As someone who knows diddly squat about Lesotho, why is it independent from South Africa instead of being part of South Africa? What caused that?

I know this is a very broad question, and obviously their treatment of women will likely seem very antiquated in a modern view. I always thought that Roman society viewed women as people who were just there to have and raise children properly, that they didn't have much realistic influence.

However, I was reading just reading about Claudia Octavia, Nero's wife -- how Romans rose up in protest against her exile because of how beloved she was in their view, which makes me think my previous understanding of Roman culture was likely off.

So I guess I really have two questions;

1. How did Roman society view women, and
2. Why would Roman citizens get so upset over Claudia Octavia's exile?

This is just something I have always seen in text books and films but I was never sure exactly what they were smoking.

Probably not qualified to read any actual academic papers

We leave out the Muslim Synthesis in teaching and in credit for learning, yet when acknowledged, there is a debate about the amount of contribution. I would like to know this contribution and the effect of it. I also want to understand the events and what happened in the Muslim Synthesis.

Hi! It's my lifelong dream to be a historian although I had to take another degree due to some other reasons. However, I have purchased a lot of books and downloaded ebooks about history and biographies of famous men and women in history. I am reading them as well.

What are the tips you can give? What books would you recommend about historiography and the historical method? Thanks a lot!

Was there a sacrificial event every nine years? Were there such priests covered in a white substance? I simply wonder how much of what is used in the show is integrated from reliable sources, or simple theories based on archeological evidence. Then again, I realize that the Norse, pagan people wrote very little of themselves, and what we know of them comes from later Christian sources. Feel free to branch off of my question with what you feel to be appropriate.

I know people thought of food as a very valuable resource that we traded for a ton of stuff (silk, more food, animals etc). But when did we start making food and selling it for something in return?

If so, how common was it? Did it cause problems for the allied forces when trying to rehabilitate them?

Gene Wolfe's 1987 book Soldier of the Mist is a work of fiction set in Greece in 479 BC following a character called Latro. The book begins with a foreword that, while written in character, includes the following description of Greece at that time:

A few words about the culture in which Latro found himself soon after he began to write may be in order. The people no more called themselves Greeks than do the people of the nation we call Greece today. By our standards they were casual about clothes, though in most cities it was considered improper for a woman to appear in public completely naked, as men often did. Breakfast was not eaten; unless he had been drinking the night before, the average Greek rose at dawn and ate his first meal at noon; a second meal was eaten in the evening. In peacetime even children drank diluted wine; in wartime soldiers complained bitterly because they had only water, and often fell ill.

Athens (“Thought”) was more crime-ridden than New York. Its law against women’s leaving their homes alone was meant to prevent attacks on them. (Another woman or even a child was a satisfactory escort.) First-floor rooms were windowless, and burglars were called “wallbreakers.” Despite the modern myth, exclusive homosexuality was rare and generally condemned, although bisexuality was common and accepted. The Athenian police were barbarian mercenaries, employed because they were more difficult to corrupt than Greeks. Their skill with the bow was often valuable in apprehending suspects.

Although the Greek city-states were more diverse in law and custom than most scholars are willing to admit, a brisk trade in goods had effected some standardization in money and units of measure. An obol, vulgarly called a spit, bought a light meal. The oarsmen on warships were paid two or three obols a day, but of course they were fed from their ship’s stores. Six obols made a drachma (a handful), and a drachma bought a day’s service from a skilled mercenary (who supplied his own equipment) or a night’s service from one of Kalleos’s women. A gold stator was worth two silver drachmas. The most widely circulated ten-drachma coin was called an owl, from the image on its reverse. A hundred drachmas made a mina; sixty minas a talent— about fifty-seven pounds of gold or eight hundred pounds of silver.

The talent was also a unit of weight: about fifty-seven pounds. The most commonly used measure of distance was the stade, from which comes our stadium. A stade was about two hundred yards, or a little over one-tenth of a mile.

Humanitarians accepted the institution of slavery, realizing that the alternative was massacre; we who have seen the holocaust of the European Jews should be sparing in our reproaches. Prisoners of war were a principal source of supply. A really first-class slave might cost as much as ten minas, the equivalent of thirty-six thousand dollars. Most were much more reasonable.

If the average well-read American were asked to name five famous Greeks, he would probably answer, “Homer, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Pericles.” Critics of Latro’s account would do well to recall that Homer had been dead for four hundred years at the time Latro wrote, and that no one had heard of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, or Pericles. The word philosopher was not yet in use.

In ancient Greece, skeptics were those who thought, not those who scoffed. Modern skeptics should note that Latro reports Greece as it was reported by the Greeks themselves. The runner sent from Athens to ask Spartan help before the battle of Marathon met the god Pan on the road and conscientiously recounted their conversation to the Athenian Assembly when he returned. (The Spartans, who well knew who ruled their land, refused to march before the full of the moon.)

I'm aware that that's a lot of text and a lot of information, so I apologize if this is a bit too broad. I'm wondering how accurate Wolfe's description is. Does this really reflect what Greece would have been like in 479 BC? Does it reflect what people thought in the 1980s when the book was written? Or is it simply made up by Gene Wolfe for the sake of the story?

Did the Victorian public have any particular sensitivity to jokes about race or religion like some of us do now? Was vulgarity among comedians acceptable?

Do we know of any Vaudeville comics known to be particularly offensive? If so, what kinds of jokes did they tell?

I can't help but draw parallels to decadence and the fall of Rome, was it the clash of a more spartan and stoic culture (islam) coming up against the decadence of the Sassanids that lead to the downfall of the "softer" and more "addicted to sense pleasures" empire?

How much of a role did the off-shoots of Zoroastrianism like manchienism and mazdaism etc. have to play in it's fall?

Thank you!

I was going through my late uncle's belongings and I uncovered what looked to be the shell of a WWI field gun that was turned into a vase. I attempted google but I have no idea if its an individual created piece or something created for retail.

So I have a few questions that I'm hoping someone can answer.

1. Was it common for soldiers to turn shells into artwork?

2. The bottom of the piece has the stamp "AM LOT 75mm F.G. BH-1948-18". I'm assuming the 75mm F.G. refers to the size of the field gun but what do the other numbers mean? If it's a serial number, can we trace it to it's origin?

3. The shell has the words "World War" with "1914-1919" on it. Was World War 1 referred to as the "World War" that early? Why would it claim the war ended in 1919?

Thanks for any help.

I seem to be having a hard time finding any online. I'm assuming I'll have to suck it up and go with a map instead.

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Linked to the current call for abstention by some far left members in France, someone twitted (my translation from French): "In 33 German communists refused, them also, to choose between the 'social democrat plague' and the 'Nazi cholera': we know what followed". Looking in Wikipedia, the only election I find in 1933's Germany is the federal election and I find no call for abstention (they got seats) in the election nor could they form a government with more centrists parties (NSDAP formed a government with another nationalist party). I'd like to know what this sentence could refer to.