The USA has recently dry-docked its first littoral combat ship. It has suffered numerous maintenance setbacks in the time since it was first deployed. I was wondering if these difficulties were a common occurance for "state of the art" ships in their day (like the first steelclad ship).

Population centers (Portland, Eugene, Bend, Salem, etc) are all at least an hour inland. Almost all other coastal states (both sides) have their populations centered around port towns. What happened in Oregon? Is it climate, geography, something else?

In the time around the American Civil War, it is widely well known that the Republican Party was founded on Anti-Slavery statutes, and that the Democratic Party has a legacy of racism. Yet looking at present day, many democrats are focused on social freedom and republicans are less focused on social freedom and are more focused on economic freedom. When, Why and How did this happen?

Maybe someone could help me reform this question so that it more comprehensible. I'm very ignorant about facts and my question is based on what I have heard and seen in my own life.

I would appreciate an unbiased approach but I realize how difficult this may be. Something that may help if you hold to one of the political parties beliefs is to not accuse the other political party of anything non-factual.

Have mega threads at least for the first week or two for anticipated pop culture events. For example: around the release of "the imitation game" create a mega thread for "Turing and the Imitation Game" and delete and redirect questions asking variations of that question to that thread where it's going to be highly likely the question was already answered thus creating a place where flaired users can be confident that if they devote time to a high quality long answer people will 1. see it and 2. the same question will not be seen again and again and again (which in various meta posts seems to be a major annoyance for some/many members of the community).

So what are your thoughts? Feel free to critique the idea, suggest operational changes (not really wedded to the particulars but i thought i'd offer an initial attempt) and the like.

EDIT: and do you think it should be broader than pop culture/examples of those type of questions.

me and my dad ( he has a bachelor degree in history) discussed mongol history the other day, and he said that there was a russian force that managed to defeat the mongols due to some special heavy infantry that the mongols did not know how to deal with.

he said that it only worked one time due to the surprise factor, and thats it. but he did not remember the name of this infantry unit, any idea?

what are some other major/minor battles that the mongol lost? would any of them that will leave me very impressed by the winning side?

This question got sparked by an article over the origins and evolution of the Lost Cause myth (that hgas many superficial parallels with the 'Clean Wehrmacht' and 'Stab in the Back' myths in Germany after WWII and WWI). The Americans were the strictest of the three Western Powers in enacting a policy of denazification in occupied Germany post WWII, while the British and French were comparatively lenient (the Soviets are a wholly different matter).

Since there are parallels in this kind of myth-building, I wondered if the domestic experience of how the Lost Cause evolved in the conquered South influenced American policy in conquered Germany.

I looked this up and couldn't find an answer. Many in the former confederate states feel the flag is a part of their heritage, while northerners and many others see it as a symbol of treason and slavery (to be debated elsewhere). My question is, and one I couldn't find the answer to, are any flags of countries who lost a civil war flown in the victorious country? Example: I don't believe North Vietnam raises the flag of South Vietnam over any government buildings, etc. Do other countries honor a country/party that fought/rebelled against it and lost?

Any help would be great!

I often see videos claiming to represent melodies from ancient civilizations. How accurate are these, if at all? How much do we actually know about the music of the ancient Near East, and other civilizations?

I am particularly interested in learning which scales were used in the Biblical period. Would they have been similar to Arabic maqams, or are those a later development?

I know that Romans used Aquilas in the legions, but from what I've read there was never any reference to flying any flags, red or otherwise. From where does the notion that Rome had a flag, is it any way historically accurate, and why is it always red?

I have a brief knowledge of how Germany replaced ingredients in their food with cheaper, locally produced ingredients, such as how they put sawdust/ potatoes in bread. I presume the reason of these extreme food shortages is due to their failed attempts to become self sufficient before the war and how the Allies made it impossible to import foods in Germany. I would like to find out some more examples of this happening and of altered recipes. I would also be interested to hear more information as to why such extreme measures were needed.

(At any given region that we might have enough info about to answer that.)

Taking in consideration how different daily life is in 2000 CE compared to 1000 CE, or 1000 CE compared to 1 CE, I had this question floating in my mind.

I was wondering this because, my Mother told me a fairy tale about how my ancestors once survived a particularly bad famine by eating an elephant that drowned in our village River(The story is too long to transcribe here). Where it gets interesting is that till today you can still see the Elephant/an Elephant skull in my "clan square"(closest English translation).

Elephants are nearly now extinct in my country as a whole, with remaining numbers now estimated to be around 350. My first instinct was to wonder what happened them and right now my first theory is they were hunted into near extinction to service the Transatlantic and Trans-Sahara Ivory trade from Benin. That thought led me to think of other effects the age of exploration/colonization had on other ecosystems. With some positives like the introduction of Cassava and Maize, e.t.c and negatives like the over-cultivation of cloves leading to the Pemba Isles of Zanzibar becoming infertile and the Bison extinction e.t.c

I was wondering if they were any Historians who specialized in this study?

imgur.com/a/tZo2c

She told me that her grandmothers second husband had been a free man of the City of London. After finding the copy that her Gran left her (I've added at the bottom encase anyone was interested) I also found this loan bill inside the small leather sleeve. As a Brit I know very little of the American civil war but it seems to be dated to that period with a small sections about it being paid upon lifting of the blockade. I stupidly forgot to take a photo of the whole of the back but that's where all those "warrants" where What sort of this has my great-great-grandfather-in-law been investing in?

In recent days I've seen it expressed around the internet that the South Carolinian units never used the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. They say that to be accurately representative of those who served the CSA from South Carolina, the Confederate memorial in Columbia should be flying the rectangular blue-and-white Palmetto Flag. To what extent is this correct?

I want to re create my own deck by hand but not sure the process of doing so. I can find lots of pictures of ancient cards but not much info on what materials they are, types of inks, how they were made basically? I'm talking about European cards here, not old Prussian or Chinese cards. I need help here so I appreciate anyone who answers this.

I realise there are some regional accents in Canada, Newfoundland or Cape Breton being the biggest but otherwise variations such as the Ottawa Valley twang are relatively minor.

Was this practice common or is it just a myth?

Hello everyone, the recent events surround Russia have made me realize how very little I know about the pre-USSR Russian Empire and piqued my interest on the subject. I'm a casual historian so I'm looking for a more general (less detail heavy), interesting history on the Russian Empire and it's key figures starting from around Peter the Great to the end of first World War. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

Perhaps i'm misguided in my observations, but it seems to me that throughout America's history, rivers see very little development along their banks. Going through many downtowns buildings seem to face away from rivers (I believe this has to do with how rivers near urban areas were filled with trash and sewage and thus smelled and looked displeasing), but also through rural areas, very few farms seem to back up right to rivers, homes aren't built along rivers, yards don't lend views to rivers. If you follow a river on something like google earth, they are always accompanied by trees lining their banks, and untouched by development. So why is this? Is their an act to conserve the banks of rivers, or are rivers really considered such an unsightly thing in America?

Nowadays there are a lot of things you "expect" people to own. Various furniture (bed, couch, tables, etc.), various tools (hammer, screwdriver, etc.), kitchen supplies (plates, bowls, utensils).

Say it's 0 AD, in the city of Rome, and you wander into a random person's insula. Is there anything you could reasonably expect to find? Anything that "most people" owned and had in their homes?