TIL: The French Aéronautique Militaire was the first airforce to adopt the cockade, or Roundel, emblem for their planes in 1909. Several of their allies around the time if WWI followed suit. The existence of the cockade goes back much farther however, all the way back to medieval knights using cockades on their helmets in order to make sure their allies could distinguish them on the battlefield, as many knights heavily decorated/customized their armor individually(please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm very very far from well read on the subject).

I can't, however, seem to find out why the roundel in and of itself became so ubiquitous in the early 20th century, a quick scroll through a collection of Airforce emblems over the years shows several nations all adopting the Roundel in a relatively short time between 1909 to 1950 or so. Is there any specific reason the Roundel in particular was so popular, or was it just an aesthetic choice that people thought simply looked good?

I know that for the Greek and Roman pantheons, ‘gods’ were powerful, but ultimately considered humanity to be something of a toy. They were arbitrary and cruel to humans as they wished, and felt they had no obligation to them, often ignoring them entirely. Of course Allah and Christian God loved humans and do everything they can to guide them on the path to righteousness. They are able to watch over every person, believer or not, and punish or reward them as they deserve. God in many ways considers humanity as his child, and has no other duties to attend to. I don’t understand why there has to be only one loving god, or when you have more than one they become cruel. Did pagans ever think that their pantheon of gods was united in their love for humans and looked after them? Did monotheistic peoples ever think their one god was arbitrary and self-centered like the Hellenistic gods?

Why do a lot of Doris Day's song sounds a lot like Ella Fitzgerald? Were their record companies trying to pit them off? I searched it and it seems that they recorded to very different labels. Perhaps in a effort to make the audiences judge who sang which rendition better? If so, who won? I also seem to notice that Ella doesn't speak much about the strange musical relationship between her songs and Ms Day's. I know she's not much of a talkative person, but I don't see any interview of neither one of them claiming they are friends either. Was there some sort of rivalry?

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I’ve tried looking this up, but all I can find is that they were bankers. And banking simply isn’t profitable if you’re just holding onto money and then giving it back to people. And loans seem like an even worse idea at a time when they couldn’t charge interest.

So I’m confused as to how they actually made the vast sums of money that they did. Has anyone figured this out?

I've been reading Righting Historical Injustice in Higher Education by Lionel K McPherson. McPherson is a philosopher, and not exactly a historian, but he basically states that institutions of high education weren't only complicit in historical injustice towards blacks, but exacerbated the problem (ie. discriminatory admissions practices). Both the GI Bill and affirmative action were policies to equalize socioeconomic/racial differences, with the catalyst being higher education; however, even as bastions for liberal ideals, McPherson says that these colleges/universities didn't do enough and even committed injustices.

I'm wondering if Religion/Churches were also places of 'moral' ideals, how they promoted justice or injustice, specifically in regards to race (especially, blacks).

I'm more concerned within the scope of the United States.

Thanks, so much!

So, I know butter was an important product of at least scandinavian peasants, it was exported, used to pay taxes, and at least allegedly in one case paid as a stipend for someone to go to university. But I've never quite understood how these large amounts of butter (sometimes measured in barrels) was made to last. Was it simply salted sufficiently? Was it simply expected that butter would go rancid? Or is there something I'm missing?

With other empires like British, French, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese all of which have lingua francas in the countries and land they had.

But why didn't this happen with the ottoman empire and the turkish language?

Did the host nation just send an annual bill to the other nation?

I know the Romans had last names, and a bureaucracy to take those into account. But did other (later) cultures start using last names? When did John the Blacksmith become John Smith? How did that come about?

Thanks in advance.

Today Xmas stuff is everywhere in the US, from Coca Cola advertisements to television specials, and it is often secularized (Peanuts notwithstanding) with little mention of the birth of Jesus but quite a lot of Santa Clausi and reindeer. Has this widespread commercialization of Christmas had a real impact on Hanukkah observance?

I'm reading Adrian Goldsworthy's biography of Caeser and Transalpine & Cisalpine Gaul keep coming up.

What was the difference between the two regions? He mentions one was quite Roman-ised but were there any other differences? How would a typical Cisalpine Gaul view themselves compared to a Roman citizen?

Also, as a side note, why are the regions prefixed with Trans- and Cis-?

Hi everyone,

While indexing some ancient coins dating from the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek Kingdom, I came across these geographical names. I tried to google them but came no where close to understanding where they are situated, or whether or not they are names of places or of regions. Can someone help me out please?

I have trouble with the following geographical units:

• Gandhara
• Punjab
• Paropamisadai
• Sogdiana

Thanks in advance!