Hello there Historians. I have a question that may or may not have been answered here before. If it has, I apologise. I couldn’t find anything when searching though so I thought I would ask here.

As many will know, here in the UK there has been a lot of talk about Queen Elizabeth II’s seventy years on the throne and this being her platinum Jubilee year. Coming along with this discussion has been much speculation about how a coronation of her Heir, Charles, will look. Will he change the style of the crown on the post boxes around the country? Does he favour the Tudor crown over the current one? Etc etc

I have a different question. So far no one has mentioned what name he will use when he is crowned. I ask this because some of our kings prior to Elizabeth coming to the throne chose a different name to their birth name. A prime example of that would be Queen Elizabeth’s father King George VI as his birth name was Albert Frederick Arthur George

My question to historians who know about Monarchy would be why do they choose a different name to rule under? Why have only some chosen a different ruling name to their birth name and some haven’t? What are the reasons and circumstance for this?

Thank you in advance for any insight.

I teach English to refugees and I'm likely to continue to do that in Nashville, but if I'm teaching English to refugee kids in school it might be useful to be able to use my History MA and do History classes for extra cash if the schools need teachers. But I assume American History classes are about, well, American history? And I'm not American. What kind of things ought I to read to get up to speed?

I have some idea of the main stuff, because it comes up in American TV and so on. You know, I've seen Lincoln, Hamilton, etc. I know that the Civil War was about slavery and the top generals were guys called Ulysses Grant and something or other Lee, but I couldn't tell you much more about them. I know one of the triggers for the War of Independence was stamp tax... or maybe we actually didn't charge them stamp tax in the end? I'm not sure? I know a lot of it was fallout from debt incurred in the 7 Years War, which I believe is called the French and Indian War in the US, but I don't know the details. I had one lecture on American history in my History degree and it was mostly about Native Americans and their interaction with the British (which was really interesting).

My fiancee lives in Tennessee, so I'd be particularly interested at looking at things from that perspective. The Civil War I guess is important, that was a big part of the Tennessee State Museum when we visited but I don't have a lot of background so the details were a bit confusing, and the Cherokee whose territory it was until US settlers moved in after the revolution.

Maybe it's just in the English-speaking world, but the European fairy tales I'm familiar with never mention republics, theocracies and Empire-tier realms. This seems odd because:

• The Republic of Venice and Republic of Genoa were major mercantile powers in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
• Republican city-states were common in what is now Italy, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands.
• Theocratic states included 3 of the 7 Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire, the Teutonic Order, the Livonian Order and the Papal States.
• The Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire were empire-tier realms in Europe, and just outside Europe were other empire-tier realms (at various time periods) like the Caliphate, the Russian Empire, the Mongol Empire and the Khazar Khaganate.

Is there a reason why the fairy tales don't speak of republics, theocracies and Empire-tier realms?

And is the moniker an attempt by one side or the other to down play the seriousness of the conflict? 'The Troubles' just seems a very quaint way to describe armed conflict where there was bombs and assassinations going on throughout the conflict.

I'd also like to add Canada to this question because they too lack the distinctive British accent. Yet, Australia who is thousands of miles from the UK retains the way of speaking. Why is this, and why don't we still have it?

My history teacher told me that the Wehrmacht, or the standard ground troops of the German army, weren’t the cruel monsters that people think of when they think of Nazis. People think of the SS. The Wehrmacht was mostly made up of misguided and brainwashed individuals who saw themselves as protecting their country and people from foreign invaders that the German propaganda machine had, very effectively, told them existed.

I want to believe this is true, and that the vast majority of a large group of people didn’t turn to evil, but I want to fact check first.

I know the SS were by far the crueler of the two groups, but were the Wehrmacht really just confused, brainwashed people who saw the only way forward being to defend their country and trusting that their leaders had their best interest in mind, or was it the hate-filled faction of bloodthirsty white-supremacists everyone thinks it was?

