Why is so much made of the elephants used in the Punic wars while there is almost nothing written on the usage of giraffes? I know that the walls in North Africa were specifically made tall enough that an army couldn't just use giraffes to scale them - but surely mainland Italy didn't do that?

Did they all freeze in the Alps, or was their use simply too embarrassing to be discussed much amongst Roman Historians?

Is there any further reading available on the military use of giraffes?

What did 1970s feminists, particularly left-wing ones, think of the first woman to be elected to be PM of one of the major Western Powers being elected via the Conservatives rather than Labour?

I've been thinking about this because, in my research, the Japanese infantry man in World War Two is considered to be poorly equipped, while them having great small arms such as the Nambu light machine guns and reliable and accurate Arisakas, along with the effective "knee mortars" in combat. So what is really "poorly equipped" in world war two, and is it a myth that the Japanese were "poorly equipped".

Given that Athena was (like Ares) a goddess of war in addition to a goddess of wisdom, was the Athenian patronage to Athena ever a sticking point for Spartans, either as a point of jealousy or creating a feeling of kinship(however begrudging)?

For example, I've noticed that in the real world, many Muslims feel a kinship with Christians despite the stark differences in their faiths (belief in the trinity being the root of the disparity of doctrine), referring to them as 'people of the book', and considering them to be likeminded but misguided. This is as opposed to how many Christians and Jews consider Muslims to be hijacking their deity and religious traditions. Naturally, these two sentiments are not native to either end of that religious disparity. This being a modern precedent, it makes me curious as to whether this type of thing occurs in polytheistic religions as well, namely the Spartans and Athenians.

What's the scoop?

Asking again without the title error.

We have pretty good ideas of what the games would have been like in Roman coliseums, but what would it have been like to be a fan in the stands? How different would it have been from modern arena sports? I imagine there would have been plenty of food and drink, but were there streakers running across the sand pit behind the gladiators? Were there ever fights in the crowds? Did they do the wave? What would life in the stands have been like for the average game-goer in the Roman era?

In WW1 Great Britain had the flagship military for the Entente, and had tremendous success against the Central Powers.

WW2, they seem to have taken a back seat, with their contributions being grossly limited merely to airforce, information, and navy, unable to establish a meaningful ground presence in Europe, or effectively wage war against the Nazis man-to-man (so to speak). Only after the Soviets and USA managed to break the German lines did the British manage to contribute directly in conventional ways to the war effort.

By this is mean groups like Vandals, Goths, Burgundians, etc, which are no longer extant ethnic groups, but before and after the collapse the Western Roman empire, existed and often ruled places outside of what we would consider 'Germanic'. Were they just a kind of a ruling elite, or did they leave a lasting impact on the culture?

Were there periods of time when a traveler could have made it from England to Portugal, Austria, or Greece with little need to fear banditry?

You can find this in everything from Looney Tunes to Family Guy -- where did it come from?

In various artworks I have seen, there have been changes in the attire of the same gods. This is seen with Hathor as sometimes she is depicted with a white dress and multi-coloured headdress, yet in others she is wearing different dresses. Is this simply a change of attire? Or is there a deeper meaning? With some other gods the differences are a lot greater, how can you easily identify which god is which?

Thanks.

Dumb question, but obviously the meteor was a world catastrophic event that wiped out a very large population and made the dinosaurs go extinct. But did they ALL go extinct?

The modern bird is said to have evolved from the dinosaur, so some of them had to have survived, or at least evolved enough to survive the meteor. Which one was it?

(Sorry if this is the wrong subreddit to post this question; if it is, please let me know.)

Things must have gotten pretty boring if your stuck on a ship or in a burned out port. What could a sailor do?

Young American men were drafted in WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam conflict, yet their presence in Vietnam was far more brutal. In both world wars, Americans weren't using flamethrowers on German villages or going into rural areas mass-slaughtering civilians like they did in Vietnam. If it was both mainly made up of young drafted men, why was their attitude different in Vietnam?