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Ulysses S Grant, F Scott Fitzgerald, JEB Stuart, P T Barnham, FDR/LBJ are just some of the thousands of examples of this- Truman and Grant installed the 'S' just to have an initial. Is there a reason why this developed? Were they generally known as such in their own lifetimes?

Pretty much as the title says. Throughout the old testament, whenever the story centers around war or fighting, usually phrases like "They killed them with swords" or "they were struck down by swords" is very common, yet most other weapon types are rarely mentioned at all.

I have also seen several Quranic passages mentioning swords specifically.

Is there a particular cultural or religious reason for why the sword is so often mentioned in the text, or did the ancient hebrews literally fight almost exclusively with swords?

What firing drill formations did different nations use in this period eg. Maurician volleys rank by rank, or three rank volley with first rank crouching, 2nd standing and 3rd firing over 2nds shoulders etc. and when did they adopt/discard them?

Why is the culture of Cyprus mostly Greek? It seems given its location that it would be closer to Semitic or Arabic than anything Greek but over thousands of years it has remained mostly Greek in culture. Why?

1. I believe Alexander fought 19 battles and waged 12 sieges, is it true that he really fought in every engagement? Did he really ride at the head of his companion cavalry?

2. If it is true, was it expected of generals of the time? What did other commanders and soldiers think of him throwing himself into the gray time and time again? What was he trying to prove by doing it?

3. Do we know about Alexander's skill as a cavalryman and infantryman? What do the sources have to say about his actual fighting ability, was he respected as a soldier?

4. Since his time, have generals attempted to emulate his style of 'heroic' leadership by leading from the front? Or was it always deemed far too risky for leaders to attempt something like that?

5. Lastly, could you list some of the best military accounts/books on Alexander's campaigns?

Thanks.

Did the British Empire ever drop a colony for example because it became too expensive to maintain, due to local resistance?

Was the audience mostly aristocrats or the middle class or the poor? Would they typically be literate? Would the average audience member watching, say, Richard III know something like, "Henry Tudor, who wins the throne at the end, is our current queen's grandfather"? Would they know going into Julius Caesar that Julius Caesar was dictator of Rome about 1600 years before their time, that he was assassinated for fear that he was becoming too powerful, and that his assassins included his friend Brutus?

EDIT: By "they" in the question, I mean "Shakespeare's plays".

According to David Morgan in The Mongols, a number of Mongols and other Steppe tribespeople were Nestorians. How did this reach farther east than other Abrahamic religions? Also, it appears that Nestorians and Catholic were in rather good terms based on Rabban Sauma's visit to Rome. Why was this?

So I was reading about the bombings of Japan during WWII for a research paper and I came across a section which quotes a French Journalist, Robert Guillian, and I was confused. Why would a French National be allowed to stay, and report, in authoritarian Japan? Additionally, have there been other occurrences where a member of an enemy state, or an allied member of an enemy state, was allowed to stay in the country?

Can factors like divisions in Indian society (caste, religion, nationality and ethnicity) or a British military/technology advantage be considered important? Are there any other factors that I haven't considered?

This is from a linguistic curiosity.

I am not sure if this is the correct sub for this question, but I have recently wondered recently, the political rhetoric in South Africa has taken a strange turn to blame the colonialists for forced displacement of people, and while that is unarguably true, others have noted how the San (or first people) were originally displaced by other nations.

I mean it in the following way: How did they justify going to war with other Christian nations at all? War is a very bad thing. So usually there is felt to be a need for an 'official' compelling justification for going to war. Also, back then European States must have thought it was important for war to be consistent with Christianity. And yet, Christianity seems to me the sort of religion that makes war a difficult thing to justify, especially among Christian nations. So how did they justify war at all? Under what conditions was it considered acceptable? What was the Church's position on this?

Avoiding the complexities, what would happen if a feudal lord did something that directly conflicted with the rule of the monarch? Would the monarch raise levies to arrest and punish the offender? If they were captured, what would a typical punishment be?

It would make reading, as possibly speaking, have much more flow imo