It's been 70 years since partition and I'm watching a BBC show about the partition of India and Burma isn't included at all in the maps or the show. Also, other maps I've seen have left it out of the British Raj. Was it not an integral part of the British Raj?

Sorry this is so basic but I'm really struggling to find it. How did the process of sending and receiving telegrams work? I don't care about the mechanics or macro-logistics, Which is interesting and all but easy to find out about.

If I sent a message from Boston to D.C. telling my mother that the baby was born and everyone is safe, how does that message ultimately get into her hands? Is it delivered like mail? Immediately? If so does she pay for delivery or do I? Do I need to include her street address? Should she tip when it arrives?

Or does she go pick it up? How would she know a telegram was waiting for her? Does she swing by the western union office every few days to see if I sent anything?

Is this different for people who receive multiple telegrams a day? I could imagine a business or organization that is big enough to get ten telegrams a day, but not so large as to justify a transmitting and receiving station. Though maybe that's wrong too.

Did he really believe that Juan Carlos I would be an absolute monarch in late 20th century, or did he plan something else entirely, that was prevented by the new Government?

I'm not quite sure of the time period, but I've heard people would often go weeks or months without bathing. They also didn't have modern shampoo or toothpaste. How did they stay alive and healthy while being so unsanitary? Or was this all overexaggerated?

I asked this question over at /r/answers and was told that this might be better suited for historians. So...

It's usually a count who's reigning over counties, who's somewhere on the lower levels of a classic feudal monarchy, right? So why is it that the nation born as a republic even has "counties"? I guess it's a colonial thing, but I still find it weird that it is kept to this day.

I'm trying to get a better understanding of how much armour protected the wearer, and how much damage someone wielding a poleaxe, mace, or other percussive instrument (even using the sword for a murder stroke), would be able to cause.

I was reading Livy's history of Hannibal's war (as well as remembering HBO's Rome), and it struck me that Romans had a whole bunch of rules designed to preserve the republic and prevent any single general (or other powerful individual) from taking control of Rome.

And I started wondering who thought up those rules? Like the rules that there were always two consuls, and there was a consular election every year.

Or the rule that a dictator had to resign after completion of his given task, or in six months, whichever came first?

Or the rule of no exercising imperium in Italy (south of Rubicon / Arno)?

Those all sound to me like rules derived by either brilliant thought, or bitter experience, or both. Were they derived from Greek political experience? Or from the experience of living under the Kings in Rome? Or something else?

What do we know about the people who thought them up or about the circumstances in which they did so?

Considering that virtually everyone in Southern Appalachia and the Ozarks were white (with little direct contact with slavery) and isolated from the rest of the South, what were their reasons for fighting for the South? I know many of them remained Unionists (esp. in Tennessee), but quite a few joined the rebellion. How come?

I know that the F-86 Sabre had raider aimed guns, essentially an electric gyroscopic sight like the P-51 was equipped with. What other advancements were made?

Let me just add a disclaimer: I'm not implying Confederates are on the same level as Nazis, just that by having a similar process to Germany after WW2 wouldn't national healing have been accelerated?

Okay, so I study history as a hobby and I have come across conflicting views on when periods started and ended. For instance; ancient history is said to have started in 3100BC with the Sumerian cuneiform script and ended in 476 AD with the fall of the western Roman Empire. Yet others say that it didn't end until the rise of Islam in 600AD. To make it worse, post classical history seems extremely muddled to where it ends and modern history starts. Does modern history start around 1500CE with the age of discovery?

Might seem like a silly question but for the slave owners it probably doesn't make economic sense for them to be so terrible. Can I just preface this with I really don't feel comfortable about talking about people like they're a thing like this, but it's only because it makes sense in the context.

Now I'm not suggesting that slaves ships would have made sense to be luxurious, that would just be the other extreme. But as for just how bad slave ships were, doesn't make too much sense. I would have thought slave were quite valuable, so 1 you lose a lot of profit every time one of them dies, that's an enormous loss 2 it also makes sense that your product is in good condition so as to be able to get the most money for it, so you don't want to be damaging them both mentally or physically would effect the value, and 3 treating people poorly has a negative effect on productivity.

My first thought is that a lot of slave ships weren't that bad and the ones we hear about now are just some of the worst examples of human treatment so they are the ones that get talked about the most?

My question is basically about issues of quality control and customer relations in craft guilds.

Were there any means by which cheated customers could get their complaints redressed? Who did they go to - the master craftsman? The heads of the guild? The ruler of the town?

Also did the guilds have any quality control checks in place to ensure their members were not selling poorly made merchandise that could harm the reputation of the guild?

Especially those which were removed forcibly, whether by military coup, war, or anything similar?

I'm not really talking about something like a museum or anything which is providing more of a historical context rather than a memorialization if that makes sense.

Furthermore, if there are, then what is the public sentiment for that in whatever country/nation state does still honor past regimes?

If this is the wrong place to ask this feel free to point me in the right direction.

Edit: Should say "Do any"

Oops

Obviously slavery was and is an abomination, and the stories preserved of it in the antebellum USA paint a picture of ruthless slave owners often horribly abusing the people they owned as slaves. My question is, was that abuse legal? And, did any legislators at state or national levels pass (or attempt to pass) laws aimed to protect the well-being of slaves?

Whether it's an Ethiopian Orthodox church in 15th century Rome or 20th century African-Americans fleeing Jim Crow for the glitter and refuge of Paris, western Europe has a long history of being called "home" by people of color. Today, let's share some of those stories!

Next time: Air & Space

China has been advanced for literally millenia. Why have they not discovered new worlds like Africa, the Americas and Europe?

Wondered about this when I read about Penang, an Island next to Malaysia. It was mapped by Chinese around 1400, but English colonized it around 1600. China had powerful dynasties ruling millennia before that. How come they haven't mapped southeast Asia earlier. Or colonized the Pacific?