I wonder if there are any linguistic historians on this board who know anything about how and "why" ideographic writing systems developed vis-a-vis alphabetic writing, and how this might have affected relative historical development. A question which particularly interests me - which was the first Chinese characters, or character? My conjecture is that it must have been "death" but this is entirely speculative.

I've been listening to a lecture on ancient civilizations, and I heard about a troupe of ancient Greek youths who would perform acts of blasphemy to test the gods. They would do things like break into temples and eat the offerings to prove that the gods didn't exist, given that it was expected that their blasphemy would lead to ill fortune. The lecturer called these individuals the "Seekers of Ill Fortune" and for the life of me, I can't find any resources about them. Does anyone know of a website that could provide some good details? Thanks!

Is it a classical tradition ir a more recent invention?

I know how notoriously corrupt the Roman Republic became at all levels before the end - was the empire effective in curbing these issues?

I played Age of Empire 2 and one of the man people is known as El Cid I was wondering if he was real?

Especially I am interested to know why soccer has such little popularity compared to other countries

The kind where everything on the shelf costs a single dollar.

How did our bowel movements differ from our ancestors?

When reading about the invasion of Europe, I often find mentions of the tech differences between the opposing sides. The German tanks seem to be regarded as better machines (more armor, heavier gun), but the American tanks were more numerous. This obviously affected tactics, but how and when did this information get spread? I know that an M3 wasn't going to be able to penetrate the front armor of a Tiger, but how the actual tank crews learn this? Was it word of mouth or was there official training?