I'm interested in looking for a time in history where being an average black person was not too bad. I can find examples in Tudor England or Roman times of well regarded black people, but I was wondering if a booming time like the Mali Empire in west Africa was a good time to live in general.

I'm asking this because everyone is ''sad'' about the Notredame burning and I want to prove them that there have been other historical buildings that were destroyed in far worse conditions and that were rebuilt, thank you

By "ancient times" I'm primarily interested in Greek and Roman periods, but other historical periods before the Industrial Revolutions are also welcome.

By "traveling long distances" I'm primarily interested in the ancient Silk Road and the Indian Ocean trading network.

I keep hearing this a lot recently, people keep saying that Hitler escaped towards Argentina.Even though people say this I remember a Nat Geo documentary said that Hitlers’ body by the soviets & the soviets burned it & threw away the ash.Which one is true?

Looking back through American history, you don’t really see much on PT during the 1800s or early 1900s, not at least until around WW2 anyway. However, ancient armies like Greece and Rome seem to have taken their fitness a bit more seriously. This seems to stop though around the medieval period, since I couldn’t find anything on physical training during that era.

Did the age of the rifle and medieval era just not demand much need for physical fitness?

Thanks.

I've become interested recently in discovering more about the history of Rome, in part due to reading Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" and discovering Stoicism. My goal was to eventually learn more about Marcus Aurelius as Emperor and I found that I simply didn't know enough about ancient Rome to have an informed view on him. And, naturally, now that I have read more on the subject I'm becoming more enthralled by it.

Anyway, by all accounts Cicero is a pivotal figure in both Roman history and the development of Stoic thought, so I'd like to add some of his works to my reading list.

I'm generally a fan of Penguin Classics and so I first looked at what they had to offer and I'm finding it difficult to settle on one volume to pick up. The titles I've ran across include "Selected Works," "Selected Letters," and "Selected Political Speeches," as well as "On the Good Life," "On Living and Dying Well," "On Government," "In Defence of the Republic," "The Nature of the Gods," and "Murder Trials."

It would be super helpful to know which (if any) of the latter works are contained within one of the "Selected" volumes and also how much of "Selected Letters" and "Selected Political Speeches" are contained within "Selected Works."

If anybody is familiar with these editions and could help point me in the right direction, that would be great. Or if there are other editions I should seek out instead (preferably in the same price range as Penguin Classics).

Thanks!

I remember hearing a while back about an ancient Greek Soldier that wrote a public letter or some other kind of public account ( I'm sorry my details are so fuzzy) contradicting the homeric version of the Trojan war. I wish I could remember where I heard about this. Basically the letter alleges that the Greeks were defeated by the Trojans and then went home and told everyone that they won just to save face.

Does anyone out there have any idea what I'm talking about? I know it sounds nuts. Did I dream this?

Justinian was able to go from the fires of the Nika Riots to opening his massive church in five years. I know the Romans/Byzantines had massive resources at their disposal (and some corners we're probably cut since the dome did fall a few decades later) but still how was it built so fast compared to Notre Dame?

Was it simply the amount of resources a continental empire could bring to the table compared to relatively small European towns? Even still five years vs two hundred years is an insane difference.

Maybe I'm pissing in the wind here, but I'm currently writing a screenplay that takes place in Germany in the late 90s, and could use someone with expertise on German history's help. One of my characters is looking for information about a young man who fled from East to West in 1986. I want to have it so it is almost impossible for him to find any information about this young because his records were destroyed around the time that the wall fell, along with many others' records. Essentially what I'm asking is - is it possible that this is a thing that could have happened for any reason? Was any information or public records of any kind destroyed or hidden away in correlation with the wall's tearing down? I know it could be a stretch, but I'm trying to make my script as historically accurate as possible, even if the history is obscure or just rumors. Thanks in advance for any responses :)

I've recently started to take interest in Medieval European history. I'm looking for a book which covers the whole Medieval period (i.e. from Fall of Roman Empire to Starting of Renaissance). I would prefer a book which is more focused on Military and Political spheres of the time rather than social norms and interests of the church. It'll be better if it can all be found in a single book but I won't mind reading 2.

After the first order to fire I find no logic reason to make the archers wait:

1 Different archers have different speed at reloading their bow, you are basically making the fast ones fire less arrows than what they could or you are giving the order when the slow ones are not ready which means they dont shoot and again, less arrows are shot.

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2 If you have an enemy with shields and coordinations (let's say Roman soldiers) pushing into you, by firing all arrows at the same time you are making a huge cloud of arrows that will make them use their shields efficiently resulting in a low ammount of casualties, on the second hand if after the first call all archers fire at their own rate there is no way to just say: "Dude huge cloud of arrows incoming just stop moving and shields up for a sec, okay done push again" you can not really defend yourself if the fire rate its random because either you dont move at all and stand deffending the arrows til you run out of soldier or they run out of arrows or you are forced to keep moving and you will lose a lot of soldiers one by one because you couldnt go into formation.

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I see this everywhere in TV, from series to anime, movies so on. Therefore, is this bs that hollywood created and made popular or am I missing something out on the reasoning to time each and every wave of shots?

It’s up in the colder north, not near the ocean, and not near the Mediterranean where much of the wealth and trade was at during antiquity and early Middle Ages. How did the spot where Paris resides become the Paris we know?

I often hear of the many claims that Pliny the Elder made in his writings, but only ever in the context of how hilariously wrong they are. Did he also document many actual facts? Or were most/all of them as dubious as I imagine?

I’ve been watching the 50th anniversary remake of the classic anime Dororo, which is supposed to take place roughly in the 1600s. The way it portrays the time period seems very difficult. A lot of violence and hunger; at one point they show a home full of war orphans, many of whom are missing limbs, and at another point they show farmers desperate because their rice crops are failing. Even the title character is an orphaned peasant child whose father was killed by violent samurai and mother starved to death. Was this the reality of life during that period? I was able to find out that the warring states name comes from local lords competing for power with a weak central government, but how much was your average peasant aware of/impacted by this?

Maybe my Google searching abilities are lacking, but I'm having trouble finding an answer to this; did the pre-IR world have roughly the same number (rate over time) of inventions as the post-IR world? Obviously, there isn't an exact number, but from everything I've seen/read, historians say the IR caused an increase in technological innovations. On the other hand, I can't imagine that ancient peoples weren't constantly coming up with inventions or new ways of doing things.

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I recently discovered the the sub's reading list and already added quite a few to my wish list, but there seems to be a gaping hole in the History of Science and Technology section. All the resources there appear to be dealing with Western science, and the earliest in Medieval Europe.

I'd be interested in some general audience material on pre-medieval Middle Eastern science, or science in India or China.

Any suggestions worth adding to the reading list?

Thanks

I realize they dropped two, and almost a third one, but how many nuclear bombs did they have in their arsenal?