For the most part I use Adobe Acrobat 11 to convert most scans and photos to pdfs, or to sort out scanned books and recognize text. I've used ABBYY reader in the past, and found it alright. However, I have a large cache of digital photographs of manuscripts and samples of handwriting that I want to be able to manipulate. Old versions of Microsoft Office used to have a picture editor that worked well for adjusting brightness, colors, tones, white balance, etc. but I can't seem to find it for Windows 7.

I imagine Adobe Photoshop would work, but I'm not looking for something as powerful and expensive. Just software that will allow me to manipulate the image to get a better sense of the handwriting, and reduce the background color is what I need.

Any help is appreciated.

The Stridsvagen 103 (S-Tank) looks like a curious vehicle to me; I can see it's advantages (I think) but it seems to come with some fairly serious drawbacks. For one, offensive engagements such as counterattacks look to be fairly impossible (Can't fire on the move, or rapidly traverse the gun).

Why did was the Swedish Army so confident in selecting this design? How did they plan to use them in a hypothetical conflict with the Warsaw Pact? What made the S-Tank so advantageous a design for Sweden over a more conventional, turreted MBT?

Alright, so I am not american, but in my english class, when it's around Thanksgiving we learn about the Pilgrims and their voyage, their interactions with natives, the feasts, etc. Every single f*cking year it's the same story and I am fed up with it lol.

So what is the real story behind this "legend"?

• What were the reasons behind them leaving England except for religion? Or was that it?
• Why are they so significant compared to other colonists? They weren't the first or were they?
• Are they really the ones who founded the original 13 colonies? What's the story here?
• How did they interact with natives? Why did the natives help them? I read Squanto went to England 6 times before that, so was he like their friend or something?
• If they all died off, would it make a difference on history? (stupid question I know)
• Was their colony part of the British Empire? How did the British react to people like them?
• Finally, why do Americans celebrate their first harvest like it's the second coming of Christ and why do I have to listen to the story every single year?

I kniow it's a lot of questions, no need to answer all of them, but I am pretty interested in this stuff. Thank you for your answers!

I know this sounds extremely vague but I'm curious if the field of study has ever shown innovation. The discoveries are obviously not innovation since it's not an original new idea.

This chain of thought/argument has bothered me for a long time. Im a history major but I focus mostly on American History. Though ive taken several additional courses to widen my understanding of the Middle East and its current troubles, it was focused on contemporary history. Thus not really providing enough information.

On to the argument:

I read this book which was given to me by a relative. This book, I quickly found out, was rather biased against Islam, from my perspective. However this guy is a 'known' arabist. One of his main positions (or atleast I think its of major importance) is that before the European Renaissance and Enlightenment the Middle East was way ahead of Europe in science and scholarly work etc. This I was aware of, he then claims that after the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols, lead the then Islamic world to question itself why the hell that was possible to happen since they were the followers of an almighty god. According to this Arabist the consequences of this question lead the Islamic world to go "back to Islamic early core values etc". Pretty much Sharia law and very orthodox positions. This, according to the arabist, subsequently meant that (self)criticism of Islam or against islamic law was considered to be blashphemy and thus sentecable by death. Because all questions that were raised had to be answered through the Quran, the very act of 'science' was blasphemy. This lead to the fall of the then Islamic nations' science and scholarly work. Which according to him was back then close to what later was European Enlightenment. All in all he argues and concludes that the return to the "true" islamic faith, caused the downfall of knowledge etc in Islamic cultures and made them lose their advantage over Europe. He then argues that this is still the case because theyre in a constant loop that goes as mentioned before: "Why are we not the victors when we are Allah's followers; must be because we fail to follow the real faith; double down on sharia law oppressing society and all possibilities of progress." My question thus: Can someone provide me with less/unbiased positions on this matter? or maybe proof or disproof his positions.

How much trade was going on in these different periods?

I've heard mention that craftsmen and pilgrims traveled abroad from village to village, constantly searching for opportunities. Almost as if they were pursuing the american dream.

