I'm working on a creative project, and I'm struggling to find good sources on what day-to-day life would have been like in rural Italy around the time Mussolini came to power. I'm most interested in Calabria and Southern Italy.

I'm finding a lot of stuff about larger geopolitical history at that time, and it's not too hard to find discussions of the role of fascism in changing industrial and city life, but struggling to find things that would help me picture day-to-day life in less developed areas. Does anyone have any recommendations in that vein?

Thanks!

I debated with my friend which, - cocoa powder or the chocolate bar - 'arrived' first in Europe (specifically the U.K.) to decide what type of hot chocolate was first made. Any food/chocolate/sweet-hot-beverage historians out there to help us settle this?

What were the reasons for the Gallipoli offensive in WW1? I've heard about oil being a factor but to what extent and were there any other motives? Also what are some good sources for the offensive in general?

Mainly using rails and the occasional airplane.

Along the route of Seattle, San Francisco to Los Angeles, then El Paso, then to Houston, New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Washington, Philadelphia, NYC, and finally Boston.

I’m using this for an individual story.

Living in the United Kingdom and being extremely interested in Medieval history, I often look at monuments such as churches or castles dotted all over the country with great interest. Whenever something like this piques my interest, I tend to look it up on the internet to see if I can find out some more information on a given fortification or place of worship.

It seems that, in general, it is extremely common to find monuments such as churches or castles built specifically in the 13th century - from what I can see usually the latter half. I was wondering why this specific period appears, at least at a glance, to be over represented by these buildings. Was there some sort of a big construction drive in that time period? Is it just survivorship bias because many constructions from earlier periods were made out of wood as opposed to stone? Is it the spread of masonry as a method of architecture?

Very often, in the German-speaking lands, names or titles of nobility will include one or more of these words": e. g. Ritter von X, Graf von und zu Y, etc.

Can you point to sources explaining what they mean and how they differ? Thanks!

Are all documents found generally considered truth until proven otherwise? What examples would be had of lies being caught?

Were hospital doctors 'different' from other doctors? Or was it common to work both in order to get more money?

The Bering Straight seems awfully small to have not been crossed after the glacier melted; wouldn't knowledge of that land be known to the greater powers of the world in antiquity from visiting NE Russian territories and word of mouth?

One of the most intriguing things that I have come across multiple times in studying Caesar's campaigns in Gaul / Britain is the difficulty he faced confronting the seafaring Venetii -- particularly mention is made of their strongholds which are described in numerous sources in a way that sounds like some kind of floatilla or a network of docks? Possibly even such that they were rendered islands during certain tidal shifts, accessible only by ship?

My question is -- what is the reality of these fortresses? What did they look like? Were they a network of docks and catwalks on pylons? I have failed to find any imagery that attempts to reconstruct or portray what they might have looked like - but it sounds particularly fascinating and inventive and I'm interested if anyone has any more clarity as to what these fortresses of Venetii were really like.

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Thanks in advance!!

Yea.

This is a super specific question, so I don't have very high hopes, but I might as well try.

Perhaps one of the biggest mysteries of Russian history - who was Rurik (if he existed) and did Scandinavians really play a major role in formation of statehood in Russia? The historians I read completely contradict each other, and they all seem adamant in their position. Any Russian history experts here?..

So I’m aware for the period leading up to WW1 Germany controlled the areas around Danzig and Königsberg, I think prior to that they also controlled all the way to Estonia? I’m also aware that to some extent, the Baltics were purposefully “de-Germanized” post-WW2. To what extent were Poland and the Baltics German? How did this come to be? How and why did these areas come to be their modern, non-German selves?

I had heard that the use of yaupon tea, derived from the Native American "black drink" was a popular alternative to coffee because of its high caffeine value, but you hardly hear of it today. When and why did it leave American popular cuisine?