What were the most important things Alfred the Great did to defend Wessex from the Viking invasions? He's nearly mythological now, does his reality line up with how we think of him today?

I'm asking about national and state/provincial capitals. It's something I've been very interested in lately.

It seems to me that most countries have a capital and largest city as one and the same. Which would happen first, a city being big, and the capital being places there, or people flocking to the capital?

I also imagine that geographic centralization is important, as I understand that many U.S. States chose their capitals this way.

I would have to guess that industrial and trade cities may be important too?

I read about Detroit, Michigan, which used to be a capital but was later moved because it was also the biggest city, which some thought was too much power to give a city, and also because it was too close to British territory(Canada). Is there an effort to make a capital not the largest city for reasons of giving one city too much importance, and does invasion possibility play a large role in choosing a capital city?

What are the most important considerations when choosing a capital city?

Are there any interesting capital city anecdotes you know that you'd like to share? Thanks so much to anybody who answers. :-)

I originally asked this in ask history and got a good amount of upvotes, but no response. A user suggested I post it here.

Where did people go, congregate. What defenses were raised, were people conscripted, etc.?

Edit: Sorry for the typo.

The article extrapolates from very scant evidence that there was little to no prejudice against people with the condition, across the breadth of the middle ages, with little evidence for cultural differences. This seems to be incredibly poor history. What do we know about Down's Syndrome in 6th to 16th century Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa? What is the earliest attestation to symptoms characteristic of Down's Syndrome?

My searches have only turned up unsubstantiated and contradictory responses on Wiki Answers; further reading on American investment in World War One prior to her direct entry would be of much help.

I'm particularly interested in the adam and eve story, but I am interested in how the text was interpreted over time.

I'm very interested in the origins of comedy and keep coming across surviving plays by Aristophanes and other writings by Aristotle. What made the Mongols laugh? Were jesters highly utilized by nobles as comedic entertainment? Did some early cultures ironically frown on laughing?

I've heard how the Empire State Building's observation deck was built as a docking platform for zeppelins. That would imply that either people planned for zeppelins to be the next big thing in transportation or it already was.

Was the shift contentious? To many, celebrating a day of peace, an end to war and the return of those troops we sent in our name would be something to affirm.

Why did the shift take place? Did the shift represent a deliberate “whiting out” of pacifist, engaging only in Just Wars or more generally anti-war and non-interventionalist movements in the US and UK (my understanding is that France still celebrates Armistice Day (although I’m unsure if it’s solely about the end of WWI, or for all wars))?

If so, was this contentious, and how did the hawks win?

How did what seems to commemorate a global end to senseless wars, including the troops, transform into a holiday that more narrowly supports only the troops?

It seems especially irksome in the US, were we have both a Veteran’s Day and a Memorial Day, yet some might argue the best way to honor our men and women in uniform is to not ask them to needlessly fight in the first place.

Was it even widely celebrated at the time? Were the Confederates instead celebrating their dates of secession?

While I'm aware that the movie is based on a true story, it seemed surprising and probably fictitious to me that people of color, even in New York, were portrayed as being completely equal to whites. Would white men have really shook Northrup's hand and call him "sir"? Did white people and black people regularly dine together and shop in the same places with no division or difference in service at all? Since segregation and lack of rights obviously spanned far, far beyond that time period, I'm wondering what it was really like.

During the height of the british empire the east india company as a very rich and influential company, seems like it should still have power today, what happened?

For example, the Pueblo nations, Marajo, the Mississippians, the Amazon river system, the Taino. What do we know about the extent of these cultures' sophistication?

EDIT I am aware that Ibrahim is a variation on the name Abraham. My question specifically refers to the history of Islam itself, not before the prophet Mohammed received his revelations.

I just read the account of the battle in De Bello Alexandrino, and there is no mention of how the Alexandrian troops were armed or armoured.

After reading this, I actually played a fictional version of the battle in the PC game Rome 2: Total War. In the game version, Ptolemy's troops are mostly native Egyptians, and mainly armed like Hellenistic pike phalanxes. Furthermore, the wikipedia article for the battle claims that the Alexandrians wielded pikes, but I saw no mention of this in the book and the wiki claims were unsourced.

Would Hellenistic troops still have fought in the old phalanx fashion, almost a century after Pydna? The author of De Bello Alexandrino mentions that most of the Rome's allies equipped and trained their soldiers in the Roman manner - would the Egyptians have done so as well, after so long under Roman influence?

Would the war have been lost without US involvement? Even though the US joined late in the war, how much were they doing to help the allies? In short, were they as important as the US likes to think they were? Thank you for your time.

To clarify: were there any names that could have been used in the place of the United States?