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English is not may first language so sorry if something is hard to understand or is not gramatically correct

First of all, the only horses I've seen in person were arabic and english races, which aren't the biggest, and AFAIK these races weren't used for battle in middle ages. But I couldn't think how cavalry was supposed to be better than regular infantry in melee battles.

I understand a cavalry charge would hurt/kill many infantrymen, but once the melee fight started, couldn't the infantrymen just hit the horse's legs to make it fall and easily kill the rider laying down?(get up wearing several Kg of steel wasn't easy)

The Fenno-Russian war of 1939 is well documented and known for the massive losses that Russia took, and how it exposed the weaknesses of the red army.

I am interested to know, how much the gained experience affected the reforms in the red army? How did it affect the years to come, when the Russians fought their main enemy, the germans?

As in, without the Winter War, would've Russia been even more ill prepared for the invasion - operation Barbarossa - had it not fought with the finns first?

Was it destroyed, sent to the allies or simply allowed to be stocked in warehouses somewhere? I'd imagine they had a lot of unused equipment left seeing the drastic reductions to the army.

I've been listening to an audio lecture on Global Geopolitics and the professor mentions how the Strait of Malacca was and is one of the most important points in international trade. The country that controlled the strait could control a large part of global trade flows. Looking at the area on Google Maps, I can see why it's so important. At the same time, due to the archipelagic nature of the region, I can think of a number of possible alternatives that could have broken Malacca's monopoly on passage. For instance, why couldn't ships pass through the strait between Indonesia's Jakarta and Badar Lampung? It's a bit longer in distance, but I can't imagine the cost of the detour to be prohibitive. Similarly, there a number of potential passage points between the big Indonesian islands. Why didn't these options really take off compared to the Strait of Malacca? Surely, as a big trader nation, the Dutch would have loved having a big trading hub in their colony?

Another alternative I considered is Thailand: I have read about recent plans for a canal through Thailand's peninsula, but why was this never realized in the past? Surely Thailand and countries that didn't control the Strait of Malacca would have had quite a bit to gain if such a canal would have come to fruition?

When I read about medieval armies from 14th and 15th centuries historians often seem to talk about nobility, knights, esquires and then men-at-arms as separate sort of fighter (from different backgrounds). So my questions are:

1. What is referred to as a man-at-arms (when separated from nobility? I know it's a soldier in a noble's or knight's retinue but where do they get these trained soldiers? Are they some sort of commoners?
2. Also what were the medieval serjeants? Are these the men-at-arms i was asking about or something else and what did it mean to be a serjeant exactly?

Thank you

Was trade majorly disrupted? What were the casualty rates? Did the monarchs get angry at each other?

When Hannibal deployed his troops during the battle of Cannae, "He placed his Iberians and Gauls in the middle, alternating the ethnic composition across the front line..."

Why did Hannibal alternate the ethnic composition along the front line?

Thank you for your time!

I know there have been similar questions, but this is a bit different. I know, for instance, that scholars recognize the first works in what we today call Italian to be those of Dante Alighieri. But that's not exactly what I'm asking.

At what point would the majority of people in Gaul have stopped saying "I speak Latin," and started saying "I speak French" or "I speak Occitan"? What about in Iberia, Italy, and Romania? Was Latin known by local, dialectal names in these areas from the outset?

I've read everything i could about history since i was 10 or 11, but coming from Germany, i never encountered the Byzantine Empire until i was an adult; i remember seeing them in Age of Empires and didn't know what they were supposed to be. In the German historiography, you either have Charlemagne as the "real" emperor (plus the Holy Roman Emperors, but that's a different story), or the Roman Empire just ceded in 476 altogether. I'm active in some english-speaking forums (fori?) for almost 10 years now, and that's where i encountered the anglo-saxon historiography. The way i see it, the Byzantine Empire is either the Roman Empire itself or it's real successor there, while the HRE is just an impostor at best. Now that i don't have the adequate literature for that, i never found any hints for my question; the byzantines called themselves emperors (or Augustus, for that matter), and so did the ottoman sultans, starting with Mehmed the conquerer (Kayser-i Rum). I don't see a reason to say that the Roman Empire ended in 1453, you might as well say that the dynasty, the language and religion changed, like it already did once: when the capital was shifted to Constantiople. My best guess is a racial or anti-islam bias, but that's hardly fair. I hope i don't sound rightous about german historiography, because i sure as hell don't want to start a flamewar.

And how were civil war tactics and leadership viewed by the rest of the world?

This may be my Eurocentricism speaking, but I have never seen such a pattern outside of Europe and the keffiyeh. It looks quite distinct from other patterns on Islamic or traditional Arab clothing. Does the pattern predate Islam? Was its spread facilitated by the spread of Islam, or was it common in the Arabian peninsula before Muhammad?

For example, did Asians of any other ethnicity fear for themselves during WWII, and what was their reaction to Pearl Harbor and Executive Order 9066? Did any Chinese-American, Korean-American or other American-based Asians victim to aggressive racism while the Japanese were away from the average white/black American's everyday life? When the Japanese were eventually freed, did anything change for other Asians?

During Stalin's reign the Soviet security apparatus brutally repressed the Soviet people. Was any significant threat to the Soviet Government present?

Hi historians, I'm currently reading and enjoying The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. I would like to learn more about the history of the World Fair and I'm particularly curious to why/how it has dropped off mainstream radar. The book makes me feel as though these fairs were anticipated by the entire nation and world for years, today I didn't even know the next one was in Italy in 2015 until I did some research. When and why has this shift occurred?

I know Stalin routinely cleaned house in the U.S.S.R. of those that displeased him but did he ever have a truly trusted friend or adviser?