Basically I am asking how accurate the busts of figures like Sulla, Marius, Pompey, and Caesar are. Is there a definitive answer or is it more speculative?

Despite the massive losses, what does survive still seems substantial, at least in comparison to what survived from other ancient societies. We don't have much from the Etruscans or Phoenicians for example.

Has anyone attempted to quantify and list the works that have survived? Is there a comprehensive archive somewhere listing the works? Or even better, an archive also containing the works and their translations into modern languages?

What are the historical links from today to hundreds of years ago regarding that reference? How far back does it go?

Potential war criminal Wernher von Braun, who had been in charge of the Nazi's V2 Rockets - the ones that were fired randomly into civilian populations - worked for the American space program for years after the war because of his expertise. Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo torturer who is estimated to have been responsible for thousands of deaths, was recruited by the U.S. as an agent. I'd imagine that the Soviets would have executed people like these, but it also seems likely that they might have also wanted to use their resourcefulness.

Additional questions: Once they found out, how did the U.S.S.R and its population react to the knowledge that the West was harbouring and using Nazis in this way? And, if the U.S.S.R. was using Nazi's as well, did their public ever find out about it?

I know that Hofmann and a handful of historians theorized that, but what is the evidence?

I recently watched Ken Burns documentary The Civil War, and it mentioned the prisoner exchange program, when Grant ended it, because of murders of black union soldiers.

I'm curious about the rationale behind such a program. Wouldn't it allow both sides to recycle soldiers in equal measure and thus prolonging an already bloody conflict? Is this unique to the american civil war or is it an common occurence in conflicts of this era?

I am ofcourse aware of the horrible conditions the prisoners where kept under, but did that particulary bother the high command of either side?

Hello, I'm an IB student who's writing his Internal Assessment about the role played by Britain in bringing about the State of Israel, as well as its motives for the actions it took in doing so. I'm going to need to study up for this though, so I thought to ask you guys for recommendations for balanced, thorough books on the subject. It's an additional plus if the author is moderately well-known as I have to evaluate some of my sources too. I've been considering, among others, the books "Britain's Moment in Palestine: Retrospect and Perspectives" by Michael J. Cohen and "1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War" by Benny Morris. Would these be good candidates?

Another problem is that my city's university's library doesn't have many of these books so I need to find alternative methods of gaining access to them. Any advice on this would also be welcome.

I read that ISIS does not follow the "true faith" of islam, while others say they do indeed follow the historical fundamentals of Islam. Some people argue that communism is "in theory good" and only in practice has it resulted in the death of many because "Stalin was not a true communist". As for national socialism, the ideology resulted in a holocaust and invasion of a large amount of nation states. Nazism in any form we've ever seen is terrible, there is no question about it. But from a historic point of view, could anyone argue "Hitler was not a true nazi" just like some do when it comes to (in practice) communism or other totalitarian ideologies?

One would think other allies of Germany would be hesitant to trust someone who breaks a nonaggression pact. Did Italy respond diplomatically or internally in any way to the pact being broken?

Recently I have come across many accounts of people who are seemingly ok with death.

As examples:

Cato committing suicide in front of Caesar, living thanks to a surgeon and then subsequently tearing off his bandages and ripping his own insides up to finish the job.

The Tezcatlipoca representative in Aztec culture. A youth would volunteer to play a part in a religious festival where he would spend a month dressed up as the aforementioned god and be given a harem of beautiful women, before proceeding through the streets playing a flute, to a temple where he would be sacrificed.

I could go on and give more examples of things like this in ancient history (Spartan and Samurai culture spring to mind, not to mention Child sacrifice in pre-Colombian culture. How would a mother/father justify this to herself?)

Anyway, my curiosity lies in the mindset not of these cultures but of the person who is choosing to die. How did these people see death? Would they not have been afraid of the physical pain they would experience as they willingly walked towards their death? How on earth did they override the basic instinct to fight death?

To me choosing death for honor or religion unimaginable as a course of action, but I know I am a product of my environment. I am interested in the environment that creates this mindset.

The main question is: How would I as a human sacrifice/honor suicide feel about my death?

As follow ups: what changed so that we in the modern world (Certain states and groups excluded) hold life in such high regard and do our best to maintain our own lives and avoid death? When did this change occur and how?

PS. I really hope this question is not seen as being to general, so I have tried to limit my questions to a few historic examples I am aware of.

It seems like every 2-3 days we get somebody asking whether the Irish were held as slaves in America. It is such a common question that we have a FAQ about it. I'm curious as to why this is such a hot question and why it seems to be such a big topic on reddit.

Did the two countries become allies or just more friendly to eachother ? Was there still some tensions ? Did it influence or was influenced by the space race ?

edit : spelling

Not to project my western world view on different cultures, but Singapore just seems so incredibly well organized, successful, and frankly rich, as compared to other south East Asian countries. What are the historical reasons for this discrepancy?

The thing that brought this up was this post that I found in a subreddit,

If anyone ever has to deal with the "You white people held my people as slaves." bullshit. You can easily piss them off, but only if you're of irish heritage. The Irish went through a very similar deal of being slaves. Except theirs was 10x worse than the African American slaves in generally the exact same time period. Often referred to as the "forgotten white slaves." Not only were Irish slaves cheaper, but there was absolutely no regulation on how they had to be treated. Black slaves in America were considered property, owners had to provide them with housing, food, and water. Regardless of the quality of those things, that's still better than what the Irish dealt with. Because they were considered tools, not property. You could break and kill your tools and go get a new one for very little money. So anytime a stupid black person pulls that shit on me, I explain how my ancestors were slaves around that time period too, and yet I'm not bitching about it.

Now I cant tell if there is a kernel of truth in it, or if its just a incredibly racist form of badhistory, that's trying undercut the struggles that African-Americans faced in their past by saying that white people went through it too. Any response would be great, thank you!

Also, can you tell me the political biases of the author for the book you recommend. Thanks!

Do we know any of the possible motives? From reading Caesar's De Bello Gallico it seems like he was Caesar's most trusted Lieutenant and 2nd man. Yet he turned heel when Caesar crossed the Rubicon.

Why did he do this? Did he have any personal relationship with Pompey? Did he have a grudge against Caesar? Or was he a staunch Republican?