So this channel is attempting to do a week by week explanation or review of WW1 in real time. Its very interesting but im not sure how accurate its presented information is:
1 Answers 2014-11-02
Oswald was openly Marxist and pro-Soviet, but he chose to leave the country with his family in 1962. I can't find a source that explains why.
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The wealthiest of the nobility? The royal family? Monks?
1 Answers 2014-11-02
Two part question I guess. First, how much of a failure was the League of Nations. And second, I know only 51 states signed into the UN Charter, but was there any hesitation even by those 51 that the UN would similarly fail, or doomed to fail?
1 Answers 2014-11-02
Is the allegation as detailed in this post true?
This may be old news to some but the story is just so bizarre. Rosemary was the prettiest of the kennedy sisters, but was also mentally slow. Some argue her handicap was the consequence of her parents being second cousins. After being hidden from the public her whole life, she became jealous of her siblings accomplishments and began to "act out". Fearing "pregnancy, disease, and disgrace," her father Joe Kennedy decided to give her a labotomy which turned her into a vegetable.
The transcript from the surgeons was especially chilling. "We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... When she began to become incoherent, they stopped.
Edit:
I found a previous thread from this subreddit on the topic. Keeping this in mind, is there any evidence to prove that Joseph Kennedy's decision was either malevolent or benign? Lastly, it was also asserted that lobotomies were used to suppress potentially promiscuous female behavior by families. Are there any sources to prove this phenomenon? If so, how widespread was it?
7 Answers 2014-11-02
Why did Charles V appoint his brother as succesor in the holy roman empire rather than his son PhilipII who became king of Spain etc... Why didn't he let his son inherrit the whole empire, but did he split it in a Spannish branch and an Austrian branch?
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1 Answers 2014-11-02
I am a Hindu by birth and I can tell you that, it is a very liberal religion, and monotheism seems to have wiped out every other major religion on Earth except Hinduism. This is what surprises me, because Hinduism is not a missionary religion and from my deductions should have been easy converts for the missionaries. But as seen today, this did not happen. What was the reason?
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im really interested in medieval Europe and specifically the 30 years war and the protestant reformation so is there any good books you can recommend about the subject cause i really cant find anything.
thanks
3 Answers 2014-11-02
When I went to school in West Germany in the late 80ties we still had schoolbooks and maps in use which would depict the 31.12.1937 German borders and name the territories east of Oder-Neiße as "under Polish administration" / "under Soviet administration" (Northern East Prussia).
I understand that in 1970, in the treaties of Warsaw and Moscow West Germany semi-recognized Oder-Neiße but left the final settlement of the issue to be resolved in a future peace treaty. Reunified Germany officially recognized the border in the Two Plus Four treaty in 1990, over 40 years after it became the de-facto border of East Germany (which of course recognized it early, as it was under Soviet influence).
What was the motivation of officially considering the eastern territories as part of Germany until then? It must have been obvious that they would not return, especially since the original german population was expulsed. Was it motivated by revanchism, or simple to have something to bargain over once reunification became a realistic option? And what was the Western Allies' stance on it?
I also remember reading that Moscow offered the territory of Kaliningrad oblast to the West German government during the reunification talks, but the German government declined and stated that they only want to reunify with the territory of East Germany / GDR. It's confusing that West Germany would hold up the claim for this territory for 40+ years and then decline it when it's being offered to them.
1 Answers 2014-11-02
Today:
Welcome to this week's instalment of /r/AskHistorians' Day of Reflection. Nobody can read everything that appears here each day, so in this thread we invite you to share anything you'd like to highlight from the last week - an interesting discussion, an informative answer, an insightful question that was overlooked, or anything else.
3 Answers 2014-11-02
I've been interested in the subject for a few years, but I know next to nothing about the period (I first learned about it in a 100-level euro history course) and have no idea what books and authors might be most accessible.
(I submitted this the other day, but it was around midnight, so I figured I'd re-sub at a better time.)
1 Answers 2014-11-02
I was reading this wiki entry about the US Balloon Corps, and this part confused me: "From a height of 500 feet (150 m) he telegraphed a message to the President describing his view of the Washington, D.C., countryside."
Now, I don't exactly get how communications in general worked back then, but wasn't telegraph cable-only?
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I'm confused about the use of "levies" and the use of professional soldiers in general. Did the armies, between 1066-1453, really mostly consist of armed peasants? Or is this a misconception?
To what degree would those armies be "professionally" organised? Not only in tactical terms but also in logistics. Was there any sort of top down planning to make sure that all the soldiers were properly equipped and to make sure soldiers fought as a unit instead of individually? Or did this only start in the renaissance?
(BTW If Western Europe is too broad then please focus on England and France)
1 Answers 2014-11-02
Was there a man who became immensely rich doing so repeatedly? A peasant that rose to fame and fortune by doing it? I am interested in pretty much any cases where something interesting like that occurred.
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A bit of an expansion on this; I have a friend who is primarily of Scottish ancestry, and she recently told me that she (or maybe her family, she wasn't specific), was thirty-eighth in line for the Scottish throne. This seemed really weird to me and implausible but I didn't know enough to disagree. I tried to do some research and what I found really just confused me more. If anyone could weigh in on this, I would really appreciate it! Thanks in advance.
1 Answers 2014-11-02
People often say after offensive jokes about said faith that it was racist. When did it become that a religion was a race?
Looking back on my knowledge, it seems like it might've started with Hitler, and his while "if your relative is a jew, so are you" policy, but it feels like it would have to have older roots than that for it to be as culturally defined as it is.
1 Answers 2014-11-02
How did they not die of severe alcoholism? Or did they?
2 Answers 2014-11-02
I was surprised to see that the wikipedia page for King Solomon gives a date for his reign, but the page for The Queen of Sheba does not give any clear indication of the date of her life and/or reign. The Queen of Sheba allegedly visited Solomon to test his wisdom.
1 Answers 2014-11-02