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The movie generated a lot of interest in the Kennedy assassination when it came out in 1991. It's been criticized as being wildly inaccurate. What do historians think of the movie and what is inaccurate about it?

Most Old World cultures practiced a plethora of grappling and striking oriented martial arts, do we know of any Native American martial arts similar to boxing, wrestling, etc? I imagine most native cultures practiced various styles of wrestling throughout their histories, do we have any surviving accounts regarding the specifics of such techniques?

I’m hoping some of the folks here can provide some recommendations on more digestible/readable books on the Eastern Front with interesting theses and more contemporary takes. One of my issues with Glantz is that, despite his thorough research and analysis, he sometimes can get lost in details and fail to provide an clear picture of what is happening in a battle or operation. That said, I’m open to trying a couple more of his works.

I happen to have some extra time since my workload typically decreases a bit in December and I’ll have some great time to do more reading. I’m looking mostly for military/warfare-focused books. Any suggestions?

Thanks!!!

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Quite a few times, I come across videos on youtube where Noah's flood is said to borrow from, or in some other way recycle, various components of Sumerian and Mesopotamian folklore that is much older than the writings in the book of genesis. I have looked into the validity of this claim, briefly, and am having a hard time verifying if it is true or not. So primarily, I want to know if this claim is accurate but I am also wondering if there is a standard by which historical claims may be verified for accuracy?

If the Europeans that colonized the Americas got most of the native population killed by disease then were there any new diseases in the new world that killed any Europeans?

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With the advent of digital communication making it easier for banks to fight bounced checks and overdrafting, the threat of fraud seems to have shifted from more from systematic vulnerabilities to human error. This has got me wondering - what would various forms of exploitation from Renaissance-era banks, and are there any famous instances of ancient financial fraud?

As an example, what would stop someone with 100 Lira in their account with a Venitian bank from going to multiple bank locations, withdrawing 100 Lira from each before they have a chance to consolidate ledgers, subsequently booking it to another region or kingdom?

I suck at history and my high school teachers also didn't help much to spike my interest. But now I realize it's quite important for the understanding of where I'm standing and culture. So I want to start over and go from the beginning.

What titles do you recommend? Or videos, anything comprehensive.

Cities like Riga had to have had to deal with large amounts of winter snow, right?

Did shopkeeps and tenets scrape their own path? Did animals and carts pack the snow down enough to walk on?

Did the city leaders/merchants/guilds hire day laborers to clean the roads?

Much has been made of the power of comedy against the Nazis during the Second World War. Media portrayals of Nazis generally show them as lacking a sense of comedy outside of sadistic humor and cruelty. The Nazi propaganda films I'm most aware of are serious militaristic/antisemitic films like Triumph of the Will and The Eternal Jew rather than an equivalent to Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator or the Three Stooges' You Nazty Spy. Was there any significant effort on the Nazis' part to use humor to advance their own agenda? Would they have tried to satirize the Allies or their political opponents in film/other media? Would there have been popular jokes or styles of joke that would have been prevalent among the Nazi sympathizing populace?

The conquest of the Iberian peninsula began in 711 with the battle of Guadalete wherein an invading force of Berber Muslims defeated and killed the Visigoth king Roderic. Are there any credible accounts of the battle? Especially any that describe the course of the fighting.

The tertiary sources I’ve managed to find all say that Roderic was betrayed, either by a part of his army that stepped aside during a pivotal point of the battle or the potentially mythical “Count Julian” who aided in transporting the invaders across the strait of Gibraltar. Is this what probably actually happened or Is it just a folk tale? And if it is probably true was this sort of behind the back tactic commonly employed by Muslim armies? Would similarly devious tactics be permitted when fighting other Muslims?

Lastly, was the conquest of al-Andalus characterized as jihad by Muslim leaders? If so what hadith or Quranic verses were used in its justification? If it wasn’t, how was it characterized?

Thanks for any answers or information.

My cursory research on the second question indicated that the US wasn't involved in battles in Europe until 1943, but I couldn't find anything on if there was an American presence prior to that; specifically I'd like to know if there were American troops present in Europe on October 31st 1942.

And how would someone find out their brother was MIA? Would it be in-person? A letter? A phone call?

How long would it take for the military to officially declare a soldier MIA, and how long between that decision and the family being notified?

(I hope that this sort of two-questions-in-one isn't a problem? I've never posted here before and as far as I could see there isn't anything in the rules against it.)