My grandfather was born and raised in Trembowla (then part of Austria, I believe, now part of Ukraine). He would have been 21 when World War I broke out. It was rarely spoken of, and never in detail, in our family, that he was conscripted into the armies fighting on the German side in World War I, and had been exposed to mustard gas (he had lifelong respiratory problems, so the mention almost always came as part of discussions of his health). After the war, he emigrated to the United States, and felt deeply betrayed, I was told, that after fighting for the German side, many members of our family were murdered in the Holocaust.

I'm interested in learning the possible details of his conscription, military service, and exposure to chemical agents; and also, potentially, in what the years following the war—up until his arrival in the U.S. around 1923—would have been like for a disabled Jewish veteran of the losing side. I understand that we're talking speculative generalities here, but I'd appreciate any context at all.

For those of us that are only amateur armchair historians, what kind of mistakes do we often make that an educated historian would avoid?

I am reading a fictional story about Cicero at the moment and in several situations he takes regular slaves with him for protection. Is this something that is believable? What would happen to that slave if he hurt or killed a citizen that was attacking his master.

Also it is mentioned that several senators used the gladiators they owned as kind of hired thugs and bodyguards including actively attacking opponents. Since a lot of them had a slave status what would happen to them when caught?

Also gladiators are very expensive assets. Would risking them in this role be considered?

Hi everyone,

Just a thought today about how men have always been in control and even things like women's rights and equal treatment have been a fairly recent phenomenon.

With that, how come queens (example: Queen Elizabeth in the 1500's) were able to reign when things were not so equal in the past?

Thank you

South Korea is a posterchild for success, with an excellent military, fantastic public services and great industry, but how did it achieve this?

I know that it wasn't democratic for a while; was this a factor? Did this allow it push through reforms? WHy can't Europe Copy the South Korean model?

Many thanks for any info

I have been doing some research on early United States history for a project, and I keep running into various treaties signed between the colonies/United States and Native American tribes. Where would these treaties actually be kept after they were signed? And, if different, where are they kept now?

There's a lot of Founding Father bashing as well as glorifying from a lot of different Americans from a lot of different political shades, especially around the delicate topics of race and privilege.

I want to cut through the nonsense and inflamed opinions and ask a historian: How much were the Founding Fathers active and purposeful contributors to racism and how much were they simply products of their time?

For what it's worth, this is my first time visiting r/askhistorians, but I'm pretty confident I'm in the right sub.

Your expertise is appreciated!

It seems somewhat strange to me that a country like Taiwan that has quite the industrial capacity but is above al under constant threat from Chinese invasion has no nuclear deterrence. Has Taiwan ever pursued nuclear weapons? Were they deterred from it by threats from China? Or were they comfortable with operating beneath a US nuclear umbrella?

Would the music of someone like Mozart have been accessible to everyday folk back in his time, as it is now? Would a commoner have been familiar with his music?

Obviously Mozart is dead. However, the demand for his music is still alive. Therefore, his music is conducted by people other than himself. Would someone other than Mozart have conducted his music while he was still alive? If not, how could one person meet all of the demand for their music across Europe? They didn't have radios to broadcast it to millions of people.

How would the status of classical musicians in their day compare to that of modern musicians? Were they comparable to modern celebrities, like famous rockstars, or is this a false equivalency?

Historians of Reddit, and particularly those specializing in early Islamic history, do you think that Islam offered progressive stances on slavery, warfare and women’s rights in the context of the contemporary customs and practices of 7th Century Arabia?

I'm listening to the Hamilton soundtrack and there are frequent references to fighting in 'the trench' - obviously it's not a historical source but it got me thinking what was the combat like? What I know of the period combat is the later Napoleonic War combat - formations of men firing at each other. What was the combat of the Revolutionary war like, did it involve trenches and how did it differ from Napoleonic combat?

I was chatting politics with a friend tonight. He said the reason that Democrats are called Democrats is because they believe (or believed when the party was founded) in pure or direct democracy and Republicans believe/believed in a representative republic.

It smelled like bullshit but I wasn't armed to call him on it. Is he right? I've read up a bunch on the years and different evolution and splits of parties but not the, for lack of a better word, political or philosophical etymology of the party names themselves.