Father in law claims that everybody that emigrated from Europe learned the English language when they became U.S. citizens, I contend otherwise. For example I know there were huge German populations in Pennsylvania that printed everything in German, but did the citizens there still know English?

Some 150k allies dropped on normandy, 4k allies and 8k germans perished. But How Many Germans were there ? How many germans did the allies fight against ? How many Germans were stationed in the area of Normandy ?

Whether they were referred to terrorists or not, how long has America been negotiating with the enemy?

Question prompted from this quote, from Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., said that the trade had set “a dangerous precedent in negotiating with terrorists.”

What would Jesus have been called during his own time? My Middle Eastern professor once told me it would have been "Yeshua Bin Yusuf," or "Joshua son of Joseph." Is this accurate?

Was listening to a podcast about the Panama Canal this morning.. The US was the mastermind behind the design and build of such an engineering feat and expended millions of dollars (probably the equivalent of billions today) in the process. I imagine it's also a huge money maker through toll fees. Seems unfair to give it away for the sole reason that it's on their soil. Shouldn't some kind of compromise been made? Where profits are shared between the two countries?

Was there some sort of education involved, or did families pass down their knowledge of it just like the sagas? Were nobles required to learn it or was it more of a common thing amongst the peasantry. I know that most runestones just speak of a fallen warrior, so it wasn't anyone in particular.

It seems to be portrayed as commonplace in modern literature, but how common was it in reality?

The unusual suit the ringlets the tall hats. I've never seen this among Jewish people in california

• They were 1 of the first states to colonize, had colonies in south america, africa, asia.

• They almost never had wars, which is good for them right, no war means no money etc to be wasted whereas the other european who were once dominant (england, france, spain ) did have wars.

so why did they never become a 'great' nation?

I'm reading Heinz Guderian's Panzer Leader, and in describing his day-to-day routine throughout the Blitzkrieg campaigns in France and Russia he basically states that he would operate on as little as 3 hours of sleep. Guderian took a very active approach to his leadership, riding around in command vehicles on the frontline, visiting individual regiments as the situation required. Was this hectic sleep schedule an exception or did the German high-brass in general have such a lack of sleep.

I'm sure it was pretty bad by the end of the war, but this is 1940-41 I was reading about.

Thanks

Reading through the Wikipedia pages on Catherine II and the Moscow Orphanage, I came across this startling statistic. Ivan Betskoy founded the orphanage with Catherine II's sponsorship, in order to create educated and enlightened "ideal citizens" of the state. It had sufficient funding, the approval of the monarch, and "adequate staffing", yet a reported 35,309 out of 40,996 children died during Catherine II's reign. This seems phenomenally high, even for the times. What were the main causes for this? Malnutrition? Disease? The article mentions child abuse and fraud, but doesn't really go into much detail.

The Dutch fought and won several wars against the English, fought for independence against the Spanish, established a large colonial empire and became a dominant naval and power and hub of freedom of religion and speech in the 17th century, at least, that's what I've been taught.

In the 19th century, little of that was left over, the Netherlands lost most of that, and the balance of power had shifted towards England becoming the largest empire in the world. While referring to it as a "downfall" may be a bit much, there really seems to be a shift of power away from the country. What was the reason for this big shift?

I apologize for any historical errors in this post; my history education was long ago and wasn't exactly top-notch either.

Hi I was wondering, when did the first RELIABLE firearms come out and who were they invented by? (If there's an official person or group) by reliable I mean firearms closer to what we have today not like muskets. The revolvers that Jesse James used for example I would consider reliable. My guess would be around 1820's reliable firearms came out. Thanks

My African American friends never fail to remind me that Africa was the cradle of all civilization. Did Ancient Greece and/or Rome (or any other culture for that matter) borrow much from the cultures and civilizations of Ancient Africa?