I know Africa is huge and has a rich history, but I wanted to learn more about it's ancient societies.
It seems like a really daunting task and I don't really know where to start. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

I recently had a discussion with my uncle about Rome, and he brought up an interesting bit of history. He said that there is some evidence of a Roman Legion having been actively fighting for China. He said that they may have had such an impact on China that they actually had a city named after them.

Google has shown me that he isn't making this up, but I'm wondering what kind of hard evidence we might have. Did the Chinese or Romans ever write about these legionnaires? Is there any artwork that might be depicting them? Were the Chinese aware that these legionnaires were Roman? We're the Romans aware that their legionnaires were in China?

I can see a "Rome and China" section in the FAQ, but it wont open for me, so I'll ask anyway. Any good books you might recommend on this topic would be greatly appreciated!

Well, I know they demanded free speech, democracy and stuff like that, but I haven't found what economic system the protesters demanded.

Follow-up question:

• How much of an impact did ethnicity/religion have in the two regions, was it 'easier' for the British to violently put down rebellions of a different religion or ethnicity compared to white, protestant Americans?

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And why did it not have CIWS or/and anti-missile systems? The incident looks really unique and interesting as I didn't expect by the time modern ships to be vulnerable to subsonic aircraft.

Follow up question: Did the Argentiniens have intelligence about the tactical weakness of the ship, if not why did they even dare to attack and why not use ASM's?

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I will define Socialist as a state where the means of production are democratically owned. So worker run businesses, cooperatives, etc. I mean to distinguish a the type of socialism that I am talking about from the social democracies of today's Western Europe. To me, these are more welfare state capitalisms than the socialisms I am questioning about.

I will define Democracies as political systems with elections, multiple legitimate parties, separation of powers, and respect for individual rights (freedom of speech, press, assembly, etc.).

I want to know if there have ever been any states with both of these aspects. As I understand it, most socialisms of the 20th C were tied to the USSR, and inherited the authoritarian Marxist-Leninist one party state model. At the same time though (at least in the Cuban case), there were worker owned companies. So there are (somewhat) democratic economic institutions, but authoritarian political institutions.

On the other hand as I understand it, most liberal democracies are capitalist. So they have democratic political institutions, but (somewhat) authoritarian economic institutions.

Have there ever been any countries that have had both democratic political and economic institutions?

Also, if you take issue with my classification of socialism as economic democracy or any other assumptions I make, please, let me know.

I occasionally see people, primarily conservatives espousing a white-centric viewpoint, trying to downplay the role of racism and it's relation to slavery in American history point to a man named Anthony Johnson as an example of why slavery wasn't about race and what have you. I'm not super educated on the guy, so could someone please explain to me why he, as an African American, was allowed to own slaves and if he was treated as an equal to white men of the time? Do these people's claims have merit or is it just revisionist history rhetoric?