The pyramids are an astounding feat and while there are many hypotheses regarding how the pyramids were constructed, most fall short of being able to explain how the largest stones were placed, how they were so precise, or how the projects were completed within such a relatively short period of time.

Thank you in advance for your responses!

I'm mostly interested in learning about ancient human migration on a global scale. Googling turns up a few modern or specific migration studies programs, like migration to the Americas after 1500 or Mexican migration to the United States.

Edit: It doesn't have to be just ancient migration. I'd be interested in later periods, too, as long as they are global in scope.

I was reading about the battle of midway and one thing that struck me as weird was the fact that army B-17s were deployed against the Japanese fleet. I looked into this idea further and learned about an entire class of patrol aircraft such as the PB4Y-2 Privateer, Fw-200 condor to name a few. My understanding is these planes would primarily hunt submarines and merchant shipping, but could engage warships like the battle of midway I mentioned earlier. I was wondering how exactly these planes would go about attacking such a target? How effective were they in this role? I can't imagine it was easy, the maneuvering of the ships and the difficulty maneuvering the bomber to hit the ships, compounded by the fact that they are taking varying amounts of fire based on how high up they were flying. I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around how they would accomplish this often enough to make it worth attempting?

I am Lorien Foote, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies for the History Department at Texas A&M University. I have authored four books on the American Civil War. I am here to answer your questions about honor among Northern soldiers, military discipline and justice, prisoners of war, the mass escape of 3000 POWs, and conditions in the South as the Confederacy collapsed.

This is a thing that I have been wondering for a little while, as I find the whole wide scale collapse extremely fascinating, and for what I understand from what we know the epics were told orally for several centuries before written down in the way we know them actually.

That begs the question though, how much of the tales is indeed an echo of the troubled times of the end of more complex Mycenaean civilization? Not an accurate account of course, but as a sort of a post apocalyptic tale of the great times that were no more.

Thanks for the time, and sorry for any typos, english is not my first language

Regarding specifically the USSS's role as security and protection personnel for the US president, vice-president, presidential candidates and foreign dignataries.

on the second part of the question, "the black-clad Secret Service agent taking a bullet for the president" and "get down, Mr. President!" are major tropes in the Western world. If the USSR did have such an analogue, did it play a similar cultural role? If it didn't, what other agency "filled the gap" for it, so to say?

According to Wikipedia, by 1957 women were eligible for jury service in all states apart from Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi.

IIRC it was the Spinning Jenny or similar loom-like device.

Hey there, just wondering, during the English Civil War of the 1640s were British tenant farmers/commoners exposed to something which after returning to the Stuarts reign would of caused dislike? I hope you understand my question, and thanks!

Edit: In addition, I know its a bit off topic, but in the English Civil War I understand religion played a large factor but is there evidence to suggest that: The civil war gave way to Catholicism in English society?

In Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb claims that the industrial revolution was not caused by a corresponding scientific revolution (or the Enlightenment), but rather that it was the product of a series of (non-theoretically minded) tinkerers. Is this accurate?

I apologize for any vagueness in my question: I realize that the term Industrial Revolution may refer to more than one time period, but since Taleb doesn't spend much time on his point, I couldn't tell you which one I'm asking about. Probably all of them.

Hello everybody, /u/commustar here stepping in for a guest-post.

History, as an academic discipline, has traditionally been defined by the examination written accounts to study and understand the past.

Of course, this method can run into many problems. Documents from the distant past may not have been preserved well. In eras of low literacy rates, the perspectives that are written down tend to be those of elites (usually male elites), and the sources may demonstrate biases. Or there may be times and places that exist before the introduction of a writing system, like areas of pre-colonial Africa, or pre-Columbian North America.

Of course, textual historians are not the only discipline that examines the human past. There are Oral Historians and Folklorists who take oral testimony, oral traditions, and folklore to study memories of the past that have not been written down. Archaeologists can study what materials have been left behind in the ground (or at the bottom of bodies of water) to gain understanding of past behavior and lifestyles. Historical linguists may examine the syntax and vocabulary of languages, or look at specific words across a family of languages, and be able to conclude where a word is borrowed into one language from another (and by extension, that a technology or concept was likely introduced by that route).

So, to what extent are Historians working with Oral Historians, Folkorists, Linguists, Archaeologists, and other specialists?

Is the trend in academia a desire to move towards more interdisciplinary collaboration, or do disciplines fail to see eye-to-eye? Does it vary by specialization (i.e. scholars of Vikings play well together, but studying the classical mediterranean is fragmented?)

What does an ideal future hold for dialogue? Where should we be trying to get to? What should historians understand about other disciplines to be able to better understand and appreciate the perspective they bring?

Greece, China, Rome, and the Muslim world developed their own History as a tradition, if not a discipline, and if chronologies are to be counted as History, so did the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians. Seeing how India was home to some of the earliest literate societies, one would expect that they had probably developed their own traditions, with works written in Sanskrit or some prestigious Prakrit. However, a list of "Indian Historians" on Wikipedia points to Kalhana as the earliest historian. Apparently, he is the author of a work on the history of his homeland, Kashmir (called Rajatarangini, i.e. "The River of Kings").

There's just one problem, though: Kalhana lived in the 12th century. What/who were his sources? Chronologies? Do we have any of those?

I'm not really familiar with the history of India, or the historiography of India (obviously), but I know a couple of things: Chandragupta, the Nanda Empire, the Guptas, the Cholas etc. The question is how do we know about any of this stuff?

I realize that people have developed different ways of handing down information, and a search for an Indian Thucydides may well be a completely futile attempt, but they must have had some way of transmitting information about their past. Do you know anything on this topic?

Thank you, in advance.

PS: This is a bit off-topic, but if anyone could suggest any books on Indian history for someone unfamiliar with it, I would be very grateful.

Cuba is now known to be relatively progressive in terms of women's education and representation in the workforce. I'm interested in how gender roles have changed in Cuba after the revolution at the social level and how these changes have been implemented in a material sense through organizations like the Federation of Cuban Women, for example.

I am curious about the topic area and wanting to write about it in the future and would like some ideas as to why they failed as i have some but i would like other opinions.