Charlemagne is, to my knowledge, considered the founder of the Holy Roman Empire as well as the father of France. France and Germany were not united for very long, so what lead to their divergence?

With the ever-increasing job dissatisfaction from doctors in the US due to the continued constraining of their autonomy and income getting deflated, I was curious if doctors have ever gone on strike (anywhere) before and what was the resulting effect, if any?

I was watching the 1985 PBS Frontline documentary "Memory of the Camps," which is a reconstruction of a documentary put together soon after the war using footage and recordings from the liberation of Nazi concentration camps.

In a segment about Ludwigslust/Wöbbelin footage is shown of what looks like bunked cots wrapped and draped in barbed wire, while the narrator (in 1985 using the original text I believe) says that men were forced to sleep on barbed wire.

To be clear, I am as far from a Holocaust denier as possible, this just wasn't something I'd ever encountered, and I'm pretty familiar with the horrors of the camps.

On a related matter I suppose, what is the perception of this Frontline piece in the minds of historians?

(standard "sorry if this has been asked before" disclaimer)

I heard about a British soldier nicknamed "Captain Mad Jack". Can someone tell me what this person did and what he was famous for?

Having recently taken up the study of the Middle Ages (hence the username) and Ancient Rome, I would like to know one thing pertaining to the art of these periods.

Why do medieval sculptures often appear not as realistic, accurate, or detailed as the sculptures we may see that originate from Ancient Rome and Greece? Is this because the skills and methods were lost after the Fall of Rome? Was this because art was taking a shift towards the more symbolic, or a general shift in taste?

EDIT: Thank you for all the informative answers.

Just curious, all those wool blankets undoubtedly caused some visible discharges in the night, surely some folk felt that little zap when they went to grab their tools... What were some of the explanations given before we truly understood what was happening?

In school I've always been taught that they are two important and different US policies, but to me they seem like different ways of stating the same thing, i.e. "Communism exists, try to contain it by not letting other states become communist." Was there any functional difference between the thinking behind both theories? Did US policy reflect any difference from one to the other?

I've searched around but only found one earlier post asking this question without any replies.

How did warfare between the different Mesopotamian and Sumerian city states work? Would they employ standing armies (which seems pretty expensive to me), would they look at the surrounding desert and mountain tribes for mercenaries, would they conscript the men? And what did the Akkadians and other empires use?

I can't really think of the most logical solution. I don't think there's one answer for all cities, but surely some methods were used more than others?

I'd also appreciate any literature you could recommend.

As a kid I thought this was a no-brainer and would happen quickly but it fizzled. Were there interests fighting against it, people too hard to change, etc. What happened?

Through what context did western music, at least since the advent of notated music, consign almost all percussive instruments to strictly military music until quite recently? I assume percussive instruments/drums had some specific connotations in western culture but what lent them these meanings and how did they maintain their particular place without penetrating non-military European music, religious and otherwise, for so many centuries?

Also, who first made the statue? I think it predates Roman times, but by how much?

My understanding is that communism is to mean that all people should be equal as part of the struggle for workers rights.

However, there are all these other terms related to communism that I don't really understand.

In movies, it's portrayed as a common greeting, was it really that common in everyday life for the average civilian?

Many cultures use garlic in preparation of staple foods. Middle Eastern foods are full of garlic, so are Asian, Caribbean, French, sub saharan Africa and others. Is there a common link when garlic got introduced or a specific event which caused it's adoption? Can you trace garlic to a single point of origin?

I need this info for a project but the info is not in my book or seemingly online.

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Harry Truman's victory in the 1948 presidential election is one of the most legendary moment in American politics. His party was divided and did not want him to run. Nearly every political scientist at the time said Thomas Dewey would win. However Truman would not quit. He choose to campaign all across the country, railing against his "Do-nothing" congress, and eventually winning the Presidency. I already know that story. What I want to know is why did Dewey lose? Again, so people many thought he would win. Where in his campaign did he go wrong? Why did the man whom so many political scientists thought would win end up losing the presidential election?

It was the first of it's kind, the people beheading their monarch. Does anyone know what the reactions other places, in Europe and Asia, to this?

For example, Hitler won it once, and Stalin won it twice.