[deleted]

I was educated in France and I remember being taught that Enlightenment thinkers were an important cause of the Revolution. How true is this?

I know the Etruscans lived in Italy. I'm guessing they probably were conquered by the Romans at some point but I'm having trouble finding a definitive answer.

So what happened to the Etruscans?

Let's take the Golden Age of Piracy, for this topic. How was the profile of someone who would embrace the life on sea? Poor/Rich? Family men? Workers? Farmers? Did they only accept men with military/sailing experience or the pirates followed the "rookies welcome" style of recruitment? Did they have any source of "code" that forbid certain classes (based on religion, skin color, etc.) to join them? Basically, how the life of someone would be like for that person to think that piracy was the right lifestyle choice?

And if it makes sense - did ideological/philosophical concerns play a role in Roman persecution of Christianity?

I forgot what special I was watching, but it was going over the history of the Roman emperors. One historian said it was kind of an unwritten rule that Roman emperors must build something big and new in Rome during their reign. Nowhere in that special did they mention special projects in London, Paris, or even Constantinople. When I thought about it, I realized there aren't any special structures in those cities on the scale of Rome's projects. Am I wrong, or did Rome just not care about other major cities?

I know, weird question.

As an European descendant living in an African former colony, the narritive that that Europe enriched herself at Africa's expense is pushed pretty hard. While it seems true that Europe owes a fair amount of its success on its extractive colonial approach, the degree of influence colonial exploitation played is seems up for debate.

I was quite into Greek mythology as a kid, and remember reading that Zeus and the Olympian gods were the children of Chronos and Rhea. Chronos, scared of being usurped, ate his children, but Zeus fought back, freeing his siblings, and this led to the titans being overthrown.

I also remember that Zeus was equivalent to Jupiter, Hermes to Mercury, Poseidon to Neptune, etc. Given how Roman religion absorbed and adapted a lot of culture from around the empire, how much detail did they keep? Did Roman mythology/religion have an equivalent of the Titanomachy, or did they just pick and choose the best bits?

A friend of mine says that it is just a myth but I'm skeptical.

In the Bible (Chapter 6 of the Book of Daniel), Darius the Mede was forced to sentence his friend Daniel to be thrown into a den of lions, in accordance to a law that he created to force people to worship him. When he found that Daniel was alive through God's angel closing the lions' mouths, he ordered his soldiers to throw Daniel's enemies and their families to the den to be eaten by its lions.

I wonder, did the Achaemenid Persians use lions' dens (other than hanging on the gallows, as shown in the book of Esther) to execute criminals?

Are there more unknown facts about the Library of Alexandria? What else was lost during the fire?

Alexandria always fascinated me with its unique architecture and economical importance.

Within a year of the outbreak of war, chemical weapons were used on a large scale on the Western front. As I understand, the gas first used (chlorine) was not developed specifically for the war; its' mass manufacture and its' effects were well known.

Was the widespread use of gas anticipated? If it was, then why were precautions (PPE and drills) not undertaken before the war? Or did the deployment of chemical weapons take the participants by surprise?

Thanks.

Hello there, I just read a thread here on the use of olive oil in the mediterranean, both in pre-roman times and during the roman era.

I use this reddit both for entertainment and education (call it edutainment), but also as a resource base for a massive "con-world-building" hobby of mine. In this light, I wondered,

Given the importance of oils for human societies, what other oils were used in non-mediterranean bronze and/or iron based civilizations and to what extent were they significant in terms of regional trade.. China, Meso-America, Sub-Sahara, Andes?

And sidequestion: do you think Holocaust research is worth funding anymore? There are definitely legitimate concerns that antisemitism is still alive and active today, even in mainstream, academic, and/or liberal circles, but my question is about funding Holocaust research, not Jewish studies.

The general public isn't close to "forgetting" the Holocaust like, say, the Peloponnesian War (chosen because historically significant, huge scale, well-documented, but knowing about it is limited to good students).

Haven't we already mined all the answers to how the Nazis manipulated the Germans?

Sorry if these questions are in poor taste.

'Meme' is obviously quite a new word, but was the simple, overly relatable joke format around in some way back then?

To be extra specific: I'm asking about Western Europe, between the 12th century and the 13th century.