At the end of a battle I would assumed there would be a ton of damaged leather or metal (type of metal depends on age and area) on the battlefield. Would the winning armies just leave the armor to rust/rot on the field or take the leather and make it into other items and melt down the metal. I would imagine that metal was too expensive to just leave laying around so they must have taken it with them. Also broke weapons could possibly be reforged?

In terms of intact enemy weapons and armor what would become of them? I know that many armies did not have standardized equipments so I could see them just appropriating the equipment but armies like the Roman armies might not (specially not weapons)? Would they give the weapons/armor to their auxiliaries?

I'm looking to bolster my summer reading list and I think that this lot would be a great place to pool from. I'm looking for hidden gems that only the person with an extensive reading list about a particular area would be able to introduce. Thank you so much for your time and effort on this question.

I've been doing some research on public shaming recently, and have been encountering the term "witch hunt" a lot. Given contemporary writings, did there seem to be a level of awareness (among scholars of the time) that this was what was really going on during European and American witch hunts (i.e. that these people were scapegoats arbitrarily demonized by the community)? Or is this just a poorly appropriated term?

How did this tradition of wearing a suit to official stuff become a thing?

Let's say a Marxist party gets total power over a nation. What would they try to, and in ideal conditions suceed with, achieve with the nation? How would the country operate? Would there be any directly noticeable flaws? I know there are several intepretations of Marxism and I'm most interested in the ones that are as close as possible to Marx's and Engels' own thoughts and opinions.

This might be a bit on the edge of what is suited for this sub, but it still made me wonder. This is something I notice a lot when learning about history in English after I was taught in Dutch. Examples:

• King James II is called "Jacobus II" in Dutch

• Willem van Oranje is called "William of Orange" in English

• Karel/Karl/Carlos V is called Charles V in English.

Translating the name someone was called seems odd to me, and for some reason, we no longer do this at some point in time, with Kaiser Wilhelm being a name so familiar to people we don't even translate the word "Kaiser" any more. Why do we translate these older names, and why did we stop doing so in more recent times?

The population in North America dropped from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900, isn't this genocide?

My roommate is from mainland China and only has anecdotal stories to share, but I'm curious as to the state of Soviet crop maintenance as opposed to the States, which was prevalent in the late 70s to now.

I'm not sure if i buy the idea that Europeans were alwas filthy and rolling around in animal manure for so many centuries. For one thing they were uncircumcised and without some kind of washing, even in a stream, you can get infections down there. I dont see how you can go from bathouses in Rome to absolutely nothing in a century or two. Did the Church really tell people to stay dirty? Not wiping dirt, mud, or shit from their bodies or clothes? I get the lack of soap or deoderant.

Supposedly Arabs were always clean despite having a lot less water, though hot sand is a legitimate way to clean oneself off, though im sure the wealthy Arabs had baths, but i just dont believe no Europeans bathed between Rome and the 1800s with the reintroduction or sewerage and the invention of the toilet, shower, and deoderant.

Whats the truth here?

As far as I can understand, Middle East is a modern term replacing the term Near East to refer to the whole region encompassing from northern-most Syria to Egypt. But what about Eastern Mediterranean? Isn't that the same thing as Middle East?

And why do we have Fertile Crescent, and Levant, and Mesopotamia... Fertile Crescent I can understand, but what's with Levant and Mesopotamia that overlaps each other. Why do we have that many names? When do we use one and don't use another? Has there anyone in history ever use that term simultaneously?

I was recently watching Raging Bull,(as a long time boxing fan I don't know why it took this long.)But the scene in the beginning of the movie, Jake worries about never being able to fight Joe Louis, him being a middleweight and all.

With Raging Bull being made in the 80's and Lamotta's story taking place in the 40's, I had begun wondering if the scene was a bit of commentary on masculinity but also a piece of foreshadowing. Due to many in the boxing world believing that the term pound for pound was invented for Sugar Ray Robinson, who of course is the final opponent of the film for Lamotta.

So I just wanted to know when the term first used to see if it matches up to Scorsese's time line of when he made the movie.

I have read that he vetoed their entrance to the EU and was, at times openly hostile to the British. This is odd considering that he is best known for leading the French govt in exile in London in WW2. Please help me understand this enigma of a man.

Since it's the 99th anniversary of the Battle of Jutland, I thought I'd ask a question that has baffled me for a while.

After getting his "T crossed" by Jellicoe after the Run to the North, Hipper executes the famous Gefechtskehrtwendung ("Battle Turn to Starboard") that likely saves the High Seas Fleet from destruction at 1830. But at 1900, Hipper turns back towards the Grand Fleet, who then proceeds to cross Hipper's 'T' a second time. Hipper "battle turns" again, and disengages from Jellicoe.

So my quesiton is this: What was Hipper thinking in turning back towards the battleline of the Grand Fleet?