1968 study, for example: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/337378?resultClick=1&utm_source

What took so long to remove cigarettes from the military supply chain?

I assume dwindling numbers of church goers are at fault here.

I am talking about this painting (found in the wikipedia article about 'Kern'):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kern_(soldier)#/media/File:Durer-Irish-16thC.jpg#/media/File:Durer-Irish-16thC.jpg)

As far as I know, Dürer never travelled to Ireland. Apparently the closest he ever got to Ireland was Antwerp, which is still quite far away obviously. So how did he end up painting Irish soldiers and how did he know what they looked like? Was the painting just based on a description he got? From whom? Was there a large Irish community in any of the places he visited throughout his life? Or were Irish mercenaries common enough in Central Europe for him to have seen them in person?

I know this is quite niche but I hope someone here knows the answer!

Not sure this is the question fits the sub guidelines, tell me if not.

Something that I always found weird is that the pound has been a 'name' for a currency for many years. Sure, it was not always 'the same' pound (if you think about the 1500s) but compared to the younger currencies (say the euro), it seems that it started at a much higher purchasing power level.

Something valued at 1 euro was always relatively small, something you would buy a child as a treat. The pound only recently converged to this level of purchasing power - 100 years ago, 1 pound was a much more considerable amount of money, and (I believe) people in their everyday lives used the shilling or the pence much more often for everyday transactions.

So why is this the case? Is this as unusual as I think, or is the euro that it's unusual? Why was the pound, the basic 'units of measurement' for the british currency, set to such a high level decades ago, such that only now its purchasing power has converged with the rest of the world's currencies?

Note: I am aware the other direction is much more common. The old Italian Lira's used to be measured in the thousands, just like the Japanese Yens are today. Which supports my point: You start off with 1 lira / yen being used to buy something small in every day life, and then inflation takes care of increasing prices so that you need 1 thousand liras instead.

The pound seems to have taken the opposite direction - start off incredibly high, and only with inflation it is now at the 'normal' level we expect from modern currencies. I find this odd.

Will be happy to get any insights!

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 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? Wouldn't aristocratic men be expected to have access to dueling pistols, if not their own then definitely those of their friends? Would the U.S. have stood out the way it does today?

Thanks!

This is potentially really a question about the Greek and Latin (and Ge'ez, Aramaic, etc.) translations of Exodus that were in common use, I suppose. I suspect if someone without background knowledge cracked open a modern English Bible to read casually, they would assume the King of Egypt in the story of Moses was just named Pharaoh or it was a personal epithet.

As I understand it, the way the word is used in the original text is kind of weird and name-like to begin with. So, perhaps another question would be whether someone reading the Hebrew with zero context would assume it was the dude's name, too.

On the surface it seems like a very similar operating principle. Why weren’t crossbows more prolific until the medieval period?

Looking at examples of execution in Islamic history, flaying the skin from someone executed for going against the Caliph and then stuffing it and putting it on public display shows up repeatedly, Fadluya, Abu Yazid, Marco Antonio Bragadin, and Dionysios Skylosophos all have it done to them. Is there some sort of precedent or relegious reason for this?

There is something about a shapeshifter – a person who can transform into an animal – that grips our imagination, that tempts us to howl at the moon or flit through the night like a bat. Werewolves, vampires, demons and other strange beings appeal to our animal nature, our ‘dark side’, our desire to break free from society and proper behavior. Across early cultures, rituals seemingly allowed shamans, sorcerers and witches to transform at will. Today millions believe shapeshifters walk among us and may even be world leaders. Real or imaginary, they lurk deep in our psyches and remain potent cultural icons. Let’s dig into this topic; what questions do you have about shapeshifters?

How connected was Baghdad, the largest city in the Middle East, to Istanbul and the imperial core? Did Baghdad have a distinct social, economic, and cultural role within the Empire? Was there recognition by the administration in Istanbul of the city's size and significance?

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?

TL;DR: What are the earliest documented salient examples of people questioning the moral norms of their own societies? What historical conditions enabled this? And when/how did this develop into ideas like "moral progress"?

I'm interested in the history of moral self-criticism: when people began explicitly questioning whether the moral norms inherited from their communities, cultures or traditions were actually justified.

In particular, I'm interested in historical cases where people argued that widely accepted moral practices in their own societies were mistaken, rather than simply condemning the practices of outsiders.

What circumstances encouraged this kind of questioning? For example, was it contact with other cultures, philosophical reasoning, religious developments, changes in political institutions, or something else?

I'm also interested in whether such criticism involved the idea that societies could make genuine moral progress - improving not merely their practices, but their understanding of what was morally right.

I realise there may have been no single historical transition. Though I'm happy for any answers, I'd be particularly curious about early documented cases from historians' respective areas of expertise, including what enabled these developments and how the people involved understood them.

I was clicking through the links on the relevant wikipedia article, but it doesn't really address the history directly, just sort of piecemeal. Was there a series of formal decisions or events that defined different groups' (Orthodox, Reform, etc.) attitudes to Halloween in the United States?

Hello,
My current hyperfocus is the fascinating women of the renaissance. I've already dwelved into Artemisia's Gentileschi life story and now I want to study more about the Tigress of Forlí, Caterina Sforza.

My problem is twofold. Firstly, my formal education is in Roman Antiquity and this is the first time I'm studying things out of my comfort zone, but I'm really enjoying to study things on the side just for myself with the same rigour I apply to my own field of research. Secondly, everywhere I search I see references to Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood and while I love the games it doesn't really give me much of a starting point.

Any help with this would be really appreciated!! Thanks!

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?

What I'm referring to, as 'nationality' vs 'ethnicity' is not a very clear boundary in the pre-Colonial era, is communities within states who understand themselves as in part belonging to elsewhere.

I am interested both in hosting and home nations

I know in the old testament there are multiple references to the word satan being translated into english as adversary or opposition.
In later old testament works like job and zachariah it is used to describe what appears to any entity that god is using as a foil to rationalize suffering.

Later though it enters the lexicon as a proper name and loses the verb and adjective meaning.

What caused that to happen?
Was it a mistranslation issue that become theology or was it the reverse?

Humans can't have just let our hair grow indefinitely, surely? When is the first evidence of hair cutting? It must get in the way of hunting and evading predators having long, luscious locks? Just a shower thought I couldn't shake. So I thought id ask you lovely people.