Questions tagged [technology]
Tag for questions on the application of theoretical or scientific knowledge for a practical objective, including methodologies, techniques, or processes.
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What methods were used for onboard ship communication during WW2?
What methods/devices were used for communication onboard say a fighting ship during WW2?
Did they have an intercom type system so different areas could communicate directly? Were there ship-wide ...
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What was the first instance of Native Americans using gunpowder weapons in battle and did they ever make their own powder?
I am afraid to ask this question too broadly but I would be very happy to get answers that included conflicts not just in the Americas. For example, India had superior rockets to those of the British ...
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What train route did the 200 inch Hale telescope mirror blank take from Corning NY to Pasadena CA in 1936? Did it go through or near Elmira NY?
My father either claimed to have thrown rocks at the 200 inch cast Pyrex mirror blank destined for the Hale telescope on Mt. Palomar being shipped by train from Corning, NY (or at least he joked that ...
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Did this "sledge rigged like a sloop" vehicle ever exist, or was it an invention of Jules Verne?
In Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, the main character Phileas Fogg misses his train in the American north and ends up hitching a ride on a curious invention, as described here:
There ...
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Who made this grandfather clock?
I found this grandfather clock and I was fascinated by its workings. Since this is about history, I'd like to know who made it so I can research the rest. I will upload four pictures of it.
First ...
MCW♦
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Are there examples of artwork which anachronistically showed ancients equipped with firearms?
I do not mean modern art which does something like that humorously but rather for example a medieval painter showing Pharoah's army equipped with muzzleloaders due to the artist being unaware of the ...
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Why did army in Napoleon era never use hand-grenades to temporarily disrupt the square formation?
Grenades were used by European, Muslims, and Chinese before 1800. However, there were no noticeable field-battle involving the hand grenades during the Napoleon era. One would imagine that grenades ...
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Did any Native Americans make tomahawks from metal?
I'm curious about the evolution of the tomahawk among (North American) Native American peoples like the Algonquin. I assume early versions of the tomahawk had the head made from stone (please correct ...
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Are there any concepts that Da Vinci drew in his notebooks that still have not been realized today?
I know that da Vinci had a sketch of a perpetual motion wheel and a perpetual water pump but is there anything else he conceived of that modern science (mid-late 2023) has not achieved yet?
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How difficult was it to spoof the sender of a telegram in 1890-1920's in USA?
For my current genealogical research, I'm interested in how telegrams were sent inside the USA, in the 1890's through 1920's. I do not have copies of any actual telegrams that were sent or received; ...
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When did horseback riding start? Are Doosheh cave petroglyphs authentic and correctly dated?
I am trying to reconcile 3 answers I have got so far. Perhaps there are more. My main question is about when horseback riding started.
In Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, UK), the information panel in the ...
CommunityBot
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Where can I find a picture or physical description of the A3 scramble telephone system?
Who has a picture or physical description of the A3 scramble telephone system, which was used for speech privacy by Roosevelt and Churchill between 1940 and 1943. The system was most likely located ...
CommunityBot
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Where was the AT&T radio station in 1942 in New York?
How did transatlantic telephony of AT&T work in 1942? Where was the radio station? In New York?
I am studying the A3 scramble machine Roosevelt and Churchill used, which was replaced with the ...
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What did the study plan of a early 20th century mathematics major look like?
I am interested in what subjects and activities mathematics major were involved in the beggining of the 20th century. Most subjects mathematics majors study at an intermedium and advanced level now ...
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When did fluorescent lights become common in Europe?
In the OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual, one suggestion for interfering with radio transmissions in occupied Europe is:
Damaging insulation on any electrical equipment tends to create radio ...
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Are there any archeological finds or primary source drawings of the Chinese "blade shaped" bamboo-copter or rotary fans?
Bamboo-copter was a toy in China, dated to 400 BC. A Rotary Fan also existed in China around 180 AD. I'm interested in both of those things, as they work on the exact same principle.
Do we have any ...
