It began in WW1 with the Zeppelin and Gotha bomber air raids, followed by the German Blitz and Allied Bombings of Germany, Japan and others in WW2 (and many other bombings by both sides), Vietnam saw a heavy bombardment, the NATO bombings of Serbia, and so on.

Yet,it seems that in every case, the bombings were futile. Losses were high and its effects rather limited, even in WW2 it did not seem to have the desired effect on the output of the German War Machine. Or even forcing a surrender. Hell you might even argue that it increased the defenders morale.

So, how effective was it really? My question isn't focused on WW2, it is a general question spanning all wars that involved strategic bombing.

European history is full of stories of famous knights, like Henry Percy, El Cid and Guesclin, but is there any recorded history of famous Aztec Jaguars or Eagles? The Jaguars and Eagles were one of the highest order of soldiers in Aztec society, even constituting a class of minor nobility almost exactly like a European knight, but do we even know any of their names?

I just saw a tweet from an advertisement in 1933 for a car that had a 5th wheel to help it parallel park. Why was this technology abandoned? It looked useful and cut the time it takes to parallel park at least 3x as fast.

I know that by the 5th century, Britain was Christian to a significant degree. But do we know what faith a warlord in southwestern Britain would have been likely to follow?

I've been reading about early modern military history and was struck by how small battles and armies were. In the Thirty Years' War, incredibly important battles such as Breitenfield and Lützen were fought between armies rarely numbering more than 35,000 men each. Whereas the Second Punic War saw numerous engagements between armies ranging from 40,000 to over 100,000 men.

Why were armies so much larger in the Punic War than they were during the Thirty Years War? Given what limited information I've seen on demographics it seems that the Romans and Carthaginians levied an enormous proportion of their populations during these conflicts, whereas the armies of the Thirty Years War were pretty small relative to the populations of the combatants. More generally, why were classical wars fought on a scale that wouldn't be seen again in the West until Napoleon?

Is there any reason why should was more likely to survive than her siblings?

Nowadays we learn about these events through many mediums with television having shown us many moments in modern warfare since the late 1900’s onwards but how did the world first learn of the existence of nuclear weapons and their use in warfare?

When did news first break that America had such weapons of mass destruction? When the bombs first dropped on Hiroshima, did the Japanese survivors know what hit them? Was the American public’s reaction to the bombing positive or negative and were all the facts of its devastation made available? How did the rest of Japan first learn what happened at Hiroshima and what was the reaction?

When we look at movies like Gojira or works like Barefoot Gen we can see just how it permeated the ?Japanese consciousness after the fact, but what was the knowledge before the bombings?

Thanks in advance to all who answer.

During WW2 many planes, including almost all bombers on all sides, but also many twin engined fighter bombers, recon aircraft, dive bombers and more had defensive machine guns in turrets or other positions to defend against enemy fighters intercepting the aircraft.

To me they seem very ineffective. The plane and the enemy fighter will both fly at really high speeds, making hitting the enemy really difficult as well as giving only a small window of opportunity to shoot at it. Furthermore, most planes did not have the massive defense armament of a B17 but rather just 1 to 3 machine guns.

So how effective were they really? Were they a waste of production or really reducing bomber losses?

Inglorious Basterds just got added to Netflix and now I’ve got some side-tracked questions.

The answer taught in schools is that Germany started it but many say Austria-Hungary started it as they declared an attack on Serbia.

How did an impoverished English empire spread through North America, break into their own independent nation which would be become a sole superpower, while the rich and heavily established Spanish crown lacked the same long term success. Why?

I have a gaping hole in my historical awareness shaped exactly like West Africa.

Could you recommend me good written sources on West African history?

What are the books recommended for someone who wants to learn about the daily life of a roman soldier and a detailed description of the tactics, drills, and practices used during the republic and imperial periods? I don't have a strong historical background, so materials that are designed as an introduction to these subjects are most preferred.

Genealogy is always interesting when it’s comes to the time before DNA. But is there anyone who can with certainty claim to be descendants of any of the Roman families from the time of the empire?

Or did they not do Ramadan in times of war? If not, how was that justified?