I understand that bicycles came before cars which is why I’m asking

So I'm almost positive that I read somewhere that yes, the public one about it but I'm having a hard time corroborating it. I bought a book called "What We Knew..." By Eric A Johnson but I haven't read it yet.

Were the camps known by the general public?

Just the title. If I were a Chinese peasant in the 9th century, and I wanted to make a name for myself in England, was it possible for me to travel there? And if so, how long would doing such a thing even take? Were there any real life examples of Asian traders living in Europe back then or vice versa?

I have heard it claimed that varna and caste system are different, and that caste system was the invention of the British, specifically one Sir Herbert Hope Risley. Is this true?

I have also heard it claimed that varna system was highly fluid and allowed a great degree of mobility. Was this carried out in practise?

Was there varna based discrimination before the supposed invention of caste? What did that look like?

If it was a racist thing... what are the ethnic differences between Jews and Caucasians?

Former Soviet Union countries inherited most of their military hardware from the Soviet military units were stationed there before the Soviet Union collapsed. How did they decide who was going to get what after the Soviet Union collapsed?

Given that the Soviet armed forces were ultimately commanded from Moscow, upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, why didn't Russia just order all of their tank and plane crews to move everything back to Russia?

In general, when the Soviet Union collapsed, had they already worked out what the new lines of command would be, or were things unclear for a while? If you were a Soviet soldier who was a citizen of the RFSR but stationed outside of Russia, say, Uzbekistan, did you automatically become part of the Uzbek military, or get recalled back to Russia?

Just to elaborate as this gains traction, and there’s not a response yet:

I’m very much in a “WW1 phase” of my ongoing amateur obsession with history. While I haven’t read any targeted works or biographies on Ludendorff, I am noticing a trend with the general WW1 pieces. It goes from Falkenhayn being fired, Hindenburg taking over, and then eventually a statement like “by this time in 1917 Ludendorff is the de-facto dictator…” That is a crazy leap for me without context or depth! Entire books have been written on Caesar or Hitler’s seizure of power, yet Ludendorff gets a “by this time.” How did he go from man always in Hindenburg’s shadow to ruler in an absolute monarchy in which the monarch was still in power? Was it a power grab or did it happen by natural osmosis? So many questions, but I’d just like some detail! Thanks

I was curious about the relations of the average British and French soldier was during the World Wars. I have seen some things regarding how American and British troops viewed each other both positives and negatives, but have heard next to nothing about how the average tommy and poilu viewed each other.

Dating back to the 2nd Century CE, The Gaulish Coligny calendar is the oldest discovered Celtic solar-lunar ritual calendar. However, the astrological format of the Coligny calendar speaks to a sophistication, particularly focused on a careful significance placed upon the cycles of the moon, that may represent a more complicated system that the Julian calendar was being melded with during it's imposed introduction into Roman Gaul.

The Coligny Calendar is an attempt to reconcile the cycles of the moon and sun, as is the modern Gregorian calendar. However, the Coligny calendar considers the phases of the moon to be important, and each month always begins with the same moon phase. The calendar uses a mathematical arrangement to keep a normal 12 month calendar in sync with the moon and keeps the whole system in sync by adding an intercalary month every 2+1⁄2 years. The Coligny calendar registers a five-year cycle of 62 lunar months, divided into a "bright" and a "dark" fortnight (or half a moon cycle) each. The months were possibly taken to begin on the new moon, and a 13th intercalary month was added every two and a half years to align the lunations with the solar year.

The astronomical format of the calendar year that the Coligny calendar represents may well be far older, as calendars are usually even more conservative than rites and cults. The date of its inception is unknown, but correspondences of Insular Celtic and Continental Celtic calendars suggest that some early form may date to Proto-Celtic times, roughly 800 B.C. The Coligny calendar achieves a complex synchronisation of the solar and lunar months. Whether it does this for philosophical or practical reasons, it points to a considerable degree of sophistication.

What do we know about this mysterious lunar system that may have existed before the introduction of the Julian calendar? If we have no surviving evidence, are there other calendar systems that we can look to to get an idea of how it may have operated?

While watching a video about the War of 1812, I noticed that the territory that would come to be Michigan (An area around Mackinac and Detroit) was controlled by the British for a good part of the War. My question is a bit complex, but it is how would the daily life of a citizen in those two areas be different under the British, and also how was the situation for the Indians that eventually fell back into American political control?

I am in the process of learning alot about that area, and I'd love if someone with a better grasp than me could answer those questions.

I always find it mind boggling that he lost the elections in 1945. He’s one of the few recorded orators who makes me cry whenever I hear the solemnity and determination in his speeches; particularly in the early phases of the battles of France and Britain.

I understand he has historical baggage, and I’m not asking about that, unless it’s in the context of why he may not have had as much support in the UK in the mid-40s.

But what happened? Was he one of those characters who only really became great in retrospect?

(This is mainly focused on the US/Western world, but I’d love to read answers about other cultures/regions as well.)

With both Austrian and Hungarian empires INDEPENDENTLY having such rich histories in European affairs, what events, both politically and socially, drove these independent states to become a unified government (Austrian-Hungarian Empire).

I was reading an historical novel and one of the most important developments was that they found a city with no walls in a northen part of the world. The protagonists find this incredible rare, since it means that the town is defenless from an invading army (which they use scores of mercenaries, which was kind of a bad idea), yet they find it allow the town to had greater health and capacity to grow as an economic center.

So I got wondering, since when or what forced towns and cities to go from walled to unwalled and was that a massive reform in nations or did this changes happened through the centuries one city at the time?

I've often heard that before Japan's modernization period, many Samurai had become disgruntled with the fact that merchants were often surpassing them in wealth, despite being making up the lowest caste in Japanese society.

While I understand how Samurai were more privileged than merchants, in what way did the caste system translate to make merchants more disadvantaged than others lower classes, such as farmers and artisans?

I see common ground across a lot of religions of the area, with the prominent being:

• 4 cardinal directions, sometimes tied to physical landmarks.

• The soul coming in 3 parts

• The importance of balance and how gods have both a good and bad side that cannot be separated from each other.

• a "web" of energy that cannot be untangled, meaning all things in the universe are tied together by a seamless whole.

The question is: How could separate religions from separate cultures all have over laps with each other? Was there ever an explanation for this? Was the massive trade network that existed in the region responsible?

The 1920s is flapper girls, 1960s is hippies, the 1970s is disco, so on... Were there stereotypes that existed of the 1820s, 1840s, and so on?