Reading through Wikipedia dates, I routinely see explorers and settlers founding a city. How does this practically work? What do they build first? How many people are involved in this process? At what point does it officially become a city or receive a name?

The mods at r/AskScience suggested this would be a better place, so anyone with Science History knowledge, I'd love to know more:

My understanding is that Uranus and Neptune were only discovered recently (post 1700) in Western science. But Wu Cheng-en's "Monkey" mentions "the nine planets". Being written in the mid 16th century, does that mean the Chinese had already discovered them? Or were they referring to other celestial bodies? If so, what would be the likely ones?

Forgive me if I'm wrong or massively generalising but from what i undertand, the British dumped their Airacobras first chance they got while the USAAF pilots don't seem to have anything positive to say about the P39. On the other hand the Russians loved the P39.

Why such different reactions to the same airplane?

We often hear of the senate and senators of the Roman Empire, but how much knowledge of them (and their workings) did the citizens have?

There were so many horrifying torture methods during the Middle Ages. How easy was it to piss off the wrong person and land yourself in a world of hurt?

I just finished a book that discussed wristwatches and mentioned that precision timing became important to military maneuvers around the time of the Second Boer War and WWI. The author specifically cited the creeping barrage, but I still don't quite comprehend why the timing was essential beyond an ability to be more discrete in one's military maneuvers and an ability to pilot planes without line of sight. Could anyone help?

I know that we often generalize this and go right into how Egyptians worship their cats, but the same goes for other religions that we generalize to worship animals (or respect accordingly) e.g. Hindus to bovines

What were their relationships on a daily level? Was it praise/idolizing on par with an entity, or perhaps fear and disgust by the laws in place that protected these cats? Did these sentiments differ by region or socioeconomic positions in society? Did these cats go as far as creating economic impact or impacting political affairs etc. or were they more of a motif? Lastly how did Egyptian relationships to cats change over time?

Hi r/AskHistorians , sorry if this breaks any rules, but I've been interested in some subjects, but don't know what books have a good reputation and high degree of accuracy. I looked at your book list, but it wasn't much help to me.

I'm interest in the Netherlands, namely its history and, to a lesser extent, its culture and people. Preferably in the Middle Ages.

I also want to know about Knights; the culture of Knighthood fascinates me, and I want to know about their everyday life. I want to know about the history of the institution in Europe.

I also want to know about Medieval weapons and armor, and the warfare and warriors of the time as well.

I'd like a book about Medieval European Nobility and their customs and rank.

Finally, I want a book about Medieval Culture.

Sorry if I'm breaking any rules or coming across as demanding.

I've heard of persecution of Buddhism, but eas this ever on the level of "holy war"? And how about conflicts between the many sects of Hinduism, such as Shaivites and Vaishnavism? To whats extent was there a "my gods/philosophy is better than yours" mindset in India prior to the rise of Islam, which specifically used this philosophy for war?

[deleted]

*Is

I'm wondering the origin of deciding a slave was 60% of a person. What was the rationale? I would get 1/2; it makes sense. Was the South 20% better at negotiating than the North? It's a somewhat odd fraction so I'm thinking there'll be an interesting story behind it.

How does this change into the medeival era? Early modern?

I'm particularly interested in the comparison of basic army recruit training in the 19th century in the colonial superpowers, especially Great Britain. More specifically, the army.

How does it compare to modern day army training i.e running, ruck marching, press ups, obstacle courses, marching etc. How would the training be adapted to the line infantry tactics used at the time?

Something that has confused me about pikemen is that they seem to lack much ability to get through full plate armor. It makes sense how they could easily bring down a horse, but couldn't dismounted men-at-arms have used poleaxes/zweihanders to knock open a path through the pikes, and attack the lightly-armored men behind them?

[deleted]

Thus declared Ra, the Egyptian Sun-god, C. 1900 B.C. The prohibition against the consumption of pigs has its origin in ancient Egypt, are not Jews and Muslims keeping an ancient pagan tradition?