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The verdict on Lincoln War seems so tragic and usually pointless. Concerning the American civil war, I question Lincoln's competance. It seems that the South wanted to enjoy better trade conditions than the federal government was willing to give. It seems that the federal government was favoring northern industry by forcing the south to buy from them, and generally fiddling with the terms of trade. Could he have resolved the problem by offering to adress the concerns of the south? Could he have negotiated better to avoid the escalation into all out war?

I don't understand why you're being downvoted. One's view of Lincoln is going to be tilted towards one's political views. If you're a Libertarian/Southern Apologist/Pacifist, you're going to say that Lincoln was a tyrant who should have let the South secede and go in peace. As with all wars in US history, there's a myriad of civil rights abuses that Lincoln committed, but if you want to be fair, the South also committed their fair share despite "states' rights" and smaller government. It really depends on what points you want to argue. What you have to understand about Southern secession is that they were more concerned about slavery than anything else because that represented their loss of political power. It became an issue because they couldn't force their will on the North or protect it through legislation. Up until the election of 1860, the South clearly dominated national politics through the Democratic party. The majority of presidents had been Southerners, and they had near equal representation in Congress. 1860 demonstrated that when North and South were clearly divided and the Democrats couldn't keep the sections united, the South was going to lose. Lincoln had two decisions he could have made, go to war or let the deep South go in peace. Nothing he could do short of rewriting the Constitution would have appeased the South because they basically wanted to rework the power structure of the whole country so that they remained in a dominant position.

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field

The verdict on Lincoln War seems so tragic and usually pointless. Concerning the American civil war, I question Lincoln's competance. It seems that the South wanted to enjoy better trade conditions than the federal government was willing to give. It seems that the federal government was favoring northern industry by forcing the south to buy from them, and generally fiddling with the terms of trade. Could he have resolved the problem by offering to adress the concerns of the south? Could he have negotiated better to avoid the escalation into all out war?

Thanks HappyJawa for the comments. You make an interesting point. I guess I may be downvoted because Lincoln is an icon. In the Gettysburg address he gives a hint that he thought it was essential to preserve the Union, since a breakup of the Union could damage the concept of Democracy (or more accuratly, a constitutional republic). Perhaps the real question is; was the war beneficial eventually or could the same benefits be realised by less traumatic means. Was it worth the sacrifice? Much has been said and written about the war, but i find that discussion on the reasons for it and possible alternatives to it suspicously vague.

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The verdict on Lincoln War seems so tragic and usually pointless. Concerning the American civil war, I question Lincoln's competance. It seems that the South wanted to enjoy better trade conditions than the federal government was willing to give. It seems that the federal government was favoring northern industry by forcing the south to buy from them, and generally fiddling with the terms of trade. Could he have resolved the problem by offering to adress the concerns of the south? Could he have negotiated better to avoid the escalation into all out war?

First off I'm guessing the reason you are being downvoted is that we see a thread just about every day about the causes of the Civil War. The consensus here (including myself) is that slavery caused the Civil War. Thus given your posts inherent assumption that it was not slavery that caused the Civil War, people are downvoting it. For a post on why people consider slavery the cause of the Civil War check this out: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/svoo6/causes_of_the_american_civil_war/ There is also the problem that this is more of a "what if" question, considering it asks about things that didn't happen as opposed to that which did. But back to the question at hand. I would say that given Slavery's central role in causing the Civil War the war could not have been avoided by messing around with trade conditions. We had tried to do all kinds of things to compromise on Slavery in the years leading up to the war, and none of it was enough to stop the Civil War. This isn't to say that there wasn't some brilliant plan I am not aware of that might've stopped the war, just that nothing they tried worked. The fact that Lincoln's election caused the South to secede, when he himself merely wanted to stop its spread, suggests that avoiding the war would have been really hard, short of letting the South just leave. As you may surmise from my statement, I do not think that if only Lincoln had thought of something else to negotiate on it would've stopped the war from happening.

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field

Does anyone mind to summarize for me "The Great Game"?

Fairly simple: the contest between the Russian Empire and the British Empire for supremacy in Central Asia and Iran.

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Does anyone mind to summarize for me "The Great Game"?

Very briefly: Asia was regarded as an incredibly rich territory and was considered to be ripe for Western exploitation, by way of trade concessions, development of new trade routes etc.. The British had proved this theory by turning India into a hugely valuable colony that generated large amounts of wealth. The British were invested in protecting their regional interests - specifically the profitability of India (often referred to as 'the Jewel in the Crown' of the British Empire - and were paranoid that the Russians would attempt to capture it for themselves via an attack through Central Asia. Their consolidation strategy was to establish a buffer zone between themselves and the Russians, by establishing/supporting/imposing sympathetic regimes in Central Asian territories. Afghanistan was considered to be particularly important - the British went so far as to fight several wars in attempts to control policy in that area and got involved in a lot of regional disputes wherever they detected (or even suspected) Russian involvement. This was the most game like phase of the proceedings. It actually resembled a game of Risk as armies manouevered to block one another and conduct staredowns across fluctuating borders. For the Russians' part, they were definitely intent on expansion and securing lucrative territories, although I'm not sure how seriously they actually considered an invasion of India. They seized a number of territories from the Afghans - several of which the British signed over as part of various rounds of treaty negotiations, despite not having any real sort of claim over them. Over time, various border agreements were made to sew up large parts of Central Asia (with Russia acquiring the majority) and both powers looked to the East, where they viewed China as a soft target. Overtures were made by both sides, but actions by Germany back in the West (and Middle East) resulted in thawed relations between Russian and Britain as they allied to curb German expansion. Disputes and tensions would continue to flair for some time, but eventually British power in the region began to wane. Soviet and post-Soviet attitudes toward Central Asia were also very interesting, but that's another game altogether...

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field

Does anyone mind to summarize for me "The Great Game"?

I think others have already nailed it, but remember that this mentality (the threat of the Russian bear lumbering into central Asia) contributed to many crucial decisions in imperial policy - not least of all the First Anglo-Afghan War.

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field

Does anyone mind to summarize for me "The Great Game"?

Honestly, you should read it. I'm not a historian, so I won't specifically vouch for the quality of the history in the book, but it's maybe the most entertaining historical book I've ever read. It reads more like a spy novel or a political thriller than a history book.

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Does anyone mind to summarize for me "The Great Game"?

Peter Hopkirk wrote a tremendously engaging book, entitled "The Great Game". Can't recommend it enough.

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field

There are only 66 years between Kitty Hawk and the Sea of Tranquility and it's a little hard for me to wrap my head around that fact. What made the aviation tech tree so much easier to unlock after 1903? I'm aware of the "whoa dude" nature of this question and that the scope is probably going to make it difficult to answer here so I'm also open to any book suggestions. Edit: Was about to respond to a now deleted comment that pointed out this would be better suited to an engineering and science sub, but I'll just post it here to preempt any similar responses. I definitely hear what you're saying, but I'm looking for something more along the lines of the history of the people, organizations, the impact of two world wars on aviation technology, etc. The minutiae of all the under-the-hood stuff of flight isn't what I'm looking for exactly and might be beyond my powers of comprehension anyway. I probably could have phrased the question to better emphasize that. There are some flairs in [science and technology](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/flairedusers#wiki_history_of_science_and_technology) here who have given answers along the lines of what I'm looking for.

This is a difficult question to answer, but as someone in the sciences, I can provide a semi general answer and then say what I know about early flight. First of all, when we look back on these great advances in technology, we generally see them as "giant leaps" instead of the small steps they actually were. Einstein, for example, while he did take a giant leap with his General Relativity, the things that actually made him famous (special relativity, photoelectric effect) were not giant leaps, but were really just taking the work of previous scientists and expanding on it. Special relativity, for example, was just expanding on the Lorentz equations that had been published decades before. A part of one of my undergraduate physics classes was my professor putting an emphasis on how 99% of advances in the sciences (which lead to advances in engineering/technology) were just great men building onto the works of other great men. Okay, back to aviation... The Wright Brothers are generally considered by the majority of historians to be the first to fly in a motorized airplane. They were not alone in the race to be first, however, and there were other people working on similar flying machines all around the world. Centuries before their time, gliders were already being experimented with and the general concept of lift was known. In the early to mid 19th century, George Cayley was working on heavier than air fixed wing aircrafts and was a huge inspiration to the Wright Brothers, with Wilbur saying the following: >"About 100 years ago, an Englishman, Sir George Cayley, carried the science of flight to a point which it had never reached before and which it scarcely reached again during the last century." >— Wilbur Wright, 1909 When speaking of the advancements in flight, I believe you are missing the mark by placing the most amazing advancements as those that happened from ~1900 to ~1960, when really the biggest advancements seemed to be during the 19th century. Remember, its easier to add on to someone else's work than it is to be the one to originally come up with the idea, and while we shouldn't discount the amazing things the Wright Brothers did for aviation, the work Cayley did was almost certainly more important. I return to Einstein for an example... Without Einstein, someone surely would have written a paper on Special Relativity and the Photoelectric Effect sometime in the early 20th century. But, the more abstract and advanced concept of General Relativity might have gone undiscovered for decades. THAT is what makes Einstein special. In the same way, had the Wright Brothers decided to pursue automobiles rather than aircraft, someone else would have flown a fixed wing airplane within a few years of the first flight at Kittyhawk. Had it not been for Cayley's work, flight could have been pushed back decades. The other thing I believe a lot of people neglect is that the technology that greatly advanced flight was technology being invented for other uses. The engine was really the driving (sorry) force behind the advancement of aircrafts, but the initial development of engine technology was not done with aircrafts in mind. So now I've described how flight was actually something being worked on all over the world by a variety of different people. We see a lot of other quick advances over the first few decades of the 20th century, and they all seem keep up with the advancement of flight (or the other way around, if you'd like.) Automobiles advanced at a very fast rate, and if you look at the top speed of cars over time, you'll see it didn't take long for people to go fast. By 1904, the land speed record for a combustion engine after traveling a mile was 91mph (Ford 999 Racer). The technology had finally caught up, as that was the main thing holding flight back, and so flight, well, took off. And then... World War 1. World War 1 was fascinating and horrifying because it gave a bunch of countries the opportunity to test all the new technology that had been developed over a short amount of time. If war is good for anything, its good for pushing technological advancements. The aircraft was immediately useful for reconnaissance, and eventually was used to drop bombs and shoot down enemy planes. The need for faster, more manueverable, and higher flying aircraft went through the roof, and countries all over the world started competing for the best aircraft. As we continue on to 1960, we see an arms race all over the world and the increasing importance of aircraft on the battlefield. By WW2, the most important piece in a Navy was not the Battleship but the Carrier, specifically due to the use of aircraft. Countries all over the world were constantly trying to outdo the competition, and technology advanced as expected. ---------------------------------------- Essentially, to summarize, the aviation tech tree became much easier to unlock following 1903 because that was when combustion engines really started to... pick up steam (sorry.) The concepts of flight were well known by 1903, all that was missing was a good power/weight ratio engine to generate the thrust required to get lift. Once engine tech advanced, people like the Wright Brothers were able to use the theory from previous great minds and brand new engine tech to finally take a controlled flight. When you see these giant leaps, you have to remember that you're looking at things in the past and you're not necessarily seeing all the steps taken along the way. The path is far more linear than you'd expect.

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There are only 66 years between Kitty Hawk and the Sea of Tranquility and it's a little hard for me to wrap my head around that fact. What made the aviation tech tree so much easier to unlock after 1903? I'm aware of the "whoa dude" nature of this question and that the scope is probably going to make it difficult to answer here so I'm also open to any book suggestions. Edit: Was about to respond to a now deleted comment that pointed out this would be better suited to an engineering and science sub, but I'll just post it here to preempt any similar responses. I definitely hear what you're saying, but I'm looking for something more along the lines of the history of the people, organizations, the impact of two world wars on aviation technology, etc. The minutiae of all the under-the-hood stuff of flight isn't what I'm looking for exactly and might be beyond my powers of comprehension anyway. I probably could have phrased the question to better emphasize that. There are some flairs in [science and technology](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/flairedusers#wiki_history_of_science_and_technology) here who have given answers along the lines of what I'm looking for.

The short answer to your question is: advancements in propulsion. As u/Picklesadog mentioned, there were advancements made during and because of two world wars. But being able to mate a sufficiently powerful engine with an airframe as what transformed flight into something useful. Early 20th century advancements in naturally aspirated internal combustion engines really enabled more complex aircraft to take flight. Leading into WWII, supercharging them allowed aircraft to fly higher, in thinner air. Post WWII, the development of turbojet engines was another quantum leap forward in aircraft complexity. The advancement hasn't let up though. Consider that a single turbofan engine of the current model 747 produces as much thrust as ALL EIGHT turbojet engines on a B-52. Another thing to consider in modern times is efficiency. We've unlocked power, but it's not the be-all and end all. There will never be another Concorde with current technology. There's just no appetite anymore for speed at all costs. And the laws of physics (drag increases with the square of the speed of an aircraft) places limits on realistic cruising speeds.

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field

There are only 66 years between Kitty Hawk and the Sea of Tranquility and it's a little hard for me to wrap my head around that fact. What made the aviation tech tree so much easier to unlock after 1903? I'm aware of the "whoa dude" nature of this question and that the scope is probably going to make it difficult to answer here so I'm also open to any book suggestions. Edit: Was about to respond to a now deleted comment that pointed out this would be better suited to an engineering and science sub, but I'll just post it here to preempt any similar responses. I definitely hear what you're saying, but I'm looking for something more along the lines of the history of the people, organizations, the impact of two world wars on aviation technology, etc. The minutiae of all the under-the-hood stuff of flight isn't what I'm looking for exactly and might be beyond my powers of comprehension anyway. I probably could have phrased the question to better emphasize that. There are some flairs in [science and technology](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/flairedusers#wiki_history_of_science_and_technology) here who have given answers along the lines of what I'm looking for.

