Okay, so I read somewhere that the reason prices in D&D are so absurd (10 gold coins the size of your thumb for minor stuff a peasant should be able to afford) is because they're based off of byzantine prices in an era where the "gold" coins were heavily watered down. How much would you have to water down gold for a random agricultural worker to be able to get their hands on a "gold" coin? (Also, is the story in question true?)

Weren't the Germans concerned about naval artillery destroying their fortifications because they were so close to the shore?

Having seen the ads for "Heroin" and also having read/heard about the availability of cocaine around the same time; what was the first substance controlled by a government and why? What substances followed? What countries followed suit?

How quickly was the uptake to the now almost universal stance on illegal narcotics?

The British evacuated and demilitarised the islands due to their strategic unimportance, no? And yet they were arguably the most fortified part of the Atlantic wall, with not even a single liberation operation attempted by the Allies

I keep seeing in popular culture how Nazis scoured the earth looking for ancient artifacts and occult weapons. I was just wondering if there is any truth to this or do they just make a safe villain for media.

I've read that the Roman Republican Senate numbered as high as 900, with each Senator entitled to speak before a vote was held on a particular topic. Furthermore, Senators held the position for life, if I'm not mistaken.

Under these circumstances, I imagine it would be trivially easy for a small minority in the Senate, on any particular topic, to successfully avoid holding a vote via a filibuster or similar. And given their lifetime tenure (yes, I'm aware "lifetime" could vary), they could be a nuisance for a very long time.

So, how did this work in practice? Did the Consul wield enough power to ensure that Senators would cooperate? Did the civil wars ensure that the Senate was stacked with Consul-friendly appointees?

I'm only just being introduced to Roman history, so I'd be grateful for any suggestions for further reading.

Sorry for the title gore if there's any, as English is not my language.

Here's a little bit of background about my question. My history teacher told me that, in Imperial China, from Qin Dynasty to Qing Dynasty, there were only eight countries that China see them as a country, and were granted the status "国", which means a country.

The eight countries are:

• Empire of Japan
• Russian Empire
• British Empire
• USA
• French Third Republic
• German Empire
• Kingdom of Italy
• Austro-Hungary Empire

Now if I look back, I find that most of the big empires are not granted the status "国", like Persian Empire are just 波斯, India is 天竺, Majapahit is 满者伯夷 and etc. There is neither "国" nor "朝" in their name.

So leads to my question, does Imperial China ever view other foreign countries as equal to China?

Becoming a pilot in the RAF is incredibly difficult due to the physical and mental demands required, however, did these standards drop during the Second World War because the demand for pilots would have been greater, if so were there any implications for this?

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When seeing fictional sword fights, they're prolonged, well choreographed, and truly look like all parties know exactly what they're doing. But do we know what sword battles in the middle ages actually looked like? How long did a sword fight in the battle field take?

When it sank, hundreds of people died on board and in the freezing water, did the bodies sink with the titanic and are they still on board the wreckage or have they decomposed?

I visited Pearl Harbor recently which prompted me to read more about the post-Pearl Harbor war in the Pacific. I read things about how the US was afraid to fight the Japanese Navy at night, and how, even at Midway where the US won a decisive victory, we were lucky with our reconnaissance and the Japanese were unlucky with their reconnaissance , or we were lucky by having a single bomb hit a Japanese carrier in just the right spot to take it out. This doesn't even mention the fact that the US aircraft carriers weren't present at Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack.

Every account of a true naval battle around Guadalcanal that I've read has the allies coming out on the short end. It's my understanding that, at least early in the war, the Japanese could launch 100+ planes in 7 minutes, while it took the US over an hour to do the same.

I understand that our intelligence/codebreaking made a huge difference, and obviously the American industrial complex outclassed the Japanese... but in a fair/equal fight with luck removed, would the Japanese have beaten the US?

Throughout history, salt has been a dietary staple, a highly valued trade good, and a necessity for long term storage of certain food items. On the other hand, the world at large only came in contact with black pepper much more recently, initially as a luxury item. How did this spice, not earth-shattering compared to others with a similar history, become so common as to establish an intimate pairing with salt?

Tonight on Game of Thrones we finally got to see the Dothraki army in action. They fought completely different than anyone else in Westoros which gave them a huge advantage. From what little I know about combat history I believe this is the same thing that gave the Mongol Hordes so much success.

I have 2 questions

1: Where can I read about the troubles that the Mongol Hordes presented to the more traditional medieval armies?

2: Did the Mongols or the Native American horseman do cool shit like stand on their saddles to shoot arrows or jump over enemy lines.

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I say this because I remembered about how it is retained a memory about the Kingdom of Asia in the Bronze Age, and since the dynasty of Hatti have long gone to dust, the memory of it was lost, and attributed to the Assyrians, but as many (I assume, I know at the very least Nichols in his "Fragments of Ctesias") know, the Assyrian Empire never reached that extent, nor the extent of the Achaemenid Empire, which was the one supposed to inherit (which was not so, it was only to lend an air of legitimacy to THEIR conquest)

However, just what I said, the recurrence of an extended Kingdom of Asia from Anatolia to Mesopotamia in ages long past (that is, the Bronze Age) made me rethink it, so... was the Babylonian Chaldaean Dynasty a vassal lordship or a vassal kingship? It is hard to believe that the dynasty of Hatti would go all their way to Babylonia to just say "Nay, don't care, we leave these ones in charge, whatever", especially given how they had no further problems from the Babylonians (they had it with the Assyrians, though)

Just for the record, I had in my mind something similar to the vassal lordship of Syria to the brother of Suppiluliuma I (or was a younger son of his?)