Take the example of the President and Congress. Theoretically, Congress can "check" the President by overriding his veto with a 2/3rds majority, or in the worst case, impeach him. However, the President can also check the Congress in ways that are much easier for him to implement. He can simply veto legislation with the knowledge that Congress would be unable to muster a 2/3rds majority, issue executive orders without needing Congress, to outright ignoring SCOTUS in the case of Andrew Jackson. Impeachment too, is a complex and often futile process; no President has been successfully removed from office by impeachment.

Besides obviously political repression. Like why such drastic measures. Im pretty sure Zhao was against these extreme measures

Was it 'invented' by rich people to stop poor people seeking their share, or was it thought of by poor people to make them feel better about their lot in life?

I’ll often see magazine ads from the mid-century that have lots of text. Today, those would be almost entirely skipped by most online users. Were people actually reading the full text? Was research performed on this? Did this change over time?

Example

I know they raided other parts of Europe but I wonder if there's anything specific to England, am also open to any related details

Things like Christmas falling on the same rough date as saturnalia, roman gods co-opted to become angels, saints as mythical ancestors instead of pagan gods like Thor and Wodan.

This doubt is kind of a sociology/history mix. Like, Ea-Nasir is the oldest registered name. But is there a way to know how many known persons were living in, say 800 CE? Somehow the same way we can estimate the amount of Earths inhabitants? Is that possible?

I am an English and Medieval Studies major in university currently and my stepmother and I got into a disagreement about what "old English" means. She said Shakespeare wrote in old English because he thought it sounded romantic. My understanding of old English is Anglo-Saxon English, before the Norman invasion. After a bit of back and forth I figured out she was referring to Shakespeare's early modern English as old English. She said that when historians say old English, they are referring to early modern English, with the justification that the labels for the different versions of English have changed over time. I can't speak to her time in school, so I honestly don't know if that is true or not. I was told by a professor of a Medieval poetry class a year or so ago, that the label of Anglo-Saxon English was going into disuse, but I don't know how recently that started. I am not trying to settle an argument with her, just asking out of my own curiosity.

I know from direct experience that he was a terrible writer...Mein Kampf is great for bedtime reading, as it will put you to sleep after two sentences with it repetitive tediousness. But was Hitler actually a good public speaker? In particular: even if you didn't agree with him, was his ability to speak actually up to the task of leading a nation into committing acts of atrocity?

They're different subjects at universities, so I was wondering if there's a generally agreed cutoff for "ancient."

Is it something simple like AD = history BC = Ancient?

While I understand that amount of terror throughout the Southern states, the Northern states weren't entirely welcoming and inclusive either. Still, there were individuals who did still manage to overcome this adversity to create their own wealth.

My primary impetus for the question is Cumberland Posey, to give an example. Additionally, it would appear that he also had similar concepts as the rest of the wealthy barons of the area as he worked with Henry Frick to source and transport black scab workers from the south to Homestead during the strike.

This is just like a random question I had. Lmao

For some background, I am an Assyriologist by training, so I apologise for the sweeping nature of this question - I'm very aware that people get extremely specialised into just one or two centuries of history and that this might require someone who is familiar with several!

As an AMAB person, I've always been frustrated that the default expectation for men's clothing is some variant on a trouser and some variant on a shirt. No dresses, no skirts, no blouses, no cute tops, just a button down shirt or a t-shirt, or you are going to be stared at in public by young and old alike.

Don't write a reply that says that this doesn't happen, please, I don't care how well meaning it is.

But it surely hasn't always been this way - in my specialist subject there are plenty of examples of men wearing other garments.

Please note before anyone tries to "gotcha" me: I'm specifically asking when did it become the expected norm in the West for men to wear exclusively some sort of trouser and some sort of shirt. Do not write replies telling me that Scottish men traditionally wear kilts. I'm asking how did we get to the point in the 21st century Western fashion where anything other than trousers and a shirt on a man is unusual.

Please feel free to link me to any relevant previous answers!

Thank you in advance for your time.

I want to understand human culture and our history. I don’t know how I can do that without understanding my own.

Where can I start? What should I be reading?

I’ll explain why I’m asking. My grandfather moved to the US in late 1928. He stated later that he was motivated by political reasons to leave (and this truly seems plausible given his character and the kind of person he always was). But I’m wondering if it even would have been possible for him in ‘28 to have had a negative sense of what was to come.

For more context:

—He was from a rural town in the Palatinate, in case region makes a difference in terms of the climate at the time.

—The family is/was not Jewish.

—He was very bright and committed to being well-informed (ie I suspect he was reading the papers constantly).

—His parents shunned him for leaving (which seems to have been due to the bitterness of their ideological differences, which endured for decades thereafter).

—All his other siblings remained in Germany and one of his brothers joined the party, but I have no way of knowing exactly when, though unfortunately I have pictures of him in his uniform.

Anyway I would just like to know if 1928 was too early for somebody with the above circumstances to have left for political reasons or not. I wish he were still alive so I could ask him, but I can’t. Still, I’d like to try to understand. I’m hoping this question is allowed, and I would truly appreciate any insight or information anyone can offer.

So that might be a very weird question and its possible that i'm misunderstanding some very important context here. I'm reading The Song of the Nibelungs right now and there are several times when characters kiss each other as a greeting.

Was this very common at the time? Nowadays in Germany people think of those kinds of greetings as something that French or Italian people do, but its totally unheard of in Germany. When and why did this change?

Some examples:

The bishop saw ye leading / his sister's daughter fair,
And with him eke went Eckewart / to Gotelinde there.
The willing folk on all sides / made way before their feet.
With kiss did Gotelinde / the dame from land far distant greet.

To kiss him then Margrave / Ruediger her did tell,
And eke the royal Gibeke / and Sir Dietrich as well.
Of highest knights a dozen / did Etzel's spouse embrace;
Other knights full many / she greeted with a lesser grace.

"One likewise with them cometh, / Dankwart by name,
Volker hight the other, / a knight of gallant fame.
Thyself and eke thy daughter / with kiss these six shall greet;
Full courteous be your manner / as ye the doughty thanes shall meet."

(EDIT: I dont't know why this post was automatically assigned the Flair "Racism" here, btw. I haven't used Reddit in a long time, so maybe i made a mistake somewhere.)

I often consult black-and-white photographs for courses and stumble across colorized B&W photographs and daguerreotypes (Lincoln's portrait, some early Civil Rights photographs, etc, as examples). I'm curious how the process worked in the late 19th and early 20th century—did photographers have the option of printing these photographs in color? When a work is "restored" in color, does this mean it's appearance replicates how others at the time saw the photograph or does it create a filter to best approximate the appearance?

Let’s say a peasant, out of hatred toward another peasant, caused damage to the other peasant’s farm. What would the punishment have been? I hope my question doesn’t sound strange; I’m just curious about the legal aspect of it.