I'm working on a new book, and the main character is going to pay some children to do a simple chore for him each day. I thought about a penny a day for the chore, but I'm not sure if that would be enough. Would a nickle, or some other amount be more appropriate?

How did ireland choose to get involved in WW2? What did irish people do?

The hierarchical nature of a military is something anarchists would be vehemently against, but clearly, they had fighting forces. How would orders be given and enforced in these places?

Did police ticket people for that? Did the newspapers have stories about "HRUI" arrests?

So, my parents were both born in Sivas/Turkey and are Kurdish Alevis (I myself was born in London). I wanted to know about my ancestry and culture.

For example, do the kurds come from a fighting background? Or were they fighting the turks constantly? Like, what were they doing?

Thank you for filling me in on my family ancestry :D

On another thread, a user said: "Yeah, this is probably the case for the majority of historical figures from antiquity. Just take Alexander the Great. One of the most influental figures in history - but still no contemporary accounts."

I've never heard that there wasn't contemporary accounts of Alexander the Great (Socrates I know). I assumed you'd have people writing about his fight with their King and so on. But Greek history wasn't my area.

Anyway, I thought this deserved its own thread.

Barbarossa died marching his army to the holy lands, resulting in the break up of his army and the loss of a superb general, but how damaging was his death to the Crusaders?

I was engaged in a conversation about at what point in human history were we capable of understanding that eating mushrooms were the cause of hallucinations. What early civilizations identified certain foods as being known hallucinogens?

I know HRE is an elected position, but as I read more about the power of the Dukes, Clergy, etc. I am not convinced it was a good thing to be Holy Roman Emperor. It seems like it took a lot of capital (bribes) to be elected, in some cases putting multiple generations into debt to become HRE, only to continually having your power ultimately controlled by the electors, church and other, Dukes, Kings, etc. It seems being a Duke of a controlling region was a better deal. So... why?

Mostly looking at 20th century here. Why .303 rather than .3, for example? Why 75mm rather than 80mm?

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There seem to be people who think that the Islamic golden age was a golden age for science, technology, and philosophy, and that there groundbreaking advancements were made in that time period by Muslims and non Muslims alike. That is the impression I had for a long time.

But I have lately found out that there are people who claim that those alleged achievements are blown out of proportion and that the Islamic civilization did little more than translate the knowledge of the Indians and Greeks and reserve it through the European dark age.

Occasionally it's brought up on these threads that light infantry could basically run circles around heavy infantry like greek hoplites and wear them down with seemingly endless barrage of missiles. But it seems that if the armored troops were also armed with slings, light javelins, or bows, they would still have a major advantage over unarmored troops with slings, javelins or bows. So were the wealthier troops ever used to double as heavy skirmishers?