Technically speaking, there is a big difference between heavier than air flight and rocketry/spaceflight. Airplane design is governed by the four major forces of lift, thrust, drag, and weight. Airplane design was largely held back by a lack of powerful engines and lightweight structural components. Rocketry, on the other hand, relies on accelerating a payload to a very high velocity. Once it is in space, it doesn't need to be very rugged or aerodynamic, but it requires a large force and a lot of energy to accelerate even a small payload to orbital velocity. Rocketry was largely held back by engine design and guidance systems. There were major developments in both areas no doubt between 1903 and 1969, but to put them in the same timeline is a little misleading. The biggest boon to aircraft designs was a result of both of the world wars. WW1 saw experimentation with aircraft as spotters and fighters, with limited use as bombers and ground attack. However, post WW1 many nations began to develop airforces at an accelerated rate. The money from government contracts fed the first aviation companies, like Boeing, Junkers, Mitsubishi, etc. WW2 again saw further investments in aviation technology, including the development of long range high altitude bombers and jet propulsion, among dozens of other quality of life improvements to aviation. Post-war contracts further pushed experimentation with various projects like flying wings, ultra-high altitude aircraft, and supersonic flight. By 1969, we had achieved many massive aviation milestones, via the Blackbird, Boeing 747, Concorde, and nearly the F-14 Tomcat. Rocketry really began to come into being in the early 1920s with Robert Goddard experimenting with liquid fueled rocket engines in 1923. Gunpowder based rockets had seen use since antiquity, but had only limited usage for fireworks and some military applications. The development of liquid fueled rockets was the important step in rocketry because it allowed extra control in the ascent of rockets, as well as denser energy storage. The next great leap of Rocketry was mainly at the hands of Wernher von Braun, first working in Nazi Germany with the V2 rocket program. This program made important breakthroughs in ICBM control designs, launching rockets that escaped earth's atmosphere and could accurately hit targets at extreme distances. Post WWII, Von Braun was put to work by the Americans in our own rocket programs. Other German scientists had been swooned by the Soviets in their own rocket programs, with both nations racing to develop ICBM technologies. Since this was the beginning of the Cold War, and nuclear ICBM's were a top priority, there was essentially unlimited government funding on both sides to get the technology operational. Even after we had developed the technology for ICBM's, we got caught up in the Space Race after the launch of Sputnik in 1957. We simply kept building bigger and bigger rockets. Rocket science isn't really all that difficult. Life support systems in space follows very similar rules to life support on a submarine, after all. The only hurdles left after 1957 was to simply build a big enough rocket engine that could carry men and their equipment to the moon and back. Simply put, rocketry and aviation took a central focus from the military between 1903 and 1969. We were able to achieve the massive leaps in innovation through massive investments, two world wars, a cold war, and a dozen or so exceptional designers.

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There are only 66 years between Kitty Hawk and the Sea of Tranquility and it's a little hard for me to wrap my head around that fact. What made the aviation tech tree so much easier to unlock after 1903? I'm aware of the "whoa dude" nature of this question and that the scope is probably going to make it difficult to answer here so I'm also open to any book suggestions. Edit: Was about to respond to a now deleted comment that pointed out this would be better suited to an engineering and science sub, but I'll just post it here to preempt any similar responses. I definitely hear what you're saying, but I'm looking for something more along the lines of the history of the people, organizations, the impact of two world wars on aviation technology, etc. The minutiae of all the under-the-hood stuff of flight isn't what I'm looking for exactly and might be beyond my powers of comprehension anyway. I probably could have phrased the question to better emphasize that. There are some flairs in [science and technology](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/flairedusers#wiki_history_of_science_and_technology) here who have given answers along the lines of what I'm looking for.

**Gliders** had been known for centuries. The major breakthroughs that were needed for powered flight were 1) a liquid fuel with high energy density, 2) precisely machined engines, 3) development of the mathematics of airflow and lift. With these elements in place the "powered glider" was the next step, and from there, trial and error led to the development of flight control systems (which is what really set the Wright Bros apart from their competition). **Rockets** are an entirely different story that are only *sort of* related to the history of flight. Like gliders, rockets had been around for centuries but they were essentially self-propelled shells. The analogy, therefore, between gunpowder cannons and flight was not lost on 19th century author Jules Verne who wrote ***De la terre à la lune***, an early science fiction novel, in 1865. His novel depicts a gigantic underground cannon, with its muzzle at ground level, being loaded with guncotton and used to fire a livingroom-sized aluminum capsule at the moon with astronauts and a dog aboard. The British author H.G. Wells also wrote a novel about exploring the moon in 1901. Rocketry, as a science, has the strange distinction of being strongly and directly inspired by fiction. Verne's book was read by the Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, while HG Wells was read by Robert Goddard. Starting in the early 1900s, these two pioneers developed both the theory and practice of liquid fuel rocketry. **The main barrier between primitive shell-type rockets and true rocketry is 1) rocket-equation efficiency 2) onboard guidance.** To boil down Tsiolkovsky and Goddard's contributions: Tsiolkovsky developed the math of how a rocket's acceleration climbs higher and higher over time, because the rocket's mass declines as it burns fuel. The rocket equation gives you a number called **delta-V** which is how fast the rocket is going (from the perspective of a ground observer) when it runs out of fuel. Delta-V's for orbiting earth or reaching the Moon are easily calculable constants. Tsiolkovsky realized a rocket would be more efficient if it could continually shed weight, and popularized the idea of rockets with discardable stages. The development of liquid fuel engines from aviation was useful to the first rocket pioneers, because it had high energy potential per unit mass. At the other end of the rocket equation was the idea of **impulse**, which basically means that a rocket only goes fast if the stuff leaving it out the rear end goes *really, really* fast; the noise and heat it makes is superfluous. Previous rockets were slow, controlled explosions, using black powder, that inefficiently shoot out lots of hot high pressure gas. The Swede **Gustaf de Laval** had done groundbreaking mathematical and practical work on a nozzle design (for steam turbines, not rockets) that actually transformed hot, high-pressure, fast moving gas into relatively cool, low-pressure gas that was moving even faster - faster than the speed of sound! Goddard realized the value of this work and borrowed it for his experimental rockets. By unleashing more of the potential impulse in each unit of fuel, the de Laval nozzle greatly increased the Delta-V achievable even with primitive rockets. From there, it was just a matter of gaining more and more working experience as the technology scaled up. Unfortunately for Goddard, the work of Tsiolkovsky (and his German contemporary **Hermann Oberth**, mentor to **Wernher von Braun**) fell on more fertile ground in Europe than America, where interest in rockets stalled. By WW2, the most scientific and military interest in rockets was in Russia and Nazi Germany. The Germans developed a hybrid military-scientific program that made genuine scientific advancements while also developing guided ballistic missiles as "vengeance weapons" against Allied civilian populations. The weapons didn't achieve much militarily, but they had increasingly sophistcated on-board controls, culminating with the V2 rocket. Even during the war, the German engineers working on these weapons were aware of the applications to space. They even launched one rocket straight up, achieving a top altitude of 176 km. After the war, many of the German personnel were deliberately seized by the American military in Operation Paperclip, which marked the unofficial beginning of the Space Race, which sharply intensified four years later when the USSR developed atomic weapons. While the Soviets had many firsts in the fields of low-Earth orbit and low-mass (robotic) exploration of other planets, it was the mind-bogglingly huge Saturn V rocket program, led by von Braun, that built the first rocket powerful enough to send a manned capsule to the Moon.

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Why did Hitler declare war on the US following the US's declaration of war on Japan four days earlier? Would the US have engaged in Europe otherwise, or just stayed in the Pacific?

In *Zweites Buch* (Hitler's follow-up to *Mein Kampf*) he addresses his opinions on the U.S. and his view of the long-term future of Europe. Straight copy-pasta from Wikipedia: *"Hitler declared that for immediate purposes, the Soviet Union was still the most dangerous opponent, but that in the long-term, the most dangerous potential opponent was the U.S."* He viewed America as a mixed bag... "racially degenerate" because of immigration from all corners of the world... yet also having an impressive base of German-Anglo leadership including some of the strongest eugenics projects outside of Germany. I think at the very least, we can fairly assume that he underestimated our economic/manufacturing potential and what that would mean to the war. He saw it more than most people did, he says so in *Zweites Buch*, but I don't think anyone grasped the scale of the war machine the U.S. could become, and he probably underestimated the timeline it would take to develop.

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Why did Hitler declare war on the US following the US's declaration of war on Japan four days earlier? Would the US have engaged in Europe otherwise, or just stayed in the Pacific?

The US was already engaging in Europe before the declaration of war through Lend-Lease and similar policies. The US Navy was guarding merchant ship convoys between the US and Britain. German U-Boats, in turn, ended up sinking a couple of destroyers in late 1941. After the sinking of the USS Kearny, Roosevelt gave [this speech](http://www.usmm.org/fdr/kearny.html) declaring a planned increase in military capabilities in the Atlantic. The Germans cited the speech in the [declaration of war](http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/document/DECWAR.htm) delivered to the US. In other words, things were ramping up well before the declaration of war. The Germans had every reason to believe that the US would eventually enter the war and the US was already aiding the Allies. The US declaring war on Japan and the Tripartite Agreement provided a convenient reason to openly declare war.

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Why did Hitler declare war on the US following the US's declaration of war on Japan four days earlier? Would the US have engaged in Europe otherwise, or just stayed in the Pacific?

This question depends on the common misconception that the United States was not already engaged in war in the European theater before the Pearl Harbor. American ships were actively hunting German U-boats in the North Atlantic at least as early as July of 1941. American aircraft and ships, with American crews and flying the American flag were fighting Germans with casualties and lost ships on both sides for months before the declaration of war. Further than this, the USA was essentially allied with UK giving them all the direct support they were capable of giving. The American leadership was clearly intent on being a part of the war, only delaying actual declaration of war mostly due to PR reasons and because there was no actual reason to do so yet, while their army was still being raised. Pearl Harbour was a convenient excuse to shut up the isolationists, and a nice flag to rally the people around, nothing more. http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/undeclared-war-in-the-atlantic-the-u-s-navy-versus-the-u-boats/

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Why did Hitler declare war on the US following the US's declaration of war on Japan four days earlier? Would the US have engaged in Europe otherwise, or just stayed in the Pacific?

While I'm no historian, my understanding was that, yes, of course the US was certainly invested/involved in Britain and USSR's Lend-Lease aid, as well as the sinking of German Uboats, but FDR did not have the congressional backing of an all-out engagement in the European theater (the Pacific was a go); and that in fact it was Germany's/Hitler's declaration of war on US in the wake of pearl harbor which made FDR's argument to the isolationist, pro-facist and anti-communist elements in congress all the easier. War was all but inevitable, but FDR still had to make his case to congress and the American people before getting entrenched in another European war. At least that was my understanding.

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Why did Hitler declare war on the US following the US's declaration of war on Japan four days earlier? Would the US have engaged in Europe otherwise, or just stayed in the Pacific?

Hitler declared war on us in order to honor the Tripartite Pact he signed with Imperial Japan and Italy. He thought that we would be completely crushed in both fronts since Hitler was enjoying dominance over Europe at the time. At the end, he was proven wrong. As far as for staying out of war, we were involved in lend-lease program with Britain and the Soviet Union because FDR was strongly opposed to Nazi tyrannical expansion around the world. It would be likely that the US would have entered the war sometime in 1942 but that still remains in speculation. The American people at the time was opposed to their intervention in Europe since they felt it was none of their business. They felt they were tricked by the Allies into getting in World War I which they had no interest in so they had to be convinced with something that we have to enter World War II.

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Why is there an AskHistorians subreddit and an AskHistory subreddit? I love reading through the questions and responses in both of them, but AskHistory lacks subscribers and identifying flair. As such I feel like the quality of replies is much, much higher on AskHistorians. But at the same time, there are a lot of great questions on AskHistory that don't get the stellar responses they deserve, and which they would get on AskHistorians. What gives?

They serve the same purpose. AskHistorians is more well known, has more subscribers and it has the flair, so more people only respond on here. I wasn't even aware askhistory existed until you brought this up. I would imagine that askhistorians will remain the primary sub-reddit for history questions given its strong sub-subscriber base, so it's probably better for people to ask questions here.

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Why is there an AskHistorians subreddit and an AskHistory subreddit? I love reading through the questions and responses in both of them, but AskHistory lacks subscribers and identifying flair. As such I feel like the quality of replies is much, much higher on AskHistorians. But at the same time, there are a lot of great questions on AskHistory that don't get the stellar responses they deserve, and which they would get on AskHistorians. What gives?

> identifying flair. So does /r/AskHistorians.

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field

Why is there an AskHistorians subreddit and an AskHistory subreddit? I love reading through the questions and responses in both of them, but AskHistory lacks subscribers and identifying flair. As such I feel like the quality of replies is much, much higher on AskHistorians. But at the same time, there are a lot of great questions on AskHistory that don't get the stellar responses they deserve, and which they would get on AskHistorians. What gives?

I didn't know it existed and took a peek. From /r/askhistory: ["What would the state of technology be without Hitler and Stalin?"](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/pabc3/what_would_the_state_of_technology_be_without/) Oh dear. Edit: I referred to the top comment

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Counterfeiting in the Ancient World? I'm interested if there is evidence for counterfeiting coinage during ancient times. Specifically, I know that there was a time in the Roman Empire where silver coinage contained essentially no precious metal. I would think that a person with the right tools could easily counterfeit money. But I'm interested as a whole. Thanks!

Related to tho question, some monarchs would make gold coins with copper or other insides to save some money. It was one of the resources they used of they were in a lot of debt. A one dollar coin would only actually only have 75 cents worth of precious metal in it, for example.

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Counterfeiting in the Ancient World? I'm interested if there is evidence for counterfeiting coinage during ancient times. Specifically, I know that there was a time in the Roman Empire where silver coinage contained essentially no precious metal. I would think that a person with the right tools could easily counterfeit money. But I'm interested as a whole. Thanks!

