I know that the Romans were very organized in battle, but in the thick of fighting each other, how could they tell friend from foe? Did they alter their uniforms?

During WW2 rationing, once a person used their ration stamps to purchase something, say a pound of butter, what did the grocer do with the stamps? Did the government reimburse them the price of the goods?

Or did the people pay on top of using their rations?

In popular culture native americans are often presented as having no concept of private property, as having a much more gender-equal and less prejudiced society than Europeans, and as being generally more peaceful and environmentally sustainable. How much of this is based in truth, and are there examples of more warlike or imperialistic Native American civilizations?

Garum, the characteristically Roman fish sauce, was all the rage in Ancient Rome. What happened to it? At what point did people stop eating garum?

So a friend of mine has been researching her father, who died several years back, and managed to get his army discharge papers from 1979, and we have a couple of questions about the papers:

• It says he was honorably discharged in Texas and took no disability, but his re-enlistment code is RE-3, which from our research indicates that he would not be qualified for continued military service and would need a waiver to re-enlist or continue his service. We were curious about why, if he wasn't discharged for medical reasons and was honorably discharged, he would need a waiver to re-enlist. Was this common on discharge papers of this time, and if so, why?
• Her dad was born in Florida and was a US citizen, but he doesn't have a Selective Service number listed on his discharge papers (it says 'N/A' under the Selective Service Number and Selective Service Local Board Number boxes). We were also curious about why this might be, since we were both under the impression that all men had to register for the draft at the age of eighteen.

If y'all could be of any help, that would be fantastic!

Reading about him I'm left rather confused as to where his hatred of Britain came from. It doesnt appear that he had any previous conflicts with the UK pre ww2 and his ancestry doesnt suggest anything that would make him anti British (not Irish catholic). What made him into such an anglophobe that he refused to take British advice in avoiding U-Boats and such?

I've been searching for music in the united states, and as you know, most of music has afro origins, for example, jazz, rock, blues, were all made originally by black comunities, and at the start, were found to be 'innaproapiate' for white listeners until many white artists began forming rock bands (for example), this is all clear. but i havent been able to find any information about what would white populations hear if it wasnt black, or atleast black inspired music.

Who first depicted the world in the orientation we commonly see today? Was there a reason they orientated like that - maybe based off of early compasses - or was it just a coincidence that North points to one of our poles?

Same with the other directions. Who decided which direction would be West and East? Were they originally related to North or have a different origin?

Thank you ahead of time!

Obviously the joke is that young Republicans are furiously Googling for answers to support Trump. I am not one out there to support the assertion, but am curious about the situation.

Most cities grow organically, so they end up being a hodge podge of random areas put together and grown out over time -- this can result in all kinds of winding and diagonal roads leading every which way. Manhattan looks like it was planned to be a grid from the beginning. Was it planned? Did they one day just decide to convert everything to a grid, and they had to tear down buildings and roads that didn't fit with the grid system?

I'm interesting in piecing together what religious practices amongst the urban citizenry would have been like in the century or so just preceding the dominance of Christianity - so let's say approximately 200 to 350ish or even 350 to to 400ish. That might be two different questions though. In order to couch the question I specifically mean amongst the urban populations in Italy or Greece (although they might be different?) and not in the frontiers or Near East. I ask because the way it always seems presented makes it sound like this dramatic replacement of the traditional Greco-Roman pantheon, but doing my own readings it seems to me that many of the core components were already in place (Neoplatonic concepts of monism to monotheism, consolidation of gods into a smaller pantheon, and Orientalization of Roman religion). So anything you know or recommendation for books or papers would be helpful. Cheers.

Wouldn't they have written down how make it?

A few years ago I visited Greece (Athens and Khania, Crete) and realized that despite knowing the broad strokes of Classical Greek history, having read both the Iliad and Oddysey, Plato's Republic, some Aristotle, and a lot of Greek drama in school, and generally feeling like I have my ish together where Ancient Greece is concerned, I just don't know a lot about everyday life in Ancient Greece.

In contrast, I can tell you what Ancient Roman graffiti was like, what street snacks people in the Roman Empire enjoyed, where Romans went on vacation, how Roman cemeteries worked, what the specific places of worship of various Roman era religions were like, a little about hairstyles and fashions over the years, etc. Some of that is from traveling in Italy and I suppose can't be picked up easily in a book. But I'd love to get a little more basic understanding of this sort of thing regarding Classical Greece. I'd also like to know more of the history of the Classical Greek world outside of Athens and Sparta.

Are there any good book recommendations that might help here? I love popular history that I can easily find in my local library or get on audiobook from Audible, but I'm potentially interested in scholarly stuff too.