History questions not worth their own thread II

[ParkCungHee]

What has been the largest majority by one party in US Congress history?

The Republicans in 1866, who had 77% of the House, and 57 out of 70 filled seats in the senate.

 

[Karalysia]

Yeah cause all the Democrats had up and left. Not sure if that really counts.

 

[ParkCungHee]

If not it's the Democrats in 1936.

 

[Traitorfish]

Fenianism really got it's start in the American Civil War. On both sides of the Atlantic it encouraged Irishmen to take part in the American Civil War...they really weren't particular on which side. The idea was to simply learn military skills.

Ah, very interesting.

 

[Karalysia]

Is the account of the minnows of Tiberius by Tacticus, (or is it Sueontis? Maybe Livy? Plutarch? One of them) true?

 

[Dachs]

I think it was Suetonius who had it; it's the sort of story that he would have included. As for 'whether it's true' or not, that's kind of up in the air. Suetonius has a lot of scurrilous gossip, but he also has a lot of useful stuff from archival data (so he says), and it's hard to say which one of these it is. There's nothing that directly contradicts it in other sources or that would indicate that it's untrue in other ways, as far as I know.

 

[Louis XXIV]

If it's what I think it is, I doubt that it's true. While it certainly can be, Seutonius had quite an agenda.

 

[Dachs]

He had an agenda, but not really one with Tiberius I, as far as I know. He was mostly concerned with smearing some of the later Emperors. With the earlier ones, he did what Herodotos did and threw in everything, regardless as to whether it was any good.

 

[Atticus]

I got the impression that Suetonius' agenda was pretty much the same as yellow press': Gossip as much as possible.

 

[ParkCungHee]

According to one of the sources I'm using for an upcoming article, the 11th Armored Division was engaged in combat during the relief of Bastogne with something they call the "Reiner Brigade" after it's commander, a former body-guard for Hitler, who was placed in charge of it. There is no reference to whether it is an SS or Heer unit, and I can find no record of it under that name, does anyone know anything about this?

 

[privatehudson]

There's a cemetery in Anfield, Liverpool with a mass grave of people who were killed during the May Blitz on the city. Nearby is also three individual graves to Belgian merchant seaman killed in a raid on the 5th May 1941. I was wondering if anyone could translate what it says on the gravestones for me (I have a rough idea but I'm hoping to include some info on them in a book and don't want to make any mistakes).

I would be especially interested in what ranks they held since "Officier de Marine" might not necessarily mean he was an officer of Marines.

 

[say1988]

"Marine" almost certainly means navy, just like the Marine Nationale of France (or "merchant marine" in English).
It may be used by Belgians for the Merchant Marine as well, or possibly he was a naval officer serving with them for some reason (perhaps in charge of some weaponry, I believe the Royal Navy often had their people manning the weapons on armed merchanment).

 

[privatehudson]

That was my first thought, but I was wondering if it referred to a specific rank such as Lieutenant or if it was just a generic term for a naval officer (similarly Matroos seems to roughly translate to Seaman but whether that was a rank or generic term I don't know).

These three were killed whilst staying in a guest house for Belgian Seamen near the city centre. The authorities closed the incident on the 5th but when they came to clear the site on the 11th they found another 17 bodies over the next 5 days. Where the remainder were buried I don't know, although 554 bodies were buried in the mass grave nearby.

 

[SG-17]

If James K. Polk decided to annex all of Mexico following the war do you think that he would have instituted a plan of extermination of the "Indian-Mexicans" but still give "Spanish-Mexicans" full citizenship throughout the new Mexican territory?

 

[madviking]

Polk never intended to annex Mexico; he just wanted San Fran bay to be a launching point for American commerce in Asia. And hypotheticals suck.

 

[SG-17]

Polk never intended to annex Mexico; he just wanted San Fran bay to be a launching point for American commerce in Asia. And hypotheticals suck.

I know that, but members of Congress wanted to annex the entire region.
My main question really is "Was Polk the kind of person that would authorize or allow the extermination of native, non-"Spanish" Mexicans?"

 

[Tee Kay]

I know that, but members of Congress wanted to annex the entire region.
My main question really is "Was Polk the kind of person that would authorize or allow the extermination of native, non-"Spanish" Mexicans?"

Including Mestizos? Wouldn't that demand the death of some >75% of Mexico's population?

 

[SG-17]

Including Mestizos? Wouldn't that demand the death of some >75% of Mexico's population?

Yes. Basically anyone who was half or more native and wasn't an influential aristocrat/rich SOB.
The only ones offered US citizenship in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo were those of majority Spanish (or other European) descent, they couldn't really tell the difference and weren't going to waste money on sorting so most of the Mexicans inhabitants of the Cession got citizenship.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Plan of extermination is a bit hyperbolic, since the United States never had a plan of extermination. They might have had policies that had that consequence, but that's at least a noteworthy distinction.

Indian groups had an identifiable tribal structure. They were dealt with by treaty through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. For Mexicans of various ethnic origins, it would be impossible to differentiate unless they had tribal structures. It's possible they'd either create a Bureau of Mexican affairs or grant them all citizenship rights. There isn't any tenable compromise between the two. I think they'd probably pass discriminatory laws that made it easier for slave holders to enter the area, which would quite possibly overwhelm the original population, but that's a bit different. Of course, the whole thing would be impractical, which is why it was voted down in the first place.

 

[Karalysia]

If we were to annex something large, it would/should have been Canada. And Cuba. We should have annexed Cuba. And Haiti.