I know it’s impossible to know exactly and people weren’t out boozing all day long. But particularly with wealthy people back then having wine and such with meals.

I was reading a book about the Cincinnati Union Terminal, and the timeline suggests that by 1949-ish, the terminal was way too big due to the precipitous decline in rail travel. Amtrak took over in 71, and in my lifetime (just after that change) rail was not looked at as a useful travel method (outside of maybe the eastern seaboard).

If amtrak had not been created/taken over commuter rail, would train travel have gotten better, or died anyway?

I've just seen a video about the last territories under German control in WW2 and it says that hundreds of thousands of troops were spread out across Scandinavia and Austria and even some coasts of France during the last few days of the war. Why weren't these troops called back to Berlin? Surely all that manpower could've given the Nazis more time and bargaining power, right?

I want to know some history around how wheel was invented. How this Idea would have came to early man. Also whether it was Neanderthal or Homo sapiens who came up with this idea. What did they did first after inventing it.

I'm an Australian and I'm very interested in our colonial past and the conflicts that went a long with it. Recently I've been starting to look into New Zealands colonial conflicts and couldnt help but notice how successful the Maori were in comparison to the Aboriginals of Australia in fighting back. I'm hard pressed to find a conflict in Australian history where more than 10 SOLDIERS were killed but the Maori on the other hand were wiping out convoys left right and centre it seems. In the New Zealand wars 745 Europeans were killed and a bit over 2,000 Maori were killed but in the Australian frontier wars some 40-60,000 Aboriginals were killed with only 2000-2500 Europeans being slain. Why is that? Why were the Maori so much more effective in combating the colonisers?

I'm sure most people reading this have experienced some variation on the following situation: You're at a big Holiday party with all of your extended relatives, and inevitably the conversation will turn to something involving history, or politics, or political history. I've personally heard multiple versions of the blanket statements "The Constitution is an instruction manual for running a country and not a single word in it should ever be changed", and "The Holocaust happened because Hitler took away everybody's guns".

My question is this: As people with typically better-than-average knowledge of American and/or world history, how do historians respond in situations like this? Do you ignore them and disengage entirely to avoid disrupting the evening or sounding like a know-it-all? In cases where a comment impacts directly upon your field and you feel comfortable correcting it, do you feel it's important to engage and point out exactly how that kind of thinking is misguided? I know for a fact that this question will be relevant to the next few weeks of my own life experience, so how does everybody else navigate these waters?

To start off I'd like to say, NO I'm not a Nazi supporter. I've had people tell me that if they had to kill a few people having received orders to do so, they would if their family was in danger. And they believe the "I was just following orders" is an acceptable argument. I don't necessarily disagree with that.

In the case of the Nazis they were taught to hate specific groups of people and also I guess it's safe to say they did what they did because they wanted to. Is that why the Nuremberg defense wasn't acceptable? Is it because they showed no ethical reasoning of their own and were supposed to sacrifice their lives instead? I don't think it's reasonable to think every soldier would do that?

Any historian knows all the details? (Serious Answers Only!!)

Hello! I’m a little confused as to how land was divided into parishes, each with a parsonage and a clergyman (vicar, rector, curate), in Regency England. For example, in Pride and Prejudice, Mr Collins is a clergyman under the patronage of Lady Catherine de Bough. I have always assumed this means that he owns the church living in her estate, and that is the area he is the vicar (I assume, or else a rector?) of.

1. First of all, although Lady Catherine’s ownership of Rosings Park also means that she has the control of Hunsford Parsonage. Does this mean that Hunsford Parsonage (Mr Collins’s living) is within the grounds of Lady Catherine’s estate? More generally, were parsonages connected to estates generally on the estate or just nearby?

I also have a few questions about how parishes, parsonages, and patronage work, more generally.

2. If we go back to Pride and Prejudice as an example, Mr Darcy owns the estate of Pemberley. Presumably the living under the ownership of this estate is on (or at least near, as asked before) Pemberley. Does this mean that the parish (under the lead of the clergyman) only includes the tenants and owners of Pemberley, or might it also extent to surrounding areas (e.g. those from the town of Lambton nearby). Otherwise, would Lambton also have its own clergyman and church, even though it is close to Pemberley? For instance, in Emma, the town of Highbury has its own church, the vicar of which is Mr Elton. However, might there have been other churches nearby (e.g. on Mr Knightley’s estate)?

3. Finally, if a clergyman was situated as the leader of the church of an estate (a member of the aristocracy or a gentleman’s estate), does this mean that his church was for all the members of that estate (or also potentially those in local towns and areas)? E.g. who actually goes to Mr Collins’s services? Presumably Lady Catherine and her guests, but who else? The tenants? Other local people? Would Lady Catherine even condescend to attend the same church as the tenant farmers or poorer members of surrounding areas?

Thank you so much for reading, any help is appreciated :)

I just started looking into the Korean War and this seems like one of those "What if" questions that would have far reaching impacts if that were to never have happened in the first place.

Were there any internal conversations within NATO advising to NOT cross the 38th? What was the justification for pushing the northern forces further north?

What happened to the Soviet nuclear arsenal right after the collapse of the USSR? Did the Russian Federation take them?

I've been thinking about this a bit lately as news stories talk about archaeologists discovering something discussed in ancient history books, as well as professional digs in areas well covered by modern history such as excavating World War I battlefields.

Do trends in either field affect the other? How is information flow between them? And is there tension between the two?

I feel like this is a dumb question and I apologize if it is, but why was destroying or capturing forts so important? There's always stories of how "Oh the enemy would be deeper into the kingdom if not for Fort so-and-so" but that always brought to mind...why didn't the enemy just...go around the fort? Circumvent it entirely, avoid the problems of grinding their faces into a whetstone to take or destroy the fort. Was it just to avoid problems of being attacked from the rear or was it something else?

It occurred to me today that there's mountains of info and movies etc about resistance groups fighting against the axis powers that occupied their countries.

But were there resistence groups that targeted allied powers? Or, if they were a thing, be more like guerrilla fighters who hid once allied powers had occupied an area?

Is a guerrilla fighting group the same as a resistance cell?

Thanks for any information!