CommunityBot
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What is Charles Babbage referring to when he talks about the 'College of Laputa'?
In On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, what is Charles Babbage referring to when talking about the College of Laputa in the following extract:
...Nor has the wild imagination of the ...
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What was the device that general Birdwood was using in the "Gallipoli" TV series?
Since this is a question about historical detail, I think it suits more this site than Movies SE.
The miniseries Gallipoli tells the story of the invasion on that peninsula during the Great War. I ...
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Is there an accepted explanation for multiple independent "cradles of civilization"?
Human history begins with millions of years of hunter-gathering and lithic technology:
The Paleolithic ... is ... distinguished by the development of the
most primitive stone tools ... and covers ...
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Were non-firing replica firearms ever made to the same standards of fit, finish, and from the same materials as a functioning firearm?
The term replica firearm has an imprecise meaning. It covers everything from functioning firearms that look like historical weapons to toys that simply have the appearance of an historical or ...
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Did the Finns have aluminum screw caps in 1939?
I was looking at images from the 1939 Winter War
https://www.rferl.org/a/finlands-winter-war-with-the-soviet-union/30280490.html
and found this interesting one.
source
The Molotov cocktail has an ...
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Did the Nazi Army have a telephone conversation pattern?
The film "Valkyrie" (2008) depicts that while Stauffenberg was on his way to Berlin, Friedrich Fromm called Keitel to ask him about the rumors circulating in Berlin about Hitler's death.
Fromm to ...
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What percentage of households in Sweden in the 1990s only had over-the-air TV?
I was born in the mid-1980s, so I grew up in Sweden in the 1990s. Our family was not rich, but we somehow did live in a house, as opposed to an apartment/flat.
We only had an antenna on the roof, with ...
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Is there any documentation of the use of scientific knowledge or technology in pagan temples?
One of the great rabbinic scholars from the Geonic period, Rabbi Hai Gaon (939-1038 CE) wrote a responsum wherein he mentions as something "well-known" that that idolatrous temples would set ...
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How did muzzle-loaded rifled artillery solve the problems of the hand-held rifle?
I'm specifically interested in muzzle-loading rifle artillery, so no smoothbores and no breach-loaders. The period I'm interested in is roughly 1820 - 1860, for both the army and navy.
But first I ...
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When did swamp/wetland conversion first begin, and what were the early methods for doing so?
I have been trying to do some research into the early history of humans using wetlands, but haven't had much luck. As I understand it so far, there are a number of methods of "wetland conversion&...
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How serious was Fermat's statement about the ancients?
I am extremely interested in the idea that there was a period in time when, at least in the west, people looked upon the ancients (Romans/Greeks) as possessors of wisdom that had been lost. Fermat ...
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Did it really take until 1990 for "Europe"/UK to switch from glass bottles of milk to cartons? [closed]
I came across this weird claim: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_delivery#Europe
By 1975, 94% of milk was in glass bottles, but in 1990, supermarkets started offering plastic and carton containers, ...
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Were primers for pistols in short supply?
I am talking about pre-cartridge pistols which used primers. Gunpowder could be made from fairly available raw materials but primers not only required I think harder-to-come-by elements like mercury ...
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When was the first full length book sent over telegraph?
When was the first full length book sent over telegraph?
or
What was the longest message sent over telecommunications before 1900?
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Did soldiers wear helmets in the 19th century? [closed]
When trying to do research in military history, I got interested in 19th century warfare. I know that they wore a lot of hats back then, but did they also wear helmets? I know that helmets existed at ...
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What machine technology did the Egyptians have to build the great pyramids?
Reading the "Account of Egypt" by Herodotus, it says of the great pyramid of "Cheops" (Macauley translation):
This pyramid was made after the manner of steps which some called
"rows" and others "...
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Help understanding exactly the phases of stone tool development during the stone age?
I have been studying how the stone tools evolved for the past few days, and think I am close to understanding roughly what the model is, but after reading a few recent papers, it seems there's a lot ...
