I was fascinated with myths as a child but now that I have a logical point of view I wonder where they came from.

I remember being told that the Greeks/romans came up with their myths after eating drug like plants, is there truth to this? What about the test of the world?

This question applies for dictatorships or regimes that were replaced with ones that had an entirely different law book and government. How were lawyers able to stay relevant with their training?

Just saw a news article about a controlled burn taking place in my county this weekend, and it got me thinking - how long ago was this practice established? What benefits does performing a controlled burn hold over letting nature run it's own course? What happened naturally in the past before they were done that caused people to think burns were necessary?

For those asking, I live in Utah County, Utah. Very interesting responses so far, I appreciate all of the info!!

German economic success after WW2 has brought millions of immigrants to it. Nowadays Germany is multiethnic and 20% of its population are non-ethnic germans. Britain has similarly become more diversified. Japan however, has remained extremely homogeneous by modern standards, its biggest minority being Koreans (their immediate neighbours) and everyone else being less than 2% of the population.

What happened here? Why did Germany attract so much labour, but Japan remained closed off? During Japan's booming years, you'd think that cheap labour from the poorer parts of Asia would come pouring in.

Given the German support for Franco during the Spanish Civil War, what reasons did Franco have for not joining the Axis and pushing North into France? Was rebuilding alone the the main issue, or were there other reasons as well to not fully support the Axis?

My grandfather fought in ww2. I would like to know which unit he served in. My grandmother is still alive but she doesn't remember. My mother did not have a close relationship with her father. So I have to do some digging here. So where do I go from here?

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Overnight, they switched from the party of LaFollete, Lincoln and Roosevelt to a party that's espousing some early version of supply side economics.

What happened?

I am a crusader who just blew his money on outfitting myself for the crusade, survived all the craziness along the way, never gave up, and took over Jerusalem! Now what do I do?

Louisiana and Quebec both started off as French colonies with a substantial number of French-speaking settlers. Both came under the rule of English-speaking powers (Quebec became British in 1763 and Louisiana became American in 1803). They both exist in a North American economy in which the incentives to speak English are overwhelming and obvious. But they followed very different paths: Quebec is still predominately French-speaking, while almost no one in Louisiana speaks French as their main language.

The easiest explanation is that Quebec never lost its French-speaking majority, while Louisiana had lost its by around 1850. In turn this explanation relies on (1) Quebec always having had more Francophones than Louisiana and (2) Louisiana being more attractive to Anglophone settlers than Quebec (particularly during the cotton boom of the mid-19th century). So it was more plausible for English-speakers to become a majority in Louisiana.

A third factor was the greater ability of Quebec Francophones to make demands on political authorities -- or at least have those authorities take their wishes into account. So the British steered Loyalist refugees away from Quebec and towards new settlements in what would become Ontario -- which was soon made a separate colony. By contrast, Presidents Jefferson and Madison drew capacious boundaries for Louisiana, which they hoped would ensure that it eventually became Anglophone-majority as new settlers arrived from the United States. The one serious attempt to encourage Quebec Francophones to assimilate -- the creation of "United Canada" in 1840 -- proved wildly unpopular and was abandoned as part of Confederation in 1867. Time and again, Quebec Francophones made it clear that preservation of their language and culture was a priority. And they had the political clout to make that preference stick -- so Quebec has remained French-speaking and Canada has remained bilingual. By contrast, Louisiana entered an already-existing nation where few cared about the status of the French language. Louisiana did have bilingual institutions at the time of statehood in 1812, but those dissipated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The question I have is, "why did Louisiana Francophones not struggle more to maintain the status of the French language?" Losing their linguistic majority explains some of the difference, but not all. New Brunswick has always had an Anglophone majority, but it has a long-standing Francophone minority that shows no signs of disappearing. Conflicts over language are not as central to politics in New Brunswick as they are in Quebec -- but they are important in a way that they are not in Louisiana. Quebec Francophones may have differed in their degree of allegiance to Canada, but they have been united in seeing their distinct identity as something to be preserved, almost at any cost. his struggle has often been the central issue in Quebec politics. By contrast, Louisiana Francophones mostly engaged in "cultural" nationalism without much of a political component. And by the 1920s, the French language had mostly faded from everyday life, outside the most remote corners of Acadiana. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was the "Cajun revival" and the creation of CODOFIL (an organization aimed at reviving French in Louisiana). But by then, the broader battle for French was over. As far as I know, no one ever proposed that Louisiana secede from the union in order to preserve its "distinct society." (White Louisianans were willing to secede to protect slavery, though).

