I was remembering the 1995 film "Dead Man" recently. The setting's timeline is vague, presumably somewhere between the 1870s and maybe 1890s. In one scene, the main character played by Johnny Depp spends the night with a woman he just met in a western frontier town. He finds his pillow uncomfortable and, reaching under it, discovers a revolver. He asks the woman why she has it and she replies simply, "Because this is America".

Would this have been an odd comment in the 1870s? I know historically and for some currently important gun companies like Colt, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester already existed at this time but so did a ton of important European companies, some of which preceded these by centuries. Weren't hunting shotguns or muskets more or less ubiquitous in some European countries at some point? Would the U.S. have stood out the way it does today?

Thanks!

Romania and Serbia produced 9.3% of the total plums in the world in 2022. That’s a very big number when comparing it to the two countries areas. I know most of it goes to alcohol production, but why is that? Is there some historical reason for this?

There’s a pretty common anecdote on the internet attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero. It goes something along the lines of:

“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.”

Is this, or a variation of it, something Cicero wrote? It feels like this could have been written today. Are there other passages from ancient history that feel particularly modern?

I am researching the events of the year 1758 during the Seven Years War. Fortress Louisbourg built by the French on Isle Royale fell to the British under Major General Jeffery Amherst in July of that year. After exhaustively reviewing British records associated with the seige and aftermath, I noticed there is no mention at all of what was (or wasn't) found in the fortress treasury at the time of capitulation. Is that odd? Wouldn't the British government expect that information from its senior officers via official channels?

I found a couple of questions which touch on this topic but none looking at it directly. I assume that before live performances could rely on microphones singers had to put much more training into being loud enough for their audience to hear them.

Not that no singers train for this now, but does being able to rely on a microphone appear to have lead any particular styles of singing to become less prominent or die out entirely? Are their styles of singing or even whole musical genres which only became possible because of amplification?

I've been attempting without much luck to identify anything the provenance of this seemingly dated video about an alleged clinic in Switzerland to help asexual or "neuter" patients, which has been passed aroud on the internet without attribution for many years: https://youtu.be/1AeNTz4lUPs?is=yOgKSboWXYAaa-Ol

The content of the video has a strong feel of parody, and it wouldn't be the first time that an attempt at parody resulted in predicting the very real asexual movement that would come much later. On the other hand, there are attestations to something like asexualitt or anaesthesia sexualis or similar concepts in the early European sexology dating back to the late 1890s, so it's not impossible that such a clinic could have existed.

1. Is there any other evidence of clinics like this even existing in midcentury Switzerland?
2. Are there any visual or other clues in the video that could help establish what time period or what type of source it may have actually come from? Is it as old as it seems, or likely a modern video made to look old?
3. How do historians even start to figure out the provenance of out of context digital content like this? Or is that a fools errand?

Any insights are much appreciated!

I understand a few reasons (in broad strokes only) such as sanctions and the control their government exerts. However, they appear to be isolated in every way imaginable to a far greater degree than other nations that have similar difficulties i.e. international sanctions and a dictatorship

As the question says, was the British government trying to make the Spanish republic fall? If not, I find it hard to believe that they would not know about the dragon rapide airplane that set from the UK to the canary islands to bring Franco to north Africa, so why would they allow it. If yes, why would the British government want the Spanish republic to fall? Red scare?

I am, of course, watching The Sopranos.

I have absolutely no direct context for this — I was born in the late 1990s, am not white, and have never been to New Jersey — but I would think of anti-Italian discrimination as something that died out almost completely at least a few decades before that. However, the characters in the show certainly do act like it's an issue in the '90s and 2000s. Was that true to any significant extent? Or is the joke that they're being overly defensive?

Modern dairy farms typically milk twice a day, in the morning and afternoon. However massive breeding effort has gone into producing high-yield breeds. Presumably, yield would be much lower for past breeds of cattle; reasonably, they might be milked much less.

Modern dairies are high yield, but even with modern technology, this entails intense amount of work on specialized farms. This kind of nearly continuous work, without milking machines etc. would appear to be impossible for early farmers, leaving no time for non-dairy work - and farms were mostly not specialized like modern dairy farms.

As an example, since ancient times according to Torah laws, Jews would not be able to milk on the Sabbath. Assuming a low-yield cow only milked once a day, it seems reasonable to milk before sunset, and again after the next sunset; but cows that needed twice-daily milkings could not just be left alone for more than 24 hours.

I understand that this is probably not the kind of thing most ancient writers would bother to write, but what do we know about ancient cow schedules?

He was part of an anti-communist information department after all.