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When was the ligature (æ) removed from daemon and replaced with "ae"? [closed]
A lot of older books, white papers, and even kernels used the word dæmon, rather than daemon, but at some point between now and the early 2000s that trend changed. Does anyone know when this trend ...
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How accurate and detailed were geographical maps created and updated by the Romans?
Knowledge is power, and having superior geographical knowledge vs. your imperialistic enemies and competitors was probably a big advantage in the middle ages. Some specific examples would be knowledge ...
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Did anyone interweave blue and red threads in order to give the illusion of purple cloth before purple dye became cheap?
The wikipedia article on purple contains nothing on this.
Also, why did the ancients not simply mix red and blue dye together to make purple?
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How to explain the apparent discrepancy in the use of papyrus vs. clay tablets between Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia?
Nowadays, the papyrus plant apparently thrives relatively well in certain sections of the Tigris-Euphrates system. With that in mind, one naturally wonders why in ancient times the Sumerians and ...
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Why did water stored on premodern ships "go brackish" or "go bad" while at sea?
I have read in several Napoleonic historical fiction novels that water stored on ships would somehow spoil over time. The water is described as completely unpalatable if not undrinkable, and alcohol (...
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What evidence is there of the vision aids people used before the invention of eyeglasses in about 1286?
The Wikipedia article on glasses says ‘scattered evidence exists for use of vision aid devices in Greek and Roman times’ but only cites the example of Nero’s emerald. This article on Magnifying ...
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Who was Professor Henri Andre and what did he publish?
Looking at the history of electrochemical batteries, I came across this article from NASA where it says:
In the late 1920s, French Professor Henri André finally made the first practical silver-zinc ...
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How did lecturers magnify their voice in the days before amplification?
I am going to be portraying Mark Twain on the lecture circuit circa 1896.
I want to make the performance as realistic as possible, so that the sufferers (audience) can adopt a "willing suspension of ...
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Where can I find an historically accurate ordinary items database for dungeon-stocking and art
I swear I had found in the comments of one of Matthew Colville's "stocking the dungeon" videos a link to an enormous database of accurate lists of ordinary items that list REAL items that ...
MCW♦
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Did the Soviet Union or China participate in the light bulb cartel? If not, in what ways did they differ and how long did their bulbs last?
The Phoebus cartel was a well known scheme to fix the standard lifespan of incandescent lightbulbs that arose at the beginning of the 20th century.
See Spectrum.ieee.org.
Although not implemented for ...
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Is Jacques Le Goff's statement about medieval labor mechanization not leading to qualitative progress true?
Jacques Le Goff said this in his book "Medieval Civilization 400-1500" on pages 200-201. I would like to know if modern historians agree with these statements of Jacques le Goff and why:
...
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Why do the bases of these pillars have grooves in them?
While exploring the ruins of the city of Perga we saw many things that looked like this:
It looks like the base of a column (though maybe it is a capital?). I am curious why there is a radial groove ...
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Around 1640s, at what time did people eat Christmas dinner?
To my knowledge, in the past, people used to go to bed earlier; usually at sunset.
My question is, around 1640s, when candles were used to light the interiors of buildings, at what time of day did ...
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Was "leather" really a technology introduced by Europeans to the Plains Indians?
I was watching a university lecture about the Comanche called "Nomads in the Tribal Zone: Conflict and Compromise in 18th Century New Mexico". The lecturer said that leather was one of the ...
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What percentage of US households had electricity and telephones in 1940?
I'm trying to find a published source giving the percent of U.S. households having electricity and percent having telephones in 1940 (+/- a year or two). Not interested in the rural vs city divide per ...
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Origin of barber/surgeons: did it have to do with tools?
Although today it sounds absurd that someone who shaved men and I guess also cut hair would be entrusted to performing medical procedures, is it possible that few people had the tools or the ability ...
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Where did the archived discussions in Google Groups come from?
I was sifting through old messages in the Google Groups rec.games.chess when a thought popped up-where did all of these messages, from the '80s and '90s, come from? To be specific, the question is ...
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