I know that it was under dominion of Mexico in the period predating the bear flag revolt, but was Mexico still a colony/province of Spain at the time?

There are a handful of river exceptions and these make sense to me, e.g. Columbia is a massive river that divides WA and OR, same with the Snake River and OR/ID and the Colorado between CA/AZ.

I assume Idaho-Montana is along some mountain ranges, but is there a reason it got divided up this way, while other mountainous states like Wyoming and Colorado are just plain rectangles?

Slightly related, was there a reason they left Idaho with the little panhandle connecting to Canada? Was there some historical reason for Idaho wanting to claim that, or it's just the way the borders fell between Montana and Washington?

Since the the United States gave a warning to citizens living in Hiroshima that they were going to drop an atomic bomb on them. Did the Japanese prepare for a bombing run? Or did they think it was an empty threat or didn't have time to prepare?

By practical/symbolic, I mean whether or not Colchis was chosen because of symbolism with the history of Colchis or something similar.

Thanks!

In light of Peter the Great's ambitious measures to Westernize Russia, it doesn't seem too farfetched to me to imagine that he might have at some point considered making Russia adopt a Western variety of Christianity as the culmination of his project. Is there any evidence that this happened?

EDIT: Changed "at least" to "at some point" to make it clearer that I'm only talking about him having considered switching the country's religious affiliation, since it obviously never happened. Furthermore, if the answer is "no," I would be interested reading about why it wasn't or couldn't have been considered.

To broaden the question somewhat, I would also be interested in reading about any attempts by other members of Russia's Westernized elite in the 18th century to induce the country to adopt a Western variety of Christianity.

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Obviously, there are broader prohibitions against dueling, even if C-51 passes in its present form, but the simple act of challenging someone will no longer be criminal. How widespread was dueling in Canada, and why did it decline?

Maybe it's a stupid question, given that they are boats, but I can't find anything about the process of getting PT boats from the US to the operational theaters of the war.

I've read plenty about how rough the open ocean can be in a WWII-era destroyer, but I imagine that the significantly smaller, lighter, and far more exposed PT boat would be a nightmare by comparison. Being designed essentially for littoral combat, it's easy to imagine them coming to a bad end on the crossing. Not to mention that their fuel load doesn't seem to have been designed with an ocean crossing in mind.

Did they cross in squadrons, perhaps with tenders? As part of convoy escort groups? Or did each tiny boat set off on its own as soon as it and its crew were ready to leave?

I've read a certain book, well known to the researchers of history of the WW2 Eastern Front, which advocates the idea that USSR had planned a massive full-scale offensive against Nazi Germany set to just two weeks after the Germans actually struck their preemptive strike on June 22nd. Not discussing the assumption in general, one particular account bothers me ever since. The book's author discusses that all soviet units poised for invasion were supplied with large amount of high-quality military-grade topographical maps of the German-controlled territory. And that when Germans attacked, these maps quickly lost their relevance but topographical maps of domestic areas, vital to mount any defensive effort, were quite scarce in comparison.

So I would like to know how the maps are obtained whenever one's general staff plans to invade some rather unfriendly country. I would assume the maps have to be fresh, reflecting most, if not any, recent developments of foreign infrastructure such as paved/unpaved roads, railroads, tall structures, bridges, dams etc etc. But how? If the maps are done by some military agency, then they are classified. If they are done by independent contractors then I would assume some kind of secret service to be monitoring their clientele just for this reason. There are no any space technology yet. Use of spy planes would be logistically unfeasible and may hint the foreign intelligence to our plans. Use of actual spy network seems too be risky and cumbersome. And yet somehow this was done on a regular basis. How?

In the late 19th century (1850s-1900), women occasionally wrote for newspapers, mostly in the literary and society pages. I've seen lots of research on the few actual journalists, like Jane Grey Swisshelm and Nelly Bly, but I'd like to know a little bit more about the women who were never able to break out from the society pages. What were attitudes like towards them? How did the men in their lives (husbands, brothers, fathers) treat them? How did other women treat them?

Recently I read that close to the battle of Hastings 1066, men were called to serve in fyrd up to 60 years old. What would someone of this age do to help the army? I can't imagine they would be fighting alongside other much younger men.

Or did anyone at that period? My understanding is he was popular with average Romans, so I'm wondering if he would have been honored in some way (by his soldiers perhaps?) or just dumped in an unmarked grave or something worse.

Was it the flaws of the Wehrmacht? Was it because the plans of the generals were too successful ? Was it because the numerical advantage of the allies?

I am designing a small role-playing game based on ancient Egypt, particularly the Old Kingdom (~2600 BCE). I'm trying to figure out some sort of monetary system that will translate easily to a game, and I'd like it to be at least vaguely historically accurate. I'm aware that there are wild variances, but I've seen that a day's wage could be 10 bread loaves and 1 jug of beer. I've also seen that the currency/weight value of 1 deben could be used, but I can't find anywhere what purchasing power 1 deben would have. Could you buy a sword with 1 deben's weight? I also find it odd that, if a deben is not literally a piece of metal you give to someone, why does it even matter how much it weighs if it's just on paper?

Lately, I've been doing a lot of reading on the Kennedy family. Namely, Jack's campaign and the legitimacy (or illegitimacy) of it. Though Camelot's always interested me, I've always had a few questions regarding it and those who came after it. Specifically, RFK and his run for the oval office.

With that in mind, how likely was Robert Kennedy to win the presidency? Coming off of a win in the California primary, he looks good as a candidate, but I can't find enough on the 1968 election to discern for myself how well he would've done against Nixon. While I'm not looking for a "what-if" scenario, I'm looking for a response to these two questions:

1.) How was RFK perceived as a candidate?

2.) Did he have any edges or advantages, politically, over Nixon?

I'm not sure if I can see a difference in the purposes of these two classes, they're both fast and low firepower tanks designed for fast manoeuvres and cutting people off etc.