A little hard to go into detail about this because I'm not asking about anything specific, just the overall development of history as a field of research.

Here's an example of the type of thing I mean, but if you can't answer these exact questions that's fine: There was an old myth that Rome was founded by two brothers, Romulus and Remus, and that they were raised by a wolf instead of their real mother. People in modern times are obviously going to doubt the wolf part, and they might say that Romulus and Remus weren't even real historical figures, but that's not the part I'm most interested in. I'd be more interested in these followup questions:

-Did people in ancient Rome literally believe the city's founders were raised by a wolf?

-Who was the first Roman to publicly doubt the story?

-Did Rome's enemies tend to believe the story or not? Are there any examples of, say, Persians writing about how Romans were idiots for having such an implausible history?

-When did people living in the city of Rome in general start to believe the story wasn't true? (I'd guess if you go to Rome today, the vast majority of people would say the story isn't true, but if you went through a time machine to Rome in say the 2nd century B.C. then most people might say it is true. When and why, exactly, did this change happen?)

-Did people in medieval times (say, in England) believe that Rome's founders were raised by a wolf?

-Did people in the 17th century believe that Rome's founders were raised by a wolf?

-Did people in the 17th century believe that people in medieval times believed that Rome's founders were raised by a wolf?

There could be similar questions about any myth or historical misconception. There could also be similar questions about the value judgements historical eras made about other historical eras and figures. For example, did people in the Weimar Republic think Julius Caesar was good or bad? Who was the first Pope to offer his opinion about Confucianism? When did people start to say that Columbus proved the Earth was round and how did this develop into the myth that everyone before Columbus thought the Earth was flat? What was the difference in how ancient Greek history was taught in the Russian Empire compared to in the Soviet Union?

To reiterate: it's not necessary to answer any of these particular questions if you don't want to. I would like them answered but I'm much more interested in learning about the general concepts. I feel that there's a gap in how history is taught and written about because it so often skips from early primary sources straight to modern understandings without much focus on how that transition happened and what mistakes were made along the way.

In the show Band of Brothers when US soldiers are dropped over France, one of the enemy soldiers is an American born young man with perfect American English. He says he moved to Germany because the fatherland called his family and they went.

How common was this? And what happened to the prisoners of war who were American but fought for the nazis? Were they charged with treason?

I've read about how, as the Julian and then the Gregorian calendars were adopted, different nations or regions celebrated the official start of the new year on different calendar dates, which gradually standardized to Jan 1st over the centuries. But where and why did Jan 1st get established 10-ish days after the winter solstice? Why not on the solstice itself, or some other natural temporal milestone? I suppose the more general question is why the Julian calendar places the solstices and equinoxes on the 21st/22nd of their respective months and not closer to the precise beginning or end of the month. The ancient Romans were perfectly aware of the precise time of the solstice, so why the choice to offset the change of the calendar month/year by several days?

Taiwan was ceded to Japan in the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki. I have heard claims that China never really ruled over Taiwan. I am aware that the islands were under some form of Qing authority from the 1680s to 1895. How established was Qing Authority over the islands at the time they were ceded?

I know that not 100% of the people within the colonies were in favor of turning against Great Britain, and that Americans shipped out loyalist to Canada, the Bahamas and back to the UK after the war, but what was the likely breakdown of those who wanted independence and those who wanted to remain with the UK? Was there a spilt based on residence (city v. country) etc.?

Where the loyalist in fact deported at the end of the war?

edit: context

I'm especially interested in the spaceflight of Vladimir Komarov, the recruitment and preparation of cosmonauts, the USSR's attempts at a crewed moon landing as well as the more technical and psychological aspects of the job of US Apollo astronauts. I know this is a wide array of topics, but I'll be grateful for any help pointing me in the right direction.

The fact that plants need sunlight to grow must have been evident from the very earliest parts of human history, but I rarely hear about how people assumed this connection worked.

Was it believed that sunlight had general life giving properties, and that this somehow also extended to many animals? Did different societies have drastically different interpretations of this process? I'm really curious, but not quite sure where to start.

I was pondering the brutality of the second world war and was suddenly struck with the idea that it might not just be the result of ethno nationalism, but also of the experiences of a generation of young men in the trenches and the resulting psychological changes. For example an extreme case would be Dirlewanger whos cruelty, according to wikipedia, was as a result of his experiences in the first world war.

