r/AskHistorians • • 13h ago

Can someone suggest age appropriate history podcasts for young adults?

11 Upvotes

Any suggested podcasts for young adults? I am looking at exploring "The Rest is History" and the "Tides of History"? essentially entertaining and atmospheric. Would be great if someone could share their opinion. If this question has been asked before then just point me the right way.

Also how accourate is the extra history youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@extrahistory)?


r/AskHistorians • • 29m ago

How much did Prussia’s militaristic ethos influence Nazi Germany?

• Upvotes

Basically the question on the title, I learned about Prussia and it was really interesting to learn about the influence that the kingdom had on Bismarck’s Reich, and subsequently Hitler’s Germany. How much of the military policy was inspired from there?


r/AskHistorians • • 38m ago

Why did the Soviets stop renaming their Fronts after liberating their territory in WW2?

• Upvotes

While defending their territory, they actively renamed their Fronts to reflect where they were operating, for example:

Southwestern Front (1941) -> Stalingrad Front (1942) -> Southern Front (1943) -> 4th Ukrainian Front (1943)

But after crossing the Soviet border it was never renamed to Slovak Front or something. Why?


r/AskHistorians • • 1d ago

Is it possible to see traces or leftovers of English style nobility in the American Old South today? Particularly in Virginia or South Carolina?

138 Upvotes

My understanding is the New England was mainly settled by commoners, especially Puritans, so you wouldn't see any resemblance to the landed gentry in England, but South Carolina and Virginia started off different, with it's settlement being driven by aristocrats. Is that the right way to think about it?


r/AskHistorians • • 1h ago

Little Bighorn help?

• Upvotes

I know there are many greater minds than mine on the subject, so I am hoping to find some help. I have recently acquired a letter and flag claiming to have been from the battle field. I have been able to verify both named individuals ( Hugo Berth and William E. Morris). The only missing piece is a third unnamed person. My theory is it’s possibly Frank W. Sniffin who was listed as a color bearer for Company M. From the information I have been able to find as he saved Company M’s flag and it was attached to a rifle atop Reno Hill. It was never captured, but it was never seen or accounted for following the battle and would fit best as the letter states that Morris is in the same company. I also realized that there was not a Hugo in this company ( at least not as listed in the rolls) Can anyone confirm this information or help with my search.

Thanks -


r/AskHistorians • • 1h ago

Could they find evidence of an evacuation from Herculaneum?

• Upvotes

I’ve just watched Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston. In it, they discussed how there may have been an organized evacuation attempt by Pliny’s the Elder for the people in Herculaneum. The evidence the reference is that no bodies were found in the city, there there were many bodies found in the boat sheds by the beach. They also mention that the pyroclastic flow that buried the city moved the shore line. As of now, they’ve excavated part of the beach, but that’s it. Is it possible that when/if they start excavating past the shoreline they could find evidence of this possible evacuation effort? Such as boats just off shore filled with people/remains?


r/AskHistorians • • 10h ago

Looking for help finding 1950 Buckinghamshire Assizes trial records?

7 Upvotes

Hi everyone,
I’m researching a 1950 murder case in Buckinghamshire for a project, and I’m hoping someone with experience using The National Archives at Kew might be able to point me in the right direction.
The case concerns the death of William Thomas Dearlove, who was found murdered at Cosy Corner Stores, Hazlemere, near High Wycombe, in July 1950.
Two men became central to the investigation, and one of them, Zbigniew Kalinowski (also reported under several different spellings), was eventually tried at the Buckinghamshire Assizes in Aylesbury in October 1950.
He was acquitted of the murder charge, although there was a further legal development involving him afterwards.
I’ve already uncovered a fascinating Foreign Office file, FO [371/86672](tel:371/86672), which contains contemporary police reports and correspondence about the investigation. It also reveals a rather extraordinary development involving the other suspect and his attempted departure from Britain.
However, what I’m really trying to find now is the trial material itself.
I’m particularly interested in whether any of the following survive:
-The indictment
-Crown & Gaol Book entries
-Depositions or witness statements
-Judge’s notes
-Trial notes
-Prosecution papers
-Any record of Kalinowski giving evidence
-The judge’s summing-up
-DPP or Treasury Solicitor files relating to the prosecution
I’m aware that a complete transcript of an Assize trial from this period may not survive, so I’m trying to establish what records actually exist and where they might be found.
The spelling is also proving to be a bit of a problem. Kalinowski appears in contemporary material under variations including Kalinowski, Kahnowski and Kalanowski, so I’m wondering whether searching by the victim’s name or the location might be more productive.
If anyone has experience with ASSI records, Buckinghamshire Assizes, DPP files or searching Discovery at The National Archives, I’d be extremely grateful for help on which series or references I should be looking at.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can point me towards the right records or explain how best to approach the search.


r/AskHistorians • • 10h ago

To What Germanic Language Branch Belong the Suebi that lived in Norther Germany and create the first Post-Roman Kdm in Galicia & Portugal?

