So keep in my I’m not expecting to be right but I have heard several stories of Women in the Soviet Union being absolutely awesome, like the sniper Lyudmila Pavlivhenko, or tank driver Mariya Oktyabrskaya, and even the first women in space Valentina Tereshkova. Did other countries have as many awesome women during the 1900s

I have recently rewatched the original Parent Trap, which was made in 1961 by Walt Disney. The premise of the film is that two twins are separated by their parents shortly after their birth, due to divorce, with one daughter raised by each parent in isolation; they discover one another 14 years later. That puts the timing of the parents' divorce at around 1947 or 1948.

It is my understanding that no-fault divorce did not exist in the United States until 1969. Until then (and, when this movie was released), all divorce was fault-based -- adultery, insanity, abandonment, neglect/cruelty, etc. In the film, we don't get a hint any such thing occurred, just that both parents fell out of love and divorced (the mother simply says they "just [didn't] get on together.")

Was it reasonable to expect that couples would have been able to divorce without cause at this time (or, perhaps, that they lied)? I've heard stories of couples feigning adultery to justify a divorce, though that is from TV and films. Would a couple divorcing in 1948 or so have had to produce evidence of the grounds of divorce--meaning the couple in Parent Trap would've either had to have real grounds to divorce, or fabricated them?

Separately, did moviegoers at the time reacted negatively to this plot because it was based on divorce? And, would moviegoers have accepted the idea that the divorce was amicable, or felt it implied they lied to get a fault-based divorce? This seems like a potentially controversial topic for Disney, and I'm curious if they got any flack for a movie about divorce from conservative viewers.

I am wondering, what kind of way did old sailing vessels use to apply jibs? I am right now talking about sloops with more than one jib. And the time period I am looking for is the 1700s.

To clarify, did ships use roller furling or did they just hank on the jibsails?

Presumably humans have been enjoying that particular activity for millennia, but when was it first connected with the number 69, and become a well-known innuendo?

I remember Alanis Morrissette using it somewhere on 1995's Jagged Little Pill, so I'm pretty sure this doesn't fall foul of the 20 year rule.

Edit: punctuation/spelling

I am of European decent and live in New England. My old timey grandpa told his kids and grandkids we had a bit of native American blood in us. I believed him for years! This is an utter lie. I've since met many people who were told a similar lie, in particular they were told they had a "Cherokee princess" ancestor. Such a common lie these old timers told their very white decendents! I am wondering if there was some literature or a song or movie from the past that inspired a generation to pass on this false information about their heritage to their kids because I can not imagine a whole bunch of people from the same generation coming up with this idea on their own. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question so if not someone tell me where to ask, thank you!!

While young men at American universities created private clubs and fraternities, it's my understanding that their contemporaries in Germany and Austria maintained a culture around dueling well into the 20th century. Was that just their take on "college life"?

I recently finished reading two science-fiction books set during the 1300s: Eifelheim by Michael Flynn and Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.

Although books are set in small villages during 1348, they differ drastically in their portrayal of the local clergy. In Eifelheim, the village priest is a highly literate man who was educated in Paris, corresponds with major philosophers, advises the baron on both religious and secular matters, and remains abreast of current events throughout Europe. In contrast, the village priest in Doomsday Book is a superstitious yokel who must memorize the Latin Mass by rote, because he is illiterate. He is beloved by the villagers, but the local nobles view him with disdain, and he is so ignorant of the wider world that he is unaware of the Black Death until it arrives in his village.

Of these two depictions, which is more accurate? Would a local priest have been a pillar of his community, knowledgeable and respected? Or would he be relatively ignorant, someone who was viewed with little respect by anyone except his parishioners? Or is the truth of the matter somewhere in between?

In doing some light research on the 1619 Project, I found that very few of it’s contributors had any sort of background in history with those that do often contributing the smallest amounts to the overall project as well as it being solely based on a ship arriving to America in 1619 whose legitimacy seems to be disputed. I just want to know if I should continue to doubt it, or take it more seriously.

Let’s say I’m a fan of speculative fiction in general and Lovecraft in particular during WWII in the UK. Would there have been any way for me to get a hold of Weird Tales and other pulp magazines featuring Lovecraft, Smith, Howard, and the like? If domestic printing was very heavily restricted (which Orwell/Blair complained about), it seems as though the only way to get access to pulp would have been through importing. Did such importing ever occur, and reliably? How much would it have cost?

