This is something I've always wondered. During the island hopping campaigns where the U.S. was on the offensive, the Japanese seem to consistently have higher casualties. Not just higher dead which would make sense given Imperial Japans glorification of dying and the encouragement of suicide or suicidal charges, but overall more casualties. As far as I know the only battle where the U.S. suffered more casualties than the Japanese is Iwo Jima. This despite the fact that they were consistently fighting a defensive battle from well prepared positions. I mean, isn't that the whole point of defensive positions, to inflict more casualties than you receive? How is it possible that the Japanese with time to prepare and especially in the latter stages of the war, with well prepared defense in depth positions that were well camouflaged and impervious to much of the pre-invasion bombardment were unable to inflict more casualties on an invader that was pretty consistently exposed and out in the open. Especially when in the later stages of the war they had abandoned Banzai charges or other impractical tactics. I'm thinking here of places like Peleliu or Okinawa. Battles where the Japanese were prepared very much like Iwo Jima. With vast cave systems hiding both troops and artillery and anywhere on the island pre-registered for their guns. From what I've read, both on Okinawa and Peleliu many marines report barely even seeing a Japanese soldier. Just looking at those figures it paints the Japanese as somehow incompetent or the Marines as really amazing fighters or some mixture of both and while I'm not disputing the combat prowess of the Marines or Army they were still human and the Japanese are generally considered a tough and competent opponent even if hobbled by supply shortages and the mastery of the sea and air enjoyed by the U.S. I mean that was part of the whole thing with the First World War was that everyone had such good defense in depth positions that the attackers almost always suffered greater casualties than the defenders and in fact were unable to make much progress until the end of the war.

I'm trying to figure some things out for a writing project and I can't seem to find a decent source on the legitimacy of the the "fact" that the Crusader knights walked through a hail of arrows and remained mostly unharmed. Personally I'm sceptical of this alleged metallurgy quality.

If I could get any sources or links on the matter I'd much appreciate.

As above. I'm kind of an ignoramus when it comes to the lives of soldiers, so it's a curious topic.

Follow up questions, if the above ones are fine: Did any of these rules differ for officers? Region by region differences?

Cheers in advance!

Although the impact of poll taxes, grandfather clauses, poll tests, and other race-neutral measures were clearly designed to keep Blacks from voting, they must have inadvertently swept up some white people. Were there large numbers of disenfranchised Whites in the Jim Crow south who benefitted from the Voting Rights Act? Or were the race-neutral restrictions selectively applied so as to only disenfranchise Black people?

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The Far East is often thought of having strongly collectivist cultures. Was this always the case in their histories, or did it take root over time by sheer necessity as their populations grew?

More generally, is there any correlation between the age of a culture and where they rank on the individualistic to collectivist spectrum? Do older cultures tend toward one or the other?

I'm trying to find a single firsthand account of the French Revolution that discusses the fall of the Ancien Regime, the Reign of Terror, and the restoration of the government after Napoleon. If there is not one document that does all of this then I'd settle for two or three that cover the three topics thoroughly.

There are many pros and cons to Charles I's reign.

The heavy taxation, poor treatment of Parliament, and lewd ties to Catholicism for cons. But he did make peace with Spain and France, stabilize finances, and (unintentionally) give Parliament more power.

Just curious of what you all think!

My girlfriend is a doctor and when we talk about medical treatments and other such topics and I always end up wondering who came up with all of these modern medical treatments and theories we take for granted. Can anyone recommend a book that covers advances in medicine for the last hundred years or so? Thanks in advance.

I'm working through my term paper, and part of it has to be a historiography on my topic (The Dutch/VoC in the Spice Islands/SE Asia).

Looking for any tips on how to write a historiography, I've never written one before so I'm just, totally lost. Prof didn't give much info on how to.

I guess this would change dramatically by place and time in history but it is something I haven't heard about much at all. In history we often hear about battles and what would happen to surrendering soldiers but except for the occasional raids on army camps and/or the I cannot remember any instance where the fate of the civilians attached to an army is known. Were they for example enslaved, taken as hostages or simply ignored?

As a follow up question: What did the typical baggage train look like? Like a group of people attached to the army to perform certain tasks or more like a logistics chain from home territory?

As I understand it, Thomas Aquinas lived in a world where the existence of God was not something that was doubted. Everyone believed in God and no one was an atheist. If you live in an environment where everyone believes, why bother coming up with five different ways of proving the existence of God? It just seems like a waste of time to come up with arguments for something if you don't expect to need to convince anyone of them.

It's ANZAC day today here in Australia, a day where we commemorate the fallen in the line of duty in places such as Tobruk , Afghanistan and Gallipoli. The conquest of Gallipoli was a famously unsuccessful campaign that resulted in massive loss of life for no gain and an eventual retreat. Looking back now was there a way that they cook have been successful in this campaign and if that is the case, how so?

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*different place other than mecca. I searched and couldn't find a good source to read, so I turned to you guys.

Thanks in advance

Internment of certain civilian populations (especially ethnic minorities) seems to have been a common occurrence during the 20th century. Examples include Boers in South Africa during the Second Boer War, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during WWI, and people of Japanese descent in the US and Canada during WWII. I've heard that similar things happened in the Philippines under American occupation and in Cuba under Spanish rule.

How far back does this go? Why doesn't it go back to ancient times (if indeed it doesn't)?

I was reading about Henry VIII's court, and there seems to be an awful lot of girls sleeping with the King, but the impression I get is that there were also a lot of young noblewomen (or at least, courtly women, who I guess were not necessarily noble) sleeping with noblemen. Is that a correct impression? Mary Boleyn was known as "the great prostitute" and apparently known for sleeping with many, many men (though perhaps she was the exception rather than the rule, hence the nickname). Presumably, the married ones claimed any pregnancies were their husbands, but what about the unmarried ones?

Edit: They