I'm curious as to why Australia was only colonised by the British. It has a lot in common with Africa in the 19th century - remote*, huge, inhabited by 'primitives', rich in natural resources - but no other colonising nation was interested, as far as I know. Was Britain that unchallenged?

*Edit: I may be underestimating the difficulty in getting to Australia compared to colonial Africa, but I figure it can't have been that bad if penal ships could be sent with any regularity.

The title is pretty self-explanatory, but I thought of this question while studying WW1 and remembering all the Merchant Marine ships getting attacked during WW2. So, if a private shipping company is, say, taking supplies from New York to London in 1915 and gets sunk by a German U-Boat, who pays for that ship? Do insurance rates rise astronomically during war time? Do governments make deals or guarantees with shipping companies, insurance companies? Or would the ship owner simply eat the loss?

Thanks for any insights.

This question came up during this weekend and I am neither a historian nor a theologist, so I might be entirely wrong.

I remember greek and roman gods (probably nordic gods, too. But I know nothing about them) as having character and an agenda, having favourites and so on. I would consider the story of Zeus and Europa or the story how Prometheus brought fire to humans, against the will of Zeus which led to the creation of pandora as such examples.

But if I think of the godly beings in Christianity, Islam and Judaism, I'll just see some form of "neutral" god. A creator with some form a values given to people as rules. But he is more of a judge than an active participant.

Another way to put this might be: Todays gods embody the good, while ancient gods were more ambiguous?

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How was it decided that there would be a lander and an orbiter? Were there proposals to do a "straight shot" (where all of the crew land on the moon in one craft)? What other ideas got tossed around?

Was the general design and mission outline used in the Apollo program already well-established when Kennedy announced the initiative to land on the moon, or was it invented by NASA in subsequent meetings? How did the "final product" differ (if at all) from the earliest ideas of the Apollo program?

Yes I know it was an important battle and as far the saying goes "he lost the fight but won the war" . But he was in one known fight with 300 people (well with many others with him but only 300 agoge trained soldiers) and he lost that fight (as he probably expected).

What was the reason he was praised so much and still got to become famous and even got a movie made after his lost after thousands of years and have monuments and sculpture after him. Was the sole reason is bravery of fighting against a huge army with a tiny fraction of enemy type of army and gave the greek armies time to unite and fight back?

I know that this may be up for some interpretation. What I mean is one which was under Roman control, ran by Romans, and employed at least some Roman architecture. I am talking classical Roman empire, not Byzantium.

Edit: By "classical Rome" you can interpret that as pre-Justinian

I want to exclude merely conquered cities. I want the most easterly city which was built, or substantially influenced by Romans. Another way to think about it is the most easterly city containing substantial amounts of classical Roman architecture.

I was re-watching Band of Brothers recently and it occured to me that the average US rifleman using the semi-automatic M1 Garand must have had a significant rate of fire advantage compared to his German/Japanese counterparts. To what extent was this an advantage? Was it commented on at the time? Did accuracy suffer compared to the bolt-action counterparts?

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Hello everyone,

I have been doing a bit of research on the First World War and I learned some time back that the Senegalese Tirailleurs spoke some form of pidgin French and that the drink Banania's logo "Y'a Bon" reflects this. However I recently heard that this is a myth. So what is the low down with this? Were the Senegalese taught a simpler version of French and if so, was it to do with racism or was it for some other reason?

How did the Portuguese treat Brazil differently from the Spanish treat the rest of Latin America? What differences has that created?

Okay, given that my flair indicates I focus on ancient and medieval military history, this question is really embarrassing for me!

When full plate armour was worn, were any additional pieces of armour worn under it, like a padded gambeson and/or a maille hauberk?

I've always wondered, If someone could explain that'd be awesome.

Episode 9 of Band of Brothers features a doctor at the camps insisting that the survivors are not fed too much too fast, and kept in a central location to facilitate care. When these camps were encountered, how did the East and West organize a response to the human rights need? Both effectively and ineffectively?

With slavery formerly abolished in the South, were white rapists no longer as free to force sex upon African American women, or did their status as citizens offer no protection?

When discussing the widespread rape of black women, historians generally characterize this as a grim reality of the slave era. However, I'm skeptical that it became unacceptable to have sex with black women as soon as they became legally free. In 1870, if a black woman was raped by her white employer in Georgia, would she be able to bring the crime to any kind of trial?

Do we know how cultural permissiveness toward this kind of sexual contact changed after black women became legal citizens with rights? Was it no longer acceptable for men to rape them?

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