So I remember learning in history classes about the conditions that led up to the French Revolution. Famine, the bankruptcy of the state, that one probably fake Marie Antionette line about cake.

But in the end, did things actually get better as a result of the revolution? On average, did quality of life rise for those people? If not, what actual impacts did it have?

“Henry VIII was betrothed to Jane on 20 May 1536, just one day after Anne Boleyn's execution. They were married at the Palace of Whitehall, Whitehall, London, in the Queen's closet by Bishop Gardiner on 30 May 1536. “

Source: Weir, Alison (2007). The Six Wives of Henry VIII. London: Vintage. ISBN 9780099523628.

I’m pretty sure they don’t mean an IKEA closet, but I’m still intrigued. What kind of room do they mean by closet and why did they not do the ceremony in another place?

I was thinking about a Picture where the tallest Nazi surrendered to a Canadian but this was surrendering and what if you in a full scale battle?

I think on the eastern front this wasn't the case this often because you were likely to get shot or you got in KZ or Gulag

But what if you were a non Jewish French soldier encircled in Dunkirk a German in the Hürtgenwald or a Japanese on some Islands You would know its likely to die so where were the most cases of some Groups or soilders desert to the enemy to save their own life?

I was watching a documentary about The War of 1812 and they said that part of the reason that Tecumseh allied with the British was Brock's assertion that they would be granted the Michigan Territory after the Americans had been driven out.

Did Brock actually have the authority to do this? Was he acting on his own, or using it to dangle a carrot in front of the natives, or did he have authorization from the British government?

Cossacks are often depicted as smoking long wooden pipes and I was curious when tobacco would have reached them and what type of tobacco they would have been smoking.

Did it run and the paper and southern plantation owners just "released" them? Many slaves stayed in the south, did they just start getting "paid"?

Did WW1 feel "pointless" to many soldiers as is commonly viewed today, or was propaganda/nationalism able to convince many soldiers that WW1 was a cause worth dying for? How many soldiers felt the war was pointless vs. how many were enthusiastic for the war? Did this feeling vary by country or region?

1850 to 1890 or the turn of the century.

Did most people still live on farms? , how did they store what they grew for winter?

did major cities have warehouses full of food? , silos?

what methods were employed? , how common was undernourishment?

İn my country Turkey most reliable historian İlber Ortaylı says Ottomans was a 3rd Rome because II. Mehmet the conquer called himself after conquer Constantinople (nowdays Istanbul) Kazyer-i Rum (Roman Emperor). After that he planned conquest of Italy (invading ortanto) but died before he could realize his plans anyways this claims is true or selfblowing?

I have been researching the military histories of my grandfathers recently, and one of them was a medic (American) attached to a tank battalion in the Korean War. Although my motivation comes from the Korean War I would be interested to hear about this topic at any time.

Rereading The Making of the Atomic Bomb this week it struck me that the Vice President knew nearly nothing about a military secret the size of the American auto industry until FDR suddenly died. He was briefed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson, which makes sense; but also by James Francis Byrnes, a powerful politician who had held many posts, but who by early April was a private citizen. In a time of great consequence, why did FDR handicap the VP by keeping him in the dark about the development that would define international relations for decades to come?

So I have been reading the popular novel “King Solomon’s Mines” by H. Rider Haggard and in it the characters often point out how certain artifacts they come across in the heart of Africa have Phoenician and Hebrew characteristics. For example, once the explorers crossed the mountains they came across a long stone road that looked Roman or “Phoenician”.

Now I know the book is fiction but do the comparisons have any ties to reality? Did explorers of Subsaharan Africa at the time (1800s) believe that the Phoenicians had settled that south into Africa?

I have recently been reading Kropotkin’s book ‘Mutua Aid: A Factor in Evolution’, and his descriptions of Medieval city states has really peaked my interest. I know that period of history (traditionally) has been all too often maligned by mainstream historians, so I was wondering whether or not anyone could give me any good reading recommendations for the period which focus on how communities/cities/‘everyday people’ used to live?

I would also appreciate any detailed accounts from historians who know a lot about this time period and their opinions on this subject matter.

Hi everyone, I was reading about the pre classical maya period and a question got stuck in the back of my head. The Yucatan peninsula is not really a hospitable place for city states to emerge: the bedrock was ill suited for agriculture and the only fresh water available was rainwater or groundwater reachable trough cenotes. Apparently, cities like El mirador were dependable on moving thousands of tons of mud from a swamp to make their land agriculture-viable.

But despite these shortcoming, the lowlands in Yucatan were one of the two earliest places where maya civilisation bloomed. While the southern Maya area provides a logical area for the first maya cities (fertile lands, diverse ecosystems, part of the Olmec trade-routes), I'm really curious why the lowlands saw such early developments.

Is this conceit just a legacy of Western historiography that saw the West as superior, so couldn't possibly have comparable sexual mores to other cultures