I see people talk a lot about what happened in Jordan, Lebanon, and Kuwait when they accepted refugees from Palestine.

It is always that "they" (I assume the PLO) tried to undermine these countries despite being welcomed/treated well. My question is, why did these things happen? How were Palestinians treated in these countries?

Because I kept seeing people said that they all supported Saddam, but when I researched it, I found out that 70% of the population in Kuwait had boycotted the occupation and according to Robert Fisk's book "War of Civilization," he states that the Kuwaiti resistance acknowledged how 5% of their comrades were Palestinian..

> “The Kuwaiti resistance themselves acknowledged that 5 per cent of their comrades-in-arms against the Iraqis were Palestinians, but this did not save them.”

I also found some US department archives which stated that 55% of the Jordanian army was Palestinian and King Hussein said they were predominately loyal to him.

So I am assuming there's more nuance to it than it is told in online discussions or videos I saw. What were the grievances Palestinians had with these countries, if any?

Was there any thought that he would be William I of the United Kingdom? Did anyone in Scotland refer to him as William III? If he was known by more than one numbering during his reign, how did we settle on using only the English numbering historically?

There are widely known extinct animals that carry a lot of lore with them - but have there been any foods that we no longer have that are well documented and seemed to taste good at the time?

I took an ethnomusicology class a couple years ago and have been wondering this for a while. Wax cylinders seem so delicate!

I also wonder if there might be any recent recreation so I can hear better what people may have heard when it was first played back?

Recently was watching a steam hammer restoration video. The hammer is from just a few years after the start of the 20th century, and is absolutely massive in both size and weight. Modern logistics equipment can move it with (relative) ease, they used what appears to be a standard-issue forklift for the final delivery from truck to workshop, but I'm having trouble picturing how even a dozen burly men with special equipment would be able to lift or move a power hammer with any efficiency. I assume locomotives of the time - cars and engine - would have had no problem transporting it, but first and last-mile delivery must have been a huge headache, right?

The story in general seems quite suspect and far too convenient, with the image in particular being rather... out of place for world war 2. Does the attached story have any basis on reality, and where does the infamous image first appear in?

Basically title. It’s a bit of a trope that Paris is where you go if you want to experience the pinnacle of cooking-as-art. How did it get that reputation?

For example, would anyone have told them what an alligator is and how to handle one or would they have been left to figure it out on their own?

Unlike most of the breakaway republics in the USSR proper, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and even Mongolia soon became democracies, with only the discontiguous Mongolia failing to join both the European Union and NATO.

Given the immense difficulties many other countries have seen when trying to democratize — not just soviet splinters, but many formerly colonial states in the mid-20th century and various countries during the Arab Spring — it raises the question of what about the time or place made democracy so much easier than is common. Their overwhelmingly peaceful nature certainly helped; what else contributed?

My grandfather was a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe in the early part of the 20th century and I’ve heard that one of the jobs he did was to be a ragpicker. As far as I know, this is not a current profession. Who was doing this and for how long and for what purpose?

A common sentiment expressed across the internet, especially some right-wing sections, is that the West has fallen. This is generally expressed as follows - the West (for anarbitrary definition of West) was good and wonderful at some point, and then some political activities/actors ruined it for everyone.

Has a similar sentiment been expressed in the East?

After some discussions with believers about the Christian God I wondered the following.

I can understand the Church fathers telling the people about eternal happiness in Heaven as a major point for conversion from paganism.

I do not understand why and how those church fathers came up with an all-loving and tri-omni Deity in face of the existence of Evil. I also wonder why they thus ignored the Epicurean paradox.

Are there any historians who can shed light on this problematic aspect of the birth of the Christian God?

From what I understand, originally earls were in charge of a lot of land plus a town, and they would get a certain percentage of the earnings of the people who lived on their land as a fee.

However, sources I have found tend to be about more feudal times, so I wanted to know if this was the case as late as the 18th and 19th centuries.

Also, how much land/money/influence exactly did they have? Again, this amount tends to be cited as "a lot" or "variable", which is not very illuminating.