I know rationing began gradually with foodstuffs and clothes for the UK and that the US restrictions were never remotely as severe. If someone could have seen the war or at least the extent of rationing coming, could they have feasibly stockpiled for themselves, their family, or just to resell and make a profit? If so, what would they have probably stockpiled? As a bonus, basic searching online indicates that while people could receive packages from abroad (chocolates, fruits, etc.), this would be “deducted” against their rations out of a sense of equality - how exactly was this done?

I’m trying to wrap my head around it, and I’m hoping historical context helps. I’ve heard people talk about times where prostitutes were priestesses, etc. but I’m not sure how much stock to put in those claims. Is there some common thread that consistently effects how different times and places see and treat prostitution?

So I guess there's 3 parts to this question:

1. In a communist society, how do you buy a tank? With local currency, hard foreign currency, or something else?
2. Were tanks simply up for sale in the Soviet Union, like buying a car?
3. Considering the strict gun controls in the USSR, were such bans on private ownership of weapons waived during World War II?

How to know the real history of what happened? Especially, when I read about a person there are multiple views on him. Some people have prejudice over him and others support him and every writer who writes about him might have biases towards the person. So, how do I judge if the person that I'm reading was really good or bad?

Britain was: anti-slavery; dependent on the US for 40% of its food imports; facing conflict in Europe; and given its possessions (eg Ireland) should have been ideologically opposed to even the concept of secession.

In the end Britain never even recognised the CSA, let alone allied with it. Britain was officially neutral but highly supportive of the US, with trade between the CSA and Britain falling 90%.

How could the CSA possibly have imagined that Britain would become an active belligerent on their side?

Johnny Appleseed’s story has solidified the apple pie as the USA’s pie of choice, what what about the long lasting effects of the other classic stories, such as Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan, and John Henry? Were most of these stories used for political reasons to justify westward expansion and manifest destiny, or were they rather emblematic of a shared experience at the time these legends were formed?

From cursory overview, the events share a large amount of similarities. Both countries were victim to failed economic policies instituted by their occupiers, whether it be Britain's strict adherence to laissez faire capitalism or Stalin's rush to modernisation.

The Irish potato famine, though an atrocity, is generally not referred to as a genocide due to a lack of proof of genocidal intent and is rather categorised as an act of historical neglect and incompetence. The general trend is that although the British both contributed to the circumstances that led to the famine, and did a terrible job responding to it, the famine wasn't a deliberate act of mass-murder with the extinction of Catholic Irish as its goal. A tragedy of apathy and economics rather than one of hatred.

Meanwhile the Ukranian Holodomor's "genocide question" seems to be far more heated and readily discussed. What were the core differences in the two situations? Is there much more substantial proof of genocidal intent in the Soviet regime? Or is it more of a historiographical issue that's still conflated with charged Cold War era rhetoric?

Much appreciated! This is a question genuinely borne out of good faith, I'm on a bit of a "Genocide Studies" binge at the moment. The difference in classifications and arguments used are fascinating.

An individual phrenological measuring standards of a bodily feature to determine something itself sounds quite absurd but we see differently shaped skulls of people with variations in size within a race or community level. So I took a look at the available samples of holocaust on the internet to check if there was a similarity on the skull shapes and surprisingly it did not turn out as I expected. Must have been a daunting task for nazis to have pulled the move in accurately determining the ethnicity with this method or was it not?. Was there anything noticeably prominent about the skull of a Jew during the Nazi era?

In modern times, there are certain handwriting styles that are very "feminine/girl" and stereotypes of a male/masculine scrawl. When I look at copies of letters from people in the 18th-20th centuries, men and women alike have beautiful handwriting (Alexander and Eliza Hamilton both have beautiful penmanship that would be considered, well, unseen but stereotypically "girly" today).

Were there certain penmanship styles that men were taught to imitate or write in, versus women? Would you be able to guess whether the writer was a woman or a man simply based on handwriting?

Time for some ancient history - I've been reading Andrew George's translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest long poem in recorded history. I'm pursuing a master's in literary and cultural studies, and it is fascinating being able to engage with this incalculably influential story.

George largely translates the "Standard Babylonian" version, pulling from older tablets from different periods to fill in lost text where possible. It is mentioned that translation work was often done by studying ink drawings of the script rather than the actual tablet.

My broad question is whether someone could tell me more about the history of the gradual translation process of the epic. My question within that is whether anyone knows whether there is a resource out there that contains transcriptions of the actual cuneiform script as it appears on the tablets. I have, of course, found English translations, and one source that included many English transliterations of how some lines might have been pronounced, but nothing representing the actual cuneiform, historical or modern, apart from photos of the actual tablets. (Full disclosure - I am considering a tattoo of a line from the epic in the original language and script, and having a resource like this to pore over would be helpful as well as interesting!)