How did Times New Roman become the go-to, most accepted, and most well known font?

5 Answers 2015-04-04

"Thanksgiving celebrates a massacre of the Pequot Indians" - is there any truth to this?

A friend of mine posted the following on Facebook:

The First Thanksgiving Thanksgiving was named after an entire tribe’s massacre — not a peaceful meal between pilgrims and Indians. In 1621, Wampanoag Indians investigated gun and cannon fire at a Pilgrim settlement to see them celebrating a successful harvest. The Indians — all male warriors, were fed as a gesture of peace. The act was not repeated annually. In 1636, when a murdered man was discovered in a boat in Plymouth, English Major John Mason collected his soldiers and killed and burned down the wigwams of all the neighboring Pequot Indians who were blamed for the murder. The following day, Plymouth Governor William Bradford applauded the massacre of the 400 Indians, including the women and children. The Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, William Newell, proclaimed: “From that day forth, shall be a day of celebration and thanks giving for subduing the Pequots.” For the next 100 years, every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a governor was in honor of the bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won."

http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/11/history-books-dont-tell-natives/

Is there any truth to these claims?

1 Answers 2015-04-04

During the Holocaust, how difficult was it to lie about being Jewish? Were there a lot of falsely accused Germans?

4 Answers 2015-04-04

The first automobile accident?

How long after the Ford Model-T debuted did it take for someone to wreck it? Was it treated like any other traffic accident at the time? At some point, did the laws for automobile accidents change drastically from the laws regarding carriage accidents and the like?

2 Answers 2015-04-04

US History reality check

1 Answers 2015-04-04

Why historians?

1 Answers 2015-04-04

Is there any evidence showing travel by Africans into North Or South America in ancient or pre historic periods?

I have a friend who is a very "black pride" sort of guy, and he sent me to a few websites that were ridiculously unsourced and made various claims about how "The Black man discovered America first" "the black man built the pyramids for the Mayans and Aztecs" etc sort of stuff.

Now, I have mostly discounted this, as I have never heard any such information before and as I said the websites he provided as "citation" we're so poorly cited they could have been claiming anything.

So, before I completely dismiss this, is there any evidence supporting any such claims?

2 Answers 2015-04-04

How did Scientology grow?

It's a massively powerful 'religion' especially in Hollywood, how did this happen?

2 Answers 2015-04-04

Are there any accounts from feudal/household guards? What were their duties? Did they really stand at a post staring forward for hours at a time?

Seems the modern depiction has them acting as automatons.

1 Answers 2015-04-04

Is it true we have almost no historical text coming from Sparta that aren't military orders?

My friend sprung that one on me yesterday and i honestly don't know if it's true or not.

1 Answers 2015-04-04

In the Antebellum South, what was the infant mortality rate of enslaved children?

Did Slave-owners have much of an investment in keeping infant African Americans alive, or did they not care?

1 Answers 2015-04-04

Was Christianity really heavily opposed to scientific discoveries in the Medieval Era, or is this just a modern exaggeration?

Sorry if the title is vague, but I'm a bit confused on the matter, quite a lot of people talk about the European Medieval Age as being a time of scientific stagnation due to the Catholic Church's oppression of scientific thought, but I've never heard anything really conclusive on the matter. Was the Catholic Church really opposed to scientific advancement? If so, why, and was it specific to fields? Are there any instances of the Christianity helping with scientific discoveries?

1 Answers 2015-04-04

Were Søren Kierkegaard's last words actually "Sweep me up..."?

In the film Waking Life, Kierkegaard last words are quoted as being "Sweep me up."

While the film does put his quote in an existentialist context, I got curious as to whether this was a truthful quote, or maybe there was artistic license taken. I haven't been able to find any primary sources of information on his last words, but if anyone does know, and could provide a context for the quote, I would appreciate it.

1 Answers 2015-04-04

After Harry S. Truman left office, Why was he so lowly ranked and once considered "one of the most unpopular chief executives in history"? Additionally, what are the factors that changed these sentiments and why is ranked so highly today?

Sorry I accidentally left out a word. Add the word "he" in the second question after the word "Why".

1 Answers 2015-04-04

How was the United States able to go from politically and economically unstable after the end of the civil war to a political and military power house in WWI?

Did the U.S. Face issues with a lack of manpower due to the devastation?

2 Answers 2015-04-04

Were the Jews enslaved in Egypt?

I'm on my way to a passover seder and have always wondered if there's actually proof, I have a feeling its as much of a myth as the rest of the Torah.

