Please explain it like i'm new to weapons :P

A spear looks like a good weapon but it looks like all an enemy needs to do to beat them is to get past the blade and then it's game over for the spear-wielder if the enemy has a short weapon. I'm guessing this might not be true and i'm wondering why. Thanks :)

In "The Viking Heart" by Arthur Herman, he has a line that's states "Every monastery, church, and town in the British Isles with any treasure or steal able goods, so long as it was reachable by sea, suddenly lay at the mercy of the Raiders from Scandanavia -- and there was nothing kings or popes or local authorities could do to save them." Is this true? I feel like there is SOMETHING they could have done.

Title says it all, they never even tried? Just curious why this would be, Japan never tried again after pearl harbor either.

Apparently confessional booths in churches weren’t invented until the 16th century.

In what form did confessions take place before the usage of confessional booths? Were confessions usually done in public (before the congregation) and/or was there also an option for privacy?

I’d be happy about as much information on this particular matter as possible.

I am specifically asking about the story of the winnowing oar, which would take place after Odysessus' successful return to Ithaca.

Hello Historians, when was silver first believed to ward off evil spirits, demons, monsters and all the like? What is the origins of this belief, and how old is it? I know the trope of silver bullets came I believe in the 18th century? But I was wondering if silver was believed to ward off evil in ancient, medieval, or renaissance time periods. And what cultures believed this and how common was it?

Since Europeans often bought slaves from wealthy Africans, I’m curious if the idea of an “inferior race” was always present among white Europeans. Or did that belief come along during Chattel Slavery, as a way to justify the brutal treatment?

I understand that ancient warfare worked very differently than in the movies, with armies holding lines and trying to break the enemy line or flank.

But as for cavalry, I have a hard time imagining heavy cavalry charging at full speed. What was a clash between two cavalry armies like? It sounds like a deadly thing to do and a sure way to end up falling off your horse and breaking your neck.

What happened after a cavalry charge, did the cavalrymen get to the other side of the formation or did they stop first? Both seem strange to me, if they got to the other side they would be left with an army on their back, and if they stopped before they would have a bunch of enemies in their way that could pull them off the horse. How did they keep the line in front?

Can I consult any video or literary material that is realistic in this regard?

Hey guys, first time poster here. Recently I’ve been reading more about the history of Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) and the events that lead to the downfall of the Caliphate of Córdoba. I find it fascinating how an entire family, which at that point must have been in the hundreds, just disappeared… I’m an Arab so I read Ibn Hazm’s genealogy book and under Abdulrahman I’s descendants he lists many families. Ibn Hazm is regarded as a primary source because he was pretty much a contemporary of the Taifa kingdoms period. Can any medieval historians on here enlighten me as to what happened to them / possible theories? It’s also interesting how history doesn’t mention them having a Taifa (petty kingdom) of their own after the Caliphate collapsed. Did they really make no attempts to get back their kingdom? Thanks guys :)

To be specific, Postman in The Disappearance of Childhood (1982) makes the claim that childhood is a social artifact of modern times, which I suppose means that the concept of a "childhood" and the way we perceive it today did not exist in the past. How true is this, how is this idea viewed in academia and have other scholars proposed/wrote about/agreed with this? and what works can one recommend for understanding history of childhood and social history of children?

I have a fancy to use the following approach in the analysis of an historical text:

The text uses a certain unusual expression that might mean a certain thing (or concept). The expression used is not otherwise attested to, and there are other well-attested-to expressions to say the same thing. My idea is to argue that if the author(s) would have wanted to mean that certain thing (or concept), they would have used one of the other, more common expressions to say it. The fact that they used a more obscure formulation indicates that they must have meant something else, since they would have used one of the common ones instead if they meant that certain thing or concept.

To me, this seems a common-sense approach, but what do I know. Is this an acceptable line of reasoning, and would there be any source that advises this line of reasoning in textual analysis, or makes use of it?

I feel like my whole life I have heard Jesus from the Bible was actually a real historical figure but for the past hour I have just had an itch to research and see if it was true. It feels like no matter what I Google it says he is real but all the websites are so iffy. Like the top websites are just Wikipedia, history Channel and the guardian. Anyone can edit Wikipedia and the other two are obviously not trustworthy. I feel like if Jesus was real I would be finding very obvious answers when googling him. I literally can't find a simple yes or no answer.

  I am an avid reader,  and I also have a need to learn everything there is to know about WWII,  the good,  the bad,  and the downright evil.  I want to know it all,  I want to be able to understand,  and keep this knowledge for future generations,  for I plan on passing it down to other people along my lifetime,  but I want the books to be detailed… Amazon doesn’t seem to have many detailed books over it other than “Hitler is bad,  here is what happened in the holocaust,  and here is what great things the allies did”… you know,  the same thing everything shows you,  but I want more perspective,  more information than that… does anybody have suggestions of books or sites for those books?

Title pretty much says it all, but from my limited knowledge, the Norman invasion of 1066 did not see the French force Norman French on the English, Napoleon’s regime did not require the (for instance) Holy Roman Empire to speak French, and whilst the Warsaw Pact nations often had to teach Russian, they did so as a foreign language whilst Hungarian and so on remained the official language of coerced nations.

I’m not denying the impact of an invader’s language - English clearly owes a huge amount to French, as well as Norse and many others - but what I want to know is, were there ever any active plans to replace English with German had Operation Sealion been a success?

He references a gradual bureaucratic stifling of their production. However, I cannot find any sources that discuss this.

I'm guessing through the frozen Bering Strait. Were they Native Americans that kept going south?

For example if you went up to a random person in 1960 and asked them what an atom is would they know?