I've read that the language, Serbo-Croat, is spoken by all three groups and that it's mainly religion that separates them. Were they once one culture or ethnicity? Or was that not really a concept until they were separate?

I mean things like placing emphasis on rate of fire instead of individual soldier accuracy and the research and development that went into creating semi-auto rifles/conversions such as the Pedersen device and the various French attempts.

I'm really interested in this topic, but unfortunately I haven't been able to find any good books concerning the prototypes/changing ideas of small arms in WWI. I'm also interested in how the SMGs developed, so if anyone knows about that, it would be interesting the hear about!

So I'm aware Game of Thrones is fantasy, and so isn't completely historically accurate. But I'm also aware that it's also heavily based on medieval history. So I was wondering, what about the latest episode was true to what happened in the past?

I'm oversimplifying a lot but my textbook says that during the 1st half of the 14th century, pretty much the whole Italian peninsula was at war. In the North: Milan sought to expand, while Florence, Venice and Rome fought against it. In the South: Anjou vs Aragon.

It then says that during all these wars, the different states often hired "compagnie di ventura", sellsword companies, to fight for/with them.

I was wondering, how many men fought in these battles? We're so used to seeing huge armies on the big screen, but surely the Italian states couldn't field as many troops as, let's say, Napoleon's France 4 centuries later?

I often wonder if the Huns, for example, would have been nearly as successful had they attacked Rome during the reign of Augustus instead of 400 years later. Was it Rome's internal problems that weakened the empire? Or were the later barbarian invaders actually just superior to the earlier ones? (I suppose both could be a possible answer too.)

(Mods feel free to remove this if it breaches the posting standards)

I'm asking because of the Battle of the Bastards (GOT S6E9) really had me wondering how there were suddenly walled heaps of corpses taller than a man on the battle field. Honestly, I had never seen it depicted before that episode. I tried to account for people falling during the initial contact, being trampled as the tides of men shifted, or the natural outcome of continuous volleys of arrows at specific ranges. I just wanted to know if that was a reality faced by the men of battle 600-2000 years ago.

60% of British Indians are Punjabis, and while I don't know the figures for Pakistanis, I know that Punjabis are one of the biggest groups. I know Punjabis started coming to Britain the 50s and 60s, so I'm wondering if there was something different about Punjab from other parts of India that encouraged people to emigrate?

What was usually wanted (politically speaking) out of the marriage? During this era was it more common for a ruler/future ruler to marry someone from their own country?

Sorry if this is a bit broad—it's perfectly fine to narrow it down to a specific country that is your area of expertise! I'd love to hear about examples from a variety of places :)

I've seen it mentioned multiple places that Japan was reliant on the mainland for their food supply, and that Allied forces especially US submarines had been seriously damaging resupply efforts to the Japanese islands.

Usually, this is just a footnote or something along with talk of the bombings and surrender, but I was curious what the actual situation was in terms of severity.

For example, how does anyone know how words were pronounced in ancient Greek/Latin or in the Coptic language?

In film and literature you always see those large volleys of arrows. Is that realistic? If so, was it someones job to collect the reusable arrows after a battle?

Some of my liberal friends assert Islamism, Islamic extremism and Islamic terrorism would not exist if it were not for Western interventionism in the Middle East. But hasn't Islam always been a political ideology that is expansionist and violent? Wasn't Mohammed himself a war lord who sort to invade and impose his religion on anyone he conquered? Some clarity on this issue from a knowledgeable historian would be highly appreciated!

Every time there's elections coming up, people try to convince each other by saying "your vote could make the difference". So, I'd like to know if this has ever happened, or if it remains as just a possibility.

I've been a regular reader of this subreddit for several years now. Although I am not a historian, I recognize that there is some wiggle room in interpretation of data and historiography in general. Pretty near every single answered post I have come across (to my recollection), however, has contained either one "winning" answer (by which I mean, one person answers the question so effectively that no one else attempts OR no other answer receives any where near the same amount of upvotes) or several harmonious answers. Has there ever been a serious disagreement in answering a question on this subreddit though? If not, why do you suspect that that is? Or if it is merely uncommon to find disagreement, why?

How is it that France, Gemany, Italy, and the rest of Europe all speak wildly different sounding languages even though they boarder one another? Even under Roman rule and the spread of Latin and "romantic" languages (Italian, Spanish, French) they still manage to be so incredibly different? The word for water in French is "Eau" and in German it's "Wasser" Granted Water is Acqua in Italian and Agua in Spanish but still. So completely different yet these two countries and societies have been next to one another for centuries. Why wasnt one official language used like English is today?

Hi there. The only major wars i can think of up to 1960 is World War 1, World war 2, and the Korean war. I thought maybe he would be referring to the Chinese civil war which i guess would count as a major war in terms of casualties. But otherwise I'm clueless as to what this fourth major war which did not involve the united states was.

Having a strong wall formation that stepped forward together, with several rows of spears protruding between the wall would be terrifying to defend against. How was it done, and which nation's tactics did it best?

So tonight my girlfriend made me an amazing potato and sausage soup with baked bread. As I was devouring it I was thinking to myself this would be the type of meal I would have scooped out of black cauldron over a fire in an Inn a long time ago.

If I walked into a Tavern in medieval Europe what could I have ordered to eat? Was it mostly soups and dry meats? What kind of drinks would people have ordered to was there meal down?

If these rifles had been around for at least 50 years earlier, why wouldn't the US army, or any army for that matter taken advantage of this technology? In comparison to a bolt action, you do still have to manually reload each shell into the rifle, so i suppose they wouldn't have a huge advantage, but you would think they would have seen a larger use. I can also see how from a cost standpoint they would be more expensive, and they aren't chambered in as large of shells as well. That may have answered my own question, but any input would be interesting. Thanks.

Because, it clearly wasn't because they "strictly upheld the Juche ideal."

If they didn't have to work. Did they just sit around watching slaves work?

Did you already need to know Latin? If so, how much? Did you need to have read anything in particular, or to be able to answer any theological questions?