My initial thought was kasserine pass in the Africa campaign or market garden. It seems like we don't discuss defeat to Germany much in the US.

I am preparing for a zinger if the Americans get trounced by Germany tomorrow in the World Cup.

In video games and in Hollywood movies we typically forget that in a real life situation you can't just reload over and over. So I was wondering what the typical amount of ammunition was that a WWII fighter could carry. What was the affect of this on the length of dogfights? Also did Pilots who were on bomber protection mission conserve ammunition so that they could protect the bombers for the duration of the flight? Thanks!

Prior to the American war of independence. I can see, for example, that many of the early settlements were founded by Puritans escaping religious persecution and the instability of the English civil war, but which regions of England were they more likely to come from? What about in Canada?

Did pink lose its association with the masculine, or did pink gain association with the feminine? (These two scenarios sound similar, but they're not identical).

Why, and when did this change happen?

Looking back to when our ancestors first started wearing clothes, is there any historical evidence of when or why men and women dressed differently? Did everyone wear skirts at first? If so, why did men switch to pants? Why didn't women?

Thank you!

I was wondering if there is a copy of the speech James Doolittle would have given his men before the raid, or if there was even one that was recorded. My google-fu wasn't up to standard and I was unable to find one. Thanks in advance.

Pretty much title. Did they have Africans or Arabs in their army at all, or really only just Native Europeans?

Militarily, did they offer much resistance for opposing forces? Was it more of a positive effect on morale for the occupied? Were they more than a distraction? Did they contribute to the overall success of the war? Would the war have been won without them?

Thanks!

For example, I know that the Chinese Han Dynasty was roughly contemporaneous with the Roman Empire, and is viewed as a "golden age" for China. Was the Han Dynasty, or any other civilization, more powerful than Rome? And as a side question, in a war between them, would Rome or China win?

I ask this because even though I love his character in War and Peace, it seems like his main claim to fame is one battle that ended in a draw, and chasing Napoleon out of Russia. Whereas other generals and admirals of the war have a long list of notable battles, and the famous ones won many more than the lost.

It would seem to me fairly hard to capture Africans in their native land, especially once word spread that Europeans were enslaving them. How did the natives react once the European intentions were made clear? Did slave traders have an army of sorts that just roamed the land capturing people from any settlement they happened upon? Did any African tribes put up any organized resistance?

SO I was reading about the Swedish Gendarmerie, and how Sweden was aiding in the modernization of Iran's military around WWI, which I found very interesting and surprising since I had not expected a country like Sweden to be involved in Iran's military modernization. That said, I was wondering what sort of relationship existed between the two countries, and was this the first instance in which they aided in the modernization of Iran?

I read that medieval European use of plate armor was motivated by the emergence of crossbows, which easily penetrated mail, but would glance off of plate armor. Since Chinese warfare was dominated by crossbows, bows and cavalry, why didn't Chinese heavy cavalry use plate armor instead of lamellar?