I know Wilder takes some liberties with her narrative so I was curious about it, particularly as a teacher myself!

In the book Almanzo's teacher is attacked by a gang of 16-18 year old students who, the narrative claims, do this every year. The boys and their father reportedly take pride in their ability to shut down the school and run off teachers. The previous teacher supposedly died after such an attack and though everyone clearly knows who did it there are no repercussions for the students.

Most bizarre to me was when Almanzo says he wishes he could help the teacher, Almanzo's father says the teacher has to solve it himself and that he knew the risk taking the job.

Wilder has a streak of libertarian in her writings so I wasnt sure if this was that, or if there is any historical evidence this is how conflict was settled in upstate New York in the 1860s. Would there be any police or institutional conflict resolution available?

Was there a celebration, north or south?

Do majority of them think it was justified, a net benefit or completely unjustified behaviour? I'm specifically asking about the colonization of places in Africa and south east Asia if that helps.

For example I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong) Niall Ferguson argues that the countries who were conquered by the British empire benefited from its ruling and industrialization and therefore it's justified, but I want to know if this opinion is commonly held among other historians or is it more on the controversial side?

And if the more common opinion is that the colonization of said countries was unjustified and harmful could you provide me with some reasons or even citations for why historians argue that?

I would greatly appreciate any help.

So two prominent assault rifles in the Cold War/Vietnam are the M14 and M16. However, what are M1-M13? Why did it skip to M14, it wasn’t made in 1914 or 2014. And then where is M15?

What I mean is why does it seem Empeors never pick their son to be the next emperor? They almost always end up adopting someone or have a distant relative take over. Was this common in other monarchies of the time or unqiue to the Romans. Also what was the longest direct succession of roman emperors?

So, hot air balloons were invented in 1783. They were used in many wars, including the French revolutionary wars, second Italian war of independence, Franco-Prussian war, and more. When Austria began seizing Venice in 1849, they put bombs on air balloons and dropped them. Almost like a bomber plane! Rush to the American civil war, we have Grenades, why weren’t those dropped off the balloons? Prototype rocket launchers were used by both sides, why weren’t those put on balloons? Both sides had a sniper rifle being used, why don’t you put a sniper on the balloon? Or just normal rifleman, hell but a Gatling gun on one, or a light cannon perhaps. Or at least, why didn’t they use them as bombers like in 1849?

Why did the Norwegians put up suck little resistance to the Nazi invasion?

I understand there was a psychological shock of the Nazis having Trojan Horse tactics at ports, but they still took control of Norway within 2 months.

The Norway Army was 100,000 strong in 1940 but were defeated by 25,000 nazis.

This may seem pedantic but I was curious.

As in, if the Christian world produced the scientific method, why did Christianity and science eventually become incompatible?

In other words, if one ship was attempting to intercept another, what factors determined whether or not the pursuer would successfully chase down their prey, or that the fleeing ship would successfully escape?

I understand what made a boat fast and that some boats were able to sail closer to the wind. However, I'm also wondering about the kinds of tactical decisions involved in a chase between two ships with roughly equal performance (in my head I'm imagining two sloops).

Also, were merchant sloops typically weighed down more than pirate ships? And if so, does this effect the max speed (I'm of the understanding that max speed is determined by length, not weight) or maneuverability?

Sorry if this is a really broad question, but I'm very interested in this kind of thing, and I'm finding it hard to find any info that gets this specific. Any info you can add is greatly appreciated!

I understand there is a religious motivation behind suppressing native beliefs, but why were they so thorough? Do any contemporaries explain in detail why they were so keen on purging Mayan records?

Finally, can you recommend a good history book in English or Spanish that covers the initial impressions Spaniards had of the native cultures?

Thanks!

Why the amount the Hephthalites were demanding too high to be gotten from any other way? Did Kavadh I have a realistic chance of beating the Byzantines, when the Sassanian Empire had just gone through a succession crises? Couldn't he have targeted one of the weaker polities bordering the Sassanian Empire?

The plague struck the Islamic world and China just as badly yet its cultural depictions is associated with medieval Europe. Every documentary of the Black Plague is almost entirely about Europe

I assume that with the rise of industrialism and the changes in chemistry, there must be some pretty large effects on perfume.

I've heard about his actions during the cold war in regards to American’s or Soviets, but what was life like for the people in the country?

Every time I watched something like Game of Thrones and there is a battle about to happen it always seemed a bit stupid for me to just crash into each other because of all the people that just gut ran over or stumble about their own feet.

My friend in history class is overly obsessed with the Nazi General Erwin Rommel. He has said many times that he wasn’t like any other nazi and was against hitler’s Germany. I just want to know if he’s right or if he’s obsessing over a proud nazi. Thank you