I am writing a fictional story that has elements of alchemy in it and i want to know what the knowledge of the elements looked like by 1500. I'm interested in views from throughout the world, not only Europe, but only before modern advances in science. Thank you!

Are they interchangeble terms? Or are there real differences?

I'm Canadian and had been told growing up that WW1 was a nation-defining conflict for Canada, in large part because of the success of Canadian troops in Europe. That being said, I always suspected that this might have been a bit exagerated out of patriotism/nationalism. Were Canadians truly so successful that they achieved any objective they were given? What factors, such as leadership, training, doctrine, and individual hardiness contributed to this success? Can anyone recommend an approachable history of Canada in The Great War? Thanks!

I've recently become far more interested in extreme weather phenomena such as hurricanes and tornadoes, and it seems like the central US is the singular hotspot for tornado activity in the world. What I'm curious about is if there are any accounts of how the Native Americans or even the settlers that were travelling west through the plains handled tornado survival. Are there any stories from the late 1700's through the mid-1800's of how they survived them?

Of course, during this period jazz was commonly associated with young men and women, flappers and the like. However, was there a significant amount of jazz fans of a more elderly age, such as 40 onward?

Now that I live in Virginia (where a good majority of the battles took place during the Civil War), I've been going to a bunch of Civil War museums, seeing their uniforms.. while simultaneously dying of the summer heat here. How did they march for miles and not end up dying of heatstroke? Did they have simpler uniforms for the summertime? Were they just used to the heat more?

The last 100 years prior to 1995. Didn't see 20 year rule, sorry /u/Polybios

What did the Germans and nationalists say directly after the bombing occured?

We seem very obsessed with anniversaries today. Especially when we can see a whole bunch of zeros line up. Did people using the Christian calendar at the start of the 11th century see the changing of the calendar year into quadruple digits as a momentous occasion? Did they do anything above and beyond the usual New Year's celebrations?

Was the fall of the Qing dynasty (and/or the century of humiliation that preceded it) thought of as a sign that the mandate was lost, or was the idea no longer around? If it was still around, did it survive into the Warlord Era or beyond?