I just read The Fate of Rome by Kyle Harper, which describes the role of climate and disease in the collapse of the Roman Empire. Early in the book, he mentions the Crisis of the Third Century, in which the empire fractured into three polities, and mentions in passing that at roughly the same time, the Han Dynasty regime in China collapsed, but didn’t go into too much detail. I then checked on the dates for some polities to see what the deal was. According Wikipedia, Han China fell in 220 CE and the Three Kingdoms period lasted until 280, while the Crisis in Rome lasted from 235 to 284. I also checked on the Parthian empire, which fell in 228.

Harper argues that in the case of Rome, the Crisis was a at least partially due to climactic shifts and the spread of disease, which is an argument that seems to have some weight. Was there a similar effect in China and Parthia? And were there other major polities which went through crises at the same time?

If you have any recommended reading, please point me in such a direction.

I'm an Irish person and my entire life I was raised to believe that the Christianisation of Ireland was a peaceful affair, but I'm seeing a rise in people claiming it was barbaric and St. Patrick slaughtered druids. I can't seem to find anything to support this claim, in fact I can't seem to find anything much about Ireland transitioning from Pagan to Christian. How was the transition?

I'm wondering if it was mostly fought with lines battles, How effective the cavalry were, and how important artillery was in the war.

I learned a while ago that antisemitism existed even before it was used as a scapegoat tactics by the Nazis during the Holocaust and that the antisemitic philosophies where not added by Nietzsche but were added by his sister and her husband who were both antisemitic.

However, I am unable to find out exactly why anti-semetism appeared and became a prevelant philosophy for so long.

There are some conspiracy theories out there that claim that the Freemasons did this (which is so secretive that I have no clue what the Freemasons want or why) or the Illuminati and so on. But of course, these are conspiracy theories so I take them with a pinch of salt

I haven't been able to find a previous question that specifically addressed this. Excommunication is meant to encourage repentance and stopping the terrible actions, but popes endorsed invasions of excommunicated rulers, so clearly there was some red line where violence was deemed appropriate/necessary.

I have a range of questions. Answers to any of these would be great:

Did the Church either actively condone/encourage the murder of these people?

Did the Church have a view on how this affected the killer's salvation?

If so, did the motive matter (e.g. killing for the Church vs killing for personal honour/disagreements)?

Hi. I'm looking for a good book on English history and one on the monarchs. I'd like to know more about it, but I'm not sure which books to go for. Anyone with experience in this field could maybe point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it, thanks.

I would like to know more. I really fail to see how he was considered "innocent". I know he was useful for MacArthur and the U.S. to use to meet their ends.

Is it true they fought while there whole crew was drunk

Is it true Anne was mad at Rackham after they got caught and she insult him.

How trust worthy is A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates(I think it at least 70% true maybe 50% definitely higher than 35%)

Stained glass can show a lot of stories and events, sometimes with quite a lot of detail. But some of the windows are very high, sometimes too high for anyone to actually understand what they are looking at. So why go to all that effort?

Or was it more important for it to there, as part of the building, rather than to be 'read'.

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It’s a widely recognized world heritage site. A whole country took its name. It’s a world Wonder in the game Civilization.

Yet when I looked into it, it seems really unremarkable. By the time it was founded the Arab world was building delicate mosques, China had huge palaces, and Europe was perfecting its castles.

By comparison, the great Zimbabwe looks like a (very) small fortified city with a large granary.

It seems to me that we are judging it on a curve. No doubt it was remarkable for its inhabitants to construct it but although it’s regionally noteworthy, I’m not yet convinced that it stands on a global scale.

So what’s the deal? Why is it significant?