Greetings historians,

I have a particular affinity for pieces of very obscure history one would not normally learn about in any history class, but I'm not sure where to start studying any of this. I'm not even sure if this type of history has a proper term. Here, in any case, are a few examples of what I'm looking for:

• In the early days of knighthood, knights apparently weren't too keen on killing each other. However, all these people knew was war and as such they'd have semi-mock battles where they'd take each other prisoner for ransom. During one such battle, a knight took a sword/spear through the eye slot of his helmet, and died on the field. All the other knights on both sides were so upset that a knight had died, they stopped the fight and came together to hold him a funeral.

• There was a time in ancient Egypt when an essential part of a pharaoh's coronation was for him to appear publicly and jerk off into the Nile in front of a crowd.

• In ancient Scotland, a king would have his subjects suck his nipples as part of his coronation, as an act of submission to him. This was an essential part of the coronation of without it one could not become king. In these times, to cut off the nipples of a possible future king was to prevent him from ever being crowned.

Obviously, without doing a masters.

Why wasn't the english accent maintained? Furthermore how did the south develope such a thick southern appalachian dialect?

Thank you.

During the years 1675 to 1678 was there a reason a family in france would uproot to Germany? One generation later changing name from Herlan to Erlewine ?

As opposed to other Confederate generals?

What's different from they way they were made? What's in them? Why did this change occur? If so, how closely was it linked to the war?

I have several books on Byzantium but they all skip the subject. I know of Ecloga, Basilika and of course Corpus Iuris Civilis but what about criminal Byzantine law? What were the procedures in case of, say, murder or robbery? What about right to appeal?

I'm specifically thinking of the cult of saints, which resembles the notion of demi-gods; the cult of Mary which resembles the cult of Isis (Stella Maris, etc); the consumption of the blood and body of Christ transubstantiated as bread and wine, which resembles the similar Mithraic ritual consumption implied in the Tauroctony; the connection or lack of connection between Christianity and the other fashionable death-and-resurrection mystery cults of the East; the Devil as Pan interpretation; Augustine of Hippo's obsession with Neoplatonic and Manichean thought; the use of altars, incense, and a priesthood, as in Roman religion; the obsession with blood in Central and South American Catholic artistic traditions being tied to aboriginal human sacrifices in that region of the world; and other similar ideas that often get bandied about by laymen. Do any of these or similar ideas hold water? Why or why not?

I have expressly included Africa and Asia in this discussion so that experts on the Church of the East or Ethiopian Christianity can chime in.

Were there ever alliances between specific Shogunates and imperial China?

I am a huge fan of the AskHistorians podcast, but I watch them significantly faster then they are released. Does anyone know of any historical podcasts of the same caliber and depth? I'll watch one on pretty much any topic as long as it is good quality and, most importantly, accurate.

A lot of people know that the Romans 'stole' or copied a lot of Greek gods and named them differently. Did the Romans also have something similar like Mount Olympus? In what way did the Roman origin of the gods differ from the Greek ones?

Which defeat was worse and had a greater negative impact upon the German war effort?

The defeat at Stalingrad due to the encirclement and resulting surrender?

Or the defeat and subsequent capture of the Afrika Korps in May 1943?

Or were they both equally bad defeats?

Apologies if it's been asked, search turned up nothing and the 'ask about hitler' sub reddit is nothing but jokes. Thank you in advance.

Assuming that they were aware of what was going on, and made their best effort to dock in a northern state .. but somehow the sea pushed them down into an alternate path.

thank you.

what was charlemagne and his sons view on the slavic tribes/kingdoms on his eastern borders? were there alot of conflicts?