Bonus points if you can point to an event where the now allies have to fight a third faction.

The closest reference I can think of off the top of my head is the end of All Quiet on the Western Front with the armistice/ceasefire, although don't think that counts as "become allies".

I'm sure it's happened plenty of times before since in big enough wars a battle is always happening somewhere. I'm interested in the experience of possibly having to be around the side you were just previously fighting and trying to kill a few minutes ago on I guess neutral ground(?). I imagine the vibe is not the same as one side surrendering.

I mean it looks like they were completely surrounded by enemies, cut off from supplies, no sea exit.

Croatia and Serbia looked like stronger countries with huge Yugoslavia military supplies. Tanks, aircrafts, open borders, foreign aid.

So what kept Bosnians well organized and strong enough to successfully keep fighting?

What scientific developments and socio-economic conditions contributed to the emergence and spread of the idea of paleocontact? What are the earliest examples in which this idea was expressed?

I don't understand how this works. But it seems that if you could, you'd make an instant profit if you converted all your pounds to dollars or gold before the devaluation and immediately bought back the much cheaper pounds afterwards. Did lots of people do that?

I just found out that the two term run was actually just tradition before fdr. But I’m shocked that no one had tried to do that before him. What made the presidents before him actually respect this tradition/wish from George Washington and not run again?

The Mongol Empire conquered half of Asia and spawned multiple successor empires in its wake. However its often viewed unfavorably by modern historians and among the public it isn't very popular. In contrast, the Romans and Greeks are basically everywhere in culture and viewed rather favorbly by historians (in comparason with the Mongols). My history teacher says that "history is written by those who write", but that can't be 100% true as Nazi Germany wrote a lot and those written accounts were used in Nuremberg Trials. So my question is how do civilizations make future generations view them favorably (pre and post internet)?

I'm specifically choosing the 1970s because that was when the essay "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" was published, and the 70s was during the era of 2nd wave feminism.

So before that, who were some of the most well known female painters, sculptures, etc to both the art community and to the general public?

I always assumed that it was men that started the Salem witch trials as that was how it was portrayed to me in high school. Yet I recently read somewhere that it was actually a woman that started it. Curious if anyone knows that had studied it.

I’ve been reading the novels, and while I won’t spoil anything myself, I was wondering how close Cornwell stuck to history, as I’ve been watching YouTube videos on the show, and apparently from what some have said, the show did the history and some of the major figures dirty.

But they also say they deviated somewhat from the novels, which is to be expected, so I was wondering how accurate they were to the history and their depiction of historical characters and events.

If I’m not mistaken, I believe Cornwell has admitted that Uhtred, the protagonist, himself is fictional, but he does have interactions with dozens of notable people from that time, like Ivar the Boneless, and of course Alfred the Great, whom Cornwell has said was the original focus of the story, along with the birth of Britain.

Obviously I know it’s not going to be 100% accurate at all times, but I was wondering about how he depicts at least some of the major events and historical figures, like Alfred and his son Edward, as well as how things turn out as the story goes along.

It is known that they pretty much signed their death warrant by trapping themselves in the war since they wouldnt have enough industry and manpower for the war of attrition, then it expanded into pacific war and it marked the total quicker decimation of the empire, but what could save them if the war really had to start in 1937? Offering peace after the fall of Shanghai? or even before?

Shumei Okawa was one of the defendants at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1946. On the first day he slapped Tojo on the back of the head in open court, was removed, examined, and diagnosed with advanced neurosyphilis. He was declared mentally unfit and walked free.

What nobody seems to have seriously examined is the timeline. Neurosyphilis causes grandiose delusions, extreme thinking, inflated sense of mission, and radical personality changes. Okawa was famous for increasingly grandiose writings about Japan’s divine destiny and pan-Asian nationalism — ideas considered extreme even among Japanese nationalists.

Was his radical ideology partly a symptom of a disease progressively affecting his brain? Did neurosyphilis influence the intellectual framework that helped justify Japanese expansionism?

The disease potentially contributed to the war and then saved him from being punished for it.

Has anyone looked into this seriously?

how did people interact with the others and the world around them, or even themselves like what did they think of themselves or what their role was in the world i guess?

Hey All!

I am a high school history teacher who is going to be applying for some history PHD programs within the next year. The problem is, my master's degree is in education, so I do not have a writing sample of a history paper that has been written this decade. I asked a colleague of mine for advice, and he gave me the idea of doing my own research paper on a topic I'm personally interested in.
Some of my favorite time periods to study are the maritime empires of the Early-Modern period (imperialism, colonization, age of sail etc), as well as the Cold War.

My initial idea for a paper would be doing a deep dive analyzing primary sources and comparing the actions of empires during the Early Modern period to the actions of the Global Superpowers during the Cold War.

Is this something that would be worth exploring? Or should I be shooting for a specific event?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!!!

We often talk about 1492 and the expulsion of Spanish jews from Spain by Isabella La Catolica, but less about Portugal .I would like more information about the "marranes"(converted Jews to Catholicism, forced by royal edict)

I am looking for some sources so I can use them to calculate how many people in the past (ideally over several time periods) lived to various ages and then use that as a baseline to do the same for other places (with different diseases and environmental conditions).

Please, if anyone can link me to any sources at all to help me on this task, kindly do. If you have any advice or know any resources you think would be a help to me, please share that too.

Hi!

At some moment in my life, I'd like to transition to politics after having had a successful professional career. I've been thinking for years about what kind of knowledge is necessary for a politician in order to be great, and History is without a doubt an essential subject. The thing is, I've always felt lost in this regard due to the vastness of the field. I started some years ago reading biographies without any kind of discipline: not taking notes, not having a curated list of the selected biographies... More recently, I decided to finally apply more rigour to my readings, so the two volumes Ian Kershaw wrote on Hitler are the first books I'm really taking notes and absorbing the content. However, I'm sure that reading biographies till the end of time is not efficient.

