History questions not worth their own thread II

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Though didn't he actually do most of this while Secretary of State and an Ambassador?

Not to my knowledge. The treaties culminated during his presidency.
 
Icelandic is the closest modern language to the lingua franca of the Norse world at the time. That would be best.
 
So which culture exactly invented the first "Sword"?

I'd heard that peoples in the Caucus first made it for ceremonial reasons, but then the Khopesh which is mostly a proto-axe sure does resemble a sword.

Opinions?
 
I'm sure the oldest swords were found around Arslantepe in Turkey,and are around 3000 years old.

Though the Shang dynasty in China also produced many swords during the bronze age.
 
I got another historical question.

People have always known about natural phenomenon from prehistory til now. I know they used to think it was either gods wrath or the gods doing something but how long in Europe did it take for the belief that things like earthquakes or any other natural phenomenon was not related to god?

I would at first guess the enlightenment but i doubt that's true for most people because the enlightenment in Europe only really influenced the upper aristocratic class who could afford to receive an education. How long did this belief persist in human society? I bet it still persists some places in the world, but when did this belief generally die out in the west?
 
If you could answer two questions i would love it.

How come Europe became increasingly socialist after the world wars but the United States was relatively unaffected? Was it Soviet influence or is it just because Americans were not affected by the devastation of world war II if that has anything to do with it?

Also what is the historical reason for why heavy religious beliefs are much less prevalent in Europe than the United States? Just the fact the United States was separated from Europe so we were not influenced by you guys maybe?
 
I'd think at least Aristotle's Physics, though you might try to claim that he was still saying all things happened because of a deity.

Not sure exactly on the Religions, but consider that the Puritans were kicked out of England for being too intolerant. Also consider there have been a couple of religious revivals in the history of the USA. And also the America's generally received peoples on the losing end of religious persecution in Europe.
 
I'd think at least Aristotle's Physics, though you might try to claim that he was still saying all things happened because of a deity.

Not sure exactly on the Religions, but consider that the Puritans were kicked out of England for being too intolerant. Also consider there have been a couple of religious revivals in the history of the USA. And also the America's generally received peoples on the losing end of religious persecution in Europe.

So would you say the early 20th/ late 19th century the average population in the west was educated enough to know natural phenomena had a scientific reason behind it?

I'm looking for a general time when most people in western society were educated enough to understand this.
 
If you could answer two questions i would love it.

How come Europe became increasingly socialist after the world wars but the United States was relatively unaffected? Was it Soviet influence or is it just because Americans were not affected by the devastation of world war II if that has anything to do with it?

Also what is the historical reason for why heavy religious beliefs are much less prevalent in Europe than the United States? Just the fact the United States was separated from Europe so we were not influenced by you guys maybe?

First off WW2 was good for the US and very very bad for Europe.

To take the example of the NHS. Since during the war rationing had become so widespread and such a large proportion of the population had been party to - to use a somewhat lazy analogy - something comparable to the military covanent, it was unsurprising that post war people were opposed to a level of injustice that appeared a breach of that covenant.

So in the US there was wealth and full employment. People came more to the opinion that the poor must be poor because they were lazy.

In the UK the people were poor and had given their all for years to maintain the state. Such medicine as there was had been (theoretically) delivered on the basis of need to the soldiers, firemen, arms workers etc during the war, and post war conditions didnt really get a whole lot better. There was still rationing and a whole lot of really messed up people. People still needed and expected the state to hold it's side of the bargin.
 
So would you say the early 20th/ late 19th century the average population in the west was educated enough to know natural phenomena had a scientific reason behind it?

I'm looking for a general time when most people in western society were educated enough to understand this.

That would depend on (the existence of) a compulsory schooling system - and religion (seeing as there are still religious movements which deny scientific fact). I think it would require (and deserves) a study to come up with a straight answer. That said, late 19th-early 20th century seems like a good guess.

