

If you are:

• a long-time reader, lurker, or inquirer who has always felt too nervous to contribute an answer
• new to /r/AskHistorians and getting a feel for the community
• Looking for feedback on how well you answer
• polishing up a flair application
• one of our amazing flairs

this thread is for you ALL!

Come share the cool stuff you love about the past!

We do not allow posts based on personal or relatives' anecdotes. Brief and short answers are allowed but MUST be properly sourced to respectable literature. All other rules also apply—no bigotry, current events, and so forth.

For this round, let’s look at: Heritage & Preservation! This week, a moment to acknowledge and celebrate heritage and preservation. Know of a particular repatriation or Land Back project you want to share with the community? Familiar with efforts to acknowledge overlooked heritage or efforts to preserve particular spaces, objects, or memories? Here's a dedicated space to keeping those memories and ideas alive.

Like New Zealand, Canada, Australia - these countries do very well in terms of quality of life and economy while countries like Mexico or other South American former Spanish colonies aren't doing so well in regards to quality of life and economy?

I've always read that one of the most impactful outcomes of the Iberian Union for Portugal was the near absolute destruction of the Portuguese Navy, pressed into service under Spain, and that the Spanish Armada actually departed from Lisbon to England (and was very much dependent on Portuguese logistics and resources). But I've never read anything quantifiable.

How many of the Armada ships were buit by Portugal? And what about the sailors? Do we know what percentage of them were Portuguese?

Thanks

Why was interracial marriage taboo for so long when it seems many slave-owners were previously in the habit of sexually abusing and impregnating their slaves. Were these encounters illegal and kept secret back then?

A weird question I've been needing answered, could a late 18th-early 19th musket be held upside down and not have the powder and ball fall out? And if the powder and ball would fall out, how easy would it to be firing down from a steep hilltop or fort wall?

A few days ago, I was volunteering at an outreach demo my reenactment group put on at a local renaissance festival. While there, a somewhat inebriated patron dressed as a “Viking” described to me a practice by which Viking males would shave off the hair at their temples on one particular side of their head when one parent died, and the other side when the other parent died. At that point they would “earn their braid” and plait the remaining ponytail, resulting in the undercut “Ragnar” haircut popular in modern Viking-themed TV shows.

I’d never heard this before, but it sounds fishy to me. It doesn’t match anything I know about early medieval Norse fashion, nor anything I’ve been able to dig up since. It sounds like an ad-hoc attempt to justify a modern “reenactorism”.

Is there some evidence I’m unaware of? Where did this idea come from?

I'm still a philosophy beginner(I've watched the good place but haven't read Kant), but I'm trying to get a grasp of the lives of the people who practice philosophy after learning of Jean-Paul Sartre's support towards many of the communist revolutions that western society seems to currently condemn. I'm aware that Henry Hardy is deeply entwined in publishing his work, and he's got something to do with how people deal with communism but that's about it. Any biographies that manage to tow the line(I know it's an eggcorn) between entertainment, education, and historiographical accuracy?

I tried googling the answer, but articles explaining it are more geared towards oil paintings. I apologize for the more science-related nature of this question, but it's specifically regarding historical documents. I recall visiting the National Archives in Washington D.C. and the copy of the Declaration of Independence there in a dark area, dimly illuminated with very faded ink. Signage was posted all around in the Archives advising against any flash photography, but I always wondered but would happen if a tourist were careless enough to try. If it were a movie, I'd imagine it immediately turn to dust.

What makes the flash photography damaging to the Declaration, or any historical document? Is it the age, quality/kind of paper, ink, or all of it?

Secondary question: Is it the same regarding temperature? TIA

Okay, so … we all know Henry the 8th. The six wives of Henry. Scene set.

But what we tend to ignore, in my opinion, is what was at stake for Henry and for England.

Henry had the task of holding together a family that just two generations before was slaughtering each other in the literal streets over claim to the throne.

His mother and father are the marriage that brought the Plantagenet fighting to an end. It was all on shake-y ground however because he lacked an air.

I ask historians, do we often ignore the political stakes and environment at the time he was alive?

As a non historian but avid reader I’ve pulled together that Henry had to produce an heir to hold the kingdom together. He respected Katherine and knew she didn’t want bloodshed so he let her live in isolation/exile as was the way for many a monarch who didn’t want to instigate a war but didn’t have any use for them.

Anne came from a political ambitious family. One that could’ve plunged England back into chaos had be allowed her to live and have access to Elizabeth. I feel this was the case for any of the wives he beheaded.

It wasn’t this (now sexist) idea of needing a suitable wife. It was he needed an air at any cost and women w an agenda were not the ticket.

I ask this because it's honestly very confusing. It's a scenario where I honestly wish we had some sort of authority on this sort of thing because it feels like I have no idea whether something is bullshit or not.

For instance anything about historical figures;

Ghandi, privileged racist pedophile or actual saint?

Mother Theresa, bigoted sadistic false saint, or genuine helper of the poor and sick?

Che Guevara, racist bigoted murderer, or freedom fighting for the oppressed?

Questions and things like this just make me feel confused. Is there a way with ACTUAL accuracy to have the definitive answer for things like this or is it all up to interpretation.

Does the Indo-Aryan Migration theory hold any credibility? What is the proof for this theory? Why do so many Indians online disagree with this theory and what are their reasons for disagreeing?

It seems like there would have been more, for lack of a better term, “modern” execution methods available. Why was hanging chosen?

I've only looked this up on wikipedia. The list of genocides is fairly sparse before 1870. Same with ethnic cleansing and pograms. Most seemed to have happened after 1870 and then just were much more prevalent in the 1900s

I couldn't find an exhaustive list elsewhere on the internet.

Did Humanity just go nuts in the 20th Century?

What are the material/contextual clues archeologists and historians have used to place the Hittites on the BCE timeline of history?

Is it primarily carbon dating?
Finding similar pottery styles from a known timeline? (If so, what is the basis for that timeline?)
Documents referencing foreign rulers with known dates? (If so, what is the basis for those dates)

I’m deeply interested in historical synthesis, and have found the timeline of the Hittites to be extremely hard to synthesize with the timelines of other nations supposedly coexisting with them. Our Egyptian timeline also seems to have immense issue with accuracy, which is what originally got me interested in historical synthesis, and now I’m finding the same sorts of problems for our timeline of the Hittites.

Can anyone point me to some authoritative sources that provide the deeper underpinnings of the dating methodology used for the late second millennium BCE?

Hi,

​

So, it used to be the case that Christain law and practice largely forbid the practice of usury (defined in the ancient way, charging any interest on a loan).

So the question I have is this: Why isn't this an issue for christains anymore. Muslims still take issue with usury, in fact there is a whole subfield of banking called islamic banking dedicated to getting around this issue, and they have some pretty interesting if loopholely solutions. Because of this rule, banking in medieval Europe looked remarkably different to that of today.

Anyways, my question is this: Christains, like Muslims, used to take issue with usury or the charging of any interest on a loan. Why is this no longer the case? Why don't Christains take issue with interest anymore?

Given how well modern day Germany has handled its "dark past", I am wondering how the average German citizen that blindly followed the Reich felt after all the atrocities of the war came out; casualties, war crimes and holocaust. How did the average citizen react to their country being seen worldwide as an aggressor of violence?

Most importantly I'd like to know how as a society Germany went about making sure that history was not distorted or forgotten or swept under the rug. Like how long did it take for the Holocaust to be taught as part of the school curriculum ?

I am asking because I am Russian....for context.