In Lawrence of Arabia (1962), both Lawrence and Commander Allenby speak of facing off against "the Turks from Mazril", however when I search for Mazril online I find no city or region with that name. Where/what is Mazril?

I was just thinking that I can hear music essentially any time I want now and I'll also hear it quite often in public places as background music. I'm assuming this wasn't the case before the existence of things like recording and radio, but what would the average American's experience of music have been at the time? Would they hear it in a normal day or just on special occasions? What sort of music would they hear and how would it be presented or appreciated?

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Original post said ancient Egyptians but apparently it snows in Egypt ¯_(ツ)_/¯

In Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Rebecca West mentions that Tsarist Russia had a policy of "marching on" any insurrection against a reigning monarch in Europe. This support being given regardless of Russia's predisposition towards said monarchy (I don't have my copy at hand, I only remember this being in one of the Zagreb chapters). Is this documented elsewhere? Was this policy ever referenced or acted upon, whether by threat or by actual mobilization of forces by the Tsarist regime?

Widening the scope of this question, it seems to me that Russian authors of the 19th century were preoccupied by affect revolutions and new ideas of government in Europe may have on the Tsarist state. Specifically, in say, Fathers and Sons and Crime and Punishment, the authors were troubled by the influence socialists and nihilists abroad may have on the Russian people, and that revolutions in Europe may foment restlessness in Russia. Was this mirroring (Or mirrored?) the concerns of the Tsars, who put in place a policy such as above in order to nip such problems in the bud?

Finally, and this is probably far too large a generalization, when I thought about this, it seemed like a very "modern" notion to me. "Modern" in the sense that the mentioned policy of immediately putting down a revolution before it can "corrupt" neighbouring states (Exclusively via novel ideas of government, as opposed to, say, religious ideas or outright force of arms) wouldn't sound out of place in the discourse of the 20th and 21st century - the immediate example being the domino theory in the Cold War. Are there earlier examples of such thought? That is, a regime before the 19th century that was worried for its stability due to a novel form of government coming to power in a completely different geographic area, not due to the latter being considered a martial or economic threat, but purely (At least, ostensibly and explicitly) due to these new political ideas "infecting" (I don't mean this, personally, in a pejorative sense, but it's the best term that comes to mind) to local populace?

Any insight would be most welcome. I would be especially thankful for directions on further reading on this subject (If this is actually considered a matter cohesive enough to warrant its own terminology and study).

I am finishing Kramer's book on the Sumerians, written in 1963 when translation of cuneiform were starting to come in. Has anything eye-opening been learned from translating inscriptions since then?

Is it now established that Dilmun is in Bahrain? Is the Sumer-Shem connection more established/ruled out?

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

I have read D.C. v. Heller, 554 US 570 (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago, 561 US 742 (2010) multiple times, and believe the historical translations by Justices Scalia, Alito, and Breyer of the clauses "well regulated militia" and "keep and bear arms" to be nothing short of brilliant. However, many historical scholars fundamentally disagree.

In my constitutional law class, we discussed the disagreement in historical translation stemming anywhere from the Articles of Confederation's purpose of a state-provided military to the need of a centralized "militia", which was a factor in delegating such powers to a central government, but also the widespread keeping of fire arms of the time. What I am trying to get at is how historians have analyzed to the contrary such a right that would not so much provide the widespread claim to firearm ownership.

Essentially, what circumstances of the era and intent of the constitutional framers could point to a different translation of the second amendment?

Thanks for your time. You guys are awesome.

Note of clarification for the mods: Though the question surrounds the recent SC decisions above, I am specifically asking about contrary evidence of developmental circumstances surrounding the framing of the constitution and the bill of rights, thereby meeting your time frame requirement.

I see it discussed quite often as "popular history," but I've never encountered it while reading anything of an academic nature. Do mainstream historians discount arguments based around folk memory?

I've seen this in a bunch of movies ranging from super serious period dramas like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to blockbusters like The Avengers where black widow mentions some past operation in Budapest. Why does Budapest keep showing up in this context?

And is there any work done on the long term economic effects that, that decision had on the countries?

My dad is a civil engineer who enjoys reading the odd popular history book. I want to get him something on the Erie Canal, but I haven't been able to tell if there's anything good out there. He'd be especially interested in a volume that had a lot of maps, technical explanations, etc. Any recommendations? If you know of a good book in that wheelhouse on a different topic I'd be happy to hear about that, too.

I'm curious if they followed the sacrifices because the denizens of their civilization believed it, or were they themselves pious?

Is there any established genealogy of the deities of these two civilizations? Are the origins of at least some of the deities explained anywhere, perhaps in a creation myth at least, even if no detailed ancestry is available? It appears that much of this information has been lost or is only available in a few contradictory fragments. Maybe a specialist on these cultures can shed abit more light.

We all know well of the classics that get played yearly from Frank Sinatra, The Pogues, Bing Crosby and....Wizzard. Before this generation though, what were the 'yearly Christmas songs'?

This is a broad question, so sorry in advance.

The Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary are (usually) critical for a presidential hopeful to get the nomination, and Iowa has the extra variable of being a swing state. We see potential presidential candidates spending lots of time in these places to, among other things, schmooze with locals at family diners and barbecues for publicity purposes. I'm curious when this aspect (meeting with locals at stereotypical "American" places/events) became a must for candidates---that need to be seen as a "real" American/Washington outsider/good ol' boy, etc---and how this process expanded or retracted up to the 1992 presidential elections. Also curious what kind of role media has played over the years; also pretty broad but any answer is appreciated.

So, I'm an economics student and after reading some of Marx's writings, I realized how much the economics curriculum here in the US is heavily reliant on the capitalist system of economics (profit maximization, private property, etc) and it got me thinking about how different a Marxist economics course would look like. So, what would an economics student in a communist country, say in the Soviet Union, learn and what would be something that we'd learn in common and somethings that would be different?

Dear historians, my girlfriend and I are a part of a medieval reenactment group called the Society for Creative Anachronism. In this society, you create a persona in and around a certain time period, with a name you can prove was most likely used in whatever geographical period you choose. I want to be part of the Varangian Guard and she wants to be a soldier in the army of Vladimir, Grand Prince of the Kievan Rus, just before his death in the early 11th century. I was wondering if you might know of any information of Swedes picking up Rus girls and then heading down to Constantinople? What would the likelyhood of a Rus girl adopting a Norse name? Would I have changed my name to integrate into Byzantine society better? Are there resources out there for armour and clothing used by either group in and around the early 11th century, before everything went to hell with the Mongols?

Thank you for your time. If you have you have information about scholars I could contact, that would be cool too.

It seems as though there used to be a lot more and varied methods of punishing crime, so I'm wondering if the idea of large standing jail systems has always had a high level of popularity in established societies, or if punishment was largely corporal punishment, with the perpetrator set free afterwards.

Im interested, if there is any information at all available, on how 'slavers' would actually 'train' slaves, specifically ones that were captured (from a war or raid) and were free instead of being born into slavery. How would these people have been conditioned to accept their new station?

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