The royal navy, is perhabs England greatest pride of it's history, it ruled the wave during the 18th century and carved up 1/3rd of the known world in the ensuing centuries. We remenber the RN has this prestigious institution that gain immense prestige at Aboukir, Trafalgar and later on Jutland and even sinking the pride of the Geramn Navy, the dreaded Bismark. In conclusion, the royal was a serious force to be recon with, i don't have the numbes nor the details about the navy but by 1940 the RN was the only obstacle against Hitler invasion of England mainland.

But as the war went on the RN drastically "fell apart", the pride of the royal navy was sunk by the Bismark at the battle of the Danmark strait and the British were unable to protected their far eastern colonies such as Singapure or Hong Kong, and were left open to Japanese invasion. For the first time since the 18th century Britain ceased to rule the wave and was outmatched by the Japanese navy, they would later on regain their long lost colonies only when the Japanese were ultimately defeated by the growing US navy. Despite the losses of the war, the British Navy was still seen as the greatest fleet in Europe along side the French and in some extent the Italians. For exemple during the Suez crisis ( a joint French-British operation on the suez canal ) the RN was the primary forces in Operation Musketteer despite French assitsance.

But nowaday's, as the time as we speak, the royal navy is cleary outmatched by the American navy, in fact in the early 2010 the French actually had the upper hand notably with the introduction of the nuclear aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, for exemple during the Lybian civil war of 2011 the RN was under direct control of the French command, something not seen since the crimean war.

Witch bring us to the question, how was the mighty RN was defeated by the japanese and why the American finally became the naval superpower as we know it today?

Native Americans in early westerns, such as Stagecoach or the Searchers, were often portrayed as faceless antagonists, however, a few decades later in the 90s, big movies like Pocahontas and Dances whit Wolves were portraying Indigenous peoples in a relatively positive way.

so when did this shift in representation happen what caused it?

It seems that historians generally agree that India did not have any historical tradition until the arrival of Islam when Arabic and Persian scholars such as Hasan Nizami and Minhaj-i-Siraj began migrating to India and the country adopted the practices and conventions developed elsewhere.

Before that we mainly have texts such as the Vedas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas which do contain some historical information but are fully enveloped in myths and imagination.

So how can it be that a civilization that excelled in so many other areas simply didn't develop its own tradition of history writing. Nor did it adopt it sooner from the Greeks or the Chinese who had made contact with it since the ancient era.

Could outsiders visit? Could Soviet citizens visit other countries? How much could they explore in their own country?

I am aware that this is a touchy subject, as well as probably a complex one, and that there might be many different theories as it's not such a straightforward objective fact, but that is precisely why I am asking this question here on r/AskHistorians.

I've always wondered what concurrence of events and ideologies led to both many Western Christians slowing losing their faith, as well as to many Muslims staying (or possibly growing more) attached to theirs.

How old did people think cave paintings were in late 19th century, and what was the general view concerning human prehistory? If there are any sources I'd love to check them out.

EDIT: Oh, I am not sure whether this belongs to AksHistorians, since this is prehistory and perhaps more about anthropology?

I've heard hundreds of different versions of the story from the smallpox blankets to genocide to everything being a big misunderstanding.

More recently I read that when the British came, they brought with them diseases that the Natives hadn't been acclimated to and it spread throughout their communities. When the British had started expanding they just came upon camps of dead bodies.

What ACTUALLY happened to the Native Americans when the British Colonists moved in?

I will read the discussion and the answers will practically always be excluded. Can someone please explain to me? I don't get it.

Ships of the line like the HMS Victory carried up to 100 cannons. Even frigates and smaller ships still carried dozens of them in their broadside. I wonder why that's the case.

It should be obvious why one would want to equip a ship with larger calibers if possible: When fighting other ships a large caliber could literally destroy the opponent with a few good hits close to or below the water line. More importantly, fewer guns also require much less men to handle. IIRC most of the men abort a ship-of-war were there to handle the cannons. So a frigate could enhance its range and its destructive power if it would switch (say) 4 8-pounders with one 24-pounder.

So there must have been a good reason not to do this. Was this caused by the engineering of the ship (mass distribution)? Or did the smaller calibers have some other advantage (range)? Or was it a matter of logistics? Or even pride (only ships of the line get the big guns)?

I’ve recently been rewatching Downton abbey and it raised a question for me. What did these people, in particular the women, do all day? To me it seems like a quite boring life.