Some Googling brought this, funny I had actually been to a few of these pages before when stuck in a Wikipedia loop and decided to go beyond. [Ancient Fourree Counterfeits](http://rg.ancients.info/fourees/) >Coins have been counterfeited since the invention of coinage. Before coinage, pre-coin precious metal ingots were counterfeited as well. In ancient times, forgers typically counterfeited coins by plating a base metal core with a precious metal exterior, since the value of coins was tied to the value of their metallic content. Such coins are called fourrees. [Athenian Owls Through the Ages](http://rg.ancients.info/owls/) >Countermarks, large or small, are distinguished from "test cuts," which are crude slashes into the metal with a hammer and chisel to determine whether the coin was a silver- or gold-plated counterfeit. >This many tests of authenticity on one coin speaks volumes about the high frequency of plated counterfeits that must have existed and about the paranoia that this likely engendered. >It's more likely that the multiple test cuts were just testimony to the abundance of silver-plated copper Owls that were circulating, both unofficial counterfeits and official emergency pieces. Some of the unofficial counterfeit Owls were even struck with test cuts that had been to engraved into the die, as a further deception, trying to fool people that they had already been authenticated. It's likely that some percentage of traders and merchants would not have been satisfied with one cut. Each person test cutting any given piece would have wanted to verify for himself that the interior was good silver. >An inscription found in 1970 referred to the Law of Nicophon passed in Athens in 375/74 BC, which governed the testing of money. The law required both official Athenian Owls and imitative Owls originating elsewhere to be tested by Dokimastes (testers). Any Owl found to be good had to be accepted in commerce. Counterfeit pieces, on the other hand, were to be withdrawn from circulation. [Forgery on the Nile] (http://www.english.pan.pl/images/stories/pliki/publikacje/academia/2006/12/32-33_lichocka.pdf) [PDF] >Ancient counterfeiters did not just copy coins >of high denominations, made of gold and silver, >but also forged “pennies,” i.e. low-value coins >made of bronze, on a large scale. How were such >imitations produced in late Roman Egypt, >and did such forgers get away scot-free? [Great fakers scammed ancient Italy](http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060327/full/news060327-8.html) >An old lead coin looks like it was plated with silver. >An ingenious counterfeit-coin scam has been rumbled by scientists in Italy. But no one is going to jail, because the forgers lived more than 2,000 years ago.

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Counterfeiting in the Ancient World? I'm interested if there is evidence for counterfeiting coinage during ancient times. Specifically, I know that there was a time in the Roman Empire where silver coinage contained essentially no precious metal. I would think that a person with the right tools could easily counterfeit money. But I'm interested as a whole. Thanks!

I'm at work, so I don't have a link, but wasn't the water displacement test to determine density developed to determine if gold was being combined with other metals or not? EDIT: It looks like it was [Archimedes](http://www.math.twsu.edu/history/men/archimedes.html), assuming the story is true.

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Counterfeiting in the Ancient World? I'm interested if there is evidence for counterfeiting coinage during ancient times. Specifically, I know that there was a time in the Roman Empire where silver coinage contained essentially no precious metal. I would think that a person with the right tools could easily counterfeit money. But I'm interested as a whole. Thanks!

Quite a bit, actually. Regrettably, my prof who is an expert on ancient coins(Dr. Robert Weir) is on sabbatical so I can't pry his ears for more info... One technique used in Athens was to have someone with a pair of clippers at the Acropolis who would verify the validity of coins by cutting them to see the core. He has one example of a counterfeit where the counterfeiter used a base metal slug, cut the notch in it, then plated over the notch to make it look as though it had already passed this test.

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Counterfeiting in the Ancient World? I'm interested if there is evidence for counterfeiting coinage during ancient times. Specifically, I know that there was a time in the Roman Empire where silver coinage contained essentially no precious metal. I would think that a person with the right tools could easily counterfeit money. But I'm interested as a whole. Thanks!

One thing to remember is that ancient economies did not work like ours (Ron Paul always makes this comparison and it simply does not work, then again very good neo-classical economists make that mistake also). This is a period before the "cash nexus" and money takes up a relatively small part of the social function of exchange. It is debatable if we can even understand ancient coins as currency in the modern sense of liquid financial instruments.

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Counterfeiting in the Ancient World? I'm interested if there is evidence for counterfeiting coinage during ancient times. Specifically, I know that there was a time in the Roman Empire where silver coinage contained essentially no precious metal. I would think that a person with the right tools could easily counterfeit money. But I'm interested as a whole. Thanks!

I am pretty sure counterfeiters were active in ancient times! But they most likely counterfeited documents and the like. In the case of the Chinese of a certain time period (forgot name, drat), they did have paper money for a while which ended badly. I'm sure that paper money was counterfeited often! The reason why counterfeiting money is mostly not applicable for ancient times were because people paid with coins often. The value was based on weight, not the face value for the most part. Merchants routinely accepted all kinds of coins. Got a gold coin? It'll be inspected to make sure it's real then weighted. The same goes for silver and copper coins. Gold wasn't commonly seen as coins, though. Many people clipped a tiny piece off their coins, saved the tiny bits and melted it down. This was a form of theft hence the reeded edges you see in coins today. Reeded edges make it hard for people to clip off a bit without anyone noticing it.

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Counterfeiting in the Ancient World? I'm interested if there is evidence for counterfeiting coinage during ancient times. Specifically, I know that there was a time in the Roman Empire where silver coinage contained essentially no precious metal. I would think that a person with the right tools could easily counterfeit money. But I'm interested as a whole. Thanks!

Well under the reign of Aurelian apparently the mint workers were stealing the silver intended for the coins and producing coins of inferior value with less silver in them. When he tried stopping the practice they revolted and were only put down after some 7,000 people had died. However, Gibbons doubts the accuracy of this claim since how the hell could unarmed, untrained mint workers stand against the veteran troops of Aurelian? But regardless there's one example that maybe isn't exactly counterfeiting per se but still involved producing fake coins

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Any thoughts on this? Napoleon wasn't French. Stalin wasn't Russian. Hitler wasn't a German. Alexander wasn't Greek. Is there some reason outsiders become the conquerors? It's just something I've always wondered - and then I thought, "How great that there's a community of smart folks to ask!"

Counting the hits, ignoring the misses

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Any thoughts on this? Napoleon wasn't French. Stalin wasn't Russian. Hitler wasn't a German. Alexander wasn't Greek. Is there some reason outsiders become the conquerors? It's just something I've always wondered - and then I thought, "How great that there's a community of smart folks to ask!"

Julius Caesar was Roman. Genghis Khan was Mongolian. Qin Shi Huangdi was Chinese. Robert Clive was British. Atilla the Hun was a Hun. Mehmet II was Ottoman Turkish. And so on and so forth.

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Any thoughts on this? Napoleon wasn't French. Stalin wasn't Russian. Hitler wasn't a German. Alexander wasn't Greek. Is there some reason outsiders become the conquerors? It's just something I've always wondered - and then I thought, "How great that there's a community of smart folks to ask!"

It's kind of a stretch to say that they were "outsiders." While yes they were not from the country's they would run, they were from surrounding lands that shared the same culture. Napoleon was from Corsica which was French land when he grew up. Stalin was from what we now know as Georgia but at the time was a part of the Russian Empire. Hitler was from Austria which is culturally similar to Germany, and his family moved to southern Germany soon after he was born. Alexander was from Macedonia which was still on the Greek peninsula.

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Any thoughts on this? Napoleon wasn't French. Stalin wasn't Russian. Hitler wasn't a German. Alexander wasn't Greek. Is there some reason outsiders become the conquerors? It's just something I've always wondered - and then I thought, "How great that there's a community of smart folks to ask!"

Actually, Hitler *was* German. He wasn't from the country *Germany*, however at the time "Austrian" wasn't a distinct nationality from "German".

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Any thoughts on this? Napoleon wasn't French. Stalin wasn't Russian. Hitler wasn't a German. Alexander wasn't Greek. Is there some reason outsiders become the conquerors? It's just something I've always wondered - and then I thought, "How great that there's a community of smart folks to ask!"

I've always liked this. To add, Washington wasn't American. And boy, I know people are gonna come out of the wood work for this. Fuck it, we'll do it live.

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Any thoughts on this? Napoleon wasn't French. Stalin wasn't Russian. Hitler wasn't a German. Alexander wasn't Greek. Is there some reason outsiders become the conquerors? It's just something I've always wondered - and then I thought, "How great that there's a community of smart folks to ask!"

You've made an error thinking that Stalin was the leader of Russia. He was the leader of the Soviet Union.

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Any thoughts on this? Napoleon wasn't French. Stalin wasn't Russian. Hitler wasn't a German. Alexander wasn't Greek. Is there some reason outsiders become the conquerors? It's just something I've always wondered - and then I thought, "How great that there's a community of smart folks to ask!"

Does it still count since Hitler had German citizenship?

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Any thoughts on this? Napoleon wasn't French. Stalin wasn't Russian. Hitler wasn't a German. Alexander wasn't Greek. Is there some reason outsiders become the conquerors? It's just something I've always wondered - and then I thought, "How great that there's a community of smart folks to ask!"

calling an austrian "not a german" and a makedonian "not a greek" is very...ehhhhhhhhh

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Any thoughts on this? Napoleon wasn't French. Stalin wasn't Russian. Hitler wasn't a German. Alexander wasn't Greek. Is there some reason outsiders become the conquerors? It's just something I've always wondered - and then I thought, "How great that there's a community of smart folks to ask!"

“The Austrians' greatest achievement: to convince the world that Beethoven was an Austrian and Hitler a German.”

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Any thoughts on this? Napoleon wasn't French. Stalin wasn't Russian. Hitler wasn't a German. Alexander wasn't Greek. Is there some reason outsiders become the conquerors? It's just something I've always wondered - and then I thought, "How great that there's a community of smart folks to ask!"

While there are many successful conquerors who are not outsiders, what's really interesting about these four examples is that they were not complete outsiders, but quasi-outsiders. Corsica was French territory during Napoleon's childhood, Georgia was Russian territory, Austria was culturally German, Macedonia was culturally Greek. And yet they were likely perceived as outsiders before their success. So perhaps they overcompensated, desiring to show that they were more French than the French, more Russian than the Russians, more German than the Germans, and more Greek than the Greeks.

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To what extent were camels considered as a mode of transport in the Old American West? I understand that Camels can carry more and walk farther than horses, particularly in desert climates, which would make them much better for hauling cargo across the American West during its expansion. I also understand there was an experiment done just before the Civil War which actually proved to be successful, but it was never picked up again by the government because of its associations with the confederacy. Apparently most of the camels used during the experiment were sold at auction, so what happened to those that were sold? Were there no big private organisations that decided to use them? Would they not have been useful as stagecoach drivers for example? Or on ranches? And what about the ones that escaped? Is there any particular reason that wild camels didn't become more commonplace since they would be well suited to that habitat? I know there's a lot to unpack there but thank you in advance if you can answer any or all of these questions!

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To what extent were camels considered as a mode of transport in the Old American West? I understand that Camels can carry more and walk farther than horses, particularly in desert climates, which would make them much better for hauling cargo across the American West during its expansion. I also understand there was an experiment done just before the Civil War which actually proved to be successful, but it was never picked up again by the government because of its associations with the confederacy. Apparently most of the camels used during the experiment were sold at auction, so what happened to those that were sold? Were there no big private organisations that decided to use them? Would they not have been useful as stagecoach drivers for example? Or on ranches? And what about the ones that escaped? Is there any particular reason that wild camels didn't become more commonplace since they would be well suited to that habitat? I know there's a lot to unpack there but thank you in advance if you can answer any or all of these questions!

[I've written previously about the US Army Camels which you mention](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/830nlb/why_did_the_us_government_abandon_the_us_army/dveuvgx/) and touch on a few of the questions you have on their fate, so it might be of interest.

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To what extent were camels considered as a mode of transport in the Old American West? I understand that Camels can carry more and walk farther than horses, particularly in desert climates, which would make them much better for hauling cargo across the American West during its expansion. I also understand there was an experiment done just before the Civil War which actually proved to be successful, but it was never picked up again by the government because of its associations with the confederacy. Apparently most of the camels used during the experiment were sold at auction, so what happened to those that were sold? Were there no big private organisations that decided to use them? Would they not have been useful as stagecoach drivers for example? Or on ranches? And what about the ones that escaped? Is there any particular reason that wild camels didn't become more commonplace since they would be well suited to that habitat? I know there's a lot to unpack there but thank you in advance if you can answer any or all of these questions!

