While I realize the joints required significant engineering effort, none of it seems to require any serious scientific advancements beyond the availability of metal and leather (to my understanding). I know we never saw universal use of full plate armor for simple reasons of labor and cost, but why wasn't full plate available to people like Roman commanders?

How were all of the modern pieces of infrastructure like gas lines, internet connections, electricity, water, sewers, etc...installed in cities, like London or Paris, that existed well before any of those were common let alone invented? And how were they put in place without ripping up the whole city laying down pipes and cables?

I remeber reading somewhere that an Italian Coin maker accidently made a coin that said something along the lines of "in God we trust," but in Arabic so it read "In Allah we trust." I can't find any information on it so I thought I'd ask here.

I'm a college student interested in Soviet history, and I've been building up a reference library to help deal with papers and such in the future.

Books about the Soviet Union from back when the Soviet Union was a thing are cheap and plentiful. Afterwards, however, there don't appear to have been nearly as many published.

Of specific interest are books dealing with nuclear strength, military structure, and other issues upon which information might have been difficult to access at the time.

It occurs to me that from a geographic perspective the areas that are normally thought of this way, while unquestionably urban, aren't really downtown or downtown adjacent in large US cities like LA or NYC. I believe the same is true in Chicago. So how did this term come to be the polite way to designate such communities.?

I am aware that battles at this time heavily relied on the shield wall, and from what I can find there is little suggesting that use of two one-handed weapons is historically accurate. Is there any evidence to suggest that people from Scandinavia would fight in battle this way?

Hi, I’ve been watching a lot of black and white films these days and I see everyone smoking in indoor spaces. It made me wonder, how did non smokers and people with asthma deal with the constant smoke?Was it acceptable for women to smoke? Thanks!

I'm currently watching Band of Brothers and just got to the part in the second episode where they meet the German soldier that is from Oregon. So my question is this, how many Americans died fighting for Germany or other axis countries?

My query is fairly multi faceted. Was it viewed as a resurrection of the old Western Empire, or was the Western Empire viewed as having existed all along, and this was just the end of a very, very long interregnum? In terms of Rome as a source of political legitimacy, does this represent a continuation of the tradition seen in the reigns of Odoacer and Theodoric? Am I over thinking this and it was just a power grab without much consideration of 'Romanness'? What role, if any, has the coronation played in arguments about when exactly the peoples of western Europe considered the Western Empire to have ended?

Hello! I have just started reading into Roman History and find it very interesting and almost exciting! So my question for you is which books are the best for learning about Roman history, and what you should start reading. Thanks in advance.

I've done a bit of reading and I can't find any details as to a possible cause of death; I read that she suffered from dizziness and refused to be examined by a doctor, but that's it. Anyone know more? Was it possibly connected to her having never had children (i.e. some kind of reproductive system issue or cancer)? Would be really curious to learn more.

How did tofu become popular in the US and Westernized countries? The history of tofu is about as interesting as the food itself so finding articles on the subject is extremely difficult.

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