H.H. Holmes is notorious in popular culture for being a vicious serial killer who built a hotel in Chicago that was supposedly filled with hidden gas chambers and other murder contraptions. An article I recently read online claims that much of these stories were fabricated by newspapers covering the case. It also states that while he definitely murdered several people, the "Horror Hotel" never truly went into operation.

So what historical evidence do we have about Holmes and his criminal activities? How trustworthy are the sources dealing with his case?

This may sound a troll question, but hear me out - when we think of royal inbreeding, the Habsburgs first come in mind where first cousins or uncles and aunts had children with their nieces or nephews. Another good example should be the Zoroastrian rulers of the Sassanid empire , where often in an attempt to keep the bloodline pure,brothers entered into sacred matrimony with their sisters. Their offsprings had legitimate genetic health issues, Carlos II of Spain being a prime example. Despite all of this, there are little to no historical records of Ptolemaic monarchs having legitimate health issues, coming from the inbreeding of close relatives - Ptolemy V for example was a child of Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe III,both of which were brother and sister, Ptolemy X who was the child of Ptolemy VII and Cleopatra III ( again - siblings ), and even Cleopatra VII, the lover of Caesar and wife of Mark Anthony ,was the offspring of siblings. So why is it that most of them weren't disfigured, had a distinct chin and problems walking, talking or even reproducing, like others?

The question is in the title, but actually I have a precise idea.

I seem to remember reading in a book that some people transported fire/ember in some sort of metal basket or something, to be able to relight a fire at the next stop... Does this ring a bell ? I can't remember the book, so it could be History/Fiction, I'm trying to figure out if this existed.

If it existed indeed, what was it called ?

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Thank you very much in advance.

I want to learn more about the political/cultural environment in late Weimar Republic – transition to Third Reich Germany. I'm particularly interested in learning about the specific narratives, stories, stances on issues, talking points, rhetoric, etc that were popular among conservatives and other right-wing Germans of the time as evinced in newspapers, newsletters, transcripts (speeches, radio personalities), etc. I am also interested in the specific stances/talking points popular among moderate and left-wing people at the time, thought it isn't my main focus at the moment.

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If I wanted to get really research-y I could probably dive into archives of German newspapers at the time, but my big limitation here is that I don't speak German. So short of learning German, I figure my best chance is 1) some kind person lecturing to me on the topic or 2) some person(s) already wrote a book(s) on the topic.

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I've read a couple books about the fall of Weimar Germany / rise of the Nazis in order to gain a better understanding of the situation. They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer did provide a lot of the very general type of insight I'm seeking, but that's a single book with a narrow focus (conversations with individuals) and one published in 1955 and lacking the context of the understanding of events and factors that has developed in the proceeding decades.

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The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic by Benjamin Carter Hett was great for gaining a general understanding of what went down, but generally kept moving quickly through a sprawling narrative in order to best convey a complicated series of events in a reasonable amount of words and didn't spend much time dwelling on the specific stances, talking points, etc being circulated at the time in the political/cultural 'biome'/body of discourse of 'every day' right-wing Germans.

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So I'm left wanting a fuller understanding of the cultural atmosphere - including specific, popular lines of thought, propaganda/media/media personality talking points, etc, as part of a larger effort of understanding the acceptance and/or endorsement of the nazis among the segments of the German population who did so. Like: what was the opinion section of the popular conservative newspapers like at the time? What sort of rhetoric was employed? And of the material that has been translated to English or can quickly be done so - where do I find it?

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I realize that this is in itself a convoluted topic that would require a lot more than a comment on reddit to fully address. So any recommendations - books, articles, recorded lectures, or whatever other resource - related to this pursuit would also be greatly appreciated.

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And as much as I'm currently interested in this particular angle, I also need to read more books about the Weimar-->Third Reich era, both generally and other more specific angles, so any recommendations along those lines would be appreciated as well.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope everybody is having a good weekend.

^(edit: improved formatting)

Hard to believe we're at the end of the year!! Time to wrap things up with the December vote, and stay tuned for later in the week when we have the Best of 2021 Vote!!!

For sake of this question, asume somewhere in let's say Germany between 1300-1400.

Especially in RPGs, it is often a point of conflict for our character to have to enter a city, but being stopped by a guard who needs some sort of pass to let us enter, our task being to convince someone with influence to grant us such a pass. (or to find a way to sneak around the guards)

You will find such a scenario in games like Witcher, (In which a plague put the city under quarantine, explaining the controlls) Witcher 3 (In which there is a war waging around the city) or Gothic II. (In which there isn't really a reason evident)
I can imagine that a great number of people would have gone in and out of the cities of the time and it would be unfeasible to controll them every day going in and out, so I'd asume that at least generally, this wouldn't really be something that would be done without a reason, but could there be circumstances in which such controlls would take place? If so, what could be the bar someone would have to clear to be permitted entrance? And would a pass of some sort be the method of choice or would guards make a judgement call?

