I was just wondering about like how much we know about what music sounded like for like the vikings or ancient rome or ancient egypt. Sometimes you hear a piece of music and someone says "Man this sounds like Viking music" and I assume it's because of some piece of pop culture that managed to establish itself too well like that one actor who "invented" how all pirates speak. But we have found instruments and such from a long long time ago so some music must have been present. So like do we have any way of knowing or guessing what music sounded like to ancient civilizations?

During the time of emperor Theodosius I, were there laws and decrees that modified the practice of slavery in the Roman Empire and had such an impact that their effects lasted in the Eastern Roman Empire until 1453?

How would an American army or naval officer have been received by their counterparts in European militaries during the Napoleonic period? I’m particularly interested in how the British Army would’ve have treated an American officer, given the importance attached to social status in the period. Given the lack of noble titles in the United States, would a captured American officer have been afforded the same level of respect as, let’s say, a French nobleman? I imagine the War of 1812 resulted in some interactions between the American and British officer corps.

So I've been trying to get an understanding of the Thirty Years War for a minute now, and most of what I read tend to focus on the players coming in to oppose the Emperor. So narratives tend to flow from Defenestration to White Mountain, and then follow with Danes, Swedes, French, and then Westphalia. In this telling, Religion starts off important and then dwindles as the French take the forefront.

I picked up a wonderfully Whiggish book by C.V. Wedgewood which talks a lot more about the involvement of the Spanish Habsburgs, and in particular about the Spanish Road. Something she mentions that I haven't seen anywhere else is that one of the things that made Frederick attractive as a King of Bohemia is that his lands controlled approaches along the road which would make it difficult for the Spanish to get to the Netherlands.

How much did that influence the war? Would everyone have been rushing to the Protestant prince's defense if France and others hadn't been worried about encirclement? I feel like I don't see much discussion about geopolitics in warfare in this era.

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Basically the average wage compared to the cost of living. I'm trying to calculate the buying power of $1.50 a day in 1902, but neither the American or Canadian inflation calculators stretch back that far.

I've read in a recent answer to a question on the KKK that Mark Twain blamed Sir Walter Scott for the mentality in the antebellum South that caused the civil war. Is there any truth in this claim?

I dunno if this is the right sub since it's more a linguistic question, but why don't they just say X had sex with Y in the bible? Is the Hebrew different and it's a translational issue or is it supposed to be a euphemism or is there some sort of deeper meaning that's lost on the reader?

Some videos I've been watching make the claim that there's a connection between gnosticism and the fact that the word know is used to mean sex. Since gnostic means knowledge, it kind of makes sense to me, but I want to know if there's any validity to the connection or if it's just happenstance. Thanks!

I was speaking with a philosophy professor today and he suggested that the party switch was not real, pointing to the fact that apparently only one Democrat became a Republican after the passage of the civil rights act as proof. So, I want to know if he is right as I have always believed that the party switch did occur. And, if the party switch did occur, how and why did it happen?

What major events were occurring in he world around it , that made it important.

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I am interested in learning about the history of the Scottish Enlightenment and about Scotland generally. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

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Was Hitler really a vegetarian? If he was what was the reason? Is it known what he ate? Are there list of his favorite dishes? Is there a history of vegetarianism in Germany or Europe?