Fake Stuff Out At Discovery Channel, Promises New Chief Rich Ross

This comes on the heels of the Scicilian shipwreck they reported that may have the mythical orichalcum on board. They interviewed a retired physics professor for the article who believes that ancient Greeks discovered America and went to South America to mine metals for their orichalcum. Great job Discovery, great job.

Minor question:

I see "Habsburg" and "Hapsburg" used equally and sometimes interchangeably. Why is that, and is one more "correct" than the other?

Fun fact: Indonesia's first presidential car was an ill-gotten one.

Soekarno had just declared Indonesia's independence on August 17^th, 1945. Due to the conditions, nobody had the means to prepare a good car for the Savior.

Well, Soediro, Soekarno's adjutant didn't give up so easily. He knew the best car in Jakarta, a big Buick able to seat seven people, was owned by a Japanese who held position in the government railway office. He went to find the car in its garage, being attended to the driver, a native Indonesian.

Soediro without further ado demanded the keys from the driver, whom whether he obeyed from threats or high patriotism we never know, but at least Soediro got the car. The driver was given some money and asked to hide in the countryside, while the luxurious loot was taken to Soekarno's backyard.

One of my favorite anecdotes/jokes from my focus (American Civil Rights)

Two black men enter a whites-only restaurant and sit down.

The manager walks over and says "We don't serve negroes here"

The men respond, "Thats good because we don't eat them."

After a little break for the holidays, "Better Know an Historian" is back up and running! Our second installment features /u/thejukeboxhero! So make sure to check it out on the Tumblr.

As a pro wrestling historian, i really wish WWE would put out their entire video library on the WWE Network.

Or buy new ones like World of Sport

So, not sure if this is 100% relevant, and if it isn't please feel free to delete...

My friends and I have a podcast called "Frock Flicks" that is history-related. All three of us have credentials in various forms of history (myself, art and clothing history. The other two are general history and conservation, and literary history) but we focus our podcast on historical inaccuracy in movies. The podcast (and website) is not meant to be rigorously academic (and we are quite liberal with swear words, just in case anyone is easily put off with that kind of language), since this is what we do to blow of steam, but we do try to cite our sources, recommend reading, and generally try to point out where Hollywood takes a 180* turn from history.

If you're interested, check out the podcast here, and visit our website. We're gearing up for "Snark Week" next week on the website, where we unleash our pent-up historian rage at most of the low-hanging fruit Hollywood has given us in the last 10 years.

We also invite people to call us on our bullshit. Sometimes we talk like we know what we're talking about, but we don't... So educate us! Catch us in our own inaccuracies and let us know we are wrong! We love being corrected, because none of us are perfect. ;)

Remember the story that went around about the Oppenheimer transcripts last October? Well, here's my version of how I found them, six years ago. I had thought about publishing this somewhere else on the web, but editing it down to commercial-friendly-length proved a task I wasn't eager to do. Which is why one has a blog, I suppose! Anyway, Part I of the story contextualizes the transcripts and their creation, and explains the somewhat unorthodox archival work that went into finding them (and why I was looking in the first place). Part II, to be posted next week, will discuss what I think the newly release material tells us about Oppenheimer.

The link: Oppenheimer, Unredacted: Part I – Finding the Lost Transcripts.

Happy to answer any questions about it if you have them.

I'm catching up on questions that I missed over the holidays. So if you know of one I haven't gotten to yet that you think I might be able to answer, let me know. EDIT: I think I've got all the one's I know of, with one exception that I'll need to set aside some more time for later. I'm avoiding the tornado questions for now. We really need to prepare a decent stock answer for that someday. But it is not this day.

On a related note, I'm wonder if the good folk at AskHistorians might be able to help me hunt down a source. For the question Did indigenous North Americans brew any alcoholic beverages before European contact?, I wanted to discuss some little known north-of-Mexico alcohols. But I'm having a hell of time tracking down a source on a drink made from fermented honey locust pulp. The books I'm finding, going all the way back to encyclopedias from the mid-1800s, all generically say that it was fermented by unspecified Native peoples at an unspecified time, with no references to an ethnographic source. Not being able to find a source is driving me crazy.