And maybe as a bonus question: These games often also depict an upper quarter in their cities, requiring extra clearance to go where the wealthy live. Would this be something that happened? Physically seperated like modern gated communities and not simply "Somewhere where you wouldn't go as someone poor"?

I am interested in learning about the histories of modern medical specialties but cannot seem to find much scholarly work.

A lot of work has been done in psychiatry. This field seems to be the rare exception.

Neurosurgery is somewhat different because it is considered-- correctly or not-- to have been mostly founded by an individual, Cushing.

I have also found some "histories" of diagnostic radiology online, mainly chronicling the advent of each modern imaging modality. These timelines usually stop with adoption of PACS a few decades ago.

Apart from some PubMed articles, I can find little on the other specialties. For example Internal Medicine and Family Medicine (and why these two specialties are separate in the first place), Emergency Medicine, Neurology, General Surgery, and Obstetrics/Gynecology.

Can someone point me to some resources?

Many German battlecruisers and dreadnought battleships were equipped with Parsons steam turbines (or at least so I've read). These were a big improvement over the older reciprocating steam engines, allowing greater speed and endurance. Parsons invented the turbine and for a long time enjoyed a near monopoly on its production. Why did the British government allow the sale of this advanced technology to their great rival?

Hello Reddit Historians! I'm writing a fantasy novel and I want to be true to my character's inspired culture. The secondary character in question is the princess of a Japan inspired empire.

I'm having difficulty researching physical characteristics that separate a royal apart from a non-royal besides the layering of clothing. To be specific, my character is a princess and the heir of the empire. I'd also love to hear specifics about an empress as well.

Any fun facts you want to share about medieval Japanese royalty are ALWAYS welcome.

Thank you all so much!

Something that I've often heard from random people growing up is that castles were not actually lived in normally. That really they were basically just forts for times of war. Yet I've come to realize that nobody who has said that to me ever actually provided a source for it. Just the statement that castles were not actually homes and that all the films and shows depicting nobles living in them are wrong.

So this seemed like the most reliable place to ask. Is it true? Would nobility not actually live in castles or is that just an incorrect bit of pop history that's been spread around?

If this is too broad of a question (after all castles were around since the high medieval ages and feudal europe was a big place) then let's go with medieval france during the late middle ages to be more specific.

For any mildly broad question like "What were the causes of the Russian Revolution" or "Why did France fall in 1940", how do you gather sources and look up relevant information within them. And does the process look different for more specific questions like the classic " what did X think of Y"

From the various stories I have been told he was very good at convincing people and was able to bring all the people to his side since there was a massive economic collapse and everyone just started bandwagoning with him.

I tried googling it and all the comes up were theories like demon possession and stuff like that. Was it ever found out to be a virus or anything?

By "ancient", I'm mostly referring to people around the time of ancient Greece, give or take a thousand years or so.

Eratosthenes very famously estimated the Earth's circumference to a very accurately by measuring the difference in shadows in Alexandria and Syene, and this was around 240 BC. It's also well-known that mariners understood that the top of a ship's sails could be seen on the horizon before the ship itself could be seen, indicating the world is round.

My question is were things like this well-enough understood by common people across the ancient world to where most people knew the Earth was round, or were these just things that were understood by the scientific elite at the time but not widely-held opinions?

The reason I ask is because just looking up at the shape of the moon or sun seems like it would be enough proof that the Earth is round, but perhaps I am taking for granted what I already know and not appreciating potential ambiguity from the fact that these shapes, although visible, would nevertheless appear as 2D shapes.

I've read that the Norse settlements of Iceland and Greenland were driven, at least in part, by a scarcity of arable land and the need for resources such as fur and timber. The Norse settlers of Iceland put all of the island's potentially arable land to use and exhausted its forests in just a few centuries. Norse emigration from Iceland to Greenland began within two centuries of the settlement of Iceland and Norse exploration of Newfoundland and Labrador began within a generation of the establishment of permanent settlements in Greenland. Given the scarcity of timber, fur, and arable land in Greenland - in conjunction with its brutal winters - it seems like the coastal lands of North America should have been extremely enticing to the Norse living in Iceland and Greenland. Furthermore, it's a shorter voyage from the settlements of the Greenlanders to Newfoundland and Labrador than it is from Greenland to Iceland. Several histories of the Greenlanders cite evidence that they made somewhat routine voyages to and from "Vinland" and "Markland" for timber and other resources throughout the 400 year duration of the settlement. Yet they never attempted any large scale settlement of these lands that were abundant with every source of material wealth in their economy and had far more gentle winters. Is there any kind of general consensus of historians as to why the Norse remained in Greenland for 400+ years (nearly two centuries after the end of the Medieval Warm Period) without ever settling in, and exploiting the potential riches of, continental North America?