I know people had asked this before but I kept on getting different answers "why not?" "They had more civilians" "No, they had more soldiers" "No, America is greedy and dumb" "No, there is a military base there" "No, there isnt any military presence" "It was good for the future landing like a japanese version of d day"

I need an actual answer to this because youtube isnt giving me the answers and they always repeat themselves and take a long time to explain everything i already know. Unless there is a video that explains why they were chosen please comment.

I noticed today a post expressing irritation that "historians" engage in LGBTQ+ erasure by refusing to acknowledge that various historical figures (or characters from historical literature) were "gay," etc.. I see posts like this a lot on reddit, and they're often reposting comments from other social media, so it seems clear there's a bunch of people out there who believe it's common that historians are participating in the problem of LGBTQ+ erasure.

Now, I know from reading this sub that:

a) Many historians are passionate about the history of sexuality and gender identity and are actively working to undo erasure in both popular conception of history and older historiography.

b) The history of sexuality and gender is complicated and it's rarely correct for a historian to simply say: "yup, this person was gay/lesbian/trans." Usually, the accurate answer is a lot more nuanced than applying a modern label, and sometimes "we can't really know how they identified or who they slept with" is true even if it's frustrating.

I'm sure it irritates actual historians that they get blamed for erasure when they contribute a lot to undoing erasure. But, it seems that those contributions aren't reaching a lot of people, and I'm sympathetic to the frustration expressed in these posts even if the blame is misplaced. If the nuanced answer feels like erasure, then something went wrong in the educational attempt even if it's the most accurate answer.

I'd like to know if historians have strategies for communicating that nuance while avoiding creating feelings of erasure.

As we all know, WW2 started when the German Reich declared war on Poland, and in return France and the UK declared war on the German Reich.

But interestingly, when the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East, the Allies did not bat an eye and did not declare war on the Soviets, what is the reason for that?

Was it because they couldn't afford a huge scale war with the Soviet Union, or was there an even bigger reason for that?

in every instance, nomads would adopt a different religion from the people they raided or ruled over

in Europe, the Golden Horde was Sunni while the Russians were Orthodox

in central Asia, the Timurids and other Turks were Sunni while the Iranian settlers were Shia

in eastern Asia, the nomads would be Buddhists while the settlers were Confucian

why?

in most cases of settlers migrating to conquer settlers, the conquerors would eventually adopt the religion of the conquered.

Khazars seem to have adopted judaism explicitly BECAUSE their neighbors were all either christian or muslim

Magyars adopted Christianity, but only AFTER they settled and became agriculturalists

At the end of the Napoleonic wars France was defeated and Britain was the only great power left with a large naval force, it seems like a perfect opportunity to seize the colonies of their rival. Places like the French antilles, their outposts in Africa, Pondichéry in India. But they didn't, in fact they even returned french colonies they had occupied during the war. Why so ? I doubt it was out of the goodness of their heart.

The title says it all. I just watched an old western and the protagonist (his name is Winnetou for all who know the books/films) who is a native American (of the apache tribe) always talks about himself and about people he talks with, for which we normally would use the 2. person, in the third person. I just wondered if they talked like this and if it is something that has to do with the way the apache or other native american languages work or if this is only fiction

Hi all,

I'm midway through James Mc Pherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom", I don't really have any historical training but I wanted to try to have a shot at writing an essay on the cause of the civil war, particularly focusing on John Brown's raid.

I was wondering if I could get some advice on how to write or have an original take on this without simply regurgitating what I have read.

Would greatly appreciate any advice.

There are some conflicting stories.

I’m on my phone so advanced apologies if there are any formatting issues.

Being a headsman seems to me like it would have been quite a specialised role that may have been reserved for someone with a reasonbly high status. Also I can’t imagine a kingdom needing a hude amount of executioners, so was it a sought after position?

What credentials would a person need to get the position? Would they have to be ex-military?

Also was it a high paying job?

Put simply, did they know it was going to turn green?

Watching WW2 films like 'The Pacific' and 'Band of Brothers', I got an idea of what kinds of souvenirs American soldiers scavenged off of enemy soldiers - e.g Flags, Japanese swords, and German Luger pistols. That gave me the thought of what kinds of things the axis soldiers found valuable. I'd guess they'd be similar things but came here to see if that was the case or not. Any ideas?

In the show "Vikings" we can see several vikings converting to Christianity during the time of their first raids on England and Frankia. How did their companions react to their change of faith if something like this happened at all?

In Europe from what i know its from around 500 ce to 1500 ce but i've heard that in japan for example the end of the middle ages was the abolition of feudalism so my question is do other different cultures have different time periods for the middle ages/did some cultures never have a so called middle age?

Hello Historians! I’m a public history undergrad, and I’ve just gotten an internship with my schools archives where I’ll be transcribing letters from some of the first westerners to explore Japan throughout what I think is the Meiji Restoration. The problem is, I’m a bit clueless on Japanese history and its early interactions with the rest of the globe.

I was wondering if any of you have some good recommendations for people who haven’t touched Japanese history, so I can get some context for my future work.

Thank you!

I’ve been reading up about Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge a good bit, but I’ve seen contrasting reports on what he wanted? Did he want socialism really, did he want to go back to a pre industrial era?

Recently, I was reading "The Battle of The Tanks," by Lloyd Clark, about the Battle of Kursk. Clark made a claim which intrigued me, that the average lifespan of a Russian tank crewman in combat was 3 months. Unfortunately, he didn't provide any citation for this claim. I've done some more reading, and haven't found any solid support for this claim, or good data about the Russian tankers in general.

I've read some claims (also unattributed) that the average lifespan of a Russian tank was 6 months after it rolled off the assembly line, or 14 hours in combat. Or that a US tank crew would generally last six weeks before being separated by at least one death or serious injury. There are some excellent memoirs on life as a British or American crewman. Unfortunately, I have found very little well-supported information on what life was like for a Russian tanker.

If I am a green Russian tank crewman in WWII, how long would I be likely to stay at the front? Would I be more likely to leave due to death, injury, or discharge? Would my life expectancy change drastically if I arrived at the front in 1941 vs 1945? Was crewing a tank be a desirable job, or might I have been coerced in some way? How much would I know about the casualty rate before I arrived at the front, and what was morale like? Would I have a comparable level of training to German tank crews?

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to any answers

Hi there,

I appreciate that German and Italian support for the Nationalists is well documented, and I’m aware that some Irish Catholics did travel to fight for Franco having been motivated largely in part by anti-clericalism amongst some Republican elements. However I’m wondering if many other foreigners, particularly any Britons or Americans, travelled to fight for the Nationalist cause?

Cavalry tends to be ineffective in history against a walled settlement, and an army of horse archers seems like it wouldn’t be effective against a group of infantry or archers in an enclosed space. Did the mongols simply recruit mercenaries, did they have their own infantry used in sieges, or is there some other tactic they used? Did the horse archers simply leave their horses and act as infantry?

They have a bibliography and footnotes but are they academic enough to cite in an undergrad essay?

The largest pyramids were all built by the old kingdom, did the later kingdoms still know how they were built? If not, assuming the old kingdom had archived "blueprints", could later kingdoms have read and understood them?