The Louisiana Purchase is seen as such a great deal for the United States but what's stopping the Americans from just taking the territory without paying anything to France? Napolean sold Louisiana Territory for cheap because they couldn't defend it properly due to the loss of Haiti.

Were Franco-American relations too strong for Jefferson to contemplate invasion? Were Jefferson afraid of France's response? Were the American military too inferior to French colonial troops in Louisiana at the time? Would the invasion cost more than just outright buying the place?

Any examples of combat, or non-combat roles Japense soldiers may have had in Europe?

How about the reverse? Any examples of German or Italian soldiers in the Pacific Theater?

Doing family research, I identified two ancestors listed in - The Table: General Alphabetical of Pensions. These are pensions of those who served in the French military under Napoleon. The reason for the pension was their service as a priest and a monk. I did not think that Napoleon had chaplains in his army. What role could these ecclesiastical workers have played in his army? I saw other names listed with the same reason for their pensions.

Did they have to completely relearn law or get re-certified? We're they completely replaced and put out of work? What was a indicative experience for a lawyer through the revolution and afterwards?

I see it repeated often as a matter of fact that, after a certain point in European (or World, the same is said of Imperial Japan) that expansion through conquest ceased being as enticing a proposition as it was in older times.

The reasons cited include a hostile, nationalist population and sanctions inflicted by the international community but the one I see a lot is the difficulty of taking the production of the conquered territories. For example: Nazi Germany could plunder its conquered territories but they did more damage to the industrial output of those countries by doing so.

How true is this, and was there a definitive turning point where large conquests ceased being viable?

Where did the practice of wearing the wedding ring on a particular hand originate from? I've heard that there was a switch from the right to the left during the industrial revolution because many people were right handed (and machinery and jewelry never mix well), but I'm not sure how true that is.

I'm curious.

Ok, so i may be wrong, but i was under the impression that Asia minor was far more populous, a little more advanced and had better infrastructure than Western Europe. The Franks were also (for all intents are purposes) on the other side of the world.

So given all these disadvantages - the logisitics of fighting an enemy with superior numbers, on the other side of the world, this enemy was also most likely going to be heavily fortified (and these forts would be more advanced than anything the Franks had seen)

Yet the Catholic Crusaders managed to hold their own (and them some)... my question is how does a force which is so inferior and fighting away from home manage to be so successfull?

Large parts of NA once were part of the french colonial empire, which then got annexed by the USA and GB. So why is there still so many French speaking population in Quebec, but nowhere else in NA like New Orleans?

I'm currently taking world history and learning about this part, but it seems like the textbook we use only talks about the 4 river valley civilizations. I'm really curious about what's happening in other parts like South America and etc.

I've heard that gay men and women had a rather vibrant community in Berlin and other German cities before Hitler became chancellor.

Is this true? And what was gay life like back then in Germany and other western nations?

Operating large gas chambers seems like it might be a potentially very dangerous situation for the Nazis.

Wouldn't it have been a LOT safer, faster and more economical to poison them? Line them up and make them Drink the Kool Aid?

No need to build or modify special buildings. Take special safety precautions. Etc.

Why wasn't poison the preferred method of mass execution?

This question came up in my class, and I'm meant to answer it thematically (although I don't necessarily need the answer in this thread to be thematically). I sought of generally put it down to Greece's natural geography/weather vs. Persia's, hoplite warfare and the unity and leadership of the Greeks. Any help would be appreciated.

Or at least a similar artistic style. It contains an angel/angelic figure fighting a demon/devil figure. The angel is slightly higher than the demon figure but they are clearly battling. Please help, been going nuts over it. First time I saw it was in a Renaissance art class though I couldn't tell you if it was a Renaissance piece or not.

I've been reading a lot into the idea that the Egyptian empires existence could have dated back several thousand years earlier (water erosion on the temple sphinx). And the still debated Yanaguni Pyramids in Japan.

I am no expert in any of this and the extent of my knowledge is listening to Graham Hancock talk and then fact checking it with Wikipedia and other sources, so there is a good chance these may be all disproven among historians.