Their sons are carefully instructed from their fifth to their twentieth year, in three things alone---to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth

How true is this statement by Herodotus, particularly the truth telling part? Why was Persia like this and what effect did it have on their society?

[deleted]

I'm doing a school project for an elective forensics class about serial killers. I didn't want to do any of the usual killers (Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, BTK, etc.) so I decided to do someone from the past and selected the late 16th century serial killer known only as the Werewolf of Chalons. In retrospect, trying to do a project about someone sentenced to damnatio memoriae in 1598 may not have been the best idea.

I've found a few secondary sources online, enough to meet the minimum requirements, but what I do have gives conflicting information about how he committed his crimes (slitting his victim's throats vs. killing them with his teeth). I know this is a long shot, since all the court documents about him were burnt, but are there any primary sources or very good secondary sources regarding the Werewolf? Also, where can I read more about lycanthropy superstitions in late 1500s France?

[deleted]

Since there seem to be a lot of similarities between these two characters, how did people feel back then and how is it comparable to todays situation?

Last night I was watching a period piece on netflix about the Easter Uprising. The fictional characters interacting with the non-fictional ones did not seem to have a very high opinion of de Valera. The show also portrayed him as sort of cowardly and self-interested.

I also vaguely recall the film Micheal Collins, which was about the charismatic leader of the Republicans who rose to prominence after the Uprising and played a key role in Ireland's independance. In that film if I recall correctly, de Valera was also portrayed unfavorably compared to Collins.

This runs contrary to a lot of what I at least think I know about Irish history during its early Republican years, and the fact the de Valera became President of Ireland in the early 1920's and played a huge role in the history of the formation of the country.

So what really was de Valera's reputation like among his peers and the general public?

The People's Republic China had bad relations with both the USSR and the USA at this point, what advantage was there to expelling the Republic of China, which remains a close US partner and ally to this day?

While living in Taiwan, I noticed a number of "relics" of invasion preparations, such as old pillboxes and dragon's teeth near the coast, and an annual air raid drill requiring everyone to stay indoors for a couple hours. I've often wondered, as a result, whether these things would make any difference in the even of a PRC invasion, and consequently whether they made a significant difference historically in preventing such an invasion for the last 70 years.

When the KMT left the mainland, they also maintained control of another large island off the Chinese coast: Hainan. Hainan shares a lot in common with Taiwan, as well, being similar in size and having a similar mix of mountainous vs. flat land, and back in 1950 was ~relatively similar in population density as well.

So the question is: why did one island stand, and the other fall to the PLA? I know that the Qiangzhou Strait is much narrower than the Taiwan Strait, but at the same time Kinmen Island is also very close to the mainland and was held by the ROC nonetheless. What conditions were different that led to the different fates of these islands? Were they purely military considerations, geography, simple chance, or was it rooted in politics or international diplomacy somehow?

HI -

I'm wondering if there exist any accounts or literature in the vein of "All quiet on the Western Front" for the second Sino-Japanese war or world war 2 from the japanese side of things. This may not be an exact fit for this subreddit i realize since all quiet is fiction. any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

I'm looking for a survey of the political and religious institutions of the Roman Republic. I'm going into it with a course on the republic under my belt, with a couple lectures devoted to these institutions, so I'm familiar with the basics. I've also read the first five books of Livy and Machiavelli's Discourses. I'm interested in a little history (in the sense of events or sequentialism), but mostly understanding the structure of republican political and religious institutions/cults, the personalities that inhabited them.

For example would a Japanese aristocrat know about the major Chinese dynasties, the major emperors, poems, political system, etc. Also how familiar would a Japanese peasant be with Confucius, Mengzi, and the other major Chinese philosophers and their works? How much access did medieval Japanese society have in general when it came to factual knowledge of China? For example did the Japanese have a rough idea of what the geography of China was like, what kind of languages they spoke, etc. Did the Japanese have maps of China?

I've been trying to keep track of which city was the capital of Castile between, say, 1300 and 1500 but wiki is vague as hell. To clarify, by "capital" I mean which city the Royal Court was established. I know it changed between Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo and Madrid during that period but there are no precise dates given and the fact that the Cortes ("parliament") convened in Madrid on several occasions during those periods when Madrid was not the capital only make matters more confusing. There was a bureaucracy/administration to move along with the court, I don't think they changed that often even if the King was frequently on trips all over the Kingdom. From what I could surmise during the Reconquista they gradually moved from Burgos, to Valladolid, to Toledo and finally settled on Madrid. I just can't find any sort of precise dates like I can for the Portuguese court/capital changes from Guimaraes to Coimbra and to Lisbon.
Can anyone give me a more precise timeline of the Capital city changes in Castile?

I learned recently that honeybees are not native to the Americas. When did they get there, how, and why?

While I'm sure life for anyone in the time period wasn't a cakewalk compared to today, monks seemed to have it well, at least from the viewpoint of movies and books. They get food, housing, education, and one thing I've heard is that they were usually never victim to battles or raids and the like. If I were a commoner with dreams of being anything more than a peasant that would seem like a good route to take.

I hope my question is written well enough to get across what I'm trying to question.