In London recently, I noticed a few of the old war memorials referred to the Great War of "1914-1919". I've always understand the Armistice in 1918 to be the end of the war. Can anyone shed light on this?

I really want any and all mythological stories regarding time travel.

I read the Celtic legend of Niamh and Oisín when I was a little girl and found it fascinating how themes of time travel were being tackled even back in Medieval and earlier Europe.

Please don't think you'll bore me or not answer my question. As long as it originates in the Medieval era or an earlier time-frame, and contained elements of time travel (including falling asleep for centuries, waking up 200 years in the past, time moving slower or faster depending on where you live, etc), I'll greatly appreciate your answer.

Thank you in advance, historians!

PS: This is not location specific! It can be a Norse legend, it can be a Chinese legend. I don't mind :)

I've been watching and reading a lot about the lead-up to the Iraq War, for instance the excellent 3 part documentary "Bush's War" from PBS (up on youtube).

What seems pretty clear is Cheney and Rumsfeld reacted to 9/11 very quickly by gunning for Iraq, and they hung on to that all the way despite all of the evidence - or rather the lack of evidence - that Iraq had anything to do with it.

For me, that creates a vacuum of explanation however. What was Cheney (and the constituents who had his ear) really after, if you assume (as I think one must) that the Iraq plan was preconceived and not sincerely premised on WMD?

The interesting theory I've seen come up in searches here is the Honeypot theory. That it was a huge sponge just to soak up a bunch of terrorists on the loose, rather than allow them to strike at the US.

I'm currently researching for a major work in my last year in high school. I've been looking at Sri Lanka recently and have noticed a popularity in the political sphere with Communist/Marxist parties among both ethnic groups (tamil/sinhala). I was just wondering why that might be the case and what are the specific outlines of each ideology?

If so, are there other examples of the same kind of thing happening in other continents (North America, Oceania)? If it was the only time such thing happened, what were the key factors that made it possible? Thanks!

And where can I find any accounts on the Italians' experiences through the occupation?

I've been digging music from the Cotton Club from the 1920s & '30s. How did those big bands perform live with a singer and have the singer be heard over the instruments? Was there amplification? Were certain vocal types preferred over others because they projected?

I know that a number of important American artists were abroad in the 20s during prohibition - Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, and lesser known people as well. Was that a result of prohibition in the US? Did prohibition cause anyone to leave (or avoid coming) to the US?

I'm doing research for my low-fantasy novel at the moment. It's set in a roughly bronze/iron age culture (at best), though parts of the world are more stone age. My protagonists are having to find their way from one town to another, through difficult territory. This is something which I've rarely found described in fantasy books, it just seems to happen; it's taken for granted that someone knows how to get to somewhere and what skills to use.

But how? I've never really seen Gandalf get out a compass or map, and in my invented society I'm not sure anyone would have them.

So, for long treks, how could you navigate (on land--is there a term for this?) well?

I'm really intrigued by old english and I haven't found a good website to learn it yet.

In school we learned that the U.S. began to lean toward the side of the allies after the sinking of the Lusitania and Germanys policy of unrestricted Submarine warfare. Then the Zimmerman note led to the U.S. declaring war on Germany. What events could have led to the U.S. fighting on the side of the central power? Were there any moments where it could went either way?

Considering the rarity of snow and snowfall within Australia I was curious as to the Indigenous populations' attitude towards it prior to western colonisation. Are there any stories about it? Considering their attachment to nature, was it considered sacred or spiritual in any sense? How did they cope living in such a hot country and experiencing snowfall when it happened?

I'm re-watching the History Channel show Vikings and am wondering how long it would have taken the first Norse Vikings to travel across the North Sea to the British Isles.