I've heard of this before but haven't read up on it. Is it a conspiracy theory or a historical fact?

Without breaking the 20 year rule, Somalia was the site of many powerful kingdoms and sultanates that controlled trading in the Indian Ocean. It now has average life expectancy of 31, per capita GDP is $600, the government has little to no control over the country, and its riddled with splintered terrorist groups such as al-Shabbab. Did colonial control have anything to do with it? Was the country fairly stable in the early 20th century? Or is it entirely because of the 1969 coup and the Somali Civil War in the 90s?

My dad has told me for years that Benjamin Rush is one of our ancestors and I'd love to be able to learn more about him. The most I know is that he was a doctor.

I have read an article about a German general a year ago, which I found very interesting, but I forgot his name, and since then I changed my computer, so I don't have the browsing history either. If you could help me to find out who he was, I would be most obliged.

The things I remember (maybe correctly, maybe not):

• His family came from Hannover, and his great-grandfather (or grandfather?) was an officer (maybe even general?) in KGL under Wellington in the Peninsular War.

• He had an armoured division on the Eastern Front in the time of Stalingrad, and he obliterated a whole Soviet corps piece by piece in the course of a few weeks. Generally the Soviets broke through the overstretched German defenses somewhere every day, then the general encircled them with his division overnight, and routed the attackers with a surprise attack in the dawn.

• His motto was not to give out written orders, he always spoke with his underlings face to face, to minimise the chances of misunderstandings.

I think that's it, I am sorry that I remember so little, and thanks for the help in advance.

Did any generals, admirals, or political leaders advocate for contingency plans against the Soviets, or to at least start spying on them?

Just wondering if it had a hand in the formation of mythologies and religion?

I mean,even though he took a big part as a symbol of anti-shogunate daimyos, how did he get so much power back instead of being a symbolic head of state

I know that bracers were used. But I've read in historical fiction that they developed calluses on their forearms and essentially just "toughened up" against the bowstring for the most part. But after I've done some digging I haven't been able to find much. Can anyone help me out?

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For example, if the Carthaginian general Hamilco led an "enormous army" against Sicily, how large are we talking? What with the limits on population due to agriculture, disease, etcetera.

I've been reading American government statistics from 1900-1930 and the term "Do" kept appearing in tables. Can someone explain to me what this term mean? The format is like this:

Many IRA-type groups were/are Marxist in orientation. Che Guevara appears on Republican murals. Many Unionists on the other hand are right wing, some were even allied to neo-Nazis like C18.

How did this come about?

Ghengis Khan conquered northern China and a bunch of other stuff, then Kublai, his grandson, took Southern China, and then... The mongols remained emperors of China? At what point, if ever, did that no longer become true?

I wondered how the Hindu-Arabic numerals gained quick acceptance in Europe and East Asia. Why is it this case with numbers but we cannot easily replace letters and scripts, like the Cyrillic, Hangul, Katakana-Hiragana and Chinese scripts. The Europeans for example, used Latin numerals and the East Asians, I don't know.

What was the reaction of the peoples in having the traditional and old number system being replaced with another? Well, we're not going to replace our alphabet just because we find another that works better?

Hello! I have Celiac's Disease and I got to thinking. Since my diagnosis in the modern era seemed so difficult to achieve, how was it for people before our time? I though since it's auto-immune it must had been around for a while, but was it recognized and if it was or was not, can we attribute anything in history to the disease? What could it had been, perhaps, misdiagnosed as?

Thanks!

Lately I have been quite fascinated with Hofers "little" insurgency, and now I am striving to read something beyond Wikipedia and on an academic level, so are there any "must reads" on the topic? (German and/or English books would be ok).

Edit: Or really any good and informative book on the subject

I'm interested most of all in

• knowing what he was like as a person and how he developed during his life (how did others view him?);
• understanding his work and contributions in context (how novel was he for his time?); and
• understanding the impact of his contributions (was his influence as great as Galileo, who arguably contributed in large part to the scientific revolution?).

Thanks in advance!

(I'd also enjoy any comprehensive histories of him from any of you, if that's allowed.)