There is so much research into Roman history today that it seems like we have a pretty detailed understanding of the goings on during the fall of the republic. It makes me wonder though how much of that knowledge was retained over time and how much was lost and gained again. Did Romans during the 300s know more or less about their history than we do?

I often hear this statement made—mostly by white supremacists— presented along with other supposed evidence that Sub-Saharan Africans were primitive and uncivilized, like failure to domestic animals and crops (which I know isn't true). I know that Mali, Somalia and other places that converted to Islam had written language and even universities/libraries, such as the one in Timbuktu. It's also my understanding that very few writing systems, around three I believe (cuneiform, Mesoamerican script and Hanzi) were created independently, so I take it that the geographic isolation from the Mediterranean and the cradle of civilization is the reason why there was no written language in Sub-Saharan Africa. Is this correct?

Just finished watching a documentary on dinosaur fossils in the West. Was wondering if any Native Americans found traces of them.

Hi all! I'm writing a story set in a Puritan town in the 1600s. In it, there is an arranged marriage and an attempt at arranged marriage. The actual marriage is for the sake of merging property and businesses between two families, the bride is 14 and the groom is 18. In the second scenario, a father in ill health is trying to get his daughter married before he dies. I've researched how realistic these two situations would be, and I've come across conflicting information. On one hand I've read that Puritans married for love and didn't arrange marriages, but I've also read that parents picked out spouses but encouraged their children to fall in love with the chosen spouse. I also found that the average age of marriage for Puritans was in the early to mid-twenties range. My questions are as follows: 1. Which set of information is closest to the truth? 2. Assuming arranged marriages and marriages with a very young bride were extremely uncommon, would the extenuating circumstances in the story (the father's illness and fear that he'll die and leave his daughter vulnerable/financially struggling, and the desire to merge assets in the other case) make the situations believable? Thanks in advance for any answers!

I am working on homework for World War 1, and trying to extend my work to be better. I can't find any reason online why Andorra joined World War 1. I hope it isn't too much of a trouble for helping me with this question.

Did Charles dickens have an significant influence on the industrial revolution, and the working class' living conditions? Im asking because I just read oliver twist and dickens was very harsh in his criticism towards the poor man's law and the treatment of the working class. But did dickens influence this revolution and did he change anything?

Hello,

Recently I've gone on a Wikipedia binge on the history of the Low Countries in the 15th and 16th century; the Burgundian Netherlands and the Spanish Netherlands up until the Fall of Antwerp.

I'm especially fascinated by the culture that developed in booming cities such as Antwerp, Bruges and Ghent, with the various celebrated painters from Jan Van Eyck to Bruegel the Elder, the Franco-Flemish school of composers, the chambers of rhetoric that sprung up in the big cities during the 15th century, the scientific and philosophical exploits of Erasmus, Vesalius, Mercator etc. And I'm especially interested in the socio-economic conditions that made this possible: booming trade, the life of the urban merchant class, courtly patronage etc. But I would also be interested in the life of the common folk, folk mythology and stories etc.

Can anyone recommend a good history book on this particular area and period? Doesn't matter if it's in Dutch, English or even French. (And if there's good historical fiction in this particular setting, I'd like to hear it!)

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I’ve always heard claims that he was an anti-semite so I wanted to know if they’re true. I’ve also heard the age old legends that he was frozen so that’s why I’m not to ready to take these claims of his anti-semitism at face value.

I am working on a fantasy world and wanted to create my own calendar to keep track of things. The most obvious was the Gregorian, but my mainly agrarian society tells me that the Julian Calendar would be more fitting. I decided to research and noticed that the calendar was divided oddly between three set points. The Kalends, the Nones, and the Ides. I can't find the context to why this was, is there any reason behind this?

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I was reading Mary Quant's autobiography and she mentions that when she was a child, her and her siblings would go out and find scraps from fallen airplanes and sometimes they would even find things like fingers from wounded or killed pilots. Are there similar anecdotes told by others who lived through World War 2 or any other war? What would others do with these kinds of found objects? Thanks in advance!

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So I’m studying the de bello gallico and translating it from Latin (I thank joves capitolinus for not having to translate Ovid) and when he was talking about the Germans I smelled something fishy. The de bello gallico as we all know was heavily influenced by it’s writer, and some motifs and descriptions are definitely biased. When describing the celts in Gaul he describes how the celts become more civilized (as they were congregating in cities, as I used that version of the term from civitas) and “democratic” the closer they were to Rome and it’s influence. The farther away you go from borders consequently, the more feudal and monarchical they became. Also the scarier and less “organized” (as in logistics and discipline) they became. When he describes the Gauls he tries to show the Roman public ( I have also read other books on the subject which now escape my mind) how they can be civilized. Instead he classifies the people over the Rhine as a different people that are not worth ones time. And yet the way they are described by the Gauls and that scare the romans are the exalted characteristics that some celts like the Belgae posses (bigger, scarier, etc...) and they also seem to have this monarchical system. Now as I understood it the kelts once inhabited most of France, spain, Britain, Germany and the lands of Pannonia and beyond. Now my question is how did the celts dissapear from those lands (Germany and beyond Pannonia) and Germans immediately taking their place like the goths, alemanni and quadians. As I understood, the Germans derived originally from Scandinavia (one of the wombs of nations, together with the altai mountains). And yet they managed to drive away all the Kelts from these areas immediately? That doesn’t sound right considering that the celts had the advantage of better lands and trade, at least to me. Is there an explanation?

I would love to learn more about the differences between these churches, what caused them to split, what relationships they had with each other after and what differences are still true. I'd also like to have a follow up of the difference between Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox, and if they are connected historically.

I've always wondered this since most of the world uses the same street naming format.

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