How did Hebrew go from being a dead language to the majority language in Israel?

Additionally, what language would the earliest citizens have originally spoke and how hard was it to learn Hebrew? How different is modern Hebrew from the original language?

4 Answers 2014-08-20

Barring 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, has America ever faced an attack as catastrophic and significant as Benghazi?

1 Answers 2014-08-20

Book suggestions focusing on the history of New Orleans.

2 Answers 2014-08-20

During the Holocaust, were any non-Jews mistakenly identified as Jews and sent to camps? How would they go about proving their "innocence"?

1 Answers 2014-08-20

Were there any cases where a ruler would peacefully surrender to an invading country?

2 Answers 2014-08-20

Where does the stereotype of ship captains smoking pipes come from?

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2 Answers 2014-08-20

I am a Soviet citizen living in Moscow in 1970, and I want to defect to the US. How could I go about doing this? What are my options?

2 Answers 2014-08-20

What is the earliest recorded mention of vegetarianism?

And how did said civilization manage to discover and maintain such diets?

Thank you in advance for all your comments.

3 Answers 2014-08-20

Wednesday What's New in History

Previous Weeks

This weekly feature is a place to discuss new developments in fields of history and archaeology. This can be newly discovered documents and archaeological sites, recent publications, documents that have just become publicly available through digitization or the opening of archives, and new theories and interpretations.

2 Answers 2014-08-20

How did the french colonists in Canada react (if they cared at all) in regards to the French revolution in their ancestral homeland?

I am aware many years had passed since the seven years war but I am still curious nonetheless thank you!

2 Answers 2014-08-20

Where did countries test their nuclear weapons, and has anything interesting been found in those areas since?

7 Answers 2014-08-20

"Sun never sets on the empire." But when was the first corporation with enough employees worldwide to have someone on the job all day long?

Feel free to extrapolate a bit, too. When was the first business that had employees work in shifts daylong?

2 Answers 2014-08-20

What allowed the phalanx to be so incredibly effective when used by Greeks and Macedonians against Asians?

1 Answers 2014-08-20

What key inventions or discoveries lead to the European population boom post-1500? How were European countries able to sustain economic growth despite this boom?

Hello,

I've been reading a lot about early modern development and the establishment of the grounds for the post-1500 European population boom. Most authors seem to concur that prior to 1500, the population obeyed Malthusian rules, and was restricted by the amount of arable land. There was a very slow increase thanks to minor increases in agricultural productivity, but for the most part, an area was constrained by its crop production. However, after 1500, starting in the Netherlands and then expanding to other countries like England and the Nordic group, population growth began to increase, although still at a linear rate, unlike the exponential growth of the Industrial Revolution.

This seems to imply to me that what's happening at this stage is one of two things a) that land productivity is increasing linearly - enough to sustain a similar increase in population, or b) countries like England and the Netherlands were becoming disproportionately wealthy enough to import large amounts of grain from other countries (although this doesn't explain the slightly later European-wide rise). What I don't understand is why this is, and why it didn't spread to other countries faster. Was there a key type of new plough invented, or a different system of land holdings that incentivised higher productivity, or some either series of key inventions or discoveries? If there was a specific series of inventions that led to this agricultural improvement, why did they not spread to other countries very quickly - France and Spain don't really see population booms until the Industrial era. How come these inventions seem to occur at a regular rate, instead of a one-off increase as a result of a one-off invention, and then no more? Alternatively, if England and the Netherlands had become wealthy enough to import excess grain, that implies they were disproportionately wealthy before the population boom of 1500 (1600 for England). If this is true, what lead them to become disproportionately wealthy so early on?

Second, why were England and the Netherlands capable of sustaining growth per capita at the same time as this population growth? It seems intuitive to me that if you experience population growth, but you're operating in a pre-industrial society, then you shouldn't necessarily see per capita growth unless capital productivity which sustains wealth is increasing at a faster rate than agricultural productivity which sustains population. If this was the case, what key inventions, discoveries, or social changes caused this to happen in England and the Netherlands? If it was something like the establishment of artisan guilds that could make high quality, in-demand products (just hypothesising, this is almost certainly not right), why did a) this happen in these countries first, and b) why was it not copied by other countries quickly?

Thank you very much for any answers. I'd really appreciate some good reading material as well, particularly stuff available online. :)

1 Answers 2014-08-20

Why were the Finns believed to be the descendants of the Mongols?

I come from a Finnish family, and since I was a little boy, I'd been told my ancestors came from Mongolia. I'd also heard that when they first began emigrating to the US, some (implied to be my relatives) were sent "home" to Mongolia. However, upon further research, this doesn't seem to be true, and none of us look particularly East Asian. Where did this idea come from?

2 Answers 2014-08-20

Book Suggestions for books focusing on American society and culture during 1950's/1960's?

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone can recommend me sources that dive into the culture/society of American during the mid-20th century. I've already checked the book list, but from the summaries I feel as though they dive too much into the political context; something that I am not looking for (since I'm studying a specific novel in school).

Thanks

2 Answers 2014-08-20

How often could pre-modern medieval peasants eat meat?

1 Answers 2014-08-20

Was the invention or production of the sewing machine a big deal?

It seems like it cuts the time need to sew and stitch by tenfold, did it revolutionize the textile industry? Stocks go up/down?

1 Answers 2014-08-20

Why was the Roman Empire and its predecessor state so successful in conquering and keeping territories? What did the empires of the 17th-20th century do differently compared to that of the Roman Empire, why couldn't they keep their lands as long as the Romans did?

1 Answers 2014-08-20

How did people make yoghurt and other "sour" milk products back in the day?

Today when we manufacture or make yoghurt or other soured milk products we use starter cultures to start the process. But these foods have been around for ages, so how did they get the process going? I can't imagine that they walked to some "dealer" and bought powdered starter cultures.

1 Answers 2014-08-20

How possible is it, that the discovered tomb in Amphipolis is the grave of Alexander the Great?

The tomb, which archaeologists still excavate, is reported here, here and here.

I know this is a very difficult question to answer, so let me rephrase the question: In what way is Alexander the Great related to Amphipolis, that would support this hypothesis?

2 Answers 2014-08-20

How did the Baltic nations manage to stay pagan until the 13th and 14th century?

2 Answers 2014-08-20

What manpower and amount of military equipment did France have compared to Britain, Germany and other Europeean states in the run-up to World War II?

I read another post arguing that Britain was less in danger of being overwhelmed by the Wehrmacht than history will have us believe. That makes me wonder what state the french military was in, since they were overwhelmed. If anyone has statistics and numbers that would be great!

1 Answers 2014-08-20

Books on ancient to modern military doctrine and/or general history.

And by "ancient to modern" I do not mean books that cover the entire spectrum, but rather that I'm simply interested in anything that you can throw my way, no matter the time-frame.

5 Answers 2014-08-20

What are the earliest known acts of human violence?

1 Answers 2014-08-20

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