With everything happening recently, I began looking a little bit about history. My world was literally flipped upside down when I found that Australia is part of the countries that the Queen also ruled. Can someone brief me on how history made that possible? Australia is so disconnected from Europe..and not just geographically.

More context:

I've been doing a little digging into my Dad's family history, and I'm pretty sure I have located my great-great-grandparents' entry on the Census of Ireland, 1901 as the names match what we have for other documents and the relative ages are correct (i.e. oldest to youngest seems in order).

However, it gets weird real quick: all of their children (that I have thus far found birth or baptism records for [edit: sourced from digitised church and civic records available online]) seem to be between 3 and 5 years older in reality than the ages given on the census. What I've found so far:

• The eldest, John, was born in 1876, which would have made him 25 rather than the 20 years recorded on the census
• my great-grandfather Michael was born in 1879, which would have made him 22 rather than 17
• Younger sister Catherine was born in 1881, which would have made her 20 rather than 16.
• Younger brother Dan was born in 1886, which would have made him 15 rather than 11
• Younger sister Hanora was born in 1888, which would have made her 13 rather than 10.
• Younger sister Margartet was born 1889, which would have made her 12 rather than 8.

Why would they do this?? My family is intrigued, but we're all Australians and none of us are even amateur historians. Our extremely uninformed questions thus far are:

Was it just a family record-keeping error? Was it usual for ages to be a bit loosey-goosey in early C20 Ireland? Was there something going on that would have made it expedient for only one son to be thought "adult"? Would there be some benefit to having younger children (support or welfare)? Were they fae, and disguising their slower ageing?

Some additional facts, if context helps:

• my great-grandfather was not necessarily the straightest arrow in the quiver, so shonky is not entirely outside the realm of possibility for this family
• My great-great grandfather was one or both of farmer and cattle dealer, depending on when you look at the records
• The whole family lists Cork City as their birthplace, and residence is given in various places in and near Cork City in the records I've found so far.

I'm still hunting down records for the youngest (age given as 6 on the census), and a brother listed as 16 alongside Catherine. I'll update with their details if/when I find them if that would be helpful.

Did the pilgrims just start building shelter and looking for food? Was the immediate area occupied by Native Americans?

I wondered if the Angles that settled England were Norse because they inhabited southern-mid Denmark before migrating to England. Therefore, are the English actually Norse?

Reason for Asking: I'm wondering how Norse the English are because they were founded by Angles, settled by Vikings (Danelaw) and settled by Normans (Frenchified "Norse-men") so they seem very Norse to me, but they're not considered Norse. Which I don't understand...?

Language Argument: Finally, the language similarities. I've tried learning Dutch and Norwegian. I find the grammar of Norwegian MUCH more similar than Dutch and there seems to be more cognates and even the Norwegian accent sounds English spoken with odd words. English has more in common with North Germanic languages than it does West.

How are the English not Norse with all these connections?

Mexican Revolution

The Mexican Revolution is a very complicated series of events, any recommendations for videos/reading material to better understand and learn from it. Young historian here.

I've been searching all over the web, but i can't seem to find much about Anglo-Saxon giants. I found some websites that say that the Anglo-Saxon believed that giants built the Roman ruins, but I'm not so confident with that. I also want to know if the Anglo-Saxons thought that giants were intelligent, or flesh eating savages.
I also wish to know of any physical descriptions of the Anglo-Saxon giants.
Thanks!

Is per-capital income the correct heuristic for living standards? Could wealth inequality be a relevant stat in this scenario alongside per-capita income?

I know that there are some artifacts that, using modern technology, can be recovered; but since I assume the majority of documents are long gone will our learning about the ancient world plateau, and has it already?

I'm writing a book that is set in the Napoleonic Era, starting in 1810 and my character enlists in the American Navy. One thing I'm struggling with is finding anything concerning the level of training they were given, if any, for Foremast Jacks. Does anyone have advice? I'd be most grateful! :)

I understand the HRE dissolved in 1806 but not sure if they were important enough at that time for their foreign relations to even matter?

If they did, who was the ambassador? I know for the time period this would have been a minister not ambassador just using the modern phrasing.

Most battles are won by good strategy, tactics and well drilled formations, not by extremely skilled warriors. However, one of the most fun things about good fantasy stories is the unmatched skills of the legendary warriors singlehandedly turning tides of critical battles.

I think of: Aragorn, Arthur Dayne, Jaime Lannister, Selmy Barristan, Conan, king Arthur, Geralt of Rivia, Húrin, Fingolfin, Karl Franz, and I'm sure you all can think of plenty more...

But truly how important is individual skill opposed to formation drills and proper tactics in a realistic non-fictional situation? Can a single warrior (by melee prowess alone, not leadership), change the course of battle?

It's embarrassing to admit this, but I don't know enough about the actual economic mechanisms that made colonial domains turn a "profit". We often see articles around with headlines such as "British took 45 trillion USD from India", but what was the actual process of extracting that wealth like? Where did all this money go to (company shareholders, the government coffers, a local aristocrat, etc.?), what actually made the colony lose wealth while the Metropole gained it?

In so many regency/Victorian shows and movies, the heroine is scolded for reading because it would make her undesirable or something. I know knowledge in things like languages and music were appreciated, so this doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me. Is there any historical basis for this? If so, were some genres considered “more feminine/appropriate” than others?

Given that Ragnar's raid would have happened like this in real life ... is there any reason why King Aella would not have given Ragnar only silver / any reason why Ragnar would not ask for "2000 pounds in gold"?

Gold is usually more valuable than silver, but would there have been an advantage to having both gold and silver in this time period (~9th century)?