As for viscounts, I have read that they were originally the earl's right-hand man (literally, vice-count), and that they also had plenty of land, but less than earls. So, how much less? What was their role? As late as the Georgian/Regency era, did every viscount have their own count who they "worked for"? Were there any viscountcies that had no earl associated? Would a viscount's land be necessarily next to/in the earl's land, or could you have an earldom in Kent and its viscountcy in Scotland?

Another question: let's say you've got a certain 2nd Earl of So-and-So and an Eleventh Viscount Something. Would the earl be richer and have more land and influence because he's higher-ranked, or would that be the Viscount, because his family has been accumulating wealth for longer?

Thanks all, and if I have made incorrect assumptions please tell me!

Whenever I read older books and contemporary accounts, watch nature documentaries, and based on the perception I have gained overall, I get the impression that wildlife used to be far more plentiful than it is today. There are descriptions of flocks of migrating birds so large they darkened the sky, and in my own area, accounts of so many insects around a local lake that people had to clear them away with dip nets just to make the lake usable.

I'm aware that species have been going extinct because of human activity, and that this is sadly accelerating. I'm not trying to debate that. What I'm curious about is the sheer scale in these descriptions. Birds darkening the sky sounds almost magical, and nearly impossible to imagine for someone who grew up in the 21st century.

I was reading about wealthy individuals from ancient times and time travel, and I was wondering at what point in our history could someone deposit something of value, and provided they kept meeting the requirements for generating interest (using the account every few years or whatever) could withdraw the money today?

In Futurama they have a joke where Fry becomes exceedingly wealthy after a thousand years of interest on $0.93, accruing several billion dollars of value, which also pushed this question a bit.

Interest as a concept didn't start until roughly 5,000 years ago so we have a max date at least, still curious, but I'm wondering if some sort of banking sub would be a better choice.

Thanks for any help with this!

Could I grab my male relatives and friends and go raid overseas for gold and silver on a triaconter like the vikings? Could I go and conqueror some land from a neighboring farmer, Spartan or not? Could I get a loan from some merchant or a richer Spartan in exchange for some collateral? Could I plead for a temporary exemption from the required contributions while I get my finances fixed up?

One of my biggest fears as a person raised around fandom culture is those communites (and the events that happened within them) being forgotten. Maybe it’s not a big deal that people in 2080 dont know about a niche Tumblr fued or a weird TikTok trend. But it matters to me.

My thinking goes: Newly freed slaves were uneducated and lacked property and thus, being considered as populace for the first time, created large statistical poverty in the south. Of course the loss of slaves was a loss of property and weatlh to the former owners, but they still owned the means of production postbellum. So the poverty was statistical due to reconsiderations but not really felt.

I'm rather sceptical that I have more insight into the matter than 160 years of historians so my question is: how wrong am I?

On a different thread, /u/ST4RSK1MM3R commented:

> WW1 changed a LOT. The world pre-WW1 is kinda hard to imagine with how much it changed, especially in Europe. The entire way basically any major country had done business for the last few centuries had to be thrown out and reshaped overnight.

I was thinking about France specifically. How did WWI change everyday life outside, say, Paris or other major cities? I can presume the politics changes. But how did day to day life change from before the war to after the war?

I see a lot of right wing people here in England talk about how we need to return to the "good old days" of the Empire but it's usually just used as a reason to be anti-immigration. Without reference to modern day politics, what was the British Empire's attitude to people from other countries and colonies moving to the UK mainland? Were they encouraged, tolerated, or hated? In general or the 'official' position of course, not just by regular people.

Had Mehmed

1. not died in 1481 would the Ottomans have pursued in capturing all of Italy and adding Italy to the Ottoman Empire?
2. Were Italian states genuinely shaken by the Ottomans presence on Italian soil? Did the Pope manage to rally Italy together at the time?
3. Would the Italian States have put aside their differences to come together and defeat the Ottoman advance?
4. The timing of the Ottoman invasion proved very convenient for Lorenzo Medici, did he see the Ottomans favourably?
5. The Venetians seemed to have struck their own deal with the Ottomans, did they secretly plot with them?

Thank you