From what I understand one of the big ways in which Nero shocked proper Roman society was by personally performing on stage, which I'm told was treated with about as much respect as prostitution.

But everyone likes music and to be entertained, and in the days before TV and recordings I would have thought entertainers would be MORE treasured than today. Why did Romans looks down their noses at musicians and actors?

They had the Gameboy (in 1989), SNES, Sega Genesis (in 1989) and Playstation as well as iconic games/characters like Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda and Pokemon. How did Japan achieve this ?

I know - he was a philosopher, fine. But, how did he buy food? Or pay for anything? Was he paid to be a philosopher? If so, by whom? Same goes for other philosophers - was it a full-time job or did they have something on the side?

I saw a post from Jim Carrey making fun of the death of Mussolini, it seemed awful at first but then I realized that a lot of people hate him and that I don't know anything about him, so there must be a bunch of things I'm guessing.

I don't believe it is a native crop to Guatemala, but now around 60% of global production is from that country, and cardamom production is a big income earner for Guatemala.

So who is responsible for bringing it to the country? And when did it happen? Was it a purposeful attempt at growing a "cash crop", or was it a happy accident?

When I was growing up, the stereotype of the French Foreign Legion we always heard about was that a man would get rejected by a woman and then be so hurt and upset that he would run off to France to join the Foreign Legion there. I've duckduckgoed this, but am not finding information about it. I have found information about the Legion accepting people who have been misfits or refugees and want to start a new life, but I'm not finding anything at all about the stereotype of joining due to heartache. It seemed to come up a lot in Looney Tunes cartoons.

Does anyone know if there was a source of this stereotype?

Did new laws have to be written to replace existing laws, or did those remain in place untouched? Was there some limbo where no laws existed? And what happened to any British laws?

We often hear about judging western historical figures, usually American founding fathers, by “modern standards” and the general consensus seems to be that we should, as the people they conquered and enslaved did not wish to be conquered and enslaved. But does that apply to non western peoples like the Ottoman Empire. Yes they were tolerant compared to the dismal standards of Europe, especially their arch rival Hapsburg Spain, but at the same time their armies massacred entire cities, conscripted young boys into their service, forced women from conquered people’s to become sex slaves, and the Sultans regularly murder their infant brothers upon accession. Again I don’t want to indulge in “terrible Turk” propaganda. They were doing all this at around the same time their rivals were preforming such atrocities as the Atlantic slave trade or wiping various native cultures off the map. But the question still stands, should we still glorify the Ottomans, or should we heap the same scorn upon them that “problematic” western historical figures like Thomas Jefferson revive, or is there a way in between. Sorry if I ramble or if I got too political.

Im thinking colonizers and war ships from the napoleonic wars. Who where at sea for months at a time. Boilimg sea water to making it drinkable and fishing enough? Did they do this? Colud they have survived indefeidley(asuming they dont get sick nor go crazy) if needed? Were they reliant on shore? I know thet stacked food and wine and what not, but meaby the purpose of that was to make de journey plesant.

I’m seeing a lot of conspiracy theorists saying that COVID-19 is a liberal/media hoax. Were there similar theories during the Spanish Flu epidemic, especially since there was a war going on at the time?

Brtish actor Lawrence Fox has been crizcized for saying that Sikhs fought in regiments created just for them rather than predomily White regimnets [like nowadays] how correct is he did they fight in thier own regiments or not? And if they didn't fight in thier own regiments did they cluster or were they singukar in a prodomily white regiment ie a few together in a predomily white regiment? And were they treated was there racism agianst them or were considered eqaul?

I once read that the roman gods, before being influenced by the Greeks, didn't have any spiritualy physical bodies, but were Numina, a shapeless spiritual manifestation. Is this true? To what extent?

I remember candidly that the website I read this on didn't have any citations, but I'll try to find it later to see if I'm mistaken.

While "elites" did exist, from the grenadiers in the left of the Line to named and favored regiments like pavlosk grenadiers or Scots Grey's, these seemed tied to being created as an extension of the societal elite "propping up" their own regiments. Some also earned their distinction in combat.

So what was the underlying causes for Napoleonic France to create an elite Force and increase it to such an extent the imperial guard was? Especially as the French state under the revolution lacked the societal elite that would say in England constitute the household guard.

And especially as in My assumption there isn't a big doctrinal precident for it.

And thirdly how it was justified as it drew resources and even ire from the regular army?

Was it Napoleons pet project?

A structural need?

A happenstance?

By that I mean, in movies Ancient Egypt comes across as a dry land full of sand which doesn't make it a good place to develop an agriculture that could support its population. Unless the Nile river produced enough food for the population?

Hello everyone, I'm doing research on sports in the soviet union. My research questions are as follows:

(Under Stalins regime)

- How did the government of the USSR use sports in its policies?
- How did people apply to participate in sports (voluntarily or mandatory)
- Why did or didn't the USSR participate in international sports competitions?

Now I've done research on Stalin before and what I did last time is read actual stuff he wrote on the subject i did research on. I thought it was really interesting to read his work and am wondering if he wrote anything related to sports. If not maybe you know any good articles that can help me on my way.

Thank you for your time

One of those shower thoughts questions - how did banks in the South handle the transition to the Confederacy, the introduction of greybacks, etc.?

When Russia started conquering and settling to the east of the Ural mountains and out of Europe into Asia all the way to the Pacific ocean, was it a state project accomplished by the tzar's army, or a private company project accomplished with contractors? Were the settlers peasants relocated there, or volunteers working for work/land? Was the area largely empty of permanent cities, or was it full of khanates and sultanates that were defeated and conquered?

Was it lucky inventions? Was it mass investment and easing up acess to education? Was it huge government spending on research?

It's 1300. A German-speaking Jewish man is shown a phonically similar sentence rendered in Yiddish with Hebrew characters, and in German with Latin characters. Can we reasonably expect him to comprehend both?

This is more of a historiographical question, but a few things I've come across lately, plus some old thoughts, have got me curious. Firstly, I was looking up the developing etymology of the word crusade, which seems to evolve after the modern idea of crusades has already begun, following initial language that talks about it as 'pilgrimage'. Secondly, I've been reading about the historiography of the hundred years war.

A lot has been written about how the 100 years war actually involved long periods of peace that at least appear to me like more than just a ceasefire between battles - peaces that at the time were indefinite to their signatories. The grouping together of a century of phased conflict and peace as one long 116 year war seems then, to me, like a (however well or not justified) clear historiographical choice, made long after the fact.

My question is, is this also true of the crusades? Did a member of the third or fifth crusade consider themselves more as participating in a conflict of their time, unique and produced by the politics of their time, or did they see it as one of a set of distinct (numbered) conflicts separate from 'ordinary' wars? If they do, is the numbering arbitrary? are there arguable apocryphal crusades that don't make our traditional hitlist? Am I overestimating the average person's access to history, or even the average knight's?

I suppose another point of comparison is something like the concept of the reconquista, where messy bitty ultimately venal conflict over hundreds of years involving often questionable religious solidarity on any 'side' is simplified into a holy war narrative for later political or historiographical purposes.

And on the flipside, is there any evidence as to whether the Muslim world classified these conflicts as a distinct category of conflict, tied together?

I realise this is a longish and quite tangled question so even just partial /targeted answers would be really appreciated.