I am taking an introductory course on South Asian History and the professor was going over the origins of Indian Civilization, particularly the origin of the Aryans. The professor was very clearly in favor of the "Out of India" theory, as he said that the Aryan Migration theory was unfairly treated as dogma by the academic community, and one of the reasons he gave for this was that the Celtic Druids of Europe were descended from the Druhyus, a tribe from the Rigvedic period. Is there any evidence to support this, or is this just pseudohistory?

Hello! I study history in 11th grade and right now we're learning about the age of enlightenment. Last lesson my teacher asked us a question about why did France have the most philosophers during that period. I tried looking into it myself but haven't come up with a clear answer. So please help me answer this, thank you in advance :)

Like you obviously can’t leave the city, and as food supplies get lower and lower the people will begin to get restless for the siege to end. But what’s it actually like to live through that?

To simplify things, I’m only talking about pure blockade sieges, where the attackers choose to starve the city out and didn’t use any siege weaponry.

Initially posted a similar and lengthy post in r/TrueFilm. The post was up for all of 30 seconds before someone suggested (painfully obviously, I must admit) that the question would do better on this sub.

For those who love film and have a knowledge of this time period and location... how accurate is Martin Scorsese’s ‘Gangs of New York’?

Just watched The Dig. I know liberties must have been taken for the sake of making a compelling film, but it still left me with so many questions. For one, how did Mr. Brown immediately know the artifacts were from the Anglo Saxon period when at the time there were so many unknowns about that period of history? This was before carbon dating technology.

I've recently played an AoE2 campaign revolving around the Hautevilles and the Norman conquest of Italy. I know these games take a lot of historical liberties, so I scoured Wikipedia and found very little practical information as to how they actually managed to form an army capable of conquering portions of Italy in the first place. They make it seem like there was a gigantic Norman block party in Southern Italy and all of a sudden they were all unified and capable of conquering some pretty substantial powers, albeit deteriorating and divided.

I understand that they were preying on weakened states and playing off of rival lords / emirs as mercenaries, a common historical theme for conquering. What I do not understand is that usually this occurs with either a central state or a relatively close proximity. The Normans in this case have neither. For distances long as from Normandy to Sicily, you usually see it only with nomadic tribes, which makes sense considering the steppe but this isn't a great example due to the usage of boats. This was also prior to the crusades so it takes situations like the formation of Portugal out of the window.

My question boils down to this. How did a group of Norman mercenaries from the minor nobility find an army large enough to conquer all of southern Italy. Wikipedia and other sources make it seem like ~ a generation of Norman travelers to Italy was enough to field an army and conquer Italy. How many minor duke princes were there in Normandy? Thousands? Did they bring all of their money along with them and bolster their army with mercenaries, even though they themselves in the beginning were mercenaries? I'm just super confused as to how a people with literally only cultural and familial ties managed to conquer such a large area despite it being so far away from their homeland.

Hopefully I didn't make too many terrible assumptions / inaccuracies, and thanks for any responses.

Was it because returning soldiers were more quick to use violence? Or did the poor economy (itself a result of the government mishandling the reintegration of thousands of soldiers back into civilian life) cause white Americans over and over to choose violence out of fear that Black Americans were going to take their jobs?

And what about the association with Blacks and Communists? I have always been told the "Red" refers to both communism and the blood that was spilled.

Or was there something else there? Was the broader society just more tolerant/used to violence in general due in part to the extreme death toll of WWI?

I’ve seen maps where the Ottoman Empire expansion stops at present day Algeria. Did the Ottoman and Moroccans fight for territory or was there some sort of an agreement reached?

I brefely studied the functioning of the Roman state from the Monarchy till the Dominate in law school, and the Republic seemed "fair" tough I guessed that the senate would be a hive of corruption since it was salary free and all laws had to pass through them.But aside from that it wasnt like the more emotional descriptions from oposition that called the entire Republic a sham it seemed somewhat "nice".I also studied Cicero and its my understanding he pushed for ilegal executions.

I just started reading about Gorbachev. I mean we learned about the collapse of the Soviet Union in High school but never really got down to the meat and potatoes of it or the actual reasons aside from being told "Space Race, Arms Race, etc"

Doing a little digging and reading, I noticed from what it appeared to me, that Gorbachev was responsible for the collapse based on all the radical changes to the point where it seems he lost control of his country and the other republics he was in charge of sorta just collapsed from under him all wanting independent sovereignty as well as wars breaking out (esp between Armenia and Azerbijian which I now understand why this conflict is nothing new currently.)

My question is though, how did he get away with so much and why? I mean its just shocking to me, a country thats known for executing people on the spot just suddenly waking up one day to like, "Yeah, freedom of press sounds pretty decent, oh some elections!? GREAT!" It just seems like it was destined to happen give so much radical change going on, I don't understand how Gorbachev didn't expect this unless this was his goal the whole time.

Would a WWI/WWII sailor know shanties? Was it just an "Age of Sail" thing? My neighbor is a Gulf War Navy Vet, and they sure as hell didn't sing them.

