History Weekly Newsletter - Friday, June 27, 2014

History newsletter

Top new questions this week: Why is it that the maiden name is traditionally dropped when a woman is getting married? Haven't seen anything online, even after googling. Wikipedia seems to only list the countries that support the practice, but offers no history. Why is it that the maiden name is traditionally dropped … marriage   asked by thinly veiled question mark 23 votes answered by Semaphore 23 votes Why bother attacking castles at all? Why not go around? Castles were designed to hold people, weapons, and supplies to survive a siege. They were well-defended. Taking one could easily be a long, bloody struggle. Why attack at all? Most castles I've seen … military tactics   asked by spraff 21 votes answered by Mark C. Wallace 24 votes Classical battle sizes vs medieval battle sizes Why did classical battles did tend to be larger than medieval ages? One particular example I am thinking of was the battle of Stamford bridge, which had around 30,000 participants, compared to the … middle-ages ancient-rome vikings classical-antiquity   asked by a6088340 10 votes answered by Felix Goldberg 5 votes Jewish King of Narbonne In today's edition of Le Monde, Marek Halter mentions something about Jewish Kings in Carolingian France, recognized by Charlemagne. Probably using Arthur Zuckerman 'Jewish Kingdom in feudal France' … france jews early-medieval   asked by Athanagor Wurlitzer 5 votes answered by Semaphore 7 votes What was the lena River Delta U-boat base in the Soviet Arctic used for? In 1963 the body of a German navy NCO was found in Neelova Gulf with the remnants of his uniform and rifle ammunition. In 1985 Soviet helicopter pilot Peter Statsyukom discovered a small complex of … ww2 war nazi-germany russia   asked by user2357 5 votes Why haven't Etruscan texts survived? In Wikipedia it's claimed that Etruscan Civilization had a rich literature, but only one Etruscan text has survived. And AFAIK at the same moment we have many Ancient Greeks texts roughly from the … ancient-history ancient-rome ancient-greece language literature   asked by Timofey 4 votes answered by Semaphore 3 votes A world in the moon? In the 1600s, the nature of the moon was a matter of debate. Papers arguing for the modern concept of the moon were being printed, such as The Discovery of a World in the Moone, 1638. The phrase a … age-of-discovery astronomy   asked by Joe 4 votes answered by Oldcat 4 votes Greatest hits from previous weeks: Why is Christopher Columbus credited for "discovering" America? Even if we ignore the millions of native Americans who lived in the continent before Columbus "discovered" it, even if we ignore other civilizations (eg: Polynesians, Phoenicians, Chinese, Arabs, … native-americans 15th-century age-of-discovery christopher-columbus   asked by Orion 27 votes answered by Noldorin 31 votes Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom? This has always bothered me. Everyone knows that having to fight on two opposite fronts at once is bad... and it's also a well known fact that every European country which tried to invade Russia has … 20th-century ww2 germany soviet-union united-kingdom   asked by Massimo 71 votes answered by Caimen 52 votes Can you answer these? When were the "War Relief Toy Works" set up and by whom? There are a number of toys in existence - particularly Noah's Arks - which originate from the 'War Relief Toy Works', which was based in Stoke Newington, a suburb of London, UK. A representative … ww2 ww1   asked by Leon Conrad 4 votes Statistics on pre-revolutionary Russian education I'm looking for some statistics (and I know this may not even exist) about education rates in pre-revolutionary Russian society (by pre-revolutionary I'm looking for between 1890 and 1917). Someone … russia russian-revolution   asked by N.Soong 3 votes

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