How did Europeans deal with sunburn during the age of exploration?

1 Answers 2022-10-30

How was the song YMCA by the Village People received by the YMCA and its stakeholder and allies at the time?

1 Answers 2022-10-30

Are Historical Theologians historians?

I've read about graduate studies in historical theology. Are those who pursue such degrees theologians or historians? Are they both?

What are the benefits of doing a dissertation for a Ph.D. in historical theology on Medieval Christianity compared to doing a dissertation on it through a Ph.D. in history? Is a Ph.D. in historical theology from a divinity more or less worthwhile than a Ph.D. in history?

1 Answers 2022-10-30

Help me debunk Kanye antisemetic talking points with some historical data?

Hey everyone, I've been seeing a lot of dumb antisemetic talking points all over the place since Kanye said you know what, and I wanted to get some hard facts to counter them.

It was easy to find data that demonstrates Jewish people don't control, or rather don't disproportionally control, contemporary international finance; their influence is laughably insignificant.

However I haven't had much luck finding data regarding Jewish control of finance in the 19th or 20th century. I expect that in the 19th century the data problem isn't in my favour, as it seems the Rothschilds had a pan-European monopoly on international finance, having innovated it.

However I did find a reference to Jewish people owning 45 percent of private banking during the Weimar period, but less than 1 percent of it's "more powerful" joint-stock banks and credit institutions. This is promising, but I haven't been able to find data regarding what percentages that these different sectors (private, joint-stock, credit) make up in the Weimar financial system, so I can do some simple math to spit out a "Jews only owned x% of the German financial system" statement. Any assistance would be appreciated :)

1 Answers 2022-10-30

What is the current historical consensus of the Aryan invasion theory in India?

I recently watched a talk by Dr. Raj Vedam where he discussed how the Aryan invasion theory is largely a colonial construct that isn't backed by scientific evidence. After watching I did some googling to figure out what the common consensus amongst scientists is and found a lot of contradicting sources. So I was just curious what the current schools of thought are, and if either is considered the consensus amongst historians. Thanks!

1 Answers 2022-10-29

Why do we differnentiate between Nazis and 'Neo-nazis', what is the difference?

Historically, what is the difference between a nazi and a neo-nazi?

4 Answers 2022-10-29

In the new Netflix adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, a German charge was ordered in the last hours of the war - is this an accurate depiction?

I am aware of the many casualties on the last day of the war, but I always assigned those to artillery/sniper casualties - did a full-blown charge as depicted in the movie occur in those final stages and if yes, to what extent across the entire front?

1 Answers 2022-10-29

Are there any good historical surveys of the rediscovering and preservation of literature from Classical Antiquity?

Hello. I am looking for books about the preservation and copying of the works from Classical Antiquity that survive to this day. Basically, looking for a rundown of the rediscovering and retranslating of books from Classical Greece and Rome. Bonus points if it includes coverage of the preservation of these works during the so-called Dark Ages. Thanks!

1 Answers 2022-10-29

Swastika Usage in 1918 NAACP Publication?

Hi everyone,

I'm researching different primary source propaganda outlets during different wars in American history in order to analyze them in the context of each other. During my research, I found an interesting NAACP publication(1) from 1918 commending the black soldiers fighting for the US, France, and Britain in Europe and Africa.

In one of the sections of the text, there is a sonnet called "A Sonnet to the Negro Soldiers". What strikes me as odd was the usage of 4 swastika symbols directly below the title of this sonnet. Is there any historical context behind this I should be aware of (obviously outside of Nazi usage. I think it's safe to say the NAACP were not Nazis especially 25 years-ish before Hitler's nazis.)? I had never heard of the NAACP using swastikas before, and never had I seen them connected to the fight for black Americans' civil rights.

(1) The Crisis: NAACP Journal . June 1918. Memorial Collection. Special Collections Department, Tampa Library, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida. 

1 Answers 2022-10-29

Everybody - not just historians - knows about Columbus, Cleopatra, Da Vinci and Lincoln. They're the celebrities of history. What are come examples of such historical "Celebrities" that used to be globally known, but faded away from collective memory?

To be clear, I'm not asking about persons that were important in their own time but not very well remembered afterwards; naturally, every generation knows its current leaders and kings, but not all of them stay widely remembered hundreds of years later. Rather, I'm asking about figures who were already ancient, but extremely widely known - even to a layperson - but, for whatever reason, faded from memory and became just another historical detail, known only to specialists.

5 Answers 2022-10-29

What explains the ubiquity of musical instruments across ancient cultures?

It appears that basic wind, stringed and percussion instruments were used across cultures dating back to the Neolithic, if not earlier. Is this evidence of cultural drift as populations migrated across the globe or did similar musical instruments spontaneously develop independently?

1 Answers 2022-10-29

Apparently Bohemond of Taranto, the hero/villain of the First Crusade, was actually named Mark. With “Bohemond” being a nickname derived from a legendary giant. What giant? And is this whole situation not extremely unusual?

It seems odd for a Norman Prince to be apparently operating under a totally assumed name. No source I have seen offers much explanation for this situation. Does anyone here have any insight?

1 Answers 2022-10-29

Critias and Thucydides both characterize the Helots of Sparta as being uniquely oppressed, but as they were both Athenians I am doubtful that their descriptions of Spartan morality as wholly factual; so, is it true? Was being a Helot truly so much worse than being a slave in Athens?

