I was looking into Ancient Near Eastern texts similar to the Old Testament and wanted recommendations for English Translations of the following texts.

Atrahasis Epic

Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone)

Enuma Elish

Ishtar's Descent

Ras Shamra Tablets

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In accounts of Operation Barbarossa, it's usually mentioned that the Soviets were able to evacuate key industries East, often behind the Urals. However, obviously this effort wouldn't have been 100% successful - the giant Dnieper dams for example could not be evacuated and instead were blown up

Do we know how much Soviet industrial capacity was lost during Operation Barbarossa, either captured by the Germans or destroyed to prevent capture?

It looks like French and German gas mask designs during WW1 both featured canisters mounted on the 'nose' of the mask itself, while British masks had a hose to a body-mounted filter.

Did one design have any innate advantages over the other? It seems like a hose might be more vulnerable to getting snagged on things, but a filter canister hanging off the face seems more unwieldy.

It doesn't really make sense to me, from what I recall the Soviets were constantly worried about German imperialism since their formation. Perhaps hindsight is 20/20, but how did they not see how that could end badly?

This goes out to the Sinologists on here. I recently read Kissinger's book, and while I'll preface by saying that I personally think Kissinger is a despicable human being that's putting it lightly... that this was a great look at Chinese foreign policy and outward thought through the lens of a master practitioner of realpolitik who interacted with them firsthand.

I am no Sinologist myself though, only a layman reader of various histories of China. If any of you have read Kissinger's aforementioned book, what did you think of the conclusions drawn? Some examples may be China's adherence to a policy of non-intervention in the internal policies of those it interacts with throughout its history.

Happy to hear any thoughts.

Obviously the ancient Israelites did not have apples, and from what I can tell, scholars are undecided as to what the authors of the OT would have been thinking of in Genesis. But at some point, people seem to have begun commonly referring to it as an apple. When was this? Why?

I was going to post this as a question in the post about Canada & Denmark peacefully disputing an island, and ask “Why are Canadians so much more chill than us Americans?” But when I thought about it, it really is an interesting question.

Even as far back as the War of 1812 when we invaded Canada and the Canadians kicked us out of their country. I understand that war was mostly about capturing strategic geographical locations but what was different culturally that led Canadians to take sides with the Crown instead of the revolutionary ideals that became popular in the US & France?

Why didn’t Canada want to declare independence alongside the United States?

After 1979's Vietnamese liberation of Cambodia, major foreign governments such as the UK and USA supported the Khmer Rouge dominated CGDK holding Cambodia's seat in the UN from 1990-1993, and also seemed to provide support to the Khmer Rouge at various other times after they were largely removed from power in 1979. What drove this support for the communist perpetrators of the Cambodian Genocide?

Were people unaware of the extent of the Khmer Rouge's crimes due to lack of information? Were they mistrustful of the information from the liberating communist Vietnamese? Were other political goals seen as worth supporting the group for?

Were there any other motives for supporting the Khmer Rouge?

Similarly, did other contemporary figures from the Italian Renaissance (Machiavelli, Michelangelo, the Borgias, Caterino Sforza etc.) record their thoughts?

My professor said that when Aristotle used the term "god," it was used metaphorically as the "engine or hub of the universe." Aristotle was not speaking about "god" per se, but the internal workings of the universe, considered as a whole. Is Aristotle's god a theistic entity or an early attempt at naturalistic explanation? Is the translation of Aristotle's theos as "god" really all that accurate? Should it not be translated "engine of the universe"?

Aristotle was an ancient naturalist / astronomer with proto-empirical tendencies. Would this "god" be a sort of provisional hypothesis to be overturned by new evidence? Meaning that it wasn't really "god" to begin with?

The idea is that the taster will taste the food, not die and pass it on.

a. Why not test it on the dog?

b. What if it's a slow poison?

In Herodotus's Histories he says the son of Priam took Helen to Egypt and when they tried to tell the Greeks that Helen was not in the city they did not believe the Trojans. He learned this from the Egyptians and believed there was enough evidence to support it. This detail was omitted from Homer's Iliad. Do Historians know why? Are there any other sources regarding the Greek sack of Troy?

I have just started to come into contact with what Hobsbawm would describe "twilight zone" of history, which for me would be through the mid-1950s to the mid-1990s. I find it hard to grasp the whole essence of the "revolutionary sixties" both because I, for some reason, had the perception that the revolutionary sentiments of the decade were a parenthesis in the 20th century for the west and because in Greece, where I live, grew up, and study, the "sixties" don't have the potency that they do in France or the US, thus not engraving the same sentiments in the collective memory.

What I mostly ask here is, what aspects of everyday life did the "revolutionary 60s" influence and altered drastically? More specifically I would like somebody to elaborate regarding the feminist movement, women's emancipation and sexual freedom through contraceptives, as well as the breaking of the naked body as a taboo.

I hope my questions are not totally inaccurate, although if they are please tell me what I don't seem to comprehend.

Thank you.

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People had to pay the church money when confessing their sins to repent, correct? How did indulgences differ from this?
I know the could be bought for people already in purgatory but was their an initiative to buy one for oneself?
Guess what I want to know is why people bought indulgences?
Was it purely psychological to feel at peace? Am I completely misunderstanding?
Please enlighten me as to the role they played.