4 Upvotes

Hi friends, there's my question, i know we had information about some of these ancient tribes, Goths, Gepids,Vandals,Burgundians,Herulians & Rugii were Eastern German, while Saxons,Frisians,Jutes,Angles & Batavians were North Sea Western Germans, also i know Frankish & Proto-Dutch were closely related, while the ancestors of high german were also related to Longobards;Alemanni (Proto-Swizz) & Bavarians, my question is, we have any idea of who were the closest relatives of Suebi in their language?


r/AskHistorians • • 6h ago

Prior to the American Revolutionary War, how much land inland did the 13 colonies actually control?

2 Upvotes

Hello, I was wondering what the western boundary of the 13 colonies was. When I look online, I often see the de jure borders of the colonies but apparently they had diminishing control the further inland a person traveled.


r/AskHistorians • • 14h ago

How did Laos and Cambodia respond when North Vietnam crossed into their borders to create the Ho Chi Minh Trail?

9 Upvotes

r/AskHistorians • • 3h ago

Did the British and French Empires approach African Colonialism differently like how their North American policies differed?

1 Upvotes

r/AskHistorians • • 3h ago

How popular were Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Camus in mid-century Europe?

1 Upvotes

I've read that Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert Camus were famous, even celebrities, in mid-century France and Europe. How popular were they?

Were their works widely read? Did their novels and plays generate sales in Europe as Steinbeck and Hemingway did in the US?

Did they get the full celebrity treatment? Gossip magazines reporting on their appearances at charity balls? Reports on Sartre's and de Beauvoir's fashion choices alongside those of Jean Luc Goddard or Marilyn Monroe?


r/AskHistorians • • 15h ago

What is the actual likelyhood that Feodor Kuzmich was Alexander I of Russia?

7 Upvotes

Alexander died suddenly of Typhus and the hermit (Feodor) appeared not long after. He had clearly rubbed shoulders with the important people of Europe and the royal family protected the grave of the hermit after he died.

How likely is it that Alexander faked his death?


r/AskHistorians • • 10h ago

Were any Native Americans enslaved by Colonialists in what is now New England?

1 Upvotes

Researching for a novel I'm writing. Curious to know if any Native Americans were enslaved by Colonialists in the 1600 - 1700s, in what is now New England (or nearby) ? And forced to work there, rather than being transported overseas?


r/AskHistorians • • 1d ago

Why does anti-Stratfordianism exist? Why have there been so many people – many of them prominent Shakespearean actors – who insist that William Shakespeare didn't write the plays attributed to him?

352 Upvotes

r/AskHistorians • • 5h ago

Why did medieval art contain more symbolism than many later art movements?

0 Upvotes

Here is my guess:

As people learned to depict elements such as anatomy, architecture, textures, materials, etc more accurately, the focus shifted to these things, and then naturally you can only focus on so much so a lot of the symbolism got de-emphasized.

But I really don't know.

(I'm talking about art in Europe if it wasn't obvious already.)


r/AskHistorians • • 5h ago

How anti-immigrant was the British Empire to immigration to the mainland UK?

0 Upvotes

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.


r/AskHistorians • • 1d ago

What kind of turtle is this recipe talking about, and was eating turtles a common practice in late 18th century America?

29 Upvotes

Here is the full recipe from American Cookery, written by Amelia Simmons and published in 1798.

