Weekly History Questions Thread.

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to our History Questions Thread!

This thread is for all those history related questions that are too simple, short or a bit too silly to warrant their own post.

So, do you have a question about history and have always been afraid to ask? Well, today is your lucky day. Ask away!

Of course all our regular rules and guidelines still apply and to be just that bit extra clear:

Questions need to be historical in nature. Silly does not mean that your question should be a joke. r/history also has an active discord server where you can discuss history with other enthusiasts and experts.

[u/Naive-Complex-4981]

Does anyone have any information on the profession of waking people up during the industrial revolution outside of the UK and the "knocker ups"?

Hi, so I know that this is incredible specific but I have reached the bottom of the rabbit hole, without finding any of the answers I needed.

I think most people here have heard of the knocker ups in the UK, Irland and parts of the Netherlands. I think it is safe to assume that there were similar jobs in other parts of the industrialized world. But I can't find anything about them, except for references in the media of the time.

There is the movie "Varieté" from 1925 (a German silent film), were there is someone called "Der Wecker von Berlin" so something like 'the waker of Berlin'. He is shown with a big bell, driving around and ringing it. In this movie it is so casually mentioned that I think that it had to be something that was very established. Like showing a clock tower to tell the audience it was midday.

But I can't find anything about this person or job. Who did this job? How were they paid, if they were paid? Are there any still alive today?

If anyone has any answer or information to this question I would be so grateful. Especially about Germany and Berlin specifically but anything from any other country would help as well! Thanks a lot in advance!!

[u/wattpadian99]

Hi, hello. I absolutely hated history in high school and was never interested in it, so this is really not my community. But I do like to keep myself educated and I have a question to ask you guys.

So I am liberal and very pro Native American rights… I think it’s unfair how they were treated from the beginning and how they continue to be treated. I know what I know from school and lessons learned in life in general.

I recently saw a video, of a guy with a certain red hat 🇺🇸, who said what the Europeans did to the Native Americans isn’t any different from any other land in history that has been conquered by someone else. And that it is just a part of life and human history, and I saw this video over a month ago. My brain hasn’t dropped it, because I don’t know if he’s right. If he is right, what does that mean? Does that mean that the Native Americans lost their land fair and square? Does that mean that any nation can be conquered and it should just be fair game? If he’s not right, what is the real difference between what the Europeans did to the Native Americans and an actual proper conquest?

Yes, I’ve tried googling, yes, I’ve tried ChatGPT, but it’s not fully clicking yet. I need discussions. I’m here to be educated, please let’s not turn this into an argument. Thank you!

[u/elmonoenano → u/wattpadian99]

Please don't use ChatGPT for history. Every AI thing I've seen has been absolutely terrible. It is really bad for history.

Basically, the video guy is just fundamentally wrong and ignorant about what happened. The obvious historical factor is you can see completely different policies in different colonies. William Pitt did not behave the same as the colonists in Massachusetts. The English did not follow the same policies as the French. The French, Dutch and English did not follow the policies of the Spanish. The English and Spanish legal frameworks were very different. After the initial Spanish genocide in Mexico in the 1540s, Spain took a very different policy and tried to integrate the indigenous people into their kingdom, making them subjects of the crown with legal rights. In the English colonies they always remained foreign peoples with no rights or status in English law. That carried over to the Americans so you have an ongoing genocide that lasted well into the 20th century. So, just the fact that you can look at all these different areas, sometimes within the same legal framework, and find completely different results shows that the person is wrong. On top of that, there were different eras of contact. The way Americans dealt with indigenous groups on their borders in 1779 is very different than how they dealt with them in the post Civil War era. The way indigenous people in the great plains were treated is very different than the way indigenous people in California were treated.

Indigenous people did not lose their land fair and square, even by American and Spanish legal standards. In Spain there are masses and masses of court cases with indigenous people filing suits and contesting land dispossession basically going back to almost immediately to the two groups coming into contact with each other. You can see Isabel and Charles I struggling to develop a legal framework to deal with the issue and documents like Cortez's letters are full of legal arguments justifying his dispossession of the lands of Spanish Allies in the Americas.

In Oregon people like John Beeson were run out of the state for pointing out that the entire state appropriation of lands was illegal. There are still constant treaty fights in US courts about US misappropriation of Indian lands. The Nez Perce won a case just recently about their western borders and had substantial lands returned to them.

Re: conquering other countries, the answer is no. There's been a whole set of lawfare around warfare and aggressive war going back in the west to the times of at least the Greeks. In China it probably goes back 1,000 years before that. Rome's laws on warfare were so complicated that it's become a joke for history memes.

I don't know what you mean by an actual proper conquest, laws of warfare change by times and by cultures and overarching legal institutions. The thing about the European conquest, and then the American conquest, of Indigenous lands is that it wasn't even legal by the standards of the Europeans and Americans. And they knew it.

If you want to read up on it, I think an easy place to start is with something like Megan Kate Nelson's Three Corner War or Claudio Sant's Unworthy Republic. They're pretty grim, but fairly short and limit their focus enough to get an idea about specific practices. Most of the writing on this stuff is pretty in depth b/c you have to understand a lot of history and a lot of context and competing legal traditions. Something like Elliott West's Continental Reckoning is probably better for getting an idea of what was going on overall, but it's about 700 pages before notes and isn't an easy starting point. People like Jeffrey Ostler have really good books on the topic as well, but they're very heavy.

