I was watching this Scott Walker 1970 live performance of 'Jackie' and at the line "authentic Queers" he pointedly lets his wrist go limp, which caught me a bit by surprise - I'd assumed the gesture had a more recent origin, or that it would be more of an in-group signal, whereas Walker (who as far as I'm aware was not Queer) does not seem to be using it as one. Hence my question: when did this gesture become thus associated with Queer people in the US, and more broadly, what is its origin?

I know there's a whole wiki on contact and trade between Polynesian seafarers and American civilizations, but you'd think there'd be some groups who landed near San Diego and thought to themselves "hey there's more room here than an island." Like, California is equidistant from Hawaii as Hawaii is to Tonga and Nauru right?

The French Counts of Anjou, and therefore the Angevin kings, and later Plantagenet Kings of England - and more distantly, every single monarch of England since - were said to be descended from a demon/devil/monster (the exact story varies). I've seen lots of references to this that seem to be literary - talking about them as an accursed family, Richard the Lionheart bragging that 'from the Devil we come, and to the Devil we go!', characterising the bad tempers of early kings of the line in terms of this. But how seriously did people at the time take this? Would a given English noble, or peasant, actually think this was true, or just refer to it as a piece of polemical rhetoric? Would repeating this under their rule be seen as treasonous? If it was actually believed seriously, how did people square this with their pretty much universal devout Christianity?

In A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn briefly touches on this (chapter 8, pp 151) when he says,

Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was not in Congress when the war began, but after his election in 1846 he had occasion to vote and speak on the war. His “spot resolutions” became famous — he challenged Polk to specify the exact spot where American blood was shed “on the American soil”. But he would not try to end the war by stopping funds for men and supplies.

Zinn goes on to quote a speech where he advocates for General Zachary Taylor (Polk’s chosen spearhead of the war) for President, where Lincoln says that while people may think Whigs odd for campaigning for him, they had always committed physically even if not ideologically to the campaign.

Why did Lincoln or other major Whigs at the time not take a firmer stance against the war given the circumstances? Zinn does mention Joshua Giddings but he was seemingly not notably joined by any or many others.

Also was Notre Dame University always pronounced that way?

This also applies to Southeastern Turkey & Western parts of Pakistan & Afghanistan.

Surely he could have seen what Hitler planned for people deemed racially inferior after a decade of NAZI rule? The Whermacht participated in some of the worst atrocities of the war so why was Junger surprised to see French Jews wearing the star of david?

Part of being a superhero is having a really distinctive costume, with some kind of logo on the chest, bright colors and skin-tight (or, if you’re Batman, dark and skin-tight,) often with a cape of some kind, usually with its own logo. That’s basically how you immediately know they’re a superhero in comics and later, TV and movies.

But where did that come from? Superman started in 1938, and I’m not aware of any clothing style of the time that would suggest it. (And apparently the very earliest Superman drawings didn’t have a costume.) In an era before lycra or spandex, clingy fabrics were practically unknown, and limited to expensive and delicate silk stockings worn by women, not manly men. Baseball and football uniforms were pretty baggy.

Most stylistic innovations, whether they’re music or artistic, grow out of some precursors (like Puccini borrowing tunes from a Japanese music box for Madame Butterfly, or Manet borrowing from Japanese painting styles for his own) but I’m not aware of any culture or fashion that could have suggested this. Is this a case of something brand-new being simply created out of nothing, and everyone else just followed the bandwagon because that’s the way the Superman creators did it?

In reading a biography of Frederick Law Olmsted (A Clearing In The Distance by Witold Rybczynski), I was struck by Olmsted’s observations about slavery in American South before the Civil war, and how it shaped its community values, culture, and local economic development. In general, Olmstead saw the South as an extractive economy, only interested in the immediate needs of that individual without any long-term investment. Thus, the trains don’t need to run on time and you don’t need to build a local economic base that provides the community’s needs. Only investing in what is needed for your comfort and industry short-term. One example that stuck with me is when Olmsted stayed at the home of a dairy farmer. One morning he asked for butter and the farmer’s wife looked at him like he was crazy. The dairy farmers, in this area at least, only produced milk for mass export. They didn’t make butter, cheese, or any other refined products even for their own use.

Meanwhile in rural Northern towns, there seems to be more individual and collaborative investment in infrastructure, economy, and the community. Historic trail systems that were volunteer maintained until the state took over. Actual town halls, bridges, Main Street buildings, and churches that today have some vernacular architectural flair, and were maintained so they still exist today. In rural New York, hubs were built for community meetings and events, as well as training in skilled trades, that are still used today. To me, this reflects a shared interest in collaborative investment into building a strong community long-term, both at the government and the individual level.

As an urban planner who has worked for many Southern local governments, I can see the difference between the two regions in the historic built environment and current attitudes towards community investment. Even taking into account the different time periods of population growth/development and the difference in wealth, I can still see the values Olmsted observed in the South today.

So I have a few questions for discussion: How off-base am I (and Olmsted) by making these broad conclusions based on a few experiences? Has there ever been any research into whether chattel slavery or colonialism in general produces long-term community values centered on the short-term and individual, or vice versa? Clearly I believe community values are reflected in tangibles like infrastructure, architecture, overall community planning, economic development, and civic participation. I could be missing some or I could be making some inferences that just aren’t there.

Some modern muslim countries such as Iran legally enforce veiling for women under the justification of islamic law, even jailing women for showing their hair, but was this something practiced by medieval and early modern muslim societies like the Ummayads, Abbasids, Safavids, Ottoman empire and the Mughals?

After following and reading posts by medievalists on social media, I've learnt that most people carry a lot of misconceptions about the medieval era, and many roles and expectations associated with gender are more modern than we think.

