I was wondering if the 1979 Islamic Revolution bettered the lives of the poor in Iran.

With there recent controversies regarding MLB players being elected to MLB's hall of fame (steroids), I am curious about the development of halls of fame in US professional sports.

• What were the historical developments that led to housing such memories?

• What theories of history and collecting memories informed the decision to build halls of fame?

• What was their original purpose(s) and has this changed?

• Does the reasoning to build a hall of fame differ amongst the various professional sports?

I am particularly interested in an archivist or curator's understanding of the role of halls of fame.

My history teacher told us last semester that some historians think that Joseph (Jesus' after) would not only have been a carpenter, but a master-carpenter due to wether a misinterpretation or mistranslation (it has been a couple of months, so I can't remember). If it were the case, this would mean Jesus would have been raised not a poor, but a rich man, who would have studied with the higher class in society, schools at the time which taught lessons about greek philosophers and roman/greek religions, which could have inspired Jesus for the basics of catholicism.

Have any of you heard about this theory and what do you think about it?

A common theme we see in the Odyssey is travelers being showered with hospitality, gifts and a warm bed when asking a stranger for a place to spend the night. How prevalent was this practice really? If I was traveling could I really expect any stranger to offer me a meal and a place to stay by simply knocking on their door? Were there limitations on this hospitality? Say a sketchy looking stranger came to my house looking for a place to stay… Would cultural tradition force me to take him in, even if I thought there was a risk?

Did any great playwrights or dramatists come out of this period?

I hear often about the hell like conditions the Americans endured on the islands but I never heard the other side of the story. Were the Japanese used to it better, did they have weapons better prepared for it or did they suffer just as much?

E.g. sex, bathe, etc. Just wondering as I recently started watching Rome and they seem to do everything infront of their slaves, including discuss battle plans. How could they make sure that their slaves wouldn't betray them?

I've realized I love to read history books ever since I read the LBJ biographies by Caro. I received "Bully Pulpit" for Christmas and I'm excited to read it. My only hang up is that Thomas Frank, in Harper's, reviewed her "Team of Rivals" book in this way:

...the “team of rivals” concept [is not even] an innovation of the early 1860s, though Goodwin assures us it is. As the historian James Oakes pointed out in 2008, administrations incorporating the president’s adversaries were standard stuff in the early nineteenth century. They have been fairly common in our own time as well. During the Great Depression, for example, Franklin Roosevelt hired prominent men from the opposition to fill cabinet posts, and almost every subsequent president has followed suit.

[The 'team of rivals'] was, in other words, an unremarkable arrangement, documented here in an unremarkable book, all of it together about as startling as a Hallmark card. How did such a commonplace slice of history come to define our era?

Has anyone read this new book? Is it a worthwhile and accurate read or will I be misguided? It's a big book, so I don't want to waste my time!

If anyone is curious about reading Thomas Frank's further criticism, I could send it to you as well.

I'm aware that the 2 devastating attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, coupled with the Soviet invasion of Manchukuo effectively forced the Japanese to surrender, but Japan is famous for being a proud country, and I'm wondering what the impact and the effects of the surrender were for the Japanese population?

When was February 29th instituted in our modern calendar and how did they figure out that we needed one extra day every four years? How did people account for this before hand?

Especially regarding Inca, Aztec, Maya, and Haudenosaunee in their respective peak military exploits, how many levels of hiearchy were there in the armies. Who was responsible for coordinating attacks and coming up with tactics? Were soldiers differentiated by various weaponry within the armies? How much training did soldiers typically have?

Italians were at the forefront of Western culture in ancient times, medieval times, the Rennaisance, and even post-Renaissance in some respects. In American culture (and perhaps in other Anglo cultures, but I do not know) Italians historically faced prejudice despite contributing a lot to Western culture, which I find to be bizarre. How and why did this arise?

/u/backgrinder stated that "Chariots have a major weakness: they can't turn. Not even a little bit, not in a short space while moving. They also require firm, dry flat ground to operate." in the Alexander thread. I was thinking of this in the context of the film, they seem to run circles around Maximus & co, and they are defeated with what looks like a shield wall. Would a shield wall help against the scythes? Or is that Hollywood just being entertaining?

Everytime I read a book on WW2, I keep asking myself how the US was able to convert factories, train workers, garner resources, and build new weapons with such effectiveness and quantity.

Who were these directors of the War Department (?) that were so successful at preparing the US for fighting a war on two fronts?

Perhaps someone could recommend a book on this subject?

As you probably know, the east coast of the U.S. has been getting pretty cold lately, and I just heard of the fimbulwinter. This prompts me to ask: what happens in during the fimbulwinter? What are its signs?