The TV series "Rome," "Gladiator," etc.-- it seems like American cinema has a tendency to depict these characters as white Brits.

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Me and my wife are deciding what to name our daughter and we thought what was the first female recorded history to see if we liked that name.

Do we have a definitive first female name?

I'd also like to know any details about her that you can offer.

Sorry if this breaks the rules. If so please delete.

I'm just surprised bycicles weren't invented earlier since they are so effective.

Simple question, I was just wondering if there's much of a historical basis for smallpox blankets as I see them talked about fairly frequently.

I was reading the wikipedia article on PIkes and it says that they were used throughout the renaissance (An age with Gunpowder), Through the 17th century (An age where i traditionally just assumed everyone was using muskets and cannons), where used by some nations in the Napoleonic wars, and were used by Spanish police forces up until the 1980s.

Why Pikes? Or Rather, why was a medieval weapon still being used? Does it have to do with the training cost of them or did they serve a larger purpose?

Before dry cleaning all clothes would be wet wash safe. Wiki says the first dry cleaners used gasoline. How could such a process start and become popular when water was still an option?

In his statues he's pretty well-built. I know that they did idealized images of themselves, but was he attractive?

If not, then where did Shakespeare('s Horatio) pick it up? Or is he, as we're used to say on this subreddit, full of shit? The claim is made in Hamlet I,i,l.131f. just as the late king's ghost has stalked past some sentries.

In the movie "Braveheart" Edward I utters a memorable line during the battle of Falkirk "arrows cost money, use up the Irish instead."

So, how much did arrows actually cost during the middle ages? How many would an archer typically use during a battle, and was there any possibility of picking up already used arrows on the field of battle?

To expand, in contrast to other historical eras in Japanese history. I mean, it seems like a huge proportion of Japanese novels/movies are set in this time, and when you think historical drama in Japan, Sengoku Jidai seems like the go to era, in a way like China and the Three Kingdoms.

So apparently a lot of the time soldiers would break through enemy lines and advance so quickly that the artillery in the rear couldn't keep up.

Well...how not? These guns had ranges of like 16 miles...soldiers advanced a few hundred yards or at most a mile or two.

So how did that make the enemy out of range of the guns? They'd have to have moved about 14 miles for that to happen.

Thanks very much.

During the civil war were there any Southern senators or congressmen who stayed in congress? If so did they sit on committees and vote?

If the southern states were technically still in the United States, how could the Senate conduct business if there was no quorum?

Did legislation passed during the civil war apply to the southern states after they lost the war?

By November of 1864, the Union had pushed into the south... did those liberated areas send congressmen to the house? Participate in the presidential election?