For anonymity's sake, I'm only going to say that my grandfather worked in the State Department during and after WWII. He sometimes told a story that a member (or members) of a Japanese delegation urinated in a potted plant to show his (or their) disgust with the diplomatic proceedings. I mostly dismissed the story as a racist rumor passed along to dehumanize the Japanese even though my grandfather would have been in a position to witness this. My grandfather is long dead, and but the story is stuck in my head. If such an incident occurred, there must be other accounts, right? Can my grandfather's story be corroborated?

Homer's Iliad depicts several duels between great warriors of the opposing sides: Paris and Menelaus, Hector and Ajax, Hector and Achilles. Modern fiction set in feudal Japan often depicts battles beginning with a duel to the death between two samurai between the armies. I'm sure it would be easy to find other (semi-)fictional sources depicting champions dueling each other at the site of a battle.

So, my question is... was this actually a common practice anywhere in the world? What did it resolve? Would the victor "win" the battle, and the loser withdraw? Or would the armies still do battle anyways?

I know a lot of ancient civilisation doesn't get buried but the majority of the time when I think of - say - Roman buildings, they've been dug up from a few feet or more down. How do these ruined buildings end up underground?

I have a lot of questions about this topic:

How did they even make contact with Japan or establish a trade relation with them?

Was there force used like with the Americans or did it go peacefully?

How did the Japanese see this trade relation whilst being hostile to other western nations?

Why weren't other more powerful nations able to trade (for example: England, France, Spain)?

I read a bit about it but i don't think i really understand what has happened during that time period.

I'm a fraud analyst so that's why I'm curious. I could be completely wrong, but I'm guessing that the average commoner probably never saw members of a royal family or high ranking nobles. Some people probably had no idea what they actually looked like.

Are they any cases of royals or nobles or high ranking officials being impersonated or having their identities completely stolen?

Something that I see from time to time is information being used or stolen after someone has passed away. Even with death records, people still try to take advantage of it. In the middle ages, I'm wondering if it would have been even easier to assume someone's identity for a time..

Hey there everyone,

Just wanted to know how long it took for people around the globe to be aware of the discovery of the new continent? Also, once they were aware of this, was there any plan from other countries outside of Europe to go and discover this new land? Did east asian countries ever try to colonise the Americas?

Many thanks ;)

Thierry

I'm only a little familiar with Castrato singers and Baroque music all-together. My more specific interests are: what was the (if any) relationship between Castrati and the Ospedali training in Venice? Any information would be appreciated. (I apologize if flaired incorrectly)

Thank you.

To what extent has the government in the United States tested things on civilians without their consent? I've heard some horror stories but was just wondering what might be true.

some examples being: spraying bacteria off the coast of california, disease testing on blacks, or other shady stuff from MKULTRA

Most of the texts I've found about monarchies concern almost exclusively the office of the monarch. But, what sort of an organizational structure existed to give the officeholder this power, in 18th century or before in European monarchies? Who was the monarch's second in command, third in command, etc.? If a 17th century monarch would give the command of "bring me a shrubbery, ten miles long", who would do it, and in what order?

Also, how did he motivate his subordinates without a modern nationalist ideology?

I remember from historyclasses that we (talking about Sweden here) quickly converted from Catholicism to Protestantism when Gustav Vasa took power. And after that it was never really brought up again. Except for a brief mention that it might have contributed to the Dacke war, which was mainly talked about as a peasent uprising regarding heavy taxation.

Comparing that to England where catholics tried to blow up the parliament. It really begs the question, to my mind at least, why was it so easy to convert Sweden and Scandinavia? Or was it really so easy?

Hey!

Im writing an essay on what affects obtaining new knowledge with regards to History and currently on the topic of faith and need to find examples of history books that have as little of a bias as possible.

I understand that history books can't be 100% unbiased due to the "varying degrees of subjective interpretation", however books with as little biased would be great! Any period in time would be great, however books on the time of the crusades will be much apprciated! :D

Thanks in advance!

It sounds dangerous to spit on a trained soldier.

The western European powers we busy colonizing and being at war, Japan was having its civil war and invading Korea, but what was Scandinavia doing? Is it something that gets missed a lot or was there really just not much happening?

I'm just curious what made this decade be the one where it would hit the hardest.

Was the Mycenaean civilization as unified politically as, say, Egypt at the same time? Was there one King of the Mycenaeans, or was the situation more like later Greece with independent city states?