To be clear I’m not condoning either organization’s actions, and I know the Wehrmacht can’t claim total innocence from the atrocities committed, I just want to know if they’re as bad as people say.

As I understand it, the portrayal of battles from ancient times to before the gunpowder era generally give way too much credit to swords. It seems that long weapons like spears and pikes were absolutely dominant, not to mention projectile weapons like slings, bows, and crossbows, and then, finally guns and cannons.

So then when we’re swords useful? Were they used often at all? Were they better for home defense maybe or, if they were used in battle, can we assume then that they were reserved for let’s say precarious situations, similar to modern day soldiers and sidearms?

Hispanics, Asians, Native American’s, were they treated as white or as colored? Could they go into white only shops, restaurants, or use the drinking fountains?

It would seem to be opposed to the communist ethos to have airline cabins divided into economy, business, first, etc.

What about Japanese possessions acquired during the events of WW2? Outside of brutality committed, did they receive economic development in the short time period?

Hello, hope all is well.

I have been learning more about my family history as of late and recently found out my Grandfather had a concentration camp tattoo. My grandfather was born in 1929, in Moravia, Czechoslovakia, age 10-16 during WW2.

- Was Auschwitz the only concentration camp that tattooed prisoners? If so, would he have spent all his time there, or would we have possibly been sent to another camp?

- My grandfather was non Jewish. Would he have experienced the same sort of treatment, like death camps, that the Jewish victims experienced? If not, what would he have experienced?

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Thanks for the read.

How did beer taste 100, 200, or even 500 years ago when purity laws started? Does it taste essentially the same?

I recall way back in college i think 1999 or 2000 I've read a book for a history class something called guns, steel and bugs or sometihing along those lines. It basically stated the difference in success of European settlers between attempting to settle in North America and thus using diseases like yellow fever etc etc to aid in expenasion (native Americans had very bad immunity against European strains) vs pilgrims going to holly land and having them asses handed to them because the disease profiles between Europe and middleeast we're similar but middleeast also has zoonotic diseases like malaria and dengue.

Hi guys, I'm writing an essay about Hammurabi's code, and I'm not sure if I'm on the right track. I've chosen to write about how the code mainly served as a deterrent... Because the laws weren't that enforceable, they had to be severe to effectively deter crime (@ Foucault, Discipline and Punish).

Also, I've read stuff about how the code wasn't actually used in judicial proceedings, implying that the system of justice was pretty loose, furthering my point on how the laws weren't so enforceable.

Is this true? I've found so much contradicting evidence on how enforceable the code was and it's primary purpose in Babylonian society, and now I'm just confused. Any clarifications on these questions would be appreciated!

It seems unlikely to me that the Pope would have done this to his benefactor without at least checking first. Also, why would the Pope/Charlemagne want to do it? While the title is obviously higher than that of king, would it have changed the way any of his subjects or subordinates viewed or interacted with him?

Though government business in Germany today is done in German this hasn't always the case. I'm aware of the fact that German had a bad reputation in the early modern period, epitomised by the Charles V quote, "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to Women, French to Men, and German to my Horse." While Charles V lived a century before the 30 years war, the impression it gives is that French was the official language of government. Despite this, important political documents like the treaties that made up the Peace of Westphalia were written in Latin, giving the impression that it was the language of government. This leads me to wonder, what language would the business of governance have been carried out in, both in terms of spoken negotiation and written laws/treaties?

I've been watching Demon Slayer and I was surprised by how accepting the Japanese culture is of prostitution, or some kinds of prostitution at least

This lead me to read about Oiran and other kinds of high class prostitutes, which left me wondering: what if they got pregnant?

The way I understand it an Oiran had to create and maintain the character of a sophisticated woman, this character was the "product" their clients were paying for. However it seems that being a mother would not fit with that character, an Oiran had be single and available be to preserve the illusion, and yet, some of them must have gotten pregnant

What happened in this situation?, would they have abortions?, would they get another job?, would they their hide their children and pretend they didn't have any while they were working?