Something has always bugged me when it comes to the obvious dominance of Europe in the global scale of around 1500 ad to even arguably today. What factors caused Europe to be such a powerhouse? Was it the resources in that Continent that allowed well established economies that created vast empires and armadas as well as trading ships? Was it the politics caused by years of conflict that made Europe much more aggressive and imperialist?

Any sort of links to articles or documentaries or documents that detail this more would be greatly appreciated and thank you for your time in reading this and hopefully answering.

Sorry if a question like this has been answered before I just could not find any sort concrete thing relating to this question.

Also, as a followup, what were the US' plans if they came into contact with extraterrestrial life?

I'm particularly interested in books that analyze the political economy and sociological dynamics of LA in the context of the riots.

Trying to better understand syndicalism as a form of socialism.

I argue that the Mongol occupation of the Kievan Rus has limited long-term impact on Russia. Although their rule was very long, I can't find many examples of systems from their occupation that stayed with Russia beyond the Kievan era. Can anyone give support or contrast my argument with examples?

With the earthquake in Nepal, there's lots of news about countries pledging money to Nepal for rebuilding efforts. This happened with Haiti and Pakistan and Japan as well. Even a group of Maasai donated cattle to the US after 9/11, so it seems to be pretty universal.

How new is this phenomenon / did this sort of philanthropy happen in the past?

I was walking with a friend through my neighborhood which is quite historic. On some of the busier streets some of the old houses have become doctors offices and things like that. We began wondering when zoning regulations first came into being.

Obviously probably as long as people have been living in close proximity to each other they have preferred not to live next door to the tannery, but how old is the modern system of zoning regulations that most cities have and what lead up to it?

Originally I had assumed that the term "holocaust" was associated exclusively with what, for lack of a better term, we all know of as "THE holocaust". I was reading Call of Cthulu today which as far as I know was written in the mid 1920s and stumbled upon the word "holocaust". It perplexed me that it predates Hitler's regime and yet had what appeared to be similar usage, and was wondering where and when the term originated from and how it exclusively got to be known in the context of Nazi Germany.

edit- I meant a translated call to lesser (fighting) jihad not a fatwa.

I'm trying to write a paper trying to compare in some way jihad in the Crusading period and in the Afghani Communist gov. period and or after the Soviet invasion. My teacher (who teaches about the Crusades) suggested trying to compare calls to war. I am looking for calls on the Afghan side as I think I'm covered in primary sources for the Crusading period.

Most conspiracy theories are discarded by most people as impracticable and overly complicated, but what about conspiracies like MKULTRA which were not only extremely complex but also borderline sci-fi with mind control being the goal of the operation? Would the average fellow in the 1950s when the experiments started think it could be real or just a crackpot joke?

Due to the recent events in Baltimore and seeing several social media posts talk about how the riots in Baltimore are justified in part because events in American History like the Boston Tea Party and Boston Massacre.

So far I've found that George Washington derided the the tea party because he felt as though private property rights where the most valuable. Ben Franklin thought we should pay back the British East India Company. And Sam Adams promoted them.

This might be a fairly simple question, but I've heard a number of things from different sources. I've found the general consensus to be that Stalin used the Communist Party in a way that Lenin didn't (tho correct me if you disagree), but in terms of the actual results, was Stalin's rule really much of a departure from Lenin's leadership, or is the gap between the two exaggerated? After a bit of searching around this sub, I've found a bunch on how Stalin rose to power, but still very little about whether Stalin's actual time in command was or wasn't a deviation from Lenin.

Let me know if there's any article you'd recommend on the topic, too!

I am always fascinated by the policies that FDR was able to implement during his presidency: New Deal, Lend Lease, Price Fixing, Wage Cap, Social Security etc. And by mos accounts, he had the support of most american people.

Was this due to

More friendly business leaders after great depression? A more pro-union public opinion? Super majority in Congress? Personal political skill?

And if FDR were in Obama's shoes, what would he do differently during the great recession?

Obergefell v. Hodges was argued in front of the US Supreme Court today, and the audio transcript has already been released. The case will decide whether the federal government can force states to recognize gay marriage. One of the right-leaning justices (I think it was Alito) harped on the point that marriage has been universally defined as exclusively heterosexual "for millennia"—up until the last quarter-century or so. He pressed the lawyer arguing on behalf of gay couples to name a pre-modern society that considered homosexual marriage equally sacrosanct. She couldn't name one.

Do you folks know of any?

Say there was a website which listed all of the written books, letters etc... found from the time in approximately chronological order (as close as we could get), how big would that website be.

Also, has it all been digitized? Have we even translated everything? How many times have we found new written text in the last few decades/centuries?