Do you have a question about history and have always been afraid to ask? Well, today is your lucky day. Ask away!
I am the author of nine books on presidential history, including, most recently, the New York Times bestseller Presidents of War. My other works include New York Times bestsellers Presidential Courage and The Conquerors, two volumes on Lyndon Johnson’s White House tapes, and the number-one global bestseller Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy, which I edited. I am the NBC News Presidential Historian, a PBS NewsHour contributor, have received an Emmy and six honorary degrees. Find me on Twitter at @BeschlossDC.
Proof: https://twitter.com/CrownPublishing/status/1070412326090756096
Hitler wanted to take over all these domains in the picture, but did he want everyone to speak a single language, German, or did he allow everyone to have their own identity and language? Was there a particular interest in Poland, for example, speaking German artificially?
Im curious if there is any law or policy issued at the time about it, or some statement by Hitler or members of the government stating that they wanted to impose a central language.
Thanks in advance
I am looking for information regarding the beginning of the reconstruction/cleanup of Stalingrad in the Spring of 1943. I have been able to find a few things relating to the German POW's and the reconstruction process from around 1947 but not much sooner. Does anyone have any information on anything from the Spring of 1943?
I imagine there was a very strong and urgent reconstruction effort that Spring. Was there any effort to recover the thawing bodies? Were the factories immediately repaired to assist in the war efforts? Were the German POW's kept within the city? I have a lot of questions regarding Stalingrad in 1943 but very limited information.
Hey Reddit: Want to write better? Eliminate grammatical mistakes, wipe out wordiness, and let your ideas shine. See for yourself why over 15 million users are hooked on Grammarly's free writing app.
I was watching John Adams from HBO the other day, and there was a scene where John Adams and Ben Franklin meet the king of France. In the scene, the king laughs and seems surprised that Adams didn't speak or understand French. I know that the Russian nobles spoke French, as well as the German speaking states. Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire was quoted saying "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse", too. At what point during European history did French become the dominant language used in diplomacy as well as the language used by the nobility of other nations? Why weren't other languages elevated to that status, such as Spanish?
Here is my limited understanding: Hamilton wanted the federal govt. to buy back all of the IOUs and wartime promissory notes at face value, which made people mad because a lot of that money would go to speculators who bought them off of broke veterans. Washington was like, "well I told the soldiers to hold on to those," so he didn't really balk at the idea.
The government was in debt- $54 million in national debt and $25 mil in state obligations- from the war. What is the difference between the two debts?
Hamilton said, okay we don't have to pay it off all at once. This will give us time to work up some investment capital. Then Madison realized he never really planned to pay it back, and felt like an idiot for agreeing to his plan in exchange for moving the capital to Philly?
Overall, what I am missing out on is where all of the money is coming from--to pay back any debt or to buy back any promissory notes. What were the sources of revenue during and immediately after the war?
I know this question is kind of scattered everywhere but any sort of enlightenment would be great!
Was Germany and Japan during WWII real allies or just countries that fought side by side the same ennemies ? Do they communicated and planned attacks and strategy together. Or were they totally freewheel ?
I ask that because the Pearl Harbor attack seemed to me the biggest military mistake of the WWII. After the counter attack of the Soviets during the battle of Moscow instead of focusing on a struggling ennemy, Japan decided to provoke an other enemy. Japan risked United States to join the war. If Japan instead decided to attack USSR it would have permitted to stuck Soviet Union between two battle fronts.
I have posted this in another subreddit but it hasn’t really helped me too much because they couldn’t give me any sources or definite answers. I hope this subreddit can help.
There is no text on the front of the back. The crown looks like it is Dutch and maybe even a royal medal. Maybe from the military? I do not know who it belonged to. I have searched over the internet for some time but without succes.
More or less what it says in the title. I'm interested in whether events like the ones depicted in these films have happened before and been recorded, or, similar events. (I suppose a small scale siege would be very close.)
So, that in mind, any accounts that come to mind? Now that I've mentioned sieges, I'd love to read one or two about smaller ones lasting a few days or weeks.
Thanks, gang!
In passing I came across information that described some African cultures as possessing "Warrior-Societies", I recognized the term for I'd seen applied aspects of certain native American Cultures.
