I've heard on a number of occasions that the Confederate army had plans to use pikes or spears in their army, but the plan sort of fizzled out before it could be realized. I've heard different things about whose idea it was; some say it was greenlighted by Robert E. Lee, and others have said that it was Stonewall Jackson's idea (and his death is why the army never used the pikes). Either way, I've heard it from enough sources to get curious. More maddeningly, though, is that none of the sources ever said what the South intended to do with these pikes.

I thought pikes were made obsolete with the advent of the firearm, especially with artillery? Both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were intelligent, military-minded men, right? So what were they planning on doing with their spears?

I hope my question made sense. I hope nobody else had asked it! I couldn't find it with a search, or on the FAQ.

Being the only U.S. president who spoke English as a second language, I can only hypothetically assume he had one during his youth. But as he served his way to the point of being elected president did the man pronounce his R's with the distinctive thickness of a Dutch accent?

I was hoping to look more into the period and was wondering if someone could recommend a good book or two that would provide a good overview of the subject.

When you study hodgepodge that is the English language, you can look back through the various words to find an origin in another, older, language.

For instance, in writing this post, I've learned that "hodgepodge" came from the 15th century term hotchpot which was a type of stew. And THAT came from a 13th century word: hotchpot. And from there I could trace it back a bit further to Middle English and then either old Dutch or Germanic roots.

Everything seems to have Old English or Greek or Latin roots. But how far back can I really go? Suppose I was a Roman language historian in 5th century BC and I wanted to know the origin of the Latin and the other languages around me. How far back could I go? How far back can we go today? Who was the first person to point at a big cooking bowl and declare that to be a pot and how did they come up with that word?

Ancient Rome is said to have up to 1 million citizens living there. How did they managed/dealt with the traffic? Like did they have separate traffic lanes, rules for signaling, traffic laws? And how did they deal with intersections? Did they have traffic police, roundabouts, or did everyone tried to go through at once?

Expanding on that, it is a given that much ethnic hate on a widespread and personal level against the Jews before the Holocaust already existed. Did the same levels of hate and fear work in favor for the Romani genocide on the ground? How would civilians view the Romani?

Hello! So this AMA is intended to cover the Thirty Years War as well as the build up/aftermath.

The panellists will show up at various times so if a question doesn't get answered right away don't worry, all questions will be answered eventually. Our panellists come from a wide variety of backgrounds, so feel free to touch on military/social/religious/political topics.

The panellists are:

/u/Sid_Burn - I can cover generally any topic, from military to politics to social issues. I mostly focus on Prussia but can cover all of Germany

/u/elos_ -Can cover topics relating to France and Germany from 1618 onwards

/u/Aethelric - Can cover diplomatic and social topics and the run up to the war

/u/Vonadler - Covers European warfare and the conflict as a whole

/u/donaldfdraper - military theory and French history

What happened to Russia’s government between World War 2 and pre-Cold War that the United States went from supplying them against Germany (a massive amount) to the highest tensions could get without actually snapping? Under the Lend-Lease, we sent them somewhere around $12 billion worth of aid, and now we’re a button away from full scale war? Looking at Britain’s Operation Unthinkable, if the Western forces were that worried about the Soviet Union, why didn’t we leave them alone when Hitler moved east?