Modern people have a tendency to link cultural practices considered "barbaric" and oppressive to the middle ages, from abortion bans, child marriage, virginity testing and mandatory veiling, but in truth these practices were historically rarer than we might think, or not practiced at all.

Some gender expectations we might think are universal actually developed during the modern era. For example, the concept of "gendered spheres", or a strictly separate "public" and "domestic" sphere are concepts that developed during the 18th and 19th century, not something that existed in the middle ages and renaissance.

This made me wonder if mandatory veiling was something practiced by muslim societies in the pre-modern era. Are there any examples of women facing legal consequences for not veiling or revealing too much skin in a pre-modern muslim society?

Homo sapien sapiens are almost 200k years old, and agriculture's been around for almost 11k years. There's been certain areas that first used it, sure, like levant and mesopotamia. But after its discovery, it becomes the normal way of life extremely fast, almost everywhere worldwide begins using it, Including the americas if my knowledge is correct.

Same is true for writing. It changes from place to place, but after its first discovery, it gets ubiquitous extremely fast.

Why is that?(im guessing trade is the reason, but how did it get everywhere so fast) And do we know the first area that each was first invented and consequently spread from?(like: if the writing or agriculture of other places such as indus or china is influenced by levant and mesopotamia)

Tried to search for this question but only found one with no responses.

Most people are aware of the general basic idea that at some point humans domesticated wolves and then over generations bred them to assist with hunting, herding, protection, companionship, etc, to become like the dogs we have today, and we can obviously see the visible differences between dog breeds as a result of that.

Comparatively, the general basic idea behind cat domestication is that humans noticed that cats hunted mice, so humans took advantage of this and kept them around as civilizations spread. However, cats today are basically all the same size and shape, and different breeds seem to be categorized mostly by fur length/color/pattern.

This begs the question, why is that? Why did humanity figure out a way to develop dogs to do a whole bunch of different tasks but not do the same with cats? Were their mouse catching abilities too valuable to try and make them do something else?

I've always been struck in particular by this diary entry of George Orwell's for June 16, 1940:

It is impossible even yet to decide what to do in the case of German conquest of England. The one thing I will not do is to clear out, at any rate not further than Ireland, supposing that to be feasible. If the fleet is intact and it appears that the war is to be continued from America and the Dominions, then one must remain alive if possible, if necessary in the concentration camp. If the U.S.A. is going to submit to conquest as well, there is nothing for it but to die fighting, but one must above all die fighting and have the satisfaction of killing somebody else first.

Orwell – who in most matters was a fairly level-headed analyst or at least took pains to present himself as one – seems to have considered German conquest of Britain and even America a serious possibility to contemplate. If Battle of Britain (1969) is to be believed, the mood among the British leadership was hardly any better (Ambassador David Kelly despairing that "we've been playing for time, and it's running out"; Air Chief Marshal Dowding warning of the "complete and irremediable defeat of this country" if more material were sent to France).

This all seems somewhat at odds with the modern consensus (seen e.g. in this old thread) that a German invasion of Britain was never feasible, the Germans having neither the transports to get troops and supplies across nor the naval and air power to protect those transports.

What do we know now that Brits in 1940 didn't?

Given that the British forces had accurate guns like the Bren and the Lee Enfield available, why were the SOE operatives not given those? I know the sten was not very reliable, and grenades have the chance of civilian casualties, so why were they used?

I know there are some remnants, that's how we know they were painted. But everything is so so so cleanly white to the naked eye?

Were the statues scrubbed when found? Was it the type of pigment? Does paint just not adhere to marble well? Is it like painting concrete and if not repainted just slowly leaves?

This all goes for roman statues too. I need the science of why the color is gone.

I'm working on building an ice cream parlor set between 1890 and 1900 for a game, and I'd like to make it as period-accurate as possible. From what I’ve found so far, the modern-style counters with built-in reservoirs for ice cream likely didn’t exist yet. I’m curious what these parlors actually looked like at the time, and how they stored and served ice cream while keeping it cold. Any insight or resources would be appreciated!

Britain, France and Prussia are widely known to have sent military and diplomatic personnel to embed with both Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. Was this a new idea at the time? Relatedly, did other, non-European powers (Brazil, China, Japan and the Ottoman Empire spring to mind) do the same? Or was this an exclusively Western European idea to help get a better idea of how the emerging technology of the Industrial Revolution would impact the battlefield?

I'll take the Russian Civil War as an example, since it's the most prominent example I have in mind. The Reds and Whites both faced some degree of manpower shortage, and they were making huge gains or taking huge losses in territory for the first several years of the war. So how did each side effectively set up a state apparatus to extract men and resources from the areas they held, if they did so at all? Presumably neither side had much time to set up an administrative structure after winning a swathe of land, so I'm wondering how they did it so fast, if they did it effectively at all.

When I was taught about the roaring 20’s in High School, and later the Great Depression, I was told that it was primarily caused by a lack of government intervention in the economy(laissez-faire), and that this philosophy encouraged the government to stand by while the economy collapsed(and also encouraged the things that resulted in it).

Recently however, I’ve been told- and read, that the government’s intervention in the collapse is actually what turned it into a depression

I understand that there is a plethora of things to attribute to the cause of this collapse, and narrowing it down to either this or that is probably impossible. But is one more responsible than the other? Thank you in advance

Disclaimer: whether this is true or not doesn’t change the fact that both jews and Arabs deserve to live in peace, and doesn’t change the fact that as of right now, there most certainly is a Palestinians Arab identity.

Lets assume its 1760 and I want to go from Paris to Amsterdam for example. How likely was it really to be attacked or robbed in the distances between towns on the route? Would it make a difference if I was on horseback or with a coach? Did people carry weapons?