In the time period of 500 and 1500CE, in my understanding, commonly decentralized their government and power.

Can anyone elaborate in detail on why the introduction of Decentralizing power (Feudalism,Manorialism etc) became widespread across much of the world during that time period.

With specific reference to Europe, would say, the Byzantine Emperor in 800 be aware of the existence of Ireland?

What would a map of the world look like to the Carolingian Emperors/kings?

I realise they probably wouldn't know or care about what was going on in those areas, but would they be aware that those places actually existed? To what extent would these maps reach?

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Basically what I’m asking is why is the century date different from the century “number” if you understand what I mean

I was surprised to find out that Hubbard was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel the year after his death. The book he was nominated for, "Black Genesis", was the second of a ten-part series, and consisted of a staggering 4,000 pages written over just two years. Each of the 10 volumes also made the NYT best seller list separately.

The level of Hubbard's success as a novelist in his latter years is surprising, given his controversial stature. Did the Sci-fi community look down on Hubbard for being a cult leader? And how did the Church of Scientology reconcile the hundreds of fictional short stories and novels written by their prophet?

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In my 'France in the Middle Ages' class, my professor mentioned that, because getting clean water in the Middle Ages was often challenging, people most often just dank (weak) beer. Is this in fact true?

As a current Lincoln-Douglas debater, I am quite interested to know how the format was initially created. Thanks! For reference, the current speech times of LD debate: • Affirmative Constructive- 6 minutes • Cross-Examination- 3 minutes • Negative Constructive- 7 minutes • Cross-Examination- 3 minutes • First Affirmative Rebuttal- 4 minutes • Negative Rebuttal- 6 minutes • Second Affirmative Rebuttal- 3 minutes

Hi, I'm writing a paper on Caligula and often he was described by sources (Dion, Suetonius,etc) as incestuous. I know all these historiens were extremely bias and wanted to discredit Caligula. Caligula did love his sisters (until they betrayed him) especially Drusilla who he deified after her death and ordered her birthday to be celebrated with the same ceremonies and scale as the birthday of Augustus.
Did he truly commit inceste? in my research so far, no modern historien confirmed or denied those claims, is it impossible to know? Hopefully you could provide me with sources that answer this question, and ideally one i can consult online. Also it was said he would force wifes of senators to commit adultery with him, is this also true? thank you very much.

If a 1400-1700 European army found its artillery crew dead during a battle, could other soldiers still fire the guns? Or is artillery-firing so difficult and arcane that only the most specialized troops can do it?

Was there a fear that a "pro-Peace" party might win? Were there any prominent politicians who advocated negotiations with Germany? How did the British public respond to the cancelled elections? Was it considered constitutional at the time?

Debate on the reasons Rome fell seems pretty common among modern historians, but I was wondering what people in the middle ages thought the main reasons were. I'm open to hearing anything throughout the medieval period - western Europe, Eastern Roman Empire etc - to see what they thought caused the empire's collapse.

Harriet Hemings was the daughter of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings (a mixed race slave). Seven of Harriet's eight great-grandparents were white, and Harriet was described by one of Jefferson's overseers as "nearly white and very beautiful." In 1822, Jefferson apparently enabled her "escape" to the North, where she briefly remained in contact with her brother Eston (who identified as black), in which she said she had entered white society and married. Soon after she stopped responding to his letters. Is there any evidence or speculation of what happened to her after that?

Is it possible to search for genetic markers in the modern population that would identify them as descendants of Harriet? I realize this is more of a bio question, but it has a lot of crossover with historical research, so here's hoping...

So we are learning a bit about world history in my class and I was researching them online but I just can't fathom how these numbers are accurate.

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I've superficially looked this up via Google and I did find some sources however the reasons given were not compelling enough. Some reasons ranged from the fact that many Germans blamed the Jews for their loss in WW1, that they were a scapegoat for the current recession, that a Palestinian leader convinced Hitler himself to do so, etc. But none of the reasons feel compelling enough. The sites that come up with these explanations never cite sources. They seem like guesses to me. Reasonable guesses from people who were never there.

But history is rarely reasonable. I was wondering if anyone knew what were the true causes were from 3rd party sources. (The 3rd party source part is important to me because I believe that Jewish and German sources will be necessarily biased due to human nature.)