Throughout history it seems like there is an inconsistency and how the word empire is used. We call the Byzantine Empire, and Empire regardless of how small it shrank. Or even in the days of Aurelian when the Roman Empire split into four or five separate political units, we still refer to those individual territories as empires and not kingdoms.

So what really makes an Empire? Is a territorial size? Is it the amount of people there are subject to that particular political system? Why are there no empires today? Why do we not refer to the American Empire, or the Chinese Empire?

Sort of like how you can make meth in your trailer with matches and Sudafed, would it have been possible to make chemical drugs with supplies available in this time period? And if not in Europe, would any other region have the capacity for it? Assuming a modern day chemist with complete up to date knowledge was performing the synthesis, using equipment from that age.

I'm asking like 500 600 years ago there must be some kind of comedy book or I don't know something that tells us how the comedy was in that period of time

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Majority Islam*

The origins of the Etruscan civilization of central Italy has been contested for thousands of years. Dionysius of Halicarnassus described them as indigenous to the region of Etruria, Herodotus described them as Anatolian immigrants to mainland Italy. The uncertainty of their origins widely stems from the fact that they spoke a language isolate, seemingly unrelated to Indo-European or any other language on mainland Europe, although a hypothetical Tyrrhenian language group has been proposed.

Here are some historically dominant theories regarding the Etruscans:

1. That they were indigenous to central Italy and a continuation of the early Iron age Villanovan culture

2. Immigrants of Pre-Greek indigenous Aegean origin, often referred to by Ancient Greek writers as "Pelasgians" or

3. Immigrants from Anatolia (Lydians according to Herodotus)

4. Connection with the Rhaetians, tribes of the Alpine region. This theory postulates that Etruscans immigrated from the North. This theory was suggested in the writings of Livy and Pliny the elder.

Have there been any new developments in recent years? What is the most widely accepted theory on the origins of Etruscans in year 2019? What has been concluded from DNA studies?

I've been told that all the available documentation concerning the gas chambers' assassinations during WWII was destroyed by the SS and therefore it couldn't be proven during the Nuremberg trials. Is this even true? Weren't the remaining gas chambers' buildings prove enough of their use? I've always thought that many nazi hierarchs were convicted and executed for these crimes, among others. Thanks beforehand, Reddit.

It seems to me that if both had accepted their areas of influence, and cooperated economically then they would have both gotten what they wanted. For Rome it was access to the silk road routes to India/China/etc, and for the Sassanids it would be Mediterranean Sea Port access across the entire ocean. Maybe their economies would have eventually been so entwined that war would be too costly. Also with that large border secure Rome could deal with the Germans, while Sassanids could counter the Hepthalites, and both could better handle the looming threat of northern Nomadic People's. So my question is are there any periods of time where trade between the two was at it's hight?

As in the qualia or the sensation. Did you wake up in a bed with a dirty, sack like blanket? Was it dark except for the light in the window? Was there a stove and a fire pot? What was the first thing you'd smell? Would it be quasi-rank meat or food along with sewage from outside? What about horse droppings? What would you hear? People talking in a crowd outside? Horse trots? Would you see steam here and there and smoke from rooftop chimneys? How dirty were you? Would you be literate? How big was your house or townhouse?

As in given the loss of its main military and economic aid, how did the regime stay put compared to the many governments that collapsed with the Soviet Union?

What happened to the many trenches dug in WWI? I know they were very complicated systems consisting of multiple rows sometimes, but after the war ended, what happened to them? Were they just left there, or did the military took care of the somehow?

Also, are there any preserved trenches systems, for historical purposes?

Hi all, Could someone help me find a book on Ancient Persia from before the rise of the Achaemenid Empire to after the fall of the Sassanian Empire. Preferably originally written in English and by a writer who’s neither an orientalist nor a leftist, but as close to objective as possible. Thanks.

Dara was a fort right? It would have been easier to defend from it's walls rather than meet a numerically superior army in the field.

The quote in reference: "Others, inclining to the contrary opinion, maintained that to carouse and make merry and go about singing and frolicking and satisfy the appetite in everything possible and laugh and scoff at whatsoever befell was a very certain remedy for such an ill. That which they said they put in practice as best they might, going about day and night, now to this tavern, now to that, drinking without stint or measure."

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Did people really think that alcohol would keep them in good health, or was this some strange social reaction to a major calamity?