I feel like i've been studying nothing but this all day and I still know nothing. My lecturer got a bit distracted and just read bits of the RES GESTAE and I feel like i've missed everything important to help me understand it properly. So, what are some key points or events that can help me ground my knowledge?

I know there were several Greek and Roman military theorists, but there must have been medieval scholars who wrote military manuals for the then contemporary battlefield for the use of archers, cavalry, infantry and siege weapons. Can someone tell me who they might have been?

I've read people that say that some of the 10,000 captured ended up all the way in China after the Parthians captured them. That's a huge distance away from Roman proper, but it's doable. Do historians accept any of these claims of the lost legion ending up all the way in the Han?

How long did it take for their works to get published there, was it censored, were people persecuted for promoting their ideas?

And I guess if anyone wants to answer a more general question: In general, how long did it take for the books of the scientific revolution to get translated and published in places like the Ottoman empire, and were they accepted quickly, ignored or actively suppressed?

My grandmother, or as I knew her Nana (b. 1919), was most likely illegitimate. While her parents lived together, we believe they were never actually married, as he had already had a wife and had never divorced her. Either that or he was a bigamist. Growing up working class in London, just how shameful was something like that.

Just wondering if all naval vessels had to sail around the world to get to where they were supposed to be based or were they produced there? Same for the navies of the other empires?

And what kinds of reasons did people go speak to the president about?

I mean could have Tolkien taken the idea from real life? How would a forest life look like? I don't mean fur hunters or charcoal makers or loggers, I mean a full economy, with agriculture and all, is that possible in the forest? (In Europe or North America mostly but other examples are also welcome.)

I'm specifically looking at 1927, but general-era information is good too!

I don't want to get it what if, just wondering.

Aristotle says in Nicomachean Ethics II.9, while discussing how we must be careful to stay in the path of virtue which is the mean between two vices:

And in everything we must beware above all of pleasure and its sources, for we are already biased in its favor when we come to judge it. Hence we must react to it as the elders reacted to Helen, and on each occasion repeat what they said; for if we do this, and send it off, we shall be less in error.

What legend about Helen (I assume it's Helen of Troy?) is he referencing here? Which city's elders is he speaking of, and what did they say when sending her away?

Specifically, I am wondering because I was reading about Ethiopia and its Red Terror, as well as remembering China's Cultural Revolution, both of which significantly devastated each country's ability to compete economically and technologically.

Germany not only committed genocide against a large proportion of their population, nor were they spared when it came to wartime losses, and many people, particularly prominent scientists, emigrated before, during and after the war (to the best of my knowledge).

Was their recovery to what they are today to be expected (it would not seem as such, given talk about the "German miracle"), given that the Red Terror in Ethiopia and the cultural revolution in China are both more recent events neither may have fully recovered from, or did they somehow manage to avoid the worst?

I am asking besides money, because I am wondering how they made up for what must have been a huge loss of manpower, following genocide, turmoil before and after the war, and wartime losses.

If it was just the money, how was it capable of having such an impact and are there any lessons that could be learned from that?

I do not feel wikipedia gives me an adequate picture of how Germany was able to recover as quickly as it did.

Thank you in advance!

In "The Man from Earth", the protagonist claims that his name has been "Jon" since prehistoric times. What is the oldest name, when did someone use it, where were they from, and how do we know of it?

I am specifically curious about how the United States managed to so grow so large so quickly in terms of population.

edit: The title should really say CIA not FBI

This is an event that has grabbed my interest in my reading about the Velvet Revolution. On November 17th, 1989 during rising tensions within the Czechoslovakia, the police forces beat demonstrators at Wenceslas Square. It was widely reported that a student named Martin Smid was killed. However, Smid was in reality an StB agent named Ludvig Zifèák who faked his death.

Zifèák later claimed that the KGB was behind the plot, but the Czech's official report claimed that there was no outside involvement. In any case, the stunt was apparently intended to oust Miroslav Štěpán, the hardliner Communist leader, and divide the opposition.

Needless to say, the plan backfired. My question is how could the StB have miscalculated so badly? Is the tactic more easily explained if there was in fact outside involvement?