I've been reading a fair amount about the North American slave trade recently and I've noticed amongst the Toms and Betsies there were a fair number of slaves with names like Scipio, Titus, Brutus etc. Did this signify anything beyond the slave owner's love of the classics?

It seems that, at least during my education in middle and high school, there was minimal mention of Malcolm X in my history classes and when he was mentioned his role seemed to be heavily underplayed. Is this more due to MLK's dominance of the civil rights movement? Thank you.

Something that depicts clothing, people, culture, music etc. Mythology based like the Odyssey also applies.

Along with gypsies, Jews, and Slavs, where exactly did the Poles rank in the racial hierarchy created by Nazi Germany? Why were they so viciously and relentlessly killed and oppressed on such a large scale by the Nazis and Wehrmacht after the invasion of Poland? What was the basis for their belief that the Polish people were untermensch and should only be killed or enslaved?

I'd expect about every nation knew the war was going on, but were there any nations that were largely unaffected in any way throughout the war?

edit: although I'm specifically asking about Rural New England, any information you can give me is fine. Also, what kinds of portable light sources would a rural farmer use? Were flashlights widely available? Gas lanterns?

I'm basically curious about what the people up on the walls were doing, what weapons they were using, formations, how they would react to siege engines, etc.

I'm researching the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin (Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb), but any period information is helpful.

I'm listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History for WWI and it's fascinating. Unrelated to that I just read about the Maginot Line and how the Germans famously stepped around it at the start of WWII. I was sure that had to be a mistake since it seemed that was the exact same strategy Germany used in WWI and I thought that was what was being referred to, but I was incorrect.

So... why on earth would France spend all that time and money on the Maginot Line when Germany had already invaded France by way of Belgium once before?

I can't find anything reliable on Google for the time it took to build ships such as the ones I mentioned in the title.

Modern day construction of ships often takes place under a covered space, which obviously helps with decreasing weather delays. Did weather set back shipbuilders in the 1400s and 1500s or did they work in the rain and wind?

Also, how steady was work for a shipbuilder, was it hit and miss such as is the case of construction workers today or was there generally a steady stream of new ships in addition to the repair of older ships?

I am watching "Borgia" show (European one - not the Showtime soap-opera) and I would like to learn a bit more about that period in Italian history. I am not really looking for a Borgias-centered book but more something that would provide me with some context - politics, economy, social traditions/customs, arts/science etc. Something similar to letsay that book on French Revolution called "Citizens" by Simon Schama. Any recommendations?

Although I realise that for most of history women had little place on the front-line of the battlefield I imagine there were those who took-up arms and fought. Whilst I guess many used the same equipment as their male counterparts I've always wondered if there were any piece of equipment, specially armour, made specially for women. Chest armour with "slots" for breasts, for example.

However a quick research on google got me "sources" more apt at appearing in a penthouse magazine than in a history book.

So: are there any known example of military equipment before the 20th century specially made for a woman (or women)?

I've been doing some research on the prehistoric ages and I'd like to get an in-depth look at what folks/nations and civilizations populated the world at the beginning of the antiquity.

This question is based on the old cowboys and Indians idea of burying someone up to his neck and letting the ants eat him. Was that just a '60s TV fiction? These questions got me interested in the legal system of American Indians and how they defined crime. I imagine that not much is documented pre-Columbus so I guess let's keep this post.

I'm watching Mad Men, and it sort of caused me to wonder about something. By the 50's and 60's prepared food started to be widely available in cities and cheap restaurants etc. made food available. Several decades or a century earlier, I imagine single males continued to live in the home with their mothers or extended family who did the cooking until they married. But what about around the turn of the century as men started to move to the cities without their parents? Immigrants moving to new countries? I'm sure it's happened. What did they eat? Did they just cook for themselves? What did they cook? Generally, I'm just wondering about times in history when single men have been required to prepare their own food before the advent of processed food and restaurants and when typically it was the woman's job (culturally) to prepare food.

Maybe the answer is pretty uninteresting, but I'm curious nonetheless. Thanks!

He's a very readable author (in translation I hasten to add) and I'd encourage everyone to pick up a volume. But I imagine that lots of things he records are... of variable accuracy (as is normal with historians of the time). In his "War With Hannibal", for example, he gives supposedly verbatim accounts of all speaches made by all the generals before every battle. But they all appear to speak in the same style that one Titus Livius writes in.

That's clearly a bit of added colour by old Titus. And it's great colour, worth reading. But the battles he describes are well attested with other sources and some archaeological evidence, I understand.

But what of the earlier history? He describes Romulus and Remus (obviously legend) but is there a grain of truth there? He also gives biographies of "all" the kings of Rome (though I suspect that there were more, since Rome is a lot older than legend would have it). Do we know how accurate those descriptions are? If the Republic was founded around the time he claims? Or the other early characters of the Republic which he documents so clearly (some of whom again sound suspiciously like old Mr Livius). Did they really live? How much do we really know for sure about them?

I know that Livy was using earlier sources which are lost to us. So have we any archaeology to confirm or disprove any of his claims?