The Time Machine - 2018-01-23

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2:47 AM

1

Q: Did Stalin have full control of the government in 1936?

I know that Stalin was only one of several successors to Lenin (and not a favored one at that) when Lenin died. However, Stalin was able to quickly forge alliances within the Party to oust his most powerful rivals (Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev) and establish control of the USSR. Even Bukharin -...

soviet-union stalin 1930s

3 hours later…

6:15 AM

0

Q: Analyzing omissions

Historical texts record only a fraction of what actually happens, and in all but the most comprehensive, critical readers may recognize incomplete explanations. Depending on what they know about the author and their interests, omissions could appear to be systematic, negligent, malicious, inadver...

historiography writing historical-criticism texts

0

Q: How seriously did Britain look at taking California?

The Spanish colonized California in part to forestall the expansion of other empires. The territory was in danger of invasion throughout the Spanish and Mexican eras, and was seized in 1846 by the United States. Before that, Britain was one of several contenders, controlling Nootka and with a co...

british-empire colonial-america california

2 hours later…

8:30 AM

0

Q: What was the wage of the soldiers serving in the CEF compared to the soldiers serving in the British army?

I believe that the title explains the question quite well however I will elaborate. We know that soldiers, even conscripted ones were indeed paid during their service in the two different armies. However, is there any difference to how they were paid? Was one paid better than the other? I have...

world-war-one britain canada

9:02 AM

0

Q: What did small values of "Percentages agreement" actually mean?

I am currently living in Romania and I have heard on several occasions about the Percentages agreement. The article mentions that it was a secret agreement, so most of the information about it was contradictory ranging from "it did not happen" to "it happened and it is a sign that West left us ...

world-war-two soviet-union united-kingdom romania

2 hours later…

10:40 AM

0

Q: What kind of AA defenses did the US East Coast have around the time of Paukenschlag?

Operation Paukenschlag (drumbeat/thunderclap), which Wikipedia likes to call the Second Happy Time, occurred from 1942 January to August. During this time, German U-Boats sank a huge amount of ships on the US East Coast. During this time, what was the state of US AA defenses on the East Coast? F...

united-states world-war-two military aircraft

10:55 AM

0

Q: Has a hostile submarine transitted the Bosphorus submerged?

In WW1, the British submarine E-11 entered the Golden Horn, but apparently not the Bosphorus, and in this old thread on Usenet there are references to WW1 and fiction. According to a recent article in World Neurosurgery, the American submarine Robert E. Lee passed through the Bosphorus submerged...

cold-war turkey submarine nato

4 hours later…

3:06 PM

I stumbled over this page on Oklahoma Barbecue today, and to my surprise most of it is actually about history.

There's a lot more to it historically than I assumed there would be. I'm wondering if anyone knows of any good books on the history of Barbecue.

3:49 PM

0

Q: why didn't japan take pearl harbor when they had the chance?

japan had successfully wiped out Americas defenses on pearl harbor, and they new they were going to before they set out, so why didn't they take some paratroopers with them to size the harbor from the US, this would have had even more of an impact than just blowing stuff up.

4:46 PM

@Semaphore I was tempted to react with "not a great question" but instead tried to make a clear and simple answer. Do you think the answer is clear? The pacific war was an area of study for me at staff college, so sometimes I need feedback if I made it too complicated.

I'd say that first boldface sentence needs to be rewritten. As it is, I don't understand at all what its trying to say (perhaps a word was left out?).

If you are saying it would have been impossible to do, even if planned for, that was my first get. But upon researching it a bit, it appears the US garrison there was roughly the same size as the one on the Philippines. If the Japanese could land enough troops to take the latter, the former seems at least within the realm of possibility.

5:05 PM

@T.E.D. I'm assuming you've already heard of Barbecue: The History of an American Institution and Barbecue: A Global History?

@sempaiscuba Er, no. Either of them any good? The Second one's name is amusingly reminiscent of Hogwarts: A History

I enjoyed the anecdotes from the original sources in the first.

I was a little disappointed that the 2nd one didn't have more about the braai tradition in S. Africa, but it was otherwise OK.

In keeping to my recent theme of English hurdles, I once went on a business trip to one of our sites in Toronto, and was told to make sure to take a break around 4, because they were having barbecue. I was quite disappointed to discover that in Canada, that meant they were grilling hamburgers and hot dogs.

