Germany was able to take the Belgian forts around Liege relatively quickly when compared to the stagnant Western front for most of the rest of the war. What enabled the Germans to have success here when they couldn't break through later in the war? Was it simply that the forts provided static targets for German artillery?

Title

I've been wondering this since reading Franny and Zooey.

From what I can tell in the first part of the 1900's, young men were expected to live at home unless they found work far away or married. Around the 1960's it became more normal to move out once they hit adulthood. Is this accurate?

In Svetlana Alexievich's book "Second hand time", a recurring rhethorical "discourse" regarding the fall of the Soviet Union can be summarized as "pots and pans vs tanks and armor". Basically, a whole lot of pro-Soviet voices seemed to make the case that if the world-leading Soviet arnaments industry wasn't used to keep producing arms, it'd disintegrate into poor manufacturers of 'pots and pans' (since tanks would be of less use in a post-Cold War world). While I see that this very much is a rhethorical exaggeration, it made me wonder why there weren't any large Russian vehicle manufacturers that have come out of the military industry.

Compare this to the losing powers of WW2 - Italy, German, and Japan - who seem to all have turned a whole lot of production of wartime equipment into world-famous automobile industries (e.g. BMW, Volkswagen, Fiat, Mitsubishi, etc.) Why weren't the equipment and technological know-how of the Soviet Union used the same way post-1991?

I was wondering whether people numbered the wars during the second one or if they were referred to like this sometime after 1945.

Looking for books that cover the history of medieval India, particularly after the 1400s. Books specifically on the Mughals are welcome of course, but I would also like books on the rest of India during this time, and also books that cover the colonization of India.

Were the German weapons actually superior? German weapons are used by alies in plenty of other films too. Is Hollywood just doing this because the weapons look cool?

I recently read about the history of the ak-47. It sounds much too convenient. A farmer cum soldier is fighting in the great war, gets wounded, then says "why does every german soldier have a rifle when only one in four russian soldiers has a rifle, so I decided to design a rifle that would make it practical to make a rifle for each russian soldier". Along with it all sounding exactly like what possibly the most unimaginative propaganda writer would probably reject as being too unimaginative, wasn't the big problem with his design that it needed a milled rather than stamped receiver, defeating his goal, delaying the introduction of the ak-47 by ~5-10 years?

I was also wondering what other rifles from that period shared different features of the ak-47. The gas system, for instance. How similar was the gas system of, for instance, the sks to that of the ak-47. Also, I guess, the reloading and firing system. What other rifles had similar reloading and firing systems? The sks? Stg-44?

Thanks

I know that Bonnie Prince Charlie issued a decree dissolving "the pretended union" of Scotland and England, which would at least have restored Scotland's nominal independence (whilst maintaining its personal union with the English crown), however, I don't know to what extent Scottish nationalist sentiments motivated his supporters. How popular was he with the Scottish population?

This is a question about archives/archiving (rather than about current events per se) I hope it's appropriate for this subreddit (I've x-posted to /r/AskSocialScience and /r/Archivists) - please delete if not

I’ve been reading about the Library of Congress’ preservation of public tweets. Is anyone aware of any other ‘official’ archives of social media (either of whole platforms or of particular subjects – e.g. social media about the Arab Spring)?

That is, was there a fundamental change in how Frederick approached and viewed the world or simply a change in how he thought he had to live his life in order to achieve what he had wanted all along?

If that makes sense.

Recently I've read an article (short one) about these battles and how they resulted in moving USSR army back to defend territories from Germany (from eastern front to western). How accurate is this? Would Japan counterattack or at least holding eastern front help Hitler that much, that he could actually beat USSR? (thats the opinion from article I would like to evaluate)

Also I would like to know more about these battles and why they actually happend.

Cheers

We're war elephants ever widely used? Where did they come from? Who used them? When did they stop appearing? What were major battles with war elephants?

Hi all, I am under the impression that while some members of medieval society enjoyed the benefit of a lifetime of military training (knights and their squires), the majority of a feudal European lord's army would be comprised of conscripted, poorly trained levies. If this is close enough to the truth, why didn't people figure out that a professional army like the Roman legions was more effective than relying on peasants with pointy sticks earlier?

In addition to this, why were medieval realms in Europe so decentralised with vassal lords all allowed to pursue their own interests instead of having one central bureaucracy managing most things, including the military, like in Ancient China?

*worried about with respect to foreign relations