Hello, I’ve always been fascinated with the Spanish-Aztec war and the absolute absurd levels of culture clashing at work there. I’ve heard the stories that the Aztecs were terrified of horses and Platemail and halberds and what not, and how Cortez was appalled by the human sacrifice and blood rituals, but every time I search for the exact accounts, I find nothing. Just a bunch of news sights or other crap talking about injustice or the supposed accounts, never the writings themselves.

Can anyone tell me what accounts from either side of the war, Aztec or conquistador, we have, which ones are the most descriptive and the best overall? This is probably the most fascinating moment in (relatively) recent history, and I would love to dig more into it.

For clarification, I mean "the finger thing means the taxes" hand gesture.

I've been doing more research on fascist Japan recently, and the atrocities committed by the Hirohito regime are appalling in every sense of the word, yet in history class and such we never discuss things like the rape of Nanking. Why is this? In my experience, Germany is the villain of WWII, with Japan being a sidenote. How is it that we can ignore the actions of Japan during the war? What's more, I see a lot of people sympathetic towards WWII Japan because of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. What caused the push of sympathy towards Japan, and when did it happen?

EDIT: I live in the American south and am in college, in case such information helps. I've been told by others around the country they learned little about Japan in World War II as well, so I doubt this is a regional problem

France considered Algeria an integral part of France. So why weren't Algerians considered integral French citizens?

The nazis were socialists who despised both capitalism and communism. However their model was the “third way” and a hybrid of both models. Why did they and the French and British fear communism so much?

• I’m thinking that when they and the French say they feared “communism” that they were really fearful of the Soviets.
• Socialism is described as “communism lite” but the nazis were very scared of the communists. Again, is “communism” a code word for “soviets” or “Russian”?
• also the nazis hated the capitalists which they typified with a top hat. Is their use of the term “capitalist” just a code word for “American”?

Even though the HRE still existed at this point, most of what I've heard/read regarding political entities in that sphere relates to Austria specifically. French animosity was directed at Austria, not the Empire, for instance.

Was Austria understood as the seat of power of the Emperor, so "Austrian" essentially meant "HRE"? Or was it essentially an autonomous entity within the Empire, so Francis I could be doing things for/with Austria itself without involving the rest of his domain? Or something else?

Is it to do with the fact they were one of the first monotheistic religions? That some groups live in tight-knit communities away from the rest of society?

I recently heard Peter Schiff talk about how serfs only had to give 25% to their Lords and how he would love to be as free as a serf.

Peter Schiff isn't exactly a Historian and so I would like to ask you if that statement is correct.

During the Middle Ages it seems like the Europeans have an absolutely endless supply of metal but you never hear about mining during the Middle Ages. I was wondering what the conditions of mining during that time were and just about anything else to do with mining in this time period. Also are there any remaining mines from the time.

Perhaps this is personal bias, but over the course of my public education, the focus was Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, then Rome. The Persian Empire (Parthians, Sassanids, etc) is either mentioned briefly as an adversary to Rome, or never at all. Even though, to my - admittedly limited - knowledge the various Persian Empires were as powerful as Rome, if not more so.

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Franco's Army was battle hardened, and resources from Portuguese colonies could have helped German War effort. Not to mention the presence of Spanish and Portuguese troops in North Africa and France would have freed up additional manpower for the Eastern Front. And Italy and Germany were vital in Franco's victory in Civil War.

I've been learning about the kurgen hypothesis, which states that peaceful, ancient, egalitarian civilizations in indo-europe only became patriarchal and violent after the arrival of the nomadic patriarchal kurgen warriors from the Russian steppes. (Historians, tell me if I'm summarizing poorly here; I'm just learning.) My question is: what are the leading hypotheses for WHY the kurgen people became patriarchal warriors? What started this whole war habit? And, while I'm at it, are there hypotheses about what started the first cultural patterns of patriarchal violence in other areas, like China?

How would he have traveled? Was it generally a safe journey?

As far as I understand, one of the biggest issues of trench warfare (for the attacking side) is that to move forwards into a more advanced position would require advancing an absurdly large amount of men, food and ammo along with the artillery, while at the same time staying safe from opposing artillery which might still be attempting to hold the position. While it seems like a really solid strategy for defence, there must have been attempts at finding more efficient methods of attacking and advancing.

In so many pictures of the Falklands War, British soldiers can be seen wearing berets instead of helmets, even into battle! Why is this?

Pinging /u/The_Alaskan since he asked me to in a DM

Did they have eye exercise routines or games or anything to help them see better? Did they resort to looking through pin-holes?

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Euroepan plate armour offered tremendous protection, even if it wasn't full plate. Meanwhile Japanese armour was mostly lamellar, without shields with parts that looked a bit like skirts (lammelar parts protecting thihgs). What exactly made this armour good at their warfare? Why haven't there been an arms race like in Europe, where armours were improved to be better at protection, while weapons were constantly improved to counter that?