My history professor and I are having a disagreement over the answer to this question.

Basically, the question we had on our test was

The Mamlúks were a. Egyptians b. Chinese c. Italians d. none of them

I chose none of them because I read that they were a mix of people who were slaves, and a lot of them were Turkic people. I know that they ruled in Egypt, but I didn't think that made them Egyptians.

When I inquired with the professor, he compared them to African-Americans, saying that I wouldn't say that they weren't American would I?

I responded a bit confused thinking that, while I wouldn't say an African-American was not American, I wouldn't expect that their ancestors would have identified as American. Especially since that was their captors nationality, and that I felt it was the same probably with the Mamluks.

I am not trying to "catch" my professor. It was the only question I missed, so I am more curious why I wrong. Thank you.

Was he simply defeated? Was a matter of 'bad luck'? Odds were always really limited?

Such a significant and important event in European history, yet I have not found a documentary for it.

In a lot of fiction about the past, you see scenes where something unexpected and shocking is revealed and some fancy lady faints. I know this is definitely a little hammed up, but you see is so often that it makes me think there must be some truth to it. On the other hand, I know a bunch of ladies and have heard a lot of shocking things and never seen one of them faint.

Specifically the jacobites, and modern day english princes, in the past there were many such rebellions. Some were successful some failed. But who doesn't want to be king?

I've read that atrocities between Germany and the US were rarer than between Japan and US in WWII (due, in part, to less racial animus and dehumanization of the enemy). Is this true?

My question is meant to include both atrocities committed by the US and against the US.

And I would be interested in both combatant-on-combatant atrocities (e.g. killing POWs) and combatant-on-civilian atrocities; and both atrocities committed by ground troops and bombing missions which were intended to kill civilians.

Thanks in advance!

Title kind of says it all. We have the traditional Greek accounts of the Persian wars but what did Persian writers say about them?

Zhuge Liang is one of my favorite characters in history/historical fiction/whatever Romance of the Three Kingdoms is. I am interested in knowing what is true and what is false. Which of the stories about him is based on real acts and which are not? What acts were attributed to him but in truth were the acts of others?

So for example, if a Chinese or Punjabi farmer were to marry a Hispanic woman, or if a Japanese man were to marry a black woman, what potential consequences, if any, would these couples face?

More broadly, were Elizabethan authors familiar with English works of previous centuries, either directly or as stories?

The story that's always told of the Western Front is about the trenches and the kind of warfare that arose. But what I have heard so little about is what the predominant tactics were of the armies before they started digging trenches. I know that casualties were very high due to the conventional use of cavalry and large units against the new technology of the machine gun, but that sentence is pretty much all I know about the combat before the trenches.

Were they sent to fight the Germans? Were they held in the POW camps until the end of the war?

Also, we're all of these armies as professional as roman armies are often portrayed?

In a span of approximately 100 years, how much did firearms improve? Was a standard civil war musket much better than the ones used during the American Revolution? Same for the cannons used.

Hello Ask Historians, thanks for all your great work. I've developed an interest in Russian history and was wondering if there is a book on Russian expansion into Siberia that is well respected and readable for a layman? I'm also interested in the exploration of Siberia, any ideas?

In Ghost Wars by Steve Coll p58, chapter 4 of the 2005 edition, it says that Howard Hart (of the CIA) regarded the .303 Lee Enfield as a "far superior weapon to the flashier communist-made AK47 assault rifle". Why was this?

Was it due to the long ranges that the weapon was expected to be used at, the familiarity of the Mujaheddin with said weapons, or something else entirely?

I should state, I know nothing about firearms apart from what I read online.

Thanks.

EDIT: The reason I find it curious is that the Lee Enfield was surely already in the Afghanistan/Pakistan area in great numbers. And unless the Soviets used .303 ammunition, then resupply would be more difficult (having to come from Pakistan). Furthermore, while I can appreciate the value of the higher powered cartridge at range, it would limit the user to ambushing and sniping. If the mujaheddin wanted to assault Soviet positions (as they would have to do if they wanted to ever retake a position) then surely they would be greatly outgunned by even a smaller number of AK-47s.

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Does something like this already exist?

I was thinking about this because of the following reasons:

1. American epidemics: After the contact, majority of native population of Americas died from the epidemics of smallpox, etc. However the affects on Old World population were lighter.

2. Origins of Black Death: As far as I know, there are still many unanswered questions about the pathological origins of the plague except its connection with Yersinia pestis and that it started to spread possibly somewhere in China.

3. Polynesian contact: It is widely accepted that there has been a contact between polynesian and pre-colombian american cultures.

So my "educated guess" is that the Polynesian sailors could have been brought the disease with them from Incan people who are immune to it to the Chinese ports (or Southeast Asian ports and then Chinese ones) and that way started the wave of epidemic that is comparable to that of native american one in size. This could also explain the relatively smaller impact of epidemics on Europens after Colombian contact.

I am not a historian and have no expertise on the subject. I am asking you to please show me why this theory can or cannot work?

Surely it was an inevitability? Is there any evidence of the early stages of industrialisation taking a foothold in the Roman Empire?