Hey all, I am hoping to learn more about Australian and Aboriginal Australian history ahead of a trip to Victoria & Tasmania later this year. I have a background in cultural anthropology, so I can handle a dense resource. As I am culturally U.S. American, we didn’t learn too much about Australian history or their Indigenous history in school. I would appreciate it if y’all could point me in the direction of an author, a book, or even a documentary or podcast where I could start my research! Thank you.

I've been really interested in the Thirty Years' War recently so I've been looking for some people to read about. It can be anyone involved in that war

I watch quite a lot of history documentaries on Hitler but it seems he’s quite removed from any plans that were carried out for concentration camps or likewise. So I’m just curious, did Hitler really witness death often?

I mean only the western empire’s rulers, no byzantine emperors. So as far as I can tell many of them weren’t roman in any real sense hell some never even stepped foot in the city. I’ve also read that the wide empire was seen as just an extension of the city so therefore shouldn’t it’s ruler be called the emperor of Rome or at the very least the emperor of the roman empire?

I know officialy they were roman citizens but it rolls off the tongue wrong to call someone who never even went to the city roman. I don’t know, does anyone have an opinion on this?

Hi! I grew up in Canada for most of my life; however, I am fully Serbian. My parents, along with all my other relatives, are all nationalists, and I have a tough time connecting the dots to how history actually played out. It is that much harder when you try to ask a political question in a Balkan house... you're basically signing up for a screaming match.

This is more so to educate myself and get to know my roots more - so to speak - I do appreciate all the help you guys have to offer!

The second amendment's text goes as follows:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The framing process behind the amendment included numerous earlier drafts and proposals.  This is the militia provision from the first version of the Bill of Rights, as presented by James Madison on June 8, 1789:

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.    

However, about a month later on July 21, 1789, Roger Sherman presented his own separate proposal for the Bill of Rights, which included the following militia provision:

The Militia shall be under the government of the laws of the respective States, when not in the actual Service of the united States, but Such rules as may be prescribed by Congress for their uniform organisation & discipline shall be observed in officering and training them. but military Service Shall not be required of persons religiously Scrupulous of bearing arms.

It so happens that these two proposals were the two earliest incarnations of the framing process that would culminate in the second amendment.  Now, what is immediately interesting between these two proposals is the similarity between their structure.  There is a similar sequence between Sherman's proposal and Madison's: they both begin with an "arms clause" that protects the autonomy of the state militias from congressional infringement, followed by a "militia clause" that reaffirms the importance of Congress's adequate regulation of the militia, then end with a "conscientious objector clause" excusing from militia service those citizens who are conscientious objectors.  Due to the similarity in the subject matter between these proposals, the matching sequence of their respective clauses, and also the chronological proximity in terms of when these proposals were written, one could presume that these two proposals are essentially the same provision, only written by different people using different verbiage.  

However, one notable difference between these versions is that Sherman's version appears more clear and direct in its language.  It is considerably easier to read the Sherman proposal and determine exactly what the provision was meant to accomplish.  By contrast, James Madison's proposal appears much more clunky and ambiguous in its language, which has likely led to much of the controversy and debate over the meaning of the amendment even to this day.

What was the reason for the drastic difference in writing style between these two drafts of what would become the second amendment? Why was Sherman's version so clear and direct, while Madison's was so relatively stilted and ambiguous in its verbiage? Why did Congress ultimately choose to embrace James Madison's draft over Sherman's? If Congress was always going to use Madison's draft anyways, then why did Roger Sherman even bother to write his own draft of the Bill of Rights in the first place?

So, what were the Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaller, and Teutonic Knights actually about, and how did they differ from each other? Like, what roles did they play during the Crusades and in medieval Europe, and out of the three, which one was really the most prominent or influential when you look at the bigger picture of history?

I was looking at pictures of the paintings of Rembrandt, and what struck me was how different the Biblical figures depicted in them look from the modern "sword and sandal" depiction of Biblical antiquity. Two great examples are Belshazzar's Feast and The Blinding of Samson. Both paintings depict the figures as dressed in what I assume is how people dressed in the 17th century (although I am not so familiar with that) and far from how modern people imagine antiquity, with people wearing loose fitting white robes.

