Are there any long form Phoenician written sources, I know for example that there are over 10,000 inscriptions in a stereotypical form (i.e. X son of Y king of Z etc.) but are there any literary sources still extant, even if these were translated to Latin or Greek?

And is it true that the sources are clouded, because they manipulate the events to fit their political agenda during the second iconoclatic controversy?

Are there other groups like this?

Are there also groups which, like Jews, are seemingly spread over the globe, not located primarily in some long existent home country (like the Chinese or Indians, or Egyptian - and are, say, Egyptians 'the same' as Ancient Egyptians? Are Jews 'the same' as the ancient Hebrews, for that matter?)

Many of the prominent and rich mestizo families in the Philippines (Aboitiz, Elizalde, Araneta, Zobel de Ayala, Zubiri) trace their lineage from the Basque regions. I have a cursory knowledge of the unrest and disenfranchisement that contributed to the Basque diaspora but I can't reconcile their marginalization in Spain with the way they eventually dominated the cultural and economic life in the Philippines. Did this mean that the immigrant Basques agitated much less than the nationalists, which meant they were more favored by the state? Or did regional differences between the Spanish just get overpowered by the impetus to create a more unified front against their colonial subjects?

Furthermore, are there also outsized Basque interests in other Spanish colonies? I know that they played a large part in the Age of Exploration, but did they became superpowers in other colonies by virtue of being first?

(I've read Basques in the Philippines by Marciano de Borja years ago in college, but what I remember of it was that it was much more narrative-heavy. It simply recounted the deeds of Basque individuals and didn't much focus on the how and why.)

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I was reading how the Duke of Wellington himself started as an ensign of a regiment of foot while he needed a job as his family was declining nobility. Naturally he was from the landed Protestant Anglo-Irish aristocracy, and these folk were incredibly rich more often than not. But an ensign I would've imagined would've come from an upper middle class family, yet someone as high up the social chain as Wellington himself started out as such. Was this exclusive entirely, or was it slightly more open to the upper middle and perhaps even the middle classes? And what of young boys and men in the Royal Navy? How wealthy would their parents have been to afford them commissions?

I heard this on the radio the other day, and despite google searching for this exact question I can not find anything.

In fact they said that he called for this the day before he was assassinated. Any truth to this claim?

When faced with a superior enemy, a standard military strategy is to stay on the defensive, keeping your forces in play and seeking to exhaust the opponent. George Washington showed Americans the value of this during the Revolutionary War.

So why did the South pursue an essentially aggressive strategy, trying to take the fight to the North and looking for decisive show-down battles? I have seen explanations involving Southern machismo and the importance of maintaining public morale; but in that case why didn't those same reasons sway George Washington?

I read in another book (Euroabia by Arthur van Amerongen) that Julius Caesar in the book Bello Gallico describes the Belgae & Anglescae as the ugliest people in Europe. I didn't read the book (yet), but I CTRL+F searched for it and can't find it. Is it true that Caesar wrote this? Was this a common opinion or just his personal?

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I chose medieval Europe specifically because it's an area of history I'm familiar with more than others, but if you have anything from other time periods I'd be very interested to hear about that as well.

I know that the reasons for starting the crusades were mainly political, but were the people who did the fighting motivated by religion? What about the people's crusade, wasn't that not tied to any of the nobility? Would there be practically no political motivation for them? Also, if one of the major political reasons was to expand the Byzantine empire against the Ottoman, why did western Europe want to see a strong Byzantine Empire over a strong Ottoman Empire? If there was no religious motivations, than why do we associate them with christianity so much?