Hello!

This seems like a very obvious question but I genuinely don't have the faintest idea how it worked. Obviously in the world wars British fighter planes were produced by private companies such as Hawker, it's predecessor Sopwith and the likes, but how did the purchase of fighter planes happen? Were these private companies forced to produce planes for the military to use? Did the military have to buy these at full price? Seems silly but I never knew.

Thanks :)

I studied ancient Roman history in university and still find it fascinating now that I have left school. I was always enamoured, as much of the world is, by the tale of Hannibal crossing into Italy with his army to attack Rome with.

Several things always stand out in the story:

1. Hannibal’s army had significant losses during the crossing. This should mean that they are many corpses or at least equipment strewn along the route he took.

2. Histories make a point of saying that the exact route Hannibal took is not known.

I feel like this would be an interesting, if challenging archeological expedition for several reasons:

1. the mountain routes couldn’t have changed that much over time so there must be a finite number of routes to search.

2. yes snows and ice shift which complicates finding the routes but that also presents an opportunity. I attended a lecture of a palaeontologist who was surveying Canada’s arctic for prehistoric animal remains (camels and mammoths mostly) and she told me how during spring new remains would be revealed without them having to dig, they just had to explore the area and would find some bones that weren’t there the year before. Would this not apply to the remains of Hannibal’s army?

3. mountain climate is great for preserving things.

You can look at Everest as an example and the bodies that are still there, or even the remarkable condition that Mallory’s body and equipment was in when he was found.

Or if you want Alp specific, Ötzi the ice man was found preserved in the alps by some tourists as the shifting snow suddenly revealed him. Ötzi was from approx 3300BC which is even older than Hannibal’s feat.

So that is my case for why I think it would be possible to find the remains of some of Hannibal’s alp army.

My question again in case it got jumbled is has there been a serious expedition to find Hannibal’s army, was it successful, and if there hasn’t been an expedition is there a good reason why not?

Has there been any Carthaginian remains found in the alps?

Though it may be unlikely, I hope someone contemporaneous found it worthy to note the pretend play of children! Particularly when they used settings substantially distinct from their proximate experience.

I'm curious more generally about any pre-16th century society. For example, did children in the Gupta Empire pretend they were part of the Mahabharata?

[Resubmitted since previous post was removed by accident]

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I've been reading about Roman history and listening to some podcast. I can't seem to comprehend how Rome wasn't able to to flat out defeat and control the Germanic Tribes. They seem to be described as tribes always on the move and hiding in the forest to escape the Romans. If so, that doesn't sound like a civilization that can prosper enough to keep sending solider after soldier into the Roman Empire nor does it sound like the type of civilization that would often beat a well structured Roman army. Furthermore, there seemed to be various strong Germanic tribes. I read about Vandals, Goths, Franks, Alamani, Huns (maybe not Germanic but came from general area), etc.

Please help me understand what Germanic Tribes were like in economy, society, military, etc and how they were able to overtake the Roman Empire and how Rome wasn't able to flat out defeat them for good.

Book is "Rubicon" by Tom Holland.

(Sorry I missed last week--I have so much going on right now that my brain is just in orbit...around Jupiter).

For this week's trivia day: Tell us about a dirty, muddy, gross, and/or (not necessarily!) undesirable occupation from your era of history!

That percentage is so high it can't possibly be true can it? That would mean even the guy running against him didn't vote for himself...

Hey there, I'm new to Reddit so forgive me if I make mistakes to using it and everything but I need some help.

I'm doing A-Level history which means I have to write a 4,000 word essay on a topic of my choosing to which you are then allocated a question. My essay is titled "Assess the reasons for the dropping of the atomic bombs in 1945". I have to expand on three points;

1. Encourage Japanese Surrender
2. Force Russia into submission post war
3. Demonstrate the success of the Manhattan Project.

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The first two I'm okay with but I'm struggling to find websites and resources to reference for my third point. If any of you are aware of any places I could look for resources or are simply full of knowledge surround the topic it'd be greatly appreciated if you could let me know.

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Cheers

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Franks, Goths, Lombards, Burgundians, Saxons...

How many of them had adopted Roman customs before the invasion? Were they still pagans?

It seems the Lombards in Italy, and even more the Jutes/Angli/Saxons in Britain, were the least romanized and exercised an harsh right of conquest while the Franks wanted to legitimize their rule through marriages with the Gallo-Roman elites.

I've heard that after the rise of Christianity, the words Greek/Helen slowly became synonymous with "pagan".
And hence people of the region stopped using them in a positive sense, choosing instead to be identified just as "Roman", even in Anatolia....Until the rise of modern Hellenism in 1700-1800s.

How much truth does this notion hold?
Do we have some mainstream academic sources mentioning this phenomenon?

Who was the last “official” Samurai to be alive and was he look up too by newer generations or was he seen as an old man who’s the last of the old days and cast aside? Also why does Japan not “samurai” people I guess you could say like the UK still knights people? Is there no definitive reason as to why or towards the end were they seen as evil?

One could say, they offer a space to leave yourself for awhile where you are taken care of. Like taking a break from reality. But is such an escape really useful to psychological development? Would a society be better off without it?

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