I've Googled this question before, and it keeps giving me answers about Anschluss in the 1900's, but what I want to know is why Germany and Austria have been separate countries/"confederations" for hundreds of years despite being ethnic Germans who speak similar kinds of German and live in mainland Central Euroupe.

Hello! I'm Peruvian born, however, my parents immigrated to the United States, and as such my information about the history of Peru is limited to what happened prior to the immigration of my parents, and well of course they are heavily biased. I've tried looking for some books online but a lot of them seem to be geared towards backpackers or focus on the "Inca" and not any other Quechan ethnicity. I'm wary about the way the "West" views cultures like Andean ones (human sacrifice is always the headliner!). I would love to learn more about the country I left, although I know the history is vast, I'm eager to learn about as much as I can (I plan this research to be lifelong). I am incredibly interested in Tawantinsuyo and the different Quechuan ethnicities, as well as more modern history (1800-1980) and of course anything in between.

I'm definitely not opposed to Spanish-only sources! (but I really do prefer English sources as I grew up in the US!)

Thank you all so much!

I'm writing a Western set in the 1850s. In the year 1850, the main character travels from Britain to the US, and it is currently written so that he arrives in New Orleans. However, where he arrives is irrelevant to the plot and can be changed for realism without any issue. It seems like New York City might be more realistic from what I've gathered.

So, my question is, are there any records available showing the voyages from Britain to USA during the 1800s or 1850s? This particular voyage is happening during December, a month that can also be changed if needed. I know the ships required sufficient cargo to set sail.

If there aren't any records, could anyone tell me whether any boats did set sail in December, 1850, and where they docked? I don't need anything specific. If anyone were to tell me that the rate of ships travelling back and forth was like "3 per month" and "all ships docked in either NYC or Houston" (just an example), then that is enough info for me.

Hi,

Looking to build a better understanding of general world history, and see if any specific areas interest me further. I have virtually no prior knowledge (other than world war 2) and ideally I'm looking for something to ease me in and make reading about historical events enjoyable rather than dry and difficult. The 'For dummies' guide has a book but reviews are torn over whether it is comprehensive or not (which may be fine for me, but I won't know if it's missing overage on a particular region or era?) Any thoughts on a good/easy to read beginners guide would be much appreciated!

Why didn't the French, when helping the Americans with their revolution, attempt to stoke some sort of a similar revolution in what was, decades prior, New France? I've read it was a stark break between Quebec and France, and that the British governors of Murray and Carleton were actually very good to the French of Quebec, and there was reciprocal goodwill between the english rulers and the french subjects (so it might not have been a practicable attempt), but was there really no temptation in attempting that for the French? Surely it crossed their mind, right? Or was it something about how 1759 ended, or the correlation of forces in North America, that made them not even want to entertain the thought?

For example, a soldier died in the battle of Zamma and how would his family find that out

Working on a possible graduate level thesis. Hoping to do something related to a decade of music. Hoping this sub can help me with a few questions.

I’ve narrowed my idea to music in the 1990’s.

Was music in the 90’s more cynical/pessimistic/nihilistic than any other decade?

If so, was there anything cultural/political at the time that could have factored into this?

What other sources/factors could be responsible for this change in the thematic direction?

Are there any good readings/articles/etc that could help me in this search?

Sorry for such a loaded question. And sorry if this ends up being out of what this sub is about. I thought it could be worth a shot. Thanks everyone!

Republicans won the popular vote in every presidential election from 1968 through 1988 with the exception of the post-Watergate election in 1976 and even then they only lost by 2 points. Not only did they win, they won big with popular vote margins around 10% or higher in all of those elections except 68' and 76'.

Since then, Republicans have lost the popular vote every time except in 2004, which was only a 2 point win.

So it seems like there's a clear inflection point in the 1990s. What happened? Was there a particular group of voters that actually switched from consistently voting Republican to consistently voting Democratic? Was it driven by demographic changes? Something else?

I was thinking, with so much trade and shipping going around Italy (there in the mediterranean), there was an inordinate potential for organized criminal misdeeds. Is this one of the reasons organized crime thrived and became complex down to ranks etc in that region?

Or was there even more organized crime in Italy, is that just hollywood fiction?

