Today, I associate those tags with cheap, scammy, exaggerated, doesn't-mean-what-it-sounds-like-100%-genuine-leather-late-night-infomercial type vibes:

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which I guess is why it seems to have become less common.

But in the 1990s it sometimes felt like every other word and phrase had a Proprietary Flag^(C) of some kind. Did marketers use them intentionally hoping to make products seem extra special? Or was it a case of legal departments overriding the wishes of marketing departments - maybe an arms race to stake a claim to cool names or clever turns of phase?

I'd love to also ask what happened to this style of marketing copy, but I'm afraid of running into the 20 Year Rule^TM , so I'll limit myself to "where did it come from and what was it supposed to be doing?" Was it there for the target consumers or for enemy lawyers at competing companies or what?

edit: formatting, punctuation, general clarity

I’m doing research on LDS and obviously came across Joseph smiths 14 yr old wife. All the apologists say it was normal back then. I get it was more normal like a thousand years ago but was it actually common that recent? Also was polygamy ever a normal thing or have we been monogamous?

I’m chronically ill (dysautonomia). I have one toddler and I work 30 hours a week. And I am exhausted. I was thinking that people like me must have existed throughout history but I wonder how well they did with their condition(s). We have so many modern conveniences like running water, grocery stores, prepared meals, etc that make life a bit easier. How did they get by? Do we have any documentation for chronically ill people still being present in society?

As far as I'm aware, Canada is literally the only country that uses the nomenclature of a crown corp, in the UK they're just called SOEs.

I don't know where else to ask my true military history question. So please forgive me if this is the wrong place. I just watched a video on YouTube where WW2 Historians and Military Experts watched the movie "Saving Private Ryan" and explained how realistic it is. It got high points and was pretty accurate in terms of WW2. It was based on different real events of survivor stories like the Niland Brothers, not based on a real survivor named Private Ryan. But here's my question for you. During the opening scene of the Battle of Normandy, there's a scene where Tom Hank's character gets on the radio and tells the Admiral of the Task Force, "The beach is not open". The experts jumped in and said, "That would never ever happen".

Because Tom Hank's character was just a Captain and those guys said, "There's no chance a Captain will ever talk to the Admiral of the Task Force because that's way below his rank and authority". But they never explained how the top commanders actually monitored status of the Battle to keep track of how things were going. Do you think they had observers and surveillance planes watching the Battle from far away and tracking how everything went? I'm just curious how they monitored the state of things during the Battle since they probably weren't talking to people on the field? My question is how did feedback reach the top commanders about how the status of the Battle, who monitored it and reported back?

How did titles more generally work in the Soviet Union, and how important were they compared to whoever was the holder of the title?

I’ve been watching Disney movies and a ton of them include a “ball” where the young women from the town gather and all dance around for the purpose of impressing the Prince? I KNOW these are Disney movies, but if there any real historical examples of this? Is this a real thing that happened or just a silly Disney trope?

I suppose that's it, that's the question.

We see it everywhere in media, two medieval armies clashing in a battle. They are full sprinting across an open field, bursting through each other’s lines with momentum and power.. I can’t see how that’s actually manageable in reality. Soldiers would be exhausted before they were even fighting and would very quickly get singled out by multiple people if they were to break through.

At the same time, cautiously walking up to each other in a field and slowly poking at each other until the line breaks seems like it would take a long time. Momentum to break the line makes sense.

My mind goes to medieval battles, but I am asking about any era and any melee focused fighting in general. I am not asking about Calvary or things of that nature but feel free to include any relevant parts if needed.

What would be a good overview book (or a set of books) on the history of France?

I have A History of France by John Julius Norwich, but I didn’t really like it; I found it difficult to follow the events and people.(I did check the wiki page, and it didn’t have anything that falls under the category of an overview. Most of it seemed to focus on a specific time period or event.

It has been explicitly said during that time that work performed by workhouse inmates will reduce the cost of running the enterprise. But discouraging claiming poor relief is also explicitly mentioned by the politicians, by making experience of paupers as miserable as possible short of leaving them to die from hunger. Can we know how much a typical workhouse master or board of oversight above him cared about profits from the work performed vs how much they prioritized the prevention of idleness even when there was no obvious financial benefit? Do we have data on what percentage of expenses workhouse labour was financing?

Sheila Fitzpatrick says that mandatory courses on "Scientific Atheism" were taught at Sovirt universities during the Krushchev era. What did these courses teach, in detail?

Id love to see course materials (notes, reading lists etc) if indeed such things exist, as well as accounts of how those courses were actually taught. Thanks.

I’ve often heard prostitution described as “the oldest profession in the world,” but I’ve never seen an explanation of where this phrase comes from or whether historians take it seriously.

Were they surprised? Roused to awareness of the new threat? Also how aware were the common people of the Roman empire of the Sassanyd dynasty and its people?

Were there still leper colonies when they came up with antibiotic cures to leprosy? If so what was that transition like?

I see quotes about how more than half of Ancient Rome was enslaved at some point, or the same for the American South, etc, but when I try to find numbers about India it's not as easy. Why do we have such good numbers for Ancient Rome and Greece but not the Mughal Empire or the Maurya dynasty? Were Greece and Rome really so much more reliant on slave labor?

Am I for example allowed to carry weapons and fight in the mamluk army? Do I live among Muslim neighbours, in how much Danger am I of becoming a victim of religious violence and in what ways are the lifes of my descents going to differ under ottoman rule?

Thanks in advance for answering.

I was looking through attendance records for a few association football clubs, and it seems that, in many cases, their peak of popularity was in the 1940s and 1950s, with a steady decline thereafter until a nadir in the 1980s. This is surprising given we hear so little of these decades.

This guy has compiled the data and it's the case across the system - https://blog.engora.com/2025/07/attendance-at-english-football-tale-of.html

I'm wondering why this happened - instinctively you might blame this on hooliganism or racism or whatever, but I'm interested if anyone's delved deep into the subject. It seems to be indicative of a pretty big change in the relationship of common people to sport.

Looking for help with an unusual question: I need to learn history (I know this sounds obnoxious, I’ll explain!).

I was “unschooled” my whole life, which is a philosophy that kids learn naturally from their environments. As a result, I had no formal education until college, where I somehow ended up not taking a single history class.

I want to make a serious effort to learn, but I’m not sure where to start. Does anybody have recommendations for:
1. Three main topics/eras of history to begin with?
2. Podcasts that I can listen to on my commute?

My lack of knowledge in this area is a huge embarrassment, and frankly, makes me sad because history is so important to understanding the present. Any help is appreciated.

These days if I hear a name like Harold or Humphrey, my first thought is that it might be a family name. It’s pretty old fashioned.
It lead me to think about names from even further back, 1700’s and before. Were there names back then that were already falling out of fashion? I know some names are still in use - John’s and William’s.
But like.. surely there are a few, right?
“Oh no no dear, we can’t name our child Aloysius, that’s too old fashioned! No one else in his class will have that name!” (I mean this very jokingly)
I guess in that same breath, do we also have names from 17th century and back that are similar to our ‘tragedeigh’ names today?

Peopla say Panini wrote the first grammar of sanskrit around 500 BCE. However, there was no wrintig system in india from the end of the Indus Valley Civilisation around 1300 BCE to the Edicts of Ashoka around 250 BCE. In addition, Megasthenes was in India around 300 BCE and said there weren't any writing systems in the Maurya Empire.

So could Panine write a book on the grammar of a language if he doesn't knew any writing system?