Questions tagged [modern]
The period of history roughly from the 15th century to the mid 20th century
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Can anyone find this DOJ report talking about the CIA's detention and interrogation (or torture) program?
In Ali Soufan's bookThe Black Banners - Declassified: How Torture Derailed the War on Terror after 9/11,on page 425a of the Kindle edition, he says:
A July 29,2009, report by the Justice Department's ...
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Why are there 37 numbers on European roulette wheels?
A European roulette wheel contains the numbers 0 to 36. Who decided to put 37 numbers on a wheel, and why did they choose this number?
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How can I find English versions of these books by A. Suter?
Does anyone know if any of these books is available in English (either for purchase or free download)? If so can you suggest a corresponding website?
Suter, Andreas (1997): Der Schweizerische ...
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What is the difference between "liege-vassal" and "simple vassal"?
Jean Bodin said in his Six Books of the Commonwealth:
The fourth is the simple vassal who owes faith and service for his fief, but is neither a sovereign himself, nor the natural subject of the man ...
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Were short stem coupe glasses common in the 1920's?
Please advise, if I am mixing something up horribly.
I remember images I've occasionally seen several times over past 30 years -- either historical posters or illustrations, maybe even American/...
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Can anyone help me find a 2010 Associated Press report on the costs of the drug war?
I came across Fox News and Huffington Post articles claiming to be reporting on an Associated Press report claiming that America has spent $1 trillion on the war on drugs. Based on the following ...
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Did Christopher Columbus ever have any direct contact with the Genoese colonial Aegean region?
During Christopher Columbus' lifetime, a sizable portion of the Aegean sea region was occupied by Northern Italian quasi-colonial powers....specifically, the city-states of Venice and Genoa...this ...
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In Shanghai before World War II what were relations like between the Europeans living there and the local Chinese?
My Uncle has been telling me a lot about my great grandfather. He was in the merchant marine and, before World War II, he was stationed in Shanghai which at the time had a large European population. ...
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Is there any instance of part of a country successfully seceding and then unifying with a neighbouring country in the last century?
There have been and still are plenty of groups who are fighting for independence of their home regions, and many who have been successful, but is there any precedent for groups fighting to leave the ...
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Where and why did the colourful houses of Bristol start?
Bristol has a reputation for rows of colourful terraced houses, like those on Clifton Terrace:
Nobody seems to know where and why is started:
Nobody’s entirely sure when or why houses in the ...
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Historically, what methods have irregular forces used to disable tanks?
During the 2022 war between Ukraine and Russia, it has been reported that Russian tanks have been abandoned due to running out of fuel.
Now, I do not necessarily believe this story as news stories ...
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Was it common in Europe in the modern era that proper names were translated?
My question is partially motivated by this question. I know that up until early 20th century in Hungarian many (or even most) foreign names were translated. For example this poster from 1864 mentions &...
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Are there any modern history examples of large scale conflicts where warfare technology provides a great advantage to the defender, except WWI? [closed]
One of the characteristics of World War I was the Trench warfare which shows one of those cases when defender has a large advantage over the attacker:
(..) a revolution in firepower was not matched ...
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What do these lines on the origins of Hindu/Muslim communal consciousness mean?
From The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India by Paul R. Brass:
Historical analysis of Hindu-Muslim communal conflict, its causes and preconditions, has been highly contentious ...
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How do art historians study the transactions of art merchants?
My question is the following: I would like to ask how to frame a research paper about transactions of art merchants and their transcription from the accounting book to a research paper. I would like ...
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Did Modernism believe urban life was bad?
I'm not entirely sure whether this is the correct site for my question by here it is:
My English teacher recently mentioned that the Modernist movement believed that urban landscapes were essentially &...
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Why do we study Mughals as part of medieval history of India and European conquest as modern India? [closed]
Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty, came to power in 1526. Aurangzeb, the last Mughal ruler (not counting later Mughals), died in 1707.
The Portuguese came to India in 1498 and by 1510 they had ...
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Help me identity the symbols on this relief?
Could somebody please help me identity the symbols on the relief below?
This is a memorial plaque in Vienna. It shows a former city judge and mayor of the town “Gross-Jedlersdorf” (today the 21st ...
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Were there any important spies in modern history who had to conceal their true nationality (or culture)?
This often comes up in movies, but I can hardly find any real cases, except for the "Illegals Projects" - but that doesn't seem like high-stake espionage, let alone successful.
I'm thinking ...
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When did podium girls first appear?
This is a question related to competitive cycling, as well as to competitive car racing. I am interested in the political and social aspects, but I would gently ask to leave them out from the specific ...
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Did slaves have slaves?
Was there anywhere in history where the enslaved were able to enslave others?
Was there a slave hierarchy?
I read the slavery wikipedia entry, it mentions that in various cultures people retained ...
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When was bicycle ridership highest in North America?
Bike commuting share in the United States is currently less than 1%; but in some cities (college towns, really) it is 10% or higher (source).
Is there a time in US history when bicycle ridership was ...
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What profession(s) would have used this folding 'ruler'?
This ruler was originally handed down to an aunt on my (English) mother's side of the family. One side is a standard ruler in inches but, curiously, the other side is unlike anything I've been able to ...
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What happened to prisoners in IS occupied territory?
What I would like to know is, how IS treated prisoners, they encountered in their newly controlled territory. Did they free the prisoners? Did they re-sentence them, or kill them?
I tried Google-ing ...
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Is there a ig-Nobel prize dinner? [closed]
I know that there’s a Nobel prize dinner & that there’s the ig-Nobel prize for making you laugh and then think: my question is this, is there a ig-Nobel prize dinner? I figured that it would be ...
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What is the social history of British popular opposition to Thatcher over the miner’s strike?
