It seems interesting to me that a woman having the most powerful position in the world was a reality for many years in the past, but seems like a "modern" idea nowadays. Why is this? Why England had so many strong women leaders, but other countries didn't (excluding couple of exceptions like Catherine the Great).

Alright guys,

So, full disclosure. I'm analysing the "Iron Curtain" speech and obviously looking at some contexts surrounding the speech. I was thinking of having a look at their relationship i.e. did they like each other. I am, however, finding contradictory sources constantly and it's frankly making my head spin (could be due to the fact I've written 3000 words since Tuesday on other essays, though).

Would any of you be able to elucidate, or perhaps point me in the direction of some literature? I have access to JSTOR etc. too.

I recently remembered a weird "fact" that I was taught way back in school, that settlers/pioneers would burn down their homes if they moved in order to collect the nails, which were considered valuable.

This feels insane on the surface. Is there any credible grain in this? Is it at least a rumor you've heard before? If my teacher was wrong, I'd love to know how wrong they were...

I've just recently started reading it, and as an American Jew who considers himself fairly historically literate, it's rather surprising, to say the least. To an uncareful reader, it might even read like Nazi apologism. I know that her Banality of Evil was highly controversial, but how about Origins?

I am trying to get a good understanding of Fascist Italy's field equipment from 1933 to 1945. One question I have is if did they carried German zeltbahns or something like it? I know this is an extremely weird question but thank you for your time and help!

[deleted]

I have found many articles on why America entered ww1 and the thought of fighting America but I haven't been able to find the reaction when America announced its entry. What did the citizens of allied countries think and say? What about the citizens of the enemy? What was the reaction to the soldiers on both sides?

You see in lots of classical and more recent Marxists and anarchists this idea that human communities (prior even to cities) were largely devoid of hierarchy. What's the consensus these days?

I took an American history class in Canada and was told that majority of colonists were either apathetic to the revolution( many due to war with the British negatively effecting them) or out right hostile to it. I was also told that although some people were angry at the British those that wanted outright independence were on the fringe. Is this true?

Hi, a few years ago one of my teachers brought a box to school that she found in her grandpa's house after he passed away. It had a diary and several items from world war 2 like a dagger and documents/newspapers. In the diary talked about when he was part of a special force that's mission was to help Norwegian forces kill nazis after they had been allowed to travel through Sweden.

As I understood it they only did night missions and used knives and piano wires to kill while they were sleeping.

This story really stuck with me and I would love to hear if there's any more information about this since I could not find much online.

Someone told me years ago it was pretty much the Americans torpedoing their own ship and blaming it on the north Vietnamese so they would have a reason to get involved in the Vietnam was, how accurate is this simple explanation and what actually happened if the explanation above is wrong? First post, thanks in advance

Could a solid shot go through many people, or did it generally the overall force of the projectile get absorbed by one guy (I doubt)? Given a tight formation, how many people could you expect to take out with a direct hit?

Specifically on the combat side, but anything within the Communications Zone in any theater would be nice. I don't need anything for Zone of the Interior reading, but anything would be acceptable.

Hi r/askhistorians !

I'm very interested in reading about Greek myths and mythology. Are there any good books on this topic for beginners?

Thank you!

I'm a huge Classical music geek and I think that they did a good job on not presenting him in a classical way and more of an immature way. I understand it's historical fiction, like Salieri's character is completely different than real life, but I just want to focus on Mozart.

Can anyone recommend a good place to start researching the early development of tanks and mobile warfare? I am most interested in anything surrounding the debate over more heavily armoured, and slower vehicles, versus more lightly-armoured and more maneuverable vehicles.

During WWII, did the Axis or Allies ever use captured aircraft to perform missions against the enemy (i.e. not including training or evaluation) or were they too afraid to fall under friendly fire? If so, what was the most impressive use of captured aircraft? Did they ever repaint them? (E.g. a P-40 with a rising sun?)