I have seen a lot of hate towards the TV show Vikings that airs on the history channel. I was just curious from reading some of the responses on this sub. If it is true that the Vikings did not keep records of their lives as they did in other cultures how do we truly know what is true and what wasn’t. It is said in history that the victor is the one who writes history. Also that if outsiders were the ones who recorded things of Viking culture did they do so objectively or how they saw them?

How powerful was he in his own right and how much was this just adding him to help keep the peace between Octavian and Marc Antony

Were the Old Prussians Slavic peoples that were Germanized by the Teutonic knights or were they Germanic peoples to begin with?

From what I understand pure iron is too soft and very hard to isolate even today, cast iron is is too brittle to make tools or weapons and carbon steel is relatively late invention. So what is the iron that were used before that?

I was wondering how big of a threat the Bismark posede to the British. Could it really do much damage to the convoys, or was it more of a psycological threat?

and were there any serious frayings of the relationship? I know about the relationship primarily in a napoleonic context and heard it started in the 14th century.

EDIT: thanks for all the great responses!

to tack on an additional question: when would you say this "special relationship" really ended and why? i'm seen a few responses mention ww1 and the 1890s in the thread so did the ultimatum end the relationship?

I've been reading William Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain, in which he traces the travel of the Byzantine monk John Moschos in late antique world. In another reading, I also found a short account of Cosmas Indicopleustes, a traveling Alexandrian merchant in 6th century.

I find reading the travelers' perspectives during that time interesting. I've been trying to learn more about people in ancient Levant for quite some time. So if I may ask: is there another account of travelers in late antiquity that I can read, especially Syrian travelers? To my knowledge, there were quite plenty of Syrian merchants during that time. Or maybe a review/commentary of their travel and their perspective (like Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain).

I appreciate the help!

I am currently confused about the definition of a primary and secondary source. Tacitus' Annals struck me as an example, I thought he was considered a primary source on the Roman empire. He describes Agrippina's 'supposed' murder of Claudius, however Tacitus was not present at the event. Is this actually a primary account?

Who could he be representing, considering the publication date being in the year 1837?

Hello Historians!

I'm volunteering with a very small, local museum/library/civic center/retirement home partnership to sort, digitize, and organize a lot of local, random photos. (Some have years, some have neighborhoods, some have full addresses, some have full dates, some have people's names, and I'm lucky if I get at least two of these identifiers.)

My question: Historians do you have any tips on creating a digital image/document numbering/naming identification system?

I'm making a Google spreadsheet and using Pisca, if that helps.

Thanks!

Hello r/AskHistorians,

I realize that the end likely hasn't happened yet and therefore doesn't fall into the purview of history, but I'm looking for something else.

What I'm looking for is a book that details context and method of the end-times theologies for all of the worlds past civilizations.

I've tried Googling and can seem to only find books relating to specific scenarios (and preachers trying to sell books (DAE #Y2Krapture)). I'm looking for a clearing house with the whole lot of them.

Thank you in advance