So I'm in a music appreciation class, and we started out learning about Gregorian chanting music. I know there was music happening outside the Catholic Church, but much of the European world's music centered around prayers during mass. What was music like before that time, whether religious or pagan? If Gregorian chanting was the beginning of Western music, what was going on before? In addition, if other more advanced music was going on before that, why would the Church revert back to such a simple and primitive form of music like chanting?

Obviously Great Plains tribes would be aware of other Great Plains tribes and maybe a few Ohio Valley tribes, but how far does that go? Is there any evidence that say a Sioux might have run into an Inuit on random travels? Were Native Americans explorers/interminglers at all? I've been reading some papers in my college class and they're all very superficial histories about occasional border skirmishes between neighboring tribes.

TL;DR: Did Native American societies mix/travel peacefully at all and if so, to what extent?

Reading "1776" it seems like everyone else realized this was a good idea and the reason he didn't was because... he didn't feel like it!

I'll spare you the usual speech I give about why they are my heroes. The fact of the matter is that my grandparents were racists. The thing is this: I never would have known that. Here is the reason I couldn't have known, yet somehow found out. What I'm looking for is some similar phenomenon in history (possibly the same generations about the same issues). What do historians know about it, and does it have a name?

You know how when you're a child, especially a very young child, you have talks that to you are just casual talks, but to the grownup it's very serious because this is a talk that will shape your future morality? In your complete innocence, you ask your oldest grandparent about death, or perhaps you're a black child asking her mother, "How come we get invited to all of Mr. & Mrs. Whit's parties except the ones that their Nana and Papa come to?"

I remember some of those talks I had with my grandparents. I remember that every time my question had anything to do with race, they taught me that racism is wrong. Then they did an about-face when I caused fear of the possibility of introducing "negroid blood" into the family line.

As best I can make out is this: They knew intellectually that racism was wrong, and taught me so DESPITE the fact that they couldn't rid themselves of their own emotional racism (which overcame them when I brought home my first girlfriend). The fact that my 1/2 black girlfriend's mother was the white 1/2 just made things worse.

Is there a word to describe that sort of forward-thinking morality or subculture where one believes one thing, but knows, and teaches the opposing view? Is this known to be a phenomenon of any significance before or since the Civil Rights Movement?

Follow-up question: How did Napoléon III's Emperorship differ from Napoléon I's if at all?

The amount of English-speaking WW2 air combat documentaries is legion, but few and far between do you get to see German pilots and their opinions of Allied aircraft. What did they think of the enemy machines they fought, compared to their own fighters?

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cross-posting this question from /r/NoStupidQuestions, where I didn't get much response.

Why was homosexuality declassified as a mental disorder in the 1970s by major psychological institutions like the APA? I've heard it was because of pressure and inside influences coming from gay activists, but I always thought it was because of new scientific research that disproved earlier theories on sexuality and what was 'deviant.'

It is widely stated that such endorsement of policies led to the housing crash of 2008. Was there the same level of dispute in the media and among partisan debate predicting the resulting crisis that we see today over similar issues?

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Was he ancient greek or ancient macedonian?

The story goes that at some conference/meeting/summit held in the US, a visiting USSR official spots a common cylindrical projection map with US foreign military bases or some-such marked and which makes the Cold War roughly look like an East-West conflict. The official sends for a map from his office to show his counterpart: the USSR used a North Pole centered projection map, making the USSR look quasi-surrounded.

I know a lot of people are very passionate about map projections and that kind of thinking is consistent with what I've read about Russia's strategic concerns but did something like this really happen?

If I am not mistaken the netherlands became a republic during andere after the 80 year war with spain however it is now a constitutional monarchie

Could I waltz into the forum openly armed with a sword? Could I keep weapons in my home if I was a citizen?

1. Would it have been difficult for a serf to move to a major metropolitan area and start a new life?

2. How was this policed?

3. Were there bands of men who would track down serfs and drag them back to their landowners?

4. What was the punishment for leaving the land you were supposed to work?

I'd be interested to learn about any country that had serfdom (especially Russia).

I'm looking for a website or at least a torrent that includes all the book's folios (by folios I mean illustrations).. its a pain to collect them one by one and even if I did I wont be sure that i have collected everyone of them.

It says the Prince of Wales "set out from Bergerac on 4 August 1356 on a long chevauchee northeast through Limousin and Berry, besieging and capturing- by the use of Greek Fire or flaming naptha- the castle of Romorantin"

I assume the knowledge would have been brought back from one of the crusades but didn't the Byzantines closely guard its secret, even from its "allies" in the catholic west?

Were the Jutes a proto-Viking people seeing that they came from Jutland, Denmark? Even if they weren't, surely the people who became Vikings knew of those mobilization of people/raiders to Britain, so why didn't they join in?

I've read one theory suggesting that as Charlemagne's empire expanded it put pressure on the Scandinavian people which resulted in them going Viking to try and find land and resources elsewhere.

Is it just as simple as people like the Goths or Vandals or whomever putting pressure on the Anglo-Saxon people which caused their migration and that the Scandinavian people didn't feel that pressure until a few centuries later and thus had no impetus to go to Britain?

I was just looking up World War 1 and I saw that Japan entered into WW1. This blew me away as, 1. WW1 is very heavily shadowed by WW2, and 2. I had no idea that there was even an Asian Theatre in WW1, as I had understood the conflict was predominantly European.

So, my questions are as follows:

1. Did Japan enter WW1 only to expand its borders?
2. Were there any significant battles in the East during WW1?

I'm going to continue reading about this as I find WW1 and the things that built up to it fascinating.