All Questions
1,491
questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
16
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0
answers
432
views
Are there any references to entombed animals in ancient India?
The 13th century Hindu philosopher Arulnandi Shivacharya wrote a work called the Shiva Jnana Siddhiyar, which among other things contains a refutation of Buddhist philosophy. In this excerpt, various ...
14
votes
0
answers
490
views
Is there evidence that the ancient Persians debated every matter once sober and once drunk?
An interesting comment on this question led me to investigate the claim that the ancient Persians would debate every matter once whilst drunk, and once whilst sober (with no particular emphasis on ...
13
votes
0
answers
729
views
Was Heisuke Yanagawa really censored out in photos, and why?
Heisuke Yanagawa (柳川 平助) was an IJA Lieutenant General who commanded one of the main armies in the Battle of Nanking. He would have been one of the generals photographed marching into Nanking. I've ...
13
votes
1
answer
529
views
Did Arabs actually raise a red flag on the dome of their commander's marquee during the Haraam months?
This answer to the question What is the purpose of putting a red flag on the dome of Hussain ibn Ali(as)'s shrine? states that if Arabs were at war with each other, during the Haraam months there ...
12
votes
0
answers
352
views
What does this lapel pin signify?
Metal with painted areas. Center area has an insignia. I have checked online at several places with no luck.
https://i.stack.imgur.com/YR0Iz.jpg
Palm sized. Gold sunburst cross 0°. Superimposed gold ...
12
votes
1
answer
663
views
How much did a sword cost in AD 1000 Constantinople?
Qualifications:
Obviously, swords vary in quality. Ideally, I would like to know what a standard army issue sword would have cost, if I bought it privately. But I realised we may only be able to ...
11
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0
answers
430
views
Does Patonce Cross symbol have any record of use in Hungary?
Hungary introduced new 10000 HUF notes that contain a symbol I couldn't relate to Hungary's history. There were no official notes known to me why they use Patonce Cross on Hungarian notes.
And here ...
10
votes
0
answers
375
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What prevented Southern Rhodesia from acquiring Dominion status?
Southern Rhodesia established responsible government in 1923. The next step, in general, was for a colony to be granted Dominion status (e.g., Newfoundland). What prevented Southern Rhodesia from ...
10
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0
answers
577
views
Do any of the commercially produced Hinton cubes still exist?
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, British mathematician Charles Howard Hinton developed a system for visualizing the fourth dimension in his books “A New Era of Thought” and “The Fourth Dimension”. ...
10
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0
answers
679
views
What is this old dual-disc metal object with a spindle? [more pictures added]
[Updated: There are now pictures of both top and side views. Scroll to bottom of post to see the side views.]
While sorting through family artifacts, I found a black metal two-layer disc with a long ...
10
votes
0
answers
223
views
Was Voltaire actually present at the British Raid on Lorient in 1746, which was attended by David Hume?
Voltaire wrote a satirical account of the raid at which Hume himself was personally in attendance with General St Clair. However, it is difficult to find out if Voltaire was actually an eyewitness ...
10
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0
answers
430
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How did the Belgians issue ID cards with ethnicity to women in Ruanda-Urundi?
I've read about how the Belgians issued ID cards to the inhabitants of their colony Ruanda-Urundi (later independent under the names of Rwanda and Burundi):
Indeed, the Belgian colonists classified a ...
9
votes
0
answers
192
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Was silent reading or reading aloud the norm in pre-modern (esp. Tang through Ming eras) China?
Many scholars argue that in ancient Greco-Roman culture, reading aloud was the norm, as seen in examples like Augustine's Confessions, where Augustine sees someone reading silently and sees this as ...
9
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0
answers
119
views
Who was Ribeiro Pacheco, Portuguese journalist in colonial Mozambique during the 1960s/70s?
I am stuck in the search for information about Portuguese journalists in colonial Mozambique and would like to ask for help. I've asked the question already on /Historiaemportugues/ on Reddit, and was ...
9
votes
0
answers
719
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What is the origin of this quote from the Book of the Dead, "May he journey in the Boat of a Million Years"?
At the beginning of the book The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson is a quote from the Book of the Dead:
Labelled as 18th dynasty, and translated as:
May he go forth in the sunrise boat
May he ...
9
votes
0
answers
159
views
What is the earliest supported example of an African traveling to Southeast/East Asia?
There are quite a few famous cases of Africans who traveled to Asia (voluntarily or involuntarily) prior to 1700s such as Malik Ambar (India), Yasuke (Japan), and Ibn_Battuta (India, Sri Lanka, China, ...
