Also, is the 'catching flys with chopsticks' exercise just an urban legend?

I attempted to ask a book sub reddit for suggestions on the Spanish History and Spain's political history but received mostly fiction books. So I have come to the experts. Can anyone suggest something to point me in the right direction to get started? Thanks in advance.

It is an interesting bit of family history that I hear about every so often. My grandmother's oldest brother was killed June 10, 1944 on D-Day and I'm seeking any information about it that anyone could give. She was very close to him and still has letters she had sent him and still unopened letters from him that she cannot bring herself to open. She has his purple heart and the Army certificate signed by Roosevelt sent to the families of those who had been killed. That certificate has a number of his on it. It says Private First Class Earl A. Glenn, A.S.No. 14134534 if that helps pinpoint where he might have been. I'm mainly looking for things like where he was likely to have been killed and doing what on that day that could have resulted in his death? From what she told me when they arrived with his body it was closed casket because he had been shot up with a machine gun, this is what the two men who had been with him told her family. Edit: I also have pictures of both his purple heart certificate and another one signed by Roosevelt which I can upload if that would help.

hold posts*

Surely that in the immediate post-war years the only people with administrative experience and good education would have been former members of the regime or at least involved with it irregardless of their loyalty to it. So were there many politicians and ministers in the post-war West German governments who were ex-Nazis?

I've done a lot of research about abortion narratives in Ireland in the twentieth century, but my research has focussed on women, activists or policy-makers. I want to try to expand my focus to include the 'ordinary' man, but am struggling to find sources. Does anyone have any ideas of how to locate men in abortion narratives?

I know the Germans were also working on one but never got it done in WWII, so how and why was the USSR the next country to develop a successful nuke so quickly?

I recently became interested in the Manhattan Project after reading a book about Jon von Neumann, and I'm searching for good sources of information about the subject.

It could be books, websites or documentaries (basically any format). Thanks!

Looking specifically at the German invasion of WWII, and the French invasion of the Napoleonic Wars, why did these countries decide to invade the country in the summer? Wouldn't it have made more sense for them to being their invasion at the start of winter, when they were closer to their supply lines, and then by the time they got to the point that the supply line would begin getting a distance away winter would be over, and they'd have 8-9 months to push through Russia, instead of the 4-5 months they gave themselves in both of the presented examples? Or did they have other reasons for invading at that time of year? From a military strategist point, it just doesn't make much logical sense

I had read a few months ago a book called the Short History of WWI by James Stokesbury. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to you all. I was confused about one part however. After Italy left the CP and both sides were trying to sway them over I looked at what they were offering and wondered why Italy joined the Triple Entente.

Central Powers:

Nice and other parts of Savoie (Most likely)

Tunisia and probably other African colonies

Tyrol after the war

Triple Entente:

Tyrol and surrounding territories

A few colonies if I recall correctly

I know that there have been many questions about why teeth were functional without brushing before the invention of toothpaste, but I haven't seen anything addressing what happened to wisdom teeth. Given that they frequently grow in weirdly, did people just keep them in? Did they just fall out?

Did the cannons have a horizontal aiming arc? I understand that they could wedge the cannon to gain elevation/depression on the gun, but what about side-to-side movements?

What about in the thick of battle when there was a lot of thick smoke from all the broadsides?

Say a major earthquake is taking place by a town in the Mediterranean area. It destroys various buildings and what not. How would the ordinary person - visiting peasant, craftsman - react to this?

Would earthquakes or similar occurrences be completely unheard of? Would everyone simply declare it to be 'another one of those punishments from God'? If so, would they pray harder or follow it up with riots?

Did ancient Greece have iron around the time of, say, the Peloponnesian War,? If so, did they make their armaments from it? And if not, why? And if they didn't use iron, why is it called an Iron Age culture?

I'm currently mulling over a story which is set in a medieval time period, and I want to try and make the combat fairly realistic. There's one particular battle where a character is fighting an enormous opponent wielding a two-handed greatsword, whilst himself wielding a longsword and heater shield. The character is disarmed and knocked onto his back, and his shield takes a series of heavy downward blows from the greatsword until he is able to roll away and retrieve his weapon. However, as he clambers to his feet, he takes another blow to his shield, which shatters it and severely wounds him.

Is this plausible? I'm not sure how easily one could break a shield. Would it be more plausible for his opponent to cut a chunk out of it and get through that way rather than outright shattering it? Sorry this isn't a particularly thought-provoking question and sorry if I've posted in the wrong sub. I wasn't sure where else to post.

Why were their tank design so far behind and were they so obsessed w/defense that the blitzgrieg concept was never considered?

This always confused me. I always thought the Finnish people were unrelated to the Germanic/Nordic people of Scandinavia and Iceland.

Looking at the last two centuries of European history, it doesn't seem like there's any special value placed on life or liberty by European states. From the French Revolution to the Balkan war, and maybe even in Ukraine today, there's been a real bloodlust in politics in Europe.

Yet for the last several decades, even in cases of mass murder for political motives, European courts routinely impose sentences of twenty years or less. Is this a juridical response to the previous two centuries of blood? Is there some other cultural reason that life sentences are taboo?

Reading about Ancient Egypt, I keep coming across this figure of the tomb-robber, which the Pharaohs and their architects took extreme measures to protect themselves from, building false walls, tunnels, mazes, and so on, to fool them, placing tombs at the bottom of shafts and other inaccessible places.

My question is this: Who were these tomb-robbers? If they were ordinary Egyptian peasants, wouldn't they have been over-awed and frightened by the superstitions and magic surrounding the burial places of the Pharaohs and his family and court? It suggests, to me, that these tomb-robbers were not superstitious and perhaps not even religious.