So why were Louisiana Francophones relatively accepting of the decline of the French language in a way that Quebec Francophones absolutely were not? Why wasn't there a political party or movement based on the defense of Francophone Louisiana?

I went to new college recently and saw a statue of Saint Cuthbert with someone’s head in his arms. The only thing I found that might have been related was the fact he served in the army. However, it doesn’t say that he beheaded anyone and no art or other statues that I’ve found shows he has either.

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TLDR - From my reading so far about ancient Rome and ancient Greece and also from my own personal perspective of the two civilisations so far, I feel that they are over-advertised and over-glorified when their lesser-known and less-glorified characteristics are often neglected and ommitted

I have been a fan of history for quite a while and lately I have been reading and researching about history with a more diligent approach and ever since then, I learned so many things about history from a multitude of different perspectives, some of which involved perspectives and details that I never thought about or occurred to me before. And even to this day, no matter how much detail we managed to obtain, there is still so much more out there that are still left to be discovered.

Two civilisations in particular that caught my attention were ancient Rome and ancient Greece. I am not exactly sure why bit there is a certain "magic" towards these civilisations. But the more I read and learn about the way of how ancient Rome (and even Byzantine Empire which I have a more fascination to than the ancient Western Roman empire) and ancient Greece operated, the more I learn how complicated history is with different cultures coming into conflict with bleach other even up with so many different perspectives and conclusions, which is something that I like to keep in mind whenever I read about history.

I want to say that I am not actually implying that ancient Greece and ancient Rome are not what one would define as "great" or "glorious" because there are some things that would definetely attract any person to what these ancient civilisations were regardless of how they are interpreted as in history books or fictional works. There is a certain "magic" or awe towards these civilisations and I too have my own appreciation and sometimes even romanticism and gratitude to these civilisations and how their achievements and legacies were kept intact and eventually been passed on through generations or even adapted to even more refined technologies and methodologies like astronomy, mathematics, art, philosophy and so on.

But I sometimes feel like these two civilisations are often way over-glorified or over-adveritised, or at least the popular conception of ancient Greece and ancient Rome are over-saturated which gives the impression that other civilisations were petty or miniscule in comparison or that these civilisations did not have their own flaws and even horrors.

One thing that stood out to me in particular when I found out that the Persian Empire was not as horrificly imperialistic and authoritarian as I was told it was, especially when I saw the film 300 long ago when I was younger. Therefore, after I learned about this, I decided to look into the Persian empire, from its history, system of government, mythology and so on, and was amazed and filled with awe. Something that impressed me was how the Persian Empire had its own version of road construction even before the Roman Empire and its system of government and bureacracy was very structured and had its own benefits such as religious tolerance and women's rights (or at least we view them with a positive view from the perspective of the 21st Century) and this was mostly found during the reign of Cyrus whom I remember that I was taught that he was a ruthless leader. What suprises me the most was when I learned that Alexander wanted to implement the Persian's governmental structure in his empire when he managed to conquer the entire Persian empire even though the Hellenistic empire was short lived.

