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Has any country ever been invaded by its own colony?
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[
"Not sure about home soil, but the US did invade Canada (then part of the British Empire) during the American Revolutionary War. _URL_0_ It failed. Also, what do you mean by a colony invading its mother country? Did the colony declare independence and then invade the mother country? At that point, it's more of a typical country vs. country war. For example, you could look at the Revolutionary War as the US versus the UK, as opposed to UK vs. rebels."
] |
[
"Sovereignty is enforced by brute force. Do you have what it take to defend your country? Tibet was a country. Taiwan was a country. Hong Kong was part of China. Vietnam was part of China. Maryland/Virginia was part of British Empire. A sovereign nation is established by brute force most of time. If you can take and hold a land for 60 consecutive years. It is considered your sovereign land."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
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Iran nationalizes their oil in 1951, Norway in 1972. Compare and contrast the reactions of the major Western powers.
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[
"The strategic interest in oil is not necessarily the possession of oil sources, it is the access to it. Norway's nationalisation never threatened other Western powers' access to the oil. One of the key points that got Mossadeq's government in power in Iran on a wave of popular support was his promise to end foreign interference, of which the Iranian population was fed up. The constant bowing of the Shah to British and Russian demands had united the middle class, the uluma and the pro-democracy people against the Shah and had made the British unpopular. So the Iranian nationalisation threatened the access to oil sources the Royal Navy depended on. (Cleveland, *A history of the Middle East*)"
] |
[
"> How would the US nationalize oil/natural gas? They'd pass a law requiring the owners of oil and gas firms in the US to sell or turn over their assets to the government. > What would happen to the companies who are producing oil on US soil/waters. They'd be owned by the government rather than their private owners/shareholders. > What would be the fallout from an undertaking like this? I think surprise would probably be the first thing on everyone's mind. The US has spent the better part of a century trying to privatize the world's oil resources."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
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Hollywood depicts American authorities as "never negotiating with terrorists", but have they ever actually in the past 100 years?
|
[
"During the 1980s, several [Americans](_URL_0_) were captured in Lebanon amidst the civil war there. Some of the Americans, including the CIA station chief at the time, were captured by Hezbollah, an Iranian backed militia. To bring these hostages home, members of the Reagan administration secretly negotiated with Iran to [sell arms](_URL_1_) to the Iranians (who were at war with Iraq) for help in getting the hostages released. (As an aside, the monies from this sale was diverted to the Contras, a Nicaraguan rebel group against the pro-Soviet Sandinista regime. a.k.a. the Iran Contra-Affair) Source: [Understanding the Iran Contra Affairs](_URL_2_)"
] |
[
"They did notice. They just assumed that all countries were like that, and kinda ignored it when they could. Which seems weird and unrelatable. Until you remember that the United States of America sometimes tortures people who haven't been charged with a crime."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
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What's the deal with Point Roberts, WA? Why not give it to Canada?
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[
"Essentially, the Treaty of Oregon was signed before there had been any surveying done to see if setting the border at the 49th parallel would cause any problems like this. Once it was signed, they surveyed the land and realized Point Roberts would be an anomaly. The British Foreign Ministry tried to offer trading Point Roberts for some equivalent change elsewhere on the line that would cause less of a problem, but as far as I'm aware, there's no record of how the US responded--in any case, they never ceded the area. *Hayes, Derek (1999). Historical Atlas of the Pacific Northwest: Maps of Exploration and Discovery.*"
] |
[
"It *is* against the law in most places. By the way, where do you live?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the argument:",
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How accurate is the popular perception of Spartan society?
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[
"The popular perception is quite wrong, and is referred to by the world's leading Sparta expert (Professor Stephen Hodkinson) as 'the theme park version' of Sparta. I've written many answers that you might find interesting: * [Is the military worship of the Spartans really justified?](_URL_0_) * [Were the cultures of Athens and Sparta as different as they are portrayed in the popular mindset?](_URL_1_) * [What were other people's impressions of the Spartans?](_URL_3_) You can find more threads on Sparta in my [flair profile](_URL_4_). You might also enjoy [this YouTube video](_URL_2_) for which I co-wrote the script."
] |
[
"Welcome to the one of the strongest arguments against the prohibition of firearms."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question about movie accuracy:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit paragraph about movie accuracy:",
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Why do Britain not fight to retain their Empire? Did they not want to remain a superpower?
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[
"In 1956, Britain did try to fight for her empire. After Egyptian President Nasser took over the Suez Canal (one of Britain's largest overseas assets), the British, the French, and the Israelis attacked them in an effort to get it out of Egyptian hands. This action was universally vilified, and their actions were condemned both by the US and by the USSR in the UN. Simply put, the British did 'fight' for their empire because they were no longer capable of acting alone. The United States' support was essential for projecting power around the world, as was shown in the Falklands War, where the US provided material and logistical support. If you want to read about Suez, the so-called 'Empire's Last Stand', I'd recommend the book \"Suez\" by Keith Kyle."
] |
[
"We are not in the middle ages, having a larger population does not make you more powerful. What reason would they have to think that it would?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
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Has "Spanish lisp" legend been conclusively proven or debunked?
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[
"Wiki says it's been discredited for lack of evidence. _URL_0_"
] |
[
"It's not dangerous. It's a myth that has been disproven. Actually Mythbusters did an episode on it and they laughed it was so wrong."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
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What is the most realistic answer to the question of how earlier humans consistently (or inconsistently) made fire without proper fire making tools?
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[
"Hi there -- while this question may garner some answers here, you may also want to crosspost it to r/askanthropology."
] |
[
"A simple answer is that they were hunter/gatherers. There won't be a whole lot of evidence that survived that long. Early humans used a lot of natural resources in their more pure form. Early Australians probably used boats or rafts held together by plant fibers. It's not true rope but it does work. So basically they hunted, gathered, and laid the groundwork for the civilizations that we can see evidence of."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
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What happened to Tankman when he was rushed off the road by other civilians? Why did they rush him off?
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[
"The answer is that nobody knows what happened to him and it's very doubtful if anyone will ever know, nobody was even able to identify who he is that we know of. He could have being arrested/killed by the government, or he could have decided to simply lay low for the rest of his life."
] |
[
"Because he shot at the people trying to capture him, and was killed in the firefight. There's no reason to believe he wouldn't have been given a trial had this not happened."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
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[META] A quick thank you to the mods and contributors of this subreddit.
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[
"Absolutely agree. I'm a casual browser with a few interests, but it's great to see a really informative, focused sub that's free of cheap gags, supposition and repeated myths. Shame it takes so much work, but the results are valuable."
] |
[
"12 PM PST is 8 PM GMT, for us europeans. That's great news, I'm really looking forward to this. /r/AskHistorians is one of (if not *the*) best subreddits and definitely deserves some attention from outside of Reddit itself."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title about Appreciation:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document about Appreciation:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
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Is "nation-building" and "winning hearts and minds" a modern phenomenon, or did ancient empires also have to carry out counter-insurgency campaigns in the scale of Afghanistan and Iraq?
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[
"Just because there weren't insurgencies in the modern sense doesn't mean there weren't rebellions and uprisings. Rome had a notoriously difficult time keeping down the people of Germania, Gaul and Britannia, for example but the rebellions usually played out through more traditional military conflicts. One disadvantage modern nations face in counter-insurgency is the moral and legal obligation to avoid killing or capturing innocent civilians, which allows the insurgents to blend into the population. Older empires were not as beholden to these restrictions. The Mongols, for example, would frequently snuff out any chance at a rebellion by simply slaughtering every person in their newly conquered possessions."
] |
[
"Apparently Osama bin Laden said that the purpose of his campaign was to destabilise the USA by bankrupting it. He claimed similar tactics brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1980s and early 1990s when they got bogged down in an expensive war in Afghanistan. In other arenas, the IRA would claim that their campaign of violence in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s got them a seat at the negotiating table at the Good Friday peace talks, although they seem to have realised that independence through violent uprising was a lost cause by 1998. On the ground, the suicide bombers are likely to be motivated by a mixture of desperation, religious extremism, vengeance and brainwashing. You can't expect much logic there. A lot of countries have won independence on the back of armed uprisings (e.g. Cuba, Israel, USA). If they are successful, they call themselves liberators. If they are unsuccessful, the winners label them terrorists, so a lot of it is propaganda and semantics."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
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Recommended Civil War nonfiction for a layperson?
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[
"I'll echo James McPherson, but I'll also add Bruce Catton, specifically his Army of the Potomac trilogy. You can often find copies of his stuff used, and he reads well and in a narrative vein. Good stuff."
] |
[
"What are some of the primary sources that you have found? This sounds interesting. Would you recommend any books for a fun read?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the title:",
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In Assassin's Creed: Origins, a ship captain and one of his crewmembers are shown playing a board game that uses two pawns on a round board. What game is this?
|
[
"Related question: if they are playing Mehen, are there other “forgotten” games with unknown rules but copious game boards? Are there references to play for these kinds of lost games?"
] |
[
"The stars lead the assault. If you were to grab a flag and run with it on a staff it would look exactly as it does on the uniform."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
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Prosecution for Duelling in England
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[
"I wish I had the time to give this question the proper answer it deserves, but I don't at the moment, so instead will just recommend you a good source. \"A Matter of Honour\" by Martyn Beardsley is a nice quick read covering the state of dueling in England during the early 19th century, concentrating primarily on the last fatal encounter (with a few qualifications) in England, fought between Charles Hawkey and James Seton. The bulk of the book deals solely with that duel, the fallout, and such, but the latter portion goes over the efforts to stamp out dueling, and does cover the issues that arose in regards to prosecution. So if it is a topic that interests you, I would definitely recommend it."
] |
[
"Next Week's Theme: 'Royalty, Nobility, and the Exercise of Power' To be followed by: \"Eastern Europe\""
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
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AMA Announcement -- Dr. James McPherson, author of 'Battle Cry of Freedom' (1988) and over a dozen other books on the American Civil War, will be here to answer questions this Friday, Feb. 28th, starting at 1:30PM
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[
"Hot dang! This is awesome. I know a lot of the mod team worked very hard on this, but a special shout out to /u/Anastik for doing so much work to get this done. Anastik pitched the idea to us and then contacted Dr. McPherson. Apparently, Anastik has a way with words. If you need someone to help you break the news that you have decided to leave your lover to go to Mars, Anastik can probably help you out."
