What's the history behind the play symbol that's still used for controlling audio?

I have heard that the pause symbol is originally from the Japanese character リ which means pause. Is it something similar behind the history of the play symbol or does it comes from a more practical viewpoint similar to how diskettes indicates save?

I know a lot of the important members of the Nazi party killed themselves or fled. Because of this it is my understanding that most of the important Nazi leaders didn't face war crime charges due to these reasons. So out of the small amount of Nazi leaders to face trial, who is generally agreed upon by historians as the most important/influential?

A few related questions:

Did the English nobility speak to each other in French at that time? How would they communicate to English and Gascon soldiers?

Did the French impose any punishments on Gascon and Bordeaux in particular at the end of the war?

Why did hobelars dismount before fighting? Isn't that like tankers getting out of their tank to engage the enemy in hand to hand combat?

• Who were the major opponents of women's suffrage?
• Was their a split between party lines? If not was there where was there a split? (class, age, etc.)
• Were there any prominent women who were against it?

If there were any anti-war movements, why were they opposed to the war? Moral objections, economic, etc...

I know there was plenty of objections to the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars in America, mostly against the idea of imperialism or expansionism. Are there any other similar cases?

Hello /r/askhistorians.

I'm wondering about the Second Temple in Jerusalem. It had a huge operation of sacrifices, with tons of animals and people. Surely it was a logistical nightmare.

Sorry if this question is too broad, but how did the priests run it? What systems/devices did they use to assist in what must've been a massive sacrificial operation?

Thanks in advance!

I am curious about why and how Switzerland decided to accept Italian as one of their official language.

People in Ticino speak Lombardian, traditionally, when they made the change to Italian? Why they didnt adopted French as an oficial language, as it would make integration with their country easier? Or even why didnt Switzerland addoped their "dialect" as an oficial language instead of Italian? Italian was, for all effects, an foreign language to the Swiss! Or it wasnt? Did they got any say in the creation of Italian?

I guess the same questions can be asked about the german speaking part of Switzerland.

Bonus question: How did the Swiss that speak italians reacted to the Risorgimento?

edit: I guess most people think that Italian was a natural language spoken by Italians: that is not the truth.

Nel 1861, secondo la stima di Tullio De Mauro[13], era in grado di parlare in italiano solo il 2,5% della popolazione italiana. Secondo la stima di Arrigo Castellani alla stessa data la percentuale era invece del 10%

In 1861, only 10% to 2.5% of italians could actually speak italian.

Italian people spoke natively their "dialects" (who are in fact languages as they are not all mutually inteligible, but are called dialect because of political reasons) before speaking standard Italian, not the other way around. Those "dialects" dont have Italian as their origin.

Modern Italian was built on the Fiorentin "dialect" in the 15th century onwards, and then adopted by Italy after the risorgimento.

I can see why the "italian" people of Swiss would adopt Italian. But I also see plenty of reasons to adopt german or french. I would like more then "logic". If possible I would like to see the reasoning of the people who adopted it , not our conjectures. I couldnt find it on my researches.

I know this is a bit of a generalization, but for the most part photography from pre-Vietnam wars seems to be mostly of individuals who died of bullet wounds. That is to say, the body is mostly intact and is not terribly bloodied, relatively speaking. We know, however, that vast numbers of war casualties don't look that way.

(Note: I'm most familiar with American war photography and to a lesser extent, photos taken by the Viet Cong. So, it's possible other countries did capture this more.)

Was photographing corpses of this nature something that was ordered of the photographers? Did the photographers self-censor? Did they take more graphic photos but the photos just aren't as widely known?

As a photographer and former historian, this has always nagged me. Modern photojournalism definitely shows more of the reality of war and conflict. I'm thinking specifically of photos from Nicaragua, the first Gulf War, lots of work done since the start of the "age" of terrorism, and so on.

Thanks in advance.

I was reading a review of "Inside the Confederate Nation: Essays in Honor of Emory M. Thomas" and the reviewer was noting how the essays expanded on the Confederate's ultimately unsuccessful nationalist movement. It made me wonder how many other groups like the Confederates made up a nationalist movement but, for whatever reason, failed to achieve regular nationalist goals (e.g. self-determination or representation in government).

It would seem like failed nationalism would be a regular occurrence throughout history but I haven't been able to find any decent scholarly background on failed nationalist movements or the theories behind failed nationalism itself. Thoughts?

In Europe at least, Italy is famous for its coffee. How and why did the 'Italian' way of enjoying coffee spread across Europe and the world? Why is a country that doesn't produce coffee beans itself deemed an expert, rather than somewhere like Colombia.

I recently read Ed Cray's bio of George C. Marshall. If it's true that the original Allied plan for WW II was to invade France and destroy Germany's war-making ability, but that this was lead astray by Allied planning that insisted, for various reasons and mostly from the British, on first invading Africa and fighting into Italy, how might events have been different if they had stuck to the plan and invaded France earlier, avoiding the African expedition altogether?

I actually first made this thread on What If but there was a lot of disagreement over why the Allies invaded Africa in the first place and whether a Normandy invasion in '43 would have failed, so I was hoping to get some more professional feedback. I realize I am only portraying Cray's point of view on Allied planning, which suggests Marshall wanting to stick to the France invasion and Churchill constantly leading Allied plans astray.

Honestly, it never made sense to me in economical sense. Trade wars of today concentrate on oil and gas: resources that are important to everyone and are used in a lot of different types of industries.

But how come the spices, tea, silk, and furs which are not really that important in everyday life, became so important? Were they really that big a part of economy? Or the reasons for all that were not economical at all?

Also, how did cavalry originate as auxiliaries in European warfare, become elite troops, and then become auxiliaries again during the pike and shot era?

Was it possible for the Spartans to be as buff as they are in the movies?

Sorry if I should be asking this in a philosophy subreddit or something, I came across the term in class, but we didn't really cover it in much detail. Any sort of introduction would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

EDIT: I mean, what made Neo-Confucianism different from Confucianism. Thanks again.

I have always heard that Japan denied many of the crimes they committed during WWII, especially in Manchuria. I have also heard that they denied very well recorded incidents, such as the Rape of Nanking. I was wondering if these accusations have any basis in history, or if they are just stereotypes?

Especially the questions how they formed and were structured, and the "mentality" behind them. (i.e. do Italian Mafias really care about "the family" that much etc.)

I'm mostly interested in the Italian, Jewish and Irish crime organisations.