I've been reading John Glassner's biography of Athanasius Kirchner, and realised that almost everything I know about her I got through reading about her involvement with Descartes, which is embarrassing to say the least.

I'm particularly interested in the time lead up to her abdication and later life. I read English, the Nordic languages, and can take a stab at French if I have to.

I'm leaving the scope fairly open, since I'm more interested in medical models that spread fairly widely and lasted a long time.

As for geography: Indian, Chinese, Japanese...wherever the ideas came from. I think Persia is probably as good a cutoff point for "East/West" as any.

[deleted]

The title says it all, I still have doubt about the battle being fought with such ridiculous disparity in numbers of the opposing force because so far the sources that i found is only Wikipedia and it too only contains Polish sources.

This doesn't that I bought the myth that German soldiers are supermen wielding space age technology and always prevails against its enemies though. It's just that 40:1 seemed too far fetched for me

Thanks!

Romans are famous for their Pilum throwing before melee combat. Why did that go out of fashion amongst medieval European powers if it was so successful for the Romans?

Recently I purchased SPQR, after really enjoying an extract my history teacher gave our class. It was such a great read, in a large part due to the quite chatty style, yet didn't seem to sacrifice any detail or informativeness for being so approachable.

I'd really like to find some other history books written in a similarly approachable kind of style. I don't really mind which area of the world or time period they're about. I also enjoyed the way Mary Beard combines a quite broad scope, chronologically speaking, with fascinating detail, and would love it if your suggestions also did this.

I've got a decent knowledge of what the camps etc were like once they reached land, but was wondering what it was like for the convicts and soldiers crossing over? Did free men travel on the same boat? How long would they be at sea?

Is Pence potentially dropping out of the Trump campaign something new and entirely unheard of, or is there some precedent for it?

[deleted]

Given my current state of understanding, this seems appropriate for this week's Central Asia theme.

I've had the factoid kicking around in my brain for a few years now that trousers were an innovation of steppe peoples, specifically the Huns. I don't actually know where I got this from.

Has the innovation of an enclosed bifurcated outer garment for the lower body arisen multiple times in history? If so, where? If not, where and when, and under what circumstances, did the innovation take place?

Additionally, is there evidence of this "kids these days" reaction to new music going even further back before written music was developed?

I've been listening to the History of Rome podcast and Carthage apparently was able to send fifty thousand troops to defend Spain. Why didn't they send large scale reinforcements to Hannibal? Or send in a large force to retake Sicily? If anybody could answer this I would be grateful! I've been wondering this for like a week.

I made a post on my blog in which I was trying to broadly outline events between the 1500s and the 1800s. At least, I was trying to offer my interpretation. It was most amateur; I really need to get back in the habit of citing my sources, and having them NOT ONLY being Wikipedia, but I digress.

I went over the circumstances which aided in the development of the Protestant Revolution, the colonisation of the Americas, the revolutions etc. in broad strokes.

But through all of this, I could find no reason to include the Italian Renaissance in the post. I know that the period is widely touted by historians as a time that changed everything, but I can't really get a grasp on what they mean.

These at least are how I understood the other major processes (I'm summarising even more than I did in the post, because I don't want this to be too long). Stop me at any time if I'm wrong.

European colonisation: Portugal desired means to expand its military and economic power, but was caught between Spain and Morocco. Around the same time, Infante Henrique the Navigator patronised the mass production of a new vessel called the Nau, which had ocean-going capabilities. This allowed Portugal to form island colonies that opened trade on a hitherto unknown scale. Other maritime nations followed suit to get a cut.

Protestantism: Invention of the printing press enabled ideas to be spread faster by making written documents cheaper to manufacture. Martin Luther copied and spread his words and managed to be the first denomination not to be systematically crushed by the Catholic Church. Later resulting wars broke the stranglehold Catholicism held on Europe, paving the way for a more religiously and ideologically pluralistic environment.

English Civil War: Power gradually accumulated in the hands of the nobility -starting from the early 13th century- and conflict with the king came to a head when Charles I started throwing his weight around. War was had, Charles got a little in over his head, and Parliament imposed their terms. The demands for responsible, representative government had a hand in influencing the development of the American Revolution.

French Revolution: Bankruptcy of the state following involvement in the American Revolution, famine, concentration of wealth in the hands of the clergy and other assorted mismanagement resulted in a lot of unhappy people. War was had and a lot of people got in over their heads. Napoleon stepped in and put an end to the buffoonery, crowned himself emperor, and I stopped after that.

The events and inventions leading up to all of these seem pretty clear to me, but when I looked up the Italian Renaissance, the most I could get out of it was 'A lot of pretty paintings and sculptures and buildings were made'.

Uh, that's great, but how does that impact government, society or infrastructure? I know Niccolo Machiavelli's Il Principe was released around that time, but did that have the same impact as Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, for example?

Obviously I'm missing something here, but what is it?

I am writing a lesson plan for 10th graders and I want to integrate a primary source doc. Any recommendations?

Ashkenazic Jewish cuisine bares quite a few differences from the German and Slavic cultures the Ashkenazim were surrounded by. What makes the difference?

Im not at all knowledgeable on the topic, but I am curious since it didn't seem outright Hollywood fake.

I assumed/know that Nazi Germany could have easily won the European theatre if Hitler hadn't have interfered as he did. But how about Japan, did they ever have a real chance?

How did the Coastal Seminoles, Creeks, and Chickasaw Indians deal with Hurricanes? Or any dangerous weather for that matter.