Is there any reason that English speakers refer to u-boats and submarines as two separate things? The term is totally ubiquitous when I read about the wars, but I can’t think of many other scenarios where we use native terms to describe something. I never hear German flamethrowers called flammenwerfers in English books, so how did German submarines get described as undersea bootens in English books?

So the Greeks seem to have a sorta solid analogue for modern concepts of male adolescence/young adulthood in the ephebos and the institution of the ephebate, as well as the (narrower?) band of time that one might qualify as the younger partner in a pederastic relationship. Was there an equivalent for girls and women? Or did girls and women immediately go from "somebody's daughter" to "somebody's wife" in the Greek mindset?

I'm also curious about the same concept in the Roman mind, as well as those of other Eastern Mediterranean cultures, especially those that were heavily Hellenized.

Thanks!

When did the Roll get dropped from Rock & Roll?

Did it happen among DJs and music critics first and then the public adapted to the change, or the other way around? Or did the musicians trigger the change?

Egyptians used build huge constuction for the pharaohs' tumulation for at least 1500 years, first as mastabas then as pyramids. Then they stopped building them, and opted to underground mausoleums as the ones in the King's Valley. I can imagine the main reason for this is that the former were more difficult and costly to build, but is it the main reason? Or is there another other cause for such a difference between the two time periods?

Mental health diseases such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, OCD, and PSTD etc. Were there any written records of disorders like that before we understood the human mind like we do now?

A.C. Nunn, a fan of Lord of the Rings, wrote to Tolkien (Letter 214) sometime in 1958 or 1959, objecting to a minor detail in the story.

You see, Smeagol (later Gollum) murdered his friend for the One Ring, later justifying his crime by referring to the Ring as his "birthday present" from said friend. However, one chapter earlier, Tolkien had established that Hobbits give presents on their birthdays.

The correspondent jokes about the insignificance of this detail ("I shall be most grateful if you can spare the time to undertake some research into this important matter.") but still asks Tolkien to resolve it. Tolkien does so by writing a ten-page fictional history of Hobbit birthday customs and how they interact with the Rings world.

Did other "fandoms" have similar expectations of authors? Was this a social thing in the 1950s? Or did Tolkien's eagerness to engage in world-building essentially create the idea of a fictional canon?

I have been trying to unravel certain mysteries about the identity and internal politics of the "Arabs" who arose following the decline of the Seleucid Empire. They seem to have had loyalty to kings in Emesa, Harran and Adiabene. With Jewish Adiabene and Josephus's tale of Anileus as a Jewish pseudo-state in the Euphrates valley, I'm left wondering about the precise definition of "Israelite" in the era.

Josephus discusses Arabs, Jews, Babylonians and Macedonians as the primary ethnic groups in Babylon.

I also have seen that Arabs and "Israelites" fought at Harran along with the final Neo-Assyrian kings. Both Jews and Arabs also have a connection to Ethiopia that predates and postdates Roman rule in the Near East.

Researching the camel - which facilitates Arab trade into Ethiopia/Yemen, and allows Charax-Spasinau to connect with Nabatea (trade South of the Euphrates) - I was surprised to learn it may have been introduced rather late to the Near East.

There seems to be evidence that the camel was introduced from Media to the Arabah Valley in direct response to trade disruptions caused by Egyptian military activity. This also coincides with Neo-Assyrian expansion into Canaan, and the defeat of Egyptian power. We then see that Neo-Assyria dominates Egypt and maintains complete hegemony over Mesopotamia, Babylon, Canaan and into South Arabia and the Upper Nile.

The narrative seems to be that Neo-Assyria, in building the new Iron Age world order, is directly responsible for introducing the camel trade as part of its geostrategy. I even wonder if the Arabah Valley serves as the etymological basis for the name "Arab".

The Arabs of the classical era seem to have been what we called the Arameans. As for the Israelites, we see the loss of the Amorite/Canaanite identity by the Roman era. The peoples of Ebla and Yamhad, of Ugarit. The founders of Babylon. Other than the Punic identity, there is only the Jewish identity in Canaan, as far as I can tell. Could it be that the broad application of "Yehudim" or Israelite was applied to the remnant Amorite identity? Could this explain the "Samaritan" identity - Israelites who have never had any allegiance to Jerusalem.

It's easy to interpret some of the turmoil of the first century by seeing the Arabs and Babylonian Israelites as serving in a role loyal to the concept of Assyrian hegemony. We see this with Adiabene, we also see it with the Parthian usurpers (Tiridates II, Osroes). We also see the beginnings of conflict between Israelite and Arab with Izates and Abia, or Anileus's "robber state". Where the two groups formerly were amicable "Sons of Abraham" in Babylon.

So, to reframe the question, did Neo-Assyria create the Near East camel trade, and is their hegemonic order responsible for creating the Arab and Israelite identities? That is, as deliberate geostrategic projects. By implication, Arab and Jewish power by the time of the common era represent an echo or remnant of Assyrian civilization (in contrast to Roman or Persian power).

