People Ask Historians Their Most Pressing History Questions

Was Hitler really brave enough to venture out to conquered areas?

Q: Was it normal for Hitler, and indeed the other leaders of Nations, to be in such places throughout this time? I always got the (false?) impression that Hitler spent his time and directed activities mostly from Berlin and the Berghof? When away from these two places, were his trips used for strategy or more just tourist visits, seeing what he had conquered?

A Historian’s Take: “I’m not sure about other leaders but Hitler had multiple HQs across Europe during WWII, the so called Führerhauptquartiere or Führer Headquarters. I believe the total number is around 20, but not all of them were completed and used by Hitler himself. At the beginning of this era, Hitler didn’t have such a place and would often travel to and from the front in his famous Führersonderzug, a train specially fitted for him, which was curiously first named “Amerika”. As things progressed the Nazis built multiple reinforced complexes for him and other Nazi leaders, often near the front line. These varied in size, from only a couple of somewhat small buildings to larger complexes with multiple buildings that could host several Nazi leaders and their entourages. The Führerhauptquartiere were mostly made of very thick reinforced concrete, designed to resist air bombardments and artillery attacks and often hidden and camouflaged.

“There was the Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s Lair) in Poland, where the failed attempt on his life took place on July 20, 1944. The Adlerhorst (Eagle’s Nest) which he used during the Ardennes offensive. The Werwolf in Ukraine, his most Eastern Headquarter. The Wolfsschlucht II in France, where Rommel tried to convince Hitler to end their offensive. The Anlage Süd in Poland, in which Hitler and Mussolini met in 1941. There was also the Felsennest in Southwest Germany near the border with France and Belgium, used to coordinate their invasion of France and the Low Countries. Most of these were destroyed towards the end or after all, was said and done. Visits of Adolf Hitler to conquered capitals such as Warsaw and Paris were rarer and used mostly for propaganda.”

Scooby Doo and the Tale of the Confederate Cash (Part 1)

Q: Scooby Doo has an episode where Scooby wins 1 million dollars except it turns out it’s old “worthless” confederate cash. Kids and I are curious now about its worth and history. Would 1 million in confederate cash be worth anything today whether as a collectors item or anything?

A Historian’s Take (Part 1): “Before I go into your points, we need to understand how the monetary system in the US/CS worked. Unlike today, the US was using a bimetallic standard, mainly gold and silver, to help with exchange. After 1870, the US became part of the Gold Standard – set up to facilitate international trade. Nowadays, we use a fiat currency system, where essentially the bills are not worth anything other than what the Federal Reserve says it is worth. But before the US was removed from the Gold standard in 1971, usually every dollar had a ratio of gold and silver that the bearer of that bill could withdraw from a bank, often in the form of coins. During times of trouble, valuables are hoarded, often causing coin shortages or other economic issues I won’t dive into here. If you look at older notes, and especially on notes of this era, the language ‘payable to the bearer in silver [or gold]’ appears on the bills. The value is in the metal of the coin, not necessarily the bill.

“The bill is valuable because you have the ability to go to the bank and get its value in valuable gold or silver. But, since these are troubling times, everyone has run to the bank to exchange their bills for coins. No coins = worthless piece of paper. Now, let’s dig into legal tender – what is legal to make payments with? Legal tender is something that must be accepted as payment, by law. The government decides this and it can be changed. This is important – paper money was not legal tender at this point in US history, only coins issued by the US government. Bills were issued by banks, not the government, so the government had no obligation to accept these notes. The bills generally need to be backed by hard assets, such as gold or silver. If the bank is not good for the payment, the bill is worthless. To put it more generally, at this time period, the bills are more of an obligation to honor a payment in gold or silver to the holder, as long as the bank’s store of coins hold out.”

Scooby Doo and the Tale of the Confederate Cash (Part 2)

Q: Scooby Doo has an episode where Scooby wins 1 million dollars except it turns out it’s old “worthless” confederate cash. Kids and I are curious now about its worth and history. Would 1 million in confederate cash be worth anything today whether as a collector’s item or anything?

