I've noticed when traveling around, and in my own town even, that often the tallest building in town was a bank in the 1890s-1920s. In my own town, for example, there is an 8 story building towering above the small rural town that was a bank. To this day, the next-tallest building is the hospital at 6 floors, and that was only build in the 1970s.

Note: it is possible this is limited to Southern rural towns, because that is the only region where I have visited rural areas. My presumption is it had something to do with agriculture money, but that doesn't explain the exponentially larger bank buildings than everything else.

Basically what the title says, I’m looking for Middle East Lecturers that are unbiased and just talking and explaining the history of this region. I’m using Sarah Paine as my example because I think she does a phenomenal job of explaining other time periods and parts of the world without intentionally misrepresenting one side or another. If you guys know of anyone who explains this region well, I’d love to know. Thanks.

I’ve seen the quote “People have beautiful things to say about you, but you must die first” frequently attributed to Dostoyevsky online, including in an article by the Economic Times.

I’ve read most of his books and a few of his essays, but have yet to come across anything like it.

Does anyone know if this is a misattribution, or where this quote came from?

How much would a person pay (in period appropriate, native currency) a cartographer for a relatively detailed map for purposes similar to "trail orienteering" (wiki link)?

I feel like this a pretty niche question. I have tried searching the internet a bit, but I cannot find anything related to the retail price paid for the maps being used during that period.

I can find plenty of options to buy renaissance style maps - not what I'm looking for.

I can find information on how the maps were created and similar processes - that's a rabbit hole of pricing labor and materials where I would likely have to ask similar questions about those items.

Am I just missing an inventory or some other accounting document? For context, this is for personal writing project.

like while historical records and photos show that many panther Ausf D Tanks had panther ausf A Cupolas, there are photos of where they did retain their original drum cupolas.

i most likely think the vast majority of them that did survive were internally upgraded with Panther A or Panther G Parts, including roadwheels. but its most likely they kept their original drum cupolas.

Hi everyone, I'm looking for book recommendations detailing how the Soviet occupied territories of Eastern Europe became part of the Warsaw Pact. Any recommendations would be appreciated

Many Soviet cities were renamed to commemorate leaders, such as St Petersburg becoming Leningrad and then back again. What was the process actually like for people that lived in those places? Was it chaotic?

Ive read the first chapter of Osamu Tezuka's epic "Phoenix", the "Dawn" chapter which takes place in ancient Japan during the 3rd century, the yayoi era. The story aims to poke holes in Japan's national mythology to show that in reality, Japan as a nation is artificially formed, and the violence and brutality necessary for that to happen.

The mythical rulers of Japan such as Himiko and emperor Jimmu are depicted as antagonists, filled with human flaws like egotism, callousness etc.

In the manga, we see soldiers from Yamatai slaughtering an entire village of kumaso (tribe in ancient Japan), including the women and children, on the orders of queen Himiko. Later we see emperor Jimmu (who actually predates Himiko based on chronology) declare himself the ruler after systemically killing the inhabitants of the lands he wants to conquer. He is depicted standing in a field of thousands of bodies.

The comic declares that ‘IN THIS FASHION, JAPAN WAS FORMED AS A NATION THROUGH INVASION, WAR AND SLAUGHTER’.

Based on the manga, you would think that the settlement of Japan by the yayoi people was comparable in consequences for the pre-existing inhabitants to the colonization of the Americas by European powers. But is that true?

I sorta wanted to ask how historically accurate the manga is, but that question would be too broad.

Is there evidence that the original population of Japan, the jomon, were demographically replaced by the yayoi, and is there any extensive archaeological record of massacres during the yayoi period?

Additionally, did the settlers cause an epidemic that devastated the original population in a similar way as the columbian exchange?

What I mean by this is was there ever an event from the past where a person died during a funeral, and then someone else died during THAT died persons funeral. Did it ever happen? And if so, how far did the chain go?

Hi everyone,

I'm really interested in learning about the conquest of America, specifically about the situation in the territory before and after the arrival of the conquistadores.

