For most of history, the spear was the preferred weapon of war. Able to hit your enemy from farther away. When they were replaced it was by guns, to hit them from even farther away. If spears were ineffective against armor or shield, they were replaced with axes, hammers, maces. I don't know enough to say for certain but it seems the sword was almost never the "default", "typical", or even most effective weapon for soldiers.

So why is it that swords are what we associate with warriors, knights, vikings, and the like? Why were swords used in knighting ceremonies? Why does culture seem to focus on what was essential the backup third tier option?

FDR’s widest margins of victory came from the Deep South. He regularly received 80% or more of the vote from states like Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Mississippi, even when the Republican candidate made the ballot.

My understanding is that FDR was sympathetic to organized labor and Black civil rights, but voters in these states were almost all white due to disenfranchisement. Why did southern whites vote for him in such large numbers? Did white voters not perceive him as very liberal? I understand Republicans didn’t generally start making racial appeals to whites until the 60s, but southern participation in the new deal coalition is still hard to wrap my head around having grown up in the 2000s.

The Soviet Union was never officially a combatant in the conflict, but did have strong ties to the North, and to China. With the Soviet Nuclear program successfully developed by 1949 did any parties to the conflict consider nuclear war a possibility or likelihood?

Is that possible?

Hi! I'm researching ancient hebrew hairstyles for a Salome (the Oscar Wilde play) painting that I want to make. Sadly, all the information that i found is really confusing, male centric, vague or just contradictory.
Any suggestions of where can i find more reliable information? (if have illustrations would be awesome)

Now, I understand that royal families wanted to have their children marry someone else of royal blood, and to also solidify an alliance through marriage. However, having a foreign spouse also had several potential downsides such as:

• A foreign member of the court could be hated for being a foreigner, which would damage the royal family’s prestige. Perhaps the most famous instances of this occurring are Marie Antoinette in France and Alexandra Fedorovna in Russia, both of whom had foreign roots which had a role in the revolutions which happened in both countries.
• A foreign family could end up unintentionally sitting on the throne if an heir is produced. For example, the marriage of Edward II of England and Isabella of France and the claim of their son Edward III to the throne if France directly led to the Hundred year’s war. The marriage of Joanna of Castille (the mad) and Phillip the fair (son of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor) led to the house of Habsburg gaining control of Spain when all of the other heirs died, which I believe was not what the Catholic monarchs wanted.

Considering these, wouldn’t it have been safer if the royal families had just married with the nobles in their own kingdoms?

In fantasy or medieval stories, you always hear of people putting reeds or rushes on the floor. Did this really happen? Surely it would be difficult and unpleasant to walk on bundles of slowly rotting plant matter? What was the point?

There's a popular perception in media and popular consciousness that the bulk of Chinese armies are made of unwilling, untrained, and poorly-armed peasants drafted for service (even today). Specifically in regards to pre-modern China (early-Qing and before), disregarding the specifics of extraordinary circumstances or peculiarities in history, how true is this perception?

Was it normal not to wash and smell? Did the rich wash themselves?

I know the vikings inhabited Norway, Netherlands, Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia during their age but did they ever inhabit Russia and its other countries in the East? If so who ruled them?

I want to understand why people supported and the leaders justified their causes, not try to prove that communism is bad.

The Tsar wasn’t a good leader and it made sense that people were angry at him but what soon followed afterwards was the most progressive form of government which held democratic elections and gave more power to the people. Yes, there was a lot of fighting between the members but the DUMA which was a democracy is better than a violent gang of people that ban basic rights. The opposition which were the Mensheviks were the same thing as the communists since lennin caused a split in the party that supported a non violent revolution.

