I may have forgotten another name or two, but, generally, those are the only two Homeric names commonly used in English. While I understand that they are two major characters, we would almost never hear of an Achilles, Odysseus, or Agamemnon as a given name in the Anglophone world. What made these two names stay in common usage while others have not?

Again, only asking with regards to their use as English given names. I would assume that in other languages different names may still be used.

My understanding is that the sanctions that the United States placed on Japan in the early 40s in response to their actions in China and French Indochina, especially on oil and scrap metal and their assets in the US, were so damaging to the Japanese economy that it essentially promised ruin if they didn't pretty much immediately go on the offensive and use their current resources to simply seize what they needed.

As understandable as it was that the Americans would do this, considering Japan's actions in China, in retrospect it does come across as extremely provocative with the most likely outcome being a war, which of course is what happened. Did the Americans perceive that this was what was going to happen? Because I get a sense that military and civilian leaders were very surprised when the attacks came and, considering how rapid the initial Japanese response was, quite underprepared to boot.

Was Roosevelt and his government operating under the assumption that these measures would simply get Japan back to the negotiating table and out of the territory they were taking over, or did they think that they were on a path towards war as the most likely outcome?

I know there's probably many methods, but I can't seem to find info on what ocean-sailing fishermen did with their fish after they brought them up out of their nets. Did they put them in barrels? Were there water tanks on board to keep them alive?

Any resources on this topic would be awesome, I'm trying to write a story that includes some older fishing techniques.

In The Black Jacobins, CLR James offers a rather more cynical view of British moves towards abolition than I was accustomed to. Basically he argues that Pitt realised that Britain could make far more money out of free trade and exploiting India than it could out of slavery and West Indes-based protectionism, and so he set Wilberforce up as his catspaw and had him work towards the abolition of the slave trade so that he could kneecap Saint Domingue before it could move from buying slaves from Britain to other providers. I think James might be onto something with some of this - it's hard to refute the fact that Pitt later invaded the French West Indes with the explicit intent of carrying on slavery there - but at the same time this was a book published in 1938 by an author who sees malice and hypocrisy in everything that Britain and the United States did in this period, so I was wondering to what extent James represents, or did represent, the scholarly consensus on this topic?

Is it just because I'm an American reading English-languages sources, and so there's always this defensive framing? Or did the Soviet Union also envision the potential conflict in this way?

Like, did anyone ever find sodium by accident and see it explode on water? Or Uranium, a rock that kills people near it? Or lodestone, that pulls metals?

I know about the procedures in my home country (Germany) but I have no idea how difficult it would have been for someone in the US to avoid service in Vietnam. I know about draft dodgers going to Canada, but surely fleeing the country can't have been the only option?

I am an American living in Spain and am impressed by the architecture and wealth on display. I spent the weekend in Madrid with a girl from the Dominican Republic. While she admires loves the architecture and art here, she feels frustrated by how much of this came from empire-building. She claimed at one point "Europe would be nothing without the wealth they took from America."

This is a sweeping statement, but I am curious how much of it is true. Of course, I understand a lot of it is true - for example, the fact Spain brought so much gold from their empire to the point of devaluation - but to what extent?

I apologize if this is too vague of a question. Thank you for your help.

I recently started reading online about a few of the more “colourful” warlords of 1920s China (Zhang Zongchang, Zhang Zuolin) but I’m not sure which books are the best to cover this era. Does anyone have any good suggestions?

I recently saw a poster on here arguing that the beginning of the "Medieval" age is better defined by the Arab conquest of the Middle East rather than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. And for the Eastern Roman Empire, I can see that really makes sense; for someone living in Alexandria or Antioch, in the year 600 the world is still one with a mighty Roman Empire (which admittedly has lost some of the west to Barbarians, it's not at its height) and its rival the Persian Empire. Things haven't changed that much.
Of course, when the Caliphate invaded, everything changed. And that also applies to Spain.

But to a post-Roman noble in France, Italy or Germany did the conquest of all these lands make a big difference? Did it damage their trade networks, or were the trade networks already in a bad way? Did they hear/think much about it prior to the overthrow of the Visigoths?

There was this meme circulating saying that medieval Europe were too focused on religion to develop scientific progress like their neighboring Muslims did with their House of Wisdom and all, and everyone is familiar to the conflict between Heliocentrism and the Church, but did Christian Clergy really was a hindrance to scientific progress at the time? A lot of Muslims inventors and scientists during their golden age were also knowledgeable scholars of religion, so surely their Christian counterparts would also have some influence developing scientific knowledge in Europe?

Was every monk, priest, nun, etc. always able to read and write? Or was it only a requirement for some of the clergy?

Thank you!

The satrapy of Lesser Phrygia or Hellespontine Phrygia was called Tyaiy Drayaha. Are there any records of the Old Persian name for Greater Phrygia?

I'm interested in learning more about Chinese history and find Chinese court culture to be unique and an interesting aspect of Chinese history.

I've found textbooks on Korean court culture but have failed to find any on Chinese. Does anyone have any recommendations?

This may be a stupid question but I feel like I always see stats from wars where the country may have millions of men in the army but still only commit a very small percentage to a frontline in a war. Why is this? Logistics? Covering other countries frontlines? I'm interested.

I’m curious to know how birth defects were treated by people before modern day or before people had a better understanding of genetics and how physical abnormalities or conditions occur.

Something I have noticed on the internet is that Americans generally refer to the Irish language as Gaelic. This always prompts a forceful response from people in Ireland correcting the use of the word Gaelic, stating that the proper English word for their language is Irish and that Gaelic refers exclusively to the language spoken in Scotland.

Use of the term Gaelic is ubiquitous in Irish American communities in the United States, most of whom trace their ancestry to late 19th or early 20th century immigrants. My grandparents and great grandparents always used the term Gaelic to refer to the Irish language and you often see the term used for Gaelic Clubs or Gaelic cultural centers in the Northeastern U.S.

I assume because of this that the original Irish speaking migrants to the U.S would have known their language as Gaelic and that sometime in the ensuing 150 years people in Ireland stopped using this term in favor of the Irish language. When and why did this happen?

Since there was obviously no running water, and most of the time they were out in the open, with people having nature call at all different times, how did large armies deal with this? Did people just have to hold it, or were soldiers running to find a tree whenever they needed to, or how did that work?