In school I was taught the usual story of the Viking age. That was that it began in 793 with the raid on lindisfarne and ended in 1066 with the Norman’s winning Hastings.

For me personally, these dates feel too specific for such a large group of disunited people who covered such a vast area. Surely raids occurred before 793 and didn’t completely stop after 1066? Why are such specific dates taught when teaching such a vast period of European history?

As the title says, are there any examples of matriarchal societies? I just find it strange that all of history seems to be societies that were male dominated, and occasionally societies where genders were equal. If there were some, what happened to them and why are they not well remembered?

I was reading the very funny "A Short History Of Drunkeness," and it talks about the importance of Christianity in spreading a preference for grape wine specifically to a lot of places that grapes aren't native. The book has a throwaway line about Iceland being particularly difficult to spread grapes to, and now I'm curious. Iceland has an awful climate for grapes. As far as I can tell from doing a bit of googling, no one grows grapes at all in modern Iceland. Did they import all the wine? What did they do? The only Church that existed at the time was the Catholic church, and the Catholics are very insistent that it must be grape juice, and it must be fermented to count. So... how did this work?

I've been enjoying reading a biography of Napoleon and I am extremely interested in his Army structure and Marshalls. I love the Epic History TV series covering the topic and I was wondering if there is a book that covers this in greater detail?

If he was happy to bypass Mary for Jane, it wouldn't have been a problem to bypass her for Elizabeth, and if the primary motivation for naming Jane as heir was that she was a protestant and that her (male) heirs would ultimately result in a protestant king, the assumption off protestant offspring could have been applied to Elizabeth at the time (before the Virgin Queen persona developed). Is it a case of someone behind the scenes pulling the strings? Northumberland hoping to get his son onto the throne?

Today I was in the local library and whilst I didn't find the exact thing I was looking for, the local church records, I did read some in the official parish historybook, and a detail I find fascinating is that a local priest as late as the 1580s is recorded as having complained of "heathen" worship still taking place in and around the Malung parish in eastern Dalecarlia. In the book it is explained that Christianity as a whole was slow to take root in Dalecarlia, Malung specifically being "heathen" when (King) Sverre Sigurdsson of Norway passed through the area in 1177, as detailed in his sanctioned "biography" the Sverris Saga, but also that Malung was an early church stronghold, with the parish being organised in the early 1200s, with the stone church (remarked as being unusual for the time and place) having been erected on a prior heathen shrine, presumed from the fact that it at the time lay in the middle of the woods outside of town. All in all, I find it surprising that there'd be "heathens" left in the area by end of the 1500s, but with Dalecarlian runes seeing continued use up until the 1800s, who knows what was going on in these woods so long ago?

Or maybe this is just an old book (1970s) remarking on a dubious report from a priest who had financial motives to complain about "heathens" to his higher ups.

The five six dynasties after the Ilkhanate:

• Timurids (founded from the Barlas Confederacy)
• Aq Qoyunlu (already a tribal confederation)
• Safavids (mix of many ethnicities, but also Turcomans and Aq Qoyunlu)
• Zands (Zand tribe)
• Afsharids (Afshar tribe)
• Qajars (Karagöz/Black-Eye clan of the Black-Hat tribe)

Edit: forgot the Zands

I believe the name of the song is called "roll the old chariot along" but I'm not sure if that's the official name or even where and when it originated. We'd always sing it when we'd get like 10 guys together to get drunk and row tow something up the river, it's about navigating rough and labor intensive parts of the river.

I've often seen the argument put forward that quality of life as a laborer is a departure from life as a hunter gatherer for the worse. That working and life conditions are so much worse, and particularly in that period. What other factors would pressure workers to move into cities if it was a worse life? Or did they not feel that it was worse?

I usually hear this claim saying that 'when Christianity expanded, they also demonized the local/pagan gods to impose its superiority'. I used to believe this claim also, but then I noticed some 'inconsistency' in it. I find out that most of the 'demonized gods' are from the Near East, like Baal and Astaroth, but we seldom (almost never) see Greek or Norse gods being 'demonized', like Athena or Odin. Why is it the case, if the claim I mentioned is true? Or the claim itself is just totally unfounded? Hope some informed minds can shed light on my doubt.