You'd probably also be disappointed by an Australian barbecue then. ;-)

That was my main gripe about the second book though. Despite its title, it focuses on the American use of the word rather than comparing what one might call 'barbecue cultures'.

5:20 PM

Yes, if they trick me by not saying "Barbie" like in the Outback Steakhouse commercials, there would be problems.

I reckon that if you can have a "doughnut historian" there ought to be an opening for a "barbecue historian"!

The problem is a whole lot about barbecue is hotly disputed here in the US. Anyone with that on their card had better be able to handle themselves in an argument and probably in a fight.

My personal favorite argument was Jo Bob Briggs' that you should never patronize any barbecue establishment that spelled it any way other than "BBQ".

Very few places do that, so its not very practical advice. But its a great example of the kind of discussions we have.

@KorvinStarmast Ah, sorry, I was writing my own answer and didn't notice. I think you were pretty clear.

Did the italians accomplish anything in WWII? It kind of seems that they just lost a lot.

Did the Italians accomplish anything in any world war other than switch sides?

5:36 PM

In WWI they held fairly well against Austria-Hungary, I thought?

But I suppose popular WWI historiography is mostly "race to the sea, trenches, tanks, wot wot, Hitler"

>The Italian army repeatedly attacked, making little progress and suffering heavy losses in the hundreds of thousands of dead, and then forced to retreat in 1917 by a German-Austrian counteroffensive

ok never mind

Hehe

They even lost to Albania in 1920

On 23 January 1849, UK-born Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to receive a medical degree.

6:11 PM

0

Q: Identify the caricatured countries in an illustration about the XYZ affair

I've been reading about the XYZ affair and I've found this cartoon, in which a woman representing America is stripped by a group of Frenchmen in the presence of John Bull and other anthropomorphic countries. I can assume some of the countries represented. For example, in the late eighteenth ce...

united-states france 18th-century piracy

6:35 PM

@T.E.D. They did not have the ability to make an airborne assault on Pearl. The question is moot, in a lot of ways. Do I need to make that more clear? I thought I spelled that out OK in the "logistics" part

@SPavel Suggest you look up the exploits of De La Penne, frogman, in Alexandria harbor. Italians in WW II: good troops badly led. (That last observation was made by both British and German generals in North Africa. )

Luigie Durand de la Penne

Yes, but airborne assaults weren't really their MO. They invaded the Philippines primarily with landing craft dispatched from troop transports, I believe. Lugging all that across the Pacific to Hawaii would have been tougher, but seemingly not an insurmountable task.

...if they'd wanted to. Which they didn't.

7:01 PM

0

Q: Foreigners fighting during the American civil war

Apart from Philippe d'Orléans and his brother, as well as Patrick Cleburne, were there many foreigners fighting during the American civil war ? Any other famous cases ?

united-states american-civil-war

They didn't have enough airborne units anyway.

@T.E.D. they had a unit, but the opportunities to use them and the need rarely overlapped. The Japanese navy had airborne units that never did a combat drop. There were some ops late in the war for airborne troops, this being one

...again, because that wasn't how they rolled.

@T.E.D. I do not disagree with you, but within the scope of the question the capability existed, in terms of troops, but did not in terms of getting them to Pearl, not to mention that it was a crap idea in the first place for the reasons I cite.

It does seem like it could be taken one of two ways: 1) Since they were doing a major operation anyway, why not bring along what they needed to invade and take the islands? or 2) Since it went so well, why not invade and take the islands with what they brought for the naval raid?

7:09 PM

Hawaii is only valuable in Vic 2

@T.E.D. Because Hawaii Was Not The Main Effort. It was a supporting effort intended to keep the AMerican fleet away from the Main Effort, which effort succeeded.

2) You could answer fairly easily by inventorying what they brought, and why that wouldn't do the job. 1) You'd need to answer by going into what their objective was in planning the attack, and why it was limited to that.

The Japanese did not have infinite resources. Philippines was the main effort. End Of. The strike force was not an invasion force like the Midway campaign 6 months later.

Honestly, the answer to most "why didn't they capture X" questions is "it's logistics, stupid"

In military terms, @T.E.D. it is called "economy of force, mass at the point of decision."

7:13 PM

Sometimes it's also "it's not related to the plan, stupid" which is a similar idea

Oh, not saying you're wrong. But I'm not sure which way you're taking the question. It looks like 2, with a dash of 1? Its confusing.

