How many micro-cosms exist within the americas before european contact? After reading up on the spread of corn across the pre-columbian americas, it made me think how aware the incas were of the aztecs or how much the iroquois could tell you about the shoshone.

I'm interested in finding out how the Japanese reacted to the Navajo code in WW2. Were they aware that it was a Native American language? Were they close to cracking the code? All the resources I've found about the use of Navajo code are usually US based and give a US perspective. I'd really like to see a Japanese POV on it.

I realized today I have no idea what the indigenous Australians people ate. I assume Kangaroo was on the menu, but what else? How did they harvest and prepare them?

As the title states, as a concubine in a sultans harem, excluding the... ahem... obvious, where I would need to make myself available to the Sultan, what would my day be like? Would I have duties I would be required to fulfil each day? Would I have limited freedom to take part in activities which interest me or would I be nothing more than a prisoner who must wait to be called upon?

If the Sultan is busy off on campaign or is otherwise indisposed would I be free to do as I wish within the confines of the role or would I still be required to stick to the same schedule?

What language would have Hannibal spoken? If extinct, is there a language today that resemble it or shares the same (not so distant) roots?

Specifically, I'm trying to find figures for how much the 12 gauge shell and .45-70 cartridge would have cost (per 1 cartridge).

There is a saying in Germany among left-wing people: "Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!" (Who betrayed us? The social-democrats! ). Did the SPD really betray the revolutionaries, wasn't the SPD Marxist at the time? Why did SPD President of Germany at that time, Friedrich Ebert, decided to use military force to quell the revolution?

I read that the Hitler family's personal doctor, Eduard Bloch, was placed under the special protection of the Gestapo in annexed Austria. The Wikipedia article states that "He was the only Jew in Linz with this status", implying that there were other Jews in the reich who were protected from the concentration camps. How many Jews were there that had this protection? And why?

I mean, the Vikings was doing raids and so on in the East, so why was it the raid of Lindisfarne that started the viking age?

I have heard it said that the belligerents at the outset of ww1 were not prepared for how warfare had changed due to the advances in weaponry and that the leadership would have done well to look at the American Civil War to get an idea of how warfare had changed.

The first part of the statement is true to my understanding but I am wondering about the pervasiveness of that unpreparedness for how warfare had changed. Were there individuals or groups that spook up before ww1 began in earnest about how it would be fundamentally different? Additionally, was the aforementioned unpreparedness due to complete lack of recognition of how the new weapons would change warfare, or was it a case of the change was recognized but not the degree to how much it changed.

The latter part of the statement about the civil war I find to be much more suspect for a few reasons. First and most significantly the Civil War was a significant war and have a hard time believing that European generals and other leaders would not have studied the war in both its warfare and its effects on society and the economy. Second and less significantly, the civil war was nearly 50 years in the past and several other more recent wars I would have thought to be better for viewing how warfare had changed in practice though not the influence of the wars on the civilian population. The one that strikes me as most likely to be looked at would be the Russo-Japanese War but there are a few others that I would have thought to be at least somewhat indicitive: Spanish-American War and First Balkan War.

As a hanger-on question, was American military leadership surprised about the changes in warfare?

In the computer game (yes I know, but hear me out) Rome 2 Total War, when describing the Marian reforms it states that:

"Legionaries also ate like pigs before a campaign. Fat legionaries were not unfit; they were ready for a long hard march into enemy lands, and were looked on favourably by their centurions. It was far easier to carry extra rations as body-fat inside the men. They would still eat on campaign, but they would have reserves to carry them through any days of short rations or poor foraging. This might make all the difference to victory or defeat if the enemy were clever enough to be burning everything in their path. After a few weeks of marching and conquest the legionaries would have burned through their fat and be back to fighting weight. They would also be hungry, and unforgiving to the enemy! "

This is all very plausible, and specific about centurions, and the rationale and advantages of doing so. The only problem is no amount of my trawling google books/scholar can find any mention of this.

There's plenty of fluff the game developers could have used when describing the Marian reforms without needing to fabricate plausible suppositions, so assuming they're not making it up can anyone back this up with sources?

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the protagonists Gilgamesh and Enkidu become fast friends after fighting each other and realizing they are two sides of the same coin.

Later on that friendship would deepen, sleeping together to warm each other etc.

I felt like it was implied that they were in love, not like brothers but more than that.

When Enkidu died Gilgamesh was crying so intensely, his whole kingdom felt his pain. I remember beeing very sad reading this.

Anyhow, is there a historic consensus on if they were partners sexualy also?

I'm studying submarine warfare in WW2, specifically U-boat attacks on merchant convoys. In late 1943, the Germans started using the G7es acoustic torpedo. It had built-in hydrophones and home in on its target by the sound of the propeller.

