Pirates have been a favorite subject of films for decades but they tend to take a more fantastical approach with some very well-worn tropes and mythological ideas. I'm curious if there are any films out there that depict pirates, privateers, or what we call the Golden Age of Piracy with more attention to fact than to 1930's tropes about peg legs and parrots.

I've seen "Master and Commander" which is in the same vein although focused on the military side of sailing rather than a pirate/privateer story.

And why?

I had a good question which I have been wondering about for a long time, and as this week's theme is "Exploration and Discovery" I though I may as well ask now.

I am talking mainly about the use of Marine Chronometers and Lunar Tables.

and

Did other countries mount similar 'competitions' such as the 1714 Longitude Act which offered monetary rewards for a solution to the Longitude problem.

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How would a Croatian migrant to Australia have fared prior to the outbreak of WW1? Was there a large Croatian speaking community, did Dalmatians gravitate towards Italians in the community, what was the Anglophone attitude towards Croatians (if any) etc

'The Civil War' received wide critical acclaim and broke numerous records for viewership for documentaries, but I don't know anything about the academic response to the series, or indeed whether there was one. Wikipedia mentions a 1997 book edited by Robert Brent Toplin titled 'Ken Burns's The Civil War: Historians Respond,' so I can only assume that there was an academic reaction of some form. Would anyone be able to expand on this response, not just in Toplin's book but more widely?

How common were wehrmacht rifles and personal weapons relative to each other?

For instance, how many K-98s, G-41s, G-43s, and STG-44s were there relative to each other? What percentage of soldiers would carry each at different stages in the war? How many of each were manufactured? What would the average soldier be carrying?

During the rush for colonization, a lot of European nations tried their hands at colonization(France, England, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, among others), but why didn't, say, the Ottomans try colonizing the new continent? And when the West Coast of the US was found, why didn't Japan or China try to colonize it?

Of course, this is assuming that you believe Jesus was a real person at some point in time.

Also, who were some other claimants who were around when Jesus was? Did any of them ever gain a significant following at the time?

Man let me tell ya, turning your life around can really have some obstacles. I haven't touched history in years but I took a pretest and was cascaded with questions about the French Revolution and the American Revolution and WW2. It was all so much and I only have a week to prepare. I know this seems kind of ridiculous but does anyone know of a way for me to get ready for this?

In my history course, the professor frequently touches upon geography as a factor in a respective culture's development. What my professor says sounds reasonable; that said, I have an early 1900s copy of Advanced Geography (written by Tarr & McMurry) that seems to use the geography of cultures as a sort of justification for European imperialism. By that, I mean that it justifies its bias towards Western culture and its distaste for/racism towards other cultures by citing superior geography more conducive towards "civilization". Of course, my professor doesn't go nearly as far as Tarr & McMurry do in terms of geographic analysis, but it leaves me curious and uncertain. Where do modern historians begin connecting geography to human history and culture, and where do they stop? Thanks for the help.

A few mlb players who defected came back and met with their families and communities, this wouldn't have happened 5 years ago. How would families who stayed have been treated by the government? Killed like North Korean families?

I have a vague memory of having read somewhere that the names of naval ships lost at sea were not reused by the particular navy to which that ship belonged. That is, if the HMS Reliant went down at sea, the Royal Navy would not then ever name another newly commissioned ship Reliant again. Sadly, I can't remember where I read this to double check my facts and I'm having a difficult time phrasing the issue so that Google is in any way helpful. Any military/naval historians who might be able to tell me if I'm inventing a false memory or if this, in fact, was true with, let's say, age of sail navies?

It appears that the Council of Nicaea was a well planned and well executed affair. When Constantine ordered it be created, did he have any historical predecessor to examine how he should do it? Were the structure of the meetings based on any other debates previously held in Christianity or another religion?