Cities have public utility boxes for technicians to use for maintenance, but what existed in the past? Was there a non-electric equivalent in, say, Ancient Greece? What was the perception of maintaining public utilities in the past?

A few years ago when the “Manhunt: Unabomber” mini-series was released on Netflix we are told from the beginning the FBI was well aware that Freedom club, or FC, was not a group but an individual.

My question is, how did they know this? Especially seeing how few leads there were for so long why would they discount this clue? I would love to learn of the process they took to eliminate the idea of the Unabomber being a group.

When I attempted to research this myself I found no results on this particular question.

It always baffled me how the Vikings were seemingly able to wage war and conduct raids on distant lands while, according to the popular perception of their technology and governance, being relatively unsophisticated compared to their contemporaries in Byzantium and the Arab-influenced world. But I was reading into the Volga Rus just now and I realised their arrival is contemporary to the raiding of Lisbon and Seville by the Vikings, so I figured I really had to ask the question here because I just can't wrap my head around it.

If Rome's demise is thought to have had much to do with its overstretching, how come the Vikings did not have the same problems? Especially when they were always a ruling minority settling amongst other groups (eg Ukraine / Kievan Rus / Volga Rus). How were they even able to sustain that?

And why did this only happen from the 9th century going forward? As far as I know, the Norsemen (unless we consider the Saxons and other Northern Germanic peoples as being Norsemen) weren't big players in the fall of the Western Roman Empire. And even going further back in time - if they were raiding Iberia during Al-Andalus, why weren't these raids a thing back in Roman times? Was there some sort of technological and social breakthrough that put Viking raiding into high gear?

Thanks

It is generally believed that today that men are more sexually driven or that they seek sexual relationships more than women do. Of course, this is not exactly true, but I think this is the prevalent idea in our times.

I hear however, that the opposite belief was popular at one time in many places. That women are the more sexually hungry, and crave relationships more than men do. If fact, women were depicted as trying to seduce men into having sex while the men resisted and considered love and sex foolish pursuits, in some older stories.

I want to know when and where these ideas were prevalent. I know for example that this was likely the dominant thought at some point in ancient India. Is there more places?

I assume they are, I've never seen a straight sword from that region.

I often read that prior to WW2 the UK had the largest navy in the world, and that by the end of the war the US had assumed this position. Is anyone able to clarify exactly when during the war the scale tipped?

Also asking about integration but I couldn’t fit that in title.

When emperors like Alexander the Great went on long military campaigns, who ran their empire while they were away? After they took one city, would they stay behind to help rebuild/integrate for a little bit, or just move on the next city?

Other than stationing garrisons, what steps were usually taken to integrate civilian populations, if any? Particularly in hostile regions, did the Romans have a harder time integrating Carthaginian regions versus others?

Thank you lots :)

So we know that Jinnah/Muslim League wanted the partition, while Gandhi/Nehru etc didn't. And eventually Jinnah's wishes prevailed.

But the final decision maker on the partition would've been the Brits. So why did they make this decision when the simpler option seems to be to just leave

When it was no longer affordable for the Brits to administer their Indian colony, why didn't they just ... leave? What compelled the British to go through the extra steps and extra expense with Mountbatten etc of doing the partition instead of the British Lords just getting the next flight back from Delhi and say bye bye handle your own messed up religious issues.

What exactly was the motivation for the British to do the partition?

How did Suleiman the Magnicifen and Hürrem Sultan have such friendly relations with Sigmund the Old and Sigmund II Augustus.

Additionally, how was Poland so Tolerant when all of Europe was mired in Religious Wars.

And what about the Pope?

I was taught at school that the renaissance started in the late 15th century with the fall of Constantinople, the invention of the printing press and Columbus. I understand that you can't just put a mark on history and say "this year is the end of a whole period" BUT I'm still confused.

Every time I see a book or a piece of art created during the time that would normally be called the Middle Ages, but it's about anything else than God and the plague it is said to be renaissance. Like why is Inferno or The Decameron considered renaissance if it was written in the 14th century? Do all those works really share a clear common idea that distinguishes them from other medieval books (created often even later) or do historians just read something and be like "oh, it's actually good, we can't say it's medieval cause we HATE the Middle Ages and public opinion HATES the Middle Ages even more"?

I don't wanna sound agressive I'm just tired after all the years of education being like "medival - bad; renaissance - good"

We have a civil war diary from an ancestor. Its very faded and has been wet at some point. What can we to to try and persevere it or read it. I realize it's not some great cultural artifact but it would be interesting to be able to read some of it.

I know a fair bit about Norse mythology, and I'm aware we don't know very much about the other Germanic mythologies, but I was wondering just how much information we do have, and resources where one can learn about it.

I've heard that the Qur'an is the first book written in Arabic and preserved to this day, is this true?

Old Arabic existed for a long time before the Qur'an, why didn't any books survive? Were any even written before the Qur'an?

There are a lot of cases of foreigners, namely Europeans, invading a country and wiping out many of its indigenous population with disease, but has the reverse ever happened?

Or, alternatively, exactly how did his work differ from the already existing canonical version of Genesis other than just in terms of style? Was the only difference it's literary presentation or did Milton add on to the story in ways that added intrigue?

I have heard that Jewish communities generally did not suffer as badly from the plagues because of religious washing and cleaning. Is there truth to this, and did this lead to Jews being blamed for causing the plague?

Thanksgiving-related question, but I've heard a lot of talk about this topic ranging from idealistic "they were friends forever after that first Thanksgiving" to disturbing stories of brutal abuse. I had to wonder just how peaceful/friendly were the Pilgrims and the American Indian tribes that interacted with each other in that era.

Thanks in advance!

We often hear the apocalyptic results of European diseases in the Americas. Did this happen the first time Europeans made contact?