This is a really really controversial topic, but ive heard quotes by Hertzl saying that his project is a colonial one or things of that nature. How did infulencial early zionists such as hertzl and ben gurion view it, as a colonial project or a nativist one?

Given that The Quran prohibits the consumption of alcohol, due to its intoxicating effects, and throughout history, one of the primary reasons for the consumption of alcohol, besides getting drunk, was due to fermentation being highly effective in its killing of bacteria and diseases, did Muslims throughout Arabia, The Middle East, South East Asia, Anatolia, and The Balkans for example, suffer from significantly higher rates of illness and death from viruses, bacteria, parasites, infections, when compared to their alcohol drinking Jewish, Christian and Pagan neighbours? (Prior to the advent of modern water purification and sterilisation methods)

Side question: As alcohol was also a significant, readily available and cheap source of calories for the poor, were Muslims from the same low social-economic background and within the same localities noticeably thinner than other religious communities when given the higher cost of food?

Many Canadians will agree that this band is one of the country’s greatest. Of their 13 studio albums, 9 had reached number 1 on the Canadian charts. They have 17 Juno awards and were the highest selling Canadian band in the country between 1996 to 2006. The CBCs airing if the bands final performance drew 11.7 million viewers, approximately 1/3rd of the entire country. Their music is often cited as THE example to learn Canadian geography, politics, culture and history.

However, the band notoriously could never gain traction in the US or internationally. Why is this so?

"prior to 2007" added to avoid violating 20-year rule

I'm probably being petty and I don't know why it bothers me so much it just seems overdone and unnecessary.

I joined a Marxist reading group a year ago and everyone in it besides me is absolutely adamant that the idea that Stalin was a brutal despot and mass killer is just imperialist propoganda. This girl sent me a podcast by these communists who lay out the case defending Stalin, but I'm not sure where to go to verify or dispute any of their claims.

In the cursory research I've done on the matter, I haven't found a single historian who doesn't have a vested interest in rehabilitating Stalin (communists) who argues that Stalin was actually a benevolent leader.

Is there something I'm missing here? Or am I correct in suspecting that all the people in my Marxist reading group (who I agree with about most other things) have been deceived by their ideological commitments into embracing a demonstrably false view of 20th century Russian history?

It is my understanding that among serious historians there is at least somewhat of a a range of opinions about how bad Stalin was, and about what specific domains he may have been successful in. In your view, what is the most charitable possible interpretation of Stalin that can be plausibly argued for with primary source evidence?

I look forward to your thoughts on this matter.

Heya champs, I'm Mike, a white thirtysomething with two kids, a wife, some photography equipment, and some dark ambiguous backstory that might suggest a tragic death in my past. We found this house for sale here in r/AskHistorians and we just love it. Great size, gorgeous yard, low price....suspiciously low? Haha, well, the Thirtysomething family doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth. But now that you mention it...

That setup is familiar, right? New family buying a house to live in, but uh oh! Spooky ghosts in the house! And this is no culturally insensitive burial grounds, no sir! Some Insidious ghouls seem to be attached to the buildings themselves.

So skipping past the question of dubious burial grounds, how long has it been a concern that "the house I want to buy" specifically (so irrespective of land rights? structure, not settlement) might be haunted? Or is the hauntedness of habitations a modern concern?

Hi there, I’m doing a research project on Unit 731 and I’d love to speak to anyone who has an interest in the topic or is familiar with it. Im looking for a historians input, as I’ve researched the topic but I haven’t found adequate primary sources. Thanks!

Both on those occasions the Europeans had deployed the largest armies to date.

So for context, I'm trying to develop a story with a African American WW1 veteran character set in 1921. However, I am generally curious if there is a level of personality or traits that kept people alive better than others. (Im aware that with ww1 and subsequently with any modern war that survival is largely a giant game of luck). Also, as someone who grew up with family that served in active wars, they all talk about war stories with humor, is that common among other veterans?

Alessandro de’ Medici is often cited as the first black head of state in the western world, would this have been a significant development for black people in Florence at the time? Would news of this travel quickly, or even impacted other black communities in Europe?

as i blessed my cat with the body of christ (mild cheddar melted in the microwave over tostitos), we both wondered, “what kind of cheese would jesus have eaten?” guessing it is not mild cheddar colored yellow, but we are curious.

