I understand that Camels can carry more and walk farther than horses, particularly in desert climates, which would make them much better for hauling cargo across the American West during its expansion. I also understand there was an experiment done just before the Civil War which actually proved to be successful, but it was never picked up again by the government because of its associations with the confederacy.

Apparently most of the camels used during the experiment were sold at auction, so what happened to those that were sold? Were there no big private organisations that decided to use them? Would they not have been useful as stagecoach drivers for example? Or on ranches? And what about the ones that escaped? Is there any particular reason that wild camels didn't become more commonplace since they would be well suited to that habitat?

I know there's a lot to unpack there but thank you in advance if you can answer any or all of these questions!

Ok somewhat obscure topic but I got down a Wikipedia rabbit hole last night and the story about the rivalry between Brunhilda and Fredegund is fascinating. Couple questions I couldn’t find an answer to.

1. After being jailed by Fredegund, how did Brunhilda get out of jail to be able to marry Merovech?
2. Why was Brunhilda exiled by her grandson Theudebert II?

Thanks in advance for any additional insight. Any book recommendations are appreciated.

For instance the 101st Airborne (specifically the 506th PIR) is shown far more than the 82nd Airborne Division, even though some elements of the 82nd were already battle tested. Another example is the prefrence for showing the 2nd Ranger Battalion and 16th IR of the 1st infantry Division over say the 29th Infantry (which took a huge hit on DDay especially the Bedford Boys company), or 4th Infantry.

This doesn't even include units that came in the following days that heroically partook in the Normandy liberation and subsequent break out (such as the 2nd Infantry).

Why does popular culture choose to look at a couple heroic units vs other equally heroic and admirable units when it comes to their portrayals of the American DDay Operations (Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, and the Airborne forces dropped on the peninsula)?

I am a big history buff but want to know others theories and insights.

Thank you

I'm unsure if this is true, but I've read that commoners in medieval Europe preferred drinking beer and/or wine over drinking regular water, because the former was considered safer than the latter.

This begs the question what medieval muslim commoners (for example in the MENA region) drank to quench their thirst, considering many muslim realms forbid the consumption of alcohol.

Before modern Ethiopia was created, it was known as Axum, which collapsed by the 8th century. Then Europeans and others began to refer to the territory as Abyssinia around the 15th century. Ethiopia itself started referring to itself as Abyssinia until the first half of the 20th century, when it officially changed its name to Ethiopia. Interestingly, the Bible and ancient Greek records referred to the territory as Ethiopia. But during the hundreds of years between the collapse of Axum and the country being known as Abyssinia, how did its people themselves refer to their country?

I've spent many hours researching this and reading this up and watching documentaries and it's almost clear to me that during the war, British Naval vessels were pretty much sitting around in open water, waiting around for limited attacks by Argentine Air Forces (Armada) and limited in their ability to defend against them.

Why weren't the vessels sunk by the Argentine Armada able to provide for their own defenses?

Was the Pucara air-assault aircraft something special or was there something else going on?

If not, who were their wet-nurses and what role did wet-nurses have in Viking society?

I always took scholarly historical publications as facts, but recently a thought came to my mind.

I always thought that some pages or chapters from histories survived and historian just used radio-carbon dating to tell the age of the script and if it is accurate.

I just found out that the oldest surviving complete copy was written in 10th century CE

The oldest fragments of the histories is dated to 1st century CE.

But herodotus talks about events from 500-400BCE.

I don't doubt the existence of herodotus, as there are other sources for that.

But how do we know that the original copy contained what we think it does.

How can we say that some guy in 1st Century CE didn't interject pages or whole chapters into the work.

Or hell does the original work even exists.

Feel free to correct me :)

To add to this, were people with poor vision allowed in the military or the nobility, or were they most often relegated to lower classes?

As far as I know, the viking period began 793 CE, but who came before that? Who were the ancestors to the vikings who came right before the vikings in the Vendel period? I assume they spoke Proto Germanic or North Germanic.

It seems that Sibley's advance toward Colorado was going as planned until they had to retreat back to Alburquerque following the Battle of Glorieta Pass. Sibley was granted reinforcements, but then decided to retreat back to Texas. I can not see the reasoning behind him ordering a retreat, when he could've waited for his reinforcements to arrive. Can anyone explain this to me?

To the extent of my knowledge while Europe still had capital punishment most executions where carried out via Guillotine. However as far as I know the US has never had a Guillotine execution what explains this difference ?

So I was wondering about why the Greeks and the Roman's have very similar mythologies. Essentially I'm wondering why they're similar but also why they're different? Like was there some sort of a schism at some point? Is it pure coincidence?

Side question, a history buff friend of mine once told me that when the Romans invaded Greece, they did not raze their temples as they felt that the Greeks worshiped the same gods they did, they just called them by the "wrong" names. Apparently they effectively were like "silly Greeks, this is Jupiter, not Zeus". Is there any truth to that?

While I have no doubt there were isolated incidents, you often hear of uncontested armies in "enemy" territory doing horrific war crimes. Moreso the concept of war crimes in the 1800s wasn't what it is now.

I'm working on translating documents related to education in Colombia revolutionary period so I can post them online for public access. The Congress of Nueva Granada passed in 1826 an Organic Law on Instruction, and when discussing what curriculum should be taught, they mention historia natural en sus tres reinos, or natural history in its three kingdoms. After a little research, I found a couple of old reference books which use this terminology, but none actually define it. Can someone help me with this?

What were the literacy rates among the general population? What about certain social classes, like the military or clergy? How were schools organized, public or private? What about universities? How widespread was access to education, especially in the more remote (Siberia) or non-Russian areas (Caucasus, Central Asia, etc.)

I was wondering if there are any journals, interviews, etc that focus on the Japanese soldiers who committed the atrocities in the Rape of Nanjing. Maybe they shouldn’t have been given any attention because of how brutal and awful they were, but I was just wondering how it may have been attempted to be justified, like how Hitler justified his own atrocities.