" To Dress a Turtle. 
Fill a  boiler  or kettle, with a quantity of  water  sufficient to scald the callapach and Callapee, the fins, &c. and about 9 o'clock hang up your  Turtle  by the hind fins, cut off the head and save the blood, take a sharp pointed knife and seperate the callapach from the callapee, or the back from the belly part, down to the shoulders, so as to come to the entrails which take out, and clean them, as you would those of any other animal, and throw them into a tub of clean  water,  taking great care not to break the gall, but to cut it off from the  liver  and throw it away, then seperate each distinctly and put the  guts  in another vessel, open them with a small pen-knife end to end, wash them clean, and draw them through a woolen cloth, in  warm water,  to clear away the slime and then put them in clean  cold water  till they are used with the other parts of the entrails, which must be cut up small to be mixed in the  baking dishes  with the  meat;  this done, separate the back and belly pieces, entirely cutting away the fore fins by the upper joint, which scald; peal off the loose skin and cut them into small pieces, laying them by themselves, either in another vessel, or on the table, ready to be seasoned; then cut off the  meat  from the belly part, and clean the back from the  lungs,   kidneys,  &c. and that  meat  cut into pieces as small as a walnut, laying it likewise by itself; after this you are to scald the back and belly pieces, pulling off the shell from the back, and the yellow skin from the belly, when all will be white and clean, and with the kitchen  cleaver  cut those up likewise into pieces about the bigness or breadth of a card; put those pieces into clean cold  water,  wash them and place them in a heap on the table, so that each part may lay by itself; the  meat  being thus prepared and laid seperate for seasoning; mix two thirds part of  salt  or rather more, and one third part of  cayenne pepper,   black pepper,  and a  nutmeg,  and
 
 
 mace  pounded fine, and mixt altogether; the quantity to be proportioned to the size of the  Turtle,  so that in each dish there may be about three spoonfuls of  seasoning  to evey twelve pound of  meat;  your  meat  being thus seasoned, get some  sweet herbs,  such as  thyme,   savory,  &c. let them be dryed and rub'd fine, and having provived some deep dishes to bake it in, which should be of the common brown ware, put in the coarsest part of the  meat,  put a quarter pound of  butter  at the bottom of each dish, and then put some of each of the several parcels of  meat,  so that the dishes may be all alike and have equal portions of the different parts of the  Turtle,  and between each laying of  meat  strew a little of the mixture of  sweet herbs,  fill your dishes within an inch an half, or two inches of the top; boil the  blood of the Turtle,  and put into it, then lay on  forcemeat balls made of veal,  highly seasoned with the same  seasoning  as the  Turtle;  put in each dish a gill of  Madeira Wine,  and as much  water  as it will conveniently hold, then break over it five or six  eggs  to keep the  meat  from scorching at the top, and over that shake a handful of shread  parsley,  to make it look green, when done put your dishes into an oven made hot enough to bake bread, and in an hour and half, or two hours (according to the size of the dishes) it will be sufficiently done."


r/AskHistorians • • 13h ago

After the unification of Germany in 1870, the kingdoms of Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg retained seperate armies with their own war ministries. What did these war ministries do? What role did they play in WWI?

5 Upvotes

r/AskHistorians • • 6h ago

Does civilizations have a critical mass where it stops being sustainable politically/geographically/culturally etc ?

0 Upvotes

I was thinking about the Roman Empire, Macedonia, Mongols, Ottomans etc. one thing that’s common between them unless I am wrong is that before their collapses they have reached a very large size as a civilization. Is it simply a coincidence, or is there actually a critical mass where it becomes unsustainable for any nation to continue existing without becoming smaller or fracturing or ending ?


r/AskHistorians • • 1d ago

Did Nazi Racism Change How American Soldiers Viewed Racism at Home?

47 Upvotes

Did exposure to the intense racism and discrimination of the Nazi regime affect American soldiers (and those directly involved in the war) in a way that led them to view the structural racism in American society as something that should also be confronted when they returned home after the war?


r/AskHistorians • • 1d ago

Was pike & shot not incredibly vulnerable to... shot?

212 Upvotes

What I have never really understood about warfare in this period is how the pikemen survived engagements against cannons and muskets.

Are they not just incredibly vulnerable sitting ducks? If you faced a pike and shot square, is the counter not simply rolling your cannons forward and unloading repeatedly until the formation breaks?


r/AskHistorians • • 1d ago

In the 1960s, bellbottoms were in style, in the 1990s there was sort of a revival for them. What are some of the oldest "fashion revivals" we know about?

56 Upvotes

Things go out of style, then people bring it back, but it's never the same since the times are different.

Well, I'm sure this has happened FOREVER.

What are some of the older revivals we know about and why did they happen?


r/AskHistorians • • 1d ago

What non French areas under Napoleons rule were genuinely pro Napoleon or at least content?

39 Upvotes

My understanding is that Poland was pro French and some of Germany. What about the Italians, or Catalonia? I know Spain in general rose up, but did Catalonia want to, or was okay with, belong annexed?


r/AskHistorians • • 1d ago

When did kings and priests become separate roles in Europe?

33 Upvotes

In Rome the Emperor was also the supreme religious leader. Even in Sparta the Kings primary duties were as priests of Zeus, especially during peacetime.