I've heard that the traditional Chinese worldview was of a flat earth with China at its centre. How long did it take them to discover and establish contact with the West and adopt their knowledge of the world?

Hello there,

I am a philosopher beginning to delve into anthropological texts. I notice that many of these use taxonomic classifications to refer to various subspecies of primitive human beings, but I am having a hard time keeping all of this language (and the accompanying timeline) straight. Can anyone recommend a small text outlining the history of the Homo genus that just assist me with the terminology? I understand that this is very controversial material, but just a beginner's primer would be very helpful.

Thank you.

In Chasing the Scream, Johann Hari claims that every year for two millennia, Greeks-- including Plato and Aristotle-- took part in a ten day "drug party on a vast scale" at the Temple of Eleusis. He states that analysis of the cups revealed an LSD-like compound, but adds in a footnote that there is no consensus about whether hallucinogenics were used at Eleusis. What is the current academic understanding of the Eleusinian Mysteries with regard to psychedelic drugs?

In his book, Turse describes mass war crimes on a daily scale committed by the United States, claiming that they intentionally killed civilians in order to have larger "success ratio". He also describes Operation Speedy Express, where he claims 10 000 civilians were killed. Now, were the US troops that bad? Did they really commit war crimes on such a massive scale? And if so, was anybody ever held accountable?

When people only bathed a few times a year, how did women handle their periods? Did they wash more frequently each month?

Empires are ruled by an emporor, and a king for kingdoms but why do dynasties seem limited to east Asia and who ruled over a dynasty?

I was rewatching some Beatles videos and i was wondering how they were used in a time where they were a few tv channels?

Given the timescale involved in international trade at the time there must have been some ship's at sea that thought they had a market for the slave's they were carrying.

Were slave's unilaterally freed or did the crew take them somewhere else?

I was wondering after watching and playing a lot of Hearts of Iron 4 wherein one can transition back to the German "Empire". Would there be sufficient support for a Kaiser from 1919-1945 such that a change of government could be effected?

Were there any royalist factions that were visible or underground in this period? Did they support or go against Hitler's efforts?

Besides being connected to Sulla's enemies through marriages, there doesn't seem to be many distinguishing deeds or incidents that made Caesar look like a future reformer and a supremely successful populare. What did Sulla see in him that he claimed he saw many a Marius in him?

I recently got into a debate with someone who stated that infantry fighting in loose formation will achieve greater accuracy than fighting in a traditional line formation（if they have the same training and are both infantry). He said that the deciding factor is the amount of smoke generated from the musket affects soldier less because they are standing further away from each other. Hence increase the accuracy of the men hitting the target. Is that so? If the accuracy do increase, by how much?

Despite the country as a whole often refered to as "empire" they are always mentioned as kings/queens. I know that some of them used title of Emperor of India but why not Emperor of Britain?

How did the film portray Hitler and other key figures like Goebbels, Himmler, Speer, and Fegelein? According to the film to what extent did Hitler believe in the Nazi propaganda (Genetics, eugenics, and ethnic cleansing)? Was he just using the propaganda as a means to control the German people? Many critics say this film humanizes Hitler too much, creating a sense of sympathy for him. Do you agree?

So in the present many people refer to the 1980’s as just “the 80’s” and the 1990’s as “the 90’s”. Has this always been a trend to refer to the past few decades in this way or is it a relatively new thing?