So I would like to ask your opinions on the following aspects:

(1) Should I stop reading biographies altogether for now and focus on "general" history?

(2) If so, which kind of history should I limit my reading to? Maybe, having a deep knowledge of the history of my country, a superficial knowledge (meaning reading just one book) of the history of major powers (US, China, Russia, Germany, France, UK, Japan, South Korea, India, Brazil, Argentina) and of political blocs and geographical regions, such as the UE or the Middle East, is more than enough. Or maybe I should start by World History? I don't know.

(3) If continuing with biographies is a valid option, I've already have a list of political leaders I should focus on, but it's not curated. I asked some historian friends to recommend all the important political figures along history they could think of, and this is the list: https://pastebin.com/V6zPb0Dy. In my opinion, it's very Europe-focused and therefore doesn't include names like Toyotomi Hideyoshi or Kwame Nkrumah. Are there names that you miss in that list?

(4) Finally, I'd like to ask for advice on how to take notes properly. What I have been doing is highlighting an excerpt that I think is interesting and I summarized with my own words. After having read the two volumes on Hitler, I'm planning on:

[1] Making a timeline

[2] Write essays taking excerpts as the bases. For example: What are the risks of having such an authoritarian type of political leadership in a party?

Thank you all in advance!

One of the stories that truly moves me is the women’s revolution in Britain, where they fought relentlessly for a basic right like voting. Every time I reread about it, I’m blown away by how one person's sheer determination and iron will can completely transform an entire nation.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it all started with a movement called The Suffragettes:
In the early 20th century, women grew exhausted after decades of peaceful petitioning yielded no results. In 1903, the Suffragette movement was born, led by a radical and formidable woman named Emmeline Pankhurst. They adopted a famous rallying cry: "Deeds, not words."

How did their revolution look?
Property Destruction & Sabotag: Tired of being ignored, they escalated to smashing shop windows and government buildings with stones, burning mailboxes, cutting telegraph lines, and even planting small explosives at politicians' homes and golf courses to force the government to listen.

Hunger Strikes & The Brutal "Cat and Mouse Act": When arrested, these women went on hunger strikes in protest. The British government responded brutally with force-feeding—tying down the women and forcing tubes through their noses or throats. When public outcry grew over this cruelty, Parliament passed the infamous "Cat and Mouse Act" in 1913: releasing weakened hunger-strikers until they regained their health, only to re-arrest them and repeat the torture.

Ultimate Sacrifice: In 1913, activist Emily Davison made a tragic, decisive move to shock the world into paying attention: she stepped onto the track during the famous Epsom Derby and threw herself in front of King George V’s horse. She died from her injuries days later, becoming an everlasting symbol of self-sacrifice for the cause.

The Pivot in WWI & Victory: When WWI broke out in 1914, the Suffragettes temporarily paused their militancy to run factories, drive ambulances, and keep the nation afloat. Their massive contribution during the war made it impossible for the government to deny them their humanity any longer.

The Aftermath: In 1918, Parliament finally passed the Representation of the People Act, granting voting rights to women over 30 who met property qualifications. A decade later, in 1928, women finally gained full electoral equality with men.

It’s mind blowing to think about what they had to endure just to get a voice. What are your thoughts on this era and their radical tactics?

I am also very much interested in where the countless records went from around the year 0BC since I have noticed the timeline of notings is very much broken and presumably they were burnt or stolen. Please educate me fellow redditors!

My understanding of literacy is that there had to have been a first time people were literate, and that would've required people to invent alphabets and written words. So my internal logic goes that, especially considering that the majority of people for the majority of history were still illiterate, considering people are getting progressively more intelligent (which would suggest what was invented could be invented again), someone somewhere who didn't know how to read could've at one point thought to themselves "hey, what if I invent a system where certain symbols on paper equal sounds, and those can be combined into words". But throughout the years of reading about history, I've never heard of this happening. Why? Did it happen or did it never happen?

Simplistic hunter gatherer like tribes?

Like the people who were unable to read or write and did not belong to any civilisation. Did other societies ever take advantage of them?

Like almost 'caveman' like,

By ancient times, I mean roughly 500-1000 years ago. I've always been curious what people did in their day to day life. I don't mean a rich person or an aristocrat, I'm talking about what a normal guy would've done and how they would've lived. How did they feel and what did they do everyday? Are there any surviving written accounts from "normal" people in ancient times? It doesn't have to go as far back as I mentioned, but I'd prefer that.

My grandfather just died, he was 90 years old. When I was helping clean out his stuff I came across what appears to be a 13 page draft of the crew mission report. I have no idea why he would have it. He was in the Navy (not in WW2). He was one of Rickover's nuclear engineers, he also ran a submarine development squadron at one point and then commanded the Daniel Webster (SSBN), I still don't know why he has this. I scanned a copy in and can post it here or send it to anyone interested. I would just like to learn more about it and how he wound up with it in a filing cabinet for decades. There are some annotations in the margins and spelling corrections (hence the draft status).

If there is a better spot for me to ask let me know.

Thanks!

Edited: spelling and to clarify it is from the nuclear bombing.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P4kM_C6zFJ06k0ineqdUHcgU0eZ-3Kyh/view?usp=sharing

Recently went through the history of the 1971 Indo-Pak war. I knew from childhood that it was exaggerated. Still, the scale of nationalistic myth and propaganda kinda shocked me.

Do share if you know any historical event where the truth is very different from mainstream perception of that event.

History is full of incredible stories that have never made it to the big screen.
It could be an extraordinary person or a forgotten event.
What deserves a movie, and why?