I imagine they couldn't conquer too far north due to the extreme conditions.

I’m looking for details on what service ribbons, medals, and whatever else my great grandfather might’ve had on his uniform. I’m also looking for other regimental and individual history that may be available for him and what weapons he might’ve been issued in hopes of collecting them. His name was Giovanni Battista Parenti, but many of his records are just Battista Parenti or Gio Battista Parenti. He was born 3/5/1893 in Castelvecchio di Compito in Italy and emigrated to the United States (specifically Michigan) in August 1911. I know from previous research that he was in the US Army’s 4th Division, 39th Infantry Regiment, Company I until June 26, 1919 when he was transferred to the 47th Infantry Regiment, Company F and sailed home on July 16, 1919. His enlistment date was 9/20/1917 and his discharge date was 8/4/1919. His service number was 2 022 796. I have read The History of the 39th U. S. Infantry During the World War book and it was a great resource to help investigate what records I could find. I don’t have his DD-214 yet. I put in a request for records, but they are currently closed due to COVID. His son, my grandfather, just turned 88 in January and I’m trying to gather these things to give to him for his birthday. His dad didn’t really share much about his time during the war with him so what I have revealed to him so far has blown his mind. Thank you for your time in reading this, regardless of outcome! I appreciate every one of you.

Edit: I know a company panoramic photo exists, but I can’t seem to find a copy of it. Assistance with that would also be incredible!

When WWI ended what would have been done to the trenches and No Man’s Land areas? Did everyone just walk away and abandon them? Would the respective governments have buried them? Cleared them? Left nature to deal with it? Would private landowners be left to deal with it?

Sorry of the wording isn't right, english isn't my first language.

Basically, I am writing a paper and obviously I need to write a bit about the historiography. What is already known, what theories are there, etc. But, like, there are no theories? All of the articles and papers I found about the subject are just describing what happened without much question or theorizing. And also they all basically agree on pretty much all the points of what happened. The whole point of my paper is actually to fill this gap by focusing on the Why of the situation and what may have influenced the situation.

But it leaves me with issues writing the historiographic part because non of the how tos seem to account for this issue.

(I should note this isn't just me sucking at researching, there is not a lot of literature on my topic and the whole subgenre(?) has issues with this.)

Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask this. I looked through the wiki and I think it's fine, but if not I apologise.

I'm currently reading The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy by Peter H. Wilson. In Chapter 3 Casa d'Austria under the section Estates and Confession he writes (my emphasis added):

Noble representation was through the possession of qualifying manorial estates associated with a seat in the Estate's assembly, or diet (Landtag). Nobles comprised around 1 per cent of all Austrians, slightly more of Bohemians and around 5 per cent of Hungarians, but collectively acted as 'the country', speaking for their dependant tenants and serfs who were denied any direct participation.

The figure of 1 in 20 Hungarians being nobles seems intuitively to be extremely high. What did it mean to be a noble in Hungary, and why were there so many Hungarian nobles in comparison to Austria and Bohemia?

What would be the typical wealth and power of the lowest-tier of Hungarian nobility, and how would this compare to a bottom-tier Austrian or Bohemian noble?

I imagine there must have been a few islands here and there that were missing from the map until then

So, it turns out I don't know anything about the history of Black History Month itself. I sort of assume it came out of the Civil Rights movement, but who exactly was pushing for it, and what kind of pushback did they receive by those who opposed it?

From what I read the Austrian Empire had controlled large amounts of territory from Eastern Europe and Balkans in addition to Italian Peninsula. My question is how was the Austria-Hungarian economic relations with their colonies? How much wealth and resources did they gain and control? Moreover was their colonialism considered as ruthless as British, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Netherlands?

The distribution of the seats in the Volkskammer was predetermined by the National Front, an "alliance" of political parties that was completely controlled by the SED, and the only "right" people had to vote was either to agree to the list (which 99%+ of people did) or disagree. The composition of the Volkskammer was essentially static through the whole existence of the DDR.

What was the purpose of the minor parties when it would be immediately clear to anyone that the SED was in charge? Why would someone join a minor party? Was it a good move, career-wise, to be in a minor party, or was it politically risky? Especially parties like the LDPD which combined with the FDP after re-unification, as a liberal and anti-communist party, surely some of the members were suspect?

I’ve read multiple times that there was quite a lot of controversy with this referendum. Is there any evidence to support rigging?

I have read claims that the "native religion of Japan" that is nowadays referred to as Shinto is largely a modern invention, a recent bricolage cobbled from ancient mythological literature and local folk beliefs chiefly to be put at the service of a nation-building effort centered around emperor-worship. How would you rate that statement? If true, are contemporary practitioners of Shinto aware of that fact? Would a 19th-century kami-worshipping Japanese peasant likely describe themself as a Shintoist?

I follow a Twitter channel that live tweets news from the First World War. We've now reached the end of the war, and there are pictures of all the barbed wire that —of course— now needs to be cleaned up. It occurred to me just how many men and machines it would take to repair the damage done from the English Channel to the borders of Switzerland. Can someone tell me more about that process? Thanks very much!

Not all deities of course, just specific ones like Krishna, Vishnu, etc.

I like many people have a very specific image of Aboriginal Australians, which to be honest has mostly been influenced by Crocodile Dundee. The idea revolves around people in the outback of Australia living in arid areas. Australia however is huge with a deverse geography of mountains, coastal areas, forests and more. The different areas must have surely created different cultures but I have no idea what they are, so how did they differ?

