I am intrigued to know what happened to the houses of people who died in ww2 leaving no living relative, for example if an entire family was killed in the blitz and there was no member of the family left to inherit the house and personal property of the deceased.

Would like to read about the art and culture in Soviet Russia. How it picked up pace after 1917. I would like to grab a bunch of first principles which would help me understand how the art and culture of Soviet Russia evolved down the line.

I was watching the raid 2 and this character beat the shit out of like actually 30 dudes on his own in hand to hand combat and it really had me thinking. I mean I know that is almost impossible irl but like there has to have been at least one dude in history that skilled/lucky. I mean theres gotta be but are there any documented cases? All these snipers like “yeah I have 200 confirmed kills” but thats lame cuz its from really far away and away from actual danger. I want to learn about some badass who killed/incapacitated hella attackers face to face (not killing random innocent people. actual fights with people that intended to harm the person)

I hear people arguing about it all the time but I just wanna know.

I had a chance to go on a boating trip with a few of my old pals the other day. It was my first time and I didn't bring my sunglasses and it was a very bright day. I struggled to not squint my eyes until one of my good friends offered me a spare sunglasses. The relief on my eyes were amazing and I must remember to personally thank the inventor of sunglasses in the afterlife.

But it made me wonder. How did sailors before the invention of sunglasses (and sunscreen!) dealt with the problem? I know they probably wore hats but that didn't help much in terms of helping you look across the glimmering bright sea well. I've noted that black kohl are used by Asiatic nomads in arid areas but have no idea if Europeans or people in other places were aware of it (or if kohl did anything to help at all).

Thank you in advance

The author describes a wool merchant chopping a penny into quarters so that he could pay farthings. Was this allowed? Seems like any state concerned about forgery and debasement would also prefer to avoid defacement, and also that people would prefer to own whole coins.

It seems it is mostly a decorative fastener nowadays.

Why do we say King Leonidas of Sparta, King Attila, King Shaka, Emperor Hirohito, Emperor Moctezuma and even Jesus King of the Jews (though I understand this last one was used derogatively) but with some specific cultures we preserve the term in the original language (Shah of persia, Khan of Mongolia, Kaiser of Germany, Pharaoh of Egypt?

I’m watching Downton Abby for the first time. In the show, the Crawley’s, who are the lords of the fictional Downton Abby estate, are very involved in the lives of the servants who work and live in their home. They know much about their personal lives, and even pull strings to get them other jobs, put in specific military units (during WW1 when the young men all get drafted), and so on. They are also very generous with their money, giving servants that they fire or that quit two months or more worth of wages before they leave the house. My question is, was this kind of behavior normal amongst the English landed nobility?

I have found some stunning examples of classical music in which recorders are used, for example, Vivaldi's Recorder Concerto RV 443, to great effect. So why are recorders now relegated to teaching instruments and not used in a standard orchestra?

Title explains itself. The only piece of Viking media I’ve consumed has been the Vinland Saga manga and I heard it’s somewhat accurate. I want this campaign to be as geographically and historically accurate as possible while still having that d&d aspect. I also want to find someway to incorporate Norse mythology into it as well. All help is appreciated.

A youtuber I follow on stream today was talking about how there were early talks between the Soviets and the Germans for the Soviets to straight up join the Axis powers, and he was imagining how uncertain victory might have been in such conditions; one thing he settled on was the worry about the race for nuclear weapons in the European front. Now from what I recall the Germans had expelled most of their atomic scientists for being Jewish and I don't know how advanced a Russian nuclear program would have been if they were waging a purely offensive war, but assuming America did certainly get the atomic bomb first how far could we have leveraged that asset? If we imagine an alternate world where the Germans and Soviets were working together to hold the beaches of Normandy instead of Russians draining manpower from the Germans that a nuclear bombing campaign might have been utterly essential for the destruction of fascism, but would we have been able to do it? I thought I heard somewhere that after we dropped the second bomb on Japan we basically didn't have any more to follow up with.

Lately I've been seeing people discuss versions of the Hades and Persephone myth where Persephone actively wants to run off to the Underworld with Hades. There's usually an implication that this is part of an older narrative, if that helps.

My own haphazard research hasn't turned up any primary sources that fit that description, and is mostly restricted to later classical sources. I was wondering if anyone had any more information on this narrative, and how it connects to primary sources?

I'm sort of suspecting that this might be a modern way to square depictions of Persephone as happily married to Hades with our views on autonomy and morality. But a lot of the discussion of this topic specifies that the elopement version is older than the abduction version, and I'm very aware I've got gaps in my knowledge.

Just wondering where I can find credible history facts. I usually use Wikipedia but just wanted to ask some experts if there were any. Thanks

Watte & daub/cob is a very old construction material that had more than proven itself to humanity.

It insulates well in the summer heat, it keeps the heat in during cold winters and it is resilient to fire and termites. I would also presume it could survive hurricanse better, especially if built relatively flat.

I in the 21st century live inside a watter & daub building built around 130 years ago, so it wasn't abandoned in Hungary.

Why didn't Gold Rush style mining towns not use this technology, why did they use the more fragile lumber as material?

I have three months off of work and am now working on a personal project to determine key factors of the falls of empires, dynasties and ages. Its more of a hobby to keep my mind busy however I cannot find many, if any books on the Zhou and Tang dynasties in ancient China. Especially ones that detail both the rise and fall of the dynasties themselves as well as how they sustained themselves for so long. Does anyone have some recommendations? Thanks in advance!

If anyone has any other books about various empires, or anything that would help me please say.

I was recently arguing with an Armenian Genocide denier and he claimed that the whole Ottoman Empire was going through a famine due to the war. (Therefore, the Armenians weren’t purposely starved etc.) I haven’t been able to find anything about this famine. Was there a famine or is this made up?

Also, if anyone could point me to some good sources to debunk common denialist claims, that’d be nice.