Shakespeare apparently got much of his information about Richard III from the Rous Roll whose author John Rous switched allegiance from the Yorkists to the Lancastrians during the Wars of the Roses and seems to have personally despised Richard III, the works of Thomas More who was Henry VIII’s Lord High Chancellor and the Holinshed Chronicles, which was compiled by Reginald Wolfe, who owed his position in society to the patronage of Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth I, and used the works of John Leland, who was employed by Henry VIII as royal chaplain and antiquary, as his primary historical source.

Although Henry VII technically had a claim to the throne through his mother’s relation to John of Gaunt, and through his wife being the eldest surviving child of Edward IV (though that’s not really relevant since he didn’t marry Elizabeth of York until after he had already taken the throne), his real legitimacy as king came from the fact that his army defeated the Yorkist army at Bosworth Field and killed Richard III. So, the Tudors and their supporters had every reason to portray Richard III as a tyrant who was despicable and repulsive inside and out, that Henry Tudor had to defeat in order to liberate the Kingdom of England and her people from his evil rule, otherwise Henry VII and by extension his heirs were nothing but Welsh aristocrats who usurped the crown. Based on that, I’m very suspicious of how Richard III is portrayed and I question both the extent of his cruelty (compared to other 15th and 14th century monarchs) and his physical deformities. I’m aware that his body was found some time ago and that he appeared to have scoliosis; but there’s a large difference between having a slightly crooked spine and having something akin to a camel’s hump on your back and a deformed leg that made walking without a cane impossible.

I've always wondered how long it took for the Germans to make those concrete forts and the allies to make those trenches. Did no side attack each other while they were making these fortifications?

One claim I often hear is that Victorian archeologists and anthropologists in mesoamerica would often destroy or fabricate evidence in order to further their own narratives. To what extent is this true and how has it impacted our understanding of these cultures?

The article the page cited also includes this quote from Gordon-Chipembere:

“That whole fashion statement comes out of Baartman’s presence. (...) [White European] women were really anxious that their men were going to be lowered into wanting this sort of exotic, hyper-sexual African woman.”

The Wikipedia page for the bustle says that the garment came into fashion around the mid to late 1800s, while Baartman died in 1815. While Baartman was certainly fetishized and exploited both within her lifetime and afterwards, is it likely that a garment specifically designed to emulate her body would come into fashion decades after she died? If not Baartman's body specifically, is there still evidence that the bustle was designed to emulate the steatogypic body type found in some southern African ethnic groups?

In our modern world, people who own horses own them like pets. But it must have been different in the middle ages, yes? I will read things where "such and such got fresh horses and continued on their journey." Does that mean the horse they were using is now the stables' horse? Were there transactions? Or were horses seen as a communal resource the be shared?

I know this has some political relevance today, so it's a difficult one to ask or answer properly, so, sorry in advance if it doesn't pass the muster.

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I've read all kinds of assessments, from the two being largely one and the same to just something a few notable abolitionist congressmen ran on earlier in their political career but repudiated by the 1850s. It's kind of difficult to see the logic connecting the two movements (except, perhaps, certain churches in the North having strong opinions on both) and as I said, anything I could find on it seems to be influenced by the modern-day soapboxing, so what's the actual facts are and if there was indeed a strong connection, what was the logic behind it?

Basically exactly what the question says on the tin.

Were they always considered Chinese? Was the history repurposed to make China look stronger? Is it something as simple as they won the mandate of heaven so are therefore Chinese?

Also very curious as to when the shift happened if they started out as foreign powers and later came to be regarded as Chinese, especially if that happened during their reigns

I’m creating a DND world and I’ve got a culture of people who do human sacrifices (of volunteers if that makes it feel better)

I wanted to put great emphasis on the idea that they dissect and use the entire body - bones, blood, and organs - but any and all searches for information on that just leads to articles of people being trafficked or talking about the Viking Blood Eagle method which is a gory punishment and I was going for more solemn.

The only thing I could find is one sentence saying people did and do eat human kidneys(nothing on why) but surely in all of history there’s gotta be documented uses of organs for something!

Any information you’ve got I’d love to hear it :)

Apparently, the position of chief royal Mistress was an official one in the French court.

The French Monarchs regarded Christianity as important enough that they had the title of "Most Christian King". Needless to say Christianity in general does not look kindly on mistresses.

It doesn't really surprise me, of course, that powerful Monarchs should be a little morally flexible in this regard and take mistresses anyway. But it does strike me as odd that they could have Royal Mistresses be officially acknowledged. Once you have royal mistress as an official position it seems to me you are basically keeping a royal harem. How was this officially justified? Did the position of Maîtresse-en-titre involve less scandalous official duties? Did the whole thing ever get condemned by the more religious? Wasn't it seen as a problem for the King to be living in officially acknowledged sin?

I recently saw a photo of Sammy Sosa, Dominican baseball player, who bleached his skin and transformed from black to being completely white ?

It was also common practice in the Dominican Republic to lighten skin in the 1940s-1950s

Why wasn't there widespread skin bleaching and ethnic plastic surgery in the Jim Crow South as well as other areas of the country where there was racial discrimination i.e. Sundown towns in the North and Midwest ?

It has always made me wonder when reading about the vibrant Song economy, the widespread imperial exams and cases of rags-to-riches social mobility, about how many people (especially common folk) back then were able to read and write Hanzi and to what extent, as literacy seems to always have been so crucial in China.