I know this question cuts across quite a few centuries and places -- I'm hopping the collective power of /r/askhistorians (or one widely read historian of state executions) can answer it. Mods have pity!

Hello!

I have watched far too many historical movies about Rome, and what strikes me is that nobody seems to wear a hat, aside from military helmets or the laurel wreath. So I am wondering, did the Romans wear hat? I am not good enough at Roman History to give a specific era, but at least I am more interested in the Republic.

It seems that around the time of the French revolution and during the American revolution most soldiers wore a tricorn hat, but by the time Napoleon came into power the much taller hats were being used. What prompted the abrupt change?

(First of all, sorry if you mods have to remove this, I know this sub is kinda really strict. Anyways)

I mean, they knew there was basically a 1% chance of winning to the US, and they already had a shit load of land. Why did they not stop invading when they had so much land, and take a huge gamble with US? I heard it was because they needed oil transported from the south and the Philippines would disrupt that with air strikes as they were US territory, and US stopped shipping oil, so they attacked Hawaii in hopes of slowing down America as they invaded US south east Asian territory. Imo I would of just stopped invading for a little and rebuild and solidify defenses, maybe given a few of the islands to America for oil trading rights again.

I have been listening to Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast about the French Revolution. I strikes me as odd that every time the government was overthrown the army simply accepted the new management and got on with fighting the Austrians, British, Spanish, Prussians, other Frenchman, etc.

The army does not seem to have remained loyal out of ideological devotion, because over the course of the Revolution its membership ran the gamut of political demographics including noble officers, foreign mercenaries, common-born officers, bourgeoisie active citizens, patriotic sans-culotte volunteers, and levee en masse peasant conscripts. Similarly, the government went from feudal monarchy to constitutional monarchy to republicanism to angry-mob-breathing-down-the-legislatures-neck-ism to ultra-leftist bureaucratic despotism to reactionary kleptocracy to Napoleon. The army probably wasn't loyal to money because the harvests kept failing and the economy kept crashing. The army probably wasn't loyal to government favoritism, because representatives on mission kept executing their commanders and micro managing them into dangerous hyper aggressive tactics. It's problematic to argue that the army was devoted to an abstract notion of national identity because they were busying slaughtering members of that shared national identity in the Vendee and Federe uprisings. In fact, the Federe uprising is an interesting counter example because iirc the French Navy joined the harbor cities in revolt against the central government. It's hard to argue that the army was loyal to the constitution because the constitution was at various times being invented, rewritten, suspended, restored, amended, suspended again, and Napoleon-ed.

In the midst of their employers purging each other, their families starving, their citizens revolting, their enemies swarming, and in general all hell breaking loose, the French Army kept fighting. Why?

edit: I don't know how or why my post title has been flaired with DEATH. What is it and how do I change it?

I suppose obvious ones are things like the Dodo, but what else? Do we know what they tasted like?

Edit: Some amazing answers, thanks guys. Keep 'em coming!

Also If possible an explanation why Islamic holy orders, if there were any, are not as famous as their Catholic counterparts.

China was considered the dominant asian power at the time. It was speculated they would have won against Japan. However, they lost. I feel it had to do with a lack of discipline and a corrupted military that fell in the face of a superior and well-disciplined army that was less corrupt. So, did China ever stance a chance to win? I think so, but I'm not a historian, so I'd like to hear what actual historians have to say in hindsight about China's chances and why they lost, and how they could have won the war.

Didn't Africa have its own land to start a civilization? Such as costal areas?

To make clear when I say cloak I mean large and heavy outerwear that was between waist to floor length, fastened in the front, and often had a hood. I'm not so much thinking of the less expansive capes that continued to show in later decades.

I absolutely love history and just changed my major to history at uw river falls with a minor in psychology. I love reading and studying history and would kill to be a curator. How do I become a historian?

In other words is there a real chance that an old lady chastised an astrophysicist by saying" it's turtles all the way down?"

With the anniversary of the atomic bombs, a fact that seems to be brought up during debates about the necessity of dropping the bombs, was the the Soviet Union had succesfully retaken Manchuria and was preparing an invasion of the Japanese Island of Hokkaido. However, amphibious assaults are notoriously tricky and I'm under the impression that the state of the Soviet Far East Navy and industry were not at levels capable of carrying out such an operation. However, it appears the Japanese Navy at this point was also incapable of putting up any serious resistance and Hokkaido was not as heavily defended as Kyushu. So I was wondering whether or not the Soviets could've invaded Japan and I know this would be just speculation, but how successful would they have been?