Irish history is a subject that interests me. I'm looking for any good podcasts or documentaries on either of these two subjects

I imagine there might be some bias and one could get a distorted view from reading it?

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Most (if not all) other cultures kiss just twice, once on each cheek. I'm a first generation Canadian (mom is Dutch), and always thought it's so funny how it's almost a RULE when greeting a Dutch relative. Anyone know the historical significance of this?

I am aware what cavalry means and what thought the phrase is getting across, but I am wondering what the earliest or early example of that phrase (Or similar) were? Is it purely a modern invention referencing the power of ancient mounted soldiers, or was the concept of cavalry arriving a point of interest in a play or something like that?

I've never posted here, but I'm hoping this question might work better here then say, something like askreddit (where frankly, I've never once got a answer to any question).

Obviously, I'm pulling largely from movies or fictional novels, so I assume that the story perhaps might gloss over inherently greater health issues. What bothers me, though is that it often appears that in stories that reflect upon, let's say everything prior to the early 1900's you'll find people just up and dying from a flu or the common cold. Half the time in a book like Wuthering Heights or something, a character gets a fever and it's considered that the end is in sight.

People often will say, oh, we have better medicine or hygiene, but as I currently have a very bad cold, one thing is clear: without any medical attention I will surely not being dying from this cold.

So, it sparked the question in my mind. Why is it so often depicted that a person in say, 1830, gets sick and it's pretty much curtains for them.

Now, again, obviously, there are other things to consider. I most likely won't need to go outside with the flu in frigid tempetures to feed livestock or be forced to travel by carriage into town to get food. I'm not likely to exacerbate the issue.

Nevertheless, is what we see in movies or books often a device simply to kill off a character? Can I just decide, hey, I need my character to die tragically before they can reach their family. I know, I'll give them the flu!

Forgive me if I miss some obvious reasons for why the flu was deadly to someone in 1850, but call it curiosity.

In the introduction to my new favorite book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Rosenbaum mentions conflicting post war narratives of Hitler.

Shirer had no patience for the post war "normalizing" vision that the Oxford historian A.J.P Taylor sought to resurrect: Hitler as just another "foreign policy realist" of his time, pursuing rational national interests. This point of view continues to be taken seriously, by some.

What 'normalizing' view is Rosenbaum referring to? Was there a particular beef between Taylor and Shirer?

I took an Intro to Judaism course last fall, and when we were talking about history the professor pointed out the fact that Columbus's first expedition left just a couple of days after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. He intimated that the reason for this might have been that Columbus or one of his crewmen was descended from a Jewish family and might have even still been privately practicing Judaism. Is there any evidence to support any of these claims?

I'd read that the only major clash of pike vs billhook in the British Isles occurred at Flodden Fields in the 1500s, and that the billhook had bested the pike due to its versatility, even though it was a shorter weapon. If this is true, why was it abandoned a century later? Was it cheaper to produce pikes? Was it just a fluke that the billhook had beaten the pike in the first place, and the English got their butts handed to them by pikes in another engagement?

So the P-39 was sent to the USSR in droves and the pilots adored it, Pokryshkin did extremely well with it. It is a common misconception that the P-39's famous 37mm cannon was used as a tank buster. Where does this misconception come from?

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If I were a crown prince in Europe around the era of knights, nobility and such - a young adult, or late teenager - what sort of duties would I have? How much in the way of responsibility would be bestowed upon me, and what would the nature of those responsibilities be? Administrative duties? Political ones? Or would I largely be focusing on education still?

Also, how would those duties change if the current monarch was ailing, and I was likely to take the throne sometime in the next few years?

I'm most interested in times of (relative) peace, since I imagine many of such duties would ordinarily be military-related, but what else?

i've always avoided finding out, in specific terms.

my people emigrated from there in 1906 & 1910-ish. but they left a huge extended family behind. but those people never came out from the shoah. no one will tell me anything about them. did any survive from minsk? are they in israel maybe? how about the intelligentsia--my great uncle was a math professor and his wife was a music teacher. did they fare better than everyone else?

did any of us from Minsk live? where did they go?

In the last 300 years, mankind has experienced exponential advances in our understanding of mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry, leading to equally staggering developments in engineering and manufacturing.

Why was the pace of development not nearly as rapid in other civilizations (China, Rome, etc.) during other, equally long, periods of comparable well being.

I have my own hypotheses, based to some degree on Kuhn, but I'd love to hear thoughts from others.

From my understanding, we (the United States) preformed rather poorly (getting pushed back by China) in the Korean War, until finally fighting to a standstill.

This seems a bit odd to me, as we're only 5 years removed from WW2, can anyone care to elaborate and fill in my knowledge?

This was in /r/history, but I was hoping for a better answer. I'm PRETTY sure this isn't against the rules.

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