So I heard once that something is ancient if it's over 250 years old. But that would mean in just over a decade, the United States will be ancient, and that doesn't seem right. The Roman Republic feels ancient, but that's ~2000 years ago. So after many fruitless searches, I come to you, AskHistorians- when's the cut-off for ancient-ness?

Critics of US foreign policy of the 1980s often bring up US support for "death squads" in Latin America. Who were some of these groups and what was their purpose?

Would I have been an outcast, highly sought after, or had some folk wisdom attached to my height? Would there be a moral meaning to my height? I.E., would it have been said that my mother had loose morals or my father was a drinker? How did people interpret height and what it meant in society? Mainly looking for Christian Europe, but other answers also welcome from Norse or Islamic cultures.

Nowadays it's pulled out to discourage people from saying "Oh my god" and "God damn it", but I tend to think ancient Israel wasn't replete with teenage girls saying "oh my God". What was the behavior at the time that the commandment addressed, or was it similar to the way people use it today?

Likely cross posting this to a linguistics sub as well since I can imagine this being answered by both a historical view and a translational view.

We often hear about allied soilders who fought of dozens of enemys alone, capturing many of them or getting whole battalions to surrender. But you never hear of german soilders accomplishing something similar. Was there no german soilder who ever did something like that or do we not know about this because the germans are the "bad" guy and we don't want them to stand in a good light?

Sorry English isn't my first language

Books where the author embarks on a cumbersome research report using primary sources of regular people to describe some period or event in history.

For instance, if we know that in 1250 a master mason was paid 1 sterling a day, or that a building project cost £15,000 to complete is it possible to translate that number into a modern day equivalent? I've seen scholars try this, for instance A.J. Taylor in his works on the Welsh castles of Edward I suggested that £100,000 was the equivalent of £10,000,000 in the 1950s. If you can calculate it, how would you go about doing it?

Rice takes a lot of water to grow, and a lot of water to cook. How did it become popular in Arabia, Persia, Lebanon, North Africa, etc.?

Wheat, lentils, and chickpeas are more popular crops there, but why did rice become adopted at all?

We all learn that Rome fell and the middle ages started, cities basically dissipated as the feuds and their small Kingdoms took over. But what about Rome and all its magnificence? The merchants are only going to come back as strong after a while so what exactly happened to the CITY?

In Red Victory W. Bruce Lincoln says that as Commisar for War, Leon Trotsky recognized that the Bolsheviks did not have the expertise to lead the Red Army, and he would have to get former Tsarist officers to lead the Red Army.

How did he get these officers to serve?

Prior to the February and October revolutions, what was the political sense of the officer class of the Russian Army? Were there officers who were sympathetic to the Bolsheviks' cause?

What happened to these officers who served in the Red Army after the end of the Civil War?

I know Ethiopia is an independent monarchy at the time, but Italy had some feelings towards it. Apart from land, what were the resources in Ethiopia that Italy wanted from them?

I think it began with Charlemagne taking power or the battle of Hasting 1066.

I think it ended in Agincourt at the battle of Agincourt where projectile weapons were more valuable than heavy infantry.

Today's Monday Methods was inspired by a question from /u/VineFynn.

An underlying assumption in modern mainstream historical scholarship is that authors are striving towards historical truth/accuracy/historicity. Through various theoretical bents, they may privilege certain pieces of information, but the underlying goal is to understand "history as it really was".

/u/VineFynn's question was, how long has this been the case? Did earlier historians (or documenters of history) see their priority as documenting as much as they knew, or could they prioritize selling a narrative, glorifying a royal lineage, or shaping popular opinion around a political or national goal?

How and when did standards of scholarship change?

I am Cataline in a reacting to the past game and it has come to the triarii. How many troops would have been in the city at that time, and what could Cataline have done different strategically to accomplish his goal without dying?

Just wondering

There seems to be a recurring trend in history of leaders and rulers not trusting their general staff and attempting to micromanage their armed forces. Hitler, Stalin, Tsar Nick III are the three that spring to mind for me. In doing so they've often implemented awful strategies, sowed discontent amongst their lieutenants, and generally made their army much less effective.

My question is has there ever been a time where a politician or monarch has tried to take direct control, or lay down overly specific orders, and actually made the right call in doing so? I can think of examples of great lords in pre-Modern Europe, but to me that's a different question seeing as the aristocracy was the general staff.

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