I'm an elementary school teacher, and I previously taught the revolution in younger grades- very basic, introductory stuff. I'm moving to upper elementary this year, where we teach the topic again, but go much more in-depth in terms of background, causes of the war, specific individuals roles. Are there any books I could read that would help boost my own knowledge of this time in history?

We refer to the attack on the World Trade Center as "9/11" or "September 11th". Did we have similar terminology for the attack on Pearl Harbor (i.e. "12/7" or "December 7th")?

So... in Western Media and culture, we're often presented with the common narrative that the Soviets were aggressors intent on conquering Western Europe, and that if we didn't spend money on a big military, nukes, or support for NATO, that we'd all be speaking Russian today. Generally, the Soviets were the "baddies" and NATO was the "good guys".

As a result, much of Foreign Policy during the Cold War was taught from the Western POV, that the Soviets were out there spreading communism and threatening to conquer to whole world.

My question is: what was the view from the other side of the Iron Curtain? At a cursory glance, it would appear that the West/NATO was just as aggressive as the Soviets in it's own foreign policy (support for dicatorships, aggressive anti-communism, etc.), and may have even precipiated the Cold War by taking a former ally and casting them as the enemy. Examples include:

• Incorporating West Germany into NATO
• Putting nuclear missiles in Turkey
• Attempting to overthrow Castro
• U2 Overflights

I know the Soviets were no saints, but I'm wondering how many sins the NATO allies committed as well.

Thanks!

There are countless examples of differences between modern and "original" pronunciation. Take "vice-versa," which the Romans would have pronounced something like "weekay-wersa." Why is this?

I had heard he was one of the best knights in his army, how true is that?

Another way to put it would to ask if Shakespeare's word choices and sentence structure could be easily understood by the average 16th/17th century Englishman on first hearing?

If most of the founding fathers were strictly against the combination of church and state, when how did the state and the church become so intertwined?

I know there are tons of books, and a vast amount of theories on the identity of Jack the ripper. But if we disregard crazy theories, implausible conspiracies, and unscientific popular beliefs; is there any answer to the question, that most academic scholars of history can agree on?

A few days ago i found a sword from my grandfathers collection. When he was still alive he told my mother that it was used in WW1, I am interested now, if there was any usage of swords in WW1, and also which soldiers were most likely to carry/use them.

I am living in Austria, if that's helping.

Did any contemporaries ever refer to/address a Roman Emperor as "Emperor"?

I know that Augustus, the first emperor, was careful to avoid monarchical titles like "king" or "emperor" because he did not want to upset the Senate. Instead he used more innocuous titles like "first citizen" and "tribune." Presumably his successor emperors continued this tradition of side-stepping, but apparently somewhere in the course history we started referring to the rulers of Rome as "emperors."

Thinking about this led me to several questions:

1. When did people/emperors start calling Roman Emperors "emperor" instead of the more humble titles used by Augustus? What led to them giving up on the facade?

2. Before this point how would an Emperor react if someone addressed him as such to his face?

3. Did the title change work retroactively? i.e. would a writer of a later period refer to Augustus as "emperor" instead of "princeps"?

4. What did the rulers of the Byzantine Empire call themselves after the Western Empire was dissolved? Did they simply continue to be Roman Emperors of the Roman Empire?