I am supposed to write a review on the movie “9th Company”. It is about soviet Paratroopers fighting at hill 3234. I can not find any sources about how they were trained in real life.

If anyone can link me some sources that would be a huge help.

Sources relating to late in the war I are preferred.

Thanks!

Living in Malaysia, I find the fact that Islam is so prevalent among the Malay population of here and Indonesia interesting. We were the site of multiple ancient and powerful Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, yet among the population, there are almost no Malay Hindus or Buddhists (and legally none). What caused Nusantara to so completely and totally convert to Islam?

Further, looking upon the region's history, it seems to me (a layperson, at least!) that it parallels India's closely. Strong Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, introduction to Islam by trade, then local Islamic states, then colonialism. What were the differences in local conditions that made the archipelago so susceptible while India largely stayed Hindu?

Hi I’ve recently learned about the Sami people in Nordic countries and I’m confused about some things. Were they the original inhabitants of Nordic countries that were then colonized by other people? Or are they just one of the cultures that inhabited that region and are a minority ethnic group? I’ve seen people say Nordic countries do not treat their indigenous people well (Inuits in Greenland I understand), but are Nordic people (the stereotypical blonde, tall Vikings) not native to those countries? I don’t understand the history and conflict surrounding Sami people.

I’m sorry if this post is anyway insensitive, I’m just trying to figure out the history.

During quarantine, I had the chance to rewatch Battle 360. A quick question is how the Japanese population viewed the Grey Ghost. I know the Japanese shut down a lot news such as the battle losses from Battle of Midway. I'm also familiar with some of the propaganda they spread about USMC.

The question is was the USS Enterprise a living symbol to destroy from the Japanese? Such as the Bismarck was in the European theater? Or was the news involving anything with the USS Enterprise so throughly rewritten to fit their narrative that the general population and Imperial Navy were unaware that the single carrier was so effective on the battlefield.

I would also welcome any critique on my comments or misinformation as watching Battle 360 made me question how much of the stories were sensationalized to fit a uber American patriot narrative. Thank you for any info.

And if it is depends highly on the regions (like x is more likely to identified as Germans than y), what are some of the influencing factors?

Also did the overarching government care? Did the German/Italian government try to push for people to ditch their "old identity" and adopt the "new identity"? (perhaps to promote national unity?)

Growing up in the west, the little that I remember being taught about Mao was that he was basically an absolute totalitarian leader in full control over China with universal support.

I obviously don't believe that now, it's ridiculous, but reading about his history it seems that oftentimes the opposite was the case: it seems like he was constantly struggling for power - organizing campaigns with the masses against the bureaucracy and politicians, putting out prog panda campaigns, etc.

How much power and support did he actually have, and why did he always seem on the verge of losing that power?

Ive been inquisitive lately as to why civilizations of the new world [the Americas] haven't advanced as much as the old world [Europe,Asia,Meso,Africa] before there discovery/arrival in terms of technology,culture,science since humans did have a presence for about 12k+ years in both continents?

I feel like Piłsudski and Atatürk have a few noticeable things in common in being nationalist, strong man militaristic statesmen who arguably saved their nations from destruction, dominated inter-war politics in their respective countries but died before the start of World War 2 and have gone on to be glorified after death. In some regards their political careers could mark them out as sort of proto-fascists, though its probably not fair to either man to equate them to the likes of Hitler and Mussolini.

With that in mind, did either man express particular opinions about the rise of fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain, or about fascist leaders like Hitler? Was there any sign they might have been sympathetic to fascist ideology (even though I'm sure Piłsudski was keenly aware of the existential threat Nazi Germany posed to Poland)?

I watched the Charlie Chaplin film The Great Dictator today and it's a masterful satire that lambasts Hitler, Nazi Germany as a whole, dictatorship, etc. I'm wondering if Hitler ever saw the movie and if the Nazi party had any sort of official view on it

They were probably the strongest military city state in ancient Greece, what happened that made the city so weak towards the end of its life.

So I’m not sure if this has been asked before, I’m aware of the crusades but I’m just wondering why there was never any attempt for the Christian countries to retake Constantinople/ defeat the Ottomans in Europe. If there were, what was the result?

So the 1st college in the US was built in 1636, and I'd assume at that same time, a type of credit system was put in place to determine who was qualified to graduate? But searching through the web for old documents/articles, I can't find any specific metric used. Not even age or enrollment requirements.

So does this mean you just went there, got told "ok" by the college dean, and then sent off to start operating on people? If so, is this because medicine wasn't as advanced during the time, and hence, required fewer years of formal teaching? Or did we have some type of system like we have now: Associate's, Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate, each one earned with every additional 2 years of learning? And were these earlier campuses liveable for the medical students (as in, provided dormitories and on-campus housing)?

Also, not what I asked in the title, but just some info I'm also curious about while I'm at, aside from Physician (Medical Doctor), Mathematician, or Theologist, what courses could you take when higher education was just starting to become a thing. If you could possibly list the 1st appearances of certain fields/studies throughout the 1700s and 1900s, that would be very much appreciated. For instance, the title "psychologist" didn't become a thing you could pursue for a career until 1880.

Thank you in advance for help!

Say there's a theoretical son of a rich Roman who's growing up somewhere around the Late Republic or Early Empire. When it comes time to learn Greek, how would that process happen?

I know there would be Greeks who could teach him, but what would the teaching process be? Was it completely immersive, with him simply learning Greek by constantly having it spoken to him? Or would there be stuff like (the Roman equivalent of) worksheets or translation dictionaries, somewhat similar to how modern schools teach foreign languages?

I was looking through some pictures of depictions of Egyptian gods and it appears that animal-wise (as far as the Nile Delta goes), the crew was all there: jackal, couple brands of predator birds, an ibis, a cat, etc. I thought that with the seeming ubiquity of snakes in the area and the appearance of snakes in other religious mythologies, this seems like an odd exclusion. Is there any documented history as to why?

In high school, I really got into Othello and The Merchant of Venice after being shown the 1995 (with Laurence Fishburne) and 2004 (with Al Pacino) films. In the modern reproduction of these plays both Othello and Shylock are given very sympathetic representations, and the discrimination against them is center place in the plot. I always loved both plays for this, especially considering they where written in the 16th century. I heard though that The Merchant of Venice was actually written as a comedy and that the original theatergoers would have celebrated Shylock's fall. Yet Shylock's speech in the play seems to be highly sympathetic. With Othello, it's even harder for me to read the play as anything less than sympathetic to Othello. I guess I don't have a super-specific question, but how much of my perception of Shakespeare's "progressivism" in relation to race and ethnicity related to my modern reading of his plays? What would be the perception of the plays at the time?

When I was much younger I thought it was simple. The British wore red and the French wore blue, because that’s pretty much all I knew, but as I’ve learned more about the napoleonic wars I find that many countries wore blue as their standard infantry uniforms. Why is this? Was blue just the cheapest dye? Was it from a common cultural link?