Some African cultures having a parallel social element was fascinating to me and I wanted to know more about them.
Unfortunately not knowing the proper terms has made research difficult, just typing African warrior-societies into a search engine.
Does anyone know the names of or about warrior-societies that existed with in some African cultures?
During the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union, the Finnish Army discovered that the retreating Soviets had scattered radio-controlled mines throughout the re-captured city of Viipuri. These mines were set off when a three-note chord was played on the frequency the radio was tuned to, causing three tuning forks (of which each mine had a unique combination) to vibrate at once. Once the Army and Yleisradio experts discovered how the mines worked, an Yleisradio mobile transmitter was brought to Viipuri, and Säkkijärven Polkka was played on the same frequencies the mines used, detonating the mines. The song was played continuously for about 1,500 times in the beginning of September 1941
The song in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NorgJ0zivAA
Hello r/history, I am looking for unapologetic elitests throughout history known for there apathetic stance on the less fortunate. Marie Antoinette comes to mind, but she is mired in controversy. Are there any other unscrupulous rulers, scholars, or philosophers that looked down on the common man? My attempts at self-education are lack luster at best. Thank you in advanced.
On one of my term tests I put something on the lines of “to reduce stress from work and government conflicts.” I received a 0/2 on the question.
My teacher doesn’t like to answer questions, and when I tried to ask over at askhistorians they locked the thread. Thank you!
I've always struggled with finding the experts for research papers, especially once you get obscure. So for the second half of the nineteenth century, like Gladstone/Salisbury era and Irish Home Rule, who are the experts on that topic?
Also, how do you find out these are the experts?
So this semester in college I'm taking a class on Jacksonian America and the time period between the War of 1812 and 1848 and we read Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought for most of the class and analyzed the chapters and themes throughout the semester.
I thought it was a great read! It's part of the Oxford History of the United States series and it deals with the period in American history that's probably least talked about, but one of the most important ones as well. It's a long read (around 900 pages) but it's not a hard one and I thought Howe paints a real fascinating narrative, with some heroes (John Quincy Adams, the Whig Party) and some villains (Jackson, the Democrats, Martin Van Buren). You can clearly see some bias but he never overdoes it. The themes of the transportation revolution and the Second Great Awakening are recurring throughout the book and he really drives home the point about their importance in the early Republic.
Anyways, I shared this to recommend it if you're interested about this time period and want to learn more about it if you haven't read it, and also to ask those who have read it, what did you think of it? I would love to talk more about it!
According to Wikipedia, a big chunk of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was ceded to Italian Libya in 1934; this also lines up with this chunk of land still being part of Libya.
Yet no sources are given; no other info is mentioned on Wikipedia as to why it was ceded; it doesn’t appear to be part of Mussolini’s attempted conquests of Africa, since the Abyssinian war didn’t start until late 1935; even looking it up on google shows no results, and similar research into British Imperial history books also shows little to no response.
Google Earth, Google Maps and various atlases all show that nothing even seems to exist in this patch of land - so what happened, and why?
Sources: -Italian Colonization of Libya -Anglo Egyptian Sudan
I’ve been wondering whether it is the individual actions of few, powerful individuals or deep social and economic injustices that drive change. What would it be like in the court of Cengis Khan or in the negotiations room during WWI and WWII. What is one event that you think was extremely significant in shaping our world, and why do you want to witness it?
It seems like he’s really respected by many Vietnamese people, talking to my grandmother about it and other Vietnamese relatives / acquaintances saying he was a great man. Although, some quora questions say that he was a malicious individual. The textbooks in high school don’t talk much about him when going over the Vietnam War.
Hi guys,
Hope you're all well. I have just written an (undergrad) essay on the benefits of video games in education and I was curious to hear your thoughts too. As a preface, my examples pertain to ancient history particularly the Hellenistic and Imperial periods.
I feel as though video games as an entertainment medium is a continuation of Hollywood cinema and so I think it is important to acknowledge the educational merit that films such as Gladiator and Spartacus contain. Whilst the films are not innately accurate in terms of chronology, characteristics and fine details, you are still being informed of basic knowledge and concepts such as the Roman senate and basic figures such as Crassus or Commodus. These basic concepts within a loose and inaccurate story can often act as a gateway to wider history for those interested.
