I was wondering if anyone had recommendations for books on:

Muslim conquest of Persia Subsequent Islamisation Persian influence (particularly under Abbasids), until the Safavid era starting 1500

So basically anything from 700-1500 CE

edit: Also welcoming additions concerning modern Iran, preferrably 1950s-2000, particularly focusing on impacts of the Shah and CIA coup in 50s, and the Khomenei Revolution in '79

Here is the text of the supposed quote:

"Live a good life. If there are Gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are Gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no Gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

Often the meme will say that the source is "Meditations."

Most of my (admittedly scant, internet based) research indicates that it is a misquotation.

I've heard about the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, commonly known as the "Ghost Army," from various amusing sources on the Internet. [Here is a Wikipedia link about them.]( 23rd Headquarters Special Troops) In short, they were an US regiment of artists who used elaborate props to fool the Germans into thinking they were a real army.

However, for all their elaborate work, how effective was the Ghost Army? Did they fool the Germans? If so, did this cause the Germans to make any major strategic error?

We all now the first flight with a heavier-than-air aircraft was conducted by the wright brothers in 1903, but when did the first aircraft model made for air-to-surface/air-to-air combat (not modified from a civilian aircraft) first see the light of day?

Were there critics who thought that A New Hope was so complete it could not be followed up? The Empire Strijes Back is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, let alone sequels. Were people surprised that it worked so well?

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Hey all, trying to do some research for my term paper and could use some help narrowing my search. I'm trying to find some old newspaper articles that would shed light on what the bankers at the time were saying during the Panic of 1837. If anyone knows of any newspapers publishing at the time whose target audience was bankers, it would elp out quite a bit. Thanks!

Politically or socially.

Maybe "good translation" is an impossible task, are there any translations you would recommend for any Song/Tang Dynasty songs or poetry? Preferably with sufficient annotation and the original text included, as I can read a little Chinese?

I've just about finished reading through the Grimm brothers collection of fairy tales, and I'm realizing old tales and legends are really fun to read. However, I don't really know of many other old stories that I can actually get my hands on.

I'm looking for stories from a pretty much anytime, anywhere, as long as I can actually buy the book in English or Swedish. To give you an idea, here's what I've come up with so far:

• The Grimm brothers (already read)
• The Edda
• Kalevala
• Bhagavad gita
• Beowulf

I'm especially interested in old Germanic folk tales featuring fairies (the tales that the Grimm brothers wrote down were surprisingly lacking in this regard considering they are usually referred to as "fairy tales") and other magical creatures.

Maybe this is the wrong place to ask (where would the right place be then?), but I figure you might know some interesting stuff I've never heard of, and it seems to fit with the theme of the week.

Its common knowledge that Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor in the hopes of crippling our navy to the point where we had no choice but to stay out of the war, are there any historians that believe that this attack caused their defeat because we might have never entered it otherwise?

If I recall my history correctly, the mentality of the U.S. before that attack was very anti war, mainly as a reaction to WWI? I have read in other places however that the U.S. joining the war was inevitable due to our allies being under attack (by japan? by germany? both?), is this true?

They had so many titles such as Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of Mexico, King of the Romans, King of Germany, King of Italy, King of Spain, King of Hungary, King of Portugal, King of England, King of Ireland.

I find it hard to believe that a family that powerful just kinda fell. What where the exact reasons?

Obviously, something's radically changing today in the way we pay for music, who winds up getting the money, and which performers get rewarded.

But, beyond all the talk about Spotify and copyright and "I didn't learn guitar to sell T-shirts," how unique a case is the contemporary music industry?

Is the idea of having a very few "star" performers and a lot of talented & dedicated amateurs (most with day jobs) really a new way of being, or does it resemble the way things were before LPs? Or printed sheet music? Or some other factor?

Historians, where do rock stars come from?

I had been watching a video on philosophy of mind where one of the speakers says that, in the past, people thought that humans were very complex machines: some sort of automaton theory. Everything we did and how we acted could allegedly be explained by purely mechanistic processes, which I imagine would be things like fluid pressure and muscles acting like pulleys to control our legs. They compared it to how the computational theory of mind has been dying and that it is interesting to see how we have shifted our view about how humans work to our most advanced creations. Similarly to how it was naive to think that a man is not significantly different from a series of gears and pressure valves, so too was it naive to think that the computer is a good analog for the brain.

While I think the parallel is quite nice with the slow death / evolution of the computational theory of mind, was something akin to the described "automaton theory" ever commonly held? It certainly seems reasonable to think that a bunch of DaVincis could create an artificial man out of cogs and Archimedes screws, but I suppose that doesn't mean anyone really thought it was true.

I don't really know if this belongs here, but I need som help on a paper that I am writing. It is about the murder of JFK and some of the conspiracies that exist on the subject. While it is easy to find the conspiracy theories, I find it hard to find someone who have some strong arguments against the conspiracy theorists. And also, if you know some conspiracy theories that you find exciting about the murder of JFK, that have some strong arguments, please let me know!