Julius Pollux and Athenaeus Naucratita say that they were not slaves at all, but instead more akin to what we would call a serf, or something above a slave but below a free man, but they were also writing nearly 7 centuries after the era of the Peloponnesian War, so they might be even less worthy of trust than the aforementioned Athenians.

1 Answers 2022-10-29

When you read about Roman history, most historical works end after the Pax Romanum, or they abbreviate everything after 180 ce. Why is that?

Even when looking at the Wikipedia article there’s way, way more written about the first 200 years, then the next 300, by a lot. Most of that content is about Diocletian and Constantine. There’s hundreds of years of Roman history that are basically glossed over. For some reason everything after Marcus Aurelius is significantly abbreviated, even despite long serving emperors like Septimus Severus coming right after.

Is there any reason why most of the history after 180 ce is glossed over?

1 Answers 2022-10-29

For most of the Roman Empire’s history, there were very few long serving Emperors. How did the empire manage to govern itself without a stable head of state?

Whenever you read about the fall of civilizations, frequently succession crises lead to the fall of dynasties, and massive civil wars were frequently nails in the imperial coffin.

Yet for most of Roman Imperial history, there were endless civil wars and usurping of imperial power by random generals.

How did the empire manage to not collapse? Who ran the day to day affairs of the empire? How were regular Roman citizens affected? Was it just centuries of barely hanging on by a thread? Was it centuries of utter chaos, starvation, and war?

1 Answers 2022-10-29

Were the local populations of the Roman provinces involved in the bulding of monuments in the Roman style, or did the Romans design and build them?

1 Answers 2022-10-29

The Plantation of Ireland began under Mary I, but as she was trying to restore Catholicism in England, why would she want to replace Irish Catholic landlords with English Protestants?

The systematic dispossession of Catholic Irish landowners for English Protestants began under Mary I in 1556, when County Laois became the Queen’s County, but the motives of this confuse me as the cornerstone of her domestic policy in England was the restoration of the Catholic Church; the Irish nobility and population writ large had remained Roman Catholic despite the establishment of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland by the Irish parliament in 1536, so it would seem to me that displacing them with English Protestants would run counter to everything that she wanted for her realm.

Was it just that she intended to replace the Irish with the English, but the fact was that by that point the English were already Protestant? This seems unlikely, as the Act of Supremacy was only 22 years prior, but it’s all that seems to make sense/

1 Answers 2022-10-29

Did the Western (USA/UK/France) and Eastern (USSR/PRC) blocs coordinate their target lists in the event of a nuclear war?

My understanding is that the overwhelming majority of warheads belong(ed) to the Americans and Soviets, but what was the relationship to the smaller allied arsenals? Did Washington and Moscow have an itemized list of targets they expected/required their allies to hit or was the expectation that the two primary powers would do the heavy lifting and their allies were basically irrelevant?

1 Answers 2022-10-29

Saturday Showcase | October 29, 2022

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Today:

AskHistorians is filled with questions seeking an answer. Saturday Spotlight is for answers seeking a question! It’s a place to post your original and in-depth investigation of a focused historical topic.

Posts here will be held to the same high standard as regular answers, and should mention sources or recommended reading. If you’d like to share shorter findings or discuss work in progress, Thursday Reading & Research or Friday Free-for-All are great places to do that.

So if you’re tired of waiting for someone to ask about how imperialism led to “Surfin’ Safari;” if you’ve given up hope of getting to share your complete history of the Bichon Frise in art and drama; this is your chance to shine!

1 Answers 2022-10-29

How often do historians find new sources from much older historical eras?

I'd assume it depends a lot on how close the source is to the present. But what is it like for the various eras? Do we ever find new written material about societies like Rome or the early caliphates? Or are there too many sources and not enough historians to read them all?

1 Answers 2022-10-29

The Roman state, be it in the form of Kingdom, Republic or empire stood for hundreds of years. During that time, it must have built up a national identity within its many subjects. How long after it's collapse did people continue to identify as Roman, and when did the last "Romans" finally die off?

Although the question is mainly addressed towards the territories of the western empire, I would also be interested in hearing about how much longer it lasted in ex byzantine lands

2 Answers 2022-10-29

The aftermath of Kanye West’s antisemitic rhetoric has again sparked debate that Black Americans are the original Israelites/Hebrews. Why is this myth still so prevalent within the Black community?

Follow up question: Black Americans have also adopted Egyptian and Islamic iconography as well.

The Nation of Islam uses Christian, Jewish, Turkic symbols.

Black nationalist spiritual movements use phrases like Allah, Yahweh and Jehovah interchangeably. I’m very curious as to how all of this became amalgamated

Edit: I’m going to add this link because I think it’s a good example of what I’m talking about

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTR95UUpJ/

2 Answers 2022-10-29

Are there Roman myths akin to Greek ones?

Greek gods are fairly well known through many myths involving them, but do Romans have some?

1 Answers 2022-10-29

So if a German soldier was sent to check if Jews were hiding in a house and was caught lying that they weren't, what would have happened to him?

1 Answers 2022-10-29

When does a subject become more suited to be discussed as History, and not Sociology or Anthropology?

This sub has a 20 years time limit, for example, but I'm wondering with the academic discipline itself. When does something become a subject of history and not of anthropology?

I see historians also employ theories used in anthropology and social science, e.g. postcolonial theories and theories on rituals like in David Mattingly's excellent Experiencing Roman Empire. So what are the delineators?

I hope I'm making sense. Thanks!

2 Answers 2022-10-29

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