Hello r/AskHistorians! Way back in September, I asked for some off the beaten path historical sights for my vacation in Italy. (Original link: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2hj0ri/friday_freeforall_september_26_2014/ckt43ep)

Among the many great suggestions, the city of Ravenna stood out. First, because I had never heard of it; and second because it was great for our schedule. After some research, the wife and I scheduled a night in Ravenna between Florence and Venice.

IT WAS WELL WORTH IT. The Ravenna mosaics are truly breathtaking. Ravenna was one of the highlights of a glorious 21 day trip that I would have surely missed if it wasn’t for this community.

Once again, thank you!

Below are a few pictures of the mosaics that do not do them justice. All mistakes and bad pictures are on me!

http://imgur.com/a/Qvmnv

This week on Better Know An Historian, it's hometown hero and Mesoamerican archeologist /u/Mictlantecuhtli, who shows us his tumblr and intimates about doing fieldwork using his “guachi sense” magic powers...

Oh hey, I'm featured in the Better Know an Historian this week.

For the Ottawans and locals to that area, the Canadian History Museum (formerly the Museum of Civilization) is hosting a micro-exhibit on artifacts recovered from the HMS Erebus, one of Franklin's lost ships. It only runs until May 18th, so go fast!

And on the "minor complaints about my reading materials" front, why are we using random Latin conjunctions in English language material? It's driving me up the wall, because I never studied Latin (though not for lack of trying, but that's a different story). So here I am reading about the perpetually confusing question of post-Covananting religion in Scotland when I am abruptly hit with a single italicized Latin word, on which understanding of the sentence hinges. This is maybe my translator's bias coming out a bit, but shouldn't the goal be to communicate your ideas simply and clearly?

Finally got my grades back after two weeks, got all A's and a B+, with the latter coming in an extremely arduous Medieval Europe 500-1500 class, finishing with a 3.78 GPA, first semester on the Dean's List! So happy my summer of research, reddit, and work can finally begin! :)

Currently reading Richard Holmes' Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front 1914-1918. I'm nearly finished with it and it's been a fantastic read so far. Highly recommended.

One part that had me laughing quite a bit (and this was while I was on public transit so looks were exchanged as a result) was this anecdote given by Holmes about the sort of language and slang used by British troops that comes from a Belgian priest in the village of Dickebush.

The parish preist of the Belgian village of Dickebush was frankley puzzled by it all. 'I have looked it up phonetically in my little English dictionary (fahke),' he wrote,

"And I find, to my surprise , that the word 'fake' means false, unreal, or not true to life'. Why the soldiers should refer to us in this way is difficult to understand, and yet everywhere one hears talk of 'fake Belgium' and 'fake Belgians'."

I'm sure everyone here can guess the actual word this Belgian priest was confused by.

I'd also like to think it partially inspired the 'FUBAR' joke from Saving Private Ryan, mostly because as a clueless 7th grader, I asked my German teacher if he knew what the word meant. He was clueless as well.

Was the National party of South Africa so anti-English they the even reduced the amount of allowed European migration? Was reading the altrentive history forum and foud this

Another potential PoD is for the National Party not to be so anti-English in outlook and obsessed with Afrkaaner purity meaning that instead of restricting immigration after 1948 they make a big effort to attract European immigrants. This means another few million more whites whuch gives the state the manpower to keep things going for longer. Was Natinol party this stupid?

I come home from Kazakhstan today! Woo! And sad to leave, but I've been missing my family and have had just about enough horsemeat.

Hey everyone, I wondered if anyone knew anything about how sexual education was taught during Nazi Germany & how this compares to the divided germany(ies) of the cold war? I read from Wikipedia's Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust that:

Lesbians were not widely persecuted under Nazi anti-gay laws, as it was considered easier to persuade or force them to comply with accepted heterosexual behaviour.

How did the Nazi's go about persuading lesbians to switch to heterosexual practices?

I've also read that during the 1920's & 30's Japan (under Taisho) was heavily influenced by Russia & their ideology, how true is this? How did it happen? Did Japanese ideology ever influence Russia at all? Thanks :)

Hi historians.

I've heard that The Mexican War was a "civil war prequel" of sorts because we get to see the big names from the civil war as their younger selves (and on the same side, of course).

Seems like nobody talks about the Mexican war. Why? Is it insignificant? Underrated? What's the deal?

Tell me some neat things about it and where I could learn more if I wanted to do some independent reading.

Thank you for your time.

Damn it, I should add some books to the book list, because I have books I want to share! Unfortunately, I know the mods are working on overhauling the list, and I've been putting it off until that's up. DAMN IT.

I'll probably go over the book I'm currently reading, Shanghai Modern, in more detail tomorrow, on the Saturday reading thread, if I even remember to do it. I have the memory of a fucking goldfish, but I really really want to talk about this book!

(I have a quiz on it next week, but that is not affecting my judgment right now.)

I stumbled across a "historical novel" written by a Chinese journalist some years after the Cultural Revolution (1984 according to the cover of the translation, even though I suspect it has been written a little bit earlier) in a used book store, so I bought it. It is supposed to tell the life of one of Emperor Puyi's concubine, Li Yuqin. Of course, the history of Puyi, Empress Wanrong, life in Manchukuo, and then the life after the war, are described. According to the book, it is based on the memoirs written by Pu Yi and Li Yuqin.

Of course, it is propaganda, and that's very interesting. It follows exactly the narrative written by the Party, of the evil Pu Yi who sold his soul to the Japanese to protect the Manchu because he hates Han Chinese, but then, thanks to the Party and the reeducation camps, he became a better man who embraced and followed the ideal of the proletarian revolution. As far as Li Yuqin is concerned, the revolution allowed her to really be herself, and not the doll of the emperor anymore, and that made everybody so happy. Her family, Pu Yi, the people, all are so grateful to Mao in this book. The only who have problems with the Revolution are the family of Pu Yi, who are still reactionnaries who just want their privileges back.

It is the first time I can actually hold a real propaganda novel in my hands, and I hope I will find other ones one day or the other. Of course, I would not recommend reading that kind of book to someone who doesn't already have a solid knowledge of Chinese history, but that's a very interesting experiment.

Since it is the summer, I switched my blog update schedules to Mondays. This Monday I posted one of my favorite archival finds of all time, a security report about the dangers of a famous European scientist who didn't heed American traffic regulations, as part of my investigation into: "What did Bohr do at Los Alamos?"

In this thread about Roman slaves, there are so many removed comments. What's that about?

Starting project two (finished the first book) on a completely unrelated topic--does anyone have any advice on how to start over in a new theoretical field (moving from history of popular music to history of disability). It seems scholars could move from field to field much easier before specialization created move solid lines between different fields.

I have been playing Attila Total War and I would love to find some interesting books about the early Saxons and the Eastern Roman Empire. Any suggestions?

Is it just me are does this Wikipedia page need some help:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonies_in_antiquity

What did the south African commission mean by "loss of personality" for all racial groups.?

From Wikipedia

The United Party government began to move away from the rigid enforcement of segregationist laws during World War II.[23] Amid fears integration would eventually lead to racial assimilation, the legislature established the Sauer Commission to investigate the effects of the United Party's policies. The commission concluded that integration would bring about a "loss of personality" for all racial groups. What exactly did they expect to happen , most likely white people would have been adsorbed into the black population but Afrikaans and English would still be highly pouplar.