This would also imply that both Christianity (and all its associated cults - eg.: Manicheanism) and Neoplatonic philosophy (and Islam, specifically the Shia variety) are products of Assyrian civilization in a very specific sense. That is, Assyrian thought won out over Persian, Greek, Egyptian, African or oriental toward the end of the Iron Age.

I've heard that the Arab slave trade was larger than the Atlantic slave trade, so if so why is there no black people in Arabia, or what is the actual case with this?

Do we have any sources that mention a name for a musical group, or something comparable from the past. Or is naming your band a more recent thing?

Being a musician myself, I would assume that giving your group a name to be known by is a natural thing to want to do, so you can stand out and score more opportunities to play and get paid. Not to mention that naming bands is fun.

edit: typos

The end of the movie Dr. Strangelove is a sequence of nuclear bomb detonations. After ending the testing memorandum of 1958 in 1961, did the US begin widely releasing this footage to the public? Were they meant to be seen by the Soviet Union for deterrence?

I'm working on the Williamite War in Irlande and I like to create timelines to get a clear view of what's happening, where, etc... Sadly all the tools I usually use online can't deal with a 2 year timeline as it is too small and I can't have a bigger scale.

Do you know where I can find such devices?

Hello fellow history interested!

My greatgrandfather, born 1839 in Dagestan, is said to have murdered a Russian commander during his duty because he tried to rape a woman. He was then sent to a Sibirian prison. (This prison has to be older than the Gulags from the Second World War) He spent 7 years there but because he learned to swim as a kid he somehow managed to flee this camp through a river nearby. It is said that it took him 3 days and 3 nights of swimming and diving to get out of sight from his persecutors. He then continued his way back via China, Buchara, India and Iran. His 3 year long journey ended when he reached the Ottoman Empire. I'm wondering where he was imprisoned and wanted to ask if any of you might know of some camps "near" China with access to a river. We don't know how long it took him to get to China but I guess he took the shortest route he found.

I hope this is the right subreddit to ask, I browsed through some other subs but found this suitable. Sorry if it's not.

Thanks in advance!

I looked at an old map of Denmark, when it ruled parts of Southern Sweden, and I realized how strong Denmark's geographical position at the mouth of the Baltic Sea really was. In theory, Denmark could deny almost all foreign naval trade to and from her eastern neighbours, such as Sweden, Poland, Prussia and Russia.

But when I think about Denmark as a regional power, my impression is that they were not that much stronger than any of the neighbours I mentioned, despite her geographic advantage. Why is that? Did Denmark benefit from her position, and if so, how much?

One of the things I find interesting about history is how interconnected the Mediterranean world was. For thousands of years, different empires contoured the different territories across both sides of the sea. But the big cities like Thebes and Tripoli were basically always considered rich and valuable. Why did so much of north Africa fall off the cultural map? It was colonized of course but how could Europe just ignore a place they had interacted with for millennia such that no one really knows much about it now? Many northern African nations were more urban and more integrated with the global economy than the interior of Africa so why was its fate largely the same?

Always wondered about this. Are they just the best at political machine methods?

American Army Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds saved the lives of several hundred Jewish American soldiers who were captive in a Nazi POW camp during the Battle of the Bulge in WWII where he was in charge of over 1200 prisoners in the stalag. MSgt Edmonds stymied the Nazi camp commandant by refusing to name or point out any fellow American prisoners in the camp who were Jewish, basically by telling the commandant that they were all Jewish and refusing to cooperate with the Nazis. Given that during WWII American soldiers usually wore "dog tags" that identified them and included their religious affiliation, using a "C" for Catholic, "P" for Protestant, and "H" for Jewish or Hebrew, why didn't the commandant just check the dog tags? The camp commandant surely must have been aware of the tags. Would the American soldiers have all ditched their dog tags before capture?

I am reading a fashion history book and it talks about how some Egyptians would shave their heads for cleanliness and various other reasons. How were they able to shave?

Simply put, it's a weird album, even for its time. It was the best-selling album of the year, and Billboard's #1 album; among other hit albums, it's fairly unique. The Contemporary Christian Music scene hadn't really taken off yet at that time. Progressive rock bands such as King Crimson, Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, and Genesis would release albums around this time that didn't reach gold until years later; Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, and Deep Purple would have releases with similar sales numbers, that didn't chart nearly as high.

Meanwhile, 'Jesus Christ Superstar' was considered a long-shot when it was recorded. Weber and Rice released the album because they were unsuccessful in producing it into a stage show. However, the album became a huge success, even before it earned the name-recognition of the popular show. All-in-all, it seems like a real underdog. Why did this particular album see more success than other stylistically similar albums, and how did it become a pop hit from out of the stylistic left-field?