I have been reading about the early days of the Soviet Union and starting with WWI and moving through the revolution and civil war along with Stalins purges and the famine that swept the country, how was the Soviet population able to support another loss of life on such a large scale?

An article about oceanic history I'm having to read makes the claim that the Vikings thought they'd reached Africa when they got to Newfoundland, since at the time there was not much of a concept of finding completely new lands accross the ocean, only of the ocean connecting already known places. The author doesn't elaborate however, and doesn't provide a citation, so I'm wondering how much truth is in this.

Ancient Roman politics was dominated by certain families we see bubbling up into politics, often with many branches and sub-families, as it were. What happened to them? Did they in any way survive? Did they die out? did they take on new names? Did their political influence just peter out, with the families becoming disolved into the general populace? Did Medieval Italian families ever claim descent from them and did they ever bear strikingly similar names? I would be grateful for any information!

Hello, kind historians of reddit!!

I have found myself recently immersed in the ancient near east history: the Sumerians, Akkadians, Hittites and Egypt to name a few. Since this is new to me, I find myself unable to find any first-hand accounts of any events especially in the middle to late bronze age periods. Also any source of high-quality maps of any kingdom, region...etc would be much appreciated.

I'm sorry if this sounds stupid or not thorough enough. I'm just a curious fella who wants to know what happened there. All of it xD

Hi!

For my history class, the RQ I've come up with is "To what extent did the terms of the Munich Conference of 1938, including the German occupation of Sudetenland, lead to the liquidation of Czechoslovakia?"

I want to know if it is appropriate. Is there scope for it to be well researched? Any feedback would be appreciated.

Also, if anyone has any sources (journal articles, books, etc) I can use for this topic please let me know :)

So in Sparta women could own property, read write, e ct. While the women in Athens literally couldn't even go outside without a man. Like it drives me literally insane thinking about this.

I had been reading about the TIL about Emperor Joseph III and how he was considered to be one of few in the region who had a progressive stance on Jews. While I have heard that Jews owning land and being lenders is a part of it(a sort of fight back against bourgeoisie) I was wondering if there is much more to why the Jews seem to have been so targeted.

I researched it a bit and found that as far back as the Black Plague they were blamed for many of society's problems. At the same time it seems so odd to me that as far east as Russia and as west as France there would be such unanimity in the animosity showed for 100s of year. Is there any specific main few reasons behind how this developed?

We just got into some geneology and found where some ancestors came from Ireland to America in 1851 - right around the time of the famine.

I’ve been trying to learn as much as I can about the famine - and I’ve seen multiple places that there was a large part of the population that existed ONLY on potatoes. Is that true? Potatoes for breakfast, potatoes for lunch, potatoes for dinner?

I recently read Jung Chang’s “Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China” and i found it well structured with lots of interesting facts about an incredibly complex period in Chinese history.

As I was reading I started to notice the book goes into great lengths to praise Cixi and her time ruling China. So much so that it struck me as odd. In many sections she was framed as a visionary who was fighting against all of China’s old fashioned views (not opening themselves towards western commerce, introduction of education, electricity, the railroad, improving the military, foreshadowing Japans expansionist interests, founding a constitutional monarchy, etc...). Yet very little is said of her problems as a ruler (a few mentioned were the unwillingness to stop fighting Japan, the stealing of money for rebuilding the old summer palace, and receiving presents for her birthday celebration one year). After finishing the book, I had this nagging feeling that something is not right (I mean, no one can be this awesome as a ruler) so I read her Wikipedia entry just to get more information an i was very surprised to find such a drastic tonal shift between both text (wiki shows her to be a lot less “visionary” and more conservative).

With such different views of events, I wanted to get another opinion from others knowledgeable on this time period to get their take on Cixi.

So this is going to be different from most posts here, but I think it still fits here. I am working on a project that has to do with the technological progression of humanity. I have worked it out up to the iron age, but I feel like I am missing a lot before and after that. I have it so that in the beginning the main progression was fire and flint tools. Then after that they heated stones to make them malleable enough to make tools, and there was the stone age. After this is where I begin to loose track. All I can find in the stone age was that they learned to make crucibles and how to melt metal, then they made bronze. I have even less in the Bronze Age. All I have is that they made steel and now they were in the iron age. It then seems that there is a massive gap between the iron age and the next big step, using mechanical power, a millennia later... What am I missing? (I have not done a lot of small details, I am just concerned with the major steps. Any advice would be helpful.

Hello all, I am about to graduate with my Associates in history. I am uncertain with the different jobs or careers available with a history degree and I would greatly appreciate your feedback. Thank you!

For centuries empires have taken an immense interest in Afghanistan which at first glance seems like a rather unspectacular and unorganized bit of land.

What do these empires see in Afghanistan?

It’s confusing to see two groups of Commando’s both of which served in Operation Neptune. The role of each other is stated to be different; RN Commandos being “Beachhead Duties”, while No. 48 (RM) Commandos being “Coastal Raiding force and Assault Infantry”. With that in purpose, didn’t the No. 48 (RM) Commandos pretty much do the same job of doing “Beachhead duties”, basically holding beachhead positions as the RN Commandos during Operation Neptune or I am wrong?

Or would the working class have done as they pleased? If so, how did the upper class react to this?

We've all seen old-timey recipes that include copious amounts of canned olives, hot dogs and jello, crushed graham crackers, bag marshmallows, canned meat, and any number of other ingredients that modern consumers would regard as disgusting. I think I Intuitively understand why these types of ingredients would have appealed to Americans when they were new, so what I don't understand is why there has been such a radical change, and a strong emphasis on freshness, farm to table, and whole ingredient cooking.

Hello! I’m not a professional historian or anything. I just like reading about history because I find it really fascinating. I’m in the process of reading Christopher Tyerman’s book God’s War: A New History of the Crusades and while I’ve read other books about the Crusades before, I’ve started to notice that almost no book I’ve ever read really talks about the eleventh century before the Crusades. Tyerman is mentioning a number of events like the Battle of Manzikert and some kind of investiture conflict between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor and I really don’t know what a lot of these events entail. I was just wondering if anyone has any book recommendations for European history around the eleventh century before the First Crusade (1000-1095.) Minus the Norman Conquest as the one book I do own about that time period is Marc Morris’ The Norman Conquest. But anything else about eleventh century Europe would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for your time!

Edit: In case anyone comes across this post, I came across a book called The Forge of Christendom by Tom Holland that pretty much turned out to be the exact book I was looking for. It covered pretty much every topic I list here so if anyone else is looking for something similar, that’s my recommendation!

I'm writing a Western set in the 1850s. The main character is a special soldier (his rank/title is never specific and officially he is just a soldier) who is sent to the U.S. to capture an "enemy of the Crown". His name is Arnold

What Arnold has done is import Mexico-grown opium to Britain throughout the 1840s. Due to his sizeable possé, but more importantly, his large network of obedient, yet separate possés, he was able to safely transport the opium from where it was grown, all the way to Britain.

It is in December 1850 the main character is sent to capture Arnold. The reason for this is because the British government sent someone to Arnold, telling him to either work for them or give his entire operation to them.

The reasoning behind this is that, from what I gathered, the British Empire was trying to create an opium monopoly. I think they mostly ignored U.S. opium due to its low quality, but the opium exported to Britain by Arnold was of high quality, and somewhat sizeable quantity.

So, is it realistic that in such a situation, the British Empire would've forceably tried to gain control over this importation (could this have happened in some way or another)? Or, would they not have cared about Arnold's operation?