My grandfather survived imprisonment in Flossenburg concentration camp. Among the items he brought out with him were several notes of paper currency issued to inmates by the camp.

What could he have bought with this money? How was it earned or issued?

Coronations are fascinating because they're always clad in tradition and history. With a country as old as England, their coronations are beautiful, and so I would assume that China would have had coronations of equal beauty for their Emperors. Would their coronations be like that of the film "The Last Emperor", or like that of the recent Japanese Emperor Naruhito? Throughout the many dynasties of China, how would their coronations be like if they had one at all?

How did it happen? Why was this piece on the coast left to belong to modern Russia while it's pretty far away from the rest of the country?

I know close to nothing about the geographic history of the area, so any other information i can research off of would be great.

Thanks!

When the first immigrants came to the US from England they obviously spoke with a British accent, when did the generic American accent form and what caused the change?

I've read flint and obsidian. But surely those are too brittle to shave with. Obsidian with its sharpness would probably tear up your face.

Also some of the earliest razors were found in Egypt. Does anybody know if razors were invented independently anywhere else (the Nordic Bronze Age had some I believe). Also where in Egypt are these razors from?

I understand Soviet occupation of Berlin is a confounding factor to a meaningful answer here.

Black Americans seem to have largely identified with Christianity despite many parallels between the enslaved Black experience and the Jewish tradition of Exodus. Harriet Tubman is even popularized as a Moses-like figure.

Was Black Judaism more prominent in early American history or has Christianity always been the preferred or imposed belief-system?

I have recently read The Republic by Cicero. He writes Scipio Africanus' arguement in favor of a Republic as being the best form of government. Its clear from Scipio that the Republic requires a balance of powers in order to avoid concentration of power and corruption. It seems to me that discussions on the Republic and the Empire seem to favor the Empire in terms of stability. It also seems to me that the people were in favor of Caesar becoming dictator.

Why did Cicero think the Senate should be given more power in order to end the crisis of the Roman Republic despite knowing how corrupt the Senators had become? Did the Consuls simply wield too much power and this was the only way he thought to balance the system?

Also can you recommend any book that is a pro-imperial counterpart to the Republic, thanks.

(am I 12 months too early?)

After being the wealthiest place on earth for most of history, China somehow declined to the point that it was the poorest place in the world by the mid-1900s- even poorer than sub-Saharan Africa.

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How did this happen?

I was just reading about George Orwell being a volunteer for the republican army, so I wonder what was the process behind joining the war as a volunteer

I'm intrigued and confused by the Mamluks. They were bought as child slaves during the Middle Ages and raised to be warriors. Apparently the institutions of Mamluks often became powerful in many governments and, in the case of Egypt, even ruled.

My question is this: if these people were "slaves," then how could they also be rulers? In what sense are you a slave if you are literally ruling a country? Wouldn't your "owner" be the real person in power? When they took over, were they suddenly "freed"?

When the Mamluks became a self-perpetuating class--slave warriors recruiting more slave warriors--who exactly is enslaved to whom? It seems less like slavery and more like being forced into a very demanding club. Maybe as if the Ancient Roman praetorian guard had just adopted recruits as children?

I know there were the two opium wars in China, and there were attempts to update their armory that failed, but that is the extent of my knowledge. Was it inertia from the ruling class? Larger population and size? More widespread corruption? Inefficient bureaucracy?

It seems to me that it would be hard to say "we killed a bunch of innocent people" and end up looking like the good guy. Especially when we just liberated tons of innocent people from the Nazis.

As the title says, this question came from me thinking about the main light and "medium" class tanks which both main Axis nations used before and during WW2. I am also aware of the reason both were stuck with the same tanks, even through the mid- to late war years, as both countries were located on smaller, narrower rocky strips of land compared to Germany, so there was not much of an incentive to build heavier armoured tanks (at least, at the beginning of the war). As the war dragged on and the Allied powers began shopping more (actual) medium tanks, I was wondering why Italy and Japan couldn't just effectively turn their tanks into what would be effectively be tank destroyers (or at least focus on building more of the existing ones), since most of their tank force were light and early-year medium tanks, and thus likely lighter and more nimble. Could this have to do with the smaller, less industrial capability of both countries, and the difficulty of ditching the production of lighter caliber guns and corresponding ammunition?

It appears to me that their beliefs are no more radical than Calvinists and Calvinists were able get control/influence governments. Was waiting until someone chose to be baptized that extreme?

Recognize it depends on city size, location, and time, but became curious about how often one might actually see this.

Especially in their military, politic, religion, etc. How does having Persia in their east affect the Eastern Rome, and how does having a lot of rebellions affect the Western one? (I don't recall any faction the latter can call "rival")

Also how do they behave with each other? Are they friendly? Enemies? Frenemies?