For the past few days there has been a heated debate, as Israeli PM is strongly opposing new polish bill that would outlaw referencing nazi death camps as polish. He claims it would be "an attempt to rewrite and falsify history". What does he mean? Is there any evidence? I'm aware of the fact, that there were polish citizens helping Jews and the fact that there were some that would handed them to gestapo. Did Poland had any role in running those death camps?

Just a humble high school history student here so forgive me if I'm asking an obvious question, but why is the American involvement in Vietnam considered so terrible? I can see that America might have committed a number of war crimes, but North Vietnam seemed pretty brutal so if America had just been more disciplined would the war still be seen as so awful?

As I understand, gunpowder was invented/discovered in China, before being transported west to Europe, where it was employed in warfare quickly, leading to cannon and hand guns and all the rest. Why did these innovations not take place in Asia? I understand that some Asian cultures had, sorts of hand guns and small cannon, but during the Sengoku Jidai, Japan was importing Portuguese cannon and matchlock rifles. In general it appears that most Asian cultures developed gunpowder weapons more slowly than their European counterparts, despite being closer to it's birthplace (China). Why?

Hello, It has always struck me how many casualties were involved in the Napoleonic Wars, and how important incremental technological improvements were in warfare at the time.

My query is, how would an Army from the early French Revolutionary War in 1792 fare against an army at the battle of Waterloo in 1815 ?

Which were the most significant technological breakthroughs that were made during this period of time, that were destined to give an army the edge in battle ?

Thank you,

I teach World History to high school seniors (12th grade, ages 17-18). The other history teachers at my school are all coaches, and well, they're better coaches than they are teachers. So when my students come to me, they are accustomed to leaving a history class without learning anything, and without caring about history at all. I do my best to change this mindset but the beginning of the school year is the most is the most difficult time for that. So for this upcoming school year, I would like to assign a historical fiction book to my students to immediately engage them in my class. I wanted to ask this question here because I haven't read many historical fiction novels, and before I spend lots of time reading and researching the content of these books before giving them to my students in August, I was hoping to have verification of the book's attempt at accuracy.

I am looking for books that cover anything before the year 1500 (CE) and that are appropriate for high school students. Even though about half of my students are old enough to smoke on their way to the voting booth, my district still has rules about the kind of content that can be assigned to students. However, if there is a book that is just an excellent example of a specific culture or event, I can have parents sign a waiver -- I just can't have that apply to every book I assign.

I would also like the books I assign to cover a broad range of cultures and time periods. I don't want to have 12 books for my students to choose from if 6 of them are about Rome.

Additionally, it would be great if the books were all standalone novels -- mostly because if its really good and a series then I'm going to have to finish it before I can move on to the next book!

If you all could make any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you so much for reading this!

So Italy and Dalmatia were ruled by the Ostrogoths while Hispania and Narbonesis were ruled by the Visigoths, generally speaking there's a negative connotation regarding the Goths as being the ones that ended the Western Roman Empire but how were they as rulers?

There's only so much I can read about other than Theoderic, Theoderic strikes me as not that bad of a dude, he did outlaw intermarriage between the Goths and the Romans however he did emphasize racial harmony and ruled Italy in its most prosperous period since Valentinian in an effort to restore the glory of Rome.

But what about the other rulers? How did the people view the Gothic kings in general?

My Zayda (grandfather shortened) was a Jewish American army soldier who joined the war on the June 7th, Normandy. He went on with his battalion to liberate a concentration camp. I’ve tried Ancestry.com, Fold3.com, and am at a loss. Not in family records. Where is my best bet at this information, or is it classified? Thank you for your help!

The Japanese should have known better when training pilots, considering they saw and knew what experienced and well-trained pilots could do, especially early on during the Pacific theater. Was it mainly due to the growing power-gap between Japanese and U.S. aircraft during WWII?