I was tumbling down the Wikipedia link hole, and I came to an article about the Bolsheviks; I saw this excerpt:

In 1952, at the 19th Party Congress, Stalin declared: "There are no more Mensheviks. Why should we call ourselves Bolsheviks? We are not the majority, but the whole party." According to his suggestion, the Bolshevik party was renamed the Communist Party of Soviet Union. Since that time, the term Bolshevik has been regarded as obsolete, and relevant only to the pre-Revolutionary times, during the Russian Revolution itself and the Russian Civil War which followed.

Was this a trial in front of their Congress, or did he hold a position of power still?

To me, Marshall seems as though he was providing a neutral answer with the two parts (1. Marbury deserves the paper 2. But he's in the wrong place/He skipped the lower courts.) Was he even being partisan? What political party was he favoring?

I know not every church has Pew, correct?

How did they become so common, even in multiple faiths?

Where did they start, and how were they spread? Was there any objection within faiths when they started popping up (perhaps as an 'influence from heathens', type thing)?

I'm very interested in internal conflicts regarding styles of worship, sitting/standing/prostrate/etc and how they relate to the adoption of the Pew.

Edit: and what was the standard seating style before Pews? Especially in a church that didn't and then installed pews. How did the congregants deal with the transition?

Hi everyone! This is my first time posting on this subreddit, it truly is a fascinating page to look at and read. For some time I've had this question on my mind: Is there any point in post World War 2 history, apart from the Cuban Missile Crisis or even the Cold War in general, where we have been dangerously close to either a nuclear war, to nuclear confrontation of some sort, or to nuclear weapons being utilised?

I look forward to hearing any responses! :)

From what I've heard, weapons used in the Sengoku era was similar to that of medieval europe, with spears, swords, and bows, all in use. However, shields were uncommon. Is this because nobody had thought of the idea, or was it an issue of honor, and people would be "dishonorable" if they hid behind shields?

edit: Thank you restricteddata for your in depth commentary, it is much appreciated

I recently learned that the US dollar symbol ($) is of Spanish design - meaning 'peso', and was adopted to distance the US from Britain after independence. Why do other countries also use the $, specifically Canada, when their relationship with Britain never reached such a low?

I'm an aspiring enthusiast of Medieval history, and am thinking of buying a book or book series on the Crusades. Can the good members of AskHistorians give me any recommendations?

Was it a mass revolt, or was it a coup d'etat? Different historians say different things, Pipes for instance being very adamant it was a coup.

I realise the UK does have a history of slave trading, but did we actually keep and work slaves in the UK, in the same way the US kept black slaves chained up etc (e.g as portrayed in films like django unchained)

I was reading the Wikipedia page on Roman naming conventions last night, and it was mentioned that various aspects of naming conventions at different points during the Roman period mean that several individuals share names, and this can make it hard to tell which individual is being referred to in a specific source. This set me wondering about the number of individual Romans whose existence is known about through whatever source to modern historians.

I understand that it's probably not possible to give an exact figure, but I'm curious as to orders of magnitude - do we know of hundreds of individual Romans? Thousands? Tens of thousands? And roughly what proportion of all the Romans who ever lived do we know of as individuals - i.e. what proportion of individuals from Roman civilization are we basing our knowledge of the culture of the entire civilization on, and what percentage of individuals are lost to us?

I realise that there are other non-personal sources of information about aspects of Roman history, culture and life, but I'm particularly interested in knowledge we've gleaned directly from sources pertaining to specific individuals, and how many of those individuals we know of.

Background: In modern history we were learning about Australia's past surrounding racism and the Aborigines. Many of the text books were boasting about the Aborigines being the first civilization dating back 80,000 years. However I was of the opinion that to be a civilization you must have permanent structures/society like Mesopotamia. How do Historians classify this sort of thing?

I know embarrassingly little about this, so my apologies if the time period is too broad. If it is, please feel free to answer for a narrower period of time!

As I understand it the population of Sweden and Denmark should have been about the same in the 17th century and Denmark is a lot more suited to agriculture (with the exception of Skåne in southern Sweden). How is it that there are 4 million more people living in Sweden?

I know that in Europe in the Middle Ages, craftsmen were often members of guilds, but how did things function during the Roman Empire? Were there guilds? Was there much internal trade in such goods across the empire or were you likely restricted to purchasing such goods as could be made in your own town? Were craftsmen independent businessmen, members of guilds, or employed by local wealthy people? What about the government? Surely the Roman government must have employed many craftsmen to outfit their armies, furnish their buildings, and work on their engineering projects. Were they full-time government employees or more like private contractors? How expensive were crafted household goods (furniture made by skilled carpenters, clothing by skilled tailors etc.)? Would your average Roman citizen own a lot of these things or were they luxuries? How common was it for people to make their own shoes or tools?

Thanks for reading!

I've noticed this in literature as well as the architecture of St Petersburg for example which resembles the architecture of Paris. I have also noticed that, living in an ex-eastern block state, a big portion of educated people of age 50+ are well versed in both French and Russian. Thus my question.

Somebody told me that he was raised by his Jewish uncle Abu Talib, although I have no idea as to the accuracy of this claim.

Is it known at all what religion Muhammad followed before he became a prophet/messenger?