Why was christianity outlawed? When I think of Ancient Rome I think of religious tolerance.
1 Answers 2015-01-20
Why is it that rastafarians keep Haile Selassie in such a high regard?
1 Answers 2015-01-20
The title pretty much sums up my question, but I was wondering how much damage a wooden 15th-19th century ship could sustain— be it through battle, collision with geographical features, or adverse conditions— and still be repaired to what might reasonably be called its full operational capabilities. I do not know much about ship construction in this era, but how would the repair or replacement of large, integral pieces of the ship's construction be performed (in terms of how much the ship would have to be dismantled to repair it)? Was it more likely for portions of the ship to be patched/repaired, or replaced entirely?
2 Answers 2015-01-20
1 Answers 2015-01-20
It seems like I see a lot of discussion of how, in Medieval warfare, battle was rare, and economic devastation and raiding were the dominant strategies. Did Medieval knights receive much training on such matters, like how to rustle cattle and maximize the number that get back to the army camp and minimize the number who panic and run off or how to burn enemy crops while avoiding accidental injuries from smoke or fire?
Do we have any surviving manuals with advice on how to conduct such operations, or did everyone just try to glean what they could from Vegetius?
Addendum: Would non-knightly soldiers perhaps receive such training? It seems like the sort of raiding operations I'm talking about would mainly be the purview of cavalry, while the infantry would have had less of a raiding role and be more oriented toward battles and sieges, but 1) I guess there were types of cavalry other than knights or men-at-arms, and 2) maybe infantry could be more effective raiders than I'm imagining?
1 Answers 2015-01-20
China's Great Walls don't seem to be that formidable in height when thinking of how ladders were used when seizing castles. The massive length of the walls would must have also been difficult to have constantly guarded at every position. With that said, did other armies, especially the Mongols, actively try to come up with ways to scale these walls? Were there any notable breaches?
3 Answers 2015-01-20
What conditions allowed the far east (e.g. Dynastic China and Japan), India and the Arabic countries to develop and not the Americas? I assumed that both ends of the world would develop at much the same rate, yet the Americas stayed primarily a nomadic society with tools much cruder than the EurAsia counterpart.
2 Answers 2015-01-20
I picture them riding horses and planting crops by hand.
3 Answers 2015-01-20
I found something interesting as I was reading True Crimes in Eighteenth-Century China by Robert E. Hegel. While describing the judicial system for capital crimes, this fact came up, but Hegel doesn't explain why. What was the incentive for the Qianlong emperor to issue a blanket pardon, and so many times?
1 Answers 2015-01-20
I'm looking for English-language resources on the "lead" assassin, Raoulet d'Anquetonville. Does anyone know of some? Or just a quick recap of what we do know about him would be great too. Thanks.
1 Answers 2015-01-20
One of the most important innovations of the Macedonians that helped Alexander conquer most of the Western Ancient world was the sarissa phalanx, which could plow through almost any infantry formation. The great length of the sarissas enabled the first 5 ranks to engage in combat which granted them a big advantage over similar phalanx formations, and it would completely destroy light infantry formations. Here's some old documentary footage on the subject:
http://youtu.be/fwp0vBaVgNo?t=35m33s
This documentary footage gives a good demonstration of the formations but the sarissas they are using here are only 14ft long and they barely look rigid enough to be effective in combat. This is a bit concerning because sarissas were built much longer than this, up to a length of 23ft or even more (I've heard mentions of 27ft sarissas but I cannot find the sources)! One can imagine that a wooden shaft of this length would be so floppy that it would be hard to keep its tip from touching the ground!
One of the key facts we learned in materials engineering is that wood has the best hardness to weight ratio out of any natural construction material, so we're pretty sure that wood is the right material for the job, but how can we improve on nature's design? If they could make the spear shaft hollow it would allow it to be more rigid, but it's incredibly difficult to hollow out a narrow wooden shaft. Spear shafts were a huge part of Hellenic industry and culture so we can be sure that they had incredibly skilled carpenters but did they keep any secrets on how they made their spear shafts?
1 Answers 2015-01-20
I just saw Selma and it got me wondering if there were situations in, say, Russia where after the serfs were freed police or soldiers had to be dispatched because certain local governments would not free slaves or grant the freed slaves their basic rights?
I don't know if the fact that in U.S. history it is generally understood that it took a civil war to end slavery while most other nations ended it without a war makes that country anomalous.
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1 Answers 2015-01-20
Michael Moore's latest publicity stunt got me thinking...
He's caught a lot of flack for tweeting that his uncle died in WW2 by a sniper, and that snipers are cowards.
I seem to remember in the movie 300, when they go defensive because of the oncoming arrow barrage, King Leonidas says "Persian cowards."
My question being; How far back have foot soldiers thought of enemy marksmen/snipers as cowards?
1 Answers 2015-01-20
I just saw it in the title of another user's question and was suddenly struck by the strangeness of it.
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4 Answers 2015-01-20
Firstly, these videos probably covered a wide time range as I've seen many posted, and it's been awhile since I've watched them so my specifics might be wrong.
At any rate, it was interesting to watch them because they often involved a lot of disarming and grappling. Was the common soldier trained in these techniques and if so, did they translate well into actual battles? Or was it more for 1v1 sparring and showfights? Kind of like how you learn a lot of advanced martial arts techniques, but when an actual fight breaks out you'll probably just use a basic grapple and pummel your opponent anyway?
1 Answers 2015-01-20
This is the impression that I got from Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood and a random Chinese soap opera my mom was watching last night. The whole process seemed to involve a lot of stabbing and it struck me as a rather inefficient way to run a family values government :P
2 Answers 2015-01-20