I’ve been rewatching Death of Stalin lately and one of the most intriguing characters is Zhukov, not surprisingly. The man’s a legendary officer and he’s portrayed as such in the film, and Jason Issacs’ version of the Marshall is very colorful in how he speaks with other members of Soviet high society. At one point he has this brief exchange with another Soviet official, Asinov which seems ridiculous considering how conservative Soviet society was.

Zhukov: “Stick you in a frock, I’d fucking ride you raw myself.”

Asinov: “I’ll take that as a compliment”

Z: “Yeah, don’t”

I presume Marshall Zhukov didn’t have such a disposition, but what was he like as a person? However, the film correctly portrays Beria as the rapist and general monster he is, so I have to wonder where the line between fiction and reality is here.

I've looked at a few history courses in my country and many of them are not written clearly in what you'll be actually learning and the definitions I've read imply more that history is about the study of events and specific people rather than cultures, languages and various groups of people. My country doesn't have an archeology course running at any uni I've looked at and I'm confused, as the definitions I've read imply that archeologists are the ones who deal with cultures.

I was watching a video today in response to Jonny Harris's video, and they stated "The Spanish did not deliberately cause the catastrophic loss to the population. They wanted a work force." Is this narrative true?

Were only those born in the city considered citizens, or would a Sicilian farmer, and Macedonian merchant consider themselves Romans? Would their answers be different during the republican and imperial periods?

If more than just Roman’s could be “Roman” was this a privilege afforded to everyone, only to people from certain provinces (like statehood), or only certain ethnic groups?

Asking out of curiosity. I find that the answers written here are very thorough and that the sub’s requirements are rigorous, so wondered if all the flair users have formal qualifications in their named area.

Nowadays, if someone has a science project, they’d usually get funding from the government/public bodies (NSF in US, CERN for atomic research), or private organisation (Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for example), but how would this work in the medieval ages? Would they walk up to their regional king and ask for funding? Was science a profession only for the very rich? How would you ask for money? Would you explain what you’re trying to build and say that there’s a chance of failure?

Once you have your money and built your inventions and answered the problem you were trying to solve, how would you spread information about it? Were there something similar to academic journals? Would it ever be explained to people not well versed in science?

I watched a documentary about the Berghof residence of Hitler and they mention that the U.S confiscated underground archives of Hitler, but not what happened to everything. What happened to all of those personal items? I imagine they would be fascinating to see.

did they exist in any meaningfull capacity or only as some piece of history by then?

So recently I have become interested in the Jacobites, and I encountered the battle of Preston, I found this interesting as it is said that Lancashire was one of the most Catholic and Pro-Jacobite counties. It is also said that Lancastrians took up arms to fight with the Jacobite army, notably the Manchester regiment under Francis Towneley. What would these Lancastrian Jacobites have worn, would they have worn garments similar to those of the Scottish Jacobites or a different uniform? Or was no uniform used at all?

Was there a real glut of skilled trades workers in that era? What was the thinking behind it? Did they think no one was going to need to build houses or fix cars?

I'm interested in why this was done as opposed to others forms of punishment and why Western Australia was chosen.

Apologies if the topic seems a touch NSFW but I am doing research for a fantasy epic I am writing and lots of its subplots are inspired by historical events and figures, as well as those from different myths, from battles to the people and their motives.

One of the books addresses power dynamics within the royal family and incest within monarchies and how it affects people. So I was wondering if someone could help me in my research. Again, not necessarily inbreeding but just keep siblings around as consorts/concubines/etc.

It was a commune that closed in 1854, which was behind a publication named The Circular and had ties to the Oneida Community and John Humphrey Noyes. Does anyone know any information about this and whether or not any copies of The Circular remain and have been digitized?

Anything helps, thanks!

As far as I can tell, we have no records whatsoever of Chinese merchants ever travelling to Constantinople, Alexandria, etc. Now I know of course that the Silk Road trade was mostly in the hand of Persians, Turkmens, etc., but considering how relatively normal the sight of Western Asians was in post-Yuan China, it does beg the question why no Chinese ever travelled the other way at all?

I'm sure there's something I'm not seeing, but prima facie if you can get planes ACROSS the channel, you can get planes TO the channel. So instead of focusing on bombing the UK, why not just focus on controlling the channel long enough to invade?

Apologies for the very broad question, but there does seem to be a definite trend to militaries involved in medieval conflicts being significantly smaller than ancient militaries. In my limited awareness militaries in the post Western Roman period seem to be significantly smaller well into the late 1400s, with armies in the War of the Roses and the Hundred Years war seeming to cap out at around 20,000-25,000 men on either side in the most significant battles of the war, as opposed to, say, the battle of Cannae, which appears to have had around 120,000 people on the battlefield with the Carthaginians able to field 50,000 men to the Romans' 80,000.

I've seen this asked previously, but I confess I'm not entirely satisfied with the answers I've seen, which are usually around how the Romans had superior logistics. I find this hard to believe as the only explanation given that even relatively 'minor' powers like the Numidians or Gauls were able to raise larger armies than their English counterparts a thousand years later.

Is this just a case of ancient sources inflating the size of armies, or is there something inherently different about later militaries that made them smaller?