I tend to watch a lot of UK panel shows and while most of the comedians are Labour/liberal I'm still surprised at just how much they seem to hate Margaret Thatcher. Particularly this seems to be about ...
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Are there any details available on 1954 Afghan proposal for a merger with Pakistan?
I found a shocking declassified CIA NSC briefing on the alleged proposal here.
It claims:
Afghanistan Foreign Minister requests U.S. aid to bring about
Afghanistan-Pakistan merger. He claims ...
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Did the average height of men in late Victorian England decline due to poor nutrition?
According an article in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
The fall in nutritional standards between 1880 and 1900 was so marked
that the generations were ...
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What are the most famous individual toys in modern history? [closed]
Continuing my interest in the history of toys: Have there been any famous individual toys besides Winnie the Pooh and Paddington Bear? (Both were inspired by actual stuffed animals.)
By individual I ...
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In Edwardian England, did poor families arrange to have their children buried in the graves of unrelated adults?
In Max Arthur’s Lost Voices of the Edwardians, a "compilation of memories from the turn of the century" (1901 - 1910), one Florence Hannah Warn relates how her brother Gilbert was buried:
When a ...
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Why does the first decade of the 21st century start with 2000?
Wikipedia says that
The 21st century began on January 1, 2001 and will end on December 31, 2100.
The first decade of 21st century is the 2000s. Here Wikipedia says that
The 2000s was a decade ...
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What nationality was "Egbert Van Kampen"?
If you google a bit about the mathematician Egbert Van Kampen, almost all sources you'll find claim that he was born in Belgium in 1908.
Does anyone have any reliable sources about this person's ...
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When was the first known international call between two heads of state or government?
A number of international phone connections were established a little before or just after 1900:
Paris - Brussels phone line in 1886
England - France cross-Channel telephone cable in 1891
Britain - ...
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Why did early attempts to transport milk to London by rail meet with 'much criticism'?
According to the Wikipedia article on milk (referring to transporting milk to London by rail),
The Great Western Railway was an early and enthusiastic adopter, and
began to transport milk into ...
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What is this card, and why does it go "on the hat"?
This document is from the papers of a family whose ancestors immigrated from Germany to the United States in the late 19th century:
Transcript:
Zwilchenbart
Basel
9 Centralbahnplatz 9
New York
1 ...
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Can anyone identify this uniform?
Copied from OP's comment:
I believe he stayed in the Aachen area.
It is a photo of my G.G.Grandfather who was born in Aachen, Germany in 1841 and died 13 Nov 1890. Thanks in advance.
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Has there ever been a month with 32 days?
As the title says. I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) that with our modern Gregorian calendar, no month will ever be longer than 31 days.
But have there been any times in the (perhaps recent) ...
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Did the Bush administration or their successors ever comment on the alleged Taliban warning about 9/11?
I was going through some old news reports and I was shocked to find a BBC report from 2002 that the Afghan Taliban warned the Americans and the UN of an impending attack on US by Al-Qaeda however ...
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Could someone identify this uniform? The photograph is a tintype
I am trying to identify the uniform worn by this confident young man. Is it a military dress uniform? The photograph is a tintype, so I think that the probable date is ca. 1860-1880.
The photograph ...
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Did William Shakespeare ever visit Venice, Verona and/or Rome?
Some of William Shakespeare's most famous plays were located outside of England proper. "The Merchant of Venice", "Romeo and Juliette", as well as "Julius Caesar", were plays set in the historical ...
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Why did Francisco Franco never reestablish the Spanish monarchy?
Fransisco Franco, the dictator of Spain from 1939 to 1975, was a monarchist. Yet for the entirety of his time in office, there was no king of Spain. Only in 1969 did he appoint Juan Carlos I to be ...
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Did French people in 19th century not bathe every day?
I am currently watching Ikoku Meiro No Croissant episode 4. In this episode, Yune tried to take a bath, but it didn't work out nicely. So in the next morning, Claudel-san said that:
Only rich ...
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What rights did women have in Switzerland in the first few years of the 20th century?
What were the legal rights of women in Switzerland in 1900-1905? Did women have the right to own property such as jewelry? Did items of value belong to her father if she was under the age of 24? ...
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Why did the population of Anchorage, Alaska, increase by so much in the 1970s?
Between 1970 and 1980, the population of Anchorage, Alaska, increased by more than 260%, around 130,000 people. What caused this? There had been previous increases of approximately the same in ...
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Why and when did countries develop long names that include the form of government?
Every country has different names, for example “China” vs “People's Republic of China”. But when I look back into history I see that countries in the past only had one name. For example the ancient ...
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How important were reprints of scientific articles in scientific practice and communications before the the copier, the computer and the internet?
Reprints of articles from scientific journals seem to have been an important part of scientific practice before the copying machine and the internet. Authors of articles were given a number of those ...
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Why was Colonel Bill Eddy kneeling in front of FDR and King Saud?
Amidst the WW2, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Saudi King Ibn Saud met aboard USS Quincy after the Yalta conference.
Colonel Bill Eddy played the role of interpreter.
It however strikes as ...
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How and why did limerence come to be idolized as it is in modern Western society? [closed]
Limerence - the involuntary, infatuated state that has been romanticized as love.
Before you read in, the basics of my question have to do with the historical forces that have shaped the modern ...
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Which car was the first to come with a cigarette lighter receptacle?
While many cars today are phasing out the cigarette lighter (if they do have them they no longer include the lighter, just the socket), I was curious which car or car manufacturer was the first to ...
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Could prisoners be pardoned in 1832 France under the July Monarchy?
For instance, could inspector Javert in "Les Miserables" have avoided his dilemma by asking for Jean Valjean to be pardoned by the French king and/or government?
Would the king and/or government have ...