*The Times Colonist* is a newspaper printed in the capital of the Canadian province, British Columbia. It made its boisterous and definitely **not so humble** beginnings in Victoria, what was once the capital of the crown colony of Vancouver Island and later the capital of British Columbia when the two colonies joined together. It got it's start as a daily paper called *The British Colonist* and has been in print since 1858. This newspaper has been digitized and made every paper it has ever printed is available to us in [THIS ONLINE ARCHIVE](https://archive.org/stream/dailycolonist18620301uvic/18620301#page/n2/mode/1up). This incredibly valuable resource provides us with a first hand look at the daily occurrences of a.busy town surrounded by Indians, gold rushes, fur traders, marine shipping, homesteading and other important events of the era. In the March editions printed of 1862 we can read of actions that took place in the American Civil War- about 10 days after they had happened, read of shipwrecked sailors being saved by coastal Indians, of another group sailors who deserted their ship and took advantage of the Indians in order to make their escape see daily shipping reports, settlers gripes and advertisements for day to day keeps, auctions and even a government' call for tenders to build a 18 foot wagon road into the interior of British Columbia. The March editions also introduces the voyages of "Brother Jonathan," the ship that brought the man responsible for the major smallpox epidemic that killed up to 60%of British Columbia's Indian population and later editions that year kept it's readers posted on the progress of this horrible event. But I digress. On the first of March, 1862, among the adds showing draft oxen for sale, horses and mules for auction and even a man looking for his stolen saddle we see a paragraph that begins with *The "Camels" are Coming*. It reads as follows : *The "Camels" are Coming* - Twenty five dromedaries are advertised for sale by Mr Walton. A chance us thus offered Cariboo packers to obtain animals suited to their purpose at low figures. The advantages possessed by the camels over all other pack animals are too well known to require a newspaper *pull," but their greatest recommendation to Cariboo packers appear to lie in their long legs, which will enable them to breast deep snow-drifts, the merest sight of which would disturb the equanimity of the strongest-nerved or best-conducted jack-ass in British Columbia. After the camels have been disposed of and started for the mines with the first load, we learn that a number of trained whales will be placed on the route between Victoria and Sticker River, carrying freight and *inside* passengers *a la* Jonah at reduced rates.* After this tongue in cheek article we can read later in the month that 26 camels arrived in Victoria. One camel escaped and ran wild on Vancouver Island for many years before it finally died. One man bought three and another bought the rest to use packing freight the 580 kilometers (350 miles) from Yale, the head of navigation on the Fraser River to the Cariboo goldfields in Barkerville. The first trip was deemed a success as the animals could carry payloads of up to 600 pounds compared to a maximum of 300 for mules and 250 pounds for horses. At a time when freight cost a dollar a pound for shipping, letters cost a dollar apiece for and luxury items such as fresh eggs and fruit were worth as much as two dollars each on delivery it is easy to see their potential. As an added bonus the camels could survive, and even thrived on scrub and brush that would starve horses and mules. Unfortunately the camels had flaws. As one reads through issues of the British Colonist that year problems begin to appear. The camels had bad tempers and miserable dispositions which meant that only a few men were able to handle them and make them work. Fresh eggs were broken. Fruit was crushed. Letters were lost and other cargo was destroyed. The camels feet were soft and soon became sore and tender on the hard gravel. This was overcome by making leather shoes for the camels. These quickly wore out had to be changed every 10 to 15 miles on good ground and even sooner on rough terrain. Camels do not have very good balance and are not able to stand on three legs for any length of time, so their handlers had to unpack the animals before changing their footwear. The camels feet got soft and tender and some even rotted in the swampy muskeg portions of the trails or during rainy weather. By the end of the first year only a dozen of the original 26 camels survived to see the next summer. The real end to the use of camels came from another unexpected issue that arose. Camels have a smell to them that terrified horses. There were many reports of terrified horses bolting just from the smell of a camel train. There are reports of horses walking along the narrow, steep and treacherous pack trail through the Fraser Canyon with results fatal to the horses. Pack Horses would jump to their deaths over a cliff before they would come face to face with a camel. One team pulling a stagecoach went crazy and ran into the bushes, destroying the stagecoach and scaring the bejeezus out of the teamster and his passengers. Even British Columbia's first judge suffered the consequences as the horse he was riding on bolted through a thicker where the trees yanked him out of his saddle. As the camels were the cause of much damage and carnage, their owners were held accountable and were sued for damages. These payments for damages soon consumed the profits that the company using the camels earned. When the packers announced their intentions of bringing more camels in for the following year the threats of lawsuits and personal harm put an end to the use of camels as pack animals . Financial liability ultimately caused the end of using camels as pack animals in British Columbia. Even if finances had not ended their use, the 18 foot wide wagon road funded by the colonial government and completed two (iir correctly) would have rendered them obsolete. The camels were turned loose in the British Columbia interior and left to fend for themselves. I grew up hearing stories about these wild camels and am led to believe that the last one died around the turn of the century. As to why they never propagated and became large herds here I could come up with a suggestion. I would think that the males would have been castrated in order to make them more docile, like we do with horses, cows, dogs, cats, sheep and other animals today.

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Sorry if this is in the wrong place, but what are some good books on the "Islamic Golden Age"?

This is absolutely the correct place to ask that question. But let me respond to you with another question, is there anything in particular that you are interested about? Are you interested in a specific region or time period? Or are you just interested in something more general? I may not be able to help you out, but if you give more information on what you are looking for someone may be able to point you in the right direction.

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Sorry if this is in the wrong place, but what are some good books on the "Islamic Golden Age"?

Not sure what level of depth you're looking for. Here are some pop-history books that are pretty good: *Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists* *Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World* Also, I'd strongly suggest reading *Destiny Disrupted* which gives a great concise overview of the Islamic state from its founding to the present day.

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Sorry if this is in the wrong place, but what are some good books on the "Islamic Golden Age"?

I enjoyed *Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance* by Saliba. I'm not sure what this subreddit's opinion is of Saliba, but he presented a lot material I'd never seen before.

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Sorry if this is in the wrong place, but what are some good books on the "Islamic Golden Age"?

-Travels of Ibn Battuta -The Muqadimmah -The Rubiyat -A History of the Arab Peoples

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The link between The Great War, WWII and the Cold War Hello. I would very much like an explanation of the links between The Great War, WWII and The Cold war. I vaguely remember from my history classes that the reason for the first world war was some sort of murder in serbia? I also remember that the reason for the second world war was that Germany felt that they got screwed at Versailles. Am I correct? I am very history interested, but I am more interested in Ancient Greek and Early Roman history than the history of the past 400 years. If anyone could help me understand it would be greatly appreciated. Also, cite your sources please - I have heard some pretty vile and stupid stuff about history before....

Why am I being downvoted?

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The link between The Great War, WWII and the Cold War Hello. I would very much like an explanation of the links between The Great War, WWII and The Cold war. I vaguely remember from my history classes that the reason for the first world war was some sort of murder in serbia? I also remember that the reason for the second world war was that Germany felt that they got screwed at Versailles. Am I correct? I am very history interested, but I am more interested in Ancient Greek and Early Roman history than the history of the past 400 years. If anyone could help me understand it would be greatly appreciated. Also, cite your sources please - I have heard some pretty vile and stupid stuff about history before....

Well you're pretty much correct. For a simplified version, after WWI in Germany, there was the "stab in the back legend" in which the Army said that the cause for defeat was politicians at home. Since no fighting happened on German soil it was easy to believe. Hitler came to power, started WWII. After WWII the Allies divided up Germany. Soviets got East and the other 3 allies shared west. Berlin (deep in the east) was also divided. The cold war was essentially America trying to stop the spread of communism. Thus the policy of "containment" The Marshall Plan was a way to infuse money into Western Europe and promote Capitalism. When Berlin was cut off from West Germany the Berlin Airlift delivered supplies to West Berliners and turned into a moral victory for Capitalism. Extremely simplified version.

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The link between The Great War, WWII and the Cold War Hello. I would very much like an explanation of the links between The Great War, WWII and The Cold war. I vaguely remember from my history classes that the reason for the first world war was some sort of murder in serbia? I also remember that the reason for the second world war was that Germany felt that they got screwed at Versailles. Am I correct? I am very history interested, but I am more interested in Ancient Greek and Early Roman history than the history of the past 400 years. If anyone could help me understand it would be greatly appreciated. Also, cite your sources please - I have heard some pretty vile and stupid stuff about history before....

Amazingly complicated question. Gross simplification follows. Great War = Rise of the new Germany after the Franco-Prussian war and age of Bismarck. Germany needed raw materials desperately for its industrial gear-up. All the colonies were spoken for by England (sun never set on thsi british empire), France, and a few others. Russia also had tons of resources it wasn't using. Sarajevo was the excuse they could use to get some with the best army in the world at the time (serbian terrorist shot arch-duke ferdinand of Austria, Austria asked Germany for help, Germany agreed, Austria gave Serbia an impossible ultimatum, then invaded anyway, Russia backed Serbia (pan-slav thing), Britain/France backed Serbia (balance of power thing), and everyone went home with the Spanish Flu). You could simplify it to WW1 caused by decline in use of normal coal (which Germany had vs metallurgical coal and oil which they really didn't), and their need of other feedstocks such as rubber and guano. Britain had a monopoly on most of those resources. Call it the first of the oil wars. They lost. OTOH they took Russia down with them, so swings and roundabouts. WW2 - Germany was not broken by WW1, but the rest of the world was broken by the Great Depression. Time for a rematch. Still need raw materials, this time Europe is dramatically weaker due to economic issues. The costs of WW1 were devastating also (roaring 20's were largely caused by us selling them stuff they couldn't make themselves yet). Japan is now desperate for oil and steel as well, and starts looking for their own sources (as currently Britain, France, and US have an effective monopoly on oil at this point). Once Germany gets momentum, it just keeps going, surprising everyone. Jump to Cold War. Now we're afraid of Russia, considering how strong they became after beating Germany. We rebuilt Germany as a rampart to contain Russia. What follows is a very very stupid game of whack-a-mole where Russia tries to convert a state somewhere, and we try to hold it (often by supporting horribly cruel and corrupt people, because they're easier to buy and hold with "money"). This goes back and forth for a while, because nobody wants war again after the last few decades, plus we've got nukes, and later they have nukes, and somehow we figure out that no matter what happens we all die. Did I miss anything? Oh, wikipedia Operation Ajax for a nice hit of our defense of Capitalism, I wish the KGB declassified more of their docs, would be fascinated by what they ended up doing, but I've read more of the docs declassified by our intel agencies. What I read about the Stasi was pretty boring and harsh though, they were absolutely terrified of nothing more than "writers"... fascinating mindset. Oh, Bismarck was the pimp... nuff said.

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The link between The Great War, WWII and the Cold War Hello. I would very much like an explanation of the links between The Great War, WWII and The Cold war. I vaguely remember from my history classes that the reason for the first world war was some sort of murder in serbia? I also remember that the reason for the second world war was that Germany felt that they got screwed at Versailles. Am I correct? I am very history interested, but I am more interested in Ancient Greek and Early Roman history than the history of the past 400 years. If anyone could help me understand it would be greatly appreciated. Also, cite your sources please - I have heard some pretty vile and stupid stuff about history before....

Alright, I'll take this from the top in the most detailed way I can. I feel it unnecessary to cite sources, as I believe most of this is common knowledge, and a quick Google search will prove me right. So WWI started because Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist. This was the murder in Serbia you mentioned. Now, while this was the inciting moment of the war, it was not the cause of it. If it had merely been the assassination of the archduke, the war would have been fairly localized and likely forgotten. What made it a World War was the complex string of alliances. On one side you had Triple Alliance or Central Powers, which consisted of Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. On the other side, you had the Entente Cordiale, which consisted of France, Great Britain, and the Russian Empire. These alliances were caused by imperialism in Europe and the rising power of Germany. No one in Europe really wanted the German state to exist, and it was relatively new, forming only after the Franco-Prussian War in the 1870's. After this war, the Germans took Alsace-Lorraine, a French territory, which built resentment in France against Germany. The two states made alliances, and upheld them. And then we get to Italy. Italy was also a relatively new state. They accepted Germany's invitation to ally in hopes to obtain lands in France. However, they also wanted Austro-Hungarian lands. This caused a rift between Italy and its allies. The Italians left the Triple Alliance and joined the Entente powers as they were promised more land in the London Pact than with the Central Powers. The Ottoman Empire also joined the Central Powers. The Ottomans were known as the "sick man of Europe" as they were had been on a steady decline for decades, if not centuries. WWI was the final nail in the coffin, and they were subsequently destroyed by their enemies. Their empire, along with Austria-Hungary ceased to exist after Versailles, which leads into my next point. The Treaty of Versailles did inflict harsh punishments on the losers of WWI, but especially Germany. France lost the most, and so took it out on Germany, imposing the "war guilt clause", essentially laying blame for the war on Germany, and heavy fines. When the Germans were unable to pay, they printed money, causing hyperinflation. France then took control of parts of their country. This bred resentment towards France in Germany, paving the way for Hitler. Hitler and the Nazis rose based on a model laid down by Mussolini in Italy. He and his black shirted fascists used fear to gain support. They were a gang essentially, beating up political opponents, shutting down newspapers, all that nasty stuff. It was because of poor economic conditions following (and for the Russians, during) WWI that the radicals were able to take power. The Nazis did the same. They organized riots and staged coups, such as the Beer Hall Putsch. They then made themselves a legitimate party, winning few seats in the Reichstag at first. They started appealing to people, though. Hitler's promises of justice for Versailles, and fixing the economy were very attractive to struggling Germans. The Nazis became a majority party. Eventually, in an effort to slow him down and appease him, his opponents elected Hitler chancellor in an ill-fated move. Hitler then seized the opportunity presented by the Reichstag Fire to taken complete control of Germany, suspending many personal freedoms. When the president died, Hitler took full power over Germany, becoming the Fuhrer. At this point, Hitler became aggressive. He started violating the Treaty of Versailles by building up his forces in secret. He remilitarized the Rhineland, and assumed control of Austria. He then took the Sudetenland, a German speaking area of Czechoslovakia, before taking the whole country. Then he overstepped his boundaries and invaded Poland, along with the Soviets, causing Britain and France to declare war on him. Next, Hitler invaded Denmark, then Norway, then the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg and then France. Hitler exacted his revenge on France, taking Paris in 1940. This caused the country to surrender, however resistance continued for the duration of the war. Eventually, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. This caused the USSR, the US, and the UK to unite against Nazi Germany. Once the Germans were defeated in 1945, attention was quickly turned to the former US ally, the communist USSR. They were considered a huge threat. Thus begins the Cold War, a 44 year long struggle between Communists and non-Communists (not necessarily capitalists). And that's how the three are related.

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When/how/why did all the street dogs disappear from American cities? I was watching this video from another /r/askhistorians thread [from 1903](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4C0gJ7BnLc) and one thing that popped out at me are the dogs running around in many of the shots. Modernity does not necessarily imply a lack of street dogs. Some highly developed foreign cities still have dogs, even clean and hygenic places (for example, even in Taipei City, Taiwan there are homeless dogs in many parks, if you know where/when to look), and people don't seem to care for the most part. I think there's a distinction between wild, feral, free-ranging, and off-leash but owned dogs. Regardless, they all have seemed to disappear from pretty much any city or town I have visited in the US, and people seem to react pretty strongly (worry about disease, worry about safety, etc.) to off-leash dogs in a way that I haven't seen in other places (though my travels are limited...)

