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Question for the WWII historians out there...How did Nazi Germany have such a head start in rocket science, compared to the rest of the world? Yes, the United States had Goddard, but it seems like most countries were at least a decade behind in rocket technology, at the end of WWII. Hence, part of the reason for US and Russian willingness to pardon a lot of these scientists. Why were there so many in Germany at this point in time?

From what I read they used both the Yak family, the Mig and the Su family at the same time. I don't understand why they would do this, surely one family is enough right?

I’m trying to get an understanding of what the ratio would be between the value of the ship and it’s cargo. For context I am running a Dungeons and Dragons game focused around piracy and the party just took down a large merchant whose cargo was spices. Currently the cargo is worth about as much as the ship itself but I’m not sure that is correct.

The history of many post-colonial nations features a lot of dictators, coups, and civil wars, while the former British settler colonies of Canada, USA, and Australia have mostly managed to avoid these. Does their relative stability have any roots in the colonial societies in the British colonies? The form their struggle for independence took?

Edit: completely forgot New Zealand.

For instance, say I time travelled into the past with a large vehicle or a crane. Would they cite it as some mythical beast like a dragon or would they recognize it as something man-made?

Im positive once its apparent its not killing anybody theyd be curious enough to investigate and then determine its not an animal, mythical or not, but I do wonder what their gut reaction would be to such things.

Why did Hannibal choose not to March on Rome when he was very near to the city and had no one to stand in his way?

I just read an interesting passage in the biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow: "A small revolution in consumer tastes had turned the Caribbean into prized acreage for growing sugarcane to sweeten the coffee, tea and cocoa imbibed in fashionable European capitals." My question is, when did the British start drinking tea? What did they drink before? Before sugarcane was grown in the Caribbean, what was the source of sugar for cakes and confections ? Were those foods less common before?

I once saw an exhibit on Food in the Time of Shakespeare, and it said that garlic, onions and savory prepararions hadn't entered the English kitchen yet, and meats were often prepared with sweet flavors, like turkey and stuffing with raisins. How did they manage glazes and similar preparations without sugar?

Hitler aspired to create an empire, how did he view other past empires and their instigators? Did he have less favourable views on Khan than the others because he was Mongolian for example?

When reading about famous people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it seems a great many of them suffered a 'nervous breakdown' at some point in their life. While it's obvious that this term is just another name for a condition (or conditions) that existed before and have continued to exist since, it seems particularly prevalent in this period. Why is this?

I've been quite interested in the region recently, and I would really like to find one or several books that would give me a decent picture of the story of the region, particularly from the 14th century onwards.

I have read that we purposefully put them there, and also read that they were "found" there. Does anyone know which is true and if we did put them there, why? I know Chernobyl has become a "refuge for wildlife" but I don't understand the point of purposefully releasing an ancient horse species into a radioactive environment.

I've recently begun to read Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction, and I'm having a bit of a hard time with it. The drama of global finance is apparently a bit beyond me. I will, for example, read that such-and-such country devalued their currency, or switched away from the gold standard, or imposed tariffs on imports... Okay, I think I sort of understand what those actions are. But these acts are written about as if their consequence and importance are obvious. And to many, I am sure they are, but not for me, and I don't think I'm uniquely underprepared. This is, in fact, a general trend for me whenever any kind of economic history pops up. Another recent example for me was Thomas Skidmore's The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil: 1964-1985. A huge fraction of that book turned out to be a discussion of Eurodollars, IMF loans, pegged currency exchanges, inflation... and I can't say I understood much of it at all. In fact, I just sort of nodded my head and powered through.

I've tried to pick up textbooks on these subjects, but I've found them to be heavily mathematical. Ironically, this should make things easier, as math and physics are my background. I can understand what the textbooks are saying just fine, but it really has done very little to help me when reading economic history. It seems a bit like staring at the Navier-Stokes equation to understand the weather. I also looked through the suggested books and resources list, but couldn't find anything on economic history.

So, in essence, how do historians, not all of whom I assume have PhDs in economics, make sense of questions of credit rates, monetary policy, inflation, etc? If their field is not necessarily economic history, what do they do when faced with a source that requires a good knowledge of finance/economics? And how can I, an amateur history reader, gain a basic enough understanding that I can read history without feeling totally lost when a discussion of, say, interest rates come up?

I've heard that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary as Japan was about to surrender, but if they were then how come they didn't surrender after Hiroshima? The Truman administration did warn the Japanese empire to surrender otherwise they would drop another bomb, so why didn't they surrender?