The treatment the Boston Massacre gets in modern high school textbooks would imply that the event was closely related to the events of Lexington and Concord, or even the Intolerable Acts-- events which occurred four or five years after the fact.

In my view, this is actually a pretty long stretch of time to associate the events so closely. Five years ago, the world was a very different place. I'm sure the same was true in 18th century Colonial America (i.e. five years is a pretty long period). On a contemporary level, it would mean we could tie the events of Ferguson to the events of Occupy-- though, in reality, they have very little connection aside from the fact they revolve around questions of poverty and police violence.

So... why does the Boston Massacre receive the treatment it does, especially when the legal outcome at the time was that it was justified?

A common theme I've heard in my history classes is that the South faced a considerable economic disadvantage in facing the civil war; the North was far more industrialized and had more people, railroads, and manufacturing capacity.

Was this actually the case? Was eventual defeat "inevitable" for the South? And if it was the case, why was all the industry located so far away from prime cotton / tobacco growing land in the South?

I used America just for the sake of inquiry, rather than saying when did we as a whole. It could be any nation that implemented workplace regulations and practices, but I thought it would give a good basis by using the United States.

Hello!

One thing that has caught my fascination is the relationship between Christianity and its inherited/appropriated Hebrew Scriptures with the Greco-Roman heritage that it acquired with the Christianisation of the Roman Empire. Many of the early Church Fathers believed the classical philosophers had been divinely inspired or that they had read the Old Testament - but what I'm more interested in is the overlap between the conflicting histories of the world presented by the Biblical record and the histories of Antiquity.

I'm very fond of the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493) and the insight it gives into contemporary understanding of the world. Are there similar texts which elide Biblical origin stories with ancient historiography? And how did historians, genealogists, natural philosophers and scientists before the 19th century reckon the age of the Earth, the age of the human species and the histories of different nations, among other things?

In addition to this, I would be fascinated to know from ancient historians about where the Jews thought the Romans had come from. As the Biblical genealogies only attest to the kingdoms and tribes surrounding Israel, how were the encoutners with great foreign powers like Rome received and explained? Same would go for Christian encounters with the New World and Asia.

Thank you!

I studied history in my country's version of high school but focused on european politics and history. So, have heard and learned next to nothing about what China was doing while a world war raged with the second on it's doorstep.

On facebook:

"Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us..." - Socrates

Is it possible that Socrates truly said this? Wasn't Greece, in his lifetime, polytheistic? Is it a mistranslation? What single god could he be referring to?

If it really is a valid quote and someone can find the citation, I would like that very much.

I was watching Boardwalk Empire last night and a poor character bought his wife a "vacuum sweeper" and everyone was excited. Girlfriend chimed in saying, "won't that just increase their electric bill when they're struggling for money?" I figure back then you just paid a flat fee (maybe monthly) for access to electricity and plumbing and such. Anyone have any insight into how it has worked through time, eventually getting to the status quo of paying for metered amounts?

Thanks very much!

Is there anything that is recognized as that first recorded instance of humor? If not, what are some of the earliest that we know of?

I've been reading Peter H. Wilson's The Thirty Years' War: Europe's Tragedy, and throughout the book there seems to be a general theme of armies being extraordinarily expensive. More often than not simply having an army in the field put the responsible country into debt, one full army's yearly cost often doubling that of the yearly revenue for major powers like Denmark or Austria. Emperor Ferdinand was even forced to give up part of Austria to Maximilian of Bavaria to recuperate Bavaria's expenditures in the early stages of the war, since Ferdinand relied on Maximilian to raise the troops Ferdinand could not afford to raise! I'm used to ancient civilizations where Rome where armies were extremely cheap to maintain, albeit a large reason for that was the compulsory and non-paying nature of being a soldier. Nonetheless, why were armies so incredibly pricey? Was their price inflated for some reason or were monarchies extremely poor during this time period? When did this begin and when did maintaining a full sized army become more manageable once again in Europe?

Thank you.

Were archers really as efficient as movies portray them to be? Did they really decimate front line troops before a huge battle?

Some pof my friends constantly tell me that h2h combat was actually pretty usual in WWII, which frankly I find hard to believe with so many semi automatic and fully automatic weapons hanging around. Im sure it happened every now and then, but really how often?

I mean directly after the Normans arived - nothing by anyone in the last century, for example. I know of the Peterbourough Cronicle for example and that the not so gradual evolution into middle English complicates the question, nevertheless... curiosity.

It seems like in the west you can't find a textbook that talks about a functional communistic government in depth.

If there are examples, what made them so successful? Did they ever have the potential to be as successful or more successful as a capitalist government?

Supposedly there's some strict rules(/laws?) regarding the hanging of the U.S flag. While I find these are stupid, are they legal?