"Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly"

Thanks.

Everything I come across seems to be biased to one way or another.

I'm trying to study how people have looked like throughout history. I want to be able to identify what year a picture is from and what place it was taken in by looking at the person's clothes, his accessories, etc. I've been googling for quite a bit but I haven't found anything cohesive. If there is such a website, I thought you people might know.

Eventually, I want to create a table of sorts that lists decades in one column, and then the description of how people from country x generally look like in one column, and then people from country y in another column, etc. (I want to make it as concise and exhaustive as possible!)

It seems that whenever, in a tv show or movie, Soviet characters are introduced, they call each other "Comrade" in place of their name or title. How accurate is this? I was born after the USSR's fall, so I'm pretty unfamiliar with it, and my only family members who visited/lived there are long dead, which means I don't have anyone to ask personally.

I was discussing the origin of fries yesterday, and someone said that frying potatoes in oil was pretty obvious. I said, sure, I bet the Inca did it already. This got me wondering, what do we know about pre-Colombian recipes? I mean, presumably we know what sort of food was consumed, but do we know how it was prepared? I'm assuming any such knowledge is indirect and fragmentary. Any pointers would be appreciated.

The main reasons for colonization are the acquisition of resources and territorial expansion, but were there instances of nations having colonies solely because they didn't want the land being seized by another nation? Also, was there any prestige, or rather sign of power with having colonies in the East Indies or the Americas even though the land might of been of little importance?

While there is definitely some debate whether it was the nuke or the Russians being responsible for Japan's unconditional surrender, one has to accept that the A-bomb played a large role in the decision. Prior to the bombing of Hiroshima, did the US leadership expect it to be the game changer that it was? Or was it viewed as just another powerful technological edge like the B-29s that dropped it?

I'm talking like ancient olympics or sporting events before gunpowder was widely used.

Did they use handkerchiefs like in movies? Or something like phosphorus flares?

While listening to the History of Rome Podcast, I heard Mike Duncan say that Roman soldiers used a specific defense against elephants. They would ride chariots up to individual elephants and throw ropes around their legs. Then, they would ride circles around them, binding their legs together and immobilizing them (like the rebels fighting the AT-AT Walkers in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back).

Is there any truth to this? I've never heard of this before and if it's true, I'd like to see some sources.

A number of female rugby teams are named harlequins, the title rolls off the tongue and is foreign to me so I looked into the name. I can find no gender association, and in what I can find the actors are portrayed as male. Additionally, it seems the term is derived from a "devil" type character, but has evolved into more of a complex jester. Is a harlequin a fool or playing the fool?

The sources I've been able to find are not primary and seem lacking so I wanted to ask here.

Just read a news article about a supposed armistice between soldiers on the Western Front during Christmas Eve in World War 1. I was wondering how widespread the non-official truce was and where it occured.

I hope this kind of question is allowed on this subreddit. Feel free to remove it in case it's not.

I'm just curious about the quantity of information that an average historian would sift through during the course of a year. How many book do you read? Do you read them all carefully or do you skim? Do you have a special way of taking notes? How often do you read books about a different historical period?

I apologize for the amount of questions, I just feel like I don't know much about pre-WWII Japanese society. ESPECIALLY compared to Germany and America and whatnot. I would also be interested in any significant social movements pre or during WWII.