There are two prongs to this, I think: (1) Funded municipal enforcement of regulations against free-range dogs (2) Social norms promoting dogs as more kin-like pets than animals, and a feeling of socialized responsibility for dogs' welfare For the first point, the US has had instances of anti-dog regulations going back at least to the early 1800s, probably earlier. The earliest regulations seemed mostly to be aimed at preventing dogs from harassing horses (which would pose potential property damage as well as risk to people) and biting people - hygiene and disease didn't seem to play into it at first. At least from the 1830s, and probably earlier, many cities set up dog catchers. The idea was that you had to pay a fee to register your dog (usually more for females), and any unlicensed dog was subject to being held at ransom for a short period (3 days or so) before being drowned or otherwise killed by the dogcatcher. The dogcatcher was paid for out of licensing and ransom fees. Some of the impetus for keeping dogs off the streets was a quite rational fear that stray dogs would spread rabies. Incidentally, Taiwan was rabies-free from CKS moving the ROC there until sometime this past year. I can't really speak much to the development of the 2nd point in the USA - I might read up on the history of ASPCA (founded 1866) if you're interested. Certainly the "humane" movement didn't really start until after the Civil War and slowly gathered steam over the early/mid-20th. In other countries this happened earlier - e.g., England - and in some countries it hasn't taken place yet. Incidentally while trying to nail down a date for the ASPCA point, I came across this 1882 engraving from a U.S. magazine. You can see the contrast between the growing sentimentality towards dogs (dogcatcher vs. poor owner is a trope I've seen more than once in turn of the century short stories) and the general utilitarian disposal of dogs (the cage at upper left is presumably on its way to be lowered into the river to drown the dogs). http://imgur.com/GCquBnQ

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When/how/why did all the street dogs disappear from American cities? I was watching this video from another /r/askhistorians thread [from 1903](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4C0gJ7BnLc) and one thing that popped out at me are the dogs running around in many of the shots. Modernity does not necessarily imply a lack of street dogs. Some highly developed foreign cities still have dogs, even clean and hygenic places (for example, even in Taipei City, Taiwan there are homeless dogs in many parks, if you know where/when to look), and people don't seem to care for the most part. I think there's a distinction between wild, feral, free-ranging, and off-leash but owned dogs. Regardless, they all have seemed to disappear from pretty much any city or town I have visited in the US, and people seem to react pretty strongly (worry about disease, worry about safety, etc.) to off-leash dogs in a way that I haven't seen in other places (though my travels are limited...)

In rural Alaska, street dogs remain common, even to the point that they [occasionally kill small children](http://www.adn.com/2013/09/16/3078874/kotzebue-police-put-down-husky.html).

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When/how/why did all the street dogs disappear from American cities? I was watching this video from another /r/askhistorians thread [from 1903](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4C0gJ7BnLc) and one thing that popped out at me are the dogs running around in many of the shots. Modernity does not necessarily imply a lack of street dogs. Some highly developed foreign cities still have dogs, even clean and hygenic places (for example, even in Taipei City, Taiwan there are homeless dogs in many parks, if you know where/when to look), and people don't seem to care for the most part. I think there's a distinction between wild, feral, free-ranging, and off-leash but owned dogs. Regardless, they all have seemed to disappear from pretty much any city or town I have visited in the US, and people seem to react pretty strongly (worry about disease, worry about safety, etc.) to off-leash dogs in a way that I haven't seen in other places (though my travels are limited...)

If you are interested in the topic of street dogs, [here is a collection of abstracts from the 1st annual Dog Population Management conference.](https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/dogs2012/documents/bookOfAbstracts.doc) Most of the below information is extracted from the cited work. There are a few different strands-- veterinary medicine, public health, legal and governmental, and social/cultural. The social/cultural change occurred when families took dogs inside the house and inside the family. Americans are madly sentimental about their dogs-- they consider the pet to have a unique personality and be "a member of the family." In rural areas and developing areas, the dog is either a working dog who herds grazing animals or guards the property. Many dogs are not secured, they might be fed regularly, but they roam freely. They are not licensed, vaccinated, or neutered. Rabies is a potent threat to public health. 90% of human cases of rabies are caused by dog bites. Public Health requires that stray or street dogs must be brought under control. Local and municipal governments in the US required that animals be licensed, and unregistered dogs were rounded up, taken to the pound, and either killed or sold to animal research. In the second half of the 20th century, it became possible to perform veterinary surgery with low cost and low mortality. It was economically feasible to limit reproduction of domesticated dogs and cats. With the rise of humane societies and prevention of animal cruelty advertisements, there was a trend towards * spaying and neutering animals that were taken into the home as pets * adopting animals from a shelter instead of purchasing from a breeder. Spaying/neutering is a requirement before adopting a shelter animal. Many breeders, to protect the price of pure bred animals, also require that purchased animals be neutered. **TD;DR** 1] fear of rabies led to effective enforcement of registration and licensing laws. 2] Humane Societies and Animal Cruelty Prevention groups successfully swayed public opinion to prefer neutering house pets. 3] Dogs became inside pets, cherished and pampered.

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Any good maps of the Roman Empire? Something with roads and population data?

[Here, try this...](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=roman+maps+%2B+population+%2B+roads)

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Any good maps of the Roman Empire? Something with roads and population data?

A while back, [Stanford](http://orbis.stanford.edu/#) put together an interactive map of transport routes during the Roman Empire. It includes not only roads, but ports and coastal shipping as well. Plus, it can calculate likely routes as well as costs. Wikipedia also has a [nice static map](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_Empire_125.png) of Hadrian's time. It doesn't have population either, but it does label roads, legion locations, groups on the borders of Rome, and a number of other features.

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Any good maps of the Roman Empire? Something with roads and population data?

No results found.

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Any good maps of the Roman Empire? Something with roads and population data?

Well, so here I am on reddit, I come across this post that had NO replies for a whole day; in reddit that is a lifetime. As the OP could quite easily have found several maps using tools that all of us have here on reddit, ie: search, I posted a link to "Let me Google that for you". This is used when people are too fucking lazy to do any kind of looking for an answer themselves. Ironically, it got 3x more downvotes than the whole post got upvotes! Fucking amazing! Is there no sense of humor here? I am sorry, but when someone asks a question that they could have found an answer for themselves faster than posting the stupid question on reddit, well fuck me, I'm gonna have fun with you, cause you deserve it!

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[Music History] When was the (now-popular in film scores) Inception 'BWAAAH' first used in music? It seems to be used contemporarily to punctuate/indicate drama in film scores/trailers, but in music who was the first to use it? Is it present in any operas/musicals? For those who dont know it, here is 'the inception button' http://inception.davepedu.com/.

I suspect that this question violates the "no current (within 20 years) events" rule for this subreddit.

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[Music History] When was the (now-popular in film scores) Inception 'BWAAAH' first used in music? It seems to be used contemporarily to punctuate/indicate drama in film scores/trailers, but in music who was the first to use it? Is it present in any operas/musicals? For those who dont know it, here is 'the inception button' http://inception.davepedu.com/.

> It seems to be used contemporarily to punctuate/indicate drama in film scores/trailers, but in music who was the first to use it? Is it present in any operas/musicals? **tl;dr Inception was first.** The score to the Inception trailer is **[Mind Heist](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cXLYxx1yBA)** by composer **Zack Hemsey.** The actual score to the movie is by **[Hans Zimmer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Zimmer)**. It's probably impossible to understate how *extremely* influential Hans has been in Hollywood in the past fifteen years. In the film, the song [**"Non Je Ne Regrette Rien"**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Kvu6Kgp88) by Edith Piaf is used by the characters to signal a person in the dream world that they need to wake up. Also, there is a concept that time passes exponentially slower in each level of the dream. Inspired by these aspects of the script, Hans took the Piaf song and stretched it out much slower. [**You can listen to a comparison here.**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UVkQ0C4qDvM) The "Inception button" sound consists of trombones and other low brass instruments playing forceful low C's in the same pattern as the Piaf song, then slowed down using a time-stretch audio program. The sound of these stretched out brass chords is very distinctive... it is sloppy, distorted, dark, and ominous. It's almost like a fog horn. After Hans decided that these sounds would be important in his score, he made them available to Zack Hemsey who incorporated them very prominently in the trailer music. The trailer immediately had a dramatic impact on audiences who heard it (I remember seeing the trailer in theaters and vowing that I would see this movie come hell or high water!). Now let's talk about some context for "Mind Heist." One of the most influential pieces of trailer music is Clint Mansell's piece [**Lux Aeterna**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiNvk4xizc0) commonly known as "Requiem For A Dream" because it was written for that movie (back in 2000). Lux was licensed over and over for other trailers and commercials such as [**this trailer for The Two Towers (2002).**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9tnZRs4tNE) You are probably familiar with other often-used (some would say over-used) pieces of epic music such as Carl Orff's [**"O Fortuna"**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNWpZ-Y_KvU) and in particular two pieces by composer John Murphy, [**"In The House In A Heartbeat"**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST2H8FWDvEA) (from "28 Days Later") and [**"Adagio In D"**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab3NscEJ80s) (from "Sunshine"), both of which have reappeared in other trailers, commercials, and even John's subsequent films (such as "Kick Ass"). So all this is to say that pieces of trailer music have gone viral (and been imitated to death or licensed to death) before, especially pieces based on "small" ideas that gradually build to an epic frenzy. Now we just need one more piece of the puzzle, which is the [**death of Don LaFontaine**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_LaFontaine) in 2008. You probably don't know Don but you heard him in a thousand and one movie trailers. He was "THE" movie trailer voiceover guy and a pop culture icon with a voice that sounded like he ate cigars for breakfast. At his height (the 80s and 90s) it was the golden age of Trailer Voiceover Guys, as mocked in videos like [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVDzuT0fXro) and [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goFP6CAIpDg). Now you may have noticed that the age of Trailer Voiceover Guys is pretty much dead. You almost never see trailers with voiceover anymore. Audiences just got a little too used to it and nobody else out there has Don's magic gift. Which leaves the question, how do you punctuate the cuts between scenes in a trailer and build excitement? Before it was "in a world" "one man, one mission" and so on. **So along comes Inception.** The core idea of "Mind Heist" is that you take ONE balls-to-the-wall sound motif (in this case the BWAHHH) and you repeat it as a punctuating element to create unbearable tension and excitement. This worked, awesomely. And it has led to... I'd say 75%+ of epic/action movie trailers seeking to imitate this effect. Just to take two examples, look at the trailer for [**Snow White And The Huntsman**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH9Q10FFbpI) which SHAMELESSLY rips off Mind Heist (such is Hollywood). Or, look at the trailer for [**Prometheus**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmJOO6D5RvA) which takes a "screamy" sound effect and repeats it over and over again from the 2-minute mark onwards. This shows that it's not necessarily the low-ness of the BWAAAH that makes it effective. It's simply that it's a really tasty sound effect, it hits you like a sledgehammer and you can't get enough of it (at least, the first time you hear it!). Composers will continue to seek out cool sound effects like that and incorporate them into the new, post-Inception normal routine for scoring trailers. So to sum up, the Inception BWAAAAH sound is here to stay and variations of it will continue to be used until people dream up the next, fresh new way to present a trailer. But don't bet on that to happen anytime soon. Hollywood loves a rut.

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[Music History] When was the (now-popular in film scores) Inception 'BWAAAH' first used in music? It seems to be used contemporarily to punctuate/indicate drama in film scores/trailers, but in music who was the first to use it? Is it present in any operas/musicals? For those who dont know it, here is 'the inception button' http://inception.davepedu.com/.

Are you asking about specifically that sound or ones that sound like it?

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What was society like in Arab Spain? Was the European lifestyle left more or less intact, while Islamic culture was left to the leading minority? How much bilingualism and intermarriage was there? Did villagers even know or care that their country was ruled by Muslims?

There was actually a sort of "language" spoken by Christians in Muslim Iberia that was a romance language, but written in arabic script. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I imagine there must be some scholars who know more? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozarabic_language

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What was society like in Arab Spain? Was the European lifestyle left more or less intact, while Islamic culture was left to the leading minority? How much bilingualism and intermarriage was there? Did villagers even know or care that their country was ruled by Muslims?

This is from chapter 2 of [Infidels: A History of the Conflict Between Christianity and Islam](http://books.google.com/books?id=SD_Cyz-XW3sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=infidels+christianity+and+islam&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_XacUYGyJ4fs0QHEqIDYAg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=muslim%20spain&f=false): *For the most part, apart from the occasional outburst of mutual antagonism, all managed to live side by sid...the cultures acquired characteristics in common, while still maintaining their distinct and separate and identities...the superficial differences between the different groups (Christians, Muslims, and Jews) diminished. Yet the communities remained distinct: they preserved their customs and observed their own laws.* The Islamic ruling class was a thin veneer over a largely Christian society and was itself divided between Berbers and Arabs. So, the accommodation of religious minorities was at least, in part, a practical solution. Wheatcroft relates that Muslims and Christians spoke of each other in terms of fear and disgust (pp. 68-69). Even though they lived side by side for centuries there was still a lot of mutual misunderstanding as well as a fear of religious contamination. This situation lasted for about three hundred years and then Christians and Jews were either forced to convert or migrate north to Christian kingdoms. Of course the roles were reversed during the reconquista.

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What was society like in Arab Spain? Was the European lifestyle left more or less intact, while Islamic culture was left to the leading minority? How much bilingualism and intermarriage was there? Did villagers even know or care that their country was ruled by Muslims?

I just took a final exam yesterday for Islamic Civilization in Spain and North Africa, taught by a professor of Semitic Studies at the Universidad de Granada, so I can give some quick and dirty answers until someone with more expertise comes along. * Spain was ruled by Arab leaders from about the time of the conquest to the end of the Omeya caliphate (711-1031), after which a civil war split Al-Andalus into a ton of different kingdoms, some of which were ruled by Arabs (Zaragoza) and some by Berbers, who were muslims from North Africa (Granada). Later, Berber dynasties invaded from Morocco and after a time were largely defeated by Christian forces from the north, save for Granada, ruled by the Nasrids until 1492. * During the time the Arab Omeya dynasty was in charge, Christians and Jews were allowed to continue practicing their religion as long as they abided by certain laws limiting their power and paid a special tax. A lot of the Christians of Al-Andalus became arabized, and were referred to as Mozarabs, where converts to Islam were called muladíes. Some Christians scholars like Paulus Alvarus bemoaned the arabization of Christians and worried it would lead to the demise of Latin Christianity. * Arabic was widely spoken among Christian and Jewish scholars, in fact of the first Hebrew grammars is written in Arabic and compares the two language structures. Mozarabs and muladíes would occasionally try to "pass" as Arab to increase their social mobility, as Arabs made up the upper classes. They would take on Arab names and create fictitious geneaologies. * A Muslim man could marry a Christian or Jewish woman, but not a pagan woman. His wife could keep her religion, but her children would be Muslim. Maliki scholars discouraged these marriages because they worried about Christian influence on Islam, but they happened anyway. Conversely, a Muslim woman was forbidden from marrying outside of her faith. If the wife in a Christian couple converted to Islam, her husband would have to convert with her or divorce her. Bonus fact: a few contemporary sources describe the Omeya caliphs as having blonde hair and blue eyes due to the fact that their mothers were slave women (esclavones) bought from the north, usually France or Germany. * Due to the way agriculture was revolutionized in Al-Andalus and the sheer amount of time that the Iberian Peninsula was under Arab rule, together with the taxes that Christians and Jews had to pay for not being Muslim, I would hazard a guess that even the most rural villages were aware of who was in charge. As to whether they cared, the people who did were free to flee northward to where Christians still held power, which is what a lot of Visigoth landowners did when their lands were confiscated and distributed among their serfs during the conquest. There were some minor revolts in Córdoba in the 9th century. A muladí rebel, Ibn Hafsun fought against Abd al-Rahman III in the 10th century in what some historians interpret as an Andalusian nationalist movement against Arabs, but he was eventually defeated.

