Don't get me wrong - it's still one of my favorite subreddits, but I, like most of you all, am here because I love history, love to discuss it, love to make jokes about it, and love go off on tangents that stray endlessly. And I feel that I can't really do that anymore. It used to be that second or third+ tier comments could be jokes, speculation, or completely off-topic, but that's not the case anymore.

And yes, I know that there are subreddits for alternate history or looser discussions, but they don't attract the same caliber of knowledge or passion. My argument is that this subreddit should be more lenient, and I guess I'll see how popular or unpopular this opinion is.

I understand that there is bound to be significant dramatization for a show like this, but does the show accurately reflect the state of spy operations between the USSR and USA during the 1980's? I searched for a similar question on here but searching 'The Americans' on here yields quite a few results....

It's been a few years since I've read my copy of Simon Schama's Citizens, which is a great book on the Revolution. Now, with all the growing talk about income/wealth inequality, I'm wondering something, and I can't remember what I've read. Namely:

• Inequality was obviously a huge trigger for the Revolution. But what other factors contributed? And how did those factors "rate" in terms of importance?

ISTR that inequality (including things like unequal treatment before the law, e.g. nobles literally getting away with murder as long as the victim was a peasant) was by far the biggest factor. But I'd love to be confirmed or corrected as necessary.

It seems that for a society to prosper, a real writing system is necessary. Is the Indus Civilization the only exception?

I know Jewish communities existed in Palestine long before 1948. I also know Jewish immigration into Palestine significantly increased starting in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and throughout the 1910's, 1920's and 1930's. I also know there were lots of tensions due to Jews buying Arab lands and due to Arab revolts.

**But an aspect of the pre-1948 period I never really hear about is neighbourly relations and coexistence.**Would Jewish and Palestinian neighbours invite eachother over for a BBQ (so to speak, of course); would there be intercultural marriage? Would Jewish and Palestinian women banter together or go shopping together? Or were they two people living seperately very early on?

Or do we have to make a distinction between the older Jewish communities of Palestine (because I assume there must have been a small Jewish community in Palestine all throughout the last two millennia) and the settlers who immigrated starting in the nineteenth century? Maybe the first lived more together with Palestinians while the latter established settlements outside of Palestinian towns?

This is all just guesswork, I don't really know anything about this and would be interested to see someone post any knowledge about this.

Sorry if my English was rubbish here and there. My grammar is mostly okay but I tend to struggle with sentence construction from time to time.

It was my understand that the term "Franks" was an ethnic signifier (french, germans and english?) and Latins was a religious one (Catholics)

However, was latin also an ethnic term for people who spoke Italian and Spanish?

Thanks

In a YouTube-comment i read that Austria would have liked to stay with Germany after WW2, but it was denied by the Allied Nations.

As far as i can tell, this is wrong. It was after WW1 when Austria wanted to fuse with Germany, but was denied.

So what is right? When did the majority of Austria want to fuse with Germany?

++ Did the population of Austria want the big german solution 1848/49?

TY

Just watched Das Boot for the first time and it was fantastic.

• What were the psychological effects of being crammed into a tiny metal box with a bunch of other guys - short term and long term?

• What did sailors(submariners?) do for fun/to pass the time?

• How many weeks/months were U-boats deployed at a time?

• Are there any stories of crew members (or entire crews) "losing it" mentally? What happened?

• Anything else you think is interesting or relevant!

I've read a little bit about history of ginger prejudice in this subreddit. I was just curious whether the idea that gingers lack souls was a creation of South Park in episode Ginger Kids (Season 11, episode 9; November 9, 2005). Are there any earlier instances of this joke? From what I understand, many people have failed to take this satire ironically.

Due to most bronze swords being cast, how did early iron age black smiths create the tools necessary for smithing / forging iron?

The problem i see is that iron is not cast but hammered into shape, thus requiring tongs,hammers.... which of course must have had to of been made; some how. As well as this, bronze itself would have been to soft to use (or only usable for a short period) as hammers and/or tongs, and the use of stones would be limited to hammers thus, have bronze forging tongs ever been found? and more to the point; are they even feasible / possible? and if not, how did they forge iron smithing tools?

Brewing just seems like such a ridiculously complicated task. Why would someone think to do that?

I recently learned that 3.14% of our military was African American during Vietnam - and thought the number seemed quite low.

EDIT: thank you u/KNHaw for kindly showing me the correct percentage (12.6%). Sorry for the misinfo!