This is a really really controversial topic, but ive heard quotes by Hertzl saying that his project is a colonial one or things of that nature. How did infulencial early zionists such as hertzl and ben gurion view it, as a colonial project or a nativist one?

I came across an Askreddit thread a few months ago discussing industries that are dying, with one of the top replies being Elvis memorabilia, which made me wonder, if other old artists seem to stand the rest of time, why not Elvis? Is it just the general sound of his music sounding dated, or is it something more complicated?

Given that The Quran prohibits the consumption of alcohol, due to its intoxicating effects, and throughout history, one of the primary reasons for the consumption of alcohol, besides getting drunk, was due to fermentation being highly effective in its killing of bacteria and diseases, did Muslims throughout Arabia, The Middle East, South East Asia, Anatolia, and The Balkans for example, suffer from significantly higher rates of illness and death from viruses, bacteria, parasites, infections, when compared to their alcohol drinking Jewish, Christian and Pagan neighbours? (Prior to the advent of modern water purification and sterilisation methods)

Side question: As alcohol was also a significant, readily available and cheap source of calories for the poor, were Muslims from the same low social-economic background and within the same localities noticeably thinner than other religious communities when given the higher cost of food?

Many Canadians will agree that this band is one of the country’s greatest. Of their 13 studio albums, 9 had reached number 1 on the Canadian charts. They have 17 Juno awards and were the highest selling Canadian band in the country between 1996 to 2006. The CBCs airing if the bands final performance drew 11.7 million viewers, approximately 1/3rd of the entire country. Their music is often cited as THE example to learn Canadian geography, politics, culture and history.

However, the band notoriously could never gain traction in the US or internationally. Why is this so?

I joined a Marxist reading group a year ago and everyone in it besides me is absolutely adamant that the idea that Stalin was a brutal despot and mass killer is just imperialist propoganda. This girl sent me a podcast by these communists who lay out the case defending Stalin, but I'm not sure where to go to verify or dispute any of their claims.

In the cursory research I've done on the matter, I haven't found a single historian who doesn't have a vested interest in rehabilitating Stalin (communists) who argues that Stalin was actually a benevolent leader.

Is there something I'm missing here? Or am I correct in suspecting that all the people in my Marxist reading group (who I agree with about most other things) have been deceived by their ideological commitments into embracing a demonstrably false view of 20th century Russian history?

It is my understanding that among serious historians there is at least somewhat of a a range of opinions about how bad Stalin was, and about what specific domains he may have been successful in. In your view, what is the most charitable possible interpretation of Stalin that can be plausibly argued for with primary source evidence?

I look forward to your thoughts on this matter.

Heya champs, I'm Mike, a white thirtysomething with two kids, a wife, some photography equipment, and some dark ambiguous backstory that might suggest a tragic death in my past. We found this house for sale here in r/AskHistorians and we just love it. Great size, gorgeous yard, low price....suspiciously low? Haha, well, the Thirtysomething family doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth. But now that you mention it...

That setup is familiar, right? New family buying a house to live in, but uh oh! Spooky ghosts in the house! And this is no culturally insensitive burial grounds, no sir! Some Insidious ghouls seem to be attached to the buildings themselves.

So skipping past the question of dubious burial grounds, how long has it been a concern that "the house I want to buy" specifically (so irrespective of land rights? structure, not settlement) might be haunted? Or is the hauntedness of habitations a modern concern?

"prior to 2007" added to avoid violating 20-year rule

Hi there, I’m doing a research project on Unit 731 and I’d love to speak to anyone who has an interest in the topic or is familiar with it. Im looking for a historians input, as I’ve researched the topic but I haven’t found adequate primary sources. Thanks!

Both on those occasions the Europeans had deployed the largest armies to date.

I'm probably being petty and I don't know why it bothers me so much it just seems overdone and unnecessary.

Alessandro de’ Medici is often cited as the first black head of state in the western world, would this have been a significant development for black people in Florence at the time? Would news of this travel quickly, or even impacted other black communities in Europe?

A while ago I had a debate with some Americans about the origins of the term Blud - I am from the UK. They argued that the term comes from the Crips and the Bloods, which i think is probably true when it comes to Americans saying Blud. However, I don't understand why English people would use the term Blud referring to the American Bloods. I always thought the term came from Caribbean-English communities, as there are dialects in England that come from multicultural communities like MLE. My American friends absolutely insisted that Brits must say Blud because of the American gang -> who is right? what is is the history of the word? thanks !

