In retrospect, it seems like MSDOS is a fairly simple OS in terms of functionality. Compared to Windows, I find it hard to understand what made it proprietary. What made it the distinct option it was during the time period for IBM?

I've been thoroughly enjoying "Warfare in Medieval Europre c. 400-1453," but I can't help wondering if the authors (Bernard Bachrach and David Bachrach), are related. And if they are related, what sort of conversations do they have when they get together for family dinners?

Hello, I would like to learn more about the hierarchy of power and distribution of land in medieval kingdoms. While I understand that barons are lower than counts, who are in turn lower than dukes, what was the exact relationship between these ranks?

Did duchies contain several counties? And were counties made up of baronies? Did a count have a sovereign duke he must obey because of where his territory was located?

Or were all of these provinces just considered "independent" fiefs of different sizes, and nobles were only required to pay tribute and obey the king?

I would also like to know more about what usually happened to non-heir children, not just in the royal family but also in other noble ranks. Thank you in advance.

Germany is often portrayed as a villain even today. I'm a Pole and therefore I tend to hear populisms like these. I'm pretty sure Germans are not any different as a humans and dealt with their past properly, yet I don't have many counterarguments and sometimes I'm not sure what is true and what isn't. I know this is a subject that has been well researched but I hope to find something that can explain it in a short way, instead of reading plenty of thick books just to understand what's a myth, what's a lie, and what's a fact.

I've been wondering about things like:

• Why was Germany the main villain during both World Wars?

• Why was it Germany where Hitler has risen to power, and not any other country? Nationalism wasn't rare in those days but it was Germany where it turned into hardcore version called Nazism. Why?

• How many Germans actually supported Hitler and how many knew about atrocities? Some groups of people try to manipulate saying "Hitler was democratically chosen, Germans knew what was happening, they are all guilty" and etc.

• Is Germany (with it's companies) rich because of World Wars? How helpful was wealth stolen from occupied countries? Or have Germans paid for it all? After all there are big companies that took part in Holocaust or Reich's war machine which function even today.

People seem to 'wax poetic' about how native peoples treated the land. I know that they had some very noble aspects to their culture and I want to be an ally to them now.

I am absolutely not trying to denigrate the indigenous experience. But I think there is a danger, and almost a racism in itself of building these people up into something they are not.

They are humans, and humans use resources.

Are there any examples of indigenous peoples wrecking their environment? Anything even remotely comparable to today?

I've been reading on the periods of Ancient Egypt, and I haven't seen as much information on the influence of religion on the control of the kingdom throughout the Middle and New Kingdoms. Did the intermediate periods cause the nation to more further away from those beliefs?

How crowded were the streets around the building, on a normal day?

With the loss of sovereignty and the rule of the Roman Empire, what was the religious climate in Egypt? If the Pharaoh represented divinity, how was Egyptian Religion changed by Roman Occupation?

Did it effect any white slaveowners racial justifications for slavery?

Reading John Keay's "China: A History", he stresses that the Great Wall of China ultimately failed to serve its purpose to hold off nomadic peoples from Central/Northern Asia.

Was Hadrian's Wall any more effective? At nearly 120km, were the Roman's really able to meaningfully secure its length?

How simple (or difficult) was it for sizeable Pict forces to cross into the south and cause damage?

This week, we step into the realm of metaphor to consider the historical stories that prove the heirs of Led Zeppelin needn't have stuck with Lord of the Rings: history provides us with better tales of bleakness, mortality, violence, vengeance, and gallows humor than fiction possibly can.

Next week: Sleep

A post about recent findings of Nazi artifacts in Argentina had me thinking the question above.

I know there are tons of politics involved in the Middle East between Sunni and shiites, but I don't understand why the same religion has sects that literally want to kill each other... please explain wise historians

I'm looking for synthetic studies or presentations of the Mycenaean society that have scholarly approval and are relatively recent (last 10 years, but older still OK if scholarly solid).

Blámaðr meaning blue man, blue being an alternative word for black. Was it used by vikings or just medieval writers after the viking period? If it refers to skin colour, was it just a physical description or did vikings have a concept of different races?

In older German texts the word "Tank" is used. When did this change to the word "Panzer"? Why was this word chosen? Was the change motivated by nationalism?

Like was there a "speaker-like" positon?