I've been doing some research into the Second Sino-Japanese War and noticed how a lot of the militarization and nationalism in Japan seemed to have grown as an isolated incident from Germany's rise of militarizim and nationalism but each theater of the war(European and Pacific) would in there own right be two of the most devastating and geographically large conflicts in all of human history. It would seem coincidental that two separate but large conflicts would happen simultaneously. But on the other hand it seems from my inexperienced perspective that there isn't really historical links that meant the events of one necessitated or acted as a catalyst for the other.

Are they intrinsically linked? Or was it just coincidence?

(CW: sexual assault & rape)

So I was reading Tale of Genji and I decided to look up on Heian courtship and consent given some of the scenes came off as rape. I can only find few English-speaking scholars like Royall Taylor who argued Heian women cannot consent. I couldn't find any native Japanese experts' thoughts on this, so I'm curious as to what's their consensus in regards this.

Did Sigismund I suffer any retribution from the Pope? Was there threat of excommunication? The conversion of the Teutonic Order into a Protestant duchy seems way too 'easy' as summarized on Wikipedia.

It's such a simple game, I'd imagine that before Scissors were around the game existed just under different names. Potentially the same for paper. Do we have records of the game, and where it originated from?

I'm running a D&D game and I want a historical basis from which to equip my fantasy ships. But the internet has been unkind to my research, and everything I came across only mentioned cannons or how the ship would actually be built. But that's not what I'm looking for. I want to know what else would be on a naval craft right around the 16th century besides guns. Things like rations, personal belongings, tools, supplies, etc.

Any help is appreciated, thank you :)

Some ancient Greeks, especially political philosophers, called Persian barbarians as they were ruled by a single monarch (in contrast to Greek republican states). What did the Persians think of this first version of Orientalism? And did either side accuse the other of slavery (even though we know they all had slaves)?

While reading an intro to the Iliad, I came across the claim that when Homer talks about chariots, he couldn't have been relating a story which represents actual chariot tactics. Homer's heroes ride their chariots into battles and treat the vehicles as "taxis," hopping into the fray for some one-on-one combat and then zipping back out of danger on their waiting chariot. This depiction is supposedly one of the great examples of an unsuccessful Homeric blending of historical periods (maybe Mycenaean strategy with Dark age memory, right?).

Ok, so I have a question after reading a wikipedia article on chariots. The wiki article says that "the only significant eyewitness report of British chariot warfare" comes from Julius Ceasar. Here's the account given on the article's page, taken from The Gallic War from a translation available on Gutenberg:

"Their mode of fighting with their chariots is this: firstly, they drive about in all directions and throw their weapons and generally break the ranks of the enemy with the very dread of their horses and the noise of their wheels; and when they have worked themselves in between the troops of horse, leap from their chariots and engage on foot. The charioteers in the meantime withdraw some little distance from the battle, and so place themselves with the chariots that, if their masters are overpowered by the number of the enemy, they may have a ready retreat to their own troops. Thus they display in battle the speed of horse, [together with] the firmness of infantry; and by daily practice and exercise attain to such expertness that they are accustomed, even on a declining and steep place, to check their horses at full speed, and manage and turn them in an instant and run along the pole, and stand on the yoke, and thence betake themselves with the greatest celerity to their chariots again."  (I added italics)

This account sounds a lot like Homer even though this is a report of British chariot tactics. This leaves me with the question: Does Caesar's account support Homer's story of taxi chariots? Is this account somehow an allusion to the Iliad?

Throughout the Cold War, and in the Eastern Bloc, the Soviets had pretty much control over the entire east of Europe. What I'm wondering is why wasn't Kaliningrad made to be bigger so that the Soviet Union could practically cut off the Baltic states completely from Europe. The Soviets having given Poland the old land of the German Reich could've easily cut off the SSRs from the rest of Europe, considering the fact that Lithuania has obviously always been against Soviet rule.

It’s only 180 square miles and was formed in 1278, so why did no one during this time formally annex it?

I'm just wonder if Nazi Germany had to invade Poland to appease the German people with how nationalist the country was and how many promises were delivered at reuniting German people stuck outside of Germany and reclaiming lost German lands.

A hopefully simple Friday question: For a book I'm working on, I'm trying to figure out how a wealthy, young, American woman in the early 1950s would refer to an orgasm. I can find some novels by men who use the word coming, but would a woman at that time use the word for herself? Would they use the word orgasm? Are there any other slang terms that would be used?

Thanks in advance for any and all thoughts!

I was listening to the "in our times" podcast episode, about Polidori's "the vampyr" and one of the guests of the show claimed that there was a general tendancy to romantisize or even sexualize tuberculosis during the 19th century, and he gave the example of Edgar Allen Poe's poetry. Is this true? What is the origins of this romantic view of the illness?

I am young and overwhelmed by how much information is available and the complexity of historical analysis that I see.

How do historians start out?

How do you decide what data is accurate and what is exaggerated?

What kind of methodology is used for historical analysis? How does it vary from one field to another?

I am scared of missing out on the first principles.

Is there a specific starting point?

I moved to Croatia, where learning how to make ‘Domestic’ coffee is an important part of cultural assimilation (essentially Turkish coffee with a slightly different preparation to do with when you add the coffee to the water - because, I’m guessing, historical geopolitics?)

I was never much of a coffee drinker until I moved here - largely because it seemed like so much faff and so expensive to get the ‘right’ equipment - in fact until I moved here it never occurred to me that coffee could be drunk unfiltered (the ground beans settle at the bottom of the mug while it’s cooling - so as long as you don’t drink the dregs, it’s pretty much the same taste/texture wise).

Why did the west decide coffee needed to be filtered? Was it always this way? Or is it a recent invention?

Like most articles about them consider they are the most oldest universities but when I search for what are the oldest universities they mention exclusively other universities, more specifically European.