A Historian’s Take (Part 2): “The Confederates kept issuing these notes as the conflict progressed to cover their debts, backed only by a promise. $867 million worth of bills were printed in large denominations. Now, money is only worth what people believe it is worth. High supply means low demand. The confederates had to make more and more currency and were fighting for nothing. Plus, public opinion mattered – if people believed that currency could not be redeemed, it went down in value. Since the Confederate notes were only backed by a promise after all was over, and the confederacy began to lose, their currency value dropped… Early on, the Confederate notes were more valuable – the CSA dollar was worth .90c of gold in Dec 1861and by 1863, only 6 cents, and lower still as things progressed.

“You might ask, why didn’t they just strike gold and silver coins? Simply, they could not afford to as any valuable metal was shipped to Europe to pay for goods. They just could not support any significant economy and fight at the same time. Collector value for Confederate notes depends on supply and demand. There is a high supply of these notes as things went on, but the earlier notes are more collectible and rare. These early are worth thousands in good condition. In circulated, maybe a few hundred. The later notes are generally worth less than $50 each depending on denomination and condition.”

Move over Christianity and Judaism – was Zoroastrianism a more popular monotheistic religion?

Q: Zoroastrianism was probably the most followed monotheistic religion for at least a thousand years. Yet to my knowledge, the Christian Bible and Jewish Talmud is silent on its existence. Why? Did either the Jews or the early Christians recognize the similarities between their religions and Zoroastrian beliefs?

A Historian’s Take: “So, to start, it’s really arguable whether Zoroastrianism can be described as monotheistic (it’s a little bit perspective-dependent), but I think the more salient point is that it didn’t historically construe itself as monotheistic. Let’s make a simple comparison – consider Christianity and its trinity, and especially Catholicism with its veneration of saints. Are these obviously monotheistic from an outsider’s point of view? Well, early Muslims for one had their doubts about that, and Islam has a more limited conception of monotheism (centering on the ‘oneness’ of God) that it applies to itself and Judaism, but not necessarily to Christianity. Certain Christian sects, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, even reject the trinity out of these concerns.

“So the point I’m making with this is that ‘monotheism’ is, in a sense, more of an ideological statement than one that objectively describe a religion (as opposed to the set of texts, traditions, rituals, etc that makes up the religion’s contents). And, crucially for this discussion, it is an ideological statement that Zoroastrianism did not historically concern itself with. Zoroastrianism includes the veneration of a whole array of deities that represent manifestations of moral concepts (e.g., “devotion”), elements (e.g., ‘fire’), and social order (e.g., ‘power’)… So while I tend to believe there was interaction and transmission of cultural and religious notions between early Jews and Christians and Persian Zoroastrians, it probably would not have taken the form of engaging directly with theology produced a religious elite, or anything similar.” (Zoroastrianism states that they have “belief in Supreme and Universal God. Ahuramazda is the supreme, omniscient and omnipotent God, who symbolizes truth, radiance, purity, order, justice, courage, strength and patience.” But that does not mean they do not have other deities, this is just the reigning god.)

Is moving out at 18 an artifact of WWII

Q: Is moving out at 18 an artifact of WWII? Someone shared some social media posts from some Thai and Pakistani kids who were flummoxed by the independence expected of them while in America for grad school because it was ‘normal in their cultures to live and help out at home in early adulthood, often until marriage.’

A Historian’s Take: “No – the idea of moving out at 18 is not an artifact of WWII. Or, to put it another way, events or conditions that happened between 1939 and 1945 did not cause young people to suddenly leave home at 18. The idea that a young person would leave their parents’ home had been established long before then. ‘Normal’ is a complicated, usually misleading, word to describe patterns among young people in history. That is, what’s true for one group of young adult Americans isn’t necessarily true for another group. The generational patterns among young adult Black Americans whose ancestors were brought to America through chattel slavery look different than young white men who have access to generational wealth which are different than Indigenous young adults. It took massive resistance from young disabled people to expand the social safety net to include them and the support they need(ed) to live independently. Etc.

