Many things I've read seem to point to the Marian reforms as being the cause of later generals constantly being able to make claim to the imperial throne or to at least revolt in one way or another as the troops loyalties lie with the general and not the state but why was this and why didn't the Roman autocrats attempt to reform this system?

Is it because before this the soldiers were wealthy and provided their own equipment so they weren't as beholden to their general as the later citizen soldier whose equipment was provided by the state and whose livelihood depended on being paid?

Also as an addendum, how did the Roman state handle defector legions? Lets say you're a legionary in the military and you choose not to support the revolting general would you just be killed? And if the general lost were soldiers who did revolt simply pardoned and allowed back into the military? If they had stayed loyal to the state over the general and deserted back to Rome would they be given backpay as if they were serving the whole time? From what I understand rogue generals often simply paid the soldiers personally to win over their loyalty.

From what I understand the Legionary had everything to gain from supporting the revolt from plunder to personal enrichment directly through the general with none of the downsides. (Except fighting which he'd have to do anyway and most legionaries seemed pretty keen to spill blood)

Sorry if this post is longwinded and self-answering however I am hugely interested in the Roman Empire of all periods and so much of it is misconstrued and mashed together in popular culture and even analysis making it hard to learn about.

Is there a way to find out what specific beach LST-59 was assigned to during the Normandy Invasion? I finally after a ton of work tracked down the boat my grandfather was on during the invasion but nothing I can find is telling me the specific beach during overlord. Any ideas where I should be looking?

Thanks!

Writing an essay fro world history and for the life of me I can not find the original purpose of the Kremlin wall. Anyone know?

Longships were good for speed, exploring, and shore raids but were they effective at fighting/boarding other boats if they ever met resistance on the water? And in general did the vikings look to attack & plunder any foreign ship they came across in the sea, basically like pirates?

Would people be familiar with coins issued by previous emperors ?

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I'm currently reading David McCullough's John Adams biography, and in it he talks about Philadelphia being the largest city in the colonies. After some Googling, I found out that Philly had around 40,000 people living in it, with New York having 25,000 people in 1776. Now today, Philadelphia has 1.568 million people, and New York has 8.538 people. My question is, why did New York outpace Philadelphia so much?

Obviously the Holocaust was awful and millions died, but most of those were Eastern European Jews. A lot of German Jews saw things were getting worse and left Germany. Also there were programs specifically to help Jewish kids leave Germany.

On the other hand, if you were born in 1920 then you're 19 in 1939 and face 6 years of war. Even if you survive that you may have another few years in soviet POW camps.

Anyone able to work out the rough odds of each scenario?

(To be clear, I'm in no way trying to downplay the Holocaust or be anti-Semitic, just curious)

The expedition by Lewis and Clarke was really important for America in discovering as much as they could about the land that was now part of their nation. Did the British in Canada strive to do something similar in their west? Additionally, how and at what point was this land claimed by Canada?

Watching American Civil War or Revolutionary War documentaries or reenactments I see some of the back lines fire a volley into the air. What is the purpose for doing that?

My apologies if this has been asked, I didn't see it in the FAQ and my search (which was probably crappy) didn't pick up anything.

As the title says, WWII history seems to be one of the most popular topics with the general public. I constantly see questions about WWII here on r/askhistorians, there are a lot of video games, movies, books, TV shows, comics, etc.

If reddit was around in 1900 or earlier what would have the most asked about historical event have been?

I am Russian and I am often told things about how it was "back in the day". But I did not really try to learn history deeper than what I learned from school history classes. When I think about it, some things just don't make sense. USSR had a lot of resources at its disposal. Even though it suffered from WW2, soviet industry was the greatest in the world (maybe except the US). And at some point things just started falling apart.

As I see it, it was a history of wrong decisions. Being centralised in many aspects, USSR relied heavily on it's leader. Some leaders made mistakes that had consequences on the whole country, while others just lacked the initiative to do something. But again, it doesn't seem likely that USSR was just ran by a bunch of stupid people. That's not how any government should work.

Also I'm interested to know how opinions on this matter in Europe and US are different from what I often hear and read in Russia.

What age would I most likely be? Would the school be mostly religious? Who is teaching me? Where do I live? How do I make money? What are the odds of there being women there? Are my classmates only rich? What career prospects would I have going forward? Would there be stoners? Would there be a hackysack equivalent?

Speaking specifically about Christian monks like the ones at Lindisfarne. Do we have any record of their emotional or mental well being? Surely it could be lonely, and perhaps some ddn't even want to be a monk. Any information is appreciated.

I was reading Kevin Starr's California: a History when he mentioned that the US government was ok with anybody (obviously the definition of anybody is a exclusive term) mining the gold. Why didn't the state feel it necessary to try and make profit from the gold itself?

Thanks in advance.

what was the war over? land? religious differences? im asking this because my grandfather fought in the war and was awarded the second highest pakistani award 'seteraj jung' and i'd like to learn more about it, my parents say because of language differences, but that seems a bit silly to have a war over, isnt it? googling this didnt really help for some reason