If you could answer two questions i would love it.

How come Europe became increasingly socialist after the world wars but the United States was relatively unaffected? Was it Soviet influence or is it just because Americans were not affected by the devastation of world war II if that has anything to do with it?

Also what is the historical reason for why heavy religious beliefs are much less prevalent in Europe than the United States? Just the fact the United States was separated from Europe so we were not influenced by you guys maybe?

´Soviet influence´ was non-existent after WW I; Russia was in a civil war until 1923... Not to mention that most countries had socialist movements of their own - including the US.

As for the second question, given the institutions governing and the peculiarities of US administration, the US don´t seem to take separation of church and state as serious as European constitutions and practice - with the exception of Italy and possibly Greece. (For instance, a slogan like "God bless [your nation]" would be preposterous in Europe - not to mention archaic. And schools teaching a curriculum diverting from the prescribed one - say as concerns evolution - would be denied subsidy.)

So in the US there was wealth and full employment. People came more to the opinion that the poor must be poor because they were lazy.

A good thing those people were set straight when the Depression hit.
 
Also what is the historical reason for why heavy religious beliefs are much less prevalent in Europe than the United States? Just the fact the United States was separated from Europe so we were not influenced by you guys maybe?

The short answer to that is that no-one really knows, and indeed no-one is even sure how religious Europe is right now - some people think that Europe is now thoroughly "post-Christian" and basically secular, while others think that it's still strongly Christian. It certainly varies from country to country. Even those who agree that there has been a big change cannot agree on what caused it or when it happened. It seems that the 1960s were a key period, but whether something new happened then that caused Europe to become less religious, or whether it was simply the coming to fruition of a process that had already been simmering away for decades, is still unknown.

Don't forget that Canada is much the same as Europe as far as religion goes, and not like the US. So simply being on the other side of the Atlantic can't be the explanation.

An obvious explanation, at least a partial one, is the influence of puritanism on the United States. This is a county that still "gives thanks" every year for the survival of a group of religious maniacs, whom it regards as the "puritan fathers". Although the puritans were small in number they managed to influence the country very much. An example: traditionally, black cats are considered lucky in Britain but unlucky in the US. This is because they are traditionally associated with the devil. The pragmatic British thought that the devil would be quite a handy person to have on your side, so a black cat is a good sign. The puritanical Americans thought the devil should be avoided under all circumstances, so a black cat is a bad sign.

Another possible explanation is that the US is more rural, as a whole, than much of Europe, and rural areas cling on to old beliefs far more strongly than urban ones. Indeed it seems that the more rural parts of the US are more religious than the more urban ones. But again this is somewhat speculative, especially since it's hard to agree on what actually counts as "urban" in the first place.
 
Another possible explanation is that the US is more rural, as a whole, than much of Europe, and rural areas cling on to old beliefs far more strongly than urban ones. Indeed it seems that the more rural parts of the US are more religious than the more urban ones. But again this is somewhat speculative, especially since it's hard to agree on what actually counts as "urban" in the first place.
Whih, once again, runs into the Canada counter-example. Though here rural areas tend to be more religious, it is nothing near the US.

This is a county that still "gives thanks" every year for the survival of a group of religious maniacs, whom it regards as the "puritan fathers".
Not arguing against a puritan influence, but I never really saw a religious overtone about US Thanksgiving, beyond "they were a persecuted religious group". So I don't really see that as evidence of anything.
 
Whih, once again, runs into the Canada counter-example. Though here rural areas tend to be more religious, it is nothing near the US.

Yes, I thought that as I was typing. But I wonder if the US has more inhabited rural areas than Canada? A lot of people in the US live in what one might call semi-rural places. Whereas I imagine Canada to be a few cities divided by totally uninhabited howling wilderness. (I realise this model may require some fine-tuning.)

Not arguing against a puritan influence, but I never really saw a religious overtone about US Thanksgiving, beyond "they were a persecuted religious group". So I don't really see that as evidence of anything.

