Like I know, it took a while for legislation to follow Board v Education such as Civil Rights Act, Great Society, etc. But crucially, there were significant push by social activists and even politicians for societal change almost immediately after Brown for further civil rights and legislation. And even middle school textbooks point to Brown v Board as the crucial turning point for the Civil Rights Movement. But why not after the 1986 Supreme case? To my recollection, there were no significant state or federal legislation addressing sexual harassment until basically nowadays. American society after the 1986 case just seemed to shrug their shoulders and went off like usual. High profile cases like Anita Hill didn't inspire immediate societal push for change, so what's the difference between the two cases?

I am an Indian, so I know the India side of this debate fairly well. One of the "big questions" here is why we never recorded history or treated it like a science, despite being one of the oldest civilizations on Earth and being relatively very advanced in fields like Grammar/Linguistics or Mathematics or Philosophy. This was not due to a loss of material or inability to keep record, since we preserved much older texts just by oral recitation (c.f - the Rigveda dated to approximately 1200-1500 BCE~ preserved down to the last pitch accent). In fact, our preservation of the Rigveda was so good that modern linguistics relied heavily on it to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European (spoken approx in 3500-4500 BCE). Around 65% of the PIE cognates are reconstructed with the aid of Sanskrit. Now, our scribes managed to preserve enough of Classical Sanskrit literature as well, quite faithfully. It seems as if our Purāṇas combined with our dynastic vaṃśāvalī-s (pseudo historical records of kings) served a quasi-historical role but we never developed the science of historiography. Why?

Note: There is one exception here. Kashmir is the only state in India that does have a fairly faithful historiographic tradition, (c.f - Kalhana, Jonaraja and the Rājātaraṅgini). Any thoughts on this?

Coming to Iran, I know a small bit of Iranian history but not enough. From what I know, our Iranic cousins & neighbors do not have any historical chronicles either (say from the Achaemenid Period). Why is this so? Why do we rely so heavily on Greek or Chinese or Islamic era chronicles for Indo-Iranian history? Is this possibly due to some ancestral cultural attitudes as the Indo-Iranians had almost an identical religion and language when they split apart. Possibly some common revulsion to history as too materialistic? I don't know, so I ask you all and hope I get some good answers.

Cheers.

Why did the aristocrats who remained in the Soviet Union do so?
Aren't they the ones to be killed?

I mean why do so many flood myths exist throughout the world?

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms depicts Liu Bei as being a good man, an embodiment of the Confucian virtues, and opposes him to Cao Cao, more vicious than virtuous, saying "I'd rather betray the world than let the world betray me". It is also my understanding that the 擁劉反曹 Support Liu oppose Cao way of thinking was pretty strong regarding the Three Kingdoms.

Why is that? The historical Cao Cao doesn't appear to me as being worse than the average Chinese warlord, I could even see the point being made that he was relatively okay as far as warlords go, and the usurpation of the throne by Cao Pi is not that different from the way other dynasties started. Why did later scholars not frame the way Cao Pi became an emperor the usual way, that is the Han lost the Mandate of Heaven and the Cao family obtained it?

It feels like he had everything to lose and nothing to gain by defending his homeland. Worst case (relative to his perspective), Virginia rejoins the Union without slavery. Best case, Virginia probably still eventually rejoins the Union but abolishment would have to be revisited later. Some Americans have a high opinion of him, but I'm failing to see what his contribution did besides extend suffering over issues he seemed to only be lukewarm on.

I'm a Christian actually but I'm just curious to hear about this

People today have to go through a very formal interview process in order to get a job. But I can't image it's always been this way. I can't imaging a person from the 1800s walking into a saloon and asking for a job, and then getting the response, "Well, lets set up an interview with out HR department"

In general, has there ever been an academic book written that covers the history of finding employment?

I was talking to my mother about her father's military service during the WW2 Era. He had an older brother that was drafted into the navy in 1945, and supposedly did nothing more than patrol the pacific ocean while the war was ending/over.

My mother, however, doesn't believe that the us navy has ever drafted recruits into their service, and all I can find is blanket information on the selective training and service act of 1940 that doesn't explicitly say what all branches of service were involved.

My questions are, did the navy draft recruits into service during the WW2 era, and in general, if you were drafted into the war, could you choose what branch of service you wanted to join, or was it chosen for you?

Thanks so much

I know there were abolitionists and whatnot but even back then they would often think of black people as 'simple' or 'not entirely human' or whatever. Were there ever people who maybe owned slaves who then grew to comprehend just how terrible their racist actions were and maybe respect minorities on the level that we like to hope most modern white people do? Like where they completely understand that minorities are normal, intelligent, competent human beings and that it was absolutely horrific that they had to endure things like slavery or segregation?

Imagine growing up in a slave owning family, seeing the slaves on the plantation, then having the horrific realization that what your father considers to be 'beasts of burden' are actually human beings just like you who are being treated terribly. I feel like this had to be happening constantly as white people would find themselves in the presence of black people within the racist contexts they were forced into. Not just in a general 'ehh we should just free them and send them back to Africa' sense that a lot of people believed, but in the sense of 'oh my god we are doing an immense amount of harm on these people that will seriously mess them up for generations if we don't immediately start treating them the way we treat whites while also giving them reparations for the damage we've caused their people'.

I'm mainly asking about attitudes towards black people from about the first time they were brought to North America to the early 20th century. If you have something about other races, something from other territories like Canada/Texas/etc, or a later time period that's fine as well.

I keep seeing in documents abo it rich people having ice but I can’t wrap my head on how Suliman would store his ice and get it all the way from wherever he got his ice without it melting in the middle of the desert

Hey, so Ive been diving into some world war 2 history, and Ive been reading that germany, who was known for technology and industry, was primarily a horse drawn military??? Is this true? Did the axis have “cavalry”? Or were they just draft animals/ beasts of burden? Did the allies have cavalry????

I know that by 1943 the axis were over stretched and operating with a fraction of the fuel they needed. Was the panzer corps a much smaller force relative to rest of the wehrmacht? Its popular to depict them as basically a tank oriented military.

Anyways. Im eager to year about german cavalry charges during battle of the bulge or something.

Based on my limited reading, I infer that a great interest existed in The Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman Empires in the 19th and 20th centuries in expanding influence in the Balkans. Conversely, some other nations in Europe seemed to regard the area as something of a wasps nest that was not worth spending blood and treasure in conquering, or even pacifying.

So why were the Balkans worth so much trouble? Why did the Ottomans decide to switch to a Balkan/European empire? Why were AH and Russian so keen on being an influence there, to the point of war?

American Civil War battles are in many cases very detailed in historic records, including such information as which troops of soldiers crossed which roads at what time of day, or engaged in battle at certain buildings or pastures at specific times. Why do we have that level of detail from those combats, is that common, is it done with modern war, where are these records kept?

Question comes from re-reading Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett's Good Omens and coming across the quote "....had been materially helped by Agnes's petticoats, in which she had concealed fifty pounds of gunpowder and thirty pounds of roofing nails."

I am well aware of artistic license but I thought it would be interesting to find out if it was actually physically possible.

Both took place in the same time, both with industrial revolutions, so what happened that cause the culture and such to be so different in that time period? I know culture in the US and the UK was very different but wouldn't they share some similarities, it seems like two whole different time periods.

Clearly people have always worn clothing to say certain things about their beliefs, social status, etc., but when did “fashion” as a concept come about?

“Luxury” is maybe an analogous example. From what I understand, the concept/term itself has origins in France not long before the Enlightenment, but clearly people had items that could be considered luxurious since long before that time.

In this sense, what is the moment where people begin directly addressing fashion as such?