It is the era of King George II and I am the first born son of an older, prestigious, but not particularly wealthy, landed gentleman in England. My father has just passed and as his firstborn, I've inherited his country estate. He is survived by his wife (my mother) and his sons and daughter.

I'm not on bad terms with my family but my father was cash-poor. Currently me and my siblings are all unmarried.

I find my mother a bit overbearing, particularly about me finding a wife. Assuming she has relatives of rank, would she move to be with them, say a sister, or would I be obliged to maintain her at my household?

If I have younger brothers, at what point are they expected to leave my residence? Would I be obligated (or expected) to sell a portion of the estate to provide a larger inheritance for them?

I'm relatively concerned about my sister's ability to find a husband, having neither the looks nor the dowry to entice a suitor to take her off my hands. Would I be obliged to maintain her and cover her expenses?

I eagerly await your replies

Bonus question: while I'm mostly interested in the state/national political violence for this question, I also wouldn't mind a tangent into city-level political violence, especially in the "big city boss" era of American politics.

Also, if anyone has similar information about Canadian politics I'm up for that too.

This question was inspired by the history of political violence and working/middle class agitation in Ireland from the 19th century up to the Irish Civil War, so if anyone has commentary on if/how traditions of political violence crossed the Atlantic that would be appreciated too (I recently learned of the Orange Riots in New York in the 1870s, which was a surprise).

Thanks!

I'm watching Tudor Monastery Farm and they have said repeatedly that well water was unsafe. I know that river water would have been polluted, but I'd always thought that well water would be fairly safe. What would have contaminated it? Today, I would guess at industrial farming, or some other industry that would leach chemicals and/or bacteria. What would it have been in 1500s UK?

I'm interested in knowing how Romans measured their years and by what calendar they operated. We all know Caesar was murdered in 44 b.c but what I'd like to find it out is: To the average Roman at the time, what the date of this event was by their reckoning as they wouldn't have used the Gregorian calendar.

In the past few years I've noticed a linguistic shift among historians, including and especially flaired users on this sub. In writeups regarding the antebellum South, the term "enslaver" is increasingly being used instead of "slave owner", and regarding western colonialism, the term "colonist" is falling out of fashion in favor of "colonizer". Prior to a few years ago, the only place I ever saw these two terms was in African-American literature.

I want to stress up front that I'm not criticizing or arguing with the usage. They're accurate terms; I have no problem with them. But it's interesting to me to watch a cultural & linguistic shift happening in real time, and I wanted to ask about it.

Is this happening organically as BIPOC-authored historical texts become more mainstream? Have there been discussions within circles of historians to start using these terms more often? Or is my entire premise flawed, and these terms have been in mainstream usage far longer than I realized?

What did the peoples of Europe refer to the Holy Roman Empire as during its time? Did it have a nickname? I understand it was a federation of independent states under one "ruler" but I'm assuming that 'Holy Roman Empire' was a technical name and not what the conglomerate of German states was actually called by its neighbours or even the people living in the empire.

What my question really boils down to, is; when did we start calling Germany 'Germany'? Was it common at the time to refer to the states within the Holy Roman Empire as Germany?

Another poster claims early Christians were proud to be Romans. He claims we do not find criticism of Rome in early Christian scholarship or in graffiti in Christian spaces. Is this true?

It has come to my attention recently that there is a controversy about the existance of the so called "Kingdom of Soissons". The information about it is very conflicting, especially about the size of it's territory, the wikipedia page for instance, contradicts itself several times, and has lots of unsourced statements. So what's the deal with the kingdom of Soissons ? Did it really exist ? What territory it controlled, if any ? What are the main sources for it ? And what are some debates regarding it among historians ?

In 45 BC, Julius Caesar reorganizes the Roman calendar which gave us this wonderful month. Was he simply making a more accurate calendar for practical purposes or was there some political motive behind the Julian calendar?

I learned today that Taiwan and South Korea only became democracies in 1987. This is interesting to me, because (along with Japan) these are really the best two examples of poor non-Western countries which fully developed into rich countries. While these both grew a lot after 1987, rapid development seems to have already been underway for decades by that point. Japan itself really achieved its industrial breakout under the Meiji government in the late 19th century. The various tiny states like Singapore, UAE, Bahrain etc. all have a similar story. The only counterexamples I can think of are the US itself, and merchant "republics" like Venice and Holland.

So what is the truth here? Are these just cherry-picked examples? I can certainly think of many failed dictatorships, but based on these examples I am wonder whether some form of autocracy may be a necessary development stage for poor countries.

Lenin, Stalin, Molotov, Yagoda, Trotsky, and many others -- all styling themselves with obvious nicknames, rather than real names.

Certainly this should have at least raised the eyebrows of the average Soviet citizen. Like, your leader named himself "of Steel", or "Hammer's". Come on, man! Ain't that just a bit weird to you? :O

p.s. I actually don't know what "Trotsky" is supposed to mean.

Every time I hear about this I just get amazed by how ridiculous it sounds. And if it was a thing of like the middle Ages I can get behind that (it's still stupid tho).

But I've heard and seen pictures of people playing and Instrument in the front row even during 19th century. I think I've even heard that during WW1 armies still had musical instruments with them, playing Bagpipies and drums while marching.

Not only it would bring attention of anyone nearby (and that cannot be a good idea during war). But also It seems like a waste of space and ressources to have instruments considering all the weapons and gear they had to carry.

So how accurate is the idea that soldiers, even at beggining of 20th century, wenth chanting and playing instruments in their way to whatever their going, and that right before battle they would "declare it" with some sort of music.

How much of that is true and, why would they do it?

I think it’s one of the most common historical misconceptions. It seems like whenever the topic of “things school taught you that was wrong” comes up online, atleast one person will say that their teacher told them that Colombus discovered the earth wasn’t flat. How did this misconception start?

So my question is, what happened to Italy between the Renaissance and the 20th century/ww1. The italian states and cities were prosperous and probably one of the if not the most advanced place on earth. Meanwhile in ww1 and especially in ww2 italy seems to be left out of the big industrialisation and we're not up to date with the rest of europe. So what went wrong for italy that other states as spain or later france and germany could surpass them?