Can the ancestry house of Habsburg be traced to Roman times (not necessarily to Rome itself) or does the known line begin only in around 1000? Even if there is no credible evidence, did the Habsburgs themselves ever claim descent from figures of antiquity?

Thanks

I understand that 99 years might seem like forever, but I don't understand why the British imperial overlords diplomats after being on the victorious side of the Sino-Japanese War sought to secure a lease. Why not an outright annexation of the territory, like the British did in India and elsewhere?

According to the wiki page on the Cambodian-Vietnam war, communist Vietnam had the support of the USSR, while the also communist Khmer Rouge were supported by Thailand, Malaysia, China, Great Britain, and supposedly even the United States. Did the U.S. only support Cambodia bc we had just recently lost the Vietnam war?

So my understanding the Greek phalanx was that each warrior held a shield in the left hand and their spear in the right with them all standing in tight formation with the majority of your shield actually blocking the guy next to you. So what happened if you were left handed? It would seem to mess up the formation. Did they force children to train with their non-dominant hand? Was there a position, maybe on the end of the row, that the lefties would stand?

What motivated people to work with them?

So as the title says, I wonder were Normandian knights among the earliest crusaders to join the conquest of Muslim lands to the east. I've heard somewhere that Normandian people, former and children of viking invaders of West Frankia, had adopted the culture of fearsome warriors and when they got baptized, they took their religion and culture seriously so they marched pretty much at instant. I just want a confirmation if it's true.

If so, those vikings were real stuff dude.

My girlfriend is really intelligent! She just went to the worst high school in the country (UK). Case in point she now works for IBM as a software developer, but last night didn't know what the Soviet Union was when it came up while watching Stranger Things. Nothing. Vaguely knew it had something to do with communism but had no idea it was now Russia. Also has no knowledge of the great wars etc etc. Her school simply didn't teach history (criminal!).

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Any good courses about? Preferably video courses that we could watch maybe 10-15 minutes of before going to bed or something. Podcasts would work too. I found the Khan Academy course which may be ideal but not sure if it goes into good detail about anything?

The intersection of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers spawned Pittsburgh which is a city of historical significance for shipping and river transport as well as industries that thrived as a result of this access. You would think that where two of the largest rivers in North America intersect it would create something a bit larger than towns such as Wickliffe, KY and Cairo, IL (no offense to those places). What events, or lack thereof prevented this area from developing into a major American city?

I don't live in the US so I might be oblivious to some things that are obvious to a US citizen. I know that the Civil War was fought to end the slavery, that the North was for abolishing and the South was against. So it left me wondering, if half of a country fought for the betterment of african americans why the country, both South and North, remained so racist way into the second half of the 20th century. Isn't it logical that if I fought against someone's slavery I would also fight for that person's civil rights?

Could I, say, find a Persian philosopher dealing in details with the theme of "Western despotism", or an Indian novelist setting his novel in the mysterious, magical and erotic land of Northern Lancashire?

To give some chronological boundaries, I'm mostly interested in what happened before the 20th century (so not, for example, the perception of the West by Showa-era Japan) and the conscious / suffered Westernization of many countries. I'm also mostly interested in the Middle-east and India.

Edit : I'm not sure about the "shopping" flag, but hey, why not! Who wants to buy my mysterious and folded 2500 times French sword?

Just reading a book on the Wars of the Roses and it mentions that this was not done for the coronation of young Henry VI, but it got me thinking about the practicalities of it.

An example of this would be The Dick Van Dyke Show. The characters Rob and Laura are married and have a son, but the scenes that take place in their bedroom show the couple sleeping in separate twin size beds.

I’ve read that excommunication was threatened for all sorts of misdeeds and violations of religious law. For example I read the Third Lateran Council in 1179 threatened excommunication for any Christian who lended money at interest. How often were things like this actually enforced? And if you actually did get excommunicated, what would happen to you? Obviously the consequences of excommunication would be different for like Henry VIII vs. some random merchant or whoever.