Serbia and Croatia have been pitted as 'natural' ethnic enemies, but I see no evidence of this actually existing on a social scale until the 20th century. Why do people say this as if it's been going on "for centuries" and where does it come from?

I recently saw a picture of FD Roosevelt in Sicily alongside Patton and Eisenhower dated 1943. This got me reading about the Cairo and Tehran conferences as well as some of Stalin's diplomatic trips around the continent. How did they move these guys around safely? To my understanding German U-boats remained a threat until the end of the war and transatlantic passenger flights were a relatively new thing. How did they get a guy like Roosevelt safely to England and then around the Medditerranean? Would there have been any risk of motorcades or trains being bombed by the Luftwaffe?

Were they just risk tolerant or was there safe methods for the movement of VIPs?

Off-duty American troops commonly wear a uniform in public. How would a citizen in Rome react to an ancient version of this? What about citizens in other parts of the empire?

I mean, it seems to me that other (cartridge) ignition systems have been fully supplanted by the center fire system... Except for the .22 lr.

How and why?

So I knew from school that the Black Plague killed around 30 to 50% of 14th century Europe. What I only learned quite recently was that the Plague was an imported disease from Asia, that came by means of trading on the silk route. How come that the Plague killed so many in Europe, but not in Asia? Is it just something that I have never heard about? Thanks for the answer!

Since history and archaeology are such big subjects, I was wondering if someone could elucidate this for me.

For example, it struck me that we once thought Troy, site of Homer's Trojan War in about 1,200 B.C., was mythological. Then we discovered the city existed, and there likely was a real war of some kind.

1,200 B.C., in broad historical terms, doesn't seem all that long ago to me. Egypt was in its New Kingdom. We were well past the onset of the Bronze Age. In just several centuries we would see definitive-fact history like the Peloponesseian (sp?) War and the rise of the Roman Republic. And we didn't know that Troy existed?

That struck me: just how much do we know about the ancient world, anyhow? If we missed Troy for a long time? What kind of evidence do we currently use to construct our current story of ancient history?

And how much might we be missing?

So that all goes back to my question: at what point do we definitively say that one civilization existed? What is the archaeological evidence we require? What's the standard where we say "okay, the Sumerians were a thing, but anything before that was nomads." Or is that even what we say?

I hope this makes sense. Kind of a complex question, I know, I'm just curious.

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Eisenhower threatened to dump America's sterling reserves if Britain didn't withdraw from the Suez Canal (and seemed to use its financial leverage to pressure Britain into decolonization).

The United States armed rebel groups in Portuguese Angola even though Portugal was a member of NATO at the time.

Why would the United States undermine its own allies, particularly when in several cases (e.g. Angola, Somalia, Mozambique) this decolonization led to the establishment of communist governments being established in former European colonies?

Even if lions are not indigenous/native to the region

I read today that Constantius II, one of Constantines sons, was deified after he died in 361. I know that he was the just before the last Pagan Emperor, Julian, but I had assumed that the pagan traditions such as deification had died out by this time. Especially for Constantius II since he was a Christian Emperor. I have looked it up myself but couldn't really find anything concrete. Thank you in advance!

I have seen some historians, even on this sub, disputing the naming of the medieval ages as the "Dark Ages" and notions that Christianity actively suppressed scientific knowledge during said periods. That Christian churches were centers of knowledge and that there were even monks that argued for a round earth. I had a brief discussion with a professor today about people being burned on the stake for seeking knowledge.

So how truthful or widespread were these alleged heretical burnings and was it common place as popular culture makes some people think it was?

And when did it fall out of fashion?

I have heard that the greeks used to have their own writing system and that we have a few inscriptions that use it, but that they switched to another writing system inspired by the phoenician one, but why?, what motivated them to make this change?

Specifically, the verse goes as follows "Bonaparte has given us the example of how we should prevail".

Given the collapse of Rome as a powerhouse of Italy through the 1st millennium CE, when and how did it return to being the preeminent city of Italy? In particular, what factors led to it eventually becoming more prominent than it's major Northern competitor cities, eg: Milan and Venice, that were booming in the first half of the 2nd millennium?

I am planning to get a book about this subject and this is the only book about that here on r/askhistorians booklist. However I wanted to double check if it is still the best one on the subject or I should look elsewhere? I am asking this because the book is from 2004 which is pretty significant age for a book which deals with not-so-old events. I was wondering if there has been any new research or books written that has newer, better information in them than this book by Anne Applebaum?

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Edit: I looked around and there are few places where Applebaum's book is listed as popular history and that it is not the best one on the subject at all. I wonder then why is it on the booklist here then. Many poeple recommend getting "The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror" by Oleg V. Khlevniuk instead.

I have been reading some biographies of Empress Dowager Cixi and most of them mention the perilous state of finances at the time of her death. The books also mention the fact that the Qing Court used to pawn the dead emperor's robes in order to raise funds for the new one.

Was the Qing Dynasty really this 'poor' in its latter, twilight years? Or was it more a case of funds being plentifully available, but poorly managed?