] |
[
"The JFK Daily Diary at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia shows that he and Jackie were at their Glen Ora property in Middleburg, Virginia that weekend. They were having a house built there. I guess he decided to do that instead of lay a wreath at Arlington. The daily diary shows they arrived at Glen Ora at 5:32pm on Saturday November 10, arriving back at the White House on Monday, November 12 at 9:05am."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
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Why are there so many names that start with "Mac" (Macbeth, Macduff) in shakespearean literature?
|
[
"Well, *Macbeth* takes place in Scotland. The prefix \"Mac\" in Scottish names means \"son of\"; for example, MacDonald means \"son of Donald.\" It's the same how \"Johnson\" means \"son of John.\""
] |
[
"It's not unheard of at all, it happens all the time. Ever see *The Lord of the Rings*? Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving (Australian) all playing vaguely British-sounding characters. How about Natalie Portman in *V For Vendetta*? RDJ in *Sherlock Holmes*? *Bridget Jones’ Diary*? The cast of *This Is Spinal Tap?* Johnny Depp in every other movie he's in?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
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What are the most and least saturated topics in historical academia?
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[
"Rome and Europe have been written about ad nauseum. There are still worthwhile subjects to be tackled in that region, oh yes, but the popular stuff gets regurgitated. Want an area of study? Map out the Mississippian Civilizations. Flesh out the trading sphere for the Anasazi. Find an example of how the Inca used to socially engineer newly conquered societies in order to incorporate them into the empire. Define the ecological package of plants and animals that Spanish or English explorers if the new world would bring with them. Pen a pre-Columbian history of the Amazon societies, which are completely unlike the lightly populated tribes we know of today. And then, take that stuff to the old world. You know, I can't think of any work on the Roman ecological package."
] |
[
"How well regarded are the writings of Joseph Campbell by historians?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
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According to Wikipedia, Joan of Arc's father owned 50 acres. That seems like a lot of land, was it?
|
[
"It's not a lot, but he would not have been struggling. Solidly middle class. The average sized family would have needed about ten acres to earn a basic living from the land, not sure what the French ratios are but in England about 1/3rd of land owners would have had one virgate (30 acres) or more. Of course the quality of the living gained from this land would have varied according to the inherent fertility of the land and how it was managed. It's just a ball park figure. In terms of visualising the bigness, if it was square the perimeter would have been about 1 mile or a 15-20 minute walk."
] |
[
"Hard to say. Some lords owned a lot of land, some owned a little. Some had a peaceful realm, and some were always at war (wars are expensive, even back then). There's a difference if you were a vassal to another lord or if you were directly under the king/emperor. You'd have to add up all of the castles, towns, fields, barns, mills, etc that he owned, and that just varies too much between lords to put a figure on it. Also, its hard to quantify as some things that were owned back then are illegal to own now, i.e. serfs, slaves, harems, etc. Additionally, it would depend on the quality and location of the lord's land. If he owned 10,000 acres of well-improved, productive land outside of Flanders or Florence he's worth a lot more than if he owned 100,000 acres in the backwoods of Russia. Think of them as the CEOs/owners of today's corporations. Not every CEO is wealthy, but some are opulently so. I'd say that the more wealthy lords back then were worth the same as the billionaires of today."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
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Name for Poitou that isn't Aquitaine?
|
[
"I'm a medieval historian of this geographic area, as part of the larger Occitan world. *Aquitaine* is the modern form of the region's name which dates back to Roman records, from the same time as Roman name *Vasconia* (now Gascony/Basque). The earlier medieval form of Aquitaine was *Guiana* (in local old Occitan, or *Guyenne* in old French). Like Poitou, all other names indicate Aquitaine sub-regions such as Dordogne, Agenais, Perigord. In what period does your alternate history shift from real history?"
] |
[
"d', de, du are \"of\" in French. Jeanne \"of\" Arc.i.e. she was from a town called Arc. If you didn't have one of those names like Smith or Taylor that represented what your family profession was, you would take the place name as your last name. I am Steve... of... uh... Steve of Philidelphia. _en francais s'il vous plait!_ Je suis Steve de Phili.... which over time would just become dePhili."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
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"neg": "Represent the Reddit post:"
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What do world's mythologies tell us about the origin and history of technology?
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[
"Kind of a follow-up/tangential question: [Ovid's Metamorphoses](_URL_0_) talks of different ages (Gold, Silver, Brazen, Iron): Are these referring more to the decadence of mankind, or does his talk of \"hard steel\" refer to advances in metallurgy?"
] |
[
"It would be tantamount to what Thomas Kuhn termed a ‘paradigm shift.’ Basically, it would revolutionize the most basic conclusions scientists have had about the origins of life for hundreds of years."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
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What domesticated animals would you expect to find if you visited the British isles on 2093BC?
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[
"That's an oddly specific date. Is there some context you're withholding?"
] |
[
"Because they weren't present during the period where an ice-land bridge connected NA and Asia, so they never had the opportunity to cross over. The ancestor to the tigers in East Asia are from less than 10,000 years ago. The last ice age was about 11,700 years ago."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the query:",
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Did the survivors of the 1972 Andes plane crash cook the human flesh they ate? Did they have any means of making fire?
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[
"I read the book a few years back. If you haven't you should really go out and get it now. It's phenomenal. Anyways, what they did was cut strips of flesh off the buttox and layer them on the white roof of the plane for a period of time (don't remember how long) to freeze dry them. They basically made human jerky."
] |
[
"Question: does the smell of curry permeate the clothing, or does it permeate the body and scent the sweat? I had always assumed the latter. I don't find the smell offensive either way, but I had always planned, in case of a plane crash in the Andes where I am stranded for weeks with no food except corpses of fellow travelers, to use South Asians as seasoning for the meatier but less flavorful ethnicites."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
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What happened to the American flag (or any other flag) on the moon? Do we know?
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[
"Every Apollo mission that landed on the moon planted a flag and left it there. They are all still standing except for the one from apollo 11 which was planted too close to the lander and blew over when they took off."
] |
[
"There are other things you can look for, like the mirrors that were placed there. But we don't need to see the American flag to prove that we went there. Every sane person on this planet knows we did, because there's a mountain of evidence to support it and no evidence to refute it."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
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I recently heard a claim that innovations in firearm projectiles led to a development of square bullets for use against non christian enemies. Did this technology catch on?
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[
"It's true that Puckle wrote that, but it's also true that his design doesn't actually allow for changing to square bullets, since it's not possible to swap out the barrel of the gun. The design has detachable chambers for different ammunition types, but not an interchangeable barrel. Historians universally agree that the idea of the square bullets was a curious bit of hyperbole invented by Puckle in an effort to attract investors. No square bullets are known to have ever been fired by this gun. You can take a look at the original patent application [here](_URL_0_), along with a fascinating discussion."
] |
[
"I mainly deal with European history and was going to chime in on the firearms, but there is just no way to generalize without being more specific. For example, the term \"musket\" covers weapons used from the 13th century up until the 19th century, and rifles are still used today. A Ming Dynasty musket and a Napoleonic Era musket are going to be vastly different weapons. Lastly, what does \"damage\" mean when it comes to deadly weapons? Being hit by anything from a bullet to a thrown rock could either kill you or deflect off your skull and do only superficial damage. How do you rate armor piercing when you have thousands of years of armor to compare it to? I don't know how to pin down the era you are trying to replicate when you have weapons like slings and Pilum that were only rarely used in the last 1500 years next to rifles, a rather modern invention only really proliferated in the post-Napoleonic era."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the query:",
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Did the USA intend to ‘nuke’ Europe during WW2?
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[
"In general, the concrete discussions about what to do with the bomb did not start until late 1944, with most of them happening in the spring of 1945. The only real discussion of this took place in December 1944, when FDR asked General Groves, head of the atomic bomb project, whether it might be possible to use them against Germany. The answer, for a few reasons, was no: it wouldn't be ready in time for use, since the US anticipated being done with Germany by May 1945, and wouldn't have a weapon ready until late July 1945. [You can read more about this here](_URL_0_). As for what would have happened if Pearl Harbor never happened, who knows. That would be a very different trajectory (and involves asking whether the US would have entered into the war at all, and under what terms, etc.)."
] |
[
"Could the rebuilding of Japan after WWII be considered a partial colonization by the United States?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
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I just noticed that Kurt Cobain's suicide is now "history", according to the 20 year rule. How common was suicide among contemporary musicians, and what effect did it have on media coverage of musicians?
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[
"The Rock n' Roll suicides that Cobain was probably be most familiar with were Ian Curtis of Joy Division and Darby Crash of the Germs. He was no doubt familiar with Darby Crash's suicide because Pat Smear who played in Nirvana had formally been a member of the Germs. Cobain was quoted in the music press talking about Joy Division on a couple of occasions. In the July, 1994 issue of Mojo he said, \"I stayed away from Joy Division because I'd heard a few of their songs and I knew that I would really like them. The stories that I'd heard about the band, I knew that's the band to listen to out of them all. I'm just waiting. I've always felt there's that element of Gothic in Nirvana.\""
] |
[
"Nirvana gets a lot of the credit for starting the \"grunge\" movement. What makes smells like teen spirit so different is it's grunge sound and lyrical content. This was the first mainstream song to sort of glorify angsty, awkward teenagers and give them a coherent voice. It probably rings less with you because so much music has been heavily influenced by it. As far as his legacy is concerned, as one of the pillars of grunge music he has had a major impact on the last 20 or so years of rock music, most specifically alt/college rock."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the question:",
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Were disputes in Celtic society actually settled by champion on champion combat?
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[
"Your question is tricky because \"Celtic Society\" can cover not only very different geographic locations but also eras spanning hundreds (if not, thousands...) of years. You use the term \"knight\", so does this mean the question you're posing is one focused in the medieval era? Warfare differed greatly from era to era, is why I ask. Also, are you asking about Celtic *mythology* or are you asking about historical warfare?"
