Was it the streets that ultimately pushed authoritarian communism to collapse, or did communist elites purposely agree to end regimes in their current forms? I find it hard to believe that they'd just give up all the power they had simply because of popular demand when they had already crushed numerous revolutions and protests throughout the Cold War.

I need to know if my plan makes sense or is realistic with the job market/reality. I plan on finishing my generals at the community college I am at, transferring to a tritonal four year school, double majoring in social studies education and history. Once I graduate Id like to teach at a high school for some odd number of years, attend a masters program that will hopefully be paid for by the school I am working at. Then Id like to pursue my PHD to be a history professor at a 4 year school. Is this reasonable/realistic? I have a serious passion for teaching and I also really enjoy history. The main reason Id like to be a professor at some point is because from what I understand you are able to put together your curriculum for the most part, and its more relaxed and you sorta get to decide what it is that you want to teach. (the way my history teacher explained it, college students pay for their professors knowledge and what the professor finds important about the certain subject). But yeah does this make sense? I just finished reading up a whole bunch after i posted this, and it seems that landing a job in history is kind of doomed and its a waste of a phd ://. Id be ok with teaching a community college but do you need a phd for that as well? Id love to teach but idk what to teach besides history, and more importantly id love to be a professor (not because of research stuff, but because of the teaching aspect) but from everything ive read it isnt possible. So im unsure of what to do now

So looking at the history of the reformation, I can't help but notice that staying Catholic tends to be associated with Romantic Europe and Slavic Europe, and Protestantism seems to have only ever gotten strong institutional support in Germanic-language speaking Europe.

Is there any reason for that? Perhaps due to the location of Luther? Printed materials being easier to translate from Luther's native tongue of German to other Germanic languages?

Scandinavia pretty much exclusively went Lutheran, Switzerland seemed to largely go Calvinist (though I believe there are historically Catholic cantons), the Netherlands tended to go reformed/calvinist (and the southern part that stayed Catholic was typically French-speaking), England went Protestant (though admittedly the most Catholic form of Protestantism - and coincidentally English is also the Germanic language most similar to the Romance languages/arguably more closely aligned culturally with Romance Europe). The only strongly Germanic-speaking area that stayed Catholic seems to have been southern Germany, but this may very well have been a function of the imperial monarchy and its dependence on Catholicism.

I can't imagine that the hypothesis of "language family as a predictor of religion" makes sense though. But likewise, this doesn't feel like entirely coincidence either.

Has anyone ever done any research or analysis of this particular topic? Again, on a face level analysis, the hypothesis seems mildly absurd, but I can't help but shake that it feels like there is some sort of pattern I am missing.

Or was profit not really something anyone focused on?

I'm writing a piece of historical fiction about Russian mercenaries during the period but have had trouble finding good documentaries and books on the period. Any recommendations on the era, the war, or on the mercenaries who took part in the conflict would be extremely helpful.

This is a question I had since I was a child and I didn't know where to post. In ancient times, I have read that many invasions used to take place and people with completely different cultures and languages used to interact with each other. For example, Alexander's invasion of India. My question is, how did the first Greek, for example, converse with the first Indian? The two are almost completely different. How did they understand each other? How did they translate each other's language given they had no prior knowledge of each other's language?

For example, I looked up in Greek, water is called 'nero' and in Sanskrit water is called 'ap'. So when the two met for the first time, how did they come to know about when the other was talking about water? Did they use sign language of some kind? How did they eventually know complex words like emotions, feelings, expressions, etc?

So going off of actual history. The Saxons are the people that originally habited England or did they take it from someone else first ?. Then the Danes (who are the Vikings ?) invaded England to take it from the Saxons ?. The Danes are Vikings right ?, or is it the Norse who are the Vikings ?.

So Saxons = England

Danes = Norway

Who are the Norse ?, Are they the same as Danes ?.

Who are the Picts ?, are they the original habits of England before the Saxons ?.

Where the hell did the Saxons even come from Scotland ?, What faction comes from Scotland?

What faction rules England currently today ?.

i’m looking for books on the holocaust. ones which are more philosophical/analytical about the holocaust, not just a retelling of history (for example i don’t want “we calculated that 21 million people were victims to the holocaust”). something similar to Hannah Arendt’s work. so books that attempt to understand why the holocaust happened, nazi philosophy/ideology, how people could have supported the nazis, the implications of the holocaust and why it’s a unique genocide.

ofc, a single book probably doesn’t cover all that but any recommendations would be appreciated:)

So to be clear, I fully understand that the german kingship was elective but it still followed dynastic favor.

