I've always been under the impression that the Soviets signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact without any expectation of long-term peace, but rather in the hopes of delaying an inevitable conflict with Germany so that they'd have time to rearm and such. In that context, wouldn't the Comintern have wanted other countries fighting the Germans as soon as possible?

I was curious seeing as for countries like Mali and Morocco the Americas are in close vicinity and I had even heard that the Moroccan sultan Ahmad Al-Mansur was making plans to set up colonies in the new world. So why didn't this come to fruition?

I was curious as to why it as that a state as powerful of China never even attempted to send colonists to the west coast of the Americas?

surely they new about the continents, and perhaps they could have avoided attrition during the voyages by traveling along the coast of far eastern Siberia and the Bering straight and then finally reaching Alaska?

I thought something that was more to relevant to everyone's lives would be put in charge of the pantheon. Hades for death, since everyone dies. A God of fire or the sun (Apollo) or even Poseidon for the sea but...lightning? How much did that really affect anyone? Sure its powerful but it's not a common thing that would apply to everyone. It's not like they had to charge their iPhone or anything.

How about the French? Tell me all about colonial units during the Battle of France.

If I tried to read something in "English" from the 10th century it would be impossible. Does the same hold true for the French or has the French language changed less over time?

Why didn't they just go back to the imperial German flag? Looks way better imo, meanwhile the current German flag looks and must be mistaken often as the Belgian flag.

Anything from cultural sayings,politics, social norms. Idioms, standard of living You don't have to type it out in the comments. Thank you again for the time your taking to connect me to these resources.

I've been learning about some basic history lately, and I'm always finding myself more interested in the way the average person thought at a place and time, rather than the big momentous events. One that has always been difficult to get an understanding of is the way cultures would interact in places/times when they were surrounded by a wide variety of various polytheistic religions.

Today, religions are seen generally as mutually exclusive, such that only one can be "right" and everyone else is wrong. A lot of movies and stuff based on these time periods, or even in fictional worlds similar to them, will have interactions where a member of faith A will talk to a member of faith B, and talk about the gods of B as if they are very real gods, but just gods who don't have any real interest in people from A.

Is this just an over-simplification for modern audiences? Was religion always a sore subject that most people avoided? Or was it more like the patron gods of Greek cities, where the Spartans believed in Athena but also knew she was more strongly associated with Athens?

This is my first post on this sub reddit, I'm not really sure if I'm doing it right.

I was wondering if someone could provide insight on the differences between slavery as it occurred in pre civil war America and from the 1880 until the 1970's in Australia (with state sanctioned indigenous Australian slavery). I was interested to find out recently that slavery did form part of the narrative of Australian history, however in and entirely different way than what occurred in America, with the importation of slaves from Africa.

Secondarily, although tensions exist to this day between minorities and the white population, it is my understanding that these tensions Spring from different circumstances and I would like to understand how they have arisen.

Thanks!

What were their thoughts on the definition of natural born citizen?

One sometimes encounters partisan political and/or racist revisionism of what I'll call Civil Rights era events in the US. One example would be the use of 1965 Civil Rights Act congressional vote counts records as "proof" that one major political party was more or less "racist" than another.

Another more obscure example I encountered is the idea that business owners disliked Jim Crow laws because of the market restrictions imposed on them "by the government". I tried to find evidence for or against this proposition but could only find a few polemics on some partisan think tanks.

I am interested in any information about the Jim Crow question specifically and generally about the scope of revisionism one should take care of in accounts of this part of US history.

How were they able to fight a civil war and come ou the other end still able to conquer much of Europe?

Thank you for answering!

Living in Singapore for a couple years, I was awestruck by the immaculate efficiency, safety, cleanliness, and high standards of living in the country. I understand it has been a hub for international sea trade for centuries, but why is it only now that it has reached such high developmental status? Is it really just due to the policy genius of founding father Lee Kuan Yew?

With the rise of muskets and artillery, frontal charges were hardly practical anymore, were they? What did cavalry generally end up being used for at this point?