I understand that red may have already been taken by strawberry. But why blue? And why in particular such an artificial, Star Trek color of blue?

Similarly, why did raspberry get stuck with this instead of strawberry?

"यूनान-ओ-मिस्र-ओ-रोमा सब मिट गये जहाँ से, अब तक मगर है बाकी नाम-ओ-निशान हमारा, कुच्छ बात है के हस्ती मिटती नहीं हमारी, सदियों रहा है दुश्मन दौर-ए-ज़मान हमारा." Greek, Egyptian and Roman Civilizations have all vanquished from this world but even today we (Indian culture, in true sense) are here. There is something in this soil that helped us (Indian culture, in true sense) survive innumerable enemies. -by Muhammad Iqbal, Politician and "National Poet" of Pakistan

This might be a question which is impossible to answer, but I sit hear drinking my Green Tea, wondering how exactly the leaves of Camellia sinensis were discovered to be brewable.

Did people just get poisoned / die when eating inedible plants and that's how we as a species learnt what to eat and what not to eat?

I've been reading Thomas Asbridge's The First Crusade and in it he repeatedly states that the numbers given by the Crusaders of the Muslim armies are likely to be smaller in reality due to the difficulty of actually counting how many there are and the chroniclers exaggerated the numbers to make the victories more heroic and the defeats into tragic fights against overwhelming odds. Added with the general consensus of Herodotus hugely exaggerating things like the Persian numbers can the size of armies in any battle where we only have accounts from one side in the medieval and ancient world actually be trusted?

I recently saw a program on history channal where three brothers follow the path of Hannibal during the second punic war, which routes he took, where his battles was and they mentioned the substansial losses the Roman army took.

During Hannibal's years of harrassing Rome he had killed around 100 000 Roman soldiers. Yet Scipio amelianus manages to make a counter offensive in Africa on Chartaginian land. However could Rome survive such losses yet go on the offensive!?

So I'm getting into medieval literature, and I'm wondering if there are any books about King Arthur with Old English and Modern English translations of the tales. Which one do you recommend?

When did the name change happen, was it something that happened immediately or did people have time to prepare? Who wanted the name changed? was their strong opposition? Were there any other names possible for the city? Finally on a semi-unrelated note, were there any other famous cities that suddenly changed names. (New York/New amsterdam).

I'm interested in any premodern technology and if you know of great books about other times, places, and fields feel free to recommend, but in particular something that deals with the middle ages and with large machinery, architecture, construction, etc. I'd really love details about how things worked and how they were made.

I am currently reading Livy's "Early History of Rome" and am up to the part during the reign of the Tarquins, right after the death of Servius, where he is talking about the ascendant Roman supremacy over the Latins and refers to consulting with the "asian communities"

Who would he have been referring to at that time?

Before 1943 and the formation of the Volkssturm, were there any teenagers (specifically German teenagers) in the battlefield?

Hello fellow historians! I'm a long time lurker (though I do have one post on white flight in Detroit) and also a brand new graduate student. Last week, someone in our program dropped out and I got their TA position. However, I really have had no guidance on what to do. The professor for the class (One hundred level American history from colonization to 1877) asked me to make an essay question for the exam. I was just curious if you all think it's a good enough question for freshmen students.

"Describe the economic, political, and social change that Europeans brought to North America and the effects this had on Native Americans."

I'd appreciate any and all help!

If I may ask further, was the change related to the rise of firearm technology, bayonet technology, some combination thereof, or something altogether?

Thanks for your replies.

One of the central thrusts of the book is that the migrants that moved from the South to the North really had very much in common with the immigrants moving to the United States in the decades preceding the Great Migration.

Well, it's a fantastic book and I was wondering if there were any books like it that dealt with the immigration to America preceding this or at around the same time.

I looked through the list of recommended books on this subreddit but I didn't see much which dealt with this topic specifically. Any recommendations would be delightful!

Is one of the reasons we are seeing so many problems in the middle east over the last century partially due to the end of the ottoman empire? Were things more orderly in that part of the world prior to the fragmenting of the ottoman empire in the early 20th century? Follow-up question, is what we saw happen in Europe after the collapse of Rome similar to what is going on now in the middle east; rise of religious fundamentalism, regular power struggles for political power, economic challenges, etc?