What would preteens/young teens who had access to teachers and schools be taught? I imagine basic grammar, vocabulary and arithmetic would be included. What other subjects might be taught by say, a private tutor in a home/small group setting? What sort of history or other courses might have been included, and what skills might have been taught/introduced to their curriculum? Thanks much in advance.

As i read there usually were regular units of archers.

​

Why not give the bows to regular infranty, teach them just basics instead of long training of precise shooting. Each unit should have 1 well trained archers that would tell the unit at what angle they should shoot. After firing 2-3 volleys they could join the battle as regular infranty unit.

​

Now i am fully aware, that such infranty could absolutely be no match to trained archer unit regarding the skill and accuracy, but we're talking about shooting at enemy army. You don't need accuracy here, you just need to shoot at a proper range (which is why we have our trained archer) and here the "quantity over quality" counts. They had to cover the are, not shoot the specific soldier.

​

Was it used like that in the past? If not, why?

I was watching HBO's 'Rome' and in some episode, Caesar refers to Vercingetorix as "old friend". That made me wonder if they actually met in real life, if they used to talk, and what kind of relationship they had apart from being leaders of rival armies.

Looking at crime rate charts around the world, and for some reason, it seems no matter where the continent or government, there seems to be a rise in crime especially around the 1980s or 1990s in so many different countries around the world whether it be in places like Japan, the US, Brazil, Germany, the UK, or South Africa (these are just some countries but there are many others) that all seem to have crime spike or crime start increasing during those particular decades, even if said places have different definition of what a “crime” is. Is there any explanation for this? Don’t want to sound like a tinfoil hat type of person, but why is this trend common in so many places and in a similar time frame?

In the Íslendingabók the author(s) mention that there were monks that the Norse called "Papars" on the island when they arrived. Do we know anything about these men and why they were on a previously uninhabitied island?

Hello, I am trying to find primary sources on World War 2 war brides in the United States. I've used Google Scholar and JSTOR but I can not seem to find many sources in this field and what sources I do find are directed towards other countries (War Brides in Canada, Australia, etc). Information of any kind would helpful but I am looking for archives especially. Any help you can give me here would be a godsend!

[deleted]

I'm obviously not asking about those from Italy itself but outlying provinces such as: Hispania, Gaul, Macedonia, Brittania, et cetera. For example: would a soldier who was recruited for the IX Legion Hispania or X Legion Equestrius being recruited from not just Hispania Citerior but the Iberian Peninsula know how to speak Latin or would they be recruited with people who spoke a Celtiberian dialect and their Centurions spoke their language?

I am writing a paper in which I am trying to gather evidence about how the media’s role shifted from being a neutral “interpreter”, if you will, of the news and delivering it as is before Nixon, to post-Nixon with more investigative journalism.

During the age of Walter Cronkite, the news media tended to have a very reserved role in the part they played covering the political landscape of presidents. The media seemed to reserve judgment, but purely informed the viewer from an unbiased standpoint of what was occurring. But during the watergate scandal, the media seemed to change their tone and took a more active role in creating news and uncovering new information, rather than just reporting what was known.

I have tried researching this, but I cannot really seem to find good sources. I was curious if anyone here had information about the contrast in media responsibility from pre-watergate to post-watergate.

I’ve been on a history binge recently, and I was reading Herodotus’s ‘Histories’, and there’s a particular story he tells about the Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa (which he admittedly didn’t believe) where he describes a report from one of the sailors where they “on a westerly course round the southern end of Africa, had the sun to their right — to the northward of them.” I saw a lecture recently where Tom Holland (the historian) claimed that this story was true, because Earth is a sphere. If this is true, it’s an incredible story, and I’d love to have it in my back pocket as a story that shows the amazing things we can learn by looking a step or two deeper into the stories and/or data that we’re provided. But I just don’t quite understand what he meant, and how it shows what it shows. Can any of you history folks help a math nerd who happens to love historical anecdotes put this story into my repertoire?

In the later years of the empire, "augustus" was usually the title for the senior emperor and "caesar" was given to his junior co-emperor or heir apparent. Why is it then that the latter came to be adopted as the imperial titles of Russia and Germany (among others), rather than the former? Are there any examples of a ruler using the title of "augustus" in that way after the end of the Roman/Byzantine empire?

Obviously much of this appears in fantasy (like in GoT or fantastical depictions of Ancient Rome), but it comes up so often I have begun to wonder. Thanks!

I am working on creating a biography of a person who was well-known during his lifetime, but mostly unknown today. When it is finished (I'm still in the very early stages of research and writing) I expect it to be a full-length book, with copious footnotes and all. As far as I can tell, this will be the first-ever such treatment of the subject to be written.

Now, I am under no illusions about the prospect of making tons of money from this book. I know it will have a rather niche market. But I would be very happy if I could make an official contribution to scholarship by someday getting it published. So I have two questions:

1. Do I, with no academic qualifications other than a lowly B. A. in history, stand any chance of publishers taking me seriously, or is this a hopeless endeavor?

2. I am distantly related to the subject of my book. Would it be helpful to mention this, as a way to market the book as an exciting narrative of discovering one's ancestry, or would this be more likely to come across as a sign of a braggart trying to bring fame and fortune to his family name?

Suppose for a moment that some people in antiquity wrote something that was patently false. Maybe they were reporting something they thought was true. Maybe they were deliberately trying to stage a scam. Maybe they had a differing opinion from someone and sought to make that other person look bad. The reason isn't necessarily important. What is important is what's written isn't true and there's very little if anything to contradict the false statements. Maybe it's a tale of a ship that never existed. Or a hero that performed some great deed that was all an invention of the author. Or a way to part foolish people from what little money they had.

How would historical methodology detect that falsehood? I guess a more succinct way to put it would be... What tools are at the disposal of historians to weed out historical fiction from actual history?

I know I'm asking for a pretty specific answer for a very general question, but I'm eager to understand historical methodology a bit better. Humor me? :)

I remember reading that Macedonian phalanxes were fairly resistant to arrows and javelins since the upright pikes would deflect most missiles.

On the other hand, I've also read that the Scottish Schiltrons were vulnerable the English and Welsh longbowmen.

So how different were the phalanx and schiltron? Were other pike blocks, like the Swiss or the Spanish Tercio resistant to missiles? Though the prevalence of gunpowder might make the latter two a tough comparison to earlier pike formations.

I was manually typing in a long serial number into an email, and I thought how nice is it that the email never picks up errors just from being transmitted through the Internet. Computers & servers are at least good at that.

However, if it was the late-19th century and I wanted to send you something like that via a telegram, would I have been worried that it could be garbled up in transmission by the operators? How did telegram services avoid this but still be able to have mass service? Just a single letter or number off could be really bad in some circumstances.

Thank you!

Often times, I hear people (Probably fans of the ship) praise it so much for its reputation of sinking the Hood and taking a lot of punishment during its final battle.

Some people even go as far as to say it was *the* best battleship of its time. But is the Bismarck really that good? Was it deserving of its reputation? How did it compare to other similar ships and what were its major flaws?