After visiting Washington for the first time this week I was amazed at just how well laid out the National Mall and how the various buildings and monuments related to each other.

This of course got me wondering about how it evolved - I'd be surprised if it were just convenient open space between the Capitol buildings and where the Washington monument ended up being.

I'd be interested to know when the Mall itself begin to take shape? What was there before and who were the key players that drove it's transformation?

As far as I understand the breakup of the Frankish Empire, West Francia developed into France and East Francia into the Holy Roman Empire. What happened to Middle Francia? Why did it not stay around as a later state?

I have no formal education in history, so if I am inadvertently propagating some sort of Holocaust denier myth then that was not my intent.

I have heard in various places that Hitler might not have known about the Holocaust. Is this true, and if so, does it alleviate his responsibility for the Holocaust at all?

Please support your answers with evidence. Thanks in advance.

My apologies if this is considered too wide a question, but I know very little about this period and would love to learn more about it.

In what ways was life in the Frankish Empire different in 900 than it was in 800? Did the breakup of the empire affect many people? Were there any significant inventions or philosphical/religious ideas spread during this century?

I know that The Khalifa Al-Rashdiya also attacked and conquered the Persians, but could one make the same case there?

A new religion pops up right under the nose of the two Empires in the Middle East, would the Khalif have seen them as a potential threat? I am assuming this because of the sheer size of the two Empires (and their past expansions.), and both have rapidly expanded in the past, on top of that the Romans probably saw the Muslims as infidels/heretics, and might attack the Khalifa.

Napoleon made himself sole ruler of France without a prior title of nobility, backed by the soldiers' loyalty to him. Who were the other first lowborn Europeans to try to convert leading their army into leading their nation?

Post-Roman Europeans, I mean, since many Roman Emperors were quite low-born before they took the purple. But after Rome, it seems like most Europeans who seized a crown were already born to high nobility. Henry IV of England was Richard II's first cousin. France's Pepin the Younger was already "Mayor of the Palace," hereditary unofficial King of the Franks, before he deposed Childeric to become king in official title as well.

But in our own time, military coups seem to have little or nothing to do with how well-born the leader is, just whether the troops will uphold him.

Who, besides Napoleon, were the first men to demonstrate this shift from the medieval "the army's behind you, and your father was elite" to the modern "the army's behind you, and never mind who your father was"?

Oliver Cromwell, I guess, but who else?

It was a really hot day today in my area and everyone was eating crushed ice to help cool down, which lead me to wonder - did our ancestors do the same thing on a hot day? When did ice become a staple in our lives and what did people do before the invention of ice boxes or freezers??

Would someone like Alexander the Great have consumed ice in his drinks or eaten a frozen treat to keep himself cool? What about an average person that lived in a hot country, would they ever have access to ice? Could you get ice in the middle of the summer????????

Thanks to anyone with an answer =)

I mean how did countries such as France, England, Spain, Portugal, etc came to be, surely they form not long after the fall of Rome

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Hi, I just wanted to know how wars were fought in pre-colonial Africa, specifically the Southern region. I'm African but we were never taught about battles before Colonization, mainly due to the fact they were probably insignificant. I want to know how they fought, e.g style, strategy. Thank you so much for your help.

I'm just speaking for the area I'm from instead of saying it's a general misconception, because I don't personally know if anyone anywhere else has encountered this myth.

I know this burial ritual is not actually true, but if I ask people I know, "what's unique about the way Jews are buried in Jewish cemeteries?" I'll commonly hear that they're buried standing up. I've asked people I meet from all over the state this question, and more often than not I'll hear that response. It seems to have almost been universally believed by my grandmother's generation (born 1920's). In fact, she was the first person I had ever heard it from.

Does anyone have any idea how this weird myth could have started? Was there ever something that happened in the past that this could have derived from? It just seems like such a weird thing for people to believe, but it's something so many people I encounter seem to just have in their head as a random world fact.

Hi everyone. First of all, thank you for running this forum and helping those of us out with questions about our past.

My question is as the title suggests, were cannons owned and operated by individuals or townships at the onset of the American Civil War? If so, how long did that last? I believe I read an article before saying this was the case, but I've been unable to find anything in the past 10 minutes of Googling and getting side tracked.

Also, assuming that cannons were owned by civilians in one form or another through the Civil War and I'm allowed to have additional queries, did railroad or oil companies own and operate artillery or heavy machine guns? Private merchant vessels? How far into the recent past did ownership of team-based weaponry exist in American civilian or corporate hands?

Thank you very much for your time.

I'm no expert on the Constitution or the history of the time period. The specific claim made was that a delegation from Virginia was sent to Washington, D.C. to announce that the state had become the last state required in order to officially ratify the Titles of Nobility Amendment, but that said delegation mysteriously disappeared en route and the ratification has been held under wraps ever since.

If there is no evidence to support that claim, what sources should I look for that definitively dispute it?