The middle ages are infamous for witch hunts and fear of sorcery. Was there anything like that in ancient Rome? What would happen to someone who had 'magic' powers? Did this change with the rise of Christianity?

Ever since I first came up on it, the ranges at which battleships battled it out amazed me. One question I have though - how visible was the enemy fleet during most of the battle? Would an average sailor on the deck be able to see that they've just hit an enemy, or would he need some binoculars to do it? I mean this purely in context of engagements between fairly large ships, like the battle of Jutland.

Also, another question: could sailors determine that their ship is about to be hit/attempted to be hit by looking at the muzzle flashes on enemy ships? If yes, were there any reports of this causing panic or loss of morale on board?

Are there any actual examples of traps and/or puzzles or was this maybe an exaggeration of the initial complexities discovered/experienced by finding in tombs and old ruins for the first time?

Can someone explain what the Masons are about, how they influenced american politics and if they significantly changed? My podiatrist is a free mason, i don't suspect him of an conspiratorial leanings, but whatever.

This early association between Free Masonry and US politics is just odd. The Masons were on both sides of the Andrew Jackson election also, so does that mean they win regardless or does that mean it was like a club, like the boy scouts?

I appreciate your time guys. Love this sub.

In The March of Folly, B.W. Tuchman writes how many colonists feared the idea of the British maintaining a permanent force of around 10,000 on the continent for defense. She attributes this to the association of that force with tyrrany. Did any precedence exist to justify this feeling among the colonists?

We just started studying Common Sense for my Foreign Policy class and my professor seems to idolize Paine's thoughts to an extreme. Was there really any opposing opinion from anyone with power to Paine's writing?

I'm especially interested in their treatment of officers who were found to be Jewish. Did the "officers' code" come into play?

Also, was there a difference between Jews captured by ground forces and those captured as pilots? I'm aware the Luftwaffe had its own prison system.

Thanks for your responses!

I had a shower thought about hand dominance and thought that it probably wasnt really a thing anyone noticed or cared about until writing came about. Then I started thinking about weapons and combat and figured it was probably a thing then. Then I realized I have no idea about any of this and I should probably poll the experts.

‎Luigi Lucheni proclaimed himself an anarchist but his military service in Italy and the context of events surrounding the murder of Sissi seem to conflict with this idea. Tension existed between Italy and the Austrian Empire and more importantly he wished to be recognized as a political martyr for his assassination of Empress Elizabeth. How are his documented political motivations reconciled in light of his simultaneous claim to be an anarchist?

This is question is coming from what Ive read in my college history book, so bear with me. Perhaps I do not understand what exactly inertia and gravity are, but as far as I know, inertia is the idea that an object in motion continues forever until an external force acts on this. An external force that often stops or changes the motion of an object is gravity, and at the time Galileo discovered the principle of inertia,

Or I guess I should ask, what did the advocates of the plan actually intend to do to accomplish the grandiose goal?

Hi guys! Hopefully this question is appropriate -- I'm not sure where else it might go.

Anyways, my pastor and I got to talking about William Wilberforce, the British clergyman who was integral to the abolition movement in Britain. And we started talking about many of the smaller battles he embarked upon, including fighting bull biting and children working as chimneysweeps.

One idea we had was to work on a book (he got his undergrad in history, and I studied creative writing) about those countless smaller battles Wilberforce engaged in.

For those of you that have written history books or biographies, where do you start? What does this process look like? What advice do you have?

I've had to clumsily separate English (as in early modern English >) from Old English (which I've termed Anglo-Saxon here) to try and keep things clear.

I recall a thread here from some time ago discussing how the English first began to edit and copy and read Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, the later umph given to this endeavour by the Tudors trying to emphasise a Christian English identity separate from that of the Catholic church and all that. I can not for the life of me find that thread or the references (there was a book there I wanted to read). Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Did Nietzsche have an Asian counterpart?

As a politician and a fairly well documented one at that, has there ever been any evidence of Lincoln telling a lie in any form?

We can track countless lies that recent presidents have told to the public, it seems almost inevitable that politicians/presidents have to lie, so I'm wondering exactly how honest "Honest" Abe was.