I want to take a moment to discuss what life was like for the German people during WWII. This subject is often overlooked, especially here in the West.

The devastation of World War II created a series of long-term concerns, some of which linger through today. All of the combatants of the war felt they were fighting for valid reasons ranging from retribution for past wrongs, reclamation of territory, or the liberation of a conquered people. The final outcome is well known to anyone with the most basic concept of history, but the long term consequences to the human population which survived the war is more complicated. When the bombs finally stopped falling and the dust had settled, a new reality emerged; a world with a continent of people rebuilding from years of air raids, a new Cold War, and a burgeoning military-industrial complex.

To understand the long term psychological and economic effects on the German people it is important to discuss the destruction caused by four years of almost continuous bombing by allied warplanes. Early in the war when the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force was still working to rebuild itself from the devastating losses endured during the Battle of Britain, the bombing campaign against Germany was relatively light, that changed in early 1943 when the Americans began their daylight bombing raids on German targets (Biddle, 2002, p. 216).

The raids by American bombers were following what is known as the Pointblank directive which determined which targets would best destroy the German war machine (Biddle, 2002, p. 216). The directive directly named seventy six priority targets that British and American economists felt would be the most likely to slow down or stop the Germans from constructing much needed equipment (Biddle, 2002, p. 216).

On the ground the Germans had been handed a defeat at Stalingrad in early 1943, news of which trickled back to the citizens of Berlin causing some to begin questioning the effectiveness of Nazi leaders and the war in general. In an effort to contain this sudden increase in defeatism and pessimism the party began arresting those who demonstrated a poor attitude towards the war effort and holding propaganda rallies in an attempt to rekindle the enthusiasm once held by the German people (Beck, 1986, p. 38). Shortly after the final surrender of German troops at Stalingrad, Josef Goebbels gave a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast to a crowd of thousands of select individuals. The subject of this rally was to instill a new sense of duty in the German people, and to declare a Totaler Krieg or Total War against the allies (Beck, 1986, p. 38). Despite all of the party propaganda the truth was evident to everyone in Germany: they were losing the war.

Rationing had become more stringent and everyone, including high ranking party members, was beginning to feel the pinch. Houses which were under construction were ordered to be built with the cheapest materials and with the least amount of luxury possible (Beck, 1986, p. 45). New housing which was erected to replace what was lost to bombing raids were directed to be built in a dormitory style to accommodate as many people as possible (Beck, 1986, p. 45).

During this same time the bombing raids by the allies was becoming more effective and devastating. Earlier in the war people were not nearly as concerned about the constant drone of bombers overhead, but come spring of 1943 when the Americans had joined in, and the RAF had significantly more planes than before it all changed (Beck, 1986, p. 47). These bomb runs were made more accurate with the use of radar which allowed a more precise track to the target itself, and then back home again. In addition to this use of technology the British began using incendiary bombs against cities creating devastation at a level never seen before, and they were also targeting cities not previously on their target lists (Beck, 1986, p. 47). This ramped up effort by the allies to cause the most damage possible caused the German people to become war weary quickly, and the ruling Nazi party decreed more air raid shelters were needed (Beck, 1986, p. 47).

At war’s end, the destruction of many of Germany’s cities was complete with nothing to show there was once a rich historic heritage but a large pile of rubble where a city once stood. In many of these cities the only structures left standing were the air raid shelters and bunkers built by the Nazis during the war (Schmitz & Seidel-Arpaci, 2011, p. 59). Immediately following the war it was not uncommon for these shelters to be used as housing for families as their towns and cities were rebuilt (Schmitz & Seidel-Arpaci, 2011, p. 59). All of this would play into the Cold War in the years of reconstruction to follow.

Beck, E. R. (1986). Under the bombs: The German home front, 1942-1945. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.

Biddle, T. D. (2002). Rhetoric and reality in air warfare: The evolution of British and American ideas about strategic bombing, 1914-1945. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Schmitz, H., & Seidel-Arpacı, A. (2011). Narratives of trauma: Discourses of German wartime suffering in national and international perspective. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Edit: formatting errors

I am a new History teacher, and am looking for good lessons plans for my world history class. So, MWH teachers, where do you go to find your lesson plans?

