Did some get a bonus 2 years? Did some get a shorter 4 year term? It seems the Founders wanted Senatorial elections staggered. After the first few cycles it is clear how it works. But how was the original 2 year staggering established?

Secondary question: how proportionally did the makeup of our legislative and judicial branches reflect popular sentiment?

In the game Age of Empires II you can use onagers to shoot at forests to clear them out of the way. It's a useful tactic to reach your opponent and launch a surprise attack. Now I don't believe throwing rocks at trees would be an effective way to fell them, but AoE2 is a fairly historical game so this feature might be a reference to something. Was terraforming an important part of medieval battles and sieges? Was there specialised siege equipment to do that?

On a related note, I vaguely recall reading that the term 'Ezo Republic' is actually anachronistic and that this was not actually an attempt at separatism, but rather that its founders accepted the imperial restoration but aimed to establish a reasonably autonomous entity within the new state. Is this a valid interpretation of events?

In the modern day, fire managers dig or mow firebreaks to contain a burn. Did indigenous peoples do the same? There's a lot of literature out there on why they burned, and some information about to what extent, but I can't seem to find much about how they actually accomplished it?

Britain losing Irish folks seems like a lot of MPs chalked it up as an acceptable loss, the proportion of Germans and Italians that came here as a portion of the population were much lower. Germany lost a few million people to emigration but had tens of millions to absorb the hit, similar with Italy.

Losing a full third of your population seems like something a government would be desperately trying to stop. Were they just unable to stop it?

Hello guys,

during WWII wehrmacht soldiers were equipped with anti burn first aid kit called "Brandkompresse". It was a gauze soaked with some ointment with a smoky smell packed in a metal red ´n white tube.

When I was a kid I accidentally burned my hand and my granpa treated it with brandkompresse he had left from war (he used to be a Czech doctor) and it worked just great.

Do any of you have any information about this medical equippment? What was the ointment used there?

Thank you for any information.

In a group of friends yesterday we wondered about the popularity of Hitler's signature mustache. We asked ourselves whether this style of facial hair was popular at the time and following ww2 it became unpopular because it was the choice of the terrible dictator. The other senario that we came up with was the possibility of this stylistic choice was even then a rare one. What would be the likeliest senario? Sorry for bad English and thank you for your time.

I was wondering about this because by King Cnut’s time there must have been a mix of Christian and pagan Danes in his army, but how did these two get along? Was there tension? What if one wanted to sacrifice to the Gods then would Christians join in and eat the sacrificial meat (which was often a taboo act for Christians)? How did a Christian king like Cnut interact with some of his pagan Danish subjects?

Hello, I'm making an Arma III videoclip for a Soviet-Afghan war song and I'd like to know what equipment they used. Google was not very helpful, and that's why I'm asking here. I'm also asking because I find the topic very interesting and I want to know more.

I'm interested in uniforms, ground vehicles (transport, combat and other), aircraft, weapons, knives, field shovels, medkits, food rations, cigarettes, alcohol, binoculars, cameras, navigation tools, possibly buildings / tents, recruiting office and such.

I'm thankful for all answers. :)

The description Marco Polo gave (or rather, the description that Rustichello gave) suggests human flesh was sold as a food commodity alongside other types of meat in Fujian. This city was not under siege when this description was made, so this instance(s) of cannibalism was not caused by extreme pressure or people starving and resorting to extreme measure to survive. I thought it was a very peculiar detail and I’ve never heard it before and to be honest, it doesn’t seem factual.

If any historians know the answer, I would be delighted to know the truth.

For example, I'm German and I learned that there were many suicides when the Russians invaded Germany at the end of WW2. There's also the story of how many folks killed themselves as soon as they got gas again after the war. But you rarely read about suicides e.g. in the concentration camps.

Ofc not limited to war. What about volcanoes for example? And can a link be seen in societies where suicide is deemed a sin for example Catholic nations?

Looking forward to your answers, thank you.

Obviously the nations of the past that participated in colonialism and imperialism benefitted immensely, but what are the long-term effects that it has on their wealth and economic robustness? Not just direct participation but also indirect if at all, as in for example Nordic countries which didn’t appear to explicitly or directly colonize other nations but potentially established systems that profited from it. The question pertains to human rights, and the supposed contradiction between attributing European and western wealth to respect for universal rights when those nations became wealthy through unequivocal violations of them.

I cannot find any listed in this sub's book list

Like is there any record of how people may have handled or viewed death when disease was much more prevalent and fatal? Or before the advent of modern medicine and triage, when people died from simple illnesses.

You might want to say, ‘these are generalizations that express a misunderstanding of history’, but understand I am generalizing based on working in a natural history museum where we often discuss the causes of death that pertain to disease, predation, and human versus human conflict. I focus a lot of my study on the history of disease and pandemics, but I’ve not read much on how people actually viewed death that happened often and quickly. I’m not going to pin down a particular time period, because my generalization denotes that accidental death and onset of fatal illness goes back s far as humans have lived on the earth. So you can choose whatever records, time period, or information you feel can qualify this answer adequately. Please feel free to recommend any reading material that pertains to the subject.

Hey folks,

I’m currently reading The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics by George Gheverghese Joseph, and in it he makes the claim that the Maya remained closer to their Asian roots than other groups which migrated to the Americas. For evidence, he cites sculptures of elephants, as well as a “clearer historical memory of their origins in folklore, arts, and myths.”

I’m having some issues stomaching this claim for a variety of reasons, including the apparent lack of these passed down memories in any other groups, and Joseph’s lack of historical training (to his credit, he seems to be a brilliant math professor and is asking some great questions with this work).

So did Mayans know about their pre-American roots (and elephants)?

Thanks!

I am having a difficult time finding this information. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, did Americans know that The U.S. had missiles on the Soviet border long before Russia began building them in Cuba? Based on how people reacted, it feels like many weren't aware and I'm pretty sure the military was notoriously secretive during the Cold War, but I'm not able to find any sources claiming that average citizens knew these things or not.

Thank you!