I seem to remember biblical references to babylonian gods like Nergal. So i wonder, what kind of influence did Babylonian culture have on Ancient Hebrew life, especially considering that they were forced to live in Babylon?

Hot drinks are a staple across these parts now and I find it hard to imagine that they just started drinking them when tea/coffee was first imported. What would they have drank on a chilly morning or as a pick me up?

Hitler was a normal surname, why are there no Hitlers in Germany nowadays?

was it different for conquered territories?

were soldiers and tax collectors paid in salt?

It's a somewhat common sentiment that we knew how big the world was before the voyage of Columbus and no one had tried simply because no one expected anyone to make it all the way to Asia before starvation set in. Hand in hand with that idea is the notion that Columbus was a fool for expecting to make it.

Why then was he financed by the Spanish crown? Why waste the ships?

And more so (in my education at least) the story went that he was refused by other nations and the Spanish were the only nation willing to finance his mad dash around the globe. If he had failed, what would have happened? Would the Spanish have financed another explorer? Was he the first? Would the English have gotten into the game?

I know this is a non-specific question. I recently came across a book describing their Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and realized that I don't have any understanding of the circumstances leading to it. Mao was a bad guy, and I'm embarrassed not to know the details. What are some good sources to learn more about China's history that lead to this revolution, and everything after?

Side note: Why the heck is this not part of American history classes?

As in, what would be their social/class/cultural background, where in Spain would they be from, etc. I'm particularly interested in those who would have been in North America, Florida. Any books that people could reccomend that would intersect with this topic, even tangentially, would be helpful.

Would Andy Jackson have had a distinctly different accent from previous U.S. presidents?

I have been wondering this for a while. In our day, the predominant basis of discrimination is visual: skin color, appearance of gender, etc. However, I know that national identity held much more importance during antiquity than it did today. Did people look down on each other more for their visual features or their intangible circumstances of birthplace?

Reading wikipedia I get that Mussolini comes to Rome with a bunch of supporters/militia and demands to be put in power, and gets it. From that point on, when does life start to change for an Italian citizen that might make them realize "things are different now"

Obviously, besides the fact that the new guy just brought 30,000 people to Rome and asked to be put in power.

Quoting from wikipedia:

Between 1925 and 1927, Mussolini progressively dismantled virtually all constitutional and conventional restraints on his power, thereby building a police state. A law passed on Christmas Eve 1925 changed Mussolini's formal title from "president of the Council of Ministers" to "head of the government" (though he was still called "Prime Minister" by most non-Italian outlets). He was no longer responsible to Parliament and could only be removed by the king. While the Italian constitution stated that ministers were only responsible to the sovereign, in practice it had become all but impossible to govern against the express will of Parliament. The Christmas Eve law ended this practice, and also made Mussolini the only person competent to determine the body's agenda. This law transformed Mussolini's government into a de facto legal dictatorship. Local autonomy was abolished, and podestàs appointed by the Italian Senate replaced elected mayors and councils.

edit: thank you so much to the people who commented. You folks have one of the best subs

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I read a Reddit post claiming that the death count during the Great Leap Forward was simply a "numbers game."

All these claims are based on a numbers game of sorts. Basically, you take census data from one period. You then make a prediction on population growth. Then you compare this prediction you have made with actual census data from a future period, and do some sort of analysis about the differences. For instance, in Amerika, it is known that there are tens of thousands of "missing" black people in Amerika every year. The most scientific models developed by real American demographers predict tens of thousands more black people every year than actually exist according to census data. Are we to conclude the Amerikan government is killing tens of thousands of black people every single year? Given the history of the racist Euro-Settler Empire that is Amerika, this wouldn't be too unjustified. But there are probably more mundane explanations for the discrepancy.

In any case, similar demographic studies done on the 1930s in Amerika show that Roosevelt "killed" 7-8 millions of Amerikans. That is, reasonable demographers have done an analysis and shown a population deficit of 7-8 million people in Amerika, probably linked to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl in Amerika at the time. Did Roosevelt "kill" 7-8 million Amerikans? More importantly, why don't idiots like RJ Rummel make this claim? It's because anti-communists hold the imperialist regimes in the West to entirely different standards.