This is the reading list I have so far:

• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
• Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest
• The Broken Spears
• The Conquest of New Spain
• The Last Days of the Incas

What do you guys think? If you have any recommendations, know that I can read Spanish and English.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

For one it is built off the notion for many that the roman empire fell in 476 even though the east stood. Speaking of Rome The Mediterranean was still very much part of the Roman world the gothic kingdoms were romanized adopting it's cultures, laws, institutions etc. The ostrogoths were officially a client state of the Roman Empire.

In the near east the Power struggle between The Romans and The Persians was still the power struggle in that region. All of this of course would all change with the arab conquests. The Territory lost from the Arab conquest crippled Rome and essentially ended the roman world and Rome being a superpwer you the could make the case for 642 with the loss of egypt being the year ancient history ended or 651 with the fall of sassanid persia ending the last remant of an ancient polity that defined the politics and history of the known world.

But I know history doesn't always have clean start and end points it's more exciting to define a moment as the end and start of an era but many also the use the less exciting blanket and approximate start and end points and ranges like in this case ancient history ending at ~500 AD and if we were to use that wouldn't the ~630 - 800 AD make more sense for that?

I ask this because one generally associates antiquity or history with education, but it is known that teenagers have always been rebellious and free-spirited,But were they like that in ancient times too? Rebellious dreamers eager to do many things?How did teenagers or young people have fun in the past? Today we have bowling alleys and nightclubs, but what about before?

Mostly looking to see if there has ever been a garlic god, but if there are actual people in history with interesting garlic-related stories, I'd be happy to hear their stories too.

So, religious wars between Christians are/were very common, and if we take the Middle Ages, the Reformation, etc., the religious cause for wars was quite common. Was it the same level of hatred between different strands of Islam?

I have no academic experience with history beyond high school, so I have a bit of a rough (and extremely Eurocentric) patchwork understanding of history. To sort of improve that, I've undertaken a project: a multi-year movie-marathon where each one is in chronological order. Some items include Quest for Fire, Mohenjo Daro, Prince of Egypt, Troy, Spartacus, then eventually onto the likes of Pirates of the Carribean, The Sound of Music, The Imitation Game, Hidden Figures, Forest Gump, and more. I have 627 movies on the list right now, plus 120 or so TV series.

Obviously, nothing is going to be an academic documentary. Many items on the list are going to majorly change events or make things up completely. I'm taking everything with a whole pound of salt. I dip my toes into Wikipedia fact-checking every now and then. Still definitely not academic level, but this project is for fun anyway and shouldn't feel like homework.

edit: Even if nothing in these movies is to be trusted, there's something interesting in what stories people tell about history. When I get to the Partition era, for example, I'll see British, Indian, and Pakistani pop culture versions of the event. Just as Shakespeare wrote Macbeth as the villain and Banquo as a virtuous man to appease King James, media depictions can tell us a lot about who wrote the story and why, too.

So - what are your favourite/least favourite depictions of history in media? Why?

I recently learned (from the brilliant podcast "The Rest Is History" that Allianz as an insurance firm took a good market share from depossessed Jewish business owners if not buying their businesses for pennies when they had the means to flee.

They also insured Auschwitz and other death camps.

I also managed to read on their incredibly buggy web page on the subject that :

"Through involvement in private associations, Allianz tried to counteract the regime’s plans for nationalization of the insurance sector."

But also :

"World War II shaped the work of insurance companies in many ways: all larger companies in the financial sector had to invest their reserves in government loans by order of the state. They served the state in financing the war. Allianz expanded its activities across occupied Europe in step with German military.

The SS was also a client of the insurance industry. As a result, Allianz, usually as part of a consortium of various insurance companies, insured staff and buildings at SS production facilities on the grounds of concentration camps."

They also talk about buying a business at a fair price from a Jewish business owner who "chose" to leave Germany for the US.

That seems like an incredible lack of accountability and quite a bit of whitewashing.

