Say a young and ambitious European farmer wanted to become a wealthy nobleman or even rule over a country. Could this be feasibly done? Did it ever happen?

I was wondering what humor would look like in pre-Shakespearean England (or elsewhere in Europe). Perhaps a joke from the era (~1000-1450).

This is my first time posting in this sub. Thank you in advance.

In Greek mythology, Prometheus is mostly renowned for two acts of compassion towards humans:

• Stealing fire from Mt. Olympus, and giving it to humans...

• Tricking Zeus into making the sacrificial parts of animals the inedible parts, as to provide humans with more food...

Prometheus is eventually punished by Zeus, by being chained to a rock, and having his liver eaten every day by an eagle (a symbol of Zeus).

This left me wondering, despite his obvious contributions to humans in the mythology, why are there no temples made for Prometheus?

When were trenches first used and what qualities enabled trenches to be used in WWI? Also why only 20 years later, in WWII, did they almost cease to exist? I mean did they ever really cease to exist? Because I know that the Iraq-Iran war was fought in trenches and had qualities, such as chemical weapons, that were much similar to WWI. Why were trenches still used (rarely) in some wars much later than 1918, but not used only 20 years later in WWII?

The battle of Cannae was the largest battle the Roman Empire ever fought. Contributing 40,000 infantry along with several thousand cavalry and other units supplying this many men with arms and supplies could in no way be a simple task. At the very least the act of providing every soldier a standard gladius would require 40+ tons of metal as well as by hand production. With such a staggering bill both monetarily and time wise it doesen't surprise me that many people supplied their own arms when joining the Roman legions (and similar armies). But even that begs the question then how many of the people fighting in these large battles even had weapons, was it possibly similar to the situation many confederate soldiers found themselves in (fighting even without guns sometimes or basic supplies). So how did these ancient empires do it?

Is my textbook correct in this assertion? What was the extent of Japanese industrialization? Was it greater than German industrialization? Did Japan have access to more resources than Germany? Thank you very much for any responses!

There are a variety of ways in which a moderation bot could improve things for the sub.

It could be as simple as automatically posting a stickied comment to every new thread about moderation rules. Or it could be more complex – perhaps cloning threads to /r/AskHistoriansPeanutGallery and directing incorrect, speculative, or otherwise disallowed comments there.

Thoughts?

The British Army suffered the greatest day of casualties in its history on the first day of the battle of the Somme, with over 57,000 casualties reported. I've heard arguments which claim that British soldiers were ordered to walk across no-man's land to the German lines, because British military command feared that newly recruited soldiers would not be able to follow complex orders. Was this actually the case?

It is widely noted how big US companies traded with Nazis all the way through the 30s and 40s, but how come the US didn't stop any of these transactions?

This might be a weird question but I've been reading a bit about Rome and something that keeps coming up is the idea of Roman citizenship being a pretty big deal with different classes and methods of becoming a citizen. How exactly did a Roman prove that he was a citizen? They didn't have passports so what was stopping a slave from escaping and trying to live life as a freeman in another province?

What stopped borrowers from running the jews out of town? And how were the Jews so successful that they became wealthier than the average Christian, despite the anti-semitism?

I was reading wikipedia's article on the History of Finland, and the article barely mentions any, native Finns except for Lalli, the guy who killed Bishop Henry.

You would also think that the Baltic Crusaders would mention any of the enemy military leaders but I couldn't find anything on Wikipedia at least.

Anyway I just want to know who the first Finn was in written history, and maybe why there don't appear to be any well-known Finns until the early modern era.

Does your answer change if I am in a hurry to get out of town?

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I've noticed over the years, that whenever the topic of the Great Northern War between the coalition and Sweden is brought up on the internet, people start tearing at each other's throats over it. It was a big war, that's for sure, but I don't see people acting so aggressively when the War of Spanish Succession, War of Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War and even WW1 are brought up.

I'm thinking 1938 and before. Also, how credible are the witnesses to Hitler's abnormal behavior? Under what circumstances would Hitler behave in such a way?