Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 December 21

= December 21 =

Mass deportations that were proposed and/or planned but never actually carried out?
Which cases were there of mass deportations being proposed and/or planned but never actually being carried out? So far, I could think of Generalplan Ost, but which other cases of this were there throughout history? Futurist110 (talk) 03:21, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I suppose that there might have been some Americans who contemplated forcibly deporting US blacks to Sub-Saharan Africa en masse after emancipation, but these might have always thankfully been viewed as impractical pipe dreams. Our article Back-to-Africa movement might have some additional information about this. Futurist110 (talk) 03:24, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, and of course there was the Madagascar Plan and other, similar plans such as the Nisko Plan for deporting Europe's Jews en masse. Futurist110 (talk) 03:28, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * That article is a little strange, because the name "Back-to-Africa movement" is somewhat anachronistic for the United States during most of the 19th century, when it was known as the "Colonization" movement. Some Colonization supporters were convinced that a majority of American Blacks would come around to agree with the idea when they realized that it was unlikely that they would ever achieve full citizenship and rights in the United States until an indefinite future.  Henry Clay, one of the most influential 19th-century U.S. politicians who never became president, was a strong supporter.  Abraham Lincoln was open to the idea if it was practically feasible (but he kind of suspected that it was unlikely to be practically feasible).  The Colonization movement didn't do much to reduce the number of Blacks in the U.S., but it led to the founding of Liberia...  AnonMoos (talk) 06:39, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yep, the American Colonization Society. Also, James A. Garfield was likewise a colonization fan in theory but likewise considered it to be extremely impractical and very unfeasible. As for Liberia, US blacks and their descendants never actually exceeded 5% or so of the total Liberian population, correct? Futurist110 (talk) 07:18, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The Soviet Union created (and it was inherited by Russia) the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the 1940s as a homeland for Russia's Jewish people. It was a bit of an abject failure, as it never had a majority Jewish population, and indeed even today has significantly less than 1%.  -- Jayron 32 11:56, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Birobidzhan was an exercise in extreme Stalinist cynicism, since it had the two main goals of countering Zionism (by creating an alternate Soviet Jewish homeland) and reducing what some Soviet leaders saw as an excess of Jews in Russian cities, so that some Bolsheviks more or less converged with the Tsars in Pale of Settlement type thinking (there was no attempt to re-create the Pale, but who knows what might have happened if Stalin had lived and the Doctors Plot had gone through)... AnonMoos (talk) 15:48, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * A mass deportation of Soviet Jews to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast? Futurist110 (talk) 17:55, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * According to what it says at Doctors' plot, the target might not have been as specific as Birobidzhan (many of them would have ended up in gulags), but the main shift would have been from the Russian cities to Siberia. AnonMoos (talk) 20:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The great irony, of course, is that if Stalin would have actually done this with the Jews from the western part of the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1941, then astronomically more of them could have had their lives saved due to the Nazis being incapable of getting their hands on them. Futurist110 (talk) 22:14, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that didn't work out too well for the Poles at Katyn. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.56.237 (talk) 06:18, 23 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The most egalitarian -ism ever didn't end government antisemitism. History sad. Though the link sounds so cartoonishly Nazish that it might be exaggerated.Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:16, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * It probably never got as far as drawing up detailed plans, but on the other hand, some Soviet officials (including Stalin) seem to have been thinking about it, and the idea is unfortunately compatible with the fevered atmosphere of decadent late-Stalinism... AnonMoos (talk) 21:48, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * True Stalin was paranoid, boogeymen purges would fit into character. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:14, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Regarding Americo-Liberian people - they may not have formed a majority in Liberia but they ran the country until the 1980s. Hayttom (talk) 19:31, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Joseph Franklin Rutherford 's place of birth
Joseph Franklin Rutherford was the second president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. the 15 March 1955 Watchtower says he was born in Boonville, Missouri. the article Joseph Franklin Rutherford however, says that his death certificate indicates that he was born in Versailles, Missouri. why has this not been confirmed by the Watch Tower Society. could this have been an administrative error ? Gfigs (talk) 04:47, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The book Genealogical History of the Rutherford Family, Volume 2, states on p. 650 that he was born in Morgan County, Missouri – which is consistent only with Versailles. Another page on the same Watchtower Online Library website linked to above, a chapter from the book Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom, also states: "Joseph Franklin Rutherford was born of Baptist parents on a farm in Morgan County, Missouri, U.S.A., on November 8, 1869." These book sources are probably more researched and appear more reliable to me than an issue of the Watchtower. --Lambiam 10:45, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * thanks for the info..can't understand why there is this conflict though ? why some books say he was born in Boonville ? some history seems to be missing..and there is huge gap from end of the Civil War (1865) to 1980..Gfigs (talk) 14:13, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thomas Nast popularised the image of Santa Claus during the war. President Ulysses S. Grant made Christmas an official Federal holiday in 1870..the General Grant (tree) was named in 1867, and proclaimed the "Nation's Christmas Tree" in 1926. although it was under Joseph Rutherford's leadership that the Bible Students stopped celebrating Christmas after 25 Dec 1926.Gfigs (talk) 06:25, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Boonville and Versailles are in adjacent counties, and are about 30 miles apart. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:20, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * that is not far...although, I believe it may have been Rutherford's wish not to publicize his birth, and passing. as a nearby caretaker said with regards to his burial site on Staten Island :"I couldn't tell you who is buried on it because it has absolutely no markers or headstones or anything." they were expecting a fulfillment of prophecy (see 1925). he actually wanted to be buried at his residence in San Diego, (Beth Sarim). however, the request was denied by neighbours. the house was sold, and is now privately owned. is designated a Historical Landmark.. Gfigs (talk) 15:25, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * the state of Missouri was only established in 1821. registration of births started in 1883, although due to non-compliance, the law was repealed in 1893..and registration only became mandatory in 1910..difficult to imagine that Rutherfords birth records from 1869 would exist.. Gfigs (talk) 23:31, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * unfortunately, birth records of Joseph Rutherford do not exist. census data indicates that he was registered as an infant in Haw Creek Township, Morgan County, Missouri. eastern side of Versailles appears to be in Moreau Township. western side, in Haw Creek Township..although residing in Haw Creek Township with his parents, in 1870. there is no guarantee that he was born there. Gfigs (talk) 11:06, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Ertuğrul the boat
I'm looking for a good WP:RS that states clearly who Ottoman frigate Ertuğrul was named after. I know what WP says. This looked promising but it doesn't come up, something of an oversight I feel. If the source is older than 2014, it doesn't hurt.