Long Time lurker of this sub here.

I have a friend who is a classics major, specializing in roman history. I've been looking to get a good book for him as a present, but I'm sure he has read all of the introductory books and books on the recommended reading list.

So, I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for some quirky or niche roman history books I could get him?
I'd really love to find a book that is either humorous or wildly specific if possible.

So recently I had come across this Napoleonic War website. It seems quite extensive, but being non-expert, I am not sure how reliable the website really is. Can any flaired members here give your opinion on that site?

I'm starting my first undergraduate research endeavor in a few weeks with my professor of Native American History. What are your best tips for comprising the highest quality research?

Always wanted to ask this but wasn't worth a thread. Does anyone know of any documentaries or movies or books or something that shows some German military strategy's and moments of Tactical genius in ww2. You always hear of US or British impossible but pulled off raids or battles but i was wondering if Germany had any of those. I rarely hear of German successes in WW2 so always been interested.

Here's a quick question about the American Civil War. How did the defense of DC work? Did they just have soldiers along the river, or did they effectively occupy part of northern Virginia?

Man, I'd love to participate more now that I'm out of grad school, but people don't ask questions on hagiographies.

Anyone got any book recommendations?

I know there's a book list on the sidebar, but I'm looking for something a bit different: the kind of books that can make you enthusiastic about reading about history again.

So not necessarily the key texts, but history books that are both good quality and enjoyable to read.

So, when the Germans realized a bunch of rural farmers they thought were going to be pushovers could produce the T-34, they had a rude awakening.

What exactly was the German reaction to the M4 Sherman? I can't find anything on it other than the fact that they distributed information informing tank crews that the M4 Sherman was a threat to be kept at 800 meters or so, especially on flanks, and a single cable from Africa to Germany telling someone that the British were using a new American tank with, "excellent armor and a good gun."

That's it. That's all I can find. Even if it is an absurd joke like a propaganda film that compares the M3 Lee to the Panther, has anyone ever stumbled across some sort of documentation or report from the Germans about the M4 Sherman?

Doesn't really merit a whole thread so I'll ask it here: I'm an undergraduate history major, and I haven't found a good way to take notes on my reading. Any tips?

"The thing we most dislike about the Mormon faith would be having so many mothers in law" Spartanburg Journal (SC) June 1, 1918

In this week's Monday Methods - Limitations of Expertise, the subject of German attitudes & views to Aryan superiority & it's identity (amongst numerous amounts of propaganda) in WW2-Germany was brought up and I just wondered if there was any true in this?

Basically, my questions are What were the German attitudes to the Aryan Race, How did German reversals change the view of Aryan superiority (if it did at all), What identity did it have in Germany? What effects did the Aryan Race have on the German language? (if it did at all) Could anyone shed some light on this rather niche subject area?

Does anyone here have better insight on the London Stone threads I've been reading today?

Mostly lurk, but wanted to say that I very much appreciate how well that this subreddit is run. Not a lot of places on the internet allow common folks to pose questions to experts in their respective fields on a 24 hour-a-day basis.

I am a history buff, and wanted to say two things on two very different topics I have read on a few occasions:

(a) US Civil War Military Tactics: While it is true that the general staff on both sides-at least at the outset of the war - attempted and failed to emulate Napoleonic strategy (though these commentators acknowledge that that the USA and CSA lacked the resources to do so) seemingly little attention is paid to the inherent difficulty of applying these tactics to an era of railroad travel and readily available rifled weapons. The tendency, it seems, is to chalk it up to incompetence of the command staff, whereas the culprit is more likely disruptive technology. Much more mercy seems to be shown to the allied forces in WW I throwing human wave attacks against machine gun nests. Just saying...

(b) Would love to hear a little more about Latin American History. What I have seen tends to be pre-colombian. Lots of heroes and villains there that make for good copy. Topics to consider: Mexican Revolution; Bolivar, etc.

Either way, this is a first class, sub, and I am proud to be a long time lurker. Thank you for the considerable time that the mods have donated into answering our questions.

Ok, I'll bite does "finding an anecdote about the Doge of Venice telling a joke to Michel Foucault" actually reference something or is it just something ya'll thought up when writing this blurb?