Before Suez Canal has been built was there a small natural river that small ships can get through or was it completely blocked?

Culture,food or even art

(Excluding the north-eastern part of India bordering tibet)

I know that England is often portrayed as being the victim of raids by other nations - Islamic raids, Norse raids, Irish raids, etc. Usually it’s a sort of seaside settlement being attacked by a group of what seem to be pirates, certainly not an invading army with the sanction of their country of origin. But I never hear about English raiders doing the same to other nearby people. Raiding Africa is a whole other kettle of fish - they definitely seem to have done that.

But wouldn’t they have done this? It seems odd that they would only be victims of raiding from nearby peoples and never choose to raid those peoples themselves. If they did raid, when did they stop? If they didn’t raid, why not?

I recently finished reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X - As Told to Alex Haley.

In Haley's epilogue, he writes the following:

“Malcolm X Died Broke”—that headline in Harlem’s Amsterdam News came as a shock to many in the community. Few had reflected that Malcolm X, upon becoming a Black Muslim minister, had signed an oath of poverty, so that for twelve years he never acquired anything in his own name. (Somewhere I have read that Malcolm X in his Black Muslim days received about $175 weekly to cover his living and other expenses exclusive of travel.) “He left his four daughters and pregnant wife with no insurance of any kind, no savings, and no income,” the Amsterdam News story said.

Although the rest of the book makes it clear that Malcolm X and his family were far from wealthy, this was the first time I recall reading about an actual oath to that effect. The book does include several relevant descriptions of borrowing money from family members to complete the Hajj, Haley was instructed to direct all funds from the writing of the book first to the Nation of Islam and later to Betty Shabazz, etc.

I have some questions:

• Was such an oath of poverty common among Black Muslim ministers of the time?

• Is there any significance to the period of twelve years?

• Was this something at all specific to Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam? In the autobiography, Elijah Muhammad is depicted as jealous and paranoid of Malcolm's popularity and ability to make headlines, so this oath seems like something he might have demanded, or at least approved of.

• What form would this oath have taken? Was there a written document that was signed, or was this perhaps some sort of ceremony at a mosque or NoI temple?

• Haley's description makes it seem that the nature of this oath was not widely known by the public. Is there any explanation why this was the case? Did Malcolm X's contemporaries or colleagues ever comment on this oath?

Thank you to all the passionate contributors on this wonderful subreddit!

The question of how the Arabs conquered their massive empire is one that has been repeatedly asked and answered in this subreddit. It is also known that most of the regions under their control did not become majority-Muslim until around the 11th century, or nearly 400 years after the initial conquests. Before that time, these territories would have been majorly Christian or Zoroastrian, and so have regarded their Arab rulers as hostile occupiers. My question is: how did the Arabs maintain control over a hostile population for so long that they converted? In particular, the Christian populations of the erstwhile Byzantine lands would have been very receptive to European Christians trying to stir up rebellions, isn't it?

I have asked this on r/askphilosophy but have had no replies.

How do we know which events caused which? Can we also extrapolate from previous events happening, what will happen in the future?

Did Kings of England actually die in hunting accidents? Or was it a case of those fabled woeds: "okay, here's what we say happened..."

This post is concerning running water in private Roman households.

I’m a senior in HS and we all have to write a thesis on a given topic, mine being “women of England”. Does anyone know where I can start my research? It’s a pretty broad topic, but I’m mainly focusing on women’s rights and important English women.

I've been watching the show vikings and if you were in a battle with non uniformed enemies and allies how would you tell the difference? Did they paint shields different colours? It seems like hand to hand combat becomes so messy that you'd be just as likely to be hacking away at an ally.

Hi All,

I've been seeing posts about a group of Russian soldiers who were found dressed as Ukrainian soldiers. These posts have noted how these soldiers can be executed because dressing in an enemy's uniform means that they have given up the protections afforded to soldiers by the Geneva Convention.

My question: What is the historical reason that soldiers and spies are treated so differently in the Geneva Convention?

I'm not sure if this is more of a legal or historical question, but it seems like it involves a fair amount of WWI/WWII history.

​

Later Edit:

Thanks for the answers, everyone. I now understand why 7-year-old-me's chosen profession would have gotten me killed.

I heard this claim before but I also read Shigeru Mizuki's autobiographical manga and it depicts his father listening to the radio and he says something to the effect of "I think the war is over".

I don't know if Mizuki's father would be more inclined to understand the message, whether he understood classical Japanese or not.

For that matter, did the Emperor of Japan speak in a classical dialect distinct from the general population?

Edit: To be clear this would be World War II.

Finding no good sources about this and naturally having zero trust in any media telling me about it in a believable way, I wonder if infantry of any kind ever did any kind of charges?
You often see in media how two battle lines run at each other from quite far away and I find that hard to believe to have occurred in such a way as it breaks formations and perhaps unduly exhausts the fighters.

So, when two lines of infantry met one another on the battlefield, how did it actually transpire? Perhaps I should narrow the historical scope as different cultures probably had different tactics, but I’m a bit ignorant on the matter.

Either

• historically situated works like Edwin Chadwick's Report on the sanitary conditions of the labouring population of Great Britain from 1842

• or, works that covers the history of waste, garbage, and waste management. I would love a world history of this, but I'm happy to read more local hisotires.

Ps. I am not a historian, so I might have used the wrong lingo. I apologize for this.

Was the Empire of Frankfurt liberal? If yes, how?