Or are they 100% heirs to the spanish states created after the fall of the native regimes ?

“Although Soviet accounts have routinely belittled the significance of Lend-Lease in sustaining the Soviet war effort, the overall importance of this assistance cannot be understated. Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in sufficient quantities to make the difference between defeat and victory in 1941-42; that achievement must be attributed solely to the Soviet people and to the iron nerve of Stalin, Zhukov, Shaposhnikov, Vasilevsky, and their subordinates."

"Left to their own devices, Stalin and his commanders might have taken 12 to 18 months longer to finish off the Wehrmacht; the ultimate result would probably have been the same, except that Soviet soldiers could have waded at France’s Atlantic beaches. Thus, while the Red Army shed the bulk of Allied blood, it would have shed more blood for longer without Allied assistance."

Source: The Soviet German War 1941-1945: Myths and Realities: A Survey Essay

So, what was the real impact of the aid from the USSR's allies? How justified are the claims about the "extreme necessity" and "decisive role" of Lend-Lease for the Soviet Union?

I was today years old when I noticed that the notes are ABCs, but they oddly start from C and not from A.

We all know of the Great Terror during the French Revolution, and the White and Red Terrors during the Russian Revolution, was there and equivalency of this during the American Revolution? Why or why not?

Queen Claude of France was the first wife of Francis I of France and the daughter of Anne of Brittany and Louis XII of France. She was described as ugly, good-natured and died very young after a lifetime of being practically perpetually pregnant.

Now, her wikipedia page in English and French says she had Down Syndrome and she is on a list of people with Down Syndrome. However the sources for this are medical studies from 2007 and 2010 that never seemed to get any traction. I've never seen anyone mention anything like it in anything I've ever read about Claude, her husband Francis I or his two main rivals, Henry VIII and Charles V. I tried to remove this, but Wikipedia basically said that if I tried to take it off without the consensus of a discussion, even though the person who put it didn't seem to have the consensus of a discussion, I'd be banned from editing.

So, I'm asking, is this true? I don't want to seem judgemental but looking at portraits of her that were done in her lifetime, it doesn't seem so.

I'm not sure if this is phrased right, so let me bring up a few examples. The oldest written versions of the Vedas that we have, if I'm recalling it correctly, are dated from the Gupta period or shortly after it. But historians could tell that these were derived from older, oral traditions that emerged WAY back during the Vedic period. Supposedly, experts could date when each part of the Vedas was added based on their grammar.

Another example is for the Old Testament. Current consensus seems to reject the idea that Moses authored the Pentateuch due to their literary style, which dates them to the Iron Age, a time that would have been much later than Moses' Bronze Age. Interestingly, Historians could also tell that the Song of Deborah is one of the older parts of the Old Testament.

My question is that how do these methods actually work? How could historians date sections of the Vedas back to the early Iron Age or even Late Bronze Age when no written texts were available in India during that time? I'm guessing that this is done via different linguistic methodologies and frameworks, but maybe it's something else?

Thank you in advance :)

Like how the Science-Fiction genre has a “Golden Age” around the 1950s, was there anything like a “Golden Age” for Fantasy? And if so, then when?

Europe of course had their knights, but what about places without knighthood? I am most interested about the Near East (including late Byzantines), Mongols, and non-Christian Slavs

Please don't interpret this as denial of Japan's war crimes. I've heard many claim this, and am wondering how much truth there is to it.

By Ancient I mean prior to British rule, maybe even Mughal rule. The Indian subcontinent has a very rich geography and in the past there were empires that ruled over both North India as well as areas of Afghanistan and Iran. But I haven't come across any records of battles fought in the snowy regions here. In fact we rarely see depictions of snow/rainfall from those times even in popular media.

I'm just curious about how they operated in those weather conditions, not just in battle but in their daily life, the kind of clothes they are shown wearing in movies/tv don't look like they can keep you warm.

A history teacher of mine swears that the answer is now. According to him, when Christianity started, there were 25+ different Christian movements, and never once has there ever been a time when all Christians believed in Rome’s supremacy. Historically, has there ever been a time with just “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church”? To my knowledge, Rome’s supremacy has always been in question by at least some people.

As I'm sure we all know, in the immediate postwar era, Levittown (first in Long Island, NY) was created as what later became- especially nowadays- the "protoypical" American suburban, particularly in terms of car-centric subdivisions.

However... I'm curious as to what degree any *other*, competing developers decided to create newer suburbs around the same time that, perhaps, could be called "anti-Levittowns"? Surely, in the big-ol US of A, with probably at least 150 million residents by 1946, Levittown wasn't "the only" 'planned suburb' or 'new style' of suburb created or attempted, around that time, in "competition", so to speak, with places like streetcar suburbs, let alone "typical" big-city areas like much of New York and Chicago (esp. their downtowns)?

Like, was there really "no other" developer, in 1946 or 1947, with an 'alternative vision' to Levittown that decided to make their own "somewhat-planned" suburb but with less-car-centricity, less sprawl and the like??

