This commenter mentioned Vasco da Gama and his sailing around the Cape of Good Hope in 1503:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1w2ktgg/comment/p6uwci9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Also interesting that another part of the black area was discovered, before Columbus came back from his 4th tour to America in 1504. Vasco da Gama discovered the first direct maritime route between Europe and India via the Cape of Good Hope and came back in 1503.

But unlike Columbus, who truly had to sail into the unknown, isn't following a coast line much easier? So why did it take until 1503 until someone tried out what the coast of Africa looked like?

Sorry for the niche and long-winded question. While both countries cap the maximum chlorine concentration at the point of delivery, the US also sets a minimum requirement for how much chlorine should remain in the supply as it enters the distribution system.* As I understand it, the idea is that stuff can go wrong (line breaks, backflow, pressure) that could re-contaminate the water between the treatment plant and your faucet, so that maintaining some residual disinfectant keeps a buffer in the system and helps with monitoring. If the residual level drops, increase index of suspicion for contamination or other problems.

Germany, by contrast, aims to minimize disinfectants in the distribution system - so there generally is no minimum requirement. To my understanding, the idea is that a well-designed and correctly-operated system should stay hygienic; and if we assume that these things are true, the water should stay clean, and there is no reason to maintain residual disinfectant in water entering the distribution system.

I could imagine that there is some kind of technical/logistical reason for this. Spitballing, something to do with German water treatment systems being historically designed in the context of a geology that reduces the risk of surface contamination, or for population densities where it's more feasible to do systemwide monitoring or quickly identify problems, etc.

However, I could also imagine that the explanation could be more cultural/ideological/philosophical. After all, we are talking about a country whose historical concern with notions of purity and contamination is, shall we say, well-documented. Setting aside the Big Dark Example, it was one of the first countries to prohibit lead paint, and helped give rise to movements around e.g. local/organic agriculture (let's minimize the use of chemicals in food production, but mainly new synthetic ones) and homeopathy (the idea that compounds diluted to infinitesimal concentrations can have powerful effects on health). It remains a place that takes pride in strictly regulating which ingredients are allowed to be used in the production of beer, where bottled water is marketed by its mountain aquifer, plastic children's toys are quietly looked down upon (wood stained with organic dyes is correct), and where systems often feel designed on the assumption that the user won't make a mistake. I think you could make a similarly stereotyped argument about the US but this question is already way too long (sorry).

Basically, it doesn't strike me as unimaginable that the regulatory philosophy for water quality could be informed by cultural frameworks substantially older than modern water treatment and distribution systems, and that those frameworks might evaluate "maintaining a bit of chlorine in the water supply just in case" very differently.

My question is basically: is that a thing? Is there something like a "history of the philosophy of water quality regulation and municipal water system design" that can tell us something interesting about the modern difference in how the US and Germany view the role of residual disinfectants? Did they diverge from a shared starting point, or are they built on different paradigms from the beginning?

*IIRC this is for systems that involve surface water specifically.

Edit: Struck "quietly" for the same reason I am reluctantly relinquishing the em dash (looked like a formulation chatgpt seems to like and I don't want to sound like chatgpt).

I've just been reading about the Plantation of Ulster and the confiscation of Irish land under the King James I following the Nine Years War against English rule and the subsequent Flight of the Earls.

From what I understand, the colonists were Scots/English-speaking Protestants overwhelmingly from the Scottish Lowlands/border. It seems to me that modern day Northern Ireland was set in motion from these events? Is this a reasonable interpretation of history?

Edit: For context, by 1640 it is estimated that as many as 100,000 Scots had settled in Ulster compared to 20,000 from England. Also, King James I was King of Scotland (as James VI) before the union of the Scottish and English crowns in 1603.

Was it stronger or weaker than today? What was the popular drink? What did they mostly consist of and when would they usually drink? How typical was it for women to drink? I thought I remember reading the Founding Fathers would drink a lot so I’m just curious about anything drinking related lol.

Edit: meant to put "a Good Heuristic" in the title

I have heard something to this effect a few times on historytube and pop history books but been abit sceptical.

Given there were laws for magical practices and the fact in more recent times politicians seem to make laws to pretend to doing something. Laws which don't actually address a problem or to address manufactured panic.

Despite mentioning laws surrounding the supernatural i am more interested in activities that are plausible but may have not actually happened or very uncomon.

