First off, I appreciate that this may be an understandably sensitive topic for some, and I apologise if my language is insensitive at any point.

My understanding is that the advent of new psychiatric medications and the huge costs associated with running residential institutions holding people with mental health problems and developmental difficulties led to a political drive to close these institutions and care for the people previously held in them 'in the community'. As far as I can tell it seems to have progressed at varying rates in most 'Western' countries, with the majority of most large long-stay institutions being closed. Indeed now it seems to be a generally held consensus, both in general public discourse, politics and clinical thinking that it would not be appropriate for institutional 'care' of this sort to be the default option.

I'm interested whether, when deinstitutionalisation was nascent and moving forward, were there any significant movements arguing against it? Was it objected to on political, economic, social or clinical grounds? Were there ever any meaningful movements or groups advocating for 're-institutionalisation'?

It's Mid-May 1945, I am a 35yr old Jewish Doctor. I’m in Southern Germany and am just now coming out of hiding. I miraculously was hidden in my hometown, in Southern Germany. My town was largely unscathed by the war and Americans are roving our town. I've been told by my hosts that my former house is still standing, though a German couple moved into it during the war.

• How do I get my house back?
  • What's the legal process to reclaim my home?
• Is it possible for me to find out what happened to my relatives?

Furthermore, apparently the title of Emperor was the only title that would be considered equal to or just slightly below that of the Pope himself. Is there evidence for this claim to? I know that there were times where the Holy Roman Emperor appointed their own Popes, but in general were the titles of Emperor considered equal to or just below that of the Pope.

Also, this is mostly from a European context as evidenced by talking about the Holy Roman Empire. Feel free to give information about any other region as well!

I've read somewhere that the various colonies (some more than others) may have been more expensive to maintain than they contributed to the french and british economies. Is there any truth to this? Were the colonial empires as a whole a net loss, or only some colonies, or none at all?

There has been a reemergence of various synth-music after in the later decade (all the -waves), some of them being themed with nostalgia for the Soviet Union or/and space exploration, often dubbed sovietwave, spacewave, space disco, space synth etc.

That made me curious about some of the "original" music inspiring this, especially in, and during, the USSR. I'm thinking of artists like Zodiac/Zodiaks (Зодиа́к) or Forum (Фо́рум), and probably a lot more. Was this a popular genre or an underground thing? In what contexts would people listen to it? How was it regulated or promoted?

I'm mostly just curious of the context to the reemergence of this music and why it's considered so "nostalgic" now. And, in general, i am curious about popular music in the late soviet union.

Firstly, I would like to mention that I do believe that the Tiananmen Square Massacre happened.

I often encounter 2 contradictory arguments supporting the PRC:

1. The massacre was a Western fabrication.

2. Western media twisted the story of a violent revolt into one of peaceful protesters being crushed.

Where can I find a trustworthy source on this? And how can I be sure that my sources are not tainted by either pro- or anti-PRC agenda?

I would assume that the discovery of a place as strange to them as Newfoundland would spread far and wide.

I don't want this post to seem like an "aha told you there were white slaves" kind of thing, I am just genuinely curious if white slaves existed in the CSA. I hypothesize that there were simply because the more slaves you have = the more money you make, however I haven't been able to research this very well

Hello, I did a brief search in this subreddit for something like this, but couldn't find it, so apologies if it's been asked before. Wondering what books are out there that are good to read about them, how they did what they did, and so on. I've heard of Howard Zinn's book, but also heard mixed feelings about it, so thought I'd see what are considered good texts to read. edit: particular from the 1910s to 1930s, but also if the book extends to other times, or is just very good and in another time, that's nice too.

I was doing some reading about the Paris Commune which led down to the rabbit hole of looking at the uniforms of the Prussian force and the French army. The Prussians generally had a grey/navy blue uniform while the French had more colorful uniforms. I imagine that the more colorful uniforms would draw unwanted attention, so did the uniforms have if any on effect the outcome of the war?

I’m trying to find good audiobooks on a few topics to listen to while I work. I’m interested in: the Cold War, Korean War, the Vietnam war, and/or books on the American wars in the Middle East. I would prefer books to cover a broad part of the subject as opposed to a personal recount of someone’s own experience but if you have a good recommendation, I’m all ears.

Basically what would people say was "Worse than Hitler" before Hitler.

