Even people who have lived apparently 200 years ago don't look remotely like we'd imagine people to look, not even considering different standards of beauty influencing renaissance paintings or idealized sculptures. Flat or bulky faces, enormous jaws and foreheads worthy of cartoon Martians. Strangest of all is that some reconstructions seem to vary in different periods while others stay the same over millennia.

I might trust that people 7000 years ago looked a bit weird, even 2000 years ago but 200 years ago?

If so the greatest achievement of the past 200 years would have been the development of modern beauty standards haha.

Jokes aside. It's rather confusion especially because these people are supposedly experts and their reconstructions are hailed as expert works.

I am reading a biography of Benjamin Rush (“Rush” by Stephen Fried) and I am intrigued that he was apprenticed to a physician before becoming one himself. I have a vague understanding that most vocations were not formalized but instead training was done through apprenticeship which made me wonder; In 17th century United States and Europe, what, if any, say did an individual have in the profession they were apprenticed to? Did the family choose? The individual? The Master? What, if any, legal protections were in place to prevent abuse and was there an option for say, a bookbinder’s apprentice to say, “Nah, this isn’t for me, think I might try my hand at apothecary instead.” Was that even an option or where you stuck with whatever apprenticeship you started with? Thanks for any responses!

Moreover, do we know of any examples of Anglo-Indians staying after independence? Did any achieve prominence in post-colonial society?

I know this must be a very frequently asked question, but how exactly did Operation Barbarossa fail? When I looked into the battle myself, I was surprised to see the Germans overall had sent a larger force to crush the Russians, and at Stalingrad, they had artillery supremacy. However, one thing that always confused me was what the Russians did to force the Germans back. What tactics did they use, and what key battles turned the lightning war into a lightning retreat?

Did anyone rebel? What did Scottish and England people think of it?

There was a similar transition here, right?

Is it considered relatively normal for my friends and I to question the gods' existence? Do my parents likely genuinely believe in the gods? Lastly, do any of these answers change if I come from an elite Patrician family?

I have been playing Medieval 2 lately and they seem to have many archer units that have shields on while firing. Is that a made up or is there evidence of archers using both at same time?

Hi all,

Recently, thanks to this amazing reddit, I found about Dan Carlin’s podcast.

I am currently listening to his WWI podcast and he has a nice segment around the history of war, importance of mobilization and conscription evolution.

I was wondering, what did able-bodied people who were living abroad do when there was mobilization of a country? If I send myself back during WWI/II and there would be a nationwide mobilization what do I do as I am an expat?

Could one join the country of residence’s army? Were you re-called back to your homeland? How would you even be held responsible if you were recalled but you didnt go?

I've heard the term Thirteen Colonies used before, as a description of the thirteen colonies of the British Empire that would eventually declare independence and for the United States of America. But these colonies weren't the only British possessions in North America. There were also other colonies, like Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Rupert's Land. To elaborate on my question, was there some kind of British administration/law/common opinion at the time that separated the colonies that would become the United States from the colonies that would become Canada? If I had asked somebody from the time before the American Revolution what the Thirteen Colonies were, would they though some means identify the colonies that would become the United States or would they just have considered these colonies as no different to the colonies that would become Canada?

In short, was "The Thirteen Colonies" a term used at the time or was it retroactively applied to talk about the ones that formed the United States.

Egypt is often depicted as a colony of the British Empire, especially in maps of the British Empire at its height. Yet from what I understand, Britain’s control over Egypt seemed to have stemmed mostly for its strong economic power over the country rather than any direct military force. A different set-up from the Empire’s presence in much of India for example.

Still, while they had control over it, was Egypt “officially” an independent nation that just so happened to have very close ties to Britain, or was it legally under British authority in some way? Is it de jure accurate to put Egypt in the British empire on a map, or is that more of a de facto acknowledgement of the political situation in Egypt?

In Dreadnought, Massie claims that an early attempt to combat u-boats was to train Seagulls to defecate on periscopes. Is this true, and what do we know about it?

We hear an awful lot about the infrastructure created by the Inca, but what about the Chimu? Did they also build fortifications, roadways, and other features classically associated with empire?