In early 1660, was there truly a bunch of monkeys in the Dutch House? He says he got home another day from a short trip and the monkey was loose so he struck it - what does this mean?

Hello.

I wanted to find what (if anything) was said in German press when Germany declared the war on Soviet Union - so I'm talking a newspaper from June 22 1941 or maybe June 23 if it worked with 1 day lag.

I can find some US, British or Soviet articles - but nothing from the German side and I'm completely lost even where to start.

Thanks in advance.

Was there any comparison between the two at the time of Napoleon's consolidation of power?

Alternatively, is there any evidence that Washington considered running for president indefinitely?

Would I just be working on my farm and suddenly riders come up to my farm and draft all the men/boys? I am trying to imagine a real-life scenario here. I am aware this probably depends on my social status (regular farmer) and maybe how close I am to the castle/king/politics?

Additional questions:
- Would I be up to date about all the wars/politics that are going on. I imagine that my day-to-day life is more about farming than following politics.

- How long would I have to prepare and what do I need to be bring? (E.g. "my fathers sword" or do I get all my tools of war from the military as soon as I show up)

- Is it expected that I know "how to fight" or will there be training for regular peasants like me?

- Any chances to dodge the draft?

- and, building on that, how do I get motivated to join the war - loot? salary?

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I hope this is not too broad to get an answer, I am just interested how raising an army has looked like in the eyes of a normal farmer.

Thank you in advance!

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Was Ireland considered a constituent country of the United Kingdom or was it a direct holding of England itself? Did it's status change frequently or was it rigid until the establishment of the Irish Free State?

Thanks in advance

The way romans are usually represented compared to other cultures in pop culture, they never show devotion to religion. In viking movies and tv shows you see devotion to Odin and the gods, in medieval movies devotion to Christ, but in ancient Roman movies, they are shown as people living morally gray apathetic lives without piety or deep care for religion. They are almost inhuman, completely unrelatable. This always seems strange to me. Did they take religion seriously? Was it comparable in intensity to the way religions like Christianity and Islam are treated? Was there punishment for blasphemy like other cultures? How passionate were they for their beliefs and gods?

Despite being a puppet and ravaged by war how much protest was there from the people and the new government, with Stalin taking Carpathian Ruthenia from Czechoslovakia? Did Czechoslovakia even want it back?

Hi, I'm (attempting) to write a medieval fantasy novel, and one of my characters is a blacksmith. I've been reading and researching and watching videos of traditional blacksmithing techniques, but a lot of what I'm seeing combines modern tools - lighters, etc. - with traditional techniques. I'm aware that a hearth would have something like charcoal or coal as a fuel source, but my question is how would a medieval blacksmith actually light the hearth? It seems from the cursory research I've done, an external flame source is just introduced to the fuel source - so would they just hold a torch or candle or something to the charcoal to get a flame burning? Keep a steady supply of torches or something for that purpose? Sorry if this is a stupid question - I may just be overthinking the simplest part of this whole thing. It's not a huge part of my story, but I still want to be accurate. Thanks for your time.

I've come to understand that many historians don't have a high opinion of Jared Diamond. However, the topics his books cover are of great interest to me, moreso than books about any particular time or place. I'm especially interested in books like Collapse, Upheaval, and The World Until Yesterday, which cover topics related to the characteristics that make societies resilient and successful (from a quality of life perspective). I'm also interested in The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch, but am skeptical of a history book written by an astrobiologist.

Like many people, I struggle to comprehend more academically-oriented works, and lack the time or energy to engage in them. This relegates me to more easily-digestible material, which runs the risk of limiting me to "pop history".

Any suggestions as to books that cover these topics? I'm more interested in the sociological and anthropological aspects than the actual history of any specific era or location.

Although I'm aware that the term "viking" is very problematic, i think that it serves to better frame my question based on the (limited) understanding i have on the subject.

So it appears that by the 11thc the Norman nobility only kept the conquering part of what we might associate with early medieval Scandinavian culture but in every other aspect they were culturally and ethnically much more similar to the rest of the people in what is nowadays northern France. Even then I'm not sure if the normans being conquerors is something they "inherited" from the Scandinavias, implying that this practice is correctly associated with said culture and not a modern notion of what a "viking" was.

So were the normans Scandinavians to any extent by this period? Did they consider themselves to be descendents from pagans coming from the north?

From my understanding, a count was usually vassal to a duke who was vassal to a king and a count had minor manorial lords who were vassal to them. Counties also had baronies inside them and the title of baron was lower ranked than a count, but a baron was not actually vassal to the count whose county their barony was inside because their land and title cane directly from the king and thus they are only direct vassals to the king. Yet, they are completely surrounded by the count’s lands so how did that work in practice? How would they operate and what were the responsibilities of a baron as compared to a lord of the manor or a count?

I’m sure I got sone stuff wrong and I know the feudal system worked differently in different times and places, but could I get a basic explanation?

With the popularity of plays and storytelling through most of known history, I wonder if there were any historical games aimed at interactive storytelling, from before we started throwing dice in our modern tabletop systems.

When I ask about roleplaying games, I assume they contain the following:

- Collaborative storytelling elements between players, rather than a single "author" before an audience.

- Rules of play, besides the confinements of a script.

I am very interested in England between 1050 and 1200, particularly the late Anglo-saxon period and the crusades but am interested across the whole period. Has anyone got any good books, podcasts, documentaries or other media which is both accurate and approachable and engaging for a non-academic person with an interest in this period?

If X were a female slave, and the state in which she bore a child had either a "one drop rule" or a less severe law (one-fourth of slave ancestor=slave, for instance), how exactly was the "math" done?

I've encountered a "bug": if the offsprings between X and a free(d)man were considered slaves in a slave state, were said offsprings "100% pure slaves?" If so, does that mean ALL descendants of slaves are forever slaves (since one person can only be either 100% free or 100% slave?)

Was the city actually founded by Trojan refugees, were Romulus and Remus real people or at least based on real people, Was the city founded around 800-700 BC, etc.

Are there any known cases of an individual, who was both blind and deaf since infancy, that was able to function on a similar level to Helen Keller? I personally wasn't able to find anything and was wondering why. Have the techniques that Anne Sullivan (Helen Keller's teacher) developed been expanded on, or even applied at all, to people with similar disabilities?

Its widely reported that many GIs used illicit drugs during their time in Vietnam, especially cannabis and heroine. How did they get these drugs? Did they just casually buy them from locals?