93
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-...
- 121k
81
votes
Why weren't army snipers used at the Munich massacre?
But why didn't they ask some snipers to resign from the armed forces and then hire them in the police force and deploy them?
In a Hollywood movie the police would call up the local army base who ...
- 55.5k
52
votes
Accepted
In the Soviet Union, why was the Cheka renamed so many times?
The secret police was key to the Soviet government (so-called Chekism), so its structure changed frequently in response to state political needs.
CheKa: The "Emergency Commission" was formed in 1917, ...
- 12.9k
37
votes
Accepted
Was there a Japanese equivalent of the Gestapo during WW2
Yes, that would be the Kenpeitai. It was a military police corps, founded in 1881. The kenpeitai had jurisdiction everywhere within the Japanese empire and their conquered territories.
Although it ...
- 22.5k
27
votes
Accepted
When did one-way mirrors become widely used by police?
Surprisingly enough, in England, screens for identity parades did not come in at all until the late 1980s.
A poke around the British Newspaper Archive (paywall, sorry) found this article from Nov 1986,...
- 9,092
23
votes
Why weren't army snipers used at the Munich massacre?
A bit on the counterfactual side as this is, here are some small points to consider, most shall not contradict sempaiscuba's or Schwern's answers:
The whole affair started in the early morning hours ...
- 80.7k
16
votes
Accepted
How did western saloons lock up for the night?
Most saloons didn't have those butterfly doors. Those that did had proper outer doors.
From Virginia City: Secrets of a Western Past.
...the butterfly doors and the orientation of the bar, ...
- 55.5k
12
votes
Accepted
What was the border regime between Poland and Czechoslovakia like during the 1970s and 1980s?
For the countries of the former Warsaw Pact borders were normally restricted to permitted traffic. Borders themselves were patrolled and places where one could cross it were limited. Mind you that ...
- 1,014
12
votes
What was the "high Commissioner of the Police in Scotland" in 1777?
The word 'police' is different in its meaning from the modern narrow definition we are likely to hold true for back then. In modern words: much more setting policy, thus mainly more legislative than ...
- 80.7k
12
votes
Why weren't army snipers used at the Munich massacre?
Firstly, I doubt very much whether the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) would have been fooled by the ruse for an instant! The legality of such a move would almost ...
- 77.2k
8
votes
Accepted
Was there any kind of detective in Ancient Rome?
The closest thing to a detective during the Republic would be the special agents used by the censors to verify the statements that citizens made in the census.
Lindsay Davis wrote a series of books ...
- 1,870
6
votes
Accepted
Did Robert F. Kennedy call Police Review boards a "sinister movement against law enforcement" in the 1960's?
No. This question seems to be based on a misinterpretation of the text within the given quote.
During the 1960s the FOP opposed the creation of police review boards,
spearheaded by Robert F. Kennedy, ...
- 40.5k
5
votes
Accepted
Is there any precedent to Duterte's "Shoot them dead" call for policy violators in a Democracy?
Martial law has been declared in the United states of America, a more or less democratic country, on several occasions.
And as I remember, during martial law or at other times orders have been given, ...
- 19.3k
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 ...
- 2,610
5
votes
What police department served the Kenwood neighborhood in Chicago in 1907?
In general, good contemporary sources for questions like this one include city directories and old maps. There are multiple sources of maps, and I prefer to try to access city directories at ...
- 2,218
5
votes
Was there any kind of detective in Ancient Rome?
No, and yes. Mary Beard wrote an article for BBC History Extra describing crime in Rome.
The Vigiles were there to protect against fire - not to prevent, detect or deter crime. They might ...
MCW♦
- 33.8k
3
votes
What was the border regime between Poland and Czechoslovakia like during the 1970s and 1980s?
Just from asking around a little here is a bit about the situation between East Germany and Czechoslovakia in the 1980s (sorry, no online sources):
Crossing the border at official checkpoints was easy ...
- 9,346
3
votes
How were state-level suspects identified prior to photography?
They made up rhymes, of course! See page four here for an example (Google books makes it awkward to copy and paste)
https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=s2-R952RxXYC&oi=fnd&pg=...
- 13.9k
3
votes
Why was there a "workers' militia" in Eastern Europe but not in the USSR?
This seems to be more of a language problem than anything else.
The Soviet Union would not impose these detailed requirements for getting a state from socialism to communism. While one might argue ...
- 80.7k
2
votes
How did the authorities not find the speakeasy clubs during the prohibition?
The law was not universally loved by the Americans. Some stats I've seen showed that as many as 25% of the adult population were drinking illegal alcohol in some form.
Several politicians (including ...
- 21
2
votes
Did the Catholic Church have a police force in the medieval period?
No, the Catholic Church did not have a Police force around 500 AD to arrest a British King.
Some of the reasons why this was not so:
Police, as it is known today, started to form during the 17th ...
- 9,686
1
vote
Accepted
Did any British police force rank "Senior Superintendent"?
your answer appears to be on wikipedia
The rank structure, organisation and insignia are similar to those used by the Metropolitan Police Service until the mid-1970s.[41]
[41] on wiki is:
http://...
- 4,518
1
vote
In the Soviet Union, why was the Cheka renamed so many times?
An "umbrella" organization such as the Cheka was literally made up of hundreds of sub organizations with different purposes.
These suborganizations were recombined at various times under different ...
- 104k
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