My grampa fought in World War II, he took a lot of pictures. But one I have always wondered the story behind, this old black and white image of a plane on a pile of rubble. Whats the story?

What percentage of meat and leather imported by the United Kingdom came from Argentina in world War 2?

The Finnish language is famously Uralic in a sea of Indo-European descended languages; ethnically is the Finnish people also separate from the surrounding area or are they also indo-European peoples that adopted a local Uralic language (or adopted the language of later people?)

I was reading the Wikipedia page of Rear Admiral Wade McClusky (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Wade_McClusky) when I noticed that he, as a career naval aviator who led the air group at Midway, was given command of a carrier not long after Midway.

I was absolutely surprised that a pilot (albeit a carrier-based one) could be given command of a warship, much less a carrier, without a decade of previous experience as a sailor. Were there also other naval aviators who were appointed to command in non-carrier warships like destroyers and submarines?

What did West Europeans drink before tea was widespread? i remember reading something about herb drinks but cannot find it anymore.

Is there more than one way to write a number correctly in Roman Numerals?

Example: 30 can be written as XXX, but if I wrote XXVV would this also be correct, or would I look like an idiot? I understand XXX is neater and probably looks less 'silly', but technically speaking can any combination of roman numerals be correct as long as they make up their target value?

For context, I'm having a friendly debate with someone over code to add up roman numerals. We are trying to determine what qualifies as valid input. EG. both XXX and XXVV return 30, but should the latter be rejected as invalid input?

Could someone offer a recommendation for books that detail the economic, political, and social development of the United States' relationship to fossil fuels, especially oil?

What are your go-to sources for the “rules” around who can and who can’t have sex with whom in Ancient Greece and Rome?

Hello I've been wondering if there are books that have documented most if not every laws made in medieval English society? Any era will be fine but im not having any luck searching google. Can anyone recommend books?

This is a more meta question, but I'm curious: is there some huge, hidden database or index out there that provides a list of all ancient authors and their medieval manuscripts/incunabula? More seriously, how do scholars of the Greco-Roman world confidently say "this person survived there, there, and partially there, while that person didn't at all," forming manuscript family trees and such? (Bonus: can someone answer for Byzantine Studies too?)

I recognize things can get pretty obscure (e.g., survival in one manuscript)—especially in Byzantine Studies—and that a lot of this scholarship likely isn't in English, but I hope someone here knows something.

Why is the Battle of Hastings considered such a monumental event in Western history?

Hey everyone! I was wondering what the entirety of the land ruled by the 25th dynasty of Egypt was called? Since it contained both Egypt and Kush, would it all have been referred to as Kush, all as Egypt, or something else? What did the pharaohs, or the people, call this entire empire?

So as I understand it, in the 8th century BCE the king of Kush, Piye, invaded Egypt. He and his predecessors conquered Upper and Lower Egypt. The resulting empire was a massive one that included Kush (Nubia), Upper Egypt, and Lower Egypt. Its capital was originally in Kush, at Napata, but eventually was changed to Memphis, in Egypt.

Do we have any inscriptions or resources that would tell us what people called this new empire? Like, for instance, the pharaoh, would he call all of his land “Kush,” or call his empire “Egypt”, or just always say “Kush and Egypt both?” Most information on the 25th dynasty just calls the pharaohs and empire and people “Egyptian.” As in “Shabaka was the third Kushite pharaoh of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt,” not “Shabaka was the third pharaoh of the X dynasty of Kush, who ruled lands that encompassed all of Egypt.”

Would the empire’s inclusion of Egypt trump their origins in Kush, causing them to identify their empire as Egyptian? Or would they call the entire empire Kush? Or was there any specific new name created to describe “Egypt+Kush=one empire”?

Hello. I was looking for a military history of wwii from the Italian perspective. I’m particularly interested in the naval battles that took place in the Mediterranean. Since I’m from Italy, I’ve already read some books by Italian authors on the matter, but they tend to be somewhat centered on politics for the most part. I’d be happy if you could help me.

in Arrian’s “Anabasis of Alexander” and Worthington’s “By the Spear”, Alexander the Great is said to have visited the Tomb of Achilles, and swapped his shield for the shield of Achilles. Does this mean Achilles was a real historical person whose shield was not a gift from Athena, or that it was accepted that Alexander was in possession of a mythical object/objects?

edit: Didn’t realize i had left it as Adrian, so i corrected it to Arrian

I remember learning somewhere about an ancient civilization that was completely demolished in a war. The victors went on to eradicate any evidence that this civilization existed, like they tried to fully wipe them from history. I think this was somewhere on the Asian or European continents

In Marc Van de Mieroop's History of the Ancient Near East, during the section on the latter half of the 2nd millennium BC he's talking about how the Syro-Palestinian cities were supported by a sparsely populated hinterland and how the demands on the rural farmers led to lots of indebtedness (many of whom simply fled their lives to become habiru).

