So out of curiosity, I read a couple sections of the Christian bible, and from what I read, God doesn’t seem be to all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere like in popular beliefs. So where and when did such idea come from?

European football must have been well known for quite a while and is primarily played using the foot. So why did inventors and early participants in American football choose to name their sport Football, when A) there was already a sport named football and B) the sport is mostly played using hands

Living in China as a European it's hard not to notice the openness and "unfiltered" love for money. For many occassions giving a bag of money is the appropriate gift, and how much your salary is is common dinner talk. In a way this makes sense because money is so important to all. So how come many or most Western countries buy gifts rather than money and feel its inappropriate to share salaries and how much things cost? Why is false modesty about riches so common?

Hello, Reddit! I'm curious, but what was life for peasant women in 1400's Europe. What were they expected to do? What was their life like? Did they have the chance to 'rise through the ranks' and become more than peasants?

Thanks!

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I understand that the colonisation of South America was at a similar to to the Spanish Inquisition where Muslims and Jews were forced out of Iberia. Is there any evidence to suggest many of them travelled to South America?

I've checked out the recommended reading list and didn't see anything about the U.S. presidents specifically. Are there any must-read books that include descriptions/acheivements/failures of every presidency? Thanks in advance!

I’m interested in learning more about the various Turkic khanates, and was wondering if anybody could recommend some good books on the topic.

I'm studying for the CSET and in one the practice exams I was completing there was this question:

What was the most important turning point of WWII? (or something very much like this, I'm going from memory)

I narrowed it down to these two choices:

• B: Operation Barbarossa
• C: The Normandy Invasion

I, being a faithful reader of /r/askhistorians, answered B; obviously, once the Germans invaded Russia, it was all over.

Well, the people who wrote the exam wanted C.

Any insight, because presumably professional historians were involved, in the thinking behind this type of question?

This isn't, I hope, a current events question. It's more like: when you guys write or contribute to the writing of an objective exam, what are you doing/thinking/trying to get? How do you make these sorts of distinctions (most important vs. important but not most important, presumably)?

(Edited to add: this was a question from a practice test, not the CSET itself. I think on the actual test day I'll sign an agreement not to reveal actual test questions.)

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I came across a picture of the Deputy Mayor of Leipzig having committed suicide at the end of World War II (easily found, for those interested in the NSFW). I am sure many cities had mayors or other officials who ended up either committing suicide or being arrested by the Allies, not to mention those who died as the war closed in on Germany, but there must have been plenty of cities and towns whose leaders survived the war.

What happened in those cases? Were there local leaders who remained in place during the post-war period? How did de-Nazification work and where was the line?

Did a google search and did a search in here, couldn't find an answer. My understanding was that the Confederate Army largely consisted of state militia soldiers and seized Army assets.

I'm not looking for hard numbers. Rough percentage would be fine. Less than 10%? More than 50%?

I notice many games and movies often portray when heavy infantry armed to the teeth with-every body part covered in metal and using heavy weapons such as pikes- battle lighter infantry such as say macemen wearing just leather as armour or militia armed with just thick clothing and a sword, its always portrayed as a steamroll in which the heavy infantry squashes the lighter armed enemies like a tank. Literally its portrayed that the heavy infantry square in walking over the lighter infantry and squashing over them like an unstoppable bulldozer going over a neighborhood block of houses.

This is especially true if the heavy infantry is armed with pikes and forms a column wall of spears or is armed with long sword and shield and forms a phalanx style formation. Even if the lighter infantry is well-disciplined and organized, the heavy infantry in rigid spear columns or sword and shield phalanx blocks will slaughter the lighter infantry and push through rather easily.

Even in cases where medium weight infantry that is still somewhat lighter is using the same type of weapon and formations (pole arms in a spear wall) and is quite well-armored (chainmail), just the fact the heavy infantry is equipped in metallic armour such as plate armour or Hoplite bronze uniform is enough to leave it as a slaughter as heavy infantry rolles over the lighter infantry like a tank over trenches. Despite the lighter infantry still being well-equipped and using the exact same formation and weapon.

Is the gap that great? Is simply equipping one unit entirely of heavier armour and weapon automatically mean victory? Or even just a armour one class heavier and better (plate mail vs chainmail) even if the enemy infantry is well equipped and slightly lighter in class (medium infantry vs heavy infantry)?

I ask this question because despite the stereotype as often seen in movies like LOTR, I was playing Shogun: Total War and an interesting thing is that I was able to win several battles against the heavier Yari Samurai and NoDachi Samurai by sending Samurai Archers to attack in melee in a situation perfect for heavy infantry (bridge battles or battles in a flat plain). Although the Samurai Archers ultimately lost most of the time, the NoDachi or Yari Samurais took too damn long killing the archers that I was able to prepare a trap and send my cavalry to out flank them. Even in cases where I could not maneuver my troops for flanking, apparently my light Samurai archers were able to hold of the elite NoDachi or Yari Samurai in battle to not only exhaust them but inflict signficant casualties. So when I finally sent my real infantry as my Samurai archers were fleeing from collapsing morale, my own Ninganata Samurai were able to defeat the now-exhausted NoDachi or Yari quite easily.

So I'm wondering based on the Shogun:Total War battle how accurate the Hollywood stereotype of Heavy infantry steamrolling lighter ones is? I mean other games such as Age of Empires and most movies such as Troy shows even well-armoured troops using heavy weapons getting slaughtered quickly when fighting heavy troops (especially if the heavy troops are in a rigid shield wall formation or spear wall formation as seen in Troy). Even if the lighter troops try to form their own wall formation and are only slightly less armed (they're wearing chainmail with parts of plate as opposed to the fully plated heavy infantry and both are using long pikes).

Is real life more accurate to what I seen in Shogun:Total War?

Following World War 1, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire dissolved into a number of ethnocentric states. How anarchic/violent was this? Was it fairly peaceful, or along the lines of what was seen following the collapse of Yugoslavia? Many thanks in advance.

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And if so, was there a story that is credited with “inventing” the idea, or did it sort of arise spontaneously? Was much made of the innovation at the time? And what kind of social/literary factors influenced the development?