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What was society like in Arab Spain? Was the European lifestyle left more or less intact, while Islamic culture was left to the leading minority? How much bilingualism and intermarriage was there? Did villagers even know or care that their country was ruled by Muslims?

I know little of the subject, all I can say is that many spanish words have arabic influence, and some, arabic origin. Here is a glossary of spanish words with arabic origin: A: aceite, almohada, aceituna, alfombra, aduana, arroz B: baño, barrio, bata, balde, baza, bellota C: café, cifra, chaleco, chisme, cequia, cohol D: dado, daga, diván, dante, destartalado-da, dinar E: escabeche, elixir, elche, embarazar, engarzar, escaque F: fideo, foz, falagar, faquir, farda, fulano-na G: granadí, galima, guarismo, gabán, gandul-la, garroba H: hola, harén, hachís, hazaña, hasta, harma I: imam, islam, imela J: jinete, jirafa, jarra, judía, jota, joroba K: kermes L: laúd, limón, lima, laca, leila, latón M: meca, marroquí, mazmorra, mezquino, mezquita, muslim o muslime N: nácar, nácara, nuca, noria, naranja, nazarí O: olé, ojalá, otomano, olíbano, orzaga P: paraíso Q: quintal, quiosco, quilate R: rehén, rabal, rasmia, rubia, ronda, rincón S: sandía, serafín, sultán, sorbete, saharaui, siroco T: tabique, taza, tambor, talco, taifa, tarima U: ulema V: valija, valí, visir Y: yemení Z: zanahoria, zoco, zafío, zoquete, zurrapa, zamacuco-ca

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What was society like in Arab Spain? Was the European lifestyle left more or less intact, while Islamic culture was left to the leading minority? How much bilingualism and intermarriage was there? Did villagers even know or care that their country was ruled by Muslims?

I can tell you that many poems from Al Andalus talked about how delicious the wine was and how beautiful the women were. Those are poems written by Muslims from the time. I'm not sure this is factual but in my readings of history it always seemed like Umayyads were pretty cool and Abbasids was when Islam started taking itself too seriously.

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Why do (some) Orthodox Jews prefer to speak Yiddish instead of Hebraic? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to chose Hebraic, which is closer to the language of David?

Some orthodox Jews think Hebrew should be used only for prayer and formal study of the Talmud (Jewish holy texts including the Torah). Using it day to day would be improper as they see Hebrew as a holy language so they use Yiddish instead. Also for lots of them, their parents/grandparents spoke Yiddish in the home as their first language so they want to keep that cultural link.

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Why do (some) Orthodox Jews prefer to speak Yiddish instead of Hebraic? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to chose Hebraic, which is closer to the language of David?

A bit about Hebrew: Hebrew died out as the spoken language of the Jewish people during the Babylonian exile. During the Second Temple and Rabbinic periods the language spoken by most Jews was Aramaic and many Jews, including the rabbis, didn't understand Hebrew. The Hebrew that was used during that era was distinct from Biblical Hebrew with differences in grammar and vocabulary. During the Middle Ages and until the 19th century Hebrew remained a written but not spoken language. Jews in all parts of the diaspora wrote Biblical commentaries, philosophy, and books of Jewish law in Hebrew. That way a scholar who lived in North Africa and spoke Arabic as his daily language could read something written by a scholar who lived in France and spoke French. It wasn't until the 19th century with the rise of Zionism that the idea of reviving Hebrew as a spoken language became a thing. As a consequence today's Modern Hebrew is very different from Biblical Hebrew. The language has shifted so much that in 2012 a translation of the Bible into Modern Hebrew was published. A bit about Yiddish: Yiddish is a language that is about 1000 years old. It is a combination of mostly Middle High German and Hebrew with a bit of Slavic and Latin. It is written with Hebrew characters. It was the dominant language spoken by Jews in Eastern Europe. During the 20th century Yiddish almost died as a spoken language as the majority of Yiddish speakers were killed in the Holocaust. Additionally Yiddish speaking immigrants rarely passed the language on to their children and grandchildren (a process that began before the Holocaust). The children of these immigrants might have grown up hearing Yiddish being spoken in the house but themselves would speak the language of whatever country they lived in, mostly English and Hebrew. The real question is: Why do some Orthodox Jews who live in the US speak Yiddish instead of English and some Orthodox Jews who live in Israel speak Yiddish instead of Hebrew? After the Holocaust there was a strong desire to rebuild in America/Israel the world that had been destroyed in Europe. For some communities this included Yiddish. This has the added bonus of making these communities very insular and shielded from the outside, modern world. It's hard for outside people and influences to infiltrate a community that speaks a different language and it is hard for people brought up in that community to leave if they don't speak the language of the general society. In addition, these communities tend to be very anti-Zionist and this way can stay away from what was one of the major Zionist projects.

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Why do (some) Orthodox Jews prefer to speak Yiddish instead of Hebraic? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to chose Hebraic, which is closer to the language of David?

First, it's important to note that things like being "the language of David" are not primary concerns in the Jewish religious community. Yes, customs and continuity are important, but there's no particular rigid adherence to anything Jewish biblical figures would've done. Anyway, a hundred years ago, the vast majority of modern Yiddish-speakers' ancestors spoke Yiddish, or at least the ancestors of current Yiddish-speaking communities did. The question is not why they adopted Yiddish, the question is why they retained it. This question sort of presumes a communal choice of language coming from weighing its advantages, which isn't really how this sort of thing occurs. As other comments say, the resumption in the use of Hebrew as an everyday language was associated with Zionism, which was a largely secular movement. Yiddish-speaking communities in Israel (which existed in small numbers before there were Hebrew-speaking communities) therefore had little ideological reason to switch languages, and some religious objection to using Hebrew outside religious purposes. With an insular enough community, and no reason to change, they simply kept using Hebrew. In the US the same thing applies, but there's also no practical reason to use Hebrew in the US. Use of Yiddish is mostly a communal marker, and a symbol of resistance to assimilation. But most Orthodox Jews, even partially Yiddish-using ones, speak English too and live a substantial portion of their lives in English.\ Basically, use of Yiddish is a thing that many Jews (though not anywhere close to a majority of Orthodox Jews) think is an important enough tradition to keep doing. With relatively insular communities, and no particular desire to switch, Jewish communities have often historically used different language than their neighbors for long periods of time, if their use was considered prestigious. That's what happens with Yiddish in certain Orthodox communities, though not nearly to the extent of some other Jewish languages have in the past.

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I'm sure you guys get this a lot but can you give me feedback on my dissertation question please. The question I've settled on for now is "The Iranian hostage crisis- The origins of Islam as a synecdoche for the Middle East." Wording of this question has been one of my biggest hurdles but i feel quite confident in the broader meaning and the areas this phrasing will allow me to explore. If anyone's interested i'll post my current draft as I am quite proud of my chosen topic and it's associated areas.

I'm going to be completely honest but two things jump out at me: 1) That is not actually a question. 2) The phrase "The Iranian hostage crisis - The origins of Islam as a synecdoche for the Middle East" seems meaningless and possibly contradictory without further clarification or context. The Iranian Hostage Crisis was 1979-1981, the origin of Islam was c.600 depending on when you count these things. So I'm not *really* clear on what your dissertation is even about just looking at the title.

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I'm sure you guys get this a lot but can you give me feedback on my dissertation question please. The question I've settled on for now is "The Iranian hostage crisis- The origins of Islam as a synecdoche for the Middle East." Wording of this question has been one of my biggest hurdles but i feel quite confident in the broader meaning and the areas this phrasing will allow me to explore. If anyone's interested i'll post my current draft as I am quite proud of my chosen topic and it's associated areas.

Agreed with /u/AncientHistory. Also if you could possibly explain what the synecdoche is here? I'm familiar with (and occasionally guilty of) the problem of the identification and conflation of Middle East with Muslim World, but I'm not sure if that's what you have in mind or what the connection to the Iranian hostage crisis might be.

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I'm sure you guys get this a lot but can you give me feedback on my dissertation question please. The question I've settled on for now is "The Iranian hostage crisis- The origins of Islam as a synecdoche for the Middle East." Wording of this question has been one of my biggest hurdles but i feel quite confident in the broader meaning and the areas this phrasing will allow me to explore. If anyone's interested i'll post my current draft as I am quite proud of my chosen topic and it's associated areas.

Not only is that not a question, it's a very confusing statement that doesn't actually one an idea of what the topic of the dissertation is. As /u/AncientHistory said, the Iranian Hostage Crisis was 4 November 1979 – 20 January 1981 while the origins of Islam are in the early 7th century. Furthermore, how are the origins of Islam a synecdoche for the Middle East? A synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that refers to a part of something is substituted to stand in for the whole, an example of a synecdoche would be '*boots on the ground*' where the boots are referring to the boots on the feet of soldiers. How can *the origins of Islam* (a reference to historical events and theological concepts) be a synecdoche for *the Middle East* (a geographical and cultural region)?

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I'm sure you guys get this a lot but can you give me feedback on my dissertation question please. The question I've settled on for now is "The Iranian hostage crisis- The origins of Islam as a synecdoche for the Middle East." Wording of this question has been one of my biggest hurdles but i feel quite confident in the broader meaning and the areas this phrasing will allow me to explore. If anyone's interested i'll post my current draft as I am quite proud of my chosen topic and it's associated areas.

As others have said, there's some problems with word choice in your question (title?). And as /u/CptBuck mentioned, there's some problems with what I assume you will be your arguments. From the statement you've given it seems that you will argue (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the Iranian hostage crisis was the origin point from which some group of people--probably the Western world, or a subset of it--came to equate the Middle East with Islam, or more particularly radical Islam. If this is in fact what you plan on arguing, I caution you against doing so for two reasons. First, the Western tendency to view the Middle East solely through the lens of Islam extends back centuries (Check out, for instance, Christopher Lyons' *Islam Through Western Eyes*.) In the context of US-Middle East relations, Robert Allison's *The Crescent Obscured* has shown how the conflation of Islam and the Middle East was a prominent belief even during Americans' first encounters with the Middle Eastern world in the late 18th century. Second, the argument that the Western response to the Iranian hostage crisis was both shaped by and helped perpetuate a conflation of Islam and the Middle East is not a new one. There are many scholars who have made such an argument, among them Edward Said in his book *Covering Islam*. Not to put a damper on your dissertation question/topic/argument, but I think it could use some pretty significant revision. As others have said, the title is unclear, which makes it difficult to understand what it is you are actually discussing. Moreover, my assumptions about what you would likely be arguing make me wary mainly because the arguments are either historically inaccurate or commonplace.

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AITA for loving my husband? Hello! Dear sub, I have a little question. Me – 28F My husband – 45M His past wife – 35F My husband and I married recently, but I’ve known him for a long time – I served in his past wives’ households, so while we weren’t close, he was somewhat aware of my existence. (Of course, I knew who he was. I mean, he’s the king.) He started paying court to me while he was still married to his last wife. (Technically, she wasn’t even really his wife. He “married” her before he was officially split from his first wife, and his archbishop proclaimed that it was legal. Their relationship wasn’t very good in general – he said she cheated on him with a *lot* of people – and she wasted so much of his money on clothes, music, and parties! I’ve also been having a lot of success making friends with my stepdaughter, who hated her last stepmother for breaking up her parents’ marriage – she’s been estranged from her father and I’ve done a lot to bring them together.) I was so flattered, and I fell in love with him quickly. She sensed that he was going to try to divorce her before he had the chance to bring it up and lost her head over it, but what did she expect? Now I’m pregnant with his son (fingers crossed!) and we’re so happy, but I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty. Nobody’s ever even hinted at the idea that I could be a homewrecker, but is it maybe sort of my fault that he got rid of his second wife? Should I have tried to get him to set the wedding date more than a couple of weeks after the … let’s call it “divorce”?

Welcome to /r/HistoricalAITA. Please feel free to leave your thoughts and judgements on the situation presented to you by the author, but ensure that you remain courteous and partipate in good faith. If you are commenting, please be sure to start or end your comment with the Abbreviation for your judgement based on the following: * **YTA** = You're the Asshole; * **NTA** = Not the A-hole; * **ESH** = Everyone Sucks here; * **NAH** = No A-holes here; * **INFO** = Not Enough Info *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskHistorians) if you have any questions or concerns.*

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AITA for loving my husband? Hello! Dear sub, I have a little question. Me – 28F My husband – 45M His past wife – 35F My husband and I married recently, but I’ve known him for a long time – I served in his past wives’ households, so while we weren’t close, he was somewhat aware of my existence. (Of course, I knew who he was. I mean, he’s the king.) He started paying court to me while he was still married to his last wife. (Technically, she wasn’t even really his wife. He “married” her before he was officially split from his first wife, and his archbishop proclaimed that it was legal. Their relationship wasn’t very good in general – he said she cheated on him with a *lot* of people – and she wasted so much of his money on clothes, music, and parties! I’ve also been having a lot of success making friends with my stepdaughter, who hated her last stepmother for breaking up her parents’ marriage – she’s been estranged from her father and I’ve done a lot to bring them together.) I was so flattered, and I fell in love with him quickly. She sensed that he was going to try to divorce her before he had the chance to bring it up and lost her head over it, but what did she expect? Now I’m pregnant with his son (fingers crossed!) and we’re so happy, but I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty. Nobody’s ever even hinted at the idea that I could be a homewrecker, but is it maybe sort of my fault that he got rid of his second wife? Should I have tried to get him to set the wedding date more than a couple of weeks after the … let’s call it “divorce”?