Abdul Hamid II had another boat with the same name, less interesting but same request. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:27, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I couldn't find anything useful. However, I wonder if we might be trying to find a citation for the obvious; there is no need for a reference for who the USS George Washington (CVN-73) is named after, the founder of the Ottoman Empire would be equally well known to a Turkish person. Alansplodge (talk) 15:44, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I'd still like the WP:RS, more people have carried the name . I easily found a ref for the carrier, and the old guy's spirit sort of hovers, doesn't it? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:05, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I have posted a request for assistance from the kindly sages at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history. Alansplodge (talk) 16:20, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Great minds etc: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Turkey Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:24, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I've got a source for you: page 198 of The Ottoman Steam Navy 1828–1923. You can crib the full citation from Ottoman frigate Feyzâ-i Bahrî. Parsecboy (talk) 21:27, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Also a book I linked a little higher up in this thread., thank you very much, I'll use it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:50, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Ah, I had missed that link earlier - interesting that the full book is hosted on archive.org, as it's not old enough to be PD. Parsecboy (talk) 22:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Articles and/or other works comparing the various territories of the United States with the various territories of any other country?
I previously found this 1998 article written jointly by several US academics together with several ex-USSR academics that compared the various territories of the United States with the various territories of the former Soviet Union:

https://digitalcommons.spu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=works

However, are there any other similar articles and/or other works that compare the various territories of the United States with the various territories of any other country? If so, which ones? Futurist110 (talk) 17:58, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I've only skimmed that work, but what a fascinating perspective. I've never seen such a thing before, so I can't be of much help, but it's an interesting product you've found.  I suspect, given its structure and organization, that it was an overt attempt at building a post-Cold War mentality and is the sort of thing that only works in the one case of the USSR and Russia and only in the time it was created, given the social milieu that created it.  Thanks for sharing though.  I haven't had time to really dig into it, but it looks like an interesting read.  -- Jayron 32 18:55, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, I believe that this project started before both the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union since there's a 1992 Washington Post article about it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1992/02/16/ivans-real-face/ab48e7f4-d614-44ab-ba5d-0f90e7cdca13/ That, and this 2008 article appears to imply that this book was created 18 years beforehand (so, 2008 - 18 = 1990): https://cartographia.wordpress.com/2008/05/30/america-and-russia-beyond-borders/ But Yes, this project certainly is quite fascinating. That said, though, I know of one other project that was used to compare the US and the USSR in the final years of the Cold War, and this was a joint project by the statistical agencies of those countries to compare statistics for both of these countries: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/1991/demo/ussr.pdf So, you can understand why I'd have enjoyed it if additional similar comparative articles, works, and/or books would have been found. :) Futurist110 (talk) 20:51, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The end of the Cold War was a process, and not a moment in time; the process of detente with both Communist powers began under Richard Nixon in late 1960s-early 1970s ("only Nixon could go to China", the Brezhnev-Nixon summit); it took a few backwards steps during the late 1970s-early 1980s after the invasion of Afghanistan and the rather stodgy Andropov-Chernenko years (when Andrei Gromyko really ruled from behind the scenes), but by the regime of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Cold War was essentially over. Almost immediately after coming to power, a series of high level summits with Reagan from 1985 onwards really changed the zeitgeist of the time.  Symbolically, the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 is more of an important event in the end of the Cold War than the collapse of the Soviet Union.  It makes sense that 1990 would have been a time when Soviet and American scientists were working so well together.  -- Jayron 32 12:05, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , I think it is incorrect to dismiss Yuri Andropov that way. He was the longest serving KGB boss and was guilty of participation in many crimes, but by the time he became General Secretary of the CPSU and top Soviet leader, I believe he had become convinced that the USSR needed deep reform. He was responsible for promoting Gorbachev and many of his close associates to top leadership posts. He took on a job that might have lasted quite a few years and instead died 15 months later. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  04:35, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Futurist110 (talk) 05:02, 24 December 2020 (UTC)


 * There are not many countries that are comparable in size to either the USA or the USSR. The UK can fit into any one of 11 US states.  Alansplodge (talk) 19:05, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Well, there is China. And perhaps India. And Brazil. And Argentina. And Canada. And Australia. Futurist110 (talk) 20:51, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Australia doesn't have many territories, but it does have maybe the biggest one in the world. HiLo48 (talk) 01:54, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * It'll have to fight the Penguin Liberation Army over it! ;) Futurist110 (talk) 05:32, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Most countries without Antarctic territorial claims don't recognize the claims of countries that do. The United States certainly doesn't recognize such claims. AnonMoos (talk) 09:54, 22 December 2020 (UTC)