On the other hand, when I learned more about the Greeks and its own customs and social structures, while I still have my own sense of awe and do feel the presence of the ancient Greek "magic" when I read about them, I am surprised on how the ancient and less "glorious" customs of ancient Greece are often neglected or not that well-known. One tiny thing that really impressed me on how modern views of Greek mythology had later changed our perspectives of the gods like I was led to believe that Zeus are a moral god (and I am assuming this was done becuase of film and TV reinforcing that belief) much like Jupiter was viewed as but was more of an angry god and filled with wrath and lust. Or that Hades was more of just another Olympian God than an evil one like I was thought to believe.

Something in particular about ancient Greece is Athens - it is seen as the birthplace of democracy but Athenian version of democracy was more limited and did not include women, slaves or even blacks as racism also existed during that time (even though the Hellenisitc empire of Alexander eventually integrated with other civilisations with other ethnicities like ancient Egypt which had inhabitants with darker skin colour) and the pseudo-science of scientific racism was also used to justify or rationalise that mentality. Even Athens had its own form of "imperialism" especially during the Peloponnesian War against the city-state of Sparta which is ironic and I also learned how the glorification of Sparta is also over-exaggarated as it was a eugenic city-state and the Spartans were a leisure-class and Sparta's social structure was a strict monarchy with plenty of slaves doing the hard work while Spartans focused more on military work or leisure. I also learned that the Spartans were not that unique or exemplary when it came to military structure or strategy and mostly got its glory and fame after the Battle of Thermopylae.

Even the Roman Empire has its own versions of not-so-well-known drawbacks even though I still admire the Roman Empire to this day and even one example in particular of how the Roman Empire was once over-glorified is Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" which completely omits the Eastern side of the Roman Empire that managed to persevere for another 1000 years even though it was not the same type of Roman Empire as it once was before.

Apart that the conflict between the corrupt Roman Republic and the more ambitious and possbly tyrannical Caesar is still one of the most well-known debates as to there is no clear answer on how was the hero or the villian of the story, many people throughout history often glorified the Roman Empire and wanted to mimic it or copy it with meticulous precision, whether it is its symbology like the Aquila and the American Eagle, the fasces and its influence on fascism and the fasces symbol is also found in the US Capitol, the ideology and structure of Republicanism, the attempt to make the Roman Empire a thing again after its collapse (at least, the Western side of the Roman Empire as the Eastern side was still intact for another 1000 years) such the Holy Roman Empire, the German Empire where the Emperor's title was the Kaiser (a German interpretation of Caesar) and the Russian Empire with the king/emperor's title was known as the Tzar (the Russian version of the word "Caesar").

Many times I was told on how effective the Romans were in their military strategy and while that was indeed true, most of its military glory was found during the late-Roman Republic and early-to-mid Roman Empire era and most of its structure was more complicated to handle as when the Roman Republic became an empire, there were conflicts on who had the authority to be emperor (like even Nero's mother killed her own husband so that Nero would be emperor even though she still wanted to have a say on his choices or when the successive emperors of Rome durign the period of the four Emperors were supposedly killed); there was a difficult time during Roman History called the Crisis of the Third Century where the Roman Empire had to battle against conflict enemies and sometimes had gone through internal struggles where the Emperors were killed by their own legionnaires (but the same time, the Roman Empire managed to persevere a bit longer with the formation of the Roman Tetrarchy even though still had problems)

I could think of many more but I also even realise how these two civilisations were not that grandiose in terms of glory and achievement and even other civilisations had their own "glorious achievements" or structures that make them revered and worth reading about such as ancient Egypt, ancient China (despite that ancient China had also its own recurring pattern of constant reformations and overthrowing its own kingdoms and empires), the Celtic people, the Slavics, the Jews, the Muslims, the Byzantine Empire, the Mali Empire and so on.

Apologies for a stupidly long post, mods please be kind.

I have been researching my grandfathers past as he was a POW in WW2. He survived the camps and returned home and died in 1981, about 5 years before I was born. But ive always been curious about this guy i never met after hearing about him from my parents. I know my Mum's knowledge of her Dad's war time and POW past was limited as he didnt speak about it. Cant blame the guy. All they knew was that he served in India for a couple of years, then was a POW for over 3 years and they thought that he was in Burma. My grandfathers name was William Gray. He was Scottish and served in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 2nd Battalion as a Lance Corporal.

