Was there a medieval salute that would be recognizable across Europe as a salute?

The film "The Last Castle" (great film) has Robert Redford say that our modern salute comes from knights raising their visors in respect and recognition. Wikipedia repeats this line of thinking.

But that sounds like classic 19th century just-making-up-stuff.

I was listening to the AskHistorians podcast episode on the Opium Wars (greatly recommended btw!) and in it EnclavedMicrostate gives a quote from the Xianfeng Emperor that "the Westerners may hack at our limbs, but the (Taiping) rebels thrust at our heart". I have also heard that Chiang Kai-shek, at the time of the Second Sino-Japanese war, said that "the Japanese are a disease of the skin, the communists are a disease of the heart". Is this him directly paraphrasing the Emperor, a false misattribution to Chiang or something else entirely? Thanks.

Reposted from removed thread

In 'Eichmann in Jerusalem,' Hannah Arendt claims that Reinhard Heydrich, one of the principal architects of the Final Solution, was known to be a 'half-Jew' and was specifically granted an exemption from the Nazi racial laws. I have not been able to find any corroboration for this, or much discussion of at all in any academic literature. Is there any truth to Arendt's claim or is she merely repeating a rumour heard somewhere?

I have heard that there was an entire division of Waffen-SS who switched
sides to fight against the Axis forces. If I'm not mistaken they
joined with the Ukraine military. I tried searching google for more
specifics, but it was not very helpful. I would greatly appreciate if
you could point me to some reading resources on that division (if it
actually existed). Thanks in advance.

How well do historians regard 1177 BC by Eric Cline?

Are there any primary sources for Catholic or Orthodox monks during the Middle Ages who switched from a Catholic monastery to an Orthodox one, or vice versa?

Reposting from removed thread:

Why is the Wehrmacht so often conflated with German Army during WW2?

Wehrmacht is essentially German Armed Forces of WW2, while the German Army has a separate term called Heer. But in almost every instance, even some professional historians (probably just to not confuse people), use Wehrmacht to refer to the German Army like "the German Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine did this and that" as if Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine weren't actual parts of the Wehrmacht. It's like saying "US Armed Forces, Air Force and Navy" which people don't really do from my experience.

Is this just language barrier? I would guess it must have had a start point somewhere, so where would that be?

Note: I know what the Heer, Wehrmacht all mean and was, I'm asking about why the term Wehrmacht==German Army in popular mind, not what the terms mean, or what those organizations did.

What led to kingdoms having a fixed capital in the Middle Ages?

Are there reliable figures for the number of people employed by the various incarnations of the Soviet secret police (Cheka, OGPU, NKVD, KGB) over the course of Soviet history? Most interested in the period from 1936-1941 and 1945-1953, but also the broader postwar period.

What is the title for a metalsmith who works with lead? (e.g. Blacksmith for iron/steel, whitesmith for tin, goldsmith for gold). Is/was there an actual metalsmith type that is called greysmith?

Sources for Vietnamese history and culture? I want something quite in depth and am willing to pay. English sources only unfortunately

I think before asking any other questions, i must clarofy that i have problems socializing. I have, problems, i think, i don't want say i am mentaly handicaped and to say that it is those problems that make me act as i act, but i think we nonetheless should take them into account. I have as i said problems that make me sometimes act in irrational ways, ways that make me fall into fallacies and that make me act like a mean person. I don't want that to continue happening, i will try to not make pasts mistakes, so sorry to all people who thought that i was some sort of rabbid stalinist that wanted to undermine historians works, it wasn't my intention, i am acknowledging that i was falling down a very deep rabbit hole that i could probably not come down again.

With that out of the way, people who of my pasts post should know what i am going to ask now.

The user kochevnik81 once said that before the holodomor famine in the ussr, peasants did in fact kill animals. He also made clear in the post that i am refferring that other things should be taken into account, namely, that animals didn't have enough fodder or were put in cold places, thus also died of that.

He said, the user, that numbers could vary, and that some areas of the ussr saw their number of livestock killed range from 25% to 55%.

My question, thus, being why is it so difficult to actually count how many livestock were killed by the paesants of the ussr, be it kulak or not

Thanks.

"One of the greatest writers of the English language, and a dignitary of the Church to boot, had once been shown in his dotage for a fee."

Who was the person described above? The quote comes from historical fiction set in 1810 so the person should have reached old age well before then.

How did Rutherford B. Hayes pronounce his first name?

What is so great about the Roman Empire? I can't grasp why the Roman empire is celebrated so much even to this day in the mainstream consciousness. I understand that the empire's history has directly shaped the subsequent history and culture of Europe, but I don't get why people are so fascinated about them. I don't see as much fascination with other empires as the Roman Empire gets.

I recently started running an rpg with some substantial nautical themes, and I realized I know quite a lot less than I thought about why people made the choices they did when designing and building sailing ships.

I'd like to get a handle on what sort of problems the people designing and building ships during roughly the age of sail were attempting to solve, what constraints they had to work within, and how they went about doing that. I know that's an incredibly broad range of time, but are there any good books on that cover this sort of question for at least some subset of it? I know even less about non-european sailing ship development, but I would be interested in that as well.