The show is set in 1912-1928(ish) England

In recent conversations with a friend, we both realized that there was this gab in our knowledge of European history. Because the relationship went from basically several hundreds of years of mortal enemies, to “suddenly” (by our knowledge) being allies and fight the great war together. What happened in between to change this relationship?

Apologies if this is not the right place for such a niche question. However, I have always wondered why the Canadian military has appeared to have kept so many British military customs, at least superficially, especially when compared to other former British colonies such as Australia. For example, many Canadian units, such as the Governor General's Foot Guards, still wear bearskin hats and red dress uniforms, similar to many British units such as the Coldstream Guards. The same applies to unit names, eg) Black Watch, the Princess of Wales' Own, PPCLI etc. In comparison, the Australian military does not seem to share many of these features with their British forebears. As far as I'm aware, dress uniforms are mostly olive green with the famous slouch hat, while unit names are much more generic and prosaic, for example 1RAR, 1st Armoured Regiment, Light Horse Etc. Are there any historical reasons for these differences? This not a criticism of either side, just something that has always intrigued me given the relative similarity between each country and their respective militaries

During Desert Storm (1991), the Israeli public sealed rooms and wore gas masks during SCUD attacks on Israel, due to fear of chemical weapons. Did Saddam actually have chemical weapons at that time, and if yes, why didn't he use them? I've read an essay by historian Avi Shlaim who claims that Saddam did indeed have such weapons, but did not use them because Israel hinted it would respond with nuclear weapons if he dared use such weapons.

Thanks in advance to all repliers.

So I know religious minorities like Catholics and Jews got their own millets and were able to have some sort of autonomy under their own religious law, but how were Shia Muslims treated (considering Syria and Iraq had large Shia communties)? Did they get their own millet? Were they persecuted at all?

Jane Wyatt was the actress who originally played Spock's mother, Amanda Grayson, opposite Mark Lenard, Spock's father Sarek in the original Star Trek series. Wikipedia mentions that early in her acting career:

One of [Wyatt's] first jobs on Broadway was as understudy to Rose Hobart in a production of Trade Winds—a career move that cost her her listing in the New York Social Register (she later was relisted upon her marriage).

What's a social register—is it some kind of club for rich people or something? How would someone get into the social register? Why was Wyatt on it in the first place, and why did her getting a Broadway part result in her getting removed from it? Why did her getting married restore her to the list?

So, this week I was reading about the decimation of the Australian Aboriginal population partially through disease and I was suddenly struck with a question that seems kind of obvious, but which I'd never considered before.

What was it about the "mainland" continent that made diseases from Europe massively devastating to the people of the Americas (and Aboriginals and others), while no diseases were brought back to Europe which really wreaked any havoc?

Given that Europeans would have been just as unexposed to American diseases as Native Americans were to European diseases, why was the resultant devastation so different? I've read a decent bit about American history at this point and know that it's popularly believed that 80-90% of Native Americans were wiped out by plague.

It just doesn't make sense that there wouldn't even be a ripple of something similar in Europe as Natives were taken back as slaves and Europeans returned from abroad. What am I missing?

Edit: Parentheses portion added

Adolf Hitler wasn't born in Germany. He was born in Austria to Austrian parents.

He only became a German citizen in 1932, less than a year before he came to power in Germany.

Did the Germans never question Hitler's Austrian origin? Why did the Germans allow an Austrian to rule them?

I'm sure many people think that Hitler was German because he led Germany and spoke German, but he was actually an Austrian.

I've noticed that older newspapers would often replace the first c in names such as McCarthy with an apostrophe in headlines like M'Carthy. Two specific examples from the 1860s and 1950s are of George McClellan (M'clellan) and Joe McCarthy. I've never seen this done in other contexts and am curious as to what kind of typographical standard this practice would have come from and when it fell out of favor. Was it just to save type space?

Further, was this an American style or did it originate in Britain or Ireland?

Thanks!

From what I get, soccer didn't make it big in America due to baseball and gridiron already being popular there. And I understand that in Latin America the elite emulated Europeans, and the people then emulated the elite (adopting their games). But what about Continental Europe? Wouldn't they also have their own popular sports? What made soccer supplant the niches occupied in Europe but not the ones in America?

What percentage of adults went to college? How did it compare to the quality of the education today? Are there any surviving syllabuses or student notes that give an insight into what was being taught? For example, Thomas Jefferson attended the College of William and Mary and studied math, metaphysics and philosophy. Would his education be similar to majoring in the same topics today?