I've recently been re-evaluating my understanding of Rommel as a War Hero and tactician since the last time I seriously studied it was in the early 2010s, and there seems to be an almost unbreakable fog over his true character and strategic significance?

It seems on one hand there are historians who are insistent that he was an ideological nazi to the core, citing his permissiveness of the planning and formation of anti-semetic military units in concert with his korps and issuing orders to discriminate against jewish merchants in Africa. However on the other side there are historians who assert he was staunchly ideologically apolitical, refusing orders to commit warcrimes and citing transcripts from Italian officers to the US military that Rommel was so dis-interested in politics that there would be no chance of a repeat in Germany of the coup that occurred against Mussolini.

I've seen more of the same divide regarding Rommel's strategic, operational, and logistical capabilities and where the breakdown occurred that led to the allied victory in North Africa.

Why is it that Rommel still remains so ambiguous even all these years later?

Even reddit's post text editor has BOLD and italic. Most other systems seem to also have underline, with strikethrough becoming more and more common.

I'm just imagining all the other ways we could transform text, but these seem to be the only universal 2. Why is that? When did they (and maybe underline too) become standard?

Was it inhabited predominantly by Egyptians, to protect British interests in the Suez canal, to deny it from Israel and/or Jordan or something else?

From what I've read, Japanese computers exclusively used kana at first since programming thousands of kanji was impractical.

What about Chinese? How did they solve this hurdle when they didn't have an alternate syllabary like Japanese?

The concept of forgiving sin in exchange for money seems contrary to everything christ is assumed to stand for, wouldn't that have been regarded as highly blasphemous? There had to have been a high amount disrespect for the religion amongst the clergy to come up with something like that, no? What do we know about "heresy"/atheism amongst the higher clergy during the time they sold indulgences? Was it widespread or did most do it in good faith? How did the people spending the money justify it?

There has been a lot of chat around discussion around how Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that Putin made some massive miscalculations in terms of how easy he thought it would be to take Kiev, and this has gotten me wondering about other miscalculations throughout history.

What did they have to say about Christian responsibility for the downfall of the empire? Did they try to do anything to rectify the damage they saw as being caused by Christianity?

Given the lack of good sources corroborating the story that a bunch of little boys from Germany and France set out for the Holy Land after a boy in Cologne and another in Cloyes had a vision commanding them to travel to the Holy Land and peacefully convert the Muslims, and wound up being caught and sold into slavery in North Africa, as the traditional narrative goes. It seems more likely to me that instead of children, the puer in peregrinatio puerorum refers to irregular bands of servants/peasants/poor people as opposed to regular armies and knights. Am I totally off base here?

Did Marius have to deal with any backlash or other opposition when passing his military reforms, either within the Senate or from the people?

I'm writing an essay for my masters degree exploring horror and nostalgia. I'm currently looking into the routes of horror stories/myths/legends. Whilst I know some of the 'first' recorded stories/plays we have found are from Ancient Greece I was just wondering if the same could be said of stories of monsters and if so who would be considered to be the first?

I know there are many tales of the gods/goddesses themselves but who would be seen as the first monster? Would it be Typhon or Echidna, both, or am I missing another? Many thanks in advance.

As far as I'm aware, there was a change in Chinese clothing style during the transition from Ming to late Qing dynasty. Recently in modern China, there is a growing trend calling for the revival of the ethnic Han fashion styles from the pre-Qing Dynasties. Are the modern Hanfu designs reconstructed from art works such as paintings from the Song-Ming eras or has there been a line of tradition that continued to wear Ming style clothing somewhere in china despite the Manchu takeover and westernisation? Likewise, when the Hongwu emperor ousted the Yuan and established the Ming, he called for a cultural preservation program which encouraged upon indigenous fashion styles away from Mongol and islamic influences. Since the Yuan had ruled china for about 100 years, how did the early Ming clothing styles come about?

Furthermore, I've read that the Han Chinese in early Qing continued to wear Ming style clothes. Would the Clothing and fashion styles of the late Qing and early republican era be considered as a indigenous Han fashion development with Manchu influences or is it itself entirely Manchu.

Did this really occur back then and if so, is it a common thing or is it reserved only for important people, and why?

Not sure if this type of posts is allowed in this subreddit, but I am taking a class right now that examines the historical, social, and even spiritual context of certain events of biblical religions that led them to go to War. The class also delves into what is deem as holy war, what is also seen as just war, and how these religions had a militant history, despite some verses in their historical text talking about peace and an aversion to violence.

I have a paper coming up, and I wanted to talk about War and Buddhism. I am a buddhist, not very devout, but I wanted to view this topic through a Buddhist lens. Especially since one of the noble truths is that we should not bring harm to any other living creature. Despite that, there have been many countries, influential powers, and people that are buddhists but have still violated this noble truth. I know that I shouldn't view it in such a black and white manner of "X person is a buddhist, therefore it is spiritually wrong if they kill". I know that there is a lot of context needed to understand why these people have used violence either as a last resort or be on the offense that would better explain these actions, which is why I want to ask about important events throughout history that had a Buddhist country/ figure who did commit war or genocide to help me start my research. How did they justify their actions with their spiritual beliefs, etc., etc.

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side note, but when I ask my professor about this topic, he seemed to only focus on Japanese Buddhism, and about the actions that the Japanese took against their PoWs during WW2. While I know that the broad answer is that if these soldiers did not obey, than they would be killed, I haven't been able to find any more nuance than just that. They probably felt regret, but had to focus on the bigger picture and their nationalism.

Thank you

I know during the Early Modern period we start to see the ideological foundations of human rights, and that humanitarian compassion is certainly nothing new. But did this ever take on the form of inalienable human rights, attained by virtue of simply be human? Or were they always understood as being at the discretion of the state?

Also, did Jews arriving in Isreal quickly give up their mother tongues at home? Was uptake of the language quick?

I'm really uninformed in medieval times, but would like to know more about them! Were materials like zinc, tin, aluminium, tungsten or cromium widely used at all in medieval times? Were materials like copper, gold, diamonds, silver and platinum only used for coins and jewelry?