I often hear that Allied paratroopers assaulting Normandy took heavy losses while in the air and once landed were quite scattered and disorganized. Taking this into consideration, did the paratroops do reasonably well at achieving their objectives? Was this an effective use of resources that tangibly helped the Normandy landings as a whole?

Specifically, I'm interested in the quick hit-and-run raids that did not involve overwintering or settling. I've read that they were often well planned. From the moment they left their homeland to the moment the returned. How did they know where to raid? Did they scout? Did they have an agenda, like we want slaves and grain out of this? etc.

I'm arguing with someone over the vandalization of a Christopher Columbus statue and we got into a debate about whether most people believed he did or not.

And if so, who would those traitors be? Previous rulers? Outlaws? Ambitious members of the current ruling class?

Related, they also seem to habitually murder a large portion of the aristocracy. Does this have precedent, or would such a practice simply result in resentment?

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And if so how far back would I have to travel before my English and my accent and their English and their accent become incomprehensible to one another?

I know the Romans saw the Egyptians who built the pyramids as the ancients, and renaissance thinkers saw the Romans as the ancients. Who did the first civilizations such as Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Chinese River Valley see as the ancients?

I know a fair bit about their actions in the Mediterranean world, Syria, and Mesopotamia, but have heard very little about the other half of the Empire.

We know he was removed from office by Odoacer in 476 and pensioned off to relatives in Campania. But what happened to him after that? Do we have any sense of what his life was like, whether any opposition formed around him, when he died?

While I know that many Japanese soldiers died in a suicidal Banzai charge and others simply committed suicide, prisoners were still taken. Did any Japanese generals surrender?

Was it done for moral or practical reasons?

I was reading through an excerpt of Dr. MLK Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail and I came across the line

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights.

Now, I did the math™ and found this to be pointing at the year 1623. What I don't understand is the reference the constitution, it wouldn't have been written for more than another 150 years, and 1623 is even before mainland Europe had any interest in the Americas, so the slave trade with the Europeans wasn't a thing I got 1492 and 1692 mixed up because I'm retarded, and AFAIK the Arabic African slave trade had been going on for millennia before that date.

Does anyone know what this specific year is pointing at?

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Or even just communicate, I guess.

Let me explain what I'm talking about. Looking at WW1 and WW2, especially on the European fronts, we can see frontlines, which are completely secured on both sides so no army can walk through them without a fight, everything that's behind the frontlines is occupied and garrisoned and cut off from the rest of the enemy territory. Whoever runs out of territory to retreat to or resources to continue fighting loses the war.

As an example of what I'm talking about, I want to look at 1812 Napoleon invasion of Russia. He assembled 600k men, clearly not enough to create a proper frontline and occupation of modern days, yet he outnumbered the enemy. He assembled his army into one big blob and marched into Russia, only to be kited around, harassed, denied pillaging, he lost a lot of soldiers, then he caught up to the Russian army and won in Borodino, securing the battlefield and forcing enemy to retreat, he entered Moscow, only to get denied capitulation and retreat.

So here's what I'm asking. Most wars of that period never had army sizes of more than hundreds of thousands - not enough to form frontlines in the HRE, Sweden (as in Finland), Russia and Baltic states, Poland, Austria and France - major battlefields of the time. Armies of the time already had cannons, so cities were never walled, and needed large garrisons to protect them, reducing attacker's possible army size a lot. Also, population was decentralised, so you needed to hold onto more of territory to actually secure a win. As such, the "kiting and harassment" strategy could work for any defender and not only Russia. So the question is - what were the requirements of actually securing a military victory at the time if the enemy doesn't want to surrender? What was Napoleon's (or every other attacker's) plan to close out a war, considering that every battle possible goes their way?

Or the Japanese Embassy for that matter...

Dear AH Reddit, I've been reading about this book "The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492" and it challenges a story I'd always read about the distribution of Jewish populations in Europe. I'd always read that Jews were forced into professions like trades and moneylending and away from agriculture due to persecution that prevented them from owning land or otherwise adopting more common agrarian professions.

This book says it's something like the other way around. Jewish literacy emphasized during the 1st millenium CE was incredibly costly, but, having already invested in that for religious purposes, Jews were drawn into professions where that investment was economically helpful, because of the massive investment in becoming literate in a world without modern public schooling.

Does anyone know what the scholarly consensus on this book is? And can you suggest any critiques?

That's something i would've expect from Euroepan colonialism.