I need help here.

Is there a term for or a historian who reads primary sources and draws interpretations based on the information that is not there.

Like reading the gaps in sources of eg, rich white man and trying to piece together the story of his black slave.

To study the gaps and to come out with conclusions.

While I'm aware that European influences have survived decolonization in many parts of Africa, it's clear that the native ethnic groups retained far more of their culture and their language than their counterparts in the Americas. Africa is not a "Europeanized" continent, whereas every country in the Americas speaks either English, Spanish, or Portugese as their primary language. I suppose one exception to this would be South Africa. I'd also be interested to know why it, specifically, has retained so much European influence.

How do the Balkans have such distinct cultures from each other if they were ruled by the Byzantine Empire for centuries. Also, how does Turkish exist in so much of anatolia if it was ruled by the byzantines and Romans for even longer than the Balkans in some parts?

My grandfather was in Korea, 82nd Airborne, if I recall correctly. He passed when I was young and didn't get to learn much from him. I would love to have an expert presentation of the war on its entirety, but most of all, the feats of the 82nd.

Ive heard that phrase for quite a while and have always wondered, did people from that time period really surprised by the spanish inquisition, or was it an event that was slowly gaining support over time?

I was watching a show about Persian Empire or the Achaemenid Empire and I was at awe when i Heard all his accomplishments, then a historian said that he is one of the very few to be called the Great. What do you guys think and does he deserve it?

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When Ronald Reagan was elected President, there were few computers, there was no internet. m How would I an independent layperson go about learning more about ongoings that weren't typically represented in broadcast media?

For example how would I go about learning more about Reagan and Carter's backgrounds during the election if I wanted to?

Libraries could certainly provide all sorts of information about things that had been published in books, but publication takes a long time, was that the best I could do in 1980 for up to date layperson research?

Hi, the question is in the title. It seems to me that you could be both a House Rep and a Senator early on (at least in my dataset of congresspeople), but I struggle to find an exact record on when that stopped being a thing.

If anyone can point me to when that change happened, I'd be very grateful!

Thanks! :)

I just recently learned about the functionalism vs. intentionalism debate about the Holocaust. Reading about it, I wonder, how much thought is this given among Holocaust/Nazi German historians and why is it not discussed MORE if it isn't given much thought?

As I understand it, while not a senior officer like a colonel, a captain in the United States Army still takes quite a few years of experience and training. Given that they knew there would be rather heavy casualties at the beaches, did the Allies send officers such as Captains or even higher with the first waves as depicted in Saving Private Ryan?

If so, what was the reason for this? Were captains typically with the front line during assaults in WW2?

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I was fairly young when courts in developed countries began admitting DNA evidence. I've read a bit about expert testimony and how DNA evidence came to be admitted both in the service of the prosecution and defence (particularly for post-conviction appeals, like those pursued by the Innocence Project). I know some of the relevant US court cases that helped decide on the admissibility of DNA evidence. I think tracing these processes is fairly interesting from the perspective of history of ideas, philosophy of science, etc. How do we come to accept things as true, the lag between scientific invention and social recognition, trust, authority, etc.

I am interested in reading about similar histories of earlier forensic techniques, like fingerprinting. In an era before legal interest groups were quite as entrenched, and before expert witness testimony was quite as routine as it is today, I am interested in how long it took courts to consolidate around the admissibility of early forensic evidence, how they decided to interpret novel forensic techniques, if judges and juries differed in their trust in the evidence, if this process differed by country or culture, and whether uptake of early forensic techniques was primarily driven by prosecution, defence, or both? Were courts skeptical or did they rapidly consolidate around admitting such evidence? Finally, as standards for the collection of such evidence and technology marched on, do judges, jurors, or legal experts regret the use of earlier forensic evidence as contributing to false convictions/exonerations?

So as to avoid "example seeking" I would say I am especially interested in England and the United States, and fingerprinting at the turn of the 20th century; but I invite historians who have interesting stories (e.g. the history of medicine, the development of pathology, and how pathology and doctors became implicated in the court system, discredited pre-scientific or pseudo-scientific techniques like phrenology being used in court, etc.) to chime in as well.

Thank you.

I read in one of the FAQ threads that the extreme carnage like in Saving Private Ryan is relatively accurate. So were there any expectations as to how many of these soldiers would survive the initial invasion? Did the soldiers know that they were very likely going to die? And what percent of them did survive?

Was the Spanish Empire (and for that matter, the Portuguese Empire) closed to the outside world more than the French, Dutch, or English/British Empires? If so, is it my understanding that - of the last three - the French Empire was the most closed, the English/British Empire was the most open, and the Dutch Empire was somewhere in between?