I read a book a long time ago, and I can vaguely remember the author saying the U.S. military reorganized itself after Vietnam. I'm not sure if he said it was part of Reagan's modernization plan though.

Also, what is the "Vietnam syndrome?"

I finished Plutarch's Fall of the Roman Republic and he'd describe battles where Caesar or Pompey would kill 30,000 enemy troops and lose fifty or so of their own. How accurate are these figures? I'd imagine that during a battle, one line would break into retreat while the other would hold up, neither one taking very many casualties during the battle itself but most of them coming during a retreat. Am I on the right track?

How much American anti-immigration sentiment was due to bigotry, and how much due to to economic fears? Since that covers a few centuries and many immigrant groups, for the sake of discussion let's narrow it down to the Irish (not Scotch-Irish), especially during the peak Irish immigration era of the 1840's and 1850's. However, discussion of any other group or time period is also more than welcome.

By bigotry I mean hating people solely due to their ancestry, culture, etc. By economic fears I mean hating or disliking, or at least opposing immigration because of a fear that it will lower wages and increase unemployment.

As for bigotry, I might be guilty of a little presentism, but I think the Irish would be the least "foreign" immigrants to the English, Scotch-Irish, etc. that were already here. Their culture is very similar, or at least more similar than other immigrants groups, and many or most Irish spoke English. I'd think that alone would make them less foreign than say German immigrants, of which there had already been many. I suppose the Irish being Catholic would be the biggest problem. What about Germans though? Coming from a country that's roughly half Protestant and half Catholic, weren't many of them Catholic?

As for the economic fears, before anyone can write "lump of labor fallacy", I'll make an argument that the economic fears may have been legitimate. The lump of labor fallacy says that there is only so much work to be done, so more people means lower wages and higher unemployment. Obviously that's a fallacy in the long run, but the short run may be a different story. There was a certain mix of rich, middle class and poor people in the US (obviously I'm simplifying for clarity) but almost all the Irish were poor. More poor people would be good for the rich factory owner who wanted to hire more employees, or the middle class person who wanted to hire a maid, because they'd work for less. It would be bad for poor people for the same reason though. Also, while more people means more demand, and hence more work, the poor don't demand much (because they can't afford it) compared to the rich and middle class.

Moreover, even if my economic reasoning is wrong, the most important thing here is what people expected the economic effect to be.

I realize that economic fear may lead to bigotry, making the two difficult to untangle. I also realize precise answers to this question are impossible. However, I'd be interested in any historical work that showed which factors were more or less important.

My apologies if this has already been asked, but I was watching a lecture today that spoke about the lack of Nobel awards in the Muslim world and, in the lecture, the cause was attributed to the collapse of Islam in/around 1100.

So my question is, what occurred in the Middle East/Persia that would be considered a collapse of philosophical/mathematic thought?

Was it due to his theater (N. Africa) being out of the way and considered less important, or because he was too popular to properly punish, or some other reason

Follow up question: is it known why Rommel behaved in this manner? I've heard people say it was because he was a humanitarian, and others have said it was because it made more military sense to him.

I know that the first in line is the "Heir Apparent", but is there an official term for the second?

I have several examples for consideration.... when Japan annexed Korea when the US bought Alaska when Russia annexed Crimea

What happens to the citizenship of the inhabitants?

Remember that scene in Troy where everyone gathers around to watch Paris and the other king (I forgot his name) fight or when Hector (I think) fights Achilles? Are these just used in myths? A creation of hollywood?

I ask because I was driving in front of a cop as I passed a church yesterday. Thought it would have been humorous if I got pulled over for some minor traffic violation but ran into the church instead and yelled "Sanctuary!"

What are some of the main factors that allowed the Empire to become so vast? I'm guessing factors such as the isolation of being an island allowed the focus on naval superiority which in turn benefited the creation of an empire. What were other major factors?

Edit; Thank you for all the excellent replies.

I've read in numerous places that Portuguese sailors were off course from their destination due to a storm and ended up landing in Japan. What happened to them? What did they do in Japan? How was their discovery received by the rest of the Portuguese and other Europeans?

If you could point me to specific manuscripts/translations or sources about them, that would help too.

EDIT: Never mind about "Resurrection of Jesus Christ," that just seems to be a Coptic document that wasn't translated until much later. Various (general) sources mention that "Questions of Bartholomew" was popular in Europe during the late Middle Ages, so I'm wondering whether any documented translations or copies of the original Greek manuscripts were in circulation.