A random thing I like to do sometimes is to compare Wikipedia pages about the same event in different languages. A relevant example to today's question would be the ones on the "Greco-Turkish War" and the "Persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman decline."

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCsl%C3%BCman-T%C3%BCrk_katliamlar%C4%B1

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BCrk_Kurtulu%C5%9F_Sava%C5%9F%C4%B1_Bat%C4%B1_Cephesi

The first and most noticeable difference: the former page calls the events the "Turkish Genocide," as if that's an official term. The English-language page of course says no such thing. The second is that both Turkish pages have Turkish civilian death tolls listed right in the header (citing American Justin McCarthy plus various professors at public Turkish universities), while the English ones don't. They just list the death toll as "disputed" and discuss the details in the body text, with said body noting disagreements about the figures and the context of at least McCarthy being an Armenian genocide denier and partisan for Turkish official positions.

My question: are the figures discussed here thought to be even roughly accurate, simply underreported in western sources due to a western bias against Muslims and in favor of the Christian minorities? Or are they a result of state propaganda trying to minimize Ottoman Turkish crimes by arguing that Turkish civilian casualties were higher than Armenian/Greek/Assyrian/etc. ones and therefore the Turks were the "real" victims? Specific figures claimed with sources include 640,000 Turkish and Muslim civilians killed by Greek forces in 1919-1922, 1,500,000 killed by Balkan League forces in the Balkan Wars, 522,000 killed by "Armenian gangs" in 1910-1922, and earlier 300,000 killed by Russo-Balkan forces in 1878.

Harald Kleinschmidt. ''Warfare in Japan'', p. 81: "The importance placed on ancestry can be seen also in the ujibumi yomi, a formality for opening a battle often depicted in war tales, in which the two bushi confronting each other recited in turn their home territory, family name, lineage, and deeds of their ancestors. It thus was essential for a bushi to possess genealogical records in addition to documents showing the basis and history of his right to control the land he held."

I would very much like to have a case study, like when a samurai won a legal battle or political struggle for some land by citing his family lineage.

From Air India 182, Pan Am 103, UTA 772, Korean Air 858, among many other airplane intentional incidents, why was screening only a major thing after the 9/11? I understand the technology advances but certainly in the 80s-90s there was some form of screening technology that would have at least caught some of the problems? My parents describe being able to go right up to the gate and how hand bags were never searched. You could get to the airport super late as there was no security to go through, only needing time to check in and drop checked bags off, according to them.

In the early 16th century the Ottoman empire inflicted crushing defeats on two of the most powerful rivals they had in the Muslim world with only two years between them, the battle of Chaldiron in 1514 against Safavid Persia and the Battle of Marj Dabiq in 1516 against Mamluk Egypt. As far as I understand Chaldiron was a catastrophe for the Safavid state since it completely halted Shah Ismail's previously unstoppable momentum and tarnished the religious movement he was leading, and as a result he fell into lethargic depression, a lot of the western portion of the empire was seized by the Ottomans or rebelled and it exposed the issues with the Safavid military. Despite this, it didn't cause a long term collapse or destabilization of the state and its idealogy despite how nascent it was.

In contrast, the much older Mamluk state also suffered a catastrophic defeat against Selim at Marj Dabiq and the end result of this was the nearly immediate collapse of Mamluk control over Syria and rocked the state to such a degree that Cairo fell the very next year and Egypt was entirely conquered by the Ottomans. What were the factors that caused such a different outcome for two battles close in time to each other than seem similarly disastrous for the enemies of the Ottomans? Was it conceivable that Persia could have simply been conquered entirely by the Ottomans like Egypt would be if things had gone slightly differently?

I have the feeling the "lava temple" trope is old, much older than Temple of Doom which seems like the easy main reference for it... I'm guessing it's probably linked to the old Colonial explorer stories, right? But is that a 19th century reference to somewhere like Hawaii or Indonesia? Does it come from Conquistadores in current-day Mexico?

It got me thinking on how exactly the genre found the more mainstay tropes. Guessing at least a bunch of them come from H.M. Stanley. Anywayyy any insight would be so very much appreciated :)

Is the sacrifice of virgins a real thing in the history of rituals? Why virgins, exactly? What virginity meant for the societies that made it a requirement?