However, he says: "Estimates of their numbers are difficult to make, but records from Ugarit, for example, suggest that a rural population of 20,000 to 25,000 living in some 150 villages had to provide for an urban population of 6,000 to 8,000 people. Labor was thus in short supply, and palace policies exacerbated the situation."

He doesn't state many population figures throughout the book (understandably) but this is really contrary to my image of these cities. Could that be a typo? (This is the kindle edition which is pretty sloppily converted overall). During this time Ugarit is described as a major hub of a large trade network. I know cities long before this period in southern Mesopotamia topped tens of thousands of people with huge hinterlands, though maybe that peak of urbanism wasn't recovered yet. Still, the book estimates that some of the monumental structures in the Uruk period would need 15,000 laborers working daily, implying an even larger urban population supported by agriculture (I think).

If the numbers are right then how many people would it take to support an urban population of 6-8 thousand? Are the syro-Palestine cities unique here because of the geography of the region?

Edit: for some context I see estimates of around 50,000 people for the large cities like Ur and Babylon at various points in the Bronze Age. I always assumed that was the urban population with an even more massive rural hinterland. ---edit 2 - I see from googling that is indeed roughly the estimate for Ugarit

Have the prices of pigments/tints affected it's use in editorial printing? As in, did it mean certain colors were favored because of that, mostly for books or magazines? I'm researching some magazines produced by students which lead me to that topic but I haven't really found anything concrete.

I am just curious if women went a-viking back when the vikings were around. I am also curious how historically accurate Assassin's Creed Valhalla is.

Did the Soviet regular army or special units use napalm in the Afghan war? I heard a story from a vet about his troop destroying an arms caravan and setting the piled corpses on fire using "a brick of napalm". What could it be?

I recently had a conversation with my friends and at some point we ended up discussing the possibilities of being stranded in the desert - that`s when I remembered that I`ve heard or read somewhere that ancient Bedouins when stranded in the desert without any supplies, ejaculated into each other mouths to keep themselves sustained. Naturally all of my friends laughed at me the entire evening, none of them believed me and to make things worse - I couldn`t find anything whatsoever on this "sensitive" topic online.

I decided to come here and request the aid of venerable historians of this subreddit. Please help me out

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam from Hannibal

Is there any source that shows the phrase is from Hannibal?

As I've recently been trying to broden my learning experience I've started off by slowly learning about the Tudor family and have learned the basics of how King Henry was raised;

as he was not always so glutinous.

I understand that before leading up to King Henry VIII was the infamous "War of roses" back when Edward the 3rd was king of England but I didn't get much context when I myself looked further in. (I might need some history books.) I think Edward died in 1377 but this thread isn't about good ole Edward. I'll get to him eventually.

What are some of your favorite King Henry tid-bits? What was most interesting about the man? Are there certain things I can read up on to learn about The clothe of gold? Henry had also wrote about "pretty duckies" to Anne I believe- what exactly is that supposed to mean? I have so many questions- but fitting them on here seem impossible. But I'll list them as the discussion picks up.

Before the French Revolution, the Clergy and Nobility (usually) didn't pay taxes, while the 3rd Estate paid a lot. With the constitution of 1791, only those who paid a certain amount of taxes were eligible to become real citizens.

So, my question: When and in what way did they change the tax laws, so that the 3rd Estate was still prohibited from taking a seat in the national assembly (even though they paid a lot of taxes) and the "uppper class" was able to take a seat (even though paying less taxes)?

The Curia Julia, seat of the Roman Senate, is surprisingly small compared to other Roman buildings, how did they fit all Senators in there? As I understand it, they rebuilt it several times but never made it any bigger.

Not really a question related to a certain point of history but more for historians and their practices.

So I notice a lot that when answering questions on here, someone will take a single reference such as an article written by one person or something a TV show host said and then that answer is taken as good enough to be the general attitude of the entire era, where as realistically, the attitude of everyone would obviously be different depending on who you spoke to or what source you read etc.. So why is one source good enough to be used when answering questions when if you use another source, you may get a different answer?

Hey historians! While reading up on antiquity, I came across "during the first half of the second millenia", which is before Christ. Does the first half mean -1000 to -1500, or -2000 to -1500??

This might be an obvious answer, but honestly this is quite confusing for me since, from a chronological point of view, the first half would be starting in -2000. But starting from year 0, the first half would be -1000 to -1500.

Why did pope innocent iii oppose to the union of Sicily and the empire?

Hello everyone!

About a year ago i found somewhere over reddit a website that was archives to armors and weapons used in the past.

It had dropdown menu of country and years, and there were photos of manuscripts, tombstone sculptures and other proofs that this kind of armoury was used in this country.

I cannot find it anymore, maybe someone does know what site i'm talking about and can send me link? Thanks!

Is it true --- I read this recently in a youtube comment section - "In December, 1964, Pope Paul VI visited India and made him ( the second president of india -Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan ) a Knight of the Golden Army of Angels, the Vatican’s highest honour for a Head of State."

I searched it but i found a few articles about it but nothing official ..