Apologies if this isn’t really a question for historians, but I’ve most often seen it in relation to historical excavations of structures that were at one point on the “surface”, so I thought this might be a good place to ask!

So I need advice with researching for a upper level course paper. Specifically, a good order/process. I have really good secondary sources and several really good leads on primary sources to use. What I'm struggling with is figuring out a good system to take the detailed notes for a professional quality work of history.

The process I was using was going through the books and underlining key points. Then I figured I could go back through and find the important information for my research question and maybe make a list or something? This is where I am getting confused. I feel like this isn't a productive system. But idk.

What's stressing me out I guess is feeling that I'm either wasting time going through the books too much or that I'm missing a step. Like I want to be able to have my question, find some general survey books to read first then some articles and more specific deeper history books, these can help lead to primary sources, then with all the secondary and primary sources use the I can somehow record the important information, then somehow be able to see these details in a way that I can easily compare them to each other and use them to come to my own conclusions.

If my wording above is confusing basically I'm looking for if anybody has an order and process when approaching collecting the information and how to note it when approaching writing a history paper/work.

Thank you for any help given!

I am quite interested in various points in history where quite different cultures and/or religions came in contact and what came about because of that. One of the subjects of this that fascinated me was what kind of culture there came to be in the lands conquered by the crusaders in the period that they ruled them and I was looking to read further about this.

In a few books I've read that the Athenian/Delian League was a voluntary coalition of city-states.

However, when Naxos (and later Thasos) left the league, the league responded by attacking the city-state, tearing down their walls, removing their ability to have a standing Navy, and forcing them to continue paying taxes (without any voting rights in the league). Also, Athens who just so happened to be at the heart of the league, seems to have had a habit of using the treasury to finance Athens construction projects which calls into question how egalitarian the league truly was.

This leads me to my core question -- was the Delian League truly a voluntary coalition of city-states, or was it just an Athenian empire with clever marketing?

How well known was Tolkien in scholarly circles before publishing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings? How do academics view his contributions to philology and Anglo Saxon studies today? Does his fame rest solely on his literary achievements or would he be a noteworthy scholar even if he'd never written any fantasy literature? Thanks in advance! :)

I remember watching a “South Park” episode where Stan is perplexed about why we die eggs for Easter. And it got me thinking how did the Easter Bunny and Eggs get associated with the celebration of Christ?

We're a few days behind schedule thanks to the April Fools shenanigans, but better late than never!

I've always been curious what happens to artifacts that are discovered, but aren't of the teams interest. So let's say for example a site that has been occupied by Byzantines, Arabs and then Romans in Sicily finds multiple artifacts from those later eras but the team is only interested in Republican era settlements.

And a follow up question. Do teams ever did deeper than their projects aims. So let's say for example would a team that is interested in the Hellenistic era ever go down to the bronze age? Or are they only concerned with excavating down to a particular level?

I have taken some interest in my home state’s history lately, and I’m fascinated with how much territory the state lost in the path to statehood. This includes parts of Minnesota, the U.P, and apparently everything north of Lake Michigan that’s part of Illinois. The question arose when I tried to research why Illinois was granted 50 miles north into Chicagoland when becoming a state? Every source said that without that northern land Illinois threatened to become a southern supporting state, but that doesn’t make sense as its part of the North West Territory and thus couldn’t support slavery even if it wanted.

Do most scholars believe or disbelieve Bede's claim that Eostre was originally a German goddess? Assuming what Bede said is true, would most scholars agree that Wikipedia is correct in connecting Easter to an ancient Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess? Both this dawn goddess and Ishtar appear to be connected to Venus and the morning star. I have read Armenian mythology correlates both their own dawn goddess and Ishtar with Aphrodite. Is it possible this correlation precedes the Hellenistic era? A 2009 Bayesian analysis of Semitic histories identifies an origin of Semitic languages in the Levant around 3,750 B.C. Is that close enough for there to be a possibility that Eostre and Ishtar have the same root? “The Empire of the Amorites” (1919) by Albert Tobias Clay argued that the Mesopotamian gods originated from Anatolia. Has this idea since been dismissed and if not, is the idea in good standing?

Trying to find any records of spanish explorer describing them. Their relative docileness makes me wonder if they compare to lambs.