The Bolshevik’s even after assuming power didn’t give their promises and instead Lennin became the next Tsar. There was even a naval mutiny that happened against him and he created a secret police as well to eliminate free speech. The government was just as power hungry as the provisional government and there was a huge power struggle that led to a dictatorship. Nothing changed much after they assumed leadership and even worse things happened like how they lost more land to the Germans. Communists also believed that the workers will eventually win power over the rich so it seems stupid to cause an entire civil war that causes more death and suffering rather than stabilize your country first. It was more logical to accept the peace treaty with the Germans rather than give up on your promises and violate your own idea.

The Bolshevik’s also purged a lot of people unfairly despite their claim of equality. In the 2nd town the Tsar’s family was situated the house the engineer himself built had the builder kicked out and replaced with the family. How was that fair? The Tsar’s family wasn’t even that terrible and I would say that they were pretty good people for their time. The reason why they were hated was because Nick wasn’t suited to be a leader because of his lack of knowledge. Compared to other world leaders he was not that power hungry but naturally saw himself as a divine ruler like how the people saw him as. When they were still at their palace, the guards hated them but soon they started to like them and even helped them with gardening. That is a huge improvement from stealing Alexi’s toy gun. The room where they were executed was a room with a lot of bullet holes and bayonet markings proving that it was a brutal death where the children and the dog also died.

This may have been asked before but I am trying to ask it in a specific enough way. I did not see a previous post that asked it in this way.

Was their polling done during the prize of the Nazi party of the motivations of moderates and independents who joined or supported the Nazi party? Of those motivations, was there a "blowback effect" of moderates being accused of being a Nazi, that led to political alignment with the Nazi party or at least more sympathetic to their perspective?

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You see it in movies many times, two enemy armies find each other but wait on the field, get ready, and fight later, maybe even the day after. Sure sometimes a messenger is sent, or the commanders meet to possibly avoid fighting or for some last insults before killing each other, but did they really wait for one another to be ready and eventually start the battle? Why not just attack as soon as your army is ready, having a tactical advantage over the unorganized enemy? Side question: is it also true that the soldiers would attack each other one by one? Like if I see two people fighting, I just have to find someone who is available and start fighting them? Movies raise a lot of questions :)

It hit me the other day that both spanish and english have words for meetings of witches. This wouldn't be weird if maybe latin had a word for it, or indoeuropean, but no. In fact it seems the spanish word comes from Euskera, which is a language isolate

This means that people in both Spain and England (and possibly elsewhere in europe) saw the need to develop a word for this very specific thing... Why? Was it because of the inquisition or something?

Hi, I am looking some free acces newspapers collections for my school work - British propaganda in newspapers during WW I. Thanks for any suggestions

It seems like most of the earliest states to adopt Christianity were in the Caucasus. Armenia is usually cited as the first Christian state, but I found out today that the Georgian kingdoms of Iberia and Albania were also early adopters. And I've read conflicting things about the Kingdom of Edessa/Osroene, to the south of the Armenian highlands, which is also sometimes claimed as an early convert (though as far as I can tell this is pretty dubious).

Assuming that this isn't just a case of the domino effect where one state converts and its neighbours follow, has there been anything written about what social and political conditions made the Caucasus such fertile ground for the early church?

I know that by this point the Roman government had already been dispersed to some extent under Diocletian, with other capitals outside of Italy in Trier, Sirmium and Nicaea and really the same question applies to these as well, was the existing administrative apparatus just moved around or built from scratch?

Also, I know that Constantinople had it’s own Senate while the Senate in Rome continued to function well into the time of Gothic rule in Italy at least, but who were these Constantinopilian senators? Roman patricians who migrated, local notables from Greece and Asia Minor?

As a math teacher, I've found that my students are much more interested in learning new math concepts and skills when they have a sense of when and where it was developed, and why. (In addition to current applications, like careers that employ it.)

There's a great BBC documentary called The Story of One that addresses this fairly well. There's also a book called The Math Book, which has separate entries for different events in the history of math.

Mainly, I'd like to have some rich information on the various cultures that developed different math concepts as solutions to problems in their societies or improvements.