were the contras 100% backed up by the U.S? Could we ever forget what the U.S has done to us and suck their tit like Costa Rica has done? Nicaragua was clearly a huge piece for however controlled it on the Cold War era, just as some say that the CIA goes into countries and put right wing governments, Soviets or Cubans did the same back in the '70s to Nicaragua?

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Thinking on Native American societies prior to European contact. Are there any places which are as well preserved as what we see in Central and South America?

I know it’s been the predominant assumption throughout human history but the idea of believing Earth is the only harbinger of life in existence, is something I find hard to imagine. I've believed in alien life as long as I can remember, I’ve believed in the likely existence of parallel universe Earths almost as long.

I know this sounds crazy, and I'm 99% sure it is crazy and made up, but I remember reading a long time ago on some website that some Native Americans in Alaska or western Canada remember being driven out of Siberia by the Mongols, particularly by Ghengis,

I'm sure the story is not true but is there some weird source for this story that led somebody to interpret it this way? Do any First Nations have legends about their ethnogenesis that are loosely about fleeing from a tyrant or an army to their curremt homeland? How about people in the far, northeast of Siberia? Are there any famous archaeologists or historians or anthropologists you can think of who came up with this claim?

Hello! I'm in the process of writing a Podcast about the Spanish American War, and I'm hitting a bit of a roadblock. I'm stymied by a lack of information, and I hoping that AskHistorians could help point me in the right direction.
If you know any good sources, I'd love to hear about them. On top of sources that talk about the war overall, I'd be very interested in sources that talk about Spanish and Cuban positions and experiences. As an American, I've never really been exposed to the other sides story. I know /u/ThucydidesWasAwesome has some interest in the matter, but I'd love to hear what everyone has to say!

I'm extremely curious. Were the nobility heralded and fawned over as the super stars of their times? Did individual minstrels or artisans ever achieve any significant international notoriety? This subject fascinates me.

In the first 150 years of constitutional government, 25% of America's presidents had served as heads of Cabinet departments. Since then, we've had no President and only one Vice President (Cheney) come from the Cabinet. With a notable exception still undetermined, when did Secretary become a last stop?

Every time I've watched a period movie, A Little Chaos (17th century) prompted this, everyone always gets out of the bath with a long top sheet-like material. What was this called and who used them (Could the common folk afford this)?

We've created this big distinction between Aztecs being from Mexico and Native Americans being from the US, but obviously those boarders didn't exist hundreds or thousands of years ago. So how much of what we consider Native American culture/people is actually more similar to the Aztecs, and vise versa? Are they really that distinct to begin with or are those just stereotypes?

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It seems that the sarissa was an extremely valuable tool of war and armies equipped with it presented a nearly impenetrable forest of sharpened steel to advancing enemies. Why didn't this become the standard for say, the Romans, who continued to equip their infantry with swords for long after Alexander's reign? They eventually switched to spears as the main infantry weapon, so it seems like they recognized the usefulness of spears in the end, but why did it take so long? Why didn't everyone immediately try to arm their forces with sarissa style spears?

Besides the British, obviously, were there organized groups in India who were opposed to independence at the time? Was there a substantial minority of the population who were in favour of remaining a British colony, and did they make any attempts to stop the process?

In history, we can commonly see that countries broke apart to form their own independent nations. Even in modern times/ post WWII countries still broke apart, like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia as some examples. I am wondering if in modern history there has been any TWO nations that diplomatically formed ONE nation. So not something like the EU which is not exactly a unified nation. Thanks!