Just looking for some insight to help wrap my head around this semi-vague topic. Going to debate against the Vietnam war (time frame up to Tet offensive) for a class coming up. How did the Military Industrial Complex play a roll in Vietnam?

My debate is next week, for which I must provide a page of talking points for my side (class split in two) against the Vietnam war up to the date of the Tet offensive (as if the debate is happening a day after the attack) pertaining to or from Ike's farewell speech, focusing on the Military Industrial Complex. Our professor's analysis will consider the short notice and will not be too harsh

I tried searching, and I saw a bunch of references about how they were able to predict when they'd occur, but at what point did people know it was our shadow and not just "hey, some crazy shit is happening to the moon again!" Was it only recently?

I recently read an article that mentioned that Westerners still referred to what is now Iran as Persia for quite some time after Iranians had abandoned the term.

When did the change take place and why? I realize this question assumes that a nation or people would want to keep a name associated with historical power, but I believe that is probably a common trend.

If Iranians, or the leadership of Iran, changed the name because they wanted to distance themselves from Persia, what was the reasoning behind such a desire?

Was the article incorrect, i.e. did the ancestors of modern day Iranians never refer to the region/nation as Persia? In other words, was the term "Persia" a western construct, and if so where did it come from? I realize this is also a difficult question due to the difference in language and alphabet between Westerners and Iranians, but I find it interesting that the wikipedia entry for "Persia" simply redirects to "Iran."

Any thoughts or comments on the issue are welcome.

Every now and then a TIL pops up that says basically that Columbus was an idiot who found the America out of luck, that he was a really bad navigator, that he was a ruthless blood thirsty man even for the standards of the time, that Leif Ericsson should get the praise Columbus has had.

What's the truth on this?

A teacher friend is looking for this essay that she read in college to pass along to a student. Anyone know it?

I was trolling the internet and from what I understand it means using the sheath of your sword as a blunt weapon when the sword was too unwieldy to use i.e. when you are too close to bring your sword up. It also seems that using a mix of martial arts to bring yourself closer to the enemy to deny them the use of their weapons was a big part of it as well.

Is it all fictional or was this an actual part of Japanese warfare?

I'm not talking about understanding WW1 as in what we all learned in high school history class, but rather, the actual politics of the time. The specifics of the Treaty of Versailles. The atmosphere during the early 30s and the power moves done then.

In my history class we've been studying East Asian history, specifically the 19th and 20th centuries and imperialism. I was reading some stuff on Korea demanding apologies from Japan recently and it got me wondering if those past issues actually play a part in relations today.

Also any books y'all can recommend to read would greatly appreciated!

Hey guys!

So, I'm a fan of medieval military stuff, really anything seems to fascinate me about that period in military history. But I've always been perplexed at the scarce findings I've had based around actually tactics, how melee combat, supporting units in combat, all that sort of mass warfare engagement stuff. Was there any real finesse to it? or are we just talking a horde attack on the other side, as thats not the impression I got from what I have read. This has mostly been from internet sources however, whose merit I cannot speak to.

Thanks for any replies guys!

Seems like a logical course of action

The order allows the mining and refining of gold, but were the companies forced to sell to the federal government, or were they allowed to sell overseas? Did this have any noticeable impact on the domestic gold production in America overall?

Reading about Junio Valerio Borghese, a naval officer in the Regia Marina, it notes that he was a "prominent hard-line fascist politician in post-war Italy". Given how "prominent hard-line Nazi politician in post-war Germany" would be pretty much impossible, I'm assuming that there was some sort of difference, but I'm not finding where exactly the line was.

Wikipedia says about the Italian Social Movement (MSI - post-war Fascist party) "however, due to the post-war Italian constitution and agreements with the Allied forces, advocating a return to fascism had to be done discreetly," so clearly some sort of barrier was created, but there mere fact the party was allowed to exist suggests nothing approaching the situation in post-war Germany was implemented.

So, a few questions:

• What was the immediate post-war policy by the Allies in regards to the Italian Fascist parties and their members?

• What sort of "Defascistization" process, if any, would party members have to go through?

• Were members only of the National Fascist Party treated categorically different than those who had joined the Republican Fascist Party in 1943?

• What sort of institutional barriers were created in Italy to deal with former party members who were unrepentant, and/or continued to support parties with a Fascist ideology?

• What sort of platform was the MSI advocating just after the end of the war when it was founded in 1946? What did the Allies have to say about their platform and their involvement in Italian politics?

Just as some Northern European Christmas traditions are taken from Germanic or Gallic traditions, does Islam have some similar dynamics? If not, why?

Just something that entered my mind the other day and I was interested to find out.

To my knowledge it's been established that the natives of the Americas and Oceania died off in such massive numbers primarily due to diseases that Europeans and Asians had developed immunity too, but had not been present in these places (due to lack of towns and cities, domesticated animals etc) but what about Greenland?

To my knowledge it was colonised by the Norse and later the Danish in the modern era, who would have carried those diseases, and the original inhabitants were Inuits; so why did they not suffer the same fate as the American natives? Or perhaps they did and it was just never settled to the same extent?

Thanks