Questions tagged [reference]
This question is an explicit request for references.
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How did the Catholic Church grow in power between Rome and the Middle Ages?
I am not a historian, but I love learning history, and have loved it since middle school. One thing that was odd to me even back then, though, is that there seemed to be a "gap" in European ...
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Did the quality of prisms affect the acceptance of Newton's light experiments?
My question starts with the following statement from a book I'm reading
"Moreover, repetition of a well-established experience could give results that made it be called into question: an ...
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What proposals have been made to amend the U.S. Constitution to make it mention God?
Many State constitutions in the United States mention God:
But the U.S. Constitution does not.*
What proposals have been made (say in the 19th century) to amend the U.S. Constitution to make it ...
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U.S. motto change from "E Pluribus Unum" to "In God We Trust"
Latin for Dummies p. 310 says:
As a result of the Communist scare of the 1950s, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the U.S. Congress changed the U.S. motto to In God We Trust. But before the ...
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What's the source of John Adams's quote against the two-party system?
Drutman, Lee. “America Is Now the Divided Republic the Framers Feared.” The Atlantic, January 2, 2020.
claims John Adams said
a division of the republic into two great parties … is to be dreaded as ...
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What is the first election where we have the specific numbers of votes and the names of candidates?
What is the earliest political vote where we have the exact details of the specific numbers of votes and the names of the candidates?
The "candidates" could be persons, teams, policies, ...
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Did Maupassant write to his mother about his attraction to women?
The book How the Brain Lost its Mind quotes a letter from Guy de Maupassant, adressed to his mother, in which he explains his inability to resist his attraction to women.
I am obsessed by women. I ...
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What kind of math and science resources/background did Norbert Kricke use for his sculpture?
It is well known that Norbert Kricke used the book "Plastik des XX. Jahrhundert" by Carola Giedion-Welcker as a reference and saw his artistic ideas reflected by the text (cf. PhD thesis by ...
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With money we will get men, said Cæsar, and with men we will get money
In Notes on Virginia, Jefferson wrote:
With money we will get men, said Cæsar, and with men we will get money.
I'm interested in where this was sourced. I don't expect that Jefferson was quoting or ...
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When did McFaul & Sechin first meet?
According to David Remnick,
In 1991, McFaul was in St. Petersburg, trying to organize a seminar on local government. He found himself doing business with a man from the mayor’s office named Igor ...
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When were terms for points of sail first used?
Modern sailing uses terms for points of sail such as "broad reach", "beam reach", "close-hauled", etc., to indicate a vessel's travel in relation to the wind direction. ...
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When did Walter Benjamin say "We collect books in the belief that we are preserving them when in fact it is the books that preserve their collector"?
In for instance this source, it is stated that Walter Benjamin once said or wrote the following:
"We collect books in the belief that we are preserving them when in fact it is the books that ...
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How did the East Slavic pagans perceive the process of Christianization of Rus'? [closed]
I read that the Christianization of Rus' was of great civilizational, political and cultural significance for the Eastern Slavs.
One of the notable aspects of this theme is the view, supported by some ...
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How can we be confident that Tacitus really wrote his Histories and Annals?
How can we be confident that Tacitus really wrote any of the works attributed to him, namely his Histories and Annals?
The background here is that when we discuss the historicity and/or accuracy of ...
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What are the origins of the various forms of Gematria?
I just read through gematrix.org's gematria system(s), which it takes from various places. It includes:
Jewish Gematria (system 1)
(Old) English Gematria (system 2)
Straightforward Latin Gematria (...
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Did Rome annex Byzantium, the Greek city state, around 47AD?
This well-received YouTube video claims that Rome annexed Thrace in 45AD and then the Greek City State of Byzantium in 47 AD. Byzantium is also the last surviving Greek City State after the Rome ...
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Are there any in-depth accounts on the history of the so-called 'city name statues' phenomenon?
A few years ago, Amsterdam had a big collection of statues consisting of letters that spelled 'I amsterdam':
The letters were removed because a majority the city council associated them with ...
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Are there historical examples of non-Christian martyrs who were persecuted and killed because they claimed to be firsthand eyewitnesses of a miracle?
In the context of Christianity, the obvious examples are the apostles, who claimed to have been firsthand eyewitnesses of the resurrection of Jesus (with the exception of the apostle Paul, who didn't ...
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History of nations - books
I'm not a historian at all but would be interested in reading not-too-technical (accessible and "enjoyable" for non-historians) books about a "global" history of nations; or maybe ...
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Is Alexander Matrosov's service record publicly available?
Alexander Matrosov is a Hero of the Soviet Union who perished on the 27th of February in 1943 during the Battles of Rzhev (8th of January, 1942 - 31rd of March, 1943) when he blocked the fascist ...
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What operations were carried out by the partisans of the Chernihiv junction in the Great Patriotic War?
I am interested in finding out more about the Chernihiv partisan junction which was an important force throughout the Great Patriotic War, and their leader Alexei Fyodorovich Fyodorov.
Unfortunately, ...
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Is there a WW2 European bomb damage atlas?
For London there is a comprehensive and accessible (and readily available) atlas of damage done during the Second World War by German aerial bombing.
Are there similar atlases available for Europe, ...
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Is there any verifiable ancient source for the etymology of βάρβαρος?
In The Shaping of Western Civilization: From Antiquity to the Present, ed. Michael Burger (U of Toronto Press, 2014), we are given the following colorful detail (§2.3, p47):
What, according to the ...
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Why do revolutions "eat their own?" What is the sociological dynamic here?
We have a number of cases in history of revolutionary movements growing increasingly radicalized by a kind of internal dynamic that eliminates more moderate factions. Instances include the Jacobins, ...
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Where can I find examples of fiefs that are not land?
