Since 1973 we've known about the breaking of enigma but how did people explain the intelligence before hand?

Was post war stories about spies and resistance movements hyped up in their scale/importance/effectiveness at gather intelligence? Not that I'm saying these weren't important activities but were they given the credit for things we now know was Ultra?

In geology the other day we were discussing how much the coastlines have retreated due to sea rise from the melting glaciers. We also talked about how around 50% of the world population lives near a coast. I was wondering, since humans tend to live near coasts, there were probably many stone age settlements that are now underwater. It kills me to think that there's potentially a good chunk of our past is underwater. Have any underwater sites from this era been discovered? Have there been or are there any ongoing attempts to explore the former coasts for human archaeological sites? If so, what have we learned so far?

ETA: Thank you for all of your responses and resources so far... it's all incredibly interesting to me.

For instance a 16th century breastplate might be shot by a pistol to show it was "pistol-proof". Are there any examples of armor from the early middle ages being "spear-proofed" or "axe-proofed".

I know I saw references to it in the Mehrangh Fort in Jodhpur, India but I can't find anything online. Here is what I remember (quite fuzzy):

• When a royal woman of the ruling clan of Jodhpur state visited England, the public was fascinated that she maintained purda and was carried about in an upright litter. At some point, someone got a photo of her ankle and published it in the paper. The royal woman's people went and bought every copy to protect her privacy.

Anyone got any sources on this? I appreciate it.

To clarify, I'm interested in what type of weapons and armor the Franks and Muslims would be using.

[deleted]

I've been watching some documentaries on the 60s, and I'm a little confused about the day-to-day functioning of hippie movement, especially during the Summer of Love.

It seems like few, if any, in the movement were working or making money. There were "free shops", offering goods for no cost, and there were a lot of communal activities like free meals. But who was supplying these basic goods if no one was actually making any money? Where was the money coming from?

Was the movement supported by outside money (e.g., trust funds, parental allowances, savings)? Did the hippies go into debt to support their lifestyle?

Some of their events must have cost a significant amount of money to host, but contributions from the community had to have been minimal - money has to be coming from somewhere! Were they supported by "hippie tourism"?

Thanks guys!

I know that the world horse population peaked just before WW1 and that horses died at a staggering pace all over the continent during the war. Dying from poor conditions, overwork, lack of food, and even being blown up by artillery.

However, I also know that the industrialized world was moving towards more reliance on the automobile/tractor than the horse during the same period. Also that horses were being phased out of military use in the UK at this time.

There's multiple kinds of horses, so one suited to pulling a plow or a carriage will suffice.

Someone who is an aide in a high school history classroom told me she heard this from a teacher in class. It sounds plausible but I wonder if it's true.

(i.e. English, French, Spanish citizens) You hear a lot about the motivation provided by the governments in the form of promise of "God, Gold, and Glory", but just like in any political issue, were there people who openly opposed it?

I'v heard from a youtube video (link at the end) that there were practically no high rank personnel who was of south slavic descent(Croats, Serbs, etc..) in Austro-Hungarian army, with very few exceptions of course. So why was that, did Austrians view them as second class citizens? or was there any serious discrimination of that kind in any other european power of that period?

thanks and sorry if i made english mistakes. video: /watch?v=Efaq1_yc61A&list=UUUcyEsEjhPEDf69RRVhRh4A

I am specifically interested in knowing more about their revolts in the 1920s and 1960s. Who stopped them from becoming a country and why?

Did/do they have a large amount of oil in their defined borders?

Is there anything specific besides land that Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey stand to lose by a separate Kurdish state?

I've always taken it for granted that I know the general layout of the entire planet, and certainly the layout of my country and my continent. But how much would someone in the distant past know about that?

For example, would someone living in some small town or village in the middle ages (or earlier) know where the capital of their country is? Or the rough shape and size of their nation? If they didn't, how would they go about finding it out? Were there maps they could access at a library?

I.E, do I accept that the world was created in six days.

For clarity's sake, let's say I live somewhere in the Roman Empire.

[deleted]

(This is a bit of an obscure example but this is the most prominent one I've read about since I'm a Pakistani.) For example, the language Punjabi was first written in the Gurmukhi script, but during the later years of the mughals it started to get written in Arabic script and that's how it's still written today. Why and how did changes like these happen?