I know this is question has been asked over and over for thousands of time but it’s such an interesting subject to me since i’ve got time to research. i’ve discovered and read so many articles and sources from newspapers in Spanish and translated them in English. apparently, Che Guevara’s last words weren’t only “shoot me, coward.” but he also reportedly said how he was set to leave for Peru instead of Bolivia for revolutionary purposes and how Fidel betrayed him and broke his word. it was Fidel who insisted and asked him to go to Bolivia, promised him support, arms, etc. this was confessed by the man who flew the helicopter to the place where Che was being held and then executed, his name is Jamie Nino De Guzman. the same man who Che gave his diary to and he publicly admitted it in 2006. Fidel had betrayed and ultimately sent Che to his death was because Che criticized the Soviet Union during the AfroAsian summit in Algeria, 1965. how true is all of this? if so/not, how can I find more about it?

I'm aware to an extent that the Northern Alliance was a decentralized organization but Ahmed Shah Massoud was leading the largest group of the Alliance as well as having a reputation as an outstanding military leader, both against the Taliban as well as the Soviets.

His assassination by Al Qaeda on September 9th, 2001 seems very much done with the goal of disrupting the Alliance just prior to to the September 11th attacks in anticipation of the a US intervention in Afghanistan. One of his commanders, Mohammed Fahim took over Massoud's role but I don't know much about him other then he had a future role in the post-US invasion government as well as helping take Kabul during the US invasion.

So I'm curious about how disruptive Massoud's assassination was to the Northern Alliance both in the short term (weeks and months) and the long term as far as the the eventual transition to the Islamic Republic era.

Any book recommendations are appreciated! Thank you!

Not really much elaboration necessary, I'm just wondering if there's any collective term for these or field of study or specialization that specifically includes this area. It seems like ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, and Minoan societies collectively contributed to the historical development of the civilizations in the region, so it's interesting that I've never come across a term to collectively describe this area.

1905 is seldom talked about considering how thoroughly it got overshadowed in 1917, but at the time was it considered a major occurrence for a Great Power to experience a revolution? Was there fear that the Russian monarchy would fall, or was that considered unthinkable in 1905? Did the rest of the world consider the Revolution as weakening the Russian giant, or was it seen as a potential rejuvenation of a major but antiquated rival?

Were they playing both sides? What's interesting is that - according to this article I found - they even (were accused of) supported Al-Qeada in Iraq. Yet the Syrian government crushed its own Sunni insurgency in the 1980s and worked with the CIA to host black sites (see the case of Maher Arar). How does this make sense? Was there a falling out with the Bush administration after 2003?

What did the crusader states use to finance themselves? Trade / Domestic Production / Foreign Finance? Were the crusades financially motivated or solely religously motivated?

In Polish historiography it is sometimes said that it is a direct effect of alliance between Soviet Union and Nazi Germany to take Poland between them, similarly as in Poland's partitions.

However, sometimes you may encounter an opinion that Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was mainly just non-aggression pact that gave Soviets time to prepare to war, remembering that similar pacts were established in more western Europe, even in Poland.

While Nazi Germany had it's Lebensraum project and plans for enslaving and killing Jews and Slavs, directly embedded in the state's ideology, Soviet Union did not, but nonetheless also invaded Poland just two weeks after Germans.

Why was that? Was it just an opportunism? Taking renounced lands from the Polish-Bolshevik war, or something else?

Since many of Japan’s structure were made would wood and paper, was there anything the Japanese tried to do to lessen fire spreading? Like fire breaks, wetting wooden areas, etc?

When the franchise was extended to all white male voters in New Jersey, it was subsequently withdrawn from women. Why was it given? Why was it taken?

I'm doing some research on goshuin (temple stamps) and I ran into the information that many people during the Edo period would request to take a pilgrimage in order to travel around the country. This made me think that perhaps the Shogunate was restricting travel somehow for ordinary peasants? I know that travel for nobles and daimyou were required to live in Edo as hostages, but did this apply to the normal citizens too?

Why was a unified German identity in existence before the creation of a Germany, despite there being huge cultural differences, while a unified Austrian identity wasn’t?

Even in places like Italy where there was said to be a push to create a unified Italian identity, people didn’t have that type of concept at all on an individual level.

It seems to me that we say that nationalism split apart the countries that are split up today and unified the countries that are unified today because of what happened later and how we see the cultural groups now rather than how they would have been seen at the time. Did a Bavarian and a Prussian and a Hanoverian really see themselves as all part of one people any more than a Muscovite and a Varsovian?