After Henry died, he had both a young son and a younger brother, the Hohenstaufen House was secure but the Welf Otto jumped in a gained a small but important support base with the Archbishops and contested young Frederick and Philip's claims.

And from that moment on, Otto did jack shit, it seems. Philip rallied support, converted Otto supporters, defeated Otto in battle and was nearly to uncontested kingship when a Mad Count murdered him.

Then everyone happily switched to Otto, elected him King, and Otto had a lackluster rule, got his ass kicked by the French and was eventually deposed for Frederick II of house Hohenstaufen.

What was Otto thinking? why did anyone support him in the first place besides countering the power of the Hohenstaufens? His attempt and rule feels like a bad farce.

Once the European powers got hold of the spice islands and did they trade for the spice? If so what did they trade? Or was it a forceful taking of the spices then selling them in Europe? Or did the trade just become workers of east India companies over time?

France with stuff like St Ettiene, america with Springfield, Britain shut down some of its that I’m forgetting; etc etc.

Surely the massive tactical advantage of being able to produce your own guns in a theoretical conflict still existed right? Why get rid of it?

I was reading through the section about the Napoleonic Wars in N.A.M. Rodger's The Command of the Ocean, and on page 553 he claims:

Britain's only ally was the unstable Gustavus IV of Sweden, whose world-view was based on a deranged interpretation of the Book of Revelation.

This claim is not sourced, as far as I can tell, and I can't find much about it online. What was this "deranged interpretation," and how did he come to hold it?

While Discussing Early Islamic History can we take hadiths as a reliable historical Source or Not?

As there is a lot of controversy regarding their origin and reliability.

As a Historian what's your view on Accuracy Of Islamic hadith studies?

I first heard this watching Rick Stein's cooking show in the Basque Country, but I have seen it more and more lately, particularly around USA's Columbus Day.

Leif Ericksen I understand, and I feel the case has been made with good evidence and fair consensus amongst historians. But upon what is based the claim that Basque fishermen knew America through cod fishing pre-1492?

Where does this belief come from?

The common depiction of Sherman’s portrayed them as inferior to both panzers and tigers. Is that how it actually was?

Hello! Recently, I have been very interested in the histories of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. I have read and watched a lot about the medieval state of Kyivan Rus, and I have found some very starkly different interpretations of it’s history. I would also like to mention that I know that was there was no Kievan/Kyivan Rus, and it was a termed coined at a later point in time with it originally just being called Rus. I call it that because that is what it is typically called colloquially. On the one hand, many Russians will assert that it was the predecessor of Russia, and Ukrainians and Belarusians are just subjects of the “Great Rus’ans”. Futthermore, they often say that Ukrainians and Belarusians have made up nations. While on the other hand, many Ukrainians call this historical and cultural appropriation and say that they are the true successors of the state and that Russians aren’t even Slavs and are a strange mix of the Mongols and Finno-Ugrics that made up their language and have tried to fabricate a claim onto being the heirs of the medieval slavic state. I would love what accredited historians have to say about this. I believe the truth of this topic is something in between as is the case with many polarized topics. However, I haven’t seen the facts about the history of a nation be so seriously disputed whenever I have researched the history of a nation.

Have we been counting the year since the concept was first created?
How does one get the entire planet to agree on, well, anything?

I don't really know how to word it other than that.
It's 2021. What happened that we are calling it that number globally?

I feel like the two situations are pretty much the same. In both cases is an empire that calls itself Roman but isn't what we generally think of as Roman (granted the Byzantines are in fact the direct continuation of Rome). The Byzantines called themselves Roman, and the name Byzantine was simply applied after the fact by historians to distinguish them from what one might call the "true" Roman Empire. So why is it then that they don't take the same approach with the Holy Roman Empire? Call it Germany, or perhaps an original name? Unlike the Byzantine Empire, they have no actual common ancestry to the Roman Empire, with their Emperor being of a completely unrelated origin, so it seems reasonable to think they might need a name to distinguish them from the actual Roman Empire.