These are the same people that troll comment boards for games and apps, "why don't you add such and such a feature." Feature development isn't free, and is typically along a roadmap that has some objective. Same with warfare.

You can't just send dudes in the vague direction of the enemy and mark "success" when they paint another patch of map in your color

The answer to most "why didn't" questions is "you're missing obvious basic fact A, B, or C from your armchair".

@Semaphore Right, it's just that obvious basic fact A is always logistics

in the case of wars yes, I was generalising ;)

7:15 PM

In all cases

@SPavel Well, with History sadly you can't use Linus' famous "Show me the code"

For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost

@SPavel Now now that's too absolutist. Where's the logistics angle in Why didn't Nixon erase the smoking gun?

@Semaphore If South Vietnam had better logistics, the Vietnam War would have been over before Nixon rode its coattails into power, and there would have been no smoking gun

QED

lol

7:28 PM

With that particular example, the answers seem to be variations on the theme of "idk lol"

7:55 PM

@sempaiscuba I read a bit of the first paragraph of the second book. Kinda tripped up on the mention of "Mongolian Barbecue". That's a thing, and lots of people like it, but its barbecue in roughly the same way "Chicago-style pizza" is pizza. And I was unaware anyone thinks tandoor (which is great too, btw) qualifies. Not a good sign right out of the gate there.

8:16 PM

0

Q: Why does the King of Spain still claim defunct titles, e.g. King of Hungary?

I am reading the wikipedia articles on the titles of the King of Spain (this and this) and I am confused why it lists countless places that are not under Spanish rule and or is totally defunct as a monarchy (e.g. the King of Hungary really caught my eye, how did the Spanish Crown come to came cla...

8:44 PM

@TheHistorian this seems highly dubious.

@T.E.D. In fairness (and IIRC) they only refer to Mongolian Barbecue as an example of the use of the word 'barbecue', and different 'barbecue techniques' in different places.

I'd say that Chicago pizza is more pizza than Mongolian BBQ is barbecue

And I say that as a New Yorker

Also, if you were to ask around in London about the difference between Pizza and Chicago-style pizza, I suspect that you'd not find many who could tell you the answer!

@SPavel - Agreed. If it was a bad comparison, it was in that not only is it "no more" BBQ than Chicago-style pizza is pizza, but in fact quite a bit less. :-)

And I'd avoid asking many of them about barbecue as well, if I were you. A lot of folk would genuinely think this is what you were asking about!

8:50 PM

@sempaiscuba Aren't those called kebabs

Oh, that's just the tray?

For 15 pounds? Damn, Brexit did a number on your prices

Yes. Those a shish kebabs.

It's just the tray. You pay extra if you want to cook food on it. ;-)

Get a rope.

From what I know of British food, y'all might just eat the tray

The other book, fwiw got off to a much better start. I may have to pick up a copy somewhere.

8:56 PM

It's Burn's Night on Thursday. In this house, we'll be eating traditional British food!

user image

@sempaiscuba Digestive biscuits?

Haggis neeps and tatties!

I have a Scott on my indoor soccer team who swears by haggis. I have yet to feel tempted.

Although, personally I'm not averse to a chocolate digestive. ;-)

@sempaiscuba Ah haggis, the mighty fuhrer of the sausage people

@T.E.D. By playing football indoors, you are already a heathen, might as well go all in

9:03 PM

I did enjoy that episode. :)

Mind you, I think Sandi is doing a pretty great job as Steven's replacement in the new series. :)

Eh, I dropped off QI even towards the end of Steven's tenure

Are they still doing "Would I Lie to You"? David Mitchell is the best, though not as a host.

@SPavel More of a rugby union man myself.

9:18 PM

@SPavel Heh. I've also played on the beach (sand) on asphalt, and (worst sin possible) on hardwood with a nerf ball.

Iceland btw, managed to make it to the World Cup with a population smaller than my hometown of Tulsa in part by building themselves lots of indoor stadiums. So if anything, the US could do with more of those. :-)

2 hours later…

11:13 PM

@T.E.D. I tried to make it a little clearer with the edit, thanks for your thoughts. It's been over 20 years since staff college ... I wanted to cover a number of points but was afraid of a "too long" answer.

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Jan '1823

The Time Machine

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