History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VI

[nokmirt]

I have two questions. Can anyone tell me who had control of the major Pacific islands after WWI? Who controlled Tarawa before Japan took it over on Dec. 10, 1941? Mostly I am trying to get it in my mind what the Pacific looked like politically in around 1919 or 1920.

Also, what are the main cities located in Manchuria in around 1931? Thank you for looking into this. It really will be of great help.

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Tarawa and the Gilberts were claimed by the British at the end of the 19th century and officially became a crown colony during WW1. They returned to British control after ww2 until decolonization.

Interwar Pacific had the Dutch East Indies, the Americans in the Philippines and Guam, and the British in the Solomons, Gilberts and Ellice, Sarawak and North Borneo. The big change from WW1 was the division of German colonies among the Allies. The Australians took Papua, New Guinea, and the Bismarcks, and the Japanese got the Carolines, Northern Marianas and Marshalls. Those islands would provide a jump off point for the 100 days of victory and were a crucial part of Japan's Pacific defense network.

Spoiler :

Manchukuo from our peoples at wiki:

Spoiler :

 

[nokmirt]

Tarawa and the Gilberts were claimed by the British at the end of the 19th century and officially became a crown colony during WW1. They returned to British control after ww2 until decolonization.

Thank you this will help me a great deal.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Can anyone tell me how the population of Cilicia and area looked like circa ~1450?

Was it still Armenian or was it Kurdish/Greek/Turkish/Arabic/something else? What was the distribution of the population in the cities and in the countryside? What about in the highlands?

Sources would be nice too. I ask this because I am working on the area for a EU4 mod.

 

[Krajzen]

On the other hand I have much simpler question which is really baffling for me

You see, from what I know Australia was unknown by Europeans till Dutch expeditions in 17th century.

Also it had no contact with outside human population since Austronesian migration.

.......

But when you look at map Australia is just few hundred kilometres from heavily populated Indonesian thalassocracies (Java, Malacca)! Far seafaring civilisations - not to mention all these Polynesian oceanic explorers who could travel thousands of kilometres. Also, Europeans were in this area since early 16th century. Yet nobody knows about Australia till 17th - 18th century.

I am ignorant here - can someone explain this to me?

 

[Cutlass]

Simple. Some people in the region knew about those places. But not everyone. And those that did did not necessarily tell the European explorers. The Europeans may not have even had conversations with those that knew. Or had enough language in common to understand all of what they were being told. So that leaves it up to exploration. Where tiny ship at low speeds crossed vast distances with very low visibility ranges. In 1000s of miles of open ocean, if you miss something by 50 miles, you've missed it entirely.

 

[Kyriakos]

Iirc even when the Dutch reached Australia, they tried to keep their posts there secret so as to be without antagonism from other euro-powers.

And not even the central and northern eastern coastal parts were colonised by the end of the 19th century, for it seems just some south parts were used by Britain by that time.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I have heard that a few of the Indonesian states close to Australia may have occasionally went to the parts of Australia closest to Indonesia to trade, but there wasn't much to trade in the first place so t hey didn't engage in any meaningful, systematic communication.

 

[Tee Kay]

I have heard that a few of the Indonesian states close to Australia may have occasionally went to the parts of Australia closest to Indonesia to trade, but there wasn't much to trade in the first place so t hey didn't engage in any meaningful, systematic communication.

There was quite a bit.

Also, there were those mystery coins found in Arnham Land, from Kilwa of all places.

 

[cybrxkhan]

There was quite a bit.

Also, there were those mystery coins found in Arnham Land, from Kilwa of all places.

Thanks for the link. Have never come across anything substantial regarding Indonesian-Australian contact save a few sentences, so that's welcome.

 

[Domen]

Can anyone tell me how the population of Cilicia and area looked like circa ~1450?

Was it still Armenian or was it Kurdish/Greek/Turkish/Arabic/something else? What was the distribution of the population in the cities and in the countryside? What about in the highlands?

Sources would be nice too. I ask this because I am working on the area for a EU4 mod.

