It used to be the most important state of the early United States. At what point did it fade into normalcy? What states took its place in national importance?

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I understand if you were in a mercenary company or a citizen militia (like in Classic Greece or pre-Marian Rome, or the landsknecht) you'd own the swords, the shields, and the armours since you'd likely had bought them at a market before joining the war.

What if you were a soldier in a state owned professional army, like say, Roman Legion under Diocletian, or Chinese army under Tang Xuanzong?

Would you have brought your own weapons before signing up, or did the army issue standard weapons and armours?

Did you have to return them before leaving the service? Would you have had to pay for the repairs out of your own pocket?

I understand this treads heavily on the domain of AskScience, but I'm more interested in the political and social aspects of nuclear launch codes. Specifically, whether or not they were developed for - or revealed to - the public solely to assuage cold war fears of doomsday.

I'm fairly certain the public today (2018) know and understand the general principles behind launch codes, even if the specifics are closely guarded secrets. I suppose this is mainly because of movies and television, and the information we know about is only high-concept stuff open to artistic interpretation - ie that launch codes exist, that launch codes control how the weapon is armed, that the codes themselves are protected just as heavily as the weapons, and that only a certain chain of command has access.

But was this always the case? Did the earliest weapons (after WW2 ended) always have systems built in for launch code activation or were they initially just conventional bombs with altitude timers?

Who developed these systems first? Was it a mutual agreement between nuclear states or unilateral? How did the development of launch codes knit with the early development of computers and radio/satellite transmission?

Were there specific political reasons for launch codes to either be developed or made public. An incident, or an election perhaps, where the issue was raised in the public sphere for the first time?

Have non-nuclear weapons ever had a system of launch codes? Even before modern warfare, has the concept of 'authentication' ever been raised with regards to particularly powerful or damaging weaponry?

And lastly, what were some early points in their development where the public started to gain knowledge of these systems, as in early TV and such? Was there ever deliberate public messaging to inform us about the existence of launch codes, maybe leaks or intelligence breaches? Or perhaps a slow drip feed of retiring scientists no longer bound by secrecy?

Thanks.

According to their schedule, they traveled from Wilmington, DE to Pittsburgh in two days. Did they take a train? Did they travel the Lincoln Highway?

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In researching the feldspar gemstone labradorite I came across a legend of the Inuit that goes as follows:

"According to an Inuit legend, the Northern Lights were once imprisoned in the rocks along the coast of Labrador, and then a wandering Inuit warrior found them and freed most of the lights with a mighty blow of his spear. Some of the lights were still trapped within the stone however, and thus we have today the beautiful mineral known as labradorite."

Is this truly an Inuit legend? I have searched the internet looking for more information but I keep seeing that same text copy and pasted over and over, and it makes me question the credibility. If it's true I would love to see a source of this information.

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I learned about the stele of King Hammurabi in art history today. I also learned in world history that there are tons of cuneiform tablets that we still can't read. How could I learn this language and potentially read this stele and other cuneiform tablets.?

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My prof. said that if I were to learn this language there could be a serious employment opportunity simply because we still have so much to learn from this writing system.

I heard they were exiled over 200 times, how and why. It’s easy to say anti-semitism, but what caused anti-semitism? Why don’t people just let it go? What did Jews ever do to deserve this, is it all because they killed Jesus?

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Of course we hear about the Green Berets, Navy SEALs, SAS, Shayetet 13 and the Spetsnaz from their respective nations, but did the communist Vietnamese during the war have their own special forces? If so, what were they like? How many of them were there? How did selection work, and what was the recruitment process? What additional training / equipment did they receive?

To my understanding, there were soldiers that utilized guerilla tactics, but was there an "elite of the elite" sort of group within? Sorry if my question was worded weird, or if I said anything that's incorrect. Thanks!

I asked this two years ago first time but I still don't know anything about this.

I haven't seen too much information about relations of these guys and I have been thinking about this a lot because I find it somewhat interesting. Former Sturmbannführer and nazi Horst Schumann according to Wikipedia "went to Ghana, where he received the protection of the head of state, Kwame Nkrumah." Did Schumann really receive protection from marxist-leninist and African Nkrumah? Or was Nkrumah possibly unaware of who Schumann was? Also, interestingly in 1966 Schumann was extradited from Ghana to West Germany. This was the same year when Nkrumah's goverment was overthrown. Was Schumann extradited AFTER Nkrumah was overthrown?

So I recently played the game Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which introduced me to the idea of executioners being "unclean" due to their work and being shunned for it. This concept interested me so I researched it further and found that it seems to have been the same amongst many different societies. What I find unusual is that their work (i.e killing/torturing people) is considered unclean, but soldiers also killed people and don't seem to have been shunned for it. In fact, noblemen were trained from their youth to be soldiers and regarded in the highest possible esteem in medieval societies.

At first I thought that the difference was that executioners killed "helpless" people (although to be sentenced to death you had to commit a pretty heinous offence) but to my knowledge, in most medieval battles most of the deaths were when the losing side routed and were ran down. Although I can certainly see that the winning side would want to kill them to prevent them from regrouping, it certainly seems like they are helpless while they are routing. Is that what made societies view of them different? was it something else? or was there really not much of a difference and this apparent hypocrisy was just a neccessary thing people learned to accept?

I read one source saying there was but it had no proof and I cant find any other evidence

How long would I be away from my family? What are my daily activities at a residential school? Was there some form of rehabilitation or cultural education and how was it administered? What was expected of me once my schooling was complete? How was the induction of residential schools accepted by the general public when first introduced? Who decided residential schooling was the best decision for me and my classmates and how were we selected?

I heard that the vikings used to carry dried cods with them for food. How did they prepare these? I can't imagine them simply nibbling on them for the entirety of their journey (unless they had absolutely nothing else to eat). Did they cook them in any ways?