For the case of China, what has to be remembered is that there were famines ALL THE TIME in China. One of the best books on the subject, written long before the communists came to power in China, is "China: Land of Famine" by Walter H. Mallory. Mallory was the General Secretary of the China International Famine Relief Commission, and as Finley put it in the introduction to Mallory's book:

"It is a shocking fact that with all of the labor expended and virtues practiced, nearly a fourth of the people of the globe live in a land of famine--not of general famine at any one time nor of continuous famine in any one place, but of famine in one or another province or locality all the time."

The Chinese refer to this period as the 100 Years of Shame. This is when the West and Japan were treating China like their own personal property, starting with Britain forcing drugs on the people of China for their own benefit. Millions and millions died during this period, but people who like to talk about famines under the Communists don't like to talk about it. This is because it would force people to recognize two important facts: China was an underdeveloped country that was very, very vulnerable to famines (and the West/Japanese didn't give a shit), and famines in China WERE HALTED by the Chinese Communist Party. Just as in the Russian case, where Russia had experienced a famine every couple of years in the last thousand years of its history, the Bolsheviks were finally able to stop them and make them a thing of the past. It took communist parties in both of these horribly backward countries to finally put a stop to famines as a menace to their people.

A last note: there is much less real evidence to go by in the case of China than the Soviet Union. We know for a fact that the numbers thrown around by morons like RJ Rummel are completely false in the case of the Soviet Union. We know less about China simply because there are less records to go by. Estimates of deaths during the the Great Leap Forward range from as high as 46 million to as little as 200,000. None of these estimates are based on any serious demographic analysis, simply for the reason there is no reliable census data to go on. Pre-communist population estimates for China differ by hundreds of millions. The first modern census was done by the communists, and the PRC census in 1953 shows China had 582,603,417. The next census done in 1964 shows China had 694,581,759, an increase of 111,978,342 people. The Great Leap Forward covers a period between 1958-1961. What is the methodology various anti-communists use to say there should have been an increase of 156 million more people, instead of the mere 111 million more between 1953 and 1964? They usually never say, and if they bother to tell people how they arrived at what the population totals should have been, would reveal to everyone that the numbers-games they are playing have nothing to do with serious demography. More over, any critical interrogation of these stupid numbers games will reveal that people NOT EVEN BORN are being counted as "death to communism" or whatever. This is the problem with trusting non-mathematically trained academic hacks with a political axe to grind with telling you anything about how many people die anywhere.

TL;DR: The comment claims that the death count of the Great Leap Forward is a mathematical construct of poor census records. Do historians back this up? How do historians measure the death count the Great Leap Forward?

My great uncle pulled these out tonight and doesn't know much about them. We are curious about what these medals are and what the stamp on the armband means. Any help is appreciated!

m.imgur.com/a/Nj86Q

Italy has over hundreds of years been a very important world power. From the Roman empire to the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration, Italy was always a key player in world politics but by WWII it was the least significant of the Axis powers and several of its neighbors had overtaken it in power. What happened between ~ 1600 to 1900 to cause Italy to diminish in status?

Were there any significant communities of these people in the areas conquered by the Nazis?

By "Asian" I mean east Asian or from the Indian subcontinent, not including Roma.

I understand that he used them as scapegoats but how did he make a human being make other human beings look so terrible without much reason? Did he tell them lies about them? Did he show them false information about them?

If a king is the leader of a kingdom, and emperor of an empire, why weren't the British monarchs called as such? For example, why wasn't King George III known as Emperor George III? Shouldn't he have the title of emperor?

A militia implies that civilians should receive some sort of military grade training and weapons, which of course is not/no longer the case. When and how did this change come about?

hey guys

I recently heard some one tell me that all the families of us officers stationed in south Korea were evacuated before days before the war broke out, if this is true how would they now when war was about to break out?

pleas add sources.

Could anybody tell me where I could find The Epic of Gilgamesh in cuneiform? Ideally side-by-side with an English translation? Possibly a long shot, but Google isn't giving me much.