I know that this is probably not the "intended" meaning of customs, but I am a law student so I am always on the lookout for loopholes and exploitable ambiguity.

Anyway, how did the Kingdoms/nations of the ancient world enforce their borders, tariffs, and trade laws?

What was this branch of the state department up to in the late 1940s?

IWW/Wobblies -- I know they have something to do with labor unions, but what is their significance and history?

Sorry to bring video games into this subreddit but I was recently watching an interview where the creative director of Assassin's Creed: Origins stated that the abundance of various arenas in the game were due to the Greeks introducing them into the country.

How historically accurate is this statement?

Why is the Arab Slave Trade talked about a lot less in mainstream history than the Atlantic Slave Trade? The Arab Slave Trade involved many more slaves and was equally or in some cases more brutal than transatlantic slavery and continued up until the 1960s. Further there is an ongoing debate in the United States that African Americans should receive some sort of reparations by the federal government for slavery, do such movements exist among descendants of African slaves in Arab countries?

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Does the "pot" refer to porcelain toilets, or does it refer to the bedpans used before that?

I recently rewatched Schindler's list and it occurred to me that since it's set in Poland the civilians who harass or make negative remarks towards Jews are almost certainly Polish. Did Poland have similarly extreme anti Semitic views as Germany? I would have thought given the Germans being invaders that the Polish might be more sympathetic to the Jews.

Whenever I go to the grocery store or a pharmacy, the vast majority of toothpaste on the shelf is flavored with mint. Sure, there are other toothpaste flavors, but most of the other flavors are marketed to children or offered by dentists. The only other toothpaste flavor I've seen when walking around at an average pharmacy like CVS that is directed at adults is flavored with cinnamon - and it's exceptionally hard to find flavorless toothpaste right off the shelf!

So, how did this situation come to be? How did mint become the default toothpaste flavor - and where did the association of "mint" with "clean" come from, especially with regards to breath? Further, how old is that association - does it date back to BCE, or is it a recent invention?

Who would the daughters of the reigning emperor be married to (or did they marry) during the Sengoku period in Japan? It is my understanding that they would be married to prominent nobles (or possibly daimyō?) for Imperial advantage, but is this true?

I don't mind pointers to information/sources where I can read up and post a summary here. Thank you!

So many historic figures from Persia have names ending in 's'. Xerxes, Cyrus, Darius, Tisaphernes etc. Herodotus at one point even mentioned the fact:

Here is another matter that is true of the Persians, and, though they have not noticed it themselves, I have. Their names, which express their bodily powers or their magnificence, all end in the same letter, the one the Dorians call "san" and the Ionians "sigma". On searching the matter out, you will find no exceptions to this among their names.

Do we know why so many names end in 's'? Is it part of the Persian dialect? Is it unique to noble names, or did common people also have names ending in 's'?

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Sorry if this is an ignorant question. I've been reading a lot about World War 1 and how the Germans had sieged control of most of Belgium at one point for example. What did it physically/governmentally mean for a country to take control of another city? Is it just declared after some amount of fighting? I'm not totally sure I understand how this happens.

I know there were allegations out even during his 1992 presidential campaign, but did people (particularly his supporters, who were not politically biased in favor of believing the allegations) find them credible? Or was much attention paid to them? I seem to recall that pre-Lewinsky Saturday Night Live's jokes about Clinton involved him supposedly being a fast-food loving hillbilly rather than an adulterer, so does that portrayal mirror the contemporary perception of him?

My grandfather was born in 1925, so presumably he got a ssn ~1945 . He was a railroad engineer for most of his career, and to this day when officials read his SSN they remark, "Oh, he was a railroad man". How are they able to tell just be reading his number?

Ive always wondered about how different civilizations on earth were very different. Why did by the time the Europeans and asians have a thriving technological advancements, literature, science, buildings, weaponry; yet the americas were relatively outdated?

I know different types of advancements, but one was way more actually advanced than the other. Or i might be getting it wrong..

Please explain and expand if my ideas were wrong or didnt see a specific detail.