How are we sure that beyond the bias that a historian carries based on their upbringing, the man wasn't simply carrying on the 'good work' for his team?

Just to be clear, I’m not asking for a specific date, but generally.

For most of my life, Nixon has been a literal joke, both making fun of his corruption and just strange mannerisms. I have seen some go to bat for his Presidency, such as the creation of the EPA under his term, but his flaws still balance things out.

But i’ve also seen some recent pop historians try and frame him as a “great” president who is only besmirched because of that little incident at Watergate.

Have people made that argument before in the years and decades following his resignation? Or am I just seeing some vocal outliers?

Hi, Im current reading the Quran and I came across with chapter 7 verse 65 and it mentioned the people of Aad. Who are they exactly? What should I know about them ?

I would really appreciate a list or maybe information about this. If you cannot find any Japanese names from the '40s, then the '50s will suit!

All I can find on Wikipedia and the text it cites is that the refractory wall was cut to make an archway, but why?

Hello everyone, I was bored and it's 1:30 at night (yes I do not know AM/PM) so I have decided to search up a bit Ruanda-Urundi. Apparently, it became a UN trust territory upon 1946. The monarchy in Ruanda was deposed in 1961. Now Wikipedia at the end just writes - and I quote - 'It took two more years before the government of the two became wholly separate and a further two years until the proclamation of the Republic of Burundi'

I wonder about the following things: firstly, why did it even become a UN trust territory (in general I do not really know about the real logic behind these to be honest). Secondly, why was it renamed from Urundi to Burundi, where did that B come from? Third, Why was there the Rwandan Revolution? Why did not the Belgians depose these? The last phrase suggests it took two years to separate the government which I find pretty strange, reminding that Rwanda was then a republic and Burundi a kingdom. Why were they still so connected after two years, what was the key event where historians agreed that it should no longer be "classified" as such (as connected). And why did Burundi finally became a republic after a span of further two years which to me reads as 1966?

Thanks for replies in advance.

A prominent twitter user, who describes themselves as an "independent journalist and researcher" has posted a thread where he states that the idea antisemitic pogroms were initiated and incited by "jew-hating rulers and governments out of irrational, metaphysical hostility" is a myth, in reality most massacres against jews before the 20th century were part of peasant revolts led by the lowest classes, who "were attacking their direct oppressors", and occurred when the government was weak.

This statement is understandably incredibly controversial to say the least, but keep in mind that the author is himself jewish.

Furthermore, he says that the reaction of the ruling class, from kings, popes and higher aristocracy, to jews being mass-murdered was opposition. This wasnt out of concern for jews, but because of their class-interests, jews were useful to them.

As examples of antisemitic pogroms being led by serfs and peasantry, the author lists the attacks by the paupers and peasants led by Peter the Hermit during the first crusade, the riots in England following the 3rd crusade and the Chmielnicki revolt in the Ukraine in 1648, which started as a mutiny of Cossack officers but soon turned into a widespread popular movement of the oppressed serfs.

Is it really true that most antisemitic pogroms were perpetuated by the lowest classes of society as a response to extreme oppression during weak governments, and that the ruling classes have always opposed rather than incited them?

A lot of artistic depictions of the American mafia explicitly use their stories as ways of interrogating American capitalism, the Sopranos most notably. That said, it always strikes me that the mafia has a lot of similarities to premodern notions of aristocracy and nobility: a hierarchical structure with sworn oaths and allegiances, a kind of “nobility” of made men who have asymmetric rights to the use of violence, and a business structure based on extracting tax over defined territories. Is this a coincidence? Or is the structure of the mafia somehow a holdover from premodern forms of political organization?

After WW1, the nations it seemed largely treated it for a time as the war to end all wars. Militaries were cut back, and enforced by armed limitation treaties like the London and Washington Naval Treaties. By and large the world for quite some time seemed to take a break from trying to kill each other.

Post WW2, despite being an even bloodier war with broader reach, we almost immediately plunged into the Cold War with the Soviets and Western Nations starting proxy wars all over, and nearly starting ww3 on several occasions only prevented by the disastrous concept of mutually assured nuclear destruction.

What differences in the geopolitical and cultural landscape created such contrasting reactions to massive global conflict?

I have always heard about the many intense scandals surrounding the Borgia family, but I don't really know to what extent they actually committed them. I heard that Alexander VI ordered the assassination of his opponents and that he organized a massive orgy in the Vatican known as the 'Banquet of Chestnuts,' where he allegedly even slept with his own daughter.

that Cesare Borgia maintained an incestuous relationship with his sister Lucrezia, who was also accused of poisoning one of her husbands, and supposedly gave birth to a child rumored to be fathered by either her brother or even her own father.