Not sure how a historian would describe this phenomenon, so please forgive the vague title. It's something like a social philosophy where most people have a single, shared vision of what the future should be, and this vision is implemented by a powerful, centralized management and planning authority. Some examples might be:

• In the 50s, Robert Moses tore down entire New York City neighborhoods to build huge freeways, according to his master plans. A few decades later, urban infrastructure projects on that scale essentially disappeared.

• There was a project called "Operation Plowshare", to use nuclear explosions for large-scale civil engineering. It was terminated in 1977.

• The "Reber Plan" called for building two large dams, among other infrastructure, across San Francisco Bay. Since the 70s, these kinds of projects would be blocked on environmental grounds.

• The American space program during the 60s was driven by a single, top-down goal of reaching the Moon. Once that happened, some people thought it would be followed by commercial space travel, like how the 50s saw commercial jet travel. But during the 70s and 80s this sort of fizzled out, with the Space Shuttle program doing ever-fewer launches at ever-higher cost compared to original visions.

• Not technically American, but the Concorde was designed by the French and British governments during the 50s and 60s. The previous decades had seen a quick succession of ever-larger, ever-faster planes. But after Concorde was introduced in 1976, there wasn't really any successor. The supersonic jet program just sort of stopped.

• In 1954, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission famously said "Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter", from nuclear power. Of course, that didn't happen. The last US nuclear power plant started construction in 1977, according to a quick Google.

• After decades of vaccination campaigns, smallpox was eradicated in 1977. Since then, no other human disease has been similarly eradicated (although as of 2016, it looks like polio might be getting close).

• Airline routes, fares, and schedules used to be centrally planned under the Civil Aeronautics Board, until the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978. Likewise with railroads and the Interstate Commerce Commission.

• A great deal of scientific and engineering work was done at the famous Bell Labs, which was technically a private company but had a government-like monopoly on phones. Bell Labs still exists, but this type of research there tailed off a lot after Ma Bell's breakup in 1984.

Of course, one could present ad-hoc explanations for all of these - Robert Moses fell from power because of Nelson Rockefeller, supersonic jets didn't work well because the sonic booms were too loud, and so on. But it does seem like there might be some kind of underlying cause, some kind of "social mindset" that most powerful people adopted and that was eventually thrown out/faded away. How would a historian describe this phenomenon, and why was it so much bigger in the 50s and 60s than it was in succeeding decades?

I mean couldn't the UK have simply limited their commitment to a naval one? Blockading Germany and preventing the Germany Navy from intervening in the war?

I have been looking at paintings of 17th and early 18th century battles to see what the infantry uniforms looked like. More often than not the cavalry gets the limelight. Is it for artistic reasons or were cavalry more used than the infantry? Also, I cannot find any reliable or good representations of infantry uniforms from these paintings.

I'm reading a book about the proclamation of the Brazilian Republic(Old) and one certain chapter it talks about Pedro II, who he was and his escapades and travels, One section that interested me was him ''leading'' the judges of the centennial exposition toward Alexander Graham Bell's invention, (since he'd gotten a bad spot which otherwise wouldn't have been judged upon.This being because the Emperor had previously met Alexander.)

Was this event an important step toward the adoption of the telephone, had others seen this machine at work before?

If this is TOO much of a ''what if'' type of question, tell me and i'll remove it. Otherwise, thanks for reading and(Hopefully)answering!

It's been often said that the axis' over-reliance on resource-hogging superweapons that were inefficient contributed to their demise.

For Germany this is easy to see with the V2, Jet fighters, and heavy and super heavy tanks that were continuely churned out till the end of the war.

When Japan is brought up in this, the Yamato Class super heavy battleships Yamato and Musashi are brought up as examples.

But both were laid down before the beginning of the Pacific War. Musashi was completed in 1942, and no others were ever launched. Shinano was converted to an aircraft carrier which seems to me to actually be an attempt at being efficient. And it seems no battleships were launched after Musashi (correct me if I'm wrong).

So it doesn't really seem like Japan had any fancy on super weapons to turn the tide of war like Hitler did. Or am I missing something? Did they rely on something other than the Yamato Class battleships?

When did Jews adopt the idea that the Torah has to be totally unchagable right down to every word?

I am trying to do an annotated bibliography for an essay concerning the use of robes, tunics, and skirts vs trousers throughout history. I have come across people saying that the Greeks and Romans thought that trousers were "ridiculous" or "barbaric" but I could not find any sources for these claims. Thanks

We know that Polaris (the North Star, alpha Ursae Minoris) didn't always point towards North (nor will it do forever).

So how did ancient people find their way around in an absolute way (I'm not just referring to going "upwards" from, say, a town for X amount of days to find another town), before they could use Polaris as a signpost? Otherwise put, how did they locate North, or any other direction, when they were exploring (/stranded in) a new place? I'm thinking specifically about the night-time, e.g. in navigation and the like.

Hi

I know there are many many history books, but I am very curious about original documents (alongside historical commentary is nice but I like source material). I realize most of these are in latin or french (for European stuff), but I find it a bit puzzling there's no "library" or collections of translated documents that you can just browse through. I'm curious about the way people talked, etc. Basically, it would be like browsing 15th century social media! I know, especially with the Inquisition, there were many legal documents and decrees-- where are the translations??

Any recommendations for resources that don't involve making appointments at special collection libraries?

Thanks!

I was watching Braveheart again last night. Its laughable historicity aside, I've always thought the battle scenes were excellent. However, maybe they're inaccurate, too?

Which got me to wondering what movies have done the best job of portraying what a massed-formation battle would most likely look like, especially pre-WWI, and most especially pre-firearms.

Thanks!

This trope has been in countless movies but how accurate would this have been? We're there loving relationships or was it really "I want this woman so I will take her"?

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Going on anecdotal evidence from media such as 'Mad Men' (not the greatest I know) it seems that there was an increase in at risk behavior in the 1950s following WWII. Basically men being interested in smoking, drinking, and sleeping with as many women as possible and not worrying about it later. While I understand that this isn't much different for many people today, and that gender politics probably had something to do with it (that in certain circles it was accepted that men could do certain things like stepout on their SO), has anyone considered that this type of at-risk behaviour may have been a massive societal coping mechanism to the PTSD from the Great Depression and the Second World War?

I'm asking because I'm currently reading Plutarchs account of Pericles, and I wish to learn more about the actual time period he was in power. I'd really appreciate any help in the regard.

Many societies had a division between elite warriors and common farmers. Was this the case with the Norse and if so what was the makeup of the raiders and settlers? Did they bring farmers with them? When they went to places like Iceland or Greenland did they take common folk or what? Or was it all too cold for farming in Scandinavia anyway? Thanks

I was thinking of the modern issue with the name 'Macedonia' being an object of contention between Greece and 'the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' and was curious if it had come up with the name 'Mexico' in the past.

Did Mexico make any comment on the matter of naming New Mexico at all?