I like the idea of "the great compromiser" but I know he owned slaves and couldn't win the presidency if his life depended on it. How do historians look at him and his legacy?

I'm trying to get a more in-depth understanding of client/patron relationships in Roman Culture. How did these relationships form? What sorts of obligations were expected between parties? How long could/did they last? How could they be ended? Was there a common terminology or language of the time used to express the relationship?

Is it plausible that someone else wrote Shakespeare's plays or is it right next to we faked the moon landing?

Favorite Theory: Either this theory is really strong or this one is so far out there it makes me smile?

With Hitler, he wanted to put the German race on the forefront of the Earth, and to hell with the Jews and Slavs that stood in the way, though he did decide by the end that the Germans were not worth anything at all, and ordered Germany's destruction to Speer, who refused. Obviously he had extreme megalomania and a Messiah complex, not to mention being a genocidal psychopath, but I always felt he had an "altruistic" loyalty to his nation.

With Stalin, I can only get the feeling that he was a sociopathic opportunist who had no loyalty to any idea, country or people. He would have joined a Fascist Party if he knew it would make him the leader. He was Georgian, so he didn't have much loyalty to Russia as a nation, nor did he seem interested in spreading Communism when it went against Soviet interests.

So was there a big difference between the two on this, or did Stalin actually have some form of idealism within him?

It may be just me, but I recently realized that the Byzantine Empire is largely underrepesented in most areas of popular cultur, including most categories of historical-entertainment but also areas like (mainstream) philosophy, poetry, art, architecture, etc.

For example, people that are not in any way concerned with Byzantine or Middle-Eastern history, will recognize several individuals of Classical Antiquity, be it Philosophers, Scientists(the same thing back then lol), Military or Civic leaders, etc.. When it comes to the Byzantine Empire, most people won't know anybody, with the exception of Justinian I maybe and will be hard pressed to name any Byzantine architectural feat except for Hagia Sophia.

This seems rather odd, considering that even after the fall of the Western Roman Empire it was among the most long-lived Empires in history. Certainly, in well over a millenium the Byzantine Empire has contributed enough to earn its own distinct place in popular culture?

Was it because for a large part of its existence it struggled to survive? Or because, rather than a father of western Culture, like Ancient Greeks and the (latin) Roman Empire, it was more of a cousin?

Hope this attracts somebody's interest, this really got me pondering.

*Edit: I just thought of two more reasons: It is my understanding that there was some degree of competing with the Vatican and the HRE as to who was the spiritual and secular successor, respectively, to the Roman Empire. This may have contributed to its obscurity. Also, the omnipresence of Roman-inspired culture is attributed to the Italian Renaissance, which was triggered(to my knowledge) by the acquisition of Islamic sources on the Romans, rather than preservation by the Byzantines.

It just seems to me that a lot of the really healthy stuff doctors are pushing now (lots of leafy veg, root vegetables, less sugar, booze and meat, more oatmeal, etc) is largely what peasant would eat - assuming they weren't doing the starving thing during famines or the Famine (my family is Irish).

I always said you get to know people by what they eat and how they go about doing it. So, has anyone examined the dietary difference between urban/country nobles and country/urban peasants? Which had the medically healthier diet?

Surely, with Founding Fathers like Jefferson and Madison, war heroes like Jackson, W.H. Harrison and Grant and great statesmen and orators like Webster and Clay, the 19th century campaigns were conducted with dignity and good manners.

Am I right?

As a corollary, how did improvements in communications play a role over time? How did the candidates get their messages to the hustings?

I promise this is just curiosity -- not a homework assignment. Thank you for any input.

Or more to the point, what are some good (English language) resources on the subject? How much do we really know? Did anything survive into the modern era (culturally or linguistically)? I just finished Alexander at the World's End by Tom Holt and I'm intrigued.

I heard this recently but I just wanted to know Reddit's opinion of it.

"In 1765 a young man wrote to the Court Miscellany, a British periodical, to ask whether he should fight a duel against a rogue who had insulted his beloved. The reply urged him to accept the challenge: “[F]or if you run your antagonist through the body, or he you, ’tis three to one but the other comes to be hang’d; and then there’s good riddance of two ridiculous hot-headed coxcombs.”"

Stolen from the Economist: "Agony aunts through the ages: Whatever should I do?"

This is probably a dumb question. But did they Romans treat the black population they conquered in North Africa any differently than the barbarian tribes in Europe? Or did they see all non-Romans equally inferior?

Considering that the Nazis celebrated composers like Beethoven as examples of Germanic cultural superiority, and today being his birthday, this thought just occurred to me.

I've been reading about Helen Keller in various places online, and there are frequent mentions of how she learned the words for things and how she learned to read braille, but I haven't seen anything about how she learned sentence structure and about abstract concepts.

For example how did she learn about the use and purpose of articles in a sentence? And how did she learn what religion is? (I saw a quote by her that mentioned something about religion, which is why I ask.)

Do we know if they ever added their own commentary or omitted parts of stories? Or were they faithful to the originals?

My question is that while numbers of historical empires such as the Imperial Britain or Ottomans were always seeking to expand their territory by conquering nearby empires, why didn't Ming dynasty, one of the most prosperous eras of medieval China, conquer nearby smaller empires? Very primitive question so would be keen to elaborate and clarify some parts.

Edit: all the answers were fascinating. Thank you so much!

Those /r/atheism posts look kind of exaggerated.

I realize this is quite a controversial topic due to the all the conspiracy theories & propaganda involved etc (which is what I want to try and cut though). I am honestly wondering what rough percentage of European academics/thinkers were Jewish during this period (30 %? etc). I also wonder what the reason behind this is. Is it down to a combination of factors such as primarily residing in towns/urbanized environments which are the areas of high culture linked with universities & centers of trade etc, ostracisation on religious grounds leading the group to focus on methods of making a living in the urban environment like banking and the like, possibly creating a sort of quasi upper middle urban class heavily populated by Jews? To add to that, I read that there was a sort of population explosion among Jews in the late 19th century that would coincide with all this. To add to this, I am not entirely sure if I have a cognitive bias in the sense that I may be consciously picking out the jewish academics and not noticing the heavy contributors of other classes/groups. If this is the case what other groups/classes were heavily influential in this period regarding academics/business .

Again apologies if this is deemed controversial, I really just want to get an accurate picture of the situation during that period. I'm reminded of the Hakka among the Chinese at times.