NTA. Keep on being a good influence on him! I'm sure you'll have a long and happy marriage and definitely not die in childbirth.

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AITA for loving my husband? Hello! Dear sub, I have a little question. Me – 28F My husband – 45M His past wife – 35F My husband and I married recently, but I’ve known him for a long time – I served in his past wives’ households, so while we weren’t close, he was somewhat aware of my existence. (Of course, I knew who he was. I mean, he’s the king.) He started paying court to me while he was still married to his last wife. (Technically, she wasn’t even really his wife. He “married” her before he was officially split from his first wife, and his archbishop proclaimed that it was legal. Their relationship wasn’t very good in general – he said she cheated on him with a *lot* of people – and she wasted so much of his money on clothes, music, and parties! I’ve also been having a lot of success making friends with my stepdaughter, who hated her last stepmother for breaking up her parents’ marriage – she’s been estranged from her father and I’ve done a lot to bring them together.) I was so flattered, and I fell in love with him quickly. She sensed that he was going to try to divorce her before he had the chance to bring it up and lost her head over it, but what did she expect? Now I’m pregnant with his son (fingers crossed!) and we’re so happy, but I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty. Nobody’s ever even hinted at the idea that I could be a homewrecker, but is it maybe sort of my fault that he got rid of his second wife? Should I have tried to get him to set the wedding date more than a couple of weeks after the … let’s call it “divorce”?

NTA! Who are you to question your husband's judgment? As the head of your family as well as head of the state and (God save him) the church, he's 300% equipped to know what's best for you and your marriage.

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AITA for loving my husband? Hello! Dear sub, I have a little question. Me – 28F My husband – 45M His past wife – 35F My husband and I married recently, but I’ve known him for a long time – I served in his past wives’ households, so while we weren’t close, he was somewhat aware of my existence. (Of course, I knew who he was. I mean, he’s the king.) He started paying court to me while he was still married to his last wife. (Technically, she wasn’t even really his wife. He “married” her before he was officially split from his first wife, and his archbishop proclaimed that it was legal. Their relationship wasn’t very good in general – he said she cheated on him with a *lot* of people – and she wasted so much of his money on clothes, music, and parties! I’ve also been having a lot of success making friends with my stepdaughter, who hated her last stepmother for breaking up her parents’ marriage – she’s been estranged from her father and I’ve done a lot to bring them together.) I was so flattered, and I fell in love with him quickly. She sensed that he was going to try to divorce her before he had the chance to bring it up and lost her head over it, but what did she expect? Now I’m pregnant with his son (fingers crossed!) and we’re so happy, but I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty. Nobody’s ever even hinted at the idea that I could be a homewrecker, but is it maybe sort of my fault that he got rid of his second wife? Should I have tried to get him to set the wedding date more than a couple of weeks after the … let’s call it “divorce”?

INFO: why do you have divorce in quotations? Seems sketch.

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AITA for loving my husband? Hello! Dear sub, I have a little question. Me – 28F My husband – 45M His past wife – 35F My husband and I married recently, but I’ve known him for a long time – I served in his past wives’ households, so while we weren’t close, he was somewhat aware of my existence. (Of course, I knew who he was. I mean, he’s the king.) He started paying court to me while he was still married to his last wife. (Technically, she wasn’t even really his wife. He “married” her before he was officially split from his first wife, and his archbishop proclaimed that it was legal. Their relationship wasn’t very good in general – he said she cheated on him with a *lot* of people – and she wasted so much of his money on clothes, music, and parties! I’ve also been having a lot of success making friends with my stepdaughter, who hated her last stepmother for breaking up her parents’ marriage – she’s been estranged from her father and I’ve done a lot to bring them together.) I was so flattered, and I fell in love with him quickly. She sensed that he was going to try to divorce her before he had the chance to bring it up and lost her head over it, but what did she expect? Now I’m pregnant with his son (fingers crossed!) and we’re so happy, but I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty. Nobody’s ever even hinted at the idea that I could be a homewrecker, but is it maybe sort of my fault that he got rid of his second wife? Should I have tried to get him to set the wedding date more than a couple of weeks after the … let’s call it “divorce”?

ESH- The man sounds difficult to please, but it probably wasn’t very wise to marry him so quickly after the “separation” first occurred. You’re not winning any wife of the year awards.

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AITA for loving my husband? Hello! Dear sub, I have a little question. Me – 28F My husband – 45M His past wife – 35F My husband and I married recently, but I’ve known him for a long time – I served in his past wives’ households, so while we weren’t close, he was somewhat aware of my existence. (Of course, I knew who he was. I mean, he’s the king.) He started paying court to me while he was still married to his last wife. (Technically, she wasn’t even really his wife. He “married” her before he was officially split from his first wife, and his archbishop proclaimed that it was legal. Their relationship wasn’t very good in general – he said she cheated on him with a *lot* of people – and she wasted so much of his money on clothes, music, and parties! I’ve also been having a lot of success making friends with my stepdaughter, who hated her last stepmother for breaking up her parents’ marriage – she’s been estranged from her father and I’ve done a lot to bring them together.) I was so flattered, and I fell in love with him quickly. She sensed that he was going to try to divorce her before he had the chance to bring it up and lost her head over it, but what did she expect? Now I’m pregnant with his son (fingers crossed!) and we’re so happy, but I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty. Nobody’s ever even hinted at the idea that I could be a homewrecker, but is it maybe sort of my fault that he got rid of his second wife? Should I have tried to get him to set the wedding date more than a couple of weeks after the … let’s call it “divorce”?

NTA! You and your husband sound like lovely, reasonable people. I hope you have a boy, I heard he got a little annoyed when he got two girls. His former wives sound like hussies.

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AITA for loving my husband? Hello! Dear sub, I have a little question. Me – 28F My husband – 45M His past wife – 35F My husband and I married recently, but I’ve known him for a long time – I served in his past wives’ households, so while we weren’t close, he was somewhat aware of my existence. (Of course, I knew who he was. I mean, he’s the king.) He started paying court to me while he was still married to his last wife. (Technically, she wasn’t even really his wife. He “married” her before he was officially split from his first wife, and his archbishop proclaimed that it was legal. Their relationship wasn’t very good in general – he said she cheated on him with a *lot* of people – and she wasted so much of his money on clothes, music, and parties! I’ve also been having a lot of success making friends with my stepdaughter, who hated her last stepmother for breaking up her parents’ marriage – she’s been estranged from her father and I’ve done a lot to bring them together.) I was so flattered, and I fell in love with him quickly. She sensed that he was going to try to divorce her before he had the chance to bring it up and lost her head over it, but what did she expect? Now I’m pregnant with his son (fingers crossed!) and we’re so happy, but I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty. Nobody’s ever even hinted at the idea that I could be a homewrecker, but is it maybe sort of my fault that he got rid of his second wife? Should I have tried to get him to set the wedding date more than a couple of weeks after the … let’s call it “divorce”?

NTA - If he's literally king - it doesn't sound like you had much choice here. Denying him probably wouldn't haven't been wise, and keeping the King happy is good for the country at large! Being a home wrecker is... *not great*, but if what you say about his second wife is true, this was inevitable. You waited until the divorce (though why is it in quotations? Is she refusing to sign something?), that's what matters. I'd caution you that if he cheats with you, he'll likely cheat ON you. But perhaps not if the baby is boy. I wish you a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery!

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AITA for loving my husband? Hello! Dear sub, I have a little question. Me – 28F My husband – 45M His past wife – 35F My husband and I married recently, but I’ve known him for a long time – I served in his past wives’ households, so while we weren’t close, he was somewhat aware of my existence. (Of course, I knew who he was. I mean, he’s the king.) He started paying court to me while he was still married to his last wife. (Technically, she wasn’t even really his wife. He “married” her before he was officially split from his first wife, and his archbishop proclaimed that it was legal. Their relationship wasn’t very good in general – he said she cheated on him with a *lot* of people – and she wasted so much of his money on clothes, music, and parties! I’ve also been having a lot of success making friends with my stepdaughter, who hated her last stepmother for breaking up her parents’ marriage – she’s been estranged from her father and I’ve done a lot to bring them together.) I was so flattered, and I fell in love with him quickly. She sensed that he was going to try to divorce her before he had the chance to bring it up and lost her head over it, but what did she expect? Now I’m pregnant with his son (fingers crossed!) and we’re so happy, but I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty. Nobody’s ever even hinted at the idea that I could be a homewrecker, but is it maybe sort of my fault that he got rid of his second wife? Should I have tried to get him to set the wedding date more than a couple of weeks after the … let’s call it “divorce”?

NTA--but it sounds like your husband plays fast and loose with his idea of marriage! Who does he think he is, the pope? I hope you two are very happy, but I'd keep an eye on this guy--sounds like commitment issues, which might make him a difficult father for your baby.

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AITA for loving my husband? Hello! Dear sub, I have a little question. Me – 28F My husband – 45M His past wife – 35F My husband and I married recently, but I’ve known him for a long time – I served in his past wives’ households, so while we weren’t close, he was somewhat aware of my existence. (Of course, I knew who he was. I mean, he’s the king.) He started paying court to me while he was still married to his last wife. (Technically, she wasn’t even really his wife. He “married” her before he was officially split from his first wife, and his archbishop proclaimed that it was legal. Their relationship wasn’t very good in general – he said she cheated on him with a *lot* of people – and she wasted so much of his money on clothes, music, and parties! I’ve also been having a lot of success making friends with my stepdaughter, who hated her last stepmother for breaking up her parents’ marriage – she’s been estranged from her father and I’ve done a lot to bring them together.) I was so flattered, and I fell in love with him quickly. She sensed that he was going to try to divorce her before he had the chance to bring it up and lost her head over it, but what did she expect? Now I’m pregnant with his son (fingers crossed!) and we’re so happy, but I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty. Nobody’s ever even hinted at the idea that I could be a homewrecker, but is it maybe sort of my fault that he got rid of his second wife? Should I have tried to get him to set the wedding date more than a couple of weeks after the … let’s call it “divorce”?

I mean, NTA - he *is* the king, what were you supposed to do? Refuse his advances? Like that would have gone over well... I'm sure you'll feel much better about everything once the pregnancy's over and you and your husband are holding your son in your arms. Just make sure to have a son.

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Vulgar Latin compared to Chinese So I was thinking of the Chinese situation where you have a number of highly divergent dialects (or languages I have no dog in that fight) using the same writing system. I was curious if during the period where the Romance languages were perceived as Latin dialects whether you started to have highly divergent pronunciation of the same written words leading to a similar situation, or whether the pronunciation of written Latin texts stayed roughly similar across regions.

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Vulgar Latin compared to Chinese So I was thinking of the Chinese situation where you have a number of highly divergent dialects (or languages I have no dog in that fight) using the same writing system. I was curious if during the period where the Romance languages were perceived as Latin dialects whether you started to have highly divergent pronunciation of the same written words leading to a similar situation, or whether the pronunciation of written Latin texts stayed roughly similar across regions.

Unfortunately, your impression of the relationship between spoken and written varieties of Chinese is not entirely correct. [This brief answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/p469l7/there_are_multiple_major_dialects_spoken_in_china/h8wxb1l/?context=999) I did a while back, with links to answers by /u/keyilan, goes into this in more depth.

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Vulgar Latin compared to Chinese So I was thinking of the Chinese situation where you have a number of highly divergent dialects (or languages I have no dog in that fight) using the same writing system. I was curious if during the period where the Romance languages were perceived as Latin dialects whether you started to have highly divergent pronunciation of the same written words leading to a similar situation, or whether the pronunciation of written Latin texts stayed roughly similar across regions.

/u/EnclavedMicrostate already hit the main point with the premise but I wanted to expand a bit. > So I was thinking of the Chinese situation where you have a number of highly divergent dialects … using the same writing system. So, we can say that yes they do use the same writing system, in the sense that French and Vietnamese use the same writing system, i.e. a script derived from the Latin alphabet. That says nothing of the linguistic similarity, only that the basic set of components is the same. However, just in case what you had in mind is that they are all _written the same_, and not just about the use of characters, then of course that's not the case, and that's what EM's answer gets at. Written Mandarin is not the same as written Hakka which is also not the same as written Cantonese, even though yeah there are some similarities and some of the words are the same. But not all, and not all the words are anyway, and anyway the grammars also differ. It just so happens that in many of the places where non-Mandarin languages are spoken, there's a situation of [diglossia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diglossia) — i.e. a functional distribution of two or more language varieties in a single community — where Mandarin simply is the written language regardless of what's spoken. In _that_ regard it's quite like Latin (or Greek earlier on) in the Roman Empire, where you speak one language and write a completely different one. I'll let one of the Rome experts get more into the details of the situation with Latin. > … [dialects] or languages I have no dog in that fight … Indeed there is no fight. In general the only people wasting any time arguing about this non-issue are non-linguists. Among people who actually engage in the scientific study of linguistic varieties, this literally never comes up.

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If Rome was a generally tolerant society, why did they persecute early Christians, and what finally led so many Romans to convert?

The problem with your question is that you assume Rome was a generally tolerant society. I don't know how they treated others based on race, so hopefully a more knowledgeable person can answer that for you. But I do know that they were not very open to other cultures and they thought of their own as superior. They often mocked those outside of the empire as barbarians and looked down upon them. I would think that the received Christianity in much the same way, especially since it had its roots in one of their conquered lands.

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If Rome was a generally tolerant society, why did they persecute early Christians, and what finally led so many Romans to convert?

