I understand that the shishi were anti-foreign and anti-Tokugawa militants that arose in the wake of the assassination of Ii Naosuke, but I am unclear on how exactly the term was applied. Did people and groups apply it to themselves, if so, how did the term become current? Was it a term that Tokugawa or provincial authorities applied to heterogeneous groups? Or is it a term created by historians?

To put this in another words, what exactly made somebody a shishi specifically, as opposed to simply somebody who didn't care for the Tokugawa?

Dig a tunnel or 2 or 3, have men pour out directly into the enemies trench or tunnel under the enemy and fill with explosive?

After seeing this same question in a r/MapPorn thread, I became curious. When did people start calling this country an empire? Did the Ottomans self proclaim themselves as such?

First, I'd like to apologize for asking so many questions in one thread, but I assume it's okay because they're all based around a central topic, and thus presumably the answers are related.

Anyway, I've been reading about the Ottoman Empire back when the Barbary states could still get away with corsaring, and I get the distinct impression that a large portion of the Ottoman Navy was made up of pirates who happened to have a vague disposition in favor of the Ottoman Empire. They clearly were an important part of the Ottoman Navy, as you have pirates like Redbeard (I refuse to call him Barbarossa because Redbeard is an amazing pirate name and is what he deserves to be remembered as) who become an admiral in the Ottoman Navy. But how did the central government and its regular navy actually coordinate things with the corsairs? It's not like they could just mail every pirate in the empire and tell them "hey, group up with the Sultan's fleet so we can sink the Spanish navy," as pirates tend to move around a lot and don't really have fixed mailing addresses. Hell, what even made the pirates follow the Sultan's orders in the first place?

On top of that, was the differences in discipline between regular navy sailors and the pirates an issue? While I'm not sure how disciplined the sailors in the regular ottoman navy were, I assume they were more disciplined than actual, honest to god pirates. Were there any incidents of fights breaking out, either between sailors themselves or larger scale fights between warships because of this?

I'm a little confused by the amount of different Turks that pop up throughout history, I've heard about central-asian Turks in reference to raiding steppe tribes that harassed everyone from ancient Sumer right the way up to Persia, the Turks who encountered the Mongolians and of course the modern day state of Turkey.
I was wondering if those Turkic people were related to, or responsible for the modern state of Turkey, or is this a situation similar to the European definitions of Barbarians, Vandals and Goths? (as in a somewhat loose definition of those who threaten "civilised society").
Who are the Turks?

Also, did any of the pre-antibiotic treatments work? Or did people recover on their own from some STDs? Anyway, I can understand the market forces behind brothels and prostitution, but I can't understand how STDs didn't throw a huge wrench into the smooth running of business.

In his memoirs - written in the 1860s - Italian politician and writer Massimo D'Azeglio briefly discussed an episode of his youth (him being sixteen or seventeen at the time, son of a Marquis in cavalry school) when he had almost met for an "unauthroized" duel with another cadet of the same class. The seniors present had declined to assist the two in a matter that D'Azeglio himself described as trivial; and conveniently someone had decided to place his potential opponent under arrest before he could meet the future Prime Minister to the chosen location.

Almost fifty years later D'Azeglio explained:

You should also look at a duel as at the most serious matter. You could kill, or disable a man for life and condemn them to misery, or stab so many hearts together with their one. It might come a day such memory would weight like a mill-stone on your heart.

And I mean a real duel. A duel for show is a laughable, pitiful thing. So that both circumstances are something to regret. Avoid it as much as you can.

On to my question: would this attitude towards a duel "for show" be common in the mid XIX Century? Were duels for silly reasons, or duels where the two parts "staged" the confrontation common enough to warrant the distinction?

Okay, so during the Italo-Turkish war the Ottoman Empire put a lot of effort into using guerrilla warfare against the Italians, creating an entrenched resistance movement in Lybia that lasted so long that it fought against the Italians during World War 2, long after the Ottoman Empire had ceased to exist. However, when the Dey of Algeria beat up the French Ambassador to Algeria, the Ottoman Empire declared Algeria to be independent and let the French take it over. Likewise, when the French marched into Tunis, the Ottoman Empire just pretended that Tunis was an "autonomous region" of the Empire, and when the British invaded Egypt, the Ottoman Empire allowed looked the other way.

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Why were these responses so different? The Ottoman Empire fought tooth and nail for Lybia, but completely ignored the loss of all of their other African territory. What made Lybia so special?

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Recently I heard that before the outbreak of the first world war, many German children - Jews in particular - left their homes on Kindertransport to go to Britain until it was safe to return, similarly to the evacuation of British children from cities. Although this action was supported by the government, there would have still been a prevailing anti-German sentiment during that time. Given this, what was the reaction of the British public towards these German refugee children and how would they have been treated? would Brits have been angry that support was being given to foreign refugees despite British children needing safe housing too? Or would the people be generally content knowing that the children were fleeing persecution and would most likely die without their help?

As and Indian myself, I have always wondered why the Nazi regime gave (what appears to me given their views on Gypsies and other coloured race) unexpected support to Subash Chandra Bose and his attempt to free India through armed struggle ? Was it purely tactical (enemy's enemy is a friend) or was there more to it ?

The only source I’ve heard about boudica say they come from 2 Romans

Mainly her war crimes

Could somebody recommend me a book on history of education? I thought that this is a major topic in history of ideas and was surprised how hard is to find a good treatment.

Most if not all roman statues portrays a person in great shape so I am wondering if being muscular was a desirable norm for everyone or is it a natural consequence for people who’s not in the upper class. Also, what is the standard of beauty for men in the Roman times, is it their statutes? Because in some paintings, wealthy men is portrayed fat, do wealthy men back then care about how they look specifically? Thank you