In medieval military history, it is generally taken as a given that decisive field battles were rare and unusual events, generally avoided by medieval generals to the extent possible. Instead, warfare revolved around ravaging and siege - a positional, attritional warfare based on grinding one's enemy down. It is also my understanding that this was largely true for early modern warfare as well. However, beginning in the 17th century, European generals seem to have shifted from avoiding the risks inherent in large battles to fervently seeking them.

I am looking for a reputable source that lists when regions of Earth that had not been explored due to geographic difficulties were encountered by explorers and put on the map. Are there any meaningfully large regions that haven't been physically explored today?

Thanks so much!

Before modern space exploration did educated people understand that the moon had a dark side? Or did they think that it actually changed shape as it waxed and waned? Were they able to discern the dark-side by the face that it's circle would still obscure the stars it passed over?

These days, nearly every elementary school student in the West has a pocket calculator. When slide rules were the dominant calculating device, at what age did people tend to get them? Was it just the STEM enthusiasts, or did everyone have them? Where did you buy them (were there slide rule stores?)? How much did they cost? Some slide rules can only do multiplication and division, while others can do trigonometry and exponents and squareroots and stuff; what capabilities did a typical slide rule have?

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As it says in the title, how did that exactly come about? That is to say, how did Byzantine nobles manage to become nobles in Italy and Sicily? By and large, were they holdovers from a military aristocracy or perhaps something else?

Thanks.

Why didn't they stick more to guerrilla tactics since they primarily used spears and shields? And lastly did the Zulu's have any experience with firearms themselves?

And I'm on my iPhone and I don't know how to set flair to South Africa so if my question is not allowed I apologize.

Wikipedia talks about dredging existing waterways, which I suppose I can see being done with relatively simple boats. But what about canals that were wholly new waterways? How were they dug once they were deep enough to be before the water table, without modern pumps? Lots of muscle power, or were there more sophisticated techniques at work?

Has it always been like that?

As the head of the executive branch, Jackson should have enforced the ruling. What remedies are available for enforcement when the head of the executive branch refuses to do his job?

I was watching a documentary about Mongolian Nazis. They dressed as Nazis (SS uniform), expressed Nazi gestures (right arm salute), and displayed swastika flags. However, in the documentary, there was no mention whatsoever of any feelings, neutral or bad, towards Jews; their main concern was with Chinese immigration. (They may well have anti Semitic beliefs but did not display them). Can these Mongolian "Nazis" actually be described as Nazis, as opposed to fascists or any other political movement? In other words, how integral is anti Semitism and a hatred of Jews to the Nazi movement?

Yes they bombed them, but for the most part they stayed in South Vietnam performing counterinsurgency operations, deflecting NVA attacks but never marching on Hanoi the way they'd done on Berlin decades before, why was that?

King of the Romans, King of the Germans, etc... these were all titles used by the Imperial family, as I understand it. While under them were things like Dukes. Except for Bohemia, which was not a Duchy like, say, Saxony, but rather a Kingdom. Why?

With the 2016 election upon us, I keep seeing all of this stuff about Ronald Reagan and how he's such an icon in the Republican Party. There was even a poll on the CBS Sunday Morning show that had him tied with Abraham Lincoln for best Republican president of all time.

Why do people hold this positive view of him? Did he pass landmark legislation? Was it just the way he dealt with the USSR? Is it perhaps smoke and mirrors by the Republican establishment as they look to venerate a figure from their recent past?

But in the end, I'm just looking to understand more about why he's viewed so positively by Republicans in general.

Hello /askHistorians, I visited Nijō castle in Kyoto today and as a european used to castles of the middle age, a few things seemed very odd to me, which also apply to other Japanese castles.

1. The incredible thickness of the walls: The walls in Nijō castle are way thicker than the ones from european castles of the same age: was this an actual necessity (e.g. did the Japanese have stronger siege weapons) or to show of wealth and power? Also the rather average height seems to make an odd combination.

2. The lack of battlements: The walls all around Nijō castle have no battlements, guards just seemingly stood on top of them unprotected from accidentally falling or enemy archers. Did the Japanese not have the need for battlements on top of their walls (i remember reading somewhere that archery was considered cowardly so maybe they weren't used in battle)?

3. The gate on Nijō castle's west side: This one applies only to this particular castle. When leaving the grounds we noticed a gate on the west side of the walls leading nowhere with no signs of a bridge: what was it's use?

For better understanding my questions I commented an imgur album with a few explanatory pictures: I don't know if the mods allow that but for the sake of answering my questions please bare with me mods :)

These may be hard to answer, but I'm thankful for any answer or theories you come up with. :)

I've heard that at the Battle of the Frontiers, French field tactics looked like something from the Franco-Prussian war and cost them staggering casualties as a result. Is this accurate?