MichaelF

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I got my BA in History even though I haven't used it for employment, I have pursued my studies more for enjoyment. While I work in tech I still spend time researching and studying history, concentrating in the Colonial American period and Asian cultures.

I pursue an interest in other topics as they come up, the more you learn the more you want to know is my general theme of topics. As a historian I try to see both sides of the question, in general History is written by the winners so one often needs to look deeper into the subject to get a balanced view. Much of what I have learned growing up has already changed which goes to prove the axiom - nothing is constant but change.

	3,797 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	1 year, 7 months
11134 badges		location	Massachusetts		seen	4 hours ago

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Mar 18	comment	How would Eastern European emigres have traveled across Eastern Europe to Warsaw in the early 20thC? Very indepth, thank you. The rails is an interesting fact I did not know, seems to be a similar condition to American railways of the 1800's which were different gauges at one point (especially the American south). Gdansk is what we were told, and I have nothing to refute it at this time, maybe there was a change in ports for 1917?
Feb 23	comment	Why did George H. W. Bush select Dan Quayle as his running mate in 1988? Quayle had tons of gaffes, some more memorable than others. I'd have to find something concrete but if I remember he was chosen to appeal to younger voters under the impression that GWH Bush was too old and unable to do so.
Feb 23	comment	How did the “Forty Niners” get to California in 1849? More on the Chagres River route and the Forty Niners - trail2.com/embera/history3.htm
Feb 23	comment	How did the “Forty Niners” get to California in 1849? @T.E.D. Actually there was significant passage through the Canal road, which was not all impassible jungle. The Chagres River road up to Panama City was a well known and used road, that the Fourty Niners used as an alternate path. Henry Morgan even used it in his supposed sacking of Panama City, which is where I saw the reference to the Forty Niners as they used the same path later on.
Feb 20	comment	Who were the elites in ancient China ( 1200 - 1800 AD )? The scholarly class were looked upon with respect from the Confucianists, but I suppose it depends on how you define elites. Merchant families often tried to have their children take the civil service exams, since it was a point of pride to have a relative who took and passed them. Those who passed and were in civil service had their children take the exams as well, that is how meritocracies are built.
Jan 25	comment	Why were the British so reluctant to allow Jewish migration to Palestine? @JimThio Although the land was purchased many of the Arabs felt that the process was against them as land was purchased from absentee landlords or those who lived there were out of work and felt they had no recourse but to sell to the only buyers who happened to be Israeli Jews. Rightly or wrongly, I don't have a position on it one way or another, to them it seemed the land was slipping from Arab hands to Jewish ones.
Dec 21	comment	Were there weapons that a private citizen could not legally own in 1789 in the US? I recently got into this discussion and a friend of mine noted that some cannon at the time were privately owned, though I have not looked into it deeper. Not sure about other weapons, though considering we were still a frontier/colony/country its doubtful there were laws regarding who owned what.
Dec 20	comment	Who is responsible for the partition of Palestine? Titles need to be reflective of the question as often that is what people will first see, please keep them consistent and not a two word placeholder. This is an ok question but you could easily find this elsewhere and in some of the other answers on Israel, I think I touched on this once on another answer.
Dec 18	comment	What exactly was the Philby Plan? Nice find, my Middle East history books don't mention the plan at all, an interesting omission considering they are fairly balanced otherwise
Dec 18	comment	When did songs extolling leaders of companies go out of fashion? +1 for the nice question and bringing up something that is sort of forgotten when looking back at industrialism in America
Dec 17	comment	What exactly was the Philby Plan? Yes, much more so. It's always better to give more detail in the question to point out only what you are looking for to keep the answers from meandering
Dec 17	comment	What exactly was the Philby Plan? Could you put more into the question? Perhaps the point that you are unclear on rather than just a link to wikipedia would help immensely in able to answer your question.
Dec 12	comment	Why did Ford pardon Nixon? Believing Haig about anything is not really going to get you towards the truth.
Dec 6	comment	What made Washington DC “dominate” politics in the USA? I've tried to clean up your question, let me know if this is what you are asking. It's an easy answer but I'd like to be sure of the question first.
Dec 5	comment	What post 18thC countries rulers escaped to a remote/separate region and hung on while the country collapsed under revolution? A good example but they stayed in Constantinople, I'm trying to see if there are other examples like in the case of Taiwan where the leaders basically gave up all but one remote area and moved government there.
Nov 30	comment	Recognition of Palestine? @T.E.D. I've come across point 4 in dealing with other historical claims of who rules where, and for how long, its a question I have yet to find an answer for. Mostly its either you take the claims and have no way to then go back and determine who the actual people were who owned the land, or accept the current situation. In either situation there are losers and someone is always unhappy.
Nov 30	comment	Recognition of Palestine? Originally a protectorate under the British after World War 2, but under Israel the West Bank and Gaza shifted quite a bit. Still I agree with Drux, what have you looked at on this or discovered on your own?
Nov 28	comment	What process have countries followed when creating constitutions? How about I mention that while Washington was at the Constitutional Convention he was not the writer of the US Constitution which was written by committee and with the contributions of others that exceeded Washington's. With that said, many countries write Constitutions in a manner to keep power or to prevent those who were toppled from regaining power. It takes time to write a Constitution after a revolution, and usually that time is not peaceful.
Nov 26	comment	Did the fights in the Ip Man movie series actually occur in real life? Asking about the historical accuracy of action movies usually ends up in the realm of fiction, this might need to be moved.
Nov 23	comment	Has the US Congress's power to declare war been rendered superfluous by recent conflicts? @Barry I think you need to separate out the actions done by the US on our own, like Vietnam where the President sent troops on the ground against those like Korea, the Balkans and Kuwait when we worked with the UN, NATO or other countries and didn't formally declare war. It's definitely a grey line that politicians love to blur.