I read somewhere that a viking could expect to earn enough loot to purchase a decent sword from a single raid. How worthwhile was it to go off raiding compared to staying home for the summer and farming, fishing or plying a trade?

I know that by the end of the Bronze Age the Hittite kingdom was destroyed, and that its destruction is credited to the "Sea Peoples," but between the end of the Bronze Age and the rise/dominance of Persia I don't really know anything about the history of that region.

Was there a successor to the Hittites - did someone conquer and set themselves up in Hattusa, or did that region just fall into obscurity and nothingness? I know of Assyria becoming strong after 1000BC and being one of (the?) opponent to the rising Persian empire, but other than that I know nothing. If anyone could shine a light on this dark age of history for me, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

Greetings from wintry Chicago! I'm going to start answering questions at 4 pm Central Time and will wrap up around 8 pm. My field of expertise is seventeenth-century England, especially the so-called "Glorious Revolution" of 1688-1689. A year ago I published my first book, Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution, which won a prize from the Royal Historical Society in the UK. I know a lot more about the 1680s than I do about any other period, but basically anything from the Stuart dynasty (1603-1714) is fair game. I'm not an expert on the Tudors but will go there if someone really wants to! Also, I'm the Director of Graduate Studies in my department and can discuss the professional side of being or becoming an academic historian if people are interested in that.

[edit: I seem to be answering only about one question every twenty minutes--that is slower than I would have expected! I'm finding it hard to let go of my usual scholarly caution--I'm double checking all kinds of facts and statements even though I'm pretty sure that I've remembered them correctly. It's an interesting experience so far, trying to speed up my usual writing process for the demands of a real-time audience!]

[edit: Thanks, everyone, for the great questions! I'm going to call it a night, but I'll check back in tomorrow. It was fun engaging in the sort of counterfactuals and "what if" musings that would never make it through peer review at a journal. This is a great community, and I only hope that you've gotten as much out of this as I have!]

It recently occurred to me how strange the faux-Polynesian tiki culture is as a sort of amalgamation of various vaguely "exotic" items transposed on to the Pacific Islands, from fruity drinks to sweetened Chinese food to the strange twangy music that as far as I know has nothing to do with any Austronesian style or instrumentation. When and where did this strange pseudo-culture develop, and why did it become so popular?

I'm wondering people started lifting weights for it's own sake. It seems like people wouldn't have always known the science behind it.

With 1,500 lightly armed soldiers going against the entire Cuban military, how would the result have been anything other that total defeat? What was the plan of the CIA?

In Weatherford's The Secret History of the Mongol Queens he mentions that Genghis Khan's son was accepted in court despite his questionable paternity because he was known to be the son of Temujin's wife. Was this a common sentiment? Did the Mongols have the same conceptions about chastity, monogamy, and sexuality that the West did?

I could only think of Western figures, but I don't mean to limit the scope to that.

In historical times - namely, right through the early part of the 20th century - did more people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s die, by far, of tuberculosis than of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, etc.?

In other words, did such people die of TB way more than those other causes combined, or a little more than of those other causes combined? Or, did these people die only marginally more from TB than from any of these other causes?

I will not mention she who shall not be named, but in the book The Fountainhead the protagonist Roark get's into an argument with the dean of his architectural school. At one point the Parthenon comes up and he criticizes the design, that the columns are built along the lines of wooden ones in a way to hide the joints in the wood; that they just carried over a design from one material to the next instead of fully utilizing the potential of the stone.

any truth to this, or was she who must not be named just making stuff up to fit her philosophies?

Thinking about the (relatively) small communities and lack of infrastructure at and before the dawn of cities, it seems a logical consequence that chances were high all available mating partners are related, if the community continued over a long enough time-frame, which seems to be the case. Did this happen? If so, was there a measurable impact on genetic stability or diversity? If not, where is the flaw in my reasoning, or what assumption is incorrect, or what other factor have I overlooked? I am asking in the general case of communities before cities were a regional feature, not in any specific area or time-frame.

I understand Zhuge Liang and Cao Cao wrote books and other material attributed to them, but are there things like seals of their office, or any tangible pieces of art from that time which mention the kingdoms and their leading figures?

How soon after the deaths of Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were temples erected to them?

(I'm not skeptical of their existence even though this question probably sounds like that, just interested in archaeology of the period)