Is there any speculation on what caused the rise of so many notable thinkers at around this time period? Were there any historical trends which led to this?

With jow close the island is to the US (geographically) I wonder how come it stayed communist, but countries even closer to the USSR went capitalist?

Romania stoped bieng communist, but Cuba did not. How did Communism survive in Cuba unlike the eastern block?

I saw a claim that despite making up about 60% of the total Soviet population, Russians made up over 90% of the Soviet troopa that fought in the war.

I can't seem to find any stats or data regarding the demographics of the Red Army (or the Soviet Armed Forces as a whole), aside from random numbers thrown out on Quora or elsewhere on the internet without any source. I'd also love some reading recommendations on ethnicity in the Red Army if they're available.

When Thomas Jefferson penned the ever famous:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

I understand full well that Thomas Jefferson was a man of his time, and things were much different back in 1776 compared to today. But I'm genuinely curious as to how he reconciled saying (or writing) that "all men are created equal" while also owning slaves? Especially since there were abolition movements at the time and whatnot.

If someone more knowledgeable on this subject than I could provide some clarity, would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Are there any books that are somewhat easy to read and are educational about the Vikings/Saxons/any of that stuff? I watched The Last Kingdom awhile ago and I find the history of it to be intriguing but I’m not sure that the actual representation part is accurate, and I’d love to learn more about it.

Scipio was born a patrician but he was adopted into a plebian family. I know Clodius did this same trick but it seems he gave up his patrician status. How did Scipio maintain his patrician status and seemingly live as both?

Wikipedia has "He was chasing after a girl, who was retreating to her father's house, when he hit his head on the lintel of a low door and fell, fracturing his skull and killing him instantly." There's obviously more to the story, but the two references are in French (which I don't speak or read, unfortunately).

After The Nazi's surrendered in WW II, one of my dad's uncles, stationed in Germany while serving in the US Army, sent my dad and his brother a wooden box. The box was filled with Nazi flags, armbands, goggles, helmets, whistles, canteens, etc. There was a form included that stated the items conformed to "the provisions of Sec III, Cir 353, WD, 31, Aug 1944, and the existing regulations of the Theater Commander.", and it was signed by an officer in charge of inspecting such boxes. Looking up those provisions, it looks like the items were legal to send since they did not violate the articles of the Geneva Convention.

For years these were squirreled away in my dad's attic, now they are in my sister's attic. My sister and I refer to it as "the box of EVIL". We don't really want to keep it, and have no interest in trying to make a buck off of it. Outside of throwing it in the trash, is there anything can we do that may give meaning to something that represents so much horror and destruction?

I heard that naval convention of the time was to estimate the minimum engine size a ship required and then use an engine 20% bigger/more powerful but there was a miscommunication when building the US Iowa-Class ships that resulted in the engine size being increased twice (44% larger) and that this was the reason the ships were so fast. I've done some research but haven't found anything that corroborates the claim, so I'm hoping someone here can definitively refute or prove the claim.

Thank you all in advance.

The way I see it, being the only country in the world with nuclear weapons would make the US a supreme and uncontestable power. Seeing how the threat of conventional war reaching its shores was small and its economic situation was advantageous immediately following WWII, why didn't the US leverage its position as a nuclear power to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons?

So I was thinking today: Between 100 BC and 400 AD Rome was a home to well over a million people, at times even nearing 1.5 million according to some sources. Even by modern standards it was not a small city. But having so many people required a lot of dense urban housing and a robust infrastructure. Hundreds of thousands of different structures, packed densely in the center of the metropolis.

Then in 500 AD the population fell to just around 100 thousand people, and then even more to just some 50-30 thousand people over the entire medieval period. At times it was supposedly completely abandoned.

So, was something like 90-95% of the city just completely empty for few hundred years? Was there a gigantic post-apocalyptic urban wasteland, full of empty houses, in the heart of Italy? Or were they all destroyed when the city started shrinking?

I know that the tech tree from the original Civilization video game came from the board game Civilization designed by Francis Tresham. Does the idea of tech trees show up anywhere prior to the board game? Was the idea of technologies strictly and necessarily following each other present elsewhere prior to this, or did the idea rise out of tech trees?

In middle school history we were taught that the Romans renamed the Greek gods and basically copied them. That always confused me.

How does something like this happen? Did they have gods named "Saturn" or "Jupiter" and just add stories from the Greek? Did they Just completely redo their own religion? Did someone decide or was it a side effect of a slow cultural merge?

I finished rewatching Chernobyl (and before the series aired I’d also read Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich.

There is constant threat of people needing to not speak critically with the risk of being executed by the KGB.

Was this behavior well known in the West? Reported in media etc, and if it was were people shocked by this as an abuse of human rights, or was it just considered part of what life was like in the Soviet Union?

They were both the bloodiest battles America had seen at their respective times and both were union victories. However, when the public heard of the victory at Shiloh they were shocked and appalled at the casualties. General Grant was even removed from command for a while as a result of the battle. While, the public celebrated the victory at Gettysburg despite there being nearly twice as many casualties at Gettysburg. This despite the fact the battles where fought almost within a year of each other.

Opening disclaimer that the era covers some three thousand years, so Your Dynasty May Vary.

However, it seems like when you look at modern popular understandings of Pharaonic Divinity, it leans very into "An arrogant despot and literal slavedriver who claims to be a god on earth" territory, and I suspect this is heavily influenced by Exodus and its cinematic interpretations.

But while Egypt had slaves, we know that, for example, the pyramids were built by paid labor. Are we also misunderstanding how Egyptians and pharaohs themselves would have viewed their claims to divinity? Is it possibly more accurate to see it in terms of "Chief High Priest" or as manifesting some bigger divine will or order? When Akhenaten tried a form of monotheism, the singular deity he postulated certainly wasn't him.

Edit: forgot text!

I've read Matt Waters' Ancient Persia book - this is longer, obviously, does it add much? The other book I was considering was From Cyrus to Alexander by Pierre Briant but that's expensive (although an ebook version can be had much cheaper via....the google play store?!) and 1200 pages so mayyyybe a little more than I'm looking for.

I've got the Kindle sample and I also noticed he takes a very strong stance opposing the prevailing ideas about Greek influence on "Western civilization" and the importance of the Greek defeat of the Persians. I think that's the modern view in general, but I was surprised just how strongly, even in the sample, he states it (e.g. referring to Sparta as the most oppressive slave state in the ancient world with a terrorist-like hold over ancient Greece). I guess....any thoughts on that?