Found this interesting story while reading John S. Brown’s Draftee Division: The 88th Infantry Division in World War II

In those early days of the mobilization, the appearance of new draftees varied not only because of ethnicity and physique, but also because of age. Along the dusty road to Camp Gruber, forty-four year old Pvt. William S. Frederick, Sr., encountered his own son, twenty-year-old Pvt. William S. Frederick, Jr. Both were taxicab drivers from Olean, New York; neither had dependents, and both had been snapped up by their local draft board.

I found this disarmingly tender family anecdote while reading through some of Hannah Newton's work on Early Modern illness and treatment:

Caleb Vernon, who we encountered earlier, was ‘very much eased’ and ‘pleased’ upon hearing his father's ‘expressions of affection’ for him during his illness. When he found himself ‘inclining to melancholy’, he asked his parents to bring him ‘a young Lamb, Pigeon, [or] Rabbit’, in order to divert him from his pains, and provide ‘pretty company for me’. Remarkably, his parents granted his request, deciding that a pet squirrel would be best, because ‘it might easily be procured’. Perhaps sickness could be an empowering experience for children, as they were permitted to make great demands on their parents.

"The sick child in early modern England, 1580–1720", Hannah Newton in Endeavour Volume 38, Issue 2, June 2014

When we encountered 12-year-old Caleb earlier in the paper, it was an account of his last moments before dying. Getting to see him in a less traumatic moment really took me aback. Though there's no shortage of sad details (and a few remarkably gross ones) in accounts of Early Modern illness, there's also a lot of loving care recounted there.

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask, but there is no dedicated Rules feature, and I don't think it is worth a meta thread on its own:

I am not a historian, and I have only very amateur knowledge of history. However, several times in the past I have seen questions pop up here about the history of my own field of work, which I feel qualified to answer using knowledge from that field.

Let's say, for example, that someone asks about the history of the discovery of the theory of relativity. As a physicist, I could talk about Newtonian mechanics, Galilean relativity, the speed of light and the Michelson-Morley experiment, Lorentz transformations, and so on; and explain how the scientific knowledge evolved over time to ultimately result in the development of Einstein's theories.

Assuming the answer conforms to all other AH standards concerning depth, sources, etc; would it be allowed as a top-level answer? It would still be an answer primarily focused on the history of some invention or result, but from the perspective of an expert in the field rather than a historian.

I don't have any particular recent question in mind, but I came close to writing up something like this a few times in the past. However if this kind of content is not appropriate here, I will be fine with a simple "no" as an answer.

In The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy by Peter H Wilson, Wilson refers to “confessional histories” as sources for (if I remember correctly) nineteenth century historians of the war. What are confessional histories?

May I point to today's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon , on the value of understanding history? It's darkly funny, but I think it's a valuable point withal.

Just rediscovered Jeffrey Lewis' fun live history songs & comics. He sings about mostly the histories of communist countries in his Anti-Folk style, some more lo-fi thant others, and illustrates them with comics he drew about the events. I can't really judge how historically accurate these are - but either way how much info he crams into 3-9 minutes is pretty impressive.

Some highlights:

• Fall of the Soviet Republic

• Low Budget Video History of Communist China (bonus points for the skype guitar)

• He's also done a few on music history. In light of last week's punk thread here is [History of Punk on the Lower East Side] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCYMFB7UPeY) (one take!)

I have a question for all the history writers out there. How in the bloody hell do you get Microsoft Word to PROPERLY display Turabian/Chicago endnotes/footnotes?

I'm a history major right now, and every paper I write wants citations in Turabian/Chicago. That's fine. No big. And I use superscript for my in text stuff, which is fine. And I even insert all the relevant in Word, to where it creates my bibliography at the end. And I never have problems with that.

But for the life of me, I can not figure out how to get the bloody program to STOP listing my endnote citations as (Author, date).

Anyone know how to fix it? Or another word processing program that easily lets you do citations the right way? Libre Office gave me a headache trying figure out how to make it work.

Recently my grandmother showed me some pictures of my great grandfather, who as far as we know, served in the SS on the Eastern front. However, I noticed on the picture that he wears a second skull on the neck of the uniform, would I be correct in the assumption that this indicates that he was a member of the SS-TV?

Further, how would I go about finding out more about what he did, and where? As he was killed in an RAF airstrike on Aarhus University in 1944 we know nothing about him.

Kind of a random question for those more keen on modern history than I... what typically happens to the web of treaties signed between two states when one of those two states undergoes a radical transformation? Are they invalidated, or temporarily suspended, or in some cases do they remain—even if just implicitly—active?

IE, did the Russian Revolution wipe out all of Czarist treaties w/ other nations? Specifically in situations where the dissolution of the state does not occur as a result of external influence.

I maintain a couple of flickr accounts for sharing scans of old family photos. This one is for an in law who was a US flying instructor in WWI and WWII. Lately, though, I’ve been going through his personal scrapbook, and came across this snapshot from playing tourist in Mormon country. I can’t tell that anything about the inscription is accurate, except that this old guy served as their guide. Makes me think of many an unreliable tour guide I’ve had in my day.

Anyways, one of the things from these albums that always makes me laugh is the photo in this clipping just because I imagine the cropped spaces filled with fawning admirers.

Have today's globally-used gestures (such as nodding to say yes, clapping to indicate approval, kissing, hugging, waving to say hello, etc.) always been shared across cultures in history, despite lack of contact with each other?