] |
[
"Corollary: did Romans have a 'golden age' of gladiatorial games, when the competitors were seen as the best and most entertaining, compared to other iterations in other periods?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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What is the best documentary about pre-Columbian Americas and also pre-revolutionary war America?
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[
"As far as early native interactions are concerned, there is one particular documentary that comes to mind that I always found compelling. The name of the documentary is The Tainos and you can find it on youtube. It covers the history of the Taino people in Hispaniola and their interactions with Christopher Columbus, their rebellion against the Spanish led by Enriquillo, or Enrique, and their eventual subjugation. I'd discuss more, but then I would only be spoiling the documentary. [Part 1](_URL_1_) [Part 2](_URL_0_) [Part 3](_URL_2_) I'm not sure precisely how old the documentary is, but in certain parts there is some outdated electric guitar music. You have been forewarned."
] |
[
"Rome and Europe have been written about ad nauseum. There are still worthwhile subjects to be tackled in that region, oh yes, but the popular stuff gets regurgitated. Want an area of study? Map out the Mississippian Civilizations. Flesh out the trading sphere for the Anasazi. Find an example of how the Inca used to socially engineer newly conquered societies in order to incorporate them into the empire. Define the ecological package of plants and animals that Spanish or English explorers if the new world would bring with them. Pen a pre-Columbian history of the Amazon societies, which are completely unlike the lightly populated tribes we know of today. And then, take that stuff to the old world. You know, I can't think of any work on the Roman ecological package."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the post about Education:",
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"neg": "Represent the document:"
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What role did the SA play in the final stages of World War Two?
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[
"To my understanding, most members were transferred to the Wehrmacht, and what was left of it was primarily a subset of the SS and served as administrative and training support of sorts. They did have a small military presence, mostly as naval auxiliary, and the Panzer Corps Feldherrnhalle (not really a part of the SA per-say, just most of the unit's volunteers were SA), which fought in Hungary during the last stages of the war. Chris McNab's *The SS: 1923–1945* and *Hitler's Elite: The SS 1939–45* as well as Alfonso Escuadra Sanchez's *Feldherrnhalle: Forgotten Elite* are the sources on which I base this answer."
] |
[
"Was any Asian country capable of helping the United States during the revolutionary war?"
] |
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{
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the argument:",
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Are there any examples from WWII of carelessly shared information leading to ships being sunk?
|
[
"Andrew J May, a US Congressman from Kentucky, once gave a press conference where he made it public that Japanese anti-submarine tactics were deficient and resulted in low US submarine losses. Essentially, Japanese depth charges were set to detonate at a depth that was significantly higher (closer to the surface) than the US submarines were able to operate at. Needless to say, this made its way through the press. While there isn't any direct correlation that we know of, the Japanese did adjust their depth charges (although whether this was due to this information leak or due to their improved ASW experience over the course of the war is uncertain) to a deeper depth, culminating in significantly increased US submarine losses in the later stages of the war. One US submarine commander claimed that May's statement led directly to the losses of 10 submarines and their crew, although this was not demonstrated by any commission. May escaped punishment for this leak but was later convicted for war profiteering."
] |
[
"I would suggest \"The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War\" by Wirtz. The Tet Offensive, launched in early 1968, took US forces largely, I say largely because there is always someone in the intelligence chain who predicted it but was ignored, by surprise. From a military intelligence standpoint, a drop in communication from the enemy immediately prior to the attack was a big warning that was missed. Also, from a strategic standpoint, policy makers did not think that the North Vietnamese Army was even capable of launching the attack and to do so was suicidal. Also, I would read \"Ike's Spies\" by Ambrose. He details how the British identified and turned every German spy in the UK during WW2. The spies were either killed or utilized in a massively effective counter-intelligence campaign. The spies fed accurate but worthless information back to Berlin or wrong information to deceive the Germans of the Allied intentions leading up to Normandy."
] |
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{
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the sentence:",
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What are some examples of a colony or island being cut off and isolated from its main society? How did it affect their progress?
|
[
"[The story of Norse colonization of Greenland](_URL_1_) seems to fit the bill nicely. They grew increasingly isolated from European civilization, and once they were finally cut off, all starved or were killed by the Inuit. In his book [Collapse](_URL_0_), Jared Diamond has an extensive discussion of the Greenland Norse, and concludes that clinging to European culture and social norms was a major factor in their eventual extinction. Your question also reminds me of the Ex-Confederates who fled the South to settle in the Amazon after the Civil War, but I only know the cursory details of that one."
] |
[
"Just about every white race can be traced back to Europe. The east/west geography of Europe allows for easier travel and sharing of ideas. When different groups of people travel more and share ideas, they develop their technology better, and in turn can take over other groups of people more easily. In the Americas and Africa, the landscape is more of a north/south orientation. Traveling in those lands would take you through vastly different climates...so people didn't travel as much, which meant less sharing of ideas and development. Source: I took a course on civilization when in college and this is one of the few things I remember from it. Of course, it all was a theory, but of all the theories we read trying to explain why Europe developed so much faster than the rest of the world, this made the most sense to me."
] |
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{
"query": "Represent the question:",
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What have been the best methods of poverty alleviation throughout history?
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[
"Milton Friedman gives a very good analysis of the economic growth that occurred during the Japanese period called the Meiji restoration from 1868. Millions of Japanese were lifted out of poverty when free markets were allowed to function properly, and the national GDP quadrupled over the span of 20 years. I would obviously be breaking our 20 year rule by discussing the phenomenal growth that's been happening in Peru since they opened up to free trade around 20 years ago. This wouldn't be the right forum to discuss the 8 million people that have been lifted out of poverty since then, but it's an interesting subject nonetheless and you're welcome to PM me about it."
] |
[
"Welcome to the one of the strongest arguments against the prohibition of firearms."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit answer:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit answer:"
}
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Saturday Reading and Research | October 10, 2015
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[
"What are the must read books about the American revolution published within the last five years? What are the current arguments being discussed by historians who study the era?"
] |
[
"It's a bit unclear what you're interested in. (Early US education? Mann? Cremin's perspective?) But here are some resources that may help: > Binder, Frederick M. The Age of the Common School: 1830-1865. New York: Wiley, 1974. > > Glenn, Jr., Charles Leslie. The Myth of the Common School. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. > > Howe, Daniel Walker. “Church, State, and Education in the Young American Republic.” Journal of the Early Republic 22, no. 1 (April 1, 2002): 1–24. > > Kaestle, Carl. Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860. 1st ed. Hill and Wang, 1983. > > Spring, Joel. The American School: From the Puritans to No Child Left Behind. 7th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008. > > Katz, Michael B. “Horace Mann: What Went Wrong?” Reviews in American History 1, no. 2 (June 1, 1973): 218–223. > > Messerli, Jonathan. Horace Mann: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1972."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit query about Literature:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit post about Literature:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit post:"
}
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How is possible for Helen to escape with Paris when the they did not spoke same language, nor knew some common one?
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[
"The simplest answer is that the Iliad is not historical. It is an epic work of fiction that probably at least some basis in historical events. The ruins of Troy have been discovered, and there was a flourishing Mycenaean culture, but Paris, Helen, Hector, Achilles, and the rest are characters in a story. So they communicated the same way that characters from different countries do in modern movies or books - through the miracle of fiction. However, if there had been a Trojan named Paris and a Mycenaean named Helen, they might have been able to communicate. Trade flourished in the Bronze Age in the western Mediterranean. Mycenaean ships sailed to Egypt, Crete, and Anatolia. Trade requires communication, so clearly somebody knew multiple languages. No one knows for sure what language was spoken in Troy, but Luwian Hittite was the common language of the area. Luwian and Mycenaean were cousin languages."
] |
[
"It's not really known. But, the romans said a similar phrase, also of an origin that is not known. The best theory i've seen as that you're just calling out - in weakness - for an adult."
] |
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{
"query": "Represent the query:",
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How was the transition of using electricity in homes handled? Could someone have electricity while their neighbor still hadn’t switched over?
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[
"Additionally, do we have documents on the public perception of electricity?"
] |
[
"Water is more than a basic human right, it's essential for your survival. However, clean water piped directly in to your home is not a human right, and when you pay for water, that's what you're paying for: the convenience. You can dig a well and get fresh water that way. What if you live somewhere you can't do that? Move, as people did before the modern age. As for electricity, it's not a human right at all. Many survive just fine without it, some by choice."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit answer:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit answer:"
}
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What historical leader has the worst rap(worst reputation considering all the good they've done)?
|
[
"Herbert Hoover. Tried to get businesses to take the lead in fixing the economy, and when that didn't work he started getting the government involved. He was defeated by a small government candidate who then ballooned the size of the US government. Not a great President, but he gets a really horrible rap that he doesn't really deserve."
] |
[
"Because society as a whole tends to overlook the mistakes, even violent ones of artists, sports players and great thinkers. Go look up some of the stuff Gandhi did and you will be surprised and horrified, but of course the man's accomplishments should be recognized! Its a common problem, all great men and women have a flaw, some of the greatest have the most evil flaws of all."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
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What were some unscrupulous business actions taken by early American entrepreneurs like Rockefeller?
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[
"Rockefeller and Standard Oil demanded rebates for shipping oil on railroads. They also demanded rebates from railroads on oil shipped to smaller, competing oil refiners. Rebates were outlawed by the Elkins Act of 1907, that placed strict regulations on the freight rates the ICC allowed railroads to charge most industries."
] |
[
"As a follow up question, at the turn of the century Melville's \"Bartleby the Scrivner: A Tale of Wall Street\" involves the goings-on of a law office. Was Wall Street associated with lawyers as much as bankers before the 20th century?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
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Saturday Reading and Research | November 15, 2014
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[
"Reading reports and assessments of Soviet naval strategy and prospects that were published in the late 80s and early 90s by Western sources. Always fascinating looking back at those sources discussing what the Soviet Navy will look like entering the 21st Century, and also how effective the Soviets were at frustrating Western speculation on the missions and strategies of their fleets and vessels. Frustrating to the amateur historian is that these same confused and debating sources seem to be the ones that are still widely referred to even after the collapse of the USSR. Maybe its more of a POV lesson. I can now feel the same sense of futility a Western naval officer might have felt in trying to discover if the Soviets still regarded the attacking of Atlantic shipping lanes as their primary naval mission despite their 70s/80s tendency to engage simultaneously in \"showing the flag\" in Third World ports. *and* appear to engage in defensive posturing in home waters. Who said history wasn't fun?"
