Human sacrifice appears to have been a strong cultural theme for the ancient Aztecs. However, the records of how many exactly were sacrificed in Aztec religious rituals are unclear, with some numbers possibly being inflated to make them appear more barbaric and thus justify the Spanish invasion.

1. Do we have any sources that can unambiguously and concretely tell us how many people the Aztecs sacrificed? (either an annual tally of sorts, or of certain events, like the re-consecration of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan)

2. Do we know when the Aztecs stopped sacrificing people and why? Did they only stop when they were finally conquered by the Spanish?

EDIT: not sure why my post was flaired as Shopping, if a mod sees this feel free to edit the flair to something more appropriate.

Why is it that Medieval Europe used feudalism when places like the Byzantine empire or the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates used bureaucracies? You'd think that Medieval kings would try to replace their feudal lords and nobles with Bureaucrats, but you'd be wrong. The only Western European king I can think of who tried to have bureaucrats to some degree was Philippe Augustus

If you ever watch a show about the colonial US, it seems that everyone has a English accent of some sort.

So when did the american accent arise?

I'm playing a historical visual novel set during the last years of the bakumatsu period, following a romanticised version of the Shinsengumi (Hakuoki), and I'm a bit confused on something.

As far as I understand, the Imperialist National Party's forces (anti-Shogunate, very critical of foreign influence in Japan), specifically the Satsuma-Choshu, defeated the bigger Shogunate armies by using western military tactics and weapons like canons and rifles. And this is largely why those wielding weapons of the older age (swords, spears) lost to them. I'm talking specifically of the battles in 1867 and 68, I think.

But I don't understand why the Satsuma-Choshu used these new foreign military weapons when ideologically, they were fiercely against any foreign influence in Japan. Isn't that hypocritical? Or am I missing something?

(Sorry for any factual errors, I'm just going off of what I could glean from my own searches and the in-game encyclopedia. Thank you!)

My Grandfather served with the battalion during the Spanish Civil War, and I've been trying to do further research on them, but finding any English language books, articles, photos, or other sources of information about them is proving fruitless. Can anyone recommend any good sources on this unit specifically?

The 1918 Spanish flu epidemic infected rougly 500 million people (around 25% of the world population at the time), and killed roughly 50-100 million people, or about 2-5% of the world population at the time.

It even reached remote areas in the Arctic (Inuit villages) and Pacific Islands. India was absolutely devastated by the flu, where roughly 17 million people died, or 5% of the population of then British India. As was Europe, America, etc.

It seems however the 1918 flu epidemic barely even registered in China at the time. I read no reports of a devastating flu season during 1918 in China, and it seems it affected China less so than the rest of the world. Why?

I've heard that the ancient Romans mostly just adopted the musical traditions of the ancient Greeks, and that not much is even known of Roman music. Why was the practice of music so stagnant in such a developed and complex civilization?

I heard conflicting statements about this topic. Some say the Soviet Union broke its non-aggression-pact with Japan to conquer parts of Manchuria/China/Korea while others say that attack was a lie the Japanese government used to “justify” the unconditional surrender to the US.

Hi! I'm writting a historical fiction (with emphasis in fiction) novel wich main character is a chinese slave who somehow (working on it) is selled to a norse jarl in Denmark, and then it goes full The Last Samurai style, with the chinese slave embrasing the norse culture and becaming a viking. So, my question is: it would be posible, even for historical fiction? I mean, it would be at least 1% belibable?.

While it's obvious that they suffered much the same immediate post-war problems - inflation, trouble shifting their economies to function in the post-war world, burgeoning class struggle, nationalist revanchism, fractured coalition governments, severe cultural anxieties etc. I'm struggling to understand why, when issues such as inflation were so much more destructive in Germany it was Italy that fell to dictatorship first, while Weimar democracy survived, albeit in a fairly battered state at times, for almost a decade more.

When did the idea of rich and poor, the idea of class status develop into human culture? When I see cases of African tribes or those tribes in the jungles, I don’t hear about the “rich” and the “poor” since they’re all a tribe and are equally “poor”. How and when did the idea of “rich” and higher social class develop into civilization?

Hey everyone,

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I really hope it's okay to ask for help this way, because I ran out of ideas.

For my research project (PhD: Urban Military Matters in the late Middle Ages) I've been looking for a specific book which was published in 1762 in Austria (most likely in Vienna). The author is "Kollar". The book's name is apparentely "Analectes" (second part). In this book a collection of sources can be found, this part is called "Publici Actorum Commentarii Civitatis Vindobonensis". I really really need this book, so I want to ask you for the favour to browse through your libraries / university databases for this book.

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Why do I need it?

These written sources are minutes from Vienna's city council that dates back to 1440-1460. The second part of it was published in the mid of the 19th century and can be easily found. But the original sources were lost during the last century - so these releases are our only chance to get a glimsp on these minutes.

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I'd really appreciate your help!

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With best regards from Austria,

Loren

I've read a fair bit on Julius Caesar, and Roman mid-late republic and early Empire, and I'm amazed by how comfortable people are with extremely harsh conquest and war. For example, it is said that Julius Caesar killed one million Gauls and enslaved another million, ( by his own account, I admit ) when the total population of the region was only ~8-16 million. He cut the hands off of all of those people in Uxellodunum and routinely burned entire cities to the ground, killing everyone he could just as an example. Even his most bitter foes in Rome had not one bad word to say about it. They exploded whenever Romans died however. To them, it was just the way things were. Yet more fascinating, Adrian's Goldsworthy's has a theory he discusses Pax Romana , the romans didn't need to justify brutal wars of conquest. considering Julius Caesar's specific actions in Gaul I can't help but agree. I am aware of the idea of roman 'pacification' and that breaking treaties with foreigners was heavily condemned, so they're not absolute. In the Middle ages, people used religion as a way of "othering" people, thus allowing brutal action against them, but even then this doesn't mean they can do whatever they want. Later on it became more focused on race. When the Europeans colonized Africa, most of them though they were helping them by 'civilizing' them and 'teaching them so they can one day be independent'. The Romans understood race and nations and religion, but they never stressed it enough to justify war, it was just a minor detail. The Romans, including Julius Caesar, seem to believe that 'history is written by the victors', 'we have a right to serve ourselves' and 'woe to the vanquished'. They don't go out of their way to be cruel, they are simply pragmatic and Machiavellian. If it benefits them they can treat the Gauls very well, enslave them, or kill them. There were no hard and fast rules of war, no moral obligation to the rest of the world, no absolute human rights, very few customs that foreign civilians as being a less appropriate target to kill than pedophiles and serial killers in Rome. What changed from then, and why doesn't that fly anymore? When did this mentality start and end? I'm sorry if I sound moralizing or critical of the Romans, I don't mean to. And of course, feel free to tell me if I've been misinformed.

It's a common trope in fiction, but from what little I've read, it doesn't seem to be something the Church has been very keen on. I doubt it never happened (there were a lot of priests and plenty of people who justified their violent actions through religion), but that's just conjecture, not facts. I have heard Eastern Orthodox priests are more willing to bless weapons or just about anything else.

Sorry if I'm light on specifics as to what era, but if I knew all the facts, I wouldn't be asking.