A common claim seen on reddit is that the retail phrase "The customer is always right" originally referred to demand for a product, but got twisted to mean complying with customer demands regardless of the nature of the complaint. However, I've only ever seen this claim on reddit, and Wikipedia didn't say anything about it.

Is there any historical evidence to back up this claim? Or is it yet another piece of pseudohistory circulating the internet?

Canada's Dominion day is July 1st. America's Independence day is July 4th... Was this a coincidence?

Did the Canadians choose their dominion (not really independence) day to be near the US's as an imitation or a little middle finger since theirs would come first in celebrations?

Was the Dalmatian coast forested before Venice came along and cut down the forests to build the city and ships?

Did every single culture use spoons? For example there are people use chopsticks and people who use forks, but was there ever a culture where spoons were not used?

What were equivalent sayings to "it's just like riding a bike" before bicycles?

Why didn’t crack cocaine become popular in the U.K. like it did in the USA?

In addition to Frankish and Latin, would Charlemagne probably have spoken а northeastern isolect of the langue d'oïl? Or had it not yet fully diverged from early Old Occitan?

Can someone ELI5 what were Assemblies in Rome? I read that: "Romans voted in assemblies...rather than as individuals" (Great Courses). I don't understand what this means? How did an assembly elect a person for a local position if individuals in the assembly didn't cast a vote?

Does "Sumer" refer to a region, or a political entity?

Napoleon was a great reader, and many writers of Napoleon will mention much of what he read, so is there a complete as possible index somewhere of all napoleon's readings?

What percentage of Alaskan Indian re education schools were run by Catholics and what percentage were run by Protestants? I'd like help finding the data on the lower 48 as well.

NPR ran an article saying 2/3rds of Canadian Indian re-education schools were run by the Catholic Church. I was wondering if anyone has data on hand about Alaska and the lower 48?

Thanks.

Why did the Jesuits draw so much ire in history? Even from within Catholicism.

What are some books that talk about Hmong involvement in the Vietnam War?

What I remember from history classes in high school is that tropical disease prevention really took off when people realized that mosquitoes transmitted a lot of these diseases, and started using window screens and nets to keep mosquitoes away.

However even if you didn't know about the diseases, it seems like these were things you'd probably want anyway since it's annoying to get bitten by mosquitoes, whether they're giving you malaria or not. How widespread were window screens and mosquito nets before the discovery of the link between mosquitoes and disease?

When did accurate latitude and longitude becomes general knowledge?

Why did WW2 Germanys submarine campaign focus on merchantvessels, and down prioritize warships?

(Currently reading "Iron Coffins" and struggling to understand why)

I was reading the newspaper - well, an old one - and I read of a curious incident. In July 1914 - likely the 15^th or 16^th - a "suffragette" had "severely damaged" Millais' portrait of Thomas Carlyle "with an axe".

I am not really shocked that someone was less than fond of Carlyle. But, an axe? It's an odd thing to bring to an art gallery or to a public space anyways.

It seems a curious enough fact that people might have shared their impressions on it back in the day. Was there any particular background for this form of protest? Was it common at the time?

What does "chargeable" mean in the late 1600s? This book I was reading about the Salem witches mentions that the father of the youngest accused later petitioned the court for money for her care, complaining that since the trials she was "quite chargeable, with little or no reason to govern herself".

Why was Operation Overlord considered necessary when the Allies had already established themselves on continental Europe after the invasion of Italy? Were the enormous efforts in logistics and causalities of the amphibious landings worth the second front? Why not muster all the men in Italy and push through into Germany?

Conversely, after the Vistula-Oder offensive and initial stages of Battle of Berlin had established that the defeat of Germany was inevitable and soon, why did the Allies still pursue active operations in Italy and risking casualties? Could they not just sit tight?

What's the origin of the "dun dun DUN" dramatic sting?

What is the origin of the 'pendulum arm' dance move?

How long would a Roman centurion's beastplate last if it was well maintained? Could he pass it down to his son?

We know a lot about Japanese forging techniques, blades folded a thousand times. Were similar techniques employed by the Chinese or Korean Smith's?

What is the first attestation of a black cat as a witch's familiar?

In 1300s Ireland why would people abandon their homes?

Why were there two Kingdoms of Sicilies?

Why is political history the mainstream of what is taught in (high) schools and written in encyclopaedias?

I heard this wild 'n wacky theory that Japan had a pretty big Catholic population in both of those cities and Japan list almost all of their catholics for it's time when they were nuked.

Is there any data on the Catholic population of Japan at this period or how many lived in the city relative to the rest of the population around then?

I am looking for books which cover how proselytization worked during the Roman/Byzantine/Ottoman empires.

In any point in history has existed a group of warriors from any civilization that used bronze and iron on theyr equipment? Say iron swords with bronze shileds for example.

In some media (mostly japanese) about the sengoku period it's common to see "T" shaped figures used to indicate armies

We got historical sources about this or it's a modern invention? Do you have more info about this? (like the name, other symbols, different shapes etc)

Here an example from a videogame

Do any images/descriptions exist of Alexander Hamilton’s wax seal (used to seal letters)? I’ve been researching this for a while without much luck. Thank you all in advance for the help!

Why are there virtually zero modern war tv shows, miniseries, movies about the 7 years war, franco Prussian war, any war involving Europeans powers on European soil from 1850-WW1? I found 1864 (tv mini-series), but that's just about it...

Can anyone recommend a good book on historical cooking? I'm not looking for recipes, more of how food has changed and influenced culture (I am sure this subject has been beaten to death). However, all I can really seem to find are Euro-centric works, nothing that covers a broader range. Thanks!

Are there biographical accounts of Pythagoras prior to the Roman imperial period?

Were there foreign military observers in the Iran-Iraq War to study the tactics and strategies of modernized armies fighting a conventional war?

Or was there a bit of elitism in militaries like the Soviet Union and the United States that there was nothing to learn from two oil funded dictatorships hammering at each other?

Should I wait until 2021.09.11 to ask, "how much did the planning and execution of the 2001.09.11 attacks cost Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the men who carried it out, upfront?"

Is it possible to ask now things like "What was AlQaeda doing throughout the 1990s and Y2K, and what was its operating budget? Which personal and organisational entities funded their operations, and how did they funnel resources their way?"

Or maybe also, "What were the outcomes of the first bombing of the WTC?"

When were nations first “created”? Do we know who created boundary lines around large areas of land? How it was done? Thank you

Was Dresden a legitimate military target, what with the high number of civilian casualties?

Is it known who the first human was to start believing in norse mythology?

Hitler was the opposite of the Aryan ideal. How the hell did he rationalize this to his followers? Or did they just blindly accept it through cognitive dissonance? Were black-haired(non-jew) Germans treated worse than blondes in Nazi germany?

Between the Crisis of the Third Century to late antiquity, what was happening to the size and balance sheets of rural landowning households in the Roman Empire?

I ask because it seems like this period marked a precipitous decline of state capacity for the Roman Empire, including its ability to tax. We know from accounting identities that government deficits correspond to household savings. So did the several centuries-long weakening of the Roman Empire in terms of its inability to tax and to pay to maintain its infrastructure lead to wealth flowing into private households? Was the decline and fall of the Roman Empire as much about the (relative) enrichment of a burgeoning landed aristocracy as it was about the weakening of centralized political power?