Specifically the British and Dutch

I'm in a phase where I'm very interested to read about air warfare in western Europe in world War 2 (hopefully I will expand to the eastern front as well in the future). I read on secondary sources that often navigation in bombers was difficult, there were electronical devices to improve the navigation, but still mistakes were committed.

The navigator in the airplane had only to handle the electronical devices or also had accurate maps, rulers, and so forth to establish the position of the plane on a map through computations?

Can anyone explain their procedure (or link it) if they had to determine manually the position of the plane or if they relied on devices and precompiled tables? (like 'if you get the signal x, look in the precompiled map that we'll tell you the position related to the x signal' )

I play a game called crusader kings 2. In the game, one cannot declare war on other rulers without a proper casus beli.

Was it so in the medieval world? Could I as a ruler declare war on someone just cause I can or would I always need to specify some reason howsoever flimsy?

Why the origins of the Scythians are so disputed? The web is full of arguments attributing Hungarian, Mongolic, Turkic, Slavic, Germanic, Celtic and even Israelite origins to the Scythians. Wikipedia says that the Scythians were Iranian, yet I fail to see how exactly the cited sources can prove this theory. Isn’t it equally possible that the Scythians were some isolate, unrelated ethno-linguistic group that was later assimilated into other cultures? As a follow up question, both the Greek and the Chinese knew the Iranian people and their languages. Did they record ethnic or linguistic similarities between the Scythians and the Iranians? If not, why do the scholars take them as Iranians?

So I went to high school in America, and we talked about the language used by Shakespeare and other english folks back in those days. Usually the conclusion is that you'd come across weird with todays english, but you would be understood.

Now, I'm not quite sure how to apply this to German, because the language has been quite the same for a while in terms of Grammar. I was wondering, did German sound 'different' back in the day? Or would words be announced the same to the point where I could communicate with my family from 500 years ago?

Just wondering, thanks :)

Additional question which I'm not sure is subreddit appropriate: are the modern inhabitants of the Peloponnesus closer to the Spartiates, the Perioieci or the Helots?

I was watching the documentary war series German War Files and it talks about allied air drops needing to come in low to hit the drop zones, and therefore were easy picking for the ground based flak. Fair enough, but where was the infamous allied close air support? Were the Germans simply staying hidden until the cargo planes came in and ignoring the fighters? Were the fighters out of range?

How or why was Eisenhower chosen as the supreme commander of the allied forces during WWII?

It seems that for many classical civilizations, the infantryman often carried a javelin (or dart etc) into battle along with their primary weapon. The Romans especially seemed to have used the pila with great effectiveness. So why did later armies decide to drop this part of their arsenal?

I just watched "The Hateful Eight" and was struck by a minor character whose backstory was that she was from New Zealand. This stood out to me because I've never seen an Australian or New Zealand character in anything I've watched set in the Old West (admittedly I haven't seen a ton of stuff set there). I was just curious what the likelyhood of finding someone from the antipodes in the US around the time the movie was set (so relatively soon-ish after the Civil War).

I have noticed that there are many history books out there that were written by journalists, and not academic historians.

Do these books have any value to them outside the realm of "pop" history? Are there any examples of such books being valued and used by academia?

I'm looking for some books on the Hundred Years' War (1337- 1453) I looked at the Books and Resource list and only found one book pertaining to these events and I'm sure there are many more. Thanks in advance!

Thank you so very much.

Given the current choices of candidates for the 2016 Presidential elections I was wondering why we limit the age of a candidate versus experience in the constitution.

I've been doing some research on my family history and have come across bits and pieces of stuff that I have questions about. My grandfathers grandfathers family were mennonites. I have found that they left Germany when they were persecuted and then settled in Southern Ukraine (at the time the Russian Empire). In the late 19th Century they left for North America. That is where things fall apart for me.

I would have figured they would have traveled west and gotten on a ship from a port town in Western Europe. My grandfather said that they actually traveled south and went through the Persian Gulf and around Africa. Where would I be able to find maps or other information on this? Thanks in advance

Obviously the top levels in the Nazi Government were tried at Nuremberg but what would happen to a normal soldier after the war? Anything?