Heard this term for the first time! Thought it would be great if I asked here.

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To specify my question: I’m curious about the degree of religious awareness of regular medieval peasant of the Catholic faith given illiteracy and overall low degree of education among the contemporary people. What were the means of instilling one true faith and would there be any differences between say Easter and Western Europe (given old Slavic pagan beliefs) in what said peasant knew and understood about Catholicism and how sophisticated would such knowledge be?

A Knight is ‘Sir’. Did the samurai of... for example the Tokugawa shogunate have their own ‘Sir’? Or were they just called by their names?

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During the Napoleon war era in European societies, when an officer was captured, he was given the chance to swear on his honor not to escape, and then was allowed to live in relative comfort/freedom (to a point) when and why did this practice end?

I'm aware that in the industrial era it has been fairly common to dig tunnels through mountains to allow roads and railways to pass through, which improves the efficiency of the infrastructure since you don't have to go around every mountain or piece of elevated terrain. But I'm wondering if this was ever done in the pre-industrial era, say before the advent of railways?

I know tunneling was done on occasion in mines, to build sewage systems, or during sieges, but I'm specifically looking for examples of tunnels that were dug out in order to build a road through a mountain or similar, to make trade, logistics and travel more efficient, similar to how road- and railway-tunnels are used today.

If there are no such examples, or if they are very rare, why is that? What changed to make infrastructure tunnels more viable in the industrial era?

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For example, copper was successfully used at around 9,000 BC, iron at 5,000 BC; but what did the ancient miners do when they encountered bauxite (aluminum discovered in 1824), or an ore containing palladium (discovered in 1803) or platinum (discovered in 1735?) Did they simply discard it as waste rock?

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I have a paper that I am working on detailing an event occurring before 1865 and while researching Magellan's voyage for the essay, I have found it difficult to find "good" primary sources due to the fact that Pigafetta's accounts were the most accurate when it came down to the journey. I have also found sources coming from a Geonisian pilot and an autobiography on Magellan but I still need to find some more detailed primary ones. What are some good sources to detail the voyage from the opinion of people that might have met Magellan on his journey and written about it or even people who saw his voyage out or coming back in?

Preface: I am not a historian by any means so this may have an obvious answer but I really want to know.

I was reminded of this fact while listening to the soundtrack to Hamilton and it got me thinking. In modern elections in the USA, the two front runners consist of one primary from each of the two major parties. The primary candidate chooses their running mate (who will be vice president). Then the electoral college is responsible for voting for the team.

Originally, the electoral college decided on the president, and the candidate who got the SECOND most votes was vice president.

It seems to me that this would do away with a lot of the fighting along partisan lines that's caused by a one party administration because usually the candidate who gets the second most votes is of the opposite party.

What caused us to stop using this system?

Understandably the natives didn’t have steel or familiarity with horses, but surely they had long sharpened sticks, slings, and huge numerical superiority? Cavalry was also effective in the rest of the world against unarmored infantry but why was it so devastating in the New World? Could a heavy stick or sling or some obstruction unseat a Spanish horseman?

Was it a familial lineage or were they elected by other members of the Senate?

Unlike the other combatants, Britain wasn't really fighting on its own borders, and they were fighting alongside allies they had historical animosity toward (Russia and France), so what was the morale of its military like and what did its propaganda focus on to motivate them?