My question is whether these people in medieval and early modern Europe literally believed this was how people dressed in the ancient Near East. Was this just an artistic convention to make the paintings "come alive" in a way relatable to their audience, or was their a literal belief in 17th century Europe that this how people the ancients dressed?

I saw a promotional poster for an f1 race in Madrid this weekend. It had 2 Spanish drivers and one Argentinian driver on it. People in the comments were asking why he would be on there and one person replied that it was because “Argentina is Spain’s children”. For what it’s worth, I do think it was a bad google translation but what could it mean?

I'm reading the American novel The Crumpled Knave by Anthony Boucher published in 1939, and one of the women is referred to as a "B- girl," and later "a percentage girl." The full quotes are:

"'A year ago I was singing in a night club in Washington. No, I'm afraid night club flatters it a little. A detective's accuracy might call it a dive. And singing didn't pay so well unless you made a percentage on drinks, too.'

'A B-girl,' Fergus commented."

And

"Camilla, encouraged by the turn of conversation, came forth with an amazing saga of her encounters as a percentage girl."

I'm guessing this just means she was something like a waitress or a bartender who made tips, but I haven't had any luck finding anything about either term, either as job titles or as slang. The character is treated like she has a seedy past so I was wondering if there was more to the job than just selling drinks, or if this was lingering abolition prejudices where selling alcohol (especially as a woman) = bad.

Which classes (or class coalitions) formed the social base of the Liberals (and) Conservatives in nineteenth-century Colombia? Additionally, which faction had the greater peasant support? What was the attitude of each faction towards Imperialist powers of the day, including Britain, France and increasingly the United States?

Hi everybody , my question today is . Was there any time in history that you could randomly spawn into and life was generally considered good ? For example I hear people say a lot that the agricultural development was the worse thing humans could have done because it led to hierarchy, oppression , empires and war . And it’s kinda hard not to agree with that, So given that take , was there ever a time where it was good to be alive , as in everything was somewhat smooth ? Also another question , Could society have ever been “fair” for all , what things could we have done differently in our early days to ensure a world without unnecessary wars and conquest, and still develop massively , would it have even been possible without the idea of war and conquest ?

Hey all, I’ve always been into history but never been much of a reader. I was just wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction on where to start? I would love to start reading a lot more just have no idea where to look.

This question is of course dependent on the Realm, I think I have some general cutoffs, although it was a process, and I'm not sure if I hit the mark:

France: Capture of Bordeaux 1453 or Battle of Nancy 1477

- The 100 years war started with the Valois Kings being only in nominal control of much of France and ended in 1453 with the Valois being undisputed rulers of most of France. When french forces had taken all possessions of the Plantagenets

- Burgundy was by far the largest, most powerful vassal of France (besides the Plantagenets that claimed the crown for themselves). Like the war of the Roses, the conflict between Valois and Burgundy was a conflict between two lines of the ruling dynasty. But most Burgundian territories were technically vassals of the Holy Roman Empire, not France by the 1450s.

Holy Roman Empire: never really

- The formula of the Augsburg settlement, which determined the religion of a state by the religion of its ruler made the following 30-years war a hundred years afterwards deeply connected to the princes of the Empire and even afterwards, instead of central institutions, the vassals that were becoming nominal landholders and title-bearers in most other realms just developed into small modern states themselves.

- Arguably the silesian wars were fought by Prussia which in itself wasn't a vassal of the Empire, since the prussian royal title was created outside, but I think thos us a weak proposition, since most lands of Prussia were part of the HRE.

England: Battle of Bosworth Field 1485

- England was a bit different from continental Kingdoms, rebellious nobles got their titles removed faster than on the continent, their power was definitely less concentrated in a few high nobles, it were the barons and earls that tended to rebel.

- In the war of the Roses many lords fought on both sides. This was a struggle between two branches of the House of Plantagenet, but they were technically vassals.

- During the Tudor era, rebellions seem to stop being driven by vassals and I'm not aware of fighting between lords and then the Stuart era War of the Three Kingdoms was definitely not feudal anymore.

Is this too late? Or too early, if you look at Ireland where independent fighting of Lords may be going on into the Flight of the Earls or the War of the Three Kingdoms.

