I'm reading a paper by Mike Munger where he makes the claim that the postal campaign was a failure b/c it ossified positions on slavery and basically drove out or extinguished any dissent of the slavery question in the south. When I've read about it before I've always read that it was a success b/c it raised the question on the national scale.

What's the current scholarly thought on the campaign? My guess is "it's more complicated than either of those positions" is the current thinking. What are the complications and can you recommend any articles or books on the topic?

What foods comprised the staples of a Roman diet during this period. Would the aristocracy have access to significantly higher quality foods? Was geography a factor?

I've seen it in flags as well as various propaganda about communism. Certainly stars have been used as symbols for lots of reasons throughout history, but what did it symbolize to the communist? Has the meaning changed with time?

If I tried to describe something before before WW2 as a "holocaust" would people assume I was talking about mass extermination?

And what other names for the Holocaust were in use before the terminology was settled on?

I've read somethings about the silk trade extending to Rome, but that it wasn't direct. But some Chinese or Romans must have made contact with one another. Two great empires, the great west and the great east.

What were their opinions on one another?

Why not bears, cougars, coyotes? Why do wolves seem to have attracted so much fear?

Five Years ago, this humble subreddit was founded on the principle of crowd-sourcing people's questions about history and ensuring that quality responses got the attention they deserved. Five years and 500,000 subscribers later, this is a place where anyone can come to ask what they really want to know about Hitler's facial hair all kinds of historical topics.

In honor of our anniversary and all the passion and dedication that got us here, we have a question for you. Why do you love history? What makes you passionate about the past, whether you write about it or read about it?

I did a quick study and it said these countries were "under Soviet inflence" What happened? How did happen? What does Soviet influence actually mean? How much did Stalin and Krushchev get involved with these countries? Were all the countries the same? Did some try to fight? Were they occupied by the Soviet Union? If not how were they controlled? Why did the West let Stalin have so much power and influence?Did these countries want and embrace communism? I don't actually have a clue about any of this

I was discussing the movie Apocalypto with someone and tried to argue that White Europeans had some evidence of human sacrifice as well (Irish coronation ceremonies) but as I read more about mesoamerican/andean practices I was shocked to see how brutal they were.. roasting victims in a fire while they were alive before taking the hearts, or apparently child sacrifice was very common. Parents would offer their own children, and the more they were tortured and cried the better omen it would be. Often the parents would eat the children afterwards. Some sources say 1/5 mesoamerican children were killed in this way Cruelty towards adults and war captives at least can be comprehended in a cultural context, but slaughtering and cannibalizing your peoples own children seems like such a detrimental thing for any species to do. My question is, what kind of evolutionary selection pressures specific to the region caused the central/south americans to evolve this way? vs north american indians for example

From what I can tell, they can't be used in anything but a flat, dry environment, and even then if one of the horses dies, a wheel breaks off, either rider dies, that chariot and it's occupants are finished.

Picts seem to have used horses for hunting and warfare, as evidence by the drawings on their stones.

Did Britons really use chariots, or is it Caesar's invention to make his story more dramatic?

I am working on a hobby project and was wondering if anyone had any information pertaining to carrier based Aircraft during WW2.

How large would a flight or squadron of these aircraft typically be? Would a carrier usually launch its entire complement of aircraft for a strike? If a carrier was to launch a large number of planes, would they fly in smaller formations or en masse towards there target?

Did the IJN and USN have different approaches to formation size for planes? What about land based aircraft operating close enough to the ocean to strike at naval targets?

Finally would flights of aircraft mix torpedo bombers and Fighters into a single formation, or would they seperate based on there intended role?

Additionally, any free resource anyone knows of with this kind of information would be greatly beneficial. Wikipedia lacks the kind of specific information I am looking for.

Thanks very much in advance!

After the end of WW2, both Italy and West Germany became part of the NATO and built large armies with modern weapons, but they didn't build nukes, even if some of them were deployed inside their clay by the USA. On the other side, nations like UK and France (but also like the less importants economically and technologically advanced China, India and Pakistan) developed their own nuclear program and finally got nuclear weapons. So my question is: given that both Italy and Germany could develope nukes, why did't they build any nuclear bomb?

I'm also interested in why they started it, but I assume that it's simply that they thought BC/AD was too religiously charged. Still, I'd be interested in the details of precisely how it came up.

*edit: Conical would be a better word over bullet-shaped

Other groups were mistreated for being visible different or for having a different religion, but this groups were largely protestant and you can't really tell them apart from Englishmen visually.

Additionally any demographic breakdown by class or profession etc would be fun to see as well.