I'm listening to the History of Rome podcast and recently listened to the episode concerning the 1000th anniversary of Rome party that Philip the Arab threw in 247. Did Byzantium do anything for the occasion 2000 years later?

I appreciate that many hot spices and such grow in warmer climates, but what I don't understand is why people who live in hot climates don't prefer cooler, milder flavors over hot ones. If I were a farmer working in the sun all day in say Mexico or India, I'd rather have something smooth and cool for dinner than something spicy. Just curious as to why hot foods seem to be promoted more in hotter countries than cool ones?

For example, if I were to read a book on...the late Roman Empire or the early Middle Ages, there's a set of names and dates and causes and effects that are placed in an order. But how much of that narrative is just pieced together based on scant evidence and educated deduction? How much do we actually really know?

How was the situation different in a way that allowed such a large sultanate to be completely annexed by the Ottomans, when they had defeated them on land just two decades before?

Today, with the exception of Inwood Hill park, Manhattan is all built up. When did it all become urban?

Was it a huge deal to everyone for a whole century, or did people kind of forget about it until the movie was made, bringing it back into common reference?

Also: with all the fancy spinning they do in movies - does spinning a staff in a circle parallel to you actually do anything? it feels really easy to stop

I am planing a trip to Portugal later this year but do not know much about the nation's past apart from the fact that it was, for a time, one of the world's great empires. I love traveling, and feel like having a solid grasp of a destination's history really enhances the experience (and helps one to more easily digest new things they learn during their trip).

I am looking for a book which gives a broad overview of Portuguese history while remaining quite academic - I only have a BA in history, but would prefer something dense and full of citations to a novel/travel guide/pop-history book.

Thanks in advance for your help (:

Specifically how did the Danish Royal family also become to Greek Royal family, and why?

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I have had a really hard time finding newspaper archives with issues that are published in more recent times. It seems most online archives for national newspapers only get up to issues around 1920 and then drop off. Anyone know why that is? I would almost consider it a conspiracy theory of trying to hide more recent trends in history from us. But if someone can help me find some free newspapers covering national stories from the more recent past, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

So I was talking to a friend of mine who has taken a deep dive into World of Warships. As a result he has developed an fascination in warships from HMS Dreadnought to the USS Midway and everything in between.

So I was sitting down with him and we were talking when he mentioned that armour for British Battleship armour during WWII was some 25% better than it's American armour counterparts for the same thickness and mass. This applies only to British vessels from the King George V Class (1940) onward.

This seems like an extraordinary claim. Is there any truth to it?

I know this is a vague question but my grandad was a German/French-English translator attached to the Intelligence Corps. during the second world war. It has always been of great interest to me and something I am very proud of..but it has also been a right bitch in terms of information: he died when I was 2, and for class projects where all my classmates were able to google their grandparents, there was never any information on my grandad for obvious reasons. I guess I'm just interested to see what people think, and if there are any books/lines of enquiry/documents etc. which could tell me more, either about my grandad specifically, or about the people he would have worked with.

For 50 years after his service ended (so until 1996) he was forbidden by law from revealing information, with the exception of a couple of stories he told his children (my dad+his siblings). As he died in 2000, we were left with very little information. I once found a piece of paper which was a confirmation thing saying he had signed the Official Secrets Act, but haven't been able to find it since. We had one picture of him, from after the war, in which he is wearing military clothing but with no medals, patches, or anything on there. It's almost as if he were simply given the uniform for the purpose of the photo but if anyone knows if that would have been the case, I'd be grateful if you could tell me. We also have a piece of paper which appears to be a visitation slip, with vague details on the front, and a number on the back which doesn't appear to be any kind of phone number: again we don't know what this is, so if anyone would be interested, I could find the slip and post some photos.

Recently, my dad has been successful in obtaining my grandad's military records which are very interesting and give more detail about his postings: they also sent us a guide for the military abbreviations used throughout the documents.

We know he spent a fair amount of his time in occupied France, and among stories of blowing up train lines and breaking in somewhere (can't remember where without asking my dad), my favourite story is as follows: at one point he was travelling in an army truck with just the driver and a transceiver, and received word that a nearby town was having real problems with the Nazi soldiers occupying it, so he put in a radio call to the soldiers, in perfect German obviously, telling them there were 12 divisions of Allied troops descending on the town..my grandad and his mate arrived to congratulations, and found the Nazis had scarpered.

TLDR: grandad was in the Intelligence Corps, we don't know much, he had some cool stories to tell which appear to check out, and we have some items which raise more questions than they answer, what can we do now?

Before Islam, say in the early seventh century CE, was everyone either Zoroastrian, Jewish, or Christian? I feel like there would be other religions that existed too, but I don't know what they would be.

Basically what the title says. Did any nations fight a war (civil war or otherwise) with the direct result of abolition? Conversely, did any nations fight a war (civil or otherwise) with the aim of not abolishing slavery?

I know Haiti's war for independence, but large-scale de facto slavery has continued more or less continuously since the revolution so I don't know if that counts.

Put in another way, who was Alexander's example of an "Alexander the Great?"

Would Cyrus be someone he knew about and admired?