How were they trained? How did they know where to travel for longer distances? Was it a common commodity like how everyone is allowed to have phones nowadays or is there like a bird post office? And where any other animals used as messenger besides birds?

I've found a real interest in learning the somewhat "mundane" details of what everyday life in different places was like for its citizens. I'm interested in learning about what goods and services were most important to them, the types of religious and normal beliefs they had, what things were accepted and taboo, what games they played, what holidays or ceremonies were important to them, just anything like that. I'm not so interested in kings, battles and conquest, but what most people were doing with their everyday lives. I just really don't know what genre or category this falls under enough to find anything on my own targeting this with more specificity.

It may be weird to say it this way, but I'm really interested in how different civilizations and towns functioned more than what they are. So essentially a sort of "functionalist history" is the best way to describe what I'm interested in.

Thanks for any help with this. It took a lot of thought just to explain it this much, so I appreciate anyone who tries to answer (even if it's just how to be more specific with my questions next time).

This has always confused me. During certain battles such as the Battle of the Somme, the frontline DID move, they created a bulge in the front. But since all the trenches were connected together wouldn't that mean that if the front moved then the attackers would now be in the defenders trenches, which would be connected to other enemy trenches?

Unless I'm mistaken and there were parts of the front that were not directly connected for over 500 miles, or if the defenders then sabotaged the captured trenches and blockaded them from being able to access the support trench?

I’ve seen many arguments going back and forth discussing whether a direct or indirect influence is possible or not, so I was wondering if there is anything close to a scholarly consensus.

One argument given that I found illogical was that Sumerian was long dead when the Iliad and Odyssey were written down, however I’ve heard that there are actually Gilgamesh Tablets from the 8th century BCE, which pretty much corresponds with the date of composition of Homer‘s works.

Is a direct influence possible or not?

Hi there,

I think the question is pretty self explanatory but it's something that has always confused me as someone who is actually Irish! I always see videos of Irish American societies within police forces and fire departments in the USA parading in Scottish style kilts and playing bagpipes as signs of their Irish heritage.

Bagpipes and kilts have no connection to Ireland whatsoever. I am aware Irish nationalists back in the early 20th century did attempt to 'claim' the kilt as a Celtic symbol and not a uniquely Scottish one but it never really took off and no one in Ireland would really consider wearing one today unless they had some connection to Scotland.

Likewise, whilst there were early Irish versions of the bagpipes these were commonly found across much of western and northern Europe at that time (16th century) but had effectively died out by the 17th century and were then replaced by uileann pipes in the late 18th century, a very different instrument to the contemporary Scottish bagpipe.

Anyway, in summary where did this decision to adopt Scottish culture and pass it off as Irish come from by these bodies ?

Was it simply a mistake by individuals who didn't know the difference between Ireland and Scotland or was it a deliberate decision because the idea of kilts and bagpipes seemed 'cool'? Or perhaps it was a group who feel that Irish culture does involve kilts and bagpipes as I outlined above.

Would love to know the views of historians on this as my research so far has led to a dead end.

Why French language was able to survive as a monolingual spoken language in Canada despite Quebec being so close to The Thirteen colonies (Quebec shares border with New England), whereas California became completely English speaking despite being located so far away from the Thirteen colonies? The whole southwest was part of the Spanish empire and particularly in California virtually all the most important cities have Spanish names Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego ,etc. So I supposed that the Spanish presence was pretty significant.

You've probably seen it in film where an army would be backed up by sometimes just a guy with a large drum and sometimes something borderlining an orchestra. Was that ever done in battle? And if so why? I can understand having music to pump you up but it doesn't seems like that's enough to make it worth it to put non-soldiers into the battlefield that the rest of the army then has to protect not to mention dragging the instrument's over long distances... It just seems like a lot of work for what is probably a minor psychological boost considering you aren't just running on a treadmill but fighting an actual army

Looking at Wikipedia, it says that the Essex class can carry around 90-100 aircraft, which is the same with the Wasp and Yorktown classes. Why was this kept the same / why not increase the capacity?

Hi Historians! I'm an aspiring novelist. English isn't my first language so if I came off as rude or condescending I apologize in advance.

I'm doing a world building on Gunpowder & magic fantasy with vanilla troupe - the elf, dwarf, orcs etc. but their world technological advancements are around this specific time period.

So what would be the tech gap between this period.

Generally

1. Agricultural
2. Industrial
3. Advancement in societal structure
4. Military technology

As I had to know these topic more in-depth than usual because balancing magic and technology required a lot of fine tuning.

Especially Humans, elves and Goblins since they have specific traits that can ruin the balance.

I'm listening to a very reputable Brazilian economist lecture on the history of coins and he is saying that after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century England went to an economic collapse too, the former Roman coins disappeared through the time, then their economy became a subsistence economy with barter only, and only with the reunification and centralization of the power of England in the 11th century under a specific king that I can't remember the name coins returned to England.

Thing is that I would understand if England went some time without coins after the collapse of Rome, but 6 centuries without coins? This looks extreme to me.

What is the truth here?

If everything we learn are based on the books we have today (or history Channel), how can we be certain they are telling the truth, when in most cases "History is always written by the winners". Not saying they lie, just that how are they sure that's what happened.

How do people find new evidences?

And sometimes, we encounter both opposites ideas of what happened. How can we be sure who is telling the truth?

Like the Spanish American War. In the US is taught that Spain attacked their boats therefore the US supported Cuba for the independence. However, in Spain, is taught that the US wanted Cuba for their own benefit so they did a false flag, exploding their own ships dressed as spaniards.

How can we know the truth?

*peninsula

Why not? Basically you can look at maps over the years and see the British chip away at French colonial possessions one by one throughout the 1700s.

The French at one point colonized the entire lesser Antilles in the Caribbean and by the mid 1700s they were left with just four or five islands.

Why not build their navy to compete with their arch nemesis? Why let the British outperform them by so much for so long?

Please explain the shift in racial tension in Boston. I’ve read the some mixed accounts of life for black people in the Boston area and a lot of it is conflicting. An article published by Tufts, makes it seem like Boston black and white residents were generally harmonious until the New Deal and Redlining in the 1940s. Other articles make it seem more like the great Migration sparked racial tension around the 1920s. Was this really just a separate but equal type of deal that disguised itself as harmony? I’m just curious how (if it’s true) they went so sharply from liberating slaves very early in history, being at the forefront of national abolition efforts to bus riots during desegregation in the 1970s.

I’m an Iranian American very closely watching the protests/revolution in Iran and feeling very disheartened. It feels in an age with guns and technology, overcoming the government seems impossible. Are there any examples of citizen led revolutions that overturned the existing government without foreign influence or war?