I love classical music, and when I watch really good musicians playing classical pieces, I often read comments of the sort of "Chopin surely chose to be reborn in this musician!".

But then I ask myself, were composers such as Chopin or Mozart really good at playing their own music? Were they known for their interpretation skills or just their composition abilities?

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I'm currently reading "A History of Venice" bu John Julius Norwich where he says that Churches in both Venice and Bari both claimed to have St Nicholas' remains. So in a situation like this was there any way for churches or the state which the church resided to legally resolve this? Was there some sort of mechanism in which each side could argue their case and somebody deciding?

I took a class on the civil war a while back, and the strong female presence was mentioned (among others the Mujeres libres) - as soldiers but also in many other roles. At the same time I remember that despite this, women were often not accepted in these new gender roles and that there continued hierarchies eg between male and female soldiers. But also continuing hierarchies within the different left groups (from a current view) in spite of their revolutionary ideals.

I could also imagine that women could have held quite different positions say in revolutionary Catalonia than in other regions. Lastly I was wondering if claims of this participation being exceptional at the time hold up. Would be glad for info on any of these questions.

Hi,

I recently wrote a 12-page paper for my medieval history class (at a T-3 university), and I don't want to waste it. I want to get it published at some history blog or website. Do you have any recommendations where I can send the article to?

I've been playing the new game "Red Dead Redemption 2" which takes place in 1899, and I'm it you can actually find KKK meetings. Of course the game doesn't show any sympathy with them and shows their meetings going horribly wrong, with several of them dying in some way in the meetings. But what caught my interest was that, if you loot one of their bodies, you can find "meeting notes" which, among other things, say that the attendance numbers to their reunions are disappointing and that they are having trouble getting new members. How accurate is this?

Let's say "pre-modern" means "before 1500", while allowing evidence from post-1500 cases to inform pre-modern cases.

I'm especially interested in cases where we have no or very limited reports from censuses. Otherwise, I'm deliberately leaving the question broad since I don't know what constraints would be useful, but my primary interest is the Middle East and Central Asia, for presumably obvious reasons. But I'm interested in anything that helps inform us of the reliability of the methods used.

Looks like most comments were removed, just woke up. Anyway, I’m aware there were trials at the time, that’s not my question. There were also trials at the time of Nürmberg. Yet, we still try new Nazis, no? So why doesn’t that happen with Japan is my question.

Could someone, for example, buy themselves the rank of captain but then be promoted to a higher rank based entirely on merit?

I'm trying to get a mental picture for scale. How far could a small group (say less than 10 people) travel by land before the days of paved roads? What about by foot, horse, or wagon? I imagine season and terrain would make a big difference, but suppose fair weather and a commonly used travel route. Thanks everybody!

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The native populations of North America have a very strong understanding of plant based medicines to treat illness and injury. However, I am having difficulty finding any information about how advanced other aspects of their medical care was at the time of European contact (surgery, dentistry, etc). Were they ahead or behind the Europeans?

And, yes, I know there are many cultures and societies across North America, but as I was unable to find much information on the subject, any examples would help satisfy my curiosity. That being said, close to home for me would be the Iroquoian societies.

Thanks

Is there any historical reasoning to the divergent paths that the West and the Middle East have followed?

Considering the Middle East was the intellectual powerhouse of the world for many generations, I wouldn’t think it has to do with intelligence. Is it just the rural nature of large swaths of that area that allow strong cultural traditions to remain in place?

It's a New Year, by some standards. Because of that, I was doing some research on the Gregorian calendar and its foundations, which are uncomfortably shoddy. Our current measure, which is based loosely on the birth of Christ, is of pretty hazy certainty. To quote the Wikipedia page, "was also 525 years 'since the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ'. How he arrived at that number is unknown."

Alongside this, there is the uncertainty regarding the precise year of Jesus' birth, the switch from Julian to Gregorian calendar, and a few other factors which make the whole situation a little bit unpleasant to consider, personally.

My question is this: what was the first date, whether of a significant historical event or a minor one, that we know to be precise? That is, according to our current calendar. If some historians have figured this all out and made sure that the dates we reference in the distant past are, in fact, accurate, how did they do that?

Fair answer could be the softness but have they always been soft?

I’m sure this convo could turn into how people of certain religions don’t take oaths on certain books or which books they would use, and from what American they might use (Now I actually have even more questions).

But for this post, I am specifically wondering if any prominent ex-presidents or politicians had an extensive library of religious books and also if they had ever written anything about their impressions of those holy texts.

Jefferson might come up again, but wondering about other politicians as well.

Where there special people like judges or did they vote or anything like that?

I know the people of Rome liked gladiator games because of the entertainment. But were there some who disagreed with the killings that had happened in the Roman games?

I am wondering if the more forceful approach helped demand respect for the civil rights movement. Would MLK have been ignored or had a tougher time without the threat of violence?