] |
[
"It's a bit unclear what you're interested in. (Early US education? Mann? Cremin's perspective?) But here are some resources that may help: > Binder, Frederick M. The Age of the Common School: 1830-1865. New York: Wiley, 1974. > > Glenn, Jr., Charles Leslie. The Myth of the Common School. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. > > Howe, Daniel Walker. “Church, State, and Education in the Young American Republic.” Journal of the Early Republic 22, no. 1 (April 1, 2002): 1–24. > > Kaestle, Carl. Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860. 1st ed. Hill and Wang, 1983. > > Spring, Joel. The American School: From the Puritans to No Child Left Behind. 7th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008. > > Katz, Michael B. “Horace Mann: What Went Wrong?” Reviews in American History 1, no. 2 (June 1, 1973): 218–223. > > Messerli, Jonathan. Horace Mann: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1972."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the title about News:",
"pos": "Represent the document about News:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
}
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Did photography create the artistic use of out-of-focus objects?
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[
"Look at Italian smufato styles - this might be what you are looking for, or at least the closest to it."
] |
[
"It's complex and also involves a lot of what has survived over the years as well as ideas about the purpose and function of artwork. Take a look at the Fayum Mummy Portraits if you want good examples of realism way before the Renaissance."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
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In the New Testament, Jesus walks into a temple and sees it taken over by people looking to make a profit, how common were places like this during this time?
|
[
"You are unintentionally conflating modern day Temples (as found in reform Judaism and a number of other religions) with \"The Temple\" of pre Rabbinic Judaism, I think. Do you remember the Destruction of the Second Temple? *This* was \"The Temple\" being referred to. Not an abstract series of places of worship like the Christian Church or specific places of meeting like Jewish Synagogues. Judaism at the time was different, and the practices involved a pilgrimage to *The* Temple and a sacrifice using the system maintained there. **tl;dr:** There was only 1 temple at the time. Are you asking how often it happened *there* or how often it occurred at other, similar places?"
] |
[
"1. It is a long-held view that Jews killed Jesus. 2. They traditionally worked in industries such as banking and finance, people hated rich bankers back then as much as they do now. 3. People do not like other people who are different."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
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Soviet Propaganda 1974
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[
"The one with working woman:\"Organisation of compatition, - Lenin wrote, - shall be important aim of Soviet power in economic area\". Main purpose f socialistic competition - to accelerate growth of workforce productivity, give more products, with higher quality and lower expences. Especialy effective is such form of socialistic competition as \"counter plans\". In 1974 87% of industrial growth was achieved due to workforce productivity increase. [On the banner below in th middle] MORE, BETTER, CHEAPER!"
] |
[
"Ballot - Please choose one (1): 1. Beloved Leader: May He Reign for 100 years! 2. Horrible torture."
] |
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{
"query": "Represent the question:",
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How do Medieval maps help us to understand Medieval geographical imagination?
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[
"What kinda of medieval maps? There are so many types of medieval maps."
] |
[
"The German historian Joachim Radkau has produced some environmental histories on the German forest. His book, *Wood: A History* largely focuses on Central European forests and forest management and examines the fluctuating relationship between man and the forest over the *longue duree*. Radkau's articles \"Wood and Forestry in German History: In Quest of an Environmental Approach\" and \"The wordy worship of nature and the tacit feeling for nature in the history of German forestry,\" in the journal *Environment and History* and the anthology book *Nature and society in historical context* are also good introductions to basic concepts in German environmental history vis-a-vis the forest. *The Forest in Medieval German Literature: Ecocritical Readings from a Historical Perspective* by Albrecht Classen looks at the various aesthetic motifs and tropes associated with the forest in medieval Germany. The bibliographies of these works should also help point out further reading, especially if you speak German."
] |
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{
"query": "Represent the post:",
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As we know them today, when and why did "salads" become a thing?
|
[
"hi! fyi, you can get started on this post * [What is the history of salad?](_URL_0_)"
] |
[
"So when and where did playing cards as we know them come into being anyways?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
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How did the medical procedure come to be called "caesarian"?
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[
"In the Dictionary of Modern Medicine, there lies a short history of the term Cesarean. Numa Pompilius introduced something called the Lex Regia (Royal Law), and one of the laws was that pregnant women cannot be buried pregnant; this led to babies being cut out of their dead mother's wombs. The Latin verb 'caedere' means 'to cut', and babies born in this way were called caesones. It was speculated that a Julius Caesar (not the famous one we know) was born in this way, which is why Pliny the Elder referred to him as *ab utero caeso*, and the term Caesar carried on to his descendants."
] |
[
"Generally speaking, you don't. It's from a Canadian Heritage Minute commercial about the first brain surgery for epilepsy."
] |
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{
"query": "Represent the post:",
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How well established is the timing of the birth and death of Jesus?
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[
"I don't know very much about the historiography of the dating of Christ's birth, but I'd be very skeptical of any such article. Partly because, from what little I know, Christ's life is not known exactly enough to say such things, but mostly because if any article thinks that there's a year 0 AD it shouldn't be considered trustworthy."
] |
[
"I'm no authority on the matter, but I assume it has something to do with the movement of air."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document about Entomology:"
}
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When did we stop bartering for better prices? When did we start accepting prices as is?
|
[
"Can you clarify? Who's \"we\"? In many places in the world we still very much negotiate for better prices, and I'd imagine the answer is going to be heavily dependent on the culture you've got in mind."
] |
[
"It’s a marketing ploy. It makes people believe that they are getting a great deal, when they are actually getting the same deal everyone gets."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the passage:",
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What was the difference between mandates, protectorates, dominions and colonies in the context of the 20th Century?
|
[
"Follow up. What's a territory as well in this context? How was say, Puerto Rico viewed as a territory and not a protectorate?"
] |
[
"> What sides were taken? The short version is that most of the area was colonized by France, England, Italy, and Spain. They did not really take side as much as go along with the colonizing powers. > How were they affected? After WWII, the colonial power had neither the strength nor the will to hold to their colonies. The lead to a massive wave of decolonization in the latter half of the 20^th century that independence in the region and throughout the world."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
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How much buying power would a penny actually have around the Colorado/Kansas area in 1870?
|
[
"There's actually a good amount of [answers](_URL_2_) on this over on the Straight Dope in regards to Little House on the Prairie. Although, that question was asked ten years ago. Based on [measuring worth's calculator](_URL_0_) a penny would be about the same as a quarter today. So, you'd probably be able to get a stick of candy or something similar. This [chart](_URL_1_) only goes back to 1900, but states that a piece of candy would be a penny then. [According to this chart](_URL_3_) two apples were a nickel in 1870. All that said, is the main character hiring these kids for chores or are they his kids (he's the guardian)? Because, if it's the latter, then allowance didn't really exist. Kids getting an allowance is popularized by Sidonie Gruenberg in 1912."
] |
[
"When I was 18ish, over 30 years ago, an ounce went for about 60 bucks. Today, that same ounce would be 200-400, depending on the quality of the weed. This is in Canada, if that matters. How much are you buying for 20 bucks?"
] |
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{
"query": "Represent the question:",
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Were the slurs used in "The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks" legitimate insults?
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[
"The geographical references in the Cossacks reply were the titles the Sultan claimed in his initial demand that they submit to his authority. The Sultan titled himself as the authority over all those locations; the professions mentioned by the Cossacks are insulting because they are base labor jobs. A modern equivalent would be Obama addressing a foreign power and signing himself as \"The President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief\" and them calling him \"The Janitor of the United States and Toilet-Cleaner-in-Chief\" in their reply."
] |
[
"Simon Sebag Montefiore and Sheila Fitzpatrick at least both mention Stalin's webbed feet. Montefiore says that he was so embarassed by them that when doctors would examine them at the Kremlin, he would cover the rest of his body and head with a blanket. As far as it being \"a sign of the devil in Russian folklore\", this particular quote comes from Anne Applebaum's review of Kotkin's biography in The Atlantic. I can't find any evidence of such a superstition, beyond a mention in Elizabeth Warner's *Russian Myths* of *rusalki* (which are something like a cross between river mermaids and vampires) having webbed feet. It's all a little academic since Stalin was Georgian and grew up in Georgia, so he would have grown up with different folklore traditions from Russian ones. Sources: Simon Sebag Montefiore. *Young Stalin* Elizabeth Warner. *Russian Myths*"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
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Can anyone identify the church on this monks scroll?
|
[
"Possibly the Church of Our Lady, more commonly known as St. Matthias Church, in Budapest. This church became a mosque after 1541, when the Turks captured Buda. When Budapest was liberated from the Turks in 1686, the church came under the control of the Jesuits, who made attempts to restore it (it had been badly damaged in the bombardment which re-took the city). The church had a legendary role in the reconquest of Budapest, as, during the Christian bombardment of the city, a wall of the church collapsed, supposedly revealing a sculpture of the Madonna to the Turks who were praying inside the Mosque. This revelation was said to have demoralized them and contributed to the surrender the following day. This is pure speculation, but a statue of a monk carrying plans for a church in Budapest, might be commemorating the Jesuit plans to rebuild this church after recapturing the city from the Turks? _URL_0_"
] |
[
"What is the black meteorite stone imbedded in the Kaaba?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit comment:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit comment:"
}
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Why didn’t the byzantines discard the kite shield?
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[
"Hello, I could dig in the question, but could you elaborete a little bit about your informations as its use in the XVth, and alos, about what you understand as a kite shield (Norman like ? or rounder/larger). Are you familiat with Osprey publications ? If so, they sometimes get on far fetched interpretations that could be misleading."
] |
[
"not arguing about the dutch but why do you think the portuguese didn't left an impact comparable to the spanish?"
] |
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In any of the wars of the 20th century, did war photographers from opposing sides ever run into each other? If so, what happened?
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[
"I wish to add on to this question. Did the photographers have weapons or were just people with cameras? Like were they just soldiers with cameras?"
] |
[
"Also, would her military experience be any useful in finding a job? Did women serve in the British military during World War 1 and if so, did they go back into the workforce afterwards?"
