I've been interested in this topic ever since me and my friend had a debate on it. My stance was that the punishment Germany had to pay after The Second World War was just as severe if not more than the punishment it had to pay after The First World War. He disagreed. One more topic of our debate was Germany's economy after the wars, I argued that Germany has a very good basis and that it will almost always rise to be a economic powerhouse no matter the reparations, while he argued that Germany's current economic might is only because the reparations that it suffered after WW2 were softer than those of WW1. Also I had a hard time finding what exactly the total amount of reparations it had to pay in both wars. Thank you for reading.

Would they have been as genocidal as Germany's plans for eastern Europe?

I need to come up with a topic for this class and usually I can, but since this is a summer course I need to come up with something after only a week of class. I need to do something to fulfill my US History requirement so I was thinking of writing about how the American Revolution and its ideals impacted subsequent revolutions in Latin America. I also thought about doing it on Manumission in the American Revolution (not sure where to go with this or how to make it more precise) or the evolution of the abolitionisit cause from the end of the Revolution to the onset of the Civil War (same case). I know these are kind of vague and I'm sorry, but I just wanted to get some ideas that may spark something or help me narrow my topic. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I was told to drop my haversack at Boones because there were a lot of soldiers of the crown deserting, and apparently, the NCOs thought this problem would be remedied if we just didn't have any sacks to hide food etc in. Is there any actual claim or letter stating that there will be a rum ration/ turning in of haversacks while foraging?

From what I've read about the US and Canada, the split came from the French Catholics and the English protestants but why did Australia and New Zealand become separate? Just because they're geographically separate?

In Erik Larsen's book, The Devil in the White City, there is a line that mentions the Eiffel Tower as something that had "so wounded America's pride.". Why would that be? Can't seem to find anything that explains it in a quick internet search....

Thanks!!

It's been a minute since I've read Táin Bó Cúailnge so my understanding of it is rather fuzzy. But Medb had many lovers and Ailill wasn't jealous of any of it. Is this analogous to an open marriage? Where did the idea even come from?

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I'd like to write a story about a man, who wants to buy the territory of a city (so basically the whole city), in the 1850-60s, because he discovered gold there and he wants to get everything. Maybe somewhere in Arizona, I couldn't figure it out yet, because I am completely lost in the topic, but I find the situation really interesting. Who "owned" the cities or territories back then? Could somebody buy things like that? I don't really know how should I imagine this. Thank you for your answers.

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There was article 48 which allow the reichkanzler to bypass the parliament. Why did it matter which party was voted for?

Hi! This is my first time posting in this subreddit, and I hope that this question doesn't break the rule on "example seeking" questions, since this is a topic that I'm a genuinely interested in.

The wartime innovations made by the Western Allies and the Germans are well known and commonly discussed in popular literature: the radar, digital computing, assault rifles, jet fighters, guided munitions, synthetic rubber and fuels, infrared imaging, various magnetic/acoustic mines and torpedoes, and of course, the atomic bomb. Even some of the more outlandish "paper" projects, such as the Ho 229 bomber and the bat bomb, seem to be a fixture of modern discussions on WWII technology.

The Soviets, however, don't seem to feature as much in such discussions. On one hand, it makes sense: the Red Army was fighting across a very wide frontage, on harsh terrain and with a conscript army raised under wartime conditions - it only made sense for them to stick with simpler equipment that were easier to supply and maintain. The rapid loss of territory and industrial capacity at the beginning of the war probably didn't do much good for the tech department, either. On the other hand, the Soviets came up with many successful pieces of military technology in the post-war years, such as the T-54/55 main battle tank and the MiG-15 jet fighter, so obviously they didn't just spend the war scrapping together cheap trash either.

Off the top of my head, I can name three innovations that put the Soviets ahead in their respective fields:

• T-34 medium tank: Revolutionary medium tank design that featured a balance of good sloped armour, effective dual-purpose gun and ease of manufacture and maintenance.
• Katyusha rocket launcher: Mobile, rapid-firing saturation artillery.
• PTAB cluster bomb: Mass-launched aerial anti-tank weapon (though I haven't actually read anything attesting to its efficacy)

What have I been missing? Were there significant, functional wartime innovations by the Soviets - in terms of weapons, command and control, logistics or otherwise - that most people haven't read about? Thanks a lot in advance!

I'm writing a short story from the perspective of a Hitler youth member in during the Battle of Berlin, and I have a few questions:

1. How deep was the indoctrination for the members of the HY?

2. Were the nazi's still confident of victory in 1945?

3. Were the Germans still confident of victory in 1945?

4. Were the HY members treated just as badly as regular Wehrmacht by the Red Army?

I'm sure there are more but this is all I can think of write now.

Since a banknote or electronic record has no intrinsic value as a commodity, was there any worry that it would lose all its value, now that it no longer represented a claim on a certain amount of gold? What causes the dollar to retain some value: just its status as legal tender for paying taxes? or simply the fact everybody kept accepting it as payment? Thanks!

There does not seem to be a lot of info on the subject easily accessible online and the only other similar question on the subreddit went unanswered.

Of the info I found online, it does look like well poisoning was common, but only as a defensive method, when retreating from an army, or as a scorched-earth policy.

I'd also like to point out that I am assuming that spies existed in medieval times and are similar to the idea of modern spies. I understand that this might be a large assumption.