Can't find any information about it so I'm asking here because I'm curious.

So, it's a well known that, traditionally, only priests, judges, and captains could join people in matrimony. It's obvious why priests and judges are allowed, but why ship captains? That seems kind of odd, especially since women were very rare on oceangoing ships anyway. When did this custom begin, and why?

I know the "teenage" culture wasn't really a thing in the US until the 1950s. What would have a young person been experiencing in the years leading up to WWII?

I was wondering if religion, which I understand is a huge aspect and issue in the subcontinent, was the only reason for the separation of India and Pakistan.

When was the first fictional story written? By fictional I mean not only that the events in it did not happen but also that it was identified as fictional by the author and by its readers, meaning it was distributed as fiction. So I am not including fables and myths, since they were presumably believed by their early audiences.

I am not very well read but the oldest definite example I can think of is Shakespeare. Many of the ancient texts I can remember are set in the 'time of the ancestors' and were delivered as history not fiction. I am just mainly interested in approximately when the transition from relating stories as histories to relating them as fiction happened.

The old BBC show "Dad's Army" shows how in WW2 Britain, AARP and the home guard consisting mostly of civilians and people to old or too young to be in the military contributed to the war effort in various ways.

Were there similar organizations in Germany, Japan ? Especially during the closing stages of the war when air raids over Germany and Japan were fairly common.

I'm currently rewatching Boyz N The Hood. I'm wondering, after watching Furious' speech about keeping the area black, how did that area become so much like a war zone? Where did the gangs come from? Was there an actual "conspiracy" to make the blacks kills and fight each other?

I just feel like I don't know much about pre-1990's south central - every time I have heard about it had been in reference to gangs/violence.

I've been brushing up on my ancient history. One thing that continually comes up is the constant mention of colonization attempts in various locations around the Mediterranean, especially that of the ancient greeks.

The picture I have in my head is loading people, animals, and food onto ships, and saying "Good luck!"

What would a colonization attempt have looked like? Were promising locations scouted out first? What about the native populations? Why were they sent out in the first place? How were colonists selected for the expedition?

I realize that the voting population was significantly smaller than it is today, but in a country much larger in size than any European nation, how were votes from different parts of the country tallied? Were there any measures to prevent the one who delivered the ballots from committing voter fraud?

Are the primary sources of early fetal alcohol syndrome?

Since the church pretty much controlled government and the printing press, how did Luther, Calvin et al get the word out? Since literacy was so low, how did they spread the 95 Thesis in such an effective way? Was the idea of indulgences really so unpopular? It seems that it would be popular with anyone that had money and wanted to have a little fun with no after-life consequences.

After the Russian Revolution

It's my cake day so I thought I might get a few questions answered. I'm curious about the handling of cargo on sailing she of different types in different eras.

1. Loading and unloading - how was cargo loaded and unloaded from ships like galleons and how did those methods differ from ancient galleys, dhows, or longships? Did they use cranes and nets or carry everything on by hand?
2. Treasure - On galleons especially (I'm thinking Spanish treasure fleet ships) how were things like coins or precious gems stored? Did they use treasure chests, crates, or something else entirely?
3. Time - This goes along with the first question, how long would it take to load or unload different ships? Were there ever major advancements in cargo handling that revolutionized sea trade? Were there ancient equivalents to containerized trade?
4. Units - Can you describe the carrying capacity of different ships in units meaningful to the lay person? How much cargo could a galleon or galley hold? I dot need ELI5 units of measurement but pounds, cubic feet, or tons would be helpful. How would a ship compare to a 40' shipping container?
5. Records - Do records exist of cargo manifests from various eras? Have we ever found a detailed manifest of some Roman gley sailing from Ostia to Alexandria?
6. Ports - What were historical ports like? Did ancient ports differ significantly from Rennaissance or Enlightenment era ports? Were there fortified ports with major siege weapons in ancient eras? I've seen forts from the eras of canons but did the same thing exist in antiquity?

I've looked for answers to these questions over the years but I've found it challenging to get succinct or coherent answers.

My understanding is that although the Soviet Union was extensively involved in ‘wars of national liberation’ in the Third World, actually putting Soviet boots on the ground was something to be avoided - presumably both to maintain “plausible deniability” of the Soviet Union’s involvement as well as to avoid sparking a war should they directly come in contact with American / NATO troops. My question is, did the USSR ever attempt to circumvent this by using troops from other Warsaw Pact nations? And more generally in that vein - to what extent were the Soviet client states militarily involved in the Third World, as opposed to the Soviet Union itself?

Wondering about the scene in Henry IV when Falstaff tries to make it look like he killed Hotspur by stabbing his corpse in the thigh. My literature professor suggest that must have been meant to show that Falstaff was strange, or had some other symbolic meaning. I'm skeptical, I know leg wounds are quite common on excavations of medieval battlefields, but then, how many of these people that are dug up are of Hotspur's social class who would have had some sort of plate armor (I'm not up enough on armor to know how far along plate was during Henry IVs reign. ) Were leg wounds common injuries to people wearing the best armor money could buy? (obviously these people would have died less often, but wondering about when they did, would a leg wound have been uncommon enough a cause to be quite strange?)

It has also occurred to me, perhaps by thigh shakespeare really means groin, and falstaff is shoving a misericorde type thing into that gap between leg and pelvis?

Bit of a rambly question, but I hope someone can help me out

I'm studying a biblical "Prophecy" that states that in Daniel Chapter 7 there are 10 horns that are supposedly the 10 kingdoms that the Roman Empire had been divided into which included

Visigoths—Spain Anglo-Saxons—England Franks—France Alemani—Germany Burgundians—Switzerland Lombards—Italy Suevi—Portugal Heruli—Rooted up Ostrogoths—Rooted up Vandals—Rooted up

I've heard from various people that it was more than that, around 20, However I'm not sure how true that is. I've also tried googling it but can't seem to find any reliable websites. I'd like to know if it really was 10 kingdoms or if it was more than what I'm being told!

Thanks!

Why did European technology surpass China's when China had things like gunpowder, cannons, and bombs at least a century before Europe?

Also what led China to these inventions before Europe did, and why did they not keep producing inventions?

The French colonial empire, especially during the late 19th century and early 20th century, pursued a rather aggressive "mission civilisatrice" to spread French culture and customs throughout her empire. The French imposed their laws, their way of life and their language onto the conquered peoples, in the hopes that they too can become somewhat "French" like them as well. This heavily contrasted the kind of colonialism that Britain pursued, which was more economical and pragmatic in nature, and preferred to rule over her territories by keeping local rulers and traditions in tact, for the most part.

In the case of French colonisation we can see its effects linger in francophone Africa, where French is still used as an official language in many countries and is spoken alongside the local languages. Even in the Mahgreb, though Arabic remains the sole official language, knowledge of French is prevalent and learning French is common at school.

So why is it then that the French language is no longer commonly spoken in the regions which were previously French Indochina? I would have thought that France's aggressive mission civilisatrice would have had a large impact at least on the language.

I myself am Indonesian, and I can speak for why virtually nobody now in Indonesia speaks Dutch: the Dutch themselves never bothered to impose their language and preferred to speak in Malay (the lingua franca of the region) with native Indonesians. Only the Indonesian elite learned and spoke Dutch.

How an athlete or team performs "in the clutch" is one of the big subjective characteristics derived from sports. It is used to describe competitors that perform their best when the pressure is high. But where does the term come from?