Today:
You know the drill: this is the thread for all your history-related outpourings that are not necessarily questions. Minor questions that you feel don't need or merit their own threads are welcome too. Discovered a great new book, documentary, article or blog? Has your Ph.D. application been successful? Have you made an archaeological discovery in your back yard? Did you find an anecdote about the Doge of Venice telling a joke to Michel Foucault? Tell us all about it.
As usual, moderation in this thread will be relatively non-existent -- jokes, anecdotes and light-hearted banter are welcome.
Weekly shill that you all should BUY MY BOOK, How to Slay a Dragon: A Fantasy Hero's Guide to the Real Middle Ages. Got a dungeon to crawl or a self-insert fantasy fic to write? Learn how to find the Chosen One, flirt with the barmaid, survive the sea monster, and everything else you need to succeed with advice from medieval history
(Basically, it uses fantasy tropes as an excuse to teach the awesome parts of the Middle Ages and suggest really really terrible pick-up lines along the way. So you NEED this book, right?)
This week, I was thinking back to an old question from two months ago: USMC historical tradition tells that sniper Carlos Hathcock crawled for four days to shoot a North Vietnamese General during a volunteer assignment. Is there any information about this assignment?
I provided an answer to that question that aligned with everything that we knew at the time. That there is no actual information about it, that there are too many contradictory and unanswered questions about it, and that it likely never happened. Just a couple of days ago, one of the men who would have knowledge about the supposed mission confirmed the following:
I know for a fact that one instance in Hathcock's book is false. It is the incident where he claims to have gone out with a recon team from the An Hoa Combat Base to the Arizona territory with the mission of killing a senior North Vietnamese general. At the time he describes, I was the Operations Officer for the 1st Force Recon Company at An Hoa and I was responsible for all recon team insertions and extractions and I drafted every frag order and I briefed every team that went out. Hathcock never went out with any recon team and there was never a mission to kill a NVA general. It is a totally fabricated story and it calls into question many other assertions made by Hancock. [...] Hancock may have been a good sniper but I have serious doubts about his integrity, as do many other Marines who served in the 5th Marines.
The veteran quoted above is Andrew R. Finlayson who served with the USMC in South Vietnam and the author of two books about his participation in the Vietnam War, Killer Kane: A Marine Long-Range Recon Team Leader in Vietnam, 1967-1968 and Rice Paddy Recon: A Marine Officer's Second Tour in Vietnam.
Turns out you really can prove a negative in the end!
A bit of a strange question I was thinking of because of a recent D&D game.
Are there any examples/precedents of two monasteries/abbeys from two different orders in a symbiotic or close relationship? Like located close by, actively working together on joint tasks, etc.
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, June 04 - Thursday, June 10
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 5,626 | 89 comments | How did the name “Lucifer”(meaning “Lightbringer”), originating from Roman Folklore as the name for the planet Venus, become the name of the biblical Devil aka Satan? |
| 3,923 | 39 comments | I just realized that the Chinese Tiananmen Square protests happened in 1989, which is in the middle of the Soviet Union's perestroika and just before its collapse. Were the Chinese student protestors influenced by the opening of Soviet society? |
| 3,673 | 111 comments | We hear a lot about the decline and eventual collapse of great empires, Rome, Britain etc. What examples are there of an empire successfully pulling out of a period of serious decline and regaining it's dominance? |
| 3,251 | 139 comments | Are there any ancient texts that allude to, or contain stories from before the agricultural revolution? Were people aware of the age of hunting and gathering at all? |
| 3,210 | 59 comments | Why were the 27th Army Group killing other Army Groups/Police at Tiananmen Square? |
| 2,897 | 58 comments | Why did nearly all of the world's civilisations emerge so soon after each other |
| 2,485 | 189 comments | Are there religions founded by women? |
| 2,269 | 48 comments | What drove printing press makers to include the letters they commonly did ( like 'q' and 'x' but not 'þ' and 'ß')? |
| 1,687 | 56 comments | World War 1 forts, such as at Liege or Verdun, were vast underground structures, but above ground they look to be just a dome with one to two guns therein. Why were these structures with seemingly limited firepower considered “impassable” against the enormity of passing armies? |
| 787 | 25 comments | It's some time between 1830-1860 and I'm a white male who wants to travel alone with my horse throughout the American west. How truly dangerous would my travels be? |
###Top 10 Comments
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That’s no corgi!
Benin empire met with ming dynasty What if.. instead of the Portuguese colony's and established trade. The great Oba Ewuare actually met with the king Chengzu... Both at this time where met with the Portuguese and the ming dynasty was expanding so ships could have gone there and made contact. Would the slave trade have been the same or worse? Would they have been more respectful on the religious beliefs ? What's your thoughts and opinions?
Any tips for dealing with less than helpful university archives? I've been told anecdotally that this one archive has collections that would be very useful for my dissertation by someone who did some research there in the 1970s, but they don't have an online catalog for their special collections and when I called them up (only have a phone number for help, not an email), was told I need to know the exact names of the people whose documents I want not a location or topic.
My issue is I'm a historical archaeologist trying to learn about a site. I know the location, date, and topic, but not necessarily the names of people associated with it. I'm fine spending hours looking through documents, but I was told they can't tell me if they'd have anything useful if I can't provide names. And I can't make a reservation to come into the archives without telling them the exact documents I want to see.
Looking at some material about Nixon going to China it seems like it was uncertain whether or not he would get a visit with Mao. Wouldn’t that have been an embarrassing snub of Tricky Dick?
It’s well known that Hamilton’s journey from the Caribbean and education was paid for by a collection taken up on the island. Did they expect him to come back? It sounds strange to send away a promising young member of a community for nothing