How has the yield of typical grain harvests changed through time?

I'm currently living adjacent to some large wheat fields that are being harvested which lead me to askreddit how many loaves of bread you get from a hectare of wheat (~7800 apparently). That then got me wondering about how much more efficient we are today compared to a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago or three thousand years ago or ten thousand years ago.

Were there conflicts with Australian aboriginals that prevented them from colonising at least the northern part of Australia, or did the trade winds simply not allow them to travel further south than Papua New Guinea?

In Syme's The Roman Revolution, he suggests that it was likely Octavianus who was quietly behind the first edition of Cicero's collected correspondence. Later, he mentions that letters between Cicero and Octavianus were conveniently elided from the edition. Is that the main evidence for believing Octavianus was behind the edition of Cicero's correspondence? What does contemporary scholarship tell us about how Cicero's letters come down to us?

All I know about the Second Punic War is from 219+ (Saguntum) - 216 (Cannae) and 203 (Zama), but what happened between 216-203? I remember that his brother also crossed the alps but that's all

I was reading Aton Chekhov's the Witch and in the short story a postman gets lost in a snowstorm and stumbles into the home of the protagonist. It mentions him having a "postmen's sword." Were postal employees provided with swords in the Russian Empire? Was it largely ceremonial or was it used to defend the mail?

Thanks

Additionally, how did they ‘become’ white?

I live in a small country in Europe. The word "nigger" is not used here and in fact I only know it on the internet and it seems one of the words with the largest racist conformations in the USA (and that recently generated many controversies), to the point that it is even censored and used n-word in its place.

I'm interested in knowing what it means, understanding its history, those things.

I have seen this claimed in several Youtube videos and sensantionalist media, yet I have not come across British troops landing on Norwegian soil, only Scottish mercenaries in Swedish employment and maritime border violations during WW2.

With the aim of moving into a PhD program later (yes, I did just read why I shouldn't get one!), what should my hierarchy of priorities be? Grades, networking, publishing, volunteering, teaching (I'm a TA), etc.

Thank you!

So we know that many slave owners used Christianity to try to make their slaves submissive. We also know that there were Jewish slaveowners in the America South. Did Jewish slaveowners “raise” their slaves in the Jewish tradition.

Pyrrhus consecutively lost campaigns against the Romans in Italy, Carthaginian-backed forces in Sicily, and Spartans back in Greece. This is despite the fact he started every one of these wars so had the choice of engagement, and seems to consecutively have chosen... poorly.

Sure, he's a great tactician, often winning individual battles against larger odds. But at a distance, Pyrrhus seems like one of those generals that keeps winning battles yet losing wars; a reckless, imprudent adventurist, whose recklessness even led to his infamous death from a pot falling on his head. Pyrrhus also had a poor grasp on logistics (as he himself admitted after the Battle of Asculum) and politics (becoming so unpopular he was forced out of the same cities that invited him for protection from the Romans in the first place).

Unlike the likes of Alexander or Scipio, Pyrrhus does not seem like a strategic leader that can finish what he started and complete the conquest. Why is he considered such a great general?

For those who don't know, Louis would be king of France after the July 1830 revolution

This section of US history seems to have been skipped over in the list of selected books available in the sidebar. I am curious about a lot of the chief events -

the War of 1812, the Monroe Doctrine, The Missouri Compromise, Andrew Jackson, the Native Americans and the Trail of Tears, Manifest Destiny and expansionism, the first wave of industries - also all the tensions that led up to the Civil War.

I don't live in the US, or even in the West for that matter. I have read some very bulky US history textbooks, (US history is not covered in our college history syllabus so I went hunting by myself) they touched on all these topics, but it felt very superficial.

So I would be really grateful if anyone could recommend some books.

I found the Slavery reading list to be very helpful.

Cincinnatus famously was made dictator twice and voluntarily gave up power each time. This was a famous Roman story, one that Julius Caesar would have been well aware of. Given his own ambitions, do we know what Caesar thought of Cincinnatus and his decision?

I've seen dueling referred to as an exclusively masculine pursuit, but how historically accurate is that? I suppose many women might not have had ready access to weaponry and training with weapons which is sort of a prerequisite for dueling, but was there any social more against female dueling, or is it just under-reported?

A popular image is that of people walking around with swords attached to their belts wherever they went but my impression was that swords were prohibitively expensive for most and thus seen as a status symbol.