This is referring to the U.S.

I know that schools like Yale and Princeton used to dominate college football and basketball, among other sports, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It seems like a shift occurred somewhere in the mid-late 20th century to big-time public university programs, at least in all the "major" sports. The only schools I can think of that are private, academically top-tier, and competitive at major sports are Stanford, USC, and Notre Dame. Today, the major sports are all pretty much dominated by The University of X State.

When exactly did this shift occur, and why? Is it simply a function of Ivy Leagues not giving sports scholarships? If so, why didn't other private schools take up the mantle, or why did big, state schools take it up instead?

Just as the title asks.

From my understanding there were rumours of gassings among the various prisoners. I remember reading how a Jewish woman was told by a gypsy that they were going to be gassed on arrival at a certain camp and how she was relieved when it was an actual shower.

In relation to the main question, how wide-spread were these rumours?

Reading about the Pacific Theater, the decision to undertake the series of amphibious landings seems rather self-evident. My question is, how did American military planners decide upon this strategy? Who were the major voices in favor of island-hopping? More importantly, what were some other alternatives offered for the defeat of Japan and who were the leading voices of those strategies?

I assume schools would shut down? What about other businesses? Was there a municipal system in place to clear snow or was it a volunteer effort? How dangerous was it, would a snowstorm often have a death toll?

There doesn't seem to be a connection with the party and any teaching of Hinduism.

I remember reading about how during Julius Caesar's day, there was a significant issue among the legions about having land actually within Italy available to the veterans as reward for their service, and that there was discontent at the prospects of being given land outside of Italy.

This begs the question, was this stigma something unique to the situation of the time (Being that Gaul was freshly conquered and perhaps not considered safe and/or reliable as a result), or did the rest of the empire fail to 'Romanize' substantially? Was the rest of the empire outside of Italy truly considered to be a core part of the empire, or did it have a more secondary cultural status?

Here's what I /think/ I know, and please correct my misconceptions as I've never studied this in a serious manner:

• Certainly, by the end of the 4th century as the 'barbarian' tribes began to settle heavily in roman territory, there was little sense of roman unity.
• The eastern half of the empire I've seen written maintained a more greek identity, which was essentially the core of Byzantine unity later on.
• National unity as its understood today wasn't exactly the same sort of thing, but was more of a presence in the height of Rome than it was in the early feudal Europe that followed. Certainly though, there was a form of proto-nationalism within Italian Rome that is evident through the republican years that the likes of Caesar appealed to.
• The empire didn't do so hot after the 4 good emperors, and I've seen it argued that the lack of a stable system of succession ultimately doomed any ability for Rome to truly establish itself as a nation. I don't know how valid this argument is.

If for example the Russians had built a trench system to defend against the German invasion why would it have failed where such tactics succeeded in WW1?

Essentially I am not sure why a WW2 army would be able to effectively cross no mans land where a WW1 army could not.

As far as I know a line of machine guns and artillery would cut infantry to pieces and blow tanks to bits just as effectively in WW2 as they did in WW1.

I read a John Simpson book where he mentioned travelling through rural China and asked to go somewhere that had been untouched by western influence. When they arrived in a village the elder told him that they had had westerners through "recently"... it later unfolded that he meant 300 years before.

It then came up in conversation between myself and a teacher in China that Xi Jinping (could be wrong) said when asked if the French Revolution had any effect on China said "It's too soon to tell."

So my question is; what is the understanding of time in China that warrants these kinds of responses or have I just taken two things out of context?

If they did, did they say specifically why?

How many books have they read or how many hours of reading does it take?

Given that the American Civil War was primarily about slavery, would it have been possible for the federal government to purchase all slaves in existence (in the US) and subsequently free them? How much would this have cost compared to the total cost of the Civil War?

Didn't Southern Europe maintain enough ties with Scandinavia to have received word of this? If they were aware of Vinland's existence, did they think that it was part of Asia or just an island in the middle of the Atlantic?

In other words, right before the Protestant Reformation, was there anything positive happening for the catholic church?

According to Reddit, Russia's greatest cultural export of recent years has been hilarious dashcam videos. Inevitably, someone asks why dashcams are so prevalent, and someone else answers that insurance fraud is rampant in Russia. Is jumping in front of a car for the insurance money a post-Soviet development, or was there already a tradition established before the fall of communism? What would happen if a peasant was hit and injured by some low-level bureaucrat's Lada?

I remember to have read or heard somewhere. That after Columbus' journeys brought syphilis to Europe. Syphilis was seen in as a status symbol among males in the upper class, since contacting the disease was a sign of virility and being sexually active. Is there any truth to this, or have I read something that is incorrect, or just remembered wrong?

NB. This is not a discussion about whether or not syphilis came to Europe with Columbus or not, at the very least it started spreading in Europe around that time.

I'm just trying to figure out if Canada is viewed as a peacekeeping nation by the majority of Historians and why/why not.

If there are peer-reviewed sources that can give me a better idea, please do share them!

This is something i've always wondered about hinduism, Krishna is a central figure of the religion and is alleged to have been a human being who lived around 3000 BCE, I could never find any sources that would affirm or disprove the idea that there is any actual evidence of his existence and would like to know where historians weigh in on this issue.