The US National Anthem commemorates a battle in the War of 1812. The US Military, which I served in, loves to hype up the War of 1812 as a "victory for our young nation." Most schoolchildren are taught that the War of 1812 is a source of national pride.

Why is this? By any object standard, the War of 1812 was a compete defeat for the USA.

The US invasion of Canada was repulsed by a much smaller Canadian Militia.

British/Canadian forces took Detroit in 1812 without firing a single shot.

In 1814, Canadian/British forces marched 400 miles south to Washington DC and managed to burn the White House.

By 1815, the British/Canadian Army had marched all the way south to New Orleans. Sure, Andrew Jackson managed to win a victory and prevent the City of New orleans from being taken, but given that the US forces had been pushed that far south in the first place, I can't see how that's something to be proud of.

Basically, the War of 1812 resulted in the United States being almost completely overrun by a British Canadian Army. Why then is it such a source of national pride in this country when any objective analysis of the War of 1812 would label it an American defeat?

I've always heard, that they are very accurate as far as historical events, political/religious factors, etc. go. I have read the Asian saga myself, and they are some of my favorite books, but I'm not much of an Asian historian, so I always wondered how they hold up when somebody who knows the history through and through actually reads them.

Peter made incredibly broad-ranging changes to Russian society: he changed the relationship between peasants and the gentry, he (rather forcibly, at times) changed the very style of dress of the gentry, he brought Russia's aristocratic wives from seclusion to Court, and he made wide-ranging orthographic reforms.

But when he did the latter, why didn't this Emperor - so well-traveled across Europe and so fascinated with Europe - go further than merely implementing huge orthographic reforms to the Russian language and implement the Latin alphabet?

Peter's orthographic reforms began in the early 18th century as Russia moved towards Europe. In the early 20th century, in Turkey, Ataturk abolished the Arabic alphabet in favour of the Latin in his attempt to Europeanise Turkey.

It seems curious to me that an Emperor so obsessed with Europe to the extent of repudiating almost all of his cultural heritage wouldn't adopt the Latin alphabet, particularly given his immense power over the very few of his subjects who were literate.

There are lots of stories of teenagers lying about their ages to enlist (facilitated by recruiters willing to look the other way) during WWI.

Did older men ever claim they were younger than they were to get into the military? For example, men in their late 30s claiming they were in their 20s?

I think this is likely to be a long shot, but any help is greatly appreciated.

My Great Great Grandfather served with the 4th "Queens Own" Hussars in the First World War and was captured by the Germans sometime around early October 1914, very early into the war. I have done fairly extensive research into his regiment's exploits - mainly a combination of following his regimental diary and guesswork - and have hit upon a problem.

I know for a fact that for the majority of his life as a POW, he was kept in Doberitz - which I believe to be a fairly common occurrence for captured Privates. My problem is that I have a first-hand account of My ancestor's in which he describes the treatment of him and his fellow prisoners in a German reprisal camp near Riga then in Russia, called "Larchen". He says that he was there from Feb 10th 1917 to Jun 10th 1917. I can find absolutely nothing about this camp. The internet has revealed absolutely nothing and any list of German camps that I have found seem to be devoid of any information about individual reprisal camps. I understand that this is likely due to the fact that most of these camps were hastily put together to house the prisoners before they were sent to the front lines to do hard labour, but even so, there must be information out there.

The treatment that my ancestor and his five hundred other companions endured at this camp shouldn't be forgotten. As far as I am aware, many people would have died there and my ancestor was in such bad shape when he was released that he was deemed "unfit for military service".

If anyone could provide any information about this camp, I would be most grateful. Preserving my ancestors history is vitally important to me.

Thank you for reading.

I always found the wars by Catholic Kingdoms against Catholic Holy Orders confusing. Were any of the leaders of Poland or Lithuania excommunicated for attacking the order? Was the Pope relatively indifferent? What was the overall European reaction? This whole time period in the baltic confuses me.

Why is African, Asian and South American history taught so rarely in schools (particularly in the U.K)?I had no chance to learn about any of this until University.

(Also any recommendations on books relating to these topics would be great!)

Growing up I had the idea that the country just unified as a whole with all effort towards the war but growing older it seems like it would be more like what life was like during immediate 9/11 aftermath or during the more significant stages of Iraq war. What I mean is that while the country was tuned into the events most people's day-to-day life was largely the same unless directly involved such as a victim of an attack or their family and of course for the military/first responders, etc.

As the title says, I want to know how Polynesians sailed and what techniques they used, and what types of ships they built that could sail on deep ocean.

I searched around a bit and found out that clouds ( their color and shape ) can sometimes indicate if land is nearby, and that by watching the currents and the direction of the waves they could find out if islands were nearby. I also read that some Polynesians predicted once-in-a-century storms and used them to island hop. If so, how did they do so?

Also, did they have any kind of instruments that aided their navigation or was it purely based on human knowledge?

Any information would be appreciated, thanks!

I've heard of a few stories of Christians hiding Jewish people in their homes. Was this and similar instances common? Surely they were susceptible to punishment by the Nazis, so I assume not a whole lot of people aided the Jews. (I was told I should repost this question on here to get more accurate answers.)

In various places I've seen references to or hints that the economy of England was unusual in the Middle Ages. William the Conqueror's chaplain called it "a treasure house of Araby" for its gold and precious metals. There's also the early spread of payment in lieu of military service, and, at least in the later Middle Ages, hinting at a more developed cash economy (which would tally with the availability of metals). Then there's the idea of the stout English yeoman, something more than an impoverished, oppressed peasant.

So are there things that made the English economy distinctive in this period? And if so, do they make England particularly unusual compared to its neighbours, or is it just the usual variation between countries?

So, the Persian empire and Alexander's empire extended to the Indus River on the border of India. What exactly was between Mesopotamia and the Indus River that was worth conquering?