] |
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit text:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit text:"
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I'm a woman who just gave birth to my lord's bastard son. How will I be seen by him, by his family, and by my peers?
|
[
"Could you please specify when and where? The \"middle ages\" are a long time and Europe is big."
] |
[
"Nothing, the wife's family owes you a dowry for supporting their daughter for the rest of her life."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
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Wouldn't the Maginot Line have worked if it had just extended through Belgium to the coast?
|
[
"Actually, the Maginot Line worked as intended. It wasn't supposed to block the German advance, it was supposed to funnel it through Belgium where it'd be met with mobile French and British forces. The problem was that the Germans went through the Ardennes - which wasn't really expected - and that they were able to advance faster and further than was expected in a short period of time. So the Maginot Line wouldn't have worked as it was intended if you extended it through Belgium. As it was built, it basically tried to set the battleground for the oncoming German advance - by controlling the German approach, you had yourself one huge advantage in any coming battle. Shame it didn't go down that way. Now, if you stretched the Maginot Line to the sea, it'd be an entirely different beast. Would it have held back the Germans? I doubt it. And above all, the Germans would've had more control over where they would attack... so once that line was breached, it'd be game over. No way you could respond fast enough."
] |
[
"For a bunch of reasons: * It would have been difficult to drag their tanks in there because Switzerland is, mostly, surrounded by mountains. Mountain fighting alone is pretty deadly but one of the major advantages that Germany had early in the war was the speed of their tank attacks. * Swiss had a conscription process so every man was a trained soldier with their weapons at home. * The Swiss had set up every bridge and tunnel to be destroyed in case of attack. * It's not a fun air war in Switzerland. Crossing the alps requires lighter loads. * There isn't a lot of military benefit in owning Switzerland. The Swiss really couldn't go on the offensive and Germany had all of the surrounding land. * By the time that the Germans were operationally ready to attack Switzerland they were already fighting on both sides of Europe. They really didn't want a launching site in the middle."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit argument:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit argument:"
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If I wanted to go to a place in the present day where the environment most resembled Northern Africa's when it was the breadbasket of Rome, where would I go?
|
[
"The monsoon rains that made the Sahara fertile moved south to their current position around 42000BC. Long, long before the Roman conquest of Egypt. The climate of Roman Egypt wasn't that much different to what it is today, they relied on the Nile Delta, coastal water and ground water. It is the explosion in the human population in the region that is the reason North Africa now has to import half its food, not climate change, that was a done deal a few millennia before the Romans arrived. If you go to the Nile Delta, some rural part where modern machinery and pesticides haven't yet reached they will be growing the same crops in the same rough conditions as they would have been in Roman times."
] |
[
"Not a professor, but I'll share what I was told. When I studied in Egypt, my professor said that the Sahara used to be underwater - the bottom of an ocean. When we visited the Sahara, thousands of miles from the ocean, we found seashells, so I tend to believe her statement."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
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Question about medieval tactics?
|
[
"Get this book! *Warfare in the Medieval World* by Brian Todd Carey *Warfare in the Medieval World explores how civilizations and cultures made war on the battlefields of the Near East and Europe in the period between the fall of Rome and the introduction of reliable gunpowder weapons during the Thirty Years War. Through an exploration of thirty-three selected battles, military historian Brian Todd Carey surveys the changing tactical relationships between the four weapon systems-heavy and light infantry and heavy and light cavalry - focusing on the evolution of shock and missile combat.*"
] |
[
"What period and country are you asking about? There’s no context in your question."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the question:",
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Books on the Mughal period in South Asia
|
[
"If you mean *up to and including* the arrival of the British, you may be interested in William Dalrymple's [White Mughals](_URL_0_). It really reads itself."
] |
[
"Hi there, I would particularly recommend Jon Wilson's *India Conquered: Britain's Raj and the Chaos of Empire*, which takes a consistently critical view of the British Empire in India. You might also be interested in the [South East Asia section](_URL_0_) of our booklist which contains many works on the British Empire in Asia."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit post:"
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Given that guns are not legal (and assault weapons are very uncommon) in the UK, where did the IRA get their weapons from during the troubles?
|
[
"Whilst you are waiting for an answer to your question please have a look at [this](_URL_0_) answer from u/Eirebmac to a very similar question"
] |
[
"A country cannot just 'adopt' gun laws without a lengthy legislature process. Lengthy legislature processes cannot be carried out unless a majority of representatives vote in favor of it. A majority of representatives will only be in favor, if the majority of their voters in their counties are in favor of putting them in office. Anyways, if all of that happened, there are still 320 million guns in the USA. They don't just poof and disappear. 320 *million* firearms would still be out there and in the possession of millions of people. Short of a SWAT-team raid on every home in the country... there will always be guns in the USA. In any case, many of our stricter states (such as my state of NY) are very much on par with the Aussies. Very difficult to get a handgun here. Not to mention that 3D printed guns are a real thing."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit text:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit text:"
}
|
Given the evolution of language over time, if I were to step into a time machine and come out 10,000 years in the future, what are the odds that I could understand what anyone is saying?
|
[
"Extremely unlikely. As far as I know, there are no languages being spoken today which were spoken 10,000 years ago. However, things are different now. We now have recordings of how people speak. This is a very recent development, comparatively speaking - we've been able to record speech for less than 150 years, compared to millennia of writing. So, it's possible that language will change less, or more slowly, because we have these common recordings to keep language from changing too much. On the other hand, the BBC's Received Pronunciation was the gold standard of English pronunciation for decades, but it is now losing ground to Estuary English. So, maybe recorded language does *not* \"freeze\" the vernacular. You might also want to talk to the folks over in [r/Linguistics](_URL_0_) for a more in-depth answer."
] |
[
"Because isolated groups of people develop their own way of communicating, and back when we first started to communicate we might as well have been isolated people. For example, let's say we take you and nine other people, and from the moment you were born you lived in total isolation from everyone else. you never interacted with another person, you never heard another language. The chance of you coming up with an exact replica of an existing language to communicate is pretty much guaranteed to be impossible."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the query about Science:",
"pos": "Represent the passage about Science:",
"neg": "Represent the passage:"
}
|
What was "BC" designated as before it was "BC".
|
[
"The usual abbreviation was AC for *Ante Christum natum*, before Christ was born."
] |
[
"Shouldn't this be ELI25? A 5-year-old would know."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the paragraph:",
"neg": "Represent the paragraph:"
}
|
At what point did the term "dictator" begin to develop a negative connotation?
|
[
"The dictator wasn't a consul, although he was usually consular. The Republican dictator was an extraordinary magistracy, it had nothing to do with the consulship. Already by the late Republic the office had taken on a negative aspect. In part because of opposition by the senatorial class against an extraordinary magistracy that was increasingly becoming unnecessary and bizarre in the face of the new rights gained in the Conflict of the Orders. The dictatorship lapsed following the Punic Wars, and already in the third century there were motions proposed to limit the dictator's power, notably by suggesting the revision of the office as a collegiate one. The dictatorship was revived by Sulla, whose rule was less than affectionately called *dominatio Sullae* by Tacitus. And of course the Romans' memory of Caesar's dictatorship was ambivalent at best"
] |
[
"Nothing, really. It was just the term they picked to describe themselves. There's an idea that, at the time, \"commonwealth\" was more a more republican term, but it makes no difference in the long run."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the paragraph:",
"neg": "Represent the paragraph:"
}
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How accurate is the popular portrayal of Musket Era warfare
|
[
"One particular example of two lines that stood blazing away at each other for ages that stands out to me is the attack of the French Middle Guard at Waterloo: opposing the advance of the 1er/3e Chasseurs and the 4e Grenadiers was General Maitland's Guards Brigade, which faced them in line but did not launch a bayonet charge at close range as the French advanced. Consequently, unlike many other battalions of the Guard, the Chasseurs and Grenadiers were able to deploy from column into line, despite being under volleys from the Guards Brigade all that time, and began their own exchange of fire with the Guards, which lasted some time (and indeed, only ended when the realised that the other French regiments on their flanks had retreated). I can't find a figure for how long the lines stood firing at each other, but from a starting strength of 1,080, Maitland's two battalions recorded 492 killed and wounded, or nearly 45% losses. Source: Paddy Griffith, *French Napoleonic Infantry Tactics, 1792-1815*"
] |
[
"Welcome to the one of the strongest arguments against the prohibition of firearms."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title about movie accuracy:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document about movie accuracy:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
|
Meta - Ask John D Sarna anything.
|
[
"Just to clarify what namer98 told us mods when asking if it was okay to post this: All questions need to be submitted to Professor Sarna **by email** before the AMA. It is not \"live\" like the AMAs we host here in AskHistorians. So, please go to that r/Judaism thread to post your questions **before** the time of the AMA - so that namer98 can then email them to the Professor on your behalf."
] |
[
"You can read about it [Right Here](_URL_0_) from a previous ELI5. Cheers."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
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Old books and documents that are still classified
|
[
"For students of the Cuban Missile Crisis, one of the documents most desired is SIOP-63, the Single Integrated Operations Plan for fiscal year 1963, describing how the United States would conduct a nuclear war. This plan was ordered by President Kennedy, who was disgusted when he came into office and found that America's nuclear war plans basically boiled down to firing everything at everyone in the Communist Bloc. At Kennedy's insistence, SIOP-63 was the first to include \"holds\" that would eliminate specific countries or targets from American attack. It also offered plans that would attack military targets only, civilian targets only or some variation of the two. SIOP-63 came into effect on October 1, 1962, and was the war plan during the Cuban Missile Crisis. While some details have been released, much remains classified, including the precise numbers of nuclear weapons, missiles, nuclear-armed bombers and other weapons that were available during the crisis."
] |
[
"It was considered an art, the monks would primarily write what you've seen, and that was their only job, they were well aware that they would become historic texts so wanted to Present their culture in a certain way, so they made their writing art"
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the comment:",
"neg": "Represent the comment:"
}
|
Is the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest regarded as an important event?
|
[
"This sounds like a homework question. I'm skeptical that you could have heard of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest but *not* have also heard that it is widely regarded - almost to the point of being common knowledge - as one of the most significant and decisive battles in European history, right up there with Marathon or Cannae. This subject has been previously discussed on /r/askhistorians by more qualified persons than myself [here](_URL_3_) and [here](_URL_1_), as well as [here](_URL_5_) and [here](_URL_0_) and [here](_URL_2_) and [here](_URL_4_)."
