I am reading Dangerous Liason by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn at the moment and in its chapter on the 6 Day War they claim that the Israeli airforce used napalm on refugees fleeing east from Jerusalem and the West Bank, I've never heard of this before has anyone here?

The end of the paragraph concludes with a quote from a diplomatic cable from the Embassy in Amman informing the White House "IDF Air Force yesterday and again today hit many civilian targets on West Bank where there are absolutely no military emplacements." and cites a book by Douglas Neff called 'Warriors for Jerusalem'.

Google provides nothing, no one on /r/Palestine knows and /r/Israel simply gave me abusive paranoid denials. (And one of the responders stalked me into another subreddit :S)

For what I've read, the indoeurpeans start popping up around the world around 2000 BCE, 3000 BCE at the earliest, but by that time cities like Uruk were already 2000 years old, heck, Jericho was 7000 years old by that time.

My point is that there were already well established cultures in all the places the indoeurpeans arrived, and yet within a few centuries they had "supplanted" those cultures and as a result there are no more Akkadians nor Summerians nor Etruscans nor a lot of other cultures, and there are no cultures that descend from them.

And I can't help but wonder how were they able to have such an impact, if it had been only the Romans whipping out other cultures I'd understand, but it wasn't just the Romans, it was the Greeks, and the Hittites, and the Persians and the Sanskrits... everywhere they went the indeorupeans kicked ass, and that's not normal, why were them so successful?

Hi, I’m an (american) high school student who has been through 2 history textbooks, neither of which mention atrocities during Stalin’s rule. Why is this, and what are some lesser known horrors faced by Soviets under dictator rule?

If so, how much did it help? Was it even tactically feasible?

I know he had plenty of issues with the government, but did the people ever have reservations about a potential Austrian leader?

Whenever I look at some ancient Roman faces on sculptures I cant help but notice that many do not really look like Italians, the face shapes, faces, eyes, brows, noses and also hair and eye colour of Roman state figures paint a general picture of an appearance fairly different to what most Italians look like, in fact many look very "Irish" like to my eyes personally.

Was there a pronounced ethnic difference between the Roman upper-class and the larger Roman populace (which I assume most Italians descend from)? Was there stronger gene flow from the middle east over time? I read that modern Egyptians have more Black African DNA than Ancient Egyptian corpses do, is the case the same here?

Baking bread seems like a pretty specific process, how did people decide to make food out of wheat?

Did people have swimming pools in the 17th and 18th century?

When did people start swimming recreationally, not bathing, in man made pools?

I'm but a humble marketer with a big appetite for research regarding King Richard III. I have my BSA in advertising and a minor in graphic design. History, for me, is just a hobby that I'm pretty zealous about. In any case, recently I've been considering the idea of writing a book about Richard. My question for all of you is, if I do write this book, will it--will I--be considered a credible source given that I don't have a degree in history? Of course I plan on using credible sources (primary sources) for my research, it's not the credibility of the sources I'm worried about. What I'm worried about is others interested in the life of Richard III (ESPECIALLY historians) reading it and saying I'm not credible because I don't have so much as a Bachelor's in history. What do you think?

I’ve recently finished Band of Brothers. It was excellent, without question the most interesting WWII screen-adaption I’ve watched.

In episode 10, one of the main plot points was that, though the war in Europe was over, you had to have accumulated 85+ points to immediately go home.

Otherwise you had to remain in Europe to help with the cleanup, or were deployed to the Pacific theater.

I wasn’t previously aware of a point system being used by the military.

How did soldiers accumulate points during the war?

For example, a rider uses his rifle on the battlefield, or a horse gets too close to a cannon when it fires.

I've been looking around the subject and there seems to be a strong rhetoric around how the Carthaginian government 'betrayed' Hannibal by refusing him aid. Why was this? Did the Carthaginian government not have the resources or simply did not want to send aid to Hannibal?

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Ancient Indian history seems so elusive to grasp. Muddled with mythology & actual history, the line between the two is quite blurred.

There seems to be more about Western history than Eastern. It’s so fascinating that the Hindu religion has survived invasion of the Greeks, Mughals & British Empires yet there seems to be little to no books covering about them.

My own family crest has two "Lions passant", I'm thinking maybe this was a christian thing? I'm sure some northern Europeans brought back stories of African animals after the crusades, but why the Lion, and not say Elephants?

Edit: thank you for your responses!

I've heard before that Trojan soldiers that survived Tory's fall left to settle Italy and eventually created Rome. Is this true? Is this just a legend?

India has no unique geographical or cultural features which would make it the only region that we would logically describe as a subcontinent. Arabia is as large and is a peninsula, SE Asia is too, etc. So how come India is the only place we commonly describe as a subcontinent?