I have read that in the mid to late 19th century that oak from America was in high demand as it's flexibility often deflected shot, but have also heard about the carnage on-board a ship of war during this period. Surely a standard first rate ship of the line equivilent would lose much of its fighting capability after taking the first broadside? Is this true and what generally ended up happening during a long engagement?

I'm doing a pandemic rewatch of "Outlander" and Claire's red court dress and "Batsuit" zipper got me wondering about the differences in time cost and materials needed for the two dresses. For the Batsuit, Claire had access to a sewing machine, pre-made zippers, and patterns. Would the seamstress (seamstresses?) who would have made her red court dress (which is to say court dresses of that era, not that particular dress per se) use shortcuts? Things like pre-dyed and cut pieces? Or assistants who helped with sewing? Also, the Batsuit took Claire a few days. How long would it take to make a court-worthy gown?

In the early 20th century there was a wave of peasant revolts across the world - the Zapatistas in Mexico, the peasant revoltes in Russia during their revolution, and in Egypt in their 1919 revolution... Probebly there are many causes for this kind of events, but I wonder if any connection has been made to the use of Nitrates for weapons in World War I, witch could have deplited the supply of Nitrates as fertilizer.

As far as I know most of the America’s were all colonized around the same time period, and for the purpose of conquering and colonizing land and using it to the European’s profit. I’m curious why indigenous peoples in Canada and the US today have practically no part in popular culture, very little land or power, and have lost a lot of their history and culture, but in Mexico and South America, Aztec/Mayan culture as well as people of indigenous heritage have a lot of say and power. I know there is racism towards darker skinned people, and that white hispanics have often had more power and wealth, but people of indigenous heritage are the majority in most countries, and a lot of aspects of the cultures has continued on. A lot of traditional Aztec food is still alive as ‘Mexican food’ and quite a bit of people in southern Mexico/Central America still speak those languages along with Spanish. I know they were conquered and had their land and culture taken, but why did they have such a different outcome compared to the natives of the US and Canada?

I was watching a rerun of the 1950’s game show “What’s My Line” where a celebrity panal has to guess the occupation of a random contestant. In one episode, a man with a trimmed beard comes in—his beard was well-kept and cut close to his face. Still, it surprised me when the judges guessed his occupation to be something like a big-game hunter, or a lumberjack, or several similar occupations, and they alluded to his beard to justify their guesses. (I saw this episode a few months ago...I would link it if I could find it).

It also seems that no US president has had facial hair since Taft. That’s over a century of smooth-faced presidents! Which is interesting seeing as many presidents from the late 19th century had very long beards.

I was just wondering if anyone could talk about the different attitudes regarding male facial hair throughout the history of the United States, why it changed, when it changed, and also (perhaps this isn’t the job of a historian but) why the clean-shaven look is still seen as more professional or presidential even when attitudes in other areas of the culture have relaxed.

I’m trying to write a graphic novel about the puritans , witches, and mental illness. But I’m struggling to keep certain aspects accurate, and the time period confusing and conflicting key details i want to add. :(

What was the day to day life like for a Puritan girl? (Middle class) and a boy?

What was the local government like in a small town setting? (I know there were three types of colonies, but just a general overview of day to day government?)

What was a town meeting like for the church elders?

At what point was hair allowed to be exposed (or have more exposure without punishment and fines? Could they let loose at some point at home?

Were freckles regarded as witch marks? What about scars? Did anyone with a birthmark get slain because of this indication of witchcraft?

How often would town members in government do corrupt things?

Would it be considered odd for women to marry men older then them? (By ten years? )

Was the government body (like constable? Clerks?) and the church one and same? What if there was a murder, who would be sent to investigate? How would this work?

I wanted to make the setting earlier, as the main character’s mother was supposed to be one of the last tobacco brides, but i want the freedom to be able to draw hair and other things... I’ve gone through so many websites that I’m overwhelmed trying to cross reference stuff and would love help!!

And does anyone have sources in media I could refer to? (Like “The Witch”) I have so many questions and i didn’t realize even after 8 months of researching and taking messy notes that i could still be asking the same questions and over complicating this for myself.

I’ve been reading Rick Perlstein’s series and something he keeps mentioning is that backlash to civil rights was causing enormous numbers of Northern and Midwestern white workers who normally voted consistently for pro-labor left-wing Democrats to suddenly sympathize with right-wing candidates like Barry Goldwater and even far-right segregationists like George Wallace.

In Before the Storm, Perlstein cites several highly alarming polls from 1964 showing overwhelming support for Goldwater and Wallace from factory workers and union members in several Northern and Midwestern states.

But Goldwater did get completely crushed in the election, possibly the largest landslide in US history. I can’t see how Johnson could have done that well if such a huge portion of the normal Democratic base had abandoned the party. Were those polls just anomalies? Did most white workers actually stick with the Democrats despite narratives about “backlash”? Were these union members only a particular minority of the broader working class, not a representative sample?

Who exactly, in terms of race and class demographics, were the voters who stuck with the Democrats all through the 1964, 1968, and 1972 elections? And who were the ones who switched so that 1968 and 1972 turned out so poorly for Democrats?