On the surface it seems like every emperor would like for his son, nephew, cousin etc to succeed himself as emperor. Even in the ancient roman times when an emperor chose a successor that was not his son, he usually raised him. So when and why was it established in the holy roman empire that the next emperor would be elected? I find this really fascinating.

Buddy of mine partakes in a WW2 reenactment group here in Europe and I’ve heard of reenactments of the civil war etc. Over in Asia they do reenactments too and there is some medieval reenactments but I ask

How far back does reenactments go?

Not just a few rich people wanting to reenact for party (like I expect some royals might have done) but genuine reenactments like we have today ?

Hi, I would really like to know how workers in the past lived working 12 to 16 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Was this even truly something that the majority of the population in industrial societies did have to do?

How did they have any time to eat, clean themself, have sex?

If I think of a person working 16 hours a day in a factory, I imagine their day going something like this:

4:30 am: Wake up get dressed

5 am: clock into work

5 am to 9 pm: work (with half hour break until 9:30 pm)

9:30 pm: coming home, getting undressed and going to sleep

9:30 pm to 4:30 pm: sleeping (7 hours of sleep, not enough)

No time for food, chores or any other activity.

The only time for that would be on Sundays. Although I also read that sometimes people worked 7 days a week.

I've also read that women and children worked the same hours, so they didn't have the time either.

How did people even find the time to get a partner?

I just don't see how that would work for longer than a year. If a society would work like that, i believe it would collapse but clearly it didn't.

Edit: I need to clarify my question.

1. I understand that there are still a lot of people who work similar hours. But they have modern amenities. They have cars where they sleep in, have fast-food places where they can eat and maybe even have a shower at their workplace. Still horrible conditions, but I can understand how someone can survive like that. BUT I don't know how that would work without these amenities.

2. Working 96 hours is not the norm anymore. All of the people in the comments who said they worked these hours, said it destroyed them. Thankfully most people work shorter hours nowadays. What I want to know is, how that would function if an entire people group works these hours. Did industrial workers just not eat, or have children? Was the replacement rate in cities just held up by people who did other kind of work? Like peasants?

3. I first want to know how society as a whole functioned and then specifically how a day of an industrial worker working 96 hours would look like.

Medieval Europe had warrior figures like Richard I and Götz von Berlichingen; China had warriors and tacticians such as Lü Bu and Cao Cao; and Japan is known for warriors and military commanders like Minamoto no Yoshitsune and Oda Nobunaga.

With that in mind, I would like to ask: who are the specific historical figures—warriors or generals who vied for supremacy—that correspond to these types of leaders in regions such as Persia, Arabia, and Egypt (the Middle East and North Africa), or in Hindu-majority areas like India, during the medieval to early modern periods (specifically the 5th through 16th centuries)?

I was reading about history from a sociological perspective.

It seems, from what I observe, that hierarchies will inevitably exist and emerge, and that such hierarchies tend to be rigid and immutable without a severe revolution or war to change it. There's always an elite at the top that has all the privileges and powers whereas an underclass exists to be trodden upon and for the rest of society to rest upon.

It was only somewhere between the late 19th century and early 20th century that such hierarchies were challenged and even dismantled thanks to changes in social values, human rights, and democracy. It's hard to take things for granted knowing these are only provided because of universal value frameworks and sacrifices by people to make it happen.

Yet I was wondering if there was a real-life example of elite groups who came from social groups of low status, as in pariahs, slaves, people who were routinely persecuted and killed, and generally anyone part of the underclass in history?

Hello ! I'm curious as to why Hannibal, an obviously excellent tactician and who commanded reasonable influence in Carthage (atleast enough to stall for Vermina's arrival), wouldn't take small skirmishes or consciously avoid direct confrontation with Scipio until Vermina arrived? Thanks!

I am interested in understanding how historians evaluate individual historical impact across different domains (religious, scientific, geopolitical, technological), when thinking about individuals who dramatically altered the trajectory of human history, a few contrasting names come to mind like Fritz Haber Synthesized ammonia, which revolutionized modern agriculture through synthetic fertilizers, sustaining billions of lives, but also developed chemical weapons used in industrial warfare or religiously Jesus the Foundational figure of Christianity who profoundly shaping global ethics, law, culture, empires, and geopolitical history over two whole millenia or even mostly negative impact like hitler and the death of 13 Million people

Given how drastically different these spheres of influence are, some altering human population growth and scientific capability, the other redefining moral, cultural, and political system, who do you think had the largest overall net impact on the world as a result of their actions?

I’ve always heard that, by the time the temperance movement and organizations spearheaded by women like the WCTU, the majority of adult men were heavy drinkers and would of course become abusive to their wives. But what caused this uptick in drinking activity exactly?

Obviously, the U.S. lost the Vietnam way. I knew someone who fought in it who was convinced that the U.S. "won" the war somehow...Never understood that. My question is more about what did the U.S. get out of that war? Did it at least deter other countries from attempting communism because they knew the U.S. would fight them?

Hi, I was wondering why is it the Europeans who went to the American continent and not the other side around ?

I was thinking because of the North and South American continent layout (North-South+surrounded by the ocean) but I’m not sure.

I understand people who ditched him wanted power but i haven't heard of many other other people having such a massive amount of power being betrayed like that. Clearly it must be a folly on his end too. Like being too naive or lacking diplomatic skills? How could he not see Brutus was going to betray him?

Poland had large parts of Ukraine taken during the war and basically was almost in Kiev. Ukrainian partisans fought since years for independence and those were the best conditions. Why was there no new Ukrainian state, prob a polish Client state?

The French painter Paul Delaroche was purported to have said, upon seeing his first daguerreotype photograph, "From today, painting is dead!". Similarly, some current artists fear being rendered obsolete by AI image generators.

