I recently found a document which states that in ancient Hellas only uppercase letters were used and that the lowercase letters were only developed later on in monasteries. So if I stumbled across Plato's Apology in the fourth century b.c. what would the thing have looked like? A scroll with only uppercase letters?

So I've been thinking whenever people ask me what I want to be I don't have a definitive answer. I always say something to do with History more specifically Paleontology But further, than that I have no answer. I know I want to work with dinosaurs but I do not know the options. Btw this is just so I can further my knowledge in the field I'm not choosing a career.

I'm sure it varies wildly depending on context, but in general I can imagine investing in long distance trade between Europe and the eastern indies in the 17th Century would have been extremely costly and risky, since it took a lot of time to travel around Africa and the possibility of a shipwreck was very real.
So, as a very general ballpark, how much would an investor expect to gain from such an investment to make it worth the risk? Would it be 120% of the gold they spent? 200%? 1000%? Does it even make sense to pose the question in these terms, or were their economic systems too different to compare?

According to our modern calendar, Plato lived between 428-348 BCE. But, the Gregorian calendar didn't show up till much later.

What year did Plato think it was? What was being used before Christ came along?

Hello all, my question is about the USSR’s economic system how it worked in the beginning and in the end, what they did right and what they did wrong. I’ve heard it said that they were one of the biggest economies and that they lifted the most people out of poverty so any reading I can do on the subject is most welcome! Thank you

Specifically I want to know who they might have been and what their languages and customs were. How they lived. How they worked. How they hunted. What tools they used.

More generally I'd like to know where in the US and Canada these encounters might have taken place. What years they might have happened. How the encounters might have gone down.

Thank you for your time.

I feel like we have lost a lot of nuances discussing the USSR. But based on what several people from ex soviet countries have told me, the assuption that practically everyone was living in poverty at the time isn't really correct. Where some soviet countries significantly better (or worse) than others?

For example, could a regular citizen in Alexandria just walk into the library and take out some scrolls to study or were libraries reserved only for certain classes of people?

edit: also, could those people permitted at the libraries remove materials and take it home with them or were the scrolls only available for use on the library?

I have been trying to find texts concerning the Western university system. I am interested all of it from ~1100AD, but in particular the modern period from about 1800 till today. I am trying to rationalise how we ended up with what we presently have. I also realise even this time span can be split into different periods. Using Google is hopeless as using search terms like 'history of universities' just gives university departments. The few texts I have read all seem to contradict each other. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

(Every post I post here gets deleted, just hope this one makes it. Interpreting rules isn't my strong point)

I really liked Stephen Kotkin's lectures on Stalin, they are amazing. Are there any lectures like his, that are very entertaining and interesting about WW1 or perhaps the aftermath?

Both seem to be tragedies that surround Native Americans, so why is Jackson getting more hate for it than Lincoln does?

I have read that in the Algerian landings, a few early British LSTs were used. LSTs, Landing Ships, Tank, were typically 4-5,000 ton ocean going vessels with front ramps for unloading heavy vehicles directly onto a beach.

The Western task force apparently didn't have any LSTs. But accounts I have read mention tank battles fought before the French surrender. How did the U.S. navy get those tanks ashore? Were they all landed at piers or what?

I am particularly interested in the Port Lyautey landings. The tank skirmish in this area seems to have only involved Stuart light tanks, not Shermans. Did the navy have a landing craft that could carry a Stuart but not the heavier Sherman?

My main source for what I know about Torch is Atkinson's An Army at Dawn, but it was a library book I read maybe a year ago, and don't have in front of me now.

In the Mantaro Valley, one of the largest fertile growing regions of the Inca Empire, archeologists have found 2,573 qullqas (storehouses). These could hold 170,000 square meters of goods. Some of this was for non-food storage, but a ton of it was dried potatoes, quinoa, etc. When the Spanish showed up, the Inca equipped and fed a 35,000 man army from the storehouses around the Mantaro Valley.

But these qullqas were spread around the empire, and other areas stored corn, seaweed, dried fish, etc.

I can't think of another civilization that had such huge reserves on hand to deal with emergencies. When I think of medieval Europe, famine and starvation seem to pop up every few years.

So was this unique? Did anyone else prepare for famines on this scale?

I’ve recently fallen into a rabbit hole of debate over the Democratic legitimacy of the soviet government, especially during the reign of Stalin.

Some love to argue that the USSR at this time was actually perfectly Democratic and Stalin was beholden to the will of the people and workers via a Democratic electoral process.

I would love to know what the system of distributing power actually was and if Stalin could have have been called a Democratic ruler.

From what I’ve seen, these people argue that citizens could elect fellow soviet members to the supreme soviet, but (if this is true) how much power did the standard citizen actually have?

Thank you

For example, on bofors anti aircraft guns and some japanese ww2 machine guns I've seen, the barrel widens out slightly at the muzzle. Whar's the purpose of it and why don't all gun barrels have it?

Ditto for rugby and soccer.

Between 1860 and the domestication of cows, sheep and goats, people had to handle raw milk and dairy made from it. How come they didn't get terrible infections from it?

Mexico could declare escaped slaves were free all we wanted, that doesn't mean slavers would care, so I wonder, was there ever some sort of legal battle concerning this law?

I wonder if any point something like this happened:

A slave escapes into Mexico but is then found by USA authorities and brought back to the USA by force. However this person explains that since they entered Mexican territory before being captured again they are now free and a Mexican citizen, so capturing him is now illegal. Such a situation would have created the question of how the laws from other countries concerning slavery would affect slavery in the USA