Well, even calling them "a persecuted religious group" rather loads the dice in one's view of them. One might equally well say that these were people who were so religiously weird that they were too much even by the standards of early seventeenth-century England. But apart from that, it may be true that Thanksgiving isn't a religious festival these days, but still its survival as an important American festival is testament not simply to the influence of the puritans upon American society but also (and perhaps more significantly) to the perceived importance of those puritans. If people hadn't thought the first American puritans particularly significant, they wouldn't have continued to mark a festival celebrating them. That indicates that Americans considered themselves the spiritual descendants of those puritans for a long time.

Of course, that then raises the question why Americans continued to think of the puritans in that way. Which again is not easy to answer.
 
I wouldn't say Thanksgiving in the US is an overly religious day. For some, yes. And it certainly has religion in its background. But for a great many people it isn't really religious any longer. Though it certainly is for many others. There are only 3 days a year in the US when virtually every business is closed. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. That's certainly a religious heritage.

I don't know about the causes of the US being more religious than other western countries. But it may not be all rural versus urban. One thing the US has that is not common in other nations is massive suburbanization. I don't know how that would play into it either. There are certainly churches everywhere in suburbia.
 
Well, even calling them "a persecuted religious group" rather loads the dice in one's view of them. One might equally well say that these were people who were so religiously weird that they were too much even by the standards of early seventeenth-century England. But apart from that, it may be true that Thanksgiving isn't a religious festival these days, but still its survival as an important American festival is testament not simply to the influence of the puritans upon American society but also (and perhaps more significantly) to the perceived importance of those puritans. If people hadn't thought the first American puritans particularly significant, they wouldn't have continued to mark a festival celebrating them. That indicates that Americans considered themselves the spiritual descendants of those puritans for a long time.
From an outside perspective, I always see it as more about the "persecuted" part than the "religious" one. Following the idea that the US was built on people forced to flee Europe.

Yes, I thought that as I was typing. But I wonder if the US has more inhabited rural areas than Canada? A lot of people in the US live in what one might call semi-rural places. Whereas I imagine Canada to be a few cities divided by totally uninhabited howling wilderness. (I realise this model may require some fine-tuning.)
Not really. Yes there are parts like that, but most of Southern Canada, where the vast majority of people live, is very similar to the US (or rather to the corresponding parts of the US). And while people in Alberta (excepting Quebec, which presents a completely different issue, is the most socially conservative and religious part of the country, by far) are probably more religious than those in New York, they appear pale in comparison to the American Plains States.
And except for the very early arrivals to the US, most Canadian migration has been quite similar to the US, but on a smaller scale.

Quebec is a unique case do to the long history of the church providing a large proportion of public services (schools, health care, etc), the idea that focusing on their religion will defend their culture, and teh volutary withdrawal of the Church from politics. Not to mention the huge French influence, unlike anywhere else in North America.

One other factor I would consider would be going over the top in countering the "godless commies". While the use of things such as "In God we trust" predates teh Cold War, they really got a boost during (adding to paper money, official motto "under god", etc.

And as important as these things would be the rise of the moder evangelical Christian right.
 
Didn't Eisenhower add 'under God' to the Pledge of Alliegance to separate American from the Evil Commie Athiests?
 
Ok another question!

Why didn't the colonists who colonized North America mix with the indigenous population except for the Spanish? If you look at the demographics for every American country today besides United States and Canada they have a large mestizo or mixed population.

Basically what I'm trying to ask is why did the British and french during colonial times never intermarry with the indigenous population like the Spanish did?
 
I think it has to do with the different demographics and reasons for coming over. With the Spanish, it was more 'come to the New World for Gold, God, and Glory' while with the Brits, it shifted into a 'stay and settle down' sort of mentality. For that, families were needed.

I could be completly wrong, but that is what I remember from my APUSH teacher.
 
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