The following excerpt comes from the book Captain Gilbert Roberts and the Anti-U-Boat School:

The sloop Londonderry, captained by Commander John Dalison, was returning alone from Freetown, where she had just delivered a convoy. When off the Azores a look-out spotted a periscope. It was a flat calm day with plenty of visibility and Dalison was actually on the bridge painting a picture: he was an excellent maritime artist. His ship’s company were not at action stations so he gave the order to stop engines, ordered his helmsman to turn bows-on to the periscope to present the smallest target and sounded action stations. The periscope disappeared for a few moments and then came up again, this time fully six feet in the air, showing its small top and flat shape beneath. Dalison could not bring himself to believe it was a U-boat. A periscope is used to the minimum height for a minimum period and never shoved high in the air. Dalison watched the periscope very carefully for signs of rolling. If it was some kind of ruse-de-guerre, it must be lively in the water. It was not. The periscope was quite steady. Could it be there for him to ram? Maybe a mine with a dummy periscope? But it was absolutely steady—and now slowly moving away!

Knowing his crew were ready, Dalison ordered the engines ‘full ahead’ and ‘stand by depth charges, set shallow pattern’. He was a very experienced Escort Commander, having sailed some five million convoy miles, but he had never sunk a U-boat. On one occasion he fell and broke his leg and his First Officer had taken the ship to sea and had been fortunate enough to sink one U-boat and share in another. So when Dalison had decided that he was looking at a U-boat, off he went after the enemy. As Londonderry tore through the sea toward the U-boat, Dalison could be seen on the bridge whooping his ship along as though he was riding a hunter after a fox. Suddenly there was a huge explosion and Londonderry’s stern collapsed. The U-boat had disappeared and survival was the imminent problem. The U-boat did not fire again and eventually Londonderry was towed home with an irate and frustrated Commanding Officer. Back at Liverpool, John Dalison poured his heart out to Roberts. On the floor of the Tactical School both went over Dalison’s moves. There were many suppositions. It was a mine. A lure of some sort. A towed lure. Dalison thought that it was a mine towed by a U-boat but Roberts did not agree. How could a mine be made to lie at exactly the right depth and on the exact bearing from which the attacker came? And what about the business of the periscope waving up and down? Dalison suggested that the periscope had jammed. Roberts was intrigued and thought it warranted further investigation. John Dalison went off swearing vengeance at the next U-boat he sighted.

Roberts decided to have a quiet word with Sir Max and went upstairs to the C-in-C’s small flat. They discussed the point and Horton agreed with Roberts that it was a torpedo and could possibly have a hydrophone in its head. Horton told Roberts to write to Intelligence and to the experimental establishment at Fairlie and see if they could come up with anything.

From this excerpt, I'm guessing that in those days, it was extremely difficult for a submarine to torpedo a ship that was heading straight for it. It's easier to hit a ship that is moving laterally. Consequently, the captain of the Londonderry was baffled by how the U-boat managed to hit it, and wondered if it had been towing a mine or something. Is my guess correct?

He was a radio operator and he claims that they weren’t allowed to demolish railroads from China or ground-to-air missiles and other things from the Chinese because the U.S. didn’t want to affect trade relations. Growing up I took this claim as fact but now I’m not sure.

With the current protests going on, I’ve been wondering how people in societies around the world kept the peace and even dealt with the folks in their society that didn’t play by them rules.’

I am currently watching The Patriot, and while I’m aware that the movie certainly doesn’t portray an average American family, it made me wonder: why would a lower/middle class American colonist fight in the Revolutionary War?

If taxation without representation motivated the war, why would an average colonist care about it? Did they really go to war over higher stamp taxes and the like? I’m thinking that a lot of the motivating factors that I’m aware of wouldn’t really have affected the poor as much. So why would they fight? Propaganda?

Disclaimer: Rephrasing this question and stripping it of anything which could be deemed as 'personal opinion.' In my now-deleted question, inadvertently injecting personal opinion became inevitable as I tried to explain the background to my question. However, this time I've refrained from doing that, so the reader is expected to understand the context. I will add one thing: my reference to 'what the Muslim Turks had offered them' is in regards to the final Erzurum plan where the Turks came up with an "unrealistic proposal" (according to the Armenians) of an Armenian autonomous superstate joining both historical Eastern and Western Armenia.

So here goes...

Please someone explain to me:

1. Why didn't these same Christian Armenians cause an insurrection or rebellion against Atheistic Russia when the realization dawned on them that this entity was anti-religion and anti-Christianity?
2. What happened to those Armenian politicians who had fought hard not to be second-class citizens in Turkey when faced with a similar fate in a whittled down SSR. (Second-class: because, in an SSR, they would still be governed from 'outside' - Moscow instead of Istanbul).
3. What happened to those idealistic Armenians who wanted "A free Armenia run by Armenians?" Were all these freedom fighters executed in the SSR or did they just quietly resign themselves to life in the SSR ?
4. Does history as it panned out seem to vindicate the position that Armenians were easily manipulated by Russian/Western powers into fighting the Ottomans under the pretext of Christianity for the Western powers/Russians' own gain?

Sorry its actually more than one question but they all relate to the main one. Grateful for any help!

As I got older, I learned that the things I learned about Columbus were not true. Why is it that we celebrate him instead of another explorer? Why do history books blatantly lie about him?