I am trying to avoid breaching the 20 year rule with this question, but I cannot help but think that knowing more about how one's contemporaries deal with pandemics can help one to interpret history in different ways.

I constantly forget that Florida was part of the Confederacy and every time I read about the Civil War, I feel like I almost never see Florida mentioned. What part did they play? Were there any significant battles there or was Florida largely untouched by war?

I came across this quote from an article I was browsing about:

The Persian scholar Imad ad-din al-Isfahani wrote,

"a woman of high rank arrived by sea in late autumn 1189, with an escort of 500 knights with their forces, squires, pages and valets. She paid all their expenses and also led them in raids on the Muslims. He went on to say that there were many female knights among the Christians, who wore armour like the men and fought like men in battle, and could not be told apart from the men until they were killed and the armour was stripped from their bodies."

As far as I can tell this is the only source I could find. How true is this claim that the Crusades had women warriors? How common is that in Medieval Europe? Was there an equivalent phenomenon in the middle east?

I'm wondering from several perspectives. His full name was Gaius Julius Caesar, but in modern times, few people know him as anything other than "Julius Caesar".

How would his friends, colleagues, subordinates, enemies, etc addressed and referred to him? Would those close to him have used the name "Gaius" as a given name, the way the western world generally uses first names today? Was his name so ubiquitous that people of the time would simply have said "Caesar", even to his face? And what about the name "Julius"? Does that come from gens Julia, Caesar's Patrician family, or is that also a given name? And if it is a family name, where did the name "Caesar" actually come from?

Basically, how did Roman names work?

And/also, are there examples where people have genuinely considered their ruler to be a deity? The ones that comes to mind would be the Rain Queens of the Balobedu.

the firearm I have in mind would probably be the closest to a 1510s-1520s matchlock Landsknecht arquebus. I'm a reenactor, but I don't handle firearms (or artillery).

what does it feel like to use one -- is there significant recoil and a large quantity of smoke? do you need to be perfectly static to fire it?
how is the gunpowder and shot typically carried and stored (on an individual)?
how is it loaded and fired? maintained? what do you need to do before you can actually fire it, if anything?
how long does it take to load and fire? is it reasonable to expect a load and fire time of fewer than two minutes in the hands of an experienced arquebusier, or not?
how does it perform at close to medium range, can it punch through a helmet?

edit: this is for a piece of historical fiction, but i'm open to reading extra material to educate myself, books, articles, anything of the like since 1515-1520s landsknechts are also my reenactment period.

From all the reading I’ve done on the Russian Revolution, I have not come across a lot of material that talks about how the Muslims of the Caucasus were involved or affected. We’re they not very involved in the fighting? Or did they side with predominantly Bolshevik or Tsarist forces? Or were they more divided, with some sides choosing different camps?

I have known for many years that a relative large part of the of the worlds eskimo population lives in the kingdom of Denmark. Either on Greenland or Denmark proper.

I just realised a few hours ago how odd that is. Greenland is rather inhospital, even compared to the other artic regions with eskimos and the other territories are larger and was colonized by eskimos earlier.

So how come there is so many eskimos in the Kingdom of Denmark compared to how few in North America and asia?

Published in 1532, the book mentions many rulers such as Cesare Borgia, Pope Julius II, and the Kings of Spain and France at the time. However, on page 64, Chapter 18, Machiavelli writes, "A certain ruler of our time, whom it is better not to name, preaches nothing but peace and faith, yet he is the extreme enemy of both; and if he had been true to either of them, he would more than once have lost his either power or reputation."

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I have no idea who this guy is. My first guess would be Girolamo Savonarola and his takeover of Florence, but that doesn't make much sense. Who is this "certain ruler?"

Answered: Apparently it’s Ferdinand of Aragon! Makes sense. 🙏

Reading the Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff, apparently after the circular letters were sent out MA governor Bernard “turned wildly to advocacy of a colonial representation in Parliament and, when the fatuity of that scheme became obvious to their obtuse minds, begging for troops to put down their tormentors”

Since quarantine is going on for me for a while, I thought now was the best time to study something completely new for me. Because I know very little about the Chinese civil war, I don’t really know which sources to trust. So do you guys have any good Chinese civil war sources you’d recommend?

Furr has also critiqued Stephen Kotkin’s book “Stalin: Waiting for Hitler” in a book called “Stalin: Waiting for the Truth”, and has a book titled “Khrushchev Lied”, which take the position that mainstream historians of Stalin are wrong to call him a mass murderer or blame his policies for the Ukraine famine. In particular, his critique of Stephen Kotkin’s book argues that every single “crime” committed by Stalin (as presented by Kotkin) didn’t occur.

Based off the books I’ve read about Stalin, Furr’s position seems ridiculous, but then again I’m not a historian. So I’m wondering, how have mainstream historians responded to Furr’s criticisms and how do they view his history books (in particular “Bloodlies”)?

I see many questions posted that peak my interest and usually is says they have anywhere between 5-50 responses, but when I click to read them there are no visible responses. What am I doing wrong?

Does anyone know any good links for primary and secondary sources of the Sengoku period?

From all of the major colonisers, Britain, France, Spain and the Netherlands, Spain's fall from power was the harshest and it has nothing to show for the fact that a mere 300 years ago it was one of if not the most powerful countries on earth, this is despite the fact that they avoided involving themselves in 2 world wars. Compare this to France, Britain and even Germany which was punished the most over the last century which are much better off today and have a remenant of the benefits they got from colonizing, why is this? I understand that they were occupied in 1812 by napoleon but was this really that significant as to completely ruin them for over 2 centuries?

He adds that for the Muslim kingdoms, the Christian westerners were only a faction of the many infidels the Muslims encountered in battle for land and population gains. The Muslims did not differentiate between infidels, and so a bigger picture view of the crusades as a Western Christendom vs Islamic East tug of war of greater importance than any other power dynamic was not really present in Muslim writings.

He further remarks that any significant interest and infatuation with the holy wars is moreso a recent phenomena (20th/21st century) - a political tool used by radicals to fuel religious extremist groups.

He led the American army to victory against one of the largest empires in the world: a military leader and tactical genius. He was integral in the founding of the nation during the continental congress meetings. He established the precedent of a two term presidency.

Yet as I sat there and listened in my 5th grade social studies class I heard nothing of his policies during presidency. 8th grade passed and nothing. 10th grade US history and still no details. What did he accomplish during presidency between 1789 and 1797? Besides his work in the revolution, what makes him so great?