I'm taking a 2nd year University course right now called War in the West from 1850-1950. We only talked about the world wars though ( including a couple lectures on the era/conditions leading to WW1 and the inter-war period). My exam is on the 20th and it looks like I have loads of content to go through. The exam will consist of two essays. My Prof said the first one will be a question regarding the characteristics of World War I and the second will be regarding that of World War 2. I feel like I'm going to need to know everything, but I know I can't do that. I'm trying to get a sense of the major countries, leaders, battles, and generals in order to understand the relationship between the two wars, but it's very easy to get lost in studying just one theatre of war. There's tons of readings to go through and my lecture notes are mostly brief points on everything about the wars. It's very hard to summarize. Can anyone here help me find some resources that could briefly outline what I need to know? It's my birthday tomorrow and I also have another exam to deal with on to of the stuff my family has planned for me. That doesn't leave me with a lot of time, so I'm desperate to find any help I can get. Thank you.

EDIT: to clarify, I think the questions might have to do with the methods of warfare that characterized each war and the battles and commanders associated with them. Also how WW2 was more ideological than the first, stuff like that. I'm just looking for documentaries, articles, a YouTube series even, that could briefly explain the most important characteristics of each war and the people responsible. The class was a broad overview of both wars from the Western perspective. That's basically all I know.

Was it really a common practice or it was made up in Hollywood (it looks cool in movies)?

A single arrow can be dodged, that's somewhat fine.

This practice bottle-necked the most skillful archers and musketeers, so what's the reason behind?

Were there any other interesting practices?

[deleted]

Perhaps not to the rigor of the modern discipline, but I'm nonetheless Interested in any accounts of this before 500 BCE, especially in the near east and Asia proper. Reading accounts of the Assyrian Empire makes me wonder to what degree they and other ancient peoples may have had a credible accounting of their own ancient history and predecessors in an archaeological sense.

I’ve seen it in every movie, video game and documentary that involves throwing a grenade. The thrower always has a stiff throwing arm and swings his arm above his head to throw the grenade. Why not throw it like a baseball? I’d imagine you could throw it farther and much more accurately this way.

I am looking at the history of castle Neuschwanstein and i see that the king who orded its construction still ruled till 1886. His dynastys kingship only ended in 1918. Can someone explain how that worked and if he really had any power after unification.

I have only been able to online find resources on Manchuria and Manchukuo, so I infer this is impossible or was never entertained.

Operation Barbarossa commenced June 1941, while Pearl Harbor was attacked in December. While the skirmishes of Khalkin Gol/Nomonhon had allowed the Naval branch to gain power in Japanese decision making, there was still some belief in the Northern Route and capturing lake Baikal, as opposed to the navy-endorsed Southern Operation which seized SE Asian oil and rubber production from the Dutch and US Philippines.

Since the Navy had focused on developing long-range engagements in SE Asia and at the onset of the Pacific Theater Japan had a capable airforce with quality of craft similar to Western counterparts, would they have had the technological capabilities to invade Russia from the North and East? Japan had the icebreaker Otomari during the 1920s and the Otsu-type Takatsu-Maru apparently had icebreaker capability. If Pearl Harbor was delayed or abandoned, and the Japanese attack commenced during the Summer, could the navy successfully lead amphibious assaults along the Arctic coasts of Siberia and establish air superiority? Would the longer route doom supply lines, despite appearing comparable to the distance to Hawaii? As the Russian force was being called back to Moscow and the Caucasus, supposedly a substantial retainer was left behind. Was this entirely for deterring the Japanese, or due to Russian suspicions of the US's intentions post-war?

Finally, if the Japanese did forgo Pearl Harbor and instead had to cross through the Bering strait, would the US have seen this as a threat and intervened if it could receive congressional approval?

This is something I've had on my mind for a while. In the US, we are mostly taught our history in Three sections. The Time period Immediately following the revolution, where the nation was on the verge of collapse, the Civil war(with minimal focus on foreign policy/foreign influence), and modern history, where the US actually was a Rising Power, and following WW2, a Super Power.

In the US, the Importance of the our own country is often greatly exaggerated, especially during the early years, and I was wondering how the rest of the world actually viewed the Early US (1776-Civil war) and at what point the US began to be viewed as a power to be reckoned with.

The flags of Bahrain and Qatar share a similar unique style when compared to other flag designs of the world. (White on left, red or burgandy on right, seperated by different amount of serrations). Considering their close proximity, is there a shared point in history that has brought this on, or is it just a coincidence?

Did people worship the gods like Zeus and Poseidon? I guess my real question is how did their concept of karma work? Did people go to hell for bad deeds and heaven for good ones?

Just wanted to know the reasoning behind the act.

We can infer from parts of the New Testament that there was a debate among Jews in the first and second centuries about whether Jesus was the messiah or not. What do non-biblical Jewish sources say about how Jews who didn't think Jesus was the messiah responded to Jesus and early Christianity? Was there some kind counter-proselytizing effort? How did Jews in later centuries (fourth, fifth) confront the growth of Christianity?

[deleted]

[deleted]

So, for years I have been thinking that Christmas is actually just "Christianized" celebration of Sol Invictus on 25th of December, but today in conversation with a friend I found out there is different theory - that Christmas is older as Hippolytus of Rome talk about Christmas being 9 months after Easter (aka 25th December) in 204AD, and as we know Sol Invictus was established in 274 after "restitution of world" by emperor Aurelian.

Now, my ideas so far were that they selected 25th December because Saturnalia ended on 23th - aka to don't have overleaped of 2 big deities of Roman religion (Saturn and Sol Invictus). Since 25th is just 2 days after end of Saturnalia, and very close to Winter solstice, it's logical to celebrate "birth of Sun" on that date - signalizing that Sun survived one of the shortest days in a year and now start its life for that year.

So I would like to know the history behind it - what is the current stance in historiography about this "problem"? What are evidences? Also, I'm looking forward to some "further readings"!

How common was the name Hitler in Germany/Austria? I can imagine there where quite some people sharing the name with Adolf. So, did they just change it to random other names, or did they get some specific names from the 'government'?