In the 21st century the video games picks up from where the silver screen left off with games such as Total war informing you of military units, formations and the topography of iconic battlefields. The Simulation aspect of games adds another dimension that couldn't be obtained in films, allowing you to explore accurately reconstructed cities in a way that academics have been doing for years anyway. For example Assassins Creed Origins features a reconstructed Library of Alexandria that was informed by academics who used the Library of Celsus in Turkey as a close model due to it being of equal size. So again as with films, the basic concepts that are presented in an entertaining way entourages wider and more analytical thought.
For those interested my sources involved Tara Jane Copplestone's But that's not accurate: The differing perceptions of accuracy in cultural heritage video games between creators, consumers and critics
and
Adam Chapman's : Digital games as history: how videogames represent the past and offer access to historical practice
amongst others!
Obviously there raids where not peaceful but what I mean is I wonder if they where as bad as they have been made out to be like just go into a village steel everything take slaves rape women then burn the place down and go home. Was this much different to what the saxons and franks where doing or more brutal ?
I know that raiding monastery’s likely made the English see them as evil sense no one would really do that.
While the French-Indian Wars obviously provided some insight into Native American involvement in Colonial conflicts, to what extent was their role during the America Revolutionary War and American Civil War as combatants?
Additionally, how did the North and South Armies respond to aggression of Native American raiding parties while most of the fighting-aged men were involved the armed forces and thus the battles of the war?
How was Hitler regarded as a leader before the war both within Germany and abroad? I assume the failed beer hall putsch, the Nuremburg laws, Night of the Long Knives etc would have put him in a rather dark light but was he regarded just as the problem child of Europe that would slowly fade out or as the power hungry war monster he was?
I have a project; I'm supposed to chronicle the different stages of Holocaust historiography and I'm a little confused.
I'm focusing on the book 'The Holocaust: A Jewish Tragedy' by Martin Gilbert - however I'm not really sure what type of Holocaust book it is. Anyone help?
What are the differences between how the Vietnam and Vietnam War is presented in a movie "Apocalypse Now" and how does really looked like?
I was looking over the books, but I can't identify any differences. I would really appreciate any sources or explanation of does differences.
Russian celebrate Christmas with Father Frost - a character very similar to Santa Claus. They also decorate New Years trees with ornaments and kids get New Years gifts left under the tree at night?
Russian New Years and Western Christmas are celebrated very similarly so why the split on the actual holiday that these traditions are celebrating? Which came first?
What I mean by that is did Pirates ever see piracy and their lifestyle in a romanticized way kinda similar to the way we do today? Was the "pirate life" ever actually a "thing" to them in those days? The mindset of: Men pursuing absolute freedom, taking life and destiny into their own hands, making their own way in the world, etc. Did they view themselves as free, seafaring men who lived (quite literally) by their own rules; loving Piracy for its own sake? Or was it mostly just a job to them and an "easier" way to make a living? I understand that the latter is more likely. But through the centuries, I think the human spirit remains mostly the same. Humans have a way of romanticizing and glorifying things and making them out to be way bigger than they actually are. We have a way of taking normal, mundane, trivial things and turning them into "A Thing"; an idea. Something almost spiritual. I think humans are naturally more prone towards superstition and spirituality, especially back in those days. We subscribe to abstract ideas and philosophies because they give us a greater sense of purpose and fulfillment. Pirates are, at their core, sailors by trade. Men of the sea especially are seen as being incredibly superstitious. Given all the myths, folklore, legends, larger-than-life stories, and various superstitions floating around (many of which were accepted as factual and part of the reality of everyday life at the time) I think it may be possible pirates may have viewed their "careers" as something bigger. I guess what I'm asking is this: Did pirates ever view themselves and their lifestyle as standing for something greater? At what point (if at all) did historical pirates go from seeing piracy as just a job to an actual idea in and of itself?
/r/History is a place for discussions about history. Feel free to submit interesting articles, tell us about this cool book you just read, or start a discussion about who everyone's favorite figure of minor French nobility is!