“This does not accurately reflect patterns across history. In the early 1800s, thousands of unmarried women between the ages of 16ish and 24ish left their homes on the east coast to travel South and West to work as schoolteachers. Their housing situation ranged from living with a local family, in a room attached to a schoolhouse, to communal living. These young women didn’t have to fight against social norms to move away from their parents; instead, there was a deliberate campaign led by advocates for public schools to shift social norms such that it became acceptable for young unmarried women – mostly white, but not always – to leave her home and live independently (while “fulfilling her natural obligation to the next generation” – more on that here.) Similar movement could be seen among young men (and women, mostly white, but not always) before the 1860s who followed the sentiment of, ‘go west, young man.’ This isn’t to say all white young adults living in the Northeast left home to head West or South, only that it wasn’t uncommon and a young person interested in doing such a thing may have faced some pressure from their parents to not go but the conditions were such that it wouldn’t necessarily be seen as uncommon or as aberrant behavior.

What was it Really Worth for Judas to Betray Jesus?

Q: How much money actually was the 30 pieces of silver that Judas was paid for betraying Jesus? Was this the price of a new pair of sandals or are we talking a nice house in downtown Jerusalem?

This expert on Roman Social and Economic History chimed in but wrote an in-depth and entertaining breakdown of the prices in this post. But we will post another one of their responses here that we found very informative and though-provoking. A Historian’s Take: “There are varying prices for donkeys, going as high as Pliny’s claim that one crazy (probably drunk) noble paid 400,000 sesterces (100,000 denarii/pieces of silver) for one particularly fine donkey, but they were reasonably expensive creatures – think what you’d pay for a workhorse of a car or truck.

“Not necessarily gonna break your bank, but not generally an off-the-cuff purchase. We’ve got a general range of prices between 11 and 50 denarii for a donkey though – so, depending on how much you’ve stuffed yourself, you could probably afford – or haggle for – a midrange donkey! Nothing incredible, but certainly an animal that’ll take you from point A to point B;) If you wanted to put it into car context? You could probably afford a 2008 Prius or something. A decent workhorse doesn’t look super fancy but gets the job done. Of course, that’s just the purchasing cost: upkeep (feeding, stabling, etc) would add up quickly. But in our car example, so does insurance, gas, and parking, so…” When you think about it, the most infamous betrayal in history was only worth the modern day equivalent of a 2008 Prius. Doesn’t that make it all the worse?

The Characters in Mad Men drank during business meetings, why did that stop?

Q: When did drinking at the office and in business meetings stop being a thing? In a lot of movies and series, for example Mad Men, if someone came to your office for a meeting you offered them a drink. Was that really something that people did or is it just in the movies?

A Historian’s Take: “The shift in American perceptions to day drinking can mostly be tied back to the domestic politics of the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s. As early as 1961, President John F. Kennedy stated opposition to the extent of tax deductibility of business lunches as business expenses. However, in 1972 the issue came to a more prominent place in American politics thanks to George McGovern. During his presidential campaign, he told blue-collar voters that ‘you pay for half of every $20 martini lunch that a businessman deducts while you can’t deduct the price of a bologna sandwich.’ While McGovern was annihilated in the election of 1972, this message remained. Four years later, Jimmy Carter took up the torch of lunch deductions again, this time as a form of opposition to corruption in DC, thus also a strike against the incumbent, Gerald Ford. His administration would push for changes to the tax code on this issue, but ultimately to no avail. In 1986 however, Ronald Reagan would sign a bill that reduced the deduction from 100 to 80 percent and Bill Clinton would sign a bill in 1993 that reduced it to 50 percent.