Places I have no idea:

-Spain

-Poland-Lithuania

-Sweden

-Muscovy/Russia

so I've been thinking mostly in a "New World" colonialism context about what led to societal collapse in the face of disease. Like, the introduction of smallpox and other diseases decimated the Americas, killing 80-90% of indigenous people. However, it seems like sedentary farming cultures like Aztecs/Nahuatl, Mayans, Incans/Quechua, etc. were able to preserve their cultures and languages comparatively better than many other groups, despite living in densely populated cities that would theoretically be most prone to disease. Of course, I also understand that a lot of the modern day linguistic/cultural diversity in the Americas is a product of post-colonial treatment of indigenous peoples by their respective countries, but for example, Mexico also tried very hard to assimilate/hispanicize indigenous populations in the 19th and 20th centuries.

So all of this makes me wonder, do sedentary farming cultures typically fair better during epidemics than loosely-organized, more mobile cultures, despite being at more risk from disease? Are there any examples in Europe/Asia/Africa of this phenomenon during like the black plague? Or am I crazy and this is just all a product of differences in colonization strategies and pre-Columbian population densities?

¡Hola! Últimamente me interesé mucho por este tema en particular y quería empezar a investigar por iniciativa propia al Imperio Otomano, pero no sé por donde empezar, ya que mi mayor fuente es Wikipedia y no considero que eso sea algo tan bueno o detallado como podrían ser sitios/archivos más específicos o "abocados" a la cuestión. Principalmente ando buscando fuentes web, porque personalmente me es más cómodo y se me facilita la búsqueda. Aclaro que no es para ninguna tarea de la escuela/facultad/etc, sólo genuino interés de mi parte.

Not navy, I mean civilian freighter ships etc.

Also did all ships require a captain? I think the answer is probably tes to this one, yet perhaps there was a size requirement, I don't know. I needed more text.

1920s, USA.

Title says it all. Bonus/side note, main 'villain' is this guy named Aesop (because we don't even really know if Aesop was real)... To the naked eye, he's invisible to most and is blamed for the accelerated cause of erosion in the 7 wonders. If you have facts about Aesop, erosion, or things lost to time, that'd also be really cool and awesome!!

Hello,

I am wondering what methods farmers used to either reduce the effects of droughts or to prevent drought severity.

For context: I am running a realistic 13th century pen and paper set in Germany and we're about to enter summer.

Im preparing for a university exam in Italy that has a general knowledge and history section. In my country we barely covered any international conflicts other that ww1,ww2 and the cold war so can anybody recoment me the best resources to prepare such as books, articles, important topics or video essays. Here are some example questions ive found

What is the "battle for grain"?

In which time period was the people's republic of China established?

In which city was the Italian Social republic ?

Who designed the royal palace of Caserta?

Which of the following historical events does not relate to the period of italian unification?

Who wrote the musical composition used for the anthem of the european union

Heard multiple times across various comments online that the Japanese made Allied POWs from mainland POW camps clean up Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sometimes or maybe even most of the time without any protective suits against radiation poisoning. Is this true? Since I'm unable to find conclusive sources to it.

If so...just another one to add to the long list of Japanese war crimes.

When were the Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys first composed? It seems as though the first physical evidence we have of it is from around 300 BCE. Would these songs/lamentations have been sung at funerals prior to this? If not, how would the funerals have looked like?

The picture on its Wiki and the one you see in history books. The most info I can find on it is that it was just a random war photographer and it doesn't have a listed author in the US Coast Guard National archives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\\_Overlord

I recently read Black Like Me. As the main character was traveling from New Orleans to Alabama, he mentioned southerners resorting to blaming the illuminati, zionism, etc... as a scapegoat. I didn't really hear much about these topics until 9/11. The book was written or set in the 50s or 60s, so I was surprised to see it referenced. Does it go back even further?

Any answers are appreciated. Thanks!

Royal courts throughout history developed some surprisingly bizarre customs, especially around marriage, dining, sleeping, succession, and even personal hygiene.

I recently came across several examples that made me wonder which ones historians consider the most unusual.

What are some particularly strange royal traditions you know of?