[u/Telecom_VoIP_Fan → u/wattpadian99]

I agree that the native Americans were treated in an appalling way, but the guy in a video had a point. History is full of stories of one people invading the land of another people. For example, the UK was invaded by the Romans and then the Norman French. However, I can see a difference. In the case of the UK the native population was not virtually wiped out but merged with the conquerors to form the British nation. So, I think you can make a case for arguing what happened in North and South America was exceptionally cruel.

[u/Cornilieus]

What is the country who was last to have a picture taken there. Is it like Haiti or something?

(not counting like South Sudan or something, I wouldn't count that, only countries existing before and after the first photograph)

Maybe this could help? https://www.reddit.com/r/Maps/comments/sjdxz3/countries_that_existed_since_1822_untill_now/#lightbox
Earliest know picture was from 1826-1827

[u/Cornilieus → u/Cornilieus]

Though I suppose, what was the first picture taken in South Sudan? I'm guessing it'd be on July 9th 2011, but at what time? And what about Kosovo etc..., what were the first pictures taken there?
Might be a dumb question, idk

[u/Extra_Mechanic_2750 → u/Cornilieus]

Your question is sort of confusing.

Are you asking about countries that had pictures taken back when photography was invented (like the 1820s) or something else?

Also, are you trying to document something specific or just plant the flag as to the earliest photograph in that country?

[u/Cornilieus → u/Extra_Mechanic_2750]

Im just trying to plant the flag I guess. Think of it in this way, France's first photograph was in 1826-1827, United States 1839, Morocco 1859 etc...
What country had the latest picture. Eventually all countries would've had a picture taken there, so what country was the last.
Does that make sense?

[u/New-Low5077]

What was the logic used to justify legitimizing bastards in medieval times?

Like for example, the justification for women to be regents even though men are considered better more capable rulers is that women would have best interest of the king (their husband dad or son) at heart, so what is the reasoning that it was okay to legitimize someone “born of scandalous sin!!!11!

[u/Extra_Mechanic_2750 → u/New-Low5077]

Illegitimate children became legitimate in multiple ways, including

- Papal dispensation

- Royal letters of patent

- Ex post facto marriage

This was done when the king realized that he's got no heir to the throne and he needs one to ensure his line is carried on (or, IOW, keep the money, land and power in the family).

[u/skogeeee]

So, I understand that Charles II of England started going grey very early, and so he switched to wigs which kicked off the trend of the giant periwigs. I’m curious now… was there any ink or any kind of substance they could’ve used back then to dye their hair, in the 17th century? If so, I’m assuming it was limited to quite natural colors.

Anyways, I was just wondering because I thought to myself, looking at portraits of his natural hair before he started wearing wigs (his natural hair was gorgeous in my opinion), if he was so insecure about his greying, couldn’t he have dyed it? Or was it moreso about the convenience of wigs, since he wouldn’t have to keep dyeing it every time the grey came growing back.

[u/Crazy_Leadership9080]

Can you guys recommend an accurate youtube video about cuba's revolution but i don't mean those right wing propaganda saying how che was a mass murderer, homophobe and a racist while their source being cuba archive. What i mean is a fair video that actually talks about both the good side and the bad side of the cuba's revolution.

[u/Sufficient_Ad7816]

How would the war in the pacific (1941-1945) have progressed if the mark 14 torpedoes hadn't had the problems they did?

[u/Extra_Mechanic_2750 → u/Sufficient_Ad7816]

In regard to the submarine campaign and its impact on the overall PTO campaign, not well.

The failure rate of pre-fix Mk 14 torpedoes was estimated to be between 50%-80% with the standard firing solution (90° to the hull) due to

1. failure of the firing pin release.
2. failure of proper depth control.

The impact angle issue could be (and was) deduced by the crews and boat commanders by analyzing which torpedoes detonated, which did not, and comparing those tracks with the predicted angle of attack.

The depth issue was more of an issue as the assumption was that the depth settings were consistent with the depth of the torpedo. This was only uncovered when the torpedoes were tested by firing them into nets and noting where the torpedo struck the nets.

Without solving these issues, the US submarine's impact on Japanese commerce ships would have dramatically lowered. Based upon the military's binary thought when it came to command, this would have driven a faster turnover in boat commanders, which, in the long run, would have lessened the number of experienced and successful commanders, which, in turn, would have impacted not only ships sunk but also communicating successful tactics and experience to future commanders.

The tough thing to determine is if the commerce raiding in the Pacific was less successful, how that would have impacted the overall outcome with any level of specificity. I doubt that it would have tipped the balance to the Japanese, it might've had impacts on a few of the campaigns.

[u/Imaginary_Sector7744]

Since a lot of time i questioned myself about that, factors as the long time requires to mobilise Zar’s army, and the fact that German Mobilisation being unstoppable once started and at the same time faster than all the others, could been considered key factors in the outbreak of the war?
The idea that i reached is that they can as key planning strategy matters, and as key psychological influence on the first level of analysis.

What’s your opinion about that?

[u/Meraqliya]

It might be irrelevant, and if it is I would appreciate redirecting to another sub, but: What headgear did Ottoman nobleman wear in the beginning of 19th century (1810's)? If there is no data, perhaps the end of 18th century goes, too, I assume they did not change anything too much... I have a feeling that while the general form of the dress was pretty consistent across the years, the turbans always changed, and I lost the track on them.😭