Largely looking at Rome/ Florence/ Milan 15th century-ish.

I have two types of armoury in mind -- ones which made a lot of simple stuff for mercenaries/ soldiers and ones which made very high quality bespoke things for nobles.

Other things I'm curious about --

• Was the steel plate and stuff produced in-house, or bought from blacksmiths?

• I want to know more about the work flow, so straight from commission of a breastplate/ helmet for example, what various hands would everything pass through until the final product was completed?

• How much better was bespoke stuff (aside from being prettier and better fitting) than munitions grade stuff.

Thank you!

I was reading about The Battle of Clontarf in 1014 where Irish High King Brian Boru defeated a coalition of Norse-Irish (but was slain, with his son and grandson in an ambush on their tent). Do we know much about these battles and how they were fought? Specifically, do we know anything about the Irish tactics which let them defeat the Vikings?

In particular, it seems they changed tactics somehow, as inferred from Binchy:

in pre-Norse times, all wars, inter-tribal and inter-provincial alike, followed a curiously ritual pattern. They were hedged around with taboos; one did not continue to fight after one’s king had been slain; one did not annex the enemy’s territory or confiscate any of their land; one did not dethrone the ‘sacred’ tribal dynasty; one refrained from attacking a number of ‘neutral zones’ on enemy soil—the monastic settlements, the property of the learned castes (áes dána), and so on. Now, however, the Irish found themselves faced with an alien foe who respected none of the traditional conventions ~…

• D. A. Binchy, ‘The passing of the old order’

As a follow up, if I may, how did Ireland not descend into political anarchy with 3 generations of Royalty killed in one ambush? It seems remarkable that Clontarf was considered the turning point which marks the reduction of the Norsemen to a minor power given the damage to the Irish political infrastructure. (Though perhaps a clue can be found in the Binchy quote above, "one did not dethrone the 'sacred' tribal dynasty" so perhaps they went to 4 generations (derbfhine) instead of just 3 (gelfhine) but that is pure speculation on my part.)

Ham Salomon and Robert Morris provided financing and sold bonds on credit of USA during Revolutionary War without which several battles and campaigns led by Washington could not have been won. And, likely, without which the war would likely have been lost. Salomon died at after contracting TB in Debtors Prison. Morris, who signed Declaration of Independence, died in Debtors Prison. Who were the creditors? Who were the judges? Was USA Congress responsible for their demise by failing to pay on bonds Salomon and Morris sold?

It's your week to talk about metal objects and their uses in your era!

Next week: History Is Metal, Vol. 2

Was perusing through black twitter the other day and came across this funny post that claims the black moors introduced bathing to the Europeans. How true is this?

This question was asked 3 years ago on this subreddit but there wasn't a really conclusive answer. Anyway....

For example, the T-34 was a really popular tank in WWII, and it's main weapons were either a 76.2mm cannon (3 inches almost exactly, but russia never used the english system) or an 85mm cannon (3.34 inches). What's the logic behind using such strange calibers, some apparently being based in inches, others being based in the metric system?

Other examples:

M4 Sherman - 75mm, 76mm, or 105mm howitzer

Slighty off topic, the battleship Yamato had 46cm/18.1 inch guns, kind of a strange caliber.

KV-2 - 152mm, 107mm, 122mm cannons.

I know Griffith made a 1930 film on Lincoln, but I haven't seen it. Is the positive portrayal of Lincoln more of a criticism of the Johnson administration than an embrace of Lincoln himself?

I'm looking to learn about 1930s Shanghai, especially around 1936, as I'm going to be playing in a roleplaying game set then, and it's really piqued my interest.

• What events were happening there?

• What recently happened there?

• Why? What happened in the past to lead to those things occurring?

When I look online for information, I can only find "This is some stuff that happened in 1936 Shanghai" and not "This is why some things were happening in 1936 Shanghai". For example, I know the British established territories there where they were under British law instead of Chinese law, but it was hard to track down why it happened - the Opium trade.

You would think that they would be appreciative of a system that enables absolutist rulers

Me and some friends are planning on spending a weekend doing what we've dubbed the "Churchill Challenge" during a visit to Berlin. The aim is to drink the exact amount that Winston Churchill drank in a day at roughly the same time so any information or sources would be appreciated.

Transportation through waterways was much cheaper. From Yemen to Egypt/Syria, ships could move along the Red Sea. Ancient Egyptians and Romans both used Red Sea for trade with Africa and India.

The Arabians tribes could move spices through the desert on camel backs. But shouldn't it be more expensive than the Red Sea route?

If yes, why did the camel caravans in the desert through Mecca/Medina become so important in the middle ages for transporting spices from Yemen to Egypt/Syria?

I get that the words 'mama' and 'dada' are easier for a baby to say, but where did the words 'mother' and 'father' come from specifically, and why do we never switch to calling them by name when we're older?

James Watt made important contributions as an inventor and engineer, including an improved steam engine and other inventions, but his closest field of science was chemistry, and that's not what he's most known for anyways.

Out of all the SI units, base and derived, I think the watt is the only one named for someone not a prominent physicist.

Thanks so much for all the great answers! Fascinating, if morbid, stuff here.

The Julian calendar, proposed by Julius Caesar in 46 BC (708 AUC), was a reform of the Roman calendar. (From wikipedia)

Now because at that time nobody could predict that we would calculate our year based on a religious figure from 46 years later I would assume they did calculate their years normally until a certain date, and then changed this. So my question is, did the Romans calculate the year different, and if yes, when did it change into the present days year representation.

Above.

The mutinies started the 27th of may 1917 and the records were supposed to be classified for 100 years. I haven't been able to find anythinig online that deals with these new sources. Can any historian share some new insights or haven't the sources been declassified yet?

bonus question, though possibly a counter-factual (what if) question: Is it conceivable the KKK and/or other white supremacist groups would have welcomed a Nazi occupation because of a shared racialist ideology?