I understand how modern day ships can find each other with things like radar, but back in the 17-1800s, how did boats find each other in the middle of places like the Atlantic Ocean or the Caribbean sea?

Doing an essay on this for History, the main debate of this question is whether the Marshall Plan was more politically motivated rather then economically motivated. Any sources, facts and books to help with this? Any help is appreciated thank you!

I am conducting a 2000 word research project into the differing analyses regarding the bombings of Hiroshima and to an, to a lesser extent, Nagasaki. I'm after historians and their personal contexts and how these have influenced their history's they presented. I'm not sure how I plan on going about this so I am after ways in which to go about answering the question, especially the historians involved.

I am writing a paper on Youth Politics in Australia but before that I wish to gain a better understanding of the ideological positions and history of Australia's major parties and/or other significant players. Any more general histories of Australia's politics you could recommend for the late 20th century?

For example, such as making the conflict global instead of local, basically, would it have been confined it to the European theater between the main belligerents if they stayed out of it?

No need to focus solely on the example given above.

The days of the week are in english (and other languages, like german) a very old reminder of the pagan roots of these cultures. Has anyone ever tried to "modernize" the terms?

This question is a bit different from the rest so I hope it won't get removed, but anyways. To sum it up, I am a huge fan of history and it is a dream of mine to read one day an authentic historical text written by a great historical figure. Not a copy, not a photo of it, but actually have in front of me the original. However, I am only an amateur and have no professional excuse to be able to read it, hence my question, where and how can an amateur, an everyday Joe if you will, be able to do such a thing?

I've heard that the Greeks didn't believe their gods were actually literal people. It was explained to me that, for example, during a storm at sea, when the sailors said Poseidon was angry at them, they didn't actually believe there was an angry guy with a trident somewhere causing that storm. Rather that the sea was Poseidon. This is just something I was told, so, if someone could tell me how accurate or innacurate this is, as well as maybe how the greek saw their pantheon, it would be great.

I've heard a lot of things thrown around. 'Kepler's methods were instrumental for modern science' or 'Aristotle's deduction was the first major step in science' or 'Francis Bacon's induction was the beginning of modern science'. I was hoping someone here would have a general idea of the history of science.

Recommended reading would be appreciated as well. Thanks.

My dad is a former Cold War soldier, and he told me that the Canadian military (as with all the other allied nations) were there at the request of the Federal Republic of Germany (also known as West Germany), and if they wanted the Germans could have told them to leave. But of course, why would they.

So anyway, at what point did West Germany transfer from an area of occupation post-WW2 to a more autonomous state? My dad served in Germany from 1982 to 1985, so this was really late cold war. Other than that timeframe, I know that the Saar Protectorate (which was under the control of France) was returned to West Germany in 1957.

So I know that July and August were added and named after Julius and Augustus Caesar, but the months of the year towards the end don't correspond to the Latin number associated with said month. As in DECember would have been the tenth month not the twelfth etc. What were the other two called?