I don't really have anything to say here.lol

This question might be seen as stupid, but from what I've occasionally heard was that Abraham Lincoln, prior to his involvement in abolishing slavery, was pretty openly racist towards blacks and other minorities. I've researched this and have found some supposed quotes from Abraham Lincoln that would back this claim up, although they weren't from the most credible sources. Can some of you help me out on this one (please cite your sources as well)?

Hi everyone,

I'm watching Saving Private Ryan and I was wondering how the soldiers that entered the beach on D-Day survived it. The way the film portrays it is that there were a lot of bunkers and machine guns firing. Now I know of my history lessons that that's true, they build bunkers on the beach.

But how could the allied win if they were being gunned down everywhere? Was it that there were so many soldiers that the ammo ran out of the Germans or were there other advantages to the allied forces.

I searched about it on /r/AskHistorians but I couldn't find this question or one that looked alike it. If it's already been asked, sorry for posting this one.

Cheers!

I'm highly interested in Andean civilizations and I'm currently doing research for a paper on the Incan Empire. I've picked up The Last Days of the Incas by Kim MacQuarrie and have only just begun reading that, so forgive me if the information I'm after is contained somewhere therein.

The paper is focused on the philosophy the Inca state governed it's people by at it's height. I'm investigation whether or not it was developed enough (or enough information has survived) for it to be defined as an ideology in the same sense as Liberalism or Socialism.

The definition of ideology I am working with is a conception of human nature that gives a guideline for political action based on that conception. Ideally, it would touch on politics, social organization and economics and be articulated formally in some way. I'm aware the empire had no written language though they did have quipus, which I understand were used for administrative or military bookkeeping. Is it possible an ideology or sort of 'Inca Charter' could have been recorded in these somehow? Any information about it is valuable to me.

I'm also aware of the Chakana and it's supposed significance in the three affirmations, but couldn't find anything solid to that effect.

All I know about germanic tribes is that they start entering the roman empire in the first few centuries AD, but what about before then? How long had they been in Europe and how far back can signs of gemanic culutres be traced?

My understanding is that ships in the age of sail (17th - early 19th Centuries) were fairly limited on what points of sail they could travel, and fairly un-maneuverable in any case: this seems like it would make it hard to sail into a lot of harbours and dock.

On top of this, once they were in the harbour, without tugboats like modern ships, how would they do they maneuver in the potentially crowded and shallow water, and then pull up alongside the quay. would there be tow boats, would they kedge into the harbour or is there some other cool technique i'm missing?

or have I got it wrong and ships would usually just anchor in the harbour, and transfer the cargo ashore in smaller craft?

So I've been thinking about these for a while, and today I decided the time had come to go ahead and suggest them.

First of all, I'd like to see a system of attaching flair to specific questions, like they have in /r/askscience. Doing so would be useful for keeping the board organized and making it easy for contributors to find questions they can best provide answers for, as well as allowing all users to easily find out if their question has recently been answered, as well find related questions that might also interest them.

Second, I suggest nominations begin for a Post of the Week, after the fashion of /r/DaystromInstitute. This would allow the community to highlight particularly insightful or interesting discussions, as well as show off some of the best we have to offer here.

It is my sincere belief that implementing either of these would serve our continuing goal of making discussion on this subreddit the best and most informative that it can be.

Did the Aztecs, Mayans or Caribbean people have any naval activity more ambitious than fishing boats? Did the Central American empires conduct trade with the Islanders or with the people living in what is now the US gulf coast? Do we know what their boats looked like? Do we know if voyages across islands or to/from the mainland would have been exceptional, one off ventures or routine trips?

How did the British come to control Gibraltar?

How important was Gibraltar to the British empire?

Did Gibraltar ever begin to decline in strategic importance?

Did the British ever come close to losing Gibraltar in a war?

What was being said about Hitler by the German media and public when his name was just getting known? How about the other Europeans countries? England, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium. The media in that time ... before anybody knew what Hitler was about but his name was getting known. How did people write about him? And more importantly ... when Hitler became a controversial person (I guess years before 1939) ... who was Hitler compared with?

follow up question:

If compared to modern politics how powerful would they be?

We seem to know a lot about Greek contributions to philosophy, art and science but with the vast Persian empire existing concurrently, is there any mark they similarly left upon our culture?

I read a bit about the Spanish Maquis on wikipedia, but I find somehow hard to comprehend how strong those Anti-Franco-troops were, how they became guerilla forces or fled to France.

Was the Franco regime and its control over the population and the approach against Republican ideas after the civil war comparable to the actions of the Nazi-regime against democratic and communist people in Germany?

With my rudimentary knowledge of land navigation, I know that north on a map, magnetic north, and true north are often a few degrees different - enough to get you lost if you're traveling long distances. I understand this to be caused by the curve of the planet and the actual location of the magnetic poles, but if I believed the earth was flat, wouldn't I get lost a lot?

I was browsing Wikipedia to find out how long a Chinese 'chi' was, and it turned out to be 0.3-ish metres. 'Hmmm,' I thought, 'that's roughly the length of a foot!' So, then I found out that a cubit was in the same ballpark as a foot (and uses the same derivation as a chi - the length of a human forearm). Now, from what I understand, the modern foot is actually derived from an Anglo-Saxon measurement that was larger than the Roman foot.

So: Why are all these figures in the same ballpark? I get that a cubit and a chi would be similar, being based off of the same body part (albeit with regional differences), but why is a foot in the same ballpark too?