Why was the US and not Britain or German mass manufacturing the .50 cal? Particularly the M2 heavy machine gun.

Mostly I'm curious about the political structure of the empire and to what extent it was centralized, as I only have a very patchy general knowledge. How much independence did the various principalities have? To what extent were they politically unified or culturally homogenous? To what extent did they resist or cooperate with the Hapsburg Emperor? Did the Pope have any direct authority or only indirect influence? Prussia...just Prussia. I thought the individual princes were nominally independent, so why did the entire empire get dragged into the war of the first coalition? Would the HRE have been a belligerent if Austria were not the emperor? Why was Prussia able to make a separate peace and did any other princes do this? How did the hapsburgs administrate the empire and keep so firmly under their control for so many generations? Were the ottomans considered an enemy of the entire empire or just Austria?

I tried a cursory Google search but could not find anything.

I had a discussion with a friend about the steam engine. She claims the chinese invented it long before the western world. I havnt been able to find any real info about it on the web, its all just questions being asked but no credible answer. Do any of you know?

What was the climate and geography like in the Greek area around the 1100s?

Hello everyone,

As stated in the title I'm currently looking for some decent books about life in medieval times. If possible I'd like to find a book that goes through the life of people from childhood till old age with different cases (peasants, aristacracy, clergy, ...).

Also, if possible, available on Kindle.

Many thanks in advance.

A clickbait I read on the history of sports bras mentioned "sports corsets" as a nineteenth-century innovation. I did some googling and got somewhat conflicting answers on what this was supposed to mean by way of construction and marketing (simply a corset with ventilation for spending time outdoors? then, were these popular in warmer climates for everyday use? a corset with rubber connectors at the ends of the boning pieces to allow some give?). So, AskCorsetHistorians, what was a sports corset? How common or in demand were they?

It's a cliche within the genre, and has been for decades, but where is the first recorded use of it?

Seems logical right? No more soviets to fight, it kind of lost it's purpose then.

Or even primary sources that have been translated?

Basically i'm interested in ancient persia from a viewpoint that isnt western.

My personal research into the wild west period shows that in many jurisdictions concealed carry was actually illegal and many men had open carry. Then it switched to concealed carry at some point with open carry being illegal and I can't find that point.

Considering only the European/Asian areas, is it true that the USSR defeated Nazi Germany far more than the USA?

Like, Russia faced like 4-6 times as many German divisions as the USA on the Western front?

Sure the USA sent money and some supplies to Russia, but it was Ruskies fighting tooth and nail, and winning, on the Eastern front.

USA likes to paint a rosy picture but wasn't it really Russia who vanquished the German juggernaut?

About 10% of the West German Bundestag voted against the Treaty of German Reunification in 1990. Why did they vote against it? Were they against the idea of German reunification generally?

And to what extent are states' rights implicit and explicit?

i.e. does the constitution delegate rights to states directly?

My high school history teacher told me that the constitution was "set up" so that the states were fairly autonomous and had their own rights, whereas today we're a much more unified rather than federalistic country.

If anyone can elaborate on what exactly the constitution has to say about state autonomy and, though slavery was an egregious practice, were confederates standing correctly on the shoulders of the constitution in saying that slavery was a states right?

Thanks

This is probably a simple question, but it crossed my mind today, and I couldn't think of a good answer.

In simplistic terms, to my knowledge, the US/NATO's main motive during the Cold War was combating the spread of communism. Obviously, that's a elementary understanding, but, to my knowledge, useful as a general concept.

But what I couldn't effectively answer was the USSR's motivation. Were they simply trying to spread communism? Were they concerned about NATO's military presence?

What were the motivations behind each "side" of the Cold War? What was the US trying to achieve? More importantly, what was the USSR trying to achieve?

Hello, I am currently doing a research paper on Prussia and the factors that made Prussia so successful. I was wondering if there are any necessary books to read about Prussia.

Where and when pants were invented, or first commonly worn? Did multiple cultures invent pants independently, or should they be most associated with a particular region of the world?

How come the stock market crash of 1987 didn't seem to affect daily life like the crash that led to the Great Depression did ?