Up to the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal was decisively winning the war. The Romans did win at the end, but it baffles me that the Romans didn't see Cannae as a significant loss to even bother negotiating peace.

I am interested in an explanation of why Rome believed they were still "in the war" - that is, not utterly defeated.

On a more general level, are there other empires, kingdoms, nations or states historically known for a ridiculous stubbornness regarding losing wars?

And on a more abstract level, how do such civilizations come into being as opposed to other "weaker" ones? What are the conditions or developments that result in such a strong belief in one's invincibility?

I realize that Allah is the Arabic name for the Judeo-Christian God and was used by Arab Christians and Jews before Islam, but I recently learned that Allah was also worshiped by pagan Arabs, along with his 'daughters' Uzzah, Allat and Manat. Another thing that always confused me was that that the name of Mohammad's father was Abdullah, 'Servant of Allah', even though he was presumably pagan.

• Was Allah actually worshiped by pre-islamic Arabs?
• Did pagan Arabs equate him with the Judeo-Christian God and simply add him to their pantheon? Or did they see him as a completely different god?
• When Islam started, did early Muslims equate their one God with the one worshiped by Pagan Arabs?

After the Ottomans besieged Perchtoldsdorf on their way to Vienna, the town agreed to surrender and to in return be spared from violence. The Ottoman army broke this promise and massacred the inhabitants. They later offered the same "deal" to Vienna, but having heard of the events at Perchtoldsdorf, the Austrian commander at Vienna did not even consider surrendering.

Given that the events at Perchtoldsdorf completely ruled out Vienna surrendering, why did the Ottomans still break their promise? Did the inhabitants of Perchtoldsdorf somehow provoke the Ottomans prior to surrendering? Was breaking the terms of surrender in this way common in Renaissance Europe? Was surrendering commonly seen as risky?

According to The Discoverers by Boorstin, there was no reliable way of keeping track of minutes and seconds throughout the day until the invention of reliable clocks a few hundred years ago. Prior to this, people had to use sundials, which could only keep track of hours and only during the day, and hourglasses, which had to be reset manually.

How did this change human life and culture?

I'm sorry if this is the wrong subreddit, /r/askscience didn't seem quite right, and /r/answers said no medical questions.

I've gotten all the standard vaccines. I'm in decent shape. I've never had a serious disease, just common colds, chicken pox and shingles, and other childhood stuff. I have had many inner ear infections, and abscess wisdom teeth. I've also had three children, one of whom was an emergency c-section (umbilical cord began to fail, baby was in distress).

So, my question is, would the average, healthy person today, have survived to middle age 500 years ago? Or would things like minor infections that we treat easily today have killed them? What about pregnancy and birth? 500 years ago, my daughter born via c-section wouldn't have survived, but I'm not so sure about me.

As I understand it Islamic law forbids any man of having more than four wives. Ibn Saud apparently had 22 wives. How was he able to reconcile this with Islam, especially considering the highly religious nature of the Saudi state?

For example Benjamin Franklin, how did people determine how fluent is fluent? Has there been consensus throughout history how fluent is fluent? Is being considered fluent something simple like holding a conversation? Perhaps is it being able to live in that country and communicate with ease? Or is it something really hard like not having an accent?

Did other kingdoms begin to militarize in anticipation of the Ottoman conquest?

Why was Mesopotamia originally settled, and why did they eventually move over to the Mediterranean (Phoenicians etc.)

Designs like the Walking Liberty half dollar and Peace dollar all seemed to fade from the early to mid 20th century. What happened? How did such a short termed President like JFK end up dominating a US coin?

I just watched Dracula Untold and well, he looks like a oldachool badass.

It seems incredible that the Ryukyu Kingdom was not outright destroyed for four centuries, though at times it payed tribute to Japan and/or China. By what means of diplomacy did they accomplish this?

I have a class about the folklore of the Slavic Vampire at Florida State University, and in our reading for today we came across Vlad Tepes/Voivode Dracula, whom the author claims as inspiration for Dracula. However, he does not claim he is Vlad the Impaler. Yet, whenever I google both of those names, the first result is the Vlad the Impaler wikipedia page. Are they different names for the same person? Thanks!

Basically I need to find reference to ostracism in:

Thucydides-Book 1 And herodotus, histories(specifically regarding the ostracism of Aristides and Thermistocles' role in this).

Howdy everyone! Thanks for taking the time to open this!

Anyways, I understand that Hannibal Barca, his brothers, and a couple others ran the military show for Ancient Carthage during the Second Punic War, but who were the Shophets (Judgets, like Roman Consul I guess?) who ruled over Carthage during the Second Punic War?

I've done a lot of research (Internet based mainly) on this subject and find really not that much at all on actual names of these rulers.

Additional Question: Do we know of any individual names of Carthaginian bureaucrats and aristocrats (Maybe even families?) who were against the War, or at least Hannibal himself? I ask this because I also understand that Hannibal's ability to wage his Italian campaign precarious due to the Carthaginian bureaucracy that refused state-funded reinforcements (Meaning that the nation of Carthage was rather apathetic to helping Hannibal and he had to rely on his own family and familial allies to fund him and his other generals)

I'm very sorry if these questions don't seem to make sense because this seemed to be the only way I could think of to word them!

(Last question I swear. Are there any books in existence that would allow me to get a better understanding of the whole Carthaginian side of the war, maybe a well-researched historical fiction novel focusing on Hannibal & Co, or is there an academic paper of sorts?)

Would I have heard of it at all? Was any information withheld or censored by the government/elites?

I'm mainly interested in seeing if peasants in other "major civs" would be inspired by the events in France.