(Had to repost, because I forgot to phrase my title like a question)

Sorry if this has been asked before, but I had a question regarding the reliability of historical accounts/texts. I recently read some posts online and on reddit, that state that we can't really rely on a fair amount of information regarding historical events, because the event/person/culture/etc was painted in a bad light by those who survived and had a vendetta (not sure if this is the right word in this context). How can we be sure that what we're reading or discovering is the "real deal"? I may be answering my own question here, but is it based on the narrator ("this person told the truth before"), cross referenced with other accounts, or just kind of taken on "good faith", until we find something that doesn't "agree" with it? Is it some sort of combination, or is there another factor, and I'm completely missing the mark?

Again, I apologize if this has been asked before. I'm on break at work and time is limited; my responses may be slow. Thank you in advance for your guidance and insight!

Apologies if this is a naive question but I recently found that (disgraced) UK government Minister John Stonehouse had been a spy for the Czechoslovakian secret police, while the East German HVA were notorious for infiltrating West Germany and elsewhere. This seems odd as all the Warsaw Pact countries were satellite states of the USSR, which led their foreign policy (esp. with regards to things like nuclear secrets) - Were these Warsaw Pact nation agencies coordinated by Moscow? Did they perceive themselves as having separate national interests, or were they spying collectively against the Capitalist world?

Reason tells me yes, but since it was a League of Nations mandate rather than a colony I thought maybe it would be different? Like, administered by the British but not subject to them.

I've seen some contemporary illustrations where people are depicted wearing brigandines with what looks like a plackart, a piece of metal armour covering the non-ribbed part of the torso. I cannot for the life of mine find out whether this piece of armour worn by itself is also called a plackart, nor can I find out how this piece of armour (or the plackart) is called in my native German - be it now or in medieval times.

As a subject, this wasn’t brought up at all in my experience at school, and in general it isn’t talked about even comparably as often as the Holocaust is when it comes to historical atrocities. I find this hard to explain given conservative estimates of the death toll of Native American is said to be roughly 12 million according to Russell Thornton, and vary significantly with a toll of 100 million documented by D.E Stannard, author of ‘The American Holocaust’, the reasonable conclusion seems to land at around 75 million lives lost between Columbus’ arrival in 1492-1900, which works out to be close to 90% of the entire Native American population, with 5 million remaining today. Could someone please explain why, with a conservative estimate of twice as many lives lost, it isn’t spoken of with the same condemnation as the Holocaust, or if you were educated on the subject differently to what I was.

When learning about Ancient Rome, it’s common to hear that the Hoplite, a soldier with a spear and shield, was the best type of warrior one could ask for.

But centuries later, we see knights using swords (and maces and axes and whatnot). I have a hard time understanding why hoplites disappeared, when they’d clearly have the reach advantage against a knight with a sword.

And centuries after that, during colonial Britain times, we see rapiers and the fencing style of combat emerge. Most depictions of those with rapiers don’t show the wielded having much armor either (at least not compared to a knight). Again, I’d have a hard time seeing that combat style winning against a knight or hoplite.

So why did Europe switch from spear/shield, to swords and heavy knight armor, then to rapiers and light/no armor?

In other regions with large separatist/nationalist movements like Scotland or Quebec, there are major political parties to serve the interests of these areas. Why not in the American south? I know there were the Dixiecrats but they weren't really a southern nationalist party, just a segregation party. So why is this?

Caesar coerced the Senate into making him Dictator for life. This was a step beyond Sulla, who relinquished the dictatorship after three years. However, a strong argument can be made that he needed a permanent position to shield himself permanently from inevitable prosecution after leaving office. He governed as an autocrat, but this was not necessarily exceptional in this period. He made Octavian his personal heir, but he took no steps that I'm aware of to prepare the ground to pass the dictatorship on to a political heir.

The sources I've read refer to him ending the republic or to his intention to end the republic, i.e., establish a permanent autocracy. I'm not, however, aware of any steps he took to permanently change the form of the state to a permanent autocracy. I also haven't read any accounts that make a case that this was his intention based on his actual words or actions or any other observable evidence of his state of mind. Is there any evidence that this actually was his intention?