I read somewhere that the turrets of the guns were so heavy it wasn't necessary to weld them on. Was that really the only reason welding the gun wasn't necessary or were there other reasons?

I've heard Venice in its Renaissance heyday was considered relatively clean because of its built-in sewage system, the sea. Since Tenochtitlan and its floating gardens were on a large lake and the city had a levee system to keep fresh spring water moving in, was it less prone to the disease and gnarly squalor a lot of European cities had to deal with?

A lot of times I seen sources say they were friends but then suddenly grew bitter against each other, It was definitely before the Internationale split though

Was there as much support as it's purported to have had?

As in, would a contemporary observer expect a grain-exporting country with a starving underclass to stop all grain exports in order to feed its population?

As a tangential question, what was the reason for continuing to export grain while people starved?

Edit: For clarity, I'm referring to the collectivization in the early 1930's. I've read Conquest's Harvest of Sorrow and some other more recent books (Tucker's Stalin in Power is the one I remember best), but always happy to take suggestions.

Isn't it possible people back then missed a year or two, when counting? Isn't it possible that errors in counting have accumulated over the years? The fact that the way of counting years, not to mention calendars, differed in the past makes it even more difficult to ascertain the accuracy of historical dates doesn't it?--something I've always wondered. (this is a cross between showerthoughts and askhistorians material)

Okay, so I just finished reading Freedom Betrayed by Herbert Hoover, which was great and raised a lot of questions that I'd never thought to ask, but obviously he's got a huge ax to grind, so I wanted to throw this question out here. Two parts to this:

1. Poland and eastern Europe. The entire European war started over Britain and France guaranteeing Polish independence, and when it's over the Allies hand half of Poland over to the Soviets outright and let them set up a puppet communist government in what's left? WTF?
2. Manchuria and China. Likewise, our conflict with Japan, at least in part, stemmed from their occupation of Chinese Manchuria. And likewise, when it's all said and done, we just turned around and let the Russians have it. It just doesn't make any sense to me at all. And then post-war, America totally hung Chiang out to dry, when our alliance with the nationalists was a large part of the reason for our conflict with Japan in the first place?

The obvious answers are (1) the Russians already occupied eastern Europe, and (2) Manchuria was the price for the Russians entering the war against Japan. But at least to Hoover, these arguments don't hold water, because (1) American lend lease supplied the Russian war machine, and if we stopped sending aid to the Soviets, they weren't occupying a damn thing, and (2) we didn't need any help in the Pacific; the Japanese were begging for surrender terms for some time before Hiroshima, and as it turned out in fact, the Soviets were at war with Japan for all of two days before they surrendered. For that they wound up with Port Arthur, a bunch of islands, and all of Manchuria? Seems like a sweet deal if you're Stalin, but why would the Americans go for that at all?

That's the Cliffs Notes version, I guess. So how much of this is revisionist BS, how much is hindsight, and how much was legitimate and we should have known better at the time? And above all, why?

I remember reading a part of a book by, I believe, a former slave.

Please help me figure out his name.

I believe the time frame is late 1800s.

This was just a small part of the book, but he wrote about people who make a living off of the existence of racism, saying that these people have no interest in ending racism as it is their source of livelihood.

During the 1936 Olympics the Haitian and Liechtenstein teams discovered they had the same flag, prompting the latter to change its flag the next year.

Nevertheless, did Haiti and Liechtenstein not exchange ambassadors before then? Did no one ever travel to and from each nation? How was it possible that neither country realized that they had the same flag as each other?

Did any other nation know this, especially those that had foreign relations with both? How come no one ever said anything to either nation and it was only during the Olympics this was discovered?

Thanks for any insight.

Edit: also, before then were there any type of vexillology organizations or international flag databases that may have caught this situation?

The Portugese got there empire first, and had vast amounts of wealth, but why did they decline and the British take over the lead in European Imperial nations?

Was there one event, was it a problem with the bureaucracy of the empire, or was it a slow decline?

Mny thks

I may be totally wrong in my assumption. But when I hear James Madison was one of twelve kids, and only seven made it to adulthood, it makes me wonder.

The Polynesian history, culture and mythology looks really interesting and I was wondering if anyone knew anything (books/articles/websites) that they would recommend to a newbie in this subject matter. Preferably quite broad but I'll settle for anything on the topic!! (I get that it might be a bit different maybe to other topics in this sub) Thanks in advance!!

Canada became independent in 1867, and is still part of the British Commonwealth.

Cricket is hugely popular in most Commonwealth countries (and former colonies of the British Empire).

Why didn't cricket become popular in Canada?

I was watching an old episode of 'Sharpe' yesterday (08, Sharpe's Sword) and at one point the British advance against a fort held by the French. To advance they form a line and march slowly towards the enemy, even as cannons kill a lot of their men. Would Napoleonic era troops actually do this? Why didn't they at least march a little bit faster?

I'm looking for a history book with an overview of the evolution and history of religion, perhaps with a focus on the influence of religion in world history [politics, economics, freedom/suppression of thought, motivation for expansion/isolationism, war etc].

I recently finished The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan, and it was one of the most marvellous books I've ever read, looking at history with trade and economics as a lens, it made a huge amount of sense out of seemingly unconnected historical events. I'm looking for a book that has a similar model: the evolution of religion and how it changed/interacted/influenced events over time.

I'm not interested in the detailed philosophy of religion [e.g. History of God by Karen Armstrong]. I have looked at the suggested reading list on this subreddit, but didn't find anything covering all major religions, rather several books covering each. Perhaps one of Karen Armstrong's more recent books [E.g. Case for God] might be suitable?

Thanks for any recommendations.

before they had the linear b. but right after the fall of Mycenaean and for almost 400 ~500 years what the used ?