I would really like to know, as I am very interested in this topic and would love to gain more knowledge on it so that I can speak on it.

I know that several kings of Europe had their frustration with the Pope. The Papacy seems to have almost as much secular power as the kings of Europe did, why would the kings tolerate their power? The Papcy owned very little land, how could they militarily resist?

Latvia & Estonia border Russia yet they were able to join along with five other nations in 2004. Why couldn’t Ukraine had done the same in 2004 or any other year while Russia was not paying much attention to NATO?

As a non-historian, I’m amazed at how difficult it is get a reasonable account of this event. It seems like most people don’t buy the Warren commission’s report, but have wildly divergent theories about what actual happened.

Is the same true for historians or is there more of a consensus?

In some shows, they appear to be treated as a luxury. In an old collection of Robin Hood tales I read, the King of England once prayed to St. Thomas for Robin to miss in the royal archery competition and offered 4 loads (bundles? Bushels?) of “fat candles” for the priory of such and such if he did.

Other times, I see or read a castle being fully lit with candles on every surface, and that seems unlikely if they’re a luxury.

Moreover, in a world before electric lighting, any work being done after dark would need candles, so they must have been fairly common.

What’s the verdict?

To follow up on a question that was asked about the attack on Pearl Harbor being a "bad decision," I'm curious why the desire to drag the United States into the war was a goal.

If I understand the timeline correctly, Japan invaded French Indochina in September 1940, and the next major move against the "Western" powers with to attack Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, declaring war on the United States and Great Britain, followed by declarations of war against Japan by the US, UK, Canada, Netherlands, China and Australia... THEN Japan attacked Malaya, Singapore, Burma, etc.

So my question is: Why was tipping the USA's hand and pushing them into the war so important, when Japan could have arguably gained a substantial foothold on mainland Asia by focusing on taking full possession of French and Dutch colonial possessions while they were occupied by Germany? Was there a "hawkish" voice in Japanese military policy that advocated expansion, but only against relatively weak players in the region?

No matter how much I read it never makes logical sense to me, but maybe it’s not supposed to? I’m talking especially about the last couple years of Trotsky’s life; he’s literally on the other side of the planet, banned from ever stepping foot in Russia again, and without all that many supporters…So why is Stalin still ordering multiple assassination attempts?

I don't know much about France (just the very broad strokes in terms of history, and even then not much) but I started watching the Netflix series of The Bonfire of Destiny, set in France 1897. Some of the characters look like they could pass as middle eastern and it got me wondering where that is Netflix's casting choice or if it's close to what they actually looked like irl.

I sincerely do NOT mean this question to be insensitive or crass.

I know that during the 19th and early 20th centuries, illegal abortions were often performed in risky, unprofessional, and sometimes deadly circumstances, and involving various implements and substances.

Given how long there have been jokes about abortions and coat hangers, I'm genuinely curious if this was actually a tool commonly employed to that purpose, or where that morbid joke/trope originated.

Thank you!

I have heard of mediaeval merchant and trade guilds both in the Indian and European context, but am still rather confused about their functioning and how are they distinct from modern corporations and cooperatives.

The Contintental army had to start from scratch, and it’s not like there was a recruitment office in every town. I’m also curious how they convinced men to join, considering they were taking on a powerful empire with little hope of success at the start. Was the motivation philosophical, or did recruits think of it like just another (dangerous) job?

Axis leaders making poor decisions during World War II is nothing strange, but Pearl Harbor seems to be such a comically bad decision, one that makes absolutely no sense to me. To me it seems like they attacked one of the most powerful nations in the world at the time and guaranteed the addition of another enemy into the war. Is this just the value of hindsight or is there anything I'm missing that makes this decision make sense at the time?

As far as I have seen, lots of non European or ex-European colonies use water instead of toilet paper, which is surely more hygienic.

The Romans used sponges dipped in water and washed as far as I am aware, bidets were used before by some richer people but now it seems to be most countries in the west use only paper.

When did it go beyond water and become just the wipe? What caused this cultural change?

hey gang

apologies if this sounds a little too much like, ah, asking you to do my homework for me, but im wondering if anyone off the top of their head can think of any prominent examples of women crossdessing in renaissance italy. i just got done pitching my dissertation concept to my prof and he suggested the major issue is he can think of a few really good examples from spain, but none from italy, which is where i specifically need to be focusing on

theres been some attention to male crossdressing in renaissance italy, and theres something to be said for women wearing articles of mens clothing for a sort of erotic effect, but not a whole lot on female crossdressing in a broader sense, hence my interest. my ultimate goal is to look through examples of figures who spent their whole lives dressed as men (such as the 12th century german semi-saint hildegund) and try to tease out if any of them could arguably be considered late-medieval/early-modern examples of transgender men while taking into account all the circumstances involved, but if theres not a whole lot of primary source material to work with then theres not a whole lot i can do, ill just have to think of something else

ive been up and down jstor and google scholar and the like to try and find anything anyone else might have written but part of the issue is the use of renaissance as a general term for a flourishing of culture, so im throwing up a lot of stuff on modern lgbt renaissances and not a whole lot on renaissance italy. i just need one good example to jump off from and i should be able to get the ball rolling from there - not asking ye to hunt down sources for me or anything, i can probably do that myself

apologies again if this is a misuse of the subreddit, ive no excuse for it other than i have no idea what im doing at any given time and also i never learned how to read

Everyone seems to be aware of the obvious groups that were targeted during the holocaust (jews, poles, gypsies, disabled, homosexuals ect...) but I've been wondering, what were the nazi policies against Muslims? Or were there not enough in Europe to be considered an undesirable group? I'm genuinely curious

I'm trying to document the history and origins of an intellectual idea in my field and I have had zero prior exposure to how to do history. I have taken courses about the history of my field, but how the history was actually produced was never a discussed topic.

I remember hearing from an old friend once who majored in history that there are many different ways of doing history and that it's important to understand them. So I'm wondering if there are some good introductory resources on how to do this? My brief googling led me to 'historiography', is that related to what I'm looking for?