AskHistorians

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/Sad_Confidence8941 on 2023-10-07 13:08:10.

“All contemporary social crimes have their origin in the partition of Poland. The partition of Poland is a theorem of which all present political outrages are the corollaries. There has not been a despot, nor a traitor for nearly a century back, who has not signed, approved, counter-signed, and copied, ne variatur, the partition of Poland. When the record of modern treasons was examined, that was the first thing which made its appearance. The congress of Vienna consulted that crime before consummating its own. 1772 sounded the onset; 1815 was the death of the game.”

Excerpt From Les Misérables Victor Hugo & Isabel Florence Hapgood

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/luujs on 2023-10-07 12:53:49.

For a man of relatively humble origins to depose and execute a king and then become one in all but name must have been a shock to many of the European monarchs, who at this time almost all believed in their divine right to rule, which had itself got Charles I executed. Was there a refusal to accept the Cromwellian administration as legitimate? Were invasions planned to restore Charles II? Was there an embargo? I know very little about the subject and I’m interested to know whether the reaction was similar to that of Napoleon’s time. Although the key difference was Napoleon’s conquests

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/mbsteak on 2023-10-07 02:51:13.

Apologies if this is not the correct place to ask this. I grew up on the West Coast of the United States and have a good mix of both East Asian (e.g. Chinese, Korean, Japanese) and South Asian (e.g. Indian, Pakistani) friends who were born here. I'm East Asian.

During a recent discussion amongst our friends, we realized that almost all of the American-born East Asian kids had traditionally Western names (e.g. Emily, Karen, Jon) whereas almost all of the American-born South Asian kids had their ethnic names (e.g. Prithee, Neha, Harpreet). Most of our parents immigrated here in the 70s and 80s.

Is there actually a large naming convention difference or is it mainly due to a sample bias of our friend group? Has there ever been any academic study as to why there's such a large difference in naming conventions?

Our main hypothesis is that East Asian immigrants tend be more heavily Christian and therefore tend to give their children more Christian names (which end up being Western). There were a couple of Indians in our friend group with Western names their families were from Kerala and they were Christian. However, many of my East Asian friends' parents are not Christian but still gave their kids Western names

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/j_a_shackleton on 2023-10-06 22:29:37.

Those are quite normal, everyday words which are still in use in German today (e.g. the Roman Empire = "das Römische Reich"). English-speakers generally only know those words from their Nazi context, so some people find this surprising. However, I read in "Stasiland" by Anna Funder that in East Germany, for example, some parts of the country attempted to eliminate certain high-profile Nazi terms, even by awkward workarounds if necessary. Her given examples include the position of "tour guide" ("Reisegruppenführer") being officially called "town plan explainer" ("Stadtbilderklärer") in Leipzig in the mid-1980s.

Is there some truth to that? Did different parts of the German-speaking world feel the need to work around or reduce the use of those charged words in the aftermath of the war?

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/FakeAccont1 on 2023-10-07 06:58:53.

This is something that always confused me. When segregation of neighborhoods was still a thing, were black people outright banned from entering white neighborhoods? As in, if a black person tried to walk/drive through a white neighborhood, they'd be arrested? Or was it just that black people weren't allowed to live or own property in those neighborhoods, but could still enter/pass through them? Conversely, were white people banned from either entering or living in black neighborhoods?

No controversy is intended by this question. Thanks.

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/Lonnie239 on 2023-10-07 03:16:58.

While his research seems (to me, a lay person) pretty much beyond question, I wonder if doesn’t fall too much into the “great man theory” of history.

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/Grimnirs_goose on 2023-10-07 00:31:49.

I've seen Niccolo Machiavelli referred to as 'the first theorist to divorce ethics from politics' in his The Prince. However, was Machiavelli's advice to rulers to reject Christian ethics and act immorally when necessary really so shocking for the time? It seems unlikely that such views developed in a vacuum, especially in a place as violent and politically unstable as 15-16th century Italy.

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/corn_on_the_cobh on 2023-10-06 21:29:43.

For instance, their invasions of Poland, Armenia, Ukraine, Estonia, etc. and their involvement in the Finnish Civil War. I know there were two competing factions within the Soviet Union at the time (internationalism vs nationalism), but how could they justify continuing their domination of countries that wanted to be free from Russian/Slavic rule, by restoring the old borders of Russian imperialism as much as possible? Were there any dissenters who didn't mind there being so many independent states around Soviet Russia? What was the political calculus for this decision (or rather, these decisions, as I guess it wasn't a cohesive policy)?

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/Littlesebastian86 on 2023-10-06 19:05:18.

Boats aren’t hard to make and surly man has had them for nearly as long as we have been around, no?

While most boats would struggle to make the ocean journey, it just seems by pure statistical chance some groups would have tried boats and made it across to North America?

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/DonaldDeeeez on 2023-10-06 23:00:52.

I'm SUPER fascinated with the fact that we evolved to live in a world that is much different than the one we live in today. Id like a peak into the world that we evolved to live in if possible.

I'm looking for answers to questions like these:

• What was the average day like for a person 10,000 years ago?
• How long did men and women live 10,000 years ago?
• How common was fighting and savagery?
• What were people like 5000 years ago?
• How have people changed from their origin to now?

Looking for a book that is fact based with historical evidence to back up claims if possible.

Thanks in advanced!

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/Frigorifico on 2023-10-06 20:27:23.

Original Title: Today we struggle with 6 million Ukranian refugees, but back in the Jin dynasty, the entire north of China collapsed and entire cities and town escaped to the south. How did they deal with such an inconceivable refugee crisis?

