Why did Britain treat the Australian colonies better than the American colonies.

Little questions: did people immediately assume he didn't actually reach India? Did Asia get temporarily remapped to be much larger?

Bigger questions: did Columbus' claimed circumference become dominant? If not, why not? If so, when and how did we return to the classical/modern one?

Side question: is it fair to say that there's more-or-less continuity between Eratosthenes' estimate and the modern figure, or was he lucky and we figured it out better later?

From the Scythians, Indo-Iranians, and Huns to the Avars, Magyars, Tatars, and Mongols, it seems that no matter how dominant and successful an army west of the Eurasian Steppe was, as soon as a collection of well-determined nomadic steppe people marched West in force, they rode roughshod over any Western resistance. Why was it so hard to adapt to the tactics of nomadic steppe cavalry?

I know it's a huge topic which is why I'm asking for book recs, though Reddit answers would also be great! The more specific thrust of my questions are somewhat described below:

I'm interested in how the day-to-day life of the emperors might have looked like - both that of hardworking, powerful emperors, and those who were more hedonistic/weak/shirked their duties. What did a court session actually look like? If the emperor had to be in mourning, what did he do all day? And how were their relations with their mothers, sons, daughters? Did they get together/eat together often, or were their lives pretty much separate? Did that lead them to be closer to the eunuchs attending them than their family members?

And what was the childhood of a prince/princess like? Given how often princes seemed to have just murdered their siblings, were they not raised together and thus had no familial attachment to each other? Were they just privately tutored and grew up confined in the imperial palace? Did they ever go out or interact with children their own age? Who raised them? Etc.

Thank you so much if you can help provide any sources/answers!

Seeing that Hoover was president for less than a year before the Great Depression hit, I'm assuming some of Coolidge's policies had to be responsible for the GD right? If so, what specific actions, or inactions, did he undertake?

It seems that most modern historians think that the Mycenaean Bronze Age culture was founded by the Achaeans. I’ve read other historians like William Ridgeway and think this couldn’t be possible, because the Homeric poems for example talk about how Mycenae was a newly acquired holding. Or other ancient historians talk about how the heroic Perseus founded Mycenae and it eventually passed to Pelops. Furthermore, there is reference to an autochthonous race of people inhabiting the Peloponnesus and Argolis regions before the arrival of the Achaeans. Those historians say that the Achaeans surely held Mycenae and Tiryns for some time; eventually being conquered by the Dorians, but could not have founded and built the cities. They hold that this indigenous stock of people were the Pelasgians.

They say another form of proof is that Mycenae had the beehive tombs built, but the Homeric Achaeans burnt their bodies. This doesn’t seem sound to me though, because Aeschylus and Euripides both clearly talk about Agamemnon’s body being laid to rest in a tomb which sacrificial altars, which were found in Mycenae. Is it possible that cremation was only used in times of war away from home? Or more likely that the Achaeans adopted the customs of the race that built the Mycenaean cities?

I know this is a rambling and unstructured post but I’d love some insight here about the Pelasgians, the Achaeans, and their relation to Mycenaean culture.

Like I always read about how literacy rates were like 10% in the middle ages, but because writing is so useful, did peasants ever create their own writing system?

Do we have any information on how common it was for someone to believe religion as purely fiction in ancient times? Did humans just at some point start to doubt the veracity of religious texts or were there always people thinking "nah, this is just metaphors"?

I read that General Eisenhower greased the wheels for General Zukhov to receive a clear Coke, so not to be seen drinking an American capitalist product. Were there any other Communist leaders that had requests such as these, and if they did, how much did Western governments facilitate this?

Every once and a while, something will be referred to as "Draconic", due to the aforementioned Draco's reputation as a tyrannical and "evil" lawmaker. How much of this is true? How much do we actually know about him?