Hey, i've been reading a book about Ramses II by Christian Jacq. Its a biography but written as a novel. Excuse me if it is not the right term, my native language is spanish. My concern comes to the point of realising historical facts to common beliefs or just the story invented by the author. Por example, when Seti dies and its the turn of Ramses asumption to power the author mentions that an eagle appeard and surprisingly flew towards Ramses and Nefertari and lied on the new Pharaohs shoulders representing Horus. Images like this ones keep appearing as the story develops (babboon helping him, wild elefant for war, his lion and dog, the wild bull). Is it a fact that Ramses had a gift towards animals? Maybe the question seems dumb but i think it will help me have an idea the image that Ramses represented or actually the kind of power he had. Thankss

*of not if. Please restrict answers to 1998 and before of course

I'm always wondering why history happened the way it did and not otherwise. Was it the leaders' fault or was it due to economic and social tendencies? (I'm fond of alternate history)

The ECSC seems to me the main guarantor of peace in central Europe. If you don't control resources essential for war, war becomes impossible. I think. You can correct me on that.

So, how much of a stretch would it be to think the treaty could have been signed after WW1? As far as I know, the harsh treatment of Germany in the treaty of Versailles was one of the main factors in the rise of Hitler. Appeasement was the right idea, but too late. Hitler was already in power then.

So why, instead of just occupying the Rhineland, didn't the Allies in WW1 get the European thought back in 1918? Chaining France and Germany together would have allowed Germany to save face and effectively prevented WW2, would it not?

For plutonium production, graphite moderated reactors and heavy water reactors were early technologies that were capable of breeding plutonium from U-238. By taking steps to destroy the heavy water plant under Nazi control, did the allies end up tipping off the Germans about what we knew? Was there any discussion about the potential signals sent by attacking such a target?

It seems like attacking the plant would not only let the Germans know that we knew what they were up to - but it would also implicitly let them know that we knew that the path they were taking (heavy water breeder reactors) was a viable path to building a bomb. In other words, how much did both sides in WWII know about each other's nuclear weapons programs?

I was just watching "The Viking Dead", an archaeology/history programme on TV, and it was said that weighing silver (in particular) was very important to the vikings, a pair of scales were shown, and it was also said that it was important for them to be able to cut lumps of silver to the correct weight. This got me wondering what would be used as a standard weight.

I don't know if this is the right place for this, but I'm writing a movie script just for fun, nothing professional, however, I'd still like to fact check some stuff to be as historically accurate as possible.

I've never had history lessons about Aztec civilization, so everything I wrote is based on quick internet research. I'll try to be as brief as possible:

The story is told through the eyes of a father of a small family of 4. It's about the downfall of aztec civilization encompassing the plague and the Conquistadores' invasion. The narrative has a "mythological component" as you'll see later.

It's set in late 1520, on small farming village, Ahuacatlan, who relies on trading with a couple different tribes/villages (all aztecs). One day hawkers start bringing strange tales about pale giants (conquistadores). "They come from the sea and wield powerful weapons that bark fire and spit death from a distance. They've got indestructible shining armor from the color of the sun" - hawkers say.

These hawkers start getting sick, they wake up with belly pains, black tongue, and their noses dont stop bleeding. A strange pestilence starts spreading across tribes while farmers get sick and food gets scarce. Priests claim these are punishments from their angry gods: they demand more blood rituals! Human sacrifices are performed, but nothing seems to stop what looks like to be the end of the world.

The tribe "closes off their village" and fortify the area (placing traps, etc...) in fear of nearby tribes' attacks. Soon these giants, who everyone thinks are sent by raging gods, invade this small and weak village: they easily start killing everyone while the family escapes. The family runs away and passes by what were once friendly, but now turned enemy tribes. Some villages are burning, others are completely empty. They pass by famished people dying in the streets, wounded soldiers and misery spread through the roads they take. The family is encounters these new invading giants and they are forced to hide from them, when the parents start showing signs of sickness. They decide to abandon their kids to luck, so they have a chance to live and start a new life far away from there.

Any thoughts? What's accurate/innacurate here? The story is far from finished so I have a lot of room to change/rewrite stuff to accommodate for accuracy.