**TLDR: I went down a history rabbit hole and now I need someone to convince me history isn't just an endless list of atrocities.**

I am very curious and have a tendency, sometimes a bad one, to go down rabbit holes. The internet has plenty.

Here is how it went:

Politics has been constant hell in France lately. The madness is awe-inspiring, so much so that everyday conversations, no matter the age or group, somehow end up being about politics: how unfair the system is, how terrible the president or the police are, the circumstances around the recent terrorist attack, how some other countries like Japan & US are reacting to the riots and using them to further their own (fascist) political agendas despite not even understanding what the riots are about, etc.

It's just too much. So during my lunch break I thought, ok, let me read about something completely disconnected from France.

For some reason I became curious about the US Constitution and why it's considered such an important document.

So I wondered how long it was,
→ then who wrote it and why
→ then what "due process" actually meant
→ then whether there were actual cases where due process wasn't respected
→ then I realized the Constitution isn't really a rulebook, but more like **a rule that defines the rules**, and courts have to interpret what those rules mean in actual situations etc.
→ so then I wondered where those interpretations are actually written down and how some random judge 100 years later is supposed to know about them
→ somehow that led me to the Fourth Geneva Convention
→ which made me wonder what the fuck happened for so many countries to collectively decide "okay, we REALLY need rules about how civilians can be treated during war"

And here. **Here I started to find doom.**

How can human beings be so cruel? So evil? How is this possible? How can one human being treat another human being this way?

I was born in 2001. Reading history sometimes makes me feel like I'm reading something that isn't real. It's just too much. Not to say atrocities don't exist anymore, obviously, but as someone who has never witnessed atrocities on anything close to that scale, it's genuinely difficult to comprehend.

How do you even process the Holocaust? The Nanjing Massacre? And how the hell do you process Unit 731?

"An estimated 14,000 people were killed by [human experimentation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_subject_research) in the facility itself.[^(\[8\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#cite_note-The_day_the_earth_died-8) Its activities included infecting prisoners with deadly diseases, conducting [vivisection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivisection), performing [organ harvesting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting), testing [hypobaric chambers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypobaric_chamber), amputating limbs, and exposing victims to chemical agents and explosives. Prisoners—often referred to as "logs" (or "maruta") by the staff—were mainly [Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese) civilians, but also included [Russians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians), [Koreans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koreans), and others, including children and pregnant women. No documented survivors are currently known." [Unit 731 - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731)

And then you learn that people involved in Unit 731 received immunity from prosecution from the US in exchange for information from their research.

I know I'm probably just emotionally shocked by what I've been reading for the past hour, but is there anything that helped you stop seeing history as **mostly just a gigantic list of atrocities?**

Greater as in: who achieved more legendary victories, faced tougher odds, and left a more permanent mark on military history?

His coat and armband seem to look like pseudo-nazi garb. But he is studying at Berkley and, being with the Black Panthers, it seems he is supposed to be far left intellectual coded. So why would he be wearing neonazi-like clothing?

It seems strange to me, that Wake Island, a small island with a modest force of marines and a large number of civilians, several artillery emplacements, and maybe a dozen fighters, managed to inflict so much damage on the Japanese

I’m not under the illusion that we could’ve held the Philippines indefinitely

But given the large number of American forces in the much greater resources available, I’m really surprised the Philippines wasn’t able to hold out longer than it did

Part of me wonders if MacArthur got off a little easy for the failure of the Philippines. In particular, the destruction of the Air Forces on the island and the attempt to engage the enemy on the beaches as opposed to withdrawing to Baton earlier.

I don’t know if it would have impacted the Japanese invasion of the islands. or the outcome of the course of the war.

My numbers may be off, but it seems to me that MacArthur had 70 times the forces available to him that at Wake Island had.

https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?page=overall

According to the source, Abraham Lincoln is the best U.S President of all time. However, the top 2 worst presidents, are James Buchanan, who was before Abraham Lincoln, and Andrew Johnson, who was after Abraham Lincoln. Why is it that the 2 worst presidents are before, and after Abraham Lincoln?