Seven is such a strange number. Ten or five are more intuitive maybe, so why seven? It's strange to me that all cultures seem to have arrived at the same system.

I have seen many memes and others about Ethiopia never being conquered but just how did they do it

I know this is a generalization, but the name Abraham Lincoln carries more weight than Ulysses Grant, so why does the general of the Confederacy seem to be more notorious than the president?

I'm reading about William Davidson, a Jamaican born radical who lived in England in the early 19th century and ended up as part of the Cato Street Conspiracy among other radicals. By accounts, Davidson had a life in England as a cabinet maker and was a teacher in a sunday school. He may have faced the occasional prejudice, but it also seems that he was able to socialise within British society.

My view of racism in history has been quite crude, thinking that the further back you go, the more racist people are, evidently, this isn't true though is it? Davidson seems to live before a time of racialised thinking. Is it right to say that he may have got the odd look in the street, but on the whole people didn't think "he is a black man therefore he is x". When did the "scientific" racism and the accompanying political ideology and hatred start?

In particular, it appears as though he was overgenerous with his trading with native Americans, so it isn't clear to me why he and 14 other colonists were ambushed and he was singled out for torture by Powhatans.

Hundreds of songs appeared somewhere on the Billboard Hot 100 in that time, and there were many other lists that relied on airplay, so I imagine there were thousands of songs across all the charts. Did payola broadly affect these charts--that is, do they represent a massive departure from what people really wanted to hear most--or was it targeted to move only one or a few songs around at a time?

It is my understanding that Germany did this for two main reasons.

The first is that Germany failed to anticipate how an increase in firepower and a stagnation of mobility would affect modern conflicts. This led to the belief that a short, decisive, mobile-based war with France was within the realms of probability.

The other is that Germany thought that Russia would be able to mobilize before signficant losses could be incurred in a focued invasion, but would mobilize slow enough that it could not intervene in a focued invasion of France before it capitulated.

What other factors are at play that I am missing, if any? This topic is exceedingly interesting to me because of its seemingly underappreciated teaching and alternate history potential. If anyone with the means to educate me further on this aspect of the pre-war wishes to do so, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Most examples I can find about them either have to do with war or just make no sense to me. I am doing an independent source investigation on Cleopatra, and I need to understand what traditionalist and revisionist views are to better analyse my sources.

I have found many things about life in the USSR during the cold war but none about it during its early days. What was life like in the USSR before the cold war?

It's almost impossible, now, to imagine any country being able to execute a surprise to the degree of Pearl Harbor against the United States. I know the reasons usually given for Japanese success - ships were conveniently grouped together, radar readings were faulty, it was a Sunday, etc.

But a large part of the reason it's hard to imagine another Pearl Harbor is because the US massively outspends and outclasses just about everyone else in terms of weaponry. Is there any evidence that the Japanese military was "better" than ours, in the way we think of it now?

I'm reading The Mists of Avalon, and the author (Marion Zimmer Bradley) keeps mentioning "Lesser Brittain." And that got me thinking: if there's a Great Brittain, wouldn't there be a Less/Lesser Brittain? I've simply been assuming that it was called only "Brittain" originally (the London area), and that the other kingdoms, i.e. Wales, Scottland and Ireland, together with Brittain made Great Brittain. Does this make sense? Anyway, I'm just wondering what Lesser Brittain was, if it ever did exist.

EDIT: I'm very proud of myself for consistently spelling Britain wrong. SMH

I've read that Vikings often enslaved their own and took slaves as wives, so this doesn't make sense to me.

English, Scottish, Dutch, Scandinavian heraldry all prominently use lions in different designs. How did they even know lions existed? How could a British or Swedish noble know to use a lion design... did northern Europe have a lot more contact to north Africa than I realize or was there some species of "cold weather" lion I'm not aware of that lived up there in the past?

The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of them civilians . Tokyo was also subjected to fire bombings, killing another 100,000 more civilians and leaving 1 million homeless.

Is this possible? If so, how? Where do I go to seek training? Can I, a woman, train with the men?

If so, to wich extent? If not, when did people start using this term? (because as far as I know, when the wars happened they were called the Great War and the Second Great War)

*If possible, I want to know it from the military point of view

Hey guys,

I'm writing a report in school about Nixon's War on Drugs, and I'm trying to tie in the influence of MK Ultra on drug legislation/governmental opinion of the time. I'm using the time frame of 1971-1973ish, essentially I'd like to know if there are any relevant ties, and any sources that may back up this point. Thank you!