With all the talk about "Dunkirk" coming out I remembered that, many times, I heard Hitler decided to let those soldiers escape; however, I realised I never heard it from a teacher. So, what actually happened?

[deleted]

Can we take a second to just appreciate the mods and contributors on here.

I am a nerd, plain and simple. About a year ago I found this sub and it is my favorite way to kill 1-10 minutes when I have to. I love the questions and all of the great information that is provided by those that comment. I have learned so much, and it is all because of the dedication and diligence of the moderators here.

Every time I go into the comment section, they have already purged the bad information and silly comments, leaving the good and accurate information that I am looking for. I’m also super appreciative of their fact checking and only providing the most accurate and up to date information. So keep it up mods, your work is not going unnoticed.

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I would like to see if any historians would be able to provide me with an accurate version of this famous quote, since I've seen a number of different versions. The meaning behind it resonates very deeply with me, and I have been considering a tattoo with it. Naturally, I'd like that to be as accurate as possible.

Thank you!

Nearly everything that I've come across about McClellan (mainly from wikipedia and the Ken Burns documentary) has been heavily critical of his generalship-- particularly his timidity/unwillingness to commit to battle with superior numbers. Why wouldn't Lee hold other union officers like Meade, Grant, Sherman, or Thomas in higher regard?

My dad and I were watching the H H Holmes is actually Jack the Ripper special on the history channel, making fun of the absurdity of this "investigation." But I want to know if any of the historians on this sub agree with this theory, or if the experts can disprove this rather quickly.

He told me that queen Louis met with Napoleon in person in a room when her husband, the king, was waiting outside. Then her husband ran out of patience and because of husband's pride, pushed the door. Then Napoleon came out and told him, "if you could have waited for some more time, I would let you keep (a certain place, and I cannot remember the exact name) now." Is this story true?

I remember reading that prehistoric obsidian from the volcanic Aeolian islands north of Sicily has been found surprisingly as far away as France (we can tell its provenance from chemical analysis). Is there evidence of goods from early historical civilizations (in India, Persia, Egypt for example) found much further from their lands than we would expect?

I understand that it may differ by horse breed and the specific Armour they wore, but how much would the French Knights of the early 14 hundreds have weighed on the battlefield?

Currasiers of the 18 hundreds weighed, give or take, one ton, so how much did a French Knight weigh?

I remember reading about decadency in 1920s Berlin but can't remember the source.

The article talked about Berlin being very liberal towards homosexuals and transvestites, and for that part I found plenty of evidence. But it also talked about bestiality, fetishes and child prostitution being quite common.

So my question is, how much of it is true and how much is Nazi propaganda?

In essence, some state/region was under (threat of?) attack from Athens, and sent a letter. It made some elaboration on how conquest of another state was in violation of Athens' own ideals/laws.

Athens set a reply, along the lines of "You're not wrong, but we don't care. We take what we want."

I heard about this in some Teaching Company lecture. I'm very fuzzy on the details, but I want to find the letter (and the reply).

I mean, I never really thought about it, but of course B.C. wouldn't work out considering the guy it was based on hadn't even existed yet.

So, how exactly did they measure years, or did they even bother?

Texts found in the sands of Egypt seem extremely interesting, as they should be an unbiased sample of texts read through the ages, compared to those found in say a monastery.

Anyone who knows the breakdown between different kinds of ancient texts?

I have heard it stated that biblical texts make up an insanely large proportion? Any evidence for that?

Please bear with me as I'm actually having a hard time wording my question, such is my ignorance and ill-equippedness in the subject.

So as I understand, the concept of the 'state' (i.e. what we colloquially call a 'country') really came into its own after the Peace of Westphalia. Before that, territorial boundaries were not really respected by rival monarchs, and so no true concept of a sovereign state existed.

Then the idea of 'nation-states' came along, wherein states where defined and empowered by the nation (i.e. the people, or ethnoliguistic group) that were its population. Not quite sure about the boundary there (i.e. when is a state not a 'nation' state?)

So I'm trying to figure out what came before.

Before the concept of states, how did people really organize the world?

From how I understand it, there was the concept of 'realms', i.e. areas wherein a magnate or monarch held power (god-mandated sovereignty).

But was a realm defined as the entire territory (and all the resources within, such as the population) ruled by a monarch? Or was there still nationhood built into it, and therefore a realm gained its own identity on its own?

I ask because I've recently been reading up on Phillip II. Now, over the course of his life, from birth onwards, he accrued multiple titles such as King of multiple 'states'. He was King of Spain, King of Portugal, King of Naples and Sicily, King of England and Ireland*, Duke of Milan and lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands.

How did that work? Were all of those territories considered a single, aggregate 'realm'? I.e. a single territory under his rule? If so, what was the word and concept used to define 'Spain', 'Portugal', etc.?

If each those were considered realms (i.e. kingdoms) in their own right, then how was each kingdom defined? If they were defined as 'the territory ruled by a king', then wouldn't they be 'assimilated' into the larger 'realm' of 'Phillip's State'?

Or am I approaching this wrong, and kingdoms/realms/states were not defined by who ruled them, but by some other metric or set of rules? That England was a state/kingdom, and acknowledged as such, whether it was ruled by its own King, or was just part of a laundry-list of kingdoms ruled a dynasty? That the territory and its people was a concept that stood inalienable (i.e. similar to a nation), and had its own identity so difficult to extinguish that a dynast didn't just absorb the territory into his realm, but considered it another realm that he ruled in a separate capacity?

Basically, I'm just trying to wrap my head around how society was divided in the past. If it was a top-down system or a bottom-up system of defining each 'territory'.

Any learned input would be appreciated.