96
votes
Accepted
Transatlantic Zeppelin trips usually took > 100 hours. How did they stock enough food, and where did they sleep?
The Hindenburg was originally built with 25 double-berthed cabins which accommodated up to 50 passengers. While the ship was laid up in Frankfurt during the winter of 1936-1937, 9 more cabins were ...
- 77.4k
95
votes
How did the authorities not find the speakeasy clubs during the prohibition?
Prohibition was enacted largely at the behest of pressure groups. This was a very new political tactic in the US where a group uses an emotional issue to create themselves a sizable cadre of single-...
- 118k
48
votes
Accepted
Did the Finns have aluminum screw caps in 1939?
Or is this photo from a modern re-enactment of some sort? The archive this is from is supposed to be photos from that war. Are there other things in this photo (button? carabiner?) that mark it as ...
- 54.9k
47
votes
Accepted
Does anyone recognize the identity and location of this octagonal structure?
This was the Tannenberg Memorial, built near the town of Hohenstein, East Prussia (now Olsztynek, Poland).
Built in the mid-1920's, it was a monument dedicated to the German soldiers who fought in ...
- 4,004
31
votes
Why was no Nobel Prize for Literature awarded in 1935?
At the time, Henry Suzzallo's National Encyclopedia claimed that:
The Swedish Academy decided not to award the Nobel Prize in Literature this year, declaring that no single person in the field of ...
- 97.5k
31
votes
Accepted
What is the small country between USSR and Mongolia in 1935?
It is Tannu Tuva. When Mongolia broke out from China in 1911, this little territory was separated from China (which was in a state of internal turmoil during the first years of the Republic of China) ...
- 12.4k
29
votes
Transatlantic Zeppelin trips usually took > 100 hours. How did they stock enough food, and where did they sleep?
Never look at history with your own 'modern' perceptions! In those days there were only 2 ways to cross the Atlantic: by ship or by zeppelin. A ship took longer than a zeppelin. Everybody crossed by ...
- 20.9k
25
votes
Did the drapes in old theatres actually say "ASBESTOS" on them?
Yes, you can find images of such safety curtains in several places.
Here is one concerning an old theatre in Detroit. (copyrighted images so links only).
Another image here concerning the Hawaii ...
- 38.7k
22
votes
Accepted
Was being in the KKK politically/socially acceptable in early 1900's American South?
At times, it was, but not in the period that movie is depicting.
One should note that there were three organizations under that name in different historical periods. While similar in their goals, they ...
- 8,865
21
votes
Does anyone recognize the identity and location of this octagonal structure?
This is the Tannenberg Memorial near Hohenstein, East Prussia (now Olsztynek, Poland). This was conceived as a memorial to German Soldiers at the two Battles of Tannenberg, one in 1410 (where Poland-...
- 5,275
19
votes
Did the Finns have aluminum screw caps in 1939?
It seems that wine screwcaps didn't take off until after the war per Wikipedia, but they were more common on other bottle types from the 1920s onwards, per this article:
The higher levels of ...
- 9,112
16
votes
What route did the Hindenburg take when traveling from Germany to the U.S.?
Airships.net has a page which documents the flights of the Hindenburg. It includes dates, departures, and arrivals and has maps showing the eastbound and westbound flight-paths taken:
(click to ...
- 77.4k
13
votes
Accepted
Did Stalin have full control of the government in 1936?
Yes, by 1936 Stalin was firmly in control. In fact, any non-underground opposition was officially finished by the XVII Congress of the CPSU in 1934 - there, all the leaders of the former opposition (...
- 8,865
13
votes
Accepted
What happened at the Battle (or not?) of Luding Bridge, during the Long March of Chinese Communists in 1935?
It's accurate to say it wasn't much of a battle.
The bridge was only lightly defended by two sections of the Sichuan clique's 24th Army, an extremely poor quality regional unit. There is no claim in ...
- 97.5k
12
votes
Accepted
What was the expected retirement age for men in Spain in 1936?
In the Ley del Retiro Obrero from 1919, the age for retirement of workers was established at 65 years.
