How protective was armor during medieval times. Would arrows or crossbow bolts be able to penetrate a knight in full armor. Would two dueling knights be able to penetrate each other's armor with their swords?

Did the Navajo know of the Aztecs?

Did the Aztecs know of the Incas and vice versa?

What about natives from islands? Did they know the existence of other tribes in the continents?

So the Schlieffen Plan was to attack France through belgium. I get that they were attempting to avoid the maginot line by bypassing it altogether and that they knew because they were violating Belgiums sovereignty there was a chance this gamble would bring England into the war. So my question is why didn’t they invade through Switzerland? The swiss share a border with both germany and france. Was it a matter of geography or politics? What made Belgium more appealing to them than Switzerland?

Was it an administration issue? Overextension? Or were they just too weak to compete with other European powers?

So I was doing some research for an essay and came across groups like the German-American Bund, Silver Legion, Free Society of Teutonia, etc. While they're only tangentially related to what I'm writing, I still find myself curious. As far as I can tell, the Bund was the largest and most successful of them, but they capped at like 25,000 members and didn't really expand past NY.

Still, I'd like to ask: what exactly did they do on a day-to-day basis? I know that some of these groups had camps, but not much of what happened in them. How much did they affect the US, and how did Germany view them?

I was just reading a post on this sub about how ancient combat worked on a small scale, and I got curious about if researchers get any information from groups such as the Society for Creative Anachronism. (For those who don't know, this is an organization a little akin to a renaissance fair, but with more emphasis on non-scripted combat.) For obvious reasons, this sort of thing couldn't actually tell us what happened, but I wonder if we might be able to pick up some clues about how ancient arts and crafts (including war) worked...

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We have all heard about the wild west, but how true was that, was it really true that the US federal government barely had any power in these lands, and that outlaw gangs were rampant? Is the Wild west even true? Or was it just some stories back in the days, to make good movies or books?

I recently acquired a German Gewehr 98 (WW1 infantry rifle) that belonged to the 2nd Regiment of the 117th Infantry Division. (Got this information from a disc on the rifle) And I found a Wikipedia page for this division, but there wasn't a lot of info. If anyone has any information on this division, such as where they were stationed at the Somme, at Caporetto, etc. it would be greatly appreciated.

(Yes another question spawned from Red Dead II)

In the late 1800s, when westward expansion was bearing fruits, the continent was still a very dangerous place. Apart from Sherrifs and to a lesser extent, Bounty Hunters, what would the average citizen expect the state to do if they were in trouble (ie attacked by animal, person or plain went missing)?

The decades of the manifest destiny saw awful incidents such as Donner Pass. Surely after that, bringing civilisation to the "wild west" also meant bringing East Coast welfare and security?

Additionally were local militias a force for good and more trusted than lawmen in this period or were they too out of control?

Thanks in advance.

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Just as simple as the title sounds. The Germans invaded Poland on Sept. 1st and engaged most of their army, then Sept. 17th Russia invaded it's eastern boarder, sacking multiple towns and murdering thousands of civilians by hand.

I know Liberia was colonized by freed slaves who wanted to return to Africa, but my question is more about whether anyone ever made it back to their ancestral home, were reunited with living African relatives, etc.

Sorry if this has been asked and I cannot find the information on Google.

After the war, how exactly did they force plantation and slave owners to free their slaves? I can imagine the majority wouldn't just simply turn them free due to new laws and the results of the war.

Also, did any slave owners ignore the emancipation proclamation and keep slaves in secret long after the civil war?

I've read and seen videos saying that leather didn't actually exist as armor. If this is true, I presume this is just referring to the tanned soft leather that we know of today?

I've read about armor made of rawhide (untreated or partially treated) or boiled/hardened leather. Rawhide is supposedly cheaper to produce (as it doesn't require tanning) and is much harder (and rigid) and stronger than leather. I've read that the Qin lamellar plates were supposed to be lacquered and/or partially treated rawhide? I've also read that tanned leather has to be boiled (in water or wax) to produce a rigid shape (cuir bouilli) to create armor. So was regular soft leather not actually used as armor?

Can someone give me more information/details about pros/cons of rawhide vs soft leather vs hardened/boiled leather?