How do/did people make soap without modern hobby kits? How do you make lye? When did people start making soap and how did they figure it out?

The Orca is a visually striking and cosmopolitan species, so I would expect it to show up in the stories, mythology, histories, iconography, etc. of many cultures worldwide, and yet to my knowledge it only seems to feature heavily in the coastal Native American societies of the Northwest.

Did it historically have a more limited range? Did northwest native culture for some reason bring them into closer contact with these creatures than elsewhere? Am I missing out on other cultures which have referenced this species?

History has always interested me, but outside of school I never knew what would be considered a good book for learning about past civilizations, societies, religion etc. I know this is a broad question as it isn't specific to one place or time, but I am interested in anything. It can be surface level or go more deep into certain aspects. I'm just looking for a good read and to learn more about certain topics because for now I've just been reading a lot of wikipedia. Now that I mention it, if there is a certain wikipedia page you recommend I will also be more than down to check that out! Hopefully this sparks a good discussion and thank you for your time!

I’ve always wondered why a student would bring a teacher an apple on the first day of school...

I've been learning about Latin America's independence movements recently, and as I understand, the Napoleonic Wars and the abdications of Bayonne were a factor in the growing calls for independence in the New World. However, as I understand, there were no significant independence movements during this era in the Philippines, and calls for independence only started growing in strength in the mid/late-19th century. Did the independence movements in Latin America and the Napoleonic Wars result in or influence any calls for independence in the Spanish Philippines?

I just watched Band of Brothers, and they were pretty surprised about finding the Jewish Concentration Camp in the second to last episode, but then I thought why they didn't know, I mean there were Jews that escapedo the Nazi Regime, did none of the allies knew about the Holocaust and the camps and the Final Solution?

I was wondering about this for a while. When someone says Mongols, Tatars, Perchengs and so on... I imagine nomadic horse-riding tribe that spends a lot of their time on horseback driving their cattle/sheep/horse herds through the steppe.

Now, this is an almost certainly an incorrect image. Nomadism is a wide umbrella for various kind of behaviours and does even include a stable central location with migrating gathering/pastoral parties.

However, the other part of the picture is a steppe. The way I imagine steppe is unending grassland with not enough trees. Such grassland would make firewood difficult to find, especially for a not very mobile society. And this would make the possibiliy of heating a large amount of iron ore, extracting metal and then heating the metal long enough to work it into required shape a difficult prospect. And thats for already skilled metalworker, I can't imagine how a metalworking culture could develop in a place with a lack of fuel. Note that this comes from European and Europe was and to certain degree still is, covered by forest, so lack of firewood (outside of cities) isn't generally a problem.

Did steppe tribes develop a metalworking culture? How did they solve the problem with lack of firewood? Or do the steppes provide enough firewood and potential problem if they were migratory?

I don't have any particular group in mind, but I'm interested in peoples like the early Islamic region and Christianity. Were they just thought of as an act of God or did they have a similar perception as we do, just without any genetic reasoning?

Hi,

During the American Revolution, what sorts of acts did the Continental Army and the British forces (and each side's allies) commit that we would today recognize as war crimes, or crimes against humanity?

What were perceptions of those acts at the time?

Obviously, there was a fair amount of mob or vigilante justice too, for example tarring and feathering, but I'm more interested in military or paramilitary acts for the purpose of this question.

Thanks in advance!

Go to comments.

I obviously understand that some people look at him through the context of someone who killed political opponents after the revolution. But others look at him as a figure to be emulated because of his work with the poor and undereducated.

I was just listening to the Ancient History Encyclopedia podcast episode "Plague in the ancient and medieval world", they mention several plagues originating in China and spreading to the West via the Silk Road. Examples include the Antonine and bubonic plagues, though I recall there being more.

Particularly in recent times, given the Covid19 outbreak having also originated in China, as well as the Sars epidemic and more, there definitely seems to be a pattern of diseases spreading westward from China. This is not to say that all deadly pandemics originate there, but rather what seems to have made these specific ones so deadly and efficient at spreading outside of Chinese "borders"?

Can anyone recommend one? TIA!

I had thought it was solely a nickname, which was already difficult enough for me to understand, but no - there's a novelist who was born Biff Mitchell, a baseball player born Biff Pocoroba, and an actor born Biff Yeager. And this is just people who became famous enough to have Wikipedia articles.

Where does "Biff" even come from? It seems to have been applied to mostly American men without any real regard for what their given names were; Biff Henderson's given name was James, Biff Jones' was Lawrence, Biff McGuire's was William, Biff Rose's was Paul, etc. It's not a like a Richard -> Dick or Henry -> Hank situation. It has no clear meaning on its own, that I know of, and doesn't offer a lot in the way of onomatopoeia either. So what's the deal with Biff?

(I have looked for similar questions & didn't find any, please post relevant ones below!)

As a AP U.S. History student, I'm aware of the series of escalating British Acts (and the escalating colonial responses) that are usually cited as the main catalyst for the war. But why were the early taxes so awful to begin with? Did they hurt the economy that badly? Who, exactly, was hit hardest?

I'm confused because, to me, there's a huge gap between how the writers of the time cast the revolutionary fight and the insignificance of the catalyst. The end of Salutary Neglect seems like a much more important reason, but that's not really what people point to as a main cause of the war.

Other than not being under crown rule did the revolutionary war have any real effect on a slaves life?

I have been trying to parse a better understanding of who Jesus Christ supposedly was and why Christianity started. Apparently he was a rabbi who pissed off mainstream Jews by declaring that the temple would be destroyed someday?

I am confused if he was supposedly a committed Jew, if starting a new religion was his goal, and if he saw himself as the son of god.

Did they ever contribute to their home societies with their pillagings, i.e. giving money to those who had little? Or were they really as greedy and selfish as history proposes them to be?

I watched an old documentary on WW1 in the Middle East (on youtube, it was called Blood and Oil), and towards the end it said that an Ottoman military commander took his troops and disappeared into Central Asia on a crusade of sorts, and fought there for a few more years before dying in Kazakhstan. I've never heard of this before, and can't find anything more about it from google, so were these "Crusades" real, and if so, how effective were they as a contributor to the war?

Basically the title. I understand that schools may have looked a little different at that time, but surely there were institutions that had to make these re-opening decisions. How were they handled?

I remember hearing about a jar, or a flask, which had three layers to it. Got an outer and an inner ceramic layer, and between them some sort of sponge-like material. The device would use evaporative cooling or something of the sort. I think it was called a xeno jar or something similar, but upon searching the net I couldn't find anything. Am I imagining this?

Listening to an interesting podcast about John Wilkes Booth and it mentions that at the time some , including Edwin Stanton, thought it could be a Confederate plot .

What reaction did high ranking CSA supporters and the south in general have? Why wasn't the loss of such a powerful man as Lincoln, used as a rallying cry to continue the war?