Short Answers to Simple Questions | June 05, 2019

by AutoModerator

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Please Be Aware: We expect everyone to read the rules and guidelines of this thread. Mods will remove questions which we deem to be too involved for the theme in place here. We will remove answers which don't include a source. These removals will be without notice. Please follow the rules.

Some questions people have just don't require depth. This thread is a recurring feature intended to provide a space for those simple, straight forward questions that are otherwise unsuited for the format of the subreddit.

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  • The only rule being relaxed here is with regard to depth, insofar as the anticipated questions are ones which do not require it. All other rules of the subreddit are in force.

Georgy_K_Zhukov

Are there any works which predate Heinlein's 1947 Rocket Ship Galileo which have the "secret Nazi moonbase" trope, or did it originate there?

Garfield-1-23-23

How famous was the Red Baron in the US before he became Snoopy's arch enemy in Peanuts? Did Charles Schultz "resurrect" his fame?

Slavreich

What's the difference between the Siegfried line and the Maginot line?

corgandane

How would soldiers in the American Civil War light cigars/pipes/campfires? Just matches, or were lighters of some type used in that period?

AyukaVB

In the Middle ages (if it's too broad, let's say 14th century), how common were the cavalry clashes that jousting was supposed to represent?

maceilean

Who was the first person from East Asia to visit Western Europe? When was it?

Denver_Stylee

I was reading about the Elephants Foot at Chernobyl, and on Wikipedia it mentions that it was "unyielding to a drill, but able to be damaged by a Kalashnikov rifle." Did scientists actually shoot the Elephants Foot?

I_hasdrubaled

How did sailors of the Royal Navy (the "British tar" with his soaring soul), customarily wear their hair during the late 18th, early 19th century? Are portrayals of sailors with tarred plaits/pigtails, like those in Robert Louis Stevenson or Patrick O'Brian, accurate?

Caridor

When did spoilers and the general hatred of them really become a thing?

I know that with the advent of the internet, people can spread the fact that Juliet wasn't actually dead, she was just pretending to be dead with a potion much faster than before but is it noted through history that this newspaper article contains plot elements from the latest Charles Dickens book?

I apologise for being unable to be more specific.

RumandWork

How exactly did warriors historically fight effectively using Geta.

Reading up on eastern conflict throughout history, i've come across many old drawing of warriors wearing Geta. For instance, Benkei here.

Would it not be somewhat difficult to fight on what are essentially stilts? One of the most basic laws of combat is that your power draws from the ground. Sure, you could train and train to fight on stilts, but it's still a pretty serious disadvantage.

Vespertine

Is there any research quantifying deaths after judicial amputations before modern medicine? (I assume some percentage of people died from infection in the days and weeks afterwards.) Am thinking about early modern Europe, but anywhere pre-dating knowledge of antisepsis should extrapolate reasonably well.

heimdahl81

R.M. Douglas, in his book "Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War" describes the forced relocation of German speakers back to Germany as "ethnic cleansing". Is this an accurate representation of events? Is this view shared by any significant portion of the historical community?

Full disclusure: I want to know because white supremacists are using this as proof Nazis arent so bad and I would love to be able to refute their arguments.

corruptrevolutionary

Did the English crusaders use their longbow tactics in the Baltic?

retarredroof

My workout buddy just asked me for a good book on Victorian England suitable for a layperson. He is well educated but certainly not in history so something that is kind of an easy read would seem appropriate. Thank you in advance.

[deleted]

In this paper it seems to say that Himmler had to sign off on military courts Judgement against Wehrmacht and SS troops. Is this true?

[deleted]

Is this quote from Abane Ramdane real : " Nous ne sommes pas des occidentaux pour suivre le mode de vie occidentale, mais ne nous sommes pas des orientaux non plus, nous sommes une race unique et nous le restons. "

" We are not Westerners to follow the Western way of life, but we are not Easterners either, we are a unique race and we remain it. " ?

thisisATHENS

How many Danish people lived/worked in their Indian settlements? What was the size difference compared to England and the Dutch and Portuguese?

BestDragonLoli

What were some throwing/projectile weapons used in ancient Greece that were not spears or bows?

LuxArdens

Can anyone recommend good sources concerning (long >5 years) famines and/or hunger in Europe? (Preferably post antiquity, even modern period would be good)

I've got this idea to investigate whether there's a marked relationship between intelligence and famine (due to the decreased thickness of myelin sheets) in history, but I'll probably never finish it with how slow progress is.

Seeking_Psychosis

What are these major ethnic groups of North Asia that reside in Russia? I ran across some modern comics of countries called "Polandball comics" and for Russia there are several other "country-balls" attaches to it that I think are the ethnic groups I'm talking about. They are these five croped comics:

[One] (https://i.imgur.com/dvoz9zR.png)

[Two] (https://i.imgur.com/gsSBGwz.png)

[Three] (https://i.imgur.com/fU4UmuQ.png)

[Four] (https://i.imgur.com/GfAGXUM.png)

[Five] (https://i.imgur.com/IQAyfS5.png)

I would love if I could find out at least a brief history of these ethnic groups. If I can simply learn what the names of these groups are based on their flags though, that would be enough.