In modern media, vikings are almost always shown with full grown beards, not even mustaches or goatees, but what about people who didn't want to or simply couldn't grow a beard? Were they looked down upon?

I know that Germanic cultures cared greatly for their hair, and that thus probably also holds true for the vikings, but are there sources that indicate that a beard was important for social rank etc. ?

The European slavers were buying slaves off of someone, and I would find it hard to believe that whoever was selling the slaves in Africa would ever accept low prices for their "goods".

Every account I’ve read between Hamilcar, Hannibal, and Hasdrubal utilizing elephants in battle has either resulted in the elephants 1) being irrelevant or 2) backfiring as they got scared and ran backwards into Carthaginian forces.

A common statement about the United States Civil War is that the war was not necessarily about slavery, but centered around state’s rights. What might a historian say in response to this idea to most accurately and historically explain what the war was about?

I recently finished reading through Musui's Story by Katsu Kokichi and after returning home from his second stint at running away his father punished him by throwing him in a cage "the size of three tatami mats." He then says he figured out how to remove a few of the bars after less than a month.

We he confined to the cage for the entire time or was he only locked in at certain times? What was the nature of this sort of punishment and what were the details of a punishment like this. Additionally how common a practice was this during this period? Were these actual cages in the middle of the living areas or were they simply another word for prison?

Thanks for any information regarding you might have.

In “Wife No. 19”, Ann Eliza Young describes a number of possible murders and a few suicides under the Blood Atonement doctrine of the Mormon Reformation. How much of this is verified (or verifiable) in external sources? What’s the informed historical take on the amount of actual violence compared with fear, rhetoric, or panic?

She mentioned that they sent out their best ships, the aircraft carriers out on patrol, rather than the normal patrol ships. Why else would they have sent out the aircraft carriers?

King Edward I of England expelled the Jews back in 1290, and the word on the street says that Jews were permitted back to the UK (or whatever it was back then) by Cromwell in 1655.

But how were they allowed to stay after the Restoration? According to Wikipedia (which, while a bad source, quotes a book) "Constitutionally, it was as if the last nineteen years had never happened."

So if all laws passed during the Commonwealth were null and void, what legal principles allowed Jews to stay in England?

This may be a dumb, uneducated question, but I'm honestly not sure when it started. Obviously cavemen didn't do this and maybe used the height of the sun in the sky at best. But when did people start formally (i.e. without thinking it's ok to arrive at a later time) arriving at any kinds of meetings at specific times (ex. 2:00 pm) like we do today? Like I think Romans had sundials, but did senators use that to arrive to debates at precise times of day? Or did they just kind of have sundials without using them in that way and relied more on general height of the sun in the sky? And if not the Romans, when do we arrive at a culture in time that uses hours to meet up at preordained times like ours?

I am curious if the Soviets ever edited formative texts of Communism to adapt to differing ideological leanings under particular leaders.

Thank you.

A Picasso painting is going up for auction and is expected to fetch a possible record-setting price, and as such there are various articles floating around that talk about the painting. One such article (from Bloomberg) describes the painting with the blurb

Pablo Picasso’s “Young Girl with a Flower Basket," a tender and haunting depiction of a nude with a basket of red blossoms. Painted in 1905 during the artist’s Rose Period, it depicts a waif who was selling flowers around Montmartre at the time.

This couldn't possibly be a literal description of life on the streets of Paris, could it? By 1905 wouldn't any and all public nudity have been eliminated from the streets of the city?

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Is there any evidence for how long ago the phrase originated, "It's five o'clock somewhere"?

I'm wondering if the saying's popularity is due to it being a decade-old traditional phrase, or due to the Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett song, "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere".

I know the Japanese weren't opposed to recruiting difference ethnicities, like native Taiwanese as they'd perform better in certain environments than ethnic Japanese.

Hey guys, I realize that smoking a cigarette is not about conforming to a set of guidelines. But, I am curious about the unspoken “rules,” general practices, and traditions of cigarette smoking; the common etiquette, habits between the sexes i.e., cigarette placement, hand placement as one bring the cigarette up/down to their mouth/torso(palm up/palm down, where to rest ones hand), lucky cigarette, packing, etc. Specifically, from the Contemporary Period, the American “Tobacco golden age” (1920 – 1939) but also trends that followed post World War II through the 50’s 60’s etc. In the United States, the act of smoking was once the epitome of masculinity and fashion. Following the turn of the century, there came a sigma towards smoking and now much knowledge seems hard to find if not entirely lost? It is often not talked about is most social circles. Any thoughts or experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Nowadays, lots of Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria are inhospitable on account of the progressive desertification of North Africa, but in the ancient world, these were quite rich areas; wikipedia [which is always totally reliable, I know] says there are archaeological finds that confirm large scale habitation in now hostile terrain. What was the terrain like in say Libya during the Roman empire? It doesn't seem like it would have any rivers draining the area; was it just a coastal plain? Did they just rely on rainwater for growing crops?

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In most video games and tabletop games, spearmen are very strong head on, but very weak on their flanks. Isn't it just a matter of each soldier spinning 90 to 180 degrees in place? Wouldn't that be extremely easy to train your soldiers to do? I guess this applies to all unit types: why didn't they just spin around to face a flanking enemy unit? As if the men on the flank would just obediently stand there facing away from an incoming cavalry charge??? "Oh, I guess that's our flank so we can't do anything about it." Just spin around! Right?

Also, if someone could explain the exact benefit to flanking itself in the context of medieval battles. To me, it only makes sense in that it creates a 2-on-1 dynamic, but say one army has two units, and the other has just one, but both have the same amount of men: if video game logic holds true, the army divided into two units has an advantage, but in real life, aren't the two armies equal in power?

I've wondered this for a long time but was unsuccessful in finding my answers online. If there were too many casualties in a battle would soldiers be ordered to take cover before falling back? Was there a point in the war where taking cover seemed smarter than doing line battles that caused massive deaths?

At around what decade did line battling cease to exist in military combat?

In his annotations to Jane Austen's work Dr David Shapard notes that the image of the English as being reserved and models of emotional composure was an acquired trait only appearing first in the 18th century. Prior to that time they were not described by themselves or others in that way. Why did the English want to affect this image?

(This question applies to any time period really, I just care about Imperial Rome a lot)

Like didn't men get paid in loot/plunder from their military campaigns? Let's say I'm a woman living in the city of Rome, under the reign of Trajan, and my husband has been on a military campaign in the middle east for the past 5 years. How am I supposed to support myself?

Edit: title should've said Imperial lol