The last name "van Beethoven" as in Ludwig van Beethoven means "from Beethoven" in dutch. But where does, or did, Beethoven lie?

And how?
Sources would be appreciated.

I know the title makes it sounds like I want an answer to a homework question, but I want to compare the "current" percentage (48.5 percent in 2012) to percentages from a long time ago, preferably before the Civil Rights Movement. I cannot find anything through Google, however. Did they not take note of these things back then? What is the farthest back the records go?

I hope this is not too vague of a question and that it actually makes sense in my phrasing...

I know that plenty of ancient civilizations had leaders - and I understand the idea of the strongest in the civilization being the leader. But when did people begin treating the leadership position as a hereditary position? Does it have to do with religion and many rulers being considered to have been chosen by god?

I just find it interesting that even though different civilizations developed at the same time in different corners of the world, they all came up with similar concepts about leadership.

Dante went in to great detail into explaining what he saw as the afterlife heaven,purgatory,and hell. How the did the clergyman of the time feel towards the book? Did they consider it heretical?

Assuming that they otherwise survived intact, how old would knights have been when they 'retired' from active warfare?

Was this a real thing? Would owners have slaves fight to the death? Were there any laws against slave fighting? Thanks.

AH 2014: In this year the mods of Askhistorians were assailed on all sides by one-line comments, bigotry, plagiarism and soapboxing, so that they were nearly overwhelmed by the magnitude of these offenses. Then, as all hope seemed lost, three gallant new mods appeared beyond the din of battle with shining ban-hammers raised high, and made such depredations upon the rule-breakers that they were scattered to the default subs, and the users of Askhistorians raised shouts of triumph! Sic quod Domino placuit.

Now, these were the names of those new mods, so worthy of welcome and praise:

• /u/cephalopodie: a most noble person, perfectly schooled in the subjects of gays and lesbians in the USA and the AIDS crisis.
• /u/anthropology_nerd: a hard and heroic historian, expert in demographics and disease in the New World.
• /u/keyilan: a valiant warrior, vanquisher of misconceptions regarding Chinese historical linguistics, their are of expertise.

The mods of Askhistorians exhorted their users to welcome these most capable and noble newcomers, whence this quatrain was sung:

Bring me my harp

so that I may make music on it,

on account of the ushering in of Cephalopodie,

Keyilan and Anthropology_Nerd!

My understanding is that the organized killing of Soviet POWs and certain Soviet civilians started early on during the war in the East. Forgive me if this seems like a stupid question or if it has been covered before, but it seems to me that some German soldiers (who came from ordinary villages and ordinary families) must have thought something along the lines of "Gee whiz, should we really be murdering large numbers of unarmed soldiers and noncombatants? Isn't this kind of a bad thing, even in war?"

I'm not asking if there was any organized opposition, or if people tasked with actual killing refused to do it, or if anyone really kicked up a fuss. I was just wondering if there is any testimony that anyone bothered to even suggest informally that what was happening was wrong or should not be happening, even if were in an offhand or embarrassed way ("Wow, they just mowed down all those guys. Is that OK? Did I miss a meeting? Because that seems kind of wrong.")

I know that during the time of ancient Greece and Roman Empire it was pretty common for men to have lovers of the same sex, but what about the people that lived in Germanic tribes or other cultures during the same time period? Were gay lovers something normal or looked down upon?

During WWII a lot of soldiers from the USSR died because of the incompetence of Red Army's generals. They sent lots of soldiers to die just like cannon fodder. Also in the Winter War against Finland the Red Army lost lots of men against a much inferior enemy numerically.

Yes, they certainly won against the best and biggest side of the Wehrmacht but I've always thought it was because Red Army sent hordes of soldiers.

Was the Red Army a good army or just a bunch of useless generals sending to die lots of people?

There are so many types of cheese in the world and yet in most grocery stores in America the block of chedder is the mainstay while other cheeses are shuffled off as specialty foods. Why?

*Meant this for World War 1 and 2, sorry for any confusion

They had existed in force since the fall of the Qing Dynasty if not sooner but someway somehow, they all seem to disappear after 1949. What happened to them? Did they turn communist? Flee with the KMT? Were they eradicated by the PLA?

I just got finished taking a "Haunted History" tour around the French Quarter in New Orleans and one of the ghost stories really got me thinking. Basically, a young man living in New Orleans in the 18th century decided he wanted to be a pirate, so he broke into a home and stole an expensive piece of jewelry that he then took to a bar that was a known pirate meeting place and tried to show it off in the hope that someone would be impressed with his thieving skills and offer him a job on a pirate ship. Unfortunately for the young man, one of the pirates recognized the jewelry as a gift he had given a family member and the young man was made a ghost.

So my question is what were the common career paths (so to speak) that men took to become pirates? Did they commonly set out with the goal of become a pirate, or was it something that people fell into? I'm assuming that this could vary greatly depending on where or when the person lived, so what places were pirates usually recruited from?

Thanks!

At the end of the war in Europe with the US concentrated on Japan, did the Soviets think this to be an opportunity against a force divided? Possible their own Blitz,continuing on through Germany to France. Any secret records that they may have contemplated? Any personal opinions or memoirs from their great generals like zhukov? Highly speculative I know, but it seems in reading that many of the Allies generals and leaders (Churchill, Parton.. had the feeling that a future war w/ was inevitable . And no I'm asking would they have been successful but rather if they had a contingency plan in place as an option One final note: I'm thinking before Hiroshima and Nagasaki , where Nuclear Deterrent would weigh heavily for not attacking

I am curious about the styles of education at West Point. Was it contemporary? ahead of its time? Was it influenced by examples such as Tuskegee, Dewey, or European styles of education? Where did it draw its curriculum or styles of education.

Im asking about the period from the origin of West Point till WWI.