The Roman attitude to Christianity was complex, and changed a great deal over time. Rome was actually a fairly tolerant society religion wise; it was always happy to welcome other pantheons into its own, seeing them as aspects of their own pantheon. Many ancient religions were reconcilable with veneration of Roman gods, and so fitted in to a greater or lesser extent with the Empire's views- pagan people could happily take part in civic sacrifices and ceremonies in Rome. Christians (and Jews) were very different. They were banned from taking part in many ceremonies, and so couldn't be 'proper' Roman citizens. They rejected the very existence of the pantheistic Roman viewpoint, and so were often called atheists. Jews got something of a better time of it because their religion was recognised as being ancient, and so had some cache in Roman circles, but Christianity did not have that luxury. However, discrimination against Christians varied wildly across both time and geography; eventually, of course, they became largely accepted, and under the sons of Constantine they often received a great deal of positive discrimination in the form of tax relief. To delve deeper into why that atheism caused episodes of discrimination, we need to understand Roman views on religion. Religion was an intensely public thing, and partaking in it was part of affirming your 'Roman'-ness. This, obviously, is very important when your empire covers a great deal of geographical and cultural differences. Furthermore, there was a lot of fairly understandable misunderstanding of Christianity. Depictions of it as a cannibalistic cult are understandable, as it sort of symbolically is. That pagans didn't understand that symbolism is unsurprising, and obviously when a community is misunderstood that leads to discrimination. As to the second part of your question, my knowledge is a lot more sketchy. Various bits and pieces come to mind re: preaching equality in a slave-based society and also the relatively prominent place of women in early Christianity meaning that officials wives would often convert and then with-hold sex until their husband did too, but I can't be sure. For further reading I'd recommend [*A World Full of Gods* by Keith Hopkins](http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Full-Of-Gods-Christians/dp/0753810654/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350761037&sr=8-1), because it is bloody good and an interesting look at religion in the Roman empire. Hope this helps!

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If Rome was a generally tolerant society, why did they persecute early Christians, and what finally led so many Romans to convert?

I think it might be more accurate to say that Rome was an assimilationist society. They felt that their culture was the best, and felt that everyone should adopt it. And to that end, they wouldn't hold it against you if you weren't born into their culture. They would also try to make it easier, by allowing you to introduce elements from your old culture into theirs. But if you outright rejected their culture, they could get pretty hostile. Christianity was seen as being an outright rejection of their culture. It encouraged people to not do things that the wider society saw as being a civic duty (such as military service). And Christianity could not be ignored because it aggressively sought converts. As for why Christianity was so successful, there are many factors that led to this. The aggressive proselytizing, the emphasis on life after death, the far simpler belief system, the emphasis on charitable works, the de-emphasis on material wealth (which most in the empire did not have) all were factors. I think the harsh persecution also served as effective propaganda as well. I think the thing that really made the change was that they got a christian to the post of emperor, and without state support, the old religion withered away. A similar thing happened to Zoroastrianism in Persia, when Islam took over.

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If Rome was a generally tolerant society, why did they persecute early Christians, and what finally led so many Romans to convert?

I'm not sure to what part of early Christianity you refer, but Roman emperor Constantine in the 4th century is a big part of the response to the second half of your question. Constantine's conversion to Christianity marked the transition of Christianity from a marginal, sometimes persecuted sect to an officially-recognized religion of the state, which meant that its adherents, along with those of other religions, were no longer subject to state-enacted oppression. Constantine - and subsequent emperors - wielded great influence in early Christianity after this time. For example, one of the most famous Church councils, the Council of Nicaea, where the Nicene Creed still recited in Catholic (and perhaps other Christian denominations, although I'm not 100% on that) churches today, was called not by a pope nor by the bishops whom it convened, but rather by Constantine. Constantine's conversion was huge for Christianity. Once so intertwined with the authoritative state, it lost a lot of its subversiveness, as well as its diversity. However, it undoubtedly led a lot of Romans to convert because Christianity was assimilated into the dominant narrative in which Romans participated. It no longer occupied the margins.

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If Rome was a generally tolerant society, why did they persecute early Christians, and what finally led so many Romans to convert?

Christianity (along with Judaism and a few others) differed from a lot of the other religions in the Roman world in that its first rule was the denial of all other gods. This was problematic in the later years of the Empire as the Emperors demanded tribute at an altar in their name. Now, if you're a follower or Isis or of the Capitoline Trio or some other non-monotheistic god, you wouldn't really have a problem with this because there was nothing in your cult/religion that said you couldn't deny the existence of Isis if you were in the cult of Mithras. So you could say a prayer to the Emperor and be okay. Christians couldn't, so that caused issues. EDIT - Just realized I didn't answer the second half of your question. In essence, it appealed to the disenfranchised: the slaves, the poor, and the women. It promised a better, eternal life if you just managed to live through this short and miserable one, and it empowered the people who normally weren't empowered in Roman society, especially women in the early years.

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If Rome was a generally tolerant society, why did they persecute early Christians, and what finally led so many Romans to convert?

The motivation behind the periodic Roman persecution of Christians is a bit of a mystery, and most answers are based on speculation. As others have noted, the Romans did not make a habit of persecuting religions, as long as those religions did not threaten Roman rule or engage in activities like human sacrifice, like the druids in Britain were thought to have done. There were rumors that Christians did engage in human sacrifice, and some of the persecution may have been based on these rumors. Also, Christians did worship a Roman criminal and claimed that the Romans crucified God -- that might have offended the Romans. The title Son of God was one of the official titles of the Roman emperor, so calling Jesus the Son of God may have rightly been perceived as a direct challenge to Roman authority. The Jews did not normally seek to convert non-Jews, while the Christians had their greatest success converting non-Jews. Furthermore, Christianity was an exclusivist religion, which did not recognize other gods or religions as legitimate. That was not so common at the time. The same was true of the Jews, but again they did not evangelize. However, as others have also noted, Christians were not always persecuted by the Romans. Some scholars argue that the pastoral epistles (Timothy 1 and 2 and Titus) were written in the second century A.D. and already reveal accommodations with the Romans, telling slaves to obey their masters and women to remain subservient. These are falsely attributed to Paul, yet in his authentic first-century letters Paul was much more radical, saying things like "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28) and urging a Christian to treat his slave as a brother -- indeed as he would treat Paul himself -- in Colossians. As for why Christianity ultimately became popular enough to convert the emperor, that's also highly speculative. Perhaps the fact that it was an evangelizing, exclusivist religion had something to do with it. Perhaps the fact that it was subversive in nature made it popular among anyone who did not like Roman rule. Perhaps the Christians got lucky. Or perhaps they simply had a better religion than the alternatives available at the time.

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How was fresh water obtained on long voyages when discovering the new world? With the many months at sea, the large numbers of crew and limited space on the ships. i imagine carrying too much water would be impractical, or did the ships have some form of desalination to produce drinking water?

Nope, they carried it in barrels that got more and more slimey. They might collect rain water if they're desperate but usually they would land at known points, like Cape Town (if travelling from Europe to the Indian/Pacific) the Maldives (in the Indian Ocean) or the Azores (middle of Atlantic) to take on water. Water rations were a thing, obviously. By the 1850s, a civilian trans-Atlantic crossing of about 10 weeks, it was set to around 3 quarts a day per person.

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How was fresh water obtained on long voyages when discovering the new world? With the many months at sea, the large numbers of crew and limited space on the ships. i imagine carrying too much water would be impractical, or did the ships have some form of desalination to produce drinking water?

In addition to Hussard's comment, stagnant water sitting in barrels would often spoil fairly quickly (bacteria and other nasty stuff would start to grow) so alcoholic drinks were very useful for these long journeys. The pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock were aiming for Virginia (which had a much broader definition back then) but ran out of beer so they went ashore otherwise they would die of thirst.

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How was fresh water obtained on long voyages when discovering the new world? With the many months at sea, the large numbers of crew and limited space on the ships. i imagine carrying too much water would be impractical, or did the ships have some form of desalination to produce drinking water?

While modern ships make their own fresh water out of seawater, ships in the age of sail did not have that luxury. Instead, they carried both water and alcohol (usually beer, rum and occasionally wine) in large casks. However, water doesn't like to be left out for long periods of time. Eventually it becomes stagnant and falls victim to algae and bacteria. You may have heard of the term "grog." This was a drink made by adding the alcohol on board to the casks of water to preserve it longer and more importantly make it taste better. As you can imagine stagnant water tastes like crap. The beauty of hard alcohol (rum and whiskey were especially popular among sailors) was that a relatively small volume of it could extend the life of a lot of water.

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How was fresh water obtained on long voyages when discovering the new world? With the many months at sea, the large numbers of crew and limited space on the ships. i imagine carrying too much water would be impractical, or did the ships have some form of desalination to produce drinking water?

Why didn't they just evaporate fresh water from seawater? Both the knowledge and the equipment required seem pretty simplistic and seem like they would be available at the time.

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Can anyone explain the American Southeast? Culturally, politically, ethnically, and its historical bases from the first waves of European immigration. We deride it all the time; there has to be some reason it is what it is.

That is a very large question. There's obviously about a million things that made the American South a distinct region. Without a doubt, the top reason why is slavery. The way the Southern economy developed relied heavily on its warm climate to grow crops the North couldn't (primarily cotton, tobacco, and rice). Since the North didn't need nearly as much unskilled labor and because of the influx of immigrants, Northern business slowly moved away from slavery and servitude and toward free labor. Thus, when you have a heirarchical system of society, culture, and economy in one region but not the other, obviously its going to have a huge effect. A few more reasons... The South is MUCH more agrarian and rural than the North. That affects culture as well (farmers and country-folk). The Deep South (AL, AK, MS) was settled en masse in the early 19th C., far later than most realize. If you want to go all the way back to the 17th C., the people who founded Virginia and South Carolina were WAY WAY WAY different than those who founded Massachusetts. VA was all about making money; SC was a lot of slaveholders from the Caribbean looking for a new place to profit; MA were primarily looking for a new way of life and religion. Not a perfect answer, but at least gives you something.

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Can anyone explain the American Southeast? Culturally, politically, ethnically, and its historical bases from the first waves of European immigration. We deride it all the time; there has to be some reason it is what it is.

the american south east is culturally the way it is because the original people who came to those colonies were looking for business opportunities as appose to those in the new england colonies who wanted religious freedom. tobacco was the big cash crop in the south and people formed plantations which were very reminiscent of the feudal states in the middle ages. since these plantations were self-sufficient towns were not really needed. since there were no towns industry wasn't developed and people made money on farming which needed a large labor force (slaves). because of the large rural population and southern aristocracy traditionalism came about

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Can anyone explain the American Southeast? Culturally, politically, ethnically, and its historical bases from the first waves of European immigration. We deride it all the time; there has to be some reason it is what it is.

As someone who has lived here his entire life, RELIGION. Religion shapes EVERYTHING here. Architecture, attitudes, manners, morals, values, racism, everything. Religion separates the races every Sunday from 8am-2pm. Religion suppresses all the people who aren't right-wing Christians. Religion keeps people stupid and ignorant to real education and knowledge, content to just stare upward cuz y'all know we gotsa be good wit JEZUS! Religion religion religion in my very experienced opinion. Also, centuries of having slaves to work fields has given us the high class white plantation culture that survives in the form of fraternities and sororities. Which was justified with passages from the Bible for years before the Thirteenth Amendment passed. We are still unintelligent farmers because nobody wants to develop anything in a place where there can be no new ideas without appeasing all the churches first which takes years and years. pot will never be legal here

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Can anyone explain the American Southeast? Culturally, politically, ethnically, and its historical bases from the first waves of European immigration. We deride it all the time; there has to be some reason it is what it is.

David Hackett Fischer can: http://www.amazon.com/Albions-Seed-British-Folkways-Cultural/dp/0195069056 He looks at different colonies and where their populations of colonists came from. Many settlers in Virginia came from southern England and were largely Cavaliers, royalist supporters, from the English Civil War. Another theory I've read recently is Charles Mann's 1493. He looks a difference in native american populations in the northeast and the southeast and the differences in the colonies. There were powerful chiefdoms in the southeast that already engaged in slave trade and relatively larger scale agriculture. http://www.amazon.com/1493-Uncovering-World-Columbus-Created/dp/0307265722

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Can anyone explain the American Southeast? Culturally, politically, ethnically, and its historical bases from the first waves of European immigration. We deride it all the time; there has to be some reason it is what it is.

There are some books on it. Trying to remember a book I read some time ago, I don't want to say its Toqueville but the book I read my first year is absolutely lost on me. Anyways, but the immigration from various regions of Britain into the area. So a lot of the culture, especially around Appalachia is derived from the culture. There's a wonderful book on the subject but I just cannot remember it. I'll post it when I remember =) Edit: ALBION'S SEED!

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Can anyone explain the American Southeast? Culturally, politically, ethnically, and its historical bases from the first waves of European immigration. We deride it all the time; there has to be some reason it is what it is.

I saw GucciClouds got a lot of 'children' (whatever that means?) but he's got a decent point. I've lived in the south all my life. I never saw it as a big deal when people would talk about 'radical Muslims' ruining this world and be afraid to go into a gas station because a black man was in there. These things happen all the time and are completely overlooked by the masses. I think it's insane that people can be so closed minded, but thats just my two cents.

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Can anyone explain the American Southeast? Culturally, politically, ethnically, and its historical bases from the first waves of European immigration. We deride it all the time; there has to be some reason it is what it is.

Check out *Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 14: Southeast* if you actually want historical information about the area.

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Can anyone explain the American Southeast? Culturally, politically, ethnically, and its historical bases from the first waves of European immigration. We deride it all the time; there has to be some reason it is what it is.

God, I'm going to sound like /r/atheism if I talk about it in the modern day. So I'm going to just talk about it historically. The landed white man with slaves and a plantation was *not* all that there was to the south. There were very many poor white farmers within the area, and there was a small degree of manufacturing. Hunting, fishing, and sustenance farming is a very large part of life for these people, as was living life outdoors. This has continued to the modern day. Each state had more setting them apart from one another than in the North. An example of this is the railway system. If I recall correctly, each state had their own trains running on their own size of rails. State laws and rules had a lot more power. Federal power is seen as an intrusion, (and that hasn't changed much either) ******