Sorry if this is a bit vague, but I'm reading my textbooks for university and it the dates of discoveries and experiments always surprise me.

For example, apparently by the early 1900's biochemists have isolated hundreds of different chemicals from living cells. I thought this was pretty insane, cause I didn't think they'd have the knowledge or technology to do so by that time.

There seems to be a disconnect, at least in my mind, between 'we can do basic experiments and just learning about the universe' to 'high-tech experiments and synthesis of unnatural stuff'. Like there's a massive jump, and not a lot is talked about in between. Is there like a point in time when we can consider that we've just started to enter into the world where scientists started to really gain steam and into the modern(something like what's taught in universities today) level?

It seems to me that around the 1930-1950s was a big time for science. The creation of the atomic bomb, the photo-electric effect, DNA experiments, etc. But was it really there where things really got advanced? I remember my OChem prof saying that OChem has been taught the same for like a 100 years(although this may have been just a flippant statement by him). It seems like some areas had advanced pretty far while others took longer before making massive strides.

Thanks.

I know you had to be of a certain class but were you just appointed by the Emperor or did you rise up from the ranks?

Did any pleb ever rise to command a legion or become a senator?

Im from /r/silverbugs and was wondering what the weight and purchasing power of the 30 pieces would be at the time.

Basically, was Islam just the thing which all the individuals had in common? Or was it the driving force behind all the scientific innovation?

Nowadays we just understand it to mean that cats sometimes survive things that we wouldn't expect them to (e.g. high falls, burning buildings), but did people used to take it more literally? And where did the phrase come from?

Did they come under enemy fire? Crashes? Ect.

Kuwait seems to be fairly tolerant of all religions despite being surrounded by arguably the most conservative Islamic country in the world. How did this happen? Did Saudi Arabia ever try to envelop them?

Many people say "Jesus Christ!" when surprised or shocked. Before Christianity, did people say, "Zeus!" or another god's name?

I'm also unclear about the politics between Taiwan and China. I know the KMT ran to Taiwan after the communist revolution and China for the longest time refused to acknowledged that Taiwan as a country existed. Also like when Taiwan when's in competitions against china (ex: table tennis, Olympics)

I suppose this would be up /u/restricteddata 's alley...

Many of us know that the second atomic bombing was performed on Nagasaki as opposed to Kokura, the first choice target, due to heavy cloud cover/smoke over the latter. Even over Nagasaki, the clouds were dense, and Fat Man was only dropped when a last-minute opening appeared to reveal the target.

My question is--what was the procedure for a mission abort? As I recall, Little Boy was armed on the Enola Gay itself mid-flight due to concerns that the bomber might crash on take-off, triggering the bomb on the surface of the airbase. If a similar procedure was undertaken to prep Fat Man for use, wouldn't Bockscar have had to land back at base with a live A-bomb in the bomb bay?

I believe that B-17s and B-24s over Europe would just jettison bombs over rural areas or ocean upon an abort, but obviously this would be incredibly wasteful and hazardous to perform with a plutonium bomb...

Was there a plan for how to deal with a mission abort of this kind if the bomber had been forced to return from Nagasaki without dropping the A-bomb?

Thanks! Love this sub and all that you do!

This is a fascinating historical topic to me, since a large share of my maternal ancestry is Irish Catholic ( i.e. 19th century immigrants who settled near Boston and in Chicago), and so I wonder how the meaning of "Irish" or "Irish-American" changed over time, as those Americans of Irish Protestant (or even "White Anglo-Saxon" Protestant in general) ancestry were becoming outnumbered - at least, in certain regions of the country - by poor, under-educated, un-assimilated, and Catholic Irish immigrants by the mid/late 19th century.

When did Irish Protestants/their descendants in the U.S. begin to see themselves as "American", and what role - if any - did the massive immigration of Irish Catholics during the 19th century play in this mediation and transformation of identity for this demographic group?

Furthermore, as my thread title indicates, did Irish (ancestry) Protestants feel especially threatened by Catholic immigrants, or was nativist sentiment toward said Catholics broadly similar to nativism among American Protestantism in general during that era?

Finally, my understanding is that the Catholic-Protestant divide among Irish immigrants (and their descendants) was even more of an issue in Canada than it was in the U.S. (IIRC, the Orange Orders were much more numerous up there - someone can correct me if I am mistaken on this).

Any answers would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

In the book Adam Smith mentions it being illegal to transport wool in the direction of the coast without proper certification. Is there any evidence of it really happening?

I'm particularly interested in Nazi-occupied France after 1943.

I am suddenly really curious about the Roman Empire. Are there any especially good books that I could check out for a complete history? Or, if it's history is so extensive that it would have to take lots of books, is there perhaps a book series?

On the flip side, if I'm asking a stupid question, what should I be looking for instead? If this is the wrong subreddit for these kinds of questions, where should I post instead?

  Please understand that this is a legitiment question I've been thinking about, by no means am I berating anyone who studies or likes history. 
  This question was on my head in elementary school and middle school, but it wasn't really something I thought to deeply about since it was a mandatory class anyway. Now that I'm in my second year of high school I am really wondering why it is important to learn history mostly since I'm a math and science guy and I feel like my history class is a waste of credits and scheduling that I could be using for a class that interests me more. My teacher might have really killed history for me since he turned the class into a politics class that is really biased to what he thinks, but I would rather take no history class even if I had the opportunity to switch.
  For me, I see math and science as something I can use throughout my life as science makes me understand things in a more brighter light and math is my tool to do so. Next, English is just a class as I need to use English throughout my life and to make essays, letters, and decently worded questions. Lastly, Spanish is just really an advantage for me since it is the 2nd most diverse language in the world.
  So, I don't really see a point in history class. Please don't give me a response I get a lot of my history teachers tell me like "history will repeat itself otherwise" or something like that since I'm not saying just destroy history class in general. I can see how politics is important since I need to make decisions as they will come back to bite me if I make it wrong there but I watch the news regularly and have my own opinion on that. What is the point of learning history other than being a historian or to teach academia? Thanks ahead of time.

What was daily life like for an average civiIian during the 1992-1996 Siege of Sarajevo? I know I am just skirting the tail end of the twenty year rule (the Siege ended February 29, 1996).

In two main categories:

1. The strategies and tactics used, i.e. Would the soviets actually try to take Iceland? and,
2. How accurate are the portrayals of various weapons and vehicles performance, especially in regards to each other, i.e. Were the NATO tanks far and away better then the soviet tanks, as is shown in the book? Bonus: The book seems to hint that, if this occurred in the actual cold war, and nuclear weapons were not used, the Soviets would win, since the US had no actual "Stealth fighters", and the Soviets would not have to worry about limited fuel supplies, as well as being able to use the 6 "A" category divisions that they held back in the book. Is this an agreed upon consensus, or just Tom Clancy's opinion?