From what I understand, you married for other reasons than looks at the time. Nations formed alliances by having kings and queens marry. And I guess men and women in the lower classes also married out of necessity. But are there historical records of "hot people"? Where the looks of a man or a woman are explicitly referring to the looks of them? How did this reputation travel?

The title pretty much says it, but I read somewhere that Catherine the Great had a tattoo/tattoos, but none of the sites I find this information seem super reliable, plus they all copy and pasted the same sentence about monarchs and tattoos (at least of the ones that I found). Do any more reliable sources also say this? Are there any descriptions of the tattoo exist, or images? Do these resources exist for other monarchs? Was there a similar stigma to tattoos during these periods, and was it in dual for monarchs to get tattoos?

I'm writing a novel about the ancient Celts, and even though i'll classify it as a fantasy story i'm trying to be historically accurate in whenever i can. I'm accepting that there is very little accurate documentation about them, soo i accept that in many cases i have to make things up to fill the gaps.

I'm aware that the ancient norse used ancestry as their surnames, but is there any historical clue of how the ancient celts made and used their surnames if they even had the concept?

If there isn't any accurate information about it, i'll probably try to use geographical origins as roots for their surnames. For example: [First Name] + [Adjective related to where they were born] + [the name of the village, city, port, temple, fortress the person came from]

I’d heard this long ago and couldn’t find anything via Google, etc. Chamberlain has a reputation only slightly better than Quisling, and I know he’s been defamed for “giving away” Czechoslovakia and being a poor patsy to Hitler’s aggression but I know also he was also leader in building up the Royal Air Force during the borrowed time of letting Hitler strike East (while Churchill before him cut to the bone military expenditures in order to cut taxes) . Did Hitler actually give credit to Chamberlain for tricking Hitler into letting Britain have more time to rearm in face of an already dominant Germany? Or is it some figment of the imagination?

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Ever since I was young I loved history. Whether it's reading about the Cold War or looking at Ancient Greek artifacts, I have always been captivated. As college starts to approach, I must begin looking towards what I will do in the future. So, I have a few questions for anyone that has a job in the field of history/social sciences with some spare time. What is your occupation? Why did you choose it? What do you love about it? How can I learn more about history-related careers?

Besides exploration and warfare, I'm thinking things like civil society, architecture, etc.

If I wanted to begin studying the history of World War II, including Hitler’s role in the war and the inner-workings of the Nazi party, where is a good place to begin? I know there are tons of places to look, but does anybody know of a good place to start?

Hello! I've been trying to do some research on Slavic history and have always found Novgorod to be an interesting case as it was one of the major powers in eastern Europe centuries before that region was considered unified into a single nation state. If not by a "typical" feudal society, how was Medieval Novgorod ruled and organised around the 13th century? Is there a simple general layout to it that can be listed, or is there any sources giving a good overlay of it? Any help would be appreciated.

I hope it's okay to ask questions about contemporary interest in history. Why don't a lot of people know about the Assyrian Empire or have an interest in it? It was such a major early player. Did it not have quite enough direct influence on the development of Greek peoples for us to see it as an important piece of the timeline? Is everything pre-classical only of interest when it touches on our religions?

I ask because I was just reading an article about copper tools that made note that the Chalcolithic/Æneolithic Age she used to be considered a separate epoch in its own right spanning the period between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, but it's now considered to be the final part of the Neolithic Age, with the end of the Neolithic coinciding with the beginning of the Bronze Age. This doesn't make sense to me, as I'd imagine that the discovery of extractive metallurgy and transition to tools made out of metal as opposed to those made of stone would represent a larger societal change than the discovery that alloying copper with tin creates stronger metal tools than those that had been in use for over 1000 years. I suppose that the societal impact of the copper to bronze transition could've been a result of the fact that in order to get the tin to make Bronze had to come as a result of international trade, as there is no tin in the ground in the Fertile Crescent, but did that tin move from Western and Central Europe to Greece, the Levant, Mesopotamia and Egypt on new trade routes that were established to move tin, or existing trade routes that simply became vehicles for it?

Liu Shan son Liu Chen killed himself in Liu Bei temple. So this means that Liu Shan and the various ministers of Shu Han did give Liu Bei a temple name. Yet it is not recorded in either the SanGuoZhi or Zi Zhi Tong Jian what this temple name is. Did Chen Shou possibly not record it as it would be a bad look for a former Shu Han minister to record Liu Bei temple name?

In accordance with this weeks meta I thought I'd ask this question. I was going to ask a variation of this in any case at some point, so here you go.

I wonder if East Germany supplied/supported the RAF

From Thucydides, we are given quite intricate accounts of the loyalty shown to the Athenians by the Plataeans and the loyalty shown to the Spartans by the Melians. Both cities unfortunately suffer great destruction as a direct result of their support for their chief ally. Other than these poleis, which allies were fiercely loyal to either of the two hegemons during the Peloponnesian War?

Did they first get the support of a vast majority of the voters then start purging rivals? Or did the populace not realize it was happening until it was too late?

I'm getting the impression that specific human lives were less valuable than what they mostly would be in modern America (maybe related to having big families because you'd somewhat expect one or two of your children to die during childhood), but still it's shocking so many politicians were executed in those times and people just accepted that as normal life? Or just looking the other way so they could continue getting the benefits from the Nazi and communist party membership in the early days of the rising to power?

Obviously there was lots of intimidation, but that can't just happen over night right

I am a hobbyist game developer and am about to start working on a project in this setting. Specifically I would like to know more about village and town life but obviously anything and everything you can show me will be of tremendous help.

edit: to be clear when I say medieval Scandinavia I mean 8th/9th century, pre/early Viking period