The example I am thinking of is the difference between the Spartan Kings and the tyrants of other city states, but explanation of any other example is welcome.

Or rather, did David Lloyd George speak German? I'm watching a documentary right now where they're showing videos of Lloyd George's visit to the Berghof and it shows him and Hitler speaking freely and casually to each other (but of course there's no sound on the video so I can't tell what they're speaking). It doesn't seem there was a translator, their speech looks too free-flowing. So which one of them spoke the other's native tongue?

I fell into the wikipedia loophole, and from reading about Belize, i ended up deep, deep in the Royal Family, most people had "X in line for British throne", how is it decided who gets what place, and who decides it?

(Walter Ulbricht, leader, Erich Mielke, head of the Stasi, and Heinz Kessler, minister of defense)

I feel like this is a pretty bad question but i struggled how to frame it as what I saw was the complete absence of coverage. Am I wrong? How have historians covered this and how widely covered is it? How often is it invoked in comparative studies? Wish this wasn't so vague

A friend of mine is making stupid claims that his home county supplied more confederate soldiers than any other county in the entire south. Which I know can't be true because that county is one of the least populated counties in Virginia, now and during the civil war.

But i'd still like to find records of some kind just so he'll have to admit he's making stuff up on the spot.

EDIT: i've done a few google searches where you can search for specific soldiers and found multiple genealogy sites but I really just want like counties, and then how many soldiers were supplied.

My knowledge of communism is probably lacking, but my basic understanding is that in a communist system, the people produce goods and hand them over to the state, and the state distributes them equally among the people.

But the USSR had a currency, the Ruble. I would expect the existence of a currency would imply capitalist forces at work.

• Where did people get rubles?

• Would they have to spend them in state-owned stores?

• Was there any "grassroots capitalism", like people using the rubles to buy and sell from each other directly?

This question pertains to the infamous 1971 plane hijacking, and "Dan Cooper" the perpetrator. As of last year, the F.B.I. closed the active investigation, but has any recent work on the subject been done by historians? I'd be very interested to hear what the community has to offer in terms of the general consensus and likely outcome of the hijacking based on the available evidence and established research.

What I mean by this would the King of England ever marry a Queen of Denmark, or a Tsar of Russia marrying an Austrian Archduchess? I assume it happened but not often, because would the female be forced to pass her titles to the other family in the next generation? Thanks for any answers!

No idea is created out of nothing, so I'm just wondering who came before Marx that would have influenced his thinking on the subject.

In Robert Greene's The 48 laws of Power he makes the claim that Napoleon's escape from Elba island and subsequent events leading to Waterloo were orchastrated by Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord. He argues that Talleyrand initially wanted Napoleon to be banished much further from Europe but after realizing it he couldnt make that happen he plotted with foreign ministers of Auatria and England to have Napoleon return to a France. Considering France was in a weakened state upon his return Talleyrand expected Napoleon to fight another war which he would then lose.

That seems a bit farfetched to me but after looking into Talleyrand I'm more open to the idea but i cant just take an uncited claim at face value. Is there substantial evidence to support Robert Greene's claim?

We know that the Icelandic community visited the Americas almost 500 years before Columbus. So why didn't they bring diseases that wiped out the native populations they way Columbus did. Or is there evidence that they brought disease to the native populations?

and did it always play such a big role in public imagination?

Simply, what was happening in Coast Salish society for these 300 years?

I'm from the Puget Sound area, and our common knowledge of the local people begins with a young Chief Seattle seeing Vancouver's ship, and ends with the founders of the city of Seattle naming the new town after him. (Yes, i am aware that's not his name, but I'm not sure how to spell it correctly)

I understand that Europeans and European-Americans took somewhat longer to get out to the west coast, but surely there had to have been some influence and effects from colonization during those centuries. Or maybe not? Were the Lushootseed-speaking people of Puget Sound largely untouched by outside societies during that time? I understand that's not really true - since Spanish, Russian, English, Haida, and other people all interacted with them - but mention it to contrast with the people east of the Mississippi or south of the Rio Grande.

This week's Wednesday Time Warp is inspired by /u/ParallelPain!

As historians, we often look for causes and effects, rational explanations for actions and events. Today, let's get in a time machine, pretend it is still Tuesday, and consider some of the ways and moments that people throughout history have left things to fate or to the Fates.