Were there antecedents in Russia at the time for genital self mutilation for religious purposes? A familiarity with eunuchs?

Among the countries colonized by England, many if not most of them speak english with a British dialect. Why is it that the US developed its own unique pronunciation, while a place like Australia kept it's British accent?

Obviously I understand there are differences in English dialect and Australian etc, but that difference is almost minuscule in comparison to American dialect vs English.

Question in title

There seems to be an enormous amount of different and often contradicting definitions of Fascism, usually from post-war historians and non/anti-fascists. What did Fascists themselves think back then? Where there ever any quarrels between the fascists like ''You're not a real fascists'' or ''thats not fascism''?

I was thinking about this today, and it seems to me that most areas of American history have been written about pretty extensively. I was wondering if any of you can think of a particular area that hasn't.

I was wondering about booking a trip to China but I am worried about supporting the dictatorship. So I thought that i could ask about a historical perspective. Did tourism in the Soviet Union fund the dictatorship or did it give the population something positive?

Whenever I read about the war there are frequent mentions of say a division that is supposed to have 300 tanks but instead has 200 due to losses or whatever. Would there be extra tank crews hanging around? Or in other instances tanks idling without crews? I would imagine this would be an especially large problem for navies. I know at least the US was pumping out ships at a tremendous rate, how effective was the Navy at making sure there were crews lined up and ready to go for new ships, but also not having tons of sailors and officers hanging around shipless?

i was listening to NPR the other day and in relation to the Brexit vote they started talking with the guest about democracy and in particular the Demo's or people within said democracy and the point of the colonies having a common culture and language came up. as an aside the guest said "they almost had a civil war during the revolution by the way", this is something ive never heard of and im hoping someone here could shed some light on it?

What were the specific socio-economic changes that came about as a result of hundreds of millions of deaths? You would think there would be an even greater concentration of wealth as the wealthy bequeathed their fortunes and property to other nobles or the church.

The ever-wonderful /u/caffarelli is on vacation from Tuesday Trivia; I shall do my best while she enjoys the metaphorical beach and sunshine.

From Pangaea to the Beatles, let's historicize the law of entropy! Tell me about some of the craziest, messiest, most important or completely insignificant breakups in history--be they personal, political, religious, or even geographic.

The 20-year and personal anecdote rules sadly must still apply. Da da da dat da dat da da da da ya da da da da; dat dat da yaa daaaa!

Next week: We'll be launching a short series, so first up, think...patriotic.

To make gunpowder you need charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur. Charcoal is easy to make. Saltpeter comes from the droppings of bats and birds. Where did the sulfur come from?

I mean, I am the Roman Emperor, and who is going to manage this field on Health, Defense, Treasury, Education, the Interior? Did the Romans have an institution similar to government ministries or the Cabinet today? When did the setting up of government ministries and departments start? I mean, the Roman Empire is very large, isn't it, so I wondered if there was an institution like this the Romans had?

What guilds would have the most political clout in a medieval city? Skandanavia, in particular.

Much is said about rulers who conquered large swathes of territory, such as the Romans or the Mongolians, yet discussion of Muhammad generally centres on the spread of influence via religion. Just how militaristic was Muhammad and early Islam, and how much military prowess did he or his successors hold?

My understanding is that throughout the Heian era of Japanese history, the establishment of shōen (untaxed estates) slowly but steadily increased, bleeding the imperial economic power base dry in favor of various local lords and temples. These could in turn afford to maintain large private armies and significant influence on the imperial court. At some point the Fujiwara are practically in full control of imperial succession, until the Hōgen rebellion and subsequent Genpei war puts a stop to that and cements Minamoto no Yoritomo and the Kamakura shogunate as the de facto ruling political power for the next several centuries.

In short, it seems that the shōen system was a significant contributing factor to the decline of the imperial court as the dominant political power in classical Japan and the ushering in of the shogunate eras. What I'm wondering is, how could the imperial aristocracy allow the shōen system to continue for so long? Were there attempts at re-taxating or reappropriating estates? Was the possibility of this kind of catastrophic loss of control debated at the court at all? In short, did no one see this coming?

The independence of Tibet is such a huge thing right now. I was of the opinion that Tibet should be its' own country for the sake of keeping the peace, culture, and spirituality intact and separate from Chinese'.

I also thought it was basically a political movement because somehow the Chinese party sees the stark independence of Tibet as a political undermining.

However, there are claims that Tibet's feudal systems were very harsh and based on slavery. Obviously it still seems like a political movement, but I digress.

Did Tibet have such a feudal system of slavery and cruelty? Was the Dalai Lama (including prior reincarnations) someone who encouraged this? Or is this all just Chinese propaganda?

I've searched quite extensively but haven't been able to find any written memoirs by Japanese troops. Is there a reason why they are so hard to find compared to ones by Allied soldiers?

After Poland-Lithuania got taken over by Prussia, Russia and Austria-Hungary what happen to the rich Polish-Lithuanian nobles? Did they lose all of their power?

I've been greatly confused as of late in regards to Medieval armies and their composition. On one hand, some sources seem to imply that armies were mostly nobles, with them gradually being replaced by middle class servicemen later into the 13th and 14th centuries. In other sources, they seem to imply that a lord would go out and recruit soldiers from the population or call some kind of muster.

Which is more accurate? I must admit I am only really familiar with Early Medieval warfare, but the makeup of armies changed drastically over the course of the Middle Ages. Were the armies comprised of mostly nobles, or was it paid "professional" soldiery? I was always taught the former, but it seems that there is a lot of conflicting information on the subject.

To narrow the topic down further (since that is quite a lot of time outlined above), just try to take a vertical slice of the most average medieval system. I am also aware that different kingdoms used different models depending on what cultures they were exposed to (England and France adopted more Normanesque models while Italy, Germany, and Spain started with more Roman models and seemed to gradually move more towards nobility, which was a Migration Period Germanic system of landed warrior classes, at least that's how it appears to me)