I was learning about the Jin dynasty and the story of how the north collapsed to the Five Barbarians sounds honestly apocaliptic. I learned a few things about the refugee crisis, like how new towns, cities and municipalities were established to house them, the problem of where to house them, stuff like that, but I kept thinking: How? Those must have been way more than 6 million refugees, in a country that didn't have the technology or resources that we have today, how did they deal with that?

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/bluerobot27 on 2023-10-06 15:05:13.

Original Title: According to Wikipedia, the Tokugawa Shogunate planned to invade the Philippines. Its invasion was cancelled at the last minute due to the outbreak of the Shimabara Rebellion. Anymore that can be learned about this?

The Tokugawa shogunate had, for some time, planned to invade the Philippines in order to eradicate Spanish expansionism in Asia, and its support of Christians within Japan. In November 1637 it notified Nicolas Couckebacker, the head of the Dutch East India Company in Japan, of its intentions. About 10,000 samurai were prepared for the expedition, and the Dutch agreed to provide four warships and two yachts to support the Japanese ships against Spanish galleons. The plans were cancelled at the last minute with the advent of the Christian Shimabara Rebellion in Japan in December 1637.

Article:

References: Turnbull, Stephen R. (1996). The Samurai: a military history. Routledge. p. 260. ISBN 1-873410-38-7.

Murdoch, James (2004). A History of Japan. Routledge. p. 648. ISBN 0-415-15416-2.

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/GammSunBurst on 2023-10-06 15:41:12.

In terms of surviving literature, art, artifacts, buildings, language, and other pieces of history how much do we really know about the Roman Empire from just barely scratching the surface to being able to reconstruct life throughout the Empire?

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/Apiperofhades on 2023-10-06 21:50:21.

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/sexual--chocolate on 2023-10-06 18:28:44.

This question was mostly brought on by the fact that I recently learned of the existence of Hillel the Elder, a famous rabbi whose life overlapped with that of Jesus and, at least superficially, he seemed to have had a lot of similar teachings. Is that a coincidence? Or was Jesus influenced by some kind of cultural or theological shift that was already underway?

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/BoosherCacow on 2023-10-06 18:25:00.

I did search for this and only came up with one answer from 8 years ago that seems less than conclusive.

I am reading Shelby Foote's civil war narrative which was written (I think) in the '50's and he uses the term "fagged out" a few times as a pretty apt way of describing worn out from physical activity (I have to clean out my woods twice a year and carrying downed sticks is a killer). That got me to thinking about the changes in language over time and I wondered if there was a concrete cause for the word being co-opted to such awful use.

I know this is a touchy subject so I ask this respectfully and will state openly that I despise the word. There's a whole lot of things in history I despise but want to understand the genesis of. This is really the only place I can think of where I can ask this with the absolute control the mods keep this sub under.

So where did it come from?

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/Ceaser_Corporation on 2023-10-06 13:03:03.

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/OlginoCuck on 2023-10-06 01:23:34.

Was just reading the wiki about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and they mention wizards and battle magic and everything. Given that the story was basically told for over 1000 years before it was written down in the 14th century, that covers a lot of Chinese history that could potentially be being referenced. But generally the question is was there ever really a time where historians think that there were guys with the occupation of “wizard” that would pretend to do magic stuff for their Lord or his army or whatever?

Was that something that people were doing in the 14th century? Or is it something people in the 14th century thought people were doing in the 2nd century?

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/Steven_Ray20 on 2023-10-05 23:52:14.

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/ancientgaze on 2023-10-06 00:15:11.

While I intended to mostly focus on old world plants, new world plants are warmly welcomed--if such records exist.

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/irantuu on 2023-10-06 01:06:08.

Original Title: In the game Ghost of Tsushima the main character is arrested for using underhanded tactics against an invading army. Would the nobility of 13th century Japan truly prefer to lose a war and be conquered to becoming “dishonored”?

The game takes place during the Mongol invasions of Japan, at a certain point in the story Sakai Jin, the player character, fights in a battle during which the Japanese forces suffer great losses mainly due to the fact that they used “honorable” tactics while the Mongols did not.

At this point Sakai decides to play by the same rules and proceeds to sneak into the Mongol camp and kill them all by using poison.

After this he is arrested for his actions, even though they resulted in a crucial victory for the Japanese. Other warriors can later be heard condemning his actions as well.

Would the Samurai and nobility of Japan at the time truly be so devoted to “Bushido” that they’d prefer to be conquered honorably than to dishonorably repel the invaders?

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/Southdelhiboi on 2023-10-05 23:44:42.

Original Title: In pop culture the French nobility bankrupted themselves at Versailles by spending huge sums on clothes and partying while neglecting their estates/duties. Were there any notable people to dissented? Any Dukes who refused to spend money or stay at court? What were the consequences if so for them?

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/RusticBohemian on 2023-10-05 23:18:41.

Original Title: It wasn't the poor committing the crime in Renaissance Venice, but the rich noblemen, according to historian Guido Ruggiero. They were 4% of the population, but committed nearly a quarter of all assaults! Did nobles commit a disproportionate amount of crime elsewhere in Europe?

And why were the nobles such troublemakers?

Or were the poor fighting just as much, but did so away from the eyes of the law?

Claim from "Violence in early Renaissance Venice."

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/froggypan6 on 2023-10-05 22:50:17.

We have cosmetics and all that stuff today to try and hide our insecurities, but how did people back then deal with their acne/other insecurities?

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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/y0urmum1s on 2023-10-05 21:53:10.

China was the main supporter of the Khmer Rouge, but one of the Khmer Rouge's targets for genocide were specifically the CHINESE, so why would the Chinese support a country that specifically target Chinese people, und, subsequently, why did the Khmer Rouge genocide the Chinese when one of its main supporters was China?