The obvious answer is 'probably Disney', but I imagine it's not solely due to that. I should note that for all the modern discussion of whether the branding and cultural output of that behemoth of a company helps or hampers young girls' self-conceptions and aspirations, I'm referring mostly to the stereotypical notion of a princess as it appears or (is criticised to appear) in fairytales or perhaps the older Disney movies. Think big gowns, feminine to a fault, passively dreaming of someone to rescue her.

But yeah, if you compare the historical reality of what life was like for women of royal blood in what I will broadly call 'medieval Europe', it was (to my knowledge) a lot less romantic than that. On the one hand, the realities of dynastic marriage politics don't really jive with the idea of love-at-first-sight for a prince on a white horse leading to happy-ever-after. At the same time, political involvement of women (especially queens consort or -mother) was a lot greater than what fairytales would have you believe. Heck, you even have noblewomen going on crusade or leading armies! How's that for playing the damsel in distress!

So what I'm asking is: how did we get from poltically-involved royalty with agency to spare (in some cases at least) to this notion of the princess as a passive, meek creature? Is it solely the influence of 19th century romanticism and gender roles? Or are there different factors at play here I'm unaware of?

As I understand it, when the Nazis took power they essentially turned every aspect of civil society into Nazi organs - most infamously with the Hitler Youth replacing all youth groups.

However the German military remained under control of essentially Prussian military professionals/aristocrats? I.E. the cadre of people who would go onto take part in the Operation Valkyrie plot in 1944 under Stauffenberg? I get that Hitler couldn't remove the high command in 1933, but why did he not ensure party members and ideologues were put in charge - IIRC the famous scene in Downfall he regrets not purging the army like Stalin did in the USSR? Why didn't he?

Were there other, more material incentives (in terms of housing or taxation)?

From what I understand, a German attempt at invasion was seen as inevitable from the British perspective after the defeat of the BEF and the fall of France, so I assume that there must’ve been a plan or a partial plan to stop or at least delay a german invasion following a successful initial landing

I cannot find any information relating to this other than the construction of coastal defences, the organisation of the home guard and the evacuation of the royal family to various refuges and eventually Canada

It is claimed that the library held 400.000-700.000 books which could have held key for some technological advancements.Is that possible or is that just a myth?

I'm looking for a general overview history of the Republic of Venice, or (if a one-volume history of the whole period is too much to ask) at least something that covers the republic's height. I'm mainly interested in political/institutional history, the way that governance worked and so on, but more culture-focused approaches are not unwelcome.

Hey I was wondering if someone could educate me on the individuals or groups who opposed the Japanese Internment Camps? Were there any prominent politicians of the time, civil rights leaders, journalists or any groups that were in opposition to the policy?

Thank you

I am coming from here as a non-American and it seems odd that despite the name, from my surface level understanding, the CSA was structurally not too different from it's counterpart. Is there a different understanding of the word "confederation" in the past (e.g. Iroquois) as opposed to our modern understanding (e.g. Swiss)?

By sidestories I mean an intersting Kingdom,Battles,Story,Person or cultural devolopments in ancient Iran that isent really talked about or known about. I thought of this by going down wiki rabbit holes so I'm not sure if this allowed in the sub

Any books,Videos,Podcasts or Audiobooks about any said sidestory or features/talks about it thanks

I've seen a fsir bit of talk about this subject lately, from my some of my friends, on YouTube, Reddit, etc. The topic piqued my interest fairly recently. From what little unbiased information I could gather, the Soviets did a lot of the same things the Wehrmact did. Emphasis on little. Truthfully, this sub is the only place I feel I can turn to without having to worry about sympathisers on both spectrums. If anyone does happen to have a leaning, please keep it out of your answer and give me the truth.

Do we know anything about the myths/lore/religion of the “indigenous” peoples of England? Whenever I try to search for books on pagan England all I seem to find is Anglo-Saxon myths and legends. Why is this so?