9
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0
answers
217
views
Did China repay Soviet grain aid?
The Sino-Soviet rift/split is a complicated issue. But there can be little doubt that it was complete by mid 1963, when the «Polemics on the General Line» were released by the Chinese Communist Party.
...
9
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0
answers
203
views
What were the political beliefs of Sir Robert Hotung regarding socialism and communism?
Sir Robert Hotung Bosman, KBE JP (1862 – 1956) was a Hong Kong businessman and philanthropist in British Hong Kong known as "the grand old man of Hong Kong". He has a colorful history, being the ...
9
votes
0
answers
709
views
Is there evidence for the use of the solenarion in late Medieval Ethiopia?
Shihab al-Umari, an Arab historian of the 14th century, wrote much of what's know of Emperor of Ethiopia Amda Seyon I campaigns against the Muslim States, namely Awfat, Dawaru, Arababni, Hadya, ...
9
votes
1
answer
305
views
Did Americans in the later half of the 18th-century have more freedom in choosing a partner?
According to this article, starting from the last half of the 18th century there was a decline in parents' influence over young people's choice of partners, and the idea of romantic love started to be ...
8
votes
0
answers
203
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Do any sources besides Livy record the first incident of serial murder by prominent Roman women in 331 B.C.?
Titus Livy lived during the turn of the first century A.D. and in Book 8, Chapter 8 of The History of Rome, he relays the story of some sort of plague that was ravaging Rome in 331 B.C., afflicting ...
8
votes
0
answers
179
views
Why is there such a dramatic shift in Tamil script during the 3rd to 5th centuries AD?
I have already asked this question in Linguistics.SE but I didn't get any answers and the comments there spoke of historical reasons rather than Linguistics shifts so I'm asking here.
Recently, I was ...
8
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0
answers
339
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Can anyone identify these uniforms (stated to be "Austrian")?
I recently purchased these uniforms, in which I was told that they were "Austro-Hungarian/Austrian." Upon looking further at the lighter-green one, I noticed that it had a trim pattern ...
8
votes
0
answers
163
views
What is this lapel pin logo?
I got this lapel pin in the mid-1980s from a retired communist partisan in Hungary. He had more pins, mostly of communist/socialist organisations, trade fairs, and combines.[1]
cold-war era Eastern ...
8
votes
0
answers
269
views
Why was cannabis illegalized in the U.S.?
There seems to be a notion that cannabis was illegalized due to capitalism. I've read some theories as to how this happened, and one of them goes something like this:
Commissioner of the National ...
8
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0
answers
206
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Did the Kriegsmarine allow crewmen and sailors to own and bring aboard pets on their ships?
My question is inspired by reading about the Unsinkable Sam story, where according to Wikipedia the Unsinkable Sam was initially living aboard the German battleship Bismarck.
Now my question isn't ...
8
votes
0
answers
166
views
What did a 19th century New Orleans Yellow Fever immunity passport look like?
In response to proposals for a so-called "immunity passport" system to be developed so that people who have recovered from COVID-19 can return to life as usual (without being subject to ...
8
votes
0
answers
208
views
Where were Allied soldiers in Switzerland typically kept?
I've been researching for a short story, but I've been having trouble working out the exact trajectory of POWs who escaped from German camps into Switzerland. I know many were put up in hotels for the ...
8
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0
answers
105
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Are there 15th or 16th century English sources that exemplify Empress Matilda as an impediment to having a Queen Regnant?
I'm reading Alison Weir's 'Elizabeth of York', and she makes claims as to why Elizabeth of York couldn't succeed to the throne after Richard III which are not supported by evidence. Legally, there ...
8
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0
answers
183
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Do these depictions of hunt in medieval Catholic churches have the same symbolic meaning? If not, what is it?
I have come across 3 depictions of a hunt in Catholic churches.
The first two are tiles that were on the floors of an English abbey and a church not far from Reims, France; I could not find any ...
8
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0
answers
542
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Were Christians prohibited to pass Golden Horde - Rus border immediately before Black Death?
Note: this question is similar to earlier Were there any travel restrictions during the Black Death pandemic?, but asks about travel restrictions existing before the epidemic.
Wikipedia article on ...
8
votes
0
answers
187
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How many Me Bf 109 were produced in Czechoslovakia during WW2
It is known fact that Czechoslovak factories(or at least Avia) produced Messerschmitt Bf 109 during WW2. After the war ended, they for some time continued production, called Avia S-99 and when engines ...
