I am just finishing up the Conquest on New Spain.

In it Diaz del Castillo mentions many soldiers who suffered or died from a "swelling of the groin" and for the life of me I don't know what that could be.

Could that have been syphilis? The symptoms don't seem right for that.

Also a lot died from "pleurisy" and I assume the high altitude had something to do with that? Or was that an old term for something else

Hey all,

So the title mostly covers it.

As mentioned, I’m reading Caesar’s Gallic Wars and I find it interesting how often logistical issues arise — which totally makes sense, considering the era in which he writes. With that being said, I’ve noticed that much (if not most?) of the grain the Roman’s used was acquired from the many villages they passed when marching.

Take, for example, this section from book 5 of the Gallic Wars, wherein Caesar writes (or, dictates, I suppose): “Caesar gave [the Trinobantes] orders to send him forty hostages and grain for the army, and sent Mandubracius back to them. They swiftly carried out his orders, sending the designated number of hostages and the grain” (Book 5, around section 21; page 145 in The Landmark Julius Caesar).

My question, then, as framed in the title, is essentially: Did the Romans’ acquisition of grain, for their army and livestock, hinder the production/stock of grain villages from which they were taken? Would the villages who were forced to offer tribute/payment starve, or would the Romans leave them enough for self-consumption?

Thanks a ton in advance, and don’t be afraid to digress in regards to Roman logistical issues! I’d love to read any and all information you can throw at me! :D

Thanks!

I've saw a post of someone from Deviantart with a simple drawing, claiming that Edward Grotte after getting his project of T-22 rejected due to complexity and high costs re-designed the tank. As he says, in 1935 Edward Grotte brough to Stalin the project of T-22 without turret armed with 37mm cannon, and side machine guns, what brought the costs of the tank low enough for Stalin to accept it. He states, that around 500 were produced, and even took part in battle against germans in 1941. Thing is, I cannot find any online article, not even a single image that would support his words.
So, did Grotte really re-designed his tank, or after failure in 1932 he gave up ?

I am a high school student who is looking to go to college and has a strong passion for history. I was thinking about majoring in history, especially since I want to be a lawyer, but people keep urging me not to. I was also wondering what you guys do with history degrees whether it be related to history or not.

Repost since no answer: I know this is a broad question, but can we view the Russian expansion into Siberia, the Caucuses and Central Asia in the context of European colonialism? Furthermore, would such a comparison apply also to the USSR expansion?

I just finished reading Eric H Cline's 1177BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed, which got me curious about this.

Whenever I read about civilizational collapses, people always talk about decentralization of power and population and splitting up of an empire into smaller political regions. Which leads to the question, Does a common person realize he is part of a civilizational collapse during the collapse ? Or is it just a change of leadership for them ? Were the population migration only from the cities or were rural regions affected too? What are there signs which a common man can look for to learn about the trajectory of the civilization during this?

Thanks a lot in advance.

I'm not very well-read in Native American studies, but I recently looked at a list of tribes that lived mostly in and around California, and I hadn't really heard of any of them.

You regularly hear about the Sioux, Navajo, Cherokee, Arapaho, etc, but the Californian tribes don't seem to be as well known. Is that because there weren't as many Native Americans in California relative to the size of the area as in other parts of North America? And if so, why was that? Was it something about the geography/climate? Something else? The West coast is considered "desirable" these days, but was there something about it that wasn't conducive for their lifestyle?

And if there were, relatively-speaking, as many Native Americans in California per square mile as anywhere else in the US, then why aren't those tribes as well known as their prairie/southwest/northeast counterparts?

How did Christianity go from a small persecuted sect to being the official religion of the empire? With something like Islam, its obvious that being the religion of the ruling class elite, it would have had considerable patronage leading to eventual conversion of the masses. But Christianity in the Roman Empire did not start out as the religion of the rulers. What factors led to the conversion of the masses despite persecution?

By my reading, the first smallpox infection in the mainland occurred in 1520 when a slave sailing from Cuba brought the infection. So how did the disease get to Cuba? Voyages took months from the mainland. One would think that if a newly infected person boarded a ship in Europe or Africa, they would quickly infect anyone on board without immunity as the quarters were very very close, and smallpox is an incredibly infectious disease. So, by the time they arrived in Cuba, everyone onboard should be either immune or dead. Either way, the virus should be gone.

So how did it get there?

I’ve been taught that famous figures like Benito Mussolini and Adolf hitler managed to get power because the established governments thought of them as preferable to socialists or communists because of what happened in the Soviet Union. But why did they view the far right as preferable to the far left? From what I can tell the far right movements were open about the ways they wanted to restructure society and wage war. From my understanding of European conservatism, it seems to me that they’d be just as opposed to that sort of restructuring of society. Did the ruling parties at the time sympathize with their ideology, or did they just think it was all fluff?

Basically I always see memes about how pepsi had the 6th biggest military at one point by swapping pepsi with some warships from the USSR, but what did they actually do with the ships and where are the ships now? I always have thought about this and would love to know!

I realise the answer might very well be we don't know but I would be interested in finding out if we have any information about the sort of people who consumed early scifi. I have a project reviewing some early scifi and realised that though I have always vaguely assumed it was aimed at young men (and the advertisements seem aimed at that demographic) I know very little. And what sort of education would they have on average? Was it read much by actual scientists and engineers much? Was it more a low income thing or more high end?

Saw a comment on an r/AskReddit thread about commonly believed myths and it talked about arrange child marriages only being done by mobility and royalty.

Piggybacking off this, that girls were married off in their early teens in the medieval period. This is based off the nobility and royality, who did marry off their young daughters as a political tool to secure alliances. However, even when the young royals were only 12 or 13 when wed, they were often married by proxy and married "in name only". The married couple were often kept seperate until either the girl "came of age" (aka got her first period to produce children), or where just deemed old enough to start living together in the same castle, which wasn't until around 17-20 years old. The vast majority like the peasantry weren't married until their early 20s. Women in the peasantry often did have a choice on who they got to marry, unlike their noble components who were used as bargaining chips.

How true is this?

More specifically, let's assume that I would be a Greek in Constantinople, and that I am being taught the history of my ancestors, would I get to learn about ancient Greek or ancient Roman history, or both? Would I learn to relate more closely to the Latin Romans or the pre-Roman Hellenes? Why exactly?

If you look at lists if ancient bishops of german or french cities, at some point, frankish names replace latin names. Why did latin names disappear? What happened to the gallo roman population? Were thed assimilated into frankish culture?

Gandhi was a clear advocate for non violent protests but in reality when so many people gather and emotions run hot, historically there is a high potential for rioting. There is high potential for violent suppression as well, which is talked about in Indian history textbooks. Are there any records of rioting or destruction of property?