Hi, I'm researching my family history and looking at my great grandfather's WW1 records. The records are handwritten, messy, use a lot of abbreviations, and are often poorly scanned. Where can I find someone who can read these, know what they refer to, and provide a transcription? For context, he served in the New Zealand Field Artillery at Gallipoli and the Western Front.

At a gaming convention, I overheard a US Army veteran applying his former trade to a strategy boardgame, where he was saying things like "If you're surrounded, you do this, if you have the high ground, you do this," etc.

Is this something that's in a manual of some kind, or was this likely just personal experience? I believe the gentleman in question was old enough to have served in Vietnam or Korea.

I was super surprised to read that diving bells were used in ancient Greek times, and even Aristotle made a mention of them.

What were they being used for? Just to take a look around? The wikipedia article only has brief mention of the earliest use of diving bells, are there any books you'd recommend for me to learn more?

I've always thought the popular notion of Anglo-Saxons arriving in Britain and totally replacing the population in what would become modern England a little farfetched. Is there evidence (written, archeological or otherwise) we know of that supports continued native British prescence and cultural influence in these areas? Is there a point during the invasions and settlements where this influence stopped and even people with british backgrounds were assimilated and spoke a saxon language?

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Edit: I should probably have put both England and British in quotations as both are probably anachronistic terms here.

I read a text about history of Turkish Intelligence Agency and it was formed in late 19th century, before that of course government send agents but they are not organized i was wondering when the first professional/organized intelligence agencies formed in the world?

I got into an argument about gun control in the United States and the person I was arguing with brought up that the Nazis would never have risen to power so easily if the Weimar Republic didn't have such strict gun control laws and the people were armed. What he was saying is that the public needs firearms to defend themself from tyranny and he brought up some other examples of governments oppressing or murdering its own people which didn't have guns.

Now I know that the Nazis were actually democratically elected and their ideology and world view were well known to the German public at that time and accepted by it. And I also know that this matter isn't that simple, since a military has much more things than just guns that make it powerful. But I was wondering if there are actual instances in history that support this argument? Were there peoples effectively defending themself against government opression because they had and used the right to own firearms?

In particular, Brazil and Mexico are such massive nations that it seems surprising to me that we don’t hear more about their involvement in the fighting, logistics, and planning of the world wars.

I am wondering how the various nations of Latin America participated in the wars.

If that's true, that's very impressive. Were arquebuses superior to muskets?

Can't find any good English videos/sources. The wiki page on the refugee camp in Nepal is one sentence long, and I have a hard time understanding all the videos. I'd like to learn more about the history of this. I saw some refugee videos and then in the comments people were contesting it and saying there were "reasons" they were exiled and this and that. I want to understand the whole thing without a bias.

I'm familiar with Vikings reaching North America and I've heard there's evidence of Polynesians reaching South America but I've never learned about anyone crossing the Atlantic as an explorer (i.e. not going back with someone that already arrived from the east). I've also heard that people in the Arctic circle were aware that there were others across the Arctic ocean but I'm not familiar if there was any contact after the Bering Sea severed the land bridge.

I was taking AP Modern European history and my favorite part of it was the 19th century, but now that it’s over I noticed that they never had gone over how when the idea of line battles ended. Also what were the weapons used. In American history (I know more about the weapons there) in around the late 1860’s Muzzle loading rifles were being upgraded or modified into a new “trapdoor” Springfield, which used a casing for the cartridge, but I know nothing about the weapons used in Europe and Asia. Also how did they fight? I’m assuming rifles accurate enough by then so firing in volleys wasn’t needed.

Obviously the world and geopolitical norms have changed since then, but what was the underlying reasoning for conquering. War killed lots and lots of Romans and consumed lots of their money, so their is apt reason to not conquer say Gaul. But why push the borders without reason? They just seemed (Pre Teutoburg) to take it for granted they were going to grow and grow a for long time, if not forever.

I've heard it said that it was a desire for utter and absolute security - a "Pre-Emptive Strike" on steroids. The only way to make 100% sure that Rome would NEVER come under threat was to create an enormous empire with vast resources to defend it with and become so powerful no other state could ever threaten Rome. Is this at all true?

I've always been fascinated with the subject of world history, but I'm very confused on where to start since there's so much history out there.

I know Mussolini was a socialist 30 years prior, and as a Fascist he believe in a more 'mixed' economy than Hitler did. Hitler was an ideological arch-nemesis of Communism/Bolshevism. Hitler had Mussolini join him in his Invasion of Operation Barbarossa. Did Mussolini feel like he was betraying his past?

I just read a piece about het mafia in italy around 1950 till 1980. Only i was wondering, how was het mafia for women? Were they able to join meetings and be involved? Did they have the same rules and initiation? and finally: has this changed over the years? How is the mafia now treating women and is there nowadays a diffence between men and women?

thank you in advance for answering my questions!!!!