In fiction and factual stories about prominent soldiers we see many stories that they once were a member of their nation's boy scouts. Why has the boy scouts been so prominent in the past of these people?

I've looked many places for him in history books about Asia, and he is barely mentioned in anything. For someone who conquered almost all of Asia you'd think they have more about him.

I imagine something like this... Start back to back.
Take your paces.
On the count of 3, turn and shoot!
Does this sound correct?
I was also wondering, if one person shot right away and missed, did the second person get an 'open' shot?

When, why, and how did the Captains of ships get the legal right to conduct marriages? Is it just because they may be considered the highest leagal authority while at sea?

"Good records" is a bit of a vague standard, but I'm curious about what level of evidence survives from different times. For example, if there's an ancient Babylonian lawsuit where we have a survival of the basic verdict (shekels paid, etc), a Han-period Chinese lawsuit where we have some record of the attorneys, motions filed, etc, and a 16th century Venetian lawsuit that is the oldest for which a complete surviving transcript of the trial, then I'd be curious about all of them.

(I realize an "oldest x, biggest y, fastest z," type question are somewhat frowned on here, but I'm not sure I know enough about the history of litigation to ask about this without including some element of "throughout history," and searching for "earliest lawsuit" and such didn't get what I was looking for.

If cider has been around in Western civilization (e.g. in Europe or the United States) for centuries just as much as wine or beer, why has cider been less popular, especially in the past 75 years or so?

To put it another way: Why did cider not recover after Prohibition as much as wine or beer - differences in alcohol content? Greater popularity of beer and wine among many immigrants to America (from Central/Eastern Europe and Italy respectively)?

Also, has mead not been as popular in contemporary times in the West as wine or beer because mead is much more expensive?

One of the functions of alcohol was thought to be sterilisation of water to protect from waterborne diseases.

What did pregnant women and children drink? Was it preferred they too have alcohol or did they drink supposedly unsterilised water? What was thought to be better for them in terms of health tradeoffs?

There's multiple thousands of members. How can they all be directly royal?

So as I understand it, Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost are the primary sources of the popular image of Hell and Satan, respectively. I had a few questions about this though!

Firstly, how true is this actually? To what extent were either of them drawing on earlier traditions, and how much of it was flat out creations of their own mind?

Depending on the degree there, what was the public reaction like to this? Were these portrayals a huge thing? Were they shocking? Or was reaction kind of muted?

What was the reaction of the religious establishment of the era? How did the Catholic Church view this bit of "fan fiction" that Dante released? What did the Church of England have to say about Paradise Lost? And for that matter, what did the Catholic Church think?

And finally, how did their works come to be so dominant in the popular image?

When I read about the Hatfield vs. McCoy dispute, it seemed like everyone in the region supported the Confederacy. Did Asa Harmon McCoy ever explain, or his family speculate why he decided to enlist with the Union Army?

I realize this answer may be unanswerable, so as a follow up: were murders a common reaction to a civil war soldier enlisting with the unpopular Army in their hometown region, or was Asa Harmon McCoy's case an outlier?

I'm looking for something that outlines his reforms to the Roman military. I heard on a podcast that he instigated a heavier emphasis on flying columns and cavalry to combat the hit and run tactics on the frontiers, but I can't find more than that. I've got a nice hardback on the Roman military but it's quiet when it gets to Diocletian, and mentions him very little. If his reforms weren't as substantial as I'm giving him credit for, then what did the army look like that he commanded? How did he use it in a pitched battle versus skirmishes and raiding, and did it translate well into sieges (I'm thinking Alexandria though there may have been more)? Sorry for the loaded question, but any literature on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

For example, I know samurai legally had the right to kill peasants who behaved disrespectfully. However, I've read manga which portrays samurai cutting the heads off randomly selected peasants just to test the sharpness of their swords. Knights are often portrayed murdering peasants for similar reasons. To me, these portrayals seem suspiciously like attempts to demonize a supposedly barbaric other time. However, I could be wrong. Is there any evidence that peasants really were slaughtered with impunity during peacetime?