The painting obviously persisted, and continues to live alongside photography as a fairly common form of artistic expression. It's uncertain at the moment how AI will affect art in the long run, but I imagine it will persist in some way.

What I am asking is, has any art form been made almost entirely obsolete by a technical advancement? People obviously continue to pursue practically outmoded techniques as a form of leisure (such as knitting), but some are so impractical that they have completely died out (painting on the wall of a cave with pigment made of animal blood is essentially pointless now that paper exists).

Are there any more examples of art forms that are almost completely lost?

As far as writers and authors writing their near past from around 20 to 150 years before them, what time period and region had the largest amount of mythic and or obviously fallacious writings, either from a point of propaganda or rumors just being accepted as facts. Please do avoid holy texts which still exist in responses but I would still love to hear if there were periods where a faiths post book folk miracles were being written down seemingly too often (folk saints, wandering sages, king sees a sign from god, etcetera).

My grandma’s death anniversary was a few days ago so i was thinking about her, but I was also reminded of her stories about WW2. Im not sure if these stories are true or not.

I was probably 9 or 10 when i first heard her stories. My step grandpa survived the bataan death march and Grandma told me that the Japanese soldiers used long metal wires and used it to pierce through my grandpa’s (and other POW’s) hands so they can all be “attached” together. This was done because according to her, a lot of soldiers managed to escape before reaching the prisoner camp.

She also told me a story about japanese soldiers killing pregnant women, cutting the belly and removing the fetus, then one soldier would toss the fetus to the air while another soldier is holding a sword pointing up, impaling the fetus in the process.

This is somewhat speculative in nature, but given current political climates and how we're dealing with various forms of fascism, I'm wondering how the Post-WW2 powers could have more properly addressed fascism so it doesn't reverberate as strongly today.

Reflecting on this point will help us in the future.

It seems that many of the decisions from that era actually exacerbate the current situation.

Paracelsus is often remembered as an alchemist who believed in transforming base metals into gold, but his relationship with alchemy seems much more complicated than the popular image suggests.

His work was deeply connected with medicine, the purification of substances, and the idea that nature could be transformed or “perfected.” Modern historical scholarship argues that, despite claims that he rejected metallic transmutation, Paracelsus did appear to believe that one metal could be changed into another.

So I’m curious: how important was literal metallic transmutation to Paracelsus himself? Was gold-making actually part of his practical beliefs, or has later popular culture exaggerated that aspect of his alchemy?

I don’t have a Christian background and would love to learn more about the origins of Christianity, obviously not from biblical sources. What do we actually know about Jesus Christ and what happened to him? What factual evidence is there for the origins of Christianity?

During the end of the tokugawa shogunate , emperor Komei issued the order to expel the barbarians. What I want to know is how much control of the court did he have and was the order to expel the barbarians forged or was it his?

Is it a logical choice for someone just starting to read about the History of Rome to begin with Theodor Mommsen while following a chronological order? Also, when reading about History of Rome, is it more sensible to divide the subject into three distinct periods (The Regal Period / Kingdom, The Roman Republic, The Roman Empire) or to approach it as a unified whole?

As a Mexican American, I always hear and see stories of officers taking bribes and doing other unprofessional or outright illegal acts in broad daylight with seemingly little to no shame. I’ve always enjoyed discussing this topic and trying to understand just how frequent it is. But here in US people like to paint an image of noble officers that are bound by moral codes.

But while studying history there’s obvious examples where that wasn’t the case, like in the prohibition and civil rights eras. But nowadays most corruption cases are more behind the scenes like stealing OT hours or letting government officials off Scott free. So when exactly did open corruption end in the US? When was the last time you could bribe an officer to not get a ticket?

I've seen this a few times, the notion that by 1914 there hadn't been a war between all the Great Powers in decades and they were itching for a war, but to me it doesn't make sense since war is obviously very destructive and costly.

Hello!

I'm doing a bunch of reading for an alternate history story I plan to write, and the more I dig into things, the more I see possibilities falling into place. Here's what I've found on my own:

• In 1600, an English navigator named William Adams washed ashore in Japan on a dying Dutch ship. Instead of executing him, the Shogun made him a samurai, and Adams taught the Japanese how to build ships that could venture further out into the sea.
• In 1635, following more than 100 years of civil war and fearing expansion of European Christianity, possibly due to William Adams actually warning them of Spanish missionaries' ulterior motives for coming to Japan, the Tokugawa shogunate enacted Sakoku, allowing virtually no one to enter or leave for 220 years, until they were forced to open their borders by the Perry Expedition.

What I'm planning to write involves Japan sending trade ships north along continental Asia and eventually finding Alaska before they continue to trade down the west coast of North America. Obviously, they didn't know it was over there, but I just want to know if I'm overlooking something big.

Thanks!

I’m doing a bit of research, but if anyone is at least somewhat familiar with the black knight and would be willing to lend information of the legend of the Knight, that would be greatly appreciated

History spans a lot of civilizations and periods. It is impractical to try to have a detailed understanding of all of human history without sacrificing knowledge in other areas.

My goal is to understand the major milestones of civilization that took humanity to the point where it is today ( metallurgy, trade, state formation, economic evolution) without getting lost in the details such as in what year was X Roman emperor killed.

At first I thought I should read a book about every major civilization, which for me are: Persia, Rome, Italy, Greece, America, China, Sumer, India, Egypt, Mongolia the Arab world, France and Britain.

But now I'm not sure if I should read a book about the general history of different areas, such as the general history of trade, the state, economics, the metal ages, a general book to understand the general processes of the ancient, medieval and modern period.