The American Civil War saw huge technological leaps, going from single shot rifle muskets and soldiers marching into combat in wide columns to lever action repeating rifles, early breech loading rifles, hand grenades, Gatling guns, and advanced trenchworks. It’s often shown that during the American Revolution, the only major change was that soldiers became more weary of sharpshooters and “Indian tactics”. Were there any new tactics or technologies learned or developed during the war besides what’s often taught in schools?

I am curious as to what reasons the Union had to fight so vehemently to prevent the south from succeeding from the Union. Were there economic reasons? Was it the precedent it would set for other states? Was it the idea of Manifest Destiny or something similar?

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Edit: Apparently I miss-spelled secede. Sorry bout that.

I know that parchment at least was in use, as well as engravings in stone obviously, but what other materials to write on did they use? They must have been familiar with papyrus: was it also used in the Roman Empire? And which materials were most common/cheapest? How available were they to rich people and to common people?

I'm wondering if government agencies have an official historian you can ask questions to.

It seems to me that Arabisation stands out as being an unbelievably successful cultural movement. After the Arab conquests, many peoples with distinct cultures and religions were folded into a single identity.

I understand that there is a massive amount of diversity within the group of peoples that identify as Arabs. The people of Egypt still have largely ancient Egyptian ancestry, some "black" Somalians are considered Arab, and even Maronite Christians in Lebanon. But that's what makes this even more strange to me.

The identity is and isn't tied to Islam and is and isn't tied to having actual Arab ancestry. It reminds me of a kind of civic national identity, eg Roman. The difference, in this case, is that even after the fall of the Abbasid/Umayyad caliphates, the identity persisted.

Since then, the "Arab" nations have been disunited and under the rule of many local and foreign powers and yet Arabisation has continued to this day. Pan-Arabism has shown how important this identity is, sometimes superseding national identity.

So to summarise, my questions are:

1. Why were so many conquered peoples keen to adopt the Arab identity, to begin with (despite not being Arabs or Muslims in some cases).

2. What made this identity important to hold on to for both the peoples and the rulers that inhabited the post-caliphate emirates and sultanates. Especially as you might think it useful to cultivate a more local identity (from the ruler's point of view, as happened after the collapse of other similar empires).

3. What is the explanation for the exceptions? For example, most Berbers were Arabised, others weren't and why are the Maronites Arabs and the Copts not?

Ive found an article saying that, the pyramids were not built by slaves at all, that the workers were paid and well respected among there people.

In fact so well respected that, they even had their own graveyards next to the pyramids to honor them. I looked for historic proof of that but cant seem to find anything. So question for you historians is that true?

As an Islamic Philosopher, I find it difficult why people presume Imam Al-Ghazali (rh), caused a decline in Islamic scientific, and philosophical productivity.

It is clear in his "Tahafut al Falasifa" his intentions are simply undermining the outcomes of Aristotellian-Platonic Philosophy, and not necessarily philosophy or logic itself. If this were not the case, Ghazali would be maintaining a contradiction, if Ghazali were to use philosophy to debunk ALL of philosophy.

As for scientific enquiry, in his "Deliverance from Error", Ghazali has an introductory chapter on mathematical sciences. He even says this outstanding statement:

Great indeed is the crime against religion, committed by anyone who supposes that Islam is to be championed by the denial of these mathematical sciences.

Further, I dont see how Ghazali's Occaaionalism plays any role in this at all. Sure, it helps maintain a God-centered worldview, but how does that effect productivity? It's not like the scholars are gonna pack up their stuff and leave, "Hey boys, Ghazali won, time to stop thinking".

So why do large amounts of people, still believe he is the cause for the "lack" of scientific/mathematical/philosophical enquiry in the Muslim world?

In the Book of Acts, Paul declared that he was a Roman citizen as a protection against flogging. The garrison commander takes him at his word, which I find rather hard to believe. How would someone prove their Roman citizenship? Was there a universal system in place to verify an identity? Or did the bureaucratic processes vary from place to place in the empire?

We see Hitler as the public enemy number one. Evil reincarnated. My question is who was seen like this before him? Was it unanimously Gengis Kan? Were there other people or systems that were hated by almost everyone regarding their age, race, nationality, etc?

It is interesting that Brüning is so easily forgotten about in history, even though, arguably, the failure of his administration certainly helped Hitler a lot. But the great question remains: why did Brüning act the way he did? This is something that seems to scratch a lot of people's heads. Why the pedantic enactment of the Versailles treaty? Why doom the economy in such an obvious way? And why lead in such an openly dysfunctional way, if he himself knew of the danger Hitler posed?

Is it really so that he wanted to showcase the ridiculousness of the Versailles treaty or that he, as he himself said later on in his life, he wanted to reinstate monarchy (which doesn't make much sense)?

Could we discuss this?

Why did the Soviets not invade Finland at the end of the war and capture Helsinki as they did Berlin?

I got my ancestor results back and i’m 20% Ashkenazi, where are they from and what’s their story?

What would the average population be like for a lords land during the medieval period, preferably the high middle ages.

I'm sure their was a large range of possible size depending on how much land and what kind the lord owned. But I would appreciate a ballpark estimate.

So just by looking at the m4 sherman, and m6 heavy tank, they both are very large compared to the tiger and pz4/t34. Why did they choose overall to make them a bigger tank ?

I know that by this time period the religion had died out but is there anyone or place during this time period that had a notable enough following?

Hello,

How would I look up more information about missionaries involved in the London Missionary Society? I am specifically trying to locate their personal diaries (if they exist) or letters or anything that would help me understand their personal musings and experience beyond what is published or linked on Wikipedia.

Thanks in advance!

The capital of the Mughal Empire was Agra so why is it not called the Agra Sultanate or an another dynasty in the Delhi Sultanate.

This isn’t really a question about history per se, but rather I was wondering if any historians could recommend any books (or really any other media) that stand out to them that cover periods of US history? I know it’s extremely broad but I’d love anything 1800s-present.

The caveat tho is I’m looking for something that presents everything unbiased, unromanticized, in depth and without sugarcoating anything (for example, maybe instead of a hypothetical book just focusing on Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, it would also cover his order of the aboriginal execution).

Thank you for any help, hope everyone’s staying safe! :)

Journalist Max Harden had in 1906 caused perhaps the biggest domestic scandal of the German Empire when he accused Wilhelm II's confidantes Philipp von Eulenburg and Kuno von Moltke of (then criminalised) homosexuality. Originally an attempt to break the - in the eyes of Harden and others undue - influence of a suspected homosexual camarilla, Harden later regretted causing the scandal, suspecting that the Kaiser turning from his erstwhile confidantes to more militaristic advisors may have been the root cause for WWI.

Is this assessment at least partly true? Did this and other political scandals help shape the German Empire towards war?