If there's one thing that's burned into my brain when seeing videos of armed conflicts in the developing world, whether latin america or central asia or subsaharan africa... it's that they're all using Toyota pickup trucks, often with a machine gun in the truck bed. I'm sure I am not alone in this observation, as a quick google search can demonstrate.

My question is, why Toyota specifically? Did they run an ad campaign for guerrilla warfare? Why don't we see Nissans or Fords or other makes in these same environments? Was the Toyota Hilux the only game in town? Or did the Toyota reputation for reliability help shoot it to the top of the technical game?

Thanks!!

So far people have recommended I read Bartolome De Las Casas' book.

The year depicted is 895. The action is mainly in Scandinavia, Russia and Iceland.

In the movie, 100% of the people live a violent life (men, women, children, adults, kings, slaves, soldiers, farmers... everyone!). Everyone is on the brink of being beheaded, raped, tortured, enslaved. Everyone is on the brink of raping, torture, enslave or behead someone else.

Is it representative of what "normal" life was ?

I know there were some missionary efforts, but it seems that in the middle east European powers were not very successful at converting the population to Christianity, especially when compared to their success in sub Saharan Africa.

Did they just not see converting Muslims as important? Are there other limiting factors?

The cannon had changed naval combat very significantly, it meant two ships could attack each other over relatively larger distances. But before the popular use of cannons how were naval battles fought?

I’m writing a screenplay set in the 60s, and the main character is being asked to bodyguard a senator at a social event. Would it be realistic for this politician to attend a cocktail party hosted at a bar in a hotel with his coworkers? Would this kind of event be more likely to occur in the home of a coworker?

Hello, I don't know if this is the right place to look but I am having some trouble. I will be upfront and admit, this is for a research paper. My professor requires us to have a certain amount of journal articles, books, and primary sources each. I'm mostly set on primary sources and journal articles, but I'm having a hard time on books. I've noticed that Peter Brown seems to be a well respected historian regarding religion in late antiquity but I was wondering if there were any other authors or books that I should take a look at.

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For more specifics, I want to encapsulate what led to the rise of the holy man and how they grew to be as powerful as the emperor which is where I'm having trouble. There's plenty of sources detailing how bishops helped the communities they were involved in and how they grew from there (Becoming judges, making councils, etc...), but besides the what seems to be the famous example of Theodosius penancing after being pressured to do so by Ambrose, I haven't seen many direct confrontations between holy men and emperors where the holy man won out. I believe there may be a 2nd example although I would have to look into it more where an emperor (I vaguely remember it being emperor Leo?) was persuaded by the archbishop to not strengthen the Roman army but instead to strengthen their prayers to God to defeat the invading barbarians. But other than that, I'm out of ideas. And again, I'm looking for specifically books that talk about this topic.

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Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I was in a class recently and we were discussing the nature of minorities in Nazi Germany outside of just the Jews and the gay population of Germany came up but I was interested in what if any record and interpretation exists of the presence of trans people throughout history. I have heard of a handful of famous cases of “cross dressers” from French nobility but that’s about it.

If anyone has some good sources I’d greatly appreciate links or references!

Title says it all, but I'll expand further.

I'm looking for a book on Lincoln and assuming that most comprehensive biographies cover his time during the Civil War. Can anyone provide a list of 1-5, in no particular order?

Additionally, it should be noted that I live in Ireland, so it would be handy to have books recommended that I can order from Europe (UK shipping is a nightmare at the moment).

Thanks!

The Vikings were some of the first people to traverse the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to the Americas, and this has always made me very curious as to how well their relationship was with the natives? Almost every other European visitor brought epithet illness or bloodshed, and being that the Vikings were particularly known for their warriors, I was wondering if they basically did the same thing that other explorers did.

When looking for an answer online, I can only seem to find information related to very specific events and voyages, but I’m more looking for an overall answer.