Hi,

The Mamluks were former slaves that became a Dynasty. They also became a ruling class. But even the former slaves did not abolish slavery. Can someone please shed some light on what slavery was like back then? We often only have the recent European Colonial style Slavery as a reference. Even the word Slave itself is racial (Slav). Perhaps Slavery wasn't always racial. Perhaps much more is lost in translation.

Doing a paper on the Ottomans and their economy just seems to fall apart after the 17th century, I'm guessing more global trade but how much did the new world and Asian goods affect the Ottomans?

My question is pretty much as simple as it sounds, why do so many sports (cricket, soccer, tennis, golf - just to name a few) use a ball as a central piece of the sport?

I've become interested in the savagery of medieval warfare recently, and I've been wondering how much rape and murder of peasant classes took place. If you could provide some accounts for me or something, that would be great.

I had a wildly entertaining professor a couple years back who made seemingly outlandish historical claims in class without bothering to back them up. I think he did this to make us go look for info to prove him wrong (brilliant strategy actually).

He once remarked that Nixon decided to vigorously enforce federal civil rights in the South to cause salty white democrats to realign with republicans because they didn't want to be in the same political party as blacks (Southern Strategy).

I found an audio clip long ago of Nixon saying this same thing in as many words, but cannot relocated it. Does anyone know of a specific Nixon tape where he (and maybe Kissinger?) discuss this in detail?

Specifically, was he the catalyst? Why did he deny the peasants? Theology? Political maneuvering?

If not, would the punishment have been as severe as the punishment for sex?

I'm looking for information on typical soldiers kits during and just after the First Crusade. I've seen good information on the armor around Hastings, but (from what I can find) everything sort of goes dark from then until the early 1200's, and I can't tell if everything pretty much stayed the same (nasal helmet, chain shirt, kite shield and sword/club/axe) or if there was some progress in protection. Were two handed swords used around the late 11th/early 12th century? What about faceplates on helmets? Also, protection for extremities like arms and legs, any of that?

Everyone hears about the various MiG's that have been captured that changed our views of air combat and the enemy, but how often has that happened with "enemies"? For reference, I'm wondering from about 1955 onward.

I'm just curious, as it does seem plausible, but I find it hard to believe that many soldiers would blow a friendly soldier's brains out because they just assume he'd rather not die in a field hospital. Hopefully not too specific a question to answer.

I was recently on a /r/badhistory and there was a post about depictions of non-Europeans in European Medieval artwork. I was wondering if there are any good examples of the reverse, preferably before any obvious exchange between cultures (e.i. colonization/industrial revolution). The earlier the better. Also I would be very interested to see any artwork illustrating non-natives persons (like a Chinese merchant in Iran or something). Early contact between distant cultures really fascinates me, especially the idea of large trade networks and/or diplomatic missions that brought a variety of otherwise isolated cultures in contact.

Let's say a Ship of the line with 800+ men is carrying 90 cannons on each broadside (a total of 180 guns), so obviously the same amount of sailors is needed to operate them. What are the jobs for the rest of the men who are not taking care of the cannons?

I understand that the sails needed to be adjusted, chefs are on board, captains, officers, lieutenants are commanding everyone else, But would there really need to be so many other men on board?

EDIT: specifically asking about 18th century Man o' Wars and Ship of the Lines.

As those who recorded Mohammads life were Muslims, is there any historical evidence to suggest that their reports are accurate or could they have been exaggerated? For example this copypaste from Wikipedia:

Attempts to distinguish between the historical elements and the unhistorical elements of many of the reports of Muhammad have not been very successful.[39] A major source of difficulty in the quest for the historical Muhammad is the modern lack of knowledge about pre-Islamic Arabia.[10] According to Harald Motzki, "On the one hand, it is not possible to write a historical biography of the Prophet without being accused of using the sources uncritically, while on the other hand, when using the sources critically, it is simply not possible to write such a biography."[2]

Historian Michael Cook takes the view that evidence independent of Islamic tradition "precludes any doubts as to whether Muhammad was a real person" and clearly shows that he became the central figure of a new religion in the decades following his death. He reports, though, that this evidence conflicts with the Islamic view in some aspects, associating Muhammad with Israel rather than Inner Arabia, complicating the question of his sole authorship or transmission of the Qur'an, and suggesting that there were Jews as well as Arabs among his followers.[40] For Patricia Crone, a single Greek text written at around the time of Muhammad's death provides "irrefutable proof" that he was a historical figure. There is also, she says, "exceptionally good" evidence that Muhammad was an Arab political leader and prophet. She says we can be "reasonably sure" in attributing all or most of the Qur'an to him. She takes a view that Muhammad's traditional association with the Arabian Peninsula may be "doctrinally inspired", and is put in doubt by the Qur'an itself, which describes agricultural activity that could not have taken place there, as well as making a reference to the site of Sodom which appears to place Muhammad's community close to the Dead Sea.[41]

In their 2003 book Crossroads to Islam, Yehuda D. Nevo and Judith Koren advanced a thesis, based on an extensive examination of archaeological evidence from the early Islamic period, that Muhammad may never have existed, with monotheistic Islam only coming into existence some time after he is supposed to have lived. This has been described as "plausible or at least arguable" and employing a "very rigorous historical methodology" by David Cook of Rice University, but has also been compared to Holocaust denial by historian Colin Wells, who suggests that the authors deal with some of the evidence illogically.[42][43]

Muhammad Sven Kalisch, a Muslim convert and Germany's first professor of Islamic theology, has expressed the view that the Prophet Muhammad probably never existed.[44] Similar views were also held by other scholars too as Professor Muhammad Sven Kalisch quotes in his conclusions. There are many such views doubting the historicity of Muhammed. Another example is the case of Hans Jansen, a Dutch scholar, who too has the opinion that the evidences supporting the historicity of Muhammad are lacking.[45]

Popp (2004/5) proposed that both Muḥammad and ‘Alī originated as titles given to Jesus Christ by Syriac Christians in the Sassanid Empire (i.e. muḥammad "blessed" being the equivalent of the benedictus (ευλογηµένος) of the New Testament). In a numismatic study, Popp identified coins dated to AH 16 inscribed with mḥmd but lacking the rasūl allāh that later became common. Popp adduced Arabo-Sassanid and Syrian coins inscribed with MHMT in Pahlavi script, and also partly with mḥmd in Arabic script, in some cases combined with Christian symbolism.[46] Heger (2008) argues that Muḥammad "the blessed one" being a title of Christ does not necessarily preclude the historicity of the prophet of Islam. It rather opens up a scale of possibilities summarised in three alternatives to the default assumption of the historicity of a Muhammad recognizably similar to the hadith accounts, the Islamic tradition on the life of Muhammad is entirely legendary, Muhammad is historical, but was active roughly a century later than suggested by Islamic tradition, there were two distinct people, both given the epithet Muhammad or "blessed", one active in the early 7th century, and author of the Meccan suras, and the other the Mamed of Johannes Damascenus, author of the Medinian suras

Do these theories which go against the traditional Muslim narrative of Mohamamd hold any water?

After William usurped the Kingdom of England, he was still himself a Norman king. My question is, after William The Conqueror died and William II was inherited, was the culture swap from Norman to English immediate or did it take a few more generations until a King of England could be called "English?"

That is, before we couldn't communicate effectively (through spoken english)?

Due to the fact that the Soviet Union funded the North in the Vietnamese war.