I've been listening to a podcast (war nerd radio episode 303) and the guest makes the argument that McClellan was deliberately trying to let the south win battles and to get both sides to the table to negotiate. They talk about his assistant being a known traitor, letting Polk lose a battle, and a few other things.

The argument seems ... excessive to me, but perhaps I'm missing something.

I know this is American centric, but do other cultures have decades that deviate so far from their... norm?

I recently toured Salem and one of the guides claimed that, because women were property in Colonial America, they would not have been able to make accusations of witchcraft on their own, but rather their fathers manipulated/ordered them to target their rivals. Is this the accepted view among contemporary historians?

I've been thinking about this question a lot lately, especially after seeing so many bumper stickers, flags, and other displays of loyalty for certain political figures while traveling across different states. It struck me that I haven't seen this kind of fervent support for a candidate in my lifetime (I'm 45), and it made me wonder: has anything like this happened before in U.S. or world history?

I'm particularly curious about historical examples where a political movement or leader inspired such visible devotion-things like large-scale rallies, intense personal loyalty to a leader, and a belief in alternative narratives or conspiracy theories. What were the social, political, or cultural conditions that sparked this kind of passionate support?

If there are any parallels from history, I'd love to learn more about them. Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge!

I'm trying to understand what a "dynasty" is and what defines it.

I read "Dynasties of China" under Wikipedia and this is what I understand what it is/can be...

Think of a dynasty as a time period. The amount of time a dynasty lasts is dependent on a family's linear heritage. A new dynasty would emerge if the chain of the blood line was broken. This could simply mean someone other than a son or direct family member became the new emperor. This could also mean conquest of a region.
China as we know today had a different landscape in the past. Thus, multiple dynasties could exist at once.
Another thing to note, is a lineage of a dynasty could overlap the previous or next one. For example, Zhou existed during the Shang dynasty. Only when the Zhou took over the Shang dynasty, did the true Zhou dynasty truely begin. Before the fall of Shang, the Zhou "dynasty" would be known as a time of "Predynastic Zhou" or "Proto-Zhou". It is similar to as the English language of the use of "pre" which means "before".

Would this explanation be correct? Anything to add or anything wrong with this "definition"?

thanks in advance!

Many people, both Western and non-Western, lived in Outremer around 1180 CE (before Salah ad-Din defeated the Crusader armies and drove them out of Jerusalem in 1187).

With the significant presence of Franks, would they use a French system? Or, after William the Conquerer re-introduced the Roman system of measurement following the Norman Conquest in 1066, and the English and Normans had a noteworthy presence in the Crusader-period Levant, was that enough to warrant using the Roman system?

And there were naturally many other peoples present as well (Germans, Armenians, etc.), as well as influence from the Muslim groups as well.

Hi, recently have seen a milsim (i think? game is enlisted) showing the Red Army use the Winchester lever action during the WW2. Is this true?I dont think the allies would send something they really only produced commercially for a while and that was so old.

Ive heard that the russian empire attacked an ottoman fort that had these guns, but im not sure if they captured it or even used any of the looted weapons.

i understand if it was only used in a small unit or something (how the game portrays it) , but google returns nothing.

if you know about even just a stockpile of weapons in the ussr, or if they used them in ww1 (or ever) please let me know! many thanks!

Wikipedia says: In 1762, the Qing army discovered four large Dzungar bronze cannons, eight "soaring" cannons, and 10,000 shells.[75] Was it a zamburak-mounted gun, maybe?

Hope someone can help. I’ve recently been fascinated by the Winged Hussars of Poland and as a keen rider I couldn’t help but notice there’s not a lot of information on the breeding used for them.

Several sources indicate a mix of (now extinct) Polish breeds with some more Turkish breeds to get the kind of mobility and sturdiness needed.

Are there any good books anyone knows on either the Hussars or of cavalry of the time that go into detail on the horses? TIA!:

Why did the Germans continue to defend the Rzhev Salient after the Soviet Winter Offensive concluded? Was there some sort of operational or strategic advantage that they hoped to gain or maintain by holding instead of reconciling their lines? Was there a reason they would not have been able to organize an orderly retreat form the Salient?

The 1968 election is definitely one of the more interesting elections of the 20th century, I’ve read a few books in the topic and the more I read the more I wonder what it took for the democrats to win. Most sources seem to say Humphrey’s big failure was not calling for a bombing halt earlier. But would this have been a winning move? Would supporting a bombing halt early have deterred Johnson loyalists or hawks?

When did people start referring to their friends with longer names with a shorter version (e.g. Alexander - Alex, Maximillian - Max, maybe Charles - Charlie).

I saw this comment a while ago pointing out that it was silly and inaccurate for the docudrama about Alexander the great to have these ~300BC Macedonians using abbreviations/nicknames so frequently. This caused me to think about whatever or not this is a thing done in most cultures and when it became widespread. My internet search led to nothing in the slightest conclusive as of yet.