The Law was applied from 1923 on, but it was criticized by the patrons and the high corruption ...
- 578
12
votes
Did the drapes in old theatres actually say "ASBESTOS" on them?
My brother and I both received one of these in the early 1960's, complete with asbestos sample as shown - except the sample we had looked nothing like the one here, but rather was a sample of fibrous (...
- 72.3k
11
votes
Did the Finns have aluminum screw caps in 1939?
The factory museum Rajamäen Ryyppi would be the place for first hand information about the adoption of metal screw caps. Their video about Molotov cocktails has photos of the production line and ...
- 211
10
votes
Accepted
Where could I find a map of the communes for Bavaria region before 1930?
Update
Here is a 1931 overview map of Bavaria (click on the link Zur historischen Karte im DigiTool-Viewer) appearing to show the municipal (ie gemeinden) divisions, labelled as Bezirksamtsgr(enze). ...
- 72.3k
10
votes
Could healthy young men avoid Wehrmacht conscription before 1939?
To state the possibly-not-obvious, one group that would not be allowed to serve where all those Germans whom the Nazis considered not proper Germans.
The German term for that is wehrunwürdig (WU, ...
- 16.8k
9
votes
Accepted
Which tools were available in 1933 for the Chinese government to intervene in the money market?
The short answer is that there was little in the way of pre-defined tools, but the government could rely on its governing and legislative powers to intervene on an ad-hoc basis.
There was no coherent ...
- 97.5k
9
votes
What percentage of people were acquitted in "Stalin's trials"
What were "Stalin's trials"?
If you want to limit the discussion to the few "show trials", like Шахтинское дело or "Московские процессы" (1, 2, 3), you can compute that ...
- 26.9k
8
votes
Why was no Nobel Prize for Literature awarded in 1935?
As it is so often the case, an official reason given might not be the real reason for why something happened. In the case of the Nobel committee of that era, it is indeed the quasi official word that ...
- 80.8k
8
votes
Were there hippies in the USA in 1930?
Hip/Hipster
According to Britannica, The etymological roots of the word Hippy derives from the root word "Hip", and the closest thing we have to Hippies in the 1930's would be African ...
- 3,134
7
votes
What does this Italian soldier's 1930’s uniform tell us about his job and rank?
The collar badge specifically appears to be that of the Italian 17th Infantry "Acqui" Motorized Brigade.
An infantry unit named Acqui operated from 1831 to 1871, again from 1881 to 1926, from 1939 ...
- 72.3k
7
votes
Accepted
Was the term "depression" (in the economic sense) originally coined to describe and downplay current events in the 1930s?
The Oxford English Dictionary has citations for the modern sense of "recession" ("A period of economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced") from 1905, ...
- 9,112
6
votes
Accepted
Were Great Britain and France better prepared for war in 1939 than in 1938?
Compared to Germany, were great Britain and France better prepared for war in 1939 than in 1938?
The Battle Of France says "Non!"
Simply defining an objective measure of "war preparation" which can ...
- 54.9k
6
votes
Was Nazi Germany still burning books in 1935?
Yes there were.
Take for example the book burnings in April 1938 in Salzburg (shortly after Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany) where about 1200 books (mostly from jewish authors) were burned. To my ...
- 161
6
votes
What was up with "Alicorn" in the 1920's and 30's
This has never been a common term, so few uses can make a large spike in the graph. Google Books (and therefore, Google NGrams) knows about three works from 1930 that apparently use it. Their ...
- 27.6k
5
votes
How did the authorities not find the speakeasy clubs during the prohibition?
I've always been baffled and fascinated by this "prohibition" era in the USA between 1920 and 1933. That's 13 years!
Let us remind ourselves that we are talking about the 1920s and this is over a ...
- 2,690
5
votes
What were the largest companies in the world before and after the Great Depression?
American Business History Center provides an XLSX file with the top U.S. (public only) companies in 1917 and 1929. here are the 1929 Top Ten:
Source: Forbes Magazine 50th Anniversary Issue, 9/15/...
- 72.3k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible