It's my understanding that during the time of his rule, Napoleon enacted laws that helped emancipate the Jews of France. Specifically during the time of his Russian invasion was there any chance there were English speaking Jews among the ranks?

EDIT Follow up question: Roughly how many English speaking soldiers (of any background) would be in the army, if at all?

What I mean by this is that when looking at the liberation of Europe, it seems that Poland played a fairly large role in helping the liberation by sending troops to the Western front and they were also present on the Eastern front. Furthermore there was a government in exile in London yet at the end of the war Poland lost territory to the USSR and was forced to become a USSR satellite state and adopt communism.

Did the Polish government expect to be "handed over" to the USSR or did they feel betrayed that they got the short end of the stick or am I just completely wrong on this subject?

My friend's birthday is coming up and I want to get him a new history book. He is really interested in the history of the church, Byzantine and Constantinople. He likes narrative history books as well. Please let me know if you have any suggestions!! What are your favorite history books?

I'm looking to get either a book or series of books basically covering the major classical civilisations of the West/Middle East. Ideally I'm probably looking for something like an 'Illustrated Guide To' that deals with leaders, major events, battles etc. Ie, we're talking fairly high level in terms of detail, rather than an in depth analysis of a particular topic.

I'm sure there's plenty of stuff out there, which is kind of the problem, so I'd appreciate any recommendations you may have.

In 1877, the German geographer and historian Ferdinand von Richthofen (father of the Red Baron) coined the term "Silk Road" (Seidenstrasse) to describe the progress of Chinese silk exports through Central Asia during the Han Dynasty. For him the term was precise and sharply delimited in space and meaning, a single good from a single era, and not the harbinger of modern globalization. This has changed since then. in 1936 the popular Swedish adventurer Sven Hedin borrowed the term for the title of what was essentially a travel narrative, full of exotic lands and close escapes, and with that romantic gloss it took off.

Today the term is everywhere, from massive Asian infrastructure projects to internet based drug marketplaces. In scholarship, it is common to see references to the Amber Road from the Baltics to the Mediterranean, the Incense Road going up the Arabian Peninsula, the Fur Road stretching across Russia, and the Tea Road along the Himalayans, all drawing a reference to the trade routes that spanned the Eurasian continent.

But what was the Silk Road, behind the term? Helping to shed light on this is the team of panelists:

/u/brigantus, dealing with the prehistory of the Silk Road, including the Indo-European expansion

The so-called "ancient period" between the rise of the Persian (or Assyrian) Empire and fall of Rome in the West, is often where the narrative starts (although not here! see previous panelist). Two users will be dealing with that era:

/u/Daeres, who specializes in Bactria and the Greek Far East, will be dealing with the subject on land.

/u/Tiako, who specializes in the Roman trade with India and the ancient Indian Ocean, will be dealing with the subject by sea.

Although the term was first coined to refer to Han Chinese trade in central Asia, the classic images most people associate with it come from the Medieval and Early Modern periods, and so we have a bevy of panelists for that period:

/u/frogbrooks specializes in early Islam, which became a consequential development in the history of central Asia and the Silk Road, and will focus on a Middle Eastern perspective.

/u/Commustar focuses on the Swahili states in Eastern Africa, which developed in the context of a vibrant maritime trade across the Indian Ocean.

/u/Valkine specializes in the Crusades and Medieval European military history, and will focus on the effects of the Silk Road on Europe (ie, ask gunpowder questions here)

(unfortunately scheduling means we are short a China panelist, but enough of us have dealt with Chinese matters that you can probably get an answer)

Perhaps the most famous historical moment of the Silk Road is the stunning series of conquests that united much of the Eurasian landmass under the Mongol banner. Answering questions about the Mongols is an orda of three:

/u/rakony who primarily focuses on the Mongols in Iran and Khwarezmia.

/u/bigbluepanda who focuses on the opposite side of the Mongol Empire.

/u/alltorndown who can also deal with other periods of central Asian history, including the "afterlife" of the Silk Road and central Asia and Great Game.

Fittingly for the topic, this panel encompasses a diverse array of time zones, so it may take some time to get an answer.

As a symbol of the Ancien Regime and its decadence, did any revolutionaries want to destroy the palace?

I love AskHistorians as one of the most on-point and insanely informative subreddits that I know. Recently the abovementioned titles seem to be the only thing popping up on my front-page. I get the idea and I also understand than some of history benefits if it's kept alive by building a personal rapport with it. However, I feel it's getting a bit out of hand. Maybe we can at least work on reformulating the question or broadening it to other segments of the population?

I would be interested to hear what other subscribers to this subreddit think of this and what could be possible alternative approaches, without necessarily just forbidding these types of questions.

What I am trying to say is that Denmark clearly didn't have any way of winning the war and Sweden-Norway could've exploited that and annexed it. They could make a second Kalmar Union or Scandinavian Kingdom something akin to UK. Different Kingdoms under one monarch.

I dont know the specific terms but I mean a poor soldier armored with maybe a gambeson and if he was lucky his fathers sword.

I ask that because recently I've been to Rome and in two ocasions I saw the number 14 written as XIIII instead of XIV. One was in St. Peter Chapel in the "altar" were should be a statue of Pope Gregorio 14(written as XIIII) and the other one was in the numbers of the many entrances of the Coliseum, where we had again the XIIII following the XIII. I did some quick searches but could not find anything about it.

In the fourth episode of Band of Brothers, Nixon, the intelligence officer for Easy Company, states that the Germans had only left "old men and boys" to defend Holland. If this is a fair characterisation of Allied intelligence, how was it that an operation committing such enormous resources rested entirely on such grossly inaccurate intel? Having reconnaissance planes flying over Holland would clearly tip the Germans off, but surely the Dutch Resistance were only too aware of German power in the region, and channels could be found for them to pass accurate information through?

I've long had a fascination with going as martin luther for halloween. I'd like to get the outfit as historocally accurate and I'd like help figuring out what exactly he would be wearing in the portrait.

Looking for the most comprehensive and objective books on the history of the Black Panthers in the US.

Thanks!

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We always here about how he and his army conquered all the way to india, but why is it that he went east instead of west?

I'm fairly certain that it did not play out exactly like that, but was the fall of the USSR that surprising to anyone?

By this I mean that they were more or less spread out around Germany, spoke German (as opposed to Yiddish or some other Jewish language), identified as Germans, and were quite patriotic - as I understand it, Jews joined the Imperial German forces in a higher proportion than any other ethnic/religious group in the German Empire during WWI, and 12,000 of them died.

What factors led to this assimilation into German society, and how does it relate to the antisemitism of the Dolchstoßlegende and the later Nazi period? It just seems very strange that a culture in which Jews were so well integrated would ultimately perpetrate the Holocaust.

I know little to nothing about Korea except for the war and now it is divided. I would love to learn more about...well, everything really. Was there always a north/south tension/rivalry? What was the capital? What are some important historical milestones and landmarks of the country? What caused the rift? That's just to name a few questions...thanks in advance.