I was reading some materials about Ancient Rome and it mentioned how a significant number of slaves were actually owned by the Roman state.

I’ve never heard of slaves in America being considered the property of anything but individuals, but I became curious if there were any recorded instances of slaves being owned by local or state governments, businesses (rather than the business owners), or even non-profits like colleges. I cannot imagine it was common if it did exist, but if it did, are there are especially interesting or representative examples.

I checked the FAQ to see if this question had been previously addressed, but didn’t see anything.

I hope this question isn't too broad and too NSFW. I'm interested in sex workers and the role they play in espionage organizations. Operation Midnight Climax seems to be one of the only known examples of the CIA employing sex workers (that I found at least). However, I'm curious about further reading on this topic - how did it get started in the US/CIA? Are there other known operations that employed sex workers? Have any of these sex workers given interviews recently? How did they pick out the sex workers and what training did they get?

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(As an aside, if anyone wants to DM me with other examples of sex work+espionage in history, please do so. I'm looking for as much info as I can get on the subject)

I don't know where the best place to post this question is, but I have a burning curiosity to know, how come, since Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was one of the few who actually had the gall to speak out against the system and not only that, but publish critique about it, how come he wasn't shot?

So, I've been reading about the Japanese preparations for Pearl-Harbour and their strategical plans for the coming war and I've found out that they were planning to have two separate main line battles against the British and the Americans in order to secure the Pacific. Since I am not really familiar with the naval military history, this approach struck me as anachronistic and outdated by the experiences of the WWI and the technological developments in the Interbellum. And retrospectively we can say that this strategy indeed was wrong, since the Japanese were never able to secure the Pacific despite the initial advantage in line battleships and heavy aircraft carriers.

There were the following evidence suggesting the ineffectiveness of this approach that were available in the 1930-s:

1. The experience of Anglo-German confrontation in the North sea during which the opposing sides have basically played hide-and-seek game fleeing from the stronger or even enemy and pursuing only the weaker enemy force. Even the Battle of the Jutland has partially happened because the British have underestimated the size of the German force. The lesson of this experience is that it was almost always possible to avoid the all-out fleet-on-fleet battle against the stronger enemy and imposing such a battle on your weaker adversary was almost impossible.
2. The Battle of Jutland itself despite the enormous amounts of resources sunk into the fleets was completely indecisive and didn't bear any results for either sides.
3. The development in radars, communications, naval aviation and transition from coal to oil engines in 1920-1930-s has only facilitated the ability to avoid the enemy fleets and to conduct unrestricted naval warfare with light warships, aviation and submarines.
4. The geopolitical position of Japan did not really afford any possibility to impose the main battle: the American mainland and vital British colonies did not have any points vulnerable to the Japanese naval attacks that were so vital that the Allies would be ready to commit all of their forces and sacrifice their entire fleet against the superior Japanese navy. While Malaya, East-Indies and Malacca strait were important their loss did not lead to the fall of Australian and American resistance.

Retrospectively we also know that the Americans were indeed able to avoid the main battle until they have constructed enough ships for themselves and wore down the Japanese to be superior to the IJN and then they've pressed this advantage and imposed the battle against the weaker Japanese in Leyte Gulf. Also, for someone who lives in 2021 and is familiar with the land side of the WWII history the line battleships as an entire class seem to be the gigantic resource sinks that were too precious to be readily committed by the navies and therefore were almost never effectively used by the navies.

So I have two questions:

1. Why was this strategy chosen by the Japanese and enormous amounts of resources continued to be committed to the line battleships and heavy carriers? Were they just blinkered by their successes at Tsushima, lacked experience of European WWI and too inflexible to see that the conditions of 1941 were very different to those of 1905 or there were some solid arguments in favour of this approach and the decision was made upon rational reasoning? I suspect the latter and that the reasoning was that Japan was in such political and economic constraints that waging any other kind of war was not an option. But since I am no expert in naval history or the Pacific theatre, I would like for someone with expertise in the field to either confirm or refute this hypothesis.
2. Was this a uniquely Japanese thing or were the navies of other countries entering the WWII with the same pre-WWI strategy in place?

Please keep in mind that I am relatively unfamiliar with the naval side of the military history, so if this question seems silly for someone who is well-versed in the topic, please be kind to the newbie:) Also, sorry for my English, I am not a native, I've proofread it, but there still might be some typos and mistakes here and there.

Editing in a follow-up question: so my understanding is that Homer is generally accepted to be a kind of mythic stand-in for the oral tradition, but these non-Homeric Epics are attributed to other writers, like to Stasinus or Arctinus of Miletus. Were these writers historical or legendary figures?

I understand that it was taken away in order to punish Germany, but didn’t it originally belong to the Bohemian crown?

I’m basing this off of the fact that it starts off as a bohemian vassal state in EU4. I also know that not long after the starting date of EU4, Bohemia fell into a PU with Austria, and Silesia was incorporated into their territory. So, the Bohemians (or the Czechs) are the last non-German owners of the territory.

The allies took away a bunch of territories formerly owned by the kingdom of Prussia and gave them to their pre-Prussian owners. I understand why Prussia (the territory) went to Poland, since the Teutons didn’t really exist anymore, so Poland was only other country it could’ve gone to.

But if Silesia had to be taken away, why was Poland chosen as the recipient, when they hadn’t owned the territory since a very long time, and a country with a better claim existed?