Thank you all for your time! :)

Edit: some words corrected. Also forgot to mention their village is somewhat remote, to the east and far away from the central empire. So the news take a little while to come by.

Since Byzantine Empire is a term that was invented after the actual collapse, what was called the Byzantine Empire by its contepomraries?

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In looking through my university's archives, I've come across an article written by an English professor that discusses the quality of the typical student he interacted with. He finds it likely that the University of Oregon produces more educated students than California schools on the grounds that "California has gone further with 'progressive' education". I've included a part of the article below, with the term bolded.

But surely I am expected to point out that things “ain’t what they used to be.” As Mark Twain pointed out, they never were; but nobody believes optimism in these studiously hardboiled days. There are changes, obvious ones such as the relative upping in average age levels. G.I.’s and their wives, and the tendencies toward adult education account for some of this. It is not uncommon now to have future Oregon students attending classes, although they are still among the unborn. The proportion of married students is impressive. This means that the run of students is much more familiar with some of the basic facts of life, takes them calmly, and may possibly be more inclined to think in terms of the ultimate job and material values in general. Just to let fly with some generalizations: students are more mature, but not so well trained (in the fields of literary study, I mean). They are just as studiously inclined, but they haven’t learned the rudiments of how to study. They are more acute listeners and observers, but they are poorer readers, and perhaps weaker in memory. They like to laugh, but they know all the jokes, and are quickly suspicious of superficiality, particularly the kind that substitutes cheap wit for hard-bought knowledge. They come with less, but they take more away with them. They are appallingly incompetent in taking notes, but they are quick as cats at taking hints. I heard the remark recently that Oregon school training puts pupils a year ahead of California schools. Probably that is true, since I believe California has gone farther with “progressive” education. I hope we drop farther back, even to my imaginary little school in not so imaginary Willow Creek, where the teacher is still interested in the minds of her students rather than social adjustment, good citizenship and “togetherness.”

R. D. Horn, Old Oregon June-July 1958

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So looking at bronze age history, it seems people mostly relied on chariots and other vehicles pulled by horses rather than riding them, but by the iron age it seems like horseback riding was a reasonably common thing.

So when did it become popular and do we have any idea where it might have originated? And was it adopted for non-military purposes first or was it primarily seen as an innovation in war?

Seeing the Spanish Civil War, i can deduce that most of the war was dominated by the Nationalist, since the Republican side lost 3/4 of the battles, gaining only small territories during all of the war, why was that?

Can we lightly speculate on her fate if she had lived after the defeat at Actium?

I'm reading Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, the premise of which is a black woman keeps getting pulled back in time to save her slave owning ancestor's life. The cruelty in this book brought up questions that went unanswered in high school. How did american slaveholders justify enslaving their children they had by slaves? How did they justify selling them? Did slaveowners intentionally breed their own children specifically to sell? How did the abolitionists address this?

Thank you.

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I'm writing a story with an old lady who's husband and children are all dead or presumed dead, living in a world based roughly off of the 14-1700's (pre industrial), and has not remarried (though she later does find a new love in the story to support her).

How would she survive? The character is not supposed to be exceptionally well off, in fact she is just getting by, but she is not extremely malnourished or anything.

Would she get any support from her town? Or would they more likely consider her to be suspicious and possibly a witch? Say she lived in a climate similar to northern Germany. She produces some kind of resource on a small farm or garden and sells the product in the local market so she can buy food and clothes. What would be a likely crop or resource that could be grown in this climate, by a 60 year old lady, that could completely support one person's income? Suppose she did not have to pay taxes, as this government does not tax those over a certain age or perhaps does not tax females.

This doesn't need to be super accurate but just throw some ideas at me! I want something generally believale at least (so no tomato or cotton farming)

I remember reading about a scientific analysis conducted in either the 90's or early 00's that concluded that Brushy Bill had a high probability of actually being the notorius outlaw Billy the Kid.

I have heard the controversy between economists and historians arguing about the origins of capitalism as explained through the lens of slavery in the US. Can someone explain to me, in an easy-to-understand manner, a possible historical explanation and how it might differ from an economist's POV?