Short Answers to Simple Questions | May 20, 2020

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.

Here are the ground rules:

  • Top Level Posts should be questions in their own right.

  • Questions should be clear and specific in the information that they are asking for.

  • Questions which ask about broader concepts may be removed at the discretion of the Mod Team and redirected to post as a standalone question.

  • We realize that in some cases, users may pose questions that they don't realize are more complicated than they think. In these cases, we will suggest reposting as a stand-alone question.

  • Answers MUST be properly sourced to respectable literature. Unlike regular questions in the sub where sources are only required upon request, the lack of a source will result in removal of the answer.

  • Academic secondary sources are prefered. Tertiary sources are acceptable if they are of academic rigor (such as a book from the 'Oxford Companion' series, or a reference work from an academic press).

  • 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.

Garybird1989

What is the origin of middle names? When did they come into fashion?

uneune

Were there talks about abolishing the electoral college after the 1876 and 1888 U.S election? The winner lost the popular vote in those elections.

Trestigrestristes

I am an average peasant in medieval England. Outside of church, how often would I experience live music? Would it just be sang/would there be instruments?

Stormo9L

During the Middle Ages (that’s a broad term, I know) how much did fuedal peasants care about the state of their country? Like if a man from the HRE came in and crowned himself the duke of some place in France, would the French peasants care, or would they just be apathetic towards him? After all, it’s not like their lives would change too much, right?

theloniouszen

I was reading the flight schedules for the planes that dropped the A-bombs over Japan and saw they had Catholic and Protestant times listed. What did these involve, were they services or just communion? Does anything similar exist today, or has it morphed into something else?

Gwynbbleid

How new is the concept of domestic violence?

InPlainSightSC2

Who is this lady in red among Soviet leaders?

http://imgur.com/gallery/6FicV2p

corruptrevolutionary

Was there any discussion about naming the new Arizona territory something else? They obviously changed the boundaries of the territory from the CS one but I wonder if the government wanted to change the name as well.

314159265358979326

I recently realized that Hitler was in power during the Hindenburg accident. What was his reaction?

corruptrevolutionary

Why were Confederate Armies named after states while Union armies were names after rivers? Army of Tennessee vs Army of the Tennessee etc.

Also, why was it the "Army of New Mexico" when the confederate territory was Arizona?

AlucardSX

I just watched West Side Story (the 1961 movie) again and I got to wondering: is the character Anybodys as far ahead of her time as she seems, or does it only feel that way due to my own limited knowledge of the era's pop culture? I'm well aware that there've always been tomboys in fiction, but the way she's portrayed feels downright genderqueer, in a way I don't think I've seen in any other mainstream movie 'til at least the 90's, if not later. Just for example, take another famous musical tomboy, Annie Oakley from Annie Get Your Gun a mere ten years earlier, and the contrast is mind-boggling.

Mushroomman642

Has Japan ever issued apologies and/or reparations to any of its former colonies such as Korea and the Philippines? If so, were these apologies/reparations deemed enough to repay for what the Japanese had done?

huzurarayan

Leopold von Ranke is famous for saying that historians should seek to understand history "as it really was." This is usually given as "wie es eigentlich gewesen." But isn't this grammatically incomplete, as it needs to be "gewesen ist"? What was the original form of the quote, and why is he so often quoted in this apparently incomplete form?

this_is_an_alaia

Why did Thai cooking start using forks when most neighbouring countries have historically used chopsticks?

OspreyJ

This is maybe asked often, but did the Sumerian City-States consider themselves one nation, or many little kingdoms? Did this view change over time?

Secondary question (probably harder):

Did the government see the issue differently from the regular people?

p_tu

I read that the Etruscans invented Broccoli amongst many other plants. The word ”broccoli” is however of Italian origin. Has the original word for broccoli survived in some ancient texts?

ForgotToLogIn

It is commonly claimed that Classical Latin was never used as vernacular. My question is: at what time was the vernacular Latin closest (most similar) to Classical Latin?

Cathsaigh2

u/dandan_noodles writes:

"For our purposes, there are three main battlefield arms in the Napoleonic period: infantry, cavalry, and artillery. There is no clean 'rock-paper-scissors' tactical breakdown; all arms can do something to counter the others."

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7lalnf/what_specific_battle_tactics_did_napoleon_employ/drl440i/

How would artillery counter cavalry?

2bee2girl

Since you need vitamin c to absorb iron, did all the sailors who got scurvy also get iron deficiencies?

The_brave_potato

What happend between Athens & Sparta after they defended against the persian invasion? Shouldn't they have become allies since it was the spartans that defeated the persians? Why did athens get the power and not sparta

RMcD94

The last time a Japanese imperial family member visited Russia was in 1916, a year before the Russian Revolution that led to the birth of the former Soviet Union.

Who was that member?

Oh_umms_cocktails

Slavic paganism? What is a good book to learn about west-Russian pre-Christian religion?

LongerLeverArm

In "recent" history the President of the USA has been called the "leader of the free world." Which of the "recent" USA presidents have presided over the highest percentage of deaths (aka mortality rate) in the free world (not just USA) during their tenures?

magicmagininja

I’m looking for a book on Napoleon (the first...) and was wondering if there’s any good biographies on him or books about that era that heavily focus on him. Thanks!

drilleroid

What happened to richard nixon after he left office?

tycoon34

Can anyone offer the best accounts of the Habsburg dynasty?