From my research (which i have been helped with a lot and will give credit later) I have been able to establish the following:

He was taken prisoner in an area called Titi near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 4th Feb 1942. Transferred to Changi Prison in Singapore on 17th July 1942. Then after nearly 4 months there he was transported in letter party M / Train 12 on 5th November 1942, to a place or places I dont know where. Then there is a big gap until the end of the war. When the Japanese surrendered (August 1945?) we know he was in a place called Ubon in eastern Thailand which isnt far from the Laos and Cambodian borders. There is an airstrip there which many POWs built so he may have worked there alongside others in building that.

Most of the above information came from my visit to the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre (i think it was also called the Death Museum) in Kanchanaburi, Thailand a few years back. I went to south east asia to travel and just took his army number with me and the guy who worked there (Andrew from Australia, credit where its due) was such a great help and gave me all the above info. Like i said, before this my parents thought he was in Burma the whole time so this guy gave us lots of great information which no one in my family had any idea about.

Since then, following Andrews instructions, I have also found my grandfathers Japanese Index card through the UK national archives online. I have previously posted this in the r/translator subreddit and some kind folks helped me to translate the japanese writing into english. It basically confirmed what we had already known, but also gave us a couple more details.

On the back of the index card it said " November 1942 transferred to Thai POW camp Branch 1" (or 1st branch)

Then there is a gap and it says " 1945 August 30th. At Bangkok, returned to Allied forces "

So there is a gap of about 2 years and 9 months which I havent been able to find out anything regarding his whereabouts. It could be he spent all that time in Ubon but I am curious to know more, as my understanding is that lots of the POWs where moved about to different places as and when required. I dont know if the mention of being transferred to Thai POW camp branch one (or first branch) is information that could lead to where he was sent, or if this is a false lead.

I have requested a page check in the national archives in a war office box containing information on WW2 POWs which lists details of the men named Gray - Grieves. The war office box catalogue reference number is WO 344/379/1. I am hoping that they have more info and what I am looking for is to see if they have his Liberations Questionnaire, if he filled one out that is. Apparently once returned to the Allied forces they tried to get all the POWs to fill these questionnaires out to detail their movements and the things they had done. But not all of the men filled it out. So it may not even exist, but its worth a shot.

I found one other thing, which is a list of POWs i found on the national archives as well, i cant remember which WO box it was in but i saved the image. It is a list with different headings along the top. I will give the details below concerning my grandfather from this list:

Name - Gray, William

Ser - A

Rank - L/Cpl

Card No. New - 1 7535 (the list show the 1 as roman numeral then the 7535 as normal)

Card No. Old - 1 18609 ( as above, the list shows the 1 as the roman numeral, then the 18609 as numbers)

Former Camp - M 7195

Regtl. Number - 2878685

Remarks - M-18/3/17

Thats all the info i have relating to old Willie. The things im most curious about from this list are the Former Camp number M 7195, alongside the old and new card numbers and the Remarks section. The remarks sections looks like a date but he was born on 28th march 1915 so i dont know what it could be relevant to if it is a date, since he would just be coming up on his 2nd birthday at that point. I dont know at all what the card numbers new or old refer to.

Can anyone help me to find out more information about him? Or a suggestion of where to look or request information?

Specifically what i want to find out is where he went to after leaving Changi and before the wars end when he was in Ubon. I know the date he left Changi and what train he was on (Letter Party M Train 12). From the japanese index card it says in november 1942 he was transferred to Thai POW camp Branch 1" (or 1st branch) From this random list ive found it gave me this former camp number M 7195. But i cant find any information about where this train would have taken him to, or where this Former Camp was.

Maybe I am not good at researching or maybe I am misunderstanding something, or several things.

Applogies for the long post. Any help or suggestions to further my search to fill in this gap would be greatly appreciated