Something that's bothered me, and I've never looked into, and I'm lazy.

1.17 Th. says

Wherever there were tyrants, their habit of providing simply for themselves, of looking solely to their personal comfort and family aggrandizement, made safety the great aim of their policy, and prevented anything great proceeding from them.... All this is true of the mother country, for in Sicily they attained to very great power.

This is from the Landmark translation.

So... what's up with Sicily? What about the nature of Sicilian tyranny let Th. distinguish it from the kind of Greece proper?

I hope this isn't too much of a "meta" question, but I was inspired by reading an article this morning about the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Jutland. Many of the articles mention ongoing debates about the actions taken during the battle by the British commanders Beatty and Jellicoe, and who was most to blame for the Royal Navy's seemingly poor performance during the battle.

I found it interesting to read the different sides and that got me thinking about what some other interesting questions are in different fields of history. I have read some of the recent spate of books about the end of the Roman Empire and whether it should be considered a collapse, a transformation, or something else, and really enjoy considering the various perspectives. I was curious what the professional historians here think would be scholarly debates in your fields that might be interesting for a layperson who enjoys reading about history to delve into?

It seems that even today, historians are still arguing how much Germany is responsible for the outbreak of WW1. But whats the current stance by the majority of historians on that matter?

I think I'll describe how I interpreted it, hopefully you can pinpoint the error. So:

Situation in Athens befroe the reforms

Insane debt crisis, forcing many people in to debt slavery. Land is unalienable, thus the debts can not be settled by selling them. Athens has too little agricutlrually valuable land to sustain its food needs, thus Solon wants to transition in to selling oil to make Athens rich enough to buy wheat from outside.

The process of solonian reforms

Solon enacted the Seisachtheia (shaking off of burdens), which freed people from debt slavery, forgave all debts, and gave the hektemoroi citizenship and he right to participate in Polis politics, making them in to the landless wage workers, the Thetes. Solon also placed an upper limit of land that can be owned by a person.

Consequences of Solon's reform

The social class of thetes form. They have no land, but earn a living as paid workers, their annual income being below 200 medimnoi.They are free, and have citizenship able to participate in the Ecclesia, but not the Boule. Athenes Focuses its agricultural production on Olive oil for trade, and bans the selling of wheat.

And now, here are the things i don't get.

• All debts were nullified, right? Then why take the land away from the hektemoroi, if there was no one to give it to, given the upper limit of ownable land? Especially since they no longer had debts, so they could operate normally on their already held lands?

• If land was unalienable, AND had noone to buy it, (remember, upper limit) How did the hektemoroi became landless? To whom were their lands given if it was confiscated, and why, if they no longer had debts?

What about movable type could not have been made centuries earlier? Was there some new technology that would have made a printing press impossible before then, or was it simply that nobody had ever had the idea?

If you go to Mexico and order a burrito, you get a tortilla with meat and maybe some onions and/or peppers inside. That's it. Rice and beans are ALWAYS served on the side. No salsa, no cheese, inside the burrito etc.

but if you go to just about any American Mexican restaurant and order a burrito you get a tortilla shell with meat, rice, beans, salsa, cilantro, cheese, three different salsas, sour cream, guacamole, leg of lamb, glass of sherry, an Allen wrench, a basketball autographed by Darrell "chocolate thunder" Dawkins etc. etc.

So who invented the "everything and the kitchen sink" style of American burritos?

Hi, im a subscriber of ShitWehraboosSay and Dresden isnt considered a warcrime there. My personal opinion is that it is a grey zone, that it wasnt morally okay to do it but it also wasnt a warcrime. But im just a normal guy and thus dont have much historical knowledge so i wanted to ask the historians here if its a warcrime or not, or was a grey zone like i think.

Sincerely

Recently I was in a meeting with a bunch of people, one of whom is a relatively well-known historian, the historian stated 1/3 of colonist's supported the revolution, 1/3 supported the UK and 1/3 had no idea it was going on. I had a really hard time believing that (but did not want to call bs during the meeting) and tried to find something collaborating that statement and could not. Does anyone else have more info? Much appreciated

It is said that Muhammad met him during his travel to Syria, though it doesn't seem to be specified where. So according to the timeframe probably he's either a Nestorian or Miaphysite. But do we know exactly what he was?

Bonus question: do we know what kind of Christianity that was popular around Arabia during Muhammad's time? I've been reading here and there, but I can only find two things:

• There were churches built by the Romans in the frontier, which suggested there were Melkite communities;
• There were Miaphysite Arabs helping Rashidun armies during Battle of the Bridge (against Sassanid).

None of the infos are elaborated further, sadly. And Battle of the Bridge took place around Euphrates, soo... that's not exactly Arabia.

Nowadays, we know that many languages are "related," because they stem from a common ancestor. But when did people begin to realize this? Did people always understand that some languages had similar structure, syntax, and similar sounding words - whereas others seemed to have completely alien features?

For instance, did ancient Romans understand that Latin had similarities to Gaulish, Greek, and Persian - and that it was drastically different from Egyptian, Aquitanian, and Etruscan?

For both Vietnamese and American soldiers there has to be some training involved. What is basic like for both of these soldiers? I understand at this point they are no longer rotating units but just filling in replacements. Do I then get sent directly to the jungle after basic or am I assigned to a unit first where I might get some additional training before being sent to the combat zone?

Additionally what sort of information is available that compares how well units function when they train up together and deploy at once compared to receiving replacements but getting to train new soldiers next to experienced veterans?

In Suetonius 'Divus Claudius' 34, the author is discussing Claudius' bloodthirstiness. He references an execution (ancient even by Suetonius' standards) that Claudius had to summon a specialist to carry out, involving criminals being tied to their stakes.

I was wondering what could be so bad as to have Suetonius - or conceivably the translator Robert Graves - actually omit the details, seeing as he goes into such... depth... when discussing Tiberius' exploits in Capreae! Thanks.

I asked a similar question yesterday, but I didn't receive any replies. This question is much broader, so hopefully someone is generous enough to reply with information.

What sort of occupations were they able to handle? If they happened to be soldiers, would this end their soldier career?

The average life expectancy of an individual in North America today is 81 years. What was it in 1966?

My brother recently found a restaurant in my hometown that claims to have invented the bagel sandwich in 1988. I thought there was no way this was possible, but can't really find anything on the Internet about bagel sandwiches before the 1990s.

I posted this to /r/askscience and got no answers. Obviously there were ecological changes from differences in hunting and destruction of habit, but I read in 1491 that diseases swept entire communities before Europeans ever arrived there. Do we have archaeological or scientific evidence of the same thing happening to populations of other animals?