“While these bills were aimed more generally at business extravagance than alcohol, in particular, I would argue that the evocative imagery of the ‘three-martini lunch’ and its connection to corruption played a significant role in changing the wider public taste for day drinking with lunch. At the same time, American corporate culture began a major shift towards prioritization of productivity. Together, the combination of productivity prioritization, negative public perception, and decreased financial exemption pushed out the business lunch. As Paul Freedman observes in his discussion of the Four Seasons restaurant, ‘more than two decades later, many publishing offices have moved downtown and expense accounts have been reduced.’ Even now op-eds and other pieces come out occasionally which look back fondly at a time of multi-hour expensed lunches, even as they enabled alcoholism and provided dubious financial benefit.”

Did everybody’s breath just stink all the time in ancient history?

Q: Before the invention of the toothpaste/mints did people’s breath just smell bad? Were there recorded methods of making one’s breath smell better?

A Historian’s Take: “I can speak for Islamic and pre-Islamic Arabia. Early Islamic tradition emphasizes heavily the practice of using the roots of the native Salvadora Persica tree for oral hygiene. The practice was so common that this specific tree is also known as toothbrush tree, and Islamic tradition stops short of mandating that the roots are used prior to every prayer. Even today sticks made from Salvadora Persica, known as miswak, are popular for oral hygiene in the Arabian Peninsula, India, and generally in the Muslim world. The practice can be found in non-Islamic regions to which Salvadora Persica is native, as well as Islamic regions where the tree is not native.

“Traditionally, the sticks would be harvested from the tree’s roots and twigs then used in their fresh state. The outer bark of the roots is first chewed to form bristles of the inner part of the stick. The bark itself has its own pleasant smell which works like a mouthwash, then the bristled stick is used like a brush. There are entire Wiki-How articles about proper usage of a miswak, so I will not get into the details. Records of trading on the Incense Tradin Route show that dried Miswaks were commonly sold there as well. A buyer would need to soak a miswak in water before they use it. Tracing the daily usages of miswaks in Islamic Arabia one can see a similar pattern to how toothbrushes are used nowadays. Specifically, the prophet of Islam Mohammed was quoted to have practiced and encouraged oral hygiene right after waking up, before social gatherings (to pray), and even before love-making. Moreover, the texts available specificy using miswak to clean your gums, tongue, teeth, and for flossing. Islamic teachings also specifically prescribe miswak as an antidote to both plaque and yellow teeth.”

Have Wizards always been like Gandalf?

Q: Where does the modern fantasy image of a wizard throwing elemental-based spells (eg. fire, lightning, ice) in battle originate from?

A Historian’s Take: “I don’t believe that anyone will be able to point to any single work of art as the origin of the idea of the elemental mage doing battle. It is really a matter of taking a large step back to view the larger picture of how certain fantasy tropes developed in fiction and pinning down specific illustrations or portrayals in those works. The elemental mage is really a post-modern iteration upon a much older tradition of sorcerous beings appearing in literature and fiction, stemming all the way back from ancient religious texts (the Witch of Endor from the Bible), legends (Merlin from the legends of King Arthur), and mythology (Greek myths are chock-full of mystical beings who wield supernatural abilities; Zeus being a prime example in this matter).

“Successive writers throughout history would incorporate these traditions in their own works, and elaborate upon the paradigm, birthing whole new genres and tropes in the process. From the unknown authors of Beowulf, to Chaucer, to Shakespeare, to the compilers of Arabian Nights, we can trace the ideological genealogy of magic users in fiction through to modern authors such as Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian and Kull), C.S. Lewis (Narnia), and of course, the man who arguably birthed our modern take on the wizard in fiction, J.R.R. Tolkien…” Read the rest of their analysis.

What would happen if the segregation roles were reversed?

Q: What might happen if during segregation a ‘white’ person used facilities designated for ‘colored’ people?

