When did the Latifundia that covered much of Sicily in the 19th century originate? Can they be traced to the roman slave run-estates, or did the Arab invasions completely destroy them?

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This is an overarching question of a number of interrelated questions I've been curious about- did Russian citizens, and after WW2 people in satellite states, manage to gain information/ put out information around the censors and if so how? Did new technology help or hinder?

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How were the French Capetians able to overcome the much wealthier and more powerful Plantagenets?

Most interestingly, the Capetians/French were unable to take these territories during the anarchy of the decades long civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda, what changed to allow them to take advantage of a series of relatively more minor civil wars?

When a army successfully stormed a city under a siege, how did battle work inside the city? Did they fight in formations or did they just run around and chaotically killing everyone they saw, like in the movies?

During the 1st crusade, pope Urban the second called upon the Frankish people to rise against he Muslim threat and retake the holy city of Jerusalem, but my question is : How come that so many Germans and British forces joined the crusades although the pope only called upon the French ? I imagine that even such big news as the crusades didn't get spread throughout the world and not many non-French people knew about it ?

The earliest date I can find is 1697 for when the Cossacks imposed taxes on the native Alyutors. (Wikipedia)

Sweden was neutral during the cold war. As far as I understand the Soviet Union respected that on the diplomatic stage. But there is a difference between what you say officially and what you tell your soldiers.

(next three paragraphs try to explain my anecdotal reasoning behind this question)

A few years ago I heard a radio documentary that talked about Soviet spying on Sweden. One thing mentioned was that someone bought an old decommissioned Soviet military ship from the Baltic sea and it had images with silhouettes for visual identification of targets. It had a category for Poland, East Germany and NATO. Swedish ships were listed in the NATO category.

Another tangentially related thing I read in a book by Viktor Suvorov (I understand that historians think he's a nutcase, but this was a spying book, not his alternative WWII history book). He mentioned that when he was invited to watch a NATO military exercise he asked his hosts why some vehicles had red crosses painted on them, it just made them easier to shoot. He was a well-educated tank company commander and was never taught that shooting red crosses is bad.

This makes me think that a political/diplomatic stance on neutrality (or other rules) means nothing in case of war if it isn't part of the actual military doctrine. The decisions on whom to invade are made on higher level than a tank company commander, but he decides which vehicles to shoot in the field. In case of the ship if their orders are to shoot NATO ships and Swedish ships were on the NATO list, then I don't see how any amount of diplomacy will prevent an itchy trigger finger.

What was the Soviet military plan for Sweden during the cold war? Was it considered to be just yet another NATO country? Considering all the spying the Warsaw pact did in Sweden there must have been some plans, but are there documents that have come out that show what those plans were? Invade first? Invade last? Assassinate all leadership and leave alone?

If they attacked germany would've been alone, probably hungary would've help germany but that's it, Italy was still angry at germany for helping ethiopians and austria was practically a puppet government of Italy. It was the perfect occasion to avoid all the casualties of WW2 and the iron curtain.

So if I understand this correctly, during the Soviet regime the government owned everything and people did not have ownership of property but now they do. How did this happen? Did everyone suddenly claim ownership of the property they lived in? Did they buy property from the government?

I just thought of this today. I know that dogs have been somewhat domesticated for thousands of years, but did people have them as pets in the way that we do todat or were they more like 'tools' for work?

I really wondered if there are any accounts of training dogs in Greece, Rome, medieval Europe, etc.

I don't think this is an askscience question....