I had often heard that Poland was able to skip the first wave of the Black Death thanks to a swift shutdown of international trade. Is there any truth to this, or is it just propaganda? If it is true, how much of that has to do with centrally-imposed travel restrictions as opposed to the ravages of war?

I'm referring to Democrats and Republicans. I keep hearing people say the parties switched. Now did they at all and if so was it just geolocation or actual ideals. Because I hear both being thrown around if possible just a quick and simple answer.

I was reading a book (of questionable historical accuracy) that claimed that the Muslims had a tradition that Muhammad's coffin floated in mid-air.

Upon further research I found that: "Historie van den Oorsprongck, Geslacht, Geboorte, Opvoedinge, en Leere des grooten valschen Propheets Mahomets" details this and many other myths regarding Muhammad.

Obviously this is false (I've never been to Medina and I couldn't find any great pictures inside the tomb, but I'm going to assume it's false) and I have never heard any of this from Muslims.

However was this created from thin air as just another thing to write in a Christian polemic? Or was this some sort of poorly misunderstood part of Islamic teaching some writer had heard and misinterpreted?

Is it confirmed that in the dark ages priests sold a piece of heaven? is there any documents that confirmed?

Hi historians. I just watched a Netflix documentary on the Roman history, and I was intrigued by the story about Caligula.

Six months into the job, the young emperor enacted popular policies and was well liked.

But things quickly went downhill after he fell ill.

Do we know what illness was this? And how did it cause such a change in his personality?

I read somewhere that the historical account was written by his political enemies, and that it is possible some had been tweaked to fit their narrative.

But is it possible that Caligula might not have been as terrible as he is said to be?

He enlisted 1940, and spent two years on USS SHAD (SS-235), earned 3 battle stars, then the weird 1 month assignment to Midway Island. His next assignment was USS ODAX (SS-484), which was one of two new submarines used to test out the technologies found on captured German subs. I assume he must have been 'trusted' more than the average sailor by that point?. His first combat tour was surveillance off the coast of North Africa.

After 20 years in the navy , from1962 to 1972 he was CIA based in Vietnam.

Was it R & R, or was it something else?

AFAIK Castile and Aragon were still different kingdoms until the Nueva Planta decrees that abolished the Aragonese institutions, why were the colonies created in the Americas part of Castile and Aragon didn't had any as part of them exclusively (ruled and administrated by Aragon only)?

So much discussion around the internet has been based on how the Germanic people who migrated/invaded from Scandinavia were from a more impoverished environment, and lacked food and other resources. That leads me to wonder what factors made them such a formidable threat both militarily and politically. I've asked some questions on Quora, but it tends to spiral into "Superior Scandinavian Genes" answers which I have no use for. I was wanting to find out more details about these events in the form of a few specific questions.

1. Was it really due to lack of space and food and perhaps metal?
2. How many were there, or did they need time on the mainland to build up a force?
3. Did they come to continental Europe in detail, or did just as many stay behind?
4. Who did they displace when they arrived? I was under the impression that Slavic tribes weren't in that part of Europe yet.
5. Were the 'Germani' who destroyed Roman Legions in the Teutoberg Forest part of those migrations, or did they come over earlier?
6. Did the Germani, either before or after the Gothic Migrations, take land from the Celts/Gauls? Are there written records of their interactions?

Thank you for considering my questions, and please forgive my layman's terms and context.

In many depictions of the American revolution and Napoleonic wars we see soldiers close their eyes and even turn their heads away when shooting their muskets. Is this period accurate or just a hollywood exaggeration?

ofc everyone knows who Jesus of Nazareth is and at least a portion of his story from the bible, but could it be that he was a real man and more of a social revolutionary than we give him credit, at the time, Christianity was founded on the belief in individual responsibility to yourself and others, in total contrast to the roman paterfamilias system where your family held responsibility for you and others with the paterfamilias, the families patriarch at the top and moral arbiter for the family. following this would it be a reach to say that Jesus to be a sociopolitical force for individualism was required to be fatherless and thus rose the immaculate conception story? what i propose is that Christianity never started as a religion in its self, but was more a work of social moral politics and a movement towards moralising the individual over the group. do you guys think im on the right track or am i way off? i would also ask if there are any good purely historical works on his life as im quite interested from a historical standpoint.

Did the UN even have jurisdiction to give them that land? Is it mostly because its holy land?

Presumably after the fall of the 3rd Reich, Germany still had millions of proud Nazis running around (not necessarily people in power, just regular citizens who believed in Nazi ideology).

How did Germany bring those people back to sanity? How did the country survive such thorough mass brain washing?

What did the daily life of a prostitute in a Wild West brothel look like?

I imagine most of the workers came out of desperation, but what kind of freedom of movement did they have? Were they able to interact with townspeople outside of sex work? How easily could they leave the life if an opportunity offered? Were there prostitutes not connected to a brothel? Did they have other jobs? How much did they earn?

I’m more interested in the women’s perspectives and stories, but I’m aware that it’ll be easier to find community perspectives on this.

I’m also curious if there was a lot of variation from region to region. Did brothel life vary from mining communities to ranching communities? Mexican communities in the SW to Mormon communities in Deseret? Were there communities where it wasn’t tolerated at all? Where there African American prostitutes (Id assume so, there were African American cowboys)?

Really, any light that can be shed is good.

@mods: I’m aware this is kinda broad, and I’m more than willing to split this up if you want me too. I assume this was preferable over spamming several questions on the same general topic.

I don't really know anything about music theory to be fair. However, I've been thinking that monotone beats must have been a pretty obvious invention that wouldn't require sophisticated instruments. Is there any evidence of pre mid 20th century soundtracks similar to what would later be techno/minimal?

I don’t know much about this topic but I’d like to know why they would literally slaughter their own people with no mercy. I saw the footage. They burned children, executed whole families in their homes and chopped off heads. I need to know or was this just genocide because of negative propaganda against the Tutsis?

From what I understand, before the 20th century very few people were openly gay in most most cultures. Today there are stereotypical personality traits, mannerisms, hobbies etc. that are associated with gay men. How and when did this stereotype come to be. Obviously not every gay man fits these stereotypes now, but I would assume before this cultural phenomenon nobody would think of theatre, etc. as particularly homosexual. Is there published research on the psychology of people adopting this persona, both historically and now?

This question came across my brain when I was reading some WWII stuff recently. Isn't the entire rise of the Nazi party based on the fact that Germany was completely ruined financially after WWI because of the severe reparations they had to pay? I understand that part of the Nazi's rise involved stopping the reparation payments, but where did they get the money to completely rebuild their military with state of the art machines and weapons in the midst of a worldwide depression? Similarly, how did they have the money to finance a large scale war for six years?