I've gleaned through his Wikipedia page after reading Adrian Goldsworthy's biography of Augustus and he seems an incredible figure himself. His Wikipedia page also mentions that the Senate conferred powers unto him almost rivaling Augustus', which is astonishing in itself. What do we know about the man?

Samurai, the foot soldiers, and other military units didn't seem to use shields. Is there any reason for that?

I've read before that katana were made so hard that they would chip/break easily in any prolonged fight. Wouldn't a shield be useful against something like that?

I grew up hearing the joke that Canadians speak funny my entire life, but everyone around me has a similar speech pattern as our neighbours to the south; is that due to American media influencing us? Was there a period in time where the majority of Canadians did speak funny?

After seeing some posts about Trump's dominant handshake, I was reminded of a politician (possibly a US President) who would shake a person's hand, get quite close to their face, and discreetly step on their toe so they couldn't back away--all while appearing amicable. I'm curious who this was, and I'd be interested to learn more about the power-play psychology behind it or if it ever had an effect on political relationships.

I have a black and white picture in my mind from history class loooong ago, and Google isn't helping much.

I've been slowly reading Peasants into Frenchmen by Eugen Weber and I constantly find myself thinking about and contrasting with their neighbor to the south, Spain. France managed to mostly absorb its various identities that had previously only been tied together by the monarchy; Spain still looks as if the nation will fracture at any moment. Two World Wars certainly helped solidify France as opposed to the bitter struggle of the Spanish Civil War but from what little I know of Spanish history I get the sense that the centralizing elements of Spain never had a hold to begin with. Could someone please elucidate for me?

By "ancient china" I am referring to any period in Chinas history before significant contact with the Western world.

What was the Chinese view on homosexuality? How was it practiced, if at all, through the ages of Chinas history? Are there any known literary references to homosexuality in ancient Chinese literature? Was there a difference in cultural views of male and female homosexuality? Were there any major periods in Chinese history where homosexuality was more or less accepted?

I am interested in learning more about the very end of the Ottoman Empire. Broadly speaking, this would cover the twentieth century period of the empire (1900-1922) with strong coverage of the Greco-Turkish war and the other conflicts with Allied powers trying to carve up Anatolia. Any book recommendations you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

From my understanding, freeways were started in the 1950's, but cars have been commonplace since the 1920's. How would one travel from one end of the USA to the other during that period of time? I would imagine that trains were probably more useful, but were there options available for travelling by car?

It seems a logistical nightmare to deal with.

Follow up question: why did the Spanish get so little land

I just picked up a copy of Richmond: The Story of a City by Virginius Dabney. The fourth paragraph of page 70 reads as follows.

Chancellor Wythe lived in Ricghmond for seventeen years. In 1806 the town was profoundly shocked when, at age eighty, he was murdered by his grandnephew, George Wythe Sweeney, who put arsenic in his morning coffee. The old man died in his home, after lingering in agony for two weeks. A young mulatto boy who lived with him also died from the poisoned drink. Sweeney's motive is supposed to have been a desire to acquire his inheritance from his granduncle at once, since he was in serious financial trouble. But Wythe lived long enough to realized what had happened and to add a codicil to his will disinheriting Sweeney. The latter escaped punishment because the only convincing witness against him was a Negro woman whom Wythe had freed and who was his devoted servant. Under a Virginia law, ironically drafted by Wythe himself, a black person could not testify against a white person in court.

I have found sources that corroborate the general narrative there. I haven't been able to find anything that confirms that last sentence though. It would be a very interesting piece of trivia if it is in fact true.

I always assumed they were the same, but I just learned that Vichy France only made up a part of occupied France. What was Vichy France? Was it it's own state or was it just a puppet of Nazi Germany?

I'm watching a documentary on the 80s and the episode I'm in talked about cocaine and crack's boom. Can anyone clear me on this? Thanks.

Greetings. I'm just getting started working on a project and wanted to know if anyone had a particular modern edition of Hegel's Philosophy of History to recommend. I am looking for an English translation, one that would be suitable for academic citation. Thank you for any and all assistance.

Edit: Because I've gotten a lot of PMs about it, the podcast is by Mike Duncan. It's a full, comprehensive history of Rome, and if you're not a fan of hours long podcasts, the episodes are fairly short.

I'm currently listening to the History of Rome podcast (if you haven't listened to it yet, do it right now), and I'm still in the Roman republic era, yet Rome is shown to have fielded massive armies. The typical army was 40-80 thousand (depending on how many consuls were commanding an army) and sometimes armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands were raised. And this didn't just include Rome. There are multiple times where outside powers engaged Rome with armies just as massive, such as the Gauls and I believe Carthage, who engaged with massive armies numbering up to 100 thousand.

Now because I know this subreddit prefers specific times, for a point of comparison I'll look at England during the Hundred Years' War era, while searching for an answer here, I found a comment saying the English armies were rarely higher than 15 thousand. I'm on mobile so I'm unable to link the comment at the moment.

So my question: What the hell happened? Comparing the middle Republic era of Rome (not even the height of their power), to one of the more well known series of conflicts of the late medieval era, and Roman armies, as well as a few other ancient armies, were way more massive. Though if there are any experts on other times and places in medieval Europe, I'll take answer on that as well.

[deleted]

Additionally, who were the first to adopt these names and why?

Also, watching footage of depth charging ops, the charges seem to be aimed very close to the ship. Were subs really that close when attacking shipping?