Mostly concerning oral traditions and early written and recorded religion before central and fringe beliefs have been codified; how would a father know what stories to tell of the gods in his pantheon to his children? Was there a strong oral traditions that supported this storytelling is such a wide manner that everyone would know these stories, or were they created by families to teach things and based around certain gods who exemplified those traits?

A fictional example:

1. A father knows of a story and wants to impress its teachings on his children and so retells it mostly verbatim.
2. A mother makes up a story about honor and attributed it to Thor because he exemplifies this structure of story.

Part two: We're there any gods (read:loki) that were straight up avoided or were they mentioned in good light like the others?

People had apparently known that for millennia. From what I understand, Columbus was a moron whose personal calculations concluded that the Earth is much smaller than it actually is, which is why he dared the journey to "Asia". And if there hadn't been a continent in the way that he didn't know about, he would have starved to death on the way.

So just why is this idea so widespread?

I wanted to do a project on WW2 aviation and would like to have access to mission reports from the 8th Air Force. I can see on NARA's website that these records exist. However, how can one get digital copies?

This gets at the famous metaphor of a fish asking, "What is water?" If a slave spent his entire life on one plantation with a few dozen other slaves — at most — and had limited interaction with other people and places, to what extent would he have understood his condition? How obvious would it have been that his life was not "normal"? Would he have understood the extent of his exploitation? To what degree would he have known what race was?

So I recently came across a horrible homeschool Global Studies textbook that includes witch doctors as one of the 10 or so things it expected students to know about the CONTINENT of Africa. That got me thinking about the term witch doctor and the origin of the term and whether it's still used in modern historical scholarship, if it applies to broadly or to a specific group, and if it's an inherently racist term.

Hope everyone is having a historical day. I recently finished my master's in history, studying the history of experience and epidemics. I am having a bit of a career crisis, as I originally fell back on working as a teacher. I am wondering what interesting careers that you have found in history or by utilizing your history degrees?

For example, I have read that no medieval longbows have survived, and as a result we do not conclusively know what they were like and there have been debates among academics about the subject. What are the major gaps of knowledge in Medieval history?

I just read that John of Gaunt was "the first of the Lancasters." It was in Daughter of Time, but I'm assuming it's factual. My question: How does someone become the first of a house like that? I always thought of them like families, that don't really have a "first." Especially since they seem to feud with each other, why would there be more? Please enlighten, thanks.

Was it lack of enough people to sustain a modern and efficient agricultural economy? Lack of external trade? Being slightly north equalling so much disadvantage? Am very curious to know the factors that led to such different paths given their seemingly similar geographic situations.

I know the title is complicated, but it's an honest query. I'm a senior studying History for my bachelor's degree, and last year my advisor told me about alternate routes for people pursuing degrees in history and how it might be something I should consider.

I love history, and I love doing the work I've done so far (writing papers, researching, analyzing information and cross referencing information). However, I want to maximize my ability to get a job once I graduate. What "alternate routes" are realistic and available? My dad suggested civil service jobs might be something to look into since some of them can require a degree. Honestly, it sounds kinda nice. I don't mind the idea of being a desk jockey either, so what is there?

I know it's an odd request but I figured it was worth asking. Thank you.

I’ve gotten into a couple debates about this weather it was the USSR joining or it was the atomic bomb. I thought I read somewhere that the war cabinet or something along those lines didn’t want to surrender but the emperor did. Im just looking for a clear answer.

Over the weekend my family was watching an interview conducted with my great grandmother about her journey to the United States in order to escape pogroms in Ukraine, where she lived in the 1910s. She mentions that her grandfather, who she lived with, was a very wealthy man and operated a tree farm in Dashev, the village that she lived in. We do not know this person’s name and what side of her family he was on, but I have been able to find an index of contemporaneous historical records in the state archives of the particular oblast that could provide some guidance. Expectedly, they are in Russian and as a result I cannot understand them and am wondering what methods I might use to unpack the information.

Thanks!

To clarify: A lot of ancient European and Mediterranean religions are taught like they had a consistent pantheon, in terms of the gods involved, their relations with one another, and their history. Zeus is the god of thunder, slayer of Kronos, brother-husband of Hera, and father of Heracles. Frigg is the wife of Odin and mother of Baldur. Horus is the falcon-headed son of Osiris and Isis, and the slayer of Set.

However, I know that in the case of many Near Eastern religions, there was never really a unified mythology, and was instead a loose collection of city cults with varying degrees of syncretism with one another. Was this ever the case too with European religions? Were there swathes of ancient Greece who had no clue who the hell the Titans were, or that Zeus and Ares were related? Did the priests of Set have a narrative for their god sans duel with Horus?

If that is the case, then when did the modern codifications develop? Was it done by outside historians compiling all the myths? One state imposing its rule (and subsequently their own interpretation of religion) upon the rest of the people? Modern historians trying to codify a confusing subject?

I was reading up on the stories of the north, and when I came to the subject of Jotunheim, I asked myself, remembering the demigods of Greek mythology: "Were there crosses between the Jotun and humans? I see it as somewhat possible (if Loki could give birth to a horse, I don't see why it couldn't be possible), but if there is no such thing, were there children of mixed races? What did the Vikings and the other characters think of such mixed-race beings?

By the end of 1944, the Pacific War had been lost and by early 1945 Japan was already planning on a last ditch effort to try and repeal an invasion of the Home Islands. The Imperial Japanese HQ has already given up any hopes of success. In Europe, Germany was on an obvious path to defeat (and only really holding out with the hopes of a miracle and/or the USSR and Allies to turn on each other). With Germany defeated, the full brunt of the Allies would turn on Japan (albeit the Soviet side was unknown) making the situation even more dire.

Why didn't Japan try to start pursing peace in late 1944 hoping that they could signing a peace treaty instead of it continuing and being forced to surrender (unconditionally at that)?

My instinct is that the answer will be something like "Not really", but I don't know enough to know why that should be the case; it's just a cliché I've encountered many times before.

I recently learned that many people across East Africa, like in Somalia, have fish taboos and as a consequence they do not eat fish

This surprised me because I would imagine that during famine or droughts the ocean would be a reliable source of food for many people

Even if there isn't a drought or anything fish still seems like an extremely valuable source of food

I know that some cultures have other taboos, like not eating pigs, dogs, or cows, but those are taboos against specific land animals, not land animals in general, while the fish taboo seems to affect all aquatic animals

Also jewish people eat most aquatic animals and only have taboos against a few of them

This made me wonder if the growth of these populations has been affected by this practice. Do historians estimate there would be more people living in East Africa now if they had never adopted the fish taboo?

And if this didn't affect their population growth, were they affected by this practice in other ways?

I think it would be interesting to see what was on them and see if any historical artifacts are still there.