Are there any interviews of US vets that served in WWII and Korea?

I would like to know their thoughts on returning to the Pacific side of the world after enduring the island warfare.

It would also be interesting to hear their comparisons of the two wars.

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The answer to your question is a complex and interesting one. In July 1969 a music teacher named Gary Hinman was murdered in LA. He was killed by a member of the Manson family named Bobby Beausoleil. Susan Atkins participated in the killing. On the wall of Hinman’s house, Beausoleil made a paw print using Gary’s blood and wrote the words “Political Piggy.” Bobby was quickly captured driving Hinman’s car and his prints matched the paw print at Gary’s residence. Investigators knew that Bobby was a member of the family. Then the Tate-Labianca homicides occurred. At the Tate residence, the phrase “Pig” appeared while at the Labianca home “Death to Pigs” was the term used. Like at Hinman’s place, blood was used to write them. The Hinman Investigators saw the link immediately… I mean who wouldn’t? Massive overkill of the victims phrases alluding to pigs written in blood at all three crime scenes… consequently, the Hinman investigators never believed the evidence pointed to the Black Panthers. Oddly the Tate investigators couldn’t see the link they were too busy pursuing the possibility of a drug deal gone bad because Jay Sebring, Voytek Frykowski and Abigail Folger were involved in drugs. Meanwhile, the lack of drugs at the Labianca house made the murders there appear unlinked to the Tate homicides…the cops thought the crime was a copycat or perhaps a mafia hit. So the answer to the question is no the police never believed the Black Panthers had anything to do with the homicides. The answer to the second question is also no the police did not immediately pursue the family… instead they chose to ignore the Hinman investigators’ lead that would have cracked the case. The Family was not linked to the crimes until Susan Atkins made a jail house confession in December 1969. Interestingly, these events have led many people to theorize that the Helter Skelter motive for the crimes is just BS. The motive was to secure Beausoleil’s release from prison by committing a series of copycat murders that would make him look innocent. Actually, I think that motive is quite plausible since the Tate-Labianca murders occurred after Bobby’s arrest.

Which is odd. Hemp is more productive and less demanding to grow than cotton.

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That too. Absolutely. I still want to go to South Georgia someday and see the museum and his grave there.

One thing to keep in mind, Rome/Byzantium wasn't as big on dynasties and royal blood as feudal Europe were. Of course there were dynasties and it was important, but there wasn't this ideas that you could only rule if you had imperial blood. If you became an emperor without any imperial ancestry, that wasn't a problem.

Keep in mind that Byzantines called themselves Romans... but no one else did. Feudal Europe didn't see them as the heirs to the Roman emperors, to them that was the pope and the Holy Roman Emperors. They just saw them as "the Greeks", who were also heretics. So no Europe didn't look for Imperial Roman blood after the fall of the Empire. There were some marriages with the imperial dynasties but they weren't seen really as anything special.

I have never heard of wargames by Generals of that magnitude in Russia or Germany battle out on a table top scenario. I think you misinterpreted what war games were in that period. What Zuhkov and Meretskov did do was a massive military practice exercise with thousands of troops and vehicles to practice maneuvers and tactics. This is normal procedure, and in that particular war game Zuhkov won.

Cotton. During the Depression southern farmers lobbied Congress to ban production of hemp to protect the cotton market from hemp competition.

Well I wish you luck with your tree. San Juan is the only place I’ve had the tostones de pana. I’d never heard of them before even coming from a Puerto Rican family growing up in Miami. They’re out of this world

Don't underestimate the efforts of Muslim traders. This is how Islam spread to most places. If you look at a map of the Muslim world, it is far wider than any of the military conquests. In fact India, where Islam had it's most successful militarism, is not considered part of the Muslim world. Regardless, the most populous Muslim nation was converted through trade and culture. So was most of West Africa. The Muslim traders even worked on the nations that became the caliphate. Trade conquered the Turks as well.

Do you have any thoughts to share about the ancient Roman guitar riff, which had sounded as if it inspired their crucifixion act, and then the development of the electric guitar occurring right around 1938?

Book rec request: history with technical explanations of engineering challenges and solutions?

Just finished David McCullough’s “Path between the Seas: Construction of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914”.

Really enjoyed it. Appreciation for large scale construction projects has grown tremendously.

He touched on the technical aspects only briefly, at a high level. I’m interested in reading a similar history of an engineering related project but with more technical descriptions, diagrams, schematics, and calculations.

Any recommendation? Can be mechanical, civil, electrical, biomedical, anything.

McCullough mentioned that Schildhauer (I think), one of the engineers who is responsible for the design of the Panama Canal locks, along with a few other engineers, wrote a technical history on their efforts for the canal. It sounds exactly what I’m looking for, but I’d prefer learning about a new topic/project.

Suggestions on books/podcasts/videos/any media on Mao, specifically the Great Leap Forward and the ensuing famine. Thanks in advance guys!

In the years 0f 1936-1938 the WPA {Works Progress Administration) initiated a program of transcribing Slave Naritaves. If you search on Internet Archive or AMAZON you can download these for free. There are transcriptions from all the Southern states that were slave holders. Very interesting reading.

Do you have a link to share? I'm on my phone but I am intrigued. Thanks.

They did until 1925, after which it was renamed into the All-Union Communist Party (and later the Communist Party of the Soviet Union). It had a dual role as both the overarching party of the whole Union as well as the party of the RSFSR.

Basically, the USSR was originally founded with the intention that all the member republics were on equal standing: in reality, Russia was always dominant to some extent and after Lenin's death and Trotsky's position weakening, Stalin centralised it further. (I have a video on more or less this topic in my profile, if I may interest you :p)

As part of that process, I think they just didn't bother having a separate Russian party when everyone knew they were at the top anyway, so they just renamed their Russian CP and integrated all the other parties under it. In fact, they directly said in the Fourteenth Congress (where the name change was decided on) that the Russian role in the union was "self-evident" and that having them separate would just create overlapping institutions.

That part of the US population doesn't have a clue why they hate other than they are told to.

I would like a better understanding of the 8 stages of the rise and fall of countries.

Is there an audiobook or video that you would recommend? Thanks!

I myself have found the Crash Course series on YouTube to be a good overview.

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Yesss thank you. So well done.

Has no one seen the 1935 version with Clarke Gable? The 60s one with Brando spends way too much time on romance.