Both France and Spain lent military support to the American colonies during the American war for independence.

But it's my understanding that combat between these European nations occurred almost exclusively in the Americas.

Why didn't France invade England or England invade Spain if they were already at war with each other?

We're plans like this ever made but not put into motion?

What’s the best place to find peer reviews of a book on history? I know JSTOR is good but are there other places?

If you were a pilot in ww2 how were your achievements logged? If you went out on a sortie and claimed to shoot 5 planes down was that good enough?

I've gotten more interested in furniture recently and It's impossible to get far without constant references to Shaker furniture being the best. Even now Shaker style furniture seems to be extremely common.

I understand that they used high quality manufacturing methods like mortise and tenons to make very sturdy furniture and that they simple unadorned style is very elegant and timeless. However the skeptic in me doesn't think that sort of furniture can become so renowned without a large marketing campaign to support it and I doubt the shakers were behind that marketing.

So how did Shaker furniture get so popular? Was it just do to high quality or was there a marketing push as well?

Back at school this music teacher told us a story about Beethoven that I have ever since considered to be true but I have just realised that I have never heard it anywhere else. So my question is if there is any truth to it:

At a time when his deafness was progressing but he was not yet fully deaf, Beethoven was playing a signature piece of his. At the end of the concert, he could not hear anybody clapping, so he thought - “what is going on, have I gone completely deaf, or have I just lost the audience?”

He turns around to look at the audience to discover that he was not hearing them clapping because everyone was crying.

Im trying to find books talking about Mesopotamian systems of divination, astrology, and magical practices. I haven’t been able to find anything on the booklist, and most of what I find online is written by a New Age author, Joshua Free. While his works may contain valuable information, I want to be careful with new age authors for now, as I know that sometimes their books can take things out of context. I would also like to avoid high prices if possible. Thanks.

i never understood really well how the roman senate worked, i always thought it as a democracy but only for the rich ( oligarchy? ), it would be interesting to know if the people of rome was happy with this system or they preferred the imperial one. thank you very much for your time.

I live in Spain, where authors such as Ken Follet (for his Pillars of the Earth books), Christian Jacq and Massimo Manfredi and Arturo Pérez Reverte are highly regarded, and Galdos' Episodios Nacionales are part of the canon. According to hispanicist Henry Kamen this reliance on fictionalised history tends to 'distort and even intentionally falsify the past'.

Personally I read and have read and enjoyed historical fiction, including Patrick O'Brian, Hilary Mantel, Neal Stephenson, and I feel like I have learnt things about places, people and periods I might otherwise never have given much thought to.

Is there a case for historical fiction, beyond merely awakening interest in the events of the past? Are there writers who any actual historian would recommend as vehicles for genuine learning? Or are they just to be read as entertainment, providing more information about the time in which they were written than the period they are ostensibly about?

like the titanic was a she, same for almost every other ship, earth is referred as a she as well, why is she used in all these situations? not being sexist, i'm just curious

Swords were valuable and often hereditary pieces of property, but would they actually "name" them?

The popular image of colorful and frilly corsets and such seems a very stark contrast to the other, more functional, muted, and frankly more animal based, clothing of the location and era.

1. It's common to find the reason behind the failed invasions being typhoon destruction of Mongol fleets. Is this an accurate primary reason? Regardless, how successful was Japan in putting up a solid defense prior to the typhoon? Is there any indication they would have been able to fully repel the Mongol invasion without it?

2. What is the farthest geographical location that soldiers in the Mongol army could have been from while invading Japan? Do we have any contemporary sources describing what they did/saw, and how it may have affected them? What were the rough proportions of ethnic groups during the invasion?

3. Did the failure of the Mongols to successfully invade and take over invigorate rebellious efforts elsewhere in the Mongol efforts, or were reports of the failure largely unknown in the far off lands under Mongol control?

There are many scripts from ancient civilisations ( for example Harappan script, linear A) that have not been deciphered yet even though we have advanced computers which can perform decryption easily.

I know this sounds horrible, and I don't know of any cases of this occuring, but I was told that Canada has in the past used black soldiers as fodder, the implication being that they were unfairly exposed to combat while others were more protected. This stems from a conversation I had almost ten years ago and I have never seen anything to substantiate his claim, and he seemed to be speaking from a family/community oral history. He wasn't clear about whether he was talking about the first or second world war, but his impression was that black soldiers were generally made to go to the most dangerous locations on the battlefield. I would love to know more about this.

I really can't imagine how an american/european would look at a chinese man/woman and think that they have yellow skin. Maybe it had to do with yellow being the colour of Greater Qing, but in that case how did it turn from the colour of their clothes to the colour of their skins? I can also imagine that it had something to do with an element of chinese folklore such as the Yellow Emperor, but I doubt that your average 19th century racist knew a lot about chinese culture.

Also, it's probably because racists can't differenciate, but in case it's not, is there any reason the stereotype expanded to japanese people/east asians in general?

How was war done when it comes to front lines? What I mean by that is such as in WWI when all soldiers were spread out on a line trying to leave no space in the line un-opened (or exploitable/gaps). But when I look at history videos and maps, textbooks, etc. of things like the Napoleonic Wars they only seem to converge on a single point with their army rather than advance on a line (like the fronts of WWI and WWII). So would Armies just like “meet up” in a single area to fight? Why would they do what they did? It seems like they would of been encircled or another army can just go around them on either side. I’ve been confused on this for years