I'm a bit of a fan of line warfare and find it very interesting to see it done in movies. Seems to me though that that era of war isn't a very hot topic for movie makers these days, so I was wondering if anyone from this sub could recommend some good cinema depictions of line warfare.

I'm curious to know if names that are so common today are as common as they are because of their use in religious texts, or if the religious texts included people with those names because they were already common?

Was it the military experience? Was the individual talents of the generals?

Poked around in the FAQ but couldn't find anything about this. I had posted this question in /r/nazihunting a while back but they suggested I come here.

I saw a post on /r/AskHistorians (can't find it now) that talked about escaped Nazis being hired by Egypt and Syria to help organize the latter countries' burgeoning defence and police forces. Presumably this training and organization was useful (though obviously not too useful lol) to the Arab countries in their struggles with Israel in the early years of Israel's existence. My question is whether this presence of Germans in the Arab forces is a well-known thing? And whether this knowledge contributed to any actions on either side? For example, did the Israelis know that there were Nazis on the opposing side's forces, and if so, was that publicized as part of the reasoning for the war(s)? Did the Nazis accept employment by the Arabs because they knew they would soon be at war with Israel? Did the Arab forces make known to their populace that there were Nazis on their side?

(Sorry if the question is oddly formulated). Like any student who took an intro class to the history of the americas, I've heard that the search for precious metals and most notably gold was one of the biggest motives of european colons coming to the continent, and that it made Spain a very rich kingdom.

But how exactly was gold valuable ? Was it used to make coins (at the risk of creating inflation) ? Or to make jewelry that was then bought by wealthy people ?

I just don't understand why gold was considered so valuable, as opposed to materials such as wood or iron/steel that were used to make a variety of items, or even spices (maybe gold had a practical use I'm missing).

The American Revolution would serve as an important stepping stone to creating one of the most powerful sovereign states in the history of man. However just how Revolutionary was the war for independence. The revolution does not seem that compared to other later movements such as the two revolutions in 1917 in Russia, nor would thinkers like Lenin or Kanatchikov use the American Revolution as inspiration. I know that french revolutionists used the incident between the colonists and English as inspiration, but does it go beyond that in terms of influencing later movements?

I was at a friends house, and his maritime obsessed parents had a display case of various knots used on ships. Many of the knots seemed very complex, and as my friends dad explained to me, many of the knots are either wet or dry knots. I was curious to know if there is a history of the various knots and how they came to be. For example, was there some kind of boating accident that happened because of a certain knot, and a new knot was required? Or is there some knot genius comparable to Pythagoras making geometry? Are the knots used on ships the same in other countries?

I was listening to an audio book today "The Colonels" by WEB Griffin and in the story they were reading off some Confidential operations orders. In the orders they were transferring some US Navy planes to the US Army special forces for a mission to Cuba. They were to remove the Navy insignia, but no where was the aircraft to be labeled as belonging to the Army. The orders went on to say that the only markings would be the tail number and USA on the lower side of the left wing and USA on the upper side of the right wing.

In my years in the USAF I knew the military branches to be labeled as:

• USAF = United States Air Force
• USA = United States Army
• USN = United States Navy
• USMC = United States Marine Corps
• USCG = United States Coast Guard

In these names there is nothing mentioning "of America". Yet the lettering on the Aircraft, in the story, was to be USA.

This got my mind twisted. My whole life I've been fascinated with the military. My family has been in one branch or another for as long as we know; going back to serving in Ireland. I have known many military acronyms since childhood. I can't remember a single time I've seen anything labeled with USAA for the Army and the same for the other branches. Even naval ships use U.S.S. for United States Ship. I also know the Constitution is known as the U.S. Constitution and doesn't have the "of America". I know it reads "We the People of the United States" and paragraph one ends with "establish this Constitution for the United States of America". One lists "of America" and one doesn't.

WTF! Have I been calling my home the U.S.A. mistakenly? Should it only be U.S.? Is the "of America" just to let people know which "United States" country we are talking about (maybe there are other countries call U.S.)?

I know deep down that we are called the USA, but my mind is having trouble wrapping itself around why we always leave off the "A" on our military and government buildings, machinery, weapons, and documentation.

(This may need to go to /r/Military but I come to this sub daily and I figured I would try here first)

It seems to me that part of the Nazi platform was that war and militarism were good things. I was wondering if this can be traced back to the German Unification which relied on wars like the Austro-Prussian War and the Prussian-Franco War to come about? Are these wars and their outcomes in any way responsible for the Nazi's platform?

I mean from a colony and a nation of immigrants to a super power.
Canada, Brazil, Mexico all have simillar land masses and yet they are not major super powers

I would assume it is because of wasting a lot of resources on taking a single castle, but I want to know more.

Also, did their understanding of who built the Pyramids change at all over their long history?

So I'm trying to come up with examples of specific technologies that would have been lost in the outer regions of the Western Roman Empire and (especially) Britain between say, 300-500 AD.

Ideally, I'm looking for things that have fairly obvious applications. Not esoteric knowledge, but the kind of thing that would have a direct impact on the lives of people living at the time. One example would be, say, the ability to construct a major aqueduct for a city. The difference between the city with and the city without would be huge and immediately obvious.

Maybe another way to phrase the question is: if a fifth or sixth century British town could magically resurrect one or two (non-military) Roman technologies, what sorts of things would have the biggest impact on the welfare of its people and do the most to stem the de-urbanization that was going on at that time?

Thank you!

I know Persian sources are almost non-existent but are there any Greek monuments, murals, books that tell us about the battle and are Primary Sources? Is Herodotus' Histories considered a Primary Source? Thanks for all the replies!