With the recent Russian-Ukrainian conflict I asked myself this question and I can't seem to find anything on google.

The Russian-Ukrainian conflict seems to be explained, rationalised and sort of toned down in the media, but isn't this typical for a conflict that could escalate into something bigger? Did Europeans walk around after Germany invaded Poland thinking it couldn't possibly lead to anything bigger?

So when did people stop and think "Shit, this is huge"? And what are some things we can look out for to predict escalation of the current conflicts?

Have other pointers arisen in different cultures? And when are the earliest uses of this kind of indicator?

Finding any information on this has been surprisingly difficult, but I'm quite curious as to what other people might have used.

I just wonder how different the environment was, if at all, in this time period.

Was it a relatively arid region then as well? Was the forest cover about the same as today or were there larger forests?

I know from reading some about Genghis Khan and the Mongols that they destroyed many aqueducts, reservoirs, and irrigation in the area.

It is hard for me to imagine civilization first taking root in Sumer in 5000 BC (though it obviously developed independently in many places around the earth) if the climate was anything like today.

Thanks for any information.

My understanding is that a king couldn't conquer the territory of another Catholic without a good reason, such as someone in his family had once owned it. Did the need for a casus belli make war uncommon?

Referring to England specifically. Something tells me that they did not speak like a Shakespeare play, as people like to believe they did. Any documents of any sort that accurately portray how they spoke?

For example i heard a rumor that Africa was named after famous Roman general Scipio Africanus, can anyone verify this?

Did authors know their predecessor's work let alone their contemporaries? And how?

Thanks!

Additional question: when did people consider themselves as a "Syrian" (much like people consider themselves an "Arab")?

For example, the Romans spelled Claudius as Clavdivs. When was v replaced with u, and what symbol were the romans using for what we use "v" for today. Thank you for your time.

I'm aware of the Russian dominance of chess, but want to know just how this dominance came about. Thanks :)

This is kinda a complicated question. I'm not just asking why I feel descended from these two groups, but for how long would a greater body than just those two feel descended from them?

My impression is that these two groups were disproportionately literary and were both adopted as the precursor to the Christian Roman Empire. The Greeks because... Greek culture was very influential in 500 BC to the point where the Romans started heavily borrowing from it and never stopped? And then when Christianity became widespread then the official religion, the Jewish Torah was appropriated and used as part of the official teachings, which is why post-Jesus Jews don't feel like my ancestors the way these pre-Jesus ones do?

Would someone in 10th century France feel the same way? In 7th century England? Were these two cultures exceptional in some way (I don't mean objectively better, I just mean good at _______), or was it just luck?

I feel like I'm on the verge of understanding this but I'm not quite there.

Examples: "We decree that....", "Your gift pleases us.", etc.

Do we know what languages were spoken in pre-IE places outside of Europe? Are any pre-IE languages still spoken in Iran today?

Were Dravidian languages formerly spoken throughout North India?

Cassius and Brutus finally faced off with Octavian and Brutus at Philippi, and some have said that their defeat there was largely due to Cassius prematurely killing himself. These people say that because the suicide left Brutus without his fellow head commander, Brutus struggled with solely leading such a huge force against the Octavian/Antony duo. How valid is this assertion ?

I'm still very naive on the topic, but from what I've read the Belgians were incredibly brutal, murdering up to 10 million Congolese in horrific ways, and that Great Britain spearheaded the opposition against Leopold's Congo. Yet only 6 years later, Britain took up arms against one of the strongest countries in defense of Belgium.

Would the English have had incredibly nasty views towards Belgium like we do today against Nazi Germany, or were the negative opinions focused mostly on Leopold / the Force Publique? And if they still held any animosity, how did that change after entering WW1 when Germany invaded Belgium? Would public sentiment be against Belgians for committing such severe atrocities not even a decade earlier, or were they now seen as a victim of Germany instead?

Who was he? Did he even exist? What language did he speak? Was he Welsh, or was he a Briton? Was there a real round table, did Merlin exist? And why has his legend grown so much?