Thanks guys!

Was it due to the violence of the crack epidemic? If so, then why during the the violence of the prohibition era didn't police switch to the semiautomatics of its day like Lugers and M1911s?

I'm especially curious why police felt they needed the additional firepower of semiautomatics when most officers will go through their entire careers without firing a a shot.

Also, if they do in fact owe their success to the labor practices, how bad did they treat their workers? Were there any who succeeded using fair, nice, worker-friendly practices? Thanks!

So, I know about goldsmiths and that they would write receipts for people storing their precious metals with them, and eventually that became a banking system where the notes were instead traded (correct me if I'm off base on this), but I'm curious about when villages or towns would make a transition like this. I would imagine that smaller groupings of people would trend towards a commune style of living or a basic barter system, trading their goods to get what they need, and then later we have cities where people are getting hired at a wage so that they can afford to purchase what they need at a market.

At what point does this come about and what are the driving reasons? Was there resistance? Would the first people offered a wage turn up their nose at it because it has no intrinsic value to them?

This is largely my anecdotal experience, but having lived for an extended period in both places (and have lived with Europeans in America for extended periods), I have noticed that Europeans generally wear black socks to work out, or hang around, complement sneakers, etc. Is this a cultural thing? Why do American men generally wear white socks for casual/athletic dress, while Europeans generally wear black?

What led to the rise of the white athletic sock in America? Isn't it harder to wash? Or, conversely, why do Europeans wear black socks, a color generally reserved for more formal stuff in America -- and that tends to clash with white/light shoes -- for exercising?

Okay, this question risks sounding immature, but bare with me. I feel like we can address this topic in a serious and historical manner. This is a matter of important historical debate and we need to get to the bottom of this (no pun intended)

Before modern sewage systems were created, how bad was the smell in large urban areas? Lets specifically say in London, in the late Georgian era after massive urbanization began, but before any kind of complex system to deal with the refuse. Was everyone basically just taking a dump in a bucket then throwing it in the street? Wouldn't it just pile up in the streets? Were there people who's specific job was to take the poo away? Were certain neighbourhoods more well-known for the prevalence of feces than others? And what about the average people - "the great unwashwed" - if we met them today would we just think they smelled awful?

and a second part to that question: Was there any uproar against Rambo 3, Red Dawn, Rocky 4, and Bond films?

Most murders occur over things like revenge, procuring or protecting resources, crimes of passion and so on. What about the people who murder as a result of a sick compulsion to kill other human beings?

Was anything like this going on in Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome?

I've been reading Max Hastings' "All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945" (ISBN 0007450729), and noticed that he described servicemen of the British Indian Army as mercenaries.

A quick google reveals that he's expressed this opinion fairly regularly.

I was a bit nonplussed by this, not least because my father did his national service in India 1945-1948, and spent part of this time attached to an Indian regiment.

How is a mercenary defined, and is it accurate to describe servicemen of the British Indian Army as mercenaries?

If the British Indian Army were mercenaries, why weren't the Canadian or Australian armed forces during WW2 considered mercenaries?

When I think of Italian food, the first thing I think of is marinara sauce. But tomatoes are a new world fruit and were only brought over to Europe after the Americas were discovered. So my questions are:

1. What was Italian food like before tomatoes made their way over?

2. How/why did tomatoes and tomato sauce overtake "traditional" Italian foods?

I've been watching The Tudors tv show and it briefly mentioned that the king of England has some sort of right to the French throne so i was wondering what the deal with that is, could you elaborate?

I apologize for the somewhat vague question, but I was thinking (inspired by a silly Tumblr post of all things) about how a lot of ancient civilizations regarded the Sun quite positively and how many Gods were associated with it (Ra of The Egyptian Pantheon and Apollo of the Greek come to mind). And I was simply wondering if there are any--or at least any known--civilizations with religions that considered the Sun to be, in broad terms, an evil thing.

This is my first post in this particular subreddit and while I did read the rules and the FAQ, I apologize if this violates any guidelines.

Today there was a post asking about the largest confirmed gathering of people in world history. It seems that the answer to the question may violate the 20 year rule, and the result was many, many comments being removed by the mods.

My question : Should it be considered appropriate to correctly answer a question when the author of the question is unaware that the answer would violate the 20 year rule, and should the mods be given discretion to allow the answer?

I know its difficult to judge a major plank of Shweikart's work from one excerpt, however this is the first time I've seen "American exceptionalism" given real historical consideration. He bases his claims on four factors responsible for making America exceptional. I have bolded them below in the first paragraph taken from his work. The following three paragraphs contain his defense of each factor. I always thought "American exceptionalism" was merely standard nationalism found in every country but here a serious historian is claiming it is a real force that through US power has tremendous impact on the entire world. I'd like to know if anyone more knowledgeable in U.S. history than myself can see any merit to Shweikart's argument.

What follows is all from Schweikart's work A Patriot's History of the Modern World: Vol. I.

"A second theme of this work is that the United States is, and has always been, "exceptional" in its founding and national character... It is more than the belief that one country has its advantages, appealing characteristics, and specific national identity. Nor is it the creature of "biased" Eurocentric or Amerocentric historians. At root, American exceptionalism is the confluence of four factors that collectively do not exist in any other country in the world. Some possess one or two; England possesses three and at one time had all four-but no longer. These are: 1) a heritage of common law; 2) a Christian and predominantly Protestant religious tradition; 3) a free-market economy; and 4) property rights, especially land rights.

This common law heritage held that the law was given to the people (later this was modified to include "by God") and that the ruler merely enforced the law that everyone observed and understood as divinely inspired. Thus, in common law, authority moved from the people upward, not the other way around, as with "Divine Right" and civil law, in which rights came from the monarch down... virtually the rest of the world adopted civil law, with its top-down aristocratic approach.

... Protestantism brought with it a heavy dose of individuality. Calvinist teachings insisted that each man read and understand the Bible for himself; Puritans and Quakers in America practiced congregational church government, which was exceptionally democratic and local; and the entire tone of Protestantism was antiauthoritarian.

... The American variant of capitalism, again with its Protestant overtones, relied heavily on individual entrepreneurship and eschewed state involvement. Failure was considered a learning tool, not a source of public embarrassment. And finally, American property rights, not only closely linked political rights to land ownership, but also established the principle that individual land ownership was a social goal to be advanced by government... the United States made it easy and relatively inexpensive for anyone not only to acquire property but also to gain legal title deed to that property-a characteristic that was rare in Europe... Therefore American exceptionalism was in fact unique, consisting of four "legs" not found anywhere else in the world by the mid-twentieth century."

During the Golden Age of Capitalism epoch, after 1945 to the late 70's and early 80's.

Also, was Keynesian philosophy so influential insofar it effected most of the policies and fostered economic growth in the United States, or are other factors, such as labor unions, productivity, and military spending responsible for the preponderance of growth?

Thank you.