In the Wikipedia article it is written that fiefs were not necessarily lands:
However, not only land but anything of value could be held in fee, including governmental office, rights of exploitation ...
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Is there a quote that expresses Mill's opposition to Indian democracy?
I heard in a talk that John Stuart Mill was in favor of democracy in his own country but against democracy in India, I read the following in a paper -
Mill’s support of British imperialism may seem ...
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What is the meaning of this phrase in chapter 64 of the Book of the Dead?
In the aforementioned chapter, one can find the next sentence:
"Come! Look! The leg is adhered to the neck, the buttock is over the head of the Western."
(I'm sorry if this is not a ...
user46468
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What are some good references for the history of legal business entities? [closed]
I'm looking for books and articles that can elucidate how different legal business entities and types of corporate personhood came to be. I've already found the book “The Company: A Short History of a ...
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Where can tactical maps for battles of the Mexican Revolution be accessed?
There are a bunch of resources on the Mexican revolution, but I've never seen an academical text that narrates the major battles in the struggle along with tactical maps.
Thus, I'm looking for a ...
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Was "money to get the power, power to keep the money" a motto of Lorenzo de Medici?
According the article The Economic Policy of Machiavelli’s Prince on the website of the Independent Institute:
This same Lorenzo the Magnificent represented a family of merchant princes whose ...
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Why was the Soviet Marine Infantry disbanded in 1947?
According to Peter Antill,
The naval Infantry performed a number of important landings in both World Wars including raids against the Turks around the Black Sea and the capture of Sakhalin Island and ...
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What ancient Roman(s) wished houses were made of transparent walls?
What ancient Roman(s) wished houses were made of transparent walls?
source:St. Joseph Cafasso's The Priest: The Man of God: His Dignity and Duties p. 50:
a Roman of ancient times wished his house ...
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In what way were Renaissance battles like chess matches?
I have been reading Ross King's Brunelleschi's Dome: The Story of the Great Cathedral in Florence. Although the book is well documented, it has an astonishing passage for which the author provides no ...
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Was Rosie the Riveter sourced from a Michelangelo painting?
The Russian Wikipedia page states that an art from Michelangelo is a source of inspiration for Rosie the Riveter arrwork.
My own impression is this looks indeed like that, there are many similarities....
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What is the original source for Vico's reference to Varro counting 30,000 pagan gods?
In his 1725 work Principi Di Una Scienza Nuova (known in English as The New Science; link to the CUP modern edition), Giambattista Vico wrote that:
For Hebrew began and remained the language of a ...
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Revolutions of communication
Different from other revolutions which took place just once like Harari's
cognitive revolution
agricultural revolution
unification of mankind
scientific revolution
revolutions of communication took ...
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Looking for good documentation about daily life under Stalinist USSR
I am contemplating the idea of making a role playing game set in USSR under Stalin, specifically the period between when he gained full power (roughly 1930) and operation barbarossa (June 1941).
I am ...
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What are some Chinese sources testifying the extreme weather events of 535-536 CE?
The Wikipedia page Extreme weather events of 535–536 lists under "Documentary evidence" that:
Low temperatures, even snow during the summer (snow reportedly fell in August in China during the ...
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Are there any sources of historical land use/land cover data for the United Kingdom and Ireland?
Are there any sources of historical land use/land cover data for the United Kingdom and Ireland? (Not just Northern Ireland) I'm specifically interested in datasets that, for each point/area in the UK/...
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What was the condition of women in "primitive societies" around the world?
In Book I, Chapter IV of "An Essay on the Principle of Population" (6th edition, 1826), Thomas Malthus states how terrible the condition of women was among "savage societies" (to which he meant ...
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What are canonical sources about fifth century BCE Athens?
I am looking for a history book on fifth century BCE Athens, preferably with emphasis on culture and the daily lives of the Athenians.
I found recommendations of books about Ancient Greece in general, ...
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Is the historical consensus that Galileo did not drop balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
A narrative commonly taught in schools and propagated in books is that Galileo Galilei "dropped two spheres of different masses from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that their time of descent ...
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Are records on the meetings of the Japanese war council during 1945 publicly available?
There is lately some interest to the question of the Japanese surrender in august 1945 and the motivations of the Japanese government for doing so and doing it in the way they did. E.g. it is voiced ...
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Could the nukes involved in the 1966 Palomares B-52 crash have detonated?
According to Wikipedia on the 1966 Palomares B-52 Crash:
The first weapon to be discovered was found nearly intact. However, the conventional explosives from the other two bombs that fell on land ...
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Published History of Harvard [closed]
Is anyone aware of a modern, single-volume published history of Harvard University? There seem to be numerous such histories for Oxford and Cambridge (admittedly, older institutions) but I haven't ...
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Did Ancient Romans use metal thimbles? What were they like?
The Romans didn't have forks, so they picked the food with their hands. It is known about the rich that after every course they wiped them and received from their slaves pots with perfumed water to ...
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Where can I find a reliable source for the U.S. national population estimated since 1790?
I am shocked that I cannot put my finger on this information and I must resort to asking here. I am looking for U.S. population estimates from 1790-present. Preferably there is an estimate for each ...
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Where can I find information regarding the orphanages for mixed children in Nazi Germany?
I cannot remember what they were called, and as a result I am unable to find basic information regarding them. From what I remember, a bunch of women from territories occupied by Nazi Germany were ...
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Were high wages the root cause of the industrial revolution?
I was listening to a (German-language) podcast where this argument was made (translation into English courtesy of Google translate):
The decisive change came in [...] 1760 in England. And that is ...
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Who was "Lt.-Commander R.T. Chaloner Woods"?
I am collecting information about Christian authors writing about economic topics. The other day, browsing my university library, I found a copy of this book, titled "A plain Christian looks at ...
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