Very curious to hear any thoughts, thanks.

Why did most modern militaries keep a 7.5+ mm cartridge like the .303 Enfield (UK), .30-06 Springfield (USA), 7.5×54mm French (France) or 7.92×57mm Mauser (Germany) versus a smaller 6.5mm cartridge like the 6.5×52mm Carcano (Italy), 6.5×50mmSR Arisaka (Japan) or 6.5×55mm Swedish (Sweden) after experiences in WW1 taught them the typical engagement distances didn't warrant such a large cartridge?

Goblins and such like have been popularised in more recent culture such as Lord of the Rings (Orcs and Uruk-hai), but where did the semblance originate from globally, as there is speak of goblins in medieval european texts and also other cultures around the same time?

I've read some conflicting stories about the French Open during occupied Nazi occupation. I've read accounts that Roland Garros was used as an internment camp during early parts of the occupation, but I also saw that the tournament was held during years of WWII. Can someone provide some clarification on this?

In American sitcoms from the 50s and 60s it seems like all male actors spoke with an accent like a circus carny, and female actors had shrill voices. Was this a standard enforced practice similar to how American news anchors today are required to learn a mid-western flat accent? Was it limited to Hollywood exclusively? When did it fall out of fashion?

Edit: The accent I am asking about seems to actually be for the 1930s and is named the Mid-Atlantic Accent. A few comments were helping piece together this info, but by nature of this sub they were summarily deleted. Hopefully this clarification can lead to an acceptable comment with more info.

Edit2: Mod /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov cleared up some confusion. Sitcoms from the 1950s did not use the same accent as films from the 1930s. It is not the Mid-Atlantic accent.

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It's a staple of medieval fiction, but were they actually that common? And how like the kind of tournaments you see on GoT or an Arthurian film or something were they actually? How did they develop from the early-later medieval period?

I know the Tudors held tournaments, but my impression is that was a kind of nostalgic reference to the kind of Arthurian golden age they wanted to create, I'm not sure if it was actually the same as what really happened in the 12th or 13th centuries.

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edit: typo in the tittle, sorry.

I've often heard it parroted that the Soviet response to the SDI and ensuing economic pressure helped hasten collapse of the USSR. Is there any truth to this? What was the Soviet's response to the SDI?

This question has been in my mind for a while nowplease help me BTW I know very little about guns

Say I am a wealthy Roman citizen who has moved from Rome to Alexandria a few years ago. I want to write a letter to relatives back in Rome. What would this process involve?

- What would my ink and 'paper' be made off? How was it produced and how would I acquire it?

- Once done, where on to whom would I bring my letter? Would it be transported with other letters? Would it be sealed?

- Once the letter arrives in Rome, how would my relatives know 'they've got mail'? Would there be a place akin to a post office where they could check from time to time if there was a letter? Would it be delivered to them if they were of significant standing?

So, the roman legion had four groups of infantry, Hastati and Princepes served in the front, Triarii defended the rear, and Velites skirmished from all positions.

My question is, how did Roman's decide during recruitment, who would serve in what position?

Romans had a signifier for every century, and we see on films or shows armies with many cool flags. Would real medieval armies have such?

A bit of a meta question, but one that came up recently during a discussion I was having with my girlfriend recently about Lenin. I was trying to argue that he was not as much better than Stalin as many portray him to be, and that if he had not died so early the Soviet Union would have continued on relatively similar lines.

She said that while that might be true, one is not really “doing history” by considering counterfactuals. History in her view (having studied it) consists more in considering what did happen than what could have.

We agreed to disagree, but I can’t stop thinking about this. Surely in order to understand the causes of historical events, you need to consider counterfactuals? One can argue, for example, that Gavrillo Princip started the First World War by shooting the archduke, but one can counter that by saying that even if he didn’t something similar would have likely happened anyway.

This is perhaps a misconception on my part, but I thought it best to ask here, so I can be corrected if it is one. I understand for example that “historical what-if’s” are banned, here, maybe supporting the alternative position to mine.

Is it actually hardly known about in China or do people just not talk about it out of fear. I find it very hard that the government would be able to deny such a large and public event. Surely everyone would know about it shortly after due to word of mouth? Does the Chinese population actually not know about the event or is it an open secret amongst everyone or is it seen as a kind of conspiracy theory that some believe and others deny happened?

I don't know much about Hinduism and the details of Indian history, but I feel that in India it is very common to nationalize foreign religions, starting with the indianization of Sumerian deities, then with the indianization of Taoism that resulted in Buddhism, and then with the indianization of Islam which resulted in Sikhism. I thought this was hidden due to religious and nationalist issues but then I read that the Advaita Vedanta states that the same truth is described in different ways in all religions, that they all lead to the same end but were mixed with non-truth, and therefore they must extract this truth present in all religions and mix with their own beliefs.

So my question is, this idea that all religions are true is shared in others Hindu schools? Do Indians openly adopt and syncretize foreign religions?

I recall in Social Studies being taught that families coming through Ellis Island would have their surnames Americanized or shortened. Is it possible to use surname as a metric for how long ones ancestors have been in America?

Of course women change their names through marriage, and some people opt to change names anyway.

While we usually think of Cold War-era conflicts as being in Afghanistan, Vietnam, or Korea, I've been looking at post-WWII Ethiopia and the US/Soviet involvement in the conflict doesn't seem to get much attention. Do we know how much involvement these nations had in the Civil War? Could this be classified as a proxy conflict?

How were masculinity and femininity perceived by the indigenous population, in particular meso-america prior to its conquest by the Spanish? How did these gender roles change afterwards?