] |
[
"Could the rebuilding of Japan after WWII be considered a partial colonization by the United States?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
|
If I were to go back in time to medieval Europe with a pound of salt, what could I exchange it for?
|
[
"Salt has been one of the most valued substances at various stages throughout history! [Salt: A History of the World by Mark Kurlansky](_URL_0_) has some really fascinating stuff about how salt and its use has really driven significant portions of our history. I was assigned the book, and couldn't put it down - my copy is back home, so I can't look up that particular section, and I don't want to give you wrong information from memory. I'll see what I can find, but anyone interested ought to check out that book. The writing is far from dry! ^^^sorryihadto *Edit because I saw a grammar fail :("
] |
[
"These shells were collected in the Indian Ocean, and traded as far west as Ghana. The further you went from the coast, the more value they tended to have, as someone in the heart of the Congo can't exactly just walk to the beach off the Maldives to get them. You're just as free to find, smelt, and press your own metal coins and trade them for things. But we use coins as money because that's easier said than done. Likewise, for most of the people that used cowry shells as money, gathering more just isn't that easy."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the post about food and cooking:",
"pos": "Represent the document about food and cooking:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
}
|
How much did the average person really believe in the New England vampire scare?
|
[
"...Tell us more about the New England vampire scare. Where and when?"
] |
[
"To be a little less specific, what did people think the future in general would be like before the Industrial Revolution?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the answer:",
"neg": "Represent the answer:"
}
|
Where's a good place to start leaning the history of Native Americans prior to European influence?
|
[
"A perfectly appropriate starting point would be with Charles Mann's *1491*. It is written for the informed lay person but it is about as good as it gets in that genera. See [here](_URL_0_)."
] |
[
"Just asked this in the other sticky, but maybe this is the better place for it: Does anyone have any good book recommendations about the Nigerian Civil War or about Biafra as a country?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit query about Education:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document about Education:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document about Literature:"
}
|
Saturday Reading and Research | August 01, 2015
|
[
"Venetian palazzi. Apparently their facades are mostly an addition of the Renaissance period. Some parts of the facades with windows and column capitals survive from the twelfth century, and were part of buildings that are more similar to Byzantine castles than Italian city palaces. I've been reading Jurgen Schulz's *The New Palaces of Medieval Venice*, an extraordinary work. It makes some of the boldest claims I've been able to find on duecento sculptural workshops in Venice, and his comprehensive knowledge of the layout, documentary history, and decoration of the palazzi is very useful as a general resource for my research. Do any medievalists or art historians among you know of anything worth reading on Byzantine castles/palaces? I feel like this is part of my research that I don't have a full knowledge of and learning about it might help me visualize the artistic precedent and function of earlier palazzi."
] |
[
"It's a bit unclear what you're interested in. (Early US education? Mann? Cremin's perspective?) But here are some resources that may help: > Binder, Frederick M. The Age of the Common School: 1830-1865. New York: Wiley, 1974. > > Glenn, Jr., Charles Leslie. The Myth of the Common School. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. > > Howe, Daniel Walker. “Church, State, and Education in the Young American Republic.” Journal of the Early Republic 22, no. 1 (April 1, 2002): 1–24. > > Kaestle, Carl. Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860. 1st ed. Hill and Wang, 1983. > > Spring, Joel. The American School: From the Puritans to No Child Left Behind. 7th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008. > > Katz, Michael B. “Horace Mann: What Went Wrong?” Reviews in American History 1, no. 2 (June 1, 1973): 218–223. > > Messerli, Jonathan. Horace Mann: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1972."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the question about News:",
"pos": "Represent the text about News:",
"neg": "Represent the text:"
}
|
How historically accurate is Extra History
|
[
"Hello! We've approved this submission, but you'll find it easier to attract an answer if there's a specific episode of Extra History that you're interested in."
] |
[
"Chronological: - Ray Harris Jr.- The History of World War 2 - Mike Dunkan - The History of Rome - Robin Pierson - The History of Byzantium (follow up podcast) - Khodadad Rezakhani - Iranologie (History of Iran) - The British History Podcast Other: - The AskHistorians Podcast (Intervies with AskHistorians contributers) - New Books in History (Interview with Authers) - Dan Carlin - Hardcore History - Russ Roberts - Econtalk (mostly about Economics but includes quite a bit of History) There are more, but others I have either not jet listen too, or I don't think they are quite as good as the ones I have named. Edit: Maybe not really a podcast but you might still like it. The youtube channel \"TheGreatWar\" goes threw the First World War week by week tracking the original war 100 years later."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit passage:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit passage:"
}
|
Can you identify these (probably) medieval European doors for my grandfather?
|
[
"Well sorry to disapoint you but i doubt theses doors are medievals. The helmet depicted on the before to last picture is from 1650 at the very earliest. That's for what i can tell for sure. Now, for anecdotal evidence, the woodworks look like a lot what we got at my grandparent's house, built circa 1850. Photography wasn't really a thing back them and you would, in richer family, sometime have pieces of the furnitures custom made to depict the older family members."
] |
[
"What color is the skin of most of the people who make and utilize those drawings? Theres your answer"
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
|
A lot of people know about characters such as Captain America, which were used to promote american values in WW2; was there a german equivalent?
|
[
"Jay Baird's book *To Die for Germany: Heroes in the Nazi Pantheon* covers a lot of the Nazi's death-cult figures (such as Schlageter and Horst Wessel). These mythologized, highly-propagandistic \"lives\" of Nazi \"martyrs\" served the function of providing idea Nazi role-models. Similarly, Nazi films such as Hitlerjunge Quex set up ideal-types (in this case, of a Hitler Youth boy who takes on communist boys and is killed). There was a lot of martyrdom and dying-for-the-cause, in short. I can't think of any cartoon and/or comic-type figures, though. Such \"non-serious\" approach wouldn't really fit well with the supposed gravity and earnestness of Third Reich culture."
] |
[
"The U.S., though secular by construction, is still a very religious nation on the level of its people. There has always been a strong religious pushback against sexual activity and pornography, which remains in religious communities to this day. On the other hand, Americans tend to be pretty pro-military compared to the rest of the West, and such a position makes being strongly anti-violence quite difficult. Additionally, in the early-to-mid 20th century, some of the most famous works of fantasy violence (such as superhero comics, and Tom & Jerry) got their start. Works like these were gradually able to raise the stakes, until we ended up with works like Gears of War."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
|
Saturday Reading and Research | November 22, 2014
|
[
"I'm reading about labor organization in the past along with architectural energetics for a paper for class (that I've been putting off all semester, like you do). I'm just doing an overview of how different approaches in archaeology viewed labor organization in the past. Some think it was through coercion, others through payment or feasting, some believe it can even be volunteer work if the people are emotionally attached to what they are constructing such as a religious monument. I can provide my preliminary biblio if anyone is interested."
] |
[
"It's a bit unclear what you're interested in. (Early US education? Mann? Cremin's perspective?) But here are some resources that may help: > Binder, Frederick M. The Age of the Common School: 1830-1865. New York: Wiley, 1974. > > Glenn, Jr., Charles Leslie. The Myth of the Common School. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. > > Howe, Daniel Walker. “Church, State, and Education in the Young American Republic.” Journal of the Early Republic 22, no. 1 (April 1, 2002): 1–24. > > Kaestle, Carl. Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860. 1st ed. Hill and Wang, 1983. > > Spring, Joel. The American School: From the Puritans to No Child Left Behind. 7th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008. > > Katz, Michael B. “Horace Mann: What Went Wrong?” Reviews in American History 1, no. 2 (June 1, 1973): 218–223. > > Messerli, Jonathan. Horace Mann: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1972."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title about News:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document about News:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
|
How common was the reutilisation of Ennemies arms during WWII ?
|
[
"As I understand in the Battle of the Bulge the US Army captured a King Tiger tank and proceeded to paint US stars on it. Here is the photograph here. _URL_0_ According to the page it was 'From the 2.Kompanie/schwere Panzer Abteilung 506 captured by American troops. 15 December 1944.' The extent of its use in combat is unknown to me as the image could have been a mere publicity stunt."
] |
[
"Thanks! Where these armies where most of the Soviet casualties occurred?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
}
|
Was the Reagan sweep expected? Or was the electoral map going into the election mostly split?
|
[
"In 1984, Reagan won everything but Minnesota, his opponent Mondale's home state. It was expected that he would win big. In the weeks before the election, Democratic party literature was urging voters to turn out because polls had been wrong before, citing the 1936 Reader's Digest poll. In 1936, Reader's Digest surveyed a self-selecting group of 2 million Americans, most of whom had cars, telephones, or subscriptions to Reader's Digest: in other words, were wealthy for the middle of the Depression. It predicted an Alf Landon landslide. Obviously, that didn't happen. The fact that the 1984 Democratic Party was leaning on that as an example is clear evidence that the writing was on the wall in the fall of 1984."
] |
[
"Because swing states have a comparable number of strong Democrats and strong Republicans (otherwise they wouldn't be swing states) you can assume that their results will closely mirror that of the nation as a whole. Not to mention that this election in particular is breaking all the rules. States that were once solidly republican may vote Democrat or third party because Donald Trump is such an ass."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
}
|
Where can I find pictures of European GIs during world war II, with a basis on showing off their uniform?
|
[
"Osprey Publishing, which tends to be more 'accessible' and image-focused tends to have volumes upon volumes dedicated to Uniformology. They have multiple volumes for the various Armed Forces of World War II. A few of their titles that may interest you: \"The Romanian Army in World War II\" by Mark Axworthy \"The Royal Hungarian Army of World War II\" by Dr. Nigel Thomas \"The German Army 1939-1945, in three volumes\" Author unavailable Another book, outside of Osprey publishing, that lends some pages to the French, Free French, Colonial Troops, low countries, etc: \"Army Uniforms of World War 2\" by Andrew Mollo and Malcom MacGregor."