TIA!!

**TLDR: I went down a history rabbit hole and now I need someone to convince me history isn't just an endless list of atrocities.**

I am very curious and have a tendency, sometimes a bad one, to go down rabbit holes. The internet has plenty.

Here is how it went:

Politics has been constant hell in France lately. The madness is awe-inspiring, so much so that everyday conversations, no matter the age or group, somehow end up being about politics: how unfair the system is, how terrible the president or the police are, the circumstances around the recent terrorist attack, how some other countries like Japan & US are reacting to the riots and using them to further their own (fascist) political agendas despite not even understanding what the riots are about, etc.

It's just too much. So during my lunch break I thought, ok, let me read about something completely disconnected from France.

For some reason I became curious about the US Constitution and why it's considered such an important document.

So I wondered how long it was,
→ then who wrote it and why
→ then what "due process" actually meant
→ then whether there were actual cases where due process wasn't respected
→ then I realized the Constitution isn't really a rulebook, but more like **a rule that defines the rules**, and courts have to interpret what those rules mean in actual situations etc.
→ so then I wondered where those interpretations are actually written down and how some random judge 100 years later is supposed to know about them
→ somehow that led me to the Fourth Geneva Convention
→ which made me wonder what the fuck happened for so many countries to collectively decide "okay, we REALLY need rules about how civilians can be treated during war"

And here. **Here I started to find doom.**

How can human beings be so cruel? So evil? How is this possible? How can one human being treat another human being this way?

I was born in 2001. Reading history sometimes makes me feel like I'm reading something that isn't real. It's just too much. Not to say atrocities don't exist anymore, obviously, but as someone who has never witnessed atrocities on anything close to that scale, it's genuinely difficult to comprehend.

How do you even process the Holocaust? The Nanjing Massacre? And how the hell do you process Unit 731?

"An estimated 14,000 people were killed by [human experimentation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_subject_research) in the facility itself.[^(\[8\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#cite_note-The_day_the_earth_died-8) Its activities included infecting prisoners with deadly diseases, conducting [vivisection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivisection), performing [organ harvesting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting), testing [hypobaric chambers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypobaric_chamber), amputating limbs, and exposing victims to chemical agents and explosives. Prisoners—often referred to as "logs" (or "maruta") by the staff—were mainly [Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese) civilians, but also included [Russians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians), [Koreans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koreans), and others, including children and pregnant women. No documented survivors are currently known." [Unit 731 - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731)

And then you learn that people involved in Unit 731 received immunity from prosecution from the US in exchange for information from their research.

I know I'm probably just emotionally shocked by what I've been reading for the past hour, but is there anything that helped you stop seeing history as **mostly just a gigantic list of atrocities?**

I'm specifically *not* asking about the decline in men's headwear in general or the casualization of fashion over the 20th century.

I'm asking how we reached the point today where outside of particularly important meetings with higher levels or customers no one bats an eye at a baseball cap in an office while basically any other form of hat would be noteworthy and out of place. The only other hat that I've seen accepted are flat caps which are perceived as somewhat eccentric.

His coat and armband seem to look like pseudo-nazi garb. But he is studying at Berkley and, being with the Black Panthers, it seems he is supposed to be far left intellectual coded. So why would he be wearing neonazi-like clothing?

​

Apparently DOD is pressing Congress to officially authorize their rebranding. I have seen several articles (like this one! https://thehill.com/policy/defense/6172772-pentagon-pushes-department-war-name/amp/) baldly assert that the Department of War was renamed the Department of Defense in 1949.

I recognize that this is inaccurate on the face of it because the War Department was split into the Department of the Air Force and Department of the Army in 1947; but ASIDE FROM THAT:

Is it more accurate to say that the Department of Defense is descended from the War Department disestablished in 1947 or is it more accurate to say that it is descended from the "National Military Establishment" established in 1947?

I realize this is splitting hairs, but it is getting down to my true question:

Is it in any way accurate to say that renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War while a former Army officer is in charge of it represents the final victory of the Army over their ancient enemy, the Navy?

Before the rise of Nationalism I think most people primarily identified with their village, region or tribe. So I was wondering if a similar shift in primary identification took place during the medieval period?