LEOSVARAS

How many people died in the construction of the Golden Gate?

whoami4546

For royalty of Europe, did it actually matter who literally had the crown? For example, could a person of noble blood take the crown into their possession and use it as a justification for being king or queen?

donald_trunks

Were there many incidents like the elixir sulfanilamide poisonings prior to the creation of the FDA? If so what are some other notable examples?

NeokratosRed

How did people dry their hair in winter back in the day?

ReversalRivers

Anybody know of any primary source I could read from a navy soldier during the Civil War?

AH_LA_questioner

Is there any significance to Edgar, King of Scotland (1097 - 1107) referring to himself in his official seal as "basileus" (from Greek), whereas most of his predecessors and successors (in cases which I can find a seal), instead use "rex" (from Latin)?

Was Edgar somehow more influenced by Greek than his contemporaries?

Roadguard69

What was the ethnic make up of the lands that Mexico "seceded" to the US in the Mexican American war? I heard it was mostly populated by texans, Fur traders, and frontier men from Europe and the US. I heard you would most likely run into someone in those lands speaking English or European than Spanish or running into an actual "Mexican"

jaycravn

hello! i'm looking for any information on the average weight & dimensions of farmed animals between 300CE and 1400CE, anywere in the world? especially the smaller ones, such as chickens, pigeons, rabbits, other 'cheaper' livestock.

i have some information on the size of cows, sheep, and pigs, so i'm more interested in others, the 'cheaper' ones.

i'm also interested in how big commonly-eaten fish were. tilapia & salmon & carp are of particular interest but i dont know how commonly eaten those were?

Grimnir_Esjay

In WW2, a young man in America had turned 18 how long was he in training before being deployed to Europe?

acc_for_incidentals

Hello, this is a long shot, and if there's a better place to post this please let me know. In 1951, the US Naval Academy held a farewell ball to honor their graduating class. At the ball, they handed out pamphlets that looked like this:

As you can see in the third image, the pamphlet included space for attendees to write down the songs played at the ball. Does anyone have an inkling of where I might be able to find the music program, or perhaps a copy of this that has been filled out?

The_brave_potato

What were the differences between dorian & Ionian greeks? Were they from different timelines or was it just different parts of greek that they were from?

RMcD94

How long did it take to go from Hanoi, capital of French Indochina, to Bangkok, capital of Siam/Thailand in the 1920s? Would it be faster for a wealthy person to go by private boat, or was there a train?

cloudsrgreat

What was the name of the alliance between the independent southern African states (I believe Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania and Namibia were included?) whose goal was to fight against the white-minority ruled states (Portugal, Rhodesia and South Africa) during the cold war? I remember reading a Wikipedia page about it, and the article did say that the term was "loosely used", but somehow I can't find it on my history.

eyqs

How many people died constructing the Suez Canal?

The only number I can find is 120,000, whose only source is Nasser's nationalization speech. Zachary Karabell's Piercing the Desert claims that "several hundred Europeans were killed" and "more than fifteen hundred Arabs and Egyptians also perished" during the 1865 cholera pandemic, which was "the single largest cause of fatalities during the entire decade that it took to construct the canal". Robert Twigger's Red Nile estimates that 5,000 to 10,000 workers died, but doesn't give any sources for his claim. Does anyone have more specific numbers or primary sources?

d4Nk1182

When did the Triple Entente find its end?

liamemsa

If my ancestry can be traced back to the Napoleonic Free City of Danzig, does that make my roots German, Polish, or both? Or something else?

lacostanosta

Famous historical figures who disliked the English language from pre mass-media era. Who were they? Any names?

standingonbenches

Is there a word for the study of the citizens of older civilisations?

I'm not very interested in kings and queens etc or politics

I'm very interested in people though.

Hope I've asked this correctly. Thank you

corruptrevolutionary

Were there any celebrations or ceremonies when the Kingdom of Prussia retook Marienburg and western Prussia reuniting the old lands of the Teutonic State?

Did Protestant Prussia even feel any kinship to the Catholic Monastic Order from which the Duchy/Kingdom sprang?

simcityrefund1

Is there good book about histology ? Or how history writing change?

akara211

Does history know what year did Romulus conquer Veii and Fidenae?

Is there also a site containing all known maps of ancient Rome(Kingdom, Republic, Empire)?

Calion

What World History book is recommended by this subreddit? It looks like it used to be J.M. Roberts’ History of the World, but it’s no longer mentioned in either the wiki or on Goodreads (which lists are different; perhaps that’s its own problem). Is there another text that’s better for the educated layman, or is that one still good?

LikeAMonkey101

Did Ancient civilisations ever weaponise poisonous insects and arachnids? Total War: Rome 2 has a DLC featuring, among other things, onagers that fire beehives and ballistae that fire pots filled with scorpions. Did these weapons (or similar) really exist?

SaltyPolicy

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this but I am interested in German mythology, would Deutsche Mythologie by Grimm be a good place to start? What other sources would be interesting? Thanks

English sources are prefered as my German is only at an A2 level at best.

[deleted]

What are the best resources (YT channels, books, podcasts, etc.) aside from 1491 that I can turn to to learn about how Native Americans lived before European contact?

I'd love to learn about a NA war much the same as I do for the war of roses or something similar.

ficholas1

What word (in greek) did the Byzantine Empire refer to foreign kings with? Was it Basileus or was there some other title used?

Kunakaze

Did the soviet union realize they were the bad guy during the cold war?

undeniedgenericfeces

How does the nature of warfare change from WW1 to WW2?

cybertease

What was the colour of Incitatus, Emperor Claudius' famous horse?

sparkanxnndjx

Was the confederacy nationalist...and fascist?