1 Answers 2015-04-04

How widely used were royal taste testers?

2 Answers 2015-04-03

In my current textbook, there is a footnote which states "Obviously, the small number of representatives to which America would be entitled could always be outvoted." Were many colonists aware of this, and if so, would that have affected the political response to the Stamp and Sugar Acts?

The textbook is "Colonial America" by Jerome Reich, ISBN: 1-256-41033-0. Disregarding the idea that the colonists hated "taxation without representation", did anyone realize that their "representation" would have been mostly useless?

N.B.: I am not asking this as a homework question, but I am basing my understanding of the topic on a history textbook. The quote above intrigued me, and I wondered if there was any more information available on the topic.

1 Answers 2015-04-03

Commonly Used History Textbooks in the South-East US

Hi all!

I'm working on a short story and the primary topic is race/ethnicity and what's actually taught in SE states of the US. If you know what texts are used or teach US History in the south I would love a broad perspective or directions to info provided to High School students. I want to use that info as a base to explore the quality of what many teens know or believe relative to current events (of which I'm not looking for info on).

Thanks!

1 Answers 2015-04-03

Did Hitler have any plans for a land invasion of the United States if he won the war?

1 Answers 2015-04-03

Holocaust Historiography: the question of non-Jewish victims of Nazi extermination

I've just started reading Deborah Lipstadt's The Eichmann Trial. In it, she, quite aggressively, accuses Simon Wiesenthal of "invent[ing] a historical fantasy"; she claims that Wiesenthal came up with a number of 5 million non-Jewish victims of the holocaust "in order to give the Holocaust a more universal cast and to find a number which was almost as large as the Jewish death toll but not quite equal to it." -here is the full context.

This 5 million number has indeed become 'accepted wisdom' - I remember this figure as historical fact, and when I was looking whether this question had been asked before on /r/askhistorians, I see people providing this figure as fact (without referencing a source) - e.g., here. There have also been books published, like this one which quite explicitly mention the 5 million figure. Another example is this BBC article.

Lipstadt is a very well-respected expert on the history of the holocaust, and she references other trustworthy figures Wiesel and Yehuda Bauer to back her up on this, so I have no reason to distrust her.

Nonetheless, the debunking of this 5 million figure takes place in a very off-hand way, buried within a couple pages where she goes on a tangent about the untrustworthiness of Simon Wiesenthal.

To further frustrate matters - whenever I search for anything specifically about the Lipstadt quote, I run into holocaust denialist forums and /r/holocaust and /r/conspiracy posts. In typical fashion, these posts take the quote out of context and run with it, taking it to mean that there is a giant Jewish conspiracy to falsify holocaust figures, whereas Lipstadt only seems to have a personal intellectual vendetta with the late Nazi-hunter - in fact, she states that the number of exterminated non-Jews could be much higher than 5 million, or much lower, depending on the definition.

I'm hoping there's someone on this sub who can help shed some light on the origins of the '5 million non-Jewish victims' piece of 'accepted wisdom' - was this indeed 'invented' by Simon Wiesenthal, or are there other, independent sources that provide similar figures? If it was Wiesenthal who popularized this information, is it accurate?

2 Answers 2015-04-03

Is it true to say China is ethnically homogeneous? How long has this homogeneity existed if the above is true?

1 Answers 2015-04-03

How did snipers confirm kills during the early 20th century?

Hi, I recently had a discussion in my history class over the Winter War, and someone mentioned Simo Hayha who had at least 505 confirmed kills. I later talked about it with my dad, and he doubted that, as neither of us were really aware of how the confirmation process worked.

Now, as I understand, snipers worked alone much of the time (as I suspect Simo Hayha did, but that means that there were no witnesses), or that possibly kill counts were inflated as propaganda. A lot of this I could be entirely wrong about so feel free to correct me.

So, during World War II, earlier, or around then (so WWI or the Korean War) how did snipers track their confirmed kills?

Thanks!

2 Answers 2015-04-03

Why does the english language call countries by names that are different than the names those countries bestow upon themselves? I.e. Germany - Deutchland, Spain - Espana, Austria - Osterreich, etc.

3 Answers 2015-04-03

What are the most contemporary examples of a internationally recognized government using heads mounted on stakes?

I've been reading up on the American Indian Wars and this practice struck me as particularly barbaric considering the year and as a not uncommon practice of federal troops. I'd love to hear to context about this practice in relation to the conflicts I mentioned, but as to my question I'd love to know how widely such actions continued in the world, globally.

1 Answers 2015-04-03

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