A Historian’s Take: “Nearly every Jim Crow law provides for the establishment of separate facilities, structures, or areas for black and white people and many of them contain language that limits the movement of supplies across the race-line. Rosa Parks, as others in this thread have noted, was arrested and convicted for “refusing to obey orders of bus driver” Under the city code of Montgomery, bus drivers had “the powers of a police officer of the city… for the purpose of carrying out the provision of [segregation of the bus lines]” So, the simplest answer to your question — at least insofar as the bus system in Montgomery Alabama is concerned — is that the bus driver would be legally bound to order them to sit in the white section and the Courts would enforce that order as if it were a lawful order given by a police officer.

“Which is pretty much exactly how nothing at all worked in the South. The underlying purpose of the Jim Crow laws was to establish White Supremacy. After Reconstruction ended white-lead governments surged back into power and used their power to marginalize the black vote. They then used that power to enact Jim Crow laws which further suppressed black political activity and relegated black people to second-class status. While stated goals for this are hard to find and differ on a state-by-state basis, it’s illuminating to consider that white people were a racial minority in some southern states and a sparse majority in many others.”

Related: Black Americans Used to Have to Navigate Jim Crow Laws During Road Trips with this Travel Guide.

This Cheesy Query About if Robin Hood Were Real

Q: If Robin Hood were real and were to host a feast in Sherwood Forest what kind of cheese would he have had and bread also?

An Irish Food Historian’s Take: “We’re not awfully sure. To be fair, medieval Ireland was obsessed with cheese, so England was never going to live up to that. The best theory I’ve heard – and as with anything in food history, theory can be pretty vague – is that England had successive waves of invasion/resettlement which, in each case, wiped out some of the local knowledge. Cheese-making is very localized, due to bacterial cultures, storage conditions, and so on. The cheese made in one village, and the cheese made in the next could be quite different, and it takes a very long time to optimize for conditions, and for local taste. So, the theory goes, in Ireland, cheese-making was a more or less unbroken tradition for well over a thousand year, whereas the English traditions at any given time were only a couple of hundred years old. So the English cheese just wasn’t as good.

“My knowledge of non-food history in France is not good enough to assess whether that could apply there, and my other areas of food knowledge are in the medieval Nordic and Arabic cultures, neither of which were hugely into cheese. Although I do have to note the baked ‘squeaky cheese’ (bread cheese) you get in Finland; it’s a different approach to cheesemaking and is both excellent and historically popular there. If someone else knows about French, Germanic, Mediterranean and/or East European cheese history, I’d be happy to hear from them!”

What would happen if a person really thought their baby was a changeling in Medieval Europe?

Q: In Medieval Europe, there existed a superstition that fairies would sometimes kidnap people, usually babies, and leave changelings in their place. What would happen if a person really thought their baby was a changeling?

A European Folklore Historian’s Take: “The fairies – the largely social supernatural beings of Northern Europe – were referred to with a variety of terms reflecting the many languages involved. For convenience, we will describe them generically as fairies. These powerful, dangerous supernatural beings were attracted to people, whom they frequently sought to abduct. Although everyone was vulnerable, the focus of attention was largely on male infants and young women of reproductive age. Stories about their abductions – attempted or accomplished – are ubiquitous. Women were particularly vulnerable after birth, clearly reflecting the possibility that these women could suddenly decline in health and die – or appear to die. For this reason, a newborn and a newly delivered woman were often confined to a sealed house until they could be admitted to church – a baptism for the infant and a ‘churching’ (a readmission to the congregation) for the woman…

“According to the variants of the legends, people suspected an infant changeling when their baby failed to thrive or seemed changed in some way. In reality, such suspicion could be aroused by various conditions including genetics, disease, or malnutrition, many of which were not apparent until sometime after birth. In the legends, mothers attended the changeling in one of several ways – all designed to lure the fairy abductors to return the real infant. This took the form of tricking the changeling to speak with some astonishing act – brewing beer in an eggshell or some such thing. Other ways included beating the changeling, placing it on hot coals or exposing it at night outside. Legends invariably end with the return of the real infant – one of the few cases where legends (accounts told generally to be believed) turned out well.”