I know about the V-1/V-2 attacks, but discounting those, did the Luftwaffe have the resources to attack Britain itself after the Battle of Britain?
Were recon flights able to go through and photograph the military buildup, especially the extent of US forces?
2 Answers 2017-03-18
I just finished "Hacksaw Ridge"- which I found very underwhelming, by the way- and I was intrigued that Doss' basic training platoon is the exact same group of guys he deploys overseas with, to include his commanding officer and platoon sergeant. Is this historically accurate?
I was in the Marines myself, but I am not aware of this ever being the case in the modern Marine Corps or Army. After boot camp/basic training, platoon-mates part ways permanently.
1 Answers 2017-03-18
Question inspired by this video.
Note: Asked this question on /r/askscience, and they sent me here, even though I think this is basically a science history question, but whatever.
2 Answers 2017-03-18
I don't remember where or when I heard this, and I can't find much of anything online which might hint at the validity of this statement, but I was once told that Poland was actually pleased with Germany invading them.
This was coupled with that they had cheered as German forces paraded down the main streets.
Normally I don't take an interest in WWI and WWII, as others do to the point that I feel any addition would be severely unnecessary, but I have to rectify this for truth's sake as well as better equip myself for my midterm on Monday.
Thanks in advance.
1 Answers 2017-03-18
3 Answers 2017-03-18
Reading "The Lineage of Homer" and it says, "they say he was named Melesigenes... but later after becoming blind was Homer, as the Aeolians call the blind homeroi". Is there any evidence for this/why is it significant that Homer was blind?
Thanks!
1 Answers 2017-03-18
As far as I understand the only first hand, written sources we have of vikings were written by someone who encountered them and not the vikings themselves. Yet they did have a written language. I realise we have the sagas but as far as I can understand they were written down hundreds of years after the viking age.
1 Answers 2017-03-18
Referencing this article that came out last May. In the article, a geoarchaeologist named Eberhard Zangger is proposing that there were multiple nation states who were allied together to form a pact instead of a vassal state. Around 1200 BCE, there was a rapid collapse of several nations in the Mediterranean which could be attributed to a multi-region conflict by various allied nation states. He suggests the Luwians who I took to be Mycenaeans and other sea-faring peoples waged a war where they eventually emerged victorious.
What present evidence exists to support this idea if any and is this a fringe idea?
2 Answers 2017-03-17
From what I understand Jesus was just one of many first century messiah claimants in the (seemingly) very minor religion of Judaism, how did a minor sect of a minor religion, following a failed messiah claimant (Not only Jesus didn't inaugurate the messianic age, but he was executed), manage to grow so large?
1 Answers 2017-03-17
I used to think that prior to the Nazis it was only an asian thing, but then I learned that it's been in Europe as well for a long time. So now I'm curious to learn how this might have affected the Nazi decision for this symbol.
1 Answers 2017-03-17
Did early humans (before they had language or towns, etc.) pair up and start families? Were they monogamous after having children? Was it likely there were nuclear families making shelter in one dwelling?
1 Answers 2017-03-17
A front page story came up that DNA tests confirmed Aboriginal Australians' oral histories which claimed they'd been there for 50000 years.
I'm curious though, over a mere 2000 years, English has changed quite substantially, to the point where old English is entirely unintelligible to most of us.
So how do oral histories survive linguistic changes? Do their caretakers adjust them to deal with linguistic changes, if so, how do they ensure the meaning is retained? Are they so important that the language is forced to remain stable around them? Do the languages where oral histories are common simply not change much for other reasons?
1 Answers 2017-03-17
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1 Answers 2017-03-17
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2 Answers 2017-03-17
Many photos before 1960, as I can see, were often not the standard black and white. Why was this?
Here are some examples:
Can anyone figure out why this is? I can even find some pictures dating back only into the 1940s and 1950s that were still not the normal black and white.
2 Answers 2017-03-17
The AskHistorians Podcast is a project that highlights the users and answers that have helped make /r/AskHistorians one of the largest history discussion forum on the internet. You can subscribe to us via iTunes, Stitcher, or RSS, and now on YouTube. If there is another index you'd like the cast listed on, let me know!
