The recently-announced next entry in the Battlefield franchise takes place in World War I. The common layman's assumption of World War I is of identical soldiers being de-individualized and shoved into a meat grinder - but what could or did soldiers do to customize their kit, gear, and tactics on a personal scale?

If yes, were they more morality tales about how you should behave as a ruler by virtue of knowing a bad example, agitation and propaganda against the ruling classes, or cathartic stories to make the ruled over classes feel better as they wouldn't have it that bad?

Because they themselves used a lot of inhumane shit, most notably mustard gas and flamenwerfers.

Provided we are the same rank

They have a lot of the same gods and stories, but why? What prompted Rome to adopt these myths into their own culture and religion?

Everybody knows the story of Mansa Musa accidentally destroying the economy of various cities on his way to Mecca due to super generous gift giving. But how did he obtain such a massive amount of wealth? I was under the impression that the most lucrative trade in his time was traveling along the silk road through the Levant, Iraq and Persia, not down through Mali. Was there some huge trade going on in Mali that I'm not aware of? According to wikipedia he built up Timbuktu into a very wealthy trade hub, but only later in his life, after his pilgrimage.

Also, how did his wealth compare to other rulers at the time? Was he actually insanely wealthy, or just insanely generous?

[deleted]

So I'm reading a fantasy series in which canons are discovered. After using them to blast down a stone city wall, characters comment on how these canons will change the world. It seems that stone walls were a typical method of defense in the past, and obviously those started to disappear over time. Now these canons were invented much more rapidly than happened in reality, I think. But it just made me wonder...

How did the advent of canons change the way cities were defended? I've mentioned a lot about walls, but I'm curious about the changes that they caused in general.

How was he a good ruler? Was there any tension created because of his race? Or from being a eunuch? How did he rise to power? Are there any notable moments from his reign, or fun history tidbits? Thank you for any responses, we love this sub!

We often hear of significant populations of "mulatto" (half white, half black) individuals in histories of the Americas, particularly the Caribbean, the Deep South, and South America (including Brazil). I was wondering if something similar occurred in other British/European colonies, and what happened to those particular people during the decolonization period.

I am trying to tie up a loose end in a book that I am writing and have been unable to find any information about Iraqi access to television in the timeframe. I understand it would be possible to see cartoon's in Kurdistan if that was an option to citizens. I also know in 1986, Iraq had only two government ran television channels. Other means that might have been available that I am not familiar being a possibility is through recorded VHS tapes. Having been to Iraq several times, I know there is a strong black market for video's, I am not sure if it was the same during Saddam's rule.

How would she have learned how? What evidence is there for this? Is there historiography on this?

Thanks to the musical Hamilton, I have been reading a lot more about US independence and I was wondering, we always talk about how important it was that Washington stepped down as opposed to being something along the lines of "King Washington", was this intended from the start? Was this something that was forced upon him? or did he do it entirely on his own accord?

Furthermore I've heard from a few people that Washington actually wasn't a very good general and was a rather tame president and that he was a figurehead more than anything else, is there any truth to this?

Given the current migration crisis, I've been wondering about the history of political borders, citizenship, and migration, especially forced migration. Were there any situations in Ancient Rome comparable to today's migration crisis? Did the Romans ever provide asylum to people fleeing their homes, or accept foreign immigrants seeking economic opportunities in Roman cities? Was there freedom of movement, both within and beyond the Empire's borders? What privileges did citizenship confer, and who was eligible for citizenship? How did citizenship status, ethnicity, and class affect people's mobility? And how did the Roman approach to borders and citizenship compare with other ancient societies? Tell me everything you know about the politics, economics, culture, and archaeology of migration in Ancient Rome!

One would think that in a centrally planned economy that if the government needed to take a cut of the production they would just pay the workers less up front, as opposed to collecting taxes later. Is that how it generally worked?