This TIL seems to turn up in every discussion involving WWI and is its own post every now and then. How true is this? Was the objection taken seriously by others? Did nations bring up Germany's use of gas in response? After the War, did Germany try and put the banning of shotguns into the Geneva convention?

So I've been told hygiene was prevalent in the Roman empire, public baths and the availability of aqueducts. Then comes the middle ages and hygiene declines, which I've heard helped spreading things like the plague. What caused such decline, considering how widespread was the Roman empire in its prime? If points of its culture such as legal system and even language remained, why didn't hygiene?

I’ll be quite honest, I know very little about the Western treatment of Russian history, aside from the mainstream approach to the Norrmanist/Anti-Normanist controversy in the West is completely opposite to the consensus here and that their treatment of Iosif Stalin’s leadership is less nuanced. However I did attend a lecture about Russia in the Western literary imagination that I found very interesting, it was mostly focused on the past but for what discussion there was on more modern times the lecturer said that during the Soviet era western depictions Russia mostly fluctuated between that of Russia as a nation of simple people under the communist yoke (implying that we needed to be “liberated” and “modernized”) and of Russia as a barbarian nation, a Mongol horde wearing the mask of a white man, but that more modern depictions treat Russia as having a deficient national character for diverging from Western norms, something not dis-similar from the Sonderweg idea about Germany, where a retarded social structure and backward culture are blamed for us not becoming a “modern” Western state, ignoring that we are not Western and we are only not modern by a narrow Western-centric definition of modernity.

However, it is my hope that such things are limited to certain kinds of consumer literature and that serious academic work gives us fairer treatment and regards the nation on it’s own terms rather than to a Western standard. I would like to know what the most reputable and standard Western work of Russian history is and what particular topics that would be of interest to a Russian history student.

Also, I did use a translating web site for all of this post aside this sentence, so my apologize if things are not clear.

In a recently released into early access game set in 1941, freighters (like other ships) can sometimes shrug off a (non-dud) torpedo hit with almost no ill-effects. Is this something that actually happened? Did some transports have anti-torpedo blisters/bulges/belts that let them tank a torpedo hit or two?

Inspired in part by having just heard "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" on the radio; Gordon Lightfoot opens with:

"The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down

Of the big lake they called 'Gitche Gumee'

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead

When the skies of November turn gloomy"

But how much seafaring (lakefaring?) on Lake Superior and the rest did the Chippewa and other tribes in the area actually do?

I sometimes see people say that Israel "stole" land from the Palestinians. Is that grounded in fact at all?

In my own research, many (most?) countries were formed by some combination of migration, conquest, and treaties. Israel doesn't seem to be any different.

I must be missing something, so I thought I'd ask historians.

As The Point is not a particularly large area and is a rocky outcropping right on the coast, wouldn't it be relatively easy to shell? Why did the marines human-wave the position instead of simply blowing it up?

Maybe it would've been more of a 19th century thing.

So I was in another thread and someone stated that the reason Columbus had a hard time securing funding for his exhibition to try and sail around the world was because people did the math and calculated that any ship trying to make the journey would run out of food and starve to death.

What kept them from simply fishing over the sides of their ship for more provisions and collecting rain water to replenish their fresh water as they went along?

I'm just wondering how jeans became the go to pants for nearly every occasion, apparently across all demographic spectrums. Women, men, old people, teenagers, even toddlers all wear jeans. What did they replace, and how?

There seems to be very little information online about it - was hoping I may find some classicists here.

I'm reading a history of Sparta right now, and the author is discussing arhaic Tegea and Arcadia as if the latter were comprised of many cities, and makes similar claims about Messenia. He also talks about attempts by Elis to conquer Olympia. All of this makes me wonder...

We always think about Greek city states as being like Athens - with a single dominant city. A city state with multiple major cities is sort of a contradiction in terms. How common were multi-polar states, with multiple significant cities? How did they work compared to the more classical states like, say, individual Aegean islands or Athens?

If they weren't common, am I interpreting the author wrong?

Side question: Does anyone know a good book covering the broad sweep of ancient Athenian history?

I remember in a couple history classes back in highschool I saw pictures of soldiers wearing Gas Masks in World War II, very similar to pictures of Gas Masks in World War I.

So I was wondering if Chemical/Biological warfare was used? In World War II or any war after the signing of the Protocol in 1925? What was the repercussions of the breaking of the Protocol if it did happen?

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Edit: could it be that those soldiers were wearing those masks just in case the protocol was broken?

Did it have a profound effect on them or was it just some stories that they told their children?

How dark really was the dark age? I saw some arguments that say it was a decent time period and others say it was awful. What are your thoughts?

Pretty much the title. Did/could one advance through the ranks of the Roman Army or were Generals usually from a higher class?

I think we're all familiar with European musical notation, but China's musical tradition spans thousands of years and very obviously the Tang empire didn't use today's quarter notes and horizontal line staffs, so what did Chinese musical notation look like and how did it work?

I've been doing a little reading on Finnish history, something I know relatively little about - trying to expand my general knowledge. I am curious as to how similar these two axis powers were beyond their shared military interests. I notice that many Finnish military vehicles display the swastika, but am aware that the Finnish government was led by a Social Democratic political party and that they were relatively safe as a place for Jews during the war, despite being an axis power.

Can anyone enlighten me a little on this topic?