First of all let me preface this question by saying it is NOT a linguistics question. I’m happy to be referred to other subs, but please don’t remove this post for that reason. It’s a history question. What did the Sultans speak? What language are the primary source documents written in, etc.? I’m not asking about the particulars of any specific language.

The reason I ask is that I’ve seen some YouTube videos that make it sound like Persian, via the Seljuk Turks, was sort of like the Ottoman version of Norman French after the battle of Hastings. Other videos and sources say no, it was always a form of Turkish.

So what’s the real story?

Was this a well-worn cliché among the French? If so, which cheeses make the grate? Or are there holes in this figure? (forgive me)

"Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cent quarante-six variétés de fromage?"

Les Mots du Général, Ernest Mignon, 1962

So I was listening to the Ancient Podcast and the host was interviewing Professor Elizabeth Graham who said that the Classical Maya did not practice human sacrifice. That the part of human sacrifice was fake news and that the supposed killing of captives was just another rule of war. So question is, does the evidence support Professor Graham's claim?

If so how common was this and did any fight in the Spanish American War also? Edit* I suppose I should say joined the U.S Army.

I don’t want to say primitive here. Because they weren’t primitive. A Reddit or who commented on a precious similar post pointed that out to me.

However they were less government-y advanced I guess? Like the standard of the Americas was much smaller tribes. Not kingdoms like Europe or east Asia. There were empires of course, but they weren’t the norm like kingdoms in Europe were.

So what caused this change? Lots of the Americas have great geography for building civilizations. Why didn’t they develop similarly to Europe and Asia?

In school, we learnt about workers in Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union, but not about workers in Nazi Germany

At least from my modern perspective, much of what Sun Tzu wrote in the art of war seems to border the line between common sense and painfully obvious.

However, if I were some Chinese military leader reading the art of war shortly after it was written and saw "So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak." Or "There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare." Would I think to myself "Holy sh*t this Sun Tzu guy is a genius!" Or more along the lines of "Yeah I knew that why did you feel the need to write it down?".

Hi, I’m writing a paper on the phantom terror post-napoleonic era in Europe and I’m looking for sources on my paper. Could anyone give me a good place to start to research this topic?

I’m very new to writing research papers so I hope this is a decent place to ask.

Thanks!

Given this time is pre-gold rush, and before the belief of Manifest Destiny was widely held.......How might my family react to a decision to “head West?”

Did officers go over no-man's land with their men? Did they just send their men over and waited? I have been reading about Tolkien's time in WW1 and sheer lack of wound mentions makes me think latter

The more I think about it the more I wonder. While eating is a necessary and instinctual thing to do, smoking is absolutely not. Ingesting plants/meat orally can sometimes give you different highs or have a strong effect on the body/mind, but smoking them would take a whole new level of creativity. When and how did humans learn to not only smoke plants but then specifically grow and harvest particularly-powerful plants (opium, cannabis, tobacco, coca plant) for use? Also is there any hard evidence of documented substance abuse/addiction in ancient cultures, and if so what were the repercussions for someone who became physically dependent/addicted to such things? Is there any documented evidence of withdrawals or sickness or death related to medicinal plants?

Side question: Was there ever a time in pre-modern history where medicinal plants were highly sought-after and used as a currency? For example, I would think that the discovery of man's most effective painkiller (opium) would be quite a massive business long before the Chinese/British opium conflicts.

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edit: added coca plant because I forgot about that one :)

After the war most Germans claimed they had no idea about the holocaust and expressed shock and horror upon learning about it.

The question of how aware the average German was about the holocaust aside, were most Germans just okay with all the harassment, dehumanisation, threats of violence, and other horrible treatment of Jews, but thought outright murder was going too far?

Why was 3/5 chosen over another number like 1/2 or 3/4?

First up, I suck at headings at that one is probably no exception, sorry. I'm struggling a bit to put my question into sensible, clear words so if I've missed the mark, please just let me know and I'll try again.

What I am trying to ask is, once a disaster (especially, say, a military disaster, although I'm interested in any kind of disaster response, natural or military tbh) happened in the Ancient World, what happened next? How long did it take to even GET the news? Was there even a reaction? Were reinforcements/help dispatched? and so on.

I'm specifically asking about the Roman Empire because I not only know the most about them, but I think they have the nearest analogous circumstances of Big central government, highly organized military machine on hand, good roads and a 'pony express' type post to carry messages, propaganda machines that need to look good to the people and so on. I'm also most familiar with them. However, if you know of, say, some way the Egyptian or Chinese Empires handled this, by all means please comment too. I'm truly fascinated in how a large scale disaster would have been handled ANYWHERE in the roughly Classical Antiquity time period, if there's evidence to get details from.

If today we, say, had a military routing, or a mud landslide, humans can hear about it incredibly quickly. Mostly, we dispatch aid or reinforcements to the site, especially medical help. And we can obviously make all of this happen very quickly. Someone who was particularly badly hurt in the event, for example, can probably have news of their predicament reach 'home' quickly, and actions like a medical air lift performed within a very short window, thus saving lives that would otherwise not be saved. If we imagine troops attacking a city and finding they are outnumbered, new forces can quickly be diverted to the area (I'm aware there isn't really a modern world incidence of this so that's a bit hypothetical). If we imagine Ye Modern City having a natural disaster, Ye Modern Government can load up aid workers, planes, medical personnel etc and get them there asap. Ye Other Modern Government might step in to help, and so on.

What was the response for the Teutoburg Forest massacre? I assume 'Varus give me back my legions' wasn't the only response? How quickly did news get 'home'? Wikipedia has the snippet of ' Lucius Caedicius, accompanied by survivors of Teutoburg Forest, broke through the siege, and reached the Rhine. They resisted long enough for Lucius Nonius Asprenas to organize the Roman defence on the Rhine with two legions and Tiberius to arrive with a new army, preventing Arminius from crossing the Rhine and invading Gaul'... Obviously we have a timeline, but do we know the actual process that happened? Was there an 'official way to handle a millitary wipeout' book hidden somewhere? Was troop diversion immediate or delayed? How did messages travel? How fast and through what means? That sort of thing.

Likewise as the Boudiccan revolt started rolling. I assume some preliminary survivor took off running to a destination and reported that there was a revolt in progress please help. Where did he go, and to whom, and why that place? Was it just the first group of people he could see, or a specific way to handle this? Did they write a letter to the governor or send a military rider with post horses? Are we talking just average speeds, or could this be done fast? Once they got the news, what was standard operating procedure? Did they simply abandon potential survivors of the areas already hit as not worth further effort, or did they try to help? And so on.