There is a page in wikipedia about an arabian goddess named Chaabou says she is mentioned by Epiphanius of Salamis without mention or cite a specific book, where is Chaabou mentioned?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaabou

Can I ask for recommendations for:

• a single volume on the Battle of the Atlantic in WWII

• a single volume covering the Royal Navy in WWII

There are a lot of inventions and items in our daily life created originally for their use in World War 1 and 2. What are some known examples of everyday objects or inventions created due to wars pre WW1?

Any book on history of Ethiopia? English would be preferable

I've recently taken interest in the feeding and agriculture aspect of the middle ages. I've watched a documentary on modern grain agriculture and they did several references as to how people used to do it.

I'm wondering if anyone has some good book recommendation on agriculture, livestock and what and how people ate in the middle ages. I'm mostly interested in Europe; the neighbouring regions like Anatolia, Eastern Europe or North Africa are also interesting.

As for the time period, I'm more interested in the High Middle Age period, and/or the early part of the Late Middle Ages. So anything around 1100-1450 is of interest to me.

What is the name of the leftist S. Korean woman who visited the North and was arrested on her return? It was mentioned she became a fashion icon for the N. Koreans after her visit. Her name sounded like it was pronounced "Im Soung Young"

So what was the actual meaning of 天下, did it specifically refer to China, or was it more global (eg “we found out the Roman Empire existed, so that’s also in 天下). I’m a little confused because I keep hearing both definitions.

What are the original sources pertaining to the Mongol conquest of Khwarezmia? Are they credible? For many other realms, "we were completely peaceful, but those others repeatedly & unprovokedly & unjustly attacked us" would be suspicious a priori.

I gotta wonder:

What are the telltale signs of a realm falling as noted by its relevant people, such as its philosophers, generals, and such? I suppose empires such as Rome's and China's have insights on these?

I'm trying to identify a buste: https://imgur.com/a/rX17QcW Anyone an idea who he is? Def. not Voltaire.

Can someone point me to a good book on the development of British commando/special operations doctrine before and during WW2?

What are the oldest preserved manuscripts that quote the Greek philosopher Pythagoras?

I was watching a video by OverSimplified that was about Adolf Hitler. At the timestamp of 3:13 in the video, OverSimplified mentioned that Hitler celebrated recieving his certificate of completing school by getting blackout drunk and wiping his ass with the certificate. Is it actually true that he did that?

​

VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATlila3e9dM

TIMESTAMP OF STORY MENTIONED: 3:13

Is it possible to update the recommended books list with more audio books? Also, can someone recommend me an audio book on the Normans, Cnut, William the Conquer, the Saxons etc? Thanks!

Film historians - during filming of 7 Samurai Toshiro Mafune threatened Akira Kurosawa with a gun. Is there an explanation as to why, is this even true?

I just wanted to definitely know if any work of Charles (and I mean Charles) Darwin was ever put on the Roman Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Sometimes I've read that The Descent of Man was put there, sometimes I've read it's a myth. Now, I shouldn't be asking this question, since I've downloaded and read the pdf of the work of Jesus Martinez de Bujanda listing all works put on the Index between 1600 and 1966 (the volume XI of his research about the subject; the previous ten volumes are about the sixteenth c. but there are only partial overviews of them on google books). Anyway, I found, as I already knew, Erasmus Darwin's Zoonomia, (page 267, after L. F. D'Argentan and before Léon Daudet), but his more famous grandson is not there. But I don't know, maybe it's an error or an omission? Could someone dispell any remaining doubt about it? Thanks in advance.

Just wondering if a king has ever crowned their own subjects? By that I mean the entirety of their people which I know doesn’t sound feasible but please humour me.

I know that the Byzantine Empire called itself "The Roman Empire", but did its contemporaries call it that? Even its rivals, like the Holy Roman Empire?

I recently listened to the great courses series on the middle ages. What I found most interesting was:

• A chronological retelling of history. I didn't like a discussion of broad themes that jumped around the timeline in giving examples.
• Broad territorial changes (e.g., a group setting up a kingdom, one group going to war with another group and taking over their territory, a treaty that splits an area between two groups).
• Broad changes in eras. For example, the things that happened following the fall of Rome.
• Learning about technological innovations and the broad impacts they had on a society, in particular the competitive advantage they provided.
• The large-scale effects of things like geography and climate.
• Anything to do with language.
• Large-scale effects of worldviews. For example, I'm not interested in the minutae of different versions of Christianity. But I am interested in how, for example, tenets of Islam might have provided a benefit to the followers of Muhammed in their expansion out of Arabia.

My question is, if I wanted to find more books that might appeal to me, is there a name for the kind of history I'm interested in? And, if you had any suggestions I'd love to hear them!

who was the first person to say a number to the power of 0 is equal to 1?

What would be the exchange rate of a Russian ruble in Catherine the Great's rule to US dollars today?

Please direct me to a series of lists of the top ~100 market cap companies in the US for each year since 1850 or so?

Why is Dietrich von Choltitz’ nickname The Savior of Paris?

Any recommendations for reading about and around Qing loyalists and loyalism?

What does the most current research say on the dating of Zoroaster? Article/journal links would be appreciated as well.

You look at the lake

The US, as I’m sure other nations, had a big structure to censor letters and news articles and photographs during WW2. How was such a large organization dismantled? Was everyone just fired and sent home at the end of the war?

I’ve heard the Roman Emperor Julian refused to have sexual relations with his wife because he was afraid his son would be as evil as the son of Marcus Aurelius had been. Is that likely given what we know?