I recently saw a production of the play Bent, which tells the story of the persecution of homosexual holocaust victims. A plot point in the play is that two of the characters, and many other people in the camp, are forced to move rocks back and forth for essentially no reason. The main character concludes that the reason the Nazis make them move rocks aimlessly is to slowly drive them insane.

My question is, did Nazis really make holocaust victims pointlessly move rocks? I have no doubt that Nazi's were cruel enough to make people do that, but it doesn't make any logical sense to me. Concentration camp victims were exploited for free labor all the time, but there was usually a productive reason for why the work needed to be done, like building new facilities. If they're not producing anything useful why have dozens of people randomly move rocks instead of just killing them so you don't have to pay to keep them alive? Seems like a waste of money.

Greetings, i understand that this is a question which is quite broad in scope. So answers that address a part of the question can hopefully be allowed. I am mainly trying to get an insight into the proportion and various ranks of officers into

1. A Roman legion ( pre and post Marion reforms republic and later empire )
2. A batallion during the Napoleonic wars - be it French or British. Of course I d welcome cavalry related answers but Guards and Line infantry is what I am looking at

And bonus question if I can get an answer to it : what about medieval warfare where it seems to me that generally the lords would lead their armies individually

Various textbooks and other sources have conflicting information. One book I read said that China "handed over Korea and Taiwan to Japan" in 1895, which brings up 2 points of confusion: If this is correct, why was Korea not officially annexed for another 15 years, and how was China able to do this if Korea was a sovereign state as is suggested by other sources?

So many times I find incredibly interesting topics that have not had a thorough, approved answer posted yet. So I'm wondering if there is, or if someone could create, a bot to message once a high quality answer has been posted?

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I’ve been reading a lot about history lately, and what I find is that the books that I pick up are good, but they leave something to be desired. The reason I say that is because I want to have an in-depth understanding of the periods that I’m interested in - and perhaps even become a historian myself - but I don’t seem to be getting the wealth of knowledge that I want. If the reader may excuse what looks to me as a silly question, I’d like to know where historians who write these books - especially big names like Niall Ferguson - get their information from. Do they read mountains of books on the topics they want to write about (along with letters, censuses, etc)? If so, where can I find these scholarly sources?

We found a flag in my father's belongings. We believe it is his brothers who was determined to be KIA in WWII. It had a metal tag and I am wondering if someone could tell me what the tag means. It reads across the top: GB 60 UNKS. X 39781
then the second row : X 39782 X 1029 Third row: NETTUNO 2 of 3

Pretty much what it says in the title: At which point were the first and second world war labelled as world wars? Which events caused this? And who started using this term, did it come from politicians, journalists, or someone else entirely?

I'm looking if anyone has a cross sectional diagram of the WW2 British Light Tank Mk VI. One that shows the crew in place would be particularly helpful.

I first came across the mystery cults in Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles based in Arthurian sub-Roman Britain. The concept of ancient cults has obvious appeal to modern readers, but what exactly were they? What did they believe? Was it a religion or something else? Why were they so secretive, as opposed to the very public polytheism practiced by the Greeks and Romans?

hi all, I'm currently rewatching the classic Zatoichi series and every mob boss and underling in there smokes like a chimney. This got me wondering. The series is set during the 1830s/40s and there is no outside trade since Commodore Perry hasn't shown up yet. So, where do they get tobacco? Was it introduced by the Portuguese or Dutch before 1614 and then cultivated locally? Did they buy it from China or Korea? Did it come from some form of trafficking, like cannabis nowadays?

In short, what's the story of tobacco in Japan?

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We now know that the moon does not produce its own light, but instead just reflects the sun's light. How early was this understood? How was it figured out? Do any societies have myths involving this relationship?

And to add, how was eating organized? Were there specific supper times, did soldiers go for their food or was there some group of people bringing the food to them?

by What I understand old guns like a musket are not good.

1. they have a terrible reload time

2. Are very easy to damage like with water or mud

3. Some old guns specially flintlock had terrible precision.

4.they were Somewhat expensive to make at the time.

While during those times bow and arrows had

1. Had a faster reload time

2. Cheaper and somewhat easier to make

3. You Could arch your shots

I am talking about the 16th century to 18th century, specially around the time of American civil war.

I was just browsing through the Kings of England on Wikipedia and I noticed that there are two King Edwards before Edward I became King of England in 1272.

I looked through the articles but I couldn’t find an answer. I thought it could be perhaps that the first two Edwards were styled as King of the English rather than King of England, or maybe it’s because the first Edwards were Anglo-Saxons whereas Edward I was a Plantagenet?

Those are my best cases, but I thought it was strange they haven’t been counted.

I ask because I've never once heard about this again while trying to research it online so either he made it up or maybe it's just a Chilean local legend he got confused. Is there any evidence about Incans voyaging on the Pacific deep enough to have met any Polynesians /Pacific Islander?