Hello all. I'm trying to learn about the First Messenian War, I'm aware that the war was so far back that sources may be thin on the ground. From what I've Googled, Tyrtaeus and Pausanias both reference the war, is there anyone else I should know about? Also, I don't know anything about it outside of what I might find in these sources. I'm sure that I'll be missing a ton of archaeological evidence or wider context that would give me a more complete understanding. Is there any good writing from modern historians on it that you would recommend to a newbie like myself on the topic?

Most of the stories about resistance to slavery that I am aware of are about people who escaped slavery or who were free for some other reason. While not being de jure or de facto human beings and being the constant subject of brutal torture would make it extremely difficult to organize, I am curious if there was any effort to do so by people who were unable to escape.

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This is more of a "historian" question than a "history" question. Are there any notable American schools in the field of Byzantine studies? I know Anthony Kaldellis is at Ohio State but that's about it.

I'm in high school and my AP World class is mixing in with the colonialism unit in AP Lang. This made me wonder about colonialism in India. I've learnt that European powers justified colonialism as them teaching civilization to uncivilized places, yet in AP World we're learning that India was a major center of civilization. So what was the moral justification Britain had when colonizing India? Thank you!

What were the core differences in the cultures and how did japan go about resolving them?

This question also applies to inhabitants of Iceland, Finland, and Northern Norway. What did these people think caused this phenomenon? Was it part of their cultures? What would people do in the dark season?

If footage of the trial you can see Herman Goring laughing and Rudolf Hess attempting to hold back a laugh, why is this? Was the translation botched or are they laughing due to the fact they think they are pulling a sneaky on the allies?

Question is pretty straight forward: What did the natives of the American continents name the lands they lived on? Did they have settlements, "states" or different areas?

To add: the cultural association between Buddhism and East Asia is very strong, even though the religion originated in India.

East Asian societies like Japan and China have also been historically hesitant to embrace outside religion (Christian Missionaries come to mind). What made Buddhism so different/appealing that it's more embedded in their (East Asian) culture than the culture it originates from?

I didn't want to say "Jello" specifically, because that's a very modern thing, but I'm curious as to what led to Jello.

I realize that this question might sound controversial. Here is why I am asking : lately I have been reading a lot on late Antiquity/early Medieval History of Europe/Middle East/Central Asia and also on China/Japan Medieval History. And these books are basically full of massacres : kingdoms and empires rising, clashing, and disappearing, cities and settlements burned to the ground, entire population exterminated or reduced to slavery, etc. It occured to me that the German campaigns in the East match these patterns quite well. But the Nazi war crimes are often presented as an historical anomaly. I guess that basically I am asking if the historians of the year 3000 will treat operation Barbarossa differently than the Avar invasion of Central Europe and Byzantine Empire in the 7th century. Note that I understand that the Holocaust, especially when it targeted German citizens, is a different matter.

The Korean moveable type seems to lack the transformative social impact of Gutenberg's invention despite appearing earlier, and it would appear that the sheer number of Chinese characters was the main limiting factor. Wikipedia has this to say on how the invention of hangul affected printing in Korea:

A potential solution to the linguistic and cultural bottleneck that held back movable type in Korea for 200 years appeared in the early 15th century—a generation before Gutenberg would begin working on his own movable-type invention in Europe—when Sejong the Great devised a simplified alphabet of 24 characters (hangul) for use by the common people, which could have made the typecasting and compositing process more feasible. But Korea's cultural elite, "appalled at the idea of losing hanja, the badge of their elitism", stifled the adoption of the new alphabet.

A "Confucian prohibition on the commercialization of printing" also obstructed the proliferation of movable type, restricting the distribution of books produced using the new method to the government. The technique was restricted to use by the royal foundry for official state publications only, where the focus was on reprinting Chinese classics lost in 1126 when Korea's libraries and palaces had perished in a conflict between dynasties.

Did elitism and cultural hangups completely stifle the development of mass printing in hangul? Were there major efforts within the gentry to introduce the moveable type to the wider society? Did either technology actually contribute to widespread literacy in Korea? The introduction of modern printing in the 19th century obviously didn't kill hanja right away, so I'm curious whether hangul ever managed to live up to its potentials with the earlier moveable type. Thank you very much in advance!

This question applies both during direct negotiations with the Americans, and also among themselves. Perry's own sponsored account of what happened is littered with descriptions of how the Japanese were bending over backwards in niceties, almost always smiling and jovial. Surely this was not the case? Or maybe it was but only when he or his crew were around? Obviously they weren't happy about being invaded. I've read quite a lot about this, including the sorts of discussions going on behind the scenes among the Japanese, but I've struggled to find much written by the Japanese themselves about what was happening.

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so i do ocr a level history and i am doing coursework right now. My title is :

How valid is the view that Martin Luther King’s leadership was the primary reason for the success of the civil rights movement 1954-1968

so, i am writing 3 paras:

1.why some would say his leadership was the most important

2. why some would say no, federal gov. was more important

3.why some would say no, grassroots activism was more important

What i need help with:

i need historians or authors that say yes/no to each of these points. i need to know what their view is on MLK or other issues. i then need to analyse what they say.

the draft is due tomorrow so i really need some names of historians.

please please please help.

The ancient romans built some crazy advanced structures for their time. Heck, many of them are still standing! So I’m asking you how? And if they did become this advanced, why did you not see other countries also being structured like this later on? For example, the Circus Maximus was essentially a nascar track that could seat 500,000 people! And in Pompeii, you can see grooves in the floors of the entrances where they said were sliding panels! That sounds pretty advanced for the first century to me.