I’m reading and listening to various histories of Rome at the moment, and something I’m struggling with is understanding why the Romans struggled so much with the Germanic tribes. Some of the resources I’ve encountered indicate that the Roman legions were more disciplined and their access to standard gear like the lorica more regular - not that it was necessarily better than what elite soldiers in an opponent might have, but was more homogenized in terms of what the army as a whole had.

More than that, just, the population of the Roman Empire was massive. How could these Germanic tribes, with much smaller territories l, have enough young men to lose in these wars against the Romans, and come back with fresh armies just a decade or two later, whereas the Romans struggled with recruitment at times?

I asked in reference to the Germanic tribes, but really this could go to a number of Roman enemies - I first thought about this in the context of Trajan’s wars in Dacia.

Considering Othello is a moor and from African descent, what would an Elizabethan era audience think of Othello or even Shakespeare?

I was doing my Ancestry and did some research and the only thing we know of his life in Ireland is that he lived in southwest Ireland due to people who still have his last name sharing most of their DNA with people still there. His last name was Fitzgerald when he moved to the US but he changed it when he got here. I havent found any records that state his previous name

If you look at an ethnic map of 1919 Europe large portions of what would be modern day Poland have German majority ethnicity, but if you look at an ethnic map today those areas now consider themselves Polish. How did this happen?

Stalin ignored border agents who captured 108 spies, polish woman tried again warning ussr troops. apparently stalin didnt trust into these reports because lack of evidence but i mean he was the man who orchestrated the great purge so why would he not take threats serious ?

The Mongol invasion significantly weakened the Islamic kingdoms, Korea, and to some extent China, but it left intact the Western Europe and Japan.

For example, there was a storm that thwarted the Mongol Invasion to Japan that the Japanese now calls "kamikaze ("god's wind")

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Can we attribute the rise of the Western Europe and Japan after the 15th century to this coincidence? Did anyone discuss this theory before?

I stopped by one of my favorite gift shops today (which is an old converted mill) that specializes in antique items, namely currency and military artifacts from 18th and 19th century America. As I was perusing their current collection I saw a pair of "sunglasses" labeled as such, but underneath they were identified as Civil War sharpshooter glasses. There was about a dime sized area in the middle that looked kind of like a bifocal would (with an obvious lense change from the perimeter of the glasses). Can someone crack an egg of knowledge on me about what these are, who used them/how widespread their use was, how they came about, what they're made of/how they made them, and how effective they were at targeting and shooting over distance vs. a naked eye?

In order to properly fire on a ship from a distance i.e. in WWI, I presume you'd have to know where it was headed and at what speed? How could that have been accomplished with no point of reference?

As the title asks :)

The 1947 congressional report "Fascism in Action" apparently listed Hamilton as one of the inspirations for the Nazis and fascism in general. The podcast "The Dollop" did several episodes heavily criticizing Hamilton, which is where I learned about that report and which also got me wondering how true it was. Would his beliefs fit into the modern definition of "fascism"? Did 20th century fascists directly reference his work/beliefs in their own? Like did Hitler or Mussolini ever explicitly state that they took their ideas from Alexander Hamilton specifically? Did other prominent fascists?

Thanks!

I mean, before Napoléon. I just find it impressive that France could fight all of Europe simultaneously and not only survive but actually win. Especially since I read that many officers had fled the country as a result of the Revolution, since they were nobles. So, how was what should have been a disorganized military so effective?

Being raised Catholic, and grown up in a country (Italy) with very few protestants, I never encountered this myth. However, once I got exposed to American media, this myth seemed to pop up all the time.

The story goes like this: in the 'Dark Ages' (I hate the term, but it's sadly often used in this kind of stories) the Church had all the power and knowledge, and didn't want 'the masses' to access it and question its authority. To do this, they outlawed all translation of the Bible, so that the only way non-churchpeople could access the Bible was through the mediation of a priest, who would then hide all the inconvenient elements therein. Until brave Luther came along, and allowed everyone to read the Bible, without any Church censorship

Based on my (limited) understanding of history, this seems... not to make sense, for several elements:

1. All the instances of people translating the Bible and getting punished for it ended up being punished... for reasons other than the mere 'translating the Bible'. For instance Tyndale, was punished for being a 'heretic', and his translation supposedly had heretical and polemic elements, such as translating 'ekklesia' as 'congregation', which might have been a deliberate choice to oppose the Catholic Church.

2. The main reason for the reverence the Church had for the Vulgate seemed to be for historical reasons which led to spiritual reasons, not unlike KJV-only-ists now: while I find KJV-only-ism silly and not very tenable, I don't believe there is any conspiracy by its supporters to hide the true meaning of the Bible. Also, I've never read anything from medieval writers about wanting to conceal things from the masses.

3. The Church did teach Latin to some laypeople, at times. This would undermine the entire story.

4. Finally, there have been numerous translations of the Bible into vernacular which had not been opposed by the Church. There were a ton of Old English and Old Norse translations, for instance, and the Church didn't try to stop them. The only difference is that those translations didn't claim to have as much authority as the Vulgate (which is actually kinda fair, since the Vulgate was the closest medieval people in Western Europe had to the 'originals' of the Bible), which Tyndale did.

All in all, the story about priests not wanting the masses to discover something inconvenient about the Bible seems to be mostly a myth. Would you agree with that?

I read that the officers used to engage in duels and get crazy face scars they would make worse by stuffing with horsehair in order to create gnarly scars. What was the society for these people like? How were they inter related?

We often hear about cities in Europe with a lot of history. You’ll find old libraries, universities, buildings etc.

Since India is also quite ancient, why aren’t there any ancient Indian cities? Sure, there are old buildings but most of them are singular places like forts or temples, rather than entire cities. The buildings and houses of a 500 year old city look similar to those of a small town whose first brick house was built in the 60s. Cities hundreds of kilometres away will look the same. Indian cities don’t employ any “Indian” architecture, compared to Paris or Vienna where even residential buildings have a distinctive style. You can see it while comparing older parts of Mumbai to older parts of other cities; older parts of Mumbai feel British with their buildings and city layout whereas older parts of Delhi or Hyderabad just look chaotic. There’s nothing there apart from monuments which will showcase the history of those places. You definitely won’t find any old libraries or universities that are still functioning in India.

So, why is that? Why didn’t medieval Indians create proper cities with proper architecture? Were most houses in medieval India made of mud rather than bricks? Indians could create massive forts and temples, so why not massive, planned cities?

I know there were plenty of processes to deal with crimes, to varying degrees of effectiveness, but what about disappearances? If you were, for instance, a mother in London in 1823 and your son left in the morning and didn't come back, what would you do to find him? Were there any organisations or groups or processes to help you? (I'd love to hear about processes anywhere and anywhen, not just London, 1823.)

I know this is an answer that could vary quite a lot, but I want to hear it all. 17th century to prehistory I'm happy to learn.