By the IGA, I mean the Islamic world between the 8th and 14th century AC

Thank you

So according to Christian mythology, the story goes that Roman soldiers decided to create a 'crown of thorns' to humiliate Jesus for being a 'king of jews'.

While this obviously is religious scripture and so most likely some kind of allegory, what I'm wondering is - did people in the ancient Roman period ever actually do things like this to people who were crucified? Humiliate them further by dressing them up in certain ways, or perhaps degrade them with humiliating acts, or other things of that sort?

I know that this subject is a big and broad topic and not so easily answered. I have read alot of books about Napoleon and while reading I learned alot of Napoleons past and thus I always wondered about this. Before the revolution he saw himself as a corsican and hated the french, he wrote pamphlets and, I think, a play about a castaway on an island who killed shipwrecked french. It was along the line of this. He had a thick accent his whole life long and probably got made fun of it alot. Those are just the things that made wonder how he came from hating the French to being the Emperor of the French. Hence the poorly worded question: Did he ever see himself as french and did he love the people and in return did the people love him?

I'm reading William Dalrymples "Return of a King" (1st Anglo Afghan War) and a lot of references are made to the harems of various Indian and Afghan aristocrats. I had always assumed a harem was a small selection of a nobleman's favorite mistresses, but in this book there are references to harems comprised of hundreds of people of apparently varying status, including concubines, various servants, "slave girls", and some men as well.

In short, I was hoping for any information on the structure, purpose, or history of this institution and the lives of those who comprised the harem -- doesn't have to be limited to 19th Century Afghanistan/India.

Thanks!

Some more specific questions:

• what's the difference between someone deemed a "slave" or a servant, in the context of a harem?
• were any members allowed to leave the compound at will or wouod they need to escape?
• to what extent did sex/"romance" play a role in a harem? Were the roles of harem members sexual at all or is that just a western invention?
• what happens to harem members when their patron(?) Lord died? Were they left on their own or would the servants/slaves have been bequeathed(?) to a successor?
• there's a lot of Afghan sources from the time citing British soldiers' sexual indiscretions and "lack of honor" (having liaisons with slave girls, commoners, some noble women -- the woman' status doesnt seem to make much difference) as a major factor in the unpopularity of the occupation: If Afghan harems did serve a specific sexual function, why was this British behavior still seen as scandalous by comparison?

I've read several times on reddit that the bombing of Dresden is justified because the city was a major railway hub and had major military factories, and the destruction of the city aided the Soviet advance. But I've never seen these claims citing their sources.

Do we actually have data on how much the bombing of Dresden affected German war capabilities (i. e. transportation of personnel and equipment via Dresden becoming disrupted after the bombing)?

The poor were upset when he was murdered, and they say the optimates killed him because he threatened their oligarchic power. Most known was his “land reform” law, but what are some other examples of laws he enacted that benefited the lower and middle classes?

What has always baffled me is why so many Germans supported Adolf Hitler who preached German nationalism but was not a German by birth, he was an Austrian who only became a German citizen in 1932 less than a year before he came to power as Chancellor of Germany in 1933. Why was it not an issue for Germans?

I ask this lately I've heard there is a wider range of jobs a historian can do

I work as an archaeologist and spend most of the time in the field; I'm currently working in a farmers field which has boundary ditches that are full of brambles. (which are a pain to avoid when crossing through/over)

This question popped into my head as I doubt defensive ditches etc were continually stripped of plantlife and I can imagine that brambles could be somewhat of a deterrent in the form of a natural (albeit weaker) barbed wire.

The sub's booklist has been of tremendous help to me (and I assume many other users as well) who are curious to learn about histories from regions quite often not our own. While this is the case, I also felt that the selection of books for the region of South Asia/the Indian Subcontinent can be considerably expanded considering the sheer amount of historical material available regarding the region and the absence of more sub-regional histories in the list, considering that many of these sub-regions such as Bengal, Punjab, the Indo-Gangetic plain, Tamil country and so on are comparable to, or are significantly larger then, many similar European countries or regions. While it could be argued that more specialised sub-regional histories can be covered through questions and answers in the sub, the sad reality is that a lot of questions regarding South Asia/ the Subcontinent remained unanswered for long with the posts eventually getting locked, leaving a noticeable gap on content regarding a very large part of world history. I speak of this region because I am most familiar with it, it is likely that similar expansions for other regions in the world can be done as well. Plus its anyway been a while since the list has been updated. Again, I must emphasise that this is not a critique as such of the current booklist as even in its current form it has been a tremendous source of knowledge for me regarding regions I knew previously very little about, this is just a suggested means of expansion.

Did they have professional historians? What about "pop" history vs "academic" history in their time?

And what do current historians think about their "theories" (if any)?

I'm really surface-level in terms of my knowledge but I would like to get serious regarding my hobby. I have a particular interest in the early and late modern era, especially the age of revolution/the concert of Europe period. Any recommendations on how to achieve an in-depth understanding of these eras? Book, podcast, video recommendations? Studyflow? I've just been reading books and watching random videos so far.

Obviously on one level it's not, because there are title cards that pop up occasionally with dialogue so the audience can follow along as to what's happening.

But did people who watch silent film try to figure out what the actors on screen were saying by reading their lips? Or was it the visual experience/pantomime that is all they focused on? Did anybody write or comment on lip reading being an element or layer of enjoying/appreciating the work that people were missing out on by not doing it? Was the dialogue even a focal point of silent film enjoyment, or was it the general story/ way it was acted out on screen that is what people cared about?

I'm not sure how common lip reading was at the time (I'm thinking pre-1930s during the heyday of silent film). I'm also aware that a film might be shown to an audience that didn't speak any of the actors' language(s), so lip reading would have been pointless.

I ask this not because I'm a lip reader, but because I've seen some silent films (most recently the 1925 Phantom of the Opera silent film) and realized you could kind of tell what some of the actors were saying at some point, and it did somewhat match the title cards. Not sure if that's always true.

Was there a plausible path where the Soviet Union existed after the August Coup? Or where Gorbachev stayed in post as head of CIS or other such entity?

What did Gorbachev do with his time as his power dwindled in those 4/5 months?

Obviously it is a classic staple of the Xbox and was extremely successful, but what in particular made it so successful? Halo games always appear to be critical and commercial successes, but growing up it was Combat Evolved that appeared to dominate my childhood and the memories of my parents' generation.