This Episode:
In part one of a two-part series on the European Armoring Industry, /u/WARitter joins us to discuss just exactly how the knights in shining armor got their shining armor. The first half of this two part series explores the techniques and the strategies from turning raw ore into beautiful armor, and how some of these techniques shifted over time. Next episode will bring an hour-plus long discussion on the entire arc of the armoring industry history—and the families, cities, and people that built it. (35m)
If you want more specific recommendations for sources or have any follow-up questions, feel free to ask them here! Also feel free to leave any feedback on the format and so on.
If you like the podcast, please rate and review us on iTunes.
Thanks all!
Coming up next fortnight: /u/WARitter returns to give an hour-long discussion on the entirety of the armoring industry and how it declined and fell.
3 Answers 2017-03-17
Is so, when did this start? Are there any examples in museums somewhere?
2 Answers 2017-03-17
2 Answers 2017-03-17
Historians, so I get that there's a debate over the impact of the viking invasions (migrations?) in the British Isles. "Cuddly vikings" on one side of the debate, and bloodthirsty vikings on the other. I'm curious about reading into this debate and seeing how the different sides came to the conclusions they did. Googling gets me stuff like this piece from the Evening Standard which is fun and all, but I'd like a reading list. Is there an obvious first place to start reading for this kind of cuddly vs bloodthirsty vikings stuff? Something recent-ish that lays out the sides in the debate for the uninitiated?
1 Answers 2017-03-17
I've been listening through Dan Carlin's latest HH podcast (Destroyer of Worlds), in which he reviews the atomic/nuclear age of near-war. He quickly mentions that the closest Eisenhower came to the brink was once with the USSR concerning Berlin and once with China concerning some islands in the South China Sea.
I didn't see any answered questions in this subreddit, and all I could find with a cursory google/wiki search was that this was referred to as the Taiwan Strait Crisis (of which there were several). Can any of yall shed light on these events past what wikipedia states?
1 Answers 2017-03-17
1 Answers 2017-03-17
Recently, I watched CaspianReport’s analysis “Decline of the Ottoman Empire” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-SUlb4rwls). In it, Mr. Shirvan Neftchi outlines a very straightforward and seemingly very logical main reason for the decline. I have summarised his main points below:
15th century: Venetian traders start buying all kinds of raw materials all over the Ottoman Empire and exporting them; 17th century: French, English, German, Dutch traders are also buying raw materials with the gold of the Americas - always able to outbid local Ottoman traders
Result: Ottoman guilds, which are regulated by the state, lose their productivity
Reaction: State bans Europeans from buying strategic raw materials
Result: A black market emerges and corruption spreads among officials
New rich class of bribe-taking entrepreneurs emerges, who buy imported luxury consumer goods
Result: Ottomans are consuming much more than they are producing
Resulting inflation affects actors with fixed-income the worst - who are precisely the officials
Reaction: Countermeasure of state is to raise salaries of these officials - in order to do this, it needs to mint more money, by which it aggravates the inflation even more
Parallel development: Janissaries gradually become aristocrats - promotion no longer depended on actual skills and merit
End result: The resulting complex web of corrupt bureaucrats and black-market entrepreneurs has a major adverse influence on the Ottoman Empire, decisively contributing to its decline
After watching this analysis, I was struck by how self-explanatory it all seemed and had a tidy little “Aha” moment of enlightenment. I also wondered why nobody ever bothered to explain this to me at school, because if true, I consider it to be a quite a revelation - a chain of causes and results that would serve to expand one’s grasp of the dynamics of history.
In any case, I tried to find more detailed background information related to CaspianReport’s claims online - but couldn’t. What I swiftly found was this, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_fall_of_the_Ottoman_Empire. I am almost completely ignorant on the topic, but gather that there are many conflicting theories and by all means no easy explanation.
Could you please help me understand this better by addressing the following questions:
Is there enough truth in Mr. Neftchi’s reasoning outlined above that would render it at least partially valid and worth mentioning in historic sources? If yes, are there any such sources?
Even if your answer to the first question is negative, and if at all possible, could you please consider this as a hypothetical situation and tell me: How should the Ottoman Empire have handled the issue in order to avoid the resulting far-reaching detrimental consequences? (Should you consider this to be more of a r/HistoryWhatIf part of the question, please just ignore it.)
Much obliged for your thoughts, fellow Redditors! :)
1 Answers 2017-03-17
