So I heard that knights were almost unbeatable and most battles I hear where they were are in Northern Europe. But at the battle of Legnano, with flat terrain, almost equivalent number of men on both sides and one army being comprised completely of armored knights, how did the Milanese win

I was looking at some maps, and I saw that Spain took Belgium and Netherlands in one go. How were they able to do this? Transporting armies through France seems impossible to me. And finally, how did they lose the territory?

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Book 2, Chapter 10, footnote 15

The Republic of Thiascala, enclosed by the Mexican Empire, preferred doing without salt to buying from the Mexicans, or even getting it from them as a gift. The Thiascalans were wise enough to see the snare hidden under such liberality. They kept their freedom, and that little State, shut up in that great Empire, was finally the instrument of its ruin.

It might be a cliche from Westerns but it seems like everyone always knew "the way" to go between two cities that were hundreds of miles apart. At distances like that, even taking a few degrees wrong on a compass heading and you can miss a city like that completely.

I mean let's assume you miss a city in a case like that and you are now 30 miles east of where you need to be, how would you know this if you have never been to the area?

Any any where I can find such a map? Google searches turn up anything and everything from slave trade to crusades, but no info for this period. Thanks! I mostly need to have an idea of a typical itinerary for a merchant ship

Did they went extinct? Did they integrate with the rest of the population?Are there any modern descendants of them other than the ossetians?Is it true that many names of places in Spain and Portugal are derived from them?

My question is based on how we have speakers and microphones to project the voice of the speaker but I wonder how it was done in the past. If kings or rulers called in all of their governors, public figure heads or even talked to entire villages, how did they make sure everyone heard them and their message wasn't misunderstood?

I imagine abolitionists could see how we fought pirates for slavery while literally having slaves would be nice political fodder. Cartoons, maybe?

Hey, friends! As we buy our tacky 2018 glasses and remind each other to be safe on New Year's--don't drink and drive!--let's take some time to remember the bright spots of 2017.

Share your favorite answers here! They can be ones you wrote, ones you read, ones to questions you asked. If there was a really great question that got no answer, give it some publicity.

Thanks for being such a great community!

I've read a variety of texts about Hitler and the Third Reich (William Shirer's work, Volker Ullrich's recent biography, multiple books about persecution of Jews and the Holocaust etc.), but I'd like to go direct to source. For example, I'd love to make use of the Nuremburg trials in a personal project, but I can't find full length English translations, only footnotes and references and select excerpts. Are there any translations of the Nuremburg Trials in a style similar to those available via the Library of Congress? Are there any other little-known sources which are of significant value to amateur and professional researchers?

For some things (like the more popular ancient Roman or Greek works), it's not so much a problem, but for others, it seems I can only find translations. Specifically, I'm looking for the original text of The Travels of Marco Polo, in the original Old French. Where could I find something close to an authoritative text?

Whenever people talk about the Eastern Roman Empire they call it Byzantium despite the Greeks calling themselves Romans during that time and the term Byzantine didn't come until much later. When did the idea of being Greek overtake the idea of being Roman?

Hello. I wondered whether AskHistorians could recommend any books written by secular historians about miracle claims by the Catholic and (various) Eastern Orthodox Churches within the last 400 years.

Broad historical overview/introduction books would be very useful, since they could direct me to other resources. However, I would certainly also appreciate any in-depth studies that were written about particular incidents (e.g., Zeitoun, Padre Pio's stigmata, Fatima, Lourdes, Calanda).

Thanks!

So my parents are Jehovah's witnesses and they strongly believe that Jerusalem fell in 607 BCE but that is because it supports their doctrine. I told them that a lot of historians disagree with 607, at which they replied that I had bad sources and real historians agree with 607 as the correct date. So confused right now.