I'm thinking around the 1700s. You hear of illegitimate children of royalty often but how did they determine this? I.e. What if the child was born to a woman who had been with multiple partners? What if a woman was unfaithful to her husband?

I am currently reading Navigators and Naturalists: French Exploration of New Zealand & the South Seas by New Zealand author Michael Lee. He mentions about the Duperrey's expedition of 1824 on the La Coquille, which visited the Dutch East Indies outpost of Waigeo. It is mentioned that Malays, Chinese, Europeans and Papuans co-exist with each other, with upper class Europeans adopting Malay and Chinese attire. The French explorers apparently attended a Dutch play attended by Malays, Chinese and Europeans. I am curious to know the full extent of race relations in the Dutch colonial period of Indonesia. Was their racial segregation? Did the Sultans have the same status and power as the Dutch colonials or were they subordinated? Was slavery there entirely racialised?

I've seen that the Federalists preferred the British over the French as potential allies, and that Jefferson did not hold a favorable view of Napoleon. Are these views correct? Did American politicians want to aid the Revolution? Were there plans to aid Napoleon after the War of 1812 began?

Did the Habsburgs' reputation for inbreeding result from inbreeding more often than other prominent royal houses, such as the Bourbons, Hohenzollerns, and Hanoverians? Or did their family just had bad luck with the genes they were passing to each other?

Was it because of the failure of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and the beginning of the Special Period in Cuba? How come China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and Laos have remained communist while other Eastern Bloc countries didn't at the end of the Cold War?

To my understanding, the five monarchs that held the title of Emperor/Empress of India where king-emperors / queen-empress, ruling simultaneously over two territories. Why didn’t the monarch let the Empire of India merge into the British Empire? Bonus question: Why wasn‘t the British monarch‘s title Emperor, since he was ruling over the British Empire, but rather “King of the United Kingdom (at some point Ireland) and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth“ plus Emperor of India. Isn‘t that odd since the title of Emperor is of higher rank than a King‘s yet the monarch was ruling an empire?

I spend a lot of time behind the wheel and I've listened to a few audiobooks about WW2 but they mainly deal with the war in the west / Africa, and although some give a good overview, I'd like to read something more substantive.

Could anyone recommend any good books for the Russian side of things?

I'm basically looking for something like James Holland's 'War In The West' ..... but for the East.

Thanks in advance!

For example, would Ctesiphon have possessed similar amenities (such as amphitheaters or bathhouses)? How did the architecture compare? Would a visitor have considered the Persian capitol to be just as impressive as it’s Roman counterpart(s)?

Dough tends to almost never be steamed in the West, but it's a fairly prominent feature of, for example, East Asian culinary traditions. Almost everything involving flour, water, and yeast is baked in an oven if you're from an anglophone or European country, and steamed buns, or steamed cakes/breads are basically nonexistent. Oven baking seems to be much more accepted among countries with a steaming tradition than steaming is among countries with a baking tradition.

For example, why didn’t rome nationalize some farms, and use slaves to grow the food there to make it “free” for citizens. I know subsidized brothels were made so most romans could enjoy them, but why not take it further? Why not use slaves to generate wealth and expand the grain dole? With these free “machines” for conquered lands, why not use them to make life incredible for the citizens? Why not build a Utopia?

I've never understood how any pre landing efforts using planes or even the navy from a distance could lead so much German residence left as to make the actual beach landings a slaughter. please educate me.

I hope it's okay to ask this question here. I searched the sub and found a few things but wanted to ask again since it has been a few years.

I am working on a podcast outline about the Easter Bunny and its origins. My co-host and I had always assumed it was pagan in origin and then co-opted by Christians but as I've been fact-checking it seems that may not be the case. My role is to do research and present what I find. I prefer academic sources which none of these websites are. I'm diving down the proverbial rabbit hole in a few places but I hope some of y'all would have recommendations as far as sources go.

The podcast isn't an academic one, to the point we have a disclaimer at the beginning reminding people that we are not experts. However, I don't want to present incorrect information.

I can understand why nations or tribes go to war, they have territory that can be taken and many different settlements, but why would 2 states whose territory spans maybe a few miles outside their walls fight? And what happens when one wins? You can't be a city state made of different cities.

I know these wars happened, like in ancient Greece, but can someone explain the causes and effects to me?

It seems to me like China had the manpower to deal with the Japanese invasion, it just lacked the industry to produce weapons in a similar proportion as Japan. So why didn't America use its industry to supply China against the Japanese, given how she was positioning herself against Japanese interests?

Wikipedia states: "As a fascist government, the Kingdom of Italy had staunchly supported Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War in his fight against the Second Spanish Republic supported by the Soviet Union. Italy therefore promptly responded to requests by the Republic of Finland for military assistance and equipment for use against the communist government of the Soviet Union. The Royal Italian Air Force (Regia Aeronautica Italiana) sent thirty-five Fiat G.50 fighters, while the Royal Italian Army (Regio Esercito Italiano) supplied 94,500 new M1938 7.35 mm rifles for use by Finnish infantry. However, Germany intercepted most of Italy's aid and only released it once peace had been made.[4] A handful of Italian volunteers also fought in the Winter War on the side of Finland."

Did any Western or non-Japanese historian apologists attempt to rehabilitate the Imperial Japanese Army and/or Navy's war records during the Cold War, as the Wehrmacht had with the likes of B.H. Liddell Hart and key Allied generals? If not, why did such a myth not arise in the West for Japan?

I think it's either the Medes or the Persians, I've found conflicting answers of this in my textbook.

John Adams did not die until over a year into his son’s term as president so I wondered what he thought of his son’s election and his job in office, thank you!

Several writers in antiquity seem to imply that the Celtic/Belgic states in Gaul were importing almost all of their wine or viewed it as a scarce resource (e.g. Diodorus Siculus writing that Roman merchants "believe that the love of wine of these Gauls is their own godsend" and receive a slave from the Gauls for each jar of wine; Caesar writing that the Belgae are the bravest group in Gaul because "merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind.")

This was surprising to me, given that Gaul included some of the most prominent wine producing regions in modern-day France (my impression is also that there have been large numbers of wine amphorae recovered in Gallic oppida). Were the Gauls really importing all of this wine from the Mediterranean? If so, when did wine production begin in the region?

I've been reading up about the meeting between Scipio and Hannibal immediately before the battle of Zama and it sticks out to me that when asked who he judged to be the greatest, Hannibal names the two as the top two of all history. Were there any commanders that who he would've known of who could have been in the running?

I ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I know that history starts with the presence of written artifacts but were does it stop? Does digital technology and archives interrupt history in the sense that everything will be documented so well that historic study won’t be need after say the 2000? Or will history adapt to the new non material documents and artifacts of our time?

Really curious as to what you think about this! Hope my question is not too vague, I’m coming from an arts background so that happens some times.

Other questions include:

What breeds of dog did the ancient civilizations have?

Would we recognize those breeds today?

Have the rich always had useless dogs?

Would a Roman recognize a pug as a dog, a descendant of a wolf?

Would a Roman understand any breed of three-headed dog to be Cerberus?