Or did they? My understanding is that the Germans on the eastern front relied heavily on mines to supplement their lack of defensive numbers, especially in the lead up to Bagration in Belorussia.

At the same time, we never really hear about the kinds humanitarian tragedies that resulted after the fact in other mine ridden areas. How come? Did the Soviets just not make that public or were they removed?

In medieval Europe the Church, of course, permitted marriages to end only under the rarest of circumstances. But Jewish law allows divorces very easily (especially for the man). If a Jewish man (maybe in Poland or the HRE) in the middle ages wishes to divorce would he be able to do so under Jewish law or would civil authorities insist on a more strict standard. Did the governments leave this sort of thing entirely up to the local Jewish authorities or did they insist on some standards across religious lines.

I said slavery was banned in most European countries by 1820 and that slavery in the country's colonizing was pretty much gone. I did clarify that slavery in the us was banned about 20 years before but she insisted that the reason behind the conference was slavery and the us was one of the first to ban slavery. Am I an idiot what I have found indicates I'm right but im still not quite sure what caused the Berlin conference other than imperialism.

Example ancient Greek and Rome.

I'm wondering how sex slaves coped, if they had lots of PTSD and what motivated them staying alive. I'm curious on how they managed and was motivated for another day.

What about unwanted pregnancies, STDs etc.? Did it affect them?

As camp workers in the crematoriums they were under no qualms about what was happening to the thousands of victims upon arrival to places like Auschwitz. Surely they would not go to the gas willingly, are there any records that explain the process? We’re they somehow tricked into taking “showers” themselves, forced in at gunpoint, etc?

I have recently finished listening to the learning company's course on the Ottoman empire (great courses plus / wondrium). I was startled by the sharp pivot of how inferior the Ottoman military became starting in the first Russo-Ottoman war, and then all subsequent conflicts (including getting their Navy completely destroyed multiple times). This is similar to the Mughal empire getting defeated by the British after soundly defeating it in 1685 in the first British-Mughal war. And of course there is the century of humiliation of the Qing dynasty.

I've read about the internal problems of the Ottomans with the Janissaries, and the internal decline of the Mughal empire - so my question isn't why those mighty empires were at a temporary disadvantage. It's more about why the European advantage was insurmountable. Why didn't the Ottomans manage to catch up after "the auspicious event". Why were all the attempts at modernization except those of the Japanese in the 19th century a failure? whereas in the 20th century we have plenty of examples of relatively less technologically advanced societies repelling western powers after receiving arms from 3rd parties (Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc). One could argue that Russia did not successfully "modernize" following the Crimean war, but remained a very viable military power. Why the Russians and not the Ottomans?

What I'm trying to find is how much of the Soviet Union's fall is actually impacted of Gorbachev's decision, perestroika, glasnost, possible economic causes, cold war. I know to a certain extent all of these were causes, but when the causes are more or less weighted, what effect did perestroika or multiparty elections influence have?

I'm currently writing my Masters dissertation on Constantine and remember reading somewhere the story that he was shown the borders/perimeter of Constantinople by Christ/God.

Does anyone know where I could find the source of this? I've looked in Eusebius' Life of Constantine (where I thought it was) but haven't had any look

Many thanks

I had visited a university library awhile back and found some historic contracts and transaction agreements (real estate transactions, exchange of goods on specific dates, and services) in their collection dating back to the early to mid 1800s and it had me wondering -- how were these contracts verified to be authentic and enforced?

Say party 1 sells a piece of real estate or agrees to a delivery of goods with party 2 and party 2 gets a contract written to their satisfaction and both sign.

What would happen if party 1 claimed to have never signed the contract or agreed to a transaction? What kind of proof could be used for party 2 to be made whole and what enforcement mechanism if the contract not honored?

Nowadays we have video/audio recordings, we can upload documents to the cloud or have a notary come out. What did they do back then? How much confidence could one in that age have in a contract?