I have a movie about the Battle for Red Cliff (apparently also called the Battle of Chibi), it depicted the battle and the lead up events/skirmishes that ultimately lead the Lui Bei Defeating Cao Cao (correct me if I have the names wrong). Some of the tactics used in the battles depicted I believe were plausible (shiny shields in the sun?), but how historically accurate was the film in depicting the chronological order of the skirmishes and the accuracy of the Tactics used?

Of all the nations who lost in WWI and were subject to more or less harsh peace treaties, only the Ottoman Empire managed to reject theirs, and later signed the Treaty of Lausanne which provided them with much more favorable conditons.

Why could they do that? Why couldn't e. g. Germany reject the Treaty of Versailles and later come up with a more favorable treaty?

Did the discovery of these new metals give a clear advantage for one civilization over others? Did overall quality of life increase with these new discoveries as well? What happened to just day to day when these new metals were put into everyday production? Was there even enough for more than a military use? How drastically did the military change? Was it just updates of their old equipment in the metals, or were knew weapons made specifically for each new discovery of metals?

I'm not exactly sure which new metal was formed first, but I assume that one and the next would be the biggest leaps in technology. Also the best answers to my questions. I figure there will be dispute/lack of information on who did it first just because of the length of time between then and now. So maybe something along the lines of just explaining what happend in Rome or another well populated area.

I'm sorry if I couldn't narrow it done enough to a more specific region/topic.

(Apologies if this has been asked before - a search yielded little direct info.)

Seems like there are often stories of excavations in Rome or wherever uncovering previous "layers" of the city, where structures were abandoned, somehow left partly or mostly intact and later people just...built over the top.

Why did this happen? How did this process even work? Why weren't these buildings just knocked down and salvaged or summat? Where'd all the dirt come from to fill the gaps?

Or am I totally misunderstanding what I've read?

Obviously there were taverns and inns and what not, but when did the idea of an establishment built solely on feeding people for money come about?

This is probably a complicated question to answer. The reason I'm asking is that, for example, in greek philosophy, they considered wisdom, intellect and the soul to be separate things, and they seems to think that it was in some way shared between people, rather than belonging to the individual. Abstract ideas like 'wisdom' were also often personified in the form of dieties. Inspiration and creativity were often thought to originate from gods.

I guess my question is, did the ancients think of themselves as individuals in control of their own actions, or as mere conduits for forces beyond themselves, or some combination of the above?

I'm sure the answer is different for different cultures, so I guess answer for whichever ones you feel comfortable speaking for.