I'd be interested to know how this sort of economy might have compared to the roman empire, or other economies. Was this just the inevitable symptom of any community that had even the faintest of connections?

My 9th Grade History Teacher is teaching that early explorers in the Age of Exploration had a serious worry that the Earth was flat. All the sources I've read online have said it was first discovered by the Greeks and the knowledge of a round world continued through to the time of Columbus. I'm a bit wary of trusting internet sources over a teacher, but the reputation of the validity of this sub is enough for me to trust it.

To expand a little: The majority of early American settlers in the colonies were from England, so my assumption is that in the days of our founding fathers, most people spoke with a British accent. So when did the American accent branch off from the British, and how can we know this?

[deleted]

[deleted]

Years are pretty universal as are months due to lunar phases. Weeks seem pretty arbitrary and are from the book of Genesis as far as I know. Did other cultures have other subdivisions of months?

Was this simply a beauty standard and that all females being painted requested that their breasts be painted appropriately?

Furthermore, I also observe that most breast sizes are almost exactly the same with very little variation, whereas body-type may fluctuate.

Is this similar to the generic "David Sculpture" body that is pretty much always used for most male sculptures? Or am I wrong on this point as well?

Edit:

From the amount of upvotes I assume that this is a question that many others find interesting and worth while to find the answer. Firstly, sorry for the poorly worded question, as I realized this too late. Second, even though I welcome the apparent humorous side of my question, it was a serious one from my side. It is puzzling to me that body shape/size was variable across the arts, while the breast size was not. I simply wonder if this was because this was the actual norm female breast shape/size of the times, or whether this was "enforced" beauty standards.

Thank you in advance for the answers as well as the attempts that may have been removed as I understand that this question may be difficult to answer.

Edit:

Wow! Thank you for the answers! They were really interesting, as well as educating, to an "average Joe" like me. In particular thank you to /u/explicit_snark and /u/Fairwhetherfriend who, combined, gave me exactly the answers I need.

Final Edit:

Also, and I apologise for the amount of edits, I want to thank the mods who, I am sure, had their work cut out for them with this slightly controversial question. You guys are doing a great job!

/u/kieslowskifan /u/commiespaceinvader

I'm Maltese and we do go over this part of our history in school but we do not cover the day to day life and the interaction between us natives and the Order.

I am a bit puzzled in one respect. Despite them occupying the island for 300 years they left little influence on us besides their buildings a few loan words. It does not seem like the liked mingling with us at all. Even today, they carry our name yet they have absolutely no relation to any of us.

Is there any objective accounts of life in Malta under the Order of Saint John?

Probably only few times I saw a question here related to them in years of lurking. Haven't heard them or influence anything in pop culture/media either.

I recently saw someone claim that the rate of slave ownership among Southerners was as small as 4.9 percent. After looking into that figure and trying to verify it I found a different figure that said it was as high as 32 percent. Can anyone clarify this? Is it possible that since one figure is about individuals and the other is about families there is truth to both?

As with my last question here, this one is again prompted by research into my family history. Circa 1830 my direct ascendant made a 150 mile journey from a small village in the county of Somerset, to the very middle of London, where he settled down and remained till his death.

He was a young man, about 18 years old, though came from a farming family who seem to have done alright for money; certainly not paupers but not lords of the manor either.

How might a person have made a 150 mile trip in 1830? Was this kind of journey limited to horse and cart? I understand that the rail system was being built about this time but it seems no line went out into Somerset till decades later. I wonder what these carts might have looked like and if there was a fairly standard design? Presumably not a 'carriage' but an open cart? Are there documented recordings of such a trip?

I appreciate there is a salvo of questions above, but i'm really hoping to understand more about what was, genrally, involved with large journeys around this time.

I'm mainly asking two things here, for further clarification:

1. Were there any beach landings during this period that matched the 50,000+ of the aforementioned famous landings?

2. Were they as catastrophic in their bloodshed?

Thanks for the help!

For distance, weight, etc. Thanks.