History questions not worth their own thread II

[say1988]

1) As far as I am aware they were pretty much focussed on Newfoundland with some possibly going as far south as Maine. But as far as I am aware, it is all just guesswork, with the only hard evidence being in Newfoundland and other Norse artifacts are as likely to have been moved south by natives as by the Norse.

2) I believe that it there is support for the idea that various fishermen (Basque, Portuguese, and/or Bristol come to mind) fished the Grand Banks. A problem with this is that the fishermen would have wanted to keep rich fishing grounds secret from competition.

 

[Mad Man]

Some people believe that China may have found it's way to the Americas, but I can't remember the details but I do remember thinking it was bs though.

 

[say1988]

As far as I am aware the Gavin Menzies stuff is widely considered BS.

There are a lot of groups that some historians claim did (Egyptians, Pheonicians, Polynesians, etc as well as groups going from the Americas), but as far as I am aware the only ones given any widespread consideration are Western Europeans fishing off the Grand Banks and Polynesians.

 

[Louis XXIV]

So I was watching the History Channel (I know, I know. Feel free to infract me.) and they had a special about Pre-Columbian exploration of the Americas. It brought up two questions:
1) What is the likely extent of Norse exploration of the Americas?

A little bit on Newfoundland. The problem is that they were resupplied from a barely sustainable colony (Greenland), so it was possibly only Winter settlements. Certainly, not a thriving colony (think about how much European colonists struggled later and they could at least get resupplied directly from the mainland).

2) Aside from the Norse and those who first crossed the Bering strait, are there any cultures whom legitimate historians believe may have reached the Americas?

Not really. There are loads of theories about the origins of Native Americans (that include Polynesian and earlier European migrations) and there's always fishermen who probably were fishing there around the time of Columbus (also, the Chinese guy who might have done it, but probably didn't). The latter didn't make a big impact, of course.

 

[LightSpectra]

Anybody know of any good articles on Prussia's or Friedrich II's position in the American Revolution?

 

[aronnax]

Why is it that during the Belgian revolution, the Flander population of Belgium go along with it?

 

[Lord Baal]

Talking about river warfare, the first Japanese invasion of Korea was thwarted in a naval battle on a river. It involved turtle ships, which are awesome.

 

[Kahotep]

Does anyone know what kind of headwear the ancient Hebrews/Israelites wore? I tend to picture them wearing turbans or keffiyehs.

 

[sydhe]

Why is it that during the Belgian revolution, the Flander population of Belgium go along with it?

Do you mean the 1830 revolution? Religion was a good part of it. The Flemish and Walloons were Catholics and King William was Protestant and pretty heavy-handed.

 

[Lord Baal]

What is the basis for the long-running power struggle between the Karadjorgevic family and the Obrenovic family in Serbia? Were the two related? What claims did either have to the throne?

 

[aronnax]

Do you mean the 1830 revolution? Religion was a good part of it. The Flemish and Walloons were Catholics and King William was Protestant and pretty heavy-handed.

Ohhh... I always thought that the Flemish were Protestant...
Silly me.
Thanks.

 

[madviking]

Were any states in history Trotskyist?

 

[Lord Baal]

Were any states in history Trotskyist?

There were at least a handful of communes that made the attempt, including one in Eastern NSW at one point. I don't think any of them could be considered states though.

 

[civ_king]

Ohhh... I always thought that the Flemish were Protestant...
Silly me.
Thanks.

The Flemish are much more Catholic than the Wallonians

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Were any states in history Trotskyist?

All non-Maoist socialist ones.

 

[Karalysia]

If socialism had been achieved in Germany, and some sort of revolutionary socialist party (like Spartacists/KPD maybe) had been in power following World War I, what would their goals be, how would their socialist experiment have differed from that of the USSR's, who would have been their major leaders, and what would the reaction of the European powers be, and how successful would they have been in bringing about socialism in Germany?

 

[ParkCungHee]

I came across this passage and I had to read it a few times to make sure I read it right:

It should be remembered that the Japanese were trading with the Spanish in the Phillipines and Mexico at this time, and it can be assumed that they sometimes heard of Spanish plans for conquest of all the islands along the wester Pacific rim.

Emphasis mine, bearing in mind that "at this time" was the 16th century. Was there really transpacific trade at this time?

 

[Dachs]

Was there really transpacific trade at this time?

Yes. The first galleons from Acapulco started going to Manila in 1571 after Miguel Lopez de Legaspi captured the territory around Manila Bay. Twenty years earlier the Portuguese had started making bank with the trade for silk out of Macao, and the Spanish were able to get in on that as well by trading American silver (which the Chinese couldn't get enough of) for Eastern silk, porcelain, and some of the regional spices. Chinese merchants would take the stuff to Manila itself (accompanied for other reasons by a small flow of immigration to the Philippines), whereupon the Spanish would exchange it for their metals.

 

[ParkCungHee]

But this seems to suggest the existence of direct trade between Mexico and Japan.

 

[Dachs]

There might've been some Spanish trade, but IIRC the main traders with the Japanese in the 16th century were the Portuguese, not the Spanish.