If we are talking about Cilicia within 20th century borders of Cilicia:



This map below is not terribly accurate (rather very schematic), but here is what I found (situation by the end of the 15th century):

Western inland part of Cilicia = Turks
Eastern inland part = Armenians
Coasts = mostly Greeks, partially Armenians
Small southernmost eastern chunk = Arabs

These: ---------- are boundaries between linguistic groups

These: _._._._._._ are political boundaries between states



So red line below is the boundary between Turkish-majority and Armenian-majority areas:

 

[Krajzen]

If this thing about malacca is true, then I will reject concept of 'discovering australia' in the same way we don't say about 'discovering asia' :d

 

[Phrossack]

There was quite a bit.

Also, there were those mystery coins found in Arnham Land, from Kilwa of all places.

That is so cool.

I suppose the Makassans thought that a land consisting of parched desert and nasty rainforest, all full of deadly wildlife and lacking wealth, wasn't worth it when they could have been out making money in Africa, Arabia, and China.

 

[History_Buff]

If this thing about malacca is true, then I will reject concept of 'discovering australia' in the same way we don't say about 'discovering asia' :d

Abel Tasman Columbus'd it.

 

[Masada]

If this thing about malacca is true, then I will reject concept of 'discovering australia' in the same way we don't say about 'discovering asia' :d

Makassar and Malacca are not the same places. There's like... two thousand odd kilometers distance between them. And there's considerable debate as to whether the Dutch or the Makassans "discovered" Australia first. It's more than likely that the Dutch did the honors (see below for reasons).

Abel Tasman Columbus'd it.

No, he didn't. Most people date the Makassans move into Australia to the first or second decade of the 1700s. Abel Tasman hit Australia in his 1642 trip. That gives him about a 60 to 80 year edge. The problem with dating Makassan arrival earlier is that it starts to bump up against better documented first contact with Timor and so forth. (If that's a reference to Aboriginals already being there, I apologise).

I suppose the Makassans thought that a land consisting of parched desert and nasty rainforest, all full of deadly wildlife and lacking wealth, wasn't worth it when they could have been out making money in Africa, Arabia, and China.

This is incorrect. The lands the Makssans landed in were neither desert (that doesn't start for a few hundred kilometers inland) or rainforest (although that does exist in very isolated pockets and not in a form you'd recognize as being rainforest). The climate is broadly speaking similar to what one finds in West Nusa Tenggara. Lands which did support European and Malay settlements (e.g. Timor). I'd also like to point out that Sulawesi has its own share of nasty wildlife. I've experienced it.

 

[Merkava120]

How widespread were crossbows before the Middle Ages?

 

[Phrossack]

This is incorrect. The lands the Makssans landed in were neither desert (that doesn't start for a few hundred kilometers inland) or rainforest (although that does exist in very isolated pockets and not in a form you'd recognize as being rainforest). The climate is broadly speaking similar to what one finds in West Nusa Tenggara. Lands which did support European and Malay settlements (e.g. Timor). I'd also like to point out that Sulawesi has its own share of nasty wildlife. I've experienced it.

Then why didn't the Makassans bother much with Australia? Did they not have enough overpopulation to justify settling it much?

 

[Tee Kay]

Southeast Asia wasn't historically heavily populated.

 

[cybrxkhan]

How widespread were crossbows before the Middle Ages?

They were common in China since antiquity (and possibly parts of Southeast Asia as well such as Vietnam).

In Europe I believe some variants of it were developed by various groups such as the ancient Greeks, but I don't think they were widespread.

 

[Phrossack]

How widespread were crossbows before the Middle Ages?

There are some depictions of what could be primitive crossbows in use as hunting weapons by the Picts. The Greeks occasionally used the gastraphetes, and the Romans seem to have had some kind of "hand ballista," but there's very little information on it, so it probably wasn't common. Various peoples such as some Pygmies and southeast Asian hill peoples have used basic crossbows for hunting for centuries or more, and some still do.

Most importantly, of course, the Chinese used a wide range of military crossbows in vast numbers from at least the 6th century BC up to around the Ming Dynasty, when bows and firearms took over. The Han Dynasty in particular was noted for using crossbows en masse. They varied from short composite bows on a stock with a trigger mechanism, to the lever-action repeating crossbow (zhuge nu), to heavy arbalests, all the way up to large frame-mounted triple siege crossbows that used three bows connected to each other in a way I don't understand to massively increase the draw length and power.