Why are the flags of the US State of Texas and the independent nation of Chile so similar? Coincidence or do they share a common heritage? Also, as a side question: Why do so many nations/states use the red, white, and blue color scheme, many of them with one or more white stars, the stars and bars?

Like the ones that killed Custer. They had repeating rifles and made it a slaughter.

Seemingly every power in Western Europe ended up trying to colonize some part of the Americas or the other; England, the Netherlands, France, Spain, and Portugal all were involved in some way or another in the western hemisphere in the 15th-18th centuries. But what about the Muslim world, which was connected fairly well to Europe and also was positioned relatively well for the job? Why didn't the Wattasid dynasty in Morocco, for instance, try to get in on the colonial action? If they actually did try to do so, it's just that it wasn't covered in my time in school, I'd still appreciate knowing why I wasn't made aware of that.

I visited mount vernon recently and I noticed there were a lot of gifts George Washington has received after the revolutionary war from various world leaders such as art work and Italian marble.

Since the emoluments clause has been on the news so much, I am curious if this was technically a violation of the clause or if there is some other historical context explaining this.

Hello everyone,

After a number of years of focusing almost exclusively on Classical Antiquity, I'm getting out there. An interest in Byzantium led me to the Crusades, and I just finished Tyerman's "God's War: A New History of the Crusades", which exposed how feeble is my knowledge of the political history of medieval Europe. I've decided that my next read will be Peter Wilson's history of the Holy Roman Empire "Heart of Europe", but thinking ahead, I'd want to know what are the go-to books for the general history of the French territories after the fall of the Carolingian Empire. I imagine there would be a lot of crossing with the history of other regions (and I certainly wouldn't be opposed to reading more than one book), so if you could give me some list that would cover, in one or more volumes, the Early to Late medieval history of those regions, I'd be very grateful. I did do some research, but surprisingly came up with nothing. Maybe I've been searching wrong, yet all I found were either 100 pages overviews of 500 years or else books on individual figures (Phillip the Fair, Richard I, etc), and I'd be looking for something in between, even if we're talking about heftier tomes.

The "regions" I'm interested in are

France

Burgundy

Aquitaine

etc

(England, either by itself or as a participant in the contest for France)

Thank you kindly.

From what I remember learning about the guy, Alexander is packaged as a Greek conqueror, spreading Greek culture and language across the Western world. Why is his Macedonian heritage overlooked, for the most part? He was a Macedonian, not a Greek, right? So why is it that he didn't spread Macedonian culture and/or language?

Assuming they had defeated the Allies, then what? Would they continue to expand and take over the world? And if they had, then what would the world be like? I imagine it'd be similiar to the world of The Man in the High Castle, in which they establish themselves in each country and rule, but what would life under their rule be like for average people in other countries?

In the newest episode of Doctor Who there is a group of 2nd century group of roman soldiers. One of them is gay, but the others all appear to be bisexual. Is that based on any historical accuracy or freely invented? How was homosexuality viewed during that time?

From what I've read about war, it seems like an environment in which people get badly sleep-deprived and thus fall asleep involuntarily all the time; so if you shot soldiers for sleeping at their posts, wouldn't you end up executing half your army?

Was Bierce exaggerating? Was this a punishment that was on the books but rarely meted out in practice? Or were the armies of the US Civil War just unusually draconic in their punishments? Also, do we have any numbers -- how many men were actually executed for this reason during the war?

Many thanks for any answers you guys can give!

I'd heard of the ghost of Hamlet's father, the witches in MacBeth, and Julius Caesar's warning. But I'm surprised it's also present in Richard III (when the King fears that by G his family disinherited should be), Henry VIII, and so on. Wouldn't this look pretty disreputable for royal histories? I'd imagine the church would have some harsh words for it. Was everyone at the time sticking ghosts and visions into their historical dramas?

Their death tolls are significantly larger than the losses all of the Jews (and other outcasts) during the Holocaust.

Apologies if I screwed up the format of the question, long time lurker but first time poster in this subreddit.

Historically, obesity was seen as a sign of wealth and ample availability of food. Of course, back then processed food, trans-fat, and HFCS, which are known contributors of many health problems, did not exist then.

But even still, those of great wealth/prestige, who often would be obese as a sign of opulance, did they suffer from any of the known risk of being obese and sedentary, i.e. high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, etc.?

Were the health risks of obesity known then, and did some elite suffer from such problems, albeit with even a better diet?

Thanks for the info.

So I was play assassin's creed revelations earlier and I was just wondering how accurate their portrayal of the city's demographics is. 60 years after the fall of Constantinople it shows the city's residence as predominantly Turks. Was the Greek population massacred or enslaved and scattered when the city was conquered? Or should we been seeing them as the largest ethnicity that soon after the ottomans conquered it?

So, I was scrolling through /r/fingols earlier, and I found maps, of something named the Ancient Finnish Empire, spanning across Europe. It said that it fell around 5000 BC. I couldn't find anything on it, so I am asking you, the experts of history, did an ancient Finnish Empire ever exist?

(If you're not sure what the map looks like, just go to /r/fingols, You'll find it)

(Most idiotic question ever)

EDIT- It does seem idiotic on the face of it, but consider this- there has to be some way Hungarian, a Finno-Ugric language actually reached Finland...

General answer will suffice, but more specifically, I am asking for Holy Roman Empire and/or Inner Austria. I often read about rulers wanting to control Church matters in their lands, but I do not understand how it helped consolidating their rule. Was it just easy propaganda or did bishops had any actual political power?

I've begun watching the Last Kingdom (which obviously isn't terribly historically accurate), and it depicts the legal system as being completely intertwined with Christianity. If I recall my middle school world history correctly, much of the middle ages were spent by various Kings and Popes arguing about who actually held legal authority, and dealing with the consequences of the results. What caused Christianity to not only oust other belief systems, but also the various legal systems in Europe?

Also, on a related note, do we have any idea what actually happened to Socrates' children?