] |
[
"Not an answer, but a question to add onto this, did the Roman Legion have a series of camp followers? What was life like for these people?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the passage:",
"neg": "Represent the passage:"
}
|
Short Answers to Simple Questions | January 02, 2019
|
[
"Reading old works, they speak of Jupiter and Ulysses. In school, we learned about Zeus and Odysseus. When did academia switch from Roman names to Greek ones? And any idea why? Thanks."
] |
[
"It's a bit unclear what you're interested in. (Early US education? Mann? Cremin's perspective?) But here are some resources that may help: > Binder, Frederick M. The Age of the Common School: 1830-1865. New York: Wiley, 1974. > > Glenn, Jr., Charles Leslie. The Myth of the Common School. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. > > Howe, Daniel Walker. “Church, State, and Education in the Young American Republic.” Journal of the Early Republic 22, no. 1 (April 1, 2002): 1–24. > > Kaestle, Carl. Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860. 1st ed. Hill and Wang, 1983. > > Spring, Joel. The American School: From the Puritans to No Child Left Behind. 7th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008. > > Katz, Michael B. “Horace Mann: What Went Wrong?” Reviews in American History 1, no. 2 (June 1, 1973): 218–223. > > Messerli, Jonathan. Horace Mann: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1972."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit sentence:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit sentence:"
}
|
How exactly did Hernan Cortés scuttle his ships?
|
[
"Cortes, or rather his men, apparently either scuttled them (that is, broke holes in their bottoms) and then ran them aground to be broken up by the sea, or possibly just ran them aground, it's not clear which. The idea that they were burned doesn't really appear in literature until the latter part of the 18th century, and starts popping up in sort of \"heroic\" literature (poems in particular) about Cortes that seem to have borrowed fairly heavily from ancient literature. We know of ancient heroes who (at least legendarily) burned their ships -- the one with the best parallel to the legend of Cortes is probably Agathocles of Syracuse, who burned his ships upon landing in North Africa to strengthen the resolve of his men. This is a good accessible article on the subject, if you have JSTOR access: _URL_0_"
] |
[
"Columbus didn't communicate with the Aztecs. He never met them. Hernan Cortes was the man responsible for destroying the Aztec empire. When Cortes first landed in the Yucatan he met Geronimo de Aguilar, a Spanish Franciscan priest who had survived a shipwreck followed by a period in captivity with the Maya. This priest had learned the Mayan language. Later, Cortes fought and beat the Tabasco natives. They gave him 20 women. One of which was called La Malinche and would become Cortes' mistress. She knew the Aztec language and the Mayan language, so Cortes was then able to communicate to Montezuma of the Aztecs through these translators."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the paragraph:",
"neg": "Represent the paragraph:"
}
|
I know so little about history. Where do I start?
|
[
"Don't start with anything overly complex or specialised - essentially, find an up-to-date, readable book about a relatively broad period. My personal recommendation in my area, for example, would be the third edition of Jonathan Spence's *The Search for Modern China*, a well-written entry-level book going from the mid-1300s to the present day. And as bad as Wikipedia is for many things, as an ancillary for finding about about those little things you don't already know about that turn up, it will help when you're getting through those first few books. Plus, if you want to dive deep, their bibliographies can sometimes be quite extensive (whoever did the Taiping one, for example, deserves a medal because much of my reading has been prompted by reading the books in that)."
] |
[
"Someone told them what the answer is supposed to be."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title about Education:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document about Education:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document about Technology:"
}
|
In Citizen Soldiers, Ambrose claims that the Soviets' T-34 were American Designed. Is there any truth to that?
|
[
"Calling u/TankArchives. That seems like a bit of a stretch, either by Ambrose himself ([be very cautious](_URL_5_)), or by his proofreaders and editors. The T-34 and its prototypes and the preceding BT series of tanks did basically use the Christie suspension, but that was the only obvious influence America had. When the Americans [tested a T-34 and KV-1 at Fort Knox in 1943](_URL_6_), they were received generally well, but there were also several things that stuck out, due in no small part to improper maintenance."
] |
[
"I took a USSR class in college and have some books I can recommend you. * Magnetic Mountain * The Myth of the Eastern Front * Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More * A History of Modern Russia I would highly recommend \"The Myth of the Eastern Front\" if you want to learn about USSR and WW2. It is an amazingly interesting book about the topic and it shows how USSR was seen during and after the war in America."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit text:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit text about Education:"
}
|
Thursday Reading & Recommendations | April 25, 2019
|
[
"Picked up a copy of Marc Reisner's _Cadillac Desert_ (1986) in the \"free book pile\" at work, and my god, I can't put it down. Just a masterfully written history of the American west and the role of water/irrigation/crimes in the making of it. Heavily recommended."
] |
[
"1. The First Salute by Barbara Tuchman 2. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown 3. The Civil War by Shelby Foote 4. Reconstruction by Eric Foner 5. The Proud Tower by Barbara Tuchman 6. Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch 7. Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War by John Ellis 8. The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A Caro 9. A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan 10. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn 11. 1491/1493 Charles C Mann Sorry, couldn't keep it to 6."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the question about Literature:",
"pos": "Represent the paragraph about Literature:",
"neg": "Represent the paragraph:"
}
|
How did the Soviet Navy match up with the kriegsmarine?
|
[
"According to *Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946* the Soviet Navy had 3 aged battleships, 7 cruisers 59 destroyer-leaders and squadron-destroyers 218 submarines, 269 torpedo boats, 22 patrol vessels, 88 minesweepers, 77 submarine-hunters, And a few other miscellaneous boats. I'm not sure about the German disposition, but it seems that they focused on U-boats whilst still building some larger vessels. The Germans originally wanted to build a fleet to rival Britain with Plan Z, but when the war started in 1939, it was not yet ready. (I could not find any sources on German Strengths, 1941) For the most part, it seems Ruso-German naval conflict was largely limited to U-boat attacks, city bombardments, and German bombing of Soviet ships [2]. [1] _URL_0_ [2] Greger, René: Schlachtschiffe der Welt, pp. 201"
] |
[
"Was any Asian country capable of helping the United States during the revolutionary war?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the comment:",
"neg": "Represent the comment:"
}
|
What was the public reaction when Arthur Conan Doyle, tried to kill the Sherlock Holmes character in 1893 ?
|
[
"I'm by no means a historical expert but I am somewhat of a Holmes fan. Sherlock Holmes is considered to be the first modern work to have what we refer to these days as a 'fandom'; There was public demonstrations of mourning after he was killed off in 1893 (1891 in the context of the story). For eight years Doyle was under public pressure to resume writing his beloved character before he wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles, but Hound was set chronologically before The Final Problem. Finally in 1903 Doyle wrote The Adventure of the Empty House, set in 1894. The three year period is quite often referred to as 'The Great Hiatus'. Source: Dakin, D. Martin (1972). A Sherlock Holmes Commentary."
] |
[
"It doesn't work. Sherlock Holmes isn't real; he's just a character people like to write stories about. Nobody could do what he does."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit paragraph:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit paragraph:"
}
|
The British and Americans detested the P39 Airacobra while apparently the Soviets loved it. Why the discrepancy?
|
[
"I touch on this in [this](_URL_0_) thread a little as part of a larger post, so might be of interest. In short, it was terrible at high altitude, the preferred engagement level in the West, but much better going low and slow, which was more common in the east."
] |
[
"Giving foreign equipment reporting names that are easier to remember and pronounce didn't start with the Soviets. E.g. the U.S. military had given every japanese warplane its own nickname in WW2. \"Zero\" for the Mitsubishi A6M fighter, \"Kate\" for a type of bomber etc. It also happened with german equipment. To this day, many americans refer to the Panzerkampfwagen IV as \"Mark 4\". And giving your own equipment official nicknames has been standard practice for just as long."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the query:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
}
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How effective were missile units in ancient wars?
|
[
"Mounted archers from horse cultures were probably the most effective units in all of warfare till gunpowder. See the Battle of Carrhae for a very cool example. And the whole Mongols thing."
] |
[
"Was any Asian country capable of helping the United States during the revolutionary war?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
}
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Was the New Deal really that successful?
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[
"[Here](_URL_1_) is an excerpt of Madaras and SoRelle's book [Taking Sides: Clashing Views in United States History, Vol. 2: Reconstruction to the Present](_URL_0_). In this section (Issue 11: Did the New Deal Prolong the Great Depression?), Historian Jim Powell argues the Pro side, claiming that the New Deal programs were short-sighted and inefficient, ultimately making the Great Depression worse than it might have been sans government intervention. Roger Biles argues the Con, claiming that the Great Deal consisted mostly of moderate and proportional reforms resulting in a minimal welfare state that was crucial to seeing the country through the crisis. Read through this source, it's a pretty short introduction to both sides of the argument and you'll get a good feel of how each side approaches the historical facts and data."
] |
[
"Could the rebuilding of Japan after WWII be considered a partial colonization by the United States?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit comment:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit comment:"
}
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Moving West during the Civil War
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[
"You might want to consider reading Mark Twain's Roughing It (1872). When Lincoln appointed his older brother, Orion Clemens, to become the secretary/treasurer of the new Nevada Territory in 1861, Samuel Clemens decided it was a great opportunity to leave Missouri and the Civil War. Finding little appetite for fighting in an army of the South, and not wanting to be drafted as a river boat pilot working for the Union, Clemens relished the idea of traveling West. The two brothers made the journey by stagecoach. Many people who wanted to avoid the war - and/or the draft - found the West a land of opportunity, not only for economic success but also for survival."
] |
[
"Only if the federal government let it. See: American Civil War"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit comment:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit comment:"
}
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(Historical) U.S. history textbooks available online?
|
[
"Well, I located a list of textbooks [here](_URL_1_), but I tried a few on google books and got totally shut down. Not surprisingly, the publishers must control the distribution of these books pretty tightly. Two thoughts about this: first, I think some of these books have websites associated with them, and if you could find them, that would be something at least. I'd start with the publishers' websites. Second, you might try just buying them used on amazon or _URL_0_. They must be dirt cheap. Edit: Another thought, which you've probably already had but just in case, is museums. A lot of museums have various presentations on their websites. Obviously it's not as good as going to the museums yourself, but it's something to work with anyway."
