I know very little about Spanish history, but why would General Franco, who spent decades as dictator, choose the grandson of the deposed King to replace him? Did Franco want democracy restored? Did he believe Juan Carlos would continue his legacy?

More generally: what sort of toys did early iron age, or late bronze age children play with?

I am a sophomore History major with a concentration in comparative religion and my capstone is going to be about the Crusades. Problem is, although my school has an amazing professional team, the only professor who concentrated on the Crusades moved to Germany. I need help finding books to use to get information on my topic and eventually build a thesis out of. Preferably books in English, but those in Arabic are also acceptable.

There are no classes on the Crusades, because the teacher moved, and the only other teacher I had that brushed upon the topic just retired. I have no time period preference, or country preference. Just a whole mess of information to familiarize myself more with the topic would be fabulous.

A list of Authors or well-rounded books would be great! Thanks!

While it seems to me that knowledge of the Bible and/or Quran would have given the average European and Middle Easterner some knowledge (at least by reputation) of at least a stereotype of a Jewish person, would East Asians (in this case, let us narrow it to Japan, China, and Korea to keep it within reasonable limitations, but feel free to include Southeast Asia, as well) have had any concept of Judaism or Jews? Is there any evidence of contact between Jews and East Asian cultures, or significant migration or trade therebetween?

I'm particularly interested in the period beginning with the Nanban Boeki Jidai (around the mid-16th Century) and extending to the time around the Boxer Rebellion, but feel free to take this all the way up to the limits of the allowable periods of this subreddit (approx. 1990s).

I know I've heard someone give some quote from a general about this, but for the life of me I can't remember who it was or when. I can't track down a source. I know that there were similar biases against automatic weapons later in history because they would waste bullets (one WWI Field Marshal called the machine gun "much overrated"). Help me /r/AskHistorians and thanks in advance!

Hey,

I am doing a research paper on this topic and I was looking to see reddit's opinion. I've only just started reading up on the topic, but what I've noticed is that there are two views of the industrial revolution. One that suggests a semantic error of Industrial Revolution, which holds that term is inaccurate as the rate of growth was slower then "revolution" implies. The other view scraps the relevancy of the rate of growth and rather focuses on the new opportunity to create long-term growth, the transformation of output and employment patterns, and the social/political consequences of the revolution itself.

Thanks!

I'm an APUSH student and have to do a project about the Vietnam War. Now I can't just do the entire war. Other students are assigned it too, but it's not a group project. I have to do something very specific about the war and despite my research I can't think of anything good to present about and was thinking you guys could help.

I know this might not be the best subreddit for what I'm asking, but I thought I might get the best answers here.

While I'm aware of some obvious places and periods where you could definitely expect a degree of Multicultural nature and multi ethnic inhabitants, such as Moorish Spain, I'm curious as to the extent of it in medieval Europe.

How common was it to have inhabitants from abroad in major and minor cities?

How far away did they tend to come from? Did it tend to just be from neighbouring regions or were there notable examples of large groups of immigrants from far flung areas of Europe or beyond?

What motivated/led to this particular immigration?

In what ways did they assimilate into/interact with/influence the local population and overall local culture of that particular city?

These are really broad questions, but I figured its best asked that way to begin with and let the answers both general and specific, such as descriptions of a specific city, filter in. I realize I could ask about a specific city, but I can't think of just one to ask about; I'm interested in any and all of them really. Be it Cordoba, London, Hamburg, Constantinople, Paris or any other really.

Though I can try and further narrow things down if need be.

It's a piece of cloth hanging from your neck.

Based on the communicative technologies available, while US and USSR troops were deciding on how the invasion of central Europe would be done, for example, how long would US High Command have to wait before the USSR could confirm? Germany to Italy or Japan, UK to US, etc.

Whilst Jerusalem is a holy city for Jews, Muslim, and Christian, why Crusade seems to be a war between Muslim and Christian only? In which side were the Jews?