I recently learned that Celtic helmets had much more apotropaic finials of animals on their tops compared to helmets in the High and Late Middle Ages. I think that's because polearms in these later periods could hook these finials. But then I wondered if the Celts had long axes like the Norse or anything like the axes of the High and Late Middle Ages. I couldn't find a paper specifically about this on Google. Does anyone know if Celts had long battle axes? I'm sure they had small wood-cutting axes or similar tools, but battle axes? Are the CGI and cartoon "Celtic" axes on the the first page of Google images just fantasy weapons?

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I wanted to do research on Vikings, and as the internet is a large resource I've ended up jumping down rabbit-holes instead of learning. There's a lot of information but without any structure I feel like I'm wasting my time.

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My question: How do historians tell whether information is supplementary or pointless to their area of studies?

Thank you.

When did slings come into vogue as weapons and when did they fall out of favor? Resurgences? Did they have any specialized uses?

What I'd especially like to know, as research for a D&D game where my players want to innovate an economy, were slings ever used in any kind of war games? Were there any methods used to make them relatively safe for use, like a particular type of light ammunition? They specifically want to do wax balls filled with paint (yeah, invent paintball) but I'm not finding any precedent for that.

What was he planning to do after the “final victory”? Would he go for world conquest or would he be content with his lebensraum? Would Nazi germany survive at peace or would there be a slow liberalization of the Reich? What would Hitler do after all of his goals were accomplished? Would he keep pushing for more and more extreme things like colonizing space or taking over the rest of the world or would he stop? How would the Reich end up? Would it last for a thousand years or would it collapse due to the war ending and leaving a vacuum in the war based economy? Sorry if I’m asking too many questions but this is a question I can’t really find too many answers to.

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Being from Scotland I’ve been brought up being to that big will was a legend but apparently he was a child rapist and other stuff like that. Is this true and if so how did people find this out?

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Reading about Poland history it amazes me that it seems to be always invaded by somebody, usually the Germans, the Russians or the French. Is there an account of the total number of invasions of Poland? Why has it been invaded so many times?

It seems that the educated population of fifteenth-century Europe were divided on the question of the circumference of the Earth. Some accepted Erastothenes' calculation and / or Posidonius' upper bound; some (like Columbus) accepted Posidonius' lower bound, which itself had been accepted by Ptolemy. But both Greek scholars' methods seem eminently reproducible; why would they not have tried to do so? Or to put it another way, how could the circumference of the Earth have possibly been an unsettled question in Columbus' time, if Erastothenes and Posidonius had shown how to measure it so easily?

These days, as a tabletop wargamer when trying to explain my hobby people tend to ask 'so it's like Warhammer' and I have to try and explain that no, Warhammer is a subset of tabletop wargaming but not one I'm involved in. For this to be the case Warhammer has to have become the most visible form of wargaming, but how did this come to be the case, or at least how far along the way was it as of the limit of the 20-year rule?

I need to write a paper about America between the years of 1715-1820, but I'm having trouble coming up with a topic to write about (it shouldn't be broad like positive/negative effects of the Revolutionary War). I'm leaning towards something about slavery, but most source material on that topic is primarily Civil War era. I prefer to write more about social subjects such as race and gender rather than political and military. Help please!