[deleted]

So if I understand it correctly earlier absolute monarchs claimed to be ordained by God, or granted permission to rule by the pope. Or maybe were personally rich and had an army.

How did people like Wilhelm II and Czar Nicolas II justify how much power they had over a country past an age of enlightenment when many other prominent countries had democracies? Was their main argument that their fathers lines were Emperors/Kings?

Many thanks.

Hello there /r/AskHistorians ! I have read through a couple of threads discussing "Why is Hitler viewed worse than Stalin and Mao" etc. and it gave me some great answers about how Hitler is vilified in western society, how there's more information about his policies and several other factors which is why Hitler is viewed as the worst of them all in the west.

But, recently my history teacher argued that "Stalin is way worse than Hitler" and I understand her to some degree considering Stalin's mass purges (Militarily, Ukrainian people, Tatars etc) and the infamous gulag system but I have nothing more than that.
Is there anything else Stalin did? I know that many Ukrainians switched sides to the Nazis when they invaded because Stalin was such a monster, but why? Was the food "shortages" so inhumane that they wanted to topple him?

So I was studying Michel Foucault's work (Sociology) and there was a tiny bit of information that claimed that in the past the mentally ill were allowed to roam freely, were seen holy or sacred and allowed to live among the 'normal' population. This was because they were seen as showing the limits of human sanity or something.

Now, this was a really small bit of information and Michel Foucault is mainly an Sociologist, not an Historian. I am really curious how much truth there is to this information because, well, I like history.

So, my question is, how were the mentally ill treated? Specifically in western Europe in the late middle ages up to the Renaissance. Is our current idea of treating and trying to cure the mentally ill really that novel?

Thanks in advance!

Also, where can I learn more about fur trappers and America in the early 1800s? (specifically with the fur trade and native american skirmishes)

edit: *general?

Did the government at any point consider joining one of the sides, or expressed sympathy towards either?

EDIT: as u/Brad_Wesley points out, Turkey joined the allies in Feb. 1945. Which calls a further follow-up question: Why?

Is it even appropriate for me as sultan to interfere in the future succession?

Why not wood like Chinese or Japanese?

I'm not a musician so I'm unsure of the correct terms but did the rise of classical music and famous composers post-1700 creating popular accessible culture have any impact on the local revolutions of the same period?

La Marseillaise and the Minutemen march are associated with the Revolutions but do they represent any deeper association with music? Obviously there is a lot of philosophical literature credited with sparking Revolutionary ideals but I would have assumed literacy rates must have been very low and the books would presumably have less penetration than the music which has a smaller barrier for accessibility. National Anthems also seem to have become more widespread during the period so is there any relation? I've never seen much discussion about the topic

I would appreciate a pdf book (i can't buy one since i'm too broke) that can explain it to me as well.

edit. I remember there was a book called something like 'what english would have looked like if we won the war' but I can't seem to find it.

I read it somewhere that when Portuguese explorers headed south along the African west coast, they had to overcome psychological barriers before crossing the equator line.

But what were those psychological barriers? Was it related to those medieval legends/myths about the sub-equator world: like head-down-feet-up, items falling of equator, or big-feet monsters, etc?

As the title says I want to know how many generations of slaves could have lived as slaves in the US. From what point was it possible for a slave to have children? Could a slave alive at the time of abolition have been a descendent of some of the first slaves to arrive in the Americas? If not when was it likely that their first ancestors arrived in the americas?

My new Middle Eastern History professor opened our first class today with some odd points that I've never heard before. He stated that:

• Napoleon came to Egypt because of some unnamed faction inviting him to, as there would soon be a new governor.

• The Ottomans and the Egyptians had superior weapons and other technology.

• Napoleon's group of scientists were not brought to catalog what they saw, but to record Egyptian technology so that it could be used in France.

What validity is there to these points?

OK, full disclosure: I am asking this for a book, but I still want to hear more general answers. The initial question would have been, "What would happen to a book if you put in a dry cave, sealed the cave off, and just left it there for a millennium?" But now I'm curious about the issue at large.

Anarchist bomb throwing was a big deal in the early 20th century, perhaps equivalent to today's Islamist terrorism. Yet from what I see, they just sort of stopped by the mid 20th century. Why and how did this come about?

My theory is that the Russian Civil War played a big role. Lenin may have established a sort of orthodoxy amongst the far left by creating the revolutionary vanguard. In turn, the Comintern may have been the focal point of far left politics and thus non Marxist-Leninists sort of dissipated, especially with the defeat of various anarchist groups in the civil war. This would have affected international far left movements. That's my theory but I have no clue.

When people talk about World War 1, it seems like the Monarchs are almost always left out, like they were not important to the war in any way. The causes and motivations are mentioned in the context of the country as a whole, i.e, "The Russians wanted to maintain influence in the Balkans" but never "The Czar wanted to maintain influence in the Balkans.

It seems like monarchs would not want to go to war with other parts of their family. The fact that they went to war makes it seem like: 1. they did not care, or 2. they did not have that much control over it.

I know the Reichstag (German legislature) voted to go to war but could Wilhelm II have stopped it, if he wanted, despite the Blank Cheque Agreement with Austria.

Edit: This seems like less of a /r/AskHistorians question and more of a /r/AskPeopleWhoKnowAboutOldUnusedConstitutions question but I don't think that exists.

[deleted]

[deleted]

After doing some reading on the Soviet War In Afghanistan, it seems that the Soviets were indiscriminately killing civilians. They shelled villages, burned people alive, maimed children with toy shaped grenades, etc. By the end of the war, it is estimated that at least 1,000,000 Afghan civilians were killed. Can this be considered an act of genocide?

For NASA, Apollo 8 provided valuable confirmation that the package which would take Americans to the Moon actually worked. Apollo 9 then took on the original profile of Apollo 8, except forthe fact that, given the earlier mission’s success, there seemed little point in testing the lunar module in Earth orbit. The crew of James McDivitt, David Scott, and Rusty Schweickart therefore went to the Moon. After the command module separated from the spent rocket, the crew turned it around and then docked with the lunar module, which was still enclosed in Saturn’s final stage. They then pulled away and headed for the Moon.

Once in the Moon’s orbit, McDivitt and Schweickart climbed into the lunar module, separated it from the command module, and flew it for the first time. They practiced maneuvering with the descent engines and then completed the test by firing the ascent engines, leaving the descent stage behind before docking with the command module. Echoing Lovell, Schweickart remarked on his view of Earth, calling it “that little blue and white thing . . . all of history and music and poetry and art and death and life and love, tears, joy, games.”

(pg 230-231)

I like the book, and would like to cite it for a class paper, but I'm not sure about it's accuracy. It has a great alternative viewpoint compared to other books, and uses a lot of good primary sources, but isn't this section saying that Apollo 9 went to the moon? As far as I'm aware, it did not leave LEO. Or is this some weird metaphor? Even if I'm reading this wrong, I still would like to see a historian vouch for the book's credibility.

Also, suggestions of books of a similar theme are helpful.