I was watching Tora! Tora! Tora! the other day. I very much enjoyed the movie and it spends alot of time on the build up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Especially from the japanese PoV. They depict political conflict between the Navy and the Army and also between politicians in favour of war with the US and those against.

Now I always approach historical movies with caution since they always take artistic liberties (not a bad thing per se) or even grossly misrepresent the actual history. For the most part I watch historical movies because the subject matter already interests me and I have been reading about it already. So usually I have enough knowledge to spot substantial mistakes and misrepresantations. With this movie however I am at a loss since I know pretty much nothing about the internal politics in Japan at the time.

So here is my question. Can somebody give me a summary and some pointers to good introductionary reading material about the japanese politics leading up to Pearl Harbor? Who where the factions in the government? What did they want? Why did they want it? How came the decision to attack the US to pass?

I hope this question is within the scope of what can be answered here and I send thanks in advance to those who bother with answering.

Putting any leader on a ship when there are German U-Boats around just seems like a terrible idea. Flying over North Africa with Rommel around also seems terrible. Was the risk actually fairly low?

Did they believe in mythologies in a the same way current religious people believe in religions? and if so, who created all these stories up? and did they themselves believed that these myths are true?

I just got to thinking today - Hinduism and Buddhism have asceticism and monasticism, but they both believe in reincarnation generally, so a non-monk non-ascetic is motivated to support because someday you might get reincarnated and need to achieve salvation as a monk.

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But with Christianity, you only got one shot at life, so does the peasant who sells bread to a monastery believe he has a lower chance at getting into heaven than the monks in the monastery? How does he (or the nobles that donate to the monastery) benefit in terms of personal salvation - how does the system that allows people to live ascetic lifestyles sustain itself theologically?

It's often claimed that Opium Wars was a major factor behind widespread opium addiction in China in 1800s. As I understood it, those wars were part of the effort by the British to force the Chinese to accept opium trade from outside their borders.

However I read (wikipedia I know, blasphemy) that opium has been available in China since 7th century. Why has opium addiction suddenly became an issue in 1800s when it was already around for centuries?

The Stuart light tank seems a singularly pointless vehicle, lightly armored with a puny gun. It doesn't seem to have been much faster than a Sherman, and apparently was actually shorter ranged. It was often relegated to reconnaissance duty, but the gun was so useless the British routinely removed the turret from their lend-lease Stuarts late in the war to reduce the weight and silhouette. I do see that it had some use in the Pacific, where poor Japanese anti-tank capability made its weak armor less important. But right until the end of the war, the United States was equipping 25% of its tank companies in Europe with light tanks, when all the other powers had abandoned the light tank concept. Why?

Speaking with regards to the Republic, I know about the Dictators, Masters of the horse(s?), Consuls, Praetors, Aediles, Quaestors, Tribunes of the Plebs, and Censors, but people always tell me that there were still more "less important offices" that "weren't worth discussing".

I'm too curious, what exactly are these offices? What did they do? How were people appointed to them, and exactly how many were there? I love reading about the guts of ancient governments, and even the most minor office is simply fascinating to read up on, so I'd love if someone could introduce me to these supposed lesser offices of the Roman government. :)

Been at some of the staple boutique NYC/LA hotels of late and have noticed many proudly proclaiming that so-and-so lived here in a suite from 194x-19xx.

For instance, Marilyn Monroe at The Hollywood Roosevelt or Cary Grant at the Warwick.

Why was this such a trend during the time? Why not just buy/lease property in exclusive neighborhoods?

edit: a word

I've tried to keep the wording vague to avoid spoilers (if that's even possible at this point) , but I'm referring to>! a main character's realisation in Book/Season 1 that King Robert's blonde children aren't his own, because his family always produces children with black hair.!<

I can only assume that people noticed in real life that children inherited characteristics from their parents - how did they understand or rationalise this?

I was reminded of this when youtube went down and thinking something bad must have happened for youtube to not to work.

I was told along time ago by my teacher that British nuclear submarines would surface and listen for the Today program on BBC world service and if it didn't hear it for 3 days in a row assume Britain had fallen and to open and read the hand written letter from the prime minister and execute what plans were in the letter. I thought it true then but now that i think about it, it would be pretty bad if you surfaced at a certain time everyday? where did this fact or rumor come from and is it true?

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Googling it yields no definite answer. Thanks in advance!

The wiki does not answer this.

With the metric system, a lot of units of measurement were decimalized around the world. I know revolutionary France had a decimal clock and calendar, but why did these (or anything similar) not endure like the rest of the decimal units? Was there a difference between these and other units?

To give context, I'm making a story and in it there has been a civil war between people who want to establish a republic and fighting a corrupt monarchy. However, it has lasted for around 200 years meaning the population is tired and weary. The overall population of my fictional country is 10 million and the Monarchy controls around 6 Million of these.

The nation is very decentralized with local lords ruling over castles and cities.

//edit My story is based on the Hundred years war so even though the civil war has lasted 200 years there are many periods of truces and white peaces between periods of war. There is in fact enough grain and water to feed army provisions and both sides of the government have the money to create weapons and armor for the soldiers.

So I got into an agruement with a friend on wether the Ancient Romans used the Nazi salute.I had heard it was first used during th French Revolution but he tough differently.I would greatly appreciate if you helped me with this question (this is my first time posting a question please let me know if this violates any rules thank you)