Sorry if this isn't the right sub for this. But for Christmas I was thinking of requesting my grandfather's military records and building something out of it for my father. Perhaps a history of his unit and when he was in europe. I only came up with this idea tonight so I've only done quick searches on obtaining us military records. The VA site seems to say only next of kin can request deceased soldiers records. Is this true? All I know is my grandfather was an engineer in the army. Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

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Most of the oldest people in the past have been nobles, how did the people under the nobles deal with a Lord suffering from dementia? Did they just ignore it? Did they actually try to fullfil whatever weird wish he must've put forward?

Edit: Particularly in the medieval times

I don't doubt the vastness of the British empire but I doubt the saying the sun never sets on the British empire was ever literally true. At point in history did the sun literally never set on the British empire?

My dad served in the Pacific in WW2. He actually arrived too late for combat; they heard news of the first atom bomb when he was shipping out of San Francisco. Still, this particular instance of history (and many others) interest me...

I can recall across reading many books on the WW2 Pacific Theater that there was one particular place - surely some island, I would guess southeast of Japan (although that means most of the theater), not too large in overall area; not any huge island or land mass - that was based around an ancient volcanic caldera, but which was not directly attacked by land forces (Marines). Instead, it was bypassed, and bombed a lot. I seem to recall it had lots of tunnels (nothing unusual there, given Japanese resourcefulness).

I can't believe I am now googling maps and history, and can't find it. But it's been a couple of years since I last read a WW2 Pacific Theater book. I thought I'd know it but I guess I'm getting senile.

Any ideas?

My brother with a masters in history is unfortunately stuck in a financial rut. He has been taking part time work with local historical societies and museums, but has not achieved anything approaching sound financial status. What professional careers are best suited for historians apart from the mythical professorship and curator positions. To those of you who have pursued other careers, what aspects of the career change made the work fulfilling?

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Using one example, the French Revolution can be interpreted as either a success or a failure. It seems to be a conservative historian would see it as a failure in terms of being an actualization of liberal theory, a liberal historian might interpret it as a success in terms of being a necessary step to the development of liberal theory.

This example is a crap-shoot so feel free to correct my example or give your own. I’m not acquainted with historical methodology.

Many historians note that Operation Barbarossa was a big mistake. But I was talking to my history teacher yesterday and he said although we now see it as a mistake, the Germans had many opportunities to win. He briefly stated about the resounding early successes and far superior airforce. His main point though was stubborn nazi leadership who refused to allow withdrawal in certain battles- he said that even though this is a small thing l, it could have made a big difference in the end. When I told him that the Soviets also had strict no withdrawal policies ( not one step back order), he said it was different for the Russians as they had more manpower. Is he right and could it simply have been better Nazi leadership in small decisions like retreating to reorganise that could would have won Germany OB?

Whenever there is a movie that use America Indians and their languages, they sound very slow and choppy. Did these languages actually sound like that or are they just trying to work with whatever we have left of from those languages, or are they just the best guesses we can come up with?

In the Quran and Sunnah of Muhammad, it disallows alcohol and other intoxicants. What was the intoxicant at the time that people would use, if any?

i've been learning more about ancient world history recently and just now about the sea peoples and how we only know about them from egyptian hieroglyphs, any popular theories that havent been disproven?

All the children had to come from somewhere.

Whenever I look up pictures of Berbers, they all appear to be slightly darker than normal Arabs, but clearly not black.

Why was the Union Army, for the longest time, under the command of such terrible Generals? It seems like there were alot of wonderful Brigade and Division commanders, but it seems the very highest levels of leadership were filled with very inept men. I know there were very good Generals like Grant and Hancock, and very good Colonels like Chamberlain. But goodness.. why were so many of the highest ranking Generals so.... dumb?

Sorry if this is a vague question, but essentially I want to know if the Ruthenian people (Or Lithuania, where most of them were based at the time) actually had aspirations for a non-Russian Rus during the early modern period, or anything later if that's likely.

If the answer is yes, bonus question, was this dream realistic?

How exactly were lions widely known about in England in 1189, enough to be depicted on Richard I's coat of arms?

Since they obviously knew they existed, how did they really come to find them if it was incredibly difficult to travel to Sub-Saharan Africa at the time?

Did cities or realms have a distinct tribal identity? (the inspiration of this question was reading that Frankfurt was chosen as the imperial election site partly because it was felt that it should traditionally be held in a Frankish city). Was this purely traditional/historic or did it have practical implications?

Would the average citizen have a notion of their own tribal identity? I.e. would a "Saxon-Frankfurter" consider themselves different from a "Frankish-Frankfurter"? Would they have separate communities, and keep to themselves? Would a Saxon have any kind of lower status in a Frankish city/realm? (Like, for example, Italian or Irish Americans in the early 20th century)

Did nationalist arguments play into politics, like a Thuringian duchy contending that a predominantly Thuringian county should be subject to them rather than, say, a Bavarian Duke?