Wine has been around for thousands of years - long before the technology to manufacture stemware. My impression from ancient and medieval artwork is that wine used to be consumed from cups or horns (speaking of which, in medieval Europe, did the host provide the cups, or were the guests expected to bring their own, as with cutlery?) When did it become customary to start drinking wine from glass stemware? And at what point did it become customary to have different shapes of stemware for different kinds of wine?

I know they had gyms and that's where we get the word. I have no idea what was inside the gym. Do we have a pretty good idea of what exercises they were doing? Obviously they would practice wrestling, running, and other Olympic sports. But did they have free weights, bench, squat, or kettlebells? They must have been pretty fit for artists to be able to so accurately depict muscle symmetry. Pictures of what their physique probably looked like would be awesome!

I'm just curious how former slaves didn't just send up living on the streets.

Immediately following the Holocaust, the state of Germany was divided into two competing states, with two competing powers and ideologies. In these ideologies the morals and beliefs that they hold differ, and I can imagine they effected the policies crafted surrounding the remembrance of the Holocaust, the cultural conclusions the two states came to, and how it was taught. How did these two nations reconcile their recent past with their present constructions? What were the major differences?

I spend quite a lot of time in Italy, especially Sicily, and love cooking there. I heard that Mussolini thought pasta made his country lethargic, nostalgic and resistant to modernity. I've also heard tell of a fascist sponsored drive to convert to risotto. Is this true? Cheers!

Sorry for that terrible question, but I'm wondering if the German army of WW1 had any proto-characteristics--so to speak--of the "evil Germany" that shows up in WW2. For example:

1. Are there any racial motivations to how some enemies or civilian populations were handled?
2. Was the treatment of certain POWs, like the Russians, as horrible as it was in WW2?
3. Are there any civilian horror stories like we have from WW2? For example, there's an event/anecdote about a German commander in WW2 who has his soldiers bludgeon hundreds of young French school children to death.

I'm assuming during the latter part of the war while the allies were going through Italy they went through Rome? I know the Vatican is a sovereign state but was it a neutral country and just not affected during the war?

Am I allowed to ask this? I just saw a thread in another sub where the highest rated comment is that peasant soldiers were the bulk of the medieval army. Why is this myth still being perpetuated?

What did he do right in terms of stability? What did his successors do wrong?

We all know about Brown v. Board of Education, the Little Rock Nine, etc. However, I've long been curious about the pace of integration in the North. My white mother was good friends with a black classmate in Junior High School in 1961, but she can't remember if she had any black classmates before that in elementary school. The Internet is surprisingly unhelpful, even for major cities.

I have recently taken an interest into the first World War I and its aftermath, and this one question I have yet to find a definitive answer for. I am aware of the various psychological problems and other health problems that soldiers returning home faced, but I have yet to find anything about suicide. This question is open to really any country that participated, but I am mostly interested in Britain.

After Kissinger was brought up in debate, and seeing him mentioned so frequently on reddit now, I realize there's probably a lot of modern history that I don't know about very well for various reasons. What are some of the most egregious examples of this and what book(s) should I read to get outside this bubble?

For example:

In most of the world, Red is the color used by left-wing parties and movements, while Blue is often the color of conservatives. In America red is typically identified with conservatism and the GOP, while blue is identified with progressives.

In the rest of the world, Liberal refers to typically conservative pro-business parties, while in America this is the opposite.

In the rest of the world, a Libertarian is essentially a Socialist or Anarchist, while In America, it refers to an ideology of pro-business and privatization.

How did this happen, and are such idiosyncratic politics common in other countries?

I vaguely recall in college a Professor mentioning the concept of the Holy Trinity didn't even exist until it was created by the Catholic Church, however never saw a source to back that up and have always wondered how "true" it is.

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I was on Wikipedia and it said that the Plague of Justinian killed an initial 25 million, escalating to 50 million people after two centuries of recurrence. If the Plague of Justinian did kill this many people, why does nobody talk about it as much as the Black Death?

What was the culture & religion like? What was the governing system like/how were places ruled? Just anything really, I can't seem to find much on this around the internet, other than something like 'there was trade between the Irish tribes & The Romans' or 'Ireland & Rome were on good relations'. I'm not interested in external diplomacy, just Irish affairs. If you know any resources or books on this subject, please tell me what they are. Thanks in advance.