So in 1933 cuba there is a group called "menocalista(s)"

With their apparent hate for the A.B.C I have to assume this is an equivalent to something like hitlers brownshirts in regards to getting positions of military rank and it seems to be a little bit more pro government (atleast favorable to Machados government at the time)

I know absolutely nothing about them and basic research looks like I'm supposed to already know this "group"

Is there an origin for this Napoleon Quote: "True heroism consists in being superior to the ills of life, in whatever shape they may challenge us to combat."

For the life of me, I can only find it being quoted on websites but never the origin of said quote.

From what I can gather, this originated from the manga My Hero Academia and was just repeated from there. The anime version translates it differently as "A true hero is someone who overcomes life's misfortunes."

Both of these are similar in there message, but I have no idea if they were actually said by Napoleon. I'd appreciate any historians that know the answer to give me a hand with understanding.

Are there historical records of (presumably Byzantine Greek) settlements in the area around modern-day Bodrum, Turkey (ancient Halicarnassus) around the time of the fourth crusade, or at all prior to the construction of Bodrum Castle by the Knights in the early 15th century? I haven't for the life of me been able to find anything, but I'm hoping someone who knows from Byzantine history might happen to know.

Was Prussia partitioned after the Potsdam Conference? I know that Germany was split into the occupation zones at that time, but i don't know if they dealt with Prussia then also as it was a part of Germany.

How can I go about finding the history of a specific unit during the Second World War? I was doing some research on family members who served and discovered on my great uncle's online tombstone information and an uploaded document of all the soldiers from Ohio that died in the war that he served in K Company, 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division and "Died Of Wounds" in early October 1944. I know you can hire researchers for this stuff and there's a decent chance his records were destroyed in the 1973 fire but I'm challenging myself to see how far I can get on my own and see part of what led to his tragic death in the war.

I've been primarily using Wikipedia to find what Army group that puts him in (12th) but it seems that there was also a lot of reorganizations, and frankly I have no idea how to read battle maps. Do company-level records exist?

The US was naming their battleships after states. Was the plan to have a 48 battleship navy?

(Or, a [number of states at the time this was decided] navy?)

What region of Germany were the people that settled Prussia from? This may be a stretch considering this is hundreds of years prior but, were they at all related to the angles, jutes, and saxons? from the northwest I suppose

I'm watching a video about Soviet Estonia, in which it was said that one of the ways the integrity of the 1940 parliamentary elections were compromised was that a "special mark was made in voters' passports". This phrase appears on the Russian Wikipedia page for the elections and again in the cited source, a lecture by a professor of Russian history. Neither specifies further.

I was wondering what this mark actually indicated - one's participation in the election, or one's actual vote - and whether it was used in other elections.

What type of tank shell was the most common in ww2?

Also note that at lest in most countries (with the US as a notable exception), a patent doesn't prevent the competition from reverse-engineering your stuff, it prevents them from commercializing it. They can still use it for research.

Source/context

How did this notable exception come about, what purpose did it serve?

edit: I didn't ping the commenter as they haven't been active in 8 years.

Hello,

I was curious about the kakamora chief's weapon from Moana (2016), since the movie is inspired by Polynesian culture, I am wondering if this was a type of weapon that they used and what would be it's name. Also in what materials they were made ?

And also, it seems to have a little giggly thing attached to it to make sound, design that we can also find in Hiccup's mother staff in How To Train Your Dragon 2. Did that kind of thing was common in history (if it existed at all) ?

During WW2 did Germany have any plans in the event their invasion of France failed?

Wasn't there a swiss plan (or at least threat) to poison the Rhine if Germany invaded them during ww2? Does anyone have an article or name for this?

Does Napoleon was respected by his enemies?

Is there a leader in history who ruled over a larger area than Queen Victoria?

What Vice Presidents (of the United States) do we have verifiable audio recordings of?

I know for the Presidents, we have Harrison, McKinley and everyone after, but I was wondering if we had the same for the Vice Presidents.

In recent movie "The Last Duel", Marguerite de Carrouges would be burned at the stake as punishment for her false rape accusation. How true is it from the real historical point of view? Because I heard that in medieval europe noblemen usually got their heads cut off.

Did Nazi leadership ever made declarations predicting their Reich would last for 1000 years?

I heard someone say that although the British Queen didn't have much power at home in the mid 20th century, she had a lot of power and say over what happened in the British colonies. Is that true?

What shared symbols or stories do the Irish/Celts and the Jews have?

A good example is the Tree of Life, but that is shared by many more people/religions. Is there anything else?

The Papal States are called States, as in plural. But what were the individual domains or whatever in it called? This info seems weirdly elusive.

Hi guys, can you tell me if Columbus actually discovered for the first time America or he just landed on it for the first time? I've read that Leif Eriksson discovered America but i'm not that sure about it.

Hello! Me and some friends are going to make a rpg situated on the 1920's, and i wanted to make a character that has a camera and was wondering how much would film for recording cost in that era? What about film for photos?

Did waffen SS use 10 cm schwere kanone 18 or 17 cm kanone 18? If not what artilery did they use?