8
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0
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212
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What is the context for Glennon's 1956 intelligence gathering trip to the USSR?
In 1956, my father, John J. Glennon (Librarian of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences, now the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) was one of the few fluent Russian speakers in ...
8
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0
answers
423
views
How did Tenochtitlan's Templo Mayor disappear for centuries?
According to Wikipedia (amongst other sources), after the Siege of Tenochtitlan, the Templo Mayor was dismantled and a church was built over its ruins. This church would eventually become Mexico City ...
8
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0
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301
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Did the British Queen raise young women of humble lineage to serve her?
The House of the Portuguese Queens in the 13th and 14th century could be described more or less as the following:
high social class
- donas or ladies-in-waiting (widows or women married to important ...
8
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0
answers
533
views
Could depicted items (brooch, urn, key) really be 3000 years old?
My father, who died a few years ago, has left the depicted items to me. Apparently he found them as fragments near a local hill. He had the items dated by some authority and according to that source ...
8
votes
1
answer
808
views
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 ...
8
votes
1
answer
532
views
Can anyone identify this sword guard?
I dug this sword guard while I was metal detecting at a Revolutionary War site. I have been researching for days and asking for assistance on other forums but I have not had any success. I would ...
7
votes
0
answers
201
views
Were there attempts at coup d'état against Nicholas II of Russia?
Richard Pipes in The Russian Revolution mentions that Empress Alexandra disliked Grand Duke Nikolas Nikolaevich (First commander of the Russian forces in WW1), because she suspected him of designs for ...
7
votes
0
answers
206
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Re-imposition of slavery and racist laws in France under Napoleon
The last chapter of the Tom Reiss's biography of General Alex Dumas tells in some detail the dark story of the re-imposition of slavery and very harsh race-based oppression by Napoleon, abrogating ...
7
votes
0
answers
228
views
What's the significance of a wreath hung on the traverse / ridge pole of a tent in a military camp?
The first time I saw it, I thought it was odd, but then, 18th century artists love putting strange details in things, so I went on my merry way. But I've seen it a few times since, and now I've got ...
7
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0
answers
130
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What did US presidential ballots look like when unpledged electors were offered?
Unpledged presidential electors have run in at least four US presidential elections. In 1960, 14 were elected.
In this age, where the electoral college is almost a mere formality and we rarely think ...
7
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0
answers
224
views
Did Henrietta Maria leave any writings in which she described her thoughts with respect to Charles I's afterlife?
Henrietta Maria, Charles I's queen consort, was a famously strident Roman Catholic. She outraged her husband's subjects by praying publicly under the gallows at Tyburn, where many Roman Catholics had ...
7
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0
answers
2k
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Was the peak of the NBA aka popularity of basketball in 90's ( or including 80's ) "as I consider" or just my "Old days were good"?
I always wonder and argue with young boys in my country if today's so called superstar Lebron James remained nothing but a role player had he played in 90's or the 80's because back then there was ...
7
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0
answers
224
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When was the top spring on umbrellas invented?
Modern umbrellas have a rider (a hollow cylinder) that slides up the shaft to force the umbrella vanes open. It is held in place by a spring latch that protrudes close to the top of the shaft - I've ...
7
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0
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1k
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How common were duels in Tokugawa Japan?
It is my understanding that during Tokugawa era Japan, Samurai could and would occasionally engage in duels to the death. But how often? Do we know from any record keeping how common deadly duels were?...
7
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0
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340
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How did the Romans remove graffiti?
There is plenty of evidence that people painted or etched graffiti in Ancient Rome.
I was curious whether and how the authorities removed the graffiti, did they paint over it or wash it off (and ...
7
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0
answers
158
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How did 18th-century gubernatorial elections in Vermont compare to similar elections in other states?
In an disorganized way I have been reading various things about the 18th-century history of Vermont and I wondered whether their way of choosing and installing governors was unique, or the same as ...
7
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0
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118
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What property relations existed between peasants and those who took from peasants in early Ottoman rule in Anatolia?
What property relations existed between peasants and those who took from peasants in early Ottoman rule (1300-1450) in Anatolia?
How was social surplus extracted from peasants, by who, with what ...
7
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0
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298
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The Rosenberg diary and the functionalist-intentionalist debate
Today it was announced that the diary of Alfred Rosenberg was been found, after it had disappeared in 1946.
Prima facie, this would seem to be a major piece of historical evidence for the ...