One of the things I struggle with is the idea that we're living through history, yet at the same time I look at how polarized everything is and wonder how it would even be remotely possible to write any kind of textbook relating to stuff going on today, since dozens of millions of people will completely reject the chosen version of events no matter how you write it.

Then I'll remember that stuff like Vietnam was extremely divisive, and yet historians seem to have processed those events just fine. How did they do it? Did they just pick their "stances" and make their cases, knowing that future generations wouldn't be personally involved and reject them out of hand, or was there some kind of process to create objectivity?

I have read about the timing of Columbus’ voyage and how it coincides with the 1492 Sephardic Jewish Diaspora stemming from the Spanish Inquisition... where basically, if you were Jewish, you were forced to convert (known as “Conversos”), leave immediately or die. It is also interesting that Palos de la Frontera, the port city that Columbus set sail from, was well known to be one of the mass exportation ports for Jews who chose to “leave”.

So, same time, same place.

It just seems like the notion that he was Jewish or a “Converso” makes a lot of sense to me. We know that Luis de Torres, his navigator, was born a Jew but had converted shortly before the expedition; other Conversos, Luis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez, had a hand in the financing; and two Jews (I can’t see to find what happened to them) Abraham Zacuto and Joseph Vecinho, provided technical expertise that helped Columbus navigate the ocean.

Does anyone have any historical insight here? I am not looking for any religious or anti-religion zealots to get on their soap boxes here. Any actual perspectives would be much appreciated.

I've been very interested in the Battle of Tarawa and how it was such a small island in the Pacific campaign and how much life was lost taking an island that small. The battle took only 3 days and over 1000 US Marines and around 4500 Japanese soldiers lost their lives on a slice of land not much bigger than central park. I've heard the airfield on the island was what he US wanted but why couldn't other tactics capture it? Could the US have bombed the airfield to the point where Japanese could not launch airplanes and build a new airfield on a nearby island? Could the US just have bombed the island for days until anyone on there was pretty much dead or surrender? Why didn't they bypass it and move onto an island closer to their targets?

For example growing food within the walls

Obviously its a work of fiction but having played assassins creed valhalla you get to see two different sides to the norse invaders. The obvious raiding and pillaging but also forming alliances and integrating with the local saxon communities.

As someone who lives in the east of England you can see even today the influence the vikings had, for example street names with the word "gate" and town/village ending in "by" or "thorpe" etc. Even our days of the week and based on norse mythology and how we celebrate christmas is heavily influenced by their yule celebrations. Surely they wouldn't have had such an influence if they were just raping and pillaging? Surely they had to integrate with the Saxons and share cultures with each other including many vikings converting to christianity (please correct me if this statement is wrong)

When reading about the January 28th Incident and the Battle of Shanghai there are mentions of Japanese soldiers stationed in the city before the outbreak of hostilities and I have a few questions about those soldiers. Why were they there? Were they stationed in the International Settlement or did Japan have concessions in the city? How long had they been stationed there and were there any agreements between Japan and China regarding their presence?

I've always wondered what the European view was on how long the Crusader States would last. Did they think they were going to last for a long time or be sort of doomed to fail? How much stock did the standard European lord or monarch put in the crusader states longevity?

Did sundown towns like in lovecraft country exist?

Lately I've been doing a lot of reading about 13th century China, particularly the events surrounding the Mongol conquest of the Song and the events leading up to it. Full disclosure, the reason I am doing this (besides interest!) is that I'm going to be running a historical fiction d&d campaign set in this period. Since this isn't for any official academic purposes I'm not super concerned about accuracy, but I do want to be as accurate as I can for the sake of my own understanding of the period.

To get to the question, I've been able to find and read a fair number of nonfiction books about the period, but I was wondering if it would be of any benefit to look into some historical fiction books? I thought that as long as I am viewing them critically, reading a historical fiction book or two might help me get some sense of the "feel" of the period that could augment my understanding of the nonfiction I have read. I also thought reading some fiction might help guide my further research by at least helping me figure out what to look up (for example, I'm struggling to find good resources on how the Yuan Jiaochao and Song Hauzi currencies actually functioned in day-to-day transactions).

Obviously it depends on the authenticity of the book in question, but in general what do you think? Can good historical fiction, used alongside nonfiction, can have a place in amateur research? Or is it a perception-poisoning pitfall to be avoided?