In some Greek myths he is depicted as the deity of the sun, e.g. the myth where his son, Phaethon, takes his chariot for a ride. Yet Homor does not refer to him at all as a solar deity.

If Helios was a/the solar deity, then how was Apollo ever connected to the sun?

Where did this connection come from, and how did it change over time? ( And what did the Romans do when they adopted Apollo in there own pantheon?)

Real early Rome, Baghdad before the Mongols, heck even very accurate reproductions of an average Western European Medieval town. Any links you guys can share? Don't limit submissions to my suggestions! Thanks!

I can find plenty of information on the early Viking settlers in the Isle of Man and Galloway and the like, and the archaeological surveys from the founding of Dublin by viking settlers. However, I can not find any information on the actual transition between the generation that was wholly viking and the point of them becoming fully Gaelic in speech and garb. Do we actually have any information on those first few generations of them intermarrying and assimilating to Goidelic culture? Thank you.

I recall that originally, Shinto was used as a justification of the rite to rule for Japanese emperors, much like Christianity in Europe. In other periods, Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines were used as a proxy for government administration, while in other times the government actively suppressed the power of Buddhist temples, and in particular it went out of its way to stamp down on Christianity, before once again advocating religion in the early 1900's. Could someone please explain these developments?

Anal sex is mentioned throughout history, such as in the Bible and in Greek history, but how was this done before modern access to lubricants that are safe for the body? Did they go in dry, so to speak? From my understanding that is risky and painful.

Edit- wow I never expected this to get big. Thanks for all the responces. I am enlightened about ancient buggery now in ways I could never have imagined.

Anything with the history of the area from ancient to modern times.

Could your average blacksmith demonstrate to the King a new sword making method he developed?

Could a carpenter present an improved version of a trebuchet?

Could a farmer show-off a new plow design?

What if one of Genghis Khan's men was making his own, superior saddle?

How common was it for an peasant - inventor to be appointed to the Kings court?

I imagine in many instances, peasants were punished for trying to innovate.

I am reading the book, "I Shall Live: Surviving the Holocaust Against All Odds" by Henry Orenstein. He writes that as the war started it was public that the Germans were sending people to concentration camps. The quote, "We had the example of Hitler's treatment of the German Jews to warn us of what we could expect: "Crystal Night," when Jewish shops had been smashed, the concentration camps, all had been well publicized." How "public" were the Nazi's about the fact they were sending people to camps? Specifically, I am looking for sources for media from the time that broadcast information about the camps. Also, I understand that the Nazi's were not public about the "final solution", what I am wanting is information about the camps knowledge in general. I have looked through the reddit history and am only able to find information about the media and the killing, not the information on the camps in general.

What exactly occurred differently in these two realms that states like France (and others like England and Spain) became centralized, unified kingdoms in the early Modern period while the HRE became a scrambled mess of states?

In the High Middle Ages, both realms seemed to be quite similar in that they were both realms with a feudal hierarchy with a similar level of centralization, but as time went on the HRE became more and more decentralized while France the opposite. Eventually this culminated in France becoming completely centralized with absolutism and the HRE becoming a mere figurehead.

What exactly caused this divergence?

Not gonna lie, I AM using this for an assignment, so feel free to give sources rather than direct information (although direct information means less work for me :P). I'm looking specifically at the nearby area and influences that came from other civilisations at the time.

Feel free to vent anything you know about the subject!

Thanks

I am reading Lonesome Dove, and the Comanches and Kiowa are feared by all the white settlers as being horrifically cruel. The character Blue Duck steals women to sell as sex slaves to Comanches and tortures for fun. Additionally a band of Kiowas cut a dude's balls off and stuff them in his mouth while he is alive. Was this kind of characterization unfair and racist or accurate? Also was testicle mouthing a common practice on the plains?

More specifically, we hear that European command staffs used outdated tactics and strategies during World War I, at least during the beginning of the war. Did the US make the same mistakes? Or did they learn from European mistakes made while America was still neutral?

I' thinking a ship like a cog, it generally only had 1 sail?

And if it was a busy port, would the port follow some kind of schedule?

I was told today by a political science lecturer at my university that by half way through the Second World War, most German people believed that the Jews were actually to blame for the war. In addition there would've been other propaganda the people were fed like European domination being the destiny for German, or the Aryans being the purest and fittest form of humans.

When Hitler died, Germany fell, and the Nazi government surrendered, what ended up happening to the German's who had been told 'the Jews did it?'. I know they wouldn't have been taken to prison or anything, but did they continue to hold their view for long after? Or did the Allies go on an anti-propaganda spree trying to reverse all the minds and opinions of the German people?

Surely the people couldn't just forget what they were taught just because Hitler died!

The perception I always have about medieval peasants was a Ethiopian-skinny and dirty man that look like he brushes his teeth with battery acid. He wouldn't know much about people or life outside his village, he might know something about nobility and who the king was but most everything he knew socially were stereotypes or rumors. He'd live his entire life working very hard dusk till dawn, maybe having Sundays off but overall he would have almost no free time and nothing really to do in his free time anyways. He would meet his end at age 45 give or take. His life was very miserable and empty, but too ignorant to know much better so it was fine for him. I know it's probably wrong, but how wrong is the perception.

I know it's a big question but try to answer as well as you can.

I have several other questions about people in pre modern times.

• When did most people stop being stunted in height and very skinny, and start being what would be normal shape of modernity?

• When and where was the first time where most of the population was literate? What contributed to increasing literacy?

• How much knowledge would a peasant in medieval France know of Spain, England, or Germany? Were they ever likely to meet someone from another country?

•Similar to the previous question, but how much would a Roman average joe know about other Roman provinces (or empires/kingdoms)?

• How much of history did the common people know? Not all people who saw Shakespeare's plays were elite and educated, would they have any idea who Caesar and Cicero were? Or did they just watch the play for the ghosts and stabbings? Would the complex messages of those plays be lost to most of them?

• How brutal was work? Would your average joe today kill himself after one day of working as a serf or on a latitudinal?

Any answer to any of these questions would be nice.

I'm asking because alot of the atheists or just people who have no interest, dont believe or think he even existed to begin with. And on the other hand, people believe it all to be true from what's in the bible. My question is from an objective historians point of view, how much,if it all is fact or fiction?