Who came up with the concept of stairs and when did it happen? How long did it take to become used on a large scale?

Going by photographs of soldiers it seems like swords still had a role in military combat going to at least the american civil war. What was their role at that point? was sword wielding something that was being trained to soldiers in the 19th century?

I see a lot of information on the effect it had on Incan populations, but I can't really find what actions they took or what response they had to the disease.

Trotsky, Bukharin and Zinoviev were all considered to be his rivals. How did they fail where Stalin succeeded?

Did Franco supported the system? Did the King supported Franco?

What set the Romans apart from the rest of the peoples that inhabited the Peninsula.

This I ask because most of the German armor ran on petrol engins, which consumed more fuel. For example: the Pz.Kpfw VI Ausf. B 'Königstiger' consumes 1 liter of petrol fuel on 162 meters!! (George Forty, Tanks). Why did the Germans do this and had they any development for the more fuelfriendly diesel engines?

If so, I was wondering if this had any effect on the way he was perceived by Germans. Since the Austro-Hungarian Empire had a history going back hundreds of years. Would Hitler have sounded high-class to Germans the way, say, an upper class British accent sounds to an American?

I was reading up on the history of Liberia (which was founded by freed African American slaves) and it got me wondering if any former slaves made it back to their familial tribes after having been freed.

What evidence survives to suggest that Bronze Age people practised religion; specifically through findings of Hoards or Rock art? Thanks!

It seems that while the US entered the war against the Austro-Hungarians and Germany, no state of war existed between the US and the Ottoman Empire.

So what exactly was going on between the two for 1917 and 1918? Were diplomatic relations totally severed, and just no formal declaration, or was there any level of contact maintained?

And of course... why not?

I asked a question about them a while ago. I was wondering about (academic, preferably) sources on the Vastergotland law prohibiting men from inheriting while in serving in the Varangian Guard. I read about it on Wikipedia but I need legit sources. Thanks!

Just off the top of my head, I can think of 'Alemania' in Spanish, 'Deutsch' and 'Deutschland' in German, German and Germany in English, and 'Nemetskiy' in Russian. How did the Germans come to be known by so many different names?

It's to my understanding that the PM held the position for life. Could they attempt to further their political career? Could they participate or lead in the army?

This question just occurred to me.

My first thought is that the closer your capital is to the rest of the world, the easier diplomacy is; we haven't always had telephones.

The flip side of this thought process, however, is that Moscow is responsible for a huge geographic area, and since it resides at the far edge of the landmass, communications to the rest of the country must have been, historically speaking, borderline impossible.

Militarily speaking, part of both Hitler and Napoleon's main objectives during their invasion were to get to Moscow quickly, occupy it, and the rest of USSR/Russia would fall.

So, why has Moscow been the capital of Russia? Specifically, are there other reasons than ease of communication with other countries?

Maybe it's a stupid question, but a lot of Russian and Romanian writers and composers emigrated to France and/or wrote almost exclusively in French. Why France and not, e.g., Italy?