Like, did they know about how the Neo assyrian socioeconomic and military/government systems worked? And I am sure the romans didn't know much about history before the bronze age collapse. But did the Romans think they knew the origins or the Assyrians?

I had a massive "Oh wow, yeah!" kind of moment recently, reading one of Bernard Lewis's books about the history of Islam. Lewis states that theatre was largely abandoned in the parts of the world of Classical Antiquity that answered the call to Islam. This was because the theatre was strongly associated with Greco-Roman Paganism and its tradition of morality plays, where actors would act out the myths, playing the roles of gods, demigods, and legendary human heroes — a practice rather offensive to Islamic values.

I used to do a lot of amateur acting, and indeed, thinking back on the decorative visual motifs of old theaters, and a number of subcultural quirks and traditions kept up in the world of theatre, there is an undeniable, but understated, Greco-Roman pagan vibe to it. Doing drama feels not unlike practicing a religion, in some regards.

I'm especially interested in symbology, and I wonder if any recent historian has done a systematic study of the many small ways Classical Paganism — or at least vestiges of it — live on in the Western world's institutions for theatre and the performing arts in general.

I've just realized everything I've ever seen about WW2 was right in the middle of the thickest action. I have no conception of where or how it transitioned out from being a field of troops as far as the eye can see.

• How much of the frontline was like we see in movies? Troops shoulder to shoulder, crap flying everywhere, nobody knows what's going on, the works.
• Where and in what way did the composition of troops transition to something different from what you'd see in the "main" part of the battle?
• At what point would it be considered that a particular unit was near a battle but not close enough to be part of the battle?
• Am I overestimating how "individual" battles were? Was it actually a continent-wide line of troops with no discernible end to one battle or start to another?

What were the "portals" that the bible mentions in Psalm 24:7-10? I realize it's probably not alien portals to other worlds, but I don't understand what the word meant in the context of the olden days.

Hello!

Recently, I’ve been hearing a lot of reference to “two spirit” people as a general term for genderfluid individuals in the native community historically. However, as a historian, I’ve found myself questioning a lot of the discourse on the topic for multiple reasons

1.) Many activists speak about the topic generalizing across all native Americans.

2.) I have a feeling we are using very modern “western” ideas of gender and sex and applying them to what may have been completely different concepts to some specific tribes/nations.

3.) I also have seen very little sourced material on the subject and to me it seems more like people who are not actual historians and instead are just modern indigenous and/or non-indigenous activists making generalized claims to help either set a historical precedent for LGBTQ+ people or claiming that indigenous people in the Americas have always been morally correct in the lense of modern western ideals.

4.) This being a hot topic (indigenous studies and LGBTQ+), I do find many dance around the topic or are not completely honest and truthful.

As many of you may know, Native American history can be very challenging to study as it can skewed by colonial accounts as well as the limited access of oral traditions. I was wondering if anyone here has any expertise on the topic and could weigh in.

Thanks!

P.S.

I do not mean to offend anyone in any way by asking this question or having misconceptions. LGBTQ+ people do not need historical precedents to validate their existence.

This is not my area of specialty, but I have tried to look, from time to time, for detailed battle plans during the Cold War. There's ample de-classified reports about defending key areas in Western and Eastern Europe from an invasion, but I am having difficulty finding any information about plans for invading, rather than defending from an invasion. So I'm starting to wonder, did NATO or the Warsaw Pact ever really plan to invade the other, or were they almost exclusively focused on defending from an invasion by the other in Europe and fighting proxy wars in hot spots around the globe?

I realize these are essentially two questions (though I'm guessing it reached Japan after it was fetishized), but I'm not finding much believable information on either, just unprofessional blogs with no citations. Any leads?

With apologies for the Star Wars-esque title (is there a conventional term for the alliance led by Hugh O'Neill and Red Hugh O'Donnell?), this has been on my mind since I read an excellent answer about the role of the Laudabiliter and the complexity of subsequent interactions between the Papacy and the English monarchy regarding the status of Ireland. I imagine at first in the initial outbreak it was mostly a desire to maintain their traditional autonomy? There is often a narrative which seeks to hold them up as Proto-Irish Nationalist heroes, is this entirely anachronistic romantic notions? Was there any discussion of awarding the crown to Philip of Spain? Or even of reviving the institution of the High Kings and crowning Hugh O'Neill?

I have heard a lot that wwII eastern front was basically a war of attrition with lots of poorly prepared Russian troops being thrown at the nazis and the nazis eventually losing bc of fighting a two front war but also taking on such a geographically and numerically large enemy.
Also due to them not being prepared for the level of cold that the soviets could handle.

But are there instances both of strategy being superior in some red army battles , or of skilled groups of troops in red army winning battles not just as attrition?

Today we use AD and BC but what about before Christ existed as a reference point? Who decided that Christ would be used as a reference point and when and how did everyone agree? How did trade and record keeping work and stay congruent if different peoples used different years? And if AD/BC stand for After Death and Before Christ then why is 0 AD not the year when Jesus died?

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I was just thinking, if you were in Nazi Germany in WWII, would it have been possible to make prank calls to members of the Reich government without being caught? I mean, how would they ever realistically trace the call? Could I have phoned the Reich Chancellery in 1941, said something stupid like “mein Hitler ist kaputt!”, hung up, and gotten away with it?

What sort of protective measures were available to prostitutes in different periods of time? Or did prostitutes in fact get pregnant and sick a lot?

An upcoming movie about the Dahomey Amazons, titled "The Woman King", is stirring fears on the internet about misrepresentation of history. In some corners of the internet, like here on Reddit, people are claiming it will be an attempt to lionize a tribe of black slavers and demonize white europeans, who in this particular situation were actually the 'good guys'.

Regardless of how the film plays out, it is likely to become a locus for the ongoing culture war in the western world. So, I think it is important to ask someone who knows what the truth of the matter is what the truth of the matter is.

What was the relationship between the Dahomey and slavery? Were they slavers before Europeans showed up and simply worked to meet increased demand? Or, were they pressed into the practice by necessity - enslave or be enslaved? At the time period portrayed in the movie, were the French the "good guys trying to stop the slave trade", as some redditors claim? Were the Dahomey fighting to defend the institution of slavery because of how much wealth it brought to them?

Basically, I'm wanting to know where the moral shades of grey are, and what parts of the story are more or less black and white (as generally agreed upon by professional historians). Some commenters make it out like making this film is akin to making a movie about the moral shades of grey of the Nazis.

I keep seeing references to a 1978 interview of a woman named Nawi, "the last of the Dahomey Amazons who fought against the French", and the film is purportedly about this woman, but I am unable to find the transcript or article about that interview. To what extent do contemporary Dahomey accounts of this time period survive? Is it all oral history? Is it mostly European accounts defining this period?

So i’ve started my reading journey of learning more and more about the roman empire, and I’ve stumbled across the works of Edward Gibbon. The book itself seemed quite reliable but I’ve heard that it has some biases within it, is it a reliable source i could use for future reference or should i take it with a grain of salt?

We know he burned copies of Zoroastrian religious texts, and that his impact in Persia severely affected that religion, but did he attempt the same thing in Egypt? If so, was it successful in impacting the Egyptian religion as it did the Zoroastrians’?