It seems to be the favored hypothesis today, as any other one appears far-fetched at least, but proceeding by elimination is not very solid. I Asked a similar question recently, but it did not get an answer despite getting modest traction. I have faith though, fortune favors the brave! Edit: the "Black History" flair seems to have been applied by default, but I am unsure it is appropriate there

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We do not allow posts based on personal or relatives' anecdotes. Brief and short answers are allowed but MUST be properly sourced to respectable literature. All other rules also apply—no bigotry, current events, and so forth.

For this round, let’s look at: Black History! Earlier this year, we invited trivia around Black Atlantic and the history of those carried across the water. This week, we'd like to broaden the invitation to include all of Black history and the entire African diaspora.

To clarify, what I’m asking is whether those French lords who fought for/with or were loyal to the King of England as King of England (ie they declared themselves separate from France) to the King of France, which in their eyes was rightfully the King of England?

In Italian popular history, Luigi Cadorna is presented as incompetent and cruel while Armando Diaz as a smart commander that led Italy to victory.

How much truth there is for this claim? What did Diaz change in reality and how important was he for the final victory?

So, I've a meta question for the AskHistorians community. I love your Twitter account. But now, as we know, there's something happening with Twitter and historians are abandoning it in droves. Mastodon has a budding community of historians (under the hashtag #histodons) - will we see an AskHistorians account there too?

This is perhaps a niche question as it's directed very specifically at military historians.

So I've recently read On War (understanding it is a whole 'nother matter), under the impression that it is a Very Important text for military historians. I'm curious how to reconcile his ideas with nuclear weapons, a development he obviously could not have foreseen. How do military historians gel these concepts? Do nuclear weapons just e.g. slot neatly into Clausewitz's frameworks as just another aspect of 'policy' that mitigates against 'ideal' war, or are there major qualifiers to how Clausewitz is read these days? Have nuclear weapons led to vast sea-changes in how historians theorise about war?

How did the second come to exist for that specific interval of time?

How is it that the entire world uses the second? For that matter we can ask the same question of minutes and hours… but it seems uniquely incredible that every clock ticks off seconds the same way all the world over.

Lastly, when did the second become the standard interval of time?

I’ve heard people talk about Sweden-Norway like it’s a duel monarchy like Austria-Hungary. I’ve also heard people Norway gained its independence when it left the union with Sweden. But I’ve also seen some sources that claim that Norway was independent during this time and was just under a personal union. So was Sweden-Norway a duel monarchy like Austria-Hungary? Or was it two fully separate kingdoms?

Most depictions, including very accurate movies including the series of events, show it as an absolute bloodbath with bodies all over. I heard people drowned before even hitting the beach and got mowed down at the start. It seemed unwinnable the way it's portrayed. So what happened?

It seems like the Native Mexicans (for lack of a better phrase) assimilated with the Spanish so that today a large majority of Mexicans are "Mestizos", people with varying degrees of Spanish and Native Meso-American ancestry.

Why didn't that happen with Native Americans?

Or why did it happen with Native Mexicans but not Native Americans?

Hi there,

Pretty much as the title suggests. I am not sure if it would be called it "swearing God's name in vain" or just some general invocation of their pantheon. I've seen some references to "By Jove!" in American speech, but I don't know if this was contemporaneous with Roman society or a later addition.

Any direction towards sources or anything of the sort would be much appreciated!

I'm sure this question has been asked before, so if someone could direct me to a previous answer that'd be great too.

I know there are two main branches of Islam, and I believe the split happened due to disagreement about Muhammad's successor, but every time I try to look deeper into it I never seem to be able to grasp exactly what was going on. If someone with more knowledge of the subject could explain it to me, that'd be awesome.

I there! I'm currently a college student in Biology, and one of the most useful things it teached me was were to search for information, what sources are good, where to find the sources (Pubmed, Nature, etc...) What I was wondering is what are your references, or sites where you can search articles. And I know this may be a little bit ignorant, but are there scientific papers/journals on history or do historians typicaly just write books?
Ps: Sorry for my english, not my first language and sometimes can be a bit iffy.

Bonus points for extremely niche subjects!

Of course parliament and the British people pounced on the fact that she was a divorcee, and that being the reason he couldn't marry her. But was that really the reason? The Anglican church was literally founded on the pretense of the king wanting a divorce and to remarry. I just don't understand how the leader of that church all of a sudden is prohibited from this. Or, was this just an excuse parliament and media used because they didn't want him to marry a non-royal?

From what I understand, the rural south has been pretty homogeneously Baptist since the 19th century, prior to the rise of Pentecostals and the Evangelical movement. Other Protestant denominations, like Episcopalians and Methodists and Lutherans, seem much more widespread in northern and midwestern states than in the South.

How did a movement that first landed in New England take over the South?

In ancient times, the areas of modern-day Greece and Egypt were the largest centers for trade, discovery, and innovation. What events led to their decline economically and politically on the world stage and why are these nations not as influential as they once were?

Do we have any indication whether they continued to dress as a traditional Macedonian basileus or if they adopted Egyptian dress for conducting their court?

His wife Effie, who was a model for many of the Pre-Raphaelites and considered one of the most beautiful women in British artistic society during her time, wrote a letter to her parents explaining that they had not consummated their marriage after five years, saying

He alleged various reasons, hatred to children, religious motives, a desire to preserve my beauty, and, finally this last year he told me his true reason... that he had imagined women were quite different to what he saw I was, and that the reason he did not make me his Wife was because he was disgusted with my person the first evening.

This is confirmed in his own statement to the court during the proceedings of their annulment, he said

It may be thought strange that I could abstain from a woman who to most people was so attractive. But though her face was beautiful, her person was not formed to excite passion. On the contrary, there were certain circumstances in her person which completely checked it.

And when asked to elaborate on those circumstances, he referred to her pubic hair and allegedly excessive menstruation, and admitted that his only experience of the nude female body was from classical statues and paintings, which led him to believe that women had no body hair and so when he saw her he believed that she was deformed.

This is so bizarre to me, John Ruskin was an eminent writer, artist and cultural figure, he grew up in a bourgeois and cultured family in the late Georgian and early Victorian era, travelled across Europe and studied at Oxford and Kings College in London, ie he was from a relatively modern place and time and was extremely cultured and well educated; although his reaction was undoubtedly bizarre and abnormal for the time, I wonder if ignorance of the female body to this extent would have been common amongst men of his era and his background, or is this lack of basic knowledge about the opposite sex completely exceptional?

When I see maps of the first French empire at it's territorial peak, there is often a great distinction between France and it's added territory - which are often showcased in dark blue - against the client states, often shown in light blue.

​

That's why I was shocked to see territory in the balkans being dark blue. Can anybody shed some light on this?

Were these fortifications expected to be battle sites, or were they more like the Great Wall of China in that they were less warzones and more barriers to restrict the movement of an opponent who primarily consisted of mounted raiders/soldiers?

Hitler was not the typical blond hair, blue eyed Nordic German that was considered the idea. How was he regarded as the ideal ruler of this "master race"? Was there ever criticism regarding his appearance?

I just read Shelly's Frankenstein. I was surprised at how well-spoken and erudite the monster was in the book and not the mumbling stumbling green thing we saw in the movies.

When did the green version become the one that everyone knows?