Walter Scheidel says this in his paper Roman population size: the logic of the debate as an explanation for why Roman military mobilization rates were higher than those of later European societies.

What taxes is he talking about?

Imperial China, as far as I understand, usually had a relatively uninvolved, bureaucratic, decentralized state relying on its many provincial magistrates and state functions to run the country rather independently, taking care to local needs. Even military campaigns seem to be delegated entirely to generals. Even in times of war, the various Chinese military cliques and armies and fleets acted relatively independent of each other. If all functions of the state are delegated to subordinates, then what functions have been left for the Emperor?

I've heard varying stories on why Avro cancelled the CF-105 Arrow.

On one hand, the conspiracy is that large american defense contractors and aeronautical corporations told off the American government, who then intimidated Prime Minister Diefenbaker into axing the Arrow and Iroquois programs.

On the other, Avro was faltering at a management level, there were few potential buyers of the interceptor model, and the whole program was very expensive and dubious when compared to the development of the Convair F-106 Delta Dart, which had similar capabilities but was completed sooner.

For example, Conrad of Montferrat was the cousin of the Holy Roman Emperor, King of France, and Duke of Austria. How did the rulers of this small region become related to the most powerful people in Europe?

From my limited understanding, it was not uncommon for women (especially of the lower social classes) to have sexual relations before marriage.

I imagine, some of these relations lead to the birth of children and was wondering if there are any sources about the treatment the children (and their mothers) received?

Were they shunned, like illegitimate children in Europe? Were they readily acknowledges by their fathers or could they be adopted into their mothers families? Were the unmarried mothers ostracized, did it depend on the social status of the mothers?

Looking forward to your answers!

On the wikipedia page for King Bela IV of Hungary, it says that the Cumans adopted Christianity when they entered Hungary. However, the page of one of his successors, Ladislaus IV claims that the Cumans were pagan during Ladislaus IV`s reign. Can anyone help clear this up for me?

Were there any special rules on how old someone had to be before taking on holy orders? Were there differences here between different monastic orders?

I've sometimes heard it said that people - say in the middle ages - didn't think of "progress" the way we do (e.g. we'd say that women's suffrage is a historically important event because it's progress), so I'm wondering what kind of framework they did use to understand their own history.

For example, medieval monks were aware that Aristotle couldn't possibly have been Christian, but did they see this as a sign of a profoundly different society from theirs? And if so, how did they frame the process of getting from Aristotle's world to their own? Or did they conceive of Ancient Greece as a broadly similar world to theirs only pagan? In the other direction, would a forward-thinking monk hold the conviction that certain profound changes in society were desirable to make it somehow better? Would they have thought of such changes as historical processes?

Sorry if the question is a little vague, I'm having some trouble phrasing it.

Booth was among the more famous actors of his day, and his assassinating Lincoln obviously caused many to turn him.

Nevertheless, was he viewed as a hero or a martyr among some in the South, just recently having been defeated in the War?

Did he increase in his hero factor there?

I recently made a DNA test. My father was from Sierra Leone and I found out something quite extraordinary: from his side of the family I had some Papuan and Native American from the Amazon. As we all know, these were not places from which people travelled to other countries or continents. How on earth could a Papuan from Oceania or an Amazonian from South America end up in Africa? These were all countries that were visited by the Portuguese who had slaves, right? Yet I'm not aware from which countries they had slaves from.

I hope this will spark some interesting conversation. Thank you.

By the initial question I mean what was the reaction of the public and the elites to the house of a ruling family becoming extinct, or a new or different ruling house taking over, by peaceful means (i.e. marriage/birth of heir)?

Historically, I'd ask about the Stuarts being succeeded by the Hannovers upon the death of Queen Anne in Great Britain. A later example being the Hannovers being eclipsed by Saxe-Coburg-Gotha after Victoria?

Was the public really only concerned about the lineage of the new King or Queen, or was the house a concern?

It might also be interesting to hear about other countries in Europe as well.

Side question: The British Saxe-Coburg-Gotha branch was renamed to "Windsor" during the first world war, but would Prince Charles of Wales not be of House Battenberg now? Has this spawned two seperate new houses? Windsor (Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) and Windsor (Battenberg)?

As part of the Egyptian Empire, was it fully part of Egypt, under client Kings, etc? How badly were the locals treated by the Egyptians? Was there much population transfar (either forced or voluntary) between Canaan and Egypt?

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Spoilers ahead, if you care about that sort of thing.

1. The protagonist is initially taken as a slave by a raiding group, but is eventually adopted. Is this something that would have happened? It makes for a nice launching point for the plot, but it seems contrary to the brutal superiority mentality that other Viking-centric entertainment lead me to believe.

2. After losing a major battle, a couple major Viking characters are taken "hostage" to ensure the peace (a la Theon Greyjoy). Again, this seemed to go against that Viking mentality. I wouldn't have thought they'd be so pragmatic (from a modern Western perspective) because it would have been seen as dishonorable. Did Viking groups ever submit to outside parties, that they were targeting, in such a manner?

The fact that the "Roman Salute" is false made me wonder: what kind of gestures did they make?

I've read the Greeks (and Ancient Greeks) wave(d) with their palm inwards.

I'm listening to the great courses audiobook "Alexander the great and the Macedonian empire" by professor Kenneth w. Hart and was surprised when he explained that not only did the Greeks consider Macedonians separate from them culturally, but that the Macedonians spoke a language that was unintelligible to the surrounding Greeks. This surprised me as I always understood ancient Macedonians as a subset of the Hellenistic peoples while culturally very distinct, however, if their languages were not mutually intelligible this would suggest to me this is not the case. My immediate reaction then was to assume that Macedonians may have been part of a subset of the Illyrian peoples but then it was also explained that Macedonian was not intelligible with any Illyrian dialects either (I think that's what he said at least if I remember). This would be rather astonishing as it would lead me to believe that the Macedonians may have made up their own entho-cultural-linguistic category of the indo-European macro-group that is no longer present today. If anyone has more information regarding this I would find it extremely interesting.