Obviously 'Europe' is a big area and 'Medieval' quite a long time period, but do we have any evidence of a fantasy-style City Watch whose purpose was mainly law enforcement and defence of the city at any point anywhere? I have seen some say that law enforcement as we know it (that is to say, not just the military being used to keep the peace) is a relatively new thing and yet the idea of a City Watch seems quite ubiquitous. For reference in Medieval Fantasy I'm thinking of, say, the Gold Cloaks from GoT or the Night's Watch from Discworld.

I tried the search function, and Google. Neither were of any help.

I've been learning about Biblical Exodus. I'd like to know if there are any archaeological or historical records outside of the Bible that indicate if there was a mass infanticide in the land of Ancient Egypt.
Exodus 1:22: Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

Is there any evidence that this happened?
Did the Ancient Egyptians practice infanticide other than this?

A follow-up question: have archaeologist discovered remains of the Egyptian Army under the Red Sea?

Or before we were able to instantly communicate across those same long distances. I'm sure there was a first time when someone thought "maybe I shouldn't send a telegraph to the Pacific coast from New York because it's 5am there."

If I travel really far up north in Sweden in the winter, it will be dark all the time. This got me thinking.

How did people actually manage to live up north in the winter, when there were no sunlight for many months?

I just don't understand why people would wanna live in such a place...

According to Wikipedia, the third precept says:

I undertake the training rule to avoid sexual misconduct.

What sort of "misconduct" is this referring to?

I've always imagined the English farmer at this time having a bow or sword hanging somewhere in his home, going out to hunt small game for supplementary food or for sport. However I am not sure how accurate that is. In addition, were their any laws at this time in England (or elsewhere) regulating weapons for personal use?

Hello all. I am completely aware of the 20 year rule, and even though I’ll use modern examples, this is still a question about historiography so I think it should still be fine. I understand why that rule exists, and why historians in general do not talk about or study recent or contemporary events (bias of the writer, limited resources, “raw” subjects that might still be controversial), but looking at the world since roughly 2010, so much has happened that clearly will have effects for decades to come, why aren’t historians beginning the process of collecting research? If I recall correctly, Alistair Horne began his long research process for A Savage War of Peace only a couple of years after the war had ended in 1962, and he was talking with veterans and important leaders by the 70’s. Antiquity is in no way a forte of mine, but didn’t Thucydides begin recording the Peloponnesian War as it was happening?

I’m just using it as an example because as a venezolano it is something I’m familiar with, but how would a historian go about writing a history of the chavísta regime up to now, or at the very least until Chavez’ death? Or the Arab Spring? Or the Syrian revolution that became the civil war of today? These are periods of history that clearly have huge ramifications for millions of people, wouldn’t the recording/research process be best done while memories are fresh? Of course I realize that sources can be declassified or uncovered years or decades later, but I think it would be fair to say that many sources could also be destroyed over time, or memories fade before they are recorded. I realize completely that these first histories will necessarily, inherently, and must be biased because they are so close to the events and people themselves, but don’t accounts like these serve as the base on which future “neutral” and more academic work is built?

The thing is I’m not positive that this is simply the realm of journalists either. If we go back to the Venezuela example (again, not asking for a discussion on its history), a journalist talking about the economic crisis now and Maduro’s call for an Asemblea Constituyente for a new constitution wouldn’t necessarily look at the same sources and documents a historian would, and certainly not with their scope, contemporary articles talking about Venezuela now only discuss its history since Chavez’ death in 2013. Contemporary articles wouldn’t look at anything before the 2002 attempted coup and certainly not anything from the previous Caldera and Andrés Pérez administrations for context. I can’t find any books from academic historians that chronicle any period of the Chavísta regime, even though this began in 1999. (If any one has suggestions I would gladly appreciate it, even though, again, it’s not the point of this post)

To conclude, I understand why as serious academics historians must strive to be as unbiased as possible, and it would be practically impossible to do that studying and writing about recent and contemporary events, but that doesn’t mean that those events aren’t products and creators of very important history deserving of study. If anything it seems to create a gap where contemporaries who want to understand current events must make do with histories that stop well before the periods in question.

Why was the prohibition of alcohol in the US written onto the Constitution itself instead of a piece of federal law? What were the reasoning behind it, and were there any debates/criticisms at the time regarding the appropriateness of including the prohibition of alcohol in the Constitution? In my mind, for example, the Constitution should reserved for "more important" legislations such as fundamental rights of the citizens.

I listened to the Last Podcast on the Left series on the cult this week and it got me curious about how close Aum came to having nuclear capabilities. My understanding is they managed to smuggle some plutonium into Japan however nothing seems to have come of it with chemical weapons being their tools of terror.

What happened to the nuclear program? If the cult had not been taken down and Shoko arrested were they on track to have some sort of nuclear device?

The round, heavy item in question was found on private property in San Antonio Texas, about a mile as the crow flies from The Alamo. It was found on the ground, after a rainstorm.

Now I know some cannonballs were filled with explosives, so as a precaution, we've taken special care so as to not drop it.

Could it be a cannonball? You can tell where it was cast and the sides were ground down to a ball shape.

I was recently asked this topic in a history class, and the professor suggested it originally came from issues in mechanical technology, and later attributed to software issues. My question is where did this term originate, who is the first to use it, and what were they describing?

What was the point of making Kraków a Free City instead of it being annexed to one of the surrounding powers (Austria, Prussia, Russia)?

Repost of unanswered question

Why was Bonn chosen as (West) Germany's new capital after WWII? Was there a reason not to choose Berlin? And: Why Bonn? There are so many German cities that are bigger or seemed more suitable nowadays (e.g. Hamburg, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Munich, Aachen, Hannover, Köln)? And: who chose Bonn - the allied forces, the Bundestag & Bundesrat, someone else?

(note: sources in German are fine, I am fluent in both English and German)

I know that answer may be due to convenience, however I wanted to know if there was something I was missing. I do not know how accurate the 25th of December is for the birth of Jesus, but that is the date that we go by. We stop the BC (before Christ) count after he is born so why not start there?

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