What is the most modern time that a "historian" can study? This sub uses a 20 year rule, but is that recognised in academia? Are there "historians" studying the Arab Spring, Trump's election or Covid? Are they recognised as "historians"?

So do historians get the urge to become historians after finding that one aspect of history that drives them to nerd out?

Do you actually get to study what you want if you pursue a Masters or Phd?

I was just reading a thread below about the history of front yards and was struck again by how much of our 'American culture' now comes from advertising campaigns from right before and after World War II - front yards, diamonds as engagement rings, etc etc. I was wondering if anyone could suggest a fun and informative book on this sort of topic - history of advertising and how it has influenced culture, etc.

What was Japanese public opinion regarding Douglas MacArthur during the occupation? I've seen footage of him being greeted by flag-waving crowds, but I'm guessing those could have been staged. After all, Japan was a defeated and occupied nation; would they have seen MacArthur as a foreign tyrant?

Why is the history taught in high school and encyclopaedias so focused on political events and not in other aspects of human society?

Was there smog in cities like London prior to the industrial revolution?

To what extent was Aelia Capitolina actually used as the name for Jerusalem? When Europe became predominantly Christian, was the name still in use? When did people go back to calling in Jerusalem?

I feel like this can be answered simply, but I can't find anything other than its name was used in Arabic in the 7th century.

What stopped the US from stretching the Gadsden purchase all the way to the northern part of the Gulf of California and giving the New Mexico/Arizona territory access to the sea?

I've heard it was because the surveyors ran out of money but that seems like a shortsighted reason to stop.

Ok, so in part one of Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn referenced the “artist that designed the Red Army uniform”. Google has been of no help, can anybody hear help me out with more information?

I'm working on painting a model, and I'm curious what color paint was popular & in use to preserve material like metal components from the elements and make them sea-worthy. Mostly in the time period of late First Industrial Revolution to the Second, though later if it wasn't done in that time period.

Totally posted this and didnt realize it should have been posted here, sorry mods!!

I'm looking for a book or a couple of books that go into the development of Arthurian folklore. To be clear I'm not interested in the search for the historical Arthur a la Geoffrey Ashe or books about early medieval Britain but more who invented what part of the modern story and when, elements that used to be part of the story-as-told-in-a-specific-time-and-place but have been discarded in the modern canon and so on.

books about asian piracy?

17 States joined the Union during or after the Civil War; How did this affect the powers and responsibilities written into their individual Constitutions? Were pre-War States more powerful?

This also goes for the ExConfederate States that adopted new constitutions when they rejoined the Union.

I was flipping through the constitution of New Mexico that was adopted in 1912, 47 years after the war, yet the very first thing in it was recognition that New Mexico is an indivisible part of the Union and the US constitution was the supreme law of the land.

I’ve finished a few introductory medieval courses and textbooks. I’m looking to understand the medieval mind now.

I’ve started a short course (from the great courses) on Plato and Aristotle, and will also do courses on St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

What else should be on my reading list to understand how medievals thought about their world, their place in history, the nature of reality, …?

who was the first person to discover x^0 = 1?

What are the best history podcasts?

[Meta] Sometimes answers get a long chain off "chatter" type responses. I have two questions:

-Does it help to report all of the comments, or is the top level sufficient? I've been going down the chain, but don't want to flood the modmail if that's unnecessary.

-For those (and similar) comments, am I correct in assuming it's not super important I try to distinguish between soapboxing and clutter? Sometimes it's easy, but "kids these days"/"back in my day"/"you could never get away with that now" type gripes seem to blur the line.

I want to remember quote that goes something among the lines of 'speed and always speed demands boldness' or something simmilar. Any ideas for the full quote?

Who are some of the most famous historians and who are your favourite historians? I’m a third year history major and want to read and watch more. Thanks in advance!

Does anyone have any book recommendations for Arthurian Legend? I’m looking for something that tells the tales and then looks at the possible origins based on the historical record. I’m also interested in books on the topic that don’t follow that theme if they’re good. Thanks in advance

How did feudalism in Europe work? Was it often that there was internal strife and infighting? Did lords get comfortable in their estates, or were they used to getting removed (for any reason) or placed into control of a new estate?

I’m currently reading C. R. L. James’ The Black Jacobins and Sonthonax has just been ousted / recalled to France in 1797.

The narrative put forth by Toussaint paints Sonthonax as a man that had attempted to provoke Toussaint to kill the white (former) slave owners and declare independence. This feels extremely unlikely reasoning on Toussaint’s side and James doesn’t really offer solutions to as to what really was driving Toussaint.

Are these reasons perhaps known to history now? The change from “best buddies” to “well my dear Sonthonax, you got to leave, like NOW” is pretty abrupt. Obviously Sonthonax was also recalled but this doesn’t seem to be enough explanation.

I've heard that Roman armies would set up a camp with a well laid out grid system, and that these grid systems ended up being the roads of some modern cities. What are some examples of that?

I was gifted a German helmet from a friend in Bavaria. Is there a place that I can post it to have what era the helmet came from. the helmet

When the Sixteenth Amendment was being debated, were there many Georgists in America arguing that we should levy a land-value tax instead?

Why doesn't Egypt and the countries that rule over what used to be Mesopotamia have huge populations like India and China? They are two of the "Four Ancient Civilizations".

Why are many important international meetings, conferences, HQ(ie WHO, FIFA and FIBA hq), etc., held in switzerland? Is it simply because the country is neutral?

I sometimes read that in the early 20th century both the fascists and the communists were "anti-liberal", but to me "liberalism" is such a muddy concept I'm not sure what specifically that means. What liberal ideas did were they against?

Supposedly Hugo Chavez fought agaisnt guerillas in his younger, military days and by getting aquanted with their propaganda became a left-winger, what where the name of the groups he fought and in what year was this?

Please eli5: What significance does this symbols have?

https://www.supportersboutique.nl/it/product/flag-eagle-iron-cross/ I tried to research this but could only find that Germany used this style of eagle from about 1933-1949. And that the iron cross was also used as a medal for both soldiers and civilians. I haven’t seen a description of the two together. Specifically I saw a family friend with a large tattoo of this on their chest and I am curious of the meaning.

At the end of The Mayflower Compact, what does "the eighteenth" and "the fiftie-forth" mean?

I’ve heard Squanto had been taught to use fish as fertilizer while enslaved in England; if this is true, why hadn’t the pilgrims heard of this method?

Who named children during the European medieval period? Like, I mean, obviously one assumes the parents, and given the patriarchal nature of culture at the time, one would probably assume the father named his children, but on the same token, given how there was the idea that the domestic/home was the woman's space and whatnot, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to learn women named their children.

Say I'm a Frankish nobleman living during the reign of Charlemagne and my wife and I have just recently baptized our healthy son; who named him, me or her? What if instead of the Carolingian period, if it matters, it's France in the High Middle Ages?

How do we know history is accurate? For some things we have an enormous amount of evidence (the Holocaust for instance) but for other things, not so much. Of course we're not completely in the dark as to things that happened a long time ago, but it bothers me that we're not told exactly HOW (how many documents, the content of the documents, and what else exactly sustains the reason why historians agree on a specific fact about a specific society in a specific era) when we're being taught History but nonetheless, we're taught even the miniscule details of how people behaved and what they believed in and sometimes even about how they felt about the situation they were in.