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New to this sub-reddit. I hope this is an appropriate question. As a Canadian, the American Civil war has always fascinated me. I understand the question is probably loaded, but I've always wondered about this.

I know that ending slavery wasn't the only thing the Confederates and the Union fought about, but from my understanding, it was one of the big issues between the two. Why did the cultural opinion regarding black people differ so significantly between the states? Can someone shed some light on where these differing opinions stemmed from?

Is this hypothesis legitimately debated by historians, or is it the stuff of conspiracy theories? I know it is quite popular in Russia as it advances the idea of a European conspiracy to suppress Russia so i'm naturally dubious, but more generally i've heard the actual theory has some credence. Is that correct?

In my art history class, we're going over the sphinx, and according to one theory, it used to have a lion's head until many years later, a king decided to carve his own head into it instead. At what point did we go from making ancient artwork personal possessions, and more into things that we cherished, where we instead would say "that sphinx is really old and is a part of history, let's not touch it so that we preserve this great piece of art"

We usually hear of how Hitler felt in regards to the Japanese joining the Axis. I was curious as to how he felt about Mussolini and the Italians joining the war efforts?

For those who don't know, "Spanish Ladies" is an 18th century sea shanty whose chorus goes,

We'll rant and we'll roar, like true British sailors,
We'll rant and we'll roar, all on the salt sea,
Until we strike soundings in the Channel of Old England;
From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues.

Throughout history days have been added, removed from calendars, leap years, etc.... What day of the week is actually the sabbath in 2016?

I've been reading some about the Force de Frappe and it seems very clear that de Gaulle wanted France to have their own independent nuclear deterrent because he did not trust the Americans to honor their commitment to defend Europe if a war broke out. Britain on the other hand bought nuclear weapons from the United States and did not develop a nuclear deterrent independently giving up some of their sovereignty by doing so it seems. In light of these differences and the fact that the French withdrew from NATO in 1963, how did this independence of the French affect their policies regarding use of nuclear weapons? Also, did the expensive development of their own nuclear deterrent negatively affect the the French economy?

This question is now directed at new zealand (can't edit the title :P). Why didn't the maori get small pox and die like the australians and north, central and south american natives?

I know that cape town africans had pretty much the same fate, but that eastern and northern africans were more exposed to the outside world, and didn't suffer (as much?) as a result.

Yet, the central africans were also cattle and sheep herders, like the europeans, and weren't as vulnerable to disease either. It's only recently with the growth of big cities that these people have become highly vulnerable to malaria and other african diseases.

• From the 'guns, germs and steel' video documentary.

The people I don't know about, however, are the maori of new zealand, who seemed not to be impacted quite as much. Were they a herding culture? Did they have a lot of interaction with the outside world, somehow?

How did they avoid the fate of so many others like them?

And, to extend on that, to what extent is the Chinese civilisation an "uninterrupted" one?

Just curious as to how big of a deal the Industrial Revolution was as it happened. It occurred over decades, so I feel like it would be a bit hard to see the progress unless looking in hindsight. Obviously now it is seen as a huge advancement in modern civilizations, but was it seen that way at the time?

If it was noticed, what were opinions like at the time? Was everyone pro-industrial revolution, or were there people who were against it (like how some people are/were against nuclear power.)

Do we know what was the key trade items and how culturally close did the two peoples become, if at all? Were the powers more or less on equal footing in terms of trade or did one of the parties dominate?