We all still think of Volkswagen as associated with the Nazi regime, probably because the whole industrial sector and economy in general had been dedicated to the bet of winning a European or even more expansive war.

But how come we don't talk about these companies who exist today, who were supporters of the Nazi regime, profited from it, and participated in the worst of atrocities ?

My father has worked for Allianz for about 10 years, although not in the insurance branch. His mother's father was deported as a political prisoner concentration camps in the early days where he died soon thereafter, and her partner (born in 1920) was a Jewish man who somehow survived the war - we don't know how he survived or what happened to his family, he never told anyone None of us ever thought a thing about Allianz, except that they are shit insurers and have a terrible organisation of their investment banking team.

How come they managed to get out of this intact with no one remembering that they fucking insured Auszwitch ? How are they allowed to lie on their website ? Why don't they have that stain on them when their success is due to the suffering and death of so many Jews in the Holocaust ?

Yes, I know there was the Protestant reformation and all that, and that the Church (what we call the Catholic Church now) was concerned with keeping church unity and not having it splinter into so many differing groups like they have now. So I’m not talking about violence issued out by the church authorities. I’m instead talking about every day people who, up to the last hundred years or so, would rather throw rocks and do harm against someone of a different denomination than see them as a follower of Jesus.

Take, for example, anti-Catholic violence by Protestant Americans in the 19th century. I mean, maybe it’s just how I am, but I would never look at a Catholic mother and child and say “You deserve to be treated like shit” and then hurl insults and threats at them, just because they report to a Pope while I, a Protestant man, do not.

I just don’t get why everyday Christians would do this.

I have a question. I know there are people who believe that behind mythical characters stand real people, but my question concerns specifically the option that mythical characters are completely non-real.

I imagine the process like this, let's take Romulus as an example:

«Romulus is a character whose description evolved over time. Initially, some person intentionally invented the character Romulus (this is proto-Romulus), who has no description and no history that will be given to him in the future. Then people unintentionally attribute certain qualities to proto-Romulus, and in the end we get the final result.»

I want to ask you: is the intentional invention of a mythical hero (a prototype) the only explanation for the emergence of completely mythical figures? Because I can't see the other options

I was reading about the legal principle of terra nullius, and how many peoples have had their lands stolen on the grounds that those lands were "uncultivated". Agriculture wasn't the whole or only definition of terra nullius which conquerers used; but it got me thinking about the Neolithic and the transition to agriculture -- I wonder if hunter-gatherers had their lands annexed by farmers who considered themselves more civilised, and I'm curious generally about the role of agriculture in the justification of conquest and colonialism through the ages.

Everyone knows the Lend Lease was a major player in both keeping Russia and the UK fighting prior tand during USA involvement in WWII.

But how much provisioning did Russia truly receive from the UK and USA?

What did these amounts constitute in terms of all Russian provisioning during the war?

Thank you!

Mostly a question of historical naming conventions. To my knowledge, the only controversy about naming the Inca empire is whether to refer to them as "Inca" or "Inka". But aren't those Spanish exonyms? Was there ever a desire to refer to them as Tawantinsuyu? Were there other names?

It's not like Churchill and his party didnt want to accelerate the already established British Welfare State; quite the opposite actually; infact his Govt already implemented the start of the great reform...
So whats the ACTUAL reason the Tories lost 1945. Surely it can't be "the British wanted newer, more expansive socio-economical welfare reforms..if the Tories and Liberals ALSO supported and implemented these policies!"

I've gone down a rabbit hole, reading a bit about Mary Todd Lincoln - especially in the time after her husband's death.

Lincoln wasn't the only first lady to lose her husband while in office - Kennedy, Harrison, Roosevelt, Harding and others died for various reasons.

I'm wondering if there is some type of standard protocol to allow the widow time to plan for a new home. Is there a certain time period to be out of the White House? Does the surviving spouse have to move from a "presidential suite" before relocating? What about surviving children - any protocols there? Does the new President have any input in the process?

Genuinely curious about what has been done over the years (from an internal perspective), and what has changed.