r/history

Welcome to our History Questions Thread!

This thread is for all those history related questions that are too simple, short or a bit too silly to warrant their own post.

So, do you have a question about history and have always been afraid to ask? Well, today is your lucky day. Ask away!

Of course all our regular rules and guidelines still apply and to be just that bit extra clear:

Questions need to be historical in nature. Silly does not mean that your question should be a joke. r/history also has an active discord server where you can discuss history with other enthusiasts and experts.

Archaeologists and preservation groups appeal to a court in the US to prevent RMS Titanic Inc from selling 100 artefacts to private collectors

So I have been getting into how different cultures and nations dealt with gunpowder technology and the adoption of gunpowder devices in said societies. What I learned from this paper and wanted to share here was how interesting firearm adoption in Japan was.

As many of you probably know, after Hideyoshi came to power, swords became highly controlled weapons and were routinely confiscated and/or forcibly seized. Guns on the other hand, although regulated to a degree, were not seen as a major potential source of destabilization in the 17th through middle 19th century. In fact, they were seen as practical community farming tools and were fairly widely distributed in rural areas. The practical purpose of the guns was to defend farmland by chasing off or killing "pest" animals like boars and deer that damaged crops. The guns that farmers used were usually loaned to them by local government officials and the village was expected to help pay for and maintain the communal gun.

Hunters occupied a unique gun-owning niche which was also something rather interesting to me. They were granted special license to use and own guns because the gun was an essential symbol of a hunter's identity and status. They were given small wooden plaque tags and needed permission from the government to pass them down to their heirs (if they had one).

Finally, I was interested in how many gun deaths there were over the years during this timeframe (outside of war casualties) and it turns out that according to the paper i linked, alot less than you would think. Apparently, there was a very strong social norm that held that guns were never supposed to be used against people or tobe used for settling disputes. Even during drunken brawls and riots, there are records that guns were used to signal people or warn them but they were not turned on people as primary modes of violence. To give you an idea of how rare gun deaths were: the author found only a single documented death by gunshot in Kōzuke province during this period, which was an accidental shooting of a man by a hunter in 1836.

Hi everybody,

Welcome to our weekly book recommendation thread!

We have found that a lot of people come to this sub to ask for books about history or sources on certain topics. Others make posts about a book they themselves have read and want to share their thoughts about it with the rest of the sub.

We thought it would be a good idea to try and bundle these posts together a bit. One big weekly post where everybody can ask for books or (re)sources on any historic subject or time period, or to share books they recently discovered or read. Giving opinions or asking about their factuality is encouraged!

Of course it’s not limited to *just* books; podcasts, videos, etc. are also welcome. As a reminder, r/history also has a recommended list of things to read, listen to or watch here.