] |
[
"Textbooks seem to have been available for that purpose. _URL_1_ (blog post from independent scholar indicating three to six 1930's era--post Scopes--textbooks available that taught fundamental evolutionary concepts well, though may have used synonyms for most contentious terms). Google scholar is productive if you search for \"biology education 1940 evolution.\" (Several paywalled articles, but find something that's cited by a bunch, and check through the citing works.) Try this article (\"Biological education in American Schools, 1890-1960\") seems on point, if you can find it. _URL_0_"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
}
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Is it true that Mongol warriors wore a layer of silk clothing underneath their armour because arrows cannot easily cut through silk, and thus they can easily pull out any arrows just by pulling out the silk?
|
[
"Can anyone speak to the kinds of textiles that were around then/there, and what typical uses each would have? I'm mainly wondering whether Mongol warriors wearing silk garments is more a function of the availability / ubiquity of silk fabric, especially given their proximity to silk-producing regions and the prevalence of silk in traditional dress."
] |
[
"> In acnient times, how did swords get theough metal armor? In ancient times full metal armor was extremely rare and only worn by kings and extremely wealthy and important people. If you encountered someone wearing such armor you wouldn't try to cut through the solid plates but rather attack the joints which would be chain mail. Mail can be defeated by a pointed dagger or simple spike, often simply round in cross section. A thin dagger blade could also be pushed through the eye slot in a helmet for a killing blow, or through some other vulnerable seam. As you suspected the armor was mainly invulnerable to simple sword slashes. Instead the tactic would be to either bash the armor and joints with a mace in order to injure the wearer and limit mobility, or even to entangle them in a net. Once incapacitated in that way an attacker could use a dagger to finish the wearer."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
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Saturday Reading and Research | April 18, 2015
|
[
"I bought a book at the SAAs on Baja California archaeology for the sole reason that I know nothing about the work from that area. It should be an interesting read. I also preordered an English translation of the Relación de Michoacán which should be fun. And I bought Rethinking Anthropological Perspectives on Migration which contains Beekman and Christensen's chapter on the Epiclassic Bajio migration paper as well as many other interesting and important papers on migration. Tammy Stone, another professor of mine, has a book coming out this summer based on migration in the US Southwest and what that looks like archaeologicaly and how it relates to identity formation. She has written. A few papers about it if anyone is interested. I think the book is going to be more comprehensive and fleshed out, which is very exciting."
] |
[
"It's a bit unclear what you're interested in. (Early US education? Mann? Cremin's perspective?) But here are some resources that may help: > Binder, Frederick M. The Age of the Common School: 1830-1865. New York: Wiley, 1974. > > Glenn, Jr., Charles Leslie. The Myth of the Common School. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. > > Howe, Daniel Walker. “Church, State, and Education in the Young American Republic.” Journal of the Early Republic 22, no. 1 (April 1, 2002): 1–24. > > Kaestle, Carl. Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860. 1st ed. Hill and Wang, 1983. > > Spring, Joel. The American School: From the Puritans to No Child Left Behind. 7th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008. > > Katz, Michael B. “Horace Mann: What Went Wrong?” Reviews in American History 1, no. 2 (June 1, 1973): 218–223. > > Messerli, Jonathan. Horace Mann: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1972."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the question about Literature:",
"pos": "Represent the document about Literature:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
}
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Dear Historians of Reddit, who woke up the men who rang the alarms to wake up the other men?
|
[
"Probably whoever was on watch before that. 99% of forces through time have had watch standing all night. If there are 8 hours dedicated to sleep everyone might only actually get 6 and 1/4 of the force will be on watch at any time in 2 hour shifts."
] |
[
"A related question were there public figures at the time who were apologists that tried to justify for the actions of the Japanese military at Pearl Harbor?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
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Were military exercises and war games a thing before 21st century? Were there other means for military leaders to educate themselves than reading books about previous battles?
|
[
"Yes, there were frequent exercises and war games throughout the 20th Century and before. For more information on some of the Royal Navy's wargames and exercises in the interwar period and during WWII, you can see my answers [here](_URL_1_) and [here](_URL_0_)."
] |
[
"It's not war itself, but rather its far reaching consequences. Though wars are an exercise in futility, as losses on both sides do not justify the \"victory\", they have led to innovations in all areas, technology, medical, weaponry obviously and communication to name a few. Turing, for instance, made major breakthroughs in computing, primarily to decode Enigma. Also, from a psychological perspective, I think it's interesting to think about what motivated people to hate other people they do not even know exist as much as to justify killing them."
] |
eli5_question_answer
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{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
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Did America have a fleet in the American Revolution?
|
[
"On October 13, 1775, the Continental Congress authorized the creation of the Continental Navy. By April of the following year 8 or so commerce raiders had been outfitted. These ships ranged from the largest like the USS Alfred with a crew of 220, and armed with 20 9-pound guns and 10 6-pound guns, to the more common ship like USS Wasp with 8 2-pound guns and 6 swivel guns. Over the course of the war the Contintntal Navy captured some 600 British ships and continued outfitting their own. Despite this, they never captured or built any of their own Ships of the line, which would have been essential to win the naval theater. Fortunately, the French, Spanish, and Dutch allies helped with their combined 152 Ships of the line by the end of the war, compared to the British 94."
] |
[
"They were hoping to cripple the US Navy and scare the US into not entering the war."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
|
I've heard that Che Guevara took pleasure in personally executing prisoners with a pistol. Is this true?
|
[
"I'd be interested in seeing where you heard this. As far as I understand, Che had indeed executed a lot of people, but that he took pleasure from it is propaganda stemming from the very vocal Cuban ex-pat community in the US. This claim seems to go against his character as evidenced by his own writings and from the testimonies from people who knew him or met him. Nelson Mandela famously said that he should be an example to every freedom-loving human. /u/ainrialai gave a very thorough response to a similar question some years ago: _URL_0_"
] |
[
"Leon Trotsky was a Marxist revolutionary who was instrumental in transferring power to the Soviets and founded the Red Army. He was murdered with a cut down ice axe which was commonly misreported to be an \"ice pick\". Presumably the socialist subreddit doesn't enjoy jokes about the murder weapon of a prominent leader of their movement."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the post:",
"neg": "Represent the post:"
}
|
How was the year "1" established?
|
[
"[Dionysius Exiguus](_URL_4_) is your man. He was a monk working in the 6th century (though no one knew it was the 6th century at the time) calculating Easter tables. In his notes he mentioned it was 525 years since Christ had been born, and hence the year he wrote that become 525AD, 525 Anno Domini. We don't know exactly how he came up with the number 525 and it took awhile to catch on, but eventually Christian Europe did switch over to the Anno Domini system of numbering years, based on his notes. Edit: previous to that, we used [consular years](_URL_5_), which named the year (not numbered it, exactly) according to the current consul. [Ab urbe condita](_URL_6_), essentially the number of years since the founding of Rome, was occasionally used to calculate the time between events, but it wasn't used in day-to-day accounting of years."
] |
[
"Yes, people knew what year they were in. They just called it something else. For example, the Hebrew calendar is currently on 5774."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the post:",
"neg": "Represent the post:"
}
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Battle of Teutoberg Forest
|
[
"I realise you probably don't want to spend too much money, but Michael McNally's *Teutoburg Forest, AD 9: The destruction of Varus and his legions* is a damn good read. It's one of Osprey Publishing's books, so there's plenty of maps and very good context and narrative. Be warned though, my copy cost £15 (U.S. $21.95)."
] |
[
"The Art of War in the Western World - Archer Jones"
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the answer:",
"neg": "Represent the answer about Education:"
}
|
When would someone in 1649 count a V on a coin as a U?
|
[
"Someone in 1649 would count a V on a coin as a U if it were used as a vowel in Latin writing. In ancient Roman times both Us and Vs were written as a \"V\", and this style continued in written Latin well through the Age of Rationalism. Unfortunately for you, this means that ALL the \"V\"s on the coin, in carolvs, devs, exvrgat, and dissipentvr, are all Us and should be counted as such. When reading in stylistic Latin, it's safe to assume that any \"V\" between 2 consonants should be counted as a U. Good luck in finding your coin!"
] |
[
"I would assume this is all talking about the 19th century; is this a typo?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
}
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What was the most important port in Medieval Spain?
|
[
"According to Olivia Remie Constable's *Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500*, the VIP Iberian ports were Seville, Valencia, Almeria, and Cartagena. The key factor was control of Mallorca and the other Balearic islands, since basically all sea trade had to pass through there. In the era of al-Andalus and the taifa kingdoms, these ports were crucial for Mediterranean trade. Intriguingly, as Christians conquered more and more of the peninsula, the same ports became key staging points for connecting the Mediterranean trade centered around Italy up north to the British Isles (and eventually south to the Canaries). The fastest way to Rome was the easiest: by ship."
] |
[
"Was any Asian country capable of helping the United States during the revolutionary war?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the query:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
}
|
Has a less-advanced culture ever initiated its first contact with significantly more advanced one?
|
[
"It all depends on how you want to define 'advanced', or if you even want to frame it in those terms (personally I think it obscures more than it helps), but I would point to European contact with the Chinese empire as an example of the 'discoverers' feeling somewhat inferior."
] |
[
"Attacked by an external force? We wouldn't be capable of anything. It'd probably be over before we even knew we were under attack. They'd have to be more advanced than us because they made it here. They would most likely be a lot more advanced than us. It'd be unlikely that another \"nearby\" civilisation was only slightly more advanced than us given how old the universe is. It'd be like us attacking a stone age tribe."
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the Reddit query about History:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit argument about History:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit argument:"
}
|
What documentary/book could give me the best overall history of World War I?
|
[
"David Stevenson's book *1914-1918* is the best overall book I know of. As for documentaries, *The First World War* is available on youtube and is easily the best modern one. Start with episode one, To Arms!, and I'd also check out the BBC's 1964 series *The Great War*."
] |
[
"Just asked this in the other sticky, but maybe this is the better place for it: Does anyone have any good book recommendations about the Nigerian Civil War or about Biafra as a country?"
] |
eli5_question_answer
|
{
"query": "Represent the post about Education:",
"pos": "Represent the document about Education:",
"neg": "Represent the document about Literature:"
}
|
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