Is there any evidence to suggest that there were ways for ancient athletes to get unfair leg-ups over the competition? Were there referees/judges or what level of rules can we likely point to?

If there were rules and one was caught cheating, what kind of punishment could be expected?

Now before someone corrects me, please note that I am not an expert on the pacific front.

As for what I mean, I mean that if Japan kept focusing their resources to attacking the United States, would it still have won the war in the pacific?

Did the Philippines under Spanish rule officially have the institution of slavery? Or is this just a sign that Paradox Interactive has been influenced by the Black Legend?

If the Philippines under Spanish rule did have slavery, was the institution of slavery brought there by Spanish, or did the Spanish just let pre-colonisation practices of slavery continue? Also, what sort of people would have been enslaved?

I'm listening to an audiobook from The Great Courses, called "The Other Side of History". Each chapter is brief overview of the available history of civilizations' everyday person in certain areas and eras. One in particular about Egypt said "scribes learned math, meaning addition and subtraction, because Egypt didn't have multiplication or division."

This struck me as odd, because who among us, even the least educated person today can figure out that if you have eight pieces of pizza and four people, everyone gets two. Is that due to our baseline of education today or what? Why couldn't the Egyptian hosting the party know you need 12 chickens, 24 gallons of beer and 6 loaves to feed 24 guests?

The discovery of mass child graves at former Canadian residential schools has touched off a lot of conversations as people wake up to how horrible conditions were at these schools. But America operated many residential schools as well. Were these schools as deadly as their Canadian counterparts? Was Canada’s residential system especially atrocious? Or is there not enough evidence to say?

Before the arrival of Europeans there were some pretty advanced civilizations in South and Central America. Were the natives in North America aware of them? I recently read an article that stated there is evidence that the native peoples in the Caribbean were not only aware of the civilizations in Southern America but traded with them, and that they had more interactions than previously thought. This made me wonder if the people from North America also interacted with these civilizations, for example did they know about the Aztecs?

I’m not sure if this is even objectively true, but I listen to a lot of country music and I’ve noticed in the latter half of the 20th century, any political notes usually were left leaning. Steve Earle, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, John Prine, all were considered pioneers of progressivism and at least one was a self-declared socialist. However modern country music seems to be overwhelmed by the “America fuck yeah” type of country, thinking Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, etc. While left-leaning country still exists (Jason Isbell and Steve Earle for example), it seems like there’s been a tone shift between 1960 and today. Why is that, and when did the shift occur? If I had to guess I’d say around 9/11 so I don’t think this violates rule 8.

So recently I started reading and watching some videos about Rhodesia and the Bush War cause its something I barely knew anything about.

The thing is that in every video explaining the situation and the details of what happened there the vast majority of the comments are about how great Rhosesia was and prasing how well run the country with no mention to the racial problems that existed.

This becomes even more glaring when the comments are about the war that ravaged the country. Specially extolling the veterans that fought for the side of the white minority, treating them like war heroes.

The thing is that I dont see this happening with a place like South Africa, where everybody condemns the regime, or India or even excolonies from other countries.

I was wondering how a poor working man or woman knew at what time to show up to their shift, or more specifically when to wake up for said shift? I assume not everyone had the money for a clock, and have heard stories of people sending their children to wait in front of the factories in order to wake their parents up when the time was right. Is this true, if not how did they do it, considering loosing your job could be detrimental.

Is it reasonable to assert that in the Christian world the influence of the church prior to the renaissance significantly delayed the point in time at which education, science, and technology began to have the seemingly constant and self-perpetuating transformative impact on human existence which they have had for the last 200 years or so?

If so (and perhaps even if on aggregate it's not the case), what primary evidence is there of the church either inadvertently or as a matter of policy, acting to prevent scientific endeavor, widespread literacy, or education?

If such evidence does exist, what was the scale and duration of overt or acknowledged policy/action?

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I'm motivated to pose the question as I'm aware that I have based a lot of my worldview on a belief that organized religion inhibited progress and science, I'm unable though to honestly say that I have enough evidence to warrant my perception.

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Thanks in advance for any responses.

(Please don't feel that I ask the question intending to defame any individual's faith, I'm asking a question about what men have or have not done in the name of religion, not what they should have done or been caused to do.)

Satellite maps are the most detailed maps we can have of our planet, and for most of time our maps have been partially incomplete or inaccurate, it’s only recently we’ve been able to have pretty much perfect maps.

When the first satellite maps were being made, were there any places that looked different from what we had mapped out, or any small islands and locations that we missed when sailing across the world?

Hard to believe we're half way through the year!

When did it become clear that steppe societies where no longer a serious challenge to their settled neighbors? Was there a campaign or battle that clearly telegraphed this?

Title says it all, but i want to know how did it get to where fascism became more prefferable to communism to people in western countries?