I'm trying to write a paper on the relation between suicide and the state. So far, all I've been able to find is a lot of Wikipedia pages. However, it's starting to turn out that suicide was illegal so if you did kill yourself, the state would be able to take your stuff because you became a felon. Any insight?

Was there any serious discussion that the US may have intentionally brought the Hindenburg down? This thing was flying over New York city and the NJ coast for days before the accident, and had the Nazi swastika on its fin. I know the lead designer said he thought it was sabotage, but not sure if he meant the crew, or a govt. sanctioned event. If this happened today, I imagine there would be many conspiracy theories.

I know that there was the African front, but where else was there?

I've been reading An Army At Dawn: The War in Africa, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson; in the first few days of the fighting the capture of Casablanca from the Vichy French was planned by Patton. After the capitulation, and only hours before the attack was to commence, the bombers, already in mid-air, were called off. "A Wilcat flight leader radioed, 'Boys, it's all over for now. Let's go back.' The pilots jettisoned their bombs in the sea and returned to the carrier." Why were the bombs jettisoned? My only guess is that the greatly reduced payload saved fuel which was desperately needed or saved enough fuel that it made more sense per dollar.

I'm aware that German-language schools were once common in the United States, and some staples of American Vernacular cuisine are ostensibly German. But despite the enormous number of German Americans, they are almost indistinguishable from Americans of English extraction, especially because most have Anglicized surnames.

Meanwhile, Irish culture can be observed in many American cities. Besides the thousands of Irish pubs across the United States, most cities have Irish dance studios and an Irish music scene. Meanwhile, many Italian Americans know some Italian even if their ancestors came to the United States in 1880. Beyond that, the Italian identity is very visible and strong, as many Italian Americans are very proud and up-front about their heritage.

This is often written off as an effect of the World Wars, but I find that difficult to believe. Why and when did the erasure of the German American identity begin? Was the weakening of German culture in the United States a deliberate attempt by immigrants to assimilate, or were German Americans encouraged to abandon their culture in way that Italian and Irish Americans were not?

I was thinking about how old some buildings are in New York... then missions in New Mexico... then wondering what the castle was that Newcastle was named for.

How long have we named places after other places? Will someone build a "New New York" (or even a "Nuevo Nova Scotia") on Mars someday, or has the moment of naming places New-wherever passed?

You have the Thrilla in Manila, in the Philippines, and the Rumble in the Jungle, in Zaire. Why were these fights held in such far flung locations compared to the average American boxing fan?

Were they coerced or persuaded? Were people just no longer believing their mythology to be literal truth, so that opened up the door for other religions? Were they suffering from military defeats?

Also, did this happen before the peak of their power, during the peak, or after their peak? Did that have something to do with their conversion?

Billions of World War II dollars went into this secret scientific project. How was it concealed from the general public in the national budget? How could members of Congress themselves be in the dark about the atom bomb considering they had to provide the funding for it?

I've been reading a great deal lately about the alchemists out of mere curiosity. Many seemed to discover pretty ideas and were genuinely brilliant: John Dee, Ramon Llull, Issac Newton. Others, more occult than science seemed more geared on necromancy and witchcraft. It seems that in the 19th century alchemy and occult practices took a turn for the less scientific and "Christian" and more to the Kabbalistic and pagan, resulting in people such as Aleister Crowley. What did most people in Medieval times and the early modern era think about alchemy and occult practices? Where many prosecuted or killed in witch trials and such? What exactly was the relationship between alchemy and the occult? To what degree is the occult related to Freemasonry and the Rosicrucians? I read that Pope John XXII was an alchemist and then that he forbade it? Did alchemy and occult practices come from monks who studied ancient literature and perhaps weren't exactly keen on Christian scriptures? What about the Greek and Egyptian factor a la Hermes the Thrice Great?

I know that's a whole lot. Any one of those answers at a time will be good. I have always been fascinated by this stuff and was curious as to its extents in real life.

I've been learning a lot about WWI recently, and on of the things that was really interesting to me is how constrained the armies seemed to be by the fact that they had to walk everywhere they wanted to go. Toward the end of the war, it seems like troops were being transported by vehicle in some circumstances. I'm curious when we reached the point where movement was all done by vehicle.

I assume there was some logic to this, but the most I can find is that as colonies both claimed the entire river, and then Virginia relinquished its claim, but no explanation for why they were willing to.

Some people say that, since elizabeth bathory was never judged, it's quite possible to say that what people said about her was augmented or skewed.

But weren't medieval trials very limited? Were they truly able to bring out the truth as to what happened?

Did the existing infrastructure give them a marginal advantage that added up over time? What about imperialistic culture? Anything else? Looking for both big, and small details

Hello all. I'm trying to find a way to clearly explain and illustrate the official relationship between Yeltsin and Gorbachev prior to the fall of the Soviet Union. My textbooks are a little vague and essentially say "well, Yeltsin ran for President and then there were two Presidents" but I need a little more illustration. Any ideas on how to communicate clearly the relationship?

I imagine this changed overtime during the war, but generally speaking, was observing religious practices permitted by the Nazis inside of camps? If not, was it common for people in the camps to break these rules?

In a book about Roman onomastics I came across a reference that mentioned in passing that the samoyedic people didn't give personal names to their women, but when I traced the reference it ended up in unsubstantiated hearsay (for anyone wondering, the source is Schulze, Zur Geschichte Lateinischer Eigennamen, Göttingen 1904, p. 51 f. 5.) Schulze there makes the claim that, much as Roman women had no personal names in a legal sense (viz. there only were distinctions like 'the tall one', 'the small one' and so on), the samoyedic women had, in fact, no names: "...bei den Römern die Frau seit alters her rechtlich namenlos war, wie sie es bei den Samojeden tatsächlich gewesen sein soll." Italics mine - he says 'gewesen sein soll', so he's practically referencing hearsay. I find that a bit far-fetched, but maybe there is something to it, this would interest me (the topic of Roman feminine personal names is a bit contested on that issue). Didn't find anything about it, so far.